191 replies to this topic

[Majorfatboy]

Oh great, it's this thread again.

Look, this OMG you gais! why aren't you in a group, it's the best thing EVAR thing has been beaten to death. I'm genuinely happy for you that you found a large group of people to play the game with, people you jell with and enjoy the company of, but you HAVE to get it through your heads that your experiences are not going to apply to the entire rest of the world.

Check it:

Reason 1: I hate online gaming. I could type several paragraphs on the subject, I wouldn't mind doing a video on My hatred of online gaming, but long rant short, I hate online-only games. Why am I here? Because PGI wussballed-out, took the easy route, and made an online-only game, instead of a single player game with instant action, a campaign, a story, Etc.
I'm a mechwarrior nut. It was a big part of My childhood. I'm not here to "be part of the community" I'm here because single player mech games don't exist anymore. I have to be here.

Reason 2: I have yet to find a group that I truly fit in with.
You say there's a group for everyone. Not so. I consider Myself a casual player. My definition of "casual" is not being interested in scheduled practice, holding some stupid fantasy rank, being talked down to, "training" to be the best, slapping My epeen on the table, or being another rank and file.
In the real world, I do have to where a uniform (Of sorts), keep to a schedule, keep My eyes down and mouth shut, follow orders, and have a rank (Of sorts). I'll be damned if I'm going to be put through the same thing in a video game. No. Here, I'm Major Fatboy, scratch that, I'm Major ******* Fatboy, and My life is My own.

Was in a serious team in CB.
I loved rushing home from work to make practice on time every day, skipping meals and showers when needed. I was there for every major fight. I followed every order, even the ones I knew would fail. I loved being forced to alter My mech's loadout outside of what I needed for it. I loved being forced into rolls I didn't volunteer to fill, because the field commander didn't know His ass from a hole in the ground. I loved having a commander who was a narrow minded cheeseaholic who only used what the other guy used. I really loved the commander fast tracking his buddy into the competitive team, with the plan of kicking Me out of the lineup, but not telling Me until the final big match was about to start, leaving Me out of the official video that was going to be on the front page of the god damned website. I loved how His buddy got headshot and contributed nothing to the match. You want to know the difference between Me and His buddy? I carried one gauss rifle and four medium lasers, His bud carried two gauss rifles.
I loved winning matches in the name of the corp, and spending hours reviewing applications, only to be talked down to and treated like shit By the team owners, who didn't actually play the game! They just created the name and internal website.
Gee, doesn't that sound like fun?

Unfortunately, I don't fit in with the casual groups either. I've tried out a few teams, and as it turns out, "Casual" in mechwarrior means "Get stoned as ****, throw every match, make no attempt to win, and take twenty ******* minutes to launch a 4-man because no one has their shit together". I'm not a serious player, but I do play to win. I could spend several paragraphs detailing the horror stories I've been part of. Oh! And let's not forget the joy of hearing these potheaded screw ups on comms! What joy! I'm a drinker, I like to have a whiskey or five when I play, but I guarantee Me and other drinkers play better drunk then any stoner out there. (Did I mention I hate stoners?)

I love being in a group that drop into a match with three assaults and My heavy. The separate from the group, get pinned by opfor's lrms, complain about it, and I notice none of them carry ams. So here I am, in a mech that does 96 kph, with twin ams. I can break out of cover and make it back to the main force, or stay and die, because they're My team..... I stay and die.

I love dropping into a match, and the "Commander" has a brilliant plan. One that involves.... You guessed it! Leaving the main force, separating ourselves, letting the rest of the group die, We get surrounded by the opfor. I have the speed. I have the counter measures. I have the mighty power of FAT within Me. I stay, and die..... With the team.

I love Dropping into alpine peaks conquest, In a max-engined Trebuchet, with My teammates in a jenner and a raven. We've got this. Then Captain Ganja insists on staying at one spot.
Me: Okay, We've got this cap, let's grab the next one, this spot's getting over run.
Cptn Ganja: Dude! there's a stalker! let's get him!
Me: Um, their entire team is over there, and they just inst-wiped three of our guys, let's-
Cptn Ganja: C'mon man! stay and fight! I'm too ******* stoned to give a shit right now! LOL!
Me: Okay.... fightpewpew, fight pewpew, SECOND STALKER! BRAVO! SECOND STALKER BRAVO IS BEHIND US!!!!
Cptn Ganja: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL Me: THIS POSITION IS BEING OVER RUN, WE'RE ALL THAT'S LEFT, BREAK OFF NOW!
Cptn Ganja: Oh yeah, I guess-
THE OPFOR HAS DESTROYED CPTN GANJADOUCHE THE OPFOR HAS DESTROYED YOUROTHERTEAMMATE, BRO...... I die shortly after abandoning the team, When the opfor decided to drop an arty on Me when I stopped to take a shot at them. Cptn Ganja laughs His ass off.

I love dropping into a match, having cptn Ganja fail again, complain about lag, intentionally parks his mech behind a hill, and discon.

So here I am. I've been through three teams now. One serious team back in CB, and two slacker teams since. I don't take the game seriously enough to play with the tryhards, and I can't stand the "LOL, I am teh super e77t locust pilot! lolololololoolo -pass the bong" crowd.

