1579 replies to this topic

[CFC Conky]

Einherier96, on 04 May 2020 - 09:17 AM, said:

literally any other game besides certain shooters are able to pull in these players, and put them in the same queue while not having to divide them into group and solo queue, the question is rather why is/should mwo not be able to do the same.

...

To make that work I think PGI would have to change the structure of the game modes. Right now, once you die, for you that’s it for the current match. In many other games, I’ll borrow the example of combat flight sims, once you are shot down you can immediately spawn back into the same match, for as long as said match lasts. The benefit to new and/or less talented players is that if they are killed in the first few seconds/minutes, they can immediately re-join the match, which is good if they are playing with friends. Also, in many PvP games you can join a match already in progress which can save a lot of time. Servers in other games accommodate more players per match and don’t know how well this would work with the current 24-player limit.

You could still keep the current match structure for the comp scene and FW.

This would be a major departure from the current match structure and I’m not under any illusion that PGI could/would do it with this game.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

Edited by CFC Conky, 04 May 2020 - 10:03 AM.

[Larsh]

Knight Captain Morgan, on 04 May 2020 - 09:18 AM, said:

With a stealth change. Put anyone who joins quickplay as part of a group into the old group que without making any sort of announcement or giving any in-game notification and let things play out.

I don't know if that would be a proper fix.

MM needs a certain amount of people per group to work. Imagine it like piecing together a puzzle. You can't shove a group of 8 in with a group of 5. I wasn't sure if you had that mind. Unless PGI were to still implement strict group numbers that are divisible by 4, 3, or 2 then maybe that would work.

But, still, I don't think a "stealth" change would weigh well on the mind of the players.

[Nesutizale]

Einherier96, on 04 May 2020 - 09:44 AM, said:

If you play wows, you should look at their topic talk they released yesterday about how their mm works. to keep it short: yes, higher tier ships give you a distinct advantage in the game, but you don't need to be good to play t8-10. Also the game doesn't divide via elo or other stuff, all the players are put into one pool. but if skill level was really such a big concern, or groups, you could take the way the wows mm handles uptiering ships (in short, it is capped, you will only get uptiered to your maximum uptier at 40% of your amtches, the mm looks at your match history and manipulates your mm accordingly if your percentage gets too high), to make sure that people see groups only so often.

Since I played MWO for the last few days I haven't checked into WoWs. Will check that later.
As for the high Tier ships. Its not about haveing an advantage, I mean yes they are better but from T8-10 the ship maintanence is getting more and more costly that when you are below a certain skill level or you don't have premium time you will start to loose money.
So its more an economic barrier you have to overcome by beeing very skillfull or have the moeny to spare.
MWO dosn't has that and I am so greatefull for that. Realy with everything wrong with MWO the amount you have to spend in realworld cash is very moderate to other games.

That WoWs puts everyone into the same bucket is quite noticeable...and something that drives one of my friends into a rage all the time. Love it when he just leaves a battle because he casualy checked EVERY players state while still beeing the top killer in the team and I struggle with watching the map and enemy at the same time

That brings me to the point of MWO and players. I think the majority of people posting here in favor of solo staying solo are the top 1% and for those its realy importend to keep the devide because their matches are very different then what the casual PUG is playing.

I like to compare it to 2 people playing Street Fighter. You will see completly different matches depending on the skill of players.
2 unskilled ones, 1 skilled one unskilled and 2 skilled....these three different combinations will be so wildly different in choice of characters, tactics as well as how they feelt the match was going.
The higher the skill the more the balance and kind of characters that are choosen matter and from their perspective even the smallest change is drastic. The casual wouldn't even notice them.

[Einherier96]

CFC Conky, on 04 May 2020 - 10:00 AM, said:

To make that work I think PGI would have to change the structure of the game modes. Right now, once you die, for you that’s it for the current match. In many other games, I’ll borrow the example of combat flight sims, once you are shot down you can immediately spawn back into the same match, for as long as said match lasts. The benefit to new and/or less talented players is that if they are killed in the first few seconds/minutes, they can immediately re-join the match, which is good if they are playing with friends. Also, in many PvP games you can join a match already in progress which can save a lot of time. Servers in other games accommodate more players per match and don’t know how well this would work with the current 24-player limit.

You could still keep the current match structure for the comp scene and FW.

