78 replies to this topic

[Ihlrath]

1 assault on one team to 5 on the other... and this isn't uncommon it's nearly every match where the tonnage is completely skewed..... Why?

https://gyazo.com/03...fabc3158c0cf9c8

[Rosarius]

I count 3 assaults (DWF-B, FNR-5(S), and MAL-MX90(C) on opfor and 1 assault (MCII- on friendly

There are a few reasons why this happens. It happens when a group (or groups) refuses to use most or all of their allocated tonnage. It happens because nobody likes being a slow lumbering mech that is always left behind and the matchmaker just has to (poorly) make do with what is available.

Tonnage is not the be-all-and-end-all at any rate, as can be seen in your screenshot. The highest performing assault mech only did 213 damage, 14 out of 24 mechs in that match did more damage.

[justcallme A S H]

I would doubt it is 'nearly every match'. Plus your numbers are wrong as Rosarius pointed out.


Anyway the old 3/3/3/3 system which balanced based on chassis, not tonnage, you could have up-to a 195T disparity. No one complained about tonnage imbalance then because it wasn't "as obvious".

Total disparity in the screenshot 185T. Less than what could happen in the old system.

The real issue why you lost is it appears group on your side was LRMing, poorly. Doing a collective damage of 322dmg from 160T worth of mech. One of them 68 damage. I mean HPG and LRMing usually doesn't end well for those brining it.

I'd say the issue was more skill disparity than tonnage and that is the far more important factor that many don't see.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 16 May 2021 - 08:35 PM.

[martian]

Ihlrath, on 16 May 2021 - 08:18 PM, said:

1 assault on one team to 5 on the other... and this isn't uncommon it's nearly every match where the tonnage is completely skewed..... Why?

https://gyazo.com/03...fabc3158c0cf9c8

The victorious team had 3 Assault 'Mechs - DWF-B Dire Wolf, FNR-5 Fafnir, MAL-MX90 Mauler.

The defeated team had 1 Assault 'Mech - MCII-A Mad Cat Mk.II

And it happens because PGI has never cared too much about balancing the teams.

If you do not like it, use Twitter to let Russ Bullock know.

[Escef]

Don't know what to tell you on that. However, while tonnage is a factor, I will tell you that it isn't the deciding factor. Assaults are a weird bunch of mechs. Sure, they have more tonnage for armor, weapons, and cooling, but they generally pay for that by taking massive hits to speed and maneuverability, as well as generally being large targets with easily discernible hitboxes. (The exception being the more blimp/zeppelin shaped mechs, like the Stalker, Mad Cat Mk 2, Marauder II, and Marauder IIC.)

Being big and slow tends to draw a lot of fire. And if the enemy is cagey enough, they can hit and return to cover before the assault can properly bring its massive firepower to bear. I was in a match a few weeks ago where people complained about how we only had 1 or 2 assaults. Enemy team ended up having 4 or 5... We slaughtered them. We pinned them into an area where no matter what route they took to engage us, they would be forced to come more or less single-file, while we could have 3 or 4 guys dancing around the corners at each of two possible engagement areas just laying into them. Plus a few of our guys were dropping strikes and LRMs on them. It was a turkey shoot.

And that match would have turned out way different if those assaults had moved with any considerable aggression, if they had forced us to play to their strengths instead of ours.

On a smaller scale, I recall a match where I was in an ECM Griffin and was dueling a Dire Wolf in River City. We were dancing around a boulder in the small wooded area near the water. I was massively outgunned, and he probably had almost twice as much armor as I did. On top of that, I was running an Inner Sphere XL... I was able to keep circling and jump-sniping with my lasers and SRMs, denying him clean shots. I ended up tearing one of his side torsos off, and was working on the other when suddenly I got gangbeat. Turns out the other 11 guys on his team murdered the other 11 guys on my team, and then came for me. Did I kill that Dire? Nope. But I kept him out of the main battle, and if our teams had been more evenly matched I probably would have had time to finish him off before he got a lucky shot in (or before I got sloppy, because that happens when I "smell blood").

Long story short? Uneven tonnage can be an issue, but as often as not it can be mitigated by playing to your teams strengths and a little cooperative play.

[Ihlrath]

I guess I was off on the numbers but it's not odd to see a pretty heavy tonnage disparity. I was curious as to why it seemed to be happening more often now than before.

[Escef]

Rosarius, on 16 May 2021 - 08:33 PM, said:

Tonnage is not the be-all-and-end-all at any rate, as can be seen in your screenshot. The highest performing assault mech only did 213 damage, 14 out of 24 mechs in that match did more damage.

