523 replies to this topic

[Kristov Kerensky]

R Razor, on 27 June 2015 - 04:29 PM, said:

You are absolutely right, getting rid of 12 mans (or any groups size) isn't the answer............making those groups fight against groups that are the same size would go a long way towards helping though.

As you can see by reading this thread, there are a few that don't want to see any change like that, they enjoy the fact that since they are a part of a larger group they can seal club with near impunity and they will fight tooth and nail to keep that advantage and damned what's best for the health of the game.

Apparently, to them, they are the better team because they are larger and play together, as if that in some way equates to skill..........the truth is, they win more because they play together more.........put them up against an equally sized team with the same skill level,and the same amount of time practicing together and watch them suddenly have to work for those kills and wins.......anything that takes away from their advantage is to be shunned.

Again with the bs seal clubbing, it's NOT the mentality of the players in groups, they are simply trying to play a TEAM game as a TEAM in the GROUP que where TEAMWORK should be the NORM, not the godsbedamned EXCEPTION!

Russ has stated, multiple times now, there is NO way to group 12s vs 12s with the current population base due to the fact that the 12s are less than a single percentage of the ENTIRE game's population and only 1% of the GROUP population.

And that is because so many of the larger units no longer EXIST and those that do just don't 12 mans much due to the wait times, getting put up against horrible competition and all the whining that takes place about the evil horrible seal clubbing 12 mans!

Mainhunter, on 27 June 2015 - 06:07 PM, said:

It would be a start, if 12 man teams had always to attack. I witnessed several times, when we, only puggers, had to attack in CW a10+ man team. Thats totally nonsense and ended, in the most cases, with spawn camping, after the first dead.

CW is not part of the discussion, there will be no changes to the group sizes in it.

R Razor, on 28 June 2015 - 07:17 AM, said:

I can only assume you're being willfully ignorant.........this isn't only about 12 man teams...........it's about coordinated large teams being matched against smaller groups of teams.....a group of 7-10 (or yes, the occasional 12) being matched against groups of 2-4 is what needs to end. Try and wrap your meager intellect around that or stop responding to my posts because you are obviously not capable or responding to the SUBJECT I am posting about.

And once again you make it clear, TEAMWORK by others is your problem! YOU can't be assed to play as a part of a team so it's not fair to make you face people who DO play as part of a team.

There won't be a 2-4/5-10/12 man break on the group que, it'll either remain as is OR be changed to 2-4 and that is IT. And guess what sparky, your lack of trying to play as a part of a team means you will STILL get your ass stomped by the players who DO play as part of a team. It won't change ONE bit from what we see now, only there won't BE larger groups to pin the blame on. The WHINING will continue, we've seen it before when we only HAD a 4 man limit on group size, the whining was just as bad if not worse.

You get stomped in the group que because you refuse to play as a team, that's it folks. 6 2 mans playing as a team will stomp a 12 man that plays as 12 individuals, SEEN IT, DONE IT! We have VOIP, there is NO excuse for not playing as a team when it's a collection of small groups, and yet you STILL vomit forth your excuses Razor! They are pure bs, you won't admit it but that's the reality and you KNOW IT!

Go play other PvP games that are team oriented, BF, Planetside 2, tell me exactly how well you do playing as an individual in those games. Tell me how they ONLY put the newbs against the newbs and the experienced against the experienced.

Oh, right, individual play in that gets you dead fast and that's it. And you don't GET segregated by experience in them, they put the newbs right next to and against the top players.

Oddly enough, those games do amazingly well, people love them, they love the teamwork and the fact that they have to actually TRY to be better in order to do well.

MWO, we have a huge part of the community that HATES to have to try to do well, they detest the concept of playing as part of a TEAM, and the constantly blame everyone and everything for their refusal to do these things and constantly demand that PGI redo the game to cater to them.

NPE sucks, and this has nothing to do with that. You want to show a friend the game, you create a new account and drop with them using that, your Elo will NOT drag the 2 of you into higher level groups. But that means you need to do something actively, and you can't be assed to do that. 'Give us PvE so we can train our friends' really means 'give us dumb AI to play so we don't have to deal with other players because we're tired of losing because we refuse to get better or play as part of a team'. AI doesn't teach you how to deal with real players, FACT. NPE needs to be improved, but that doesn't mean teaching them how to shoot at AI, it means giving them a TUTORIAL so they understand how the game works, what heat is, weapon types and ranges and ghost heat, armor, engines, IS vs Clan, they need to understand the MECHANICS of the game and that's all a tutorial can teach them. Playing against other human beings can't be taught using AI, it needs to be done by experience, FACT.

