680 replies to this topic

[Skyfaller]

Paul Inouye, on 12 October 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

A response to the major concerns of the community.

Match Making:

The developers at PGI are all veteran game players. Many of us were or still are competitive gamers and truly know the feeling of a great match played between two equally matched teams.

The next 3 stages of planned releases for Match Making involve the following:

Phase 1:

Reduce the maximum # of players in a group to 4. This means when players form a group, they will only be able to add 3 people. When that group launches, they will be put in a bucket. The match maker will then fill the rest of the 8 player team with 4 PUGs or any partial groups that are looking for a match at that moment. The same will happen for the other team. Matches will still be 8v8 but instead of playing against 8 people in an organized premade, you will see a max of 4.

Now before you light your pitchforks, we know that this does not address all the issues and that 8-player groups are the mainstay of community and organized team-play. This is why we move to Phase 2 VERY soon after Phase 1.

Phase 2:

Players will be able to convert their 4-player group to an 8-player group similarly to how World of Warcraft’s group to raid conversion works. With a click of a button, a group leader can convert a 4-player group to 8-players and invite 4 more players to the group. There is a limitation to this however. If the group leader decides to convert to an 8-player group, they MUST have 8 players in order to launch. (i.e. you cannot launch a game with 5,6 or 7 players). In addition to that, your 8-player group will be matched to another 8-player group ONLY. This does reduce the change of finding a match quickly but at the same time 8-players teams will finally be matched to other 8-player teams exclusively.

At some future date we will also want to include the ability to challenge a specific 8-player team to a match in a competitive/eSport manner. But as stated, this will be coming at a later date.

Phase 3:

We have been examining the various ranking systems in other games/structured tournament play etc. This includes ELO, TrueSkill and others. Our current plan is to use a hybrid system that uses the mentality of ELO with a weighting system that we’ve determined that drives down to player effectiveness/skill in a match. In order for this to work properly, we will need to do heavy pre-release testing before it goes live to the community and hence the amount of time to get it implemented.

We currently cannot go into detail as to how this system will work because we are not going to over-promise something that may change during implementation. We will try to keep you as up to date on this as possible.

Look fellas, I hate to break this to you but the matchmaking you have planned is even worse than what we have now.

Why? Because you are not putting any limiters on mech class types and you are not making a distinction between PUG and Premade players.

What you end up with then, is pre-mades driving the absolute heaviest and most powerful mechs in large numbers and the pugs driving a random set of mechs.

You can see this now in the game. All we see now are premades that are either : Atlas-team with 2 scouts or many LRM boat team with a few scouts and an atlas or two to anchor the enemy while the lrm's rain down.

Facing... PUGs composed of random lights, mediums and a few heavies. Umm..yeah, take a guess who is going to stomp who.


The 4-man team that can be expanded to 8 man team. I can't be kind about this: Its an idiotic idea. If now you get 8 man teams to atlas or lrm-stomp pugs what makes you think they simply wont split into two 4man teams and link up? DUH.


Skill based matching: Another really stupid idea. It seems you guys don't play other F2P games since your competitors have already tried and failed miserably with the concept. It simply does not work. Stats do not in any way or form indicate skill.


What you need to do:


Make new game modes and tie those game modes with a limit to mech class allowed per side.

For example:

Game Modes: Each side plays one of the 'mode' roles when facing the other side.

I.

Assault - your side is attacking the enemy flag.
Mech setup: 4 assault, 2 mediums, 2 heavies.

Defense- your side is defending your flag from the assault team's attack.
Mech Setup: 1 light, 2 mediums, 5 heavies.

II.

Escort- Your heaviest mech must reach a point on the opposite side of map.
Mech Setup: 1 assault (mech being escorted), 2 heavies, 3 lights, 2 mediums.

Ambush- You must destroy the mech the other team is escorting.
Mech Setup: 4 heavies, 1 light, 3 mediums.

III.

Patrol- Patrol map area and prevent enemy from tagging locations.
Mech Setup: 2 lights, 5 mediums, 1 heavy

Recon- Penetrate patrol perimeter and tag enemy locations.
Mech Setup: 4 lights, 4 mediums

IV.

Conquest: Both sides must fight to capture the map. Each side has their flag side by side with the other.
Mech Setup: 2 assaults, 2 heavies, 2 mediums, 2 lights.

V.

