61 replies to this topic

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

MischiefSC, on 23 April 2016 - 11:41 PM, said:

Except there's several thousand unit members dropping in unit queue. The solo players are maybe 10%-15%, if even, just in unit queue. That's the issue - right now there just aren't a lot of actual dedicated solos. Unit or solo queue. That's why Russ is saying he wants to merge the queues.

I seriously doubt this is true, even if the info comes from PGI or Mr. Bullock.

Maybe they are misreading the info by not actually counting 1-man units as solo. Maybe the telemetry they are using is just unit/not unit.

MischiefSC, on 23 April 2016 - 11:41 PM, said:

Which I'm against BTW. I'd rather we give more value to dropping in both solo and unit to attract more people to FW all together instead of try and just smash the people playing together.

I'm completely with you on this.

And also give more time for people to adjust.

[madhermit]

DarklightCA, on 23 April 2016 - 03:20 PM, said:

Asking the minority of the players who choose to play with a group to represent the majority of the queue while asking the majority of the players who choose to solo queue to represent the minority of the queue is stupid and unrealistic yes. I mean, that's common sense.

I've already clarified it so unless you are asking me to repeat myself, I'd suggest just re-reading what I said.

That is not what I'm asking. I'm not asking minority to represent the majority. I'm asking that if they merge the queues, the 12-2 man groups are matched against equal sized 12-2 man group and rest are filled with the solo players. I don't know where you got that matchmaking should solely be centered around group size.

I'll give you an example: 6 man group wants to attack planet X. This 6 man group has to wait for another 6 man group to come for defense and then rest are filled with solo players or other groups until we have equal matching.

Now, it doesn't necessarily have to be 6man v 6man. I understand with small number of players playing the actual game that might be too much to ask. Maybe you could have +/- 1-2 player tolerance in the matching of groups. Ultimately what we want to avoid is that 12 man group roflstomping randoms which WILL happen if they just revert to matching groups against randoms. I guess the only way they were able to separate grouped units from randoms was the freelance/merc/loyalist system.

Which actually baffles me why they do everything the convoluted way. Are people creating one-man units so they can join mercenaries? I think so. Freelancers are EXTREMELY restricted in what they can do and loyalty pledging has heavy repercussions for breaking loyalty which shys away people from doing that too. Only solution for being able to get the freedom to choose how to play is to create one man unit and go merc. This freelance/merc/loyalist thing they used to separate queues is possibly a mistake or more likely flawed.

Edited by madhermit, 24 April 2016 - 01:01 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 24 April 2016 - 12:21 AM, said:

I seriously doubt this is true, even if the info comes from PGI or Mr. Bullock.

Maybe they are misreading the info by not actually counting 1-man units as solo. Maybe the telemetry they are using is just unit/not unit.



I'm completely with you on this.

And also give more time for people to adjust.

Your opinion on the telemetry doesn't matter. The math is the math. They can separate 1 player units, just like we can. You can go count up populations on the scoreboard right now - you can compare it with the telemetry released on prior CW events (several thousand players on average) and look at the solo population.

Most players in FW are in units. Not just 1 player units, but multi-player units. That's the bulk of the drops going on. Many of them pug; absolutely. However they are members of units with multiple members.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

MischiefSC, on 24 April 2016 - 01:57 AM, said:

Your opinion on the telemetry doesn't matter. The math is the math. They can separate 1 player units, just like we can. You can go count up populations on the scoreboard right now - you can compare it with the telemetry released on prior CW events (several thousand players on average) and look at the solo population.

Most players in FW are in units. Not just 1 player units, but multi-player units. That's the bulk of the drops going on. Many of them pug; absolutely. However they are members of units with multiple members.

I'm not doubting the math. I'm doubting that they are releasing raw data.

If they are releasing raw data, I'd like to see it.

If they are not and we have only their statements to go by; that's not evidence of anything, as far as I am concerned.

