504 replies to this topic

[NextGame]

Team functionality is crap, bordering on the non-existant. For this reason alone, never mind the myriad of others, the game should still have a beta sticker.

[Willard Phule]

Joseph Mallan, on 27 February 2014 - 03:21 AM, said:

Teams (or at least the Law) has lost interest in playing MW:O due to how mind numbingly redundant the title has become. There is no real rewards, no advancement Nothing but fighting. I know I for one can only spar so long, before wanting more.

And a lot of units only get together for "official practice" nights...then for league play. Kinda like Pool League night on Fridays. Most of the time, everyone just solo drops.

Like I said in that other post, I gave up on dropping in groups with my unit because it cut down on my actual play time. With the new, complicated UI, I end up sitting around in TS for 5 minutes between matches, waiting for everyone to ready up.

All I have to do is load up an Arty strike and I'm ready to go. If I need to switch mechs or tweak my loadout, I drop from the group because I know it's going to take me a while. Then I have to sit around waiting for them to finish their match before I rejoin.

Nah, it's easier just to go solo.

[Androas]

No Remorse, on 27 February 2014 - 02:57 AM, said:

So the latest metrics tell us that teams are dwindling more and more. I have personally experienced this after coming back from 9 months of not playing to find most of the people used to play with and their respective teams either completely vanished or lapsed into inactivity.

When 8v8 came out in December 2012 our channels in the NA teamspeak would fill up fast with people looking for 8's, once the initial novelty wore off, only true premade teams would bother going through the hassle, and what a hassle it was, to actually try and get 8 man's going. Players didn't stop 8 man's due to competition, as premade haters, would like to believe, it came down to being a HUGE hassle to try to get an 8 man going.

So here we are 12's have come and very few people play them, 1%. Teams have either died out or lost many members. And we are stuck with a PUG experience, because to be honest PGI catered to the PUGs like an 80 yr old grandmother does her so-cute-its-ugly puppy.

Do you want to see teams come back in this "team oriented" game, or are you all for the randomness of these seeming endless meaningless battles?

Imagine what "Community Warfare" will look like if this 84% trend continues to grow, who cares about loyalties and fighting for houses or clans, we might as well all just stay mercenary.

Who really wants to play as team right? Its just so HARD to coordinate with other people and actually learn to cooperate.

Well, the last point is something i cant agree on, cooperation is a matter of practice, but what made me only pug back in the day (im just coming back, did a few games over the past days, but im not that much inclined to stay atm)
is, as you described, the hassle of getting a team set up and running v.s. the reward i get from pugging.

I mean, set up a Team, get everybody on a voice chatt software of your choice (vent, teamspeak, whatever)
start the match, great someones client crashed, someone else timed out during the loading screen,
play trought a 10 minute match to gather everybody again, oh wow, one of the two did start a match solo, because he didnt want to wait, now we all wait, someone is running out of time, so we need a replacement,

and all of that for a rather lousy C bill reward...

if you just solo it, you can do 3 Games in the same time, maybe win 2 lose 1, and have earned more.

To make Teamwork (even in Pugs) more viable, you would need to do something about the whole Lance/Platoon leadership Design, Platoon leaders should gain a % Bonus of the income the Groups nets, Lance leaders should get a % of their respective lances.

To avoid a "Grab command and afk it out" syndrom, those bonus payouts should only Apply to Damage done/Kills made in proxmity of command markers.

Next thing should be, beeing arround Lance mates, should increase income/xp for the lance as a whole,
to further get people to stick together and work together.

for example, lets say a lance of 4 gets a 25% Boost per alive Member in proximity (lets take 1 and 1/2 grid away at max as our number here) so, a Lance of 4 Mech operating together, would gain Cbills and XP at a 100% increased rate,
each kill your Group does is just 2* as much worth as if you would solo.

It would, even promote Protecting teammates, like, sticking to that Assault mech of your lance, to defend him against lights which try to swarm him.

Because a death lance member, would "cost" your Team 25% of its Bonus (lets call it an team efficiency Bonus, shall we?)

And there we are, a Lance operating at Full strength sticking together, would earn double of a Solo player, while the Platoon Leader would dip in with an (lets say 25%) Bonus gain to his earnings from his lances operating in an efficient manner.

This could bring people to actually Pick Platoon Leader and hand out SOLID well thought out orders, and, spending some time with watching the Battle Grid, and handing out Orders, would even reward you, instead of taking away from your income (as in missed damage done and missed kills made)

And it would make going throught the hassle of setting up Teams with propper communication even worth the while, as any game played, would net you WAY more, then a game played with random people which do what they want.

