41 replies to this topic

[Renegade Commander Shepard]

Hi Piranha team. I would like to focus on some points that are making the game become somewhat weird in quick play. I see there are many new players coming to try it. There are channels from youtube and streamers that help to spread etc. That's nice. The more players the better. The problem is when the match starts. More precisely at the time when teams are created. I play since 2013 and at that time, even when my team suffered a loss, it was a lot of fun most of the time. The teams were balanced, there was competition. Today, before writing this message, I played several matchs. In all of them, on my team, most of the players were recruits, I say that when I watch them play. They are still lost, learning the maps, getting used to the mechs. Result: our team being destroyed in a short time. We managed to get two or three mechs from the enemy and that's all. There is no fun in this and many novices will uninstall the game. It's not good for us gamers, and not for you developers. I don’t know why this is happening. If groups of veterans are able to cheat something and get together or if it is a poor choice of the game itself. If there are people being smart and coming into a group, you have to be smarter than them and change that. Sorry for the errors in the text, I'm Brazilian and I'm still learning English. Greetings and keep up the great work.

in game, Renegade Commander Shepard

Edited by Renegade Commander Shepard, 06 December 2018 - 09:34 PM.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

MWO's design, like any game without respawns (but especially ones with high time to kill, defined as generally taking more than one volley of fire to eliminate a player from the game- as opposed to games like CounterStrike, where kills are almost always instantaneous), will promote snowballing. "Stomps"- matches where the losing team gets few, if any kills, will inevitably be more common than close matches where the result is nearly tied.

11v12 is still a close game, but a 10v12 allows several simultaneous unequal trades, and it just gets worse from there. If your team loses 'Mechs early, and fails to kill any enemies around the same time, the likelihood of further losses increases and the likelihood of scoring any of your own kills decreases. The enemy can afford to have players waiting at-ready for your teammates to peek out and trade, because there is no longer an equal opposite for that "spare" they've picked up, allowing them to always get the first shots in every time your teams trade volleys. The enemy, seeing their advantage, becomes more confident, even as your team becomes more timid. Soon you've got a 12v6, the enemy is trading two-for-one, and any kills after that point are basically down to luck. As your team gets weaker, the enemy team (effectively) gets stronger.

Someone did a mathematical analysis of the snowball effect at one point, though I forget who or when. Basically, unless you're dealing with uncommonly even teams, a stomp is by far the most likely outcome for any match. Even a slight lead, with teams of only a dozen players each, can quickly become insurmountable and produce a severely lopsided result. There's not really anything PGI can do to the matchmaker to eliminate snowballing, because the slightest imbalance- even down to one otherwise-good player yawning at the wrong moment- can lead into a stomp loss because a critical shot was missed.

Any perception of it ever having been otherwise is likely your own memory recalling the close, tense, exciting games in preference to the ones with more common outcomes. Humans are weird like that.

Edited by WrathOfDeadguy, 06 December 2018 - 11:14 PM.

[GeminiWolf]

No creo que haya nada que la PGI pueda hacer sobre los niveles de habilidad del jugador. En el 2013, muchos de los jugadores eran nuevos y estaban aprendiendo el juego, ahora hay una mezcla de jugadores nuevos y veteranos, lo que lleva a la mayoría de los partidos.

[TechChris]

To answer the the "Title Questions".....

IMO***.....

Sure seems so. They started with the buffing LRMs patch , then continued to kill what fun they could with each patch since this year (or its just been an inconsequential patch of nothing) or has been a complete letdown like Mechcon announcements....

As to the "snowballing".....well that's always been a part the game since it lacks respawns (Don't get any Ideas PGI, at this point no respawn about all thats keeping this from being Mech Of Duty.) but ever since the October patch were they brilliantly lowered heat cap and excessively raised heat dissipation (In an attempt to curb the laser vomit/Giga alpha strikes of Doom. Which good job there. 80-90 point alphas that happened once in a Blue moon are gone now. Replaced by 50-60 point alphas 3 times as often.) so now every mech has massive DPS which turns the "Snowballing" into more then not "Avalanching". Just how the mechanics of the game add up now.

