49 replies to this topic

[Zarlaren]

I have trouble enough with a Jenner I refuse to buy anything lighter then 35 tons cause lets face it are new players going to be happy in a locust with only 10 max torso armor facing a atlas with 100+ torso armor I think not it. You might as well take a bb gun and shoot at a steel plate for all the good it will do you all it can carry is machine guns,small lasers,medium lasers or maby a Ac/2. Most of that 20 tons is being eatin up by the engine so to make a locust good you may need to have it 1 armor in all slots and maby you can put a Ac/5 on. But that one armor is going to provide the protection worse then toilet paper to a Atlases Ac/20 round all it takes is one hit and your lights out.

[Roland]

Volthorne, on 18 July 2013 - 10:49 AM, said:

You're looking for a problem to your solution. Forcing bad players/newbies to pilot lighter tonnage 'Mechs is a ******* terrible idea. Not only would it make bad players artificially worse (and good players artifcially better), but then you're locking out a huge portion of the playerbase from a large portion of the game, which is guaranteed to kill it off.

Eh, I don't think this is actually true.
Heavier mechs, especially in the hands of novices, really aren't advantageous. What's worse, they end up being a detriment to their team if they are failing to use that tonnage when the other team has their good pilots using their tonnage.

Ultimately, its a frustrating experience for the entire team when the assault mechs end up getting less than their tonnage in damage done.

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I would rather have a newbie in an Atlas where he/she has SOME chance of contributing than in a Jenner where he/she will probably get fragged instantly upon contact with the opposing team.

I have to say that I feel exactly the opposite.

If the FNG is in an atlas, what will happen? He will be a high value target, and draw a lot of fire. He'll be slow, so he won't really be able to recover from his poor positioning. He won't really know how to manevuer well, since driving slow moving assaults effectively is, in many ways, harder than smaller mechs which handle more like vehicles and characters in other games.

If he's in a light mech, while carrying less armor to be sure, he's also much harder to hit... he's also much less of a priority target. And, assuming he's not some prodigy, he's not really gonna be crushing the enemy and drawing their ire, so he won't really become a high priority target... So, in most cases, his experience is actually going to be better, than if he takes a fatlass.

This is actually one of the issues that we see a lot of new players having... there is some belief that the large mechs are automatically better. In the hands of a skilled pilot, tonnage definitely does have a lot of value. But in the hands of a novice, they really aren't going to get much more out of their mech than they would a light. The advantage of having a ton of armor on an atlas really isn't useful for a player who doesn't understand how to soak damage... because, frankly, I can kill a poorly driven atlas incredibly fast. I'll have no trouble dumping everything directly onto a single panel. He won't live long, despite his weight.

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Also, there are some players who are absolute garbage in Lights (I personally can't really pilot anything lighter than 40 tons), but wreck face in Heavies/Assaults. What do you say to them?

Honestly, a good pilot can pilot anything.
There are a lot more folks who THINK that they wreck faces in assaults, than there actually are pilots who do. The assault class probably has more poor pilots than any other, just because it seems to attract them like a magnet.

Now, a lot of the very best players also drive assaults regularly, because they know that it'll give them the best chance of being able to carry their team when pugging.. but there are tons of assault pilots who consistently can't even do more damage than their mech's weight, and really they are hurting their team and themselves by continually wasting their teams' tonnage.

[LordSkippy]

Roland, on 18 July 2013 - 11:18 AM, said:

In the light mech, he's unlikely to be the prime target... folks won't focus fire on his virtually stationary mech. Thus, he will likely survive longer, and have more fun.

Half the drops with PUGs turn into chase the rabbit. A new player in 12-mans may be better off in a light, where they are going up against, usually, better disciplined adversaries. However, most new players go up against PUGs, were they get targeted by half the red team because they are a light. Having a newbie in an Atlas is kind of a waste of the tonnage too, but forcing them into lights isn't the answer.

Which brings me to my main point about why forcing "skill ranks" into certain classes is a Bad Idea^tm. Different players are better at different weight brackets, and those weight brackets may not match the light/medium/heavy/assault brackets 'Mechs are classified in. This includes new players! Some new players will do better in lights, yes. However, other new players will do better in medium and heavies. Also, there are some new players that will do better in an Atlas. Forcing them into a single weight class is not doing you or the rest of the PUG any favors.

