523 replies to this topic

[TheStrider]

I'm fine with keeping 12 mans (Or larger than 6) around. However, I think there needs to be some resrictions on what size teams they are allowed to gain a match against.

Say, minimum of a 6 man base. So 6 man plus either another 6,5+1,4+2 etc.

The problem right now is that that 12 an is facing down (typically) 6x 2 man teams, or at best 3x 4 man teams.

I rarely have more than 1-2 real friends online playing to play with. We've given up, as we seem to be facing down that 2% of teams of 10+ player teams all the time. You can only get stomped so many times before solo queue looks inviting again.

[Bishop Steiner]

TWIAFU, on 26 June 2015 - 04:26 AM, said:

Nice to have a real debate with someone and toss ideas back and forth. Gave me couple points to think about. Thank you.



I cannot agree with you more on the lack of depth at this time with relation to CW. It needs more and the sooner the better. CW is end game without really having a 'game' to it, yet.

Glad we are on the same side, think I would enjoy dropping with you.

be happy to see ya dirt side!

A lot of stuff could be debated, even with diametric disagreements, if egos and attitudes can be kept in check. I admit to flaming some folk, but I almost never draw first blood (though returning the snark really doesn't help, either). Even when you see me take a shot, it's usually due to a longstanding issue with the poster stretchign across multiple topics, where I just have no patience for them anymore. And certain topics have not only been beaten to death, but so often, the ideas brought up are so myopically bad, and usually from the same posters, it's hard to stay respectful. But I'm working on it.

[Kristov Kerensky]

DarthRevis, on 26 June 2015 - 09:14 AM, said:

If this game was more fun, had more to it and was just allaround more enjoyable you would see those numbers go up.

When CW was in Beta 1 and we were having fun we had 2-5 12 mans in out TS a day....so i think Russ is seeing thse numbers on a game thats dying on the vine.

Bring a better game and the groups will come...but we already had 4 man groups only and it sucked...could not play with that 5th unit mate or friend. Couldnt have 2 4's of the same unit play together....its sucked and everyone knows it sucked and it was changed.

If he goes back to 4 man groups only after changing it almost a year ago i will loose my ****....

This 2 step forward 9 steps back ******** has got to stop....

Russ was talking about Group Que, and the fact is there are a lot less people playing in groups than playing solo, and of the groups, only 1% of THOSE are 12 mans.

It's a very small percentage of the playerbase that plays in groups TOTAL, less than a percentage of the playerbase plays i 12 mans TOTAL.

Has nothing to do with CW, it's just the fact that most of the players are dropping solo in MWO, nothing new here, it's been that way since we could first drop in groups and hasn't changed nor will it ever change enough to make groups a segment of the population that should be catered to directly.

As I pointed out earlier, that's really a sad thing to see in a game designed for and around team play, but it just goes to show you that the average gamer has no interest in being social, they just want to play in giant stompy robots.

ceesje, on 26 June 2015 - 09:30 AM, said:

And here we are again the same old discussion that had been proven wrong in the past,We dropped with 12 mans had a lot of fun then yoho change it to 4 v 4 8 v 8 the group died down and left to play other games.
You say people leave before playing ??? I have seen dedicated players leave with there money because they changed 12 v 12 to 8 v 8.So now you want to do the same.Without the whales were i'm part of this game will die out very soon.
Because as we al know there is not such a thing as free to play,

So take your ball and leave already, you and the rest of the 12 mans aren't enough of a playerbase to be noticed when you leave, maybe you missed that fact? You think you are the ONLY whales in this here little pond? Guess again, many of us whales aren't dropping in 12 mans unless we do CW, so we don't really care about the possible change to the group que, we'll do private drops if we want to do larger than 4 outside of CW, not a big deal.

[Novakaine]

Mudhutwarrior, on 26 June 2015 - 06:12 AM, said:

I have no issue with 12-mans even if they comprise less than 1%. I do have issue with the statement about them being vocal and probably the loudest here on the forums.

They have the right to play as they want but...... I think you will find the vocal minority dominates the forums and shows an utter lack of respect and outright contempt for the base. Steering wheel underhive/ scubs comes to mind.

I think I should e-mail to Russ with an attachment of this behavior to show that maybe because of the caustic attitude towards the player base he should consider eliminating them or at least putting them on notice.

