15 replies to this topic

[Zerberus]

For the last 2 days almost all I`ve gotten droppen into were groups where I was the only assault mech on the field, with no ECM support or at best one raven. The other teams CONSISTENTLY had AT LEAST 2 DDC atlas and one raven, and more often than not it was against what appeared to be at least one premade 4 man group. I`m literally thown from one match with a tonnage AND ECM disadvantage to the next. Combined with teh excellent communication often found in PuGs, this has made the last 48 hours a wholly unsatisfying experience. 2.5 million bills in 2 days, wow, great, so sometime in december I`ll be able to afford a third chassis so I can skill to mastery.

In the 5 (literally, 5, out of about 50 matches) where I was lucky enough to have the ecm on my side and be flanked by 2 more assaults and a scout or 2 that knows what TAG is and how to use it, we of course stomped the other team into dust.

Many will now say "then join a premade", which is a valid argument from one perspective.

But what about the thousands of other players not on this forum that also only PUG that are likely experiencing similar things if they have a similar ELO?

I wasn`t annoyed by the occasional imbalance before, maybe becasue I felt I could overcome it with better piloting skills. But it`s become so one sided, with me consistently placed on the end with the shorter straw, that either I suck so bad that it drags the whole team down with me every time and need to find another game, or (at least in my player bracket) something is seriously f`ed up....

Or is my ELO so low that the game says "You suck anyway and will never amount to anything, so why give you a chance?" :/

Either way, it`s no real fun when in 90% of your matches you know just by looking at the drop screen that you may as well just power down at the drop point becasue your team either won`t really need you or your team will expect you to do everything alone.

IS it not possible to at least match up 4 man groups to other drops containing a group of at least 2, and maybe do something about 200-250 ton weight differentials in the process?

PS: It may be worth mentioning that the experience chanmging this was seemed to be at about the same time that I went from my Atlas D to an RS.... Faster, more armor, and more powerful unguided weapons, but completely worthless in that situation. But the experience when playing the D is identical, it doesn´t matter which one I drop with. So I now currently own 2 assault mechs that are losing "fun factor" by the drop....

If there`S anything I can do, including "just muscle trough", them please someone LMK. BUt itfeels like the game went from "playble and challenging, if occasionally annoying" (absolutely normal for any game that isn`t easymode, much more for one in Beta) to "Nightmare" in the time it took to purchase and load out a new chassis....

Edited by Zerberus, 16 March 2013 - 01:45 PM.

[Zerstorer Stallin]

Your best bet due to the new ELO is to run an atlas or a cataphrac. Trust me you'll see a turn around pretty quick.

[Zerberus]

SO it`s essentially a "problem" with the bracket I`m in? To be honest, I don`t see meself going up, rather down, w/l went from .68 to .47 in the timeframe mentioned. And all the while no ecm support, though I DID see another atlas in my last match, that was a pleasant surprise.... But I`m averaging 200 dmg /match with 1 assists (out of 2 overall kills), and getting 35 bills for it, it really feels a complete waste of time at present.... I can get more on a conquest map by running around in the trial commander or trebu and capping....

And to what end? So I can eventually purchase a third atlas and still have exactly the same problems and continue not really have fun playing it? I know that they in part stem fron the PUGs as a whole being uncoordinated, but this is just insanity, every ******* match for days on end? Feels like the learning curve suddenly the straight up and is now firmly in jumpship territory.... 0.o

Right now on every single drop a I look at the drop list, see no ecm capable mechs in an army of lights and mediums, KNOW in my gut that the enemy has at least 1 Atlas DDC and a raven, if not 2 each (which is almost always the case, because the ravens start to circle me when the rest of my team has afterburned their way away leaving me choking on the dust). I almost universally want to shut down my mech at the start, and about 3 minutes later I usually wish I had, becasue iot really sucks *** to be right all the time about something like this AND be the one that gets to eat **** and die because of it.

Ex Alpine: "Don`t get caught alone" Says the raven pilot that stormes away at 150 kmh taking the ecm andf the rest of the team with it. That the atlas is already 600m back is not something that matters, even if he says something. As a direct result the atlas dies 60 seconds later from 2 lights that he saw coming and announced to the team that they were coming from behind and need help. And at the end the atlas of course gets flamed why he only did 60 damage *facepalm**smashes keyboard against forehead*

I could ask why would ANYONE want to play the mech that almost universally gets taken down first because nobody gives a **** what happens to it but the driver and the enemy and give myself something to think about.

Seriously, if these matches were made in a league controlled by humans and not an obviously ****** up computerized system, I would at this point start to be convinced that it is purposefully being rigged to screw over the little guys. Reach 200 matches won, lose 9/10 for the next 100 matches, never advance to the next level.

