1579 replies to this topic

[Jaecyn]

Anomalocaris, on 27 April 2020 - 06:24 PM, said:

And do you think those solos on your team are going to contribute more or less than they would in a pure solo match.

This isn't directed solely at you good person, but this is a good encapsulation of much of the sentiment against making this kind of change I think. I'd just like to offer a view from the other side of things, as a Tier 4 scrub solo player. Not for nothing, but might I actually get to learn something from playing with organized lances operating beside and against me? Since, as has been pointed out several times I literally can't do group drops right now (45+ wait times if I scrape 2 or 3 people together before just giving up and sync dropping), I've never really even had the chance to experience anything like what many here are describing as the 'optimal' experience.

It sure sounds fun!

So I would absolutely be opting in if there was a choice as is being demanded in places. And I think more players than not probably feel the same way. So if I drop with you in the coming weeks, thanks for carrying me / sorry I didn't contribute more. But also, it sure would be nice to get to play against and with you folks and I look forward to doing so. It's kinda bumming me out hearing so much that the feeling's apparently not mutual.

But again, Tier 4 scrub here. So what do I know?

[OmniFail]

Go ahead.

Bring your noob friends.

We'll even let you guys have dibs on tonnage.

[Tyrsen]

Quote

[color=#00FFFF]At the end of the 4-week test, we will either leave it as is, or if there are major issues we do have the ability to roll the change back. Why 4-weeks? We want to collect as much telemetry as possible to determine queue behavior. With a reduced population sample, this takes longer than usual as we need to monitor activity as close to the norm as possible. If things are going drastically off course, we can revert sooner if needed.[/color]

Great approach. I'm looking forward to testing this out over the coming four weeks.

[Davy J0nes]

I may actually be able to play with friends now? what is this madness! ...if I can convince them to give the game a go again that is.

Last time simply could not join games together no joke.

[Careful Method]

I like it. I think this will be a lot more interesting than most people think.

I also also agree that dropping with my friends will be easier and more fun this way.

One 4 man lance on the other team could have an unbalanced impact from time to time, but really, solo queue is stompy most of the time anyway.

I am hopeful that this works. You could still have faction, group, and then this mix drop and let people go where they want.

But yeah, fix the tier system and most of this other stuff will fix itself.

[Anomalocaris]

Jaecyn, on 27 April 2020 - 06:43 PM, said:

This isn't directed solely at you good person, but this is a good encapsulation of much of the sentiment against making this kind of change I think. I'd just like to offer a view from the other side of things, as a Tier 4 scrub solo player. Not for nothing, but might I actually get to learn something from playing with organized lances operating beside and against me? Since, as has been pointed out several times I literally can't do group drops right now (45+ wait times if I scrape 2 or 3 people together before just giving up and sync dropping), I've never really even had the chance to experience anything like what many here are describing as the 'optimal' experience.

It sure sounds fun!

So I would absolutely be opting in if there was a choice as is being demanded in places. And I think more players than not probably feel the same way. So if I drop with you in the coming weeks, thanks for carrying me / sorry I didn't contribute more. But also, it sure would be nice to get to play against and with you folks and I look forward to doing so. It's kinda bumming me out hearing so much that the feeling's apparently not mutual.

But again, Tier 4 scrub here. So what do I know?

It's understandable that you might think that way, but if you drop into a match with an elite unit, on either side, you'll be lucky to process much of what they're doing. Worst case scenario you'll walk around a corner and get ganked by focus fire before you even know what builds they're running. Best case maybe you'll get to follow behind them and see their actions but not their rationale (especially if they're using Discord vs. in game comms). If you really want to learn, find a unit willing to teach and drop with them in faction. It'll be painful, but they'll actually tell you what's going on.

Then there's the problem of figuring out whether they're serious players or "we don't care if we lose" guys who will do you more harm then good to try and learn from.

I hope you have a good time, but you won't be seeing me in game once this ill-conceived idea is implemented.

[Spare Knight]

How do I start?

I am an old guy (60s) and I have been playing about 6 months. I only play this game for relaxation and to waste to time. It was fine when I was tier 5 and tier 4 and even tier 3. Now I am in tier 2 and I am still learning. The problem is that the higher skill players don't seem to communicate much in game, until the end, when the blame is cast. The tier 1 players have to blame someone for every loss and that is usually me. I am getting closer to tier 1 and I don't have the years of experience that the top players have. I had one player ( I won't drop names) tell me that if I was not an Elite/Legendary Founder, I shouldn't be allowed to play the game.

Please fix the PSR. It doesn't work. I don't belong in tier 2 or tier 1 and I maybe I will ever belong there. Sometimes, I get over 1,000 damage and 3 to 5 kills, but it's not a common occurrence for me. It just means I got lucky to be in the right place and out out of position like I normally am. I just don't have the strategy experience yet.

How will this group queue work, I don't know, but until the PSR is fixed I don't see how it can. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see it work. I would like to group with friends that I have made here. It might even make it worth joining a unit again.

