1579 replies to this topic

[Brain Cancer]

Windscape, on 27 April 2020 - 04:00 PM, said:

TLDR: Change PSR to a ELO or GLICKO-2 system, and then your idea may work, but just dumping PSR would make the biggest difference.

There is no actual meaning to PSR given the current system, nor has there been for years other than "you played enough to be in the mix of everyone else and proved you don't sniff glue. Well, not much glue."

The time for actually separating players by a ranking system that didn't just push them up meaningless numbers was years ago. The real effect of the current system was to make it seem like some effort was made, when in reality almost no filter existed whatsoever and it was merely an exp bar of sorts. Player counts are too low for it to work now, in part because chucking players that should have stayed in the kiddie pool headlong into the regular queue shark tank just ended up a grinder designed to feed as many games played into MWO as possible at the cost of long-term playerbase.

Now, here we are. Doing the equivalent of sugaring the gas tank to try and get a few more calories burnt in the engine.

Vxheous, on 27 April 2020 - 04:26 PM, said:

Sucks that you don't have friends in this game to play with.

I imagine you're going to have a wonderful time insuring even fewer people do, one GG at a time.

Not that I blame you for being good. But I blame MWO for doing a grand job of winnowing the playerbase down to the point where there's few groups willing to play in your league, and thus Paul has decided it is better that you get a regular diet of potato players to obliterate.

[Capt Deadpool]

Scout Derek, on 27 April 2020 - 04:11 PM, said:

the fact that this is actually true for the most part lets you know the overall skill of the playerbase....

True; I think it is just the nature of a niche and (relatively) difficult to learn/easy to master FPS game compared to something like CS 1.6, CS:GO, a number of RTS games, etc. which have broader appeal combined with being easy to learn/practically impossible to master, generating a largish population of higher-level gamers over time.

[RickySpanish]

Holy cow this is great PGI! I might actually be able to convince some of my friends to play with me knowing that we might *actually* drop, and that we won't just be dropping against other extremely good groups that will murder my friends, who will be novices. Hopefully this pans out!

[Mahavishna]

Will you also be fixing Fplay.... 12 of the last 14 invasions have been IS invading the Clans.... Fix that.

[50 50]

As a side note:

It's nice to see some changes happening to the game.

[Firewired]

No. Just, please. No.

I do not post often around here. When I do post, I hope it has some impact.

The first problem here is timing. It is unwise to announce a change hours before the change comes into effect. It reveals poor management planning and infers a lack of confidence in a project. I am not ripping on anyone, I am simply providing professional feedback.

The second problem here is the changes being implemented will not collect any useful data of reasonable value because the PSR system which the game match maker relies upon is flawed.

Until the Pilot Skill Rating system is re-written to reflect actual pilot skill rather than game time exposure, no changes to the rest of the game will produce positive, lasting results.

You could optimize the skill tree, you could roll-back the engine desync (which would be nice by the way), release new maps, release new game modes. None of it would have a lasting impact.

If you want lasting impact, PSR needs re-writing and a reset. If that does not work out on the first try, keep trying until it does work. It does not have to be perfect, it just has to be reliable and reflect on the skill level within the player base for match making to work well.

If that is not done, all that is being done is dumping salt, pepper, and spice on a plate of boiled cardboard. It still tastes like boiled cardboard until you fix what is on the plate.

Edited by Firewired, 27 April 2020 - 05:05 PM.

[Hail_Of_Bullets]

Faster queue times is good for me!

As long as both sides get a premade group on their team, who cares?

[DAEDALOS513]

Brain Cancer, on 27 April 2020 - 04:22 PM, said:

Eh.

One person can carry an entire team. Four people can carry them even more easily. One just has to hope you end up with a similar 4 man on your side and they cancel each other out if you're soloing now.

Yep .. players playing in a group are much more organized than solos vis-a-vis communication.. as long as there are equal groups on both sides can’t get any worse then what we have now.. many were pleasantly surprised with the 8v8 experiment (including myself) despite much negativity.. I’m looking forward to seeing the results of this one.. kudos pgi for taking things one more step forward

Who knows maybe this will end up lowering the learning curve because the few solos that end up on a team of groups learns how to play as part of a team faster than by dropping into solo chaos

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 27 April 2020 - 05:20 PM.

[Brain Cancer]

DAEDALOS513, on 27 April 2020 - 05:10 PM, said:

Yep .. players playing in a group are much more organized than solos.. as long as there are equal groups on both sides can’t get any worse then what we have now.. many were pleasantly surprised with the 8v8 experiment despite much negativity.. I’m looking forward to seeing the results of this one.. kudos pgi for taking things one more step forward

I expect similar imbalances to regular group queue, only now the groups will have an eight pack of potato cakes to nom on, meaning actual soloers in solo queue will have considerably less survival time before being focused into oblivion. Great for the group players. Lousy for the actual soloers when the organized play sharks start swimming and the water is chumful.

[FRAGTAST1C]

1. What steps are taken to assess the threat value of a group, like I asked you in the previous thread? How do you know the difference between some weekend group vs EMP or JGx or MJ12 or EON or other top comp group?

2. Is the MM still going to make sure that both teams have the same number of mechs across all the weight classes? What changes have you made to ensure that?

3. When are you going to implement a merit-based ranking system? How do you expect a match to be "competitive" when the 1st point can't be achieved and also while solos aren't ranked based on their skill?

[DAEDALOS513]

Brain Cancer, on 27 April 2020 - 05:14 PM, said:

I expect similar imbalances to regular group queue, only now the groups will have an eight pack of potato cakes to nom on, meaning actual soloers in solo queue will have considerably less survival time before being focused into oblivion. Great for the group players. Lousy for the actual soloers when the organized play sharks start swimming and the water is chumful.

