1142 replies to this topic

[Tarl Cabot]

PFC Carsten, on 16 September 2015 - 02:01 PM, said:

Feedback: Matchmaking is getting worse and worse since that PSR moniker has been announced. Rather rule than exception are 12-3/2/1/0 results and vice versa.

This is not fun.

Because it is setup similar to the CW. The larger the unit the quicker the drop, there is no getting in line until a full 12 co-opt is in place, and it does not even have a PSR/mech balance in place. Different parameters should be put in place to allow a large unit drop against another large unit, be it 12 vs 10+2 or 9+3 or 8+4/2+2 instead of making it first come, first served.

And the above is why, if a unit or co-op wants to fill up to 12-max, it allows them to drop quicker, to be seeded first, then the other side starts filling up with whats available within its ever widening search pattern. I do not remember how the previous Elo/current PSR does it, but the larger the unit selecting combat, their average PSR should have a positive multiplier or additive (a force multiplier) to push their PSR to a higher tier. If it is already there, it should be increased.

[Chimperator]

And... u guys still don't noticed that PGI dosen't care about this thread or your ideas and feedback... so disappointing...

Edited by Chimperator, 17 September 2015 - 09:27 AM.

[Cerberus Rex]

All i can say is, that your only goal is FRUSTATION so your "sincerly Mechwarriors" will just send you real cash to avoid the grind for mechs, weapons and everything else in this game where you either need credits or xp-points. Even WG or Gajin who are running the same ripp off of costumer system are lighter on this side then you *************. All your explainations are crap and pure lying. Go paint some mechpictures to milk your die hard Mechwarrior Lore Nerd - this is the only skill you have as a dev. Since 3 Years you systematicly lie and fool your players for maximum profit for the least amount of own work. The only "improvement" your Matchmaker got in the last years is, that you dont regulary drop against a fully premade, 12 people with Teamspeak teams. I would love to read the feedbacks from the players you got when this ripp off system was running. Turn this game into a real game and not a counterstrike where you can buy wallhacks cause its not cheating anymore cause the devs selling them so average noskill joe can have his "victory" when he meets another average noskill joe who didnt spent money for this game. Whats the point of playing when you need almost ONE YEAR of grinding to get ONE Assault Mech fully upgraded when you play the "free 2 play" way?!? Only psychopatic soziopaths will invide, promote and defend such a system. Or dumb cashcows and 10 year old childs.

Edited by Cerberus Rex, 18 September 2015 - 01:17 AM.

[eFTy]

I like the idea of limiting group sizes to 2, 3, 4, 8 and 12.

I'm also ok with limiting mech choices to 1/1/1/1 for groups of 4, 8 or 12 pilots.

An option to solo in the group queue would also be nice, with a warning upon checking that expectations are higher and competition more fierce.

But DO NOT enforce 1/1/1/1 on groups of 2 or 3 mechs. It makes bringing a friend into the game much more difficult, as you can't really run a similar mech along with them and showing how it's done. I think being able to run two lights around the maps, showing vantage points and likely approach locations is very important when bringing a new player into MWO.

Not to mention for two seasoned players not being allowed to roll in a pair of similar mechs down a flank is pretty lame and takes away much needed enjoyment from the game. Forcing one into a different weight class imposes limitations and hinders their effectiveness, and the rest of the team will end up hating them.

Also, when population is low, throwing groups of 2 or 3 in solo queue wouldn't really hurt, IMO.

[Vectoron The Black Minister]

As leader of a mercenary corporation myself I firmly believe that the public que system should go to a four man team followed by a 1 by 4 weight class system.

In all honesty if units have enough players to field 5 + pilots they should be going to community warfare at that point which does not have restrictions on it as far as how many pilots you can bring.

When we have the pilots online to field five plus, we immediately do a brief warm up game in open games public if you will and then hit CW. I think we can do without the warm up and jump to the main course.

Besides if that is the case that will balance tonnage dramatically at all times. You will have three lights, 3 mediums, three heavies, & 3 assaults. No one will be able to complain about unfair tonnages and you end up getting a much better game.

Aside from that, we feel that we are not able to appropriately test our skills when we are entering a match that is so lopsided in tonnage. We want progression in our skills and to be able to test them at all times appropriately. Which is why we believe in quality over wait time.

Edited by Vectoron, 18 September 2015 - 03:07 PM.

[Mordynak]

Limiting groups to 4 people again would be awful...

