129 replies to this topic

[SVK Puskin]

Dracol, on 20 September 2014 - 06:24 AM, said:

Dedicated servers like the old MW games? Where we could populate it with all of our 24 friends and then milk the system to gain as much exp/cbills as possible? Ya, I don't believe dedicated servers will ever be an option.

I do not know how it worked in previous MW games but i would like have an option to create my own server instead of this MM, ELO crappy features.

[Zuesacoatl]

Kjudoon, on 20 September 2014 - 04:22 AM, said:

You have completely misunderstood my statement. I'm all for relegating all 5+ to a queue of their own and keeping any group 2-4 in it's own queue. I do not think small and large groups should mix... ever.

And yet you wish to bring your group of up to 4 players against solo players? How is the old days of 4 man's roflstomping pugs any better than 12's doing it to small groups? To say there is a difference between them is disingenuous at best.

[SVK Puskin]

TigersRoar, on 20 September 2014 - 07:09 AM, said:

One possible solution could be to allow two person teams to drop in the solo queue. That way I could drop with one friend and help train them, two people should not be able to upset the balance very much. Now I know some will disagree with this and I'm sure this is not a perfect solution but it may help the new player experience somewhat.

We already have in-game content which is great for training new players but unfortunately it has the premium time option.

[Deadmeat313]

ENS Puskin, on 20 September 2014 - 07:25 AM, said:

We already have in-game content which is great for training new players but unfortunately it has the premium time option.

I do think 2-mans would be ok in the solo queue. I played many 2-man games before the group change came in, and we in many ways actually did worse than we did playing solo. Very subjective of course, might have been how me and my mate got on.

Possibly an ELO tax would work to balance it? Put 2-mans in the solo queue but at a slightly higher ELO grouping to account for their group. Either that or scrupulously maintain an equal number of 2-mans per team.

The reason for all this is that if I introduce someone to the game I want to be able to team up with them without dragging them straight to the competitive endgame content.


CW is coming soon. Perhaps that will change the whole thing?

[Mawai]

Russ Bullock, on 19 September 2014 - 10:54 PM, said:

No basically in the front end UI where you select game modes. That stays just the same but instead of becoming a hard stop it becomes a vote. So the match maker ignores game mode when it creates a match, it just creates the best one possible within the remaining criteria. Only then does the match maker take a tally of all the votes and chooses a game mode. So it isn't totally random and is still voted on by the players passively in their choice from the front end UI.

Hi Russ,

The biggest issue with this is that if the modes are not equally represented then the odds of creating a match in one of the undesirable modes gets very small.

For example, I usually play assault or skirmish since playing conquest might need a different build and the capture requirements in conquest aren't that much fun depending on what mech you use (little reward for light mechs since if they do the capturing they don't get into the fighting which is where the awards for kills/assists/saviour kills etc all add up ... cap, win the game, get nothing).

So lets say that game modes are not equally popular .. you have the stats on this and it would be trivial to write up a short simulation predicting the match types in the PUG queue.

If 75% of the people are skirmish/assault ... 25% conquest ... the matchmaker puts together the best match possible and on average it will be composed of 75% of the folks wanting to play skirmish/assault ... on average the 25% who want conquest only NEVER get to play it.

Of course the real distribution is different ...

ANY
Skirmish
Assault
Conquest
Skirmish/Assault
Assault/Conquest
Conquest/Skirmish

Take your known percentages of each as a function of time of day and see what happens ... what sorts of matches are formed and I think that you will find that the folks that prefer unpopular modes won't get to play them ... possibly ever .. probably not enough to satisfy them anyway.

Now, lets look at the group queue.

12 mans will almost always get what they want since they will automatically have 12 votes and the worst result that they can get is a tie ... though there will likely be someone on the other team with a matching vote to give them their choice. In fact most large groups will get their preference ... they will be fitted and in mechs matched for that game mode. Their opponents ... possibly not so much ... which might make these matches less balanced in some ways.

