319 replies to this topic

[Pika]

Squally160, on 23 September 2014 - 06:17 AM, said:

I didnt single you out. All i am sayin is the general viewpoint of most small group players who have posted is that us big bad groups are out to ruin your fun.

Let's be fair, there are a lot of smaller groups out there than 12 man TS orientated clan drops. The problem with forums is you have to realize the majority of the community does not post here. Those that do are a skewed representation of the player base.

My point is I guess the majority of players want it broke up like this: Solo Queue, Small Group Queue and Group Queue. And I imagine the people in each queue only want to play in a "Fair" game with everyone else. It's VERY harmful to a new players experience where they want to play alongside me so I can teach them the ropes, but then they have to drop in group queue against fully maxed out 'Mechs with 10 airstrikes and all the modules they can squeeze on, while they hobble around in their trial nova or something.

[9thDeathscream]

Squally160, on 23 September 2014 - 07:08 AM, said:

Once again the point is missed.

We are jot there to grind xp or cbills. Were not there to crush whiny little bads. Were there to have fun in tough close games. EveEvery time we go up against a group of bads is a wasted game.

Stop wasting my games.

And again my points being missed again as usual. I have said before, that not all large groups are in it for a stomp. Yes they are actually looking for a challenge. Problem is they are not finding it. They are finding us.

I am not out to have a go at the large organized groups.

But when they start saying that they are the ones getting the short straw. I get frustrated.

I can deal with a loss, if I or my team buggered up. But its when the odds are abysmally stacked against your team, well then whats the point for both sides. Doesn't matter what you do. The match was already decided before you even loaded into the loading screen.

Edited by Akulla1980, 23 September 2014 - 07:17 AM.

[KingCobra]

Here is the truth about the group MM queue it is a fragging mess I invited some friends to play a 4 man so we hooked up and were dropped with 8 other pilots from other groups to play a 12v12 FFA meaningless battle of course we lost we dropped about 8 times and finally my friends said we had enough this is just no fun at all.

So basically they wont play MWO except casually in the solo mm battles because you cant play 1v1-12v12 matches if im with friends and we want to play a4v4 and find other 4v4 groups we should be allowed to or any combination of even players up to a 12v12.like= (1v1-2v2-3v3-4v4-5v5-6v6-7v7-8v8-9v9-10v10-11v11-12v12) this is the way PC mechwarrior2-MechWarrio4 worked plus you could pick the map-weather-time-re-spawn-tonnage-FPV-3rdPV-etc.

I just don't understand why PGI has to alienate everyone with this12v12 FFA madness when it would be easy for them to build a lobby system or even a in-game drop system like PC MechWarrior games had where you could drop with friends find compatible groups and just have fun without all this aggravation.

Plus they need to revert group MM back to picking your map first then all the variables then have multiple savable mech configurations in mechlab to chose from then drop into battle. Its like PGI how hard is it to load up a copy of MechWarrior4 Mercenaries and copy the Multiplayer portion of the game? and add a live chat lobby launcher system?

P.S putting group or allowing sync drops still in the solo mm queue would be suicide for MWO and PGI it just should not happen again.

Edited by KingCobra, 23 September 2014 - 07:17 AM.

[Johnny Z]

Screech, on 23 September 2014 - 06:45 AM, said:

It would be a shame if farmers forced us backwards with the MM but not a surprise. I would hope most would see that the problem with the 12 man team stomp should abate when they have CW to occupy themselves.

I have not done alot of group drops, but farmers were a problem. Although I may have had only 5 or so matches against groups of 12, only 2 of them was legit and the 3 groups of 4 on my team won.

One match a group of 4 in a lance did a total of 80 damage, yes all 4 combined did 80 damage. Lost that match since it was at best 8 v 12 and at worste 8 v 16.

Another match me and another on the team took friendly fire 1 second into the match. It ended up in a friendly fire duel and I went down that match without taking any damage from the 12 man group at all. Got rolled that match......

Another match a full lance did a total 200 damage, thats 50 damage each. Lost that match.

So my experience against 12 man groups is 2 wins and 3 losses.

Match make cant fix that, but what it can do is limit the synch drops. The rest is up to the players to have some self respect and not sell their teams out, or give up without a fight which ever may be the case with some of the LOW damage scores.

[Hoax415]

Full true tryhard 12-mans are about as rare as sync droppers. A little bit less obviously but I've never had a night where I saw 4 different serious 12-man squads and I'm not even sure I've ever seen 3 in one night.

