191 replies to this topic

[SolCrusher]

So I've gotta plug the lone wolfs. We're a causal gaming group, who don't hold practices unless you volunteer for the single 12 man that we run every now and then. The 12 man practices on Weds of all days, now sure why by hey that's what the group voted on. Anyways, we drop 4 mans, 12mans, and with the addition of the private matches we've been busy having fun.

We've got one rule.....

No Drama!

So come check us out and have some fun. Worst thing that can happen is you decide you want a more organized group and in that case our forums have an area dedicated to joining other organized groups.

http://mwomercs.com/...g-solo-players/
http://ronin-kensei.enjin.com/home

Edited by SolCrusher, 02 May 2014 - 12:54 PM.

[Gnar]

So.. dumb n00b question. Been playing for a couple months now and occasionally have some old MMO buddies that I can coerce into doing a couple hours a week into dropping as a 4-man with teamspeak, and it's fun but pretty far in-between sessions.

Is there any social aspect in-game for guilds? Like guildchat or a list of guildmembers? Or is it all 3rd-party forum based and you'd have to add all your guild to your friends list in order to be able to see who's online and try to form 4 or 12-mans?

Also, any way to tell guilds in-game or is it only Allchat spam to tell who's in what? There's a icon on the results screen right after your faction designation that I haven't figured out what it relates to.

[SolCrusher]

Basically your friends list is your guild list, as long as you don't play on some of the open Team Speak Sites. I have a few dozen people on my list from the open team speak server, but most of my list are all Lone Wolfs.

[EGG]

I guess I fit into this category. I kind of expected to join a group sometime after the game started, but never did.

I was expecting group play in the final game to be a superset of individual play, with much more to it. Eg Houses, merc groups, house regiments. Fighting over something...

But it never happened. So it boils down to do I want mech-deathmatch, or mech-team-deathmatch. Generally given I'm a slack player, will sometimes play one game then quit for the night and other times will quit for several months. I didn't see the point of tying myself to any particular group.

Also frankly team-play has been screwed over since post-CB with the under-used 12-man queue, 4 mans often not being balanced correctly into the pug queue...

[Majorfatboy]

Got some more for you gu-

Yes thank You, Fattie, that's more then enou-

SO ANYWAYS:

Last night I'm on TS with My main pug buddy. It's been a fierce night. Lot's of good players out, was getting My fair share of loses. No big deal I think. I just spent the past few days owning the Inner Sphere, it's My turn to get the boots put to Me. Medium style, of course. We're both having fun (And a few drinks, too), When suddenly, THEY come. Who, You may ask? ThE WhInErSsSsSssSS......
First We have the "It's not My Fault" Guy. Every time, and I do mean every Time he pulls the trigger, the rest of us get to hear the song of His people:
Ah! Lag! Lag! Is anyone else getting lag issues?
I Think I need to restart My client....
THAT FUCKING SHOT SHOULD HAVE HIT! OMFG HAX! HAX!
All these ******* noobs are blocking My shots!
I DON'T ******* BELIEVE THIS HESHOTMETHROUGHTHATWALLDIDYOUGUYSSEETHATOHMYGODHAXBLARGLENARGAFLARP!
Slow down I can't keep up with you guys! (disregaurding the other eight players he could form with that have similar speeds)
He rage quit our group after about four drops and played elsewhere.

We also had his fellow countryman, the "It's not My fault and I'm going to god damned well waste My time typing this into all chat and shit on the opfor!"
Uhg! ******* lurm *******!
Artys and lurms are no-skill weapons!
You guys are talentless losers!
He went on to rage quit, stating the He was "Not nearly stoned enough to play this ******* game. I'll be back on later after I've had a bowl". Lucky us.

After him, We got the "You're all here to wipe My ass while I cry" player:
It's over man! It's ******* over. I'm being shot at by like, the whole ******* team. We've lost. (There's only a few opfor over there)
I'm get shot to shit you guys! Get over here I'm gonna die! Split from main force, does not acknowledge the other eight players even exist)
Yeah I'm ******* useless now, they shot the **** out of Me.
(Not even 30 seconds into a match) It's over. It's ******* over. We lost. They're gonna kick our asses. We're done.
It was at this point I did something I've never done in the two-ish years I've been playing this game: I lost My temper. I told him to be quite and keep playing. We went on to lose that match, mostly due to diaper boy not even trying and Me getting pissed.

