379 replies to this topic

[Tarl Cabot]

spannerturner, on 01 July 2020 - 05:35 PM, said:

Have you tried using the PGI launcher and not the Steam launcher? I had multiple patch issues utilizing the Steam application and switched over to the PGI launcher. Haven't had a patch issue since...

I have yet had an issue with Steam patching but it could also be following in the same boat as those who sometimes have issues with the Standalone patching issues, connectivity. Another player had noted that MWO would DC on him, closing down but then in a later post also mentioned that Steam was also disconnecting. And if MWO is launched via Steam, any Steam issue will also affect MWO since Steam has to be running and connected to its own servers.

Nice thing about steam, is as long as it is up and running and tis setup to autopatch, the game can be patched while I am away from the computer/house/etc, whereas the standalone patch will only patch when I start the game up then and there.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 02 July 2020 - 06:36 AM.

[One-Inch Punch]

My review on the tier change. If I don't do more than 200 dmg I drop on the tier, regardless of my team win or lose.
So in the end I'm paying for the incompetence of a team that I didn't put together, was randomly generated.
How so? I.E.: I get an Assault, the team go on a rampage NASCAR! and leave all the assaults behind, the slowers get picked first. Start of the match I didn't do more than 200, I drop.

The match score is rigged to damage, so If I make a scout mech, just to help others succeed on the mission, I will drop on tier while everyone esle goes up. This is wrong from the beginning.

Edited by One-Inch Punch, 04 July 2020 - 06:49 AM.

[Tarl Cabot]

One-Inch Punch, on 04 July 2020 - 06:48 AM, said:

My review on the tier change. If I don't do more than 200 dmg I drop on the tier, regardless of my team win or lose.
So in the end I'm paying for the incompetence of a team that I didn't put together, was randomly generated.
How so? I.E.: I get an Assault, the team go on a rampage NASCAR! and leave all the assaults behind, the slowers get picked first. Start of the match I didn't do more than 200, I drop.

The match score is rigged to damage, so If I make a scout mech, just to help others succeed on the mission, I will drop on tier while everyone esle goes up. This is wrong from the beginning.

1st. remember that EVERYONE got dumped into mid-Tier 3, from Tier 5 new players to Tier 1 high MS and low-end I have played a ton of games. And with the PSR update you are being rated against EVERYONE in the drop, not just your teammates. It will take time and lots of games where you should start seeing up/down normalize, where you are playing against players who are averaging MS around your range.

This is just a reminder of what the PSR used to look like, which is why everyone and their dog were getting pushed to Tier 1, some through brute force of tons of games (10s of thousands) while their overall average MS hoovered around 171 MS. This in turn resulted in players avg 171 MS to say 210 MS running with but also facing off against players with avg MS of 300+.

With that said, do you really want to be facing off against high scoring/high damage, aggressive players all the time, or only some of the time? Based on the number of games you have played and average MS probably in Tier 3. And if you had played 25K+ games you would have been in Tier 1.

Now, many of us were not happy with going with the update dumping everyone into Tier 3 and not seeding players within a avg MS over last 100 or 300, etc games, at least within Tier 2-Tier 4 but many are working with the hand dealt. PGI should really change the Tier names so they do not seem like a goal, the end of a journey to be reached. And if there had been pre-seeding then many who are in the same shoes as you would likely see a equalization of up/down movement. That is part of the intention of the PSR update.

• ORIGINAL PSR settings for both Win/Loss - Bias towards moving players to Tier 1
  
  • 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

[Big-G]

I just feel the new setup is punishing players who try their best but aren't able to carry weak/disorganized/lazy teams.

[SharDar]

I've been playing for about 3 months now. I'm very interested in this thread because I think it goes to the heart of what makes this game good or frustrating.

I'm having trouble evaluating proposals, because I don't see a clear statement of goals. Could that be posted and updated? It seems that the 2 goals are:

• Have a bell curve distribution of skill ratings.
  
• Have a zero-sum allocation of PSR points.

By clearly stating the goals of the system, we can better evaluate whether a proposal might achieve those goals.

My biggest frustration with the Quick Play games is that many people play like their own metrics are all that matters. I see some players not cap a base even if they are right next to it. The new PSR seems to make the win/loss variable more important, and that should help.

Another practice I see is people holding back until the later phase of a match so that they have a fresh mech against damaged mechs. Any system that just counts kills and components destroyed is going to incent people to do this. Should we reward early damage and kills greater than late ones?