Hard limits do make it more challenging for the matchmaker ... however, before making a change like this, take historical data and run it through the matchmaker with revised constraints. Are there enough 12 mans/large groups with game mode preferences that were different that they could have been matched up? If not then this change wont make any difference.

Have you looked at the frequency of large group drops (9+ people) as a function of time/day of the week? Are large group drops of ANY kind sufficiently frequent that you might ever expect to be able to match large groups vs other large groups?

Is the problem not the 12 mans but finding the correct pieces to fit against them? For example, lets say there are a 12 man and a 10 man in the queue ... the natural choice would be to match them against each other ... but to do that you need the missing 2 man group with the correct mechs in the desired ELO range within some time limit. If that 2 man group doesn't come up you can't make the match even though it is most desirable to match large group against large group. I suspect that this may be the bottleneck and maybe not so much the hard coded game modes. Karl would likely know better but the information on exactly what is causing bottlenecks in the matchmaker should be available in the metrics you collect. It may be that large group matching may need a different algorithm than PUGs for example ... and longer time limits to try to find the best match up (that may already be in place for all I know).

Anyway, the point is that without some analytics, there is no way to tell whether hard limit game modes is actually making matches substantially worse or whether relaxing them would make any improvement possible. On the other hand, folks who only like conquest and are forced into playing 90% of their games in a different mode because it is less popular (or any other game mode ... maybe assault is the least popular) ... are going to be unhappy.

You may not be able to keep everyone happy but I think you need some significant data mining before deciding ...

Edited by Mawai, 20 September 2014 - 08:00 AM.

[lpmagic]

IDC all that much. When a match drops, I play, if I'm in a two man group an 6 man group or a 12 man group. MM is not perfect, and I'm pretty sure it can't be, if it were there would be a bunch of ties. Yes I want good games, but to be honest they are not always available, and then, sometimes, they are. You can't put a couple thousand people (all with varying elo's) in a pile, and allow them all to press the launch button whenever they wish, and come up with a perfect Match every time, that's just silly. The group queue is much improved over it's older self, in that 12 mans do actually get matches now, where as, in the past, nada. by the same token, it is hard on smaller groups to be facing a 12 man group all on comms, but really, there are only a few groups that are unreasonably hard to beat when they run a 12 man, and they do it only rarely. I figure most of the complaints are more about 5-6 man groups, that still dominate a match, and they seem like a 12 man at the end of it all.

There just are not enough 12 man groups in queue to cause such a broad problem as is being mentioned here.

I totally get that bringing a friend in to this game is ridiculously horrid under these circumstances, and not likely to have them wish to stay, best thing for that is to head to a larger unit and ask to play some with them, you would be surprised at how many would allow and even welcome new people and their guides, and most of them, without strings. At the end of the day this is a team game, and CW is not going to be kind to individuals, unless they are very very good inidividual mercs, few and far between.

If the voting helps then so be it, I'm all for it, sadly, assault is painful to a fault and if it gets dragged in to the middle, then you've just angered all the people who studiously avoid it (all the competitive units really) there is really no win to MM, you will not please everyone all of the time. I'm all for equal matches, but they are tougher to achieve then folks might imagine.

[Felbombling]

If it is a question of game mode choice versus competition, I'm pretty sure the 12-man groups would opt for competition. You should remove the mode preference option from the game and let the matchmaker create a game from one of the modes, then fill it the best way it can with balanced, competitive teams. After awhile people will be raving about all the tight, 12-10 matches and forget about the days they could opt out of conquest.

[1453 R]

I despise Skirmish mode with the hateful, seething fury of ten thousand rabid, snarling honey badgers and believe its inclusion in the game to be a clear mistake on the part of Piranha...but I'd be willing to put up with the occasional match where a team gets one kill then camps under a radar dish for the remaining fourteen minutes being bassholes instead of PLAYING MECHWARRIOR ONLINE, if it would quietate the dozen new threads a day screaming about how the matchmaker touched them in bad places.