Now let's take a look at the last two days of pure solo play for Me:
I drop into Caustic valley in My Trebuchet 5J "Derpychet". Five jumpjets, XL 325 engine, An ER large laser on each arm, each with it's own weapon group, three medium lasers, also on their own group. Full armor, two derple heatsinks. I've got German EDM thundering in My ears, a beer by My side, and the mighty power of FAT within Me. I. Shall. Pester. The. Shit. Out. Of. The. Opfor.
I take off like a madman at 116 kph. Slapping the space bar like the ***** owes Me money, I vault into the air like a spring loaded crackpot. I sight most of the opfor. I poke a stalker with one ERLL, a Victor with the other ERLL, and spook some light with the three ML's. I hit the dirt, pull a 180, build power, and go airborne again. This time I whale on the [R] key, letting My puggtastic teammates know what the 411 is. They shift position, hungry for meat. I bounce up on My jets, facepoking a jager. The opfor's pissed at Me now, focusing Me. To bad for them, as they forgot about My pugmates crawling up the hill, their AC20's throbbing with anticipation. A few new wrecks decorate the field, formally the opfor. My Armor's getting chipped at. The industrial might of Funker Vogt courses out of My headphones, into My brain, out My fingers, and onto the keyboard and mouse. I'm airborne again. While up above My foes, I see a flank on the 3 line. I hastily type out left! in team chat. The pugmeisters turn, and faceviolate the flankers. An opposing spider gets on the rear ct of a friendly atlas. I punch the throttle, spank the jumpjets, and come down behind that light like a fat kid in a pizza. A few minutes of messy knife-fighting and counter flanking ensues. We win the match, 12-4, with Me in the top quarter of the scoreboard. I sit back, take a deep breath, sip My beer, and take joy in knowing I was a big part of that win. The techs are going to shit their overalls when I bring Derpy in for repairs after this one.Then I log off and watch Adventure time for a bit, take a piss, doodle ponies and skulls n' stuff in a notepad, then log in for just one more round.

You ask: Why aren't you in a group?
I ask: Why don't you enjoy being punched in the nards?

So, until there's a team that hates dope, loves whiskey, likes to win but doesn't give two shits about being a "lord", likes cartoons, and knows better then to walk 100 meters from spawn and camp behind a building, waiting for the opfor to come by and reenact "Deliverance" on their rear cts, I shall remain solo.

Now, if you'll excuse Me, a c64-themed song By Noisuf-X called "Fire" just came on the music stream, And I can't type and flail at the same time.

[Odins Fist]

Majorfatboy, on 01 May 2014 - 01:38 PM, said:

Oh great, it's this thread again.

Look, this OMG you gais! why aren't you in a group, it's the best thing EVAR thing has been beaten to death. I'm genuinely happy for you that you found a large group of people to play the game with, people you jell with and enjoy the company of, but you HAVE to get it through your heads that your experiences are not going to apply to the entire rest of the world.

Check it:

Reason 1: I hate online gaming. I could type several paragraphs on the subject, I wouldn't mind doing a video on My hatred of online gaming, but long rant short, I hate online-only games. Why am I here? Because PGI wussballed-out, took the easy route, and made an online-only game, instead of a single player game with instant action, a campaign, a story, Etc.
I'm a mechwarrior nut. It was a big part of My childhood. I'm not here to "be part of the community" I'm here because single player mech games don't exist anymore. I have to be here.

Reason 2: I have yet to find a group that I truly fit in with.
You say there's a group for everyone. Not so. I consider Myself a casual player. My definition of "casual" is not being interested in scheduled practice, holding some stupid fantasy rank, being talked down to, "training" to be the best, slapping My epeen on the table, or being another rank and file.
In the real world, I do have to where a uniform (Of sorts), keep to a schedule, keep My eyes down and mouth shut, follow orders, and have a rank (Of sorts). I'll be damned if I'm going to be put through the same thing in a video game. No. Here, I'm Major Fatboy, scratch that, I'm Major ******* Fatboy, and My life is My own.

Was in a serious team in CB.
I loved rushing home from work to make practice on time every day, skipping meals and showers when needed. I was there for every major fight. I followed every order, even the ones I knew would fail. I loved being forced to alter My mech's loadout outside of what I needed for it. I loved being forced into rolls I didn't volunteer to fill, because the field commander didn't know His ass from a hole in the ground. I loved having a commander who was a narrow minded cheeseaholic who only used what the other guy used. I really loved the commander fast tracking his buddy into the competitive team, with the plan of kicking Me out of the lineup, but not telling Me until the final big match was about to start, leaving Me out of the official video that was going to be on the front page of the god damned website. I loved how His buddy got headshot and contributed nothing to the match. You want to know the difference between Me and His buddy? I carried one gauss rifle and four medium lasers, His bud carried two gauss rifles.
I loved winning matches in the name of the corp, and spending hours reviewing applications, only to be talked down to and treated like shit By the team owners, who didn't actually play the game! They just created the name and internal website.
Gee, doesn't that sound like fun?

Unfortunately, I don't fit in with the casual groups either. I've tried out a few teams, and as it turns out, "Casual" in mechwarrior means "Get stoned as ****, throw every match, make no attempt to win, and take twenty ******* minutes to launch a 4-man because no one has their shit together". I'm not a serious player, but I do play to win. I could spend several paragraphs detailing the horror stories I've been part of. Oh! And let's not forget the joy of hearing these potheaded screw ups on comms! What joy! I'm a drinker, I like to have a whiskey or five when I play, but I guarantee Me and other drinkers play better drunk then any stoner out there. (Did I mention I hate stoners?)

I love being in a group that drop into a match with three assaults and My heavy. The separate from the group, get pinned by opfor's lrms, complain about it, and I notice none of them carry ams. So here I am, in a mech that does 96 kph, with twin ams. I can break out of cover and make it back to the main force, or stay and die, because they're My team..... I stay and die.

I love dropping into a match, and the "Commander" has a brilliant plan. One that involves.... You guessed it! Leaving the main force, separating ourselves, letting the rest of the group die, We get surrounded by the opfor. I have the speed. I have the counter measures. I have the mighty power of FAT within Me. I stay, and die..... With the team.

