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So PGI has now rearranged the priorities of the matchmaker by moving gamemode selection into a secondary consideration. Matchmaker 3.1 will now roll a virtual die weighted by the mode preference of the players involved. It might pick your preference; there's a 1/24 chance, assuming each player votes for only one mode).
Just as an FYI, PGI did not just force this issue upon us. Russ asked the community and we voted in favor of it. If you didn't see the poll, you missed the boat and should probably be more involved with the community than you are. You have no excuse now that PGI is polling the community for so many decisions. This is your game; decide its course.
The reason that Russ offered us this option is because it might narrow the ELO gaps between opposing sides in matches. MM3.1 has to weigh a whole bunch of factors - ELO, gamemode, weight class, wait queues - in a small player base, and the result is that there must be tradeoffs. It was theorized by PGI that moving gamemode selection aside might result in more even matches. So there was solid reasoning here.
Now that I'm done defending PGI...
What we're likely to see instead is very little change at all.
ELO is a scapegoat. It is the most obvious and the most understandable scapegoat to pick when you're frustrated over getting rolled 12-2 over and over (even though most matches I see feature 12-5 at worst these days). But I'm willing to bet that it has very little to do with stomps. (And when you view the matter in light of the ultimate test of popular opinion - volume of forum griping - it's pretty clear that things have been better since July. The volume of skewed match screenshots is waaaaaay down.)
MechWarrior is a beast that has a nature. Its nature is stomps. We are piloting slow, large targets through wide-open spaces against 12 enemy mechs. Mistakes are unforgiving. Once two mechs on your side are down, the enemy has fewer targets to worry about, and its fire focusing becomes more efficient. Therefore, a "snowball effect" is created that simply doesn't exist in games like competitive Counter-Strike. 12vs12 games with game dynamics like MWO's invariably tend towards stomps, and creating the conditions for an "even" game are very difficult and usually artificial.
Additionally, the matchmaker's inability to match by weapons loadout ensures all kinds of wonky outcomes. The solo queue might toss five LRM boaters onto the same team on Caustic - watch them rain death and destruction. Or it might toss three DDCs onto the same team on River City - good luck targeting anyone. Or perhaps a team somehow winds up with four dual gauss boaters from various chassis - disproportionate amount of one-shot deaths. There's no way to control this, and not even tonnage matching could do so. And so the defending team may not have (statistically, probably WON'T have) the right equipment, cover, or temperament to handle whatever loadout bias the matchmaker has handed it. And since players are no longer assured of getting the mode they've optimized their mech for, it's frankly easy to see stomps staying right where they are.
With this gamemode change, what we're likely to see is stomps continue at nearly their present rate. Karl has already told us that ELO gaps had narrowed by like 40% since the last round of MM tweaks. I truly believe that ELO matches could be PERFECTLY even and stomps would still occur on a regular basis, simply because there are so many other forces driving them. So the change, I'm betting, will result in more even data but less visible results, all the while pissing off players who enjoyed their freedom to pick the game mode.
I realize that we voted in favor of it. However, I still believe in the vocal minority - the dynamic that the most frequent forum voters are likely to be the dissatisfied and those jonesing for a change. I also fear that the poll contains an inherent bias towards Skirmish players, who are likely to be satisfied with the sacrifice of gamemode preference since their Skirmish will tend to be most heavily weighted anyway.
My opinion: I don't like this change. In order to benefit the game, the gamemode tweak needs to bring back at least as many people as it drives away, and that's a big gamble for the above reasons. It also trods on a fundamental gamer freedom. While it's imperative that we remember that this change will not PROHIBIT Conquest or Assault, I think it's safe to say that we'll see it considerably less. Finally, it takes an option that was basically already available to the players (picking "Any" for your gamemode) and forces it on everyone.
Over the next few weeks, we as a community need to be greedy for two things: the ELO data from the matchmaker change and the feeling of whether stomps have been reduced. And if the ELO data improves significantly while the feeling of even play does not, then we've proven something: that stomps are being generated by things other than ELO.
And I hope that should this change prove to drive more people off than it brings back (how many people really left over frequent stomps?), I hope that PGI will be willing to reverse the change despite the results of the poll (maybe have a followup poll). Or, potentially, just remove it from solo queue, since the intended target of this feature seems to have been the group queue.
Edited by Rebas Kradd, 07 October 2014 - 02:23 PM.
