46 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

Comedy gold.

Here's the hilarious bit -

If you win more than 50% of your matches you'll get moved up in Elo to play against better people.

At which point when you do play with anyone else the disparity will be that much more obvious. Try pugging at that point and see what happens.

This is exactly what I was talking about before about Elo hell - people who gamed the system before are pretty much screwed. They'll see a couple of tiny bursts of 60% wins or the like but then...

40% win rate or less for life. No escape save starting over, or losing 50 or so matches back to back and then never winning more than 50%.

There is no way to game Elo. It is math. That's like saying you're going to work out a way to make 1 + 1 + 1 still equal 2.

Win >50% - Elo rises. Win <50%, Elo drops.

At the point just below the competitive teams is Elo hell.

They will continue to win more than 50% because they are too few to fill their own queue. Their queue will be backfilled with old pugstompers who will lose more than 50% of their games but because of the disparity in rank between them and the victors lose only a fraction of the Elo they would lose to equal teams. So they lose until they win 1, which raises them considerably (closer in rank to the team they beat than the teams that crush them).

Best of luck. Good plan to just drop with people of equal skill. That should pretty much stuff you square in the middle of Elo hell after a good 50 or so games. Not that you have much choice.

Didn't I say it would be GLORIOUS?

Weather prediction: Hot and boisterous with a 90% chance of a rain of tears.

[NRP]

ELO returned a day after they pulled it.  It's been active for a while now.

Edited by NRP, 23 February 2013 - 11:26 AM.

[Deamhan]

SlXSlXSlX, on 23 February 2013 - 01:29 AM, said:

You can try to scam the ELO match maker all you want/as much as you want, but eventually, it will get ahold of you.



And so will we. The lone wolves are coming...

LOL @ showing two wolves (most likely part of a bigger pack) and talking about lone wolves.

Also do people not realize that wolves are a pack animal? They don't go off alone by choice and if circumstances result in them becoming 'lone wolves' then their chance of survival (especially over the winter months) drops off rather steeply. Their best hope is one of two possibilities...

1. Find another lone wolf of the opposite sex and form their own pack; or
2. Get adopted by an existing pack.

As for the Elo. Maybe it's still early for it but we had our suspicions so we decided to test out sync dropping. It worked just the same. Makes sense though since typically those that play together as 3 or 4 man groups, mixing up group match ups, and hardly ever solo dropping (if at all) will have very similar Elo scores. It homogenizes the mixture of players that are in the house/clan/merc group together. This means there will never be a big enough difference between premades within the same house/clan/merc group to prevent sync dropping.

It also appears that Elo replaced weight balancing. Neither one should replace the other. They should work together.

And lastly, it still appears that the teams are built one at a time. They need to build the teams two at a time pitting those two teams against each other. Honestly, use tables and take from them.

If you are solo, you are put in queue and placed into a table with other solo players.
If you are a pair (2 man premade), you are put in queue and placed into a table with other pairs.
Etc. for 3 man and 4 man premades.

Limit team composition to one 4 man per team, two 3 man, four 2 man, and fill the solo in where ever needed. The match maker should then pull groups and solo players as needed from the appropriate tables starting with 4 man, then 3, then 2 and finally solo table.

You'll get more of

4m + 4m vs 4m + 4m
4m + 3m + S vs 4m + 3m + S
or even
4m + 4m vs 4m + 3m + S
4m + 3m + S vs 4m + 2m + 2m

You won't get

4m + 4m vs 4m + S + S + S + S
4m + 3m + S vs 3m + 2m + S + S + S

You'll also be less likely to get

Sync[4m + 4m] vs whatever

Since those that make the attempt to drop at the same time would be one directly above the other on the tables. This is more likely to land you on opposite teams or in separate matches than on the same team. You would need to put an intentional delay between clicking launch and hope to get just one 4 man group between the two syncing groups and then hope that the queue lines up just right to place that group that is in between on the opposite team so that the two trying to sync get on the same team.

