29 replies to this topic

[Electron Junkie]

Can we just have match maker go off average match score???
Just go right down the line and put every other player on opposite teams... Would be a hell of a lot better than the mess we currently have.

[Jackal Noble]

Counter argument in 3...2...

[EnochsBook]

The sad truth is that in this game (like in many other multiplayer games), a lot of players are not very good at it, and a significant amount are just downright terrible. This might sound elitist but it is the case. In World of Tanks for example, the average winrate is around 47% IIRC, which means that the average player is actually a noticeable detriment to their team.

I think going after average match score won't help much with the quality of the teams. If you're in the top 10% or even 20 or 30%, you are by definition in a very small minority of players. You will always encounter players who are worse than you in your team, and they will often form the vast majority of your team. This game just doesn't have the playerbase to allow good players to face only other good players all the time. In fact I don't think any game does.

Edited by EnochsBook, 05 March 2018 - 01:20 PM.

[Bombast]

EnochsBook, on 05 March 2018 - 10:10 AM, said:

The sad truth is that in this game (like in many other multiplayer games), a lot of players are not very good at it, and a significant amount are just downright terrible. This might sound elitist but it is the case. In World of Tanks for example, the average winrate is around 47% IIRC, which means that the average player is actually a noticeable detriment to their team.

47% isn't too bad - Draws account for about 1-2% of games. So the 47 is more like a 49. No biggy.

Quote

I think going after average match score won't help much with the quality of the teams. If you're in the top 10% or even 20 or 30%, you are by definition in a very small majority of players. You will always encounter players who are worse than you in your team, and they will often form the vast majority of your team. This game just doesn't have the playerbase to allow good players to face only other good players all the time. In fact I don't think any game does.

The idea of performance based match making isn't to excise bad players from good player matches - As you say, thats impossible. But it could, potentially, make sure the bad players are spread between the two teams evenly. Just going by PSR, it is entirely possible for one team to get all the 1000+ rated players, while the other gets all the perpetual drunks and stroke victims who got to T1 through shear force of games played.

[Simbacca]

Unfortunately a number of non-skill factors can inflate match score - these include spotting, "scouting" (being the first to spot enemy), UAV spotting/counter ECM, etc.

And as I understand it, the current PSR system is already based on match score to a great degree....

[Dago Red]

How does this proposition deal with the fact that being matched against equally capable opposition will drive the competent players average match score down and the less competent up?

[Bombast]

Dago Red, on 05 March 2018 - 10:34 AM, said:

How does this proposition deal with the fact that being matched against equally capable opposition will drive the competent players average match score down and the less competent up?

It will reduce average MSR spread, but good will still float to the top, bad to the bottom.

[Electron Junkie]

Dago Red, on 05 March 2018 - 10:34 AM, said:

How does this proposition deal with the fact that being matched against equally capable opposition will drive the competent players average match score down and the less competent up?

First sort on matches played

Using match score even those that push up, will fall down quickly when they start to extend into higher and higher match scores. Unlike the current XP bar where I can run a light and only get 100ish match score and the bar never moves.

Edited by Electron Junkie, 05 March 2018 - 10:52 AM.

[mogs01gt]

Simbacca, on 05 March 2018 - 10:32 AM, said:

Unfortunately a number of non-skill factors can inflate match score - these include spotting, "scouting" (being the first to spot enemy), UAV spotting/counter ECM, etc.

And as I understand it, the current PSR system is already based on match score to a great degree....

and some players are better at different game modes. I ******* hate and suck at anything other than skirmish. Ever since we've been forced into playing those modes, its slow increase my disinterest with the game.

Edited by mogs01gt, 05 March 2018 - 10:52 AM.

[Zergling]

Nah, then the hordes of LRM boaters would whine because they are being set by the matchmaker at a level well above their actual skill level.

Edited by Zergling, 05 March 2018 - 12:05 PM.

