23 replies to this topic

[Doctor Proctor]

Now, I don't think I'm a terrible player, just roughly average. And that's fine with me, I don't need to be in the "elite" crowd, I just want to log in and have fun. However, the matchmaking system is really starting to ruin that for me.

I've been playing the game since April, so that's about 4 months now. When I first started I knew almost nothing about the game and bought a Jenner as my first mech, Hunchback as my second, and basically wasted a lot of my cadet bonus without realizing that the money was going to drop like a rock after 25 matches. I spent a lot of time getting cored out in bad trial mechs until I started to build up a stable of reliable mechs, just like everbody else.

I've got well over 1,000 matches under my belt now and a garage with 19 (soon to be 20 when I get that last 100k CBills I need) mechs in it. I would call myself a "veteran" at this point. So why am I still being matched up with players running trial mechs and asking basic game information like "How do I target other players?"

Well, according to a post awhile back it's because the ELO system currently in place puts the new players in about the middle of the pack until their first 25 matches are over and it's figured out their "true" rank. This means that for an average player, even a vet, you're going to constantly be in matches with wildly swinging difficulty. I've seen whole lances made of trial mechs (a whole lance of champion cats with the default loadout and basic paintjobs was a dead giveaway) that don't even know some of the basics of the game. I've also been in matches with 8 Assault mechs with custom paintjobs on my team! Guess which match I won, and which one I lost...

With such a crazy swing though, how am I as an individual supposed to get better? If I can drop into a match where 4 of our mechs are cored within 2 minutes because they were all running trials with the really low default armor values, I'm probably going to lose. But that has nothing to do with *my* skill, and it's not something I can even control within the match like I can with trying to take command and organize a PUG. And thus, what am I going to end up with? Probably a 50/50 win/loss record based on the random chance that I'm dropping with new players or vets, or against new players or vets...which means my ELO won't change, which means the cycle will continue.

How is this intended to be "fun" It needs to be changed to the way it was before where new players started lower on the distribution curve. Then they could work their way up from that point as they get more experience, but it would then leave those middle tiers as a place for the experienced players of average skill to actually learn more and improve their abilities. That's how a ranking system *should* work.

Edited by Doctor Proctor, 28 August 2013 - 07:49 AM.

[Riptor]

But dont you know?

Registrations and player count are steadily rising...

So in theory the enemy team should have as much stock mechs and leeroy jenkins COD players as yours.

[Syllogy]

A challenge won't make you a better player? For shame!

[ShadowSpirit]

Yes, vets love hand holding. We also like to take long walks on the beach.

I want to fight the best. Not a bunch of scrubs. ELO and the matchmaker are still broken IMO. We need ranked play. We need duels. We need 4 vs 4. Not 12 vs. 12.

[Roadkill]

It's sad, really. A lot of games have made successful use of Elo rankings in their games, yet PGI's insistence on trying to balance matches using it is horribly broken. Trying to force a 50-50 chance of winning on each match just makes it so that people's rankings take forever to settle at their proper rank, if they ever even get there.

[DamnCatte]

Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match... find me a find... catch me a catch...

But really, matchmaker should be a secondary method of setting up fights; I'm of a mind with most people that tend to chime in. We really need a way to set up specific matches against who we want to fight, so we can enjoy the game and run out own tournaments, grudge matches, etcetera. I'm not sure how they can still even pretend to be going for "eSport" when you basically are pulling names out of uncle sam's hat for every drop.

[Fais]

Im not goign to start bitching about the matchmaker, I have had a fair share of good matches, and I have seen my fair share of stomps. But last night we had this match that had like 8 Uber players on our team. I'm talking top ~100-200(not sure) players, and the minute everyone recognized the names. People started apoligizing to the other team. It was like watching a race as everyone charged across to see who could get the biggest score. 2 people actually died on our team, but thats because everyone was charging into large groups of mechs. Not sure how those ELO's were matched up but it was defintly not even a close match.

[Modo44]

It is not "getting" ridiculous, it remains so. You can get lucky when many people are playing on Friday nights/Saturday mornings (US/Euro times), but don't expect many even matches at other times.

New players start too high, ELO brackets are too small, premades further break the system both weight-, and ELO-wise. But the win/loss stats (are forced to) look good, so it's all good, and you're on an island.

Edited by Modo44, 28 August 2013 - 08:22 AM.

[Doctor Proctor]

Syllogy, on 28 August 2013 - 07:57 AM, said:

A challenge won't make you a better player? For shame!

8v12 is not a challenge, and that's what happens when 4 of your mechs get obliterated by the other team in the first couple of minutes because they have NO idea what they're doing in this game. Oh, and I was in a Jenner, so yeah, I guess should've just taken on the 3 Atlases and 2 Stalkers on the enemy team myself...

Edited by Doctor Proctor, 28 August 2013 - 08:43 AM.

[Syllogy]

Doctor Proctor, on 28 August 2013 - 08:42 AM, said:

8v12 is not a challenge, and that's what happens when 4 of your mechs get obliterated by the other team in the first couple of minutes because they have NO idea what they're doing in this game. Oh, and I was in a Jenner, so yeah, I guess should've just taken on the 3 Atlases and 2 Stalkers on the enemy team myself...

Sounds like a challenge to me.

[Mister Blastman]

The matchmaker is a comedy. A comedy of snake eyes and sixes. You grab the dice, shake your hand and toss them onto the green felt of fate, eager to drink their blood or feel the Grim Reaper's cold, dark blade. Sometimes the reaper is out to get you with his cold, icy eyes clutching your soul and laughing heartlessly at its feeble attempts to escape. Alas, it cannot, as the bones don't lie and they keep coming up short, one serpent's eye at a time.

