Your reasoning doesn't line up with the planned mechanics, which is a persistent server. We'll be contesting points on a map, like Star Wars Battlefront 2, and when we win it changes hands. If there's multiple matches the system doesn't work. If I win my match and you're on a different team and you win yours, who gets the point? What if there's 4 factions able to contest it? That's why not.
There will be one battle per map. Its one thing to say: you can't play this very important and balance-changing map, that help your faction to advance, because there are already 100 dudes in the queue for it. And the other one to say: well, you don't want to become too powerful in this area, don't you?
And I repeat: the number of players per map will be limited. There won't be 1000 players vs 1000 players in one match. The availability of maps for selection could take into account the MMR. Zones could be ranked according to the skill level of players able to participate in the match. So, newer players would be able to select low skill level zones and avoid getting slaughtered by high level guilds, and high level guilds would only be able to select high level zones challenging for their skill level. For example: my MMR is within the lowest rank range, I can only select less important, backwater areas on the map to fight for. Or: my MMR is within the high rank range, I can only select the most important, critical areas. A high level guild deliberately loses a match? Then the opposing faction gets a huge strategic bonus by capturing an important zone. Thus the losing on purpose would be discouraged. They could, of course, create fake mirror guilds on the opposing side and deliberately lose, which should be addressed somehow. Maybe account-wide MMR, similar to how SC2 players get one MMR for all races?
This is unlikely to happen due to existence of the moving front line. I mean, how would you divide the arbitrary front line to the zones? Where to put newbs, where pros? Sounds like too much calculation to do. The only way to do this is to make several separate regions, which is the same, actually, as dividing playerbase and separating newbs and pros entirely.
Move the front line vertically, and separate zones according to skill horizontally? Center zones being the most important.
How does the skill entry level on EC compare to similar games? Is it likely to be that big an issue? I'm a rpg/ strategy gamer, so I don't have experience of shooters, and that coupled with my old man reflexes (35 and creaky!) meant I was a bit apprehensive about being able to play EC. After 20 odd hours, my average KD ratio is 1:1, or if I do well 2:1. Learning basic principles - watch your corners, don't rush in guns blazing all the time, explore the maps, go in as part of a group rather than alone - made much more difference than changing my weapons load out.
Just an update: zones would look something like this for four factions: More red = higher skill level, more yellow = lower skill level.
We don't even have to overthink it that much We could just have matches that have no influence on the Worldmap for new players.
Or we can go totally nuts and bring out the statistics!! We all know the devs track most everything, so it should just be a data-mining exercise to get every player's score for every match. We can then take smoothing function, such as the outlier robust median, to get a typical score. We can then modify it with the K/D ratio to ensure that folks that just go for kills as opposed to points are properly accounted for. Assuming the game is well balanced, the whole of the game population should approach a normal distribution (your standard bell curve), with new players at the 3 sigma low end, and elite veterans at the high end, with most falling somewhere in the middle. Match making can then create a small localized bell curve, with slots corresponding to the number of players in the match, and fill those slots based on the whole population, creating a smaller sample segment. If the match population starts with an imbalance, and is skewed one way or the other, for example seeing too many high end players, it can seek to correct that by going to the population matrix of nearby players and finding someone who is below the server average. Further smoothing and accuracy can be done by assessing scores based on a variety of factors. Localized player scores for the class/weapon that they have currently equipped, what the map is, what the victory conditions are, and if they are in a War Party can all be factored in. In fact, with proper data mining, a couple weeks after launch the computers can even start predicting who will win based on those factors, perhaps even removing the need to fight at all! Or we can get a fun and robust game world together, trust that sometimes we will be in matches that we get crushed, sometimes we stomp the other team, but overall it is a fun experience. On the note of stats though, overall things will smooth out with the open world. Territories will change hands, but overall not be too big a deal. Major resource points will be deliberate actions to attack and defend, and I am sure that the battle will be skewed towards the defenders (a lot more than the current fortress map) to prevent a clan for rolling and taking everything on day one.
There is also a way to mitigate skill difference - a good and through tutorial, which is not going to happen in a couple of years for sure, because tutorials are last thing everyone does these days Maybe community guide, available through the game, or just detailed tooltips with numbers and clarity and so on could help new players in contemplaiting shit thats soing on around them in a match. That being said Mechwarrior Online recently came up sith tutorial system, and since them my friends who previously caouldnt make sense out of game were finally able to play and have fun after complting it a few times. So a tutorial is a MUST. meybe PvE version of it, but it wont happen until after launch i bet.
