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#81 Ralph Edwards

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Posted 13 March 2023 - 02:27 PM

To be completely honest having matches where I'm up against players of a higher tier has helped improve my own skills. The skill tree rework now helps me level mechs much faster as I have limited time except on weekends. Groups or no groups in QP makes no difference to me as I have not noticed any difference in match quality. You will always have days where nothing goes your way and you get stomped into the floor. Happens to me in Doom all the time. Compared to where this game was when I started playing we are in a much better place.

#82 sycocys

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Posted 13 March 2023 - 03:58 PM

View PostAlreech, on 13 March 2023 - 12:10 PM, said:

Fun fact about how big the failure in implementation is:
MWO uses Teamspeak as VOIP solution. Creating a TS channel with group creation and move the users from that channel to the team channel can be done with scripts.
Move them back after the match ends, and VOIP com between matches would be possible.

Its a simple thing that should have been done when it was implemented, and it should have been implemented before they launched out of beta not 3 years in.

It probably would have went a hell of a long way to making faction play some amount of playable for pug players even despite the intentional units avoiding other units.

#83 Vite Ramen

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Posted 13 March 2023 - 06:46 PM

The last 2 sessions I played in a group, the average queue time was 10 or more minutes per match. That's pretty unacceptable imo. Really lowers interest in playing the game.

#84 C337Skymaster

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Posted 13 March 2023 - 07:43 PM

Jumping in real quick before I get a chance to catch up to raise a concern over the builds that appear to be on the Fafnir and Mad Cat: MG boat 100 tonner, and UAC/2 boat 90 tonner. If these are actual builds on these two 'mechs, I'm worried about leaning that hard into the meta. Crael is already severely overperforming, and UAC/2 spam is already pretty devastating, especially when put out by a 'mech that can carry 6 or more cannons with sufficient residual weight for ammo.

I feel as though we need fewer boats, and more variety on new 'mechs. If the images are consistent with their final builds, both of those 'mechs are ballistic boats with way too many hardpoints...

#85 Firestorm92

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 04:15 AM

There was a very important statement that caught my attention: "We can't control player behavior."
So issues about this statement are:
- Players cannot control when and how their clients crash, and also can't help it if they are not able to reconnect due to various reasons.
- Players cannot control the way they choose their mechs and builds with regards to map and game mode, simply because they lack the necessary information before queuing up to do so and fact they HAVE TO pick their mech/build BEFORE voting for a map and mode on a poll.
- Way players rewarded and punished is simply not well balanced
- Previous issue also creating further issues of carrots and sticks with regards to:
  • Commitment to the objectives in special modes (I'm taking Skirmish as the default main here and treating others as special)
  • Commitment to team play
  • Because of the issues around previous two, partially or fully abandoning these two and committing to being a survivalist
As you can see player behavior is actually being controlled, but in the WRONG WAY. Because you cornered them from all sides with overcomplicated set of rules which, in conjunction with your application of it, doesn't perform IN THE WAY IT'S SUPPOSED TO. Adding problems about MM (which is also being fed by the result of previous issues, which is, simply good amount of players that are trapped in the confusion, being under ranked) makes it a complete mess.

There are two more things to address which I mentioned in the previous section: issues about overcomplicated set of elements being at work and MM.

