51 replies to this topic

[Sir Hunter]

Over the last couple of weeks our unit, Windborne Highlanders, has put together 12 man teams, readied up and pressed 'launch'. We all then sit there watching the 'searching' message for a minute or two then receive that "failed to find a match" message. We then rinse and repeat up to four or five times before maybe getting a match or abandoning the attempt. We're having this issue on all three modes - any, conquest and assault. On Monday evening after four failures we just gave up - about 25 minutes of organizing and waiting all gone to waste. Very frustrating. We are on every evening from about 6 p.m. EST to 1.00 a.m. If we split up into lances of four we don't have the issue but that's not the point - we want to play as a team. The fact that 12 man premades cannot play easily is definitely changing the balance and purpose of the game. Are others running into this issue? I'd be interested in others comments and opinions regarding this state of affairs.

[Edustaja]

Well this is quite logical.

1. 3pv messed with the heads of a bunch of serious players
2. 12 players are a lot harder to organise and keep the group going than 8-mans

we have gotten european groups, but sometimes there are failures to find opponents. markedly so. setting up a match or having internal 12 v 12 can be options, but require even more work.

[3rdworld]

We have dropped in 12s every night this week. Usually 10-1am EST. Not really having any trouble finding matches.

Are you set to any/assault/conquest?

[NinetyProof]

12's seem to be fine till about 11PM EST ... and then start to fall off ... come 1AM EST it's becomes very hard to find 12's.

Hopefully after MWO loses the beta tag and starts doing more marketing (hopefully) we will get new players. It's really *really* hard to justify to investors why you spending mega dollars advertising a game in BETA ... so I expect more marketing afterwards which should boost the user count.

Whether that translates to more 12 mans that run later into the night ... who knows?

[3rdworld]

NinetyProof, on 30 August 2013 - 02:17 PM, said:

12's seem to be fine till about 11PM EST ... and then start to fall off ... come 1AM EST it's becomes very hard to find 12's.

Hopefully after MWO loses the beta tag and starts doing more marketing (hopefully) we will get new players. It's really *really* hard to justify to investors why you spending mega dollars advertising a game in BETA ... so I expect more marketing afterwards which should boost the user count.

Whether that translates to more 12 mans that run later into the night ... who knows?

Until they get some way to actually create a community in game, you aren't going to see an influx in players that must go out of their way to create a group.

[Kunae]

They are hemorrhaging players right now, especially the organized ones.

You're not going to see that much use of the 12-man queue for a few weeks, I expect.

[Hellcat420]

Sir Hunter, on 30 August 2013 - 01:54 PM, said:

Over the last couple of weeks our unit, Windborne Highlanders, has put together 12 man teams, readied up and pressed 'launch'. We all then sit there watching the 'searching' message for a minute or two then receive that "failed to find a match" message. We then rinse and repeat up to four or five times before maybe getting a match or abandoning the attempt. We're having this issue on all three modes - any, conquest and assault. On Monday evening after four failures we just gave up - about 25 minutes of organizing and waiting all gone to waste. Very frustrating. We are on every evening from about 6 p.m. EST to 1.00 a.m. If we split up into lances of four we don't have the issue but that's not the point - we want to play as a team. The fact that 12 man premades cannot play easily is definitely changing the balance and purpose of the game. Are others running into this issue? I'd be interested in others comments and opinions regarding this state of affairs.

a lot of the organized players probably went to games where they wont have 3pv forced into their games.

Edited by Hellcat420, 30 August 2013 - 02:35 PM.

[Ranik Selesky]

Hellcat420, on 30 August 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

a lot of the organized players probably went to games where they wont have 3pv forced into their games.

Kunae, on 30 August 2013 - 02:31 PM, said:

They are hemorrhaging players right now, especially the organized ones.

You're not going to see that much use of the 12-man queue for a few weeks, I expect.

+1.

If you are hemorrhaging players you can't really expect to be able to set up 12 man premades nearly as easily.

[Ninja Snarl]

The lack of 12-mans has nothing to do with silly, childish responses to the 3PV non-issue, and is entirely about the fact the only people who want to play 12-man right now are going to run teams that are just massive wads of PPC + gauss builds. Since nobody actually wants to play against that, nobody does 12-man any more.