To raise my elo, I need wins, but to get wins I need an actual team both in composition and the way they work together, not 7 headless chickens "driving" mechs they probably found in a junkyard somewhere on Outreach. Especially when the opponents are working as a team, have a vastly superior IW equipment setup, AND have a tonnage advantage on the scale of 2-3 complete assault mechs (2-300 tons). ONE of these is annoying enough to encounter constantly, but all ******* 3, all the ******* time?

(And this is where I need to log out, because it`a annoying me to the point where my jokes are starting to get insulting, and that`s not called for.)

Edited by Zerberus, 16 March 2013 - 03:22 PM.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

I have never dropped as part of a group, and I'm having a similar experience, but not as frequent or as pronounced. The Devs have said that the current state of Elo/match-making is not the endstate ... it is being examined, and will be tweaked. I hope they are looking at things like chassis-based (or even variant-based) Elo scores, in addition to a system similar to battle value or at least weight matching.

In the meantime:

• When I pilot mediums and heavys, I will always try to be aware of where my team's assault(s) are, and stick close to them, so that I can bring targets to them.
  
• When I pilot my Jenner, I usually run with the pack of lights, but still try to stay aware of the heavys and assaults, for the same reasons. When being chased by an ECM-capable light, it's very satisfying to bring him into a heavy's live of fire and watch the PPCs fly.
  
• When I pilot my Atlas, my experience is almost exactly like yours ... if there's a pack of assaults, I try to stick close to them, but usually just get left behind by the speedy mechs.

Decent communication, coordination, and focused fire can overcome most PUG adversity in the game ... the trouble is that communicating in PUGs takes your hands off your controls. If someone takes the time to communicate a plan early in the match, I will almost always listen (even if I think it's a bad plan).

[Royalewithcheese]

What configs are you running on those Atlai? ~200 avg damage seems very low.

Edited by Royalewithcheese, 16 March 2013 - 08:42 PM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Royalewithcheese, on 16 March 2013 - 08:36 PM, said:

What configs are you running on those Atlai? ~200 avg damage seems very low.

Its low in a competitive match. Not stomps

[Corvus Antaka]

hmmmm I'm not having any problems with the new ELO. sometimes everyone has a bad run of losses when pugging.

[Zerberus]

Royalewithcheese, on 16 March 2013 - 08:36 PM, said:

What configs are you running on those Atlai? ~200 avg damage seems very low.

The exact same configs I ran immediately before this started happening on thursday, where I was averaging 400 damage and 1 kill. As such, I feel the configuration is wholly irrelevant to this discussion and only allows people to flame some piece of equip they don`t like, simply because everybody has something mounted that someone else hates.

After 4 total days of experiencing this almost nonstop, 2 or more clear and obvious disadvantages in every game, I don`t see any real reason to continue playing on a regular basis until I read something in the patch notes about ELO, tonnage imbalance, ECM imbalance. It is nothing but frustrating to watch every stat you have except for weapon accuracy plunge into a bottomless pit and does nothing but suck motivation at an astopunding level, after 5 matches I ask myself why I even logged in, slug through another 10, start to think I`m either completely incompetent or just braindead for thinking It would improve, log out, at some point think "maybe now it will be better", experience more of the same überOP-team /tonnage /ECM imbalancing for another hour, and just start to wish I had never come back. The only reason I still try Is that I know deep down that this can`t be intentional, otherwise I`d have simply deleted my account.

But until at least one of these is directly addressed (premades vs PUG / tonnage balancing /ECM balancing), I see no real reason to continue to assume anything I can do in this game is productive, to anybody. But I at least understand 100% why some people don`t actually play but simpy select mech, connect , DC, select mech, connect, DC... you lose the enjoyment of playing the game, but at the same time avoid the massive frustration that actually playing causes to people without a group. I still consider it cheating, but now understand the mentality and would consider it if I didn`t actually care about the community.... "Do nothing until the game becomes playable again but earn credits anyway".

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 17 March 2013 - 07:22 AM, said:

hmmmm I'm not having any problems with the new ELO. sometimes everyone has a bad run of losses when pugging.

I agree on the latter. But > 100 matches in 4 days is not "A bad run", esp. not when it`s semi-obvious in every single match from the drop screen that it will be a lose. I am sick and tired of being damned to take on 3-5 assaults in every single match while the lights and mediums scurry around like bees getting tagged and fragged by ecm ravens "Becasue the atlas can take care of istelf".

I know no amount of programming can compensate for human stupidity, as unlike the universe it truly is endless, but no intelligent person without serious issues would continue to subject themselves to this complete beating. I feel like I`m getting put into teams specifically designated as just the punching bags for every ecm assault mech out there.

Every
Single
*******
Match

For the better part of a week, with no end in sight.

