233 replies to this topic

[Sam Slade]

So, is tonnage matching the next form that will be experimented with?

By the way, have Omid write most of your forum stuff, he has the right tone for it. By this I mean the outright stating that issues where found and that this patch is experimenting/data mineing. I feel that taking part in this test of matchmaking is a worthwhile effort because of the way it was framed in text. No sell, just info... excellent post.

Edited by Sam Slade, 13 April 2013 - 11:13 PM.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Sam Slade, on 13 April 2013 - 11:10 PM, said:

So, is tonnage matching the next form that will be experimented with?

By the way, have Omid write most of your forum stuff, he has the right tone for it.

Thought that was too hard for the devs to do... or thats the excuse I keep seeing

[ohtochooseaname]

armyof1, on 13 April 2013 - 10:09 PM, said:

My point is that is not a good way to do it. How many totally new players do you think would qualify to be considered an average player in his first 100 or so matches? If I say 1 out of 10 I think I'd be optimistic. But while the 9 other guys are trying to just walk around without bumping into things, they are being put in teams with players that can both maneuver and shoot fairly well and frankly dragging down that team because of their inaccurate Elo rank. Just give them a generally more accurate Elo ranking and let them start from there instead. If they're better than below average they'll do well in matches and climb up quite fast in ranking anyway.

My point was: in order to do this (which I agree, should be done), they will actually have to move away from Elo to a very different system.

[jakucha]

Mechwarrior Buddah, on 13 April 2013 - 10:23 AM, said:

except your only retort in the thread at the time was to cyberstalk my Youtube account and post a video you thought would discredit me (me signing cause I suck at it) as your reply in the argument. Because apparently you feel that is a valid topic of debate on an internet forum.
Hey, apparently the devs agree given you never got any kind of punishment for DOING it other than getting five pages around that post deleted and the thread being locked

Google searching 1 word isn't stalking. I was mirroring the childish behavior of some people in that thread to show how dumb it was. Like with you, gloating that you blocked me simply because you disagreed with my on-topic discussion. Speaking of that, let's actually keep this thread on topic.

Edited by jakucha, 14 April 2013 - 02:43 AM.

[Eternal Hunter]

All the plans seems good.
BUT

You're telling us we should see more evenly matched fights:

"The bottom line is that we can kick off more close matches."
Quote from Omid Kiarostami in the main post.

This won't happen if you do not also balance ECM into the math.
An ECM team Vs no ECM team have a significant advantage, worth more then a 100 ton mech in my view.

[Rashhaverak]

grayson marik, on 13 April 2013 - 12:12 PM, said:

No, these things are yet other restrictions with automated stuff to happen.

What this game needs is a single players only queue, forming up teams only from single pilots.

And on the other side a good old school lobby where you can open a room, form up your team AND you opponent team, chat a little, launch with your two teams and after match find yourself and the 15 ( later 23) other peopple in the same room with you again.

And for CW later on, a queue for any kind of MM, PGI sees fit for CW.

Anything else will always only cater for a fraction of the players, one time this fraction, one time an other. To make people happy, give them just simple 3 choices:

- fast match up as single pilot --> PUGGING as it should be.
- socialize in a lobby and play with and against your friends or other likeminded pilots, who like teamplay ( 1v1 up to 12v12, no restrictions)
- join up a CW match and fight over PGI's inner sphere map.

THIS ! anything below, will just create an other unhappy group with every change coming down the road.

I've played the system you describe above, and at times to really sucks. Mechassault on the Xbox ran that way. You could sit for twenty minutes just waiting for a group to fill up... all the while running in circles and listening to mindless prattle on the headset. No thank you. You might be able to get your team together, but getting the other team together is a pain. It can cause excessive waits between games as you waited for drop ins and drop outs to settle, and then you waited longer while people argued over whether they had the team they wanted or not.

I like the automation that you are detracting. It makes the matchmaking quicker and simpler. No waiting for the other team to figure it out, and no arguments over who's going to bring the light mech. My experiences with the automatic matchmakers has always been superior to the manual versions.

If you want to have the ability to custom match teams, that should be separate from the queues I'm describing. Don't make me wait for your non-automated system to fill in the team holes. It would suck if this game became mech lobby warrior online.

Edited by Rashhaverak, 14 April 2013 - 06:17 AM.

[Rubidiy]

we need it ASAP. Try to create a group with two or three lights and one medium/heavy/assault mech in it... this is just abysmal. In 9 of 10 matches your team will be 100-200 ton lighter than enemy.

