Bedrock Community Feedback: Platform-Specific Games

[Younisco]

Hey Bedrock CubeCrafters!

Firstly, I'd like to thank you all for the feedback on the knockback test! Your feedback there has been wonderful, and we'll be releasing a new iteration of the knockback relatively soon, so keep your eyes out for that!

After going through the feedback, there was a point that was brought up a lot, which was "the knockback feels way too easy against mobile players", or on the flipside, "the knockback feels impossible against PC players". We want to pose the idea of having platform-specific games so that:

- Players on mobile will have fairer competition - i.e. not PvPing a player who is on PC and likely outmatched due to their input device.
- Players on PC will have more competition - i.e. not PvPing a player who is on mobile and having no hearts lost after the fight.

This would work by having three different platforms - PC, console and mobile. Depending on which platform you are on will put you into games matched with the same players on the same platforms.

This will likely only be implemented on gamemodes which we know that can sustain a split playerbase. This means games like EggWars, SkyWars and Lucky Islands will be the first games that will go through this change if we go ahead with it.

We are aware that there are a lot of questions regarding how it would work. To answer a few FAQs:

Q: Will I still be able to talk to my friends who are on mobile as a PC player? (And any other combination)
A: Yes. This will only affect you once you click to join a game, so in lobbies, you can still talk to your friends.

Q: Will I still be able to play games with my friends who are on mobile as a PC player? (And any other combination)
A: Yes - we're still looking into how we'd do this, however as a basis, if you're in a party of 10, and 9 players are on PC while 1 is on mobile, you'll be put into a PC game. But if you're in a party of 4, with 1 PC and 3 mobile, you'll be put into a mobile game. Establishing the threshold where you'll be put into a PC/console/mobile game is important, and we cannot rush, so we're looking into implementing it into the knockback test beforehand.

We'd love to hear your feedback on this, and vote on the poll on this thread! Thanks, everyone!

 

[Technosword]

I’m absolutely in love with this idea! As a mobile player on Bedrock I’ve felt like I wasn’t having fun at times because some person on pc would jump bridge to me end strafe like crazy and combo me off the edge. Adding this would be a nice addition to Bedrock and I think that the player base wouldn’t be too split as you can still party with anyone you’d like. You have my vote!

 

[AnolTongi]

When I play on PC, I sometimes feel bad for other players and think that they aren’t having fun, so I would like to see this become a thing!
YES from me :D

 

[Kylo2532]

Poggggg

 

[Deleted member 469419]

Agree! This would help to keep the network balanced. +1

 

[CKelting]

I think this is a interesting idea and will give pc players a challenge. @Younisco If you are in a party with one pc player and one mobile player, would it be a random pick. Play with pc or mobile player game. Also swear other server's do this :) Would love to see this happen on it own test game like how the Skywars game is being run now. To see the difference.

 

[ElementThink]

I have mixed feelings about this. Bedrock is more of a chill place (compared to java). I want to see first on how it goes. Not every player who plays on pc is actually pro/good. I don't want the skill gap to go even higher. Since pc players need to tryhard more to stay alive when they are up against other pc players.

 

[Saffyyyyy]

I’m absolutely in love with this idea! As a mobile player on Bedrock I’ve felt like I wasn’t having fun at times because some person on pc would jump bridge to me end strafe like crazy and combo me off the edge. Adding this would be a nice addition to Bedrock and I think that the player base wouldn’t be too split as you can still party with anyone you’d like. You have my vote!

also because nons are easy

 

[Pineapple]

Time to only play with my mobile friends

 

[ToastedByTom]

I agree, (as a competitive player) I like to PvP people on the same Device so it is a fair advantage and by doing that players can improve.

 

[Modulo]

This sounds like a good idea on paper, however, having platform-specific games is not as simple as many people make it out to be and I can see there being a few issues. These issues are not reasons I think this system shouldn't be implemented, but rather that they are worth considering solutions or remedies for if the network moves forward with this idea. (This is coming from my perspective as a PC player.)

