1142 replies to this topic

[GI Journalist]

Lily from animove, on 04 September 2015 - 08:08 AM, said:

so hwo do you matchup
assault
assault
assault
recon
recon
recon

Or how would you you matchup:

assault
assault
assault
assault
fireline
recon

?

I match these up the same way the matchmaker does it now.

I don't.

Matchmaker does not create games with 6 Assaults, 2 Heavies, 1 Medium, and 3 Lights against 3 Assaults, 1 Heavy, 2 Mediums, and 6 Lights.

Matchmaker does not create games with 6 Assaults, 4 Heavies and 2 Mediums against 6 Assaults, 2 Heavies, 1 Medium and 3 Lights.

The current matchmaker avoids these pairings, and if that happens to be all that is available, then wait times go up. It would treat these groups no differently.

Call the lances what you want, but I think three options for pre-formed teams of four players: 3/1/0/0, 0/2/2/0, and 0/0/1/3 gives the players more variety for roles and tactics than pre-formed teams of 1/1/1/1 only.

This is a possible solution to the homework Russ gave us, to find ways of making the jigsaw puzzle simpler. There may be better solutions.

Edited by GI Journalist, 04 September 2015 - 09:19 AM.

[Kjudoon]

Chimperator, on 04 September 2015 - 04:03 AM, said:

CW isnt a solution at the current state !

Sure it is. It's just not the answer a lot of people want to hear.

• It's assault and TDM all rolled into one depending on the side you drop.
  
• it forces you into a single game mode just like so many 'pundits' here demand we do to the solo queue.
  
• Solos are dumped unceremoniously into the group queue to sink or swim.
  
• It has no matchmaker, so you can club all the seals you want, since they are escaping into the solo queue everywhere else. Tier 1 has nothing to stop it from getting matches with Tier 5.
  
• It gives you a giant fancy epeen board in the form of a map from which to brag.
  
• You get respawn so TDM can go on longer
  
• You can bring any sized group you want without worry of who can fight against whom. Just as you wanted.

Why are you scared of getting what you want to force on everyone else. The only way that this could be improved more for your desire is return to a Tukkayid style battle where all CW is taking place there, forcing all units into one battle. Of course this would render the downside of removing all need for the Epeen map. But I guess one minor sacrifice on the alter of dead baby seals can be made.

Edited by Kjudoon, 04 September 2015 - 09:23 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

Here are a couple screens from today's "best feeling public matches in MWO".





[Recated].

[Wintersdark]

Kjudoon, on 04 September 2015 - 09:21 AM, said:

Sure it is. It's just not the answer a lot of people want to hear.

• It's assault and TDM all rolled into one depending on the side you drop.
  
• it forces you into a single game mode just like so many 'pundits' here demand we do to the solo queue.
  
• Solos are dumped unceremoniously into the group queue to sink or swim.
  
• It has no matchmaker, so you can club all the seals you want, since they are escaping into the solo queue everywhere us. Tier 1 has nothing to stop it from getting matches with Tier 5.
  
• It gives you a giant fancy epeen board in the form of a map from which to brag.
  
• You get respawn so TDM can go on longer
  
• You can bring any sized group you want without worry of who can fight against whom. Just as you wanted.

Why are you scared of getting what you want to force on everyone else. The only way that this could be improved more for your desire is return to a Tukkayid style battle where all CW is taking place there, forcing all units into one battle. Of course this would render the downside of removing all need for the Epeen map. But I guess one minor sacrifice on the alter of dead baby seals can be made.

No, you misunderstand the problem with CW.

CW could absolutely be improved, and the overall map / gameplay needs work, but the matches themselves are largely fine.

It's not how the games work, it's that it's so damned hard to GET matches.

CW isn't a place for larger groups to get some games, because you need typically ~30 minutes waiting time per match. That's unacceptable for a hell of a lot of people, and it makes CW totally unusable for groups with players coming and going/who don't have multiple hours to play.

