159 replies to this topic

[MTier Slayed Up]

Is there a player count for each tier? I'm actually curious what it looks like. I really think that Tier 1 is a false representation of skill and is more tied to time played.

[Rededevil]

I reckon you have two options:

• Rustle all the Jimmies - Global reset the PSR bar once you fix the rating... And then let the system settle itself over time, which should happen within 30-60 days for most active players. While people won't be happy about being in a lower tier (Those in T1 and should be T4), at least match quality will be improved... Yes some matches will be rubbish while Tier 1 players get out of Tier 3-5, but it won't take long... Live with the short term pain.

  
  

• Slow and painful - Avoid global reset, change the boundaries for Tier / Experience progression and over time those in T1 with 170 AMS will filter back into Tier 4 where they belong. This could take up-to 6 months and players won't like seeing the bar go down slowly over time. It is demoralising.

I think this guy is really on to something. Sounds reasonable to me.

[RubberDarkDuck]

justcallme A S H, on 30 May 2018 - 07:19 PM, said:

• Rustle all the Jimmies - Global reset the PSR bar once you fix the rating... And then let the system settle itself over time, which should happen within 30-60 days for most active players. While people won't be happy about being in a lower tier (Those in T1 and should be T4), at least match quality will be improved... Yes some matches will be rubbish while Tier 1 players get out of Tier 3-5, but it won't take long... Live with the short term pain.
  
• Slow and painful - Avoid global reset, change the boundaries for Tier / Experience progression and over time those in T1 with 170 AMS will filter back into Tier 4 where they belong. This could take up-to 6 months and players won't like seeing the bar go down slowly over time. It is demoralising.

NOTE: The adjustments to 3/3/3/3, I totally support. Great job there, honestly great job. But it's only a half measure unless PSR is actually fixed.

This needs to happen if the game wants longevity. Getting 12-0 stomp games won't get players to stick around. PGI please look into this and take action.

Thank you.

[Bulletsponge0]

Paul Inouye, on 30 May 2018 - 02:10 PM, said:

So as I mentioned on Twitter, I stole the keys to the Match Maker configuration tool. My main purpose was to look at Solo Queue and it's current performance and the fact that Tier 1 players and Tier 4 players were being allowed in the same match right from the get go.

My main thought process was to identify the major time hogs when it came to creating the teams of individual players.

[color=orange]Here's what WAS happening:[/color]

1) Player skill Tier was set to 3. (Tiers are 0 based; meaning If I wanted Tier 1 and Tier 2 to be the only Tiers mixed, I'd have to set this value to 1). This value was set to 3 because of complaints of long wait times when it was reduced to 2. Theoretically, this number should be set to 0 BUT that would result in Tier 1 and Tier 2 players sitting in queue for a VERY long time.. think like 45 mins +. That being said, players capable of playing at Tier 1 to Tier 3 skill levels will allow closer competitive gameplay while maintaining shorter wait times for matches, so a value of 2 would be ideal here.

2) The Match Maker was relying on building teams using the 3/3/3/3 weight class restriction rule. We all know when looking at the weight class distribution in the current quick play queue information that this is going to be hard pressed when you have 12% of queued players playing lights, 15% in mediums, 60% in heavies and 33% in assaults. When you have queues like that in conjunction with the restraints of the above point dealing with Tiers, you can see where this is compounding to the problem.

2a) To add to the above point, the match maker would refuse to budge on 3/3/3/3 building for a minimum of 60 seconds before releasing the restriction slowly to allow a combination of up to 5 per weight class. THIS was the key to the wait times being seen in Solo QP. Once the valves opened up, teams were being created a lot faster.

[color=orange]So what did I do to address this? Here's the scoop.[/color]

1) Stop allowing Tier 1 players to play against Tier 4 and 5 players completely. Hard line.. no ifs ands or buts no matter how low the player count is in off peak times. To do this, the value for Tier separation has been set to 2. The biggest skill gap allowed now is Tier 1 to Tier 3. Tier 2 to Tier 4. Tier 3 to Tier 5.

2 & 2a) The Match Maker is going to wait no longer than 20 seconds to come up with a 3/3/3/3 build. After that 20 seconds is up, it will INSTANTLY allow 6/6/6/6 weight class distribution and eventually widen up to 12/12/12/12 over the next 30 seconds. The Match Maker will also weight class match on both teams. If there are 6 assaults on one team, there's guaranteed to be 6 assaults on the other. This also helps SIGNIFICANTLY when the marketing team runs an event using a single 'Mech as it's reward giving element.

