106 replies to this topic

[Kyle Wright]

Ladies and Germs,

Start off first by apologizing to some of you that I have butt heads with this past week. None of us, including, myself should ever get mad over a video game and the people that play the game.

So I am starting to see a huge divide among our small community similar to what you see between say a SUPER WEALTHY CLASS and a VERY POOR LOWER CLASS. It really does suck and trust me I can see where both sides are coming from.

Class Breakdown:

META BANDWAGON UPPER TIER: Deemed "try hards" these are the people that usually play in the competitive scene of league play. Since Ive started in open beta these are the guys that usually find out the builds that do maximum damage. Ex. Splat Cat, 4ERPPC+ Guass Stalkers, and any number of Jumsnipers"Pop Tarts." Now when they run these meta builds in a group it only heightens there team work ability of moving together and targeting like targets with the best combination of firepower. Some believe PUB or "PUGS" are no skill scrubs, or just need to play in a group, or learn the meta, or just simply treat every match as you win some you lose some.

CASUAL JOE SCHMO PUBLIC QUE PLAYERS: Here to have a good time and kill a hour or to. Most are lonewolfs that dont want the hassle of a group. Others just want to play with maybe a handful of their real life friends. Sometimes they use builds that simply just dont work, and sometimes even get mad about said builds, but its trial and error. Most believe it should be like table top rules across the board. Believe META players want to watch the whole gaming world burn, think they dont care about the game, have no skill because they use optimized builds, and just simply a tryhard.


WHERE WE ALL WENT WRONG:

- No one wants to see this game burn.
- No one should be telling players what mechs to run
- No one should be calling each other names like Scrubs or Try Hards
- LASTLY NO ONE SHOULD BE TELLING ANOTHER PERSON HOW THEY SHOULD HAVE FUN PLAYING THIS GAME.


Take it from me. I started playign when meta was PPC stalkers. My first mech a poor little blackjack got shredded. After 24 hours I wanted to quit but instead was invited to HHoD where I learned to play from what i thought was some of the best players in the game at the time. Fast-forward a year now I am starting to make a breakout int he competitive seen with friends that I have grown with as Ive played these many months. In our 12-man drops yeah I get stuck playing poptarts and I hate it. I wish mechs like my Hunchback and Yen Lo were more viable, because at heart they are my favorite. But during peak play hours if I aint running meta I get stomped over and over and over and it hurts. Like some Groundhog Day action from when I first started.

I wish that most of the Comp guys played 12-mans non-stop because it is the ultimate test of skill working as one unit. Truth is now a days there is only maybe a handful of teams that even play 12s anymore, so that forces comp teams to PUG in 4-mans instead.

As far as the builds go. Aside from the META, lets talk just talk non optimized builds. Now, there is no right or wrong way to build mechs. Essentially its a theme that a player shoots for instead, ex. Brawlers, firesupport, skirmisher, snipers, etc. Got to think of mechs in the same way you do food. Weapons being equivalent to flavor combinations of your favorite meals. Some combinations of weapons just simply dont work, they dont compliment each other, or they dont compliment your playstyle. Simple example, ever try putting water on cereal because you ran out of milk? It does not taste the same and almost ruins your breakfast. No matter how much some of us want a mech build idea to be the best there are always better combinations out there that more people will like. Go watch the show Kitchen Nightmares. Just because you think your food is the best and taste great doesnt mean the general public does.

At the end of the day neither group has much control over what PGI does, but we all need to do our best to weather the storm the best we can.



Now I would like everyone to come together and lets bring this fractured community together. Id like both side Competitive and Casual players to comment. Id also like a moderator to handle people trying to insult and troll.This thread should be a way for both sides to meet and discuss in a civil manner.

Thank you.

[Bobzilla]

Here is my biggest problem with both design and view of the current meta.

I'm a mediocre player at best, when I came up against the 2ppc+ac5 poptart the first time, I thought 'he owned, ill try that out', and I owned with the build. if I tried it, and found it hard to use, then cudos to the players that use it and cudos to pgi for creating a good game. this isn't the case.

I understand that the best players in a meta build will beat players like me in a meta build, but the same could be said if they took a stock mech.

