40 replies to this topic

[Scout Derek]

I know the myth that tiers don't matter....

but please, just... reset them, this patch or the next. Some matches are way too lopsided and quite frankly.... it gets pretty horrible.

I mean, I like racking up the kills, but honestly I feel bad for the guy that I backstab because he didn't turn around after the second to third SRM 22 Pack into his back :/

And then being on the recieving end of it... Appogee knows what I'm talking about. He and I were on opposite sides. He kept getting a bad team while I kept getting the overall better one.

I can't help but feel this way whenever my team goes potato and I carry too much:

[Snazzy Dragon]

The only way to fix matchmaking at this point with such a small playerbase is to improve the quality of the players overall.

Good luck have fun!

Edited by Snazzy Dragon, 17 March 2017 - 06:41 PM.

[Deathlike]

It's not going to work, given the method used to calc PSR.

You have to fix the core problem, but population is usually what causes this imbalance more than anything else.

[Mister Blastman]

I don't think a reset will help. I think the tier system needs to be reworked.

There need to be huge penalties for losing, and these penalties need to be weighted...

Lose one game: no big deal
Lose two games in a row: extra tier points revoked
Lose three games in a row: four times as many tier points revoked
Lose four games in a row: eight times as many tier points revoked and temporarily exiled to terribad island (see my signature re: CLAW initiative)

In addition to that, the amount of positive or negative tier points rewarded or subtracted needs to be factored with your rolling match score averaged over the most recent five to ten games, and compared with a constantly computed index of the existing playerbase in your tier. Do worse than the average of that index, extra penalty applied. Do better--bonus applied. The amplitude of these bonuses and penalties are dependent on how far you stray above or below the computed index. Think bell curve.

Being a bad player needs to HURT.

Likewise, being an exceptional player needs to HELP.

And being average... should peg you in Tier 3.

No more experience bar. The current tier system is a joke.

Edited by Mister Blastman, 17 March 2017 - 06:51 PM.

[Scout Derek]

Deathlike, on 17 March 2017 - 06:43 PM, said:

It's not going to work, given the method used to calc PSR.

You have to fix the core problem, but population is usually what causes this imbalance more than anything else.

1.5K~ reported playing right now as we speak;

Taking that into consideration of how many players per match of 24, and I get roughly 62.5 Matches being played every 5-10 mins, not considering the groups, the AFKs, or Faction Play for that matter, I'm going to assume only around 20 QP Pug matches of players are available, while the other 15-10 matches are groups, and then the Rest Faction Play and AFKs or whoever isn't in a regular match and whatnot.

And this is not even considering the number of people who don't play MWO via steam.

Mister Blastman, on 17 March 2017 - 06:49 PM, said:

I don't think a reset will help. I think the tier system needs to be reworked.

There need to be huge penalties for losing, and these penalties need to be weighted...

Lose one game: no big deal
Lose two games in a row: extra tier points revoked
Lose three games in a row: four times as many tier points revoked
Lose four games in a row: eight times as many tier points revoked and temporarily exiled to terribad island (see my signature re: CLAW initiative)

In addition to that, the amount of positive or negative tier points rewarded or subtracted needs to be factored with your rolling match score averaged over the most recent five to ten games, and compared with a constantly computed index of the existing playerbase in your tier. Do worse than the average of that index, extra penalty applied. Do better--bonus applied. The amplitude of these bonuses and penalties are dependent on how far you stray above or below the computed index.

Being a bad player needs to HURT.

Likewise, being an exceptional player needs to HELP.

And being average... should peg you in Tier 3.

No more experience bar. The current tier system is a joke.

It's always been a joke; I should have stayed in Tier 2 forever. Instead after 3-4 months of playing an hour or so a week, and I got out of tier 1. 4 hours later of playing and I had already filled up half of the Tier 1 bar.

There do needs to be a fix. They need to make their formula's harsher as to make players stay within a tier or lose it.

[Deathlike]

Scout Derek, on 17 March 2017 - 06:52 PM, said:

1.5K~ reported playing right now as we speak;

Taking that into consideration of how many players per match of 24, and I get roughly 62.5 Matches being played every 5-10 mins, not considering the groups, the AFKs, or Faction Play for that matter, I'm going to assume only around 20 QP Pug matches of players are available, while the other 15-10 matches are groups, and then the Rest Faction Play and AFKs or whoever isn't in a regular match and whatnot.

And this is not even considering the number of people who don't play MWO via steam.



It's always been a joke; I should have stayed in Tier 2 forever. Instead after 3-4 months of playing an hour or so a week, and I got out of tier 1. 4 hours later of playing and I had already filled up half of the Tier 1 bar.