I love Dropping into alpine peaks conquest, In a max-engined Trebuchet, with My teammates in a jenner and a raven. We've got this. Then Captain Ganja insists on staying at one spot.
Me: Okay, We've got this cap, let's grab the next one, this spot's getting over run.
Cptn Ganja: Dude! there's a stalker! let's get him!
Me: Um, their entire team is over there, and they just inst-wiped three of our guys, let's-
Cptn Ganja: C'mon man! stay and fight! I'm too ******* stoned to give a shit right now! LOL!
Me: Okay.... fightpewpew, fight pewpew, SECOND STALKER! BRAVO! SECOND STALKER BRAVO IS BEHIND US!!!!
Cptn Ganja: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL Me: THIS POSITION IS BEING OVER RUN, WE'RE ALL THAT'S LEFT, BREAK OFF NOW!
Cptn Ganja: Oh yeah, I guess-
THE OPFOR HAS DESTROYED CPTN GANJADOUCHE THE OPFOR HAS DESTROYED YOUROTHERTEAMMATE, BRO...... I die shortly after abandoning the team, When the opfor decided to drop an arty on Me when I stopped to take a shot at them. Cptn Ganja laughs His ass off.

I love dropping into a match, having cptn Ganja fail again, complain about lag, intentionally parks his mech behind a hill, and discon.

So here I am. I've been through three teams now. One serious team back in CB, and two slacker teams since. I don't take the game seriously enough to play with the tryhards, and I can't stand the "LOL, I am teh super e77t locust pilot! lolololololoolo -pass the bong" crowd.

Now let's take a look at the last two days of pure solo play for Me:
I drop into Caustic valley in My Trebuchet 5J "Derpychet". Five jumpjets, XL 325 engine, An ER large laser on each arm, each with it's own weapon group, three medium lasers, also on their own group. Full armor, two derple heatsinks. I've got German EDM thundering in My ears, a beer by My side, and the mighty power of FAT within Me. I. Shall. Pester. The. Shit. Out. Of. The. Opfor.
I take off like a madman at 116 kph. Slapping the space bar like the ***** owes Me money, I vault into the air like a spring loaded crackpot. I sight most of the opfor. I poke a stalker with one ERLL, a Victor with the other ERLL, and spook some light with the three ML's. I hit the dirt, pull a 180, build power, and go airborne again. This time I whale on the [R] key, letting My puggtastic teammates know what the 411 is. They shift position, hungry for meat. I bounce up on My jets, facepoking a jager. The opfor's pissed at Me now, focusing Me. To bad for them, as they forgot about My pugmates crawling up the hill, their AC20's throbbing with anticipation. A few new wrecks decorate the field, formally the opfor. My Armor's getting chipped at. The industrial might of Funker Vogt courses out of My headphones, into My brain, out My fingers, and onto the keyboard and mouse. I'm airborne again. While up above My foes, I see a flank on the 3 line. I hastily type out left! in team chat. The pugmeisters turn, and faceviolate the flankers. An opposing spider gets on the rear ct of a friendly atlas. I punch the throttle, spank the jumpjets, and come down behind that light like a fat kid in a pizza. A few minutes of messy knife-fighting and counter flanking ensues. We win the match, 12-4, with Me in the top quarter of the scoreboard. I sit back, take a deep breath, sip My beer, and take joy in knowing I was a big part of that win. The techs are going to shit their overalls when I bring Derpy in for repairs after this one.Then I log off and watch Adventure time for a bit, take a piss, doodle ponies and skulls n' stuff in a notepad, then log in for just one more round.

You ask: Why aren't you in a group?
I ask: Why don't you enjoy being punched in the nards?

So, until there's a team that hates dope, loves whiskey, likes to win but doesn't give two shits about being a "lord", likes cartoons, and knows better then to walk 100 meters from spawn and camp behind a building, waiting for the opfor to come by and reenact "Deliverance" on their rear cts, I shall remain solo.

Now, if you'll excuse Me, a c64-themed song By Noisuf-X called "Fire" just came on the music stream, And I can't type and flail at the same time.

Fantastic Post... I mean it.

"I loved being forced into rolls I didn't volunteer to fill, because the field commander didn't know His ass from a hole in the ground. "

That statement couldn't be more accurate of some units..

Edited by Odins Fist, 01 May 2014 - 02:13 PM.

[aniviron]

Veranova, on 29 April 2014 - 09:00 AM, said:

I've been seeing a lot of posts recently from pure Pug players who are resistant to joining a team/unit, and complain about pre-mades?
Why is this?
Do you think that joining a team means you have to compete, run meta, not have fun?

There are groups of players out there for every flavour of play-style.
Casual units who play for fun, House/Clan units who love the lore and play under a banner, Competitive teams who play to win and compete, there are open servers that you can drop in to irregularly (Comstar).

I don't understand the resistance, when there literally is a group of players for EVERYONE out there.
This is a game where whoever works together, wins. It's designed to be a team game.
Hell if more people joined teams/groups then there would be no 5-11 man moaning, because every group would have more than 5 players on their roster.

Anyway, I'm genuinely interested to hear the actual reasoning. Because I haven't seen it at-all.
Just instinctive resistance to joining groups of players.


Edit: I've re-phrased some of the "team" to "unit"
I wrote this really quickly earlier, and the word was lost on me at the time! Fixed

I've been around since closed beta, put an ungodly number of hours into this game, and have a strong history of playing video games in a competitive setting with a set of close-knit teammates. I often find myself getting disenchanted with the game and leaving for months at a time, but I always come back (call it Stockholm syndrome). I don't know my Elo, but I know I'm at least above average. Seems like I should be perfect for a competitive team, or at least a casual unit that enjoys playing well, right?

Well, there are a few reasons I just can't bring myself to join a corp or clan or house. The first big thing is that the game just simply isn't good enough to warrant it. It's one thing to join a group in Starcraft or Unreal Tournament or Counter Strike, as those games all have excellent game balance and a thriving competitive scene. In MWO you grab a dozen of whatever the flavour of the month is (or in this case, the flavour of the year- fun meta!!) and spend a day or two waiting in the queue hoping there's at least 12 other people stupid enough to take this game seriously. There's no depth, no balance, nothing that makes this game worth playing competitively, and the honestly shameful player counts for competitive teams reflect this. That game we heard about two years ago, with information warfare, scouting, roles for different mechs to fill, and objective-based gameplay? I want to play that game. Right now we have sniper-arena deathmatch.

