Call of Duty Player Seeding?

mark.leonard

This came up in conversation with one of my mates, his opinion is that Call of Duty is out of balance.

Now before everyone jumps on me and explains that game balance is about the relative merit of one build against another and that CoD continues to do a great job (possible exception of the witch mentioned in other threads) at keeping them equal.

He was in fact referring to the abstract element of Player Skill, as a game breaking unbalancing phenomenon. A CoD 4 10 time prestige player coming into MW 2 has a major leg up on the competition, and as players get invested in MW 2 a skill gap is widening that produces a death fest for new arrivals.

His contention is that there should be a seeding system for players, based on a Kill Death ratio or some other stat, and when searching for games the matching software should prefer to put you with players of similar seeds.

Infinity Ward's Death Streak bonuses in this latest installment would seem to be a doffing of the cap to the less able players, but what say the rest of you?

Leaving aside concerns like time lost as the algorithm churns through the players lists to match you, and the inevitable delay resulting in getting into games, what do you think? If Infinity had the technology or software to implement this, should it be implemented?

John_Mc

Implementing this into the software wouldn't be difficult, nor would it extend the length of time required to setup a game. So would this mean you'd only play against players in the same range of skill as you?

Not sure it's neccessary to be honest

minotour

mark.leonard wrote: »

Leaving aside concerns like time lost as the algorithm churns through the players lists to match you, and the inevitable delay resulting in getting into games, what do you think? If Infinity had the technology or software to implement this, should it be implemented?

The algorithm could be intellignetly filtered by tranches, not necesarily a show stopper. Create groups between X:X and higher etc, its certainly doable especially given the PS3 processing power, sure may as well put it to some use.

I recently brought a friend into the COD world, absolutly struggled to begin with, no doubt about it, nearly lost him in fact, however we persisted and he holding his own now. I still think the witches are a much bigger threat to the series.

mark.leonard

Cheers for the comments on the implementation, I only mentioned it to try and exclude it from the discussion, turns out mentioning it had the opposite effect. I am more interested in whether people think something like this would be of benefit?

zero19

In COD5 WAW wasn't there a lobby for players starting out? Seems like a good idea to me if they used that in MW2

DOC09UNAM

I see no problem, this is my first CoD game, and i got seriously owned at the start, but am now finishing top three most of the time in TDM FFA or DOM, just takes a bit of getting used to, and fiddling with stuff.

ravydavygravy

How does you improve if you don't have to play against better players?

shawpower

It mightn't be a bad idea for people who are under a particular level, such as 5 or 8 for example, play against each other to get the feel for the maps, the starting weapons etc. Then once you get past that level you are in the deep end.

Other than that, I don't think it's warranted so much. I've no problems coming up against guys who are prestiged. I only started online gaming a few weeks ago, and I'm holding my own at this stage. I played about 4-5 games last night and was in the top 3-4 each time, ahead of prestigers a good bit of the time.

smooch71

shawpower wrote: »

It mightn't be a bad idea for people who are under a particular level, such as 5 or 8 for example, play against each other to get the feel for the maps, the starting weapons etc. Then once you get past that level you are in the deep end.

That's exactly how it worked with COD WAW. But Infinity Ward are never going to admit that anything Treyarch do is good!

Stevo11

mark.leonard wrote: »

His contention is that there should be a seeding system for players, based on a Kill Death ratio or some other stat, and when searching for games the matching software should prefer to put you with players of similar seeds.

hmm... I like it.. it would be great to have the options for "find game" :
- Find game by average K/D ratio
- Find game by ping

I see the flaws but I'd be prepared to live with them ;-)

Stevo

Robby91

ravydavygravy wrote: »

How does you improve if you don't have to play against better players?

Well, the OP did say 'new arrivals', so while you do make a valid point, it would be primarily an oppurtunity for new players to get the feel of the map without being such an easy target.
It can get really frustrating when you are constantly dying because people with more experience have better arsenals and a better knowledge of the game :P

Having the option to play against people in your approximate rank range (either +/- X of your level, or something like Rank 10-19 games) while still being able to play against anyone and everyone (if you fancy your luck ) might be nice to help ease new players into the game, although match-making could become a pain in the b*lls if restrictions are imposed to allow for finding players of similar ability to you

VinnyTGM

smooch71 wrote: »

That's exactly how it worked with COD WAW. But Infinity Ward are never going to admit that anything Treyarch do is good!

Because IW are better.

bumpydog

Yesterday, when playing Domination, it decided to split the prior game down the middle, with the top 8 scorers vs the bottom 8. As you can guess, it was an annihilation (bit like a game on Sub Base earlier today with a guy at the top of 6th prestige who won 88-1 before nuking the opposition).

bumpydog99

smooch71

VinnyTGM wrote: »

Because IW are better.

But that doesn't mean nobody else can have a good idea.

Soby

zero19 wrote: »

In COD5 WAW wasn't there a lobby for players starting out? Seems like a good idea to me if they used that in MW2

Yup once you past like level 10 or something you couldnt join it

Alkers

Isn't this the case with Halo etc. You can play a ranked game with people of similar level/rank or a social game against random people.

Sealclubber

It can be frustrating at first but (sorry in advance) playing against good players makes you learn how good players play. If you just resign yourself to getting slaughtered early on but keep checking your killcam and weapons people are using against you, it shouldn't be long before start being able to hold your own.

Make a private match if you want to get familiar with maps but that won't let you familiarise yourself with popular skirmish points and the like. Even if there was a lobby for players starting out, new players would still be destroyed once they got into the main game.