[Joseph Mallan]

Easier yes, But I miss the banter, and ridiculous old salt stories we share between drops. Not to mention how fun it is to listen the drunkenese and Darvonic babble on weekend nights.

Many of my team mates have a laundry list of problems thanks to seeing combat. We rib each other, and can get away with it. Cause we all know we respect the F**k out of the sacrifices made by the majority of us. I was peacetime service, so I got off lucky.

<o7>

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 27 February 2014 - 05:27 AM.

[Randalf Yorgen]

Willard Phule, on 27 February 2014 - 05:20 AM, said:

And a lot of units only get together for "official practice" nights...then for league play. Kinda like Pool League night on Fridays. Most of the time, everyone just solo drops.

Like I said in that other post, I gave up on dropping in groups with my unit because it cut down on my actual play time. With the new, complicated UI, I end up sitting around in TS for 5 minutes between matches, waiting for everyone to ready up.

All I have to do is load up an Arty strike and I'm ready to go. If I need to switch mechs or tweak my loadout, I drop from the group because I know it's going to take me a while. Then I have to sit around waiting for them to finish their match before I rejoin.

Nah, it's easier just to go solo.

THIS. 99% THIS. It's not that people don't want to play teams it's just easier to drop solo and pug. THIS is why the "PUG" numbers look so high. If you allow for this and try to factor out all those team players who will go back to teams once;
A. the Friends list issues are fixed and,
B. They remove the 4 man cap,

Then I think you will see a massive reversal in those metrics. PUG and TEAM numbers will balance out and will, I believe, become almost equal.

[Roland]

A ton of the old MW4 players from NBT have basically abandoned the game since they enforced a 4 man limit on teams, just because it was very difficult to get exactly 8 guys (and then 12) people together to play, since you couldn't play together prior to having the 12 man max.

That's the key here, which has never been dealt with... By saying, "you can't group with more than 4 players, until you have exactly 12", you effectively eliminate the ability for 99% of players to EVER play in a 12 man.... Because you create a chasm between 5-11 players where it's simply too much of a pain in the ass to keep folks around while waiting for that last guy to show up.

[Willard Phule]

Joseph Mallan, on 27 February 2014 - 05:27 AM, said:

Easier yes, But I miss the banter, and ridiculous old salt stories we share between drops. Not to mention how fun it is to listen the drunkenese and Darvonic babble on weekend nights.

Many of my team mates have a laundry list of problems thanks to seeing combat. We rib each other, and can get away with it. Cause we all know we respect the F**k out of the sacrifices made by the majority of us. I was peacetime service, so I got off lucky.

<o7>

Wow...I had no idea that The Law was a sub-unit of the Tard Brigade (commenting on your left handed salute there, buddy )

And I agree with you there, to a point. Now, granted, my old unit was a little more structured and unless it was a friendly 4man that was getting together for no reason, they really demanded a structured, disciplined environment....and it took too damn long between matches.

For what it's worth, when I've got my buddy over at my house and the kid up and playing...we 3man all the time and use TS (yeah, I know, they're just on the other side of the basement, but, whatever). And we have fun doing it. I just can't see myself doing the whole "tryhard" thing with a group again. It's frustrating as hell.

Randalf Yorgen, on 27 February 2014 - 05:39 AM, said:

THIS. 99% THIS. It's not that people don't want to play teams it's just easier to drop solo and pug. THIS is why the "PUG" numbers look so high. If you allow for this and try to factor out all those team players who will go back to teams once;
A. the Friends list issues are fixed and,
B. They remove the 4 man cap,

Then I think you will see a massive reversal in those metrics. PUG and TEAM numbers will balance out and will, I believe, become almost equal.

Something else that will change the demographic is if or when they ever allow us to trade with each other. Transferring cbills and/or equipment will change the economy significantly.

Here's the best example I can give. The 131st Shortbus Division has 20 people in it. They decide, as a group, that they're going to "gift" a certain amount of Cbills to the unit leader so he can stockpile mechs for the unit (yeah, I know, it's a logistical nightmare...but it's their problem to manage, not PGIs). Over time, people come and people go....but....if someone is relatively new and doesn't have many mechs, the commander can "gift" one to him for however long and blah blah blah.

It allows for unit stability as people come and go. Keep in mind that in the BT universe, the vast majority of mechwarriors didn't actually own their machines.

[Joseph Mallan]

Willard Phule, on 27 February 2014 - 06:02 AM, said:

Wow...I had no idea that The Law was a sub-unit of the Tard Brigade (commenting on your left handed salute there, buddy )

LOL Jerk!

