113 replies to this topic

[JC Daxion]

MischiefSC, on 22 March 2018 - 09:42 PM, said:

The people who say things like 'friends can play with friends' and 'all those comp players who were getting carried' and 'the meta will be turned on its head' and FFS 'LRMs are viable' just make me laugh and are an indication of exactly why Solaris is going to bomb in a lot of ways.

First, we already have 1 v 1s. Some of us do them several times a week in private lobbies already. We already know what that 'meta' is and it'll be exactly the same across every 'Tier' of mech and player. 1 V 1 and 2 v 2 is a billion times more meta driven than 12 v 12 has ever been or could ever be.

Second, I can't help but wonder how people don't get the very basics of comparative analysis.

Suppose you have 24 rabbits. Some rabbits are faster than other rabbits. So you separate your rabbits out by speed; fastest to slowest. Then you divide your rabbits up into 2 sets of 12 and have the teams of rabbits race; fastest average time wins. When you break them randomly into 2 sets of 12, or even better try to keep the teams balanced, you'll end up with different teams winning.

However if you split them into 1 v 1 races, 1 rabbit is always faster than the other. The faster rabbit wins almost 100% of the time. In 12 v 12 matches each rabbit has close to even odds of being on the winning team each time. In 1 v 1 each rabbit will almost always lose to faster rabbits and almost always win against slower rabbits.

1 v 1 will be insanely static. People who make bad robbits or don't take meta or don't have good habits or don't like to leg enemies are always going to lose to those who do. 1 v 1 will have players with 0.1 w/l and people with 10 w/l. If you're not taking an ultra-comp approach to playing each match you'll get utterly destroyed all the time every time. 1 v 1 is the dead opposite of casual.

Third, comp players by nothing more than exposure and experience know more about the mechanics that will drive 1 v 1 wins than everyone else. The w/l leaderboard for Solaris will look pretty much exactly like Jarls List, only way more lop-sided. The good players will have insane numbers of wins, the bottom 80% of the population will have horrible w/l. Solaris will just be a new version of comp queue.

LRMs are only useful against bad players and even bad players can deal with them in 1 v 1, unless you're so bad that you have screwy sensitivity settings on the steering wheel you play with and only alpha strike your mixed lore builds.

We already know what 1 v 1 plays like. There's no mystery. There's nothing magical the matchmaker CAN do; either you're the better player in the matchup or you're not. Unless one of you does something stupid in the mech bay (again, meta in 1 v 1 is way, way more strict) 9 out of 10 matches are pre-ordained.

And, yet those people not playing in top meta mechs, won't be playing against said meta.. So if you are in a T1 mech, and playing top comp meta.. and i'm in a T3 mech,, I'll never play you, period.. (unless of course the gates open)


People DO want to just play with their one bud. I know many folks that pass on this game because that is not an option. Now it will be..


people -play 1 v 1 all the time in tons of games, Yes if you play against someone good, you can loose, but that is why they play the game because that is not always the case. It's why so many sports have a best of 5 or 7.. sure there are a top few people but the rest of the teams/people fall into something different.



Have you never competed before in anything? I know i have and had plenty of good rivalries.. I won a bunch.. they won a bunch.. Every single match/day/game is different. I am sure there will be some top guys in some certain meta in t1 top level matches.. But how everything will play out in the lower levels of mechs/players is anyone's guess. Unless you have some sorta magic ball.. i could of borrowed it to make a mint on march madness.. So many top teams loosing


Meta will be different in different levels of mechs, because top mechs are not being used

Edited by JC Daxion, 23 March 2018 - 07:52 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

JC Daxion, on 23 March 2018 - 07:40 AM, said:

And, yet those people not playing in top meta mechs, won't be playing against said meta.. So if you are in a T1 mech, and playing top comp meta.. and i'm in a T3 mech,, I'll never play you, period.. (unless of course the gates open)

...

Meta will be different in different levels of mechs, because top mechs are not being used

Maybe, maybe not. Whatever is the meta for the T1 'Mechs might be translatable to the T3 'Mechs just fine, it's just all of the T3 'Mechs are overall worse at everything than the T1 'Mechs.

[JC Daxion]

Yeonne Greene, on 23 March 2018 - 07:43 AM, said:

Maybe, maybe not. Whatever is the meta for the T1 'Mechs might be translatable to the T3 'Mechs just fine, it's just all of the T3 'Mechs are overall worse at everything than the T1 'Mechs.

But there will be 7 levels of mechs.. and how many levels of players? I think more than 5..

