435 replies to this topic

[Leopardo]

yeah small group - like okay 4 -5 cheetah i think can destroy more then half of team easy!! if its not real premade 12 standing turned theyr backs to the wall.

[50 50]

I think the initial tonnages Russ has provided are a good starting point with the possible exception of allowing a two man group to take 2x 20 ton mechs.
Should a12 man decide to split up into 6 groups of 2 and all take Urbanmechs or Arctic Cheetahs then hope to sync drop into a match... well... they can try. I would think that this would be difficult anyway and with PSR matching, splitting up the group is more likely to scatter them.
On the top end, it is more about spreading out the available tonnage across all the players.
While a 12 player group could all decide to go with Thunderbolts, does that really give an advantage over another 12 player group with a more diverse setup?
What about a 6 DireWolf, 6 Arctic Cheetah group?
People have their personal mech favourites which may break this up.
To be sure, there will always be ways that this style of grouping could get a bit bizarre, however once this is in place I believe it will be a simple step to convert it to a battle value instead.

It is worth giving it a go, try a few combinations, have some events tilted in favour of one extreme.
Everyone in 20 ton or 100 ton mechs for example.
We have bit of fun with it, find the pros and cons and see how it impacts on getting the matches connected.

[TyphonCh]

Kiiyor, on 29 September 2015 - 06:36 PM, said:

I think the tonnage restrictions are nice, except for those imposed on 2 players.

If you're instructing someone new, there's a chance you'll be running in the same mech as them (I usually do, anyway). The restrictions outlined above mean that all lights and assaults are out. I think this is a mistake!

2 players: Minimum 40 tonnes, max 200!

Two players won't likely make that much of a difference to matches, even if they are cheesin' it up in Cheetahs or Dires.

That's my 2c anyway.

You and I think a like. This is exactly what went through my head after reading the first post, word for word

Two friends not being able to drop in lights or assaults together is a ridiculous limitation.

Edited by Team Chevy86, 29 September 2015 - 10:30 PM.

[Leopardo]

like to see 6 groups of 2 drop with - 12 madcats or cheetahs or Bolts or.... ))))) its going to be fun)

[NeoCodex]

This is horrible! The ammount of calculation we will have to do on what mechs we can play and cannot is ridicolous. It's too complicated, makes me not want to even bother with the groups anymore, the 3/3 was more simple and better..

It will make much more work for us in bigger groups to set around this weird tonnage limit and severely limit our options, and also make things for any 2 player "group" much more frustrating, consider these limited options when Steam comes around, do you think new players will like this extreme limitation with those 0-3 mechs they own? Here's 2 main reasons why it is so bad to do this:

• It will ruin 2 man groups even further

Group queue for 2mans is daunting and challenging enough as it is. My friend that I can barely convince to play MWO anymore always likes to play his Stalkers and I come around with another heavy or assault, but now I'm stuck at 65 and we won't be able to do that anymore?!? Godsend for Ebon Jaguar at 65 but this shouldn't be my only option. God forbid a third player joins and we will have to change our setup completely or the poor sod will be locked into 70 tons or one of us having to drop down. See what a mess this is? Our win loss is barely 1:1 as 2man in group queues, it's not like it was broken. He only has 20 mechs in his hangar, are you serious!? I am 100% sure he will stop playing completely if you implement this BS let alone buy a pack.



At least make no limits on a 2man queue, 2 man drops are very often 2 friends socilasiing over the game, ussualy in form of one taking time to help get another in the game and instruct him in the process, or maybe one being a completely new player. Don't ruin this experience for us.

And second reason, it will mess up bigger groups even more:

• Setting up our mechs in big group to accomodate will take more time than the MM itself

Did you take into account the time it takes to get mechs ready in a big group?




This is ussualy longer than the MM waiting times.

How do you think it will be now?

Not everybody has their modules loaded on all their mechs, this will prolong time to select a mech that fits the group and the tonnage and is owned by the player and is the one he wants to play, and he has to switch modules again.

No, no, no, no... wait a second here. It was frustrating enough when we had to change around the 3/3 but we're not doing this work for you. I am NOT changing my mech and modules everytime a person drops or joins a group, this means we will have to discuss and restructure our WHOLE group everytime we have a change in numbers. Are you kidding me! We are not a parlament to discuss our mech selections all day! It is not our job to make the matchmaker work instead. Too many rules.

I do NOT support this.

If Russ is actually reading this (ussualy he isn't) then pardon my expressions but this is really how it feels. You asked that we should focus on suggestions rather than disagreements, so my suggestion is really simple: do not do the tonnage limit at all. It is too complicated and all it will do is just frustrate players further. It creates another dimension of complexity that is harder to deal with than the 3/3 rule.

