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Frustrations Of An Average Player

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#1 Bushrat

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 12:50 AM

OK, there are several threads that touch on this, but these are my frustrations.

Match maker needs a revamp.... PGI please put some resources on this that will improve gameplay for average player like myself. Many nights I go without a win in 20 + matches, sometimes I'll get on a roll and win several ina row. I don't think my sole efforts have much to do with it. It can't be my fault every time on a 12-0, 12-1, or 12-2 match. Nor can it be my fault on astomp the other way, I think ELO is not a good way to track players skill,,, K/D or, Match score or some combo of those factors,, but ecpereince is not enogh to balance a good match. It make me very discouraged to play the game.

RAC is OP....ad some heat, more jams, or camera shake or smoke to block vision or something to balance it out.

Lights, Lights in Stealth are slightly OP. A good light pilot should be able to do great things, but they seem to be more effective in the hands of a good pilot than an assault is with an equally skilled pilot.

I've joined a great unit, I pay with groups, I try to contibute and play wisely. I try to build effective META builds and successful build for my play style. What else can I do?

PGI please listen to me.... I have spent THOUSANDS of dollars on this game. Don't discourage me from playing, I'll be less likely to spend money on the game if these frustrations continue.

The Devoted,

Bushrat

#2 VigorousApathy

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 01:23 AM

View PostBushrat, on 18 April 2019 - 12:50 AM, said:

OK, there are several threads that touch on this, but these are my frustrations.

Match maker needs a revamp.... PGI please put some resources on this that will improve gameplay for average player like myself. Many nights I go without a win in 20 + matches, sometimes I'll get on a roll and win several ina row. I don't think my sole efforts have much to do with it. It can't be my fault every time on a 12-0, 12-1, or 12-2 match. Nor can it be my fault on astomp the other way, I think ELO is not a good way to track players skill,,, K/D or, Match score or some combo of those factors,, but ecpereince is not enogh to balance a good match. It make me very discouraged to play the game.


This part sounds about right. Definitely agree.

Edited by VigorousApathy, 18 April 2019 - 01:24 AM.


#3 Alienized

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 01:30 AM

you just cant help people that prefer to run instead of fight.
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#4 Gladiolix

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 01:33 AM

Racs are not OP.... They have ramp up time which makes them useless in a peek-a-boo fighting also 10 second jam duration, many times you can just twist and tank an enemy rac user and when they jam just fisnish them off.

Also lights are not OP.. They are still the worst performing class of them all as stated many times in these forums. Stealth lights I don't find performing any better in my hands than lights without stealth, actually vice versa. Maybe I'm just bad at utililising the potential of the stealth but definately not OP.

#5 crazytimes

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 01:33 AM

There are way too few people for any kind of meaningful MM. I am just happy we get matches at least. Late last year it was a 3-4 minute wait for solo QP. That was not cool.

#6 KhanBhacKeD

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 01:33 AM

Elo matchmaker?? Sounds new to me on mwo actually....

Stop complaining about lights, put your *** on a light an try before saying anything. Plus Stealth are good vs under average player and that's all.


Rac does a lot of damage but remember your ennemy just look straight at you, so torso roll and alpha his damn CT. Then use cover it's a high DPS weapon but a low Damage per impact one.

So here is my frustration about people complaining and especially about lights when they have no clue of how it feel to be a light.

#7 Prototelis

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 01:40 AM

First thing;

Most matches end in a 12-4 to 12-0. The more mechs your team loses the harder it is to come back. Thats how long TTK single life PVP games typically play out.

On lights; A skilled assault pilot almost always beats a skilled light pilot. Lights are the lowest scoring worst performing class in the game.

On money spent; First of all, thankyou for supporting a game I enjoy. But I don't see how money spent should mean wins earned.


If you would like some tips for improving your gameplay there are many people here that can help.

I think we all agree that a better matchmaker would be ****, but they don't seem keen on developing one.

Edited by Prototelis, 18 April 2019 - 01:42 AM.


#8 KhanBhacKeD

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 01:57 AM

The money spent argument was more like : I spend money on your game so listen To me pgi.

It's not a reliable argument.

#9 Bud Crue

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 01:58 AM

View PostBushrat, on 18 April 2019 - 12:50 AM, said:


PGI please listen to me.... I have spent THOUSANDS of dollars on this game. Don't discourage me from playing, I'll be less likely to spend money on the game if these frustrations continue.

-Ahem-

On behalf of all game developers everywhere, I’d like to thank you for participating in this game. I hope you enjoyed the game in all of its splendor. I appreciate you, and all the marks like you that have willingly given us THOUSANDS of your dollars (now our dollars, of course) for playing.

