233 replies to this topic

[Deathlike]

Wintersdark, on 12 April 2013 - 01:09 PM, said:

Your example doesn't work. Barring the (comparatively rare) players who play LOTS of games, you'd basically always have new user Elo for every single mech you played. You just don't get sufficient matches to sort out your Elo if it were different for each mech.

It takes a LOT of matches to compensate for calculating Elo by team success/failure.

The act of grinding to master a mech will effectively get the corrected ELO you desire. If you're so concerned about it, you could try to get the average ELO of all the other mechs that have been used as a starting point. ELO will probably go down for a bit initially, but it's better to auto-correct from a semi-stable point than to have an incorrect frame of reference (the current system with ELO specific to weight class).

Edited by Deathlike, 12 April 2013 - 01:20 PM.

[Mystere]

Bah! Things seem to be heading towards a boring direction:

• Fairness is boring.
  
• Equality is boring.
  
• Elo is boring.
  
• Balance is boring.

I went to MWO to, among other things, RP an insurrection mounted by a ragtag band of fighters facing a well-trained, highly sophisticated, and heavily armed invading superpower.

Then I'll play the Clans when I get tired of RP.

Edited by Mystere, 12 April 2013 - 03:14 PM.

[jay35]

Well, truthfully, those things are inherently boring when they're forced in order to separate apart what would naturally be a diverse range of skills intermixing. Removing or restricting diversity can only lead to increasing uniformity and boredom, burnout, and redundancy. Try too hard to unnaturally force those things results in negative results despite the best intentions otherwise.

Edited by jay35, 12 April 2013 - 01:42 PM.

[armyof1]

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.

Might a suggest a single player game with difficulty set to easy/novice instead?

On topic, it's disappointing that there is still no tonnage matching being worked on. The potential of similar Elo players where one team has 2 Spiders, 2 Commandos and 4 Dragons while the other have 4 CTF and 4 R3L just doesn't make sense.

[jay35]

Hellen Wheels, on 12 April 2013 - 12:32 PM, said:

Let the whining begin!! I for one welcome our new matchmaking overlords. It is about freaking time they finally are attempting a fix to the B$ matchmaking as it is now.

I may just have to buy something to congratulate them....nah, never mind.

You're confusing imbalanced matches (which is the duty of the matchmaker system to fix) with player skill levels (which is ELO-related). I wasn't talking about having an unfair advantage by having heavier weight mechs, a combat rating advantage, or anything of the sort. I was speaking entirely within the context of player skill. What they have done with ELO is artificially drawn borders between groups of players that should otherwise intermix as they do in every other aspect of gaming and, heck, life for that matter. This creates an artificial handicap and those who excel at something will naturally have less fun as a result because they are no longer allowed to excel, they are artificially constrained to a smaller subset of peers where they do not achieve the results their natural skill level would attain in the wider pool of all players.

And if you want to get really analytical, you could argue that not allowing higher skilled players to interact with lower skilled players inherently reduces the exposure lower skilled players will have to higher-skill tactics from which they could learn and improve. It can be argued everyone suffers from artificial barriers, not just higher-skill players who lose fun factor and experience artificial constraint, but also lower-skill players that are less challenged to improve and have less exposure to learning opportunities.

Edited by jay35, 12 April 2013 - 01:48 PM.

[Deathlike]

jay35, on 12 April 2013 - 01:42 PM, said:

You're confusing imbalanced matches (which is the duty of the matchmaker system to fix) with player skill levels (which is ELO-related). I wasn't talking about having an unfair advantage by having heavier weight mechs, a combat rating advantage, or anything of the sort. I was speaking entirely within the context of player skill. What they have done with ELO is artificially drawn borders between groups of players that should otherwise intermix as they do in every other aspect of gaming and, heck, life for that matter. This creates an artificial handicap and those who excel at something will naturally have less fun as a result because they are no longer allowed to excel, they are artificially constrained to a smaller subset of peers where they do not achieve the results their natural skill level would attain in the wider pool of all players.

And if you want to get really analytical, you could argue that not allowing higher skilled players to interact with lower skilled players inherently reduces the exposure lower skilled players will have to higher-skill tactics from which they could learn and improve. It can be argued everyone suffers from artificial barriers, not just higher-skill players who lose fun factor and experience artificial constraint, but also lower-skill players that are less challenged to improve and have less exposure to learning opportunities.

MM/ELO as currently constructed already does this "integration" of low ELO and high ELO players... the difference is that it can be difficult to discern through results or team construction.

So, even if they tweak it as they have said, you'll still have high ELO players mixed in with low ELO players... because there is a system of averages that are involved.

[pudge131]

I think it would be great to be able to see your own personal elo rating, and know where youre at and have a ranking system. At least for the PUG. And a seperate one for 8 mans

[Mishatron]

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.

Is actual tonnage matching something that you could do if you wanted to though? Presumably, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to code if you already have a class-matching system in place.

[Peiper]

Needs to be tonnage matched rather than weight class.

Awe, shizzle,

Just give us lobbies already. Then we can decide whether we allow game-breaking crap like area cloaking devices and 6PPC stalkers and so on into the game. Already working on a stock league with friends, and we're going to have to do sync drops because, well, stock mechs can't match up against the uber-frankenmechs out there, and we want to play BATTLETECH, not manga-mecha-madness.... Gonna be a lot of 8 mans Alt-F4ing to sync drop coming up, though... So, PGI, watch out! Your ELO is about to be funked right out the window.