Again, I enjoy a challenge. I do not enjoy "knowing for a fact" that my team and I will get stomped all over the place every time, becore even starting the reactor. Again, from 400 dmg, 1 kill and 4+ assists with a .68 K/D and a .94 W/l and both rising IMMEDIATELY to 200 dmg, no kills and 1-2 assists with an overall K/D of .27 and a W/L of .13 , without changing anything. I do not believe it to be in the realm of possibility that suddenly thousands of other players all gotr really damn good, especially when the aforementioned obvious imbalances were not a situation before, either.

That others have posted they experience the same when driving the same chassis gives me further reason to believe the fault is not (all) mine.

Edited by Zerberus, 17 March 2013 - 09:36 AM.

[Royalewithcheese]

Zerberus, on 17 March 2013 - 09:16 AM, said:

The exact same configs I ran immediately before this started happening on thursday, where I was averaging 400 damage and 1 kill. As such, I feel the configuration is wholly irrelevant to this discussion and only allows people to flame some piece of equip they don`t like, simply because everybody has something mounted that someone else hates.

I'm not trying to flame your robots - I'm just wondering if part of the issue might be the configs. Keep in mind that elo does try to balance by tonnage, so running in an Atlas increases the chance of the other team running an extra Stalker or Atlas, which means that you want to be able to compete with a strong build of one of those chassis. If you think it might be the configs, you don't have to work on it here if you don't want to. You can always post for suggestions on the Battlemechs board, which IMO is one of the most helpful boards on this forum.

Zerberus, on 17 March 2013 - 09:16 AM, said:

Again, I enjoy a challenge. I do not enjoy "knowing for a fact" that my team and I will get stomped all over the place every time, becore even starting the reactor. Again, from 400 dmg, 1 kill and 4+ assists with a .68 K/D and a .94 W/l and both rising IMMEDIATELY to 200 dmg, no kills and 1-2 assists with an overall K/D of .27 and a W/L of .13 , without changing anything. I do not believe it to be in the realm of possibility that suddenly thousands of other players all gotr really damn good, especially when the aforementioned obvious imbalances were not a situation before, either.

It's possible this is just bad luck IMO. Or it might actually be something completely outside of gameplay - what's your framerate?

[Deathlike]

And why does this thread belong here?

Sometimes it's the cfg, and sometimes its the execution of said cfg. We can't tell from just the description.

[Zerberus]

Royalewithcheese, on 17 March 2013 - 10:34 AM, said:

I'm not trying to flame your robots - I'm just wondering if part of the issue might be the configs.

I wasn`t assuming that, please excuse me if it came off that way. I just don`t see how builds that worked fine for me (and others, all of my builds are almost 1:1 to the ones in this thread, D and RS: http://mwomercs.com/...n-atlas-builds/ )sould suddenly be the root of the issue, the same holds true for the playing style. Simply because the Buillds and playing style, whether proper or not, are CONSTANTS in the equation, simply because they are the exact same before and after. Same player, same builds, completely different experience, with other factors as stated in teh thread NOT being the same before and after. Basic troubleshooting dictates that when looking for the root of a problem, the most unlikely causes are the factors that remained unchanged /unaffected

I agree that it "could" be bad luck and that I just never noticed these factors before because it wasn`t happening in every match. But how insanely bad does your luck have to be for 130 matches to ALL be massively imbalanced to your disadvantage? Logical reasoning and knowledge of statistics says it can`t reasonably be that bad without outside influence, and that different playing times are having no noticable effect on the outcome, only on the wait times, which are shortest at around 3am local time (Central Europe).

Quote

Keep in mind that elo does try to balance by tonnage, so running in an Atlas increases the chance of the other team running an extra Stalker or Atlas, which means that you want to be able to compete with a strong build of one of those chassis.

That is however exactly what I`m questioning the functionality of. 200 ton + mismatches, in almost every match, with myself usually being the only assault on my team, against a minimum of 3 assaults, 2 of those almost always being D-DCs.

And to be honest, it does not really matter what build you`re running at the second when your team leaves you to be ravenfood out of fear, and the enemy`s 2 atlas "coincindentally" pop out of cover engage you at exactly that time. If you can get out 3 alpha strikes you can consider yourself very lucky, if you get out 4 or 5 you should be in a hall of fame somewhere

Quote

If you think it might be the configs, you don't have to work on it here if you don't want to. You can always post for suggestions on the Battlemechs board, which IMO is one of the most helpful boards on this forum.

thanks for the tip

Quote

It's possible this is just bad luck IMO. Or it might actually be something completely outside of gameplay - what's your framerate?

45 FpS both before and after the stompbaiting began. I bought a new chassis, not an older PC.

Deathlike, on 17 March 2013 - 10:39 AM, said:

And why does this thread belong here?