There is zero reason to mess with the way solo or group queue works to avoid "hopeless stomps" at this time beyond tweaking the MM a little so its more willing to have a 12-man wait a bit for a more even match.

On the flipside the MM could also needs to recognize that when truly inexperienced players are in the group queue its not acceptable to use their 2-man to fill out a 10v12.

Group queue isn't fun because every game is a stomp isn't a thing. And you know what whenever I am getting stomped repeatedly in group queue its because a pick up group I'm with is just half-assing it too much or trying to carry too many weak players.

You don't have the right to drop in group queue without elite'd mechs, without modules, without consumables, in sub-optimal builds or chassis AND get 50/50 wins. That usually will not happen. Doesn't mean you'll lose every single one but if you are only winning 30% that's not MM fault. MM can't predict that one team is trying and the other team is just messing around.

Also every small group in MWO knows they can abuse the safety valve system to at least get a tonnage advantage. I see plenty of the 4x3 teams or 6+4+2 teams show up with 5-6 assaults while a 12-man is always forced to bring 3/3/3/3.

Edited by Hoax415, 23 September 2014 - 07:27 AM.

[Dracol]

Akulla1980, on 23 September 2014 - 06:33 AM, said:

Well you don't know the specifics of my situation. My boys have No problems in the solo queue at all. They hold their own just fine.

I would attribute this to them finding a match with opponents equal to their ELO level. Last time Russ posted about it, solo queue was around only a 40 pt ELO differance.

When your established account groups up with them, their ELO is artificially inflated. Their chances of facing off against those established groups greatly increases.

MMO can get away with allowing a lvl 1 run with a lvl 30 by either inflating the stats of one or decreasing the stats of the other. But MW:O does not lend itself to a mechanic like that.

Edited by Dracol, 23 September 2014 - 07:23 AM.

[StalaggtIKE]

I think a public lobby could solve most of our woes.

[Johnny Z]

The one thing everyone can agree on is that some time there needs to be some kind of newbie queue or serious tutorial with npc enemies that lasts long enough to allow some competence with the mechs.

They should add turrets for now to the training grounds.

But no way can noobiness be blamed for a full lance in the group queue doing 80 damage. Thats a thrown match at best.

Next time you see a stomp check the damages. 9 times out of 10 that shows it wasnt a 12 v 12.

Edited by Johnny Z, 23 September 2014 - 07:38 AM.

[-Natural Selection-]

Pika, on 23 September 2014 - 07:11 AM, said:

Let's be fair, there are a lot of smaller groups out there than 12 man TS orientated clan drops. The problem with forums is you have to realize the majority of the community does not post here. Those that do are a skewed representation of the player base.

My point is I guess the majority of players want it broke up like this: Solo Queue, Small Group Queue and Group Queue. And I imagine the people in each queue only want to play in a "Fair" game with everyone else. It's VERY harmful to a new players experience where they want to play alongside me so I can teach them the ropes, but then they have to drop in group queue against fully maxed out 'Mechs with 10 airstrikes and all the modules they can squeeze on, while they hobble around in their trial nova or something.

Well, lets break down the sequence of events here.

1.Groups of any size allow. Community freaked out and wanted limit reduced (hence the 4 mans limit)

2.Multiple 1 to 4 mans allowed in drops. Community freaked out and limit was set to a single 4 man per team.

3. A single 1-4 man allowed in drop. No no no, we want it solo only. You want a group of ANY size, then you need to man up and drop in a group que.

4. Now we separated solo and group drops. OK, we want groups but not really. Lets reduces the group size limits in group drops or send them to private match.

So basically... WTF is going to make all you damned people happy?? I am really starting to think it is "launch, you win, here is your crap" or I am gonna complain to no end..

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Mickey Knoxx, on 23 September 2014 - 07:41 AM, said:

Well, lets break down the sequence of events here.

1.Groups of any size allow. Community freaked out and wanted limit reduced (hence the 4 mans limit)

2.Multiple 1 to 4 mans allowed in drops. Community freaked out and limit was set to a single 4 man per team.

3. A single 1-4 man allowed in drop. No no no, we want it solo only. You want a group of ANY size, then you need to man up and drop in a group que.

4. Now we separated solo and group drops. OK, we want groups but not really. Lets reduces the group size limits in group drops or send them to private match.

So basically... WTF is going to make all you damned people happy?? I am really starting to think it is "launch, you win, here is your crap" or I am gonna complain to no end..

Nothing will make them happy.

People want too many hard options for a game with a small player base.

This is not LoL or WoT with millions of players.

Solo que is solo; group que is group que.
Remove the game type hard options and people just need to man up.

