250 replies to this topic

[Russ Bullock]

Okay I have just a few minutes and I wanted to make a quick post about how the match making queues work in community warfare.

First off each planet is its own queue.

The whole concept is that the match maker and CW was definitely built primarily for Units and groups of 12. It still works for small groups and solo players but they can get left behind - we are working on ways to greatly improve the ability of small groups and solo players to find matches more on this at the end.

You can think of it like there is a Pre-queue and the real queue. In the pre-queue the MM is putting together 12 man strike teams on both the attack and defense side. Once it has a 12 man strike team you get passed into the true waiting line queue to enter a match. This is why CW works so well for 12 mans, you are guaranteed a match even if it sometimes will be an autowin situation.

Now full 12 mans and 12 man strike teams that the match maker puts together might have to still wait a little while and this is because the match maker only lets one battle kick off at a time on each planet. So if an example strike team are attackers and there are plenty of 12 man strike teams available on the defending side then yes these matches are going to kick off very quickly after the 60 second countdown so just one minute apart.

If there is not a 12 man strike team on the other side then you have to wait the 5 minutes for the other side to show up before kicking off an auto win situation. In this case matches will be kicking off one at a time with a full 5 minute wait.

So as you can see if you’re the third strike team in the queue you are in line between the first two and this might result in just a 3 minute wait until you are in a match or as much as 15 in situations where there are no teams on the other side.

Again you can see how quickly and efficiently full 12 man groups can get into the queue and find matches since the match maker doesn’t need to try and put them into a 12 man strike team since you are already in one. Therefore you get passed straight into the waiting queue.

Now if you are a solo player or any group size less than 12 you get into this pre-queue state where the match maker is trying to puzzle together a 12 man strike team. The biggest group possible is still likely the best way to go as a 10 man will only need either one group of 2 or two solo players to be in this pre-queue with them before they are placed into a 12 man strike team. The players are placed in a FIFO situation but only if they meet the criteria. So yes someone could be in the queue first but not be the first out of the queue into a match if they don't allow the completion of a 12 man strike team but another group size does. Example: solo player enters queue, 30 seconds later a 2 man group enters, 3 minutes later a 10 man group enters the queue. The 2 man and 10 man form a 12 man strike team and enter the queue while the solo player is left waiting in the prequeue.

This is why it remains important that you try to help the MM as much as possible, odd sized groups like 5 or 7 or 9 can be difficult to complete and its possible you will wait longer. In the case of CW a unit in some cases might better off to separate their groups into nice chunks of 4,8 and 12 rather than more oddly shaped groups.

As to the solo player, it can get really tough as you might sit in this prequeue waiting for an opportunity to finish off a very rare 11 man group, or perhaps if there are 2 solo players in the queue you will get the opportunity to finish off a 10 man group that enters the queue. But there could be far more than 12 in the pre-queue if for some reason they just don’t puzzle together to make a 12 man strike team in the meantime full 12 man groups will continue to pass by you into the queue.

With this information you might be able to use it to improve your play experience.

Now how are we going to improve upon this play experience? I am hoping to add the three following items that I think will help increase the ability for players to interact with their faction and to get into matches without taking away any of the flexibility of the existing system.

- Show the real numbers of players in the pre-queue of each planet.

- Allow players to group with all players of the same faction whether they are in your unit or not.

- Add a global faction chat with easy abilities to friend/group with players.

The global chat still has technical risks and is not confirmed. At this point this is just a plan that once technically reviewed may start development. I think it represents a nice next step that allows us to keep all the current flexibility and freedom players currently have.

Being able to see the pre-queue information will quickly allow you to assess the chances of the match maker being able to put you or your small group into a 12 man strike team and you can decide to stay or leave based on that information. The global chat and being able to group with your faction speak for themselves, I imagine even 12 man units that have 1 player log for the night going to the global chat and saying something like "we need one more who wants a group?"

Sorry for the quick post that may not be perfectly written but I wanted to get this information into your hands for your weekend playing. At some point I will have Karl review the post and correct any errors I may have made regarding the MM and Alex will help me tighten up the language

[Bluttrunken]

What about making a separate "guns for hire" queue which isn't tied to a specific planet but rather supports groups of less than 12 man on attacks/defense, or if not available, fills a complete "pug" attack and defense?

[gregsolidus]

Faction chat and and displaying how many people are in the lobby is a good start. Little worried about how the focus on premades will effect mercenaries and lone wolves in the long term though.

Edited by gregsolidus, 13 December 2014 - 11:01 AM.

[Cimarb]

Awesome update. Thanks for the details, and those three ideas would be immensely helpful.

[EvilTwinTepe]

This focus on 12-man groups kinda.. sucks. I can't be the only player with a 4-player unit? Anyway, I'm sure these updates will help, just rather let down by the current implementation.

[Revengex]

Can't you put a poker texas holdum game while you wait for a drop? That way we don't die.

