481 replies to this topic

[Haipyng]

Mickey Knoxx, on 25 September 2014 - 08:40 AM, said:

So supposedly 76% of drops were solo. That is 24% dropping as groups.

Say 25% of those drops are over 4 players. (using 25% based on person observations, not firm data)

So now you are talking about 18% of the drops being made, then filtered and split so that they don't land in match together.

And thennn "hopefully" in a couple months you toss in territory battles? The wait times to find people to make all this happen will be crazzzy.

For the folks that want to get into a match faster they should be able to select both the PUG group queue and the 12v12 queue. There may then be a bit of a longer wait for the PUG group queue for those that want the more heavily filtered matches, but if getting in and getting to the fight is what you want then launch into the both queues. The 12v12 then get their fillers since I am sure there are many players that don't want to wait.

Hopefully that results in more player in groups, not fewer as there is less chance for total stomps. As it is now players are sticking in solo or finding other multiplayer games to play with close friends.

[Haipyng]

Saxie, on 25 September 2014 - 08:49 AM, said:

I do want to mention that it does seem that MM attempts to weight the size of the group. I have noticed when I'm in a 12 man I have higher tendency to meet another 12 man, than if we were only running 4.

Yeah I can't remember when I met an obvious full 12 man against small groups, but I have seen plenty 8 to 11 mans against small groups. Even that 8 to 11 man makes a stomp very possible. I certainly can admire the way some of those teams are put together; complementary builds, staggered attacks, scouts, ECM, etc. Some folks are totally serious about it, and that is fine. It's just no fun to try and PUG against that and just be their target practice.

[Mott]

Haipyng, on 25 September 2014 - 08:57 AM, said:

Hopefully that results in more player in groups, not fewer as there is less chance for total stomps. As it is now players are sticking in solo or finding other multiplayer games to play with close friends.

This exactly. As i stated before, I enjoy and seek out challenges. But i am not good enough to carry a team of random small groups vs an 8man, 10man or 12man.

I don't enjoy strings of 10 or 20 losses. They aren't fun, they don't help me improve, they don't bring me xp, they don't bring me cbills and they cause my friends who are just trying MWO for the first time to hate the game and not want to give it a chance.

Conversely, even when i'm in the dominant team with an 8+ player group, while i appreciate the stats boost when we get on our roll of winning 10 or 20 stomps it's still not FUN to roll players 12-0, 12-1.

[Squally160]

Haipyng, on 25 September 2014 - 09:04 AM, said:

Yeah I can't remember when I met an obvious full 12 man against small groups, but I have seen plenty 8 to 11 mans against small groups. Even that 8 to 11 man makes a stomp very possible. I certainly can admire the way some of those teams are put together; complementary builds, staggered attacks, scouts, ECM, etc. Some folks are totally serious about it, and that is fine. It's just no fun to try and PUG against that and just be their target practice.

Just as an aside, I would like to know where these mystical 11 man groups come from in th group q. Ive not figured out yet how to drop as 11 in groups q, it must be beyond my skills.

[Haipyng]

Squally160, on 25 September 2014 - 09:16 AM, said:

Just as an aside, I would like to know where these mystical 11 man groups come from in th group q. Ive not figured out yet how to drop as 11 in groups q, it must be beyond my skills.

Yeah my bad. 10 mans.

[Squally160]

Haipyng, on 25 September 2014 - 09:19 AM, said:

Yeah my bad. 10 mans.

Its all good. Just givin ya a hard time.

[Sadist Cain]

Valore, on 25 September 2014 - 05:46 AM, said:

Exactly. I don't get how people can't see how hypocritical that suggestion is.

Its basically 'I hate dropping against people with more teamwork, so I want to drop against people who have less teamwork.'

What? Seriously?

Can definitely agree with you on that at least.

One of the other fdactors is that there's zero infrastructure for small groups to work together.

