51 replies to this topic

[Mister Blastman]

Sometimes pictures are worth a thousand words, and often, when you add words, they grow to millions...

Edited by Mister Blastman, 14 June 2017 - 03:52 PM.

[Lootee]

Lol. Are the matches actual 12 person vs 12 person matches now?

For the longest time nearly every single match would be 12 vs 11, 11 vs 9, etc... They couldn't even reliably get two full teams into the game. Then add the potato teammates to your already short-changed team. Good times right?

[Deathlike]

Lootee, on 14 June 2017 - 03:52 PM, said:

Lol. Are the matches actual 12 person vs 12 person matches now?

For the longest time nearly every single match would be 12 vs 11, 11 vs 9, etc... They couldn't even reliably get two full teams into the game. Then add the potato teammates to your already short-changed team. Good times right?

To be fair, it was still fairly random before, but not to the degree that it is now (skill disparity is much wider now than it was in beta).

I mean, it's closer to RNGesus deciding whether you get a potato or if some salty god determined your fate in advance.

It's just easier to pretend it doesn't matter anymore (don't expect actual quality - you still have to control the destiny of the train wreck).

[PhoenixFire55]

In two words ...

Horrendously atrocious.

3/10 on foreversearching scale.
0/10 on match quality scale.

Edited by PhoenixFire55, 15 June 2017 - 12:49 AM.

[Shifty McSwift]

Wild stupid crazy.

But one problem is, you can't really expect anything different from the quickplay system as it is, another problem is the general massive increase in times (and loss of potential pay for time) when grouping and lack of internal game systems for communicating and viewing groups and leaders that are active.

Edited by Shifty McSwift, 15 June 2017 - 12:50 AM.

[fat4eyes]

Depends on the time of day. At peak times on weekdays it's pretty good (sub-minute search times and matches with players around my skill level). At off peak times it can get spotty (longer search times and more skill difference). Weekends are a mixed bag for some reason. Wait times are usually lower on weekends, but match quality is more inconsistent.

[PhoenixFire55]

Navid A1, on 14 June 2017 - 12:03 PM, said:

Hmm...
What?
PSR failed miserably in the long run?

wow.
Its not like this community predicted the exact thing 1 week before PSR release.... right?.... riiiiiigght!!!

FTFY.

[Gwahlur]

If my mind isnt just playing tricks on me: Since skill tree patch, most matches have been stomps one way or the other.
Bad matches outnumber good ones by a great deal.

[Scyther]

Gwahlur, I haven't measured stomps vs challenging battles since ST dropped, but I've certainly had a fair number of both.

It wouldn't be too surprising for the disparity in matches to increase. Some people will have taken the time to learn and get the most benefit from the skill tree (and so will be in some ways 'better' than before) and some people will be launching with mechs they haven't even clicked on the 'skills' button yet. Even people at same tier will vary depending on how much effort they put into skilling up their mechs.

As for the matchmaking issues, I suspect a big part of the problem comes from 'fast' matchmaking. Any game I play with an MM tends to produce very quick matches (in the main queue).

This can be a problem if the MM isn't allowing an 'inventory' of players to build up before making matches. If it makes a match as soon as 50 players are waiting in the queue (for example) it has much less option to 'build' a good matchup than if it waits until there are 400 players in the queue.

Of course, waiting for more players to select from means longer wait times before a match drops. It's been quite a while since I've even had a 1-minute wait in the QP solo queue, so I doubt it's allowing too many players to pile up in the queue before dropping.

[Ced Riggs]

Honestly, it's hit and miss for me. Solo queue is all about being smashed or smashing. The levels of skittles, taters and odd builds with weak mechs played with poor aim increased. I keep getting into matches with people that have no business being in a Tier 2 (if tier would mean anything) match and then there's EmP in the same game. People that constantly kill themselves by overheating, people that use 4x zoom in sub 100m brawls, or put LRMs on Spirit Bears. You know the kind. People that run LBX AC/10, cUAC/2 and cLPL all in one weapon group. Facing off people that are clearly playing on a whole different level.

Group Queue, on the other hand, is a bit more reliable. People try. You have to organise three or four sections, rather than 12 deafmutes. Matches are a bit more balanced, and even stomps are fierce on both sides. 12-6 or 12-8 happens a lot more consistently.

[HGAK47]

Totally bloody random.

I usually get into battles quite quickly except when its very quiet times of the day - 7/10 perhaps for search speed usually?

Match quality - I just had a streak of losses yesterday so now is probably a bad time to ask. 5/10 at best.

You have to take the wins with the losses, that is part of life let alone the game. However the level of fun in a loss can be anything from "Oh wow great game so close" to..... "WTF why do I even bother trying, screw MWO for today lol"

[AngrySpartan]

Matchmaking? It's still there?

