134 replies to this topic

[Arcturious]

I've just come out of 4 games IN A ROW of matches where my team had 1-2 assaults, vs the enemy team being made of premades totaling 7+ assaults.

Literally every single match I've had time to play this morning before I head out to do some grocery shopping.

8 assaults to 3 assaults
7 assaults to 2 assaults
9 assaults to 3 assaults
8 assaults to 2 assaults

There is really only so much I can take with the MM this FUBAR.

Each time it has been because of teams throwing out the MM beyond what it can cope with. Nearly every game ended with the enemy advertising their clan after the match.

The occasional game I can take, things happen. However it is really getting ridiculous. My elo is decent, not the best in the world that's for sure. However, I can't balance out 4 assaults on my own when I'm leveling Phoenix mechs. I hate feeling like myself and 1-2 others on the team have been put there just to "balance the equation".

It is the worst feeling in the world when you know the game was over before it even began, with your team never having been in the running to win. The MM was just laughing at you the whole time.

Well MM, you can taste my internet vitriol!

[MischiefSC]

Kunae, on 25 October 2013 - 05:14 AM, said:

Why would you think that would happen? Elo isn't the MM. The MM would continue doing what it's been doing, matching up 4-mans, etc.

That's not how it used to work but again there is a world of difference between a 4man of competitive players and a 4man from the underhive. Having one on each team has nothing to do with any sort of balance.

Kunae, on 25 October 2013 - 05:14 AM, said:

No, that's not "all Elo is doing". It's "balancing" high Elo players with low Elo players to get to whichever magical target average Elo is set for that particular match. You tend to end up with matches where you have a bunch of above average players on one side, vs a couple great players who's team is then filled out with people on their 26th match.

Yet without Elo that did happen, all the time. In fact statistically you were more likely to end up with sub-average players than with Elo because they make up a larger percentage of the player population. All Elo does is make it more likely that your team and the other team will have people of relatively comparable skills; ideally it'll be all people around your own skill level. If that's not an option than it'll go to trying to balance for an average. Don't mistake a players percentage ranking in overall skill (for example being one of the top 10% skill wise of players) with having an equivalent representation of the total population. The top 10% of the skill-range of players is quite likely less than 1% of the total player population.

What this means is that without Elo you are far, far more likely to end up with less-skilled teammates. This does also mean that you'll consistently drop against far less skilled opponents. I'm not trying to be insulting her Kunae but without question the only significant advantage to removing Elo is to let the more skilled players and especially the more skilled 4mans play consistently against far less skilled players. This is EXACTLY what happened prior to Elo and exactly WHY Elo was introduced. To protect 90% of the player population from being easy kills for 10%.

Kunae, on 25 October 2013 - 05:14 AM, said:

Again, no we haven't done no Elo with 12-mans, under the current rule-set. Let me ask you this: Does your 4-man get 11-12 kills every match? I would bet not. Back in 8-man days, even with Elo, it wasn't too uncommon for a 4-man to get 7-8 of the kills.

The only thing removing Elo would do in 12mans is make that spread even worse. Remember, statistical averages. Most players and I mean likely in the 80% range play at about the 40-60% skill level. This results in the bulk of matches involving average to sub-average players thus giving that 10% of players who compromise the top 70-100% skill-range a sweeping advantage. Larger sampling, more average results.

Kunae, on 25 October 2013 - 05:14 AM, said:

In 12v12, a single 4 man is not the dominant force it was in 8v8.

Would be in pugs. One thing that's going to affect your perspective is that when you drop in 4mans everyone on both sides is going to be better already. The people you consider window licking mouth-breathers are probably above average people just having a bit of an off day. You mix in the underhive folks who start the match out shooting their teammates then running off alone to die and you'll find at least 2 per team per match, like it used to be. Pre-Elo with only 8 players there were universally, baring sync-drops, 2 players on each team who suicided in one form or another. That'll go to 3 per team. Most of the rest will be asking how to turn 3PV off.

Law of averages Kunae. Right now for whatever complaints you've got you are absolutely dropping with better players and against better players consistently and the lowest tier Elo population never even sees you. While you bolded a couple of segments, if you read the rest you'll see that matching high with low Elo only happens within a certain range. 1800 doesn't match with 800 to make 1300. 1800 matches with 1400 to make 1600. Make sense? You're still within a certain range of your own Elo.