My over all point is, if this is done right, top players won't be playing against those folks anyway, nor the mechs. Maybe top players will play all levels, but they still won't be against people in the lower levels anyway..


So to boil it all down to it being nothing more than a stomp fest of top meta just seams wrong. Maybe i'm wrong and it will suck, and only a few people will be playing and it will do nothing to help the game over all. Or, maybe it is a really fun game mode, that brings in new blood, and actually does make for a different feel and competitive at all levels..

Personally i hope the latter, but what else do you wan't from an optimist?

[Y E O N N E]

If the Solaris Match-maker uses pilot Elo within a 'Mech tier to create a match then, sure, you may not encounter the top-rate pilots much. If it doesn't, then the 'Mech tier doesn't matter; the top-rate pilots will be playing in all tiers of 'Mechs, just the best 'Mechs within that tier. The only reason they tend to stick to the best 'Mechs, period, in QP is because they have to if they want to carry consistently.

[JC Daxion]

Yeonne Greene, on 23 March 2018 - 07:52 AM, said:

If the Solaris Match-maker uses pilot Elo within a 'Mech tier to create a match then, sure, you may not encounter the top-rate pilots much. If it doesn't, then the 'Mech tier doesn't matter; the top-rate pilots will be playing in all tiers of 'Mechs, just the best 'Mechs within that tier. The only reason they tend to stick to the best 'Mechs, period, in QP is because they have to if they want to carry consistently.

i am pretty sure Russ said that is the way it is going to work..

Mech tier, then ELO. Like Divisions in collage sports, D1 players don't play D2 or D3, But then they will have mech levels on top of that.

So even if i play a top mech, and i'm not a top level player, i should not be running into the top 10 players very often if the player pop is enough to support the mode.


again.. My mind is totally open to if it will be fun or not. When this game launched i was very hesitant to say i would like it as i have yet to enjoy any FPS ever made. The only comp game i played was Starcraft and boy that was a crazy game to play back in the 90's. To my surprised i found a FPS i enjoyed and stuck around. Still it's the only one i like.


Now back to trying to save my 8 survivors of a plane crash in "Dead in Bermuda" Wow is this a hard game! PS it's free on origin right now..

Edited by JC Daxion, 23 March 2018 - 08:01 AM.

[Krivvan]

Yeonne Greene, on 23 March 2018 - 07:52 AM, said:

If the Solaris Match-maker uses pilot Elo within a 'Mech tier to create a match then, sure, you may not encounter the top-rate pilots much.

Solaris uses both pilot Elo and mech Tiers. Each tier has its own Elo, leaderboard, and mechs allowed in it.

Edited by Krivvan, 23 March 2018 - 08:07 AM.

[Mystere]

JC Daxion, on 23 March 2018 - 07:40 AM, said:

People DO want to just play with their one bud. I know many folks that pass on this game because that is not an option. Now it will be..

If those people really want to do 1v1, what's stopping them from playing in private matches?

[Scyther]

Overall it just seems poorly thought out if it goes in with 1v1, 2v2, and 7 tiers of mechs. The consequences aren't that hard to predict:

> 7 tiers equals 7 queues - too many buckets.
> 7 queues = low pop per queue. Therefore ELO/PSR/'fair match' MM will be hard to do. Mismatches will be common.
> People who did 2-3 mans in group queue before will likely try Solaris as 2fers, cutting down on Group Queue numbers.
> People who did Solo queue but weren't happy with 'having to carry teams' will try Solaris, cutting down on Solo Queue numbers.
> Solo and Group queue will both be slower queues, but have higher percentages of less-skilled/experienced players, since more of the high-skill/small group/meta players will be trying Solaris.

During the 'slowest' / low-population hours, when matchmaking is hardest, people will be most inclined to try a Solaris match for a faster match. Which splits the queues more at the worst time.

End result will be slower matchmaking in all formats, creating a need to 'open the gates' on matchmaking. Likely to result in slower, less satisfying matches all around.

Anyways, not trying to be gloom and doomy, hopefully it will work out better. It just seems, as OP said, to be an odd direction to take a dwindling-population game in.

Edited by MadBadger, 23 March 2018 - 08:15 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Krivvan, on 23 March 2018 - 08:06 AM, said:

Solaris uses both pilot Elo and mech Tiers. Each tier has its own Elo, leaderboard, and mechs allowed in it.

I'm aware. I'm also aware what happens when the available player pool is small. I don't expect 'Mech tiers to mix, but I definitely expect the elo portion to regularly take a dump.

[Krivvan]

Mystere, on 23 March 2018 - 08:08 AM, said:

If those people really want to do 1v1, what's stopping them from playing in private matches?

