99 replies to this topic

[PepeKenobi]

Just one question above all here:

 

Are parties created and composed by experienced pilots being taken into serious consideration into this schema change?

 

According to the 3 games I've joined in and played today: One Siege which has essentially been a pubstomping of noobs by a team of good players. The second match has been a balanced tdm. And the third has been a TDM filled up basically by noobs.

 

I'm gonna play some few games again to share more on here about this subject.

[FRX23]

Just my feedback at the moment, i don't come with numbers, but for me it's worse than before. (EU servers, i am ~2050-2100 mmr)

[1uster]

Yesterday evening - the one higher-mmr server in eu was full so joined a lower one for warm up. It was a mess. People were leaving the whole time. At the end I just realised the problem. There was one 2500 mmr player in a match with mostly <1800.

After that I got in the one good server. Got destroyed within one match by one player well known for feeding. But I know - this isn't important. Otherwise you would have banned him already.

[T3CHM3CH]

... It was a mess. People were leaving the whole time. At the end I just realised the problem. There was one 2500 mmr player in a match with mostly <1800.

 

exactly what i experienced this morning

https://community.pl...14-matchmaking/

[Broham78]

Day 2:  First impressions were correct, this sucks. I don't want to get off on a rant but I haven't been this angry with Hawken in a long time.

 

I am now..

 

Forced to use auto match

 

Forced to play alone without my friends

 

Forced into mayhem matches

 

Forced onto laggy unreliable servers

 

Forced to play with nosebleed mmr players who stomp one team and horde all kills from the other

 

 

 

I don't like being forced.

[Interrobang87]

Pitchforks! Get your pitchforks here!

[ArchMech]

Torches! Get your torches here!

[PepeKenobi]

Played some few more games and went well enough. That would be all for (my little and humble) now here.   

[Call_Me_Ishmael]

Nah.  I'm not a fan of it either.

Edited by Call_Me_Ishmael, 07 May 2015 - 02:36 PM.

[StubbornPuppet]

Interestingly, ever since you made this change, I can hardly find a match with open slots to join.  There are generally about 20 populated matches on the North American servers since you did this and they're almost always all full.  So, now I'm spending about 10 minutes or so every time I log into Hawken just waiting for a match to become available.

 

Also, I'm noticing every single match I do finally make it into seems to have a HUGE mmr spread - generally like 1500 - 2400.

 

Seems like maybe something didn't work the way you intended... dunno.

 

EDIT:  Right now, I've been waiting almost 20 minutes to find a Siege or Missile Assault match to play and only 3 TDM matches have become available during the whole wait.  This change is not working for me at all.

 

EDIT2:  Well, I finally got into a MA match, right near the beginning with a full lobby.  Yeah... that was terrible.  The srd was 1450 - 2450 and one team managed to get all 3 silos and hold them almost the entire match - effortlessly.  The balance just isn't working either.

 

EDIT3:  After 5 matches, yuck.  Every single match was a huge MMR spread, the last being 1250 - 2550, and all the matches were lopsided messes.  I never had a problem with the way match balancing worked before.

Edited by StubbornPuppet, 07 May 2015 - 04:36 PM.

[TerasCell]

Wallowing around 2100-2200 mmr because I like to play suicide bomber means that I don't mind taking on higher MMR players but when my team consists of lower MMR's and me it's a greater challenge because they're new and teamwork is new to them etc etc etc. When going against one of the best players I know of, against me and five other players, three of whom are lamenting that they are new to siege and so on, and one of them doesn't even know how to use the autotarget in Rocketeer, it's not that fun. When it's me and a team of players who are compatent going against some of the best players out there, well, to me that is fun, even if I get crushed.

 

Teams get stacked fast, my teammates get crushed, start lamenting, and then rage quit. There's little to no incentive to wait for the next match to let matchmaking balance out the teams. I don't mind taking a pounding so I'll stay to the end, but getting caught in a match filled with low and high players makes things a little more frustrating. The higher players eradicate everyone without mercy and the lower players don't have any fun, nor do they get a chance to learn much, because they pretty much die right away.

 

Also, ping. My ping is horrific, sporadic, unpredicatable. Going against people with 24 ping while I'm cruising at 84-120 makes the whole idea of MMR moot. They see me an instant before I see them. If Matchmaker balanced between MMR and spread out ping so that players with high ping were split up between teams, that'd be awesome too.