[Daggett]

No Remorse, on 27 February 2014 - 02:57 AM, said:

And we are stuck with a PUG experience, because to be honest PGI catered to the PUGs like an 80 yr old grandmother does her so-cute-its-ugly puppy.

Have you ever thought why this is the case?
The ugly truth is that the majority of playes indeed have little interest to join a premade all the time and rather play solo quite often.

This has several different reasons, be it that you just want to fill the remaining 20minutes until an appointment or that your connection is too bad for simultaneous voip and gaming (a friend of mine has this problem quite often).

And no one of us has the right to question any of those motives and telling them to 'just team up'.

So it's totally natural that PGI needs to cater the pugs. They are driving the game. Loose them and you loose your game, it's simple as that.
Of cause that does not mean that premades should not be catered too and i agree that PGI can do a lot more here like giving drop options for teams between 4 and 11 players.

Oh and as mentioned by others, this game's team-building would greatly improve with a global chat.
I can't understand the design decision to hide all chatting in a small 'social'-button.
A good online-game fully integrates it's social features. This means all chats and group-options are always visible unless a player hides them.

This is most important: When using those social features, don't block the rest of the game. It hurts to see that i have to close the chat in order to use the mechlab again. We need to chat without pressing extra buttons so we can do it while navigating the mechlab.

No Remorse, on 27 February 2014 - 02:57 AM, said:

Do you want to see teams come back in this "team oriented" game, or are you all for the randomness of these seeming endless meaningless battles?

I guess you are doing pugs some injustice here. Those games are not always 'random and meaningless'. Pugs can indeed prove that they play team oriented too, sometimes way better than some premades. What i'm missing here are simply two things:

First:
In theory pugs can self-coordinate really well without saying a single word and without giving any order. It's all a matter of common sense and practice.

There are very basic rules which can lead a team to victory without any plan/strategy.

Some examples:
- Don't scout in your heavy mech, stay always near a group so you don't get steamrolled.
- Don't attack the whole enemy team in your light when they are not distracted by the rest of your team yet or your team can easily close the gap to help.
- When one guy charges in, follow him immediately.
- Unless it's a leeroy jenkins who does this without giving the rest of his team a chance to catch up.
- Only follow charging lights when they are clearly distracting the enemy in front of you to make your push easier.
- Staying together is good, but surrounding the enemy is better. Look out for spots to attack from a different angle but without getting isolated from your mates.
- Avoid chokepoints in large groups. When you see your deathball approching a chokepoint, try to split off. You will be surprised how many will follow you. Lead them to a good flanking position.
- When you see some mates flanking and distracting the enemy, PUSH!
- When flanking, wait for a good opportunity instead of doing a suicide flank with no effect.
- Attack the easy to hit guys first
- Unless they are already disarmed. Don't shoot that weaponless guy to get a kill when there is a target with working weapons around.
- When there are several easy to hit targets, choose the one where others are already firing on.
- Don't overvalue focus fire if the focused target is hard to hit for you and you have the opportunity to easily hit another target.
- Don't chase lights all over the map, even when piloting a light by yourself. He will always try to lure you into a trap.
- The same applies to retreating heavily damaged mechs. Don't get lured around that corner where the whole enemy team is waiting just to get the kill.

The list is endless but each point is so simple and logical that everyone can do it right if he wants to.
And by avoiding those faults a team can work like a machine without saying a single word. The battlegrid is a great tool for speechless organizing.


Second:
As good as self-coordination can work in theory, it sadly fails too often in practice, mostly because of having too much inexperienced players who need to focus on other things like aiming and movement leaving no time for some important details.
So some sorts of planning and advice would greatly help to improve teamplay in pugs so the inexperienced guys get hints on what they can do to contribute.


But currently MWO lacks the tools to do this efficiently.
The chat is way too slow to coordinte a team or even warn them from an enemy you stumbled into.
In the heat of battle you have other things to do than typing. And additionally others are often too distracted to even realize that someone has written something.

What we need are functions to quickly report several things to the team.
In this regard MWO can learn a lot from WOT and LOL.

Those games realized that it is not smart to force the player to open a seperate map window which totally disables them to control their character.
They have the entire map always present instead of MWO's 'partial map' approach.

When i played MWO the first time one of my first questions was: How can i zoom out the battlegrid to show me the whole map. The answer to open a new window to do so was kinda disappointing.

So, when having the entire map always visible, it is a child's play to add a WOT-like 'pinging' function to it.
Single clicking will tell every team-mate that there is something at this location. To expand this i would map a menu to choose a specific 'Ping-type' to the right mouse button. This way you can specify with two clicks if you want to flank via this position, if you spotted an enemy there or if players on this location are too exposed and should get in cover.