Related to the game being not good enough for comp play, every single friend I've had who I introduced to this game, without exception, has quit it within a week. It's pretty common that groups of friends I have made in other games will also want to play new games with me. So, I introduce them to MWO. Tell them we can play together, it's free to start playing, say it might be good. Almost without exception, they quit after the cbill bonus dries up, or after getting killed in one to two hits by PPC + AC when I am forced to explain to them that this is just how the metagame is, and has been for a year. Most of these guys have fond memories of Mechwarrior as kids, which is how I can get them playing at all. But once they start playing, the awful balancing between weapons and weight classes combined with the abysmal grind of the Paulconomy is more than enough to push them away. I might have started a small unit with people I knew and liked, but they've all found the game to be so lacking that I can't.

Then there's the fact that I have actually tried for a few teams. I played with some Clan Wolverine guys, and a Ghost Bear star a few times, but never really got into it all that much. Everyone I dropped with was good company and good fun, but I found that playing with them made me see the game more as an obligation or chore than something I can do for a few matches every now and then when I just want to unwind and make future space robots go boom. I have a number of real-life friends in the 228th and a few other units, and I do play a lot of games with them- in the last six months I've probably logged over a hundred hours in their teamspeak. Unfortunately, all those hours have been in Counterstrike.

Finally, I'd be remiss without mentioning community warfare, or its absence. Since sometime around February 2013, I've been eager to join a unit- after all, CW was coming in just another month! This would be great! With CW in the game, even if it was just an arena deathmatch shooter, there would at least be a broader goal to fight for, with planetary conquest and so on. It sounded like a lot of fun, and I knew that I'd want to be joined up with a group so I could get the most out of this experience. But information was lacking; at heart, I'm a Clanner, and there was no word on if joining a Steiner-affiliated unit now would prevent me from fighting for Clan Ghost Bear when CW came out. There was no word on if this would limit my mech selection, or if it would even matter at all. So I waited. Every month that news failed to come out (or the news that came out was that CW was delayed but seriously coming in 90 days this time we promise) about CW my expectations diminished, and my search for a unit lost steam. And here I am, over 14 months later, and any excitement about CW that I felt has completely dried up, and my desire to join a unit to participate in it is gone. I'm sure that when CW finally comes out, it will be every bit as game-changing as the launch module was this last week, so why should I bother?

[Odins Fist]

aniviron, on 01 May 2014 - 02:50 PM, said:

I'd be remiss without mentioning community warfare, or its absence.

Bingo..!!!
I've seen entire Units fold up like cheap napkins over this, or split up, or just come back every patch to read the notes.

Want to join a team..?? What's the motivation..?? Fun times with friends sure, but no CW.

[Jun Watarase]

Quote

This is a game where whoever works together, wins. It's designed to be a team game.

Not exactly. That assumes the game is fairly well balanced and no other factors affect the chance to win.

Chess is often referred to as a fairly well balanced game, the only advantage being that white gets to move first.

Now imagine chess except that one player shows up with nothing but queens and the other shows up with the usual array of pawns, bishops, etc. Thats kind of what MWO is like.

Is teamwork an advantage? Of course, but you dont need to be in a premade team to use teamwork. The only requirements for teamwork are some form of communication and non-******** people. THe latter is the hard part. I cant figure out why an Atlas and Catapault would simply start running away when their teammates are taking fire literally 50 meters away...

Ive dropped in 4 mans before, back when max match size was 8 players. 9 out of 10 games was like a grown man beating up a five year old. 10% of the time, the matchmaker would put us against another group who wasnt ******** and things would get exciting. But that was only 10% of the time. We made no attempts to communicate other than "lets go here". We did not tell each other to focus fire. We did not drop in meta builds. We did not synchronize our lance setup or stack ECM or drop in 4x Atlas builds. We didnt even tell each other what mechs or weapons we wanted to bring. And we still won with no effort almost everytime.

Why? The moment we dropped in a 4 man, we were making half the team up of non-*******. Unless the matchmaker gave our opponents a similar team, they were screwed from the beginning. Most of the time we just stomped trial mechs or people standing around in the open or doing silly things like boating large pulse lasers. We were not even trying. It got boring very quickly.

Meanwhile you drop solo and you see a 4 man in meta builds solo your entire team and then you spectate them to see WTF they are doing and see a trial HBK-4P trying to snipe with medium lasers at 800 meters. Because the matchmaker thought hes really appropriate for a match like this.

One game i was practically the only non-****** in it and had to solo pretty much the entire enemy team. 7 kills, 4 assists, 910 damage. Not a single person spoke english, capped anything, the enemy mostly just let me shoot them without turning around to fire at me, i saw a trial catapault just sit in the spawn firing LRMs into the buildings over and over and a HBK-4P/TDR-5SS tried for two minutes to kill a stock CN9-AL in our spawn with no success. And the entire time i was thinking, why the hell does the matchmaker think its fair for me to be here?

Pre-hotfix i also saw much more teamwork going on in random teams, then the ELO stopped working after the hotfix and we were back to pointless curb stomping, where one team is conveniently made up of no habla ingless and the other has a 8 man sync drop in meta builds.

So yea drop all pretense that you need to be in a team or unit to have any kind of teamwork going. Because that is totally not a requirement. What a premade team lets you do however, is :

-Setup perfect lance setups before hand that randoms cant have, e.g. 4x ecm, 3x LRM boats with 1 ECM spotter with tag/narc, 4x ppc/ac poptarts, etc.

-Put 4 skilled players on one team, while the matchmaker puts 4 players of wildly varying skill levels on the other because it cant find another 4 man team with compatible weight classes

-Increase the amount of meta builds your team has

-Sync drop with 1 or more other 4 man teams with incompatible weight classes to try and get on the same team, and increase your advantage

VOIP or whatever is just icing on the cake. Each of you could take a vow of silence and you would still curb stomp the enemy.

