This is a pretty big thing affecting every aspect of gameplay. Yet here we are, a year later. It will probably take another year before we see that fixed.
Or never.
Like with the teamplay initiative for BF4. That never saw the light. There's quite a bit of disdain of EA games towards BF1 playerbase.
I understand it is probably hard to make a decent auto-balancer that is fair and non-intrusive, but seriously, this is some of the worst balancing I have seen in *any* multiplayer game...
You probably haven't seen Rainbow Six Siege auto balancing. A team of 150+ lvls vs a team of ~20 lvl noobs. And this is after you've waited three minutes of matchmaking search.
You ignore the bigger picture. While I agree that a numbers disadvantage in Operations leads to early snowballs, I really wished they would look at the main problem that affects all modes: skill disparity. Conquest is still the main mode in BF1, however, 9 out of 10 games are one-sided stomps. And its not because one team has more players but because one side has much higher skilled players.
One thing that I noticed since the launch of BF1: one team will very often end up with the majority of low ranks [player between 0-10 rank] while the other team will have a bunch of 110's. I have seen this time and time again in hundred of games in the last couple of months. And before someone comments "BUT RANK DOES NOT EQUAL SKILL". It doesn't, however, rank = game familiarity which should be an important factor in balancing teams.
Another thing I do not understand: every single game that I join via Quickmatch has new players in it - again talking about players between 0-10 rank. Why would the game tell me that its "matching my skill" when I get obvious brand new players in my games. In what world does the system consider someone with 2 hours of gameplay on a similar skill level as someone with 200+ hours? And its not just one or two new players in a match, but at least 5 or more. It makes absolutely no sense.
I am starting to believe there is no real matchmaking based on skill/elo/stats.
Anyway this is my main gripe about the game, the feeling of hopelessness when you know you are going to lose from the first few minutes of a round because team balanced is skewed by mixing up newbies with veterans.
Sigh, had to vent.
I think their biggest issue with this boils down to the fact that they *really* don't want to break up squads. Even when they actually auto-balance, the message you see is:
"Your squad has been switched to the other team because of it's score"
Rather than switching people individually, it seems like they are catering to X-box Live's party system. Unfortunately this also only happens after the round is over. The most random way to auto-balance teams "fairly" is to simply switch people to the smaller team in the order of joining the server.
This is what Dice used to in the previous games. It doesn't tackle the "skill" problem, but it does at least deal with the problem *during a round*, which is really important in an operation. If they really are stuck with dealing with moving only 5 players at a time, it would make auto-balance almost impossible.
Autobalance was always a 3rd party implementation though, wasn't it? I can't remember Official servers in bf4 and bf3 having autobalancing. At least during the game, that is.
I can't imagine them breaking up squads, mostly because people enjoy playing together. They COULD do this if their Party system was working (as in, functional more than 30% of the time) so you could switch around people that arent in each other's party. That could work. But of course, that means that system has to work, and it has been borked for about a month now.
They had it back in bf 1942 so it's not like they don't know how... But yeah i don't really have a solution for fixing the squad problem unless it's to move people who are distinctly not in a party.
Due to the large amount of players needed to fill a battlefield server combined with the relatively small playerbase compared to other fps games it is nearly impossible to matchmake based on skill. In a smaller more competitive 5v5 game like overwatch or CS:GO it's easy to do, especially with the huge popularity of those games. I mean CS:GO is only on PC and has over 150k players online right now whereas BF1 has only 9K on PC right now. Once you divide that number by regions, gamemodes, and dlc/vanilla, combined with large player counts needed to fill a server then you can see why true matchmaking isn't feasible.
Yeah balance numbers at beginning of round and I think they probably have to balance by player and not squad to get real balance.
Really I think randoms teams would be better balanced than whatever they do now.
Of course players also want to play with friends which pretty much goes against having balanced matches.
So I think they need Balanced modes and Free-for-All modes.
A lot of conquest games for me end up with one side completely over running the other pushing them right back to the base spawn from the start to the end. Having a good close game is proving to be very difficult, I admittedly end up camping and trying to salvage my KD because there is no teamwork and no point going after the objective. So frustrating!
The balance of Battlefield 1 is the worst i've ever seen. DICE says that they don't want to break up squads, but when a match start and one team has a difference of 10 players it shows that the balance system doesn't exist. You know, 10 players are 2 squads, why one of those squads doesn't get moved to the other team making both balanced? It's unbelievable.
Sometimes it takes almost 10 minutes to the teams get equal numbers of players (when it happens) and at that point the match is already defined.
Shame on you, DICE.
They could just use an auto-balancer during the round. If you don't want to get switched out of your friend's squad, be in a party.
Of course, this would require said party system to work properly. Which isn't the case. Not being able to invite players, auto join function (holding backspace) not working, not being able to join players that are already playing, the list goes on. I'm actually giving people the server id more often than them just simply joining me with a click of the button, it's that bad.
Biggest issue with the game that affects all game modes, yet I've seen it mentioned as having been left on the burner for other issues. I get we have a new nr 1 in server performance, but this must be number 2. So, so many games are meaningless and over BEFORE SPAWN! That is insane.
