138 replies to this topic

[Nicholas Carlyle]

This reminds me a lot of the Battleground issues WoW had due to server population imbalances.

So if Assaults/Heavies are Horde, and Mediums/Lights are Alliance.

Except in this case, they shove people into a game regardless of the weight disparity.

I'd personally rather wait 5 minutes in a queue and land a balanced game than get put into an 8-1 stomp, or a full cap rush.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

OneEyed Jack, on 03 June 2013 - 04:59 AM, said:

Wrong. The matchmaker doesn't have access to every player in the game to pick from. It doesn't even have access to every player currently logged in. In can only choose from the players looking for a match right that moment. As has been said multiple times, it could be much more accurate, but at the cost of waiting for the right mix of players/mechs to all be waiting for a match at the same time, which would create wait times that the player-base finds unacceptable.

This is where the terribad that is PGI's expectation management comes in.

If they had come to us and said "Hey guys, during certain times, you may see a 3-5 minute wait to create the best matchup possible. This will of course be a non-issue when we get lobbies into the game, but we feel it will create a better user experience. And as the population goes up, you will see that wait go down".

Instead they portrayed the new matchmaker and ELO as some kind of savior to this game, and it's clearly not working properly due to low population, crazy meta, or whatever.

It's all about managing expectations.

Same deal as when they said they'd look at ECM, had us post in a huge thread for like a month, then didn't listen to anything we said. It's amazing how they work.

[PanzerMagier]

OP, you won't get better weight balancing because you intentionally skew the chances of getting a fairly balanced match.
Even worse, you'd go as far as to use your borked statistics to argue a point. I find your actions scoundrel-like.

Like a drunk woman wearing high heels, carelessly waddling over a supermarket's wet floor, falls and breaks her leg. Then that very same woman has the gall to sue the supermarket because they didn't put out a "caution wet floor" sign. Suddenly every mall in the world has to spend money to buy pointless "caution wetfloor" signs simply for the convenience of some drunk fool.

Must we make a 3-light~in~a~4~man~premade queue just for you? Let's see how long it takes for you to get a matchup with another 4-man premade that has 3 lights...

Scoundrel-like. I tell you...

[OneEyed Jack]

Yeah, you began an if/then scenario by creating an if, but forgot the then, so I'll just complete it for you.

Nicholas Carlyle, on 03 June 2013 - 05:20 AM, said:

If they had come to us and said "Hey guys, during certain times, you may see a 3-5 minute wait to create the best matchup possible. This will of course be a non-issue when we get lobbies into the game, but we feel it will create a better user experience. And as the population goes up, you will see that wait go down". Then the forums would explode with outrage and population would plummet, if actually implemented, because very few people would be willing to to stare at the the little "waiting" circle spinning for 5 minutes for a match that could be over in less.

And "lobbies" wouldn't fix everything, because not everyone (I wouldn't even wager on half) will be using them to pre-arrange matches. Additionally, the lobby matches will have to have limited/no rewards if they don't want them to become a pure farm-fest, breaking any semblance of economy and rankings.

[Vodrin Thales]

Asakara, on 01 June 2013 - 09:52 PM, said:

Foxy used what he wanted. In some he was in a light. In others he was not. There is no "skewing" anything.. This is what happened when we dropped. Of course the facts via photo evidence is right there, plan as day... But whatever.

People should be allowed to play with their friends in what they like best without getting "horrendously bad" match-ups. They should not be forced to conform to some silly 1.1.1.1 or whatever bull-crap to get "tolerable" matches.

In a perfect game world you would be correct, but if the game population at the time you play is relatively small and the desire of the overwhelming part of the population is to play heavy and assault mechs then you must be ready to frequently play against much heavier drops when you run a lighter pre-made. Nothing the dev's do with the matchmaker will fix this if the players are not there to do it.

[Zypher]

Wispsy, on 02 June 2013 - 09:08 AM, said:

You have the speed and maneuverability to avoid all of their shots as long as you predict when and where they will fire and the damage to kill them all in the given time. Little packs of lights (especially grouped and familiar with each other) can easily tear apart groups of heavies and assaults, it is by no means a full gone conclusion.

I hate this misconception, truth is excellent gunnery > then all other skills. You can try to change the out come of someone's firing by being fast, erratic, and manuverable. However, it's up the the shooters skill rather than your piloting that predicts the outcome. Good piloting just makes things more difficult for the shooter, with pro gunners, it makes less difference. Take out the PPC and Gauss and I would say the game might be quite a bit different. Playing lights, while fun, is playing with fire if you run up against skilled opponents.

As a result more tonnage > less tonnage because of pin point quake style alphas. Until there are objectives that mean something, MM should never have unbalanced total tonnages, but I fear there won't ever be enough players to give MM its full credit.

Edited by Zypher, 03 June 2013 - 07:59 AM.

[Asakara]

PanzerMagier, on 03 June 2013 - 06:26 AM, said:

OP, you won't get better weight balancing because you intentionally skew the chances of getting a fairly balanced match.
Even worse, you'd go as far as to use your borked statistics to argue a point. I find your actions scoundrel-like.

