182 replies to this topic

[TWIAFU]

MischiefSC, on 05 February 2017 - 11:57 PM, said:

People trying to say that 'groups are ruining the game' are sort of missing the fact that the game is 12 v 12. Every match has two groups. The group that coordinates better wins. That's what the game is. What could possibly be the sane logic in trying to say you have to have 12 total strangers who are forbidden from working together on both sides. Does that even sound rational to you?

Keep the delicate special snowflake status intact?

[Old-dirty B]

Was there ever / shouldn't there be a group queue that is tailor made to match groups of similar size against each other?

You search with a 12 man group, it keeps searching until it finds another 12 man group.
Alright, depending on time etc you probably might have to a while to get a match (but the matchmaker should be able to estimate depending on how many groups of that size are formed at that moment).

You search with a 6 man group, it keeps searching until it finds another 6 man group.

etc.

At least waiting for a similar sized group should give a better chance for close game then slap together a few random units and some pugs vs a big group...

I would appreciate such a queue, a queue that doesn't put together a bunch of random players or small groups and sets that up against a big or a few other groups. A "group" queue that finds other groups and players of similar size / skill and puts them in a match. 12 man goes against another 12 man, 8v8, 6v6 or whatever size is presented to the matchmaker. You want to drop solo? you go 1v1 into the matchmaker that finds you some else that also want to drop solo...

Then again, there's always LFG that allows solo players to drop vs groups...

Edited by B3R3ND, 06 February 2017 - 06:57 AM.

[justcallme A S H]

If you tried to match group sizes, you'd never find a game.

People from in groups ranging from 2-12. It's so rare to find even numbers on either side. Maybe a 7man on one, 9 on another. FP doesn't have the population to even come close to trying to match like-size groups. Even in the US / EU peak it wouldn't be possible with the current population (which had dropped noticeably since 4.1 started).

[Appogee]

justcallme A S H, on 06 February 2017 - 07:43 AM, said:

If you tried to match group sizes, you'd never find a game.

Because there has been no group size matchmaking so far, there are now fewer people playing FP.

(They are opting out of being dropped with noobs and constantly farmed by large premades of the best players.)

But now, because there are fewer people playing FP, that's become the reason to not introduce group size matchmaking!

Chicken and egg.

It's incredible to me that PGI, who should be desperately worried about player retention and engagement rates, continue to do nothing to address the ongoing farming of noobs by good players. It must surely drive new players away.

Edited by Appogee, 06 February 2017 - 09:21 AM.

[Dutchoper72]

What if we had the pilot rank actually mean something. For instances when it pairs you up with a 12 man group vs Ragtags, it makes sure you have equal ranks with the 12 man. Might be a bit better.

My other thought was a training mode for FW in the form of 'Raid missions". Raids played a big part in lore books. You can't capture a planet, but you can still fight in FW. However the cap would be at 2 lances only per side. In order to partake in FW standard and scout missions, you would have to have played 'x' amount of raids to get familiar with the way for FW. Raids would be smaller invasion maps, since the other game modes can be played in QP.

Edited by Dutchoper72, 06 February 2017 - 10:12 AM.

[Old-dirty B]

the matchmaker could be streamlined for group sized matchmaking, eliminating "odd" group sizes to make it easier to find matching groups, for example:

1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, 6v6, 8v8, 12v12

Besides that, the matchmaker could (similar to the weight classes) list those sizes that are populated the most.

Most likely getting a 12v12 game would have the longest queue time however this game is a proper 12v12 man! No pugs, no randoms, a full 12 on 12 premade game. To me, it would be well worth the wait for such events to happen. If you dont want to wait for a match in your group size you could check the matchmaker stats and perhaps break up your big 12 man group into a 8v8 and 4v4 or two 6v6...

Edited by B3R3ND, 06 February 2017 - 11:12 AM.

[Dutchoper72]

B3R3ND, on 06 February 2017 - 11:06 AM, said:

the matchmaker could be streamlined for group sized matchmaking, eliminating "odd" group sizes to make it easier to find matching groups, for example:

1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, 6v6, 8v8, 12v12

Besides that, the matchmaker could (similar to the weight classes) list those sizes that are populated the most.

Most likely getting a 12v12 game would have the longest queue time however this game is a proper 12v12 man! No pugs, no randoms, a full 12 on 12 premade game. To me, it would be well worth the wait for such events to happen. If you dont want to wait for a match in your group size you could check the matchmaker stats and perhaps break up your big 12 man group into a 8v8 and 4v4 or two 6v6...

But, but, how could people stat pad then?