Commo Rose has been brought up many times and I think more things like that is the way forward.
The lance commander and company commander buttons go unused gathering dust, no incentive for players to follow any orders given by some randos and none to give any (unless you enjoy pissing up waterfalls)

there needs to be more features in place to make teamwork easier between fractured groups

[Josef Koba]

I feel your pain; I really do. I'd just be surprised if you got a lot of sympathy around here. Any other time it's been brought up it's met with "No way should two mans be put back into the solo queue!" When I started playing two years ago (before 12 man teams) I dropped solo. Then I got a buddy of mine into it and we started dropping together, and for a short time we had a full lance but the other two didn't feel competitive and lost interest. With the introduction of the new matchmaker and placing two mans in the team queue, I'm better off dropping solo again. While I still score near the top on any given team, we lose far more often than we win. Now that the unit initials are included, we can tell, usually, what we're facing in the OPFOR and what we have on our side. It's utterly demoralizing to see a full twelve man on the opposite side while we're serving as mere filler for our team. And that's how we feel; we're just filler as a two man drop. Sure, we have been on hodge podge teams and embarrassed 12 man drops, but it's pretty rare. I'd estimate that in over 50% of the matches we are routed (anything from a 12-1 to a 12-3 loss). It's frustrating to feel, rightly or wrongly, that we're just filling slots to be slaughtered by organized, competitive teams who play together all the time on comms. Do I complain about it? Not generally, but it's not that fun these days to drop with my lancemate. I'm not asking for a competitive edge so that me and my comrade can stomp PUGs, so I don't have a solution. I'm sure that a group of 12 individuals will feel as frustrated if they drop against six 2 man teams. But neither he nor I have the time or inclination to join an established unit, which seems to be about the only way we can play the game in the team queue with a reasonable chance of winning at a 50% rate. Two man life in the group queue is as frustrating as any PUG game, and probably more so that a solo guy dropping against a team (as were the days of old).

Edit: If my other friends were to want to fire MWO back up and drop as a four man, I can guess with a reasonable degree of certainty that they'd quit in about ten matches. They're not very good yet, and I doubt they would improve dramatically by being slaughtered by 10 and 12 man teams. In fact, I'd guess that dropping as a less skilled four man is more detrimental to success than dropping with only two. Yes, sure, private matches and all that. But that might get boring after a bit. Again, no solution, probably, unless the player base grows dramatically larger.

Edited by Josef Koba, 25 September 2014 - 09:59 AM.

[Lyoto Machida]

XX Sulla XX, on 24 September 2014 - 10:34 PM, said:

There is an easy fix for you. Get on the large free TS servers like NGNG. Most nights there are several random groups of 2-12 players. Get in these groups. A nice 5 or 6 man group works well. Doing this will let you meet a lot of new people. It will mix skill level of the group so you have more wins. And its just more fun.

Server: voip01.n1585.hypernia.net:9992
Password: mechwarrior

No! I don't want to get on comms with other people...it's scary!

I just want to play in silence with only one other friend while groups on TS abuse us.

[Hoax415]

Haipyng, on 25 September 2014 - 08:04 AM, said:

Which is sort of the point. I get why the L2P crowd doesn't want to split the group queue. However, by not creating space for the casual group players you have no stepping stone from solo to the big boy group. You end up alienating a subset of players that may have stepped up to be more competitive players.

It is not possible to create a third queue. You could be bringing up to PGI and the community at large that the elo and/or MM system seems to need tweaks. But instead this thread is just a big whine fest about how other people are trying to prevent you from having fun and you need a special walled garden to have casual fun in or else you quit. That's an unproductive, unrealistic and stupid thread.

alVolVloLy, on 25 September 2014 - 08:19 AM, said:

Within a week, if not sooner, that a 1-4 man queue is created there will be folks here complaining about "elite" units breaking into smaller groups to farm the 4 man queue. We will be no closer to a fix with that solution.

Exactly. You can't police a third queue that is opt in for casuals. That's not a thing. A third queue "for casuals" can never be a thing the same way letting "non serious" 2-mans back into solo queue will never be a thing. I don't think we're even ever going to get a fresh faced newb exemption to the solos only queue even though that is a legit need.

jackal40, on 25 September 2014 - 08:20 AM, said:

This is the issue. Multiple 2 to 4 man group cannot successfully beat 8+ players of the same faction.

