238 replies to this topic

[Bilbo]

Sandpit, on 10 July 2014 - 04:36 PM, said:

except groups aren't in the solo queue so that's a completely invalid statement

Been 50/50 or so for me in solo queue. Occasional rolls happen both ways. Just got out of one. It was well fought on the other side though.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Bilbo, on 10 July 2014 - 04:38 PM, said:

Been 50/50 or so for me in solo queue. Occasional rolls happen both ways. Just got out of one. It was well fought on the other side though.

Whats the trick to atleast a 50/50 in pugs? I was like -20 in the hole before joining this clan, and still im -3 in the hole.

[Joseph Mallan]

LordKnightFandragon, on 10 July 2014 - 04:40 PM, said:

Whats the trick to atleast a 50/50 in pugs? I was like -20 in the hole before joining this clan, and still im -3 in the hole.

No Idea. I have yet to not be close to 50/50 almost always and on multiple Alts. My K/D may be another story but on my Stock only alt I had 25/25 and died 49 times!

[Bilbo]

LordKnightFandragon, on 10 July 2014 - 04:40 PM, said:

Whats the trick to atleast a 50/50 in pugs? I was like -20 in the hole before joining this clan, and still im -3 in the hole.

Dunno. I was around 75% when I was in a unit. Dropped to 50% when I left it.
The difference is always having support for my aggressive (maybe too aggressive) play and sometimes having support.

Edited by Bilbo, 10 July 2014 - 05:03 PM.

[Flyby215]

Earlier today was pretty rough for me in the solo queue... some of my mechs have fallen into the negative win/loss ratios, despite kill/death ratios hovering between 1.5-2.0. (except my summoners, which are straight up disastrous).

I found I was consistently hitting top score for my team, and often enough between both teams, but still losing rather badly. It kind of worries me when I get placed against people I recognize from the tournaments or players I recognize from the comp teams on the other side, meanwhile there's 2-3 players running 3PV on my team... not really sure why that's being allowed, I'm not really good enough to carry newbies.

[Deathlike]

The only way of doing "respawn" IMO is run it kinda like Counterstrike.

Run a "best of 3", with 2 other mechs (must be of different weight classes)... the MM will try to "even" things out as much as possible.

Just play the match as usual... determine the outcome (win/loss), and then everyone respawns with a completely different mech that they have preselected in the mechlab

It could also be a "best of 5", where you select 4 chassis (1 of each weight class), and the MM does the same thing. With the 5th match, the MM would "pick your fate" if it must come to that (or the player picks a mech that they would field twice).

That's the best way of doing it IMO.

Respawn "Counterstrike" style is probably the most effective way, instead of doing it like how MW4/MW3 dealt with it.

Edited by Deathlike, 10 July 2014 - 06:23 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Flyby215, on 10 July 2014 - 06:12 PM, said:

Earlier today was pretty rough for me in the solo queue... some of my mechs have fallen into the negative win/loss ratios, despite kill/death ratios hovering between 1.5-2.0. (except my summoners, which are straight up disastrous).

I found I was consistently hitting top score for my team, and often enough between both teams, but still losing rather badly. It kind of worries me when I get placed against people I recognize from the tournaments or players I recognize from the comp teams on the other side, meanwhile there's 2-3 players running 3PV on my team... not really sure why that's being allowed, I'm not really good enough to carry newbies.

I ran into this at first - then realized it's playstyle.

If you're like me, you're used to there being a premade or other competent *group* on your team.

That needs to be YOU now. Either get 2 or 3 people to stick with you or find 2 or three sticking together and stay with them.

Need to try and contribute to leadership on the team to keep the win/loss up. If you're like me, you'll find the enemy to be easy pickings but if not carefully herded your own team will, half the time, tenaciously work on getting themselves killed.

Everyone is used to a premade almost every match providing even unspoken direction. That's gone, so it needs to be you.

Play like you're the premade. Just do it solo.

[N0MAD]

As some of you may know i posted a thread on New player help 3 days ago asking what medium mech i should buy because i just started playing again after a year break.
First game in solo Q i ran into a High profile player that ive seen play in the Latest tourny, in his shiny Timberwolf ( elited no doubt) so obviously a high ranking player matched up vs me (a total noob) and congratz to him he ended up with 5 kills multiple assists and over 1k damage. Match maker working as intended?.
Ok so a couple of my mates who have been away as long as i have patched the game since i had.
We group up (3 of us ) first game, we are matched up vs again a High profile team (again one of the top tourny teams) of 8 fielding TWs and DWs (again fully elited i assume) and i know cause i asked biggest group on our side was a 4 man, do i need to tell you how that turned out? BTW, they had 3 assaults 5 Heavies on their team ( their whole team not the premade).
So i see that the match maker is working well and that 3x3x3x3 is working real well... right?