Does match score account for the type of mech you are driving? If the score is just based on damage, kills, etc, then it is biased against some mech types. Don't we expect an Annihilator to do more damage than a Flea? I hope so. Doing 200 damage in a Flea may be as good as doing 400 or more in an assault mech.

Does match score appropriately reward what we want our light mechs to be doing? Should a light mech that does little damage be able to earn a great match score for spotting, scouting, etc? If so, how do we factor that into the score?

It seems like the match score and PSR don't put as much emphasis on accomplish the game mode goals, like capping bases. My team won an Assault match where 3 lights (me included) ran to the opposing base and capped it in like a minute. My PSR got an "=" for that even though the 3 of us won the game. Consequently, most players ignore the game mode and go straight into battle and only consider the game mode when it looks like they might lose because of it. When I'm in a light and spend my time capping bases, I almost always get a crappy score because of it. Capping a base in conquest should be the equivalent of a kill. If you capped it alone, it should be like a solo kill.

[SharDar]

Seems like there should be a multiplier applied to damage done by guided weapons. Is the skill needed to get 500 damage with LRMs equivalent to the same damage done by other weapons? I don't think so. While those weapons are important to victory, they do not require as much skill.

[Big-G]

SharDar, on 05 July 2020 - 12:08 PM, said:

I've been playing for about 3 months now. I'm very interested in this thread because I think it goes to the heart of what makes this game good or frustrating.

I'm having trouble evaluating proposals, because I don't see a clear statement of goals. Could that be posted and updated? It seems that the 2 goals are:

• Have a bell curve distribution of skill ratings.
  
• Have a zero-sum allocation of PSR points.

By clearly stating the goals of the system, we can better evaluate whether a proposal might achieve those goals.


My biggest frustration with the Quick Play games is that many people play like their own metrics are all that matters. I see some players not cap a base even if they are right next to it. The new PSR seems to make the win/loss variable more important, and that should help.

Another practice I see is people holding back until the later phase of a match so that they have a fresh mech against damaged mechs. Any system that just counts kills and components destroyed is going to incent people to do this. Should we reward early damage and kills greater than late ones?

Does match score account for the type of mech you are driving? If the score is just based on damage, kills, etc, then it is biased against some mech types. Don't we expect an Annihilator to do more damage than a Flea? I hope so. Doing 200 damage in a Flea may be as good as doing 400 or more in an assault mech.

Does match score appropriately reward what we want our light mechs to be doing? Should a light mech that does little damage be able to earn a great match score for spotting, scouting, etc? If so, how do we factor that into the score?

It seems like the match score and PSR don't put as much emphasis on accomplish the game mode goals, like capping bases. My team won an Assault match where 3 lights (me included) ran to the opposing base and capped it in like a minute. My PSR got an "=" for that even though the 3 of us won the game. Consequently, most players ignore the game mode and go straight into battle and only consider the game mode when it looks like they might lose because of it. When I'm in a light and spend my time capping bases, I almost always get a crappy score because of it. Capping a base in conquest should be the equivalent of a kill. If you capped it alone, it should be like a solo kill.

Agreed, the balancing is currently an "all things equal", but they are rarely that...

[Efeljay]

Sigh...
Im in the camp that is not happy with the reset.
I was not one of the players who "sucked and somehow ended up in T1".
If i had a bad match psr went down, if i had a good match it went up.
The majority who made it to T1 were good players who put in effort and is why they would win and made it to T1.
Were there some potatoes that snuck through? of course. Was it a perfect system? No, but
I was happy to be in T1 because the majority of the players had at least the basics down and good coms.
I have never had the best KDR or AMS, because i like to experiment with different builds like many do.
However, as a competative team player i always contribute and have had many games with top dmg/ms.
Certainly was not in the top 1% of T1 players, more like mid level T1, but as a competative player, having to do that grind to get there again is a major and unacceptable kick in the nuts.
Certainly does not inspire me to want to spend money on the game....

Edited by Efeljay, 06 July 2020 - 02:20 AM.

[Gagis]

Efeljay, on 06 July 2020 - 12:48 AM, said:

Well, unfortunately you listened to the vocal minority....
Competative players are more likely to actually care about and many grinded to advancet their psr, casuals not so much.
To reset the psr was a mistake.
The new psr rating system is actually worse and less accurate with reguards to actual contributions.
I had a couple matchs where, for example i had 2 kills, zero team damage, flanked and got the enemy to turn so my team could push in, but did not do a lot of damage.
With 2 kills, no team damage, and a win that i directly contributed to, my psr still went down.
Thats weaksauce.
Thanks for erasing my past efforts and destroying my motivation to contribute.
Never take something away from someone they worked for.
For that reason alone i can not in good conscious contribute financially to the game again.
This is sad because MWO is one of my favorite games for the last 6 years.
I had intended on contributing again in the future and to get more involved.
You should have ignored the whiners and complainers and left it the way it was.
Epic fail and waste of time PGI...
Thumbs down

Tiers were never supposed to be a reward. They were supposed to be a way for matchmaker to balance teams, but since most active players made it to Tier 1 regardless of their actual ability, the matchmaker failed, which was the single largest flaw driving players away from MWO. Lack of matchmaker in Quick Play almost killed the entire game.

