1579 replies to this topic

[Spare Knight]

I try to look at this from every side. It is hard to do.

Take a look at the Leader Boards. Select Global. Sort by Average Match Score.

AMS 500+ = 8
AMS 475+ = 12
AMS 450+ = 25
AMS 425+ = 47
AMS 400+ = 83 My alt account "StankDog the damp" is in this group
AMS 375+ = 168
AMS 350+ = 294 My main account "Spare Knight" is in this group
AMS 325+ = 514
AMS 300+ = 845
AMS 275+ = 1,310
AMS 250+ = 1,988
AMS 225+ = 2,849
AMS 200+ = 3,790
AMS 175+ = 4,651
AMS 150+ = 5,292
AMS 125+ = 5,645
AMS 100+ = 5,831
AMS 75+ = 5,915
AMS 50+ = 5,939

The big question is this. What number of players would be enough to support relatively quick match making for Tier 1? Would we only put Tier 1 in 8v8 Group Queue? Where could you separate the AMS and say everyone above this number is Tier one and will only play together? Since the weekend reset, we only show about 6,000 active players. That doesn't say how many spend money on this game.

I really like the idea of being able to group with friends. I mostly play solo. Here is what I saw between playing solo v group.

Spare Knight was played only solo with my Fafnir 5.

StankDog the damp was only* played with an identical Fafnir 5 in a 2 man group with a newer player with an AMS of just over 225. We only used In Game Comms. We were both very vocal and got a good bit of team support. Just having that buddy watching my back increased my AMS significantly. *My buddy had to leave before I got 10 matches in, so I had to solo a couple to be ranked.

[Anomalocaris]

Spare Knight, on 03 May 2020 - 09:53 AM, said:

The big question is this. What number of players would be enough to support relatively quick match making for Tier 1? Would we only put Tier 1 in 8v8 Group Queue? Where could you separate the AMS and say everyone above this number is Tier one and will only play together? Since the weekend reset, we only show about 6,000 active players. That doesn't say how many spend money on this game.

I really like the idea of being able to group with friends. I mostly play solo. Here is what I saw between playing solo v group.

I don't think you have to group high level players away from everyone else. You just have to mix them in fairly. That's why the never to be created skill based matchmaker would be good. Each team might have 1 guy at 400+ MS, 1 at 350+, 2 at 300+ 8 between 200 and 300, 2 between 150 and 200.

This allows people to challenge themselves against better players, but a single 400 AMS player isn't going to be able to carry a match consistently on their own.

Then reinstitute an 8v8 group for those that want to play with friends, max group size 4 if you want. Everybody wins on that one.

[Larsh]

FRAGTAST1C, on 03 May 2020 - 08:46 AM, said:

While you can view some of the lesser known streamers, you should take the matches into account and not what they say. I wouldn't take anyone's opinion seriously when the facts are clear from their own material. That's the point I'm trying to make here. Let's go with the facts instead of personal experience and opinions.

To make it clear, the merger can work if there are a few things put in place. The way it is now is just nonsensical. I mentioned them before but I'll list them again so we can hopefully compromise and let the 3 eejits in PGI understand the real issues.

1. Tiers should be separate and T5s shouldn't be in T1. Furthermore, fix the PSR such that it actually reflects the player's skill instead of the number of matches played regardless of performance.

2. Bring back old spawns where Alpha, Bravo and Charlie were meant for Light/Medium, Medium/Heavy and Heavy/Assault respective. The current way is stupid. There's no need to make the 4-man always be in the same lance.

3. End this garbage of treating an individual as a group-of-1 and spread the tonnage evenly between the teams.

4. Assess the threat value of a group. Stop treating a weekend group the same as a group of highly skilled players. Restricting tonnage to even 160t for 4-man won't affect them.

5. Stop placing 3-man and 2-man groups in the same team. Don't create matches if one team has a group and the other doesn't. Wait for another group. Extending the wait time in such instances to 1 min won't kill anyone.

I agree 100% with each point you have here. Everything you brought up has been witnessed on most, it not all, streams that I've tuned in to.

But, I think what I may have had meant to say, is that some other streamers aren't seeing the huge lopsided matches that some of the higher experienced streamers are. This is probably because higher experienced streamers are going to have more wins and stomps, than other streamers, due to their coordination and skill set. Just saying it is good to expand the pool of visual evidence since a handful of others are not seeing the major win / loss.

1. Mixing Tiers was probably the worst way PGI could have implemented this mix of solo and group. When they announced this merger, some were under the assumption that Tier ranking would still mean something for group division. But, damn that was messed from the start.

