864 replies to this topic

[Haipyng]

Mystere, on 17 June 2018 - 05:21 AM, said:

The best solution for a dwindling population -- in an old and stale skeleton of a game that will never get all the missing meat filled in -- is to merge the queues. But having a good matchmaker with a good skill system to support that dwindling population is not going to be easy.

Did I mention that MWO is a mere skeleton of a game?

It's definitely losing meat off it bones. It's hard to argue against that and to say its not is wishful thinking or deluding themselves. Merging the queues may eventually be the only option left. The sad part to that is MWO has always made choices to limit the player experience for faster queue times and in the end it loses players because of it little by little.

Mystere, on 17 June 2018 - 05:21 AM, said:

By "stomped" he probably meant "I have a sledgehammer and I will pound that idea into Oblivion" times 9000.

LOL! You may be right. MischiefSC is a good guy, and makes some valid points though.

Edited by Haipyng, 17 June 2018 - 06:09 PM.

[Blindbeard the Pirate]

Haipyng, on 17 June 2018 - 05:04 PM, said:

It's definitely losing meat off it bones. It's hard to argue against that and to say its not is wishful thinking or deluding themselves. Merging the queues may eventually be the only option left. The sad part to that is MWO has always made choices to limit the player experiences in for faster queue times and in the end it loses players because of it little by little.

https://leaderboard.isengrim.org/stats

The weird thing is actually that MWO has been gaining some steam again lately. Who knows how many will stay, but there are currently almost as many players as there were a couple years ago. Which is surprising considering the direction it's been going and how some things have felt.

[Haipyng]

csebal, on 17 June 2018 - 07:47 AM, said:

You wrote this once and it was already a very heavily loaded and underhanded question.
Reading it twice makes me physically sick.

You and your kind base your entire campaign against the idea of small group play and solo play being mixed on the assumption, that the other party simply wants this to gain an advantage. This is simply not true and frankly.. all the talk about me and people like me having some ulterior motive is getting a bit boring and quite insulting.

You have a higher pain tolerances than I do. I haven't engaged with the rest of the group that just knows the real reason why people are asking for changes is because there is nothing meaningful that comes out of it. They are convinced that we just want to dominate solo queue and there by ruin everyone else's fun. They won't hear any other reasons. Anything you say is wrong because you are trying to trick them. That leaves you no foundation on which to have a serious discussion.

I very much would like to find some solutions for these problems, and am not opposed to hearing some really off the wall ideas, but it's a waste of time when they are already convinced you have an alternate agenda.

[Haipyng]

Ulriya Sykora, on 17 June 2018 - 05:09 PM, said:

https://leaderboard.isengrim.org/stats

The weird thing is actually that MWO has been gaining some steam again lately. Who knows how many will stay, but there are currently almost as many players as there were a couple years ago. Which is surprising considering the direction it's been going and how some things have felt.

Does that capture all players, QP and GP? Steam and Non-Steam Clients? Neat!

I wonder why GP queues are longer off hours then? Even the usual Prime North American hours queue times are up, especially compared to solo.

Edit: I see that the mean numbers of 'Players by Season' is in decline, even though the end numbers show an uptick in players. I am making the assumption that 'Players by Season' is the total number of players that have played at least a game. I think the most important stat there is "Average Games Played per Season" in which the mean shows a pretty substantial decline.

Helpful information, thank you! I do wish PGI published their stats online for some hard statistics.

Edited by Haipyng, 17 June 2018 - 05:49 PM.

[Cloves]

Haipyng, on 17 June 2018 - 05:32 PM, said:

Does that capture all players, QP and GP? Steam and Non-Steam Clients? Neat!

I wonder why GP queues are longer off hours then? Even the usual Prime North American hours queue times are up, especially compared to solo.

