127 replies to this topic

[Magic Pain Glove]

"Yes, they have Event Queue now that runs lower, but EQ only ever runs for a day or two at a time"
If that was a valid concern solaris wouldn't have never been developed in the first place . I would also like to see direct quote from pgi regarding that claim "ran better on their systems. Piranha said so". Cumulatively we had EQ run for almost third of a month so no , if that was that big of a concern EQ nor Private matches would have been a thing in the first place and 5 years ago PGI would have never developed solaris due to sheer amount of 1v1s that would require severs to be spun up for each match.

"Here's the facts: as it stands right now, the only additional limitation that being in a group puts on you in the matchmaker is "One group per team, maximum." "

This is demonstrably false. Funny that you said its "facts" , and that you managed to even get this wrong.

"" How long have y'all asserted that anybody can make it to T1 and the tiers don't really matter? it's "Tier 5" and "Tier 1" given the pressure valves in the system."

Ever since PSR changed ( capped zero sum type , should be uncapped tho ) Tier 1 has not been the most populated tier and because of how PSR works atm most players even with sufficient amount of matches dont reach Tier 1. Once again lack of knowledge on your side of how current PSR works.

"If the Tetris pieces are the wrong shape/size, your match is delayed."

With group size limitations they borderline cant be wrong pieces 2+2+2+2 ,4+4 , 4+2+2 . Once again problem that disappears given that there is enough population to form a match . Even works with groups size of 3 but requires 2 groups of 3 and one group of 2.

"And since I presume solo players will have to actively opt into "allowing" themselves"

No opt in in my proposal. If a match needs to be formed MM will grab players from the same (singular) player pool to form a match.

"if the Tetris pieces are of dissimilar tiers, the MM can't patch that with solo players of the right tier so your match is once again delayed"
This is one of the few valid concerns but there are workaround around this problem.

" I'm a 2023 Champion and I said so. "

At no point did I use this as an argument and I debated each and every one of my points. No need to respond to hyperbole stuff.

Edited by Magic Pain Glove, 01 February 2024 - 07:42 PM.

[1453 R]

Sigh.

Look.

You're the World Champ Guy and the Cauldron bigshot. What you say goes, and I get no voice in that. I know that. You've clearly decided you have the Solution, and People With Friends will be fiiiiine so they shouldn't complain.

I just hope y'all are paying attention when this **** goes live, because I cannot possibly foresee any remotely possible future in which this Perfect Plan of yours does not cause a mass exodus of People With Friends after their match wait times and match quality both drop straight into the septic tank. If you don't reverse it real damn quick-like, I will not be remotely surprised if the game ends up back in Maintenance Mode within a year as what remains of its profits plummet.

You keep saying "It's only fair to make groups fight groups." Yeah okay, sure. That would indeed be fair. I have yet to hear an actual answer to the problem that got Punishment Queue axed last time, i.e. "what if there aren't enough groups?" Your whole "then it pulls in solos until it works" bit means the entire system is pointless because you haven't done the One Single Thing the Solo Only Forever ******** will consider "acceptable" - that is, ensure that they will never have to play against anyone with a Friend ever again, and that the Solo Queue remains perfect and pure forever.

You're not fixing anything. You're just making the group play experience worse for group players without any actual benefit them, or to anyone else, I don't understand why you think that's a benefit, and we all know that fighting against grouped people less isn't what the solo crankjobs who make these threads want. Unless your proposal includes "Solos NEVER have to dirty their hand actuators with evil cheating groupers EVER AGAIN", It. Will. Fail. And all you'll end up accomplishing is driving away People With Friends for absolutely no gain to anyone at all.

You want that future, go for it. I can't stop you. Doesn't mean I'm gonna be cheering you on when you do it.

[Magic Pain Glove]

Funny part is , most of the cauldron is more or less happy with the current status quo so you need not to worry. I am just a singular voice from within. Even if cauldron was in complete agreement the truth is it would still be difficult to pressure PGI for something to be done regarding this . They also share the opinion that not much can be done or should be done and PGI is lacking the will to do anything about it regardless of proposal that's being put forward. Because they are busy with other things atm. And there is not enough pressure from the overall MWO community to make changes to it since it seems like they also accepted the status quo . And "ITS JUST THE WAY IT IS" . So hey , cheer up , you dont need to stop anything . You have more power than this "cauldroni bigshot" when it comes to this funnily enough or at least luck is on your side.

