713 replies to this topic

[Tarl Cabot]

Horseman, on 10 June 2020 - 07:40 AM, said:

Yes, like I said - de-emphasize raw damage, instead reward effective application of damage on targets (KMDD means you're staying on target, solo kills and components mean you don't just farm damage all over but are focusing it on weak points)

Damage applies 50% of its points towards Matchscore. My personal results averaged to 64% overall in 50 drops. Of those on Wins accounted for 60% of my MS while on my losses 68% was counted towards my Matchscore. PGI could potentially reduce that 50% to 30%. As long as the PSR is not set with a static thresholds based on MS fitting into those thresholds like it currently does, the only difference real difference would be overall lower MS.

Ask yourselves why it would be that way? On a Win you are competing against teammates while also racking up the protect L/M, group movement, etc, whereas on a Loss, as teammates die so does those points, and if one lived long enough, armor has been removed from your opponents's mechs, allowing for crits to be generated, components destroyed and its associated damage.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 10 June 2020 - 10:32 AM.

[East Indy]

OneTeamPlayer, on 10 June 2020 - 08:39 AM, said:

I just don't understand how the system would lead to better gameplay in any way, however, as much as heavily incentivizing the very behaviors that players claim to hate most.

What Paul didn't include is weighting, which puts current matchscore in context.

Don't overthink. Simply put, playing aggressively and surviving that kind of exposure, putting damage on a lot of targets, and contributing to kills over a healthy portion of time nets high scores. "Play hard and play good" is really all you need to do.

On a related note, Paul/Russ, matchscore is fine, currently. Let's move forward with the reset and new PSR.

[Kosomok]

yrrot, on 09 June 2020 - 09:30 AM, said:

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.

Yes that IS skill.. and intelligence. He won.

And its all pixels, so hardly pyrrhic. The commanding general would give him an attaboy for keeping his eye on the prize (winning).

Fun is subjective. There are a lot of matches that I have been in that weren't fun. Probably more than were fun.

Standing around in Polar highlands in a medium to short range mech isn't fun. Going through Solaris City in a long range mech isn't fun.Being stuck in a canyon w/o jumpjets isn't fun. Getting stomped because the other team has a full lance group isn't fun. But that is MY perspective of fun. Yours may vary.

[Firewired]

Thanks for the follow-up and detailed background, much appreciated.

I strongly suggest breaking out the discussion into CLEARLY managed and TITLED threads, one each for:

PSR (Pilot Skill Rating)

MS (Match Score)

MM (Match Maker)

By doing this you will hopefully avoid (as much as possible) the discussions degenerating into off-topic chatter, which would result in challenging data gathering and a confused and frustrated community.

Regardless of what changes are made:

I would ask to please, where possible, make only one change at a time to ensure that reliable data gathering post-change can be compared to the same data pre-change. Ideally for like-to-like time periods (day-of-week, hours-of-day, over several repeating cycles), avoiding end-of-month and start-of-month +/- 5 days if possible.


Where any single change has additional required dependency changes, please ensure your data gathering for comparison purposes is directly compared to the same data only from pre-change for the same length of time gathered. Again, as above, for like-to-like datasets.

Getting community majority agreement will be a challenge as there are many opinions on how PSR (Pilot Skill Rating), MS (Match Score), and MM (Match Making) should be calculated. But if you make the feedback methods CLEAR, and separate them into different TITLED THREADS, I think you will get more reliable feedback.

[Dauntless Blint]

KIlls: Above global average for chassis +1. & below average: -1
(precision) Bonus Reward for better than average back-stabs and low dps PP.

Damage: Above global average for chassis +1. & below average: -1
(work rate) Bonus Reward for better than average damage.

Match-score: Above global average for chassis +1. & below average: -1
(utility teamwork) Bonus Reward for match score driven components.

Armor expended: Above global average % for chassis +1 & below global average -1
(risk share taken) Bonus Reward for getting skin in the game.

Win:+1 & Loss:-1
(objectives) reward for clutch technical wins using objectives.

