75 replies to this topic

[Sjorpha]

justcallme A S H, on 10 January 2018 - 09:05 PM, said:

Indeed the big question.

PGI have the data. They just need to interpret/use it properly and ensure the 'bulk' are in T3, just need to work out what that bulk/median average point actually is. Right now it's too low, way too low.

Specific matchscore thresholds aren't a good idea since it's a moving target. The better the matchmaking works the smaller the difference in avg matchscore between good and bad players becomes as the total averages per match stay about the same regardless of the average skill, which is exactly why gq is harder to keep a high avg in.

So what should be looked at is more along the lines of fixed distribution, let's say tier 1 is always the top 7%of the active population for example. As the best tier 2 players improve past the worst tier 1s the former pushes the latter down, you'd have to fight for the right to stay in tier 1 if you are on the margins. Basically it would be a bell curve with tier cutoffs at certain points.

[SFC174]

I think one thing that needs to be said more explicitly (and Brain Cancer's post hinted at it) is that a proper rating system doesn't mean you should only face people in your Tier/level.

The problem with the current Tier1 is that, because XPbar, it is composed of people with wildly different skill levels. So you can get a match with all Tier1s but clearly not equal ability. Not all Tier1s are created equal, so to speak.

If we had a proper rating system, with zero sum movement (assuming no population change, if I move up into Tier1, someone must drop down out of it) and a normalized distribution, then you would expect to have games with player ratings that would look something like this for _each_ team:

2 Tier 1
4 Tier 2
6 Tier 3

Yes, Tier3s would face Tier1s, but they do today anyways. A proper system would ensure that both teams had equal numbers of appropriately skilled and _rated_ Tier1s and 2s though. Playing against pilots of a higher Tier is not a bad thing either. Playing against people who are more skilled is one of the best ways to improve your own game if you pay attention.

Look at WoT for example. They match make primarily on tank type vs. WN8 (PGI really needs to implement some sort of mech rating in its MM as well). If you're in a Tier X tank, you will end up in one of the following matchmaking distributions in order of preference if the population is sufficient:

1. All Tier X
2. 5 Tier X and 10 Tier IX
3. 3 Tier X, 5 Tier IX and 7 Tier VIII

You will never get worse than the last distribution, and players there generally view #3 as the worst matchmaking to get because its hard for the Tier VIII tanks to do anything (not able to pen the armor of the Tier X tanks, etc. - of course MWO doesn't have that issue).

The only issue remaining in my mind is how PGI rates the players and/or mech combos. PSR clearly doesn't work. An ELO or some sort of custom W/L+matchscore system would probably be best.

[Brain Cancer]

Dogstar, on 14 January 2018 - 04:05 AM, said:

I started a new account just to see how the tiering works from new and I notice that a new account is placed quite high up in tier 5 so it only takes a few good games to get to tier 4.

Which means that effectively there are only four tiers anyway, because to stay in tier 5 you would have to actively play to lose.

Suck horribly in your first 25 games and you can and will end up banished to the bottom of the Kodiak dungheap tier, scraping the back end of T5. After all, the initial 25 games are greatly weighted in terms of how much initial ranking up you get.

[Lily from animove]

justcallme A S H, on 10 January 2018 - 07:15 PM, said:

The other thing to think about is, what is the top %? It is about 2% of the population, literally. You look at the avg match scores of players in the 99.XX percentile vs the 95.XX and it's a big difference. Huge in-fact.

I'm - 99.86% / rank 63 - 379 avg m/s on the Jarls list. Lets go to rank 1200?

At rank 1200 you have players at... 97% / 280 avg m/s... Just making T1 over a long period (if using my goalposts as above).

Now there are some 28,000 active across a month at the moment. So just think about that, only 1200 odd players around the T1 mark. The majority of the MWO population is at a T3 level and should be ranked as such. That is where the "meat" in the bellcurve is and where the majority should be. If Dave is in T1 then PSR is absolutely broken as a system (no offence Dave, i know you ain't taking offence even so.).

The other issue is that the PSR bar counts GroupQ and SoloQ. GroupQ is generally MUCH harder to get higher match scores in as if you are playing even in a 4man with competent pilots. You can shred the entire 12 on the other side pretty much on your own where SoloQ you are doing the bulk of the heavy lifting as a true T1 pilot, on your own, most of the time.

I know my rank and in-game scores are far higher than many pilots that are much better than I am but they GroupQ more and I SoloQ more.

To truly fix it GroupQ and SoloQ need to be split out and GroupQ avg's actually lowered compared to SoloQ.

So I agree it would improve the matches for some players but at the same time it would also increase the wait times for others.

A delicate situation it is all in right now simply because of how badly the system has been for so long. Hard to fix the situation after so long.

And then there is me still a few hundred games away from T1 (low t2) label because I do not spam the drop button often anymore and multiple wins with "ups" in a row only give such low "pixels" on that bar that I surely know it's hundreds of pixels (and therfore games) away form reaching T1.

I don't really care about labels in a game at all, but since PSR is used by ther MM this is where it just negatively affects many people because they are in matches they don't belong to. And this counts for over and underrated people.