In pure numbers the group guys and 12 mans are the very distinct minority. I feel they have done more to hold the game back and drive new players away then any other part of the player base. This needs to be seriously considered moving forward especially since who was a part of the cheating bans and who they are watching now. It isn't the scubs or the steering wheel under hive . I think those involved here on the forums need to be closely watched as it follows a pattern.

[cSand]

mm

Maybe cap it at 8 mans?


I dunno, TBH I play the group queue almost exclusively with 2-4 friends and we barely ever see 12 mans. 10 mans sometimes, a few more 8 mans (which are fine, you can beat an 8-10 man with a motley team).


I think the boogeyman is vastly overstated by some people cause they got rolled once or twice out of like 30 matches, so they get mad about that


late at night when fewer people are on though you get matched with the same people over and over.. and if that is a 12 man I guess maybe that could be frustrating.

So I think ultimately my vote would have to go to keeping things as they are

Edited by cSand, 26 June 2015 - 10:18 AM.

[Zordicron]

Vxheous Kerensky, on 26 June 2015 - 08:14 AM, said:

The bulk of the Ubercomps, like Lords, EmP, SJR, do not play CW (they may have solo players from those units that will drop in CW, but that is about it) If you are complaining about 228, QQ, -MS-, and groups like those, I can guarantee that groups of 4-6 players from those units will still hard carry games and ROFLstomp you in CW, because all it really takes is 4-6 good players with good positioning/good mech builds/good aim to carry CW matches.

The rest of your points have merit though, I give you that.

Well, they don't roflstomp me. Maybe the team I am on gets rolled over, I do not. However I do understand what you are saying here. My point still stands however.

There is, and this is important for everyone to contemplate- there is a disconnect in incentive to play MWO between the "tryhard units"(be it whatever mode or size etc) and the "casual" players. For every unit that forms a mid size team or larger, and really really focuses hard and "trains" for winning, uses all the advantages, memorizes maps and player names and all that, there is a larger group of players that come play MWO because, to put it simply: giant stompy robots shooting lasers and MG.

I don;t think it is even a point of contention at this point about competition and "git gud" and the rest of the stuff that gets repeated to death about the situation. it's just one group wants one thing and the other another when it comes to this game, and forcing the two to play against each other makes niether side happy.

Think about it, if the "intense"(tryhard) players only played against the same, the attitudes of all players there would be similar, the goals similar, the way matches pan out completely different. Same goes for the "instant action(casual) players.


It really is simply a matter of different expectations. IMO, the two groups of players have no gain from being mashed into one play session together.

now, using game modes to seperate them, that is such ******* rubbish I don;t know where to begin. the current game modes are not so skewed one way or another that content should be gated. NEW content could possibly be that way, but current content isn't. it is simply a matter of having "league" players in one sectio, "instant action" in another.

I mean, I dunno, maybe the player base isnt big enough to split that way, maybe it is too lopsided in one group's favor(sounds like it favors the casual side heavily to me) to have decent populations for the other. Maybe PGI just doesnt get it! Or doesnt care to attempt to facilitate what I describe. But they should, it would make a whole lot more players happier with matchmaker, ELO system, the game in general IF that strong, strong difference in expectations wasnt smashed together.


As an aside, I am one of a small lot that fit some place in between. I am not really interested in leugue play, running the same mechs over and over to try to climb some leaderboard. I also however, don;t log on just to "**** off" and run around #yolo like some of the casual players. The game, currently, I play PUG 100%, because i run into enough players like myself that i enjoy the game. Now, if the two opposing forces here were split, I dunno. I might find myself gravitating to the "LFG" tool and dropping with random, but like minded players that have also lost that "balance" we have of mixed flavors in the pug section currently. In short, I play for me, without a care as to how I "rank" publicly, so long as I am satisfied with my own play. I do plenty well enough, even running pretty much non meta, non elited mechs all the time with my pokemech syndrome.


So, to everyone, consider the differing expectations of these two player groups in MWO and how that should affect our player segmentation before just clamouring for solo vs group vs CW vs solaris ETC.

[Kristov Kerensky]

cSand, on 26 June 2015 - 10:15 AM, said:

mm

Maybe cap it at 8 mans?


I dunno, TBH I play the group queue almost exclusively with 2-4 friends and we barely ever see 12 mans. 10 mans sometimes, a few more 8 mans (which are fine, you can beat an 8-10 man with a motley team).


I think the boogeyman is vastly overstated by some people cause they got rolled once or twice out of like 30 matches, so they get mad about that


late at night when fewer people are on though you get matched with the same people over and over.. and if that is a 12 man I guess maybe that could be frustrating.