Too many years of too many successful PvP games have shown how to do this, and it's not what the solo playing majority wants, that always leads to failure, unless you really just want CoD in Mechs, in which case you're on the right track.

[R Razor]

No, I make it clear that teams should be BALANCED against each other................you and those like you are the ones crying and screaming about how unfair that would be.

I run in groups more often than not..........I still believe that an 8 man should have an 8 man on the other team..........I am not afraid of fighting against a team consisting of the same numbers of players in each group, why are you??

TWIAFU, on 28 June 2015 - 09:14 AM, said:

We get it, you only want uncoordinated and teamwork devoid people playing each other.

Isnt that the solo queue?

Well, since you only want coordinated team of 7-10 to play each other and the 2-4 are not allowed to play with or against them, who is going to fill out the remaining? A group of 2-5? But wait, 2-4 group cannot be matched against a 7-10.

Now what?




If only those smaller group had a way, in game, to coordinate. That would help them don't you think? Maybe if we could get a Faction wide chat in place, that way they could talk to the Faction and get more pilots and coordinate. Ok, maybe not. Maybe if we could get PGI to add a in-game VOIP function. That way all those uncoordinated smaller groups could communicate, in real time, with each other. That would really help them out a lot! Maybe we could even get some sort of LFG tool where someone could log in, hit the LFG and in no time be in a group and be able to coordinate.

Don't you think getting some of that in game would really help coordination?

Unless, of course, nerfing teamwork/coordination is just another excuse or boogeyman for just not wanting to put forth any effort into improving ones own gameplay.

Have yourself a great day sweetheart.

Yup, willfully ignorant, got it right the first time...............

Not capable of understanding that wanting to see equality in group sizes on each team doesn't mean that one is afraid of being beaten................as you said, have a great day sweetheart.

[Mystere]

R Razor, on 28 June 2015 - 10:00 AM, said:

I run in groups more often than not..........I still believe that an 8 man should have an 8 man on the other team..........I am not afraid of fighting against a team consisting of the same numbers of players in each group, why are you??

Which begs the question: Are you afraid of fighting against a team consisting of a larger group?

FYI, I only drop solo, always have, and I have eaten 12-mans in CW ... or have been eaten by them while trying.

Edited by Mystere, 28 June 2015 - 10:05 AM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

R Razor, on 28 June 2015 - 10:00 AM, said:

No, I make it clear that teams should be BALANCED against each other................you and those like you are the ones crying and screaming about how unfair that would be.

I run in groups more often than not..........I still believe that an 8 man should have an 8 man on the other team..........I am not afraid of fighting against a team consisting of the same numbers of players in each group, why are you??




Yup, willfully ignorant, got it right the first time...............

Not capable of understanding that wanting to see equality in group sizes on each team doesn't mean that one is afraid of being beaten................as you said, have a great day sweetheart.

So which part of the 'not enough of a population to make that happen' when it comes to matching group sizes are you not able to comprehend?

Small groups are NOT getting stomped by large groups, they simply do NOT exist in the numbers required, they are getting stomped by OTHER small groups who simply work as a team.

You drop in 8 mans yet you are off about seal clubbing constantly, which leads me and probably everyone else, to believe you simply don't play as a TEAM, therefore you keep getting stomped by smaller groups and blame the large groups for it because you refuse to acknowledge the reality. I get that, I have some friends I stopped dropping in group que with because they are exactly that way, they suck because they refuse to play as a team and get stomped and blame the 12 man for it, despite the OpFor being composed of nothing but 2 and 4 man groups who's faction tags and unit tags clearly show that. Lack of personal responsibility, I don't accept it in real life, I don't accept it in online games, suck it up and face what is and stop trying to blame the bogeyman.

[R Razor]

Mystere, on 28 June 2015 - 10:04 AM, said:

Which begs the question: Are you afraid of fighting against a team consisting of a larger group?

FYI, I only drop solo, always have, and I have eaten 12-mans in CW ... or have been eaten by them while trying.

No I'm not, but I've played the game for a couple of years and am not a new player that is going to get consistently stomped and give up on the game.............and that is what we need to fix because otherwise we will never have the player population to do anything but TDM in this game.