Kunae, on 25 October 2013 - 05:14 AM, said:

First off, the "first 25 matches" crowd shouldn't be in with anyone other than each-other.

That's why they're at 1100 to start. They're not in with anyone else. If someones win/loss is a 1.0 after 50 or 100 matches or higher they're never going to drop low enough to play in the 1100 range. You'll rarely see newbies unless they are at like match 18 and have had a rockin' first dozen matches.

Kunae, on 25 October 2013 - 05:14 AM, said:

I expect, that at worst, what we will see is exactly what we're seeing right now. Where I think it will take us, though, is to a better mix of people who are potentially skilled, learning more because they can actually see real tactics and builds. It will also mean that if you get noobs in your matches, that it is random, rather than by design.

That's what you're missing though or forgetting. You'll get MORE noobs without Elo than with. They are the widest swath of the games population. Don't you remember? That's why 4mans had KDRs of 6 or 8 or 9 after 200 matches and a won 80% of their games pugging if not more. It'll be a wider spread in 12mans, not narrower. That's why you don't win as much or get as many kills. It's not somehow because your team is worse, it's because they're better and your opponents are better, consistently. That's what it's supposed to do.

Kunae, on 25 October 2013 - 05:14 AM, said:

I don't know about you, but I'd rather have the chance to have window-lickers in my matches be chance, rather than by mandate.

I'd rather have window-lickers be a small fraction of my matches (which they are) rather than a constant part of my game because of their statistical majority.

If your Elo is higher then the caliber of players you play with and against is statistically higher. You're not seeing the vast majority of twits that statistically populate the game. That's a good thing for you and them. Prior to Elo games were won or lost by 4mans because 6 out of 8 players on each teams, baring skilled 4mans, were in happy to have a 1.0 KDR and didn't even know the button to use chat. If that's now 2 or 3 out of 12 that's better, not worse.

So is your win/loss higher or lower now, is your KDR better or worse? Both should be lower. If you're winning more and killing more then I'd agree something is off in your band of Elo - for the majority of players, at least the few dozen in my friends list, we are closer to 50/50 win/loss and 2.0 KDR is good, not bad now.

[Kunae]

MischiefSC, on 25 October 2013 - 02:46 PM, said:

So is your win/loss higher or lower now, is your KDR better or worse? Both should be lower. If you're winning more and killing more then I'd agree something is off in your band of Elo - for the majority of players, at least the few dozen in my friends list, we are closer to 50/50 win/loss and 2.0 KDR is good, not bad now.

My win/loss is currently at just over 63%, and my KDR is 2.22. These numbers have been holding roughly steady.

As a caveat, I mostly play lights.

Edited by Kunae, 25 October 2013 - 03:23 PM.

[Shakespeare]

Playing with my team for several days at a time boosts me into the "PPCS + ACs vs all groups" ELO, and literally keeps me from dropping solo, unless I want to be useless every match. It's not so much about personal skill (although I do get placed in matches where I don't belong from time to time) it's more that I might be one of only a few solo players, and almost CERTAINLY the only one not bringing the best, most optimized design at all times. Since that demands a certain playstyle I don't always enjoy, I'll often drop in something else when out of the group, to cleanse my mental palette.

This basically just means I get to lose, a lot.

Seperate out 'group' elo from solo, please. I have no problem dropping against the best when I've got 3 friends with me, too, but on my own, I just feel like I'm being farmed. There's something strange about the system when, once you've advanced to a certain level of performance, you hurt the team by not bringing lancemates. I just wanna drop alone sometimes, dammit!

[Deathlike]

Shakespeare, on 25 October 2013 - 03:53 PM, said:

Seperate out 'group' elo from solo, please. I have no problem dropping against the best when I've got 3 friends with me, too, but on my own, I just feel like I'm being farmed. There's something strange about the system when, once you've advanced to a certain level of performance, you hurt the team by not bringing lancemates. I just wanna drop alone sometimes, dammit!

QFT

[MischiefSC]

Splitting group from solo Elo isn't a bad idea at all.

@Kunae;

The problem is that your experience is anecdotal and your stats distinctly above average. If you've got a couple hundred/few hundred drops under you and you mostly do lights then statistically you're going to be a ways up in Elo. Hence your experience is going to differ from most peoples.

