270 replies to this topic

[Nightbird]

50 50, on 23 October 2018 - 04:52 PM, said:

My additional question was aimed at reducing tonnage by using less mechs in the drop deck (ie. removing the must have 4 mechs validation rule on the drop decks.)
However, my concern was: "Would being able to take less mechs create a problem with players taking 'top heavy' decks in normal drops"
ie. with a 250 tonnage limit I could take 2x 100 ton, 1x 50 ton mech.
Having it split the tonnage over the 4 mechs is a way to balance it so it may be a bad approach.

I think we should keep it simple for the first iteration, and not ask for drop deck changes first. But, I do agree with this. Allowing people to drop with fewer than 4 mechs would help with some of the higher penalties.

[KingCobra]

Nightbird, on 23 October 2018 - 07:03 AM, said:

Give unbalanced teams handicaps.

Analyze each team for it's average win-loss ratio across all members, if teams are very different skill wise, give the stronger team a dynamic cbill adjustment for deck tonnage, for example:
250 tons: -50% cbill penalty
200 tons: 0% cbill adjustment
150 tons: 25% cbill bonus.

Give the weaker team a flat cbill bonus: +25% cbills for fighting a stronger team.

Percentages are just an example, set it based on the magnitude of the difference between the average win-loss ratio of the two teams. For example:

Team A WLR: 0.5 & Team B WLR: 1.5 then Team B gives up 25 tons or gets cbill penalty, team A gets 10% cbill bonus
Team A WLR: 0.5 & Team B WLR: 3.0 then Team B gives up 50 tons or gets cbill penalty, team A gets 25% cbill bonus
Team A WLR: 0.5 & Team B WLR: 10.0 then Team B gives up 100 tons or gets cbill penalty, team A gets 50% cbill bonus


With this, people will come back because they know if the teams aren't fair, they'll get a tonnage and cbill handicap against stronger teams.

Oh yes, give more drop decks purtty please

Sounds like FP is all but dead and PGI just wont listen to what's left of its player base Many times I have tried to tell PGI the only way FP will work again is to repopulate the game and CW game mode starting with splitting the FP queues solo / premade groups and better rewards for solo and premade groups.

But no I think PGI will let the game die because the game has become so unfun and redundant game play it the norm and they don't even fund and marketing to attract new players.

Heck even WOT has TV infomercials sheesh. The game has become so unfun I take a year off and keep my wallet closed

Edited by KingCobra, 23 October 2018 - 05:28 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

KingCobra, on 23 October 2018 - 05:26 PM, said:

Sounds like FP is all but dead and PGI just wont listen to what's left of its player base Many times I have tried to tell PGI the only way FP will work again is to repopulate the game and CW game mode starting with splitting the FP queues solo / premade groups and better rewards for solo and premade groups.

But no I think PGI will let the game die because the game has become so unfun and redundant game play it the norm and they don't even fund and marketing to attract new players.

Heck even WOT has TV infomercials sheesh. The game has become so unfun I take a year off and keep my wallet closed

PGI tried a version of that.. for three days?... but not in the current one bucket atmosphere while separating players into non-tagged and tagged players (unit), no actual group/co-op required. So solo players who had no unit made themselves a unit of one.

[KingCobra]

Tarl Cabot, on 24 October 2018 - 03:15 AM, said:

PGI tried a version of that.. for three days?... but not in the current one bucket atmosphere while separating players into non-tagged and tagged players (unit), no actual group/co-op required. So solo players who had no unit made themselves a unit of one.

Yes PGI made a total mess of it and put about 1% effort into making it work the only reason I would like to see it done is player retention and it would be more balanced and fun (remember the IS Vs IS Fp event it was way fun with minimal stomps by premade teams.

Plus it would help rebuild the game and the FP game mode as more new and old player would play the solo FP queues and team groups would have more players to try to recruit but I totally think PGI has bailed on a MWO revival.

