97 replies to this topic

[HammerSwarm]

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?

Edited by HammerSwarm, 06 March 2014 - 01:38 PM.

[zhajin]

it sounds fine to me. though mediums are generally my favorite mechs, so I may be biased...

overall wait times are going to go up across the board. and its possible if you fall in to a certain elo class, at low population times, you may not find a match in your desired weight class. match type will add even more factors. really this is the problem PGI has been fighting from the start, the more strict they make matching the longer the wait times will be and there will likely be some players who do not find a match. we will have to wait to see how bad it really is, but in generally i would stay away from choose skirmish in an assault, or conquest in a light...

Edited by zhajin, 06 March 2014 - 01:44 PM.

[Deathlike]

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

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

I'll put it this way... at lower tiers, it probably won't matter. Most people will play whatever they think will suit them, usually with less regard to weight class, so there's an equal distribution of this.

At the upper tiers (remember there will be 3 Elo buckets), this may be a problem. Mediums for a long time have been the "forgotten class", usually due to limitations. Yes, the Shadowhawk is dominant, but the medium class as a whole isn't. Some players like to play in the medium class, just for a change of pace (for fun or otherwise) but if you asked them what their goto mech is for making money (or for srs business), it's not a medium.

Effectively, medium mech pilots @ upper tiers will be at a premium... and although this also means that high Elo medium mech pilots get an express lane to a match, it also means that there will be a logjam at matchmaking depending on them. That's what's likely going to be the case. I know this may get players to go medium "for relieving" the MM, but at the same time be regarded as annoying.

Just because the Medium mech diversity is "higher in number", it doesn't mean that it is something players will want to run all the time. This only comes with proper balancing for medium mechs.

[HammerSwarm]

So their system could end up doing nothing to address the stated goal of:

Quote

Issue 2:
Players would not always be guaranteed to play the ‘Mech they wanted. Imagine a 2-man group with the proposed 120 ton limit. If a player and his friend both bought the Atlas with MC because they thought it looked cool, they would not be able to group up and play together since they’d be 80 tons over the limit. 1 Atlas would require the other player to play a Locust and there is no other option. What if the other player didn’t own a Locust? The group would then be at a stalemate and not able to launch.

And it's still full speed ahead?

[Deathlike]

HammerSwarm, on 06 March 2014 - 01:54 PM, said:

So their system could end up doing nothing to address the stated goal of:

And it's still full speed ahead?

Yes, it's called the Titanic. The Iceberg in the distance will be met soon, with resistance.

Also, to a lesser degree, the lack of mechbays for the free player will come into question. If you need 4 different weight classes to drop properly, I guess you could either make multiple accounts (but that's kinda impractical when you need to grind for a lot of stuff, including modules) or just stop playing. At best, you can keep 1 mech and rotate 3 mechs (usually all 3 of the same of mastering or at least getting past basic)... and that'll cause an indirect problem at the lower tiers.

[Veranova]

Weight class is how World of Tanks seems to do it, they even show the numbers of each class in the cue.
It seems to work fine there. If you ask me it's one of the only things they got really right, although granted the player base is big enough to support balanced matches most of the time.

[CeeKay Boques]

HammerSwarm, on 06 March 2014 - 01:54 PM, said:

So their system could end up doing nothing to address the stated goal of:



And it's still full speed ahead?

That's an issue not a goal.

You guys are overreacting, Ghost Wingman will fix this.

[Lord Perversor]

Deathlike, on 06 March 2014 - 01:50 PM, said:

I'll put it this way... at lower tiers, it probably won't matter. Most people will play whatever they think will suit them, usually with less regard to weight class, so there's an equal distribution of this.

At the upper tiers (remember there will be 3 Elo buckets), this may be a problem. Mediums for a long time have been the "forgotten class", usually due to limitations. Yes, the Shadowhawk is dominant, but the medium class as a whole isn't. Some players like to play in the medium class, just for a change of pace (for fun or otherwise) but if you asked them what their goto mech is for making money (or for srs business), it's not a medium.

Effectively, medium mech pilots @ upper tiers will be at a premium... and although this also means that high Elo medium mech pilots get an express lane to a match, it also means that there will be a logjam at matchmaking depending on them. That's what's likely going to be the case. I know this may get players to go medium "for relieving" the MM, but at the same time be regarded as annoying.

Just because the Medium mech diversity is "higher in number", it doesn't mean that it is something players will want to run all the time. This only comes with proper balancing for medium mechs.

Of course it can happen that no one want to run mediums or lights as an example and MM get stuck until enough mechs of such class appears.

On the other hand it can be as simple as PGI giving preference values to other weigth classes in order to compensate this.

Example if no meds found after 20 Secs heavy and Lights get a +1 to fill such spots, thus allowing a bit more of control in the composition instead just throw anything at it.