I'm not sure the removal of hard-stop options and forcing all players to play nothing but the horrifically abuseable and generally sharply un-fun Skirmish all the time would quietate those threads, honestly. It's certainly worth investigating, and if this is the last thing Piranha ever needs to waste time doing to its matchmaker I'd be willing to experiment with it, but by now I'm pretty convinced that Blaming The Matchmaker is a thing bad MWO players do by instinct now, whether or not they actually got a bad match-up in the first place.

[CdtWeasel]

I enjoy playing with my friends, and there are only a handful of us playing MWO. However my moral drops when I see them get online. I know that if we group up it means I will have little chance of winning a match. The idea that we just need to get better, or make more friends is ridiculous. Much easier to for us to find a different game to transition to for fun.

[vettie]

Opinion here, and opinion only. Like other things, everyone has one.

Not sure of a solution to this issue. I hope and suggest that PGI take a very long hard look at this before they jump in with 'quick fix'. I would much rather have a good solution than another that is not so much.

The issue is the types of players and groups.

Solo Play – pretty simple, straight forward – Solo queue.

12 man organized groups – OPINION – they should ONLY play other groups that are interested in competitive play, EVEN IF that queue is not only 12 man groups, meaning it could be made up of a mix from 2 to 10 or 12 mans like we have now.

Small groups (2 to 4) that are NOT interested in competitive style of play. This is a group of players that just want to play as friends for a whatever time they have to play because they have friends and like to play.

Different mixes of groups from 2 to 10 players that are interested competitive style play.

Mixes of groups larger than 4 but less than 12 players. Problem here is that some want competitive play and some dont. This mix of players would be too much for Solo and not enough for an organized 10 or 12 man, thus the 12-0, 12-1, 12- 2 'stomp'.

I know that there are times when my team does not have 12 players on at the same time, yet we WANT competitive play regardless if there 2 or us or 10 of us.

I also know there times when just 2 or 3 of us are on and we dont want to get stomped 3-12. Sometimes we are trying to break in a new person and teach them the 'ropes'.

Add to all this complexity different game modes. Some of us hate Conquest. Some of us hate Assault, Some of us hate Skirmish. Some dont care, they just want to shoot mechs.

Reading what has been posted here, I like the suggestion Kjudoon posted about a 3^rd queue with some mods to it..

Solo Queue – Solo Players
Small group for casual play
Large group for competitive play.

Notice I didnt list numbers of players for the type of groups? A small group could be 6 or 2 or well you get the idea. Large groups would, in my opinion, be 7 or more because that is more than half a team and can very well control the outcome of a teams fate for that battle (I know 4 or 5 or 6 can as well).

Each of these could possibly have an opt in for the competitive play group including the solo player.

The problem again comes up with different game modes and each group not wanting to play one or the other game modes. A simple solution to this would be to remove the game mode switch for the larger groups and you play whatever the matchmaker throws you into. I know as a competitive team, the OPTION to cap in Conquest or Assault is not the 1^st option chosen in most cases, the team is more interested in battling the other team.

Again, I dont know a good solution, but I do HOPE that PGI takes a hard look as opposed to just making a change. I like the idea of a 3^rd queue, but I dont know if that is the best route. I do know that getting beat 0-12 when trying to get a friend into the game is not the best new player experience.

[Ghostwolfe]

Saxie, on 20 September 2014 - 06:00 AM, said:

What's going to end up happening is that everyone will not drop as 12 man and drop lance only. It'll dry up the 12 man queue. The 12 man queue was dead before the groups 2-10+12 came out. (Let me define dead one match an hour MAYBE, kinda dead) This probably would throw a wrench into the entire thing. Now the 8 man group can't find a four man to group because they are in the lance queue.

Well the 12 man queue is dead as it is since 2 man groups are not providing any real gameplay against the 12 man teams. I was talking to my buddy today and he said he's not bothering to come back to be somebody else's moving target so they can have fun and to call him when it's balanced a bit more..... we're not going to grow the player base if something doesn't change.

