156 replies to this topic

[armyof1]

PhoenixFire55, on 26 February 2013 - 09:12 AM, said:

I don't really understand why ALL matches should be even. Are all football games you watch on TV even? Football is a team game. A superior team will nearly always win. An inferior team should work to become better and win or accept that it can not become better and not be bothered with losing. Would you like to see your favorite football team to be 'balanced by ELO', just so it loses its edge and begins to win 50% and lose 50% matches at random, when a match outcome will be decided pretty much by a flip of a coin rather then their skill they worked so hard to improve?

The other thing is that ELO made games even worse balanced. I can't say about your games, but in my games all I see is terrible balance in terms of mech types as well as players skills. The fact that somebody uses a 3L Raven rather then a Jenner to make his ELO sky high doesn't mean he is a better player then a guy in a Jenner.

A new player will get stomped by ELO = 1300 guys when he starts anyway, but if after that he'll be stuck in ELO hellhole with griefers, TK'ers and afk'ers I believe he'll abandom this game much sooner then he would have had with just random matchmaker.

Also, if you were looking for competitive matches why aren't you doing 8 vs 8?

What is your fixation with how things can be in the real world and how it should be in a game? It's like you're always trying to argue a game should be like reality, when it's you know, a game where you can set rules that isn't according to survival of the fittest? It's just something I do a couple of hours and want to enjoy, I'm not trying to become a professional at any sport here.

That some mechs are OP isn't an ELO problem, it's a problem for the game balance in general. That really has nothing to do with this discussion. And I don't think you understand how ELO works if you think you're supposed to forever stay in the lowest bracket just because you started there. As you get better and win more you'll advance just as you'll fall down as you lose more. As for asking why I a casual lonewolf player don't join 8 mans, isn't a more relevant question why guys that are above average and maybe in teams that have regular practice don't want to have competitive matches on a regular basis?

[Joseph Mallan]

Yokaiko, on 26 February 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

My W/L is still 1809/771

your total win loss is 70%(I subtracted your weekend totals and your Over all % dropped 0.7%)
Your Weekend Win loss is 62%

So an 8% drop from your regular score. Are you a pure PUG or a Team player?

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 26 February 2013 - 09:34 AM.

[Yokaiko]

Joseph Mallan, on 26 February 2013 - 09:32 AM, said:

your total win loss is 70%(I subtracted your weekend totals and your Over all % dropped 0.7%)
Your Weekend Win loss is 62%

So an 8% drop from your regular score. Are you a pure PUG or a Team player?

Yes.

I play all modes. I run solo a few hours a day, I run with just one or two other guys a lot of the time I'm grouped, I'd say like 70% of the time, the rest are 4 mans with the unit or on the public servers. I do 8 mans, but if I have done 100 out of 2500 games I would be surprised, thus the statistically insignificant part.

[Walk]

All this sounds like is that you have really low Elo. What that means is that your overall contribution to teams was not much, and you ended up losing more games than winning. You're gonna have to stop focusing on your kills/assists/damage in a match and start leading your team to victory, if you truly are a good player. I solo drop, and my win rate is over 60%. What's yours?

[Yokaiko]

....and whom are you talking to?

[KinsonRavenlock]

To throw my two cents in as it were....
I play in a 4 man 50% of the time, 8man 25%, solo drop 25%.
My win loss is approx 2500wins/550losses. approx 5000kills.
I had a rather high elo rating going into the tourney and I'm an above average player.
I ended up with a win/loss in the tourney playing as a heavy of 125/95 ish. The majority of those games were fantastic.
Now that I'm back to regular play my win rate playing as a 4 man is back to where it used to be about 90%, the only difference I've seen is that the average level of player is much higher than it once was.
My theory about Elo right now is the amount of high elo players on at any given time isn't enough to support balanced teams at the top.

[Joseph Mallan]

Yokaiko, on 26 February 2013 - 09:37 AM, said:

Yes.