Of course there are some, like the poster above, that don't possess the cognitive ability to separate a desire to see the game grow from an inability to play..............just because I think a change to MM needs to be made does not mean I "get stomped" anymore than you do...........probably more the opposite if I were to hazard a guess.............but unlike a lot of people in this game, I don't measure my manhood by my ability to kill digital enemies. I want a fun and balanced game that GROWS, not the stagnant (or even declining) crap that we have now, and the best way to get that is to get more people to stick around when they start playing.

You can babble on about "personal responsibility" all you want, but this is a video game, not real life, the only thing that applies here is the fun quotient, and it isn't there for new folks.

[IraqiWalker]

Lazor Sharp, on 28 June 2015 - 08:37 AM, said:

once again, PvE with Co Op would solve this newb's and 2 man's stomped by coordinated group's problem.......and that cant happen soon enough....!!!!!!

No. That would solve literally zero problems. Those that suck and hide in PVE will still suck when they finally get out of PVE. Had a guy in League of Legends who played against the A.I. until he was level 15. Do you know how much work it took the rest of us to get him up to speed? We were wishing he would create a new account, so he can at least play against new players again, and not be counted as a level 15 player when he didn't qualify to be a level 3

PVE would be fun, but it really won't solve anything. We'll get players who think they're hot stuff, and they'll get creamed by regular players, and go back to PVE, and hide there, or quit. Instead of trying to improve. (For the record, I'm not against implementing PVE in the game. I'm just making a case for why it won't solve THIS problem)

R Razor, on 28 June 2015 - 10:21 AM, said:

No I'm not, but I've played the game for a couple of years and am not a new player that is going to get consistently stomped and give up on the game.............and that is what we need to fix because otherwise we will never have the player population to do anything but TDM in this game.

Of course there are some, like the poster above, that don't possess the cognitive ability to separate a desire to see the game grow from an inability to play..............just because I think a change to MM needs to be made does not mean I "get stomped" anymore than you do...........probably more the opposite if I were to hazard a guess.............but unlike a lot of people in this game, I don't measure my manhood by my ability to kill digital enemies. I want a fun and balanced game that GROWS, not the stagnant (or even declining) crap that we have now, and the best way to get that is to get more people to stick around when they start playing.

You can babble on about "personal responsibility" all you want, but this is a video game, not real life, the only thing that applies here is the fun quotient, and it isn't there for new folks.

The mistake you're making here is that you're trying to let morons get away with being morons. That won't help the game improve. That won't help the gaming experience improve, and it will make the solo queue an even worse place. If this is the kind of game you hope to create, we might as well set the servers on fire now.

I'm not asking that every pilot be mandated to 360 no scope people with a flamer DWF. Just that people have gotten to the point where they are so inept they need to be hand held into using the tools already provided to them.

Also, the cases you're making don't actually make any sense. If I end up in a group drop where my team is any possible combination of groups, facing against a 12 man. We have a solid chance of winning. Simply because it's expected that people will coordinate with comms, and use VOIP. If they don't, and complain about losing to an organized team, I don't listen to their complaint. I tell them the truth:

They were too dumb to coordinate, and that's why they lost.

Before you get on a moral tirade, understand this: A team that actually coordinates, and puts in the effort, will not complain about losing to a 12 man when the match is done. The only ones that do complain about it, are usually the ones that did all of diddly, and got massacred. I was on those comms channels, when we get rolled so hard, so quickly, that the match ends, and not a single one of us says anything for the next minute or two, as we queue up silently, every one of us knowing exactly why we lost: We hit a team that was coordinated, and we were acting like clowns.


If you have an 8 man, there is ALMOST no excuse for why the match isn't going to be fair. Even against a bigger group.

This is all of course, before discussing the negative impact of separating the queues.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The biggest problem in this game is the players.

Resolution Points:

Spoiler

These points should help with context of who I am.

1- I am not one of those "run meta, or don't play" pilots
2- I am not one of those "Groups are the only way to play" pilots
3- I am not one of those "All mechs should run stock" pilots
4- I am not one of those "All my teammates are morons" pilots
5- I am not one of those "Get on my level scrubs" pilots
6- I am not one of those "PGI is the bestest" pilots

[GeistHrafn]

Good points made here! Keep up the discussion, but please tone down on the insults. Don't want the thread to earn a ticket to the-place-that-shalt-not-be-named.

