251 replies to this topic

[MechWarrior5152251]

How about switch it up. 6 hours 8v8, 6 hours 12v12. Keeps the pools together but varies game play? Could also rotate maps. 1 hour Bog, 1 hour Dessert, 1 hour blank, make it random hour to hour? That way you get to play 3 games on the same map to get the hang of it.

[Darwins Dog]

Personally, I would rather have close games than full choice. Then again, I'm one of those people who thought the voting system they had in for a few days was a good idea. It needed work, but I liked the idea.

The problem is that you can't take away choices as easily as you can give them. If the game had fewer choices from the beginning then it wouldn't even be an issue, but when you take away someone's choices they seen to get upset. I really don't understand the mentality of quitting a match because you don't like the map/mode/whatever, but sadly it exists. It's probably the main reason why the system won't work. Elo differences will be reduced, but people will whine and quit.

[Havyek]

BattleValue. BV.

Toss out ELO and match drops by weight class (NOT total weight) and BV.

This more than anything would stop ROFLStomps.
I'd make it more simplistic than the table top though. Assign each chassis a BV and then the higher impact equipment like Gauss, AC20s, ECM and LRMs. Clan chassis/equipment would get a higher BV.

[Gauvan]

Getting back to the OP's question...

Given a choice between better matchmaking and an ability to cherry pick modes/maps, I much prefer better and faster matchmaking.

But that comes with a couple caveats:

1. From the information provided it seems like good MM can happen with game mode selection in place. That suggests that at least that level of player choice can be supported. If a fourth or fifth game mode is introduced an acts to counter good MM, perhaps selecting all modes can be incentivised.

2. (And this is a big one for me). Not all maps are created equal and some are really poor. If players are asked to give up choice in favor of better MM I think it is fair to ask for a regular cycle of improvements to maps and modes to improve the player experience.

[Squarebasher]

I would rather have close games than give players more choice.

[MechWarrior3671771]

I don't think people will ever be happy with ELO - its like a computer model that doesn't account for all variables. So it will always mis-match teams, even when its formula tells it they are equal.

So I would prefer more options, more choices.

Besides, I don't really mind uneven teams - its more realistic. My Marine unit was mix of seasoned Gulf War vets and noobs fresh out of bootcamp. I like competition but not at the expense of choice. Is there not a way for elite units to match up against each other? If not, add that instead of limiting choice.

edit - I would also add that having a few "ringers" mismatched on my team has really helped my learning curve via spectating. I get to experience "how its done". And there are tactics and stunts I can pull on my Novice tier that fail miserably when I am grouped with my unit (which match-maker treats as a much higher tier). So there are advantages to having a mixed novice/vet team.

Edited by Fenrisulvyn, 20 February 2015 - 10:41 AM.

[cSand]

Yokaiko, on 20 February 2015 - 10:23 AM, said:

The idea has merit, not the least of which it allows you to drop with newjacks WITHOUT throwing them into the fire, the level of play in the group queue is largely a couple orders of magnitude higher than the solo queue.

You learn by playing with those who are better

We were all new once, and there is no better place for a n00b to learn to play than with an experienced buddy, in the group queue.

Metus regem, on 20 February 2015 - 10:23 AM, said:

It's funny, everytime I get a match with that has someone with [228] or [HHOD] or the like and they are on the Red team, I know I am going to have a bad time.... sometimes though, when it's me against pugs, and I get one under my seights, and I see (c) in the mech type, I kind of feel bad for them, and go find something else to shoot. It would be nice if there was a better way of balancing teams....

I hear you on one hand... but on the other, and I can only speak for myself and the few guys I play with regularly... I mean most of the "elite" groups don't worry us in the group queue. If there's a 10-12 man, which seems to happen much less often these days (CW I'm guessing), than you can usually just write off the match but sometimes you get that craptacular 10 man that you manage to roll over with no issues. I personally love the group queue because you really get to test your skills, especially as a smaller group. There are some damn good players and there is nothing better than those intense battles.

The only way to get better is to play against guys much better than you, and that naturally means there will be some Rock-esque smackdowns laid upon you. But you gotta carry something away from that or else you just keep getting slapped.

[Yokaiko]

cSand, on 20 February 2015 - 10:35 AM, said:

You learn by playing with those who are better

We were all new once, and there is no better place for a n00b to learn to play than with an experienced buddy, in the group queue.

Yeah, getting alpha'd in trail mechs is great for the game.

There was no matchmaker at all when I learned. I I also had 4-5 CB wipes to start over. I can tell you now that even in cadet games you see established unit players.

......adding packs of eastablished unit players ins't really desirable.