Is what it is. Long as game continues to be F2P and I dont have to spend another penny, I've more then enough mechs/cbills/MC/etc to still stick around n play a few when I need to kill some time, so is what it is. The key is to just stop "caring" and find what time killing enjoyment ya can in the mindless run-around DPS peekaboo Nascar fest that we still have......then its least still good for mindlessly killing some time before bed.




*** This is simply one fellas opinion. For 5 years plus I've watched them "struggle" with this game, and for the most I just adapted, excepted it as it was, and kept going.......but this year. I really do feel they've been trying to patch out the fun in the game one month at a time, and there desperately trying to keep who they can here with constant sales and events, until they can get MW5 out the door.....then God only knows if they'll even care THAT much anymore???

Edited by TechChris, 06 December 2018 - 11:41 PM.

[Jackal Noble]

“This is Commander Shepherd, and this is my favorite store on the Citadel”
Sorry had to get that out of my head.

Ya qp is in a suuuper weird place. I drop qp a lot at all hours and there really is no rhyme or reason. I can at times, definitively call a match outcome depending on who is on what side. It’s not just that but MM seemingly throws better players on one side heavily weighing the way the game plays out. It can be frustrating, especially if you go from having a string of great matches, to being killed early only to spectate Captain Derfningus wall around in a kodiak that only has lrms with 0 secondaries and ends with a match score of 28.

[TechChris]

Jackal Noble, on 06 December 2018 - 11:41 PM, said:

only to spectate Captain Derfningus wall around in a kodiak that only has lrms with 0 secondaries and ends with a match score of 28.

Or like I just did......duking it out on Crimson Strait....Doing good for first bit.....Then enemies start rackin up kills left n right suddenly n your not sure how they did when ya had a 2 mech lead a sec ago.....then ya get to spectate and you realize your remaining teammates are a Stalker with ONLY LRMs shooting a COM at 10m, a Mauler with only LRMs plus 2 Small lasers as backup mostly shooting the buildings, and a pair of Timbys with LRMs And At Least some ERMLs that are basically now the only ones doing any damage to anything cause they least have those ERMLs.......Least watchin the COM pick apart the Stalker Piece By Piece By Piece was amusing, got the little bugger an absurd end game score!

Edited by TechChris, 07 December 2018 - 12:04 AM.

[Gully D]

Renegade Commander Shepard, on 06 December 2018 - 09:29 PM, said:

Hi Piranha team. I would like to focus on some points that are making the game become somewhat weird in quick play. I see there are many new players coming to try it. There are channels from youtube and streamers that help to spread etc. That's nice. The more players the better. The problem is when the match starts. More precisely at the time when teams are created. I play since 2013 and at that time, even when my team suffered a loss, it was a lot of fun most of the time. The teams were balanced, there was competition. Today, before writing this message, I played several matchs. In all of them, on my team, most of the players were recruits, I say that when I watch them play. They are still lost, learning the maps, getting used to the mechs. Result: our team being destroyed in a short time. We managed to get two or three mechs from the enemy and that's all. There is no fun in this and many novices will uninstall the game. It's not good for us gamers, and not for you developers. I don’t know why this is happening. If groups of veterans are able to cheat something and get together or if it is a poor choice of the game itself. If there are people being smart and coming into a group, you have to be smarter than them and change that. Sorry for the errors in the text, I'm Brazilian and I'm still learning English. Greetings and keep up the great work.

in game, Renegade Commander Shepard

Hey i agree and there might be so few players that tier 1 get dropped with tier 5
which is really kinda scary

[Asym]

Fun is NOT a measured metric in any game researched these past three years... Some went down the rabbit hole equating balance to fun..........if the game was balanced, the game would be fun. The reality is that that's an invalid assumption: cascading losses would still occur but, at a slower rate.... Why? Skill.............