2. Yea spawns are horrible at the moment. From my experience I've seen most pre-made groups placed in Alpha lance. Brought a group of assaults? Well good luck reaching the team. This needs to be fixed where maybe groups can still be in the same team, and placed in proper lances as it used to be. Not too sure how much work that will take on their part.

3. Yea, again with tonnage issues. This item needs to be re-assessed.

4. Groups need to be seen as overall PSR within. Also, might work well to see what win / loss ratio they have.

5. Bingo. This issue is creating possible groups of 5. Waiting an extra min, or two, is not a bad deal for the sake of balance.

Edited by Larsh, 03 May 2020 - 10:22 AM.

[DemonRaziel]

Anomalocaris, on 03 May 2020 - 09:06 AM, said:

Per Russ, stomps are up. Good 4mans have ungodly win percentages.

Because...

Anomalocaris, on 03 May 2020 - 09:06 AM, said:

All tiers drop together now. Weight matching is off.

When you change too many variables at the same time, your testing runs into the issue of not actually being able to determine why everything went kablooey.

Is it really the issue of groups and solos being mashed together, or is it the removal of virtually any matchmaking restrictions? I'd
argue it's the latter.

Fighting an uphill battle, whether due to tonnage, (and thus firepower and armor) or skill discrepancy, or, Demon forbid, both is what my former squadmate used to call "a designated loss". That's never fun, but that's what matchamker is for (or should be for) - to prevent these kinds of matches from occuring (too often; an isolated incident can be forgiven).

I haven't played too many group matches recently (2-3 this year total), but back in the day, if you got really unlucky (especially during odd hours), you could get to a situation where only 3 12-man groups would drop. Having to wait for the other 2 to finish their match, then dropping against one of them while the other one is sitting it out is hardly the enjoyment one expects from playing a game. Heck, there were instances where there were only 2 groups dropping against each other over and over again - one being clearly more skilled than the other, it soon became a chore for both sides (with the comp players coming up with different ways to impose a handicap on themselves to make it even remotely challenging and enjoyable for either party).

There were other instances, where groups of 7 or 9 (hard to find the groups to add to these numbers to make it 12) had to wait insanely long to get a match and if that match would turn out to be unenjoyable, there was no fun to be had from playing that mode for HOURS.

That simply wasn't sustainable, players were bound to give up on it... And with less and less players playing it, these problems grew. That's why the group mode effectively died...

...

In my opinion, there's no such thing as A group queue... or rather, there shouldn't be. The solo queue (i.e. Quick Play) still pits 2 groups of 12 players against each other, while the "real" solo mode is actually Solaris.

It's just that PGI took so much time to actually implement the tools required for PUGs to have any sort of cooperation, that they created a culture of independent solos in a team deathmach game.

There should be a place for casual and a competitive players to enjoy themselves and strong enough incentives for the players to participate in one or the other (and especially a way to not incentivize people dropping into casual mode just to "roflstomp potatoes").

Fix the matchmaker, rework the tiers, offer enjoyable game modes to casuals and competitive players seeking for a challenge. Offer incentives to players not to seal club, offer reasons for players to take handicaps even...

[Brauer]

Larsh, on 03 May 2020 - 10:03 AM, said:

I agree 100% with each point you have here. Everything you brought up has been witnessed on most, it not all, streams that I've tuned in to.

But, I think what I may have had meant to say, is that some other streamers aren't seeing the huge lopsided matches that some of the higher experienced streamers are. This is probably because higher experienced streamers are going to have more wins and stomps, than other streamers due, to their coordination and skill set. Just saying it is good to expand the pool of visual evidence since a handful of others are not seeing the major win / loss.

1. Mixing Tiers was probably the worst way PGI could have implemented this mix of solo and group. When they announced this merger, some were under the assumption that Tier ranking would still mean something for group division. But, damn that was messed from the start.

2. Yea spawns are horrible at the moment. From my experience I've seen most pre-made groups placed in Alpha lance. Brought a group of assaults? Well good luck reaching the team. This needs to be fixed where maybe groups can still be in the same team, and placed in proper lances as it used to be. Not too sure how much work that will take on their part.

3. Yea, again with tonnage issues. This item needs to be re-assessed.

4. Groups need to be seen as overall PSR within. Also, might work well to see what win / loss ratio they have.

5. Bingo. This issue is creating possible groups of 5. Waiting an extra min, or two, is not a bad deal for the sake of balance.

While I agree spawns are a problem you certainly don't need to reach the rest of the team when you drop in a group. If you drop 4 mechs you have 65 tons each, so you likely have a fair bit of maneuverability in there. Even if you do drop in an assault and get one of the less ideal spawns (like Far-left spawn for the south-side team on Canyon) so long as you have a JJ you can get a decent position. From there all a 3-4 man group has to do is shoot everything down. The bigger core issue is that a decent three or four man group needs minimal if any help from the rest of the team to consistently roll matches.

