1555 replies to this topic

[Heffay]

I think I get it. You need the numbers to be dire so they will consider removing 3PV in the casuals queue and get rid of ghost heat. If they are succeeding, you can't get what you want.

You are hoping for failure in order to get what you want, and are upset that most people don't agree with you about the state of the game.

It'll be ok. /pat /pat

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Heffay, on 20 October 2013 - 12:18 PM, said:

Website traffic hit an all time high this week. What are you talking about?

Is PGI hiring? That's a good sign to tell if a company is doing ok too.

Why don't you go look at the website statistics from inception to now. You do know how to do that right? Or are you just regurgitating what Russ said again?

I'm sure it spiked because of the release of the Reseen mechs, just like it spikes every time there is a patch. It just means people are coming back to see what is going on.

As too the hiring thing. LOL.

Heffay, on 20 October 2013 - 12:22 PM, said:

I think I get it. You need the numbers to be dire so they will consider removing 3PV in the casuals queue and get rid of ghost heat. If they are succeeding, you can't get what you want.

You are hoping for failure in order to get what you want, and are upset that most people don't agree with you about the state of the game.

It'll be ok. /pat /pat

I don't care about 3PV, I've made very few posts at all about it. I think PGI bungled the handling of it and as a company has the worst PR team ever.

As for Ghost Heat, it's dumb and will have to be revisited when the Clan's come out anyway. There are much better ways to fix the issues, but the devs are lazy as hell.

[Heffay]

Lol is right.

See you in game I guess.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Heffay, on 20 October 2013 - 12:28 PM, said:

Lol is right.

See you in game I guess.

Glad you agree, and I doubt it.

Enjoy your Sunday.

[Wintersdark]

Deathlike, on 20 October 2013 - 11:43 AM, said:

I keep seeing the few same people in my drops. It's not a plus and has been more or less the case since launch.

This is likely because after Launch they tightened the Elo range substantially, to the point where the matchmaker will err on gross tonnage imbalances rather than put wider ranges of skill into the match.

As such, being at a higher Elo range, the player pool is comparatively small - bell curves and whatnot.

So, what you're seeing is to be expected given the matchmaker changes made at that time.

For reference, if you check the devtracker, someone (Matt? Mark? I forget) recently posted a lot about those changes. Well, recently as in around launch patch time.

[Wintersdark]

Chronojam, on 20 October 2013 - 11:51 AM, said:

I was always happy when CCP would share their "online players" figure and a game ought to be proud of it. The secrecy and "Why does it matter to you!?" attitude raises suspicion. Shouldn't they be bragging?

Raises suspicion? Why? It's a business metric, and generally speaking these things are better kept secret than open. Not everyone does that, but it's a rule of thumb in business that you're better off keeping things close to your chest. Once they're out, they're out, and you can't put that cat back in the bag.

Not that I agree they should keep is secret, I understand why they do.

Mechwarrior is, and no matter what will remain a niche title. It'll never have the playerbase that World of Tanks and World of Warplanes has - I know many players of those games with no interest in MWO whatsoever, not because "Omg the devs are mean!" or because of game mechanics, because they don't know about them or care, but because they like combat sims of real things rather than big stompy robots. There's more tank/warplane buffs than Mech buffs, alas.

So, given that MWO will always have a substantially lower playerbase than those, publishing such numbers will obviously result in their being compared, and MWO panned as unsuccesful as a result.

But player numbers are only one factor in success. Success requires profitability over everything else: It doesn't matter how good the game is if it's not profitable. MWO has a far smaller team and very likely much lower overhead than similar games, so they can be quite profitable with much lower player numbers.

However, even if they were more profitable per player, that would be lost in the noise of "Omg! Look at how few people play that game!" Even if it's a respectable number. But everyone has a different idea of what a respectable number is.

At different levels of scale, but this equates well to comparing WoW and EVE. WoW has always had (several) orders of magnitude more players than EVE, but is EVE unsuccessful? Is it unprofitable? EVE will never have crazy big player numbers either, but it's still going strong after all this time nevertheless.

In short, they have nothing to gain by publishing player numbers that are obviously going to be lower than other, similar games, and lots to lose.

[Warge]

Vaderman, on 20 October 2013 - 11:14 AM, said:

"read my lips,...."

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU." (c)

Vaderman, on 20 October 2013 - 11:14 AM, said:

So, point is moot, other than the poor communication which I mentioned previously.

You don't like how PGI communicate (now they doing it better but still don't listen to players), I don't like 3PV presence in 1PV battles. Other ones - don't like ghost heat or ECM or collant flush. In sum - PGI almost lost core players audience. Agree?

[Deathlike]

Wintersdark, on 20 October 2013 - 01:14 PM, said:

This is likely because after Launch they tightened the Elo range substantially, to the point where the matchmaker will err on gross tonnage imbalances rather than put wider ranges of skill into the match.

As such, being at a higher Elo range, the player pool is comparatively small - bell curves and whatnot.

So, what you're seeing is to be expected given the matchmaker changes made at that time.

For reference, if you check the devtracker, someone (Matt? Mark? I forget) recently posted a lot about those changes. Well, recently as in around launch patch time.

I've paid attention to that thread... and I'm disappointed but understand there's a lot more at work to be done there.

At this point, I'm just hoping they accomplish something positive for once, before the year is out. Sure UI 2.0 is that thing, but I don't know how much more of the current state of tedium I can take.