The point of Elo is to do two things:

1. Try to get a more consistent difficulty, statistically, for every player in every match.

2. To protect people with a 1.0 win/loss and 1.0 KDR (or less) from players like you.

It does that. Any sort of win/loss over a 1.5 after a good 300 or so matches means you're doing very well and see only a small sliver of the more average part of the player base. That's good, that's Elo doing what it's supposed to.

Removing Elo will NOT result in you seeing less noobs - it will result in you seeing more.

Does that make sense? The only reason someone with a good win/loss and good KDR would want to play without Elo would be access to more low Elo players since people with equal or better Elo than yourself will be statistically far, far less common than you see now. I don't think that's what you want. It sounds like you're just frustrated that you're seeing people on your team who are.... struggling, and now you feel like it's *intentional*. That it's not just bad luck but like the system is hamstringing you by dropping you with mouth-breathing window-lickers who LOVE 3PV and feel like it's the best mode to fight in.

What's important to understand is that you're seeing far, far less of them than you would without Elo. Elo is protecting you from them (well, them from you really) to a huge degree. If MW:O has a population anything like most MMO-style games (and I've worked for a few) then in any given hour ~20% of the active playerbase is online. Your top 10-20% skill-wise of players actually populate ~1% of the total population. So ~1/5th of 1% of people playing in any given hour are excellent players, maybe as much as 10 or 20% are 'good', the remaining 80-90% are pretty average. As in win/loss of 1.0-1.2 and a KDR of 0.8 to 1.2. This means that in any given game of the 24 players if you, Kunae, were dropping solo in pugs there might be one or at most 2 people in the whole match are are even approximately your own skill. The remaining 21 players would be the window-lickers you're trying to avoid. While your KDR would skyrocket you would curb-stomp newer players ever game, forcing the average win/loss and KDR of the rest of the pbase down. Is that what you really want? I don't think it's what everyone else wants.

Here's another thing to keep in mind. You get a little better every game you play. For you to have kept a consistent win/loss and KDR several months after the release of Elo means that you are, at this point, considerably better than you were pre-Elo. The caliber of the people you're playing against is better you're just improving at about the same rate that your Elo is rising. That's awesome! Eventually you'll start to even out but at this point it's not a good experience for everyone else to drop you in the game without Elo. It's not fair and it's not fun for everyone else. Hopefully not for you either.

Elo has plenty of room to grow and improve. Nobody questions that. Without it however it would be back to 10% of the games population ROFLSTOMPing the remaining 90%, only worse. New players are as good (bad) as they ever were. We've all gotten considerably better because we're playing better opponents. Perhaps the problem is your expectations are higher now? Don't you remember when it was a great game if over 1/2 of your team just went the same direction? Now it's only 1 or at most 2 out of 12 that tend to pull a goober.

Splitting group from solo Elo is good though. That's a place I think we could tighten the experience up for everyone.

[Satan n stuff]

Arcturious, on 25 October 2013 - 01:38 PM, said:

I've just come out of 4 games IN A ROW of matches where my team had 1-2 assaults, vs the enemy team being made of premades totaling 7+ assaults.

Literally every single match I've had time to play this morning before I head out to do some grocery shopping.

8 assaults to 3 assaults
7 assaults to 2 assaults
9 assaults to 3 assaults
8 assaults to 2 assaults

There is really only so much I can take with the MM this FUBAR.

Each time it has been because of teams throwing out the MM beyond what it can cope with. Nearly every game ended with the enemy advertising their clan after the match.

The occasional game I can take, things happen. However it is really getting ridiculous. My elo is decent, not the best in the world that's for sure. However, I can't balance out 4 assaults on my own when I'm leveling Phoenix mechs. I hate feeling like myself and 1-2 others on the team have been put there just to "balance the equation".

It is the worst feeling in the world when you know the game was over before it even began, with your team never having been in the running to win. The MM was just laughing at you the whole time.

Well MM, you can taste my internet vitriol!

