DaZur, on 03 April 2014 - 05:29 AM, said:
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But this is kind'a germaine to my point... It's carrot to the stick proposition.
PGI seems to be reading their game-play metrics in a extremely myopic fashion and, having limited resources, are willing to leverage MW:O development on the premise that this community is happy with shallow game-play and the assumption everyone is also happy playing solo. As such, why vet operational costs into developing core game function to support "teams" and depth of strategy when the metrics appear to show otherwise.
MW:O was conceptually envisioned to be team centric... For various reasons, to include their own shortsightedness and the fallout that resulted, this community swung from being strong advocates of teams to strong advocates of solo.
Solo must be supported for all reasons listed and 102 yet to be discussed... That said, I think it's highly assumptive on PGIs part to not appreciate the number of "solo" players they've included in their metrics that are truly "team" players that have lost their will and desire to "be" a team because PGI seems to now be leaning heavily in the direction of solo-drop game design and ignoring the more granular needs of the team players.
Well I kinda don't agree with you on this one. This reads a bit of time compression and hindsight to reach a conclusion.
PGI developed a game that implied team work, the marketed as a team based game, etc etc.
PGI plays the game in teams, I have seen several PGI badged people on my team and the opposite from time to time. I assume like everyone does that most pre made teams are on comms as part of their co ordination. PGI have highlighted they think comms is important to winning in MW:O.
PGI got feedback from many players saying that the PUG experience was horrible, MM was putting Pre made teams up against PUG's and they were getting smashed (amongst other feedback items, but to stay on subject)
PGI did some assessments of statistics and were "surprised" (their word) to find out that 84% of players dropping were solo PUG's.
PGI reviewed the feedback from this (now) major demographic and propose incorporating some amendments to make that demographics game experience better.
The changes proposed are not a reflection of PGI steering the game towards solo PUG's, they are a reflection of people actually being solo PUG's and they don't want to loose that demographic (I suspect commercial reality has hit hard?)
What I don't get is why people are all upset about solo PUG's. I play both team and PUG's and honestly, the game is still the same. MM is still broken and stomps still happen far to often. The meta game is still rubbish and mechs still have very little durability.
So what if PGI are amending MM so that there is only 1 pre made in a team and an approximate evening of resouces on the field. It's got to be better than what we have. They're not saying go away to all the team players. They're actually saying hey, if you're organised and want to play your own game, we will let you.
All those organised guilds can actually play (when it arrives) whatever game type they want without any restrictions to mechs or weights or meta. What is the actual complaint about.
FACT: Solo PUG's make up a major portion of the player demographic (according to the only people who have the stats, PGI)
FACT: If a company is to thrive, it needs to cater to its major customer base
FACT: PGI have said they want to make the game better for their major demographic in their player base
FACT: PGI have also said they are going to enable pre made team based play far greater than it ever has before. They are actually giving them the options to set game settings.
PGI are not taking anything away from the pre mades except their ability to wail on PUG's. How is that bad?
I suspect it is that without PUG's, pre mades don't have enough targets and so they cannot load a game. If so, they are part of the problem that drove the PUG's to complain about the game experience and they are now are getting what they deserve. I have zero sympathy if thats the case.
Honestly sometimes I wonder what all the angst is about, do people know? Heck Magnakanus is here telling everyone they should just make a bigger effort to play the game he wants to play in the same thread where we are talking about people having very little time and wanting a plug and play experience. He might as well have said "L2P my way".
So if you're in that Guild with 100 players and dozens on line anytime, what is the problem? If you want to plug and play with PUG's, go for it. If you want a canon team compsition, go for it within your Guild. If you want to do something funky with your freind's go for it.
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