The most effective builds, should need the highest skill sets. Otherwise you get the majority of players taking the same thing.

[Jun Watarase]

Quote

- LASTLY NO ONE SHOULD BE TELLING ANOTHER PERSON HOW THEY SHOULD HAVE FUN PLAYING THIS GAME.

This isn't very correct, communities decide what people are allowed to do. It's a basic social rule. You do not wear a clown suit to a funeral and then starts rules lawyering about how "theres no law saying i cant wear a clown suit to a funeral!" when people tell you its inappropriate. Im really getting tired of explaining this.

Also there is a huge difference between dropping in a non optimized build and a build specifically designed to make your team lose. Some people are doing the latter and pulling the "you cant tell me how to have fun!" card when they have turned the game into a 8vs12 stomp fest.

Any divide between the comp scene and the non-comp scene is largely due to the way some competitive players present themselves. When people see competitive players bragging about their "skill", their scores, their wins, spamming chat with "GG CLOSE" when it is a 12-0 pointless curb stomp or spamming the forums with insightful comments like "learn2play!!!", it reflects very badly on the comp scene.

It also reflects very badly on the comp scene when some competitive players refuse to admit that the metabuilds they are using are much more powerful than anything else in the game and try to re-direct the discussion into one about how much better they are than the talentless scrubs everyone else in the game is. Then some go one step further and take their disagreement from the forums into the game where they engage in stalking, harrassment and actively helping the enemy team get their teammates killed because of a disagreement over forum opinions, which again, does not reflect well on the comp scene.

It also does not help that every balance discussion simply has some competitive players insist that everything is fine, there is no imbalance, scrubs need to learn2play, that the game should remain mostly PPC/Ballistic boating and most other builds should not be viable because scrubs should "adapt" by using the same PPC/Ballistic builds that they, the pros, are using. Then they play with word definitions to insist that a meta doesn't exist and starts rules lawyering with the COC instead of engaging in constructive, on topic discussion.

And before the one 4 man per team change, some competitive players actively took it upon themselves to arrange sync drops with incompatible weight classes to get as many of their people on one team as possible. Back when the game had 8 players on each team and you could only group up into 1-4 man groups or a 8 man group, people were deliberately sync dropping to get 8 of their people on one team vs a team of randoms, so that they could get effortless wins. This continued even when the game was changed to 12vs12 and up till PGI put in a hard limit of one 4 man per team (at which point some of these players complained they couldn't sync drop multiple groups onto the same team anymore). Back then, some of these players decided to point to their win ratio and scores as proof that they were the best players in MWO and deserving of respect/admiration, when in reality all they did was bash some randoms newbies in trial mechs and actively contribute to the number of people quitting the game.

Oh and when some competitive players took advantage of the 12 man team vs randoms bug, that again, did not reflect well on the comp scene. It has never reflected well on the comp scene whenever competitive players took advantage of bugs (such as the infinite dragon knockdown bug) and used rules lawyering to insist everything was ok (such as when someone demanded that he be presented proof from PGI personally that dragons knocking down atlases was a bug), or used "playing to win" as an excuse to trash talk and insult people.

Of course not all competitive players do stuff like this and an honourable mention goes to the unit that announced they wouldn't take advantage of the 12 man vs randoms bug, but what the rest of the playerbase sees is a very vocal minority acting like jerks and then concluding the rest of the comp scene is made up of players like that. They see stuff like sync dropping vs newbies, and conclude that competitive players just want to bash newbies. They see competitive players abusing the 12 man vs randoms bug, and conclude they just want free wins. They see them spam GG CLOSE, insults, trash talking and conclude that this is what all competitve players are like. They see competitive players insist that metabuilds not be nerfed, and conclude they just want the game to remain badly balanced so they have a massive advantage over anyone not using a metabuild (which is basially most randoms and newbies).

The comp scene has a terrible reputation precisely because of the way some competitive players behave, and thats never going to change unless their behaviour changes.

Edited by Jun Watarase, 11 June 2014 - 12:27 PM.

[GreyGriffin]

The problem is that there is a right and wrong, a best and worst way to play. Dual PPC Jumpsniping is simply more effective than other loadouts for multifarious reasons. This advantage is only magnified when you bring multiple jumpsnipers to the party, as their overlapping fields of fire make up for any vulnerability they might have at close range.