Edited by Lily from animove, 15 January 2018 - 07:21 AM.

[Asym]

Or, the "other rated" people in alternative accounts... MWO has so many alternative accounts it is silly even to talk about MM or any system of leveling capabilities of or by mech tiers as WoW/WoT's or player tiers (which are so much harder to write code for and make work !)

MWO needs to immediately hit the "Ctrl+Alt+Delete, reformat it's game engine and start over.....because, it's that messed up.

[Lily from animove]

Asym, on 15 January 2018 - 07:46 AM, said:

Or, the "other rated" people in alternative accounts... MWO has so many alternative accounts it is silly even to talk about MM or any system of leveling capabilities of or by mech tiers as WoW/WoT's or player tiers (which are so much harder to write code for and make work !)

MWO needs to immediately hit the "Ctrl+Alt+Delete, reformat it's game engine and start over.....because, it's that messed up.

maybe MWO should make some: K/D * W/L

take
top 10% T1
20%T2
30% T3
20% T4
20% T5
utilising the last 30 days active playerbase.
further MM can extent 5% ino the nex lower tier.

Sure the upper t1 one lower t1 will diffr by quite some value, but this is simpyl unavoidable by population.
But this way we mostly match rather equal peopel against each other yet if skills mix, those with less skills will mostlikely drop from the current result of this equation.

So while technically a T5 battling a T5 can end up in the same k/d and W/L as a t1 battling a t1. they would be matched against eahc other, but this would quickly downrate the t5 due to these numbers by K/D and W/L loss he has.
And with a timeframe of only 30days there wont be "noob legacy" stats affecting the ratings negatively.
I believe that K/D preservers won't be able to hide as their "preservation" skills will soon be overstrained. Also they aren't helping much in achieveing a win so their rating drops at the other side anyways.

but that was just a quick shot idea, might as well have as much holes as a swiss cheese.

[Dogstar]

Brain Cancer, on 14 January 2018 - 10:21 PM, said:

Suck horribly in your first 25 games and you can and will end up banished to the bottom of the Kodiak dungheap tier, scraping the back end of T5. After all, the initial 25 games are greatly weighted in terms of how much initial ranking up you get.

The funny thing is it's actually quite hard to actually participate without doing at least something, it amazes me sometimes that people can actually do below 100 damage. 'Seal clubbing' is a lot harder than it looks.

[JediPanther]

I really don't care about tiers any more. Play alot during the week of 3-4 nights and still in t3. I'd rather have fun with my mechs and changing builds and play styles then go higher in tiers where I see more and more meta mechs. T3 fights everyone sooner or later in qp. For the group and fw you can get active with a unit and tiers don't mater there.

[Bud Crue]

JediPanther, on 15 January 2018 - 08:17 AM, said:

I really don't care about tiers any more. Play alot during the week of 3-4 nights and still in t3. I'd rather have fun with my mechs and changing builds and play styles then go higher in tiers where I see more and more meta mechs. T3 fights everyone sooner or later in qp. For the group and fw you can get active with a unit and tiers don't mater there.

I only care about tier in terms of what it does to the NPE, and under the right (wrong?) circumstances leading to a new player having a very bad experience very quickly, after having played a few games wherein they did well. Suddenly this nearly new player is T3 and likely fighting against T1s on most nights (I mean real T1s). Also I think the tier system is frankly just silly. The reality is we are too niche and too limited a population for it to matter. I mean, if I and my 19000ish rank (according to the Jarl’s list) are T1, then everyone may as well be, for in a given month we only have about 25K players. Yet my tier says I am supposedly one of the best with stats that prove I am one of the worst? Silly, just silly.

Personally, I play group queue and the population is even more limited there, and tier is irrelevant. On a given night you see the same 50ish names over and over and over. You WILL be teamed with the 3 man of EMP and the 2 EVIL guys and you WILL be up against them as long as you are all online and the team numbers need to be filled in. There is no point in getting hung up on tiers or MM, when there are simply no other people to play with.

Edited by Bud Crue, 15 January 2018 - 08:38 AM.

[Dago Red]

Bud Crue, on 15 January 2018 - 08:38 AM, said:

I only care about tier in terms of what it does to the NPE, and under the right (wrong?) circumstances leading to a new player having a very bad experience very quickly, after having played a few games wherein they did well. Suddenly this nearly new player is T3 and likely fighting against T1s on most nights (I mean real T1s). Also I think the tier system is frankly just silly. The reality is we are too niche and too limited a population for it to matter. I mean, if I and my 19000ish rank (according to the Jarl’s list) are T1, then everyone may as well be, for in a given month we only have about 25K players. Yet my tier says I am supposedly one of the best with stats that prove I am one of the worst? Silly, just silly.

Personally, I play group queue and the population is even more limited there, and tier is irrelevant. On a given night you see the same 50ish names over and over and over. You WILL be teamed with the 3 man of EMP and the 2 EVIL guys and you WILL be up against them as long as you are all online and the team numbers need to be filled in. There is no point in getting hung up on tiers or MM, when there are simply no other people to play with.

