1579 replies to this topic

[crazytimes]

Little Pencils, on 29 April 2020 - 05:48 PM, said:

Two assaults and a 4 man on one team. 2 assaults, 7 heavies, 1 medium, and 2 lights vs 0 assaults, 2 heavies, 4 mediums, and 6 lights? The Anni said he wasn't group dropping but that still doesn't explain how teams are SO uneven unless my team was all group drops except me but this is ridiculous.

The only factor in match making is now "pick 2 teams of 12 people". Getting games is fast, sure. But matchup like yours are only.funny for one team.

I am guessing this is the new norm. Once it's settled down a bit, I'll revisit my builds to more meta/FP style and try again for a bit. K didn't enjoy a single game I played yesterday.

[50 50]

Little Pencils, on 29 April 2020 - 05:48 PM, said:

You want to hear my solution? Split the groups, ie. if 6 people form a group let them enter the same game but split them 3 to each team, while your at it increase the group size back to 12 and drop tonnage limits. PGI already dropped their the responsibility of actually policing and dividing players by skill with the mess that is PSR and now they're not even dividing by tonnage with letting groups in to solo. I mean WTH is this?

Just to point out a couple of things as you might have missed it.

Groups are limited to 4 players max.
Allowing a group to form a full 12 player group and then divide them up anyway defeats the purpose of allowing a 12 player group so the better solution is to have a limit of group size.

According to the initial proposal I read it as one group per team max.
Little unsure if that is the case and actually happening.

The weight class limit of 3/3/3/3 did go out the window a little while back so that hasn't actually been any different in solo queue for a while now.
It has just become more evident with groups in the queue as they have a tonnage limit and will typically max that limit.
That we are getting uneven mixes when comparing two teams is something that needs to be addressed.

Either way, there is more steps to be taken if this is going to work.

[Kamikaze Viking]

My testing last night using a t4 alt also shows that they have disabled the +/-2 Tiers restriction. Which means that Rookies and tier 1s are all in the same matches (yes we were seeing Cadets in game, and JGx or other known T1 friends at the same time).

While I'm sure this unannounced change means that games are kicking off faster. I also believe its undermining the results and corrupting the data of the test.

I would like to see the +/-2 restriction put back in place during this test to see if it improves match quality without slowing down matchmaking first.

EDIT:
a ) Pseudo asked on twitter If Tier Based matchmaking has been disabled
https://twitter.com/...669000668930050
Russ replied "It has not been disabled"

b ) in that case, has the 'valves' been opened
c ) or is this an unintended side effect of the changes that needs to be fixed during testing.


IF b ) the valves are open

Paul, Why do your tests often include unannounced changes that undermine the value of the test?

Edited by Kamikaze Viking, 29 April 2020 - 07:04 PM.

[RickySpanish]

I started skilling up a Kintaro-18 tonight, I was on the winning team the vast majority of the time. *shrug* you can definitely try new builds and 'Mechs, they just have to be at least slightly reasonable - if they aren't, well dorp dorp you don't get a free pass.

[Dusty Howard]

Don't listen to the haters. 12v12 the way it was......I never found any games. 8v8 was a good start but even then during the whole test I was able to get A single game with my friends. All these people crying about tier rating are trying to fix a problem that isnt worth solving if you cant find a game in the first place. I can't play early and once 10pm roles around the que is dead. Im not alone. All my friends I play with want to play but can't because their schedules dont operate at peak hours and if you can't continuously find games throughout the day and night then you are only reaching half your customers and the game will for sure fizzle. Keep up the trials and listen to the numbers not the cry babies. I really do miss group play with my friends.

[Kamikaze Viking]

Dusty Howard, on 29 April 2020 - 06:26 PM, said:

All these people crying about tier rating are trying to fix a problem that isn't worth solving if you cant find a game in the first place.

I'm personally arguing to try to get the best of both worlds. Getting games is higher priority i agree, but throwing out tiers to do it isn't the way to do it, there has to be a middle ground.

[50 50]

Kamikaze Viking, on 29 April 2020 - 06:32 PM, said:

I'm personally arguing to try to get the best of both worlds. Getting games is higher priority i agree, but throwing out tiers to do it isn't the way to do it, there has to be a middle ground.

