113 replies to this topic

[Burktross]

martian, on 28 November 2020 - 09:26 AM, said:

Of course. Creating a group and fighting random collections of PUGs with some fresh Cadets thrown in the Quick Play queue is much safer and easier than droping in gamemodes specifically designed for groups.

Until PGI develops gamemodes and maps that are actually enjoyable to play, it doesn't matter how much "safer and easier" quick play is. I would rather put up with being stomped in quick play then the snorefest that is CW in any conditions. This game is enjoyable because people like casually shooting mechs with other mechs. That is the pitch to new players, that is the whole schtick of quick play, and that is what I'd argue reflects the failure of PGI to actually design fun gamemodes.

Anomalocaris, on 28 November 2020 - 07:35 AM, said:

Stomps are up since the merge as well (per PGI). And we've all seen the various screen shots and videos showing horribly mismatched teams from a mech/tonnage perspective. Skill > tonnage, but since we don't have a skill based matchmaker, that really doesn't mean much.

Because PGI handles four man drops poorly is not indicative that four man drops need to be excised outright. Impose harsher tonnage handicaps and weigh their PSR higher if you must. Hell, split groups across teams as long as I can still play with friends.

Removing the ability to quickly play with small groups of friends outright is not good under any pretenses; I can't think of a single other game that even acknowledges groups of friends joining casual matches together as a problem. There doesn't need to be such a ridiculous binary between solo-casual players and 12-man-comp groups. What happens to people in between?

Are groups just not entitled to casual play? If the answer is no, you make it exponentially harder to bring new people to the game. Nobody I know would stick with or even try this game if I told them, "Well, if you want to play with us you'll need to come straight into the boring 'competitive' gamemode or you'll just have to play by yourself." Small group casuals exist in games for a reason.

[Anomalocaris]

Burktross, on 28 November 2020 - 11:32 AM, said:

Because PGI handles four man drops poorly is not indicative that four man drops need to be excised outright. Impose harsher tonnage handicaps and weigh their PSR higher if you must. Hell, split groups across teams as long as I can still play with friends.

Removing the ability to quickly play with small groups of friends outright is not good under any pretenses; I can't think of a single other game that even acknowledges groups of friends joining casual matches together as a problem. There doesn't need to be such a ridiculous binary between solo-casual players and 12-man-comp groups. What happens to people in between?

Are groups just not entitled to casual play? If the answer is no, you make it exponentially harder to bring new people to the game. Nobody I know would stick with or even try this game if I told them, "Well, if you want to play with us you'll need to come straight into the boring 'competitive' gamemode or you'll just have to play by yourself." Small group casuals exist in games for a reason.

You've completely missed the point.

There was a quick drop group queue. You could drop in anything from a 2 man to a 12 man. You had the same tonnage restrictions as current groups do. And yet....

NONE OF YOU PLAYED IT ENOUGH TO MAINTAIN IT

Look, I understand the dislike of CW. I don't like it either. But at least you can drop as a group there. There is no place outside of Solaris where you can drop without groups now, and Solaris is all about picking the right mech, which eliminates most of your mech collection.

I'm fine (reluctantly) with 2 man groups in solo to introduce new players to the game with a friend. At least until such time as a group queue is reinstated. I'd want a lower tonnage limit to prevent a couple of potatoes in assaults (call it 150 tons), but other than that, go ahead. But forcing solos to drop with groups of 3-4 when PGI has already acknowledged the solos would never voluntarily drop with groups is just bleeding the long term player base.

You can put forward all the hypotheticals you want about how 4-man groups could work, but PGI has already proven with the current soup queue matchmaker, and the sub-par revision of the PSR system that they simply cannot properly account for the effects of a 4 man group in mixed play.

The facts remain that soup queue resulted in decreased match quality, and that after the spikes of interest in the new systems, player participation dropped substantially after people got a taste of the results. Contaminating the only remaining successful queue with the remnants of a failed queue is like mixing spoiled meat into your fresh stew. You simply ruin the whole pot.

[Burktross]

Anomalocaris, on 28 November 2020 - 02:43 PM, said:

But forcing solos to drop with groups of 3-4 when PGI has already acknowledged the solos would never voluntarily drop with groups is just bleeding the long term player base.

This argument goes both ways. In the exact same vein, small group players would never voluntarily drop against 12-man groups if they had the option to. Obviously nobody wants to do things that put them at a potential disadvantage, but concessions and compromises need to be made when you're designing a matchmaking system. This is the same reason why weight class distribution is not always balanced... beggars can't be choosers, and PGI's matchmaking system is certainly a beggar.

