152 replies to this topic

[wwiiogre]

As it says,

50+ drops and now almost 95% roflstomps.

We keep getting promised that matchmaker will get fixed. I sat thru a ngng podcast where one of the PGI staff stated on Feb 4th there would be major improvement.

I am sorely disappointed at this moment.

Not only is there no matchmaker whatsoever. It matches nothing but win/loss. Meaning one side or the other is gonna win by a huge margin.

I want to know when we will have a real Matchmaker?

WHEN!

This elo is the worst matchmaker ever in a FPS or Simulation.

It does not match tonnage in a game where heavier tonnage means more firepower and armor. Which means EPIC FAIL on the easiest thing to get right in a game like this.

It does not match cbill value of equipment. The higher the cost, the better the equipment. Once again, another easy thing to match.

It does not match modules, once again a cbill value is an easy way to figure out what is about the same balance wise.

It does not match premade drop groups. 3 4mans on one side, all solo pugs on the other. What could possibly go wrong? Once again an easy thing to code for a matchmaker.

It does not match experience, as measured in total drops. It routinely puts premade 4mans, teams with more than a 300 ton advantage against new players in trial mechs or in their first mech before it is upgraded.

In other words it is not a matchmaker at all!

PGI YOU GET AN F-

HOW CAN I SAY THIS POLITELY?

I CAN'T, PGI, YOU HAVE THE WORST MATCHMAKER IN HISTORY!

YOU HAVE KNOWN ABOUT IF FOR MOST OF A YEAR. YET YOU STILL KEEP ALLOWING TOTAL ROFLSTOMPS.

WHY?

IS WIN/LOSS SELF ESTEEM FOR PLAYERS MORE IMPORTANT THAN BALANCE?

I personally invested more money in this game than 12 other premium games on the market. Those games all came with what they promised and were complete games in their own right. Some of them were game of the year or collectors editions and came with tons of extra stuff. Not one of them did I have to spend more money on, to get what was promised on the cover. They all came complete.

So, why, with the easiest thing to program, a matchmaker that uses, tonnage, value of mech/equipment/modules, pilot experience (total number of drops), Number of premade 4/3 man teams on a side; do we still have a matchmaker that gives one side almost 500 more tons, almost all upgraded mechs, with 10,000 drops between them, and 2-3 4man groups pitted against 12 solo pugs, with 4 new players?

Not only have I had the above drop once, I have had it almost every day since Tuesday. The only thing different is total tonnage advantage. Sometimes its only 300-400 tons. Like earlier today, where we had 4 lights, 3 mediums, 1 heavy and 4 assaults vs 8 assaults, 3 heavies and one light. Not bad, oh they had 2 4mans, we had none, oh we had 4 new players in trial mechs and two on their first drop. They had no new players.

Guess the final score. We had 8 players with less than 150 damage and 4 with less than 50.

And that game is not unique.

I am not complaining about the loss. I still have near a 2 to 1 win/loss but only because I drop in 4mans. And win 80-90% of those. We drop in all Assaults or Hvy/Assault lance and then play Assault mode and completely roflstomp the other side. Which is just as bad as getting roflstomp'd.

PGI, do you really want to do Battletech justice? Now that CW has once again been moved out almost a year away. What do we have to look forward to? Oh yeah another huge profit win for PGI, with clan mech sales. Game Balance? Why bother, we can make shiny new mechs and make money. CW, why bother, we can make shiny new mechs and make money. Balanced matchmaker that gives both sides in a drop a chance to win, with only skill, communication and teamwork the difference in deciding who wins. Not a completely loaded game, where one side has no chance to win, or almost no chance.

It is a very sad day. I have had faith this entire time that you would do this game/lore justice. Instead, you take the easy way out. Matchmaker is working as intended. Elo has been adjusted. In reality, only win/loss matters. You are not even trying to make the game challenging.