[color=orange]Blah blah blah.. numbers number numbers... what does this mean to me? Here's the TL;DR[/color]

* Wait times have been reduced between 40-50%.
* MAXIMUM average wait times have dropped from 150 seconds to 80 seconds.
* Matches being played are a lot more challenging.
* Average PSR ranking differences between two teams has gone from 950 to 200.

I've monitored this data over the last 3 days watching all 3 prime times (NA/EU/OC) and non-prime times and the data is consistent.

[color=orange]Something you can do to help me:[/color]

If you think you are in a SOLO QP match that has a Tier 1 player mixed with a Tier 4 or Tier 5 player, I need that match's ID number found on the end of round screen. This way I can look up all players involved and confirm the problem and get it looked at by engineers to see where it went wrong.

Edit:Tarogato pointed out Match ID isn't available in public matches. A screenshot of the match scoreboard will help me as well. Will just take longer to look everyone up. I'll put in a request to have Match ID posted on public matches as well.

[color=orange]You've queue solo but you've sat there for 3 minutes![/color]

Yes... I've seen it. I've looked into why as well. This will happen when you're playing in a non-primetime time slot while having only 1 regional server selected. i.e. You are playing at 3am in AU and have only the OC server selected. You're going to be there for quite a while. All I can suggest is for you to open up the other server selections (I know ping isn't ideal). You have a choice of waiting a long time, or dealing with higher pings and until some international Internet body allows me to play with routing information and dealing with companies that cut ocean floor pipes, there's not much else I can do for you.

So that's it for now. I'll be keeping an eye on the wait times and I've made my own copy of the keys to the server config tool.

These changes have accomplished nothing. matches are still horribly unbalanced.

[Doomich]

It is vitally important for us to reconfigure and reset the Tier system
the current system is simply ridiculous for a session game in 2018, where any player in any case will be in Tier 1 after a certain time

Personally, I got a Tier 1 for almost 2 months, playing about 1500 games. I did not know anything about this game, I studied it myself, but I'm a hardcore player and I wanted to reach the level of the strongest players as soon as possible.
And what did I get? Almost nothing has changed, but of course there was more Laser Vomit and Ultra AC burst builds meh
I think that 3-4 months of active play for average player will be enough to reach a minimum of Tier 2

Reconfigure and Reset
Give all your resources for this.
It's not a joke, we don't need solaris, we need the most varied gameplay


Guys, attention to detail is the key for victory and you know it
How?
Um, for example..
-Even small improvements in the mech startup animation is a huge plus
(pressing the correct color buttons Engine->Sensors->Weapons and twisting the stick without delay, as in Atlas for example) because we see this animation every time before landing, it should be perfect!

-A little reverb effect for Betty's voice, as if she is really talking in the space of your cockpit

-And how about several templates for target locations in conquest mode?

-Escort with the vip player in assault mech?
It's just a tasks for a high school student

I'm really looking forward to launching MW5, and after that the whole dev team will attack MWO
Because I love this game madly

Edited by Doomich, 04 June 2018 - 04:53 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

Rededevil, on 04 June 2018 - 03:57 AM, said:

I reckon you have two options:

• Rustle all the Jimmies - Global reset the PSR bar once you fix the rating... And then let the system settle itself over time, which should happen within 30-60 days for most active players. While people won't be happy about being in a lower tier (Those in T1 and should be T4), at least match quality will be improved... Yes some matches will be rubbish while Tier 1 players get out of Tier 3-5, but it won't take long... Live with the short term pain.

  
  

• Slow and painful - Avoid global reset, change the boundaries for Tier / Experience progression and over time those in T1 with 170 AMS will filter back into Tier 4 where they belong. This could take up-to 6 months and players won't like seeing the bar go down slowly over time. It is demoralising.

I think this guy is really on to something. Sounds reasonable to me.

Global reset with a clean slate or reset and seed players like they did when they initially moved from Elo to PSR WHILE separating SQ from GQ..

[Quandoo]

Acutally we need Tier placement per mech, or at least per weight class not per account. Beeing a good assault doesn't make me a good medium. And even between the same mech with different setups there can be a huge difference.

Even if you get games with same tier ranks, it won't be balanced. I have few assaults where I can pull off 800dmg minimum while I have others where I can hardly get 600.

And then you need a modifier to take skill points into account. T1 * 0.<skill points> + 0.09 = total tier , or something like that. 0.09 because you only have 91 skillpoints (0.91).

Edited by Quandoo, 04 June 2018 - 05:02 PM.

[Brain Cancer]

Global reset honestly won't do much good. It'll give us another case of dumping minnows in the shark tank without even the most thin of divisions, which will in turn lead to another loss of playerbase.