[Larsh]

Brauer, on 03 May 2020 - 10:09 AM, said:

While I agree spawns are a problem you certainly don't need to reach the rest of the team when you drop in a group. If you drop 4 mechs you have 65 tons each, so you likely have a fair bit of maneuverability in there. Even if you do drop in an assault and get one of the less ideal spawns (like Far-left spawn for the south-side team on Canyon) so long as you have a JJ you can get a decent position. From there all a 3-4 man group has to do is shoot everything down. The bigger core issue is that a decent three or four man group needs minimal if any help from the rest of the team to consistently roll matches.

It may need to pulled back to the idea of the pre-made group, and how well they play. If the group is seasoned, and knows the ropes of the game well enough, they can usually tough out the spawn, and can make it on their own.

But, if the group is a less experienced group of new players, and they don't know all of the game mechanics and spawns, then it can cause a large issue.

[Alreech]

DemonRaziel, on 03 May 2020 - 10:05 AM, said:

That simply wasn't sustainable, players were bound to give up on it... And with less and less players playing it, these problems grew. That's why the group mode effectively died...

In my opinion, there's no such thing as A group queue... or rather, there shouldn't be. The solo queue (i.e. Quick Play) still pits 2 groups of 12 players against each other, while the "real" solo mode is actually Solaris.

It's just that PGI took so much time to actually implement the tools required for PUGs to have any sort of cooperation, that they created a culture of independent solos in a team deathmach game.

There should be a place for casual and a competitive players to enjoy themselves and strong enough incentives for the players to participate in one or the other (and especially a way to not incentivize people dropping into casual mode just to "roflstomp potatoes").

Fix the matchmaker, rework the tiers, offer enjoyable game modes to casuals and competitive players seeking for a challenge. Offer incentives to players not to seal club, offer reasons for players to take handicaps even...

I agree to 99%.

The only thing is:
PGI marketd Group Quickplay as place for causual players who want to play with friends.
Without Group Queue, that's left besides Solo?

The whole splitting the playerbase by "skill" or "competetive" vs "causual" was wrong from the begining.
Keeping the "competetive" players seperated from the "causuals" or "new players" should be done by the matchmaker.

[Brauer]

Larsh, on 03 May 2020 - 10:14 AM, said:

It may need to pulled back to the idea of the pre-made group, and how well they play. If the group is seasoned, and knows the ropes of the game well enough, they can usually tough out the spawn, and can make it on their own.

But, if the group is a less experienced group of new players, and they don't know all of the game mechanics and spawns, then it can cause a large issue.

Sure. What I am saying is that adding pre-made groups has fundamentally changed QP in a way that I think is actually quite bad. The new QP meta is to drop with a decent 3-4 player group and work together. The other 8 players on your side? Those people don't matter all that much if your team works together. The 12 players on the other side? They don't matter all that much unless you're facing another strong group.

Dropping solo? Putting yourself at an immediate disadvantage.

I haven't seen any increase in teamwork or using comms in anything like a productive way to offset that detrimental impact either. On multiple occasions today I made calls early for my team to execute simple strats (like holding the bridge/spine on HPG) including by giving out grid coordinates. More often than not my team completely ignored those calls and instead hid behind cover and refused to engage. Now when my team did actually listen we completely stomped the other team (like 12-0 or 12-1), but again in my experience teams are not listening more or engaging in more teamwork than in that past.

We may have less nascar now, but that's just because a 3-4 player group can anchor in one spot and shoot the whole enemy team down while the players on their team can do whatever they want while ultimately having little impact on the match.

[Horseman]

Marshal Jim Duncan, on 03 May 2020 - 08:19 AM, said:

Combining the Queues has brought a bunch of salty, negative, can't play as a team ppl into quick play. You would think the opposite would have happened. Perhaps the reason why so many people were not dropping in groups is because it allowed them to avoid the idiots that ruin their game play.

Chances are those people were there... but we weren't seeing them because they were lifetime denizens of Tier 4 and 5.

Larsh, on 03 May 2020 - 10:03 AM, said:

5. Bingo. This issue is creating possible groups of 5. Waiting an extra min, or two, is not a bad deal for the sake of balance.

Yep, a Solaris-like gating system with set time periods between launches has been proposed a few times already.

[Spare Knight]

One of the things I noticed when solo was that if I had a half-decent group on my team, I could support them and we could usually pull off a win.