[Eisenhorne]

KingCobra, on 23 October 2018 - 05:26 PM, said:

Sounds like FP is all but dead and PGI just wont listen to what's left of its player base Many times I have tried to tell PGI the only way FP will work again is to repopulate the game and CW game mode starting with splitting the FP queues solo / premade groups and better rewards for solo and premade groups.

No.... you can't split it into two queues, the game has too many queues at it is, and not enough players to fill half of them. If you want to force group vs group only in faction play, the way to do it IMO is to get rid of group quick play entirely, and all group queues go to faction play. So you have solo quick play and group faction play as your options.

[McGoat]

^
Which would kill the game even further.
Not everyone want's to play FP, group or no group.

[Nightbird]

Better to improve the modes we have. Solaris needs one queue only, with the MM weighing mech chassis and loadout rather than the dumb divs that put incompatible mechs together. QP needs to replace the Tiers with something that actually represents skill. No new art assets, mechanics, modes, or queues needed. w/e

[MischiefSC]

Matchmaking will always suffer to low population. Because MWO doesn't really have balance between tonnage (mediums are worse than heavies and lights are mostly terrible by comparison) it has to balance skill AND tonnage.

Hmmm. What if we took something sorta like the proposal for FW out to QP? Give a mech variant specific Elo modifier and a player specific Elo modifier and adjust payout based on relative team values. So you can make more in QP as a good player taking a bad mech while bad players benefit more from good mechs (win more).

I think it's a good carrot system.

[50 50]

Eisenhorne, on 24 October 2018 - 07:09 AM, said:

No.... you can't split it into two queues, the game has too many queues at it is, and not enough players to fill half of them. If you want to force group vs group only in faction play, the way to do it IMO is to get rid of group quick play entirely, and all group queues go to faction play. So you have solo quick play and group faction play as your options.

Need to seriously reduce the number of queues and then it's more reasonable.
There's more than 20 at the moment which is mind boggling really.

[KingCobra]

Eisenhorne, on 24 October 2018 - 07:09 AM, said:

No.... you can't split it into two queues, the game has too many queues at it is, and not enough players to fill half of them. If you want to force group vs group only in faction play, the way to do it IMO is to get rid of group quick play entirely, and all group queues go to faction play. So you have solo quick play and group faction play as your options.

You would have 7
QP = solo/group
Fp = solo/group
Solaris = 1 group 4 divisions / Assaults/Heavy's/Mediums/Lights/Free-for-all
Private Play
Comp Play

How is that 20? And would fix a lot of game play issues for all game modes.

Edited by KingCobra, 25 October 2018 - 05:23 AM.

[Yondu Udonta]

I think this idea is pretty good and the cbills/LP penalty should affect based on whether you are already maxed in a faction so cbills penalty if maxed and LP penalty if not maxed. Problem is on PGI's side, if they ain't gonna do **** about it nothing's gonna happen.

Also measuring based on WLR is good as it can kinda fix certain not-as-essential problems like gen-rushing scums or objective gamers who do whatever it takes to inflate their WLR as eventually the rewards penalty will disincentivize them from just simply dumping mechs at objectives.

However I think that the WLR penalty should be based individually though, because of the fact that ****'s gonna go down if one person accidentally or intentionally decides to bring more tonnage resulting in the entire team getting a penalty. Also it wouldn't impede noobs as much when they have to play with a huge handicap because they got into a lobby with a big stack.

[Spheroid]

A -50% penalty is nothing. That is still 750k on matches where top tier seal clubbers were earning 1.5 million. Your premise predisposes that large premades are income sensitive. I submit to you they are not. They already forego the most important type of currency, that of loyalty points when they break contract and tech faction multiple times during an evening.

The max penalty needs to be closer to 80% and it needs to scale with premade size in a manner similar tonnage in group play.

Also there are numerous frontloaded dropdecks that would incur no or minimal penalty. A 12 man using MadCats could easily wipe two waves of pugs for little return damage. What you bring for the remaining drops is almost immaterial.