[MischiefSC]

N0MAD, on 10 July 2014 - 06:51 PM, said:

As some of you may know i posted a thread on New player help 3 days ago asking what medium mech i should buy because i just started playing again after a year break.
First game in solo Q i ran into a High profile player that ive seen play in the Latest tourny, in his shiny Timberwolf ( elited no doubt) so obviously a high ranking player matched up vs me (a total noob) and congratz to him he ended up with 5 kills multiple assists and over 1k damage. Match maker working as intended?.
Ok so a couple of my mates who have been away as long as i have patched the game since i had.
We group up (3 of us ) first game, we are matched up vs again a High profile team (again one of the top tourny teams) of 8 fielding TWs and DWs (again fully elited i assume) and i know cause i asked biggest group on our side was a 4 man, do i need to tell you how that turned out? BTW, they had 3 assaults 5 Heavies on their team ( their whole team not the premade).
So i see that the match maker is working well and that 3x3x3x3 is working real well... right?

So play 20 matches. Do you win between 8 and 12 of them? Do you win 4? One anecdotal example doesn't speak to the matchmaker.

Also, yeah. You'll match high/low to target still. You're as likely to end up WITH those teams as against those teams though.

[Lynx7725]

N0MAD, on 10 July 2014 - 06:51 PM, said:

As some of you may know i posted a thread on New player help 3 days ago asking what medium mech i should buy because i just started playing again after a year break.
First game in solo Q i ran into a High profile player that ive seen play in the Latest tourny, in his shiny Timberwolf ( elited no doubt) so obviously a high ranking player matched up vs me (a total noob) and congratz to him he ended up with 5 kills multiple assists and over 1k damage. Match maker working as intended?.

Yes.

The key to understanding Maggie the Matchmaker is that she doesn't divide you into nice rooms to play with people around the same skill level, she kicks you into a room with whoever she has on hand at that point in time, then start calling up names to go into maps. So if "high skill" players are in the same room as new players, they can get sorted into the same map.

Maggie's concern is to balance the relatively skill of the teams, not of the players. So "lopsided" team is not unusual. But my conceptual testing of the balancing algorithm convinces me that it's actually not that easy to get lopsided team, at least not based on ELO alone. Any lopsidedness in game itself usually is a result of in game cooperation or lack thereof.

N0MAD, on 10 July 2014 - 06:51 PM, said:

Ok so a couple of my mates who have been away as long as i have patched the game since i had.
We group up (3 of us ) first game, we are matched up vs again a High profile team (again one of the top tourny teams) of 8 fielding TWs and DWs (again fully elited i assume) and i know cause i asked biggest group on our side was a 4 man, do i need to tell you how that turned out? BTW, they had 3 assaults 5 Heavies on their team ( their whole team not the premade).
So i see that the match maker is working well and that 3x3x3x3 is working real well... right?

Again, yes to my (limited) understanding. Because Maggie has to find a game for the player -- if players cannot find games within a reasonable time, they would eventually quit the game. So at a certain point of the sorting process, Maggie would relax the constraints -- that is always been fairly consistent in the messages that PGI puts out.

[N0MAD]

MischiefSC, on 10 July 2014 - 07:02 PM, said:

So play 20 matches. Do you win between 8 and 12 of them? Do you win 4? One anecdotal example doesn't speak to the matchmaker.

Also, yeah. You'll match high/low to target still. You're as likely to end up WITH those teams as against those teams though.

Well point is as a noob and part of a noob team why is it im matched up against these people in the first place?
Also when i went to play with a Large organised group i am a member of and we fielded teams of 8-10-12 we won 90% of our matches, lost to HOL a couple times but apart from that we won constantly. When i droped back to our litle 3 man group we lost constantly, this has been the same scenario for the past 3 days, and in the solo Q i very often see high profile players matched up against noobs ( as in me) and geez im scoring quite well compared to alot of my team mates.

[MischiefSC]

You would have had some great people on your team. Your relative balance of Elo is going to be similar - those other teams will have people as noob as you, or worse.

[N0MAD]

MischiefSC, on 10 July 2014 - 07:20 PM, said:

You would have had some great people on your team. Your relative balance of Elo is going to be similar - those other teams will have people as noob as you, or worse.

So you implying that this is a good Match making system?

Edited by N0MAD, 10 July 2014 - 07:28 PM.

[MischiefSC]

I'm saying that given the population density available, yeah. I'm saying it's as good as you can possibly get. Best possible balance of weight classes, Elo and length of time in queue.

