27 replies to this topic

[EnzyteBob82]

Hi everyone. I do not frequent the forums. That being said, I"m sure this topic has been beat to death.

Does anyone remember the days when you could spend more time actually playing this game rather than waiting to find a match? Sure, sometimes the teams were unbalanced. Sure, sometimes I would get frustrated trying to take down 8 assaults in my Ember. But I actually got to play the game.

I have spent hundreds of dollars on this game. I have purchased all the collections. I have purchased 3-4 Hero mechs before that. Not that it makes me a big shot or anything, but I would LOVE to actually get my monies worth.

The game has become unplayable for me. As a business owner, and someone who has little time to spend on game-playing for my leisure activities, or even if I had all the time in the world, I wish that the match maker would actually find me a match. The current setup is unacceptable. I have timed it, and on a consistent basis, I spend 57% of my time waiting for a match, and 43% actually playing. WTF is that about devs? How is that okay?

[Hades Trooper]

say thank you to the people who demand that they not have to play certain modes,


they would rather longer wait times than play a mode they haven't min/maxed a mech for

[Walluh]

My matchmaker takes like 2-3 minutes each, and I play heavies usually.

[MeiSooHaityu]

I guess it depends. I select all game modes and I have been taking lights and mediums lately. A game launches within 30sec normally. If I pick a heavy, I have seen I take as long as 2 min.

[Roadbuster]

Hades Trooper, on 13 October 2014 - 11:42 PM, said:

say thank you to the people who demand that they not have to play certain modes,


they would rather longer wait times than play a mode they haven't min/maxed a mech for

^ this

You can also decrease your waiting time if you select all game modes and use a weight class which is not played by 40% or more.
Light mechs and medium mechs usually have lower waiting times.

Edited by Roadbuster, 14 October 2014 - 02:13 AM.

[totgeboren]

Play lights/mediums and/or curse all the whiner who said they would rather uninstall the game than play anything but Skirmish.

[Papaspud]

I agree with the others, select all modes and play light or medium, I never have to wait very long.

[WarPickle]

I think you shouldn't be punished with wait times because your playstyle is heavy or assaults... you should be able to use what you want and have fun in.

Why not all heavies match if there are tons of them, lol I don't care what mode it is as long as I can shoot some mechs.. I don't see why it matters everyone just forms into a mindless blob no matter what the mode!

[MeiSooHaityu]

BasicInfantry, on 14 October 2014 - 03:48 AM, said:

I think you shouldn't be punished with wait times because your playstyle is heavy or assaults... you should be able to use what you want and have fun in.

Why not all heavies match if there are tons of them, lol I don't care what mode it is as long as I can shoot some mechs.. I don't see why it matters everyone just forms into a mindless blob no matter what the mode!

I agree that players shouldn't be punished with longer times depending on their mech or game mode choice. Thing is though, the population is dictating those wait times.

There are underlying issues such as reasons to take smaller mechs, but we need to look at the system we have now and not one we would like.

We could go back to the old way, but I wouldn't want to be a Medium mech dropped against 10 assaults.

Maybe we could have the match maker make overflow rooms of all one chassis type 12v12 all heavies or assaults, but. I'm not sure players would like that either.

Its hard to say.

[Sirius Drake]

BasicInfantry, on 14 October 2014 - 03:48 AM, said:

I think you shouldn't be punished with wait times because your playstyle is heavy or assaults... you should be able to use what you want and have fun in.

Why not all heavies match if there are tons of them, lol I don't care what mode it is as long as I can shoot some mechs.. I don't see why it matters everyone just forms into a mindless blob no matter what the mode!

You are not getting "punished".
You still get your games, or not?
True is that you have to wait longer for the sake of a more or less balanched match (from a math point of view).
But then, nobody forces you to be glued to your Heavy/Assault.

[Mawai]

Hades Trooper, on 13 October 2014 - 11:42 PM, said:

say thank you to the people who demand that they not have to play certain modes,


they would rather longer wait times than play a mode they haven't min/maxed a mech for

I don't know why folks keep saying this. The developers reported that the mode selection option had no effect on Elo balance on the solo queue and I noticed no difference in time to make a match in the solo queue ... some folks even reported longer queue times as a result of the game mode voting.

However, there is a big difference in time to make a match depending on what weight class you are using and how popular it is at the specific time you launch.

The matchmaker is currently hard limited to no more than 5 of a weight class even when the release valves kick in. This means that if any one weight class is more than 50% of the queue that the queue times will grow and continue to grow for that weight class as long as more than 5/12 of players are dropping in it.

If I had to guess ... the OP was dropping during one of the recent contests in a heavy or assault. Or he was dropping in an assault during the DireWhale influx.

Dropping in a light, I have never had to wait more than 30 seconds. Dropping in a heavy can take a few minutes but I have never had the wait time run up over 5 minutes ... so my time waiting is still less than the time in the match.

Finally, the matchmaker takes longer to match players at the extremes of the distribution. If you are very good or very bad ... the Elo band may need to be released in order to find players to match with you. The matchmaker takes the player who has been in the queue the longest to seed the next match ... this match can take a while to form if the player is from one extreme of the Elo curve or the other.

Think about it this way ... most players are near the center of the Elo distribution. So when the matchmaker is filling matches close to that there are a lot of players to choose from so it can quickly fill a match without expanding the Elo window. A high or low Elo player in the queue waits since there has been no match that requires someone at that level. When that player becomes the oldest player in the queue ... the matchmaker puts them in a match and tries to build a match around them. However, the scarcity of folks in the queue at the high or low level makes it difficult to get everyone in that Elo band. The matchmaker probably takes whatever is available and then after a time starts to expand the Elo window in order to access more players. When that window expands to cover enough additional players the match is formed and launched.

