1579 replies to this topic

[Spare Knight]

Einherier96, on 04 May 2020 - 06:40 AM, said:

true, but chances are slim that groups will actually build something like that. most groups on average are just average players, having fun. and one group every 10, even every 5 groups having a lurm narc setup will not be relevant to the whole thing, because that would still mean that you would get such a group every 10 matches, or every 20 matches getting clubbed by souch a group. and that is assuming that even every 5th group is a four man narc group.
Also with 350+ or even 300+ you are still at the 80percentile and are thus allready taken into the mathematical equation i put up above, so nothing changes on the 26 matches you will have until you meet such a group on average

Play during North American prime time and you will see that your math does not work.

[Larsh]

Nesutizale, on 04 May 2020 - 06:17 AM, said:

Currently listed active players 14.000+ // People with matchscores over 400 = 0,7% // Over 300 = 6%
The chances meeting them is slim from the mathematical point.

What my guess is that those few share the same timewindow of play. For example I have meet non of those groups on a saturday between 13h - 21h EU time...or they didn't play to their full potential cause nothing was sticking out like the 4 man dakka parade that was mentioned earlier.

What would be interesting to know is how many top players are online at any given 3 hours timewindow. I think that is a basis that could be used to see how often you would roughly meet them.

I'm with ya on the item your bring up.

I've played on 3 separate days so far, totaling for a rough amount of 25 - 30 games. I made sure to play for about 3.5 hours yesterday on a Sunday in hopes to see the main group stomps that are evident on live streams. But, I wasn't able to get partnered up with it. Instead, I saw more even matches, and about 65% use of Voip in these matches to have some coordination.

I may had mentioned this before, but at this point items come down to a personal level of game enjoyability. And I'm no psych major, but that crap is difficult to measure. Some people are going to like this change, some will not. Also, we need to take into account of timezones, and when certain leveled players dropping when. All murky, and hard to measurable stats.

I'll say it again too. PGI needs to place in a poll on the MWO splash screen. I think we can all agree that a chunk of the playerbase doesn't check MWO's social media areas or forums. So with that, there is a non vocal section that isn't being represented here.

Place a poll in game, have it set that you can fill it out after you play so many matches, and have this poll refresh each week after something is tweaked with.

[Spare Knight]

Larsh, on 04 May 2020 - 06:51 AM, said:

I'll say it again too. PGI needs to place in a poll on the MWO splash screen. I think we can all agree that a chunk of the playerbase doesn't check MWO's social media areas or forums. So with that, there is a non vocal section that isn't being represented here.

Place a poll in game, have it set that you can fill it out after you play so many matches, and have this poll refresh each week after something is tweaked with.

I agree. An in game poll would be good.

[Einherier96]

Larsh, on 04 May 2020 - 06:51 AM, said:

I'm with ya on the item your bring up.

I've played on 3 separate days so far, totaling for a rough amount of 25 - 30 games. I made sure to play for about 3.5 hours yesterday on a Sunday in hopes to see the main group stomps that are evident on live streams. But, I wasn't able to get partnered up with it. Instead, I saw more even matches, and about 65% use of Voip in these matches to have some coordination.

I may had mentioned this before, but at this point items come down to a personal level of game enjoyability. And I'm no psych major, but that crap is difficult to measure. Some people are going to like this change, some will not. Also, we need to take into account of timezones, and when certain leveled players dropping when. All murky, and hard to measurable stats.

I'll say it again too. PGI needs to place in a poll on the MWO splash screen. I think we can all agree that a chunk of the playerbase doesn't check MWO's social media areas or forums. So with that, there is a non vocal section that isn't being represented here.

Place a poll in game, have it set that you can fill it out after you play so many matches, and have this poll refresh each week after something is tweaked with.

theoreticly a good idea, but inherently also not a good one. you don't wanna only ask those still playing (but i have to admit, putting it in the launcher or the game itself is better then a forum poll cause forums tend to underrepresent certain types of players by a heavy margin to even non representation), but you are normaly also try to rope people back into the game, and when you put the survey up in the launcher you will loose out on all of the people who left the game for various reason and will have just another form of survivor bias which leads to the wrong conclusions.

