41 replies to this topic

[GARION26]

The matchmaker isn't understood well by lots of players. It balances four factors according to prioritization set by the developers. Pick one of the four to be your primary factor in running matchmaking

1. Balance group players on each side
2. Fill tonnage slots equally on each side
3. Balance PSRs on each side
4. Limit wait time to something less then X minutes ( the tighter you make the above criteria the longer X will be unless you create an escape valve above a certain time waiting where the above criteria gets tossed which MWO does and often defaults to.)

This forum largely wants group players to be balanced on each side as a primary concern because of concern group vs non group is a potential imbalance. You could just as easily make the 3/3/3/3 slots balancing as the primary concern if we wanted but other items on the above list would slip in importance.

With a big enough player population you could balance all of these at once - but that's not where the game is

IMO I'd rather have the PSRs balanced as the first item as a big imbalance in player skill is usually very problematic. The Kamikazing newbie who is dead in 45 seconds or sniping at 1000 meters with an IS assault usually means the rest of the team is going to struggle.

Edited by GARION26, 26 October 2020 - 12:19 PM.

[Fae Puka]

OK. Matches are unbalanced.

Nothing really new there, just more obvious when you drop with teams of new(er) or purely casual players. I've been in some matches where there are three or four legendary founders; they play like they've just started the game, but were no doubt T1 players before the reset just as a result of sheer number of games played. Likewise, I see players clearly using a joystick to steer and apparently not understanding that taking armlock off allows you for far more capacity to get weapon locks and fire on target.

If you ignore the tiering system and the fact that your 750 to 1250 damage is completely overwritten by generally poor play, then you just have to accept you are not going anywhere fast in tier, so why not just go along for the ride, keep sucking up all the C-Bills you are earning and just enjoy yourself?

I came back weeks after the reset and quite frankly, my tier moving (or lack there of) isn't down to my play style, but the competence of the team I drop with. I move to T2 spend a few days there, end up playing with folk who wouldn't usually get out of T4 but somehow have done and back I slide to T3. Since getting back though, my C-Bill stream has been sufficient to set up 3 new drop decks of new mechs, outfit them, skill them and generally blow most things up with them. This is because of the poor balance of drops.

Those who started on the day of the reset, undoubtedly teamed up with unit mates, friends and former top class (not tier) players and scrambled out of the mire fast enough not to be traumatised. In the end, very little has changed apart from the belief that the tier system is golden - it's not, but does in the greater population times, mean there is a better chance of on skill drops based on the declined population.

Nothing will affect the drops until numbers significantly increase. That can only be done by investment of time and money back into MWO. Players themselves can make the experience of true new players better by being considerate and not driving folk away and retaining a potential income pool.

For now, accept MWO for what it is, but also what it can still be. Rose tinted glasses and a view on yester-year will not help you at all.

[The pessimistic optimist]

MummyPig, on 26 October 2020 - 09:39 AM, said:

OK. Matches are unbalanced.

Nothing really new there, just more obvious when you drop with teams of new(er) or purely casual players. I've been in some matches where there are three or four legendary founders; they play like they've just started the game, but were no doubt T1 players before the reset just as a result of sheer number of games played. Likewise, I see players clearly using a joystick to steer and apparently not understanding that taking armlock off allows you for far more capacity to get weapon locks and fire on target.

If you ignore the tiering system and the fact that your 750 to 1250 damage is completely overwritten by generally poor play, then you just have to accept you are not going anywhere fast in tier, so why not just go along for the ride, keep sucking up all the C-Bills you are earning and just enjoy yourself?

I came back weeks after the reset and quite frankly, my tier moving (or lack there of) isn't down to my play style, but the competence of the team I drop with. I move to T2 spend a few days there, end up playing with folk who wouldn't usually get out of T4 but somehow have done and back I slide to T3. Since getting back though, my C-Bill stream has been sufficient to set up 3 new drop decks of new mechs, outfit them, skill them and generally blow most things up with them. This is because of the poor balance of drops.

Those who started on the day of the reset, undoubtedly teamed up with unit mates, friends and former top class (not tier) players and scrambled out of the mire fast enough not to be traumatised. In the end, very little has changed apart from the belief that the tier system is golden - it's not, but does in the greater population times, mean there is a better chance of on skill drops based on the declined population.

Nothing will affect the drops until numbers significantly increase. That can only be done by investment of time and money back into MWO. Players themselves can make the experience of true new players better by being considerate and not driving folk away and retaining a potential income pool.

For now, accept MWO for what it is, but also what it can still be. Rose tinted glasses and a view on yester-year will not help you at all.

Indeed why I think the new player experience is important to fix

[CFC Conky]

SirSmokes, on 26 October 2020 - 09:54 AM, said:

Indeed why I think the new player experience is important to fix

By making them play FW?