If you have ever spent some time around a game that uses elo and displays the elo number you would be used to this refrain. Its the same story you always hear from people "trapped in elo hell". Basically some players lose quite often. But they refuse to attribute it in any way to themselves. So instead its the game keeping them down artificially.

8+ groups lose all the time. I've been in them and lost and I've beaten them plenty. You are just telling yourself lies to help yourself sleep better.

Haipyng, on 25 September 2014 - 09:04 AM, said:

Some folks are totally serious about it, and that is fine. It's just no fun to try and PUG against that and just be their target practice.

And in a competitive pvp game they are rightfully rewarded for it by having their chance of winning (winning = fun) increased when they try harder to win. The game doesn't detect that they are trying extra hard and then match them with better opponents than they usually face.

We can't similarly reward the people who aren't totally serious about it. The reward of not being totally serious is that you don't care if you win or lose because your just screwing around. Or maybe its more about laughs, or making bad mechs/builds work or trying crazy low odds tactics.

If you aren't interested in playing to win shouldn't you be a lot less butthurt when you lose?

Get a clue: Just because someone is actually serious about winning doesn't mean they necessarily have some much higher elo than you. Matchmaker can't do anything about the situation where one team is trying and the other team isn't really trying. Its an impossible task with current technology. Maybe in the future they will make games that you will only have to play as hard as you want to and you'll still get perfect 50/50 matches but I doubt it.

Edited by Hoax415, 25 September 2014 - 01:10 PM.

[Jon Gotham]

Mott, on 25 September 2014 - 06:51 AM, said:

My point is simply that how MM is designed to build teams right now is broken and it's the reason we see so many steamrolls and why the Q feels so hardcore.
IF 12 mans only faced 12 mans, or 10+2 vs 10+2 etc... it would work great. But this deal of building one team first based on the largest group available, and then patching together anywhere between 2-5 smaller groups to make up their competitor... just isn't working well.

This is the crux of it I think.

Mickey Knoxx, on 25 September 2014 - 08:15 AM, said:

Annd the first time 2 four mans from the same unit end up on the same team (intentional or not), we will be right back in here.. The same exact reason why multiple 4 mans were eliminated from the other que to begin with. Sorry, boss but there isn't a fix to this that does not have a bad ending down the road.

I hope that quote isn't prophetic my friend. If things carry on like this, it could well be:(
Because right now, I'm watching people avoid grouping and walk:(

Edited by kamiko kross, 25 September 2014 - 01:43 PM.

[VixNix]

VixNix, on 23 September 2014 - 08:40 AM, said:

Agree 100%

And good luck, because now all the play harder comments and other crap comes flying in from the try hards

I'm going to go back to this again...

[Kjudoon]

Valore, on 25 September 2014 - 06:27 AM, said:

Yeah, but this game isn't Battledroids, it isn't TT. Neither is Mechwarrior for that matter.

This game was sold on the basis of community warfare and team play. They've catered for less formal play through the solo only queue.

So basically, ignore precedent and history when convenient for your point as long as you get yours. Gotcha.

[Kjudoon]

Quote

You and your friends actually want PVE content where you can win more than 50%

Duh! Should have had it in closed beta. Who doesn't like to win most of the time instead of rarely? Only masochists and weirdos IMHO. If PvE was offered in the same format... boom I'm there the same way I play DCUO in PvE mode, never PvP. I prefer it so much more.

Quote

Well, mine had no fun and didn't play when it restricted group size mixed with solos. So I guess we are at a road block..

I enjoy seeing my friends list look like this, sorry

Fine, awesome. You should be able to have the game mode you want. That was the point when they first split the queues instead of forcing everyone to play 1-4mans and people griped. Then they split and gave the large groups what they wanted, in the process alienating and ticking off a large portion of their fan base by getting rid of a mode people enjoyed: the small group queue which used to be the only queue we had.

