266 replies to this topic

[MrMadguy]

I don't know, why I even play this game.


Look. I don't care about winning or losing. I just want to earn CBs to buy new 'Mechs and complete events. If matchmaking can't be fixed, then may be reward system should be fixed instead?

[martian]

MrMadguy, on 15 December 2024 - 09:15 AM, said:

Can Matchmaker Be Even Worse?

I don't know, why I even play this game.


Look. I don't care about winning or losing. I just want to earn CBs to buy new 'Mechs and complete events. If matchmaking can't be fixed, then may be reward system should be fixed instead?

I see no problem here: Use any 'Mech that you like, play the way you like, and let PSR do the rest.

Eventually, you will end up in a Tier populated by the players who use the same kind of 'Mechs and builds as you use, and who play the game the same way that you play it.

Then you should get balanced games with approximately the same number of wins and losses, and of course with the corresponding rewards.

Edited by martian, 15 December 2024 - 09:28 AM.

[Ttly]

martian, on 15 December 2024 - 09:27 AM, said:

I see no problem here: Use any 'Mech that you like, play the way you like, and let PSR do the rest. Eventually, you will end up in a Tier populated by the players who use the same kind of 'Mechs and builds as you use, and who play the game the same way that you play it. Then you should get balanced games with approximately the same number of wins and losses, and of course with the corresponding rewards.

Well that's the thing isn't it? T4 is already pretty low.
Besides, "run whatever you want and you'll get to where you should be" clearly doesn't work as I run waste of tonnages like AMS and LRMs all the time and still somehow got to full bar tier 1, not that I even intend to get here, it's all downsides in the practical sense, not to mention that being locked to only meta builds is a rather boring way to play, and seeing people that does only that makes for a boring game as well. I mean oh wow, a Timber Wolf in the match? You sure can bet with good odds that it's ALWAYS the ECM Laservomit build rather than anything else unless it's the Howl. By the way did you know that the Timber Wolf gets -10% damage taken on the STs if it uses at least LRM10/ATM9s that gives it those big missile ears? That's a pretty neat feature just thrown away because everyone only sees the chassis for the ECM Laservomit build. A Vulcan? The SNPPC MASC one. A Vapor Eagle-1? 3C-ERPPC. MADIIC-D? You know what this one runs. So on.
And well it's just not that fun to intentionally tank your PSR just to have a better MM time for couple matches only for it to naturally rise back up.

Edited by Ttly, 15 December 2024 - 10:15 AM.

[VeeOt Dragon]

the MM has issues but the biggest one has nothing to do with it exactly. the problem is the population is so low that that it has to open the flood gates and let T1s into matches with T5s. add to that the fact that the MM can't handle groups properly and you have more issues. thats not even including those T1s that group up with T4 and T5s just so they can pull their group Tier down and club seals or those that make Alt accounts for the same reason.

as for the PSR itself i say don't worry about it. just have fun and play what you like. i tend to ignore my own Tier rating as its not something i really care about. hell i have no clue how i got to T2 given that most of my build criteria tend to make meta try hards cringe. (not only do i enjoy LRMs, but i also always bring at least 1 AMS if i can fit it on the build (or the mech has the slot). i also try to keep my heat management roughly around 1.4 (certain equipment like JJs not included and RACs i have to calculate differently). on top of that i don't like purely ammo dependent builds so if i can fit some back-up energy i will even if thats just 2 MLs like on my Catapult-C4. add to that hand tremors and you have a mix that should have me a far lower tier.)

[MrMadguy]

martian, on 15 December 2024 - 09:27 AM, said:

I see no problem here: Use any 'Mech that you like, play the way you like, and let PSR do the rest.

Eventually, you will end up in a Tier populated by the players who use the same kind of 'Mechs and builds as you use, and who play the game the same way that you play it.

Then you should get balanced games with approximately the same number of wins and losses, and of course with the corresponding rewards.

