42 replies to this topic

[Nightbird]

We're down 50% in pop from this time last year, anyone notice any changes in the quality of games or match making time?

https://steamcharts.com/app/342200

Edited by Nightbird, 18 September 2019 - 12:18 PM.

[Kubernetes]

Nightbird, on 22 July 2019 - 09:08 AM, said:

We're down 50% in pop from this time last year, anyone notice any changes in the quality of games or match making time?

https://steamcharts.com/app/342200

I'm playing about the same but my stats keep going up. That tells me average pilot quality has gone down.

[Bud Crue]

Nightbird, on 22 July 2019 - 09:08 AM, said:

We're down 50% in pop from this time last year, anyone notice any changes in the quality of games or match making time?

https://steamcharts.com/app/342200

Speaking only of GQ, since Russ’s EOL (for all intent and purpose) developer update, wait times during NA prime time have gotten dramatically longer. E.g. 2 months ago, a 5 minute wait was a rarity even as a small or odd numbered group, but now a wait over 10 minutes is common regardless of group composition. On particularly bad nights, such as last night for example, as a four man we could not find a match in 15 minutes of waiting at around 8:00 Eastern. We ended up getting a single GQ match all evening and finally abandoned the effort.

[JediPanther]

I share Kubernete's on the average pilot skill droping as the population drops. Team work use to be quite common as did people doing "roles" and supporting each other. There wasn't any bias for or against any type of play style like lrm boating. You'd just try and use what people brought better.

[Jackal Noble]

Nightbird, on 22 July 2019 - 09:08 AM, said:

We're down 50% in pop from this time last year, anyone notice any changes in the quality of games or match making time?

https://steamcharts.com/app/342200

I noticed a weird pattern from one match where I compared pilot ratings, because something felt awry. I started with Alpha Lance and moved down to Charlie. At first, I thought that maybe they implemented your WL idea because on both sides our alpha and bravo lances were nicely matched up ~80 percentile up to 97. But then I got to Charlie lance, what a doozie. Still evenly matched in their own little bubble, pilots on both sides were hovering around 30-40%. Crazy.

I will post the img when I get on later

[My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ]

Comparing now and a year ago for skill can be somewhat subjective since lets be honest, you're not going to be at the same skill level after such a long period of time. The longer wait times however do point to an on average lower pilot skill for people playing T1/2 since more often T3s are being brought it to populate matches.

There is no way to visibly see what tier people are, but if there was I bet at the very least half of people playing against T1's are T3.

Edited by QuakeRiley, 22 July 2019 - 10:55 AM.

[Thorqemada]

Imho it is the normal cycle - the game gets older, less new Players, more leaving Players, Summer does its part ontop, much fewer Players than yesteryear.

Has nothing to do with Russ infamous Speech last Dev Update - it only did not help to slow that down.

[RickySpanish]

I've played on and off for years, I've not seen much difference in player skill, it may have improved slightly in my experience actually. The meta has changed, we've gone from firing line poptarting to quick flanking and moving between cover. I see people using UAVs and air strikes, and calling out damaged locations on enemy players. This didn't happen all that much back in the day since we didn't have voice comms originally. I think on the whole as players have left and the game has improved its features, quality of matches have tended to go up.

[Nightbird]

Jackal Noble, on 22 July 2019 - 10:33 AM, said:

I noticed a weird pattern from one match where I compared pilot ratings, because something felt awry. I started with Alpha Lance and moved down to Charlie. At first, I thought that maybe they implemented your WL idea because on both sides our alpha and bravo lances were nicely matched up ~80 percentile up to 97. But then I got to Charlie lance, what a doozie. Still evenly matched in their own little bubble, pilots on both sides were hovering around 30-40%. Crazy.

I will post the img when I get on later

I doubt it. The last time PGI discussed MM, they said that the MM cannot know a player's stats. I don't think they'll put any more effort into a dead game...

(what they consider to be a dead game anyways)

[Prototelis]

It takes significantly longer offpeak to get matches in soloQ.

GroupQ only seems to exist during NA prime.

Faction still has mostly the same people playing it. Theres a semi-active NA prime community and a small period of time where EU/OC games get kicked off.

Edited by Prototelis, 22 July 2019 - 01:19 PM.

[LTC Kilgore]

Nightbird, on 22 July 2019 - 11:15 AM, said:

I doubt it. The last time PGI discussed MM, they said that the MM cannot know a player's stats. I don't think they'll put any more effort into a dead game...

(what they consider to be a dead game anyways)

well, when paul stated that all players in Tier 1 have the same Elo (forget what thread he said that in), I knew that the MM was half-assed to begin with.. so when PSR was implemented the matchmaker was never even designed to match players of similar skill

EDIT: found it...

https://mwomercs.com...-session-apr-8/

Edited by LTC Kilgore, 22 July 2019 - 01:25 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

LTC Kilgore, on 22 July 2019 - 01:23 PM, said:

well, when paul stated that all players in Tier 1 have the same Elo (forget what thread he said that in), I knew that the MM was half-assed to begin with.. so when PSR was implemented the matchmaker was never even designed to match players of similar skill

EDIT: found it...

https://mwomercs.com...-session-apr-8/

MM only uses Tier and weight class gather groups together, that is it!!