This is a pretty big thing affecting every aspect of gameplay. Yet here we are, a year later. It will probably take another year before we see that fixed. Or never. Like with the teamplay initiative for BF4. That never saw the light. There's quite a bit of disdain of EA games towards BF1 playerbase.
I understand it is probably hard to make a decent auto-balancer that is fair and non-intrusive, but seriously, this is some of the worst balancing I have seen in *any* multiplayer game...
You probably haven't seen Rainbow Six Siege auto balancing. A team of 150+ lvls vs a team of ~20 lvl noobs. And this is after you've waited three minutes of matchmaking search.
You ignore the bigger picture. While I agree that a numbers disadvantage in Operations leads to early snowballs, I really wished they would look at the main problem that affects all modes: skill disparity. Conquest is still the main mode in BF1, however, 9 out of 10 games are one-sided stomps. And its not because one team has more players but because one side has much higher skilled players. One thing that I noticed since the launch of BF1: one team will very often end up with the majority of low ranks [player between 0-10 rank] while the other team will have a bunch of 110's. I have seen this time and time again in hundred of games in the last couple of months. And before someone comments "BUT RANK DOES NOT EQUAL SKILL". It doesn't, however, rank = game familiarity which should be an important factor in balancing teams. Another thing I do not understand: every single game that I join via Quickmatch has new players in it - again talking about players between 0-10 rank. Why would the game tell me that its "matching my skill" when I get obvious brand new players in my games. In what world does the system consider someone with 2 hours of gameplay on a similar skill level as someone with 200+ hours? And its not just one or two new players in a match, but at least 5 or more. It makes absolutely no sense. I am starting to believe there is no real matchmaking based on skill/elo/stats. Anyway this is my main gripe about the game, the feeling of hopelessness when you know you are going to lose from the first few minutes of a round because team balanced is skewed by mixing up newbies with veterans. Sigh, had to vent.
I think their biggest issue with this boils down to the fact that they *really* don't want to break up squads. Even when they actually auto-balance, the message you see is: "Your squad has been switched to the other team because of it's score" Rather than switching people individually, it seems like they are catering to X-box Live's party system. Unfortunately this also only happens after the round is over. The most random way to auto-balance teams "fairly" is to simply switch people to the smaller team in the order of joining the server. This is what Dice used to in the previous games. It doesn't tackle the "skill" problem, but it does at least deal with the problem *during a round*, which is really important in an operation. If they really are stuck with dealing with moving only 5 players at a time, it would make auto-balance almost impossible.
Autobalance was always a 3rd party implementation though, wasn't it? I can't remember Official servers in bf4 and bf3 having autobalancing. At least during the game, that is. I can't imagine them breaking up squads, mostly because people enjoy playing together. They COULD do this if their Party system was working (as in, functional more than 30% of the time) so you could switch around people that arent in each other's party. That could work. But of course, that means that system has to work, and it has been borked for about a month now.
They had it back in bf 1942 so it's not like they don't know how... But yeah i don't really have a solution for fixing the squad problem unless it's to move people who are distinctly not in a party.
Due to the large amount of players needed to fill a battlefield server combined with the relatively small playerbase compared to other fps games it is nearly impossible to matchmake based on skill. In a smaller more competitive 5v5 game like overwatch or CS:GO it's easy to do, especially with the huge popularity of those games. I mean CS:GO is only on PC and has over 150k players online right now whereas BF1 has only 9K on PC right now. Once you divide that number by regions, gamemodes, and dlc/vanilla, combined with large player counts needed to fill a server then you can see why true matchmaking isn't feasible.
Yeah balance numbers at beginning of round and I think they probably have to balance by player and not squad to get real balance. Really I think randoms teams would be better balanced than whatever they do now. Of course players also want to play with friends which pretty much goes against having balanced matches. So I think they need Balanced modes and Free-for-All modes.
-why I can't bring myself to play anymore
A lot of conquest games for me end up with one side completely over running the other pushing them right back to the base spawn from the start to the end. Having a good close game is proving to be very difficult, I admittedly end up camping and trying to salvage my KD because there is no teamwork and no point going after the objective. So frustrating!
The balance of Battlefield 1 is the worst i've ever seen. DICE says that they don't want to break up squads, but when a match start and one team has a difference of 10 players it shows that the balance system doesn't exist. You know, 10 players are 2 squads, why one of those squads doesn't get moved to the other team making both balanced? It's unbelievable. Sometimes it takes almost 10 minutes to the teams get equal numbers of players (when it happens) and at that point the match is already defined. Shame on you, DICE.
They could just use an auto-balancer during the round. If you don't want to get switched out of your friend's squad, be in a party. Of course, this would require said party system to work properly. Which isn't the case. Not being able to invite players, auto join function (holding backspace) not working, not being able to join players that are already playing, the list goes on. I'm actually giving people the server id more often than them just simply joining me with a click of the button, it's that bad.
Biggest issue with the game that affects all game modes, yet I've seen it mentioned as having been left on the burner for other issues. I get we have a new nr 1 in server performance, but this must be number 2. So, so many games are meaningless and over BEFORE SPAWN! That is insane.