713 replies to this topic

[Paul Inouye]

First: There will be no patch tomorrow. The PSR update is on hold.

Addressing Feedback

After talking it over with Russ and Engineers, we decided to hold on current PSR plans and we want to put this out there for you.

Russ' Message to the Community

Quote

State of the Match Maker

Here at PGI we have the benefit of the full player base numbers at any given moment and countless hours of watching the MM churn through the queue and even direct access to the engineer that wrote the system to discuss the matter with. With this in mind it is my opinion, and one shared by several that know the greatest amount about the MM and these systems, is that we’re very likely seeing as good of matches as we can possibly see based on the player base numbers.

Currently MWO peaks at about ~1500 players online in the evening and about half that at the low point of the 24 hour period meaning, it averages in the ~1000 online range taking into account weekends are higher than weekdays. The queue the MM draws from is in the range of 24-50 players at low points and maybe as high as 80-100 at peak play times on the weekends with the current release valve settings (aka wait times).

However even though we feel quite strongly we have enough evidence to suggest we are creating as good of matches as we can currently, we are willing to make a final adjustment to the PSR and related Match Score system, in an attempt to see if a little more improvement can be found.

With this in mind we made a proposal to a PSR formula adjustment along with PSR reset. This proposal was met with resistance primarily at first on it not being zero-sum, but also as to concerns over the PSR/Match score formula.

First off on the zero-sum question, its true it wasn’t 100% zero sum based on the team based nature and not making the + and – complete evenly distributed. However many of the suggestions on how to fix this issue from the community actually drifted much further from Zero sum and felt clear that the community desired formula changes far greater than anything else.

After discussing this as a group we have come to the following proposal:

We will allow the players and community to attempt consensus on a new adjusted PSR AND Match Score formula. Paul will provide the details of each on the entire lists of values that can be played with. To be clear as long as you stick within the match score elements we already have which is very robust.

Then with that community agreed upon formula, we will implement a true zero-sum point distribution across the entire 24 players based on that match score criteria. If we agree by way of example there is 156 PSR to be gained or lost from a match, based on the new match score formula you supply; we will apply +156 PSR across the top 12 players regardless of win or loss and -156 PSR across the bottom 12 players regardless of win loss.

That might look something like the following:

player 1	24
player 2	22
player 3	20
player 4	18
player 5	16
player 6	14
player 7	12
player 8	10
player 9	8
player 10	6
player 11	4
player 12	2
player 13	-2
player 14	-4
player 15	-6
player 16	-8
player 17	-10
player 18	-12
player 19	-14
player 20	-16
player 21	-18
player 22	-20
player 23	-22
player 24	-24

In summary, the formulas need to be agreed upon by the community and if we can reach that point we will implement the changes along with a PSR reset to hopefully find a happy medium for MWO to exist at.

- Russ

[Paul Inouye]

As Russ mentioned, I'm going to provide a list of all events that currently trigger and apply value to Match Score.

Each of these triggers has a value assigned to it. The values are essentially the weighting of the variable in the overall sum of all actions listed. At the end, the number is multiplied by a decimal multiplier that reduces the overall sum to a number that is manageable.

win - Base value for winning.
loss - Base value for losing.
teamkills - Loss for team killing.
spottingassist - Gain for spotting an enemy and that enemy takes damage. (Press R)
componentdestroyed - Gain for destroying a component on an enemy.
death - Loss for dying.
capturewin - Bonus gain for winning by capture.
captureassist - Gain for helping others capture a capture point by being in the capture radius.
suicide - Loss for suiciding.
saviorkill - Gain for helping a teammate under fire and you get the kill shot on his highest damaging opponent.
defensivekill - Gain for helping a teammate under fire and you get the kill shot on an opponent damaging them.
uavkill - Gain for any kills happening under a UAV you deployed.
uavlockeddmg - Gain for any damage done to a target that is under your UAV.
uavdetection - Gain for any new enemy detected by your UAV.
counterECM - Gain for countering enemy ECM.
counterECMLockedDmg - Gain for damage done to enemies under your counter ECM.
turretkill - Gain for killing a turret.
killblow - Gain for getting the killing blow on your enemy.
killassist - Gain for damage done to enemies upon kill but you didn't explicitly get the kill shot.
teamdmg - Loss for team damage done.
damagedone - Gain for damage done to enemies.
killmostdmg - Gain for getting the kill shot and you did the most damage to your enemy.
solokill - Gain for killing an enemy without the assistance of your teammates.
scouting - Gain for targeting enemies without damage being done.
flanking - Gain for being out of LoS to your enemy and behind enemy line.
capture - Gain for capturing a capture zone.
capturepulse - Gain for time you are capturing in a capture zone.
firstcapture - Gain for capturing the first capture zone in a match.
brawling - Gain for being in combat agaist multiple opponents.
tagdmg - Gain for any damage done to an enemy you have tagged.
tagkill - Gain for any kill done to an enemy you have tagged.
narckill - Gain for any kill done to an enemy you have narced.
hitandrun - Gain for attacking an enemy and escaping their LoS for an amount of time.
tagstealth - Gain for tagging an enemy behind enemies and not being targeted by them.
lanceformation - Gain for time spent near lancemates.
protectmedium - Gain for killing an enemy who is attacking a medium class teammate.
protectlight - Gain for killing an enemy who is attacking a light class teammate.
protectproximity - Gain for killing an enemy who is near any teammate.
powercell_pickup - Gain for picking up a power cell.
powercell_dropoff - Gain for dropping off a power cell.
incrusion_destruction - Gain for destroying objective objects in Incursion.
kill_powercell_carrier - Gain for killing a power cell carrier.
ams_missile_destroyed - Gain for missiles destroyed by your AMS system.
 