I'm not part of a clan or anything, but we often play with more than 4. We are by no means overly coordinated or whatever. Limiting the group size to 4 would probably just stop a lot of us from playing at all. Which would be a shame. Most of us enjoy the game a lot and have put money into it.


Also... I don't want to be forced to play CW. Its horrible. Its the least fun thing about MWO.

I've played with clans on TS before who drop in 12 man groups. In CW, all they do is find the exploits and act like arse holes to other players who aren't necessarily in groups.

[Kirtanus]

My feedback for MM how i feel it after PSR invented:
1) Solo matches became much better balance. Now i want to have everyone's PSR showed in public
2) Group matches haven't changed and still balanced very badly. I think need to restrict group sizes into (4/8/12) or maybe (2/4/6/8/12) to make MM life more easy.

[grayson marik]

Dear Russ,

I think this would be the salvation to all your MM / Balance Problems and would also render Ghost Heat and 1.4 DHS obsolete:

http://mwomercs.com/...actually-works/

Also it would further promote match quality and reduce wait times.

[Jon Gotham]

Apnu, on 14 September 2015 - 07:54 AM, said:

This notion that CW is the exclusive realm of teams has to stop. It divides the community and causes a lot of friction with the players.

The only thing that divides the community is one section of the playerbase refusing to play ball, or to even acknowledge the ball exists.

[Ascheriit Davion]

Just a few suggestions/feedback. Sorry if some are similar to someone else post. Reading +40 pages of forum takes time and remembering each and every single post...well my memory capacity isn't that good....

MM feed back:
- I still experiencing lotsa, like PFC Carsten said: "12-3/2/1/0 results and vice versa.

- More shuffling for low population server and or when its not peak hours please. For example in Oceanic server I've been put against a group of ace players like 4-5 times in a row. I mean I noticed by the few names that keep appearing at the same time. I'm not asking to be put in the same team as the ace group but at least shuffle me elsewhere. I played +15 matches yesterday where I met that ace group 4-5 times in a row, then I got mixed somewhere else 1-2 times than back with those players again 4-5 matches. Not fun to be honest.

As for grouping: (maybe somebody mentioned this already)
- Why not put two priorities. One priority for group queue and the other for pure PUG. Fighting a premade group always a disadvantage for pug players (unless by some rare chance that pug group have a good coordinate or the premade group is made of newbie players....rarely happen....almost never in fact....). And premade group hates PUG players by default, we're the weak link of a team. And as PUG our worst fear is getting a match with a premade group.

- Having said that above, why also not use PUG as a penalty for some premade group and for the PUG individual it self. Let say if a group or multiple groups consisted 8 or more players already queues in a team set by the MM system, prioritize the remaining empty space to be filled by PUG players and not just random PUG for example let say a premade of a group or groups consisted of 8 players already formed in one side and the opponent already have a premade group consisted of 10 players, a 8 players premade group will be assigned PUG member with higher rating where a 10 players premade group will be assigned with lower ratings one (within acceptable tier range of course). And this way the space can be filled more quickly and group can enter match faster. As for the PUG assigned to fill that empty slot, its a good chance to learn how to fight in team better (at least to those player who care at getting better (I have another suggestion regarding this matter below).

- And lastly, I dunno if this a good suggestion or not, I'm just looking from the positive side, for player who're queuing as a PUG why not put an opt-in in the setting where a player can choose whether to reveal themself as a PUG or not. IF they choose in the opt-in to reveal them self as PUG, other players in the team will see a PUG icon, and that PUG player has the ability to see the grouping composition of their team (indicated by names with different group coloring).
The advantage for the premade group:
-They now know the weak link among their premade group
-They can adjust their tactic to incorporate that PUG player (giving him/her a set of instruction) or to ignore that PUG
The advantage for PUG:
-By revealing themself as PUG, he/she subjected themselves to receive order or instruction from bigger premade group in their team (if any)
-The ability to see team composition or premade group of the team, a PUG will know if the one giving instruction is part of a premade group (and not just some random trolling from troll players) and decide whether he/she wants be on the side of bigger (or smaller) premade group of the team (in term of coordinating of course)
The reason of this suggestion is because I'm PUG player for like 99.99% of the time I play MWO, and I'm want to be involved in some coordination with some premade group in my team. Why PUG, well unfortunately for me I'm a casual player since I don't have lotsa time to play, and I have less friend who're interested in MWO. Though I have few that're currently playing MWO, we live in different city (or country) and therefore have a difficult time to coordinate time to play together (near impossible). And due to my limited play time, I rather play as many matches as possible and therefore queue as solo rather than looking for a group then queue. I believe there are many players who're in the same boat as I am, And I think PUG like us (who wanted some coordination) are a good asset to have (better than some random rambo who decided to go solo in a match and die fast.