He was saying that having a working PSR means little if you can't get a game anyway because there are not enough players in your timezone.
It's a Yay for the mixed queue.
Now fix the match maker.

[Little Pencils]

50 50, on 29 April 2020 - 06:16 PM, said:

Just to point out a couple of things as you might have missed it.

Groups are limited to 4 players max.
Allowing a group to form a full 12 player group and then divide them up anyway defeats the purpose of allowing a 12 player group so the better solution is to have a limit of group size.

According to the initial proposal I read it as one group per team max.
Little unsure if that is the case and actually happening.

The weight class limit of 3/3/3/3 did go out the window a little while back so that hasn't actually been any different in solo queue for a while now.
It has just become more evident with groups in the queue as they have a tonnage limit and will typically max that limit.
That we are getting uneven mixes when comparing two teams is something that needs to be addressed.

Either way, there is more steps to be taken if this is going to work.

I am aware the 3/3/3/3 restriction was removed a long time ago, at least matchmaker could split teams by tonnage evenly (even then not really since it considered a 80 ton Victor equal to a 100 ton Atlas but small differences in tonnage wasn't a deal breaker compared to now).

Group size was 12 max before this change, it's just group queue was dying because newsflash: no one likes getting stomped by organized groups. So the only people in group queue was tryhards who wanted to feel big and people who didn't care about the stomp and just wanted to play with their friends (just fodder for the veterans) but even they knew better then to stay too long since it can get frustrating so they'd always go back to solo queue

I know the players that want to seal-club with their pals are having a blast but it's leaving all the solo players and new players out to dry. And I predict this will just continue the death spiral of MWO since PGI only cares about what their diehard fans and whales, and they've already stopped adding mechs to the game so the whales are moving on to greener pastures.

What do you mean defeat the purpose of group play? They want to play together, I say let them but let them play against each other.

[Zirconium Kaze]

Alreech, on 29 April 2020 - 02:17 PM, said:

Dropping "together" is possible im most online shooters since almost 15 years.
In 2012 most of the MWO drops have been in group, but many players left after PGI failed to deliver a game mode with respawns and mech selection for the map.

This is the truth.

[FRAGTAST1C]

This is typic PGI bs. If you want to test something, create a conducive environment for it.

1. Don't make assaults spawn in Alpha lance, especially when they're dropping solo. Besides, why should the 4-man be in the same lance? Split them so that the the lights/mediums are in Alpha, Heavies in Bravo and Assaults in Charlie lances. The pre-made can regroup first, can't they? Your spawn points as is is garbage and you've made it worse.

2. Don't throw out the MM completely. We're seeing Cadets in T1 matches. I've seen a couple of them when I dropped solo.

3. What data did you hope to mine by allowing a 2-man and 3-man groups in the same team vs 1 group and a load of solos who couldn't give a **** about team-play?

4. What was the point in treating a top comp 4-man group as same as a weekend 4-man group?

It's horrific to see a company that has a good art team, nice support staff and a few good employees be dragged in the mud [Redacted]

[50 50]

Little Pencils, on 29 April 2020 - 07:30 PM, said:

What do you mean defeat the purpose of group play? They want to play together, I say let them but let them play against each other.

Little Pencils, on 29 April 2020 - 05:48 PM, said:

You want to hear my solution? Split the groups, ie. if 6 people form a group let them enter the same game but split them 3 to each team, while your at it increase the group size back to 12 and drop tonnage limits.

- ie. if 6 people form a group let them enter the same game but split them 3 to each team

Maybe just the way you wrote it. Why create a group only to split that group up in the match maker.

- while your at it increase the group size back to 12 and drop tonnage limits

If you are going to split the groups anyway what is the point of increasing the group size.

Little Pencils, on 29 April 2020 - 07:30 PM, said:

What do you mean defeat the purpose of group play? They want to play together, I say let them but let them play against each other.

All you are suggesting is to put the filter back into the queue so players in a group only form teams and play with/against other groups.

The Group Queue was always a step up in terms of competitiveness over solo queue but at the time there was still the PSR matching averaged over the group that helped with the skill matching.
But several things happened:
- We split the player base over 3 servers.
- We split the player base over 20+ something areas in the game to queue up.
- The player population declined for numerous reasons.