A reset was absolutely necessary, and had been for years. An improved PSR formula is just icing on the cake. The formula would not even need to take match score and other details of individual matches into account to function, but now you at least can feel good about gaining rating on a loss where you struggled hard. How Match Score is calculated was not changed with the PSR system, so that part gives you exactly the same feedback it always has.

A seeding period to take players faster away from Tier 3 might be a good additional improvement though. 20 games? 40?

[Efeljay]

Further, the new psr system is worse.
I had a couple matchs where i had a couple kills, no team damage, had flanked the enemy to get them to turn so my team could push in, but had low damage and although we won and i definately played a role in the win, my psr dropped...
thats weaksauce.
thumbs down on the new psr rating and reset.
I was planning on contributing financially again in the future when i was able to, but that motivation and thought has been destroyed.
If i was head of this company some people would be getting fired and a better team rebuilt.
No reason why this game is where its at with the pottential it has.

[Efeljay]

Gagis, on 06 July 2020 - 02:21 AM, said:

Tiers were never supposed to be a reward. They were supposed to be a way for matchmaker to balance teams, but since most active players made it to Tier 1 regardless of their actual ability, the matchmaker failed, which was the single largest flaw driving players away from MWO. Lack of matchmaker in Quick Play almost killed the entire game.

A reset was absolutely necessary, and had been for years. An improved PSR formula is just icing on the cake. The formula would not even need to take match score and other details of individual matches into account to function, but now you at least can feel good about gaining rating on a loss where you struggled hard. How Match Score is calculated was not changed with the PSR system, so that part gives you exactly the same feedback it always has.

A seeding period to take players faster away from Tier 3 might be a good additional improvement though. 20 games? 40?

Who said anything about reward?
Not true at all. Reset was not "absolutely necessary".
If you look at the stats T1 was the smallest number of players.
Way to dismiss my valid concerns and and be an appologist for their mistakes.
Lame dude.

Edited by Efeljay, 06 July 2020 - 02:32 AM.

[Gagis]

I am not an apologist. I am one of the countless players who had been asking for this for years, and extremely happy that they are finally putting in some effort into developing this game. The reset and PSR update is a massive improvement to the game.

It may take some time for people to move into appropriate tiers, but matchmaker should work MUCH better after they do. That is what PSR is all about. Your gut feeling about the result of a single match is pretty much irrelevant for its quality.

[Efeljay]

OneTeamPlayer, on 30 June 2020 - 05:39 PM, said:

People dislike quickplay so much that it's literally the only game-mode that has never been depopulated outlasting Original Group, Faction War (all versions), and Solaris.

In fact the only thing that really put a pin in solo queue was the final straw of adding groups into what used to be a somewhat balanced experience.

As someone mentioned in another thread, people pushed for group to go into solo queue and aren't even around because they were bored of the stomping right quickly.

Meanwhile the solo players who had been happily hanging on month after month started a mass exodus which is still seen to this day.

Groups, not satisfied with killing all the queues specifically catering to them went for the coup de grace and want to do the same to solo thereby ending MWO for good.

Worst idea i've seen in quite some time was mixing the two groups of players.

Been playing 6 years.
100% True.

Gagis, on 06 July 2020 - 02:48 AM, said:

I am not an apologist. I am one of the countless players who had been asking for this for years, and extremely happy that they are finally putting in some effort into developing this game. The reset and PSR update is a massive improvement to the game.

It may take some time for people to move into appropriate tiers, but matchmaker should work MUCH better after they do. That is what PSR is all about. Your gut feeling about the result of a single match is pretty much irrelevant for its quality.

Good for you.
Yes you are an appoligist and selfish as well.
Ive been playing 6 years.
Had many 1000 plus damage games.
Gut feeling over a single match??? WTF are you talking about?
Im not interested in arguing with your narsaccistic personality.
We disagree and you will not change my mind.
Get over yourself already...
People like you and your dismissive know it all attitude are irrelevant.

Edited by Efeljay, 06 July 2020 - 03:14 AM.