The problem is FP as it is structured now allows too much collusion. Factions should be the enemies of other factions and units should be rivals of each other, not partners. Break the size of the premades through severe penalties and make it so factions of the same tech base fight each other. This simple change would instantly address population imbalance's negative effect on wait times and throw a monkey wrench into attempts of sync dropping collusion. It would take as little as a 2-4x increase in pugs to cripple same faction sync dropping. That could be done with some sort of long duration faction event with rewards.

[Eisenhorne]

Spheroid, on 25 October 2018 - 09:10 AM, said:

They already forego the most important type of currency, that of loyalty points when they break contract and tech faction multiple times during an evening.

This is fundamentally incorrect. I'll switch factions to clan and back multiple times a night sometimes, and never miss getting loyalty points. You can go loyalist to a clan faction, then if you want to drop IS, break loyalty and pick up a Merc contract. There is no probation matches for going Merc, and there is no probation period if you switch back to loyalist from merc as long as you don't take another loyalist contact in the meantime.

Spheroid, on 25 October 2018 - 09:10 AM, said:

Also there are numerous frontloaded dropdecks that would incur no or minimal penalty. A 12 man using MadCats could easily wipe two waves of pugs for little return damage. What you bring for the remaining drops is almost immaterial.

While this is true... once the 12 MCII-B's or whatever are killed (and they eventually would be) the pugs would have a significant weight advantage still normally. I've played many games where the score is like ~20-12 at the end of our first wave, and because our second wave is just as heavy as the first, we smash them and win like 48-18. If our second and third waves were significantly under tonned because we front-loaded, the pugs would do better against them, and we'd end the game like 48-30 or something instead. We'd still win, but the margin would be a bit closer, and the pugs would get a bigger payday.

[Marquis De Lafayette]

Love the general idea, love the idea of LP gain being influenced by tonnage....just not sure reduced c-bills would really motivate any veteran teams (it might for the “training units” that have new players mixed in) to drop less tonnage because of this reduction. Most of the players posting here are FW regulars (and good FW players).....who amongst us really needs c-bills at this point? Maybe I am wrong and you guys aren’t sitting on 100 million+.....but my impression is a lot of vets are. I would be glad to see this idea happen, I just want it to be something that might actually motivate us to take more “tonnage cuts” Vs. PUG’s (in particular) by potentially making it more meaningful if we don’t cut vs. pug or terrible groups.

Edit: Would gxp matter more than c-bills? I find it useful for Solaris ...so it matters to me anyway. Something like a big multiplier to go light

Edited by Marquis De Lafayette, 25 October 2018 - 10:05 AM.

[Nightbird]

Yondu Udonta, on 25 October 2018 - 06:37 AM, said:

However I think that the WLR penalty should be based individually though, because of the fact that ****'s gonna go down if one person accidentally or intentionally decides to bring more tonnage resulting in the entire team getting a penalty. Also it wouldn't impede noobs as much when they have to play with a huge handicap because they got into a lobby with a big stack.

Whether a handicap is needed is assessed at the team level. The handicap taken and penalty/bonus is assessed individually. If a player doesn't reduce their tonnage, only they would get the penalty. I understand the point that a newbie shouldn't get a penalty if being carried, but the bottom line is they are on a strong team. Maybe we can revisit this later, assuming this idea ever sees the light of day.

[50 50]

KingCobra, on 25 October 2018 - 05:18 AM, said:

You would have 7
QP = solo/group
Fp = solo/group
Solaris = 1 group 4 divisions / Assaults/Heavy's/Mediums/Lights/Free-for-all
Private Play
Comp Play

How is that 20? And would fix a lot of game play issues for all game modes.

7x Solaris 1v1 queues
7x Solaris 2v2 queues
... because of the divisions.
3x Quick play solo queues
3x Quick play group queues.
... because we can select the servers to play on and therefore divide up the population.
1x scouting queue
1x invasion queue

Private lobby during the league seasons gets used and is another spot.
Same with the comp queue when it's gearing up towards the world cup.