The group queue, with open group size restrictions, can at least get players into several times more matches over a given time frame, so a player who has, say, 1.5 hours can get a good few matches in that time, instead of perhaps just one that may be a ghost drop.

[SpiralFace]

Wintersdark, on 04 September 2015 - 09:08 AM, said:

Group composition limits may be required, but I'm strongly against 1/1/1/1. That's just awful, as it practically forces zero cohesion in your lance. I'd far rather see a "Group average tonnage requirement" preventing "extreme" lances, but allowing 4 mediums/4 lighter heavies. Think CW drop deck setup.

I strongly support this as well.

I wrote about it at great length earlier this year, but here is a copy paste of the meat of the argument with an example as to why I think this will improve things:

Client side force balancing.

What I support was Russ’ idea that they were looking into potential weight balancing at a 60 ton average in the group queue IN ADDITION to 3/3/3/3 group restrictions. (I cannot find the command chair post he elaborated this in.)

In the most basic sense what this would do would eliminate the entire section 2 of the order of operations on the matchmaker, reducing the requirements to find a match to nothing more than your hard coded “game mode,” and your ELO average. Streamlining the amount of individual components within the match maker and thus allowing groups of similar elo in the group queue to have a MUCH better chance of matching then they do under the current system.

(You can honestly stop right here if you don’t want a technical lecture on why this is a decent solution. Sorry this is going to be a long one.)

What this looks like.

WHY this works is tough to explain to those without a background in game design. (Which is why it’s tough to talk about on a stream.) So I wanted to showcase an example of a potential match with the following visual examples:



Matchmaking opinions.

In this image, we see 4 groups of players, all of comparable ELO scores, and taking mech selections that adhere to each of their individual groups’ 3/3/3/3 restrictions as currently seen in the game.

Under the current match making system, despite each of these groups being of comparable elo averages and thus making for ideal group / opponents, the match maker would nearly never consider them for play against each other because of the mechs they have decided to take.

With mis-matched 3/3/3/3 across the groups able to link up for combat, and “weight class matching” being a higher order of operation to ELO matching, to match maker, It is more important that the opposing forces are of comparable weight values then ELO values. Which means that as the lowest priority to the match maker, the elo will be the first release valve likely to trip and widen the search for match maker to find eligible groups to match with for your game. So despite these 4 groups being in the queue and looking for the same kind of game mode match, they will not be matched up by matchmaker specifically because their weight matching does not sync up with each other.

BUT!

If you were to have client side force balancing by having a group adhere to a minimum and maximum ton average AND 3/3/3/3 before you enter the match making queue, you could easily remove the element of weight balancing being made through the matchmaker itself. And as a result ONLY focus on game type and ELO. Allowing the queue to more reliably match more equally skilled opponents with each other.

So let’s look again at those previous 4 groups.

Group 1 and group 2 would no longer be seen as ineligible groups due to over saturation of their particular weight classes. Because both of their forces are balanced around a 60 ton average with restrictions, it allows them to be paired with each other.

Group 3 would be prevented from taking this “max class tonnage, minimum players” option (which is a valid option under the current system.) But once they comply with their 60 ton group average, they could easily be matched with Group 4 also looking for a match.

What this addresses

This kind of implementation streamlines the matchmaker to SPECIFICALLY address matches that are prevented from forming in queue due to matchmaker having to account for both team mech makeup AND ELO score.

I will admit, this will not prevent min-maxing within the restrictions, but then again, nothing will (is it really any better than 12 man’s taking maximum tonnage options in every weight slot?) With 3/3/3/3 still in place in addition to a 60 ton average, you still afford people the flexibility to do what they want within their current group set up without letting 12 mans build decks around nothing but storm crows and Timberwolves. While still being allowed to more easily compete against people of their similar ELO bracket. Which in group qeue I find to be more beneficial than worrying if every single mech class matches 1 for 1 on each side. (Especially when each side is balanced through weight averages.)

This should help alleviate (but not fully stop) the pug stomping by allowing higher elo players to more readily be able to match against one another rather than having the ridged restrictions of the matchmaker force in lower skilled players into the matches in order to adhere to weight class matching. (As now you will only be needing the correct gamemode, group size, and elo to form a match.) Improving how close you can get the elo's to sync up with one another.

