62 replies to this topic

[00dlez]

It sounds like you want to confer advantages to people who choose not to work as a team or penalize those who do... Play as an individual all you like, but don't complain that teamwork needs to be "balanced" or otherwise accounted for. Like most other games I'd like to see teamwork be encouraged and needed to win.

[Aelos03]

that one is obvious MM will take care of that

[Solis Obscuri]

Groups of players working together are going to be more effective than individuals trying to take on the world alone. That's fundamentally balanced. But there's no reason a fairly skilled "lone wolf" can't be a useful contributor to a 12-man team. PUGs may not typically be as strong as pre-arranged groups who work together on a regular basis, but within any faction, people are going to get used to working with each other over time, and I suspect few units will be able to consistently fill an entire 12-team at all times. There's going to be mixing, and it can be managed.

I also think that the command interfaces and battlegrid are being designed to help groups coordinate even when not everyone is on Vent/TS together, or necessarily speaking the same language. If those are implemented well, they can contribute mightily to the effectiveness of PUGs.

[Major Tom]

I got the impression that:

Merc units, likely the most organized units in the game since they are created and maintained by interested parties, will battle on Border Worlds against other Merc units.

House Units, which are likely to be less organized since they are 'owned' by the developers, and battle battle for Faction Worlds.

While Lone Wolves, would be the least organized and make up the filler members of a deployed group

Finally, Loyalty Points are reqruied to attack certain worlds meaning that generally elite units will be battling other elite units.

In short, leadership and organization look like this:
Merc Companies > House Units > Lone Wolves
While the relative skill level of individuals/groups would me measured in loyalty points.

So the likelyhood of being outmatched by an opponent is going to be dependant on both your own groups organization level, are you a merc leader who created a website and lets in everyone who asks, or are you a merc leader with several of your close friends with a teamspeak server and organized 'raid' nights.

Edited by Major Tom, 02 May 2012 - 12:02 PM.

[Orzorn]

The way most match making system balance out groups of players is by sticking them up against a group of players. Additionally, they usually stick you with...less than skilled players. In Dota 2, for instance, playing with a friend will usually mean you will play against a team with at least two friends together on it. You might also get several players with under a hundred wins (meaning, not very skilled right now) to balance out your potential skill.

It can feel really unfair sometimes (you look at their profiles and see that they all only have like 30 wins, meaning they're totally fresh players, while you have hundreds of wins), but it works out most of the time.

[UncleKulikov]

You could match rooms based on group proportions.

So a team of 3 and 2 randoms would fight another team of 3 and 2 randoms, not a team of 3 and another team of 2.

[Trog16]

This is a good conversation. I think that the match maker should take into account premades, unlike WoT where you will often seen one team just loaded with Platoons, up to 4, and the other team is just singles, I hope this MM will try to balance out the number of premade lances on each side.

Not knowing much about the economy or how the contract system works I think that Major Tom's post is a good example of how this will kind of take care of itself. People that love teams will migrate towards Merc units while the 'lone wolves' or just on for a quick random game will migrate towards House battles.

Side note, but I also hope that the MM takes into account efficiency of the players. I have the XVM mod in WoT and it is just amazing to me how many times the MM creates one team with 3/4 of the players are WAY sub %50 winners and the other team is chock full of +%50 creating a situation where no single player can consistently effect the outcome.

One last thing:
Is it open beta yet?
Trog

[Inappropriate359]

Angelicon, on 02 May 2012 - 09:56 AM, said:

The only reasoning I saw from Wargaming regarding platoon size not exceeding 3 was to make it easier for the matchmaker. If one platoon of 5 went with a Maus and four Liechtraktors... well that'd be kind of hard for the MM to deal with.

This is false. I happen to live in the SF Bay area (where wargaming's US office is) and have had the good fortune to meet some of them at events they've hosted. Platoons was one of the subjects I spoke at length with them about. They were, in fact, ready to introduce a 5 person platoon until their research showed that it would be completely dominant and would leave the rest of the players on the team marginalized (that is, the rest of the team won or lost based not on anything could did, but whether they got the good 5-person platoon or the bad one). I thought it was amusing they needed research to show them that, since anyone who has been in a game with a -G-, Forge, or NDP 3x T9 medium platoon already knows how absurdly dominant they are.

I'm not actually convinced it can be balanced. I think a solution like WoT's random games + tank companies is the best choice, but making the random games truly random with no teams. If people want to play in a team, they can play in a 'Lance company' mode which would have a 4 person minimum. And if three 4-person teams up against a 12 person clan, welp, at least they know what they were getting into. This system would, in fact, be much more granular than WoT's tank company mode (which right now requires about ~10 people to field a competitive team), since people could play with 4, 8, or 12 person teams. In WoT, there's a dead zone between 3 person platoons and 10 person tank companies (that is, there's no competitive way to play if you have 5-6 people you want to play with).