What is the player base anyway? Actual number?

[lpmagic]

vettie, on 20 September 2014 - 09:08 AM, said:

Opinion here, and opinion only. Like other things, everyone has one.

Not sure of a solution to this issue. I hope and suggest that PGI take a very long hard look at this before they jump in with 'quick fix'. I would much rather have a good solution than another that is not so much.

The issue is the types of players and groups.

Solo Play – pretty simple, straight forward – Solo queue.

12 man organized groups – OPINION – they should ONLY play other groups that are interested in competitive play, EVEN IF that queue is not only 12 man groups, meaning it could be made up of a mix from 2 to 10 or 12 mans like we have now.

Small groups (2 to 4) that are NOT interested in competitive style of play. This is a group of players that just want to play as friends for a whatever time they have to play because they have friends and like to play.

Different mixes of groups from 2 to 10 players that are interested competitive style play.

Mixes of groups larger than 4 but less than 12 players. Problem here is that some want competitive play and some dont. This mix of players would be too much for Solo and not enough for an organized 10 or 12 man, thus the 12-0, 12-1, 12- 2 'stomp'.

I know that there are times when my team does not have 12 players on at the same time, yet we WANT competitive play regardless if there 2 or us or 10 of us.

I also know there times when just 2 or 3 of us are on and we dont want to get stomped 3-12. Sometimes we are trying to break in a new person and teach them the 'ropes'.

Add to all this complexity different game modes. Some of us hate Conquest. Some of us hate Assault, Some of us hate Skirmish. Some dont care, they just want to shoot mechs.

Reading what has been posted here, I like the suggestion Kjudoon posted about a 3^rd queue with some mods to it..

Solo Queue – Solo Players
Small group for casual play
Large group for competitive play.

Notice I didnt list numbers of players for the type of groups? A small group could be 6 or 2 or well you get the idea. Large groups would, in my opinion, be 7 or more because that is more than half a team and can very well control the outcome of a teams fate for that battle (I know 4 or 5 or 6 can as well).

Each of these could possibly have an opt in for the competitive play group including the solo player.

The problem again comes up with different game modes and each group not wanting to play one or the other game modes. A simple solution to this would be to remove the game mode switch for the larger groups and you play whatever the matchmaker throws you into. I know as a competitive team, the OPTION to cap in Conquest or Assault is not the 1^st option chosen in most cases, the team is more interested in battling the other team.

Again, I dont know a good solution, but I do HOPE that PGI takes a hard look as opposed to just making a change. I like the idea of a 3^rd queue, but I dont know if that is the best route. I do know that getting beat 0-12 when trying to get a friend into the game is not the best new player experience.

I don't disagree on the whole, however, here is what is going to happen (and already does upon occasion) if we go back to 12 man queue on it's own, it will continue to disintegrate, as it was prior to group queue being mooshed together. When this happens, you will get groups of 5 or 6 "competitive players" grouping up to go play (they like to play with their friends as well) and things will not change, IMHO right now the queue is being dominated by groups of 5-6 (sometimes 8-10) comp players, this would get worse then it already is, and people would complain. Since the available player base is only so big you can't segregate all the queues it just would not work, you would never get a game.

People are gonna hate life when they get rolled, and at times, get bored when they do all the rolling, but taking the 12 quque out of the standard group queue would make things worse, there woul be MORE 5-6 man groups roving around rolling people....not sure there is a good solution, hopefully CW might help this a bit as there will be slots for different things available most of the time.

