41 replies to this topic

[Sandpit]

Bilbo, on 03 March 2016 - 10:18 AM, said:

It's supposed to work that way, but I've been the poor sod that gets the same map three or four times in a row several times a night enough to know that it really isn't working.

I'm willing to bet your map rotation in your stats shows a pretty even spread.

[MrMadguy]

Bilbo, on 03 March 2016 - 10:18 AM, said:

It's supposed to work that way, but I've been the poor sod that gets the same map three or four times in a row several times a night enough to know that it really isn't working.

Yeah, if fills rotation with ton of Thermas, Alpines and Polars, nobody picks anyway. It makes voting completely pointless, cuz no vote needed to pick 1 map from 1.

But very soon map rotation will be nothing, but this, so 90% of players will rage quit. Why implement voting, if you're going to force us play maps, you want, anyway? To give us an illusion, that we have choice?

Edited by MrMadguy, 03 March 2016 - 10:34 AM.

[Bilbo]

Sandpit, on 03 March 2016 - 10:25 AM, said:

I'm willing to bet your map rotation in your stats shows a pretty even spread.

If I had thought to make a snapshot prior to voting implementation it would show exactly that. Unfortunately, I did not. So I have no baseline and can only go with what I see when I play recently. Polar Highlands, Frozen City, HPG Manifold, and Mining Colony have been well overplayed the last month or so. There are nights I can see all of these multiple times before getting a whiff of another map.

[Sandpit]

Bilbo, on 03 March 2016 - 10:36 AM, said:

If I had thought to make a snapshot prior to voting implementation it would show exactly that. Unfortunately, I did not. So I have no baseline and can only go with what I see when I play recently. Polar Highlands, Frozen City, HPG Manifold, and Mining Colony have been well overplayed the last month or so. There are nights I can see all of these multiple times before getting a whiff of another map.

out of how many matches though?

I'm not trying to argue just to argue, it's just been my experience over the years that I've seen exactly 2 times where a player thought they had broken map rotation and their stats showed an anomaly like that.

Usually we don't even think twice about it until we get those map runs like that. 3-4 times in a row and we start thinking "I'm sick of playing on this map" and that sticks in our minds. When in reality we might get a map 3 times in a row, then we might get a rotation of different maps for the next 2-3 then you see it again once, but that's the 4th time for the player, and repeat.

Not saying you don't have that, just saying that's been my experience over the years.

With the voting system though, it's impossible to have a random rotation. With maps weighted across the entire game, it's possible that even though the map is showing up quite a bit for you, it may not be on average for all the games.

That's why lobbies would have helped. Then the map rotation could be weighted and randnomized according to that lobby and those players as opposed to across the entire game.

I keep saying Black Ops 2 did a really excellent job with this and how they handled the map voting and such

[Bilbo]

Sandpit, on 03 March 2016 - 11:01 AM, said:

out of how many matches though?

I'm not trying to argue just to argue, it's just been my experience over the years that I've seen exactly 2 times where a player thought they had broken map rotation and their stats showed an anomaly like that.

Usually we don't even think twice about it until we get those map runs like that. 3-4 times in a row and we start thinking "I'm sick of playing on this map" and that sticks in our minds. When in reality we might get a map 3 times in a row, then we might get a rotation of different maps for the next 2-3 then you see it again once, but that's the 4th time for the player, and repeat.

Not saying you don't have that, just saying that's been my experience over the years.

With the voting system though, it's impossible to have a random rotation. With maps weighted across the entire game, it's possible that even though the map is showing up quite a bit for you, it may not be on average for all the games.

That's why lobbies would have helped. Then the map rotation could be weighted and randnomized according to that lobby and those players as opposed to across the entire game.

I keep saying Black Ops 2 did a really excellent job with this and how they handled the map voting and such

No Idea. Generally 4-8 hours of continuous solo play.

[Davegt27]

Quote

I'm willing to bet your map rotation in your stats shows a pretty even spread

Nope even before the voting system the bog had passed other older maps

Why they keep shoving the bog down our throats is beyond me

The bog passed frozen city, alpine peaks and terra Therma

On a side note the Maps where brought up during the last town hall
And the bog was I think third then they asked which map was number 1 and Russ never really answered the question

At least I did not hear the answer

[Bilbo]

Davegt27, on 03 March 2016 - 11:09 AM, said:

Nope even before the voting system the bog had passed other older maps

Why they keep shoving the bog down our throats is beyond me

The bog passed frozen city, alpine peaks and terra Therma

On a side note the Maps where brought up during the last town hall
And the bog was I think third then they asked which map was number 1 and Russ never really answered the question

At least I did not hear the answer

They tended to heavily weight maps when new and every time they make a set of changes to them. I wouldn't be surprised if they jacked up the weighting to get a map in the vote for the same reasons.

