19 replies to this topic

[Deathlike]

I'll let the picture speak for itself.



Similar things have also occurred... including getting a mode you didn't select, despite the "MM reversion" (got Assault instead of Conquest during the Conquest challenge the previous weekend).

Then again, it's hard to explain what even a 4-man is split up at random by the MM...

So, ggclose MM.

Edited by Deathlike, 15 October 2014 - 10:44 PM.

[El Bandito]

Zero Assaults on the losing side and TEN Clan mechs on the winning side. Dis MM...

I suppose the MWO population is really tiny up in the group queue.

Edited by El Bandito, 15 October 2014 - 11:10 PM.

[Vassago Rain]

Masterful matchmaking.

[The Massive]

Match maker really tries. It really does. Overall I am happy with it given the variables it has to deal with. When I get a game like this I take solace in the fact that one day, i'll be on the other side.

[Thorn Hallis]

The matchmaker has to work with limited resources - the obviously tiny amount of players in the group queue in your time zone. The alternative to this match would be no match or longer wait times.

[ARamaLamaDingDong]

Thorn Hallis, on 16 October 2014 - 01:43 AM, said:

The matchmaker has to work with limited resources - the obviously tiny amount of players in the group queue in your time zone. The alternative to this match would be no match or longer wait times.

Under such circumstances, I take the longer wait times.

[Funkadelic Mayhem]

This + quirks being pushed back is why my break is extended tell November. Even the weekend challenges are not worth it to me. Sure the free prem time is cool, but when I cant activate it on my own when I know I can take advantage of it. The "cool" becomes "why bother".

[Chrithu]

Thorn Hallis, on 16 October 2014 - 01:43 AM, said:

The matchmaker has to work with limited resources - the obviously tiny amount of players in the group queue in your time zone. The alternative to this match would be no match or longer wait times.

QFT.

And frankly in my view the tiny amount of group queue players is directly related to the attitude the vocal group players display towards the solo queue folk during challenges or at any other given occasion. Why would I even want to play together with folk that apparently thinks everyone in the solo queues has no idea of how to play the game.

Edit: Not done ranting yet.

I start to see where the "small playerbase" argument stems from. In the solo queue we have had pretty good waiting times and quite acceptable matchups for 90% of the games for quite some time now. Which all hints at quite the healthy playerbase. Same is displayed by the amount of sold pre-order packages each time they are available. So maybe the problem isn't a small overall playerbase but rather the little incentives that are there to drop in a group or join a unit.

Edited by Jason Parker, 16 October 2014 - 03:45 AM.

[Deathlike]

Jason Parker, on 16 October 2014 - 03:29 AM, said:

QFT.

And frankly in my view the tiny amount of group queue players is directly related to the attitude the vocal group players display towards the solo queue folk during challenges or at any other given occasion. Why would I even want to play together with folk that apparently thinks everyone in the solo queues has no idea of how to play the game.

I usually give the solo queue the benefit of the doubt, until proven otherwise... but the otherwise part kicks in quickly.

A couple nights ago, I went solo, proceed to take company commander, and tried to direct people to the normal route on Canyon on Assault, only to be ignored and people went off in "a direction". This is proceeded by being capped on the base, while people took their time RTBing, and someone ends up vocally blaming me for that. Yep, that's gratitude for you.

So while I'm pretty definitive in the "level of play is lower" (because, it is, naturally speaking), this also happens in this solo challenges where actually taking ECM more often than not leads me to a win in the solo queue... because the level of understanding of ECM is notably different (besides the complaining, which inevitably happens at times).

Quote

Edit: Not done ranting yet.

I start to see where the "small playerbase" argument stems from. In the solo queue we have had pretty good waiting times and quite acceptable matchups for 90% of the games for quite some time now. Which all hints at quite the healthy playerbase. Same is displayed by the amount of sold pre-order packages each time they are available. So maybe the problem isn't a small overall playerbase but rather the little incentives that are there to drop in a group or join a unit.

I doubt that. The "actual incentives" for playing in a group is not "glamorous"... rather it's play with people you'd like to play with, and occasionally learn a thing or two.. and not stay clueless like learning how to counter ECM or learning the significance of a UAV. Things that players should have kind of learned from tutorials, or just learn and/or watch from actual teamplay instead of "glimpses" of teamplay in the solo queue are not inherently obvious (outside of the tinfoil hat crowd, that is paranoid that team play can't be exhibited ever unless sync dropping is involved).

