1579 replies to this topic

[Paladin357]

After having played a few matches here are a couple of issues I've seen. First, as mentioned above, all different classes of mechs dropping in the same lance can seriously hamper play. I just dropped in Alpha in a Cyclops. I can see why you combined the queues, but please keep the lances grouped by weight class.

Second, the teams no longer seem to be matched tonnage-wise either. Another match I was in we had 6 light mechs, and the other team had vastly more tonnage. I understand the reasoning behind capping group tonnage, but it f**ks all up with whatever the matchmaker was doing before.

[So Much For Subtlety]

My 2 cents as a guy playing 3 man groups.

1. The game is fun again. Not because we dominate matches (which we sometimes do) but because we can actually play with friends. This was de facto impossible before with a dead group queue. If PGI walks this back I’m gone for good. Being able to play an online game with friends is a basic requirement that has got to work in a multiplayer game in 2020. I just want to have fun with my mates and will choose a different game if mwo makes it impossible.

2. I find the tonnage limit discussion misplaced. A group syncing builds and tactics will always be strong, and imo assault groups are not the most dangerous. We did some light mech wolfpacks (maybe with light mediums like asn or cda) with pretty gross results. Our assault/heavy drops were much more balanced.

3. As a tier 2 group we are seeing more noobs and bad players in matches than before. This tier mixing is not good but maybe unavoidable due to low pops.

4. I saw fewer stomps than usual and some really tight matches, and in general more coordinated teams than normal quickplay queue. YMMV, but anything is better than usual nascar or deathmatch potato behaviour

So Much For Subtlety

[MTier Slayed Up]

I guess I'll move my comment over here, except with more context.

Combining solo que and group que is silly. Sync dropping wasn't an issue before, and it wasn't now, and I don't understand, again, why you pander to the minority of people who complain about it. This didn't even solve the issue, you found a way to make it even worse, like, you just basically slapped the people who both complained about not having groups, and people complaining about sync drops at the same time. I don't know how you accomplished that but A for effort I guess.

Just how out of touch with the entire community do you have to be?

Listen, you had the right idea with the 8v8 platform. That's actually small enough to find games. You can even downsize it to 6v6 or 4v4's if things really get that bad. Group que needs that fix in order for groups to go into group que.

Solo que is no longer solo que because it's essentially become group que with an added mix of crap. Imagine JGx or EmP or -SA- or any high profile comp team, even as a 4 man...On the same team. They would absolutely wipe everyone off the map without a problem, because as we all know, solo que is just a mind numbing experience with some questionable people.

Sync dropping didn't have this blatant issue due to it being random and even then, it's likely going to even the teams out anyways.

For the love of God, change it.

Edit- if you're really this passionate about people playing together, downsize it to duos. Having an entire lance of comp players is too much.

Edited by Michelle Branch, 30 April 2020 - 10:28 PM.

[Excessive Paranoia]

DAEDALOS513, on 30 April 2020 - 05:53 PM, said:

This whole thread is filled with suggestions that we've all made in the past, should we stop making them?

Suggest all you want, the point I made is that PGI doesn't think its broken so they literally aren't even listening to those suggestions. It was clear when it was released that PSR was so heavily weighted upward that it was little more than an xp bar and there were many, many posts, rants, dissertations, videos, pleas, etc for them to redesign it so that it would be balanced and allow people to really stratify by their skill level instead of float upward.

PGI did nothing about it then, did nothing about it in the intervening years, and won't do anything about it now.

Kamikaze Viking, on 30 April 2020 - 06:14 PM, said:

Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Paul for looking into the PSR issues and testing a solution!

Just want to temper your expectations... this isn't an admission that they will be fixing or even tweaking the actual PSR system, but rather most likely a statement about trying to control the PSR ranges that see each other in the test.