The lack of finding matches? You do occasionally see people asking for 1v1s in the faction chat though. And the 1v1 tournaments have attracted a pretty impressive number of people.

[Mystere]

Krivvan, on 23 March 2018 - 08:13 AM, said:

The lack of finding matches? You do occasionally see people asking for 1v1s in the faction chat though. And the 1v1 tournaments have attracted a pretty impressive number of people.

I was actually referring to this particular point:

Quote

People DO want to just play with their one bud

[Krivvan]

Mystere, on 23 March 2018 - 08:17 AM, said:

I was actually referring to this particular point:

Playing with their one bud against others. Not playing with their one bud in a perpetual 1v1 against each other.

[Asym]

In a small niche market, the last thing you want to do is split a very small population... Having said that, PGI is doing just that because they are out of options. What they had was literally falling apart, year by year, due to inattention and a lack of commitment to "the basics" small niche markets required: a dedicated customer support team that focuses on player satisfaction. Have you ever seen that in MWO? I surely haven't in the year plus a few months in-game and now just an event player. I have several times in other games actually played with and had the time to talk about suggestions in-game with developers playing to interact with their customers.....

So why Solaris? Simplicity. Low cost. Low maintenance. MW5. Whales are still buying "everything" offered. Game play in Solaris will be "enough" to keep the lights on. Niche market turnover is usually very low and I'm pretty sure MWO is at a sustaining population no matter what PGI does. Therefore, you see Solaris as their strategic direction......because no one else is going to leave and whales are buying everything offered.... M = P. Marginal equals Pass.....

We still have a MW franchise, they still make money and that goes on till the whales stop collecting. Then, and only hten, will PGI have to re-think the business case. Sorry, JMO.

[feeWAIVER]

I came back to the game when I heard Solaris was coming.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

No amount of rethinking will change the fact that it's been how many years of jostling weapon "balance" under the guise of "content".

They are still struggling with what the game wants to be and how to even balance original weapon systems without "changing things up to keep it fresh" with new changes. It's stupid.

Edited by Mechwarrior1441491, 23 March 2018 - 09:43 AM.

[Solahma]

There will never.... ever.... be a solid RPG born from MWO in its current format.

An arcade shooter is not a solid foundation for any RPG game.

This simply is not and never will be that sort of game. Maybe the next multiplayer game they make will be created on a foundation that could support an RPG, but not MWO.

I thought that was very apparent like... as soon as FP was implemented.

Edited by Solahma, 23 March 2018 - 10:04 AM.

[IllCaesar]

Mystere, on 23 March 2018 - 08:08 AM, said:

If those people really want to do 1v1, what's stopping them from playing in private matches?

No rewards, the fact that it takes longer to organize a 1v1 than complete a single match, issues of balancing (which PGI deals with through placing the mechs on tiers - won't be perfect but its certainly something), issues regarding sportmanslike conduct, real-life variables such as someody coming home from work and going "I just wanna hop on and play a quick match before bed."

You know for all of the imagination about potential game mechanics that could be introduced, potential builds, ideas for balance, and all of that it sure seems to dissipate immediately as soon as it comes to a game mode they don't care about.

[Fox the Apprentice]

50 50, on 22 March 2018 - 09:01 PM, said:

Except they couldn't work out how to do the mode without teams.
Was a team of 1 and then an 8 team game not considered or something?
[...]

I believe it was stated that their heavy modifications to the game engine would not permit more than 2 teams without moderate-to-large code changes.

[VitriolicViolet]

yeah FFA is apparently to hard to code along with a whole heap of other 10+ year old game features.

I dont think Solaris will do well at all, more than half the complaint threads on the forum are about issues which will be way worse in Solaris than QP or CW.

One big one being that meta builds and mechs will be even more necessary to play. Some people have suggested this will only be an issue at the higher end but i think it will persist through to the lowest tier or player and mechs. Even at the bottom there is the best build and best mech. Even at teir 7 with everyone running around in Vindicators there will be the most meta Vindi build and it will likely beat most of the rest.

As someone else said reducing the players on a team reduces the chance of a not so good player doing well ie if you arent good in QP you will be worse in Solaris.

The wonder what teir Highlanders will be on and what will be with them. How are they balancing the tiers? BV?

[IllCaesar]

VitriolicViolet, on 23 March 2018 - 03:49 PM, said:

The wonder what teir Highlanders will be on and what will be with them. How are they balancing the tiers? BV?

As far as I can tell each variant gets its own tier. To use your Vindicator example the 1R and the 1AA will almost certainly be at a higher tier than the hero Vindicator SIB.