Now let's take a look at this morning:
I decide to do a few quick games before lunch (Gonna get Me a sammich! Or hit the Chinese take out place across the street! Life has so many choices!) Pure solo time:

First round:
I get alpine. I'm in the treb with two erl lasers. I get an erection so intense it hits the bottom of the table, spilling My "Irish" coffee (I go through more zippers this way). VNV Nation's "Kingdom" is on the music stream.
Harass opfor's charlie lance? Check!
Join the main charge on the hill? Check!
Bum rush straight into the enemy line to nail a cored Jager? Check!
Stay in the enemy's line to help our lights take down a Spider and an Orion? Check and check!
Get back behind friendly lines and help drop a Raven and a Wolverine? Double checkinsky, Brohiem!
Result: Two kills, six assists, 317 damage, and a feeling of really being a part of the fight.

Round two:
Canyon. Left Spine Down's "Flip The Switch" is on the stream. I am become an Industrial-powered *************.
Charge the center of the map, take fire, report enemy position, change vector, join main force, sight and call out two D-DC's, help drop'em, change vector again, run right into the bulk of the opfor in the big valley, get everything but the kitchen sink thrown at Me, Start torso-twisting and jinking like a coked-up backup dancer. Lose My left arm, run out of the opfor, report position, skirmish, dual a cent, skirt the field, squeeze the final cata C1 right into My teams hands.
Result: A kill, nine assists, 200+ points damage. They Took Derpy's left arm. We Took their lives.

Round Three:
Caustic Valley, Conquest. Faderhead's " Destroy Improve Rebuild" is on the stream. Sound's like a plan, Bro.
I hit Theta ASAP. Take a bit of fire. The team rolls up. I break off and do some skirting. I go around to the three-line and find a friendly cent trading shots with two LRM assaults. I start popin' and poken'. A beam for You! And a beam for You! Everyone get's a shiny blue laser beam! They give Me ALL OF THE MISSILES. Now that I have their attention, I run like a little girl. I come back to three-line, keep moving, circle around, and get off (lol) more potshots. The opfor gets ballzy and blitzes Gamma. I join the main force, take some rough hits. I rip a leg off of a Cata C1, poke a Locust, Spray the opfor with beams. I sight a damaged Orion Leroying his way through. That's My job. I get on him like stink on a monkey and manage to drop him, at the cost of taking severe damage to My Right leg armor and internals. I punch through the caldera, poke that damned Locust again, pokeALL THE MECHS, and pursue a cent. He see's My bad leg, and goes full hardcore on Me. I whale on his CT, nice and soft now. He shoots My leg off, at the cost of overheating. My pugmates roll up behind Him and give him a bit of the ol' in-out-in-out. I limp to gamma while the team finds and takes down the last dude.
Result:
A kill, some assists, plenty of damage, and I get to dodge the techs throwing thier wrenches at Me while I try to explain that it was totally worth it.

Total result:
Pure fun. All I heard was pewpew, boomboom, zapbang zapbang... And the sound effects of the game, too.
No bitching. No whining. No having to wait while our teammates change thier pads. no rage. No bongs. Just pure, unadulterated, Mech-on-mech action.

-BANG-

OUCH!

Goddamnit, I need another zipper.

[Malorish]

I'm considering it, now that I've decided I'm sticking with the game.

Here's why I haven't yet (after 4 months so far):

I'm a former WoW player/raider for 5 years. After being very into the raid/guild scene for a long time, I've gravitated away from it. In addition to everything else I do in my life (I work and do a lot of volunteer work, so home at irregular times) I don't feel like I could be on regularly enough, and my wife (who got me into WoW) doesn't like MWO (but holy crap she'll kick your butt in Hearthstone). So I really only can play it when she's not around.

Looked into the MWO launch lobby thing. Considering it.

[Wintersdark]

I've answered this question a lot of times, and I'll do it again.

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?

I don't join teams/units, but I never complain about pre-mades. I like them in my teams.

Quote

Why is this?
Do you think that joining a team means you have to compete, run meta, not have fun?

No, that is not what I think.

Quote

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

Ok, here's the thing.

First, me: I'm a member of a very common demographic in MWO. I know this, because in my year and a half of playing, I've met a vast number of other players in exactly my same situation. Of course, lots of players in other games too, but we're talking about MWO specifically here.

And the MWO specifically part is important. See, there's a huge number of players of MWO who are in their mid to late 30's now, with young families, all of us who played Battletech in the 80's, loved the Mechwarrior games from the very first Battletech games and early Mechwarriors, not just the "new" ones (3, 4, MWLL, MekTek) youngsters played.

So, the reasons:

For many of us, headsets are out. This means voice comms are largely out. We've got families we need to monitor while we play, so we need to hear children (if you can't hear your toddler, he/she is doing something horrible), and interact with our families. We can't just squirrel ourselves away in our private little bubbles, headsets on, in another room. In most cases, this need to monitor children/interact with wives/husbands means our gaming PC's are in the common rooms of the house, where everyone is. It's pretty rude to sit there talking to random other people in a one sided conversation in a room full of other people, as well.

