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Appeal To Russ, Please Stop Talking About Fixing The Group Queue And Get On With It

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#101 9thDeathscream

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:22 PM

View PostKin3ticX, on 22 September 2014 - 02:16 PM, said:


There are always going to be some teams in the group queue that are damn near unbeatable. There are also top teams which force themselves to run 4s because they want the carry load to keep them tip top.

Regarding options, obviously small groups will choose to exclude large groups and this wouldn't work.

Look at is this way. When you are facing a really really good team, you were the best thing the MM could find to beat it. As the underdog, you have lots of options to improve your chances.
  • Run metabuilds (mimic what you see the other teams do, obviously this excludes paywalls like Madcats/Stormcrows if you dont have them)
  • Join forces with larger groups on voice comms (drop decks: boost force multipliers)
  • Practice ditching bad habits from the solo queue and adapting new tactics for the 12s queue (practice)
  • Carry harder as a ~4-man



So in other words play our way or get lost. What if i just wanna be on coms with my kids. Why should we have to cater to u? Why be forced to be in 12 man on coms? We don't all want to play the same way as a large group all on the same comms

Edited by Akulla1980, 22 September 2014 - 02:24 PM.


#102 Grimlox

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:23 PM

You know what would honestly make me care less about being steamrolled in a small group. If there were any halfway decent XP reward for trying. Right now with so many losses it feels like an incredible grind to unlock a mech and I even have premium time, but 2X nothing is still nothing. Keep the cbill rewards down for the losers if you like but at least allow for some mech unlock progression. Nothing worse than trying to unlock my summoners and suffering 6 straight losses and it feels like I'm no closer than when I started the night.

Maybe that's an issue for another topic.

I like the idea of trying to fit the group size per side to be closer than it is now. If the matchmaker could handle the task of putting no larger than a 2 person spread on group size (i.e. 9 man on one side means minimum 7 man on other side) that would go a long way.

#103 1453 R

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:26 PM

What should be happening, and I believe this is something Piranha's said it wants to do, is that large teams (8+ players), should be heavily weighted towards engaging other large teams, with small groups stitched together into a ragtag 12-man against a large team only as an act of last-ditch desperation. This...doesn't really happen, in my experiences of the group queue.

If all the high-dollar ultracomps are so all-fired eager for good, stiff competition and matches that let them improve themselves and hate seeing hodgepodge four-cell small groups thrown against them, they should be campaigning as hard as the small-group guys are for some kind of something. I understand that it's a very difficult problem with no good solution, which is why I've mostly been quiet about it, but since it's a topic of Official Discussion now, I'm going to make my views known and do what I can to propose possible solutions or even simply educate people on why the problem exists in the first place.

View PostFlying Blind, on 22 September 2014 - 02:15 PM, said:

...
So yeah, I don't think it is as bad as it feels...


I don't care if I win every match, and neither does anyone I drop with. What sucks is knowing that my and by buddy, dropping next to this 10-man death squad, are basically completely superfluous. Nothing we do matters one way or another to whether or not our team wins or loses - we could go stand in a corner of the map and 'Mechsturbate and the outcome of the match would be exactly the same as if we'd dove in and fought as hard as we could. That's a lousy feeling, and even if we're on an Elo-dictated winning streak we both know that it's not us winning games, we're just riding the death squads' coattails.

Believe it or not, I don't particularly enjoy being carried. I want to earn my victories, and when I lose a match I want it to be because *I* screwed up, or because our team got outplayed despite my best performance. I can do neither of those things playing Tagalong Sally to 10-man death squads fighting 12-man ultracomp scrimmage teams.

#104 Kirkland Langue

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:27 PM

Personally, I think that solo queue should remain soloqueue. You have to actually make the conscious decision to group up - therefore you should be the one to have to consider the ramifications of doing so. Putting groups into soloqueue is a very toxic decision to make because "groups" will tend to stick up for each other and blame the "pugs". Don't believe me? Go play LoL for a year, you'll see that behavior over and over and over again. Or WOT, same thing.

But, that aside, I don't really care. I think it's a bad idea - but my sole interest in the game will come down to how well CW is implemented. I think discussions about MM and Balance are a waste of time until CW is implemented and players are actually making decisions which affect more than simply their CBILL count.

My gut tells me that not only is it a bad idea, in general, for the mixing of groups and soloqueue - but specifically at this moment in time it's something that shouldn't be done simply because the potential benefit (2-man and 3-man groups become happier because they get to curbstomp pubbies) doesn't even come close to outweighing the potential risk (community as a whole is unhappy with MM change thereby distracting PGI even further from being able to complete CW, causing CW to be pushed back which would be even MORE of a PR tragedy).

