222 replies to this topic

[Krucilatoz]

One of the biggest reason why my unit stop playing MWO is because there is no longer group drop match anymore. Maybe yours also.

So, what do you think? Shoud PGI switch their MM to mix group and solo queue? In purpose that group drop now will viable again.

Yes, i know about MM balance, it is important, but only if ANY match happened.
And yes, it will be harsh for new player. But this game is stagnant anyway, most of us are loyal playerbase anyway.
Or, do mix group/solo drop only on weekend or on event.

PS: the last time my unit drop with 8 man player is on holiday event (27th dec last year).

[RJF Volkodav]

I'll just link my thoughts posted in suggestions here - https://mwomercs.com...41#entry6207041

Edited by RJF Volkodav, 09 June 2019 - 01:11 AM.

[Kroete]

Krucilatoz, on 09 June 2019 - 12:54 AM, said:

One of the biggest reason why my unit stop playing MWO is because there is no longer group drop match anymore. Maybe yours also.

So, what do you think? Shoud PGI switch their MM to mix group and solo queue? In purpose that group drop now will viable again.

Yes, i know about MM balance, it is important, but only if ANY match happened.
And yes, it will be harsh for new player. But this game is stagnant anyway, most of us are loyal playerbase anyway.
Or, do mix group/solo drop only on weekend or on event.

PS: the last time my unit drop with 8 man player is on holiday event (27th dec last year).

Letting groups stomp pugs helps in a stagnant game?
Please explain why shooing even more players away would be good?

[Thorn Hallis]

#nowai

[Unnatural Growth]

There's a reason the 2 buckets were split years ago. Group players would drop in the "solo" que for the sole purpose of seal clubbing solo players. The solo baby seals finally rose up and put such a dumpster fire on the forums about it that PGI actually listened (one of the very few times they've done this), and split the ques.

TL;DR

No. It was set up that way once, dumpster fires ensued, turns out the seals don't LIKE to be clubbed after all, it was changed for these reasons.

[Weeny Machine]

Kroete, on 09 June 2019 - 01:36 AM, said:

Letting groups stomp pugs helps in a stagnant game?
Please explain why shooing even more players away would be good?

It would be a clean cut rather than a slow wasting

[Snowhawk]

I had nearly the same idea. In Group Queue the matchmaker can use some solo Players as fill-ins. Of Course pgi has to Limit this fill-in-Players, so we have still a solo Queue and a Group queue. I'm not sure wehre the perfect Limit is… Maybe 2 or 3 additional Players per side. This will boost the time for the Group-matchmaker because often there are missing one or two Players.

I heard that other Players had the same idea. I don't know why pgi is not trying simple Solutions.....

Edited by Snowhawk, 09 June 2019 - 05:15 AM.

[Captain Caveman DE]

I don't see where the problem with SYNC-dropping is. you can do it right now, you don't have to be in groups for that..
wanna group up because of ""tactics"" (I use this term losely in mwo)?
go to gp/fw. it is there - use it.

just sync man. it's fun shooting the persons you're in teamspeak with

[zerosouL]

If you want a group stomping grounds experience theres GQP, FP, Comp and various Tournaments for you. We dont need solo QP to become another stomping/positional meta camping grounds.

[jss78]

Phenomenally bad idea. The one thing you don't want to try is any drastic change that might make QP unfun for the solo-playing majority. That would kill MWO overnight -- instead of over 1-3 years or something that might otherwise happen.

One thing I would like PGI to consider is allowing groups of 2 in QP. This is routinely done in competing games, and it's popular and thus a great way to pool player base into a single queue. Might help MWO as the player base gradually declines.

In competing games, the small groups lead to some, but not massive, balance issues, and I believe the benefits would outweigh the drawbacks.

Edited by jss78, 09 June 2019 - 08:10 AM.

[LordNothing]

Unnatural Growth, on 09 June 2019 - 04:28 AM, said:

There's a reason the 2 buckets were split years ago. Group players would drop in the "solo" que for the sole purpose of seal clubbing solo players. The solo baby seals finally rose up and put such a dumpster fire on the forums about it that PGI actually listened (one of the very few times they've done this), and split the ques.

