92 replies to this topic

[Revis Volek]

Star Commander Horse, on 29 November 2016 - 04:54 PM, said:

I thought that the MWO Target Maker you posted is already in the game as any mech that's all BASIC GREEN

I roll a few mechs in all PUGgreen though when I wanna play sleeper mech and then bust it wide open when someone just strolls on up to play.

[a gaijin]

Revis Volek, on 29 November 2016 - 05:22 PM, said:

I roll a few mechs in all PUGgreen though when I wanna play sleeper mech and then bust it wide open when someone just strolls on up to play.

A baiting tactic. Smart

When I see all greenies I "test the waters" with a few warning shots and that pretty much tells me where they stand.

[Void Angel]

never mind. Reading is hard.

Edited by Void Angel, 10 December 2016 - 11:07 AM.

[Void Angel]

Navid A1, on 29 November 2016 - 04:19 PM, said:

PSR has been off for a while now!

However...
I thought matches with T2s through T5s being in the same match was pretty common knowledge.
Only restriction was supposed to be T1s which should not be matched with T4s and T5s.
It was never ±2 Tiers... AFAIK!

Actually, no. The matchmaker isn't actually +/- 2 Tiers - it matches (at most) any range of three tiers. The +/- 2 rule of thumb is inaccurate, but it works if you only consider yourself - if you're trying to think about who should be in a match, the inaccuracy can bite you.

Case in point: If I am Tier 3, then I can potentially be matched with any tier of player - but if I think, "oh, any tier can be matched with me, so any tiers can be in my matches at the same time," I've misunderstood the matchmaker.

How the matchmaker works according to our last information from PGI is simple: It tries to start a match at a given Tier (however this is "seeded") and tries to find players for up to two minutes. If after that mark it cannot find a match, it widens its search to one tier on each side (up/down) and then matches within that. This is As Per PGI, so we know it's the intended functionality - this needs to be brought up to support.

[Y E O N N E]

Perhaps the bug is that MM for a T1 is looping back to the beginning and saying "-2 is T2/3, +2 is T5/4" and that's why T4 and T5 are ending up in T1 games?

I dunneh, just spitballing.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 10 December 2016 - 05:43 PM.

[Tibbnak]

The matchmaking system actually DOES work; The unfortunate thing is that it works on the wrong principles. It's built on the assumption that if you build a team of people who's total K/D divided by 12 averages out to 1, and total W/L ratio divided by 12 averages out to 1, and put two of these teams vs each-other then that means it's a balanced match.

The reason we see a lot of tier disparity is because W/L and K/D ratios are so all over the place that it has to reduce restrictions by a step every time it can't fill a team per pass to make it as close to 1 average as possible.

The *matchmaker itself* creates its own wild variance in W/L and K/D, thus exaggerating what the match maker has to do in the first place, exaggerating the differences more and more each match until matchmaker itself is completely pointless.

Edited by Tibbnak, 10 December 2016 - 05:07 PM.

[Void Angel]

No, that's... that's not how it works. That's not even how it USED to work, with Elo.

You have no idea what you're talking about, sorry.

[Void Angel]

Yeonne Greene, on 10 December 2016 - 04:57 PM, said:

Perhaps the bug is that MM for a T1 is looping back to the beginning and saying "-2 is T2/3, +2 is T5/4" and that's why T4 and T5 are ending up in T1 games?

I dunneh, just spitballing.

It could be any number of things, from a counter tick-over like you're suggesting, or just legacy code that was carried over from the Elo system and perhaps mistakenly switched back on. Though it's always interesting to theorycraft, the cause doesn't matter - what matters is that low-level players are once again being thrown (however often) into combat will seasoned veterans. That's not a good thing.

[jss78]

My hunch is that MOST of the time the PSR still does a decent Tier separation. I guess most of us recognize Tier 5 gameplay and behaviour when we see it, and even as a Tier 2 I don't typically see it (of course based on what we've been told, I should NEVER see it).

But yeah, then I had that game this week where I had a distinct feeling I was used as filler in an almost pure T5 game. Several trial 'mechs, virtually no-one with premium content badges or unit tags, but most telling of all the gameplay, with people coming around the corner in a Locust and stopping to take that VERY careful shot at you... That was on Oceanic though, maybe they need to loosen the MM there.

I feel like the uncomfortable truth may be that a lot of the really dumb stuff you see is by surprisingly high tier players. Which is a problem in itself, but a separate problem.

Edited by jss78, 10 December 2016 - 06:44 PM.

[Void Angel]

You're probably right on that last count - so many times, experienced players contract uberitis and start to do stupid things because they believe the negative results of their actions are other people's fault.

[Mister Blastman]

This thread is great at reminding me why I shouldn't play when I develop an itch.

[Tremendous Upside]

Bohxim, on 28 November 2016 - 11:05 PM, said:

OooooOooOoooo

Hahahaha... shouldn't make me laugh, but it does

[Tristan Winter]

jss78, on 10 December 2016 - 06:42 PM, said:

My hunch is that MOST of the time the PSR still does a decent Tier separation. I guess most of us recognize Tier 5 gameplay and behaviour when we see it, and even as a Tier 2 I don't typically see it (of course based on what we've been told, I should NEVER see it).

But yeah, then I had that game this week where I had a distinct feeling I was used as filler in an almost pure T5 game. Several trial 'mechs, virtually no-one with premium content badges or unit tags, but most telling of all the gameplay, with people coming around the corner in a Locust and stopping to take that VERY careful shot at you... That was on Oceanic though, maybe they need to loosen the MM there.

I feel like the uncomfortable truth may be that a lot of the really dumb stuff you see is by surprisingly high tier players. Which is a problem in itself, but a separate problem.

I've had several matches with Tier 4 players the past few days, playing with my Tier 1 account.
I had one match on River City when I called out spaceport and someone asked "what grid is that?", which prompted someone else to ask "wait, what tier is this?" (presumably, they were surprised to see someone ask where spaceport was) and they responded "I'm tier 4".
I had another match on HPG Manifold where someone called for a fast push to the right flank, E6, immediately as the match started. It's the standard tactic of attacking the isolated lance right away. After we won, one guy was ecstatic on the VOIP saying "I've never seen that before! It was awesome!"
I had another match where someone said "I've never seen that before!", I think we were playing Crimson Strait and my side dropped on the harbor side, but we decided to push towards outside of tunnel instead of grabbing the platform or going saddle. Maybe he was Tier 3 and not Tier 4 though, who knows.