Yes people stopped playing in group queue because they were getting stomped but that is because there were no other opponents to play against because there were not enough players in the queue and on that server.
It's simply gotten to a point that in different timezones there are no games at all.
Dropping to 8v8 helped a little for some timezones, made no difference for others.

It's pretty simple.
If you can't get a game, you are not going to play it.
Even solo queue was getting slow in my timezone (AU) and having to wait 5+ minutes to get a game, you just don't. You play something else entirely.

The problem we have is that there is no match making by player skill at all.
Is there something wrong with letting tier 5 players form a group to play with their friends?
No.
But there is a problem if that group of tier 5 players is in a match with/against tier 1 players.
(Even then knowing that the tiers are not what we should be measuring by anyway)

[Snowhawk]

Little Pencils, on 29 April 2020 - 05:48 PM, said:

Two assaults and a 4 man on one team. 2 assaults, 7 heavies, 1 medium, and 2 lights vs 0 assaults, 2 heavies, 4 mediums, and 6 lights? The Anni said he wasn't group dropping but that still doesn't explain how teams are SO uneven unless my team was all group drops except me but this is ridiculous.

Ehrm... gg close? At least pgi has now some data and can improve the matchmaker, soon….

[Swamp Ass MkII]

First night playing the combined que. The only major issue I see so far is, the Lances are for lack of a better word, F***'D, These need to go back to pre-test setup...

Alpha: Light, Medium, Heavy (When the very rare heavy drop comes up).
Bravo: Light (When the very rare light drop comes up), Medium, Heavy, and Assault (When he very rare heavy drop is up.)
Charlie: Assault, Heavy, and Medium (When the very rare light drop is up).

Looking at the above, maybe drop the Group into Bravo Lance.

As far as team play, yes, when people use mics, but, not in the middle of the round, start in the beginning, and continue. Great round with BEER tonight.

These are jsut a few thoughts on the currnet combined que.

[Little Pencils]

50 50, on 29 April 2020 - 08:08 PM, said:

- ie. if 6 people form a group let them enter the same game but split them 3 to each team

Maybe just the way you wrote it. Why create a group only to split that group up in the match maker.

- while your at it increase the group size back to 12 and drop tonnage limits

If you are going to split the groups anyway what is the point of increasing the group size.



All you are suggesting is to put the filter back into the queue so players in a group only form teams and play with/against other groups.

The Group Queue was always a step up in terms of competitiveness over solo queue but at the time there was still the PSR matching averaged over the group that helped with the skill matching.
But several things happened:
- We split the player base over 3 servers.
- We split the player base over 20+ something areas in the game to queue up.
- The player population declined for numerous reasons.

Yes people stopped playing in group queue because they were getting stomped but that is because there were no other opponents to play against because there were not enough players in the queue and on that server.
It's simply gotten to a point that in different timezones there are no games at all.
Dropping to 8v8 helped a little for some timezones, made no difference for others.

It's pretty simple.
If you can't get a game, you are not going to play it.
Even solo queue was getting slow in my timezone (AU) and having to wait 5+ minutes to get a game, you just don't. You play something else entirely.

The problem we have is that there is no match making by player skill at all.
Is there something wrong with letting tier 5 players form a group to play with their friends?
No.
But there is a problem if that group of tier 5 players is in a match with/against tier 1 players.
(Even then knowing that the tiers are not what we should be measuring by anyway)

The point of splitting groups is to keep them from capitalizing on their cohesion, if they are going to go through the trouble of setting up a group then setting up a separate comms channel on discord or where ever is no big stretch. Whats the point of entering a randomized queue as a solo player if there are groups of players already in it that took the randomization of team mates out of the equation on their side? They are already winning the match before it even started. Group queue is already dead, don't being their sins into solo queue or don't be surprised if it ends up the same.

And the point of increasing the group size assuming my suggestion was made reality is that in essence it would implement a limit into group play, as it stands there is no risk forming a 4 man with a NARC raven and 3 LRMboat Warhammer IIs, if they have to play against each other then there is a chance the Raven wouldn't be on your team making more difficult to LRM boat, or it might even hurt the team being down one assault. If the group size is increased to 12 and a group decided to run 12 Piranhas or 12 Atlas for cheeseball strats it won't matter to solo players because there is a equal number of both teams.

