212 replies to this topic

[Vlad Ward]

Khobai, on 04 June 2021 - 09:21 AM, said:

its not really my opinion though. its a fact that groups have a terrible track record in MWO. every gamemode thats had groups in it has failed miserably. the current state of those gamemodes speaks for itself.

This is a pretty shallow analysis. The MWO community has had a vocal problem with 'group players' for years. It's pretty toxic, all things considered. PGI, sadly, incorporated that feedback into their design and made the game as a whole pretty unwelcoming for people who want to play with friends. Groups don't kill modes. Modes kill groups.

Khobai, on 04 June 2021 - 09:21 AM, said:

the fact you want to continue to support groups despite their Solo players make up the vast majority of players in MWO, at least 90%. Groups are the minority.

Data: Where? Your average player is going to drop both solo and with friends. Pretending everyone has to be in one camp or the other is silly. That's just not reality.

Khobai, on 04 June 2021 - 09:21 AM, said:

Why do you want to keep the minority happy at the expense of the majority? That is decidedly not utilitarian and you just claimed to be a utilitarian. Utilitarianism seeks to keep the majority happy at the expense of the minority because thats for the greatest good.

No. Utilitarianism works towards the greatest good for the greatest number of people. There are two quantities involved here: Amount of Good and Amount of People. Doing a lot of harm to a minority to provide a little good to the majority is not a net increase in Good.

Edit to add: And in other, healthy, successful online games, people who only ever drop by themselves are the minority. Gamers who play together are far more likely to stay with a game in the long term. Why else do you think Social Integration is such a huge focus in AAA games?

Edited by Vlad Ward, 04 June 2021 - 10:45 AM.

[Curccu]

Scout Derek, on 04 June 2021 - 06:43 AM, said:

how would FP even have a MM; it's designed to put premades vs premades together, it literally says it in the popup when you first decide to click on it. Unless you think everything should cater to anyone like it's some kind of elder scrolls game where you run around and become the guild leader of every faction in the game.

Yes it's designed that way, it could be designed other ways, like many things PGI did.
But what would stop including matchmaker that would pick closer matched opponents when multiple groups are in queue? Closer and more challenging match = more fun IMO, not even sure who wouldn't agree on this one.
not sure how you compare it to some elder scroll ****.

Khobai, on 04 June 2021 - 07:08 AM, said:

group queue and faction play both died because they didnt have good matchmakers. thats the whole reason why people stopped playing them. because people can only get rolled so many times before enough is enough and they quit.

Yes like I wrote, unlike you wrote earlier. Groups are not issue bad or no matchmaker is and dwindling population didn't help, earlier you got stomped by 1 good group but never see them again that evening, with just few players you play against same people again and again.

[tangles 253]

I very much disagree with the op. I like 12v12, I don't want to go back to 8v8

[Khobai]

Vlad Ward, on 04 June 2021 - 10:27 AM, said:

No. Utilitarianism works towards the greatest good for the greatest number of people. There are two quantities involved here: Amount of Good and Amount of People. Doing a lot of harm to a minority to provide a little good to the majority is not a net increase in Good.

again solo players make up 90%+ the players, hence the greatest number of players by a resounding majority.

making the game better for the 90% by getting groups out of solo queue is absolutely a net increase goodness.

your views are not utilitarian at all. you want to keep groups for your own selfish reasons. it could not be more obvious.

groups have destroyed every gamemode theyve ever been in. the truly utilitarian thing to do would be to isolate groups from every gamemode possible before they cause anymore damage. They need to give groups their own separate queue again and when that fails let darwinism prevail and let group play just die out naturally. Thats what they shouldve done when group queue failed the first time.

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I very much disagree with the op. I like 12v12, I don't want to go back to 8v8

even so his idea wasnt to force you to play 12v12. it was to give you a choice which to play.

the people who want to continue forcing groups in solo queue are the ones that want to take your right to choose away entirely.

choice is good. being forced into something you dont want is bad. its really that simple.

Edited by Khobai, 04 June 2021 - 05:52 PM.

[Dogstar]

I'm fairly sure that the reason we have '90% solo players' (assuming that's even an actual fact) is becasue the game has been against playing with your friends since the beginning. In game design you don't get what you design for, you get what falls out of the design, and for the vast majority of time MWO has been around that's pretty clearly been a choice between playing solo or getting stomped as a group again and again.