I play all modes. I run solo a few hours a day, I run with just one or two other guys a lot of the time I'm grouped, I'd say like 70% of the time, the rest are 4 mans with the unit or on the public servers. I do 8 mans, but if I have done 100 out of 2500 games I would be surprised, thus the statistically insignificant part.

Not quite insignificant, but yeah small impact to say the least. So your gaming experience is with smaller groups than a dedicated 4 man. Interesting. Your partial team play plus PUGging percentage may have lowered the impact of the Premade team. I want more data now!!!

[Joseph Mallan]

Walk, on 26 February 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

All this sounds like is that you have really low Elo. What that means is that your overall contribution to teams was not much, and you ended up losing more games than winning. You're gonna have to stop focusing on your kills/assists/damage in a match and start leading your team to victory, if you truly are a good player. I solo drop, and my win rate is over 60%. What's yours?

False. My win percentage dropped by 15% but my K/D stayed consistent with my team play K/D. What you are suggesting is if W/L drops so should K/D correct? my assertion is that if you were on a team you would gain another 8%-18% wins (from 60% to 78%).

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 26 February 2013 - 10:05 AM.

[Yokaiko]

Joseph Mallan, on 26 February 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

Not quite insignificant, but yeah small impact to say the least. So your gaming experience is with smaller groups than a dedicated 4 man. Interesting. Your partial team play plus PUGging percentage may have lowered the impact of the Premade team. I want more data now!!!

Sadly, there isn't more to be had outside of PGI's proprietary metrics.......that they aren't giving us.

I would love to dig into it myself, but I don't see that happening.

For the 8 man thing 4% is enough to make a "small angle estimation" in engineering, and within the error of most statistical analysies.

Edited by Yokaiko, 26 February 2013 - 09:54 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Yokaiko, on 26 February 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

My W/L is still 1809/771

Even after hero weekend, a cumulative W/L of 2.35:1 spilt between 2/3/4 mans and solo dropping, of that my 8 man play is statistically insignificant.



Absolutely, I said plain out I just don't know. I haven't tracked it, my numbers are positive, so I'm more or less happy.

Yes prior to the hero weekend you were at 1695W/701L a 70.7% win percentage. For the weekend only your percentage was 62% Adding some team play to your personal skills adds 8% to your wins.

114 more wins (6% increase) changed the overall win percentage by 0.6%(ish) Sure an additional 4% will have an affect just not to much

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 26 February 2013 - 10:11 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

FerretGR, on 26 February 2013 - 09:17 AM, said:

Your entire argument, as far as I can tell, is based on this premise: that "bad" players shouldn't be earning as much as "good" players. I want you to tell us WHY that's the case. WHY should good players be winning 80% of their matches? WHY should bad players be losing 80%?

Because if a 'good' player doesn't win/earn more then a 'bad' there is no point in becoming better, improving yourself. Game that encourages noobness is a bad game.

FerretGR, on 26 February 2013 - 09:17 AM, said:

You are prioritizing earnings over competition. Simply put, I want you to explain why increased c-bill earnings take priority for you over competitive matches. You're hung up on money, a minor part of this game, when you should be concentrating on gameplay and in-game enjoyment, which is everything.

I never said I don't want competitive matches. I said I want my matches to have both players who are better then me and players who are worse then me. Reason is same, unless I (and others) play with better players I (they) learn nothing. I have suggested a simple fix. Instead of filling game with 16 people of near same skill, fill first team with 8 random people, they find a 'counterpart' for each of them (player-1 for team 2 has about same skill as player-1 on team 1 and so on for each of them). You still have competitive matches you want. Also, I never said that I prioritise earning over smth else, but to me it seems unfair that a 'good' player earns less then a 'bad' player.

FerretGR, on 26 February 2013 - 09:17 AM, said:

This is the way competition works, IMHO. It's not competition if you're constantly facing opposition that can't compete. Consider major league baseball: last year, the top team in the league had a .6 W/L. Why do you suppose that's the case? Well, the long and the short of it is that the league system is set up in much the same way as Elo: if you're a good enough player, you're in the major leagues, facing other major leaguers. If you can't hack it, you're playing triple A ball in Florida or something. But you're playing with other AAA-level players and the competition is still very even.