A better idea would be to send a survey request to every account that has been created for mwo and hope that enough people who are not actively following the game atm to be giving their feedback why they left, and to maybe rope them back in for the test period.

Spare Knight, on 04 May 2020 - 06:50 AM, said:

Play during North American prime time and you will see that your math does not work.

is that more subjective information or do you have any relevant proof to place this statement upon? besides the fact that north american prime is pretty far stretched when you consider time difference between west and east coast.

Edited by Einherier96, 04 May 2020 - 06:58 AM.

[Larsh]

Einherier96, on 04 May 2020 - 06:57 AM, said:

theoreticly a good idea, but inherently also not a good one. you don't wanna only ask those still playing (but i have to admit, putting it in the launcher or the game itself is better then a forum poll cause forums tend to underrepresent certain types of players by a heavy margin to even non representation), but you are normaly also try to rope people back into the game, and when you put the survey up in the launcher you will loose out on all of the people who left the game for various reason and will have just another form of survivor bias which leads to the wrong conclusions.

Hrmmm good point that the poll would only reach those that are actively playing. But, if via word of mouth, or social media, it does seem that some people have come back to try this. And since each and every person needs to open the game launcher, then that gives you a more equal amount of eyes checking it instead of forums or other "optional" areas that some decide to follow.

If people aren't play testing this new system, they really don't have much word on if it works or it doesn't. I know that last part sounds harsh, but people that are having first hand experience with the change would have a better understanding of this change IMO.

[Spare Knight]

Instead of emailing out a poll, just email out to them to come back and give groups a try. Then when they have played, give them the poll at the end of, lets say 5 matches. This would let them experience it before answering.

[Larsh]

Spare Knight, on 04 May 2020 - 07:07 AM, said:

Instead of emailing out a poll, just email out to them to come back and give groups a try. Then when they have played, give them the poll at the end of, lets say 5 matches. This would let them experience it before answering.

I wouldn't even use email. I'd place it in game since that is a guarantee to see it. Something like one of these three:

[MODOK69]

played over the weekend and there are only a couple of things that I believe can be fixed in order to address balancing issues without defeating the purpose of why you are doing this experiment:

- fix drop locations, this has always been a problem on certain maps and in this experiments it's dramatically worse, example getting dropped in alpha lance location in an assault.

- recommend addressing group drop composition/balancing, there are a lot of issues here but most cannot be addressed without ruing what you are trying to accomplish. Ran into so many groups this weekend with mechs and builds that look like what you would see in team faction play, example a narc raven and 3 catapults. A thought is to have a 4 man group drop in one of each weight class. Doesn't exactly fix the problem but does spread it out.

- one could argue that that overhauling faction play what negate the need for groups in solo que! Getting rid of spawn camping (yes it makes tactical sense but does not promote game play). re-work game play modes, assaulting the orbital cannon is real BS. These are just two ideas.

- Game play has mostly been one sided blowouts but when you get in a good game they are are much closer and nail biting!

- Bottom line, it will take some getting used to but playable

[Larsh]

VonBruinwald, on 04 May 2020 - 07:10 AM, said:

Is there a ratio at where we say an unfair game is acceptable. At what point are we ok with 1/x?

Hard to say, and that is our dilemma here. This change, and forum, has brought to light the differing views of what MWO means to the different player bases. Some will say that a match was acceptable, while some will say that is wasn't. So if people want definite stats to give them conscience, that may be harder said than done. But, with a dwindling playerbase, and still on a decline, it's hard to say if GQ and SQ will need to merged in the end to survive.

Anyone here have a psych degree so we psychoanalyze of thoughts? haha.

But, on a more serious note, it takes a lot to reach across each others sphere of influence. Some here are better than others maybe, but that is also a hard determination.

[Einherier96]

Larsh, on 04 May 2020 - 07:03 AM, said:

Hrmmm good point that the poll would only reach those that are actively playing. But, if via word of mouth, or social media, it does seem that some people have come back to try this. And since each and every person needs to open the game launcher, then that gives you a more equal amount of eyes checking it instead of forums or other "optional" areas that some decide to follow.