Constalation, on 30 April 2020 - 06:35 PM, said:

"I'm not playing the game if solo queue is mixed with 4man group queue", Ok, so **** me and my friend who want to just have stompy stompy robot battles without waiting a literal bloody hour. (We actually queued for a full hour and didn't get a match)

That sentiment goes both ways... By merging the queues there are a lot of solo players who just want to have "stompy stompy robot battles" who are going to have to suffer the imbalances introduced by the system. I'm not saying you shouldn't want, or get, to play with your friend, but to do it right they'd need to change so much about the way both the matchmaker *AND* the PSR system work to ensure the mixed matches are actually fun and worth dropping into that it just doesn't look like a functional system is even on the table. Don't forget that the introduction of this system appears to have completely thrown out any semblance of tier balancing and you've got people complaining about complete potatoes getting thrown into matches with top tier players. By your logic, all of those poor potatoes don't deserve to have fun just because you want to play...

Edited by Excessive Paranoia, 30 April 2020 - 10:34 PM.

[Anjin]

Constalation, on 30 April 2020 - 06:35 PM, said:

"I'm not playing the game if solo queue is mixed with 4man group queue", Ok, so **** me and my friend who want to just have stompy stompy robot battles without waiting a literal bloody hour. (We actually queued for a full hour and didn't get a match)

The flip side of that is "Ok, so **** me and all the other players that for whatever reason want to play in groups of 12 that are dominated by a more-coordinated subgroup." And if you run off enough of those players, you'll be back to "waiting a literal bloody hour" to find a game because there aren't enough solo players remaining to fill in.

I quite honestly don't SUPER mind the groups, but if it can't be done while attempting to balance the matches (see the posts mentioning tonnage imbalance: 900-500, 800-400, etc, 6 assaults to 2, 4 assaults to 0 -- and I only use assaults as an example -- played one game this evening, Conquest, we had 2 lights to their 7. Guess who won that), then it needs to not be done.

If it can't be done with at least weight/tonnage balanced matches (skill aside, since we all know that won't ever be fixed) then it absolutely needs to be separated back into group and solo queues. With an opt-in/opt-out system for the group queue.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Here's the data you're looking for...

1. Spawn points are even more garbage 'cause of the way the lances are set up now.

2. All individuals not in a group are assigned as a Group-Of-1 so that they can bring assaults. This has resulted in lopsided tonnage distribution.

3. Weekend groups and Comp Groups are treated as the same.

4. 2-man and 3-man groups end up in the same team.

5. Many times, a team will have a group and the other won't have any. To make matters worse, the garbage tier system is completely broken now and MM is throwing just about anyone together.

6. The 3 eejits in-charge of PGI don't play their own game and definitely have NOT played any games during this testing phase.

[Grumpy Old Man]

Having just played my first 6 matches, over 2 accounts (T2/T3, not that it matters anymore), here some random observations. Note, I am a solo player and have never played in a group.

Dropping as a Light Mech is often doing a serious disservice to your team as most people seem to drop very heavy.
Some of those drop position / mech weight combinations are real deathtraps.
5 out of the 6 matches felt pretty normal, aside from the lack of Nascar, actually more enjoyable than before. One was downright scary, though. The group in our team managed to get us a 3/0 advantage before I got in range to fire my first shot. In a Wolfhound. The rest felt normal / closer than before.
A few people on voice mentioned coming back specifically for this change, most of them not having played for years.
I mostly saw 2 or 3 Person groups, no 4s. And going with all Solo's vs. Groups was not an instant death sentence. Occurred only once for me and we won (being the all Solo Team). However I did not see any groups that I would call instantly recognisable as high end (not that I would recognise them aside from EON).

Obviously, 6 matches are not much of a sample. So I have not made up my mind, yet, on whether I like the change or not. Good thing that I can play 4 days instead of 3 this weekend.

