184 replies to this topic

[Mole]

Asym, on 30 November 2017 - 07:36 AM, said:

Again, the player base is less than a 1,000 people at anyone time.... Days without being able to even find FP matches..... Long waits for QP. Virtually no one in off periods unless there is another everyday event.

Where do you people keep getting this stuff from? This number is roughly the number of players at any given moment on Steam. But many players still use the original client and never started going through Steam. FP has long wait times frankly because nobody likes playing IS just to get stomped by clans. QP though? Goodness you people love to complain about your wait times but Jesus H whenever I queue up for QP it takes me like two minutes on a bad day, sometimes it's instant, and on average it takes like 30 seconds regardless of what time of day I am playing. If 30 seconds is a "long wait" then you are problematically impatient.

Edited by Mole, 30 November 2017 - 08:23 AM.

[Bilbo999]

Cabusha, on 29 November 2017 - 04:35 PM, said:

The old ELO system was global. EG: It was a general pilot rating, and did not account for mech class (light, med, hvy, or assault), nor did it account for mech chassis/variant. This really shoehorned people into their best mech.

At the time, I was one of the two guys in our unit who were good assault players. I was brutal in an atlas, could tank/spread well, and enjoyed leading pushes. This weighted my ELO, because when I was in an Atlas, I could carry. The problem was when I changed chassis. EG, switch to a new light mech. ELO said I was a high-skill player and would weight me as such, but in a light my performance dropped significantly.

The old ELO system was flawed, and it was pointed out repeatedly in the old forums. Rather than fixing/improving it, PGI scrapped it and switched to the current system. Back then, it was pointed out that everyone ends up tier 1 eventually because of the bias in their algorithm, and this was ignored. So here we are today with everyone dog piled into high tier matches with no real MM in place.

Each pilot in MWO's old ELO system had 4 ratings. One for each weight class. If your performance dropped in matches in a certain weight class, then you just weren't as good as you thought you were in that weight class.

[Almond Brown]

Bilbo999, on 30 November 2017 - 08:40 AM, said:

Each pilot in MWO's old ELO system had 4 ratings. One for each weight class. If your performance dropped in matches in a certain weight class, then you just weren't as good as you thought you were in that weight class.

Ohhh look! A FACT has been revealed. A real FACT. Well color me impressed. Sadly, FACTS have no place in the SALT Mines of MWO because BS just goes down so much easier than reality. But good try and well attempted good sir.

[Escef]

Asym, on 30 November 2017 - 07:36 AM, said:

Again, the player base is less than a 1,000 people at anyone time.... Days without being able to even find FP matches..... Long waits for QP. Virtually no one in off periods unless there is another everyday event.

Right now it is 1 PM on the US East Coast. It is NOT peak hours. There is no significant event at the moment. Steam lists 735 players in game. That only counts the players using steam, not the players using the stand alone client. It is very possible that total users online is over 1000, and the number on Steam will likely jump over 1k itself within 5 or 6 hours when peak hours hit North America. At Tier 2, match making in solo QP isn't long (I had several instances of insta-queueing during my stream this morning). So, your comments about player population are, once again, demonstrably false. Get your damned facts straight.

As for wait times in FW, it is poorly populated due to lack of interest (partially due to dissatisfaction with it's state of design, mostly due to the fact that even if it was in a good place most of the player base doesn't care about it). Wait times in group quickplay is due to the matchmaker having to shuffle around groups of various sizes and tier ranks to try to put together something that resembles a balanced match.

Your complaint about the game "de-evolved" into a FPS... Well, let's look at the past without the rose-tinted glasses. Once people finished the solo campaign on previous MW titles, what happened? I'll tell you what happened. People played it either online or in LAN parties as a FPS! Amazing, right? In fact, most of the play value from every FPS today is in multiplayer online, not story/campaign mode. You are complaining about PGI making a game that caters to the way people play games. No one says you have to be happy with it, but you are blissfully ignoring reality here.

The rest of your rant... Is a bizarre jumble of words that almost can be parsed into something that resembles thoughts... Almost.

Edited by Escef, 30 November 2017 - 10:22 AM.

[Asym]

Ah, ranting brings such bitter words.... I apologize; just a bit frustrated with seeing so much potential go to waste.... Any change to MM is better than what we have.....even, if they remove MM completely and allow just a random mix for a while just to test the waters.....

So far, today, just before I left for school, endless spooling for FP. You are correct about QP, I should have been more specific. 1,000 is a made up number since it is just about impossible to determine who is or is not actually playing MWO. There are players that are AFK all day but logged-in......