IMHO it's the middling size groups making the group queue tough right now, not the 12's. Sure it's a pain to face a 12 when you have a bunch of 2's but really, how many 12's are in queue at any one given time, I'm guessing at prime time we're talking 5-6 full 12 mans...so it's really not that, that is making life tough, you take 12 guys that are dominant and split them in two, now you have two teams of 6 that are dominant and CAN carry a game.....hard to fix

[Votanin FleshRender]

I would love to see 2 player groups with a lower Elo rating be able to drop into the solo Q. Not sure if that's feasible, if the MM can take Elo into account when deciding whether to drop them into the Group Q or Solo Q, but it would help a TON with these very scenarios (introducing new players, etc)

[Ghostwolfe]

E N E R G Y, on 20 September 2014 - 12:24 AM, said:

Why wouldn't a competitive team, who strives to be the best and plays to win, want anything but a 12-0 game.....?

Kushko, on 20 September 2014 - 03:08 AM, said:

Why wouldn't the same team act like adults and/or want skilled and organized teams to go up against to actually prove their skill.

Tell me...would you feel like a big man if you beat a 12yo at arm wrestling?

And THIS is what I was explaining. Russ we have enough groups like this one with ENERGY going around who are not looking for a competition match but just looking for an easy stomp. To them that's skill when in fact it's just a mob able to deathball a bunch of 2 man groups who have no clue what is going on. They pat themselves on the back and try to keep things as is.

Before we had the queues seperated I never saw a two man group help roll a team in a solo style setting. I'd suggest the 2 - 3 person groups be allowed in the "solo" queue. 4 person groups could be in the group queue. At least as a lance players might have a chance to be grouped with a 8 man group. However all this means little without actual numbers of the player base, data in general.

What is clear to anybody else however is that what we have right now just won't encourage game growth.

[Thorn Hallis]

Even though I miss to drop with my buddy I am totally against (small) groups in the solo queue. Solo should stay solo.

[RAM]

Russ Bullock, on 19 September 2014 - 10:46 PM, said:

It won't make it perfect but it will help, I want to get this into the Oct 7th patch but I need to remember to poll the community, would anyone really vote against best match possible if it meant playing any game mode?

Yes, I certainly would vote against this.

Your idea of fun is vastly different from mine; just as our concepts of 'best match' differ.


RAM
ELH

[SVK Puskin]

Deadmeat313, on 20 September 2014 - 07:48 AM, said:

I do think 2-mans would be ok in the solo queue. I played many 2-man games before the group change came in, and we in many ways actually did worse than we did playing solo. Very subjective of course, might have been how me and my mate got on.

Possibly an ELO tax would work to balance it? Put 2-mans in the solo queue but at a slightly higher ELO grouping to account for their group. Either that or scrupulously maintain an equal number of 2-mans per team.

The reason for all this is that if I introduce someone to the game I want to be able to team up with them without dragging them straight to the competitive endgame content.


CW is coming soon. Perhaps that will change the whole thing?

And what if you bring 2 or more friends? I think they should remove the premium time maybe only for new players: for example the option would be removed for new players untill they complete the cadet bonus. But the private match is really an useful option.

[Theodore42]

Votanin FleshRender, on 20 September 2014 - 09:50 AM, said:

I would love to see 2 player groups with a lower Elo rating be able to drop into the solo Q. Not sure if that's feasible, if the MM can take Elo into account when deciding whether to drop them into the Group Q or Solo Q, but it would help a TON with these very scenarios (introducing new players, etc)

I'm on board with giving MM the option to put 2 player groups (not 3) in solo queue if their Elo is below the average for the match. Mechwarrior ONLINE needs to have casual play with friends.

I also like changing the game type limitations to a vote. For those of you who haven't played skirmish EVER, it is like Assault 90% of the time, maybe more. The only difference is that you have the option to base rush, and if the other team is paying attention, they will destroy you. Also, I guess it is annoying hunting down that 1 guy in skirmish when you only have a lance left, so that might be one other difference.

Besides, the 12 - 0 ROFLstomp is played pretty much like a skirmish, regardless of game mode. So I'm all for these 12 man drops getting paired with an equal Elo 12 man drop regardless of game mode. Afraid of a challenge? When I drop as a pair in 10 man and we go 12 - 0 it is the most boring thing in mwo, even if I do well. I would rather be on the losing team in every 12 - 0 match because I love the opportunity to make it 12 - 1.

