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I've been sitting here for a couple minutes trying to think of how to structure my thoughts, but I haven't been able to (possibly as a result of permanent brain damage
from the last 72 hours) so I'm going to ramble on and separate things into a few posts.The Good
- This was the first time I felt this game was a MMO. I loved constantly dropping with the same people on the leader-board over and over. Everyone was on the same boat and there was a tremendous level of politeness and respect despite us being in competition. In the end, I wanted us all to win.
- I'm really excited that PGI did this. Okay it might just be a scam for Elo population, and there are so many things wrong with it, but I'm happy they took the time to design *something* and I feel it's in the right spirit even if I have problems with the execution.
- Elo works. The skill level was very tuned to my own and if I look past the mind-numbing amount of games I played, they were higher quality games than I've gotten before while pugging.
- As far as I can tell there wasn't a whole lot of exploiting. I slept almost 10 hours so if anyone was trying to abuse the system through account sharing or sync drops or whatever, it obviously didn't work. I was thinking this had the potential to be a really big TK/sync drop/bot fest, but it wasn't. Maybe because it was announced so suddenly or maybe because its hard to find 40 idiots like me to sync for 50 hours, but let's be positive on this one!
The Bad
- Pretty much just read the feedback thread. You can't have a tourney like this based on games played. I'm saying that and I won the damn thing. It isn't achievable for most people, it isn't a measure of skill, PLEASE NEVER DO THIS AGAIN. And while the other factors affect the score enough so that even if someone plays double the games they might only get a few % more points, that few % makes all the difference. To the guy in 4th place, it's cold comfort to know that he only missed it by 0.1%.
- Just the above reiterated, but once everyone figured out that winning the tourney != winning games and was instead about tagging everyone with a ML, killing a few guys, and playing as many games as possible win or loss, things kind of went from a tourney to just making a number go up. I myself am admittedly guilty of this because I was playing absolutely with no regard for my own survival by Sunday, but let's face it, we all were. The guy who started 26-1 in assaults should have been first on the leader-boards on Friday night, not me.
If Anyone At PGI Is Reading
- First, thanks for making this game and making this happen. Maybe it's because I just played it for 40+ hours, but I feel pretty good about MWO right now.
- Second, I really hope you take your numbers, take the feedback from the feedback thread, and make it better because this wasn't that good for a lot of people. I want everyone to be able to participate in stuff like this and I know you guys do too. Frankly, you need it to happen because stuff like this (done right) is what can keep MWO from just being an arena shooter, and be an actual MMO shooter.
- Third, I'd love to see more stats on this. I want to see how many mechs I blew up, how many games others players, things like that.
- In games like guild wars you can just group up and go into a single elimination tourney that at most takes an hour to resolve and you get some stuff at the end. I'd love that in this game.
Thanks
- To Steel Jagbros for keeping me awake on TS. Sorry I wasn't able to drop for practice and our league game!
- To everyone who played this weekend, especially those idiots like me who did nothing but play. There's too many of you to list. Pretty much everyone on the leader-board because I know your pain. Especially you Snailio. You had 99.9% of my score and I wish we could both get that gold banner man.
- To Kaspirikay. Your post in my I GIVE UP thread reminded me of when I grinded to 60 in WoW.
Kaspirikay, on 23 February 2013 - 06:09 PM, said:
This is the time you either choose to push forward and turn off your brain, or give up completely. I totally understand how you're feeling right now as I have spent 16 hours a day for a month and a half back in vanilla WoW to get my title. But the end result is so worth it.
- To PGI for making this thing.
- To the Goons for not TKing me despite multiple chances to do so.
How I Did It If Anyone Cares
- My plan was to go for the overall ladder. I planned to go all-out on assaults first, and then lights and mediums, and finally heavies. I chose this order because I felt it was in decreasing Elo and I wanted to save any easy games for the finish.
- The plan called for leaving heavies untouched in order to be low-key and stay off the overall leader-boards. Then at the end I would reap in my crappy heavy standing and Elo to push the leaders hard and fast.
