1911 replies to this topic

[Modo44]

Again, just split solo from group Elo values. The values will automatically move depending on how each player treats groups. Since the group value is calculated based on player values, there you have the special group modifier -- already adjusted for everyone's personal attitude. No, not perfect, but very close without any crazy cost.

As to weighing Elo with mech tonnage, that is just silly. Separate Elo values for weight classes -- preferably even chassis -- automatically take care of that. If you can not carry in class/chassis X, your Elo there is already adjusted to a lower value -- based on worse performance. If you are an absolute medium mech god, you will be matched accordingly, and punish cocky assault pilots (hello, Eglar).

It really, truly is Elo.

Edited by Modo44, 14 April 2014 - 10:08 AM.

[Karl Berg]

Viken, on 14 April 2014 - 06:17 AM, said:

Unrelated to the whole Elo thing... I do have a question for Mr. Berg to at least hopefully point me in the right direction, since he was talking about the servers. Why will private, custom matches require Premium time? This was very lightly answered by Paul in a previous section (I think Dev Video Blog 2, can't check because I'm at work) saying "Server load."

It's basically down to this as far as I'm aware as well. B.A. has some pretty accurate numbers on how much each public game costs us. They have some projections on how much usage non-full private matches are going to cost us. Dual premium time was an effective way for them to balance the difference in costs for now. I think they've gone this route for initial release to soften the blow; consider the two possible outcomes:

- We launch the feature without extra monetization, and their projections for cost increase were too low. This turns out to be unsustainable and we need to add in a pay-gate for underutilized matches after the fact. Definitely a negative for the community, that would see us starting to charge for something that was free before.

- We launch the feature with extra monetization, the projections were too high, and we're now in a position where we can relax these constraints. This would have us stop charging, or charge less for a feature after release instead.

I think the second option is far more preferable.

* Please realize that I'm hypothesizing quite a bit here. I'm not on the marketing teams or business analytics. All I can bring to this discussion is that we do have per-game cost metrics, and my own thoughts on the matter.

[Cimarb]

Karl, did you happen to see my followup about the AC change and how it would possibly affect game performance (or not)?

Heffay, on 14 April 2014 - 06:44 AM, said:

To answer your question, the only true metric to measure skill is your ability to deliver a win. Every other metric can be gamed, but win or loss is the goal, and that is how you determine if you helped contribute or not. And over a sufficient number of games, Elo does exactly that.

Someone who is running around with a 2200+ Elo based off of nothing but win/loss is still significantly better than someone running around with an 1800 Elo. Both are still very, very good players, but the nice thing about Elo is that it can fine tune exactly who is probably better *on average*.

As an almost exclusively solo dropper, I have very little interest in whether I win or lose as a team. Sure, it's great feeling to win, but if would rather have a great, balanced game where I personally performed outstanding, than a winning game where we stomped all over the other team and I could barely get any shots off.

The current Elo causes much more of the latter to happen, unfortunately. My W/L may balance out long term, but if it is a balance of roflstomps one way or the other, I'd rather just lose MM altogether...

[Chronojam]

Hey there, cutie. Some good stuff in this thread.

[Catamount]

There's definitely some good stuff here; I just wish the entire thread wasn't completely dominated by ELO discussion for several pages

Edited by Catamount, 14 April 2014 - 12:39 PM.

[Rebas Kradd]

Catamount, on 14 April 2014 - 12:38 PM, said:

There's definitely some good stuff here; I just wish the entire thread wasn't completely dominated by ELO discussion for several pages

Eh, it's important to the community and a subject Karl is very knowledgeable about...so why not?

[Ilithi Dragon]

Rebas Kradd, on 14 April 2014 - 12:43 PM, said:

Eh, it's important to the community and a subject Karl is very knowledgeable about...so why not?

Oh, matchmaking balance is certainly important, but there are many other interesting and important suggestions, etc., as well.

[Rebas Kradd]

Ilithi Dragon, on 14 April 2014 - 12:48 PM, said:

Oh, matchmaking balance is certainly important, but there are many other interesting and important suggestions, etc., as well.

I've got all the dev posts organized by topic in the OP. Might help a bit.

[Viken]

Karl Berg, on 14 April 2014 - 10:49 AM, said:

It's basically down to this as far as I'm aware as well. B.A. has some pretty accurate numbers on how much each public game costs us. They have some projections on how much usage non-full private matches are going to cost us. Dual premium time was an effective way for them to balance the difference in costs for now. I think they've gone this route for initial release to soften the blow; consider the two possible outcomes:

- We launch the feature without extra monetization, and their projections for cost increase were too low. This turns out to be unsustainable and we need to add in a pay-gate for underutilized matches after the fact. Definitely a negative for the community, that would see us starting to charge for something that was free before.

