10 replies to this topic

[Yogge Mothi]

Okay, so every time I play w my cousin we normally rank 1 & 2 on our team in damage and our team usually gets stomped into the ground. Our current win rate when we play together is around 30% and it's becoming very frustrating. What is matchmaking doing to us to cause us to keep being on the losing side? He's tier 4 and I'm tier 2, if that matters, and both of us are steadily climbing rank when we play alone. Any insight would be appreciated.

[Lostdragon]

There are two queues when you do Quick Play, solo and group queue. When you play you earn a PSR that will get adjusted as you play. The matchmaker tries to put together a match such that both teams have a similar total PSR and similar weight of mechs. As time goes on if it can't find players then release valves get triggered and the parameters of the search are widened.

The problem with the group queue is that smaller groups can wind up on a team composed of 6 two man groups against a full 12 man team from a unit that plays together every night. Or it may be two groups of 6 versus groups of 10 and 2. Larger groups tend to dominate the matches due to their level of coordination and/or familiarity with each other.

[Wintersdark]

Though it should be noted that in the group queue, tonnage limits are inversely proportional to group size: Smaller groups have many more tons available to attempt to compensate for the small-groups disadvantage. The MM does NOT attempt to make even tonnage teams as a result: You CAN have far, far more tonnage with 6 2man groups vs. 1 12 man group. But, just because you can have more tonnage doesn't mean you do - say you and your buddy take lights; that leaves a lot of tons unused that can't be given to another group for obvious reasons.

Ultimately, though, while PSR works in the it tends to match players of similar experience, this is generally only true in the solo queue, and has many caveats.

In the group queue, because of the need to "tetris" groups into even 12 man teams and very much lower populations than the solo queue, what happens in practice is people get crammed into whatever teams they'll fit into in order to fire off matches. There's really no fix for this, it's a simple logistics problem. Teams use the average of their player's PSR ratings for MM purposes, but because of these issues the PSR rating of the team is largely irrelevant.

In the solo queue (and in the group queue, but less important than the group queue issues listed above):

1) PSR is modified by your performance and whether you win or lose (if you win, you can't lose rating, while if you lose you have to perform well to stay equal or gain rating). However, because of this arrangement, unless you're losing more than you're winning, you'll continually gain rating over time. How fast depends on how well you play and how much you play - this is why people often refer to PSR rating as an experience bar (and is why I said above it "groups players of similar experience together")

2) There are only 5 levels of PSR rating, and depending on the time the matchmaker has spent building a match, it'll start taking people from neighboring levels (+/- 1 level after one minute, +/-2 levels after two). It won't pit players more than 2 levels apart against each other, though. So, a match can be tier 1, 2, 3, or t2, 3, 4, or t3, 4, 5. The +/-2 ranks, then, only applies when the MM is starting from t1 or t5 or if the MM doesn't find players that would break that limit.

The algorithm, simpified, is: Take the oldest player in the queue. His PSR rating is the target, build teams as close to that rating and within (solo queue) 4/4/4/4 weight class restricts. Note that weight class restrictions also relax over time spent building a match, and during events are often lifted entirely.

What's important to understand is that the MM is not "trying to do" anything with you. It isn't trying to put you on a winning side or a losing side, it doesn't care about you at all. It's just grabbing players that fit the criteria and cramming them into teams.

---

TLDR Mechanics above aside, this is how things work out in practice:

Group Queue: Matches basically have no MM and are whoever the game could slot into teams. Larger groups have a communication/familiarity advantage while smaller groups have a tonnage advantage if they choose to use it; but ultimately 2-3 man groups is "MWO Hard Mode".

Solo Queue: Quality depends heavily on time of day (read: number of players looking for matches at that time), and with the caveat that PSR is a mixture of experience and match score results in matches, so it's a very rough estimate of skill. So, basically some measure of vaguely skill based to random, largely depending on the time of day.

Edited by Wintersdark, 26 August 2016 - 08:44 PM.

