Is matchmaking turning you off from the game?

Ever since "launch" the so called improvements to the matchmaking system have only seemed to make things more one sided. I am seeing fewer and fewer close matches in Assault. The norm seems to be now to be at least a 6 mech spread, meaning one team loses 12 the other only 6 or fewer. Since the patch I have had 3 matches that have ended in 12-0 routes. I have seen massive tonnage differences ala April and all of you have seen the picture in Blaggs post that shows one team with 7 mechs and the other 12.
I try to find information on the official forums but all I see are rants from April. Is there any insight you can give us as to the matchmaking problems you have seen or any word of fixes coming.

 

The only real difference I've noticed in the last week has been better tonnage spreads. I'm not seeing very many matches where one team completely outweighs the other any more. Actually, I've seen very few routs lately (only a handful of 12-0/12-1 or 2 games).

Maybe it can be put down to the mysteries of Elo?

 

All I know is I am a new player and yet in nearly match after match I am top damage on my team and thats bad. If I am leading anything there are serious issues with ELO matchmaking because my ELO HAS to be low theres no way in hell I should be getting top ANYTHING. If my ELO is low as I believe it should be theres serious issues with the MM.

I understand better than many why ELO should be hidden (came from WoT and saw the damage knowing that does to chat) but still there should be some indicator of where you are falling so you can tell if the MM is screwing you by putting you with muppets or you are screwing the team.

To me a route isn't just 12-0 or 12-2 its 12 - 2,3,4,5 if ELO matchmaking is worth a damn every team should have a shot at winning and when it ends up 12-5 you had nearly no shot.

 

Isn't it possible that your ELO is low, so you're in a room with a bunch of noobs, but since, maybe, you're a better player than the average new player who doesn't know anything about a game of this type (time spent in WoT could be a boon, for example) you're performing better than all the other low Elo players? If you've got a brain, a reasonable understanding of the controls, and a little situational awareness, you should be slaughtering new players.

[quote author=IanSane link=topic=3727.msg22798#msg22798 date=1379819260]

To me a route isn't just 12-0 or 12-2 its 12 - 2,3,4,5 if ELO matchmaking is worth a damn every team should have a shot at winning and when it ends up 12-5 you had nearly no shot.
[/quote]

I disagree. Because one side pulled down a, say, 12-2 victory, it doesn't mean it was destined to be a landslide. If some pillar mechs from the losing team (D-DCs, etc.) made some poor descisions early on about placement, and weren't in the position to help their team, while the winning team's pillar mechs were in a good position, this can quickly turn the tide. The winning team scores a couple of kills on their main body forces because of a lack of support, maybe a couple light mechs catch a few bad gauss rounds/what have you, and bang, before you know it, it's 5-0. The rest is as easy as grouping up your company and sweeping up the survivors through focus fire.

This isn't a rout that was DEFINITELY going to be a rout. This is a team that made poor choices (individually and as a group) and it resulted in a quick loss. Put smarter pilots in those mechs and it would go the other way just as easily. There's no formulaic composition for company makeup that ensures victory; only teamwork and/or luck.

 

Kind of rambled, sorry if I don't actually make a clear point...

I've noticed a greater number of landslides since launch.
I've noticed more occurences of thinking, "am I even on a team, here?" and "was I the only one holding the extremely predictable Canyon Network standoff line?"
I've noticed more sub-300 damage combined lances.
I've noticed more mechs milling about, not actually doing anything like holding a point or setting up a firing position that is to their mech's advantage.
I've noticed my teammates being more susceptible to suppression from incoming fire, direct and indirect.
I've noticed more disorganization and disarray from the usual "stick together or get blown apart" mentality.

My "ELO" characteristics:

Have we even gotten a confirmation on how the Elo is worked in? I'm beginning to suspect that it builds teams to have a similar net Elo. When I drop with my clan, the PUGs seem worse, and the competition fierce.

At any rate, Elo is only half the battle. I'm not always in my pwnzor tryhard assault mechs. They need some kind of battle value system too, screw tonnage. I just feel like my team is ineffective.

 

From the games I played since I came back from vacation, I notice 4 things:
- damn it's long to find a match, especially when I want to launch in light;
- I find the games to be more balanced, weight wise and skill wise. Still had some one side game from time to time, but in general much more close games;
- I often drop with the same pilots, more than I used to be, so they might have tighten something;
- no sure if it's a coincidence, but I had several series of "n games in one single map", especially on river city.

Overall, I like the changes.

 

I have noticed this too. Where queues were generally around 10 sec ~ pre-launch, I find myself waiting more like 30 sec + post launch. Not sure exactly why this is, but it's not hard to come up with some cursory explanations (like trying to find games matching tonnages more appropriately, Elo changes, etc.)