Then:

01 +4
02 +3
03 +2
04 +1
05 =
06 =
07 =
08 =
09 -1
10 -2
11 -3
12 -4

Using historic global values for averages if data exists
Trying to rank order according to player chassis performance as well as team and win loss.

Take into account if PSR is working every one except the ends of the bell curve should be win / losing 1 to 1 on average.
Group drops artificially inflate W/L ratio when they contain at least one top tier player.
A Group bucket should never be an average but a total or on individual merit.

Edited by Dauntless Blint, 11 June 2020 - 04:22 AM.

[Surn]

Bistrorider, on 10 June 2020 - 12:33 AM, said:

Very big difference between both examples. Is it like two extremities?

yes, I wanted to show a decent game and an extreme bad game, I record most of my matches, so I could put up an extremely good game, or a slightly bad game also.

Mostly, I want to fine tune the numbers

[Kosomok]

Vorpal Puppy, on 09 June 2020 - 09:07 AM, said:

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.

Here is the thing, changes in PSR are not rewards or punishments. It is a change in a number used by the MM system to sort players to create better matches (theoretically).

Frankly, you should not even know what your PSR is or when it changes. It should be totally invisible. It should have been invisible from day 1.

What should be driving player performance is NOT PSR. It should be the rewards system.,, which is NOT PSR. It is what you get for winning... or don't get because you lost.

The problem is, in this game the rewards system is largely immaterial as it is focused around using MC rather than CBills (so as to generate income for PGI). Crap/meaningless rewards cause players to look for reward elsewhere or in other forms--hence the focus on MS and PSR, which at least provide epeen fodder.

[Wraith of Shadow]

StrikerX22, on 09 June 2020 - 05:06 PM, said:

...."Damage contributes too much to Match Score.":
What should we actually be measuring: effectiveness on taking out a mech. Try this: Give a much heavier MS to contributing damage to components that are destroyed, more so if it contributed directly to killing the mech (both side torsos would count if clan XL mech dies to losing both side torsos. Caveat for back vs front armor: only count for this bonus if that side of armor was completely pierced (hence, it actually contributed). Reward general damage only a little.

--Tanking: This can also address the call for tanking damage giving MS: If tanking the damage does not result in that component being destroyed, then you "successfully" tanked the damage (exception being you get bonus still by tanking front/back damage when if armor doesn't get pierced, even if component is destroyed from other end). Losing a component not contributing directly to your death could give a smaller bonus. You can give a smaller reward for tanking any damage, as it can still be valuable, but not as much....

Horseman, on 10 June 2020 - 07:40 AM, said:

Yes, like I said - de-emphasize raw damage, instead reward effective application of damage on targets (KMDD means you're staying on target, solo kills and components mean you don't just farm damage all over but are focusing it on weak points)

If you want damage that "contributed directly to killing the mech" to count for more... perhaps reducing/removing MS for damaging armour and give only/more MS for damaging Structure instead? Armour is after all an ablative damage sponge, it's supposed to be hit, but until you start hitting the structure you can't kill the mech.

So maybe structure damage should be more valuable to match score, or even the only damage that counts for match score?

[Wesxander]