Like a drunk woman wearing high heels, carelessly waddling over a supermarket's wet floor, falls and breaks her leg. Then that very same woman has the gall to sue the supermarket because they didn't put out a "caution wet floor" sign. Suddenly every mall in the world has to spend money to buy pointless "caution wetfloor" signs simply for the convenience of some drunk fool.

Must we make a 3-light~in~a~4~man~premade queue just for you? Let's see how long it takes for you to get a matchup with another 4-man premade that has 3 lights...

Scoundrel-like. I tell you...

LOL.. 3 friends playing what they prefer (in this case light mechs) is exactly what it is.. I suspect other groups of friends play what they want as well, as they should in this video game.

I made my point with evidence.. PGI's "fact" does not coincide with my friends and my reality. When 3 friends play light mechs (or 4 friends play lights and mediums) together the matchmaker ends up setting up a large weight discrepancy for the majority of games, even though PGI says it only happens 7% of the time.

No special queues are needed.. LOL, just perhaps they could try to improve weight matchmaking a bit. I would prefer to fight other lights in high-speed frantic combat.. Rather than slowly bleed an assault with a 1,000 paper cuts as he rages at the screen and calls me a "Bundle Of Sticks" over and over.

Edited by Asakara, 03 June 2013 - 08:15 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

OneEyed Jack, on 03 June 2013 - 04:59 AM, said:

First off, it's not my matchmaker. Second, it could make perfectly balanced matches, at least insofar as skill level can be measured and calculated, but at the cost of longer wait times. Then your whiny arse would be on here crying about that.

I find it amusing that most people who defend current matchmaker can't refrain from personal insults towards those who say its not working. If you fail to understand that 'your macthmaker that you claim is working according to plan' is addressed to PGI thats your problem not mine.

OneEyed Jack, on 03 June 2013 - 04:59 AM, said:

The fact that you're even bringing up final scores as a measure of balanced matches just shows you have no clue what you're talking about. Perhaps at the low end of the Elo range, where it's still a pure brawl-fest battle of attrition, with no tactics involved, then that would be accurate. At moderate skill levels and above, you will find some matches like that, because they go back and forth, but many matches will simply cascade into a 8-2, or worse, once the first mechs drops.

Well then according to you the matchmaker that randomly matched people in closed beta was also working just fine. Back there most matches ended up 8:0-8:1 as well. Only reason PGI started the whole matchmaker phases is to make matches close aka 8:7-8:6. If you will now tell me that it was done to get rid of 'premades stomping PUGs' then I'll tell you that back there and right now most stomps are PUGs stomping PUGs, nothing changed.

[PhoenixFire55]

East Indy, on 02 June 2013 - 02:43 PM, said:

What if players designated up to three 'Mechs for games, and the matchmaking system offered slots first-come, first-serve based on lobby class needs?

Thats actually a very good suggestion. Problem is most people tend to always work on some mechs (get exp for certain mechs or get c-bills using hero/founders mech etc.) and thus would be really reluctant to designate any other mechs.

[PhoenixFire55]

Hammertrial, on 03 June 2013 - 03:18 AM, said:

That's a bad idea. Balancing using a MM queue time is as bad as R&R, and just makes people not want to play because they can drop in Hawken in 30s rather than waiting 10mins for a light to show up.

Well if they don't want to wait for 10 mins then they'll switch to lights/mediums themselves. If they insist on playing heavies/assaults only then let em wait 10 mins. Seems fair to me, natural balancing of mech types.

[tenderloving]

They way things are set up now, any time you take a mech that weighs less than 85 tons you are setting yourself up for a major imbalance. The most advanced matchmaking algorithm ever devised cannot overcome this.

In a competitive environment like this there need to be either incentives or structures in place to broaden the viable choices. Until that happens, the safest bet will always be to take the heaviest possible mech with your favored hardpoint layout.

Edited by tenderloving, 03 June 2013 - 09:04 AM.

[Hammertrial]

Asakara, on 03 June 2013 - 08:05 AM, said:

LOL.. 3 friends playing what they prefer (in this case light mechs) is exactly what it is.. I suspect other groups of friends play what they want as well, as they should in this video game.

I made my point with evidence.. PGI's "fact" does not coincide with my friends and my reality. When 3 friends play light mechs (or 4 friends play lights and mediums) together the matchmaker ends up setting up a large weight discrepancy for the majority of games, even though PGI says it only happens 7% of the time.

No special queues are needed.. LOL, just perhaps they could try to improve weight matchmaking a bit. I would prefer to fight other lights in high-speed frantic combat.. Rather than slowly bleed an assault with a 1,000 paper cuts as he rages at the screen and calls me a "Bundle Of Sticks" over and over.

You do realize that 7% of matches aren't 7% of YOUR MATCHES, right? It's 7% of every match played, BY EVERYONE. Clearly, due to your light premade, are what are causing the 7% to occur in the first place.

