Wendigo Garou, on 10 February 2014 - 06:08 AM, said:
To the best of my knowledge, tonnage was no longer taken into account when they implemented the Elo system. Regardless, we have been informed several times in the "Patch Feedback" forum that it is not taken into account at this time but they plan to implement it in April...a couple of months away now.
can you link me an example? Everything I can find shows that it's still balancing for weight between teams, generally within 100 tons or so.
Wendigo Garou, on 10 February 2014 - 06:08 AM, said:
Officially? It probably hasn't. A lot of us have noticed that our stats have been borked, however. If you check your "mode" stats, you'll see that you've played an equal amount of Assault, Conquest and Skirmish matches (which is odd because since Skirmish came out, I haven't played anything else....except 1 round of Conquest when I forgot to pick Skirmish on accident). Assuming that our 'Elo' is based on previous performance, this could be considered a "reset," I guess. It all depends on whether they actually screwed up the information they have stored or if it's just a glitch in the website reporting stats.
Huh. Mine seem fine.
Game Mode Statistics
Mode Name Matches Wins Losses Ratio XP Earned CB Earned Assault 2,374 1,249 1,119 1.12 1,501,438 213,468,850 Conquest 1,569 885 684 1.29 1,160,948 160,656,479 Skirmish 200 114 86 1.33 200,041 24,063,931
That seems about right.
Wendigo Garou, on 10 February 2014 - 06:08 AM, said:
Ok, assuming this is the case, then there is a very obvious problem here. According to what we've been told, a "new player" starts off with an Elo of 1300 and it is modified +/- for every fight. So, it's entirely possible that those of us that have been playing a while and have had our score shift up and down are ending up with a 1400-1600 while the guy that started 10 minutes ago is within our range for no effort on his part, whatsoever. Perhaps they're starting new players with too high a score.
But, then again, that brings up yet another problem. If they were to start the new players at a lower score, they'd NEVER find a match because of the small sampling of the player base. People are leaving this game in droves due to (fill in the blank...the reasons are too numerous to mention here). PGI doesn't seem to mind that they're losing players daily or, rather, they're not communicating any concern to the rest of the community...not as long as the cash flow continues, I guess.
New players start, and most remain, around 1300. You may be at 1800 and still get matched with people at 1300 however. Suppose the match target Elo is 1600, it would be you with one 1400 Elo player to make 1600 on your team. Make sense? That unless your Elo is literally 2400-2800 you are theoretically still going to end up with new players sometimes. This is a GOOD THING. They need to play with experienced people. They're as likely to be on your team as the other team though. This is better for player retention than locking all the new kids in a pen with the disabled kids and letting them get in spit-fights. Practice your pug-wrangling

I do, it helps.
Wendigo Garou, on 10 February 2014 - 06:08 AM, said:
As for the tonnage part, again, PGI has stated that it's not even considered part of the matchmaker now. Nor is any form of equipment such as ECM.
It takes tonnage into consideration but no equipment or builds or the like. Just tonnage. If that's changed, please link me to it or point me somewhere? I've scoured the forums and can't find a dev post to that effect.
Wendigo Garou, on 10 February 2014 - 06:08 AM, said:
It's possible, but I doubt it. More on this at the bottom.
Again, that may be your opinion, but there are many of us that feel differently. Perhaps you have a higher Elo than us and are ending up in better matches. Perhaps you play at a specific time of day where some of us play at all hours of the day. Who knows? I could just as easily say "It seems to me that the Matchmaker is purposely putting together teams designed to be a Roflstomp every single match" and I'd get just as many people to agree with that statement as yours. It's all a matter of perspective and unless either one of us are actually developers working on the project, all we can do is conjecture.
Here's the thing. It's not a matter of opinion - the matchmaker doesn't know you, or anyone else. It certainly doesn't design matches to be stomps; stomps are a product of specific behaviors within a match. Generally 'one team sticks together, one team scatters' or 'one team has a plan, one team just stands somewhere and waits'. You're as likely to be on one team as the other. With larger team sizes the odds of a one-sided match increase because the odds of disproportionate encounters increases. You get 4 or 5 encounters of 6 vs 2 and suddenly the match is 7-0 and at this point it's just a slaughter. It's a byproduct of pinpoint damage meta, concentration of fire has an exponential advantage.
