483 replies to this topic

[Jaxass]

The new match making is such an utter failure that I decided to take time just to take pics of how matches are going. From when I started taking screenshots to when I stopped playing I played probably 11-12 rounds, meaning that 9 of these were pretty much complete steam rolls one way or another. You'll note a couple rounds were 'close' but if you notice 1 or 2 players of the winning team weren't even playing.....

I will continue doing this after every time I play this game until ELO is removed and tonnage matching is re-implimented, or I get tired of playing this ***** game cuz that's what it is now

[Deathlike]

Alpine (and future maps like Alpine) need some special casing for matchups.

For it to work correctly, you need like a minimum of 3 fast mechs (all lights, cic, cent, bucket) to 5 assault ratio, and a best case 5 fast mechs to 3 assault ratio. It should be adjusted when you have 12v12 (like worst case 4:8 to best case 8:4 fast to slow).

Otherwise, this map becomes very.... painful to play.

[PhoenixFire55]

Void Angel, on 24 February 2013 - 04:22 PM, said:

the team that has no lights should win on Alpine - unless they're stupid. Because they can see they have no scouts, and they know that they might be seeing lights on the new map. So they need to set up shop near their base and just smoke the other team when they show up to the party. That's what my last no-light Alpine team did.

In other words, in order to have a chance to win you need to do stupid base-camping ... so fun! ...
And btw if you actually read my original post again I never said anything about assault mode. Feel free to base-camp in conquest mode and lose.

Void Angel, on 24 February 2013 - 04:22 PM, said:

As for Elo being "crap which makes no sense," please. Elo is an excellent system for ensuring fun matches by matching opponents of equal skill against each other to avoid mismatches.

There is no fun in it whatsoever. Every single match I played for last 3 days was nothing but a hard grind for victory with clutched teeth done by the very tips of your fingernails. There is no room for mistakes. If just one member of the team makes a slight mistake team loses horribly. You need to have such matches from time to time, but when every single game turns out to be this and you know beforehands that it is gonna be such, then at some point you just stop caring ... so fun!

Also, all you see in these games is cheese, cheese and more cheese. In order to be competitive and not get stomped in these games you need to bring your own cheese, game forces you to either play mechs you don't want to play to be competitive or suck utterly ... so fun!

I am dropping against same people over and over, I know exactly what mechs they are in, exactly what weapons they have and exactly what tactics they are gonna use and even exactly which one of them is gonna kill me ... so fun!

Void Angel, on 24 February 2013 - 04:22 PM, said:

Just... wow. Elo only affects "stupid moneybag players?" You "have to use 'cheese builds?'" I've been smoking people (within the confines of my limited play time) with an Atlas D-DC using 45LRMs, a Large Laser, and an ERPPC. That's hardly a "cheese" build, but it works for me because I'm a good player and I know how to use it. Certainly some builds are more powerful than others. That's why we have Beta testing to tune things. But while I've never used a Splatcat or any "cheese" build - my KDR is positive and I win more matches than I lose by a good margin.

I can only speak for my ELO zone. I don't know how it is in different ELO zones. I can not play better then I am playing already and I will never suck on purpose to drop my ELO.

Void Angel, on 24 February 2013 - 04:22 PM, said:

Then you go into misrepresenting PGI - this is called lying. You really shouldn't do it in such an obvious way. I'll bet you your last brain cell that PGI has never said they "only care about" any part of their player demographic. But I guess this conspiracy-nut diatribe explains your "moneybags" comment earlier. Because PGI is stupid, you see; they don't understand business practices and game design - as opposed to experts like you. No, PGI just pays attention to hypothetical money that you assume is being dangled in front of them by fictional "lone wolves" who "cryed [sic] about how they were getting stomped in a team-concept game when they were not part of the team." Your baseless, bitter invective is devoid of merit, insulting toward PGI, and offensive to me.

Nothing PGI had done has improved the game for organized units. Nothing from what organized units asked and even pleaded from PGI had been done. On the other hand everything that precious PUG-whiners whined about had been changed accordingly to what those whiners wanted. So-called 'lone wolves' are the majority you see, majority that knows nothing about BattleTech / MechWarrior, majority that has no respect to BattleTech / MechWarrior, majority that will drop this game just as quick as they joined it. You may take offense from it but it is truth.

