My Multiplayer Review: Thoughts, Opinions and Confirmed Bug List
Since Dreamhack I have been playing a lot of Multiplayer and though I don't often do this I wanted to come on the forums and post my review of the Multiplayer.
I have been playing on PS4 because I'm giving Dpad input a go having had a lot of controller problems recently with my nagging "gamers thumb" Rsi injury which has never fully recovered I can't do the amount of left right inputs as fast as I used to, this is why i'm giving Dpad a go because you can do it faster. It's hard to explain but I wanted to explain why I have been playing on PS4 for anyone curious. Also the population is very high on PS4 so you can always find games which is really cool. Also with streaming playing on PS4 is really relaxing when interacting with everyone. In the long run I plan to start using the PS4 controller on my PC speedruns also.
Anyway thats enough about that, Lets get into the Multiplayer.
http://i.imgur.com/XK2i4u7.png
Over the past week I have played a little over 1000 heats, I assume heats because in the picture above we can see it sais matches. I think it actually means heats though.
I am going to be breaking this review down into 4 parts. The gameplay, The ranking system, The searching/matching system, and what I think could be improved on along with a list of current Bugs with video.
Also before we get in to this, I would like this thread to be Constructive. I don't want people coming in here and either being rude or just straight out solely complaining.
With that said, lets get in to it!
Gameplay
I was originally Invited to play the beta for multiplayer on PC, and I didn't get the time to participate back then. I was busy with speedrun submissions for marathons and a whole lot of things. Though I do wish I put aside some time to get involved earlier. I have grown quite fond of the X-Supercross tracks, and it's crazy to think I hadn't played them until the Dreamhack competition began. The Tracks themselves are good lines, there isn't really one track that I can outright say I do not like.
All the current tracks offer something to the table. Whether it be the more technical lines like warehouse, X-Gymkhana ,Neo Athens or the more flowing medium tracks like Mad Minute, Skyway or Pigeons and Squirrels.
Playing a lot of the X-Supercross recently reminded me of the fun I used to get out of it when playing it on Evo. Making use of the driving line knowledge to know when to slow down and build up speed to make gaps and shortcuts others miss. To me this is one of the most fun parts of Supercross and I have a lot of fond memories with it. With fusion it is even better with the viability of other bikes. It is awesome to see the different strategies and driving lines players use and come up with when using different bikes.
The addition of 4 more lanes makes it even more crazy and fun. I even want to say the higher weighting on X-Supercross once I would of disliked this perhaps but It's actually quite nice to play the majority of MP on tracks designed for the Supercross mode and making use of all the bikes. Viper, Roach and Panda are all very viable on a lot of the tracks and I love this feature of X-Supercross. For me it really mixes it up and makes it exciting and who knows maybe we have more bikes to come? - Would be hilarious at some point with fusion to see 8 rider lanes with each player on a different bike xD
I love the way the 8 lanes looks in game over the traditional ghosts on the same lane. Not to say there's anything wrong with the ghosts single lane, because it's enjoyable to occasionally get the single player tracks. I can honestly say though I don't want to see the weighting changed. The way it is now is great. Imo if the weighting was changed so the Single player tracks had a higher weighting then X-supercross tracks It would take away from the multplayer experience. I feel that if that was to happen there might as well be two separate MP categories. The way X-supercross looks visually is amazing for multiplayer and most importantly is great for viewer experience. I am a person with trials who loves Variety, I love skill games, fmx, single player and x-supercross. I like to see all of these parts of Fusion shine in their own way. X-Supercross has for sure made it's impact with me and I'm loving the gameplay atm.
The Ranking system & Searching/Matching system
Personally I have nothing but praise for the current Ranking system with the exception of one bug that has been brought up and to this point we didn't have proof of, We now do. Refer to the video at the bottom of this OP.
At first the system can be hard to understand. But given time it will make more sense. Personally I now have a good grasp and understanding of it and what I can say is given time the system will balance itself out so any concerns you have at this stage may be a little premature.
I think the whole being punished for faulting makes sense if you are an experienced rider, you shouldn't be faulting. Trials has always had a heavy weighting with faults especially with single player and the global scoring so it makes sense this would transfer to multiplayer.