I think this is because it's much harder to balance team weights when both teams consist of three groups of 4. There's going to be full assault lances and full light lances on at any given time and putting those in a team makes it nigh impossible to keep the total weight balanced, because each group can only be matched against a small fraction of the groups in queue at the same time because of group elo scores. The odds of any of those groups having an appropriate tonnage are fairly low.
In my opinion limiting the number of groups to two per team would help balance team weight, as you could fill out the third lance with whichever PUG players would balance weight and elo. The odds of finding 4 PUG players whose combined stats match the criteria should be much higher than the odds of finding a group that fits.

Edited by Satan n stuff, 26 October 2013 - 02:11 AM.

[Kunae]

MischiefSC, on 25 October 2013 - 09:06 PM, said:

Splitting group from solo Elo isn't a bad idea at all.

@Kunae;

The problem is that your experience is anecdotal and your stats distinctly above average. If you've got a couple hundred/few hundred drops under you and you mostly do lights then statistically you're going to be a ways up in Elo. Hence your experience is going to differ from most peoples.

The point of Elo is to do two things:

1. Try to get a more consistent difficulty, statistically, for every player in every match.

2. To protect people with a 1.0 win/loss and 1.0 KDR (or less) from players like you.

It does that. Any sort of win/loss over a 1.5 after a good 300 or so matches means you're doing very well and see only a small sliver of the more average part of the player base. That's good, that's Elo doing what it's supposed to.

Removing Elo will NOT result in you seeing less noobs - it will result in you seeing more.

Does that make sense? The only reason someone with a good win/loss and good KDR would want to play without Elo would be access to more low Elo players since people with equal or better Elo than yourself will be statistically far, far less common than you see now. I don't think that's what you want. It sounds like you're just frustrated that you're seeing people on your team who are.... struggling, and now you feel like it's *intentional*. That it's not just bad luck but like the system is hamstringing you by dropping you with mouth-breathing window-lickers who LOVE 3PV and feel like it's the best mode to fight in.

What's important to understand is that you're seeing far, far less of them than you would without Elo. Elo is protecting you from them (well, them from you really) to a huge degree. If MW:O has a population anything like most MMO-style games (and I've worked for a few) then in any given hour ~20% of the active playerbase is online. Your top 10-20% skill-wise of players actually populate ~1% of the total population. So ~1/5th of 1% of people playing in any given hour are excellent players, maybe as much as 10 or 20% are 'good', the remaining 80-90% are pretty average. As in win/loss of 1.0-1.2 and a KDR of 0.8 to 1.2. This means that in any given game of the 24 players if you, Kunae, were dropping solo in pugs there might be one or at most 2 people in the whole match are are even approximately your own skill. The remaining 21 players would be the window-lickers you're trying to avoid. While your KDR would skyrocket you would curb-stomp newer players ever game, forcing the average win/loss and KDR of the rest of the pbase down. Is that what you really want? I don't think it's what everyone else wants.

Here's another thing to keep in mind. You get a little better every game you play. For you to have kept a consistent win/loss and KDR several months after the release of Elo means that you are, at this point, considerably better than you were pre-Elo. The caliber of the people you're playing against is better you're just improving at about the same rate that your Elo is rising. That's awesome! Eventually you'll start to even out but at this point it's not a good experience for everyone else to drop you in the game without Elo. It's not fair and it's not fun for everyone else. Hopefully not for you either.

Elo has plenty of room to grow and improve. Nobody questions that. Without it however it would be back to 10% of the games population ROFLSTOMPing the remaining 90%, only worse. New players are as good (bad) as they ever were. We've all gotten considerably better because we're playing better opponents. Perhaps the problem is your expectations are higher now? Don't you remember when it was a great game if over 1/2 of your team just went the same direction? Now it's only 1 or at most 2 out of 12 that tend to pull a goober.

Splitting group from solo Elo is good though. That's a place I think we could tighten the experience up for everyone.

Yes, splitting group Elo from solo Elo is something that they should have put in, in the first place.

I wouldn't have made this post, if I were looking for more brain-dead opponents and team-mates. I really don't care for it when people insinuate that I do. The whole point is that I'm sick of having worthless team-mates and targets... now I may be incorrect about my assumptions that the over-all game-play would improve, sans Elo, but I'd like to try it for a short period. That was the purpose of this thread.

And just so you don't have to guess, I have ~8,400 matches.

(Edit: Since OB started, that is.)

Edited by Kunae, 26 October 2013 - 04:55 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Kunae, on 26 October 2013 - 04:54 AM, said:

Yes, splitting group Elo from solo Elo is something that they should have put in, in the first place.