Looking more closely, the 3 assaults on the winning team did a combined total of 481 damage. That total is exceeded by the Marauder 9M(S) on their team, who pulled 575. It was exceeded by their Kintaro 18(C) with 516. And the highest damage dealer in the match was their Viper, a freakin' Viper, at 596.

If I had to guess what happened, the opfor's assaults (and their Timber Wolf) got spotted relatively early and were pinned down by blue team's fire. They probably couldn't make a move without getting hammered. They got eaten by a combination of mid to long range missile fire and from support mechs and aggressive lights coming at them. Red team's P-Hawk probably moved in to help them and suffered the same fate (or possibly tried to scout a different attack angle and got caught alone and eaten). While Red Team's big elements were pinned down and getting destroyed, their remaining heavy and medium mechs took advantage of Blue Team getting tunnel vision and just cut through them like a scythe.

The decent damage numbers on most of Blue Team's mechs combined with the poor performance of Red Team's assaults is what gives most of this away. In fact, if you look at the damage numbers, Blue Team's 2 big mistakes were getting tunnel vision on the assaults and not properly combining fire on the remaining targets. A little more cooperation on Blue Team's part and this match could have looked very different.

[Gagis]

Ihlrath, on 16 May 2021 - 08:54 PM, said:

I guess I was off on the numbers but it's not odd to see a pretty heavy tonnage disparity. I was curious as to why it seemed to be happening more often now than before.

The current matchmaker does not pay attention to tonnage when assembling teams so it can vary a great deal. Only place where it matters is that the group in a team has an upper and lower limit on what amount of weight they have available. If I understood correctly, this was changed when group queue and solo queue were merged using the old group queue matchmaking code.

Edited by Gagis, 16 May 2021 - 09:34 PM.

[KodiakGW]

TL:DR - Yes OP, the greater potential for tonnage disparity is the new normal, and it isn't going to change. So, you know what you need to do.

Right now, a two man group can both take 100 ton mechs. So I guess they changed from the 3/3/3/3 model (with release valves when needed) to the 0/0/0/12 model? Or maybe it is 0/0/12/0, since there is a recent video of a four man group making full use of max 280 tons to run four Warhammers. The current group tonnage limits are being heavily defended, instead of accepting arguments on adjusting them so there is a better chance of no major weight disparity. Defended with logic that it is more likely that pilot skill is the better influence on a match. Completely dismissing that if pilot skills are equal on each side, that tonnage disparity would be a deciding factor in the outcome. Simple math would determine that to maintain close to 3/3/3/3, each member of a group would only have 50-65 tons available to use (math below).

It is also being argued that before Soup Queue it was quite normal to see one team consisting of 3x 20 tonners, 3x 40 tonners, 3x 60 tonners, and 3x 80 tonners for a total of 600 tons. Meanwhile the other team was consisting of 3x 35 tonners, 3x 55 tonners, 3x 75 tonners, and 3x 100 tonners, for a total of 795 tons. Giving the tonnage disparity of 195 tons. Yep....quite normal. Love to see "antidotal" evidence of that.

Math:
795 tons (max 3/3/3/3 tonnage)/12 players = 66.25
600 tons (min 3/3/3/3 tonnage)/12 players = 50
Current:
200 tons/ 2 players = 100
255 tons/ 3 players = 85
280 tons/ 4 players = 70

[Vlad Ward]

Honestly, I still chafe at the idea that "moar tonnes = moar better."

If tonnage is really that OP in the current meta, everyone ought to just run Blood Asps and Sleipnirs and call it a day.

I'd rather see threads about buffing Lights and underperforming Mediums than more nonsense about limiting who's allowed to be on the red team.

[Zordicron]

I saw a lot of this today in the last few hours. I don't usually play during off peak times though.
I also saw an extraordinary amount of lurm boats. Pretty much all of them at least 75 tons, I would say most 85+.

What happens then, is you have one team that knows how to use the mech's legs, and one that doesn't. With the weapon changes they put in place now, the team that moves, wins. People can go on about proper firing lines and whatnot, but watching teams get flanked by an enemy team that actually split into three groups and still won by 4 mechs or more, nope sorry, you move or you lose. Every time that happened today(yes! more then once!) the team that split up got free roam of the map, while the campers sat behind their safe rock and waited to get shot at from two different angles, or shoo'd out of their cover into the only direction possible, which by luck of the draw would be in front of 2 or 3 other enemy mechs.