Chris

[Sandpit]

soon

April 15th that's when. It's been well documented and stated several times. Maybe you should have read it? This has been well known and discussed for about a month now.

Sooooooooooooooo

Why couldn't this be posted in feedback or in one of the other dozen or so "MM I hate you PGI" threads?

[Dymlos2003]

So you lost?

[Sandpit]

Dymlos2003, on 07 February 2014 - 04:31 PM, said:

So you lost?

lost what?

[Mudhutwarrior]

Thanks Chris. Both pugs and honest players know the score. The propagandists do to but they will do anything to deny consensus. Working overtime these days too.

I want a good fight, slaughter on either side of the equation is not a good fight. Sure you will always have stomps but doing something to lower the percentage will increase the quality of matches not reduce it. For everyone but those intending to stomps and who cares about such low life's?

[wanderer]

I felt horrible- as I've been tracking my games. For me, "stomp" is "One side wins by 12-4 or better". Age-old "keep a pad of paper, mark results" sorta thing.

It's gotten to the point where the past few days, roughly 75% of my games, wins or losses were stomps by that definition.
Last 33 games (which would be a full post-it-note of data), 24 were stomps, three were within two (12-10 or 12-11), two were wins on caps/points (one of which was during an NGNG podcasted match, how the HECK did someone like me fall into that ELO range), four were in the 12-5 to 12-9 range. That included a perfect 12-0 win and a 12-0 loss.

I didn't even try to track tonnage. It's not being balanced for at this point.

The heck?

[Bhael Fire]

Yeah, since the Feb. 4th patch my matches are back into the "LOLWTF" category of balance.

Had a good two months or so of decent, balanced matches (i.e. consistently 12-6+). Oh well.

I've mentioned it in the past, but it seems like it goes in patterns of being balanced for 1-2 months then broken for 1-2 months.

[Sandpit]

See I'm just the opposite. I've had much closer matches since the adjustment. Less stomps and more matches won or lost with only 2-3 total mechs remaining.

[KharnZor]

Sandpit, on 07 February 2014 - 05:40 PM, said:

See I'm just the opposite. I've had much closer matches since the adjustment. Less stomps and more matches won or lost with only 2-3 total mechs remaining.

Same here.

[Snowhawk]

I'm also disappointed and in the moment I make a break with Mwo. I mean worst matchmaker and worst UI.... that's enough for me, no thx Pgi....

[East Indy]

From post-demise spectating, I'd say it's an influx of less experienced players; the team with the most, or the more maneuvering the team into a kill-zone, collapses.

[GeneralGrievous]

Matchmaker in this game completely sucks.

[NextGame]

If you want to prevent stomps, without making any personal effort to up your own game (because the whiners don't, they seem to want free wins, for no effort), you have to change how the entire game works without alienating players who actually generally understand how to play.

How would you achieve this?

Discuss.

[MadCat02]

How do you expect PGI account for the "human factor"

You never know when someone is trying to master a new mech or trying a new build .

Sometimes rouflstomp means that you played bad .

[wwiiogre]

I define a stomp as winning by a 50% margin. Meaning if your side won and has at least 6 mechs still working that is a stomp, winning by more than 6 mechs is a roflstomp. Of all the games I have played since ELO was first added I am still over a 2/1 win loss and same for k/d.

And winning or losing in a stomp or roflstomp is quite boring. I can literally figure out a score of a game by looking at the team I dropped with. I can also figure out the score of a game when I drop with a 4man. The only close games I have been involved in since the 4th are when we dropped all assaults in a 4man and picked any. Meaning we were in Assault and Conquest.

Now if you have not been dropping completely solo in light and medium mechs, then this post is not for you. If you are 4man dropping and dropping in cheese build heavy/assault mechs then yeah elo is working fine for you, you should be winning 80% or more of your matches. At least that is what I am able to do even in 4mans with people I have never played with before, we win most of our matches. On the other hand they are total stomps. Meaning, not a good game for either side.