[Ssamout]

Dutchoper72, on 06 February 2017 - 11:39 AM, said:

But, but, how could people stat pad then?

Same way as its done now. Dropping solo or in small groups and farming skittles.. doh.. If you drop in a decent group where players are about the same skill, its quite hard to do much over 2k, especially if you dont damage farm with clan streaks..

Dropping solo and getting that "dream team" matchup, 3-4k even 5k is possible..

Edited by Ssamout, 06 February 2017 - 12:13 PM.

[Old-dirty B]

Ssamout, on 06 February 2017 - 12:12 PM, said:

Same way as its done now. Dropping solo or in small groups and farming skittles.. doh.. If you drop in a decent group where players are about the same skill, its quite hard to do much over 2k, especially if you dont damage farm with clan streaks..

Dropping solo and getting that "dream team" matchup, 3-4k even 5k is possible..

In my proposed matchmaker dropping solo means dropping solo (unless you team up via LFG).

[MischiefSC]

Appogee, on 06 February 2017 - 09:14 AM, said:

Because there has been no group size matchmaking so far, there are now fewer people playing FP.

(They are opting out of being dropped with noobs and constantly farmed by large premades of the best players.)

But now, because there are fewer people playing FP, that's become the reason to not introduce group size matchmaking!

Chicken and egg.

It's incredible to me that PGI, who should be desperately worried about player retention and engagement rates, continue to do nothing to address the ongoing farming of noobs by good players. It must surely drive new players away.

A 120 or 180 second wait on the matchmaker to try and build matches with teams on each side isn't a bad idea. I'd be in favor of it. Even better would be seeing who's in matches/queues and being able to click on teams in matches or waiting in queue and say 'we will wait for them'. You'd be surprised at how often good teams would happily have a 15 minute wait one time to then be synced up to drop against a specific team repeatedly match after match.

The problem though is that with 30 minute matches the queue time to try and build group v group matches would likely be worse than it is currently. However if you, say, made it something you could opt into (I'll wait longer to get better matches) and then gave a cbill reward for playing that way? Maybe.

I like the concept. I know that KCom was frustrated with the Dis event because we knew EVIL and Emp were dropping and we wanted to play against them (win or lose a chance to play against great teams is always awesome) but just kept getting pug teams. I know they were mostly the same.

It is a bit of the chicken and the egg thing. If the 'good teams' who win almost every match are able to usually play against each other, that removes them from being a constant experience for the pug teams and more casual teams who will inevitably find each other more often. Does that keep people playing longer? Those casual teams, the better casual teams will still stomp the worse casuals and skittles. Is there sincere data that says they'll keep playing longer if they're losing to Casual Team A every match instead of Dedicated Team B?

I genuinely don't know. I'm game for all sorts of changes to improve the experience overall in FW. Matchmaker adjustments, etc.

However I am strongly, strongly in favor of using rewards to motivate good behavior (grouping up, playing to your team, rewarding teamwork, rewarding playing against good players, etc) over trying to force people to not play as a team in a 12 v 12 game. That's doomed to fail.

[maxdest]

One way to limit the population split would be a 'Special Operations' game mode that was effectivly a third mode (After Invasion and Scouting).

This mode would:

• Only be playable by 12 man groups
  
• Only trigger when the volume of players (and 12 mans) in invasion mode could handle it
  
• Have the same gameplay as invasion (maybe with some unpopular modes filtered out)
  
• Offer slightly better credit rewards than invasion and a small amount of MC for a win
  
• Offer a unique benefit to the main war effort (e.g. each invasion win including a special ops unit member counts an extra 10% towards victory and tagging)

Maybe later on more complexity could be added around unique gameplay objectives , or strategic things like factions offering special operation contracts and units bidding for them.

[Ssamout]

B3R3ND, on 06 February 2017 - 12:21 PM, said:

In my proposed matchmaker dropping solo means dropping solo (unless you team up via LFG).

Ah, so you mean if you are dropping solo you only get to do 1vs1 factionplay, or only solo - like factionplay training grounds where you can lurm that omega as much as you like without people yelling at you? Yeah, that could help.. Perhaps some of those guys could finally figure out how to open the damn gates.

And what difference does it make when tier5's group up in lfg before they are farmed? Or when a lfg team forms, people fast check leaderboards of their teammates W/L's 'n' KMD's and they get booted continuously from groups and the bottom where they end up is gonna be farmed faster than u say Salmon. I dont see that changing the situation that much.

Kiddie pool is what is needed.. some marketing guy could spin a better name but still.. You do less than 500dmg with 4 mechs - get the f. out of bucket play.

