357 replies to this topic

[Tarl Cabot]

East Indy, on 20 June 2020 - 06:06 AM, said:

Players of all skill levels have been dropping together for at least a year, though. Probably a lot longer, but that's as far back as I recall spending my ready-up time checking Jarl's List and spotting low-percentiles almost every match.

snip

This is way, way, way overdue — and Paul has exactly the right attitude now by considering trying a few systems over time. Just because the car won't drive like a Porsche doesn't mean it's free of maintenance!

For the solo queue, Tier 5 and Tier 1s have not been dropping together, or if they have it has been non-USA primetime. Tier 1 and Tier 2 is made up of both relatively high/high MS players as well as sub 200/190/180 players w/sub 0.85 W/L ratio records. But due to the current PSR values for losses which do not even close to being equalized for the win PSR, said players were able to make their way into Tier 1 and 2 simply through brute force by playing 10s of thousands of games.

If the PSR values had been setup better, as well a breaking up two of the thresholds into three, the disparate would likely not be so extreme. So right now, when the MM seeds and forms up teams for Tier 1-2 players, it is not looking at their avg MS over several seasons/games, only whether or not they are in Tier 1 or Tier 2. MM does not care if one side is made up primarily of sub-200 MS players while the other side is made up of primarily 300+ MS players.

And agree about Paul's current attitude, just wondering where it was years ago.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 20 June 2020 - 09:06 AM.

[Kosomok]

Jay Z, on 17 June 2020 - 07:00 AM, said:

...but wait....there's more....

Appendix A: Divergence Control Measure

Each and every solution presented will cause the entire playerbase to continually spread out until T3 is less populated and pilots settle towards T1 and T5. This would mean new players, those who play less often and those who change in skill will take a long time to be seen accordingly by the MM after a few months of ANY of these systems. So....let's address that with an easy fix.

Thought of an idea to address the uncontrolled divergence in any in-scope PSR system. What about a regular "Re-scale" of all player PSR ratings on say, a 3 monthly basis to line up with Solaris Reset.

For easy numbers, let's say:
T5: 0-1000 PSR
T4: 1000-2000 PSR
T3: 2000-3000 PSR
T2: 3000-4000 PSR
T1: 4000-5000 PSR

OK so every 3 months scale around middle PSR (2500) the proportion they are away from it (40%).

Maths:

Chosen Variables:
PSRmid = 2500
Scaleback = 0.4

Rescale:
PSRnew = PSRold - Scaleback * (PSRold - PSRmid)
PSRnew = PSRold - 0.4 * (PSRold - 2500)

What does this do? This gives PGI the ability to run a very simple command through the database at the same time as Solaris Reset which will reign in the divergence and pre-seed everyone for the following 3 months. This ensures the reset day match quality is not random where in a full reset match quality would be poor for weeks.

Example:

Pilot "GGpro" is max T1 at PSR 5000. At end of season, calc becomes:
PSRnew = 5000 - 0.4 * (5000 - 2500)
PSRnew = 4000 or borderline T1/T2

Pilot "KillRocks" is bottom T5 at PSR 0. At end of season, calc becomes:
PSRnew = 0 - 0.4 * (0 - 2500)
PSRnew = 1000 or borderline T4/T5

Pilot "BerryMouse" is low T2 at PSR 3179. At end of season, calc becomes:
PSRnew = 3179 - 0.4 * (3179 - 2500)
PSRnew = 2907 or high T3

There you go. This effectively empties T1 and T5 and squeezes the playerbase back to centre in a fair manner within T2-T4 primed for T1 and T5 to refill. Strong pilots can be in T1 immediately separating them from T4 players and below. This should meet PGI's set purpose of PSR in separating new from experienced players.

IOW, regression to the mean.

New players get seeded into T3 by default, non players should slowly regress to the mean. Given the pop sizes, I am not sure that shifting people out of T1 and T5 is, in itself, useful. perhaps if you had a larger player population.