[KingCobra]

StalaggtIKE (I think a public lobby could solve most of our woes. )

And I could not agree with you more many including me have tried to get a response from Russ-Brian or PGI staff for 3 friggin years on building a new MSN gamming zone lobby system and have not received one reply back or even a comment on it.

TEN over at MWOlobby built his whole system in what 6 months by himself im sure PGI and staff could do it in like 2 months and rebuild the private mm drop system back into a MechWarrior4 style Private match system.

[9thDeathscream]

DV McKenna, on 23 September 2014 - 07:44 AM, said:

Nothing will make them happy.

People want too many hard options for a game with a small player base.

This is not LoL or WoT with millions of players.

Solo que is solo; group que is group que.
Remove the game type hard options and people just need to man up.

Good luck with this attitude. Older players move onto other games and no new ones come into the group queue because they are getting continually stomped. Yep the game will wither and eventually die.

[KingCobra]

DV McKenna (People want too many hard options for a game with a small player base.

This is not LoL or WoT with millions of players.)


And what your saying is the truth but it did not have to be this way for MWO and this IP.So many times I wish we all could do a stat rewind back to the beginning of Closed beta take Russ-Brian-and PGI staff out to a dinner lan party of 2001 before the MSN Gamming Zone closed and all the in-game leagues were still alive and show them the 1,000,000 + MechWarrior pilots playing this PC MechWarrior2-4 IP and having massive fun.

But it is 2014 and Russ & Brian have seen how hard it is to please everyone in this IP without building a complete MechWarrior game and straying to far away from the original PC games in my opinion was a huge mistake im sure with the new DEV pipeline maybe they will listen to some reason before this game dies from lack of new players and funding.

[9thDeathscream]

Problem is. A lot of people are having a bad time of it in small groups. Some can't get into big groups. Some just don't want to.

Currently the group queue favors the more purist / hardcore players. Which tend to hang in larger groups. I am not saying this is a bad thing.

It will slowly become harder and harder for these groups to find matches as slowly people are dropping out of the group queue and staying only in the solo queue. Eventually these players will move on to other games.

I am not saying that their should be any changes to the solo queue. Its great as is.

But we must find a middle ground for smaller groups. How? Honestly I don't know. But if we wan't to keep the group queue alive it must be done. This may mean that both sides may have to make some compromises.

Remember some people just want to play casually with a few friends. Forcing them to have to find a larger Unit, when they don't want too, will push them out.

Lets try make the game more fair and fun for all concerned.

Edited by Akulla1980, 23 September 2014 - 08:33 AM.

[KingCobra]

Akulla1980 (Problem is. A lot of people are having a bad time of it in small groups. Some can't get into big groups. Some just don't want to.

Currently the group queue favors the more purist / hardcore players. Which tend to hang in larger groups. I am not saying this is a bad thing.

It will slowly become harder and harder for these groups to find matches as slowly people are dropping out of the group queue and staying only in the solo queue. Eventually these players will move on to other games.

I am not saying that their should be any changes to the solo queue. Its great as is.

But we must find a middle ground for smaller groups. How? Honestly I don't know. But if we wan't to keep the group queue alive it must be done.

Lets try make the game more fair and fun for all concerned. )
=============================================================================

I have given you the answer to how to make the Group MM system work for 3 years a (live-chat-lobby-launcher system)but like most forum players they don't know what im talking about and I don't believe PGI does either. How would you like to play 1v1-12v12 with just friends in your own lobby room or play competitive matches with other teams in a league? Or just take your team into a 1v1-12v12 practice to test new builds?

This is not fantasy in past PC MechWarrior games you could do all this and more so why not MWO? For those that want to experience what in saying go on the www.gameranger.com and play some MechWarrio4 Mercenaries with or without the MekTek mod with some friends you will understand how fun this IP once was with a lobby system and the ability to play in small or large groups.

P.S if you do come over and play PM me I will get on host some games and show you just how fun PC MechWarrior4 is and what MWO should be like for group players which = FUN Friendly competitive games.

Here is a link to MechWarrio4 Mercenaries demo which you can play 1v1-8v8 with friends on GameRanger.

http://www.fileplane...ercenaries-Demo

Edited by KingCobra, 23 September 2014 - 08:41 AM.