Carry on!

[R Razor]

IraqiWalker, on 28 June 2015 - 11:31 AM, said:

No. That would solve literally zero problems. Those that suck and hide in PVE will still suck when they finally get out of PVE. Had a guy in League of Legends who played against the A.I. until he was level 15. Do you know how much work it took the rest of us to get him up to speed? We were wishing he would create a new account, so he can at least play against new players again, and not be counted as a level 15 player when he didn't qualify to be a level 3

PVE would be fun, but it really won't solve anything. We'll get players who think they're hot stuff, and they'll get creamed by regular players, and go back to PVE, and hide there, or quit. Instead of trying to improve. (For the record, I'm not against implementing PVE in the game. I'm just making a case for why it won't solve THIS problem)


The mistake you're making here is that you're trying to let morons get away with being morons. That won't help the game improve. That won't help the gaming experience improve, and it will make the solo queue an even worse place. If this is the kind of game you hope to create, we might as well set the servers on fire now.

I'm not asking that every pilot be mandated to 360 no scope people with a flamer DWF. Just that people have gotten to the point where they are so inept they need to be hand held into using the tools already provided to them.

Also, the cases you're making don't actually make any sense. If I end up in a group drop where my team is any possible combination of groups, facing against a 12 man. We have a solid chance of winning. Simply because it's expected that people will coordinate with comms, and use VOIP. If they don't, and complain about losing to an organized team, I don't listen to their complaint. I tell them the truth:

They were too dumb to coordinate, and that's why they lost.

Before you get on a moral tirade, understand this: A team that actually coordinates, and puts in the effort, will not complain about losing to a 12 man when the match is done. The only ones that do complain about it, are usually the ones that did all of diddly, and got massacred. I was on those comms channels, when we get rolled so hard, so quickly, that the match ends, and not a single one of us says anything for the next minute or two, as we queue up silently, every one of us knowing exactly why we lost: We hit a team that was coordinated, and we were acting like clowns.


If you have an 8 man, there is ALMOST no excuse for why the match isn't going to be fair. Even against a bigger group.

This is all of course, before discussing the negative impact of separating the queues.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The biggest problem in this game is the players.

Resolution Points:

Spoiler

These points should help with context of who I am.

1- I am not one of those "run meta, or don't play" pilots
2- I am not one of those "Groups are the only way to play" pilots
3- I am not one of those "All mechs should run stock" pilots
4- I am not one of those "All my teammates are morons" pilots
5- I am not one of those "Get on my level scrubs" pilots
6- I am not one of those "PGI is the bestest" pilots

I agree with a good amount of what you're saying here but at the end of the day, even with VOIP, new players in smallish groups fighting against vets in larger groups isn't conducive to keeping new blood in the game..............balance the teams and the talent pool deepens because those "morons" as you call them will likely be more inclined to stick around and become vets themselves. As it stands now, too large a percentage of new players don't stick around because being stomped with regularity is not fun unless you're a masochist.

I'd also like to add that even if you're right, and the biggest problem with this game is the players, the lack of a new player experience (aside from some useless tutorials) contributes greatly to the issues new players have.

Edited by R Razor, 28 June 2015 - 12:07 PM.

[Gyrok]

Wintersdark, on 25 June 2015 - 11:22 PM, said:

No.

Karl said even at comparable skill levels, there was a dramatic, measurable increase in win rates with larger groups. To the point where he seriously was looking at applying a group size Elo modifier.

Because elo does not work

elo almost never goes down...it stays the same or goes up...PGI have even confirmed this.

Then, you have new players have been starting at what was considered "average" before this system. So new players have basically been at "average" skill level forever. So, we consider "average" skill to be someone who cannot drive a mech and shoot at the same time...they cannot keep from overheating...and they drive kitchen sink builds and shoot with MLs at people who are 700m away.

Seriously?

Everyone should start at zero. Like...seriously...start the whole damn thing over again and everyone starts at zero. If they are new they will come up slowly...if they are good...give it a week or 2 and they get there...

[DAYLEET]

On the other side, some group players(vocal minority?) always mention how you should, yourself, make a big group and when you propose to make en environment where only big group plays the answer is always NOOOOOOOOOOOOO NONONONONON NO! They know people will not organize just for them and they like it that way, they are in denial.