In matches, the same pilot names are on the same teams, match after match.... A few weeks ago, there was a group of about 5 pilots that played 15 matches in a row together and were joking about 14 HPG's in a row and 14 stomps or just about stomps...the enemy team had a rotating 5 player base as well. So, if there really are thousands or even hundreds of pilots waiting, I wonder what the probability of the same 4 or 5 players being on the same team, 14 or 15 matches in a row are?

Scouting a few night ago, with the event adding players, a PUG team played the same IS team 6 times in a row and then, the all matched that they were going to bed and poof, no one was out there.... The exact same rosters. Hundreds of players or dozens?

You are correct in a lot of what you've said about the past: I wasn't here because of the game's horrible ratings and what you'all were saying all those years.... Sorry, just didn't make sense to be frustrated.

There is a sizable portion of players in MWO that want "something else"....or, more specifically, they want :"something more" than brawling and FPS'ing antics.... Howyou kill stompy robots has real value. As to my rant, your words and the words of others sometimes infuriate me as well... The difference is, I keep that to myself and try not to disrespect you personally.

Oh well, i guess I'm from a different generation, with different expectations; and, if I infuriate you, apologies: I do not do so to trigger your frustration.....

[Bud Crue]

Asym, on 30 November 2017 - 07:36 AM, said:

Sorry, a little rant: I just discovered my MW3 green battlefield reference manual and the memories of such a good time.....

Again, the player base is less than a 1,000 people at anyone time.... Days without being able to even find FP matches..... Long waits for QP. Virtually no one in off periods unless there is another everyday event.

What in the world does this very good discussion, by some very smart players, do to improve or to make "vale added" what we have? We, as a system, are so broken we will not recover back to what was....... It's now three days w/o being able to find more than 3 FP matches a day !!! The last event just ended........can you hear the silence?

What was said in Arpil of this year and confirmed in May, with the new skill tree, is the "new reality": PGI de-evolved the entire platform to create a space for a FPS arcade platform: Solaris. Hairbrain has the Battle tech side of the MW universe so lore goes there. PGI has the FPS side of the Universe and a dedicated, very small, lucrative and always buying extreme niche that is profitable. 1x1, 2x2 and e-Sports is the new reality. 4x4 and 8x8 they'll keep to farm new players into Solaris or whatever PGI creates for the Arcade gameplay platform....

Sorry, the writing is on the wall. Look at the advertising list, the BT announcements and displays at MECON and I'd love to hear how elo or any "just" MM system will help an arcade, FPS'ing platform, that buys, no matter what happens, everything.....

Sorry, I love this game since inception years and year ago.

Nevermind. Saw your subsequent post.

Edited by Bud Crue, 30 November 2017 - 10:50 AM.

[Escef]

Asym, on 30 November 2017 - 10:40 AM, said:

Any change to MM is better than what we have.....even, if they remove MM completely and allow just a random mix for a while just to test the waters.....

Ha! We had that, too. It sucked. You had first time new players in stock mechs facing off against veteran players with completely kitted and skilled out competitive mechs. Lots of games ended up being little more than a turkey shoot.

[Mole]

Asym, on 30 November 2017 - 10:40 AM, said:

So, if there really are thousands or even hundreds of pilots waiting, I wonder what the probability of the same 4 or 5 players being on the same team, 14 or 15 matches in a row are?

Pretty damn good, actually. What's happening is that you and those players are accidentally sync-dropping. You have ended up in the same match, and as soon as you exit the match all of you are punching the launch button again and adding yourselves to the pool at the same time. Of course MM is going to put you in a game together again, because you are all in the queue at the same exact moment while MM is trying to compose a match as quickly as possible. Sync dropping is totally a thing, even in games with high populations.

Personally, after a match concludes I often walk away from my PC for a minute or two or browse the internet or mess around in the mechlab. Point is, there is a pause between when I get out of a game and when I launch for another one. Do you know how often I see the same names several games in a row? Not often. Sometimes there are players that I will bump into several times a day but generally unless I'm grouping I'm getting pretty diverse rosters.

Edited by Mole, 30 November 2017 - 11:08 AM.

[Xavori]

Mole, on 30 November 2017 - 11:03 AM, said:

Pretty damn good, actually. What's happening is that you and those players are accidentally sync-dropping. You have ended up in the same match, and as soon as you exit the match all of you are punching the launch button again and adding yourselves to the pool at the same time. Of course MM is going to put you in a game together again, because you are all in the queue at the same exact moment while MM is trying to compose a match as quickly as possible. Sync dropping is totally a thing, even in games with high populations.