Russ was clear, if they remove 12 mans from the group que, they drop it to 4 mans, nothing else, because the whining will not stop and he's not going to go through the 8 man and 6 man bs, straight to 4 and that's it. We've known the '12 mans are ruining my game' has been bs all along, the stats show exactly HOW much bs it really is, but do you think that will stop the whining?

[Lazor Sharp]

Ok, had this thought last night, if 9-12 man groups are only 2% or so of the drops in group que, than how is it that the 2-3 man groups getting rolled by 12 man groups create all bitching the we hear so much about on the forums.... it seams that the smaller groups are dropping against small to medium size groups most often, and are still getting roll stomped, so i cant see the 9 to 12 man premade's being a problem........

Where's RoadBeer and SandPit when you need them.....LOL.........

[Dolph Hoskins]

Just to throw a perspective out there.

I have to say that group queue is the least interesting queue to me. It might as well not even exist in my playing. If I am going to play in a group of any kind it is going to be for CW. If I don't feel like doing that then I go solo. It is always one or the other.

[Boris The Spider]

Kristov Kerensky, on 26 June 2015 - 10:20 AM, said:

Russ was clear, if they remove 12 mans from the group que, they drop it to 4 mans, nothing else, because the whining will not stop and he's not going to go through the 8 man and 6 man bs, straight to 4 and that's it. We've known the '12 mans are ruining my game' has been bs all along, the stats show exactly HOW much bs it really is, but do you think that will stop the whining?

I'm absolutely fine with that, provided they open CW up to include all game modes, cos I don't want to be forced into playing drop-ship mutator.

IMHO something will definitely give before Steam release, the question is, will PGI be able to find a compromise that suits everybody, or will one demographic end up being marginalised to ensure better Steam take up? And if someone is going to get it, my bet would be those of us in large groups because Steam isn't going to be bringing in a new batch of large/competitive units and die hard battletech fans, its going to be bringing in primarily solos, casuals and small groups. At the end of the day, it will be a financial decision made by PGI.

[cSand]

Kristov Kerensky, on 26 June 2015 - 10:20 AM, said:

Russ was clear, if they remove 12 mans from the group que, they drop it to 4 mans, nothing else, because the whining will not stop and he's not going to go through the 8 man and 6 man bs, straight to 4 and that's it. We've known the '12 mans are ruining my game' has been bs all along, the stats show exactly HOW much bs it really is, but do you think that will stop the whining?

I know man I hear ya.

It's funny though the guys who claim to be getting rolled by huge groups "all the time" and how the group queue is just a "pug stomping ground for tryhards"..... when you see the actual stats of how many large groups make up the queue - hardly any

I think a lot of times people mistake say, 8-10 Clan Wolf players on 1 side as being all in the big group, but most often that's not the case. Hell, I've had 12 FRR players on one side and it was composed of 4 different groups

But yea... the large group boogey man is a great scapegoat for just not playing very well

Edited by cSand, 26 June 2015 - 10:49 AM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Boris The Spider, on 26 June 2015 - 10:42 AM, said:

I'm absolutely fine with that, provided they open CW up to include all game modes, cos I don't want to be forced into playing drop-ship mutator.

IMHO something will definitely give before Steam release, the question is, will PGI be able to find a compromise that suits everybody, or will one demographic end up being marginalised to ensure better Steam take up? And if someone is going to get it, my bet would be those of us in large groups because Steam isn't going to be bringing in a new batch of large/competitive units and die hard battletech fans, its going to be bringing in primarily solos, casuals and small groups. At the end of the day, it will be a financial decision made by PGI.

If 12 mans gets removed from the group que, Russ already made the decision, the best interest of the game are in catering to the largest playerbase group, and that is NOT the groups, it's the solo players.

CW is getting changes coming the year, things to make it more desirable to play for the groups, especially the Loyalists. 12 mans will still be able to drop in CW and in private matches, so they aren't being cut out of the game, just removed from the non-CW ques because the majority of the players in those are not in groups to begin with, and the groups that do play, 12 mans are only 1% of them, so there's literally no reason at all to cater to them, it's not worthwhile when it just pisses off the rest of the playerbase, which regardless of which segment it is, massively outnumbers the 12 mans.

