56 replies to this topic

[Zaptruder]

One of the bigger problems with MWO is the gulf between players. New players will get stomped repeatedly until they learn the ins and outs of the game. But the problem is, most players will get fed up before they learn the ins and outs of the game.

Players that are grouped tend to have a triple advantage; Better communication, more experienced and better mechs. Although everyone can access team speak and jump on a PUG voice server, only more experienced players that have been around long enough to realize how unviable the game is as a solo pugger take the initiative to find a guild or at least jump on a PUG TS server.

The solution of seperating PUGs from grouped gamers is simple enough - players that lack communication are at a disadvantage, and also tend to be newer. Even experienced players that drop in the queue don't get the double advantage of dropping with other players that are also more experienced.

Similarly, a catch all grouped queues allow for more diverse group makeups that make it more enjoyable for groups of players to play. Even if you play only a 2 player group; it generally means you're a more experienced player with a better mech... and it also means that you drop with other similarly experienced players.

IMO, this simple change would likely solve a lot of the core issues with the MWO experience, at least for newer players, which in turn would help improve the game and community by bringing in and retaining more players.

[Vaneshi SnowCrash]

My problem with the current system isn't the 'pre-made' groups per say. It's that I don't know it's a group. Take WoT as an example, one you spawn there is a list of people on both sides; the groups have little numbered shields next to them so you can see who is going to be playing with who.

Now I personally think having such a system in MWO would be quite handy, stop some of the problems and generally have no downside to anyone other than the sync droppers looking to pug stomp.

[GalaxyBluestar]

it's not premade vs pugs.

it's dolts vs experts.

won't vote until matchmaking phase 3 will make more sense of all these skill discrepancies.

[Brilig]

The game is going to change a lot when Community Warfare comes out. PGI already said that lone wolf players are going to be dropped in with grouped players to round out teams.

That being said the game should be fun to play for everyone. PGI is doing a good thing by coming up with ways to even the playing field a bit.

This game does need the ELO feature PGI is developing. It will help keep people of like skill together and minimize some of the expert VS newbie drama. It does need in game voice chat to make communication easier between groups and lone wolves. It really needs pre game lobbies that will come with CW that will allow people to plan for the match they are about to play.

Right now I would sit tight and wait for those features. It will all have to be changed around again when CW starts to be released so they shouldn't spend time changing the system they have now.

[Wraith05]

If you make any seperate queue system you will have your:

Solo drop queue which will be generally unorganized death matches with a few sporadic pugs willing/able to organize that will still roll the others 0-8

And your premade queue which will look like the 8v8 does now. 2-3 viable min/max mech builds/team settups, long wait times and playing the same few groups of people over and over. (not fun)

So to me, separation is a bad option.

Instead I would suggest:
Putting the 8 mans back into the pool and just have 1 queue again.
Implement the ELO system which can separate without actually separating
Giving more comm tools to all. VOIP in game, quick chat macros/commands. A target my target button, A lobby etc...
If viable balance premades per side. If one team has a group of 4, make sure the other has a group of 4. If one has a group of 2, make sure the other gets a group of 2 and only substitute pugs in IF another group can't be found in a reasonable time.

Edited by Wraith05, 30 January 2013 - 10:16 PM.

[Critical Fumble]

If ELO manages to make the match ups more balanced, then no. There's no real point then, and the mixed queue is part of the intended path from total newbie to faction member expert.

[Aggressor666]

well somthing has to be done, I'm by no means an expert and my PC is 4 years old ( I can barely squeek out 20FPS) but somehow I manage to do between 600-800 damage each round yet most of the time my teamates and barely pass 150
meanwhile the opposition is usually 1 button min maxers and usually have 3-4 ECM mechs. I rarely see ECM on my team unless I bring it or some light that runs off to die in the first 60 seconds.
is it fun for the premades? no doubt is it fun for the rest? or more importantly does it make them want to spend money on the game? no... not really
I keep wanting to buy MC creds but night after night getting beat that way and literally feeling like your alone and not even IN a team kinda kills the urge.

[Wraith05]

Aggressor666, on 30 January 2013 - 10:27 PM, said:

well somthing has to be done, I'm by no means an expert and my PC is 4 years old ( I can barely squeek out 20FPS) but somehow I manage to do between 600-800 damage each round yet most of the time my teamates and barely pass 150
meanwhile the opposition is usually 1 button min maxers and usually have 3-4 ECM mechs. I rarely see ECM on my team unless I bring it or some light that runs off to die in the first 60 seconds.
is it fun for the premades? no doubt is it fun for the rest? or more importantly does it make them want to spend money on the game? no... not really
I keep wanting to buy MC creds but night after night getting beat that way and literally feeling like your alone and not even IN a team kinda kills the urge.

I think if you have that much of a damage gap between your other teammates that the premade part doesn't have much to do with it. And separating the teams will still put you in groups of 8 solo pilots instead of 8 team players.

So if you are after that feeling of in a team, separating the queues definitely isn't the right option then.

[Zylo]

I voted everyone goes into a single queue due to the planned Elo system.

I think the Elo system will require all players dropping into a single matchmaking system. Drop solo or choose any size group from 2-8, matchmaker does the rest finding similar skill players, similar group size when possible and matching weight classes.

I don't think there are enough players for the matchmaker to work based on Elo rating, group size and weight classes unless all players drop into a single matchmaking system.