[RoadblockXL]

Simbacca, on 05 March 2018 - 10:32 AM, said:

Unfortunately a number of non-skill factors can inflate match score - these include spotting, "scouting" (being the first to spot enemy), UAV spotting/counter ECM, etc.

And as I understand it, the current PSR system is already based on match score to a great degree....

But players who take the initiative to scout enemies and those you use UAVs are more of an asset to your team and should be ranked higher than players who do not.

The current system is only uses match score to determine how much your PSR increases or decreases after each match. But it is a cumulative system, so it's not nearly as dynamic as a system that tracks average score would be.

[Simbacca]

mogs01gt, on 05 March 2018 - 10:51 AM, said:

and some players are better at different game modes. I ******* hate and suck at anything other than skirmish. Ever since we've been forced into playing those modes, its slow increase my disinterest with the game.

Personally, I hate skirmish mode. The other modes force movement and permit more than one way to win the match. With that said, I never vote for skirmish (and had deselected that mode before voting was added) - but regardless I will play to the best of my ability in said mode.

RoadblockXL, on 05 March 2018 - 12:10 PM, said:

But players who take the initiative to scout enemies and those you use UAVs are more of an asset to your team and should be ranked higher than players who do not.

The current system is only uses match score to determine how much your PSR increases or decreases after each match. But it is a cumulative system, so it's not nearly as dynamic as a system that tracks average score would be.

But in the case of "scouting" all that involves being the first person to actually target said mech - basically it is easy XP and C-Bills - but it is really not scouting.

With that said, true there are players who are good as support elements or more versatile - but the current system as does not distinguish that well at all.

[mogs01gt]

Zergling, on 05 March 2018 - 12:04 PM, said:

Nah, then the hordes of LRM boaters would whine because they are being set by the matchmaker at a level well above their actual skill level.

Good, that would show them they need to adjust and it would show yet again to PGI that weapon balancing in MWO is horrid.

[Dago Red]

Bombast, on 05 March 2018 - 10:40 AM, said:

It will reduce average MSR spread, but good will still float to the top, bad to the bottom.

I suppose having the extreme outliers thrown to the top and bottom and the rest of us end up in a clump of mediocrity towards the center couldn't be worse than the current situation.

[LordNothing]

the match maker is effectively a control system. there is a specific condition it wants to attain, all signs point to a w/l of 1 as the setpoint. obviously this is an average for the team this is why individual variations exist. to reach the setpoint you need to create a match where one side should loose and one side should win within some favorable probability. if you put a w/l = 2 team against a w/l = 1 the 2 team will win every time and thats the opposite of what you want. but there is another way to stack the deck. w/l = 1 means different things in different tiers so if you have a bunch of over-performing t4s the best way to knock them down is to match them with a bunch of t3s with a slightly lower w/l. this tends both groups towards the setpoint and the matchmaker has "functioned".

the problem with stacking the deck in this way is that you are going to get a bunch of landslide games, which we got. those are not fun and has caused many a player to take a break or quit outright. the control system does not care about these things, nor does it care how psr works or what tier means. it doesnt need to, it will always trend people to a w/l of 1. unless you are such an outlier that your very presence will make or break the match. with the way bubble up works, t1 becomes the defacto random pool. pgi seems to want to grow this pool now that it represents more than the theoretically optimal 20% (people are saying 30-35 percentile). play long enough and random is attainable. the whole system is for new players. in pgi's view the system works as advertised and is happy with it. pgi just has to look at their metrics to realize the player base is full of it, but we can look at the game and see how boring its become. there is no solution. or maybe you can make a game where you dont cater to special snowflakes.

Edited by LordNothing, 05 March 2018 - 01:56 PM.

[dario03]

Bombast, on 05 March 2018 - 10:19 AM, said:

The idea of performance based match making isn't to excise bad players from good player matches - As you say, thats impossible. But it could, potentially, make sure the bad players are spread between the two teams evenly. Just going by PSR, it is entirely possible for one team to get all the 1000+ rated players, while the other gets all the perpetual drunks and stroke victims who got to T1 through shear force of games played.

