134 replies to this topic

[Kyle Polulak]

Greetings MechWarriors

We were able to receive a great deal of useful telemetry data from your successful and unsuccessful attempts earlier today to launch as we tested class limits on matchmaking, all of which will help us provide an even better system later on.

At 3PM PDT / 6 PM EDT / 10 PM UTC, our team will be introducing a hot fix which should resolve any further matchmaking delays until we can release the next iteration of the matchmaker in a future patch. The hot-fix will NOT require any patch on your part. If you click search again at that time, everything will be back to normal. All players in a game will not be affected.

Many thanks for your understanding,

[Mechteric]

Could you post here what you ended going with, is it turning off the weight class matching again, or is it going to 4 max per weight class, or something else?

[vortmax]

My guess is reversion back to pre-patch matchmaker.

[Zolaz]

I feel for you Niko. They make you come out and be the face to their fault. You know you might want to tell those guys to test patches before saying they are done and putting them out.

Or you can keep doing what you are doing.

[Jon Gotham]

So the wonderful, balanced games I had before 22:00 GMT are now gone again?

Oh please, WHY? I really enjoyed having fair matches!
No more x4 Assault derp lances or x4 Heavy troll lances.....I only played a few before logging but they were GREAT games!

Why turn it off, again?

[Zack Esseth]

The good people of the forums know its not Niko. We still love you Niko.

[Faith McCarron]

Guys, I'll get on PGI's case as much as anyone, but sadly, these matchmaker issues likely are not something that can be caught in pre-release testing. The scale and variables of the public environment simply cant be properly simulated in a controlled test environment, and so issues are bound to occur. MM is a work in progress.

[Bront]

Will they hotfix it if they manage to "solve" the issue or are we going to have to wait till next patch day?

[Majorfatboy]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 20 May 2014 - 01:43 PM, said:

Greetings MechWarriors
We were able to receive a great deal of useful telemetry data from your successful and unsuccessful attempts earlier today to launch as we tested class limits on matchmaking, all of which will help us provide an even better system later on.

Hey PGIIGP, You have test servers! test things there. This is the live server of a launched, out-of-beta, real money collecting, game. We're not testers anymore, remember? We're customers. I'm so glad I'm not running premium time right now, do you have any idea what your're financially costing players?

If you want to collect telemetry data or metrics or feedback or whatever, do it in a controlled environment that players nominate to participate in.



EDIT: Teh gRamOrz

Edited by Majorfatboy, 20 May 2014 - 03:40 PM.

[Zolaz]

Psssst ... PGI. You can test things on the test server. Just trying to help ya'll. Since PGI cant get 3/3/3/3 programmed in over a month and a half.

[Tesunie]

Is the "no need to patch on our end" because of the new work done to the developers side of the UI?

And people on the forums said the new UI wasn't good for anything...

So, we can't blame Garth for spilling coffee on the servers anymore.. now what silly excuse can we come up with? Niko put the freeze in the servers? (Get it? Niko Snow? Ah... maybe you had to know that older name...)

[Bulletsponge0]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 20 May 2014 - 02:07 PM, said:

Essentially, yes.

So...essentially two weeks of work by the programmers for virtually nothing but test data?

[Treysef]

Bront, on 20 May 2014 - 02:18 PM, said:

Will they hotfix it if they manage to "solve" the issue or are we going to have to wait till next patch day?

The patchnotes make it sound like the channels needed to quickly change matchmaker options were improved upon and all of the minute changes we've seen today sort of prove that. I'm hoping they can just turn it on when it's fixed.

[Bront]

Zolaz, on 20 May 2014 - 02:20 PM, said:

Psssst ... PGI. You can test things on the test server. Just trying to help ya'll. Since PGI cant get 3/3/3/3 programmed in over a month and a half.

Can't replicate the volume of people there.

Though you could attempt to replicate the volume of data with an isolated model of the matchmaker and random mechs being shoved in it, but even that's not a live test.

[vortmax]

I'm a developer, and I understand the frustration of having to roll back a feature because it didn't work (had a release hard crash on low memory systems, hazards of developing on a 16 GB machine with latest OS).

That said, I'd like to re-iterate my suggestion on the other thread regarding load testing and add something:

- Turn off Premium time consumption during said load testing.
- Announce ahead of time that said load testing will occur and for how long it will last.

[Bront]

Treysef, on 20 May 2014 - 02:23 PM, said:

The patchnotes make it sound like the channels needed to quickly change matchmaker options were improved upon and all of the minute changes we've seen today sort of prove that. I'm hoping they can just turn it on when it's fixed.

I agree, it looks like they can. I'm curious if they will?

(I'd be happy with a "We'll see how long it takes to correct" answer)

[Besterino]

I really start losing my patience with this game. I cannot fathom why the same problems arise again and again. Have a standing test server for god's sake in addition to the live systems if you can't test it yourself properly. Or have a fake population mirrored from any given time in a simulated matchmaker, I don't know. Shouldn't be too hard to set up a test environment for this thing that hardly ever works as intended ™.

Edited by Besterino, 20 May 2014 - 02:27 PM.

[Bulletsponge0]

on..and based on personal experience...the rollback has NOT decreased wait times at all.....

[Lance McRaven]

Played 3 matches between 6 pm, EDT, and 6:28 pm, EDT. All three crashed to desktop. After restarting, I noticed I didn't even get credit for the damage I did before it crashed. Anyone having this issue?

[Heffay]

Bront, on 20 May 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

Can't replicate the volume of people there.

Though you could attempt to replicate the volume of data with an isolated model of the matchmaker and random mechs being shoved in it, but even that's not a live test.

They did do that. Karl Berg posted in his superthread that they ran the new algorithm through production data, and the average queue time was less than 50 seconds. In theory it was supposed to work, in practice it didn't. That unfortunately happens all too often.

The weird thing is my first match relatively soon after the patch was quick, and it degraded from there. The longer the day went on, the longer the delays became, and I was playing just medium mechs. In theory the short queue should have remained almost instant and the assaults would have had a long delay, but apparently there is an issue in the MM that didn't work that way.