633 replies to this topic

[IceSerpent]

RichAC, on 12 February 2014 - 10:00 AM, said:

But when I read your posts, I have to reply just in case some are thinking about it.

How about next time you post, instead of just typing random words you reply to this:

IceSerpent, on 09 February 2014 - 12:02 PM, said:

Speaking of which, please post how you came to a conclusion that player base is not big enough - include your target number of players that you deem to be "big enough", how you calculated that number, and how you got current number of players to compare that to.

Or would that be too much trouble? (yes, it's a rhetorical question - I know it would be)

[RichAC]

IceSerpent, on 12 February 2014 - 10:38 AM, said:

How about next time you post, instead of just typing random words you reply to this:



Or would that be too much trouble? (yes, it's a rhetorical question - I know it would be)

I already replied this this specifically. I'll copy and paste from a previous post for you.

"The patch notes and the latest ELO change where they had to widen the ELO gap because too many people were having long search times, is proof enough for me my friend.

Queuing for a 12 man, and failing the queue over and over, or seeing the same team over and over.... is proof enough for me.

The fact this thread was made and people feel matches are very uncompetitive, is proof enough for me.

This all spells, very small playerbase....and to make matches even more uncompetitive, will make it even smaller."

What you propose about private matches or premade lances of any amount of players, in public cw matches Undermines the ELO system, and will only make the game more uncompetitive and unpopular.

Edited by RichAC, 12 February 2014 - 10:50 AM.

[IceSerpent]

RichAC, on 12 February 2014 - 10:44 AM, said:

I already replied this this specifically.

Still no numbers huh? Why am I not surprised...

[Joseph Mallan]

RichAC, on 12 February 2014 - 10:00 AM, said:

What your not understanding is playing with a small private playerbase is not an accurate ELO with the rest of the community.

Whats so hard to understand about that? To get rewards you should be ranked for fair play. Yes REWARDS. planets, cbills, faction bonus, w/e etc etc...

But yes you are correct, its a small community and they have to include everyone, and the fact that the individual rating system in a random team based game is based only on wins alone, yes "luck" has alot to do with it.

Now you can say a rating system is diff then a ranking system blah blah blah, but if you are only playing with the same people over and over again, your ELO is also going to reflect that.

There is nothing wrong if you want to play with friends or hold your own private competitions. But most people would like public ranked matches to be more competitive and that means rating/ranking by ELO or some rating system. And people should not be able to, in a sense, basically pad their stats or rig matches, whether that is most peoples intention or not, and get the same rewards.

Its just a common sense of sportsmanship.

Maybe i'm wasting my time and I'm wrong to assume that PGI doesn't already understand this. But when I read your posts, I have to reply just in case some are thinking about it.

As we are playing a game that is going to simulate war on a very broad front, The rewards will be Murphy's battle the Seraphim for control of planet Lost. There is no need to know how high they are ranked, we want Lost and they are there to defend it. We battle, We win, They move off to a "Undisclosed" planet to regroup. Then Clan Wolf's Golden Keshik comes and demande to know what forces we defend Lost with. Now if MW:O Golden Keshik is as Elite as it is supposed to be, The Law will not stand a chance, will be spanked. and move to an "Undisclosed" Planet to regroup. That is how I see CW working.

Ice, There are over 28,000 pages of the MW:O forum members list. 20 names per page as I have it set up. So we have roughly 570,000 registered users +/- a few thousand for Alts...

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 12 February 2014 - 11:51 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Joseph Mallan, on 12 February 2014 - 08:50 AM, said:

I disagree. Joe has the the most experience of my Alts as he was first. Playing with the Law has my Elo inflated, so I have a bunch of losses to gather to drop from a 58% (down from a 63% start point) win loss to a 50%... Somewhere between 700-900 to become Average. So Elo is going to stack the deck abit against me which affects the whole team. Add to that a 4 man and the affetct it has on Elo averages and You know why stomps will happen always.

Actually your win/loss is not going to directly reflect to your Elo, especially if playing with the Law has inflated your Elo.

Every time you win you'll get between 0 and 50 points added to your Elo. Every time you lose you'll lose between 0 and 50 points. It depends on the caliber of people you play against.