Last night in group i remember clearly facing big groups. Let me tell you, it can get frustrating real quick but we always take those match with"you lose 1 and you win the other" mentality so it's not so bad BUT IT IS a problem, matchmaker maybe i don't know. I check the screenshots i have taken, i know i skip some but i tend to keep all the dramatic one, my score has nothing to do with the screenshots btw. I can't seem to correlate the win with being in the 8man group, sometime they/we lose. Yes i was with and against 8man group but the result dont actually add up when it comes to stomp win. Where it does addup however is that those matches have a great disparity between the winner and loser, 12-1 12-0 and alsmot always end up in a stomp. When it's mixed up and smaller groups put together you have a better match than those with 8man win or lose.

I know some 8 man could be 10man or even 12 man with 2 or 4 add not in their clan but i can only count the same clan.

12-0 are not any fun, not more fun than 0-12 and something has to be done and if that means taking out the big groups then please do it. At least run the groups of 4max for a month and see what happens.

Edited by DAYLEET, 28 June 2015 - 12:45 PM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Dayleet, if you just look at FACTION tags and assume they are all in a group, you are making a mistake, you need to look at UNIT tags, because the large units who drop 12 mans all have the same faction and unit tag.

I drop group que with my friends in MWO who aren't in SRM, and almost every single one of them has a Clan Faction tag, while I always have an IS Faction tag, and I've had people ask how I got in the group que as a solo player. Like you, they have no idea how the group que works and assume that anyone with the same Faction tag must be together. Not true, and you can see people with the same Faction tag who aren't grouped together as well, some will have Unit tags, some won't, but that doesn't mean anything about who's in a group with whom.

If you are dropping in an 8 man group and you get stomped, that simply means the other team played as a team and you guys didn't, nothing more, nothing less, it does NOT indicate anything about the group size, only their ability to play as a team better than your side did. And 8 mans shouldn't be on the receiving end of a stomp ever, if you are, well, you guys obviously aren't playing as a team, because 2 full lances should at least be able to bloody the nose of a full 12 man coordinated unit.

We've had 4 man max size before, it was just as bad concerning the whines about stomps, maybe worse, seems I recall seeing far more threads about it than I do now. But if it comes down to that again, you'll see for yourself what the rest of us who were here for it before saw. It won't get any better, stomps will still happen left and right, for the same exact reason they did then, and do now..

People want to group up but they do NOT want to face an organized opponent and when they do, it's just not fair!

[Wintersdark]

Gyrok, on 28 June 2015 - 12:26 PM, said:

Because elo does not work

elo almost never goes down...it stays the same or goes up...PGI have even confirmed this.

Where? In the town hall, Russ said Elo doesn't go up much in the solo queue, but they've never said it doesn't go down.

I've personally experimented with this, a long time ago. I deliberately tanked my Light Elo by always dropping in a flamer-machine gun spider, and trying to brawl - basically, being totally worthless to my team. That was the ONLY light I played, from the introduction to Elo for a long time, and at the end of that my Elo was absolutely, incredibly lower than average. There was a very marked difference in players during and after the process; I documented it on the MWO G+ Community at the time.

Quote

Then, you have new players have been starting at what was considered "average" before this system. So new players have basically been at "average" skill level forever. So, we consider "average" skill to be someone who cannot drive a mech and shoot at the same time...they cannot keep from overheating...and they drive kitchen sink builds and shoot with MLs at people who are 700m away.

Seriously?

Everyone should start at zero. Like...seriously...start the whole damn thing over again and everyone starts at zero. If they are new they will come up slowly...if they are good...give it a week or 2 and they get there...

Gyrok, here's the thing. You're starting with wrong information, and a lack of knowledge about how Elo actually works, and thus drawing incorrect conclusions from it.

When you start in MWO, you start with two sets of Elo scores - your primary score and your cadet period score(which is a couple hundred points below the primary score). Both are tracked and modified appropriately, but the game uses your Cadet score until the end of your cadet period, ensuring your first matches are a little easier. I don't recall the exact values and have no interest in hunting them down, but both are very much below "average". The primary score (what you end up with after your cadet period) is higher, but still on the decidedly low end of average players.

As you're starting below average, the vast majority of players (that is, average and better players) are going to increase in Elo. The players who decrease are a small subset, and ones who regularly contribute to losses either through poor play or directly impeding teamwork - intentionally or otherwise. Most players increase in score, which is I'm sure where you got that bit from.

