536 replies to this topic

[Pygar]

Alexandrix, on 23 April 2014 - 02:17 PM, said:

If i've said it once,i've said it a million times.
I dont care if you want to play in a group.have at it.
What i do find to be bullcrap is coordinated premades on comms in meta mechs being placed against no comms having,trial mech riding pugs.

Groups should face groups and solo's should face solo's.plain and simple.
No one should have to join a clan and get on team speak just to have a chance at fair play.

Open the group q to any size and let groups take their chances against equal opposition instead of steam rolling uncoordinated pugs.

Dont have a 12 man group? Jump in with what you have and get put with another group to fill the slots.

No other online game i play says to me "join A group or gtfo!",why does mwo?

Why is it such a sin to want to hop on mwo for a few rounds without the hassle of a group?

*sigh*

If you never have exposure to better players, how are you ever supposed to become a better player. Would it really be cooler for you to have a "kiddie pool" queue, that leads you to believe you are doing really good at this game, only to sign on for a group game later and get OMGWTFBBQ'd? (That's how I feel sometimes now playing 12v12s or 4vPUGs with inflated ELO...it's a rude awakening fer sure.)

There aren't separate queues because there isn't enough overall population to support that.

I don't know what you consider fair play, but I know if I do very many solo drops in a row I am either going to log out soon, or I am going to log onto teamspeak soon...the lack of teamwork in pure PUG games drives me nuts.

The "PUGstomping" phenomenon was far worse when groups were allowed to be any size.

MWO didn't tell you to join a group, unfortunately...because they really should. I told you to join a group because the game is going to put you on a "team" of 12 players...uhh, might as well learn how to communicate with others and work towards a common goal instead of trying to do everything yourself.

And joining a group is not a hassle.... seriously, you probably just spent more effort trying to argue about this subject than it would have taken for you to put in an app with a guild and get accepted. Quit trying to make joining a guild sound like some kind of Herculean feat that requires a bunch of blood sweat and tears to accomplish....in fact, you might even be amazed at how much more fun it can make the game- I log into TS sometimes just to chat with other people in my guild while I solo PUG or fool around with builds. The benefits of a guild far outweigh any downsides.

Edited by Pygar, 23 April 2014 - 03:04 PM.

[Alexandrix]

Gas Guzzler, on 23 April 2014 - 02:42 PM, said:

It's not even that hard to go up against premades unless you have some idiots on your team that go and run off by themselves. That's when you get stomps.. I don't know I've had a different experience then the OP and some of you guys.

606 wins vs 467 losses since stat reset, and I almost exclusively PUG. I've dropped with a friend a few times but we have not really been effective together (he is new and likes sniping with 2 gauss rifles, I prefer to be more active). So I don't consider myself being slammed by evil premades all the time.

There's ALWAYS at least 2 that run off and die alone....and usually 3-4 that do less than 100 damage (usually in heavies or assaults) on a pure pug team.every single time without fail.

I mean,don't get me wrong,everyone has a bad game everyone now and then,I've had more than a few sub 100 damage games myself.But every single game there's at least 3 sub 100 dmg players...how is that even possible?

Pygar, on 23 April 2014 - 02:57 PM, said:

*sigh*

If you never have exposure to better players, how are you ever supposed to become a better player. Would it really be cooler for you to have a "kiddie pool" queue, that leads you to believe you are doing really good at this game, only to sign on for a group game later and get OMGWTFBBQ'd? (That's how I feel sometimes now playing 12v12s or 4vPUGs with inflated ELO...it's a rude awakening fer sure.)

There aren't separate queues because there isn't enough overall population to support that.

I don't know what you consider fair play, but I know if I do very many solo drops in a row I am either going to log out soon, or I am going to log onto teamspeak soon...the lack of teamwork in pure PUG games drives me nuts.

The "PUGstomping" phenomenon was far worse when groups were allowed to be any size.

MWO didn't tell you to join a group, unfortunately...because they really should. I told you to join a group because the game is going to put you on a "team" of 12 players...uhh, might as well learn how to communicate with others and work towards a common goal instead of trying to do everything yourself.

And joining a group is not a hassle.... seriously, you probably just spent more effort trying to argue about this subject than it would have taken for you to put in an app with a guild and get accepted. Quit trying to make joining a guild sound like some kind of Herculean feat that requires a bunch of blood sweat and tears to accomplish.