[kapusta11]

Paul Inouye, on 30 April 2020 - 05:26 PM, said:

[color=#14171a][color=cyan]As mentioned on twitter, there will be times where I will be adjusting some numbers that dictate PSR tier matching... but those will have drastic impacts on queue times.[/color][/color]

Just sort teams by their avg match score. It's not perfect but better players tend to consistently score higher.

PSR tier system sees no difference between a top 0.5% player with avg match score of 500+, a top 10% me with 370 and a top 40% who just plays a lot, the difference between each is enormous. Recognize it for a failure it is and ditch it already.

Edited by kapusta11, 30 April 2020 - 11:55 PM.

[lllaxmatist]

So t was playing new GQ. It is fun and it is going in right direction.
But with new groups there is a lot more assaults and high tonnage mechs. There is some lights, but mediums is almost gone.

So there is my suggestions:
1) does not matter how many players you have (1, 2, 3, 4); there should be the same tonnage pool.

2) tonnage should be realy low (e.g. 120 tons) so if you wanna take assault you should bring light mechs)

Edited by lllaxmatist, 01 May 2020 - 12:29 AM.

[Dee Eight]

kapusta11, on 30 April 2020 - 11:53 PM, said:

Just sort teams by their avg match score. It's not perfect but better players tend to consistently score higher.

That's been suggested before and never acted upon by PGI. The PSR bar is a game time grind bar and that's it. Its a visual tease to fool players into thinking they're getting better, and to keep them playing. For without the easily fooled and gullible masochists to play matches of a game they're terrible at, there wouldn't be enough players for their to be matches created in a timely fashion.

[Horseman]

DAEDALOS513, on 30 April 2020 - 03:05 PM, said:

You don't want to stomp? Drop solo or in a 2man of non-meta.. it's up to you.. top 1% will never do so because .. you guessed it.. ego.

I'm sorry, what? Ts being able to group up and play with more than one of their friends at a time an exclusive priviledge of casuals now?
... no it ain't.

Magic Pain Glove, on 30 April 2020 - 03:48 PM, said:

Pretty much this . Altough Russ did admit on twitter that the number of stomps has increased by 5% overall .

Which is statistically significant I'd say.

Quote

And is planning to mitigate that by (deep breath) tonnage restrictions ...

Piranha warhorn intensifies.

Constalation, on 30 April 2020 - 06:35 PM, said:

The Matchmaking is bad? At least this ain't Wargaming where skill based matchmaking straight up doesn't exist.

There was no skill based matchmaking before, pretenses to the contrary notwithstanding: PSR was really based on tenure . Now there isn't even that.

Quote

Half the problems I see mentioned are issues created by the players themselves, not the mechs or game itself.
Stompers? That is a player problem.

Stomps are a matchmaker problem, not a player problem. It's the matchmaker's job to ensure both teams are reasonably close in overall capability.

Quote

Meta builds? Player problem.

Meta builds are not a problem except to terribads and mechdads who want to derp around in nonviable stock or lore builds.

crazytimes, on 30 April 2020 - 08:43 PM, said:

What, the 800 tonne to 400 tonne matchs up don't matter, as long as the mechs are sorted correctly? You're easy to please.

If 300 tons of that difference finishes the match with 200 damage combined, how much did it really matter?

Edited by Horseman, 01 May 2020 - 01:28 AM.

[Alreech]

Brain Cancer, on 30 April 2020 - 04:01 PM, said:

I disagree. The majority of players abandoned group queue because they generally got whomped repeatedly by the good groups (usually larger ones at that) and found they were more likely to get wins in the chaotic tatersea that was solo queue on their own (or sync dropped, naughty naughty).

So you made a survey why the majority of players left the group queue?
Here is some data for your research:

Me & my friends left group queue in 2014 (and the game) because PGI didn't deliver Dropship mode.
Started playing again later multiple times because other friends wanted to try out MWO.
Stopped playing it again because those friends lost interests.
Last time I left the game was due the long waiting times in group matches.

I played in Solo mostly to grind XP to level up Mechs for group play, and most of this builds are NASCAR friendly.

