65 replies to this topic

[Sevaradan]

Quite possibly because there's severe population issues (i.e. not enough of it) and splitting into 8v8 and puggling only would make it overly apparent. (just a guess based on the 6 times I saw a certain notorious suicide farmer in 3 hours yesterday morning) and ppl would stop giving PGI $....

[Lonestar1771]

Brilig, on 29 November 2012 - 06:26 AM, said:

Even before things went to 4 man wasn't it confirmed that the vast majority of games are actually pug on pug? I swear a Dev had a post about it but I am having trouble finding it.

Ultimately we will find out if that's the case once the groups get separated. Still I could have swore there was an official post about it.

Yeah it was Garth if I remember correctly.

[Broceratops]

Sevaradan, on 29 November 2012 - 06:29 AM, said:

Quite possibly because there's severe population issues (i.e. not enough of it) and splitting into 8v8 and puggling only would make it overly apparent. (just a guess based on the 6 times I saw a certain notorious suicide farmer in 3 hours yesterday morning) and ppl would stop giving PGI $....

this could be the case

i dont know whats up with any of these numbers. last week there was literally 15 people on the forums. now theres 100. i don't know whats going on around here.

[Bguk]

Angrynerd, on 29 November 2012 - 05:25 AM, said:

This is one of the most game breaking aspects of the game, the other beging the jurassic netcode. However,matchmaking is much easier to fix than netcode, and still the devs are as quick as snails to fix the issue. Seriously, betty, camo, new hero mech? This isnt what we need at the moment. Its like "hey our ship is skinking, let's mop the floor."
Devs, its simple, pugs vs pugs and premades vs premades. Stop working on useless content. The netcode is already so bad this game feels like quake 3 on dial up modem. At least give us the option of how we want to play.

It may have been said already but for yet another post I'm putting in as much effort as the op:

Why is it so hard to wait?

[Sevaradan]

Especially since they've been hiding pop #s lately, and the frequency I'm seeing individuals it makes me suspicious about the viability of the population...

[Lonestar1771]

Thontor, on 29 November 2012 - 06:30 AM, said:

The 4 man groups won't have such a huge impact once the game goes to 12v12

I do wish they would make sure that if there are two 4 man groups in a match, they are on seperate teams...

Cause two 4 mans on the same team vs a team of 8 pugs isn't cool.

I don't understand why those of us who choose to congregate in a game designed at it's core to be a team game have to be punished just because the anti-social neck beards were crying that they couldn't pwn noobs with leet head shot skills across the map while camping.

[John Norad]

You shouldn't call proper matchmaking 'catering to the PUGs'.

Matchmaking is important for everyone, because (hopefully) everyone wants a fair fight.
I don't see why any player would argue against it, except personal dislike of the poster or trolling.

[Boris The Spider]

Bguk, on 29 November 2012 - 06:31 AM, said:

It may have been said already but for yet another post I'm putting in as much effort as the op:

Why is it so hard to wait?

Aye, lets all spend less time and energy griping about things that PGI already know about and are working on, like PUG's, netcode, FPS, etc. And more time focusing on things they can do to improve and expand the game.

[Boris The Spider]

John Norad, on 29 November 2012 - 06:35 AM, said:

You shouldn't call proper matchmaking 'catering to the PUGs'.

Matchmaking is important for everyone, because (hopefully) everyone wants a fair fight.
I don't see why any player would argue against it, except personal dislike of the poster or trolling.

Been playing multiplayer games over a decade, and this forum is the first place I have ever came accross the concept of matchmaking. What other games actualy have this kind of feature?

As far as I can see, matchmaking, 8vs8, 4vs4, pug vs premade is all just stopgap solution to keep us from complaining until they impliment the full and expected features of the game.

Edited by Boris The Spider, 29 November 2012 - 06:40 AM.

[Broceratops]

John Norad, on 29 November 2012 - 06:35 AM, said:

You shouldn't call proper matchmaking 'catering to the PUGs'.

Matchmaking is important for everyone, because (hopefully) everyone wants a fair fight.
I don't see why any player would argue against it, except personal dislike of the poster or trolling.

exactly. matchmaking is for everybody. i hope the 8v8 queue will open the eyes of some groups to this when now *they* are the ones with little to no hope of victory.

[Phantom System]

I'm not defending premades or pugs. They are two separate gameplay modes and both are essential for the game. To put it in short:

If I'm on a premade, doesn't matter if it's 8 or 4, or 2, I want to fight premades, the quality of the fights are better and there should be NO "PICK UP GROUP" people among any pre-made team, ever, period!