We might come up with something better over time but any discussion will remain heated as long as there is an announcment that a new system we do not like is hard set for the next patch, there will be people like me flocking in telling you not to do it.

Edited by NeoCodex, 29 September 2015 - 11:34 PM.

[Karl Streiger]

There is much good feedback in here. I had a similar idea but for CW/or was it the Group Queue either? Can'T remember and the post is MIF (Missed in Forum) long ago.

So i spare us the stuff about the steps and the balancing between the different group sizes, also about the tonnage ranges.

There is a huge challenge to balance stuff with tonnages. I really would advice you not to do it.
Because balance stuff with tonnage means a 80t should in most cases beat a 75t Mech in one on one - if a group of 12 meet a group of 12 the one uses 80t Mechs the other 75t Mechs -the 80t Mechs have to win.

Are you sure that your current balance allows the Summoner to beat a Ebon Jaguar - or the Gargoyle the TimberWolf?
And this is not considering IS vs Clan - with a fixed 12 vs 12 the Thor also should beat the Thunderbolt.

Well the SCR may beat the Nova - but this is another story about the MinMaxing of some Mechs in several TROs - (maybe you should allow ES/FF, DHS and JJs swaping on all ClanMechs just to reduce the huge differences and the remaining differences - like Hardpoint placement and Hitboxes can be smoothed by Perks &Flaws)

Edit:
Wasn't there an event that did reward player groups that used a special tonnage value for their drop?
I can remember it was really hard work for the DC to calculate the drop weight - i really hope the GUI will support the group

Edited by Karl Streiger, 29 September 2015 - 11:09 PM.

[StompyRobot100]

i dont like a single part of this. it will only lead to 12 SCR swarms. add it in WITH not as a replacement of 3-3-3-3 and pull the minimum for less than 4 man groups and we can talk.

[Peiper]

Russ Bullock, on 29 September 2015 - 02:14 PM, said:

Please focus less on how you disagree with the place holder tonnage amounts we listed and focus more on suggesting different ones.

Also I understand the point about keeping 3/3/3/3 in place WITH the new tonnage limits but when you consider that like 80% of groups are groups of 2 and 3 those will not be effected by the 3/3/3/3 aspect anyhow.

Better to work on the tonnage ranges to allow or disallow certain combinations.

So far I have heard good points to allow lower tonnage limits in smaller groups, and potentially a lower limit for the bigger groups.

Would like to see more suggestion on actual tonnage ranges.

How about a poll instead? The poll could read: Do you want to see this change or not? If not, then you don't have to worry about changing it. I really believe that there's not that much more you can do to make the group queue any better. The tier system seems to be helping a lot. I say, leave it alone. And tonnage restrictions don't mean so much when your best mechs are between 55 and 75 tons. What you need to do is introduce Battletech style battle value, and instead of matching ton for ton, match battle values. An Orion is not equal to a Timberwolf, and a Shadowhawk is not equal to a Stormcrow. Instead of trying to quirk mechs into parity, simply replace tonnage with battle value in the matchmaker. We've tried tonnage limits, we've tried 3/3/3/3, we've tried limiting teams to 4.

WE HAVE NEVER TRIED BATTLE VALUE. Let's try that instead. Otherwise, leave it alone and concentrate on important stuff like adding an economy, supply lines, salvage and battle types to CW.

[ArchSight]

@Russ I don't like it when the game controls too much of what a player is allowed to do. The Min. tonnage forces mech choice to be higher tonnage for smaller groups and the Max. tonnage also limits higher tonnage mech choice in smaller groups.

I propose allowing players to choose any type of mech in smaller groups with a tier increase if they go over the minimum tonnage that is set. In result, they will likely make the tonnage advantage a larger obstacle than what you have proposed when they are more likely to match up against coordinated teams. My idea also has the larger groups set to increase the tier of players so they are likely matched with other coordinated groups or against higher tonnages. The increase in tier by group size is an attempt to rate skill of the group because of the larger influence in the team by being possibly well coordinated. Otherwise, I would continue with tier increase based on passing minimum tonnages.

The idea allows the use of 3/3/3/3 still but not in the match makers metrics so it can be simple by only having 3/3/3/3 be relevant when forming the group. It makes Match Maker have to take tonnage into account but not by matching the tonnage numbers of the groups. It turns those tonnage numbers into a tier increase for the group players so it can only use the number of player's, PSR, and maybe game mode.

