Ranked Game Matchmaking - AIs or Humans?

Understand the following:

A majority of players dislike PvP in all games, so your results are going to be skewed in that direction regardless of the poll. (I've read a large number of research papers and developer blogs stating as much, from Diablo/WoW down to the humble indie titles)

That being said, I like where it is now, you get a chance to be flung against a player who is 'above' you in tier (I know when I play, I'm not too concerned about someone around my rating, but when a 1350+ comes in vs my 1100 I know I'm in for a hard fight).

However, since people are using the ranked multiplayer strictly for loot purposes, you are presented with an interesting dilemma. There are quite a few players who quit straight away out of a match with a higher level opponent and then sit in the lobby waiting for that opponent to get into another match before they search. The reason for this? Ranked Multiplayer (especially the first and third chests) are faster loot turnover than standard PvE questing, especially if you are pulled up against the AI. While I like the first (or second) chest being a nice gold chest, I feel the loot scale should be relatively reversed, with it then requiring 3+ more matches for another gold chest.

 

I personally just feel bad when i at my 15xx got matched against people in the 9xx range it didn't feel fair to either of us and it gave me a psychological advantage because people really came in to the fight thinking they lost and it was noticeable.

 

i think the first few games are against ai for sure but don't take my word for it

 

Regardless i support your idea for warmup vs ai if that was unclear in any way

 

Why not give us an option to queue against human or AI?

 

Considering the youth of the game, and the sparse population, allowing people to earn equipment to catch up to higher-rated human players can only be beneficial to everyone.

Human vs. AI won't need to earn as much (if any) rating for wins, and could still reduce for every loss. You could also reward high ranks with weekly prizes exclusive to the highest ranks to encourage PvP.

 

You literally just said the same thing without adding to your argument.

 

Directly choosing to fight AI for the reward chest could have some major negative impact on pvp once the game is more populated.

However, the game should still match you against AI if noone within +-X (where X could be 10-15% or a flat 100-200 rating barrier) of your rating is in the lobby instead of being like "Oh, only you and this 1300+ guy are in the lobby? Well, I guess you don't get to have fun, sucks to be you.".
Being thrown into unwinnable matches against people who either have vastly superior equipment or are really really good (and someone with high rating inevitably has at least one of those, if not both) is no fun whatsoever (Remember, games are about fun), and thus avoiding it should be of high priority.

 

A lot better now.

 

Played six games so far but none of them was against a living oponnent. Oh well, I'll keep trying...

 

Cannot check right now I am in work, but yesterday I got my first game against a player and managed to win ^^ I guess the problem was more in the point of not enough people playing at the time I was matchmaking

 

Why not have a player queue (Will not match against AI), and an AI queue (will not match against player), but the AI queue will have a limited number of uses per day (or whenever the chest ladder resets). Have maybe 5 or 6 AI opponents, and each one can be fought once per day; Fighting them all will stop you just shy of the third gold chest, and you'll have to venture into Player matches if you want to earn it (or the other valuable chests). It will let people who aren't confident at Vs Player matches to get a little extra loot, but it's provides greater reward for people who do PvP.

 

Why don't let player make a choice - like if they are here for MP make their matchup ranking wider,
or if they are here to gring some items from AI give them higher chances of matching with AI,
but still they can be matched even against players with very high rating just not so often?

But overall my vote for MP, coz it's MP you know..