111 replies to this topic

[Mystere]

Do you know what would work? Add in a 13th player who has access to a "commander console" as depicted in the Mechcommander intro:



I'd happily play as "commander" if I have access to something functionally equivalent. Who wouldn't want MWO to be both Mechwarrior and Mechcommander?

Edited by Mystere, 24 February 2014 - 02:13 PM.

[Daekar]

I think the OP is suffering as the higher Elo player inserted into a loss-predicted team to prop it up. THAT SUCKS when it happens... your team runs off and does the MWO equivalent of charging a cluster of machine gun nests, and no matter how good you are there is almost nothing you can do.

Try having it happen when you're running a Commando or Locust, OP, you will rage like crazy because you're rendered nearly helpless without support.

[Daekar]

Mystere, on 24 February 2014 - 02:13 PM, said:

Do you know what would work? Add in a 13th player who has access to a "commander console" as depicted in the Mechcommander intro:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MQPWE_M_EM

I'd happily play as "commander" if I have access to something functionally equivalent. Who wouldn't want MWO to be both Mechwarrior and Mechcommander?

I always forget how good MechCommander was... love that video!

[LauLiao]

Craig Steele, on 23 February 2014 - 07:47 PM, said:

Agreed, blew me away to hear them say that Comms were critical to success in the game when they were defending MM / ELO a month or so ago, but they apparently had no idea that 84% of their players were solo PUGS and not using Voice Comms.

I mean seriously, that's a stat that basically screams out "Our Players are not getting the entertainment we think they should be out of the game".

But they know now, maybe it becomes a priority.

I would argue that the PUG vs Premade numbers are due to the current lack of CW. There's nothing to fight for, therefor there's no reason to join an organized group. There's no real reward for winning and no punishment for losing. I think if people saw, "Hey, if I join this faction and help them take this planet I can get XXX rewards" they will be more motivated to join a group. As of right now the only real reason to join a group is a) if you happen to enjoy those people's company or you're overly fond of being told you're doing it wrong.

[Roland]

Mystere, on 24 February 2014 - 02:13 PM, said:

Do you know what would work? Add in a 13th player who has access to a "commander console" as depicted in the Mechcommander intro:



I'd happily play as "commander" if I have access to something functionally equivalent. Who wouldn't want MWO to be both Mechwarrior and Mechcommander?

Armored Core V actually did a pretty good job of this type of thing:


Try to ignore the incredible cheesiness of the voices... It was dubbed over what was originally japanese dialog.

It offers what would really be an awesome "commander view" for Mechwarrior... Basically, have someone play the role of the support tech that always talked to you in the single player mechwarrior missions. Give them access to the tactical map, and allow them to switch between views from any of the players on the team in spectator mode.

[Sephlock]

CW doesn't even have to take a complicated form:

[Nick Makiaveli]

Craig Steele, on 23 February 2014 - 09:05 PM, said:

I don't think anyone is saying it will make them Pro, not me anyway.

What I'm saying is that there seems to be a historical disconnect between the product PGI want to provide and the market they thought they were providing it to.

VOIP is certainly one factor. It was publicized as the newest greatest bestest VOIP in game system ever and it never arrived and never got any priority as (presumably) PGI felt the drops were driven in a large part by groups. That's why the focus the MM on groups first, that's why many of the MM discussions have been around groups. They certainly knew comms was an integral part of the experience they wanted to provide, they just left it up to the players to sort out themselves in the belief that groups was the majority.

But what they are now saying is that they were 'surprised' to find that 84% of players dropping are solo PUG's. Even if you accept that 100% of 4 man teams are actually 5 man team sync dropping, the number goes to what, 80%?

What this stat says to me is that PGI had made some incorrect assumptions about the market they were seeking to provide a product to, and that the market they were providing to was generating a significantly lower percentage of their revenue (on a straightline basis).

So commercially, the stat should serve as a focus for them to amend their product to the market that is driving their revenue.

Maybe?

I see your point in them advertising it, but at the same time I recognize that markets shift, priorities change, etc etc. So I don't think they said that knowing it wouldn't be delivered, I think it just happened to work out that way.

