297 replies to this topic

[ghost1e]

IanDresarie, on 21 April 2020 - 02:59 AM, said:

I don't think the worst-case (team 1 has a single 4 man, team 2 just solos) would make too much of a difference. Let's be real, there are more than enough very one-sided games already. Also, if you Sync-Drop as it is right now, you can easily get a coordinated 4 or even 6 man team in solo queue. We've done so plenty times and as I said earlier, the effect is barely there. we were stomped just as often as we achieved a decisive victory.

there are already players out there who can easily win a game on their own, having 10+ W/L ratios...
now guess what happens if you put 4 of those in a group and match them with solos...
FUN

[Galahad2030]

TheUltimateGhost, on 21 April 2020 - 06:38 AM, said:

there are already players out there who can easily win a game on their own, having 10+ W/L ratios...
now guess what happens if you put 4 of those in a group and match them with solos...
FUN

On one hand we have the top 5% of players that can do that solo or in a group - in the solo queue. On the other hand you have the majority of players that are not able to play with friends or make online friends within MWO because there's no ability to team/group/co-op play. We must address the issue faced by the majority of players that are leaving or have left because they are not allowed to play together. Stop the player exodus first.

Second, tonnage restrictions can help balance lances (2-4 players) joining as group. Give it a chance because without this MWO is going to turn away the new generation of players that we need. Newer players play with friends online, and without this feature to co-op/team play we're effectively locking out a huge population from the game.

[Brauer]

Jatix, on 21 April 2020 - 06:36 AM, said:

FINALLY

I've waited such a long time for this. I only play this game with my friend and we haven't been able to play forever because group queue is broken. For all I care, limit it to 2 mans or make the tonnage garbage so that you cant use assaults or anything with carry potential so the solos dont get stomped. But I really hope this change actually happens because then I can play again.

There's no reasonable way to limit groups from taking mechs with carry potential. You'd probably have to make GQ stock mechs only. I've been in groups that carried GroupQ and FW matches during times when the playerbase was larger and better using nothing but urbies (even on siege attack!). Imagine 4 high level players in wolfhounds, Vulcans, or piranhas, there's still plenty of carry potential there despite using next to no tonnage.

[Larsh]

Wow, its like the MWO community is cursed or something.
For years people ask to fix QP.
Suggestions are made from the Devs.
People say NO that will hurt my WLR / KDR, and its going to break the game!
Devs give up
Years later people ask to fix QP
Suggestions are made from the Devs.
People say NO that will hurt my WLR / KDR, and its going to break the game!
Devs give up
Years later people ask to fix QP
Suggestions are made from the Devs.
People say NO that will hurt my WLR / KDR, and its going to break the game!

Maybe, ya know, give them a fair shot before placing speculation on how it's going to turn out. You can't complain on a fix for a game for years only to smack them in face when something is offered.

Let them try it out. PTS won't be viable since everyone isn't going to jump ship to test it there.

Then after a month of play, and it sucks, then ya can vent all ya want.

But, imagine if by chance, it actually works out. Mind blowing, right?

Edited by Larsh, 21 April 2020 - 06:55 AM.

[John Bronco]

Literally nobody is talking about stats.

[Larsh]

BlaizerP, on 21 April 2020 - 06:57 AM, said:

Literally nobody is talking about stats.

Maybe not in this section of the Internet. But, lets just call it a blanket statement above.

[Brauer]

Larsh, on 21 April 2020 - 06:54 AM, said:

Wow, its like the MWO community is cursed or something.
For years people ask to fix QP.
Suggestions are made from the Devs.
People say NO that will hurt my WLR / KDR, and its going to break the game!
Devs give up
Years later people ask to fix QP
Suggestions are made from the Devs.
People say NO that will hurt my WLR / KDR, and its going to break the game!
Devs give up
Years later people ask to fix QP
Suggestions are made from the Devs.
People say NO that will hurt my WLR / KDR, and its going to break the game!

Maybe, ya know, give them a fair shot before placing speculation on how it's going to turn out. You can't complain on a fix for a game for years only to smack them in face when something is offered.

Let them try it out. PTS won't be viable since everyone isn't going to jump ship to test it there.

Then after a month of play, and it sucks, then ya can vent all ya want.

But, imagine if by chance, it actually works out. Mind blowing, right?

As Blaizer said nobody is mentioning stats. If anything the WLR and KDR of the people coming out against this idea is likely to go up if they play in groups that are dumped into soloq.

Over the course of MWO's development PGI have demonstrated bad judgement, a lack of familiarity with their own game's balance, and in at least a few cases an inability to roll back disastrous changes in a timely fashion (see the FW long tom), and yet you want people to give them the benefit of the doubt when there's evidence and clear logic to the idea that combining GQ and SQ is a bad idea? PGI have not demonstrated the kind of understanding of the game or judgement that would justify the benefit of the doubt.

