1142 replies to this topic

[lpmagic]

If you cap the group size at "4" then what exactly is the point of 12v12? that seems odd to me. Any focus this game has on team unity and 12v12 orientation will go out the door, at that point, you might as well move down to 8v8 total (as it used to be) and allow two sets of 4 to try to sync. This will hinder team play to the nth degree making any competitive scene in MWO move only in to the private lobbies, which, will likely hurt the player base rather the help it. Yes, i understand that the game itself relies more on the individual players then the whole comp units, but, those comp units comprise a high % of players, that have been here since closed beta, you will likely lose any momentum towards e-sports and kill many of the long time supporters.

I honestly feel that the MM is doing what it can with the low player totals over all. but 4 only? I will certainly play much less, and there will be no way at all to practice team work in any fashion, you would be asking every single team to try to set up private matches, further degrading the group queue to the point of "useless" I am not certain of the real answer, but it is NOT going to 4 man max on groups, and the hard limits you are putting on choices are too extreme by far. You are hurting the game by adding finite limits to something you have worked very hard to make infinite (choices in mechs/load outs etc....) if it goes to 4 only you will likely see a mass exodus of long time players, or your "whales" for context, and that is just not going to work in your favor. I am not trying to nellie negative here, because something should be worked out, but 4 only is NOT the answer, wish I had one for you

[Tasker]

4 man group size: limit ability of veteran players to play with friends/unit

1/1/1/1: punish people who haven't been playing for three years


[Redacted]

[Aylward]

To the Devs...

Why cant you just make it and force everyone to accept that the public queue is the wild wild west of mech combat and what you face is what you face?? Complaints about "skill balance" will NEVER stop, and chasing that state endlessly is an enormous time vampire that takes away from where the real effort should be going !! (Why did you start chasing that rabbit in the first place ??) Stop trying to "fix it" by adding even more complexity.. That seems to be not working all that well.. take what groups launch into the queue and match them up against any other groups that launch into the queue...fill with singles. Done. Either go back to that, or leave it as it is and leave it there... Make it what it Is and say no more changes for a while as we work on much more important content that has been neglected (CW). Stop changing the ground floor balance wise every 20 mins just because people are whining. that will never stop. lock it in and rip the knob off for a while and get away from this quagmire. If it's taking too long to get matches because of all the attempts to skill balance it, perhaps you should just stop doing that (at least until you figure out how to actually do it).,. and go back to more simple matching parameters. If the server fits 3/3/3/3 it goes.

Bottom line, please do not restrict grouping any further in the public queue to 4 (or any other number) and in fact, move in the other direction away from further restrictions and instead make it simpler to just group up and fight whoever you face...if pilots get tired of being overrun by more organized and skilled groups, they'll most likely join one..It's kinda the way it's supposed to be in the mech universe.. mech combat is a team sport.. you already have a solo queue. don't separate it further. Make Solaris for the individuals if you must (and I've long encouraged doing so, even brought it up at a town hall or two), but don't punish teams for existing and potentially drive even more pilots away because they can't group up like they want to without having to form a private lobby..

[Jetfire]

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

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.

I think this is exactly the right way to do it. Keeps everything working well and doesn't put in hard limits that keep 5-6 friends from playing together.

[JernauM]

I do not like the idea of limiting group size to 4, as it limits the ability of friends to play together. Would it help at all to require an even number of players in a group? That could be a reasonable compromise.

I am okay with the idea of forcing 1/1/1/1, or as close to that ratio as possible given the group size.

I would prefer to revisit the game-mode voting system as opposed to absolute game-mode selection. I guess there was an outcry when this was tried previously, but I think players would have adapted eventually.

[GalmOne]

Please do not limit groups for 4 man max becouse (in my opinion) it basicaly defies the whole concept of teamplay, as in, you cannot play with your teammates and corps themselves loose their significance

I am in favour for the middle ground of 1/1/1/1 for small groups increasing by 1 every person after a multiple of 4 if it can actualy speed up wait times as it would make it harder to have a group of 3 people of the same weight class "clogging" the queue (and forcing less assaults/heavies in play)

Would it be possible to also introduce a smaller (8 vs 8?) parallel queue that can be toggled with the others?
It might sound like splitting up the matchmaker more but i had serious issues in the latest days where i had to wait close to 15min for a match, having smaller fights of 2 lances might speed up wait times and make things more interesting (keeping the 1/1/1/1 2/2/2/2 rule still)

All in all based on my experiences since the last update i do believe the system has some realy good performance for what concerns weight balancing

[PhoenixFire55]

Lily from animove, on 04 September 2015 - 04:40 AM, said:

then name proper ideas, i have not seen them yet

How about ... no. I've presented all my ideas several times already. I'm not going to repeat myself yet again simply because for the first time in 3 years somebody from PGI decided to pay attention to a thread about the matchmaker. If you so want to hear those ideas go and search the forum. Most importantly YOU can't judge which of those ideas are going to work and which not.

