81 replies to this topic

[Ilwrath]

PropagandaWar, on 10 April 2013 - 06:01 AM, said:

They already stated that there are more pre-mades than lone wolfs.

That means that this game really struggles with the population. They should give us a pubbie only que so they can attract more players. With a premade que, unlimited, but where pubbies can join if they want to.

[Itka]

If you play against PUGs 4 man teams should be enough.

And if you have too many friends to play with, why not join a squad/team/corp?

[Vassago Rain]

They should limit ghetto invasions to 3 players, Any guild dropping 4-12 need to battle the big boys.

[New Breed]

Roland, on 09 April 2013 - 10:42 AM, said:

There is no need for a cap on the number of players.

There should be two queues:
1) Solo, ungrouped players
2) Everyone else

This is how every other game in the world does it.

Kind of.. I like how world of tanks does grouping. 2 for free to play players, 3 for paying ( I guess in this case it would be 3 and then 4). Each side has the same number of groups.

Christ, that's hard logic I know.. why wasn't it put in day 0? I have no idea.

Edited by Ghost Bear, 10 April 2013 - 07:03 AM.

[Roland]

Vassago Rain, on 10 April 2013 - 06:58 AM, said:

They should limit ghetto invasions to 3 players, Any guild dropping 4-12 need to battle the big boys.

See, I look at it the other way.

Make it so that if you want to play in a group at all, you are playing with the big boys.

The only folks who get to play in their own separate little cordoned off area are folks who are totally ungrouped. Then you are sure that folks who are actually pugging are playing on an even footing... which would tend to benefit totally new players.

Then, anyone who wants to play as a group goes into the "real" queue.. and they may get put up against bigger teams.

But at that point, they can't really complain and cry about it.. given that they are currently playing in small groups against potentially ungrouped players, they can't really cry about having to play against grouped players who simply have more guys in their group.

Additionally, by changing the queue arrangement to this, then you eliminate the stupid intermediate zone where you have too many people for a small group, but not enough for a large group.

[PropagandaWar]

Vas it took 4 attempts last night to do an 8-man. Friggin 4. Yeah 12 will be so much more populated. I like the pug option above. Hell take it a step further and allow them to fight for house or merc filler. Again if we get integrated comms those lone wolfs will have a greater chance of success.

Edited by PropagandaWar, 10 April 2013 - 08:05 AM.

[SmokinDave73]

Roland, on 10 April 2013 - 05:25 AM, said:

See, it'd actually be better if you removed the cap in the grouped queue, and made it such that solo players were the ones separated out (if they chose to be).

This would have a FAR more pronounced effect on removing the pubstomping effect that you describe.

As it stands, against a totally ungrouped set of 8, 4 coordinated players is easily enough to just mop the floor with them... so the current limit of 4 players really doesn't achieve anything beyond making it difficult for players to group as they like.

If you make it so that everyone who wants to group plays in one queue, and anyone who wants to play totally alone plays in another, you'll have far more evenly matched teams in terms of coordination... and you'll essentially remove the ability for folks to complain that they were unfairly matched against grouped players, since no grouped players at all would be in that queue.

I whole heartedly agree with you 100% could not have said it better myself

[jay35]

One pool: Singles and Doubles
Other pool: All groups in even numbers for easier match-filling purposes, so Groups of 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12

Done.



Why doubles? So you can play with a friend without having to be in a big group you may not have time for or interest in, and for helping a friend who's a new player learn the ropes of real matches after graduating from the Training Grounds.

Edited by jay35, 10 April 2013 - 08:19 AM.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

12-man isn't about a bigger or more convenient number. It's the number of mechs in an IS "company". Instead of splitting it into two 6-man teams, it was always three 4-mech "lances". It might be better and/or easier to have the opportunity to string together three 4-mans into a company to compete in 12-v-12 matches, or else just straight-up 12's formed like the current 8's. But this two 6-man talk is flat ridiculous. RIDICULOUS, I say, RIDICULOUS!

[I am]

Vassago Rain, on 10 April 2013 - 06:58 AM, said:

They should limit ghetto invasions to 3 players, Any guild dropping 4-12 need to battle the big boys.

Totally agree. Why not add to that for profit sake and make it 2 mans, but 3 if the host has premium activated? That I am agreeing with you either means you turned to the good side, or I turned to the dark side, or..

Gosh I dont know anymore. The lines are getting muddy. Only constant among all camps, is discontent.

[Bullseye69]

Three lances to four lances is a company so either have it drop 12 man team vs 12 man team and if there not not another 12 man available the the match maker should the slot in 3 groups 4 man groups. You would still be dropping with 3 groups 4 man per side so it would not be like a 8 random pug group. So more controlled group play even if it only groups of 4 working to achieve a set objective, such as 4 man could do base defense, they c ould do a 4 fire support lance are 4 man cap squad. Let see how it plays for a couple of weeks before we want change. I myself look forward to the new canyon map that was tweeted out looks cool to me. Has different heights has cover and has water so it good for me, Plus looks like jump jet mechs might be a plus which is good because I like to jump in my Jenner, Treb, Catphract and Highlander.

[Adrienne Vorton]

a lance is 4, a company (standardized)is 12 mechs... 6 is a very rare number in BTU ...

[Zylo]

Roland, on 10 April 2013 - 07:17 AM, said:

See, I look at it the other way.

Make it so that if you want to play in a group at all, you are playing with the big boys.

