17 replies to this topic

[KabukiOne]

Just had a battle where a 4 man light squad of obviously really good players completely wrecked my team within 5 minutes. It was not even a little fun. I turned the game off. Maybe I'll play tomorrow, but I'm just plain done for tonight. Fix the MM. It's almost as bad as World of Tanks.

[ScrapIron Prime]

KabukiOne, on 06 June 2022 - 04:16 PM, said:

Just had a battle where a 4 man light squad of obviously really good players completely wrecked my team within 5 minutes. It was not even a little fun. I turned the game off. Maybe I'll play tomorrow, but I'm just plain done for tonight. Fix the MM. It's almost as bad as World of Tanks.

Take a screenshot of the summary screen with all 24 names on it when that happens. If you report it, PGI gets data on exactly how bad it is and the match code number. And then you can commiserate here with it too. =)

[Sawk]

HMMM this is becoming very common, i been saying the TIER LEVEL, and the match scoring ect ect.

Point being this guy joined THIS YEAR, in April so what is the LEARNING CURVE on this game, i was thinking a part timer playing solo is 3 to 10 months, for normal guy building mechs and testing ECT ECT.
Kabuki take it from a guy who gets hunted----- i am the JACK RABBIT, that needs to die, i been playing a long time, you just need to weather the storm and figure ways around, it is one of the hardest games SOLO : )

SAWK CLANNER

[w0qj]

Well, I personally got KO'ed by Sean Lang in a T3 QP game; was the very 1st player to die

And a few days before, I was again 1st player to die in Mining Collective map, suddenly decided to go through the E6-E5 starting tunnel with an Assault mech...have not done that for a long time...what could possibly go wrong?
(Got hunted down by 4-5 fast Light/Medium/Heavy mechs, including WHM-6R going at around 75 kph)

The point is, it feels like $#@! to die like that, but think on the bright side:
~You to see (from the receiving end of the gun barrel) what advanced players do, their weapon layout, etc.
~You can still spectate in your Team's cockpit, learn their tactics, weapon layout, etc.

MWO has a very steep learning curve, but it's fun once you have these under your belt!

Oh, and some players like me, I don't care much if I MWO die (most of us die in QP, right?),
and it also helps if you stop caring about what PSR Tier you are in (I'm T4/T3... skilling up my mechs...and...cough...dying too...)

Edited by w0qj, 09 June 2022 - 02:28 AM.

[Sawk]

Hmm well said, 1 other thing i have noticed is the time zone you play in, i am stuck playing only at 7pm to 9pm eastern time, the best times i found as a worked different shifts, and then spent a few years off, were around 11 am till 2 pm wed thur and friday it was pick and miss on weekend, the other suprize was at 1 am eastern time, till 3 am, and that was wed to sunday eastern time.
ok 1 more thing if you have voice and have some master mechs is to NOT LEAD, and ask a light to follow you, ok i can be hunted but who is hunting who : )
SAWK CLANNER

[TheCaptainJZ]

Time of day does matter. You may have more success playing off the peak times. https://steamcharts.com/app/342200. This seems counter-intuitive because ideally more players means the matchmaker will have a better chance of matching players of similar skill, but in actuality, it might be because the more coordinated players are playing then, like 4-mans, and that throws everything off balance.

[CFC Conky]

TheCaptainJZ, on 10 June 2022 - 04:42 AM, said:

Time of day does matter. You may have more success playing off the peak times. https://steamcharts.com/app/342200. This seems counter-intuitive because ideally more players means the matchmaker will have a better chance of matching players of similar skill, but in actuality, it might be because the more coordinated players are playing then, like 4-mans, and that throws everything off balance.

Strangely enough, it’s the opposite for me. During the week, if I play after 9pm local (early morning in Europe), it takes longer the get a match, which usually indicates lower player population but the matches are much harder and I get hammered a lot. My best matches are usually during European prime time.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

[cazeral]

I like to play outside of my time zone and usually end up with the Antipodeans.

Crazy bunch of folk who are great to listen to, come out with the kind of humour that the main server's population either wouldn't understand or would be mortified to hear, but in general, they know how to play the game and why they play it - for fun

Carry on folks, you brighten my day!

