34 replies to this topic

[Sean Lang]

How is everyone's experience thus far? Outside of wait times, have you noticed any differences?

[Horseman]

Being in the upper range of T2, I see somewhat more coordination and communication. Matches are more aggressive, but also tend to go closer and quite a few times I've seen teams bounce back from a 2-3 kill disadvantage which hasn't been that frequent in the old matchmaking.

[Nesutizale]

Played 50 games since the reset and I haven't moved a pixel in any direction. Looking at my excel table that I made from the matches....yes system seams to work as intended.
Only 4 more wins then losses and exactly the same amount of PSR ups as downs.

Games are still quite a mix. Got everything from stomps to well coordinated matches with lots of talking.
Overall it was buisness as usual with a slight tendancy of getting better...very slightly.

[Edit]
Oh and please try to get Russ/Paul to talk about PSR and what their point of view is.

Edited by Nesutizale, 20 July 2020 - 01:49 AM.

[Jman5]

The difficulty is much more challenging at tier 1 after Paul tightened everything up a few days ago. One of the positive things I have noticed is that most of the guys who like to play in those high performing 4-man groups have been losing a little bit more now. I imagine as the season progresses, and more of them actually log on and play some games, you'll see fewer tier 1 people with those insane double digit WLR we had in previous seasons.

Another interesting thing I have noticed is that the game feels a bit less snowbally. It used to be you hit some point where you're down several mechs and the game just quickly spirals out of control. Now, I'm seeing a lot more games where you hit that point, but then things oddly stabilize a bit for the losing team. They regroup, take out some of the weaker enemies and suddenly the game is within reach. You still get plenty of stomps and snowballing, but people just seem a little more resistant to them in my games.

Edit: looks like they really loosened the MM last night, so it seems like its back to what it was like before Paul tightened things. Search times are way down, but match quality is down too.

Whining in matches is way up too. :/

Edited by Jman5, 20 July 2020 - 08:02 AM.

[East Indy]

Playing exclusively with "fresh" Tier 1s has been a net positive experience. There are many players better than me, now, who play almost exclusively meta vs. my lore-y stuff. They're much more methodical in contrast to the berserker playstyle I'd gotten used to surrounded by a mix of skill levels for those few years. Obviously I want to end a match satisfied, and hate to see some builds get sidelined, but I appreciate the challenge to my view on how to play the game -- especially this late in the cycle.

Again, net positive. I hope PSR and its measurement are monitored closely to keep it accurate.

[OneTeamPlayer]

Massive negative in T1.

Groups still control the queue and in T1 seeing multi-group drops is common (two groups on one side, one on another)

A ridiculous percentage of matches involve NASCAR which was mocked when it was lower tier pugs but now hailed as true skill in T1 matches and repeated to nauseating levels.

T1 players are all leaders with no followers or are all hidden in their discords- the match with team communication is exceedingly rare. If one tries to defer to the premade group they don't call, if one tries to call the premade group does their own thing- hence mostly chit-chat or complete silence.

In my experience in playing T1 players may have higher skills but are worse players to be saddled with in a team game by an incredible margin, the epitome of "too many leaders makes for a stationary army" mixed with "give a player enough leeway and they will optimize all fun out of a game".

Actively trying to grind out of the long wait times and terrible quality matches back down to T3 without hindering my team or breaking TOS is proving to be extraordinarily difficult with all but a stock Ember which is ridiculous in and of itself.

40 something matches and i've barely made a chip in the bar- this wholly sucks.

I'll note that when i see people being "positive" or remotely complimenting this change 9 times out of 10 it's players whom i see who are never seen outside a group (despite their claims of solo play)- of course their experience would be drastically different.

They're also trying to convince the solo players whose queue they are currently cannibalizing to stick around as fodder for their matches. Yeah, it's not the groups fault they are in Solo Queue, but their presence surely makes everything worse in ways that are stark, and to be honest surprising in their variety and intensity.

Edited by OneTeamPlayer, 20 July 2020 - 06:35 AM.

[OneTeamPlayer]

Sean Lang, on 20 July 2020 - 12:50 AM, said:

How is everyone's experience thus far? Outside of wait times, have you noticed any differences?

