29 replies to this topic

[CAT SIXX]

1st of all - hello 2 all, because this is my 1st post here.

I am a great fan of Battletech and all the Mechwarrior games 4 many years now, and i love MWO, since i started 2 play it from the beginning of 2016. I had may hours of fun by playing PUGs only, managed 2 aquire detailed game knowledge since then and achieved Tier 4 by now.

Sadly my 1st post's a complain. I searched 4 something similar 2 just add my thoughts 2 an existing thread, but i couldn't find 1, so i started a new topic here about what i c is a really problem in this game actually - at least in the PUGs.

2 put it plain - 8 out of 10 matches end up as stomps. Either your team wins with ease, or looses devastatingly, due 2 an obvious huge skill gap between the 2 fighting teams.

I've seen SO MANY unbalanced PUG matches, that i am pretty sure, it even tops the ridiculously failing matchmaker of HAWKEN, that managed 2 separate beginners from professionals in2 2 different teams, thus causing an endless chain of stomp matches. That was 1 of the reasons i left the HAWKEN community after over 1700+ hours of gameplay. So u can easily imagine, i have seen A LOT of worse matches at other games, too, be4, and i know that the reason 4 the matchmaker fail in HAWKEN is mainly ascribable 2 its very small playerbase, mainly consisting of adept and elite players, that effordlessly do it 10 times better than any noob player. However - the HAWKEN matchmaker mixes them all up as good as possible, and usually the team with the bigger contingent of professionals win the match by a large score difference. This is at least a partial excuse 4 the HAWKEN counterpart of matchmaker... ...but where's the excuse 4 the MWO matchmaker 4 failing 2 assort 2 EQUAL teams???

In fact, i have 2 confess, i have absolutely no idea, how the MWO matchmaker works - just by distributing players randomly to the teams, selected by tonnage, tier level, equipment, ping,
or maybe a combination of all this - i just don't know, what its criterias r 2 put 2 teams 2gether... ...but - i am pretty sure of 1 thing:

THAT IT IS SUPPOSED 2 FIND 2 TEAMS, EQUAL IN SKILLS, NUMBERS, AND MECHS,
AND ENABLE THEM 2 FIGHT A FAIR MATCH AGAINST EACH OTHER.

That said - it simply fails most of the times. Regardless if i end up as player with the most or least points, regardless if i get rolled by half the enemy team at the beginning of the match, or if am the last man standing - my team gets defeated just too easy by an obviously far superior team.
OR - my teams rolls 1 foe after the other without any difficulty by just calling out targets and focusing fire, covering each other, etc. It's obvious in BOTH cases, that the inferior team is absolutely overcharged by a large margin, and that shouldn't b the case.

That sa(i)d, i mean 1 team is - in most cases - far superior by:

• mech composition
  
• communication
  
• coordination
  
• equipment (especially mech modules like seismic sensor, radar deprivation, adv. zoom, etc.)
  
• armament

I might b wrong in many aspects, and i already expect 2 get disabused, but 1 irrefutable fact will remain in the end - that too many matches end with a too large score difference, reflecting an unwanted team skill unbalance...

Please understand this as constructive critique. I am aware, that it doesn't make sense 2 flame around 4 things that can b changed only by the devs, and that the enemy teams can't b blamed 4 their advantage - as my own team can't. It's the way it is actually is. And i'll live with it. Period.
But i'd like 2 understand what the reason 4 such imbalance is - besides the lack of team communication and stupid "wron turn" decisions - and how i can react most profitable 2 compensate 4 thet ingame, when i notice my team's about 2 get rolled.

Finally, please take my apologize 4 my strange spelling. English's not my native language, so i can just try 2 articulate my thoughts as good as i can. Sorry too 4 the huge walls of text - i promise 2 keep my prospectively replies shorter. B invited 2 tell me your opinions about it all.
I'd appreciate statements from rookie pilots as well as from experienced pilots.

Have a good day, much fun, and a good hunt, dudes.

Regards, CAT SIXX.


"Those who forge swords to plowshares will in the end plow for the others, that didn't do so ..."

Edited 4 typos...

Edited by CAT SIXX, 26 May 2016 - 09:06 AM.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Sometimes it's a skill differential, sometimes it's superior leadership, sometimes it's superior team comp, usually it's that someone screwed up on one team and things snowballed from there.

BTW forum search is broken atm and frankly has never really worked all that well.

Edited by Narcissistic Martyr, 26 May 2016 - 09:06 AM.

