Ok. SD - you seriously need to bring back skirmish or modify pantheon... please?

NT

I have never played pantheon because I hear so many negative things about it, but to be honest I never had problems balancing games.

I've played with people with 1000+ games while I only have 50 games on my count. I nicely ask people to balance and they do. And I had a lot of fun played with these experienced players, it even brought my playstyle up. It doesnt take me more than 5min to get a game going.

However, I still see VERY FEW premades who are farming noobs and lying in their game titles, but all I do is check their stats and if they don't balance I leave, without yelling premade at them. No one wants to play with them anyway, unless its pre vs pre. Ive also played a couple of games against premades who actually don't hide that, and managed to win

I dont know about ur experience in custom games, but I think they are a lot of people willing to balance games and have fun. don't lose faith.

btw Ive played against u twice in those games that u setup over vent and lost, but Im still waiting for a rematch.

/signed, as always

Bring back Skirmish and remove the AI from auto-matching.

Just remove pantheon too so everyone in this small community gather up in one place. I really enjoy the time when pantheon is between series and everyone is playing custom.

/signed (again)

This is really important, I haven't got into a pantheon game in ages.

I agree. 95% of the games end up being unbalanced with AI.

But I played a really good pantheon 3v3 game yesterday. It was pretty balanced and ended up going all the way to giants for both teams before we won. I think that was the only game in the last week or so that was good.

Lobby balancing is retarded and counter-intuitive. I have a decent record, that doesn't mean I should have to leave 2-6 lobbies before I get a good game to avoid playing with the worst players possible every time.

Yeah, don't remove Automatch completely. Just bring back Skirmish and remove Pantheon for example.

Keep Pantheon, remove AI.

Make sure mods dont split the community

Really, I don't think this discussion should be about Skirmish vs. Pantheon.  Given that the community has shrunk significantly over the past few months, it was necessary to eliminate one.  Skirmish lost and that's OK.  But Pantheon absolutely does need some fixes, as Pacov points out.

1.  Eliminate the Light vs. Dark distinction.  Yes, this in a sense would make Pantheon = Skirmish, but that's why that debate is senseless.  This way, if 6 players are in the cue, the game can instantly generate a 3v3.

2.  Do not allow AI involvement.  I suspect players would be willing to wait a bit extra in time, if only to avoid AI teammates.  This problem (of waiting for enough players) will be alleviated IF #1 is instantiated (eliminate light vs. dark).

3.  Do not allow players to see who they are connecting to during the load-up screen. Being able to see other players' records during this time is definitely leading to a lot of insta-drops.  Alternatively, install some sort of punishment system for players who drop during this time.  The deal is that if you jump into a Pantheon game, you should be willing to play whatever match it sets up for you.

4.  Instantiate better match-making, in terms of attempting to match players with relatively equal records against one another (as Skirmish was designed to do).  I have no idea how well this system can work, but any attempt to enhance match-making would be aprpeciated.  This improvement, BTW, is the least necessary of the 4 in this list.

What does that fix? It'll just inflate wait times. It feels like half the reason why we end up with AIs seems is becase you have more light/dark queueing than the other side.

I meant to respond to rikeminiblaze but the other guy posted before my response registered.

Ah ok, but still. Simply removing the AI would still be an improvement. I don't think that you would rather join a 3v1 or 3v2 game, etc. only to quit the game and going back into the pantheon queue again and repeat this over and over until you finally have an equal match up?

Roger. As someone previously mentioend I'd rather wait 10 minutes for a game then the constant get in/concede cycle that it is now. Removing AI is a little change for a large improvement.

The mention of removing the Light/Dark has potential. Lets do one at a time though because the tournaments have an appeal to them and it would be a shame to drop them so quickly. If people were still in the Pantheon queue instead of being sent into games they are going to be immediately abandoned then the wait times will probably be decreased.

Edit: In addition, more would probably be playing Pantheon if it were improved in this manner.

Heh... the sad part is that I started playing pantheon as a way to get quick games in without having to piss about in a lobby.  But people wreck the experience by being lame... dropping when they see someone they don't want to play with.  Repeating over and over again.  I absolutely hate it when I bounce up against one of these people as it typically means I have to wait 5 minutes so they HOPEFULLY get into a game without me... otherwise I can just keep clicking fight, they can keep dropping when they see me or don't see an AI and I waste 30 minutes... the same way I would in a custom game lobby... 

The only logical reason for people trying to trying to do AI only games in panth is win % and exp for the ladder.  Otherwise, they'd be better off just hosting a custom game.  Instead, they gunk things up for everyone.  Hell... stats are meh anyway.  If you won't change pantheon, then maybe just give experience and wins in custom games to the people who want to fight AI.  I think that's silly, but it it might eventually mitigate jerks wrecking pantheon just for exp. 

I really hope you're not just going to leave this one hanging. 

Agreed, remove sides and ai.

To be honest at this point, remove pantheon all together.  It's been a failed idea since launch, hasn't gotten any better, and almost all the games are vs. AI.  You're playing vs. bots in a "tournament"... gimme a break.  The community is so damn shrunken already that everyone who plays just needs to be in custom games tbh.

   And then, add an in lobby auto balance feature which should take about 5 minutes of coding time, and you should be good.

Not that I expect anyone to be overly concerned about whether or not ol' Obsenitor plays Demigod, but seriously, you're trying to change custom lobbies into what Pantheon should already be. Just fix Pantheon.

SD - we all seem to agree that some sort of change should occur. 

If you are willing to help us out, can you help us understand what sort of change would be cheap for you to make?  I get you are running a business, but if it doesn't cost you a dime to help us out, then why don't you?  If it does cost you something, then can you slip it in with an update or just explain that you can't make enhancements for us?  I'd understand, but I really hate hoping that we might get some fixes if you already know there's a 0 % chance of that and you just aren't telling us. 

Yea theres been heaps of posts about this lately, would appreciate a response to know the stance on this.

An acknowledgement would be nice for sure.

Other than simply not allowing AI players in pantheon games, all of the ideas I've seen here would be fairly expensive and require work from SD and GPG from developers that are on other projects.

The big flaw of the pantheon was the unforeseen consequence of people dropping when they saw they were going up against players they didn't want to play against and that has had cascading consequences.  

agreed