Edited by Yokaiko, 20 February 2015 - 10:40 AM.

[RedDevil]

ELO style systems work fine for group games. If you don't like ELO style systems, that's fine. You can just say that.

[Christof Romulus]

What I don't think many people who are reading this question on the forums understand, and what Russ went into detail explaining is the following:

There are only so many MWO players.

This is not DOTA, this is not League - there are simply not 1m+ people waiting in the queue.

So every 'player choice' we have, divides the possible matches we can have as individuals. Put even more simply - just how fine do you want to split this hair, exactly?

If you have 1000 people looking for a match, 200 of them are 'universal' - able to join any queue, then you have 300 who want skirmish only, that's 500 possible for skirmish, right? Wrong, because there's 250 who are looking for conquest and 250 looking for assault. That 'universal' queue is now stretched mighty thin, because in addition to just those player choices, you have ELO to look at, where it's trying to find (and I do stress the word trying) an equally skilled opponent in all of those match ups.

Add in the ability to toggle maps, and now you no longer look at the above example, but you look at a queue of 200 'universal' players and that gets cut down to 50. 150 of the players who ARE willing to play any game mode, aren't willing to play River city, or Caustic Valley.

In addition, of the 300 who want to skirmish, 120 of them don't want to do it on Alpine.

The hair keeps getting more and more thin as you split it.

[LordKnightFandragon]

We need games that do not end in 2-12 stomps time after time....

Players will learn the new maps and modes or just quit. We dont need the players being able to choose their maps, then it will end up like Battlefield 3, they have like 30 maps, only 2 are played....it makes for very boring gameplay, and those who decide to turn off certain maps but keep others on, it just makes it where you cannot get in a game unless you have the select like 2 maps people like to play chosen to play on...If it was up to the playerbase to choose, we would never see prolly 90% of our already vastly limited selection of maps. THis game needs more maps, not less....

What would it be?

HPG/Crimson/Mining and Viridian? every game, all the time, no matter what?

There should be a New player Q, where the 1st 100 games the players only get in against other players with similar games played, less then 100.

[Brother MEX]

Zeece, on 20 February 2015 - 07:51 AM, said:

...

Do you want full choices of Mode and Maps ...

or

Do you want the most Competitive(closet ELO) Matches but at the cost that you can no longer choose maps or modes?

Reference: Current Solo Queue ELO difference 38... Current Group Queue ELO difference 183

From my point of view ELO isnt working at all !
Otherwise 12-0 matches in the SOLO queue shouldnt be possible.

So I prefer to have FULL CHOICE instead of a matchmaking which I HATE since a long time.

It is my opinion that ELO shouldnt be used for matchmaking at all, simply check wo lost and who won in the last games and pair winners against winners and loosers against loosers !
IF they want they can still calculate the ELO for their statistics, but for me ELO is even more useless than the kill/death ratio in the profiles of the players ...

Edited by Brother MEX, 20 February 2015 - 10:48 AM.

[cSand]

Yokaiko, on 20 February 2015 - 10:38 AM, said:

Yeah, getting alpha'd in trail mechs is great for the game.

There was no matchmaker at all when I learned. I I also had 4-5 CB wipes to start over. I can tell you now that even in cadet games you see established unit players.

......adding packs of eastablished unit players ins't really desirable.

Get alpha'd once, shame on your enemy

Get alpha'd twice, shame on you


We have comms now, there is no excuse even for new players in the solo queue to run off like feral children, let alone in the group queue.

[Metus regem]

cSand, on 20 February 2015 - 10:35 AM, said:

You learn by playing with those who are better

We were all new once, and there is no better place for a n00b to learn to play than with an experienced buddy, in the group queue.



I hear you on one hand... but on the other, and I can only speak for myself and the few guys I play with regularly... I mean most of the "elite" groups don't worry us in the group queue. If there's a 10-12 man, which seems to happen much less often these days (CW I'm guessing), than you can usually just write off the match but sometimes you get that craptacular 10 man that you manage to roll over with no issues. I personally love the group queue because you really get to test your skills, especially as a smaller group. There are some damn good players and there is nothing better than those intense battles.

The only way to get better is to play against guys much better than you, and that naturally means there will be some Rock-esque smackdowns laid upon you. But you gotta carry something away from that or else you just keep getting slapped.

I know where you are coming from, when I did a drop a few days back with Tanor, Hakigi and Coffee, I told them, that I like going with them, since I get to be made into a better pilot, by being in their bracket... even if I get my ass handed to me.