And if I play the game on short burst, like many do, or I just want to log in and play a couple of matches, again, THERE SHOULD BE NO PRE-MADE teams to fight with or agaist, it's that simple.

Now my point is, working with the netcode is realy complicaded stuff, some, myself included, even think it's unfixable, there will always be lagshield, bullet delay and ghost hits, it's on the engine. Matchmaking on the other hand, is just simple programing.

Now, why do we have to see those horrible matchmaking phases that doesn't fix anything and ruins the gameplay. This is just bad game desing and management. So, one more time just to make it clear...pugs vs pugs, pre mades vs pre mades. Mix any of the two and you ruin it all for everyone.

[Broceratops]

Boris The Spider, on 29 November 2012 - 06:38 AM, said:

Been playing multiplayer games over a decade, and this forum is the first place I have ever came accross the concept of matchmaking. What other games actualy have this kind of feature?

As far as I can see, matchmaking, 8vs8, 4vs4, pug vs premade is all just stopgap solution to keep us from complaining until they impliment the full and expected features of the game.

is this for real?

world of warcraft, starcraft, league of legends, and all games of their ilk (so pretty much every mmorpg, every rts, every MOBA). world of tanks.

honestly i'd be hard pressed to find a competitive game that is played online that DOESNT have matchmaking. even crappy CoD tries to balance between level and previous game score.

[Ilwrath]

Lonestar1771, on 29 November 2012 - 06:30 AM, said:

Yeah it was Garth if I remember correctly.

They are copying World of Tanks so why not do as that game and put a number besides those that are grouped? That would show us how the mix really is.

Free to play devs will ALWAYS twist numbers when they try to prove anything by statistics to the players. They better do as WOT and let us see for ourselves. But after the removal of population numbers I doubt that they will do anything at all to give info to the players

Edited by Ilwrath, 29 November 2012 - 06:45 AM.

[Boris The Spider]

Honestly Broceratops, never played any of those, are they not the exeption? MMORPG wise, EVE Online never needed it, and for FPS games, BF franchise never needed it. Played plenty of other online games and have never came across the concept before.

I know the type of game WoW is, but in MWO you dont have the possibilty of a LVL1 warrior getting one hitted by a LVL100 warrior. The difference between a new pilot and a more experienced pilot isnt that vast and once the full features of the game are implimented groups would balanced just by randomisation alone. Sometimes your going to get your backside handed to you, fact of life.

Perhaps some kind of trail mech cresh with 3rd person etc for training might be a better idea?

Edited by Boris The Spider, 29 November 2012 - 06:53 AM.

[Broceratops]

Boris The Spider, on 29 November 2012 - 06:47 AM, said:

Honestly Broceratops, never played any of those, are they not the exeption? MMORPG wise, EVE Online never needed it, and for FPS games, BF franchise never needed it. Played plenty of other online games and have never came across the concept before.

okay but I just listed like 4 of the most popular games on the market the last several years, plus all their derivative games, so you can't just dismiss them i guess you've somehow managed to not be exposed to any of them but matchmaking is a real thing that a game like this should have.

BF never needed matchmaking because you have 32 people a team and you can switch teams at will. if its 8v8, 4 really bad or good players will have a big impact, when its 32v32 not so much. FPS in general doesnt need matchmaking because it mostly hotjoin - players can leave and come at will mid-game so matchmaking doesnt make sense as it is not a static roster.

eve is just a different game ... i don't even know how you'd do matchmaking since there isn't arena based combat.

basically no body wants to lose all the time, but its player vs player so someone has to lose every time. the closer it is to 50% the less dissatisfied people will get, and that's why a mm is needed.

Edited by Broceratops, 29 November 2012 - 06:56 AM.

[Catamount]

You know, it's hard to take these posts seriously when I see exactly why PuGs get stomped in the first place. 90% of you people don't communicate, and you don't listen to those of us who do. I played a game just yesterday where I tried to hold the team together as some kind of coherent fighting force, and the entire team never responded to several straight minutes of me trying to talk to them; I was literally the only one on our team who entered a single, solitary thing into the chat window and what a surprise, we lost 0 to 8 in about 3 minutes.

