34 replies to this topic

[Alekzander Smirnoff]

I'll give you this much, I tend to avoid the solo competition weekends, it brings out the absolute worst matches IMO. Any kind of unit cohesion goes down the toilet when everyone's packing as much firepower as possible to score as many kills as possible in the cheesiest of manner possible. Usually results in not quite that fun matches for myself.

[Braggart]

take 4 people, group them and put them in assault. Laugh at the tonnage imbalance and PPC your way to victory.

PGI has this game so screwed up, I truly believe they dont know what to do.

I have pretty much been on the losing end tonight all night because my friends are not playing, and I chose to PUG. It is quite ugly when the other team has a 150-300 ton advantage. That is nothing a pug team could ever overcome.

Edited by Braggart, 23 June 2013 - 06:26 PM.

[Trauglodyte]

PEEFsmash, on 22 June 2013 - 07:55 PM, said:

CAN CONFIRM!

*provides text-only sobstory of his tiny personal sample size*

While that may be true, you did two things wrong there: first, don't do that and second, everyone knows that premades toss off the MM system. I fought against a premade this morning made up of 5 Atlases and 1 Highlander. They ended up out weighting us by over 200 tons.

[Taemien]

LordBraxton, on 22 June 2013 - 08:12 PM, said:

I am noticing the worse the wait, the worse the weight balance

This is intended, well an unfortunate circumstance of any sort of weight matching or elo matching. The only fix are these two things:

1. Hundredfold the playerbase. This will ensure that most games are matched evenly.

2. Remove the matching entirely and throw the first 16 players that queue up into a game together.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If there is 10,000 players online at a given moment, especially during primetime. Its safe to assume that 10% of them are not playing in a game at a given moment (I don't think its too far of a stretch to say a bunch of people are playing all at once when logged in). So that means 1000 potential able to queue. A good number of them will be AFK (browsing twitter, chatting, checking email, ect). Another good number will be fiddling around in the mechlab. With that said, lets say out of that 1000 about 100 of them are queuing up at the same time. Thats six games ready to go. The first match up might be pretty evenly matched as it will match weight and ELO. The second will be less so. The third, fourth, ... and sixth not so much. That is what we are seeing now.

Now lets double the playerbase. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th game will be matched well. 5th through 8th will be meh and the rest might be terrible. Now lets 10fold it. Now we've got 60ish games to match up. At least 20 of them will be matched well. And because there's probably 100-200 players entering the queue every second, the system can wait it out a tad to make sure those waiting in the queue after the 20th game will be matched well.

This is all just hypothesis on my part. But I think we need about 10x to 20x the playerbase as we have now for the match maker to function ideally and even then only during primetimes. Unless the game gets that many more, then arguing over or complaining about the match maker is just a moot and redundant point. Unless you want this to happen:

When not enough people of the same ELO are queued or available the following error happens, "Not enough players close enough to your rating, please try again later."

When not enough people of similar weight classes can be matched then this happens, "Not enough players of the required weight classes, please try again later."

So you all have to ask yourselves. Do you want an error to pop up saying you cannot play. Or launch into a game?

[C E Dwyer]

Trauglodyte, on 23 June 2013 - 06:51 PM, said:

While that may be true, you did two things wrong there: first, don't do that and second, everyone knows that premades toss off the MM system. I fought against a premade this morning made up of 5 Atlases and 1 Highlander. They ended up out weighting us by over 200 tons.

Which flags up the fact that either PGi refuse to do anything about this, or they can't do anything about this, some months ago sync dropping premades were stopped, until the system worked, pgi claimed the problem was mostly solved, and with ELO, this wouldn't be a problem, so switched them back on, as a slow build up to CW.

I'm reluctant to join premades because I just don't think I pull my weight constantly enough so play purely pug, so I'm allways on the recieving end of this nonsense.

All the time this nonsense continues this game will not grow, people cannot up their game until there is balance, now PGI claim once weighting premades is in it will get better (again) which is supposed to be happening in july IIRC.


Balancing the matches to me seem the most important factor bar none, to making this game work, but it seems that even this can't be done correctly. Until it is the casual players that PGi insist they need, to the extent of going back on things they said would never happen (coolant flushing, 3PV) causing anger in the hardcore community, will simply not stay .

[Mercules]

Why are there no screen shots showing this 100+ tons of imbalance, you know, "confirmation". Yes if a 4 man is in there and it has to balance them against 4 other players using 4 assaults it seems like weights can get wonky, but I haven't seen a 100+ ton difference in a LONG time.