TLDR - people are idiots.

#105 Squally160

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:31 PM

View PostAkulla1980, on 22 September 2014 - 01:49 PM, said:

You guys aernt the ones being punished!!

U GET THE KDR XP AND CBILLS dont make out to me that u are suffering.



We dont care about xp or.cbills when we are in a large group. We are there to play as a group and get better. Not pubstomp unorganized smalls teams to grind out cbills or xp. So yeah, it is a bit of a waste to throw a bunch of small teams up against a large premade. We dont have fun. Its a wasted match.

Also, one thing you are failing to see is I am on your side. I dont want to stomp 4x3 teams all night long.

But, I dont want to wait in q for 30 minuted to find another 12.

And I dont want to be in a position we have to kick peiple from group or scrounge up some random number of players because we have 9 or 5 or 7 of us on right now only


*edit* Fixed lovely phone double posting goodness

Edited by Squally160, 22 September 2014 - 02:47 PM.


#106 Grimlox

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:36 PM

View PostSqually160, on 22 September 2014 - 02:31 PM, said:

We dont care about xp or.cbills when we are in a large group. We are there to play as a group and get better. Not pubstomp unorganized smalls teams to grind out cbills or xp. So yeah, it is a bit of a waste to throw a bunch of small teams up against a large premade. We dont have fun. Its a wasted match.

Also, one thing you are failing to see is I am on your side. I dont want to stomp 4x3 teams all night long.

But, I dont want to wait in q for 30 minuted to find another 12.

And I dont want to be in a position we have to kick peiple from group or scrounge up some random number of players because we have 9 or 5 or 7 of us on right now only




We dont care about xp or.cbills when we are in a large group. We are there to play as a group and get better. Not pubstomp unorganized smalls teams to grind out cbills or xp. So yeah, it is a bit of a waste to throw a bunch of small teams up against a large premade. We dont have fun. Its a wasted match.

Also, one thing you are failing to see is I am on your side. I dont want to stomp 4x3 teams all night long.

But, I dont want to wait in q for 30 minuted to find another 12.

And I dont want to be in a position we have to kick peiple from group or scrounge up some random number of players because we have 9 or 5 or 7 of us on right now only


As someone who primarily plays smaller groups I can absolutely respect your point of view and to be honest I would not want 12 mans to have to wait 30 minutes just to find a match because that's not healthy for the game. I sometimes play in a larger 9-12 man group for a few drops before people leave (I play late PST) and it can be a lot of fun.

#107 KuroNyra

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:39 PM

View PostAkulla1980, on 22 September 2014 - 08:10 AM, said:

Seconded.

I can't play with my 2 sons in groups. Being stomped continually by 10-12 mans = no fun for 10 + 11 year olds. Or me either.



You let your kid play a F2P simulating the fight between battletech?
But... There gonna be violent psychopat after that!

#108 9thDeathscream

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:41 PM

View PostSqually160, on 22 September 2014 - 02:31 PM, said:

We dont care about xp or.cbills when we are in a large group. We are there to play as a group and get better. Not pubstomp unorganized smalls teams to grind out cbills or xp. So yeah, it is a bit of a waste to throw a bunch of small teams up against a large premade. We dont have fun. Its a wasted match.

Also, one thing you are failing to see is I am on your side. I dont want to stomp 4x3 teams all night long.

But, I dont want to wait in q for 30 minuted to find another 12.

And I dont want to be in a position we have to kick peiple from group or scrounge up some random number of players because we have 9 or 5 or 7 of us on right now only




We dont care about xp or.cbills when we are in a large group. We are there to play as a group and get better. Not pubstomp unorganized smalls teams to grind out cbills or xp. So yeah, it is a bit of a waste to throw a bunch of small teams up against a large premade. We dont have fun. Its a wasted match.

Also, one thing you are failing to see is I am on your side. I dont want to stomp 4x3 teams all night long.

But, I dont want to wait in q for 30 minuted to find another 12.

And I dont want to be in a position we have to kick peiple from group or scrounge up some random number of players because we have 9 or 5 or 7 of us on right now only


Well go and loose a lot in the queue then have some smart ass comment how good their team is and how crap u and your team performed. Then add the loss on the KDR and the crap cbills and xp reward.

Ive spent ages in the solo getting my stats back up. And yes i do care about my stats. Gives me something to strive for. Other than mastering all 140 mechs i own.

