97 replies to this topic

[Craig Steele]

HammerSwarm, on 06 March 2014 - 05:49 PM, said:

I don't understand your sarcasm, First this is the upcoming features forum., Second I am asking honest questions about a proposal hoping that it causes them to think about things that could have otherwise gone unnoticed.

I mean if you weren't being sarcastic at me cool, but if you were, why? I am simply mathematically pointing out how their proposal could leave 10-100s of thousands of people in match making lurch and hoping to help PGI not fail at avoiding an issue they identified.

Umm, I wasn't being sarcastic. I just assumed that all these views were based on it's performance but now you have me thinking. Reflex post I guess

I get the numbers you posted sure but those calculations all hinge on 1m players all pressing the button at exactly the same moment and the MM doing that calculation instantly and every match running for the exact same length. The reality is the population will trickle in and trickle out of MM and with search time and variable game lengths so I can theory craft that there will be zero impact.

If it's not out why are so many people so critical of it. What's the source of information that is causing people such grief?

[Void Angel]

HammerSwarm, on 06 March 2014 - 01:36 PM, said:

This is a contentious topic, but it's an upcoming feature and so I hope this is the place to discuss it.

The argument against strict tonnage as the matchmaking criteria of choice was that people couldn't play the mechs which they paid real money for. That if you had just bought a banshee and you called up your friend and he had bought a banshee that if they limited teams of 2 to 160 tons you couldn't play them together.

Additionally I think it was said that: if you queue up to play in 12 man match you might be the guy who is told you only get 90 tons for your assault, not 95. or 45 not 50 etc. and this would lead to people unhappy that they couldn't play their money mechs.

Etc.

Has the idea that 3/3/3/3 creates a situation where if 1 class isn't queued as much as others that no matches may start and no one might get to play been discussed?

so if you had a population of 1 million players(all subsequent numbers expressed as multiples of 10,000) you could have significant numbers of people shut out of a match.

If you had 25/25/25/25 you'd have a perfect rolling drops with very few edge cases where people failed to find a match. This would spawn evenly leaving less than 24 people out.

Let's alter it a bit, 25/24/25/26 this would be a bit different. this would spawn exactly 4 matches, but you'd have 1,0,1,2 = 4 people failing to find a match. Factor back in our multiplier and you have 40,000 people failing to find a match.

So for every bit of imbalance in the queue you have real people failing to find a match because of this tuning.

Care to guess at the actual composition of the queues per 100 people? Have they stated that data?

I play a lot of conquest and I'd venture to to guess it'd be something like 30/25/25/20 per 100 or with with a population of 1 million players would be 200,000 people failing to find a match.

Now all of those people can choose to queue up whatever mech they want for their next drop and they might choose the right mix of people to get into a match but they're still not playing the mechs they wanted in the modes they wanted.

Has any of this been addressed? Am I jumping to conclusions? or is this like a thing that could happen?

There will always be edge cases where matches do not start. An easy way to fix unacceptable numbers of failed matches is to increase the matchmaker time; probably a better one would be to put a trending indicator into the UI that would tell people what classes have been dropping most. This would lead to some restriction, but a lot depends on the number of players and how extreme any imbalances are. So your concern is quite valid, but I'd be amazed if no one at PGI has thought of it. =] It's really a matter of whether tonnage limits in a drop has more drawbacks in relation to benefits than 4x3 class requirements.

A more pressing concern is balance within a weight class. Currently, every non-ECM light 'Mech has a Firestarter standing next to it singing "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better." Even Streaks are of dubious benefit to other lights if the Firestarter decides to man up and fight, particularly the Ember. So why take a Locust 1V, ever? Because you bought the Phoenix package and don't want to grind out the c-bills for an effective light? Very few people are going to take the Shadowhawk over most other mediums these days, for that matter. So the risk is that taking a Cicada over a Shadowhawk, for example, will disadvantage your team and leave you with fewer rewards - disincentivizing the use of certain 'mechs.

[Craig Steele]

Void Angel, on 06 March 2014 - 06:44 PM, said:

There will always be edge cases where matches do not start. An easy way to fix unacceptable numbers of failed matches is to increase the matchmaker time; probably a better one would be to put a trending indicator into the UI that would tell people what classes have been dropping most. This would lead to some restriction, but a lot depends on the number of players and how extreme any imbalances are. So your concern is quite valid, but I'd be amazed if no one at PGI has thought of it. =] It's really a matter of whether tonnage limits in a drop has more drawbacks in relation to benefits than 4x3 class requirements.

