319 replies to this topic

[Kirkland Langue]

Astrocanis, on 22 September 2014 - 07:10 PM, said:

I play with my son. I am about done with the game. Playing as 2-3 man groups against large teams is not "character building" as someone above so eloquently put it /s. It's boring, frustrating and a crappy way to entertain myself.

This argument right here is exactly why soloqueue should remain for SOLO only.
"playing as a solo player against teams is not 'character building' ....."

Don't think that the "my way or the highway" approach, at the expense of every other player, should win. The Devs should build the game they envisioned so long ago, and then worry about what the masses say.

[Astrocanis]

Gas Guzzler, on 22 September 2014 - 12:04 PM, said:

The flexibility of group sizing is just so nice though.. I know some have issues with fairness and getting stomped, but it just happens sometimes. Additionally, many times a team made up of 3-5 smaller groups will give a 10-12 man group a run for there money, and even win. I have been on all sides of this, and I have to say, being able to play in any group at any time is really nice, and I would gladly trade the risk of having a bad game just to play with whoever whenever.

It really comes down to smaller groups losing their pride/stubborness and working together. A lot of times in the group queue, someone will say lets do this, and 2/3 of the team will do that, and the rest will go off by themselves and get killed because they didn't want to cooperate. On the flip side, a small group will say "lets go D5" and the rest will say no or just not do it, and the small group in question will go ahead and do it anyway and get killed.

In either scenario, it is most likely going to end in a wipe, and that isn't the match makers fault. Your chances of success are just so much higher when you decide to do something (other than hide and wait) as a team. Watch your mini map, if you are in a small group and are isolated from your team, you are asking to run into the full force of their team and get kicked to the curb.

You are better off going with a bad strategy as a whole team then going with a good strategy with a couple buddies.

Sometimes being pretty much every time? Next will be the "toughen up" tough talk by an organized player. There are already lots of "this is a group game..." crap (wasn't aware that a group consists of 12 people. I thought it was more than one. Guess I was mistaken).

I play with my son. A two man. We get into the game and there are ~occasionally~ 4 people with the same unit tag. More often than not, its 2 here 3 there. And then we get to fight large organized groups where every mech has radar deprivation and poptarts are the rule. Out of the 10 or so games we've queued for, we haven't won one. I know, I know, we must really suck. It's all our fault. Got it.

We just got out of one where my son and I were TOP damage and kills on my team. We lost 10-0. I had 226 damage and he had 232 and we each had 1 kill. As far as fun goes, it does beat poking my eye out with a soft eraser. But not by much. If you think an accumulated 458 damage is "well done", well...

It's not fun. At all. So I guess I just drop solo. My son just drops solo. Until we leave. If playing together always means "humiliating stomps", I'm not interested.

And for the record, I've been a BT fan since the 80s - I won the national tabletop championship in 1986 in Los Angeles. I'm not new to either the IP or mech combat. But this is ridiculous. It's not heroic. And it's not going to make PGI any money from my side of the table, either.

[l33tworks]

4man or less with a low enough elo drop in the PUG que. Groups with a certain ELO thershold or above still drop in group pool only, Problem solved.

Seriously people including PGI now place too much emphasis on how much being in a group improves you. For casual gamers they can be in a group or on teamspeak and it DOESNT mean they will play much better than alone so its no wonder average or below skill players are constantly getting stomped because they keep getting put up against GOOD groups. Drop in the in the regualar que.

Edited by l33tworks, 22 September 2014 - 08:08 PM.

[Valore]

I'm honestly disbelieving that people claim they CONTINUOUSLY come up against 10 - 12 mans.

For the record, our corp mainly runs bigger groups because we have the numbers. Most nights we have 2 groups going, the more casual group, and the competitive group.

I'd say only one out of 5 games we run into another big organised group with matching tags. The rest of the time we meet smaller groups.