New players need to be able to sample different weight classes of 'Mechs, to find their sweet spot.

This is a solution looking for a problem, and not a solution to an existing problem! You want to remove the possibility of having a bad PUG drop with a bad Atlas pilot? Join a team and do 12-mans. Heck, start a team, implement this solution within the team rules, and I wish you all the bests.

Edited by LordSkippy, 10 January 2014 - 07:02 AM.

[Broad5ide]

People should be able to pilot whatever they want. Denying them that right because one player is better than another is just moronic. It's effectively the same as saying that new players should have tonnage priority because an expert can do more with less.

[rolly]

I'm heartily against this.

What it will create are complete jerks reaping the newbies running around in Locusts while they feed their own K/D ratio. Prioritizing weight chassis will basically increase the denial of new players experiencing the different roles and weight classes. Which in turn will just have the D/C upon drop or run in and die play style.

Sorry but its anathema to any sort of community, and continues to embrace the "me before you" culture.

[Prezimonto]

I wouldn't want a system that shuts players out of trying large weight classes, but if you combine rankings based on skill along with some time in game along with tonnage you would arrive at a system I'd be comfortable implementing.

Take New Guy 01: he starts as an E1 ranked player most matches he's going to be with people of more rank than himself, those players will get to choose mechs first in matching (after the pre-mades slot in with fixed amount of tonnage) what's left for him should always be enough to take the medium trial mech of the week.

The higher ranked pug players will always have a random roll so one of them randomly gets last choice (and consequently likely gets the smallest tonnage mech). The "winners" won't get choice based purely on rank, but will get a weighted roll for pick order. This weights it so that players who are lower ranks get options to play bigger mechs, but not all the time and conversely, a higher ranked player is stuffed into the smallest mech on most matches as well.

Over time NewGuy01's rank will improve based on both time in game and skill.. .skill will drive his rank up most quickly, but so will access to new mechs... the wider variety of tonnage he personally has available the higher his rank will go as well and as cbills are a function of time (or great money spent) I'm okay with that.

This then enforces that new players will likely be dropping in medium mechs. As they purchase new mechs their rank goes up and it become more likely that they'll get a roll for an earlier pick.

Broad5ide, on 10 January 2014 - 07:09 AM, said:

People should be able to pilot whatever they want. Denying them that right because one player is better than another is just moronic. It's effectively the same as saying that new players should have tonnage priority because an expert can do more with less.

And how do you envision weight limits are going to work if everyone takes whatever mech they want? There can and should be some system for choice in matches with weight limits. I think pre-mades should be forced to conform to a proportional amount of total tonnage (rounded down) internally. After that there will be only so much tonnage left for PUG players... how do they choose? Who picks first? Does the guy who loads last get screwed every match for a slow computer?

Edited by Prezimonto, 10 January 2014 - 08:17 AM.

[LordSkippy]

Prezimonto, on 10 January 2014 - 08:13 AM, said:

And how do you envision weight limits are going to work if everyone takes whatever mech they want? There can and should be some system for choice in matches with weight limits. I think pre-mades should be forced to conform to a proportional amount of total tonnage (rounded down) internally. After that there will be only so much tonnage left for PUG players... how do they choose? Who picks first? Does the guy who loads last get screwed every match for a slow computer?

That all depends on how the launcher works when tonnage limits are introduced. For 12-mans, the answer is simple, because all 12 players are communicating in some fashion and can work out who takes what to get under the limit. For less than 12-mans, PUGs have to be taken into account, and how they are taken into account really is up to the UI and logic behind the launcher.

For pure PUGs, the weight limit can be transparent. You could just pick the 'Mech you want and drop without worrying about the team's weight limit. The launcher could then take care of matching players based on Elo and tonnage. The end result would probably be that light pilots dropping in PUGs would find matches much more quickly than assault pilots, as lights are much easier to fill the empty slots and stay within tonnage. However, everyone dropping in that PUG didn't care about weight limits, other than maybe being concerned with looking for match time.

For 2 to 11 man pre-mades, things get more complicated. You need to keep within the tonnage limits and keep the pre-made in the same team. The larger the pre-made group the more likely the launch will not be able to find a light to plug the gap, if the pre-made is heavy tonnage-wise. The launcher could do some fancy math work and suggest/limit the tonnage of the pre-made based on group size and the ratio of group size to the tonnage limit, taking into account standard deviation per player. In other words, the launcher will let a 4-man group have access to more tonnage per player than an 8-man group.

