12 replies to this topic

[Durkan]

8 man games should be fun..

and they are but creating a team to play an 8 man is not. It's an fractured exercise in frustration and perseverance.


To better express the problem I've created this handy flow chart. (which you'll have to click on to read)




So what's wrong with this?

It creates a number of problems:

1. It's not very social. You end up fractured into lots of little teams.

2. It makes forming an 8 man slow and wastes lots of time. It's a lot of making and breaking teams. Waiting, cajoling, more waiting.

3. It doesn't allow for real life. Someone in another timezone needs sleep? The whole team has to break up or wait around hoping for a new 8th man... or steal an 8th from another 4 man.

4. There aren't all that many people playing 8 mans. When you do form an 8 man you end up playing the same teams again and again. When you do they're all max alpha assault teams. Either that or there are lots of failed drops.

5. It doesn't support progression towards the end game. What do I mean by that?

This is how I see the games progression (at the moment) :
- You start in MWO playing pug matches solo
- you make some friends maybe join a corp
- you play some 4 man games.
-------------------------------------------------------------
- you play some 8 man games
- you really like the game and you and your friends want to play in a tournament.


At the moment the way the game is set up, you get to the break point indicated above and the game becomes a struggle.

The more dedicated of us carry on and struggle through, but the natural pathway has obstacles. A number of people I know refuse to play 8 mans because of the faff involved.

Some people will stop there and be happy with it.

Some will just get bored and wander off.

6 It's even worse in EU timezones. There are fewer players in EU timezones which only makes the above problems worse.

"OK so none of this is new. Why are you bringing this up again"

12 man.

Dont get me wrong, 12 man is going to be awesome.

But when 8 man becomes 12 man the chances of making, forming and sustaining a 12 man will be that much harder.

How to fix this:

Way, way back before 8 mans we used to do sync dropping. (Now banned but back then not so)

Only got 6 man? thats ok you can do drops with 6 of you and the other 2 slots are made up by lone wolf players. I understand why it was banned and the whole pug stomping thing but it was more social, more fun, there were more people playing, more 8 man teams etc etc.

In the immediate case:

I would petition for consideration for re-allowing sync dropping. Elo means that massively mis-matched teams wont drop against each other which should prevent the pug stompings that happened "way back when". This obvously needs due thought and consideration.

In the medium term I would propose:

- Solo players get an option box, near the launch button say, that indicates they are willing to "make up" an 8 man. No one gets forced to do anything they don't want to.

- You can make up an 8 or 12 man team and the additional slots are filled with "opt in" Solo players (or other part teams).

Perhaps consider making it attractive to the lone wolf pilot... 2-5% more cbills per match or somesuch.

I've added a poll above to gather your thoughts.
Note: you can make multiple answers to question 1.

Cheers

Durkan

Edited by Durkan, 18 July 2013 - 03:15 AM.

[zolop]

I agree making a checkbox that allows lone wolfs tp join up on a less than 8 or 12 man group is a good idea. Maybe a Lone Wolf MW would like to join up withg a Mrec Group for example, he can play with a merc group that is in larger battles but need more MWs.

Edited by zolop, 17 July 2013 - 03:06 PM.

[William Knight]

I could not agree more.

[TheAtomiser]

Agreed. getting an 8 man together is hard enough and now we have to get 12 players makes it impossible.

[Bromineberry]

If both teams get a 5/6/7/8man premade: Ok. I don't mind beeing put together with a 7 man team, to fight another 7 man team + a lone wolf.
If the matchmaker doesn't balance it like this: No, it'll be just pugstomping and easymode for the premades. It's bad now, and it was horrible back then when everything up to 8 was allowed to drop on pubs. This would definetly make new players leave the game quickly, because it's just not fun to lose 25 out of 30 games, especially if you find out, that it's mostly because of unfair balanced matches. I've experienced this horrible grind only because I gew up playing games where you had to have a lot of patience for grinding EX and items.

Alternative: Allow pure premade vs. premade games for groups sized between five and eight.

Edited by Bromineberry, 17 July 2013 - 07:30 PM.

[MangoBogadog]

I like this idea +1

Also an option to be able to drop against another specific team.

[A Man In A Can]

Very much needed. Hopefully the lobby system the devs plan for CW will address this. If not...well then....

[Durkan]

"If the matchmaker doesn't balance it like this: No, it'll be just pugstomping and easymode for the premades. It's bad now, and it was horrible back then when everything up to 8 was allowed to drop on pubs. This would definetly make new players leave the game quickly, because it's just not fun to lose 25 out of 30 games, especially if you find out, that it's mostly because of unfair balanced matches."