There do needs to be a fix. They need to make their formula's harsher as to make players stay within a tier or lose it.

I'm really talking about skill disparities, ontop of the problem that is the XP bar.

Skilled players are the minority, but their impact is much greater than the average player.

Edited by Deathlike, 17 March 2017 - 06:58 PM.

[Scout Derek]

Deathlike, on 17 March 2017 - 06:58 PM, said:

I'm really talking about skill disparities, ontop of the problem that is the XP bar.

Skilled players are the minority, but their impact is much greater than the average player.

This is true; I remember Taro did a chart on this on the Tier bar; that while the MM system may be making equal sides of tiers ( as in balancing based upon their tier rating), it wasn't taking into account the player's stats as that Tier 1 and such.

I think the greatest example of this was when Tuesday make a alt account and went off into Tier 4 and 5 territory. Absolutely annihilated all the new players or those of lesser skill than the average MechWarrior. He may be Tier 4, but his skills suggest that he's actually Tier 1.

[Mister Blastman]

Deathlike, on 17 March 2017 - 06:58 PM, said:

I'm really talking about skill disparities, ontop of the problem that is the XP bar.

Skilled players are the minority, but their impact is much greater than the average player.

Thus there should be segregation. We shouldn't all receive participation trophies and a gold tier one sticker because we put in enough games.

And the matchmaker should factor in how many Tier 1 players get seeded to each team, as well as Tier 2 and Tier 3, and recognize that an average Tier score vs. Tier score isn't a valid gauge to whether the game will be balanced or not.

By doing this, it not only will improve the quality of the games, it will help ensure that Tier 1 players don't wait excessive amounts of time, either, because the queue can be flexible enough to realize that since there are only two Tier 1 players (remember, it would be based on a rolling bell curve) available, it would put one on Team A, and the other on Team B, then sort the 2s and 3s to maximize the chances of a balanced match--and could even go so far as to include 4s and 5s in that same game but to a lesser degree, given a logical weighting system versus the illogical one they have now.


p.s. I might play this game again if the matchmaker wasn't such a piece of crap.

Edited by Mister Blastman, 17 March 2017 - 07:04 PM.

[Dryderian]

The main problem is that PGI does make it hard to enter the endgame - faction warfare. There are no chat channels for factions, no global channels, no ingame recruitment tools for the units. I play this game for a year now and still have set no foot into FW territory. Once you want to do something you are right before the choice which faction to join - no contact to players or units anywhere. Unless that is fixed and the endgame is made accessible for new players in a easy way, the population will stay small.

And I guess few new players will be content with quickplays unless they have some affinity to the boardgame. So you have a skilled core and a heavy fluctuating new playerbase.

Edited by Dryderian, 17 March 2017 - 07:11 PM.

[SuomiWarder]

A tier or ranking system is worthless without enough players to fully populate it. That's the basic problem and there is no real fixing of it. Matchmakers tries to put 24 Tiers 1s together. Oops, only 5 in the que. Okay, add Tiers 2. Look 3 more, no Tier 3s in the exact few seconds this match is being put together. Well, 4s and 5s it is.

[Kin3ticX]

The matches are as good as they will ever get

A reset will only create a massive baby seal slaughter not even god has seen the likes of.

[Cementi]

It is being difficult but I am trying to upload a pic as I know people will be saying "pics or it did not happen" but I was in a two man group the other day and as bad as I think the PSR matching is I think the bigger issue is the screwy tonnage matching. Not naming and shaming, I blanked out everyones names except for my friend and I but I did leave unit tags to show that I think we were not a 2 man added to a 10 man that was weight restricted. Either way the team that beat us had 905 tons I think to our 600. It was a heck of a fight too and was alot of fun however without being a full 12 man on coms, it certainly is tough to make up a 305 ton difference on polar highlands.

Ill edit later and add in the picture when I get it to upload, not much a forum warrior.

*edit* Probally better ways to do this but ya never bothered to tinker with forums stuff often.

http://imgur.com/kXokluY

Edited by Cementi, 17 March 2017 - 09:09 PM.

[Fleeb the Mad]

The most important change to make PSR work better, I think, is the nature of how gains and losses are applied.

Quite simply, your PSR should not change if you perform near the team average on a win or a loss, with changes being based on how far you exceeded or were outplayed by your peers. Circumstances in games can vary wildly and so can the player mix. In many circumstances your team's overall performance will inflate or handicap your match score. In short, eliminating the notion that you can increase PSR through being carried while also not decreasing PSR of those who are on the receiving end of a stomp, where the entire team fares poorly.