Nightbird, on 25 October 2018 - 10:04 AM, said:

Whether a handicap is needed is assessed at the team level. The handicap taken and penalty/bonus is assessed individually. If a player doesn't reduce their tonnage, only they would get the penalty. I understand the point that a newbie shouldn't get a penalty if being carried, but the bottom line is they are on a strong team. Maybe we can revisit this later, assuming this idea ever sees the light of day.

Would it be simpler just as an incentive at an individual level?
IF you play with less than maximum tonnage you get a bonus on the payout? Maybe only as a win though as the idea of handicapping yourself to get a bonus on a loss seems counter productive to the idea.
But players who know they are good enough and elect to take lower tonnage to both challenge themselves and reap the potential reward can simply do so at any time.
It wouldn't seem like forcing an affect on players, wouldn't require that initial calculation up front and is purely a player risk/reward choice regardless of opponent.

[Nightbird]

50 50, on 25 October 2018 - 01:47 PM, said:

Would it be simpler just as an incentive at an individual level?
IF you play with less than maximum tonnage you get a bonus on the payout? Maybe only as a win though as the idea of handicapping yourself to get a bonus on a loss seems counter productive to the idea.
But players who know they are good enough and elect to take lower tonnage to both challenge themselves and reap the potential reward can simply do so at any time.
It wouldn't seem like forcing an affect on players, wouldn't require that initial calculation up front and is purely a player risk/reward choice regardless of opponent.

If you don't know how strong the other team is, taking less than maximum means you're risking a loss. Most good players wouldn't be willing to do that.

Also, it's easier to give a big penalty for PGI than a big bonus. For example, if you're asked to give up 20 tons or face a -50% CB and LP earning, most people will give up the tons. How much of a bonus would PGI be willing to offer to get people to give up 20 tons? 5%?

The handicap system is to encourage the stronger team to take the least tons possible to win. They'll still win, but the final score will be a lot closer. If the score is close, the loss will not feel nearly as bad to the weaker team, both in terms of cbill earning and having complete stomps be less common.

Edited by Nightbird, 25 October 2018 - 02:41 PM.

[HARDKOR]

Make a DTF cue with it's own drop deck where you have mechs selected for each possible game type,for people who have mechs ready for everything, and give those people instadrop as they fill holes across the galaxy.

[justcallme A S H]

KingCobra, on 25 October 2018 - 05:18 AM, said:

You would have 7
QP = solo/group
Fp = solo/group
Solaris = 1 group 4 divisions / Assaults/Heavy's/Mediums/Lights/Free-for-all
Private Play
Comp Play

How is that 20? And would fix a lot of game play issues for all game modes.

As usual - you just don't get it.

Solo's need groups and group need solo - that is just how it is in Faction Play and has been for the 3 years I've played it... And by play it, I mean actively. Not drop once in a while or hide behind a alt and "claim" I play regularly when I don't.


There has never been enough groups to have a split queue. Likewise for solo players. There is a ~3hr window in the Noth America phase where it might possibly work but that is it. Anyone that plays the mode regularly or understands it, knows why.

[50 50]

Nightbird, on 25 October 2018 - 02:40 PM, said:

If you don't know how strong the other team is, taking less than maximum means you're risking a loss. Most good players wouldn't be willing to do that.

Also, it's easier to give a big penalty for PGI than a big bonus. For example, if you're asked to give up 20 tons or face a -50% CB and LP earning, most people will give up the tons. How much of a bonus would PGI be willing to offer to get people to give up 20 tons? 5%?

The handicap system is to encourage the stronger team to take the least tons possible to win. They'll still win, but the final score will be a lot closer. If the score is close, the loss will not feel nearly as bad to the weaker team, both in terms of cbill earning and having complete stomps be less common.

I like it.

I feel like it's a small little addition that could create a difference.