Or the launcher could just say the heck with it, let a 10-man use up 895 tons of a 900 ton drop limit and just live with them timing out looking for matches until they get smart and adjust their drop weight on their own.

[Prezimonto]

So your answer is essentially put people into a forever loop of waiting, instead of some sort of guided picking? I'd much rather queue up my up to 8 mechs and then drop... perhaps even have the pug queue require you to fill in up to 8 mechs as no more than 3 of any weight class (so everyone has some kind of varied tonnage)... then fill in the pre-mades who much make tonnage limit before joining... subtract thier tonnage from total... remaining tonnage is available for the pug lone wolves.

This is about how I thought they had described the system they were working on. The question, to me, then becomes... as you say do you just let the match maker fill in lone wolves of appropriate tonnage and ELO... or do you match the players based on ELO and then give them bids or tickets or ranks or some kind of system to determine who can use up larger chunks of the tonnage? I can say that I strongly believe that PGI will keep the ELO matching of players and let them sort out tonnage limits within the match because it will require less software engineering on their end. For good or ill, I strongly suspect that they'll just add a system to allow players some choice for tonnage among their chosen mechs, but not free choice for whatever they want to take.

[Roland]

Again, I really gotta just point out that a ton of new players make the mistake of thinking that assault mechs are flat out "better", and then end up just wasting that tonnage... which leads not only to a bad experience for their teammates, but a bad experience for THEM.

Saying, "people should be able to drive whatever they want!" is kind of pointless... because then it brings up the question of why they want to drive those mechs. A lot of the time, it's due to a misconception of the capabilities and experience of those mechs.

Suggesting that it'll force folks to drive locusts is silly too.. because there are other, GOOD light mechs. There would be nothing that would force players to drive locusts. Honestly, I'd probably set it up to aim new players towards light and medium chassis..

But things like the Atlas champion mech? That was just a terribad idea. Most of the new players driving that mech just got obliterated almost instantly, and did virtually no damage before dying. And some of them end up getting killed by light mechs, and then come on the forums complaining about how light mechs are too strong.. because they had no idea how to pilot their assault mech competently.

All I know is that back in MW4, we didn't put the green pilots in our assault mechs... because not only would they do less damage in those mechs than a better pilot would, but because they would do less damage then they themselves would in smaller mechs....because the smaller mechs were easier to drive.

That's a really key point here... The assault mechs aren't really good "training wheels" mechs. Piloting them competently is harder than some other mech classes.

[LordSkippy]

Prezimonto, on 10 January 2014 - 10:59 AM, said:

So your answer is essentially put people into a forever loop of waiting, instead of some sort of guided picking?

That was my "the heck with it" option. That's not a great option, but a very cheap option programming-wise. And lets face it, it would not be out of character for PGI to pick it as a "phase 1" option.

Prezimonto, on 10 January 2014 - 10:59 AM, said:

I'd much rather queue up my up to 8 mechs and then drop... perhaps even have the pug queue require you to fill in up to 8 mechs as no more than 3 of any weight class (so everyone has some kind of varied tonnage)... then fill in the pre-mades who much make tonnage limit before joining... subtract thier tonnage from total... remaining tonnage is available for the pug lone wolves.

That is much more inline with the initial option I listed for 2 to 11-man teams. The system, based on the number of people in the team, sets a limit on the tonnage for the team, leaving room for PUGs. For instance, if the drop limit was 900 tons, restrict an 11-man team to only select up to 800 tons. Leaving the PUG to bring whatever they want. For a 10-man team, it could restrict them to 750 tons, leaving 150 tons to be filled by PUGs. A 9-man team to 725 tons, all the way down to a 2-man which could be restricts to say 150 tons.

Prezimonto, on 10 January 2014 - 10:59 AM, said:

The question, to me, then becomes... as you say do you just let the match maker fill in lone wolves of appropriate tonnage and ELO... or do you match the players based on ELO and then give them bids or tickets or ranks or some kind of system to determine who can use up larger chunks of the tonnage?