Edited by Magic Pain Glove, 01 February 2024 - 12:23 PM.

[KingCobra]

1453 R, on 01 February 2024 - 12:08 PM, said:

Sigh.

Look.

You're the World Champ Guy and the Cauldron bigshot. What you say goes, and I get no voice in that. I know that. You've clearly decided you have the Solution, and People With Friends will be fiiiiine so they shouldn't complain.

I just hope y'all are paying attention when this **** goes live, because I cannot possibly foresee any remotely possible future in which this Perfect Plan of yours does not cause a mass exodus of People With Friends after their match wait times and match quality both drop straight into the septic tank. If you don't reverse it real damn quick-like, I will not be remotely surprised if the game ends up back in Maintenance Mode within a year as what remains of its profits plummet.

You keep saying "It's only fair to make groups fight groups." Yeah okay, sure. That would indeed be fair. I have yet to hear an actual answer to the problem that got Punishment Queue axed last time, i.e. "what if there aren't enough groups?" Your whole "then it pulls in solos until it works" bit means the entire system is pointless because you haven't done the One Single Thing the Solo Only Forever ******** will consider "acceptable" - that is, ensure that they will never have to play against anyone with a Friend ever again, and that the Solo Queue remains perfect and pure forever.

You're not fixing anything. You're just making the group play experience worse for group players without any actual benefit them, or to anyone else, I don't understand why you think that's a benefit, and we all know that fighting against grouped people less isn't what the solo crankjobs who make these threads want. Unless your proposal includes "Solos NEVER have to dirty their hand actuators with evil cheating groupers EVER AGAIN", It. Will. Fail. And all you'll end up accomplishing is driving away People With Friends for absolutely no gain to anyone at all.

You want that future, go for it. I can't stop you. Doesn't mean I'm gonna be cheering you on when you do it.

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Not this again please stop you have no idea about what solo/casual players want in MWO or what Team and competitive players want. I play all the time in both circles and the truth is both groups are still having fun in MWO even with the buffs/nerfs/whatever.

Solo casual players just want to have fun win or lose they are aware of groups of players that want to ruin that aspect of the game for them and want to restrict their influence on the situation happening in MWO as far as exploits/sync dropping ETC. besides this aspect of these individuals or groups they have no problems playing with 4-man groups as long as there not stomps or being farmed all the time.

And for heaven sakes stop with the we just want our friends to play in QP with us BBBBSSSSSSS were all friends in a 12v12 and chat ECT until the match starts it is not a matter of hatred its all about ruining one groups fun over another groups wants and needs to attain the same goal (having fun with stompy robots in a decent health way with fun battles and banter ETC.

SO, make it easy on yourself fix all the farming/exploiting/ECT and make the 8v8 group only work by a faster drop system as in 8v8 to start then if the que can't be filled in 1-2 min drop it to a 6v6 for 1-2 min if it still don't drop then go down to a 4v4 team only match and drop into a battle with no sync dropping /exploiting /ETC. and try that?

PGI already has the system in place and coded to do this they would just have to implement it. It's the same with faction play you could change it to do a 12v12-4v4 drop system speed up wait times fix all the balance problems and try that? it does not take a rocket scientist to figure it out.

The real problem for both types of player groups is the amount of fun you're having in MWO between balanced fun matches or farming seal clubbing ECT and personally from playing on both sides of the fence all these years i would pick option 1 = FUN balanced social game play for sure. It does not matter if its solo play or group play those individuals who want to basically destroy MWO and its player base need to be prevented from this type of gameplay or it does not matter what else you do the game will fade away the cash cows will leave and the sun will set on MWO for good.

[Besh]

1453 R, on 01 February 2024 - 10:47 AM, said:

The reason they switched to 12V12 in the first place was because it ran better on their systems. Piranha said so themselves, back when they made the switch - the fact that it technically lined up better with 'lore' was just a bonus. Yes, they have Event Queue now that runs lower, but EQ only ever runs for a day or two at a time. It's an occasional circus to keep the monkeys entertained. Private matches are so rare they're a statistical nonfactor - I would not be shocked to learn that the game sees ten thousand-plus normal matches for each one single private match.

As for "Group MM will be shorter because the MM doesn't have to shuffle solos around", that's even more of a pointless pie-in-the-sky assertion than you claim I'm making. It doesn't even make sense on the face of it.

