713 replies to this topic

[Xiphias]

Nightbird, on 15 June 2020 - 01:28 PM, said:

beautiful illustration, axis are avgMS horizontal and PSR vertical right?

Correct. Good practice would have been to label them, but I was lazy.

[50 50]

Zerex, on 15 June 2020 - 07:39 AM, said:

The point is if you make winning the only goal don't be surprised when players on play to win

Not quite following your train of thought here.

[Vorpal Puppy]

It's too bad that PGI can't handle creating asymetrical teams (12 on red team, 9 on blue, for example). With our low population, that would help create more balanced matches.

[crazytimes]

Mat Sorkas, on 15 June 2020 - 03:41 AM, said:

The whole conversation in this thread is about how to divide the playerbase into meaningful tiers.

... and then shove those exact same players into the same matches as before, just with different tier labels on them.

If everyone in this thread actually played the game instead of coming up with exotic maths to sort the same potatoes into the same match maker bucket, we wouldn't have as many issues with dying population.

[Kamikaze Viking]

@xiphias - if you have time, Ive sent you a PM on reddit with a PSR discord invite. We'd love to work with you on making this model more robust and integrating it into the proposal.
That visual is the best thing i've seen as a tiered distribution. Now all we need to do is work out how to implement it within the restrictions PGI have given. We have programmers and engineers but are lacking in a stats person, hopefully together we can crack this nut!

[Precise Nature of theCatastrophe]

Will performance relative to players on your team count?

[Xiphias]

Kamikaze Viking, on 15 June 2020 - 05:14 PM, said:

@xiphias - if you have time, Ive sent you a PM on reddit with a PSR discord invite. We'd love to work with you on making this model more robust and integrating it into the proposal.
That visual is the best thing i've seen as a tiered distribution. Now all we need to do is work out how to implement it within the restrictions PGI have given. We have programmers and engineers but are lacking in a stats person, hopefully together we can crack this nut!

I went ahead and accepted the invite, but unfortunate I'm going to be extremely busy starting from tomorrow and running until the 26th so I won't have the spare time to talk about the details. If there's still a discussion after that, I'd be happy to jump on and try to talk through some of the details. If I end up having extra time before then I'll try and jump on and have a quick discussion.

Disclaimer though, I'm not a stats guy. I've had some background in stats, but it's definitely not my area of expertise. I was originally thinking some of these other models would work until Nightbird set me straight and I realized what the error was. I'm happy to do what I can, but don't take a quick simulator I threw together as a highly detailed knowledge of stats.

What I showed in the graph could be implemented in the current restrictions. It's just a simplified version of Jay Z's approach that only takes into account W/L and doesn't apply points for matchscore. I think the key here is that a player only moves up for winning and only moves down for losing. Otherwise the system is going to diverge over time. The challenge I see with the W/L is that it may take a long time to actually match people correctly. Based on my current understanding (subject to change), I think the best option right now would be as follows.

1) Make PSR change entirely dependent on W/L (Win you go up, lose you go down, players can also stay constant)
2) Reseed players based on historic data (PGI has this and did it with the introduction of the PSR system, could be based on AMS or WLR, but it should evenly distribute players into tiers of appropriate level)
3) If necessary increase PSR gain/loss within the team to more quickly move players (e.g. #1 MS on team gets +12, #12 MS on team gets +1, losing team is reversed #1 MS on team gets -1, #12 MS on team gets -12). This lets players feel like their contribution matters and moves better players more quickly, but (I think) shouldn't cause problems that break the PSR system.

It's a pretty straightforward system that shouldn't be hard to implement. Also, credit where credit is due, it's effectively identical to what Decency suggested recent and a long time ago.

I welcome corrections if I've made any errors in the above recommendations, but I think that might work to make a decent PSR system. The model I'm basing most of this off of is pretty simple and has a lot of assumptions (e.g. currently that the better team always wins), so it may not accurately reflect the game. I'd want to build a better model and do some more thorough work before committing to making any final suggestions.

[Zerex]

50 50, on 15 June 2020 - 03:02 PM, said:

Not quite following your train of thought here.

On Incursion and assault base rushing to win the game to boost your PSR, in other words you might see a huge in games being won or lost with not a single mech dying, and in some cases, not even a point of damage being done.

[crazytimes]

Zerex, on 15 June 2020 - 11:07 PM, said:

On Incursion and assault base rushing to win the game to boost your PSR, in other words you might see a huge in games being won or lost with not a single mech dying, and in some cases, not even a point of damage being done.

Yeah nah. The only people who seem to really care that much about PSR and be bad enough to try that tactic are legacy potatoes that think they are better than they are and forum warriors that don't actually play.

If I may quote every single match in World of Tanks where someone does touch cap- "kill all no cap".

[AdmiralAmazing]

Paul Inouye, on 12 June 2020 - 04:20 PM, said:

[...] This is why Tier 1 will continue to play against Tier 2 and Tier 3 players.