[Mystere]

Hold a second. Are people here seriously asking for all things to be equal? Because so far, I have seen the following:

• fixed 2/2/2/2 or 3/3/3/3 team compositions
  
• equal player skill distribution
  
• equal tonnage distribution
  
• equal weapon distribution
  
• equal equipment distribution
  
• equal speed distribution

If so, then as I have said before, the only thing you will get by adopting all of the above is a very predictable, sterile and eventually an absolutely boring game. Because taken together, the above suggestions will simply kill variety.


I mean, why even bother with several types of mechs, weapons, and equipment? Let's all have a "perfectly" "balanced" and "equal" game by just giving everyone an Urbanmech armed with six jump jets and two machine guns. Let the fun( ) begin.

I have one other thought. PGI should be really careful with how they implement and price private matches and player lobbies. If they are not careful, if too many people just play among themselves in private matches and (worse) be elitist snobs within the lobbies, community warfare can end up dead in the water.

I have seen world PVP in MMOs die because too many people would rather play their mini-games, battegrounds, arenas, whatever. I would like MWO's Community Warfare not suffer the same sad fate.

Rubidiy, on 14 April 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

we need it ASAP. Try to create a group with two or three lights and one medium/heavy/assault mech in it... this is just abysmal. In 9 of 10 matches your team will be 100-200 ton lighter than enemy.

If that is how you decide to build your team composition, then you should (figuratively) live or die by it. What else do you expect, face an enemy team that has the exact composition as you do? Where's the variety in that?

Edited by Mystere, 14 April 2013 - 08:10 AM.

[hammerreborn]

jakucha, on 14 April 2013 - 02:40 AM, said:

Google searching 1 word isn't stalking. I was mirroring the childish behavior of some people in that thread to show how dumb it was. Like with you, gloating that you blocked me simply because you disagreed with my on-topic discussion. Speaking of that, let's actually keep this thread on topic.

I like how he accuses you of stalking than follows your every post to call you a stalker. Hilarious.

Rubidiy, on 14 April 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

we need it ASAP. Try to create a group with two or three lights and one medium/heavy/assault mech in it... this is just abysmal. In 9 of 10 matches your team will be 100-200 ton lighter than enemy.

False, Omids numbers are correct, 7 out of 100 games are a 100 ton swing. 74% are within a 35 ton difference.

Edited by hammerreborn, 14 April 2013 - 08:47 AM.

[0I0]

I'm glad they went with class as opposed to tonnage, leaves more wiggle room IMO.

[Buehgler]

Discovering and fixing the broken/biased ELO system is great.

Significantly reducing the infrequent but very unbalanced weight matches is great.

Going back to strict weight class matching is probably a good interim fix. But i hope it is only an interim fix.

Looking at the options people have been discussing. Strict weight class has the weakness of matching an Awsome vs an Atlas. When there is just one mismatch like this it is probably fine, but when you get 4 Awsomes vs 4 Atlas it will not be good. Strict weight matching allows 4 lights plus 4 assaults to go up against mixture of 8 mediums and heavies, and that will rarely be a good match.

There are lots of good (mathimatically based) strategies I can imagine to fix this, such as using both a total weight and weight class score to make up matches. However, personally, I hope they go ahead and implement something more like a BV system and try to balance groups based on that. There are lots of ways specific 4-man groups (e.g. 4 DDCs, 4 3Ls, etc.) can give this system grief, but I do not think it would be such a problem to force such groups to wait a long time to find a match or frequently end up without a match being found for them.

[RobinSage]

So just to clarify, you're rolling out Matchmaking with a near 0 weight distribution. Do you honestly think that ANY 8 mans are going to be matched up? Or will we have to wait 10 minutes to find a match which now takes about 3-5 minutes on average, or we fail to find a match. Does that mean that there are NO other 8 mans playing? Because for the past 3 nights, even trying to run an 8 man match will lead to a fail to find match probably around 80% of the time.

Go ahead and drop that number, I'm thinking if the weight is matched the ONLY way to drop 8 vs. 8 will be to EXACTLY match weight and ELO and then attempt to sync?

None of the matchmaking makes any sense anymore.

So please tell me that after this round of matchmaking that you will eventually balance the matchmaking to allow for 8 man randoms to drop with groups again. The PUG - Pre arguement should be mute, considering how much pain we've been through in the last 4 patches, dealing with "TRYING" to be fair. Yet everything that the vets of this beta have been saying since the beginning, as soon as you cater to the individual lone wolf crowd, this game will essentially be broken.