[MischiefSC]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 24 April 2016 - 02:02 AM, said:

I'm not doubting the math. I'm doubting that they are releasing raw data.

If they are releasing raw data, I'd like to see it.

If they are not and we have only their statements to go by; that's not evidence of anything, as far as I am concerned.

There have never been that many solos in FW. It's never been the case. Again, if there were any significant solo populations than A) solo queue would have been busy enough nobody would have left and B ) there never would have been stomps with units on pugs because most drops would have been mix on mix. They weren't and still aren't, because the bulk of people are in units dropping with unit members. That's exactly why stomps happen - there's enough unit players to not only fill 50% of matches (that's one team every match) with an 8man + but small 2-4man groups and unit members pugging.

Make sense? What you're doing is called 'confirmation bias'. Since you're a solo unit player every match you're in involves a solo unit player. Plus you FEEL (because of that) that it's common because it's reflected in 100% of your perception so when you remember matches your brain automatically sorts the ones that conform to that to the top of the list and weighs them more heavily compared to ones that don't conform.

It's how your brain works, it's why memory/perception is untrustworthy, it's also why political parties work the way we do, why people gravitate towards particular news and entertainment sources, etc. etc. Your perception (and my perception and everyones perception) is untrustworthy. Sure, people misread data but the data PGI is putting up is being seen and evaluated by several people. I'm trying to get some raw telemetry but stepping back from bias and just calculation screenshot populations in aggregate makes the situation pretty clear.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

I understand the psychology of confirmation bias. I'm also not fool enough to fall into such a fallacy.

Numbers can be made to do all sorts of thing, depending on how you look at them and statements can interpret them in equally diverse way.

I don't actually care about statements. I want to SEE the numbers, not have them interpreted for me. I am plenty able to compile statistics myself to answer my question.

That's why I tried to create that little unofficial poll about unit affiliation. Admittedly, the response has been inadequate to create a meaningful sample size and the participants are only drawn from those visiting the forums and thus not representative. But it's better than nothing.

I can also say the same of submitted screenshots. They are definitely NOT representative.

Even a statistic showing average numbers of people dropping solo or in groups isn't representative. I want to see and compare how many unique player IDs tried to drop solo or in groups and how many are in units and not in units since FW3 was released. I also want to see how many unique player IDs even attempted but did not complete a drop solo or in groups and how many are in units and not in units.

If they cannot provide the latter 2, than the former has no context of player retention.

For example, if a player pops into FW, wants to drop but cannot get a game and leaves FW, how do we count that player? Is he missing from the statistics because he did not actually play a game?

If a player pops into FW and gets a game but is disillusioned and leaves due to wait times, he would contribute little average drops per hour for solo, but he would be counted as a unique player ID that is a solo player.

Can I see their numbers without interpretation? Are they even collecting the right data? How are they interpreting this data?

I don't know the answer to these question, but I remain skeptical until I can see what number they release.

Edited by Brandarr Gunnarson, 24 April 2016 - 03:48 AM.

[jss78]

I feel like before pulling the plug on the solo queue, PGI should make an honest effort at promoting FP to non-unit players. I'm thinking something like a long event with considerable rewards, enough to get people to give it a shot.

I'm not saying it'd be sure to work, but I'd try it. Solo guys have developed an aversion to FP for a good reason, and the argument to try the separation was really strong. Without some type of match-making FP is destined to remain a fringe part of MWO.

Edited by jss78, 24 April 2016 - 03:33 AM.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

Follow-up.

I would just like to add:

Part of my point is that while there may be more Unit (I mean real unit, not 1-man) players on FW at any given time than solo/1-man units, I doubt that there are more unique player IDs in those units than there are solo/1-man unit player IDs playing FW since the launch of FW3.

I would like proof to see that the total number of unique players that have played FW3 since its release that are in multi-member units is more than the total combined number of unique players that are solo or 1-man unit players.