If people aren't play testing this new system, they really don't have much word on if it works or it doesn't. I know that last part sounds harsh, but people that are having first hand experience with the change would have a better understanding of this change IMO.

thats why i edited my statement. but to repeat it: an alternative that would work better in my opinion is to send a servey request to every mwo accounts email adress, to try and first of all gather what made other people quit, and maybe rope them in and inform them of the test period atm to try and rope them back into the game, that would propably be the best solution.

[Einherier96]

VonBruinwald, on 04 May 2020 - 07:10 AM, said:

It wasn't a derail, it was an expansion of the premise.

He's arguing that he's being placed in unfair games, you're arguing it's statistically insignificant.

Is there a ratio at where we say an unfair game is acceptable. At what point are we ok with 1/x?

Do the contributors even matter, matchmaking, group stomping or hacks... should we even care about the contributors ratios as long as it doesn't exceed the sum?

the question is, how unfair is a game allowed to be to be fun. and thats where i am splitting hairs with brauer. he is a comp player, for those games need to be balanced as much as possible, but i am arguing for casual players, and for those games don't need to be perfectly balanced. not saying that there is no need for balance at all, but quickplay is the casual game mode for mwo, a game that uses the casual game design of a hitpoint shooter. you will find everything in qp, from the meta build, to ''bad or low tier mechs'', to meme builds designed for fun. Inbalance that people fear where one of every 20 or so matches will get you rofl stomped don't matter much in a casual game mode.
Quick question: would you cinsider mario kart fun? do you consider it balanced? cause it ain't. its game design is geared towards elevating bad players onto the same level as the others so that they can all have fun casually. a slightly unbalanced or asymetric game is not inherently bad. many maps are asymetric and give one team an edge, that is part of the game design of every game.

Now, if we were talking about comp or fp, I would totally agree with brauer. but we are talking about qp here, the most casual string of the game. it can get away with a certain inbalance, cause the mode is by default in balanced.

Edited by Einherier96, 04 May 2020 - 07:31 AM.

[Anomalocaris]

Einherier96, on 04 May 2020 - 05:13 AM, said:

And i will put real money down that the influx of people will far outweight people like you leaving. and in contrast to people like you, groups of friends that are coming back into the game have a higher chance to rope in additional players if they find it fun to play the game as a group. hate to be the arse, but you are a minority that does not that much to keep a game alive, and a part of the community that could propably be cut off easily. So far mwo sees a constant 700+ players on steam on the weekend every hour of the day (saw it from 3pm european time to 3 am), numbers which couldn't even be reached on top hours on weekends with events (best spikes are normaly around 600 at peak hours only, otherwise 300-400), so we see an influx of players that validate cutting parts of the community off for the greater good of the game.

And to your 1%percentile 4 player group, see the post above, chances are miniscule and not relevant to be facing these people on a regular basis)

Lol, I find it funny that elite players are concerned about not driving off players while you are all for getting rid of them. I was always told it was the other way around. I will have quite a laugh if you get your way I think.

First of all, you need to check your numbers. The last event was 2 weeks ago and it generated peak steam numbers on the weekend of 758 and 712 players vs. 812 and 810 this weekend. An increase to be sure, but we were in the 780s at the end of march as well during the lucky charms event. Unfortunately steam doesn't have daily data a year ago during the last double xp event to peruse, but this is hardly a game changing jump in players. A spike in players during a major change in the game is not unexpected, but what happens after the novelty is gone and people are done trying it? I think its pretty sketchy that PGI put a very popular event on right in the middle of testing a new paradigm (last double XP was at end of May.....).

Second, with approximately 6.5% of all players being above 300 match score your chance of a random solo drop without one of them in the match is less than 20%. That assumes that all players are playing when online, that all players qualify for the drop (no tier valves) and that all players play an equal number of games (in fact high level players tend to play more, but we won't worry about that). That means that about 80% of your matches have at least one player above 300 AMS.

But when you add in groups things change. Let's say out of 100 people we 7 players above 300 and 4 of them form a group. And of the remaining 93 players, 20 of them form a group. We have enough players in that population for 4 concurrent matches at one time. And 3 of those matches will have a group of 4 in them on each team. That means you have a 1:4 chance of having that top group in your match.