For many, this precludes game volume at all, let alone VOIP.

Now, because you have young children, you must be able to simply get up and deal with random bizarre emergencies right now, so you're a liability to a group in battle. In between battles, you'll have to take random breaks of random length, often with no notice. Maybe you'll be back in 2 minutes, maybe not for 10, or longer. This makes you a terrible choice for a group-mate.

So, you can't be on VOIP. You can't be a reliable group mate. What use are you to a team, even a non-competitive casual one? Do YOU want to be grouped with a guy who's going to have to suddenly drop group every other match? Or would you replace him with another equally fun guy who's going to be able to run a set of matches at once with you, while being on VOIP?

I'd LOVE to join a team. I absolutely adore 12 man matches, and have played more than a few in my time here. I'm pretty good at the game, and can carry my weight in any group. But given the limitations above, I'm a liability in any group, and it's not like I can just hang out in a common Comstar chat channel and grab drops when I want because, right, no VOIP.

4-man team limits really screw guys like me, because when you've got more than 4 people looking to play, who do you leave out? The guy who can actually play, or the one who's completely unreliable?

[MischiefSC]

Wintersdark, on 03 May 2014 - 10:41 AM, said:

I've answered this question a lot of times, and I'll do it again.

I don't join teams/units, but I never complain about pre-mades. I like them in my teams.

No, that is not what I think.



Ok, here's the thing.

First, me: I'm a member of a very common demographic in MWO. I know this, because in my year and a half of playing, I've met a vast number of other players in exactly my same situation. Of course, lots of players in other games too, but we're talking about MWO specifically here.

And the MWO specifically part is important. See, there's a huge number of players of MWO who are in their mid to late 30's now, with young families, all of us who played Battletech in the 80's, loved the Mechwarrior games from the very first Battletech games and early Mechwarriors, not just the "new" ones (3, 4, MWLL, MekTek) youngsters played.

So, the reasons:

For many of us, headsets are out. This means voice comms are largely out. We've got families we need to monitor while we play, so we need to hear children (if you can't hear your toddler, he/she is doing something horrible), and interact with our families. We can't just squirrel ourselves away in our private little bubbles, headsets on, in another room. In most cases, this need to monitor children/interact with wives/husbands means our gaming PC's are in the common rooms of the house, where everyone is. It's pretty rude to sit there talking to random other people in a one sided conversation in a room full of other people, as well.

For many, this precludes game volume at all, let alone VOIP.

Now, because you have young children, you must be able to simply get up and deal with random bizarre emergencies right now, so you're a liability to a group in battle. In between battles, you'll have to take random breaks of random length, often with no notice. Maybe you'll be back in 2 minutes, maybe not for 10, or longer. This makes you a terrible choice for a group-mate.

So, you can't be on VOIP. You can't be a reliable group mate. What use are you to a team, even a non-competitive casual one? Do YOU want to be grouped with a guy who's going to have to suddenly drop group every other match? Or would you replace him with another equally fun guy who's going to be able to run a set of matches at once with you, while being on VOIP?

I'd LOVE to join a team. I absolutely adore 12 man matches, and have played more than a few in my time here. I'm pretty good at the game, and can carry my weight in any group. But given the limitations above, I'm a liability in any group, and it's not like I can just hang out in a common Comstar chat channel and grab drops when I want because, right, no VOIP.

4-man team limits really screw guys like me, because when you've got more than 4 people looking to play, who do you leave out? The guy who can actually play, or the one who's completely unreliable?

Quoted for the MFing truth.

It's not that we bemoan anyone else having their VOIP. It's not that we don't get the advantages of playing in a group.

It's the the priorities involved in doing so are not even in the same cosmological scale as the ones we have currently, so it's not any sort of option and even explaining why it's not an option isn't worth the significant effort most the time.

[Wintersdark]

MischiefSC, on 03 May 2014 - 11:25 AM, said:

Quoted for the MFing truth.

It's not that we bemoan anyone else having their VOIP. It's not that we don't get the advantages of playing in a group.

It's the the priorities involved in doing so are not even in the same cosmological scale as the ones we have currently, so it's not any sort of option and even explaining why it's not an option isn't worth the significant effort most the time.

Exactly. I try not to get irritable when explaining this, but so often the question is asked in the tone of "What's wrong with those idiots? Joining a team, dropping into a public VOIP chat room is easy; can't they see how much of an advantage that is?"

We know. Most of us have done that. God knows, I spent years being one of those guys, a member of gaming groups who always wondered what was wrong with all those moronic "casuals". Bemoaning "accessibility" changes that reduced grind time which I always interpreted as "making easier", when in fact in hindsight it just makes it take me now the same real life time I spent before, because I have far less time to play.