I used 3/3/3/3, subtracted the missing player's from that by lowest weight class, and used the max tonnage of those weight classes to get Max. tonnage per group. For example:
795 - one 35 - one player = 760 max tons for 11 player group(I know this group is not allowed)
795 - three 35 - three players = 690 max tons for 9 player group
795 - three 35 - one 55 - four players = 635 max tons for 8 player group
795 - three 35 - three 55 - three 75 - one 100 - ten players = 200 max tons for 2 player group

The minimum tonnage is Max. tonnage divided by two and it's rounded back by five if it doesn't fit by the way mech tonnages increase by five. Maybe the minimum tonnages should be the number of group players that can use the lowest weight classes at their Max. tonnages. For example, group 6 would be able to field all 3 lights and 3 mediums. Bumping it up to 270 might be good. Using this rule would hurt the smaller groups by increasing their tier if they go above like 70 tons for group 2. [Edit:Hmm, Min. differences by 60 tons sounds better just like CW. I'm going to put those in.]

Heres the table that I tried to make on the MWO forums to help explain.

			Group Size With Tier Modifier				(No Min) Weight Class 3/3/3/3 Restricted In Group But Not In Match Maker				Tonnage With Tier Modifier Min< to Max=+T
			2				3/3/3/3				120<125 to 200=+T
			3				3/3/3/3				180<185 to 300=+T
			4				3/3/3/3				240<245 to 375=+T
			5				3/3/3/3				300<305 to 450=+T
			6				3/3/3/3				360<365 to 525=+T
			7=+T				3/3/3/3				Max=580
			8=+T				3/3/3/3				Max=635
			9=+T				3/3/3/3				Max=690
			10=+T				3/3/3/3				Max=725
			No 11 group size				3/3/3/3				Max=760
			12=+T				3/3/3/3				Max=795

@Russ, you forgot to talk about the game mode voting in the command post. You talked about it in the last town hall when you were bringing up the tonnage match maker.

Great work year, PGI!

Edited by ArchSight, 30 September 2015 - 01:42 AM.

[Kmieciu]

Russ Bullock, on 29 September 2015 - 02:14 PM, said:

Please focus less on how you disagree with the place holder tonnage amounts we listed and focus more on suggesting different ones.

Also I understand the point about keeping 3/3/3/3 in place WITH the new tonnage limits but when you consider that like 80% of groups are groups of 2 and 3 those will not be effected by the 3/3/3/3 aspect anyhow.

Better to work on the tonnage ranges to allow or disallow certain combinations.

So far I have heard good points to allow lower tonnage limits in smaller groups, and potentially a lower limit for the bigger groups.

Would like to see more suggestion on actual tonnage ranges.

Russ the problem we have right now is that raw tonnage is close to meaningless when it comes to balance.
I`d rather have a 65 ton Hellbringer than a 100 ton Atlas on my team. A 30 ton Arctic Cheetah is more of an asset than a 75-ton Orion. Seriously, it's that messed up.
There's a reason people took 4xThunderbolt into CW, back when the tonnage limit was set at 260 tonns.

[Surn]

I would like to add one more comment.

I ran a league for 10 years that similarly based matches on per player tonnage. We had various classes that allowed different tonnage per player. It worked well where clan/is tech was not limited.

Per player tonnage limits are easy to calculate and can be validated before being allowed to drop.

Adding classes, levels, tiers or whatever you want to call them was based on leaders bidding on the tonnage requirement and map. So, a group could commit minimal resources to less important battles and save tonnage for important events.

PGI looking at this type of system is a positive for the community. However, my experience brings me to conclude the following:

• MWO tonnage is not as important as it was in previous MechWarrior games.
  
• Clan Tech is significantly more powerful in MWO as compared to IS. IS Mechs will therefor create a tonnage disadvantage and never be used or will be the source of player conflict vs the emerging Meta.
  
• Various class systems that calculate unique per player available tonnage will be only marginally superior to a single general tonnage distribution system. Because tonnage is not the key component of a mech in MWO.
  
• A system that takes into account the actual Battle Efficiency of Mechs would create better balance. Linear Regression is simple to program now, and could easily establish a Mech Battle Value.
  
• Mech Battle Value could be based on the last n days of matches or it could be based on data collected since the last mech Chasis was released in game. Historical values could carry over upon initiation of a Mech Chasis addition, but a relatively short "n days" system (40?) would be more dynamic and would not become less responsive due to database growth.
  
• Mech Battle Values based on a dynamic Linear Regression from "n days" or from Mech Chasis additions would be extremely cool to see on the website, api, etc... and would show the effect of quirk changes, new maps, new game modes, etc..

Edited by MechregSurn, 29 September 2015 - 11:46 PM.

[Leopardo]

superb!

