44 replies to this topic

[Voidcrafter]

So since they've changed the way the MM acts I've had the chance to play lots of matches both solo and in a small groups - so far the solo queue seems really an imrpovement.
I really feel the games are as near to balanced and competitive as they never were this far - I win some matches, I lose some - stomps are not occuring this often and even if it's so the game doesn't feel like the other team didn't stand a chance at all - but(most of the cases again) feels more like they were punished for making a mistake.
I feel appretiated, I feel all my effort into pushing my team toward the winning screen not wasted.

And suddenly - all this changes when you drop with a bud or two and you get stomped uppon over and over and over and over and over again.
Why? Is it because you're so bad player, is it because of your buds fault? Your teammates?
Nope. I think the main reason for that to occur is the matchamer again.
In my experience with the game(~6000-8000 games roughly, probably more) when you put a 10+ man premade against few 2/3/4 man groups the chances are highly against the second team and the chances of them being stomped are really good.
12 players on coms should be matched against 12 man on coms and that's that.
Or against some team composition with better chances of success like 8/4, 7/5.

I opened a topic suggesting some changes to that matter, but it fell under the scope(likelyhood of the time differences, bad topic name and etc. ) - my personal opinion is that the game would work better when:
- up to 3 man team ALWAYS drop in solo queue
- more than 3 man team ALWAYS drop in group queue.

For solo - the 3 man group will ALWAYS have a solo player in it, which(in some cases ) would help an uknown fella learn something for the game.
The difference between the teams in solo queue will be even thinner - since the most differences between the players per group per team will be 1 person the most. I think that way the solo gameplay would become even more balanced and forgiving toward new players and people tired of stomping(in either way).

For group queue - the team compositions will be ALWAYS 4/8, 5/7, 6/6 or 12 man premades - which will reduce the pain a bit - in terms there won't be a chance for a 10/12 man premade to drop against a composition(for example) 2/5/4/1.
This solution would push the game toward more competitive gameplay in groups also - since the worse case scenario team composition will be 6/6 vs 12.
And I deeply within myself believe that 8 people on coms really have a nick of chance against 12 people - so even if you drop against a full team 8/4 vs 12 isn't that bad(as "currently" bad)
"But Void... are you insane?!? What about the people who group in teams by 9/10/11 people?!? What the hell would those do?"
Well - I think the people who contribute from this "tunning" are way more than those who'll suffer from it.
And I've heard sooo many times the line "Find a team, join teamspeak" etc. etc. - and I do that.
But you know what? In the current MM state this doesn't help one bit, unless you get in a group larger than 6/7/8 man(12 man is the best case) - if you don't the games that the MM finds are way worse(in my personal experience) in terms of group experience than it was before this patch.
I think this solution is fair toward both sides - people who really wish to enjoy the game would always find backdoors - sync drops, etc. - just like it was before the patch.

I believe that there'll be a lot of people unhappy with my idea - after all every game that's a defeat for me is a victory for someone else.
For a finale - just a personal note:
I don't care about winning.
I care only about fun and competitive play, about the challenge.
And sadly - I'm not getting any of that at the moment - and thus - the topic

I really don't like to feel punished for chosing to play with a single friend - and currently I do feel so.

[Roland]

I've played quite a bit in the group queue now, usually grouped with only one other person, and we don't get stumped every game.

I have no idea why you would even expect this to happen, since you will consistently be put with other groups on your team.

If you are consistently loading every game via a stomp on the group queue, it means your group is bad and having that many bad players on your team is dragging it down.

There is nothing about the group queue which creates a particularly high number of unbalanced games.

Edited by Roland, 12 July 2014 - 12:11 PM.

[Screech]

Here is the problem.

If there are no 2 man groups in the group queue then there can be no 10 man groups either.

[Voidcrafter]

Roland, on 12 July 2014 - 12:11 PM, said:

I've played quite a bit in the group queue now, usually grouped with only one other person, and we don't get stumped every game.

I have no idea why you would even expect this to happen, since you will consistently be put with other groups on your team.

If you are consistently loading every game via a stomp on the group queue, it means your group is bad and having that many bad players on your team is dragging it down.

There is nothing about the group queue which creates a particularly high number of unbalanced games.