[Bigbacon]

one thing I do not agree with here is that usregular joes care one bit about TT and the how it fits into the game. I would guess that most really don't know anything about TT or would care even if they did.

we just like mech warrior and playing a fun game.

Ihonestly can't stand the whole idea of trying to compare or make this real time game like TT

[NextGame]

It's really very simple: if winning is important to you then play whatever mech & loadout you think is best, and play your best by playing to win. Secondly: man the **** up by learning to take a defeat when you lose instead of QQ.

If winning isn't important to you, then surely the whole pug vs comp topic is a non-issue.

That said, the free entertainment provided by the crocodile tears of people who can't take it are just about the only thing that keeps me visiting anything to do with this game at the moment.

Edited by NextGame, 11 June 2014 - 12:46 PM.

[GreyGriffin]

Bigbacon, on 11 June 2014 - 12:37 PM, said:

one thing I do not agree with here is that usregular joes care one bit about TT and the how it fits into the game. I would guess that most really don't know anything about TT or would care even if they did.

we just like mech warrior and playing a fun game.

Ihonestly can't stand the whole idea of trying to compare or make this real time game like TT

I think this highlights a very interesting point that feeds into the idea of game design. Tons of people just don't give a crap about tabletop, the lore of the universe, or the fact that Steiners love Gauss Rifles and Zeuses. (Is there a zeus with a gauss rifle? ... there we go, the 9S2.)

This is a challenge from a game design perspective, as most Battlemechs are built as general purpose machines, with a wide variety of weapons, with a handful of exceptions. The key, core skills involved in Battletech are heat management, bracket firing, and defensive maneuver. As a game designer, how do you present that to the player? How do you make the way the universe's weapon systems evolved be the logical start point for the average playstyle? How do you balance heat incentives to carry weapons that peak out at their specific range bracket while still encouraging multirole play? How do you present all weapons as viable?

These are all challenging questions that you really have to think about when you want to present a "Battletech" experience.

PGI's answer to all of these questions is "I have no f-ing clue!" Followed by the Curly Shuffle.

This is why people like me are irritated. The game doesn't incentivize the things that make Battlemechs unique, or build the gameplay around the experience and gameplay that separates Battletech from the pack, like critical damage and weapon variety. Instead MOW encourages them to be all the things that made previous Mechwarrior titles bland. Huge jumpsniping boats.

Edit: TL;DR, if the game was designed correctly, the default would shift towards conventional Battletech loadouts, leaving the outliers like jumpsnipers, missile boats, or electronics packages for fringe roles.

Edited by GreyGriffin, 11 June 2014 - 12:56 PM.

[Ultimax]

Bobzilla, on 11 June 2014 - 12:12 PM, said:

The most effective builds, should need the highest skill sets. Otherwise you get the majority of players taking the same thing.

The most effective builds will always be the builds that have the highest output for reasonable effort investment.

Anything that goes beyond that investment level is likely to be too fragile to be reliable.



Effective means something that performs well, over and over, in as many situations as possible.

Effective means consistent results, not "pulling off" some super magical 1 in a 100 tries maneuver.


Effective doesn't mean it needs to be the triple lindy.

[Jun Watarase]

NextGame, on 11 June 2014 - 12:44 PM, said:

It's really very simple: if winning is important to you then play whatever mech & loadout you think is best, and play your best by playing to win. Secondly: man the **** up by learning to take a defeat when you lose instead of QQ.

If winning isn't important to you, then surely the whole pug vs comp topic is a non-issue.

That said, the free entertainment provided by the crocodile tears of people who can't take it are just about the only thing that keeps me visiting anything to do with this game at the moment.

Funny, this is the attitude i was talking about that leads many people to dislike competitive players as a whole.

[Khobai]

Quote

The problem is that there is a right and wrong, a best and worst way to play. Dual PPC Jumpsniping is simply more effective than other loadouts for multifarious reasons

.
+1 for good vocabulary usage

[Tahribator]

I think most of the friction comes from the type of players in this game; those who only play to win and those who play to have fun with the customization and variety. Naturally, those who play to win ruin the game for the other group as they tend to play unpopular mechs with "unoptimized" builds.