While this has been floated as “scaling” 3/3/3/3 assignments based on group size as well (with 1/1/1/1 being a requirement of a 4 man group.) I’m personally opposed to this because I feel you end up being punished for synergy in a small group with this system, which only punishes you more when you go up against the 10 mans and the 12 mans that will be much more coordinated. Keeping 3/3/3/3 in the system allows smaller groups to heavily customize their smaller decks to work in tight coordination with one another, while larger groups would come under heavier restrictions through 3/3/3/3 + the 60 ton average as their group gets larger and be forced to diversify.

So the dreaded min maxing of Timberwolves and storm crows would only happen if you play as a singular lance, (which could be justified as being a natural offset to the effectiveness of larger groups.)

Which would give the smaller groups a negligible perk in them being able to break the “class matching” in the game due to it no longer being factored by match maker.

This would mean at worse case, a 12 man would be forced to follow 3/3/3/3 plus a 60 ton average, while their opponents could possibly drop in as 3 lances all with triple storm crow, single Timberwolf builds.

Which I personally feel as an acceptable variable given the amount of power that coordinated teams bring to the table by the simple fact that they are coordinated on the same TS.

Edited by SpiralFace, 04 September 2015 - 09:34 AM.

[Kjudoon]

TWIAFU, on 04 September 2015 - 04:51 AM, said:

Forgot the part where the Group Queue has to be changed based on opinions from people that do not play in group queue.

Instead of changing the GROUP queue based on SOLO players, why not force everyone that plays in group queue to be in a group?

Get ready for sync dropping fun!

Sync dropping with lances was the boogyman of yore because a group of 12 solos could not compete against 2-3 sync dropped lances. Not only was the advantage of group elo (of that era) a problem, but you then VOIP wasn't in the game.

Now sync dropping in the group queue will not be as bad because you still have VOIP, and even with group PSR averageing you still do not have as big a split as if you have say a 9man and a 3man versus six 2mans and the averaging error will not be as bad.

So... for the same reason that Sync Dropping is no longer a problem in the solo queue, it is not a problem in the group queue either to any major extent till more evidence is in.

[Richter Kerensky]

PhoenixFire55, on 04 September 2015 - 09:22 AM, said:

Here are a couple screens from today's "best feeling public matches in MWO".





[Redacted]

Uneven matches are a product of how this game works and not necessarily a function of the matchmaker failing. Every time you lose someone you lose firepower and an opportunity for that person to flank an opponent. If a group of 3 splits up from the rest of your unit and blunders into a larger group there's a good chance they'll all die without killing anyone. If your Assault lance is screwing around, or just pants-on-head, and brought LRMs and two medium lasers (for close range punch!) they'll probably contribute nothing and 12 v 9 is a pretty strong advantage.

[jay35]

Russ Bullock, on 03 September 2015 - 03:43 PM, said:

As you can see I am willing to try and keep the any group size thing around a while longer if we make a few other changes.

1) possibly allow solo's to opt in - so long as it doesn't pull to many solo queue should still perform well.

Good. As someone else suggested, restrict it by Tier or number of matches so only skilled players can do this.That alleviates the concern about siphoning too many from solo queue.

Quote

2) game mode selection likely needs to be random or the voting we once had. In other words all three available - this becomes even more important and would actually encourage us to add a 4th mode.

Giving up control of game mode for group queue is fine for now, however, whenever we have really diverse game modes one day with distinct roles and specific functions, we'll need a way to select an appropriate mech for the game mode we're being placed in.

So long as players have a way to bring a relevant mech to whatever mode is presented, we can improve matchmaking without sacrificing the quality of the gameplay dynamics unique to each game mode nor reducing the mechlab to a pointless endeavor if we were to have to start building to a least-common denominator that can half-way work in every mode rather than building mechs to a specific role or function unique to a particular game mode.

