540 replies to this topic

[Craig Steele]

[

DaZur, on 27 January 2014 - 07:40 AM, said:

What a steaming pile of horse pucky...

How exactly is it the ability and willingness of a the player environment to put in play some form of fundamental combat tactics the fault of PGI?

LOL, Its pretty straight forward.

PGI want to provide a game that is challenging and entertaining to as many players as they can
PGI have said that Voice communication is a key issue of being competitive in the game (21/1)
PGI don't provide Voice interaction in game and rely on players to provide / source independantly.

Its like selling a car with no wheels, they're on record saying its fundamental, but not providing it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying its the end of the world and clearly players have done work arounds. BUT, for the (many) casual players of the "plug and play" mode, not providing one of the fundamental aspects of their game is a barrier to that players enjoyment. They either spend their entertainment time setting up that function, or they don't and suffer accordingly.

I would submit to you that many don't for whatever reason and it detracts from their experience.

Joseph Mallan, on 27 January 2014 - 07:45 AM, said:

Well PGI supports NG:NG Server, NA Server and the EU Server for TS. Sure VOiP would probably help, but with random teams dropping against dedicated teams you would still see stomps just as often and the whine would likely continue.

Probably, but at the moment we both seem to agree that its not good enough for the casual gamer to spend his time or moeny here if he is looking for entertainment. And I think thats a shame.

[DaZur]

Cathy, on 27 January 2014 - 07:34 AM, said:

I've watched ghost busters to

I know what your saying its like driving on the roads, you never remember the person who let you out a junction, but you all ways remember the butt hole that pulled out in front of you or cut you up.

However I started to roughly record wins loses weights etc and the bad games are nearly all ways caused by poor tonnage differences, yes some do fly in the face of what looked the likely outcome, obviously looked at after the match ended, because your opponents are hidden, but those games are rare

Not to split hairs but the Ghostbusters scene was an exercise in behavioral stimulus... But I digress.

An whole your anecdotal evidence supports tonnage has a negative impact, mine shows the opposite... Quite often in my Elo bracket, the team that is underweight is supported by tenacious lights that quite literally wreak havoc on our heavies.

That said, my point is not an attempt to refute your personal experience... because I'm quite sure it's accurate. The point is there is a seemingly wide spectrum of end results that is tempered by where ones ELo is bracketed and how they emotionally react to their match outcomes....

In short... Player experience cannot and should not be side-by-side compared as there is too many environmental influences to say "everyones" experience should be exhibit "A" or exhibit "B".

Edited by DaZur, 27 January 2014 - 07:58 AM.

[SgtKinCaiD]

Cathy, on 27 January 2014 - 07:29 AM, said:

its not the skill levels pure tonne differences is the major reason for stomps 6 assaults 2 heavies 2 mediums 2 lights
are all ways going to win again 1 assault 1 heavy and 10 mediums.

unless the ELO is so bad that all the assaults in team 1 are straight out the box, and half the mediums in team 2 are very high elo skilled players.

and these are the weight differences i'm being in or face over and over again, if MM gets tonnage within 250 these days its a stunningly well balanced match

Tonnage adds up : i'm not saying that an atlas piloted by high lvl ELO player is strictly equivalent to say a jenner by a pilot of the same lvl but the jenner will know what to do to against the atlas, when to engage and not, etc.

When i talked about players that don't even break 10 points mark, how many of them are in assaults/heavies ? Half of them if not more.

The MM expects that the few good pilots it puts in a team will compensate for the rest : it's not working.