Additionally, your whole conceit that this is to "fix soloqueue" is wrong. They're attempting to revitalize group queue, which has died largely due to the decrease in the playerbase caused by a complete lack of development. If they actually wanted to fix QP they'd do something about their upwardly-biased PSR system that treats a multiple time world champ the same as a 200 odd average match score player with a 1.00 WLR and KDR who has managed to fill the tier experience bar by dropping 20,000 matches.

[Otsdarva24]

If this is going to be a permanent change, it should be seperate from the usual casual que. Yesterday I managed to get a friend of mine into mwo and after he spent some solo time getting used to things, we were super excited to play together.

I didn't know the 8v8 was going on however, so when we went to que, everything just went straight to hell. We got hard stomped every match, lost every time, and just felt frustrated by the whole thing.

I understand that this style is more "competitive" and makes each mech more important, but for a first time player who just wanted to play with his friend, it broke my heart to watch how disinterested he got as soon as we started loosing.

Match que time be damned, neither of us cared about the wait, we just wanted to play a good fun game. Please don't keep the 8v8 outside of comp.

Edit: Tonnage restriction is a positive. Don't know if that was a thing before but based on previous chatter I don't think it was and I consider it a positive concept.

Edited by Otsdarva24, 21 April 2020 - 07:33 AM.

[Cluster Fox]

I like the idea of combining the queue. Limiting groups to a lance of 4 seems logical. But I'd like to suggest tweaks that might be middle ground.

1. Seems like the main concern is Solo queue experience getting ruined. Proposed solution:
Leave the changes to 12v12 as planned under option 1 (lances of 4 and all) with the queues combined AND only add solo players who opt-in

2. Is PGI concerned not enough people will opt-in? Proposed solution:Then leave the group queue to 8v8, it's fun, it's different. Still allow solo players to opt-in and possibly limit the groups to a lance of 4 anyway because your matchmaking logic makes sense and still applies 8v8.
Teams of 8 will still probably sync drop and sometimes will play each other, good for them. On the flip-side, teams of 7,6,9,10 will have more fun as no-one will get left out - the guys left out of the group is a wait-time your queue stats won't account for, we've all seen it.

Thanks for revisiting the queue system, this is good news.

Edited by Cluster Fox, 21 April 2020 - 07:33 AM.

[KH Slaine]

justcallme A S H, on 21 April 2020 - 01:54 AM, said:

OPTION 2 - Make GroupQ 8v8.

• Group sizes of 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 only. No odd numbers. Or just limit it to 4 max.
  
• Allow Solo players to OPT-IN for GroupQ. Have a little check box the same as the server options. Casual/SoloQ players are not impacted. More serious players can take on a potential harder challenge. Win-Win.

Seems the best option imho.
Perma-check that box I will. Because ... fun!

[Brauer]

KH Slaine, on 21 April 2020 - 07:31 AM, said:

Seems the best option imho.
Perma-check that box I will. Because ... fun!

I agree, an opt-in seems like the best balance to me.

[Clint Steel]

My friend and I stopped playing together because we couldn't play as a 2-man except in group play where we would have to wait forever, and then be just thrown into some random group to get rolled by a 12 man team.

If you get rid of the requirement for groups 4 and smaller to use group que, let me know.

[Pseudo98]

Larsh, on 21 April 2020 - 06:54 AM, said:

Maybe, ya know, give them a fair shot before placing speculation on how it's going to turn out. You can't complain on a fix for a game for years only to smack them in face when something is offered.

Let them try it out. PTS won't be viable since everyone isn't going to jump ship to test it there.

Then after a month of play, and it sucks, then ya can vent all ya want.

But, imagine if by chance, it actually works out. Mind blowing, right?

The problem is that once PGI make a change even if it is bad unless it is utterly 100% game braking they won't revert it so we need to cut of this terrible idea at the knees before it hits production servers otherwise we won't be revisiting the discussion for a year if MWO survives that long, either due resumption of declining numbers after the pandemic is done or this change driving the player base away.

Everyone here can agree that that the ATM velocity buff was a terribly unbalanced change, that was over a year ago, have the devs had a discussion with us about this even though it must have been a red flag on Chris' spreadsheet for all this time... **** no.

Every single high percentile player still active and part of this discussion has quite plainly stated that this is a terrible idea that can only lead to stomps by them, in defence of the community and the health of the playerbase but what do they know?

We'd love to all play together outside faction play and there is a viable solution available, it's just not Paul's.

Wait times have always been a thing in MWO group, even in it's prime, I just don't understand why the bar is being set so much higher than usual, 3-6 minutes is fine with the current population and could even be improved with opt-in for solos.

Simply put, we cannot trust a temporary change with a promise to revisit it later Larsh, we've been left hanging for months and sometime years when these promises have been made before, only this time we done have the room to lose a few thousand players because that's all we have playing the game.

Edited by Pseudo98, 21 April 2020 - 08:13 AM.

