1579 replies to this topic

[Yuuji0832]

Magic Pain Glove, on 01 May 2020 - 03:11 PM, said:

So screenshots where average tonnage is skewed by 300 tons mean nothing and screenshots where the player skill disparity is disproportionately high also means nothing ? Its all cherrypicked . Maybe I should post one every 10 minutes .

Its not that this didn't happen in solo queue as well . But regardless if you want groups in queue or not it is objectively worse now.The only question is , was it worth the sacrafice ? Before I didnt see cadets in my games , now I do . Before I didnt see 5 good players from one unit in a match on the opposite side at the same time , now I do . Before a screenshot like this was a rarity , like 1 in 25 or 1 in 50 matches or so was stacked to this extent .Now its 1 in 5 matches.

I think the point being made about screenshots is that regardless of how many a handful of us compile here, it's still only a small window into a much larger data set we don't have access to. A handful of us could pull every screenshot for every game we play today. But without the full data set, we really can't say what we are looking at objectively.

That and your 1 in 5 and 1 in 25 and 1 in 50 numbers are pulled *completely* out of your ***. I can make up numbers too my guy. Let's pretend those are true for you and your experience - you're still just one player that doesn't come close to representing the whole of the data.

[The Teddy Bear]

DAEDALOS513, on 01 May 2020 - 03:14 PM, said:

Relatively speaking, does this update to the game mean all that much? In the grand scheme of things? This moment in time will come and go but the effect it has on you will last. Isn't it kinda silly that we are quibbling over an aging video game when the world is literally falling apart around us? Where we are at the mercy of those in power and quietly hope they have our best interests at heart?

If this update is upsetting you guys so much maybe it's time to take a step back, get some perspective and figure out what is truly important. I know we play this game as a way to escape reality but what's the point of escaping reality if it's still going to stress the sh*t out of you?

lol I have seen pretty many jokes in my life but seriously...,.

Edited by The Teddy Bear, 01 May 2020 - 03:24 PM.

[Brom96]

So far the change is bearable, speaking from the position of solo player. Conquest is currently dead in the water, because there are good chances you will get team with no lights (roughly 75% of games in this mod in my current experience), while the enemy team is more balanced. Also, there were number of cases where we had no assaults, unlike the enemy team, and that always ended in loss. Basically you know that you have to plow in the enemy, do some damage and then die so you can play something better.

Always stay close to the group, so in the case they want to hang back and wait for the rest of the team to wear down the enemy and then pull in and scoop the points... Well you'll be with them. And since they tend to drop in heavier mechs, they are useful to hide behind.

As for the groups using comms... Right, nice joke. More then half the cases they use it less then I have seen in solo all these years.

[bar10jim]

So, going back to what it was before PGI decided to feed small casual groups (2 - 4) to large organized groups for cannon fodder. Before they chased away a whole contingent of casual players by sacrificing them on the alter of that almighty 12-team group. I've always held that a 2-man group should have always been allowed in the solo PUG queue. That's the only place you can introduce a friend who hasn't played before (or a father and young son who want to play together) without getting constantly curb-stomped by competitive groups. Instead of 'getting good' the 'get gone'. It's only taken PGI 5 or 6 years to realize that.

[Taram]

Honestly I have 2 opinions:
1) I love that the group and solo queues have been merged
2) I hate that 8 man groups were removed. Put 8 man option back in so units can drop against one another.

It's a REALLY easy fix:\
1) For 1-4 man groups they drop into the solo queue. Turn Tier system BACK ON and make the group drop into a tier that is the average of their group members tier so that matches are a little more balanced. It won't be perfect but it'll be better than no tier system at all. If one side has a 4 man group the other should have a 4 man (or 2 2 man) group. No more than 4 grouped people per side.

2) Turn on 8 man, they can ONLY drop against another 8 man. If they have to wait, so be it, our choice to do so. Lets us drop against other units if we want to. I can't fathom why you'd turn this off.

Edited by Taram, 01 May 2020 - 03:37 PM.

[Magic Pain Glove]

Yuuji0832, on 01 May 2020 - 03:20 PM, said:

That and your 1 in 5 and 1 in 25 and 1 in 50 numbers are pulled *completely* out of your ***. I can make up numbers too my guy. Let's pretend those are true for you and your experience - you're still just one player that doesn't come close to representing the whole of the data.

True enough ,those numbers were indeed my subjective experience . But if I did bother to record every match that month and compared it to every solo match this month . There would be objective proof that solo experience has deteriorated and that there are mo stomps now while I play . The only thing I can do Is take the screenshots now . I mean go to b33fs stream and see live how "competitive" the matches are , they are switching to meme decks now due to constant stomps . 11-1 Win Loss streak right now . Do you think b33f or anyone else would be able to maintain that WLR in solo queue playing alone ?

And thats why I take issue with PGI "data" . Like the statement earlier from Russ . They cant even differentiate grouped Win Loss Ratio from Solo Win Loss ratio .
b33f could now end the stream and lose 5 matches in a row dropping solo . It would appear as 11-6 WL . And PGI in all their wisdom would conclude that the experience is the same for solos , based on merged win loss ratio . Hilarious . Relying on that kind of "data" got us this far . And I am much more afraid of that than any opinion in this thread.

