717 replies to this topic

[Ridir Semii]

I have read through all of this and I honestly believe we are all trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. Let's take a look at all of this in a simple manner:

Point 1: PSR is how MM sorts us into matches.
Point 2: people want to get increases for their performance (when MS would or SHOULD warrant it)
Point 3: people want to see decreases for %$&$%@ off performances (when MS would or SHOULD warrant it)

Those 3 points make this very, very simple. Using a simple formula like the one Paul proposed, PSR is only affected by MS. Not by wins or losses. Since w/l rate is accounted for within the MS system, there is no need for redundancy with it. Your personal performance would become the deciding factor in whether or not your tier increases or decreases.

With all of the factors contained within the MS score calculations, a player who is contributing to their team should have no issues with increasing their PSR. (defined: contributing is marking targets, doing damage, hitting the objectives, killing opponents, protecting friendlies, etc....)

{{Please Note}} I am not saying the MS system doesn't need an overhaul, I am saying that we should tackle one obstacle at a time, start with how PSR is factored, see how the MM handles it... we could then fine tune the MS system then. Adjusting multiple factors at the same time will skew the results. We would not know which factor caused the changes properly

Win or lose, your performance will make or break your tier level. I routinely get in the upper half of MS during my matches, WITHOUT paying attention to the win or loss. According to the current system, I am tier 5, I get stuck in the matches with the "potatoes" and "baby seals" and this tends to cost me a ton of match wins... For starters, I had to take a break from this game for some years because the powers that be kept the system requirements higher than I had, and I was using a cellphone 3g hotspot to learn this game through beta and release... I averaged 15fps-ish during that time... I now have a decent machine and average fps across the servers is about 90.... my performance from match to match has shown this improvement, and showed me that I wasn't the absolute shite player I thought I was... Am I top tier... not on your life..... Nor do I pretend to be.

<<stepping off the soapbox now>>

[HolyGrail101]

I won't claim to get the programing side of the issue but the issue isn't just the lack of player base or Matchmaker for me; It is the off kilter amount of work it takes for Light Mech's to qualify for the same reward level. I generally do way more work in a Commando than most people in Assault Mech's. Paper-Machete armor equals easier death not a lesser pilot. Point being that everyone one is mad about something different, Matchmaker is part of the solution not the problem.

Less diverse Maps and Mode's will only drive away more players.
Drop tonnage may even out when everyone has no choice but to play Skirmish and only 3 maps are available.
Matches that only big Mech's can win.
Broken matchmaker.

I think with the current player base limit I would be most satisfied if the tonnage ratio was just less obnoxiously off.

I'm just brainstorming but:
- Force group tonnage to continually readjust based off of what is available in solo que so Solo que is less likely to be way under or over on a single team

- Give an advantage or two to the team without a group or if they are underweight
A. Better Multiplier
B. Better start locations
C. Better Map or Mode

- Kill off Solaris I suspect it mostly spreads a thinning player base thinner
A. Introduce new Match scoring that includes dueling during a PUG battle & Batchall's during Faction battle you already have the trophies.
B. Killing off Solaris should be fun. Make it a giant planned event
C: If you refuse to kill off Solaris then make it special and only do Solaris as an Event rather than another grind

Edited by HolyGrail101, 09 June 2020 - 09:29 AM.

[gruntnflush]

So in other words based on lots of the posts I've read along with the disclosure that PGI want's to base it on what y'all post...

we're basically heading back to the same old system but with a fresh new Tier reset?

People in my guild as well as those I've randomly chatted with in game were really looking forward to a new system based on win loss, as this would have served the role of encouraging people to focus more on winning than on personal stats. Doubt any of these people I've talked to even ever post on the forums at all.

I know a guy who predominately plays assaults and calls games. He sacrifices his own armor to lead pushes playing the role of tank. Even if he goes down without any kills he still is a huge factor on whether his team loses or not.

My own opinion is that Win/Loss should be a huge factor on PSR. Huge! Don't further promote those who wait in safety while their team strips armor only to pounce out near game's end to get easy kills regardless of win/loss.

Please encourage a culture of healthy team play, not hero ball.

Thanks!