[TheCaptainJZ]

CFC Conky, on 10 June 2022 - 08:49 AM, said:

Strangely enough, it’s the opposite for me. During the week, if I play after 9pm local (early morning in Europe), it takes longer the get a match, which usually indicates lower player population but the matches are much harder and I get hammered a lot. My best matches are usually during European prime time.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

Perhaps regional server makes a difference too.

[VeeOt Dragon]

your not wrong friend. i have been playing for some time and it has gotten worse. i'm a T3 (was mid T2 before the PSR reset) player myself and proud of it. mostly its because i find meta boring and have hand tremors.

the reason is because of the low population. MWO is sadly in death spiral and on life support. the overly Competitive players and large groups used to have there own drop Que not to mention Faction (never played it much myself since it got far to toxic in there). the population dipped to low to keep so many separate ques so they had to merge them. when they did the MM (something that always did have a few issues) couldn't handle it so it broke it. they have tried to fix it a bit but it still can't calculate groups in properly. that combined with the low population means that t1 and t2 players can end up in matches with t5 newbies.

as others have said though don't pay attention to your PSR its more there for the MM to try and put you in proper matches for your skill. i'm glad you enjoy the game and sometimes you just need to take a break before you toss your keyboard into your monitor. the best iadvice i can give is to learn ome good tactics and have fun, you don't have to go meta to get better. (anyone can do well with a meta build the true show if skill is to do just as well in an oddball, mixed, sub optimal build)

[w0qj]

Actually MWO gaming population is noticably better than it was 2 years ago;
Steam stats (which is just a limited cross section of all MWO players) regularly shows 1000+ players at the peak.
Remember, Steam only 'sees' players playing MWO via Steam.

Other players play MWO directly
https://leaderboard.isengrim.org/stats
https://steamcharts.com/app/342200
https://steamdb.info...4-0-gaNycGzNCD0

- - - - - - - - - -
Moreover, MWO is working on Groups in QP, as per this past patch July 2022:
https://mwomercs.com...2650-18july2022


GROUPS IN QUICK PLAY

The Max Group restrictions in Quick Play stopped being enforced in the June 21st patch, this issue has been fixed with the July 19th patch. As of the July 19th patch, The Max Group Restrictions Variable will be exposed for future tuning. The default setting will be set back to Max 5 people in groups as of the July 19th patch. Max Group Restrictions 5 means each team can have can have:

• one 4-player group, or
  
• one 2-player and one 3-player group, or
  
• two 2-player groups

Edited by w0qj, 25 July 2022 - 08:21 AM.

[TheCaptainJZ]

I wouldn't call it a death spiral, more of a holding pattern. But more players would be better, if they were interested in a 10 year old, niche game.

[Gevolgen]

This problem is common among games with small player bases, especially mature games with at lot of long-time players.
The only way to really fix it is to either expand the player base significantly, or accept longer queue times for new players.

[Urbie Connoisseur]

As I've said before, the tiering system feels waaaaaayyyy too compressed, as evident in how 90% of matches end up as a 3-12 stomp. It seems like there's 1000PSR between every tier. I've played ~640 matches since I started in about March, and was constantly shifting around the 'TIER 5' text, and currently, less than 100 matches ago I'm guessing, I reached the point where I fluctuate in and out of tier 5 and tier 4 literally every other match. There should probably be about 8-10 MM tiers and increase the tier spread to match.

[martian]

Marida Connoisseur, on 23 August 2022 - 03:29 PM, said:

As I've said before, the tiering system feels waaaaaayyyy too compressed, as evident in how 90% of matches end up as a 3-12 stomp. It seems like there's 1000PSR between every tier. I've played ~640 matches since I started in about March, and was constantly shifting around the 'TIER 5' text, and currently, less than 100 matches ago I'm guessing, I reached the point where I fluctuate in and out of tier 5 and tier 4 literally every other match. There should probably be about 8-10 MM tiers and increase the tier spread to match.

"If" you wish to move up to higher Tiers, then maybe it is the right time to adjust your playstyle, re-evaluate your 'Mech builds or both. Note that when you move to Tier 4, you start meeting Tier 2 players occasionally.