The only folks who get to play in their own separate little cordoned off area are folks who are totally ungrouped. Then you are sure that folks who are actually pugging are playing on an even footing... which would tend to benefit totally new players.

Then, anyone who wants to play as a group goes into the "real" queue.. and they may get put up against bigger teams.

But at that point, they can't really complain and cry about it.. given that they are currently playing in small groups against potentially ungrouped players, they can't really cry about having to play against grouped players who simply have more guys in their group.

Additionally, by changing the queue arrangement to this, then you eliminate the stupid intermediate zone where you have too many people for a small group, but not enough for a large group.

I support returning groups to any size as I suspect most merc corps will generally run as large a group as possible. If these groups are matched against each other I suspect most merc corps are going to be running groups sized between 5 and 8 the majority of the time.

Due to a smaller total number of larger groups, fewer lone-wolf players would be needed to fill the remaining spots. I don't think a solo match system would even be needed as most solo players would end up playing in matches made up of only solo players.

Small groups could still be mixed, but only vs other small groups. A group of 8 shouldn't be balanced by a team made up of 2x groups of 3 + 1x group of 2 for example as this situation is nearly as bad as matching a group of 8 vs 8 lone-wolf players. The number of groups on each team should be balanced along with size so if 1 team gets a group of 3 + a group of 4 + 1 lone wolf, the other team should get the same number of groups, with sizes matched as close as possible. A group of 2 + a group of 5 + 1 lone-wolf would be an acceptable match.

[kitazari]

I almost feel like they need a lance mode in which three random lances are combined.

[Sedit]

eleven would be good, then i can still drop if we are down one man

[Kell Commander]

No Guts No Glory, on 09 April 2013 - 09:36 AM, said:

4 man is a lance. So no.

And the dynamic of the game needs to change with 12 vs 12.

This opinion make it very difficult for people with 5 or 6 friends to play together at 1 time. 6 man groups should be fine with 12 v 12. Also, there are plenty of small merc units in Battletech lore that do not even have enough mechs to make multiple lances.

[I am]

Kell Commander, on 10 April 2013 - 04:03 PM, said:

This opinion make it very difficult for people with 5 or 6 friends to play together at 1 time. 6 man groups should be fine with 12 v 12. Also, there are plenty of small merc units in Battletech lore that do not even have enough mechs to make multiple lances.

Garbage.

[Lefty Lucy]

Zylo, on 10 April 2013 - 02:50 PM, said:

I support returning groups to any size as I suspect most merc corps will generally run as large a group as possible. If these groups are matched against each other I suspect most merc corps are going to be running groups sized between 5 and 8 the majority of the time.

Due to a smaller total number of larger groups, fewer lone-wolf players would be needed to fill the remaining spots. I don't think a solo match system would even be needed as most solo players would end up playing in matches made up of only solo players.

Small groups could still be mixed, but only vs other small groups. A group of 8 shouldn't be balanced by a team made up of 2x groups of 3 + 1x group of 2 for example as this situation is nearly as bad as matching a group of 8 vs 8 lone-wolf players. The number of groups on each team should be balanced along with size so if 1 team gets a group of 3 + a group of 4 + 1 lone wolf, the other team should get the same number of groups, with sizes matched as close as possible. A group of 2 + a group of 5 + 1 lone-wolf would be an acceptable match.

The problem with the match maker is that it doesn't discriminate for groups at all. The big problem with unlimited-size groups before was that the match maker actually statistically favored placing groups against randoms because of the way it fills the teams.

[Smk]

Kell Commander, on 10 April 2013 - 04:03 PM, said:

This opinion make it very difficult for people with 5 or 6 friends to play together at 1 time. 6 man groups should be fine with 12 v 12. Also, there are plenty of small merc units in Battletech lore that do not even have enough mechs to make multiple lances.

8v8s make it difficult for 9 or 10 friends to play together. 12v12 would make it difficult for 13 or 14 friends to play together.

That's just too bad.

[Zylo]

Lefty Lucy, on 10 April 2013 - 04:13 PM, said:

The problem with the match maker is that it doesn't discriminate for groups at all. The big problem with unlimited-size groups before was that the match maker actually statistically favored placing groups against randoms because of the way it fills the teams.

I think phase 3 matchmaker does seem to place 1 group per side now if there are 2 groups but I'm not sure what happens when there are 3 or more groups present. It's possible groups size is not taken into account so 1 team may get 2x groups of 2 while the other team gets 2x groups of 4 which could lead to a 0-8 stomp. Without official word from the devs we can only guess based on observations such as seeing multiple names from a known corp on the other team when dropping in a group.

Weight class matching is a potential problem with unlimited group size so in this case total tonnage matching may be a better option. This would allow the matchmaker to match similar size groups a bit easier if unlimited size grouping was allowed. The old closed beta matchmaker that matched weights exactly seemed to be exploited by teams choosing an unusual combination of weight classes to have a near 100% chance of getting a total pug enemy team.

This could be prevented by forcing an equal number of groups per team and in the case of unusual weight class drops the matchmaker tolerance could increase over time or min/max tonnage limits could be used to allow for faster matchmaking.

The important part is matching equal size groups so each team has a similar size group for better game balance.


I think the question here is what the players really want most:

1. Do players want unlimited size groups back? The cost may be less accurate weight and Elo matching but unlimited group sizes would match up against each other.

2. Do players want accurate weight class matching? The cost may be smaller group size and less accurate Elo matching but weight class matching could probably be exact matches.

3. Do players want accurate Elo matching as we have now? The cost is small group size and less accurate weight matching as we see now.