35 replies to this topic

[Xetelian]

"We've tightened up the match maker, expect it to take longer" (a few months ago)
"We've made it so Tier 1 and Tier 5 will never see each other" (a few weeks ago)


How many years did that take exactly?

Not to mention that the Elo complaints went on for ages and they replaced it with a WORSE system instead of just tightening up the formula. I preferred when Elo took into account the weight you were dropping in, my light mech elo was much lower than my assault mech elo and that was fine, why did that have to not happen anymore?

[Asym]

El Bandito, on 11 June 2018 - 09:36 PM, said:

And, have you done anything about it? I personally sent multiple suggestions to Russ for improving MM, via Twitter, but it would be more effective if there are tons of other players who openly voice their concerns to him through Twitter, as well. Forums are much less effective.

Yes, you are right and large numbers of players have contacted Russ..... Which will get you no where.

You want Russ's attention: STOP BUYING MECHS........ Think people !!! This is a stable small niche market with a consistent value proposition and business.....stable does not equal growth...

To get PGI's undivided attention, stop buying !!! That revenue stream is the only thing that will cause PGI to come to us and ask us "what just happened !!!" I know pilots that don't play this game at all anymore and yet, have bought 2x or 3x of each new mech package offered..............think about this.......they buy a "set" for each alternative account. All of the time.

Look at it this way and I'll use an example: Star Citizen just offered a 24,000 US $ ship package that contains all of the in-game ships........who would spend that kind of money??? The same people whom in this game have literally thousands of mechs: an entire IS collection; and entire Clan collection; and, a "mercenary collection" that has "just hero's and comp mechs... MONEY is the only communications tool that works in SNM's.......talk, text, skype, chat, Facebook, tweet is all "white noise" to them......want change: get 1000 players to not buy a mech pack on day one of offer and see what happens.....cause on day one, every whale places an order (times 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, etc...)

Edited by Asym, 13 June 2018 - 05:08 AM.

[El Bandito]

Asym, on 13 June 2018 - 05:07 AM, said:

Yes, you are right and large numbers of players have contacted Russ..... Which will get you no where.

You want Russ's attention: STOP BUYING MECHS........ Think people !!! This is a stable small niche market with a consistent value proposition and business.....stable does not equal growth...

To get PGI's undivided attention, stop buying !!! That revenue stream is the only thing that will cause PGI to come to us and ask us "what just happened !!!" I know pilots that don't play this game at all anymore and yet, have bought 2x or 3x of each new mech package offered..............think about this.......they buy a "set" for each alternative account. All of the time.

PGI does listen if enough people tweet them about the same issue. For example, Russ had already acknowledged the existence of the community balance ideas by Tarogato, and had Paul, and Chris both write dev logs on current state of balance.
Russ has also replied to my personal tweets multiple times, regarding issues on FP, and Solaris, promising positive changes on the next season--something that would been impossible if I had only stuck to the forums.

So there is simply no excuse for concerned MWO players to not open a Twitter account if they wish their voices to be heard directly. All one need is an e-mail account and 5 minutes of one's time.

Edited by El Bandito, 13 June 2018 - 05:21 AM.

[Jman5]

You can keep the tiers, but then use average matchscore of a player's last 50-100 games per weight class to sort teams properly.

Often times you can get near perfect average matchscore between two teams just by swapping 1 or 2 players per team and you can do it without altering the the weight classes of the two teams.

[Nightbird]

Match score doesn't reflect the ability of a player to carry the team though... result can be a bit better than today but if you want balanced teams having an equal chance of winning, you have to weigh the players and mechs based on their impact on winning, of which match score is only one small component of.

[TWIAFU]

Luminis, on 12 June 2018 - 07:03 AM, said:

We absolutely need a zero sum matchmaker - and since that, as you pointed out, isn't happening, I'd at least like to make the best out of what we have.

If PGI straight up refuses to implement anything that reduces the skill gap among players within a given match, I'd at least like to try and balance the two teams in the match as best I can. Y'know, try and get something to improve the current situation by implementing something that has not been ruled out.

Since PGI "refuses" to code a reduction in skill gap between pilots, you should do it for them.

Tell us, and PGI, exactly how you would do that. Reduce, by code, the skill gap between each pilot of the four weight classes available, each mech and variant within each weight class, each tech base, map, and Tier.

Explain how do you "balance" a pilots very high skill in a IS Laser Light, for example on Polar, against a Clanners Low Skill in an PPC Assault in the same tier and map, sitting alone in the rear? We don't want that Clanner pilot, for example, to complain about getting out skilled....

[Asym]

El Bandito, on 13 June 2018 - 05:20 AM, said:

PGI does listen if enough people tweet them about the same issue. For example, Russ had already acknowledged the existence of the community balance ideas by Tarogato, and had Paul, and Chris both write dev logs on current state of balance.
Russ has also replied to my personal tweets multiple times, regarding issues on FP, and Solaris, promising positive changes on the next season--something that would been impossible if I had only stuck to the forums.

So there is simply no excuse for concerned MWO players to not open a Twitter account if they wish their voices to be heard directly. All one need is an e-mail account and 5 minutes of one's time.

Absolutely ! Have at it and we can all hope they aren't "pie-shell' promises... Money, on the other hand is real.... Real conversations with real customers because: Money talks and BS walks.....

I have seen this happen in a few other games and the changes were real, on point, timely and almost immediate.... It's amazing what "investors" can do to influence a corporation's focus. UNFORTUNATELY, there is no way I've been able to get the whales I know not to buy everything.....it's what they do for a hobby and could really care less about game play or any of the modes.... I don't get that but, to each their own.