So, for example, dropping with the Law. Because it's a talented group of people likely with a high Elo the matchmaker will have trouble finding an equally skilled team to play against them 100% of the time so they will disproportionately play against less skilled players. This means their wins are less likely to add points to their Elo because they're winning matches they were expected to win.

So this drags your Elo up. When you drop solo however you're carrying that 'Ghost Elo' (I should coin that phrase, it's time) with you so the matchmaker expects you to do as well as you did dropping in 4mans. When you lose in matches it thinks you should have won you'll lose more points.

So your wins are netting you less gain and losses dropping you more. The result being once people hit a point on the forward downslope of the curve (think about the player population as curving up from the Underhive to Averageland, then sloping down to Golden Overrace living in Metaville), as in when you're past a certain point going from Averageland on your way to visit the Golden Overrace in Metaville, you pass a point in population density where they are so many players with an Elo below yours relative to those above yours that you will constantly win more than you lose just to stay even. There are likely a ton of people with a win/loss of 1.2 to 1.4 who stay static in Elo.

Make sense? You don't need to lose an extra 900 games. If you pugged the next 200 games and lost 140 while winning 60 it would probably even you right out. Maybe even 130-70.

The issue of course becomes that when you go back into 4mans you're winning again against people you're expected to lose against and your Elo will quickly climb back up.

Once you climb out of average, one direction or the other, you'll find your Elo settles very quickly. Because of the number of variables though it takes longer to differentiate yourself (for good or ill) from 'average'. You get onto the slope heading to the Underhive or Metaville however and you're going to pick up a lot of speed.

[Joseph Mallan]

MischiefSC, on 12 February 2014 - 11:54 AM, said:

*Words*

Dude... that was cool! Thanks.

[MischiefSC]

Joseph Mallan, on 12 February 2014 - 11:42 AM, said:

As we are playing a game that is going to simulate war on a very broad front, The rewards will be Murphy's battle the Seraphim for control of planet Lost. There is no need to know how high they are ranked, we want Lost and they are there to defend it. We battle, We win, They move off to a "Undisclosed" planet to regroup. Then Clan Wolf's Golden Keshik comes and demande to know what forces we defend Lost with. Now if MW:O Golden Keshik is as Elite as it is supposed to be, The Law will not stand a chance, will be spanked. and move to an "Undisclosed" Planet to regroup. That is how I see CW working.

Ice, There are over 28,000 pages of the MW:O forum members list. 20 names per page as I have it set up. So we have roughly 570,000 registered users +/- a few thousand for Alts...

I'm trying to avoid getting back into debates with RC because I've spent a couple of decades debating religion with people and I know how this goes. For some people it's not about facts, it's about having an opinion and trying to make it correct. There is no debate to be had there. No discussion. No back-and-forth. It's alright to go there if what you're really doing is using a sounding board to verbally hash out your own ideas and test your own theories for your own gratification but don't mistake that conversation for being two-sided and don't pay too much attention to the noise that comes back and get drawn into pointless wastes of time.

As to matchmaking, I think you're right in terms of how CW will work, not to mention private matches. These are environments where Elo has no place - hence the 'level' system they're talking about. You're not going to be playing in random matches in the whole community it's going to be set groups vs set groups, supported by broader side vs side in a conflict with an actual prize, ergo 'fair' has no real place. Private matches as well have no basis in or with Elo, they're self selected.

Which means all the fussing about the matchmaker is pretty pointless. It's just filler, like the random matches themselves are, while things move towards (at this point the theoretical arrival of) Community Warfare and Private Matches.

It'll likely make a return in some publicly visible form for Solaris VII games (I'm guessing 2017/2018, trying to be generous).

When I think about how to handle matchmaking for CW though I run into some issues. For example, what's to stop Clan A from just waiting until most all of Clan B being asleep before they attack their target? It'll be defended largely by house and lone wolf random units, giving them a significant head start. It's got a lot of ways to be abused, scheduling issues, etc.

I'm worried the problems it presents will get Ghost Heat style solutions and end up a complete mess, I admit.

[IceSerpent]

Joseph Mallan, on 12 February 2014 - 11:42 AM, said:

Ice, There are over 28,000 pages of the MW:O forum members list. 20 names per page as I have it set up. So we have roughly 570,000 registered users +/- a few thousand for Alts...