It doesn't work, because rating means nothing. I have bad matches no matter how low my rating is. My initial rating was 50% Tier 3. There were moments, when I reached Tier 2. But as time goes by, rating deflation happens, cuz situation at lower and lower rating becomes worse and worse, so rating is constantly pulled down. Would it help, if I'll drop to Tier 5? I guess, no. And there is no Tier 6 to drop to.

I'm not the worst player in this game. Various players are mixed in my matches. For example yesterday I spectated player, who didn't know how to use ATMs. How it's possible, that complete noobs can be matched against pro players?

VeeOt Dragon, on 15 December 2024 - 03:00 PM, said:

as for the PSR itself i say don't worry about it. just have fun and play what you like. i tend to ignore my own Tier rating as its not something i really care about. hell i have no clue how i got to T2 given that most of my build criteria tend to make meta try hards cringe. (not only do i enjoy LRMs, but i also always bring at least 1 AMS if i can fit it on the build (or the mech has the slot). i also try to keep my heat management roughly around 1.4 (certain equipment like JJs not included and RACs i have to calculate differently). on top of that i don't like purely ammo dependent builds so if i can fit some back-up energy i will even if thats just 2 MLs like on my Catapult-C4. add to that hand tremors and you have a mix that should have me a far lower tier.)

Again. I don't care about PSR. I want to complete events. And event objectives say things like "Win matches", "Earn match score", "Earn dmg", "Earn kills/KMDDs". It's not possible, if matchmaker isn't functional. If devs can't fix matchmaking, then may be they should add reward multipliers for players, who play against wrong Tier? Or may be some sort of armor/dmg multipliers?

I don't know, how to play this game despite of playing it for around 10 years. For now I gravitate towards having LRMs + some backup weapons. Simply because LRMs allow me to pull at least some score, while direct fire weapons are almost impossible to play with due to too low TTK. Are we playing big stompy robots game or some sort of CS, where one guy can kill whole enemy team due to having lucky headshots? Problem is - everybody and their grannies using Radar Derp cheat, that has unfair weight vs other still tree nodes. Skill tree should be about small perks. Not about becoming 99% immune to 30% of weapons.

Another major problem with LRM builds - is that I have to sacrifice direct dmg to equip them, that makes me weaker against other 'Mechs in 1 vs 1 situation. Sometimes even Mediums have more firepower than me, that leads me to loss in 1 vs 1 fight.

I'm also not super good at aiming. I'm happy, if I can hit at least something. I don't know, how other players can do precise aiming at moving targets without cheats, while firing window is so narrow - split second.

Playing only Clan 'Mechs or even better - IIS ones. IS 'Mechs seem to exist in this game for collecting purposes only. Due to ST-death penalty, that decreases their life by 50%. I just don't want to gimp already gimped enough IS 'Mechs via using STD engines on them. I even think about selling all IS 'Mechs to make room for Clan ones now. I didn't like Clan 'Mechs back in old times, because their modular nature seemed to be more boring due to removing "engineering" part from 'Mech customization. That's why I have so many IS 'Mechs, that are mostly useless. I no longer play them anyway.

Edited by MrMadguy, 16 December 2024 - 04:01 AM.

[Ttly]

MrMadguy, on 16 December 2024 - 02:34 AM, said:

-snip-

Well maybe consider turning on thermals if you feel like you can't react on shooting something quick enough.
Having a bright white target contrasting on a darker background might improve your reaction time, on top of it being easier to aim with because this game's UI has pretty terrible contrast with the environment otherwise (orange crosshair on a yellow desert map, really?).
And Just dismissing IS mechs like that? I get that a lot of people are squeamish on running heavies/assaults with IS XL, but you can seriously match/exceed equivalent tonnage clan mechs in firepower, and with some torso twisting, without much loss in durability (on top of having more armor quirks in general). Take the 4UAC5 King Crab for example, that's an actually threatening level of firepower, and when run with XL that thing can actually move faster than an Annihilator, and its large CT hitbox means that XL doesn't matter since everyone just shoots it on the CT, except with that much firepower it could actually win damage trades.

