435 replies to this topic

[Christopher Hamilton]

the problem is an old one. make two forces roughly equal in power.
at the beginning in battletech (CBT for you kids) there was tonnage limits.
then came 3050 and 2750 readouts.
around 1988 FASA introduced CV (=combat value) to equal out mixed tech 1 and tech 2 groups.
somewhere later they introduced BV (=battle value) since CV did not take movement into account.

why not use existing research centered around that to balance out groups ?
we know the numbers, we know that they should be roughly equally fast within a lance.
if someone takes a 100Ton 3025 (tech 1) atlas, even a light with 3050 tech (not even clan tech) will take him apart. weight is just a pure number.
IS tech 2 machines are more then 20% over the power for their weight. clan more then 50%
should be figured into there, or we end up with everyone queuing hellbringers.

russ, check out CV and BV calculations and think of something that takes into accounting movement, tech level, heat (!!!), lasers vs ammo and the modules. have it calculated during mechlab save. multiply by an uplift for the PSR tier (e.g. 0,9 tier 5, 1 tier 4, etc.) and your done.

[erethros]

I don't like this sistem.

If a group of friends want to use the same category, with this sistem they can't.

If 4 friends want to make a haunting lance, they can't

If 2 friends want to use asault mechs to bruise a flank, they can't

This system destroys the lance's system.


-1

[Hayato1983]

My two cents:
make it 3/3/2/2 forget 12, make it 10 man drops.

[Neput Z34]

My 2 C-Bills on the matter. Pardon the format or repetition.

Minimum tonnage restrictions on the 2 - 3 player groups? Are the light mechs that overpowered / broken, or does it handicap your teams PSR that much?

Tonnage by team break down should be something likes this:

2 | No_ Min | Max 200

3 | No_ Min | Max 240

4 | Min 150 | Max 280

5 | Min 220 | Max 330

6 | Min 290 | Max 400

7 | Min 340 | Max 450

8 | Min 390 | Max 510

9 | Min 440 | Max 570

10 | Min 490 | Max 630

12 | Min 600 | Max 750

Possibly more tonnage per player for groups under 8, but 10 and 12 man average should be about 62.5 tons

P.S. Seeing a 12 man Spider team from the days of old may be fun once in a while, not so much a 12 man Arctic Cheetah team.
May be have a Minimum tonnage stop at 400 for teams 8 or more?

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

@Neput Z34 ... in my opinion, this is WAY too heavy.

What you've proposed allows 2-3-man groups to bring all TBRs (probably OK for 2-mans) ... 4-6-man groups: 3-5xTBR, 1xACH/KFX ... or for a 7-8-man groups to bring 5-6xTBR, 2x ACH ... 9, 10, 12-man: 6, 7, 9x TBR, 3x ACH.

What is your rationale for 62.5 tons?

[50 50]

There is no real way around players trying to all sync drop or all use mechs of a particular type without further complicating the match maker..... and while some consideration towards team balance is also being looked at, a major point in using the tonnage restriction was to make the match selection process faster for groups.

I am beginning to think that the problem in the group queue is a symptom of players not wanting to use it due to not getting matched as evenly with other groups in terms of average PSR.
Unfortunately this then compounds the problem as the lack of people using the queue means more mismatches due to lack of opponents of the same tier.

While I am not opposed to tonnage limits instead of the class restrictions, it seems that there is an aspect missing from this equation which would provide better balance and make it all fit together nicely.

Perhaps it needs to be linked to game modes.
ie. Conquest accepts lower tonnage limits, but Assault favours higher limits and then your group fits into a certain class based on your tonnage.
Perhaps it should have a stricter limit based around the composition of what a single lance can take using the 1/1/1/1 as a guide.

[Chocowolf Sradac]

I too will chime in I feel the weight for the low player count is way too high for the minimum weight

I should be able to team up with someone with both dropping urbies or locusts as the current system allows it isn't very forgiving to the 2-4 player teams

I feel this move is really counter productive to what it is your trying to fix with the current cues in both pug drops and Community warfare. Yes I feel that there is a need for something to be done with the current system to make it better but why should the small groups suffer when the problem resides with the larger groups? This system that is being implemented completely destroys the use of lances (though would be nice to operate in stars for us clanners)

[smokefield]

small groups (2-3) should not be part of the tonnage restriction system. I want to be able to run 2 dires with my friend in a group of 2 and have fun. or 2 lights.

2 and 3 ppl groups should be allowed to take whatever they want keeping the condition of max 2 of the same weight class..so no 3 lights or 3 assaults. the rest needs to be tweaked a lot to find a good spot...

