101 replies to this topic

[Bhael Fire]

Trauglodyte, on 28 February 2014 - 11:17 AM, said:

I don't know that it'll be as disasterous as you think it might be. Back way in the day, Verant (the company, not player) opened up a premium server for Everquest. It was the same universe BUT all fo the raid bosses were run by Verant/Sony employees. They started this with GM events which progressed to the Halloween events when a GM would take over Mayong Mistmoore. The server fees went from the base $15 per month to something like $30 and, believe it or not, people flocked to it. It is one thing to beat a boss for gear when you know how their actions are scripted. It is something else entirely when you've got no idea what is going to happen. It was like full on PvP badass vs raids.

MWO is a completely different animal than Everquest is...it attracts a much different crowd with an entirely different mindset. They have to make decisions based on what works for MWO, not what worked with other games — especially games that bear little to no resemblance.

Hell, I even take umbrage to them trying to mimic WoT (I can't stand that game) and that game is what some would call in the same genre.

[MischiefSC]

Joseph Mallan, on 28 February 2014 - 10:45 AM, said:

SO MM will go back to first trying to match evenly then b class like we had back in Closed Beta for a bit... I get that.

I cannot get control of Sudaten in a Private match. Making it a Blue Planet on the map, or has that been changed?

And as to team Size I go back to the 10th Lyran Guard and Zeta Battalion Wolf's Dragoons. Those Commands will be being filled by Loyal players and had TO&Es that do not fit 3/3/3/3 drop restrictions. Remember I am here to play the Clan Invasion, Eventually wearing Blue and White with a Silver Piping. I am not here for Private matches and League play.

My expectation is that Premium Private Matches will be available to teams with the equiv of Premium Private Matches, or at least the same degree of control when CW comes out. They're just going to have to meet certain criteria in setting the match up (weights, mech minimums, etc. to avoid farming). This will let players create the situations you're looking for and still try to meet something fair. I also find it unlikely that the same 3/3/3/3 criteria will be in place for CW. This is just for pug matches.

Look at what happened - they realized they'd created an environment that wasn't built around ~80% of the current player population, so they adjusted it to make pugging better. CW isnt' about pugging. I'd like to hope the same environment won't be kept for CW.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

MischiefSC, on 28 February 2014 - 11:34 AM, said:

My expectation is that Premium Private Matches will be available to teams with the equiv of Premium Private Matches, or at least the same degree of control when CW comes out. They're just going to have to meet certain criteria in setting the match up (weights, mech minimums, etc. to avoid farming). This will let players create the situations you're looking for and still try to meet something fair. I also find it unlikely that the same 3/3/3/3 criteria will be in place for CW. This is just for pug matches.

Look at what happened - they realized they'd created an environment that wasn't built around ~80% of the current player population, so they adjusted it to make pugging better. CW isnt' about pugging. I'd like to hope the same environment won't be kept for CW.

Truthfully, we just don't have enough information to make an informed decision.

There are a bunch of if's that come with this.

Like the Free Private Matches could work great, if they add in social aspects that allow us to meet people/create groups really easily.

Like if you wanna do a free match, you go into your Unit Chat Tab, say "Hey guys, wanna run some privates?" get your guys together, then go into the "Looking for Free Private Match Chat Tab" and say "Hey we've got a group of guys, looking to do some limited tonnage drops, anyone interested? Willing to negotiate".

Find another group, and then start dropping.

But that requires a more robust social system than we have.

[Bhael Fire]

MischiefSC, on 28 February 2014 - 11:34 AM, said:

CW isnt' about pugging.

Says who?

CW does not mean League play...it just means faction vs faction...and factions have lots of solo players in them.

[wwiiogre]

I started this topic to talk about the possibilities this opens up, not its limitations, tho its limitations appear to be less than what is currently being used.

The glass is half full. Now go away if you think the glass is half empty or there is no glass.

Chris

[Davers]

MischiefSC, on 28 February 2014 - 10:41 AM, said:

Here's the thing Joseph.

Every single time you bring a Locust, you're creating the issue. The reality is that players will bring non-Meta mechs. They want to, it can be fun or at least a change.