What "that many bad players" do you mean? I am playing(mostly) with a co-worker that has made ~50 games( == quite low ELO rating overall, since he's new) and I drop against 10/12 man conastantly, that have ECM scouts with tag, few dedicated LRM boats and are focusing fire?
Case 2: I drop with the same man a my brother == 3 man team - same scenario 80% of the time.
If it was for only 2/3 times every ~10 games I could happily live with it - I've seen quite worse times since the open beta.
If you're saying that my team is not strong enough that way - you're supporting what I said, because that's the idea of the matchmaker right? To fix the things for you - to find you a "fair"(I know how relative is that word) game?
Yea - I admit - though I have no proof of it I'm quite certain that my ELO is quite high - but still the matchmaker seems to handle really bad with that case.
It's cool - I know how to handle myself in bad situations - I stay behind, put the most effort to what I do - in the worse case I'll end up with ~400 damage(even despite the unfair situation I've been put into) a kill or a two or lots of asists.
Best case - more than 700 dmg, few kills - either way we're loosing and it's not because of me or the team directly - it's because since the start of the game we were no match for the coordinated 10/12 man on comms doing all that I've started the post with.
It's mine experience again - which means I'm not the only one first and last person in the game that's suffering from that - even though you don't.
And yea - there are many factors - abscence of any quick-voice-command or chat command interfaces are doing that kind of teams a really bad favour.
Either way - for me the MM is fine solo and I don't feel descriminated when I end up defeated, cause, as I noted, I feel my effort rewarded.
That's not the case in the group queue again.

[Felbombling]

The games in the solo queue have been fantastic, as far as I'm concerned. Stomps still happen from time to time, but they seem even in distribution. Beyond that, the games are generally very close and exciting. While I feel for the smaller groups, it seems to me that the small groups are getting the same game experience that the PuG players used to get from time to time.

[Adiuvo]

Group queue is going to often stick you with or against teams that are on comms and are doing they're own thing. If you're in a tiny group it's understandable that you would feel as if you had less of an impact, but there really isn't anything to be done unless group size is strictly matched. Matching group size reliably probably isn't the easiest thing to do.

[Votanin FleshRender]

Roland, on 12 July 2014 - 12:11 PM, said:

I've played quite a bit in the group queue now, usually grouped with only one other person, and we don't get stumped every game.

I have no idea why you would even expect this to happen, since you will consistently be put with other groups on your team.

If you are consistently loading every game via a stomp on the group queue, it means your group is bad and having that many bad players on your team is dragging it down.

There is nothing about the group queue which creates a particularly high number of unbalanced games.

My average night in the group Q has been losing 75-80% of the time, with 75% of those games being 4-12 at the least, and very often much worse... 2-12 or worse is not uncommon. Even the few games my group wins are usually stomps.

Your point being.... ok, my group is bad, I get it, and you're a very good player and can carry your weight and carry the team a bit? That's great for you I'm a very casual player, so either I L2P or accept getting slaughtered in the group Q? Is that your point?

[Piney II]

My experience has been a little rough with 2 man groups. I did have one match, though, where the main group told us where they needed us and we had a good game running with the pack.

If the larger group leaders filled the smaller groups in on the plan in chat, it would make for a better game for the both the large group and the small group(s),

Just tell the small group(s) what's up and where you need them.

[Kutfroat]

Voidcrafter, on 12 July 2014 - 11:42 AM, said:

- up to 3 man team ALWAYS drop in solo Queue

just no. 1. group of three is still 25% of a 12 man team...way too much impact. will stomp just as 4 mans did. 2. l2p, why? i was told to l2p whenever i wanted a soloqueue, because regularly getting stomped and farmed by 3 or 4 man premades is not fun and not fair. 3. solo in soloqueue is not the name of a bunch of spacepirates grouping up to pugstomp in their poptart millenium falcons.

Edited by Kutfroat, 12 July 2014 - 01:49 PM.

[ztac]

Seriously believe me when I say that the solo queue is not ok. This is down to the MM being kind of rubbish.
It ma be ok for those that win 12-0 , but certainly not for those that lose 12-0 , (allways be winner and losers, but it is how much you lose by that counts really).

If the matchmaker was any good matches would be quite close , but they are not on a regular basis. You may if you are lucky get what I'd call a good match (around 12-7 upward). with the disparity in the scores there is an indication that something is very wrong.

[Roland]

On some level, when you are playing a competitive game, you need to be prepared to lose to people who are better than you. That is part of what it means to be competitive.

If you are bad, then you will lose more than you win. This is the motivation to get better.

[Aresye]

I originally had issues with the group queue, although my complaints were actually from the perspective of the large team doing the stomping

Now that I've had a chance to play more with various sized groups, I don't see much of what the fuss is about. I'll get stomped in a small group from time to time, but I've also won many games in a small group of 4 or less, so either I'm just just that awesome of a player (likely not), or your approach needs work.

