81 replies to this topic

[Deathlike]

Vassago Rain, on 21 July 2014 - 02:11 PM, said:

But then absolutely no one would play river city night.

Ironically, I have a better W-L ratio on that map than the normal version...

/shrug

[Thorn Hallis]

For me it would allready be enough if the MM would even out the map statistics, trying to put me on maps first that I haven't played that often.

[Jman5]

Joseph Mallan, on 21 July 2014 - 02:07 PM, said:

Thats like saying I don't wanna fight there. Wish things could work that way but Unless you are assigned to a nice planet, you have to fight where the enemy shows up.

The way I see it, there are two workable solutions here that I would be fine with.

1. You give people a limited loadout choice so you can choose between a 50 ton mech with X loadout, or a 50 ton mech with Y loadout.

2. You give players a 1-veto option so they can avoid a map they dislike the most.

I'm not big into battletech, but isn't it kind of common that people would customize their loadouts for different planets? I seem to recall doing that in other mechwarrior games.

[Impyrium]

I'm against this, I'd rather not start seeing super optimised builds on specific maps. And having a feature to just veto one sounds a little silly- if they implemented it, it would be in the form of a checklist for every map, and I really don't want to see that.

Part of the fun is having to adapt and use your 'Mechs accordingly. It also punishes players that specialise a little too much.

[Joseph Mallan]

Jman5, on 21 July 2014 - 02:21 PM, said:

The way I see it, there are two workable solutions here that I would be fine with.

1. You give people a limited loadout choice so you can choose between a 50 ton mech with X loadout, or a 50 ton mech with Y loadout.

2. You give players a 1-veto option so they can avoid a map they dislike the most.

I'm not big into battletech, but isn't it kind of common that people would customize their loadouts for different planets? I seem to recall doing that in other mechwarrior games.

Sorry that still rustles my Inner Infantryman's Jimmies. Combat rarely takes place in beautiful places now a days.

[Sandpit]

Thorn Hallis, on 21 July 2014 - 02:20 PM, said:

For me it would allready be enough if the MM would even out the map statistics, trying to put me on maps first that I haven't played that often.

I'm willing to bet if you actually look at your map stats it's a pretty even spread and rotation

[Joseph Mallan]

Sandpit, on 21 July 2014 - 02:28 PM, said:

I'm willing to bet if you actually look at your map stats it's a pretty even spread and rotation

River City Map (Both) 28
Terra Therma 24

All other maps average around 15-17. That includes combining Day/Night divisions.

So I do have 2 maps with a preponderance of drops.

So I seem to be stationed on River City

and I raid Terra Therma often.

[1453 R]

The issue is that a handful of maps in the game act as makeshift SAN checks for ‘Mech designers, and your suggestion is effectively one to allow players to bypass said SAN checks in the ‘Mechlab – and, thus, to bypass SAN. Which, by the way, is short for sanity.

Alpine is a SAN check for Ye Olde Schule 270-meter brawlers who don’t bother with A.) any distance weapons whatsoever, or B.) enough engine rating to get to the fight. These guys would love to drop on River City or Forest Colony or any of the old, tiny maps constantly and consistently, but they have to deal with things like Crimson Straights, Tourmaline, or most importantly Alpine, and it forces them to either adjust their tactics or loadouts since they can’t reap the rewards of being grotesquely overspecialized in every single map/match.

Same with Mordor, which acts as a SAN check for heat efficiency. Build your ‘Mech with 0.6 HE in order to pack on ALL da fiahpowah, and you’re going to hate yourself in the game’s hot maps. Same with River City, which makes life difficult for people/players who can’t deal with point-blank combat.

Except none of those maps can do any of those things if players can just skip them willy-nilly. If you can just opt out of any map which might in any way disadvantage your cripplingly overspecialized pile of bad decisions, then you’re never going to learn to stop making bad decisions, are you?

[Be Rough With Me Plz]

Add an increasing penalty cost if you consistently veto certain maps in an attempt to curb W/L padding.

I hate Caustic Valley as a Brawler and I don't find it a coincidence that it's nearly my second most played map and the one where I have the worst w/l ratio. It'd be interesting to see if there's a correlation between most/least played map(s) in one's rotation to higher/lower ratios.

http://i.imgur.com/8OHQDOd.jpg

Edited by Be Rough With Me Plz, 21 July 2014 - 03:09 PM.