The teams I've been advising, whom are working with a Combat Effectiveness (CE) game MM still, run into the problems that skill, luck or karma seem to generate in FPS's... Take two teams that have equal combat effectiveness and put them on any map.....all it takes is a few bad decisions by just a few pilots and the entire game cascades to one side...... Now, in reduced numbers on teams, as you get lower in numbers, this "randomizing" effect changes...... Even completely balanced teams experience one sided losses and when interviews in the After-Action-Review (AAR), fun was still tied to the degree of the loss... Overall though, a better MM produced a better game....

Fun is what you achieve by playing.... Leader board position? A collection of all of the mechs available? The highest number of losses ! Fun is what you do with that precious commodity many don't have a lot of: time.... So, if you are a Kamikaze that runs head long into the advancing horde, screaming words of wisdom and actually do some damage: was that fun for you and if so, well done !!!! Maybe, next game I'll follow you !!!! And, to be honest, a while ago, after everyone on my team left the game, I tried that approach "for the fun of it" and we won a lot of games when a few other players tagged along.......... Was it a "smart thing to do"? No,but it was a lot of FUN..........

Food for thought.

Edited by Asym, 07 December 2018 - 06:24 AM.

[Renegade Commander Shepard]

WrathOfDeadguy, on 06 December 2018 - 11:13 PM, said:

MWO's design, like any game without respawns (but especially ones with high time to kill, defined as generally taking more than one volley of fire to eliminate a player from the game- as opposed to games like CounterStrike, where kills are almost always instantaneous), will promote snowballing. "Stomps"- matches where the losing team gets few, if any kills, will inevitably be more common than close matches where the result is nearly tied.

11v12 is still a close game, but a 10v12 allows several simultaneous unequal trades, and it just gets worse from there. If your team loses 'Mechs early, and fails to kill any enemies around the same time, the likelihood of further losses increases and the likelihood of scoring any of your own kills decreases. The enemy can afford to have players waiting at-ready for your teammates to peek out and trade, because there is no longer an equal opposite for that "spare" they've picked up, allowing them to always get the first shots in every time your teams trade volleys. The enemy, seeing their advantage, becomes more confident, even as your team becomes more timid. Soon you've got a 12v6, the enemy is trading two-for-one, and any kills after that point are basically down to luck. As your team gets weaker, the enemy team (effectively) gets stronger.

Someone did a mathematical analysis of the snowball effect at one point, though I forget who or when. Basically, unless you're dealing with uncommonly even teams, a stomp is by far the most likely outcome for any match. Even a slight lead, with teams of only a dozen players each, can quickly become insurmountable and produce a severely lopsided result. There's not really anything PGI can do to the matchmaker to eliminate snowballing, because the slightest imbalance- even down to one otherwise-good player yawning at the wrong moment- can lead into a stomp loss because a critical shot was missed.

Any perception of it ever having been otherwise is likely your own memory recalling the close, tense, exciting games in preference to the ones with more common outcomes. Humans are weird like that.

Hey, WrathOfDeadguy. The fact that two teams are equivalent diminishes the chance of what you said happens and even if it happens it is fun because players can effectively counter attack. The snowball effect and the trade is disastrous on a team where most players are newbies and the one that is attacking already has experience.

[Renegade Commander Shepard]

GeminiWolf, on 06 December 2018 - 11:16 PM, said:

No creo que haya nada que la PGI pueda hacer sobre los niveles de habilidad del jugador. En el 2013, muchos de los jugadores eran nuevos y estaban aprendiendo el juego, ahora hay una mezcla de jugadores nuevos y veteranos, lo que lleva a la mayoría de los partidos.

Hey, GeminiWolf. Precisely. If in 2013 most of the players were learning and on the same level, then the matches were balanced. Nowadays, if there are a mix of old and new players, there must be a system that balances. If today teams are formed for example by nine veterans/intermediates and three beginners. And the other team by nine beginners and three veterans/intermediates, is a failed situation. The match will not be fun.