It seems to me that the top 12 players is only determined by damage. If that is the case then there should be no objective other than kill and damage done.
I see person after person stating they don't think winning by accomplishing the mission goals is worth anything. That they simply took to long to kill everything. Is that not failing at being team and dividing up responsibilities like goes on in the military. Example in war game my sub was once tasked with destroying a carrier battle group (we were the reds). My captain came up with strat that enabled us to score the carrier in the wargame which left the admiral in charge of the carrier battle group dead. We were the red team IE Russians. We killed an American carrier in war game using what the admiral felt was unfair tactics. IE we did not play stupid and pop up near the surface every few mins like he wanted. We accomplished the objective same way any competent Russian sub captain would have. Basically long story short the other admirals in on the war game told the carrier admiral to suck up it and learn from the experience and adopt your strats to kill such an enemy sub behaving that way.
Now what many are saying here is that the objective is secondary to kill everything else. You there to take over mining rigs tough the only thing that matters is kills. You there to protect your base tough kill everything is all that matters. For that matter why not have a base mission where you have defend the base from being destroyed ? No i am not talking about the current one as it is joke. More like a base that has say x3 the armor and internals of atlas as example. If the base is destroyed a single item one then the team that allows that loses regardless of kills. Remove base cap missions as they cannot be accomplished much anymore and put this in its place. Force tactical decision making other than oh so sad you didn't out score me damage wise.
Scoring winning players for negative scoring if they afk etc mgith be ok but what about that poor locust on polar or another large map hat kept the capture points in his teams favor the whole match? Does he/she deserve a negative score? If you say yes then pull out capture missions. All missions from now on have only one objective kill or be killed. Don't give any objective that penalizes them for following the objective.
Another thing that is overlooked. Consider adding name recognition into the game.
Do you know how many games dropped against elite teams and we already know the outcome but your PSR says nope it's fair fight? Did you know some elite players are now using alt accounts to cover their ID's because they don't want be singled out at the start of the match?
I can't hardly play light anymore because your PSR says that my light is equal to say an EMP Player in tweaked assault. They often taunt me about how I am not good enough. Granted but your PSR is saying I am good enough so does that reflect right?
Instead of hurting everyone on match that doesn't score top damage. Make it contest to stay out the bottom. Bottom 4 players get negative results. from 6 to 8 you get 0.
Add name recognition to the database. Use each month leaderboard standings to add extra value to guys with a kill value above 2.0. Add extra value to guys that went 4 to 1 in games each match. Same for damage far above average.
Don't try and say a 4 man EMP group running tweaks mechs is the same as 4 guys that might be tier grouped up to just play as team. That is utter BS.
Add points for people using voice comms in PUG games for actual tactical data. That's hard one to pull off because most the time its just bs talking instead of so and so is vulnerable or they split there mechs go here. No the command wheel should not account for that either. I seriously doubt a individual in jet dog fight (more apt than tank battles) is going to take time to type a combat text in heat of battle. FYI that was my job in battle along with being combat eval plot I was charged with texting our ships in combat long before texting caught on with civilians. Voice comms rule which is why many elite teams insist you use their voice comms and screw the pugs attitude wise. Many them drop in game and completely ignore the pugs except to use them as extra armor so they can get more kills.
Last issue add more tiers. Should be 10 to 1. If you in tier 1 should be required to play regularly or auto drop to tier 2.
Tiers 1 to 3 should be harder than hell to get into counting and subtracting your damage totals and kill count to determine ability. Ie to stay in teir 3 once you reach it you need to get x amount of kills a week and x amount of damage. Both have to be maintained. Below those 3 tiers standard PSR applies. Any player dropping solo or in group with T3 to T1 new status is obviously ranked far higher than 3 to 10 and counts as such on drop que creation.

[Wraith of Shadow]

Wesxander, on 10 June 2020 - 09:39 AM, said:

....Another thing that is overlooked. Consider adding name recognition into the game.
Do you know how many games dropped against elite teams and we already know the outcome but your PSR says nope it's fair fight? Did you know some elite players are now using alt accounts to cover their ID's because they don't want be singled out at the start of the match?...

Kinda seems like a reason to keep the names of the opposing force, along with their mechs, hidden. Only find out by pushing 'R' during the match.

Also kind of want dead guys chatting with the living to be cut, both for the drama of your voice dissolving into static as you "die" but also because it's kind of odd for dead guys to give advice.
ie 2 chat channels, 1 for the living and the other for the dead.

That's probably beyond the scope of this discussion though.

[Thebackson]

CompleteFailure, on 09 June 2020 - 05:28 PM, said:

That list doesn't mean much unless we also know how each data point is weighted in the current calculation. Can you include that data as well? Unless we know the current weight of any given data point, any suggestions made so far in this thread are purely guesswork (however well educated/researched those guesses may be). If you're asking the community to come up with a new calculation, we need to know exactly how the calculation works currently, so we know which suggestion(s) being proposed would have the most positive or negative impact(s).

