81 replies to this topic

[Banditman]

Do you guys really think MWO is truly "different"? I got news for you, it's not.

Integrated VOIP? Lulz. That's not going to fix these problems, not at all. It hasn't leveled the playing field in *any* game it's ever been deployed for. 90% of the audience for any game disables whatever integrated VOIP may be deployed. MWO had integrated VOIP, heck, maybe it still does, but the first thing I did was disable it. The last thing I wanted was a couple thirteen year old kids trying to tell me how to play a game I've been playing for longer than they've been alive.

One of the problems I see that needs to be addressed is that ELO doesn't consider weight.

So sure, one team may have a total of 10,000 ELO, versus another team with 10, 235 ELO. It looks balanced to the matchmaker, right? But what does that look like in terms of weight? Is all the ELO on your team tied up in medium mechs, while the opponents have all their ELO in heavy / assault? We have no way to know, but I suspect that this is a cause for many roflstomps.

And as someone else said earlier, Battletech by it's very nature doesn't lend itself to close matches. It doesn't take much for an overload to turn into a laugher. In most FPS games, each avatar is relatively equal in capability. In Battletech, that's not necessarily the case. A STK is vastly different than a CN9, etc.

The true problem MWO has is still PGI. Much of this would correct itself with a metagame. A real metagame. Something like, oh, say Community Warfare.

[Jun Watarase]

Im still failing to see how 8-12 high elo players with optimized loadouts should be getting matched against 8-12 low ELO players with stock mechs, trial mechs or just bad loatouts in general....

[PropagandaWar]

Sorry a 100 tons isn't Spit. I've been in matches where we have been outonned by 200 or so and won. It's harder but doable. Personally I want them to toss out Matchmaker and just bring in Class drops. Forget Weight too. Just simply bring in class. 2,4,4,2 / 3,3,3,3 etc and let us fight. Pres can fill the normal spaces allowing Lones to fill in the gaps.

[NeoOne]

With the changes to drop points, splitting the team up and not having an In Game VOIP system. PGI development once again shows us all how little they understand with regards to MechWarrior lance stile game play. If you are going to drop a group of PuG'S into a location with out a good way to communicate with each other, they just become scrap for any team dropping in, as most will be using team-speak, Skype or some other voice communication.

So with the change to spawn locations with this patch PGI: YOU NOW NEED TO PUT IN PLACE A IN GAME VOICE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM!!! -Please-

This system needs to auto-load each player in to the voice channel for there lance so they can work as a team to give everyone an equal chance of competing on the battle field. You can have other channels open for players who are just working in the Mechlab or Home screen.

This would give the game a true in game\Lance feel and provide a process to allow guided first time/New player experience. Making for a much improved overall game play.

[NeoOne]

Banditman, on 06 December 2013 - 08:46 AM, said:

Do you guys really think MWO is truly "different"? I got news for you, it's not.

Integrated VOIP? Lulz. That's not going to fix these problems, not at all. It hasn't leveled the playing field in *any* game it's ever been deployed for. 90% of the audience for any game disables whatever integrated VOIP may be deployed. MWO had integrated VOIP, heck, maybe it still does, but the first thing I did was disable it. The last thing I wanted was a couple thirteen year old kids trying to tell me how to play a game I've been playing for longer than they've been alive.

That may be true in other games where team work helps bet is not key to the success as it is in MWO.

Which makes the implementation of the VOIP process in MWO critical. The set up would need to have channels set for each Lance, with the option to use it or not at the ready screen, (as pre-mades will still want to use there own voice servers). Let the team commander use the options provide with the map to manage team movements. (If Someone takes command of the team)

Along with the lance channels, setup general channels on the main (home) screen that one could join for the MechLab, loadouts, customizations or just general chat etc... -Just my 2 cents worth-.

[Shredhead]

Jun Watarase, on 06 December 2013 - 09:32 AM, said:

Im still failing to see how 8-12 high elo players with optimized loadouts should be getting matched against 8-12 low ELO players with stock mechs, trial mechs or just bad loatouts in general....

