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So, These Mm Whine Threads...


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#1 Kiiyor

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 10:51 PM

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Well, maybe not science per se...

So, these MM whine threads...

Lately, the hallowed pages of General have been stained with more bile than normal with posts related to the many apparent failures of the matchmaker.

The blame for many a stomp seems to be lain sorely at the feet of our MM... when I think the root cause for most of our humiliating defeats is a snowballing comedy of team errors, rather than the failing of the ELO system specifically.

In my experience, the outcome of a battle is based on a number of factors, which when combined with a large dose of frustration and ignorance add together to create the bitter, defeat flavoured soup we are all served from time to time - who's taste is usually blamed on the waiter delivering the crap to your table, rather than the chumps in the kitchen who all spoiled the broth. [/hilariously bad analogy]

While the MM itself might not be the #1 problem, the whining about it is a very real, and very important issue.

Frustration is never a good thing in video games, especially if you're frustrated at the wrong thing. In a fit of brilliant uncontrollable range, I once threw a computer out the window of a third story building. While it ranks in my top 5 most satisfying things ever, my one source of spider solitaire and minesweeper was gone for bloody weeks. GONE. WEEKS.

All joking aside, I can imagine people leaving the game over this - and the irony is, that the MM probably isn't at fault.

#1 factor in defeat (IMHO):

[anecdotal opinion]

In my experience, the way your team handles first contact is usually the deciding factor in a match - and I treat first contact as the first time your teams exchange fire in the lethal range of weapons. Spraying lasers at 800m usually doesn't count. One team will strip more armour from the enemy than the other, the other team will go defensive, retreat to cover, or charge blindly, and the match result will (usually) be a foregone conclusion before the first kill is even recorded on the board.

In the military, we call this 'winning the firefight', where the force that lays down the most effective and heaviest weight of fire in first contact gains a huge tactical advantage without necessarily even scoring a kill.

[/anecdotal opinion]

Some other factors:

Spoiler


Look at all those reasons!

The thing is, I see people acknowledging stuff like this in the various "MM IS CRAP BECAUSE I DIED" threads, but OMG the whining about the MM only seems to increase in power! IT FEEDS ON OUR HATE!

Kiiyor, why do people still complain so bitterly?

Why? Because all the most likely reasons for defeat are intangible.



You can't see them! In the absence of narrative, the human brain will construct one based on the facts it has available - and the #1 fact seems to be OMG MY TEAM ARE A BUNCH OF COWARDLY NO SKILL **** NOZZLES, when it's secondary at best.

You know what doesn't help?

The EOM screen. Despite having the word 'team' written on the summary screen, the stats are all individual. The only stats for overall team performance are the kill counters! 12-3 = stomp, surely? Maybe. 12-5 = stomp, right? Well, no, it actually may not have been.

So, what can be done to fix this? Refinements to the matchmaker? Maybe. Smaller game sizes? Maybe. A new balance system? Probably.

I propose something a little different though...

...information.

I think the EOM screen should include some overall team figures, and a comparison to global averages. Maybe, if it is possible, some GRAPHS, because I FREAKING LOVE CHARTS. Maybe numbers like overall team damage, average damage per mech etc. or, my favourite, overall team remaining armour and structure - because the winning team may still have been mauled by the losers, or the losers may have been particularly tenacious - and telling a tale of the conditions of both forces is far better than just providing the cold, hard result.

Something like (and don't get too hung up on the format) THIS:

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So, ignoring the fact that this screenshot was a fairly short fight and I couldn't be bothered finding a better one, and that I stretched it out too far to fit everything in, and that the colours and layout should probably be different, you can SEE what happened in the match.

If you can see that your losing team did better than the average defeated collection of strangers, maybe you'll be a little less frustrated. If you can see that your teams were far more eavenly matched than the scoreboard suggested, maybe you'll be a little less inclined to rant on the forums. If you can see that your team managed to take two mechs from the enemy early, yet failed to capitalize on it, maybe you'll be more inclined to exploit an early advantage next time. If you can see that things went VERY downhill because you ignored a push early on, you might be more inclined to support your teammates better next time.