Anomalocaris, on 28 November 2020 - 02:43 PM, said:

You can put forward all the hypotheticals you want about how 4-man groups could work, but PGI has already proven with the current soup queue matchmaker...

Yeah, the current system is bad. Why are the hypothetical fixes be off the table of discussion? Are you arguing that PGI is physically incapable of making simple fixes, even if they did exist, as opposed to just bad at designing the fixes? Why is the first resort the most drastic one?

Edited by Burktross, 28 November 2020 - 03:10 PM.

[VonBruinwald]

Burktross, on 28 November 2020 - 03:09 PM, said:

This argument goes both ways. In the exact same vein, small group players would never voluntarily drop against 12-man groups if they had the option to. Obviously nobody wants to do things that put them at a potential disadvantage, but concessions and compromises need to be made when you're designing a matchmaking system.

So lets get this right:

• Pugs don't want to fight groups.
  
• Small groups don't want to fight large groups.
  
• Large groups.

We had two queues:

• One for pugs
  
• One for groups (small and larger)

The Group queue dried up. Now, apparently, there's lots of small groups who want to play as small groups. So why not limit group size in group queue to 4-players. It keeps the pugs and small groups split and keeps everyone happy.

The only ones who lose out in this situation are the large groups who didn't sustain group queue in the first place, but they can still FP if they want to go all 12-man.

Or am I missing something...

[Burktross]

VonBruinwald, on 28 November 2020 - 03:54 PM, said:

[snip]

You're suggesting adding back a separate group queue again? If the issue was that it didn't have enough people before, removing 12 mans isn't going to solve it, even if people would prefer not to fight 12 mans.

Edited by Burktross, 28 November 2020 - 04:09 PM.

[VonBruinwald]

Burktross, on 28 November 2020 - 04:06 PM, said:

You're suggesting adding back a separate group queue again? If the issue was that it didn't have enough people before, removing 12 mans isn't going to solve it, even if people would prefer not to fight 12 mans.

We could bring it back as 8v8.

If there aren't enough group players to support it should we really be sacrificing match quality of the majority of the player base to accommodate them?

[Burktross]

VonBruinwald, on 28 November 2020 - 04:32 PM, said:

If there aren't enough group players to support it should we really be sacrificing match quality of the majority of the player base to accommodate them?

Group queue taking a long while to matchmake is a function of having a dedicated group queue with relatively stringent matchmaking impositions. Consider the difficulty involved in making sure

• You have groups of appropriate size and number to fill a match without removing people from groups
  
• Groups satisfy tonnage/class balance for the match
  
• Groups satisfy skill rating for the match

It's a really annoying balancing act to pull off when you need to keep whole groups together and you can't pad with single people.


Even with playerbases orders of magnitudes larger than MWO this is an issue. See DOTA 2 which merged group/solo queues not too long ago. This is a 5 v 5 that tops steam charts, mind you. (And you thought 4/12 was bad!) https://steamcharts.com/app/570
Heroes of the Storm is another 5 v 5 game that does this, but it is not on Steam.

Group queue's matchmaking difficulty does not necessarily imply that an insignificant proportion of the game's pop is trying to play in group queues. It's just that regardless of the proportion group players represent, MWO's total population is lacking. If your game has 100 solos and 50 group players, those 50 group players are still going to have a hard time finding an appropriate match. The population is too small to support that sort of "matchmaking precision" required for a group only queue. It's a lot easier to match one group and then pad with solos than it is to match groups exclusively, for better or worse.

Edited by Burktross, 28 November 2020 - 06:28 PM.

[Anomalocaris]

Burktross, on 28 November 2020 - 03:09 PM, said:

Yeah, the current system is bad. Why are the hypothetical fixes be off the table of discussion? Are you arguing that PGI is physically incapable of making simple fixes, even if they did exist, as opposed to just bad at designing the fixes? Why is the first resort the most drastic one?

PGI has proven incapable and/or unwilling to fix matchmaking. In fact they've often done things that run counter to established game/statistics processes that would make for better matchmaking. So yeah, that's pretty much off the table. Thanks to the WuFlu lockdowns, we are at twice the number of players per day than we were at our lowest point in February (remember queues merged at end of April). We could have been higher, but the queue merge sucked out some population, and so did the PSR changes.