I follow 3 simple rules when playing the group queue:
1. If you're the largest group, take command and tell the other groups to follow your lead.
2. If you're the smallest group, tell the largest group that they have command and you'll follow them.
3. If you're in equal groups (3,3,3,3, 4,4,4, 5,5,2, or 6,6), establish before you start who's going to lead.

So far my experience in 2-4 size groups has been about the same win/lose patterns as the old matchmaker. The only thing new is that your chances of winning increase with more players in your group.

It's a double edged sword though, because unless your unit is comprised solely of competitive players (Lords, SJR, etc), most of the time at least half your guys are going to be below the average Elo for the entire match. I've had more success running in groups of 6-8 players vs a full 12. I suspect the reason why is because with groups of 6-8 the chances of another group with 4-6 players being closer in Elo to the match are higher.

In other words, don't be intimidated by large groups. Not everybody has the same playing ability, so larger groups may be gimping themselves to a certain extent.

[Voidcrafter]

So Roland point is that I'm bad - I can start taking screens from this moment forward a whole week to prove his scrap talk wrong if he insist.
Why does it always have to be the "l2p" stuff - whoever fought with me/against me knows I am decent(to say the least) brawler even when I'm experimenting/leveling new mechs.
You have no proof of what you're saying so I'll kindly ask you to shut up - as I don't have proof of the fact, that there's a good player behind my words.
Again - you're not reading - I'm not complaining about the defeats - I am SAYING that the experience I've had with 80+% of group the games isn't a good one in terms of balance and having fun.
I can (most of the time)feel a close game even if it ends 12/0 and the games I'm talking about are not of that kind.
I'm talking about a game that had nothing to do with the things either I or my team mates have done during the match time.
I'm talking about a 12 player composition from 3+ teams against a 12 player composition of 1 team(or 1 team + 1 solo player or 1 team + 2 man grop).
That kind of games should never occur.
Ever.
If we should trust the matchmaker he MUST put the players in, at least, average fair conditions.
There are 12 player teams, some of them feel cool when they stomp uppon 3/4 group team compositions but all in all - the players who play in smaller teams and solo are the main player base and deserve more.
I deserve more reward to the efort I am putting in the game.
So it's that simple - either way - when I drop in a small group(up to 3) I DO NOT wish to end up in a game with a team of 8+ premade.
There's nothing to learn from this game 8/10 cases - because you're not playing your or some common game - you're playing the game the other team have decieded to play.
The teams I've faced had light scouts spotters(mostly with tag), few(3 or 4 most cases) dedicated LRM boats and the rest of them were meta builds - team comosition for a competitive 12 man matches.
The team mates I was mostly teamed up with, were 2 other groups of either 3 or for(in the case of 3 - there were another one of 3 or one of 2 and one solo player) - in my observations - players willing to play for fun more rather than for the competitive challenge.
Sum that up - with the abscence of coms, the fact, that no one paid even the slightest attention to my attempts to organize the team - you'll think that's a rare case scenario?
Nope.
Every time I get teamed up with even a single mate - in a team of two - we get that kind of games to some degree about 80+% of the time.
Let's be honest with each other - what could you learn from this kind of game?
Aside from the specacular team play display of the enemy... nothing.
And what chance do you have, if not to win, to have fun when you get focus fired from few meta builds, tagged, while focus fired by swarms of LRMs?

Yea - my solution is a bad one for 9/10/11 player teams - but's a good one for solo, 2 man, 3 man, 4 man, 5 man, 6 man, 7 man, 8 man and - in terms of having a challenge instead of targets to shoot at- 12 man teams.

I don't mind playing that level of organized and competitive playstyle but in 2/3 man groups? For real?
You know how tough and slow the learning curve of the game is already - especially for the new players - a lot of time will pass before the common player get there. Enforcing it that way won't lead to anything good.
But again - all that is just my personal opinion

[Votanin FleshRender]

Roland, on 12 July 2014 - 02:04 PM, said:

On some level, when you are playing a competitive game, you need to be prepared to lose to people who are better than you. That is part of what it means to be competitive.

If you are bad, then you will lose more than you win. This is the motivation to get better.

At this point, I'm probably as good as I'm going to get. I don't have the kind of free time it takes to excel at something like this.

