1142 replies to this topic

[Paul Inouye]

Please leave feedback here about Russ' command chair post:

http://mwomercs.com/...h-making-in-mwo

[Weaselball]

I'm all for the group queue being 4 man max. This will make the game much more enjoyable for smaller units and small pairs/trios of friends playing the game. The larger groups can continue to dominate CW just like they currently are.

Edited by Weaselball, 03 September 2015 - 01:56 PM.

[Suko]

I whole heartily support going back to 4 people groups. The game just worked so much better back then and I would love this to happen. Alternatively, offer 4, 8 and 12 as the group size limits and to hell with that <1% of the population that thinks this will ruin the universe.

[Evan20k]

Whenever I try and play with a group of 2-3 friends, we just pray we don't run into a 228/EMP 12-man stompball. Normally I like playing against better players than myself; it gives me room to improve and see what I did wrong but that isn't the case here. The power disparity of a 12 man unit versus scattered pugs isn't something that can be quantified and counterbalanced with tonnage offsets or anything of the sort. I'm all in favor of dropping the group queue to a cap of 4 to allow it to be playable for people who aren't in a 12-man murderball and have no interest in being part of one.

[Rofl]

4 Man only. I only have 3 friends on this bitter Earth and I want you all to be dragged down to my level.

Edited by Rofl, 03 September 2015 - 01:54 PM.

[PhoenixFire55]

Quote

Average Skill Diff between teams: 153 seconds.

Oooook ...

Quote

This currently has created the best feeling public matches in MWO we have ever had

BS.

Quality of the average match in solo queue is still p!ss poor. You still see one team with 2-3 guys doing all the work carrying 9 scrubs who barely know how to walk, while another team has 10-12 "average" players and proceeds to steamroll the former. Is that what you understand as a "quality balanced match"?

Quote

If on the other hand you are unsatisfied with the quality of the games, here is what we are going to do.

- Shift back to a maximum group size of 4 or less.
- Each group needs to be created in a 1/1/1/1 fashion.

90% of people I've started playing this game with about 3 years ago left the game forever because you did exactly that once before already. NOBODY wants to choose which friends they want to play with and which friends they'll have to pass on. And NOBODY wants to be told he can't play his favorite mech simply because your stupid MM can't balance a match. You do that again, your already low population will become non-existant.

Honestly however, I don't even know why I bother replying at all. You never read your own official forum anyway. Over the span of 2.5 years since the "phase.1" of matchmaker came out there have been hundreds of suggestions on how to make it work properly, all of which were totally ignored.

Edited by PhoenixFire55, 03 September 2015 - 01:54 PM.

[MuonNeutrino]

I think the 1/1/1/1 is more palatable than a *cap* of 4 on group size - people are probably going to be happier with 'you have to pick a different mech' than 'you can't play together at all'.

My own personal suggestion would be to enforce 1/1/1/1, and limit group sizes to either 2-3 or a *multiple* of 4. (Groups of 8 would be 2/2/2/2, 12s would be 3/3/3/3 as now.) This allows large groups to keep playing together, but still preserves some of the simplification in the 'matchmaker tetris' problem.

And, needless to say, I EXTREMELY STRONGLY AGREE that nothing should be changed for the solo queue. Solo matches are the best they've ever been, and I don't want to see that degraded (i.e. by removing game mode choice), especially since I'd bet any improvement would be marginal relative to the downsides.

EDIT: All that said, I would personally recommend making this a poll, just so that you avoid the 'squeaky wheel' effect.

Edited by MuonNeutrino, 03 September 2015 - 01:58 PM.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Different perspective.

Can we have an option to pug in group queue?

It could decrease wait times and make those gaps easier to fill.

[mrpetzold]

Some middleroad as Suko proposed is acceptable. Groups of 2, 3, 4, 8 and 12 allowed. To allow 8 and 12 will maybe even make LFG-function see some love again.
During the low-population hours a 5 minute wait is atleast acceptable for me. After 5 minutes maybe the hardchoiced modes should be made into a preference rather then a choice.