Hey, instead of trying to get clicks on youtube to shore up the lack of interest in monetized MWO videos could you actually summarize the points you are trying to make in written form on the forum you drive-by dropped your link on?

Thanks in advance!

Edited by OneTeamPlayer, 20 July 2020 - 06:38 AM.

[Nesutizale]

East Indy, on 20 July 2020 - 05:40 AM, said:

Playing exclusively with "fresh" Tier 1s has been a net positive experience. There are many players better than me, now, who play almost exclusively meta vs. my lore-y stuff. They're much more methodical in contrast to the berserker playstyle I'd gotten used to surrounded by a mix of skill levels for those few years. Obviously I want to end a match satisfied, and hate to see some builds get sidelined, but I appreciate the challenge to my view on how to play the game -- especially this late in the cycle.

Again, net positive. I hope PSR and its measurement are monitored closely to keep it accurate.

Its common that the higher the level of play is the less creative/diverse gameplay becomes because going of the norm gets you killed faster. So competetive players who are mostly makeing up those regions of play are basicly forced to meta.

I see this in WoWs too. The higher the tier the less interesting games become to me. Only a few valid ships to choose from and everyone uses basicly the same boring tactic.

@OTP
I can imagne that there are more groups in T1 then T3 for example because the higher skilled the players are the more the group becomes a force multiplier. In T3 a group has much less impact on the game.
Personaly I thin teams should be restricted to 3 people so instead of haveing a 1/3 influance its only 1/4 of the team. Weight restrictions can become even less effective with higher tier. Get me a wolfpack of T1 light specialists and they will wreek the enemy team in seconds. No matter how much you restrict that guys the will still have tonnage to spare.

Let Phil have his few clicks. He and his collegue from NGNG have been a quite good source of MWO informations over the years. I think its totaly okay and deserved to get a few clicks that way.
Also stop typing in giant letters. That dosn't make your point more or less valid or importend...its just annjoing.

Edited by Nesutizale, 20 July 2020 - 06:43 AM.

[Too Much Love]

1) PSR reset was fun. It made Tiers more substantial and meaningful.

2) PSR tightening that came recently turned out to be a horrible move. I had expected that wait times would increase, but the quality of matches would go up as well. Unfortunately, wait times became insane, and the quality of matches deteriorated.
The games became harder, more competitive, but less fun. Why? Because only handful of meta builds became viable. The matches became quick nascar with the team that got first advantage kills the losing opponent.
The main lesson for me is that making the balanced game is harder then equalising PSR on both ends.
The rate of stomps is the same as before, but the matches are more rigid.

As far as I understand, recently they rolled back "tightening" so the last matches I played were quite ok.

[Nesutizale]

I think I see why Wargameing throwed a balanced MM out of the window and just matches players by ship used.
On the other hand that is a workable approach because the ships are fixed in loadout so you can balance things around the ships. Try that with everyone bringing his own mech config.

Still its an interesting idea. Scrap PSR and Tier completly. Just have a BattleValue (BV) for each mech and make matches so both teams have similar BV and see where that goes.

[OneTeamPlayer]

Nesutizale, on 20 July 2020 - 06:40 AM, said:

Also stop typing in giant letters. That dosn't make your point more or less valid or importend...its just annjoing.

If a formatting option is available I use it, honestly apologize that it bothers you but since colors are not an option there's only Bold, Italics, and font size, unfortunately.

On other forums I color coordinate posts and rarely touch font size, but that's not possible here.

[Horseman]

Nesutizale, on 20 July 2020 - 06:50 AM, said:

Still its an interesting idea. Scrap PSR and Tier completly. Just have a BattleValue (BV) for each mech and make matches so both teams have similar BV and see where that goes.

Answer: Nowhere. Meta dakka Sleipnir and 4xMG 3xERML Slepnir with LAMs, who do you think wins?

[Nesutizale]

You are comparing two completly different configurated mechs that would have different BV so they wouldn't be matched.