[w4ldO]

ima quoting myself here

Quote

this might be a very dirty fix. but a fix atlast while they think about something more sophisticated:

• add up all psr change for the winning side
  
• add up all psr change for the losing side
  
• calculate (losing side total) / (winning side total) = psr ratio
  
• apply psr ratio to the psr rating changes for the winning side pilots
  
• in a case of a draw just = everybody, because **** draws

someone with a math degree pls tell me how stupid this idea is

[Tesunie]

Robinson Crusher, on 09 June 2020 - 12:52 AM, said:

First, my compliments to the devs for putting this forum issue where I would see it logging into the game, without intending to go to the forums. I suspect some of the game's past problems could have been avoided with similar treatment and look forward to seeing this sort of thing continue in the future...

Tetsunie, I haven't been following this issue, so I'm curious as to why you want less impact by Win/Loss. My first reaction was that eliminating the impact of W/L would punish people (like me) who often choose to die for the team. W/L is the only stat I've ever cared about. You play for fun, sure, but winning fun is more fun than losing fun. Personally I get more fun from a well played match that sees my team win even if it means sacrificing my other stats, and I often do as a result. Why should that be discouraged?


- Two points about PSR:

1) I'm very good with some mechs and totally suck with others. My PSR goes up and down depending on whether I am taking it easy or trying to get good. It would be very interesting if the match maker could keep PSR stats for each of a players mechs.

2) If the problem is that imbalanced matches drive away newer players, is not the real problem that good players are not evenly distributed between the teams? My impression is that a match is filled out one team at a time. So for a tier one match one team gets most of the available tier one players, and the other team gets the rest.

Anyone know if this is accurate, or an illusion, because if true then it's the root problem.

I don't mind some impact from W/L, but I feel that there is naturally already an impact from W/L that affects match score as it is. If you observe match score from the winning team to the losing team, typically the losing team has lower match scores anyway. Thus, having it penalize them farther by having PSR heavily weighted on W/L on top of match score I think is a little much.

Also, it's how heavy W/L impacts your PSR (currently) that I feel is poorly thought out. Get a match score under 100 on a win and is no change. Get a match score of 300 and I believe that it's still a PSR down on a loss... One shouldn't have to get a match score of 400+ to go up on a loss, and a match score under 100 shouldn't keep you steady on a win (in my opinion). Otherwise, we might as well just remove PSR completely and have it "If you win you all gain ranking, if you lose then you all drop ranking".

So, I believe we should do PSR one of two ways:
- Average match scores produce no change as you are (as an individual) performing the average for that tier. Under and over average participants will move according to their performance as a pilot. (It is Pilot Skill Ranking/Rating after all, isn't it?)
- I'm actually intrigued and like the idea, which is similar to my own, where the top performing players in a match go up, and the lower performing players go down, based upon the individual matches rather than a set match score number. It has potential.

As a note on the second option, players could always get a Match Score boost based upon winning the match, making them more likely to go up for winning, but still not a guarantee. We could grant 20-50 match score boost to the winning team as part of the win condition. Then, winning still has impact (beyond typical better performance most times anyway), but not such a drastic impact as it currently holds.


As a note to your two points on PSR:
1. I agree. I kinda wouldn't mind a PSR ranking based on at least weight class if not individual chassis... but that is a lot of extra data to hold and gather. I'm not opposed to this as I know you are correct and see my own performance vary drastically between different mechs and builds.

2. I am not sure how the teams are built for a match. If you are correct, then that system needs to be looked at, and players need to be balanced per team, not "per match". However, I don't think that is how matches are form...?

[SilentScreamer]

Too much discussion for me to wade through 10 pages, so I apologize if someone else has already mentioned one of these points:
- Zero Sum Adjustment based on players in match only = good
- Adjustment to each player's PSR based on performance in match, whether their side lost or won = not good

Right now, if I play a Light mech well in a non-damage roll; i.e. Scouting, Harassing, Spotting, drawing enemy mechs fire and attention so the rest of my team can be more effective, I can be rewarded by a PSR score increase if my team wins, even though I didn't have one of the higher match scores.