[Grandpaw]

When I started playing this game on the first day of OB, I immediately went to the forums to try and get an idea of what to expect, maybe some ideas about how to play the game, you know basic stuff. What I found instead was lots of posts about 8-0 rolfstomps. I thought to myself, what do these guys expect? Do they really think that people who just started yesterday are gonna be as good as the guys who have been playing this game all through CB? I mean come on, these guys know the maps,mechs,weapons,everything about the game, Obviously we're not gonna be able to compete with them.
And here we are today and everythings changed right?.....well kinda,its 12-0 now instead of 8-0,but the reasons are still the same.When we have folks who have been playing for almost 2 years pitted against guys who started yesterday,well you can kinda see how thats gonna end right?
I see a lot of posts about splitting the queues,premades in one, pugs in the other.The more experienced players have already told you this won't help because you will still see rolfstomps either way. This is sadly the truth. But not for the reasons most give,the rason is simple. The same guys who are rolling you now will just make some alt accounts team up and sync drop in the pug queue,then after rolling all the new guys again they can come on the forums here and say......."Told ya so!"
The long and short is....Get used to it. The only way to change it would be to completely rework the system,and you know thats not gonna happen. So just get out there and have the most fun you can,or quit and find a new game to play. Those are your only two choices

[Roughneck45]

Any game with one life per round and a large pool of health is going to end up in stomps frequently. That is just how snowballing works with any game that has those two features.

I don't see how people do not understand that by now.

[Teeboy]

I agree with NextGame 100%

People want balance, but you can't balance the players behind the monitor. Some are very experienced and other are not. Some have connection issues and computer glitches that no one can predict.

Everyone is different, some are better than others, some work as a team without saying a word or having a plan.
Others want to be control freaks and yell at people, blaming them for every reason under the sun.

If you are losing and you want to really know why you are losing, take a look in the mirror and then make a change to step up your game.

I have seen 4 lights stomp on a heavy and I have seen a light stomp on 2 assaults.and have also seen a medium stomp on 3 lights.

I have been playing for quite some time, I don't consider myself a good player, but I have fun no matter what. Win some, lose some, no big deal. If you are not enjoying the game and find yourself frustrated often and angry, then maybe you seriously need to step away and go do something else.

I am not asking you to agree or disagree, this is just my opinion and everyone is entitled to their own.

It's JUST a game! Why so serious? LOL

[Craig Steele]

DaZur, on 27 January 2014 - 07:56 AM, said:

Not to split hairs but the Ghostbusters scene was an exercise in behavioral stimulus... But I digress.

An whole your anecdotal evidence supports tonnage has a negative impact, mine shows the opposite... Quite often in my Elo bracket, the team that is underweight is supported by tenacious lights that quite literally wreak havoc on our heavies.

That said, my point is not an attempt to refute your personal experience... because I'm quite sure it's accurate. The point is there is a seemingly wide spectrum of end results that is tempered by where ones ELo is bracketed and how they emotionally react to their match outcomes....

In short... Player experience cannot and should not be side-by-side compared as there is too many environmental influences to say "everyones" experience should be exhibit "A" or exhibit "B".

But fundamentally you would have to agree that the assuming relativily equal skilled pilots with similar comms etc, the team with 12 atlai is going to most of the time roll over the team of 12 Blackjacks no?

I know many of the posts on this subject bring those two factors and cloud them but usually the team with the mostest and in MWO we are talking about DPS, and durability (armour) will win.

Not impossible for it to go the other way, and we see results of that, but thats a reflection of superior pilots being lumped into a disadvantagous weight battle.

Which is your point isn;t it, more than one factor?

Teeboy, on 27 January 2014 - 08:04 AM, said:

I agree with NextGame 100%

People want balance, but you can't balance the players behind the monitor. Some are very experienced and other are not. Some have connection issues and computer glitches that no one can predict.

Everyone is different, some are better than others, some work as a team without saying a word or having a plan.
Others want to be control freaks and yell at people, blaming them for every reason under the sun.

If you are losing and you want to really know why you are losing, take a look in the mirror and then make a change to step up your game.

I have seen 4 lights stomp on a heavy and I have seen a light stomp on 2 assaults.and have also seen a medium stomp on 3 lights.

I have been playing for quite some time, I don't consider myself a good player, but I have fun no matter what. Win some, lose some, no big deal. If you are not enjoying the game and find yourself frustrated often and angry, then maybe you seriously need to step away and go do something else.

