270 replies to this topic

[Nightbird]

Gully D, on 06 December 2018 - 06:48 PM, said:

This may be super controversial, could winners of last game only drop 11? and then only 10?
IDK the mechanics, but maybe 12 shooting 11 is easier than variables of tonnage?

(i know this may be super hard to do, matc hmake, cue etc. but a thought)

This disregards the strength of the other team. You can win 3 times against pugs and then face a strong team, would you have to make do with 9 people?

[Tarl Cabot]

Just to add what Paul posted in his other thread that falls in the same line of thought....

Paul Inouye, on 06 December 2018 - 05:29 PM, said:

Just want to throw this out there. There's talk here about the tonnage restrictions for high level teams.

Earning 'Mechs and buying 'Mechs is an invested part of MWO. Limiting an entire team by a significant tonnage difference is a rather steep wall of saying "you can't play those 'Mechs because you're too good in them". Also, as others have pointed out... a team of well organized, high-level players is still going to win even with a big tonnage restriction in-place.

The MM doesn't know of a team's reputation from previous wins. Does the 8392th Deuces always drop 12 man? What if there are 2 players from 8392th Deuces on a team with a bunch of random pugs? Do the rest of the pugs get hit with the tonnage restriction because of those 2? Take an average W/L? An average is not going to work because there are so many permutations to a player's success rating that an average will favor high skilled players because averages pull top players down and bottom players up. 4 high skilled players far outweighs the 4 lower skilled players on the team in terms of battlefield success.

Does the tonnage restriction change based on the team ranking? That's going to be a logistical nightmare for teams having to change drop decks on the fly (even after we increase the number of drop decks you can have). If you're on the lower 'ranking' team, who gets the extra tonnage? Who's allowed to take heavier 'Mechs now that the team you're facing is 'better' than yours?

[Nightbird]

I replied pretty nicely in the other thread, basically

1. The better team will win but it won't feel like a stomp if you tune the handicap right (no spawn camping, closer score)
2. The MM doesn't need to use it, it's a tonnage adjustment, calculate it once a lobby is made
3. The exact formula can be worked out, but no trying at all is tantamount to not attempting to fix the <bad for player pop game experience>. Nothing else listed even attempts to improve gameplay.

Edited by Nightbird, 06 December 2018 - 09:00 PM.

[Gully D]

Nightbird, on 06 December 2018 - 07:02 PM, said:

This disregards the strength of the other team. You can win 3 times against pugs and then face a strong team, would you have to make do with 9 people?

Hey Nightbird thanks for replying
So I don't know. I'm throwing ideas out there? for people to comment and thanks for doing that !

Well if you win three in a row lets say that means you've won with 12 then 11 then 10 man teams. Ok so now lets say you lost at 9 man group. I think that's ok even fantastic. It means you won 3 out of 4 games which i still really excellent. And it means that the groups or pug group you ran against hung in there for 4 games, which is unbelievable considering most pugs wont drop again if they lose twice or last till a fourth drop. So then a group of 9 then gets to be 10 again. Close games are the best games, and i think most would agree.

IDK if this is at all possible but hey if a 9 man beats a 12 man whoa that's cool as.

thanks all

[Khobai]

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

1. The better team will win but it won't feel like a stomp if you tune the handicap right (no spawn camping, closer score)

of course it will still feel like a stomp

throwing extra cbills doesnt fix the problem. its just the equivalent of handing someone lube before bending them over.

great youve just made things really bad instead of completely terrible. thats not good enough to save faction play. no one is gonna sign up for tubes of lube.

the problem of elite units stomping inexperienced units/pugs needs an actual solution. if theres 6 elite players on one team and no other elite players in queue to stick on the other team, then the matchmaker needs to split all the elite players evenly between the two teams. thats the only way you can get fair teams.

will people dislike not being able to play with their friends? probably. but the games will be balanced much better than if you let them all stack on one team and stomp the !@#$ out of less experienced players. thats just the reality of what needs to happen in the current low population environment; matchmaker needs to split up groups.

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

2. The MM doesn't need to use it, it's a tonnage adjustment, calculate it once a lobby is made

I dont like the idea of tonnage adjustments. because higher tonnage mechs arnt always better than lower tonnage mechs. especially in faction play. it wouldnt work unless you significantly reduced the tonnage available to elite units so theyd have to use mediums instead of heavies. And im not sure that would be very fun.