Void Angel, on 24 February 2013 - 04:22 PM, said:

Those of us (which is to say, nearly everyone) who "cryed [sic]" about synch dropping aren't bad players who don't want to play on a team. We WERE on a team - we joined to play against a supposedly random team where no more than four players were supposed to be in their own group. What we got was a wall of 8 Liao tags shouting "SQUAAAAAAAAAAAAWK" in all chat to begin the match. This isn't about all the bad, mean "lone wolves" ruining the game for "real" players like you. This is about closing an exploit that was causing frequent hardship and frustration for the vast majority of the playerbase - in fact, the bad players are the ones you want to help. Truly good players don't have to cheat in order to feel powerful.

So being an organized group is cheating now? Is army cheating? Is football team that playes together for several years cheating?

You joined a random team, you are part of that random team. Your random team has its limits. Accept it. Your random team might be better then some random teams and worse then other random teams. Your random team will most likely be worse then an organized team. Accept it as well. ... But you do not. You start crying about it, start complaining about it just because somebody is using comms, putting more effort into the game then you do, more effort into socializing with his teammates then you do. You call them cheaters, exploiters ...

PGI screwed the game for oranized groups. We have been pushed, but we will push back as much as we can.

Void Angel, on 24 February 2013 - 04:22 PM, said:

In closing, You can't claim that an Elo system is bad because you don't like 'mech balance. If (and I do not cede you this or any other point) game balance is really so bad that you "have" to play "cheese" builds to be competitive, then the problem is with game balance, not the Elo system. It is wholly irrational for you to pour out your hateful diatribe against the imaginary bad players (and PGI) who are "ruining the game," then claim that you'd rather play with them than the "good players" whom you assume are on your own level of skill.

If PGI wanted to balance cheese it would have balanced cheese long ago. The fact that same cheese is here for half a year makes me believe that they have no intention to change it. I do not hate 'bad' players. There are bad players, and there are bad players. I hate people who start crying about the fact that there is somebody who is better then they are, somebody who puts some effort into finding others to team up with, somebody who puts a lot of effort into practicing with his unit and improving his skills. ELO is here only because of such crying babies. I have been PUG-ing a lot in closed beta. I have been dropped a lot against full 8 man premades in full-PUG teams. Not once did I cry about it. Teach 'bad' players by example and learn from 'good' players example is what I did.

But here comes the PUG-whine. Now 'elite' one play vs 'elite' ones, 'good' ones vs 'good' ones, 'bad' ones vs 'bad' ones and 'stupid' ones vs 'stupid' ones. But guess what? ... 'elite' ones will get same c-bills/exp per game as 'stupid' ones. You call it fair and fun? Is it fair and fun when a guy needs to work his @zz off to get 100k c-bills per game in high ELO zone while another guy can roflmao-noob-thorugh all his games in LRM-inside-180m ELO zone and get same 100k c-bills per game. What part of it is fair? For which one of them is it more fun? I can easily just start noobing all my games until my ELO reaches 'comfortably dumb' zone where I can get same c-bills doing stupid crap in my games. You think this is the right direction for this game?

[Jaxass]

Everything this man says above I agree with, hits the nail on the head, play with the same people, people using cheese builds like SRM boats and AC20 cats, every round being a grind with no fun etc etc.

[PhoenixFire55]

Jaxass, on 25 February 2013 - 08:05 AM, said:

Everything this man says above I agree with, hits the nail on the head, play with the same people, people using cheese builds like SRM boats and AC20 cats, every round being a grind with no fun etc etc.

I guess it all depends on in what ELO zone you are. For some people the average level of players in their teams improved, for some it didn't change, for some it became worse. Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being a 'bad' player, you can still be a top guy! I just can't image how horrible it is for those people to be stuck in ELO-Hell with all the TK'ers, AFK'ers, griefers and such.

[RadimentriX]

where gets PGI that Lone Wulf stuff from? only the setting in the account? because that would be just stupid. i call myself a lone wolf because i don't belong to a house, clan, guild or whatever. but i play in groups because playing together is fun...

[BlueSanta]

Your weight matching sucks. Not the only time something like this has happened to me, either.