[Jables McBarty]

Holy Numerals Batman!


MM is a mix of:
-Weight: strives for balanced tonnage between teams
-Tier: during peak times strives for a single tier, then one in a single direction, then two in a single direction. This means a Tier 3 player can be matched with either Tier 1 OR Tier 5, but never both in a single game.
-Time: The longer MM works, the wider the parameters get.
-Servers: Selecting more servers opens the pool, increases likelihood of a good match.

Don't know how Tier is distributed across teams, but tonnage should always be approximately equal. Tonnage does not equal weight class. So you might have 6 assaults + 6 lights, while OpFor has 6 heavies + 6 mediums.

Also Tier does not equal skill, so OpFor might have some Tier 4's that are really good, and you have a bunch of Tier 3's that are really bad.

Best advice: Read the New Player Help/Guides and Strategies sections of the forums, learn to lead your team to victory. Start communicating early, as nobody likes it when a completely silent teammate starts raging after they died.

[CAT SIXX]

Narcissistic Martyr, on 26 May 2016 - 09:05 AM, said:

Sometimes it's a skill differential, sometimes it's superior leadership, sometimes it's superior team comp, usually it's that someone screwed up on one team and things snowballed from there.

BTW forum search is broken atm and frankly has never really worked all that well.

Agreed. It sometimes seems hard 2 catch what's the main reason 4 loosing badly, just because there's none single, but a chain of bad decisions, bad orders, and/or bad teamplay. In some cases it's nothing more than just bad luck, of course.

However - in some cases i noticed a much better endscore, when at least 2 or three mates used the ingame comm frequently 2 keep the rest of the team informed about incoming foes, sniper positions, sneaking lights going 4 a basecap.

In other cases i also noticed the opposite, when self-crowned "teamleaders" just forced half of the team 2 storm "Hamburger Hill" regardless of the costs. That often turned out fatal, and led 2 desasterous - but 4seeable results...

[Willard Phule]

I can explain how the matchmaker works for you.

It doesn't. Simple as that. It never has. The first matchmaker (with the Elo system) was a "band-aid," never intended to be permanent. They patched it and beat it until it didn't work.

PGI's concept of "matchmaking" boils down to "the better you are, the more you have to carry." That's been their game design model since the beginning. That's why they make it easy for new players to get into the mid-range of whateverthehell they're using.

And remember...it's more important for you to be nice to new players and teach them to play than it is to focus on winning or whatever other agenda you might have had. You will NEVER find a match without them. It's designed that way on purpose.

[CAT SIXX]

Sader325, on 26 May 2016 - 09:11 AM, said:

Since you don't care enough to do your own research and figure out how it works, why should we waste our valuable time reading your thread?

Do some legwork, stop being lazy, and get some knowledge before you start telling people how things should be done.

Haha... Did you read the following from the post b4 yours? - "BTW forum search is broken atm and frankly has never really worked all that well."

I was everything but lazy, and read all i could find about MWO in the meantime - i did my homework - as far as the search function allowed me 2 do...And... ...i don't try 2 tell others what 2 do - in fact i was ASKING what 2 do, when things get wrong... Cheers!

Edited by CAT SIXX, 26 May 2016 - 09:30 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Sader325, on 26 May 2016 - 09:11 AM, said:

Since you don't care enough to do your own research and figure out how it works, why should we waste our valuable time reading your thread?

Do some legwork, stop being lazy, and get some knowledge before you start telling people how things should be done.

...and welcome to Mechwarrior Online. A place of polite, decorum conscious folks who are full of good will and a desire to help you succeed...


or something.

[Ghogiel]

Willard Phule, on 26 May 2016 - 09:27 AM, said:

PGI's concept of "matchmaking" boils down to "the better you are, the more you have to carry." That's been their game design model since the beginning.

That's what it used to be like under Elo.

Matches were much harder because the skill rating was a true bell curve and was an actual challenge to get to the top end of it and stay there. It also took into account who you played against and modified rating based on whether you were beating up noobs or playing against tryhards. Meaning only good players were at the top of that scale.

Now the skill rating is a flat score based on indivual score irrespective of who you play, and nearly anyone can be T1. Meaning there are bads and monsters in T1. So you don't have to carry as much as the MM has no bias against good players and treats all the T1s the same.

[WarHippy]

I can't get past the OP's inability to type out words instead of replacing them with numbers. It was far too distracting for me to create an on topic post. Spelling and grammar don't need to be perfect, but come on is it really so hard to type out to, too, for, etc.?