Queue doesn't necessarily mean first come first serv. The match maker can look at both, group weight and average Elo, pairing up with other groups in queue with like weight and average Elo. The match maker would scan the tables from the top down, people are put into it from the top down and as people are taken out, those that are further down get bumped up to close the space. So the first come first served is more of a first come first considered and if your weight and average Elo is what matchmaker needs to use you in building the teams, you get picked. If not, you get skipped until the next team pair build up where you will get scanned over again.

Edited by Deamhan, 23 February 2013 - 11:59 AM.

[Grand Ayatollah Kerensky]

Follow my advice and you'll maximize the effectiveness of your 4 man. You will move up in the Elo ranks, but you'll still be more likely to run up against high ranking pugs than premades. A premade has an intrinsic advantage over 4 pugs in the same Elo bracket as the premade. Running a properly configured premade should net you a positive win/loss ratio.

[MischiefSC]

Narcisoldier, on 23 February 2013 - 11:39 AM, said:

Follow my advice and you'll maximize the effectiveness of your 4 man. You will move up in the Elo ranks, but you'll still be more likely to run up against high ranking pugs than premades. A premade has an intrinsic advantage over 4 pugs in the same Elo bracket as the premade. Running a properly configured premade should net you a positive win/loss ratio.

- until you hit the point where you're at 50/50. At which point you're effectively maxed out in max configuration. 1 person sick? Pick up someone different? Try to drop pug? Welcome to stomping hell.

Play at off-prime time? Higher tiers are thinner, you'll get pulled into higher end games.

Good luck with that though. Let us know how it goes. Keep pulling at the noose until it's nice and tight.

[Thorn Hallis]

I smell some broken sarcasm-detectors.

[Grand Ayatollah Kerensky]

MischiefSC, on 23 February 2013 - 11:41 AM, said:

- until you hit the point where you're at 50/50. At which point you're effectively maxed out in max configuration. 1 person sick? Pick up someone different? Try to drop pug? Welcome to stomping hell.

Play at off-prime time? Higher tiers are thinner, you'll get pulled into higher end games.

Good luck with that though. Let us know how it goes. Keep pulling at the noose until it's nice and tight.

FYI, there is a limit to how good someone can be at this game. Once you're in the top tier, there are not many players to match you against so the matchmaker will pull in people from lower tiers.

[w0rm]

Vassago Rain, on 23 February 2013 - 10:44 AM, said:

snipped pic

I like that

[Grand Ayatollah Kerensky]

MischiefSC, on 23 February 2013 - 11:41 AM, said:

Try to drop pug? Welcome to stomping hell.

The fact that I was doing way better as a pug is exactly what tipped me off to the fact that 4 mans are broken.

[Psikez]

I love all the smug self-satisfaction in this thread. Well played Narcisoldier, well played.

[Elkfire]

OP is a goon, folks.

You should know better than to take them seriously.

[MischiefSC]

Narcisoldier, on 23 February 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

FYI, there is a limit to how good someone can be at this game. Once you're in the top tier, there are not many players to match you against so the matchmaker will pull in people from lower tiers.

Narcisoldier, on 23 February 2013 - 01:20 PM, said:

The fact that I was doing way better as a pug is exactly what tipped me off to the fact that 4 mans are broken.

The top couple of percentages are sliced pretty thin. You are exactly correct in your assessment of higher Elo players and what happens; that's why groups who drop against those top 2 percentage folks are going to get crushed repeatedly. See, their Elo score is going to be crazy high. For the sake of argument let's call it 2000. There are not people of rank 2000 around enough though to populate all matches for them with even vague tonnage matches. So you get pulled in from 1600.

What's funny is that when they stomp all over you, since your Elo score is so much lower than theirs you don't really drop points from it. Maybe half a point or some such. They gain a tiny bit if anything. When you do win though against another 1600 Elo players you gain like 2 or 3 points. So you're going to get stomped 6 or 10 times by the 2000 folks for every win against your fellow 1600s.

