145 replies to this topic

[Mochyn Pupur]

WolfOfLight, on 02 June 2022 - 03:11 PM, said:

honestly my only issue is we cant have 12man lances anymore, really scaled the game down :/

Its called Community Warfare . . . .

[Cherge]

All we can do is speculate, but I imagine some or most or all of the problem is due to the low pop


either way, my boycott is really because of PSR. Because I don't feel like dealing with it

[Astrotheon]

Just to float a bad idea - I'm guessing they're putting adenaline fueled hyper tier monsters into all games because they don't have the mass of players to try to keep it balanced in terms allowing noobs and generally awful players to play together and all fire at the sky in tier 5, whilst hyper adreno-jacked AI boosted cheeto promoted ace pilots duel it out in a ballet of stompy robot violence in Tiers 1 & 2.

If this is the case, how about you just adjust rankings by how you fare against people in your own tier (of +1/-1) or some flavour of that? That way numpties like me would be judged how we fared against our competitors only, in who managed to remember to set weapon groups or remember which mech they are in gets the edge, and the hyper awesome cool dudes at tier 1/2 have to compete amongst themselves even if groups are merged.
This wont stop the mad tier 1/2 guys wiping the floor with everyone, using their unholy magic, like using comms and tactics and other mystic stuff, so I'm not saying this is the best solution, but it might work at least in terms of not punishing people who are new or who havn't played this as a religion for 8 years etc.

[Magnus Santini]

Astrotheon, on 03 June 2022 - 09:44 AM, said:

If this is the case, how about you just adjust rankings by how you fare against people in your own tier (of +1/-1) or some flavour of that? That way numpties like me would be judged how we fared against our competitors only, in who managed to remember to set weapon groups or remember which mech they are in gets the edge, . . .

Agree. This is important to prevent the rank distortions we are getting from all tiers fighting now. Which will make it hard to solve this later when all that is left is T1 and T5. Also I suspect there is very little that succeeds in T1 tactically that cannot succeed in T5, except there it is executed rarely, badly, without coordination, or at the wrong time. T5 people should try all the tactics they hear about T1s using, and learn from the attempts.

Edited by Magnus Santini, 03 June 2022 - 10:09 AM.

[Astrotheon]

Magnus Santini, on 03 June 2022 - 10:04 AM, said:

Agree. This is important to prevent the rank distortions we are getting from all tiers fighting now. Which will make it hard to solve this later when all that is left is T1 and T5. Also I suspect there is very little that succeeds in T1 tactically that cannot succeed in T5, except there it is executed rarely, badly, without coordination, or at the wrong time. T5 people should try all the tactics they hear about T1s using, and learn from the attempts.

Just speaking as a dirty T5 casual - I have no idea what T1 guys do, tactically or otherwise - I assume they role with their own crew and talk to each other and know each map inside out, including where you expect other people to appear and when.
In contrast for a Tier 5 guy, we're more like, I have an hour spare from the GF so let's dive in, or I'm half a bottle of whiskey down and feeling good, I reckon I can do this, when did I get 2 monitors, ahh who cares, hit play! Or Noobs having fun and getting wasted and getting frustrated, or people like me who are a mix of all the above

T5 have zero idea of T1 - sure we might watch YT vids of the likes of Baradul but that gives us ideas of builds, not how to not suck necessarily nor how to have a good group around us so none of us suck on videos

[Kanil]

Astrotheon, on 03 June 2022 - 10:16 AM, said:

I assume they role with their own crew and talk to each other and know each map inside out, including where you expect other people to appear and when.

Some of them do. Most of them don't. Keep in mind there's a wide range of T1 players, so yes you will occasionally run into the hyper competitive world champions, but you also find folks who are just doing particularly well with their LRM build lately, and most of T1s are somewhere in between.

I don't think there's any one special thing that makes a tier 1 player tier 1, and I don't think there's any particular tier 5 behaviors that are unheard of in tier 1, just less of them. There's fewer people who massively struggle to hit light 'mechs, but it still happens. There's fewer folks who are utterly oblivious to the fact that they're being shot, but you can still sometimes just flank a guy who doesn't get it. There's fewer wtf??? builds out there, but you definitely still see them.

As for matchmaking, I don't think the current situation is due to population. The patch came, they added a new queue, and suddenly there's an influx of people who are extremely obviously tier 5 in my matches. It's not like the playerbase suddenly vanished in a week, we've still got more players than we had two years ago. Something broke, PGI will hopefully fix it soon, and cadets in T1 matches will go back to being an exception rather than the rule.