Regarding weightclass-restriction. A 1-1-1-1 might be a bit restrictive. Perhaps a 2-2-2-2 would work better (so in a 4 man you can run 2 assaults a heavy and a medium f.ex). With only one of each class the reason behind grouping up in the first place might be unnecassary since there is often big differences in the roles of the different weightclasses which lead to the group being unable to cooperate properly.

Edited by mrpetzold, 03 September 2015 - 02:02 PM.

[Jman5]

With regards to chassis limits, what about a dynamic limit.

• Group size 2-4: 1/1/1/1
  
• Group size 5-8: 2/2/2/2
  
• Group size 9-12: 3/3/3/3

This would help alleviate the mech mismatching.

Edited by Jman5, 03 September 2015 - 02:07 PM.

[Dracol]

I would support a 4-man max group size in group for 2 reasons:

1st - Return of Tuesday Night Scrambles! On the NA Comstar Teamspeak server, the Tuesday night scrambles were a long running event, open to all, that were enjoyed by a lot of folks. 4 man max groups would allow us to randomly snyc drop again like the good old days.

2nd - when this restriction was previously in place, we did not have CW as an option and large groups/units would have to break up. Since myself and 11 other CI pilots still have the option to drop together in CW, that prior gripe no longer applies.

Edited by Dracol, 03 September 2015 - 02:08 PM.

[SilentScreamer]

Jman5, on 03 September 2015 - 01:59 PM, said:

With regards to chassis limits, what about a dynamic limit.

• Group size 1-4: 1/1/1/1
  
• Group size 5-8: 2/2/2/2
  
• Group size 9-12: 3/3/3/3

This would help alleviate the mech mismatching.

I like this! Lets larger groups continue to play but should easy the matchers burden a bit.

True, it does nothing to help the issue of a 10 or 12 mech group stomping on the bunch of 3 mans. But I drop three times a week with groups of 3 to 6. It would really hurt to cut people from our group due to a size cap of 4. Drop limit to groups of 4 only if absolutely necessary!

If Community Warfare was more active I would prefer it over the current group queue.

* edit *

I suggest PGI hold another "Looking for Group Event" to try 1/1/1/1.

Edited by SilentScreamer, 03 September 2015 - 02:48 PM.

[GroovYChickeN]

PhoenixFire55, on 03 September 2015 - 01:52 PM, said:

BS.

Quality of the average match in solo queue is still p!ss poor. You still see one team with 2-3 guys doing all the work carrying 9 scrubs who barely know how to walk, while another team has 10-12 "average" players and proceeds to steamroll the former. Is that what you understand as a "quality balanced match"?

Sorry but no. I have had far more balanced matches after the PSR changes then when it was on the old ELO system. Most matches end up with an even spread of dmg and kills with only a few mechs standing on the winning team.

Solo queue is by far and away, much better than it was.

@Russ

I don't play group queue because I don't have any friends that play this game. IF I did I would be for limiting group size for better matches. Let private games be where the 12 v 12 happen. Then start running seasons for 12v12 teams to get their fix.

Also as some have suggested. Would allowing solos to opt-in to the group queue help this situation at all?

Edited by GroovYChickeN, 03 September 2015 - 02:07 PM.

[Dracol]

Jman5, on 03 September 2015 - 01:59 PM, said:

With regards to chassis limits, what about a dynamic limit.

• Group size 1-4: 1/1/1/1
  
• Group size 5-8: 2/2/2/2
  
• Group size 9-12: 3/3/3/3

This would help alleviate the mech mismatching.

You and others maybe reading into this incorrectly.

From the post:
"If on the other hand you are unsatisfied with the quality of the games, here is what we are going to do.

- Shift back to a maximum group size of 4 or less.
- Each group needs to be created in a 1/1/1/1 fashion."

There is no statement of intent to do either/or. It reads more like both are being implemented at the same time.

Edit: Jman, rereading your's I realize you probably did not misunderstand the post........ oops

Edited by Dracol, 03 September 2015 - 02:07 PM.

[vortmax]

MuonNeutrino, on 03 September 2015 - 01:55 PM, said:

I think the 1/1/1/1 is more palatable than a *cap* of 4 on group size - people are probably going to be happier with 'you have to pick a different mech' than 'you can't play together at all'.