Here's the facts: as it stands right now, the only addiotional limitation that being in a group puts on you in the matchmaker is "One group per team, maximum." Yes, wildly disparate group compositions can throw off tier matchmaking, but frankly tier matchmaking doesn't matter for spit as it is. How long have y'all asserted that anybody can make it to T1 and the tiers don't really matter? it's "Tier 5" and "Tier 1" given the pressure valves in the system.

You are proposing adding numerous additional restrictions to grouped players in the matchmaking system. Grouped players aren't allowed to be placed into a match in which even one solo is placed until and unless three minutes have passed, at which point the system pulls in the minimum number of solos to make a match. If there aren't enough Tetris pieces, your match is delayed. if the Tetris pieces are of dissimilar tiers, the MM can't patch that with solo players of the right tier so your match is once again delayed. If the Tetris pieces are the wrong shape/size, your match is delayed. And since I presume solo players will have to actively opt into "allowing" themselves to be pulled into your proposed Punishment Queue and precisely zero percent of the sKiLc0r3 monkeys will do that, the number of solo filler players available to the system will be so small that every match in Punishment Queue will be delayed. These delays will force the system to make worse matches simply because it has to in order to start a game at all.

Again - why should People With Friends be excited for this? Your system, by its fundamental nature, results in longer wait times for worse matches for anyone who dares Have Friends. All so sKiLc0r3 jackholes can still ******* complain about People With Friends "RUINING MWO FOREVER!!1!" because you included a mixed-match pressure valve and thus your "solution" doesn't solve a single goddamned thing at all where the screeching harpies convinced that Having Friends is the worst thing ever are concerned.

This whole thing comes off as "you're just an ignorant savage; if you'd just listen to me you could be waiting longer for worse matches and you'll like it that way because I'm a 2023 Champion and I said so."

Thie thing is : you adamantly INSIST nothing is being done to try and tackle the Problem ( it is ) of premade Groups dropping with Solos . You INSIST premade Groups need to go on being able to drop in Matches with 7 or 8 Solos . Someone is telling you there are possible solutions which would NOT split buckets, make it so that groups play dominantly against other Groups and Solos be mostly playing Solos - if possible. And you ADMANTLY argue against that, using almost nothing but hyperbole and a bunch of fallacious arguments...and stuff you think of as "facts" which is just plain wrong .

And someone like me wonders why, and wonders about your intentions and motivation . It can't be "Want to be able to play in Group"...because you still would be if matchmaking was changed to keep Groups and Solos apart as much as possible if possible, while all players still being in SAME BUCKET . The assumption of you dreading not being able to drop vs. mostly Solos but instead predominantly drop against other organized Groups comes easy .

Edited by Besh, 01 February 2024 - 03:50 PM.

[1453 R]

Sigh. I was really trying to just let this go, but if somebody's gonna call my attention by quoting me then slander me...

Let me be clear.

I. Do. Not. Care. About. Playing. Against. Other. Groups.

Bring it on. I have no issue whatsoever with there being another group in every single drop I'm in, whether I'm grouped or not. Would not complain, would simply assume system is doing system things. Again, my belief is that the overwhelming majority of groups have a negligible effect on the outcome of a match compared to the same number of independent solo players. MWO's inherent Butterfly Chaos Effect Theory snowbally nonsense is far, far, far more to "blame" for match swinginess than almost any assemblage of grouped-up players. I do not see an opposing group and say "well ****, there's no possible way we can win now, may as well just run out of bounds at the start and get into another match quicker." Given the fact that not every set of grouped players shares unit tags, I imagine I don't even notice most of the time when I'm fighting against grouped opponents. It simply does. Not. Matter. To me.

What does matter is that the last time we had Punishment Queue, you had to play with EXACTLY two or four people - not three, not five to eleven, either EXACTLY two or EXACTLY four. The matchmaking times were often in excess of twenty minutes, and when they did actually pop they usually had to pull from wildly disparate servers so you'd get NA, EU, and Oceanic all in the same room and it was Ping Wild West. You ever see a Spider do the Macarena to dodge incoming fire through Space and Time Itself to retroactively avoid autocannon fire? If you played Punishment Queue back in the day, I bet you did.

The experience I had tells me there were simply not enough groups to make Punishment Queue work - and we've only lost concurrency since then. According to all of you, there's even fewer grouped players these days, because y'all keep insisting groupies are a tiny minority of MWO players and we need to suffer so the Solo Majority can get better matches. If I assume that one simple fact you all insist is true is true - that grouped players represent a very small fraction of the MWO concurrency/matchmaking pool at any given moment?