Either the Asia/Australia primetime has vastly different player makeups, or people are exaggerating how often they get rollstomped by 10 - 12 mans. It can't be both ways.

Edited by Valore, 22 September 2014 - 08:13 PM.

[NeonKnight]

I know I'm gonna get flamed, and so be.

Get rid of SOLO QUEUE and GROUP QUEUEs.

really

Put it back the way it was originally. If I drop in a group of 7, fine, give me 5 pugs. If the other team is all PUGS fine. If I'm in a group of 3 with 9 pugs vs a 12 man....FINE! Doesn't guarantee me and my friends an easy win. Nope, no way. And if people honestly think it does, I'm sorry.

As it currently stands I am finding getting matches harder and harder. I HATE Skirmish. I HATE dropping solo, and honestly feel that I am seen only as a source of $$$.

We have fractured the player base by seperating out the SOLO from the GROUP. and then further fractured out those groups into CONQUEST, ASSAULT, SKIRMISh or some combination. If everyone just put their big-boy pants on, sucked it and accepted sometimes, as in WAR things aren't fair, then so be it.

Edited by NeonKnight, 22 September 2014 - 08:14 PM.

[MischiefSC]

NeonKnight, on 22 September 2014 - 08:13 PM, said:

I know I'm gonna get flamed, and so be.

Get rid of SOLO QUEUE and GROUP QUEUEs.

really

Put it back the way it was originally. If I drop in a group of 7, fine, give me 5 pugs. If the other team is all PUGS fine. If I'm in a group of 3 with 9 pugs vs a 12 man....FINE! Doesn't guarantee me and my friends an easy win. Nope, no way. And if people honestly think it does, I'm sorry.

As it currently stands I am finding getting matches harder and harder. I HATE Skirmish. I HATE dropping solo, and honestly feel that I am seen only as a source of $$$.

We have fractured the player base by seperating out the SOLO from the GROUP. and then further fractured out those groups into CONQUEST, ASSAULT, SKIRMISh or some combination. If everyone just put their big-boy pants on, sucked it and accepted sometimes, as in WAR things aren't fair, then so be it.

The reason we don't have that it is means you're either in a large group or you're food for a large group. While to a degree I miss having runs of ~20 solid wins because I dropped in a group, grinding solo players for food for hours, I realize it wasn't fun.

Which it wasn't.

[Hukkama]

Valore, on 22 September 2014 - 08:13 PM, said:

I'm honestly disbelieving that people claim they CONTINUOUSLY come up against 10 - 12 mans.

For the record, our corp mainly runs bigger groups because we have the numbers. Most nights we have 2 groups going, the more casual group, and the competitive group.

I'd say only one out of 5 games we run into another big organised group with matching tags. The rest of the time we meet smaller groups.

Either the Asia/Australia primetime has vastly different player makeups, or people are exaggerating how often they get rollstomped by 10 - 12 mans. It can't be both ways.

you can que with people having a different tag and still be a full premade 12 man.

[Dracol]

1453 R, on 22 September 2014 - 06:44 PM, said:

-snip-

No worries. In the case of bringing brand new players to the game, a few days of running with them on a quickly made account would help at least wade them into it while still allowing you to drop with them. You don't have to drop with that account for a long while, just long enough so that their first 5 games aren't against comp teams.

And, if the account is only used to for a short while, its ELO won't be adjusted all that much and could be used again to help better a new player's first time experience.

As it stands now, new players have three options:
- Solo Queue which is matching them with players in very close ELO range
- Group Queue with an established account that creates an average ELO higher than starting ELO
- Group Queue with all newer accounts that creates a lower ELO and better chance of a better match

oh, and premium time to duke it out between the lot of you.

To be honest, in this case, High and Low ELO in one group, I'm not sure what the solution would be. It's like a 30th lvl mage taking a lvl 1 fighter into an end game dungeon. In MMOs, they can gimp one player or pump up the other, but MW:O doesn't lend its self to a mechanic like that.