(To be fair, this is latest stuff is a STEP in the right direction, but Geezus... We had a lot of this in December, before you killed 8 mans, before ECM, and before ELO. And now we're coming back around to where we were months ago? Just give us our lobbies so we can play a fun, balanced match and let the community take over. Hell, you want to see some balanced games, PGI? Send one of your staff over and play with US instead of yourselves. We'd LOVE to teach you how to design a game that's fun for everyone!)

But, like you won't fix ECM. Like you won't poll your beta testers to see what the 'silent majority' thinks, you won't take up my invitation to join us this Sunday for some stock-mech action, will you? Are you so afraid of learning something new?

Obviously, I troll the forums. That means, I'll check every few hours to see if you've accepted my invitation. You will be treated as a guest of honor over at the Steiner forums, and I'll even make sure my guys don't bug you with a bunch of questions. We'll run some (slightly modified) stock fights, and you'll see how much fun the game is when the mechlab is limited, and we have to fight with what we are given rather than what we want. What are the slight modifications? Some double heat sinks, a little more ammo, and a little more armor for the now mostly much slower lights. I'll be waiting. Getting pretty good at that, while the rest of my friends wander away from the game...

(Heck, if you want to create a fake handle, we won't even tell anyone who you really are. Might I suggest a pilot name like 'secret agent man' or 'now you see me...')

Edited by Peiper, 12 April 2013 - 02:34 PM.

[WVAnonymous]

Asakara, on 12 April 2013 - 12:54 PM, said:

The population's Elo stats went from a "Perfect Bell Curve" on April 8th to "Top-Heavy" by April 12?

That caught my eye as well.

Regardless, it will be interesting to see if I get different names in the matches. I recognize some of the people that play later evening PDT a lot, and will be sad if don't get killed by the same people anymore.

I have posted elsewhere that I don't know if I'm a bad pilot, or if the matching was broken, and now it seems it could be both...

Edited by WVAnonymous, 12 April 2013 - 02:36 PM.

[Hauser]

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.

Do you absolutely have to?

I can understand that 4 assaults and 4 lights against 8 heavies doesn't work well. But matching an 100 tons Atlas against a 80 tons Awesome could use some compensation. Otherwise it will be the heavier mechs from each class that get preferred.

Edited by Hauser, 12 April 2013 - 03:03 PM.

[tuokaerf]

Why is it bad to match only by weight class? I have no problem going 1-1 with an Atlas in my Highlander.

It gives the game more of a challenge and unpredictability. 1-1 by chassis or tonnage is boring.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Wow, Im rather surprised I was the first reply actually

Jabilo, on 12 April 2013 - 11:29 AM, said:

Thanks for your input.

Personally think it sounds good.

Bound to be some teething issues but I trust that you will stay on top of them.

*Edit*

Just read a dev post further down that clarifies it is weight class matching and not tonnage matching.

Changes my whole outlook. Now very disappointed.

why is tonnage matching such a dev hated idea?

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.

[Deathlike]

Thontor, on 12 April 2013 - 03:45 PM, said:

I don't think that's the issue at all. Matching tonnage is just a lot more complicated to do.

In my meh of rambling tonnage post, there are holes in tonnages that need to be addressed to a degree.

However, MATH is not exactly some people's forte.

[INSEkT L0GIC]

Sounds good as long as it does not revert to taking 2-3 hours to find a match before the hotfix widened the ELO matchng to remove the weight filter in the first place to allow for faster matchmaking.

[Texas Merc]

one 3 MG Atlas to rule them all! devastation awaits my friends!

[INSEkT L0GIC]

Thontor, on 12 April 2013 - 03:45 PM, said:

I don't think that's the issue at all. Matching tonnage is just a lot more complicated to do.

The more strict the filters the longer it takes to find each matching player as well. No one wants to wait over 30 minutes for it to find a match, or several hours of "no match found" before giving up and playing something else. Most people, especially new players, want to jump into a game right away.

[Krell Darkmoon]

Deathlike, on 12 April 2013 - 03:48 PM, said:

However, MATH is not exactly some people's forte.

Sadly they display this often.....

[Homeless Bill]

Mystere, on 12 April 2013 - 01:32 PM, said:

Bah! Things seem to be heading towards a boring direction:

• Fairness is boring.
  
• Equality is boring.
  
• Elo is boring.
  
• Balance is boring.

I'll never get people that think like this. It seems like you want two or three viable builds and primarily 8-0 rolls. How is that fun?

Every match I've ever truly enjoyed has been a difficult one - not one where I was running circles around some poor newbie in a trial 'mech. Clans should be strictly superior to IS, but otherwise, I want balanced matches. Since Elo was implemented, I keep seeing a lot of the same players in my matches - good ones that provide a fun challenge.

No one says, "gg," after an 8-0 roll (and when they do, they're douchebags). But after a close 8-7 match, it's rare to see someone *****.

As for my own thoughts, weight class balancing is totally better than nothing, but there really should be some advantage in taking an Awesome over an Atlas or a Dragon over a Cataphract.

Also, are there any plans for balance in the 8-man queue? The later the night goes, the more you see ******** like this:


I realize it's not exactly an easy issue to tackle since not a lot of people play 8-mans, but it gets old running RHoD formats against 5+ assaults.

[PanzerMagier]

Quote

[color=#959595]Fun fact: About 74% of games kicked off are within what we consider tolerable weight matching limits (the difference between a heavy vs. assault Mech on the opposing team). Of the remaining 26% of matches, about 7% are what we would call "horrendously bad" (i.e., they carry the weight difference of one or two full assault Mechs between teams).[/color]

From player's perspective, I disagree.
http://i.imgur.com/CKI5Zwf.jpg
I get these at least once through every 2 hours of gametime.
Statistics are not facts, they're educated opinions.