That would seem like a nightmare to me, and completely break the "select your 'Mech and hit Launch" we have now that results in relatively quick match starts. Instead, you hit "Launch" then get stuck with strangers arguing about who gets what 'Mech, because joeblow298 and joeblow892 both only want to take their Victors and there isn't enough tonnage.

Then what happens? You kick one of the joeblows out, wait for a new PUGger, and hope they don't insist on taking their Atlas?

And while all that is happening, two people drop out because they get frustrated or only had ten minutes to begin with. Now you have to wait for two more PUGgers, pick 'Mechs again, and hope there aren't more arguments about who gets to take what.

All the fun of organizing a WoW raid each and every drop! I'm sorry, but that sounds like a fun killer right there.

Plus, it doesn't fit with the Elo system in place, which is segmented on weight class. Your Elo for Assaults is different from your Elo in Mediums. So, if it matches you a group based on your Assault Elo, but you take a Medium, then you're not matched by Elo anymore.

It would require an awful lot of changes to underlying systems.

Compare that to my initial option for 2 to 11-man teams, and I think my option is much better and easier to code. You still have the "select your 'Mech and launch" for the lone wolf and Elo system intact. Only changes are:

• Setting a tonnage limit based on team size
  
• Showing that limit and tonnage of the team in the UI
  
• Restricting the launch button until every one is ready and tonnage limit is met
  
• Error message when everyone is ready, but tonnage is exceeded
  
• Add tonnage limits to matchmaker
  
• Add logic to match different size teams and PUGs into a team under the limit

Given a healthy player pool, there won't be a "forever loop" of waiting.

Edited by LordSkippy, 10 January 2014 - 11:50 AM.

[LordSkippy]

Roland, on 10 January 2014 - 11:09 AM, said:

That's a really key point here... The assault mechs aren't really good "training wheels" mechs. Piloting them competently is harder than some other mech classes.

And your key point fails, because for some new players, the assaults are the best "training wheels". Allowing new players to pick a 'Mech from each weight class as a trial 'Mech actually lets them decide for themselves which weight class fits them better. The only real problems are:

• Getting the message across to new players that bigger isn't always better
  
• Trial 'Mechs don't cycle frequently enough to give a new player a better idea of the flavors within weight classes

Restricting new players to what you think would be the best "training wheels" for them isn't an answer to either of these problems. All it does is force a one-size fits all "training wheels" on new players, where there isn't a one-size fits all.

[Roland]

LordSkippy, on 10 January 2014 - 11:55 AM, said:

And your key point fails, because for some new players, the assaults are the best "training wheels".

No, they really aren't. I can lay out exactly why, if you like.

Assault mechs have dramatically reduced mobility compared to the entities that most new players are used to controlling from other games. This makes them difficult for new players to control in a reasonable fashion. And you can see this if you watch from spectator mode. New players in assault mechs are often fighting against the mech, because the sluggishness of the mech effectively keeps it from doing what they want. Compared to vehicles or avatars in other games, assault mechs are like playing in molasses.

Part of that point also results in the fact that if an assault mech wanders into a bad spot, as new players are prone to do, they can't really recover. They will just die there, because they are extremely easy to hit, and they can't get back to cover.

Additionally, the advantage of having a lot more armor for an assault mech doesn't really benefit a new player. Why? Because they don't know how to soak damage. Since they are huge and slow, all shots are going to just pound though their CT, and kill them while the rest of their mech remains fairly pristine. Hell, you see folks complaining on the forums right now about how they are always killed through their CT alone... because they don't know how to soak damage, and they are playing mechs which are so slow that it's extremely easy for their enemies to hit that one location. If you put those new players into lighter, faster mechs, then even without soaking their sheer mobility will result in them spreading some damage around.

That last point is really one of the biggest ones... Because some folks here seem to be under the mistaken impression that the additional armor of an assault mech is useful to a new player, when it really isn't, because around 90% of that armor is on sections which don't even need to be shot for them to die.

Quote

Restricting new players to what you think would be the best "training wheels" for them isn't an answer to either of these problems. All it does is force a one-size fits all "training wheels" on new players, where there isn't a one-size fits all.

Well, I can drive any class of mech, and I've taught a lot of folks how to drive mechs over the years. And I have a rational explanation for my beliefs, as outlined above.