Worse and worse over time to be serious. I almost stopped playing weekends, it's not fun having 50% of players in a match being Lurm/suicide potatoes.

[sub2000]

Lordhammer, on 14 June 2017 - 10:31 AM, said:

I would like to hear how content the community are with solo queue, as i am rather discontent about matchmaking and curious how it is for everybody. So i will ask that you rate your matches in different categories to which i will adhere and serve as an example


- Search duration is less than 30 seconds for almost always, sometimes only a few seconds so that is excellent. 9/10
- In about 1 in 10 matches (or even less) score board is 12v6+ which i use to determine a somewhat close match. So i rate match quality very low. Stomps are regular occurance, which is not fun gameplay even on the winning side imo. 4/10

Missmatching happens only when you have one or two players in the winning team who take all kills. It happens but it is very rare. I see dominating players more often on the loosing side (MM can pair tier 1 with tier 5 against tier 3-4 team).
Before blaming MM for stomps let look first when and how stomps happen. Team spreads out, and say one part wants to snipe, another to push, if the other team stays as a whole and does counter push, you loose. Your team gets first kills and pushes, enemy instead of counter push pulls back, makes fire line and kills your team, you loose. Your team stays passive and tries to hide from enemy lrms, few lbks and lights from enemy team start picking your teammates one by ones, you loose. Also very common when more than a half of the winning team survives with a health 50% or less....I was in all these situations on both sides.
In all these and all other cases of stomps you have phenomenon of a avalanche: something happens and some team using advantage of relative positioning, focus fire and simple aggression very quickly (usually during one minute) wins. And I don't mention DC (drop calling) yet.
I was a lot on both sides, loosing with no kills and 400 damage, winning with 400 damage and 3 kills etc. Stomps is intrinsic part of team games. Teams which happen to have better synergy in mech composition (speed is very important) better positioned in the moment of first contact win more often. Wins thanks to the significant time to kill end being stomps, just because 3 mechs shooting at one tend to kill it first without loosing any.

[Skanderborg]

I pilot a Dire Wolf most of the time , and 90% of the time my team leaves me behind and the other slow assaults behind with NASCAR tactics and we die doing negligible damage.

Each map is different with the spawn points.

Maps where i don't get left behind are

HPG , Grim Plexus , Forest Colony , Bog, Crimson Straight , River City , and both snow maps.

But maps like Caustic Valley , and Mining Complex , and Canyon Network , where the Charlie lance spawn is off to the side and the team has the tendency to move AWAY from assaults I can already tell its going to be a loss or hard game.

[Bud Crue]

This thread is practically an advertisement for group queue.

[Gwahlur]

Bud Crue, on 15 June 2017 - 05:44 AM, said:

This thread is practically an advertisement for group queue.

Yeah, except as newbie you get rolled HARD in the group queue

[Bud Crue]

Gwahlur, on 15 June 2017 - 05:50 AM, said:

Yeah, except as newbie you get rolled HARD in the group queue

But rolled consistently...and isn't that what we are looking for in a MM?

[process]

Search time has always been anywhere from instantaneous to a few minutes for me, so nothing new lately.

Quality of matches? The margins are about the same as usual, but I'm noticing far more, let's say, ineffective builds. More LRM boats than usual, and a depressing number of heavies and assaults whose loadouts consisnt of only like 2 ER large lasers, presumably fallout from the skill tree patch.

[ScrubLord1]

Matches have always sucked, but its not really bad matchmaking as many players mindlessly complained about. its constrained by low player count. The same will go for any competitive game with a small playerbase. The tradeoff for better matchmaking is significantly longer queue times, then you find everyone complaining about wait times

Kill score doesn't represent match quality well. Most one-sided games are due to snowball effect. One team just pushes, or gets the better side of the map, have a drop caller or whatever reason. Teams can be evenly balanced and still go 12-0.

Edited by ScrubLord1, 15 June 2017 - 06:05 AM.

[9thDeathscream]

Varies a lot. I shift work so I play at different times of day.

So using rough United states times!

US Eastcoast late evening into the night I see the better match quality and wait times.
Wait 9/10 Match Q 7/10 This usually drops off when the US west coast hits about Midnight.
For me this is in the morning 8am and on until about 3pm in the afternoon.

Rest of the Day its worse.

Wait 5/10 Match Q 3/10.

Not knocking other international players. I believe that the match quality is better because more players are on for the MM to work with during US peak time.

I still have good matches outside US Prime time, but they are less frequent!

Edited by Kharonn, 15 June 2017 - 06:07 AM.