[Deathlike]

Wintersdark, on 26 June 2015 - 06:28 AM, said:

2) Solo play tends to be a lot more random, so it takes a LOT more matches to "distill" if you will YOUR contribution from the match as a whole. You could do well, but have a couple players be totally useless and die instantly. Then it doesn't matter how well you play, you're going to lose. This isn't nearly as much a problem in the group queue, where better communication and willingness to cooperate tend to reduce the frequency of these things happening.

That's not entirely accurate on how the group queue works.

Generally speaking, those players that properly work together "at the time" of the match tend to win their fair share of matches more often than not.

In many cases, matches in the group queue are less chaotic (due to slightly more teamwork), but tend to be more DECISIVE (lopsided matches) because you are punished far quicker when you're not on the same level of teamwork.


The thing about CW is that the mode itself (as boring or uninteresting that it currently is, let alone the level of participation) is generally why players flood towards the group queue.

As soon as you diminish the group queue option, now you're just going to cause more trouble indirectly... like the 4-man max premade rule.

Fact is, quite a number of people flocked back because of this reversal... although the result of the change didn't make that much of a difference since MWO still hadn't really evolved/changed in any meaningful way (we're back to square one - the one change didn't make a significant different ultimately).

Cutting off the nose despite the face due to CW being woefully uninteresting (and consequently pointless for the most part) would make any major changes to the group queue to be a wasted effort, if more galvanizing for those that wanted any sized premade groups.

If you want CW+the group queue to be better, PGI has to provide better tools to educate new players (and reward them properly) so that they will stick around longer. It's really that simple despite the significant work required to accomplish this.

[Aresye]

Alistair Winter, on 25 June 2015 - 10:39 PM, said:

93% of groups are 4 players or less! Less than 1% of players in the group queue are 10- or 12-man groups.

Let's face it, a lot of people have tried to introduce their friends to the game by teaming up in the group queue, and have failed miserably because matchmaker puts them up against 6-12 man groups of veterans in hyper pimped Clan mechs, roflstomping and tea-bagging them in less than 3 minutes every time. We should all acknowledge that the new player experience in the group queue is horrible.

If the majority of players are in groups of 4 or less, and only 1% encompasses 10 or 12 man groups, then shouldn't reintroducing friends to the game result in very rarely running into the larger groups?

If that's the case, it isn't the group sizes that are the problem, but rather the matchmaker.

[Boris The Spider]

Kristov Kerensky, on 26 June 2015 - 10:48 AM, said:

If 12 mans gets removed from the group que, Russ already made the decision, the best interest of the game are in catering to the largest playerbase group, and that is NOT the groups, it's the solo players.

CW is getting changes coming the year, things to make it more desirable to play for the groups, especially the Loyalists. 12 mans will still be able to drop in CW and in private matches, so they aren't being cut out of the game, just removed from the non-CW ques because the majority of the players in those are not in groups to begin with, and the groups that do play, 12 mans are only 1% of them, so there's literally no reason at all to cater to them, it's not worthwhile when it just pisses off the rest of the playerbase, which regardless of which segment it is, massively outnumbers the 12 mans.

Well if I can still drop in any size group I like, play assault, conquest and skirmish, what have I lost? Nothing. I don't think they can really do anything with CW with regards to a matchmaker, too many factors about the drop conditions are in the players hands already, so you couldn’t put group size restriction in there without allowing near 100% successful sync-dropping.

[Alistair Winter]

Aresye Kerensky, on 26 June 2015 - 10:54 AM, said:

If the majority of players are in groups of 4 or less, and only 1% encompasses 10 or 12 man groups, then shouldn't reintroducing friends to the game result in very rarely running into the larger groups?
If that's the case, it isn't the group sizes that are the problem, but rather the matchmaker.

Well, those numbers don't actually give us a lot of information. I haven't heard the actual streaming, so I don't know exactly how he phrased it. For example, I don't know if he's saying that 7% of all groups at any given moment are 5-12 man groups, while the 93% remaining groups are 2-4 man groups, or if he's saying that in the course of a week, 7% of the all the groups who participated were 5-12 man groups. What I mean is, there could be a small group of 10-12 man groups who are both playing a lot (e.g. 20 hours per week) and winning most matches in 3 minutes. And then there's a bigger group of small groups who play less, have longer matches against each other, but get roflstomped in 3 minutes every time they're fed to a 10-12 man group. A 12-man group might stomp three small-group teams in the time it takes two small-group teams to have a match.

So it's hard to get a good understanding of the situation merely by looking at those simple numbers. But if only 1% of the groups in group queue are 10 or 12 man teams, how often would you encounter a group like that? Once in every 50 matches? Maybe my math is off.