It's not some herculean feat.I've been in a couple groups actually.BWC and a couple others.
I just prefer not to bother because you spend more time sitting around waiting on people to fiddle with mechs,or take a pee,or smoke a cig...or what the crap ever...than actually playing the game.My time is limited and I don't want to spend it waiting on 3 other people to get their crap together.

[Revorn]

Pugs only vs Pugs only Mode.

[Lykaon]

Roadbeer, on 23 April 2014 - 09:08 AM, said:

Didn't read the book after but the comic was humorous, despite it's slanted view of organized play.

Most syncdropping takes place just because we want to play with our friends, all of them that are online (up to 12) not just 3 of them while we wait for 11 more.

If you could provide a Cliffs Condensed Version of your novella to give those of us at work a chance to comment on your point after the cartoon, that would be awesomesauce.

Short form: Getting friends to play MWo and keep to it is difficult because...

ECM is to potent of a mechanic and is not considered one bit in matchmaker.

Matchmaker still throws complete novices into the equivilent of the shark tank with highly skill opposition with optimized mech loadouts.

4 player premades are to good even though they are a perameter of the matchmaker (and will be even more regulated in the future)

Sync drops are unfair (will not happen with new matchmaker rule set)

And it's all the fault of certain players who play in teams and use optimized mech designs because they destroy the fun of playing.

That is the jist of the wall of text.

[Lykaon]

Now here are my 2 cents...

Matchmaker is wonky and always has been.I always experience streakish behavior in the matchmaker.I will be on the winning side for many games in a row and then end up with the most amuzingly inept team mates and have an even longer losing streak.

So I agree matchmaker is not doing it's job correctly.I as a closed beta player having had the time to learn the game and play literally thousands of matches should not see an opposing force including any players with under 20 hours of play time.


Weapons are far from performing as equals in the mechanics department.There is a clear advantage mechanicly so players are taking advantage of this disparity in game mechanics.This can cause a miss match since the matchmaker does not tally up how many mechs per side are using the optimal damage mechanics.

ECM is another issue due to potent ECM mechanics ECM is a game changer with telling influence on a game's outcome yet match maker does not tally ECM per side or make any attempt to balance mech configurations ( I have seen matches with one side having 3 ECM and the other side having 4 LRM carriers)

The primary cause for the landslide wins 12-0 stomps people are always referencing is the game play it's self.The focus of a match is the destruction of the enemy team even when the mission perameters are other wise.Play and assault and it's won by elliminating the enemy,play a conquest and it's ussually won by elliminating the enemy,Skirmish was yet another bone thrown to the solo set and ironicly it showcases the flaw in game mechanics,objectives are secondary to kills and this is done with tiny maps with static objectives.

If winning was not so heavily biased upon destroying all the enemy then maybe some of the players will be contributing to a victory condition other than shooting the enemy team.Players complained about base caps in assault,but this is exactally the sort of mechanics we need to pull focus away from a deathball of mechs mashing against another deathball of mechs and whoever tips the scale first wins and ussually by a sizeable margin (12-2).Instead of nearly elliminating the impact of a single mech on an assault match (longer timers and turrets) we should have been focusing on a more elaberate mechanic than rush a base and stand in the square.Now there is little hope for a team that has reached it's critical loss number to win a stand up fight pretty much the only outcome is a 12-2 loss.

As for the OP's general anti team leaning (I assume by the tone of the body of text claiming 4 mans are all fun slaughtering souless robots out to ruin his game).There is a failing in this game to include teams in a team oriented game and that is not only a comicly bad design but negligent design.There are no effective tools for the forming of groups for "casual" players who are not already a part of a larger unit with it's own VOIP server.Due to human nature this creates a situation where players with more investment in playing have sought out units to join and are more successful than "casuals" who log on and press launch.If there were some per and post match lobbies and intergrated VOIP (with proper troll handling utility) "casuals" would have access to the same level of organization as "premades" .If they choose not to use these tools it's on them,if spending an extra 2-5 minutes on group composition is to complex then their expectations should match their level of preparedness.