So now both my boys have said they are not going to group. Its no fun. They are 10 and 11 years old. If those comments are coming from children who love the game. Then something is fundamentally wrong

#109 9thDeathscream

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:47 PM

Look i don't wanna mess up the fun for the 9+ groups. But for us simple folk who wanna run in a small pack. The group queue is intolerable atm. I can see from my pov this is going to be like pissing on a bushfire since majority of peeps in the forums are generally more from the competitive side of the game.

I put forward my argument and quite frankly i don't expect anything to happen. Since on the forums us simple folk are in the minority!

#110 Jman5

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:47 PM

Solo queue for Solo players! People playing lone wolf should never be forced to fight against a coordinated group.

That said, Russ, have you guys considered loosening up the match maker for solo players who don't mind being put into the group queue? The matchmaker could slot in these volunteers if it is having trouble with an odd man out scenario. You could create a hard cap of no more than 1 of these solo players per team and only if the matchmaker really needs it. This would also allow for 11-man groups to drop. You could create a checkbox for players that would be off by default. Adventurous solo players or those looking to get into the "group scene" would have a chance to be put on an organized team and showcase their skills.

Personally, I would be happy to drop in the group queue if I was needed to fill a final slot when my Elo and Chassis matches it perfectly.

Edited by Jman5, 22 September 2014 - 02:50 PM.


#111 Roadbeer

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:48 PM

View PostAkulla1980, on 22 September 2014 - 01:35 PM, said:

Problem is. You provided a system that was fun for small groups, then took it away from us.

Which completely SUCKED for anyone who had a medium sized group or was trying to build to a large group. Nobody is happy.

View PostAkulla1980, on 22 September 2014 - 01:35 PM, said:

Then u have the large organised groups rubbing their hands together going bring it on. Stats padding time. These groups whining about loosing the farming abilities.

Blatant trollbait that I will not dignify with a response, since obviously you have a bias.


Russ, you say the metrics show that adding in the mode vote selection, over the hard stops that exist now,would allow for better decks to be stacked against each other. Great, pull the trigger. I'm all for it.

We knew going into the new group system, that there would be edge cases that would suck for people. And the small, casual, group (<5) appears to be taking the brunt in those edge cases. Unwanted in the solo queue and smashed in the group queue.

IMO, the "easy" solution would be (in addition to the mode "vote")
Allow <5 into the "solo" queue, but only if there can be a group matched on the OP4 of equal size, otherwise they're placed in the group queue.

In this, I think it would have been better if when groups were reintroduced (and it's not too late) that groups could be built in increments of 2 (2, 4, 6, 8, etc). It's much easier to find 1 more than it is to find 3 more or 7 more when building groups (which was always my argument with the 4/8, 4/12 caps). It's also easier to build to 12 with even numbers.

The HARD solution would be...

Honestly, right now I think the biggest problems with Match Maker are that you've kind of backed yourself into a corner with Elo and 4x3 as the overruling factors.

1. Elo really only works for solo players. Though you have a "group" average, you've never stated (IIRC) if you've put in a modifier for the force multiplier of communication. It's always been said that a group of 5 on VoIP can overpower a group nearly twice that size that isn't. It's the wildcard of communication that's hard to put a value on.

2. Weight class matching by itself doesn't really address the differences between an Awesome and an Atlas, or even a Raven 2x vs. a 3L. It's a generalization which may "work" it's not "optimal"

Taking those two things into account.

Put VoIP in the game? This is a band aid. Not everyone is going to come off their TS/Vent servers to use it, so you still have the same communication problem between large and small groups (solos), just slightly less.

Ultimately, I think the BEST solution (and this is just my opinion here) would be to create a Battle Value system of sorts.
Ok, before anyone says anything... STOP. I know that the BT Battle Value system WON'T work in this, that's why I said "Create a Battle Value system of sorts"

First would be to assign a rating to the variant. Like I mentioned above a RVN 2X is NOT a RVN 3L. A CPLT C1 and C4 are close, but not the same. So, create a point system that each variant has its place on it.

Second would be to assign a rating for all weapons. Say set the Medium Laser as the baseline, and base all other weapons around it. (This would also allow you to make changes to the weapon without buff/nerf. You change its rating and its weight on the MM without fundamentally changing the way the weapon works, unless there is some glaring problem with it, oh, and remove Ghost Heat)

Third is to assign a rating for all equipment: TAG, ECM, Modules, etc.

Combine those 3 things, then add in a faction multiplier, say IS = 1, Clan = 1.5 (something else you are able to modify w/o constant nerfs/buffs to equipment) and there is your base Mech Battle value.