Basically, nobody wants to get 12 people together when the other team is going to a massive, cheezy stack of long-range pinpoint alpha builds that have been broken for months now.

Player population in general is just not going to come up until PGI grows some common sense and implements the desperately needed features like weight balancing and nerfing PPCs back to their original values.

[Kunae]

Ninja Snarl, on 30 August 2013 - 02:56 PM, said:

The lack of 12-mans is entirely about the fact the only people who want to play 12-man right now are going to run teams that are just massive wads of PPC + gauss builds. Since nobody actually wants to play against that, nobody does 12-man any more.

That was the issue before 8/20, and it continues to be an problem to this day. Combined with the disrespect that PGI has shown for MWO's core playerbase, it makes it even worse.

Edited by Kunae, 30 August 2013 - 03:02 PM.

[Ranik Selesky]

Kunae, on 30 August 2013 - 02:59 PM, said:

That was the issue before 8/20, and it continues to be an problem to this day. Combined with the disrespect that PGI has shown for MWO's core playerbase, it makes it even worse.

Combine that with consistent lack of content outside of new shiny's that aren't even coming out for months. And it's worse yet.

[Kunae]

Ranik Selesky, on 30 August 2013 - 03:04 PM, said:

Combine that with consistent lack of content outside of new shiny's that aren't even coming out for months. And it's worse yet.

True. A fair amount of this could be mitigated by a deluge of trinkets.

Bread and circuses, man. Bread and circuses.

[Team Leader]

They dont exist anymore because of reasons I think would be obvious to any serious fans.

[Asakara]

Night Watch normally does twelve mans 2-3 days a week from 7 PM PST to 10:30 PM PST.

Most recently my unit did 7 twelve man matches on the 28th. During those matches we fought the Templars, Remnant, 57th Squadron, Comstar Irregulars, and the 1st Skye Jaegers. I think we failed to drop once that whole time.

[Chemie]

PGI gives the community a bone by making 12v12 1PV only but joke on us cuz 12v12 s empty.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

The Remnant and Black Star Alliance frequently runs 12 mans near daily.

Sure, it fails every other search queue, but people are still around.

[TostitoBandito]

There's usually at least 3-4 other teams out there when we do 12-mans on M/W/F nights. Not a lot, but enough to play some games and not get the same teams too many times. More would be better.

[Goose]

12-mans [sic] doesn't use Elo/ Match Maker, and as such has been beaten out of everyone I've ever met.

It leaves one to wonder how Communal Warfare will get fun …

[Sir Hunter]

Hi all - I really appreciate your feedback and thoughtful answers. FYI we've tried all three modes - any, conquest and assault with the same results. We normally drop 12s on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. We normally run a light lance, a medium/heavy lance and an assault lance. Reading around the forums I get the feeling that there is a lot of dissatisfaction with the game at the moment. The 'spark' has diminished. 12s and 3rd person haven't really helped. Personally I can't help reflect that perhaps PGI should look at MechWarrior 3 and 4 as a guide. Even though the graphics suck by todays standards, 10 years ago the developers got so much right such as the ability to select a first or third person as well as maps on the server BEFORE you dropped and better match making overall. My main issue is that the game is meant to be about team play - well at least if you follow cannon, previous video versions and TT - but PGI don't seem to recognize this. For instance the competitions reward individual play not team play. This doesn't help serious organized units does it? And organized units are the people who are likely to become and remain the core of the players over the longer term - the life blood of the game. Perhaps a system to elect individual, 4 man, 8 man and 12 is needed. Once again thank you for your constructive comments and feedback - we really do have an excellent and knowledgeable community, don't we?

[Angel of Annihilation]

My Corp and I dropped 12 mans last night. Each time we got a match within seconds of launching.

However, I know it can be tough. To be honest even in a Corp of 40-50 people it is hard to get 12 people on an willing to drop 12 mans. I mean you have to consider that by the time you get everyone together, plan out mechs, build and lances, discuss strategy and drop, you could have probably dropped 3 or 4 times into normal battles. What is worse is that there are no incentives, other than enjoyment, to actually engage in 12 mans. I mean you don't get any higher rewards or anything to compensate for the extra time it takes to coordinate a 12 man.

However, this should change pretty drastically when CW makes it out since I am sure their will be some obvious incentive for Corps and Units to run competitive 12 mans.