PSR should put you in the correct place and keep you there, rather than this notion of slow progression. I like the present philosophy of weighting some towards wins to account for some poorly rewarded behavior that does help the team win and selfish behaviors that contribute to losses. So, for example, something like this:

• PSR increases above 10% of the average match score on a win, and on a loss 20%
  
• PSR decreases below 20% on a win and 10% on a loss.

There are multiple (and more complicated) ways to enact that concept, but this would in theory balance out if your win/loss was 50/50, as opposed to being a net gain over time. It would trend up or down with two factors: your individual match scores, and your win/loss rate.

Next I think we would need to make PSR adjust more quickly.

Since PSR is currently based on a comparatively huge sample pool, it responds poorly to changes. In particular people who are in the wrong place take ages to move one way or another. I think I'd be in favor of tier being related to a rolling average of your last 20-30 games instead of a cumulative point-gain over time, or at least the number of games required to move tiers being reduced to a similar number. Even decaying over a long bout of inactivity.

The system should respond faster to your performance than it presently does and your tier should relate to your day-to-day play. This sort of thing also has the benefit of scaling with a player base that gradually becomes more experienced.

[El Bandito]

PSR is never gonna be accurate unless its upwards bias is removed. Failing that, a reset is needed. T1 is way too diluted ATM.

Dryderian, on 17 March 2017 - 07:06 PM, said:

The main problem is that PGI does make it hard to enter the endgame - faction warfare. There are no chat channels for factions, no global channels, no ingame recruitment tools for the units. I play this game for a year now and still have set no foot into FW territory. Once you want to do something you are right before the choice which faction to join - no contact to players or units anywhere. Unless that is fixed and the endgame is made accessible for new players in a easy way, the population will stay small.

But that has nothing to do with the PSR system, which is the main topic of this thread. And end game really should not be accessible to new players easily. I personally would not have allowed CW to be shown on player menu until they played certain amount of matches, or hit certain tier.

It is so frustrating to have a pugger that dies with all 4 mechs even before mid-game, or that pugger who drops with a 90 ton Cyclops as his last mech.

Edited by El Bandito, 17 March 2017 - 10:05 PM.

[Cementi]

Did not tally it but a friend said that our lighter team did about 300 more damage too.

[Kin3ticX]

You need to fix the title of this thread doe


"Hi community I am just your friendly tier 1 neighbor and I think we should reset the tiers so I can have 2 weeks of slaughtering grade AAA potatoes"

[Scandinavian Jawbreaker]

I don't care anymore. Group queue is bad, solo queue is even worse. They won't get any better no matter what as long as they insist keeping it 12v12.

[Weeny Machine]

Scout Derek, on 17 March 2017 - 06:38 PM, said:

I know the myth that tiers don't matter....

but please, just... reset them, this patch or the next. Some matches are way too lopsided and quite frankly.... it gets pretty horrible.

I mean, I like racking up the kills, but honestly I feel bad for the guy that I backstab because he didn't turn around after the second to third SRM 22 Pack into his back :/

And then being on the recieving end of it... Appogee knows what I'm talking about. He and I were on opposite sides. He kept getting a bad team while I kept getting the overall better one.

I can't help but feel this way whenever my team goes potato and I carry too much:

Heck, I know what you mean. Currently I am on a potato streak. Half of my team doesn't break 100dmg and dies so fast that I am flabbergasted. There is no way to "carry" the team and it is incredibly hard to get a good score yourself because you quickly drown in a flood of red.

Weekends are the apocalypse My favourite was a match on Bog. My team sat in the middle while being shot from both cliffs. Of course they tried to hide so hard that they stayed there.


Long storry short: a complete stat reset every 3 month wouldn't be bad. That should include K/D ratios and performance with mechs

[Weeny Machine]

Kin3ticX, on 17 March 2017 - 10:46 PM, said:

You need to fix the title of this thread doe


"Hi community I am just your friendly tier 1 neighbor and I think we should reset the tiers so I can have 2 weeks of slaughtering grade AAA potatoes"

Newsflash: currently really good pilots (no, not me) are already slaughtering the potatoes anyway

Edited by Bush Hopper, 18 March 2017 - 12:22 AM.

[El Bandito]

Kin3ticX, on 17 March 2017 - 10:46 PM, said:

You need to fix the title of this thread doe

"Hi community I am just your friendly tier 1 neighbor and I think we should reset the tiers so I can have 2 weeks of slaughtering grade AAA potatoes"

Soft reset is fine. Move down everyone by 2 tiers. But this time remove the upwards bias, and halve the damage contribution towards match score. Much better.