[NeoCodex]

Reading this, what if drop deck would be fit by Battle Value ® instead of tonnage? Make Clan mechs as powerful as they should be, but increase their BV rating proportionally That would be something, wouldn't it?

It's just the solo queue that would suffer. Hmm, how to balance around that? I know! We need Solaris game mode skirmishes! You get more points for taking down a higher rated Mech (and bonus if you are in much lower rated), teams or FFA games are won on points scored! Build from there.

This is how it is in the MS Gundam Extreme on PS3: stompy robots have assigned values from 1000 to 3000 depending on how powerful they are, but in reality all are viable for battle. If you get destroyed in a 3000 rated mech that is a huge, huge point loss for your team. Once all points from your team poll get drained, you lose the game.

You could also make a Solaris game mode with lower rated "common" mechs respawnable or make respawnable low BV stock mechs with additions like: hero and special mechs are one-of-a-kind and no-respawn but more powerful, higher BV.

Just throwing out ideas there, there's so MANY things you could do with the BV.

Edited by NeoCodex, 30 September 2015 - 12:27 AM.

[Rhalgaln]

Not quite on the Tonnage Bonus, but you should not allow to take the same chassis up to 12 times in a single group.
Within a group you should allow any variant just once. This is an advantage for clan mechs, as they can use omnipods to unify loadouts but prevents experiences like a 12 man arctic cheeta or 12 Tbold stomp.
min-maxers had warned you.

The Team-Tonnage-Bonus should not exceed 120t in any combination. So +20t per group sounds fine to me.
Keep in mind, that there are sync-droppers outside who will max out tonnage bonus, so you should not only look at the Group size, but also on the unit Tag. This still will cause issues with snc-dropping allied forces but since sync-dropping is not a reliable science pug games should benefit from the new system.

[D A T A]

forgive my semplicity, but actual tonnage rules are just stupid and show how little the dudes that made them know about the game.

PROBLEM THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED:
when a good 10-12 men premade is put against bunch of small ones, the better coordinated and big one stomps the others; the problem of stomps comes when big premades face small ones.


TONNAGE RULES EXPLOIT

according to your rules, a 10 men premade will be able to field
3 daishi 1 timber 2 cauldron born, 3 wolverine and 1 firestarter: nothing has changed for them, there is no nerf for them.

12 men premade 3 daishi 3 timber 3 wolvrine 3 firestarter ggclose


on the other hand, the only way that small premades had to balance big ones was to go with 3 daishi and 1-3 timber.
Now they will not be able to do it anymore.

SO BASICALLY WITH THESE RULES YOU NERFED THE WEAK PART, ADVANTAGING BIG GROUPS STOMP AND ACHIEVING THE EXACT OPPOSITE EFFECT.


HERE IS MY SUGGESTION: little advantage for small groups.

keep 3+3+3+3
tonnage:
2 men: no limits
3 men: no limits
4 men: 355
5 men: 410
6 men 465
7 men 520
8 men 575
9 men 630
10 men 685
12 men 740

these rules avoid 3 daishis 3 timber 3 wolverine in 10 men and 12 men premades, they will have to use blr 1g 3lpl 4 ml or warhawk, BJ and ebons or thunders.

Edited by IL MECHWARRIOR, 30 September 2015 - 12:54 AM.

[Chaos1978]

2: 40-200 (2x20-2x100)
3: 60-300 (3x20-3x100)

Delta max = 240 or +/-5 /additional mech

example:

4:
min t = 60+1*50-5 = 105t
max t = 300+1*50+5 = 355t

12:
min t = 60+9*50-9*5 = 465t
max t = 300+9*50+9*5 = 795t

edit: the mechs ar 20t - 100t ... so the 50 could increased to 60

Edited by Chaos1978, 30 September 2015 - 12:38 AM.

[Chaos1978]

i would like to see the math formula to this numbers ...

I tried to comprehend ... no way

Edited by Chaos1978, 30 September 2015 - 12:46 AM.

[Poppaukko]

Playing in a 2 man group is already punishing as it is, this would make it even more so. I'd rather see lifting the tonnage limits on 2 man groups, maybe even on 3 man groups. Then start adding tonnage limits.

I'd rather play whatever mech I want and have long wait times than being told what mech to take and have an instant match.

[Naduk]

LCCX, on 29 September 2015 - 08:46 PM, said:

--- Preface:
1) Thank you PGI/Russ for trying to improve the Group Queue match fairness/quality. I'm glad you understand that it is important. "Play with your friends!" inevitably resulting in "Get curb stomped by large groups of competitive players! [or get pitted against some poor sods who'd rather not see you on the battlefield either]" sucks all the fun out of playing the game.