[Big-G]

Efeljay, on 06 July 2020 - 03:10 AM, said:

Get over yourself already...
People like you and your dismissive know it all attitude are irrelevant.

This is absolutely my sentiment. The game is currently in a state that it will not garner new players, and new life blood, but actually push them away.

The PSR process should have been a hidden one then, where the knowledge of this would not allow one to attach a meaning to it. And yes... since you see it, it gives meaning to the game for most.

They should rather have made it similar to mercenary rewards... you might fail the game, cool you don't get the massive reward or recognition... but at least you "salvage" something that allows you to grow.

[OneTeamPlayer]

That someone is in here saying "lack of matchmaker almost killed the game" when, before group queue merge, people were happily playing daily and the amount of commentary on the forums was a fraction of what it is now is laughable at best.

Notice all these new names in threads popping up? That's because when a game is working well, most players don't post about the game they just play it.

Now, there were a lot of people on the forums complaining about the state of group play, which lead to some sort of idea that there were significantly more group players than there actually are.

Merging group and solo queue catered to a small but vocal minority on the forums (even some group players predicted the results) and the influx of new names constantly posting is a testament to how many people were screwed over by that one mistake.

Now that PSR reset and the new system is in place you're seeing all manner of new names posting, which should give another indicator of how well the change went.

This is why it's important to design games by developer vision with a long term design, rather than by committee based on the latest community complaint of the week. Developers choose a path for their product and take input from their community, but never direction from the community- unfortunately we are in the middle of the results of leading from the rear in a triple-combo (group to solo/psr by vote/tier 3 soup) that might cut out the last legs of this game.

The biggest problem isn't the number of new people who come to complain on the forums, though that's an indicator.

The biggest problem is those green C for Cadets is see in a few matches getting stomped before making 20 damage who I likely won't ever see around again, it's the people who make a post about being disappointed about the changes then never post again, and the people whose names i don't see on my friends list- despite seeing them every day for the previous months.

Nicked an artery folks, and it's starting to feel very cold.

[SharDar]

Why even bother dividing players into tiers? We have the raw score, however it is determined. How is matchmaking improved by bucketting that score into 5 levels? As noted, the top 1% have a disproportionate ability to skew a match. It may take 2 or 3 other Tier 1 players to equal that person's contribution. Using the raw score instead of the tiers should allow the match maker to take that into account, having a goal that the PSR difference between the teams be as small as possible.

It could be that PSR makes a bigger difference than tonnage in deciding which team wins. I don't have the data.

I want to thank you for your efforts to improve the game. I can tell that you've put a lot of thought into this. Our comments may seem naive since we aren't intimate with the algorithms, like you are. I wish everyone would keep the conversation civil and assume that we all just want the game to be as good as possible.

[MechWarrior254947]

Efeljay, on 06 July 2020 - 12:48 AM, said:

...
I was not one of the players who "sucked and somehow ended up in T1".
...
I have never had the best KDR or AMS, because i like to experiment with different builds like many do.
However, as a competative team player i always contribute and have had many games with top dmg/ms.
Certainly was not in the top 1% of T1 players, more like mid level T1, but as a competative player, having to do that grind to get there again is a major and unacceptable kick in the nuts.
...

Let me put it bluntly to you - with the avg MS of 210 you do not belong to T1. With the majority of active players around 200 MS, that's should be T3.

Overall 0.9 WLR and 0.71 KDR by no means make you a 'competative' player. By these stats and your own admission, you constantly dragging your team down by bringing bad builds that can't contribute much to the match outcome - yet you feel entitled to be in T1. What make you feel so?

Efeljay, on 06 July 2020 - 12:48 AM, said:

....
I was happy to be in T1 because the majority of the players had at least the basics down and good coms.
I have never had the best KDR or AMS, because i like to experiment with different builds like many do.
...

That is a very selfish statement.
Your presence in T1 was leading to unbalanced matches as the match maker was unable to tell the difference between you (60% player) and a someone in 99%.
You want to be in T1 at the cost of enjoyment of better players. That was one of the reasons many top tier players retired - it was not fun for them either seal clubbing potatoes or seeing their efforts being trashed by players with 120 avg MS who grinded their way to T1 over thousands of matches.


With the new PSR, you will stay in T3 and get more balanced matches mes, just wait till everyone get into their actual tiers.
If you feel you're competitive player, you will be able to carry more games and get into T2.
If you want to constantly experiment with builds you will slip into T4 where your builds will be matched by equal skills.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

SharDar, on 06 July 2020 - 09:52 AM, said:

Why even bother dividing players into tiers? We have the raw score, however it is determined. How is matchmaking improved by bucketting that score into 5 levels? As noted, the top 1% have a disproportionate ability to skew a match. It may take 2 or 3 other Tier 1 players to equal that person's contribution. Using the raw score instead of the tiers should allow the match maker to take that into account, having a goal that the PSR difference between the teams be as small as possible.