It scrapes leaderboard info for it’s data, so yes, it’s all players. Still you can only get real live data from steam about concurrent logins then extrapolate. Say 50% of the players use steam. Peak is same as it was in 2016. Average is half peak. That means outside of peak, it’s pretty dismal. Steam says 2k peak, 1k average, as a random example. Even if we double those numbers that means that since there are about 4 peak periods during the day, mostly centered around American time zones, then EU, the low pop times, if they represent 1/2 the hours, the vast majority of players are playing during peak. Even just six hour blocks running at peak at 4K will mean the average would be 1,300 players the rest of the time. And I doubt the the steam numbers represent half the population. Then take into account that we have FW which seems to be at least as popular as GQ, and most players have been traumatized out of playing either at all.

The leaderboard says 40,000 players in total last season, average 110 games apiece. Four million fourty four thousand games total. Divide by 24 players per match, 183,333 games, divide by six to get game hours (number out of hat, assuming the average player is playing six games an hour, pick any number) 30,555 game hours total. Divide by 30 day’s in a month 1018 game hours per day, divide by 24 hours in a day, then multiply back the 24 players in that match, 1,018 gamers concurrently online on average, and this number goes lower if we assume more than six games an hour. This lines up almost exactly which what steam claims. Thus I am led to believe that a vast majority of players are using the steam launcher, and it’s numbers are accurate, and you probably have a pop of about 500 off peak.

Do keep in mind the number of games is only representative of QP and GP players. Faction is not tracked by the leaderboard, but is by steam. Those games are longer, but probably only 10% of the pop is in a FW game at any moment, and that’s generous in my opinion. What I want to know is if there are an average of fourty-two games going on every 10 minutes, why can’t the matchmaker do a better job sorting the pop into 42 piles? Do we need 42 tiers?

Edited by Cloves, 17 June 2018 - 06:34 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

Steam shows those who log into the game recently, not whether or no they actually drop into battle. The Leadership board is pull from MWO website and only includes data from the previous seasons updated at the 1st of the mont, not the current season. And the leadership board only shows those player who have dropped into 10+ battles.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 17 June 2018 - 06:50 PM.

[Cloves]

Tarl Cabot, on 17 June 2018 - 06:43 PM, said:

Steam shows those who log into the game, not whether or no they actually drop into battle. The Leadership board is pull from MWO website and only includes data from the previous seasons, not the current season.

. True, but a majority of players will spend a majority of the time the engine is running, in a game. The six games an hour is based off of such padding (you really only spend about 36-48 minutes on the field for six games). And yes, those pop figures are a month old, but show a two year history to be analyzed. Steam only goes back to January of 2016. Leaderboard goes back to what, June of 2016?

Edit- to reply to your edit players with less than 10 games a month are not going to be statistically significant. Say a thousand extra players are playing five games each a month, five thousand does not significantly alter data based on four million.

Edited by Cloves, 17 June 2018 - 07:34 PM.

[Wil McCullough]

a le Roi, on 17 June 2018 - 01:42 PM, said:

KDR and WLR have nothing to do with the request. No, me and my friend likely would stay out of GP however well or badly we did, because GP waiting times are insane. We want to play, not wait.

If the QP matches are crazily imbalanced because we are allowed to team up, guess what? That's a problem with the match maker, not in allowing us to team up. We should always be paired against a team with an equally sized group and with players of roughly equal skill level.

If PGI can't do that, that's another problem entirely and exists with or without 2-man groups.

Yes the matchmaker is borked. It has always been borked. You're asking for a feature that will give you an advantage in a previously (somewhat) fair environment by taking advantage of a borked matchmaker.

Your entire argument is based on this: i want to play with my one other friend but when we group up as a duo, wait times are too long in group queue.

There are already existing solutions to this: solaris duos. Solaris even has a seeding system so you'll always have fair matches against people of equal skill.

But this is not a solution for you because the actual problem you're having and don't want to admit, is somewhat different. The actual problem is that you're playing in group queue, getting stomped and you're sick of it.

That's why the only acceptable solution to you is opening up solo qp to duos like yourself and your friend. So that you can have fun doing the clubbing instead of getting clubbed.

We see through you.

You're requesting this knowing that matchmaker would never be fixed to make it a fair fight for everyone involved. If you want lower queue times, you'd be demanding low queue times. Not "i want duos in solo qp".