Friday
- I got home from work around 2pm EST on Friday. When I started people were just 12 points ahead at most so it wasn't too big a deal.
- I played my brawler DDC and when I died early I switched to my PPC Stalker. At first people were timid since we didn't understand the scoring, and I played 'properly' like I would in a league game.
- I took over the assault lead at 10pm EST or so. Took this screenshot because at that point I was questioning if I had the strength to see this through
- Around midnight I had dropped to 3rd or 4th and decided to start playing lights. AKA the Raven 3L. I went to bed at around 4 am. After 14 hours of gaming I ranked 15ish or so in assaults and maybe 150-ish in lights, with an overall ranking in the several thousands.
Saturday
- I set an alarm but still overslept. I got up around 10 am. I grinded lights and mediums (Cent A) for a good 10 hours and then I was really starting to think thoughts like "why am I doing this?" and "whats wrong with me?".
- Diverting from the original plan, I played some games of heavies (Phract 3D), which really boosted me up. At this point it was 8 pm and I was really feeling bad so I made this thread and went to go walk my poor dog and get some dinner.
- Sometime during the walk I decided that at this point I'd already wasted my weekend and the only thing worse than telling people I played a game for 40+ hours to win a banner would be to tell them I tried to play 40+ hours to win a banner, ended up only playing 20+ hours, and failed to win anything. So instead of food, which would just make me sleepy, I picked up a bunch of Red Bull.
- Came home and continued to grind lights and mediums until around 3 am. I played a few heavy games to estimate how fast I could go up that ladder. I was feeling pretty motivated at this point because I'd gotten past the self questioning phase of grinding. At this point all that mattered was I had a plan and by god I was going to execute it or die trying.
- Went to bed having barely broken into the overall top 10. I was debating not sleeping but I didn't feel like I could go another 24 hours on top of the 16+ I'd put in already that day, plus looking at the points I knew no one was taking me seriously yet so there was no need to play my hand too early. I went to bed ranked around 90 in lights, 140 in mediums, 600 (!!) in heavies, and 40 in assault.
Sunday
- Originally planned to get up at 6am, but overslept and got up at 9am. I'd fallen 10 spots to 16th. Continued grinding lights and mediums but was unable to get back in the top 10 from just lights and mediums. Around noon, I decided it was time to go all-in and started to play heavies intensely. Rotating between the Phract 3D and SRM6 Cat, I pretty much shot up to #2 in a matter of hours, but Snailio still had me by 30 or so points with 10 hours to go. I was about 80 ranking lights, 90 medium, 120 heavy, and 50 assaults.
- At this point it was just drinking Red Bull, eating chocolate, and dropping as many games as possible. Rotating between the 3L, Cent A, 3D, and A1 while trying to guess which parts of the ladder had the best room for growth. I was keeping track of the numbers and my conclusion was mediums and heavies had the best room for growth, so I played those the most.
- I was gaining on Snailio slowly because he had been up 60 hours and I was pretty fresh since I had slept. I was in a zen state at this point from playing 40+ hours of the MWO. I was shooting jenners out of the air with SRMs, headshotting Atlai - it was amazing. And yes I was pretty much just charging them at this point, but did I feel like a hero killing as much as I did and lasting as long as I did (most games anyway
).- I passed Snailio at around 10 pm. I was pretty much 70-80 across the board at this point, except in assault where I was 50-60. I was very tired by now but by god I was going to see it through. Not much to say from here onwards. I was just a robot hitting launch and refreshing the tourney page constantly. Every time he narrowed the gap my butt would clench. Every time I pulled ahead by a little bit I'd let out a sigh of relief.
- The final tally.
Overall this is the 2nd worst grind I've ever done for a game. The first being the push to 60 in vanilla WoW, but that was in my college days. Danny Glover and I are getting too old for this ****. And don't worry forum goers, I will not let this get to my head. I will continue to be humble like the sea bass.
Humbly Yours,
Broceratops
Supreme Ultimate MechWarrior of the Inner Sphere
Edited by Broceratops, 25 February 2013 - 10:07 AM.