As to commercial success, I worry they are going to reach the wrong conclusion. IE more PUGs than groups? Cater to PUGs!!

All the while not realizing they have lost lots of players that won't come back if they follow that tack. Also, personally speaking, I have NEVER spent money on a F2P game before, and the only games I've ever spent this much on were DAoC and WoW and that was for expansions (not counting subs). Grouping, and the DHB in particular, are a big part of the reason I am still playing MWO and bought the $80 Phoenix pack as well as some MC.

I hope the look closely at those numbers and see who is actually coughing up the cash etc before making too many decisions.

FactorlanP, on 23 February 2014 - 10:17 PM, said:

It isn't really about the very tactical comms... In fact, your comms keybinds are really counter productive, if your end goal is to have players link up with other players who have similar goals.

Look... The heart and soul of ALL online games is the community that forms when game players play together.

ANYTHING that makes that harder, hurts the community.

ANYTHING that makes it easier, IMPROVES the community.

If voice comms allows folks to meet each other and form groups, guess what, the game will be stronger.

Look, if you keep using logic, reason and actual facts to make such good points, I am just not going to talk to you.

[Ghostchips Condensate I and II]

What is it with you vocal people & voice comm's? i do not talk but i type, even the non-english speaking players know what "Atlas lance at (give point on map here)" means and the Japanese player can type
"Ah jagermech, easy kill. Team target right torso"
Maybe i am the only one who reads the little data feeds on the screen including the little map with the triangles on it.

[Daekar]

Trashforged, on 24 February 2014 - 06:44 PM, said:

What is it with you vocal people & voice comm's? i do not talk but i type, even the non-english speaking players know what "Atlas lance at (give point on map here)" means and the Japanese player can type
"Ah jagermech, easy kill. Team target right torso"
Maybe i am the only one who reads the little data feeds on the screen including the little map with the triangles on it.

I have used voice comms in the past, and there is a reason people like it: it really does work better than typing, and it helps people get to know each other.

The problem is, they are operating on two false assumptions. 1st, that built-in voice comms would result in a teamspeak experience for every pug match. Bollocks, it won't, and every other game in the world is evidence. The second misconception is that meaningful cooperation and communication is impossible with text chat and the command wheel type interface... more nonsense. It's not as effective, but it's a darn sight better than nothing, and can make or break a match if used right.

[Craig Steele]

Nick Makiaveli, on 24 February 2014 - 03:15 PM, said:

I see your point in them advertising it, but at the same time I recognize that markets shift, priorities change, etc etc. So I don't think they said that knowing it wouldn't be delivered (1), I think it just happened to work out that way.

As to commercial success, I worry they are going to reach the wrong conclusion. IE more PUGs than groups? Cater to PUGs!! (2)

All the while not realizing they have lost lots of players that won't come back if they follow that tack. Also, personally speaking, I have NEVER spent money on a F2P game before, and the only games I've ever spent this much on were DAoC and WoW and that was for expansions (not counting subs). Grouping, and the DHB in particular, are a big part of the reason I am still playing MWO and bought the $80 Phoenix pack as well as some MC.

I hope the look closely at those numbers and see who is actually coughing up the cash (3) etc before making too many decisions.

(1) I agree, it would not have been deliberate. But clearly it wasn't a priority, I suspect because they did not understand what their actual market was made up of. The alternative is that they didn't care that the experience they wanted to deleiver was not getting to the majority of their market which just doesn't seem right to me. That would not be good business at all.

(2) Well if it is 85%+ of their market, it would make better commercial sense to cater to their major market. Not that I think they cannot have a product that is endearing to groups, far from it. A lot of modern apartment buildings are now being built with Wifi / IT hardwired because thats they market they aim for. They are still nice places though and an IT recluse can live quite comfortably there.

(3) This is the key issue for financial success.

[Lightfoot]

Nope. Once players have Factions and player Units, Mercs, to play for they will pretty much run MWO gameplay. Players will not like PUG-ing for the reasons you say and will try to attach to the best or most fun unit they can find. Player units use voice comms (we used Roger Wilco in MW3-MW4) and will always have a strategy with specialized mechs. PUGs will remain the choice for some quick gameplay, but for greater depth it will be a player made unit.