[DarklightCA]

madhermit, on 24 April 2016 - 12:54 AM, said:

That is not what I'm asking. I'm not asking minority to represent the majority. I'm asking that if they merge the queues, the 12-2 man groups are matched against equal sized 12-2 man group and rest are filled with the solo players. I don't know where you got that matchmaking should solely be centered around group size.

I'll give you an example: 6 man group wants to attack planet X. This 6 man group has to wait for another 6 man group to come for defense and then rest are filled with solo players or other groups until we have equal matching.

Now, it doesn't necessarily have to be 6man v 6man. I understand with small number of players playing the actual game that might be too much to ask. Maybe you could have +/- 1-2 player tolerance in the matching of groups. Ultimately what we want to avoid is that 12 man group roflstomping randoms which WILL happen if they just revert to matching groups against randoms. I guess the only way they were able to separate grouped units from randoms was the freelance/merc/loyalist system.

Which actually baffles me why they do everything the convoluted way. Are people creating one-man units so they can join mercenaries? I think so. Freelancers are EXTREMELY restricted in what they can do and loyalty pledging has heavy repercussions for breaking loyalty which shys away people from doing that too. Only solution for being able to get the freedom to choose how to play is to create one man unit and go merc. This freelance/merc/loyalist thing they used to separate queues is possibly a mistake or more likely flawed.

Actually that is exactly what you said, you were not specific. You may have edited your post to reflect that now but your post was short and non-descriptive. All you stated was that the queue's should be 10 mans + 2 solos vs 10 mans + 2 solos.

If your goal was to just put groups against groups as a primary than solo's secondary, why does the group teams need to have 2 solos? I'd rather just 12 mans face other 12 mans.

I agree that groups need to face each other more and solo players less but other than adding a match making system into the gamemode that's not going to happen so long as there are more people playing solo than there are players playing in groups. I'd rather PGI just attempt to attract more units into the gamemode, ones with actual members that can form groups and give solo players incentives to play in groups rather than solo queue.

[madhermit]

DarklightCA, on 24 April 2016 - 03:51 AM, said:

Actually that is exactly what you said, you were not specific. You may have edited your post to reflect that now but your post was short and non-descriptive. All you stated was that the queue's should be 10 mans + 2 solos vs 10 mans + 2 solos.

If your goal was to just put groups against groups as a primary than solo's secondary, why does the group teams need to have 2 solos? I'd rather just 12 mans face other 12 mans.

I agree that groups need to face each other more and solo players less but other than adding a match making system into the gamemode that's not going to happen so long as there are more people playing solo than there are players playing in groups. I'd rather PGI just attempt to attract more units into the gamemode, ones with actual members that can form groups and give solo players incentives to play in groups rather than solo queue.

My bad. Should've been more descriptive. Bottom line is this: When groups join a match, they should be matched against equal sized group and rest of the slots be filled with solo players as needed. So naturally 12 man group would face against 12 man group primarily and secondarily against a large group that is missing 1-2 players (or whatever the tolerance is if there is any). Neither solo or grouped players should need to worry about "filling" the spots as it should be automatic.

But I suppose, as you hinted, this game needs more players if anything to make such a system to work properly. FW needs more incentives and appeal. Quick play button is very easy to press and "to have a blast" in a quick match. Going through a bunch of slow menus, manually selecting a planet queue to join, waiting it to fill and then in the end get practically nothing as a reward for all the effort is not that inviting.

Perhaps somekind "quick play" button for FW? Player selecting that would join the first planet available that needs players. And then giving bigger rewards for it.

[Jacob Side]

Mordin Ashe, on 23 April 2016 - 02:54 AM, said:

FW is only surviving thanks to solo players, be it absolute pugs or people in units. Without those FW has no future. Just like 12man normal drops that were introduced, failed spectacularly and didn't recover ever since.

Solo players are what drives FW, not groups. Focusing the game around people who only want to play in groups of 12 is a terrible thing because all the candy is going to those who are very few.