Under the proposed system, if I'm doing those activities, but my score falls in the lower third of the total 24 players, my PSR goes down. I'm penalized for playing "rabbit" and drawing off enemies even though my team may have won because I kept two or three enemies out of the fight. If PSR will go up or down based on individual performance rather than team win or loss, PGI might as well remove all game modes except Skirmish, because stealth capping in a light mech is a great way to win Assault, but it'll kill your own PSR if you win the game for your team by taking your mech behind enemy lines and capping their base without firing a shot. Mordenthral mentioned this on the very first page of feedback but hasn't gotten much support.

If a player is playing "well" their Win/Loss ratio will be higher than 1:1 even if their Match Score and Kill/Death stats aren't good as other players in match.

The reverse is not true, a player that hides behind the team, does not share armor can have a high average Match Score and high Kill/Death ratio, but if their Win/Loss ratio is low, they are clearly doing something wrong and should adjust their playstyle if they want to increase in PSR.

So it comes down to this choice:
A) Current: a system that allows objective based play and rewards the winning team?
B) Proposed: ranking system where damage is king regardless of whether you win or loose?


Personally, I prefer system A. Yes, potatos get a boost in PSR if their team happens to win; but the potato won't win as often as a player who does things right. Pie-in-the-sky I'd love to see a system between the two.

1) Zero Sum

2) Instead of straight-up rewarding players based on match score
- Winning team highest 4 players would get a big boost in PSR
- Winning team middle 6 players would get the modest increase in PSR
- Winning team lowest 2 players get no change in PSR
- Loosing team top 3 players get small increase in PSR
- Loosing team players 4-6 get no change in PSR
- Loosing team players 7-12 get a equal loss in PSR

Edited by SilentScreamer, 09 June 2020 - 05:11 PM.

[Teknomancer]

OneTeamPlayer, on 09 June 2020 - 07:34 AM, said:

[Redacted]

Heh, does it matter where it comes from if it turns out to make the game more fun? In this case with a nice balanced matchmaker so we're all dropping with pilots with comparable ability. Happier players = win for us, win for Piranha!

Thank you Piranha for your work on this game, and for this chance for us to all contribute to its improvement! The opening to this thread really helps, I much better understand the match score system now. And thank you for accepting a zero sum PSR adjustment, that should help distribute players more evenly across the tiers, which should be a net win for queue times.

I would recommend a tweak to your PSR to have the middle four get 0 PSR change and shift the +/- numbers accordingly. Give the smack-in-the-middle players that lovely yellow equals! They are playing right to the middle, they are in the right Tier for that drop. Then those who are +/- 2 through 10 can have a single chevron up or down, while those who are +/- 12 to the end can have a double chevron either way (or, single-digit change gets one chevron, double-digit gets two). Nice and clear visual to see where you came in, balanced, just off the balance, or solidly off the balance.

For the match score, I'm reasonably happy with the current calculations. It gives a boost for a win, bonuses for roles and objectives, with an emphasis on big stompy 'Mech mayhem (kills and damage). In war, the least ambiguous win is when the other side is all shot to pieces... LOL I did not know the "protected" bonuses were actually kill bonuses, just focused on weight classes.

I like the suggestions for finding a way to reward good damage soaking. I don't know if simple damage taken is the right way to go about it. Anyone killed will usually have more damage taken, that doesn't mean they were twisting effectively. How about a bonus for a threshold damage taken as a percentage of your total 'Mech armor (maybe you took 75% or more, or 80%), and you survived - that suggests you twisted effectively, you stayed alive with this aspect of piloting skill that all top players learn to master. We already have achievements related to this, why not get it into the match score calculation.

Another post in here triggered another idea, also thinking about how to measure skill: add a match score adjustment for hitting targets at your weapons' optimal ranges. That shows skill, knowing your build and successfully maneuvering to take advantage of it.

Also add a match score adjustment for high accuracy. Our player stats on the account show accuracy percentages, factor that in!

Edited by GM Patience, 09 June 2020 - 09:40 AM.

