62 replies to this topic

[Tarl Cabot]

Nightbird, on 19 September 2020 - 08:45 PM, said:

So PGI put together a bad PSR and MM and MWO obviously was hurt by it. Then PGI let the community design a new PSR system and so the community created another bad system. And so here we are today. Any questions?



I'm glad you're so embarrassed by what happened to be rewriting history to get over it. I would be embarrassed too.

PGI didnt allow players to create a new PSR, they were only allowing the current PSR to be modified from a original static PSR thresholds and PGI intended static PSR threshold set change to be a mirror image (PGI zero-sum setup) to a slightly more dynamic PSR. You were your own worse enemy.

And what history am I supposedly have rewritten for everyone? Oh, write.. silly me missing the year on your standalone from 2019, which you still did not link in PGI official thread til page 13. Kodyn has been away for several months and was asking questions, and of the responses offered only tidbits of things, including your own, "woo is me" post. Even PGI responded via twitter that your setup did not fix within the parameters they had set. And from what I observed, most of the pushback from others were based that alone, which you attacked negatively, instead of defending and promoting your idea, sorta of like you are doing now.

So, Kodyn, this is where we are at. PGI merged solo with group queue (using group MM), outcry about both the merge and the PSR, PGI starts to change PSR and moves the final "decision" to the forum player's hands so that PGI can sit back and allow the players to point fingers at each other, with PGI being able to say that they are listening, but that we are simply ungrateful. (chuckles)

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 20 September 2020 - 10:14 AM.

[Nightbird]

Tarl Cabot, on 20 September 2020 - 09:29 AM, said:

After Jay Z's proposal, mathematical evidence showing it didn't work was widely shared, and the uneducated community group as not ever able to refute any of it. The ignorant masses is its own worst enemy. It's well known I play FP, how much you screw up QP doesn't affect me, other than giving me opportunities to amuse the audience every now and then by bringing the foolishness up. Don't like it? Don't do it in the first place lol.

Edited by Nightbird, 20 September 2020 - 11:19 AM.

[selfish shellfish]

I recognize some names from the forum and hence can sometimes tell for sure when T1 players are in the same match with me. It then becomes a game of chance. If I end up facing one of those I am guaranteed to be taken out fast. I imagine it can look equally depressing from that T1 players perspective. But this is what we get when Tiers can not be separated due to low population. You may think you are not that good but it's all relative. And no it's probably not going to get any better.

[Horseman]

Kodyn, on 19 September 2020 - 10:18 AM, said:

Ok, so bittervet back after a several month break, been playing for a few days now with the new PSR system. First of all, what was the point in changing anything?

Some of the worst offenders from the old system have either filtered down or remain held up in T3. It did make a difference, and players who bubbled up simply due to the large number of games they played rather than actual ability are now free to rank into a tier more appropriate to their skill level.

[Kodyn]

Horseman, on 21 September 2020 - 04:37 AM, said:

Some of the worst offenders from the old system have either filtered down or remain held up in T3. It did make a difference, and players who bubbled up simply due to the large number of games they played rather than actual ability are now free to rank into a tier more appropriate to their skill level.

See this is the part I don't know about. I thought I was one of those offenders. I see myself in a perfect PSR system as probably middle to upper T2. I'm no comp-level player. I know stuff, I have experience, I can build mechs that work. My twitch reflexes and aim however are inconsistent as all hell. I can get a few 1k dmg games in a row and then wind up with a match where I make a wrong turn and do 87 damage. Then I'll get 5 kills next match. Then 1, then 0, then 3, etc. I see the hallmark of a really good player as being able to be consistent with their performance. Guys who can always pull the same numbers in any given match. I'm too old and beat up to ever get much better than I am currently, yet I can still sail through Tier with this new system even faster than the old.

Old system felt like it took lots of mediocre matches built up over time to jam yourself into the top of T1. New system, I can play half asleep or on the worst times of day and mow through that progress bar like crazy. I've had sub 200 dmg matches where I went up. Something's definitely off if it's supposed to be in any way harder or more balanced than the old system- because it feels like an XP bar still, only now it takes even less XP to level.