I need to make a point here. I still don't know which side of the fence I am on about this merger. I can work with it either way. My worries are with the noobs that might not understand why they are getting beaten down like they have no armor. I just hate to see them leave before they can even get decent control of their mechs, figure out a viable build, learn the maps and start working as a functioning part of a team. Otherwise, these servers won't be here much longer.

[Alreech]

Anomalocaris, on 03 May 2020 - 09:51 AM, said:

To use your logic, if I can't find a solo game anymore I should just quit too.

With more players in Group Queue you will find more and faster matches and even better balanced ones (due more players to use for balancing).

You can still go Solo even with Groups in your team: just do your thing.

Quote

Every game gets old and loses players. Short of actually releasing a new MWO:2 with an actual marketing campaign and good gameplay, this game is not going to grow its playerbase, all you can do is hope to keep the drain as slow as possible.

If PGI makes MWO 2...

• with no easy way to group up, forcing players to play solo...
  
• allowing difficult group sizes in match making (6+2, 5+3, 9+3, 10+2 problem)
  
• no Mech selection for the maps, forcing the players to build their Mechs all for short & medium range
  
• no respawn, forcing players to let other players die to avoid an early game over
  
• not rewardings the use of tools like the squad leader menue
  
• telling most of their playerbase (those who can't get a full team of 8 or 12 players any day) to stay out of their main game mode (12 vs 12 group or faction play)...

How will it end?


But probably the new MWO will only have Solo Quickplay with small maps in 12 vs 12 to nascar around, "because it's the most succesfull game mode".

[Einherier96]

Brauer, on 03 May 2020 - 10:23 AM, said:

Sure. What I am saying is that adding pre-made groups has fundamentally changed QP in a way that I think is actually quite bad. The new QP meta is to drop with a decent 3-4 player group and work together. The other 8 players on your side? Those people don't matter all that much if your team works together. The 12 players on the other side? They don't matter all that much unless you're facing another strong group.

Dropping solo? Putting yourself at an immediate disadvantage.

I haven't seen any increase in teamwork or using comms in anything like a productive way to offset that detrimental impact either. On multiple occasions today I made calls early for my team to execute simple strats (like holding the bridge/spine on HPG) including by giving out grid coordinates. More often than not my team completely ignored those calls and instead hid behind cover and refused to engage. Now when my team did actually listen we completely stomped the other team (like 12-0 or 12-1), but again in my experience teams are not listening more or engaging in more teamwork than in that past.

We may have less nascar now, but that's just because a 3-4 player group can anchor in one spot and shoot the whole enemy team down while the players on their team can do whatever they want while ultimately having little impact on the match.

Okay, don't take this personally, but your statement amuses me so much. You know, your statement reads like this might actually be a teamgame, where fighting as a team and having tactics gives you an actuall advantage instead of a 24 player deathmatch game. Guess what, having 4 players use tactics and trying to hold a keyline has allways been the way to play and win this game, its just that people for whatever reasons (lets be honest here, most of these reasons are not being a newbie or being bad, but rather being an egoistical arse that doesn't give a damn about working tpgether with others cause the game revolves around him and his entertainment alone) never done it. And so far, nothing of what you describe actually sounds bad, if the other 8 people on the team don't matter, then maybe they start binding together into their respective lances as well to matter as well? cause you know what is better then having one coordinated team? exactly, having 2, 3, 4 coordinated teams instead. And if you don't wanna play together with your team in a teamgame, then don't cry if you get dragged into an dark alleyway by the enemy team and get beaten by them.

And yes, if you are unable to coordinate with your team, then you are at a disadvantage as a solo drop. that is, if you are unwilling to use all the tools the game gives you to work together with your teammates. and if you don't wanna do that, then sorry, I don't have regret for you.

Also, since we are allready on the topic of subjectives ''in my experience teams do yadada''. So far today, I played for nearly three hours with my buddy, and the teamwork of around 50-60& of the matches we had i would describe as solid, and as what would have been exceptionally rare and good half a year ago, and 20% of them were even exceptional from a strategical standpoint. we had lurmers tucking in close to the rest of the team and providing fire support like they should do (and sharing armor), coordinated target calling, people moving in groups. We had way more people interact via vc, way less saltiness (and the two cases that happened, people laughed about it and didn't let their enjoyment take a hit).

Now we are moving to your statement that the enemy players don't matter if they don't have an organized team as well. Will you have that in all teams? well, propably not, you will allways have one or two idiots who will go off and die, or just turn the corner at the wrong time and die instantly. but that doesn't mean that you cannot pull their weight if the rest of the team pulls together and works together as well. But the more and longer you force people to work together, the more likely they will start doing so. You will still have the oddball moron from time to time, but i would take a ''tactics'' meta that you fear over this 24 player deathmatch **** any day.

edit: fixed some minor letter twists, if you find more, treat yourself to a cookie for each of them

Edited by Einherier96, 03 May 2020 - 10:48 AM.