Besides, on that night, I saw a significant number of the same teams/groups/players/crowd, and in this case.. the MM vomited outright.

[Chrithu]

Deathlike, on 16 October 2014 - 09:43 AM, said:

I usually give the solo queue the benefit of the doubt, until proven otherwise... but the otherwise part kicks in quickly.

A couple nights ago, I went solo, proceed to take company commander, and tried to direct people to the normal route on Canyon on Assault, only to be ignored and people went off in "a direction". This is proceeded by being capped on the base, while people took their time RTBing, and someone ends up vocally blaming me for that. Yep, that's gratitude for you.

So while I'm pretty definitive in the "level of play is lower" (because, it is, naturally speaking), this also happens in this solo challenges where actually taking ECM more often than not leads me to a win in the solo queue... because the level of understanding of ECM is notably different (besides the complaining, which inevitably happens at times).



I doubt that. The "actual incentives" for playing in a group is not "glamorous"... rather it's play with people you'd like to play with, and occasionally learn a thing or two.. and not stay clueless like learning how to counter ECM or learning the significance of a UAV. Things that players should have kind of learned from tutorials, or just learn and/or watch from actual teamplay instead of "glimpses" of teamplay in the solo queue are not inherently obvious (outside of the tinfoil hat crowd, that is paranoid that team play can't be exhibited ever unless sync dropping is involved).

Besides, on that night, I saw a significant number of the same teams/groups/players/crowd, and in this case.. the MM vomited outright.

Thx for showing off exactly what I am talking about when I say that the attitude of group elitists is something that turns people away from joining groups. I can imagine what goes on with you on TS when someone makes the slightest mistake. Wouldn't enjoy that really ...

And as far as that last sentence goes: That right there is another hint at too few players being interested in dropping as a group. Seeing the same persons twice in a row in the same drop in the solo queue howaver is a 1 in 100 matches occurance only happening out of prime time windows.

So again: We don't have a too small playerbase problem, we have a problem getting people to enjoy dropping in group queue.

[topgun505]

My beef isn't with the MM as much as the spawn points. I was finishing up grinding WHs and I was soloing and got thrown into Alpine with 2 DW and an Atlas in my lance and my lance spawned so far away that the battle was essentially over before my lance even got there!

There needs to be some spawn limits.

No mech can spawn any closer than X meters of an enemy unit (this especially applies to Caustic where some spawn points are ridiculously close to opposing points).

No mech can spawn further than X meters of any other friendly unit.

X in both cases is up for debate. But for the first case it should amount to no mech starting no closer than 3 grids of an opponent. For the second value it should amount to soawn no further than 1 grid (2 at most) of other friendlies.

This spawning out in BFE is for the birds.

[Deathlike]

Jason Parker, on 16 October 2014 - 12:07 PM, said:

Thx for showing off exactly what I am talking about when I say that the attitude of group elitists is something that turns people away from joining groups. I can imagine what goes on with you on TS when someone makes the slightest mistake. Wouldn't enjoy that really ...

It's not a group elitist problem, if anything, it's a failure to communicate or more importantly, failure to want to work together.

When people make mistakes, it happens. As long people actively work on trying to get better and not to repeat said mistakes, that's a non-issue. Expecting people to get better overnight is an unrealistic expectation. Only by failing and actively learning why certain things happened (and not everything can be blamed on your own group, as it is always possible that the opfor simply played better) is when players get better on the whole.

If you don't want to get better, there's plenty of "LRM are OP" threads (or similar types of threads) that can be used to show why a player hasn't gotten better. Even while there are situations that LRMs are relatively annoying, reacting like they are the most powerful things in existence generally demonstrates how much a player hasn't practiced the natural counters that exist and rather not self-exploring what they could do to minimize the effects.

"Getting good" is not just said randomly (although, it's probably used in insulting terms anyways), but there's a difference between "thinking you are good" and "demonstrating a high level of consistency to all".

Edited by Deathlike, 16 October 2014 - 12:34 PM.

[Kirkland Langue]

ARamaLamaDingDong, on 16 October 2014 - 03:22 AM, said:

Under such circumstances, I take the longer wait times.

No you wouldn't.

What would happen is you say "sure, I'll take longer wait time" - meanwhile someone else sitting in queue says "f-this wait, I'll go do something else" and your wait time becomes even longer. Your thinking kills games - I've seen it.