When one player gains score, other players lose score, so it's basically a zero sum game, but one where players start out at a below average rating and eventually get to a (typically) average rating. Players leave the game all the time (this being natural, no game has 100% retention) thus over time the average score drops for the same skill level resulting in ratings deflation. If we started at zero, then, rating deflation would become a severe issue.

As well, starting at zero would be exceptionally bad for new players, as they'd be surrounded by people demonstrating the worst possible play all the time. Not like what you've seen: You don't know how bad it can be. You can imagine by the stupid things you see people do in matches, but you'd be wrong. Very low Elo players are as rare as very high Elo players, but they exist, and you'd basically never see them.

---

With that said, the problem we have with Elo right now (and it's a difficult problem to wrestle with) is you need a LOT of matches to move in Elo rankings in the solo queue. The reasoning is simple, and everyone understands it; it's the problem with Elo in a team based environment with random teams, and ultimately scores tend to gravitate towards "average" for people who shouldn't be there because of the random nature of battles.

Every player is 1/12th of a battle, but still, a lot of matches happen where you're going to win (or lose) regardless of what you do, basically due to the luck of the draw.

You do influence matches, of course, and good players will rise and poor players fall, but this will happen very gradually and with constant pressure to return to average. It's different in the group queue, as the teams are non-random and as such Elo functions on the team as a single body. On the othre hand, Elo in the group queue may be tracked accurately but it's rather worthless as the pool of teams to draw from is too limited and constrained by other factors (match type select, weight classes, group sizes, etc).

So, solo queue Elo ratings tend to drift towards average, and thus primarily solo players have ratings from low-average to high-average, but rarely beyond that, and group queue Elo ratings are largely irrelevant thanks to limitations.

There's talk in implementing modifiers based on individual performance (see: recent town hall meeting) but this is complex territory. Elo is a well documented system with a great deal of data behind it (see the wikipedia entry here for more info: https://en.wikipedia...o_rating_system ) and fundamental changes while perhaps necessary are fraught with peril. We'll see how it goes, I suppose

[Wintersdark]

Kristov Kerensky, on 28 June 2015 - 01:19 PM, said:

Dayleet, if you just look at FACTION tags and assume they are all in a group, you are making a mistake, you need to look at UNIT tags, because the large units who drop 12 mans all have the same faction and unit tag.

I drop group que with my friends in MWO who aren't in SRM, and almost every single one of them has a Clan Faction tag, while I always have an IS Faction tag, and I've had people ask how I got in the group que as a solo player. Like you, they have no idea how the group que works and assume that anyone with the same Faction tag must be together. Not true, and you can see people with the same Faction tag who aren't grouped together as well, some will have Unit tags, some won't, but that doesn't mean anything about who's in a group with whom.

If you are dropping in an 8 man group and you get stomped, that simply means the other team played as a team and you guys didn't, nothing more, nothing less, it does NOT indicate anything about the group size, only their ability to play as a team better than your side did. And 8 mans shouldn't be on the receiving end of a stomp ever, if you are, well, you guys obviously aren't playing as a team, because 2 full lances should at least be able to bloody the nose of a full 12 man coordinated unit.

We've had 4 man max size before, it was just as bad concerning the whines about stomps, maybe worse, seems I recall seeing far more threads about it than I do now. But if it comes down to that again, you'll see for yourself what the rest of us who were here for it before saw. It won't get any better, stomps will still happen left and right, for the same exact reason they did then, and do now..

People want to group up but they do NOT want to face an organized opponent and when they do, it's just not fair!

Lately, I find myself liking more and more of your posts

There were indeed more whines about stomps before with 4man groups, because those 4man groups where in the same queue as the solo players. At least now, the people complaining are the small groups who chose to play in that arena, rather than the solo players of old who had no choice. I'm not justifying or condemning either groups' whining here, merely stating facts.

Group size usually impacts performance, but group size doesn't determine who wins. Given equal players, generally speaking an 8+4 team is going to beat a 4+4+4 team, but players are never equal, and if those 4+4+4 work together but the 8+4 don't, that goes out the window anyways. As well, just because you have an 8 man group, doesn't mean those 8 are working well together. I've certainly been in a lot of large groups that are collections of random people playing together but who aren't on voice comms, are all from different units, and aren't experienced playing together as a cohesive force.

The "like faction tag" thing is just ridiculous, it baffles me why anyone would even think that meant those people where together.