All the discussion regarding group queue here and reasoning for change is hilarious. You claim that the total player population is small and that people playing in large groups of 5+ are barely a small % of that small population. Yet somehow magically that tiny % is affecting everyone and ruining experience for everyone. Yeah, right.

[Redacted]

Either the game population isn't small at all, and then MM is simply broken, or the % of matches with large groups isn't anywhere near to that 5% certain somebody claims it is. You can not reason for the MM changes if your reasoning in based on false information.

Still, it is rather funny when a guy comes and tells you that he monitors all the data when he measures PSR in seconds.

[TheSteelRhino]

I am very much against this. Lots of folks want to play with a group and 4 mans just are painful. Especially if 1/1/1/1.

Unless, you can drive players toward CW. Give it some meaningful rewards and get other promised modes in. Then maybe. But i am afraid this wil drive players away.

[Cion]

better a late comment than never

Make groups be forced to be multiples of 4 (4, 8, 12) (**lances**). There needs to be more emphasis on lances working together. Open up the "looking for group" tool to help those groups that start at odd numbers like 3, 5, 6 to fill and reach a multiple of 4.

1/1/1/1 sounds good (2/2/2/2, 3/3/3/3).

[Rihko]

Mmm.

1/1/1/1 is no good. Please, don't go lower than 2 of a weight class; being able to play in a pair with my best friend is too much fun to give up.

I can live with lance sized drops, although that will lead us to sync dropping again. I would rather see something like a 6 - 8 player cap than 4, and remove game mode selection as an absolute limit.

[jper4]

potentially stupid question. but if everyone on the group side is filling up with heavies/assaults because that's what they prefer to play why bother with chassis restrictions? 12 heavy/assault vs 12 heavy/assault and let'em deathbball away. admittedly that one lance that wanted to go all lights may have some issues (or chew all the elephant like graceful assaults to pieces) but apparently the majority want to play somethin big. so let them. should cut down on trying to match any 1/1/1/1. may just need a weight differential limit (teams within 100 tons say?) to avoid total weight mismatches.

solo play I can see why trying to stay close to 1/1/1/1 is a good thing. group play appears to be a different animal though.

additional comments/ideas
1) higher tier solos (set at tier 2 or 3 -depending on player numbers in each tier if the tiers are set up linearly or on a curve) should be able to opt into a group play- least disruptive to that 10-11 man group that needs a filler or two to fill out the lace.

2) set groups sizes at 2, 4, 8 and 8+. may be easier for 9-12 group size range to get matches a bit quicker if the 12 wasn't required and could be filled in by an 8 man with a 4 man, or two 2 mans (if the bulk of groups fall into this range as Russ mentioned earlier). 10 man gets a duo to fill out their group, the 9 man and 11 mans filter in someone from the solo queue to make numbers even. limit number of groups on a side in a match to avoid six 2 mans facing a 12 man. 3 man groups are still left in the cold though unless there's a special 3 man "waiting room" where a solo can come in to make it a four where at that point, the now group of 4 then is then moved into the group queue proper.

3) with ideas 1 and 2 active here won't be a massive surge from the solo queue to the group queue since there would be a more limited chance to get in a group match but a solo can always hop back- play a solo queue match then pop back over to the group queue and try again to see if there's an opening.

ok enough random rambling

Edited by Tanar, 04 September 2015 - 06:41 AM.

[Tastian]

* - 4 man restriction is a bad idea. It sounds good on paper except that your average unit participation is not in exact multiples of 4.

* - 1/1/1/1 restriction is a bad idea. It sounds good on paper except that your group who should be working together as a lance is disharmonious. Imagine forcing every mech to carry one small laser, one medium laser, one large laser, and 1 missile weapon.

* - Solo Queue is NOT fantastic and here is why: there is a huge difference between playing a mastered metawolf versus a not-basiced awesome (or mist lynx or any other mech you are just starting); and yet they share the same PSR. This makes matches miserable for you and it makes matches miserable for your team. MM expects you to do as well in every mech as your metawolf. GIVE EACH MECH ITS OWN PSR!!

Edited by Tastian, 04 September 2015 - 06:46 AM.

[BattleBunny]

Tanar, on 04 September 2015 - 06:39 AM, said:

potentially stupid question. but if everyone on the group side is filling up with heavies/assaults because that's what they prefer to play why bother with chassis restrictions? 12 heavy/assault vs 12 heavy/assault and let'em deathbball away.

Yeh I've been saying the same thing for a while now.