Which is perfectly fine. No only that but very much appreciated. When/If the skill based player tiering is figured out that is the way to keep queues resulting into actual matches happening.

[Bistrorider]

Well, I'm gonna crawl from my hole again. Still think that the matchscore and psr should be merged into simple points system. Since I'm no math man my head hurts when trying to bite on matchmaker.

Also I think we missed something very important. As far as I understand there is gonna be reset in tier system. Like we all gonna start from the scratch - back to tier 5. Question is how it will affect the WHOLE community? Some may say: "Well, I worked hard to reach tier 3 or 2. Now they gonna reset it. I don't wanna play anymore". Risky, risky. Then the PGI may say: "Well, we did what you wanted, and now we are left with 100 players so it's the end of the story". Risky, risky. Trap?

Edited by Bistrorider, 16 June 2020 - 03:37 AM.

[OneTeamPlayer]

It's now 7 days past when we were initially told we would have a solution to improve the matchmaker which was broken (for over a month now) for the benefit of an extremely small percentage of the playerbase.

What progress has been made on a solution, PGI?


Would be nice if you indicated in any way which ideas you think are viable, which you prefer, and a timeline till their implementation, please.

Edited by OneTeamPlayer, 16 June 2020 - 03:38 AM.

[Anomalocaris]

Fiddling while Rome burns. Or, maybe fiddling as the last fires go out cause there is nothing left.

I thought that the overtures by Paul to try and fix MM were good at first, but I'm starting to think it was about placating the user base. Particularly with the "we'll change, but only in ways we're willing to" b.s.

Player numbers already down almost 5% this month vs. last.

https://steamcharts.com/app/342200

Queue merge is going to kill the player base faster than ever now that Covid lockdowns are ending. Told ya.....

[C E Dwyer]

Bistrorider, on 16 June 2020 - 03:21 AM, said:

Well, I'm gonna crawl from my hole again. Still think that the matchscore and psr should be merged into simple points system. Since I'm no match man my head hurts when trying to bite on matchmaker.

Also I think we missed something very important. As far as I understand there is gonna be reset in tier system. Like we all gonna start from the scratch - back to tier 5. Question is how it will affect the WHOLE community? Some may say: "Well, I worked hard to reach tier 3 or 2. Now they gonna reset it. I don't wanna play anymore". Risky, risky. Then the PGI may say: "Well, we did what you wanted, and now we are left with 100 players so it's the end of the story". Risky, risky. Trap?

Some may well leave, others might return.
Having been away for months, possible never to return ( Crusader would change this btw)
I think I can be objective.

The Trouble with PSR was that it had an obvious upward bias, if you were slightly less than terrible, you would be able to progress, slowly. because of the big advantage winning a game gave you.

Nearly everyone (that expressed and opinion) said this was a terrible system, because sooner or later, those people that were average players, and those that were stuck between average, and the top (plucks a number out my behind) 10% the real T1's

Were going to achieve T1.

This had two problems, which were glaringly obvious to me.

T3 and to an extent T2 standard of players locked in T1 matches were not going to get much from the game anymore, endlessly handed their behinds so quickly they couldn't get satisfaction from the game was going to make them leave...

Leave....

Or even worse, started endless arguments about balance, and resizing, which caused more issues, most of which wasn't valid, because it was started by T3 people with a T1 tag, looking for excuses, for their own bad play.

Well the player base shrunk, because of low numbers, not all due to this, but it was certainly the main reason I left, I finally gave up when the match maker was putting people that were genuine T5's playing less than a week, were being put in matches against noted T1 competition players.

Because the population was so small, that the match maker was forced into doing this, and it happened on a daily basis.

The match maker was forced into bad match making by low population count.

This was then made worse by the addition of Solaris..this is why I was so dead set against Solaris.

It diluted the already shrinking player base, to dangerous levels, and Group play became almost extinct.

Being away so long I can only guess at the reason for this change, but I can make an educated one, that it's the elites demanding change, and the, not so many masses, these days can leave or be dragged along, by the next 'great idea'

It was the Leets demanding change that led to the rescale.
Led to Solaris so hey could officially measure epeen.
And of course the disaster of the current topic PSR and match making.
P.G.I used a system used by other games, but that wasn't good enough.

T1's didn't like the wait times for balanced matches, so P.G.I bowed to pressure came up with a system that was going to shove everyone, even those not suited to T1 play into a T1 situation.




This should have been addressed years ago when it was first conceived..it was so glaringly wrong, when but it wasn't. In fact it should never have been created at all.


Its to damn late now.

No new system will address low population

It's either long wait times for game, or T5's in T1 matches.


The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the one.

Unless its a computer game ego apparently.

Another good one is

You Reap what you sow

To make a major change now is a complete waste of time, money an effort, to do so will alienate even more players.