• Input devices. Just because someone is playing on console, for example, does not mean they are using a controller. Some consoles have the ability to have the input device be a mouse and keyboard, and thus they effectively are pc players (maybe not exactly, but you get the idea). While a vast majority of players use the default control scheme of their device, those using ones that are considered better than default will likely be at even more of an advantage than if they were playing against the general server population.
  The worst case of this is that of players on mobile devices using a controller. Not only is this control scheme seen as advantageous in combat compared to mobile controls, but it also allows players to jumpbridge - something those on mobile controls can't. In the games where this feature is being considered, bridging is very necessary, and those players would have an immense advantage.
• Parties. It was mentioned that parties would join games for the plurality's platform, and I don't think this is the best design. Players on PC a could smurf (idk if that's the correct term here but I'm using it anyways) by playing in a party of mobile players and absolutely dominate those games. A less problematic, yet harsher, system would be to have them join games for the most powerful platform of the party members (pc > console > mobile) so teams can't strategically compose themselves to gain an advantage.
• Queue times. I know it was mentioned that this would be implemented in popular games that could sustain a split playerbase, but I find that even these games take a bit longer to fill up late at night, and splitting the playerbase would make these times a lot longer.
• Leaderboards and Stats. Games for each platform may have completely different dynamics. As a result, some players will have a lot easier of a time grinding due to shorter games. In the case of stats, these dynamics could inflate/deflate people's stats. This doesn't seem like it's an issue, but since stats can be public, you can compare them with people, so having completely different sets of opponents means these comparisons will not be the most accurate.

I wouldn't mind this being implemented, but I am skeptical that it would would end up solving the problems it is intended to. I feel that the inherent skill gaps between control schemes is exaggerated by those who complain about it. There will always be players who are good/bad at the game no matter the device they use, and splitting the playerbase by platform won't necessarily split the playerbase along lines based off of skill. The only way to know if this change has the intended effect is to implement it unannounced and see how people react since an announcement will create a placebo.

 

[ryandalion7337]

Add this
I will give all the admins kisses

 

[rubik_cube_man]

Input devices. Just because someone is playing on console, for example, does not mean they are using a controller. Some consoles have the ability to have the input device be a mouse and keyboard, and thus they effectively are pc players (maybe not exactly, but you get the idea). While a vast majority of players use the default control scheme of their device, those using ones that are considered better than default will likely be at even more of an advantage than if they were playing against the general server population.
The worst case of this is that of players on mobile devices using a controller. Not only is this control scheme seen as advantageous in combat compared to mobile controls, but it also allows players to jumpbridge - something those on mobile controls can't. In the games where this feature is being considered, bridging is very necessary, and those players would have an immense advantage.

This is something that we're also able to do. For the sake of simplicity we have been addressing different platforms by their default input devices, however when the system is developed, we will be engineer it around your input device rather than the software you run.

Parties. It was mentioned that parties would join games for the plurality's platform, and I don't think this is the best design. Players on PC a could smurf (idk if that's the correct term here but I'm using it anyways) by playing in a party of mobile players and absolutely dominate those games. A less problematic, yet harsher, system would be to have them join games for the most powerful platform of the party members (pc > console > mobile) so teams can't strategically compose themselves to gain an advantage.

This is something that we want to tweak following release. We don't want to punish Mobile users for being on more difficult devices to control than other players, so we want to try and give as many people a fair game experience as possible. If it works better bringing Windows users into mobile games on the rare occasion, we might keep this functionality, but if people start abusing it like you mention, we'll happily tweak the system to function as you suggest. This is the reason that we would like to run tests on the SkyWars Experimental mode first.

Queue times. I know it was mentioned that this would be implemented in popular games that could sustain a split playerbase, but I find that even these games take a bit longer to fill up late at night, and splitting the playerbase would make these times a lot longer.

This is something that worries me a lot, because we've always been very good at having snappy queue times. Now there is no doubt that Queue times will get longer, but it will be interesting to see by how much. I've been thinking about this over the past few days, and I think what's most likely to happen is a smart queue time system. It'd be a fairly complicated bit of logic, that basically analyses the number of people joining each of the queues. If the number of people joining EggWars Solo drops below a certain rate, it would start batching together Console and Win 10 users to bring the rate of connections back to rate which allows for games to start quickly again.
In a nutshell, sometimes this system may be active, sometimes it may not be, but the systems state will always being reviewed by some application, as so that queue times always remain short. What this would actually mean is that we can implement it on all the games, however since they won't always have the player count to support always running separate games per platform, it would be disabled for a lot of the day.