[Deathlike]

Lord Perversor, on 06 March 2014 - 02:08 PM, said:

Of course it can happen that no one want to run mediums or lights as an example and MM get stuck until enough mechs of such class appears.

There are people that do like running lights, despite the "sudden death" possibility.

Quote

On the other hand it can be as simple as PGI giving preference values to other weigth classes in order to compensate this.

Example if no meds found after 20 Secs heavy and Lights get a +1 to fill such spots, thus allowing a bit more of control in the composition instead just throw anything at it.

The unfortunate fact is that it would essentially be what we have now in some ways. If you already are going 3 parts Steiner (Assault) and there's another solo Assault mech in the queue, you're more likely to complete the Steiner lance.

In other words, congestion will still happen, and worst case degrade to what we already have now.

Edited by Deathlike, 06 March 2014 - 02:18 PM.

[HammerSwarm]

Technoviking, on 06 March 2014 - 02:06 PM, said:

That's an issue not a goal.

You guys are overreacting, Ghost Wingman will fix this.

Avoiding that issue is the goal. That is what I meant.

Edited by HammerSwarm, 06 March 2014 - 02:22 PM.

[Deathlike]

Technoviking, on 06 March 2014 - 02:06 PM, said:

Ghost Wingman will fix this.

Yes, quite.

[Dan Nashe]

I do tend to agree it is a bad idea to limit the total drop to 3/3/3/3.
I think players would be happy as long as both teams had the same composition.
1/1/1/8 only happens if most players really want to play assaults. If people like mediums, you can get 3/3/3/3. I think the new system will result in far too many Failed to Find a Match. Especially if premades always group with 3 assaults, that will prevent PuGs from being able to use assaults.

I think limiting PREMADES to 3/3/3/3 (especially if they ever increase group size) makes good sense, however. Just don't let them stonewall the PuGs.

Edited by DanNashe, 06 March 2014 - 03:09 PM.

[HammerSwarm]

DanNashe, on 06 March 2014 - 03:07 PM, said:

I do tend to agree it is a bad idea to limit the total drop to 3/3/3/3.
I think players would be happy as long as both teams had the same composition.
1/1/1/8 only happens if most players really want to play assaults. If people like mediums, you can get 3/3/3/3. I think the new system will result in far too many Failed to Find a Match. Especially if premades always group with 3 assaults, that will prevent PuGs from being able to use assaults.

I think limiting PREMADES to 3/3/3/3 (especially if they ever increase group size) makes good sense, however. Just don't let them stonewall the PuGs.

While I don't want to see 3/1/4/4 or 1/1/1/9 I don't think hard limits are the best way. I've always been a carrot not a stick guy.

So through 10 responses I don't think anyone has had the "they've totally thought of this" response

[Gyrok]

LOL...nearly every 4 man premade will be 3 assaults + 1 heavy or 1 assault + 3 heavies, or some mix of the intermediary possibilities.

PGI seriously overlooked the way this will pan out...whatever. It will crash and burn and some *worse* idea will come along...wait and see...

[Deathlike]

HammerSwarm, on 06 March 2014 - 03:21 PM, said:

So through 10 responses I don't think anyone has had the "they've totally thought of this" response

Welcome to the conclusion that some of us have already reached.

[xMEPHISTOx]

Veranova, on 06 March 2014 - 02:05 PM, said:

Weight class is how World of Tanks seems to do it, they even show the numbers of each class in the cue.
It seems to work fine there. If you ask me it's one of the only things they got really right, although granted the player base is big enough to support balanced matches most of the time.

The WoT MM was far more flexible than what PGI is proposing with 3-3-3-3 as its quite specific, whereas in tanks if not finding exact matches it starts opening up the parameters for the sake of finding a match for everyone in queue. I would as others assume that increased wait times will be the norm, and more so as you climb the ELO ladder. I personally would have been satisfied with a simple weight matching system as it would be far less complicated and would not increase weight times, if did would be minimal.

[Kilo 40]

Gyrok, on 06 March 2014 - 03:26 PM, said:

LOL...nearly every 4 man premade will be 3 assaults + 1 heavy or 1 assault + 3 heavies, or some mix of the intermediary possibilities.

which is about, what? 4% of all the matches?

seriously, who cares?

[Gyrok]

Kilo 40, on 06 March 2014 - 03:50 PM, said:

which is about, what? 4% of all the matches?

seriously, who cares?

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...

Edited by Gyrok, 06 March 2014 - 04:57 PM.

[Craig Steele]

Oh wow, was the 3 / 3 / 3 / 3 released with the patch the other day?

I didn't realise.

[HammerSwarm]

Craig Steele, on 06 March 2014 - 05:30 PM, said:

Oh wow, was the 3 / 3 / 3 / 3 released with the patch the other day?

I didn't realise.

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.