All we're asking for is a solo queue back. Solo players, the most populous part of the player base for years, are the ones that were forced to sacrifice/suffer in order to allow 4-mans to drop in the merge queue. Before the merge you still had FW and Group queue, but you didn't play them enough. The 8v8 group queue test was well received. Limit groups to 4 or less and let solos opt in. Most won't, but some will. If you're concerned about easier matchmaking, then limit group sizes to 2 or 4.

Burktross, on 28 November 2020 - 06:16 PM, said:

Group queue taking a long while to matchmake is a function of having a dedicated group queue with relatively stringent matchmaking impositions. Consider the difficulty involved in making sure

• You have groups of appropriate size and number to fill a match without removing people from groups
  
• Groups satisfy tonnage/class balance for the match
  
• Groups satisfy skill rating for the match

Incorrect, group queue has never balanced by player skill. Nor by tonnage. You simply need enough groups to make 12 players combined. So in reality the matchmaker is much simpler, especially if you restrict group sizes. Since everyone is ok with 4-mans now. Do that plus solo opt-in. Easiest matchmaker ever.

[VonBruinwald]

Burktross, on 28 November 2020 - 06:16 PM, said:

Group queue taking a long while to matchmake is a function of having a dedicated group queue with relatively stringent matchmaking impositions. Consider the difficulty involved in making sure

• You have groups of appropriate size and number to fill a match without removing people from groups
  
• Groups satisfy tonnage/class balance for the match
  
• Groups satisfy skill rating for the match

It's a really annoying balancing act to pull off when you need to keep whole groups together and you can't pad with single people.

• Limit group size to 2 or 4.
  
• Tighten group tonnage limit of 80-120t for 2 players, 160-240t for 4.
  
• Group skill rating is a problem now, you would think they would have solved it before merging queues.........

The first two make it much easier for the MM to place groups. The second pushes a near equal representation of all mechs, for every Atlas, a flea. The only mechs groups can double down on are in the 40-60t range.

Really we need the second done already.

[Monkey Lover]

VonBruinwald, on 29 November 2020 - 12:45 AM, said:

• Limit group size to 2 or 4.
  
• Tighten group tonnage limit of 80-120t for 2 players, 160-240t for 4.
  
• Group skill rating is a problem now, you would think they would have solved it before merging queues.........

The first two make it much easier for the MM to place groups. The second pushes a near equal representation of all mechs, for every Atlas, a flea. The only mechs groups can double down on are in the 40-60t range.


Really we need the second done already.

If you really want to hurt 4 man teams you bring back 1-1-1-1 rule. Changing it to 240tons just means they take 4 iv4 or 4 vapor eagles lol about the worse you can get.

[Black Caiman]

The ONLY thing thats nice about playing overpowered 4 man groups is when you beat them. I would argue thats the most satisfying thing in the game. When you either have a weak or average group on your team, but find a way to beat a super group thats such a great feeling. Doesnt always happen obviously, but when it does its a beautiful thing!

[LordNothing]

i think the line between group players and pugs is a lot more fuzzy than either side gives credit. my greatest enemy in the game is 'searching...'.

Edited by LordNothing, 29 November 2020 - 11:57 AM.

[K O Z A K]

LordNothing, on 29 November 2020 - 11:55 AM, said:

i think the line between group players and pugs is a lot more fuzzy than either side gives credit. my greatest enemy in the game is 'searching...'.

as far as I can tell "pugs" is some mythical creature that is at fault for all losses and quick deaths of everyone from the scrubbiest 2lrm, 2srm, 2mg, 2erll, 2sml, 1ac2 on one mech player to the most elite tier 0 top comp players

if there is one thing most people in this game agree on, is that pugs are terrible and everything is their fault (but miraculously nobody thinks they're a "pug")

[LordNothing]

Hazeclaw, on 29 November 2020 - 01:32 PM, said:

as far as I can tell "pugs" is some mythical creature that is at fault for all losses and quick deaths of everyone from the scrubbiest 2lrm, 2srm, 2mg, 2erll, 2sml, 1ac2 on one mech player to the most elite tier 0 top comp players

if there is one thing most people in this game agree on, is that pugs are terrible and everything is their fault (but miraculously nobody thinks they're a "pug")

i have no problem admitting to be a pug. but i sometimes also enjoy a higher level of team oriented play. sometimes. it usually takes me a couple bowls and a couple shots to get there though.