 

So ive got 2 points.
1. Since launch we've had a lot more new pilots, ive seen drops with whole lances of trial mechs, you just have to work with this sometimes.

2. Comparing your stats to find I find something of note. My k/d is only 0.97 and yet my win/ lose is higher than yours. This leads me to conclude that you are more interested in getting kills than getting wins ( this is also supported by your pwnage assault comment). Sure everyone wants the kills, but at what cost?

Lots of new pilots mean that there are going to be more roflstomps. However a good pilot can work with what have. One good pilot can turn a rout into a victory. On top of that good comms can really help.

 

On the other hand, that would mean more chance of trial mech showing up on your target list. You KNOW what to do, right?

A well tuned mech is worth many trial mech in the hands of a newbie.
I only prefer to hunt down the ones with silly floating UFO on their heads though.

BTW, the current trial mech are not stock but actually mech that are usable... we get a zombie hugger of sorts this time!

 

Maybe it's because I'm running a support mech of late, but imho thats a bad tactical decision. Sure you get another notch on your kill sheet, but was that pilot the real threat? I want to win matches, be the best pilot I can be, that means my next target is the one that is the biggest threat to my team.

 

Here is my current stats. (never dropped with a lance-mate only PUGs)
Wins / Losses 565 / 493 (53.4%)
Kill / Death Ratio 1.40
Accumulative C-Bills Per Match 126,126.91
Avg. XP Per Match 970.42

Is there different tiers of bad? If that's the case I can't see myself being in a match with the likes of Blagg, Verge or other players that I have been dropped with on occasion.

This is why the ELO makes no sense to me.
Look at these 4 Mechs; The Atlas has the lower average damage of the Jager and Cat for me but by far the highest Win%, The Cataphract has nearly identical KD and Damage to the Jager but half the win %
It makes no freaking sense... The Cat and Jager are both heavies, with similar KD and similar damage it would stand to reason that the win % should also be similar for these 2 mechs...
And what about the Protector? Worst Avg Damage of all, Worst KD of all but a 66% win rate...

Win------Loss------Ratio------Kills------Death------K/D
ATLAS AS7-D-DC--------------15---------5----------75%--------23---------6----------3.83 (365 Avg DMG)
CATAPHRACT CTF-4X--------56-------71----------44%------147---------86--------1.71 (371 Avg DMG)
Jagermech JM6-DD-----------135------108---------56%------278--------143-------1.94 (389 Avg DMG)
Protector---------------------------41-------21----------66%--------48---------39---------1.23 (316 Avg DMG)

Totally unrelated but strange stats nonetheless...

UAC-5 Avg damage from all my hits...5.11
AC5 Avg Damage from all my hits....5.14

These are the only 2 weapons that have higher average damage than their base damage....is the firepower wrong on these two weapons??

Example:
AC10 avg damage 9.99
AC20 avg damage 18.57
ERPPC 10.00

 

The atlas is big and slow, and often gets to the fight late, but when it does it changes the outcome of the battle, the amount of damage you have dealt is not an indicator of how good a pilot you are, or how effective you were in at match.

So you dealt 1000 damage in a match, so what, how much of that was effective, and how much of that was 'wasted' damage ( hitting a leg on a mech that gets ct'ed or vice versa)

Sniping with the phract perhaps? Ill bet money that you are near the frontline with your jager, again showing that k/d and dmg are no reflection of your ability to help win a match.

The protector forces you to be a support mech, you may die easy, you may not deal a lot of damage, but you last longest and do your best supporting your teammates.


Back to elo - the game 'tries' to fit you in with other pilots of the same ability based on k/d / your exp in that mech and who is looking for a match right now guess which is most important?

 

First, I wasn't touting these stats as "Good" because I know they aren't. They were just stats to illustrate my point that while the damage and KDs are very similar the Win% is vastly different.

All good points except
My Cataphract is used as a front line mech exactly the same as my Jager, generally it uses quad AC5 and 2 ML while my Jager usually used 3x UAC 2ML. The Protector is also used the same way with an AC20, SRMs and MLs. I get kills every match and try to use my damage wisely by targeting weak points so the damage I get isnt just random "hunt and peck".
As I said, I do not think my ELO is high. Thats why I put the stats up. What I do feel is IF my ELO is NOT high as we can assume it isn't, then shouldn't I be middle of the road for damage and kills match after match if ELO matchmaking IS working and not top damage/kills on my team the vast majority of the time?

Basically I WANT to be middle of the road for damage/kills on my team because that means im not matched with muppets all the time like Atlas' that get 25 damage and other assaults that do less damage and have worse survivability than many mediums.

Basically its just frustrating.

this is what I am talking about...