A more pressing concern is balance within a weight class. Currently, every non-ECM light 'Mech has a Firestarter standing next to it singing "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better." Even Streaks are of dubious benefit to other lights if the Firestarter decides to man up and fight, particularly the Ember. So why take a Locust 1V, ever? Because you bought the Phoenix package and don't want to grind out the c-bills for an effective light? Very few people are going to take the Shadowhawk over most other mediums these days, for that matter. So the risk is that taking a Cicada over a Shadowhawk, for example, will disadvantage your team and leave you with fewer rewards - disincentivizing the use of certain 'mechs.

I can kinda empathise with this but we have the same problem atm only more extreme.

How many Awesomes do we see? How many Griffons? It's all Victors / Highlanders and SHD's / Cicada's. It's all Jenners and Firestarters, no Locusts (as you identified)

Some chassis do the job better than others but there are pilots who prefer (and excel) in some chassis too.

Overall though, I still think that assuming a decent gamer population, failed to find based on mech chassis alone will be nominal. Just as many people will be logging in as logging out (assuming it not the end of peak time obviously) and given variable match lengths and a search time variable, there is really no immediate reason for chassis alone to determine match readiness.

It could be better sure, I'm not a huge fan of 3/3/3/3. I've maintained players can take anything they want and MM balances the tonnages, some games can have 9 vs 9 Atlas's for all I care, if the overall tonnage is within about 100t it's a pretty fair outcome from a MM view point. It doesn't have to be exact. Leave the science to the private matches.

If it had of been my call and I had to have a structure, I would have been thinking 2/3/3/2 + 2 randoms. You'll get some extreme contests infrequently but mostly you'll be close enough and the enemy make up would not be so predictable.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

In response to the original post ...

I think it's likely that there will be longer wait times, resulting in possible "failed to find a match", in a couple of cases ...
- the most popular weight classes in the various Elo Tier buckets will likely have longer wait times (which is really the potential problem you've identified)
- more groups than solo players to fill out 12-man teams (now that we're going to be limited to one group per team) ... I think this has potential to be a major problem in the Tier 3 Elo Bucket

Without knowing the player base, 'mech weight class demographics, the number of servers available to host games, the current number of grouped players vs. solo players (84%/16% is supposedly historical data, not necessarily what we have right now), etc. we can only speculate.

All that said, while the current match maker does make things interesting, I think the Elo Tier Buckets and 3/3/3/3 is a good idea for trying to make more balanced matches ... it's not the end-all-be-all, but a good starting point. I would like to see "average solo queue waiting times" by weight class, though. That way, if I just want to drop a few quick games, I'll know which class to bring.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

Responding to this in particular:

Craig Steele, on 06 March 2014 - 07:11 PM, said:

It could be better sure, I'm not a huge fan of 3/3/3/3. I've maintained players can take anything they want and MM balances the tonnages, some games can have 9 vs 9 Atlas's for all I care, if the overall tonnage is within about 100t it's a pretty fair outcome from a MM view point. It doesn't have to be exact. Leave the science to the private matches.

Part of the problem is, the match maker doesn't balance the tonnages well enough ... it's been a while since I recorded match result screens, but it seems like more than 50% of my matches have a tonnage disparity of much greater than 100 tons.

Out of about 15 matches last night, I can clearly remember 4 or 5 that had significant differences (i.e.: 3 or 4 vs. 6 or 7 assaults ... or 1 vs 4 or 5 lights).

Edited by Kageru Ikazuchi, 06 March 2014 - 08:05 PM.

[Craig Steele]

Kageru Ikazuchi, on 06 March 2014 - 08:04 PM, said:

Responding to this in particular:

Part of the problem is, the match maker doesn't balance the tonnages well enough ... it's been a while since I recorded match result screens, but it seems like more than 50% of my matches have a tonnage disparity of much greater than 100 tons.

Out of about 15 matches last night, I can clearly remember 4 or 5 that had significant differences (i.e.: 3 or 4 vs. 6 or 7 assaults ... or 1 vs 4 or 5 lights).

Agreed, atm MM sucks in my experience.