- We launch the feature with extra monetization, the projections were too high, and we're now in a position where we can relax these constraints. This would have us stop charging, or charge less for a feature after release instead.

I think the second option is far more preferable.

* Please realize that I'm hypothesizing quite a bit here. I'm not on the marketing teams or business analytics. All I can bring to this discussion is that we do have per-game cost metrics, and my own thoughts on the matter.

Thank you very much for the reply! I am in very much agreement that the second option would be preferable.

I had hoped to be able to run private matches without it because I wanted to possibly run some Lance based tournaments (4v4 example, or maybe back to 8v8) but money is a little tighter than I want it to be. If you could pass on the Premium Wins idea, I'd appreciate it. Even if it costs 2 "Wins" for a premium custom match or something as a starting idea.

[Kraven Kor]

I know this is going to be taken as persnickety, and it kind of is, but this is the largest issue I have had with the entire development process and the sensation that we are being lied to and bilked for money.

May I ask, respectfully, why we were told, multiple times, that CW was "90 days after Launch" or "In six months" or whatever it was when, in fact, no code had been written, and PGI had not even secured the IP rights for future development?

We want the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We are big boys, we can handle it, even the admission of "Yeah, well, we had to do that to keep the project going" will at least be seen as an act of good faith.

Why were we, repeatedly, lied to?

And is there any realistic hope of ever seeing the game we were sold during the Founder's Program?

[Rebas Kradd]

Kraven Kor, on 14 April 2014 - 01:12 PM, said:

We want the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We are big boys, we can handle it, even the admission of "Yeah, well, we had to do that to keep the project going" will at least be seen as an act of good faith.

No game company is ever going to admit that, even if it were true. It would be naive to assume that the community would just receive that swimmingly. There'd be riots.

[Kraven Kor]

There have already been riots. At this point, we're just trying to clean up the mess, man.

[dangerzone]

Chronojam, on 14 April 2014 - 12:19 PM, said:

Hey there, cutie. Some good stuff in this thread.

Wow! I'm famous! I'm in a picture! woo!!

[Peter2000]

Tekadept, on 14 April 2014 - 06:10 AM, said:

I understand it perfectly in relation to it being ranking an individual based on individual performance. You are failing to grasp what I am trying to say, what I'm trying to say is it *WONT IF* you happen to luck out on a large portion of those 100 matches and get a good team made up of good teammates/premades who carry your team to victory. It wont go *DOWN* as much as it really *should*.

What you are hitting upon is an interesting question when ELO is applied to groups. Fundamentally, the issue you are getting at is that if someone is literally the worst player ever in a 1v1, and just suicides, they will lose every drop. Any time you win, or lose, it is because you are better (or played better) or worse than your one opponent. However, in a 12v12 this will not be the case. This is because the other 11 players on your team might just carry your sorry rear to victory over the enemy 12. It doesn't matter how good the matchmaker is, sometimes this will happen.

Based on my experiences with discos/afks/etc. in the PUG queue, my impression is that having one player on your team missing (so an 11v12 in the enemy favor) gives your side a moderate but not insurmountable disadvantage. With team skill being equal, you might win 30-40% of those matches. Which means even if you are literally so bad that an AFK is your equal you'll still win roughly 30% of your matches in the long run.

This same principle applies at less obvious levels when you are doing badly (made a mistake positioning, got instagibbed), but your team still wins, or when you're doing well (taking little damage, hitting many good shots), but your team collapses around you, putting you in an unsalvageable situation. In both cases you win or lose based not purely on you own skill or performance, but based on how the team around you did. Still, we can all agree that there are at least some matches where how well you perform as an individual (whether by making a good play that starts a landslide, or just consistently wearing down a key opponent) will completely flip a game from a loss to a win, or vice versa? That means there are some matches where your skill is able to shine through, and others (barring your true skill being WAY higher than your ELO) that are basically flips of the coin.

The principle in question? Noise. In statistics, this is random fluctuation (wins or losses that were not deserved) that serves to (hopefully only partially) cloak the signal (true skill) being measured. There are countless papers and even books written on this one subject, but the long takeaway is that given the right statistical tools, you are able to reduce the impact of noise on your measurements dramatically - it just requires more data (in this case, more matches). Unfortunately, this means that the matchmaker needs a lot of matches to settle someone's ELO correctly. Likewise, no matter how perfect the matchmaker, it can never change the fact that sometimes no matter how well or poorly one individual does, the impact of the other 23 'Mechs' play on the field will overwhelm that (you having a good game does not overwhelm the fact that all of Bravo lance is currently black out drunk).