In any event, it seems like there's really no point to PSR anymore, the population is clearly too small to support any kind of MM. I've seen some of the best players in the game matched up against cadets frequently, peak hours, off hours, whenever. Now basically it only serves to show you the people who must never play or literally smash their face into the keyboard, because I still don't see how it's possible to go down in tier or get to 4-5 now(unless of course you're one of those cadets and you get ground down into T4 before you know how to play by the T1's you're matching against, the actual T1's).

[Horseman]

Kodyn, on 21 September 2020 - 05:45 AM, said:

I thought I was one of those offenders.

You're not. We had sub-40th percentile players in T1 previously.

[RickySpanish]

Kodyn, on 20 September 2020 - 09:10 AM, said:

Now now Ricky and Jedi, you're both pretty. I'm also sure you've both killed me and vice versa.

I'm in the end just embracing the changes for now, as I did in the beginning of the year when the game felt ok and I had a sad, pathetic hope that FP/CW was going to somehow come back. I'll give up on that pipe dream, not worry so much about whether my team even knows what game they're playing or how to operate their own hands- and just play what I want how I want.

I've started to notice that I can get away with different things in different mechs than I used to, so that's interesting. Suddenly I can out-damage my entire team with some of my worst mechs/builds, while my carry mechs can't carry hard enough to force a win when the team decides to throw it, etc. 1k dmg in a BASP is nice and all, but I feel less compelled nowadays to bother when that kind of dmg will still result in a loss where I have the only kills. This gives me an excuse to run some of my godawful stuff that I would see tank my PSR previously. I've had matches where I was embarrassed by the mech I brought and the mistakes I made, where I still had 200-300 more damage than the next highest ally, and the only kills on the team.

It's a little frustrating to see some of the stuff I see in matches, but I'm getting over it. I'm sure people judge and hate the way I play too sometimes, but this is what MWO is now - make your own fun. If CW/FP ever makes a comeback, I'll dive into my dropdecks and tryhard again, but for now, frack it.

You know what's funny? I have now played about 148 matches and have a 1:1 w/l ratio, which is incredddiiibly frustrating because it implies I make no difference to a team's chance of winning or losing. I checked my individual class stats though and found something surprising: Apparently, I am a total liability in Heavy 'Mechs - I win only half of my matches in one. What? Lights and Assaults are by far my best class, although Assaults also have the least matches played because I only recently, out of desparation, began to play them. It is my opinion that, for whatever reason, playing Mediums and Heavies has the MM pair me up with the consistently dodgier 4 player group. Perhaps it's because the better groups also pick Mediums and Heavies? I don't know. My match score in Mediums seems to indicate that I am a decent pilot in them, so it's not like I suddenly go full tard when I hop into my Vulcan... Or do I?

[Vyx]

IMO, there should be ~100 tiers -- not 5.

The matchmaker should still try to limit matches to players within a few tiers of one another.

Basic matchmaker thread process:
1. Take snapshot of player pool (P). These are individual players (p) who currently want a game
1a. Determine average tier (T) of player pool P
1b. Set the window of acceptably-tiered players (w) to 0
1c. Seed a new match (M)
2. Select 'available' players (p) from pool P where ( (p.tier <= (T+w)) and (p.tier >= (T-w)) )
2a. With match M, add as many players (p) as possible -- up to match limit
2b. With pool P, mark all players in match M as 'unavailable' for other matches
3. If match M is full, remove all players in match M from pool P and start match M [END]
3b. If match M is not full, wait ~10 seconds
4. Update pool P (to reflect new player requests, dropouts, etc.)
4a. Update match M (to reflect dropouts, etc.)
4b. Increase the window of acceptably-tiered players by 1 (w=w+1) and go to 2

IMO, one of the main problems of the matchmaking process is that there is not enough gradation between the tiers. Better matches would be generated if we used a finer-grained system of tier evaluation. Basically, with a wider set of tiers, matches would fill with players much closer to skill level.

