831 replies to this topic

[Void Angel]

I'd like to do 8v8 again, at least for a while. I don't have a strong opinion that it'd be the best thing since sliced bread or anything, but it might bring classic brawling back, even though you might need to restrict group sizes. 12v12 brings more variance to the teams, makes premade lances have a smaller effect on gameplay, and just brings a bigger experience to the match.

I think this is a big reason why knife-range brawling in the classic style has pretty much died. Brawling builds these days exist, and they can output a LOT of damage, but you spend most of the match hiding, and then hoping you can engage without being picked apart by the enemy team before you get your damage out there. That's always going to be part of the playstyle, mind you: if my Atlas can just run at you over open ground like a drooling, slack-jawed Crael pilot, and still be effective, there's no reason to play long-range any more. But there's a dynamic to match size that makes brawling more difficult the more players you add.

Enlarging team size means more armor for the other team to chew through, and more guns on each side to do the chewing - but it doesn't change individual numbers. Whether an Atlas or a Locust, my Battlemechs still have the same armor they always had - but if they crest the wrong hill, or are flanked by the enemy team, there's a lot more guns available to wear that armor down (actually, I think armor quirks have increased in general since 12v12, and this is probably why.) So reducing team sizes will help brawlers a lot, especially if they're still trying to use cover to close in on common map positions, etc. It would also make all those brawling armor quirks need re-evaluation. So it's not just a matter of "do this, it's easy!" There's a lot of work, potentially, that would have to be done to rebalance in the wake of an 8v8 transition.

16v16, as someone suggested on the other hand, would likely be a disaster. Even more variety, and less impact of premade lances - but even more guns on the other side to punish positioning errors, and I think the key terrain would just get to crowded with that many people on most maps.

[Nevermore223]

I vote no in this for 1 reason...match maker...the tier shuffle is still going to come into play, drawing out the wait times. Simply put...the more people you have online, the quicker and better matched the game is going to be. You take match maker out, wait times will dissapear...but the steam roll for newbs will be biblical. You could make it a choice in the launch tab and see how it goes, but puttin a band aid on a bullet wound ain't much of a fix. Short of a larger player base....weapon buffing of less popular combinations looks like the only viable option. Less popular weapons, with good capibility, gives newer players more options.

[Void Angel]

... Having matches build with 8-man teams rather than 12-mans would reduce wait times, not increase them. The main issue with decreasing team sizes is that 4-mans would have a much bigger impact on the result of matches - though they would also be more likely to find matches in their proper tier.

[Nevermore223]

....yes....and completely throw your newer player base further under the bus than they alredy are. By making a smaller drop, all your doing is narrowing the field and making the newer players a bigger target...(and a heck of a shorter match). The whole purpose is to build the player base...this has multiple benefits, all of which I am not going to get into atm, because of discussion length. Suffice to say, PGI...the game... and it's players all benefit from a larger player base. Making it harder on these folks is deffinately not going to pursuade them to stay and spend money. Making this game more desireable to play benefits everybody...not just your top 10% "leetist" who spend every waking moment trying to 1 up somebody. This is a GAME...it is supposed to be ENJOYABLE....not a dogmatic grind that creates stress, just to get to another level.

[Void Angel]

Wow, lost this post in a horde of notifications, but...

That's not how any of that works. Slicing the player base into smaller chunks per match would increase the fidelity of matchmaking. If the game only has to find 16 tier 5s per match instead of 24, it's less likely to slap in a Tier 4 ti fill in the gaps. It's... really simple math. This means that beginning players in Tier 5 will be better able to find matches without more experienced players to prey on them.

Similarly, do you know how much armor a 'mech has in an 8v8 match? The same amount it has in a 12v12! It's aMAZing! But the amount of incoming damage is going to be roughly 50% higher. Again, just simple math. This means that new players, who do not know the maps and are going to make positioning errors, will have fewer guns on the enemy team to possibly be aimed their way in 8v8, which will make their matches longer, and their beginning play more forgiving.

So your objections are incorrect. Mathematically incorrect. None of your predictions about scaring off newbies are at all likely to come true. You can refuse to accept it, but the fact will always remain that this is a math problem with graphics - and you have the wrong answer. There are drawbacks to 8v8, but "Think of the children!" isn't one of them.

Not that it matters practically, since the player base by and large voted to keep 12v12 back in 2018 when this poll was first fielded. Essentially there wasn't (and still isn't) enough of a majority desire for 8v8 to justify changing the status quo.

Edited by Void Angel, 06 October 2023 - 01:31 PM.

[Nevermore223]

Your argument would be comical and,or entertaning if you could "MATHEMATICALLY" prove any of that nonsense. PGI tried changing the que numbers many times, and it never solved anything. Region settings should be a bigger issue than 12 or 8 player drops. As for "protecting the children" (as you so arrogantly put it) ...trial by fire suits me just fine, but you keep getting T5 players in with T1 players, (especially T1's and 2's in a 4 man group) the T5 players gonna get tired of it and quit (I have read a few of your replies to newer players in these forums and they all had this same hatefull rhetoric). The way it was before, newbs had a chance to rank up and learn the ropes...now the pug rick rolls are insane...I've never seen such 1 sided matches in my 10+ years of playing this game. I have been in pug matches and seen this 1st hand. The new players have a legitimate beef. Getting destroyed match after match, because you got a team full of new players, makes getting XP difficult, not to mention c-bill's. Make no mistake, having a mech maxed out on XP makes a diffrence.