[Threat Doc]

SplashDown, on 03 March 2016 - 07:10 AM, said:

And i allmost never get to play the maps i enjoy..PLUS becuz i cant turn off game modes any more i keep getting stuck playing assault where all any-1 does it race to cap the base..its dull,,its boring and i for one am done participating in those modes.

You and I should switch places then, hehe... I would say I only get Assault one in every seven games, 5 for Skirmish, and 1 for Conquest.

MrMadguy, on 03 March 2016 - 08:39 AM, said:

Look, your rank is way too subjective - you like LRMs, so you want maps, that suit your tactics the most. My rank is objective:

Your rank does not matter to me, while my rank does. To me, my ranking is no less objective than your own.

Sandpit, on 03 March 2016 - 09:40 AM, said:

Russ explained this in the townhall actually

Maps are weighted on their rotation actually. More chosen maps lose weight and appear in map choices less. Less chosen maps appear more often.

I'm sorry, but I never see that. Viridian Bog is one of the map choices I get, no matter if I'm playing North America, Oceania, or Europe, at least 7 times out of 10. I think it might be Russ's goal to get the maps working the way you've described, here, but it is not reality, at least not yet.

Edited by Kay Wolf, 03 March 2016 - 06:10 PM.

[Wolfways]

Zolaz, on 03 March 2016 - 12:06 AM, said:

Rough playing an LRM boat. Maybe, you should play a mech that works on more maps? You might want to go onto Twitter where Russ can see your requests, that is probably easier than running something that works. By works, I mean something that isnt a waste of space because you cant play it.

I don't play LRM boats, well not very often anyway. I just mentioned the area where fighting usually happens probably because people like to hide from LRM's.

[Dawnstealer]

Honestly, this game will have this issue until it has a hundred or so maps, and the only way PGI hits that level of saturation is if they let the community build maps. I mean, yes: slap controls on that process - let people drop maps in Testing Grounds and private matches and vote on them - don't feed them into general rotation until they've passed some kind of smell test.

I get wanting to control the product, but one map every few months is not nearly enough.

[TVMA Doc]

MechWarrior849305, on 02 March 2016 - 10:34 PM, said:

Why do you even play quick play matches? Play CW WAAAAY more entertaining. There is the only one terrible map out there - Boreal Vault, which has 3/13 chances to appear against 2/13 for the rest. PS: And yes, Bog is the worst map in MWO. Period.

The main issue seems to be the 10 or more minute waits for a drop in CW.

[Threat Doc]

It still kills me that people have a problem waiting for ten minutes to get into a match, or a problem playing either 15 or 45 minutes for a match, when during MechWarrior II, III, and IV, it used to take hours to get enough people together for a ten or fifteen minute winner-take-all match. There is no reason anyone should be bitching about ten minutes. That's one thing I am really thankful to PGI for... they've taken a process that used to require between one-and-a-half and FOUR hours, and paired it down to seconds.

Are the matches even marginally well-balanced? No.

Will they be? Not until Paul stops being stubborn and silly and actually builds a point-by-point Battle Value system for MWO, and allows for those points to be calculated within the Mechlab and modified by a true Piloting and Gunnery Skill system determined in the game, on launch, and not this ridiculous PSR that actually doesn't gauge anything, doesn't really add anything to the game, and then modify the Matchmaker to account for it and match buckets within 5% of one-anothers total team Battle Value, will we have a truly matched system. It just simply won't happen.

I don't know whether or not anyone's noticed, but PSR adjusts up OR down based on how well you do in a match, cross-referenced with how your team does in a match. If I do well, but not well-enough (300 - 549 damage for an equals in a lost match, or 550+ for a green up-arrow), and we lose, I lose PSR equivalent to just how crappy I did. Alternately, each 100 points I score above 300 for the win, or above 550 for the loss, my PSR goes up in accordance with that difference.

This is not a measure of Piloting Skill Rating. If the team affects how well or poorly my score is treated, that's just wrong; it should be based solely on how I do.

What WOULD be a proper measure of Piloting Skill is taking the damage I do to my legs while moving (dropping from heights at speed and from jumping too high, etc.) and whether I've remained alive to the end of the game (as cross-referenced with the number of points of damage I was able to do in the match, to determine if I was actually in the fight, or off hiding).

For Gunnery Skill, it should be based 'Mech-to-'Mech in my inventory, based on the weapon hit percentages for the loadout of the individual 'Mech I'm going to take. In other words, if I'm driving my Wolverine 7K, with three LRM-5s with Artemis and an ER PPC, then my hit percentages for all four weapons, individually, should be averaged and set to an overall Gunnery percentage.

