259 replies to this topic

[Russ Bullock]

There is no doubt that conversations about a games Match Maker are always hot topics with lots of opinions on how things are or aren't working as they should be, MechWarrior Online is no different.

Although we look forward to working closer with the community on ways we can improve the match maker's performance to provide the most competitive match's possible. I wanted to discuss the implementation of one particular change that should make an immediate impact.

One of the more common problems currently is that the match maker would be able to put together a very competitive game based on the players skill levels, however one or more of those players or groups have incompatible game modes selected. Therefore the match maker has no choice but to avoid that high quality match and continue to wait or even eventually put together a game that is significantly lower quality. This can result in a play experience that is less fun or even frustrating when lower skill players are set to play against highly skilled teams.

What I propose to do is change the functionality of the game mode selector window. Currently you select the game modes that you accept to play, and are guaranteed to avoid the game modes you do not select. The way the window will function after the change is that each box selected counts as a vote. Therefore the match maker will be able to put together the best game possible based on the players skill level then at that point will take a tally of all the votes, with the highest vote count determining what game mode you play. A tie will result in a random selection of the game modes tied.

A change like this should at the very least increase the frequency of competitive matches by a modest degree. At least we would like the opportunity to see just how much it helps with our live population numbers.

Also if the player base accepts this change and it works out well, we would consider putting this voting system in place for map selection. Players will have the ability in the front end UI to select the maps that they vote for, similar to game modes. The code will then tally votes to select the map the game will take place on.

The timing of the game mode selector change would be for the Oct 7th patch. The timing of the map vote selector is unknown as it would take additional UI work but we would push to deliver it inside of 2014.

Please let us know with your vote if you would give up the ability to guarantee your game mode for having a higher chance of getting in a competitive match.

UPDATE: See my next post below for a better explanation of the voting process for maps.

[repete]

Re: Poll - Needs an I don't know/undecided option, because, I don't know.

Re: Map voting:

One of the concerns I've always had regarding player based map selection is the risk of map optimised meta. The random risk of getting Terra Therma or Caustic is one of the reasons to be mindful of your heat efficiency. The random risk of getting Alpine is one of the reasons to me mindful of taking nothing put short range brawling weapons.

Additionally, the 'value' of the result in voting for the map may be watered down with so many map options to choose from. Imagine the vote goes:

8 x Crimson City
5 x Caustic
4 x Alpine
3 x Tourmaline
2 x HPG
1 x River City
1 x Frozen City

Crimson City would win, but this wasn't the map that two thirds of the players wanted. And, in theory, groups of players are probably more likely to vote together, and their coordinated vote may swamp ungrouped map votes.

Edited by repete, 21 September 2014 - 10:04 PM.

[Duke Nedo]

I like every notion to give better matches, however... what if I truly want to play a random game mode and not what the majority wants? I have a suspicion that the majority will be skirmish every time... or? As far as I am concerned, random was fine for variation and funs... just not for grinding most efficiently...

Vote: Yes, but that is for giving up choice and go back to random rather than for the vote option.

Edit: Same goes for maps really, if we can vote some maps will never be used. Even if I hate some of them, I wouldn't take them out of rotation. At least not until we have more good maps to replace them. I like the bit that your mech needs to cope at all temperatures and in all types of terrain.

Edited by Duke Nedo, 21 September 2014 - 10:10 PM.

[Livewyr]

Well, as I have mine set currently to skirmish and assault...I get a fairly even distribution. I do not know precisely how this will play out, but i am not terribly worried about playing all three modes.


(edit: Smartphone knows I am big...)

Edited by Livewyr, 22 September 2014 - 07:41 AM.

[WerewolfX]

Game mode doesn't matter a memory of a well fought battle does.

[slide]

I all for better match ups and have voted yes.

I would think that a better option would just have the game mode (or map) set to random and make people play everything.

As has been stated the most commonly voted mode will be skirmish, whilst I personally prefer conquest. All maps and modes should be used IMO because you don't always get to choose where and when to fight when in the military. Beside people will gear their mechs too much toward specialist builds for specific map/modes and will either dominate on their preferred mode or be useless on a map they don't like. Mechs that run hot will be preferenced to cold maps for example and may end up spending half the game shut down on Tourmaline.

I would be careful about too much choice, particularly around maps as it might have un-desired consequences.

[TygerLily]

Few have all types selected...some have Assault and Skirmish Selected...LOTs have only Skirmish selected. If it's up to a vote then I'm pretty sure we'll mostly see Skirmish, sometimes Assault and rarely see Conquest. =(

I'm all for having NO control on game mode, with an even 33% chance of any of the game modes. As long as my matches are super tight as far as skill level I don't care what the mode. ...that's my 2 cbills....

[Lynx7725]

I don't like it. But I can adapt to it.

[Toothless]

I voted no, as skirmish is currently the games only viable game mode. Standing inside of laser tag boxes capturing nothing doesnt work for a Mechwarrior game.

[BigJim]

Repete; He's not on about map voting initially, but game-mode; And not a straight vote, but letting the Matchmaker code use your tick-box in the mode-selector as a pseudo-vote.

For instance, if the MM throws together a game, made up of a well-skilled 10 or 12-man with Assault & Skirmish selected, and then throws together an opposition of equally or higher skilled players, perhaps 2x 6-mans, who happened to have a different mode selected, this is a way better outcome than an opposition of beginners who just happened to have the same gamemodes selected -right?

The map thing can be worked around later to ensure people don't jut balls-out boat hot weapons & "force" cold maps, etc..