I am not asking you to agree or disagree, this is just my opinion and everyone is entitled to their own.

It's JUST a game! Why so serious? LOL

Cause some people want to get value for their money I guess, they like to think that if they pay for something it is going deliver what it promises?

IDK, can't speak for everyone.

[DaZur]

Craig Steele, on 27 January 2014 - 07:54 AM, said:

LOL, Its pretty straight forward.

PGI want to provide a game that is challenging and entertaining to as many players as they can
PGI have said that Voice communication is a key issue of being competitive in the game (21/1)
PGI don't provide Voice interaction in game and rely on players to provide / source independantly.

Its like selling a car with no wheels, they're on record saying its fundamental, but not providing it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying its the end of the world and clearly players have done work arounds. BUT, for the (many) casual players of the "plug and play" mode, not providing one of the fundamental aspects of their game is a barrier to that players enjoyment. They either spend their entertainment time setting up that function, or they don't and suffer accordingly.

I would submit to you that many don't for whatever reason and it detracts from their experience.

Absolutely... VoIP is a fundamental tool used to enhance situational awareness and to foster "team" combat tactics. That said, it's mildly disingenuous to infer that if VoIP were integrated that it would make a huge difference. VoIP is freely available to the masses as a 3rd part tool, there are a plethora of MW:O lobbies out there and one cane easily create their own lobby of necessary... Yet here we are arguing the merit if VoIP in game... Why? Truth is... even if it were integrated right this very second... The actual percentage of the player base that would use it is not nearly as broad as I think you presume.

Craig Steele, on 27 January 2014 - 07:54 AM, said:

Probably, but at the moment we both seem to agree that its not good enough for the casual gamer to spend his time or moeny here if he is looking for entertainment. And I think thats a shame.

Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy is not a good vehicle for gaming enjoyment.

Absolutely... if PGI put training wheels on everything and brought it down to console-level difficulty the "casual" player crowd would pour over into the servers like water... but how long would they stay?

A level of challenge has to be present to foster the thrill of success. Too easy and the "easy-win" turns into boredom and the migration to the next challenge. Too hard and it robs the player of ever feeling any level of accomplishment.

MW:O / PGI is shooting for a 50/50... Why? 50/50 afford the necessary difficulty level to elicit the euphoria of winning but also affords enough friction to make it to elicit the satisfaction of achieving it...

[LowSubmarino]

Quite frankly. Some ppl - a lot of ppl - are either completly new and have never played a pc game in their entire life or play incredibly bad for whatever reason.

50 % of the random players out there simply don't understand the most basic of strategies: staying together.

Advanced tactics like staying in cover and watching enemy movement is yet a completly other topic.

A random pug team that stays together will annihilate a spread out pug team. It's as simple as that. There are other factors ivolved but this fact alone guarantees that 50 % of the games you play will be total stomps. Like 12 : 0 or 12 : 3 at best.

And there is no matchmaker on the world that could ever fix that haha.

Maybe a number of tutorials like in starcraft 2 that try to explain the very basics e.g. wall of your base against early zerg etc. could help. But in sc2 for example you have the same stomps in team games.

Some ppl are just cannot understand the most basic strategies and implement them correctly. No matter how simple and straightforward it might seem. It is frustrating but also kind of funny to watch really.

[Joseph Mallan]

Craig Steele, on 27 January 2014 - 07:54 AM, said:

[

LOL, Its pretty straight forward.

PGI want to provide a game that is challenging and entertaining to as many players as they can
PGI have said that Voice communication is a key issue of being competitive in the game (21/1)
PGI don't provide Voice interaction in game and rely on players to provide / source independantly.

Its like selling a car with no wheels, they're on record saying its fundamental, but not providing it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying its the end of the world and clearly players have done work arounds. BUT, for the (many) casual players of the "plug and play" mode, not providing one of the fundamental aspects of their game is a barrier to that players enjoyment. They either spend their entertainment time setting up that function, or they don't and suffer accordingly.

I would submit to you that many don't for whatever reason and it detracts from their experience.