[Kassatsu]

Should be a good day indeed if esports ever actually takes off and professional players are required to maintain good conduct and sportsmanship (like in, say, real sports). Inb4 I'm flamed for claiming gaming isn't a "real sport".

Until that point, nothing is really going to change as far as attitudes goes.

Outright banning players from competition, regardless of skill level, based on poor attitudes, lack of sportsmanship and general douchebaggery will go a long way in cleaning up the attitudes of the community on both sides. Having a game that's actually balanced wouldn't hurt either.

Edited by Kassatsu, 11 June 2014 - 01:04 PM.

[CeeKay Boques]

This will actually never be fixed.

As long as there are players that superior (and there will be, I have played against the unbeatable my whole life )

It will always appear that there is this gap. And it will probably be with people that aim well.

You can tweak what you want, play with numbers but (honestly hopefully) this gap will remain. if you're sad your flamer/med laser combo isn't working, I'm not so sure the ubers comp try hards couldn't make it work. As a matter of fact, after the game has been around awhile, you will see top tier gamers attempting and accomplishing wins with joke builds...

[Mcgral18]

Technoviking, on 11 June 2014 - 01:16 PM, said:

This will actually never be fixed.

As long as there are players that superior (and there will be, I have played against the unbeatable my whole life )

Well, if certain weapons weren't inherently superior, things might be slightly different.

We'll get a taste of less FLD tomorrow on the PTS.

Edited by Mcgral18, 11 June 2014 - 01:21 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Technoviking, on 11 June 2014 - 01:16 PM, said:

You can tweak what you want, play with numbers but (honestly hopefully) this gap will remain. if you're sad your flamer/med laser combo isn't working, I'm not so sure the ubers comp try hards couldn't make it work. As a matter of fact, after the game has been around awhile, you will see top tier gamers attempting and accomplishing wins with joke builds...

Honestly, there are two separate top tier types of players I have seen over the years in Mechwarrior. There are the one trick ponies who just so happen to be good at whatever the meta is central on, then there are the all around players. The one trick ponies will take their meta builds 100% of the time while the meta favors them and are often the players that are unsportsmanlike among other destructive personality traits. The all-around players are generally the ones that take the joke builds and still score top damage and these are the ones that often get along the best with casual gamers. Guild Wars and many other games had issues with this sort of split within the competitive teams, where people used "gimmick" builds to be considered good only to fall when the meta shifted.

Try-hard isn't just a word used by casual gamers, its generally a term used within the Competitive group as well for exactly that, those who rely on gimmicks to maintain top tier status (and generally relies on other teams to refuse to play with gimmicks).

[Kyle Wright]

Jun Watarase, on 11 June 2014 - 12:24 PM, said:

*snip

Jun I agree, there have been some bad apples. i dont agree with the ggclose, I dont agree that the current meta is fine. And to be honest i would be totally happy with the meta changing every month or so. that way it keeps people learning new forms.

We had 6 4-mans non-sync dropping last night so that we could fight each others lances in a 12-man setting. needless to say i got my ass handed to me all night by my own teammates. Was not fun so I get that.

[Procyon Alpha]

I know no one cares about TT but there a e a few items from TT that could have balanced this game out. Get rid of Ghost heat and put a hard cap on Heat at 30 not 80 or 100 or what ever it is. This would bring back the stock mechs and heat management. I am not so sure you would have the high Alpha meta, unless they are willing to blow themselves up. Heat management in this game is a joke. I still don't know why they did not take a page from the VW pod? The system worked but it was a lot of effort and skills not just spam alphas and jump sniping. There were reason some of the items in TT exist, it balanced the weapon load outs and alphas where a last resort, not the common we see in MWO.

Just a thought, I played a lot of VW, and so far only LL came kind of close as far as a PC title. You dont need the complex items or systems the pods had but just the core rule structure for the game. It is all there, but maybe it is not fast paced enough for the twitch gamers. I would love to have to think about firing my weapon systems and how bad is the heat going to be. Maybe we will get to that point, I am just not holding my breath.