Now don't you think it's the right thing to do to support those who's friends lists are shrinking because they aren't getting what they want? This is not a zero sum game here that gaining in one area always robs another. If you get more people to find ways to enjoy the game, they can come in and grow it as a whole which will benefit everyone over time because curiosity will strike and players will flow into the other game queues from ones they originally like and maybe discover they like others.

[ApolloKaras]

Josef Koba, on 25 September 2014 - 09:55 AM, said:

I feel your pain; I really do. I'd just be surprised if you got a lot of sympathy around here. Any other time it's been brought up it's met with "No way should two mans be put back into the solo queue!"

Do you really want the Solo pug wrath by even suggesting it? lol. The only viable solution would be to put them all into the 'small group' queue... Then we'll have 3 queues, and no one will get to play with anyone in the team games. You can't put 2-4 man groups back into the solo queue, its just too much of an advantage.

Quote

When I started playing two years ago (before 12 man teams) I dropped solo. Then I got a buddy of mine into it and we started dropping together, and for a short time we had a full lance but the other two didn't feel competitive and lost interest. With the introduction of the new matchmaker and placing two mans in the team queue, I'm better off dropping solo again.

You do realize that there are other people who don't drop in 12 mans all day. We drop in smaller groups, from 2 - 8 never have I quit and dropped solo because we were getting 'stomped'.

Quote

While I still score near the top on any given team, we lose far more often than we win. Now that the unit initials are included, we can tell, usually, what we're facing in the OPFOR and what we have on our side. It's utterly demoralizing to see a full twelve man on the opposite side while we're serving as mere filler for our team. And that's how we feel; we're just filler as a two man drop. Sure, we have been on hodge podge teams and embarrassed 12 man drops, but it's pretty rare. I'd estimate that in over 50% of the matches we are routed (anything from a 12-1 to a 12-3 loss). It's frustrating to feel, rightly or wrongly, that we're just filling slots to be slaughtered by organized, competitive teams who play together all the time on comms. Do I complain about it? Not generally, but it's not that fun these days to drop with my lancemate. I'm not asking for a competitive edge so that me and my comrade can stomp PUGs, so I don't have a solution. I'm sure that a group of 12 individuals will feel as frustrated if they drop against six 2 man teams. But neither he nor I have the time or inclination to join an established unit, which seems to be about the only way we can play the game in the team queue with a reasonable chance of winning at a 50% rate. Two man life in the group queue is as frustrating as any PUG game, and probably more so that a solo guy dropping against a team (as were the days of old).

Edit: If my other friends were to want to fire MWO back up and drop as a four man, I can guess with a reasonable degree of certainty that they'd quit in about ten matches. They're not very good yet, and I doubt they would improve dramatically by being slaughtered by 10 and 12 man teams. In fact, I'd guess that dropping as a less skilled four man is more detrimental to success than dropping with only two. Yes, sure, private matches and all that. But that might get boring after a bit. Again, no solution, probably, unless the player base grows dramatically larger.

I want to fight some of this premise... I think a lot of this has to do with association. Even though you've had many drops you're ONLY going to remember the ones against the 12 man groups. Start taking data and see how many you run into, you'll quickly find out it isn't that much of an epidemic.

I want to start taking data on how many times I actually run into a 12 man. The probability grows as your group gets bigger. So if you are dropping with a bigger group 8+ it does appear that you run into those big groups more often. The MM does a pretty decent job (mostly) in attempting to get a match. I do feel for those 12 man groups though because they need a match too. When they just had the 12 man queue it was dry... Wait times were 10 minutes sometimes longer to find a match.

[Squally160]

VixNix, on 25 September 2014 - 02:05 PM, said:

I'm going to go back to this again...

And then people wonder why we come in here and are not respectful in return.

[Josef Koba]

Saxie, on 25 September 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

Do you really want the Solo pug wrath by even suggesting it? lol. The only viable solution would be to put them all into the 'small group' queue... Then we'll have 3 queues, and no one will get to play with anyone in the team games. You can't put 2-4 man groups back into the solo queue, its just too much of an advantage.

As I said twice: I don't have a solution. I was sympathizing with the OP; I understand where he is coming from because at times I share his frustrations.