Well, then here are the obvious and inarguable results of the aforementioned "One Bucket" plan:

1.) Because groups represent a very small percentage of the overall concurrency, they will almost never be available in sufficient numbers to assemble the Tetris pieces into a match. Thus, all grouped players will generally have to wait for the three minute pressure valve timer to elapse before it's even possible for them to find a match in the first place. This makes the three-minute pressure valve a mandatory tax on playing with groups.

2.) Because extremely small concurrency numbers make matching groups with other groups consistently wildly unlikely, most grouped players will still end up playing in/against teams comprised primarily of solo players. Because of this, there will be very little signs of change in the minds of the Average Solo Player, which will ensure the sort of angry spiteful salty crankjob that constantly uses the existence of groups as their excuse for why MWO IS RUINED FOREVER™ has no reason to change their opinion or behavior.

3.) Because of the new behavior not seeming to create any change in the Average Solo Experience, player backlash against Piranha will magnify intensely because them trying to fix it and failing is dramatically worse than them simply leaving it alone. Getting somebody's hopes up then dashing them always causes significantly more heat and rancor than leaving something be. This will reflect poorly on the people responsible for the change, as it is unlikely to produce any noticeable benefits in either concurrency or retention while generating significant negative community backlash. This is what people in the biz like to call "stepping in the poo".

Now, I will admit that 4.) is speculation, but I feel it's reasonably backed speculation: the sort of highly public faceplant that this sort of change would end up as is likely to result in the MWO team being disciplined by Tencent Command or whoever it is that's got the company collared now. Budgets for the game may not shrink as I'm not sure MWO has a budget to begin with, but they sure as hell won't give the team that committed such a faux pas more budget. We would be likely to lose team members over this, and while I don't know who the current team working on MWO is, I don't imagine the game would do well to lose any one of them given that there's...what? Three people assigned to MWO at any given time? We absolutely wouldn't get more people who could do thyings like add new weapons to the game, or keep monkeying with existing assets to pump out increasingly reconkulous Legend 'Mechs to make this game more of a hero shooter than it already is.

THAT is my worry. I really do not care about clubbing seals. Sometimes you're the club, sometimes you're the seal, it's just how MWO works.

Besides. Look. I'm a forty year old woman with average-at-best aim, terrible situational awareness and a pronounced, seemingly unfixable tendency to push too soon, too aggressively, get caught out and blown out. I am under no illusions that I am some sort of super talented Robit Guru that needs to feed on the souls of unlucky solos to preserve my precious stats. Soon as the system updates tomorrow y'all can point and laugh at my terrible returning numbers. I play MWO because I've been a BattleTech nerd since the freaking nineties when I bought my first novel in a mall bookstore because it had a cool robot on the cover (Star Lord, coincidentally, which was pulpy zany goofy nonsense and I was hooked forever). But when people threaten the very thing that brought me back to this game when Armored Core 6 exists - playing with my idiot newbie buddy who can't tell the front end of a large laser from the south end of a radical heat sink - I'ma get irritated.

[Weeny Machine]

Magic Pain Glove, on 01 February 2024 - 12:20 PM, said:

Funny part is , most of the cauldron is more or less happy with the current status quo so you need not to worry. I am just a singular voice from within. Even if cauldron was in complete agreement the truth is it would still be difficult to pressure PGI for something to be done regarding this . They also share the opinion that not much can be done or should be done and PGI is lacking the will to do anything about it regardless of proposal that's being put forward. Because they are busy with other things atm. And there is not enough pressure from the overall MWO community to make changes to it since it seems like they also accepted the status quo . And "ITS JUST THE WAY IT IS" . So hey , cheer up , you dont need to stop anything . You have more power than this "cauldroni bigshot" when it comes to this funnily enough or at least luck is on your side.

I doubt you won't see any "pressure" from people. Most people realized that it is like fighting windmills and just play something else. At one point more and more single players will be gone and then things get precarious.

[Besh]

Weeny Machine, on 03 February 2024 - 03:28 AM, said:

I doubt you won't see any "pressure" from people. Most people realized that it is like fighting windmills and just play something else. At one point more and more single players will be gone and then things get precarious.

If enough Players would state stuff like "I want MW:O to go on, I am not happy and content with the Status quo, I want it to get better, I want it to attract and retain new Players" often enough, for long enough, it would get noticed .

Edited by Besh, 03 February 2024 - 06:05 AM.