"However - in some cases i noticed a much better endscore, when at least 2 or three mates used the ingame comm"
At least be consistent....

Edited by WarHippy, 26 May 2016 - 09:46 AM.

[CAT SIXX]

Jables McBarty, on 26 May 2016 - 09:17 AM, said:

Holy Numerals Batman!


MM is a mix of:
-Weight: strives for balanced tonnage between teams
-Tier: during peak times strives for a single tier, then one in a single direction, then two in a single direction. This means a Tier 3 player can be matched with either Tier 1 OR Tier 5, but never both in a single game.
-Time: The longer MM works, the wider the parameters get.
-Servers: Selecting more servers opens the pool, increases likelihood of a good match.

Don't know how Tier is distributed across teams, but tonnage should always be approximately equal. Tonnage does not equal weight class. So you might have 6 assaults + 6 lights, while OpFor has 6 heavies + 6 mediums.

Also Tier does not equal skill, so OpFor might have some Tier 4's that are really good, and you have a bunch of Tier 3's that are really bad.

Best advice: Read the New Player Help/Guides and Strategies sections of the forums, learn to lead your team to victory. Start communicating early, as nobody likes it when a completely silent teammate starts raging after they died.

Ok. As far as i can see...

• tiers do NOT reflect the individual skills of the players properly
  
• that given, the matchmaker can only roughly estimate the equality of the opposing teams
  
• the smaller the player pool is filtered by region, the longer the matchmaker takes, thus lowering the MMs restrictions
  
• the lower its restrictions, the more likely it is, he puts players of different tiers 2gether
  
• it remain unclear, if the tier distribution is equal on both teams

Thanx-a-lot 4 clarifying, Jables. That hardens my suspicion 2 a degree, I already read some guides - here, and at other sites (dunno, if i am allowed 2 spell them here, so i don't) and found them really useful. About my communiction - i never keep totally silent. I just can't, 2 b honest! Usually i say hello, ask 4 strategies, call out targets, and in 9 of 10 cases it's me alerting the rest of my team about the enemy scout lance dancing rock'n roll in their backs. I just hold my tongue back a bit, when there r enough others doing that job properly, and in these situations my team's usually doing fine anyway.

Again, big thx 4 ur reply, dude.

[Willard Phule]

Ghogiel, on 26 May 2016 - 09:35 AM, said:

That's what it used to be like under Elo.

Matches were much harder because the skill rating was a true bell curve and was an actual challenge to get to the top end of it and stay there. It also took into account who you played against and modified rating based on whether you were beating up noobs or playing against tryhards. Meaning only good players were at the top of that scale.

Now the skill rating is a flat score based on indivual score irrespective of who you play, and nearly anyone can be T1. Meaning there are bads and monsters in T1. So you don't have to carry as much as the MM has no bias against good players and treats all the T1s the same.

Except during times where the "population is low," at which point the MM uses the T5s and T4s as "filler." Sometimes, that "filler" can amount to 8 people on your team.

Funny thing is, it doesn't distribute them evenly between the two teams. More often than not, the 8 T5s will end up on the same team.

[CAT SIXX]

Willard Phule, on 26 May 2016 - 09:27 AM, said:

I can explain how the matchmaker works for you.

It doesn't. Simple as that. It never has. The first matchmaker (with the Elo system) was a "band-aid," never intended to be permanent. They patched it and beat it until it didn't work.

PGI's concept of "matchmaking" boils down to "the better you are, the more you have to carry." That's been their game design model since the beginning. That's why they make it easy for new players to get into the mid-range of whateverthehell they're using.

And remember...it's more important for you to be nice to new players and teach them to play than it is to focus on winning or whatever other agenda you might have had. You will NEVER find a match without them. It's designed that way on purpose.

I c... Hmmm... if that's how it is, i can live with it, because it confirms me, 2 not having played too bad in the meantime - except the moments where i stumbled unsuspectingly in2 the whole enemy team behind the corner... ...or when i got lured there by Forrest Gump, riding his Locust, hahaha...

It's my 2nd nature 2 support other players and i always try 2 help, but the hard thing is just 2 recognize newbies. It seems only very few ask 4 help, until it's too late, but whenever they asked about game details, good tactics, viable mechs, preferable weapons, etc. i answered immediately, and as good as the situation allowed me 2 do.

