168 replies to this topic

[Faolan65]

Heffay, on 28 January 2014 - 11:31 AM, said:

You're friends are much better than you. When you queue up with them, you get put in a much higher bracket, and your opponents are correspondingly better.

When you solo drop, you play against people of your skill level, and do just fine.

Right, so does that work in my team mates favor too? Do I bring us down and get easier opponents for them? As well as how does my dropping with better pilots affect my ELO when I get worked over?

[Mechsniper]

Voip / lobby would help this problem a LOT, unless there is a lobby mod that allows switching around players. In combat arms its too easy to stack ranks (think assault mechs/lrm boats in this game). BUT Voip with a lobby time for random teams to choose mechs as has been suggested in the past would be a great idea and move balance more toward the center of many matches.

[D Sync]

The only time I see a match end that isn't 12-2 is when d r o p s h i p 5 drops against itself. We always see 12-11.

EPIC

[MAFH]

Just a short question! Isn't the maximum Elo-Score for MWO 2300?

[DaZur]

Faolan65, on 28 January 2014 - 02:04 PM, said:

Right, so does that work in my team mates favor too? Do I bring us down and get easier opponents for them? As well as how does my dropping with better pilots affect my ELO when I get worked over?

Yes and no... Depends on the disparity between you and your friends. If they're near top-tier and you're "pretty good" the summed average of your combined Elo is not grossly higher than your personal Elo. However if you are poor-to average, the summed average places you in a tough bracket more so then they are in an easy one...

[Caswallon]

Longer waits on average, Matches have all been much more polarized too, with results of 12 v 4 or less every time. Had only one match where both sides fought to the last gasp (12 v 10+ result)
Overall much worse for me and mine either stomp or be stomped.

[Kotzi]

Just give us the numbers. Anything else is guessing. I dont see any difference in coincidence and your ELO.

[Heffay]

Faolan65, on 28 January 2014 - 02:04 PM, said:

Right, so does that work in my team mates favor too? Do I bring us down and get easier opponents for them? As well as how does my dropping with better pilots affect my ELO when I get worked over?

Yes, your average Elo will be lower, so your friends on average will see slightly easier opponents. The effects on your Elo will depend, but if you win a particularly tough battle (enemy Elo higher than yours) your Elo will go up a lot, and theirs a bit. If you lose, they will go down a bit and you practically nothing.

Vice versus, if you roll an easy team, a win won't affect as much and a loss will move you both more. Them more than you.

TL;DR: it's complicated.

[anubis969]

MAFH, on 28 January 2014 - 05:31 PM, said:

Just a short question! Isn't the maximum Elo-Score for MWO 2300?

The maximum Elo score in MWO is 2800.

Source:
http://mwomercs.com/...65#entry1626065

[scgt1]

This adjustment that was done needs to be changed back or you need to forcefully bring back 8 man drops. This game has become unfair with properly synced multiple 4 man teams just rolling game after game. You can tell they are all on coms because how they play. My KDR has tanked since this adjustment and many others have also. When you see the same people match after match and the outcome is the same they are synced and working together on coms. Our group has tried to sync but they always end up on opposite teams. So we still get left with 3-4 guys that are on our side and the same on their side.

This game has gotten so bad that if I see it going south in a hurry (3+ mechs on my *** with no one else around) I bail out and ready my next mech. It's pointless to waste my time in the game anymore if the odds are against me and the match nor my life is going to go anywhere. I've been in this game since closed beta and I've never purposely ditched a match while still alive. It has become the new norm for myself in the last 3 days.

The elo matching now has gotten so bad it's not fun any more. Explain to me how opening it up for poorer players to play makes it harder and allows team drops to sync to where it isn't fun anymore. I have sub 30 days left of premium time and it's just going to waste. If I won a match for every lost match or close to it where there would be some balance I would be fine with it and it would be fair. I played for 3 hours last night and won only 6 matches which only 2 of those I was still alive in the end.

Oh just FYI the search times were shorter for like the first night of this change. It now takes just as long as it did prior to the change. Something isn't right here still.

PGI Do something or your going to loose yet another founder and supporter for this program.

