315 replies to this topic

[Ngamok]

zBaer, on 13 June 2013 - 07:22 AM, said:

No one wants to fight 8 PPC/Gauss stalkers...

Huh?

http://cloud-2.steam...CFF801508DB4C6/

[Acid Phase]

Dracol, on 13 June 2013 - 08:48 AM, said:

10am on a Thursday morning is not the most popular playing time for a game targeted at the late 20s / early 30s crowd. From work we can only usually post to forums.

I'm posting this from work. I haven't played since last night. I'm assessing this based on almost 2hrs worth of gaming. I've done 5-10 minute intervals and I still see the familiar crew. All I can think of : Is this game dying so much that the the only players in this are the same from 2-5 matches? If it is, I fear MWO is a lost cause.

It's a shame because PGI has no one to blame but themselves. I figure if the playerbase is so low, it's because promises weren't kept and nothing here screams balance or variety.

Their ultimate promise now is final release in 3 months. Going to have to jot that down as another dissapointment. If they couldn't balance things out since open beta's initiation, how could they think the game is finalised in September.

[Gamgee]

Acid Phase, on 13 June 2013 - 09:19 AM, said:

I'm posting this from work. I haven't played since last night. I'm assessing this based on almost 2hrs worth of gaming. I've done 5-10 minute intervals and I still see the familiar crew. All I can think of : Is this game dying so much that the the only players in this are the same from 2-5 matches? If it is, I fear MWO is a lost cause.

It's a shame because PGI has no one to blame but themselves. I figure if the playerbase is so low, it's because promises weren't kept and nothing here screams balance or variety.

Their ultimate promise now is final release in 3 months. Going to have to jot that down as another dissapointment. If they couldn't balance things out since open beta's initiation, how could they think the game is finalised in September.

I share your feelings on this matter.

Edit
I feel another problem is never knowing what the flavor of the month will be. You only have so much time as a F2P and all of a sudden a single patch change can make a mech you grinded weeks for utterly worthless. I know this is one of the big reasons I don`t want to play anymore. Anything I invest in will just be changed usually for the worse.

That or grind even MORE to keep up with the flavour of the month. It's really tiring, time consuming, and unrewarding affair.

Edited by Gamgee, 13 June 2013 - 09:22 AM.

[Rippthrough]

Acid Phase, on 13 June 2013 - 06:31 AM, said:

I've been playing 10-15 matches in which I've seen the same players over 8 matches. "Same players", "Wow you again", "What is that like 5 times". I'm even waiting a good 5 minutes before pressing launch. Playerbase must be at an all time low.

ELO matchmaking is also fubar, as it is throwing brand new players into the mix with experienced players. PGI really has to do something about that. Otherwise, even their "target demographic" players are going to pull out.

I get the same thing, also takes so long to get a match these days that I go send a few emails and play a few ****** FB games whilst it finds one.

[Ayestes]

IceSerpent, on 13 June 2013 - 08:01 AM, said:

Dude, you really need coffee - he is waiting for 5 minutes before hitting launch, not sitting in the queue for 5 minutes.

Here, this should help

I didn't misread that part. If he waited 5 minutes and then the other players got into the same queue, they either both waited for 5 minutes or the other players have a 5 minute queue. Since the 5 minute queue seems unlikely, I was pointing that out. The entire thing seems extremely unlikely even with low population numbers the way it was presented. Unless the queues are getting to be 5 minutes long, which if that's the case then it's low population numbers. I haven't ever experienced this, but I'm curious if others have.

Edited by Ayestes, 13 June 2013 - 09:26 AM.

[Acid Phase]

Rippthrough, on 13 June 2013 - 09:21 AM, said:

I get the same thing, also takes so long to get a match these days that I go send a few emails and play a few ****** FB games whilst it finds one.

Ha. Yea. I find myself multi-tasking too while I'm on the launching screen. You can do so much while you wait.

[PropagandaWar]

I may see the same players for several games, but I never see "all" the same players for more than one game. Except a couple times where I was fairly sure it was a Sync Drop on the other side.

[tenderloving]

IceSerpent, on 13 June 2013 - 07:32 AM, said:

It's also unclear what their current target demographic is - most of BT fans have already pulled out and it looks like FPS crowd is starting to get bored too.

This part is what I really don't understand.

Disclosure: I'm not a BT/TT fan; never played it or read any of the books.

PGI had a competition free market on their hands. They had a built-in playerbase, most of them older gents with lots of disposable income, that would fork over ****-tons of money on a regular basis provided that the game gave them what they are looking for.

Many of the TT rules/BT fluff are dumb for gameplay, but many of them are not. It always felt to me like PGI has been adamant about keeping things that don't really matter strictly canon (an AC5 HAS to do 5 damage), while going off on wild tangents with other things (ECM, no heat scale) If someone asks "Why did you keep this rule that has a negative affect on gameplay?" the PGI response is "we try to stick to canon where possible." If the questions is "Why did you abandon this TT rule that fit nicely with gameplay?" the PGI response is "We have no idea what we're doing."

