Can't remember games this crappy...

yup!

Also, and i dont meant to sound like a broken record or some bitter player. But the forced MM growth purely on amount of activity is a cleaver way to push people into matches that they are heavily unprepared for, and in turn, many players often feel they have to start paying more money in order to compete more fairly. Very shady method of pushing profits, but psychologically effective and it is a heavily practiced mechanic in the gaming industry... specifically in the micro-transaction market.

sadly, this hurts players at both ends of the spectrum... those that are leveled well, or payed to level well, lead their teams in terms of capability, and with a very borked MM system, will most often get weirdly mismached balance of badly leveled players or players who literally are so new they should still be at silver rank. *shrug*

Will never come (back), as with hangar based MM, there is zero incentive to spend hundreds or even thousands of bucks on some bits and bytes on a server in Russia.

This will never happen for the following reasons: 1) their main goal in mm is getting people into games as quickly as possible. Trying to find similar hangars at the same time people are launching would take much too long. And 2) how are the hangars going to be matched? Where is the line drawn?way too complex to accomplish given all the ways people can put power into their hangars. 

I agree. My hanger is composed of 8,9,10 bots with 8,9,10 weapons. one bot has sparks, one has rimes the rest are old school.

My rank has been pushed up to M1 with a sub 50% win rate currently at 44. How do you move up losing more than 1/2 the games?

Figured it out...when I loose I'm usually in first or second place. When I win (because of the team) I'm in the bottom 3. Never loose rank.

When I do get over 50%  wins I get thrown in matches against maxed out hangers. Pix throws meat to the big spenders to keep them spending and pads the egos of people that have to buy victories.

Give me a maxed hanger and I'd have a 80% win rate too!

I do think your cups make you a lead dog. I believe I read where that is really a negative thing at the end of a month and when a player received a lot of cups because they play a lot. There is a difference between a mid level hanger with a lot of game time and a high level hanger with less play time. Just my thoughts on the situation you find yourself in. I would be interested to hear if you see a noticeable change, if you are still playing that is, at the turn of the month. That being said I find myself in a similar position; however, I almost only play solo. Pretty much only finish first or second whether I’ve win or lose the match. I have a fairly strong hanger due to rears of playing so many upgraded weapons that have not been nerfed out or existence like Scourge/Spark Ares and a Pulsar/Shredder Nightingale. For me nothing has really changed with the latest updates in that my winning percentage has remained the same. I have been slowly upgrading my Nodens and I do find that my kills and damage are creeping up so I hope I Amat least earning more Ag. I really should perhaps keep track more of what my teammates run or their behavior during the match.; however, I am a bit of a berserker and go hard for a couple beacons and then focus on assisting. Never really take the time to see who is camping or tanking during a match. Just do my best and move on to the next match. The only thing I am really happy with is that I rarely have the lag issues that seems so predominant these days. That issue would bother me the most I think. All the meta, pilot, nerf, buff issues affect us all equally and are frustrating but you just can’t play right when experiencing lag!

I do think the hangar-based MM could work (although I accept that it would run counter to what Pix wants). I've written about this a few times.

Each weapon / bot / module / pilot / skill etc. contributes to a hangar total. One number.

Example (the actual numbers are not important for the example, just the process):

Blue 1 sets up the following hangar:

level 3 Cossack with level 10 Orkan = 12
level 10 Ao Jun with Level 2 Nucleons = 24 (Ao Jun and Nucleons double the figures because they are more potent, again, just the idea is important).

If that's all Blue 1 runs then their hangar will total 36 and contribute as much to the team total when MM kicks in. The MM would then seek to match TEAM totals (not individual hangars).

This isn't complicated or difficult at all. It's extremely simple and flexible.

Pros:

1. MUCH fairer matches. You would never be against a much more powerful team. You might well face off against a stronger individual red, but your team would balance this.

2. It would allow COMPLETE flexibility without impacting negatively on your team AT ALL. Want to run your new Atomiser but it's only level 1? No problem! The hangar total will be adjusted instantly. You could run the most randomly levelled hangar between each match and the MM would never allow you to cost your team in the match.

3. It would instantly stop tanking. There would be no point in doing so.

4. It is completely adaptable as a system. Drones would just add to the number. Nerfed weapons would get lower numbers. Running a Blitz with Clive? Clive doubles the number of Blitz (as an example).

5. It would allow for a much more accurate representation of skill with regards to leagues. No matter what gear you were running, you would never have an unfair advantage. You could theoretically get into Champs with a one bot, level six hangar. Based completely on your skill in that bot.

Con:

1. That last point is of course, why this simple system would never be introduced: people would spend less. They wouldn't stop spending, but they would spend less.

The only way PIX would maximise profits with the system I propose is by creating fun builds and weapons / skins etc. I mean content that people would want regardless of the power.

What they currently have is a system which places the burden on the player. It is a power-sell, rather than a fun-sell.

I would happily spend Premium, Operation Passes, skins etc., especially if the matches were fairer and I wasn't punished for running builds I felt like running, just because I felt like running them.

Only way to have that win rate is to run in squad 100% of the time. No chance of doing that in solo

Garbage game is right.  They changed it over 3 years ago before the Brit bots showed up (if I remember correctly).  This is the era of the Mag Gepard dominance.  There were entire clans around this strategy of hanger management and everyone knew where the lines were.  If you upgraded (even just 1 weapon or bot) beyond a certain point, you'd get thrown into an entirely different grouping.  People had reason to 「female dog」 and moan then, but those same people readily admit now that the problems in that setup were far better than they are now.  lol

With a thinning player base, I'm thinking there's a lot MORE THAN USUAL new players that have been forced into higher leagues that a) just want to shoot 「dookie」 and don't care enough to focus and win b) aren't experienced enough to be playing in that league or c) intentionally don't lift a finger in hopes of a loss to "league adjust" themselves down. There's a combination of these players in every match now. I just played 5 matches and I can't tell you how many times I saw blues 4 vs 1 a red player while the rest of the map goes to 「dookie」. Or just walk past a red or white beacon. Or back up and leave a beacon when a red pushed in.

I'll look at the scoreboard and lower end scoring folks still have decent hangars around mk 1 lvl 10 equipment yet get 175,000 damage and 0 beacons.

They already have a Tier system set up for upgrades.  Just use that.

I think you might be confusing hangar slots with hangars. Or I'm confused. But you keep saying that I would setup my hangar(s) and 'hit Battle'.

I actually setup my 5 hangars of 5 bots each and then hit Battle (25 bots). And then when I see the map I choose which of the five hangars I'm going to use for that match. And so, currently, I could setup one hangar of maxed Vits with pilots and L8 weapons, another of 5 L6 Destriers, another of 5 L6 Cossacks, another of 5 L6 Gepards and lastly another of 5 L6 Vityazes, all without any pilots or weapons. I have 172 bots in my garage, this is ready to go.

Hangar 1 = 24x5 (bots) + 24x5 (weapons) + 25 (pilots and skills, rough guesstimate) = 265pts
Hanger 2 = 6x5 (bots) = 30pts
Hanger 3 = 6x5 (bots) = 30pts
Hanger 4 = 6x5 (bots) = 30pts
Hanger 5 = 6x5 (bots) = 30pts

So your system should take my strongest hangar and just use that score (265) rather than average my 5 hangars across each other ((265+120)/5=77) because otherwise I would be able to drop my 265pt hangar into games where other pilots are rocking 77pt hangars.

That's what I'm saying.