31 replies to this topic

[Karpundir]

Remember that most competitive teams do their 8/12-man drops on weeknights from about 8:30/9pm Eastern to as late as midnight and then the groups start breaking up slowly as east coasters head to bed. Sometimes 2 friendly teams group up together to keep the momentum going, build rapport in a TS channel or may do it simply to avoid getting rolled by 12-mans running in the pub queue.

If you really, REALLY hate running into these 12 mans, there are 2 things you can do: 1) avoid the pub queue during these times; or 2) get on a populated TS server and form a 12-man.

Popular TS servers:

MercStar TS (home to several competitive teams)
ts52.gameservers.com:9315
password: metagame

Comstar NA (a mix of casual pick-up dropships and competitive teams reside on this server)
na1.mech-connect.net (no password)

No Guts No Galaxy Outreach (NGNG) (also a mix of casual and competitive players/teams reside on this server)
voip01.n1585.hypernia.net:9992
password: mechwarrior

Edited by Karpundir, 08 October 2014 - 11:08 AM.

[Haji1096]

SpiralFace, on 08 October 2014 - 10:35 AM, said:

Thanks for sharing,

Out of curiosity, how does this experience stack up to what it was pre-patch?

Do you see the current matching as an improvement over what was there before?

In match 1 (conquest, Forest Colony) vs. BSA, BSA won 12-3.
In match 2 (skirmish, Canyon Network) vs. SROT+4man, it was a close game but we pulled it out, 12-8 or 12-9.
In match 3 (conquest, Mining Collective), SiG won 12-2

We were dropping on conquest only while running MCW week 2 restrictions.

Its only a three game sample size but the matchmaker appeared to do a good job matching us up against similar sized teams. Match 2 was the only one out of the three that involved a full 12 man (BTD) vs an 8 man and a 4 man. Since, none of the matches involved us playing against a team composed of small groups, I would say the experience was better. We get more learning out of playing against a cohesive 12 man unit than beating small groups.

[Amgal]

Ran into 228, Lords, GK, and a couple other teams over the course of the night.

I was in a 6 man group running into 10 man comp teams for hours (also getting 6 other noted comp players) and it was going either way. The only difference I noted was that everyone was far more coordinated than I was used to, with only about... .3-.5 rambos per game, so I REALLY had to play conservatively, and it was a blast.

Seriously though, my subjective experience was markedly better, but it was only one night. I would have liked for this to continue for some time further before it was reconsidered.

[HUBA]

elo (and tighten up with voting) workes best at the high end for two reasons. First the difference in the high elo is much more tight then in the mid range. where in mid range 100 points difference is pretty much the same level but at the high end 50 points might be a big gap. And secondly, because you have to consistently play good games and have to earn every point is why you will bring top tier mech into play and don't play any crap. If both sides bring the best mechs the MM can only look at the elo and weight. But in the mid range are more factors to consider to make a MM work well (e.g. builds and mech skill).

Edited by HUBA, 08 October 2014 - 01:46 PM.

[IM Bullwinkle]

You may be hearing less complaining because the casual 2-4 man groups have stopped dropping as a group.

I used to play as a group with my 2 sons and daughter and it was fun. We won and lost about the same amount in PUG land because the other team usually had a small group as well. That combined with the fact that I am just an average player and my daughter was just starting. We haven't played together as a family since the change because, well, it is no longer fun.

Two of the three kids won't play anymore at all. That's why they aren't complaining. I wonder how many other casual groups also stopped complaining and just left the game.

[Zepster]

Beware the evil people playing a team game as a team........ Imagine that.......

[-Natural Selection-]

One thing I did notice, was that our large group was getting pitted against more large groups. We landed against more in one night than we usually do in a week. Not sure if one had to do with another though.

[Kamikaze Viking]

We had a 12 man made up of various friendly units on the FRR hub going for a while in the Aus & Euro hours and ran across some large groups of 228, CWI, ARMD and OMC, with the ARMD having a 9 man as the biggest group we saw.
As well and stomping various games made up of smaller groups.

But there were some good quality games overall that still mostly snowballed in to stomps, and one Epic Tie.

[Hoax415]

Rebas Kradd, on 08 October 2014 - 09:34 AM, said:

The group queue was the problem in the first place. I still have no earthly idea why they put it in the solo queue.

Yeah was a really stupid slip up.

The drops with the voting system in group queue seemed superior to without it. Dropped with a probably pretty hard for elo to average 12-man of mixed pilots from lots of Marik units including new players and people leveling up mechs. Games were surprisingly close and good. Saw a Praetorian Legion 12-man and a KONG 10-12 man that I recall. Lost some, won some. Overall lost more but I'd expect that considering lots of people not bringing their tryhard setups -unmastered mechs, not much arty etc.

As people logged off continued dropping as a 6-10 man. Games stayed pretty good from my memory.

All in all I was pleased with the voting system and thought it seemed like a good thing after that night of games.

***

Dropped tonight with a 12-man mixed bag but mainly 1FWG pilots. We never lost a match all night.

Certainly we didn't have a huge an elo variance as the night before so you would have expected MM to have an easier time giving us close opponents.

We were searching all game modes so it wasn't us messing up the MM pairing.

Edited by Hoax415, 09 October 2014 - 03:01 AM.

[Triordinant]

627, on 09 October 2014 - 03:36 AM, said:

big question is only how to solve this?

A simple solution would be another queue - 1 for solo, 1 for small groups up to 4 and one for larger groups.

But then you have all the old problems, not enough players here, no small groups to fill up there... this would end up in locking to hard coded group sizes like you need exactly xx players. and that wasn't a good idea in the first place.

As long as we have such a small player base (in group queue) you can't solve this riddle.

If I had to pick the biggest mistake made in MWO development, it would be not splitting the queues from the beginning. At the start we probably had up to 5 times as many players as we do now and having 3 queues with short waiting times would have been doable. Not any more.

[Haipyng]

There was no appreciable difference in either queue for me. Honestly, Solo is as balanced as they can possibly make it. Group was the same as always.

[jackal404]

Belorion, on 08 October 2014 - 06:26 AM, said:

Even with = elo you are going to get rolls. You could take two teams of comparable skill, drop them against each other 100 times, and get rolls both directions, and a lot everywhere in between.

While I understand what you are saying, and realize that there are other players who agree with it - I've had the misfortune to be on the other side.

Our 4 man casual group averages 4 wins out of 12 matches with about 6 of the losses being stomps. So everything else being equal (and I know it's not), what could be done to improve the experience for the casual group?

Edit:

627, on 09 October 2014 - 03:36 AM, said:

A simple solution would be another queue - 1 for solo, 1 for small groups up to 4 and one for larger groups.

But then you have all the old problems, not enough players here, no small groups to fill up there... this would end up in locking to hard coded group sizes like you need exactly xx players. and that wasn't a good idea in the first place.

As long as we have such a small player base (in group queue) you can't solve this riddle.

I dropped with a friend yesterday and we saw everything, from top tier teams to lances of trial mechs, organized groups and "solo" (= no unit tag) players who grouped up.

Seems like a catch-22, not enough players to fill out another queue, but continuing to loose players because the casual groups going up against the competitive groups.

I can't speak for others, I want to stay at least until after CW comes out to see if this changes - but I don't know that I can.

Edited by jackal404, 09 October 2014 - 04:51 AM.