849 replies to this topic

[Not Quite Angry Enough to Live]

Gotta say, I'm loving everyone whining about the "50% of matches are stomps" when that's clearly not the case in the slightest. In the last thirty or so matches I've played, only three or four have been stomps. All I've seen from this update are:

-I can now play with friends
-The wait times are no longer in excess of thirty minutes
-Matches are no longer nascar garbage 100% of the time
-12-0 or 11-2 matches are far rarer

It's a lot more fun because it's way less predictable. I actually have to strategize on the fly rather than knowing we're going to lose the second we get flanked by one enemy lance and half the team turns around to engage it, or we're going to win when we do that to the other team. I've had teams come back from being down three or four 'mechs, which I never saw before combo queue. The only thing I think really needs to change is the weight balancing and the PR reset, but you're already working on that.

Point is: This update is the only reason my friend and I even got back into the game, and we even managed to get another friend to join us. Now that we can finally play together reliably, without waiting obscene amounts of time or trying to solo-queue match, we've put probably ten hours each into MWO over the past two days. This is definitely a change for the better.

[Sniper09121986]

MountainDude, on 26 May 2020 - 07:34 PM, said:

Link PSR to a season? Reset every few months. Maybe too much dev work but it would be nice.

The whole dev work amounts literally to zeroing out values in a table. They reset S7 seasons every now and then, they could simply reset both seasons at once.

AnUndeadMonkey, on 26 May 2020 - 06:44 PM, said:

But resetting everyone is not the answer. It's like pushing rest on a million dollar airplane computer system. That wont fix a damn thing. Troubleshooting 101 you fix the small issues at hand first. Fix Comp and factions and S7.

The small issues were being fixed for years now. But it is the big issues that make players quit games, case in point being, well, you. And the funniest thing is that S7 is probably the one and only game mode that functions EXACTLY AS INTENDED from the very start with its zero-sum ELO system. I understand it is easier to implement it there, but still with S7 PGI took the right direction all along. The fact that the mode failed to get significant traction is entirely on players, not the mode itself. Absolutely nothing to fix there, in fact they might add more arenas and some meta-game features like CBill wagering and whatnot

[BeCause]

Adjust the algorithm sure, but don't reset PSR, let it move naturally to the new equilibrium.

What PSR I have was earned, and I do not take kindly to people erasing something I've earned.

[crazytimes]

BeCause, on 26 May 2020 - 11:33 PM, said:

What PSR I have was earned, and I do not take kindly to people erasing something I've earned.

The point of it is to have people who are say, purely for example, in the bottom half of the skill population not always matched against people in the top 1% on the basis of just having played a long time. Without singling anyone out.

[Rkshz]

ThirdWorld, on 26 May 2020 - 04:03 PM, said:

Why even have 5 tiers?
Why not 3.

why not 9 or 10?
just for example:
tier 10 = 25 Average Score (stable over 20 games)
tier 9 = 50 AS
tier 8 = 100 AS
tier 7 = 150 AS
tier 6 = 200 AS
tier 5 = 250 AS
tier 4 = 300 AS
tier 3 = 350 AS
tier 2 = 400 AS
tier 1 = 450 AS

stable "Average Score" are currently the only objective indicator of skill

[Bennesto]

The "I have earned my PSR"-attitude is really something else.

Because you have played 20k soccer games in your backyard doesn't mean you have earned your place in a premiere league starting 11.

The point is that if we want match quality to improve, make the overall experience therefore better, the game itself needs to be balanced around the 12 v 12 players put up against each other. And a "T1 because skilled" and a "T1 because earned" isn't the same skill-level.

Swallow your pride ffs.

[-P U R E-]

Rkshz, on 27 May 2020 - 12:03 AM, said:

why not 9 or 10?
just for example:
tier 10 = 25 Average Score (stable over 20 games)
tier 9 = 50 AS
tier 8 = 100 AS
tier 7 = 150 AS
tier 6 = 200 AS
tier 5 = 250 AS
tier 4 = 300 AS
tier 3 = 350 AS
tier 2 = 400 AS
tier 1 = 450 AS

stable "Average Score" are currently the only objective indicator of skill

Not enuf ppl.

[RJF Volkodav]

puresense, on 27 May 2020 - 12:31 AM, said:

Not enuf ppl.