Without knowing those weighting values, here's my 2 cents: Currently, winning a match has a greater positive impact on match score than losing has a negative impact (hence the upward movement bias). All other things being equal (scores attained for all the data points other than winning/losing), winning and losing should have an equal and opposite impact on match score, in some fashion. Remove the upward bias that currently exists through simply being on the winning team.

I have asked twice for the current values and agree, no meaningful adjustment is going to be accurate without knowing the current values. Can we get the current values of the variables.

95% of everyone on here is still trying to get their own system based off win loss instead of reading the solution of a ranking based off match score. Adjustment of the match score is only going to be viable if we know the current values.

A new PSR system based solely on match score is going to be much better than the current system. The matchscores are about 90-95% accurate and only needs minor tweaking.

Can we get this information Paul?

[Tarl Cabot]

Socal Bronco, on 10 June 2020 - 04:25 AM, said:

The thing I haven’t seen from PGI is how do PSR points get analyzed to put us in tiers? Is it everyone with over points is T1? What is it?

PGI has not shown how many points a Tier consumes, but they have shown the number of points each Tier level provides. See below, the Now/OLD is the current PSR thresholds. I have also posted the info Paul gave in the original thread. That is the number of points players move down or move up. The original change PGI was going to used this past Tuesday would have had the losing side using winning side numbers flipped ie -5 with MS of 100 or less for a zero-sum, static shell.

Also notice PGI had put a lower emphasis on losing, thus the upward movement of players who are below the bell curve, simply by playing a ton more games than a majority of the population while hitting the bare minimum for upward movement, such as players currently with a avg 171 MS hitting Tier 2 and Tier 1 while playing 25K+ games.

Should said player, solo-wise, constantly be dropped with and against players with 300 MS + players, all in Tier 1/2, and not due to the MM opening up to grab said player from the next tier.



Current usage

Player LOSES:
Match Score: 0-100 goes down in PSR by -2
Match Score: 101-250 goes down in PSR by -1
Match Score: 251-400 does not move.
Match Score: 401+ goes up in PSR by +1

Player WINS:
Match Score: 0-100 does not move.
Match Score: 101-250 goes up in PSR by +1
Match Score: 251-400 goes up in PSR by +3
Match Score: 401+ goes up in PSR by +5

There will always be players who like "GOD MODE" while most really want a potentially good match, win/lose. There will definitely be times when bad positioning, lack of communication, failure to bring the necessary load out/weight will defintiely lead to a very lopsided game, but it should be win/against equally matched players as much as possible.

Sadly, PGI has dropped the ball on Faction Play.. Why bring it up? It is one of the primary reasons for units to actually exist in the game. And said units tended to act as anchors for players in a variety of ways, but an anchor, a reason to return time and time again, nevertheless.

[OneTeamPlayer]

Wesxander, on 10 June 2020 - 09:39 AM, said:

Voice comms rule which is why many elite teams insist you use their voice comms and screw the pugs attitude wise. Many them drop in game and completely ignore the pugs except to use them as extra armor so they can get more kills.

Bold is a major part of the reason why I think that group queue and solo queue should have never integrated.

It's a major reason why win/loss being more important than individual play was an exciting idea.

It's a big reason why the current idea proposed on the first page seems like a nail in the coffin for those of us who enjoy teamplay and have been playing solo queue for any amount of time.

It's strange that the solo queue is being radically altered to suit the whims of players from a group queue when their whims already depopulated both group queue and faction play queue.

What, if anything, about the proposed changes is beneficial to solo players in a way that will offset the overwhelming influence of groups in an average match?

There are people who enjoyed PUG matches enough to keep a consistent population in MWO yet for some reason it seems like the largest voice in this change to the PUG queue is to first assasinate the PUG section, then modify the changed queue in ways most requested by people who never liked PUGs in the first place and in general hold anyone outside their (or a select few) unit in disdain.