[C E Dwyer]

Nesutizale, on 20 July 2020 - 06:50 AM, said:

I think I see why Wargameing throwed a balanced MM out of the window and just matches players by ship used.
On the other hand that is a workable approach because the ships are fixed in loadout so you can balance things around the ships. Try that with everyone bringing his own mech config.

Still its an interesting idea. Scrap PSR and Tier completly. Just have a BattleValue (BV) for each mech and make matches so both teams have similar BV and see where that goes.

which will completely fail as wargamming has an extremely limited set of options on how you ca jkit out your ship.

10 madcat's can have ten different loads.


It also requires large amounts of money to build a new system.


As P.G.I stopped spending money making mechs for sale, they're never going to consider and majoe rework

[East Indy]

Jman5, on 20 July 2020 - 05:01 AM, said:

Edit: looks like they really loosened the MM last night, so it seems like its back to what it was like before Paul tightened things. Search times are way down, but match quality is down too.

Whining in matches is way up too. :/

I wonder if that's being done for low-population windows? Or maybe something else. Some official clarification would be nice.

On that, though, might be prudent for PGI to migrate all dormant accounts or accounts with <25 games played to Tier 4 a month or so post-reset, otherwise there could be an endless supply of Tier 4s and 5s showing up as Tier 3 -- which no one on either side wants, I'm sure.

[Horseman]

Nesutizale, on 20 July 2020 - 08:15 AM, said:

You are comparing two completly different configurated mechs that would have different BV so they wouldn't be matched.

"Battle value for each mech" you said, not "each build". And you were talking in context of Wargaming's system where the matchmaking is by base vehicle, not what state it's in.

[Nesutizale]

C E Dwyer, on 20 July 2020 - 08:24 AM, said:

which will completely fail as wargamming has an extremely limited set of options on how you ca jkit out your ship.
10 madcat's can have ten different loads.

It also requires large amounts of money to build a new system.
As P.G.I stopped spending money making mechs for sale, they're never going to consider and majoe rework

To your first point. In that system 10 different configurated MadCats would also have 10 different BV.
Very simplified example

MadCat 1
base value 100
4 Laser hardpoints = 40 points
2 Missile hardpoints = 20 points
4 ER-Large = 400 points

= 100+40+20+400 = 560

MadCat 2
Base value 100
1 Balistic hardpoint = 20 points
2 Laser hardpoints = 20 points
2 Missile hardpoints = 20 points
AC20 = 100 points
2 MP = 100 points

= 100+20+20+20+100+100 = 360

So you see they would have very different BV because of their different configurations (these values are totaly made up just to show that there would be a differance)

Your second point on the other hand is what realy limits the idea. Yes MWO is more or less on life support, as its called here.
That is why I also would like to push the idea of an MWO-Open project where those who are willing and able could develop and work on such ideas so that PGI basicly only has to take over working ideas and those put in the smallest amount of money and time. Yet we could get some changes done as well as do patches and so on.
Hopefully that would also mean that the map editing tools could be made so we can fix bugs on maps ourself.

[Nesutizale]

Horseman, on 20 July 2020 - 09:21 AM, said:

"Battle value for each mech" you said, not "each build". And you were talking in context of Wargaming's system where the matchmaking is by base vehicle, not what state it's in.

Oh okay. Yes seams my mind was faster then my fingers typing.
It is an indiviual BV for each build. The startingpoint would be a basis battlevalue and then modifiy that by equipment, hardpoints, quirks, etc. to reach the final BV for that individual build.

[Marquis De Lafayette]

It was pretty great when they tightened the matchmaker (I still don’t think groups was a good idea). I was willing to wait a couple minutes more to get some of the great matches I got post-tightening.

It’s more than a bit disappointing to hear that they loosened it again. But, I get it. Nobody likes waiting... Personally, I thought it was worth it for more competitive matches and the waits in NA Primetime were reasonable to me. I wish they could code their servers to be tighter in certain time brackets (when population is going to be likely near peak) and loosen it for the off-hours times (so matches can happen faster). That would be a solution I could live with, if it’s possible to for them do.

[Nesutizale]

Dynamik match makeing depending on population. I like that idea.