But if 10-12 man groups only participate in 1 of 50 matches, then how come I see them so often when I'm playing in the group queue?

[Deathlike]

Alistair Winter, on 26 June 2015 - 11:09 AM, said:

But if 10-12 man groups only participate in 1 of 50 matches, then how come I see them so often when I'm playing in the group queue?

That's an easy answer.

"The playerbase is large and diverse."

Last night, I was in the group queue, and played against CSJx in 3 matches (2 in a row IIRC) and lost all 3. To be fair, they were better than us.

It's as simple as the quote, if you understand the proper context (the playerbase is small, and thus you will get effed at some point depending on your Elo).

This is a longstanding issue that the MM cannot solve.

Edited by Deathlike, 26 June 2015 - 11:12 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

Deathlike, on 26 June 2015 - 11:11 AM, said:

That's an easy answer.
"The playerbase is large and diverse."
Last night, I was in the group queue, and played against CSJx in 3 matches (2 in a row IIRC) and lost all 3. To be fair, they were better than us.
It's as simple as the quote, if you understand the proper context (the playerbase is small, and thus you will get effed at some point depending on your Elo).

It's not "at some point", it's pretty much regardless of when I play and who I play with and what our group size is. Granted, it's been a few months since I dabbled in the group queue, but we encountered 12-man teams far more often than Russ' statistics would indicate. But then again, his statistics can be interpreted a number of different ways.

[Deathlike]

Alistair Winter, on 26 June 2015 - 11:13 AM, said:

It's not "at some point", it's pretty much regardless of when I play and who I play with and what our group size is. Granted, it's been a few months since I dabbled in the group queue, but we encountered 12-man teams far more often than Russ' statistics would indicate. But then again, his statistics can be interpreted a number of different ways.

Well then you know the proper retort to "the playerbase is large and diverse" is right?

Whenever PGI mentions stats, they put no proper context to it, so you can interpret any which want you want (even skew it to fit into your argument), and I never really trust PGI's telemetry keeping for that reason alone (what do those numbers mean is an important thing to consider).

I stopped trying to figure that out.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Boris The Spider, on 26 June 2015 - 10:56 AM, said:

Well if I can still drop in any size group I like, play assault, conquest and skirmish, what have I lost? Nothing. I don't think they can really do anything with CW with regards to a matchmaker, too many factors about the drop conditions are in the players hands already, so you couldn’t put group size restriction in there without allowing near 100% successful sync-dropping.

For the time being, you can drop in any group size you want in the group que, nothing is being done right now and Russ didn't say he WOULD make any changes, but IF he does, it'll be limited group que to 4 player max.


That's it, the numbers show that group play is a small percentage of the total playerbase, and of that small percentage, 12 mans are the smallest. 12 mans aren't facing 12 mans a lot because there's not enough of them, simple as that.

Alistair Winter, on 26 June 2015 - 11:09 AM, said:

Well, those numbers don't actually give us a lot of information. I haven't heard the actual streaming, so I don't know exactly how he phrased it. For example, I don't know if he's saying that 7% of all groups at any given moment are 5-12 man groups, while the 93% remaining groups are 2-4 man groups, or if he's saying that in the course of a week, 7% of the all the groups who participated were 5-12 man groups. What I mean is, there could be a small group of 10-12 man groups who are both playing a lot (e.g. 20 hours per week) and winning most matches in 3 minutes. And then there's a bigger group of small groups who play less, have longer matches against each other, but get roflstomped in 3 minutes every time they're fed to a 10-12 man group. A 12-man group might stomp three small-group teams in the time it takes two small-group teams to have a match.

So it's hard to get a good understanding of the situation merely by looking at those simple numbers. But if only 1% of the groups in group queue are 10 or 12 man teams, how often would you encounter a group like that? Once in every 50 matches? Maybe my math is off.

But if 10-12 man groups only participate in 1 of 50 matches, then how come I see them so often when I'm playing in the group queue?

If your Elo is high enough, then you'll be facing 12 mans more often, simple as that. If your Elo is low, you will rarely, if ever, see 12 mans. Simple as that, due to the fact that there's simply very few 12 mans dropping, MM is doing what it can with a limited resource pool, nothing more, nothing less.

Want to bring a friend into the game and drop with them in the group que, create a new account so you have a newb Elo like he does, that'll keep you away from the higher Elo groups, easy as that.