Even rudimentary tasks like sticking together and focus firing a target are apparently beyond that vast majority of PuGs, and again, even when someone who shows half a clue about how to play this game does so much as call out a target for focus, everyone ignores it and runs around in circles aimlessly, or whatever it is that PuGs do. I think the TKing trolls are probably the most competent people I see; at least they seem to have a goal!

Basically, this is what happens when PuGs play




The bottom line is this: You people are coming into what is intrinsically a TEAM GAME, playing TERRIBLY as a team, and complaining when your 1337 COD skills don't unilaterally win the day. If you don't want to play on a team, why play a team-centric game in the first place?


Okay, so maybe people want Mechwarrior without the team aspect (if that's even possible). So how about this: Since, even after all the features of community warfare, houses, mercs, etc, this is still going to fundamentally be a team v team game, why not create a separate game mode for the people who refuse to take part in that? If all you guys want to do is run around and boost off your KDR -and hell, sometimes that's all I want to do; it's nothing bad- then why not have a mode that isn't team v team in the first place? It shouldn't be a priority for the devs, but if you guys want to play COD here, then let's make a game mode that's exactly that: FFA, no annoying team v team, and the guy with the best twitch shooter skills wins. Surely that would satisfy everyone?

Edited by Catamount, 29 November 2012 - 07:09 AM.

[PurpleNinja]

They have the same DNA.

[Weiland]

Ilwrath, on 29 November 2012 - 06:43 AM, said:

They are copying World of Tanks so why not do as that game and put a number besides those that are grouped? That would show us how the mix really is.

Free to play devs will ALWAYS twist numbers when they try to prove anything by statistics to the players. They better do as WOT and let us see for ourselves. But after the removal of population numbers I doubt that they will do anything at all to give info to the players

I actually trust Garth and the rest of the devs. They've always been spot-on with the community. Additionally, I remember Garth's post, and the paraphrased version goes like this: "I've been running exclusive PUG matches for weeks and I can count on one hand the number of premades I've actually seen. The biggest problem people have is a significant lack of teamwork and competence - especially teamwork. The reason a lot of you are getting creamed is because you have absolutely none."

So. Yeah. Listen to the man with the data.

[Boris The Spider]

Broceratops, BF does actually come down to more often than not a 6 man squad vs a 6 man squad and there can be a huge gap in skill between the two. You get 2 clan 6 man squads on one team from a single clan and it can become an hour long pug stomp.

Its a better comparison than WoW or any other D&D style game where a LVL100 character can kill a LVL1 by throwing a potato at him.. or however combat is handled. An AC20 is an AC20 and will hurt as much regardless of what LVL you are.

Yes, there should be a place for new players to get their bearings and make some money, but once all the expected features of this game go live, the whole thing becomes more like the NPC empire vs empire dynamic of a game like eve-online where new(ish) players fight alongside veterans vs other new(ish) players and veterans.

Any attempt to split us up now, should only be a temporary measure or it risks becoming a permanent feature of the game and ruin the accessibility for newer players. Don't know if your familiar with EVE, but the open nature of the houses in MWO allowing anybody to join and putting Vets and Noobs into the same group should automatically provide a safeguard against the near unbreakable supremacy of groups like BoB and Goonswarm (nothing against them btw).

Hence why I believe matchmaking to be a stopgap feature that will not be needed in the long run.

Edited by Boris The Spider, 29 November 2012 - 07:22 AM.

[Catamount]

You know, we used to see this a lot in BF2142. That game had excellent mechanics for teamwork, even for non-premades. VOIP was integrated and superbly functional, and the game generally attracted team players, so many people, if not most, were good about using them.

But here's what's significant: I saw a lot of games, and I mean a lot, where coordinated groups of mediocre shooter players who were willing to do everything necessary to win as a team, absolutely and utterly creamed uncoordinated groups of skilled lone wolves. You saw it all the time, the teams where half the players had amazing KDRs, but they still lost (usually because they couldn't hold flags), while teams with less impressive player-by-player stats with a large amount of VOIP communication and cohesion just facerolled over them, with casualties, yes, but it was a faceroll nonetheness.


Why? Because BF2142 is inherently a team game. In fact, KDR padders were usually the worst players in terms of constructive tasks, because they were usually the ones who refused to risk their precious personal stats by dieing to take risks for the team. They didn't bumrush well-defended flags, or hang in questionable firefights where the team victory as at stake, and so even though they knocked off enemy tickets at a slightly better rate, it was rarely enough, especially in Titan mode where the ticket count didn't matter.

Edited by Catamount, 29 November 2012 - 07:23 AM.