All the matchmaker does is try to get equal Elo levels on both teams. I'm the first to say matching for a range, even if there's a bigger total point discrepancy between teams, is better than trying to match high/low to a target. One high Elo player can't carry the weight of two low Elo players. Again though, we're all swimming in the same water. It's not an opinion thing. It certainly is a perspective thing - people have a tendency to view things a certain way and remember negative experiences way longer than positive ones. Stomps are more impactful so people remember them.
Wendigo Garou, on 10 February 2014 - 06:08 AM, said:
Again, we will have to agree to disagree. The Battlevalue system not only works, it works well. Granted, however, it is a system used to keep teams somewhat even for Tabletop Battletech.....but, Elo is for Chess so...whatever.
The BV point value is based on a total of your Defensive and Offensive totals. I'm not going through all the math here, but I'm going to give you a couple of "for instances."
One guy has an Atlas D-DC with 2x LL, 2x UAC5, AMS, ECM, STD325
The other guy has an Atlas D with 2x LRM20+A, 1xAC20, 4xML, STD 285
Which one is going to have the higher BV? I don't even need to do the math to tell you. The D-DC will. It gets BIG Defensive points for having AMS and ECM. The STD325 makes it faster and speed is a multiplier.
Even though it doesn't really factor (although it could), the D having 2 LRM20s and only 10 tubes to support it takes away from it's offensive value. Lack of anything defensive (AMS, BAP) kills it's rating as well.
So, from a player's perspective...they both weigh 100 tons but are they actually "equal?" From a player's perspective, absolutely not. I'd MUCH rather have a guy with ECM and close brawling weapons than an Atlas LRM boat wannabe.
From a BV standpoint, are they equal? Not even close.
Keep in mind that this is a "bare bones" approach to Battlevalue. Certain eccentricities of MW:O do not necessarily apply as they stand (example: TAG, Narc, BAP shut down ECM but do not in BT and should be considered both offensive and defensive, modules do not exist in BT, etc). But, mathematically, it wouldn't be too difficult to assign them a value and put them into the system.
Don't misunderstand, tonnage balancing will go a LONG way toward getting more even teams but, Battlevalue DOES work.
LB10X has a higher BV than an AC10, etc. etc. etc. Also some of the best designs in the game rely on AC5s and PPCs. I could take a Shadowhawk with a standard engine, put two PPCs on it and an AC5, have a rock-bottom BV and still do alright. A mouth-breathing window-licker can put an XL in a Stalker and 6x ERPPCs and be nothing but an expensive target.
BV is easy to game and manipulate. Elo represents your ability to help your team win matches - that includes your skill at fielding good builds of mechs. With a tonnage limit in place the 'everyone in Highlanders' problem solves itself. At this point you trust that people know how to maximize the value of the tonnage they field at their given Elo level. I'd rather face Wispy in a Battlemaster or an Awesome than in a Jenner. Skill skews the value of tonnage and equipment. There are plenty of people who can sit in a Jenner with 6MLs, a 300XL, DHS and a couple JJs and kill 4 or 5 people per match. People who can pair up in Cataphract 3Ds with 2xPPC and an AC10 or UAC5 and get 4 kills each.
I'm all for changes, the best ones however would be along the lines of, for example, the TrueSkill system. For MW:O that would look like modifying your Elo based on your performance in a given chassis, given loadouts and against other setups. Maybe you don't do well against LRMs, if you're dropped in a team against an LRM heavy group who are good with LRMs your relative Elo would be estimated downward. Maybe you do great in an AC40 Jag. Even if you go Catapult K2 with AC40 it gives your Elo a bump because it knows you do well with paired AC20s.
Elo is the basis for modification based on how you have performed historically with specific builds while playing alongside specific builds and against specific makeups of teams. It can get incredibly accurate.
To get there though we need to see how tonnage is going to play out and CW. Elo matching is about keeping games challenging for everyone, regardless of skill level. CW is about screwing challenge in favor of winning. An improved Elo system will be great for any future tournament system. CW though.... well, I'm not sure we WANT a skill-based matchmaker for CW. If you're the biggest, baddest mercenary corps out there and ruthlessly expanding your holdings then it's up to your enemies to find a means to challenge and stop you. Not just the matchmaker.
So part of it as well is intelligent use of resources. We want UI 2.0 fixes, tonnage limits and CW. Some of that is going to skew the crap out of the matchmaker. It's also more important for the games future, so lets get those done and then revisit what direction the MM needs to go.