No amount of coaxing will allow campers to grow a pair.

Campers gonna camp, and they will get eaten. 12 camping Atlas mechs would get eaten by a dozen laser toting Vipers. Every day. Even a half coordinated movement by one team is enough to over run a bunch of campers, and once that disparity in team numbers hits, it is a hard slog for the "carry" team members to overcome.

IMO, 8v8 would help this disparity some, and the map congestion, and NASCAR, and a slug of things. But thats another debate

[MW Waldorf Statler]

in the multiplayers of mW4 in tthe eh Random Drops ,all the Kids drives Assault and one Team wins and the lost ,and most wins teh Team with Guys thats not only plays for his own KD Status and against here own Team

Edited by MW Waldorf Statler, 17 May 2021 - 10:34 AM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Vlad Ward, on 17 May 2021 - 08:48 AM, said:

Honestly, I still chafe at the idea that "moar tonnes = moar better."

Essentially, yeah. If that team with 3 assaults was doing one of those "we don't care who we leave behind, just NASCAR HARD!!!!" maneuvers, then those assault mechs could very well be picked apart by piranhas and fleas and contribute almost nothing.

Tonnage isn't everything unless its exactly where it needs to be on the field.

[Ihlrath]

Tonnage does come into play though, no matter what way you slice it. Especially in rando drops. I tend to run heavies/mediums because I like the added mobility and decent firepower you can strap onto them, and I comfortably swing above my weight class at assaults. But eventually everyone gets worn down and slug fests can come down to pure armor/firepower. It's not to say weight always wins, because clearly that's not the case but it does help.

And I recently returned and noticed this trend, which had me curious. I had no idea they changed the drop code.

[justcallme A S H]

Ihlrath, on 17 May 2021 - 01:24 PM, said:

I had no idea they changed the drop code.

As I pointed out - while the code for the MM has changed...

Tonnage disparity was a thing prior - it was just less obvious so people didn't realise it.


The issue is skill gap and the fact the MM does not balance the lobbies. It is not tonnage.

[Gas Guzzler]

Its also worth noting that the 3 assaults on the winning team did a combined total of 481 damage, which shows they clearly were not the deciding factor of the match.

[Davegt27]

Gas Guzzler, on 17 May 2021 - 02:41 PM, said:

Its also worth noting that the 3 assaults on the winning team did a combined total of 481 damage, which shows they clearly were not the deciding factor of the match.

are you saying that PGI knew before hand that those assaults would not be a big factor ???

[1453 R]

Man.

Good to see that the MWO playerbase is still blaming absolutely everything but its own shoddy skill for losses. I quit for a little over three years, come back for a little bit, and everybody's still posting scathing, nasty-minded complaints blaming all the same old **** for their bad games. Matchmaking, groups, Clans/Sphere, map design, the color yellow...whatever they can think of that isn't PEBKAC.

Hint, folks: the one common element in every single game you've ever lost is you. You may not be the reason your team lost every time it happened...but you're the only part of the experience you can improve. Shrug off your losses as an inevitability of the game, ask yourself "Could I have done better that game?" and if the answer is "No" then you did your best and there's no reason to blame the game. If the answer is "Yes", then you've got a new goal to work on - Doing Better. Gitting Gudder. Sucking Less.

Take it from a T5 slumlord who's absolutely terrible, knows they're absolutely terrible, and accepts that their losses are as much their own dang fault as anything Piranha's done. I'm down here in the pits of Derplandia for a reason. You're where you're at for a reason, too. That reason is sitting there getting offended at what it's reading right now.

You don't even have to Git Gudder. You just have to stop taking losses so hard. Let them go, like snow off a Disney princess, and move on to the next game. You'll be happier for it, I guarantee it.

[Speedy Plysitkos]

ScrapIron Prime, on 17 May 2021 - 11:01 AM, said:

Essentially, yeah. If that team with 3 assaults was doing one of those "we don't care who we leave behind, just NASCAR HARD!!!!" maneuvers, then those assault mechs could very well be picked apart by piranhas and fleas and contribute almost nothing.

Tonnage isn't everything unless its exactly where it needs to be on the field.

ye. This is it.
Own expirience.

[Gas Guzzler]

Davegt27, on 17 May 2021 - 02:48 PM, said:

are you saying that PGI knew before hand that those assaults would not be a big factor ???

I don't think the matchmaker takes that into account, if that's what you are asking. But coming on here and posting a loss screen shot and then trying to say that the assault imbalance is a huge problem when it clearly wasn't in this case is pointless.