[3xnihilo]

If 93% of the group que is 2-4 man groups doesn't that mean that usually you are dropping against other 2-4 man groups? So if 100 teams are on only 1 is a 11-12 man. I mostly only drop solo, when I drop in groups I have had good experiences with 2-3 people in my group. I am not trying to say that my experience sets the standard for "normal" but it is possible to be mediocre (like me) drop with a couple friends and have a good time without being stomped repeatedly. Also, being stomped repeatedly is the way that solo que goes some nights as well. It seems like a more logical way to help new players would be to give them an exception to drop as a 2 man in solo que for their first x# of games. It just doesn't really seem fair to larger groups to say you can't play together in a game geared towards team play.

[DAYLEET]

Kristov Kerensky, on 28 June 2015 - 01:19 PM, said:

Dayleet, if you just look at FACTION tags and assume they are all in a group, you are making a mistake, you need to look at UNIT tags, because the large units who drop 12 mans all have the same faction and unit tag.

Which is exactly why i said clan and not faction so people would not get confused.

edit, maybe you mistaken clan for clanners?

Kristov Kerensky, on 28 June 2015 - 01:19 PM, said:

We've had 4 man max size before, it was just as bad concerning the whines about stomps, maybe worse, seems I recall seeing far more threads about it than I do now.

Because they were sync dropping. Another thing the match maker need to fix.


Do consider quoting people using the quote button if you don;t mind them replying.

Edited by DAYLEET, 28 June 2015 - 02:21 PM.

[MischiefSC]

The larger, better coordinated and more effective they are at inter-supporting each other the better any group will be. Significantly. A coordinated 12man who plays together a lot with a power level of 9000 per player can, does and should curb stomp 3 sets of 4 players with a power level of 9000 per player.

This is the fundamental basis of superior military training as an example and information sharing tools, in addition to universal training regimens and cross-unit training exercises. Get 12 people who play together regularly and are coordinated together and they'll kick the **** out of a comparable group of 3x4. It works in a lot of ways for the same reason civilization works. Bigger and better coordinated groups have an advantage over smaller, less coordinated groups in a bunch.

I don't have a good answer. The reality is that rolling in a good 12man gives you a big advantage and it's an advantage that takes a lot of work to use but that I have no doubt people really enjoy having. Telling someone that they have to play with limitations so they're on a more balanced field with others is never going to fly, not where out-of-game skills like interpersonal communication and coordination are concerned.

The solution to this is going to piss off some people. That's inevitable. Just a matter of how and how much in addition to who.

[TWIAFU]

R Razor, on 28 June 2015 - 10:00 AM, said:

[Redacted]

And yet, you STILL will not answer questions posed to you. Why not?

Why will you not tell us how you plan to fill your 7-10 man if you do not want 2-4 size groups to fight them? Where do the 2-5 players come from to fill it if you do not want them playing/fighting against a 7-10 man?

There is this HUGE hole in your "idea" that contradicts itself. You have not even thought up to the next step.

[Redacted]

Edited by Rhazien, 28 June 2015 - 02:25 PM.
Nonconstructive

[DAYLEET]

Wintersdark, on 28 June 2015 - 01:27 PM, said:

The "like faction tag" thing is just ridiculous, it baffles me why anyone would even think that meant those people where together.

It's made up, a lie, another thing false that gets "quoted" to strengthen ones opinion.

[R Razor]

TWIAFU, on 28 June 2015 - 02:08 PM, said:

And yet, you STILL will not answer questions posed to you. Why not?

Why will you not tell us how you plan to fill your 7-10 man if you do not want 2-4 size groups to fight them? Where do the 2-5 players come from to fill it if you do not want them playing/fighting against a 7-10 man?

There is this HUGE hole in your "idea" that contradicts itself. You have not even thought up to the next step.

[Redacted]

[Redacted]

What part of same size groups on each team is it that you can't understand??

[Redacted]

What questions do I need to answer that haven't been made perfectly clear??

My stance is that the game needs a match maker change to keep new folks from quitting before giving it a real chance.........your stance is to make ignorant arguments, asinine statements that have NOTHING to do with the topic at hand, and hope that you get some strap hangers to pat you on the back.
[Redacted]

Edited by Rhazien, 28 June 2015 - 02:38 PM.
Nonconstructive

[Gyrok]

Wintersdark, on 28 June 2015 - 01:21 PM, said:

Where? In the town hall, Russ said Elo doesn't go up much in the solo queue, but they've never said it doesn't go down.