Quote

3) This one is your home work : reduce the jig saw pieces by allowing more restrictions in group creation - something better than the 3 of any weight class we have now - atm too many groups of 2, 3 and 4 ALL contain 3 heavies and so on. Go with 2 max until you slip into groups 9+?

While I can appreciate the issue we already have which is an overabundance of heavies and assaults, there are gameplay reasons why people gravitate toward those chassis. Address those through balance and incentives to play lighter chassis (use the carrot instead of the stick) and this will resolve itself naturally rather than through beating groups over the head with more restrictions.

Item #3 also becomes unnecessary, since we will have improved matchmaking significantly by your first and second changes, allowing skilled solo players to opt into the group queue and removing game mode selection which unifies everyone into a giant queue instead of several smaller ones.

Also, any sort of further restriction on what a player can play or bring in group queue is counterproductive to getting more people to play in group queue. 3/3/3/3 is enough of a restriction to deal with, tbh.

[Richter Kerensky]

Wintersdark, on 04 September 2015 - 09:25 AM, said:

No, you misunderstand the problem with CW.

CW could absolutely be improved, and the overall map / gameplay needs work, but the matches themselves are largely fine.

It's not how the games work, it's that it's so damned hard to GET matches.

CW isn't a place for larger groups to get some games, because you need typically ~30 minutes waiting time per match. That's unacceptable for a hell of a lot of people, and it makes CW totally unusable for groups with players coming and going/who don't have multiple hours to play.

The group queue, with open group size restrictions, can at least get players into several times more matches over a given time frame, so a player who has, say, 1.5 hours can get a good few matches in that time, instead of perhaps just one that may be a ghost drop.

The main problem with CW is that Emerald Taiga and Vitric Forge are among the worst maps ever conceived in a video game. The secondary problem with CW is that changes made to it to mollify people who lost too badly make the counter-attack mode a really boring mode where no one wants to leave spawn.

Edited by Richter Kerensky, 04 September 2015 - 09:37 AM.

[Felio]

I would rather play good matches with 1-3 friends than terrible ones with 1-11. Very few of us have that many friends online simultaneously, and even fewer have that many good friends we'd be upset about not playing with.

1/1/1/1 is a no-brainer. Do that, absolutely. If you allow groups of 5, allow 2/1/1/1 for that group. A group of six can have 2/2/1/1, and so on. Under no circumstances should you allow 2/2/2/0.

Why would a solo player opt into a worse quality match? You'd have to incentivize it with a C-bill bonus. And if it ever started to degrade the solo queue, you'd have to remove it outright.

[Big Tin Man]

Oh, and why CW style tonnage limits ALONE won't work well for groups. Raise your hand if you want to fight any of these combos that currently are not valid:

6 TBR + 6 SCR
12 Hellbringer/Thunderbolt/Dragon 1N
12 Arctic Cheetahs/Huggins/Firestarters
9 TBR + 3 Arctic Cheetahs/Huggins/Firestarters
8 TBR + 4 Shadowcats

Welcome to the new meta. All of these meet a average 65 ton cap.

[Felio]

Russ Bullock, on 03 September 2015 - 03:43 PM, said:

2) game mode selection likely needs to be random or the voting we once had. In other words all three available - this becomes even more important and would actually encourage us to add a 4th mode.

If you do this, please go with random instead of voting. I keep all the boxes checked even though I prefer conquest (match quality is everyone's responsibility!), and I almost never get to play conquest as it is. I loathe skirmish, and almost all matches are skirmish. I guess I'm in the minority, but at least right now I have the choice to avoid skirmish or play conquest. If you go to a voting system, I will not have that choice.

Edited by Felio, 04 September 2015 - 09:48 AM.