If I wanted to drop solo in a heavy the queue times would be twice as long as most people play heavies. I wont mind seeing 8 heavy mechs on both teams, if that means it cuts my search time in half.

balancing the tonnage per team might be a quiker way to make matches happen then the 3/3/3/3 way. So what if both teams are a 1000 tons? if they are equally tonned, let them have at it.

[Sardauker Legion]

- 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.

Edited by Anavel Gato2, 04 September 2015 - 07:06 AM.

[WarHippy]

As someone who mostly plays solo I would like the option to drop in group queue to help smooth things out in the group queue; while I also sometimes drop in smaller groups under no circumstance do I want to see larger groups removed again as that was a disaster.

My personal thoughts on improving the queue time in group queue is to give up on the concept of matching mech classes at all. Stop trying to have 3/3/3/3 in the group queue, and let people play what they want in the way that best fits their strategy. Groups should have an easier time with dealing with setups that contain large amounts of a particular weight class. If a group wants to bring all lights or all assaults because that best fulfills their strategy then that should be allowed. The entire concept of 3/3/3/3 is repugnant to me, as is taking away our choice of game mode.

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.
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.
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+?

Stepping away for the time being.

1)Yes, do this, I have wanted this option since you guys separated the groups from the solos.
2)NO, HELL NO, and ******* HELL NO! I repeat NO!
3)How about no restriction on what you bring. As I said above the groups should have an easier time dealing with unbalanced weight class combos. Do not take away my ability to play with friends, do not take away our options, and do not force us into a situation where we have to argue about who gets to bring what they enjoy to play so that someone else can bring what they enjoy to play. Let us all bring what we want period.

Edited by WarHippy, 04 September 2015 - 07:14 AM.

[konokoni]

To throw my opinion in on this topic:

When you implemented a separate solo queue along with an unrestricted size group queue, your stated intent was to improve the single-player experience while also allowing increased flexibility for groups, without unduly impacting balance and wait times.

I think it's safe to say that your goal was achieved in the solo queue. Skill levels seem comparable between teams and close games are not uncommon. Ace pilots and less skilled individuals alike are evenly distributed. Even the lack of coordination inherent to the solo queue can almost be considered a feature: there is less coordinated fire and more latitude for small mistakes. As such, games last a bit longer and there are more chances for comebacks. Overall, I agree that it's as good as it's ever been.

Unfortunately, the group queue experience has suffered greatly. Large groups wait for an extended period of time, only to fight a motley collection of small groups that can't compete with the coordination and build synergy a 6-12 person group brings to the table. Most such matches are over before they begin; large groups are vastly more effective at staying together and focusing fire than collections of small groups. Stragglers in the small group team are picked off and their surviving teammates begins their inevitable slide down the slippery slope that defines a no-respawn gamemode.

For every "close" game in the group queue (say, losing team kills 6 enemies) there are two or three stomps (losing team kills fewer than 3 enemies). It's not fun for small groups and I imagine it must get old even for large groups. I am also not too keen on suggestions that groups be allowed in multiples of four (4/8/12). This would require people to pad out their groups (what are five friends supposed to do?) and would not solve the issues mentioned above in regards to balance between larger groups and collections of smaller groups.

As such, I definitely support reducing max group size to four in the group queue. Large groups losing the ability to drop together is a small price to pay to vastly improve match balance for (what I assume to be) the majority of the game's population. Of course, I lack the playerbase metrics that you have access to; perhaps 5-12 man groups are the lifeblood of the group queue and restricting their drop options will scare them away. If so, then perhaps you should weigh the voices of people arguing against this limitation more heavily. Let your quantitative analysis color how you interpret the playerbase's qualitative impressions.

I am less enthusiastic for the 1/1/1/1 restriction within a group. However, in the interest of closer matchmaking I would accept it if it were to come to pass. Would 2/2/2/2 be an acceptable middle-ground? Or would it have no appreciable effect on matchmaking quality?

As always, thank you for taking the time to collect the community's thoughts on this matter.

[DruggedHippo]

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.

I agree with this. Don't take away the ability to field larger groups. If you destroy the ability for teams with more than 4 pilots to practice together on the group queue, then you destroy a significant portion of the competitive potential of that game mode. Yeah, it sucks to get stomped every now and then by a 12-pilot group but, honestly, it is a great learning experience to see how they play and organize themselves.

[Felio]

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.

Do it.

[PsycoSurgeon]

To be honest I do not see the need for 1/1/1/1 limitations. I often see matches where the MM has put more lights on one side and more heavy/assault on the other and the win/loss is fairly even. It really comes down to the pilot rather than the mech...ok 12 lights or 12 assaults would be a bit silly but even before the limitations were added I rarely saw any teams that were massively weighted one way or the other as everyone likes different mechs anyway...

[DrXitomatl]

I would love for it to go back to 4-man max in group queue. Bigger groups is what CW was made for. Maybe a change like that would also increase CW playtime by units if that's the only way to run larger groups.