As an example, over 200 seconds (about 3 minutes), a match of 24 players would fill with only those within 40 tiers of one another (20 to either side of the average) when a system of 100 tiers is used.

Additionally, the criteria that are used to determine match score should definitely be re-evaluated. Match score ultimately affects a player's tier, so how we are graded each game needs to looked at very carefully. Heavily weighting damage done and little else does not yield the full picture of who is 'good'. Without a good yardstick of performance, making good matchups is challenging.

Edited by Vyx, 24 September 2020 - 09:06 PM.

[martian]

GuardDogg, on 21 September 2020 - 06:05 AM, said:

[redacted]

I do not quite think so.

GuardDogg, on 21 September 2020 - 06:05 AM, said:

[redacted]

T1 players can not humiliate players belonging to other Tiers in the game, since the game client does not display Tiers either in the Drop Deployment table or in the Mission Summary table.

Unless you know some player from the forum or unless you have memorized Tiers of all MWO players, you can not know if he is T1 or T5. And even then many players do not display their Tier badges on the forum.

Plus, many MWO players simply play the game without visiting the forum even once, so nobody but themselves can know, what Tier they do belong.

And of course, MWO players move between Tiers as we speak. Some players move up, while some other players move down.

GuardDogg, on 21 September 2020 - 06:05 AM, said:

[redacted]

Really? My experience is quite different. I have seen many T1 players being helpful and always ready to provide tactical advices and suggest 'Mech builds improvements.

For example in this thread T2 And Back To T3 In One Match. T1 players offered advices about weapons grouping, heat management, movement and target selection. One T1 player analyzed team tactics. Their posts were worth reading.

GuardDogg, on 21 September 2020 - 06:05 AM, said:

Other than T1, noticed pilots are more friendlier.

I guess that this is a matter of opinion.

I have seen some T4-T5 players being unfriendly to all other (higher skilled) players, hinting that anybody better then they must be cheating.

Edited by Ekson Valdez, 21 September 2020 - 09:39 PM.
quote cleanup

[GuardDogg]

martian, on 21 September 2020 - 07:48 AM, said:

I do not quite think so.


T1 players can not humiliate players belonging to other Tiers in the game, since the game client does not display Tiers either in the Drop Deployment table or in the Mission Summary table.

Unless you know some player from the forum or unless you have memorized Tiers of all MWO players, you can not know if he is T1 or T5. And even then many players do not display their Tier badges on the forum.

Plus, many MWO players simply play the game without visiting the forum even once, so nobody but themselves can know, what Tier they do belong.

And of course, MWO players move between Tiers as we speak. Some players move up, while some other players move down.


Really? My experience is quite different. I have seen many T1 players being helpful and always ready to provide tactical advices and suggest 'Mech builds improvements.

For example in this thread T2 And Back To T3 In One Match. T1 players offered advices about weapons grouping, heat management, movement and target selection. One T1 player analyzed team tactics. Their posts were worth reading.



I guess that this is a matter of opinion.

I have seen some T4-T5 players being unfriendly to all other (higher skilled) players, hinting that anybody better then they must be cheating.

I do see, hear personality traits in different Tiers.

Edited by GuardDogg, 21 September 2020 - 02:05 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

Horseman, on 21 September 2020 - 04:37 AM, said:

Some of the worst offenders from the old system have either filtered down or remain held up in T3. It did make a difference, and players who bubbled up simply due to the large number of games they played rather than actual ability are now free to rank into a tier more appropriate to their skill level.

This. The old system, as noted by players with an overall avg of 171 MS but by playing 30K + games was able to reach tier 1. Kordyn, the original PSR static thresholds were even worse than thought.

https://mwomercs.com...anges-jun-2020/

To change this, we will be implementing the following:

Quote

Current PSR values: (original PSR Values

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

New PSR values: Original updated PSR values before PGI put a hold on it and did the voting for what PSR change formula and range.