Keep tweeting ! Maybe, something real will happen.......one never knows.

[Cnaiur]

Jman5, on 13 June 2018 - 06:09 AM, said:

You can keep the tiers, but then use average matchscore of a player's last 50-100 games per weight class to sort teams properly.

Often times you can get near perfect average matchscore between two teams just by swapping 1 or 2 players per team and you can do it without altering the the weight classes of the two teams.

This. This times a thousand.

Although I’d rather take a weight deficit than a skill deficit given my druthers. An elite player in a medium mech is worth a lot more than some potato in a 100 ton mech.

[Stinger554]

Nightbird, on 13 June 2018 - 06:17 AM, said:

Match score doesn't reflect the ability of a player to carry the team though... result can be a bit better than today but if you want balanced teams having an equal chance of winning, you have to weigh the players and mechs based on their impact on winning, of which match score is only one small component of.

The question is how.

Do you do it be mech variant and assume people bring the most optimized build for that variant( for that matter how would the optimized build be determined), or do you somehow take a measure of their build and assign it some form of weight(IE BV) that can be measured by the MM?

Both have issues and on top of that there's also the issue of how to measure a player's skill and have to make sure matches don't take more than 1-2 minutes to launch.

Not a simple fix.

[Jman5]

Nightbird, on 13 June 2018 - 06:17 AM, said:

Match score doesn't reflect the ability of a player to carry the team though... result can be a bit better than today but if you want balanced teams having an equal chance of winning, you have to weigh the players and mechs based on their impact on winning, of which match score is only one small component of.

Any initial problems with players inflated or deflated matchscore will work itself out if the game started sorting teams by average matchscore. People with higher matchscores than they should have for whatever reason will be saddled with worse teams. They'll lose more and thus their average matchscore will trend downward. Average matchscore is heavily impacted by your WLR. Conversely, someone who is undervalued by Matchmaker will have easier teams built for him initially and his matchscore trend upward.

[Nightbird]

Jman5, on 13 June 2018 - 01:00 PM, said:

Any initial problems with players inflated or deflated matchscore will work itself out if the game started sorting teams by average matchscore. People with higher matchscores than they should have for whatever reason will be saddled with worse teams. They'll lose more and thus their average matchscore will trend downward. Average matchscore is heavily impacted by your WLR. Conversely, someone who is undervalued by Matchmaker will have easier teams built for him initially and his matchscore trend upward.

Why not just include W/L as another component, in addition to mech chassis, loadout, heat efficiency, range, map, skill nodes, group size, etc...? Average MS is a lagging indicator, it will always be right but too late to do any good.

[SuperMCDad]

It's possible that I don't know what I'm talking about, but couldn't they use your average match score for the mech you are piloting? The data is there. If I want to see how I do in the JVN-10F, I can easily go and look. If I am piloting that mech in a match, the average match score for it will give an indication of how well I'm likely to do. And if it's a brand new mech that I've never used before, just assume that I'm going to be awful, until the data shows otherwise.

Balance tonnage and AvMS over the two teams, and hopefully you'd get better matches.

Just a thought.

[Jman5]

Nightbird, on 13 June 2018 - 01:04 PM, said:

Why not just include W/L as another component, in addition to mech chassis, loadout, heat efficiency, range, map, skill nodes, group size, etc...? Average MS is a lagging indicator, it will always be right but too late to do any good.

Let me ask you this. Do you think PGI could build a matchmaker formula to take all that into effect without screwing up? What you're suggesting sounds incredibly complicated and difficult to pull off. I wouldn't even know where to start. How do you determine the worth of a loadout? How do you determine the worth of specific skills? You're asking the guys who built that poorly designed tier system to make something that would be much much harder to get right (and keep tuning it as balance change).

We need something flexible, but relatively straight forward. I wouldn't mind going back to Elo if they split group and solo queue. However, I think matchscore by weight class is a good enough approximation of skill and any problems will work itself out in a few days of playing.

[Nightbird]

You need to use a statistical general linear model and compute the values. I do it for work all the time. It's not rocket science but you need some math and programming know-how. I offered to do it for free.

[Weeny Machine]

Lightfoot, on 12 June 2018 - 01:02 PM, said:

I just don't like the current weapon and armor balancing. I should not take two SRM hits and lose all my weapons and then die in 2 seconds of small laser and MG firing. That is not MechWarrior and it is ridiculous balancing.

Maybe you should put more than 4 points of armour in that location and turn or torso twist so that the MG rounds don't do much.
Sure, MGs are nasty once your armour is stripped. However, you pay for it by being less effective at the beginning and needing to stay close on your target and have facetime - which is quite risky for light mechs because they need the right timing or may end up getting into the focus of more than one enemy.

Lightfoot, on 12 June 2018 - 01:02 PM, said:

IThe worst of all is the difference between the Invulnerability=ON Light mechs and the insta-dead Medium mechs. Some Mediums are good, but most are made of tissue paper. I can't understand how both these mech Classes exist in the same game

Maybe you should play them to see how invulnerable they really are. Oh wait...zero matches in light mechs in the last 2 seasons (I didn't bother to check further)
Also, even noob tube lasers with their hitreg need to be held on a location to do some real damage. If your laser passes over several locations and then off the mech then the light mech seems to be taking hardly damage.


So, please, don't make such wild statements

[Cloves]

Season 19 he played 6 matches, season 4 he played 12. So he is clearly an expert.