There is a potential advantage to being on the low side of a 3v2, and that is you'd be potentially gaining more XP within the same time span as the side with the larger number of players.  Is it a perfect balance? Probably not and it can probably swing balance in either direction (because it would be situational.  For example, is your one team mate getting all of the XP from kills, while you languish back at the base mimicking a road-side pylon?).  Personally, I'd avoid striving for so-called 'perfect balance' anyway.  I value variation, and perfectly balanced strat and FPS games are often too cookie-cutter for my taste, at least in the long term.

I was on the 2 player side of a 3on2 the other night. I expected to get crushed because the game mode was Domination of all things. We ended up devastating the other players.

http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/game/634689/player/32483/

I saved the replay. We played a very good game.

3 v 2 is hard to overcome cause of the gold difference and controlling War Rank one keeps the flags while the other 2 fight and he supports when not getting a flag.

Ok, I just had my first 2v3 match, and even though I had 0 deaths and countless kills, my team-mate was totally useless, he was using base HP vs 3 demigods, died about 4 times then quit, leaving me 1v3. Still I finished the game with 0 deaths and a multitude of kills, bought as many upgrades as possible, played the perfect game, but there was NO CHANCE IN HELL FROM THE SECOND THE GAME BEGAN that it was possible to win the match. So yeah, just wasted 30 mins of my life, totally pissed off with the game in general, especially the absolutely ridiculous matchmaking system that fails 90% of the time to produce a well matched game.

I know this may sound like heresy but if you don't like Pantheon then, well, don't play it.

As a practical matter, there is not a lot we can do to keep people who drop out of a game as soon as they discover what map or who they are playing with.  

While I look forward to the day that I can send goons over to people's houses to rough them up for being obnoxious, that time has not yet come.

Statistically, if you end up in a 3 vs. 2 game or a 2 vs 1 game it's because someone dropped after the match was put together.

Last night matches where being set up as 3vs2 in pantheon or perhaps it tried to do 3vs3 but failed and ended up as 3vs2. This is before you even get the load screen where you find out which map and objective you are playing.

Frogboy, both games I have tried to join in pantheon today have been with uneven numbers of players, and most of the time in the "connection info" when a match is being made, there are only 5 players visible. This may be worth looking into, or may be as you say when people are cancelling, but it has happened on virtually all of the games I see so far today, making fairly matched pantheon games rare.

The game in itself is a very very good and enjoyable game, and is very fun to play when you have two well matched teams.

However the sheer volume of issues in xx% of matches really does ruin the whole experience, and is really frustrating when you see how much potential the game has in the xx% of instances where it works correctly.

Wait...so the way this "matchmaking" system is set up for pantheon, it now effectively guarantees that an experienced player will be stuck with a newbie? To make matters worse, it will DELIBERATELY pit 2vs3 at times? Hmm...I may have to re-evaluate playing pantheon then until that's fixed. This is not a game where you can routinely win when outnumbered.

OK so assuming that the matchups are EXP based... how is this kind of matchup remotely fair?  Both these games started out with 5 players in the connectivity window, they were NOT 6 player games.

Team 1:

http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/tournaments/player/29807/

http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/tournaments/player/60609/

http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/tournaments/player/64952/

Total EXP of all 3 players: 2951

Team 2:

http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/tournaments/player/50838/

http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/tournaments/player/54329/

Total EXP of 2 players: 1859

That's a difference of just over ONE THOUSAND experience points.  How could that match up be considered remotely fair by the match-making system?

And here's another game where I was on the winning side;

Team 1:

http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/tournaments/player/19993/

http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/tournaments/player/61094/

Total EXP of 2 players: 973 (one player showing 0 experience, needs updating)

Team 2:

http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/tournaments/player/57424/

http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/tournaments/player/56446/

http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/tournaments/player/54329/

Total EXP of all 3 players: 1787 (one player showing 0 experience, needs updating)

I'm not sure that this is true.  Right now, it is very easy to see who your teammate is before you launch into the game.  So people game the system because it is easy to game the system.  You can make it more difficult to game the system by removing the connection box.  You can also put in a check to prevent people from playing with the same teammate twice in the same time interval - say 30 minutes.  As to people dropping because of the map, I have to believe that this is primarily a Crucible problem - remove it from Pantheon.

Sure, we can just avoid Pantheon, but isn't that a major selling point of the game?  The ability to have matches with people of like skill?  Do you really want new players to the game to experience Pantheon where most of the games end up borked?  Alternatively, they get into custom games against set teams.

No, removing crucible would be a terribad idea. It's a fine map the way it is. What a lot of people leave for is they see the match is "dominate" or "fortress" and they leave since those modes seem to be largely boring to most. Everybody wants conquest, yet it seems to be the most rare form of pantheon. Go figure.

17 of your last 40 games where Fortress, 14 where Citadel and 9 where Dominate.

17 of my last 40 games where Citadel, 16 where Fortress and 7 where Dominate.

So in our cases for that last couple of days Dominate is actually the rarer Objective.