As I said I am mostly PUG-ing myself. I faced both opposition that couldn't compete with me (my team of PUGs) and opposition that I (my team of PUGs) couldn't compete with. I had never had a problem with being stomped, it was as it should be.

Any sports team has a coach to tell them what to do to become better. Any sportsman can watch how others (from higher leagues) play to learn from it. In MWO you don't have coaches and only way to watch how others play is to spectate matches. But if you spectate people of your level of skill you won't learn anything, you need to spectate 'better' players, but with ELO there won't be any 'better' players in your matches.

FerretGR, on 26 February 2013 - 09:17 AM, said:

Awesome, you went to the sports analogy without my prompting! You say "A superior team will nearly always win", and yet, that's not the way it works in professional sports. Of course in any given season you'll have teams that go on hot streaks or what have you, but over the course of a season in any sport with enough games to start to settle out to nice averages (I use baseball because of their 162 game season), that simply doesn't happen. The best teams in the league end up with a .6 win percentage. Why? Because those leagues exist as a real-world Elo. The best all get grouped together to play against each other.

Only because league composition in major USA sport leagues is very even. Racing is a better example IMO and I am far more familiar with it. For example, lets take NASCAR and/or Formula-1. In both you have teams that are far better then others and teams that are far worse then others. And for some reason a lot of people watch both NASCAR and F1 and think those races are competitive. Also for some reason 'bad' teams are still competing and don't cry that they want to go to 'noob' league. Also in major leagues like MLB, NBA, NHL you have all sorts of means to not let teams get 'too good' be introducing salary cap and draft system. In Europe it is different, some teams can have nearly all best players, raise their own 'better' rookies and add them to the roster. Both american and european ways exist, both american and european sports are being watched by a lot of people who enjoy watching em.

Both ways have their pros and cons, so far I have tryed to show other just what cons ELO has. Also clearly we can all see that ELO has made game better for some, and worse for others. As one of those others and without haveing an option to turn ELO off I would try to oppose ELO as hard as I can. I'm sure you can understand it.

[Joseph Mallan]

I have an interesting question. how will Elo affect my ability as a Lawman to say, test our metal against the famed Wolf's Dragoons or Eridani Light Horse or Clan Wolf's Golden Keshik if our Elo isn't high enough? These kinds of fights happen all the time in the canon storyline I am intending to play.

[SlXSlXSlX]

Joseph Mallan, on 26 February 2013 - 11:14 AM, said:

I have an interesting question. how will Elo affect my ability as a Lawman to say, test our metal against the famed Wolf's Dragoons or Eridani Light Horse or Clan Wolf's Golden Keshik if our Elo isn't high enough? These kinds of fights happen all the time in the canon storyline I am intending to play.

Your right. We should completely dissolve the skill based match maker because you "might" not be able to simulate a novel experience in this game, somewhere, way way down the timeline of development. (sarcasm)

Id like to see you explain that at a shareholders meeting.

[PhoenixFire55]

armyof1, on 26 February 2013 - 09:26 AM, said:

What is your fixation with how things can be in the real world and how it should be in a game? It's like you're always trying to argue a game should be like reality, when it's you know, a game where you can set rules that isn't according to survival of the fittest? It's just something I do a couple of hours and want to enjoy, I'm not trying to become a professional at any sport here.