[MischiefSC]

a le Roi, on 17 June 2018 - 01:17 PM, said:

This. Isn't. About. Being. Beaten.

Then what's the problem? Just queue time? Play when more people are on. Because you keep saying you don't want to get 'clubbed'. Every post from you guys talks about how unfair it is to play against good teams/players.

If losing isn't the issue, why does that keep coming up?

[Lukoi Banacek]

Haipyng, on 17 June 2018 - 05:24 PM, said:

You have a higher pain tolerances than I do. I haven't engaged with the rest of the group that just knows the real reason why people are asking for changes is because there is nothing meaningful that comes out of it.

Or maybe quite a few of us, simply disagree with you. Since neither side of the argument can prove what will happen if 2-mans are let in, or if that opens the slippery slope to 3's, 4's etc....neither can do much more than offer an opinion. But don't let that stop some folks from thinking their the ones riding the high road on the discussion.

Many of us don't believe it will make the game better in the slightest. Stricter adherence to some semblance of MM in Group Queue would do much more for this game imo, but with our niche population, none of these ideas are likely to be tried.

[Chortles]

Lukoi Banacek, on 17 June 2018 - 07:21 PM, said:

Or maybe quite a few of us, simply disagree with you. Since neither side of the argument can prove what will happen if 2-mans are let in, or if that opens the slippery slope to 3's, 4's etc....neither can do much more than offer an opinion. But don't let that stop some folks from thinking their the ones riding the high road on the discussion.

Many of us don't believe it will make the game better in the slightest. Stricter adherence to some semblance of MM in Group Queue would do much more for this game imo, but with our niche population, none of these ideas are likely to be tried.

One side can prove what will happen because it has already happened before.

Edited by Chortles, 17 June 2018 - 07:25 PM.

[MischiefSC]

csebal, on 17 June 2018 - 07:47 AM, said:

You wrote this once and it was already a very heavily loaded and underhanded question.
Reading it twice makes me physically sick.

You and your kind base your entire campaign against the idea of small group play and solo play being mixed on the assumption, that the other party simply wants this to gain an advantage. This is simply not true and frankly.. all the talk about me and people like me having some ulterior motive is getting a bit boring and quite insulting.

The truth is very simple: people like me also like to play with friends, however we might not have enough like minded friends to field a full group, nor do we necessarily have the will to take it seriously enough to really be competitive in an organized play environment.
We would simply like to not just play besides, but with each other. To share the experience of having fun, interesting matches... not the experience of getting stomped by 8 man death squads.

For myself, It is not likely I would every really play in group or comp if I would not be forced to, as I am simply not interested in competitive play. I do not care for the game enough to dig so deep into its tactical and mechanical aspects to really be competitive on that level. I am what people usually refer to as a casual player. I play for fun.

So you or anyone else telling me to go and play GP if I want to play with a friend is not really thinking things through. That is like telling some kids on the playground, that if they would like to be on the same team with their friends playing soccer, they should join the world cup or premier league, because they are sure as hell not welcome on the playground where it is each kid to himself.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since the days of old when 4 man lances were allowed into queues with solo players. The game was balanced a lot and the matchmaker was changed. While I would still not allow full lances into QP, I do believe that an equal number of 2 or 3 man teams on each side would be a lot less unbalancing than they were before. And yes.. there is a chance that two very good players will dominate, but guess what.. they already do, as even a single good player with a mike can turn the tide of the battle.

Finally, the last argument really: making this happen should not be a big thing really, since there already is group play, it would just be a tweaking of the matchmaker to place small groups into QP queue instead of the GP one. If it does not work out, the same matchmaker tweak can undo it and we can all pretend it never happened.

Not giving it a try because it "might" cause more problems than the ones it surely solves would be just as dumb as many of the arguments against it.

[redacted]

First, your statements about GQ are absolutely false. It's nothing at all like a competitive environment. It's the most casual way to play in a group. Playing in a large group is way, way more 'competitive' than playing in a small group where you've got tonnage to spend.