Edited by Renegade Commander Shepard, 07 December 2018 - 09:32 AM.

[Dimento Graven]

Renegade Commander Shepard, on 07 December 2018 - 09:30 AM, said:

Hey, GeminiWolf. Precisely. If in 2013 most of the players were learning and on the same level, then the matches were balanced. Nowadays, if there are a mix of old and new players, there must be a system that balances. If today teams are formed for example by nine veterans/intermediates and three beginners. And the other team by nine beginners and three veterans/intermediates, is a failed situation. The match will not be fun.

A new game mode popped into my when I read this, two queues for solo quick play:

Recruit
Veteran

A recruit would be a person who has played less than a certain number of games, whatever arbitrary number we believe a person requires before they are at least 'consciously competent' at playing the game. This queue would keep those players isolated among themselves, HOWEVER, vets could join in the recruit queue, but their 'mechs would be saddled by SERIOUS modifiers (extra heat/halved movement rates/half the weapons disabled/etc.).

Veterans would have their own queue that under no circumstances would a recruit be allowed to join.

I dunno... Maybe it's just more of the same now that I typed it out, but something 'feels' different about that...

[IronWatch]

As far as I can tell this whole thread is basically 'There are new players and they aren't as skilled as experienced players'
And uh, yeah you're definitely right there but what are you actually complaining about? Sounds like a problem that solves itself once you're out of tiers 4 and 5

Edited by IronWatch, 07 December 2018 - 10:02 AM.

[Renegade Commander Shepard]

Jackal Noble, on 06 December 2018 - 11:41 PM, said:

“This is Commander Shepherd, and this is my favorite store on the Citadel”
Sorry had to get that out of my head.

Ya qp is in a suuuper weird place. I drop qp a lot at all hours and there really is no rhyme or reason. I can at times, definitively call a match outcome depending on who is on what side. It’s not just that but MM seemingly throws better players on one side heavily weighing the way the game plays out. It can be frustrating, especially if you go from having a string of great matches, to being killed early only to spectate Captain Derfningus wall around in a kodiak that only has lrms with 0 secondaries and ends with a match score of 28.

“This is Commander Shepherd, and this is my favorite store on the Citadel”
hahaha

We need less frustration, more fun. Even losing, the important thing is to have the blessed fun. After all, this is a game.

[Renegade Commander Shepard]

IronWatch, on 07 December 2018 - 09:53 AM, said:

As far as I can tell this whole thread is basically 'There are new players and they aren't as skilled as experienced players'
And uh, yeah you're definitely right there but what are you actually complaining about?

IronWatch, on 07 December 2018 - 09:53 AM, said:

As far as I can tell this whole thread is basically 'There are new players and they aren't as skilled as experienced players'
And uh, yeah you're definitely right there but what are you actually complaining about? Sounds like a problem that solves itself once you're out of tiers 4 and 5

Hi, IronWatch. No. You did not understand the focus of the question. It's not about players who are less experienced than others. But on how to balance teams with new and old players. A very simple example: 24 players are waiting to enter a match. 12 of them are veterans and another 12 are newbies. So the ideal would be to create two teams like this: 6 veterans and 6 beginners in each team. It's about balancing. Something that does not seem to be happening.

[Nightbird]

The official line from PGI is that making matches fun is too hard, so they're not going to try.

Here's the quote:

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?

Direct link, though you may need to read the thread to understand:

https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__6194818

[Renegade Commander Shepard]

Asym, on 07 December 2018 - 06:23 AM, said:

Fun is NOT a measured metric in any game researched these past three years... Some went down the rabbit hole equating balance to fun..........if the game was balanced, the game would be fun. The reality is that that's an invalid assumption: cascading losses would still occur but, at a slower rate.... Why? Skill.............

