Okay, technically, it's one man and one woman, but whatever. I finally got my wife a decent video card, so we were playing together last night. (On a side note, the game runs surprisingly well on a Pentium D 3.4ghz, 3 GB RAM, and a 9800 GTX.) She's what you would call a complete newbie. She played some Mechwarrior 4, but she's mostly learning from scratch in MWO. And to avoid dragging her into my ELO class, I created a new account so we'd both start out "fresh". In any case, we played 12 matches last night, with both of us in the trial Hunchback. (She got her first kill in Tormaline, another Hunch-4P, after I took out his shoulder for her.) We went 3 and 9 in total. Here's the weird part though. After she quit, I played several more matches by myself in my new account, and things seemed MUCH easier. I didn't see a single blowout, they were all at least 8-3 score, I saw more trial Mechs, fewer cheese builds, and in general, it felt like I was facing a lower skill level of players. (I also learned that I suck as an Atlas pilot.) So, aside from concerns about MWO's newbie-friendliness, I'm wondering if there's an inherent detriment to grouping up. Do they match you against harder opponents just because you are in a group, even if that group is 2 total newbs? Or did I just get lucky in those matches after she quit?
I've got maybe a few dozen matches duo'd up with a friend and I ran into similar results. Whenever we duo-queue I see straight losses, and then back to normal win/loss spreads afterwards. It does make sense to weight ELO somewhat for grouped players, the assumption being that grouped players will work together better and run complementary loadouts. But it is pretty frustrating to lose matches when grouped, definitely seems like the matchmaker wants to split up couples
Solo, duo or tripple, I tend to get destroyed. Try finding a 4-man to run with? That's what dragged me, a seasoned 'mech pilot, through the learning phase. Or... the Hunchie may not be her thing. Or... you played during peak hours and the veteran players saw "Trial 'Mech" as "Free XP." To my shame, I do this when I'm grinding a 'mech up to speed tweak.
Oh, the Hunchie is definitely NOT her thing at least, the Trial Hunchie. She was contsatly complaining about it. Too slow, vulnerable, and close ranged. She liked the Dragon, so I set her up with a cheap SRM6, 2XLLas, 2xMLas DGN-1C once she had the funds. She did a lot better with that, just in the couple of matches she played in it last night. (On a side note, I like the Cadet bonuses, very handy for a newbie who doesn't connect with any of the trial Mechs.) We played around 5-6 pm EST, so yeah, probably peak hours. But it didn't seem like it was just Newbie-hunters. I kept seeing people that I see when I play my main account, which surely has a higher ELO rating than two new accounts running trial Mechs. We saw a few 4-man groups, lots of PPC boats, more Hero Mechs. Dn general, it just seemed pretty obvious that we were playing with and against people who were clearly not fresh newbies. Like I said, that all seemed to change when we play separate. If we drop solo, we seem to see more players who can't shoot straight, can't steer, run odd setups, and the like. People you'd EXPECT to see in a bunch of newbies.
I don't know how many matches you have gone through, but I am guessing the Newbie ELO is probably not used when you are grouped together. That is a 200 hundred point difference, probably significant enough to drastically change who you are playing against. Since MWO does not publish ELO ratings that I am aware of (please correct me if I am wrong), I can only really guess. The only other solution that I can come up with is what YaoYao pointed out. In my experiences the games I play are harder when I am playing with myself compared to playing with my IRL friends, but this result could be twisted by the fact that I am probably the best pilot out of all of my RL buddies. Alternatively the difficulty difference is because we call shots. That said I would be interested in finding out if there is any hard data on this. I am dragging a couple of newbs through the game in a four man group tomorrow, and I have been trying to figure out if it is worth starting another account for that reason. -Xene
The thing that frustrates me about ELO discussion is that ELO is a black box and we only get the vaguest idea of how PGI implemented it. Up until a month or two ago new accounts were started at the average ELO which according to the way ELO works means that they were playing against more or less average MWO players. This is actually a defining factor of the way that ELO works. PGI introduced newb ELO which reduced the starting rating of the player for the first 25 matches, essentially while they are still getting the cadet bonus. When they are done with the 25 matches it moves them back into the normal ELO system with an average rating that was adjusted by how they perform over the previous matches. Of course I do not think PGI explained how the newb ELO worked in much detail outside of what I just mentioned. Because the game ELO system is split up according to how you play (In groups, solo light, solo medium, solo heavy and solo assault) I am wondering if they did not implement the new player system across all of the ELO subcategories. -Xene