[Leopardo]

guys, you have good ideas with comabat and battle values. also 3 3 3 3 rules for groups more then 3 man, low weight for samll groups atc....hope dear PGI yo will read it - really hope you make it game.

Edited by Leopardo, 06 October 2015 - 11:25 PM.

[Leopardo]

DEAR PGI PLZ READ THIS - http://mwomercs.com/...-actually-works

[Captain Artemis]

Tonnage rule does not bring the solution to this problem in a long term at all, some people tend to min max everything they can. So instead of counting the tonnage limit per group size, maybe it's time to think outside the box? As some people have pointed out, we can even end up in the situation where light mechs can be very rare on the battlefield.

I am aware that this post does not bring the answer to match making mechanics, instead here is the place where "Role Warfare" can be introduced, with three different lances having specific role on the battlefield.

Recon Lance
Tonnage limit: 160 tons

• Specific role on the battlefield - scouting.
  
• Know role in the other games - assassin.
  
• Secondly, with implementation of the Information Warfare, light mechs could behave better in this role, rather than any other mech - 3x Locust, 1xAtlas is not good idea.
  
• Tonnage limit allow players to create 3x Raven + 1xGriffin lance.

Support Lance:

Tonnage limit: 240 tons

• Specific role on the battlefield - Fire support.
  
• Rewards for fire support (like for example suppressing fire on the enemy),
  
• Know role in the other games - damage dealer.
  
• Tonnage allows to take: 1xShadowhawk, 1xGriffin, 1xCatapult, 1xJagermech.

Assault Lance:

Tonnage limit: 320 tons

• Specific role on the battlefield - mid to close range combat.
  
• Rewards for engaging the enemy.
  
• Know role in the other games - tank/damage dealer.
  
• Tonnage limit allow players to take: 1xThunderbolt, 3xBattlemaster

How to encourage players to do so? By implementing rewards specific to the lance role. For example scouting would working around making the reconnaissance or even fighting off enemy recon lance. As you can see, this system is hybrid between 3/3/3/3 an the tonnage limit, but more flexible.

Edited by Captain Artemis, 07 October 2015 - 10:40 AM.

[Least Action Jackson]

Looks good to me. I'm surprised that the the tonnage limits don't follow a monotonic curve, though. For example, minimum tonnage per person waffles between 45 and 50 tons per person as the groups get bigger, for reasons which aren't clear to me.

[grayson marik]

Skip the tonnage stuff, as it will not work. Use a proper implemented BV System like this, you can even review the data used and generate own test data.

[Mark Brandhauber]

how is making an inherantly less organised (multi) team slower (Heavier) going to be giving them any sort of edge against a faster better organised unified team, where is the logic in that?

Captain Artemis, on 07 October 2015 - 02:47 AM, said:

Tonnage rule does not bring the solution to this problem in a long term at all, some people tend to min max everything they can. So instead of counting the tonnage limit per group size, maybe it's time to think outside the box? As some people have pointed out, we can even end up in the situation where light mechs can be very rare on the battlefield.

I am aware that this post does not bring the answer to match making mechanics, instead here is the place where "Role Warfare" can be introduced, with three different lances having specific role on the battlefield.

Recon Lance
Tonnage limit: 160 tons

• Specific role on the battlefield - scouting.
  
• Know role in the other games - assassin.
  
• Secondly, with implementation of the Information Warfare, light mechs could behave better in this role, rather than any other mech - 3x Locust, 1xAtlas is not good idea.
  
• Tonnage limit allow players to create 3x Raven + 1xGriffin lance.

Support Lance:


Tonnage limit: 240 tons

• Specific role on the battlefield - Fire support.
  
• Rewards for fire support (like for example suppressing fire on the enemy),
  
• Know role in the other games - damage dealer.
  
• Tonnage allows to take: 1xShadowhawk, 1xGriffin, 1xCatapult, 1xJagermech.

Assault Lance:


Tonnage limit: 320 tons

• Specific role on the battlefield - mid to close range combat.
  
• Rewards for engaging the enemy.
  
• Know role in the other games - tank/damage dealer.
  
• Tonnage limit allow players to take: 1xThunderbolt, 3xBattlemaster

How to encourage players to do so? By implementing rewards specific to the lance role. For example scouting would working around making the reconnaissance or even fighting off enemy recon lance. As you can see, this system is hybrid between 3/3/3/3 an the tonnage limit, but more flexible.

I've suggested this and been ignored, i like its but too complicated for most

[Captain Artemis]

Mark Brandhauber, on 07 October 2015 - 01:35 PM, said:

I've suggested this and been ignored, i like its but too complicated for most

I would leave solo queue as it is right now, it's fun to play - no need to change it. In case of multi group queue some changes need to be done.

For example, we have the group of 6 players.

