Mechwarrior Online

[Falconeer]

There's a little tournament thingie that will run for a couple of days. Nothing serious, just some bullshit, but at least it's faction-flavoured.

Greetings MechWarriors!

This weekend we're having a Faction Challenge! This is your chance to take your skills to the Battlefield with House Pride! All participants who play 10 matches will receive a free Gazelle Dropship cockpit item automatically!

Step 1: Sign-in and choose your House Faction before opting-in by Friday March 21st at 10:00 am PDT on our website at https://mwomercs.com/profile/faction.

Step 2: Opt-in on our website before Friday March 21st at 10:00am PDT on this page.

Step 3: The contest period lasts from Friday March 21st 10:00am PDT until Sunday Mar 23rd 11:59pm PDT. Compete against your fellow MechWarriors for a chance to win glory for your Faction and MC prize packages!

The top five player scores in each House Faction will be awarded an MC prize package. All players who have opted-in and are members of the winning Faction (calculated by the combined score of the top 50 players in each Faction) will receive their House Banner or dog tags as a cockpit item!

Important: Remember to choose your Faction early! If you change your Faction House after the beginning of the tournament, your scoring and rewards will continue to be reflected in the Faction you had selected when the contest began. Scoring will only be considered for matches where you drop alone (not in a team).

Opt in
Best 10 matches over the course of three days.
Score Formula:
Kills × 20 + Kill Assist × 10 + (Damage Done – Team Damage) ÷ 15 + Wins × 20 + Loss × 5
1st Tie-Breaker: Number of Matches Played (Less the better)
EG: My best 10 matches out of 20 is better than your best 10 matches out of 50
2nd Tie-Breaker: Team Damage (Less is better of course)
EG: My 10 best matches with 100 team damage total is better than your Best 10 matches with 150 team damage total.

You can actually win c-bills, but more importantly I think this is the first step towards Community Warfare, or at least some sort of faction metagaming. After all, the house who gets the gets the highest score here will win bragging rights for a long time.

[Lantyssa]

Looks like I'll be running my 'phract exclusively for this.

Steiner!

[eldaec]

Go house 'the green one'!

[climbjtree]

I just started playing this again with a buddy, if anyone is active go ahead and add me to your friends list.

I'm Toha Brandt in game.

[Falconeer]

I'll add you to my Friend List.

In the faction thing, Steiner is leading.

[Lantyssa]

No House incites nationalism loyalty like the fake Germans.  House Weeabo is the only one that comes close.

[Kitsune]

Most nerds have a giant boner for the Federated Suns, thanks to their being the 'good guys' for most of the novels.

[Lantyssa]

Maybe.  They always struck me as Divine Right types, and that was a big turn-off.  I think team Banzai was the only thing I liked about Davion.

[5150]

Steiner were the 'good guys' of the 2 old Crescent Hawks games which might also sway people to the blues

That and Hersperus II

[Sir T]

Federated suns were House Davion, not Stiener. Stiener was the Lyran Commonwealth.

Anyway The Stieners have the Atlas with ECM, and also field HIGHLANDERS.

Just realized I haven't played this in a Month.

[5150]

I forsee unhappy fanbois over the MWO April Fool http://mwomercs.com/news/2014/04/815-urbanmech-arrives-on-battlefield

[Falconeer]

The only way they could fix the bitter rage that will spawn from this is if they actually ended up doing it. Also, 360° torso twist? That would be fun.

[Lantyssa]

I'd totally buy an Urbie if they were available.

An amusing twist would be if everyone drops in an Urbie during matches today, or a King of the Hill mode with Urbies against one Atlas.

[Falconeer]

Regarding the Launch Module and Team Sizes, by Paul Inouye.

With the upcoming Launch Module, there are still questions on whether or not we will be dealing with group sizes that are over 4 and under 12. As already mentioned in the previous design update for the Launch Module, those group sizes created a rift in how teams are balanced and having to try to determine an arbitrary number of players we would consider over powered in the public queue.

We have stated that 5-11 man teams will not be supported for the Launch Module and we are not changing that. However, it does not mean that the 5-11 man conundrum was dumped off the plate and into the trash. It meant that we do not have the resources at this moment to get the Launch Module out on time and include a special rule set for odd number 5-11 man groups. As the numbers indicated in the previous post showed, group launches, no matter what size, were always going to be a smaller subset of the overall game population.

Our design goal then became to ensure a much more even team build for the public matches and to add the private match lobby system for the competitive crowd. Even with that distinction, we added additional functionality in the private match lobby to somewhat address the needs for smaller group launches as well. It does not directly fix the issue of 5-11 man groups, but it does let them have SOME kind of option to play the way they want to play.