Now then, if you would care to step up and try again then perhaps we can give your views of our game the proper consideration that they merit. For another $20 we can provide you with three cards and all you have to do is guess which card the ball is under. What? You wanted to buy a mech pack? My mistake good sir. This game is three card monty. Forgive me. You wanted MWO. That game is on the corner across the street.
————

Dude. This is a game and nothing more. You paid for what you paid for. So did many of us to your level or more. Some are smart and just play for free. How much you spent just proves to PGI that they were apparently doing exactly what you wanted. So step up and play again or don’t, but how much you may have paid in the past is not relevant to PGI’s view of the future. It’s their game. Now step up, and do try to keep your eyes on the cards...or mechs, or whatever trips your trigger.

#10 Sjorpha

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 02:03 AM

The good news is that you seem to be slowly making progress, last season you win rate was 0.95 so you're winning almost half your games, so if you feel like you're losing a lot more than you're winning there is some confirmation bias involved.

You also have a slightly positive kill ratio so even though you only survive in 30% of games you usually kill at least 1 mech.

Your matchscore average is quite low suggesting a low avg damage, but since you score kills maybe you aim is OK? You should probably look primarily at getting your aggression and damage output up.

I checked this on the Jarl's list, not gonna post the link because some people feel shamed by that but I encourage you to use it for tracking your progress. It's a great help.

I agree the mm is bad, you're right about that but it's been **** for a long time and it is what it is.

#11 Snowhawk

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 03:15 AM

View PostSjorpha, on 18 April 2019 - 02:03 AM, said:



I agree the mm is bad, you're right about that but it's been **** for a long time and it is what it is.


Yes the matchmaker is bad and it is what it is….. but why not ask for a Change?
There are so many Posts that there is something wrong with the matchmaker. It's ok that the matchmaker tries to blance the Tiers, but it should also blance the Teams via average matchscore from the last months.

I'm Tier 1, butt it's getting boring when the other Team has several Tier ones like lizzee and Vortex. There can be a huge difference in the same Tier.
I had several Matches where 3 or 4 Players in my Team were not able to reach 100 matchsore. Sometimes I see assaults who are not able to reach even 20 Damage (!)…..

#12 Sjorpha

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 03:56 AM

View PostSnowhawk, on 18 April 2019 - 03:15 AM, said:

Yes the matchmaker is bad and it is what it is….. but why not ask for a Change?
There are so many Posts that there is something wrong with the matchmaker. It's ok that the matchmaker tries to blance the Tiers, but it should also blance the Teams via average matchscore from the last months.

I'm Tier 1, butt it's getting boring when the other Team has several Tier ones like lizzee and Vortex. There can be a huge difference in the same Tier.
I had several Matches where 3 or 4 Players in my Team were not able to reach 100 matchsore. Sometimes I see assaults who are not able to reach even 20 Damage (!)…..


I'm not saying don't ask for a change, a change would be great.

However, there is a lot of confirmation bias to the feeling that you are getting the short end of the stick in matchmaking. In your case your winrate is very close to 1, last 2 seasons it's slightly positive and about 1.1, so if anything the matchmaker favors you.

Bushrat also has a very close to 1 winrate last season, which is also his most active season so far so the best dataset. and he seems to think he's being mismatched to his disadvantage when the stats show he's being matched pretty decently.

There is also more than one way to balance matches, regardless of the accuracy of the rating.

1. You separate matches by ranking. Bad players play with and against other bad players, good players play with and against other good players. This is the current idea behind tiers, but this approach works worse the lower the population is and the mm is forced to abandon the restrictions to puzzle matches together.

2. You balance the total ranking of the teams. Good and bad players can play together, but you make sure there are as many good and bad players on each team, or that the totals add up so one team can have some very good and some bad players and the other can have all average to decent players and it cabe a balanced match. I believe this is the more realistic approach for a low population game like MWO as it doesn't require as many players.

I'd love it to be based on more accurate ratings, as far as I'm concerned they could just use the Jarl's list model directly and matchmake from those rankings. But there is a lot of exaggerations and confirmation bias going on when people complain about the matchmaker.

Random matchmaking is another possibility, many online games like WoT don't have skill based matchmaking at all and people still enjoy those games.

#13 Willard Phule

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 04:01 AM

View PostBushrat, on 18 April 2019 - 12:50 AM, said:

OK, there are several threads that touch on this, but these are my frustrations.

Match maker needs a revamp.... PGI please put some resources on this that will improve gameplay for average player like myself. Many nights I go without a win in 20 + matches, sometimes I'll get on a roll and win several ina row. I don't think my sole efforts have much to do with it. It can't be my fault every time on a 12-0, 12-1, or 12-2 match. Nor can it be my fault on astomp the other way, I think ELO is not a good way to track players skill,,, K/D or, Match score or some combo of those factors,, but ecpereince is not enogh to balance a good match. It make me very discouraged to play the game.