[naterist]

maxdest, on 06 February 2017 - 12:51 PM, said:

One way to limit the population split would be a 'Special Operations' game mode that was effectivly a third mode (After Invasion and Scouting).

This mode would:

• Only be playable by 12 man groups
  
• Only trigger when the volume of players (and 12 mans) in invasion mode could handle it
  
• Have the same gameplay as invasion (maybe with some unpopular modes filtered out)
  
• Offer slightly better credit rewards than invasion and a small amount of MC for a win
  
• Offer a unique benefit to the main war effort (e.g. each invasion win including a special ops unit member counts an extra 10% towards victory and tagging)

Maybe later on more complexity could be added around unique gameplay objectives , or strategic things like factions offering special operation contracts and units bidding for them.

Maybe, each special ops game could be set to be only 12 man units, a garunteed long wait, but wins shift the tug of war one whole phase in the winners favor. But market it as something thT is garunteed long wait times, and give it a unique lobby that lets a commander interact with a map and issue plans and orders, so build it to take advantage of long wait times, and the other ques are just the regular shock troopers fighting the main battleline, and dont get all those pregame lobby tools since its supposed to move much more quickly, and the normal guys never get the cool equipment.

[Reza Malin]

justcallme A S H, on 05 February 2017 - 11:16 PM, said:

One cannot invalidate something, if it was never valid to begin with.

You claim the "bad game play experiences" have been experienced in FP. FP is the reason for 1,000s of people uninstalling the game? Just get ya hand off it for the good of everyone.

No point to try continue a discussion with someone that just resorts to personal attacks when they realise they made a pretty dumb statement and have nowhere else to go.

I've offered up more suggestions to improve the mode in the last 6 months than most, including yourself. You've hardly contributed to discussions (or played for that matter) in the last 4 months yet suddenly know it's caused 1,000s of people to - uninstall? Rezadamus.

I just hope PGI address the real issues and soon, as it stands 4.2 doesn't sound like it's going to deliver much if the last round table is anything to go off.

We'll still have a bunch of T5/4 LRM'ers crying about people "hacking".

Either gate FP or put a proper MM in (that doesn't go off PSR tier, some T3 players should be in T5 as examples). And then hope for the best.

Like always Ash, you try and take things out of context to enhance your trolling efforts. I never literally said 1000's of people uninstalled. I don't really know what happens to people that refuse to play FP. All i know is lots of people do.

Its really easy. Anyone here, yes anyone, can go right now and look at FP and QP leaderboards and see the humongous disparity between the two and their active player numbers. Im not making it up or imagining it, and you can't argue with that because its right there for anyone to see. You just steer round it.

Please. Try and dispute this. Instead of trying to make out i am pretending to be a statistics expert, which i already said i am not. The funny thing is i don't need to be, nor does anyone else to see the obvious facts the leaderboards display.

Ok so that is that clarified. Moving on.

So with all that in mind, if only a tiny percentage of the overall playerbase are playing FP, which is the truth, then it makes sense that newer players must either be in QP with the majority, or simply not play the game anymore. Its really not a difficult concept at all.

Also, you refer to how much i play? I haven't played FP for a few weeks yes, because i am tired of all the shite games and people acting all high and mighty on the forums, then just becomnig their baser pugstomping selves in game. I clearly care about the game and its future or else why would i comment on the forums?

Finally, i suspect a lot of the veteran founder types, who live and breathe BT, don't actually even play any other games. I do, as do many other people. And lots of those other games you have to actually buy before you play, so people have even more incentive to play them. Again, not a difficult concept.

Edited by Reza Malin, 06 February 2017 - 05:47 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

Reza Malin, on 06 February 2017 - 05:45 PM, said:

I never literally said 1000's of people uninstalled. I don't really know what happens to people that refuse to play FP. All i know is lots of people do.

Reza Malin, on 05 February 2017 - 01:10 PM, said:

Meanwhile, thousands of potentially good MWO players have installed for free, and uninstalled again,at no cost to themselves because its a F2P game, after having bad gameplay experiences that is all their own fault apparently.

Yep, seems legit.

Reza Malin, on 06 February 2017 - 05:45 PM, said:

Finally, i suspect a lot of the veteran founder types, who live and breathe BT, don't actually even play any other games. I do, as do many other people. And lots of those other games you have to actually buy before you play, so people have even more incentive to play them. Again, not a difficult concept.

lol... Now that statement is gonna make people that know me:



I live/breath BT? I didn't know what table-top was until I started playing MWO 15months ago (and haven't done any TT, I'd rather go out to the pub). I know nothing about lore, in fact I don't care about any of the lore side. Respect people do, good for them, but TT/LORE cannot get in the way of a proper FPS. A FPS with robots rather than something like Battlefield which uses soldiers... It needs to play like a FPS.