No I'm talking exactly that.

7 + 1. V 8

The difference between what your describing and what I'm suggesting is that no one is being forced into it.

Its not a team of brand new players up against an 8 man veteran team.

It's a 7 man veteran team "we just lost X. Let's keep things going for a few with a pubby..."

And a solo player "I've been playing for a while and would like to try this 8 man thing out."

Is the 7+1 at a disadvantage? Yes... But they're consenting so who cares.

Its not all about winning...

[Thrasymachus]

Bromineberry, on 17 July 2013 - 07:27 PM, said:

If both teams get a 5/6/7/8man premade: Ok. I don't mind beeing put together with a 7 man team, to fight another 7 man team + a lone wolf.
If the matchmaker doesn't balance it like this: No, it'll be just pugstomping and easymode for the premades. It's bad now, and it was horrible back then when everything up to 8 was allowed to drop on pubs. This would definetly make new players leave the game quickly, because it's just not fun to lose 25 out of 30 games, especially if you find out, that it's mostly because of unfair balanced matches. I've experienced this horrible grind only because I gew up playing games where you had to have a lot of patience for grinding EX and items.

Alternative: Allow pure premade vs. premade games for groups sized between five and eight.

Tournaments such as last mech standing allow mercenaries to drop in if you're down a man come match time. Finding a player of roughly the same ELO ranking shouldn't be a problem.

A large part of your argument revolves around new players and their interaction with this game mechanic. New players are not going to be signing up for premade sub-in's. Even if they did ELO ranking would stop an unbalanced match.

This will attract the more competitive lone wolf's. Will they team work? Who knows but it seems like to perfect way for competitive corpless hotshots to show their stuff or be remembered in infamy. Sounds exciting either way no?

One more reason why you should need an established ELO before dropping is to prevent griefing. If someone is a dedicated troll to this feature they will need to spend a looooong time building back up from a new account.

As long as PGI to watches griefing reports from this feature like a hawk everything should work out alright.

[Lokust Davion]

would be even more awesome if after the match, you're given the option to invite those random "lone wolves" into your group

[Roland]

Durkan, on 17 July 2013 - 02:24 PM, said:

8 man games should be fun..

and they are but creating a team to play an 8 man is not. It's an fractured exercise in frustration and perseverance.


To better express the problem I've created this handy flow chart. (which you'll have to click on to read)

This is brilliant.

[Alex Warden]

i´d say, allow all TEAMS (2+) to join the 8 man/ 12man... allow also lonewolfs to join that cue. STILL allow 1-4 ppl to join general que.

IMPLEMENT C3 INTO THECLIENT...since the lobby would be a great place to give "joiners" a TS IP, but will take a while until it gets into the game.

the problem is: very well trained full 8 man teams can be a hard nut to crack for less trained/ skilled full 8 mans... that might mean an "impossible mission"for most randomized 8/12 man teams i guess... dunno how much ELO might help there...

btw, most of us knew that it would be that way when PGI announced the plans for a seperate que... suxx when the players are too smart...

Edited by Alex Warden, 18 July 2013 - 09:25 PM.

[Galenit]

From another topic directed to this.

I suggested a handycap for groups.

As example:
For every groupmember +5% elo for every groupmember.
A two man will have 10% higher elo for the mm, a 8man 40%.

With fictive numbers:
12man with 1000 elo each will count as 1400 elo for the matchmaker.
They will be matched against players with 1400 modified elo.
The solo players matched against them will have a real elo of 1400.
The 2man players will have an elo around 1250 (modified 1375).
The 3man players around 1200 (modified 1380).
The 5man players around 1120 (modified 1400)

The number must be tested and tweeked, dont know how effective will be a 12 man against 1+1+2+3+5.
Maybe 5% is to much or not enough ....
This way you can put players from 1000 to 1400 elo in one game and have a lot wider base to choose from.


About communication:
Easiest way to catch everyone: 3 key fast chat with voiceover, like tribes has.
Voicecoms may be an option but there are people that cant or wont use it .
The groups use theirs on their private servers, others the maybe build in servers in the future and some none.
There is no crosscommunication between these groups despite the battlemap and chat.
With the 3keys and an better battlemap you have this problem solved too.


A lobby would be great too, but only for private matches or tournaments when implemented right.
For the cw part this will let you to much room for gaming the game and other exploits.
What i would find great is a aftermatch lobby to talk about the match, help new players, make friedship and build groups with one click. And an ignore and report button will be need to, its f2p.

Edited by Galenit, 28 July 2013 - 02:08 AM.