[Kosomok]

Ultimately, unless there is substantial growth in the population, this is all kind of pointless--you will still be getting matches with large differences in player skill.

I also dislike that many people see PSR shifts in terms of reward and punishment. PSR is a MM tool, not a reward or punishment. The player base self-defined it as reward/punishment because the game is otherwise lacking in rewards (and, to be frank, NO game should ever be punishing players--that is how games die--MMOS learned about that through death penalties).

Players should never have known what their PSR was. The only entity that should have EVER seen a players PSR was the MM. If you ever do another game like this, MAYBE you should take that suggestion.

If you want to measure PLAYER skill, then W/L is immaterial. W/L is a measure of team skill. Since grouping is effectively random, it (team skill) is uncontrolled. Since it is uncontrolled, it should not be a factor in MM.

Edited by Kosomok, 20 June 2020 - 09:21 AM.

[Gozuri]

Using that logic, next time there's any contest of any kind, we should not rate people by their wins/losses.
100m dash: oh he didnt win, but he was born shorter than the rest, its a factor out of his control and that affects his ability to win. We should rate him as better than the others since he did really well despite his shorter legs.
Tennis: Well, he didnt get much sleep due to jet lag and that affected his ability to win. We should still award him the Champion title because he did well despite not winning.

Well you get the idea.

Edited by Gozuri, 20 June 2020 - 10:09 AM.

[Xiphias]

C64 Warrior, on 19 June 2020 - 09:28 PM, said:

again this is only true if you are playing 1v1 but not in 12v12 matches....you even said yourself winning depends more on the luck of MM placing so how does that become PERSONAL skill? Because possibly as much as 11 people carried you you should get to face better opponents? Really? That is how you would evaluate a persons individual skill? We already have this issue now and how is the quality of the match maker?

In a 1v1 a player's skill is responsible 100% for the win result.
What about a 2v2? Obviously a good player is going to win more 2v2s even if they sometimes get a bad player on their team.
3v3? Same, a good player wins more, however they have less impact.

What about 12v12? Trend still holds. Over a large number of matches a good player will win more than they lose. You don't suddenly stop having an affect when you get to 12v12s, the impact just gets smaller so you need more matches to average out the noise. You're equally likely to end up with good players on your team as bad ones, so the only consistent variable is your own skill.

I've already had this argument before so I'm just going to link you to some more detailed posts I did a few years back on the topic.


https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__5938101
https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__5938101
This thread

If you want to see an example of it in practice, there's even a convenient google doc that can let you tweak the values and will generate 400 random matches to see how a player's skill will affect their WLR. Just change the skill value between 0 and 100 and see what happens to the WLR (spoiler, good players win more).

It's not about individual match results. It's about averages.

[Nearly Dead]

Gozuri, on 20 June 2020 - 09:57 AM, said:

Using that logic, next time there's any contest of any kind, we should not rate people by their wins/losses.
100m dash: oh he didnt win, but he was born shorter than the rest, its a factor out of his control and that affects his ability to win. We should rate him as better than the others since he did really well despite his shorter legs.
Tennis: Well, he didnt get much sleep due to jet lag and that affected his ability to win. We should still award him the Champion title because he did well despite not winning.

Well you get the idea.

Why do baseball cards have all those stats on them? I mean, win / loss is all you need to predict how a player will perform.

PSR isn't a goal, prize, medal, reward, or punishment. It is a stat. A tool that attempts to predict how a player will perform in the future based on past performance.

[Nightbird]

PSR is as useful as a weather forecast that only lists sunrise and sunset time.

[OneTeamPlayer]

Nearly Dead, on 20 June 2020 - 02:17 PM, said:

Why do baseball cards have all those stats on them? I mean, win / loss is all you need to predict how a player will perform.

PSR isn't a goal, prize, medal, reward, or punishment. It is a stat. A tool that attempts to predict how a player will perform in the future based on past performance.

Same reason that a baseball announcer will announce the first pop fly in history...in that stadium, at 8:49PM...with that particular brand of bat...on a cloudy day...etc etc.

