97 replies to this topic

[Johnathan Tanner]

Tier 5-Tier 1, The potato tornado is forever.

[PocketYoda]

Johnathan Tanner, on 21 February 2018 - 12:03 AM, said:

Whats wrong with just removing the skill barrier fail and creating a shark tank? I see it as a win for all.

1st bads will have to get good, Otherwise their gameplay experience will suck. So naturally being human, They will up their game because thats what humans do. That or leave. Either way its a win.

2nd It will expose fake goods in the community. Good players who say they are good but cant stand to carry bads arent good.

I believe in survival of the fittest. And thats what we have in FP. Good units survive and thrive. Bad units QQ and ***** about hacks and go to group queue.....Where they do just as bad.....With less assaults and extra tonnage....

No the populations will leave, this get gud bull **** is a pipe dream..

[Johnathan Tanner]

Samial, on 21 February 2018 - 12:39 AM, said:

No the populations will leave, this get gud bull **** is a pipe dream..

Once again people saying this like its a bad thing? I dont get it. Lots of online games have no match maker or psr crap and are much larger and longer lived.

[Dogstar]

UnofficialOperator, on 20 February 2018 - 09:44 PM, said:

TLDR: GAMEPLAY CAN ONLY IMPROVE ONCE EVERYONE IS IN THEIR RIGHT TIER FIGHTING THEIR CORRECT SKILL LEVEL OPPONENTS. SOMETIMES I WONDER WHETHER ITS A CONSPIRACY NOT TO FIX TIERS AND PSR.

All you've done is prove that you have NO IDEA AT ALL what tier actually measures.

TIER IS NOT SKILL!!!

Tier is a measure of wealth (games played x avg income) the more you earn the faster your tier progresses but it in no way a measure of skill. WLR/KDR/etc are measures of skill NOT tier.

Someone in tier 1 is expected to have a earned enough C-bills to be able to field a number of fully equipped mechs. That's ALL you can expect from a tier 1 player. NOTHING ELSE.

Matchmaking is fundamentally flawed in that it matches similarly wealthy players against each other, it takes absolutely no account of skill whatsoever.

To say otherwise is stupid misconceived trolling that shows a total lack of understanding of the game.

Edited by Dogstar, 21 February 2018 - 12:44 AM.

[Sjorpha]

"Improving X is meaningless because Y is also bad" - Classic fallacy.

Obviously better balance improves the game. Obviously better matchmaking would also improve the game.

Edited by Sjorpha, 21 February 2018 - 12:48 AM.

[Dogstar]

Johnathan Tanner, on 21 February 2018 - 12:52 AM, said:

Now can I PLZ haz some end game content

PGI has Solaris coming for you right around the corner! - thats 'end-game' content right?

Or is it game-end content?

Edited by Dogstar, 21 February 2018 - 12:56 AM.

[Johnathan Tanner]

Dogstar, on 21 February 2018 - 12:56 AM, said:

PGI has Solaris coming for you right around the corner! - thats 'end-game' content right?

Or is it game-end content?

We went from thinking mans shooter, To E-peen stroker..... So unfortunately I believe the latter.....

[UnofficialOperator]

Sjorpha, on 21 February 2018 - 12:48 AM, said:

"Improving X is meaningless because Y is also bad" - Classic fallacy.

Obviously better balance improves the game. Obviously better matchmaking would also improve the game.

Sure improving balance should be one of the goals as stated in my other threads. But imo to prioritze weapon balance over the fixing the Matchmaker is stupid.

If the MM is fixed, everyone fights opponents of their own skill levels. In 1 fell swoop, everyone's game experience is improved. Then we move on to weapon balance.

[UnofficialOperator]

Dogstar, on 21 February 2018 - 12:43 AM, said:

snip

Lazy to reply. Just check my other threads.

TLDR: We need to rework PSR/Tiers/MM so that the upward bias is removed and also make it zero sum. As it is now, it is pretty much a glorified xp bar. If these 2 phrases are too big, you can google for it.

[Johnathan Tanner]

UnofficialOperator, on 21 February 2018 - 01:03 AM, said:

Lazy to reply. Just check my other threads.

TLDR: We need to rework PSR/Tiers/MM so that the upward bias is removed and also make it zero sum. As it is now, it is pretty much a glorified xp bar. If these 2 phrases are too big, you can google for it.

PGI recently said ABSOLUTELY NO to zero sum MM. As in NEVER.

[UnofficialOperator]

Johnathan Tanner, on 21 February 2018 - 01:05 AM, said:

PGI recently said ABSOLUTELY NO to zero sum MM. As in NEVER.

Yes I am aware of the interview. I believe the rationale is that you could game the system to go downwards in tier to get easier matches (I think). However this rationale is dumb because anyone good who wants to smurf can easily create an alt and go to whichever tier they like in the current system.

[Johnathan Tanner]

UnofficialOperator, on 21 February 2018 - 01:09 AM, said:

Yes I am aware of the interview. I believe the rationale is that you could game the system to go downwards in tier to get easier matches (I think). However this rationale is dumb because anyone good who wants to smurf can easily create an alt and go to whichever tier they like in the current system.

I agree with your assessment. However the developer has said flat *** no. So what can you do lol. The community tried to reach out to PGI and was shutdown pretty hard. Zero sum is out forever.

[Kanil]

Johnathan Tanner, on 21 February 2018 - 12:52 AM, said:

Now can I PLZ haz some end game content

Who's gonna pay PGI to add that "end game content" after your plan to chase away half the playerbase goes through?

[Mystere]

YueFei, on 20 February 2018 - 11:23 PM, said:

MWO being unbalanced is contributing to the gradual decline of the playerbase, and turning off new players.