If you aren't looking to be competitive then why do you need competitive ELO matchmaking? IMO a person that just wants to enjoy a game he likes is gonna enjoy it no matter if he is losing or winning. Its not about survival, nobody is gonna kick people from game for being 'non-skilled' players. Same time with ELO think about players who are really not so skilled. They are gonna be stuck in ELO hell with TK'ers, AFK'ers and all sorts of griefers. Those guys just want to have fun like me and you, but its gonna be very hard for them to do because they won't be able to get out of that ELO pit.

armyof1, on 26 February 2013 - 09:26 AM, said:

That some mechs are OP isn't an ELO problem, it's a problem for the game balance in general. That really has nothing to do with this discussion. And I don't think you understand how ELO works if you think you're supposed to forever stay in the lowest bracket just because you started there. As you get better and win more you'll advance just as you'll fall down as you lose more. As for asking why I a casual lonewolf player don't join 8 mans, isn't a more relevant question why guys that are above average and maybe in teams that have regular practice don't want to have competitive matches on a regular basis?

I've never brought a subject of OP mechs here. Also you don't start in lowest bracket. Everybody started in 1300 ELO zone and every new player will start there. But its safe to say that unless MWO will have an in-game tutorial all new players are gonna drop rapidly in terms of ELO during their first days of playing. Thus there is a great chance they are gonna end up in ELO hellhole with TK'ers, AFK'ers and griefers.

Also, don't think that people in groups are any different from solo players. They want to play casually just as much, but they want to do it with friends. And they don't want to pick what friends they want to play with when they have 5-7 friends online.

[FerretGR]

PhoenixFire55, on 26 February 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

Because if a 'good' player doesn't win/earn more then a 'bad' there is no point in becoming better, improving yourself.

That's only true if the only goal, the only purpose for playing, is the c-bills. There's got to be more to why you showed up around here than to earn pretend money.

PhoenixFire55, on 26 February 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

I never said I don't want competitive matches. I said I want my matches to have both players who are better then me and players who are worse then me.

Well, that's good, because that's exactly what you're going to get with Elo. It's extremely unlikely that the matchmaker is going to find 16 players with identical Elos, especially given that in its final form, it will also balance for other factors, ie. tonnage, etc. It's inevitable that there will be range of Elos on any given team. Matchmaking based on Elo will at least ensure that there aren't wildly diverging Elos within a match: you won't have a guy playing his first match with the guys who topped the charts in this weekend's tourney. That wouldn't be fun for either party.

Your method of matching 8 randoms with Elo on the other side would still produce teams with wildly diverging Elos, but both teams would have the same average Elo, the same average chance of winning. You'd still have folks winning or losing at a 50/50 rate, but in every game, they'd rip a couple of newbies a new arse before getting down to business. How is that an improvement over 8 players who are all competitive with each other?

PhoenixFire55, on 26 February 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

Also, I never said that I prioritise earning over smth else, but to me it seems unfair that a 'good' player earns less then a 'bad' player.

Here we go, back to this again. Why are you so hung up on this? The only way the matchmaker gets you back to this position is by putting high Elo players up against low Elo players. In other words, completely random matchmaking a la the last 10 months. It's not working; it's not fun for the experts and it's not fun for the newbies.

PhoenixFire55, on 26 February 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

But if you spectate people of your level of skill you won't learn anything, you need to spectate 'better' players, but with ELO there won't be any 'better' players in your matches.

Sure there will. Range of Elo's in every match. Addressed above. Even if this were true, there are 100000 guys live streaming, some of whom are quite good.

As an aside, there's a saying in martial arts: "steel sharpens steel." Training with excellent partners makes both of you more excellent. If everyone on the field is excellent, they'll have to become even more excellent to top their opposition. Steel will sharpen steel under the Elo system. ETA: steel will most certainly not sharpen steel if the steel is winning 80% of the time... how can you improve if you're never challenged?

PhoenixFire55, on 26 February 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

Only because league composition in major USA sport leagues is very even.

But how did it get that way? Answer: By a real-world implementation of Elo.

PhoenixFire55, on 26 February 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

Racing is a better example IMO and I am far more familiar with it. For example, lets take NASCAR and/or Formula-1. In both you have teams that are far better then others and teams that are far worse then others. And for some reason a lot of people watch both NASCAR and F1 and think those races are competitive.