In a simple summary, how does this massive overhaul of the solo queue help the solo player enjoy MWO?

[Dauntless Blint]

If you don't bind PSR to average chassis efficiency your only ranking match score and win loss?

Eg. How good is a guy at a Piranha against 10 other guys using the same mech then when he gets in an assault and pancakes at that archetype because he/she is a light inclined player. (more likely assault mains trying to light but the example makes sense I hope)

I'm just wondering how going from an archetype or specific mech your great at and trying to diversify to one your poor at could look like artificially lowering you true effective PSR rank in another mech.

It could be a consideration on top of what we already have. Chassis based PSR. augmentation. Whether performing above or below average for that specific chassis should count separately from match score.

A light with 3 back stabs and 3-400 match score is a more skilled player then a guy in an LRM boat with 600 match score for instance making match score a clumsy measure.

Edited by Dauntless Blint, 10 June 2020 - 11:38 AM.

[Tarl Cabot]

OneTeamPlayer, on 10 June 2020 - 11:03 AM, said:

snip...

In a simple summary, how does this massive overhaul of the solo queue help the solo player enjoy MWO?

Current setup has players w/avg 171 MS to 500 MS in Tier 1 (simply using Tier 1 as an example). So MM uses Tiers then weights/class. MM seeds the drop with Tier 1 player first. Group 1 - 4 players, avg 171 MS to 205 MS, running light/med mechs vs Group 2 - 3 players avg 300 MS + running 2 assaults/heavy. If it was just those two groups, 1st playing for fun but the 2nd playing to actually win.. how is that going to actually fair for the rest of the teams on both sides?

MM does NOT look at playing history/MS. And PGI current PSR puts very little emphasis on a loss. Using their PSR levels now and if we have 3 players in each of the 4 ranges, losses 3+0-3-8 = -8 vs wins 20+12+4+0 = 36. Not even close to even being a static zero-sum starting point.

Or to put it another way, you may have enough games to be in Tier 2. And many people like a challenge, but many do not enoy a constant beatdown. Would you enough the game more if you were not constantly facing groups of players at justcallme Ash's level of play? Or would you rather be facing off against players around your own caliber more often than not?

[Capt Deadpool]

Wonderful decision to democratize PSR and match score elements.

My primary concerns are:

1. Many inexperienced players overvalue a number of metrics/actions, e.g. what many term as 'support', with regards to their contributions to actual wins, cherry-picking examples of stomps without having a good grasp of statistical evidence, and so I am a bit worried some of these metrics will be overemphasized in match scores. (Remember, if you like playing narcs/spotting/support, etc., no one is saying you cannot continue to play these builds).

2. By the same token, if damage continues to be highly emphasized in match scores but PSR is not tilted heavily towards rewarding wins, then this encourages people to go hunting for match scores instead of working together, rewarding unhelpful and (generally) unskillful play such as mass LURMing, the bane of this game.

3. I know many players on the more inexperienced/lower-tier end of the spectrum are worried about not being 'rewarded' (tiers are not rewards, but alas, I don't think many will ever really get this) with PSR increases when performing well in losses, when such rewards only encourage match score hunting as opposed to working together as a team. If a player engages in teamwork conducive to wins on a regular basis, then they should not be worried about not being rewarded for losses, as the wins will far outweigh the losses. Team-based games should be based around rewarding rewarding wins not individual match scores, or else you end up with a bunch of Russel Westbrook wannabees stealing rebounds from teammates to try to get triple-doubles with no real chance at contending for championships (apologies to OKC fans).

A caveat/compromise to the above could be if there was a way to make sure match score was altered to stop rewarding unhelpful actions such as spamming lurms, badly aimed/spread damage, etc. and reward the only possibly quantifiable skill-based metric that has the most impact on the game: aim. Maybe increase rewards for component destruction? (I don't really see how situational awareness, map knowledge, effective comms, which are the other primary skills that contribute to wins can be incorporated into match scores.)



