21 replies to this topic

[jper4]

first off i'm basing this on the unproven/unconfirmed theory that teams get filled top down by Elo where the alpha lance contain the highest Elo (since the group doesn;t go there anymore in PUGs) since the MM grabs them first, then as the search expands lower Elos (techincally some bravos could be higher- depends on where alpha would start at Elo-wise and if the MM search expansion looks for higher as well as lower Elos to fill in the gaps i suppose) make their way to bravo and so on til charlie is filled.

i never thought i'd say it, but i'm starting to find i love being in Charlie lance. besides my w/l being drastically better the unthinkable takes place.

1) people communicate, pass along plans,FOLLOW the plans,have non "everyone blob here" ideas, base alerts, rtb alerts, enemy locations and everything
2) people actually have patience yet are mobile looking for weak spots on the other side, flanking, supporting flankers, PUSHing once they have an edge.
3) people actually watch each others' backs instead of shooting them because they glimpsed a locust 1000m away and needed to shoot their PPCs several dozen meters behind the target- or into my arm-whichever came first


when i'm in alpha i try to spot/report/make suggestions etc and listen to the sounds of silence in return and we usually get stomped (i'm weak and prefer medium brawlers, so i don't carry well on average since average tends to be about my skill level). very frustrating- usually are the matches where i discover everyone but 1 person on the team is a clueless noob who can;t remember which way to sit in the cockpit. lots of trial/champion mechs around.

bravo is 50/50 and i actually find the more interesting matches seem to take place in bravo since sometimes the team plans/listens, sometimes not and the squads are enough of a mixed bag that mutually assured destruction (aka the close match) tends to be the norm. one or two trial mechs pop up

but when it comes to PUG coordination nothing beats the matches when i'm in charlie

and yes i group occasionally (not since they split the queues though) so i'm beating everyone who says "find a group/corp/team and this happens all the time" to the punch.

[Koniving]

I tend to globally do better in Alpha, but the team plays much better when I start in Bravo or Charlie as well.

[Roland]

Tanar, on 25 July 2014 - 05:00 PM, said:

first off i'm basing this on the unproven/unconfirmed theory that teams get filled top down by Elo where the alpha lance contain the highest Elo

Your assumption here is incorrect.

[ProtoformX]

Roland, on 25 July 2014 - 05:06 PM, said:

Your assumption here is incorrect.

Has a dev come out and said that?

[ProtoformX]

Tanar, on 25 July 2014 - 05:00 PM, said:

i never thought i'd say it, but i'm starting to find i love being in Charlie lance. besides my w/l being drastically better the unthinkable takes place.

I've noticed the same effect. When I'm the top player in Alpha lance(which happens all too much), there's a much bigger chance of Charlie lance being filled with "herp derps." If I'm in Charlie lance, the entire team tends to be a united death machine.

[Roland]

ProtoformX, on 25 July 2014 - 05:08 PM, said:

Has a dev come out and said that?

I believe they did, actually... But it's also the case that there is absolutely no reason to think that it has anything to do with things.

The reason why Charlie lance was often the derp squad, was because it was the most likely to have solo pug players in it, whereas coordinated groups would get put into Alpha and Bravo lances.

[Wintersdark]

ProtoformX, on 25 July 2014 - 05:08 PM, said:

Has a dev come out and said that?

Karl did, yes, in his thread. I also discussed it with him in PM and have his permission to repost that here if you'd like, but I'm not going to now as I'm at work and on my phone.

In short: the matchmaker buckets up the players, passes the buckets to the dedicated server. All the dedicated server knows is what group you're in (to keep groups together). So, other than largest groups in alpha first, then next largest in bravo, and so on, the order is random.

That's a moot point now, however, as the solo queue is actually fully solo currently and appears to be remaining this way. Russ and Karl have both confirmed this. Its because quite simply the group queue needs those 2, 3 and 4 man groups as there are lots of 8-11 man groups in the queue.

[ProtoformX]

Wintersdark, on 25 July 2014 - 05:22 PM, said:

Karl did, yes, in his thread. I also discussed it with him in PM and have his permission to repost that here if you'd like, but I'm not going to now as I'm at work and on my phone.

Nice, would you mind posting it? I believe it, I just want it recorded so I can point people to it.

I'm going to play some solo drops this weekend to see where it drops me and how the "skill" of the match feels. Knowing what we know now, it should be completely random.

[DAYLEET]

What i noticed does not realy compute whith anything said before but. Bravo is the odd lance, in a good match they rarely do great or rarely do poorly. Alpha and Charlie seems to either do great or fold really quick. most of the kills either go to alpha or charlie, bravo might get some. Same for damage, seems to me its either Alpha or Charlie that gets the most. I always assumed it was the spawn point.

[Davers]

Karl Berg, on 19 July 2014 - 02:30 PM, said:

Oh, are you referring to ordering within a lance once a match starts? That specific display ordering is handled by the HUD.



edit: I see, that was what you were referring to. I think ordering within a lance is essentially random. It's most likely affected by entity spawn ordering on your client at game start.

ProtoformX, on 25 July 2014 - 06:02 PM, said:

Nice, would you mind posting it? I believe it, I just want it recorded so I can point people to it.

I'm going to play some solo drops this weekend to see where it drops me and how the "skill" of the match feels. Knowing what we know now, it should be completely random.