However, the initial seed player will have waited in queue until they are the oldest in the queue ... they will then have to wait as the matchmaker releases valves in order to form a match. This can take a while unfortunately but it is a consequence of trying to form the best match possible.

There are a couple of ways I can think of to shorten this queue time for folks in this situation.

1) Periodically skim the highest and lowest ends of the Elo queue to make a match. Instead of seeding using the longest waiting player ... once in a while just grab the top 24 players waiting in the queue (high and low Elo in separate matches) that satisfy the weight class constraints. This would tend to clear the queue of outliers on a regular basis and perhaps give a better response time and better matches for folks at the ends of the distribution since they matches would just pull the best or worst out of the queue depending on the match being made.

2) When initiating a match with a player at the extremes ... just grab the 23 players closest in rank that satisfy the weight class constraints. Don't wait for Elo release valves to kick in ... just grab the most appropriate players available within a reasonably short time window. I also don't know the algorithm for increasing the Elo window size ... nor whether there might be race condition issues if there are multiple instances of the matchmaker running at one time competing for players in the queue.

3) Another way to make this process more efficient might be to keep a list of players currently in queue with Elo over or under a certain threshold. These lists can be used to build matches quickly for folks in the wings of the Elo distribution.

[Joseph Mallan]

How do you intend to make speed better than raw fire power? I have said it before, speed is not an equalizer for mass most of the time.

Also, Mediums were the mainstay of a Mech force due to... Economics. Why field 1 Atlas when you can field 2 Centurions for the same cost? We have no economy, so guess what you get?

[Willard Phule]

Again, if you're a Solo player and you've seen the Solo queue to to crap after they removed the "soft mode" thing, blame the Group players.

The VAST majority of the whiners were organized groups trying to play league stuff and got upset they ended up on Conquest when they wanted Skirmish.

Nevermind the fact that the Solo queue was, for once, free of having to carry new players. Nevermind that the Solo queue was actually enjoyable. Solo players are NOT the "target audience," the Group players are. Everything PGI does caters to their wants and desires.....and they completely ignore those of us left in the "Tutorial Queue." Because, that's what we are....we're the Tutorial to teach new players.

[Joseph Mallan]

Willard Phule, on 14 October 2014 - 04:25 AM, said:

Again, if you're a Solo player and you've seen the Solo queue to to crap after they removed the "soft mode" thing, blame the Group players.

The VAST majority of the whiners were organized groups trying to play league stuff and got upset they ended up on Conquest when they wanted Skirmish.

Nevermind the fact that the Solo queue was, for once, free of having to carry new players. Nevermind that the Solo queue was actually enjoyable. Solo players are NOT the "target audience," the Group players are. Everything PGI does caters to their wants and desires.....and they completely ignore those of us left in the "Tutorial Queue." Because, that's what we are....we're the Tutorial to teach new players.

I guess with age comes Patience. I have no problem with the wait in PUG. and I played the challenge(solo) all weekend. Well once I started to get tired when it was past my bedtime I got impatient, but then I just figured it was time for bed. maybe that is what the rest of you need to do. If the wait is to long, take a break.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 14 October 2014 - 04:29 AM.

[Gauvan]

Something I've noticed that helps me with the wait times is that if you Alt-tab out of the game client, the tray icon will flash when you are entering a match. So I read the forums or work on a build in smurfy while I wait. Just be careful not to miss it

[Urdnot Mau]

They should let us mess around in the home page/mechlab/skillstab while the MM is searching for a match

[Lootee]

Enjoy your wait.

I normally drive a medium or light but just don't log in to play any more. There's plenty of others doing the same because Role Warfarce is a joke. There's only 1 role in MWO and that's doing tons of damage and killing stuff. You get rewarded peanuts for everything else, so why take a light or medium mech ?

Have fun waiting in the queue. I'm having fun in Elite.

[Greenjulius]

Because everyone just wants to play Timberwolves or Direwolves, the heavy and assault queues are ridiculous. It took me forever to drop in with my Boar's Head and DDC. I just stopped playing them and went back to my Kitfoxes and Jenners.

Wait time now under 30 seconds.

[Training Instructor]

I bought 3 summoners, because I wanted to play the most overpowered clan mech that everyone is talking about. *Wait, did I buy the wrong one?*

I've mastered lots of lights and medium chassis, can't the matchmaker cut me a break?

[Pendraco]

EnzyteBob82, on 13 October 2014 - 10:52 PM, said:

Hi everyone. I do not frequent the forums. That being said, I"m sure this topic has been beat to death.

Does anyone remember the days when you could spend more time actually playing this game rather than waiting to find a match? Sure, sometimes the teams were unbalanced. Sure, sometimes I would get frustrated trying to take down 8 assaults in my Ember. But I actually got to play the game.

I have spent hundreds of dollars on this game. I have purchased all the collections. I have purchased 3-4 Hero mechs before that. Not that it makes me a big shot or anything, but I would LOVE to actually get my monies worth.

The game has become unplayable for me. As a business owner, and someone who has little time to spend on game-playing for my leisure activities, or even if I had all the time in the world, I wish that the match maker would actually find me a match. The current setup is unacceptable. I have timed it, and on a consistent basis, I spend 57% of my time waiting for a match, and 43% actually playing. WTF is that about devs? How is that okay?

Has this always been an issue or is it recent? Did you play over this last weekend? I forgot to recheck the other game modes and could not figure out why it was taking so long to find a match

If all the game modes are checked - like everyone else said, try to select a class that isn't heavily represented. It's not ideal..(I never seem to get to play heavies any more) But it does speed up the process of getting in game!