IIRC way back when PSR first came out Russ did say that we all have an invisible rating beyond the tiers. And that rating is used for more fine tuning of MM instead of just T1=T1. However it is probably still based on the same rating system as PSR, so it probably doesn't make much of a difference anyways.
I kind of wonder how the MM works in this game. I know it starts with a player and then tries to build a game around that players tier, opening up the valves to more tiers as time goes on. But does it build one team and then try to build the other to match? Or does it grab 24 players and then divide them up? If its the former, I think it should be changed to the latter and just start with 1 tier in any direction spread (at least during low pop times). Make quick play actually quick.

Either way, a better ranking system would help.

[Kiiyor]

Depends.

Certain builds can rack up lots of damage, but aren't as lethal as some others.

A splat MadCat mk2 or a Scorch can do lots of damage to mechs, but it's spread all over them. Same as LURM boats, if the spirits of open ground smile upon them.

A decent light pilot, or a gauss+laser vom pilot with a stead hand can gut a mech in 2 or 3 volleys, doing only a fraction of the damage, but are far more lethal.

Damage can be gamed, same as most other systems.

[MischiefSC]

Go to the excellent utility, The Jarls List. It's pretty much ranking people off match score.

However what you'll see is that a lot of the best players in the game are not even in the top 100. I mean people who were in MWOWC finals sort of good. You'll also see, as you go down the list, a lot of people you recognize in things like LRM Scorch, with a 1.2 or less W/L but who always do a lot of largely worthless damage and play every match from the very back so they die last but functionally help ensure their teams failure.

Match score is a terrible mechanic for sorting out who is actually good or bad at the game. If you played every match with a Deathstrike and never hit anything but CT and cockpits you could have a w/l over 3 or 4.0 and spend most matches carrying like Atlas but have a average match score of like 275; because you're killing mechs with ~100 damage each.

Sort by w/l and look down the list again. The top 100+ are going to be top performers you recognize. I know people don't like it but the reality is that good players win more often than bad players on average. That the best indicator of how good someone is at winning (not farming damage or anything else but actually winning) is.... how often they win. Crazy, I know. Inconvenient if you don't win as much as you think that you should, I know. However if you want to win more often then you should do more of what actually wins. If don't win as much as you think you should than whatever you think actually wins? Probably doesn't actually win as much as you think it does and you should look into that a bit more. Maybe watch/talk to the people who win more than you.

[Eisenhorne]

Kiiyor, on 05 March 2018 - 02:17 PM, said:

Depends.

Certain builds can rack up lots of damage, but aren't as lethal as some others.

A splat MadCat mk2 or a Scorch can do lots of damage to mechs, but it's spread all over them. Same as LURM boats, if the spirits of open ground smile upon them.

A decent light pilot, or a gauss+laser vom pilot with a stead hand can gut a mech in 2 or 3 volleys, doing only a fraction of the damage, but are far more lethal.

Damage can be gamed, same as most other systems.

I realize that, but I'd rather have a guy who inflates his score to 1000 dmg of random shots than a guy that does 200 damage of CT only shots.

Also, I personally get higher damage done scores from mechs running laservomit or dakka than I do from splat mechs anyway, because of the much better weapons range.

[Mystere]

Simbacca, on 05 March 2018 - 10:32 AM, said:

Unfortunately a number of non-skill factors can inflate match score - these include spotting, "scouting" (being the first to spot enemy), UAV spotting/counter ECM, etc.

And as I understand it, the current PSR system is already based on match score to a great degree....

It is no wonder that people go only for damage. Most think support and command are worthless activities.

Heck, even efficient killing is worthless because it will result in lower match score than wasteful damage.

<smh>

Edited by Mystere, 05 March 2018 - 03:51 PM.