849 replies to this topic

[Tranderas]

vulture prime, on 25 May 2020 - 06:07 PM, said:

Yeah at first with the combined queues I thought it was stompy but as of recent it has seemed more balanced and the wait times are better and it's good that some people in a match are coordinating if not everyone.

That has more to do with the fact that the player base is up 50% thanks to quarantine than due to soup queue. When the player base goes back down from everyone going back to work/school and we drop under 300 concurrent it'll go back to 5+ minute wait times even with soup.

[Sharfen]

I'm good with a reset!

[yrrot]

I like it. A lot of (at least the more vocal portion of) the community has been asking for a reset.

My only worry is whether or not that first 20 game placement will allow people to exploit it to get dropped down in tier and play lower tiers for longer. Like, are we going to see the possibility that a top tier player could tank for 20 matches and get stuck down in T5 and linger long enough for it to have an impact on match quality there?

Is there a way to seed folks using existing match data that makes sense instead?

[Thorqemada]

This is all nice guys albeit you will probably not see a hard Tier seggregation and still meet or be the "Pommes de Terre".

It only means you will not face Tier 1 vs Tier 1 but also Tier 1 vs Tier 3 or in a low pop situation even with a wider spread.
It will simply sort the Players better but it will not magically cast a bigger pool of Players to your convenience.

Also better skil matchmaking means increased pressure on Arms usage aka Armsrace for the simple fact that nobody plays to lose intentionally but accidentally.

And it still does not remove the ******* MMV!!!

[Navid A1]

Reset PSRs

Make it zero sum

[Warning incoming Humble Dexterer]

vulture prime, on 25 May 2020 - 06:07 PM, said:

It's hard to give input on resetting the tiers because I don't know exactly what goes into PSR....

Current PSR system works like an experience bar :
- Good matches will raise your PSR experience bar faster.
- Bad matches will raise your PSR experience bar slower.
- You automatically end up being forced into Tier 1 over time, no matter how good or how bad you play.
- Tier 1 is a mess of every player who played long enough to be dumped into the Tier 1 mess.

With the suggested PSR system change :
- Good matches help you reach Tier 1.
- Bad matches prevent you from reaching Tier 1.
- You might drop back to Tier 5 to access easier matches, instead of being automatically dumped into Tier 1.
- Tier 1 will provide the highest difficulty setting, instead of a mess.

Edited by Warning incoming Humble Dexterer, 25 May 2020 - 06:30 PM.

[Faek]

Reset PSR. If you're good enough you'll get back their soon enough anyway.

Now that we don't have to sync drop to play with friends, there's literally no reason to care about being tier 1.

[Asmudius Heng]

All i know is i reinstalled this game which i used to love because i can now play easily with a small group of friends, and the PSR thing never meant anything to me at all so i dont care what happens with it as long as i can get good balanced games and play with my mates.

Looking forward to putting MWO back on my agenda to play and enjoy due to all these changes.

[Kitasho]

This seems like the right course of action. I'm all for resetting the PSR to improve matchmaking.

[Tyrsen]

Tier 2 player here. +1 to zero-sum PSR, and +1 to PSR reset. The sooner the better.

[SoulRcannon]

Yes please on the PSR reset. Hooray for Zero Sum PSR!

But to note, it'd be nice if PSR stayed static if the player performed well (read: would otherwise carry) but their team lost, and that a player would lose PSR if the team won but the player performed poorly. I say this as someone who wouldn't be surprised if my tier went down with the reset.

RunNGun666, on 25 May 2020 - 05:13 PM, said:

I support a Tier reset but I question if this is a lasting solution.

We know you want to minimize dev investment at this point. Why not crowd source a new PSR measure? Pull together a sample data set (match, map, mode, match result, mech, damage out, damage taken, etc) and publish it. I would guess there would be multiple proposals for you to consider.

Crowd source PSR? Or y'know, anything PGI doesn't want to touch anymore but some would love to work on to improve. I mean, you're hiring atm PGI, wouldn't it be good to see what's on offer within this game's community?

Edited by SoulRcannon, 25 May 2020 - 06:31 PM.

[S t P a u l]

RESET PSR. FIX LANCE SPAWNS. [Redatced]

Edited by GM Patience, 26 May 2020 - 12:39 PM.

[Jon McFuzzy]

Paul Inouye, on 25 May 2020 - 03:41 PM, said:

There's still an elephant in the room. PSR calculations. Yes it's true that it biases upward movement. That bias comes from the formula currently saying that if you LOSE, you can still move up if you perform well. THIS is the aspect that breaks zero sum distribution.

That being said, we have a plan to make PSR zero sum... but, there's a big draw back. If we make this change, the PSR rankings for all players will need to be reset. That means if you're Tier 1, you'll be going back to Tier 4 for a bit. If you're Tier 5, you're also going back to Tier 4.