[Chrithu]

Okey, sorry. I see I am kinda moving away the topic from a chance at being constructive by ranting about group players complaining about the skill level of solo players.

Let's get back to the start:

I mean it is quite obvious that the match displayed in the opening post did happen because the matchmaker could not find a better match inside the time limit. The only conclusion is that at that time obviously there were very little players ina group looking for a match. The number of complaints of this type are a hint that this is a pretty persistent problem in the group queues.

In contrast to that (regardless of skill) my experience of the solo queue during the past 12ish weeks that I have played more often again is that matches usually are found within a minute (even when riding heavies), the weight matching never is awfully lobsided and as far as Elo matching goes it works as good as it can (obviously the system in istelf is quite limited in what it can achieve within the given constraints). Which tells me that theoretically we have enough players at any time to get acceptable matchups, but obviously most of them prefer to drop solo rather than group up.

Whatever the reasons may be. The only way out of that situation that I see is to encourage people to join groups. The biggest blocker I see is the absence of a global chat in the Front End. The matches them selves are too busy to make friends. And with All Chat being muted by default it has gotten even harder.

Really for a MMO this game keeps the players quite isolated from each other. Sure people could (and in my view should in any game) go to the forum and find the teamspeak servers or at least like minded people to make friends with and drop together, but we all know that this an effort that especially casual players or visitors that just wanna see how this game is will not take. And to be honest, while I think forums should be used I also think that not providing the bare minimum of proper means for communication within the game itself is a shortcoming on the developers end. And a global chat to find help and make friends as a new player is this bare minimum. MWO is the first MMO game I came across that doesn't provide this.

[Deathlike]

Jason Parker, on 16 October 2014 - 03:11 PM, said:

Okey, sorry. I see I am kinda moving away the topic from a chance at being constructive by ranting about group players complaining about the skill level of solo players.

Let's get back to the start:

I mean it is quite obvious that the match displayed in the opening post did happen because the matchmaker could not find a better match inside the time limit. The only conclusion is that at that time obviously there were very little players ina group looking for a match. The number of complaints of this type are a hint that this is a pretty persistent problem in the group queues.

In contrast to that (regardless of skill) my experience of the solo queue during the past 12ish weeks that I have played more often again is that matches usually are found within a minute (even when riding heavies), the weight matching never is awfully lobsided and as far as Elo matching goes it works as good as it can (obviously the system in istelf is quite limited in what it can achieve within the given constraints). Which tells me that theoretically we have enough players at any time to get acceptable matchups, but obviously most of them prefer to drop solo rather than group up.

Whatever the reasons may be. The only way out of that situation that I see is to encourage people to join groups. The biggest blocker I see is the absence of a global chat in the Front End. The matches them selves are too busy to make friends. And with All Chat being muted by default it has gotten even harder.

Really for a MMO this game keeps the players quite isolated from each other. Sure people could (and in my view should in any game) go to the forum and find the teamspeak servers or at least like minded people to make friends with and drop together, but we all know that this an effort that especially casual players or visitors that just wanna see how this game is will not take. And to be honest, while I think forums should be used I also think that not providing the bare minimum of proper means for communication within the game itself is a shortcoming on the developers end. And a global chat to find help and make friends as a new player is this bare minimum. MWO is the first MMO game I came across that doesn't provide this.

I think many of us, who have cared about the NPE, have often asked PGI to add/implement these kinds of things time and again, to little to no response. While I can understand that PGI's current focus is CW, these things are paramount to making sure there is a sustainable growth model, despite adding CW. Whether it is a global lobby (built-in game ideally) or a commo rose, or even just tutorials, these are the kinds of things we should "expect" in a complete gaming environment that we all participate in.

I personally don't think anyone should be forced to commit to a team, but just playing with others and learning something new is what we should be doing in general, in order to bring the level and quality of play up across the board. The primary issue above all else is that PGI needs to provide the tools to expand the opportunities available. A forum is just one piece of the puzzle... but it certainly cannot stand alone to accomplish the task.

[Rhaegor]

If the game was less pay to win and more free to play, we would have more players and the matchmaker would work better. Maybe.

[Chrithu]

Rhaegor, on 16 October 2014 - 04:44 PM, said:

If the game was less pay to win and more free to play, we would have more players and the matchmaker would work better. Maybe.

