112 replies to this topic

[Bushrat]

Dear PGI,

Ever been waiting in plane on the tarmac for a long time and nobody is telling what the delay is? Or been waiting in the same situation and the pilot comes on and tells you that you are 20th in line for take of and it will take a while to get to the runway. The difference in the feeling of the passengers int eh first scenario and second scenario are totally different. The main difference ins communications. The first group has no idea why they are delayed and are getting frustrated, the second group know and understand whats going on and are contented to know there is nothing that can be done, so resign themselves to wait patiently.

so.......

Please pull back the curtain on Match-Maker and ELO. I think it would help us understand exactly what effects our matchmaking results when we are dropped into a group. There seems to be a lot of confusion on the subject. I have read all that I can on the topic and still do not know how it all works. Now I understand once you tell people then you may be opening up yourselves to have players manipulate their stats to get better matches but I think those are the tiny minority of players. transparency on this subject will help many players understand why they get on these losing streaks, or why the matches seem so unbalanced sometimes. I know making every match fair is nearly impossible, but the majority of matches should be able to be, especially given the fact that 84% of players are solo droppers.

I must qualify these statements by saying that for the most part i think the system works pretty well, but sometimes you just can't figure out what the heck happened or why sooooo many loses in a row. Also I think MM will become less relevant when CW comes into play and we will have many more private matches.

Somebody should explain how all of it works so we can understand whats happening.

[Duncan Aravain]

Good luck in your attempt at tilting with windmills..............................

[meteorol]

Do i really want a dev post that explains how everything works with MM and elo down to last the decimal place? I don't know.
The forum will be flooded with countless threads of guys telling us how much the system sucks and what is the one and only correct way to do it.
We'll have polls with 13 votes, and following those, we will get threads "PGI, you are ignoring the majority of your community".

The difference between this forum and waiting on a plane is that plane passengers usually don't bang on the cockpit door shouting, telling the pilot how to fly a plane, AND operate an airport while having zero experience with both.

[Craig Steele]

meteorol, on 26 February 2014 - 02:49 AM, said:

Do i really want a dev post that explains how everything works with MM and elo down to last the decimal place? I don't know.
The forum will be flooded with countless threads of guys telling us how much the system sucks and what is the one and only correct way to do it.
We'll have polls with 13 votes, and following those, we will get threads "PGI, you are ignoring the majority of your community".

The difference between this forum and waiting on a plane is that plane passengers usually don't bang on the cockpit door shouting, telling the pilot how to fly a plane, AND operate an airport while having zero experience with both.

The OP was hardly banging on the door and berating the pilot, he was just asking for more information.

And honestly the whole "there will just be threads arguing over any details" argument is exactly the same as "we have so many threads now becuase we have no detail"

Point is someone is always going to be expressing a view, thats what forums are for (in part).

But unless its commercially sensitve or a national secret, should there be an issue with players have more information about how the game works?

[Blood Rose]

I agree with the OP. We do need this information. I for one wish to know my rating.

[Joseph Mallan]

There is a difference between wanting the info and needing it. We have no need for the info except ego stroking, and hazing.

[Zolaz]

You know who doesnt want to know their stats? Bad pilots.

[Craig Steele]

Blood Rose, on 26 February 2014 - 03:07 AM, said:

I agree with the OP. We do need this information. I for one wish to know my rating.

He wasn't asking for his ELO, he was asking for more detail on how MM works?

[Joseph Mallan]

Zolaz, on 26 February 2014 - 03:37 AM, said:

You know who doesnt want to know their stats? Bad pilots.

I'm not bad, I'm Average. And that is the start of the hazing I mentioned. Going to show us your epeen now?

[CheeseThief]

I'd rather ELO and skill ratings are kept hidden.

I don't want another repeat of World of Tanks with people bailing on the match before it begins because their team is full of tomatoes..

[Willard Phule]

I really don't want to know what my Elo is....

But, I'd kind of like to know how the matchmaker works...other than what I already know.

Scratch that. I'd much rather have a developer admit publicly that the matchmaker is, in fact, borked and explain why they like it that way.

Yes, yes, before Sandpit beats me over the head with his soapbox..."my experience is my own and not everyone is experiencing the same thing." Got it.