We have in our backburner an idea for the Group Only queue. This system will allow groups of any size match against each other. It would probably replace the current 12-man public queue. The problem areas come around the groups that are 11 in size. There will not be single player groups to fill that 12th slot so the Lobby is now soft locked and players will not be able to launch. Some of you may suggest that allowing solo players the ability to drop into the group queue would be the solution. A solo player would have MUCH greater success at winning in the regular public match than up against teams.

This leaves us with yet more restrictions: the Grouping interface cannot allow teams of 11 players, the Match Maker cannot create groups of 11 players (5+6, 4+7, 3+8, 9+2, 5+2+4, etc). An additional problem that arises is the exact tonnage matching that happens in the public queue. We will not know what Mechs players are bringing to the lobby. The 3/3/3/3 rule still works but we cannot ask the Match Maker to match exact tonnage per weight class when players are already in a lobby.

Now that you know some of the edge cases, let’s look at what we can do, but you need to keep in mind these problem areas.

Public/Single Player Queue
Solo players
2-4 man groups. 1 group per team as it is now.
Group Queue
Allows 2-10 man groups.
Groups can only play against other groups.
No solo players.
Match Maker will not make a team of 11 players
Probability of longer wait times for teams to be built.
Cannot incorporate exact tonnage matching like the other queues.
Private Matches
2-24 players by invite only.
Can set game options/restrictions.
Used for competitive X vs Y players
Now that you see what is planned and the edge cases surrounding implementation of a group only queue, we’re still deciding when this important feature would fit into our development schedule.

[Shannow]

Free bay and TDR for winning 5 matches this weekend. They sounding a little desperate?

[Lantyssa]

They did the Centurion win give-away a month or so ago.  I'm not sure if I'd call it desperate or not, but it's probably a good way to ensure a healthy population during the weekend.

[Falconeer]

So, Paul Inouye was on NoGutsNoGalaxy, and while he said a lot of stuff we don't really care about anymore, he said this about Community Warfare:

On Community Warfare;
44:40 - Fully understands the doubt in the delivery of CW. Guarantees that CW is going through design lock down.

45:15 - Want everyone who plays to have a role in the IS. Taking over a planet is epic, want everyone to be involved.

46:10 - They want to do CW right first time rather than having to design on the fly.

46:35 - Involving engineering in the process more from the start, rather than telling the engineers to design it as it is on the page

48:10 - They have a small team so key features come first. UI2.0 took all the resources for CW, then launch module took all the resources, then Clans took all the resources.

51:10 - Decision was to get content out then let people play with the content whilst they build CW.

The things you CANNOT do these days with a "small" team of 50+ people...

[Sir T]

Busted off my Misery and played some maps for the first time in 2 months during the "win 5 games" promotion (won 6 games out of 8 for the record)

Holy fuck the basic gameplay is good. I had forgotten how brilliant the feel of being in the cockpit is. Pew pew freaking pew raaargh! Actually beat an Atlas DDC one on one. Well it was on Terra Therma and the idiot kept shutting down, and I only shut down once. And he didn't have ECM equipped. But I still technically beat an Atlas! 

Its such a pity the people running this are such incompetent cocks as the core gameplay is solid as a rock.

[Falconeer]

I agree 100%. I just played a few games yesterday and had the same feeling. Although, in all honesty, there have been a few games where the lack of organization in our team ended in such an insta-stomp that I was on the verge of headbutting the screen.

Then again, this happens:



ONLY 50 TIMBER WOLF GOLD KHAN COLLECTIONS REMAINING!


 

[Falconeer]

The Launch Module explained (video).



EDIT: AND of course something went very wrong. It could be that everyone is trying out private matches (they don't give out Cbills or XP though), or it could be that there aren't enough players to support 3/3/3/3 queues anymore, or it could just be a bug. But no game is starting. At all. You queue up and all you get is "failed to find a match" after 1 minute of "Searching..."

Well....   >


EDIT 2:

Greetings MechWarriors,

We are aware of an issue causing longer wait times and failed matching. Following the patch, we have seen an immediate change in behavior from both public and internal testing with hangs and loops in the matchmaking logic.

After a couple of reboots to the Matchmaker, which players will have experienced as failed attempts to match, the issue continues to resurface. As such, our next step is to temporarily disable 3/3/3/3 to determine if this makes any change to the behavior. This means matchmaking weight class restrictions will not function until further notice.

Please stand by for more details as they come.

 

[Sir T]

Time to sit back in your cockpit and use your lazors to warm up some popcorn...

[Falconeer]

The most important feature of last patch and possibly the last 12 months, 3/3/3/3, doesn't work, and won't be in for an unknown while.