What? That doesn't happen, and it won't happen. (Don't you dare prove me wrong PGI!)

[Jun Watarase]

PropagandaWar, on 06 December 2013 - 09:39 AM, said:

Sorry a 100 tons isn't Spit. I've been in matches where we have been outonned by 200 or so and won. It's harder but doable. Personally I want them to toss out Matchmaker and just bring in Class drops. Forget Weight too. Just simply bring in class. 2,4,4,2 / 3,3,3,3 etc and let us fight. Pres can fill the normal spaces allowing Lones to fill in the gaps.

Two teams of equally skilled players fight each other, one has a 100 ton advantage, who wins?

This is not a hard question to answer. The only reason you would win when out-tonned is due to better skill, optimized loadouts, or more premades on your team. Or all three.

Again im still not seeing why the matchmaker should be putting premades of high ELO players against low ELO randoms. Would really love a explanation from PGI, but i doubt its forthcoming. Where's my 1 million c-bills?

[Atheus]

Jun Watarase, on 06 December 2013 - 08:58 PM, said:

Two teams of equally skilled players fight each other, one has a 100 ton advantage, who wins?

This is not a hard question to answer. The only reason you would win when out-tonned is due to better skill, optimized loadouts, or more premades on your team. Or all three.

Again im still not seeing why the matchmaker should be putting premades of high ELO players against low ELO randoms. Would really love a explanation from PGI, but i doubt its forthcoming. Where's my 1 million c-bills?

To put it in perspective, 100 tons is 8.3 tons per mech. Do you feel hopelessly outgunned if you're in a victor vs. a highlander? A highlander vs. an Atlas? What about a hunchback vs. a dragon? It's not that big a deal. The thing to worry about is loadouts, more than tonnage. It's not that tonnage doesn't matter — I would be shocked if the average damage of all spiders is on par with the average damage of all atlases, but the bigger factor is how effective the pilot is in their mech — whatever it is. In mid-range ELO, often the MVP in a match is someone in a cataphract, or a shadowhawk.

I would focus more on tuning matchmaker in to that big dataset that's being collected on your stats screen, or recording ELO separately for each chassis variant, with a "best guess" approach for new mechs.

[Jun Watarase]

Thats not how it works, an extra 100 tons is an extra assault or two with the PPC/Gauss/AC FOTM vs two useless mediums.

[Atheus]

Jun Watarase, on 06 December 2013 - 09:28 PM, said:

Thats not how it works, an extra 100 tons is an extra assault or two with the PPC/Gauss/AC FOTM vs two useless mediums.

Yeah... it could break down like that too. "How it works" is going to vary on a case by case basis, though. When you try to make it sound so definite you're just being dramatic.

[Wildstreak]

Depends on a lot of factors.
Was in a game earlier where my team had 5 Lights and a Cicada. Despite driving a Locust, I had a ball circling an Atlas who couldn't hit me while I kept nipping at him until I had to leave for cooldown.

[Uncleclint]

PropagandaWar, on 06 December 2013 - 09:39 AM, said:

Sorry a 100 tons isn't Spit. I've been in matches where we have been outonned by 200 or so and won. It's harder but doable. Personally I want them to toss out Matchmaker and just bring in Class drops. Forget Weight too. Just simply bring in class. 2,4,4,2 / 3,3,3,3 etc and let us fight. Pres can fill the normal spaces allowing Lones to fill in the gaps.

I totally like your idea. With randomly changing Class Drops from game to game (like 4,4,2,2 or 2,2,4,4), you could have totally different games for a very long time.

Class Drops > Tonnage Limitation (the one that was announced) > Random Drops > the MatchMaker as it is now!

Unfortunately, chances of this ever happening are at around 0% because I believe in Murphys Law -> it´s never the light at the end of the tunnel, it´s always the lights of the train coming towards you.