I wouldn't have made this post, if I were looking for more brain-dead opponents and team-mates. I really don't care for it when people insinuate that I do. The whole point is that I'm sick of having worthless team-mates and targets... now I may be incorrect about my assumptions that the over-all game-play would improve, sans Elo, but I'd like to try it for a short period. That was the purpose of this thread.

And just so you don't have to guess, I have ~8,400 matches.

(Edit: Since OB started, that is.)

You know this probably got lost in my walls of text but Imma put it again here to make clear:

I absolutely do NOT think you're wanting to farm noobs. I've played against you quite a few times when I group and I know you have a high Elo. That's why I said that removing Elo isn't going to do what you want - it's going to put you with more noobs, not less.

Have you got many matches in mediums since Elo came out? if not try 100 matches in a medium. It'll depress you. I took Jenners to Master prior to Elo, then sold them to make room for new toys. After Elo came out I picked up the Sarahs Jenner and it was just depressing. 1 match in 5 devolved into friendly fire, it was hard to find 3 teammates in the same place at the same time and at least two people per match died from going out of bounds. It was like watching Keystone Cops with disabilities and high on meth. It was hard to win enough to get my Elo high enough to claw out of the Underhive.

I would absolutely agree that Elo balancing should focus more on players in the same range than matching total Elo value. That far, far more weight should be given to matching an 1800 with a 1600 than in matching an 1800 with a 1400 to make 1600. The difference between skill at higher Elos is far thinner than that huge gap in competency between average/below average and the above average crowd.

Notice though how there's a few people you see almost all the time and a few people who rotate through you don't know and who generally run around trying not to choke on their tongue? That's Elo at work. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that you're good enough, especially in group, that there literally are not enough people in your Elo band hitting 'launch' at the same time to populate 24 slots. So since it's got to pull other people in at least it's trying to balance the filler to some sort of an average on both teams. That's about as good as it can get. I should know, I'm often the filler who gets pulled up to populate matches between teams of people much better than me. I enjoy that, better than being pulled down to ringer for a terribly low Elo team. In the end though, remember - you're hugely in the statistical minority. Single digit percentages if not <1%. Without Elo most players on both side will be average - and average is 1.0 win/loss and 1.0/KDR.

I would absolutely agree though that weighting should be more towards keeping Elo in the same bands together than balancing high/low, even if that results in a wider disparity between both sides. I'd rather be on a team of 12 people in the 1400-1600 range against a team in the 1500-1700 range or even 1600-1800 range than a team with 4 at 1800 and 8 at 1200. Those 4 can't make up that slack. The skill gap between a 1.0 average and a 1.5 average is vast. Between 1.5 and 2.0 far less so.

So, again. Sorry if you feel like I was insulting you. Not the point at all, I absolutely get that your intent is not feeling like the system is intentionally hamstringing you by putting cross-eyed window-lickers playing via steering wheel on your team to 'balance you out'. At least if it's random it wouldn't feel, well, almost punitive. My point is just that without Elo you'll see far more and not far less of that.

[Enzane]

I don't mean to complain or Contradict. But ELO does seem to be doing it's job.

In 12 mans we always seem to find someone our equal or better.

However, the Time it Takes to find someone is a big pain, Forcing us to "ready up" between 12 and 24 times in one hour.

[Kunae]

Enzane, on 26 October 2013 - 08:47 AM, said:

I don't mean to complain or Contradict. But ELO does seem to be doing it's job.

In 12 mans we always seem to find someone our equal or better.

However, the Time it Takes to find someone is a big pain, Forcing us to "ready up" between 12 and 24 times in one hour.

It isn't about 12-mans. This is about pugging.

[Enzane]

Kunae, on 26 October 2013 - 09:19 AM, said:

It isn't about 12-mans. This is about pugging.

Ah. My apologies then.

[Kunae]

MischiefSC, on 26 October 2013 - 08:45 AM, said:

So, again. Sorry if you feel like I was insulting you. Not the point at all, I absolutely get that your intent is not feeling like the system is intentionally hamstringing you by putting cross-eyed window-lickers playing via steering wheel on your team to 'balance you out'. At least if it's random it wouldn't feel, well, almost punitive. My point is just that without Elo you'll see far more and not far less of that.