[crazytimes]

Astrotheon, on 03 June 2022 - 10:16 AM, said:

Just speaking as a dirty T5 casual - I have no idea what T1 guys do, tactically or otherwise - I assume they role with their own crew and talk to each other and know each map inside out, including where you expect other people to appear and when.
In contrast for a Tier 5 guy, we're more like, I have an hour spare from the GF so let's dive in, or I'm half a bottle of whiskey down and feeling good, I reckon I can do this, when did I get 2 monitors, ahh who cares, hit play! Or Noobs having fun and getting wasted and getting frustrated, or people like me who are a mix of all the above

T5 have zero idea of T1 - sure we might watch YT vids of the likes of Baradul but that gives us ideas of builds, not how to not suck necessarily nor how to have a good group around us so none of us suck on videos

Now that we're all mixed again, it's easier to see some of the differences.

The lower tiers will tend to have more mixed builds which detracts from their damage output and heat management. A lot of the rest of it comes down to lack of durability due to positioning and responding to fire. The better players will torso twist to spread damage, whilst getting back to cover. Lower tier will face stare while waiting for weapon cooldown and stray too far from cover.

Yes, there are groups that work together, but outside of prime times they aren't that common. Many of the T1s are just like me- mostly solo, only slightly above average. but have some idea about builds and positioning.

Baradul is a lovely bloke, but many of his builds are "fun" oriented or fan requests and perhaps not the best guide if you're just wanting to play a bit more effectively. Don't be afraid to lean into the meta builds a bit, the fun doesn't dissapear just because you're beinga bit ore effecient at dealing damage.

[MrMadguy]

I think we need to achieve several goals at the same time - beat queue problems, uneven matches and Meta abuse at the same time. We should implement per-'Mech skill rating. Let's say, same Tiers. If player do good in certain 'Mech - his rating increases. Server should monitor queue times for 'Mech Tiers and report them via color frame around 'Mech picture. So, if queue time for your Tier-1-uber-Meta-abuse 'Mech is too long - you can always pick your pile-of-junk Atlas and play with Tier 3s. So, since that moment it would be player's choice to either abuse Meta or have shorter queue times.

Edited by MrMadguy, 03 June 2022 - 10:02 PM.

[Knownswift]

Meta abuse isn't a problem in this, or in any other game.

Metagaming exists in literally every game ever.


What you want is matchmaking based on social social cues, you won't get that.

BTW, EQ is pretty awesome for just goofing around.

Edited by Knownswift, 04 June 2022 - 06:01 AM.

[Seelenlos]

Knownswift, on 04 June 2022 - 06:00 AM, said:

What you want is matchmaking based on social social cues, you won't get that.

I think what we want is a system, which can tell if a Meta really - who was a sniper and killed 4 - did help the team or the Assault who was in the middle of battle made only 100 Damage and got 800 Damage and couldn't play that long!

Or the Scout/Medium got killed alone as the team just stood in place and won from behind, as he got nailed by 5 others = 5 other were busy with him and the rest could get them from behind?

WHOM would you say should the system give the most Points?
And what ever you think it is mostly wrong.

If he was busy with fighting them and (1 hit on each) and he sent a help and the team didn't moved in 5 seconds, the team would get nothing from me while the Scout would get the highest possible points!


Other Example, a scout goes caping? Team wins!
How would you give points?

None? Wrong!
Upon the damage he made and get and the time involved in scouting, scouting numbers etc. he would get nothing to 100%.
That Pilot with 90% armor mostly did nothing for the team except a little enemy entangling. With some scouting maybe 20%.

He has 50-60% damage, scouted 6 and did 20 Damage, he was a gold for the team, done his best, before dying he at least tries to entangle enemy to maybe get them spread out!

AND these kinds of calculations are nearly easy.
MWO is nearly Mathematically calculable for this things.
You need only some one count the situations (Died in Nascaring first, Dies by not Nascaring first, left alone in Nascaring only 5% drop etc) and hack that in a code.

And the code is there, and seems nearly very good and precise for what it does by now, so it would be only a little tinkering with it.

This would be what also would make ppl act more accurate to team play etc.

[An6ryMan69]

Honestly the most far reaching solution is simple.

- Solo players fight solo players of the same Tier;
- Groups fight groups of the same Tier.