Every single match in every mode is competitive. Solo, group, FW, comp queue. One side wins, one side loses. The players on both sides want to win. That you're not winning as much as you want is the foundation of your complaint -

[redacted] you're also suggesting merging group queue and FW FFS. That is so absolutely and completely oblivious to what both modes are, who plays them and why,

The game is PvP. It consists of 2 teams of 12 players. You have to compete on an even field against every other player in every match. The players that play the best, win. Teamwork is a huge indicator for success and so groups are split from solo players and in groups the more people in a group, the less tonnage they have. It's so restrictive that teams of 8+ can easily end up 200 or 300 tons lighter (or more) than the other team.

It's so restrictive that a lot of teams don't play in GQ anymore, so the GQ population is smaller. That means it can't separate for skill level and struggles to build teams at all. That's why you're losing to good teams consistently; there's fewer players in GQ and as such when you make a group you reduce the odds that your team will have enough good players to carry you vs good players on the other team, as solo queue does.

However you don't get to play with an advantage. Not even a small one. You don't get to play in a group vs solo players. FFS I play tons of FW and that does involve groups vs solos and that's problematic enough - at least there it's opt-in only and the whole point of the match is flipping planets so the expectation of effort is higher. It's got a warning to click past. Comp queue requires an 8man before you can drop. Group queue is the most casual way to play in a group in the game. It's no more competitive than solo queue is. It just doesn't involve intentionally putting good players on teams with bads to carry them like solo queue.

Edited by Tina Benoit, 20 June 2018 - 04:53 PM.
insults

[MischiefSC]

Lukoi Banacek, on 17 June 2018 - 07:21 PM, said:

Or maybe quite a few of us, simply disagree with you. Since neither side of the argument can prove what will happen if 2-mans are let in, or if that opens the slippery slope to 3's, 4's etc....neither can do much more than offer an opinion. But don't let that stop some folks from thinking their the ones riding the high road on the discussion.

Many of us don't believe it will make the game better in the slightest. Stricter adherence to some semblance of MM in Group Queue would do much more for this game imo, but with our niche population, none of these ideas are likely to be tried.

It would help if the MM could evaluate who's already in a match but that's iffy. If it holds finishing building a new match in order to get a high skill 4man to add to the low skill mix of 8 it's got to get a better balance vs the mid skill 12 it's already got for the other team and the team it's waiting for bails, then what?

I'm creeping toward liking Nightbirds idea of dynamic team sizes. It would be such a mess to balance but at least it would fill matches and give a sense of fairness (even if the actual balance is just as bad).

[Lukoi Banacek]

Chortles, on 17 June 2018 - 07:24 PM, said:

One side can prove what will happen because it has already happened before.

That's just history. Ignore it is what they'll tell you.

[Lukoi Banacek]

MischiefSC, on 17 June 2018 - 07:44 PM, said:

It would help if the MM could evaluate who's already in a match but that's iffy. If it holds finishing building a new match in order to get a high skill 4man to add to the low skill mix of 8 it's got to get a better balance vs the mid skill 12 it's already got for the other team and the team it's waiting for bails, then what?

I'm creeping toward liking Nightbirds idea of dynamic team sizes. It would be such a mess to balance but at least it would fill matches and give a sense of fairness (even if the actual balance is just as bad).

Don't disagree but queue size changing dynamically will be very hard on anything larger than a very small group and will further alienate people. Don't think the good will outweigh the bad to be honest. Not to mention the challenges in coding such a thing.

[Blindbeard the Pirate]

MischiefSC, on 17 June 2018 - 07:40 PM, said:

you want to do what you're already doing but win more often and you want to change the game and how everyone plays it to make that happen.

I don't really know if that's totally the issue here, correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation. It WILL result in that, but probably not nearly to the degree you're worried about, and likely only during the hours of us vampires. For a player at his skill level group queue might be a total stompfest, but I win more than I lose there and I still think considerations could be made for queue time. If anything it would probably bring better players into the few solo queues that I do, and that would be pretty fun tbh. Even if I had the option to just drop solo into GQ, I wouldn't mind that, I'm usually alone in the group anyway and working on something a little different. The reduced pool might make sync dropping into GQ with a friend faster than a real duo queue :V

[Lykaon]

Chortles, on 17 June 2018 - 07:24 PM, said:

One side can prove what will happen because it has already happened before.