[The pessimistic optimist]

CFC Conky, on 26 October 2020 - 12:07 PM, said:

By making them play FW?

Hey I was just spit balling and just trying to come up with ideas. I wanted to overhaul scouting and make them totally different but hey whatever maybe I was not the best idea. This is the difference between me and other people I know not every idea I have is great and I can admit that

[R0gal D0rn]

The solo queue must be back and soon if they want to preserve some population. There was far more teamplay when people had to adjust to the team they randomly had, than now. If the pro 4 man is in the other team, bad for you, even if you ´re a decent player, because they will focus you the first if you represent some menace. if they are in your team, not good for you, because 99 per cent of the time this guys are in his own discord doint their thing and not caring too much about the rest of their team. And if you have a bad group in team, is ever worse, because they will dorp the match in a silly tactic or chase a squirrel outside the map.

We need the solo queue being solo queue again-
An better soon than later.

[Solarise]

wow tier 5 rank its not easy to reach that tier XD

[martian]

Tirant Lo Blanc, on 26 October 2020 - 01:32 PM, said:

...

You described it accurately.

[CFC Conky]

Solarise, on 27 October 2020 - 04:25 AM, said:

wow tier 5 rank its not easy to reach that tier XD

And I STILL get to play against T1 players almost every match, lol.

Edited by CFC Conky, 27 October 2020 - 11:24 AM.

[Willard Phule]

Not one person mentioned that each team is allowed to have a 4 man premade group and that the premade groups do not count toward the whole 3/3/3/3 tonnage thing, nor do their collective PSR ratings get calculated in any way.

That means a 4 man group of T1 comp players will drop into a T1 match, a T2 match, a T3 match, etc. It was designed to work that way on purpose, it's not a glitch.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

There is no consistent information on the whole matchmaking process. Please stop to act like you have more than a wild guess about its parameters.

[Willard Phule]

Aidan Crenshaw, on 28 October 2020 - 04:28 AM, said:

There is no consistent information on the whole matchmaking process. Please stop to act like you have more than a wild guess about its parameters.

Not sure if reading the patch notes constitutes a "wild guess" or not, what with PGI's consistency to following what they publish, but the notes actually say that the MM is incapable of balancing sides by weight class using what a premade drops with as well as stating that it can't even use an average of the premade's tier levels for balance. Judging by what I experience in the new group queue every day, I'd have to say the notes are accurate. Whether by design or by it's brokenness, it's accurate.

Don't misunderstand, I don't see it as a problem. I know why they allowed groups into QP, it's the same reason it was set up so premade groups could farm the drooling solos. It's all good. FP is set up that way, too. No reason casual play shouldn't be set up the same.

[General Solo]

Aidan Crenshaw, on 28 October 2020 - 04:28 AM, said:

There is no consistent information on the whole matchmaking process. Please stop to act like you have more than a wild guess about its parameters.

The parametres vary wildly depending on how devs are feelingz.
One Tier spread , 5 tier spread who can tell its like the weather
But going from sleet to worse.

You and Horse white knight PGI in your subtle way, as for PGI MM parametres its crap u undastand.

Edit: Another thing demz paramater is NON FUNCTIONAL!

NOT WORKING!

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 28 October 2020 - 09:50 AM.

[GARION26]

Folks see above

GARION26, on 26 October 2020 - 09:04 AM, said:

The matchmaker isn't understood well by lots of players. It balances four factors according to prioritization set by the developers. Pick one of the four to be your (preferred) primary factor in running matchmaking

1. Balance group players on each side
2. Fill tonnage slots equally on each side
3. Balance PSRs on each side
4. Limit wait time to something less then X minutes ( the tighter you make the above criteria the longer X will be unless you create an escape valve above a certain time waiting where the above criteria gets tossed which MWO does and often defaults to.)


With a big enough player population you could balance all of these at once - but that's not where the game is

Would we rather have a matchmaker that puts a large group (or two small groups) on one side vs no groups on the other?
Or would we take that in exchange for having PSR or Tonnage slots always as equal as possible.
Or do we not care how long we wait for matches as long as everything above is balanced perfectly?

The matchmaker has to pick ONE to be the primary thing it looks to match, and then rank the others in descending order of importance for the algorithm to try and balance.

We may not all agree on what the primary factor should be - that's okay. But lets not pretend the system isn't working as they said it would (and how most players said they wanted it to work).

When groups were added to QP they told us they would match make based on balancing groups on each side primarily and everything else as a lesser concern. They also told us they'd do a one tier above and one tier below the initial matchmaking player preferentially after the PSR reset. The matchmaker initially was taking a long time to try and match that way

When wait times were too long (based on player feedback) after people started settling out of tier 3 after reset they changed how long the matchmaker waits before it 'opens the valves' to allow looser match making. Again that was based on player preferences - the long waits were not appreciated. If we are playing at a low population time you are going to have open valves quite often in our matchmaking.