[Void Angel]

...[sigh]

I gave you the math. If you didn't understand it, you can let me know where I lost you, and ask a question. Pretending that because you didn't understand it, my argument can simply be dismissed isn't really an option for you. Ditto for making up accusations of "hateful rhetoric." Or making up facts... PGI changed the team sizes exactly once, in the live game, from 8v8 to 12v12 (with a few events and PTS trials to test the waters; see also: this thread's OP.) Similarly, Tier 5s don't match with Tier 1s. They match with Tier 5-3s, unless the higher tiers are grouped with a lower-tier friend. Screen shot, or it didn't happen. Screen shots, actually, because it has to happen a statistically significant number of times to affect the new player experience to any real degree.

Don't think I haven't noticed that your argument is drifting; but I'm not going to be sucked into defending 8v8 per se. I do think it would be better, at least to try, but that's not what we're talking about. We are talking about your pants-on-the-head crazy claim that if we lower match sizes, somehow "the tier shuffle is still going to come into play, drawing out the wait times," and that "[by] making a smaller drop, all your[sic] doing is narrowing the field and making the newer players a bigger target." These statements are false. They cannot be true, because of how the math fits together.

It will never, for example, take a matchmaker longer on average to find a match for smaller teams; again, this is math. There are only so many players waiting. If there are enough in-tier to make a match, it starts. If not, the matchmaker waits for players in-tier: players will finish matches or log on and become available at a certain rate, depending on player volume at the time; this can be expressed as a ratio, say "PlayersA/Second." "PA/S" should be relatively constant between 12v12 and 8v8 (larger team sizes will be offset by more players being dumped into the matchmaking pool,) so players will fill up 8v8 teams and get matches faster than 12v12. In short, for any number of players logged on and trying to play during a given period of time, dividing them up into smaller teams means more matches played, leading to lower wait times. This is, again, simplified math. If you are confused by the fact that I didn't provide precise numbers and an "=" sign, it signifies only that you are not qualified to debate the math with me -or, you know the game's developers who have access to the relevant numbers from both 8v8 and 12v12 matchmaking and already told you this was true at the beginning of the thread!

Similarly, whatever proportion of the population consists of new players is going to be the same no matter how many players are on a team. The matchmaker isn't magically grouping them all into the same team just to spite them, let alone doing it "match after match." The game's structure lends itself to snowballing, and you can see that happen - it does not follow that all the newbies are on the side that got rolled. In fact, that's highly unlikely - again, this is math.

But I can't even with you right now: what is this "before" that you've pulled out of thin air? Before what? Before 12v12? Before PSR? Before Elo matchmaking? When was this lost Golden Age of Matchmaking that everyone should pine for? You're making false claims about how the matchmaker works, and resorting to declaring yourself the Defender of the Little Guy when challenged. And that's all you have, really: your own anecdotal impressions of how matches are going doesn't impress me: if you've been playing the game for 10+ years, why are you still matching with Tier 5s? Or if you're not, how do your higher tier matches have any impact on the New Player Experience, as PGI puts it?

None of your substantiable arguments have any weight - most are empirically wrong - and if you pare away all that, you're really only left with sad-voilin soapbox sermons about how all the poor newbies are struggling because of, uh, reasons.

"Think of the Children."

[Nevermore223]

Void Angel, on 09 October 2023 - 12:30 PM, said:

...[sigh]

I gave you the math. If you didn't understand it, you can let me know where I lost you, and ask a question. Pretending that because you didn't understand it, my argument can simply be dismissed isn't really an option for you. Ditto for making up accusations of "hateful rhetoric." Or making up facts... PGI changed the team sizes exactly once, in the live game, from 8v8 to 12v12 (with a few events and PTS trials to test the waters; see also: this thread's OP.) Similarly, Tier 5s don't match with Tier 1s. They match with Tier 5-3s, unless the higher tiers are grouped with a lower-tier friend. Screen shot, or it didn't happen. Screen shots, actually, because it has to happen a statistically significant number of times to affect the new player experience to any real degree.

Don't think I haven't noticed that your argument is drifting; but I'm not going to be sucked into defending 8v8 per se. I do think it would be better, at least to try, but that's not what we're talking about. We are talking about your pants-on-the-head crazy claim that if we lower match sizes, somehow "the tier shuffle is still going to come into play, drawing out the wait times," and that "[by] making a smaller drop, all your[sic] doing is narrowing the field and making the newer players a bigger target." These statements are false. They cannot be true, because of how the math fits together.