It will be ok if they switch from equalizing amount of ppl with similar tiers in teams to equalizing of sum of skill rating per team. That will work with any amount of ppl to make a match. But noone ever listened... For example if you have one 99% pilot in team A you shall fill team A with 2 80% players and team B with 3 86%. Here we go, sum is equal. Then PSR values could be (and should be) done non linear to adjust the skill difference between players.

Edited by RJF Volkodav, 27 May 2020 - 01:28 AM.

[Voice of Kerensky]

I can’t say that I am glad that the decision was made to stop at combined solo/group quick play.
Reset player levels welcome. The only thing I worry about is that the new player level settings and the new matchmaker are really better than what we have now.
Of course, to make worse than now is difficult. But I lived a little in this world and saw people who could worsen any, even the worst, system.
In any case, I hope that the changes will make the matches really interesting and intriguing (not 12: 0 - 12: 4), it doesn’t matter to me what level I will be after applying the new PSR system. The only thing I want is to enjoy the game. Win and lose in truly interesting fights.

[General Solo]

Gagis, on 26 May 2020 - 07:26 AM, said:

If you are a good team player, you win more often than you lose, because you bring something to the table and luck evens out over a large number of matches.

If you are a bad team player, you lose more often than you win. If you try to contribute to team play but still lose more, whatever it is you were trying to do, does not actually work, and should not be encouraged.

The details of individual games do not really need to be taken into account with minute detail, since they all even out over time.

I agree with most of this, yet there is simply more ways to increase PSR at present than losePSR, which give poorly performing pilots an artifical boost when their team wins.

http://imgur.com/o6JNMiC

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 27 May 2020 - 01:18 AM.

[Thorqemada]

Sniper09121986, on 26 May 2020 - 11:28 PM, said:

The fact that the mode failed to get significant traction is entirely on players, not the mode itself. Absolutely nothing to fix there, in fact they might add more arenas and some meta-game features like CBill wagering and whatnot

The Solaris Seasons are to long, the combat is a one dimensional DPS contest, the Mech Divisions make no sense, the game mode is symmetric, the release was short to the Battletech release - its the Drag Race of all combat modes and it is solely that!

It would have to have a challenge format with short runs and asymmetric combat where succes is not solely in killing the other but outperform them in different inmatch Tasks and compare them to others.

Bullriding for example usually ends in the defeat of the Rider but who stays the longest up and riding wins...now you would have to translate that into a Mech game Combat mode

[Soilex Hawk]

I actually don't care about my tier level. I just want fair fights. So lets do it ...

[JackHarkon]

Well, I am against it or better not just refresh everything and hope every problem is solved. A frech start is nice and all, but the problems the matchmaking has now, will appear again. The main problem this game has, is its low palyerbase. So I would much more prefer a good marketing campaign to bring more players to the game. Lots of people do not know about your game and you have to promote it a lot more. Otherweise you can change all you want, but if the dwindling continues, you can shutdown the servers by 2023.

[Sniper09121986]

puresense, on 27 May 2020 - 12:31 AM, said:

Not enuf ppl.

JackHarkon, on 27 May 2020 - 01:40 AM, said:

Well, I am against it or better not just refresh everything and hope every problem is solved. A frech start is nice and all, but the problems the matchmaking has now, will appear again. The main problem this game has, is its low palyerbase. So I would much more prefer a good marketing campaign to bring more players to the game. Lots of people do not know about your game and you have to promote it a lot more. Otherweise you can change all you want, but if the dwindling continues, you can shutdown the servers by 2023.

People leave because a game is bad in some areas, and if the game is good then people have no reason to leave. The low population is the effect, not the cause. Not that I object against a marketing campaign, it just needs to come after the game-breaking issues have been addressed. There might be skill gaps with low population, but they will get filled once people see a game they can actually enjoy.

[Andrzej Lechrenski]

Just reset the tiers and don't tell anybody. Keep it internal. There is will be a lot less whining about "I earned being in Tier 1!" when they can just log in and have the game interface assure them that they are still "Tier 1". lol. Anybody who actually cares about their stats uses Jarlslist, anyway, because the tier system is meaningless.

[Mechdocdie]

AnUndeadMonkey, on 25 May 2020 - 04:33 PM, said:

Don’t rest any tier rankings. I’m not going to grind from T4 to T1 again. Last time I sat in T3&T2 for close to a year before moving out of them. I’ll quit, and I played since beta. The matches are far from balanced. I have had matches were one team has had 1 assault class Mech and the other had 4 assault class mechs, this past Saturday. The group queue and solo mix screwed everything up. You have 4 mans running off doing their own thing ignoring the rest of the “team” and everyone loses by a 12-0 stomp. The solo QP games are trash, bring back knockdown and escort since you want the game play to suck. Must really be trying to push players away.