What do you guys think? Am I on to something? Would this appease/not appease you? Do you think it would help? ANSWER ME.

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#2 Mcgral18

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 11:01 PM

It would be nice, but doesn't really solve the issue of new players and veterans playing together, along with considering a Victor and Banshee or Dire Whale equal.

A new player bracket helps that, but playerbase probably can't support that.



You underestimate the whine losing streaks can cause.

#3 TheCharlatan

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 11:06 PM

I want to like this thread multiple times.
However people will still come to vent on the forums. It's only natural. You can't always rationalize everything.

#4 BurninFinger

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 11:08 PM

I agree with almost all of that op ;) What do i think? I think we on the internet son. This is the place fer projecting yer voice, not the place of listening and understanding. But I understand. I'm from the coast and I used to spit in the ocean all the time. ;)

#5 Kiiyor

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 11:11 PM

View PostMcgral18, on 27 July 2015 - 11:01 PM, said:

It would be nice, but doesn't really solve the issue of new players and veterans playing together, along with considering a Victor and Banshee or Dire Whale equal.

A new player bracket helps that, but playerbase probably can't support that.



You underestimate the whine losing streaks can cause.


Oh, I understand it. I have a broken mouse to show for it, and it's also a deciding factor in my purchasing more robust than usual keyboards.

As for the new player bracket, a while ago I rolled some alts - thinking that I would skill up some decent machines to give to friends starting out at the game. There were far more trial mechs in these queues, and I felt like I imagine the pilot of an actual Atlas would feel if let loose in a petting zoo.

It made me see why new players start out at a comparatively high ELO,, probably because the system would be open to abuse from chumps like me...

#6 Bishop Steiner

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 11:40 PM

How it feels when MM jettisons you into Elo Hell
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#7 El Bandito

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Posted 28 July 2015 - 01:16 AM

View PostKiiyor, on 27 July 2015 - 10:51 PM, said:

What do you guys think? Am I on to something? Would this appease/not appease you? Do you think it would help? ANSWER ME.

Posted Image






Instead of answering, I'll just leave a like.

#8 RockmachinE

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Posted 28 July 2015 - 01:22 AM

What people seem to forget most of the time is mech and playstyle bias.

Even if you get completely even teams in terms of skill, certain mech and gameplay combinations will be biased against others. So you might get a team that's biased against another simply based on the loadouts and playstyles of the players, not their skill and ability.

Add to this random factors such as initial contact, positioning, add the overall tactical and situational specifics and luck and you have extremely uncertain outcomes.

What people need to understand is that the game outcome will be fairly random NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO WITH THE MM.

However in the long term things will even out. And here comes player bias, people have a tendency to note really nasty losing streaks more then when things go well, so they will put more emphasis on their losing streaks. Secondly most people rate their own skill and ability higher then it actually is.

To sum it up, its a game with an extremely large amount of factors, which is impossible to balance mechanically via MM, add to that people's tendency to notice failures and bad experiences more then good ones and their tendency to overestimate their own skill and you get this.

Edited by Louis Brofist, 28 July 2015 - 01:26 AM.


#9 Joseph Mallan

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Posted 28 July 2015 - 01:59 AM

View PostMcgral18, on 27 July 2015 - 11:01 PM, said:

It would be nice, but doesn't really solve the issue of new players and veterans playing together, along with considering a Victor and Banshee or Dire Whale equal.

A new player bracket helps that, but playerbase probably can't support that.



You underestimate the whine losing streaks can cause.

Well in most people. I won 1 of 5 (in this case I scored less than 30 points 4 in a row). Realized it was not going to be my night, and checked out. No fussing no Whining. Just mature acceptance.

Oh and yes OP this is a nice addition but the loser will still whine cause HE is not winning like his ego says he should.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 28 July 2015 - 02:00 AM.


#10 Onyxian

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Posted 28 July 2015 - 04:04 AM

I will OFTEN have streak of winning, and losing.

During my bad streaks, I will usually win 3ish outta 20 games, and in many, many of those losses, I will be top damage, or top 3 on my team, while having 6-8 team mates getting 100-150ish damage. I understand damage is not the best metric to measure gameplay, but I don't know what else to use.