They have somehow managed to **** off two completely different sets of gamers- by simultaneously making a game that is unsatisfying to the "thinking man" and to the "hopped up on Mt. Dew COD kiddie," and by extension the people in-between. (I would put myself there.) So really I have no idea who they are targeting here.

In my opinion they made a dumb choice by abandoning the old farts that make up the TT/BT crowd; at least this early. There is tons of competition out there for fast-paced clickity-click shooters. There is ZERO competition for Mechwarrior. Why put efforts into making a mediocre shooter in a sea of mediocre shooters when they were already on track to make the money-printing multiplayer Battletech that the BT fans have been dreaming of?

If you want to go after the younger crowed; fine. But friggin' wait until you've got the old-timers comfortable in their spots.

Imagine if someone opened a Chuck E. Cheese next to a nursing home, and the only entrance took you through the nursing home's card room. That's what we have now; a bunch of screaming kids running around and through tables of old guys trying to play checkers. Neither party is at fault; it's the guys who put the ******* Chuck E. Cheese next to the nursing home who are to blame, and they shouldn't be surprised when people stop showing up.

Edited by tenderloving, 13 June 2013 - 09:31 AM.

[ICEFANG13]

I posted these in another thread. Its probably the best stuff one can get to get an idea how many people are into MWO.

ICEFANG13, on 10 June 2013 - 11:16 PM, said:

I also figured I would point out that, if you look at this page, info from PGI (if correctly counting, and I assume it is, as it increases when I look at it, and then re-tab the page) indicates a slow overall decrease. Large bumps are usually hero mechs, new mechs, and show a difference of gameplay-mechlab-gameplay.

http://img402.images...52481184314.jpg

This is the part 1-2-3 of the graph un-put together.
http://nces.ed.gov/n...p?temp=909123.1
http://nces.ed.gov/n...p?temp=986919.8
http://nces.ed.gov/n...sp?temp=1058013

ICEFANG13, on 09 June 2013 - 08:20 AM, said:

I was gonna say, if you look at that>
http://www.google.co...nline%22&cmpt=q


You can see how there is a sudden decrease in player searching on google after November, and still a slight (decrease on the decrease, less loss, but still lose) on December. I honestly think that ECM did a big number on the community. Until it, most of the game was pretty well done for 1st person view TT. It was not perfect, but the closed beta forums were really different, people were very grateful for the game. Now a lot of people are complaining about things like 3rd person, ECM (when it was released), sniping crazy, and Orion being delayed.

There was a lot of people who posted in the ECM feedback threads, remember those? There was like 300 pages of complied feedback over a few months, with an overall trend of dislike for it.

Does anyone else wonder why the forums were last busiest on Dec 18, 2012? That was the date of the first patch for ECM after it was released (the oh poo, this was too strong, lets nerf it maybe patch). I don't think its because people are playing. This info is at the bottom of the "FORUM" tab at the top there, bottom right.

Instead of listening to the community, they did what they thought was best, and its probably really hurting them now. I can't believe how dedicated (as I am as well) people are for this game. This was easily my favorite game by far to play online, but honestly, overall, every patch ECM->on has been a let down. I played this game very competitively and well, and all I want is a little balance (not to say that people who want something else are in the wrong, not at all), I have no knowledge of BT or anything. My last 2 mech games were Mech Assault. This game I loved, and I still want to love it, but its just getting worse and worse, in my opinion.

[xDeityx]

Acid Phase, on 13 June 2013 - 09:19 AM, said:

I'm posting this from work. I haven't played since last night. I'm assessing this based on almost 2hrs worth of gaming. I've done 5-10 minute intervals and I still see the familiar crew. All I can think of : Is this game dying so much that the the only players in this are the same from 2-5 matches? If it is, I fear MWO is a lost cause.

It's a shame because PGI has no one to blame but themselves. I figure if the playerbase is so low, it's because promises weren't kept and nothing here screams balance or variety.

Their ultimate promise now is final release in 3 months. Going to have to jot that down as another dissapointment. If they couldn't balance things out since open beta's initiation, how could they think the game is finalised in September.

I agree with you that we have some questionable numbers but just to play the devil's advocate: think how many of the names you see on these forums that you've never seen in game. Granted, human memory is not very good and I really don't pay attention to who is who unless they stand out for some reason. Also some people on the forums post a lot more than they play sometimes. Just throwing it out there though.

What we could really use is somebody here with statistics training who could take records of a statistically significant number of games and track how many unique players they come into contact with to get an estimate of population. I know there are algorithms that exist that can do this, I just don't know enough stats. I think it has been done before on these forums even.

Or PGI could be transparent...ahhh who am I kidding?