[Mark Brandhauber]

coming in late here.... haven't read all 20 pages, but I find it to be that the largest single team playing in a game normally wins, it's an unlikely event where a 12 man doesn't stomp it's opposition (I'm not saying it doesn't happen I've been in such games but they are few and far between).
I like the idea of limiting 4 mans in the group queue but could we not bring in some of that much anticipated role warfare here,
rather than make the lances simple 1/1/1/1 give them a role with a more thought out composition for example
Recon lance
2 lights 2 mediums. extra c-bills and xp for performing recon type tasks like spotting tagging scouting etc
Support lance
1 light 1 medium 1 heavy and 1 assault, extra c-bills and xp for performing support duties like kill assist hit and run saviour kill etc
Battle lance
2 heavy 2 medium, Extra c-bills and xp for performing frontline duties like brawling killing defending protecting and tanking.

Perhaps this system would increase diversity of mechs being taken or at least the loadouts of some mechs
These are the best i could come up with off the top of my head but there has to be other posibilities the would be similar.

I was a proponent for the any size group matchmaker but the length of time waiting for drops and hideous mismatches that frequently occur on the team queue i can be no longer
let 12s play in private and in cw but the team queue but to 4s, (and wait for the sync drops to begin again lol!)
I expect this comment to be shrouded by the full blown argument going on around it

Edited by Mark Brandhauber, 04 September 2015 - 10:01 AM.

[Lily from animove]

Richter Kerensky, on 04 September 2015 - 09:14 AM, said:

Making the largest group size 4 is going to make this game an unholy hassle to play for any unit or anyone with more than 3 friends.

and currently it shafts anyone with not many friends. So who to sacrifice?

PhoenixFire55, on 04 September 2015 - 09:22 AM, said:

Here are a couple screens from today's "best feeling public matches in MWO".





[Recated].

Whats wro with it? except the afk's nothing looks totally bad here both sides had quite good damages, and the side with the afk's a bit less.
And its only a selection, hwo about showing us ALL matches to truly show how MM makes also good matches?

GI Journalist, on 04 September 2015 - 09:18 AM, said:

I match these up the same way the matchmaker does it now.

I don't.

Matchmaker does not create games with 6 Assaults, 2 Heavies, 1 Medium, and 3 Lights against 3 Assaults, 1 Heavy, 2 Mediums, and 6 Lights.

Matchmaker does not create games with 6 Assaults, 4 Heavies and 2 Mediums against 6 Assaults, 2 Heavies, 1 Medium and 3 Lights.

The current matchmaker avoids these pairings, and if that happens to be all that is available, then wait times go up. It would treat these groups no differently.

Call the lances what you want, but I think three options for pre-formed teams of four players: 3/1/0/0, 0/2/2/0, and 0/0/1/3 gives the players more variety for roles and tactics than pre-formed teams of 1/1/1/1 only.

This is a possible solution to the homework Russ gave us, to find ways of making the jigsaw puzzle simpler. There may be better solutions.

the MM does crate some games when possible, we already had many unbalanced teamups exitsing.
So not dropping them is a great idea, you don't match them and your plqyers would first start to rant about not gettign matches, sop queuign up and no one would sooner or later play your game. GG you just can shut down the servers now. You just with your method broke the gam even more.

[1453 R]

Big Tin Man, on 04 September 2015 - 09:04 AM, said:

...
The sole idea of allowing solo's to opt into the group queue was to eliminate the 20+ minute waits for the unicorns that only want to play conquest only on the oceanic server at 9 am Sydney Time on a Wednesday.

Why should I have to give up good, solid, reasonably-timed matches in the solo queue because nine hipsters in France have decided that the majority of the game's content is UNACCEPTABLE(!!!)?

Why should I have to 'opt in' to the group queue as a solo to patch up a system that could be patched in easier ways that are significantly less impactful to the whole of the playerbase?

Why are those nine French hipsters and their fun more important than my own, eh?

Wintersdark, on 04 September 2015 - 09:08 AM, said:

*Stuff*

See, exactly. Despite my rather blatantly offensive example above (sorry, France), I'm of the opinion that regional server select should stay a hard lockout choice. Some people really do get lousy games on foreign servers, and if people can't choose to play only on the servers that make the game bearable for them, there was no reason to introduce the regional servers in the first place. So that's one thing that has to stay.

People want to play in any-sized group they like, and are extremely passionate about that choice. Okay, that's two things.

