23 replies to this topic

[ecannotdie]

We have six people in our mumble server who are trying to play together. In order for us to play we have to split into two groups and hit ready at the same time. It rarely works and honestly I just want to play with my friends. Really disappointed, it seems like it would be easy to implement a maximum of eight group feature. Can we get an ETA or reason why this isn't in the game yet?

[aniviron]

Back in closed beta, you could drop in groups of eight, and the game was 8v8 then.

The problem is that then you get teams of eight people who are all experienced and communicating on VOIP and making builds that complement one another matched up against eight randoms. You can guess how that goes, and in case you can't, I will spell it out for you: It was brutal slaughter, game after game. Even if the skill level was comparable, the communications and planning advantage just made it completely lopsided.

So while I feel bad that you and your friends don't have as much fun because you have to drop in different games sometimes, I don't at all feel bad that I never have to play against teams like that again. The only way to do anything about this is to implement a lobby system and in-game VOIP so that the communication and planning advantages that premades get are not so huge, and then maybe it would work. The thing is, PGI has said that lobbies are a low priority at best, and that they don't care about in-game VOIP, so it'll never happen.

[ecannotdie]

aniviron, on 01 October 2013 - 06:59 PM, said:

Back in closed beta, you could drop in groups of eight, and the game was 8v8 then.

The problem is that then you get teams of eight people who are all experienced and communicating on VOIP and making builds that complement one another matched up against eight randoms. You can guess how that goes, and in case you can't, I will spell it out for you: It was brutal slaughter, game after game. Even if the skill level was comparable, the communications and planning advantage just made it completely lopsided.

So while I feel bad that you and your friends don't have as much fun because you have to drop in different games sometimes, I don't at all feel bad that I never have to play against teams like that again. The only way to do anything about this is to implement a lobby system and in-game VOIP so that the communication and planning advantages that premades get are not so huge, and then maybe it would work. The thing is, PGI has said that lobbies are a low priority at best, and that they don't care about in-game VOIP, so it'll never happen.

Good point Aniviron, I can see how that would be a problem. I guess the only real way around that would be to have dedicated servers but I'm sure we won't see that either. Oh well, thanks for the knowledge.

[Sephlock]

You guys don't get it, do you?

MW:O isn't like other games. MW:O is like the gaming equivalent of a crazy girlfriend.

She doesn't WANT you to have friends. That's why she's trying to cut you off from them. All she wants is for you to buy her shiny new Hero mechs and grind away your life.

She wants to stalk you on Facebook and Twitter, so she tricks you into following her- it's all about keeping an eye on you, and keeping you darting around for randomly distributed scraps.

What, you thought all of those MW:O ads you'd spot every now and then just popped up randomly?

[aniviron]

Sephlock, on 01 October 2013 - 08:02 PM, said:

You guys don't get it, do you?

MW:O isn't like other games. MW:O is like the gaming equivalent of a crazy girlfriend.

She doesn't WANT you to have friends. That's why she's trying to cut you off from them. All she wants is for you to buy her shiny new Hero mechs and grind away your life.

She wants to stalk you on Facebook and Twitter, so she tricks you into following her- it's all about keeping an eye on you, and keeping you darting around for randomly distributed scraps.

What, you thought all of those MW:O ads you'd spot every now and then just popped up randomly?

What ads? I use both adblock and ghostery.

[Sephlock]

aniviron, on 01 October 2013 - 08:48 PM, said:

What ads? I use both adblock and ghostery.

No, you fool! Now she KNOWS!



>_>

WHO KNOWS WHAT SHE'LL TRY NEXT!

[GalaxyBluestar]

Sephlock, on 01 October 2013 - 08:02 PM, said:

All she wants is for you to buy her shiny new Hero mechs and grind away your life.

dude sounds like she has you well hooked up. oh the humanity!!!

[TheAtomiser]

Group tonnage limits are just around the corner which will allow people to drop in groups of 4+. Larger groups for me is the most pressing issue with MWO at the moment because so many good games are being missed out on by not allowing them. You would think for the time being they could juat have a 6 man group face another 6 man group and fill the rest in with pugs or smaller groups.

[culverin]

What I want to know is why drop groups are organically set to ANY up to 12 max?

Why should I need to drop-sync with 5 friends?
It should be any groups, any size.

And just have the matchmaker pair coordinated groups against better players for balance.

[Heffay]

culverin, on 02 October 2013 - 05:39 AM, said:

What I want to know is why drop groups are organically set to ANY up to 12 max?

Why should I need to drop-sync with 5 friends?
It should be any groups, any size.

And just have the matchmaker pair coordinated groups against better players for balance.

Because PuG-stomps happen. If you drop with 11 people in a group (and people will, specifically to artificially inflate their Elo score), you're going to steamroll everyone else out there. Just like what used to happen in 8 mans. It was NOT fun.

And every game has an artificial limit on the size of groups. There are a lot of very good reasons for this.

[culverin]

Does this game not have enough population to pair up groups asymmetrically?

You can have 3x 2-man groups vs 1 5-man group? and fill the rest with pugs.

and if you don't have enough smaller groups, you pit the larger group against the top pugs online at any given moment.