[Idalgos]

I just want to add my 5 cent. Each time you lose or other team ROFLstomp you hard, no matter solo or group queue, try to think about reasons of your loss. Try to analize, what's went wrong. Try to find your mistakes and recognize them. I know, it's always easy to say you failed because my team sucks/enemy metafappers/unfair MM. But if you acknowledge your mistake, it's first step to improve yourself and win next match. Also, would be nice to record replays by some in-game tool

[Gyrok]

Akulla1980, on 23 September 2014 - 06:54 AM, said:

Its not always 12 man. 9+3 is as bad sometimes 6+6 as well.

That is not a 12 man, that is a 9 man with a small group akin to you and your sons getting sucked up by a 9 man.

Honestly, the most crazy thing I have ever seen, and it has been recently...was a situation where we had 3 separate 4 mans drop against us, and the total of mechs on their team was literally 2 medium 6 heavy and 4 assault.

If that group composition rolled up on average composition in group queue, the tonnage difference alone would dictate the outcome.

People say tonnage does not matter, but sometimes you just do not have enough firepower to burn down the enemy because of pure tonnage.

[Shredhead]

1453 R, on 22 September 2014 - 01:41 PM, said:

So now not only are my new-player buddy and I being thrown against top-level competitive murder squads with 8+ players Because Reasons, but we can’t even try and take the ‘Mechs we’d like to run either?

Russ, I’m really loving all the communication and feedback/feedback collection recently, I am…but at that point, why not just ban groups of less than four players from the freaking outset and quit pretending that small casual groups are allowed to play at all, man? If we’re going to be treated as absolutely nothing but weight-matched filler for 10v12 ultracomp scrimmages, then I’ll just stay in the solo queue and Pierce’ll likely drop MWO altogether. Again.

If it helps you getting better matches, what's to say against it? I would do it. If you're with a buddy you can always communicate on who wants to take what really badly.

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.

Don't. Please don't ever do that again to us. Restricting group sizes has vanquished so many units it's not even a matter to make fun about! Don't even touch it with a ten foot pole.

Quote

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.

How about you add that little checkbox for solo players that allows them to drop in group queue? Wouldn't that make things easier? By letting only one solo player per side in, the MM would suddenly be able to match a crapton more varieties, like a 5 man and a 6 man group, a 3 man and an 8 man and so on and so forth. Wouldn't that logically take a big burden from the MM?

1453 R, on 22 September 2014 - 03:58 PM, said:

Please pardon me for asking, Dracol, but...

HOW ELSE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO INTRODUCE NEW PLAYERS/OUR BUDDIES TO THE GAME?

Shall I tell me friends to totes legit play MWO, but then tell them that I can't play with them because my Elo score is higher than theirs and it wouldn't be fair to them to play with the friend that told them to get into the game?

Really now, man - I understand where you were trying to go with that one, but the logical conclusion drawn from it is so absurd as to be laughable.

The first part of coming up with a solution for the small/casual groups problem is admitting that there is a small/casual groups problem. Half the people in this thread aren't even willing to go that far, which is just sad to see considering how incredibly vocal they were about the big groups problem back in the day. Kinda puts paid to the notion that Big Groups are in it to fight other big groups and get close-fought matches that let them hone their abilities, doesn't it?

How about something like 7 days free premium time for newbs? This way they get a free ticket to premium private matches, and all you'd need is some premium time to show them the ropes 1v1. Just an idea you might want to lobby for.

[Hoax415]

Look I'm all for protecting brand new players from the group queue even if that means we'll have to listen to some players cry that every once in awhile a solo queue game wasn't 100% solo.

As for people who think they are entitled to some magical third queue where everyone is trying only as hard as they want to try that day.

That isn't how a single multiplayer game in the universe works. The system can't somehow read your mind and tell how hard you and your friends feel like trying.

If you have actually played LoL or Dota2 you know that having a ranked solo, ranked group, unranked solo, unranked group still will not solve this problem. The difference is a bad match in MWO is over in 8 minutes or less often. You aren't forced to invest 20+ minutes like mobas.

Now maybe PGI needs to look at elo calculations and elo fluctuations closer. Perhaps we can infer from this that bad players don't have their elo drop fast enough in group queue. Or that the MM is too lenient in which games its willing to play a small team of 2 or 3 mediocre players.

I'm all for that but we aren't getting a third queue and we certainly aren't changing things so that people can barely try and still find 50/50 games. That is an impossible ask.

Solo queue has the most players. We aren't going to mess with it to suit small groups of "casual" players who would rather not actually play like an organized group.

Group queue is a small population, which means that MM struggles to balance games as well as it does in solo queue.

We're not going to improve the experience by making MM's job even harder.

Best thing PGI can do is slow down MM's desire to get group matches started. Basically its conceivable that the community could agree to everyone in group queue adding around 1-3 minutes to their wait times and the games might get a tiny bit more even.