Now if the problem is the fact that your teammates suck? Well sorry to say, but it's hardly improved on higher tiers either, and if you're just going to complain about bad teammates, well you're just gonna do that all day long on top of longer MM times.

Edited by Ttly, 16 December 2024 - 05:44 AM.

[MrMadguy]

Ttly, on 16 December 2024 - 05:17 AM, said:

Well maybe consider turning on thermals if you feel like you can't react on shooting something quick enough.
Having a bright white target contrasting on a darker background might improve your reaction time, on top of it being easier to aim with because this game's UI has pretty terrible contrast with the environment otherwise (orange crosshair on a yellow desert map, really?).
And Just dismissing IS mechs like that? I get that a lot of people are squeamish on running heavies/assaults with IS XL, but you can seriously match/exceed equivalent tonnage clan mechs in firepower, and with some torso twisting, without much loss in durability (on top of having more armor quirks in general). Take the 4UAC5 King Crab for example, that's an actually threatening level of firepower, and when run with XL that thing can actually move faster than an Annihilator, and its large CT hitbox means that XL doesn't matter since everyone just shoots it on the CT, except with that much firepower it could actually win damage trades.

Now if the problem is the fact that your teammates suck? Well sorry to say, but it's hardly improved on higher tiers either, and if you're just going to complain about bad teammates, well you're just gonna do that all day long on top of longer MM times.

Thermal would decrease accuracy even more, as image is blurred. I usually use thermal only when visibility is bad. Due to smoke for example.

What I like about game - is engineering part. That's why I don't like to play Mediums and Lights. Their builds are very limited and therefore boring. And that's why I liked IS 'Mechs in the past. I was lucky to start playing such 'Mech as Jagger, that had good ST hit boxes. But when I started to buy other IS 'Mechs, XL ST death penalty started to affect my gameplay. IS 'Mech behave like they don't have ST internal structure. Once armor is stripped - you're dead immediately. It's especially bad for Heavies and Assaults, that have large ST hit boxes. Sometimes it takes just 2 seconds to die in such 'Mech. I hated Clan 'Mechs due to their exceedingly big engines and boring builds. You just buy 'Mech and play it. That's it. Zero engineering. But IIS ones are true godsend.

[RockmachinE]

MrMadguy, on 15 December 2024 - 09:15 AM, said:

I don't know, why I even play this game.


Look. I don't care about winning or losing. I just want to earn CBs to buy new 'Mechs and complete events. If matchmaking can't be fixed, then may be reward system should be fixed instead?

whats the issue exactly?

[Ttly]

MrMadguy, on 16 December 2024 - 07:29 AM, said:

-snip-

Well maybe just accept that you're one of the less than stellar players on your team then, I mean I outscored my entire (losing) team on an So8 SHC-H, the LRM Shadowcat of all things earlier, it's not even a particularly effective build yet I somehow still did that, and when I spectated my team? They were running netbuild meta assaults, except they drive the same way geriatrics would, terrible aim and all. Good builds don't fix bad players.
And really? Thermal vision blur? Sure if you're looking at anything beyond 500m distance, but saying that for anything less is just, well it's just not, and the point of it is to have higher contrast on target, them being blurry isn't that big of a deal.

Edited by Ttly, 18 December 2024 - 06:51 PM.

[Xypherious]

I'm trying hard to get out of tier 5, because I'm sick of the matchmaking deciding games for me. I'm not excellent at the game, but sheesh.... teamwork, people! I mostly play lights because I get into matches faster, and I can get out of trouble easier. But I can't contribute if my team is so afraid of getting their pixels hurt they won't engage the other team.

