This thread isn't intended to be another PUG vs Premade argument. I'm also aware that PGI has plans to incorporate skill level and other factors into the match maker. My intentions here is to simply show that 4 man groups in a PUG match with 8 man teams is far too large a percentage of the overall team and has a huge influence on the outcome of a given match. It simply isn't a fair playing field and in the end I believe we need a fair playing field to retain players.

First some background. Some friends and I came over to MWO from WOT. I had over 17,000 matches in WOT when I made the move. What we found puzzling in MWO was the size of the groups allowed based on the team size. At the time there was no limit which seemed a bit extreme to us based on our experience in WOT. Now of course groups are limited to 4 but that is still extreme when one group can compose 50% of the overall team.

For those that don't know much about WOT, each team is 15 players and the maximum group size in a PUG match is 3. So at most one group can compose 20% of the overall team. We found that even at 20% of the team we could consistently run 60-70% win rates while grouped. On the rare occasion two of our groups were on the same side of the same match our win rate was easily 90+% and even then we only composed 40% of the overall team.

I believe there are lessons to be learned in this that apply to MWO. In fact, my play experience has shown the same percentages apply to MWO. When we group up with 3-4 players we have a 70%+ win rate. Some nights we never lost a match. When I play solo my win rate is 30-40% if I run during peak US hours. My win rate is higher if I play solo during non-peak hours. My assumption is that is because I'm facing less groups during non-peak hours.

So in the interest of fair play, fun, and player retention I would like to see MWO get closer to the total team percent of a group in WOT for PUG matches. Even with only two players in a group, that group will be 25% of the overall team which is probably too much but it is certainly more fair than 50%.

Now for those that will undoubtedly not like this idea please explain what the downside is to capping PUG groups at 2. 8 vs 8 premade matchups are now in the game so there is an avenue for a more competitive game. I can't see any reason for the "need" for 4 man groups in PUG's unless I simply want an advantage over random competition.

Edited: fixed a typo: none peak changed to non-peak.

Well I've come back after a break and now I can't seem to get any mech to respond properly. The mech torso rotates left and up continuously. I can try to compensate by continually moving the mouse down and to the right but as soon as I stop the mech rotates off to the upper left again. Needless to say I can't play this way and there is no way to test it without actually entering a match and hosing my team since I really can't do anything.

I'm puzzled as to what is happening. I have not experienced this sort of control issue with any game before so I have no idea how to address it. It seems the game calibration is off for the mouse but I don't see any way to address that.

Any ideas?