But that's too many you say, only 20% of regular players are forming groups. Ok, double the population (200 people) but let's keep it at one top group. Now we have 8 concurrent matches. We'll increase the number of "regular" 4mans to 9 and still only have 1 top group. That means 5 of 8 matches have groups in them and 1 in 8 will have a top group. That still means you have a 12.5% chance of having your match dominated by a top group.

Now tighten the matchmaker back up. Get rid of all the Tier 4, 5 and cadets dropping with Tier 1 players. Suddenly your chances of getting that top group go back up. Play 10-15 games in a day and you're going to have those guys in a match 2-3 times if you're average. Might get lucky and get them once or unlucky and get them 5 times. People will remember those stomps because that's how people's minds work.

Good luck with that.

[Einherier96]

Larsh, on 04 May 2020 - 07:09 AM, said:

I wouldn't even use email. I'd place it in game since that is a guarantee to see it.

i like the idea, but you would propably still miss out on a lot of feedback. if you send it via email, it double as a way to inform more people of the test run (honestly, i don't get why they didn't send out an email to all users about this anyways), and honestly, if i wouldn't be unable to play battletech atm due to cirsumstances and was looking if mwo might be able to scratch that itch for a few matches, me and my buddies would have propably missed this change completly.

Edited by Einherier96, 04 May 2020 - 07:35 AM.

[Spare Knight]

As I have stated previously, I pay money to play this game. When I was in Old Comstar [OLDC], I would even buy MC gift packs and give them away in contests that would help train player skills. I want this game to succeed. Whatever helps grow the playerbase and keep these servers running is what we need to do.

I can play solo with or without the groups. My AMS went up with the addition of groups, because I can support the group. It doesn't matter to my play style. I am good with it either way.

As long as the seals like the clubbing, let it continue.

[Akumu]

last match:

my team: 2 assaults
enemy-team: 7 assaults

thx for those exciting matches...

[Larsh]

Einherier96, on 04 May 2020 - 07:24 AM, said:

thats why i edited my statement. but to repeat it: an alternative that would work better in my opinion is to send a servey request to every mwo accounts email adress, to try and first of all gather what made other people quit, and maybe rope them in and inform them of the test period atm to try and rope them back into the game, that would propably be the best solution.

Not a bad suggestion. But, I'll admit, I'm horrible with email. My inbox is pretty much a graveyard. So on my end, I'd probably miss that.

Also, I wouldn't include a text based section. That would take too long for the dev / PR team to sift through.

[Einherier96]

Anomalocaris, on 04 May 2020 - 07:34 AM, said:

Lol, I find it funny that elite players are concerned about not driving off players while you are all for getting rid of them. I was always told it was the other way around. I will have quite a laugh if you get your way I think.

First of all, you need to check your numbers. The last event was 2 weeks ago and it generated peak steam numbers on the weekend of 758 and 712 players vs. 812 and 810 this weekend. An increase to be sure, but we were in the 780s at the end of march as well during the lucky charms event. Unfortunately steam doesn't have daily data a year ago during the last double xp event to peruse, but this is hardly a game changing jump in players. A spike in players during a major change in the game is not unexpected, but what happens after the novelty is gone and people are done trying it? I think its pretty sketchy that PGI put a very popular event on right in the middle of testing a new paradigm (last double XP was at end of May.....).

Second, with approximately 6.5% of all players being above 300 match score your chance of a random solo drop without one of them in the match is less than 20%. That assumes that all players are playing when online, that all players qualify for the drop (no tier valves) and that all players play an equal number of games (in fact high level players tend to play more, but we won't worry about that). That means that about 80% of your matches have at least one player above 300 AMS.

But when you add in groups things change. Let's say out of 100 people we 7 players above 300 and 4 of them form a group. And of the remaining 93 players, 20 of them form a group. We have enough players in that population for 4 concurrent matches at one time. And 3 of those matches will have a group of 4 in them on each team. That means you have a 1:4 chance of having that top group in your match.