Sincerely,
Spare Knight (formerly TritiumKid)

[Anomalocaris]

BTW, reading through the posts on Reddit there seems to be a belief that a select group of people were blowing up Russ' twitter to try and get this implemented. Anyone know who those people are?

[Larsh]

Anomalocaris, on 27 April 2020 - 07:17 PM, said:

BTW, reading through the posts on Reddit there seems to be a belief that a select group of people were blowing up Russ' twitter to try and get this implemented. Anyone know who those people are?

I can't say for certain, but they may have implied my post to Russ requesting an update and further details to this update they were planning. As far as I can tell, there was no prior discussion about this group queue test before last week on Twitter.

Figure I would place it here before others take it out of context as I've seen happen on Reddit.

https://twitter.com/...535815071436801

Edited by Larsh, 27 April 2020 - 07:38 PM.

[Zirconium Kaze]

Dee Eight, on 27 April 2020 - 12:04 PM, said:

Other games don't have the ludicrously coded tier/psr system this game has though... WoT and WoW seperate the vehicles by tier, not the players. Tier 8 tanks don't fight in the same matches as Tier 2 tanks. Since MWO treats all mechs as equals, you're left to sort the players... and a system that doesn't allow for negative progress on team wins, never sends players who are carried by down to the minor leagues. The group queue never took psr into consideration at all. It strictly matched on tonnage per group with 2 man groups being allowed 200 tons and I think it was 600 tons for a 12-man group (thus six 2-mans are better than one 12-man). Once again PGI is ignoring the player base who for a week now have been saying this is a REALLY bad idea... and they're just going to do whatever they want regardless.

I think it's a good thing. People ain't gonna get better fighting trash. They get better fighting people greater than them. Faster than any noob pool could ever teach them. In fact, I find that in games where you can choose to be in unranked matches that if you spend too much time there, your performance suffers in ranked matches as a consequence.

[Slothasaurus]

This seems REALLY bad to me. I thought for more group oriented team play there was Faction Warfare? Why potentially destroy solo queue with groups when there is already a game mode that supports groups? Why not work on improving things as you can with solo queue and at the same time work on improving faction warfare?

Any other game that allows groups means that a good group stomps the other team match after match. The only counter is to hope it is faced vs another equally good group. Casuals/Solo players now are going to be at a disadvantage no matter where they drop.

That being said........... I will try and play as much as possible the next few weeks. I will try it out and see (as an almost always solo player) how the games go. I know what my avg performance is and matches are like so based off of that will compare experiences.

[OmniFail]

Anomalocaris, on 27 April 2020 - 07:17 PM, said:

BTW, reading through the posts on Reddit there seems to be a belief that a select group of people were blowing up Russ' twitter to try and get this implemented. Anyone know who those people are?

Maybe some of them are the people that liked Paul's initial post.

[ShooterMcGavin80]

Spare Knight, on 27 April 2020 - 07:15 PM, said:

How do I start?

I am an old guy (60s) and I have been playing about 6 months. I only play this game for relaxation and to waste to time. It was fine when I was tier 5 and tier 4 and even tier 3. Now I am in tier 2 and I am still learning. The problem is that the higher skill players don't seem to communicate much in game, until the end, when the blame is cast. The tier 1 players have to blame someone for every loss and that is usually me. I am getting closer to tier 1 and I don't have the years of experience that the top players have. I had one player ( I won't drop names) tell me that if I was not an Elite/Legendary Founder, I shouldn't be allowed to play the game.

Please fix the PSR. It doesn't work. I don't belong in tier 2 or tier 1 and I maybe I will ever belong there. Sometimes, I get over 1,000 damage and 3 to 5 kills, but it's not a common occurrence for me. It just means I got lucky to be in the right place and out out of position like I normally am. I just don't have the strategy experience yet.

How will this group queue work, I don't know, but until the PSR is fixed I don't see how it can. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see it work. I would like to group with friends that I have made here. It might even make it worth joining a unit again.

Sincerely,
Spare Knight (formerly TritiumKid)

Welcome to the game.

Personally, I have more fun sync dropping with friends. Sometimes you drop with your friends, sometimes you drop against them. Fun either way.

Sync dropping is: you get on a discord channel to chat with a friend or two, then you click 'play' at the same time, and the matchmaker may put you both in the same game.

There are certain top 1% players I don't see in the solo queue much. About a year ago when group drops were still a thing all they did was feed on stacked teams. Now they barely ever play in the solo queue. And I prefer it that way. There are certain community members I love seeing in solo play, who play weird mechs for the love of the game.

Bring in group of 4 meta stompers and we can't enjoy playing our weird mechs anymore.

[Spare Knight]

Slothasaurus, on 27 April 2020 - 07:49 PM, said:

That being said........... I will try and play as much as possible the next few weeks. I will try it out and see (as an almost always solo player) how the games go. I know what my avg performance is and matches are like so based off of that will compare experiences.

As will I. I intend to put it to the test before I come back here and call it a success or failure.