Many thx 4 your reply.

[CAT SIXX]

WarHippy, on 26 May 2016 - 09:44 AM, said:

I can't get past the OP's inability to type out words instead of replacing them with numbers. It was far too distracting for me to create an on topic post. Spelling and grammar don't need to be perfect, but come on is it really so hard to type out to, too, for, etc.?

"However - in some cases i noticed a much better endscore, when at least 2 or three mates used the ingame comm"
At least be consistent....

Hahaha... you are right, dude. I don't hear that the first time. It was just a matter of time, until one of you complains about it. I just got so used to type that strange way, that i am somehow stuck in doing that. My fault. I beg your pardon. I promise to avoid it in the future. As you can see, i am able to do it right.

Willard Phule, on 26 May 2016 - 09:49 AM, said:

Except during times where the "population is low," at which point the MM uses the T5s and T4s as "filler." Sometimes, that "filler" can amount to 8 people on your team. Funny thing is, it doesn't distribute them evenly between the two teams. More often than not, the 8 T5s will end up on the same team.

This summarizes exactly what i suspected the matchmaker to do. That would explain, why the skill gap between the teams is sometimes just too obvious to see - even before half of the match is over...

[Cabbage Merchant]

It often boils down to teamwork in the solo queue. If your team is focus-firing then your gonna be much better off. If your team charges forward one at a time then you're gonna lose.

Also as mentioned, it can often be a simple as one or two players who make a huge mistake and things snowball because you're now outnumbered.

Mech load outs can also be a factor, but I'd say not as much, because your bound to have a mix of good and bad load outs on each side.

Lastly the matchmaker has a very difficult time creating balanced matches during nonpeak times. Of course when there's almost no one playing then it's unbalanced matches or waiting forever so it's the lesser of two evils.

My best advice is to try communicating with your team more or trying LFG (Looking For Group). Folks in LFG are often more interested in teamwork.

[Apnu]

I took a break from MWO for a couple of months and recently came back. I see the murder-ball in quick play is the most effective thing.

If my team decides to ball up and the other team doesn't, we usually win.

Yet in my time back, I see a lot of teams that fly apart at the seams from the initial drop.

I don't understand why learning this "tactic" eludes players for so long.

[-Vompo-]

One team gets out gunned right after they lose their first mech and it just keep getting worse from there in many cases. This is why so many of the games become stomps. It doesn't automaticly mean that there was a big skill cap between the two teams.

[ShiftySWP and the Pleated Pants]

CAT SIXX, on 26 May 2016 - 09:48 AM, said:

Ok. As far as i can see...

• tiers do NOT reflect the individual skills of the players properly
  
• that given, the matchmaker can only roughly estimate the equality of the opposing teams
  
• the smaller the player pool is filtered by region, the longer the matchmaker takes, thus lowering the MMs restrictions
  
• the lower its restrictions, the more likely it is, he puts players of different tiers 2gether
  
• it remain unclear, if the tier distribution is equal on both teams

Thanx-a-lot 4 clarifying, Jables. That hardens my suspicion 2 a degree, I already read some guides - here, and at other sites (dunno, if i am allowed 2 spell them here, so i don't) and found them really useful. About my communiction - i never keep totally silent. I just can't, 2 b honest! Usually i say hello, ask 4 strategies, call out targets, and in 9 of 10 cases it's me alerting the rest of my team about the enemy scout lance dancing rock'n roll in their backs. I just hold my tongue back a bit, when there r enough others doing that job properly, and in these situations my team's usually doing fine anyway.


Again, big thx 4 ur reply, dude.

Try this man....
http://mwomercs.com/...-tiers-and-psr/

Here is some fidelity on how MM works.... I may have a few numbers off but you will get the idea.

-Your tier can be matched against any other tier +/-2. Example: Tier 1 players only play against T1-T3. Tier 3 plays against everyone. T5 players only play T3-T5.

-The MM initially only pairs tier against tier.... I think for 1 or 2min. If it does not find you a match it will pull other tiers into your match. Example: MM initially only matches T1 against T1 PSR.... if MM takes to long to get a match it will open to T2 and then to T3.

-The match maker tries to match PSR as close between the combination of all players in both groups.

-There is no tonnage limit in solo quick play. The MM tries to get 3 light, 3 medium, 3 heavy, 3 assault on each team. But in periods when there are way more of one class (KODIAK release day), the gates open after a certain duration to allow more of that class in to keep wait times low.