[Sandpit]

Be Rough With Me Plz, on 21 July 2014 - 03:07 PM, said:

Add an increasing penalty cost if you consistently veto certain maps in an attempt to curb W/L padding.

I hate Caustic Valley as a Brawler and I don't find it a coincidence that it's nearly my second most played map and the one where I have the worst w/l ratio. The same is true for my least played map having my highest w/l ratio. It'd be interesting to see if there's a correlation between most popular map in one's rotation to w/l ratios.

http://i.imgur.com/8OHQDOd.jpg

Forest Colony = 192 (that's forest and snow version)
Frozen City = 172
Caustic = 176
River City = 150
Alpine = 176
Tourmaline = 184
Canyon - 200
Terra = 157
Crimson = 158
HPG = 173

You most played map is actually Canyon, not Caustic.
you actually have 4 other maps with as many or more drops than Caustic

That's 1738 drops
10 maps = 173.8 would be the average if you dropped evenly on every map

most people forget to add the 2 alternate versions of some maps together which makes it appear at first glance that map rotation is "off"

Joseph Mallan, on 21 July 2014 - 02:34 PM, said:

River City Map (Both) 28
Terra Therma 24

All other maps average around 15-17. That includes combining Day/Night divisions.

So I do have 2 maps with a preponderance of drops.

So I seem to be stationed on River City

and I raid Terra Therma often.

eh, a deviation of that size isn't much joe, especially if you're only counting after archived stats. Take a look at archive and see what it looked like long-term

[Wolfways]

So every person that doesn't like LRM's can avoid the current most open map.....No.

[Joseph Mallan]

Sandpit, on 21 July 2014 - 03:15 PM, said:

eh, a deviation of that size isn't much joe, especially if you're only counting after archived stats. Take a look at archive and see what it looked like long-term

River city-142
Forest Colony-139
Tourm-130
all other maps 60-81
Minus the last two released.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 21 July 2014 - 03:23 PM.

[El Bandito]

I will not be surprised if PGI ninja increases the frequency of Mordor in rotation when they implement the C-Bill/MC cost veto option.

Edited by El Bandito, 21 July 2014 - 03:31 PM.

[Sandpit]

Joseph Mallan, on 21 July 2014 - 03:22 PM, said:

River city-142
Forest Colony-139
Tourm-130
all other maps 60-81
Minus the last two released.

you're remembering to add the maps with alternates together right?

El Bandito, on 21 July 2014 - 03:31 PM, said:

I will not be surprised if PGI ninja increases the frequency of Mordor in rotation when they implement the C-Bill/MC cost veto option.

conspiracy theory much? lol

[Be Rough With Me Plz]

Sandpit, on 21 July 2014 - 03:15 PM, said:

most people forget to add the 2 alternate versions of some maps together which makes it appear at first glance that map rotation is "off"

I don't consider the Night Vision/Infra versions of Daytime maps the same since (generalization) people can't hit **** in different vision modes or increase their FF incidents.

[TLBFestus]

Jman5, on 21 July 2014 - 12:45 PM, said:

We have enough maps now, .

STOP IT MAN, really just stop it, you are KILLING me!!! If the rest of your post is half as funny, I'd probably die laughing before I finished it!,,

I especially like the bit where your "math" says we have "like15 maps" and totally ignores that there are two versions of several maps in which the only difference is time of day!!!!! Genius!!!!

Can't wait for "River City--Late Afternoon", I wonder what that will be like?

Edited by TLBFestus, 21 July 2014 - 03:55 PM.

[Xmith]

I believe map rotation is the backbone of the matchmaker. The maps are weighted. There are 2 versions of mostly the older smaller maps. The newer maps like HPG or Tourmaline has only 1 version. You should imagine the 2 version map as 1 single map. You could have 60 drops on River City, River City Night totaling 120 drops and 120 drops on Alpine (1 version).

The priority of the matchmaker is to make sure you have close to an similar number of drops on all maps.

So, don't get angry at the matchmaker, it's the map rotation that is giving you problems.

[Jman5]

1453 R, on 21 July 2014 - 02:49 PM, said:

The issue is that a handful of maps in the game act as makeshift SAN checks for ‘Mech designers, and your suggestion is effectively one to allow players to bypass said SAN checks in the ‘Mechlab – and, thus, to bypass SAN. Which, by the way, is short for sanity.