Well some of my idea

[Gremlich Johns]

teams should configure themselves based on total weight, not 1/1/1/1 or other crap ideas. If you've ever played a BT or NBT-planetary league match, you pick your drop decs based on the total weight that you get for a given drop, that way you get a mix of mechs and capabilities. A lance with one of each class mech is NOT a lance of any sort - certainly not a Star.

4 guys should get 200 to 350 tons to play with - for example you get 250 tons that could be 4x60 tonners with an extra 10 tons to use where you want, or 1 assault, two heavies and a light (a scout for example, but PGI is having none of that Role Warfare stuff)
8 guys = 500-650 tons - figure it out

OR set a cap for a match at 200, 250 or 300 for four guys and pick the best mix.

Don't like the idea, then you are looking to play something else other than a mechwarrior/battletech game.

[Wintersdark]

Russ already said they were going to do that for the group queue. Min/Max tonnage per team, with smaller teams having a tonnage advantage.

Edited by Wintersdark, 20 September 2015 - 03:52 PM.

[Goose]

Sooooo where's the bonus to play the mode you dislike? What's gon'a make it worth the time?

[Ranger Dave]

Merge group and solo into a single pug queue.
Match make more strongly to PSR.
Artificially weight groups with a slight PSR multiplier based on group size.
Weight Categories - Groups 2-4: 2/2/2/2, 5-12 3/3/3/3

Add official 4v4, 8v8, 12v12 leagues.

CW: wait and see how the next version goes


Result:
Faster matchmaking
Better skill level match ups making for better matches.
Can use groups to help teach newer players without being massacred makes for better learning environment - higher retention of new players.
Top level players get a forum to do their thing and gives others an incentive to reach that level

[grayson marik]

grayson marik, on 15 September 2015 - 10:24 PM, said:

Dear PGI, fellow players,

during the last month's years we have seen multiple approaches to balance weapons, mechs and equipment to each other and then balance CLAN vs IS.
The newest iteration is currently running on PTS.

Many of you and also some of PGI staff have noted multiple times, that a real balance can never be achieved and that it will be an ongoing process with ever ongoing changes.

Now, let's put this number crunching to an end and finally balance the game with an auto scaling, self controlling system, that gives the player just one value to play with: Mech Battle Value.

Big words you say? Here is how it works:

Every Chassis, Weapon, Equipment, Module, Consumeable gets assigned a base BV value.
So the BV of a Mech is the sum of all those values.

Now here comes the candy:

All those values change dynamicly based on how often and how successful a wepon, chassis or any other equipment is used. PGI already collects all these data so there is no barrier to use it.

If something is used because its OP, the BV for it will rise. If something i.e. Urban Mech, Highlander, Awesome, Centurion, Single Heatsinks etc. is not used often, BV values would fall for this equipment. ( Even the skill tree and player rating system could be part of this system, as a very good player would also have a BV he adds to his Mech and thus would be challenged to use even more bad equipment in order to keep BV limits )

Now, if we go to matchmaking, we simply replace the weight based 3/3/3/3 for groups with a simple BV limit to keep. Or a BV limit for CW Dropdecks.

If you now want to field a very good Mech with a high BV, you will have to use some junk Mechs also in order to keep the limit.

The system would control and scale itself and PGI would be able to control it by the parameters:
Base BV, rate of BV rising and rate of BV falling.


Even the BV limit for matchmaking could be calculated dynamicly. MWO would simply calculate the "Average Joe BV" of all mech currently owned by players and would mutiply this with the number of mechs nedded. 4* Average Joe BV in CW and 12 * Average Joe BV in public queue.


What changes for the player?

• The Mechlab skill changes from " How to stuff as much current Meta Wepons into my Meta Chassis " to " How to build an efficient Mech, with as low BV value as possible"
  
• "Junk" Mechs and equipment would be used not only in beginners Matches but also in more competitive fields like CW
  
• With the more mixed equipment used, complete new tactics and roles would evolve and would bring more depth to the game
  
• beginners would not face the uber Meta Mechs all the time

What changes for PGI?