Not a fan of racing at all, but I'd be genuinely surprised if it was any different than any other professional sport in the sense that folks don't just start out in Nascar races against Danica Patrick or whoever... that there's a feeder system. And in that feeder system, you have folks that feed into the big leagues, and folks that don't. Do they give up racing? I have no idea. But in the sports I'm familiar with, there are lower-level feeders, and in those feeders, journeymen: folks who are professional athletes, but who can't compete at the highest levels.

You know what that feeder system is a lot like? Elo. You know what those journeymen are a lot like? The players who can't maintain a high Elo. You think Nascar would be better if every moron who wanted to could hop in a car and compete? No? Then why would you want that here, which is what you'd get if you kept the status quo? You're down with Elo, you just don't realize it.

PhoenixFire55, on 26 February 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

Also in major leagues like MLB, NBA, NHL you have all sorts of means to not let teams get 'too good' be introducing salary cap and draft system.

Those things aren't about teams being "too good", but rather about ensuring that those sports don't become "pay to win," which is another equally important issue around here. You're getting away from Elo in attempting to stretch the analogy.

PhoenixFire55, on 26 February 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

Both ways have their pros and cons, so far I have tryed to show other just what cons ELO has. Also clearly we can all see that ELO has made game better for some, and worse for others. As one of those others and without haveing an option to turn ELO off I would try to oppose ELO as hard as I can. I'm sure you can understand it.

The only "con" you've demonstrated is that you won't be making more virtual money because you've got a higher Elo. That's it. It's got a million pros, for anyone who has actually played this game and experienced the ridiculousness of PUG stomps from either side, and only one "con", which isn't a con at all IMHO: simply a mistaken perspective on how you think Elo "should" work, not an inherent drawback. You're going to have to try harder.

BTW, it's Elo, not ELO. A dude, not an entire band.

Edited by FerretGR, 26 February 2013 - 11:39 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

SlXSlXSlX, on 26 February 2013 - 11:19 AM, said:

Your right. We should completely dissolve the skill based match maker because you "might" not be able to simulate a novel experience in this game, somewhere, way way down the timeline of development. (sarcasm)

Id like to see you explain that at a shareholders meeting.

I'd love to. Lets set up the appointment!

it's not as silly a question as you think it is. An Inner Sphere Elite unit is a Veteran Clan unit at best. How do you Elo that? I fully understand the Elo system for competitive play but I'm not here for that part of the game. I am here for the Clan Invasion. I expect to be up against forces that have better equipment, & training, How will we get that if Clan forces are going to be equalized with my team?

it's Ok to say you don't now SlX.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 26 February 2013 - 12:19 PM.

[FerretGR]

It doesn't have to be accomplished by doing away with or ignoring Elo, if that's what you're implying, JM. IMHO, 2 lances v 1 star, all Elos balanced, would do a pretty good job of balancing and making things sensible, assuming players get control of clan tech.

[PhoenixFire55]

FerretGR, on 26 February 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:

That's only true if the only goal, the only purpose for playing, is the c-bills. There's got to be more to why you showed up around here than to earn pretend money.

The goal is self-improvement. Those who don't care about it don't care about ELO or no ELO. Those who do care should see my point in not being able to improve themselves playing with people of same skill.

FerretGR, on 26 February 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:

Well, that's good, because that's exactly what you're going to get with Elo. It's extremely unlikely that the matchmaker is going to find 16 players with identical Elos, especially given that in its final form, it will also balance for other factors, ie. tonnage, etc. It's inevitable that there will be range of Elos on any given team. Matchmaking based on Elo will at least ensure that there aren't wildly diverging Elos within a match: you won't have a guy playing his first match with the guys who topped the charts in this weekend's tourney. That wouldn't be fun for either party.

There will be people of near-same skill, its just as good as same skill. You need significantly better then you people in your games. You can not balance everything haveing limited selection of players launching in about same time. What I'm saying is that matching mech types should be priority over matching any form of players skill. Also I don't understand why people like me who'll never be able to play as good as the 'guys who win tourneys' won't have a chance to play with them. You said yourself, its not real life, its a game...