Ideally I would like to see no structure and just pure balancing, by the time it gets to the end of the 24 mechs it shouldn't be off by too much.

But i'll see how the new system works before getting all chest thumping on it

[Void Angel]

Craig Steele, on 06 March 2014 - 05:59 PM, said:

If it's not out why are so many people so critical of it. What's the source of information that is causing people such grief?

There are a number of reasons people dislike the proposed 4x3 weight matching system. Some of it is a reaction against having to pay more for custom matches - this is going to cost people like the MRBC tournament group real money in order to use non-standard 'Mech requirements in matches. PGI's explanation that these matches require more server space (and therefore more money from them) is a good one; a lot depends on just how much they end up asking for these matches.

A less reasonable concern is the "I want to play with my friends" camp. The argument here is that PGI should allow 5-11 man teams because otherwise people won't be able to play with their friends if they want to. Proponents of this view claim that a significant portion of the player base is only dropping solo because they're being frozen out of their friends' groups due to the 4-man limit. The extraordinary claim that allowing such large fractions of a team to have coordinated builds and communication would not imbalance the match is also frequently made. Leaving aside the reasonable question of why they're not rich, since their crystal balls work so well, this is a classic fallacious appeal to emotion - either an appeal to pity or to consequences, depending on the phrasing of the argument - as well as an exercise in wishful thinking. The argument is invalid thought - proponents start from what they want to be true, then arrange their opinions of "the facts" to support that outcome. This argument should be treated with extreme distrust.

Finally, never underestimate the decibel capacity of a tirade by the professionally dissatisfied on these forums. No matter what PGI does, there will be people vomiting forth incoherent rage. PGI is selling something so they can afford to develop the game? Money grabs! PGI hasn't offered a sale in a while? They don't care about the players! PGI makes a game change? THIS IS THE WORST THING IN THE HISTORY OF EVER! Take all opinions with a grain of salt, and try to identify the assumptions they're reasoning from, as well as whether their reasoning is accurate.

[Craig Steele]

Void Angel, on 06 March 2014 - 10:02 PM, said:

There are a number of reasons people dislike the proposed 4x3 weight matching system. Some of it is a reaction against having to pay more for custom matches - this is going to cost people like the MRBC tournament group real money in order to use non-standard 'Mech requirements in matches. PGI's explanation that these matches require more server space (and therefore more money from them) is a good one; a lot depends on just how much they end up asking for these matches.

A less reasonable concern is the "I want to play with my friends" camp. The argument here is that PGI should allow 5-11 man teams because otherwise people won't be able to play with their friends if they want to. Proponents of this view claim that a significant portion of the player base is only dropping solo because they're being frozen out of their friends' groups due to the 4-man limit. The extraordinary claim that allowing such large fractions of a team to have coordinated builds and communication would not imbalance the match is also frequently made. Leaving aside the reasonable question of why they're not rich, since their crystal balls work so well, this is a classic fallacious appeal to emotion - either an appeal to pity or to consequences, depending on the phrasing of the argument - as well as an exercise in wishful thinking. The argument is invalid thought - proponents start from what they want to be true, then arrange their opinions of "the facts" to support that outcome. This argument should be treated with extreme distrust.

Finally, never underestimate the decibel capacity of a tirade by the professionally dissatisfied on these forums. No matter what PGI does, there will be people vomiting forth incoherent rage. PGI is selling something so they can afford to develop the game? Money grabs! PGI hasn't offered a sale in a while? They don't care about the players! PGI makes a game change? THIS IS THE WORST THING IN THE HISTORY OF EVER! Take all opinions with a grain of salt, and try to identify the assumptions they're reasoning from, as well as whether their reasoning is accurate.

Mhm, agreed.

But I to would prefer a more open team allowance. I have a group of 6 or so friends of varying ELO's / time available to play and we chose to play other games that are less restrictive in it's team composition so we can all have a chat and a few laughs together.

We would prefer a system that if we drop with 4 we can add a couple as they log on, some might leave for dinner or whatever and so on. More flexibility on team compisition is what we would prefer but lets see how it goes first I guess. Synch dropping is a joke for us, some guys are really good and play alot, most are casual Friday night with a few drinks players.

[Johnny Reb]

12 mans will not deal with this, only your 4 man drop. Matchmaker will try to the result in a match until you get a no game cause everyone is trying to run a specific class and no mediums.