The only time I've actually played with a friend and had fun is with the current soup queue. Going back to the split queues will be a disaster.

[Tarl Cabot]

Bud Crue, on 04 June 2021 - 08:20 AM, said:

Apropos, does anyone have the date of when the separate Group Queue (separate from the solo queue) was first instituted?

Preface - no in-game VOIP until 1st quarter 2015.....a few months AFTER Community Warfare went live December 2014.

October 2012 - NORMAL queue 8 vs 8 announcement going live Dec 2012 (no solo/group queue separation yet)
https://mwomercs.com...79-matchmaking/

August 2013 - 12 vs 12 matches goes live - https://mwomercs.com...gust-6th-12v12-

https://mwomercs.com...ugust-6th-live/

Quote

12v12 gameplay is now in.
The 8-man queue is now replaced by a 12-man queue.
Players can launch in groups of 1,2,3,4,12. Numbers between 4-12 will be addressed when we get tonnage limits into the game

June 2013 VBlog

https://mwomercs.com...irector-update/

November 2013 - 3rd person disabled for 12-man teams (prelude to CW setup) - https://mwomercs.com...-day-sept-17th/

Feb 2014 https://mwomercs.com...93-feb-27-2014/

April 2014 - We have in our backburner an idea for the Group Only queue. This system will allow groups of any size match against each other. It would probably replace the current 12-man public queue. - https://mwomercs.com...and-team-sizes/

June 23 2014 Command Chair prior to July 2014 patch - https://mwomercs.com...sizes-and-more/

July 2014 patch is where the 12-man queue was born... but of course there were severe issues where they were still dropping into the non-12man queue and the smaller groups were dropping in the 12man queue. Got tired of looking for more info.

06-17-2014 Clans went live /pre-order release
12-11-2014 Community Warfare went live
02-17-2015 Initial in-game VOIP release....

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 05 June 2021 - 02:45 PM.

[MrTBSC]

if people want it so bad, then put it into compmode, let QP stay 12v12 ...

the fewer the players the more impact/pressure is on the individual player

certain mechs/roles will have a harder time in 8v8 than in 12v12 ..
you may have to readjust maps/mapspawns for 8v8 compared to 12v12 .. ... i mean ...

Khobai, on 04 June 2021 - 05:37 PM, said:

choice is good. being forced into something you dont want is bad. its really that simple.

and yet you want the ability for friends to play in tiny 2 man groups to be removed from casual play .. taking away an option ..

Edited by MrTBSC, 06 June 2021 - 08:46 AM.

[MrTBSC]

Leone, on 02 June 2021 - 03:02 PM, said:

You aren't. We've had Solaris 7 for a while now. If you wanna duel, we've a queue for that. (Well, seven queues actually,) but I hate to break it to you, but if you drop in quickplay you will end up facing twelve mechs all on the same team. In the same 'group' as it were. They've comms, they share radar, they can and will work together.

~Leone.

i would gladly go play solaris 7 if the queue gets reworked, and i can play more rounds than just one against one player or 2 man team ...

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Khobai, on 04 June 2021 - 03:41 AM, said:

And I believe having two separate queues makes far more sense.

Have a solo only queue that doesnt "share the pain" and have combined group/solo queue. With all the same rules imposed on groups that currently exist.

And increase the rewards for the combined group/solo queue so solos are incentivized (but not forced) to join it.

Why is this approach superior? Because youre not taking agency away from players by forcing them to play against groups if they dont want to. And youre rewarding solo players extra if they do opt to play against groups.



No. everyone loses with your approach. your approach is communism. you want everyone to suffer for the good of the state. "share the pain" lmao. gtfo of here with that.

where having two separate queues is like having one queue for capitalism and one queue for communism but people at least get a choice between the two. furthermore by increasing the rewards in the combined queue it would help make the "shared pain" of the combined group/solo queue a bit easier to swallow for those solo players who do opt to play in it.

two separate queues is unquestionably better with regard to player agency and giving players the choice whether they want to play against groups or not. You are not forcing people to play against groups and thats righteous and good.

Forcing solo players to play against groups is ****ty and evil. It should never have even been considered. PGI was just somewhere between desperation and not caring thats why they agreed to it. Shame on them.