[mekabuser]

101011, on 23 February 2014 - 07:49 PM, said:

Funny, I just saw someone give orders on Strait and the entire team followed through, winning 12-1. You and I have different experiences. EDIT: Grammar

its rare.. super rare.. tho i disagree for the most part with OP. In my elo, pugs play quite well together with MUCH unspoken comms. Its just , ya know, guys who know what theyre doing and respond as the circumstances dictate.
Should there be voice coms in game.. not
should be a coms rose at least... not
should be collisions... lol .. not.
i mean this game is so feature deficient its NOT an evolution of the MW series.. Its certainly not as feature complete as mw4 or mwll. sad.

[Thunder Lips Express]

CapperDeluxe, on 23 February 2014 - 07:57 PM, said:

Voice comms would be nice, but I think you'd still find the following accurate even WITH in game comms:

- people turning off voice comms
- people not listening to orders/advice/suggestions over voice comms
- people yelling or singing random stupid stuff over voice comms

I would hope that isn't the case most of the time, but I know what to expect.

i don't think i would use public comms, i have played lots of xbox and ps3 on public comms and it doesn't take very luck for people to get irritating.
it would be a nice addition for pugs however

[Craig Steele]

Lightfoot, on 24 February 2014 - 07:33 PM, said:

Nope. Once players have Factions and player Units, Mercs, to play for they will pretty much run MWO gameplay. Players will not like PUG-ing for the reasons you say and will try to attach to the best or most fun unit they can find. Player units use voice comms (we used Roger Wilco in MW3-MW4) and will always have a strategy with specialized mechs. PUGs will remain the choice for some quick gameplay, but for greater depth it will be a player made unit.

I suspect you might be over estimating how popular unit's / guilds are.

A lot of units, and I mean a lot of them set 'rules' for their internal operations. All with good intent, speak x language, play y times per week, available for z missions, tirals for position / rank. Sure it's part of the immersion but I have been in a lot of those and it gets to be an imposition.

The larger slice of the population is "I have 2 hours to kill before work / wife gets home / mow the lawn / kid brother has his turn on PC / (insert all other rl stuff here)" and they just want to blow stuff up.

Thats the market that is not going to be wrapped with taking 'game time' to set up voice, look for a group or whatever, they are plug and play gamers. Press launch and lets go. Many of those will benefit from In Game Voice even if they don't talk themselves, and just listen for the warnings / FF target nominations etc.

Really, there's no downside to in game comms (as long as there is a mute button) and it can only make available to a large volume of MW:O players another option to improve their game. PGI have said comms is important, Pro Players say comms is important, but 84% of their population does not have it.

It's not the be all and end all, but there is no reason for it not to be available for the majority of the players.

[Astrocanis]

p8ragon, on 23 February 2014 - 07:43 PM, said:

You know what the main reason is? A lack of voice comms. Casual players WILL NOT use teamspeak or any of that shit. Until PGI puts together a decent voice comms program, or implements a command rose similar to bf4, I don't think we'll be seeing that much PUG teamwork.

Yep. If they ever implement voice comms, I'm going to enjoy squeaky babies and gruff tough guys treating everyone like crap over voice. Few things would make this game more complete for me.

But I do agree that getting cored by being repeatedly shot in the back by some schmuck who think TK is fun sucks.

[edit] And aside from a mute button, there needs to be a persistent Ignore function so that you can cut the morons out.

Edited by Astrocanis, 24 February 2014 - 09:02 PM.

[Grey Ghost]

Battlefield 2's voice communications were pretty awesome. People were pretty good back then at filling out Commander and Squad Leader roles on public servers. Whereas in MW:O I've pretty much seen nothing of the sort. Might have something to do with the fact that you couldn't really do anything with the Battle-grid for quite a while. Beta testers played so long without it that became the norm.

I'm sure there are people out there that can and do use it effectively... I've just never dropped with those people.

