42 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

Quote

At first, the new 3/3/3/3 was providing some really nice games, and even with the injection of Clan, games were close; then the MM, having to deal with people leaving due to a small subset of bad games or their perception of bad game content/mechanics, the MM has a harder time bringing a good group together, and it slowly dessolves again into a stomp perspective (this is just one example of many aspects that could cause a similiar revolving door).

3/3/3/3 doesnt work. period.

The problem is PGI tried to force players into lights and mediums. But no one wants to play them. So all thats happened is search times have increased majorly while we wait for the release valves to blow on 3/3/3/3 and then we still end up with games that have 7-9 heavies/assaults per team.

Only way 3/3/3/3 can work is if players WANT to play lights and mediums. And the only way to get that to happen is to implement some kindve role warfare system.

[OznerpaG]

i played every day for over a year (4000+ games) - i know how to pilot mechs instinctively and get them to maneuver exactly the way i want them to, i know how to react to any situation i come up against, i know the maps better than my living room, and i accept losing will happen just as often as winning

then a week ago, i kinda got bored of the fact i know this game inside and out so i don't play anymore, even though i have 2 weeks left on my premium time


that's just the cycle of gaming - if i never got bored of any of the great games i played i'd still be playing Red Storm Rising on my Commodore 64 right now lol

[PappySmurf]

Khobai [3/3/3 doesnt work. period.

The problem is PGI tried to force players into lights and mediums. But no one wants to play them. So all thats happened is search times have increased majorly while we wait for the release valves to blow on 3/3/3/3 and then we still end up with games that have 7-9 heavies/assaults per team.

Only way 3/3/3/3 can work is if players WANT to play lights and mediums. And the only way to get that to happen is to implement some kindve role warfare system. [
==========================+++++++++++++++++++====================================

The truth is for me I loved to play my mediums and lights but in MWO the mechs are non competitive even in solo queue battles because there like butter and melt in less than a few minutes of game play. Was it because I have no skill at piloting them? NO it was the fact even with skill my playing time was way to short compared to my playing time per battle in my heavies and assaults.

So they my mediums and lights set collecting dust in my mechlab or sold.

Edited by PappySmurf, 04 August 2014 - 07:58 AM.

[Lefty Lucy]

Khobai, on 04 August 2014 - 07:44 AM, said:

3/3/3/3 doesnt work. period.

The problem is PGI tried to force players into lights and mediums. But no one wants to play them. So all thats happened is search times have increased majorly while we wait for the release valves to blow on 3/3/3/3 and then we still end up with games that have 7-9 heavies/assaults per team.

Only way 3/3/3/3 can work is if players WANT to play lights and mediums. And the only way to get that to happen is to implement some kindve role warfare system.

Yep. I've been in Comstar NA groups that refuse to make groups bigger than 9 because that way you're likely to get a game with no lights on your team, which is a huge bonus.

[Deathlike]

Lefty Lucy, on 04 August 2014 - 08:01 AM, said:

Yep. I've been in Comstar NA groups that refuse to make groups bigger than 9 because that way you're likely to get a game with no lights on your team, which is a huge bonus.

That's terrible and sad at the same time.

[WVAnonymous]

Lefty Lucy, on 04 August 2014 - 08:01 AM, said:

Yep. I've been in Comstar NA groups that refuse to make groups bigger than 9 because that way you're likely to get a game with no lights on your team, which is a huge bonus.

Oooh, good idea.

[Haji1096]

Its up to the developers to make an engaging game that retains players. If a player is no longer having fun they should leave the game. The player retention statistic is more valuable than game play statistics because it effects PGI's bottom line.

[Deathlike]

Haji1096, on 04 August 2014 - 08:35 AM, said:

Its up to the developers to make an engaging game that retains players. If a player is no longer having fun they should leave the game. The player retention statistic is more valuable than game play statistics because it effects PGI's bottom line.

First off, they don't tell us that... unless it suits their position... like Bryan saying 3PV "improved retention" after a week, even when that statistically is insufficient if not irrelevant.

But hey, PGI believes they know better than the rest of us.

[Willard Phule]

Haji1096, on 04 August 2014 - 08:35 AM, said:

Its up to the developers to make an engaging game that retains players. If a player is no longer having fun they should leave the game. The player retention statistic is more valuable than game play statistics because it effects PGI's bottom line.

You just don't get it.

The only department in PGI that actually does it's job well is the marketing department. They have NEVER had a problem getting a new crop of players into the game every 3 to 4 weeks.

The problem is retaining them. With no "new player content" or anything that teaches them to play, they hang around for a minute then leave. As long as they drop a few bucks first, PGI is happy.

Eventually, the game will be a financial loss and PGI can get a tax write off for it.

[Haji1096]

Willard Phule, on 04 August 2014 - 09:23 AM, said:

You just don't get it.

The only department in PGI that actually does it's job well is the marketing department. They have NEVER had a problem getting a new crop of players into the game every 3 to 4 weeks.

The problem is retaining them. With no "new player content" or anything that teaches them to play, they hang around for a minute then leave. As long as they drop a few bucks first, PGI is happy.

Eventually, the game will be a financial loss and PGI can get a tax write off for it.

So you're saying new players shouldn't play the game so that PGI can change the game to keep current players from leaving ?

[Davers]

PappySmurf, on 04 August 2014 - 07:57 AM, said:

Khobai [3/3/3 doesnt work. period.