TL;DR

No. It was set up that way once, dumpster fires ensued, turns out the seals don't LIKE to be clubbed after all, it was changed for these reasons.

to be fair many pugs, self included, conceded long ago that a match maker if implemented would never work due to low player numbers. the problem with pgi listening is that there seems to be a 2-3 year lag time. if we had the numbers we had around phase 2, then this match maker would have been a good thing to have. now its just a big obstacle in your way of finding a match. i dont think you will ever sell fp to the permanent denizens of qp, they are still highly traumatized by the long tom and endless seal clubbings.

phase 3 is really where most of the seals got turned off permanently to fp. they were promised a solo queue, and despite it working perfectly at my end, it was rolled back. so pugs ended up getting seal clubbed and nuked by the long tom. only the stalwart hard mode pugs like myself remained. with bucketpocalypse fp was transformed into the best mode in the game and stayed that way until the patch of doom.

pgi has always been way too optimistic with regards to fp population numbers and that has lead to poor design choices. too many battle lines, too many buckets, too many players in a match, too many factions, tying to satisfy too many demographics, trying to put in a match maker when you have low active population numbers. the if you build it they will come strategy would have worked if you didn't beat everyone who showed up with a louisville slugger first.

Edited by LordNothing, 09 June 2019 - 08:49 AM.

[Zigmund Freud]

I think it should be 2-3 people groups and solo players in one bucket, and 4+ people groups in another. This way the main QP bucket (solo and groups of >=3) is still low wait times, but allows people to play with friends without waiting for 5m to get stomped by 9 people pre made ==> more fun ==> more new players.
For 4+ people groups nothing changes, though, sorry. I don't think there's anything to be done with group que, that wouldn't screw solo players in QP. You can't let large pre mades stomp uncoordinated team, because it will be unplayable for the majority of people.

[LordNothing]

i honestly dont think that match makers are worth the trouble. players are better at self organizing by skill when you let them decide the game rules and what kind of matches are played. old skool arena shooters like q3a and ut were like that. if you found your competition too stiff, you could find another match somewhere with less skilled players. in games like starcraft you could do custom games where the lobby host picks the game rules, for more diversity.

i think we should get rid of all modes and match makers and replace it with a lobby browser and more robust custom games. let players sort themselves out and set up their own scenarios. it would also bring more variety, things like tonnage limits, specific class battles, stock mode would actually get some use. allow options for decks and respawns. might allow skill filters too (though replacing psr with an actual measure of skill). needless to say players would need to strike their own balance between how specific they want their scenario and how many people actually want to play it.

you would still be using pgi's servers and are subject to waiting for one to be available. you might be able to sell server access priority. i can see it where units would just rent their own private servers to conduct their own fp amongst themselves. individuals could rent servers to say do '24/7 stock urbies in city maps'. income potential there.

Edited by LordNothing, 09 June 2019 - 09:19 AM.

[dario03]

I think a lot of the issues in the previous systems were due to the rating system and the MM not balancing groups good enough. In the everything goes days you might have been fighting a 12man in a 2man with 10 solos, and in the 4man limit days you would have times where 3 groups of 4man comp players would end up on one team vs a bunch of solos.

First I would try for a better ranking system, then I'd set group limit to 5 and have the MM balance the groups on each team. So if one team has a 4man of high rank then the other team would have a 3-5man depending on what their rank is. If there isn't a group that fits that then the team with the weaker group would get a higher ranked solo players.

And I say 5man limit because 4man groups had the downside of if a fifth showed up and you split then 2 would have to be a couple and nobody wants to do that. With 5man limit, if a sixth shows up you can split into 3s which is still a group and you will be equal if you fight each other.

Edited by dario03, 09 June 2019 - 09:27 AM.