Overcomplication excuse is actually another way of saying: "We are no longer in control." But admitting that is important to creating an approach for devising solutions. In this phase, one of the biggest aims in my opinion, should be simplifying things. There are various things I can see as options to experiment with:
- Removing all "special modes" as I referred them and putting them to event queues without MM. One of the complex layers off the table already. As I mentioned even without discussing maps and modes, we already have good amount of complexity and issues about them makes players even unsure about what to do anymore. Throwing more obligations on the table when players can't even fully handle the stuff they had beforehand, obviously will make it even worse. Player base simply cannot demonstrate enough in-game sense and IQ, for them to provide big enough pool of players for these modes. So letting them go from QP may be an option. BTW to clarify I am not talking about people's intelligent capabilities, but rather how much of them they are able to put it in practice in-game, in the way that makes the game favor their decisions and plays. These complications of overly complex mods with severe PSR punishments makes whole thing a downward spiral for solos and failing PSR.
- Keeping only Assault and removing the rest: On this I'm trying to be devil's advocate. Because rules also works in controlling player behavior as I mentioned before. So with proper practice, modes can help to form this behavior too. Maybe you can take this mode as a base and work on it with further rules to form a set of in-game phases and processes which form some common sense and better understanding on what to do and when. But it is important that it should be easy to follow and achieve as players have enough in their minds with complex battle of lances of mechs already. Apex Legends is a good example, it is a battle royal, processes about a round of game really simple and easy to track, through trying to play better, you naturally form this game sense of what to do and when in your mind after experiencing them, rest of it has lot of RNG and along with it some complexity, but proceeding on objectives not being an additional burden to think about much there. You devise your relocation plan(s) based on each ring and you make your move(s), simple. In this approach single mod is important to develop a collective consciousness about how to play and to not confuse players about it constantly exposing them to overly complicated different ways to play.
- Removing the poll phase, putting maps and modes on rotation with time slots. So that players will KNOW BEFOREHAND, which map and mod they are dropping into, which can effectively improve on problems about builds not matching the requirements of the particular map and mode for any player in the way they can contribute.
- Removing groups from QP, actually Apex Legends I used as an example case, suffering from this in their MM on their QP too. This affects solo play badly. Restricting groups into FP can also improve queue times over there. Another point on groups that, they are obviously not always performing good, that can make things worse for the whole team, outside of that it creates new weak points of player behavior such as playing as an isolated lance from the rest of the team for example.

I believe I mentioned a lot about MM indirectly but there are some things left to be said. Through my experience with good amount of MMs on MMOs, I can clearly say there is an issue about current MM. Is it an engineering issue? Not necessarily. Question to ask is not whether MMs is properly working or not, but if it is working IN THE WAY IT IS INTENDED FOR.
In a functional and structural sense, I'm pretty much confident that it is working properly. But I'm also positive on that it is not working as intended.
One sided matches (total massacres if you prefer) which are supposed to be extremely rare (and I also take complexity which 24 mechs bring, into consideration for that), happens awfully frequent. I also know random actions and how they contribute to win or lose. These matches have nothing to do with nature of randomness player behavior brings as there is evident gap in player capabilities which can be observed through players' plays.
Like bad ranking bleeding into PSR and the way MM works with the current player base, there may be various reasons to that. It should be observed, thoroughly analyzed with data to determine issues and identify related causes about it. You need a data analyst with understanding of inner workings of your MM.
Also from the way you mentioned about MM, in case you don't have, we may need a second pass on a lobby to redistribute people appropriately to fight this issue of one sided matchmaking. I don't have any idea about its current feasibility though.

Currently Apex is dying and two of the major issues are MM and technical problems/bugs on their game client. So issues about these two should be taken very seriously as a factor which can decide the fate of this game in the upcoming years. Whether to keep it going or laying it to eternal rest, these should be taken into consideration while deciding that.

As a hopeless fool of a BT and MWO enjoyer, I hope situations at hand improve for the better. My best wishes for that.

