144 replies to this topic

[Void Angel]

Carcass23, on 29 May 2015 - 04:24 PM, said:

Why not a separate que labeled, INSTANT ACTION? No MM, you click and you drop against whoever else is brave enough to be in there. No need for team que. Just PUG? I am with the crowd that was at the onset, against MM being implemented. I fully recall the crying about the ROFLstomps (which still happen because PUGlife)

So yes, keep the kiddie pool and add another que. Any problems with that?

No matchmaker is the kiddie pool - there's just no lifeguard. =P

Anyway, the problems with splitting the queues have been discussed extensively.

[Deathlike]

Void Angel, on 29 May 2015 - 04:27 PM, said:

The fact that you're trying to claim unassailable authority based on a game rating you can't see - and on totally subjective memory - without actually dealing with any of the objections means that you're obviously not conversant with the requirments of making a claim, and are unused to people who aren't distracted by personal attacks, red herrings, and self-serving, made-up "facts." If you're going to try such audaciously dishonest tactics, at least do me the courtesy of not misspelling "you're," and knowing that Elo is not an acronym. You're not even trying, here: D minus.

I will vouch for him (and his unit). I've played with and against them many times.

The wait is real. Waiting the full time before the "release valves" are fully open is real.

If the match doesn't end in a roflstomp (because, that's how you make up for long wait times), it might actually be a rare thriller.

If there is a rare blue moon, he faces SJR, EMP, and others on a regular basis.

Elo is real, even if he hasn't maxed out his Elo... it's enough to notice the difference.

I say this as "the guy" that attempts to "barely" lower the group Elo.... and I only consider myself probably slightly above average Elo.


It was real when JagerXII and other Lords (at the time, now EmP) talked about the super long waits when the MM was waiting virtually indefinitely for a match. That stuff was real and long waits (4 mins max) is damn real.

Edited by Deathlike, 29 May 2015 - 06:12 PM.

[WazOfOz]

I would go as far as to say remove ELO from the match maker ( correct me if I'm wrong, ELO was devised for ranking chess players. 1V1 ) we are at the mercy of 11 team mates and whoever ELO matches us against, as to weather our ELO goes up or down. keep MM in some form though if for no other reason than to try to balance weight classes, something made more difficult for MM to do whilst it's trying to balance ELO at the same time.

[Void Angel]

Deathlike, I'm quite aware of the long wait times at the upper end of the Elo range - but it's not permissible to just thump your e-chest and say "I'm 1337 so you have to agree with me or you're ignorant." You're not the only one that rubs shoulders with top-level players - but again, that is beside the point. My criticism remains valid - quite aside from his untreated uberitis, all the reasons he condescendingly offers are reasons to change the matchmaker system, not abolish it.

[cSand]

While I agree with the sentiment or putting on the damn big boy pants and working for your victories..

I also like generally playing with people who are challenging..

[sycocys]

We have in-game comms now, there is actually no more need for the elo or matchmaker anymore. The one huge advantage that premades had over pugs is balanced out.

Lets get back to the random drops where matches happened in every spot on the map instead of this mad charge to the center of the map only to stop at the edge of the control zone and pretend to be snipers.

The only crutch that needs to be left in is for new players to get acquainted to the game, once they cross that mark its time to learn how to really play, and getting rid of this crutch will actually force them to get better instead of not knowing they are not very good with elo and MM deceiving them game after game.

[aniviron]

Yeah, match making systems are dumb. That's why no competitive individual games like chess or tennis use them, and why no online games like CS, LoL or DoTA do.

[KhanCipher]

aniviron, on 29 May 2015 - 07:42 PM, said:

and why no online games like CS, LoL or DoTA do.

Except that they all do use Elo to some degree (but DoTA is currently trying to get all the kinks worked out in their's).

[FupDup]

KhanCipher, on 29 May 2015 - 08:51 PM, said:

Except that they all do use Elo to some degree (but DoTA is currently trying to get all the kinks worked out in their's).