[Larsh]

nuttyrat, on 01 May 2020 - 01:00 PM, said:

That is the purpose of sync dropping on stream; to try and play either with or against people in your audience. That is what I do normally, and what I did with my first test last night (Thursday Night). When I sync the purpose is never to try and stack the team (you can't control that with sync drops) but to increase the chance of having an enhanced gaming experience with my audience, regardless of where they land. It just so happened that I had a lot of viewers from both the casual and competitive community that night, so it made the night interesting.

Oh yea not saying you were in the wrong at all. Streamers gotta make it interesting to the viewers.

[G I J o e]

Match making is worse now. 2 matches where I thought I did horrible, but 11 other players on my team got a match score less than 100. I see groups in, but they don't communicate with VOIP and wind up 'doing whatever'. Before the Queues were split years ago the habit was that groups used the random players as bait/cannon fodder. Hasn't changed. Now you brought the same BS from faction play in to quick play. Awesome!!!! Before the change it was 50/50 for a 'good' match vs. a 'bad' match. Now it's like 15/85. Thanks!!

[Larsh]

In truth, how much objective research do we think we are having here in this thread?

I'm not being snarky, but being honest about it. Compared to our main player base, what percentage has come here to the forums to give input? I've only really seen the same few names bounced around here discussing this topic.

[The Teddy Bear]

Larsh, on 01 May 2020 - 03:51 PM, said:

In truth, how much objective research do we think we are having here in this thread?

I'm not being snarky, but being honest about it. Compared to our main player base, what percentage has come here to the forums to give input? I've only really seen the same few names bounced around here discussing this topic.

The main ones you will need, at least from a start, is the feedback from the bottom solo players and I honestly have no clue how to get them in here.

[Larsh]

The Teddy Bear, on 01 May 2020 - 03:56 PM, said:

The main ones you will need, at least from a start, is the feedback from the bottom solo players and I honestly have no clue how to get them in here.

Yea that is gonna be a tough one. Sometimes I think people know the forum as that place where you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. And then they don't show.

Would it be a better thought to place a survey on the main game log in page? Or something like that once you log in?

[Magic Pain Glove]

G I J o e, on 01 May 2020 - 03:50 PM, said:

Awesome!!!! Before the change it was 50/50 for a 'good' match vs. a 'bad' match. Now it's like 15/85. Thanks!!

People will disregard this as subjective experience , like Yuuji did mine , even if its true. And they will be partially right as well .

Larsh, on 01 May 2020 - 03:51 PM, said:

In truth, how much objective research do we think we are having here in this thread?

There are a lot of people with 1 post in this thread saying both similar and different things . Like the guy I qupoted above. But "objective" research is not something anyone of us can do. Not large enough sample size even if I played 100 matches and screenshoted them all . Because ALL of our experiences can be described as subjective and "may not represent the bigger chunk of population" and I nor anyone else can debate that .

PGI is the only party that can do "objective research" with larger sample size but their "data" tends to be skewed or misinterpreted by them a lot . Just with the simple fact that they don't play their game and sometimes fail to see things that are obvious to people who do .

The only thing you can do is make an unbiased poll with no misleading questions , post it on various places where MWO comunity resides and try to get as many inputs as possible .

[Excessive Paranoia]

Marquis De Lafayette, on 01 May 2020 - 01:06 PM, said:

I took a month off the game and forums and come back this this idea being implemented....wow.... I probably should have enjoyed solo queue while it lasted.

What I am failing to understand is how PGI could not obviously understand that the merging the queues would inevitably lead to the best players running in small teams (instead of dropping solo) with other great players and just rolling solos and teams of tier 1 average joes (tier is xp bar) that happen to line up against them. Top players are a most often a handful in solo queue as it was (and their high W/L and K/D showed that) ...now we are going to let 4 top players drop together against the un-washed masses of pugdom and this is as Paul says to make things more “competitive”...I have no words.... the only comparison that comes close is that this is like the Long Tom (the FW disaster) for the solo queue....Its supposed to make the game more interesting,, but immediately you know this isn’t going to work at all the way PGI thinks and it’s not going to be good for queues. Solos and average joe teams are going to have a bad time with this...

PGI has a looooooong history of deciding ahead of time that one change or another is going to be beneficial, hyping it up, then after implementing it, cherry picking the data to prove that they were right in the first place. This is no exception... Russ is talking very positively about the lowered queue times (personally I didn't really see a difference as a solo player, but I also am not really dropping because I don't like the results) and the fact that groups can play together. He's either glossing over issues ("Want to make it clear that only a 5% increase in stomps for all the benefit we got is an overwhelmingly positive trade off. - Russ), or brushing off the need for structural changes to the implementation (Russ' frequent twitter references to only having tonnage to adjust rather than actually implementing real fixes like PSR changes, etc), all to justify the current state of play. Basically, PGI decided that this is the best way to go and will warp their results until they are unrecognizable to justify the result.