• 4 of them wants to play as support - so they got the 240 tons to spend.
  
• 2 of them wants to play as the scout - so they need to know that whole recon lance got 160 tons.

Bringing an Atlas 100 ton is not good idea, so they decided to take 2xRaven (70 tons). Here MM will look for the rest of the lance.

[OneAndOnlyObsidian]

As a player who plays mostly light 'mechs and has many friends who also run light 'mechs, I feel the minimum tonnage is just a gut-punch at how high it is right now. The inability to run an Oxide or a Huginn with a friend who I suggested the Oxide to is utterly absurd. On top of that, it limits the ability to take heavier mechs like the King Crab or Atlas as group members will yell at eachother for hogging the tonnage.
What I suggest is: Have no tonnage limit. Plain and simple as that. It won't fix anything. If anything, I think it would make things worse, as now group members will have to worry about "Effective use of tonnage".

Please save the weight limits in for Community Warfare.

[kapusta11]

Tonnage is but a one variable. It's not related directly to mech's performance.

PGI please, just make up your mind, you either balance mechs 1 to 1 so that every mech have more or less the same potential performance which is the right thing to do since eneryone takes up 1 slot in 12 vs 12 game and has only one "life" OR you follow the idea of "the heavier mech - the better it is" which is not true to the way things are right now, Firestarter, Arctic Cheater, hell even Jenner, more often than not are better than any missile based medium, heavy and sometimes even assault. And that's just one example.

In practice though, all this system will do is force people to switch to clans entirely for obvious reasons.

Edited by kapusta11, 07 October 2015 - 11:51 PM.

[grayson marik]

Dear Russ,

you and your collegues at PGI did a good job at making smaller Mechs viable too in MWO. Unfortunately, as a side effect, this mostly disqualifies tonnage as combat efficiency measure tool.

And now you try to use the tool you disabled yourself for MM balancing? Seems odd to me.
Also, there will always be some better 55 ton Mechs than other 55 ton Mechs and so on and so forth.

While you might be able to reach some degree of balance using your proposed system, you will bann a big part of available chassis from usage because of non viablility in combat forever.
Of course you will do another balancing run on Mechs every few month's that will kill some chassis and resurect others... but you will not break the circle of number mambo jumbo, that goes on now for years.

Please take a look at this system. In the first post you will find a general description and on the spoiler button, you will find test data generaded for 3 different chassis in a rising mech population environment. Also you will find a link to generate more test data. If you like, I can also open up the parameters from random generation to formular feeding to generate more data usiing different starting points.

But please take a look and consider it against your proposed tonnage constraints. This system successfully runs for month's on a planetary league, so it is not just Excelwarrior fanasies. It works!

[Sparkkuwaifu]

My opinion is: this won't solve the problem at all. Premades will just build around it, and then mess up the puggers anyway. 6 groups of 2 shouldn't come against a group of 12.

You're mistaking "tonnage" for "skill". The weight of a mech does not matter. Any light mech can rip apart a heavy mech. Firestarters and Arctic Cheetahs are just small examples. How many times do Stormcrows get 1000+ damage games? Plenty. Weight WILL NOT solve the problem.

What it should do is have a "Small Group Queue" for sized 1-5 groups, and a "Large Group Queue" for 6-12. It tries to put together a full group in the large queue, and only pulls from the small queue to fill the gaps, i.e. if it pulls a group of 7, tries to grab a 5 group out of the small queue, prioritizing trying to pull as few groups as possible to complete a full drop.

This way, you have as coordinated a team as possible.

[daPaule]

Sparkkuwaifu, on 08 October 2015 - 11:56 PM, said:

My opinion is: this won't solve the problem at all. Premades will just build around it, and then mess up the puggers anyway. 6 groups of 2 shouldn't come against a group of 12.

You're mistaking "tonnage" for "skill". The weight of a mech does not matter. Any light mech can rip apart a heavy mech. Firestarters and Arctic Cheetahs are just small examples. How many times do Stormcrows get 1000+ damage games? Plenty. Weight WILL NOT solve the problem.

What it should do is have a "Small Group Queue" for sized 1-5 groups, and a "Large Group Queue" for 6-12. It tries to put together a full group in the large queue, and only pulls from the small queue to fill the gaps, i.e. if it pulls a group of 7, tries to grab a 5 group out of the small queue, prioritizing trying to pull as few groups as possible to complete a full drop.

This way, you have as coordinated a team as possible.

I like the small vs big group thing though 7+8 doesn't add up to 12. Just make a pub / fun drop and "competition" queue. As a trio of SJR/EMP would still be the knife cutting butter in small groups. Implementing an info to droplead that currently your choice is bad but you could be added to the other queue if u want to