Unless they've changed the MM completely, it was first described as "predicting" which team would win and which would lose...which leads one to believe that it sets one team up for success and the other for failure. I wonder if they've addressed that part yet.

#14 Sjorpha

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 04:14 AM

View PostWillard Phule, on 18 April 2019 - 04:01 AM, said:


Unless they've changed the MM completely, it was first described as "predicting" which team would win and which would lose...which leads one to believe that it sets one team up for success and the other for failure. I wonder if they've addressed that part yet.


Source?
I definitely think that's a misconception. The original matchmaker was ELO based, and tried to match total ELO of the two teams as close as possible, a "prediction" of the higher ranked team winning more often was used when adjusting ELO afterwards, in the sense that you'd gain more ELO if you'd beat a higher ranked opponent, just like in chess and other ELO based rankings.

The current matchmaker is more simplistic, as I understand it it just tries to put players in the same tier in the same match as far as it can, and then widens to a larger range of tiers when it can't, and there isn't really any considerations beyond that unless it considers PSR difference with in a tier as well?. As the positive bias puts such a large portion of the player base at maxed out tier 1 you can say there isn't much of a matchmaker in MWO after you've reached tier 1.

The idea that the matchmaker would intentionally set up a team to win or lose seems very far fetched, not only is it a weird idea but it would actually be pretty hard to do. In current tier 1 it would actually be impossible as the MM doesn't even know the skill difference between players after they max it out, so it has no real way to set up a team to win or lose.

Edited by Sjorpha, 18 April 2019 - 04:15 AM.


#15 Xeno Phalcon

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 04:36 AM

Matchmaker is absolute crap but with such a small player pool it cant really be helped - still dont like being shoehorned into a 50/50 w/l. (anyone that thinks otherwise of the solo QP MM hasn't been paying any attention....like ever.)

Racs main claim to fame right now is the ability to absolutely blind someone if your aiming near their cockpit like how AC2s used to be, tone down that absurd flash and they would be much less potent due to facetime/jam.

#16 Curccu

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 05:01 AM

View PostBushrat, on 18 April 2019 - 12:50 AM, said:


RAC is OP....ad some heat, more jams, or camera shake or smoke to block vision or something to balance it out.

Don't stare them, helps alot. PS. RAC5s are stupid bad.

View PostBushrat, on 18 April 2019 - 12:50 AM, said:

Lights, Lights in Stealth are slightly OP. A good light pilot should be able to do great things, but they seem to be more effective in the hands of a good pilot than an assault is with an equally skilled pilot.

MAD-4HP will help you kill (stealth)lights.
And no Light mechs require more skill to stay alive and be effective than assaults

#17 Bushrat

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 07:05 AM

View PostCurccu, on 18 April 2019 - 05:01 AM, said:

Don't stare them, helps alot. PS. RAC5s are stupid bad.


MAD-4HP will help you kill (stealth)lights.
And no Light mechs require more skill to stay alive and be effective than assaults



Thanks everyone for all the feedback, even the trolls. I think we mostly agree that MM needs ome work, thats the major point I made in my post.

I know I'm pretty average, I usually run a streak boat and have had many drops where I score multiple kills and have top damage, when things go smoothly. I have been working on killing lights for a long long time.... I know what they can do in the hands of a good player, yea, they die fairly easily when 'caught' but the difficulty to kill them based on thier damage potential I think is unbalanced... thats my point on that. I go some matches killing 2 or three lights if they are average players or make a mistake. But my build is set up specicically for that ability. In a chaotic situation or if I run into a pack of lights with multiple ECM.... nealry imposible to kill them.

I don't mind my stats up... I know i've been getting better and may need to "L2P' as some people have kindly pointed out. I know and still try to do as much as possible torso twisting and postioning to counter RACs. I am a fairly agressive player and don't mind leading a charge or puch or getting in the middle of a brawl to 'turn' my enemy so my teamamtes can take advantage and push.. could be why I die a lot. I used to have a postive K/D ratio but have been learning some new builds and its suffered a lot becasue of that. I still think a better balance for RACs is needed. I'm not saying its easy, but I think it could be tweaked a bit. I can't to get any success from RACs, but could be I really need more practice.

I do feel like my money spent should give me voice... thats simple customer service. and being an average player I reperesent a majorty player type, maybe not with money spent, but on playing ability and skill. PGI is a business, I'm a paying customer, who has average skills.... losing most battles can get frustrating, please don't dismiss this.

I've tried Soalris and would love to play more there, but that feels like a face stomp most times.... it requires a unique build and play style, I hope more players engage there to braoden the player base to get more even matches.

I want to add that I do love the game and will contimue to support it and MW5, but I hope things can improve with MM and some of my frustrations. More enjoyment = more money spent.

Edited by Bushrat, 18 April 2019 - 07:22 AM.


