1579 replies to this topic

[Gantradies]

ive been reading through this thread, and as someone who's admittedly kinda crap at the game, ive got mixed feelings about the change-
admittedly the inability to queue with a small group of friends in less then 30-40 minutes HAS been a longstanding complaint ive had about the game-its actively driven a few friends i introduced to MWO away (the feeling we essentially got was "bloody thing wont even let us play together"), but the comments/reports about balance issues are admittedly a little worrying...

[Spare Knight]

I am not a programmer, but I think that a Average Match Score Last 100 games would be an easy way for the match maker to level the teams. Match Score already works as a total of what you did in a match. Being the last 100 games, it would go up or down as a player learns or fails, but would not fluctuate quickly. Maybe last 50 games would be better. It could be tracked and updated on the leaderboard hourly as all the stats are. The matchmaker could pull from there easily enough.

The whole thing of it being to hard to fix the matchmaker sounds like a cop out to me.

[Zirconium Kaze]

Gantradies, on 03 May 2020 - 03:28 PM, said:

ive been reading through this thread, and as someone who's admittedly kinda crap at the game, ive got mixed feelings about the change-
admittedly the inability to queue with a small group of friends in less then 30-40 minutes HAS been a longstanding complaint ive had about the game-its actively driven a few friends i introduced to MWO away (the feeling we essentially got was "bloody thing wont even let us play together"), but the comments/reports about balance issues are admittedly a little worrying...

It'll fix itself over time. People need time to adapt.

[Spare Knight]

Zirconium Kaze, on 03 May 2020 - 03:51 PM, said:

It'll fix itself over time.

What?

[Larsh]

I envision it if we had a sports tournament bracket, but there is no elimination round, and you can only move up and down. You win more matches? You move up in the ranks, and you fight those in a similar bracket. You lose more than you win, then you get placed in that bracket, etc etc.

[Sjorpha]

My assessment so far:

Positives:
- I'm having more fun.
- I can play with my friends even if there is no active FP queue.
- Less mindless nascar and such, more team cohesion even in unbalanced matchups.
- More communication.
- More memeworthy things happens as groups do some silly strategies.

Negatives:
- Some people other than me are apparently having less fun.
- More stomps (not sure how much more)
- No tonnage balancing. (Although the mismatching tonnages can be fun sometimes too)
- Less people in Faction Play putting that mode in risk of dying (this is a big one for me actually)

So yeah, pros and cons. I seems to come down to how important you think balanced teams are vs how important the ability to play casually in small groups are. There are people who never played in groups simply because they felt group queue and FP were too competitive, and they probably like this a lot. I think a lot of people don't mind the imbalance that much.

I don't hear a lot of complaining about imbalanced teams in game either actually, in fact the people who complain the most about the imbalance on the forums seems to be strongest players who are doing the stomping in groups and not the pugs they are stomping. In Faction Play it was always the bad pugs who complained about being stomped by the groups of strong players, but now it seems more like it's the strong players in groups who are complaining on behalf of the pugs, what's going on here?

My theory is that when the strong players group up, they see an incredibly lopsided string of matches from their perspective. They are winning all or almost all games and it seems to them that this must be terrible for the solo players. But from the solo players perspective those teams are in a minority of matches and it's not big deal to be stomped every now and then, plus they just as often drop on the side of the strong group and get to do the stomping themselves. In the end what the group sees (a very biased selection of imbalanced matches they themselves create) and what the solos see (a random slice of games, a few of which contain strong groups) ends up giving very different impressions of what is happening.

In faction play, dropping solo often means being stomped every single game over and over, often by the same group drop after drop, which is a soul crushing hopeless experience after a while. But in this combined solo queue it's nothing like that, you sometimes randomly drop with or against a strong group, but it ends up being mostly whatever.

I'm not sure you can be right or wrong about whether this change is good as it's largely a matter of taste in the end, but you could just go by how it affects the population to see if it's popular. If more people are playing, they probably enjoy it despite the cons and vice versa.

Edited by Sjorpha, 03 May 2020 - 05:20 PM.

[Zirconium Kaze]

Sjorpha, on 03 May 2020 - 05:01 PM, said:

My assessment so far:

Positives:
- I'm having more fun.
- I can play with my friends even if there is no active FP queue.
- Less mindless nascar and such, more team cohesion even in unbalanced matchups.
- More communication.
- More memeworthy things happens as groups do some silly strategies.

