The BIGGEST reason I dislike LegionTD (and how to fix it)

[Augustinus]

You missed the point stiffy he actually tried to get a high elo, and found games where people would accept him cause he talked, once he had a high enough elo he stopped asking those questions and got slammed for that.

I don't know about who or what you are talking about. I think you really missed the point on this topic.

[ZinGir]

If I may, I will share my thoughts regarding this matter.

tl;dr: The biggest problem in this community is judgment by ELO. W/L or ELO not being publicly viewable in-game should fix most of the problems raised by TC without needing an auto-balancing mechanism that would not allow friends to play together

My experience and observation is basically the same as the topic creator, robizeratul

I started out just wanting to play. I didn't know that W/L was tracked, and I didn't know what ELO was. I didn't care which team I ended up on, I just wanted to get in the game and play. This resulted in me always being on the weaker team and by the time I figured out what was going on, I had a badly losing record. I was in the same boat - around 1:2 win/loss ratio, around 20/40 W/L. I don't think I was that bad of a player even then; I knew basic builds, always played with team. I personally didn't really care that much if I lost or won as long as coordination was good.

By the time I realized people just type !lms or !scores and go to the other team/leave because they just assume I suck, I had a hard time getting wins. I didn't make a new account to start from scratch. From this point, I instead started being selective about the games I played. I left lobbies where I felt we were severely disadvantaged, or joined the side that had the most experienced players. My skill level didn't change much (of course as I gain more games played I become marginally better with builds, but you know what I mean), but my record completely changed.
I think in the span of 4-5 weeks, I was at 1500+. Getting from 800 ish to 1000 was hard (I had to find experienced/high ELO players willing to accept having me on the team), but afterwards, it was easy to just stack up my ELO.

By the time I was 1300+, a new problem started: now people assume I'm this awesome player, and follow me around in lobbies. The new problem was, now people assume I'm really good, meaning they would get mad at me if my build wasn't perfect or if I took king and I wasn't good at it. I heard many times something along the lines of:

'wtf, why did you push/build that? !lms - how are you 1500 elo?'

So I decided I needed to make a new account so that I would again be allowed to make mistakes. I figured I would play the 1500 account again when I was sufficiently skilled enough to fulfill the ridiculous expectations in Legion TD Mega people would just have about me.

Guess what - being 0/0 1000 ELO, nobody wants to play with you. I think I went 2/5 in my first 7 games. I'm still the same guy with a 1500 ELO account that basically would win 80+% of games I played in, but all of a sudden I can't seem to replicate the same results. As I write this post, I became a bit more selective with my games again and now I've reached 1200 on this account as well.

My point is this:
All the problems people raise are based on players building up prior expectations about a player based on their ELO. Most players just join a lobby, type '!scores, !lms' and just go to the higher ELO team or leave if the better team has no spots, leading to the unbalanced games.
As demonstrated by me making a new account, despite being a 1500+ player in Mega, as soon as I made a new account I struggled to win games. This is not because of my skill level, but because of the community's treatment of players based on their ELO.

I believe the fix that doesn't involve auto-balancing would be to limit the information-gathering process in the lobby. If the issue is, 'we want to avoid people who tk,' then there is the report/ban route for game ruiners, and you will remember their account in the future and know to avoid. When ELO is no longer used to judge players, I believe the games would naturally be more balanced than they currently are, without judgment in-game (!lms, no wonder you suck/how are you this ELO? you're terrible). You would still be allowed to play with your friends

As constructed, the current system leads to tons of people just leaving when countdown starts to try and increase their chances of winning/stack in the next game. This is a game; people should just be playing instead of wasting time waiting for the next game and trying to get on the best possible team since your track record basically determines your future game records.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ this
Also the point of this topic is he wants faster games and hidden elo and random teams, so he can ruin more of them making people quit.

[yongsan]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ this
Also the point of this topic is he wants faster games and hidden elo and random teams, so he can ruin more of them making people quit.

Well actually, my point was that people often wrongfully tend to form prior opinions about other players based on ELO.
If players want balanced games (and it looks like most do), if you're not able to form these prior beliefs (e.g. by ELO being invisible for example), you truly would start with random games unless you had a friend/someone you had a good experience with prior games that you wanted to play with. Stacked teams would only happen by chance. No problems with that this way as opposed to auto-balancing.