[AmAce]

wow that is allot of atlai

[mr Zonke]

Yes, weight matching. :/
Just played a game of 1 assault and all mediums and heavies on my team, 3 ECM atlai, 2 ECM COM's and mediums on the other team.
Had many conquest games where one team does'nt get a light...

hugs

[Void Angel]

Vellinious, on 24 February 2013 - 11:24 PM, said:

And you're still ignoring the fact, that they're ranking individual players, based on a win / loss % that takes a team to build. If a player plays with a group of friends, it's quite possible, that he gets carried for 100 or so matches, EASILY. But then decides to PUG a few games, and just gets owned, because his ELO is inflated. Likewise, a PUG player, that's REALLY good, could lose more matches, than he wins, because he gets in drops with players that don't work together. Can he make up for that EVERY time? Likely not. Pilot skill does play a part in the team dynamic...sure, you can take 8 average players that are working together, and defeat 8 really good individuals that AREN'T. That's a given....but player skill DOES affect the outcome. To say that it doesn't, is just silly. And to weigh the entire ELO system on wins and losses is too.

Didn't use any color codes, btw....not sure what you're seeing, but it looks pretty normal to me.

Hrm... The color codes are gone now, too. Which is... odd, since I haven't changed my browser or anything. Oh well, chalk it up to a glitch.

As for your objection, I hardly "ignored" the team mechanics of the game. Conversely, you continue to commit a false cause fallacy in your reasoning. Our hypothetical "really good" pug player may indeed lose matches because his teammates don't cooperate - but that's not going to be his typical experience over time. He's also going to have games where they do cooperate, and where the enemy team loses because they don't work together. Over time, he's going to move toward his "natural" Elo level. Just because he can theoretically get carried by friends also doesn't mean Elo is broken - you can raise that point to advocate using separate Elos for team and solo play, but it doesn't support your assertion that Elo is silly just because you have teammates. Likewise, you can't separate "pilot skill" from tactical skill when evaluating a player overall. Tactical judgement is just as much a part of a player's skill level as marksmanship - because this is a team game, not in spite of it.. So of course player skill affects the outcome. That's why Elo works. It's unsupportable to claim that Elo is "silly" just because of the team environment.

Jaxass, on 25 February 2013 - 12:41 AM, said:

The new match making is such an utter failure that I decided to take time just to take pics of how matches are going. From when I started taking screenshots to when I stopped playing I played probably 11-12 rounds, meaning that 9 of these were pretty much complete steam rolls one way or another. You'll note a couple rounds were 'close' but if you notice 1 or 2 players of the winning team weren't even playing.....

I will continue doing this after every time I play this game until ELO is removed and tonnage matching is re-implimented, or I get tired of playing this ***** game cuz that's what it is now
[list of random screenshots deleted for brevity]

So you're going to spam the forums and rant after every game? Neat. You're ignored.

[Inertiaman]

You've got a never-ending supply of moran haven't you.

Edited by Inertiaman, 25 February 2013 - 11:20 AM.

[PineappleKush]

Matchmaking not checking weight classes is really annoying right now. Have had matches where my team has had 4-5 assaults and the other team had one or two. I've had other matches with all mediums and heavies on a team with no lights or assaults, up against a more diversified team. I could care less if ELO is matched up correctly if we keep getting matches where the composition is totally screwed on both teams.

[CG Oglethorpe Kerensky]

I have a theory that Matchmaking does take into account weight classing, but that is the first thing it discards when it has trouble. At that point it starts to decrease the ELO threshold as it continues filling the roster.

So the first person it has trouble with discards weight balancing and then ELO disparity starts to increase from that point.

[Void Angel]

PhoenixFire55, on 25 February 2013 - 01:56 AM, said:

There is no fun in it whatsoever. Every single match I played for last 3 days was nothing but a hard grind for victory with clutched teeth done by the very tips of your fingernails. There is no room for mistakes. If just one member of the team makes a slight mistake team loses horribly. You need to have such matches from time to time, but when every single game turns out to be this and you know beforehands that it is gonna be such, then at some point you just stop caring ... so fun!

So close games are not fun for you? Uh, sorry you feel that way, but if you dislike competition, perhaps another game would be a better fit for your playing style.