If the reasons for losses were as you state, why the streaks? Random variance would mix up the wins and losses, at least somewhat.

The true fault here isn't the MM, though. It's the small playerbase, that forces better players to carry bad players, just to create matches in a reasonable amount of time. If the player base was much larger, the MM would be able to put teams together of much more equal skill.

#11 Lostdragon

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Posted 28 July 2015 - 04:19 AM

I like the idea, I enjoy seeing more performance metrics, however, I doubt it will help the whine or perception of stomps. Most of the people I see bitching about the team not doing well die early and disconnect soon after so they never see the EOM screen. I do this myself, if I'm working on my 2x bonuses to level mechs I'm not going to stick around to see what happens, I'm going to move on to the next mech/match and hope it goes better.

#12 PurpleNinja

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Posted 28 July 2015 - 04:26 AM

TL;DR but the graphs are pretty, nice job.

#13 Shad0wsFury

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Posted 28 July 2015 - 04:52 AM

One thing I'd like to point out that supports everything you're saying, but you seem to have left out: Rewards.

As they are currently, rewards are heavily weighted toward personal performance, with the biggest rewards tending to be for kills and damage done. Few worthwhile rewards are given for teamwork-centered activities like scouting. Worse, because the cbill and exp rewards seem to be most heavily tied to damage and kills, it promotes an attitude of building mechs simply to do as much damage as possible, for as long as possible, and you end up with greedy people running ECM sniper builds who not only don't contribute much to the team (if anything), but then selfishly drag the game out an extra 5 minutes so they can improve their personal stats and get higher personal rewards.

I think PGI is trying to address this the the alluded-to "role warfare" changes, but until they actually make some significant changes, I will remain skeptical.

IMHO, the best rewards should be for doing things like supporting your team, NOT because you did the most damage or got the most final blows in on targets. Hey, maybe give an escalating reward for multiple people shooting at the same target (like a 1x multiplier for every person shooting at a given target, up to 4x or something).

People (especially the type of people who play a game like MWO and NEVER read the forums), are motivated by rewards. Offer them rewards (even small ones) for doing something, and they might actually do it. Offer them a bigger reward for doing something else, and (guess what?) they'll probably go after that bigger reward instead. PGI needs to seriously think about the behavior they are rewarding, and whether or not their choice to reward those actions are contributing to the much bigger overall problems in MWO (like team/faction balance).

#14 Idealsuspect

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Posted 28 July 2015 - 04:54 AM

Interesting but i guess instead a graph about how many armor/structure points remaining, one graph about how many damage your team inflict is more appropriate for know what cause a flawless victory..

I explain ( maybe with lots of engrish )

If you have 2 disco or afk in your team and if ( like most of case like maybe in this game your screen is about ) they are killed after main battle well your graph will show that your team keep his structure and armor point even you are down from 4 mech now ( 2 dead 2 afk when other team have maybe 4 mechs hurt but still 12 gunners online when you have only 8 remaining )....
Same for cappers who doesn't while capping.
Same for people who hide behing team ( most of time because they are lost or think its best way to play for them and team ) and really fight when they havent a teamate in front of them targeted by ennemy before he was.

Ok he keep armor or structure point but he is still a dead weight who doesnt contributing for his team


I mean look your graph: ( maybe less engrish and more understandable )
Before middle of match RED team was down from 6 mechs ( maybe the afker not or yes ^^ i bet he wasnt at this point ) and Blu team was down from 2 mechs AND at same time boths team get almost same amount of structure and armor point. But Reds stil have 10 mechs fighting, ecming, flanking, lrming when Blues only have 6 mechs remaining 5 if you count the AFKer full armor guy ...
At middle of time when looking graph match seem equal but in fact it's already 10 vs 5 ...
But RED teamates did good damage also this match was equal.


Also this graph is pretty and should be interesting but in fact don't reflect the reality in battlefield.
Damage count more than structure and armor point remaining ( even both count of course ).

#15 Nothing Whatsoever

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Posted 28 July 2015 - 06:56 AM

This would be awesome.