Edited by HAS UncleClint, 06 December 2013 - 10:45 PM.

[Jun Watarase]

Merchant, on 06 December 2013 - 10:25 PM, said:

Depends on a lot of factors.
Was in a game earlier where my team had 5 Lights and a Cicada. Despite driving a Locust, I had a ball circling an Atlas who couldn't hit me while I kept nipping at him until I had to leave for cooldown.

Thats a nice example of how broken the game is. No lag compensation + wonky hit detection = near invulnerable lights.

A light mech can easily solo any mech that doesnt boat streaks or have very low ping, and that is just so hilariously broken.

I thin ki know why ELO is so completely broken now.

People get carried and have their ELO inflated by wins.

Example : Newbie in a trial mechs join a match, doess less than 100 damage before dying. His team carries him and wins, and his ELO increases....and for every win like that, he keeps getting put in progressively higher ELO matches until he gets into a losing streak and his ELO drops.

Or the matchmaker could just be putting people of random ELOs against each other.

Had a game earlier today where i soloed 5 mechs that clearly had no idea what they were doing...stock loadouts, energy boating in a jagermech, running away while getting shot in the back for 10+ seconds, a full health atlas hiding while a teammate 150m away dies horribly, etc....and those people clearly should not be in the match at all....

[Coldblood]

Matchmaker seems to get worse as time progresses. In the last few days, there has been more and more 12-0/12-1 face stomps. Usually the winning team has one or more premades or their players are just far superior to other sides. So what's the point of having to wait couple of minutes for a game that is over in 4 minutes as one team gets facestomped in a flash? Imo the instant launching matchmaker of the earlier time worked almost as good as the one we're fighting with today. If 2 minutes of waiting guarantees a balanced match, I'm okay with that. But If I have to wait 2 min outside + 1 min in game for getting whooped with clearly newer players against pre made vets, there's something clearly wrong with the matchmaker and/or elo calculator.

Edited by Coldblood, 07 December 2013 - 04:38 AM.

[Kin3ticX]

I know PGI blows these screenshots off as acceptable outliers...

but what the hell is going on?????

Edited by Kin3ticX, 07 December 2013 - 01:09 PM.

[Wildstreak]

Jun Watarase, on 07 December 2013 - 02:18 AM, said:

Thats a nice example of how broken the game is. No lag compensation + wonky hit detection = near invulnerable lights.

A light mech can easily solo any mech that doesnt boat streaks or have very low ping, and that is just so hilariously broken.

I thin ki know why ELO is so completely broken now.

People get carried and have their ELO inflated by wins.

Example : Newbie in a trial mechs join a match, doess less than 100 damage before dying. His team carries him and wins, and his ELO increases....and for every win like that, he keeps getting put in progressively higher ELO matches until he gets into a losing streak and his ELO drops.

Or the matchmaker could just be putting people of random ELOs against each other.

Had a game earlier today where i soloed 5 mechs that clearly had no idea what they were doing...stock loadouts, energy boating in a jagermech, running away while getting shot in the back for 10+ seconds, a full health atlas hiding while a teammate 150m away dies horribly, etc....and those people clearly should not be in the match at all....

No, not an example of what you say. There are people who can hit me in any Mech they drive, just this Atlas pilot kept shooting late.

First you ignore player skill then later in the same post comment on bad skill claiming bad pilots should not be playing.

Seems you pick and choose whatever supports your belief, a wrongful way of looking at things.

[Vanguard319]

Jun Watarase, on 04 December 2013 - 02:36 PM, said:

All 4 jagermechs, in both alpha and bravo, had the exact same loadout and they knew each other. Its not a coincidence they each had a ECM Atlas either.

Integrated VOIP is irrelevant. Let me put it this way.

You have two football teams playing each other. One team is comprised entirely of professional football players. The other team is comprised of a mix of random people, most of whom barely know how to play the game.

The first team is fully kitted out in professional gear. The other team is kitted out in a mix of their own gear, which might include jeans and dress shoes.