Oh another reason why i hate dropping in groups : It takes so damn long. You have to wait for each person to finish tinkering in mechlab and ready up or for them to exit the match, pick a new mech, and ready up again. It takes way longer than simply hitting play again.

Edited by Jun Watarase, 01 May 2014 - 04:00 PM.

[Gyrok]

Majorfatboy, on 01 May 2014 - 01:38 PM, said:

Oh great, it's this thread again.

Look, this OMG you gais! why aren't you in a group, it's the best thing EVAR thing has been beaten to death. I'm genuinely happy for you that you found a large group of people to play the game with, people you jell with and enjoy the company of, but you HAVE to get it through your heads that your experiences are not going to apply to the entire rest of the world.

Check it:

Reason 1: I hate online gaming. I could type several paragraphs on the subject, I wouldn't mind doing a video on My hatred of online gaming, but long rant short, I hate online-only games. Why am I here? Because PGI wussballed-out, took the easy route, and made an online-only game, instead of a single player game with instant action, a campaign, a story, Etc.
I'm a mechwarrior nut. It was a big part of My childhood. I'm not here to "be part of the community" I'm here because single player mech games don't exist anymore. I have to be here.

Reason 2: I have yet to find a group that I truly fit in with.
You say there's a group for everyone. Not so. I consider Myself a casual player. My definition of "casual" is not being interested in scheduled practice, holding some stupid fantasy rank, being talked down to, "training" to be the best, slapping My epeen on the table, or being another rank and file.
In the real world, I do have to where a uniform (Of sorts), keep to a schedule, keep My eyes down and mouth shut, follow orders, and have a rank (Of sorts). I'll be damned if I'm going to be put through the same thing in a video game. No. Here, I'm Major Fatboy, scratch that, I'm Major ******* Fatboy, and My life is My own.

Was in a serious team in CB.
I loved rushing home from work to make practice on time every day, skipping meals and showers when needed. I was there for every major fight. I followed every order, even the ones I knew would fail. I loved being forced to alter My mech's loadout outside of what I needed for it. I loved being forced into rolls I didn't volunteer to fill, because the field commander didn't know His ass from a hole in the ground. I loved having a commander who was a narrow minded cheeseaholic who only used what the other guy used. I really loved the commander fast tracking his buddy into the competitive team, with the plan of kicking Me out of the lineup, but not telling Me until the final big match was about to start, leaving Me out of the official video that was going to be on the front page of the god damned website. I loved how His buddy got headshot and contributed nothing to the match. You want to know the difference between Me and His buddy? I carried one gauss rifle and four medium lasers, His bud carried two gauss rifles.
I loved winning matches in the name of the corp, and spending hours reviewing applications, only to be talked down to and treated like shit By the team owners, who didn't actually play the game! They just created the name and internal website.
Gee, doesn't that sound like fun?

Unfortunately, I don't fit in with the casual groups either. I've tried out a few teams, and as it turns out, "Casual" in mechwarrior means "Get stoned as ****, throw every match, make no attempt to win, and take twenty ******* minutes to launch a 4-man because no one has their shit together". I'm not a serious player, but I do play to win. I could spend several paragraphs detailing the horror stories I've been part of. Oh! And let's not forget the joy of hearing these potheaded screw ups on comms! What joy! I'm a drinker, I like to have a whiskey or five when I play, but I guarantee Me and other drinkers play better drunk then any stoner out there. (Did I mention I hate stoners?)

I love being in a group that drop into a match with three assaults and My heavy. The separate from the group, get pinned by opfor's lrms, complain about it, and I notice none of them carry ams. So here I am, in a mech that does 96 kph, with twin ams. I can break out of cover and make it back to the main force, or stay and die, because they're My team..... I stay and die.

I love dropping into a match, and the "Commander" has a brilliant plan. One that involves.... You guessed it! Leaving the main force, separating ourselves, letting the rest of the group die, We get surrounded by the opfor. I have the speed. I have the counter measures. I have the mighty power of FAT within Me. I stay, and die..... With the team.

I love Dropping into alpine peaks conquest, In a max-engined Trebuchet, with My teammates in a jenner and a raven. We've got this. Then Captain Ganja insists on staying at one spot.
Me: Okay, We've got this cap, let's grab the next one, this spot's getting over run.
Cptn Ganja: Dude! there's a stalker! let's get him!
Me: Um, their entire team is over there, and they just inst-wiped three of our guys, let's-
Cptn Ganja: C'mon man! stay and fight! I'm too ******* stoned to give a shit right now! LOL!
Me: Okay.... fightpewpew, fight pewpew, SECOND STALKER! BRAVO! SECOND STALKER BRAVO IS BEHIND US!!!!
Cptn Ganja: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL Me: THIS POSITION IS BEING OVER RUN, WE'RE ALL THAT'S LEFT, BREAK OFF NOW!
Cptn Ganja: Oh yeah, I guess-
THE OPFOR HAS DESTROYED CPTN GANJADOUCHE THE OPFOR HAS DESTROYED YOUROTHERTEAMMATE, BRO...... I die shortly after abandoning the team, When the opfor decided to drop an arty on Me when I stopped to take a shot at them. Cptn Ganja laughs His ass off.

I love dropping into a match, having cptn Ganja fail again, complain about lag, intentionally parks his mech behind a hill, and discon.

So here I am. I've been through three teams now. One serious team back in CB, and two slacker teams since. I don't take the game seriously enough to play with the tryhards, and I can't stand the "LOL, I am teh super e77t locust pilot! lolololololoolo -pass the bong" crowd.

