158 replies to this topic

[Luke Garrad]

Xando, on 02 November 2013 - 10:58 AM, said:

44% win and 56% loss is probably within the margin of error. The ideal for a matchmaker is 50%

I've been playing this game long enough that the matchmaker should put me with games that are 50/50 but nope.

[Ghogiel]

MischiefSC, on 02 November 2013 - 10:51 AM, said:

The best solution IMO is splitting grouped from pug Elo. When you pug you track one Elo, when you group you track another. This lets you pug at your solo skill (and your skill in solo builds) and when you group you drop at your grouped skill (and proficiency with builds catering to grouping).

Better for everyone.

It would have to track particular group player make ups for it to be viable imo. Even now I have to be particular with who I group with while in my assaults. Have to play mediums with people I don't know to figure out where abouts the games will land and who is online... comms won't save them.. or me. Best just going solo sometimes XD

Edited by Ghogiel, 02 November 2013 - 11:04 AM.

[Xando]

Luke Garrad, on 02 November 2013 - 11:01 AM, said:

I've been playing this game long enough that the matchmaker should put me with games that are 50/50 but nope.

margin of error means that you are in 50/50

[Luke Garrad]

Xando, on 02 November 2013 - 11:06 AM, said:

margin of error means that you are in 50/50

I see. I thought you meant the matchmaker was in error. Sorry about the misunderstanding.

[Xando]

Luke Garrad, on 02 November 2013 - 11:07 AM, said:

I see. I thought you meant the matchmaker was in error. Sorry about the misunderstanding.

I probably should have structured that post better. I understand how you feel though. My win loss is pretty close to 50% but sometimes it feels like you're losing almost every game. I suspect that winning the match but being destroyed has something to do with it.

[MischiefSC]

Ghogiel, on 02 November 2013 - 11:02 AM, said:

It would have to track particular group player make ups for it to be viable imo. Even now I have to be particular with who I group with while in my assaults. Have to play mediums with people I don't know to figure out where abouts the games will land and who is online... comms won't save them.. or me. Best just going solo sometimes XD

Plenty of people in organized teams have multiple accounts depending on what sort of mechs they're running. Also, end of the day, dropping with 4 people who are only passably skilled without voice coms is still going to give you an edge. I should know, I never use coms but do just fine dropping in group. Like everyone else I tend to win more when I group - I just get fewer drops in and don't get to spend the time I like fiddling with builds in between.

Result?

If I try to play something like a 1G battlemaster that is gimped out of the gate (no JJs, at best mediocre hardpoints. Only benefit is big arms and... 60 degree torso turning? Almost no elevation/declination? Why? What possible, reasonable logic is there to that? It would be like if they gave the Awesome an engine cap of 300. What is the reason behind that? Even the 4X has some passable build options, the most a 1G can hope for is a meager PPC sniper role) then I'm a crushing burden to whatever team I play on and am going to get DESTROYED, constantly. That mech is not capable of playing at whatever Elo I've worked myself into with other mechs playing in teams.

If I was playing however at the Elo my pugging skill dictates (I tend to pug light/medium/heavy) my Assault skill would put me in an Elo band where I'm not dropping consistently against 4mans of PPC/AC poptarts and spotter/LRM teams. Playing in a 1G wouldn't be optimal but at least it wouldn't be like dropping in a mech that's got 20 tons empty just for giggles.

[Mordin Ashe]

The problem is the game today is absolutely dominated by cheesy ballistics builds. Anything that can pack few AC/5 or bigger will do that, given the ridiculous DPS of such weapons they will rip you apart in few seconds without having much to fear. When two or three players with such mechs stick together and communicate in battle there is nothing you can do to stop them. As much as LRMs dominated the fields almost a year ago right now we have another, more powerful dogs in the pit. It is hilarious fun to be in the winning team, be a part of that victorious group where all members do 400-100 damage and have many kills, but it fairly spoils the game for the rest.

[Luke Garrad]

Just tried conquest out. Went in my Dragon got 2 kills and stayed alive till the end. Whole team died and the enemy capped everything. 2 losses from that now so its a 10 streak tonight. How low will my elo go xD

Edited by Luke Garrad, 02 November 2013 - 11:32 AM.

[Ghogiel]

MischiefSC, on 02 November 2013 - 11:15 AM, said:

Plenty of people in organized teams have multiple accounts depending on what sort of mechs they're running. Also, end of the day, dropping with 4 people who are only passably skilled without voice coms is still going to give you an edge.

Who said anything about not having comms lol. And no it doesn't give me an edge at all, almost guaranteed to have to carry really hard every match.

[Selfish]

Luke Garrad, on 02 November 2013 - 11:32 AM, said:

Just tried conquest out. Went in my Dragon got 2 kills and stayed alive till the end. Whole team died and the enemy capped everything. 2 losses from that now so its a 10 streak tonight. How low will my elo go xD

Just because you're losing doesn't mean your Elo is dropping insanely fast. The system first predicts whether or not you're expected to win or lose. If you don't buck that trend, the change is fairly small. If you do, it's more severe. So if you were predicted to lose 10 times, and you did, well your Elo may not have fallen as much as a single win would've brought you up.

[Roland]

If you are pugging, then there is really nothing the matchmaker can do to ensure you will win or lose.

Elo doesn't really work for team games, and it certainly doesn't work for games where different players have different mechs that they are bringing to the field.

[Felbombling]

This is why PuG play is difficult... unbeknownst to you, you are Echo...

"Contact left... everybody on Echo!"
"Echo weak center torso. Aim center torso."
"Echo down... [laughter] What a noob!"

