11 replies to this topic

[-Natural Selection-]

We dropped 6,8,9 players in our group. At beginning of our match told the fillers what we were doing, when we were doing it, and covered them like our own. We were rolling through about 80% of our matches. Most all of the matches ended with those filler players saying "ty, for the great game". One saying after one match it was one of the best he had been in. What did we do? Communicate and include them in what we were doing and it went like clockwork.

On the flip side. After our group started to log off and our group dropped in size to be the fillers (the 3 man). At the beginning of the match we asked the larger groups a number of times what their plans were with no reply. Getting rolled game after game till we said screw it and logged for the night. Complete night and day difference in the attitudes and results. So I know where you are coming from.


I guess I need to get to a point here. "Some" of these groups you are dropping in with probably have not come to grips with the fact they need to communicate to you. That they are going to have to do more than show up with half of the team to win. Things will change, they will change, or fall apart in frustration.

Just give a little bit for some to grow into it before trying to bury it.

[Redshift2k5]

I had a fantastic time playing in mixed-sized groups last night.

One issue is I did not see smaller groups make any attempt to communicate (especially important in that strange 10+2 arrangement).

In retospect I think my group could also have communicated better with our other group(s), especially when we were bringing groups of 6 or more and thus represented the largest portion of the team.

[627]

Imho, if you have 6+ in a match, you should announce it to the rest of your team and you should take lead. If the others don't follow that's fine, but at the end it is essentially your game so you should lead (and carry).

[Nicholas Carlyle]

I kind of had a feeling when they introduced this group queue that the lack of communication tools (In game VOIP and quick Command Tool) would start to be an issue.

Sounds like you did good when you were in your larger group Dozier.

[stjobe]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 03 July 2014 - 04:30 AM, said:

I kind of had a feeling when they introduced this group queue that the lack of communication tools (In game VOIP and quick Command Tool) would start to be an issue.

Er, not having those (especially chat hotkeys) has been an issue in PUG games since closed beta. Perhaps now that it's "starting to be an issue" for groups as well, PGI will pull their thumb out of their rear and do something about it.

Nicholas Carlyle, on 03 July 2014 - 04:30 AM, said:

Sounds like you did good when you were in your larger group Dozier.

They did; it's amazing what a little communication can do even in solo-PUG play; I'm not surprised it works just as well in group play.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

stjobe, on 03 July 2014 - 04:45 AM, said:

Er, not having those (especially chat hotkeys) has been an issue in PUG games since closed beta. Perhaps now that it's "starting to be an issue" for groups as well, PGI will pull their thumb out of their rear and do something about it.

They did; it's amazing what a little communication can do even in solo-PUG play; I'm not surprised it works just as well in group play.

I know it's always been an issue, I meant more like, it would come to the forefront again. Since it kind of drifted away for a while.

[Bobzilla]

Obviously better comms would make a difference, but I think a behavior adjustment will happen as well. When have your biggest advantage stripped from you, you need to change to reflect that.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Bobzilla, on 03 July 2014 - 05:32 AM, said:

Obviously better comms would make a difference, but I think a behavior adjustment will happen as well. When have your biggest advantage stripped from you, you need to change to reflect that.

Lots of moving pieces with these changes.

But the ability for the 8 man team to say "Hey 4 man, we're going to be doing so and so, and will use the command functions to note focus fire targets, please try and assist".

Then when the 8 man on comms identifies a target, they can hit F5 or whatever to inform the 4 man who they are shooting at.

Suddenly the 12 man has lost some of their edge.

Edited by Nicholas Carlyle, 03 July 2014 - 06:19 AM.

[Lootee]

The smaller groups also need to drop with a strategy in mind now too.

I'ma drop in this mech I'm derping with and you drop in your herping mech isn't going to cut it any more.

Last night we tried a few 2-man drops but we always coordinated and chose mechs to carry out some kind of strategy. Lurmboat + Narcer, 2 short range brawlers (one to bait them in and the other one hides until surprise buttsecks time). Went up against a few 6, 8, 9 mans. Won some and lost some but we always did ok in the dmg department as long as our strategery was sound.

We were constantly feeding info to the rest of the team on chat (dw tw ctf coming out of tunnel at d3!!!) Etc... It helps quite a bit.

[CeeKay Boques]

Dozier, on 03 July 2014 - 02:22 AM, said:

Just give a little bit for some to grow into it before trying to bury it.

There's a long history of you and your 4 guys with 8 n'erdowells, and wasting your breath. Hopefully it will come around.

[DjPush]

I hope "they" don't listen to the nay sayers and change the MM. I havent had this much fun in MWO in a long time. I dropped solo, small groups and large groups and had a blast. Last night was awesome and so well balanced. I didnt win them all but at least it wasn't an onslaught of Timbers and Dires.

[FaceRipt]

It must have been nice to have games like that, most of the ones me and a friend had to deal with last night saw very little comm activity among the team.

Just the larger group move off and do what they planed while leaving me and my friend to follow and try and figure it out.

I will say there was 1 nice game that did happen when we were the filler for a 10 man, they did include us and support us, but short of that 10 man the other groups just did whatever.

The main difference was there was not all the usual XXplayer nameXX yelling how bad you are at the game.

It was mostly just crickets outside of the initial o7's and gg's and gee gee geet reckt from one annoyingly superior team that we faced 4 times in a row.