[Void Angel]

Marida Connoisseur, on 23 August 2022 - 03:29 PM, said:

As I've said before, the tiering system feels waaaaaayyyy too compressed, as evident in how 90% of matches end up as a 3-12 stomp. It seems like there's 1000PSR between every tier. I've played ~640 matches since I started in about March, and was constantly shifting around the 'TIER 5' text, and currently, less than 100 matches ago I'm guessing, I reached the point where I fluctuate in and out of tier 5 and tier 4 literally every other match. There should probably be about 8-10 MM tiers and increase the tier spread to match.

Well... people have asked for that before, and if memory serves, there's really not enough players to support that many tiers (although the population is stable, which is encouraging.) But I'm not sure the tier system is your core problem.

To explain what I mean, let me point out an aspect of how MWO (and other Mechwarrior games) work... The first player to die or suffer significant weapon/component losses in a match leaves their team at a disadvantage, because now the enemy team has fewer threats to focus on. This tends to make the second 'Mech to be disabled/destroyed belong to the same team as the first one. Since matches consist of mixed builds and randomly matched teams and players, you're not going to see close, 10-12 matches all of the time - maybe not even most of the time.

Now, the way the matchmaker works is that it tries to match you with players of your tier first, then expands the field if not enough Tier Whatever players are available. Last time I checked (and it's been a while,) the matchmaker wouldn't go more than 2 tiers away to get you a match. If you're in Tier 3, that means that you can potentially get a match with any tier of player, and if you're in Tier 5, you can only be matched with tiers 5-3....

OK, so here's what's probably happening to you with all of this. At tier 5, you're likely to be getting matched with Tier 3 players (the ones who have seen top-tier builds and tactics) only rarely. Tier 4 players are more common, but they'll have only rarely seen Tier 2 tactics and builds... And the difference between Tier 5 and Tier 1 builds is immense. Tier 1 builds tend to be much hotter, more focused, and much more optimized. You will never see a Tier 1 build attempting to be a jack of all trades, for one example; LRM prevalence is another. At Tier 5, you're probably seeing a lot of LRMs. Like, a lot, a lot: but at higher tiers, LRMs are deprecated in favor of pinpoint-damage weapons like lasers, PPCs, and Gauss Riffles - or massive amounts of scatter-damage from weapons like LB-X autocannons and MRMs.

So what you're experiencing is the intersection of higher-level tactics and builds with lower-level tactics and builds. You're correct that smoothing out the learning curve by adding more tiers would help, but with the population where it is right now, the matchmaker would just have to expand farther out in order to get matches, and you'd still end up matched with the same players anyway.

The good news is, you belong in Tier 4/5! I'm not being snide, or suggesting that those tiers are all you have the potential for (you've only been playing since April, after all!) What I'm saying is that if we did have a Tier 8, some of the players currently in Tier 5 would belong there. This is why you're having issues immediately after hitting Tier 4 - the skill jump from 5 to 4 is probably more pronounced than any other tier rating. You're on the cusp of moving into higher Tiers, so my advice to you is, head on over to the New Player Help forums and run your builds by us - just knowing what kind of builds you can expect to perform well will help you out immensely.

Edited by Void Angel, 24 August 2022 - 02:55 PM.

[JC Daxion]

I was on a team the other day, the other team has a 4 man that i know are pretty decent players. I've played with them in the past and they are cool folks and fun but i thought, this isn't going to be good. On our side we had no teams and a big ol C meaning cadet..

I thought this match was gonna go bad.. and yet it turned out we beat them in a pretty good match that ended 12-4. (we turned the match early with a little teamwork)

Rolls happen at ever level. They happen far less in T5-4 from my experience.. T3 you can see t1 4 mans. Yes the MM needs work. I thought it was going to happen in aug/sept, but now i have no idea if it's even going to happen which is unfortunate.

[Frendly Pythagorean Natteri Tato]

The population of the game is too low, and the matchmaker is not very good and does not increase or reduce team sizes dynamically to make sure similar skill players play against each other. PGI says they are going to try to fix the matchmaker but I doubt it can be fixed.