I really have no clue what you are arguing. You run at off-peak hours, in mechs with the lowest population played in great numbers, and expect the mm to perform magic and tell an atlas pilot to play a Jenner so that you have a "fairer" match, even though you WON more games than you lost, which shows that SKILL is what's being balanced, not tonnage.

See my first post on page 1. 150 matches taken by ~10 different people in varying mechs, and all solo. With 10x more data than you give we have the 7% "horrendously" bad games listed, and that was prior to the improvements made.

In summary:

Premade + majority lights + bad time of day = MM problems

[Hammertrial]

PhoenixFire55, on 03 June 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

Well then according to you the matchmaker that randomly matched people in closed beta was also working just fine. Back there most matches ended up 8:0-8:1 as well. Only reason PGI started the whole matchmaker phases is to make matches close aka 8:7-8:6. If you will now tell me that it was done to get rid of 'premades stomping PUGs' then I'll tell you that back there and right now most stomps are PUGs stomping PUGs, nothing changed.

Uh no. The matchmaker phases was to prevent an 8 man premade of custom mechs from being dropped against 8 completely PUG players in trials. It was to make the win rates more towards 50/50 for more balanced matches. And hey look, it works! Op won about 50% of his games, irregardless of the weight differences!

In my own study with 150 recorded matches, the heavier team won ~51% of the time! Skill based matchmaking!

8:7 doesn't mean the match was more balanced than an 8:0, it means the winning team couldn't focus fire worth a damn or some hideous brawl occured where everyone just fired at everything.

[Mister Blastman]

If the matchmaker used "tonnage" based matchmaking and not "class" based matchmaking, things would be considerably more interesting.

[PhoenixFire55]

blinkin, on 02 June 2013 - 10:45 PM, said:

this is just the nature of a somewhat deadly tactics based game.

Then I don't understand the reason behind phase 1 to phase 4. Because we already had this 'nature' in closed beta. If you ask me back there matches were way better balanced.

[MaddMaxx]

PhoenixFire55, on 02 June 2013 - 04:46 AM, said:

They should be able to drop in whatever they want and matchmaker should find them an appropriate balanced match. If it does not its broken.

And not surprisingly, the Dev have stated they can do exactly that. All that group has to do is possibly wait 5+ minutes for the proper mechs and ELO to show up in the Pool when it is short. Imagine the OP's outrage at having to wait for his "fair" match then... please.

A perfect example of wanting your cake and eating it too.

[Zypher]

MaddMaxx, on 03 June 2013 - 09:15 AM, said:

And not surprisingly, the Dev have stated they can do exactly that. All that group has to do is possibly wait 5+ minutes for the proper mechs and ELO to show up in the Pool when it is short. Imagine the OP's outrage at having to wait for his "fair" match then... please.

A perfect example of wanting your cake and eating it too.

Imagine what they could do if the population was bigger

[Hammertrial]

PhoenixFire55, on 03 June 2013 - 09:13 AM, said:

Then I don't understand the reason behind phase 1 to phase 4. Because we already had this 'nature' in closed beta. If you ask me back there matches were way better balanced.

It's so good players don't play against scrubs. How hard is it to figure out? I can count the number of trials I see in a week on one hand.

And I can honestly say I rather drop with players that are skilled like Wispsy, Hugster, Cartman, Mr. 144 (haha owned your team cause they ran outta ammo) and know that I'm in for a freaking good fight even if it ends up completely one sided due to positioning/loadouts/skill/communication/whatever than some new player whose asking how to lock onto people who I'm going to faceroll without even trying.

[Vodrin Thales]

PhoenixFire55, on 03 June 2013 - 08:58 AM, said:

Thats actually a very good suggestion. Problem is most people tend to always work on some mechs (get exp for certain mechs or get c-bills using hero/founders mech etc.) and thus would be really reluctant to designate any other mechs.

That is a reasonable sort of suggestion, but for it to really work you would have to force a player to have mechs in at least 3 different mech classes queued up. It's also an imperfect solution because as others have said it will lead to players not being able to play exactly what mech they would prefer.

[PhoenixFire55]

MaddMaxx, on 03 June 2013 - 09:15 AM, said:

And not surprisingly, the Dev have stated they can do exactly that. All that group has to do is possibly wait 5+ minutes for the proper mechs and ELO to show up in the Pool when it is short. Imagine the OP's outrage at having to wait for his "fair" match then... please.

I'm all for. If matches would be REALLY balanced then I'll wait 5 mins.

Vodrin Thales, on 03 June 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

That is a reasonable sort of suggestion, but for it to really work you would have to force a player to have mechs in at least 3 different mech classes queued up. It's also an imperfect solution because as others have said it will lead to players not being able to play exactly what mech they would prefer.

They can still play exact mechs they want they'll just have to wait longer to find games. Same with haveing only mechs of same class, you can play them all you want but at times you'll have to wait longer then your buddy haveing multiple classes.