#86 The Chancelor

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 05:08 AM

View PostFirestorm92, on 14 March 2023 - 04:15 AM, said:

There was a very important statement that caught my attention: "We can't control player behavior."
So issues about this statement are:
- Players cannot control when and how their clients crash, and also can't help it if they are not able to reconnect due to various reasons.
- Players cannot control the way they choose their mechs and builds with regards to map and game mode, simply because they lack the necessary information before queuing up to do so and fact they HAVE TO pick their mech/build BEFORE voting for a map and mode on a poll.
- Way players rewarded and punished is simply not well balanced
- Previous issue also creating further issues of carrots and sticks with regards to:
  • Commitment to the objectives in special modes (I'm taking Skirmish as the default main here and treating others as special)
  • Commitment to team play
  • Because of the issues around previous two, partially or fully abandoning these two and committing to being a survivalist
As you can see player behavior is actually being controlled, but in the WRONG WAY. Because you cornered them from all sides with overcomplicated set of rules which, in conjunction with your application of it, doesn't perform IN THE WAY IT'S SUPPOSED TO. Adding problems about MM (which is also being fed by the result of previous issues, which is, simply good amount of players that are trapped in the confusion, being under ranked) makes it a complete mess.


There are two more things to address which I mentioned in the previous section: issues about overcomplicated set of elements being at work and MM.

Overcomplication excuse is actually another way of saying: "We are no longer in control." But admitting that is important to creating an approach for devising solutions. In this phase, one of the biggest aims in my opinion, should be simplifying things. There are various things I can see as options to experiment with:
- Removing all "special modes" as I referred them and putting them to event queues without MM. One of the complex layers off the table already. As I mentioned even without discussing maps and modes, we already have good amount of complexity and issues about them makes players even unsure about what to do anymore. Throwing more obligations on the table when players can't even fully handle the stuff they had beforehand, obviously will make it even worse. Player base simply cannot demonstrate enough in-game sense and IQ, for them to provide big enough pool of players for these modes. So letting them go from QP may be an option. BTW to clarify I am not talking about people's intelligent capabilities, but rather how much of them they are able to put it in practice in-game, in the way that makes the game favor their decisions and plays. These complications of overly complex mods with severe PSR punishments makes whole thing a downward spiral for solos and failing PSR.
- Keeping only Assault and removing the rest: On this I'm trying to be devil's advocate. Because rules also works in controlling player behavior as I mentioned before. So with proper practice, modes can help to form this behavior too. Maybe you can take this mode as a base and work on it with further rules to form a set of in-game phases and processes which form some common sense and better understanding on what to do and when. But it is important that it should be easy to follow and achieve as players have enough in their minds with complex battle of lances of mechs already. Apex Legends is a good example, it is a battle royal, processes about a round of game really simple and easy to track, through trying to play better, you naturally form this game sense of what to do and when in your mind after experiencing them, rest of it has lot of RNG and along with it some complexity, but proceeding on objectives not being an additional burden to think about much there. You devise your relocation plan(s) based on each ring and you make your move(s), simple. In this approach single mod is important to develop a collective consciousness about how to play and to not confuse players about it constantly exposing them to overly complicated different ways to play.
- Removing the poll phase, putting maps and modes on rotation with time slots. So that players will KNOW BEFOREHAND, which map and mod they are dropping into, which can effectively improve on problems about builds not matching the requirements of the particular map and mode for any player in the way they can contribute.
- Removing groups from QP, actually Apex Legends I used as an example case, suffering from this in their MM on their QP too. This affects solo play badly. Restricting groups into FP can also improve queue times over there. Another point on groups that, they are obviously not always performing good, that can make things worse for the whole team, outside of that it creates new weak points of player behavior such as playing as an isolated lance from the rest of the team for example.

I believe I mentioned a lot about MM indirectly but there are some things left to be said. Through my experience with good amount of MMs on MMOs, I can clearly say there is an issue about current MM. Is it an engineering issue? Not necessarily. Question to ask is not whether MMs is properly working or not, but if it is working IN THE WAY IT IS INTENDED FOR.
In a functional and structural sense, I'm pretty much confident that it is working properly. But I'm also positive on that it is not working as intended.
One sided matches (total massacres if you prefer) which are supposed to be extremely rare (and I also take complexity which 24 mechs bring, into consideration for that), happens awfully frequent. I also know random actions and how they contribute to win or lose. These matches have nothing to do with nature of randomness player behavior brings as there is evident gap in player capabilities which can be observed through players' plays.
Like bad ranking bleeding into PSR and the way MM works with the current player base, there may be various reasons to that. It should be observed, thoroughly analyzed with data to determine issues and identify related causes about it. You need a data analyst with understanding of inner workings of your MM.
Also from the way you mentioned about MM, in case you don't have, we may need a second pass on a lobby to redistribute people appropriately to fight this issue of one sided matchmaking. I don't have any idea about its current feasibility though.