Furthermore with regard to a combined group/solo queue. The laws of darwinism should apply. If it fails then it should go extinct along with groups. Groups should not be artificially kept alive on life support at the expense of solo queue. Again forcing solo players to play against groups is ****ty. Dont do it.

why you play as Soloplayer a Multiplayer Game ?you with Gods help as Lonesome Hero aganist waves of communistic Group Players ...its give no soloplayer and Group palyer Queues....11 players aganist you TEAM ,Not you ALONE ,as a More or less GROUP its the simple True ,or you have paranormal Senses to seeing which of the Players fight with others in a "Group" ? alls with Tags ,or with the Same Tag ,or all with Experience ?

Quote

[color=#959595]again solo players make up 90%+ the players, hence the greatest number of players by a resounding majority.[/color]

a, and the 10% of the High Score Players all Group Players2 Metaplayers in the same Team for you a Group ?and why by 10% the Group a Problem ...10 vs 90 ist very harsh...Group Players most only a Strewmen Method to see not the own Fails and will to learn and play flexible

no Darwinist force you to play a Multiplayer Games with Groups-play mW5 and you have god to your Side

Quote

[color=#959595]certain mechs/roles will have a harder time in 8v8 than in 12v12 ..[/color]
[color=#959595]you may have to readjust maps/mapspawns for 8v8 compared to 12v12 .. ... i mean ...[/color]

yes , and one DLC ,One Trollbuild ,each Kid thats first try a PC game is a Disaster for your Team

for 2 Man Groups solaris the better mode to make it for it

Edited by MW Waldorf Statler, 07 June 2021 - 02:38 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Khobai, on 04 June 2021 - 07:08 AM, said:

group queue and faction play both died because they didnt have good matchmakers. thats the whole reason why people stopped playing them. because people can only get rolled so many times before enough is enough and they quit.

Tarl Cabot, on 05 June 2021 - 02:22 PM, said:

...
02-17-2015 Initial in-game VOIP release....

Okay, so we had group queue for around 5 years. So the logic here is that it took players 5 years to realize GQ was not good because it lacked a "good matchmaker"? I think not. Rather, I think people were mostly enjoying GQ for 5 years, and then when Russ announced that MWO would be placed into maintenance mode, the overall interest in the game with a lot of folks, died. Prior to that, the overall game population was also dwindling, so it should be no surprise that a mode whose MM has to build teams based on a variety of possible group sizes was hit harder than the solo queue mode, whose MM is not likewise restricted.

Imho, there was no sudden realization after 5 years that the MM in GQ was not good that killed GQ, it was the combination of the overall dwindling population, which then plummeted after Russ's announcement that the game would be on minimal life support going forward that killed it.

[Gagis]

Bud Crue, on 07 June 2021 - 03:42 AM, said:

Okay, so we had group queue for around 5 years. So the logic here is that it took players 5 years to realize GQ was not good because it lacked a "good matchmaker"? I think not. Rather, I think people were mostly enjoying GQ for 5 years, and then when Russ announced that MWO would be placed into maintenance mode, the overall interest in the game with a lot of folks, died

GQ was largely dead already by then. American prime time GQ was fairly freshly dead by then, european prime time GQ had been dead for at least a few years already and AU prime time GQ had been dead since times immemorial. GQ off prime times was never alive in the first place.

Even at its peak MWO barely had enough population to sustain less than 30 minute wait times in group queue on peak prime time. The dwindling population killed the queue due to matchmaker failures and extreme wait times very early. FW lived much longer before it died too.

[Bud Crue]

Gagis, on 07 June 2021 - 04:32 AM, said:

GQ was largely dead already by then. American prime time GQ was fairly freshly dead by then, european prime time GQ had been dead for at least a few years already and AU prime time GQ had been dead since times immemorial. GQ off prime times was never alive in the first place.

Even at its peak MWO barely had enough population to sustain less than 30 minute wait times in group queue on peak prime time. The dwindling population killed the queue due to matchmaker failures and extreme wait times very early. FW lived much longer before it died too.

Yes, even then, when the queue was alive and kicking, there were many saying the queue was dead, but me and mine dropped nearly every night (admittedly during NA prime time) as a 3-12+ man (larger groups on weekend) for years, and we were only getting the more than 10 minute wait times that last several months the queue was live. I agree that the population loss was the main cause of the queue dying, but disagree that the lack of MM had much if anything to do with it. It was a queue for groups. If people were surprised/disappointed to find that they would run into other groups and get rolled by the better ones, then those folks certainly didn't play it for years and then suddenly decided that the MM was a problem. They played it a couple of times and rarely played it again, and yet the largely dead queue was live for 5 years. I just don't buy that the MM killed the queue.