I actually play plenty of other games, but then you just seem to think you know everything yet you're off the marker each and every time. Not really a surprise anymore.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 06 February 2017 - 06:10 PM.

[Reza Malin]

justcallme A S H, on 06 February 2017 - 06:09 PM, said:

Yep, seems legit.




lol... Now that statement is gonna make people that know me:



I live/breath BT? I didn't know what table-top was until I started playing MWO 15months ago (and haven't done any TT, I'd rather go out to the pub). I know nothing about lore, in fact I don't care about any of the lore side. Respect people do, good for them, but TT/LORE cannot get in the way of a proper FPS. A FPS with robots rather than something like Battlefield which uses soldiers... It needs to play like a FPS.

I actually play plenty of other games, but then you just seem to think you know everything yet you're off the marker each and every time. Not really a surprise anymore.

I said i never meant those numbers literally. As i don't work for PGI or Steam, its pretty obvious to most people that i didn't. Once again you still avoid the simple fact that the essence of what i said is truth, that you simply dance round the numbers of the playerbase disparity, trying to belttile anything you can find in my posts.

justcallme A S H, on 06 February 2017 - 06:09 PM, said:

I live/breath BT?

Did i mention you by name? If the cap fits, wear it, if not don't be so self absorbed.

Edited by Reza Malin, 06 February 2017 - 06:16 PM.

[Reza Malin]

justcallme A S H, on 06 February 2017 - 06:09 PM, said:

I didn't know what table-top was until I started playing MWO 15months ago

Hang on, if you only started playing 15 months ago, how can you be a legendary founder?

Edited by Reza Malin, 06 February 2017 - 06:36 PM.

[Carl Vickers]

Pretty easy to buy an account and not use it, or someone gifts you an account. I know one person who has 11 founders accounts, he only uses 1 but keeps the rest.

[justcallme A S H]

Reza Malin, on 06 February 2017 - 06:36 PM, said:

Hang on, if you only started playing 15 months ago, how can you be a legendary founder?

Easily. Purchased a legendary founder pack when it first came out, had played previous MW games & they were fun. OPlayed the alpha & never played again until Nov '15. Those middle 3-4 years, didn't touch a video game at all - opened 3 businesses, raced cars etc etc etc etc.

My unit mates will tell you my first FP game - 200dmg or something. I learnt fast enough with their amazing guidance & probably 200 other players across 15 other units who've let me drop with them regularly. Now I'm one of the main drop callers for my unit with all that knowledge in my head.

And this is the thing. I wanted to get better. I was sick to death of being steamrolled by KCom - So, I hopped around various unit TS's, dropped with all the different play styles etc and, here we are. I'm now half decent at FP and did pretty well in the MWO and MRBC stuff with my unit. I still don't class myself as a T1 player as I've said many times before... But that is the failing of the PSR system that isn't a proper match maker.

[justcallme A S H]

Just trying to think of all the units I've dropped with in the last 12 months:


54MR, EK, KCom, D'C, EVIL, AW0L, HHoD, DSx, IDI, D'C, OMC, ISRC, 228, MS, CPOP, GCGB, CGBI, CWM, JGx, 201, PL.

*There are more, I'll update when I get home tonight

Each one I sought out myself / made friends within. Why? I wanted to get better. All those players in those units have happily had me along for drops in either QP, FP or Priv Lobbies. I do what is asked, I learn. I ask questions, I challenge ideas. I've done all this in less than 10 months too.

Sometimes I even drop call for some even if they are the majority team. It's a pile of respect all around in the MWO community. I log on, I usually get a group invite within 5-10mins even if I'm not dropping & chatting to mates on TS. Parlty cause I've learnt to play well but I'd also think it's because we have FUN playing together, talk **** etc etc.


And now we come to the biggest issue with this suggestion of the OP. All these guys can form 5-12 mans to drop with in their active times. If you stop them from doing it you will kill the regular FP players and it'll just be PUGs left.

Who wants to drop with 4 if there is 9 on? Sitting in half a dozen separate TS channels. That's just crap/boring etc. It's way more sociable with a pile of people in there generally having a laugh.

Most of the units listed above have under 50 players. Big units are NOT a problem in MWO, end of story.


The happy medium is a PROPER match maker. It is a flawed idea as even I can categorically say that it will not work in low population times (approx 12hrs of the 24hrs), but it's at least a start.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 06 February 2017 - 07:25 PM.