[Daekar]

I have to say that anybody having trouble with stomps should try Conquest. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a team (mine or someone else's) almost completely stomp through the match and still lose on caps. I haven't played anything but Conquest in months, and if they took it out I would quit that day, because it is the only mode in which tactical objectives are even a possible element. Yes, you still have deathballs sometimes, but if the other team plays their cards right, especially on larger maps, they actually lose! I just wish they would move the cap points in Alpine further apart - most of the map is unused because they're so damn close together. Never understood why they changed them.

[anonymous161]

Basically the player base is getting a bit smaller, when you continue to see players you played with before thats a big problem.

It's probably also why they refuse to put a player count, and why so few are even viewing this topic.

[Primez]

Personally I never had a problem going vs premades and neither did my friends. What killed the game for my friends was the amount of cbills they acquire. They were never around before the 8v8 nerf and they also weren't around before that when the cbill earnings were at an all time high.

Out of the people I introduced the 1st one just found the gameplay lacking with no real depth and found the UI 1.0 confusing and cbills earning made for too much of a grind to become competitive.

The 2nd one thought the earnings were fine until he lost his cadet bonus and was shocked. He calculated that he would need to play 4-5 hours a night just to remain competitive to purchase a few mechs and that the time between earning cbills and acquiring a new mech and kitting it out would take too long.

The 3rd while enjoying the game didn't want to grind out DHS, engines, endo etc etc etc.

All of my friends I've introduced complained about the earnings and the amount of time it takes to become competitive viable per each mech.

[Malleus011]

An anecdote supporting the OP's topic.

When I first started playing MWO, I naturally pulled in all my old college friends who I'm still in touch with. Back in school, we had a big Battletech group. TT fights, Mechwarrior, the various PC game titles. Of ten guys, eight were Battletech/Mechwarrior RPG/Mechwarrior PC veterans. (one already a Founder, who informed the rest of us) One had never heard of Battletech before. The last was 12, the son of one of the veteran players.

Everybody saw the artwork and the gameplay videos and got excited. Naturally everyone installed the game and started playing.

Within two weeks, everybody quit but me. Including the Founder.

I asked about the reasons. These are veteran players who know the property, from 3025 to 3058; Inner Sphere and Clans.

"I kept getting killed before I could learn anything."
"I got to drive an Awesome - except it sucked."
"On some enemy 'mechs my radar doesn't work and I don't know why."
"I can't seem to hit anything with LRMs."
"Mechs overheat way too fast."
"There are way too many assaults and impossible-to-kill lights."
"I turn a corner and I'm dead."
"It's just not Battletech."
"It's boring."
"It's too frustrating."
"It's no fun."

Most quit before finishing their Cadet bonus. None made more than 50 drops. These guys were the target audience for the game. They know the IP, they are avid computer gamers, they have money to spend. They abandoned MWO swiftly and decisively and have no interest in coming back.

MWO desperately needs something - anything - to make the experience of the game palatable to new players. They probably lost 5-8 Phoenix Packages in that two weeks, to say nothing of later sales.

Opinions on pre-made groups, heat, convergence, meta, and the like may vary, but from what I've seen, the game as delivered simply isn't appealing to what should be a core demographic of gamers that should *love* it.

Frustrating.

[Pygar]

Yeah, PGI could have done some things to make team play a little more natural in the game....I think they just assumed that people would play as teams...

.... the assumption that people who play 4vPUGs have wildly unfair advantages in every way has got to go though- a lot of the guys I group with are not really high tier ELO (and niether am I) most of our mech builds are the same as everybody elses (Heck, I just spent the last month flying BlackJacks, Wolverines or a Jager-A with 2 LRM15s for it's main armament.) And we lose matches just like anybody else does. It's the ability to communicate on voice coms and move and shoot as a unit that provides all of the advantages over people who don't.

[Triordinant]

Pygar, on 23 April 2014 - 11:25 AM, said:

Because there are times of the day when online traffic dips down enough that there aren't enough players for multiple queues.

That's because PUG-stomping premades chased away a lot of PUG players who got sick and tired of being curb-stomped again and again. What you're saying is now the population just the right size to be a private game reserve where premades can hunt PUGs and get a new supply of prey every month of people wanting to try it out, but it's too small to have separate queues to protect the PUGs. Yeah, I can see that...

[Roland]

Triordinant, on 23 April 2014 - 06:10 PM, said:

That's because PUG-stomping premades chased away a lot of PUG players who got sick and tired of being curb-stomped again and again. What you're saying is now the population just the right size to be a private game reserve where premades can hunt PUGs and get a new supply of prey every month of people wanting to try it out, but it's too small to have separate queues to protect the PUGs. Yeah, I can see that...