Now let's take a look at the last two days of pure solo play for Me:
I drop into Caustic valley in My Trebuchet 5J "Derpychet". Five jumpjets, XL 325 engine, An ER large laser on each arm, each with it's own weapon group, three medium lasers, also on their own group. Full armor, two derple heatsinks. I've got German EDM thundering in My ears, a beer by My side, and the mighty power of FAT within Me. I. Shall. Pester. The. Shit. Out. Of. The. Opfor.
I take off like a madman at 116 kph. Slapping the space bar like the ***** owes Me money, I vault into the air like a spring loaded crackpot. I sight most of the opfor. I poke a stalker with one ERLL, a Victor with the other ERLL, and spook some light with the three ML's. I hit the dirt, pull a 180, build power, and go airborne again. This time I whale on the [R] key, letting My puggtastic teammates know what the 411 is. They shift position, hungry for meat. I bounce up on My jets, facepoking a jager. The opfor's pissed at Me now, focusing Me. To bad for them, as they forgot about My pugmates crawling up the hill, their AC20's throbbing with anticipation. A few new wrecks decorate the field, formally the opfor. My Armor's getting chipped at. The industrial might of Funker Vogt courses out of My headphones, into My brain, out My fingers, and onto the keyboard and mouse. I'm airborne again. While up above My foes, I see a flank on the 3 line. I hastily type out left! in team chat. The pugmeisters turn, and faceviolate the flankers. An opposing spider gets on the rear ct of a friendly atlas. I punch the throttle, spank the jumpjets, and come down behind that light like a fat kid in a pizza. A few minutes of messy knife-fighting and counter flanking ensues. We win the match, 12-4, with Me in the top quarter of the scoreboard. I sit back, take a deep breath, sip My beer, and take joy in knowing I was a big part of that win. The techs are going to shit their overalls when I bring Derpy in for repairs after this one.Then I log off and watch Adventure time for a bit, take a piss, doodle ponies and skulls n' stuff in a notepad, then log in for just one more round.

You ask: Why aren't you in a group?
I ask: Why don't you enjoy being punched in the nards?

So, until there's a team that hates dope, loves whiskey, likes to win but doesn't give two shits about being a "lord", likes cartoons, and knows better then to walk 100 meters from spawn and camp behind a building, waiting for the opfor to come by and reenact "Deliverance" on their rear cts, I shall remain solo.

Now, if you'll excuse Me, a c64-themed song By Noisuf-X called "Fire" just came on the music stream, And I can't type and flail at the same time.

LOL!!!

...

LOL!!!

...

seriously...that might be the funniest thing I have read in a while...

[1453 R]

Majorfatboy, on 01 May 2014 - 01:38 PM, said:

AMEN, BRUTHAH!

Fatboy, if I were a drinking man I'd tip a beer to you. If I weren't, y'know, at work.

As it is, I'm going to tip this bottle of Coke next to me here to you instead and say that you and Derpychet are welcome to come and drop alongside me and Release Lever, my largelaser-focused TBT-5J, any damn time you feel like it.

[Daekar]

I need to build a Derpychet and name it after you for your awesome post.

Besides, why would I join a unit when I can hop on the NA ComStar TS3 and drop in a 4-man practically whenever I want?

[Joseph Mallan]

Jun Watarase, on 01 May 2014 - 03:57 PM, said:

Not exactly. That assumes the game is fairly well balanced and no other factors affect the chance to win.

Chess is often referred to as a fairly well balanced game, the only advantage being that white gets to move first.

Now imagine chess except that one player shows up with nothing but queens and the other shows up with the usual array of pawns, bishops, etc. Thats kind of what MWO is like.

Is teamwork an advantage? Of course, but you dont need to be in a premade team to use teamwork. The only requirements for teamwork are some form of communication and non-******** people. THe latter is the hard part. I cant figure out why an Atlas and Catapault would simply start running away when their teammates are taking fire literally 50 meters away...

Ive dropped in 4 mans before, back when max match size was 8 players. 9 out of 10 games was like a grown man beating up a five year old. 10% of the time, the matchmaker would put us against another group who wasnt ******** and things would get exciting. But that was only 10% of the time. We made no attempts to communicate other than "lets go here". We did not tell each other to focus fire. We did not drop in meta builds. We did not synchronize our lance setup or stack ECM or drop in 4x Atlas builds. We didnt even tell each other what mechs or weapons we wanted to bring. And we still won with no effort almost everytime.

Why? The moment we dropped in a 4 man, we were making half the team up of non-*******. Unless the matchmaker gave our opponents a similar team, they were screwed from the beginning. Most of the time we just stomped trial mechs or people standing around in the open or doing silly things like boating large pulse lasers. We were not even trying. It got boring very quickly.

Meanwhile you drop solo and you see a 4 man in meta builds solo your entire team and then you spectate them to see WTF they are doing and see a trial HBK-4P trying to snipe with medium lasers at 800 meters. Because the matchmaker thought hes really appropriate for a match like this.

One game i was practically the only non-****** in it and had to solo pretty much the entire enemy team. 7 kills, 4 assists, 910 damage. Not a single person spoke english, capped anything, the enemy mostly just let me shoot them without turning around to fire at me, i saw a trial catapault just sit in the spawn firing LRMs into the buildings over and over and a HBK-4P/TDR-5SS tried for two minutes to kill a stock CN9-AL in our spawn with no success. And the entire time i was thinking, why the hell does the matchmaker think its fair for me to be here?

Pre-hotfix i also saw much more teamwork going on in random teams, then the ELO stopped working after the hotfix and we were back to pointless curb stomping, where one team is conveniently made up of no habla ingless and the other has a 8 man sync drop in meta builds.

So yea drop all pretense that you need to be in a team or unit to have any kind of teamwork going. Because that is totally not a requirement. What a premade team lets you do however, is :

-Setup perfect lance setups before hand that randoms cant have, e.g. 4x ecm, 3x LRM boats with 1 ECM spotter with tag/narc, 4x ppc/ac poptarts, etc.

-Put 4 skilled players on one team, while the matchmaker puts 4 players of wildly varying skill levels on the other because it cant find another 4 man team with compatible weight classes

-Increase the amount of meta builds your team has

-Sync drop with 1 or more other 4 man teams with incompatible weight classes to try and get on the same team, and increase your advantage

VOIP or whatever is just icing on the cake. Each of you could take a vow of silence and you would still curb stomp the enemy.