Edited by Johnny Reb, 06 March 2014 - 10:14 PM.

[Void Angel]

Craig Steele, on 06 March 2014 - 07:11 PM, said:

I can kinda empathise with this but we have the same problem atm only more extreme. How many Awesomes do we see? How many Griffons? It's all Victors / Highlanders and SHD's / Cicada's. It's all Jenners and Firestarters, no Locusts (as you identified) Some chassis do the job better than others but there are pilots who prefer (and excel) in some chassis too. Overall though, I still think that assuming a decent gamer population, failed to find based on mech chassis alone will be nominal. Just as many people will be logging in as logging out (assuming it not the end of peak time obviously) and given variable match lengths and a search time variable, there is really no immediate reason for chassis alone to determine match readiness. It could be better sure, I'm not a huge fan of 3/3/3/3. I've maintained players can take anything they want and MM balances the tonnages, some games can have 9 vs 9 Atlas's for all I care, if the overall tonnage is within about 100t it's a pretty fair outcome from a MM view point. It doesn't have to be exact. Leave the science to the private matches. If it had of been my call and I had to have a structure, I would have been thinking 2/3/3/2 + 2 randoms. You'll get some extreme contests infrequently but mostly you'll be close enough and the enemy make up would not be so predictable.

I don't expect a significant failure rate either - but the same might not be said if we put in hard-locked weight class matching for random team compositions. You'd also have a lot more cases of higher-Elo players being matched with newer and less-skilled players - of course, you could hard-lock Elo brackets as well, but that makes whatever the match failure rate might be even greater. Then the Law of Unintended Consequences kicks in, and you have an uptick in twink accounts, where more experienced players make new accounts in order to "have fun" bullying newbies... There's a lot of dominoes connected to any system in the game we want to change.

There will be unintended consequences in any system they choose, of course. The 4x3 system has a lot going for it, and a couple of significant drawbacks. Personally, I'd like them to experiment with a little bit of flexibility in the lineup as well - which is something they'll be more likely to do if we give them constructive feedback to that effect.

[Craig Steele]

Void Angel, on 06 March 2014 - 10:15 PM, said:

I don't expect a significant failure rate either - but the same might not be said if we put in hard-locked weight class matching for random team compositions. You'd also have a lot more cases of higher-Elo players being matched with newer and less-skilled players - of course, you could hard-lock Elo brackets as well, but that makes whatever the match failure rate might be even greater. Then the Law of Unintended Consequences kicks in, and you have an uptick in twink accounts, where more experienced players make new accounts in order to "have fun" bullying newbies... There's a lot of dominoes connected to any system in the game we want to change.

There will be unintended consequences in any system they choose, of course. The 4x3 system has a lot going for it, and a couple of significant drawbacks. Personally, I'd like them to experiment with a little bit of flexibility in the lineup as well - which is something they'll be more likely to do if we give them constructive feedback to that effect.

I was kinda thinking more like this.

MM pulls 24 players from the ELO pool, all players have selected their mech of choice.
Groups allocated evenly across both side (eg, one 3 man each)
MM totals up tonnage on both sides.
Side with the lower tonnage gets the next heaviest mech from the pool, second heaviest goes to the other side
Rinse repeat

Evenutally we get the last two mech and regardless of how it's composed, the worst case scenario is 12 atlas's vs 11 Atlas's and a Locust (which would kinda suck I agree but its not going to be that way very often right?. It's going to be within 100 tons or so

But we have 24 players with even team compositions playing the mechs of their choice.

Tonnage balancing, not hard restrictions.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

Void Angel, on 06 March 2014 - 10:02 PM, said:

There are a number of reasons people dislike the proposed 4x3 weight matching system. Some of it is a reaction against having to pay more for custom matches - this is going to cost people like the MRBC tournament group real money in order to use non-standard 'Mech requirements in matches. PGI's explanation that these matches require more server space (and therefore more money from them) is a good one; a lot depends on just how much they end up asking for these matches.

If the currently planned pricing system is in place (one guy out of 24 must have premium time activated), it really should not be that big of a deal. Some teams may rage quit over this, but the leagues will continue, because we love them.