As a side note, the reason that kills/match score are a very poor substitute for a win/loss based skill ranking is that it rewards a very specific style of play, regardless of performance (assassins and carries, compared to tanks and supports, to use MOBA roles which are less clearly defined in MWO). I too can cower in the back, wait for things to get bloodied up, shoot something dead, then power down in a corner. Doesn't mean I'm helping my team to victory as much as I could. If you can put up great numbers, but your team is still losing (again remembering due to noise, you will still lose some matches even when you do things well), think about what you could do to help not just your own stats, but your teammate's ability to stay alive or deal damage. If you aren't consistently winning, you obviously aren't as much better than your opponents/teammates as you think you are. The best players will WIN 80+% of their matches on your account, I promise.

Finally, enough theory talk about ELO! Open up a separate thread for this. I want more questions/answers/suggestions for Karl!

[Voivode]

Ilithi Dragon, on 13 April 2014 - 07:18 PM, said:

Oh Sweet Baby Raptor Jesus!

I'll take two please...

[Dimento Graven]

Karl,

Thank you very much for the communication, I have few items I didn't notice being discussed, and figured you could kick it on up to the appropriate folks:

1. Color blindness. I would imagine that most of your user population is male and over 30, color blindness is a factor, especially of the red/green variety and the 'weapons ready' indicators around the target reticule are DAMNED hard to read and determine if the weapons are actually "ready" or not.

2. Again, referencing the above age of the player base, most of us having gone through those years of ear bleeding volume in loud music choices, the sound for the gauss rifle is EXPLETIVE quiet! Can someone please crank those charging/charged noises/tones up another 10 to 20 decibels, at least?

3. I was the person who brought the cockpit removal option to the fore, post cockpit glass implementation, and one thing that wasn't addressed as far I could tell is why the cockpit added such a significant drag on FPS. I still have the vids available on YouTube, but in my testing, just standing still, no movement, no firing at all, in Testing Grounds, the performance with cockpit enabled was ~15fps lower than without. For more modern systems, that's probably not much, but for a lot of the player base running on dual core systems and older laptops, it means the difference between being able to play and watching a 'mech oriented slide show.

I just find it odd that being STATIONARY no action at all, there was ANY noticeable hit. I realize the cockpit, and more specifically, sales of cockpit items is an income generating portion of the game, but, quite frankly it doesn't matter how 'immersive' the darn thing is, if I can't play because my frame rates are garbage.

Thanks sir! Keep it up, this is gawdsawfulrefreshing!

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

Modo44, on 14 April 2014 - 02:39 AM, said:

Again, why would a quick convergence be bad? The very goal of big early movements is to quickly put you close to your converged Elo value, and then refine it. The faster you arrive at your actual skill value, the fewer bad matches where your skill is too high/low compared to your score. In fact, the recognized matchmaker problems stem from the perceived lack of skill convergence -- players ending up in impossible or incredibly easy situations even after hundreds, even thousands of matches.

As Heffay posted ... your score should be a measure of your performance (your average contribution to a win) in the long term. A couple of sessions of drunk warrior online, the sado-masochism that was grinding out the basics on the SDR-5V, getting carried for a session by a team of great players, or one or two good/bad matches (or disconnects) should not significantly affect your Elo ... sure, it will incrementally go up or down as a result of those, but those increments should be small.

[Tekadept]

Karl, If you are able to discuss it, how far away do you think the backend servers are from allowing disconnected players to rejoin a match? Or is the functionality already there and there is a bottleneck somewhere else?

In "your opinion" do you think there should be a time limit restricting this to balance it out, ie no rejoins once the match timer has reached 1 minute etc?

Edited by Tekadept, 14 April 2014 - 03:59 PM.

[SilentWolff]

I'm just gonna leave this right here........

http://mwolobby.com/

Edited by SilentWolff, 14 April 2014 - 05:12 PM.

[IronChance]

Dimento Graven, on 14 April 2014 - 02:55 PM, said:

Karl,

Thank you very much for the communication, I have few items I didn't notice being discussed, and figured you could kick it on up to the appropriate folks:

1. Color blindness. I would imagine that most of your user population is male and over 30, color blindness is a factor, especially of the red/green variety and the 'weapons ready' indicators around the target reticule are DAMNED hard to read and determine if the weapons are actually "ready" or not.

2. Again, referencing the above age of the player base, most of us having gone through those years of ear bleeding volume in loud music choices, the sound for the gauss rifle is EXPLETIVE quiet! Can someone please crank those charging/charged noises/tones up another 10 to 20 decibels, at least?

...

Seconded on the color-blindness issue. It hasn't been that big of an issue, but it does feel like functionality non-colorblind people are getting that I'm missing out on. And, yeah, the gauss charger sound is too quiet (which is a sound I rely on since I can't see the readiness indicator on the cursor).

The cockpit UI I don't really care about. I probably should, but I don't.

Edited by IronChance, 14 April 2014 - 05:42 PM.