It could be that PSR makes a bigger difference than tonnage in deciding which team wins. I don't have the data.

I want to thank you for your efforts to improve the game. I can tell that you've put a lot of thought into this. Our comments may seem naive since we aren't intimate with the algorithms, like you are. I wish everyone would keep the conversation civil and assume that we all just want the game to be as good as possible.

The matchmaker uses PSR range and tries to minimize this. Tiers are just for show.

[Spinning Broccoli]

I'm afraid I have to jump onto the "old system was better" bandwagon. I do realise that the new system has not run long enough to be able to tell how good it is in practice in terms of pitting people of equivalent offensive, defensive and positioning skills against each other. However, I feel that the new one has a negative effect on in-game player attitude and behaviour.

My reasoning is the following:
* Players are so few nowadays, that I don't expect the accuracy of a tiering system to have a radical effect on team balance, once the system has done its job and the tiers have been formed
* What the old system rewarded players for was primarily winning, as well as individual performance to a lesser extent. This incentivised people to work as a team, since teammates performing exceptionally did not negatively affect the reward a player received
* What the new system rewards players for is being better than everyone else in the team/game, as well as winning, but to a lesser extent. At least this is the feeling that you get when you play. This means that the most efficient way to advance in tier is to maximise your match score while minimising that of everyone else. In turn, this results in mid-tier games being matchscore grinding, where dealing damage and using AMS, while ignoring objectives, is the most efficient way to advance for people hoping that getting to a higher tier will result in access to better quality games. I honestly don't expect the higher tier games to be any different, since matchscore grinding and matchscore delta is going to be required to hang onto what can be perceived as a flotation ring that keeps a player out of the chaos of the mid-tier games

My wishful-thinking idea would be:
* Bring the old system back
* Reset people to the tiers they had pre-reset
* Add a way for people feeling they are out-classed in their tier to drop themselves to whatever tier they feel comfortable in

Edited by Kurb, 07 July 2020 - 03:05 AM.

[Gagis]

Quote

* Players are so few nowadays, that I don't expect the accuracy of a tiering system to have a radical effect on team balance, once the system has done its job and the tiers have been formed

False. Even if the game was played by just 24 players total, an accurate rating of those players would help the matchmaker divide those 24 into approximately even teams of 12. Previously everyone who played a lot was in Tier 1 and the system could not distinquish between them, and could and often would put all the high performing players in one team and all the low-performing players in the other one, resulting in the kind of unsatisfying matches that made both strong and weak players give up on MWO. This was a disastrous flaw.

Its not too much of a problem if players of multiple skill levels are in the same match, as long as they can be evenly distributed between two teams.

Quote

* What the old system rewarded players for was primarily winning, as well as individual performance to a lesser extent. This incentivised people to work as a team, since teammates performing exceptionally did not negatively affect the reward a player received

Also false. Match Score has not changed between old and new system. Old system rewarded everything except nonparticipation. New system has a bit more emphasis on winning than the old one. I'd prefer much more emphasis on winning, but this makes people sad when they see their rating go down on a loss even when they tried really hard, and making people sad is probably big enough of a problem we need to relax the quality of matchmaking to make them less sad.

Quote

* What the new system rewards players for is being better than everyone else in the team/game, as well as winning, but to a lesser extent. At least this is the feeling that you get when you play. This means that the most efficient way to advance in tier is to maximise your match score while minimising that of everyone else. In turn, this results in mid-tier games being matchscore grinding, where dealing damage and using AMS, while ignoring objectives, is the most efficient way to advance for people hoping that getting to a higher tier will result in access to better quality games. I honestly don't expect the higher tier games to be any different, since matchscore grinding and matchscore delta is going to be required to hang onto what can be perceived as a flotation ring that keeps a player out of the chaos of the mid-tier games

This too is false, since nothing mentioned here has changed. Playing the objective has never really been rewarded much, and probably should not either, since killing mechs has always been and still is the main contribution to winning. Trying to play the objective too early is likely to end up helping the enemy team more than it helps yours.

I don't mean to say that the Match Score formula is perfect though. It has always rewarded damage and component destructions disproportionately much compared to wins, kills and kmdd's, and AMS score is also probably overly large.

Edited by Gagis, 07 July 2020 - 02:24 AM.