Clan Engagement: Allows only clan (aka premade) teams fighting other clan teams. No PUG players allowed. Fights on any of the above maps at random. Mech setup is free (premade vs premade).

[paladin yst]

Premade is simply game breaking ruining ultra boring fest broken stuff.

No matter what u do, premade MUST NEVER be able to face pugs, thats simply game ruination.

Please please please solve it so pugs can ONLY face pugs and premade ONLY against premade

[miscreant]

Still having horrible FPS in Forest Colony....even after last Thursdays patch.

[EMonk]

planetarian, on 16 October 2012 - 07:53 AM, said:

Lobby/challenge system PLEASE.

I've always hated matchmaking systems for group play anyway. Just provide a lobby/challenge/pre-match-setup system so that we can set up matches ourselves; it's been the right way to do organized team matches in MW for ages.

Absolutely. The fact that we don't have a lobby system in sight used to puzzle me, now it's a little scary. I don't want to go on forever with only a 'quick-launch' system.

planetarian, on 16 October 2012 - 07:53 AM, said:

Certainly they can figure out a way to match groups of any size.

planetarian, on 16 October 2012 - 07:53 AM, said:

I mean, are there really any problems with such a simple proposition? Does it really have to be so hard?

Unfortunately the math is a lot harder than that, since the match-maker has to try to balance the teams somewhat. If it was just a matter of grabbing enough people to fill the 8 slots on both teams, no problems. But when you add in the different mech classes, balance becomes a big issue. Dropping 8 assaults against a mix of lights, mediums and heavies is not a reasonable scenario.

Currently the matchmaker attempts to solve this by matching class for class, so that each team has the same number of lights and so on. Sometimes it gets it wrong. Sometimes it fails to find a match, which sucks. When they add skill-based balancing it gets even worse, since that's a third level of matching that has to be done, further restricting the set of possible matches.

With a lobby system we can make a lot of the problem go completely away. We could invite randoms to fill the gaps, adjust tonnage to level the skills, etc. We need to be able to do this, not be held to the whims of the match maker.

[Scalyed]

For me the phase one and phase 2 plans will be a huge deterent if these are in the launch of the game.

I find the straegy and teamplay aspects of playing with 8 friends or community members of my choosing to be a huge factor.

Its nice to be able to drop down below 8 every now and then and let people take care of things around the house for a few rounds or whatever needs done and then have a spot open for them later on. With phase 2 plan if someone needs to take a 30 min break you have to have somone in waiting(Which would suck for that guy) or drop 3 more people down to 4 to be able to launch.

One great thing about the current match times is they arent all consuming like other competitive team games on the market. If my friends are on i can get a match or 2 in with them instead of plotting out a time for all of us to log in and give up 3+ hours of our time.

I strongly urge you to reconsider the 4/8 man rigid preform style for open matches. I think it would be good to have the phase 1/2 style if you decide to do a season or ranke que down the road.

Scalyed

[romrahp]

The funny part of all this match making stuff was we had the honor of playing a match or two with Paul this weekend(randomly).. However, we didn't invite him to join us because we already had 4 people in the group....Sucked to be Paul...

Edited by romrahp, 18 October 2012 - 04:55 PM.

[SixstringSamurai]

I honestly don't know why you guys just don't go to a public/private lobby system where you can setup matches in full, have everyone on at least the C3 VOIP (even though its bad), and allow for guilds/clans to practice as well as still keep the somewhat random player setup that the non premade players like without it just being a total "pug stomp".

[Hektoer]

Hmm, well IMHO, MWO is a team game with strategy. Seriously, if you want to play, get in a team. There is no excuse for insisting on staying solo; not even because you don't want to pay for the game. Not all online games have to be like cod and such. Oh wait, premades stomp pugs there too. How about join or die? You would not have some random guy solo by himself in real warfare. He would get the same thing you get in MWO and arma, etc.
Honestly, just about any solution that solo players try to suggest is going to make it worse for teams and typically if you are a paying player, you join a team. Hmmmm....

[Hektoer]

Skyfaller, on 16 October 2012 - 09:11 AM, said:

Blah
.

I hate to break it to you, but you start your post rude and insulting. I doubt very much anyone capable of influencing game design is in a reasonably open mindset by the time they get to your suggestions.
The bottom line is it's a team game with strategy. There is no reason to force mech size slots; that again makes it harder on a team to fit the mold and puts even more pressure on the one pug that gets the crucial single scout slot, for example. A simple implementation of Battle Value equivalency and BV limits for a certain map would work just fine.