[N0MAD]

MischiefSC, on 10 July 2014 - 07:30 PM, said:

I'm saying that given the population density available, yeah. I'm saying it's as good as you can possibly get. Best possible balance of weight classes, Elo and length of time in queue.

Well brother you keep telling that to the Newb that gets melted in 10 seconds by a leet pilot in his fully elited clan mech he cant get unless he pays real money for, im sure he will fully understand and keep playing and recomend the game to his friends.

[Bilbo]

N0MAD, on 10 July 2014 - 07:28 PM, said:

So you implying that this is a good Match making system?

It has been good to stellar. If you were away for awhile it may take a number of games before your experience gets better.

[MischiefSC]

N0MAD, on 10 July 2014 - 07:36 PM, said:

Well brother you keep telling that to the Newb that gets melted in 10 seconds by a leet pilot in his fully elited clan mech he cant get unless he pays real money for, im sure he will fully understand and keep playing and recomend the game to his friends.

Just got my Mastered Banshee killed less than 30 seconds into a match by 2 Dire Wolves with gauss+erppc - they blew my LT out at ~800m on River City earlier tonight.

Got my Mastered Timber Wolf dissolved from literally full health to dead in about 3 seconds by coming over a hill into 4 poptarts, who blew both my CT out before I could twist away and back up.

It happens. Pug, group, doesn't matter. Elo doesn't change that. Reducing PPFLD does though.

[Tynan]

N0MAD, on 10 July 2014 - 07:36 PM, said:

Well brother you keep telling that to the Newb that gets melted in 10 seconds by a leet pilot in his fully elited clan mech he cant get unless he pays real money for, im sure he will fully understand and keep playing and recomend the game to his friends.

There's no easy solution to this problem, because this game punished being out of position / out in the open much more severely than most other games. Making tweaks to the ELO with the smallish population we have isn't going to make newbs get melted less quickly, because even the slightly-less-noobish melt people in the open very, very quickly.

[PappySmurf]

[There's no easy solution to this problem, because this game punished being out of position / out in the open much more severely than most other games. Making tweaks to the ELO with the smallish population we have isn't going to make newbs get melted less quickly, because even the slightly-less-noobish melt people in the open very, very quickly. ]

But I think I might have a solution to the new/low elo players Vs elite players problem.

First place new players in a separate trial vs trial or trial vs AI mm queue for the first 30-50 matches gives them time to learn the ropes just a bit at a slower pace and get there first C-Bill mech then place them into the regular MM queue.I really have no ELO charts to see the total playing populace of MWO ELO level by level so its hard to make a real solution long term.

I also think these suggestions might help I posted in another thread
on game modes.

think right now the pug/solo/casual MM FFA 12v12 matches are the best they have ever been so I say leave it alone.If anything just add more game mode options and maps.

3/3/3/3 should actually be just a game mode plus they should just add a stock trial mode also for fun and a IS VS Clan game mode as well.It would spice up the game quite a bit from the only 3 game modes we have now.

Game mode list
Assault
Capture
Skirmish
3/3/3/3
Stock/trial
Clan Vs IS

The group queue in the recent announcement looks like it is being worked on so 1v1-12v12 match ups are going to be a viable option. Which should be better for balancing out groups.


If Cw is going to be like say the old NBT or MWL leagues werre I think it will work out just fine for MWO.

[color="#b27204"]http://www.netbattletech.com/nbt-hc/[/color]

Edited by PappySmurf, 10 July 2014 - 08:18 PM.

[Sandpit]

PappySmurf, on 10 July 2014 - 08:13 PM, said:

First place new players in a separate trial vs trial or trial vs AI mm queue for the first 30-50 matches gives them time to learn the ropes just a bit at a slower pace and get there first C-Bill mech then place them into the regular MM queue.I really have no ELO charts to see the total playing populace of MWO ELO level by level so its hard to make a real solution long term.

^This
I've been suggesting this for years now. It never seems to garner much support for some reason though

This right here would show an immediate improvement in the NPE
reduce roflstomps a bit more
improve retention
and, if i had to guess, improve profits from new players getting hooked instead of roflstomped and discouraged

New player joins:
Is put into Solaris Training Queue
Drops against only other new players still in training
Allow vetted players to join the queue in the same mechs to offer advice, help populate the queue, and ease the learning curve a bit. Give the vets a bonus earning while training the cadets or a cool forum badge and title in-game and maybe a special camo
cadets graduate and get their entire bonus all at one (they earn nothing until they graduate just like a real bootcamp, then they get a lump sum payment)
Now they have a little experience and knowledge before blowing all their money on a mech they wind up not enjoying a lot of times