[Spare Knight]

Alreech, on 03 May 2020 - 10:41 AM, said:

But probably the new MWO will only have Solo Quickplay with small maps in 12 vs 12 to nascar around, "because it's the most succesfull game mode".

Map Vote
Do you want Canyon Network with or without snow? Y N

Edited by Spare Knight, 03 May 2020 - 10:52 AM.

[Larsh]

Brauer, on 03 May 2020 - 10:23 AM, said:

Sure. What I am saying is that adding pre-made groups has fundamentally changed QP in a way that I think is actually quite bad. The new QP meta is to drop with a decent 3-4 player group and work together. The other 8 players on your side? Those people don't matter all that much if your team works together. The 12 players on the other side? They don't matter all that much unless you're facing another strong group.

Dropping solo? Putting yourself at an immediate disadvantage.

I haven't seen any increase in teamwork or using comms in anything like a productive way to offset that detrimental impact either. On multiple occasions today I made calls early for my team to execute simple strats (like holding the bridge/spine on HPG) including by giving out grid coordinates. More often than not my team completely ignored those calls and instead hid behind cover and refused to engage. Now when my team did actually listen we completely stomped the other team (like 12-0 or 12-1), but again in my experience teams are not listening more or engaging in more teamwork than in that past.

We may have less nascar now, but that's just because a 3-4 player group can anchor in one spot and shoot the whole enemy team down while the players on their team can do whatever they want while ultimately having little impact on the match.

I think this is where the playerbase group divide may lay, is in the differing matches we've had.

So far, with my limited free time due to working full time, I've been able to drop on Tue and Fri with groups. I also plan to drop for a chunk tonight, but go in solo this time. But, each time my group has done so, we've seen a pretty decent amount of even match ups. Only time we saw a one sided match up is when we saw ourselves pitted against some well known, very seasoned, players. With the latter not happening that often.

On average, the group I play with is a mixed bag of Tier 1s, and Tier 3s and 4s. So to play as a semi coordinated group works well when not matched up against the top tier players. At some point, I think it would be interesting if some people wanted to cross communicate to join each others Discord groups to play. Could give some very useful insight on the playerbase as a whole. Personally, I wouldn't mind dropping with the pros just to experience that side.

It also comes to the question of how many groups made are those with well seasoned, in contrast with newer, or inexperienced players. This is a data point I would love to see from PGI, but doubt we will see.

Voicing items over VOIP has been a mixed bag on my end too. Sometimes players gel well, and the 12 man that is mixed with a group work as a well oiled machine. Other times I've seen a totally silent group, with things I've see happen in Solo before this test was put in place (pretty much players doing whatever they want, ending up in a free for all).

[Spare Knight]

Larsh, on 03 May 2020 - 10:51 AM, said:

Voicing items over VOIP has been a mixed bag on my end too. Sometimes players gel well, and the 12 man that is mixed with a group work as a well oiled machine. Other times I've seen a totally silent group, with things I've see happen in Solo before this test was put in place (pretty much players doing whatever they want, ending up in a free for all).

I find that if there is at least some communication before the drop, at least some of the team will gel. That is often enough of them to make a difference.

Edited by Spare Knight, 03 May 2020 - 11:00 AM.

[Brauer]

Einherier96, on 03 May 2020 - 10:44 AM, said:

Okay, don't take this personally, but your statement amuses me so much. You know, your statement reads like this might actually be a teamgame, where fighting as a team and having tactics gives you an actuall advantage instead of a 24 player deathmatch game. Guess what, having 4 players use tactics and trying to hold a keyline has allways been the way to play and win this game, its just that people for whatever reasons (lets be honest here, most of these reasons are not being a newbie or being bad, but rather being an egoistical arse that doesn't give a damn about working tpgether with others cause the game revolves around him and his entertainment alone) never done it. And so far, nothing of what you describe actually sounds bad, if the other 8 people on the team don't matter, then maybe they start binding together into their respective lances as well to matter as well? cause you know what is better then having one coordinated team? exactly, having 2, 3, 4 coordinated teams instead. And if you don't wanna play together with your team in a teamgame, then don't cry if you get dragged into an dark alleyway by the enemy team and get beaten by them.

And yes, if you are unable to coordinate with your team, then you are at a disadvantage as a solo drop. that is, if you are unwilling to use all the tools the game gives you to work together with your teammates. and if you don't wanna do that, then sorry, I don't have regret for you.