My own personal suggestion would be to enforce 1/1/1/1, and limit group sizes to either 2-3 or a *multiple* of 4. (Groups of 8 would be 2/2/2/2, 12s would be 3/3/3/3 as now.) This allows large groups to keep playing together, but still preserves some of the simplification in the 'matchmaker tetris' problem.

Agreed. Then again, perhaps limiting groups to even size limits (2,4,6,8,10,12) could be incrementally introduced, since it seems odd sizes give the most issues. Might still have more than 3 of one class in a match, but it might ease the MM burden.

I am willing to give the group queue a week before I make a final judgement.

And yes, solo queue has been fantastic. Most matches are at most 12-7, with many being 12-9 or closer. Yes there were a few "rolls," but those are much lower than before PSR.

Edited by vortmax, 03 September 2015 - 02:06 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Lemme pug in group queue.

Aside from that, don't go to 4 man max. The only good thing about the group queue is that I can play with however many friends I have around. The 4 man max created a huge amount of dissatisfaction and would again.

[Ironwithin]

Quote

- Shift back to a maximum group size of 4 or less.
- Each group needs to be created in a 1/1/1/1 fashion.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

I definitely think solo queue is in great shape right now.

As for group queue, I think you pretty much don't have any options. Here are a few reasons why:

1 - Groups can consist of wildly different skill levels. For instance, I pretty much only do group queue with my dad. He's a decent enough pilot, and worlds better than most of the steering-wheel underhive, but he's not great by any stretch of the imagination. I feel bad some times dropping with him, since I keep dragging him into games with top-end groups, and more often than not he winds up dead with minimal contribution and not much fun.

2 - 4-man caps for group sizes are great in theory, but in practice will infuriate a lot of the dedicated player base. Personally, I think you should go for it, since Community Warfare exists as the no-restrictions large-group play area, but apparently a large number of players are dedicated to pug-stomping in the instant action group queue. I think you'd be financially shooting yourselves in the foot by limiting them to 4-man drops. Maybe if you weighted the MM to be more likely to put people who are on each others' friend lists into the same team?

3 - 1x4 or other subsets of the 3x4 weight class restriction are great in theory, but in practice will infuriate a lot of the dedicated player base, as well as many newer players. The advent of Champion Trial builds went a long way toward mollifying the new players in this regard by giving them pre-build options that require no investment and allow them to run any given weight class, but in a game where player choice is such a huge deal forcing someone to drive something that they don't want to seems like it won't pay off. Like (2) above, I'd be personally in favor of it, but I just don't think it'd be perceived well by many players.

Really, considering how many variables the MM has to juggle, I'm surprised by how short the waits are (relative to how long they could be) and how good the games are (relative to how stompy and one-sided they could be). In the event that you can't solve the 3 issues I listed above, better to leave the group queue where it is than to alienate paying customers by changing something controversial.

That said, whatever you do, do it well before the Steam launch. You don't want to be making radical changes to mm functionality after the Steam release.

[Vlad Ward]

......

I don't even know what to say to this.

I'm not a bittervet. Most of them call me a white knight. I don't hate anyone on the dev staff, and I don't hold a grudge over anything anyone did or said years ago. Those people can go on throwing rocks at each other on their island for all I care.

But are you freaking serious right now?

Group queue spends years as the red-headed stepchild of MWO, and when things finally get bad enough to garner some real attention, the answer is to either let them deal with huge skill imbalances or impose even stricter limits on group composition?

Yes. That will really solve the matchmaking problem in group queue. Now all the comp teams that run practices and scrims in group queue will ... not, I guess. Maybe they'll use private lobbies. Or maybe they'll just quit or suffer player hemorrhages until they merge into MercStar 2.0.

Screw solo queue. We have PSR to match top tier teams with top tier pugs, and the significantly larger population can handle the additional load.

Every queue discussion in GD since the PSR change has ended with an Opt-in/Opt-out merged queue compromise. How is this not even on the radar?

[PharmEcis]

Not a fan of group sizes being limited to 4 at all. Ever. This is a multiplayer game and I fully expect to be able to drop with my group. I will gladly take beating the snot out or being beaten by the rest for shorter search times vs going back to some archaic and stupid 4 man group limit.