[Sneaky Snek]

MrMadguy, on 16 December 2024 - 02:34 AM, said:

Playing only Clan 'Mechs or even better - IIS ones. IS 'Mechs seem to exist in this game for collecting purposes only. Due to ST-death penalty, that decreases their life by 50%. I just don't want to gimp already gimped enough IS 'Mechs via using STD engines on them. I even think about selling all IS 'Mechs to make room for Clan ones now. I didn't like Clan 'Mechs back in old times, because their modular nature seemed to be more boring due to removing "engineering" part from 'Mech customization. That's why I have so many IS 'Mechs, that are mostly useless. I no longer play them anyway.

You are aware you can put a light engine on IS mechs to have the same benefit of clan XL engines right? (Death on losing both torsos instead of just 1)

Looking at your stats, you obviously belong in tier 4 so I think matchmaking is doing its job in this case.
https://leaderboard....arch?u=MrMadguy

[VeeOt Dragon]

i have always been an IS loyalist and rarely if ever play clan mechs. more often than not IS mechs have more armor in general than Clan counterparts and as long as you stick to the Light enines you will be fine (some mechs can get away with an XL but for me thats mostly my LRM boats since you are only doing direct fire 50% of the time.) also IS rarely have fixed equipment so the give more build variety.


yu get bad maps and bad players in every tier it seems so even if you went up in tier it wouldn't change that.

[Ttly]

VeeOt Dragon, on 16 December 2024 - 03:40 PM, said:

i have always been an IS loyalist and rarely if ever play clan mechs. more often than not IS mechs have more armor in general than Clan counterparts and as long as you stick to the Light enines you will be fine (some mechs can get away with an XL but for me thats mostly my LRM boats since you are only doing direct fire 50% of the time.) also IS rarely have fixed equipment so the give more build variety. yu get bad maps and bad players in every tier it seems so even if you went up in tier it wouldn't change that.

Light engines on IS mediums are pretty noob-trappy though, 0.5-2t freed by XL engine over Light translates to a lot of gains as it lets you put DHS into the engine slots as well, allowing you to use LFF or FF armor (on top of endo-steel obviously) with the slots saved, which frees up further 0.5-1t which in total actually translates to +15 engine rating in some cases for XL or even more than light engine equivalent, it's a lot of extra speed that lets them do more than just being a "mediocre heavy" in most cases, coupled with the stronger armor quirks, well you get something pretty tough for that fast, or significant increase in effective DPS when coupled with decent quirks as it lets you cram in more DHS as well.
There are exceptions like the Hunchback or Centurions I guess, but they're exactly that, exceptions.
Heck, there's a decent amount of IS Assaults that benefits a lot from XL too yet people run them on Light engine and mediocre weapon loadouts/speed, King Crab, Highlander, Zeus, Hatamoto as examples. Especially the Bullshark which brings 100t mech's worth of armor points thanks to its armor quirks even if it doesn't have that good of a hitbox, running XL on it can get you as much firepower as an Annihilator but without the slowness.

And well, if you don't know how to use that extra speed, well that's just for lack of better word, a positioning skill issue. Or you know, your team just really sucks that much by cowering behind a hill or something that you couldn't really make decent plays in which case, better luck next time after 4 minutes of a steamroll match+4 minutes of queue time.

Edited by Ttly, 16 December 2024 - 04:55 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

My main is at approximately the Tier 2.5 while alt is Tier 2.9. I, though primarily play on my non-RL funds alt, primarily runs meds (Shadow Hawks/Huntsman) w/some heavies (T-bolts and a smattering of Warhammer/T-Wolf/Black Knights/etc), Occasionally Wolfhound and Battlemasters and MadCats 2. Of the IS mechs, I think I have two with XL, all others LFE. And any missiles are either SRMs or MRM. And I am only a few years away from being able to retired like some of us old folks like to do.

And it is about situational awareness, playing to the strengths and weaknesses of the team, and try to keep high ground. Too many players drop to the low ground and stay there, instead of cycling in/out. I tend to be more aggressive than passive, but will try to adjust when the European players are too laid back, or just say F it and force the reds to do something while having enough speed to disengage and play the squirrel in a medium

But then MrMadGuy is just a Swiner, I mean a Steiner..