Oh another reason why i hate dropping in groups : It takes so damn long. You have to wait for each person to finish tinkering in mechlab and ready up or for them to exit the match, pick a new mech, and ready up again. It takes way longer than simply hitting play again.

The game is fairly well balanced. Depending on your teams ability to work together or not determines how badly you lose or resoundingly you win. That is balanced.

Fatboy... I am actually sorry you hooked up with teams you did not mesh with.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 02 May 2014 - 05:30 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Majorfatboy, on 01 May 2014 - 01:38 PM, said:

So, until there's a team that hates dope, loves whiskey, likes to win but doesn't give two shits about being a "lord", likes cartoons, and knows better then to walk 100 meters from spawn and camp behind a building, waiting for the opfor to come by and reenact "Deliverance" on their rear cts, I shall remain solo.

Great story - did remind me about my own - (third unit too) and seriously like those guys - but when they want to press me in roles - i'm gone - and i told them.
If i have 30min free time -i would not bother about joining ts...i simple want to hit the play button...and say hello to some other guys with my big twenty.

funny is - the "searching" is much faster when dropping in a premade team. About whinning - when i drop premade i want to have a consistent lance - not this true lance 3333 BS. I want to have 2 Centurions and 2 Thunderbolts...or 2 Stalker and 2 Cicadas and i hate "take what you want" premade lances with Spider, Centurion, Stalker, and VTR....where its clear that non can support none - better to drop solo as with those "casuals"....

[Setmaster]

Where can I find teams to join as a newbie?

[Ihasa]

Daekar, on 01 May 2014 - 05:41 PM, said:

I need to build a Derpychet and name it after you for your awesome post.

Besides, why would I join a unit when I can hop on the NA ComStar TS3 and drop in a 4-man practically whenever I want?

That's what many of us mean by "join a team". Just pop on Comstar, NA (na1.mech-connect.net) or EU (eu1.mech-connect.net, see so easy I have them memorized), find who has an opening, say Hi, join team. Takes 30 seconds, maybe 45 if you have to go down to some of the All Welcome unit channels. Oh, and by my earlier post lauding Comstar Irregulars, I wasn't recruiting. If one doesn't want to join a unit, a our unit wouldn't really want someone that doesn't want to be there. And majorfatboy's post was indeed hilarious.

Edited by Ihasa, 02 May 2014 - 07:15 AM.

[1453 R]

Setmaster, on 02 May 2014 - 07:05 AM, said:

Where can I find teams to join as a newbie?

Now that you've said something, ye'll probably get half a dozen recruiters coming down on you. If that doesn't happen, just drift back through this thread and check out all the folks hurling invites at me.

[Joseph Mallan]

Setmaster, on 02 May 2014 - 07:05 AM, said:

Where can I find teams to join as a newbie?

Look in the banner section of our posts. Links are normally in the Image. There is also a Merc Forum where recruiting occurs!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 02 May 2014 - 07:52 AM.

[PropagandaWar]

Ronyn, on 29 April 2014 - 10:24 AM, said:

Simple answer... Because we are not you...

People have their own lives, their own responsibilities and above all, their own preferences on how to do the things they enjoy.
I prefer to play in 30 minute to 2 hour stints, sometimes a 'planned' 2 hour stint turns into me being forced to log off in 10 minutes.
And above all, not everyone likes to commit to the 'absorption' of video games. The fully immersed feeling of virtual reality. I like being fully immersed in life, I play games to allow a break from that immersion.
I'm cool with your play style, please respect mine the way I respect yours.

Good. That means your not the dedicated PUG that cries about Teams in a TEAM based Multiplayer Game. I mean THOSE guys really need to get a clue and realize that Multiplayer means more humanz and interaction. To go against that structure is to go against the games meaning. Those Puggers really should be playing stuff like Pac-Man and Assassins Creed to get the nice Single Player Experience, because Human AI is just too OP. Oh and I meant Human AI I'm pretty artificial.

[Jolly Llama]

Join Skye Rangers!

We have several regiments for different time zones and play styles. We have a no drama policy that keeps the atomsphere relaxed so that everyone gets along very well. Our website has a forum area as well as a lot of Battletech lore. I have met some of my best online friends since I joined the Skye Rangers last September.

If you are avoiding joining a clan because you are worried that it just won't work out, then the Skye Rangers are for you. We welcome new players and seasoned veterans alike. Personally, I run 4 man groups at all times of the day and never have trouble finding a bunch of guys that just want to shoot things and laugh.

Be a Mechwarrior among Mechwarriors. Join the Skye Rangers and say Geodeath sent ya!

http://www.skye-rangers.net

[Joseph Mallan]

geodeath, on 02 May 2014 - 08:06 AM, said:

Join Skye Rangers!

We have several regiments for different time zones and play styles. We have a no drama policy that keeps the atomsphere relaxed so that everyone gets along very well. Our website has a forum area as well as a lot of Battletech lore. I have met some of my best online friends since I joined the Skye Rangers last September.

If you are avoiding joining a clan because you are worried that it just won't work out, then the Skye Rangers are for you. We welcome new players and seasoned veterans alike. Personally, I run 4 man groups at all times of the day and never have trouble finding a bunch of guys that just want to shoot things and laugh.

Be a Mechwarrior among Mechwarriors. Join the Skye Rangers and say Geodeath sent ya!

http://www.skye-rangers.net

To make it less a recruiting angle... Do stop by the Merc forum. Read the posts from the members. If you like what u read you will likely like the group as a whole.

[Majorfatboy]

@ Aniviron and Odin's Fist:
Good points. Without true CW, there's very little here to motivate someone into a formal unit. Just think of how valuable being in a big team would be if there was a need for info gatherers, resource management, accounting (Of sorts), Etc. As it is now, just get in there and kill. Don't need much to do that. Even I might be able to stomach being in a formal unit, if it meant having a larger pool of cbills to keep My mech running, a larger pool of players to defend a home world, and access to better paying contracts. A merc's gotta watch that bottom line, you know.