[Anomalocaris]

Hazeclaw, on 29 November 2020 - 01:32 PM, said:

as far as I can tell "pugs" is some mythical creature that is at fault for all losses and quick deaths of everyone from the scrubbiest 2lrm, 2srm, 2mg, 2erll, 2sml, 1ac2 on one mech player to the most elite tier 0 top comp players

if there is one thing most people in this game agree on, is that pugs are terrible and everything is their fault (but miraculously nobody thinks they're a "pug")

Ain't nothing wrong with pugs or compies. There is a place for all. The problem comes when you allow them to aggregate in groups of similar levels of greatness or crappitude. Then they break the matchmaker (even worse).

[LordNothing]

Anomalocaris, on 29 November 2020 - 03:20 PM, said:

Ain't nothing wrong with pugs or compies. There is a place for all. The problem comes when you allow them to aggregate in groups of similar levels of greatness or crappitude. Then they break the matchmaker (even worse).

a place for everyone might have been viable some years ago. but im not sure there is enough players anymore. im willing to make sacrifices for the longevity of the game. somone should do an audit of all the 'im gonna leave if you do x' whiners and see if they actually left.

Edited by LordNothing, 29 November 2020 - 03:26 PM.

[VonBruinwald]

Hazeclaw, on 29 November 2020 - 01:32 PM, said:

as far as I can tell "pugs" is some mythical creature that is at fault for all losses and quick deaths of everyone from the scrubbiest 2lrm, 2srm, 2mg, 2erll, 2sml, 1ac2 on one mech player to the most elite tier 0 top comp players

I find the groups to be far more mystical in nature. Apparently they exist in great numbers yet when there was a queue specifically for them, they were mysteriously absent. The two must be quantum entangled as the existence of one depends on the disexistence of the other.

[Anomalocaris]

LordNothing, on 29 November 2020 - 03:24 PM, said:

a place for everyone might have been viable some years ago. but im not sure there is enough players anymore. im willing to make sacrifices for the longevity of the game. somone should do an audit of all the 'im gonna leave if you do x' whiners and see if they actually left.

Pugs and compies are fine in the same matchmaker as long as you divide them equally. Yeah, the puggies don't learn as much if there's a lot of good players on both sides, but there is still balance.

As for the I'm leaving stuff, I said I would and I haven't played since April. Won't be back until they fix the queues. Just keep checking in because I really like the game in concept and general execution and would like to play if they are willing to fix stuff. That said, the EG7 announcement makes me think this recent surge of "we want to listen and improve" from PGI was just a ploy to boost company value.

[ReallyFrosty]

LordNothing, on 29 November 2020 - 03:24 PM, said:

a place for everyone might have been viable some years ago. but im not sure there is enough players anymore. im willing to make sacrifices for the longevity of the game. somone should do an audit of all the 'im gonna leave if you do x' whiners and see if they actually left.

I would actually leave if they took away or lowered the amount of people that could queue in a group. One of the big reasons I even play MWO is to play with my friends. I don't mind playing by myself sometimes but playing with my friends makes the experience 100% better imo. If they got rid of or nerfed how many people can queue in a group than that would be a huge hit to my morale to even play the game.

I have more than 4 friends as of right now that play this game. Sync dropping all the time to play with more than 4 of my friends is inefficient and obnoxious.

[DarkofFox]

I don't really think its fair to blame a loss on the enemy team having a 'organized' group of four. What really determines matches is team positioning as a whole, and to a lesser extent, skill and tonnage. If you have 12v12 solo players you would still have the same problems, and worse communication as I rarely hear people speak in comms, and even more rarely have I seen people react to information being put out.

To the same extent, throwing group players to CW, where the number of players is even smaller, and the gamemode as a whole is worse. Or Solaris, where the numbers drop exclusively to 2v2 and 1v1 for reasons? Competitive play also requires a roster of 8, which casual players that want to queue with their friends on a sporadic basis do not have. Quick play, should remain the way for casual players to play with their friends, and solo players to drop into matches. If you're expecting perfectly balanced gameplay, you should be looking towards playing ranked or solaris or anything else. Also suggesting custom games is just stupid. You are unable to progress in the form of c-bills/xp in custom games, and expecting a group of 5 to play 2v3's on 12v12 maps is ********.

tldr; game should not have added 2v2, and instead should've added 4v4, CW is almost unplayable for new players, and the queue times are long as hell. Ranked play requires a full 8, which is terrible, and reduces the # of people queuing by a massive amount. Ranked Queue should be a thing, but it would divide the dwindling number of players again. As a solution, PSR should actually be a thing, that considers factors involved in the match when adjusting rating, other than the fact that the sheer number of variables is insane. Just winning doesn't mean you're a good player, and losing doesn't mean you're a bad player.