 

Back in the day when you could see people's levels (1-30), that kinda gave people an idea what they're were up against. You could tell which high level player was being a turd and camping lowbie matches. Now it's not obvious. Granted, smurf accounts would still prevent people from seeing what other players are really capable of until the game starts- but I think if more high mmr player found matches quickly the amount of smurf accounts would drop dramatically and used only by turds who want to camp lowbies.

 

The 3 star rating for servers isn't very telling, honestly. I can't tell if the three stars means games are gonna be too low, or too high. Being high-mid mmr or whatever, it usually safe to say that it means they're gonna be low, but I bet it can be confusing for other players. Sometimes the lower players do wander into higher matches because of them.

 

/rant Also there's no penalty for leaving matches early (especially leaving near the end, dumping some poor soul into a losing match)- and while that is another topic I'd rather see that dealt with than matchmaking itself. /endrant

[Flifang]

It seems for me at least the mmr average with the spreads are too low for me to join by looking at which servers are available. I also had an odd instance today where I was invited to a match and was told it was out of my range but upon looking in the browser I was able to join fine without having anyone join before me.

[brackets]

I think match balance has gotten worse. I've noticed wider mmr ranges and matchmaker sticking me in lower mmr servers than before, and because of the wide discrepancies in mmr the matchmaker has been struggling to keep them balanced. I'm also not a huge fan of having no choice in which server I get put into; picking TDM might get me anything from a normal 12 person game on US East to a crazy 24 person game on US West servers, and I much prefer normal 12 person games on US East.

Edited by brackets, 07 May 2015 - 10:35 PM.

[Yehovah]

has player ping been any of your concern? the matchmaking keeps putting me back to the high ping servers which i keep quitting. For example i know sydney has high ping for me and i would not even enter it when there was server browser. Now it just keep putting me in Sydney or other high ping locations. The unplayability caused by this issue amplifies especially because the opponents are all in high mmr range.

Can you
put the players to servers with lowest ping first, or
allow a filter based on ping, which the player interacts with, or
display the server loc/name and a confirm button before loading the player into the map
?

 

edit:
The only server i'm not locked outside of is a high ping server i dont even know where it is. Is this how you punish players with high mmr?
http://s7.postimg.or...wmer3p5/hes.jpg

Edited by Yehovah, 08 May 2015 - 02:28 AM.

[MomOw]

My opinion is :

Make people be able to queue for TDM / siege / MA / coop bot destruction, while playing 18 DM or 10 bot TDM (remove MMR restriction to these servers).

Make the MM take its time and try to build balanced servers. Allow players that are thrown in a game have some grind from their DM / coop TDM they were playing while queuing.

 

I don't mind waiting 5min to get into a balanced TDM server if I can stomp some bots while waiting.

[comic_sans]

I can get into a DM whenever I want now, so I'm happy.

[BaronSaturday]

Our private server was pretty balanced. =b. On da reel doe, I've been having trouble getting a match and my mmr is 2036 at time of post. Looking at the browser, everything is kind of empty. Bah. Idk. I mostly just want to play.

[Silverfire]

I can no longer find matches via server browser, only through matchmaking. And the MMR range is quite ridiculous, getting ranges like 1000-2500.

[IareDave]

All of the issues everyone is complaining about is what I had experienced for almost a year and hence had to use smurfs on occasion. 

-I couldn't ever find a match on the browser

-Sometimes MMR range would be 1800+ (1000-3000 happened quite a few times)

-I could never join a match of a friend invite

 

Not to say your issues aren't of a concern, but I absolutely love the current system and hopefully Josh will be able to make a balance for low and high MMRs

Edited by IareDave, 08 May 2015 - 04:21 AM.

[Call_Me_Ishmael]

I was in many 1000-2500 matches this morning.

 

I was trying to teach the newbs and make the best of a bad situation, but the servers get 2200+ Heat Infil pilots who go on a tear without noticing or caring the opponents are just standing there.

 

I think this has to be a failed experiment, and between MM dumping into 30T Mayhem servers and the huge MMR spread...  I think we can explain the reduction in players over the last few days.

[Call_Me_Ishmael]

...had to use smurfs on occasion.

 

'On occasion' sort of implies 'less than daily'.  I'm just as guilty.