And IMHO in the last years there was no big difference in Solo & Group Quickplay (with small groups).
Both queue lack of coordination of the whole team, and in both the Meta is the same:
Build a fast mech with short/medium range, don't vote for Alpine Peaks, Terra Therma, Polar Highlands.
Vote for small maps, don't help slower Mechs, stay alive because last Mech standing gets the Kills.

The only exception was then dropping in a 12 player group and we did the good old wolf pack with light mechs.

The whole "splitting player types by game modes" is IMHO toxic, and doesn't work:
Bad Skillz Playerz = Solo because get stomped in Group?
or
Group Playerz = causual players who run non meta build for fun and ruin now the high competetiv Solo Queue?

No MWO player did only Group or only Solo.
If you usually meet to play in a Group at 20.00 and you start MWO at 19.30 you go Solo if your friends are not online yet.
And if you need after the Group play just one more win for the final Skill node and your friends just left the game you go Solo.

PGI failed a long time to deliver an easy way to group up (search for Lobbys in Forum Archive), an then LFG came most solo players & groups just ignored it.

Solo was also an easy way to Level up 3 Mechs without bothering your friends in groups.
"Sorry, i have to remove the engine in my mech and mount it in the next chassis i want to level up" was one of the most feared sentences in group play.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MWO needs an easy way for Solos to group up, and after this "combining test" IMHO the best thing would be to "allow Solos in Groups".

Solo Queue:
should stay as it was before the "Combining Test".

Group Queue:
maximum Group size of 4 = (5,6,9 &10 have only 1 possible combo, 7&11 don't work).
minimum Group size of 1 = Solo player
Using "Group Tier" calculated by maximum or median or average Tiers of players in the group for balancing.
8 vs 8 matches / 12 vs 12 matches depending on the number of groups aviable & their "Group Tier".

IMHO this can be done very quick by just changing the group size setting in the group GUI.

Tonnage Balancing
The Match Maker will still have to consider tonnage in Solo (and even Group).
So tonnage of the players Mech and players that "waste" tonnage by playing lighter Mechs than possible ist still a problem.
The only quick way to remove tonnage from the Match Maker would be the use of drop decks.
If all players have the same total tonnage the Match Maker don't have to deal with that any more.
Using drop decks would also allowing Mech selection per map.

Improvements of Coordination
Are still needed in the middle & long term.
Things like:
Sub VOIP Channels for Lances
Rewards for using the Lance Leader Menue

[UnkerZ]

Dee Eight, on 01 May 2020 - 12:44 AM, said:

That's been suggested before and never acted upon by PGI. The PSR bar is a game time grind bar and that's it. Its a visual tease to fool players into thinking they're getting better, and to keep them playing. For without the easily fooled and gullible masochists to play matches of a game they're terrible at, there wouldn't be enough players for their to be matches created in a timely fashion.

My experience has been the same. It wont work when you have way too many players that CLEARLY are NOT able to play in the matchup assigned.

The grouped players perform with the same problems, if they are big and 'slow' (as in brain capacity), its even worse. Every match will conclude with at least 1 player on either side racking up 1k dmg blowing up the turds while getting swarmed by potatoes. And the potatoes will mostly have double digit output, as per usual, and in some games, up to 7 players were of this standard. Yet there are enough players around for a match with 1 min wait time. So its clear they ARE NOT to standard.

This is the real problem. If I want a win consistently, its a brawler with 100 face alpha so I can erase 3 potatoes in the face and have enough armor to spare against their key pilot. Its so frustrating that the only build I can play to have fun are my faceslapper builds - else ill be pulling my hair out how dumb some of these games get.

Edited by UnkerZ, 01 May 2020 - 01:56 AM.

[MTier Slayed Up]

Alreech, on 01 May 2020 - 01:25 AM, said:

MWO needs an easy way for Solos to group up, and after this "combining test" IMHO the best thing would be to "allow Solos in Groups".