Elo will balance you to a balance of your Elo score of +/- 0, not 50/50 win/loss rate.

Right now if you're doing better as a pug you're just making your life worse. If you're better than 50/50 win/loss then your Elo will slowly climb. This means that when you drop with friends it'll be against even better people. When you do win against them (since their Elo is higher) you'll gain more points and rise in Elo faster.

End result? Team play will be a massacre for you unless you're with a team exactly like you. Wins as a team when you're with better players will result in a faster Elo rise. Losses will result in little decline.

4 mans are not broken. They are working exactly as they are supposed to. My recommendation is to train hard with your friends to get everyone up to the highest level they can and expect the game to be like perpetual 8v8 queue.

[Pixelpilot]

Thanks NRP

[Grand Ayatollah Kerensky]

MischiefSC, on 23 February 2013 - 02:09 PM, said:

The top couple of percentages are sliced pretty thin. You are exactly correct in your assessment of higher Elo players and what happens; that's why groups who drop against those top 2 percentage folks are going to get crushed repeatedly. See, their Elo score is going to be crazy high. For the sake of argument let's call it 2000. There are not people of rank 2000 around enough though to populate all matches for them with even vague tonnage matches. So you get pulled in from 1600.

What's funny is that when they stomp all over you, since your Elo score is so much lower than theirs you don't really drop points from it. Maybe half a point or some such. They gain a tiny bit if anything. When you do win though against another 1600 Elo players you gain like 2 or 3 points. So you're going to get stomped 6 or 10 times by the 2000 folks for every win against your fellow 1600s.

Elo will balance you to a balance of your Elo score of +/- 0, not 50/50 win/loss rate.

Right now if you're doing better as a pug you're just making your life worse. If you're better than 50/50 win/loss then your Elo will slowly climb. This means that when you drop with friends it'll be against even better people. When you do win against them (since their Elo is higher) you'll gain more points and rise in Elo faster.

End result? Team play will be a massacre for you unless you're with a team exactly like you. Wins as a team when you're with better players will result in a faster Elo rise. Losses will result in little decline.

4 mans are not broken. They are working exactly as they are supposed to. My recommendation is to train hard with your friends to get everyone up to the highest level they can and expect the game to be like perpetual 8v8 queue.

Four mans are still broken because of the way the matchmaker matches four mans on the basis of its average Elo rank. It should pair each player in the four man with someone in the same Elo bracket. A four man with two excellent players and two terrible players should never be matched up against four average players.

If you want to be competitive in a four man, you must ensure that everyone on your four man is of the same skill level; that's all there is to it.

[Ghogiel]

Narcisoldier, on 23 February 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

FYI, there is a limit to how good someone can be at this game. Once you're in the top tier, there are not many players to match you against so the matchmaker will pull in people from lower tiers.

I have noticed this.

One minute you are in the top level game, everyone is a either from a RHoD team and/or on one of the 'leader boards'. Then next game you have a random guy who doesn't even know zoom is the Z key and a ****** premade who still thinks they can use pug stomper tactics on good players.

[MischiefSC]

There are not enough premades to match them separately. I think it tries to match a premade on each side but that's just a guess. Remember, premade teams are a minority.

The swing on player quality the last couple of days is driven by the tournament. You've got a ton of people who only premade with 1 or 2 mechs trying to play light, medium, heavy and assaults. You're not going to find a lot of premades and you're going to find a crap ton of people who have an Elo out of scale with their skills trying to play solo.

I've run into more stupid solo tactics yesterday and today than I had in the prior week.

If you're going to drop in a premade you're probably going to end up scaled further up the list than just an average of your skills. That's what I've seen when I've dropped in premade.