matchscore_scale - A multiplier used to reduce the sum of all match score activity to keep numbers reasonable.

Please use this specific thread for proposals. It will help keep all suggestions in one place for easier feedback management. Make sure you click "Like" on the ones that are the best in your view.

If the community can agree on weighting of these events, we will review them on our side to make sure they're fair to as many play styles as possible. Once that is done, we'll implement the numbers and try them out.

Please keep in mind, we're going to need buy-in from the majority of players.

[Kurlon]

The community driven PSR project

In response to PGI’s announcement on this thread, the discord and reddit communities have decided to work together to try to find the best solution to this issue. At first this was a JGx led initiative but quickly expanded to include dozens of representatives from most of the major units, as well as a large number of voices from the solo community. After many hours exchanging and refining ideas, we believe we have come up with a solution that both meets PGI’s requirements and that will improve the gaming experience of the community as a whole.

Arbitrary fixed PSR gains/losses present a number of problems in terms of balance and fairness to all players involved in an individual match. Therefore our solution is to use scaling PSR gains/losses based on an individual player’s match score matchscore as compared to the team's average. The system uses the Win/Loss status to compute a 0 sum PSR shift that is scaled fairly to the pilot’s contribution in that match. The maths involved is no more complex than the current XP, C-bill and Matchscore calculations requiring minimal development time.

This system was developed by Jay Z with heavy input from the veteran community. A link to a full explanation is below;

https://docs.google....3LgMBQJ4hE/edit

And a spreadsheet simulating the system can be found here;

https://docs.google....dit?usp=sharing

In summary, this proposal uses simple arithmetic similar to existing calculations to assign fair and reasonable PSR shifts in accordance to pilot contribution to the match result. The aim of PSR is to segregate the playerbase on their respective match impact to give the Matchmaker the best possible information to create fair and interesting matches.

The version of this proposal you see presented is simplified from a more complicated model we have been testing which has more adjusting and weighting factors. Within the parameters set for this task, we believe this to be a straightforward implementation which will have community support. Finally, given there are only two values that control the maths, the long term management is simple and easy to hand over. If you have any questions, or concerns, please let us know as we have investigated this and numerous other solutions in great detail.

The matchscore formula itself does need quite a bit of adjusting. We plan on posting an update regarding that soon.

Finally during our discussions we also came up with 2 other proposals we strongly believe would be worth considering;

Kamikazi viking’s PSR lookup table https://mwomercs.com...05#entry6338105

Gagis’ PSR gains based on matchscore ratios https://mwomercs.com...st__p__6338091

Edited by Kurlon, 12 June 2020 - 07:23 PM.

[My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ]

I don't think any solution is a good solution, we're in a bad position with how PSR currently works but we also can't really change it without risking worse outcomes.

[Tranderas]

I want not just for the community to be provided with a list of what contributes to match score, but an API to allow those numbers to be monitored in realtime so that the community can come up with its own formula for PSR similar to how the World of Tanks community developed WN7/8/9.

But I also want you to work on attracting more players and encouraging existing ones to stay because PSR won't mean anything if trends continue and you have 200 average players by October.

[General Solo]

I'm pleasantly surprised

Hawker Siddeley, on 08 June 2020 - 04:32 PM, said:

I don't think any solution is a good solution, we're in a bad position with how PSR currently works but we also can't really change it without risking worse outcomes.

No risk no reward and the status quo clearly is not working

Get to work math science guys, do your thing

Edit: Off the cuff your formula looks ok, maybe reduce the ends to 22 and add two no change PSR in the middle.
Also I'm good wih the current match score system, just speaking for my self.

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 08 June 2020 - 04:52 PM.

[My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ]

OZHomerOZ, on 08 June 2020 - 04:36 PM, said:

No risk no reward and the status quo clearly is not working

Do you think the game could take another one of PGI's brilliant mistakes?