Edited by Dracol, 22 September 2014 - 08:21 PM.

[Valore]

Hukkama, on 22 September 2014 - 08:18 PM, said:

you can que with people having a different tag and still be a full premade 12 man.

Yes, but the whole premise of this thread is that smaller groups KNOW they keep coming up against bigger groups.

Matching tags aside, how could they ever tell? Unless they keep meeting the same groups. And as I mentioned, that happens around 1 in 5 games for us roughly. Unless the NA queue has somehow very different numbers, I'm not sure how this happens.

[Dracol]

NeonKnight, on 22 September 2014 - 08:13 PM, said:

I know I'm gonna get flamed, and so be.

Get rid of SOLO QUEUE and GROUP QUEUEs.

really

Put it back the way it was originally. If I drop in a group of 7, fine, give me 5 pugs. If the other team is all PUGS fine. If I'm in a group of 3 with 9 pugs vs a 12 man....FINE! Doesn't guarantee me and my friends an easy win. Nope, no way. And if people honestly think it does, I'm sorry.

As it currently stands I am finding getting matches harder and harder. I HATE Skirmish. I HATE dropping solo, and honestly feel that I am seen only as a source of $$$.

We have fractured the player base by seperating out the SOLO from the GROUP. and then further fractured out those groups into CONQUEST, ASSAULT, SKIRMISh or some combination. If everyone just put their big-boy pants on, sucked it and accepted sometimes, as in WAR things aren't fair, then so be it.

Keeping my fingers crossed CW plays out similar to this. Once an attack happens, groups of all sizes are matched up with lone wolves and dropped in quick succession to duke it out over the owner ship of the planet.

Edited by Dracol, 22 September 2014 - 08:23 PM.

[NeonKnight]

MischiefSC, on 22 September 2014 - 08:18 PM, said:

The reason we don't have that it is means you're either in a large group or you're food for a large group. While to a degree I miss having runs of ~20 solid wins because I dropped in a group, grinding solo players for food for hours, I realize it wasn't fun.

Which it wasn't.

Again....where is this "evidence" Where is the proof? How do you KNOW the people you faced off against each and every time were SOLO?

Just get rid of ELO, GROUP QUEU, SOLO QUEUE, etc. Adopt a FIFO (First in First OUT) match making policy, alternating sides. If you are dropping in a group of 8, you could have pugs, or a Group of 12 against you. The match maker looks to available spots, and the Wait List and fills as appropriate with a Side A/Side B flip as needed.

[Grimnar]

Valore, on 22 September 2014 - 08:21 PM, said:

Yes, but the whole premise of this thread is that smaller groups KNOW they keep coming up against bigger groups.

Matching tags aside, how could they ever tell? Unless they keep meeting the same groups. And as I mentioned, that happens around 1 in 5 games for us roughly. Unless the NA queue has somehow very different numbers, I'm not sure how this happens.

I only ever play in large groups, with Valore no less, because I can't yell at anyone not in my TS channel

No but seriously what Valore is saying is true in the Oceanic TZ however I'm wondering if this "whelp, competition is dead in my TZ" attitude which is so prevalent in Oceania is at least partly to blame for this. I do seem to see a lot more names I recognise in NA prime-time (and more often) than I do in my own TZ.

To add to Valore's 1 in 5 estimate, we generally run into our own teams a few times a night as well when we have the numbers on which would likely push that number out to 1 in 6 or even 1 in 7. I do however fully accept that the Oceanic TZ will not be representing the NA slot accurately.

Edited by Grimnar, 22 September 2014 - 08:45 PM.

[Hukkama]

Valore, on 22 September 2014 - 08:21 PM, said:

Yes, but the whole premise of this thread is that smaller groups KNOW they keep coming up against bigger groups.