Yeah, we do. It's a cumulative list of all accounts ever registered though. As that number never decreases, it doesn't really tell us anything about the current size of the playerbase.

[Nick Makiaveli]

IceSerpent, on 12 February 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

Still no numbers huh? Why am I not surprised...

Perhaps because when you asked it you knew there was no way for a player to know the exact number, and that it was his opinion based on his observations....

[IceSerpent]

Nick Makiaveli, on 12 February 2014 - 04:22 PM, said:

Perhaps because when you asked it you knew there was no way for a player to know the exact number, and that it was his opinion based on his observations....

Not based on observations, but based on voices in his head. In order to declare something as "not big enough" you have to compare it to some target number, and it doesn't matter whether you're talking about player base or packing boxes. As you've said, we don't know current number of players and we have no idea of what number is "big enough", so we can't compare anything. Not to mention that the general idea makes no sense whatsoever - when was the last time you heard any game developer saying that you can't queue for a dungeon or warzone/battleground with a premade of 8 (out of 12 total) "because player base is too small"? Or saying that they are not going to add new dungeons/warzones/game modes "because player base is too small"?

[Nick Makiaveli]

IceSerpent, on 12 February 2014 - 05:22 PM, said:

Not based on observations, but based on voices in his head. In order to declare something as "not big enough" you have to compare it to some target number, and it doesn't matter whether you're talking about player base or packing boxes. As you've said, we don't know current number of players and we have no idea of what number is "big enough", so we can't compare anything. Not to mention that the general idea makes no sense whatsoever - when was the last time you heard any game developer saying that you can't queue for a dungeon or warzone/battleground with a premade of 8 (out of 12 total) "because player base is too small"? Or saying that they are not going to add new dungeons/warzones/game modes "because player base is too small"?

Changing the goalposts much? You asked why you weren't surprised, I answered. So now you insult him, then state some actual facts, then lost me completely.


We don't know the facts, I agree with you on that. Yet we all know people who have left, either temporarily or permanently. Since we don't have the actual numbers, I think we should stop worrying about it and move on.

That all said, Elo works here just fine. Could something else work? Sure, but would it be better? Therein lies the rub as we need to know better for who? Players tend to assume everything should be based around what is the most fun for them, but that isn't the only thing the devs have to consider. The game has to be sustainable or else it doesn't matter how much fun it is.

[IceSerpent]

Nick Makiaveli, on 12 February 2014 - 06:10 PM, said:

That all said, Elo works here just fine.

Elo can work here just fine, but doesn't at the moment. I am assuming that by "works just fine" you mean "produces accurate skill ratings and forces MM to match players evenly".

Quote

Could something else work? Sure, but would it be better? Therein lies the rub as we need to know better for who? Players tend to assume everything should be based around what is the most fun for them, but that isn't the only thing the devs have to consider. The game has to be sustainable or else it doesn't matter how much fun it is.

Properly implemented Elo would work and be better. Properly implemented Elo plus BV scheme of some sort would also work and be even better than just Elo alone. Better for everybody - always having equally skilled opponents means more intense and fun matches, that in turn means that game is more fun and attracts more players, and that makes the game more sustainable. Looks like a win-win scenario to me.

[Nightfire]

RichAC, on 12 February 2014 - 08:24 AM, said:

ummm......all I can say to this is Therapy..

I love the irony in this statement! Really! I am serious!
By the way, splitting is a general feature of Cluster B personality disorders. Not saying you have one (I'm not qualified to diagnose), just pointing out the irony of you suggesting I need therapy when you are the one employing these defense mechanisms.

RichAC, on 12 February 2014 - 08:24 AM, said:

What I thought most sad about your previous reply, is that you thought the macro options in games like WoW and Rift still have to do with hardware.

Umm, WTF!? How can you even believe that in any universe? Citation please?
You might be referring to this:

Nightfire, on 11 February 2014 - 09:23 PM, said:

But they are free to purchase said hardware if they wish and they are free to learn. Some software that performs the functions you argue for is even free! It just isn't in game. If you are inclined to explore those avenues, you will. If not, you won't. That may be unfair to you but it is the reality of life.

