450 replies to this topic

[DaZur]

Roadbeer, on 06 April 2014 - 08:09 PM, said:

I'm part of the Joystick underhive, so this punishment doesn't effect me.

Fine... Then you have to play with your non-dominant hand on the joystick and a circa 1990 trackball in the other.

You guys make it so hard to enforce corporeal punishment!

[Bobzilla]

I thought private matches are planed to be free but you can't change or control anything, but if you pay you can change a lot of stuff.

[AlmightyAeng]

This thread...has survived by feasting on the carrion of of our goal of 'discussion.' Just came back from this weekend...and was pleased to see some actual discussion and debate...and dismayed by that amount of equivalent "You're a moron" posts I'm seeing. Granted...Bloodwolf DID join the discussion.

After reading the past 8 additional pages, I have a few thoughts.

1) Craig Steele...it's not that your opinion is invalid because "you weren't there" when the queues were open. However, having experienced said queues, I think (and I believe my other Yin-Yang Samurai will agree with me here) it was MORE FUN being able to drop with any size group, filled in with PuG's. *Shrug* It was a lot of fun, and we were looking forward to its return, which was then squashed. We find the options given by the alternative 'Private Matches' rather unpalatable by comparison.

2) Just a note on the 'Abuse of Rewards in Private Match' argument. Suppose people DO abuse it to gain extra c-bills and experience. They'll do so at a faster rate...possibly, than a person playing regularly. Will it make them overpowered? Will it grant their mechs extra abilities and super leet skills? No...and the basis of "pay to win" is that by "paying" you gain an overwhelming, and unfair advantage. All they're doing is paying to reduce the grind...which, frankly, is what Premium Time and Hero Mechs already do. They're just sacrificing their ELO for slightly faster gain.

2a) That said...if rewards DO enter private matches, perhaps a way to balance it would be to tie CW in. Right now, Private Matches don't effect Community Warfare. What if we adjusted how MUCH your regular matches effected CW to your ELO? Good, solid ELO players get the have their wins weighted slightly in the grand scheme of CW. The guy in the Hunchback firing 9 ML at a time at a target 600m out while in 3rd person? Yeah...his wins, and LOSSES, don't count for as much.

That might actually keep players from farming Private matches (if they care about CW) because it would TANK their ELO, and if they DID want to effect CW, it would be pretty minimal until they'd worked their way back up in the ELO ranks...negating any "I got my mech/weapons/upgrades faster!" bonus. Just a thought.

3) Lastly, because I love photoshop. Roadbeer. Amsro. Dazur. Sandpit. Other previous white knights, and yin-yang samurai...

THIS. Because you can take the White Knight out of armor, but you can't get the green out of the skin.

Edited by Ghost Badger, 07 April 2014 - 06:23 AM.

[PapaBear14]

I just want to throw two more cents into this now that it seems to have calmed down. DaZur you should not at all regret starting this it has been one of the best threads I have read through while bored at work. The conviction that so many people have about this game is wonderful it means people really like it and want to see it successful. Although it is quite funny reading people repeat the same things back amd forward to each other like two people arguing over whos religon is right. Then you get Nightfire talking like PGI has waged war against the people that want to group over 4. I quite enjoyed the read. But i would just like to say that i have read in a PGI post that says the reason for not more than four people per group is that it affects game balance too much. Also that trying to make a group que that would evenly match teams larger than four would result in longer than acpetable wait times. So you can take them at there word or continue to think they are lying just to keep you guys down, either way the game is how it is and you have the choice to keep playing or not. Again just my two cents.

Edited by PapaBear14, 07 April 2014 - 08:32 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Papa the question I have for PGI is what exactly is "Longer than Acceptable" wait times? I would think that it is dependent on the players waiting... I am a patient man if it means having a good match after the wait.

Oh and Ghost...
That is my kinda OP right there!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 07 April 2014 - 08:40 AM.

[PapaBear14]

I dont think that we need to do seperate ques like somepeople have suggested. I dont think any PuG would have a problem with playing against a larger group as long as they had the same size group on their team. So what i would suggest is making it so that the first group whatever size it may be goes into the que and waits untill there is a matching group to play against, then once both groups are filled then you start to find PuGs to fill in the remainder of the groups. This way PuG players that just want to que for quick games will not be stuck in a que waiting for another group to match the one on their team. This would also prove how many group players would acctually be willing to wait in long ques to drop in their prefered group size. Just a thought i dont know much about programming so i dont know how easy or difficult it would be to implament.

[Joseph Mallan]

Roadbeer, on 06 April 2014 - 04:30 PM, said:

... and those packages that they come with also cost money, so we'll change that answer to a yes.

SO....

Putting all that together
The only way that someone can play in a group from 5 to 11 players in size is to play in the Premium Private Match System, and the only way you have access to the Premium Private Match System is for the Group Leader for each group to carry Premium Time, and the only way to get Premium time is by spending money some how.

Then by the transitive property, to play in the Premium Private Match system requires that SOMEONE in your group has spent money.

Ergo

Pay to Play.

Algebra is awesome.

I didn't see a single X=42 solve for Y in that post... I question your knowledge of how Algebra works

[Nightfire]

PapaBear14, on 07 April 2014 - 08:30 AM, said:

Then you get Nightfire talking like PGI has waged war against the people that want to group over 4.

War is not the right word, war implies you have some sort of organised opposition that is capable of resisting.
But on a more serious note: PGI have made promises, many of them, and broken them. Ask those that have been around since Closed Beta what they remember when they read the phrase "That was our stance at the time". I don't want to go into all the promises that PGI have delayed, reneged outright broken all the while taking money from a player base on what we believed were the grounds of those promises. So the short version and limited to grouping:

• We had groups over 4. Closed Beta was 8 man teams and we could drop in groups of 8.
  
• Groups were limited to 4 in the first rounds of Elo testing. We were promised we would get them back soon^™
  
• After over a year, we find that we are not getting 5+ groups back in the public queues
  
• What we are finally offered is 5+ groups in a setting we will have pay for but we won't be rewarded for playing

Now I freely admit I have become cynical. Very much so, I guess that's what has to happen to turn a White Knight into a Black Knight. However, my cynicism does not change the truth of my observations. It is something further compounded by PGI's deafening silence on any issue followed by random announcements of what they intend.

PGI weren't always like this, in Closed Beta they were very communicative on these forums and we were all very positive in our support of them. What you might want to ask is, what happened to make people like me so cynical?

[Joseph Mallan]

The company went public with its game and has to adapt its view to fit the now broader community?

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Joseph Mallan, on 11 April 2014 - 03:41 AM, said:

The company went public with its game and has to adapt its view to fit the now broader community?

They were probably told by IGP to keep the game as an MVP while churning out cash cows to fund other developments Having the license extended by Microsoft does not mean that it applies to this product.
Dons heavy duty tinfoil apparel and skulks back to sub pontoon abode.

[Joseph Mallan]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 11 April 2014 - 10:00 AM, said:

They were probably told by IGP to keep the game as an MVP while churning out cash cows to fund other developments Having the license extended by Microsoft does not mean that it applies to this product.
Dons heavy duty tinfoil apparel and skulks back to sub pontoon abode.

How many times...
I upgrade to the Chrome package!