Negatives:
- Some people other than me are apparently having less fun.
- More stomps (not sure how much more)
- No tonnage balancing. (Although the mismatching tonnages can be fun sometimes too)
- Less people in Faction Play putting that mode in risk of dying (this is a big one for me actually)

So yeah, pros and cons. I seems to come down to how important you think balanced teams are vs how important the ability to play casually in small groups are. There are people who never played in groups simply because they felt group queue and FP were too competitive, and they probably like this a lot. I think a lot of people don't mind the imbalance that much.

I don't hear a lot of complaining about imbalanced teams in game either actually, in fact the people who complain the most about the imbalance on the forums seems to be strongest players who are doing the stomping in groups and not the pugs they are stomping. In Faction Play it was always the bad pugs who complained about being stomped by the groups of strong players, but now it seems more like it's the strong players in groups who are complaining on behalf of the pugs, what's going on here?

My theory is that when the strong players group up, they see an incredibly lopsided string of matches from their perspective. They are winning all or almost all games and it seems to them that this must be terrible for the solo players. But from the solo players perspective those teams are in a minority of matches and it's not big deal to be stomped every now and then, plus they just as often drop on the side of the strong group and get to do the stomping themselves. In the end what the group sees (a very biased selection of imbalanced matches they themselves create) and what the solos see (a random slice of games, a few of which contain strong groups) ends up giving very different impressions of what is happening.

I'm not sure you can be right or wrong about whether this change is good as it's largely a matter of taste in the end, but you could just go by how it affects the population to see if it's popular. If more people are playing, they probably enjoy it despite the cons and vice versa.

I think every game mode should have drop decks honestly. Trial mechs are a thing for people who don't have mechs.

[Sjorpha]

Zirconium Kaze, on 03 May 2020 - 05:16 PM, said:

I think every game mode should have drop decks honestly. Trial mechs are a thing for people who don't have mechs.

Kinda funny how those two sentences have nothing to do with my post OR with each other, but whatever

[Anomalocaris]

Einherier96, on 03 May 2020 - 12:25 PM, said:

honestly? i would take the risk of loosing you and people like you anyday for the chance of gaining more people back. It it ain't 2013 anymore, the comminty changed and shrank, and lets be honest, mwo is struggeling to keep the playerbase, and they shouldn't cater to the people who stayed only, but instead should look why a player left and b why there is no influx of new players

edited to get rid of the stupid smiley that got automatically input when using a) c)

People like me who just wanna play solo without being forced to drop with pre-mades? That would seem rather short sighted.

People like me who have gotten so sick of alreech's b.s. ("just play merged queue and do your own thing if you wanna drop solo" is one of the most pedantic and condescending pieces of b.s. he's written) and light into him? Could understand that a little more.

But I happen to like SoloQ as it was. I'm better than average but not an elite player, and I try and get better each season (think I'm near my skill cap). And people telling me to just deal with it because group queue is important so, sorry, we gotta ruin your solo games doesn't fly. You want to fix group queue, fix it. Wanna ruin my solo drops, I'm going to fight you on it. And if you do keep this merge, I'm out, its just that simple. But instead of worrying, or not worrying about me, you ought to think about general population health over the next 3-6 months. Because if you keep the merged queue, regardless of tonnage of even modest improvements in the matchmaker, I will put real money down that you're going to continue to lose players at the same rate (or more likely an increased rate) as the game has been for the last year - quarantine bump notwithstanding. Groups >> Solos if the skill levels are equal, let alone when the group is composed of 4 1%ers. Thus the group will always have an advantage, which means solos will quickly learn when they really don't matter in a match. And no one wants to be irrelevant.

[Anomalocaris]

DemonRaziel, on 03 May 2020 - 11:56 AM, said:

Hey Anomalocaris, I see you're one of the more vocal posters against the queue merge, so I think you're one of the more qualified prolific posters to answer the question below:

If you were to pick the 3 or even 5 main points against the merge, what would you pick? Please be as detailed as possible (i.e. not "Pre-mades have an advantage", but "Pre-mades have a clear advantage because...[XZY] they can do X that a PUG can't".

Guys sharing the same sentiment as Anomalocaris, as well as those on the other side of the barricade, please respond as well, with your main points against and/or in favor. Acual arguments is what we need, instead of black and white vision and ad hominems against anyone who doesn't share the same sentiment, is what we need.