[Xeno Phalcon]

IceSerpent, on 13 June 2013 - 08:01 AM, said:

Dude, you really need coffee - he is waiting for 5 minutes before hitting launch, not sitting in the queue for 5 minutes.

Here, this should help

hot damn now your speakin my language.

[jeffsw6]

Acid Phase, on 13 June 2013 - 06:31 AM, said:

I've been playing 10-15 matches in which I've seen the same players over 8 matches. "Same players", "Wow you again", "What is that like 5 times". I'm even waiting a good 5 minutes before pressing launch. Playerbase must be at an all time low.

It varies by the time of day.

Have you noticed the "searching for game" queue takes longer during peak hours now? I think there are two likely explanations for that. First, maybe they have tweaked the MM recently. Second, perhaps the player-count really did drop dramatically with the game balance going from crap to ... whatever crap craps out after a hard night of boozing.

IceSerpent, on 13 June 2013 - 07:32 AM, said:

Does it really surprise you? During the last few months PGI has been breaking more and more stuff and not even attempting to fix things that already were broken. Naturally, players take a break and wait for "storm to pass".

QFT

[Kaldor]

Ngamok, on 13 June 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

Huh?

http://cloud-2.steam...CFF801508DB4C6/

Your team would have done pretty well in a Conquest game. But its exactly lopsided crap like your pic that has my unit avoid Assault matches. Herp Derp, run 6 assaults, turtle base, win, talk trash about how we are leet....

[CancR]

Who wants to play the worst mechwarrior game in the franchise when MW 4 is still free to download?

Not that I'll ever stop trying to make this the best MW game in the franchise.

---Edit Guess MW4 got taken down.

Edited by CancR, 13 June 2013 - 09:36 AM.

[PanzerMagier]

Server population is at an all time low.

Why? PGI's target demographic is every needle head that gets high off playing frenzy quick reflex point and shoot games like cod.

No, we don't want paying Battletech-fan players as our target demographic, they're surely not gonna make us money...

[RG Notch]

Gamgee, on 13 June 2013 - 09:10 AM, said:

Game isn't even out of beta and it's already starting to die. *sigh* I have a feeling MWO is going to be the first major casualty of the F2P market.

Actually, every game I've been in has doom mongers, the lack of doom mongery was starting to concern me, but there's always a thread like this to bring it out.
I'm not saying that game population is booming, or that PGI is going in the right direction, I just have grown accustomed to the gloom and doom on every game forum no matter if it's successful or not. This makes me feel that things are going as per usual. Back to your regularly scheduled gloom and doom. BTW there should be a poll as to what will kill the game as I lost my chart as to what it is now. LRMS, high alpha, no tutorial, pin point accuracy which is the current FoTM of Doom?

[Ngamok]

Kaldor, on 13 June 2013 - 09:31 AM, said:

Your team would have done pretty well in a Conquest game. But its exactly lopsided crap like your pic that has my unit avoid Assault matches. Herp Derp, run 6 assaults, turtle base, win, talk trash about how we are leet....

What happened was, hey, let's get our 2 groups together and do an 8 man with whatever mechs you are grinding out. So this is what you run into when you 8 man though. We also ran into the 8 man Centurion / Cicada team as well as the 8 man Raven / Jenner / Cicada team, but they were having fun (and it's about fun).

[Acid Phase]

RG Notch, on 13 June 2013 - 09:34 AM, said:

BTW there should be a poll as to what will kill the game as I lost my chart as to what it is now. LRMS, high alpha, no tutorial, pin point accuracy which is the current FoTM of Doom?

I'm betting most are eager to see what CW brings to the table. My guess is nothing that other games haven't done before or do it better. CW could possibly be the make or break point.

[soarra]

its thursday morning, not a prime time.. and ELO /thread

[JokerVictor]

xDeityx, on 13 June 2013 - 09:30 AM, said:

I agree with you that we have some questionable numbers but just to play the devil's advocate: think how many of the names you see on these forums that you've never seen in game. Granted, human memory is not very good and I really don't pay attention to who is who unless they stand out for some reason. Also some people on the forums post a lot more than they play sometimes. Just throwing it out there though.

What we could really use is somebody here with statistics training who could take records of a statistically significant number of games and track how many unique players they come into contact with to get an estimate of population. I know there are algorithms that exist that can do this, I just don't know enough stats. I think it has been done before on these forums even.

Or PGI could be transparent...ahhh who am I kidding?

Most of the names you see on the forums and never in-game are people like me. Uninstalled.

Exactly all of my friends have uninstalled this game. I was on the comstar server the night the entirety of DV8 uninstalled. This game is not in good shape.

There's really no point in actively playing this t*rd anymore. I have a lovely stable of shiny maxed out mechs that are all entirely worthless, because my style of play is horribly underpowered versus a team of sniper assaults. And that's all it is anymore. It's not fun, and PGI refuses to acknowledge that.