More importantly in the long haul there will be next to no change in higher tier matches, you'll still be pulling in the same middle-skill players as normal, it will only be the lower tiers that suffer when they pull in more skilled T3 players.

Edited by Hawker Siddeley, 08 June 2020 - 04:40 PM.

[Mordenthral]

The only thing I dislike about the current system is that every match is basically just Skirmish; which makes sense because damage and kills are the largest contribution to match score. I would like to see the weight of the below categories increased so that when pilots are playing the game mode, their PSR change reflects that. As it stands, if I'm in a light and cap Conquest points all match, even if that wins it for my team in the end, it will tank my match score.

Otherwise, we should just get rid of the other game modes and make all matches Skirmish. Which wouldn't be as much fun.

captureassist
capture - Gain for capturing a capture zone.
capturepulse - Gain for time you are capturing in a capture zone.
firstcapture - Gain for capturing the first capture zone in a match.
powercell_pickup - Gain for picking up a power cell.
powercell_dropoff - Gain for dropping off a power cell.
kill_powercell_carrier - Gain for killing a power cell carrier.

Edited by Mordenthral, 08 June 2020 - 04:43 PM.

[Firefox54]

Thanks for the follow up ... I wouldn't say resistance is the correct word ... I think most folks are ok with a PSR reset and would like a system that is closer (if not completely) zero-sum. Obviously there was a lot of good discussion on the cutoffs for the scoring and/or if it should be a ranking with/without match score. It sounds like it will be some type of ranking.

As far as giving tweaks to the match score ... with this many variables it will be difficult to come to a consensus (even if we had data to help understand how the match score might be impacted).

So, I would ask:
1) can you give us the current values so that these various parameters could be tweaked rather than start from scratch? or
2) can we just adjust match score based on the weight class of the mech? Just enough so that the average match score for each class is more or less the same.

Thanks.

Edited by Firefox54, 08 June 2020 - 04:42 PM.

[General Solo]

Hawker Siddeley, on 08 June 2020 - 04:39 PM, said:

Do you think the game could take another one of PGI's brilliant mistakes?

This time it's on the community! Let hope we can come up with something that works for more people than Solaris.
Not that its bad, just unpopulated, skillgap etc.
Which is why we are here discussing things, to lower the skillgap in soup queue via improved Clan Match maker.

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 08 June 2020 - 04:45 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

I can see the good and the bad.. top 12 scorers move up, bottom 12 move down....regardless of side...
Hit the Print Screen and review your screenshots...it would be interesting...especially when players with 240 MS on the winning teams in a high output game moves down.

It would definitely be more dynamic though. We have our own personal experiences whereas they have all the data. The real issue has always been with how that that data is utilized in in creating a formula.

Edited to add my 2nd resolution attempt - and possibly for mods to move said resolutions to the front of the thread.

Tarl Cabot, on 10 June 2020 - 08:32 AM, said:

Okay, my second attempt, whereas my first attempt was only slightly modifying the existing PSR setup, which is heavily influenced by W/L.

Others though believe the W/L should be removed from the equation compleletly but there are a few things we do not know.

PGI version has extreme numbers but would they still be keeping the total number of points per Tier, ie 1000 or 2000, or whatever they are, or would that also change?

I also liked MisterSomaru but too much middle ground with no movement at all. Mind provides some movement while not using PGI extreme values. As a reminder, PGI original setup had a +5 for 401+ while on a loss under 100 only moved -2. A player could do notihng on a loss but break even hitting just 101 (+1) then get ahead by hitting 251 MS (+2). Said player could not play 4 games and lose -4 but generate 401+ MS to earn +5pts., being 1 ahead.

player 01...08

player 02...08

player 03...06

player 04...06

player 05...06

player 06...04

player 07...04

player 08...04

player 09...04

player 10...02

player 11...02

player 12...00

player 13...00

player 14...-02

player 15...-02

player 16...-04

player 17...-04

player 18...-04

player 19...-06

player 20...-06

player 21...-06

player 22...-06

player 23...-08

player 24...-08

I would also ask the moderators to move up the suggestions to the first part of the thread while keeping the discussions going, it would make it easier to review the entries, hai?

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 10 June 2020 - 10:34 AM.

[Blake Miles]

Looks interesting, I agree it would be helpful to know what the weight of the positives and negatives are. Of course in Pugging the risk is people doing that ONE thing that gets the bang for the buck but it is what it is. And running from the potential negatives at the rick of screwing the team. Pugging is a crap shoot. Many in Pugging are only worried about damage and kills and to hell with the "team" concept. However that is the nature of things. So there will always be pop up campers and assault lrmers staying back and not sharing armor. Nothing is perfect. Just don't forget about us...it's been awhile since you all have addressed critical "*******" we have. Sooo keep an eye on things. Change can be good. be ready for the critics, maybe even me.