Personally, after a match concludes I often walk away from my PC for a minute or two or browse the internet or mess around in the mechlab. Point is, there is a pause between when I get out of a game and when I launch for another one. Do you know how often I see the same names several games in a row? Not often. Sometimes there are players that I will bump into several times a day but generally unless I'm grouping I'm getting pretty diverse rosters.

My solution is to tweak a mech for a few minutes.

Oh, since you've all brought it up now...

If the game kept adjusting your ELO after each match, it'd also likely be shuffling the teams after each match even if its the same 24 players. This is worlds better than the current system where tiers are so wide (and also meaningless) that the matchmaker may as well have ignored them all together during those off peak times.

And as for respawns that have been brought up...oh, how I wish it was that every match was guaranteed to last 15 minutes because you kept respawning. But that's a topic that needs its own thread is more has to change than just respawns. Things like preventing spawn camping, figuring out respawn waits,etc. So someone go start that thread

[C E Dwyer]

Athom83, on 29 November 2017 - 02:27 PM, said:

Again as in the many other "teh 12-0 ar no balance" threads; the 12-0 matches are the balanced matches in games with no respawn.

FW with limited respawn on Q.P maps, and the cries of it's not fair being camped, completely disproves the theory that it will make the game better.

It will not make it better, and will almost certainly make it worse and cost P.G.I more players..as it rapidly degenerates into 48 -15 results..

[Mole]

Xavori, on 30 November 2017 - 12:34 PM, said:

My solution is to tweak a mech for a few minutes.

Oh, since you've all brought it up now...

If the game kept adjusting your ELO after each match, it'd also likely be shuffling the teams after each match even if its the same 24 players. This is worlds better than the current system where tiers are so wide (and also meaningless) that the matchmaker may as well have ignored them all together during those off peak times.

And as for respawns that have been brought up...oh, how I wish it was that every match was guaranteed to last 15 minutes because you kept respawning. But that's a topic that needs its own thread is more has to change than just respawns. Things like preventing spawn camping, figuring out respawn waits,etc. So someone go start that thread

I was always a fan of the way Red Orchestra thought of simulating large military battles. There were only 20 or so players on either side, but each side got reinforcement "tickets". Each time a player would respawn, a ticket would be consumed. When a team was out of tickets, respawns would stop for the team that was out of tickets and if every remaining member of the team was killed once the respawns stopped. Upon death, if the player's team still had tickets left, the player had the opportunity to choose a different class (in this case, 'mech) to spawn in if they desired. This resulted in battles that felt truly massive and front lines that constantly shifted.

Edited by Mole, 30 November 2017 - 01:00 PM.

[Khobai]

yep respawn tickets is how mechwarrior living legends worked too

its how MWO should also work

Quote

FW with limited respawn on Q.P maps, and the cries of it's not fair being camped, completely disproves the theory that it will make the game better.

most games with respawns have the sense not to allow spawn camping though

its not like its hard to add anti-camping measures. its quite easy in fact.

just add a couple indestructible calliope turrets from MW4 on top of the walls. If I recall they have two large lasers, two medium pulse lasers, and four LRM5s. no more spawn camping.

indestructible turrets would make spawn camping an unprofitable venture.

Edited by Khobai, 30 November 2017 - 01:11 PM.

[Brain Cancer]

Nothing will change, because PGI wants a system that packs play in favor of long-time (read: Tier 1-2) play, and that means marching newbies at a smart pace into said meatgrinder.

Coincidentally, this is also one reason new player retention suffers.

[Xavori]

Brain Cancer, on 30 November 2017 - 01:04 PM, said:

Nothing will change, because PGI wants a system that packs play in favor of long-time (read: Tier 1-2) play, and that means marching newbies at a smart pace into said meatgrinder.

Coincidentally, this is also one reason new player retention suffers.

You do realize you are posting contradictory goals for PGI, neither of which you provide any evidence to support.

Personally, I think PGI wants to make a game that is fun and therefore, earns them money. I feel pretty safe assumign that is their goal. Now, I disagree at times with the method they have towards achieving it, but I never assume negative intent on the part of PGI.

Also, you have no idea if new player retention is suffering or not. You think it is, and you might be right, but without evidence you're wasting everyone's time by posting it. Of course, you'd be wasting time by posting it with evidence as well unless you also included solutions that would help...which is what this thread is.

It's a solution to a problem.

[Brain Cancer]

The game pushes most players towards T1 levels because it's overwhelmingly biased towards doing so, as you have to be so bad NOT to move the bar forward, you're missing fundamental portions of gameplay. The T1/T2/T3 population has swollen over time, and precious few people actually remain in the T4/5 range for any significant period.

This means that regardless of actual skill, the top tiers are the majority of the actual population and tier is not even remotely a reflection of skill. I'm a near T1 player. I'm fond of LRMs and ATMs and use a 30FPS clunker to play.