Solo Queue:
should stay as it was before the "Combining Test".

This, that's all. Nothing needs to be added, nothing needs to be changed, anything below your suggestions doesn't serve a purpose.

Alreech, on 01 May 2020 - 01:25 AM, said:

Improvements of Coordination
Are still needed in the middle & long term.
Things like:
Sub VOIP Channels for Lances
Rewards for using the Lance Leader Menue

Dude, we don't need more features in an already dead game. They've long ignored some of the most glaring issues and just added more content without even polishing some of the most minute of issues.

For example: There's a literal **** ton of invisible walls on just about every map. In the 8 some odd years this game has been out, this is still somehow an issue? In 2020? Get real.

I think I speak for anyone here that's been around for awhile, We don't want more superfluous garbage added, we want you to actually fix the persistent problems that have been going on FOR YEARS. BIG EMPHASIS ON YEARS.

The first thing you could fix is the heat bug. I don't know how long you people are going to ignore it, probably until you shut this game off completely, but if you had any decency and care at all for a game a lot of us had put thousands into, you can at least fix that.

Edited by GM Patience, 01 May 2020 - 09:20 AM.

[RJF Volkodav]

Paul Inouye, on 30 April 2020 - 05:26 PM, said:

[color=#14171A][color=cyan]So, tomorrow at 12PM PDT (Noon) 19:00 UTC, the max tonnage for 4 player groups will be dropped to 260 tons. It will remain here for the duration of the weekend. Will be reviewing match results on Monday and adjust from there.[/color][/color]

[color=#14171a][color=cyan]As mentioned on twitter, there will be times where I will be adjusting some numbers that dictate PSR tier matching... but those will have drastic impacts on queue times.[/color][/color]

PSR tiers dont work. Tier 1 contains both potatoes and good players now. Everyone been talking here about PSR being ineffective for years here. You need to go for stats based PSR or complete tier rework having much better matchscore separation.

[Snowhawk]

FRAGTAST1C, on 30 April 2020 - 10:59 PM, said:

2-man and 3-man groups end up in the same team.

Hmm… are you sure? As far I know the groups are limited up to 4 players on each side.

[Spare Knight]

UnkerZ, on 01 May 2020 - 01:46 AM, said:

Every match will conclude with at least 1 player on either side racking up 1k dmg blowing up the turds while getting swarmed by potatoes. And the potatoes will mostly have double digit output, as per usual, and in some games, up to 7 players were of this standard.

Quote

This is the real problem. If I want a win consistently, its a brawler with 100 face alpha so I can erase 3 potatoes in the face and have enough armor to spare against their key pilot.

That is a big thing I am seeing. Twice, I have come close to getting my Ace Of Spades. I never thought I would see that.

Snowhawk, on 01 May 2020 - 02:21 AM, said:

Hmm… are you sure? As far I know the groups are limited up to 4 players on each side.

I have seen it multiple times.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Snowhawk, on 01 May 2020 - 02:21 AM, said:

Hmm… are you sure? As far I know the groups are limited up to 4 players on each side.

I've seen it happen a few times today when I was dropping solo and also on stream when watching a few players play in groups. PGI's "limit" is broken.

[Znoop]

Apart from balancing issues I actually find myself enjoying to play MWO again, I stopped playing in October last year because yolo queue was just a **** show, I consider myself an average player, getting good scores yet losing game after game because some players don't give a flying f**k about playing the game was becoming immensely frustrating, I played probably close to 20 games since the patch so my view on things is limited but I absolutely love that I'm able to play in groups again outside of private lobbies or faction play.

[Spare Knight]

A 3 man and 2 man on the same team.

Never mind, it will only let me link a photo. Not upload it. Tried to link to it in OneDrive and it would not allow a jpg.

Edited by Spare Knight, 01 May 2020 - 03:19 AM.