Every sport ever has dozens of meaningless facts which are commented on for the sole purpose of filling dead air with something to talk about and every sports fan knows it.

Baseball is particularly bad about this, though football is getting up there with the irrelevant "did you know" style monologues about nothing important.

[Nearly Dead]

One of several reasons I stopped watching Olympic sports, the human interest sob stories sold more ad time and became more important than the competition.

I still believe that accurate statistics that reflect how a player performed in real matches can be used to predict future performance.

I do wish PGI would just get it done, I want to try it and see how it shakes out.

[DevinMace]

Can we please make a change soon, the matchmaker has just gotten worse and worse since the last changes were made

[WarmasterRaptor]

Kamikaze Viking, on 19 June 2020 - 08:05 PM, said:

Please Please take a look at the Simulator that Jay Z build which Proves that ALL versions ARE ZERO SUM.
https://docs.google....dit?usp=sharing

If it's JayZ's 2B proposal, I would support, it's pretty much litterally what I'm looking for in terms of adjustments to what's proposed in the OP,

Thank you for that!

[Axys Rageborn]

I would like to make a suggestion in regards to the psr bar/ tiers and loot boxes seeing as a change with psr is coming. why not combine the two?

keep the way you earn crates the same as now but make it that each time you get one it increases a progress bar and when you hit milestones you gain a new tier. keep the players skill hidden and replace it with this.

For example,

level 0 - start
every level - common crate
every 5 levels - gain a uncommon crate
every 10 levels - gain a rare crate
every 20 levels -gain an Ultra rare crate + increase in tier
(only one crate per level)

max level 100 but after maxing out you can still earn loot boxes the same just without tier increases.

5 tiers just like now and upon reaching a new tier gain title and a mechbay or something.

Another thing i would suggest is changing the loot you gain in the crates,

common - item value = 100,000 x 4
uncommon - item value = 100,001 - 500,000 x 3
rare - item value = 500,001 - 5,000,000 x 2
Ultra rare - item value 5,000,001 - infinite x 1

This give people goals and something to work towards and better reflects time put into playing. obviously this is pretty flexible and you could change it however you want to but it will add something to the game and its proven to work in other games.

Edited by Axys Rageborn, 20 June 2020 - 06:20 PM.

[crazytimes]

Axys Rageborn, on 20 June 2020 - 06:19 PM, said:

I would like to make a suggestion in regards to the psr bar/ tiers and loot boxes seeing as a change with psr is coming. why not combine the two?

keep the way you earn crates the same as now but make it that each time you get one it increases a progress bar and when you hit milestones you gain a new tier. keep the players skill hidden and replace it with this.

So replace the current XP bar tier system with a new XP bar tier system, but tie in loot crates as well, just to make sure it captures all of the horrors inherent to the idea?

I would argue that in the thousands of posts across the different threads on the matter- that yours is the single worst idea so far. Why don't you pay real money to unlock the crates too?

[Gozuri]

Nearly Dead, on 20 June 2020 - 02:17 PM, said:

Why do baseball cards have all those stats on them? I mean, win / loss is all you need to predict how a player will perform.

PSR isn't a goal, prize, medal, reward, or punishment. It is a stat. A tool that attempts to predict how a player will perform in the future based on past performance.

Because players in baseball do not switch teams on a whim or get dropped into a team of random players. In any team sport, you do not seed a team based on the individual player's skill, you seed them based on the team's past performances. For the intents of matching teams against each other, the whole team is considered a single entity.
This is unlike MWO or most online games played by solo players in a team game for that matter.

The second part is at least where we can all agree on. I hope.

Edited by Gozuri, 20 June 2020 - 07:10 PM.

[Axys Rageborn]

crazytimes, on 20 June 2020 - 06:38 PM, said:

So replace the current XP bar tier system with a new XP bar tier system, but tie in loot crates as well, just to make sure it captures all of the horrors inherent to the idea?