I'm confused as to where you got the idea that I want invisible ELO so I can go ruin games. The point was that with hidden ELO you get truly random teams.
If you have players who ruin the experience, which is the argument for why you leave lobbies/switch teams based on ELO:

1. You remember their gamer tags. I certainly do, and I have quite a few players that I actively avoid unless I absolutely can't in the lobby based on prior experiences
2. Actually take the extra initiative with BRQs. That's how to slowly filter out toxic players and hopefully, it teaches them a lesson to not behave that way in the future.

I do agree with you that the bans oftentimes seem insignificant for the amount of annoyance and anger it causes afflicted players, but I believe there is a 'stacking' effect, as you say. I routinely check the BRQ board to try and scout the names of people I want to avoid, and on certain decisions you'll see added ban days for multiple offenders.

And yes, I do want faster games. It's dumb that people have to keep passing on games until they're on a 'suitable' team to win in my opinion.

What I suggested here is probably not the perfect solution.
I was giving my opinion on an alternative way to get fairer teams and quicker games without needing to worry about forcibly not being allowed to play with friends.
Honestly though. What is ELO anyway? If you've got high ELO do you need it to show because you need to show off in some way? In my opinion, high ELO players don't need it, because the only use for it is to gain access to 1200+ games. If it's to be used for filtering out TK-ers with low ELO, I think losing out on this is a good enough trade-off to get quick and fair games, especially if you do your due diligence to properly report TK-ers.

[ZinGir]

Well if you dont care for elo why not go host one with a host bot everytime?
And its not a solution at all, its a way for game ruiners to ruin more games thats all it is.

[Stiff_Maistar]

@Zingir, You are talking about what Yongsan wrote. Augustin and I was talking about what Augustin wrote. And Augustin didnt write about trying to gain elo, he wrote about trying to fix the "play with friends" issue, so i didnt miss the point.

[Jabba41]

Well if you dont care for elo why not go host one with a host bot everytime?

Biggest reason people play on autohosted bots instead of private ones are our rules i'd say.

[ZinGir]

Well if you dont care for elo why not go host one with a host bot everytime?

Biggest reason people play on autohosted bots instead of private ones are our rules i'd say.

Good point didnt even think of it lol

[yongsan]

Zingir,

I don't think you quite understand the whole point of this thread.
It started with TC citing from personal experiences how the games are unbalanced and how players are mistreated based on their win/loss and ELO record. We all start as beginners, there is a definite problem here.
The proposed solution was a way to auto-balance teams, which many have stated is not feasible/not a good solution.
The topic sort of ended there.
The whole point of my original post was, well auto-balancing doesn't seem like a likely solution. The problem with unbalanced teams seems to be because of an inevitable stacking effect on one side based on ELO. If, for example, ELO wasn't viewable, wouldn't you agree that would no longer happen?
And I gave a detailed account of my own experiences from roughly 250-300 games from which I drew the conclusion that ELO only serves to lead to the current situation we have in matchmaking.

As I've said, it's not a perfect solution, but it is a solution in the sense that:
1. You get truly random teams = more competitive/closer games
2. It will stop stalling games from starting because everybody leaves to avoid playing on the certainly weaker team

You don't address any of my points regarding the potential weaknesses of what I propose.
Yes, you might end up being on a team with game ruiners. That's a risk you run in any game.
Low ELO players do not automatically equate to game ruiners.
That's exactly what the BRQ section is for, and it is the community's job to make sure people who don't play by the rules are punished appropriately so the community as a whole improves.
Yes, some low ELO players may be toxic, but not all of them are. That is your own subjective opinion where you literally are 'judging a book by its cover.' ELO is just one metric, and certainly doesn't say everything about a player. You're drawing far reaching conclusions from one data point and saying it's sufficient.

Get better at the game then, play with bots. dont force the better players to quit playing cause the ones who refuse to learn or cant learn want it to be balanced.

This is precisely what is not a solution; the blanket statement of 'git good.'
Nobody is forcing better players to quit playing. Again, I don't even know where you get that conclusion.
The entire point of this thread is that we want to play, and better matchmaking would help an incredible amount.

Instead of discrediting and talking down what others are posting about, how about contributing to the discussion with an alternative solution of your own then?
Otherwise the post has no merit.
I will again echo what I've said earlier: you, me, and everyone who has played this game at one point was a beginner. Nobody is forcing 'better' players to quit playing. The 'git good' attitude is what drives beginners away from the community.

[ZinGir]

Simple solution, make a 1000 or less bot, and block the 999 and less people from going to the normal one.

Yes get good at the game, not by joining multiplayer matches, learn to hold a lane first. like you said we all started out bad, but how many can say well we tried to get better in a single player match?