Edited by scgt1, 31 January 2014 - 06:32 AM.

[Jody Von Jedi]

What I have noticed since the change:

No lopsided 11vs12 or even 10vs12 matches. Seemed as though I would always be in the team looking/waiting on that 12th player that matched our Elo to drop. I went in many matches with 11 player teams. Since the change I've played at least 2 dozen matches and only 1 left our team short a player.

So I think this is an improvement.

Jody

[ManusDei]

No change here, same wait, same pug stomp.
The devs are only capable of writing one program to work across the entire game. To make a game with pugs vs pugs and premades vs premades is simply too much programming. If it makes sense don't do it seems to be the prevailing mentality at PGI. The devs go round and round tweaking ELO increasing/decreasing thresholds because they stll can't get It right. If PGI could fix one aspect of the game over all others it would have to be matchmaking.

[Threat Doc]

Y'all adjusted the elo back to 2300, didn't you?

[Ebonkosh]

shorter wait times great...but the tonnage still needs to be used in teh Match maker. I am in to many matches where there are 5-7 assaults on one side and maybe 1-2 on the other. I hade a match with 6 lights on my team and the rest heavys and no assault and we had to go against 3 assaults. Almost every time this results in a 12-2 loss. it is depressing at the end and during the game to see the mechs list. Why do you not try to do the following.

"PUG MM" starts up. (Can select option to fill up a 2 or 3 man group as well.) like queing for both MMs.

Create a 4 man grp based on 1 assault, 1 Heavy, 1 Med and 1 light.
Get ELO of group.
match that group with another group within a threshhold.
First grouping is now found. repeat for the two addition groups.

This will be a true matchup.

However, I know people want to group drop and bring what they want.

Go into "Group" mode for MM.
MM finds three man made groups of 4 people.
MM finds another three man group of 4 people and matches them by ELO
If there are less than 4 in the groups the MM grabs a PUG person that has opted to join a 2 or 3 man group as a filler.

This I see as the only way to do it. wait may be a little longer but the matches will be better.


Note that if a group has ecm then the matched group needs either a NARC or ECM mech in group matched to play against it.

Later you can add some filters for the MM like only que with faction selected, by lech class. This would allow 12 lights to battle it or 12 assalts etc...that would be cool. Of course you will want to add a challenge mode for Clans or IS factions to join and the mech they bring to battle would be 12 selected mechs that bypass the MM filters all together.


Should be able to code this.



Ebonkosh

[Heffay]

Ebonkosh, on 04 February 2014 - 05:07 AM, said:

Note that if a group has ecm then the matched group needs either a NARC or ECM mech in group matched to play against it.

This is completely unnecessary. If you think the enemy may have ECM, you should be prepared for that contingency.

[Threat Doc]

Heffay, on 04 February 2014 - 06:14 AM, said:

This is completely unnecessary. If you think the enemy may have ECM, you should be prepared for that contingency.

While normally I would agree with you, this is something that might need the forthcoming -supposedly- aid of Information Warfare, so Commander's can tell whether a team is likely to use ECM or not. For now, however, it might behoove PUGs to carry ECM or C-ECM gear, regardless. Unfortunately, that could end up costing needless tonnage for that 50% of time you're actually going to run into ECM. Then, of course, there are those nights when you're going to run into drop after drop where ECM is at least somewhat prevalent, if not an overflowing flood.

[Dunning Kruger Effect]

I cannot believe this thread exists.

Does not PGI track the data themselves?

How is 350 votes aka random "opinions" from forum members representative of the player base?

If this is how they gather data, no wonder the games are unbalanced.

Wow. Just.... wow.

[Threat Doc]

Dunning Kruger Effect, on 05 February 2014 - 03:59 AM, said:

I cannot believe this thread exists.

Had you participated in the original poll -I don't know whether or not you did-, had you been paying attention, had you encouraged friends and Lance mates and unit fellow's, etc., to come and participate, there would be a larger cross-section.