Probably, but at the moment we both seem to agree that its not good enough for the casual gamer to spend his time or moeny here if he is looking for entertainment. And I think thats a shame.

I have played pretty casually for the last 4-5 months. No more than a handful of hours played here per week(10 matches in my Battlemaster since it released) an even 50/50 win loss and a meager .33 KDR. Having fun in spite of the dying so much.

[Theodor Kling]

Yeah, stomps exist, but I also see close matches. About half of those I play I would say, not counting "close stomps" where most mechs of the winning team are one well aimed ML hit away from the grave.

[Craig Steele]

DaZur, on 27 January 2014 - 08:19 AM, said:

Absolutely... VoIP is a fundamental tool used to enhance situational awareness and to foster "team" combat tactics. That said, it's mildly disingenuous to infer that if VoIP were integrated that it would make a huge difference. VoIP is freely available to the masses as a 3rd part tool, there are a plethora of MW:O lobbies out there and one cane easily create their own lobby of necessary... Yet here we are arguing the merit if VoIP in game... Why? Truth is... even if it were integrated right this very second... The actual percentage of the player base that would use it is not nearly as broad as I think you presume.


Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy is not a good vehicle for gaming enjoyment.

Absolutely... if PGI put training wheels on everything and brought it down to console-level difficulty the "casual" player crowd would pour over into the servers like water... but how long would they stay?

A level of challenge has to be present to foster the thrill of success. Too easy and the "easy-win" turns into boredom and the migration to the next challenge. Too hard and it robs the player of ever feeling any level of accomplishment.

MW:O / PGI is shooting for a 50/50... Why? 50/50 afford the necessary difficulty level to elicit the euphoria of winning but also affords enough friction to make it to elicit the satisfaction of achieving it...

I think this is becoming a bit of a trees and forest thing. There are going to arguements for and against every example either of us use but heres the big picture I am trying to focus on.

F2P games do not driving a sustainable revenue from the hard core competitive gamer.
F2P games drive most of their revenue from the casual gamer, who wants the toys but is to time poor to grind them
Casual gamers are (care: stereotyping I know) interested in having some fun in the limited time they have for entertainment.
Every Casual gamer has a different idea of what is fun for them
If PGI wants to retain and / or grow their casual gamer base, they need to provide a compelling entertainment experience to the broadest base. One that encourages the gamer to press play again
The OP on this thread was expressing (in my view) that his entertainment factor from this game was not strong.


Is this sustainable? Forums is only a small percentage of the population yes, but there are many studies that show for every complaint received about an unstaisfactory product, there are upwards of 100 customer feeling the same but not saying anything. Positive feedback the numbers are even worse and I see much less of that here.

I see hundreds of threads with hundreds of posts and its not always the same people, far from it. All expressing dis satisfaction. That tells me that there are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of players who are not pressing "launch" anymore. Of course more players are probably coming in right now, the Clans will see to that. And whats their experience though. Exactly the same as this guys for most of them. So where will we be in 6 months?

I heard "toughen up princess" 4 months ago and I did and I ground away and I got better and lifted KDR and got C-Bills and practiced meta and yada yada yada..... who cares right, I don't so I don't expect anyone else to.

Toughen up princess, from the community or PGI, just isn't good enough imo.

[Sandpit]

Nightcrept, on 27 January 2014 - 05:54 AM, said:

It worked fine for pugs. Whither that fits your narrative and you want to admit it is another matter all together.

Pre-mades were the ones who screamed bloody murder about it. Pgi then quickly allowed small groups of pre-mades back into pug games and pugs screamed about being rolled again.

But your premise that pug only games will fail is not true. Truth is that pre-mades need fillers and easy practice targets.

The only old issue with pug only games was that one or two experienced players could at times cause a roll in game. That issue should be fixed by the elo system.


And yes to me generally games worse then 12-6 have usually been bad or frustrating games.