[Abagnatius]

Hektoer, on 16 October 2012 - 09:08 PM, said:

Hmm, well IMHO, MWO is a team game with strategy. Seriously, if you want to play, get in a team. There is no excuse for insisting on staying solo; not even because you don't want to pay for the game. Not all online games have to be like cod and such. Oh wait, premades stomp pugs there too. How about join or die? You would not have some random guy solo by himself in real warfare. He would get the same thing you get in MWO and arma, etc.
Honestly, just about any solution that solo players try to suggest is going to make it worse for teams and typically if you are a paying player, you join a team. Hmmmm....

*looking left*
*looking right*

Hm... no team there.

Believe me, many of us paying players are puggers. Many of us do not have the time to get organized in a team, neither is this in any way comparable to real life warfare. In real life, you make one mistake and die. Here you make one mistake and learn (or laugh about it) and go on.

There is enough seriousness in RL - this is a game, after all.

Also, phase 2 of the premade matchmaking system solves any possible problems. premades face each other, we puggers are left in peace. Everybody gets what they want. Just be patient and you will not have to roflstomp us puggers any more. And we'll become able to just play and have a good time again.

Gridian

[EMonk]

Gridian, on 16 October 2012 - 10:38 PM, said:

Believe me, many of us paying players are puggers. Many of us do not have the time to get organized in a team,

Unless you're suffering from an absolutely crippling social anxiety (and I know a couple people like that, so I'm not just being a d!ick) or a pathological Action Hero wannabe, there is no reason why you have​ to drop solo.

Getting into a team is laughably easy to do, but you don't even have to do that to avoid getting pug-stomped. Go to the unofficial teamspeak server and group up with some other people. You don't have to commit to anything, hang out with people outside the game, it's not time-consuming, it's not difficult, and it can radically improve your game experience.

Gridian, on 16 October 2012 - 10:38 PM, said:

neither is this in any way comparable to real life warfare. In real life, you make one mistake and die. Here you make one mistake and learn (or laugh about it) and go on.

No, but once your mech is trashed in-game you don't get to respawn... which is one of the reasons we don't refer to this as an FPS. Each game is a battle, and how well your team does is dependent on how well you work together. If this wasn't true you'd have far fewer people complaining about premade teams stomping their butts.

Gridian, on 16 October 2012 - 10:38 PM, said:

Also, phase 2 of the premade matchmaking system solves any possible problems. premades face each other, we puggers are left in peace. Everybody gets what they want. Just be patient and you will not have to roflstomp us puggers any more. And we'll become able to just play and have a good time again.

Honestly, it solves very little. It helps the pugs out by stopping them from being dropped against 8-player teams, and that's the only good thing I can see about it. It penalizes teams that drop - as my team often does - with 6 or 7 mechs by forcing us to split up (in Phase 1) and draft in ringers (in Phase 2) to make up the shortage, then kick those ringers out as more people come online.

As a 'solution' it makes a great public toilet: it has a big hole (several actually) in it, and a lot of people are dumping on it.

I'd rather they get the coders working on a lobby of some description - preferably one that has some VOIP integration - instead of monkeying around with the current quick-launch system. At the end of the line we're going to need something more than a quick-launch for everyone except the dedicated loners.

And yes, I'm aware that this is aimed at making things easy for loners at the start of Open Beta, but a primitive lobby system could achieve the same result without a huge increase in effort.

[Fireside]

Most importantly I wish to thank the Devs for responding to player feedback.

Personally I don't think much of the planned match making scenario's. I think a large portion of players are simply waiting for some/any kind of lobby. But I applaud the efforts to improve things and will give feedback after trying the new systems.

[darthJaeger]

Gridian, on 16 October 2012 - 10:38 PM, said:

*looking left*
*looking right*

Hm... no team there.

Believe me, many of us paying players are puggers. Many of us do not have the time to get organized in a team, neither is this in any way comparable to real life warfare. In real life, you make one mistake and die. Here you make one mistake and learn (or laugh about it) and go on.

There is enough seriousness in RL - this is a game, after all.