[Krasnopesky]

Excellent response. We have some very talented and knowledgeable members of the community who have proposed some good systems already. Let's get a consensus on one and test it out.

[Solaire55]

none of this will improve my enjoyment of the game, people don't care about score but how enjoyable things are, this won't change anything nor revive the game, we need weapon and mech balancing, buffs and nerfs. in the current state of the game a number of mechs aren't viable at this point and have been shafted due to prior nerfs, what needs to happen is to revive those mechs, or weapon systems. also a new map would be nice, the last one we got was less than spectacular.

[Kurlon]

Does the data exist after a match such that if we provided a match ID we could apply our test formula to see how it compares to production?

[My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ]

Mordenthral, on 08 June 2020 - 04:41 PM, said:

As it stands, if I'm in a light and cap Conquest points all match, even if that wins it for my team in the end, it will tank my match score.

And how does you capping, unless its on a large map like Polar, help the team? Even if you win on cap time its almost never on the light being a pro, holding those caps down and simply because the enemy team took too long to mop up while someone capped. Polar is the one map where if someone just runs around capping you can bag a win even if the enemy team steamrolls simply because its so huge.

Edited by Hawker Siddeley, 08 June 2020 - 04:57 PM.

[Tesunie]

Tarl Cabot, on 08 June 2020 - 04:45 PM, said:

I can see the good and the bad.. top 12 scorers move up, bottom 12 move down....regardless of side...

Hit the Print Screen and review your screenshots...it would be interesting...especially when players with 240 MS on the winning teams in a high output game moves down.

It would definitely be more dynamic though. We have our own personal experiences whereas they have all the data. The real issue is how that data is utilized in a formula.

It would currently be an easy experiment to track... Play matches, screenshot, see who would move up and down by side... Does it look reasonable or not?

I would like to see more "average performance" be "no gain" personally. But as long as W/L doesn't become the main focus of the new system, I think I could be happier with it. I currently don't like how much W/L impacts your PSR changes at the moment.

[Kamikaze Viking]

Thankyou Russ and Paul for the open communication on this topic.

I think I've hit my limit on how I can affect this discussion with my most recent proposal.
https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__6336540

Kamikaze Viking, on 04 June 2020 - 08:43 PM, said:

Edit: This is derived from the old suggestion from Decency back in my ancient reddit thread.
Where total match score was irrelevant. Only used as a tool to calculate your relative position to your teammates. Hence it should cancel out the Win Bonus issue i just raised as that its equal to all teammates.


Edit 2: the relative number of players going up and down doesn't have to be this 3/3/3/3 division, eg it could be 2/4/4/2. But that's up for discussion, and ultimately its Paul's decision.

In my opinion from what Ive seen in recent discussion here and on reddit, Dogmeat and Decency have the best grasp on Matchmaking in general AND the context of how it should work in MWO.

I have also seen very binary arguments about the importance of personal skill vs win loss. In my opinion they are BOTH a factor that must be considered.

And as Russ has said, all of us here are guessing at existing systems. I would really really like it if the Engineer involved would be allowed to come and discuss this with us directly.

To anyone proposing solutions. remember the K.I.S.S. Principle, and consider the work required to implement your solution. Perfect systems are great, but we WILL have to make compromises, its the reality of things.

And I would be fine with addressing PSR now and then letting it settle for a month before addressing Match Score calculations. We have seen in the past that too many simultaneous changes make it hard to understand the effects and what change caused what effect.

EDIT 13 June: The system defined in this post has been refined and the implementation improved as Part of the Community PSR Proposal.
Details can be found here: https://mwomercs.com...05#entry6338105

Edited by Kamikaze Viking, 13 June 2020 - 02:34 AM.

[Tranderas]

Hey Paul/Bryan? While you're taking community feedback, would you consider a second look at the Community Balance Proposal and putting those numbers into the game, too? That would make a bigger impact on the game than the matchmaking and might excite players that have come back for quarantine to stay instead of departing once they're back in work/school.

[Mordenthral]

Hawker Siddeley, on 08 June 2020 - 04:54 PM, said:

And how does you capping, unless its on a large map like Polar, help the team? Even if you win on cap time its almost never on the light being a pro, holding those caps down and simply because the enemy team took too long to mop up while someone capped. Polar is the one map where if someone just runs around capping you can bag a win even if the enemy team steamrolls simply because its so huge.

Hey, when I win by capping.. it's pro. (Yes, I'm joking)

But that's not what this is about. Obviously, you're one of the ones that would agree with dumping the other game modes and going straight Skirmish. Nothing wrong with that.

I'm saying that since there are other game modes, changing the weight of those mode-specific items could result in those modes actually being played differently. Lances defending and assaulting cap points, etc.; and it actually being worth it from a match score perspective. Instead of the current "kill everyone, then go shoot a thing to end the match."