[Spare Knight]

ShooterMcGavin80, on 27 April 2020 - 07:50 PM, said:

Welcome to the game.

Personally, I have more fun sync dropping with friends. Sometimes you drop with your friends, sometimes you drop against them. Fun either way.

Sync dropping is: you get on a discord channel to chat with a friend or two, then you click 'play' at the same time, and the matchmaker may put you both in the same game.

There are certain top 1% players I don't see in the solo queue much. About a year ago when group drops were still a thing all they did was feed on stacked teams. Now they barely ever play in the solo queue. And I prefer it that way. There are certain community members I love seeing in solo play, who play weird mechs for the love of the game.

Bring in group of 4 meta stompers and we can't enjoy playing our weird mechs anymore.

I have done some sync drops and it is enjoyable. :-)

There are some of the 1%ers that I really enjoy playing with and against. Many are in this thread. I have learned much from you guys.

[ShooterMcGavin80]

Spare Knight, on 27 April 2020 - 07:15 PM, said:

Please fix the PSR. It doesn't work.

I don't know how the math of matchmaker works, but I cut PGI some slack on it. Solo queue right now, anecdotally, has relatively decent balance. You do have stomps, but I just played for a couple hours tonight and had an excellent variety of close matches (9-12, 10-12, 11-12), middling matches (5, 6, 7, 8-12), and a couple stomps (no 0-12 wipes though). PGI has stats I'm sure but I do not think there is really 'a problem' with matchmaker at all, at least not in solo play.

Consider the difficulty of the calculation. Tonnage is one thing. But tonnage lies. Somebody in a meta VL-5T or ASN-21 (40 tons) can EASILY take out a much higher tonnage non-meta mech, and will perform laughably better than, say, a 45 ton clan Ice Ferret.

Apart from tonnage and chassis, there's also the question of whether mechs are skilled up or not. Take me. I'm tier one. But nearly 100% of the time you see me I'm in an unskilled mech I'm having fun skilling up, usually a non-meta mech. This hampers my team potential. Right now I'm skilling up some HGN-IIC's. Not particularly great mechs, especially when unskilled. But take me DOWN 30 tons into my fully skilled up IV4, and I can reliably pull 700, 800, 900, 1k damage games.

However Matchmaker works, I'm confident it doesn't take into account whether or not you are in a 'good' chassis and whether or not you have your mech skilled up. So just relax and let the dice roll... and, anecdotally right now, I believe the matchmaker is just fine. Solo quickplay you should expect to lose about half of your games, and you will get stomped from time to time. But as I say... in general, I'm getting decent games.

Edited by ShooterMcGavin80, 27 April 2020 - 08:15 PM.

[SkubaSteve]

If you want to Ficilitate more group enjoyment the biggest hurdle so far seems to be finding people who want to group. It would be really nice to have some in-game public lobby's as the current groups are a pain in the *** to join with hurdles and paranoid about spys.

[justcallme A S H]

ShooterMcGavin80, on 27 April 2020 - 08:11 PM, said:

I don't know how the math of matchmaker works, but I cut PGI some slack on it. Solo queue right now, anecdotally, has relatively decent balance.

PGI has stats I'm sure but I do not think there is really 'a problem' with matchmaker at all, at least not in solo play.

However Matchmaker works, I'm confident it doesn't take into account whether or not you are in a 'good' chassis and whether or not you have your mech skilled up. So just relax and let the dice roll... and, anecdotally right now, I believe the matchmaker is just fine. Solo quickplay you should expect to lose about half of your games, and you will get stomped from time to time. But as I say... in general, I'm getting decent games.

Well you are certainly in a very minority there is you believe the SoloQ MM, PSR is fine. I mean the actual facts are it's totally and utterly broken. Good thing we don't need to rely on anecdotal evidence when all that data is publicly available

Read about how the MM forms a match HERE.
Peruse the stats and public API scraped information HERE

And this is why the statements of

• More competitive matches
  
• Match Maker ability to maintain even team building

Are taking a forefront in this discussion - because that simply isn't going to be the case.


There have been 100s of screenshots posted as evidence where it shows the MM simply does not work because is PSR says that player in the bottom 30% (that can be Tier 1) is equal to a player in the top 10% (that is Tier 1) - that is a fact.

Such players are not equal, they are polar opposites. However the MM/PSR says they are the identical. Thus the whole system is fundamentally broken at a base level.

Without fixing PSR you cannot hope to ever achieve anything close to the above two points. By allowing 4man organised groups in, you take non-existent balance and throw it out the window.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 27 April 2020 - 09:26 PM.

[Bastionk]

Holy Hell! They actually took some of my suggestions for limiting group size to 4 and balancing the groups on opposing teams.

Nice!

[Vxheous]

Bastionk, on 27 April 2020 - 08:56 PM, said:

Holy Hell! They actually took some of my suggestions for limiting group size to 4 and balancing the groups on opposing teams.

Nice!

A 4 man group on each side =/= equal skill on each side.