So we will go back to the classic, "Screenshots or it didn't happen." line.

[Butane9000]

Well you're right that it throws off the match maker. But you're wrong when it comes to tonnage.

Last night I was dropping with friends and we were running an mix of mediums and heavies. I believe it was a Blackjack, Centurion, Trebuchet and Quickdraw.

The enemy team weighed a total of 500 tons while we weighed a total of 445. Now while that is only a 55 tonnage difference the other 4 man was using heavy min-max builds.

If you compare the two 4 mans the opposing 4 man weighed 315 tons while our 4 man weighed 205. A 110 ton difference.

Spoiler

Edit: Oh I forgot to add that teamwork did make a significant difference. They let one of their "pugs" run out and grab every ones attention then mounted on the ridge. Once we were scattered they pushed up and destroyed us quickly.

Edited by Butane9000, 24 June 2013 - 06:53 AM.

[FrDrake]

Merc, it happens, I'm not a whiner and I've beaten so many teams who had 150+ tons on my team it's not worth counting. But I've seen it plenty of times, and it's due to 4 man teams dropping in all assaults. I don't feel it's a problem like these other people do, because skill is worth a 100 tons on any mech, but don't deny the issue exists and in some tiers skill doesn't add as many tons so it's a legitimate issue in those tiers.

As for a fix, more players would help, more groups queuing up would help too, so even if they out ton there should be a 4 man on your team whose coordination can make up some of the slack.

But the long and short of it, even with class matching, you can get 4 AWS against 4 Atlas and that's almost a 100 ton variation right there.

Butane9000, on 24 June 2013 - 06:52 AM, said:

Well you're right that it throws off the match maker. But you're wrong when it comes to tonnage.

Last night I was dropping with friends and we were running an mix of mediums and heavies. I believe it was a Blackjack, Centurion, Trebuchet and Quickdraw.

The enemy team weighed a total of 500 tons while we weighed a total of 445. Now while that is only a 55 tonnage difference the other 4 man was using heavy min-max builds.

If you compare the two 4 mans the opposing 4 man weighed 315 tons while our 4 man weighed 205. A 110 ton difference.

Spoiler

Edit: Oh I forgot to add that teamwork did make a significant difference. They let one of their "pugs" run out and grab every ones attention then mounted on the ridge. Once we were scattered they pushed up and destroyed us quickly.

To be fair Stealth Raptor is a good sniper, if you guys scattered and got picked off one by one by him then that's what lost the match, not the weight difference.

[Syllogy]

Teams will always throw weight balancing, and weapon balancing, and mech balancing, and just about any other type of balancing there is.

Imagine pitting the Yankees against a little league team. Both teams use the same bats, the same balls, and the same field, but it's pretty clear who will have the advantage.

[Mechteric]

I've pretty much noticed this as well. The games that seem to be the most fun and balanced when I am in a 4 man is when our mechs are fairly balanced. 1 assault, 2 mediums/heavies, and 1 light often have the most fun.

[Mercules]

FrDrake, on 24 June 2013 - 06:54 AM, said:

Merc, it happens, I'm not a whiner and I've beaten so many teams who had 150+ tons on my team it's not worth counting. But I've seen it plenty of times, and it's due to 4 man teams dropping in all assaults. I don't feel it's a problem like these other people do, because skill is worth a 100 tons on any mech, but don't deny the issue exists and in some tiers skill doesn't add as many tons so it's a legitimate issue in those tiers.

1. There are no "tiers" in MWO. It makes two teams that have roughly the same Elo. I believe it averages them out but they might have done it even more simple and just have it add up the total and find a group of players around the same total.

2. I haven't seen it happen in a long time. I thought it did once recently but then I added up the actual weights and realized that we had two mediums on our side and a few more heavies while they had 2 25 ton lights and a bunch of Assaults. The tonnage was 5 tons off although at first glance it -looked- like we were heavily out-tonned.

FrDrake, on 24 June 2013 - 06:54 AM, said:

As for a fix, more players would help, more groups queuing up would help too, so even if they out ton there should be a 4 man on your team whose coordination can make up some of the slack.

What would help would be Lobbies and weight drop restrictions. When you can dropp 500 tons in 8 mechs I can promise you won't have 4 assaults all that often.

FrDrake, on 24 June 2013 - 06:54 AM, said:

But the long and short of it, even with class matching, you can get 4 AWS against 4 Atlas and that's almost a 100 ton variation right there.