 

 

I absolutely love the current system

 

This is the problem.  You, and the rest of the top 20 are less than 10% of the daily active population.  We can't tailor to the elite few.  We can't and expect to stay in business.

 

We need to find some other way.  I'd like to try Hest's suggestion:  open it up, make MMR public, and the server MMR public.

[Minutemech]

You guys know we had the same exact problems when auto MM was first introduced right? The complains back then was pretty much the same:

 

- Can't join with friends

- Ridiculous MMR deviation and stomping becomes even more apparent at lower tiers as there is basically no MMR restriction when using the auto MM

- Difficulties in organizing games or events

- And now with several locations being consolidated in fewer regions, not only you might get placed in a match outside your MMR range, you might also get high latency if you lose the MM roulette

 

Clearly the old devs changed the parameters for damn good reason and now we have pretty much come full circle. The MM is fundamentally flawed and these band-aid solutions are simply not helping. Until the MM is reworked, I'd say just give the players, be it scrubs or the top 1%, the liberty to select their own games by increasing the MMR range. The jerks will always find a way to stomp to satisfy their ego either way, but at least, the rest of the players have a fair chance to play with their friends on servers of their choosing.

Edited by Minutemech, 08 May 2015 - 05:06 AM.

[n3onfx]

There's something wrong about the change. At first I was happy about being able to play during the day and not have to wait but it puts you in waaaay too low servers. Played a bit with Meraple this morning (both on different teams ) and we each had kill scores of 20 above pretty much every round. This is kind of fine since it balances out the game a bit even though the low mmr players probably don't find any fun in being killed without being able to do much in return.

 

Where it becomes really bad though is there's only one high or high-ish mmr player in the game, then it becomes a 40 - 10 or less round and I fail to see how all these players are having fun. Extending the mmr range is a good idea but putting people in servers where there is a disparity close to 1000 or above sometimes doesn't work.

 

I'd be fine with waiting something like 2 minutes in queue if it puts you in the highest average mmr server. There would be less chances to have high mmr players in low average servers which always result in hopeless stomps.

Edited by n3onfx, 08 May 2015 - 05:13 AM.

[TangledMantis]

Update: With the new match maker changes (I think?) and my approx 1800 MMR, i was unable to find a single game outside of the queue last night. 

 

I ended up joining some map called 'cpnjosh 2' which was just wreakage over and over again. 

 

Then I found DMAX's lovely map with mechs with 2700 armor and no radar. That was glorious, but still need to be able to find maps. :( 

 

Yes I know the queue will put me in a map, but now that there isnt a WC and EC category, i end up in high ping games since I cant specify WC only.

[Leonhardt]

This situation where there his a high rate of people leaving/joining a match is one we need to keep a close eye on. It could be that ultimately the best course of action is to just flat-out allow people to join any server they want to. I'd rather not enable that until we can change up the client so people can see MMR ratings; and there's the lingering concern of high MMR people preying on the newbies (but would it happen as much as it does already?).

Actually the major reason for the changes to the match maker and the covering up of MMR was the rampant slaughter of newbie servers and the complaints that came with it. Often it would be a player around 2200 level grinding newbies to get back MMR they lost in a previous match. Sad, but true.

[(Unknown)1590d2c747fabd]

Yep... my initial experiences are pretty much the same as everyone else. Entire teams just fleeing the match after 0/3000 Siege defeat after being massacred. The massive range (disparity?) of MMR in the match *might* be ok if the teams were balanced in-server/in-match a bit better (Like even number of high mmr players per team) but that is another thread topic on its own:

 

Spoiler

Edited by oSPANNERo, 08 May 2015 - 06:55 AM.

[MomOw]

So this is how the new MM works for me : wait 30s and get into a random 1400-1500MMR server

Hopefully I found a 1800MMR server (my actual skill), and I could spend some good matches there.

 

As far as I understand the new MM works for mid-range players how it has always worked for top level players. Well, I guess I'm not used to it.

[zorin1]

Me and NewKnockOut partied up and got into a match together.  I felt pretty bad because the average MMR for the game was 1500.  We like to get into the same match but fight against each other.  We both get pleasure from killing each other, mostly for me, since he is much better and it is fun to make him rage quit.  We only join a party so that we can get into the same server.  Once we get into the server, we leave match making.  I wish there was a way that you could party up but let match making put you onto the most balanced team.  Sometime you want to be on the same team and other times you don't.  So the first time you join a match and if it is in the middle you end up on the same team.  Oh well...