I hate to say it, but its very likely that unless a huge swath of the player base jump ship over this, the merged queue is here to stay in its current form. Its clear that Russ cares more about his matches in WoT at this point than the state of play in MWO, so they are literally trying to slap this thing together with the minimum possible effort so the can call it a day and get back to playing other games and leaving the MWO population to sink or swim on its own. The sad thing is there are ways to make this work correctly and at least be bearable for the majority of solo players (recode the MM to introduce up to 4 players in groups into the solo queue while taking into account all of the normal solo queue balancing for the groups), but again they're just trying to throw this together with a minimum of effort so instead we're getting literally the worst possible outcome.

... And being told its "Overwhelmingly positive"...

Edited by Excessive Paranoia, 01 May 2020 - 04:23 PM.

[Gagis]

I'm seeing a lot of players coming back to the game with enthusiasm. This seems to be going over well.

[crazytimes]

DAEDALOS513, on 01 May 2020 - 02:44 PM, said:

Ridiculous.. i guess that screenshot says it all right? Wrong.. people keep cherry picking screenshots .. they mean absolutely nothing.. you think stomps didn't happen before grolo? Ofcourse they did.. I can post plenty of shots that were close matches..

I was on their team during one of their RFL-IIC-2 drops yesterday. They just waited near spawn. The rest of our team did the usual NASCAR, the other team did their usual NASCAR... and their group just killed everything as they rotated into them one by one. I don't think he's cherry picking screenshots, that's just the reality of 4 competent players working together versus randoms.

[DAEDALOS513]

The Teddy Bear, on 01 May 2020 - 03:23 PM, said:

lol I have seen pretty many jokes in my life but seriously...,.

You like it huh? Well I'm gonna peace out until the 4 weeks are done.. I'm getting sick of seeing my own name in these forums, can't imagine you guys.. see you on the battlefield!

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 01 May 2020 - 04:49 PM.

[crazytimes]

Gagis, on 01 May 2020 - 04:32 PM, said:

I'm seeing a lot of players coming back to the game with enthusiasm. This seems to be going over well.

'Ex' players with full mechbays and huge bankroll of credits and MC sitting there aren't doing anything for the games financial situation. Game needs new people willing to spend money. Cadets dropping in trail mechs against a bunch of experienced players is not encouraging them to hang around.

[Slothasaurus]

I hope it goes back to just solo, but if it stays group it won't be the end of the world.

There are two things though that ruins matches.

1. 4-man group of really good players join. Can call the match at that point unless the other team has has the same kind of skilled 4-man on their side. A 4-man team can dominate the game completely in a way a highly skilled solo player never could. It is inevitable that would happen. Not that it can be helped or changed. Let groups in, people group up. It is what it is.

2. The imbalance of assaults. Not talking 1 or 2 advantage. Have seen 4,5, or 6 frequently on a team to 0 on the other team. Is that fun for anyone on either side? I don't find it fun being on either side when it happens. This is the worst problem I think, but I think the easiest to solve right? I have seen some good suggestions here on the forum.

Here's hoping at least #2 gets fixed quick!

Edited by Slothasaurus, 01 May 2020 - 09:44 PM.

[Dee Eight]

crazytimes, on 01 May 2020 - 04:36 PM, said:

I was on their team during one of their RFL-IIC-2 drops yesterday. They just waited near spawn. The rest of our team did the usual NASCAR, the other team did their usual NASCAR... and their group just killed everything as they rotated into them one by one. I don't think he's cherry picking screenshots, that's just the reality of 4 competent players working together versus randoms.

Thats a standard tactic for many of us... instead of nascar to the right... go left and setup an ambush for the people on the other side doing the nascar. Let them come to you.... don't chase after them.. Its pretty much my default tactic any time I'm in a mech with ECM. Hell on some maps, depending on where I dropped, I might even do it without the ECM. There are many maps where players always push the same way from a particular side and they never bother to look to their right when stepping past corners.

Edited by Dee Eight, 01 May 2020 - 05:16 PM.

[Brain Cancer]

DAEDALOS513, on 01 May 2020 - 12:38 PM, said:

You keep saying group play wasn't popular and that's the only reason it became unplayable. Obviously you weren't around during MWO's heyday.. it truly was something to behold. Group queue was the heart and soul of the game Units clashing against units, each with their own playstyle and personality.. battling for glory of their tag; Each match fighting a different group rather than the same one over and over (which is what started to happen as population dwindled). It brings a tear to my eye thinking about it..

Solo queue has always had higher play volume than group queue, and that group queue so easily ended up dominated by a few experienced groups dominating all else (much like CW) only meant solo queue became an even more busy place.

People wanted to play often and win. Group queue increasingly became disjointed like CW, and that's what has been the steady implosion of the population until we're literally putting groups into solo queue just to get people actually capable of playing anything but by themselves.

It's pretty darn obvious where the strongest population for play has always been. It's the only one that's survived with any level of play intact until now.