To which I will point to this:

RichAC, on 04 February 2014 - 08:49 PM, said:

Which is exactly my point. Try to follow along. It is an actual in game option in may mmo's. But apparenlty on the code of conduct, there is a hidden spoiler, when clicked shows a statement by PGI condoning the use of macros. SO i can't call it cheating in MWO, just unfortunate that people without that hardware will be disadvantaged. Which PGI can remedy by including a macro option ingame. But then again macros only really work for like jager and ctf mechs spamming ac's. So its not a huge problem.

It's a pain when people can quote exactly what you have said previously and re-frame your straw man arguments back to the initial point you made, isn't it?

I would like to add that my views of macro implementation have always been about the core engine of the game:

Nightfire, on 11 February 2014 - 09:23 PM, said:

That might be what you think you were arguing but I broke it down for you before and I will do so again. Those game are built on engines that run on command lines. That RUN on macros! It is as core to how they function as drawing pixels on the screen! They do NOT add macro functions, they allow players to access macro functions that already exist! The effort involved in allowing players to access something that is already there is minimal!

This function simply (to my knowledge. Any Dev feel free to correct me, have you actually built in LUA language interpreter that you don't allow us access to!?) doesn't exist in the Cryengine. It was never designed for MMos. So given that, your argument is that because 3rd party devices exist that allow macro functions, PGI should either ban them all outright or invest heavily in creating a complex macro support system because to do otherwise is ... unfair?

Note: Cryengine as in Engine as in Software. Your straw man arguments are so predictable.

But I do note you have redirected your response as to avoid my point that the macro functions available in the games you indicate are there because they were an easy extension of what the game itself already uses. You completely avoid having to address Cryengine not having a Language Interpreter suitable for general user use or that as a result it is simply easier for PGI to let those who want to use macros explore the 3rd party options at their own leisure. Oh! Also side stepped is the discussion that PGI created the environment conducive to macro use with bad game mechanics!

RichAC, on 12 February 2014 - 08:24 AM, said:

They don't bud. Noone needs a special mouse or kb to use macros in mmo's that have them as a game option. That's the point.

Oh I know that, do you know that? I also know that certain hardware and software can facilitate the use of macros from outside of applications that don't support it directly. (I cheat in word all the time with Dragon, Naturally Speaking!) The point being is I wasn't arguing the hardware case, you were several posts ago.

RichAC, on 12 February 2014 - 08:24 AM, said:

You can say your not against it all you want, but it seems i touched a nerve and your replies imply otherwise...

Again, splitting. You cannot accept anyone sort of agreeing with you. Either they agree with you completely or they are against you, completely.

RichAC, on 12 February 2014 - 08:24 AM, said:

Also syncdropping ruins the game.....yep I said it again. And private matches might not help with it, because its not just about playing with friends. and more about undermining the ELO and matchmaker for easy rewards, which Iceserpent keeps confirming. This isn't the only game that has been ruined by that same method of queuing.

Ok, I was going to do a separate post on this (I still may) but here goes.
Syncdropping is going to continue and I'll tell you why it will never stop until PGI increases the number of people you can drop with.

• People want to play with their friends, end of story. You will get a small minority who seek out others for ROFL Stomps but that isn't the majority of people who want to play together. People are social animals and like being around their tribes, even virtually. By attempting to make this all about "undermining the ELO and matchmaker for easy rewards" you are projecting. You are projecting on to everyone else and on to Ice Serpent. That is to say, you would "[undermine] the ELO and matchmaker for easy rewards" and as such, you believe everyone else would. (I notice you project a lot btw)
  
• We had this option in the past and PGI promised to return it to us. It was removed to aid in balancing the Matchmaker and once done, people were to be able to drop in groups again. That promise remains unfulfilled and I would say broken given it was supposed to be "a short while". It is actually responsible for a great number of people who were in the closed beta leaving the game.
  
• Saying "its not just about playing with friends" reveals your own paranoia. You want to remove the rewards for playing the game in private matches because, as you put it, it should be only about playing with friends. Well, I can "play with my friends" in any game on the Internet and I do. If I'm playing MWO, I want to play MWO! With my friends! By altering the game so that it is significantly different from the normal game modes makes it different from playing MWO! You're suggesting changing multiple variables (rewards, game-play, group-drop limits) and then if it fails, pick the variable to blame that suits your ideological agenda. "See! It's all about pug stomping because given the chance to play with their friends, they won't!". It is not just poor, it is BAD reasoning! It is biased thinking looking for a confirmation and thus ignoring all other possibilities.
  