I am completely aware that PGI knows this is a problem, they have known about it since they forced it upon us. And once again they have posted they are happy with this, working as intended, nothing to see here and move along. Which once again I point out that what elo really means is a straight, loaded game matchmaker. If you drop solo, and have a winning percentage above 50% then the matchmaker will stack the deck in matches. Where you will literally see the 300-500 ton matches, 2-3 4mans on oneside, none on the other and one side filled with a few good experienced players and the rest almost total noobs in either trial mechs (not as bad as they used to be) but like giving a Ferrari to a 5 year old. And people in their very first mech with no upgrades. So I say again, not a matchmaker, a self esteem builder designed to force all players into the bell curve of mediocrity and a forced win/loss near the median.

I bought legendary Founders, Overlord Phoenix, Sabre, Ember, and a load of MC. I have been playing since around second invites into closed beta. I have done my best to post constructive forum posts. I have repeatedly posted on this subject. I have sent pm's to PGI people. So far the only thing I have seen is more of the same. I have heard a few PGI people state that there would be an update on Feb 4th. There was, they readjusted elo's in other words, the high and low elo's were once again put at median. So the matchmaker could no longer tell anyone apart and a new player in a crap mech had the same score as a veteran player in his cheese build poptarting assault.

Like I said, PGI's stance as judged by its actions is a total fail. They want matchmaker to be this way. It is social engineering for self esteem building. Meaning, even total crap players will eventually have near a 50% win/loss ratio because the matchmaker will stack games so even they get easy wins.

How do you fix this pile of steaming manure that is PGI's matchmaker. You toss it and have three drop ques, one for new players with less than 100 drops, you have a solo drop que and you have a group drop que. You also have the choice of any. Meaning you don't care if you drop solo as a new player into any drop que, etc.

That alone allows a player to choose whether to drop with the premades or not. That will end most of the roflstomps caused by premades. With totally new players in their own que, you end up with a basic place for them to earn their chops against players near their same experience level.

In the group drop que, you have multiple ways to group 12 players. 3x4, 4x3, 2x6, and every combination. You also have solo players that can que up to drop into the group que. Meaning if they want the challenge and the punishment of knowingly facing the hardest game possible, they can then drop into those games. As a solo player more than half the time I would choose this on purpose. But I would also know I would not get stuck on a side with new players and no groups. Only allowing one side in the group que to have upto 4 solo players but not more than 2 more solo players than the other side. This game would be fun and challenging. With the caveat of if a new player chose to drop solo into the group que, each side would get the same number of new players. Sounds complex for code, not really. But only PGI knows the amount and type of players dropping on a regular basis, so without that data I can only conjecture that this is even possible.

Now as for tonnage. We should at least go back to drop by matching class. Lights, Mediums, Heavies and Assaults should match on each side. So if one side has 4 assaults, the other side has 4 assaults. Same for lights, mediums and heavies. Once again we now go back to the original promise PGI made us for role warfare. Remember that concept, where each class would have its own role on the battlefield. Impossible to implement without at least matching tonnage class in the matchmaker. So once again an epic fail on PGI's side and done intentionally. I would settle for this but in reality I want this plus making sure each 12 man is within less than a total of 95 tons. So matching class but overall tonnage difference of less than 100 tons or no team has more than a single Atlas advantage in tonnage.

The same should be done for modules because one side having an overall edge in modules including consumables is devastating on the battlefield. A module is a force magnifier. It is also a good way to tell which side is more experienced, because they have had enough time to build up 100's of millions of cbills to afford all the gxp and cbills to buy modules and upgraded modules.

Same should be done for upgrades. A value should be assigned for double heat sinks, artemis, FF, endo, XL, each upgraded weapon, etc. A balance should be found between each side. Call it BV, whatever, currently it is not part of matchmaker, neither is tonnage, neither is expereince, etc, in other words no matchmaker at all. And an elo system based on win/loss manipulated by an elo system designed to force your win/loss record to 50% is no system at all and is a failed logic loop.

