Ranked Game Matchmaking - AIs or Humans?

There were at least 8 players in the pool for each of these, and most of the time there were at least 12. Only that one player might have been ready for a match, but 3 out of 5 matches to the same person is too much to seem fair.

 

This was over a period of about three hours. (It did include midnight EST, if that matters.)

 

I started using the checkbox and haven't had to wait more than 2 minutes.

 

Finally decided to try out the MP lobby tonight.

First off.. Maybe consider changing the name to PvP? Since there is no CoOp available and all. I would likely have checked it out sooner had I not feared embarassing myself holding back a group doing adventures.

As for the question of this thread: I would love it if you could choose when entering the Queue if you will face an AI or a Human. Maybe only a few vs AI wins count per day, or vs AI can only get your rank up to X value or something to avoid people farming the bots and never facing real people.

I just know that I was not aware AI was an option until I came to the forums and read here that it was. But even knowing that it is an option, I find myself on another screen still waiting for any match at all. How long until the AI kicks in?

 

There is a box that needs to be checked in order to face an AI opponent. It is underneath the Arena area that you click to join a game. If you check that then there will be a timer that counts down and as long as the system hasn't found someone of an appropriate ELO you will be placed in a game against bots when it reaches 0:00.

 

I definitely don't care much for being matched against players that have ratings significantly higher than me. The card disadvantage would be substantial and almost guarantee an inability to play effectively. No fun if there is no hope.

 

I would like to see a much larger variety of AI players. Right now, I almost always get matched up against Mom, but I got matched against Amy once.

 

I am pretty sure that it matches against AI based on your rating. Mom is currently the highest rated bot so your Elo is probably too high to get a different one.

 

Well, my first problem was I wasn't clicking the giant keep in the middle. I was clicking on the Create Game option just to the right of it.

The box doesn't appear to show up until after your first win, I think you have automatic AI enemy until that time. So that led to more confusion.

The tutorial actually hasn't brought me to the multiplayer yet. Possibly I broke the tutorial when I refused to buy a new character appearance and spent the pizza on a chest instead... not sure. That was the last thing the tutorial ever told me to do at any rate.

 

No problem, I did the same thing. When you get to a higher level the tutorial will walk you through the MP

 

AI is too easy... If you want to have ranked matchmaking system there should never be an AI opponent. Giving me AI to play against is like saying you had a bad day, here, take this win for free. I'm almost sure that 90% of players here get excited when matchmaking countdown reaches 0:05 and they know they scored free win.

There should be casual matchmaking in which you can get matched against AI, you can get loot if you win, but you dont get or lose ranking points.

 

There seems to be various "camps" on the current matchmaking and it seems to me that it stems from having the Multiplayer options all in one pot. The idea I had, in essence, is to split up multiplayer each with their own chest track.

One part would be Ranked Matchmaking, much the same as the current Multiplayer but has more gold chests to draw more players for the extra rewards. As the player base changes, the range in ranking for matchmaking can be tweaked as needed. You can opt into allowing an AI opponent if you want to keep the pace of matches. If you are matched with an AI it would be of standard difficulty and your ranking is unaffected by the win/loss.

The other part would be Arena, made up of strictly AI opponents. This side of multiplayer has no ranking and doesn't affect your Ranked Matchmaking ranking. However, instead of having just a single AI type opponent, you are matched up against a random one from a pool of AI opponents with differently focused decks. Since you never know what you're up against in PvP, so should you also never quite know in Arena. Perhaps you might even get a "Monster Hunt" style fight with appropriately leveled groups of monsters and no Victory Squares. There can also be a difficulty option in which the "standard trio style" AI has better gear and therefore has a better deck to draw from.
"Easy" would have AI with less powerful gear or fewer/easier monsters but you'll also get either one less item in the reward chest or the chest is hedged to have lower level/rarity items.
"Normal" would have level appropriate gear or monsters with the reward chest standard.
"Hard" would have above average gear or more/harder monsters with the chest either with an extra item or hedged to have higher level/rarity items.
"Very Hard/Specials" would have AI with specially designed decks and opponents built up card by card instead of by gear. Perhaps you could even choose/"challenge" which Special you want to battle since these opponents are tweaked to be very hard. The reward chest would have both an extra item and be hedged to be higher level/rarity.

Stats from both "sides" could be attached to a personal record sheet. Off the top of my head, Ranked could have the number of wins/losses versus players and a separate one for verses AI. Stats for Arena could also have the number of standard wins/losses as well as wins/losses vs each Special. I'm sure we could come up with other tracked stats if we so choose.

*edit* Perhaps there could also be tracked stats on which and how many of each of the treasures you've acquired. As a packrat, I've been holding onto them until I find an item I think I really need from the shops.

 

Starting players may not get a match within their ranking, so there has to be some way of giving those people an opponent. It gets much more difficult to avoid 'real' players as your ranking climbs, which is why there's an element of "rank tanking", i.e. deliberately losing to lower the rating, going on.

 

"Rank tanking" also happens at upper levels as well, because once you get to about 1500+ it is hard to find a real opponent.

 

Yes, it's a much bigger problem at the top for many reasons.

 

New players once the game is out and popular should have an easier time finding real opponents, the idea of facing the AI and still gain ranking points in MP, seems wrong as in general an AI is always easier than real people. This creates problems of players being a higher rank than they should be and once they do face a real person with the same rank just get bashed upon.

As for the top players having difficulty finding opponents, well that is just a problem in any game, even the most popular online game in the world, League of Legends has queue times of 10+ minutes for the top ranked players.

 

I'd really like a an option to just fight the AI, maybe make it only count as half a win or something, I just don't like PVP but I want the rewards and the ability to just have a single quick game.

 

I'd prefer if there was an "AI Only" option. I care nothing for the ladder or ranking, so if those were disabled for AI, it wouldn't bother me a bit. Sometimes, I just want to play a few matches.

 

My ideal vote would be for the first five (or whatever) games to be against AIs, and after that, permit only AI opponents up to a given rating - 500? My thinking is that you want to reduce "ladder anxiety" among newer players, and also give them an idea about what they'll be up against - so include more variations on Gary-level AI opponents.