Seriously what is this clanner smoking? Solos keep FW alive???

Groups, not always full 12 mans are what keep FW going.

[vandalhooch]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 24 April 2016 - 03:25 AM, said:

I understand the psychology of confirmation bias. I'm also not fool enough to fall into such a fallacy.

Numbers can be made to do all sorts of thing, depending on how you look at them and statements can interpret them in equally diverse way.

I don't actually care about statements. I want to SEE the numbers, not have them interpreted for me. I am plenty able to compile statistics myself to answer my question.

That's why I tried to create that little unofficial poll about unit affiliation. Admittedly, the response has been inadequate to create a meaningful sample size and the participants are only drawn from those visiting the forums and thus not representative. But it's better than nothing.

I can also say the same of submitted screenshots. They are definitely NOT representative.

Even a statistic showing average numbers of people dropping solo or in groups isn't representative. I want to see and compare how many unique player IDs tried to drop solo or in groups and how many are in units and not in units since FW3 was released. I also want to see how many unique player IDs even attempted but did not complete a drop solo or in groups and how many are in units and not in units.

If they cannot provide the latter 2, than the former has no context of player retention.

For example, if a player pops into FW, wants to drop but cannot get a game and leaves FW, how do we count that player? Is he missing from the statistics because he did not actually play a game?

If a player pops into FW and gets a game but is disillusioned and leaves due to wait times, he would contribute little average drops per hour for solo, but he would be counted as a unique player ID that is a solo player.

Can I see their numbers without interpretation? Are they even collecting the right data? How are they interpreting this data?

I don't know the answer to these question, but I remain skeptical until I can see what number they release.

The leaderboards include number of FP matches played per unit and per player. It would be a slog to extract but there is some good data to work with in there.

[vandalhooch]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 24 April 2016 - 03:45 AM, said:

Follow-up.

I would just like to add:

Part of my point is that while there may be more Unit (I mean real unit, not 1-man) players on FW at any given time than solo/1-man units, I doubt that there are more unique player IDs in those units than there are solo/1-man unit player IDs playing FW since the launch of FW3.

I would like proof to see that the total number of unique players that have played FW3 since its release that are in multi-member units is more than the total combined number of unique players that are solo or 1-man unit players.

Check number of matches played for the top 1000 merc and loyalist pilots and cross reference with their unit sizes. A slog of gathering the info but it is possible to answer your question.

[gloowa]

Zoid, on 23 April 2016 - 09:36 AM, said:

The pugs "aren't there" anymore because they made units so they could be mercs. The solution is to let merc be a path you can take solo, not necessarily to merge the queues. The penalty for abandoning the solo loyalist path is pretty harsh so it's not surprising that a lot of solo players made 1-person units and are thus in the unit queue.

Sooo.... 4 mech bays from merc tree are enough to offset the "unplayble" situation where you fight against a 12 man? Well then. I guess 12 man vs pugs was never a big deal then, if one would choose "unplayable" gamemode for an aquivalent of one warhorn.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

vandalhooch, on 24 April 2016 - 08:03 AM, said:

The leaderboards include number of FP matches played per unit and per player. It would be a slog to extract but there is some good data to work with in there.

vandalhooch, on 24 April 2016 - 08:41 AM, said:

Check number of matches played for the top 1000 merc and loyalist pilots and cross reference with their unit sizes. A slog of gathering the info but it is possible to answer your question.

Ok, so part of the info is out there on the leaderboards.

Only the top 1000 players? What about those players that didn't make it to the top 1000; those that only played a very few matches?

This still wouldn't my questions in totality because it certainly won't include the player that tries to drop FW but doesn't due to lack of access.

So again, the backdrop of contextual info is incomplete.
_______________

@MischiefSC:

Last night I was getting a bit fired up. My points still stand but my tone of frustration was a little heavy.