Part of the vast differences in our experiences has to do with the typical size of the total player population we encounter based on our usual time of play compared to the rest of the player base, and the differences in game play at different tiers. The matchmaker works better if the populations are very large (if there are ten groups dropping and there are two for each tier I suspect the matchmaker will match PSR in the groups better then if there are two groups dropping one all tier 1's and one all Tier 5s) Same of course goes for the tonnage issues as well. What we see matchmaker do depends on the total population available to matchmake and we'll have very different experiences if one of us drops only at high population times and another of us in another part of the world drops in low population times.

Edited by GARION26, 29 October 2020 - 06:22 AM.

[Willard Phule]

Now, THAT is an interesting idea.

Set the MM up so that it ONLY puts premade groups on one team and ONLY solos on the other. That would be awesome and would fulfill the promise of sending solos to the premades to be harvested.

[GARION26]

Willard Phule, on 29 October 2020 - 10:44 AM, said:

Now, THAT is an interesting idea.

Set the MM up so that it ONLY puts premade groups on one team and ONLY solos on the other. That would be awesome and would fulfill the promise of sending solos to the premades to be harvested.

Exactly (and I understand you are speaking sarcasticly) - most people want the groups per side to be balanced as the primary concern.
If you do that then tonnage or PSR end up being lower in the matchmaking algorithm by definition and you have more mismatches on those measures then you do on the group vs non group criteria.

I'd still personally rather have PSR balancing as primary rather then groups, as I believe a 'good group' (all tier 1 in a longtime unit with their own VOIP server) effect on a game is very different then a 'bad group' (all tier 5). Balancing group vs group assumes all groups have the same effect on the game which is clearly not true a group of 4 Tier 4's or 5's on one side almost certainly pulls down the WLR for their team.

But I know most people want 'group vs non group' as primary because of the concerns you have articulated.

Edited by GARION26, 29 October 2020 - 12:20 PM.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

OZHomerOZ, on 28 October 2020 - 09:48 AM, said:

The parametres vary wildly depending on how devs are feelingz.
One Tier spread , 5 tier spread who can tell its like the weather
But going from sleet to worse.

You and Horse white knight PGI in your subtle way, as for PGI MM parametres its crap u undastand.

Edit: Another thing demz paramater is NON FUNCTIONAL!

NOT WORKING!

If I do whiteknighting, then it is only against the spread of misinformation. All I say is that we do not have the exact parameters of the matchmaker. Take this how ever you like (on not like, of course )

[Willard Phule]

GARION26, on 29 October 2020 - 11:06 AM, said:

Exactly (and I understand you are speaking sarcasticly) - most people want the groups per side to be balanced as the primary concern.
If you do that then tonnage or PSR end up being lower in the matchmaking algorithm by definition and you have more mismatches on those measures then you do on the group vs non group criteria.

I'd still personally rather have PSR balancing as primary rather then groups, as I believe a 'good group' (all tier 1 in a longtime unit with their own VOIP server) effect on a game is very different then a 'bad group' (all tier 5). Balancing group vs group assumes all groups have the same effect on the game which is clearly not true a group of 4 Tier 4's or 5's on one side almost certainly pulls down the WLR for their team.

But I know most people want 'group vs non group' as primary because of the concerns you have articulated.

No, I'm not being sarcastic. I'm serious. There is no place in MW:O for casual solos anymore. If you're not dropping in a premade group, then your entire point in being here is simply to be target practice for those elite, comp players in their premade groups. Is it fair? Of course not, but nothing ever is.

Besides, the sooner PGI drives everyone from MW:O with bad decisions, the sooner someone else can pick up the title. It may take another 10 years for some other developer to do so, but at least it'll be 10 years without Paul or Russ. And that's worth it.

[The pessimistic optimist]

Willard Phule, on 30 October 2020 - 03:28 AM, said:

No, I'm not being sarcastic. I'm serious. There is no place in MW:O for casual solos anymore. If you're not dropping in a premade group, then your entire point in being here is simply to be target practice for those elite, comp players in their premade groups. Is it fair? Of course not, but nothing ever is.

Besides, the sooner PGI drives everyone from MW:O with bad decisions, the sooner someone else can pick up the title. It may take another 10 years for some other developer to do so, but at least it'll be 10 years without Paul or Russ. And that's worth it.

Kind hard to make a match maker work when there is no one to get matched with. You are right a lot of games I do a lot of heavy lifting for the rest of the team that kind well to put it nicely not playing very well...

[martian]

Willard Phule, on 30 October 2020 - 03:28 AM, said:

Besides, the sooner PGI drives everyone from MW:O with bad decisions, the sooner someone else can pick up the title. It may take another 10 years for some other developer to do so, but at least it'll be 10 years without Paul or Russ. And that's worth it.

It has not been so long since Russ Bullock announced that PGI has got the licence renewal for the next five years.