2) I appreciate you trying to keep the "any group size" feature, but am pretty sure that the group size limit is going to have to drop to 6, or maybe even 4.

3) I think that player skill has a far larger impact on gameplay and match result than tonnage, at least at the higher end of skill (top third of the player base by rank?). And player skill (at any game) is distributed exponentially. A 12-man group of Tier-5 players in Dire Wolves (or, let's be honest, Atlases) probably isn't scary to anyone in Tier-3 or higher; a 4-man group of top-1% players, by rank in the player base, would probably be scary even in Locusts
---

That said, actually answering your questions about tonnage:

100% more, keeping in mind that a lot of people won't use that "extra" tonnage because they want to run their [insert not a Dire Wolf here]. 3 out of 4 mechs in a mech package are not assault mechs and people will want to play and master those mechs too. I also would not feel the least bit bad about pitting 12x Dire Wolf in pairs against a 3/3/3/3 12-man premade.


I'd err on the side of giving maximum flexibility to the smallest groups, and the least to the largest. I'd guess that group size is also of exponential performance, so I think that flexibility should be pretty low even at 6-player-size groups and a 12-man might be forced to have an exact tonnage (unless additional group size handicaps/restrictions, such as 3/3/3/3, are in place).

• A pair of players should be able to bring anything they want like they can now within the 3/3/3/3 system.
  
• A trio of players should not all be able to bring Locust, Commando, or Dire Wolf.
  
• 4 or more players should have to bring a variety of mechs; 3x lights must be accompanied by at least a heavy and 3x 100-tonners cannot be accompanied by more than a light.
  
• A full or nearly-full team should have to bring a greater variety of mechs.
  
• Groups of 8-12 should not be able to bring exclusively pairs of 35+55 ton mechs, 35+75 ton mechs, or 55+75 ton mechs (an average of 45 tons per player is too low and 55 and 65 tons per player are too high, unless additional restrictions exist).
  
• Smaller groups should have a tonnage advantage; a 2-man (+100%) should have twice the advantage of a 4-man (+50%), which should have twice the advantage of an 8-man (+25%) over a 12-man (+0%) group.

.



Exactly. Consider that a 12-man might bring 6x Arctic Cheetah (6*35t=210t), 6x Hellbringer (6*65t=390t) for a 600 ton team drop weight.



<picking nits>If there is a 99% probability that one team or the other will win a match, then they are not "the perfect set of players". Putting blinders on the MM so that *it* cannot calculate the match result probability doesn't mean the players don't know it once they drop, and players being able to accurately guess the result of a match while the drop timer is still counting down is the problem. Everything is fine even if the MM knows match outcomes with 99% accuracy so long as players are left guessing until the end of the show.</picking nits>
Is matchmaker simplicity a technical requirement of MWO right now? If so, then IMHO that strengthens the argument that handicaps be put into place before groups enter the MM queue, and presumably those checks can be allowed to be relatively complex.
- What if a higher group PSR incurred tonnage penalties (e.g. less tonnage flexibility)?
- What if groups were not allowed to have duplicate mechs (more than 2 of the same chassis)?

pretty much everything LCCX said
restrictions need to get pretty crazy as you gain more team mates
its the only way to curb their power advantage ... if that will even do it
i think once you pass 4man groups you should only be allowed to be 1 of any given chassis type
that will mean if two 6 man groups get paired up, they will have access to a maximum of 2 duplicate mechs
and a 12man will only ever have 1 direwolf and 1 atlas and 1 arctic cheeter and 1 ...ect ect ect
i know plenty of people would cry foul about this, but it would feel a hell of a lot more battletech like that the current lets only drop super power min max mode stompfests we currently get

[Rhalgaln]

I like the suggestions on dynamic Battle Values.

So if all mechs have an abstract Value based upon their successful usage in historic games, you can easyily balance pug games by a restricting (battlevalue+pilotELO) per side.
This allows lower skill pilots to take higher battle value mechs and forces big groups of high tier players to use less meta mechs.

If the BV is recalculated weekly you might break the domination of so called meta-mechs
The default BV can simply be based on tonnage, equippment(ECM, MASC), quirks or maybe even on loadout different from mech-config to mech-config. The more mechs of a given loadout exist, the higher will be the BV.
Maths should limit to a maximum which is abaout the maximum score of reaching Tier 1.

Then limit Team BV to 8 times that value (BV+ Skill) per Side for default.
For each group size limit BV to 80% of that score per player in group.

Match Teams with equal to 10% different BV's

Sorry for OT, but we had tonnage restrictions already and they failed