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 16 December 2024 - 05:29 PM.

[MrMadguy]

Sneaky Snek, on 16 December 2024 - 02:09 PM, said:

Looking at your stats, you obviously belong in tier 4 so I think matchmaking is doing its job in this case.
https://leaderboard....arch?u=MrMadguy

51% rating tells different story. Isn't it 3.5? And W/L can't be relied on, cuz it's relative stat. Only way to keep it >> 1 without consequences - is to have 100% Tier 1. My K/D is bad, cuz I don't focus on kills. I usually deal dmg and kills are stolen by somebody else.

[Arnetheus]

The complaints and self-contradictions are all over the place, weird thread.

TC seems to fail to realize (like most of MWO players, for some reason) that there is no lobby matchmaker at all. Despite it being a repeated and open information over the years.
Tiers are only used to gather people for the lobby, that's it. Then, they end up on 1 of 2 teams randomly.

People who claim to "play for fun" sure care a lot about "systems keeping them down", huh.

[w0qj]

I like your Viper+Viper avatar/badge setup

Sneaky Snek, on 16 December 2024 - 02:09 PM, said:

You are aware you can put a light engine on IS mechs to have the same benefit of clan XL engines right? (Death on losing both torsos instead of just 1)

Looking at your stats, you obviously belong in tier 4 so I think matchmaking is doing its job in this case.
https://leaderboard....arch?u=MrMadguy

[MrMadguy]

Arnetheus, on 17 December 2024 - 09:10 AM, said:

The complaints and self-contradictions are all over the place, weird thread.

TC seems to fail to realize (like most of MWO players, for some reason) that there is no lobby matchmaker at all. Despite it being a repeated and open information over the years.
Tiers are only used to gather people for the lobby, that's it. Then, they end up on 1 of 2 teams randomly.

People who claim to "play for fun" sure care a lot about "systems keeping them down", huh.

Please provide source of your info. MM should at least try to find players with as close ratings as possible. It's release valves, that prevent it from doing it. I can't find old threads about current MM. But I could find even older ones, that say something about 45min queue for Tier 1 and 2, so devs had to mix them with Tier 3. Same seems to happen with Tier 4 now. But problem is even worse, because Tier 4 can also have completely new players. So, it's crazy mix of Tier 1 pro players and complete noobs, who fire all their missiles at walls, cuz they don't know how to play.

And devs don't even understand one simple thing. They're in dead loop. Lack of matchmaking kills their game even more. MM should at least attempt to balance teams, not just open release valves from Tier 1 and 2. Man, we live in AI era. Can we have AI MM already? We need much quicker matchmaking algorithms today, that react to situation much quicker. If some player stomps others for, lets say, 3 matches in a row - MM should react immediately, not wait for 100 matches for rating to slowly rise to Tier 2 or something. Things like OP Piranha killing 5 'Mechs and solo-winning match for enemy team just shouldn't happen in my matches. That's it.

You know, that well known premise, that stomps can be cured via just shuffling teams a little bit.

Edited by MrMadguy, 17 December 2024 - 10:15 PM.

[BlueDevilspawn]

I'll drop some facts. Believe them or not, I don't care, because I don't have time to debate you or cure your bruised ego.

• There is a primary matchmaker, which is really a lobby creator (as Arnetheus said). It gathers people from their tier +/- 2 tiers by default. So for example, Tier 1 can match down to Tier 3 right off the bat and Tier 3 can match all the way down to 5 and up to 1 right away. If the matchmaker has a tough time making a match, it will open up the tier gates 1 at a time until 24 players are found. With groups, their tiers are averaged and that number is used as their Tier to create a lobby. This is why people who actually bad players can boost their stats, by grouping with only Tier 5s.
  
• There is no secondary matchmaker, which would be the balance mechanism. There isn't even an agreed upon metric to use to balance. Cauldron has a couple of proposed solutions BUT
  
• Any balance adjustments to the matchmaker specifically require coding resources, which will not be available from PGI. They are all assigned to MW5 Clans.
  