How is the game pay to win? I wouldn't call the ability to get mechs earlier if you actually pay for them being made and support the development pay to win. And Heroes are not pay to win either. If there's one thing you cannot buy in this game then it is wins.

[Aresye]

Jason Parker, on 16 October 2014 - 12:07 PM, said:

Thx for showing off exactly what I am talking about when I say that the attitude of group elitists is something that turns people away from joining groups. I can imagine what goes on with you on TS when someone makes the slightest mistake. Wouldn't enjoy that really ...

And as far as that last sentence goes: That right there is another hint at too few players being interested in dropping as a group. Seeing the same persons twice in a row in the same drop in the solo queue howaver is a 1 in 100 matches occurance only happening out of prime time windows.

So again: We don't have a too small playerbase problem, we have a problem getting people to enjoy dropping in group queue.

If anything, Deathlike was actually talking pretty respectfully and lightly when talking about the solo queue. He has hardly demonstrated anything close to an, "elitist attitude," regarding that.

Since you seem to be wanting to justify your hatred of group players and elitist attitudes, allow me to provide an actual justification for your opinions:


This is a TEAM oriented game. There are specific mechs, equipment (ECM, NARC, Artillery, UAV, etc), and weapons that are specifically designed to be used together.

The group queue is naturally competitive because teams can organize and conduct themselves in ways that compliment all of this together. Lords and SJR aren't good because of an individual player's skills. I see a large majority of these players from the best teams in the solo queue during challenges, and while each one of them is an exceptional player, by themselves they're completely at the mercy of whatever team the MM decides to give them.

There are no ifs, ands, or butts about it. There is a "pug lottery," and more often than not, the guy who loses the pug lottery is going to lose. You could be the best player in the game, but you are NOT going to win if the MM sticks you with 11 braindead players. It's IMPOSSIBLE.

We don't want solo players in our units. We want TEAM players. Players that aren't afraid to get hit, aren't afraid to sacrifice themselves, and aren't afraid to be abandoned if it's necessary to win. Know what happens with the competitive teams when one of them in a Dire Wolf gets spawned next to the boat? They say, "Sorry m8," and leave them behind, and then that Dire Wolf player makes a glorious last stand to inflict as much damage as possible before going down.

The solo queue is a lottery, through and through. Occasionally you might get a team where each player at least knows the most fundamental tactic in a team-oriented game: Sticking Together. Most of the time though, each team is comprised of a bunch of soloists that have absolutely no idea, nor even any inclination hinting at working together as team.

The, "everybody for themselves," attitude of the solo queue is the most obnoxious habit that seriously requires a beating to get it out of player's heads that join organized units.

We tolerate mistakes. Not following orders, not focusing fire, and going off on their own isn't a mistake. That's habit. One that frequently ends up throwing the match for the other 11 players who DID follow orders.

We don't like the solo queue. Which is why I find it funny that people keep accusing us group players as sync dropping. Why would I bother sync dropping into a cesspool of disorganized chaos, when I've got a better chance of winning in the group queue with other units and groups that at least know basic teamwork? Sure, a few units do sync drop during solo-only events, usually for the sole purpose that by some miracle, a few players in the game can at least be somewhat competent.

Oh and your 1 in 100 thing? Totally not true. Often I'll see the same players multiple games in a row in solo queue, or at the very least, see a few recognizable names every 2-3 matches.

I get the appeal of the solo queue, but there's a level of enjoyment to be had in the game when working with a tight knit team. You can push the boundaries of what you thought were the limits of gameplay, giving group players an entirely new experience in MWO that you will never find in the solo queue, which ultimately allows for diverse gameplay, more exciting matches, and a new meaning of fun.

All that goes away in the solo queue, where it's the same crap every day.

[Rhaegor]

Jason Parker, on 16 October 2014 - 06:03 PM, said:

How is the game pay to win? I wouldn't call the ability to get mechs earlier if you actually pay for them being made and support the development pay to win. And Heroes are not pay to win either. If there's one thing you cannot buy in this game then it is wins.

Everyone using clan mechs that cost $210 might be considered pay to win.

[Chrithu]

Rhaegor, on 16 October 2014 - 07:39 PM, said:

Everyone using clan mechs that cost $210 might be considered pay to win.

Some say this way some say the other way. I've bought my clan mechs with CBills. And really after two passes of nerfs I went back to my IS mechs. While they can be stuffed with some neat weapon setups I absolutely dislike the fact that clan mechs have a fixed engine.