Unfortunately any of the solutions that would actually work are going to piss people off.

Edited by Khobai, 07 December 2018 - 10:40 PM.

[Nightbird]

Khobai, on 07 December 2018 - 10:27 PM, said:

of course it will still feel like a stomp

If turning a 10-48 match score into a 30-48 match score isn't good enough for you, then you can keep your 10-48 match score. I mean, doing nothing means nothing changes.

[vonJerg]

Hmmm, anyone have an idea how to reward good players to pick up less skilled ones in order to help them learn and improve?

[Khobai]

Nightbird, on 07 December 2018 - 11:23 PM, said:

If turning a 10-48 match score into a 30-48 match score isn't good enough for you, then you can keep your 10-48 match score. I mean, doing nothing means nothing changes.

I didnt say do nothing. I said matchmaker should split up groups.

say you have an elite group that joins the queue. matchmaker should first try to create an opposing group of equal average skill level and if it cant do that it should split up the elite group to create two groups that are as equal in average skill level as possible.

at least then both teams would have close to same average skill level. thats not saying stomps wont still happen, but at least you wont lose 100% of the time. youll have a chance depending on how the elite group was split up. instead of having no chance at all.

Edited by Khobai, 08 December 2018 - 10:10 AM.

[Grus]

vonJerg, on 08 December 2018 - 05:28 AM, said:

Hmmm, anyone have an idea how to reward good players to pick up less skilled ones in order to help them learn and improve?

Kinda like a Coach... i think DOTA has something like that but i dont know if youre rewarded.

Maybe coach X games and get a free color? Or something like that.

[Spheroid]

Khobai, on 08 December 2018 - 10:02 AM, said:

I said matchmaker should split up groups.

Unfortunately there simply are not enough players on concurrently to enable a split. During North American primetime there are perhaps 1.5 premades on Clan with maybe two on I.S. with a small number of pugs drifting in the either.

The only way you could enable matchmaking is by stripping players of their chosen tech base or faction. How do you have a Clan civil war with fewer than twenty-four players? How do you have a civil war if a full twenty-four players is all of one faction? What planet are they fighting over?

Edited by Spheroid, 08 December 2018 - 10:57 AM.

[Nightbird]

Khobai, on 08 December 2018 - 10:02 AM, said:

I didnt say do nothing. I said matchmaker should split up groups.

Do you not have any friends?

[Nightbird]

Gully D, on 07 December 2018 - 12:11 AM, said:

Hey Nightbird thanks for replying
So I don't know. I'm throwing ideas out there? for people to comment and thanks for doing that !

Well if you win three in a row lets say that means you've won with 12 then 11 then 10 man teams. Ok so now lets say you lost at 9 man group. I think that's ok even fantastic. It means you won 3 out of 4 games which i still really excellent. And it means that the groups or pug group you ran against hung in there for 4 games, which is unbelievable considering most pugs wont drop again if they lose twice or last till a fourth drop. So then a group of 9 then gets to be 10 again. Close games are the best games, and i think most would agree.

IDK if this is at all possible but hey if a 9 man beats a 12 man whoa that's cool as.

thanks all

Hey no problem, sorry if I came off strong I was just thinking. As someone who holds the hammer often, I wouldn't be happy having to kick person per win, and I'm sure the people kicked won't be happy either lol!

Edited by Nightbird, 08 December 2018 - 11:44 AM.

[Grus]

Nightbird, on 08 December 2018 - 10:59 AM, said:

Do you not have any friends?

Because he needs more lol jk

[Khobai]

Nightbird, on 08 December 2018 - 10:59 AM, said:

Do you not have any friends?

Most of my friends quit the game. Its the same story for a lot of people.

But regardless Id rather games be balanced so more people are encouraged to play faction play. If the game has to split my group up to balance the teams out im fine with that

Like I said it would be a last resort to balance teams if matchmaker cant find equally skilled players in the queue and has to split teams up to make sure both teams have equally skilled players. It would only happen if matchmaker cant find enough skilled players to build an equally skilled opposing team.

As long as the game allows team stacking the quality of games will NEVER improve. Thats a fact. Team stacking is a huge problem especially in a low population environment. Because it makes even more people quit. Offering more cbills for losing wont change that.