But that's too many you say, only 20% of regular players are forming groups. Ok, double the population (200 people) but let's keep it at one top group. Now we have 8 concurrent matches. We'll increase the number of "regular" 4mans to 9 and still only have 1 top group. That means 5 of 8 matches have groups in them and 1 in 8 will have a top group. That still means you have a 12.5% chance of having your match dominated by a top group.

Now tighten the matchmaker back up. Get rid of all the Tier 4, 5 and cadets dropping with Tier 1 players. Suddenly your chances of getting that top group go back up. Play 10-15 games in a day and you're going to have those guys in a match 2-3 times if you're average. Might get lucky and get them once or unlucky and get them 5 times. People will remember those stomps because that's how people's minds work.

Good luck with that.

Okay, first of all, tiers atm are disabled, and i am advocating for disabling them permamently. 12.5% chance to get stomped by a top tier group is still not that bad for a casual approach to the game. and even if i get stomped, ti doesn't mean that it can't be fun for people. i personally for example enjoy going against all the odds stacked against me, and seeing how far i can push against these odds. games where my team lost the most badly where sometimes the ones i enjoyed the most, in my eyes there is nothing greater then to have a last stand with two three teammates going off in a blaze of glory. is that true for everyone? no, propably not. does this forum represent the community? no, totally not. this forum is a bubble of a small percentage of the community that uses it, So if people mind this certain inbalance or not will only be shown in the numbers at the end of the day.

Secondly, and most annoyingly, you are still going with the perfect numbers for a 4 man team, which will not be able to hold up. smaller groups of two and three will take up a significant number of the group spots, will thus put your numbers even lower. (and if 4 players really turns out to be a problem, you can allways cut the number down to three, like wows does, which is also a health shooter which functions in a 12vs12 mode with different weight classes).

What needs to be fixed is the total amount of assault mechs for example, there needs to be a max number per match, but for stuff like that you need a bigger playerbase for the mm to work with.

Anomalocaris, on 04 May 2020 - 07:44 AM, said:

[Redacted]

[Redacted]

[Larsh]

Anomalocaris, on 04 May 2020 - 07:44 AM, said:

[Redacted]

I think you are taking things out of context there, and in no way do I intend on pushing the population away.

And that is why I have brought up items about everyone taking sides before any results were shown. In any test there will always be bad faith actors, and will soil the pot to prove a point. But, it might be an issue that soil is such that it is more eye catching to most that see it. Might not be a majority, but it will shine brightest, and smell the most.

What I am suggesting is that there is also a chunk of the playerbase that does not follow the forums, reddit, twitter, facebook, etc and they were

1. Not aware of this change.
2. May not want to visit social media due to time restraints on personal life, or other factors.

If people play MWO, then they should be given an option to voice their concerns on the platform that they all go to, the MWO game.

Edited by GM Patience, 04 May 2020 - 03:56 PM.

[Einherier96]

Larsh, on 04 May 2020 - 07:43 AM, said:

Not a bad suggestion. But, I'll admit, I'm horrible with email. My inbox is pretty much a graveyard. So on my end, I'd probably miss that.

Also, I wouldn't include a text based section. That would take too long for the dev / PR team to sift through.

mhm that is a point i didn't consider. I mean i guess we can just do both to cover both types of people, the amount of work should be miniscule.
Also agreed with the text section, but you can easily do a multiple choice answer sheet, where you can put in thw question of reasonw hy i don't play anymore, and add in options like balance, wait time for group queue etc to get an accurate picture.

[Larsh]

Einherier96, on 04 May 2020 - 07:51 AM, said:

mhm that is a point i didn't consider. I mean i guess we can just do both to cover both types of people, the amount of work should be miniscule.
Also agreed with the text section, but you can easily do a multiple choice answer sheet, where you can put in thw question of reasonw hy i don't play anymore, and add in options like balance, wait time for group queue etc to get an accurate picture.

Both might be a bad idea, as that a person could have the potential to input items twice from two different sources.

Also, I did think about more than one question, but I thought one might be the least time consuming. Having more than one could work well, but that all comes down to how much time does a person want to commit on filling it out.

Edited by Larsh, 04 May 2020 - 07:55 AM.