[aniviron]

Regarding voice comms: sure, there are plenty of bad examples of games with immature players. But for every Call of Duty you give me, I will give you a Natural Selection in return, where 95%+ of the games I play in public servers have not a single person mouthing off, and comms used almost exclusively to call out enemy locations, opportunities for expansion, or strategic advice. In the one game in 20 where there is a voice troll, muting a player is as simple as bringing up their scoreboard and clicking on an icon by their name; problem solved.

See, the thing is that voice in this game will only work as well as you want it to. And yes I mean YOU, not some abstract imaginary second-person pronoun, but each one of you reading this post. Are you in a light? Tell your teammates where the enemies are. In an assault? Tell your lance whether you're a brawler or sniper, to go in on your mark or move ahead with cover from you. The best way to get players to use voice comms and to not abuse them is if having them is a significant advantage over not. When voice is used to help the team, then people keep it on, and they keep it free of spam. Most players want to win, and so they won't turn off or abuse something that helps them do that.

So since I can go ***-for-tat with games where voice comms are helpful vs your list of ones where they're annoying, let's give MWO the benefit of the doubt, hm? Most of the games where vox is needed are games like MWO that have some degree of thought necessary to play them; the ones where the voip gets spammed are the CoDs and TF2s which reward running straight at the other team spraying bullets before you respawn.

[MustrumRidcully]

What I think would help MW:O on this level:
- Voice Communication. It's just a lot easier to speak and fight then to type and fight, because both need the same resource- my keyboard. That's a problem. No, not everyone will use voice communication, not everyone has a mic, not everyone wants to use a mic, there are deaf people, there are people that don't listen regardless of what medium you use. But it will help many.
- Chat Shortcuts for Tactical Commands. It's not as good as voice communication, but it lowers the amount of typing necessary. Again, not eveyrnoe will use it, not everyone will listen, but it will help many.
- A decent social interface across the game. The game needs stuff like public and private chat channels that are available from anywhere in the game. Imagine how much easier it would be to organize a sponatenous group if you could just pop into General Chat or "Organized PvP" and talk with others. Imagine how much it could help a noob if he could ask a question - possibly even during a match - in the General chat and get a reply by someone that isn't currently busy managing his heat, torso twisting and dueling a Spider in the same match.
Again, not everyone use it, not everyone will listen, but it will help many.

I think the game needs all 3, and these 3 are not mutally exclusive.

[Kommisar]

Battlefield 1942 (the original) had chat hotkeys using the Function Keys. F1 F1 = Roger That. One of the single most important and used chat functions ever. So simple and so very useful. That system from a game released in, what?, 2001, would radically change this whole game. And forget about the comm rose; I got use to it, but the Function keys were simpler, quicker and easier. The comm rose came about to make it look prettier and for console gamers.

Think of what a scout could really do if he could hit F3 F3 and it threw up a symbol on the minimap indicating enemy position with "Enemy Sighted" popping up on chat.

Yea, some morons will spam it. Happened in the BF days and it was annoying. Mitigated by the ability to ban them from the server in short order... can't do that here. But, I still think a system like BF42s would work so very well.

[Grommen]

I must be the acception then.

I played BF2 for years. The main reason was that I could comminucate with other players, and it was part of the game.

In fact I joined two groups of BF2 players soley because we started talking over the comm's and found out that we worked well together. I would have never bothered had we not be able to talk over the com.

VOIP is so useful in a game. From a simple "target X" to "3 incomming behind". No way I'm typeing all that wile running for cover, fireing guns, and drinking my soda!

Why do you think people use teamspeak and work together?

As far as the OP rant about looseing 27 games. I feel for ya bro. I know exactly what your doing wrong. Your playing by your self on the weekends, with no way to speak to your team to even try and form a plan. I've dropped into about 20 or so games on the past few Satrudays. I think I've won a game, died every time, and got one kill. Weekdays and nights when I play I far much better. Their all grouped up, on VOIP, and play together a lot. I know this because it's the same thing I did when I played BF2 on my clans server. We didn't loose much, and you didn't want to play against us.

In other words. The people on Teamspeak, in their group. They are playing CW already (IE their community has just declaired war on your sorry butt). So unless we join up with the click, we can continue to be speed bumps for them. Personally I think this needs to change. VOIP will help. Haveing a more formal, organised CW help as well.