So all I want is a real matchmaker for many reasons. But mainly because I want close battles that pit against other players that have about the same equipment, about the same mech, about the same number of drops and the only difference between us is our personal skill and our ability to work with our team to pull off a win. I do not want to be in a drop where I know for a fact, the deck has been stacked for one side or another to allow a cosmic win/loss bell curve to stay near the median so some Canadians can feel better about themselves cause they have kept some people from getting to many wins and some others from getting to many losses.

This is a military simulation, which means you die, alot, even in wins. Trying to make some players feel better by manipulating their win/loss at the expense of the simulation is a joke. Yeah I know battle is never fair, and sometimes you are placed into a position of a no win. But that should not be the majority of the time. That should be the exception not the rule.

Currently roflstomps are the rule. A close game is the exception. So exceptional that I have had less than 5 percent as close games. With one side winning by less than two mechs. In other words coming down to either a 2 vs 1 at the end or a 1 vs 1 at the end. And I do not count cap wins or conquest wins by points. Because those game modes on large maps can be won by a much lighter side. Although it appears with the new starting points and the moved cap points in conquest, that PGI has intentionally manipulated the maps so Assault and Heavy mechs now can actually win even on the largest the maps even on conquest.

Alpine is a good example with three conquest points now right in the middle of the map so a blob of assaults can move to the middle and dominate all three points and win the match after only moving 3-4 grids for the entire game on a huge map. A joke and intentionally manipulated for heavy/assault warrior online. Very sad day for role warfare.

Chris

[Bromineberry]

I see a lot more stomps going on since the UI2.0 patch. Why? I don't know. Hopefully, it's just a surge of new players because of the UI 2.0 promotions.

[Lootee]

Yet you all continue to give them your financial support.

Do you really expect them to change their ways when you reward them for taking a giant dump on your head every other week?

[Sandpit]

MW2 AniHilAtor, on 08 February 2014 - 08:14 AM, said:

After the last patch MWO is unplayable! The matchmaker is so wrong nowadays that I literally thinking about uninstalling the game. There is always some kind of gangbang with 12-0 12-3 end results. Ridiculous!

If it were unplayable you wouldn't be posting match results

[Sandpit]

I'll go ahead and paste this in this thread as well as the other "MM sucks" threads I'm posting in

that 96%? They aren't experiencing stomps as often as the 2-4% in the extremes. So when you come up with an idea other than "MM sucks, PGI sucks, I'm uninstalling" that helps mitigate those stomps for the 4% that doesn't throw everythign out of whack for the 96% that AREN'T experiencing that, we might have something to talk about.

Meanwhile "PGI sucks, fix this!" and "Arggghhh I'm uninstalling because every game I play (which is a flat out lie) is a stomp!" does nothing to help figure out how to improve anything.


P.S.
There's no arguing against the bell curve figure I posted. It's a factual statistical truth. There's always that 2-4% at extremes (which is incidentally where we get the whole "There's always an exception to the rule") so please don't bother with the "Well that doesn't apply here because (insert reason why here)" MWO doesn't somehow magically bypass how statistics work.

So again, if you can come up with ideas on how to mitigate that 2-4% without screwing it up for the other 96% then lets hear it.

[MadcatX]

Sandpit, on 08 February 2014 - 01:48 PM, said:

P.S.
There's no arguing against the bell curve figure I posted. It's a factual statistical truth. There's always that 2-4% at extremes (which is incidentally where we get the whole "There's always an exception to the rule") so please don't bother with the "Well that doesn't apply here because (insert reason why here)" MWO doesn't somehow magically bypass how statistics work.

So again, if you can come up with ideas on how to mitigate that 2-4% without screwing it up for the other 96% then lets hear it.

It definitely applies here. the only problem is that the standard deviation in the curve are a bit off.