Currently Apex is dying and two of the major issues are MM and technical problems/bugs on their game client. So issues about these two should be taken very seriously as a factor which can decide the fate of this game in the upcoming years. Whether to keep it going or laying it to eternal rest, these should be taken into consideration while deciding that.

As a hopeless fool of a BT and MWO enjoyer, I hope situations at hand improve for the better. My best wishes for that.


LOL Am I supposed to read all of this?^^

#87 Firestorm92

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 06:12 AM

View PostThe Chancelor, on 14 March 2023 - 05:08 AM, said:

LOL Am I supposed to read all of this?^^

No, you are not. Read if you want to.

Came back for a little addition of an issue I forgot about. Which is map design, and which we know that you are working towards. These maps also inviting chaos along with player behavior. If we want players to make use of covers, we should give them enough amount and properly placed covers and not let people snipe across almost the whole map or rain down missiles behind covers for example. Better design can yield more consistent results for players and provides room for different options. Instead of pushing people into playing "meta" and taking away the freedom of variety. Which in turn can rewrite new situational metas about the particular map too to broaden the ways to go about it.

#88 Killing Strangers

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 09:44 AM

sean and matt look so unhappy,lol

#89 Alreech

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 10:56 AM

View PostLlyranor, on 13 March 2023 - 06:46 PM, said:

The last 2 sessions I played in a group, the average queue time was 10 or more minutes per match. That's pretty unacceptable imo. Really lowers interest in playing the game.

Long waiting time for a match was one of the thing that killed group play.
The problem back in those days was the fact that PGI allowed group sizes that could be only matched in one combo for a 12 vs 12 game: 9 + 3 & 10 + 2.

If PGI would try a dedicated group mode again it would be wise to restrict the group size to 4 and create 4 vs 4 / 8 vs 8 / 12 vs 12 matches depending on the numbers of groups aviable.
I would also use 3 mech dropdecks with around 170 - 180 tons total tonnage.

#90 Alreech

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 11:17 AM

View PostFirestorm92, on 14 March 2023 - 04:15 AM, said:

There was a very important statement that caught my attention: "We can't control player behavior."
- Players cannot control the way they choose their mechs and builds with regards to map and game mode, simply because they lack the necessary information before queuing up to do so and fact they HAVE TO pick their mech/build BEFORE voting for a map and mode on a poll.

Drop decks allow the player tho choose their mechs with regard of the map and gamemode.
But there are no dropdecks in quickplay

Quote

- Way players rewarded and punished is simply not well balanced

- Previous issue also creating further issues of carrots and sticks with regards to:
  • Commitment to the objectives in special modes (I'm taking Skirmish as the default main here and treating others as special)
  • Commitment to team play
  • Because of the issues around previous two, partially or fully abandoning these two and committing to being a survivalist
As you can see player behavior is actually being controlled, but in the WRONG WAY.



Yes, quickplay is build in a way to prevent teamplay as much as possible.
Teams are made up with random players -> no trust & bad communication
No respawn -> game over if your mech gets destroyed while helping other players or taking a risk for the team
Putting the own survival and K/D as top priority instead the teams victory is the logical outcome to that.


Quote

In this phase, one of the biggest aims in my opinion, should be simplifying things. There are various things I can see as options to experiment with:
- Removing all "special modes" as I referred them and putting them to event queues without MM. One of the complex layers off the table already...
- Keeping only Assault and removing the rest: On this I'm trying to be devil's advocate. Because rules also works in controlling player behavior as I mentioned before. So with proper practice, modes can help to form this behavior too.