Matching tags aside, how could they ever tell? Unless they keep meeting the same groups. And as I mentioned, that happens around 1 in 5 games for us roughly. Unless the NA queue has somehow very different numbers, I'm not sure how this happens.

sometimes you do end up meeting the same big groups. i drop with one other person so we usually fill out 10man groups for 12 so we are on both sides of the coin for premade stomps

[Hoax415]

Look I get it, solo players are adamant that any group joining their game is some massive advantage.

But what if in order for a 2-man group to qualify to play solo queue one of the players has to be in his first 100 games.

or

If you prefer what if it was only 2-man groups where both players are using trial mechs are the only groups allowed to join?

Bottom line is we must do something about the fact that nobody can introduce the game to a friend because if you don't play with him he's lost and if you do the games are ******* awful because group queue has very few low elo players and very few 10-man teams therefore you are just shoved into any old match you can find and your newb friend just gets 2-shot while he's figuring out how things work.

There aren't enough brand new players joining each day for this to make even the slightest ripple in the normal play experience of someone solo dropping.

But if it upped the retention of new players by 5% it would still be worth it.

I know that solo queue will have people like mudhut that will make 80 page threads blaming such a change for destroying their gameplay experience but lets be real would this really ruin solo queue?

-Change Cadet games to 100 instead of 25.
-While you are a Cadet you can group with one other person (the mentor). If your mentor is in a trial mech your 2-man group will be put in solo queue not group queue.
-MM will never put more than one such 2-man group on a team.

The end.

I know that someone somewhere is so desperate for wins that they would abuse that system somehow. But the numbers we are talking are so low, even lower than the mythical sync drop unicorn which I still have seen well under 50 times in at least a thousand solo queue drops.

I wish I could believe people could look past their own gratification and see that this is a change to help the potential newbie to get to play with whoever told him about the game and not just get his **** pushed in until he quits by being forced to group queue or go it alone.

But I won't hold my breath. Stay selfish guys.

Edited by Hoax415, 22 September 2014 - 10:54 PM.

[Spades Kincaid]

Russ Bullock, on 22 September 2014 - 03:33 PM, said:

I appreciate all the feedback truly - I have confidence that we can collectively agree on a combination of:

1) a few tweaks - game mode selector etc
2) a few improvements - VOIP
3) a few tradeoffs - potentially less group options and more mech requirements within.

This is not a short term problem if I want to stay on track with CW which of course I do and about 99% of you do as well. So we need to apply a few of the short term improvements asap.

1) put the game mode selector vote system in.
2) Slightly increase the wait time of groups as they get larger to find a more competitive match

These will help - will it be light and day and everyone stops talking about MM? no. But I do believe it will be noticable with the majority of players seeing the difference and we have more tolerance to await engineering time.

Go for it.

Let him do the minor things he thinks might help for now. And let them continue working to get CW up and running on schedule. Because that's hopefully going to change some things.


As I see it, there's three primary problems that have been created:

1) Many solo players absolutely don't want to give up the solo only queue they've been given. Even to allow 2-mans.

2) Group players don't want to give up the 'any size group' they've been given.

3) 12-mans don't want to give up the easy queue access for matches they've been given.

They're now in a position where to ever 'fix' the issue that smaller group players are voicing displeasure about; something above would have to give.


CW will open up some new outlets for competitive play. Something for 12-mans to do and possibly larger groups short of 12 too.

With CW in place and running :

- Pull the 12-mans back out of the regular group queue.

12-mans will have their place for unit combat. Attacking/Defending planets.

Full teams are for unit vs unit fighting. Not unit vs random mixes. (If CW includes 'filling' that's fine. Those people know what they are getting into by participating)

That would mean 12-mans may have to go back to setting up private matches for play outside of CW. They are the most capable of doing it. It's done in other games of MWO's type. Set up internal practices, set up scrims with other units. Unit play is supposed to be where things 'get serious' (at least to some degree). That's part of it.

They can leave a 12-man random queue up. It doesn't hurt anything. Perhaps with the advent of CW there will be enough growth in the number of units out there playing that it will gain more traction than it did before. If so, that's a bonus.