FerretGR, on 26 February 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:

Your method of matching 8 randoms with Elo on the other side would still produce teams with wildly diverging Elos, but both teams would have the same average Elo, the same average chance of winning. You'd still have folks winning or losing at a 50/50 rate, but in every game, they'd rip a couple of newbies a new arse before getting down to business. How is that an improvement over 8 players who are all competitive with each other?

Here we go, back to this again. Why are you so hung up on this? The only way the matchmaker gets you back to this position is by putting high Elo players up against low Elo players. In other words, completely random matchmaking a la the last 10 months. It's not working; it's not fun for the experts and it's not fun for the newbies.

One player no matter how good he is will never be able to rip all newbies a new one, if he is gonna try its most likely he'll have a few new ones. Instead, a good player will talk to his team, they'll agree on a plan and then tear a new one to the whole enemy team unless enemy team does the same. Matches will still be competitive, but unless good players cooperate with non-so-good players, work together with them and help them they will not win. Thus new players and not-so-skilled players will learn from the best, while still haveing fun in competitive games. Later in turn they'll do same to others. I think its better then playing games (even competitive games) with people who can't show you anything and can't learn anything from you. Now if good players do communicate with their team then they'll win, be placed in top 3 on their team and earn more then your average player. If they do not communicate they will lose.

FerretGR, on 26 February 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:

As an aside, there's a saying in martial arts: "steel sharpens steel." Training with excellent partners makes both of you more excellent. If everyone on the field is excellent, they'll have to become even more excellent to top their opposition. Steel will sharpen steel under the Elo system. ETA: steel will most certainly not sharpen steel if the steel is winning 80% of the time... how can you improve if you're never challenged?

80% winning, 20% losing... 20% time challenged. Thats for good players. For non-so good players - 20% winning, 80% losing - 80% time challenged. Good players are good enough, don't need much challenge, bad players will have lots of challenges and improve faster if they want to. If good players want more challenge they'll do competitive 8 vs 8 or whatever form of real competitive drops that'll come with community warfare.

FerretGR, on 26 February 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:

Those things aren't about teams being "too good", but rather about ensuring that those sports don't become "pay to win," which is another equally important issue around here. You're getting away from Elo in attempting to stretch the analogy.

Or in other words "pay to become too good and win". I think its same. But true, analogies aren't always good.

FerretGR, on 26 February 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:

The only "con" you've demonstrated is that you won't be making more virtual money because you've got a higher Elo. That's it. It's got a million pros, for anyone who has actually played this game and experienced the ridiculousness of PUG stomps from either side, and only one "con", which isn't a con at all IMHO: simply a mistaken perspective on how you think Elo "should" work, not an inherent drawback. You're going to have to try harder.

No, my biggest concerns is game becoming boring, knowing before game starts just what its gonna be like, knowing all people you are gonna be dropped with and against. Before you tell me there are too many people for that to happen, let me tell you that during last 4 days I've played mostly with the same people over and over and over again.

FerretGR, on 26 February 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:

BTW, it's Elo, not ELO. A dude, not an entire band.

Well then its Btw, not BTW...

[PhoenixFire55]

FerretGR, on 26 February 2013 - 12:44 PM, said:

It doesn't have to be accomplished by doing away with or ignoring Elo, if that's what you're implying, JM. IMHO, 2 lances v 1 star, all Elos balanced, would do a pretty good job of balancing and making things sensible, assuming players get control of clan tech.

You know that the whole Battle-Value system in BattleTech never worked, right?

[Wispsy]

I only read the first page so forgive me if I missed something vital. That said, whilst I do not entirely like how high Elo gets really low Elo to balance focusing mostly on speed, I think the ops problem is that one or more of the people he grouped/groups with has a score higher then they really should. This means that the matchmaking assumes they can carry a little harder then they actually can. With time you should either lose and be even or become more skilled and be able to carry the others without so many problems.