This would be a major departure from the current match structure and I’m not under any illusion that PGI could/would do it with this game.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

theoreticly agreeing, but there are games like wows for example, which have a similiar match lenght then mwo, the same health shooter system, and 12vs12 battles. so we might wanna take a look at why they are able to do what mwo doesn't. that would be low effort variant. on the other parts i agree with you, a more extensive would be lovely, but unlikely

Nesutizale, on 04 May 2020 - 10:01 AM, said:

Since I played MWO for the last few days I haven't checked into WoWs. Will check that later.
As for the high Tier ships. Its not about haveing an advantage, I mean yes they are better but from T8-10 the ship maintanence is getting more and more costly that when you are below a certain skill level or you don't have premium time you will start to loose money.
So its more an economic barrier you have to overcome by beeing very skillfull or have the moeny to spare.
MWO dosn't has that and I am so greatefull for that. Realy with everything wrong with MWO the amount you have to spend in realworld cash is very moderate to other games.

That WoWs puts everyone into the same bucket is quite noticeable...and something that drives one of my friends into a rage all the time. Love it when he just leaves a battle because he casualy checked EVERY players state while still beeing the top killer in the team and I struggle with watching the map and enemy at the same time

That brings me to the point of MWO and players. I think the majority of people posting here in favor of solo staying solo are the top 1% and for those its realy importend to keep the devide because their matches are very different then what the casual PUG is playing.

I like to compare it to 2 people playing Street Fighter. You will see completly different matches depending on the skill of players.
2 unskilled ones, 1 skilled one unskilled and 2 skilled....these three different combinations will be so wildly different in choice of characters, tactics as well as how they feelt the match was going.
The higher the skill the more the balance and kind of characters that are choosen matter and from their perspective even the smallest change is drastic. The casual wouldn't even notice them.

totaly true, but for these people, we allready have the modes catered to them, mainly faction play and ranked seasons.

[Nesutizale]

Anomalocaris, on 04 May 2020 - 09:56 AM, said:

The only reason you guys are getting this is because Russ and Paul think its a good idea. There was no massive swell of people demanding group and solo be mixed.

People might have not beein on the forum demanding it in mass but a dead mode is still a dead mode and people, including me, have asked again and again that something has to be done about small groups. Not directly about mergeing them but that things have to change.

Quote

Of course, Russ has been playing WoT lately not his own game, so who knows what ideas have gotten into his head. Just remember that Solo has always had the largest number of players since the queues were separated.

That is hardly supprising. Most people who come into a game rarely do that in groups but one testing the waters and a lot just stay with what they know and works for them.
I think it took me a year or more before I even bothered looking into faction play?

Anomalocaris, on 04 May 2020 - 09:59 AM, said:

Fair enough, but it still begs the question of why not improve what's wrong with solo queue instead of importing features from game modes that died?

I think to answere this isn't as straight forward as one might think. Normaly I would agree, fix one thing till its good, then go to the next.
From what I understand MWO has the problem that its playerbase is just so small. From what I read with peaks at 300-400 players. Solo Q is mostly, from the player types "killer" and "archiver". Those are more or less solo types but those don't introduce a lot of new people to your game. Thats what "socialiser" and "explorer" type of gamers do but MWO dosn't has a basis for them as group Q is dead.

To make group Q interesting enough for people comming in, in the numbers needed for proper skill-leveled matches and short waiting times PGI would most likely have to reinvent itself. With the amount of ground burned over the past years it will be very hard, I think. Beside PGI might not have the idea or the manpower to do it...or the engine dosn't support it...who knows.

So the next best thing is takeing a playerbase that is allready there and trying to inject the "socialisers" into those, hopeing to get a bit of tracktion that you can reasonably say its worth the companies money and time to invest further into that direction.

Else its easier to write it off as a failed experiment and concentrate on solo Q completly and write small groups off as a complete loss.

[Larsh]

Nesutizale, on 04 May 2020 - 09:31 AM, said:

The fun part about sync dropping is that those people want to team up, why else syncdrop?
I am still wondering, what made people leave group Q in the first place? I remember that the drop times where to damn high and with just 3 people going into faction play was just asking for a beating...and long drop times on top.

