344 replies to this topic

[Kamikaze Viking]

Spare Knight, on 05 May 2020 - 01:19 PM, said:

I'll say it again. Simply remove the Two Losses In A Row from the PSR and it will no longer be an experience bar. Try it and lets see the results.

Thats not how it works.

In those pictures I've posted the number if +'s or -'s are representative of how much you go up or down in a single match based on your match score. Not taking X number of matches to go up or down.
This is derived from Pauls original post when PSR came out, combined with community studies to estimate the Match Score threshold for each of the 4 levels.

[Andrzej Lechrenski]

Anomalocaris, on 05 May 2020 - 04:22 PM, said:

I don't speak for Brauer, but I think the point you are missing is this:

The addition of groups has so swung the balance of power in the merged queue (at least for good players and good groups) that the difference in WLR and overall match performance between a solo high skill player and that same player in a 4-man is substantial. We are talking a 3x-4x increase in WLR and a 2x-3x increase in KDR. A good player in a group will rarely lose, while the same player going solo will find himself losing the majority of matches when a good group drops opposite him.

This massive gap between group and solo performance is going to encourage anyone who enjoys winning to really try to drop in a 4-man as often as possible, and that's going to result in a lot of stomps regardless of mech choice. Can't blame the guy for not wanting to play solo when it means he gets beaten up regardless of how well he plays because he's at the mercy of which team gets the good 4-man.

Personally, I think the meta is actually three man groups, unless you are sure that your fourth man is as good as a group of two pugs working together. But that is beside the point.

I'm not sure I agree with you on numbers, but I do agree with you on principle that groups of competent players are a force multiplier. I also agree that people who enjoy winning will certainly abuse that to their advantage.

My experience with solo queue (although, admittedly, I was primarily a group queue player until this merge) was always that it was a bunch of randos getting farmed by people who found ways to game the predictable drunken NASCAR system to their advantage. I don't see any change between that and this new form of abuse. I suspect most pugs don't either (although they most likely do see a change in other aspects such as slightly less NASCAR and slightly more productive comms). I imagine the farmers are extremely pissed off by this change and all I have to say is... good. If they feel the need to join groups to get that opiate high of "winning at all costs" again... also, good. At least they are being forced to learn the valuable life skill of teamwork, humbling though that may be.

Regardless of how much people like to brag about their abilities, there are never going to be enough super-mega-ultra teams to spoil every match (though it appears they have utterly convinced themselves that they are so god-like that they can). And for every "pretty good" team, there is always going to be another "pretty good" team to counter them. Where does this leave the former predators of the solo queue potato farm? Totally screwed. And, sure, I can understand that rage because it was a good ego trip while it lasted. But the group queue players don't care, and rest of the pugs also don't care. No change in their eyes. Except for one important thing: people get to play with their friends now. And, at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is whether more people or fewer people decided to spend time playing the game (and even more importantly than that, money on the game).

Time, and data, will tell on that one.

[Anomalocaris]

Dakkalistic, on 05 May 2020 - 04:21 PM, said:

I was just waiting for this one, player number have gone up since the merge, well into the covid thing.

Might need to tease out a little more granularity here.

https://steamcharts.com/app/342200#1m

First of all, note that average player numbers have been on a steady upswing starting in March and continuing to April. Second, in the past when PGI has revealed overall player numbers (Steam plus PGI launcher) it seems that non-steam players hover around 2x the number of steam users. So if you have 500 steam players there are probably 1500 total.

+67 avg players (21%) in March and +70 players (+18%) in April. So to assess any gains from the merge you've got to tease out whether any increases buck that trend (or is the trend, let's call it the Covid effect, starting to reverse now?).

Second, you've got to consider the impact of events. The last event prior to the start of the merge was the Stay Indoors event which started the weekend of the 17th. There wasn't an event the following weekend, then we had the double XP event the first weekend of the merge (and now the Aussie event the next weekend).

I find the weekend of the 17th to be particularly useful because that is also the weekend we tried the 8v8 group queue which was kinda popular, although it wasn't well announced or around long enough to really bring back any old players IMO.