• People want to play against their friends and sometimes want random opponents. Sometimes people just want to play with their friends and play the game as is. You don't like it but you're just going to have to get over it because you can't change it and you can't stop it.

RichAC, on 12 February 2014 - 08:24 AM, said:

I hope community leagues and 3rd party competitions develop around private matches, which would be seperate from the CW, but i'm sure many will still be syncdropping for cbills. Which is always the excuse for not rewarding wins more, or not caring about capping bases, etc....

• Leagues and 3rd Party competitions will have to use private drops. You can't run those without controlling all the variables such as who is in the match, what map is being dropped into, etc. Anyone syncdropping for leagues atm is only doing so because no other option is available.
  
• "but i'm sure many will still be syncdropping for cbills" While there will always be some (the range of human psychology requires this to survive) who flirt the rules of society, no matter what they are, most people who "want to play with their friends" really do just want to play with their friends. Now this majority will still want rewards because that is part of playing the game but they are not doing it for easier rewards and it most certainly isn't their primary motivation. Again, you not only prescribe malice where it doesn't exist, you do so without any evidence what so ever. The act itself is not evidence of the motivation for the act.
  
• As for those running the Leagues and 3rd Party competitions, what do you care? According to you, they're the scum of the earth! (would you like the quote?)

RichAC, on 12 February 2014 - 08:24 AM, said:

It all boils down to a community, and its not all PGI's fault, like the community in LoL that is very vocal in discouraging smurfers as an example.

The problem here is your black and white thinking. Those things that the majority of the community agrees on is cheating will get called out on. Those people who harass in game are reported by multiple people instantly. Where you conflict with the community (the people posting in this thread are part of the community) is on issues you think are either cheating because PGI hasn't implemented the feature (even where it has been promised and not yet implemented [or reimplemented]) or you think should be regarded as cheating because ... well RichAC!

People disagreeing with you doesn't make the community toxic, you imposing your beliefs on everyone else simply makes you a ideologue.


RichAC: "Also just to add, for an ELO to be accurate you have to play with the broad range of players in the game. Otherwise your stats are just padded and invalid."

If you mean in the match, I agree
If you mean that your group is limited in size so you can get more variance in your team, I'm going go directly in the opposite direction and claim a more stable team that consists a larger part of the group will reach a group Elo much faster. This is in fact a problem I have with the current Elo system.

Hey! It's a view you had also! You want the quote?

[RichAC]

IceSerpent, on 12 February 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

Still no numbers huh? Why am I not surprised...

They had to widen the ELO gap so people didn't have long search times. Why do you need numbers? Its obvious.

[RichAC]

@ Nightfire....wow man...lol

Conflation again of built in and supplied, language interpreter with macro support with macro support with PGI's failure to support external 3rd party products supplied and supported by said 3rd party. The supplied page (I looked myself) doesn't make any mention of hardware though it should be mentioned that through , Blizzard does make, distribute and support their own hardware. ]
Again, the concept of supply and ownership is either lost or completely ignored by RichAC

I guess I misunderstood the above quote, but you keep talking about hardware. The point is you don't need special hardware to use macros in those games.... I don't know why your getting so bent out of shape by me saying it makes the games more fair for people....


As far as ELO goes, when people play with the same people over and over again, their ELO will not be accurate with the public community. Thats why it can't be used for public matches. I'm not a math genius, I just thought this was common sense, maybe from experience playing many games that have ELO's like yahoo chess and spades.... But maybe some of the math geniuses can chime in here.

Regardless, private matches should not have any rewards....for obvious reasons any sportsman can understand.


I have to bow out of this conversation, for fear all the pcs in my house are going to get fried again like they did the same week in december. 3 of them started getting black screens of death till the mobos and vid cards all bricked the same week. I don't know if it is because of my comments on this forum, or my recent criticism about PvP in the ELO beta, But i have to stop posting online because my pc is getting sabotaged again and I can't really afford to do anything about it. Ya I know it sounds crazy, and sorry for being the straw man offtopic here. Just another reason the industry is in the state its in.

nice debating with ya....Macros are perfectly fine, sync dropping and premades of any number in cw don't undermine the MM or ELO. The community is thriving. NSA is bad, hackers are good... Pretend I don't exist now...