Here's a couple important things though. If you're dropping pug with people who are painfully incompetent you'll rise in Elo until you're teamed with more skilled people and against more skilled people. Just realize that your premade drops are going to get even harder.

If you're dropping against people who are tougher than you are it's more complicated. The higher ranks will be more sparse. Look at your skill in the rankings and realize that you're ranked out of something between 6 and 10,000 people. Maybe more. The matchmaker is going to have to reach down Elo a ways and find people to populate matches for those top 100 players - unless they're all on at the same time. When they beat you it might not even affect your ranking at all.

Finally, your ranking and that of your team mates might be changing based on the weight class of the mech they're in. I know that I play against tougher people when I roll in my Atlas than when I'm in my Trebuchet. I'm decent in an assault and I suck on ice in a medium. This complicates things more because sometimes my teammates when I play in a medium sometimes go AFK because they are choking on their own tongue. When I'm in my Atlas however I'm rolling with and against people in the top 25-50 and it's hardcore. Fun as hell but hardcore.

Keep that in mind. It can change the whole way the game plays for you. If you spent a lot of time pugstomping... well, not a lot for it.

[Risk of Fire]

MischiefSC, on 23 February 2013 - 05:59 PM, said:

There are not enough premades to match them separately. I think it tries to match a premade on each side but that's just a guess. Remember, premade teams are a minority.

The swing on player quality the last couple of days is driven by the tournament. You've got a ton of people who only premade with 1 or 2 mechs trying to play light, medium, heavy and assaults. You're not going to find a lot of premades and you're going to find a crap ton of people who have an Elo out of scale with their skills trying to play solo.

I've run into more stupid solo tactics yesterday and today than I had in the prior week.

If you're going to drop in a premade you're probably going to end up scaled further up the list than just an average of your skills. That's what I've seen when I've dropped in premade.

Here's a couple important things though. If you're dropping pug with people who are painfully incompetent you'll rise in Elo until you're teamed with more skilled people and against more skilled people. Just realize that your premade drops are going to get even harder.

If you're dropping against people who are tougher than you are it's more complicated. The higher ranks will be more sparse. Look at your skill in the rankings and realize that you're ranked out of something between 6 and 10,000 people. Maybe more. The matchmaker is going to have to reach down Elo a ways and find people to populate matches for those top 100 players - unless they're all on at the same time. When they beat you it might not even affect your ranking at all.

Finally, your ranking and that of your team mates might be changing based on the weight class of the mech they're in. I know that I play against tougher people when I roll in my Atlas than when I'm in my Trebuchet. I'm decent in an assault and I suck on ice in a medium. This complicates things more because sometimes my teammates when I play in a medium sometimes go AFK because they are choking on their own tongue. When I'm in my Atlas however I'm rolling with and against people in the top 25-50 and it's hardcore. Fun as hell but hardcore.

Keep that in mind. It can change the whole way the game plays for you. If you spent a lot of time pugstomping... well, not a lot for it.

A lot of the people playing stupid are playing to win the tourney, the leader boards reward high damage and fast game churn, so if i can turn two losses for 400 damage in the time it takes you to win a game with 750, I am moving up faster than you are.

IMO this tourney is jacking peoples Elo all over the place,

[Grand Ayatollah Kerensky]

My advice is based on observations made before the tournament started.

[Monky]

The steering wheel underhive is a real place, and I hope no soul is unfortunate enough to venture there.

[SlXSlXSlX]

I used the pic of the two white wolves because I liked it. Its a sub group of player, we arnt required to run in 8 directions when we span in. Were not actually wolves. My guess it wasd would be difficult with paws.

Also, the lone wolf players of MWO have to come together each match to FF down the stat padders (the carcas in the pic).

Cheese and rice do you guys have to pick everything apart. Anyways I still like your suggestion about pairing premade teams, but queue wait time will be a challenge. Not saying no, but I think that as the community size grows, such ideas like yours become more plausible. Lets hope everything goes in that direction.