[Vaderman]

Warge, on 20 October 2013 - 01:30 PM, said:

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU." ©


You don't like how PGI communicate (now they doing it better but still don't listen to players), I don't like 3PV presence in 1PV battles. Other ones - don't like ghost heat or ECM or collant flush. In sum - PGI almost lost core players audience. Agree?

I didn't say I don't like how they communicate, I said they have had issues with it, specifically with regards to 3PV implementation.

They made a mistake in how they presented it, but I understand why they did it. If 3PV helps get more players in the game, it's a good thing.

The ghost heat was a direct result of changes to weapon balancing if I remember correctly. While ghost heat is an unfortunate side effect of those changes, we are seeing far less cheese tactics being employed. Mechs are using more balanced loadouts and not everyone is carrying 6 PPC's anymore. That, to me, makes the game far more enjoyable.

While the ghost heat is an issue, it's something all of us have to deal with equally. I can deal with it. It's far better than the one shotting pop-tart min/maxer player types we had to deal with before.

Coolant flush module is a non-issue as far as I can see. Takes up a module slot, one time use, who cares. It's not really that much of a benefit. It's like the F2P complainers talking about how Phoenix mechs are PTW. People want to blame their lack of skill or investment in this game on founders/overlord supporters somehow having a huge advantage by sinking money into the game.

[Warge]

Vaderman, on 20 October 2013 - 01:47 PM, said:

The ghost heat was a direct result of changes to weapon balancing if I remember correctly. While ghost heat is an unfortunate side effect of those changes, we are seeing far less cheese tactics being employed. Mechs are using more balanced loadouts and not everyone is carrying 6 PPC's anymore. That, to me, makes the game far more enjoyable.

"Heat threshold = 30" sounds familiar?

What's can you say about Paul's ECM? Just interesting to hear.

Edited by Warge, 20 October 2013 - 01:54 PM.

[Chronojam]

Wintersdark, on 20 October 2013 - 01:22 PM, said:

Raises suspicion? Why? It's a business metric, and generally speaking these things are better kept secret than open. Not everyone does that, but it's a rule of thumb in business that you're better off keeping things close to your chest. Once they're out, they're out, and you can't put that cat back in the bag.

This is absurd. Companies publish subscriber and current-player counts all the time. MWO used to.

[Texas Merc]

Just a note WD about the Elo tightening after launch, they switched it back shortly after. There is a post(s) in the Patch Feedback thread from one of the devs.

[Vaderman]

Warge, on 20 October 2013 - 01:53 PM, said:

"Heat threshold = 30" sounds familiar?

What's can you say about Paul's ECM? Just interesting to hear.

There are problems with the game. So what? There are problems in every game. Every change they make brings another round of changes that need to be made, and that's just a fact of how games are developed now.

The change they made resulted in ghost heat, but it was better than the alternative imo.

I personally don't have an issue with ECM. It's restricted to (mainly) light mechs where every ton is a tradeoff.

There are multiple ways of dealing with ECM, not to mention that just using ECM makes you a major target on the battlefield.

The only people I suspect that are really annoyed with ECM are the ez-mode pilots who like to load up with nothing but LRMs. Like I mentioned earlier I don't like LRM implementation. At least with ECM they are no longer the "sit in the back and let others do my work for me" weapons. They certainly still have their uses in suppression roles.

Also, like I mentioned earlier, we are seeing mechs with far more of a balanced weapons load, with LRM's that is largely due to ECM and to some degree heat changes. That's a good thing.

[Vaderman]

Chronojam, on 20 October 2013 - 02:02 PM, said:

This is absurd. Companies publish subscriber and current-player counts all the time. MWO used to.

Why does it matter? Like it was mentioned above the only reason people might want this is so they can crow at the "low numbers" and use it as an apples to oranges comparison of other games.

MWO is not WOW. High numbers of people are not necessarily a good thing.

Numbers of people driving Ferrari's are low! The car is horrible! Look how many people drive Camry's! Get that!

[Warge]

Vaderman, on 20 October 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

There are problems with the game. So what? There are problems in every game.

It's not "problems with game". It's lack of dev's skills. It's incompetence and mediocrity.

[Vaderman]

Warge, on 20 October 2013 - 02:24 PM, said:

It's not "problems with game". It's lack of dev's skills. It's incompetence and mediocrity.

Based on what, your opinion or your coding skills?

If you can program go apply and show em how it's done bro.

It's funny how people who contribute the least to any subject always complain the most about it.

[Warge]

Vaderman, on 20 October 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

Based on what, your opinion or your coding skills?

Based on PGI's "balancing" decisions.

Vaderman, on 20 October 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

If you can program go apply and show em how it's done bro.

lol

Edited by Warge, 20 October 2013 - 03:10 PM.

[Cimarb]

Reading this thread is like having an argument about politics: neither side is going to compromise, and no matter what is tauted as fact, both sides will stonewall until one gets tired of arguing - then the side that held their breath the longest will declare themselves the winner.

That being said, I am proud to support this game. I don't particularly care for most of the new mechs, since they seem very energy heavy (and ghost heat does suck), but I am still having a lot of fun playing them and having something new to work towards.

Wintersdark, Vaderman, Heffay, etc.: keep up the good fight and don't let the candle blowers win!

[Heffay]

Eh, you guys are right. I don't need to resort to insults to make them look bad.

Edited by Heffay, 20 October 2013 - 04:36 PM.

[Cimarb]

Heffay, on 20 October 2013 - 03:21 PM, said:

Weird, I thought they were window lickers.

Lol, what the heck is a window licker?....