Other times it is the opposite. It is as if the Blood God has smiled in your favor, filling your goblet with warm, frothy crimson ale. You glutton on the carrion corpses of the many, their festering death wafting through your nostrils enhancing your pleasure with every breath. You storm across the carnage with fire in your eyes--you are now death, destroyer of hope! The enemy scrambles and hides, shivering in corners, rocking back and forth mumbling to themselves in fear but it is all for naught! Nay! The Blood God has spoken and you cleave their heads from their shoulders and fill your trough with their spurting blood!

And it goes on... and on... and on. Go ahead. Press the button. Insert another coin. See what happens. The hand of fate may smile or frown. You'll never know if you do not.

[armyof1]

Syllogy, on 28 August 2013 - 09:07 AM, said:

Sounds like a challenge to me.

Bad matchup is bad matchup, your calling it a challenge won't change that.

So many experienced players have stopped or played a lot less since the latest fiasco of PGI to make changes lots of players don't want. It's no wonder matchups are worse.

[Prat]

No offense, but you're basing your "MM sucks" on anecdotal evidence. There really is no way for you to know who you're dropping against (ELO wise).Basic color scheme and asking "how do you target this and that" isn't proof. Fact is I still run basic scheme (~5k games) on a lot of my mechs and I see a lot of people that have been around since alpha/closed that ask silly questions to get a rise out of people.

This is not to say that the teams are always balanced, but they're not as horrendous as you paint it. The match-ups I see are no worse or better that WoT for instance. More people have stopped playing because they're bored rather than due to a crappy MM. You can only keep playing Tead Death Match for so long before you call it a day.

Cheers

[Roadkill]

Honestly, my problem with the matchmaker is that I don't feel like my skill has anything to do with the outcome of matches. It's either 12-X or X-12 (where X <= 3) in most games, and when the blowouts are that big any single player isn't going to make a difference. Occasionally I do get a fun 12-10 or 10-12 match and those are great... but that's like once per night. Most games I feel like I'm just along for the ride, win or lose, and there's nothing I can do to change the outcome.

That's the real problem.

[Corvus Antaka]

Riptor, on 28 August 2013 - 07:50 AM, said:

But dont you know?

Registrations and player count are steadily rising...

This is mostly why. The MM has a set time to deliver you results so you don't wait forever to get a match. since everyone launches at a different interval, it's inevitable that sometimes varying elos will appear in a match since there are many variables involved, including 4 mans, their combined elos, newbie 4 mans, solo players, their elos, finding elo matches for them, then trying to combine that all into a 24 man match while at the same time attempting to keep everything even.

Not a simple thing to do. Trolls may tell you otherwise, but that is why they are trolling instead of actually working on the game.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

I want to see a match, just ONE match, where there is no trial mech Disco at all.

[Revorn]

There is a Matchmaker? ....................

[Zerberus]

Prat, on 28 August 2013 - 02:31 PM, said:

No offense, but you're basing your "MM sucks" on anecdotal evidence. There really is no way for you to know who you're dropping against (ELO wise).Basic color scheme and asking "how do you target this and that" isn't proof. Fact is I still run basic scheme (~5k games) on a lot of my mechs and I see a lot of people that have been around since alpha/closed that ask silly questions to get a rise out of people.

Agreed 100%. I ask stupid questions just to laugh at how "newcomer friendly" our community is on TS, and I always run basic green on any chassis that is currently a trial, even if the corresponding trial is a (C) variant... but I don`t use trial mechs, and I I dare say I`m probably not in a low Elo bracket, more likely average, maybe slightly above. Eiher way I`m either good or stupid enough to not fear members of the Church of Skill^TM when I see them in the other team.

In other words, maybe that "scrub" in a "trial mech" was in reality the good player put into your team to balance YOU out... since none of us know our Elo scores, both possibilities are equally valid, and can only be proved by experimentation and careful observation.

Quote

This is not to say that the teams are always balanced, but they're not as horrendous as you paint it. The match-ups I see are no worse or better that WoT for instance. More people have stopped playing because they're bored rather than due to a crappy MM. You can only keep playing Tead Death Match for so long before you call it a day.

Cheers

Also agreed.

Edited by Zerberus, 28 August 2013 - 04:25 PM.

[Sir Wulfrick]

As an empirical observation, 2/3 matches appear to end with a crushing defeat or victory, i.e. 12:0-4 and around 1/3 of matches are what I'd call very well balanced, i.e. where both teams are within a few kills of each other. I play PUG games with a team of 2 friends, i.e. we drop as a 3-man. Average skill for all of us, perhaps very slightly above average.

I'd certainly like it if more matches ended with a close finish rather than a team wipe in either direction. The problem doesn't appear to be the total number of players in any particular match but rather the speed at which a team generally collapses if the number of players per team becomes imbalanced by more than around 3. Again from observation it would appear that the most crucial factor to team success is teamwork. Big surprise, I know, but I think more should be done to emphasize this in terms of hot tips, the game interface, a tutorial etc. etc.

My pals and I don't play in 12-man teams at the moment so my comments obviously don't apply to those scenarios. I suppose we may look for a mercenary outfit to join once Community Warfare is implemented but until that point we're happy sort-of PUGing.

All general observations and YMMV.

Edited for clarity (I hope), it's late and I'm tired.

Edited by Sir Wulfrick, 28 August 2013 - 04:46 PM.

[Zolaz]

Match Maker is like playing the PUG lottery. Sometimes you get a winner and sometimes you get the shaft. If you stay around to see the stats, just look. You will see those new players getting a less than 10 match score.

Instead of making a tutorial or instituting a ranked ELO, the MM rubs you with raw meat and throws you to the wolves.