This way the 'randoms' will always be on equal footing, not subject to the whims of whether they got the 'good lance' or the 'crappy lance' on their team and the 'team players' can play against other teams, instead of farming randoms for easy kills/win rate farming.

[Vollstrecker]

Egomane, on 02 May 2012 - 01:30 AM, said:

I learned a long time ago, how I can be usefull without "communication". Communication can make a poor player mediocre, and a mediocre player can be somewhat good. But it can never balance for creativity, skill and experience.
From what I have seen, good communication means rules and a standard set of procedures for the battlefield. It is very hard to change those on the fly. They will work most of the time. But if you engange an enemy who experienced those procedures and who has enough creativity to abuse them, you are in deep trouble. Only very few teams manage to adapt to that. The bigger the team, the less likely it will be able to do so.

That's just my experience, and yours may vary, but unless proven wrong I will stick with it.

I'm not sure what you're trying to claim here, but communications have been a solid backbone of organized warfare since its inception. The only way it would be advantageous to not use it is if the communication channels are compromised and false orders given, or if you're communicating by runner (whom can just be slain).

Faster communication means a faster response to any kind of "creative" threat that arises, as you put it. Communication and discipline have an incredibly strong effect, there is a reason why Roman Legions were such a success on the field.

[FrostRaven]

There is no doubt that the MM will have to go through a few stages of evolution in beta and indeed, possibly after release. The best that we, the potential beta crew can do, is to put the MM through as many differing scenarios as possible and provide constructive feedback to the devs.

Even if that means that a group of people (in communication with each other) play a series of matches with differing lance configurations to see how the MM distributes the teams (I for one will be keeping track of such things via screen shots, so that my after action reports are thorough and have supporting documentation).

However if the developers deliver on their end (re: every mech role valid on the battlefield) there should be no reason why a lance consisting of three light mechs and one assault couldn't contribute as much as a full assault lance (In theory). It would be a simple matter for pre-made lances to be matched against other pre-mades, and as has been stated above, being in an organised lance (or platoon from WoT) does not mean that you will win.

Remember that in combat, no one (except the Clans or oppressed people fighting for their 'ideology') fights a superior enemy if possible. Some battles will be fair, others will be unbalanced. If you win against the odds, it is more the sweeter victory, then all of a sudden a superior enemy becomes the inferior defeated.

[Nick Makiaveli]

Vollstrecker, on 02 May 2012 - 02:34 PM, said:

I'm not sure what you're trying to claim here, but communications have been a solid backbone of organized warfare since its inception. The only way it would be advantageous to not use it is if the communication channels are compromised and false orders given, or if you're communicating by runner (whom can just be slain).

Faster communication means a faster response to any kind of "creative" threat that arises, as you put it. Communication and discipline have an incredibly strong effect, there is a reason why Roman Legions were such a success on the field.

This. Ego is trying to take one possible situation and stretch it to cover a majority. Organization doesn't mean you have to be rigid. Any group can abandon their pre-ordained tactics and start adapting on the fly. Being highly familiar with your team can be a huge asset in adapting, as you have an idea of who is going to likely charge, whose first instinct is to hunker down etc.

[Claw55]

You can't balance teamwork. All you can do is make 4 out of 5 people mad.

[Monky]

I think a good solution would be to simply have people grouped in full lances of 4 be likely to be put up against other people in fully premade lances. Then, partial lances/lone wolves form the grist that makes up the rest of the game sessions being played.

Edited by monky, 02 May 2012 - 03:17 PM.

[rollermint]

Too much comparison with WoT.

WoT may be the easiest comparison to MWO but both games are worlds apart. Most players in WoT are non-affiliated and not involved in territorial warfare but thats not going to be the case in MWO. Most players will be either be faction-aligned or joined up with player merc companies.

Games in WoT are primarily random quick-battles while the territorial warfare are restricted to clans but MWO, otoh, will have all players having access to the territory conquest mode. Random matchmaking will be less of an issue here. I believe MWO players will know where exactly they will be fighting and who their enemies are, as opposed to the random battle WoT player who has no idea what map they will get when they click on quick battle. If the other faction are fielding more organised teams and lances, its your faction's fault for not organising enough to counter them.

Teamplay and organised lances should be encouraged, not penalised.

Edited by rollermint, 02 May 2012 - 03:28 PM.

[Inappropriate359]

rollermint, on 02 May 2012 - 03:22 PM, said:

Most players will be either be faction-aligned or joined up with player merc companies.