[SI The Joker]

Zolaz, on 26 February 2014 - 03:37 AM, said:

You know who doesnt want to know their stats? Bad pilots.

Comical. The stat that actually matters is already displayed. That's accuracy.

Your e-peen KDR means squat. Your w/l record means squat.

If you want to measure how effective YOU truly are in battle... the stats are there for you already; Your accuracy using your weapons of choice.

If you rely on KDR or W/L record in this game as an indicator to show how 'elite' you are... Well...

PS: No to show ELO. We can chant it!

No to show ELO! No to show ELO!

Edited by SI The Joker, 26 February 2014 - 05:59 AM.

[Grommen]

Zolaz, on 26 February 2014 - 03:37 AM, said:

You know who doesnt want to know their stats? Bad pilots.

Nope. I suck and I know it. And I would like to know my scores and how a match is made so I can help explain to them, that they keep thinking I'm good and tossing me on a team with even worse players.

[Shlkt]

Personally I'd love to know the difference between my light vs. medium vs. heavy vs. assault Elo, as well as community averages for those weight classes. I suspect my medium Elo would be lowest.

Getting back on topic...

PGI has already explained in detail how Elo works. They even went to the trouble of investigating a handful of community-provided example games, which were basically steamrolls, to make sure that the MM had balanced teams appropriately in those cases. It had.

• A steamroll does not imply matchmaker failure. Often teams are evenly matched, but poor coordination and random factors cause a lopsided victory regardless.
  
• Winning streaks and losing streaks do not imply matchmaker failure. Play 100 games and you've got a 2.5% chance of seeing a losing streak of at least 10 games in a row. That may not sound like much, but if you multiply it by the number of MWO players... that's a LOT of losing streaks for people to complain about on the forums, even if the MM is working perfectly.
  
• Lack of weight balancing occasionally contributes to imbalanced games. This is a known issue which is low priority because tonnage limits are already in the works.

[Gideon Grey]

I don't think knowing or displaying exact Elo rating would be good. But I'd love to see something along the lines of average/above/below if it was combined with identifying grouped players at the end of a match. That way you'd could see at match end the relative distribution off skill level and team arrangement, and maybe some of the mystery of the stomp streaks could become clearer.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Or we could go with the 3rd reason for knowing this information, which has nothing to do with anyone's personal stats.

That reason is....TADA

"DOES THE MATCHMAKER ACTUALLY WORK PROPERLY?"

Due to PGI blowing any and all faith they may have built up with the community, we all sit there and second guess whether it works. If it does, what's the harm in showing us?

[Joseph Mallan]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 26 February 2014 - 06:10 AM, said:

Or we could go with the 3rd reason for knowing this information, which has nothing to do with anyone's personal stats.

That reason is....TADA

"DOES THE MATCHMAKER ACTUALLY WORK PROPERLY?"

Due to PGI blowing any and all faith they may have built up with the community, we all sit there and second guess whether it works. If it does, what's the harm in showing us?

But not everyone is as altruistic as you sound Nick.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Joseph Mallan, on 26 February 2014 - 06:12 AM, said:

But not everyone is as altruistic as you sound Nick.

D-bags are going to be d-bags.

First things first, if our population is made up of THAT many d-bags, that releasing this information creates all kinds of problems, we are screwed anyway.

Assuming that it isn't that bad, and maybe 10% are d-bags...and of that 5% would use this information for evil...WHO CARES? If it helps 95% of us, it's worth it.

[Joseph Mallan]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 26 February 2014 - 06:15 AM, said:

D-bags are going to be d-bags.

First things first, if our population is made up of THAT many d-bags, that releasing this information creates all kinds of problems, we are screwed anyway.

Assuming that it isn't that bad, and maybe 10% are d-bags...and of that 5% would use this information for evil...WHO CARES? If it helps 95% of us, it's worth it.

Again you are more altruistic than I am I figure about 30% d-Bags

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Joseph Mallan, on 26 February 2014 - 06:19 AM, said:

Again you are more altruistic than I am I figure about 30% d-Bags

You really do not like the community....so you think 30 out of 100 people you run into in this game are d-bags that would abuse knowing whether our matchmaker works?

Geez.