[Mystere]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 24 April 2016 - 12:21 AM, said:

I seriously doubt this is true, even if the info comes from PGI or Mr. Bullock.

Maybe they are misreading the info by not actually counting 1-man units as solo. Maybe the telemetry they are using is just unit/not unit.

Actually, assuming it is actually true, a lot of 1-man units dropping on the group queue speaks volumes.

gloowa, on 24 April 2016 - 08:42 AM, said:

Sooo.... 4 mech bays from merc tree are enough to offset the "unplayble" situation where you fight against a 12 man? Well then. I guess 12 man vs pugs was never a big deal then, if one would choose "unplayable" gamemode for an aquivalent of one warhorn.

As someone who only played solo before the separation, I can say it was not unplayable for me. I also doubt I was the only one.

Edited by Mystere, 24 April 2016 - 04:48 PM.

[vandalhooch]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 24 April 2016 - 04:31 PM, said:

Ok, so part of the info is out there on the leaderboards.

Only the top 1000 players? What about those players that didn't make it to the top 1000; those that only played a very few matches?

I didn't feel like counting past the top 1000. Gives us a fair idea of the general pattern.

Quote

This still wouldn't my questions in totality because it certainly won't include the player that tries to drop FW but doesn't due to lack of access.

So again, the backdrop of contextual info is incomplete.

Agreed. The data wouldn't answer all of your questions but it would allow us to get a rough idea of what is going on. Just wish the leaderboards were in a form that could quickly be exported/imported for analysis.

Quote

_______________

@MischiefSC:

Last night I was getting a bit fired up. My points still stand but my tone of frustration was a little heavy.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

Mystere, on 24 April 2016 - 04:40 PM, said:

Actually, assuming it is actually true, a lot of 1-man units dropping on the group queue speaks volumes.

Well the way I read it is (if it's true) then those 10-15% that are dropping solo would not affect units' play very much by changing the queue split to solo/group instead of solo/unit.

On the other hand, it would make those players actually dropping solo very happy with their drops.

Finally, such a change would not prevent solo players from dropping with groups, they'd just need to join/make a group 1st. We have the LFG tool (it just isn't very easy to use and need a lot of work).

[Cath]

madhermit, on 24 April 2016 - 12:54 AM, said:

Which actually baffles me why they do everything the convoluted way. Are people creating one-man units so they can join mercenaries? I think so. Freelancers are EXTREMELY restricted in what they can do and loyalty pledging has heavy repercussions for breaking loyalty which shys away people from doing that too. Only solution for being able to get the freedom to choose how to play is to create one man unit and go merc. This freelance/merc/loyalist thing they used to separate queues is possibly a mistake or more likely flawed.

IMO PGI planned it this way. This way FW gets turned right back to one bucket. A solo, tagless player has one option for rewards. freelancing isnt it. It's a joke that attempted to force players into units and give Russ and co. what they wanted, empty solo q so they could be done with the splitting of the ques for good, and remerge them. Noone with half a brain is going to play FW as a freelancer, the reward isn't there. This way PGI can say "Hey we tried splitting the que's! It didin't work! Not our fault guys. Join a unit. Want to buy a mech?"

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

Cath, on 24 April 2016 - 05:04 PM, said:

IMO PGI planned it this way. This way FW gets turned right back to one bucket. A solo, tagless player has one option for rewards. freelancing isnt it. It's a joke that attempted to force players into units and give Russ and co. what they wanted, empty solo q so they could be done with the splitting of the ques for good, and remerge them. Noone with half a brain is going to play FW as a freelancer, the reward isn't there. This way PGI can say "Hey we tried splitting the que's! It didin't work! Not our fault guys. Join a unit. Want to buy a mech?"

I am also leaning this way and beginning to feel as though the lack of access for Freelancer (and solo players in general) and the solo/unit queue split was a way to "prove" that the solo population isn't there.

Fix this access problem and redefine the queue split, then let's see what happens.