I've personally experimented with this, a long time ago. I deliberately tanked my Light Elo by always dropping in a flamer-machine gun spider, and trying to brawl - basically, being totally worthless to my team. That was the ONLY light I played, from the introduction to Elo for a long time, and at the end of that my Elo was absolutely, incredibly lower than average. There was a very marked difference in players during and after the process; I documented it on the MWO G+ Community at the time.

Gyrok, here's the thing. You're starting with wrong information, and a lack of knowledge about how Elo actually works, and thus drawing incorrect conclusions from it.

When you start in MWO, you start with two sets of Elo scores - your primary score and your cadet period score(which is a couple hundred points below the primary score). Both are tracked and modified appropriately, but the game uses your Cadet score until the end of your cadet period, ensuring your first matches are a little easier. I don't recall the exact values and have no interest in hunting them down, but both are very much below "average". The primary score (what you end up with after your cadet period) is higher, but still on the decidedly low end of average players.

As you're starting below average, the vast majority of players (that is, average and better players) are going to increase in Elo. The players who decrease are a small subset, and ones who regularly contribute to losses either through poor play or directly impeding teamwork - intentionally or otherwise. Most players increase in score, which is I'm sure where you got that bit from.

When one player gains score, other players lose score, so it's basically a zero sum game, but one where players start out at a below average rating and eventually get to a (typically) average rating. Players leave the game all the time (this being natural, no game has 100% retention) thus over time the average score drops for the same skill level resulting in ratings deflation. If we started at zero, then, rating deflation would become a severe issue.

As well, starting at zero would be exceptionally bad for new players, as they'd be surrounded by people demonstrating the worst possible play all the time. Not like what you've seen: You don't know how bad it can be. You can imagine by the stupid things you see people do in matches, but you'd be wrong. Very low Elo players are as rare as very high Elo players, but they exist, and you'd basically never see them.

---

With that said, the problem we have with Elo right now (and it's a difficult problem to wrestle with) is you need a LOT of matches to move in Elo rankings in the solo queue. The reasoning is simple, and everyone understands it; it's the problem with Elo in a team based environment with random teams, and ultimately scores tend to gravitate towards "average" for people who shouldn't be there because of the random nature of battles.

Every player is 1/12th of a battle, but still, a lot of matches happen where you're going to win (or lose) regardless of what you do, basically due to the luck of the draw.

You do influence matches, of course, and good players will rise and poor players fall, but this will happen very gradually and with constant pressure to return to average. It's different in the group queue, as the teams are non-random and as such Elo functions on the team as a single body. On the othre hand, Elo in the group queue may be tracked accurately but it's rather worthless as the pool of teams to draw from is too limited and constrained by other factors (match type select, weight classes, group sizes, etc).

So, solo queue Elo ratings tend to drift towards average, and thus primarily solo players have ratings from low-average to high-average, but rarely beyond that, and group queue Elo ratings are largely irrelevant thanks to limitations.

There's talk in implementing modifiers based on individual performance (see: recent town hall meeting) but this is complex territory. Elo is a well documented system with a great deal of data behind it (see the wikipedia entry here for more info: https://en.wikipedia...o_rating_system ) and fundamental changes while perhaps necessary are fraught with peril. We'll see how it goes, I suppose

Actually, I am perfectly aware of how elo works.

Here is the flaw.

Elo is not based entirely on W/L...it is like the chess matching system. It scores based on W/L based off predicted outcome.

Solo queue does not move much unless you have the ability to dramatically impact your team because elo requires you to lose when you are predicted to win in order to decrease your rank. That, or you must win when predicted to lose to increase your rank.

Considering that typically pugs in group queue are nowhere near predicted to win, and if they are, they are carried by a 6-8 man group that would roll with or without them.

So...essentially what happens is...elo rarely ever drops.

As for you tanking your light mech elo...? Sure, it could be done...if you could manage to somehow consciously screw over your team and foil their odds of winning when they were predicted to win against the other team...yes you could tank your elo. That, or just be a jack off enough times and lose enough times that eventually the stars line up often enough to tank your elo.

So, essentially PGI acknowledged in a post by a developer in a thread on these forums that they realize elo is broken. It was somewhere in response to a question about seperating elo, or elo function, something like that.

Edited by Gyrok, 28 June 2015 - 02:36 PM.