PhoenixFire55, on 25 February 2013 - 01:56 AM, said:

I can only speak for my ELO zone. I don't know how it is in different ELO zones. I can not play better then I am playing already and I will never suck on purpose to drop my ELO.

PhoenixFire55, on 24 February 2013 - 10:40 AM, said:

Current matchmaking system is for stupid moneybag players who can't play for crap and getting stomped all the time because they go into the open and eat 200 LRMs or smth like this.

You've been consistently criticizing the entire Elo system using various invalid arguments - including outright name-calling. This attempt to hedge your bets is invalid.

PhoenixFire55, on 25 February 2013 - 01:56 AM, said:

Nothing PGI had done has improved the game for organized units. Nothing from what organized units asked and even pleaded from PGI had been done. On the other hand everything that precious PUG-whiners whined about had been changed accordingly to what those whiners wanted. So-called 'lone wolves' are the majority you see, majority that knows nothing about BattleTech / MechWarrior, majority that has no respect to BattleTech / MechWarrior, majority that will drop this game just as quick as they joined it. You may take offense from it but it is truth.

Oh good grief, and now you're arguing based on your elitism as a "BattleTech fan?" Do you have any proof of your outrageous claims here? No, you don't. You're assuming (insulting) things you cannot possibly know about the community simply because you think those assumptions justify your attitude. This is extremely poor reasoning - and an exercise in intellectual dishonesty.

PhoenixFire55, on 25 February 2013 - 01:56 AM, said:

Quote

Those of us (which is to say, nearly everyone) who "cryed [sic]" about synch dropping aren't bad players who don't want to play on a team. We WERE on a team - we joined to play against a supposedly random team where no more than four players were supposed to be in their own group. What we got was a wall of 8 Liao tags shouting "SQUAAAAAAAAAAAAWK" in all chat to begin the match. This isn't about all the bad, mean "lone wolves" ruining the game for "real" players like you. This is about closing an exploit that was causing frequent hardship and frustration for the vast majority of the playerbase - in fact, the bad players are the ones you want to help. Truly good players don't have to cheat in order to feel powerful.

So being an organized group is cheating now? Is army cheating? Is football team that playes together for several years cheating?

You joined a random team, you are part of that random team. Your random team has its limits. Accept it. Your random team might be better then some random teams and worse then other random teams. Your random team will most likely be worse then an organized team. Accept it as well. ... But you do not. You start crying about it, start complaining about it just because somebody is using comms, putting more effort into the game then you do, more effort into socializing with his teammates then you do. You call them cheaters, exploiters ...

That's just... jaw-dropping. Could you be any more disingenuous? Obviously being in an "organized group" isn't cheating; claiming I implied such is the act of a liar. However, arranging your organized team's matches so that the other team can't be organized IS CHEATING. Synch dropping was/is an exploit - using it to force people who dropped with the expectation that they would be matched against random teams to fight a coordinated, organized 8-man team is hardly "putting more effort into the game." Just the opposite, in fact; they're deliberately arranging the game so that winning takes them substantially less effort. Telling the victims of cheaters to "accept their limitations" is unforgivably asinine. You should be ashamed of yourself.

PhoenixFire55, on 25 February 2013 - 01:56 AM, said:

But here comes the PUG-whine. Now 'elite' one play vs 'elite' ones, 'good' ones vs 'good' ones, 'bad' ones vs 'bad' ones and 'stupid' ones vs 'stupid' ones. But guess what? ... 'elite' ones will get same c-bills/exp per game as 'stupid' ones. You call it fair and fun? Is it fair and fun when a guy needs to work his @zz off to get 100k c-bills per game in high ELO zone while another guy can roflmao-noob-thorugh all his games in LRM-inside-180m ELO zone and get same 100k c-bills per game. What part of it is fair? For which one of them is it more fun? I can easily just start noobing all my games until my ELO reaches 'comfortably dumb' zone where I can get same c-bills doing stupid crap in my games. You think this is the right direction for this game?

You're not getting any better at poisoning the well, you know. But I suppose you have to try something when you haven't got a single valid argument to throw out. Your assertion that somehow higher-Elo players work harder for their c-bills is absurd. The effect of Elo is to match up players of all skill levels against players of like skill. This means that, once their Elo has adjusted, players will be facing off against players who are just as good as they are. This means that all levels of Elo will be working just as hard for their c-bills. There's no imbalance here. On the contrary, throwing out Elo and bringing back synch-dropping exploits will create exactly such an inequity. Apparently, you view such widespread cheating and the misery of solo droppers to be unimportant compared to what you want - I guess being a cheater is your due.