[Lootee]

I think it puts 1 good/OK player in each lance and then fills the rest with herps and derps.



On both teams the top player in each lance is leaps and bounds better than the next best. Bravo and Charlie lance in the first team seem slightly more consistent. Team 2 was a total disaster, no carrying that.

Thanks matchmaker.

Edited by Lootee, 25 July 2014 - 10:58 PM.

[The Amazing Atomic Spaniel]

Something changed with the last patch, I think. For months before, I was almost always in alpha to a level that couldn't be chance, but since the last patch it seems much more random.

[Mercules]

Oh look, a thread full of Confirmation Bias.

[Wintersdark]

RocketDog, on 25 July 2014 - 11:06 PM, said:

Something changed with the last patch, I think. For months before, I was almost always in alpha to a level that couldn't be chance, but since the last patch it seems much more random.

And you played in groups, right?

I posted about this above. Things DID change with the last patch.

The algorithm isn't secret, PGI (read: Karl Berg) has discussed it thoroughly in his thread.

It was, prior to the last patch, this (And I copy/paste from a PM from him):

Quote

Hi Wintersdark,

What happens is that the matchmaker currently produces games using some metric. Elo, weight classes, how long you've been sitting in the queue, group sizes, etc.. The actual matchmaker doesn't matter for lance allocation.

The *dedicated server* assigns lances once the game launches. It does so using a fairly simple algorithm that works something like the following:

Sort the groups on the team by group size, in the case where groups are the same size, sorting is random due to the sort algorithm not being a stable sort (http://en.wikipedia....ry:Stable_sorts).

Place the largest group in lance alpha
Place the second largest group in lance beta
Place the third largest group in lance charlie
From here, the algorithm simply continues
- For each remaining group: place the groups in the smallest lance, breaking any players that don't fit into a single lance across multiple lances if required

The dedicated server doesn't consider nor care about Elo during lance allocation. It's solely concerned about trying to keep pre-made groups together within a single lance if at all possible.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention however! Feel free to repost this explanation if you think it would help; or simply let me know if you think I should clarify anywhere specifically.

-Karl.

He's discussed the changes, though, in his thread.

Now, there are no groups in the solo queue - all groups are going to the group queue. Solo queue lance assignment is entirely random. That you can look up in his thread if you like; I'm not interested in searching through it. Will be in the last few pages, though.

Group queue lance assignment is different now that there's 5+ man groups, but that's covered in Karl's thread too. Still basically largest group first, then next, etc, etc, with oddball players/small groups filling empty spaces.

This whole thing, though is just silly. People love to believe they're super awesome, and players in groups should perform better than solo players, so given that the largest group got Alpha previously, it was pretty damn tempting for them to believe they were the best players.

[MonkeyCheese]

Its all pointless if the "top" player decides to bring a 6 flamer locust...

[jper4]

ah good to know Roland and Wintersdark. i don't recall seeing that bit before- that's why i made sure to point out my theory was unproven and unconfirmed before i went into the post .

i thought it started off with 1 person(group) in alpha and then filled in the rest based on the Elo of the first person/group (or filling out the lance back when groups were put in first/alpha lance) so the higher on the list/lance you were, the closer match to that initial Elo you were before it started expanding parameters.

and i never noticed that Lootee but thinking about it i tend to agree. even in stomps there does seem to be 1 person per lance who does much better than the other three in the lance more often than not.

[Wintersdark]

Tanar, on 26 July 2014 - 05:26 AM, said:

and i never noticed that Lootee but thinking about it i tend to agree. even in stomps there does seem to be 1 person per lance who does much better than the other three in the lance more often than not.

"In every group of 4 random people, it seems there's one person who does better than the other 3": This is really the most likely result. All 4 players scoring equally is unlikely, if for no other reason than they'll be killed one after another, so the last to die will score higher than the other 3 even if they all performed on exactly the same level.

It's just more apparent because players are ordered on the match end screen by lance, then by score, so the first player in each lance is always the one with the highest match score. That does not reflect their position in the lance when dropping.

[jper4]

Wintersdark, on 26 July 2014 - 08:06 AM, said:

"In every group of 4 random people, it seems there's one person who does better than the other 3": This is really the most likely result. All 4 players scoring equally is unlikely, if for no other reason than they'll be killed one after another, so the last to die will score higher than the other 3 even if they all performed on exactly the same level.

It's just more apparent because players are ordered on the match end screen by lance, then by score, so the first player in each lance is always the one with the highest match score. That does not reflect their position in the lance when dropping.

i guess i really need to pay more attention to these things. i just figured it popped up in whatever order you happened to have started the lance and and that where you were listed at the end regardless of damage.

edit- and i know that everyone being the same will almost never happen , meant it in terms of one guy does 400 dmg, the next three combined barely break 400 as far as one person standing out in a lance.

Edited by Tanar, 26 July 2014 - 10:25 AM.

[Errant Variable]

When playing in Charlie, half the time it seems like the team is of high caliber. The other half of the time Alpha lance says "we must be amazing, we're Alpha" and Light Brigades right into the enemy blob.

[Soulscour]

You are very superstitious players. Personally, if I am in the third spot on bravo, and I bring the coconut monkey, AND I wear my lucky shirt, I tend to perform better. I'm pretty sure its because of the coconut monkey is rarely used by other players and because my shirt is made from 100% cotton which reduces skin irritation.