I'd say it at least somewhat still works for the new players. I started a new account to try clan tech without dirtying up my main account with it and between getting used to how different some of it feels/ ******* around with builds and tech learning the hard way, and repeatedly running into Kodiak tkers in tier 5 I ended up finishing up 75% up the tier 5 bar.

I'm about halfway up tier 4 now and I'm seeing very few names I recognize from the main account. I hop back onto my main and hey look it's MJ12 and EMP.

So even if it's not working long term it's still doing an acceptable job of keeping the minnows out of the shark tank.

Unless of course you do group que and then like good luck with that man.

Edited by Dago Red, 15 January 2018 - 08:47 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Dago Red, on 15 January 2018 - 08:46 AM, said:

So even if it's not working long term it's still doing an acceptable job of keeping the minnows out of the shark tank.

That’s good to hear. I hope it is a wide spread experience, as I think it’s safe to say that this game needs all the help it can get attracting and keeping new players. We all benefit from a good NPE and one that allows the new player to develop and learn before allowing or forcing them to swim with the sharks.

[Dago Red]

Bud Crue, on 15 January 2018 - 08:51 AM, said:

That’s good to hear. I hope it is a wide spread experience, as I think it’s safe to say that this game needs all the help it can get attracting and keeping new players. We all benefit from a good NPE and one that allows the new player to develop and learn before allowing or forcing them to swim with the sharks.

It's the mid sized fish who have to worry I think. I don't think the top skill players even understand what a truly bad player even looks like anymore they're so thoroughly insulated from it. I see people called a potato for having an off meta but basically functional build or having a sub 1.0 but higher than .5 KDR meanwhile I just watched someone try and fail to hit a shut down atlas from 200 meters away 3 times in a row in a stock build.

The problem with the NPE is always going to be lack of proper tutorials. Unless they already have a firm understanding of the series or get with a unit quickly the learning process is ridiculously slow.

[DaZur]

JediPanther, on 15 January 2018 - 08:17 AM, said:

I really don't care about tiers any more. Play alot during the week of 3-4 nights and still in t3. I'd rather have fun with my mechs and changing builds and play styles then go higher in tiers where I see more and more meta mechs. T3 fights everyone sooner or later in qp. For the group and fw you can get active with a unit and tiers don't mater there.

FWIW... I just got to tier 2 and I wish I was back in tier 4. I enjoy the comms and coordination but the incessant whining and complaining and unrelenting try-harding is almost unbearable...

[Humpday]

JediPanther, on 15 January 2018 - 08:17 AM, said:

I'd rather have fun with my mechs and changing builds and play styles then go higher in tiers where I see more and more meta mechs.

This is important.
So many people, including myself can get overly wrapped up in playing the game for stats, and forget...well its a game it should bring my joy to you than it does frustration...

...though as human being we're naturally competitive, be it against other people or just battling yourself to see if you can beat your old scores.

I've told many people to forget about the notion of Tiers, and just play the game to play, have fun with it.

Anyway, you know whats bad for T1???
Me trying to figure out how the heck to play assaults or even most Mediums...

I'm either wreaking face in a Light or Heavy but man, you see me in a Med or Assault...what a potato I am(less the MKIIs, but those are one of the mechs that just performs out of the box so I guess that doesn't even count)....

But I'll persevere I WILL figure out how to play these stupid slow monstrosities....

I apologize in advance...I plan to potato hard the next couple seasons figuring this out...

Edited by Humpday, 15 January 2018 - 03:30 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Lol, potato on. That's what I've been doing in my Assaults. I could roll my face over the keyboard and have the same lack of consistency.

[JediPanther]

Humpday, on 15 January 2018 - 12:48 PM, said:

This is important.
So many people, including myself can get overly wrapped up in playing the game for stats, and forget...well its a game it should bring my joy to you than it does frustration...

...though as human being we're naturally competitive, be it against other people or just battling yourself to see if you can beat your old scores.

I've told many people to forget about the notion of Tiers, and just play the game to play, have fun with it.

Anyway, you know whats bad for T1???
Me trying to figure out how the heck to play assaults or even most Mediums...

I'm either wreaking face in a Light or Heavy but man, you see me in a Med or Assault...what a potato I am(less the MKIIs, but those are one of the mechs that just performs out of the box so I guess that doesn't even count)....

But I'll persevere I WILL figure out how to play these stupid slow monstrosities....

I apologize in advance...I plan to potato hard the next couple seasons figuring this out...

Good luck on the 100 tons of paper weight. I long ago gave up tying to run them sticking to the more mobile lights,meds, and heavy mechs. I can break 300-500 in one but its simply easier and far less stressful to use a lighter class mech.

I have had some luck with the kgc-0000 as it has a very nice ballistic cool down quirk so I dumped 40 points into fire power to add even more cool down then ran this: KGC-0000ALF

Group the acs into one and two weapon groups avoids the ghost heat spike and the 4x mls gets 400m range. Enough ams to avoid some missiles while to scurry to cover with just enough speed to be one of the less slow is assaults.