Also, phase 2 of the premade matchmaking system solves any possible problems. premades face each other, we puggers are left in peace. Everybody gets what they want. Just be patient and you will not have to roflstomp us puggers any more. And we'll become able to just play and have a good time again.

Gridian

Well put, I couldn't agree more.

[Red Klown X]

darthJaeger, on 17 October 2012 - 04:06 AM, said:

Well put, I couldn't agree more.

*looking left*
*looking right*

SO hard to find the way to the unofficial TeamSpeak server and pick up moar players and make a "decent" pug premade team ?


"There is enough seriousness in RL - this is a game, after all. "
Really ?i was sure that it was about our life ...

Premade clan/house must be face to a team full of pug , premade are not the ultimade combo , they can be beat by a pug team !
There is no point to cut the world into premade clan/house and in the other side pug / lone wolf .

Edited by klownnection, 17 October 2012 - 04:59 AM.

[brienj]

Penance, on 16 October 2012 - 05:45 AM, said:

Do you guys plan on ever redoing the mechlab and just making it part of the game instead of a windowed extension of it?

When you have the Mech Lab / Launcher open, just hit Alt+Enter, it will make that fullscreen.

Gridian, on 16 October 2012 - 10:38 PM, said:

*looking left*
*looking right*

Hm... no team there.

Believe me, many of us paying players are puggers. Many of us do not have the time to get organized in a team, neither is this in any way comparable to real life warfare. In real life, you make one mistake and die. Here you make one mistake and learn (or laugh about it) and go on.

There is enough seriousness in RL - this is a game, after all.

Also, phase 2 of the premade matchmaking system solves any possible problems. premades face each other, we puggers are left in peace. Everybody gets what they want. Just be patient and you will not have to roflstomp us puggers any more. And we'll become able to just play and have a good time again.

Gridian

Couldn't have said that any better. There are some people that look at their stats, a leaderboard, or what have you, and are good, but not really the best, so they join up and team with other people that are the same as them, then they carefully plan out how to make the game work for them and get those easy stats. This describes the majority of people that join a team.

On the other hand, you have people that have LIVES, don't even know their kill/death ratio, never look at a leaderboard, and play a game to have FUN, but are still pretty good, and know what they have to do to play smart. They know to watch the other Mechs backs, to not go off on their own and be stupid, unless the situation calls for it. They know how to play as a team, but don't need to be a part of an official team. They can manage with the in-game chat and communicate with their team-mates. This is the group I fall into, and I LOVE when I drop with these like-minded individuals. If you THINK you are the best, and love to team with others that THINK the same way, I don't even want to drop with you ...

What they need to finally implement, is an in-game voice chat, which they already have with the C3 integration, but that only works if you form a group beforehand. They need lobbies, where that can all be set up, but you don't have to have a pre-made group beforehand. A lot of the PUG stomping would end if this was implemented. In fact, sometimes the PUG stomping is stopped when you happen to get teamed up with people that have played the game long enough to know what they should be doing. I was on a team the other day that beat another team, and it wasn't exactly easy to win, but because it was so close I figured I must have had a bunch of Founders on my team, or neither team had Founders, but when the game was over, everybody on the other team was a Founder, and there was only ONE Founder on my team. I noticed that the other team had the StreakCats and GaussCats too, but it didn't take another pre-made team to beat the cheese, all it took was like-minded individuals that knew what the heck they were doing, and we won.

Edited by brienj, 17 October 2012 - 06:33 AM.

[WrathBD]

I want to second (or third, or twenty-fifth) my concern with the match-making phase 2 concept. I know it is still in Beta so I am trying not to panic yet.

I like the concept in phase one of being able to form a group UP TO 4 that is matched up with another UP TO 4 pre-made group. Great idea, fill in the rest of the team to get to 8. Perfect

Why can you not follow the same logic in phase 2 with groups UP TO 8?? I too occasionally play with a group of friend and when we have everyone on, that is 7. Most of the time we get 5 or so. Making it so that we cannot play as a group is not a good idea. I am fine with the idea that the 5 of us might go against a full 8 man pre-made. On the other side of the coin, I am ALSO ok with sometimes being the filler for a team that has a 5 man pre-made going against an 8 man team. I may have to communicate with the pre-made via in game chat but who cares? I may get killed right away, but it is a game - who cares?