-There is a tonnage limit in group quick play. For small groups that go light... you are gimping your group tonnage. So a whole bunch of small groups can drastically out tonnage a full 12man.

-The balance of a match is won through position, coordination, focused fire and luck. Not MM.

-Way back there was data show by PGI that for highly skilled groups close to the same skill level, there were more rolls than close games. This is likely due to the quick recognition and exploitation of a positioning mistake one team against another. Spoken a different way, good players will make you pay for mistakes very quickly and that can cascade immediate into a roll.

Hope this helps.

[AssaultPig]

A game ending in a stomp doesn't necessarily indicate a 'skill' disparity; stomps are unfortunately kind of a structural problem with the quickplay game.

The amount of firepower that's out there now means it's super easy to lose a mech or two early on, whether because those people are new/bad/disconnected/potato/whatever or they just made a bad play and got unlucky. An 0-2 deficit is easy to get into but really hard to climb out of, since your team now has a lot less dps and a lot less armor to trade.

ed: also yeah, higher-skill games are more likely to end in stomps, since high-skill players are a lot more likely to fully exploit positioning advantages in the early game that new/unskilled/timid players.

Edited by AssaultPig, 26 May 2016 - 10:16 AM.

[Lostdragon]

Couple of things, often matches that are "stomps" with a big score deficit between teams are closer than the kill counter would make things appear. Often times it comes down to which team most effectively rotates the vanguard and thus avoids losses. A match can end 12-0 with the winning team having many mechs one shot away from death.

The nature of the no respawn game type in quick play tends to make any mistake difficult to over come. The team that gets the first kill will often win the match unless they made a lot of bad trades to get that kill. Once a team is losing by 3 mechs the odds of a comeback are extremely low in my experience.

Combine these factors with the nature of 12v12 where you are often focus fired by 3-4 people at a time if you are out of position or just have some bad luck and you wind up with a game mode that is very, very unforgiving because one great player can't carry hard enough to overcome more than one bad decision by his team.

Matchmaker cannot overcome any of those factors. It is quite possibly for two teams of relatively equal skill and equipment to wind up with 12-0 matches just due to the nature of the game. I've played in plenty of pug matches where I have seen some of the top players in the game get completely shut down and die with less than 200 damage while losing 12-0. It happens to everyone.

Sometimes you just have a bad game or series of games. It is easier on a lot of people's ego to blame that on matchmaker or the teams. Is the matchmaker perfect? Not by a long shot. But I don't think there is anything you could do to the matchmaker to prevent "stomps" because a lot of the things that cause those are not factors match making can control.

[CAT SIXX]

Cabbage Merchant, on 26 May 2016 - 10:10 AM, said:

It often boils down to teamwork in the solo queue. If your team is focus-firing then your gonna be much better off. If your team charges forward one at a time then you're gonna lose.

Also as mentioned, it can often be a simple as one or two players who make a huge mistake and things snowball because you're now outnumbered.

Mech load outs can also be a factor, but I'd say not as much, because your bound to have a mix of good and bad load outs on each side.

Lastly the matchmaker has a very difficult time creating balanced matches during nonpeak times. Of course when there's almost no one playing then it's unbalanced matches or waiting forever so it's the lesser of two evils.

My best advice is to try communicating with your team more or trying LFG (Looking For Group). Folks in LFG are often more interested in teamwork.

It seems, there's a huge degree of correlation regarding the nature of the "unbalance" problem, so i guess, what i read here i can take as the unfiltered truth. Especially the timeframe, within the matchmaker is forced to start a match at nonpeak times, can be a problem, as you mentioned. Noone wants to wait 15 minutes until the MM found suitable skilled players to start the the next match, so he has to decide, and mix up whoever is available atm - even if that's a bunch of top-of-the-notch killers.

In HAWKEN it was a HUGE problem, because of the really limited playerbase, so this is very familiar to me, and helps me understanding the actual situation. Of course it is not such a heavy problem in MWO, compared to that, due to the massively larger playerbase. You gave me a good tip, dude - i guess, i'll open up the region filter and give the MM more chances to choose of a bigger pool of matches. That sounds reasonable to me. I am from Europe, btw. On the NA servers i usually get a halfway decent ping of lesser that 150, and i can handle it, but i haven't tried on the oceanic servers by now. Maybe it's a good idea to accept higher pings, but get better balanced matches instead! Sounds like a good deal. I'll try it out.

Thx-a-lot, dude!