On the April 29th patch the Launch Module feature was released and with it updates to the game’s matchmaker. These matchmaking changes included 3/3/3/3 which is a restriction to ensure each team has the composition of 3 light Mechs, 3 medium Mechs, 3 heavy Mechs and 3 assault Mechs. Also we added another new restriction to ensure that each team could have at most 1 group. For those of you who participated in the Public Test with these changes, you’ll know that the testing of these matchmaker changes was successful, with a large number of our participants enjoying the format of the matches.

Unfortunately, after the April 29th patch went live, we were forced to disable both of these changes due to problems the matchmaker began to experience under our production load. In addition to disabling these changes, another bug was discovered, in which users in the 12 user group queue were being incorrectly matched with users in the solo/2-4 user group queue.

This week we have been very busy working on fixing these problems to get them back out for everyone in the May 6th patch.

Here is the current status update:

The bug involving the 12 user group queue matching with solo/2-4 user group queues has been identified and confirmed fixed and will be in the May 6th patch

A problem with the single group per team feature of the matchmaker was identified and fixed and will be in the May 6th patch. This feature of the matchmaker will be re-enabled; however, it will be monitored closely. In case problems with the matchmaker arise again, we may be forced to disable it.

The 3/3/3/3 restriction created larger queue sizes (as predicted) on production; however, this highlighted a flaw in the underlying implementation that wasn’t known prior. We hope to have this issue solved as soon as possible, and will update the community with a date when it becomes available.

We thank everyone for their patience as we work on bringing 3/3/3/3 and the 1 group per team features of the matchmaker back online.

[Lantyssa]

Was the flaw that 90% of people queue in Heavies and Assaults, and instead of putting groups on separate sides you went for one per team, thus creating a massive backlog that the system could never figure out how to fill?

"Look guys, I know you're stupid, but a matching algorithm isn't that hard.  Build the opposing teams at the same time instead of filling a complete side then the other one.  The lobby should be to give people time to load after the teams are already set, that way the matchmaker can draw from the pool of everyone who is queued."

[Sir T]

Was the flaw that 90% of people queue in Heavies and Assaults, and instead of putting groups on separate sides you went for one per team, thus creating a massive backlog that the system could never figure out how to fill?

Stunningly, when I read 5 minutes ago that 3/3/3/3 meant assaults/heavies etc, I immediately grasped the massive flaw in that. Lets face it, the standard meta build for a while was 4 Jenners and as many Highlanders as you could cram in. The least played class out there is Meds, and I'll admit, i have fun in my Misery, an assault, more than any other mech.

And hilariously, I got this in my Email this morning!





Look over there! There be GOLD in them thar mechs!!! And thar be Private Matchmaking that we turned off this morning!

Screenshots "here"

[Falconeer]

Can you believe this? This has been in design and testing for MONTHS. Then it finally went live last week. After literally three minutes it was obvious it didn't work and was preventing any match to start so they had to turn it off. A week later, we learn that the feature it took them months to design and code is undergoing a "proper review/design and fix" and there's no ETA for it?

Unbelievable.

[eldaec]

Would it be so hard to count the number of each size class in the queue when making a match, and then fill both teams in proportion to that?

I mean, it doesn't sound hard, so maybe I'm missing something.

[Sir T]

Because ages ago they decided to match teams based on their rating of the skillz of the player rather than the weight of the mech. I lost count of the games where I was one of only 2 assaults on my team and then I see 2 atlases, 3 stalkers and a couple of highlanders walking around the corner. If they just stated matching by weight alone they would have people burning down the forums about how unfair it is that they are not matched up against people of their skillz and that the player is the real balancing factor and a Commando can so take an Atlas with skeeel and blah blah.

I'd say fuck them. If they are still trying 3/3/3/3/3/3/3/3/3/3/3/3/3 AND matching for their player win rate rating no wonder the system chocked.

[eldaec]

I can only speak for myself, but I live a lot longer in a Cicada than an Atlas, and really don't worry when I see an Atlas lumbering over a hump in the road.

I've never seen the big attraction of weight class matching, but if you must have it, it doesn't seem very hard to do.

[Falconeer]

The private match interface finally provides a tool for tournaments. So they are running one.

We're excited to present our first in a series of team-based tournaments! We'll kick the First Engagement off with the new Launch Module system, which allows for groups of players to choose their opponents in a pre-match game lobby.

(...)

Prizes:
1st Place team members (including substitutes) will be awarded a Hero `Mech of their choice, 30 days of Premium Time, a T-Shirt and an exclusive Tournament Victor's Skin*.
2nd Place team members (including substitutes) will be awarded a Champion `Mech of their choice, 30 days of Premium Time and a T-Shirt.

But what I really like about the launch module is that it easily allows for all sorts of matches, even or uneven, with or without weight limitations, and ultimately even duels. This is a one on one between two well known members of the community, HomelessBill and Victor Morson. Not a great duel, but the potential is there.