Also, since we are allready on the topic of subjectives ''in my experience teams do yadada''. So far today, I played for nearly three hours with my buddy, and the teamwork of around 50-60& of the matches we had i would describe as solid, and as what would have been exceptionally rare and good half a year ago, and 20% of them were even exceptional from a strategical standpoint. we had lurmers tucking in close to the rest of the team and providing fire support like they should do (and sharing armor), coordinated target calling, people moving in groups. We had way more people interact via vc, way less saltiness (and the two cases that happened, people laughed about it and didn't let their enjoyment take a hit).

Now we are moving to your statement that the enemy players don't matter if they don't have an organized team as well. Will you have that in all teams? well, propably not, you will allways have one or two idiots who will go off and die, or just turn the corner at the wrong time and die instantly. but that doesn't mean that you cannot pull their weight if the rest of the team pulls together and works together as well. But the more and longer you force people to work together, the more likely they will start doing so. You will still have the oddball moron from time to time, but i would take a ''tactics'' meta that you fear over this 24 player deathmatch **** any day.

edit: fixed some minor letter twists, if you find more, treat yourself to a cookie for each of them

Yes, I know working together has always been the way to succeed. I think my record speaks to my understanding of the game and how to be successful in it. There are a bunch of issues with your idea that " if the other 8 people on the team don't matter, then maybe they start binding together into their respective lances as well to matter as well?":

• Team cohesion is key. 4 randos trying to work together are rarely going to be as effective as 4 players who have played together a lot, all else being equal.
  
• Dropping in a 3 or 4 man group you can stack a team. If any 4 players from any of the comp teams I've played on drop together they're already stacking one side of a match, and I haven't played on the absolute top couple of teams. The main counter to that is if another strong group gets matched on the other side, but that's exceedingly rare.
  
• Bringing mechs that synergize can be guaranteed for a 3-4 person group, that is not the case for a group of randos. If a 3-4 person group brings all long-range, or all mid-range, or all brawl, they're almost guaranteed to have builds that synergize better than the rest of their team.
  
• There's a LOT of history of QP randos being unable to coordinate and work well together, and it's unrealistic to expect the playerbase to suddenly change their ways and coordinate (and not a ton of evidence from what I've seen of them coordinating).
  
• Most players don't actually understand the game well at all, and those weaknesses include taking bad mechs, making bad builds given the variant chosen, misunderstanding core game mechanics, chain-firing weapons, taking weak positions on maps, not knowing strong positions on maps, and probably more beyond that which I can't think of at the moment. The point being, if you don't actually know what to do to counter the opposing team, which most players don't, you will get wrecked.

Much of the rest of your post in my opinion demonstrates a rather grave misunderstanding of the current meta. We are not in a tactics meta. We are in a "bring 4 good players and roflstomp" meta. If you check out my stats you will see that the other 20-21 players in the matches I've been in with a group have not had a huge impact on the game. It doesn't really matter all that much if the 12 players on the other side try to work together if they don't also have a strong group with them, and even when the players matched with us threw the game hard it didn't usually influence the result much.


By the way, I am and have always been willing to work with my team. I have a generally aggressive playstyle and do my part to put down as much damage as quickly as possible on opposing teams. It's funny that you say "if you don't want to play together with your team in a teamgame, then don't cry if you get dragged into a dark alleway by the enemy team and get beaten by them" because I've been inflicting those beatings along with some of my fellow players. I'm against this change because 1) I don't think players should be at an immediate disadvantage in QP just because they are dropping solo, and 2) I have seen firsthand how hard a decent three to four player team can carry matches.

[Brauer]

Larsh, on 03 May 2020 - 10:51 AM, said:

I think this is where the playerbase group divide may lay, is in the differing matches we've had.

So far, with my limited free time due to working full time, I've been able to drop on Tue and Fri with groups. I also plan to drop for a chunk tonight, but go in solo this time. But, each time my group has done so, we've seen a pretty decent amount of even match ups. Only time we saw a one sided match up is when we saw ourselves pitted against some well known, very seasoned, players. With the latter not happening that often.

On average, the group I play with is a mixed bag of Tier 1s, and Tier 3s and 4s. So to play as a semi coordinated group works well when not matched up against the top tier players. At some point, I think it would be interesting if some people wanted to cross communicate to join each others Discord groups to play. Could give some very useful insight on the playerbase as a whole. Personally, I wouldn't mind dropping with the pros just to experience that side.

It also comes to the question of how many groups made are those with well seasoned, in contrast with newer, or inexperienced players. This is a data point I would love to see from PGI, but doubt we will see.