Saxie, on 25 September 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

You do realize that there are other people who don't drop in 12 mans all day. We drop in smaller groups, from 2 - 8 never have I quit and dropped solo because we were getting 'stomped'.

Not sure what to tell you. I have stopped dropping as much in my two man because of the frequency that my two man drops with other smaller teams and has to face 10-12 man drops. You haven't stopped dropping with your smaller group to drop solo. That's awesome and I'm glad that you are able to enjoy yourself.

Saxie, on 25 September 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

I want to fight some of this premise... I think a lot of this has to do with association. Even though you've had many drops you're ONLY going to remember the ones against the 12 man groups. Start taking data and see how many you run into, you'll quickly find out it isn't that much of an epidemic.

I want to start taking data on how many times I actually run into a 12 man. The probability grows as your group gets bigger. So if you are dropping with a bigger group 8+ it does appear that you run into those big groups more often. The MM does a pretty decent job (mostly) in attempting to get a match. I do feel for those 12 man groups though because they need a match too. When they just had the 12 man queue it was dry... Wait times were 10 minutes sometimes longer to find a match.

I'm familiar with misleading vividness bias and am aware that it has the potential to alter one's perceptions. That doesn't, however, change the fact that these rolls, at the hand of 12 man OPFOR, happen frequently enough that it has a dramatic impact on my enjoyment of dropping with my two man. It is statistically significant enough to notice and have a negative impact on MY enjoyment. Not yours, and possibly not a large number of pilots. Just mine and my teammate's. For what it's worth, I do not particularly enjoy being on either end of rolls and these rolls happen quite a lot - it's a common bone of contention around here. The point is, I am of the opinion, misguided or otherwise, that two man drops are at a significant disadvantage and I often feel like mere filler to flesh out larger groups. Does it work to my advantage sometimes? Yes, absolutely it does. But I am on the winning side less often in the group queue in my two man than I am in the solo queue. Though I can't prove it, I don't believe this is simply my perception. If only the stats tracker tracked those things. I'll stop QQing and L2P better.

[Valore]

Kjudoon, on 25 September 2014 - 02:06 PM, said:

So basically, ignore precedent and history when convenient for your point as long as you get yours. Gotcha.

I'm sorry, please point out to me where MWO was sold as Battledroids Online.

Kjudoon, on 25 September 2014 - 02:22 PM, said:

Fine, awesome. You should be able to have the game mode you want. That was the point when they first split the queues instead of forcing everyone to play 1-4mans and people griped. Then they split and gave the large groups what they wanted, in the process alienating and ticking off a large portion of their fan base by getting rid of a mode people enjoyed: the small group queue which used to be the only queue we had.

People didn't gripe. They left. Because you didn't get stomped or rolled. You just couldn't play. Period. You stared at a spinning wheel for up to 10 minutes, and the matchmaker would tell you 'Game Not Found.'

Also, consider this. People who play in organised 10 - 12 man groups ALSO play in smaller groups. We don't sit around and solo, waiting for a full 12 people to turn up. We play 2 - 8 man groups, often as long as we play full 10 - 12 man groups.

Why aren't we complaining about big groups in the queue?

[Jon Gotham]

You are either more laid back about the game or you are more competitively focused and win more I'd guess. Or you just don't notice it as often as others do.
Just because you don't find something off, doesn't mean it is ok. It means you don't have a problem:) Others might.

[Lyoto Machida]

Valore, on 25 September 2014 - 05:28 PM, said:

I'm sorry, please point out to me where MWO was sold as Battledroids Online.



People didn't gripe. They left. Because you didn't get stomped or rolled. You just couldn't play. Period. You stared at a spinning wheel for up to 10 minutes, and the matchmaker would tell you 'Game Not Found.'

Also, consider this. People who play in organised 10 - 12 man groups ALSO play in smaller groups. We don't sit around and solo, waiting for a full 12 people to turn up. We play 2 - 8 man groups, often as long as we play full 10 - 12 man groups.

Why aren't we complaining about big groups in the queue?

Probably because you know, it's not the size of the group...it's how you use it.