And what was that?

Or rather when was that?



When we last had small groups in a queue with solo players I believe the match maker used the following criteria for building a match.

12 players per team

rule of threes (three of each chassis weight class)
Number of groups and number of players in a group were to be matched per side (if blue team had a 4 player group then red team got a 4 player group)

There wasn't an Elo rating or PSR match just mech weight class and group size matching. There were no tonnage restrictions based on group size either.

What was so easily forgotten paved over with a vast tide of confirmation bias was that teams with groups faced a team with an equally sized opposing group when ever possible because this was one of the criteria the old match maker used.

So if a team was composed of four grouped players and 8 solo players the opposing team was also built to be 4 grouped players and 8 solo players.

The puggies took this to mean that poor solos were being "farmed" and "seal clubbed" while ignoring the simple fact that when a team wins the opposing team has lost.

A team of 4 grouped players that wins also has 8 solo players who win. This is how it actually was. If the match maker built a balanced set of teams the number of grouped players and solo players per team was identical.

Therefore every team that included a 4 player premade that "farmed" or "seal clubbed" was also composed of 8 solo players who were also "farming" and "seal clubbing" because if the group won their team won and the team was composed of two thirds majority of SOLO PLAYERS!

On the flip side, every team that included a group + solos that lost had a premade that ....big fricken suprise coming...

ALSO LOST!

How was this not fair within the limited criteria of the old match maker?

one match,one winning team,one losing team, 4 grouped players won,8 solo players won,4 grouped players lost, 8 solo players lost.

Yet somehow I am to believe that only the grouped players ever profited from small groups in a mixed queue?

This is pretty much the definition of B.S.

Edited by Lykaon, 17 June 2018 - 09:37 PM.

[Wil McCullough]

Lykaon, on 17 June 2018 - 09:36 PM, said:

This is pretty much the definition of B.S.

If that is B.S, what do you call demanding duos be allowed in solo qp because it takes too long for them to get a match in group play?

Pgi gave players like the op the absolute best solution to the problem they keep crying about - solaris duos. Two man drops, fast queue times, fair matchmatcher.

But solaris duos is a ghost town.

Why?

Because playing with a friend, in a fair environment, with quick queues isn't what they really want. They want to group up to mash solo taters in qp because they are sick of getting mashed in a fair group environment.

[csebal]

Wil McCullough, on 17 June 2018 - 03:16 PM, said:

Solaris duos. Solaris even has a seeding system so you play with people on your skill level.

But you're not looking for a fair fight. You're not looking for duos vs duos. You're looking to bring duos into solo qp.

Your arguments fall apart under scrutiny.

Dude, wake up.. it is your argument that falls apart when you claim that going to play 2v2 is the same as going to play 12v12 with a friend on your side. Totally different games, different mech builds, different everything. You know what, why not suggest to go play tennis instead? There's also ways to play in pairs with a friend in that one.. sure its not quite the same as playing mechwarrior, but you apparently do not care for itsy bitsy details like that.

[Chortles]

Lykaon, on 17 June 2018 - 09:36 PM, said:

Yet somehow I am to believe that only the grouped players ever profited from small groups in a mixed queue?

This is pretty much the definition of B.S.

Back then, it might as well have been called group queue with some extras. When you have mixed groups and solos, the group have always been the deciding factor in games. Solo players were mostly meaningless because they couldn't or wouldn't strategize with the rest of the team. You had to cross your fingers and hope that the game was entirely solo, or the group on your team was not disappointing.

If you desperately want groups and solos to play together, you're better off letting solo players join group queue. That way, group players can form 11 man groups or other odd combinations. This will reduce queue times for both solo and group players while preserving solo players in their own territory and group players will still have importance in theirs.