The teams I've been advising, whom are working with a Combat Effectiveness (CE) game MM still, run into the problems that skill, luck or karma seem to generate in FPS's... Take two teams that have equal combat effectiveness and put them on any map.....all it takes is a few bad decisions by just a few pilots and the entire game cascades to one side...... Now, in reduced numbers on teams, as you get lower in numbers, this "randomizing" effect changes...... Even completely balanced teams experience one sided losses and when interviews in the After-Action-Review (AAR), fun was still tied to the degree of the loss... Overall though, a better MM produced a better game....

Fun is what you achieve by playing.... Leader board position? A collection of all of the mechs available? The highest number of losses ! Fun is what you do with that precious commodity many don't have a lot of: time.... So, if you are a Kamikaze that runs head long into the advancing horde, screaming words of wisdom and actually do some damage: was that fun for you and if so, well done !!!! Maybe, next game I'll follow you !!!! And, to be honest, a while ago, after everyone on my team left the game, I tried that approach "for the fun of it" and we won a lot of games when a few other players tagged along.......... Was it a "smart thing to do"? No,but it was a lot of FUN..........

Food for thought.

Hi, Asym! Yes, actually there are a lot of points to evaluate, I'm focusing on just one. And sometimes doing the unpredictable is really fun.

Nightbird, on 07 December 2018 - 10:17 AM, said:

The official line from PGI is that making matches fun is too hard, so they're not going to try.

Here's the quote:



Direct link, though you may need to read the thread to understand:

https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__6194818

Hey! thanks for the link!

[Renegade Commander Shepard]

Dimento Graven, on 07 December 2018 - 09:46 AM, said:

A new game mode popped into my when I read this, two queues for solo quick play:

Recruit
Veteran

A recruit would be a person who has played less than a certain number of games, whatever arbitrary number we believe a person requires before they are at least 'consciously competent' at playing the game. This queue would keep those players isolated among themselves, HOWEVER, vets could join in the recruit queue, but their 'mechs would be saddled by SERIOUS modifiers (extra heat/halved movement rates/half the weapons disabled/etc.).

Veterans would have their own queue that under no circumstances would a recruit be allowed to join.

I dunno... Maybe it's just more of the same now that I typed it out, but something 'feels' different about that...

Hey, Dimento Graven. Your idea has a very good concept. Really enjoyed.

[CFC Conky]

In a PvP game, new players are going to get killed quickly at first, no way around that. Some games have an offline component as an alternative to jumping right into online play, but not this game. A deeper tutorial would help, but we don't have that either.

There have been lots of topics on how to improve the new player experience and in the end, it all boils down to perseverance until one becomes competent, not necessarily great, but good enough to understand some of the subtleties of the game.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

[Prototelis]

They already have a Queue for "Recruit." It's called Tier 5.

The problem is not the tiers themselves, but the rate at which players move up and not down.

[Dimento Graven]

Prototelis, on 07 December 2018 - 10:39 AM, said:

They already have a Queue for "Recruit." It's called Tier 5.

The problem is not the tiers themselves, but the rate at which players move up and not down.

Yes, yes, the tiering system. The problem is that with the current size of the population the current Tiering system can't be made to work. Hence simplifying it and adding 'modifications' to 'out of bounds' play.

Just spit balling here: Take the Jarl's list, assume anyone in the 80'th percentile or above, after 1000 matches played, is "consciously competent", they're marked as Veteran, and aren't allowed into the Recruit queue without serious handicaps to their 'mech. Making the handicaps to the Vets random for each drop (and maybe sometimes ridiculous - say all weapons hit at their normal range, but only do the same damage as small lasers, and the sound effect changes to a literal "pew-pew!" when fired) could add a lot of comical fun... Nice thing is, if it gets too irritating for the Vet, he can jump back into the Vet queue and play in an unnerfed state. For Vets, playing the recruit queue would have zero effect on their standings, they'd only earn C-bills and that's it.

Until a player plays 1000 matches and gets into the 80th percentile on the Jarl's list, they're a Recruit and won't be allowed to play with the un-nerfed Vets in the Vet queue.

A setup like this "should" reduce the frustration on both sides of the 'potato factor'.

Edited by Dimento Graven, 07 December 2018 - 10:53 AM.