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

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

And before the final PSR update, this is the numbers PGI pulled from the 3 months prior to June 2020 of everyone who played at least 1 game. Now concern that if a player ran a ton of games and scored JUST enough, they could hit Tier 1, so in reality that 7k+ player in Tier 1 with actual decent matchscores was a lot lower but that is info PGI did not provide.

Another issue was planting actual T4-T5 and NEW accounts into Tier 3, and anyone starting new accounts into Tier 3, within range of Tier 1/Tier 2 Players when the MM has to open up, feeding the sharks instead of putting the guppies at the low end while leaving/allowing those players with at least some teeth float around Tier 3. Why put new players into shark infested waters instead of into Tier 4 or 5 where there is starting to get a halfway okay population which is not made up of sharks.

Groups though do throw it out of wack in both directions. Get a group that is synced up is one extreme then another group who only want to blow things up but not really concerned about winning, to the point that they could be worse than actual pugs, or intent on ensuring they are on the lower end of scoring in the match to ensure they drop down in PSR/Tier.

Right now, PGI has yet to post a graph of how the Tiers have settled down to.

https://mwomercs.com...ity-version-10/



PGI hopeful distribution. Mind you, those Tier 5 players only had to play ONE game to be coupled during those 3 months.......

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 21 September 2020 - 06:37 PM.

[Nightbird]

Yes, this PSR update, in order to fix a handful of people who shouldn't be in Tier 1, throws thousands of players that should be in Tier 4-5 into Tier 3 to be farmed by Tier 1s.

Nuking a city to get rid of an ant hill, ggclose.

[selfish shellfish]

Nightbird, on 21 September 2020 - 08:02 PM, said:

Yes, this PSR update, in order to fix a handful of people who shouldn't be in Tier 1, throws thousands of players that should be in Tier 4-5 into Tier 3 to be farmed by Tier 1s.

Yeah... It's crazy to start new players at T3 since they can be matched against T2 and T1.
As for someone who is simply stuck at T3 the matches can be quite random as sometimes you are in a T5-T3 match and other times you are in T3-T1 match. For the brief period where they tightened the valves it seemed to produce more enjoyable matches. Of course then there was the problem with too long wait times.

[Kodyn]

Personally, I've never had an issue with wait times under any iteration of PSR/MM. If it goes more than 30 seconds, I re-queue- I never let it sit for a minute or more on end. I don't know if this accomplishes anything, but I've never sat there waiting, and I've heard of many people having multi-minute queue times.

I think it all comes down to population though in the end. As much as we may want certain things to work certain ways, you have to have the population to support it. I've played other pvp games with low pop, and they always wind up with the exact same issues with MM. First you have to keep the game alive and healthy, drawing new players, then you can figure out what's working and isn't. We could play around with numbers til the lights go out, but it will still be the same few of us shooting at the same few of us.

Unless Russ decides to quit one day and make a big announcement about it, and promises to take Paul with him, I don't see a lot of hope for the future of MWO other than just the status quo for as long as they feel like milking it. PGI, and those two winning individuals in particular have just utterly destroyed this game's reputation among the community and most likely investors and the rest of the game dev community as well. I know I could never spend another cent after everything I already have, not knowing it would go to them. I imagine a lot of people feel the same. On top of being a niche game to begin with, you can't really go being godawful people and terrible devs and expect to have a wildly successful game.

So we log on, we beat our heads into the wall for however many matches we can put up with, come to the forums and share our pipe dreams of what a real, successful MWO could look like, laugh and cry on the inside at the futility of it all, then rinse and repeat. I'm still having fun more than half the time I play, and there may be something wrong with that, and me, but I'll keep on keeping on for now. I however harbor zero illusions that anything will change, or that any changes that do happen will ever be good- history has proven it's pretty much impossible for PGI to get much right aside from hiring good art people and figuring out how to monetize nostalgia among middle aged white guys.