[(Unknown)1590d2c747fabd]

So is it possible that we are simply butting up a "pilot pool" problem that we are trying to solve with complex matchmaking tweaks?

 

Here is my thoughts:

 

1) The use case is you have 12 pilots that all want to play siege at the same time. They are have MMR spaced 100 apart giving us a range of 1300 -> 2400.

 

*IF* I understand things properly:

 

Pre-Tweek if they all used MM we would end up with either two or three partially full servers (2x 3v3 or 3x 2v2) that were fairly stratified. Thus giving the "little guys" (1300 -> 1600) protection from the "big guys" (2100 -> 2400). And the "medium guys" (1700 -> 2000) would either play with themselves or end up in a game a *little* high/low for their experience.

 

Post-Tweek if they all used MM we would end up with ONE full server (1x 6v6) with NO stratification. Now the "Little Guys" are getting crushed regardless and think the game sucks. The "Medium Guys" are 'happy' as long as the teams are balanced. The "Big Guys" are either grinding MMR, fighting 1:1, or are bored.

(Again, the above two descriptions are based on a rudimentary understanding that could be wrong.)

 

2) Now lets compare that to if we had the same use case except with 36 pilots rather than 12. (All else stays the same)

 

Pre-Tweek we would end up with three full servers (3x 6v6) stratified: 1300 - 1600 / 1700 - 2000 / 2100 - 2400

 

Post-Tweek we would end up with three full servers (3x 6v6) stratified: 1300 - 1600 / 1700 - 2000 / 2100 - 2400


So adding an equal distribution to the pool of pilots helps us make sure everyone is happy and playing.

 

 

3) Now for the most likely scenario: 12 pilots again but 5 of them are 1300 - 1400 / 5 are 1600 - 1800 / 2 are 2200 - 2400

Pre-Tweek we would end up with 2 mostly full servers where people are kinda unhappy but playing (2x 3v2) and 2 players basically SOL till others join. (And with the 2200-2400 players that is much less likely.)

 

Post-Tweek we end up with one full with the same problems as Use Case #1 Post-Tweek

[(Unknown)1590d2c747fabd]

Someone mentioned earlier that they felt MMR is somewhat exponential in that as MMR increases the actual talent of the pilot is a much more steep increase especially toward the top end. (Arbitrarily I will say above 2000 MMR is where that curve gets steep.) I would tend to agree in that the skill difference between a 1400 and 1600 player is no where near the difference between 2000 and 2200.

 

Buy yet it seems like the MM treats the MMRs as linear based on the OP (if I understand it correctly.)

 

So perhaps part of the tweak (along with looking at how different quantities and distributions of the Pilot Pool affect it) is looking at ways we could compress the "Acceptable MMR Window" for players as MMR increases?

 

Examples: A 1600 MMR player might have a +/-400 window but a 2200 MMR player might only have a +/-150 window.

 

Complex and non-optimal but if we don't figure out how to foster/protect newer players, the game will never grow because the opt-out rate at the beginning will be sooooooo high.

Edited by oSPANNERo, 08 May 2015 - 08:56 AM.

[brackets]

One of the things scrimbot can do is make a party and deploy the party to a server but the members of the party won't necessarily be on the same team. Whereas currently if you don't party then getting into the same match is unlikely and if you do party you mess up balance, if this functionality were to be added to the game then people would be able to play with their friends and presumably matchmaker would stick them on separate teams to keep matches better balanced.

[crockrocket]

Literally just get rid of the mmr locking. 

[(Unknown)1590d2c747fabd]

Literally just get rid of the mmr locking. 

 

::blinks::

 

Can you please elaborate a little?

 

Are you suggesting allowing a 2400 MMR player join a server that is average 1600 MMR with a SD of 200?

Edited by oSPANNERo, 08 May 2015 - 09:14 AM.

[FRX23]

i m 2050 mmr and my server browser is full grey.

It seems the system consider me as a top tiers player which i am NOT.

 

I'm forced to play with 2400 players which the skill is infinitely better than mine.

I'm also an old (37) veteran but casual player and i think i can't progress any further.

 

Should i have to be stomp enough to be able to play outside this hell ?

 

should i join and be afk to reduce my MMR ?