And if you sort Jarl's list by games played.... 10 players out of 30 have a MS under 200. Of those players, MAYBE one is not in Tier 1-2 but the others...??

Tier 1-2 is essentially a microcosm of the general population Tier 1 through Tier 5. One player has an average MS of 171 is currently Tier 2, avg anywhere from 500 to 1000+ games/month....

Simply pointing out, as others have, that with a static PSR thresholds, no other stats being utilized to form groups in SoloQ, the MM can group players in the same tier or next two tiers with avg MS ranging from 170 to 500+.

Nor has PGI performed a reset/realignment since PSR went live, nor even changed the PSR thresholds. They have added other items to or changed some minor values to be considered, ie AMS, iirc but nothing major.

And the following is for determining Elo for FP....

Alcom Isst, on 08 April 2019 - 02:57 PM, said:

So it come from PSR, your tier? Does this mean that all Tier 1 players have the same Elo?

Paul Inouye, on 08 April 2019 - 02:59 PM, said:

Yes.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 22 July 2019 - 02:15 PM.

[Prototelis]

The game needed robust matchmaking from the get go. Ideally it should consider performance, weight class, and chosen mechs.

Honestly I wish development priorities were;

matchmaker
maps

in that order.

[Tarl Cabot]

Prototelis, on 22 July 2019 - 02:18 PM, said:

The game needed robust matchmaking from the get go. Ideally it should consider performance, weight class, and chosen mechs.

Honestly I wish development priorities were;

matchmaker
maps

in that order.

With the "population" though, that would take a lot of "bandwidth" and monitoring.. As we have seen, somethings PGI does not want to "babysit". Nor does PGI have a close my account, and ability to provide feedback on why a player is leaving.

So that leaves us with the current PSR and its MM. Win and Lose PSR thresholds need to be increased.

Examples only - PGI has the data. Below is graph if current thresholds.

Win-Loss
100 MS or less Break even/biggest loss - changed from 100 to 125/150,
100-250 change to 150 to 275
250-400 change to 275-450
400-+ change to 450

Now for MM, have it utilize weight class as it does now but attempt to group players using average MS for last 300 games, using 2 tier range by default before expanding to a 3rd tier.

Default to use 20pt-25pt MS range? Essentially players w/400 avg MS should not be dropping with or against players w/ 180 avg MS, regardless if they are in the same tier.

All of the above may be too much though due to population limit and number of games being played. Then I would go with adjusting the PSR thresholds up and realigning the playerbase, in a similar manner when Elo was changed to PSR.

[SeventhSL]

Well I seam to have stopped playing.

Did have a small group of us dropping FP in AUS prime time but they killed that off with the FP changes. We kicked on for a while trying to sync drop QP together but..... meh.... QP in pretty boring if you have been playing as long as we have. Just easier to move on to other games where we can actually play in a group together.

I keep an eye on the FP development and will come back if that ever gets fixed.

[Feral Clown]

Quality of games for absolute sure. People shooting team mates by experience, watching streams, and talking to people is something I am seeing significantly more of. I also look at scores and it isn't too hard to figure out who did it unless they did almost no damage to the other guys. Just got out of a match where I saw a guy with 519 damage and 0 match score.

That said, I am seeing more and more people running faster, lighter mechs. When I see the launch button suggest taking an assault to reduce wait times I can't help but smile.

Edited by Feral Clown, 23 July 2019 - 12:48 PM.

[Sarsaparilla Kid]

Bud Crue, on 22 July 2019 - 09:28 AM, said:

Speaking only of GQ, since Russ’s EOL (for all intent and purpose) developer update, wait times during NA prime time have gotten dramatically longer. E.g. 2 months ago, a 5 minute wait was a rarity even as a small or odd numbered group, but now a wait over 10 minutes is common regardless of group composition. On particularly bad nights, such as last night for example, as a four man we could not find a match in 15 minutes of waiting at around 8:00 Eastern. We ended up getting a single GQ match all evening and finally abandoned the effort.

Same here Bud...after 10pm PST on weeknights we were not getting any matches in the GQ the last couple weeks, and I've not seen comp guys in that queue as much as before, probably due to the lack of the competitive mode this year. Steam was showing 400 players on at the time we were failing to get matches.

[Nightbird]

I noticed on the charts that off peak pop is <300 already, so people in those time zones already know what it is like. Probably getting close to a no bucket system even in QP

[Alienized]

Nightbird, on 23 July 2019 - 11:53 AM, said:

I noticed on the charts that off peak pop is <300 already, so people in those time zones already know what it is like. Probably getting close to a no bucket system even in QP

already feels like that. the quality of battles is more like t4 or so i played with my alt at times. derp derp derp and nothing else

[Wrathful Scythe]

Well, it be like that. While I spent a significant amount of time and money in the game, at some point even I lost my motivation. While I still roam the forums every few weeks or so I don't actually play the game anymore.

On the other hand, I'm surprised the game is still somewhat alive and kicking. And I don't mean that in a bad way. People have been calling the death of the game years ago. Still surprising that the new MW5 won't have a multiplayer component with MWO steadily losing its steam.