I really don't mind losing... but losing would be a lot easier to take if the more than 1 game out of every 4-5 were competitive. Getting stomped constantly is what I mind. What would be great is a player base large enough that I can get matched up in the group Q with players at my level. Probably a pipe dream.

And while I admit I'm not a very good player... since the MM changes, I've been winning 75-80% of my solo drop games, whilst the games there are also much more even (at least in my experience). So where's the motivation to face getting stomped constantly? Yeah, I like playing with friends, but jeez, that's a stiff price to pay to hang out with your friends.

[Voidcrafter]

Votanin FleshRender, on 12 July 2014 - 02:36 PM, said:

At this point, I'm probably as good as I'm going to get. I don't have the kind of free time it takes to excel at something like this.

I really don't mind losing... but losing would be a lot easier to take if the more than 1 game out of every 4-5 were competitive. Getting stomped constantly is what I mind. What would be great is a player base large enough that I can get matched up in the group Q with players at my level. Probably a pipe dream.

And while I admit I'm not a very good player... since the MM changes, I've been winning 75-80% of my solo drop games, whilst the games there are also much more even (at least in my experience). So where's the motivation to face getting stomped constantly? Yeah, I like playing with friends, but jeez, that's a stiff price to pay to hang out with your friends.

That.
Cause of the new system now I prefer playing alone cause it's more enjoyable.
The solo queue is fine in most of the cases, for me at least - but when you get into the group.... ^all I said.

EDIT: and another thing - ordinary the up-to-4 man groups are groups formed for that sole reason - 4 people to have fun when talking all sorts of sillyness - while the larger groups are formed to have a group, competitive play experience - if we presume that both cases are present and there's a chance for a single up-to-4-man group to drop into the solo queue a question arise -
Why don't we get that choice?
Do we really, REALLY trust the MM that much to leave it make it for us?
Ok - leave it all the same, don't change a thing - but add us an option to chose in which queue do we wanna roll with a group of up-to-4-man at least...

Edited by Voidcrafter, 12 July 2014 - 02:44 PM.

[Aresye]

Voidcrafter, on 12 July 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

So Roland point is that I'm bad - I can start taking screens from this moment forward a whole week to prove his scrap talk wrong if he insist.
Why does it always have to be the "l2p" stuff - whoever fought with me/against me knows I am decent(to say the least) brawler even when I'm experimenting/leveling new mechs.
You have no proof of what you're saying so I'll kindly ask you to shut up - as I don't have proof of the fact, that there's a good player behind my words.

Because most players that complain are usually bad players, or at least not as good as they think they are. See my above post on how I don't have any issues with the group queue regardless of what group size I'm in.

If somebody has no problem winning at least 50% of their matches with 2-4man groups, but you do, then would it not be an accurate statement to say they are probably better than you?

[Roland]

Voidcrafter, on 12 July 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

So Roland point is that I'm bad - I can start taking screens from this moment forward a whole week to prove his scrap talk wrong if he insist.
Why does it always have to be the "l2p" stuff - whoever fought with me/against me knows I am decent(to say the least) brawler even when I'm experimenting/leveling new mechs.

I'm not trying to hurt your feelings to beat you up. But coddling you isn't going to do you any favors. If you are losing every single match, as you claim, then that means you are a major contributing factor to those outcomes... you are the common denominator.

What I suspect is that you actually aren't losing every match, but rather you are experiencing a confirmation bias. That is, you are noticing the stomps where you lose real bad to a full 12 man, but aren't really paying attention to those cases where it doesn't happen.

Quote

Again - you're not reading - I'm not complaining about the defeats - I am SAYING that the experience I've had with 80+% of group the games isn't a good one in terms of balance and having fun.

Sure, but I'm presenting an alternative experience where I'm playing with only one or two other players, and we ARE having fun, and the matches are competitive, and we are winning a good number of our games.

Quote

I can (most of the time)feel a close game even if it ends 12/0 and the games I'm talking about are not of that kind.

I'm talking about a game that had nothing to do with the things either I or my team mates have done during the match time.
I'm talking about a 12 player composition from 3+ teams against a 12 player composition of 1 team(or 1 team + 1 solo player or 1 team + 2 man grop).
That kind of games should never occur.
Ever.

Such an event happens VERY rarely though.

You have folks here claiming that "every game" is against a 12 man. Sorry, but that is CLEARLY not true. That isn't even remotely true. The vast majority of games are not against a single large group... or if they are, they're when your small group is paired with another large group.

There is this belief among some that they are consistently getting matched up as a small group against large groups every time.. and that's bull. That isn't happening.