 

@IanSane : I'm sorry, but that screenshot tells me nothing beyond the fact the the opposing side played as a team better than you're side did. I can make assumptions, but I'm not going to. Even good players get roflstomped sometimes.

In the picture above, the difference in total damage dealt is only 757, thats about 63 points of damage per pilot. Really thats not much and suggests that had your team been slightly more together you'd have won.

Picking on an atlas that got a low score? What about being taken out by a jenner or other light shooting it in the back, or being headshotted. Much as we like to post our "look how much damage I did" pics we ALL have our games where we've got silly low scores.

An Example. Last night I dropped with 2 friends, we dropped on canyon network and early on the guy in our lance who was commanding made a bad call. we got separated from the rest of our team and they were slaughtered. We held on for a little while, dealing huge amounts of damage and getting some kills, but it was our earlier actions that lost us the game. In a different situation, a different group, in different mechs it might have been different. We came out of the drop and talked about it, we all knew what went wrong, and hopefully learned from it.

Its all too easy to push for the kill or the high damage and actually be detrimental to your team. Going for an easy kill when a teammate is in trouble. Ignoring that jenner who is going to take down the atlas who isn't noticing it attacking its rear.

apologies for paraphrasing, but I believe its not 'out of context'. IF you are working with your team you can't guarantee kills every match. More than once I've dealt 700+ points of damage without getting a kill, I do what I need to to get the win, and sometimes that means dying, sometimes it means capping, sometimes it means letting someone else have the glory.....

 

re: 1: I've dropped into rounds with lances of trials as well. This is mostly what leads me to think that the Elo implementation is a net team Elo, there's frankly no way a newbie has even played the number of games required to reach a vet with strong stats.

re: 2: The conclusion I would rather you have drawn is that I contribute to victory through combat. Even in my objective oriented light mechs, my KDR is above a 1.5...

Critical hits.

 

Verb GREAT ARGUMENTS!
Unfortunately, no doubt because of my lack of eloquence, you misinterpreted the point I was trying to illustrate. Im not talking about the disparity between our teams score and the enemys score I was showing the disparity of my score with the other mechs on my team to show that someone with a low ELO (me) shouldn't be getting vastly more damage as I do time and again unless they are just lumping all the bad ELO players (me included)together and not mixing low ELO with high ELO as you would hope.

I don't do it solely for the kills so yes you are correct..I NORMALLY get a kill but not ALWAYS and thats because I pay attention and help teammates focus targets instead of just targeting mechs at random and you will never, EVER, find me not with the push even if I do not agree with where we are headed unless I am trying to hold off an enemy flank attack and sacrificing my mech in order to buy our team time. If there is one thing I have found by playing WoT and War Thunder its that in order to win you have to be able to sacrifice yourself and as with WoT (58% win rate 100% PUGs) and War Thunder (84% win rate) and now this 54% 100% PUG it shows that I AM doing what I can to help my team win.

As for the Atlas comment yes I know that there are circumstances where at atlas can do low damage but how often is an Atlas caught completely alone by a light before they can do damage? I almost never see that unless the Atlas doesn't pay attention and LETs himself get isolated early on in the match which only makes my point. If it is later on in the match and he is isolated thats understandable and common but by then you would think he would have more than 25 damage. If the Atlas is focused then there are options, pull back and move to a different side, find better cover, basically get the heat off you before reengaging and if you are focused when you CAN'T find cover quickly you probably shouldn't have gone there in the first place. (and yes there are always times you will have to be out of cover that you cannot get in to quickly but give me enough credit to notice those times and not lump them in with the assault muppets On your worst mech with even your worst build EVEN a light will be hard pushed to get less than 25 damage in a match. As for the 1 shot, yeah thats possible but again I would know enough to not blame them for their bad score.

And finally as to the mention of the pictures showing our high scores. It is not to go "oh yay me look how good I am" its to "sell" our mech build. If I make a mech that to me looks good and show you a picture of a 200 damage game are you likely to try it? But if I show you a 1000 damage game you might think "hmm maybe I will give that a try"

 

Forgot all bout the critical hits thanks bud.

 

What exactly is your win/loss, Verb? I'd like to know just how much of a disparity your w/l has over mine for you to speak so condescendingly of a complete stranger's teamwork and motives.

 

Depending on the mech you are in I would say.

A newbie with a big gun is still a big gun. Less accurate and effective yes, but when they stand together something is going to hit sooner or later. The current trial mechs are not stock, but upgraded mechs, even though some of them may be harder to use. LLas and Gauss still hurts when it hits you, newbie or not.

The fact that newbies do not torso twist or find cover means that you can core them quickly. If you are in a long range support mech or the like you can knock them down within a few shots. This would translate into less threat.

You don't want to brawl with them though, nor spend time testracting them with lights, but neutrializing them is still advised.