Maybe the developers can add a check box that allows solo players to designate if they are willing to fill an incomplete pre-made or not. I would prefer to be matched in a partial pre-made than a team of individuals, others may not.

I think the most important thing is to let players play how they want to. Please don't force full 8 man teams. I hope the developers read this and it isn't just lost to the ether.

[ReconDoc]

I have read this entire post twice and maybe this is foolish but I see 3 types of complaints: pug vs premades, matchmaking, and group sizing.
First off this is BETA...,its a live and learn, try and redo, and pray to god it works. Most of us come here from FPS games or MMO's like WoT and expect it to be like that, newsflash it isn't. The Dev's try hard to make the game playable ( applause to them) and when they change things people are going to get pissed but if it makes it work better why argue.
Think of matchmaking now as this lances are 4 man, Stars are 5, lets get back to the game as it should be and quit griping that you can't have a group of 8. You want teamwork well there it is in the lances and stars, it also allows pugs to game with us premades and show their skills (or lack of) as well and maybe teach us some things. Yes i know I am on a premade team, but here is a tip, we also have guest pilots that drop with us on a regular basis and that's fun too. Do we have elite teams, oh hell yea, but the name of the game is fun.
Devs, if I may, what about training servers or bot servers? Would it take a load off the premade vs pug in match? To some degree I believe it would to due to the fact in training servers teams could either battle each other (or among themselves) or in bot servers lone wolfs could learn. Maybe bump the pug sever ratio to 12v12 that way 3 four man teams could run. Another Idea, form lances ingame as well as before (ie BF2,2142 etc) this way lonewolfs have a chance to band together and maybe use C3 more(personally C3 need ALOT of work! but that my opinion). The check box is a good idea and I would love to see it explored.
To the lone wolfs who think being part of a team means you don't have a life. Newsflash, I have been running a community for over 5 years and we are not small, and ALL of us have lives. All being part of a team means is that we devote a small portion of that to the game and gathering with like minded individuals, whether in fun or hardcore(my team has both).
Ok I have had my rant...lol.

WrathBD, on 17 October 2012 - 06:25 AM, said:

Maybe the developers can add a check box that allows solo players to designate if they are willing to fill an incomplete pre-made or not. I would prefer to be matched in a partial pre-made than a team of individuals, others may not.

I think the most important thing is to let players play how they want to. Please don't force full 8 man teams. I hope the developers read this and it isn't just lost to the ether.

I totally AGREE with that!

Edited by ReconDoc, 17 October 2012 - 07:18 AM.

[Squidhead Jax]

klownnection, on 17 October 2012 - 04:58 AM, said:

*looking left*
*looking right*

SO hard to find the way to the unofficial TeamSpeak server and pick up moar players and make a "decent" pug premade team ?

It still takes a lot of wasted time, and especially when people are getting rounds in between other things and they'd have to join, and drop out, and join, and drop out...

******** arguments like that also boomerang back on those of us who tend to be in groups that hover at 6-7 members and don't want to get ****** by this system. Roaming over to the public TS to grab an extra random is all well and good, until an 8th member of the actual group comes on... it's just an extra pain for everyone involved.

[Klaus]

Someone please tell me I'll be able to map my mouse wheel again before open beta.

[Red Klown X]

Squidhead Jax, on 17 October 2012 - 07:21 AM, said:

It still takes a lot of wasted time, and especially when people are getting rounds in between other things and they'd have to join, and drop out, and join, and drop out...

******** arguments like that also boomerang back on those of us who tend to be in groups that hover at 6-7 members and don't want to get ****** by this system. Roaming over to the public TS to grab an extra random is all well and good, until an 8th member of the actual group comes on... it's just an extra pain for everyone involved.

"Waste of time" waiting people for a game that need teamplay , Ok i can accept all point of view ...

i will almost ask you , what are you doing in an online game ? but i can t wrote it !

Since i was playing without a clan , i was looking for people in the unofficial TS server , i was "wasting my time" in the looking for group channel and sometimes i was "wasting" my time in a group who was looking for moar +1 / +2 / +3 pilot .

From that i saw , i m not the only one who want "waste" the time trying to make a decent group or play in 8 people group . And i will keep " wasting " this time , enjoying the time wasted .

Or maybe i will stop play online game and " waste " more time with other , waiting for them or whatever , i m here to be productive after all ...!

Mechwarrior online must have an option for solo play ! Bump the click and go !