[Ihasa]

Kyle Wright, on 11 June 2014 - 11:26 AM, said:

Ladies and Germs, Start off first by apologizing to some of you that I have butt heads with this past week. None of us, including, myself should ever get mad over a video game and the people that play the game. So I am starting to see a huge divide among our small community similar to what you see between say a SUPER WEALTHY CLASS and a VERY POOR LOWER CLASS. It really does suck and trust me I can see where both sides are coming from. Class Breakdown: META BANDWAGON UPPER TIER: Deemed "try hards" these are the people that usually play in the competitive scene of league play. Since Ive started in open beta these are the guys that usually find out the builds that do maximum damage. Ex. Splat Cat, 4ERPPC+ Guass Stalkers, and any number of Jumsnipers"Pop Tarts." Now when they run these meta builds in a group it only heightens there team work ability of moving together and targeting like targets with the best combination of firepower. Some believe PUB or "PUGS" are no skill scrubs, or just need to play in a group, or learn the meta, or just simply treat every match as you win some you lose some. CASUAL JOE SCHMO PUBLIC QUE PLAYERS: Here to have a good time and kill a hour or to. Most are lonewolfs that dont want the hassle of a group. Others just want to play with maybe a handful of their real life friends. Sometimes they use builds that simply just dont work, and sometimes even get mad about said builds, but its trial and error. Most believe it should be like table top rules across the board. Believe META players want to watch the whole gaming world burn, think they dont care about the game, have no skill because they use optimized builds, and just simply a tryhard. WHERE WE ALL WENT WRONG: - No one wants to see this game burn. - No one should be telling players what mechs to run - No one should be calling each other names like Scrubs or Try Hards - LASTLY NO ONE SHOULD BE TELLING ANOTHER PERSON HOW THEY SHOULD HAVE FUN PLAYING THIS GAME. Take it from me. I started playign when meta was PPC stalkers. My first mech a poor little blackjack got shredded. After 24 hours I wanted to quit but instead was invited to HHoD where I learned to play from what i thought was some of the best players in the game at the time. Fast-forward a year now I am starting to make a breakout int he competitive seen with friends that I have grown with as Ive played these many months. In our 12-man drops yeah I get stuck playing poptarts and I hate it. I wish mechs like my Hunchback and Yen Lo were more viable, because at heart they are my favorite. But during peak play hours if I aint running meta I get stomped over and over and over and it hurts. Like some Groundhog Day action from when I first started. I wish that most of the Comp guys played 12-mans non-stop because it is the ultimate test of skill working as one unit. Truth is now a days there is only maybe a handful of teams that even play 12s anymore, so that forces comp teams to PUG in 4-mans instead. As far as the builds go. Aside from the META, lets talk just talk non optimized builds. Now, there is no right or wrong way to build mechs. Essentially its a theme that a player shoots for instead, ex. Brawlers, firesupport, skirmisher, snipers, etc. Got to think of mechs in the same way you do food. Weapons being equivalent to flavor combinations of your favorite meals. Some combinations of weapons just simply dont work, they dont compliment each other, or they dont compliment your playstyle. Simple example, ever try putting water on cereal because you ran out of milk? It does not taste the same and almost ruins your breakfast. No matter how much some of us want a mech build idea to be the best there are always better combinations out there that more people will like. Go watch the show Kitchen Nightmares. Just because you think your food is the best and taste great doesnt mean the general public does. At the end of the day neither group has much control over what PGI does, but we all need to do our best to weather the storm the best we can. Now I would like everyone to come together and lets bring this fractured community together. Id like both side Competitive and Casual players to comment. Id also like a moderator to handle people trying to insult and troll.This thread should be a way for both sides to meet and discuss in a civil manner. Thank you.

Your missing an entire huge group of people that fit comfortably somewhere in the middle. Not all is as black and white as you see it.

[Ihasa]

Jun Watarase, on 11 June 2014 - 12:24 PM, said:

<really depressing POV>.

Wow what an incredibly jaded view you have. Please make more friends from the competitive or want to be competitive set so that you don't have such a bitter opinion of all from a select few.

Edited by Ihasa, 11 June 2014 - 02:10 PM.

[Damocles69]

pugs are not people