If you compare the weekend of the 17th to this last weekend, the peak numbers on steam are closer than you'd think:

Day 4/17-21 5/1-5
Fri 689 746
Sat 758 812
Sun 712 810
Mon 614 674
Tues 606 603

Interesting trend, no? We will have to see what happens come next weekend as well. But what it looks like so far is a bunch of people trying out something new and then returning to previous levels. I think the extra event might juice things a little bit during weekend 2 of the merge and if you're really looking for good data that might not be the best variable to throw in there, but.....

I would also remind you that just a year ago average player numbers were 50% higher than they were in April of this year, and double what they were before the Covid spike. So even if we were to maintain a 10% increase due to the merge (and I suspect that we won't, but data will tell us), we're only getting a tiny fraction back of what we lost. Worth it? That's an opinion, but not feeling like it if you go simply by net gains in new/returning players vs. lost players.

Brauer, on 05 May 2020 - 04:30 PM, said:

I think you're understating the impact of dropping with a good group. It's not that hard to go from like 2.00 wlr solo to like 17.00 wlr in a group, and like 3.00 kdr solo to like 20+ in a group.

Thanks for the info. Just reinforces the point that groups in solo are seriously OP if composed of good players.

[Zirconium Kaze]

Brauer, on 05 May 2020 - 03:57 PM, said:

So FP isn't really hard mode imo. Unless you have a pretty bad PUG team against a large group it's usually more about how fast you can farm the other side. It's fun and all, but it does require a bigger time commitment (time to wait in queue plus 20-30 minutes for a match) and it has low population at certain times of day.

At this point player run competitions are the hard mode. I just don't feel I have the time to devote to them as I did last year.

I think this change should be reverted because it simply shifts the meta toward bringing a decent 3-4 man and reduces the attractiveness and impact of solo droppers. I have to say though I find your point of view kind of hard to follow. You want high level players out of quick play, but you also want players in quick play exposed to all levels of play? I'm confused.

I don't want high level players out of qp. I want them to stay with their teams because it adds to the diversity of skill sets one experiences. This causes growth even if it is a stomp. There will always be stomps but if you reduce stomps and make a game like 50/50 so everyone can get a medal, their skill stagnates because they end up fighting and evolving to the tactics of their pool, but if you allow everyone in, including the best teams, people get exposed to tactics outside what they would be restricted to their pools.

Furthermore, artificial restrictions makes it where you can never have lopsided games that you come out on top of and, imo, those are the best games. Restricting things destroys any chance for matches like that to happen.

[Tatula]

I don't really understand the idea of people accusing the top players of "farming" the lower tier players. What's to farm? The good players already have all the c-bills and mechs they want. They already have their spot on the leaders board. Their stats are already top-notch. People play for fun.

A little advice for the group players who are enjoying the combine queue. Take the lead and communicate to the whole team. Not just to your own group. Show the PUGs how team work will lead to victory. Maybe some will join your unit to strengthen it. Maybe some will go and start their own units. Give them something to look forward to.

Edited by Aloha, 05 May 2020 - 05:21 PM.

[Swamp Ass MkII]

Aloha, on 05 May 2020 - 05:20 PM, said:

I don't really understand the idea of people accusing the top players of "farming" the lower tier players. What's to farm? The good players already have all the c-bills and mechs they want. They already have their spot on the leaders board. Their stats are already top-notch. People play for fun.

A little advice for the group players who are enjoying the combine queue. Take the lead and communicate to the whole team. Not just to your own group. Show the PUGs how team work will lead to victory. Maybe some will join your unit to strengthen it. Maybe some will go and start their own units. Give them something to look forward to.

Well said!

[Andrzej Lechrenski]

Aloha, on 05 May 2020 - 05:20 PM, said:

I don't really understand the idea of people accusing the top players of "farming" the lower tier players. What's to farm? The good players already have all the c-bills and mechs they want. They already have their spot on the leaders board. Their stats are already top-notch. People play for fun.

A little advice for the group players who are enjoying the combine queue. Take the lead and communicate to the whole team. Not just to your own group. Show the PUGs how team work will lead to victory. Maybe some will join your unit to strengthen it. Maybe some will go and start their own units. Give them something to look forward to.

For some people winning isn't everything: it's the only thing. Once you get to about 90% on Jarl's List, you start getting called a scrub by people who are 97% on Jarl's List. Shocking that they would even take the time to look that up, but having hard numbers to back up a feeling of superiority helps some people sleep at night. It's just the way of things. Ego is an inexhaustible resource to be farmed indefinitely, and the fertile soil for that farming is people just trying to have a good time.