A player who doesn't fault is a player who proves their consistency as a rider. And consistency is a big part of being a strong Trials player.
Someone may now ask me "If the system is that good, do you think there is any room for improvement?".
To this I say I believe the core and foundation of the current system to be a great fit for Trials. It works well and given time i'm sure it will be proven.
However I do think there is a few improvements that could be implemented. and I will discuss this in the paragraph below.
- Priority Matching with Similar Skilled Players
This is a pretty big one I think..
I don't know if there is anything in place to try and match you with players of a similar skill level, but there should be. There are many reasons for this. As a new player to the game im sure you don't want to match against the top players. For example Iv'e had many games where ive matched at 2400+ to 1200s 1300s and 1400s and nobody above the default score. If I was a new player in a Ranked Multplayer system I know i'd want to be playing against people closer to my skill. The same goes for higher ranked players and this is a major concern of mine. Even more so for people who decide to stream their Multiplayer sessions. There is nothing stopping multi accounting and matching against the highest ranked players to purposefully take 500-700 of their points off them.
And if this hasn't happened yet it's just a matter of time before people start doing this for the laughs to ruin peoples days. Because the system matched anyone together there is nothing to stop this and I don't think thats fair on the players. I have seen it happen in many ranked games over the years even much so that I can see someone intentionally quitting out all their games to get a rating so low on a multi account and then purposefully match against a higher player. Imagine a 800 who is a top 10 player matchmaking against a 2500 and winning. Believe me I don't want this to happen but I will be the first to call it now before it does.
- Matching Limit
To continue on from what I posted above, A simple fix for this would be to make it so that you can only match against people with a ranking within 1000 of yours for example. And this is only an example number. Say you are 2300 this would mean the best you can rank against is 2800 and the lowest you could rank against is 1800. Imo not only would this improve multplayer experience for newcomers, but also for the more experienced players looking to match against riders of similar skill and it would prevent anyone from multi accounting because it's only a matter of time before it happens.
- Points loss Barrier
This is another thing that concerns me, There are some things that can be out of your control in life. Whether it be power cuts, ISP going down in your local area or a whole bucket load of reasons. Including the "Failed to Migrate host Bug" which I will touch on later.
There are some things that you just cant avoid in life and I don't think you should be punished as much as you can be currently. Say your at 2500 and you get a power cut, or your ISP temporarily goes down in your area. You will lose 300-500 score. I know this from experience. I honestly feel there should be a barrier on the amount you can lose for a disconnect. A Middle ground where you don't lose motivation from a massive points drop but at the same time a barrier that still punishes people who intentionally quit,
Current List of Confirmed Bugs.
- Overall Leaderboard Bug (PS4,PC)
zzzlol94 Currently has 3200 score, Hes a close friend of mine and told me this happened after quitting and researching.
After the next game he went up 1700. If needed I'm sure I can get more info from him.
Jami286 another friend of mine currently has 127,000+ score on PS4. As far as I know he has not played since getting this score. He seemed baffled when it happened from the best I could see anyway as french is his main language. He did not mention how it happened.
- Slow Mo, Timer not affected (13/5/2015)
This occurred on the track Snow Blind. A track that I think is heavier on the resources used right? - It was on PS4.
Interestingly when this happened the timer remained the same, (My timer). Everyone passed me although I did my best to finish lol..
- Losing Points when not Faulting and Winning All Heats (16/5/2015)
I was originally skeptical when I heard about this because I hadn't once experienced it and I have played a ton of games.
Though I am now a believer, it happened to me live on stream yesterday. Though I do not know how rare this is to happen.
Heres the video with all heats:
- Failure to Migrate Host when searching
This has been mentioned by me in a separate Thread and by the forum user Cocio89 and I'm sure more have experienced it.
Sometimes when searching you can get an error after the players have filled up that sais "Failure to Migrate Host", When this happened to me It immediately researched automatically and then put me into a game. At the end of that game I was 270 points less and gained score on my new total. The only thing I can presume from this is that the system thinks it put me into a game that I never actually got into and counted it as a quit.