So, in answer to your question, yes. Elo is exactly the right direction for this game. It's unfortunate that measures intended to stop cheaters inconvenienced some 8-man players - as I've said elsewhere, it might well be reasonable to ask PGI to implement separate Elos for 8-man play. However, the cheaters needed to be stopped. If the introduction of Elo pushes out self-absorbed players with a false sense of entitlement, that's just icing on the cake. If Elo is too hard, there are other games out there whose demands upon your skill will not be so strenuous.

RadimentriX, on 25 February 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

where gets PGI that Lone Wulf stuff from? only the setting in the account? because that would be just stupid. i call myself a lone wolf because i don't belong to a house, clan, guild or whatever. but i play in groups because playing together is fun...

No, PGI is talking about dropping into matches solo, instead of with a premade team. When PGI has referred to "lone wolf players" it is in that context. It's just an easy way to talk about "players who enter matches without a group;" they are not talking about tactics, or faction alliance. Many people who get their kicks by being Very Angry About Things are gleefully confusing the term - but PGI is actually talking about dropping solo.

Edited by Void Angel, 25 February 2013 - 03:11 PM.

[Void Angel]

CG Oglethorpe Kerensky, on 25 February 2013 - 01:57 PM, said:

I have a theory that Matchmaking does take into account weight classing, but that is the first thing it discards when it has trouble. At that point it starts to decrease the ELO threshold as it continues filling the roster. So the first person it has trouble with discards weight balancing and then ELO disparity starts to increase from that point.

I don't know how, or to what degree, the matchmaker discards weight class matching. There are a number of ways it could "widen that parameter" as matchmaking goes on. But I'm very sure that weight class is at a lower priority than Elo matching - and I think changing that would be a good thing.

[Jaxass]

Void Angel, on 25 February 2013 - 11:10 AM, said:

So you're going to spam the forums and rant after every game? Neat. You're ignored.

Hey Neck beard,

Pot meet kettle, I'm new to the forums but it's abundantly clear you don't have a job or a life judging by the amount of posts you make. It's also clear you're legally ******** by the sheer amount of crap in your posts. I've been ignoring the bulk content of your posts since day one. And it looks like most of this board already is as well. Have a nice day.

[BillyM]

3 of 5 matches before I finally called it quits for the night (the other two were only ~20tons heavier than us)
...our 4-man was running AHHM, AHMM, and HHMM respectively...
Listed in tonnage, weight class, difference, and how many class-position shifts it would take to balance the two.

Our Team: 420tons LLL MM HH A
Opp Team: 500tons MM HH AAAA
Down an entire Awesome in tonnage, and our 3 lights weren't even ecmRavens! 9 class-shifts to balance.


Our Team: 480tons L MMM HH AA
Opp Team: 575tons MM HHH AAA
Woah, nearly down a whole Atlas in tonnage. 4 class shifts to balance team.


Our Team: 375tons LLL MMM HH
Opp Team: 620tons HHHH AAAA
This was the kicker and early-end to my evening, one of those "are you kidding me" moments.
Down an Atlas, Awesome, and Hunchback in tonnage, 13 class-shifts to balance!


le-sigh..
--billyM

[Jaxass]

Here are mine for the night, I got to win more at least, but same old stomp, sometimes a complete wipe, sometimes 1 or 2 kills for the losing team. The average appears to be 3, one team gets wiped, the other gets 3 kills.... totally unbalanced.

This time I decided to take shots of every round just to give an idea of how many unbalanced vs balanced, I think out of 10 games 2 were not a steam roll.

[Carmaga]

Well, I'm getting more and more afraid to press "LAUNCH" button. I know what to expect in the battle field. Instead of non-stop dropping I'm just idling in mech-lab and browsing internet to kill time.

Maybe I should change to another game. But who cares. Wanted to give my worthless input.

Edited by Carmaga, 25 February 2013 - 11:27 PM.

[L6a]

Whats the difference between ELO and random matchmaking?


...

I want hear answer from dev's.