Even Assault is too confusing for the uncoordinated teams of quickplay.
In Assault both teams have to Attack and Defend at the same time, the team that splits to do both things is usually the losing team.

The best working modes in quickplay are Skirmish (Team deathmatch, no objectives except killing) and Domination (one clear objective).
Assault needs at least to be reworked to one team attacking and the other team defending.

Quote

- Removing groups from QP, actually Apex Legends I used as an example case, suffering from this in their MM on their QP too. This affects solo play badly. Restricting groups into FP can also improve queue times over there.

IMHO MWO needs a kind of faction quickplay with dropdecks (3 mechs, 170 - 180 tons) and max group size of 4 players.
No planet selection, but matchmaking like in quickplay.
Still faction locked techs for the dropdeck.

Such a mode would be IMHO attractive for group players that don't do faction play and for solo player that like drop decks and earn faction rewards.
The side effect of such a mode would be the increased number of players ready for a call to arms in faction play. Ready means = faction selected and dropdecks aviable.

#91 BLACKR0SE

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 11:55 AM

I wish they would put a simple, no rules dm.
and an endless game would be nice.
I don't think it's that hard to do.

a never ending game will reduce latency.

When there are few, you fight with few.
When there are many, you fight with many.

#92 BLACKR0SE

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 12:02 PM

only 100 dots and an empty server, let people tear each other apart.Posted Image Posted Image Posted Image

#93 KeZangaren777

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 01:18 PM

Me Who still waiting for Free Mech Announcement

#94 C337Skymaster

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 01:43 PM

View PostKeZangaren777, on 14 March 2023 - 01:18 PM, said:

Me Who still waiting for Free Mech Announcement


Kodiak only just ended last night. Give them a minute to catch their breath.

#95 BLACKR0SE

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 01:46 PM

But what I know in business is that no customer gets kicked out of the place they enter.

I'm speaking for this.

1 hour 2 hours 3 hours etc when people come from their work. finds time, enters the game. or take time for yourself. Why are you removing these people from the game?

Why are you keeping people waiting?

Shut down the server every 4 hours in 3 hours. save the data.

I'm sure it will be more crowded.

just like other big online games do.

Edited by TAMTAMBABY, 14 March 2023 - 01:47 PM.


#96 BLACKR0SE

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 02:07 PM

I spend more time in the game menu.

#97 BLACKR0SE

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 02:11 PM

I don't blame afk players.

I think we should log into the server.
the server ........... Posted Image

Edited by TAMTAMBABY, 14 March 2023 - 02:21 PM.


#98 sycocys

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 02:48 PM

View PostTAMTAMBABY, on 14 March 2023 - 02:07 PM, said:

I spend more time in the game menu.

Once you figure out some effective builds for a style of engagement you like and do less of trying to play/figure out builds for every mech in the game and a lot more playing the game.

You will also start to move yourself towards better matches and competition.

#99 BLACKR0SE

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 03:13 PM

View Postsycocys, on 14 March 2023 - 02:48 PM, said:

Once you figure out some effective builds for a style of engagement you like and do less of trying to play/figure out builds for every mech in the game and a lot more playing the game.

You will also start to move yourself towards better matches and competition.


I try to improve my playing style every day.
I push a little harder every day.
I don't mean my playing style.

time spent logging into the game.
Why do we always enter?
Let's go in once.
I set my machine, let me enter.
When I'm bored, I'll go out and choose the other machine.

I mean why is the game short?
When I log in, I will play for 1 hour and 2 hours.

Do you understand why I love the atlas and the 100 tons event?

Edited by TAMTAMBABY, 14 March 2023 - 03:18 PM.


#100 BLACKR0SE

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Posted 14 March 2023 - 03:24 PM

I would enjoy it more if the games were longer.





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