As long as both sides are comprised of mostly groups (ideally 66%) should be a good match most of the time.. with a low player base .. can’t ask for perfection..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 27 April 2020 - 05:26 PM.

[Kroete]

There was game some time ago,
where fullgroups and pugs played together,
then the groups where removed to only 4 mans and a goupqueue where opend,
because the pugs dont wanted to be farmed anymore
and the groups claimed that they want even fights and no stomps.

But then the groups split up to 4 mans, the groupqueue was empty
and the 4 mans where farming the pugs.
Then the king decided to remove all groups from pugplay ...
Can you imagine what game it was?


Now there is ONI, XCom Chimera Squat
and today you can get Total War: Shogun 2 for free on steam
and thats more then enough time to fill my playtime,
until the king gets sane again.

Edited by Kroete, 27 April 2020 - 05:36 PM.

[ShooterMcGavin80]

This is a bad, bad idea. I'm betting we're going to have 4-mans of elite farmers coming out of the woodwork, clubbing seals.

I know. I was one of those guys once. Then I learned to enjoy life and do solo quickplay. Best place for relaxed fun play away from those people. Let them stay in Comp.

Only way to make this balanced is to put a win limit. If you win 3 in a row, you get a 10 minute delay. OR, automatically split the 4-man up to FORCE them to not be jackhole seal clubbers.

But the people I know would conspire even on opposite teams.

Edited by ShooterMcGavin80, 27 April 2020 - 05:47 PM.

[Anomalocaris]

Mops1404, on 27 April 2020 - 03:21 PM, said:

Group play is what a majority of players are interested in . .

What color is the sky in your world? If a majority of people wanted group play that's what they'd be doing. We already had a group queue and no one played it, even thought is was available to everyone just the same as solo queue.

The ability of people to selectively ignore things that don't fit their world view never ceases to amaze me.

[Draven Darkshadow]

also can we have a number counter for group queue like CW/FW?
it would be nice to see how many is queuing up for it as well

[Larsh]

Anomalocaris, on 27 April 2020 - 05:46 PM, said:

We already had a group queue and no one played it, even thought is was available to everyone just the same as solo queue.

From my group's past experiences, if you weren't able to create a solid 12 man you were bound to have very large wait times.
When that happened, my group and others, regulated themselves to sync drops.

Edited by Larsh, 27 April 2020 - 05:58 PM.

[DAEDALOS513]

Brain Cancer, on 27 April 2020 - 05:14 PM, said:

I expect similar imbalances to regular group queue, only now the groups will have an eight pack of potato cakes to nom on, meaning actual soloers in solo queue will have considerably less survival time before being focused into oblivion. Great for the group players. Lousy for the actual soloers when the organized play sharks start swimming and the water is chumful.

You’re forgetting that the solo’ers on the other side are winning and having a blast.. besides who’s to say most of the teams won’t be comprised of groups and not solo’ers. So much conjecture ..

[Anomalocaris]

DAEDALOS513, on 27 April 2020 - 05:57 PM, said:

You’re forgetting that the solo’ers on the other side are winning and having a blast.. besides who’s to say most of the teams won’t be comprised of groups and not solo’ers. So much conjecture ..

Because Paul's post said there would be a maximum of one 4-man group on each team. And what's fun about an organized 4-man mowing down the opposition while you pick up the scraps?

If you're a sub-50%er in solo queue (that percentage breakpoint may be even higher) and there is a top level 4-man on either team, you're either going to be cannon fodder or along for the ride on a win. But ultimately you won't really matter unless there's a top level 4-man on both sides.

This is what people are failing to see IMO. People want to feel like they contribute. They want to be able to say they did something useful. This merger will not help achieve that goal. At least if we properly balance teams first, people will have a better shot at contributing. But this is going to multiply the problems with the matchmaker, not mitigate them.

You know when I used to drop with you guys in group queue on my other account, we used to win a huge percentage of matches. And we were only dropping 4-6 people at a time, and I wasn't nearly as good as I am now. And that was in group queue with other organized teams. My win percentage went up, as did my KDR, but in actuality my damage went down vs. solo and my match score didn't change much - because you guys were killing everyone so efficiently that there were fewer opps for me to do damage and get kills. Do you really think that if you take any of the top-8 in MJ12 in a 4-man group and drop against solos that you're not gonna win the vast majority of your matches unless EMP or JGx drops opposite you? And do you think those solos on your team are going to contribute more or less than they would in a pure solo match.

[ZippySpeedMonkey]

Gakuseinozen, on 27 April 2020 - 12:04 PM, said:

Just wanted to add my two cents

Please don't merge solos with group queue. Keep group queue 8v8 and leave it at that.

8v8 has been a positive change that has brought some excitement back to the game; it is a known quantity.

Merging solos with group queue has the ability to drive players away, and this game doesn't need that with the population being so low already.

Go with the option that you KNOW will be good for the game, not the one that might be.

Thank you!

Frankenst3in, on 27 April 2020 - 12:09 PM, said:

I suspect some people think this will revitalize the grouped population, but I think this will kill the solo population. Seems counterproductive to the continuation of this game. Having already done this years ago, I know what to expect, and won't be playing most likely. You will either be the farmer or the crops. Spoiler alert, if you aren't already sure you and your buddies will be the farmers, you are the crops.

These 2 get it.

[Sneakytrig]

Really really good. I've just started playing in the last month, and I've brought another 4 friends/relatives along with me, it has been very frustrating to not be able to play together.

Whether we win or lose will probably be no biggy, it will definitely be funner playing together! Thanks!

Edited by Sneakytrig, 27 April 2020 - 06:41 PM.