• There is no way to dynamically say "this person won in a stomp twice, so let's put them on the presumably worse team for the next match." I've already told you there's no agreed upon metric, and there is no way to implement such a feature anyway. Frankly, it sounds like you feel people should be divvied up wins evenly rather than fighting for it. I completely disagree, this is a first person shooter - shoot first, faster, more accurately, and from optimal position/range. No participation trophies.

MrMadguy, on 17 December 2024 - 09:47 PM, said:

Please provide source of your info. MM should at least try to find players with as close ratings as possible. It's release valves, that prevent it from doing it. I can't find old threads about current MM. But I could find even older ones, that say something about 45min queue for Tier 1 and 2, so devs had to mix them with Tier 3. Same seems to happen with Tier 4 now. But problem is even worse, because Tier 4 can also have completely new players. So, it's crazy mix of Tier 1 pro players and complete noobs, who fire all their missiles at walls, cuz they don't know how to play.

And devs don't even understand one simple thing. They're in dead loop. Lack of matchmaking kills their game even more. MM should at least attempt to balance teams, not just open release valves from Tier 1 and 2. Man, we live in AI era. Can we have AI MM already? We need much quicker matchmaking algorithms today, that react to situation much quicker. If some player stomps others for, lets say, 3 matches in a row - MM should react immediately, not wait for 100 matches for rating to slowly rise to Tier 2 or something. Things like OP Piranha killing 5 'Mechs and solo-winning match for enemy team just shouldn't happen in my matches. That's it.

You know, that well known premise, that stomps can be cured via just shuffling teams a little bit.

[foamyesque]

Arnetheus, on 17 December 2024 - 09:10 AM, said:

TC seems to fail to realize (like most of MWO players, for some reason) that there is no lobby matchmaker at all. Despite it being a repeated and open information over the years.
Tiers are only used to gather people for the lobby, that's it. Then, they end up on 1 of 2 teams randomly.

That's not entirely true: the matchmaker does have rules to restrict groups. So you'll never see more than a single group of four, or one group of three plus one group of two, on the same side. And it will also try to match groups against groups.

MrMadguy, on 17 December 2024 - 09:47 PM, said:

Please provide source of your info. MM should at least try to find players with as close ratings as possible. It's release valves, that prevent it from doing it. I can't find old threads about current MM. But I could find even older ones, that say something about 45min queue for Tier 1 and 2, so devs had to mix them with Tier 3. Same seems to happen with Tier 4 now. But problem is even worse, because Tier 4 can also have completely new players. So, it's crazy mix of Tier 1 pro players and complete noobs, who fire all their missiles at walls, cuz they don't know how to play.

The matchmaker's pretty simplistic. If I understand correctly, it has effectively three buckets it uses to form matches: Tiers 1-3, Tiers 2-4, and Tiers 3-5.

So if you're in tier 5, the maximum tier you can see in a match is 3. If you're tier 4, it's 50/50 whether you're at the bottom of the tiers in a 2-4 match, or middling in a 3-5. If you're in T3, you can be in a 1-3 match, a 2-4 match, or a 3-5 match. In tier 2, a 1-3 or a 2-4 match. And in T1, you're in 1-3 matches exclusively.

This is why you often see surprisingly poor play in T1 matches: because, even before considering the massive skill difference between 'is in T1' and 'is a top percentile player of the game', a significant chunk of those players are likely not in tier 1 at all, because the match is actually a T1-3 match.. A similar effect, inverted, also applies: if you see someone performing surprisingly well in a T5 match it is probably because they aren't actually T5 -- because the match is actually a T3-5 match.

It's not a great system, but understanding what it's actually doing can help with the frustration. Fight your machine as best you can, understand why sometimes you're feeling like the hero and other times why apparently everybody on the other team is an eagle-eyed aimbot, and let the numbers take care of themselves.

You can complete the events at any tier.