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[GendoIkari]

So lots of people seem to be annoyed at the whole system of hosting vs joining. Goko has been saying for a while now that automatch is a top priority for them (I think). But, given the way Goko makes their money off of people buying sets... how in the world would automatch even work anyway? Possibilities:

1. People can only be matched with those who own the same sets as them.
Bad idea. There are currently 128 different possibilities of set ownership, NOT counting Promos. Soon to be 256 when Guilds is released. That would split the possible fan base into 128 different groups; it would be way too hard to find a match if you owned all the sets except Hinterlands.

2. People can be matched with anyone. Which cards are chosen for the Kingdom come from a mix of the sets owned by both players.
Slightly better, though not great. Currently the incentive to actually buy sets is already strange, awkward, and weak. Why should I buy sets? So that I can become a hoster instead of a joiner I guess. With this system in place, it would be even weaker, I would think. I should buy sets so that in case I get automatched against someone who didn't buy sets, I can still play with the cards.

3. Combination of the 2: If you own base only; you can only play against those who own base only. If you own all; you can only play against those who own all. The other 126 groups of people can all play each other.
Great for former Iso players (competitive, experienced, willing to spend money on online Dominion if it works well). They get what they want, I would think. But now the base players have no option to check out the non-base cards, which could either hurt or help Goko sales. And those other 126 groups are still in an awkward position...

Or perhaps there's something I'm just missing... does anyone know how they plan to do this, while keeping their "you can buy the sets" monetization plan?

[sudgy]

They could still allow people who just own base to join games with other cards, just make it that they can't automatch.

[Twistedarcher]

Maybe a decent system would be to match any two players up, based solely on ratings, but then play with the cards of whomever owns the most sets?

This has a couple of advantages from Goko's point of view:

1) Players who bought cards always get to use them, no matter what. There's no frustrating situations of being unable to use your cards that you bought.

2) There's more of an incentive to actually buy the cards. I know that I don't have the cards, but I'm okay not owning them, knowing that I can fairly consistently cherry-pick a seat against someone who does own all of them. But if I wasn't able to do this anymore? There's a pretty good chance I'd go and buy the cards myself, rather than being forced to play game after game of base without being able to stop it.

This still has the disadvantage of newer players being unable to really see the new cards, but that's probably a pretty big issue as it stands, anyways. I'd be frustrated that I'd have to pay to get into the matches I want, but hey, as a non-paying customer, I can't really complain.

[LastFootnote]

I like TwistedArcher's system, although I would instead suggest that the player hosting the game be chosen with a weighted randomization. For each small set (11-13 cards) you own, you essentially get a slip of paper with your name on it in a the hat. Then pick a name out of the hat.

So say Alice owns all of Seaside, Bob owns Cornucopia, Charlie owns Alchemy, and Debbie owns nothing. They all play a game together. There is a 50% chance that Alice hosts, a 25% chance that Bob hosts, a 25% chance that Charlie hosts, and a 0% chance that Debbie hosts.

[Kirian]

I like TwistedArcher's system, although I would instead suggest that the player hosting the game be chosen with a weighted randomization. For each small set (11-13 cards) you own, you essentially get a slip of paper with your name on it in a the hat. Then pick a name out of the hat.

So say Alice owns all of Seaside, Bob owns Cornucopia, Charlie owns Alchemy, and Debbie owns nothing. They all play a game together. There is a 50% chance that Alice hosts, a 25% chance that Bob hosts, a 25% chance that Charlie hosts, and a 0% chance that Debbie hosts.

That works if everyone owns different sets.  But if any person owns all sets, it ought to be that person hosting.

The worst thing they could do is to make automatch randomly choose which player hosts... which makes automatch worse than useless for people who have most or all of the cards.

[Beyond Awesome]

The whole hoster and joiner thing is annoying to me as well. I own all the sets, and I always host. This actually hurts Goko because I am actually usually only playing joiners who might not own any sets. I would really like to play against more hosters. Honestly, I have no idea how a good automatch with Goko would work out, but when they launch it, I want to be able to play with all the cards I purchased.

[DStu]

2. People can be matched with anyone. Which cards are chosen for the Kingdom come from a mix of the sets owned by both players.
Slightly better, though not great. Currently the incentive to actually buy sets is already strange, awkward, and weak. Why should I buy sets? So that I can become a hoster instead of a joiner I guess. With this system in place, it would be even weaker, I would think. I should buy sets so that in case I get automatched against someone who didn't buy sets, I can still play with the cards.

I don't really see a problem for goko here. Say less than 50% of players* bought sets. Then, when you don't buy sets yourself, you play half of your games base only? Do you want that? Even if "only" 75% of players buy sets, every fourth game would be base only.  That's still pretty much, and if that many players would own sets now, it would be quite easy to cherry pick games.
In the other case, where more than 50% of players would buy sets, goko obviously has a good enough incentive for people buying sets, as people have bought them.