[OldSchoolCav]

Rkshz, on 09 June 2020 - 03:06 AM, said:

it's all good, I'm glad that Paul and Russ began to listen to the community, but it’s important not to forget about game mods and those who drown his team

massive PSR\MS increase for:
- capping points (conquest)
- capping base (assault)
- destroy base (incursion)
- UAV spotting
- kill enemy UAV

massive PSR\MS punishment for:
- suicide
- team kill
- team damage
- AFK
- disconnect

Lets be careful to distinguish "running out of bounds" suicide from "running hot and losing a torso" suicide. One should be punished, one is an occasional bit of bad luck that occurs while playing well.

[Teknomancer]

OldSchoolCav, on 09 June 2020 - 08:19 AM, said:

massive PSR\MS punishment for:
- suicide
- team kill
- team damage
- AFK
- disconnect

There's no way to know if someone d/c'ed for a legitimate reason. Punished for a local power failure makes no sense, for example.

Edited by Teknomancer, 09 June 2020 - 08:31 AM.

[Kosomok]

Here is what I think.

If the goal is to sort players using "skill" as a metric, then the only really effective way to do it (ignoring the various problems with the calculation of MS) is on the basis of average MS per match.

1) You calculate the average MS for the match;

2) if you are within a set range of that average MS (+/- a standard deviation, say), you do not move up or down. This should be a majority of players in the match;

3) if you are above that range, your rating increases;

4) if you are below that range, your rating decreases;

5) If you are significantly above or below the range, then you get a larger increase/decrease.

The problem lies in that, in order to get a match the MM needs to use multiple tiers. This will skew the results. This needs to be corrected for or accounted for--most likely by factoring in player rating pre-match. IOW, if the majority of players in the match are T2 or below and you are T1, then a modifier needs to be applied to your MS score in comparison to the match average (and vice versa).

The relative size of the increase/decrease will control the sorting speed. After a certain period (once the initial sort is complete) then you can reduce the size of the increase/decrease to stabilize things.

[JimTheGoatMan]

I think that this PSR method would better reflect pilot skill.
To me changing the PSR system wont make MWO any more or less fun. This game to me is my end of the day stress reliever, in my job/life I feel I have no control, but when I enter the world of MWO I can see that my actions have an impact on the out come of a match. I’m disappointed that I only recently found MWO and my hope is that after these changes more people will come to the game to keep it alive for as long as possible, In my opinion that is the goal here. With that in mind I feel that A more individual PSR system will keep people playing, it will give players more accurate way of comparing them self to others and could more so be treated as a badge of honor then the current system. Thank you to the community and PGI for keeping MWO alive.


But I’m just tier 4 so what do I know....

[ShiverMeRivets]

At least 92% of the posters here do nit understand the purpose of PSR. Hint, it is not for rubbing your e-peen - that’s what Jarl’s list is for. Another hint - you PSR gain/loss in a single random game is meaningless whether you carried the team and still lost, or got carried while afk to the toilets.

@PGI, I warned you that no good will come out of going to the “community” with this.
You will catch flak and end up with a PSR system that was “designed by a committee”...
And the most vocal people that affected the design will be the most vocal to berate you on the end result.

[kapusta11]

Paul Inouye, on 08 June 2020 - 02:52 PM, said:

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.

PGI, you've said multiple times that you have access to data that payers simply don't, then why are you asking for player input now? What makes us qualified? Can't you just look at the top 1% and bottom 50% of players and see what they have in common in terms of match score triggers, reduce its impact on match score (obviously it doesn't represent skill) and then look at what they have apart and increase its impact accordingly?

Edited by kapusta11, 09 June 2020 - 08:58 AM.

[Vorpal Puppy]

I understand wanting to reward the better performing players on the losing team, but I think that is ultimately a flawed idea. Doing this will reward the types of game play that many of us find toxic - the ERLL boat that sits 1500m from the fight sniping the whole match, or the assault LRM boat that leaches locks and never shares armor - dying in the last 10 seconds of the match as he gets swarmed. I support the idea of providing some reward for lights that cap in conquest, but I do not want to have a system that gives bad assault pilots an incentive to cap.
Keep it simple! Reward the winners, penalize the losers - this is a team game, even if you don't get to pick your team. If you are actually good, you will drive wins.

[Troglodyte74]

I believe, generally, the biggest issues moving through this process are:

• You are dealing with a gaming community very confirmed in their own intelligence and ability to think things through logically... which I think is actually very true for the most part. The downside of this is you have 1000 people who think they can do better in some way. Good for you listening to player concerns and trying to address them.
  