[Amro One]

I thought CW was pretty intuitive straight forwards, seeing that its made for the hardcore players and 12 man groups.
I have no troubles getting games every hour solo.

I rather wait the time to get slotted with a premade group instead of getting slotted with random pugs VS a 12 man premade.
Rather wait 30 min to get a good 30 min game instead of wait 5 min to get steam rolled for 30 mins.

[EvilTwinTepe]

Jazriel, on 13 December 2014 - 11:13 AM, said:

Rather wait 30 min to get a good 30 min game instead of wait 5 min to get steam rolled for 30 mins.

It's a very fair point, but in 30 minutes I can play at least 2 skirmishes. It'd be nice to be able to Queue up for CW and then play regular matches while waiting.

[Wintersdark]

Russ Bullock, on 13 December 2014 - 10:55 AM, said:

• - Show the real numbers of players in the pre-queue of each planet.
  
• - Allow players to group with all players of the same faction whether they are in your unit or not.
  
• - Add a global faction chat with easy abilities to friend/group with players.

First, I think these three ideas are great and will help immensely.

But what really got me? Holy crap, global faction chat! Finally, we'll be able to form groups without knowing people in the first place. That's freaking awesome. I'm really, REALLY looking forward to that.

Overall, removing the unit restriction on grouping will be great for lads like myself. I have no direct unit affiliations, but I've got friends in a number of Ghost Bear units that I'd love to tag along with when possible.

All in all, I'm very optimistic. These changes sound great!

[Wieland]

Units with 12 and more players must be the majority in MWO. Otherwise it would have been a big waste of ressources to make CW.

[One Medic Army]

Good to hear about the changes, especially being able to group with anyone in the same faction.

It'll be nice to be able to "audition" with units in CW before actually joining them.

[generalazure]

k05h3lk1n, on 13 December 2014 - 10:57 AM, said:

What about making a separate "guns for hire" queue which isn't tied to a specific planet but rather supports groups of less than 12 man on attacks/defense, or if not available, fills a complete "pug" attack and defense?

This. I'm just in it for the money anyways (and the salvage, but somehow I don't get any), so I don't really care where my stingy employers send me...

[TexAce]

I wonder how many of MWO's total population are 12-mans so I can congrate you for working 3 years for a mode for them while leaving 99% of the others with an empty lobby list....

Don't get me wrong, I don't want a special queue for pugs, I don't mind the shark tank and I can stand my ground very good, I just want to get into matches without waiting 90% of the time.

fix the bugs and then we can talk

Edited by TexAss, 13 December 2014 - 04:20 PM.

[intothefray]

What I don't understand is how it picks solo people. We decided to try and let everyone go solo last night and see if it could piece together something like that easier. So 4 of us solo queue up for the same planet. Well we're waiting 5 min and another friend comes and we tell him to do the same. Min after that he's launching and we're all still waiting.

[Cimarb]

Depends on whether you are attacking/defending and what planet it is on.

[Kohl Slaasruud]

Erm, what is the idea with mentioning "waiting 30 minutes" or "waiting 5 minutes"... either of these is essentially a broken condition with the matchmaker. End. Of. Story. That's like saying "we've done our homework, and have tallied the number of multi-player teams versus single players, and what we've built doesn't really serve either one very well."
-Dear matchmaker algorithm, please throw the dice, and quit shaking them for 5 minutes already... also the message editor window misses typed letters like a mo-fo if you're anywhere near 5 characters per second... broken broken broken...

[Solias]

I've been sitting in queues solo all day (6 hours.. really) and had 2 matches. Admittedly I usually give up after 30 minutes and try a new planet. Very frustrating that I can pretty much guaruntee that I will not get anywhere in the current tournament due to the designs stacking this against the average player. Why not take solo players and group them as you go? Or queue houses and not planets. The first 2 houses/clans that have a valid match, dump them in an available planet.

[Nic B]

What would be useful is having dedicated solo player planets. Since if I understood Russ 's correctly it would give matchmaker an easier time to fill in solo player pugs.

[KraftySOT]

Russ Bullock, on 13 December 2014 - 10:55 AM, said:

- Show the real numbers of players in the pre-queue of each planet.

- Allow players to group with all players of the same faction whether they are in your unit or not.

- Add a global faction chat with easy abilities to friend/group with players.

Thank the lord, thats all CW needs to be great. Its already pretty great. But these features will really improve it. And let the people who dont have the time like some of us to find games, to get into games faster, thus leading to more population for all of us.

[Wieland]

Ok, i did the math on this.

35 planets
The system can start 1 match per minute
Thats 2100 matches per hour max

24 players per match
The system can handle 50400 players per hour
So, would there be 50400 players playing CW, everyone would be able to get only 1 match per hour.

Lets say average match length 25 minutes
So the system can handle ony 21000 players without serious delays.

Edited by Wieland, 13 December 2014 - 12:54 PM.