Sooo...there. You have your hard-locked options. Game modes become a soft preference system, not a hard stop, and you will have to coordinate things such that you have to use more than two of your hundred and thirty 'Mechs.

Fair?

Fair.

Good.

[Kjudoon]

Anavel Gato2, on 04 September 2015 - 06:53 AM, said:

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

-----------------------

It's a multiplayer game - that kind of idea is ridiculous!

If i have friends, i cannot play with only 3 of them.

That is what CW is for then.

[Richter Kerensky]

Lily from animove, on 04 September 2015 - 09:48 AM, said:

and currently it shafts anyone with not many friends. So who to sacrifice?

I dont really buy that since it currently forces solos into matches with other solos. This change seems arbitrary at best.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

HadleyHope, on 04 September 2015 - 05:21 AM, said:

Thinking about it surely there is also a sort of restricted option already to allow solo players in the group queue, which is looking for group?

Not exactly.

An opt-in for solo players would allow things that the LFG option does not- two in particular.

1: The matchmaker would be able to put a group of 8, a group of 3, and a single person together- or a group of 11 and a single person. This would enable even more combinations, allowing players more latitude in group size with less impact on their wait times per match.

2: The matchmaker would be able to pull individual pilots to fill out groups with the combination of 'mech weight classes it's looking for. It would mean borrowing underpiloted 'mech categories from the individual queue, so it wouldn't so much remove the 'never any lights' (or any other category-based) numerical imbalance from the group queue as dilute and spread any issue between the group and solo queues- but as long as that numerical imbalance is considered a problem, diluting the issue is better than leaving it be.


Personally, I don't really think the number of each weight class of 'mech per match should be considered an issue (given that part of the intent behind the way the game is right now was to have 'mechs of differing weight classes be of equivalent value.) It is treated as an issue, though, so this would help with reducing its per-match impact on the game.

[Tasker]

I made a comment previously about how this change seems designed to push groups toward playing Community Warfare, which currently has a life support population that's slowly dwindling to nothing. Well, okay, but hopefully they will address some of the big issues that have killed the CW population before this goes live.

Otherwise it simply sends the message to larger groups that they should, uh, I don't know what message it sends. Anyone?

Edited by Tasker, 04 September 2015 - 10:00 AM.

[Kjudoon]

Wintersdark, on 04 September 2015 - 09:25 AM, said:

No, you misunderstand the problem with CW.

CW could absolutely be improved, and the overall map / gameplay needs work, but the matches themselves are largely fine.

It's not how the games work, it's that it's so damned hard to GET matches.

CW isn't a place for larger groups to get some games, because you need typically ~30 minutes waiting time per match. That's unacceptable for a hell of a lot of people, and it makes CW totally unusable for groups with players coming and going/who don't have multiple hours to play.

The group queue, with open group size restrictions, can at least get players into several times more matches over a given time frame, so a player who has, say, 1.5 hours can get a good few matches in that time, instead of perhaps just one that may be a ghost drop.

Then you don't understand that every separate planet is a separate bucket. Get rid of the number of buckets, you consolodate and end the problem.

See the PQ is one bucket. Solo or Group. just one each. Right now how many battlefields are there in CW? 25? 40? I don't know cause I don't play it for so many reasons. When you had Tukkayid, did you have problems with matches? no, why? Everyone had to play it, just like the group queue. That solved any match problem.

Other ways to diminish the amount of players gambling about not able to find a match is to limit you to your faction only and eliminate the whole 'you can fight anywhere for nearly anyone' aspect of the game. No more Davion fighting to protect Steiner borders from Jade Falcon. No more Kurita fighting for Liao against Davion. That would limit, but not totally fix the issue just by reducing the battlefields of a faction to only 2-5. The problem is you still have player population issues in each faction, plus people who flat out don't enjoy getting roflstomped by T1 teams and so they won't take that battlefield going elsewhere where they are superior or at least equal.

That's why it's hard to get matches. You have what you desire in front of you. The problem is what you want decimates the available gamer population.