RGR on the second part. The first week of this was a little jarring. At one point I saw somebody referring to the groups as "the quest givers" which, while flattering, is a bit... much. On the other side of the coin, there are bad experiences, such as being called names for trying to get the group to do sensible things because "eff you, I'll play my game how I want to play it". Not everyone is an extrovert who wants to put up with that, and I can't say I blame them, but I think a lot of groups have been at least trying to communicate.

[General Solo]

Dee Eight, on 04 May 2020 - 06:37 PM, said:

.......you continue to cling to the belief that tier represents skill is why whatever you do isn't going to work.....

Correct
You have to understand the problem to fix it

[UnkerZ]

OZHomerOZ, on 05 May 2020 - 07:08 PM, said:

Correct
You have to understand the problem to fix it

LEL.. even a random schoolkid will understand to go up you need equal downs else soon everyone will be up. This is the only simple tweak we need to start with before moving on to the others. Strangely the Solaris method wasnt doing too bad - i never found a pre 1400 rating to be legendary and a 2000 rating to be horribly bad.

[Horseman]

Andrzej Lechrenski, on 05 May 2020 - 02:46 PM, said:

I love this idea and I think it bears repeating: anonymous names at the start of a match would help a lot of matches from becoming self-fulfilling prophesies.

Not knowing who is the most dangerous target on the other side means teams will tend to ignore targets they should be prioritizing - not because the mech itself is extra-dangerous, but because the player in it will do a LOT more to pull his weight every second he's alive.

Anomalocaris, on 05 May 2020 - 04:47 PM, said:

Second, in the past when PGI has revealed overall player numbers (Steam plus PGI launcher) it seems that non-steam players hover around 2x the number of steam users. So if you have 500 steam players there are probably 1500 total.

Not nearly as high. To my knowledge, it was the total player number that was 2x Steam.

[Monkey Lover]

Wait time in group Q is not a problem. We're used to waiting forever. Really not an issue when you know a match will happen. Only problem was back when we have no idea if there was another team there or not.

[Kroete]

Brauer, on 05 May 2020 - 04:30 PM, said:

I think you're understating the impact of dropping with a good group. It's not that hard to go from like 2.00 wlr solo to like 17.00 wlr in a group, and like 3.00 kdr solo to like 20+ in a group.

All these arguments were discussed some years ago, thats why groups where removed from pugplay.
If we had a working search option for the forum, we could just copy&past it ...

Trying the same thing again and hopping for a different result, says something about the devs.

Edited by Kroete, 06 May 2020 - 02:59 AM.

[Nearly Dead]

Interesting. I had no idea actual player numbers were public, (outside of Jarls List.)

[Larsh]

Horseman, on 05 May 2020 - 11:29 PM, said:

Not knowing who is the most dangerous target on the other side means teams will tend to ignore targets they should be prioritizing - not because the mech itself is extra-dangerous, but because the player in it will do a LOT more to pull his weight every second he's alive.

Maybe, but wouldn't that sudden experience of seeing a single mech dominate the team give a real time visual on what mech to focus down? In the heat of battle, IRL, you may not know your enemy and their background.

I think this could give a more realistic approach to things.

It can also go the flip side as well. If there is a person on the other side that some trolls may want to focus, even if they are a bad player, it will give them a target before the countdown hits 0.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

Larsh, on 06 May 2020 - 04:36 AM, said:

Maybe, but wouldn't that sudden experience of seeing a single mech dominate the team give a real time visual on what mech to focus down? In the heat of battle, IRL, you may not know your enemy and their background.

I think this could give a more realistic approach to things.

It can also go the flip side as well. If there is a person on the other side that some trolls may want to focus, even if they are a bad player, it will give them a target before the countdown hits 0.

B-but, where's the fun if streamer-aggro is off the table?
Just kiddin'...

[Thorqemada]

Here is the First Circuit Podcast and they talk about the changes in generall and at the end around 1:05 they come to the Question are the changes good and how it will affect their future motivation to play.