Voicing items over VOIP has been a mixed bag on my end too. Sometimes players gel well, and the 12 man that is mixed with a group work as a well oiled machine. Other times I've seen a totally silent group, with things I've see happen in Solo before this test was put in place (pretty much players doing whatever they want, ending up in a free for all).

I just went through my screenshots from dropping with a group. Our average match is about 12-4 in our favor, but I think that can actually overstate how close some of the matches were. As a 3-4 person team it doesn't really matter so much if friendlies not in the group go down, what matters more is if players in the group get killed. Some of the 12-8 matches we still had almost all of, if not all of, our group alive.

I also dropped solo a bit before the season switched over, and again I tried to communicate. But my impression was that we still had the same old passive play that has been a hallmark of MWO for years.

Edited by Brauer, 03 May 2020 - 11:47 AM.

[DemonRaziel]

Spare Knight, on 03 May 2020 - 10:47 AM, said:

Map Vote
Do you want Canyon Network with or without snow? Y N

You typed HPG and Mining wrong

[Anomalocaris]

Brauer, on 03 May 2020 - 11:11 AM, said:

Yes, I know working together has always been the way to succeed. I think my record speaks to my understanding of the game and how to be successful in it. There are a bunch of issues with your idea that " if the other 8 people on the team don't matter, then maybe they start binding together into their respective lances as well to matter as well?":

• Team cohesion is key. 4 randos trying to work together are rarely going to be as effective as 4 players who have played together a lot, all else being equal.....

[color=#222222].....I'm against this change because 1) I don't think players should be at an immediate disadvantage in QP just because they are dropping solo, and 2) I have seen firsthand how hard a decent three to four player team can carry matches.[/color]

Jesus someone sticky this whole post. Please people read this and understand it.

[Einherier96]

Brauer, on 03 May 2020 - 11:11 AM, said:

Yes, I know working together has always been the way to succeed. I think my record speaks to my understanding of the game and how to be successful in it. There are a bunch of issues with your idea that " if the other 8 people on the team don't matter, then maybe they start binding together into their respective lances as well to matter as well?":

• Team cohesion is key. 4 randos trying to work together are rarely going to be as effective as 4 players who have played together a lot, all else being equal.
  
• Dropping in a 3 or 4 man group you can stack a team. If any 4 players from any of the comp teams I've played on drop together they're already stacking one side of a match, and I haven't played on the absolute top couple of teams. The main counter to that is if another strong group gets matched on the other side, but that's exceedingly rare.
  
• Bringing mechs that synergize can be guaranteed for a 3-4 person group, that is not the case for a group of randos. If a 3-4 person group brings all long-range, or all mid-range, or all brawl, they're almost guaranteed to have builds that synergize better than the rest of their team.
  
• There's a LOT of history of QP randos being unable to coordinate and work well together, and it's unrealistic to expect the playerbase to suddenly change their ways and coordinate (and not a ton of evidence from what I've seen of them coordinating).
  
• Most players don't actually understand the game well at all, and those weaknesses include taking bad mechs, making bad builds given the variant chosen, misunderstanding core game mechanics, chain-firing weapons, taking weak positions on maps, not knowing strong positions on maps, and probably more beyond that which I can't think of at the moment. The point being, if you don't actually know what to do to counter the opposing team, which most players don't, you will get wrecked.

Much of the rest of your post in my opinion demonstrates a rather grave misunderstanding of the current meta. We are not in a tactics meta. We are in a "bring 4 good players and roflstomp" meta. If you check out my stats you will see that the other 20-21 players in the matches I've been in with a group have not had a huge impact on the game. It doesn't really matter all that much if the 12 players on the other side try to work together if they don't also have a strong group with them, and even when the players matched with us threw the game hard it didn't usually influence the result much.





By the way, I am and have always been willing to work with my team. I have a generally aggressive playstyle and do my part to put down as much damage as quickly as possible on opposing teams. It's funny that you say "if you don't want to play together with your team in a teamgame, then don't cry if you get dragged into a dark alleway by the enemy team and get beaten by them" because I've been inflicting those beatings along with some of my fellow players. I'm against this change because 1) I don't think players should be at an immediate disadvantage in QP just because they are dropping solo, and 2) I have seen firsthand how hard a decent three to four player team can carry matches.

Allright, while i agree with some of your points, i heavily disagree with the conclusion you arrive at.

I will skip your first point, since that ties in with something that I wanna speak about at the end.

Not sure what your second point is about, correct me if i am wrong, but it seems like to synch drop with several groups, to which I agree that that is an issue, but you can either prohibit it, or going forward, is pgi's job to give an incentive for these players to either drop in another game mode as a full 8 or 12 player group (for example make a special group for 12vs12 or 8vs8 premade groups.