Ehm, let`s see.. becasue it`s a percieved GAME BALANCE issue? Is this not the Game Balance forum? *scratches head*

Quote

Sometimes it's the cfg, and sometimes its the execution of said cfg. We can't tell from just the description.

So what you`re essentially saying is that within the timeframe of 5 minutes I took to build a new chassis, I completely unlearned everything about how to play the build that was moderately successful for 300 matches before that and now have a completely different playing style that warrants my numbers dropping into the Abyss in the fashion described, even though I`mow pushing 70% average accuracy with the same weapons that were working fine when I was only hitting 49% of the time? It cannot possibly have anything to do with consistently being dropped into heavily tonnnage and ECM mismatched encounters against 4+ founders from the same house for days at a time? Possible, But I have a hard time believing it's feasibility as the basic premise of someone permanently becoming an ***** and forgetting everything in seconds without outside stimuli is somewhat preposterous in this dimension. Then again, alien abductions ARE supposedly possible, and who knows what goes on up there...

So I either didn`t or somehow forgot that a random team of 3 trial hunchbacks, 2 trial commandos, a disconnected Trebuchetand an Atlas D or RS were an ideally matched opponent for 2 atlas D-DCs and a K ,2 3Ls, a Splatcat, a LRM Stalker and a Pretty baby, of which 4 are likely a premade team.

OK, I can live with that explanation, sorry for wasting your time.

What`s possibly worth noting is that in the rare occasion that a match gets made in the first 30 seconds or so, the match is generally a more or less fair fight (except for the low gauss shots to the groin ). I know there`s some sort of cutoff where ELO gets wider or some other system kicks in or tobehonestIreallycouldn`TcarelessbecauseI`mherasatesternotadeveloper. That could be tied to the issue in some way.

It`s probably a combination of factors, but it`s not exactly motivating to come back after a long hiatus, have the feeling that you still know halfway what you`re doing, have the numbers say "Yes, you do, there are worse pilots out there" for 300 matchs, andf then suddenly get drowned in icewater every 5 minutes like the useless n00b that everthing pointed to you not being.

Therefore the ONLY logical explanation I have for it is that I somehow jumped some sort of bracket either up or down and the game now considers me either good enough to take on a whole lance alone regardless of how often I lose, so 200 tons more is no problem. Or to be so absolutely useless that I may as well be target practice for a premade ECM assault lance that has nothing better to do.

*Edit* I did not see the ELO thread in the patch forum before starting this. I will follow that one very closely, as I am most obviouslly NOT the only one getting royally screwed in exactly this fashion by the current system

Edited by Zerberus, 17 March 2013 - 02:36 PM.

[Deathlike]

Title does not explain the issue at hand, thus, it's hard to decipher what is the problem.

TL;DR

[Cyke]

There are parts of the complaint here that can be can be argued depending on opinion and individual experiences, except one:

Until (if/when) ECM is redesigned to be less of an overbearing necessity in the game, one of the highest priority factors for team assignment should be ensuring that both teams have equal (or at least similar) number of ECM-equipped 'Mechs. I believe this should even override ELO team assignments, up to a certain point.

The whole discussion/argument about whether ECM should be made less overwhelmingly effective, and what specific changes need to be made, is a topic for different threads.
However, relevant to this thread, I reiterate: right now, having similar numbers of ECM on both sides is absolutely critical for matches to be balanced.

[Kmieciu]

I find that the uneven tonnage leads to interesting battles. Back when there was 1:1 class matchmaking when I saw an Awesome on our team I knew there could be a D-DC on the other. And when I saw 3 lights on our team, there were always 3 on the other.

Right now scouting is crucial: check out what mechs the enemy has, and when they have a huge weight advantage just cap them. You don't have to brawl against 3 D-DC in a Raven.

Edited by Kmieciu, 18 March 2013 - 12:29 AM.

[sC4r]

what i find as a problem is since the ELO release the matchmaker seems to completely ignore the composition of teams like:

one team gets 4 light mechs + some heavies and assaults the other team has 1 light and mix of everything else...
or one teams heaviest mech is catapracht and most mechs are mediums and heavies but the other team gets 6 assaults and 2 lights

sometimes it kind of doesnt make sence... like yea there are times that the matches are fun and balanced but when it messes up like this its like promoting stomps even further
like it would be interesting if (if there is no premade thats breaking this ofc) there would be some patterns of what each team consists like this 2-1-3-2 vs 3-1-2-2

also it would be really nice to finally have voip in game... chatting while you are chased in light mech by 4 enemies is not feasible(in premade this would result in stomping enemy team)

Edited by sC4r, 18 March 2013 - 01:09 AM.

[TheRulesLawyer]

I wish we had a match making option to take longer to search for balanced matches. I'd rather wait a minute or two for a good match than be thrown into a massively unbalanced match in less than 10 seconds.