Edited by Zylo, 30 January 2013 - 10:38 PM.

[Aggressor666]

Wraith05, on 30 January 2013 - 10:31 PM, said:

I think if you have that much of a damage gap between your other teammates that the premade part doesn't have much to do with it. And separating the teams will still put you in groups of 8 solo pilots instead of 8 team players.

So if you are after that feeling of in a team, separating the queues definitely isn't the right option then.

well throwing these tards against premades isn't going to help PGI make money either...

Edited by Aggressor666, 30 January 2013 - 10:42 PM.

[Wraith05]

Aggressor666, on 30 January 2013 - 10:41 PM, said:

well throwing these tards against premades isn't going to help PGI make money either...

You can't fix stupid.

Bbut I'm sure most players aren't stupid, just inexperienced and unsure of what to do. Give them the tools and try to help those willing to learn and I think eventually we will all have better games.

Also Elo should separate the truly stupid =P

[Zaptruder]

Zylo, on 30 January 2013 - 10:37 PM, said:

I voted everyone goes into a single queue due to the planned Elo system.

I think the Elo system will require all players dropping into a single matchmaking system. Drop solo or choose any size group from 2-8, matchmaker does the rest finding similar skill players, similar group size when possible and matching weight classes.

I don't think there are enough players for the matchmaker to work based on Elo rating, group size and weight classes unless all players drop into a single matchmaking system.

This could possibly work.

I think average player skill and mech build (which is very much correlated with player skill) is probably the more important determining factors of winning. But on the flipside, team communication is still a massive advantage. If the Elo rating system can provide multipliers for group sizes, then that might work.

Otherwise, you still get some of the issues of the current system, just to a reduced extent.

[Redmond Spiderhammer]

In game tools could even things out a lot without resorting to separate queues, or even if separate queues exist.. and i'm not sure that would be bad, in game tools could level off the pre-made advantage enough that many competitive lone wolves would drop in an 'everyone welcome' type of queue. good command tools would be nice for pug play. Maybe not just a macro that tells everyone to attack your target but painting that intended target with a different bounding box. that sort of thing.
Right now you can play quite effectively as a PUG if you play like a pre-made. Work with your team, move with your team, attack the same mechs your team is attacking. It doesn't always end up in your favour but even while pugging my KD ratio and WL ratio are on the upswing lately

[Wraith05]

Redmond Spiderhammer, on 30 January 2013 - 10:55 PM, said:

In game tools could even things out a lot without resorting to separate queues, or even if separate queues exist.. and i'm not sure that would be bad, in game tools could level off the pre-made advantage enough that many competitive lone wolves would drop in an 'everyone welcome' type of queue. good command tools would be nice for pug play. Maybe not just a macro that tells everyone to attack your target but painting that intended target with a different bounding box. that sort of thing.
Right now you can play quite effectively as a PUG if you play like a pre-made. Work with your team, move with your team, attack the same mechs your team is attacking. It doesn't always end up in your favour but even while pugging my KD ratio and WL ratio are on the upswing lately

I'd like to see a "target commanders target".

When someone is a commander, hit U to target whatever he has targeted.

[Redmond Spiderhammer]

Zaptruder, on 30 January 2013 - 10:50 PM, said:

This could possibly work.

I think average player skill and mech build (which is very much correlated with player skill) is probably the more important determining factors of winning. But on the flipside, team communication is still a massive advantage. If the Elo rating system can provide multipliers for group sizes, then that might work.

Otherwise, you still get some of the issues of the current system, just to a reduced extent.

The possibility with an Elo system exists to not have any hard definition of how many groups need to go on each side nor, depending how much work they want to dump into it, how many 'mechs' of each tonnage or class are in match.

Again, if they are willing to put the time and effort into it, they could tackle almost all balance concerns as a modifier to the players elo score. It would take tracking data and all that but I'm sure they can get metrics on whatever they like. using those metrics they could assign modifiers to players elo score based on different equipment (mechs, variants even down as to specific weapons/components). This could really help with the cheese builds, as those would start o boost abusers of such builds into matches with more skilled oponents or at the very least other abusers of cheese builds. Likewise pre-grouping and group size could modify individual elo score by a small percentage. It would be really great to have single queue that any player could drop in and find a challenging yet fair gameplay experience.

[Redshift2k5]

A single master queue with gradual separation of participants based on Elo is superior to splitting the players, you'd still see skilled players sync-dropping to faceroll the solo queue and you'd still see terrible teams being wiped in the group queue. Basing it on personal performance (and team aggregate of performance) will make every match a fair fight.

A dedicated practice map is coming for the newest of noobs to learn how to walk their mech, and private matches will enable the hardest of hardcore teams to scrim. Both have been confirmed for (eventual) inclusion.

[Inertiaman]

Single Queue + MTFU

[Congzilla]

Continuing to put up these polls before we even see how ELO changes things is a total waste of time.

[Joseph Mallan]

Keep Ques mixed but Match a 2, 3 or 4 man on both teams.

[Ilwrath]

Seperate Pug & Seperate Group Queue (any group size; full teams made from multiple groups) & solos can opt for group queue if they want
------------------------

You can get great matches if you got a good premade on each side. I would like to have the choice to join up for that or just go pure pub if I want that.

People that don't agree only do so because they want to stomp the pubs and are very afraid about being stomped themselves by the good premades. Pathetic people really.