The only people that have a problem with my idea are the ones that want to play with their friends and dont care whether it imbalances the game or not. Those type of people are a cancer on the game. Not because they want to play with their friends, but because they arnt willing to give up not always being able to play with their friends in order to ensure better balanced matches. That unwillingness to compromise is what makes those people toxic.

Again your solution is terrible. Offering more cbills for losing is a horrible solution. That doesnt fix unbalanced team stacking. The only sure way to fix that at this point is to split up the elite deathstacks and divide those players between both teams. Its sad that the state of the game has come to that but it is what it is. Otherwise its just going to be pug stomps as usual... PGI's new matchmaker will change nothing if it doesnt match the skill level of players.

Edited by Khobai, 08 December 2018 - 08:13 PM.

[Nightbird]

So because you have no friends you want other groups to split up and fight each other automatically... yeah... do that and the pop drops by 50% in one day.

[Khobai]

Nightbird, on 08 December 2018 - 08:30 PM, said:

So because you have no friends you want other groups to split up and fight each other automatically... yeah... do that and the pop drops by 50% in one day.

thats a strawman argument.

whether or not someone has friends has nothing to do with games being balanced or not.

you could have 11 friends that are all bad/mediocre at the game and still lose 100% of the time to 12 people who are good/exceptional at the game because the game doesnt balance the teams properly.

the expectation of always being able to play with your friends amounts to nothing more than entitlement. its what YOU want and not whats best for the game. Whats best for the game is having reasonably balanced teams. Especially since 95% of players are solo players or only play with 1-2 friends .

The selfishness of players that want to play with their friends, team stack, stat pad, and pugstomp all day long is whats killing this game. And the population is not going to stabilize as long as thats allowed to continue.

PGI tried it your way and it obviously doesnt work. The population numbers speak for themselves. The game needs to have a mechanism for splitting up large deathstacks in order to balance the teams better. Otherwise the predatory behavior and pugstomping is just going to continue and players will keep not playing faction warfare or even quit altogether.

Edited by Khobai, 09 December 2018 - 03:24 PM.

[Nightbird]

LOL, you don't know what a strawman argument is, since you're using one. PGI has never tried it my way.

[Lichtsteiner]

I like the idea of something changing, but cant help but be confused.

You and some of your guys want to help build the FW community while bashing the player base?

I mean just last night i accidentally brought LRMS and got assaulted by you and some of your group.....on and on about how bad a player i was.
So ya definitely lets bring more new players in to that environment and see how long they stay.

Anyways.....i don't think Evil and BCMC should have to regulate their group to get matches. I think its time PGI does regulate its own game and balance. So any change at this point would be good.

I would be happy with the lesser skilled side getting Defense on assault maps.

Edited by Lichtsteiner, 10 December 2018 - 08:40 AM.

[Nightbird]

Lichtsteiner, on 10 December 2018 - 08:39 AM, said:

You and some of your guys want to help build the FW community while bashing the player base?

I can only be responsible for myself. Show me bashing someone and I'll apologize for it. All chat is pretty much a swamp, everyone throws insults and hackusations into it, and I'm certainly not going to try to police it.

Edited by Nightbird, 10 December 2018 - 09:57 AM.

[Shanrak]

Just throwing out some ideas here from left field. There are a few issues here and have to be addressed separately.

1. How to identify stronger teams.
2. How to entice weaker players to play.
2. How to handicap stronger teams fairly without limiting their fun.

1. Individual SSR/Elo is obviously a good starting point. Maybe amplify each SSR based on group size, by as much as 1.5 for a full 12 man. This ratio can be fine tuned for better balance.
2. Once the relative skill of each side is determined decide on an appropriate reward amount, so the weaker side gets better rewards. The bigger the disparity the bigger the reward. Also maybe reward top 3 players on each side a small MC bonus (~10-15).
3. A few ideas here:
- One way MOBAs handle a level disparity is drastically increased respawn times for the winning team. Perhaps increase respawn timers as the kill ratio gets skewed more to one side. That gives the losing team a better chance to take objective.
- Get rid of scouting mode and give the losing side the scouting bonuses. Side with weaker players get combat ID. First side to 12 deaths gets radar sweep. First to 20 gets air support etc.
- Strengthen spawn location defences. Don't make it impossible but definitely make it require a concerted effort to push the spawn.