I would argue that in the thousands of posts across the different threads on the matter- that yours is the single worst idea so far. Why don't you pay real money to unlock the crates too?

lol fair enough.

I believe you shouldn't see your psr/ tier but people like to work towards something. PSR and mm should be something in the background that the player knows nothing about in soup que.

its just replacing the tier xp bar with the loot crate xp bar but with extra flair so people can see their progress as they play. you dont even have to call it tiers you can just use fancy titles as you hit milestones similar to how the FW reputation works. It has nothing to do with your psr and mm as that would be in the background.

[Gozuri]

Since there seem to be a number of people arguing about specific instances of players being carried, those instances do not form a trend, merely specific to that one round. You do not get carried by random players everytime. And since we like talking about individual rounds in individual circumstances, I'd say it can be argued both ways.
Ever played a slow moving assault before? Have you ever experienced a game where your team's faster moving mechs steamrolled the enemy so fast you dont even have time to make it to the frontlines? In such a scenario, you have taken the best course of action, making a beeline towards the closest known opponent, but your team is just too fast or always in your way that you cant hit your targets. According to matchscore, you fared worse than the opponents who got steamrolled because you contributed nothing and should hence lose psr.

[General Solo]

Vindicated, on 19 June 2020 - 10:16 PM, said:

Since I'm jumping in going to voice my opinion for 2A and 2B because we should encourage more folks to play as a team...

Its PSR we are deciding not TSR

[General Solo]

50 50, on 19 June 2020 - 05:37 PM, said:

Nice.

A high performing player might have a bad match and get punished for it...

That same high performing player in a group will rarely have a bad match cause they will be chewing gum and taking names have a way higher w/l..

When grouped that players PSR will increase at a faster rate, lets say 50% due to win rate, compared to when playing solo.
And one cannot argue that the players effectiveness is increased due to being grouped.
Lets use the number above for arguments sake, 50%.

But is the players SKILL increased by 50%, is that player 50% more skilled as a result of being in a group.
IMO no, the player don't magically become a different better player just because they are in a group, like Battlecat and He-man.

They maybe more effective but their skillset and skills are the same as 5 minutes ago before they accepted that group invite and will be the same ish when they leave the group, amirite?

And as PSR is a Pilot Skill Rating using w/l is not really measuring the players skill as it can't remove the Teams skill from the players skill when using match results (w/l) as the metric measure of a players skill.

[General Solo]

Vindicated, on 19 June 2020 - 10:16 PM, said:

..........
If it wasn't obvious from the people complaining about these groups always winning, these players will have obscenely high W/L, say over 5. They will skyrocket to T1 after a few games and you won't see them again without comparable players on your team.

You know, it's possible for 12 random players to coordinate to some extent and play as team. A lot of the games where this has happened, the game ends something like 12-2, because the other team did not play as a team (notably spread out, came in one at a time, lone assault mech going off to cap points).

So I can just jump into a game, not do anything, and win consistently? If you're capable of consistently being carried by 11 random people, you're probably doing something right even if it's not reflected in match score (even things such as calling out damaged targets). If not, then it's a fluke and you'll lose a few before you get one winning game.

As far as how does it reflect on personal skill? You said it yourself, it's 12v12 and not 1v1. You're forgetting the ability to coordinate with the team.
........

Yes yes yes, but my question is do their models have groups and if using your numbers how we identify sub 5 w/l groups in those models and the plus 5 which as you imply are easily identified.

Vindicated, on 19 June 2020 - 10:16 PM, said:

.....
As far as how does it reflect on personal skill? You said it yourself, it's 12v12 and not 1v1. You're forgetting the ability to coordinate with the team.
........

So 12v12 is measuring personal skill?
Well I disagree.

Edit: It did when it was just solo queue but not now that its mixed solo/group que.

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 20 June 2020 - 08:55 PM.

[General Solo]

Nightbird, on 20 June 2020 - 04:03 PM, said:

PSR is as useful as a weather forecast that only lists sunrise and sunset time.

Well thats why we are here
To change that