Quote

So it's that simple - either way - when I drop in a small group(up to 3) I DO NOT wish to end up in a game with a team of 8+ premade.

That's too bad. Your request here is not acceptable. You know why? Because there are even more solo players who DO NOT wish to end up in a game with your group of 3.

And quite frankly, their desire is far more internally consistent than yours. For them, they simply want games without any groups. That's perfectly reasonable. Everyone is on equal footing.

You want to be allowed to play against ungrouped players who you have an advantage over, but don't want to engage in games where other groups may have an advantage over you. That's not a reasonable request. And that's why no other games provide such a matchmaking queue.

When you play in the group queue now, you are playing with and against other grouped players. You need to play cohesively with them, and not assume that it's just you and a bunch of rabble against one other group and a bunch of rabble.

Quote

At this point, I'm probably as good as I'm going to get. I don't have the kind of free time it takes to excel at something like this.

Well, eventually the Elo ranking will put you down lower in the ranking.
Currently, if players have been playing in small groups against solo pugs, their Elo has become inflated. It'll take a little while for their ranking to fall down to where it belongs, when put in matches against other groups consistently.

And if you're losing every match, then your Elo is going to fall pretty quickly, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[Joseph Mallan]

Votanin FleshRender, on 12 July 2014 - 02:36 PM, said:

At this point, I'm probably as good as I'm going to get. I don't have the kind of free time it takes to excel at something like this.

I really don't mind losing... but losing would be a lot easier to take if the more than 1 game out of every 4-5 were competitive. Getting stomped constantly is what I mind. What would be great is a player base large enough that I can get matched up in the group Q with players at my level. Probably a pipe dream.

And while I admit I'm not a very good player... since the MM changes, I've been winning 75-80% of my solo drop games, whilst the games there are also much more even (at least in my experience). So where's the motivation to face getting stomped constantly? Yeah, I like playing with friends, but jeez, that's a stiff price to pay to hang out with your friends.

Competitive

Two of the three definitions above do not involve Fair and balanced. Words like Trying to win, being more successful, desiring to win or be the best.

You can compete for years and not win very often (Look at the Detroit Lions!). I play the game to win(competetive), That I don't and still don't give up also proves I am Competetive.

[Votanin FleshRender]

Roland, on 12 July 2014 - 03:28 PM, said:

Well, eventually the Elo ranking will put you down lower in the ranking.
Currently, if players have been playing in small groups against solo pugs, their Elo has become inflated. It'll take a little while for their ranking to fall down to where it belongs, when put in matches against other groups consistently.

And if you're losing every match, then your Elo is going to fall pretty quickly, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

1) Except... I do well solo now. Very well. Which will keep my elo high enough to keep getting stomped in groups? And that's making the assumption that a lower elo would help in the group Q because...

2) The bigger problem is the player base is too small. It doesn't matter how low my elo is, MM needs to make matches. I'm positive I have a low elo already, and I've dropped into group games against players I have NEVER seen in the solo Q, and I have no business being the same game with.


EDIT - There is no such thing as a free lunch, despite what politicians try to convince us. EVERY time one group of people gets something, it will come at the expense of some other group of people. Every time. A very large and vocal group of people wanted larger group sizes, I get it and I understand it. It's coming at the expense of mid to lower grouped players. I just take a bit of issue with the L2P vibe I feel you're giving off, brother.

Edited by Votanin FleshRender, 12 July 2014 - 05:08 PM.

[vesarius6]

Roland, on 12 July 2014 - 03:28 PM, said:

Well, eventually the Elo ranking will put you down lower in the ranking.
Currently, if players have been playing in small groups against solo pugs, their Elo has become inflated. It'll take a little while for their ranking to fall down to where it belongs, when put in matches against other groups consistently.

And if you're losing every match, then your Elo is going to fall pretty quickly, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

See if this point here "that elo would eventually put you down where you need to be" wasn't completely wrong, everything else you said might hold some truth.
It. Does. Not.
The current elo spread is nearly 75% of the entire range on any given day. This means it is possible for someone with cadet bonus to drop against lords (it can and does happen every day) in the current matchmaker setup.

I'm curious, which game out there with a matchmaker pits pugs against full premades right now? I can't think of one, can you?

How does a 3 man in a pug queue constitute a stomp in your eyes, yet a 12 man vs 3-5 smaller groups doesn't? Baffling. I get that you folks are enjoying ****** everything in sight with your large groups but it's not going to last sorry pal.