 

or should i make a smurf ?

 

This is only my POV but it is also my feedback.

[ThirdEyE]

All of the issues everyone is complaining about is what I had experienced for almost a year and hence had to use smurfs on occasion. 

-I couldn't ever find a match on the browser

-Sometimes MMR range would be 1800+ (1000-3000 happened quite a few times)

-I could never join a match of a friend invite

 

Not to say your issues aren't of a concern, but I absolutely love the current system and hopefully Josh will be able to make a balance for low and high MMRs

This systems seems like a minor improvement in exchange for a lot of widespread problems and discontent.  I agree that it's nice to be able to join a server through quickmatch regardless of MMR, but it really needs to be fine-tuned so that it either waits for a new map (so autobalance can do its job) or places you in a server with the highest MMR difference between teams.  Not sure what to do about DM, since you shouldn't be completely restricted from playing the mode, but it also shouldn't just throw you into a 1500 server after 30 seconds.

 

However, the server browser has become essentially useless to high MMR players.  I kept my MMR <2500 so I could still find the highest available matches in browser, but with the new MMR spread restrictions I have to use matchmaker all the time.  I would prefer to play with people at least close to my skill level, but matchmaker does a much worse job of that now.  Even friend invites were a decent option before because I could usually follow friends into whatever game they joined, but now they keep getting put into matches outside my range so I either have to queue and hope I get lucky, or party with them and wait for a server with 2 spots on the same team which would cause even more severe unbalance because we can't manually teamswitch to play on opposing teams.

 

I think the browser MMR range should be widened again (500 seemed ok to me), the duration of matchmaking queue should be lengthened (3-5 minutes), and matchmaking needs to be smarter in terms of where it places players without a "good fit" option.  This should go hand in hand with a revamp of the star rating system which is really unclear for most people, especially as 1 star means either higher or lower than your MMR but there's no way to tell (without external help i.e. heroku/scrimbot) until you join the server.  In dream-land I would also love for there to be a game mode + region filter so you aren't restricted to choosing "all game modes" or a single specific mode.

 

Final note:  Please remove non-standard server sizes and private servers from the matchmaker.  I like 24 man every so often but I get placed there ~50% of the time, which is obviously not helping me, and many others, find an enjoyable match.  It seems like these servers have actually become the black holes of hawken matchmaking, as they almost always have available spots so the matchmaker just keeps on filling them up!  fuzzy bunnyng seriously please remove this, it is cancer.

[Hyginos]

Literally just get rid of the mmr locking. 

 

That's not an awful idea, but I think that needs to come with more clarity in the star rating system.

 

It may be a good idea to make each player's MMR visible only to himself in game, but obfuscated behind some rating system.

 

Example:

Pilots and servers are rated on a scale of 1 to 5, calculated by MMR * 5/3000 + 1, rounded to the nearest tenth. This would mean a rating of "5" would require an MMR over 2400, which falls right about the top 100.  This makes the measurement fuzzy enough that small fluctuations are not visible, as it only has a resolution of 100 MMR.

 

A pilots own rating is visible to him in the "profile" section, and the rating of the server is visible in the browser, perhaps with a little note regarding relative skill similar to what we have now. This would also provide a justification for applying underdog bonuses based on MMR.

Edited by Hyginos, 08 May 2015 - 09:59 AM.

[TangledMantis]

Note that Hawken has recently seen a huge influx of new players. Give them time to git gud and then we will have more 1800+ games to join.

[(Unknown)1590d2c747fabd]

Wow... check out this baby:

 

[americanbrit14]

i know many people have said the same thing but i want to participate

 

 

(i am happy i got my recording stuffs to work)

[n3onfx]

 

I think the browser MMR range should be widened again (500 seemed ok to me), the duration of matchmaking queue should be lengthened (3-5 minutes), and matchmaking needs to be smarter in terms of where it places players without a "good fit" option.  This should go hand in hand with a revamp of the star rating system which is really unclear for most people, especially as 1 star means either higher or lower than your MMR but there's no way to tell (without external help i.e. heroku/scrimbot) until you join the server.  In dream-land I would also love for there to be a game mode + region filter so you aren't restricted to choosing "all game modes" or a single specific mode.

 

 

This is exactly spot on. Matchmaking queue is too short and the MMR range to be allowed to join is too small.