Sadly, my team prefers if we are all on the same team when we sync. Granted when it happens, we can still make a good time and trash talk between us. Just becomes an issue as some may be saying commands that aren't meant for you.

For GQ, and leaving it behind, I'll paste what I said on a prior post. Because I'm lazy, and it was better said than what I can think of now

*Flashback - insert wavy image here, and color correct to sepia tone*
My group used to play regularly about a year and a half ago. Didn't matter if we had a group of 3, 6, or 12. We were able to find a group match in a pretty decent amount of time. (roughly 2 - 3 min).

But, as popularity dropped after skill tree, and more dropped with the release of MW5 it was harder for our group to get a group game going. If we dropped in that 3, or 6, man group we would end up waiting 20 min for a match. This was also on Friday nights around 8pm EST. And because of that, we lost players who didn't care to wait that long. Once we found that 12 mans could still find a group game in a decent amount of time, it was too late for us since many left to play other games. It pretty much became a snowball effect as people left due to not being able to play as a solid group

To help alleviate this, we have done sync drops. But, that only works so well. We would still like to be able to find a match with a group of 3 or 6, but when running sync you run the gambit of:
- Not finding a match together.
- Tiers of your group mates being too wide, so sync will never match you.
- Being in the same match, but on opposite teams.
- Being in the same match, but in different lances.
- If you win the lottery, you get in the same match, with the same lance.

Due to not being able to get a stable group with some friends, most of the group left discouraged.
*End Flashback*

Edited by Larsh, 04 May 2020 - 10:19 AM.

[Nesutizale]

Einherier96, on 04 May 2020 - 10:16 AM, said:

totaly true, but for these people, we allready have the modes catered to them, mainly faction play and ranked seasons.

Problem is they don't stay there. So you have to find a system that works with them in mind. WoWs system, beside the game beeing very succesfull, isn't without it flaws too and its pretty much the flaw that the 1% are pointing out.
When I want to go seal clubbing me and my friend take a T5 ship and devestate the enemy.

The pretty big differenace is in the number of players WoWs can draw from compared to MWO. From what I read here in the forums there is, at certain timeslots, a big number of 1% people beeing online. This creates an imbalance that results in bad games.
Here is the point where I agree with the 1%, it would be better if it dosn't happen. On the other extreme end of the spectrum seams to be the timeslot I play in where I never had that. Damn today I didn't even found a group bigger then 2 people and also matches without groups.

So either we get more people into the critical timeslots to reduce the problem like WoWs and have one sealclubbing every 20 matches or we need a better matchmaker that devides groups properly / keeps the 1% out of the game until another 1% group is found or make group Q so damn attractive that it draws in enough people to have decent match finding times as well as proper matching skill levels for all teams.

I hardly doubt that we will see a proper reworked group Q anytime soon, so working out how to best do solo + groups is the next best thing...also not the ideal solution.

[Anomalocaris]

Nesutizale, on 04 May 2020 - 10:18 AM, said:

So the next best thing is takeing a playerbase that is allready there and trying to inject the "socialisers" into those, hopeing to get a bit of tracktion that you can reasonably say its worth the companies money and time to invest further into that direction.

Else its easier to write it off as a failed experiment and concentrate on solo Q completly and write small groups off as a complete loss.

Except that the very nature of groups vs. solos breaks the solo queue balance, such as it is. That's a very dangerous thing to do with your last remaining pocket of players.

[Spare Knight]

Einherier96, on 04 May 2020 - 10:16 AM, said:

but for these people, we allready have the modes catered to them, mainly faction play and ranked seasons.

You do know that Ranked Seasons is just Quick Play, right?

Faction Play is not catered to me. I tried it and it is not my cup of tea. I am 62 years old and play for relaxation and to waste a lot of time while I don't have anything else to do. Hence I play solo.

I guess I could rejoin my old unit and start clubbing. The only reason I left was that as a solo player I did not feel right just wearing the tag. I mean, if groups are what the masses want...

[Coffeeghoul]

Well, my experience so far:
As a player who can't get groups until late night due to the barely crowded european time zone (hanging hours in LFG with no response) the game has become unplayable straight away. It was stompy before, but now.. oh boy. ALL my games today have been decided long before the matches even started. If this is the way it's gonna be, go ahead, but I'm sick and tired of it.