There is no a priori reason to believe this will be true. All we can use as a guide is previous games with similar-esque gameplay. Hence all the WoT comparisons; BF3 and other tactical FPSs also apply. And we know from these earlier games that most players will be individuals just logging in casually. Piranha probably understands this given how they've embraced the F2P model. The next step is to make sure these individual players are not disenfranchised or otherwise marginalized by the game design; else the benefits of F2P will remain unrealized.

Anyway, I can see most commenters here just aren't understanding the issue since the replies are largely missing/ignoring/avoiding the point entirely. Oogling over screenshots of new mechs may be fun but managing player participation, be it through an automated matchmaking mechanism or some other design, is the single most critical aspect of this game's design. I believe the game will succeed or fail based upon it, far more so than the minutiae of tabletop rules conversion and other esoteric technobabble. I'm going to be guardedly nervous about mwo until relevant details emerge.

[eZZip]

rollermint, on 02 May 2012 - 03:22 PM, said:

Teamplay and organised lances should be encouraged, not penalised.

I don't think anybody has argued against that. It's a different matter to say that both teams in a game should have roughly the same amount of organized vs. random members, which is something obvious to implement if you've seen the overwhelming superiority of coordinated, practiced (with each other) players against random players that have no communication with each other.

rollermint, on 02 May 2012 - 03:22 PM, said:

If the other faction are fielding more organised teams and lances, its your faction's fault for not organising enough to counter them.

I don't know what makes you think that factions will be like huge organized armies, because when you take people on the Internet and put them together, they most certainly do not form some sort of command hierarchy and have somebody saying, "deploy 20 lances to this planet! Put the most skilled players on that planet! Have Team MechWarriors attack their planet!" Shifting an easy-to-fix problem in a matchmaking system to the players is absurd.

[Vollstrecker]

There are plenty of games (MMO and not) that have competent match-making in regard to Team-play and solo queuing. I have every faith that PGI will handle it appropriately, because it is most definitely not fair for the solo players to face a premade team. In fact, it's one of the most demoralizing experiences an online player can face, in my opinion.

No one likes the competition to be over before a shot is fired.

[Demonwaith]

In games where your death/kills/wins doesn't matter but for stats. Auto pairing the highest rated people and pre-mades make sence.

In a game where you have to pay for everything in in-game c-bills that you earn from the match and most importantly occupy territory. (eve like player occupation) Pairing off the high ends/pre-mades makes no sence. You want the best, most organized, to rise to the top of the heap.

The game is (hopfully) bigger than a simple match making button pusher.

[Vollstrecker]

Demonwaith, on 02 May 2012 - 04:20 PM, said:

In games where your death/kills/wins doesn't matter but for stats. Auto pairing the highest rated people and pre-mades make sence. In a game where you have to pay for everything in in-game c-bills that you earn from the match and most importantly occupy territory. (eve like player occupation) Pairing off the high ends/pre-mades makes no sence. You want the best, most organized, to rise to the top of the heap. The game is (hopfully) bigger than a simple match making button pusher.

That falls secondary to the main point of gaming; you don't play if you aren't enjoying yourself. If people don't play, PGI can't support the game. While it's more realistic for invading forces to hit militia and second-line forces, a game can't operate like that all the time or the opposition will just leave (also known as the 'ragequit').

[Famous]

How is making Lances play Lances going to prevent ragequitting? Someone who is prone to ragequitting will generally find a reason to ragequit, if it's not the matchmaking it will be perceived OP weapons or chassis. I sincerely hope PGI doesn't try to cater to the ragequitters, it will lessen the game for all of us.

Here's an example for you- Let's say in this 12v12 both teams have a Lance on comms and two random Lances, this looks like a balanced match. When drop time comes we discover that the comms Lance on team A is there to fool around whereas the comms Lance on team B is there to practice for competitive play. You've probably just put team A at a serious disadvantage because their comms Lance can't compete with the other teams.

Sure dropping into a server against a 12 man company will suck, but players who are interested and active in the game (these are also the players who spend money, not ragequitters) will either take the loss and find a different server, try to rise to the challenge of a fight they should lose, or simply find a group of players to join themselves.

Just because your unit is on comms and/or has played together in the past doesn't mean that you will be world eaters, simply that you're used to playing together and can talk. A good scout player and a good fire support player don't have to be on comms, they just do their jobs and win the game.

Matchmaking based on W/L or some mystically divined skill rating can hamper players ability to improve. If you play with scrubs day in and day out you never get better because you're never challenged. So yes PGI might lose players because they can't win, but those players are also very unlikely to spend money on the game, especially since there is no pay to win option (or so they promise us)