When no one takes the position of a lance/company commander, let everyone be able to give orders this way. A team does not need a commander, it only needs good tactical advices at the right time regardless from who.

Together with some predefined chat messages like 'i need help', 'back to base' or 'charge now!' (which of cause should set a ping at the talking player's position), this game can get MUCH more tactical even in pug games with relatively little effort. And without the need of voice comms (which would likely only be filled with useless chatter and flaming).

In the meantime until we get those features, please highlight/ping the player who has typed something in chat (with sound). It helps a lot to know that:
- someone typed something (currently i have a hard time to realize new messages during fighting)
- the position of the spotter. So he just needs to write 'enemy w. ecm spotted' instead of opening the BG, looking up the coordinates and type them. This takes AGES. By knowing the spotter's position it's not hard to imagine the general direction of the spotted enemy. And that's more than enough, because the exact coordinates are quickly invalid and not much worth without knowing the direction the enemy is moving.
- The position of the guy who needs help

Edited by Daggett, 27 February 2014 - 06:24 AM.

[Willard Phule]

ouch. That's like getting hit in the face by a thousand engine icons in the mechlab.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

We've discussed the social aspects with Bryan, the thread is still in Comstar I believe. And I know he read it.

They just decided it was a backburner issue.

[IceSerpent]

Jman5, on 27 February 2014 - 04:09 AM, said:

In order to draw that conclusion you would need at the bear minimum 2 data sets. As far as I know this is the only time PGI has released a metric like this. Why are you certain that this is trending toward more pugging and that it will continue once community warfare arrives?

PGI mentioned that majority of players are in groups about a year ago (ask the devs 34 or 35 - don't remember exactly which one), so we know the current trend. We obviously have no idea what will happen with CW.

[Name115734]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 27 February 2014 - 06:33 AM, said:

We've discussed the social aspects with Bryan, the thread is still in Comstar I believe. And I know he read it.

They just decided it was a backburner issue.

Typical, one of the fundamental reasons most people were first interested in this title has become a backburner issue lol.

[zhajin]

its an online game with almost no social features. there are no guild organization, no in game voip, no lobbies, the friends list sucks, hell in even the in game chat is worst i have see in 20 years of online gaming. nearly every basic social feature you would expect form an online game is missing. the only people playing groups are an organized mercs or playing with close friends. and many of these people are just fed up with the game and not playing as much or not playing at all. PGI has no experience with online gaming and it shows horribly. and is one of the major issues with the game that they seem nearly completely blind too.

they are working on "lobbies" so we will see what that brings, but a online game with no social features at all makes for a bad online game.

[Mycrus]

Joseph Mallan, on 27 February 2014 - 04:36 AM, said:

Centurion Weekend. 4man took me 3 1/2 hours to win 5 matches
PUG I won 5 in 7 matches...
Easy mode? Guess it depends on if your 4 man is all around the same Elo level.

well i should ask for noober 4-man friends then...

[Joseph Mallan]

Mycrus, on 27 February 2014 - 06:56 AM, said:

well i should ask for noober 4-man friends then...

Woulda help me out Saturday as well!

[RG Notch]

No Remorse, on 27 February 2014 - 06:42 AM, said:

Typical, one of the fundamental reasons most people were first interested in this title has become a backburner issue lol.

Unless it can be monetized up front everything gets backburnered here.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

No Remorse, on 27 February 2014 - 06:42 AM, said:

Typical, one of the fundamental reasons most people were first interested in this title has become a backburner issue lol.

I thought they were going to be more proactive, since he broke off from the main UI2.0 thread to make the second Social one.

Made me think it was important. But it doesn't seem to be the case. I realize they aren't done with all of the Social stuff...but the main thing we pushed for was a central area for mechwarriors to chat and help eachother. And even that didn't come to fruition.

[Iskareot]

Joseph Mallan, on 27 February 2014 - 04:36 AM, said:

Centurion Weekend. 4man took me 3 1/2 hours to win 5 matches
PUG I won 5 in 7 matches...
Easy mode? Guess it depends on if your 4 man is all around the same Elo level.

This seems right, if the team as a whole is up there - you have a different turn out. I did some runs with a group that was good and it was a slaughter, no joke.

Then I ran with a guy that was really low for sure and it was ugly. So yeah for sure... this is accurate.

So seeing this stat, am I to believe that 84% of each drop is PUG and not premade now? ?? Is that what is being said?? Because that sounds like complete bullshit.

I don't think any of my matches have that many pugs in them. There is always at least one 4 man team it seems in mine... maybe more. I must be missing something with that stat?

[wanderer]

The higher your ELO is, the more you tend to see premades.

In PUG hell, I've regularly see 12v12 with none.