[LordSkippy]

Roland, on 10 January 2014 - 12:10 PM, said:

Well, I can drive any class of mech, and I've taught a lot of folks how to drive mechs over the years. And I have a rational explanation for my beliefs, as outlined above.

I see an awful lot of qualifying words in your rational explanation^*; "most", "often", "prone", "some", etc.

That alone is a rational explanation of why your idea of the best training wheels for new players doesn't work for all new players.

Again, this is a solution looking for a problem and doesn't actually address the problems of educating a new player on what the best 'Mech for them would be.

Edit:
* - I'm not being sarcastic when I say "your rational explanation." Your explanation of your belief is rational and very well thought out, and a very good reason most new players should avoid assaults.

Edited by LordSkippy, 10 January 2014 - 12:57 PM.

[Prezimonto]

LordSkippy, on 10 January 2014 - 11:45 AM, said:

That would seem like a nightmare to me...

Well what I suggest is that instead of forcing the players to dicker over who gets what tonnage you break them up into choices. It could be random, or weighted based on where you were last match(s) in the "pick" order.. or it could be more sophisticated like the OP wants and include ranks...

The idea being that:
1) The pre-mades fill in with fix amounts
2) The lone wolves get a 10 second period each to pick a mech in turn. The first pick might get 100 tons available.. if he takes it the rest of the tonnage gets divvied up and the next guy down has less to choose from... but if the first guy takes a blackjack... the extra tonnage rolls over and gets split up.
3) If a player doesn't choose within their allotted time they get stuffed at the end of the for another round of choice... if they don't pick within a second round (figuring it'll take some time to load into the lobby and a second chance would be nice) the match maker assigns them a trial mech of appropriate tonnage.

This eliminates the player in-fighting over who picks and if it's random or semi-random who gets first pick your time will come up to choose the big mech... just not every match... or you can organize a group drop and get your group to agree with you.

[Joseph Mallan]

I'm a Lyran, and my daddy's daddy's daddy drove this mech! Bug off.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 11 January 2014 - 10:37 AM.

[Deathsani]

Ranks are for e-peen measuring contests like COD, there will already be ranks for CW (someday). You want to lug your big mech around and nothing else? Be prepared to wait (or should that be weight?).

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Tiered matchmaking is a good idea. I see it happening in one of a few ways:

1 - A team is composed entirely of people from one tier. If insufficient people are present, then it expands the search +/- one tier. This continues until sufficient people are found.

2 - More likely, a pair of opposing teams are generated by drawing one player for each team from the same tier. Players from any tier may be present in any match, but will always be opposed by a player from the same tier.

In both cases, groups will have their own tier level based on the average group elo of the players in the premade, with a slight elo bump for the group as a whole due to the probability of greater coordination and improved comms.

As for tonnage priority, not just no, but heck no. If anything, new players should get tonnage priority, while more experience players should be expected to be able to be flexible. Plus, the lobby system should let teams arrange tonnage expenditures before each match, so it shouldn't require any kind of priority in the first place.

[JeepStuff]

We need new players to stay in the game to grow the game's population. You're only going to get good games -- evenly balanced teams -- if you have a large enough population to support it.

I don't know how to properly balance the teams (if ELO fails), but I do know that it should NOT be accomplished by crippling the "fun factor" for new players. That's poison to the longevity of the game. We need new players to stay.

[Fire and Salt]

If you want to accomplish something like this, you need to frame it as a positive rather than a negative.

Here's an example of what I mean:

A new player can choose 1 out of the 4 trial mech - and there is one in each weight class.

After a player finishes a game in a trial mech, if their damage is 3x their tonnage, they get a message saying:
"Great work in the Jenner, cadet. We were impressed with your performance, so we are issuing you a sensor range module to be used in the Jenner."

It should be a different module depending on the mech.

This would give new players the hint that doing 100 damage in a Jenner is probably better for the team than doing 150 in an atlas.



It wouldn't need to be modules either. There could be a 2nd trial mech in each weight class that is locked until the player has a decent scoring game.

[Kjudoon]

Elo is secret for a reason. By giving deference to higher Elo players over noobs enforces an atmosphere of elitism, shrinks the matchmaker pool and generally makes a hash over what's already a pretty grim system of game balance.

You want a solution, it's already in place: First come, first served.