• People are tied to their rank. As a life-long, mid-Tier 2 player, the thought of being placed in a game with "them," whoever that might be, is unsettling, until I remember...
  
• This is about game play, not about status. So the REAL question is about trying to balance as many players as possible to make game play more challenging and interesting. While I know there are games I play where I make stupid mistakes and I'll get "penalized" by dying early and with low damage, I know that, hopefully this will also put me in matches that are somewhat more forgiving of those mistakes and will allow me to move back up.
  
• The big concern has been, and always will be, the dependence my performance has on other players. I worry that "better" players may give up on playing as a unit if they feel they are not being supported so that they can keep their ranking or move up. Of course, I have to qualify the term "better" in that example because MWO really is about TEAM PLAY, so how could someone who could survive on their own at the expense of causing their team to lose be better?
  
• The one issue I have always had with this game is the massive undervaluation of the mode objectives. If, in assault, I single-handedly capture the base triggering a win, while no one on my team steps foot on the base, but engages in a standard Skirmish-mode brawl, why don't I get MASSIVE points for triggering the win instead of no movement in my skill rating? That is superficially "the point" of that mode, right? Same thing with Conquest, Dominion, etc. Shouldn't a pilot who destroys Alpha or Beta in Dominion, assuming the enemy's clock is below the full, be highly rewarded for playing the objective of the mode more than someone who scores an equal amount of damage on a 'Mech?

Like I began with, everyone has an opinion and thinks they know a lot - so there's my 2 cents.

[Horseman]

Teknomancer, on 09 June 2020 - 08:30 AM, said:

There's no way to know if someone d/c'ed for a legitimate reason. Punished for a local power failure makes no sense, for example.

Random events won't have a substantial influence. If a player has a pattern of DCing, that's going to make itself felt over time

[yrrot]

ERescue, on 09 June 2020 - 07:42 AM, said:

@Yrrot: Team average is a very tricky thing... I have been in several games lately, where the losing team had an average very, very close to the winning one... and in at least one such game, EIGHT of the highest MSs were in the losing team. Game ended at 2 - 3 on base cap, because unfortunately as the only light in our team I died fairly early and others were to slow to prevent enemy from capping after I fell. The enemy light was more interested in winning than points. I think he actually had the lowest score of all 24, but he won the match.

If the losing team had more of the highest match scores, they are probably better players overall. The fact that the win was decided by something that doesn't contribute significantly to MS is why the light ended up at the bottom. It's also basically a pyrrhic victory at that point: taking the base while your team gets slaughtered. Is that skill?

As I said, base rushes are probably the exception to the trend of winning teams having a higher average. Those aren't exactly "fun" matches usually, either.

[Thebackson]

Hey Paul and Russ, thanks, this is exactly the type of system I was suggesting here: https://mwomercs.com...20#entry6336520


I would like to take a look at the current match score variable values as they currently are to understand the scale. I think the proposed system is already great with only some minor tweaks to match score variables but I would also be happy with the current match score. I think one of the exploits might be AMS but again hard to judge without seeing the current variables.

Could we get a copy of those?


Thanks!

Edited by Thebackson, 09 June 2020 - 09:34 AM.

[Roodkapje]

I have seen one huge flaw over the last few days and that's the following :

No one escorts the slow Assaults or wait for them at least!

And another huge flaw is that people don't stay together as a Team or work as a Team at all!


Maybe it's time for new awards ingame for doing such things ??

[OneTeamPlayer]

[Redacted] I will post the correct thought that this idea of asking for complex mathematical formulas from a group laymen is an excellent idea which will work very well because community input is always best and most accurate, full stop.

I am glad that a system best represented as a set of formulas is being voted on by the community at large because while i may not be a mathematical whiz, we can all agree that most of our community has the level of math skills to personally analyze each of the dozens of choices on offer here and choose the best option from a set of algorithms in their spare time.

I only wish i were better with numbers so that i could more easily keep up with the rest of our gifted community.

Thank you for this opportunity to modify my wrong thinking earlier posts, i will try not to post incorrectly in the future.