Quote

A less reasonable concern is the "I want to play with my friends" camp. The argument here is that PGI should allow 5-11 man teams because otherwise people won't be able to play with their friends if they want to. Proponents of this view claim that a significant portion of the player base is only dropping solo because they're being frozen out of their friends' groups due to the 4-man limit. The extraordinary claim that allowing such large fractions of a team to have coordinated builds and communication would not imbalance the match is also frequently made. ...

I think with the currently planned rules coming with the launch module ... 3/3/3/3, one group per team, tiered Elo buckets ... and the addition of one more rule: "groups on opposing teams must be of similar size", incrementally increasing group size should be feasible.

Quote

... decibel capacity ... professionally dissatisfied ... vomiting forth incoherent rage ... Take all opinions with a grain of salt, and try to identify the assumptions they're reasoning from, as well as whether their reasoning is accurate.

[King of the Woad]

Void Angel, on 06 March 2014 - 10:02 PM, said:

There are a number of reasons people dislike the proposed 4x3 weight matching system.  Some of it is a reaction against having to pay more for custom matches - this is going to cost people like the MRBC tournament group real money in order to use non-standard 'Mech requirements in matches.  PGI's explanation that these matches require more server space (and therefore more money from them) is a good one; a lot depends on just how much they end up asking for these matches.

A less reasonable concern is the "I want to play with my friends" camp.  The argument here is that PGI should allow 5-11 man teams because otherwise people won't be able to play with their friends if they want to.  Proponents of this view claim that a significant portion of the player base is only dropping solo because they're being frozen out of their friends' groups due to the 4-man limit.  The extraordinary claim that allowing such large fractions of a team to have coordinated builds and communication would not imbalance the match is also frequently made.  Leaving aside the reasonable question of why they're not rich, since their crystal balls work so well, this is a classic fallacious appeal to emotion - either an appeal to pity or to consequences, depending on the phrasing of the argument - as well as an exercise in wishful thinking.  The argument is invalid thought - proponents start from what they want to be true, then arrange their opinions of "the facts" to support that outcome.  This argument should be treated with extreme distrust.

Finally, never underestimate the decibel capacity of a tirade by the professionally dissatisfied on these forums.  No matter what PGI does, there will be people vomiting forth incoherent rage.  PGI is selling something so they can afford to develop the game?  Money grabs!  PGI hasn't offered a sale in a while?  They don't care about the players!  PGI makes a game change?  THIS IS THE WORST THING IN THE HISTORY OF EVER!  Take all opinions with a grain of salt, and try to identify the assumptions they're reasoning from, as well as whether their reasoning is accurate.

Of course, your assumption is interesting to me. And in many cases either incorrect or irrelevant.Would you agree that, to a large degree, online games are social in nature? Otherwise we'd still be playing single player games.The assumption that groups only want to pug stomp is both incorrect and irrelevant in many cases. What PGI is doing is making it very difficult for people like myself. My son and I live in different places and one of the ways we "get together" is in MWO. That's a group of two. Of course, because we are both the best (oxymoron alert) we present an almost unsupportable threat to the opposing 12 players we face. He and I regularly two man entire teams and cap all the bases by ourselves. In case it isn't apparent, I take exception to the "only group for stomping pugs" idiocy that is commonplace on this forum. The primary consequence of this is that it is very likely that our queue times will go way up. Fortunately neither of us is fond of assault mechs.Secondly, we are in the "we don't have 12 people to drop with" "less reasonable" category. In that category, we are now told that there is NEVER going to be a chance to play together barring spending real world money. Which we won't do. It is nice, however, to be told that we hold an unreasonable perspective on playing together. Of course, the only possible, and therefore reasonable, explanation is that we want to stomp pugs.Please limit your arrogance and assumptions to those things which you are competent to be arrogant and assumptive about.