• The system is self scaling
  
• The system is dynamic
  
• The system provides balance without punishing Meta Configs at all
  
• Role warfare (or whatever other goals PGI has) can be promoted by PGI by changing base BV, rise and fall values for certein equipments

Approach used:






This system does not try to balance everything to each other it does NOT nerv any weapon or META config.It does not nerv CLANS. It does not limit players choice in Mechlab.
It only gives high META equipment a price in relation to not used equipment and finally ends the arms race wich happens after every balance pass. It consequently follows the high demand = high price, low demand = low price paradigm of economy.

And the very best of it all:
We could kick Ghost Heat, DHS with 1.4 and 2.0 values and set all weapons back to TT values the dynamic BV will balance all this stuff automaticly.


Where i got my inspiration from:
A similar system runs the economy on innerspherewars.eu.
For almost 8 month's now we use it to balance the troops you can buy/ build in the league by such a system and you know what?
Since the system started and the numbers regulated themselves from start values after the first 4 weeks, we have had not a single one complaint about equipment being to cheap/expensive used to often etc etc etc.

All the horrors of balancing a league wide economy have gone!
Only difference to this BV system is, that we also have maintenance consts of 5% of the units value. And as unit values rise and fall based on demand, maintenance consts also rise and fall...


testdata for clarification

Spoiler

Mechs 1 to 3 BV development with rising overall mech population and random usage and success changes:
MECH1:

MECH2:

MECH 3


Average BV calculation and droplimits for CW drop decks and 12 v 12 public queue

Now, this figure shows impressively, how the proposed BV system would react to the META or introduction of new equipment. META builds would not be nerved anymore and Mechs would not be gimped anymore by balancing passes month's after the player bought them.
Also, due to the drop limits there would not be such a thing as a "worthless" Mech, weapon System or whatever.

Furthermore, the more wide spread usage of different equipment and weapon systems would require more skill from grouped players to find tactics that work with such a mixed loadout.

Also MM would have a much more easy live, as the PSR rating and the statistics from equipment, weapons and Mechs would be combined to just one value, that would reflect the true combat value of a pilot/Mech combination much closer than currently PSR and weight class.

And this would do 2 things to MM: Firstly it would improve overall match quality and secondly could reduce wait times, as there is only one value left to calculate with, not 2.

Want to play with the numbers yourself?
Here is your place to go:
http://innerspherewa...VStatistics.php

[Oderint dum Metuant]

shocking idea for 1015 inbound.

Abandon Matchmaking.

Reallocate server shards to dedicated server rooms, implement server browser.

Dedicated server rooms can have different restrictions, Stock, Low Tonnage/High tonnage, Clan vs IS (non CW) Mission Play the list is almost endless.

Matchmaking in a small game simply will never work.
Ever

Edited by DV McKenna, 22 September 2015 - 10:44 AM.

[Kael Posavatz]

As seen by the recent event (territorial challenge), the following may need to be considered:

1) Some way of adding players for those that DC right away,
--possible in the form of 'alternatives' who are injected into the match if needed, but form the core of the next match if not
--This wouldn't address the overheat/yolo rush/run out of bounds, but it would be a start

2) Rewrite the map-selection algorithms for public queue and CW
--The biggest gripe about the event after the players DC'ing, as the difficulty in getting the required maps
--Many missed the rewards simply by not having a map become available in the public queues, or being locked into one or two maps in CW

CW was particularly frustrating, in that the Counter-attack is limited to those map segments taken by an invasion mode match. If a team drops counter-attack, they are locked into those maps. Also, if a team drops when nobody else is, it is impossible for them to gain the requisite match score.

[Kinski Orlawisch]

Excampel why I don t like the new matchmaker?

My new Black Knight.: 8 games..No win..no 2X Exp....and that is normal for me atm....My chance to win in the lottery is higher than to get in the winning team while leveling mechs. BLACK KNIGHT BL-6B-KNT 8 0 8 0.00

Edited by Marc von der Heide, 22 September 2015 - 10:23 PM.

[Kirtanus]

Hi PGI, could you make modifications to your formula.
1. Specially to low PRS level if player had low match score even in win.
2. Count average match score of the team and using some coefficients check players match score against it and not some fixed number.

[OmegaRed53]

Can the issue between 4vs4, 6vs6, 8vs8, 10vs10, be voted via event / game play. The one selected amount be played among mwo players, maybe next month it can be decided again for which is the most played style.

Edited by OmegaRed53, 23 September 2015 - 11:07 AM.