There is a multiplier for the first 20 games all players play that push your PSR changes higher or lower to speed the seeding process of the PSR player distribution. After those 20 matches, regular PSR zero sum values will be used.

We need your feedback on whether this is acceptable or not (losing current Tier standings).

Just.Do.It. And please be transparent about data.

This, among other things on the to-do-list that Community has suggested for review (mechs mobility, realign armor, mech re-scale, etc).

[RoninX62]

I'm 100% for the zero-sum. But I'd rather not have everyone's PSR reset to baseline.

While I'm sure I'm not really Tier 1, I'd rather avoid the week(s) of chaos as things re-settle. PGI has enough individual statistics (W/L, KDR, etc.) to seed players into appropriate tiers. For that matter, take something like "The Jarl's List", https://leaderboard.isengrim.org, and sort it into 5 groups. It is likely close enough.

Edited by RoninX62, 25 May 2020 - 06:28 PM.

[BlazerX64 IIC]

I'm up for the tier reset if it means making MWO more fun in the long run to bring back some players. However, I think we will need to fix the issue with spawns if we wanna make fair assessments of the players in their climb back to their current tiers from Tier 4.

The current spawn points of the Lances were made to cater to Lights, Mediums/Heavies, and Assaults/Heavies based on a generalized speed bracket and maneuverability to get to a rendezvous point (typically the center of the map). As many others have said before, this simply does not work anymore with the Group Queue Merge which causes Assaults or Heavies to spawn in areas favorable only to Lights or Mediums. And from my experience, being THAT displaced from the team as a Heavy or Assault really hurts individual players' ability to contribute to their team. Even more so, that inability to contribute also hinders entire teams which occasionally leads to unfair stomps. In the end, the entire match becomes a display of performance of both teams out of circumstance than actual skill (very unfair assessments of skill inevitable).

At the moment, I'm thinking that you can either bring back murderball spawns or set the Lances to take in mechs based on their SPEED regardless of whether they are grouped or not. After all, since these Lance spawns were meant to lead players into a rendezvous point, separated members of a group will still get back to each other anyways as if they began the match in the same Lance.

EDIT: Without a fix to this issue, even the current proposal of using players' overall average score as a metric for balancing would be flawed. The displacement and lack of contribution COULD lead to bad scores that aren't representative of the players themselves

Edited by BlazerX64 IIC, 25 May 2020 - 06:32 PM.

[Bolo Atari]

AnUndeadMonkey, on 25 May 2020 - 05:58 PM, said:

They reset this I’ll quit or troll and make my team lose.

Take the first option. Shame on you for the other option. Frankly, I'd rather you stay and build the community to keep the game going.

And really, if you are so good to be known and "hunted", then that should provide the challenge. Especially if you are playing with true T4-skilled players.

[TheFourthAlly]

CompleteFailure, on 25 May 2020 - 06:01 PM, said:

Been saying for years that the PSR calculation needs to be revised. Win/loss needs to have MUCH less weight when determining movement on the PSR scale, if not no effect at all. I do think that someone on a losing team that does exceptionally well despite the loss could still have a positive PSR movement, and someone who does exceptionally poorly despite winning could still have a negative PSR movement. I think the PSR system should, more than anything else, measure PERSONAL performance (hence the "P" in Pilot Skill Rating), with winning/losing a match having little to no effect on that score. Tier 5 should reflect like the bottom 10% of performers, and tier 1 the top 10%. The vast majority of players should fall somewhere within tiers 2-4, based on their personal average performance. IMO yes, the MM system has its flaws that need to be addressed to create more balanced matches, while still keeping wait times down, but I believe that how PSR is calculated in the first place is a large part of that problem. Currently, a large percentage of players in T1 shouldn't be there at all, the only reason they are is because they've played for long enough. Their ranking doesn't reflect in any way their actual skill level.

EDIT: Resetting and making it "zero sum" is probably a step in the right direction, I guess I'd like to see a more exact definition of "zero sum."

On point.

[Dionnsai]

NettleBornGardener, on 25 May 2020 - 06:25 PM, said:

... instead of making it harder for new pilots, they should find a way to make it easier for them.

my concern is that pilots "fresh from the academy" are facing groups of pro-pilots.
after a few games a (lets say) "fresh pilot" might just think about one thing... UNINSTALL!

so i am not convinced that a reset is good for all.

the higher tier pilots will be back at tier 1-2 very quickly, leaving the lower tier pilots in the lower tiers, it will be better for them, end of story

[CycKath]

Reset PSR and ensure its Zero Sum

[ESC 907]

This idea on a PSR-reset sounds GREAT. But how will we address the issue of "Damage = Skill" in such a way that idiot LRM-Assaults that get high damage scores for sandblasting armor do not move too high, and Solahma-style heroes that can manage <200 dmg & 2-4 kills per match do not stagnate early or go down?