[1453 R]

A note that many people are forgetting:

The small-group guys are indeed seeing their Elo-mandated 50% W/L rates or close to it. The problem is that the two-man buddy teams are not contributing to either their own wins or their own losses.

When a two or three-man team is used as grease to get two big ultracomp groups into a match together, that small squad is completely inconsequential to the ultimate result of the match. It doesn’t matter one tiny jot what we do; as I’ve said before, that small casual team can take themselves into a corner and produce a bong and still have exactly the same impact on the match that they would have had if they’d dove in with all their might and fury and strove with every fiber of their being to smite the enemy, especially if a friend is trying to introduce his new-player buddy(z) to the game.

This produces ‘wins’ almost as frustrating as the losses are. The big comp groups in this thread are all telling us “We’re looking for competition, we’re not out to ruin your fun.” I totally get that. Point is that the player-starved matchmaker gives neither you nor us any choice. We’re as sick of being carried as you are of carrying us. Nobody wants to be that 10+2 team – the ten-man group sneers at the twobies and is all “fuggin’ scrubs crampin’ our style” and gets bitter and pissed off because they’re suffering a handicap in their Glorious Comp Games, and the two-man group gets to be a superfluous third wheel getting scheiss from their own team as well as the enemy team, and with no real option to contribute to the match.

It’s a crap situation for everyone, and it puts Piranha in a lousy situation. I can very easily understand Piranha’s frustration with the group matchmaker woes, because the big-unit players who DEMANDED the ability to drop in any group size they pleased are now seeing first-hand the results of just precisely what Piranha told them would happen – large groups are massively polarizing and end up forcing a lot of the small groups they theoretically need in order to get on with their games into simply disbanding back into the solo queue in order to get out from under the 8+ hammer. It’s just not worth it to be a two-man group in the group queue anymore.

And now, for Small-Group Q&A, by 1453-R
“But 1453-R, you small-timers can just join a big unit and get in on the right end of the 8+ groups!”

-No. I have work, and I work a late shift that pushes me out of NA primetime, and my buddies all have either more work than I do or unpredictable college schedules. On top of that, as much as I’ve spent on MWO and as much as I love the MechWarrior franchise, my life does not revolve around MWO. Sometimes I’d rather play Path of Exile, or hit up GW2, or try out some quirky new Steam game I found, or breed another crop of Failtinis in search for that one perfect specimen for that team I’m putting together to crush Swordgoat under my fashionably booted foot in Y. I have neither the time nor the inclination to roleplay some goon’s toy soldier and make my mandatory 10h/week training time in some unit or other, and I’m far and away the most rabid MechWarrior fan amongst my little circle of buds. If I’m not even remotely close to willing to put up with the playtime, attendance, and soon-to-be C-bill donation requirements of a big unit, what makes any of you think any of the rest of my casual-time buddies are going to be?

Also: how does this actually solve the problem, again?

“But 1453-R, you can just start some threads and stuff on the forum and organize a Small Fry Play Night over private matches!”

-I seem to recall that the big league-playing 12-man comp teams – who are vastly more motivated and disciplined, and who were also the actual target audience for the entire private match lobby feature which was implemented to make player-organized league play easier– telling everyone most firmly that no, private matches were not a substitute for a proper in-game competition system. If private matches weren’t a realistic option for the ultracomps private matching was built for, what in Creation makes you think it’s the right solution for small casual groups looking for a consistent good time? (Note: “consistent good time” does not mean 100% awesome matches. It means the reasonable expectation that two-odd hours spent on MWO on any given night will produce more Fun than Anger.) Besides. If I had the time, motivation, and graphical arts skill to start organizing big galumphing forum events, I’d find, or start, a unit of my own and skip the need to do so.

“But 1453-R, F*** YOU! We waited forever to be able to drop with all our friends at once, and ain’t none of you jackholes are gonna screw that up for us! Go cry me a river, scrub!”

-Gee. Aren’t you glad Piranha didn’t think like that when they screwed over small groups in exchange for big ones like yours? Nobody’s asking for a return to lowball-only days, a lot of people are just desperately throwing ideas out there in order to try and find some tiny shred of game space where we can bring in a new buddy, or play with a small gathering of IRL friends somewhere. You’d be a lot more likely to keep your current happy bubbly fun-times large group drops by helping us find an agreeable solution for all parties involved, instead of being a snide, condescending basshole dismissing the problem out of hand and making threats whenever anyone tries to discuss it.