[Feral Clown]

LordNothing, on 09 June 2019 - 08:40 AM, said:

to be fair many pugs, self included, conceded long ago that a match maker if implemented would never work due to low player numbers. the problem with pgi listening is that there seems to be a 2-3 year lag time. if we had the numbers we had around phase 2, then this match maker would have been a good thing to have. now its just a big obstacle in your way of finding a match. i dont think you will ever sell fp to the permanent denizens of qp, they are still highly traumatized by the long tom and endless seal clubbings.

phase 3 is really where most of the seals got turned off permanently to fp. they were promised a solo queue, and despite it working perfectly at my end, it was rolled back. so pugs ended up getting seal clubbed and nuked by the long tom. only the stalwart hard mode pugs like myself remained. with bucketpocalypse fp was transformed into the best mode in the game and stayed that way until the patch of doom.

pgi has always been way too optimistic with regards to fp population numbers and that has lead to poor design choices. too many battle lines, too many buckets, too many players in a match, too many factions, tying to satisfy too many demographics, trying to put in a match maker when you have low active population numbers. the if you build it they will come strategy would have worked if you didn't beat everyone who showed up with a louisville slugger first.

Instead of nuking solo queue all they had to do was allow solo players to enter both queues and not have a unit tag requirement. It was a terrible implementation of a good idea and it's complete scuttle in lieu of adjusting it was just another thing in a long list of utterly baffling decisions.

[Feral Clown]

I don't ever want to see any groups in solo queue, but I would like to see solo players be able to enter the group queue.

Wanna play with a buddy? Synch drop. Sometimes you'll be on the same side, sometimes you'll be trying to kill each other. In both situations you can guide or give tips...although from what I see there are a lot of folks who want to give tips and help that have zero business doing so, but that is seventy-seven more threads.

[Vorpal Puppy]

Would never force mix the queues, but if a solo wants to choose to be used as a filler in the group queue, they should have that option. Maybe require that they have played at least some minimum number of games or have at least a certain minimum average match score.

[LordNothing]

Feral Clown, on 09 June 2019 - 02:04 PM, said:

Instead of nuking solo queue all they had to do was allow solo players to enter both queues and not have a unit tag requirement. It was a terrible implementation of a good idea and it's complete scuttle in lieu of adjusting it was just another thing in a long list of utterly baffling decisions.

i think i ended up opting for a one man unit so i could do merc. merc and freelancer should have just been merc. freelancer wasn't even fleshed out. chasing calls to arms just sucks and no ranking rewards.

Edited by LordNothing, 09 June 2019 - 04:25 PM.

[Prototelis]

Just let solo players opt into GQ to bolster population there then introduce an actual match maker if the population goes up enough.

[Lykaon]

Vorpal Puppy, on 09 June 2019 - 02:23 PM, said:

Would never force mix the queues, but if a solo wants to choose to be used as a filler in the group queue, they should have that option. Maybe require that they have played at least some minimum number of games or have at least a certain minimum average match score.

Why? I mean why have a solo player require a certain minimum number of games? or a average match score value? Have you ever played in the current group queue?

prime time Saturday night group match tends to go down like this.

Blue team... 2 player group,3 player group,3 player group,4 player group

Red team...3 player group,2 player group,5 player group,2 player group

Victory goes to the team that sucked less than the other.

You play like 6 or 7 of these matches were no two groups bother to talk to their team members or think of a coordinated effort and winning is pretty much a reward for being slightly less stupid than the losers.

Then you may drop and one team or the other has a large group maybe 6-8 and rarely 10 never ever 11 because you can't and once in a blue moon you meet a 12 player team and IF that large group is putting in effort they stomp you and if they don't put in effort they could loose because of tonnage limits.

What match in the 20 or so matches played do the crybabies remember? The one with a heaping helping of conformation bias.


You don't need skill or even basic competence to play in group queue you just need some semblance of social ability to get a few other players to group with you.

Group queue is a crapfest mess on poorly coordinated mini mobs that rarely get matched against a larger poorly coordinated mini mob and rarer still may once in a rare instance face off against a slightly coordinated mini mob that the small groups still out ton.

I play group queue every Saturday night...this is what really happens with/to most of the group players.