Then add in Elo as a representation of pilot skill. Mech BV + Elo = Battle Value.

From there, you can throw on a Group Multiplier to the BV based off of the size of the group. (Solo is 1, 2 player is 1.2, 4 player is 1.5 and so on.)

I *think* this would give you an easier and more accurate formula to use in your match making.

Pick apart as you please.

#112 Kin3ticX

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:48 PM

View PostAkulla1980, on 22 September 2014 - 02:22 PM, said:



So in other words play our way or get lost.
Why should we have to cater to u?


Dude you are twisting things in harsh ways. How can you even get advice with that attitude?

#113 Felio

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:49 PM

Never underestimate a game developer's tolerance for leaving a problem to fester.

#114 Squally160

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:52 PM

View PostAkulla1980, on 22 September 2014 - 02:41 PM, said:


Well go and loose a lot in the queue then have some smart ass comment how good their team is and how crap u and your team performed. Then add the loss on the KDR and the crap cbills and xp reward.

Ive spent ages in the solo getting my stats back up. And yes i do care about my stats. Gives me something to strive for. Other than mastering all 140 mechs i own.

So now both my boys have said they are not going to group. Its no fun. They are 10 and 11 years old. If those comments are coming from children who love the game. Then something is fundamentally wrong



...we do lose. Its not like we jump in that q and win every single game.

once again, you are FAILING TO SEE MY POINT.

so, let me spell it out for you:

WE DO NOT LIKE CRUSHING SMALL PUG TEAMS.

should I say it again?

I AM AGREEING WITH YOU.

it is not fun to be in a little team and get stomped by large groups, just as its not fun to be in a big team and stomp small groups.

Neither side accomplished ANYTHING, except showing teamwork is OP.

#115 Kaptain

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:53 PM

OK so small team games DO suck after all, its not just me.

Got together with a friend (few still play unfortunately) to grind some xp/cbills the other night... Activated our premium time to make the time a little more worth wild.... lost probably %80 of the time and usually in spectacular fashion.

No worries, will just play PUG... Having some pretty great games there actually.

#116 Kin3ticX

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 02:54 PM

View PostRoadbeer, on 22 September 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

Put VoIP in the game? This is a band aid. Not everyone is going to come off their TS/Vent servers to use it, so you still have the same communication problem between large and small groups (solos), just slightly less.



I think a quick chat feature would be the best in game communications. (similar to what they had in Tribes)

example:
V-N-H : Help!
V-T-A : Attack!
V-T-B : Behind us!
V-N-E : Need ECM!

Edited by Kin3ticX, 22 September 2014 - 02:59 PM.


#117 Squally160

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 03:01 PM

View PostKin3ticX, on 22 September 2014 - 02:54 PM, said:


I think a quick chat feature would be the best in game communications. (similar to what they had in Tribes)

example:
V-N-H : Help!
V-T-A : Attack!
V-T-B : Behind us!
V-N-E : Need ECM!



Radial menu

Hold Q (or whatever) spin mouse to whats needed, let go.

#118 Karl Marlow

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 03:12 PM

Yeah the problem here isn't the MM. It's the difficulty communicating with people in other teams on your side. WE need some sort of quick chat menu with audible feedback to aid groups. Also fixing the chat window would go a long way to solving communication problems. That light blue color with an opaque background is nearly impossible for me to read. I tend to have to dip my mech down or away form the action to fins some kind of backdrop that would allow me to read it.

#119 -Natural Selection-

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 03:18 PM

View PostAkulla1980, on 22 September 2014 - 02:41 PM, said:





So now both my boys have said they are not going to group. Its no fun. They are 10 and 11 years old. If those comments are coming from children who love the game. Then something is fundamentally wrong


Well we have a Dad that drops with his 9 and 10yo EVERY night until they go to bed. They wreck it in group que despite being only 3 of them. While one Dad and sons seem to be loving it, another does not. So who do we please here? I sure as hell don't think the solo que wants the 3 of them in there banging out almost 1k each every map.

*you know the ultimate problem? 90% of the people who have an issue come in here and post up. The 90% who have no issues are in game and don't bother to share their opinions.

Edited by Mickey Knoxx, 22 September 2014 - 03:23 PM.


#120 Desdain

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Posted 22 September 2014 - 03:24 PM

View PostRyokens leap, on 22 September 2014 - 08:13 AM, said:

You let you're 10 and 11 year olds play a murder simulator?

Get for real.





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