Sadly, until one's life reaches this point, it's pretty much impossible for people to really understand how it is.

Just remember, grouped up players....

Those random PUG's? They're not all halfwits, they don't hate team play and don't understand it. There are definitely some like that (there's all manner of people in the world, after all) but generally speaking most of them can't join teams for one reason or other, not that they don't want to.

Also, while I personally welcome pre-made groups on my teams. It increases the likelyhood of some team cohesion if for no other reason than those 3/4 players will work together, so when I see a premade, I glom onto them immediately.

But I do understand those Solo folks who don't want premades in their teams - and particularly in the opposing teams. While I don't share the mindset, the reality is the grouped players generally have more impact on the battle, player for player, than solo players. This reduces (in their view) the value of their own contribution to the match.

So, while I don't agree, I do understand it.

Edited by Wintersdark, 03 May 2014 - 11:50 AM.

[Kissamies]

I am also one of those players who can play for a couple of weeks quite intently and then quit the game for a few months only to return for another couple of weeks stint later. I have considered joining a team, but I don't think this is one of those few games I would play for months non-stop.

[Harmatia]

I get home from work and want to play 3-5 matches. People I may know might not be available. People on public TS servers might not have a spot open, or take 10-15 minutes to get a team together.

I ran across this same tired argument a decade ago when playing World of Warcraft, raiders versus non-raiders. Playing in a team, or a unit (whatever you want to call it), takes an element of organization and commitment. Yeah I know it might not be much, and I know many pride themselves on putting in the "effort", but many of us who want to get in on some mech action just don't have the time to make this happen in the way you and many others expect us to. It's not a difficult concept to grasp, so I'm curious as to why you don't understand.

Between work, school, washing my balls, eating, sleeping and taking a shit, I don't want to fuss with organizing other people into playing a game. It's entertainment, and there are many other options that are much faster to get going then MWO. I don't want to hit "play" and get rolled (over and over again) by a group that plays, maybe even practices, together simply because I don't have the same time to put into it as them. That's what leagues are for.

PGI has managed to implement the most ass-backwards system one could potentially conjure when it comes to teams versus solo interest. It matters to everyone that a game not alienate potential players, potential revenue. The extreme niche that supports alienation is not enough to legitimately support most games, and will likely result in one of two things should it be allowed to continue: 1) higher prices (as fewer play, let alone pay), or 2) total project collapse.

Have some business sense before asking stupid questions.

[Wintersdark]

Harmatia, on 03 May 2014 - 11:51 AM, said:

I get home from work and want to play 3-5 matches. People I may know might not be available. People on public TS servers might not have a spot open, or take 10-15 minutes to get a team together.

I ran across this same tired argument a decade ago when playing World of Warcraft, raiders versus non-raiders. Playing in a team, or a unit (whatever you want to call it), takes an element of organization and commitment. Yeah I know it might not be much, and I know many pride themselves on putting in the "effort", but many of us who want to get in on some mech action just don't have the time to make this happen in the way you and many others expect us to. It's not a difficult concept to grasp, so I'm curious as to why you don't understand.

Between work, school, washing my balls, eating, sleeping and taking a shit, I don't want to fuss with organizing other people into playing a game. It's entertainment, and there are many other options that are much faster to get going then MWO. I don't want to hit "play" and get rolled (over and over again) by a group that plays, maybe even practices, together simply because I don't have the same time to put into it as them. That's what leagues are for.

PGI has managed to implement the most ass-backwards system one could potentially conjure when it comes to teams versus solo interest. It matters to everyone that a game not alienate potential players, potential revenue. The extreme niche that supports alienation is not enough to legitimately support most games, and will likely result in one of two things should it be allowed to continue: 1) higher prices (as fewer play, let alone pay), or 2) total project collapse.

Have some business sense before asking stupid questions.

And here's where you see how people respond once the irritation with the question sets in.

Put more nicely:

When you have 30 minutes total in which you can game, every extra step put in there is fewer matches you can play.

Even if you can use voice comms, and you log into some public channel, you need to gather a group together. Maybe join an existing one? But what if they're in a match? Well, you wait. One of those you want to group with needs to change his mech about? There goes another few precious minutes.

I can absolutely emphasize with this.

I have a pretty full friends list with typically 6-10 people online at one time. Sure, I could fire messages/group invites, but a majority will be in matches (people don't often spend a lot of time between matches), or need to do stuff, and if I've got a limited amount of time to play, it's not uncommon to see random pick up premades for me fail as a result - by the time everyone is together and ready, I get one match in and off I go... Whereas I could have just dropped solo 3 or 4 times.