I am just not sure. I'm not asking for it to be changed this way permanently, I'd just like to see it for myself, that it would be worse, if that's the case.

[MischiefSC]

Kunae, on 26 October 2013 - 09:22 AM, said:

I am just not sure. I'm not asking for it to be changed this way permanently, I'd just like to see it for myself, that it would be worse, if that's the case.

Fair enough. I suspect though that turning Elo off in the MM for a weekend would be no easy thing. Probably screw up SRMS, make LRMs fly through obstructions and increase Gauss heat to 12/shot.

I'd be all for a no-Elo weekend though. It's like camping - sometimes you need a reminder why we made flushing toilets.

[Ghogiel]

Shakespeare, on 25 October 2013 - 03:53 PM, said:

Seperate out 'group' elo from solo, please. I have no problem dropping against the best when I've got 3 friends with me, too, but on my own, I just feel like I'm being farmed. There's something strange about the system when, once you've advanced to a certain level of performance, you hurt the team by not bringing lancemates. I just wanna drop alone sometimes, dammit!

Have it optional then. I prefer to play against the best and tryhard especially while solo.

[Roland]

Ghogiel, on 26 October 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

Have it optional then. I prefer to play against the best and tryhard especially while solo.

I think it's assumed that solo players would be able to drop in any queue they want.

Basically, just that in the solo queue, you could ONLY drop if you were ungrouped.

This is how most other games work.

[aseth]

The tonnage matching these days is pretty terrible. When I first started playing, it was much, much better - in most cases the number of lights, mediums, heavies, and assaults on each team were pretty similar.

It was vastly superior to our current matchmaking.

Edited by aseth, 27 October 2013 - 09:18 AM.

[Amsro]

Your skill and abilities as a pilot do not represent your "Elo Score". Instead that is determined by the team you were placed with, and seeing how teams consist of Cadets and Veterans, your win/loss is in fact random.

Ergo your Elo Score is also random, not to mention Elo had been completely skewed since the first few months of Elo miscalculated the boost given for wins/losses making all following matches erroneous by default.

The lack of Weight Matching has also resulted in lopsided tonnage matches, also skewing Elo from true values.

The end product is a MM that struggles to get 12 people on a team and only randomly finds a balanced match.

I think PGI should outsource a MM at this point, their struggles with this are proof enough.

[MischiefSC]

Amsro, on 27 October 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

Your skill and abilities as a pilot do not represent your "Elo Score". Instead that is determined by the team you were placed with, and seeing how teams consist of Cadets and Veterans, your win/loss is in fact random.

Ergo your Elo Score is also random, not to mention Elo had been completely skewed since the first few months of Elo miscalculated the boost given for wins/losses making all following matches erroneous by default.

The lack of Weight Matching has also resulted in lopsided tonnage matches, also skewing Elo from true values.

The end product is a MM that struggles to get 12 people on a team and only randomly finds a balanced match.

I think PGI should outsource a MM at this point, their struggles with this are proof enough.

Huh. I don't see any of that. Given that any single match only has a weighting of about 5 points depending on relative Elo outlier events are statistically minor. The aggregate experience is way, way, way better. At this point the issue is tightening it up in ways that don't dramatically extend matching times or skew other sides of the balance metric (tonnage/skill). Higher player population will help with that.

I am familiar with trying to balance a MM and it's crazy stupid twitchy. A very tiny shift can cause a huge change for small segments of the player population. Tighten up tonnage restrictions by just 50 tons and suddenly your top 5% players are missing 60% more of similar Elo match options and are being pushed out to lower Elo matches - where they in turn skew the results for everyone in that match and themselves. Tighten Elo band matching and now relative Elo skill matches are suddenly way, way better but tonnage mismatching gets a huge statistical rise. The number of matches you get with steep differences in tonnage get a disproportionate bump.

So I get why it's baby steps on tweaking the MM and there's just no substitute for a larger player base. Also the longer things go on the slow thickening of the upper tier you'll get, which is good. Enough people to match in the upper bands without skewing results for the mid-range folks.

[Deathlike]

MischiefSC, on 27 October 2013 - 10:05 AM, said:

So I get why it's baby steps on tweaking the MM and there's just no substitute for a larger player base.

QFT