Here's the difference though. In the current system the Locust you bring could be matched on the other team by a Cataphract. They have 12 people, you have 12 people, the total tonnage is roughly approximated.

With the new system though you bringing a Locust means the worst, the absolute worst, is that the other team has a Jenner or Firestarter against your Locust. Not a Centurion or Cataphract.

Even better the MM will TRY to match your Locust with a Locust on the other team. This is FAR more likely because in matching weight classes the MM has far more predictable team compositions to work with; your Locust only needs calculated into the 2 other lights on your team. It doesn't have to fit you into the tonnage balance of your whole team. Also with Elo now matching in tiers (******* YAH! Dear god, sweet baby jesus there is nothing else in this change going to be more significant than that. No more elites + underhive = balanced) all it has to do is find another Locust roughly within your Elo range to put on the other team. If no Locust it'll find a Commando. No Mando it'll grab a Spider. No Spider, then it'll look for a Raven. No Raven, then a Jenner/Firestarter.

I think you'll be shocked at how often you'll find almost exact tonnage matches in the new system. By breaking Elo into tiers and limiting weight classes per team you make it shockingly easy statistically to close-fit teams.

This is going to reduce issues with mechs-per-team imbalance, not increase them. You're less likely to have a Locust on your team because you also got 4 Atlases while the other team is almost all Ilyas and a few Highlanders.

The Locust, being the only mech in its own tonnage class, is also the odd-man-out. Most other mechs have a couple other examples in their same tonnage. Griffin/Wolverine/Shawk, Hunchie/Cent, Treb/BJ...

You see what I mean? Also it means the Locust is only creating a relatively tiny imbalance over the team. Okay, so your team has a locust and the other team has a Jenner. Again, way way more likely to be Locust vs Commando or Locust vs Spider but assume nobody in your Elo tier was playing lights today. How significant is that in a 12 v 12 environment? So avoid the other Jenner. Stick with your teams other 2 lights (there will always be 2 other lights to stick with).

You'll have consistent team compositions that you can build your mech around. There will always be lights to hunt, there will always be heavies and assaults to backstab. There won't be 6 Ravens in a wolfpack on the other team. There will always be 3; only 3.

By the way, private matches will ABSOLUTELY let you play the Clan Invasion. In fact you can play it with the specific player Clan orgs. You can play it 10 v 12; you can mock up specific battles if you want. It doesn't matter how badly PGI screws up CW you actually can get exactly what you're looking for. Pick the teams, pick the battles, pick the environment and rules.

Now if only we it did team size matching like it does with mech weight (search for another 12 man, then search for an 11 man, etc) then it would have been perfect.

[Trauglodyte]

This is just spit balling but what if, on the Premium contests, they change it to an MC anty of sorts. So, two guys say that they want their units to to square off with each other and each of the two leaders puts in 25 MC into the kitty. The two teams play, team A wins, and is awarded the 25 MC as the reward? You could see it as gambling, I guess. But, you'd actually have teams going up against each other for both bragging rights and actual rewards. And, it would foster an economy that doesn't exist currently in the game.

[KharnZor]

I'm hoping its just premium time you need to access the premium features. I'd be happy for a while

[wwiiogre]

I posted this in another topic but it fits here as well:

my vision of a Campaign is starting strictly 3025 tech, but each individual pilots setup would be near identical to starting mechs available at that time. After each battle or round of the campaign depending on salvage as well as time between battles and character backgrounds (depending how much role playing or little role playing is happening) players would be allowed to change or update their mechs.

Upgrades would not be available until the group captured as salvage the part, or bought the part if its available in the area they were working in or available on the blackmarket (think roleplaying backgrounds). I have a robust character creation process in place for my tabletop campaigns that can go from light to indepth ( I would prefer light, in otherwords only things that would be used by the characters and the GM's between matches)

Now I like starting around 3039-3045 because you do have some of the lost tech coming back into the general mech warfare. And it allows player growth over time in a campaign setting. Including if you capture and then rebuild an enemy mech. In other words if a battle is won, and the field not contested salvage based on contract belongs to the winner. Noticed I said based on contract, because most mercs get shit for contracts especially where salvage is concerned, it will be small things that are involved at first.