Leaderboards and Stats. Games for each platform may have completely different dynamics. As a result, some players will have a lot easier of a time grinding due to shorter games. In the case of stats, these dynamics could inflate/deflate people's stats. This doesn't seem like it's an issue, but since stats can be public, you can compare them with people, so having completely different sets of opponents means these comparisons will not be the most accurate.

Currently I think leaderboards and stats are more broken with the existing system. I can go round most games of SkyWars and get 5+ kills and win 40%+ of the time. This is because so many of my games have players on devices which are unable to compete with mouse and keyboard. Even though mobile games with the new system may be slower, I believe they'll still obtain more wins over time due to fights they get into will be more fair. This would also give players using Windows more of a challenge in their regular games too.

 

[Gemmmmie]

When I play on PC, I sometimes feel bad for other players and think that they aren’t having fun, so I would like to see this become a thing!
YES from me :D

I feel exactly the same way, I remember playing on my tablet and finding it difficult to even walk, not to mention PVP. However, when I play on my PC I feel way too overpowered against others.

I really like this new concept and I hope it does get implemented in the near future!

 

[TnAdan_]

i dont think this would be good, i like to play aganinst PC players, i feel a bigger challenge, but if cubecraft could add something on the settings menu, to acctivate & desactvate this thing.

also, what about people that use controler on their phones? and people on xbox that connect a mouse and keyboard? or even people on PC that preefers playing on controler(for some reason)?

the idea of this is acctualy good, but i dont think i would like that much, but if they add a setting to acticvate and desactvate this, i would 100% like it

 

[Conea64]

Gonna get a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse now to connect to my phone.
Just 1 flaw.

 

[pup6660]

This is something that we're also able to do. For the sake of simplicity we have been addressing different platforms by their default input devices, however when the system is developed, we will be engineer it around your input device rather than the software you run.


This is something that we want to tweak following release. We don't want to punish Mobile users for being on more difficult devices to control than other players, so we want to try and give as many people a fair game experience as possible. If it works better bringing Windows users into mobile games on the rare occasion, we might keep this functionality, but if people start abusing it like you mention, we'll happily tweak the system to function as you suggest. This is the reason that we would like to run tests on the SkyWars Experimental mode first.


This is something that worries me a lot, because we've always been very good at having snappy queue times. Now there is no doubt that Queue times will get longer, but it will be interesting to see by how much. I've been thinking about this over the past few days, and I think what's most likely to happen is a smart queue time system. It'd be a fairly complicated bit of logic, that basically analyses the number of people joining each of the queues. If the number of people joining EggWars Solo drops below a certain rate, it would start batching together Console and Win 10 users to bring the rate of connections back to rate which allows for games to start quickly again.
In a nutshell, sometimes this system may be active, sometimes it may not be, but the systems state will always being reviewed by some application, as so that queue times always remain short. What this would actually mean is that we can implement it on all the games, however since they won't always have the player count to support always running separate games per platform, it would be disabled for a lot of the day.


Currently I think leaderboards and stats are more broken with the existing system. I can go round most games of SkyWars and get 5+ kills and win 40%+ of the time. This is because so many of my games have players on devices which are unable to compete with mouse and keyboard. Even though mobile games with the new system may be slower, I believe they'll still obtain more wins over time due to fights they get into will be more fair. This would also give players using Windows more of a challenge in their regular games too.

alright this is basically perfect then

 

[Modulo]

This is something that we're also able to do.

Imagine that I quoted the entire response

It is reassuring - not just to myself, but to all players - that the teams working on these features have these issues in mind and want to make these features as polished and well-oiled as possible. Thank you, genuinely, for that response and providing the community with more insight into what could be one of the most significant changes to the Bedrock server.

 

[ryandalion7337]

Time to only play with my mobile friends

Agreed

 

[Dragonlord76767]

I more want it to stop mobile players killarauraing me when I have them backed into a corner than to let them play each other. Mobile players defeat the purpose of strafing. I think that there should still be an unsegregated version of each game, in case wait times are long.