[East Indy]

OP, you may want to take the darkly critical comments with a grain of salt when they come from posters who play almost every day.

All/mostly Tier 1 games with reasonably balanced groups are pretty intense right now. Definitely a place to observe and learn.

GuardDogg, on 21 September 2020 - 01:00 PM, said:

I do see, hear personality traits in different Tiers.

Definitely. Lower tiers tend to have more nutballs, but also more "go team!" guys. Tier 1 has some really competitive and sportsmanlike players, but also screechy spelling-bee-genius types who go berserk if the team doesn't play as their backup band.

[crazytimes]

It's a 3 tier spread for MM. The only difference between 2 and 1 is you have to wait longer for the MM to realise there aren't enough people to make a tier 1 match, then it makes the same 3-1 spread match.

Tier 1 still has a huge spread. It's notionally the top 20%- but there's dudes all +99% playing in a group, there's 75% me, and there's a lot of variety in between. It isn't as bad as it used to be of just being a straight up grind, but its hardly elite.

There simply aren't enough people playing to really differentiate matches by skill level.

[General Solo]

When the valves release their is no MM
Cadets are not uncommon in T1 games

[crazytimes]

OZHomerOZ, on 23 September 2020 - 02:29 AM, said:

When the valves release their is no MM
Cadets are not uncommon in T1 games

Yeah but nearly 100% of them are smurfs anyhow, there aren't any actual genuine new players.

[Kodyn]

I've given up thinking about any of this PSR/MM stuff with what I've been seeing since my first post. I truly think it's all shot at this point and there's no sense worrying about it. I've had so many insanely terrible players on my teams lately, players who think they're actually good, I can't even....

I really just wish they'd at least un-link the queues. A group of idiots is worse for a team than several idiots alone, especially when those idiots sit around reinforcing their own bad ideas and terrible playstyles and don't realize how bad they truly are. I may have a permanent grudge against PGI for various legitimate reasons, but the community doesn't do itself any favors sometimes. PGI could do us a favor and allow us to once again have more ways to separate ourselves from each other. I'd prefer 5 minute wait times to dealing with teams full of tagged players who are actually worse at the game than cadets.

I know I seem bitter, my main thing I always come back to is that I'm not very good, not at all, so for people to then be so much worse, I just can't picture how they can even enjoy the game. I have never seen so many low damage numbers across a team outside of EU servers. In 2020, is 200 damage the new 800 or something, and I missed the memo? Why does everyone think it's a new and fresh idea to "try something different and guard base" or "let's split up and flank them"...like, what? What game are they playing? Nascar 24/7 was better than this, at least you felt like you were winning sometimes. Now, the minute I see a team do anything but Nascar, I know we're about to lose, and it's been correct every time. The opposing team ignores whatever creative "tactics" we've got going on, does the normal Nascar route for that map, and we die.

I'm going to stop now because I'm just ranting at this point. I've long been an advocate of ignoring all the crap and just making your own fun in MWO because you can't control it, but I have a hard time living that mantra sometimes. Luckily I'm sure I'll burn out again soon and then disappear for a few more months, until the siren song of the big stompy robot calls me back to punish myself once again. MWO is that crazy chick who's toxic as can be but great in bed sometimes, so you just can't help yourself.

[General Solo]

Thing is with the low population and valves opening often means just as often their is no match maker
I have Cadets in my games just as often again and I'm T1
Just have to adapt imo, change your play style so you still can have fun now and again

But when the numbers allow I got to admit the T1 games with T1's can be very good when that happens.

When valves are open my advice is don't over extend and die before the lerm boat.
Shoot your Cadets/meatshields/Lermbots;)/teamates targets and steal their kills, to help your team remove enemy players and help your team win.
May have to pug whisper, don't ask you don't get.

More advice here https://mwomercs.com...extraordinaire/

Being last alive on a loss makes it feel kinda better, slightly.

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 23 September 2020 - 07:09 PM.