#18 Daggett

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 07:09 AM

View PostBushrat, on 18 April 2019 - 12:50 AM, said:

Lights, Lights in Stealth are slightly OP. A good light pilot should be able to do great things, but they seem to be more effective in the hands of a good pilot than an assault is with an equally skilled pilot.

In my opinion (stealthed) lights are not OP but they can feel OP because it is a much more negative experience to be backstabbed or constantly harassed by a fast, small light you can't see or hit well than it is to get shot by a slow assault which usually can only torso-twist to mitigate your return fire.

But since most lights only have limited sustained DPS (especially when stealthed) and/or are squishy they need to work much harder and be more careful than other classes to influence a match. So from an individual viewpoint they are strong opponents, but when seen in the greater scope of a match they struggle hard to compete with heavier mechs that can easily deal 1K+ dmg within 4min.

View PostGladiolix, on 18 April 2019 - 01:33 AM, said:

Racs are not OP.... They have ramp up time which makes them useless in a peek-a-boo fighting also 10 second jam duration, many times you can just twist and tank an enemy rac user and when they jam just fisnish them off.

View PostKhanBhacKeD, on 18 April 2019 - 01:33 AM, said:

Rac does a lot of damage but remember your ennemy just look straight at you, so torso roll and alpha his damn CT. Then use cover it's a high DPS weapon but a low Damage per impact one.

You are both correct in theory but at least in solo-QP practice a good RAC2-player (RAC5s are vastly inferior due to higher heat and faster jams) will cash in the free damage on you and return to cover while twisting to minimize your return-fire when his guns jam. They will also try to avoid peek-a-boo and instead seek targets outside of cover that are already engaged.

So at least RAC2s are indeed insanely strong in QP, there are too many easy targets creating opportunities where facetime does not matter much. Triple RAC2 dish out a whopping 200+ dmg before jamming, good luck trading while you are busy rolling and your cockpit gets blinded/shaken permanently. Unless you got high pinpoint alphas like with DHG/laser combos you are better off trying to flank a RAC2 mech instead of facing it directly, especially if it fields more than the usual three RAC2s.

Not saying RAC2s are OP but in chaotic solo QP they are damn close and amongst the top performing weapons, so i can see why OP has problems dealing with them.

Edited by Daggett, 18 April 2019 - 07:15 AM.


#19 Scout Derek

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 07:50 AM

You can't fix MM if the game is dead /s

Seriously though. Population is too small to actually warrant a good MM fix. Don't expect it.

#20 Bud Crue

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Posted 18 April 2019 - 08:08 AM

View PostBushrat, on 18 April 2019 - 07:05 AM, said:


I do feel like my money spent should give me voice... thats simple customer service. and being an average player I reperesent a majorty player type, maybe not with money spent, but on playing ability and skill. PGI is a business, I'm a paying customer, who has average skills.... losing most battles can get frustrating, please don't dismiss this.



Unfortunately the game industry, especially the F2P aspect of it, and PGI even more so do dismiss this.

You and others like you (me, for example) represent a small fraction of the playing population. The devs cannot give your "voice" any more credence than their actual majority player base (i.e. those playing for free or mostly free) for a variety of reasons including the obvious one that favoring paying customers over others would likely lead to a P2W situation,which will in turn drive the rest of the player base away and gradually kill the game (probably not much of a concern around here at this point, but still that's the idea). Your statement that "losing most battles can get frustrating" suggests that some sort of P2W element is exactly what you are looking for (doesn't matter) and for at least the reason stated above that is shouldn't be a consideration.

More cynically, from a historical point of view, going all the way back to the complaints of some founders (certainly paying customers) that the devs have never provided the game (be it CW, "the four pillars", or whatever one's gripe may be), to Russ's oft cited view that MWO ought to be an "E-Sport" or has such potential, to various players complaints over the years regarding balance (Mech The Dane and friends complaint of the "unfunning" of MWO" and their propsals to fix it, as one example), lack of content, complaints over maps, mechanics or what have you; collectively paint a pretty clear picture that unless your "voice" is in accord with that of PGI's, they really don't care what you have to say, regardless of how much you have spent on their product.

And cynical or not, PGI doing their own thing and ignoring most of what the community members throw out at them is probably a good thing over all, because some of the ideas tossed around by some community members are outright awful, and if such people were allowed more influence over PGI's decisions merely because they spent some significant cash, would have doomed the game pretty damn fast.

Spend more, spend less, don't spend at all. You are still just one voice among thousands. PGI will (maybe) listen to your complaints and suggestions as much as any one else's, but you being a paying customer is not going to give your voice any greater influence than any other's. This is just the way it is, and honestly, in this medium I think that is the way it should be.

Edited by Bud Crue, 18 April 2019 - 08:11 AM.






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