[Monkey Lover]

Just make sure you dont play group Q the same way as pug q. Being top damage doesn't really matter if your lrming in the back or jump sniping after half your team is dead.

If you want to win Pick two good assaults and get right in the front with the largest unit on the team.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 26 August 2016 - 09:08 PM.

[Yogge Mothi]

@ Lostdragon & Wintersdark: Thanks for the feedback! Sounds like we're just getting plain unlucky with our matches then because we're rarely the side that gets the larger groups.

@ Monkey Lover: You're assuming we lrm in solo queue, which we don't. My main is a Spirit Bear and he's currently running a streak cat, so that's not the problem. Unfortunately, he just started playing a couple months ago and since he doesn't have money to spend on the game he won't be owning an assault mech anytime soon.

[Monkey Lover]

Yogge Mothi, on 26 August 2016 - 09:21 PM, said:

@ Lostdragon & Wintersdark: Thanks for the feedback! Sounds like we're just getting plain unlucky with our matches then because we're rarely the side that gets the larger groups.

@ Monkey Lover: You're assuming we lrm in solo queue, which we don't. My main is a Spirit Bear and he's currently running a streak cat, so that's not the problem. Unfortunately, he just started playing a couple months ago and since he doesn't have money to spend on the game he won't be owning an assault mech anytime soon.

ya i had to assume its not normal to be top dmg every game and never win.

All small groups have going for them is their weight. If you dont use it the you need to be better then really good players using team work. Few things you can do, use the kdk3 with 2xac10 2xac5 and ask your friend to stop using streaks. Srms with the 6 energy arm is a good way to go. It should be close to his streak build.

#1 way to increase your wins in to be a good drop lead.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 26 August 2016 - 09:56 PM.

[El Bandito]

Group queue is never your friend if you are casually dropping with a small group. Unfortunate side effect of low in game population.

[KHETTI]

Q:How does match making work?
A:It doesn't!.

[adamts01]

Monkey Lover, on 26 August 2016 - 09:01 PM, said:

If you want to win Pick two good assaults and get right in the front with the largest unit on the team.

^^^^ This is pretty much it. Everything else equal, the heavier team will win. Bring heavy carry mechs, that's the advantage you need to exploit as a 2-man. I stopped playing group que outside of 12-mans once tonnage restrictions were put in place, as more often that not I was seriously screwing my team when my brother an I were running Jenners against 6 assaults and 6 heavies. I completely left the game after the re-scale, as I don't have much fun playing heavies.

Also, MM doesn't really mean anything, as so many bad players have eeked their way up the ranks. There's no telling if a tier 1 is even half as good as a tier 2, or even a tier 3. Going to completely random matches would probably yield better results at this point.

[Appogee]

It's my fault.

The MatchMaker assumes I can carry you.

However, as I spend most of my time in MWO levelling new sub-optimal Mechs, I'm not able to contribute as well as my Tier indicates I should be.

So the rest of the team derps off to die, I fail to carry, and we always lose.

Sorry.

[Moldur]

Even giant games with huge, stable populations often struggle to have "fair" matchmaking. Seriously, go look up matchmaking in league of legends, or dota 2, or overwatch, or literally any pvp game with matchmaking. Guaranteed, somewhere on the first page of google is a forum post with someone bitching about how awful matchmaking is.

MWO stands little to no chance of having "good" matchmaking. It is a simple fact. I'm not even trying to make it sound like PGI did a bad job or something. There is no good way to do widespread matchmaking.

One example is that with timezones and the common pool of players we play with, things will get messed up when you get matched with people outside of that pool. For example's sake, lets say that most of oceanic server is trash, thus making it easier to get to Tier 1. Relative to other oceanic players, you are a good player, but relative to European or North American players, you are only average. Again, just a supposition.

It could be any number of reasons really. I am tier 2, and I won't go down a tier even if I don't play for several months or a year. When I play again, I will be matched like any other tier 2 player, even if I've forgotten most of the game. I'm basically throwing matchmaking until I git gud again.