Thanks for asking. I will make it really simple actually with just one reason. Assume for a second that PGI does everything that they possibly can to fix matchmaking, player ratings, tonnage matching, and all the other issues we've talked about. It's a big assumption, and given PGI's history along with Russ' current tweets on the topic, it won't happen ever. But let's just assume they do.

Even then I'm still against merging queues because groups >> solos. I don't think anyone here would argue against the premise that pre-made groups working together are a force multiplier for a number of reasons that I have stated in other posts and that I think Brauer has discussed even more eloquently than I. These reasons include:

1. Synergistic builds
2. Awareness of skill sets and how to manage the players strengths and weaknesses in the group
3. The ability to develop a strategy ahead of time and adjust it to map/mode (in addition those 4 people will have 4 unified votes through the group leader for their preferred map and mode)
4. Trust in each other

Assuming everyone in a match, solos and groups, is of the same skill level, even 4 solos communicating well at the start of match will not be able to match the force multiplier of a pre-made 4-man. Thus, if you enjoy winning and want to keep moving up in the game, you will have to drop in a group. I don't want to do groups anymore. I don't get to play as often as I like (I actually have more time to post here than I do to play many days because I'm in transit, etc.) and I really don't want to manage the relationships required for good group play, I have enough people in the real world to deal with. I just want to log in, pick one of my favorite mechs and go play a quick play match and have a shot at winning within the randomness of the match maker. Mixing me in with groups means I won't have as much of an opportunity to contribute, swing a match, etc. That's a downer for me.

And let's not forget that's assuming that PGI actually does a good matchmaker. I have no faith at this time that they will ever do a good matchmaker, which just makes the impact of good groups on the queue even larger, and the contributions of solos even smaller.

[Brauer]

pseudofiction, on 03 May 2020 - 07:17 PM, said:

What they are essentially doing is forcing competitive play on everyone, even casual players. Today I've seen clan-gangs massing riflemenIIc each with 6xac2s and forcing open maps, mass medpulse vulcans forcing close range maps, even atm vapor eagles and another cheap power builds which completely ruins the game for everyone but them. Now I'm not sure if the groups are able to influence map choice, so don't quote me on that, but if they do it's even more messed up. The only way to counter this is having an equivalent on your team, probability of which is extremely low. I for one have no desire in competitive gaming, that's why stick to solo queue and stay the hell away from solaris and group play. I like to use battletech lore friendly, realistic builds that are also effective but no matter how effective I make them and although I'm not a complete trash as a pilot, there is nothing I can do against such force. After today I decided to disco every time I see something like that and just eat the penalty, even if they are on my team, since it's the only way from me to boycott this trend and if it's still around by month's end, well bye bye MWO. Another phenomenon I've been seeing lately is one team having ~4 assault mechs and the other none, wth? Good luck trying to make a push against team sporting all assault lance, preferably supported by a 4member group with powerbuilds, with none on your team...

tl;dr Get the power-gaming the hell out of my solo queue!

TBF the Skill-Veagle ruins the game for everyone, it's not particularly fun to play as or against.


EDIT: On a more serious note, you're never going to get "power-gaming" out of solo queue so long as there are builds or strategies that are more optimal than others. BUT with the current state of the queue the true meta is running a decent 3-4 person group, AND you see players of all skill levels smashed together in one queue with essentially no regard for balancing the overall ability on opposing teams. So while I'm not an enemy of meta-gaming there is an issue here wherein players are not being put in matches that are anything close to balanced, and the solo experience has suffered.

Edited by Brauer, 03 May 2020 - 07:36 PM.

[Anomalocaris]

Brauer, on 03 May 2020 - 07:34 PM, said:

TBF the Skill-Veagle ruins the game for everyone, it's not particularly fun to play as or against.

It's such a strong combo if I feel like I'm catching a string of bad matches in solo I whip it out if I need a win. Not sure what it is (hitboxes? mobility? Total package?) but something about it needs nerfing.

Back to your regularly scheduled queue merger debate.

Thanks for sharing your perspective Brauer as someone who plays in all areas of the game. I think its sorely needed and not just because I agree with you. Guys like me are solo only and thus don't have the comp/fw/group perspective that you might.