But, private matches and premium private matches especially will hopefully give US the chance to even have these types of games. And then to string them into campaigns. I do not plan on doing this alone, I know for sure at least two people in my area that are tabletop GM's for battletech that also play MWO that might want to tackle a big campaign like this. We are limited to what PGI gives us in the way of mechs.

But imagine you want to run a Clan campaign and start out with little mechs, with premium private matches you can do everything needed to run a true roleplaying campaign including trials of position and trials of refusal, etc. Real clan, done right.

So I look at the Launch module, if it isn't to costly for premium private matches as a way to really grow this game and community. Like I said, I could run want adds for players with specific mechs as one off opposition for the story group or groups. If done right this can be an ongoing story line and group campaign where GM's can play opfor against other GM's story group. Shared story line and ideas create involvement and ownership which creates interest and more involvement.

I don't claim to be the greatest story teller, my idea of a good GM is to scare my players into thinking they are gonna die, and then with careful manipulation or even without it, the players work together towards a goal. So that the next time we play the first thing I hear them talking about is how they should have died last time and if it hadn't been for x player doing this and y n z player doing that they were dead for sure.

So I look forward to the new launch module and I am waiting to see what the community does with this. We could have 2man solaris tournaments, when clan comes in we could have 8v5 IS vs Clan honor matches, etc. Ladders, Tournaments, who knows. The roleplaying is just one of the things I like, plus the option to play historical era timelines. No ssrm, no er, no gauss, no uac, no ecm, no bap, no coolant flush, no arty, no air, You know back to basics, just shoot the other guy with the weapons at hand.

I may even allow a team to call a withdrawal or tactical retreat. Meaning if they can get mechs to a pull out point the battle is over. I may even have non traditional winning conditions like One teams objectives are not necessarily the other team objectives. One team may need to cross the entire map and gets points for each mech it gets to grid x, while the other team may need to only out damage the other side to win. With premium private matches I could choose what I want to do it and how. While the players are there for the ride and the fun of the unknown, while still getting to shoot each other in stompy robots.

Chris

Edited by wwiiogre, 28 February 2014 - 02:23 PM.

[Krinkov]

The reason both team leaders need to have paid for premium time in an unlimited private match is simple, it costs PGI money to run servers. Imagine a group such as the goons wanted to troll PGI. Just think of the kind of trouble they could cause if they used up hundreds of server slots with 1 vs. 1 games. They could run scripts that just queue them up and waste PGI's resources. At least this way they would need to invest money into it.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Trauglodyte, on 28 February 2014 - 11:22 AM, said:

How about aged?

No - he's merely matured - I'm aged.

[Joseph Mallan]

Trauglodyte, on 28 February 2014 - 11:22 AM, said:

How about aged?

Cheesy!

[NextGame]

wwiiogre, on 28 February 2014 - 08:52 AM, said:

I really do not think the community here in MWO has really grasped the importance of the new launch module.

Im pretty certain that we all grasp that it should have been here at least 6 months ago.

Quote

While I am happy with the new balance of tonnage classes for solo pug dropping. I am excited about the possibilities that the Launch Module gives us.

The party/class limits for public drops of max group 4 and 3/3/3/3 weight class per team at per current pending design are ignorant and will not improve the game.

[Varent]

Im wary of new things. Nothing more to add then that.

[wwiiogre]

And how do you know that NextGame? Ohhh its your opinion, just like mine is that anything different than what we have now would be better. Since matchmaker right now with the current meta is boring and predictable and broken.

Chris

[NextGame]

wwiiogre, on 01 March 2014 - 12:47 PM, said:

And how do you know that NextGame? Ohhh its your opinion, just like mine is that anything different than what we have now would be better. Since matchmaker right now with the current meta is boring and predictable and broken.

Chris

How is knowing almost the exact composition of the enemy team and still not being able to play with more than 3 friends less predictable or boring?

Objectively its far more predictable with the same amount of boring, nothing subjective about it apart from in your "unique" ways of thinking, aparrently.