Piloting and Gunnery percentages would be averaged against one-another, and the overall would give a multiplier for the 'Mechs overall Battle Value.

PS/GS AVG Multiplier
01 - 20..........0.25 Cadet
21 - 40..........0.67 Green
41 - 60..........1.00 Regular
61 - 80..........1.15 Veteran
81 - 100........1.35 Elite

So, if your BattleMech's MWO-based Battle Value comes out to be, say, 1000 and, with the weapons your character has along with their Gunnery Skill average for those weapons, as well as their past overall Piloting Skills come out to make you a Veteran-quality MechWarrior with those percentages, your 1000 BV 'Mech would come out to be 1150, instead, whereas a Green-quality MechWarrior would only see 670 BV.

Each MechWarrior's PS/GS modified Battle Value BattleMech on each team is placed in their team's individual buckets. The Matchmaker then finds another team that falls within 5% of the total for your team's bucket, and sets you against one another. You would then have pilots of all qualities fighting on the battlefield, as it actually would be, and they can fight against one-another. Now, if the closest team to your own is short a few 'Mechs because of too many high-level pilots on their side, that just gives the lower-quality team numbers to work with against those pilots.

This is a system that could work, hands-down, and it would allow the quirks on 'Mechs to be eliminated, or at least tallied into the Battle Value system, and it would allow Paul to set the weapons systems where they're supposed to be and have those weapons calculated based on minimum and maximum range, heat, damage, and even weapon effect, etc. You do NOT have to account for map heat or terrain, because the map heat is going to affect the weapon's systems the same, nor would you need to account for anything else.

Will Paul even actually consider this, or consider talking to any of us who continue to advocate for this system over the failure that PSR actually is? No. In order to get this done, someone who actually gives a **** about BattleTech is going to have to take over continuing development of the game.

Edited by Kay Wolf, 03 March 2016 - 06:48 PM.

[Jeffrey Wilder]

Read tons of these and I've come to a conclusion on what is the root cause.

I figured that the constant disagreement between good and bad maps comes back to the kind of build you have.

I see these groups mainly;

1) Players that are LRM boating all the time.
2) Players that have no LRMs but boats long range weapons only.
3) Players that only are interested in short range engagements.

I think the main problem is with 1) and 3) where players tend to vote on extreme ends. So player group from 1) will see thinks exactly opposite from 3).

In other words, there's no right or wrong; it's situational.

What PGI needs to do is very complex. It will involve analyzing the kind of build majority of the players are in the queue, tier levels and finally grouping them with the right maps.

Don't think that is going to happen in a long time.

[MechWarrior849305]

MrMadguy, on 03 March 2016 - 03:09 AM, said:

What else would you vote for in this case? Please note, that I haven't voted for best maps with my 10x multiplier, but I could have done it. Also I haven't used "Change vote at last moment" trick to prevent bad maps.


3 votes in a row - 2 Thermas, 3 Polars, 3 Forests. 2/3 of maps - are from top 5 worst ones. Don't you see a pattern here? Obvious manipulation.

Then one vote a little bit better - at least 2 best maps:

And then again...

Total crap:

It's not cherry picked screenshots - it's real current map rotation. And it happens for about a week already.

Also, yeah. Equipping LRMs - isn't bad. LRM boating and wanting LRM-favoring maps - is.

Yeah, I've noticed this myself : when you have to choose you have either 4 awful maps to choose from, or, othewise, you have 4 very good options, when you can't really decide. So, basically, you have to play either good map (and that's good), or play terrible map no matter what.
All these vote multipliers can't really help in the case. Cause, obviously, when there is good map is chosen by majority you don't need to vote yourself, and when there is list of sh!t maps infront of you - you will not vote for any of them.
Pretty much shows how this "AWESOME" PGI's map rotation mechanics works

[MrMadguy]

Jeffrey Wilder, on 03 March 2016 - 07:01 PM, said:

Read tons of these and I've come to a conclusion on what is the root cause.

I figured that the constant disagreement between good and bad maps comes back to the kind of build you have.

I see these groups mainly;

1) Players that are LRM boating all the time.
2) Players that have no LRMs but boats long range weapons only.
3) Players that only are interested in short range engagements.

I think the main problem is with 1) and 3) where players tend to vote on extreme ends. So player group from 1) will see thinks exactly opposite from 3).

In other words, there's no right or wrong; it's situational.

What PGI needs to do is very complex. It will involve analyzing the kind of build majority of the players are in the queue, tier levels and finally grouping them with the right maps.