[Brauer]

Anomalocaris, on 03 May 2020 - 07:57 PM, said:

It's such a strong combo if I feel like I'm catching a string of bad matches in solo I whip it out if I need a win. Not sure what it is (hitboxes? mobility? Total package?) but something about it needs nerfing.

Back to your regularly scheduled queue merger debate.

Thanks for sharing your perspective Brauer as someone who plays in all areas of the game. I think its sorely needed and not just because I agree with you. Guys like me are solo only and thus don't have the comp/fw/group perspective that you might.

The ability to vomit so much damage out without having to leverage that much skill and while often being able to avoid taking damage make the atm Veagle really strong. ATMs overall are quite powerful and the veagle is just about a perfect platform given it's a clan Battlemech, with JJs, and enough hardpoints. Other mechs can also bring good atm loadouts, but they aren't in the same sweet spot as the Veagle.

[50 50]

Anomalocaris, on 03 May 2020 - 06:38 PM, said:

1. Synergistic builds
2. Awareness of skill sets and how to manage the players strengths and weaknesses in the group
3. The ability to develop a strategy ahead of time and adjust it to map/mode (in addition those 4 people will have 4 unified votes through the group leader for their preferred map and mode)
4. Trust in each other

Also can't assume that every group is co-ordinating this much.
In many cases the only co-ordination is taking mechs that will fit within the tonnage limit so the group can drop.
We cannot assume every group is equal.

The ones that do are probably players that have been playing together for a number of years, have good knowledge and skill set and likely more competitive. These are the ones probably bringing the cheesy decks and trying to make a point.

On the casual side of the spectrum, this would be less the issue.

pseudofiction, on 03 May 2020 - 07:17 PM, said:

Now I'm not sure if the groups are able to influence map choice.

In groups, the group lead (who ever has the crown) does the voting and uses their vote multiplier. No one else in the group gets a say so in that sense a group is less likely to influence the map as they have less votes. Sync dropping gives you more control.

--------------------------------

The biggest issue I am seeing is all to do with the match maker and it's failings more than allowing groups and solos to mix.

We have to test this with:
1. Stricter tier matching. If this means the wait times may blow out a little, that's fine. Depends on what might be considered an ok wait time by everyone.
- This also suggests doing something about the tiers/PSR.
2. Something needs to be done about the weight class distribution. Could we discuss the ins and outs and push to test:
- Re-enforcing the 3/3/3/3 weight class restriction for teams.
- Also test this on groups so they abide to a 1/1/1/1 restriction.
- Test with a team tonnage limit so that group + solo must all fit under a team tonnage. (Think this one has problems)
- Try building two teams matching average lance tonnage. ie. If a lance of players is put into a team it will have an average tonnage that fits a certain weight category. We make sure that the opposite team also has a lance of the same weight category. (This might be trickier but we have never tried it)

In regards to the mechs appearing in certain spawn locations, if each lance was a mixed composition of 1/1/1/1 to also fit in line with the 3/3/3/3 concept, would this still be an issue or would we see (hopefully) see some different co-ordination start to occur at the lance level?
Would what we appear to be seeing at the moment be related more to the lack of restrictions on the team?

[Krucilatoz]

This feature i requested nearly 1 year ago.

So, yeah, I have fun with this decision, some of my friends returning to play MWO again.
Because this game is a lot more fun when you play with friends (some of them are my RL friends)
And even we lost a match, it still fun mocking each other stupidity by watching your friend playing and do the "commentary", giving false direction just to annoy them
Note, we did that on our own discord channel.

if any cons, probably because team put on Alpha lance, and if we drop on Assault, that will be a long walk (notice on Frozen City, River City)

[Anomalocaris]

50 50, on 03 May 2020 - 08:18 PM, said:

Also can't assume that every group is co-ordinating this much.
In many cases the only co-ordination is taking mechs that will fit within the tonnage limit so the group can drop.
We cannot assume every group is equal.

The ones that do are probably players that have been playing together for a number of years, have good knowledge and skill set and likely more competitive. These are the ones probably bringing the cheesy decks and trying to make a point.

On the casual side of the spectrum, this would be less the issue.

In groups, the group lead (who ever has the crown) does the voting and uses their vote multiplier. No one else in the group gets a say so in that sense a group is less likely to influence the map as they have less votes. Sync dropping gives you more control.