[MischiefSC]

If the 12man queue was any indication what would happen would be some competitive 12man teams would syncdrop in 3x4mans. While sync dropping in the pug queue is very difficult to do successfully in a group queue it would be akin to trying to sync into a 3v3 match, since it's only 3 groups of 4 players each it's only placing 3 'individuals' in that context. That would make the process of sync dropping in a group queue easier. You just wouldn't drop all 3 groups at once; you'd drop, wait about 5-10 seconds, drop second, wait 5-10 seconds, drop 3rd. You're still going to end up getting split up sometimes but that would maximize your odds of getting all 3 groups on the same team.

The moment you make high end competitive teams only able to play against other high end competitive teams you're just going to empty the high end competitive queue, they'll find a way to continue to play against less competitive groups. A few groups will drop out of the new '5-12 queue' and suddenly matchmaking time will stretch, so more people will sync in smaller groups, then it will die out and you'll have a bunch of synced 2-4s doing the same thing only now against smaller, even less well organized players to roll.

[CG Chicken Kn]

This aspect of the current matchmaker is killing new player retention. I think MWO is a great game, but the last few major patches have made it really rough for convincing new players to stay.

First off, we need to let at least one 2 man group per side in the "solo" queue. If not up to one 4 man lance, per side. making sure both sides get a group of some kind under this. If the group is only two people, it will not affect the outcome significantly if only one side has a two group and the other doesn't. I would rather waitt longer than have what happened the other day to myself and a friend I have gamed with for years that I convinced to try MWO.

He is brand new to both MWO and mech games in general, but an experienced gamer in other ways, so it did not take him too long to figure out the basics with a little coaching on TS. He plays some solo drops, does as expected, which is not very good, but with improvements in almost every game as he sees how it goes. Wins a few, gets a couple kills. So far so good as to new player experience.

Now he says " Well let's group up so I can see what you mean about (insert description of above basic mech piloting instruction) . I say " Ya ok, but we WILL be in the group queue, and it will suck, because we will probably get a mixed team, and the other side will have 10-12 guys all on voice on the same team." He plays BF4 etc, and understands exactly what this means, but is still willing to give it a go.

Game one. 3 or 4 groups on our side of varying sizes. Other team is all the same clan tag. 12-2 stomp.Over in minutes.
Game two. 2 or 3 groups of varying sizes, by clan tag. Other team is 11 guys with one unit tag, plus a spare.Since he is the only one without a unit tag, obviously he is in the 12 man. 12-4 stomp. Over quick.
Game three. 3 or 4 groups etc, 10 man plus two on other side, so two guys got lucky. 12-5, not so bad. Kind of a decent fight for a while, and his ONLY "good" game of the night while grouped with anyone.
Game four. as above. It was late, so he logged off.

My friend thought the game ran quite well even with his ping. ( from South Africa, almost worse than the Aussies for ping).
He found it quite interesting and entertaining, right up until he ran in to the face stomp that is dropping as a two man group.
Even made enough to buy and equip his first mech in two days of casually playing.

So pretty much every part of his new player experience was good, except for the getting thrown to the wolves part the second he tried to play with ONE other guy, who was actively trying to get him interested in the game.

Several of the friends I used to run in 2 or 3 man groups with, do not play at all anymore, and the few who do spend our time on TS chatting about how our solo match is going, since 2 of us in the group queue is just masochisitic. We make FAR more cbills, xp, kills, and assists if we just drop solo. This is not a recipe for increased revenue for PGI, nor is it healthy for increasing the player base.

See the problem? I won't even get started on the utterly stupid module change that means every single group match is arty strike online. That whole mechanic should never have been introduced ever, or at least be limited to mechs with a Command Console ONLY.

Edited by CG Chicken Kn, 20 September 2014 - 11:36 AM.