What is really sad is that in a misguided attempt to save the pugs, they limited teams to only 4 players.

So they decimated the organized teams, and lost those players, while simultaneously failing to stop the pugs from feeling like they were getting beat up by organized groups.


They could have done what other games do, and instead had a solo queue and an unrestricted queue, and kept many more happy players.

[Triordinant]

Roland, on 23 April 2014 - 06:14 PM, said:

What is really sad is that in a misguided attempt to save the pugs, they limited teams to only 4 players.

So they decimated the organized teams, and lost those players, while simultaneously failing to stop the pugs from feeling like they were getting beat up by organized groups.


They could have done what other games do, and instead had a solo queue and an unrestricted queue, and kept many more happy players.

From your description, it sounds like instead of helping either the PUGs or the premades, they ended up screwing both.

[xMEPHISTOx]

Quote

Why Cant I Get Anyone To Play Mwo For Long

Edited by xMEPHISTOx, 23 April 2014 - 06:44 PM.

[Davers]

Primez, on 23 April 2014 - 05:33 PM, said:

Personally I never had a problem going vs premades and neither did my friends. What killed the game for my friends was the amount of cbills they acquire. They were never around before the 8v8 nerf and they also weren't around before that when the cbill earnings were at an all time high.

Out of the people I introduced the 1st one just found the gameplay lacking with no real depth and found the UI 1.0 confusing and cbills earning made for too much of a grind to become competitive.

The 2nd one thought the earnings were fine until he lost his cadet bonus and was shocked. He calculated that he would need to play 4-5 hours a night just to remain competitive to purchase a few mechs and that the time between earning cbills and acquiring a new mech and kitting it out would take too long.

The 3rd while enjoying the game didn't want to grind out DHS, engines, endo etc etc etc.

All of my friends I've introduced complained about the earnings and the amount of time it takes to become competitive viable per each mech.

Guess your friends are not familiar with the Free to Play model.

[MischiefSC]

So suppose there are 2x as many people who could/would drop in premades as who actually do. It'd be 28% of the population, so you'd take 4x as long to fill matches in the premade queue.

Then you run into problem two - tryhards vs everyone else. The real, sincere problem with splitting the queue this way is exactly the issue OP described - the tryhards end up only having each other to play with and while I hear a lot of 'I love a challenge' I don't see it play out in any game, ever.

So you'll start with the 'unrestricted queue' having a generous estimate of 28% of the existing player base - who will then find that the game is suddenly go top meta or stay home, every match all the time, and the drain of the non-tryhards from the premade queue to the pug queue will start, which is self-perpetuating.

So the unrestricted queue ends up like the current 12mans queue and you've got people trying to find ways to syncdrop in the pug queue and with some new excuse for why the unrestricted queue is faulty because REASONS and so they absolutely have no choice but to sync-drop in the pug queue if they want to play.

I'm all for it. I'd love to see the premade queue separate from the pug queue. In theory that's what a 'faction' queue would be like; we'll see.

Maybe the changes coming in next week will help. We'll see. While you'll never see anyone admit it, the real issue is that while everyone enjoys winning, some people (a significant group of people) would really prefer to play against people against whom they have a significant advantage. They justify it a lot of ways but end of the day they want to play with an edge. Teamwork is a common one, modified clients, all the people who play with graphics turned way down so they can see further (cuz, yeah, the games way better with 90s quality graphics - or, you prefer winning to any other aspect of the game experience, in which case you truly are who the OP is talking about).

It's not about 'groups of veterans'. It's about a specific group of people who are drawn to groups because of the advantage it gives and not for the fun of socialization in gaming. They don't want a challenge, they want an easy win. One huge opportunity for improving the game is in things like a split queue and approaching the game from the perspective of splitting that group out from the rest of the player base and keeping them out. Let them play; let anyone and everyone who wants to play in groups play in groups of whatever size they want. Just realize that some players, a significant slice, are absolutely toxic to the rest of the games population and need isolated in every way possible. They want to play against newbies, they make alt accounts to keep cycling through lower Elo ('It's so I can get the cadet bonus to get more mechs... well, yes, I have 200 million cbills stockpiled but I'm saving those. Why yes, yes I sync drop with my friends with us all in alt accounts. It's... uh, training. So we don't mess up our regular Elo, or some such bullshit') and otherwise look for means to exploit opportunities to get around matchmaking efforts to keep them among relatively comparably skilled players.