And sure, players would still complain from losing (that's normal right? I know I don't like losing), but if we had more info like this, then we could at least have more opportunities to provide actionable advice that maybe the complaining player didn't think of or mention; that then said players can then practice in matches to improve their performance quicker with such feedback; if they are seeking for help in the process of complaining (isn't it sorta a cry for help, if its from a legit newer player?).

The thing I commonly see is if there is a legit newer player complaining about something where they don't know how the game works yet, they are often met heavy doses of snark, l2p and other such unhelpful commentary if they post outside of the New Player area. Obviously, some are simply trolling with new accounts, but the fact that some still feel the need to comment, without providing something constructive, doesn't help either.




And I too feel revamping rewards would be a good change to go along with increased info.

Decreasing rewards for Kills and damage, and increasing and adding different types of rewards would certainly help too, because that is in-game dynamic feedback that players should be able to notice during a match as they pop up, and then how the rewards accrue on the End of Match screen.

And maybe it would also be nice to automatically do screen caps that get sent to a EoM Folder next to the Screenshots folder for players, who want to can go and track their matches.

#16 MerryIguana

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Posted 28 July 2015 - 07:17 AM

Ive wanted to see a damage recieved stat for a very long time now. +1

#17 Ultimax

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Posted 28 July 2015 - 07:19 AM

Great post, and yes I'd love those graphs and charts.

While I agree with a lot of what you said...

The EOM screen showing what little damage some people did in the match, already indicates roughly how much armor is remaining on the enemy team.

So yes, when 2 to 4 guys are in the 500+ range and lose anyway, because the other remaining players on the team couldn't scrape up total 800 damage between ALL OF THEM - you know that your team did not in fact put up a good fight.




I think it's pretty rare for people to be here complaining about matches where their entire team has a good damage spread, and you see 12x mechs that did 300-600 damage but simply got out played, or made a single team-wide error.


I don't think those are the matches people complain about.

#18 GRiPSViGiL

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Posted 28 July 2015 - 07:25 AM

Kiiyor I freaking love this.

I admit I have emotionally gone the MM sucks route to many times to count in spite of knowing all the possible factors that lead to being defeated. These kinds of statistics would allow for a better view of what actually happened.

If I could like the post more than once I would. Not only is this an extremely accurate synopsis how matches play out it can be a guide for new players to understand situational aspects that you can encounter.

Beautiful work.

#19 Wronka

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Posted 28 July 2015 - 07:47 AM

View PostOnyxian, on 28 July 2015 - 04:04 AM, said:

I will OFTEN have streak of winning, and losing.

During my bad streaks, I will usually win 3ish outta 20 games, and in many, many of those losses, I will be top damage, or top 3 on my team, while having 6-8 team mates getting 100-150ish damage. I understand damage is not the best metric to measure gameplay, but I don't know what else to use.

If the reasons for losses were as you state, why the streaks? Random variance would mix up the wins and losses, at least somewhat.

The true fault here isn't the MM, though. It's the small playerbase, that forces better players to carry bad players, just to create matches in a reasonable amount of time. If the player base was much larger, the MM would be able to put teams together of much more equal skill.

This. Very much agree. This is even more amplified when you play in a small group of 2-3.

Edited by Wronka, 28 July 2015 - 07:49 AM.


#20 KodiakGW

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Posted 28 July 2015 - 07:55 AM

All this is a moot point. PGI has already determined that players Elo barely changes when in solo PUG queue. They also believe that players who should have low Elo might be getting their Elo boosted because of the CARRY HARDER players they get paired with. Therefore, putting them into games where they are easily rolled by higher skill players.

Adding more stats won't fix the issue. Basing a matchmaker on teamwork and skill stats will. The closest thing that tracks that right now is Match Score. There is a reason why they base giveaways on that. You can easily get 30 match score, and do less than 200 damage with no kills on the losing team. You work with the team (protector, lance in formation), flank when necessary (hit and run, spotting), or work on game type goals (capture points/base) without abandoning the team.

If they want to add more stats, I'm all for that. It would help teams determine what they need to train their member on to get better. But, it won't fix the issue in solo PUG queue. That is the queue that players are commenting about when they start "matchmaker sucks" threads.





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