Sure thing sparky

Show me again where they did a pug only queue? I think your post here shows a lot more than you cared for it to though. It explains a lot to me. If that's what you think then you're not really looking for a s"solution" to anything. You're just looking to make it harder on people who want to group up because, for whatever reason, you don't like them. This is why peoples' ideas get dismissed.
The ulterior motives and bias shows through eventually. You basically just said 4mans want nothing more then to stomp pugs for easy target practice and stated it is a factual truth. This is why I shall now dismiss your ideas for what they are.

You are offering nothing, just stating the usual premades are evil and touched me. You have NO idea what other players are here for. You just get beat and jump on an easy bandwagon looking for a scapegoat. That's ok though. GL&GH to you sir. It sounds like you're going to need it

[Joseph Mallan]

Craig Steele, on 27 January 2014 - 09:04 AM, said:

I think this is becoming a bit of a trees and forest thing. There are going to arguements for and against every example either of us use but heres the big picture I am trying to focus on.

F2P games do not driving a sustainable revenue from the hard core competitive gamer.
F2P games drive most of their revenue from the casual gamer, who wants the toys but is to time poor to grind them
Casual gamers are (care: stereotyping I know) interested in having some fun in the limited time they have for entertainment.
Every Casual gamer has a different idea of what is fun for them
If PGI wants to retain and / or grow their casual gamer base, they need to provide a compelling entertainment experience to the broadest base. One that encourages the gamer to press play again
The OP on this thread was expressing (in my view) that his entertainment factor from this game was not strong.


Is this sustainable? Forums is only a small percentage of the population yes, but there are many studies that show for every complaint received about an unstaisfactory product, there are upwards of 100 customer feeling the same but not saying anything. Positive feedback the numbers are even worse and I see much less of that here.

I see hundreds of threads with hundreds of posts and its not always the same people, far from it. All expressing dis satisfaction. That tells me that there are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of players who are not pressing "launch" anymore. Of course more players are probably coming in right now, the Clans will see to that. And whats their experience though. Exactly the same as this guys for most of them. So where will we be in 6 months?

I heard "toughen up princess" 4 months ago and I did and I ground away and I got better and lifted KDR and got C-Bills and practiced meta and yada yada yada..... who cares right, I don't so I don't expect anyone else to.

Toughen up princess, from the community or PGI, just isn't good enough imo.

And in all that time Craig, We still haven't even played a second in the actual game have we? In more than a year and a half of playing and Not a single Player group has won the rights to own a planet, build a factory, or launch an assault to take a rivals possessions. All this "floundering" and we haven't even played the dam game!!!

[DaZur]

Craig Steele, on 27 January 2014 - 09:04 AM, said:

I think this is becoming a bit of a trees and forest thing. There are going to arguements for and against every example either of us use but heres the big picture I am trying to focus on.

F2P games do not driving a sustainable revenue from the hard core competitive gamer.
F2P games drive most of their revenue from the casual gamer, who wants the toys but is to time poor to grind them
Casual gamers are (care: stereotyping I know) interested in having some fun in the limited time they have for entertainment.
Every Casual gamer has a different idea of what is fun for them
If PGI wants to retain and / or grow their casual gamer base, they need to provide a compelling entertainment experience to the broadest base. One that encourages the gamer to press play again
The OP on this thread was expressing (in my view) that his entertainment factor from this game was not strong.

Is this sustainable? Forums is only a small percentage of the population yes, but there are many studies that show for every complaint received about an unstaisfactory product, there are upwards of 100 customer feeling the same but not saying anything. Positive feedback the numbers are even worse and I see much less of that here.

I see hundreds of threads with hundreds of posts and its not always the same people, far from it. All expressing dis satisfaction. That tells me that there are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of players who are not pressing "launch" anymore. Of course more players are probably coming in right now, the Clans will see to that. And whats their experience though. Exactly the same as this guys for most of them. So where will we be in 6 months?

In farness... I think you're making the same mistake a lot of members do and that is the unceremoniously lump MW:O into the same pile as "all the other F2P games"...