MWO being "unbalanced" is not even close to being the top reason for the low population.

El Bandito, on 21 February 2018 - 12:23 AM, said:

FP doesn't have MM and it is struggling for its existence.

The lack of a MM is not the top reason for the low population in CW either.

[Johnathan Tanner]

Kanil, on 21 February 2018 - 01:28 AM, said:

Who's gonna pay PGI to add that "end game content" after your plan to chase away half the playerbase goes through?

Lol PGI couldn't be bothered to make it 4 years ago when they had more than twice the playerbase we have now. They took my desire to have end game content money and went and made another game with it. Soo I really don't care if MWO dies..... And neither does PGI lol. They just want to sell some mech packs on the way out. Happy drops man!

[Mystere]

UnofficialOperator, on 21 February 2018 - 01:03 AM, said:

Lazy to reply. Just check my other threads.

TLDR: We need to rework PSR/Tiers/MM so that the upward bias is removed and also make it zero sum. As it is now, it is pretty much a glorified xp bar. If these 2 phrases are too big, you can google for it.

You already admit the tier system is just a glorified XP bar. So why even call some players "fake" T1s, if that is what the tier system actually is?

[Sjorpha]

UnofficialOperator, on 21 February 2018 - 12:58 AM, said:

Sure improving balance should be one of the goals as stated in my other threads. But imo to prioritze weapon balance over the fixing the Matchmaker is stupid.

If the MM is fixed, everyone fights opponents of their own skill levels. In 1 fell swoop, everyone's game experience is improved. Then we move on to weapon balance.

I have four problems with that.

The first is that you're assuming they are competing for development resources and manpower which isn't necessarily true since balancing is done by Chris and Paul and new matchmaking needs at least one programmer + a game designer competent in matchmaking, which means the latter will require at least one new employee at PGI. It's hard to know whether these priorities compete or not.

Second is that matchmaking only affects quickplay, while balancing improves all game modes, if you care more about Faction play and/or competitive play, as I do for example, then matchmaking improvements doesn't really do much for you.

The third issue is momentum, we have ongoing engagement or a decent scale on the balance issue including some people putting in some serious work. And also a recognition and initial response to this initiative from PGI. It's pretty clear to me that it is much more efficient to start focusing on the issue that has the most current momentum and finish that first than it is to toss that ongoing process aside and start from scratch on another project.

And the fourth is me being a little sceptical about the whole "matchmaking is broken" meme, the game has a very strong natural tendency for snowballing and lopsided matches (in terms of kills) would be the norm even with perfect matchmaking. I suspect at least half of the complaining is people mistaking the dynamics of a high TTK no respawn game for bad matchmaking, and some of the remaining half is hyperbole. There is also a population issue, normally for good matchmaking in a game with teams this size you'd want about a 20-30000 player average online at any given time, less than that and your ability to do skill based matching starts deteriorating. MWO has what?, maybe 1-2000 average? There is only so much that can be done with those numbers. Now there is issues with the PSR system and the matchmaking, there is also a lot of hyperbole in the complaints.

[Catra Lanis]

DFM, on 21 February 2018 - 12:24 AM, said:

I would agree with you except for one glaring point.

I'd like the game to continue. The "Bye, Felicia. Git Gud or go home" in a non Gigantic top tier game is basically a death knell.

Your going to drive away the for lack of better word "casual" player who's not going to put in the work to learn a game while getting stomped by those who are already established in it.
Which is going to cut into the playerbase, causing increased match wait time.

Increasing time to match? Thats gonna lose you even more players.

Then your gonna be left with a bunch of hardcore players with all the time in the world on their hands, bitching about the developers killing the game, until the developer rolls up the carpet and shuts the doors.

Not just talking about this game either.

Unless everyone is buying their $60 game, and/or paying a sub monthly, you need all the types of players. Yeah, bottom feeders might not rate your attention, until they are gone and you can't get a game.

I don't think that will happen. I used to play CS, the original one, Believe me, I suck at FPS games but I never felt it to be a problem being randomly tossed in a match because it evened out in the long run.

Sometimes the team were evenly matched sometimes it was loopsided but never did I experience as long streaks as in MWO. The last 3 days I have lost 19 in a row.

Sure you will have streaks without the matchmaker but I supect they'll be shorter. I think that the way the matchmakser is set up you not only get bad luck sometimes but you get ARTIFICIAL bad luck. Get rid of it.

[DerMaulwurf]

UnofficialOperator, on 21 February 2018 - 12:35 AM, said:

The 30th percentile remark must have hit too close to home for you two. Here, this might help you two to get over it.

Spoiler

Wow.

If you had Proton-level skills this would make you look like a douche. But, at least you'd have the skills to back up that talk.

When you cannot even outscore me, you just look like a pathetic jackass.

[Scyther]

The OP has a valid point. If perfect balance was achieved the game would be almost exactly the same as it is right now.

Some loadouts would simply feel less awkward than now, and there might be a little more variety in mech builds and chassis seen in battle. Also, the tendency of Clan to have an edge in FP would be reduced. None of these changes would be overly significant to the game as a whole.

'Better balance' is something they should certainly be trying for, but frankly it's also a distraction away from truly important issues.

Better matchmaking, or a better tier progression/regression system, would likely be much simpler and probably at least as important. However MM change is hampered by the fact that when there are only so many people on, you have to make a match with what's available, not what 'makes for a good match'.

PGI should not ignore these areas (balance, tiering, MM) but frankly they should be focusing their efforts on fundamental improvements/changes to the way the game plays, in order to attract and retain a viable audience.

Edited by MadBadger, 21 February 2018 - 04:21 AM.