[Kroete]

Why so many groups are now there?
Why were the groupqueue mostly empty?
What changed?

The small groups and casual groups are not at the bottom of the foodchain anymore,
they got seals to club and get farmed less.

Edited by Kroete, 07 June 2021 - 05:36 AM.

[Gagis]

Bud Crue, on 07 June 2021 - 05:31 AM, said:

I just don't buy that the MM killed the queue.

Main problem with the MM was not who it matched you against, it was how inconsistent and opaque it was.

There was no indication others are in queue, and no guarantee your group will ever be matched. If everyone else is dropping in 4-man groups there could be any number of 4+4+4 vs 4+4+4 matches launching while your group of 5 never gets to play and has no info on why that is. One group might have 5 minute wait times while the next group has to wait 30 minutes while starting at the rotating circle.

solo players filling in the gaps would have meant the group of 5 could have been slotted into the queue in a 4+5+1+1+1 vs 4+4+4 kind of way.

Edited by Gagis, 07 June 2021 - 05:52 AM.

[martian]

Gagis, on 07 June 2021 - 05:51 AM, said:

Main problem with the MM was not who it matched you against, it was how inconsistent and opaque it was.

Pretty much. There was no point in waiting if you did not know if you will wait a few minutes or a half an hour. After a while many friends just said: "So long! I will rather drop in the Solo Queue than wait ... and wait ... and wait.

[Vlad Ward]

Which leads us right back to "The current mixed queue is actually the ideal and if we want to make improvements to solo vs group balance we should just do that instead of splitting it again"

[martian]

Vlad Ward, on 07 June 2021 - 09:39 AM, said:

Which leads us right back to "The current mixed queue is actually the ideal and if we want to make improvements to solo vs group balance we should just do that instead of splitting it again"

Maybe you forgot that this "mixed queue" existed years ago and it sucked so much that PGI had to split it in two: Solo Queue and Group Queue.

[Vlad Ward]

martian, on 07 June 2021 - 09:51 AM, said:

Maybe you forgot that this "mixed queue" existed years ago and it sucked so much that PGI had to split it in two: Solo Queue and Group Queue.

OG mixed queue had no rules and PGi didn't "have" to do anything. They chose the fastest/easiest way to reduce the number of people complaining on Twitter.

My point was that we're well agreed that Group Queue had a lot of significant downsides and most people's preferred solution is literally "Split into Solo Queue and Soup Queue with an Opt-In so people can shut the eff up about it already" - which isn't so much a solution as it is an escape route.

The solution is giving solo players the tools they need to compete with grouped players on equal footing - which they objectively do not have right now.

[martian]

Vlad Ward, on 07 June 2021 - 10:00 AM, said:

OG mixed queue had no rules and PGi didn't "have" to do anything. They chose the fastest/easiest way to reduce the number of people complaining on Twitter.

My point was that we're well agreed that Group Queue had a lot of significant downsides and most people's preferred solution is literally "Split into Solo Queue and Soup Queue with an Opt-In so people can shut the eff up about it already" - which isn't so much a solution as it is an escape route.

The solution is giving solo players the tools they need to compete with grouped players on equal footing - which they objectively do not have right now.

As long as one team has a Tier 1 premade group consisting of four elite players in fully skilled meta-Mechs with pre-arranged tactics and comms, and the other team is just a random collection of non-communicating players, often in useless 'Mechs ... you can devise any tools that you wish.

[Vlad Ward]

martian, on 07 June 2021 - 10:04 AM, said:

As long as one team has a Tier 1 premade group consisting of four elite players in fully skilled meta-Mechs with pre-arranged tactics and comms, and the other team is just a random collection of non-communicating players, often in useless 'Mechs ... you can devise any tools that you wish.

You can not solve for "These 4 players with 5000 PSR are actually a million times stronger than these 4 other players with 5000 PSR" in this conversation.

That's an entirely different problem.

You can solve for "This team has totally random 'Mechs" by adding the Select 'Mech function to the already-existent pre-game lobby.

Edited by Vlad Ward, 07 June 2021 - 10:09 AM.