I should not be staring the top tier in the face right now. I usually end up around a 1 W/L and K/D ratio. I am resoundingly average. Yet, the game things I'm good. And it puts people with huge differences in skill level in my same tier. I've checked. What matchmaker is sticking people with .5 or worse W/L and K/D with people getting 3+ W/L and K/D together and calling that a fair match?

The only logical explanation to me is fairness is not the objective, but stocking the matches for the people who play the most (read: higher tiers) with enough warm bodies to give them targets. I've read more than one account from new players (which, given the rules here are rapidly deleted/locked) complaining about the matchmaker's seeming utter disregard for player skill levels. I mean, if you've got a good one, lemme know.

[Dr Cara Carcass]

Khobai, on 29 November 2017 - 05:30 PM, said:

nah it wasnt that bad. the wait time was 10 minutes at worst.

and it was worth it to not get stomped by groups.

However my clan mates had a huge aversion against those 10 minute wait times and we barely played FW coz of the moing and what hot coz of the wasted time. With hindsight the wait was worth it....

[sumbody]

Brain Cancer, on 30 November 2017 - 10:20 PM, said:

The game pushes most players towards T1 levels because it's overwhelmingly biased towards doing so, as you have to be so bad NOT to move the bar forward, you're missing fundamental portions of gameplay. The T1/T2/T3 population has swollen over time, and precious few people actually remain in the T4/5 range for any significant period.

This means that regardless of actual skill, the top tiers are the majority of the actual population and tier is not even remotely a reflection of skill. I'm a near T1 player. I'm fond of LRMs and ATMs and use a 30FPS clunker to play.

I should not be staring the top tier in the face right now. I usually end up around a 1 W/L and K/D ratio. I am resoundingly average. Yet, the game things I'm good. And it puts people with huge differences in skill level in my same tier. I've checked. What matchmaker is sticking people with .5 or worse W/L and K/D with people getting 3+ W/L and K/D together and calling that a fair match?

The only logical explanation to me is fairness is not the objective, but stocking the matches for the people who play the most (read: higher tiers) with enough warm bodies to give them targets. I've read more than one account from new players (which, given the rules here are rapidly deleted/locked) complaining about the matchmaker's seeming utter disregard for player skill levels. I mean, if you've got a good one, lemme know.

So when do you expect to hit T1? You should have hit it by now if it's true that everyone will get to T1 eventually.

I don't play to much. I'm aware that just dropping into matches will not move me up to T1. I must perform and do well. I just don't bye the notion that everyone will get to T1 eventually. It can't be true with all the Founders I see on this forum that are not T1.

[Brain Cancer]

I'm actually just below T1 right now as it is- if I actually played every day, I'd be well into T1 at this point, but I usually get in around 100 games per season.

And you'd probably find many of those Founders don't play too much lately, or else...you guessed it, will have horrible matchscore and generally poor gameplay. Old player or number of games played does not equal skill, indeed it can just as much mean no skill at all but a dedication to playing anyway.

[Simbacca]

MischiefSC, on 29 November 2017 - 01:19 PM, said:

No, the problem with Elo is that it worked. What people wanted was a system they thought would involve them being in matches with people who would carry them. So we got tiers, which puts mediocres and bads in with good players. The result is the mediocres get destroyed by goods and struggle to get a 1.0. Good players have an easier time now getting a higher win/loss, everyone else is getting a harder time.

People didn't like Elo because it worked and they're not as good as they want to think they are. So we got a new system that's pushing everyone up to T1 and they're just food for people who actually play at that level.

And then add in the issues of power creep. With certain mechs and add in the weapon additions (in addition to unfixed underlying issues which have been discussed again and again) has compound problem.

Going back to 8vs8 would be an easy test to see if better matches can be produced. At the very least the quantity of focused massive fire should be reduced - which in theory should reduce the number of curbstomps.

[Asym]

Again, 8x8 only concentrates the errors we already have? Unless, you can fix MM, as many smart pilots have suggested above, reducing the scope of a match only speeds up the carnage and increases the frustration of new players...

I can't see a PGI solution anytime soon. Solaris will be the gameplay and business emphasis/model/strategy for a while; a small faction of the nich will egress to HBS and BT because the entire FP model is dead; and, another small faction will swing over to MW5 and not come back because it is the "rest of MW" that they enjoy: the rest of the "stuff" MWO avoids: politics, economies, R³ and individual emphasis vis-a'-vis teams... Some players don't want or needs teams to be successful...

Who knows.

Edited by Asym, 02 December 2017 - 06:58 AM.