[Earl White]

Sephlock, on 01 October 2013 - 08:02 PM, said:

You guys don't get it, do you?

MW:O isn't like other games. MW:O is like the gaming equivalent of a crazy girlfriend.

She doesn't WANT you to have friends. That's why she's trying to cut you off from them. All she wants is for you to buy her shiny new Hero mechs and grind away your life.

She wants to stalk you on Facebook and Twitter, so she tricks you into following her- it's all about keeping an eye on you, and keeping you darting around for randomly distributed scraps.

What, you thought all of those MW:O ads you'd spot every now and then just popped up randomly?

Am I only guy in here who actually likes creepy stalker girls? More crazy please, it makes things exciting.

[Heffay]

culverin, on 02 October 2013 - 06:38 AM, said:

Does this game not have enough population to pair up groups asymmetrically?

You can have 3x 2-man groups vs 1 5-man group? and fill the rest with pugs.

and if you don't have enough smaller groups, you pit the larger group against the top pugs online at any given moment.

That's not the point. If you make the max group size 11, then people will be taking advantage of that.

Teamwork is the single most OP part of the game. There has to be checks and balances there as well.

[M4NTiC0R3X]

I understand what and why you want...

I want a solo queue only.. doubt that'll ever happen.

GL & HF (only 6 more till you're rolling w/ the big boys)

[Sephlock]

Earl White, on 02 October 2013 - 06:49 AM, said:

Am I only guy in here who actually likes creepy stalker girls? More crazy please, it makes things exciting.

Google "Yanderekology". I'd link you to it, but I'm not sure where the link would fall on the sliding scale of moddable offenses ;P. (It's just some anime blood).

[hercules1981]

I think there should be a drop tab for groups with 2-4 and 12 man being what we have now then 5-8 players also being in the drop tab but u will only face another team that has a 5-8 player team in it as well.

[ShinVector]

The group cap should be increased to at least 6 man.
There was a time when they said they were going to remove the group number capping because ELO would take care of the match making.. LOL...

[UXB]

I ONLY PUG, and I have to say the game was much more interesting than it is now. If you were dropping with a group of 5-6, you could actually participate in a strategy, which was fun, even if you sometimes got rolled. OBTW, rolls happen now just about as often as before.

Bring back larger groups, please.

[Hellcat420]

Heffay, on 02 October 2013 - 06:53 AM, said:

That's not the point. If you make the max group size 11, then people will be taking advantage of that.

Teamwork is the single most OP part of the game. There has to be checks and balances there as well.

teamwork is the whole point of the game dude, that is why mechwarrior online is a TEAM BASED shooter with TEAM BASED game modes. maybe you antisocial trolls should make some friends and stop trying to punish people because they like to play a team based game with their friends. the best part about the whole thing is repeatedly seeing you guys ***** about a premade on the other team and calling it unfair when you have a premade on your own team.

Edited by Hellcat420, 07 October 2013 - 05:19 PM.

[FinsT]

aniviron, on 01 October 2013 - 06:59 PM, said:

...
The problem is that then you get teams of eight people who are all experienced and communicating on VOIP and making builds that complement one another matched up against eight randoms. You can guess how that goes, and in case you can't, I will spell it out for you: It was brutal slaughter, game after game. Even if the skill level was comparable, the communications and planning advantage just made it completely lopsided.
...

This is true that there is such a problem.

However, it is not true that the only possible solution - is to limit group size to 4. Other solutions are possible, elements of which might perhaps be one or more of the following:

1. reduce total tonnage of large group's company somewhat;

2. increase maximum total allowed tonnage of the opposing company, somewhat, if opposing company does not have large group in itself;

3. dynamically decrease maximum possible number of players in the large group's company to less than 12 - possibly to as little as 8 (depends on how many players are in the large group; this limits large group's size by 8, of course) - this will allow to compensate for p.1, and also, this will allow to prevent "exploitish" way of taking just 6...8 light 'mech and have 4...6 more PuGs added to the lagre group's company, because lights are not enough to reach even reduced (by p.1) maximum company's tonnage;

4. automatically try to find another large group, or 2..3 small groups (2...4 players) and send the big group againt these on equal terms (probably would need a reasonable timer, something tolerable, perhaps 30 seconds or such, after which, if no "opposing company has large-enough and/or enough groups in it" setup is available, a single large group would be matched against a PuG);

5. automatically pick more experienced and/or more successful players as a members of PuGs which oppose large (5+ players) pre-made groups. "Success" could be as easy a metric as a kill/death ratio (which i know is being recorded for each player), or something even more objective, perhaps.

Other methods which i just didn't think about could probably be used, as well - alone or in combination with any or all of the above.

But, of course, it would require substantial amount of work to implement, test, balance and verify via game servers' statistics; it is so much easier to just limit group size to 4, that's true. Hopefully, with time, better methods of balancing "pre-mades" and PuGs will be implemented. Better in the sense of actually doing the balancing in some way which can't be worked-around by sad methods like "two groups launching in very same time and thus being able to play in the same game, and sometimes on the same side", - but would work consistently.

Edited by FinsT, 08 October 2013 - 04:08 AM.