making my self a target and dare to say that their plans sound reasonable. hear: They even put in a way for 5-10 groups that people feared wouldn't appear.
Not sure why they don't remove weight or weight class restriction from group drops. Seems like their proposed idea for 2-10 player group(s) queue would take far too long for MM. It would need to find groups of the exact size needed to meet 12 v 12 AND check the groups for 3/3/3/3 restriction. Also, the whole issue with group sizes of 11 doesn't seem very complicated. They even mentioned the solution, but TELL US that a single person, purposefully dropping into the group queue, would have less of a chance to win vs solo dropping. There is absolutely ZERO way to support that claim. It would solve the entire issue. You can have a group of 1-12 and it would reduce match making time. It would also allow you to take a full group of 12 into the group queue. That way you COULD see a group of 12 vs 2 groups of 6 or any combination. Proceeding with their plan, there would be no way to make a group of 12 and drop unless you have already found another group of 12 to play against. There is no MM. The players must do all of the work and find a total of 24 players to get the game started... It's pretty annoying that they keep referencing the "accurate" statistic about solo players vs. group players. If PGI made it easier to play as a group, you would see that statistic change dramatically. Instead they use it as a reason to focus on solo play and fail to recognize the problem. They should be encouraging group play, not catering to what their statistics tell them about solo players vs group. It's unreliable. When PGI says their numbers proved that 80% of players play solo, I see it completely different. PGI has made the choice for them by making the social interactions difficult to manage. The messaging system in-game is horrible. You can't get in-touch with people currently deployed. When your friend is finished with a game, he cannot read what you typed (or at least the first message gets erased). So unless players are using Teamspeak or some other 3rd party communication system, it is extremely difficult to organize a group and communicate with that group. PGI's statistics only tell me that they have done a terrible job creating a grouping system. They provide very little incentive for the average players to form a group and play together unless they communicate with a 3rd party software. Forming a group using in-game tools ONLY is very difficult. The notification for invitations is easily over-looked. Getting a hold of someone via in-game messaging is even more difficult. Once in a group, they players could talk easier and chose their mechs and play-style. However, when the game starts they are just as limited to communications as any other solo player. There is almost zero incentive to create a group unless Teamspeak or some 3rd party communication is used. THIS is why you see most players solo-dropping. You've made it far too difficult to utilize your grouping option for typical players. It requires them to do more than just play the game. If PGI actually put effort into making groups easy to organize and a proper functioning communication tool, you would see A LOT more groups in the game. A little off-topic, but not really since their were mainly announcing group options. more on-topic. I find it interesting they don't mention "premium" when private matches are described. They simply state that Private Matches will have 2-24 players with options to control restrictions and such. I wonder if they are giving vanilla private groups more options?
There are a lot of assumption about how this is going to run. I really hope it works out well and the majority of people like it. At this point though, it sounds like one of those terrible ideas the everyone knows it is a terrible idea except the people pitching the idea. I would love to be proved wrong, but i'm not keeping my hopes up for this one. Oh and this is now the second major deliverable (UI 2.0 being the first) that they have publicly announced will NOT be completed. They admit that 5-11 player groups is something that they are still solving, but will not be included in "Launch Module" because they don't have enough time. So, yet again, we will be getting another "To-be-finished" product. It's an open-ended release date that doesn't really mean anything, just like the UI 2.0 release. The major change happens, but it is unfinished and will only be a disappointment because of this. UI 2.0 released with the statement that they will be adding a "smurfy layout". Now it's been a couple months and very little progress. So we will have to wait for them to work out the kinks from this 3/3/3/3 system AS WELL AS wait for them to add all the features. I'd be happy if this was all done by the end of the year... but again, I'm not keeping my hopes up.
Surely they never put a delivery date on 5-11 groups as that was something from player demand. Its like flogging someone for missing a deadline that never existed in the first place. When I get home I'll post a screenshot as to why 3/3/3/3 is critical.....
"We have in our backburner an idea for the Group Only queue." Yeah the same backburner the no-3pv-queue went. But noooooooooooooo its not in the rubbish bin. Its just .. ah better, to never resurface... Oh look a shiny new mech! "An additional problem that arises is the exact tonnage matching that happens in the public queue. " THE WHAT? Shameless Lies... Even in an NGNG stream they wondered about being badly weightmatched...