[Craig Steele]

King of the Woad, on 07 March 2014 - 05:43 AM, said:

Of course, your assumption is interesting to me. And in many cases either incorrect or irrelevant.Would you agree that, to a large degree, online games are social in nature? Otherwise we'd still be playing single player games.The assumption that groups only want to pug stomp is both incorrect and irrelevant in many cases. What PGI is doing is making it very difficult for people like myself. My son and I live in different places and one of the ways we "get together" is in MWO. That's a group of two. Of course, because we are both the best (oxymoron alert) we present an almost unsupportable threat to the opposing 12 players we face. He and I regularly two man entire teams and cap all the bases by ourselves. In case it isn't apparent, I take exception to the "only group for stomping pugs" idiocy that is commonplace on this forum. The primary consequence of this is that it is very likely that our queue times will go way up. Fortunately neither of us is fond of assault mechs.Secondly, we are in the "we don't have 12 people to drop with" "less reasonable" category. In that category, we are now told that there is NEVER going to be a chance to play together barring spending real world money. Which we won't do. It is nice, however, to be told that we hold an unreasonable perspective on playing together. Of course, the only possible, and therefore reasonable, explanation is that we want to stomp pugs.Please limit your arrogance and assumptions to those things which you are competent to be arrogant and assumptive about.

Why can you not play with your son anymore?

[IceSerpent]

Void Angel, on 06 March 2014 - 10:02 PM, said:

A less reasonable concern is the "I want to play with my friends" camp. The argument here is that PGI should allow 5-11 man teams because otherwise people won't be able to play with their friends if they want to. Proponents of this view claim that a significant portion of the player base is only dropping solo because they're being frozen out of their friends' groups due to the 4-man limit. The extraordinary claim that allowing such large fractions of a team to have coordinated builds and communication would not imbalance the match is also frequently made. Leaving aside the reasonable question of why they're not rich, since their crystal balls work so well, this is a classic fallacious appeal to emotion - either an appeal to pity or to consequences, depending on the phrasing of the argument - as well as an exercise in wishful thinking. The argument is invalid thought - proponents start from what they want to be true, then arrange their opinions of "the facts" to support that outcome. This argument should be treated with extreme distrust.

A very eloquent speech, but unfortunately it has no basis in reality.

1. A player who currently has 4+ friends online has absolutely no reason to elect to drop solo, aside from the fact that they can't be included in the group (i.e. they are the 5th or 9th player). I mean, seriously why would you ever say "I ain't gonna drop with you guys, I'll drop solo instead"?

2. 5-11 groups on both teams would obviously not unbalance anything, as 8-man on one side prefectly balances an 8-man on the other side. Don't even need a crystal ball to figure that out - an ounce of common sense is suficient.

3. The argument in question goes along the lines of "It's very bad to not allow players to play with their friends just because devs are unable or unwilling to split the queues properly". If you can show it to be invalid, please do so and we might start treaing it "with extreme distrust" (depends on how convincing your proof is).

4. What makes you think that we're not rich?

[tucsonspeed6]

So the general response to weapon balancing is "Pssh! Why bother? Everyone will adapt to something else that works." But when it comes to anything else, the response is "there's no way anyone can adapt to this game breaking change!"

As a medium pilot, I can tell you with certainty that 3/3/3/3 will be good times for me. Any match where I'm not dropping against 9 highlanders is a good one. So when I, and other mediums like me, start to flourish after these MM changes, how is it so hard to understand that mediums will start to become more appealing to the average pug player watching?

[Kilo 40]

Gyrok, on 06 March 2014 - 04:55 PM, said:

That *LAUNCH*...that is not accommodating matches that *FAIL*...of those it is actually quite a bit higher (~16-20%) . But what do PUGs care about 4 mans that fail to find a match?

My point exactly...PUGs are only out for the one person they represent...

4 mans currently fail to find matches regularly enough...but you guys that solo queue are not worried about that...

I have no idea what you are trying to say.

[Kamikaze uy]

I think the 3/3/3/3 is a mistake, SPECIALLY for the league community. The strategy limitations are enormous!
What if u want to fight an invading force with fast mechs only, and there are obviously tons of examples...
for making generic 12 drops it not so bad, but for selected league battles...Will you be able to drop in a battle with 8 assaults vs 12 whatever, only taking notice on the tonnage limit? Guess not...

Guess they dont care much about the people that wants community warfare coz now they r the minority, but when they start loosing players in a year or less because they got bored, then they´ll start paying attention.

They could easily remove the 3/3/3/3 limitation for private games leaving only the ton limit, so the question is why not? And what can we do about it...

[Void Angel]

IceSerpent, on 07 March 2014 - 09:47 AM, said:

A very eloquent speech, but unfortunately it has no basis in reality.

1. A player who currently has 4+ friends online has absolutely no reason to elect to drop solo, aside from the fact that they can't be included in the group (i.e. they are the 5th or 9th player). I mean, seriously why would you ever say "I ain't gonna drop with you guys, I'll drop solo instead"?