MW:O has an inherent learning curve and a required proficiency to participate with any success. large contingency of other F2P games are inherently click-fests, making them accessible to a much broader audience and depth of skill. Add to that, while we all attempt to paint battling in big stompy robots as being endeared by a broad audience... Truth is, it's a niche genre that has a very narrow albeit voracious audience.

Truth is the hardcore ... i.e. players with at least a cursory knowledge of Mechwarrior lore is the core constituency of this game and the driving force of it's longevity.

The true struggle for PGI is to make tools, tutorials and a stronger induction process into this game so players feel vetted and appreciate the genre.

Without it... the casual players and a large degree the casual players with no previous induction into the IP or the genre will not stay... It's the the sad reality.

[wanderer]

Quote

I think they should show health percentage on the end of match screen to show how close of a game the match might have been.

Things like this would also hammer in how much focus you delivered, AND be less of a morale crusher.

There's nothing like watching some {Dezgra} at the end of a game randomly spraying the fully armored guy at the end only to be dinked to death...and not being able to show people that yes, you were utterly unaware of the three guys trailing smoke that were one shot from dead while you mindlessly circled someone else in a Locust.

[Tenpin]

I thought I'd share my stats. Whether the stats provide any evidence of the Matchmaker/ELO providing balance or not is still open to discussion but I think my sampling is large enough to account for any system-based averaging to have had an effect..

I only play in PUGs, I do not drop in premades, and I have only dropped with other players a handful of times. By handful I mean less than 30 times.

Here are my stats for ONE mech:
RVN-3L

2,478 matches.
Wins:1,286
Losses:1.182
W/L ratio: 1.09
K/D ratio: .97

Statistically 50/50

[Ngamok]

Rebas Kradd, on 26 January 2014 - 10:48 AM, said:

There is still a kernel of truth to them. I'm just not sure what can be done about it at this point.

Yes, every once in a while you end up with horrible people on your side or you drop against people much better than you. You take the good with the bad. I was in Bravo Lance with Mystere yesterday in his Wolverine 6K? Was me and one other from WBH so I assume Alpha Lance had higher ELO people or a 4 man. We won but it wasn't a 12-0/1/2 or whatever. Sometimes we just get good old fashion close games. Sometimes we get our rear end handed to us because when I die, I spectate the 3PV guy hiding in the back missing all his shots or just playing bad. What am I supposed to do? Nothing, I just take the good games with the bad and roll on. It doesn't only happen in this game.

[Ngamok]

wwiiogre, on 26 January 2014 - 11:39 AM, said:

Mischief I track my matches so its not anecdotal or exaggerated. It is a terrible matchmaker. I can change my win/loss the moment I start dropping in 4mans. It dramatically increases. In 4mans I can usually get upto a 3/1 or 4/1 win/loss. As a pug unless I drop assaults and heavies it is impossible to maintain a 1/1 win/loss at the moment. Especially not after skirmish was introduced. When so many of the knuckledragging epeen players are trying to roll up their stats and dropping in 4man teams of Stalker, Highlander, Highlander, DDC Atlas or some variation of the above and then sync dropping their 4mans.

Played in a match last week where our 4man was teamed with 2 other 4mans, facing 3 other 4mans. and those 5 4mans in the drop were all sync dropping trying not to face each other but to roll pugs. All were in assault/heavy lances all were ppc/gauss/uac5 builds with a few mass LRM builds for giggles.

Are there people out there trying to sync drop to ruin the match maker? Yes, sure there are. We do it from time to time but when we get each other we have fun trying to murder our friends. Do we do we do it every drop every night? No, maybe once a week, twice at the most (usually once). Do I end up facing 8 Steiners a lot? Yes I do, but whatever. Do my best and roll on. I don't worry about my stats because they are useless here. I don't go pick up girls with them either or whatever they are supposed to do.

[Sandpit]

Ngamok, on 27 January 2014 - 10:10 AM, said:

What am I supposed to do? Nothing, I just take the good games with the bad and roll on. It doesn't only happen in this game.

Exactly