Leidulfr, on 26 May 2020 - 02:51 PM, said:

1) Why do you care about your tier, especially if the MM is pulling from all tiers irregardless, due to the low player pool? You said yourself the balance is all out of wack.

2) If it's a "grind" for you to get out of it, why do you play? What benefit is there for you to play with the label of Tier 1?

3) If it's a "grind" for you to get out of it, maybe you belong in those tiers? A year to move up, seriously? My wife picked up the game and played for three weeks and is in tier 2 already.

4) You've played since beta and you still struggle to make it to Tier 1? Just given the amount of games played, with the current system, even with losses, having played for that long, you should still be ranking up on losses, unless you're just bad, in which case, you simply belong in the tier you're in. Again, why does it matter to you? Why don't you just quit?

I think your reply misses the point, Leidulfr. The Tier/PSR has always had two functions in MWO; as a metric for matchmaking and as part of the reward system for playing.

I think there is almost unanimous agreement that it sucks in its matchmaker role and I absolutely agree we should remake and reset it for better game play. But I think it can be argued that it worked pretty well as a reward system. As a very average player it took me a long time and a lot of effort to top out Tier 1 but it gave me enormous satisfaction to do so. I can really sympathise with AnUndeadMonkey's reaction. I, too, will shed a little tear at seeing that status plunge to 4.

Don't get me wrong. If it came to a choice between losing my Tier 1 ranking and a good balance for matchmaking then give me the balance every time.

BUT

Does it have to be a choice? You could leave the current Tier Bar system in place but disconnect it from matchmaking and simply leave it as a reward system (It could be re-labelled if the word "Tier" must be applied to matchmaking). Then just replace it in the matchmaker triangle (Speed/Weight class/Skill) with a new skill metric. There are plenty of suggestions in this thread about how to measure player skill, and I'm sure Paul et al have a few ideas on this as well (ducks incoming salt).

AND

There is no reason why this metric has to be visible. I may be ordinary at MWO but I can't see why I have to have my status as "ordinary" flashed up on the home screen at the end of every game.

And that is what would happen - must happen - so long as the Tier bar and the matchmaker skill metric are linked. If the matchmaker metric is going to be a bell shaped curve then each of us will find our place on it without any chance of getting any higher than our best. "Git gud" can't overcome the maths. If the ordinary players all left and only the best 10% of current players were left playing, some of them would drop very rapidly to tier 5 under a balanced matchmaker and be stuck there.

We don't play games to be told we are ordinary. Real life does enough of that. If we can't have a separate matchmaker tier system to the Tier Bar reward system then get rid of the Tier Bar (small tear drops) please make it all hidden. Leave rankings and achievements to Jarl's list, or Solaris and FP, or buried deep inside the menu tree of our MWO profile. And perhaps give those of us who did the grind to the top of Tier ! with a new title - "The Deluded", perhaps?

Edited by Mechdocdie, 27 May 2020 - 02:42 AM.

[Kynesis]

It must be a powerful temptation, to grant the wish of these people who so desperately cling to their 'earned' ranks.

[50 50]

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

It is because of these results, [color=orange]we have decided to keep the current combined queue.[/color]

[color=red]HOWEVER:[/color]

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).

Ok.

I would like to question why the team win/loss result should come into effect at all?
Shouldn't the PSR increase/decrease be based purely on the individual?

The reason I question this is you can have some very mediocre -> terrible games but because your team wins, you have the chance that your PSR will hold or increase.
Same the other way were you could have some brilliant games and play head and shoulders above the rest of your team but go through a huge losing streak and get penalised as a result.

We already get team bonuses for wins and loses with the in game earnings, but a player skill rating is a personal thing.
I don't understand why it should be influenced by the team result.

[MechTech Dragoon]

DOOOIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
RESETTTT
**** I can't wait to be out of T1

[TheLaserTherapist]

Very much in favor of a reset, especially since I did a few games with friends, now that group queue got changed, and don't belong anywhere near Tier 1, at least for now. Even a recurring reset (once a year?) might be good for all the folks that don't play all time round.