[wwiiogre]

But you can play with more than 3 friends, its called private free match or premium free match, which is also part of the Launch Module.

And if you cannot get 23 other players, you can pay for the ability to have a 1v1, 2v2 or 5v5.

Or of course the current 12v12.

What the new matchmaker is trying to do, is to stop 2 4mans from rolling pugs by all having assault/hvy meta cheese builds. And its trying to bring back the original concept or role warfare espoused by PGI way back before you could even buy a founders pack.

All I can do is applaud the idea and hope it works better than what we have now.

I know I will be buying either MC or premium time to use the premium private match service. Why? Because with that I could run a 3025 league, I could run Solaris, I could run an actual BattleTech Campaign, Heck the Community could run CW without PGI knowing we were doing it.

But, all you can think of is, you won't get to roll pugs so easily? Seriously, look at the possibilities this offers us. Its amazing. If handled right, this could even lead to PGI releasing a map editor for $ so the community can start building maps. Or better, PGI charging $ for people to host a server for specific style games and events. Trust me, what has been announced here, is the beginning of what is needed for CW.

And it is an idea that could possibly balloon into something for us the community to run with.

All we need now is collisions and melee. SRM's to be fixed (way overdue), mg and flamer to do bonus damage to bunkers (which was their purpose in BT lore, since bunkers are filled with infantry to run the weapon systems their is no AI). Command console to be needed to use arty/air/uav in a multiple setting. With command priority meaning if you have a command console, you can carry upto three modules of arty/air/uav with no cooldown, priority over others using it. Then have any mech without a command console only able to carry a single module of either arty/air or uav and have to wait two minutes between using them without a command console. This would bring back the idea of having a command mech, giving it priority arty/air/uav and stop the spamming of arty/air/uav by the community.

So lots of things going on, hoping this makes things better. Looks like it will. I am not surprised to see the meta/hvy/assault players crying about not getting to roll pugs. Not surprised to see the meta 4mans crying about not getting to roll pugs. Surprised to see people complaining about not being able to bring more than three friends cause you cannot do that now, only 11 friends and play in 12mans so that is a dead argument and a red herring.

Chris

[Astrocanis]

Chris, you make the classic "I'm going to lump everyone who I don't condone the playstyle of into the same 'the meta/hvy/assault players crying about not getting to roll pugs.'" overstatement. I'm sure that simplification makes it easier to simply catalog their positions into the circular file and still feel good about it. Because stereotyping makes your position stronger, at least in your own mind.

I have 4 friends in this game. Four. We are usually running 3+2. Now, we won't even be able to "accidentally" get into the same game. Of course, the ~only possible~ reason we want to run together is to gain unfair advantage against puggers. That has to be the only reason, doesn't it?

And for the record, I usually play either a BJ-1, a CDA-3M or one of my Griffins. Not sure how that stacks up against the meta/hvy/assault pug-rollers, but I'm sure if you really try I'm sure you'll be able to find a point from which to denigrate me.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Astrocanis, on 02 March 2014 - 10:49 AM, said:

Chris, you make the classic "I'm going to lump everyone who I don't condone the playstyle of into the same 'the meta/hvy/assault players crying about not getting to roll pugs.'" overstatement. I'm sure that simplification makes it easier to simply catalog their positions into the circular file and still feel good about it. Because stereotyping makes your position stronger, at least in your own mind.

I have 4 friends in this game. Four. We are usually running 3+2. Now, we won't even be able to "accidentally" get into the same game. Of course, the ~only possible~ reason we want to run together is to gain unfair advantage against puggers. That has to be the only reason, doesn't it?

And for the record, I usually play either a BJ-1, a CDA-3M or one of my Griffins. Not sure how that stacks up against the meta/hvy/assault pug-rollers, but I'm sure if you really try I'm sure you'll be able to find a point from which to denigrate me.

To be fair, whether intended or not, do you admit there is an advantage?

[Nightcrept]

Unless I am mistaken only one player (who creates the match) needs to have prem time active.

That shouldn't be a big deal for a clan/group.