Don't think that is going to happen in a long time.

No. If it would work like this, I wouldn't complain then.

Look. Previous time when I quited this game, I quited it cuz due to terrible MM it became unplayable to a point, where I couldn't even level 'Mechs anymore - it just takes ages with 50K CB + 200XP per match rewards. Before this moment I had had a rule: not to waste XP - always level something new. I also don't like to have shared spare parts - I like every 'Mech to be ready to go at any moment. But stock unleveled 'Mechs were completely unplayable, so I decided, that I will buy all equipment first and only then start leveling them. Guess, what happened? Yeah. I was buying 'Mechs, but had no time to buy equipment and level them - about 20 'Mech were collecting dust in their 'Mech bays. When I returned, I decided to level them. I have about 70 'Mechs, so I have ton of spare parts - I found engines, modules, other equipment.

I wanted to master my Highlanders, so I built 3 'Mechs at once. I won't tell you any details, but let's say for example, that their builds were - brawler, mixed build, sniper. Guess, what happened next? Yeah, sniper was good at any map, mixed build was so-so (at least you can use some lurms at Polar for example) and brawler sucked hard at 50% of them. I have principle - to have diverse builds, but any other ordinal player would simply throw his brawler out of the window. So, there is obvious bias towards Snipe Meta. And there is only one solution for me - to avoid Meta-biased maps.

Look. Everybody and their grannies equip Gausses and boat ER-LLs now. Especially Clans. You won't see a single Clan 'Mech (except Arctic Cheater) without dat "Blue Rays of Death". Any of them can kill you from up to 1K meters. If you are unlucky to meet more than one of them - you're instantly dead. There is no brawler Meta maps - you can find 1K of open space and camp spots on any map, even on Frozen. But there is Snipe/LRM Meta maps. I prefer maps, that are balanced and where all players are even and has equal chances to succeed. Balanced maps, even players - is great recipe for good close balanced games. Unbalanced maps and uneven players - is good recipe of stomp. And all players got sick of stomps - they want balanced matches desperatelly. But the fact, that devs trend to make/remake maps bigger and bigger - only makes imbalance worse and worse.

Edited by MrMadguy, 04 March 2016 - 12:39 AM.

[Bilbo]

4 hours before I played River City, 5 hours before I played Forest Colony.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Map voting was the worst choice for this game in years.

It encourages people to vote for maps that cater to the "meta" playstyle, while other maps go relatively unplayed.

I barely ever see Terra Therma, or Polar Highlands, or Alpine.

I see Viridian, Canyon, and Frozen[either variation] way too much.

the other maps are just kinda, average.

at least in the old, non-vote system, I saw a relatively even spread of maps over the week, now... now it's almost a chore to play when I see the same damned maps constantly.

I'm completely tired of the map voting system. 100% tired of it.

[Tarogato]

El Bandito, on 02 March 2016 - 09:21 PM, said:

There are two versions of Frozen City, which means it is twice as likely to appear in the rotation. Tell PGI to either take out the day version or rework the map into one fast.

I'm willing to bet that that is still false. Before map voting was introduced, if you checked your Map Stats, you would see that Frozen City and Frozen City Night would have some of your lowest number of matches played. Same was true for River City (Night) and Forest Colony (Snow). In fact, checking your Map Stats today, I'm willing to bet that they are still at the bottom and if you add the numbers together for both Frozen City and Frozen City Night, you will get a number consistent with the other maps. For me, my most played map is River City with 908 matches, and combining Frozen City + Night gives me 910.

So it isn't twice as likely to appear, combined together it is equally likely. My stats, sorted from most played to least:

[El Bandito]

Tarogato, on 04 March 2016 - 03:14 AM, said:

I'm willing to bet that that is still false. Before map voting was introduced, if you checked your Map Stats, you would see that Frozen City and Frozen City Night would have some of your lowest number of matches played. Same was true for River City (Night) and Forest Colony (Snow). In fact, checking your Map Stats today, I'm willing to bet that they are still at the bottom and if you add the numbers together for both Frozen City and Frozen City Night, you will get a number consistent with the other maps. For me, my most played map is River City with 908 matches, and combining Frozen City + Night gives me 910.

So it isn't twice as likely to appear, combined together it is equally likely. My stats, sorted from most played to least:

This my archived map stats which is unaffected by map voting. Take it what you will.

[Tarogato]

El Bandito, on 04 March 2016 - 03:24 AM, said:

This my archived map stats which is unaffected by map voting. Take it what you will.

Wow, that is extraordinarily inconsistent with mine. My archived stats also show that Frozen City and Frozen City Night were dropped half as often, and when combined, equaled the other maps. What do your current stats look like?