And random teams doesnt make it fair balancing doesnt make it fair, when 99% of the bad players, dont take advice/get mad when you give them an aura/ rage quit/ or just plane throw.

[yongsan]

In my opinion, segregating the game in that way does have problems too:

Does it not matter what happens in the sub-1000 games then? How would you feel about a change like that if you were 900 ELO? that just makes it that much worse for you. You don't have experienced players to teach you how to play the right way (which is how I learned) and you are basically stuck playing games in the bottom tier where most do not know enough to help improve players. Basically, it doesn't lend well to integrating new players into the community.

I first played Legion TD with irl friends off line, me and 1 or 2 friends against the computer. That's how I started playing. I didn't get better that way. The first Mega game I joined I was shell-shocked because the meta is just so different, and there were rules I didn't even know existed. So learning to play offline teaches you about what towers exist and their holding capabilities, but not necessarily how to play the game since this is a team game. At least, that was the case for me. I'm sure if I had played a few ENT games and then took to trying to learn how to play offline, it would have been completely different

And again, I can't equate low ELO players = toxic players. I've seen plenty of high ELO players that I'd never want to play with again, and many sub 1k ELO players that I got along with and team up with if I see them in the lobby. in this sense, blocking out sub 1k players doesn't necessarily lead to better games even for the more experienced players

I do agree this would certainly lessen the hassle that I see in matchmaking and could lead to more competitive games in the above 1k population, but I see it as a change that would make the game basically unplayable for team players with low ELO/new players. It's almost like a rich get richer world haha.

I'm not even sure if anything we say here will get integrated, but I do think there is a problem and wanted to discuss it when I initially posted, especially since I had basically the same experience as the TC. Thanks for your input

[ZinGir]

Yea, i really dont care what happens to 999 and less elo players, they have thrown and annoyed me for the last time. i started treating them the way they play, like garbage.

And why would you help the unwilling? they never ever ask for help. and 999 and less team players? are you for real dude? they dont play as a team they dont even plan to play with the team, they do w/e stupid shit they can think of.

Why even bother intergrating trolls and throwers? its an equal game a 1900elo has the same chances as the 500 elo, the point is the 1900 elo tries while the 500 elo talks shit that hes better then the 1900 elo(while hes losing the game) why would said 1900 elo even bother to help him?

And dont pity the weak and unwilling. you already shown us you want to get better, just do so get better your self. dont let a gang of trolls and throwers pull you down with there shame.
Also you seem to forget high elo players have to wait 10>30 mins for a match, cause every 900 elo or less swaps to your team. it just sucks reporting them has no effect maybe then they could be taught a lesson, if they got like 7 days ban instead of 6 hours.


Also single player match is to learn the basics (i think i said this 3 times already) 999 n less cant even hold a lane, they are 1/0 with 1500 value at round 7 and they still leak 80>90% of there wave, after you told them exactly how to build when to whisp and where to place. this enrages me to the point where i just spend 3 days cussing every single 999 elo and less out for what ever horrid thing i could think of.

[Jabba41]

Sounds more like you act like garbage ingame @zingir

[ZinGir]

Sounds more like you act like garbage ingame @zingir

I do indeed, i can only take so much bullshit, before they get it back 100x as bad.

[supersexyy]

I don't think your opinions are productive at all ZinGir.

Previous threads from years ago are not as relevant as the problem area is growing. The need for change was not as large in the past but the new 'stacking' meta is quite bad.

I agree with all of yongsan's points. Though I would say keep the top x (10?) players' stats public (like a leaderboard) whilst everyone else's stats are private to themselves. This would be in line with most other competitive games.

Having stats private, as opposed to removed, still allows players to evaluate themselves if they desire. It also gives a metric for those wanting to push towards 1200+ or LIHL.

If players do not wish to play with lower skilled players then they can migrate to the 1200+ bot.

This will allow the casual gamer to play in relative peace whilst also hopefully encouraging the more competitive gamer to the 1200+ bot. A win for both sides.

[ZinGir]

Why does everyone defend intentional ruiners? and wants there stats hidden? unless ofc you like to ruin games aswell.

None of the other opinions are productive either... unless you want game ruiners to push away any player between 1100>1200 thus any player who has a few bad games in 1200, is put back to the hidden stats game ruiner pool, and will end up quitting the game. leaving only the top 10ish players playing on 1200.

There is no solution pretty much.
Either hurt the more better players, or hurt the 999 and less players. there is no inbetween.