Fix the PSR system to allow veteran but ultimately unskilled players to slide back into T4 and see where we tend to end up with clusters of players based off the new results. Then reconsider how we feed those players into the matchmaker- perhaps with a more precise performance measurement, we may be able to do T5/T3-4/T1-2 as three separate pools and not have obviously overwhelmed players being endlessly used as clay shooting targets by the pros.

Edited by Brain Cancer, 04 June 2018 - 09:32 PM.

[Doomich]

Brain Cancer, on 04 June 2018 - 09:32 PM, said:

Global reset honestly won't do much good. It'll give us another case of dumping minnows in the shark tank without even the most thin of divisions, which will in turn lead to another loss of playerbase.

But stagnant water should be drained, the container cleaned and filled with fresh water..
i know sounds like an instruction to clean the aquarium to save fishies

Or bloodletting, this is also a good example
As you wish

[l O O percent KongLord]

Thanks to this I got the easiest Death Star of my life. Thanks Paul :]

[Brain Cancer]

n o m e r c y, on 05 June 2018 - 03:12 AM, said:

Thanks to this I got the easiest Death Star of my life. Thanks Paul :]

Seal clubbing was always easy. Skunking an account to T5 during it's cadet series and shooting scrubs with your l33t build of choice and you too can be a god among sheep. See, say, Juju's loooooooong string of Ace of Spades while bottom-feeding (believe he's pushing 70 of them at this point.).

Being a F2P game, there's absolutely nothing effective that keeps people from starting alts and burning a wide swathe through T4-5.

[Vanguard836]

I must say that since the day after this was done, most of my matches have been stomps one side or the other.

[Brain Cancer]

Doomich, on 04 June 2018 - 11:52 PM, said:

But stagnant water should be drained, the container cleaned and filled with fresh water..
i know sounds like an instruction to clean the aquarium to save fishies

Or bloodletting, this is also a good example
As you wish

However, emptying the water out and dropping the entire aquarium into a pool full of tap water without separation means you're going to see some of nature's finest sushi preparation, one eviscerated school of minnows per shark at a time, while half the population goes belly up from the shock of the change.

Better to put in a new filter and let it clean up all the turds the current PSR system has left in the water, add some treatments, and maybe even a few of those snails until things are cleaned up and everyone's in their proper place and healthier again.

[Cloves]

Step one is easy, change the PSR values to a more granular system, say by using the actual match score- 250.
Step two, take another look at matchscore values per event. If we are overvaluing bad damage, cut that contribution. If we are undervaluing the MS value for participating on the winning side, they can raise it, but that’s part of why we are in this mess.

If folks need a 250 win or lose to stay even, people will shake up into thier appropriate tiers. The worse they play, the faster they will drop, the better they play the faster they will rise.

Only then can you look at multiple PSR per players for weight classes and what not.

But dumping all the tier 1s into the same pool as the tier 5s will definitely hurt new player retention, even worse than the few juveniles that create alts purely to farm newbies. I have to believe they are a very small minority. Imagine if that was the norm, even for three months, it would make Solaris look healthy by comparison.

Edited by Cloves, 05 June 2018 - 10:38 PM.

[Anastasius Foht]

How about not full reset, but current T5-4-3 remains where they are, and all T2-1 dropped to T3? Less grind / more sense. Also we need to increase sub 100 points "Defeat" punishment, current (Double loss) obviously didn't work well, made it x3 at least (or even x4). Too many people that not affect game result at all with their presence on battlefield get carried/ moved with flow to higher tiers, not even trying to improve themselfs. Also sub 100 point "Win" should be considered as small lose (x1) in tier scale (currently its "="), so bad play not get taken too soft (as now) in general.

[Remover of Obstacles]

I am seeing more 12-X (8,6,4) matches and less 12-0 stomps.

A (soft) tier reset would be the next step to catch players that have grinded to a tier above their skill level.

[Bulletsponge0]

Vanguard836, on 05 June 2018 - 07:10 PM, said:

I must say that since the day after this was done, most of my matches have been stomps one side or the other.

Yeah, this has made the quality of my matches much much worse. not so much the kill differential, but watching people that obviously haven't a good idea of how to play. I haven't seen some of the mistakes they make and the poor aim since I was new to the game...

[SFC174]

I'm seeing higher quality matches on average, but the bad ones are very bad. Have noticed a lot more elite (top 100, world champions, etc.) players in my matches, which would seem to indicate I'm generally seeing a higher percentage of Tier 1 players than before.

It's a small positive IMO, but positive nonetheless.

[MischiefSC]

Holy ****.

Great change. Nice work. Thank you.

[MTier Slayed Up]

Haven't noticed the change. It feels exactly the same.