The problem is, they use their hard dates as an excuse to not include features. From their perspective you are correct. They never intended to give us something that we clearly want, so it's added work statement for them which would slide their deliverable dates. However, the problem is that PGI doesn't care what it's players want. They created a date for what THEY want to release without considering what it's players want (3pv anyone? smurfy layout anyone!?) Group queue and smurfy layout should have been predicted as HIGH DEMAND and rolled into a complete release package. The problem is obvious features that the players want/need and not recognizing them until after they have "THE PLAN". PGI is doing a poor job deciding what it's players want and basing it off some crappy statistics.
Well the last thing i want to do is protect PGI (until they grant me a Grand Dragon), but if you argue that PGI should focus on what the community wants then we had an omni downknocking urbie with the ability to fly and launch nukes while moving 300 kp/h and imba clan tech, yay. So i think game developers should always listen to the community, but if the do it the way the community says than the game would end in something horrible. The 5-10 group queue will end in long waiting times, but i think it is better than having matches where in every team are 8 premades and the 4 pugs in each team can fuck off and die. Where i can agree with solahma is that PGI realy needs to making it easier to get in contact with other palyers and find groups in the game itself. That would realy lead to more group playing instead of solo play, but if there are more groups then there would be more groups in the group queue and it wouldn't be so long how it probably is going to be with the current situation. edit: before people get me wrong my examples are exaggerations and should be seen as such
This is what you're championing as "weight doesn't matter": They had 10 assaults, 1 light spotter and 1 heavy. Lance weight: 320+370+380=1,070......... We had 1 assault, 6 heavies, 3 med and 2 lights. Lance weight: 280+240+205=725....... A mere 345 tons shortfall or in other words... every mech on our side surrendered 28.75 tons to its opposite number. From comments made by the other side they were two 4 mans and two 2 mans. That's just one example of why many of us are praying for 3/3/3/3 because currently if you don't go assault you end up with a mismatch like that.
All of this would have been easy if they created a server lobby like previous titles... and include a separate "Play Now" option that connected to separate, hidden servers. EDIT: Who said "Weight doesn't matter" I certainly didn't. I agree with the 3/3/3/3 system and i'm very interested to see how it pans out. What I suggested was remove the mech-to-mech weight restrictions for group queue. This still has 3/3/3/3 mind you. I was referring to what Paul mentioned: All I was saying regarding weight restriction is that the above doesn't look like a problem to me. There will still be weight CLASS restrictions, but not MM based on mech weight. This would speed up MM and get groups into the game faster. No problem with this at all. If they remove either (NOT BOTH) weight matching or weight class restriction is would speed up MM. Groups vs Groups is more forgiving of weight differences than public matches. I am in no way supporting or "championing" a system that doesn't account for mech vs mech weight matching or weight class restrictions. I'm just confused why we need BOTH.
Except if you match a Awesome against a DDC with equal pilots and on comms odds are we both know which will win.
If they are equal pilots, then the Awesome player would know that the DDC is a superior mech and not go at him 1v1 in a point-blank brawl. This also depends on what the mech loadouts are. I'd be 100% content with matching an Awesome vs. Atlas in a group vs group situation. The Awesome could be an LRM boat, in which it is superior in it's own way. The awesome could be an energy boat with another long-range mech helping him take down the advancing atlas. This comparison is extremely situational and you cannot compare 1v1 mechs in a group vs group game. I'd be more concerned about matching an Awesome vs Meta Victor pop-tart which you would see happen easily with upcoming weight balancing because they are the same weight. Unless you believe the MM should wait until it finds another Awesome, in the correct group size, while considering the other groups contribution to the 3/3/3/3 system.... NOPE you'll never find a match. So i'll throw that back at you then, Any Awesome vs 2ac5+2PPC Victor, odds are we both know which will win... (btw, that is rhetorical, all of my statements above still apply to that 1v1. You can do it with anything mech vs any other mech of the same weight class.)
Think so, too But I also hope they do some further "balancing" in the Public/Single Player Queue... I am especially worried about ECM as it has great influence vs. a lance of uncoordinated players. Hope they can make it somehow that team A may only have one more ECM than team B (and not allowing 1 ECM vs. 0 ECM) [quote author=Solahma link=topic=6298.msg41274#msg41274 date=1397578682] So i'll throw that back at you then, Any Awesome vs 2ac5+2PPC Victor, odds are we both know which will win... [/quote] While your point is basically true, I think this is more a problem of weapon and loadout balancing than a problem of matchmaker balancing If, for example, LRMs would be "overpowered" and PPC+AC would be "weak" (and JJ not as stellar) you could instead argue, AWS-8R with 4x LRM15-A would easily win over the given Victor