Now, PGI needs to work on getting the population back into this game, because it's the lack of population which is driving the Elo changes we're seeing. The larger the population is, the more likely you are to have multiple games of folks with different names and who fall into the many Elo brackets, and who would allow the multiple games to be limited on PUG stomps, and be more even, and then the Elo stretch would be a LOT less, if it needed to be moved at all.

Marketing, marketing, marketing... UI 2.0 is NOT bad, just many people like to ***** and complain about it, regardless of how good it is, and PGI have already admitted there are hot-fixes coming, and a Smurfy style/original board game style 'Mechlab builder is on its way. The UI is pretty and, once the few problems with it are cleaned up, I see no reason some internet marketing couldn't be done. As well, I'm sure there are many internet and real-world e-zines and magazines who will be experimenting with the new UI, and publishing articles concerning the game.

So, don't be complaining and moaning because you weren't paying attention, and working to help make changes. Instead, why aren't we working to get our population back into the game. Improvements, beyond the fantastic fonts, have been made to many parts of the game and, though I don't agree with them all, I still say the game play is much improved over what it was, and as a BattleTech simulation it's fantastic.

[Dunning Kruger Effect]

Kay Wolf, on 05 February 2014 - 07:09 AM, said:

Had you participated in the original poll -I don't know whether or not you did-, had you been paying attention, had you encouraged friends and Lance mates and unit fellow's, etc., to come and participate, there would be a larger cross-section.

Lol. So having say 5 more people would somehow make this "accurate data" and not just random opinions?

Now, PGI needs to work on getting the population back into this game, because it's the lack of population which is driving the Elo changes we're seeing. The larger the population is, the more likely you are to have multiple games of folks with different names and who fall into the many Elo brackets, and who would allow the multiple games to be limited on PUG stomps, and be more even, and then the Elo stretch would be a LOT less, if it needed to be moved at all.

I don't see what this has to do with PGI's data collection methods.

Marketing, marketing, marketing... UI 2.0 is NOT bad, just many people like to ***** and complain about it, regardless of how good it is, and PGI have already admitted there are hot-fixes coming, and a Smurfy style/original board game style 'Mechlab builder is on its way. The UI is pretty and, once the few problems with it are cleaned up, I see no reason some internet marketing couldn't be done. As well, I'm sure there are many internet and real-world e-zines and magazines who will be experimenting with the new UI, and publishing articles concerning the game.

Again this has nothing to do with PGI's way of gathering game balancing data, or the lack thereof.

So, don't be complaining and moaning because you weren't paying attention, and working to help make changes. Instead, why aren't we working to get our population back into the game. Improvements, beyond the fantastic fonts, have been made to many parts of the game and, though I don't agree with them all, I still say the game play is much improved over what it was, and as a BattleTech simulation it's fantastic.

It doesn't matter who "pays attention", what "cool fonts" MW:O has or how we need more population. Collecting data about wait times based on the opinions of a few random (VERY random, by the looks of things) forumites is stupid.

Allow me to re-orientate you to the content of my post.

Nearly every other online game tracks stats. Therefore, PGI should be able to track and compare wait times WITHOUT randomly asking a few forum dwellers. (In most games, less than 5% of the playerbase uses the forums.)

Your rather weird rant about UI2.0, population and marketing has nothing to do with my post. Even if double the amount of people voted in the poll it would still be opinions (do you think really everyone who voted used a stopwatch before and after) and still only a fraction of the player base.

Why doesn't the company simply track wait times themselves? If they can track individual mech stats, for individual players surely they can track how long it takes before a game starts. Asking a few random (and very biased, by the look of things) forumites how they "feel" does not seem a very accurate way to do it.

This is an "analogy" that may help you understand:
If I wanted to measure if/how much sales had improved in my local supermarket, I wouldn't ask 10 random shoppers if they thought the shop was busier than normal. I'd actually collect the sales data.

Edited by Dunning Kruger Effect, 05 February 2014 - 01:14 PM.

[Clint Steel]

To those about tonnage as a fix:

Tonnage limits will not fix matches, at least at whatever ELO I play at. Lights often get high damage and kills while your Atlases don't pull their weight.

If there were some limit to put on teams, it would have to be based on Mech value, not their arbitrary tonnage.