202 replies to this topic

[Agent 0 Fortune]

Launch Module, announced a month ago, due April 29. Nothing will be done before then regarding the MatchMaker. Plan you gameplay accordingly.

As for population it is a very real issue. Fortunately for the rest of us, you aren't PGI's business manager, and the only shop you get to close is your own, but sadly no one can haz your stuff.

[Deathlike]

At this point, anticipating a roflstomp is pretty much a likely shot (more than 50%).

The question really becomes, which side is going to be stomped?

We should be making bets on the MM, in order to make more C-bills!

[Khobai]

this is why we need 4v4 and 8v8 gamemodes. so individual skill matters more than the RNG of who gets put on your team.

also the 12v12 gamemodes need to split teams up into lance vs lance battles to make individual skill matter more. Its too hard to carry in 12v12 because 1 person cant beat a deathball of 6+ enemy mechs on their own.

Edited by Khobai, 05 April 2014 - 12:38 PM.

[Profiteer]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 05 April 2014 - 11:25 AM, said:

Fortunately for the rest of us, you aren't PGI's business manager

No, but I'am a paying customer with nearly 8,000 games under my belt.

I've played exactly 10 games in the last 3 weeks...

Maybe if I look at from a different perspective PGI might understand...


I wonder how many new players I've personally driven away from MWO by totally wreaking them in utter mismatched games.

I remember many times where I've killed mechs that just stood still and fired all around, barely grazing me. Or where they where clueless that I had flanked them and never turned to faced me before I smoked them. Obvious new players still learning the controls and probably trying to figure out the buttons for weapon groups.

This current system is no doubt driving away both vets and newbs.

That's lost money...

[Abivard]

Elo by itself in a one on one works, Elo in a random multiplayer match like MWO does not work.

Anyone who says otherwise is incorrect. Notice how most of the white-knights can't even spell Elo correctly, let alone understand it.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, they are not however, entitled to their OWN FACTS.

[Dock Steward]

Abivard, on 05 April 2014 - 02:36 PM, said:

Elo by itself in a one on one works, Elo in a random multiplayer match like MWO does not work.

Anyone who says otherwise is incorrect. Notice how most of the white-knights can't even spell Elo correctly, let alone understand it.

Funny, after going back through, the only people incorrectly capitalizing Elo (I assume that's what you mean by misspelling?), are the ones who say it doesn't work.

Edited by Dock Steward, 05 April 2014 - 02:46 PM.

[OneEyed Jack]

It's not 50/50. The MM doesn't "decide" to make you lose. Elo, by it's nature, causes you to be paired against progressively better opponents, looking for a reasonably even match. It doesn't just say "this guy/team is winning too much," and throw you against some team with Elos in the upper stratosphere, all with better mechs and hidden bonuses to guarantee you lose several in a row. Nor is the final score necessarily an indicator of the evenness of the match. A very close match can go 12-0 or 12-1, because if the teams are well-balanced, it will often come down to who loses a mech first, and snowball from there. I've seen many "imbalanced steamrolls" where the winning team never lost a mech, but every one of them was held together by chewing gum and baling wire.

But since everyone else already knows what you seem to be unable to piece together, I'll put it in simpler terms:

You're not as good as you think you are. Your pre-made is fine for stomping random PUGs, but eventually you'll run into another 4-man that is actually worth a damn, and be stomped back into the stone-age. Sure, there are pre-mades in most games, but at lower Elo those are more likely to be entirely casual groups of friends who aren't necessarily any good and might not know, or care, much about tactics, teamwork, focus-fire, mech-building or anything more complicated than drinking beer and blowing stuff up. That or just newbs grouping up with other newbs because they like it, or just heard it's "better", and the more competitive players won't group them.

But you just keep telling yourself it's all the MMs fault. You will, anyway.... It's not like the people with above average Elos got there by winning consistently more than they lose, regardless of the MM. Thta's obviously not possible, since the MM forces them to lose half the time...

[Mystere]

OneEyed Jack, on 05 April 2014 - 03:39 PM, said:

It's not 50/50. The MM doesn't "decide" to make you lose.

Well, someone said it in the internet. As such, it must be true.

[Zoid]

OneEyed Jack, on 05 April 2014 - 03:39 PM, said:

A very close match can go 12-0 or 12-1, because if the teams are well-balanced, it will often come down to who loses a mech first, and snowball from there. I've seen many "imbalanced steamrolls" where the winning team never lost a mech, but every one of them was held together by chewing gum and baling wire.

This is a very important note here. Since there is no respawn, the first few kills matter tremendously. I've had some steamroll games on both sides, sure, but just as often (if not more so) the 12-0, 12-1, and 12-2 games have everyone still alive with 50% or less.

With regards to ELO, this could be something as simple as your team having 3 noobs who get themselves killed in the first 2 minutes and the other team having 1, with everything else relatively balanced. It's the snowball effect of any no respawn game that you're seeing, not really an ELO issue.

It's especially important to note that this is not a game where pure skill can overcome extreme odds. If you're in something relatively slow (heavy or assault mech) and have 4 assault mechs on you, you're going to die. Even if they're absolutely horrible, there is still just going to be so much firepower coming your way that you just aren't going to win. You might be able to even the odds a bit and take 2 or even 3 of them, but you still die. This means that it's extremely easy for good players to just get overrun because the noobs got themselves killed.

Edited by Zoid, 05 April 2014 - 05:29 PM.

[Ordellus]

Charons Little Helper, on 05 April 2014 - 03:28 AM, said:

Yes it does - it just takes a lot longer to get to your proper Elo.