It will never, for example, take a matchmaker longer on average to find a match for smaller teams; again, this is math. There are only so many players waiting. If there are enough in-tier to make a match, it starts. If not, the matchmaker waits for players in-tier: players will finish matches or log on and become available at a certain rate, depending on player volume at the time; this can be expressed as a ratio, say "PlayersA/Second." "PA/S" should be relatively constant between 12v12 and 8v8 (larger team sizes will be offset by more players being dumped into the matchmaking pool,) so players will fill up 8v8 teams and get matches faster than 12v12. In short, for any number of players logged on and trying to play during a given period of time, dividing them up into smaller teams means more matches played, leading to lower wait times. This is, again, simplified math. If you are confused by the fact that I didn't provide precise numbers and an "=" sign, it signifies only that you are not qualified to debate the math with me -or, you know the game's developers who have access to the relevant numbers from both 8v8 and 12v12 matchmaking and already told you this was true at the beginning of the thread!

Similarly, whatever proportion of the population consists of new players is going to be the same no matter how many players are on a team. The matchmaker isn't magically grouping them all into the same team just to spite them, let alone doing it "match after match." The game's structure lends itself to snowballing, and you can see that happen - it does not follow that all the newbies are on the side that got rolled. In fact, that's highly unlikely - again, this is math.

But I can't even with you right now: what is this "before" that you've pulled out of thin air? Before what? Before 12v12? Before PSR? Before Elo matchmaking? When was this lost Golden Age of Matchmaking that everyone should pine for? You're making false claims about how the matchmaker works, and resorting to declaring yourself the Defender of the Little Guy when challenged. And that's all you have, really: your own anecdotal impressions of how matches are going doesn't impress me: if you've been playing the game for 10+ years, why are you still matching with Tier 5s? Or if you're not, how do your higher tier matches have any impact on the New Player Experience, as PGI puts it?

None of your substantiable arguments have any weight - most are empirically wrong - and if you pare away all that, you're really only left with sad-voilin soapbox sermons about how all the poor newbies are struggling because of, uh, reasons.

"Think of the Children."

Look....you obivously have issues....the only reason this got as far as it did, was to prove a point. You made my argument perfectly. The line your taking with folks in these forums is uncalled for and abusive. I can only guess the reason your post count is so high, is because of nonsense like this. You can make your point and not be a --- about it. If proving your math is imperative....draw it out and show your work...make it legabile for "us idiots" to understand . We both know what the problem is....it's lack of players. Crap like this does not help that situation. You don't have to show your butt every time you post, to prove you have some sort of superiorty over everyone else. I know you will probablly post another snide comment after I post this, I would expect no less. I am through with this nonsense, it's no wonder there are no more people on than there are...try getting in a server sometime and acutually playing, instead of hanging out in the forums all the time and making a mound out of a molehill.

[Void Angel]

Well, you've repeated your unfounded accusations, and reiterated your debunked opinion - and declared victory, and that you're "done with this." Requests for unreasonable levels of proof, red herrings...I could make Bingo cards.

Trying to branch out into areas, like player count, that you think is stronger ground for you isn't going to work, nor is it relevant in the least - the question, once again, was whether or not lowering the match size to 8v8 would 1) slow matchmaking and 2) cause more new people to drop with veteran players. Those are the opinions I've objected to, and trying to shoehorn in your personal, unsupported opinion about how the poor newbies are suffering because of, uh... an 8v8 format we're not using, I guess? ... isn't helpful. I keep asking how that's relevant, and you keep ignoring the question...

I have offered clear proofs and illustrations for my objections - and you've not been able to refute any of it. You haven't even tried. You've just ignored the presented facts to repeat your debunked opinions, accusing me of increasing levels moral perfidy along the way. Helpful hint? Accusing people of personality disorders when they get irritated with you - for ignoring what they say, while simultaneously quoting them to disagree - is not the 1337 comeback you may have assumed it is. Trying to seize the moral high ground, or attacking your opponent's character, in order to get out of presenting facts is an old tactic dating back at least to Classical Greece - and the Sophists did it better.

PS: If I tell you that the proportion of new players to veterans is going to be the same at all team sizies, I don't have to "draw it out and show my work." It's still math (and you're still wrong) if I don't express it as a numerical equation - and if you didn't understand it in plain English, you won't understand the equation either.

[Joanna Conners]

Void Angel, on 17 September 2023 - 04:02 PM, said:

... Having matches build with 8-man teams rather than 12-mans would reduce wait times, not increase them. The main issue with decreasing team sizes is that 4-mans would have a much bigger impact on the result of matches - though they would also be more likely to find matches in their proper tier.

Truth. We used to shred back in the day. Was easy to field 4-8 pilots. Far more difficult for PUGs than it is now.

[MrFatBard]

i want more not less, 24 v 24 for faction play, with helicopters and tanks

[martian]

MrFatBard, on 01 April 2024 - 02:26 PM, said:

i want more not less, 24 v 24 for faction play, with helicopters and tanks

I think that Russ Bullock said that 12v12 is the maximum that the MWO game engine can handle.