[Plain Jane]

I recently found this game and I'm still new to MWO. I only own 7 mechs which are not even fully skilled yet. If you allow groups of 4 to drop in solo queue I am one of the baby seals that will get clubbed to death. Please do NOT do this!!

KEEP GROUP QUEUE 8 vs 8 and OUT OF SOLO QUEUE!!

[Kamikaze Viking]

Just a heads up to those who just wanna play casual with their friends and are worried about the bogeyman of big comp groups (or even 4 mans).

FIXING PSR would Solve this problem for good.

The Tier system already includes a max of +/-2 tiers, effectively giving 3 brackets of T1-3, T2-4, T3-5.

By fixing PSR so that people are correctly rated against their actual skill, and hence placed into the correct tier.
Then the Casual groups of 2 who just wanna have fun are much much less likely to ever get matched up against a big stompy group of comp players. And T4-5 players will NEVER have these T1 monsters Ruin their day.

#fixPSR

[ghost1e]

Kamikaze Viking, on 21 April 2020 - 08:15 AM, said:

FIXING PSR would Solve this problem for good.

this, tbh

make PSR properly zero-based. would not only help matchmaking if you decide to put groups into SQ, but also helps with the current SQ state...

[K O Z A K]

I find it amusing that for the most part it is the people who will be standing knee deep in baby seal blood are the ones who are against this idea, and the baby seals who will be turned to mincemeat are all for it, lol

[AndiMech]

Yeah, it is odd that those comp guys are against it. Maybe they are hiding something?!?
They must have a hidden agenda...
Next they tell us to run low back-armor, so they can kill us easier... or that lurms are bad, especially on siege attack...
They just want to hold us back... i know it...

[Bud Crue]

First off, the initial premise of your observation and subsequent proposals seems pretty dodgy.

Paul Inouye, on 20 April 2020 - 03:06 PM, said:

[color=orange]Initial Findings[/color]

For perspective, here were the numbers we were looking at prior to any changes (for communication purposes, this is Scenario A ):
- 12v12 Group Queue
- 12 player max group size.
- Average time for a match [color=yellow]9.7 minutes[/color].

On Friday, we set up a test restriction on Group Queue of 8-player max group sizes and matches were 8v8. During that evening, there was a community event and people checking in on what the change would play out like. Here's what we saw throughout Friday evening ( Scenario B ):
- Average time for a match in group queue: [color=yellow]3.2 minutes[/color].

That was a significant drop in wait times but we have to understand that, that was a best case scenario due to the event and people trying the new system out.

As expected, after the event and check-ins, the number started to climb. We checked the numbers on Monday at noon Pacific Time, (off peak North America) and found the following ( Scenario C ):
- Average time for a match [color=yellow]6.5 minutes[/color].

What period are you using to get that 9.7 min average wait time in 12 v 12 GQ? I mean, c'mon, we all know darn well that within a few months after Russ's maintenance mode announcement at the end of last May, the population of GQ become zero. Wait times since then are all but meaningless as the population simply stopped playing, with the exception of a couple of short lived semi-organized attempts to get folks back. Before then, most of the regular GQ players rarely had more than a few minute wait time, because as you say, more than a few minutes waiting feels like forever, and most of us wouldn't have put up with it; and yet many of us were playing GQ daily up until shortly after the maintenance mode announcement.

And the 3.2 minute average wait time number for Friday evening in the new 8v8 GQ? I've played GQ most evenings since the new 8v8 started, and most of my matches have been insta-drop, with a few that perhaps got up to three minute wait times, but those were all last night (a Sunday).

In any case the data you are starting off is being used to make an apples to oranges comparison, and the underlying means of how that data was acquired appears to be based on bananas.

But how you get from those asserted observations of average wait times to the conclusion that maybe we ought to eliminate GQ and allow up to 4 man teams into SQ is truly boggling. You honestly think that comp queue is going to sate the competitive drive of the best players,and that these same folks won't come into the regular game and play? That they won't dominate in their 4-mans (and sync dropping friends who show up as an evening of play progresses) despite your own observations that a 4-man group can heavily influence a match? That makes no sense. Plus, we've been here before. We know how this will play out. It it won't be good for anyone.

This 8v8 experiment has been great, but the conclusions you have reached from it are nuts. There is no reason not to let the people who like playing together continue to do so...in a 8v8 queue, which these past few days have shown is viable; and if you want let individuals opt in, that'd be fine too. But the madness you are proposing above? Yikes.

Edited by Bud Crue, 21 April 2020 - 10:38 AM.

[DeathlyEyes]

Things that must happen.

1. each team only gets 1 group of equal size.
2. each team's group and pug player elos are roughly equal in average IE average group elo ~= average group elo while PUG ELO ~= PUG ELO
3. Map spawns are consolidated into one location per team. No more spawning one lance in N8 and the other in A1. Both lances should spawn right next to eachother.