They both have access to the exact same communication tools and planning time for the match. Who wins?

The problem is that both teams shouldnt be playing against each other in the first place. You dont go to a football match to see Arsenal vs a random highschool team or a group of random people who just show up that day. You go to see Arsenal facing off against another team in the same league as them. Talk to any professional sports player and they will tell you the same thing....they wont waste time playing against amateurs in a serious tournament.

By stacking as many OP loadouts on one team as possible, you virtually guarantee a win unless you get extremly unlucky and drop against an enemy premade doing the exact same thing. It literally does not matter how well the enemy communicates, they will get completely pulverized if they are bringing pulse lasers and LRMs up against a ECM bubble with dual AC20 jagermechs and snipers with PPC/Gauss/ACs.

Im also pretty sure the matchmaking doesnt know how to account for ELO when premades get matched up against randoms. Players who play in premades all have outrageously high ELOs....because its pretty much impossible to lose when playing in one (unless your luck is bad, and your team has one premade vs 3 premades). But they are consistently getting matched against newbies in trial mechs or bad loadouts. If the matchmaker was looking at ELOs properly it would be putting all the premades against each other (due to similar ELOs from winning all the time) and randoms against each other (due to losing all the time against premades).

By your own logic, the only solution is to ban one side or the other. Not gonna happen though because if you ban the noobs, you have no sustainability. You can't ban the veterans either, since a person would be gone the moment they got good.

Pugs have access to ALL the same tools as premades. They can organize, they can use VOIPs, and they can learn basic teamwork and tactics. In my personal experience, pugs do none of these things, then ***** when they get thier ***** handed to them by a team that uses those tools. THAT is why they fail.

[ShinVector]

Jun Watarase, on 06 December 2013 - 09:28 PM, said:

Thats not how it works, an extra 100 tons is an extra assault or two with the PPC/Gauss/AC FOTM vs two useless mediums.

It is not 100% certain...

In the right situation 2 Lights (65 tons) vs. 4 Assaults (385 tons) can win... And I mean killing them off. Less likely to happen in small maps but it happens, see below.

QQ from the assaults is delicious...

Edited by ShinVector, 07 December 2013 - 07:07 PM.

[Atheus]

ShinVector, on 07 December 2013 - 07:06 PM, said:

It is not 100% certain...

In the right situation 2 Lights (65 tons) vs. 4 Assaults (385 tons) can win... And I mean killing them off. Less likely to happen in small maps but it happens, see below.

QQ from the assaults is delicious...

Was basically a shooting gallery for you there, huh. I'm amazed you weren't getting smoked, though. I assumed you were in a 3L for the first 2/3 of that since nobody seemed to be able to see you, but noticed toward the end that it was a 2X, lol. Nicely played.

[Serapth]

Vanguard319, on 07 December 2013 - 04:37 PM, said:

By your own logic, the only solution is to ban one side or the other. Not gonna happen though because if you ban the noobs, you have no sustainability. You can't ban the veterans either, since a person would be gone the moment they got good.

Pugs have access to ALL the same tools as premades. They can organize, they can use VOIPs, and they can learn basic teamwork and tactics. In my personal experience, pugs do none of these things, then ***** when they get thier ***** handed to them by a team that uses those tools. THAT is why they fail.

So basically what you are saying is PUGS could become premades and since they dont, f 'em.

To which I reply, f you.

Dropping premade gives a big advantage. With the recent spawn point change it gives a huge advantage. This is simply called a broken game mechanic, nothing more. That you enjoy exploiting it does nothing to help the long term viability of the game. Add to that ELO hell, were you can play 10 or so matches in ROFLstomps, where you are the highest scoring player on the losing side match after match after match. Game is broken, weight is the least of the problems.


Add lobbys, in lobby give the ability to specify PUG ONLY, even if it increases match wait times, it solves the majority of problems.

Edited by Serapth, 08 December 2013 - 01:49 PM.