2. 5-11 groups on both teams would obviously not unbalance anything, as 8-man on one side prefectly balances an 8-man on the other side. Don't even need a crystal ball to figure that out - an ounce of common sense is suficient.

3. The argument in question goes along the lines of "It's very bad to not allow players to play with their friends just because devs are unable or unwilling to split the queues properly". If you can show it to be invalid, please do so and we might start treaing it "with extreme distrust" (depends on how convincing your proof is).

4. What makes you think that we're not rich?

First, your #1 point proves my own. There is no reason that a person who has 4 or more friends can't play with friends unless they are the odd man out. Yet, this gets said over and over again. Since only one out of every five people can ever be frozen out in this way, and not all players are desperately pining to play with their buddies (sniffle, sniffle, cue the tears,) how can you claim that PGI is "not letting people play with their friends?" The more you analyze this argument, the less reasonable it is shown to be.

2. The matchmaker is not set up to match a team of exactly X players with exactly Y players. Leaving aside the effects of such a restrictive setup, this is not the claim that is being made. What's being said, I kid you not, is that a group of 5 players on one team and 11 players on another team would be balanced at any given Elo, because "they had to play as a team to get to that Elo, while the solo players got there on their own," as one poster put it. Do I really need to explain the obvious fallacy? Do you even have the data needed to predict the rate of match failures of such a hypothetical matchmaking setup? The answer rhymes with "go."

3. Speaking of fallacies, your stated argument is invalid on its face. It both begs the question and is false to fact. The Devs have given reasons why they're going to do what they're planning - it's not "just because" they're "unwilling or unable to split the queues properly." So, that part is simply untrue, even before we get to your fallacy of begging the question of what's "proper." I have yet to see a convincing argument as to why going to the expense and trouble of fragmenting the player base (which will skew the data they use to try and balance things,) is worth having 5-11 man teams. So that's a classic argument based on facts not in evidence - the textbook form is, "When did you stop beating your wife?" On that note, I guess we can add a third fallacy - your attempt to shift the burden of proof to me to refute you when you haven't actually offered any proof.

I won't dignify the idea that you will begin treating your own opinion with distrust with a specific refutation, either.

Do... do you want to try again?

[Void Angel]

King of the Woad, on 07 March 2014 - 05:43 AM, said:

Of course, your assumption is interesting to me. And in many cases either incorrect or irrelevant.Would you agree that, to a large degree, online games are social in nature? Otherwise we'd still be playing single player games.The assumption that groups only want to pug stomp is both incorrect and irrelevant in many cases. What PGI is doing is making it very difficult for people like myself. My son and I live in different places and one of the ways we "get together" is in MWO. That's a group of two. Of course, because we are both the best (oxymoron alert) we present an almost unsupportable threat to the opposing 12 players we face. He and I regularly two man entire teams and cap all the bases by ourselves. In case it isn't apparent, I take exception to the "only group for stomping pugs" idiocy that is commonplace on this forum. The primary consequence of this is that it is very likely that our queue times will go way up. Fortunately neither of us is fond of assault mechs.Secondly, we are in the "we don't have 12 people to drop with" "less reasonable" category. In that category, we are now told that there is NEVER going to be a chance to play together barring spending real world money. Which we won't do. It is nice, however, to be told that we hold an unreasonable perspective on playing together. Of course, the only possible, and therefore reasonable, explanation is that we want to stomp pugs.Please limit your arrogance and assumptions to those things which you are competent to be arrogant and assumptive about.

Nothing in the new class system is going to prevent you from playing with your son, as another player pointed out by way of a question. Reading through your wall of text, I see that you have not understood the system proposed by PGI, or the post of mine you have quoted. Nowhere do I claim that anyone "only groups to stomp the pugs," so your repeated mention of this point of view in relation to my post is mystifying to me. Similarly confusing is your assertion that your two-man team is "NEVER" going to be able to play together without real money - when only custom configurations of 12-man matches will be subject to a micropay system. You quoted the post, but don't seem to have successfully read it. Please take your own advice and limit your arrogance and presumption - particularly when you have nothing to be arrogant and presumptive about.

Edited by Void Angel, 07 March 2014 - 11:18 PM.