I believe that a group gets a number of votes (all under the control of the leader) equal to the number of players. Could be different now, but that would seem logical

As for how many groups are doing it, not quite as relevant, IMO. You have to balance things according to how the best players will use them. Just as you would balance a mech by its capabilities in competent hands, you have to look at how group mechanics work with players who know how to use them.

[CFC Conky]

Hello all,

So I'm about 60 matches into the merged queues and surprisingly for me, (in T2 but really a low-mid T3 player), my stats are tracking very closely to my last thee seasons. When I first reached Tier 2 my stats tanked and remain well below 1:1 compared to my Tier 3 numbers.

I'm experiencing winning/losing streaks but they are no better/worse than before and my match performance is still up and down like a yo-yo.

One of the things I have to do in Tier 2 is run more meta builds and skilling up my mechs takes longer. Under the present queue my unskilled and/or non-meta builds do even more poorly and it's a good thing there is a double-xp event going on. I don't think this bodes well for new/newer players, if there are any, but it's probably no worse than bringing unskilled mechs to the old group queue or faction play.

I'm aware of the video evidence showing groups owning the opposition, and I have seen it, particularly when playing late at night (west coast of N.A.), but overall, while the game is harder for me now, the changes have been more incremental than drastic.

By the end of the test I'll probably have played more than 100 matches, which may show a different trend, but so far it's not a game-killer for me yet.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

Edited by CFC Conky, 03 May 2020 - 09:05 PM.

[50 50]

Anomalocaris, on 03 May 2020 - 08:43 PM, said:

I believe that a group gets a number of votes (all under the control of the leader) equal to the number of players. Could be different now, but that would seem logical

No group multiplier. Just who ever has the lead gets to vote and it uses their multiplier.
Can swap the crown around mind you, one of the best damn things that was ever implemented btw!!!

Anomalocaris, on 03 May 2020 - 08:43 PM, said:

As for how many groups are doing it, not quite as relevant, IMO. You have to balance things according to how the best players will use them. Just as you would balance a mech by its capabilities in competent hands, you have to look at how group mechanics work with players who know how to use them.

Certainly.
But while we have one end of town mingling with the other we see some extremes which is more a reflection of the match maker issue than including small groups in teams.
The best players should not be in matches that include new tier 5 players. We can all agree on that.

We should not deny the casual players from making their own group to be included in the games though. They are going to play the game with the same sort of mindset as a casual solo and may not even impact the game.
When it comes to matching groups, again, an issue with the match maker and it should be doing something like taking the average tier of the players to work out how to place them. Maybe average tier -1. (edit)
This is all based on having a system where you can actually lose tier and get matched by tier however.
If we are all tier 1, it doesn't bl**dy work.

The other part of the problem is not having the restrictions on the mechs like we used to. It is allowing some cheesy meme decks.
I am favouring testing the 3/3/3/3 for teams again and limiting groups to 1/1/1/1 to see how that plays out.
We needed the tonnage limit on groups in group queue because it was ridiculously complex to try and make a team of 3/3/3/3 using all sorts of group sizes.
Now the competent groups will work with this, but a 1/1/1/1 mix would mean we don't see decks with multiple copies of the same mechs.

Edited by 50 50, 03 May 2020 - 09:28 PM.

[Excessive Paranoia]

Horseman, on 03 May 2020 - 05:21 AM, said:

PGI won't revert the decision if nobody is complaining about it. And if we all left, the casuals would be left playing casuals so nobody would be complaining and the change would stay

This is one place where you're definitely wrong... PGI (and for that matter essentially no Dev anywhere) doesn't care how much complaining players do as long as they are playing. To them, players who continue to play, but complain constantly are still players who continue to play, and at the end of the day, thats the metric they care about the most. Sure they might revert the changes if the complaints reach a certain level, but a far more likely scenario is that they'll write people like you and me off as a "vocal minority" and leave the changes in place. On the other hand, if 50% of the player based stops playing over this, its a statistic that they almost literally cannot twist into a positive (I say almost because I'm 100% sure they'll try), and would likely be forced to roll back the changes. I'm sorry to say, but the only opinion of ours that matters in this situation is the one we express with our feet as we walk away.

Edited by Excessive Paranoia, 03 May 2020 - 10:22 PM.

[mgto]

Thank you!!!! finally .. we where desperately awaiting this for month now. This sync dropping killed the fun of this game for us and we kind of stopped playing. But last night it was MechWarrior again.. not WaitWarrior.
So big thanks!