In fact, just falling into a classic roll in general helps this game a lot. Check it:

Last night I'm playing. My #1 pugmate and partner in violence, Tyler Durden, is on. We met on comstar NA, but as it turns out we live about 15 minutes from one another. We met at a local comic shop and He showed Me how to play My first TT game (first round, He bent Me and My Orion over a table with His Victor's gauss rifle. Second round, Me and My urbie blew his cockpit, downed his sensors, and eventually killed his pilot in his urbie).
Any who, last night We group up, and get a third off of comstar NA to join us. I was in the Treb, Tyler was in his streaktaro (Multiple SSRM2s, tag, Llas, 113 kph), and the third was in a Wolverine brawler (I think). We get alpine. We take the low road. I had every intention of just pestering the opfor, the group follows. Most of the opfor takes the high ground at I9, as usual. My group's been pestering this one lance for a minute, and I want to break off. The dude in the wolvie says hell no to that, and wants to keep pressing. This was a very good idea. Our three medium mechs, and a light pug, completely wrecked over a lance of the opfor. They had guy's abandoning thier positions up at I9 to come down and help, only to get whaled on by all of us. You ever seen three meds and a light go after an atlas dumb enough to jump down into the middle of the fight? BattlemechBukkake.
Then our own team's mechs started sliding down the mountain. You see, as Me and My fellas were screwing over the opfor's back field and forcing them to pull uints back, the rest of the pug force rolled on up that mountain and dropped the freaking hammer on the enemy, then came down to lend their superior armor to us and help clean up. What little that was left of the red team ended up being the cream filling in our deathcookie sammich.

Why am I ranting on about this? Because if you think about it, this is classic Battletech roll warfare.... In pug land. The high-maneuverability units got all up on the opfor and kept them pinned, until the larger attack force could get into position and lay the smack down.
Thing's got really roll warfare-a-rific when a fourth guy came in, driving a Quickdraw with six med lasers... And a Narc. Tyler parked the Streaktaro, and pulled out "Marla", His beloved founders Catapult with two ALRM15's, three med lasers, and tag.

So, In this informal little pug group, We have the dude in the Wolvie, who plays with a big team as well, and was acting as the coordinator/target caller, The dude in the QD skirmishing and dropping Narc on pitiful fools, Me flanking/skirmishing/flicking people in the ear, and Tyler bringing the rain.
A lot of the time We get complete window-lickers on the TS, but sometimes like this, We were a hardcore pug force. We always kept the rest of the team in mind, even if We got a slacker batch of pugs, We worked around that to our best ability.

PUG FORCE ROLL WARFARE IS A GO!

Quote

Fatboy, if I were a drinking man I'd tip a beer to you. If I weren't, y'know, at work.

As it is, I'm going to tip this bottle of Coke next to me here to you instead and say that you and Derpychet are welcome to come and drop alongside me and Release Lever, my largelaser-focused TBT-5J, any damn time you feel like it.

-Raises big black cup of coffee laced with whiskey- Cheers! Good thing Our mechs have hand actuators, We can shake hands / Bump trebfists.

Edited by Majorfatboy, 02 May 2014 - 11:42 AM.

[Allen Ward]

I prefer playing with my "buddies", real life friends and a few I found while playing MWO. I play when I want to, not when some virtual merc unit sets their training times. I never met a unit that didn't start doing this sooner or later. They set up a member forum, start assigning themselves ranks, a core goup does all the "work" and plays almost every minute, another 100 or so members almost never show up. Often, when you start as a new member, they tell you all is easy, we play for fun right? Then you drop with them and make a mistake in their eyes (you will, as you are not used to their playing style) and at least one freak will start ranting about how stupid one can be and so on...

I have this ego bullshit at work everyday, I just don't need it in my spare time I play for fun, not for competition. I don't think that pure fun units don't make sense, that's called PUG.

So have fun playing team matches, I just don't understand why someone would want to do this.

Edit: I like to play team games, but I don't like games or teams dictate my life in any way. I decide when I want to play or quit. That is...a problem in team based games. Had this with GW2 and others, after a while I just couldn't spend the amount of time or just wanted to take a break. there you go...you will never manage to step back in.

Edited by Allen Ward, 02 May 2014 - 12:00 PM.

[AlmightyAeng]

Allen Ward, on 02 May 2014 - 11:56 AM, said:

I prefer playing with my "buddies", real life friends and a few I found while playing MWO. I play when I want to, not when some virtual merc unit sets their training times. I never met a unit that didn't start doing this sooner or later. They set up a member forum, start assigning themselves ranks, a core goup does all the "work" and plays almost every minute, another 100 or so members almost never show up. Often, when you start as a new member, they tell you all is easy, we play for fun right? Then you drop with them and make a mistake in their eyes (you will, as you are not used to their playing style) and at least one freak will start ranting about how stupid one can be and so on...

I have this ego bullshit at work everyday, I just don't need it in my spare time I play for fun, not for competition. I don't think that pure fun units don't make sense, that's called PUG.

So have fun playing team matches, I just don't understand why someone would want to do this.

Edit: I like to play team games, but I don't like games or teams dictate my life in any way. I decide when I want to play or quit. That is...a problem in team based games. Had this with GW2 and others, after a while I just couldn't spend the amount of time or just wanted to take a break. there you go...you will never manage to step back in.

Lol...I kinda like how my group does it. Thursday night is "boys night" where there's an acknowledged higher amount of us online drinking and playing...other than that, members filter in and out of TS during the week whenever...sometimes there's people to group up with, sometimes not.

12's were fun when we had enough people to easily form them...but the last 18 months or so has seen a reduction of that membership as CW continues to not show up...

All the groups you guys are describing seem like a lot of work...I salute you not heading their way! Lol.