IT's NOT ABOUT NUMBERS. It's about making sure that your concerned, hardcore player base is happy and spending money on content. More 14 year olds bitching about how hard the game is, shouldn't be a motivator to try to make things "even". Because, matchmaking doesn't even work half the time for anyone who wants to be COMPETITIVE and serious about this game. Fix the queues and you might actually get some old players back.

[Lugh]

The only reason that the matches are mostly balanced by weight just now is because the players have defaulted to drop in a heavy or an assault or go home attitude.

[Wintersdark]

RobinSage, on 14 April 2013 - 12:14 PM, said:

So just to clarify, you're rolling out Matchmaking with a near 0 weight distribution. Do you honestly think that ANY 8 mans are going to be matched up? Or will we have to wait 10 minutes to find a match which now takes about 3-5 minutes on average, or we fail to find a match. Does that mean that there are NO other 8 mans playing? Because for the past 3 nights, even trying to run an 8 man match will lead to a fail to find match probably around 80% of the time.

*sighs* If you want clarity, read the first two pages.

Omid clarified right early on that they are going back to matching weight classes not tonnage.

Also, 8 mans are remaining free for all as they are now, and as they must be given insufficient numbers of 8-man groups to do otherwise.

[Iscariott]

jay35, on 12 April 2013 - 11:54 AM, said:

To be honest, "meh". It's fine and all, but to be honest, I don't really want every match to be close. Close is stressful. I game primarily to have fun. To enjoy the game. Enjoyment naturally comes from winning. And I'm used to winning more than losing when it comes to FPS games. So to reduce my winning, as ELO inherently does by giving better than average players tougher than average opponents, will cause me less than a normal level of enjoyment.
It's not a huge deal. I'm not going to whine because I don't get to crush the enemy every round. But it must be pointed out that you are very directly reducing the fun factor of the game for above average players any time they're looking for relaxation and fun rather than competition and stress.

You aren't the kind of person anyone should be trying to make happy. Sorry.

[Chemie]

Omid Kiarostami, on 12 April 2013 - 11:44 AM, said:

To clarify, it'll be similar to the forced Weight Class balancing that we used to have. We're not doing any tonnage based matching at this time.

What about 8 mans? No forced weight or class?

If you force class, never get a match. No weight limit and it gets stupid with over ton droppers.

[GutterBoy5]

Omid Kiarostami, on 12 April 2013 - 11:44 AM, said:

To clarify, it'll be similar to the forced Weight Class balancing that we used to have. We're not doing any tonnage based matching at this time.

OMG. Atlas online again.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

2-2-2-2 [and by proxy 3-3-3-3] balancing is the best way to go, it allows for varried gameplay, while allowing ALL weightclasses to be represented in every match, which is as it should be.

I understand people wanting the complete freedom, but if this game continues to allow 100% freedom in everything, we'll continue to see heavy/assault warrior online, or base-rush online, and no one wants that.

What we need, for matchmaking is 2222/3333 wight class matchmaking, bigger maps, expand the existing maps, and more game modes.

People may dislike Alpine and Tourmaline but you know, those are the 2 best maps to have happened to MWO, if you're argument is that the maps are "dull" then that's not an argument from a balance perspective. We need big maps so that 12v12 is worthwhile and that there's a bit more strategy.

The only thing left to do to the game after phase 4 matchmaking is limitations of weapons that can go onto mechs even further. And while I know this is not a popular idea, a K2's machine gun ballistic slots are not ment to house Gauss rifles or AC20's... that medium laser port wasn't ment to fire a PPC, and that LRM5 tube shouldn't be shooting LRM20's.

[hammerreborn]

Jade Kitsune, on 14 April 2013 - 03:58 PM, said:

The only thing left to do to the game after phase 4 matchmaking is limitations of weapons that can go onto mechs even further. And while I know this is not a popular idea, a K2's machine gun ballistic slots are not ment to house Gauss rifles or AC20's... that medium laser port wasn't ment to fire a PPC, and that LRM5 tube shouldn't be shooting LRM20's.

Soo....all stock mechs? Sounds like a lot of fun....

[ClockworkSoldier]

Great to see these changes being made and I'm looking forward to the patch! But how about we get some new game types already. Free for all would be nice, or how about "Kill the other team without worrying about a base that needs protecting"? And yes, that's exactly what it needs to be called.