With law of large numbers, the other 23 people will eventually average out, leaving only one common denominator.

And - by the way Elo works - new players by definition start in the middle. (though I believe during the cadet bonus they get a 200 point Elo nerf that falls away after game 25)

Actually it doesn't. No matter how well a person does, someone else could completely throw the game which would affect their ranking despite their performance.

Elo is for a one on one game, in which both sides are forced to play by the same rules every time.

This is a game where the entire point is to bend the rules so that your enemy doesn't get to fight back.

[Abivard]

The MM certainly does not decide to place one player on the 'losing' side and another on the 'winning' side.

It is however incapable of matching balanced teams except as a function of pure chance.

Elo system can not work in a randomly assigned, multi-player game such as MWO.

Basing MM off of Broken and invalid Elo rating causes MM to not provide balanced matches.


Shit in shit out.

Case in point, MWO's MM does not provide consistently balanced matches.

[Funkadelic Mayhem]

Paul Inouye:

"The Match Maker uses a scoring system to determine if your team is more likely to win or lose"


THIS is the issue.

[Abivard]

Funkadelic Mayhem, on 06 April 2014 - 12:15 AM, said:

Paul Inouye:

"The Match Maker uses a scoring system to determine if your team is more likely to win or lose"


THIS is the issue.

Taken out of context.

If you win a match, it compares the Elo of the winning team to that of the losing team, if the winning teams Elo was lower, they get a bigger increase because the ODDS were against them winning. If the winning teams Elo was higher they get a smaller or maybe even no increase to their Elo.

What It does not do is pick one team as the winning team,with which MM will stack with the players it wants to be winners, and one team MM wants to lose so it is assigns players MM wants to lose this game.

[stjobe]

Abivard, on 06 April 2014 - 01:57 AM, said:

What It does not do is pick one team as the winning team,with which MM will stack with the players it wants to be winners, and one team MM wants to lose so it is assigns players MM wants to lose this game.

Are you saying it's me? It can't be me, must be my team. Or the MM cheating. Or poptarts. Or LRM boating. Or, you see I have this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side...

THE MM WANTS US ALL TO LOSE!
Well duh. It's striving for a 50-50 game, its very job is to try to make sure you have a 1.0 WLR - which of course means that you lose as often as you win.

[METAL SEPARATOR]

I think there should be a choice of gameplay added before you go into match - an Arcade gameplay, or Hardcore gameplay.
If you don't feel like getting into serious, thoughtful gameplay you go Arcade. If you want some serious stuff with tactics and players that share your current approach you select Hardcore. Maybe add some other differences to those modes to make them more unique and matching the game style.

[A banana in the tailpipe]

I'm notoriously a medium pilot for the fun/flexibility/challenge of it. Clan mates literally fight over having me in drops because matches I drop in tend to be very balanced because it takes a while for mediums to build the ELO my other chummers are banging out with their quad AC2s trip AC5 1k point monsters. Eventually they will carry my ELO into brackets mediums don't belong in, and the game will be unplayable again. For once I'd just like to enjoy this game more than a month at a time between content/balance patches.

[Screech]

Oh, this thread again.,,

Wonder what "fresh" ideas will come up here.

[Jman5]

stjobe, on 06 April 2014 - 03:49 AM, said:

Are you saying it's me? It can't be me, must be my team. Or the MM cheating. Or poptarts. Or LRM boating. Or, you see I have this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side...

THE MM WANTS US ALL TO LOSE!
Well duh. It's striving for a 50-50 game, its very job is to try to make sure you have a 1.0 WLR - which of course means that you lose as often as you win.

Let's be crystal clear here so people don't misinterpret what you're trying to say. The matchmaker is not looking at your Win/Loss Ratio and trying to adjust your games to keep you at 1.0 WLR. The Matchmaker does not care what your WLR is. Win/Loss is merely a side-effect of Elo Matchmaking. The matchmaker is trying to find you games with players who have Elo as close to yours (or your premade's average) as possible.

Of course finding your team's identical twin rarely happens so MM gets it close and then predicts which side will win based on team's average Elo. If the predictions come true, everyone's Elo does not move. If it does not go as predicted, you see shifts in Elo score. Victorious underdogs go up, losers go down. Now the underdogs face slightly better players, and better players until you start losing. Hence why for most players WLR will head toward 1.0.

Unfortunately Elo does have limits. At the very high and very low ends, there is simply no where left to go. If there are players who regularly win against the tip top or regularly lose against the bottom barrel, You're stuck with that. At the extremes you get really wacky WLR.

[Navy Sixes]

Charons Little Helper, on 05 April 2014 - 03:28 AM, said:

With law of large numbers, the other 23 people will eventually average out, leaving only one common denominator.

True. Also consider that the MM requires the largest player base possible. If you are only playing one game mode, you are asking the matchmaker to discount 2/3 of all the players online at a given time. If you have selected "Skirmish only," for example, there are only so many skirmish matches and so many open slots among them. When you play one mode only, there is no way for the MM to reasonably match your Elo with your opponents and also get you into a game in good time.

I play "Any," and with a few exceptions my matches are good.

The only way to solve this is to get a bigger player base. Be good to your FNG's! The more that stick with it, the better the game is for all of us!

[Amsro]

Charons Little Helper, on 05 April 2014 - 04:21 AM, said:

That doesn't actually happen. I have no idea where that myth came from, but it's purely psychological. Elo doesn't work like that.

Elo doesn't, but PGI's matchmaker does.