[Einherier96]

Nesutizale, on 04 May 2020 - 10:30 AM, said:

Problem is they don't stay there. So you have to find a system that works with them in mind. WoWs system, beside the game beeing very succesfull, isn't without it flaws too and its pretty much the flaw that the 1% are pointing out.
When I want to go seal clubbing me and my friend take a T5 ship and devestate the enemy.

The pretty big differenace is in the number of players WoWs can draw from compared to MWO. From what I read here in the forums there is, at certain timeslots, a big number of 1% people beeing online. This creates an imbalance that results in bad games.
Here is the point where I agree with the 1%, it would be better if it dosn't happen. On the other extreme end of the spectrum seams to be the timeslot I play in where I never had that. Damn today I didn't even found a group bigger then 2 people and also matches without groups.

So either we get more people into the critical timeslots to reduce the problem like WoWs and have one sealclubbing every 20 matches or we need a better matchmaker that devides groups properly / keeps the 1% out of the game until another 1% group is found or make group Q so damn attractive that it draws in enough people to have decent match finding times as well as proper matching skill levels for all teams.

I hardly doubt that we will see a proper reworked group Q anytime soon, so working out how to best do solo + groups is the next best thing...also not the ideal solution.

problem is, lets be realistic here: the playerbase is not even remotly large enough to seperate into 1percentile, or even 10percentile without making the game unplayable for these people, and lets not start talking about an even more sophisticated one that would divide the players into smaller brackets for mm purpose

[Nesutizale]

Anomalocaris, on 04 May 2020 - 10:30 AM, said:

Except that the very nature of groups vs. solos breaks the solo queue balance, such as it is. That's a very dangerous thing to do with your last remaining pocket of players.

Yes and no
It breaks the game when you have the high skilled players on. The lower the skill the less of an impact the group has.
They will still have an impact, don't get me wrong but I would say a T3 group is about 50/50 on tipping the game in one or the other direction. Lower and I think these guys have hardly an impact, they don't know enough about the game to force something and are most likely just teamplaying to...well play together and shoot mechs.

The other end of the spectrum is the skilled player and here it starts to get problematic. I think T2 player have enough skill to make a differance but can still be taken care of and T1 definitly breaks things.

It will be hard with just PSR and tonnage to balance this without outright tell T1 players to go FW and never play Quickplay again...what definitly isn't a solution.

Damn if it was only about the lower tiers I wouldn't even have a second thought and say "Yes put solos and groups together".
Why are you guys so damn good...from now on you are only allowed to play drunk

Mhhh other thought I had could be that T1s have longer waittimes for matches when they group because of a tighter MM setup but then you just shy away the T1s.
Overall there don't seam to be an easy solution as well proper tools to implement them and we don't have the numbers PGI can monitor.

As for beeing risky...well if they find a solution that actualy works, then the 4 weeks where well spend. When they don't find a solution and then drop the idea I think it was still time well spend as it sparked at least a bit of interest and showed that PGI does anything with MWO at all after a year or more where nothing happend.

[Spare Knight]

Einherier96, on 04 May 2020 - 10:16 AM, said:

totaly true, but for these people, we allready have the modes catered to them, mainly faction play and ranked seasons.

You don't have a clue as to what you are talking about. You should stop now. You already admitted in a previous post that you intentionally don't pull your weight, so as not to hit Tier 2. I sure wouldn't want a player like that on my team. I play to win every single time.

[Z Paradox]

PGI could just add option for "solo" and/or "group" next to quick play and same to group drop: add groups and/or add solo players. that way we could play solo vs solos or group vs group or mix of all...

and if they want new player to stay and play they need to give them 8 bays and ~75% discount for first 2 mech per class, ppl who played with me didn't want to grind for first mech to find out they dont like it and then they need to grind more to try next, free to play selection is crap and useless 80% of the time.

so I ended up with 4 accounts they dont use...

[Spare Knight]

Einherier96, on 04 May 2020 - 10:46 AM, said:

problem is, lets be realistic here: the playerbase is not even remotly large enough to seperate into 1percentile, or even 10percentile without making the game unplayable for these people, and lets not start talking about an even more sophisticated one that would divide the players into smaller brackets for mm purpose

Yes, but you want to drive the 1% over to another game mode, so you don't have to get seal clubbed.