That was his point, he was being sarcastic.

[TLBFestus]

SilentWolff, on 29 May 2015 - 08:58 AM, said:

That's right, I said it. This is a PvP game after all. You play to win and test your skill against your enemy, so why are we hand holding the bads that complain they can't compete?
I can see a separate queue for the first 25 games for your cadet bonus, but after that, the big boy pants need to be put on.
For me, the biggest issue is you actually punish the higher ELO players.
Why should I have to wait 10 minutes in the group queue to get a game?
Why should I have to be in a group of 6 or more to compete because the MM thinks I should be able carry the whole team while leveling a non elited, non meta mech?
Why does the MM pit groups of 2 and 3 high ELO players against 8, 10 or 12 man comp teams? And how is getting rolled by those group of comp teams any different than a new player getting rolled by veteran players?

So yeah, the MM needs to go.
/rant off

Im going to go with the explanation that PGI wants LOTS AND LOTS of players spending cash. Some sort of match-making has the potential to make the game fun for us bottom feeders.

Didn't they make CW for all the hot-shot "I wanna dominate you" guys anyhow?

[Void Angel]

Hey! I want to dominate you, and I think matchmakers are good!

[Jalik]

I think we can aggree that the MM indeed has some issues. primarily for high ELO players. But the alternative - to go without MM at all - would probably ruin the game for many. I think the main road block here is the size of the player base. If you want to keep the MM but want to enhance gameplay for high ELO players, a small subgroup of the playerbase, you'll have to somehow treat the high ELO guys differently. That means creating additional MM queues, doesn't it? For this, the player base seems to be too small.
The only other options that make sense in my head are either:
- two ELO values (one for pugging, one for group play)
or
- no ELO value for group play at all (this way it wouldn't mess up the solo-MM. for group play, individual player ELO shouldn't have that much of an effect on the outcome of a match. it's the coordination between the members of a group that decides a match)

[Tahribator]

I disagree with how you said it (perhaps too bemoaning) but I agree with the sentiment. I'm in the process of a MWO burnout and the reason is simply unreasonable matchmaker times and still getting low quality matches.

What we had before: A single public queue with solo and group players mixed (4 max). 4-mans dominate, solo players felt they're being farmed by 4-mans (I was in this camp too). Much outcry, matchmaker is changed.

Then we got: A separate queue for solo and group players. Solo play is fairer since the groups can't get in. Group queue suffers the same problems the combined solo/group queue had before. Big groups stomps the smaller ones, comp/semi-comp teams steamroll casual groups, Elo matchmaking is a joke. Long wait times and low quality matches.

In my opinion, PGI essentially fixed the solo queue, but the group queue is still ridden with problems. The first thing they need to do is to relax the matchmaker so it makes faster matches because frankly, it can't be worse than what we have now. Perhaps disallow groups larger than 8, maybe even 4. Send the bigger groups to the CW.

[Hornviech]

Dear OP when you say this, then we also don't need to balance the Clan Mechs.

Just don't do mixed matches only Clan vs Clan, Clan vs IS or IS vs IS.
No matches where IS and Clan are on one side.

That would be your dream of competition ?

[Johnny Z]

This is obvious but they could use ELO to determine who stays in the newbie pool. If a newbie pool is added that is.

The idea that new players enter a newbie pool after a tutorial and have to graduate before doing Galaxy map matches or what ever seems like a good one. Enough bad matches and a player could find themselves back in the newbie pool. Not a big deal but maybe reduced rewards.

This isnt a new idea. For story/immersion they could call these newbie matches frontier skirmishes or something or have it Solaris themed.

Big pool, no ELO at all for quick and varied matches maybe?

Edited by Johnny Z, 30 May 2015 - 05:01 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Hornviech, on 30 May 2015 - 04:27 AM, said:

Dear OP when you say this, then we also don't need to balance the Clan Mechs.

Just don't do mixed matches only Clan vs Clan, Clan vs IS or IS vs IS.
No matches where IS and Clan are on one side.