So I think the incentive to buy is even larger with that, because if you don't buy sets, you have the risk to play base only and there is nothing you can do against it (except buying sets).

Edit: forgot the footnote: * It's actually not the number of players, but of course weighted on how many games they pkay against you, so influenced by how many games people play that have about your rating.

[qmech]

Anything that doesn't get me "all cards" automatch games would be useless.  Using all of the cards bought by either player seems the easiest thing to do.

The other necessary requirement is that we should be able to specify a maximum rating difference, either stepping in thousands or with a completely free choice.

I agree that automatch should be a smart move for Goko if it increases the chances that non-payers end up with Base only games.

[Watno]

2. People can be matched with anyone. Which cards are chosen for the Kingdom come from a mix of the sets owned by both players.
Slightly better, though not great. Currently the incentive to actually buy sets is already strange, awkward, and weak. Why should I buy sets? So that I can become a hoster instead of a joiner I guess. With this system in place, it would be even weaker, I would think. I should buy sets so that in case I get automatched against someone who didn't buy sets, I can still play with the cards.

I don't see how that's a bad option. If you buy the sets, you can be sure to play with them. If you don't, there's no way to avoid getting games that don't have all cards. The incentive to buy cards is higher than it currently is, because now you can just only join games you know have all cards.

[soulnet]

They can't eliminate cherry-picking, because people want to be able to arrange games with their friends, forum-mates and such... I mean, they can, but it would annoy some people, especially some people that already pay and the product they paid for would no longer work for their purpose.

However, if there is automatch, there will be a lot less people hosting games waiting for anyone to join, because they will join automatch, so having both is probably good.

I agree that it should be a mix of the sets because of the reasons exposed above, but also, that's how IRL Dominion works also (if I own Seaside and my friend owns Prosperity, we can easily play with both).

[Stealth Tomato]

I can't imagine they'd put Base-only players in the same Automatch queue as everyone else. Then again, I also wouldn't imagine they wouldn't have implemented Beginner rooms by now to encourage new players without them having to experience getting either instakicked or absolutely thrashed by strong opponents. I would think that would be a great way to bring in new players... instead, new players tend to get a really crappy experience where it's tough to learn.

[hsiale]

With automatch new players will get paired against other new (or old but weak) players. Additionally, I feel new players should be strongly encouraged to play Single Player mode (maybe by adding a "Training Grounds" area at the adventures island, working the same as single player button) - Goko bots are good for them. My Iso level was usually 17-20 and Lord Bottington is still a decent opponent for me, I win more than lose against it but not a lot more.

[eHalcyon]

To start, I would suggest having two under-the-hood automatch queues.  One would be for free players (base only) and the other one would be for players who have purchased at least one set.  This is an arbitrary distinction and could be changed (e.g. at least two sets instead); the point is that it encourages buying at least one set.

In a pinch, the "customer" queue should be able to pull from the "free" queue.  This ensures that the player base isn't fully fractured, but more importantly it makes it easier to find a proper match.

The actual way to mix sets within the "customer" queue doesn't matter that much, IMO.  Pool the sets.  Randomly choose a "host", or arbitrarily choose the player with more sets.  Not a big deal.  I would actually suggest a mix of all this, I think -- a weighted chance of either player being the host, but also a chance of mixing players' sets.  That way, people with few sets have a decent chance of getting a taste of other sets but there is still an incentive to buy all sets.

One downside is that people with many or all sets might have to play in some games that use fewer sets than they've purchased, if they miss out on being the "host" or having a pooled game.  An easy fix is to add an additional option to matchmaking -- "opponents must own at least X sets", where X is a number or maybe even specific named sets, and it is constrained by what you own.  So if you own all the sets, you could guarantee an "all the sets" game, or you could relax the standards slightly to get games with people with at least 4 sets, or at least the same sets you own.

And they can still do hosting/joining, of course.

[andwilk]

An automatch system that does not allow me to have all my cards available for every game would be useless.

IMO, the automatch system should at least allow you to choose a rating range you want to play against and pool all cards of the participants of the game.

[Titandrake]

How about, pool all cards of the participants for the game, to make sure you can always play with cards from sets you own/

For the matching process: define a matching factor to be |# sets owned - # sets in intersection of owned sets| This is 0 if the players own the same sets, 1 if the unshared sets is of size 1, 2 if there are two unshared sets, and so on.

First try to match people with matching factor 0, then matching factor 1, and so on. This gives a trade-off between accuracy of matching and speed, while leaving incentive to buy sets (because you will be matched more often with people who own those sets.) Also has the side effect of giving a preview of 1 or 2 sets at a time.

[soulnet]

There is no need for such artifacts. If the system does not allow you to filter automatch by the sets of the rival, most people will usually be playing someone that did not pay, even if you specify high rankings, although once in a while you will be matched with someone with sets and get to try them. Therefore, the only way to ensure playing with a given set in a regular way is buying them. And it keeps us forumers for criticizing goko once again for their ugly business practices.