TLDR; kill LURMs, don't adjust MS to reward fun but ineffective styles of play, ensure PSR rewards wins more than individualist match score hunting, reward better aim over spread damage if possible.


My .02 cents.

[Capt Deadpool]

Dauntless Blint, on 10 June 2020 - 11:06 AM, said:

If you don't bind PSR to average chassis efficiency your only ranking match score and win loss, not how good a player is at a chassis against other players of the same chassis seeing as there is disparity in balance between different chassis.

My response to this would be to practice in the less effective/lower firepower chassis until you can contribute to wins in a similar fashion as people playing more effective chassis, or else enjoy your less effective chassis in a lower tier. My 5-small laser Flea has terrible match scores compared to less skilled players playing mechs that do more damage, but I don't care about this at all.

[Wraith of Shadow]

Capt Deadpool, on 10 June 2020 - 11:23 AM, said:

....A caveat/compromise to the above could be if there was a way to make sure match score was altered to stop rewarding unhelpful actions such as spamming lurms, badly aimed/spread damage, etc. and reward the only possibly quantifiable skill-based metric that has the most impact on the game: aim. Maybe increase rewards for component destruction? (I don't really see how situational awareness, map knowledge, effective comms, which are the other primary skills that contribute to wins can be incorporated into match scores.)...

Well, like I said earlier, they could split damage rewards for armour and structure. Make it damaging armour gives little to no match score, while damaging structure gives a lot more.

LURM spam will mean a lot less if they have grind through non-point giving armour first.

[Andrzej Lechrenski]

Capt Deadpool, on 10 June 2020 - 11:23 AM, said:

Wonderful decision to democratize PSR and match score elements.

My primary concerns are:

1. Many inexperienced players overvalue a number of metrics/actions, e.g. what many term as 'support', with regards to their contributions to actual wins, cherry-picking examples of stomps without having a good grasp of statistical evidence, and so I am a bit worried some of these metrics will be overemphasized in match scores. (Remember, if you like playing narcs/spotting/support, etc., no one is saying you cannot continue to play these builds).

2. By the same token, if damage continues to be highly emphasized in match scores but PSR is not tilted heavily towards rewarding wins, then this encourages people to go hunting for match scores instead of working together, rewarding unhelpful and (generally) unskillful play such as mass LURMing, the bane of this game.

3. I know many players on the more inexperienced/lower-tier end of the spectrum are worried about not being 'rewarded' (tiers are not rewards, but alas, I don't think many will ever really get this) with PSR increases when performing well in losses, when such rewards only encourage match score hunting as opposed to working together as a team. If a player engages in teamwork conducive to wins on a regular basis, then they should not be worried about not being rewarded for losses, as the wins will far outweigh the losses. Team-based games should be based around rewarding rewarding wins not individual match scores, or else you end up with a bunch of Russel Westbrook wannabees stealing rebounds from teammates to try to get triple-doubles with no real chance at contending for championships (apologies to OKC fans).

A caveat/compromise to the above could be if there was a way to make sure match score was altered to stop rewarding unhelpful actions such as spamming lurms, badly aimed/spread damage, etc. and reward the only possibly quantifiable skill-based metric that has the most impact on the game: aim. Maybe increase rewards for component destruction? (I don't really see how situational awareness, map knowledge, effective comms, which are the other primary skills that contribute to wins can be incorporated into match scores.)



TLDR; kill LURMs, don't adjust MS to reward fun but ineffective styles of play, ensure PSR rewards wins more than individualist match score hunting, reward better aim over spread damage if possible.


My .02 cents.

Agreed. The experience bar is the most poisonous thing to any serious discussion of improving match quality. It either needs to go entirely, or else not be tied to anything that MM actually uses to make matches.

[MovinTarget]

Not to muddy the waters on the MS calculations, but shouldn't the individual triggers have some coefficient based on weight class and/or current game circumstances that reward situational awareness and/or role fulfillment?

The most obvious example is assaults/heavies that don't do jack offensively in a match.

Edited by MovinTarget, 10 June 2020 - 12:03 PM.