That would be your dream of competition ?

I signed up before hearing the whine about OP. I signed up to be Lyran "knowing" the Clans would likely kick our butt! House Steiner v Clans Wolf and Jade Falcon.

You know the Invasion. I wanted to see if we could muster the tactics and strategies to repel the Clan.

Instead I got... this!

[Black Ivan]

For me ELO and match making is a myth in this game, I have more than once dropped into a rofl stomp were one side never had a chance of winning. Second thing PGi should is remove all non meta Mechs, so that everybody plays with the same good weapons and not the sub par things.

[omessiaho]

The point of the ELO is to make balanced and fun games but the reality is it does the exact opposite. Lets say there are 100 players waiting for a game. 5 are awesome, 75 are average and 20 are terrible. If those good players want to get a game they will have to be matched with bad players to "even" it out. This means that a good player will have a team of mostly poor players while the opposing team will be made up of average players (due to there being so many more average players). If we just left it up to chance teams would mostly consist of 1-2 good players, 8-10 average players and 2-4 bad players. Because the majority of players are average random chance will create more fair teams.

Lets say I've been having a bunch of great games in my favorite mech. The game goes "this guy is pretty awesome, I bet he could carry a team" and it matches me up with some terribads. Now maybe I could make an impact in my super meta mastered mech but I'm bored of that and trying out a new un basiced mech. Now I'm expected to make up for x number of bad players in a mech I've never used. The system isn't smart enough to account for all of the variables this game has. I guess it could be more specific but the player base isn't large enough to support that. Our wait times are already bad enough!

[Sjorpha]

Having a matchmaker increases the chances of a good match with worthy opponents. No MM would be much worse.

I don't understand the perspective that being matched according to skill is "punishing high ELO players", being offered a proper challenge is not a punishment. If you are so good that matching you with worse players is the only way to challenge you, then that's just the way it is, it's still a lot better than having it too easy.

Most of the time though, being matched with bad players is simply a consequence of the fact that the MM couldn't find a better match right now. Random matches would give you even worse teammates most of the time.

Also, if you really are a good player, part of that goodness should be the ability to take lead and teach newbies. Without those abilities you only possess half the skillset you need for a team game. If a player complains about the team without having tried to communicate and coordinate, he's just not in a position to whine any more than if he had neglected some other basic action like moving or shooting.

I'm sure the MM can always be improved, maybe going for median rather than average ELO would be a nice idea to try. Or having a more granular ELOs, like ELO per each mech for group and solo so your best mechs don't get treated the same as your new or bad ones.

Also the ELO system works perfectly well for all kinds of multiplayer games, including team games. There is nothing about it that makes it specifically suitable for chess or 1v1 games. What it does is simply calculate the average chances of winning/impact on the teams chances to win based on past performance. There are a number of good and bad ways to use ELO in a matchmaker, and a number of ways to divide ELOs for different options (in MWO that would be mechs, game modes and queues) but ELO in itself as a calculation works just fine.

Edited by Sjorpha, 30 May 2015 - 05:42 AM.

[Deathlike]

Void Angel, on 29 May 2015 - 07:19 PM, said:

Deathlike, I'm quite aware of the long wait times at the upper end of the Elo range - but it's not permissible to just thump your e-chest and say "I'm 1337 so you have to agree with me or you're ignorant." You're not the only one that rubs shoulders with top-level players - but again, that is beside the point. My criticism remains valid - quite aside from his untreated uberitis, all the reasons he condescendingly offers are reasons to change the matchmaker system, not abolish it.

Well, he is like that, so it is what is.

However, I think every MM iteration has had some terrible fated issue... some more whined than others.

I think when people think about how the MM "should work", they should really think about "are you sure that's what you want?"

Sometimes they do know.. for their own personal benefit, but there ends up being some negative lingering aspect that never seems to get addressed (in the current iteration, sub 4-man group sizes).

There should be a middle ground, but PGI almost always seems to have a "meddling ground".