Edited by C E Dwyer, 16 June 2020 - 04:31 AM.

[Xiphias]

Bistrorider, on 16 June 2020 - 03:21 AM, said:

Well, I'm gonna crawl from my hole again. Still think that the matchscore and psr should be merged into simple points system. Since I'm no math man my head hurts when trying to bite on matchmaker.

Also I think we missed something very important. As far as I understand there is gonna be reset in tier system. Like we all gonna start from the scratch - back to tier 5. Question is how it will affect the WHOLE community? Some may say: "Well, I worked hard to reach tier 3 or 2. Now they gonna reset it. I don't wanna play anymore". Risky, risky. Then the PGI may say: "Well, we did what you wanted, and now we are left with 100 players so it's the end of the story". Risky, risky. Trap?

I think PGI needs to seed the new tier system based on the historic data that they have. Otherwise people will quit as you say and it will also take a long time to have enough matches to properly seed players (match quality will go down) causing more people to quit.

Honestly, PGI should just leave tiers in the game as an XP bar, and then create a secret back-end tier system to base matches on.

[AdmiralAmazing]

Cudos to Paul. It is a rare sight to give the community that level of involvement. I'm sorry for all the grumpy replies to your outreach.

I like the idea to give each player an initial offset based on the collected stats over the past years. Maybe weighted with a time coefficient so that the latest entries are more relevant than the ones in 201X.

True Zero sum as top priority is a sublime goal.

The contribution to matchscore by dmg caused feels like it should me modified by constants for special occasions.

• LRMs should have a < 1.0 coefficient.
  
• Light mechs a minor benefit > 1.0

Maybe many more can be argued for.

Edited by AdmiralAmazing, 16 June 2020 - 05:26 AM.

[OneTeamPlayer]

Xiphias, on 16 June 2020 - 05:20 AM, said:

I think PGI needs to seed the new tier system based on the historic data that they have. Otherwise people will quit as you say and it will also take a long time to have enough matches to properly seed players (match quality will go down) causing more people to quit.

I personally have been playing all manner of wild builds i never try out (lrms for one), off brand mechs (ice ferret, anyone?) , and dumb experimental builds precisely because we were told that PSR would be completely reset and we'd start from a level playing field.

I also just updated my computer so now i'm getting stable framerates for the first time in my entire playing career.

If PGI used historical data after saying "we're resetting PSR, go hog wild" I would definitely not be returning.

I get what you're saying, but i would counter that while talking in-game i almost never heard anyone complain about the reset, most people were actually excited to have a reason to try to play extra competitively again. Current tiering is an XP bar but a reset and a new system is a reason to put in 110% each match instead of just dropping while half watching netflix in the background.

The Win/Loss system was exciting because it directly incentivized people to work together, brush off their mic, and use ingame coordination tools in a way that hasn't been seen since 3/3/3/3.

Taking away the "fresh competition" sheen would honestly kill interest in the game for a lot of people, in my humble opinion.

If that's the direction they were heading i hope the release the info ASAP so players can vote with their feet instead of wasting time leveling mechs and practicing for a change that's not going to come.

[OneTeamPlayer]

C E Dwyer, on 16 June 2020 - 04:27 AM, said:

snip

Did elites actually ask for Resize? I thought that idea came from PGI down, not the community up.

I was under the impression that the resize and engine desync were universally agreed to be detrimental ideas, as well as the de-quirkening leading to a stagnant roster of the same 15ish mechs in a game with hundreds of variants.

[Scout Derek]

OneTeamPlayer, on 16 June 2020 - 06:10 AM, said:

Did elites actually ask for Resize? I thought that idea came from PGI down, not the community up.

I was under the impression that the resize and engine desync were universally agreed to be detrimental ideas, as well as the de-quirkening leading to a stagnant roster of the same 15ish mechs in a game with hundreds of variants.

Everyone was asking for a resize of a few mechs, but not the entire collection. Same with engine desync. Guy is making up stuff to sound like he knows what he's talking about.

[Cluster Fox]

Xiphias, on 15 June 2020 - 12:53 PM, said:

This is the best illustration if seen so far of what happens over multiple matches. Great job.
With MS based PSR, the orange is bound to happen sooner or later, including Jay Z's suggestion (and my initial ones).

A PSR based on a rolling average of MS and WLR, is the best system IMHO. Tiers would represent percentile of players.

Calculation would go like this:

It needs two variables from the player stats. Call it PSR1 (avgMS) and PSR2 (avgWLR)
Say we use a 100 matches rolling average:

PSR1 = PSR1 * 0.99 + 0.01 * [End of game MatchScore]
Game won:
PSR2 = PSR2 * 0.99 + 0.01
Game lost:
PSR2 = PSR2 * 0.99

Nothing has to be done after this for end of game.

Match makers uses:
PSR = PSR1 * PSR2

Simple, effective.