- Make the Group Queue 2-6. And allow solo players to opt in to it.

6 is ample space for groups of friends. It gives a good bit of fluctuation room for players to be joining/leaving. Trying to accommodate every version of 'But what about when Joe gets on and we already have X?' isn't good for the MM. There need to be limits for the group MM to significantly improve. This remains flexible while providing that limit.

Some people act as if they've never played a game with group size limits before. I've played similar style games, in units, with group size limits unless you were doing full team vs full team. It didn't destroy participation, it didn't kill the ability to have fun with friends. It is not something they should be letting get in the way of better MM for regular queue play.

Yes, it's a team game. And it should be as well balanced a team game as possible. When mixed group sizes get too big, it can play heck with that. There's going to be full team play to take part in. 12-man CW. From the sounds of it so far, there may well be a place for larger, but not quite 12 groups in there too. That'd be great. Anyone joining in with them will be doing so by choice.

The biggest problem here is putting the horses back in the barn. They should never have opened it as far as they did. I get why they did it, but it was short sighted.


- Solo queue.

Nothing would need to be done here. (Note: I'm not averse to them allowing 2-mans in. A solo/duo queue. But then I didn't have a problem with 2-4's mixed in evenly. Though I understand why some did. I just think it might not be necessary with the above group queue changes.)

------------------------------

It will never be perfect to what everyone wants.

There will be opposition to anything they do. People rarely want anything given, later taken away. I don't have a vested interest in any outcome. However strongly stated, they're just my opinions on what would ultimately give the most options (once CW is working) while also helping improve MM for regular group queue play.

The challenge Russ has is to figure out which things players really do need and which ones they just want but aren't really needed, even if some fuss over it.

Glad it's not my job.

Edited by Spades Kincaid, 22 September 2014 - 09:06 PM.

[MischiefSC]

NeonKnight, on 22 September 2014 - 08:29 PM, said:

Again....where is this "evidence" Where is the proof? How do you KNOW the people you faced off against each and every time were SOLO?

Just get rid of ELO, GROUP QUEU, SOLO QUEUE, etc. Adopt a FIFO (First in First OUT) match making policy, alternating sides. If you are dropping in a group of 8, you could have pugs, or a Group of 12 against you. The match maker looks to available spots, and the Wait List and fills as appropriate with a Side A/Side B flip as needed.

Because after they introduced a proper matchmaker and queues it wasn't like that?

I wouldn't play the game you describe. It was out of date 15 years ago. Winning/losing would be entirely based on your unit size when dropping. Skill would be largely irrelevant and playing as anything but a 12man on coms would be playing as food for someone else.

We had something like that in the beginning. It was best described as 'unplayable'. Then we had a matchmaker that had issues stopping people sync-dropping to try and re-create that easy farming environment, so we got an update. Now we have something that keeps the environment regularly challenging - which is not what some people want.

[Yukichi Fukuzawa]

Leave the group and solo queue sizes how they are please. Its the best time ever to play with my friends or play solo. My friends do not always win but that is life.

[Vickinator]

Played 22 games in the group queue as a 2 man and lost 17 of them, yeah its great constantly being food for 12 mans that apparantly enjoy unfair fights. Group queue atm is solely designed to give 8-12 man groups a chance to farm the teams of 6 2 man teams and stomp and stomp and stomp

[MischiefSC]

Played 10 games so far tonight in groups of 3-6 as people came and went. Won 7 so far.

Huh. It's almost like your mileage may vary. Oh anecdotal stuff. It's so anecdotal.

[bar10jim]

A question I haven't seen here that bears asking: What is going to happen to the queues when we get CM? are all players who hit the Faction tab automatically going into the group queue? do you have to be part of a group to even use the Faction tab? Is the non-Faction player relegated to solo queue only? will there be a group queue for non-Faction players?