I also have not notice a significant amount of people dropping based on Objective type.

I don't mind Crucible, Prison is my least favorite. I also miss playing on Exile.

Of course there is - you can give them a loss.  Matchmaking eventually takes care of the rest.

So did I get that right? Is this game seriously DELIBERATELY starting 2vs3 matches? Did I read it wrong? Because if so that is some seriously bad decision making for whoever came up with that bright idea.

Explain to me how that is even a remotely fair match...

Yes, and despite everyone (except the ones only posting to brag they've won a 2v3 or 1v2) in this thread saying they think it's a bad thing, the official response is:

"If you don't like Pantheon then, well, don't play it".

Go figure.

rofl dual UB and QoT

you know you're screwed when you see that setup

I am a new player, but i also got in a 3vs2 matchup but me and my teammate were thumping the oppents rather well but midgame he lagged out and the AI had the bright idea of following the enemy deep in there territory and getting sniped by the two regulus's once his health got low.

I actually enjoyed it, and i may have won even if it wasnt domination type game. It wasnt and i was out manuevered in the end

Well... fair point.  Don't like it, don't play it.  But I do like it.  I'd just like some sort of explanation as to how the matchmaking system works if that's possible. 

Ending up in an uneven match through a bug, or someone dropping out at just the right moment during the match making is one thing.  Intentionally matching a 2v1 or a 3v2 or (and I suppose it's possible) a 3v1... well I know I wouldn't want to be outnumbered, no matter how good I was.  I suppose if it was 2 seriously good players against 3 completely new players the 2 would win.  But even 2 really good players shouldn't beat 3 average players regularily.  Flag capture and war rank alone would ensure an average team's victory.  Is that not punishing the good players?  

Plus, if the two travel together, the three can spread out and just avoid.  If the two seperate, the three can group for a 3v1.  Today as an experiment in a game we were winning, I bought up 3 artifacts and let the opposing team beat on me to see how long it would take to kill me.  3 of them (and I'm fairly certain they had no artifacts) were able to take me down in a reasonably quick timeframe, though I suppose I could have escaped had I tried.  This game just seems set up so that an advantage in skill won't make up for an advantage in numbers.

There's also the problem of say... Some potential Demigod customer reading that 3v2 and 2v1 is built into the system.  Reguardless of how statistically fair it may end up being, I'm guessing that's going to turn off the casual gamer who certainly won't want to be ganged up on.  I'm not saying that is how it would work, just how it may be interpreted.

-- Tukulis

Here's another 3v2 that seems to have nothing to do with player experience levels:

http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/game/640896/player/51277/

When two members of the team of 3 have each played more games than the players on the team of 2 combined, something really wonky is going on.

It was like clubbing baby seals; I gave it a shot, but I'm nowhere good enough to face those odds; especially given I'd just fought AlmightyTaco, who is no pushover, in the previous game . . .

Well hopefully the communities voice will be a signal to Frogboy, that this concept all though tried to work out, in practice doesn't work and needs to be changed...

I agree with some frogboy, this game is getting a lot better connection wise (panth is still slow as fuck), but custom is going great for me.

Id like to see panth setup better, and preventing people from trying to get in a team together and leaving would help, also some extra match making options would be great.

Handicap matches are horrible in any situation, unless you have a friggin amazing match making system that actually can pull 2 good players from 1 side, and then put them up against statistically 3 weaker opponents... unfourtunately I dont think your current system is that good...


Anyawys I hope you guys do make some changes, I know you guys are already probably working really hard, but I imagine once panth gets fixed up this game will be very good, and hopefully only need some new content updates.

I think we have to give the pantheon ranking some time to settle down.

Clearly the ranking right now is chaotic, the only thing you can do is suck it up.

Pretty sure almost all ranking matching system must go through this "mid level fight a high level with low ranking" phase.

With a ranking system that gets a soft reset every 10 days, it is very unlikely for ranks to settle down.

Guys, the problem is that if not in peak hours there is not enought people to tie well, they must choose between a lot of games with noobs being bashed by vets or make weird thing like 3v2 2VsIAs and all that stuff but this is a cyclic problem that feeds itself, lets see this from the beginning, pantheon was a total mess so more and more ppl quit playing it to a point where is hard to match fairly players of the same level, they had two options or leave matchmaking alone tieing unbalanced opponents with the next forum rage of the noobs being bashed or piss the vets off with "challenges", do u know how the story continues?

Frogboy has said somewhere that in peak hours they have around 3200 connected in any way to the game from singleplayer to pantheon, skirmish and all. This is a niche game and i like it, i dont need 8mil ppl playing i just thing that the way of fix the lack of players in pantheon is not good.

Basically i think they did it to not let the pantheon die but what we have now? lots of bots, games 2v2IA 2v3 and so...

I think that with the next 1.1 they could clean all and start from the beginning with the good level of conectivity that we have now, take out bots, 2v3 and try to do a fair ladder so the ppl will come back to play by themselves when they see it working ok and i think that this is the idea they have now.