This ties a bit into my third point. While you say that one team will pull the rest of the 12 player team no matter what, i heavily disagree. While it is true that a 4 player premade team has more advantages then a shuffled toegher solo player team, it is still perfectly feasonable for the solo team/teams to take the premade group out, may it be through sheer luck, or through better organization. if the randoms are able to pile more players onto the premade, or evade them and take out the rest of their team first to win through sheer numbers. Also, lets stop talking about it like every group from now on will be 4 players, that is not the truth, and a 2 player or 3 player group will have less impact then a 4 man squad if they cannot achieve coordination with their team.

But I wanna directly tie into where i most disagree with you.Teams have an advantage because they can fine tune their mechs to suit each other better. true, absolutely.But solo playing should not be the way to go for a teamgame in the first place. And i think we should look at the community and ask ourselves why so many decide to drop solo instead of forming groups with people they got along with in the rounds before and form premade groups for quickplay. i honestly have never seen the friendlist option so rarely used in a game like in mwo. And mwo is unnatural in the percentage of people who are solo dropping, which in my opinion comes to following factors:
-one is simply. some people simply dislike playing in a team or premade. weird but for game build around being a team, but okay, thats fine, and you will find people like these in any game. as long as they pull their weight, its perfectly fine.
-seconldy are those players that are playing the game too casually to go into units or into coordinated big teams. I would fall into such a categorie. Or to say it like someone did a few posts before. I am not commited enough to mwo to play this game in a big group, to be tied to specific times where everybody is online cause the playerbase is so abysmall.
-thirdly, and the amount of players you are the most easily able to pull back into the game: people who play this game with their friends, or rather would be if the game wouldn't force you to either synch drop, or to wait an eternity and a half to play as exactly that, a group of friends. Most players who will join mwo, fresh meat to say, will be pulled in by their friends, will propably play this game casually, because no matter what the hardcore community of a game says, the casuals as the bigger part of the community by far for a healthy game. And those people will simply not play a game that promotes them to either not be able to play with their friends half the time, or to wait for hours for a match. you will not gain any more players with that, you will just let mwo die more quickly cause the influx of new players will dry up even faster.

What mwo can do with the mixed queue is to promote grouping in smaller drops, finaly ending the reign of the abysmall community that is left and that is full of either solo drops or full teams drops, pull back people who didn't play the game with their friends cause the game was simply not accessible for either their group size or their approach to the game, promote more tactical gameplay, and also stop the toxic and starving atmosphere of the game, that the community created.

What do you think is a better atmospehere for newbies/players who are not so great? a communcating, active team, where they can slowly learn which map positions are good or bad because they get called out, or the silent matches we had in the last years, where you die because of reasons (may it be bad build, bad positioning, or a combination of both), where you die,and will never know why, because everyone sits silently in front of their screen (at best, at worse the toxic part of the community sits at t5 and t4). Whoever survives the silent matches as a newbie atm is propably too thickheaded to take on advice anyways (if you will even find people who are willing to give it at the lower tiers), or will inform themelfes, choose a a premade group to drop with, and will fall out of the matchmaker. This game needs casuals, it needs more acessibility to get every single player it can. atm we have at least at steam around 100-200 more players on average then before. And if we have more players, pgi can actually get a working solution if it turns out that certain high skilled players are a problem, atm the pool is simply too small, and if you keep things as they are, the game will simply shrink even faster.

Which is also why i endorse it that they lifted the tier restrictions. First of all, it is better for accessibility, once again. i honestly don't wanna do a ****** smurf account just to play with my friends who play this game more casually and rarer then i do. its annoying. And it also gives newbies the ability to meet more experienced players who might be willing to talk to them and teach them a thing or two. and yes i know, this community sucks anyways yada yada, and i admit that it is pretty utopian to hope that the community will turn around, welcome newbies, explain **** to them and all that stuff but honestly, will you still piss in the pool cause everybody does it anyway, or are you willing to not do it cause it might make a change? The matchmaker change that pgi does is an opportunity for mwo to open itself up for an audience that approaches games more casually, to bolster up its numbers, get away from the nascar deathmatch meta, and maybe breath in some life back into mwo. and for that i am willing to take the frustration of playing with people who have no clue how to play the game, how to play their mech (or to build him), because i will have that anyways, and the possible positive change far outweighs the negatives for me personally. because honestly, i just came back into the game because i can now finaly play reliable with my friends in this game, and if they revert it back when the test stops, i will be out again. the community itself is not such a community atm that could keep me hooked onto the game like other games have.

edited some spelling errors, any more you can keep, as usual, treat yourself to one cookie per mistake you found.

Edited by Einherier96, 03 May 2020 - 11:52 AM.