Alpine is a SAN check for Ye Olde Schule 270-meter brawlers who don’t bother with A.) any distance weapons whatsoever, or B.) enough engine rating to get to the fight. These guys would love to drop on River City or Forest Colony or any of the old, tiny maps constantly and consistently, but they have to deal with things like Crimson Straights, Tourmaline, or most importantly Alpine, and it forces them to either adjust their tactics or loadouts since they can’t reap the rewards of being grotesquely overspecialized in every single map/match.

Same with Mordor, which acts as a SAN check for heat efficiency. Build your ‘Mech with 0.6 HE in order to pack on ALL da fiahpowah, and you’re going to hate yourself in the game’s hot maps. Same with River City, which makes life difficult for people/players who can’t deal with point-blank combat.

Except none of those maps can do any of those things if players can just skip them willy-nilly. If you can just opt out of any map which might in any way disadvantage your cripplingly overspecialized pile of bad decisions, then you’re never going to learn to stop making bad decisions, are you?

It's one map veto. If you're a hot, short range build, you're not going to be able to avoid every single big map and every single hot map. No one is suggesting that players be given the right to skip as many maps as they like. All it's going to do is stop one map out of 15 from rolling. If you're a hot mech and you veto terra therma, you still have to deal with Caustic and Tourmaline. If you're a short range mech and you veto alpine, you still have to deal with tourmaline, caustic, and terra therma.

Besides we already have veto systems in-game right now. Players can veto game mode if they wish so they only roll 1 or 2 of them. Game modes certainly dictate mech choice and loadouts, so why are you guys fine with that?

This is a standard feature in the gaming industry for at least 10 years. I don't know why this seems so radical to you guys.

[1453 R]

Jman5, on 21 July 2014 - 04:02 PM, said:

It's one map veto. If you're a hot, short range build, you're not going to be able to avoid every single big map and every single hot map. No one is suggesting that players be given the right to skip as many maps as they like. All it's going to do is stop one map out of 15 from rolling. If you're a hot mech and you veto terra therma, you still have to deal with Caustic and Tourmaline. If you're a short range mech and you veto alpine, you still have to deal with tourmaline, caustic, and terra therma.

Besides we already have veto systems in-game right now. Players can veto game mode if they wish so they only roll 1 or 2 of them. Game modes certainly dictate mech choice and loadouts, so why are you guys fine with that?

This is a standard feature in the gaming industry for at least 10 years. I don't know why this seems so radical to you guys.

Because this isn’t Call of Duty. Part of the ‘sim’ portion of MWO, as sickly and feeble as it is, is the fact that you have to be prepared to deal with adverse conditions during the fight. You cannot, and should not, be able to just up and say “NO I DUN’ WANNA” when the game presents you with a map option you aren’t specifically (over)built for. Trust me dood, we’re looking out for your best interests here. You want to see nothing but sub-270m sluggers in the smaller maps, or nothing but PPC snipers in the long maps, or nothing but laser/Surmboats in the cold maps?

Give players the chance to discard any map that isn’t perfectly tuned for their specific, chosen environment, and you get rid of any reason to try and build a flexible, adaptable machine that can handle most any fight. Balancing goes out the window and we get nothing but a horrid snakepit of overspecialized garbage that would never work…except on the one, single map they play on 100% of the time.

As for vetoing game modes? I used to play with all game modes enabled until very recently, when one of the most horrible Skirmish matches I’ve ever seen/heard of finally broke the camel’s back and made me disable the mode. In my defense, I knew long before they announced it that a pure-deathmatch mode with no secondary objective would be a complete disaster and rather actively dis-wanted it in the game to start with. I would be overjoyed if Skirmish was yanked from the game tomorrow never to return, because it’s an absolutely terrible idea that never needed to happen.

That said…up until I spent fourteen and a half minutes getting chewed out by my own team for trying to organize a push into an entrenched enemy under the HPG, I still played it. Because a player in this game should be ready and able to deal with any situation put in front of him.

Once again: this isn’t Call of Duty.

[Skull Leader2]

A better idea is that you know what map you are dropping into with a brief period to change weapons but not mech. You pick your mech and then load into the dropship, where you have 90 seconds to change your loadout before dropping/starting. From a simulation standpoint and BT standpoint this makes sense. In canon/lore, most people only pilot 1 mech at a time. It makes plenty of sense for a military deployment to know he area of combat hence knowing what map you are dropping into. This would encourage more diverse builds and planning. Wouldn't want to drop on Terra Therma with all your low heat weapons equipped on a mech back at your home planet.

This method of deploying would fit in very well with CW (cough...cough devs).