See? Coordination over voice software is not really that big of a deal. Learn to play, noob.

[Levon K]

Luke Garrad, on 02 November 2013 - 11:32 AM, said:

Just tried conquest out. Went in my Dragon got 2 kills and stayed alive till the end. Whole team died and the enemy capped everything. 2 losses from that now so its a 10 streak tonight. How low will my elo go xD

A win might give you extra c-bills and XP, and it will probably increase your ELO.

A *good loss* however, will give you more c-bills and more XP. Learn to enjoy the good losses.

Wins + good losses > bad losses

There, now you're enjoying more than half your matches. Find out what you're good at, and excel.

[Mudhutwarrior]

StaggerCheck, on 02 November 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

This is why PuG play is difficult... unbeknownst to you, you are Echo...

"Contact left... everybody on Echo!"
"Echo weak center torso. Aim center torso."
"Echo down... [laughter] What a noob!"

See? Coordination over voice software is not really that big of a deal. Learn to play, noob.

Attracting new players one premade at a time.

[MischiefSC]

Mudhutwarrior, on 02 November 2013 - 12:05 PM, said:

Attracting new players one premade at a time.

Keeping new players away from teams is largely the point of Elo. With time and practice when pugging you learn to recognize when you're the target of focus fire and you move back into cover and be patient. I've seen and helped organize rolling pugs over teams. Generally they have a schtick. 'Everyone bring LRMs' or 'Everyone bring poptarts'. Best solution is often a hard rush - you eat some damage up front but then stomp all over them.

The biggest problem is and has always been that most people tend to be pretty cowardly even in games like this. They get hit and they run. The see a dangerous situation and the 'behave with reasonable caution' or whatever you want to call it. At least 90% of the time victory goes to whoever pushes hardest and fastest. 12mans is a great exception to that but even then a fast, coordinated rush right out of the gate can roll an otherwise very competent team before they are even on their way to positions on some maps.

That's a big advantage to premades. you can say 'Alright, push!' and know that at least a fwe of them will push with you. Do that in pugs and most the team will hide, hoping you do well then die and they can take some easy kills before losing the match. Sad but experience points to this often.

[Luke Garrad]

Levon K, on 02 November 2013 - 12:04 PM, said:

A win might give you extra c-bills and XP, and it will probably increase your ELO.

A *good loss* however, will give you more c-bills and more XP. Learn to enjoy the good losses.

Wins + good losses > bad losses

There, now you're enjoying more than half your matches. Find out what you're good at, and excel.

Wish I could enjoy losses after 12 in a row tonight. I'm going to take a break from this game for a long time as if I keep playing I'm just going to end up with such a **** elo that I'll forever be in a low bracket. Might just come back when they actually fix the system. Just can't believe a game drives me to stop playing it due to its poor systems, at least have a unranked option. I've seen that in different games a long time ago and no one ever played ranked games. Maybe they should add that option into this and see if people really want to be ranked by the elo system.

Edited by Luke Garrad, 02 November 2013 - 12:21 PM.

[Roadbeer]

Luke Garrad, on 02 November 2013 - 12:18 PM, said:

Wish I could enjoy losses after 12 in a row tonight. I'm going to take a break from this game for a long time as if I keep playing I'm just going to end up with such a **** elo that I'll forever be in a low bracket. Might just come back when they actually fix the system.

Which system?
You're being matched against your peers if you're solo.

Mudhutwarrior, on 02 November 2013 - 12:05 PM, said:

Attracting new players one premade at a time.

CW is going to absolutely SUCK for you... just letting you know now.

[Luke Garrad]

At least stats will be reset with the achievements update....I hope that includes elo so I can start from step one again with a average score and move up.

[MischiefSC]

Roadbeer, on 02 November 2013 - 12:22 PM, said:

Which system?
You're being matched against your peers if you're solo.



CW is going to absolutely SUCK for you... just letting you know now.

CW will be awesome for pugs along with everyone else, hopefully, or PGI will have failed at that opportunity. Any system that focuses on punishing people for playing solo is going to inevitably suffer from diminishing returns as it will disincent people from playing long enough to get into things like CW and joining teams while teams will succumb to typical social entropy. Moving to other games, graduating, getting married, the things that move people out of groups.

Genuinely every sane group should want to ensure that new players and pugs drop as rarely against premades as possible until they are skilled enough to hold their own. As in like 500 drops or so. At that point they can intelligently determine what group they would enjoy joining, if any. Any system that says 'you have to join a group to advance' is going to cut its own throat before it even gets half way to the goal.

An attitude of 'join teams or get destroyed' is an absurdly self-destructive approach to multi-player gaming. There are other options out there and more on the way. Games with private servers, games with single AND multiplayer options. Saying you only want to appeal to people who want to play in groups against groups is saying you want to leave 80% of the money out there on the table if not more.

CW, if done right, will be focused on doing just that - further separating teams and experienced players from solo players and less experienced players while offering them an ALTERNATE, not EXCLUSIVE, path to play the game. Otherwise you'll lose a ton of folks on principle (I don't want to be forced to play X style) long before they even try what you're offering.

I hope, in the approach PGI has put forward so far, that continues to prove to be the case.

Edited by MischiefSC, 02 November 2013 - 12:34 PM.

[Mudhutwarrior]

Roadbeer, on 02 November 2013 - 12:22 PM, said:

Which system?
You're being matched against your peers if you're solo.



CW is going to absolutely SUCK for you... just letting you know now.

One man army to distance any new player. Good job!