[Falconeer]

The MWO official Tournament is underway and PGI decided this match was worth recording, commenting and sharing on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gybDmkE-ubY

I never thought something with 'mechs could be this boring but somehow the dull commentary, the subpar spectator tool and the puzzling strategical gameplay make it a real snoozefest. The real question is why did they decide this was worth posting on the official Youtube, why did they think it was a good idea. TOTALLY MAKES YOU WANT TO DOWNLOAD AND PLAY RIGHT NOW, RIGHT?! Launch Tournament, 7 months ago, showed more potential. Maybe Skirmish mode is even worse than Assault for eSport purposes, but regardless this company and their strategies never ceases to amaze me.

Trivia: the winning team, Frati Mazzolatori, is an Italian team.



EDIT: A mistake on my part, I didn't realize they are upoading ALL matches, so I guess they decided on this before they happen to realize how terribly boring they could be to watch. It's not like they picked just one match to upload.

[Pennilenko]

So I get my new stick in that I plan on using for Elite: Dangerous two days ago.  Yesterday while recovering from space vertigo, which was fricken awesome (no sarcasm), I got the bright idea to reinstall MWO and try my new stick out in it. I mean my thinking was that I used to love the shit out of some Mechwarrior with a joystick well over a decade ago, it would be awesome to play this shiny new Mechwarrior with a new awesome stick I just got.

This game is fucking shit with a joystick. How do you do a Mechwarrior game that plays like fucking shit with a joystick? How? Fucking Hell. I know it is not stick quality either because my new stick is amazing in many other games, very tiny dead space, quick responsiveness. Nothing I did in the options panel made things better.

[Samprimary]

to be fair, in any game in which there was ample and complete joystick support for mech driving, mouse+keyboard was superior

the mouse in particular is an astoundingly responsive and precise tool to use, in comparison to a joystick. now, it would have some downsides if you were in a force feedback cockpit or something, but.

[Falconeer]

Eeeeh, I have to agree with Samprimary. I totally get the desire to play with a joystick considering the lore and the history of the game franchise, but the aiming in this one is of the FPS variation, and there's nothing that beats a mouse when it comes to that.

It's funny because when the game was still in closed beta they were in the talk with Razer for a custom joystick (the Artemis) which was actually prototyped (picture) and showed at the beta nVidia tournament. I wonder at what point Razer realized this was a rocky boat to be on, and ultimately a game that couldn't be played with a joystick.




Anyway, for all of you who are pissed at the game development but would still love to love it, come back in 12 months. It should be closer to release by then.


EDIT: Pennilenko, check this thread. It has some suggestions from joystick users for joystick users.

[Pennilenko]

I just want to point out that I am not one of those nutters that prefers weird control schemes instead of high precision convenient set ups.  I was only looking for some nostalgia and was expecting at least semi passable stick performance.

[Falconeer]

Status of the Matchmaker: I have both good and bad news. The release of the 3/3/3/3 feature has been as frustrating for us as it has been for you. Many have speculated that the feature simply has been proven unviable and we should be looking for alternative ways to match our players. Here is where I can state the good news that it actuaully seems that we have proven the feature to be very viable and fun. In explanation: now that we have the Queue window we actually were able to prove that players are willing to adjust there behaviour and play more Light and Medium mechs so long as they know that the two sides are even which was always a critical component of the 3/3/3/3 feature. We actually saw the Queue's for the 4 weight classes even out very effectively. On top of that when matches were kicking off the matches were noticable by everyone involved to be very fun and and much more consistently competitive.

Now the bad side unfortunately what we found was that the feature is unviable in the currently way the matchmaker has been written. Therefore it is going to be necessary to do a rewrite of the matchmaker code. Now I should mention that it was always going to be necessary to rewrite the matchmaker code to support the faction based matching necessary for CW which was basically upon us anyhow, but we had hoped in the meantime 3/3/3/3 would be active. So this has changed our plans and we have had to bump the MM rewrite up to top priority. Karl Berg is now assigned to start and complete this rewrite and we will start out by completing just the existing design of 3/3/3/3 and get that active then complete it to support CW. So as to an ETA all I mentioned in the VLog is that I promise to give you an updated ETA in about 2 weeks time, but I am hopeful it will only be in the ~1month timeframe.
In summary: 3/3/3/3 seems very fun, competitive and viable. But it will need some rewrite of the MM to actually turn it on. I will get back to the community with an updated ETA in about two weeks time.

Thanks everyong for your patience, can't wait to get this feature live.
Russ

How is all of that even possible at professional coding/programming/developing level? Can anyone mention something like this ever happening in any other commercial product before?