One of them explains pretty well, that it is a controversial change and he calls it "Turret Warrior Online" and he does not like that development at all and would probably stop playing when it stays that way:

[Anomalocaris]

Horseman, on 05 May 2020 - 11:29 PM, said:

Not knowing who is the most dangerous target on the other side means teams will tend to ignore targets they should be prioritizing - not because the mech itself is extra-dangerous, but because the player in it will do a LOT more to pull his weight every second he's alive.
Not nearly as high. To my knowledge, it was the total player number that was 2x Steam.

Russ stated during the beginning of the test that while Steam numbers were in the 400s, total players were actually 1400. So, just a data point.

[Anomalocaris]

Thorqemada, on 06 May 2020 - 05:08 AM, said:

Here is the First Circuit Podcast and they talk about the changes in generall and at the end around 1:05 they come to the Question are the changes good and how it will affect their future motivation to play.

One of them explains pretty well, that it is a controversial change and he calls it "Turret Warrior Online" and he does not like that development at all and would probably stop playing when it stays that way:

The one who called it turret warrior online is actually the only truly above average player of the 4 (he's actually pretty darn good, played with him in the past, brings interesting builds and makes them work). Go figure. Also has the most games played.

Definite trend of a lot of people who really understand the game and execute well at a high level having concerns about this change. And while I think everyone is entitled to their opinion, you need to pay extra attention to why these higher level players are saying these things. They tend to have a good handle on the effects of in game changes because they're better than most at finding optimal solutions for winning. While they may be ahead of the game in terms of ruthlessly exploiting changes in game mechanics, matchmaking, etc. to maximize their stats, you can be pretty sure that the overall meta will move toward their style of play, not away from it (because everyone likes winning, all things being equal). And that doesn't bode well for the average solo player when it comes to getting farmed relentlessly.

[Brauer]

Anomalocaris, on 06 May 2020 - 05:37 AM, said:

The one who called it turret warrior online is actually the only truly above average player of the 4 (he's actually pretty darn good, played with him in the past, brings interesting builds and makes them work). Go figure. Also has the most games played.

Definite trend of a lot of people who really understand the game and execute well at a high level having concerns about this change. And while I think everyone is entitled to their opinion, you need to pay extra attention to why these higher level players are saying these things. They tend to have a good handle on the effects of in game changes because they're better than most at finding optimal solutions for winning. While they may be ahead of the game in terms of ruthlessly exploiting changes in game mechanics, matchmaking, etc. to maximize their stats, you can be pretty sure that the overall meta will move toward their style of play, not away from it (because everyone likes winning, all things being equal). And that doesn't bode well for the average solo player when it comes to getting farmed relentlessly.

I'd agree that generally we've moved from a Nascar meta to a turret-warrior meta. Mobility is now, in most matches, most important in terms of getting into a strong position. On some maps, like canyon, this basically means just getting up onto one ridge and poking from there. With 2-3 friends not taking damage and punishing anyone who shows themselves is paramount imo. More in your face playstyles can still work, especially with a solid team, but because you end up taking more damage in return I don't think they're as meta in QP where you often have to do the lion's share of the work to take out 12 mechs.

[DAEDALOS513]

Zirconium Kaze, on 05 May 2020 - 04:49 PM, said:

I don't want high level players out of qp. I want them to stay with their teams because it adds to the diversity of skill sets one experiences. This causes growth even if it is a stomp. There will always be stomps but if you reduce stomps and make a game like 50/50 so everyone can get a medal, their skill stagnates because they end up fighting and evolving to the tactics of their pool, but if you allow everyone in, including the best teams, people get exposed to tactics outside what they would be restricted to their pools.

Furthermore, artificial restrictions makes it where you can never have lopsided games that you come out on top of and, imo, those are the best games. Restricting things destroys any chance for matches like that to happen.

I totally agree.. and yet some high level players want to coddle you guys. I always said this so-up queue would lower the learning curve because it DOES expose you early on to what more experienced players are piloting and how and where they move on each map.

When I first started playing I was HUNGERING to see what builds good players were using, I even started (and still use) an excel spreadsheet to keep track of builds.. Remember to always target and take a screenshot of that mech's build to see what blew you into next week and build it for yourself! Trying to do this in the old solo queue.. you're just as likely to go down in skill, as up..

Trial by fire is the fastest way to learn.. and soup queue delivers (with a nice mix of skilled and less skilled players).

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 06 May 2020 - 07:51 AM.