[Mawai]

El Bandito, on 20 February 2015 - 07:54 AM, said:

I want 8v8 back for Solo-Q, for better hit reg, better FPS, and better matchmaking reasons. Group-Q can retain 12v12.

That is all.

I see a couple of problems with 8v8.

1) The matches were much less forgiving. Losing one or two mechs often meant losing the match. Although stomps are quite frequent in 12v12, they seemed to me to be even more frequent in 8v8. I think this would drive complaints that the matchmaking is actually worse in 8v8 than 12v12.

2) Economically, 8v8 serves 16 players while 12v12 serves 24. This means an increase of server load having to run 33% more matches to serve the same number of clients. I don't think that this will result in any improvement in hit registration ... it might improve FPS since there may be fewer mechs being drawn in a scene but I am not sure how significant that would be ... as far as I know the HUD and scaleform are bottlenecks ... and not just the number of mechs in the match.

As a result, running 8v8 might well require more server resources without supplying any of the benefits you have cited. Only PGI would know for sure though.

[Yokaiko]

cSand, on 20 February 2015 - 10:48 AM, said:

Get alpha'd once, shame on your enemy

Get alpha'd twice, shame on you


We have comms now, there is no excuse even for new players in the solo queue to run off like feral children, let alone in the group queue.

You have comms maybe, I can't make my mic work in game and the audio codec is so sloppy that I can't really understand others talking. I don't care about coms, I have multiple TSs available, like everyone else, its a non sequitur.

I'm talking about dropping someone who doesn't own a mech IN THE GROUP QUEUE, weather you are talking to them or not, they are going to get slaughtered. I have this issue regularly.

[WarHippy]

Zeece, on 20 February 2015 - 07:51 AM, said:

Russ Asked me to Pose this Questions to the Community during last nights Townhall so that he could get honest and open feedback from y'all on it.

To give context to his question.

Do you want full choices of Mode and Maps at the Expense of Less Competitive Matches (because every choice shrinks the size of the pool of players that the Matchmaker can choose opponents from which means it will have to expand the ELO range to fill a match)

or

Do you want the most Competitive(closet ELO) Matches but at the cost that you can no longer choose maps or modes?

Reference: Current Solo Queue ELO difference 38... Current Group Queue ELO difference 183

Questions like this honestly scare me(Mostly because they seem to overreact and misinterpret the actual mood/desire of the community). The question seems to require a binary answer, but that is not how it should be. Competitive matches and player choice are both very important, and the idea we must sacrifice one or the other is frustrating. For me having a choice in game mode is important, I don't want to see choice of map though, I want less restriction on mech choice, and I want to see competitive matches. What we have now while not perfect is better than a huge swing in one direction or another. There is a very fine line between choice and better matchmaking and a push toward one side or the other has great potential for undermining the most important aspect of all... fun.

[The Choppa]

Whatever you (PGI) end up choosing, if it is a change from current than at least have a way to bring it back to how it is currently.
Currently could be improved, but it works.
Nothing would be worse if you decide "lets do this, seems to be the popular option" but than massively backfires and becomes unpopular.
Keep that undo button at the ready.

Personally, I would love to be able to choose which maps I want to play on, and I can guarantee you Mordor will be off the list ASAP if that came to pass.

[cSand]

Yokaiko, on 20 February 2015 - 10:51 AM, said:

You have comms maybe, I can't make my mic work in game and the audio codec is so sloppy that I can't really understand others talking. I don't care about coms, I have multiple TSs available, like everyone else, its a non sequitur.

I'm talking about dropping someone who doesn't own a mech IN THE GROUP QUEUE, weather you are talking to them or not, they are going to get slaughtered. I have this issue regularly.

I get that. But if you're taking a brand new player into the group queue, what do you expect is gonna happen? You better be giving some advice, whether you are typing it or not. The fact is, that new player is gonna get his ass handed to him no matter where he goes. So chalk it up to a learning experience for the poor guy, yes it'll suck but being tossed in the deep end he will learn to swim. And fast.

I took my co-worker, and my brother, into the group queues when they were both n00bs. Took them a few matches to get the hang of it, but within a few matches they were doing well. Later, they are now both formidable behind the wheel (steering wheel? )

So, the gratification isn't instant. In fact it's a relatively frustrating road but people do learn and do get better quickly (barring any outside factors like a sh*te computer or bugs something, and lord knows this game has a few "outside factors", lol)

Edited by cSand, 20 February 2015 - 10:59 AM.

[Jaeger Gonzo]

Did not they tested it once? Going back after less then one day? As players where dropping games in masses. Not learned lesson yet?
And referring to question, since when we can choose maps? Cause I did not notice that feature.