That would clear up literally 95% of the obviously unfair clobbering of players right there.

[MrMadguy]

Knownswift, on 04 June 2022 - 06:00 AM, said:

Meta abuse isn't a problem in this, or in any other game.

Metagaming exists in literally every game ever.


What you want is matchmaking based on social social cues, you won't get that.

BTW, EQ is pretty awesome for just goofing around.

At least other games try to fix imbalance, but this isn't possible in MWO by design - due to lore reasons. There should be some way to make players choose, if they want better matchmaking or quicker matches. And this way should be soft - not hard. Because current situation isn't ok due to high end players having too long queues and devs opening release valves for them. I don't understand, why should they get fun at my expense. There should be some compromise. They should sacrifice something too. If we can't use some "hard" solutions, such as straight bonuses for lower tier players or penalties for higher tier ones, then at least we should use some "soft" ones, such as making them playing weaker 'Mechs, if they want quicker queue times. This would make game more diverse and it would be positive change.

Edited by MrMadguy, 04 June 2022 - 11:48 AM.

[Seelenlos]

At least any data must be deleted every 6 Months.
Then all players will start in T3 +1/-1 on their last position: old T1s get in T2 begin, T3 in T3 and T5 in T4....
And then from there all could start...

[crazytimes]

Seelenlos, on 04 June 2022 - 04:06 PM, said:

At least any data must be deleted every 6 Months.
Then all players will start in T3 +1/-1 on their last position: old T1s get in T2 begin, T3 in T3 and T5 in T4....
And then from there all could start...

All that happened last reset was matches with ridiculous farming for a while, then everyone ended up about where they should.

The current tier system is not perfect- I'm not in the top 20% of players, but keep ending up in tier 1- but it's better than it was. The very recent problem is there is no apparent MM at all- just 24 people randomly distributed I to teams. No tier system would change that lack of MM.

The underpinning problem of it all is there just aren't enough players to actually distribute and balance. A couple of years ago, queue times were getting to +5min. I'd rather some lopsided matches over 5 minute waits.

[C E Dwyer]

Boycots to try to change things are dumb..

They never have a positive effect, they either are barely noticed if the fan base are big enough..
Cyberpunk 2077 being a classic example..was even taken down for months by Sony...
people still bought it, and for all the screaming I really enjoyed it..

Or in game like this, with a low population, all it does is damge the game, and make what people want even less likely..

but what really takes the biscuit is trying to organise a boycot on the games official forums...

shakes head..

[Astrotheon]

Boycots may not be the answer, but the thread is useful for PGI I think as it allow people to voice their opinions, potential solutions and gives the Devs a better idea of where the community is at - you never know a player might come up with a brilliant solution to a problem that PGI weren't even aware of, and so the conversation is worth having.

Also, I'm with you on Cyberpunk - was flawed on release, lots of wailing and moaning but I enjoyed it regardless, still do.

[Weeny Machine]

Knownswift, on 04 June 2022 - 06:00 AM, said:

Meta abuse isn't a problem in this, or in any other game.

Metagaming exists in literally every game ever.


What you want is matchmaking based on social social cues, you won't get that.

BTW, EQ is pretty awesome for just goofing around.

True but adding groups to the QP queue just makes things exponentially worse for the obvious reaons when it comes to meta stuff.

That and the sucky gameplay in - unfortunately - more and more matches:
If I see one more game where 2 teams group up tight and camp some spot playing whack-a-mole while hoping that one team gets bored out of their mind and attacks and thus mostly gets shredded, I will just do STRG+ALT+F4 because I prefer to watch paint dry over this all day.

[Skullraze]

280 ton difference in team tonnage. Just had this match, I'm walking away, again.

image

[Astrotheon]

Skullraze, on 05 June 2022 - 02:51 PM, said:

280 ton difference in team tonnage. Just had this match, I'm walking away, again.

image

Yep that's pretty bad - think we've all been there when you have zero or 1 assault and the other guys have loads of them - usually goes one way...

[ScrapIron Prime]

Skullraze, on 05 June 2022 - 02:51 PM, said:

280 ton difference in team tonnage. Just had this match, I'm walking away, again.

image

Looks like you had a 3 man team that threw off the math by a lot.

I'd say a slim majority of my "we had no assaults" matches were wins, though. If you have enough "in your shorts" light mechs, an enemy team full of assaults is bad for them.