No it isn't. Because there are 4 other mechs on both sides. Doesn't matter if it is 4 Awesomes against 4 Atlas if the Awesome side has heavies with it and the Atlas side has lights and mediums. Add tonnage up. More than 20+ tons more is very rare. I haven't seen 100+ in a VERY long time. Last time I did the MM only matched chassis types and one side was running the heaviest end of the scale and the other the lighter end for each category.

[SMDMadCow]

BaconFat, on 23 June 2013 - 01:54 PM, said:

its p2w as it available in no other form and is very much competitive for endgame usage...don't be so ignorant. just as it was p2w to use gold ammo in tanks (not that I didn't use em ;p), of which the game acknowledged eventually and made them purchasable by in game credits. So again, don't be so ignorant.

What you can do in a Misery, you can do in an Atlas RS with more armor and similarly enough in a Highlander 732 with jumpjets. Misery is not the same as gold ammo.

[FrDrake]

Mercules, on 24 June 2013 - 07:10 AM, said:

1. There are no "tiers" in MWO. It makes two teams that have roughly the same Elo. I believe it averages them out but they might have done it even more simple and just have it add up the total and find a group of players around the same total.

2. I haven't seen it happen in a long time. I thought it did once recently but then I added up the actual weights and realized that we had two mediums on our side and a few more heavies while they had 2 25 ton lights and a bunch of Assaults. The tonnage was 5 tons off although at first glance it -looked- like we were heavily out-tonned.

What would help would be Lobbies and weight drop restrictions. When you can dropp 500 tons in 8 mechs I can promise you won't have 4 assaults all that often.
No it isn't. Because there are 4 other mechs on both sides. Doesn't matter if it is 4 Awesomes against 4 Atlas if the Awesome side has heavies with it and the Atlas side has lights and mediums. Add tonnage up. More than 20+ tons more is very rare. I haven't seen 100+ in a VERY long time. Last time I did the MM only matched chassis types and one side was running the heaviest end of the scale and the other the lighter end for each category.

I understand what you're saying, and even taking that into account this past weekend in my mind I can confirm for sure 3 matches that were over 100 tons disparity. It happens with 4 mans on each side, the 4 man on their side had 3 atlas and a HGH, the 4 man on my time was running hunch/cents. We actually ended up winning that match because the 4 man didn't stay with their pugs, but point is, the 4 mans who choose to run all assaults, and the 4 mans who choose to run all lights are what's doing it. Like I said before though, I think the tonnage makes alot less difference in the outcome of a match than what has been represented in this thread.

[zhajin]

I really am not that concerned with weight balance specifically. I have seen plenty of games go to the lighter team. the real reason pugging sucks is because there is almost no communication, no balance of play style, and really little balance of player skill. Throw on to that weapon imbalance, xp grinding/tournaments/trial mechs (and other reasons for sub optimal mechs/builds), disconnects, 4-mans vs pugs, etc. and really the pug game is, more often than not, a bad experience. weight balance is just a small factor.

Really I would not expect this to change any time soon. this game is far too complex and pgi does not have the resources to balance it properly. especially since they keep adding more complexity with every patch.

Edited by zhajin, 24 June 2013 - 08:35 AM.

[Gallowglas]

Yeah, I don't often PuG, but it was downright painful doing so this weekend. I lost count of the number of times my team folded very suddenly because there was a coordinated pre-made on the other team. Despite me trying to give some basic directions and sticking with the biggest cluster of mechs (and admonishing stragglers to get back to the main group), there were a ton of matches that were over within just a few seconds and in which I was suddenly left with 8 healthy opponents to deal with by myself because I was the last mech standing. This isn't some attempt to make myself look amazing or that I was somehow the lone skilled player on a team of n00bs, but there was definitely a mismatch more often then not predicated in part upon which team had the organized groups.

It's made worse when the disorganized team has substantially fewer assault mechs. That also happened quite a bit. Yes, you can be within a few tons of each other, but if one team has 4 assaults and 4 lights and a premade, and the other team has 8 mediums with lone wolves, who do you think is going to get curb stomped? Elo being equal or not, I bet the former beats the latter 9/10 times.

In doing these sorts of events, it might be nice to have a solo-only queue with a stronger emphasis on weight-balancing. It wouldn't even have to be active all the time, but for these sorts of competitions, I feel like it's the only way to truly level the playing field.

Edited by Gallowglas, 24 June 2013 - 11:47 AM.