[Nesutizale]

Coffeeghoul, on 04 May 2020 - 10:40 AM, said:

Well, my experience so far:
As a player who can't get groups until late night due to the barely crowded european time zone (hanging hours in LFG with no response) the game has become unplayable straight away. It was stompy before, but now.. oh boy. ALL my games today have been decided long before the matches even started. If this is the way it's gonna be, go ahead, but I'm sick and tired of it.

What times are you playing at? I am from the EU and I have had no problems finding matches in solo Q. Are you limiting yourself to EU server only?

Einherier96, on 04 May 2020 - 10:46 AM, said:

problem is, lets be realistic here: the playerbase is not even remotly large enough to seperate into 1percentile, or even 10percentile without making the game unplayable for these people, and lets not start talking about an even more sophisticated one that would divide the players into smaller brackets for mm purpose

Yes and that is the point where things get complicated. With the small playerbase you can have quite stompy games when the 1% come online in "masses" so you would want to have a system that destributes them evenly for balance purpose but then its not enough people overall to do that and so you can't have it either way. Split them, lets them be together....both don't work proper with low numbers.

Frankly I am impressed that MWO still has servers up and running and that, for the last week I picked it up again, I had so much fun with it again. Had been a long time since I had it.

[Anomalocaris]

Z Paradox, on 04 May 2020 - 10:52 AM, said:

PGI could just add option for "solo" and/or "group" next to quick play and same to group drop: add groups and/or add solo players. that way we could play solo vs solos or group vs group or mix of all...

and if they want new player to stay and play they need to give them 8 bays and ~75% discount for first 2 mech per class, ppl who played with me didn't want to grind for first mech to find out they dont like it and then they need to grind more to try next, free to play selection is crap and useless 80% of the time.

so I ended up with 4 accounts they dont use...

Strangely enough, when asked about opt-ins Russ said no, because there weren't enough players to support that.....

Yeah, I don't get it either. Especially not letting solos fill out group queue. As a solo player it might boost my solo only wait time, but then I have the _option_ of choosing lower wait time over better (IMO) match quality. Instead they just force one way on everyone. I don't know if its lack of imagination, improper prioritization, or just an inability to code this stuff. But you could have had basically the same result as now but given people choices instead of forcing them

[Z Paradox]

my english is not so good so I try to keep it simple, with option to play solo OR group OR mixed, in the end you will have 1 option at top, and good data on what players want and what players play...

[Anomalocaris]

Einherier96, on 04 May 2020 - 10:59 AM, said:

Nah, I personally am fine with them, I don't care. But when people like brauer, who are the literall 1% of the game, are complaining about others being comp stomped by the 1% then its laughable and he is part of the problem himself, if he is in qp. he does not need to play devils advocate if he is not on the recieving end. Question is, if he is here, with his friends, and he is part of the problem, why is he even in qp in the first place then with the friends? and if he isn't, why does he, as the 1% player even care if we others get sealclubbed? its a fake talk, lets be honest here

Listen Bill, Brauer is concerned about the long term health of the game, which will cease to exist if its just the 1%ers. He can play any mech in his arsenal and along with 3 of his friends they will win 90% of their matches dropping as a group in merged queue. He simply has to play, and probably not even try all that hard when he does.

Because of the merger, he no longer has an option to go play group queue even if he wanted to. It doesn't exist. And faction matches take a long time and also devolve into routs quite easily. Only in FW he has to sit there farming the same increasinly salty pugs for 48 kills before its over. Which leaves us with the new merged queue. See Bill, the results are kinda easy to figure out if you just think about it a bit.

[Larsh]

Anomalocaris, on 04 May 2020 - 11:00 AM, said:

Strangely enough, when asked about opt-ins Russ said no, because there weren't enough players to support that.....

Yeah, I don't get it either. Especially not letting solos fill out group queue. As a solo player it might boost my solo only wait time, but then I have the _option_ of choosing lower wait time over better (IMO) match quality. Instead they just force one way on everyone. I don't know if its lack of imagination, improper prioritization, or just an inability to code this stuff. But you could have had basically the same result as now but given people choices instead of forcing them

I think one stat we're missing is the definite player number for those playing MWO. And then how many of that player base is playing solo / group. Then also seeing how many of those solo players are willing to play in group to fill the gap. Its a lot of factors, and I'm sure Russ isn't going to put the effort to find it.