Edited by BigJim, 21 September 2014 - 10:51 PM.

[VXJaeger]

As long as only viable tactical manuveur is moving around as death ball and HSR decides who wins, there's no need to any kind of "competitive play"

[Russ Bullock]

repete, on 21 September 2014 - 09:52 PM, said:

Re: Poll - Needs an I don't know/undecided option, because, I don't know.

Re: Map voting:

One of the concerns I've always had regarding player based map selection is the risk of map optimised meta. The random risk of getting Terra Therma or Caustic is one of the reasons to be mindful of your heat efficiency. The random risk of getting Alpine is one of the reasons to me mindful of taking nothing put short range brawling weapons.

Additionally, the 'value' of the result in voting for the map may be watered down with so many map options to choose from. Imagine the vote goes:

8 x Crimson City
5 x Caustic
4 x Alpine
3 x Tourmaline
2 x HPG
1 x River City
1 x Frozen City

Crimson City would win, but this wasn't the map that two thirds of the players wanted. And, in theory, groups of players are probably more likely to vote together, and their coordinated vote may swamp ungrouped map votes.

Thanks for your question I should make it clear that in your example it isn't that Crimson would be chosen, it would be that Crimson had about a 33% chance of being chosen. Also we would likely give each map at least a vote of 1, therefore everything would have at least a very small chance of being chosen with the % increasing with the number of votes.

[Thunder Child]

Russ Bullock, on 21 September 2014 - 10:34 PM, said:

Thanks for your question I should make it clear that in your example it isn't that Crimson would be chosen, it would be that Crimson had about a 33% chance of being chosen. Also we would likely give each map at least a vote of 1, therefore everything would have at least a very small chance of being chosen with the % increasing with the number of votes.

So, to clarify.... The "Votes" are not actually to lock the map in. They just weight the dice to make it more favourable? I could live with that, as there is still a chance for a Wild Terra Therma to appear (which lets face it, most people despise that map. Don't know why, I prefer it over Forest Colony).

Edit: Btw. Loving the much stronger forum presence. It almost feels like you care Russ! (No, seriously. It's awesome to see questions being asked and answered!)

Edited by Thunder Child, 21 September 2014 - 11:02 PM.

[Volkodav]

Can you give after the vote to see (on drop preparation screen): who among the players in a match voted for what, game mode and map. ?

Edited by Volkodav, 21 September 2014 - 11:27 PM.

[NeoCodex]

Fully support the first idea to change the game selection to vote.

I do not think, however, picking maps for groups is a good idea. As somebody allready mentioned, it could give you a possibility to optimise your team loadout for a specific map. It is true it is not guaranteed you will always get that map but it is more likely that you will see less tera therma since not many teams will vote for it, and you will fully optimise your team for the more "popular" maps, and specially the alpine peaks.

My suggestion would be not to allow map selection in the groups since it opens the possibility of ideas on how to further exploit the game systems to your team advantage, and I don't really like that as a another thing to be worried about. Maps in real competitive environment should be random, and that's what team games are. Don't ruin it further with addition of this possibly exploitable variable. It's probably not the biggest deal, but the fact is that it's still there.

But please do leave it open for solo queue since there it doesn't really matter and if people don't like to play on tera therma than make them play less. It's not just about the heat but I don't really like that map in particular, and there are days when I get it 3-4 times in a row. But I do get very little River City, and I really like that map. And getting any large maps like Alpine and Tera 4 times in a row can be very annoying. And yes, it does happen often.

Edited by NeoCodex, 21 September 2014 - 11:11 PM.

[The Amazing Atomic Spaniel]

Russ, this sounds great. Do it!

[Aluminumfoiled]

Yup. Do it. I select any now and would like best match possible. Don't really like assault and still would like this when I deselected.

[Evil Ed]

No. If I play conquest in my TDK or Locusts I don't want to be dumped in yet-another-the-team-that-has-teh-most-Timberwolfs-or-Direwolf-will-win-match. There are good reasons why people deselect certain game modes.

[old man odin]

I'd be interested in this if the game modes that weren't Conquest were better, or even if it was more popular in the community, but as it stands I'm going to be forced to play non stop Skirmish with a side of Assault with the changes. Skirmish suffers heavily from tutle tactics, lights hiding/delaying the match signficantly and is rather boring, with the only tactic being murderball and kill. Assault offers an alterternative objective but nullifies it's worth with stupid turrets and poor positioning, while being just as vulnerable to turtling as Skirmish. Conquest is the only mode with alternative victory conditions, without being hampered by stupid turrets, and their spread out nature forces teams to move.

PGI, please think of the people who want to play more than Assault/Skirmish all day.

[KrazedOmega]

I would probably have to see this in action to make a proper decision, but my answer as of this moment would be No.

While not exactly the same kind of game, to give an example Star Wars the Old Republic does this for their pvp to a certain degree. When you're dropped into a pvp match you're randomly placed into one of three game modes, a capture the flag type game, hold the point, or 4v4 game. This is the main reason I don't pvp much in the game because I don't have control over what game mode I'm going to be in. I know I would have a vote in MWO but there's still a chance I wouldn't get into the mode I want to play.

Another issue I see is the choice of mech I would choose to pilot in each game mode. While I would probably take a fast light or medium mech for Conquest, I'd more than likely be in a heavy or assault for Assault. Maybe if there was an option to choose what mech to pilot after the game selection was made.

If the quality of matches was significantly improved it might be worth it. But if it's only a modest degree, I don't know. Again, It would have to be seen in action.