Edited by RichAC, 13 February 2014 - 08:56 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

IceSerpent, on 12 February 2014 - 12:39 PM, said:

Yeah, we do. It's a cumulative list of all accounts ever registered though. As that number never decreases, it doesn't really tell us anything about the current size of the playerbase.

What I wanna know is, I seem to remember a post from the DEVs saying we had a million players? If that was ever true, wouldn't there be 1,000,000+ accounts on the forum?

[IceSerpent]

RichAC, on 13 February 2014 - 08:37 AM, said:

They had to widen the ELO gap so people didn't have long search times. Why do you need numbers? Its obvious.

Because we were not talking about playerbase being big enough to provide for N second queue time for a given Elo gap. You calimed that premade groups of 5-11 players absolutely can not be placed into any kind of queue "because playerbase is not big enough" and utterly failed to back that particular claim with anything so far.

Joseph Mallan, on 13 February 2014 - 08:47 AM, said:

What I wanna know is, I seem to remember a post from the DEVs saying we had a million players? If that was ever true, wouldn't there be 1,000,000+ accounts on the forum?

I don't recall them saying that (which doesn't mean much - I could have easily missed it), but yes, I think 1 mil players should have 1mil+ accounts. Unless there is some way of creating an account and not registering it on the website.

[Nightfire]

RichAC, on 13 February 2014 - 08:40 AM, said:

@ Nightfire....wow man...lol

Ok, so you actually addressed a point. That being how you could possibly think I was getting hung up on hardware

Nightfire, on 09 February 2014 - 02:18 AM, said:

Conflation again of built in and supplied, language interpreter with macro support with macro support with PGI's failure to support external 3rd party products supplied and supported by said 3rd party. The supplied page (I looked myself) doesn't make any mention of hardware though it should be mentioned that through SteelSeries, Blizzard does make, distribute and support their own hardware. (WoW Mouse)

Again, the concept of supply and ownership is either lost or completely ignored by RichAC.

RichAC, on 13 February 2014 - 08:40 AM, said:

I guess I misunderstood the above quote, but you keep talking about hardware.

Ah yes, yes you did. This point came from you complaining about the unfairness that not everyone can have macro executing hardware and as such PGI should create a Language Interpreter for the express purpose of making macros available in game. Just to refresh your memory on what you said:

RichAC, on 04 February 2014 - 08:49 PM, said:

Which is exactly my point. Try to follow along. It is an actual in game option in may mmo's. But apparenlty on the code of conduct, there is a hidden spoiler, when clicked shows a statement by PGI condoning the use of macros. SO i can't call it cheating in MWO, just unfortunate that people without that hardware will be disadvantaged. Which PGI can remedy by including a macro option ingame. But then again macros only really work for like jager and ctf mechs spamming ac's. So its not a huge problem.

Note: Your argument! Your point! Your hangup!

The point of the quote that you, according to your own words, "I guess I misunderstood" is that you compare 2 completely different classes of mechanisms for implementing macros as if they are equivalent. This is called conflation and in this case is a logical error. The simplicity of purchasing an already existing 3rd party product (or using Free 3rd Party Software) is in no way equivalent to the creation, inclusion, testing and tuning such a complex addition as a language interpreter. Everyone else managed to understand that I was addressing the issue of conflation in this point, you seem to somehow think it is a hangup about hardware.

As a side point, free software addressed your point of not everyone being able to afford said devices so your argument changed to in game support being the only acceptable solution.

RichAC, on 13 February 2014 - 08:40 AM, said:

The point is you don't need special hardware to use macros in those games.... I don't know why your getting so bent out of shape by me saying it makes the games more fair for people....

Yeah, reading comprehension is not your strong suit is it?

RichAC, on 13 February 2014 - 08:40 AM, said:

As far as ELO goes, when people play with the same people over and over again, their ELO will not be accurate with the public community. Thats why it can't be used for public matches. I'm not a math genius, I just thought this was common sense, maybe from experience playing many games that have ELO's like yahoo chess and spades.... But maybe some of the math geniuses can chime in here.

