SLDF DeathlyEyes, on 21 June 2014 - 02:20 AM, said:
My biggest fear is that 3/3/3/3 will force high ELO groups into playing 3 assault 1 heavy or a mixture combination to ensure the bulk of their teams firepower is in competent hands. I worry that if the ELO system works the way it does now, if I drop 3 mediums 1 heavy or some other lighter combination the enemy team will have 3 dragon slayers 1 Timberwolf in their premade. Then my team has some random pugs scattered around in assaults and get ripped up and die doing virtually nothing and all that's left is not very much tonnage. The only 3 assault mechs on a team is a lot of tonnage to give up to potentially totally incompetent players.
Sadly, I agree. It is actually in the "best interest" of a premade to control the most of the important firepower (3 Assaults + 1 Heavy, 3 Heavy + 1 Assault, 2 Assault + 2 Heavy) and NOT leave it to the solo PUG's hand. Remember that this system calls for
1 premade on each side and having the rest filled with solo PUGs... this has actual implications/ramifications that goes beyond "I hope I don't get a terrible solo PUG teammates"... rather it'll become more like "I hope my premade is better than their premade".
MischiefSC, on 20 June 2014 - 11:21 PM, said:
@Sandpit;
Blood Wolf pretty much hit it.
Are there more complex or resource-intensive solutions? Sure! DOT on clan ACs and weapons is a great one - it's what the IS should have been from day one.
In terms of a matchmaker solution however 3/3/3/3 is a brilliant one. It's not about trying to completely change the meta or rebalance mechs and equipment, simply provide a more balanced matchmaking experience with a bit more room for things other than peak meta. Peak meta will always be peak meta, unless you get into changing weapon balancing.... which, effectively, just changes it from one thing to another.
What you want from the matchmaker is simply to make breathing room for all the individual player choices. Any player choice that isn't peak meta tryhard grouping with VOIP is 'sandbagging' by the standards you put forward. Nothing else is going to change that in any way. It's not even, in the end, part of the equation.
What is part of the equation however is just how much of an impact your deciding to take a Dragon is for your team. you may like Dragons. May find them fun - if not your best killing mech. In the current system, or just about any other option put forward, taking a Dragon puts your team down a Banshee/Dire Wolf/Victor and has a huge impact. All a 'tonnage matching' system would do is give the other team 2 poptart victors instead of 2 banshees. A 'weightclass for weightclass' system still leaves your light hunter and striker/skirmisher build pointless because the odds are good the other team will have, at most, 1 or 2 lights and a bunch of assaults, plus a poptart Shawk to offset your Kintaro.
3/3/3/3 works because when you take a Dragon the other team still only has 3 heavies, 3 assaults, 3 mediums and 3 lights. You're going to have a valuable role you can still play - you're not instantly pointless on your own team because everyone is already fast, or your team is pure LRM boats and poptarts and you're the weakest link. It'll have 3 lights, 3 mediums and 2 other heavies, plus 3 assaults. So will the other team. You'll have 3 mediums to run off from your teams assaults and slow heavies. 3 enemy lights you know will be in each match you can spray SSRM fire at.
What it does is mitigate the impact of any 1 poor choice of what to bring, any 1 sub-par mech. Not just that but it guarantees that the other team will have something suitable for you to shoot at.
Did you play on the PTS? With no KDR to care about people played more bravely. They played non-meta mechs because they played what was fun. When you mitigate the impact of playing sub-peak mechs, reduce that impact even a little, you get more total people playing them.
This starts to break down at higher levels of play.
I remember MM v2 fondly. This was "weight class" matching where IT WAS GUARANTEED that for every mech in a particular weight class on one side would have the SAME # of that on the other side.
Back when we had fewer mechs to choose from, it LITERALLY became a decision to see how much a team is crippled... for every Awesome that COULD be fielded, a Stalker or Atlas SHOULD have been fielded. For every Dragon that COULD be fielded, a Cataphract or Catapult SHOULD have been fielded.
Most matches were decided between who "picked the better mechs", assuming skill was equal.
While we do not suffer from mech variety now, the META however limits what is actually produced at higher levels of play. As much as I'd like more Quickdraws fielded, they are a general hindrance if I could have fielded a Cataphract as I have an expectation that someone taking a sup-par mech BETTER HOLD THEIR WEIGHT in matches. So while I don't care for Dragons as much, it disappoints some people if they don't pull their own weight in combat. Since most of those mechs and players generally DO NOT PULL THEIR OWN WEIGHT, it usually translates into disdain for those people who play their "sub-optimal" mechs.
I don't entirely care what people take into matches... but if I see a premade of 3 Lolcusts in combat AND we lose... I can probably easily point to why we lost. At higher Elo levels, MECH SELECTION matters.
That's also why tonnage limits would be an improvement over 3/3/3/3. While I don't see a reason when a Lolcust is being fielded, I value the Commando being fielded if it means that a Highlander, Stalker, or Banshee can be fielded. There's value in that. 3/3/3/3 punishes players that go into sub-optimal mechs, because there's nothing actually gained by that. In tonnage limits, you "gain" a balance of power when trading out actual tonnage as compensation. It's not perfect (because the Victor is still better than the Awesome), but there's actual meaningful tradeoffs.
Edited by Deathlike, 21 June 2014 - 03:23 AM.
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