And no group queue was never PSR matched, it was always just putting groups together until you got a 12v12 game, a group of T5s was worth the same as a group of T1s. That's the problem we have now, there is no policing or equalizing and don't blame faction and Solaris for killing group, they're dead for their own reasons.

[Drenath]

Queue time is great but still getting very lopsided matches.

Seems to me like they need to stiffen up the tonnage restrictions. Maybe categorically lock out more than 1 heavy +1 assault per group.

[xGKugelfang]

Realy great! Playing with friend again withou long queue time.
We realy mised that. Please stay with it.

[Jastreb17]

Here are my observations as a newish solo player (been playing for a few months): Wait times are noticeably quicker, but I didn't think they were bad before. There's communication in more games than before, which I enjoy. The thing I dislike is that almost every game I've been in the the last 2 days has been a 12-3 roll-stomp, or worse. Before the change, I think about half the games had margins of victory of 4 mechs or less. It made for some pretty entertaining and tense matches, and that is gone now. I'm not against playing with pre-made groups on principle, but team balancing needs to be improved.

[Alreech]

Brain Cancer, on 29 April 2020 - 03:33 PM, said:

Actually, no. The first real exodus was beginning around August 2012 around the time we get repair and rearm. Those would be your pet peeves, not the playerbase. I was in lurk mode for the forums back then, but it's rare to see true salt vanish thanks to offline timelines and other such gems. The next month, they cut match payouts, meaning newbies were stuck driving half-functional robots or other painful decisions.

That was back in closed beta, and repair and rearm was first ment to pay c-bills after each match for repairing your Mech & get new ammo.
PGI changed it, because the idea sounds nice to the old single player Mechwarriors, but did not work.
If you can't retreat to save your Mech from damage, how funny it is for new players to spent money to get their Mech back?

[Alreech]

Dee Eight, on 29 April 2020 - 11:27 AM, said:

Its treating groups as the tonnage restriction in the announcement post and every other solo is being treated as a group of 1 with a 100 ton maximum. I'm surprised more aren't abusing that yet to only play assaults.

Some tried to "abuse" it:



Was a wierd match.
Both teams were spread out over the whole map. Winnig team was able to pack up faster on single Mechs due higher speed.
One of the Anhilators didn't even make it to the hill in the middel.

Edited by Alreech, 29 April 2020 - 11:17 PM.

[Alreech]

Anomalocaris, on 29 April 2020 - 05:29 PM, said:

Or maybe it was all those "play with my buddy" groups of 2 and 3 didn't like getting their **** pushed in by organized teams over and over so they stopped group dropping. So quit telling me that inability to group drop is killing the game. You guys stopped group dropping a long time ago when the player base was much larger.

You are partly right: Most of us guys stopped group dropping a long time ago.
For example then PGI failed to deliver the Drop Ship mode, not because "organized teams stomped us".
We wanted a game for organized teams, and PGI didn't deliver it.

Some quit MWO completely, some went to Solo play.
I used Solo play almost only to grinding XPs for new Mechs, and I learnd the hard way not to help other team mates in group matches because the last standing Mech get the most XPs, and helping get's your Mech killed.
So what's the reason to grind up Mechs in Solo for Group or Faction Play if you can't get a group match?

It's the regular players that keep a game alive and Units, Clans, Guild or what ever you call a Group of regular players are the ones who play that game regulary with their friends.

I played from 2012 - 2014, tried to get my friends into the game (I play in a community with over 100 players).
Didn't work because they don't liked the death match style of MWO and lack of organisation on team level (even in Group Play).
Instead I left MWO to play Battlefield 4 (we made 32 vs 32 matches all 14 day with fixed commaders, squad leaders, ect...).
Got back in 2016 by friends who tried out MWO and liked it. Quit again because that friend stopped playing MWO for Battlefield 1.
Same 2018: friend brought me back to MWO, got 6 regular players.
Most of us stopped 2019 because the waiting times in group play.