I'm pretty sure (I wouldn't consider myself a mathematics genius but I do have a little </sarcasm> experience with statistics) that said math geniuses will tell you that applying Elo to a static team allows you to treat that team as a single entity, as such it is easier for the single entity of "team" to find their place since they also reduce the number of other random elements that affect their performance (Lone Wolf team members). It is actually part of what you, yourself were arguing earlier. Would you care for a quote?

RichAC, on 13 February 2014 - 08:40 AM, said:

Regardless, private matches should not have any rewards....

No, they should have rewards. They are playing the game as intended, they should get the rewards as intended. What should be absent here is Elo, not rewards. Still hung up about people exploiting private matches? How badly do you really think it can be exploited? Seriously now, think about it. How many more C-Bills can they really earn without PGI noticing in their metrics than if they were dropping in random, public games? You display to me that you are obsession wrapped in paranoia.

RichAC, on 13 February 2014 - 08:40 AM, said:

for obvious reasons any sportsman can understand.

Spare me the shaming and silencing language. It doesn't work because I see it for what it is.
You define what it "sportsman" like in your head, according to your definition and statement any "sportsman" would agree with you. I disagree with you therefore the implication is I am not a sportsman. As such, this is something I should be ashamed of. No, your definitions are warped and have already been shown to be yours and yours alone.

Here is a fun exercise for you:
Action does not betray motivation
Motivation is not evidenced by action

Try remembering this when addressing peoples mental or moral states. Both of our judicial systems are built on this principle after all.

RichAC, on 13 February 2014 - 08:40 AM, said:

I have to bow out of this conversation, for fear all the pcs in my house are going to get fried again like they did the same week in december. 3 of them started getting black screens of death till the mobos and vid cards all bricked the same week. I don't know if it is because of my comments on this forum, or my recent criticism about PvP in the ELO beta, But i have to stop posting online because my pc is getting sabotaged again and I can't really afford to do anything about it. Ya I know it sounds crazy, and sorry for being the straw man offtopic here. Just another reason the industry is in the state its in.

If you want to discuss why the industry is where it is, I can but you won't like where I go with it.

RichAC, on 13 February 2014 - 08:40 AM, said:

nice debating with ya....Macros are perfectly fine, sync dropping and premades of any number in cw don't undermine the MM or ELO. The community is thriving. NSA is bad, hackers are good... Pretend I don't exist now...

• You're welcome, I just hope you learned something
  
• sync dropping won't be a problem in CW since you will make the team yourself.
  
• Make up your mind, is the community thriving or dying?
  
• Government and National Security are nuanced and complex issues
  
• Hackers have always been good. Crackers are bad.
  
• Oh promises!

[Abivard]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 February 2014 - 08:47 AM, said:

What I wanna know is, I seem to remember a post from the DEVs saying we had a million players? If that was ever true, wouldn't there be 1,000,000+ accounts on the forum?

If it was true, yes there would be a million plus accounts, but it is not true, and there are only 500,000 some accounts.

Also, forum logons are steady at about 250 registered users and 900 guests. have been for over a year.

A good percentage of the registered forum users say they simply are not playing until things get better.

The fact that PGI used to show numbers and has now hidden those numbers is a telling point for those with the wisdom to see.

Long wait times for matches.

PGI had to widen it's Elo for game matching. you may have missed that it now will match -+ 1400, which means EVERY SINGLE Elo SCORE will fit into that spread, which would translate into, there is no MM that balances Elo.

Brand new players are commonly matched with some of the very best players.

Conclusion; Player base has been declining. Player base is at or close to minimum viable number of players for gameplay.

12 0n 12's players base is numbered in the dozens,during prime time, may be totally deserted at any other time.

BTW, MM does not use Elo or anything to match in 12's, it simply matches one 12 vs another 12 in the order they click launch.

If this game wasn't based off BT lore, I would not still be playing.

After all PGI doesn't have to invent or create much if anything, they simply have to code it using the pre built cry engine and do artwork based off previous works.

Where they have been called on to supply their own, they have failed miserably time and time again.
But to listen to them claim they are the greatest game designers and programmers ever is getting to be too much.

[Joseph Mallan]

A good post Abivard, only one point... I cannot remember the last time I dropped against Kho, Whisp or others in their tier... well not since the first Tourny PGI had!