They're toxic and need treated like toxic material. It's not just in gaming but most businesses have this sliver of the business in some form or fashion. The stupid thing to do is to say 'we still want their money'. No you don't. They are incapable of paying enough to make up for what they cost in lost opportunity gains. Isolate them, let them whither and fade. People who enjoy playing in teams for the sake of teams, enjoy a challenge and are just out to have fun and don't care if they're getting matched against equal Elo players will stay. They're worth the effort and the investment. Don't throw them out with the bathwater so to speak....

but isolate the toxic behavior folks. They're worse than dead weight, they're poison in the well. They'll sicken everyone who drinks from it in one direction or the other.

[Bhael Fire]

I'll just leave this here:

Bhael Fire, on 17 April 2014 - 12:32 AM, said:

This is the how the queues should be structured:


SOLO ONLY

• Only solo players
  
• No groups

GROUPS + SOLO

• Groups with 2-12 players and Solo players that have opted-in*
  
• MM tries to match groups 1:1 starting with the largest groups first
  
• Then tries to find 1-2 equal or smaller groups to fill in any gaps (if any)
  
• Any leftover spots are filled with 1-2 solo players per team
  
• Max of 3 groups per team
  
• 1-2 solo players maximum per team (to minimize PUG stomps)**

* Solo players that have opted-in for group+solo would drop in the solo queue most of the time but would be on stand-by and used for filler when the MM needed to fill in any odd gaps in the groups+solo queue.

** This number can be tweaked based on actual tests.

[Pygar]

Gee, after thinking about this more...you guys are right, everything is a hopeless disaster and it's everybody else's fault but YOURS.

And now that I have shared that epiphany with the rest of you...I'm going to log into MW:O and blow some stuff up....in 4vPUG matches, because not only does it help me win, it also pisses people off while I'm at it, and makes failhards ragequit apparently.

Edited by Pygar, 23 April 2014 - 07:43 PM.

[Nyte Kitsune]

Gas Guzzler, on 23 April 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

Aaaand I went up against a team of 8 Atlases and some other stuff with a team with 0 atlases, and in general way undertonned (can't remember individual mechs) and we rolled them. That kind of thing doesn't really matter, 3/3/3/3 is not going to prevent steamrolls. Sorry. Teamwork and skill, but mostly teamwork is most important.

True, Good teamwork can help a bad situation go well. I was in a team earlier that "Should" have steamrolled another team (We had 4 DC Atlases, I was in one of them) We were killed off as a pair of Stalkers used group fire to down us one at a time, though we still won, thanks to a flanking action on the Stalkers, we came back from a near loss due to the rest of the rest of the team using tactics to turn the battle back in our favor. And before you ask, Yes, all of our Atlases were killed, but we did soften up those Stalkers (I "Dis-Armed" one literally, but he still got me). Served them right for focusing on the Atlases and forgetting about the rest of our team..lol.

[Jun Watarase]

I see most people didnt read my posts in the thread (not surprising).

The problem isnt soley premades vs pugs, its that the pugs are quite often random newbies in fodder mechs.

If i drop into a game and i see that oh surprise surprise, on the enemy team are people known to always drop in 4 man meta teams....and my team has what, 5 or 6 trial mechs, plus mechs like cents or quickdraws....

I dont need a crystal ball to see that it ends in 12-0 with the 4 man meta team taking on most of my team by themselves.

If you guys bother to spectate, you can see that in the very same match as vets running meta builds, you can see newbies in fodder mechs all the time. Like i said, there is no reason why a trial HBK-4P should be in the same match as vets, trying to snipe with med lasers at 800m.

At this point i hope nobody still believes that premades are a myth when some players are very well known to only drop in meta builds and stomp newbies, you know the ones in 4 man poptarts with PPCs/AC5s....cancer killing MWO.

And PGI's statistics are complete nonsense, i did a experiment months ago where i recorded games, 10 games a day for a week, mass majority were curb stomp losses due to terribly uneven teams. Almost all the wins were curb stomps because the enemy team was a bunch of newbies.

Edited by Jun Watarase, 23 April 2014 - 07:57 PM.