The problem is PGI tried to force players into lights and mediums. But no one wants to play them. So all thats happened is search times have increased majorly while we wait for the release valves to blow on 3/3/3/3 and then we still end up with games that have 7-9 heavies/assaults per team.

Only way 3/3/3/3 can work is if players WANT to play lights and mediums. And the only way to get that to happen is to implement some kindve role warfare system. [
==========================+++++++++++++++++++====================================

The truth is for me I loved to play my mediums and lights but in MWO the mechs are non competitive even in solo queue battles because there like butter and melt in less than a few minutes of game play. Was it because I have no skill at piloting them? NO it was the fact even with skill my playing time was way to short compared to my playing time per battle in my heavies and assaults.

So they my mediums and lights set collecting dust in my mechlab or sold.

But the reason they are getting melted is because there are so many heavy and assault mechs on the field. Medium mechs don't 'melt' each other. Light mechs don't usually melt mediums or each other. It is much harder to get a viable 30 point FLD alpha in mediums.

PGI should have either kept 3/3/3/3 as an unbreakable rule, or they need to completely rewrite several parts of the game to incentive the use of Lights and Mediums.

[General Taskeen]

Many get bored for different reasons, like I have been for a long time.

I only play occasionally in the stock community, but those are private match events. Some people that play in those rarely if ever play in public matches, but some do. If there was a stock mode in particular, like the previous games, many of them like myself might bother to bolster numbers in the public matchmaker.

Other than that, I got other things to do than spend my time with MWO - mainly because grinding for virtual stuff in F2P's is insanely boring to me. I preferred the previous games: Install game from Disk. Play SP or Play MP. Drive any Robot you want. No Grind, Lots of Modes and ways to play, etc.

[Goose]

Khobai, on 04 August 2014 - 07:44 AM, said:

3/3/3/3 doesnt work. period.

Really? When was the last time you had eight lights impacted in your ******?

[Lefty Lucy]

Deathlike, on 04 August 2014 - 08:03 AM, said:

That's terrible and sad at the same time.

WVAnonymous, on 04 August 2014 - 08:04 AM, said:

Oooh, good idea.

I think it's lame as hell, but I think it's a good lesson to PGI:

We wanted role warfare. Instead, they destroyed what little role lights had (base threat) by adding skirmish and turrets. Now lights have very little role, but they just try to force people to play them instead.

Of course in this kind of a messed-up system people are going to exploit it to avoid playing mechs with no or little purpose.

[SolasTau]

@Op: The thing your calculus doesn't consider is what people's expectations are.

Over the years, there are a lot of people who've played MechWarrior and BattleTech. I'm in both parties. I stomped around for a bit in the big stompy robots, clunking my way into and out of scrapes. I can say two things unequivocally.

The first is that it feels the most like BattleTech of any product currently on the market.

The second is that it has a VERY long way to go to actually being a viable replacement for BattleTech.

Now I mentioned this in another thread... they're going to do something with Community Warfare, and I can tell you right now with near absolute certainty that it won't be what I would consider "enough." The game is an arena death match shooter as things presently stand, and basically ALL of the depth the game gets is from designing and loading out your 'mech. There's very little in the way of complexity in the matches themselves at present. It's not to say there are no tactics or anything, but it's purely fallacious to state that firing different weapons at different ranges is a lot of depth (unless we are talking about XY axis depth). The game I've been waiting for is probably Star Citizen... and I say probably because I would BET that for everything amazing about Star Citizen's space simulation, there won't be much on the planets.

So MechWarrior: Online is a game I will enjoy for what it is. I drop a little money here and there, I unlock content I actually want, and I get to play a game that at least can be fun. That said... I'm not a big FPS player, and distilling BattleTech down to exclusively 12v12 death match battles is disappointing. Those are the choices that were made however, so we all have to live with those choices. There are no alternatives in this regard.

As another side of that, the distortions to the things that are core to the BattleTech experience probably bother me the most about MW:O. It's not to say that I'm a table top purist, but there's getting close and within the spirit of how things work, and then there's making **** up and saying deal with it. The dev team here is a fan of option two there.

[Sandpit]

Davers, on 04 August 2014 - 09:44 AM, said:

PGI should have either kept 3/3/3/3 as an unbreakable rule, or they need to completely rewrite several parts of the game to incentive the use of Lights and Mediums.

they tried that, wait times were beyond ridiculous so it's apparent (at least in its current form and with the current player base) that the rule of 3 can't hard limit. Many of us pointed this out BEFORE the rule of 3
DURING the first rule of 3
AFTER reimplementation of rule of 3
NOW we're still telling them the same thing.

All the white knights and yes men in the world can't make a system do something it's simply not going to be able to do. I'd much rather see them go with your second suggestion

[Kaeb Odellas]

Willard Phule, on 04 August 2014 - 09:23 AM, said:

You just don't get it.

The only department in PGI that actually does it's job well is the marketing department. They have NEVER had a problem getting a new crop of players into the game every 3 to 4 weeks.

Hey now. The artists do a great job, I think.

[Vassago Rain]

Lefty Lucy, on 04 August 2014 - 08:01 AM, said:

Yep. I've been in Comstar NA groups that refuse to make groups bigger than 9 because that way you're likely to get a game with no lights on your team, which is a huge bonus.

We have a rule that the 10th guy has to be in the awful light. It keeps groups at 9 most of the time.

[Pjwned]

My biggest problem with the game overall is the constant reminder of how much it completely SUCKS ASS to build new mechs; I come back and get excited about some new feature or new balance change or something and then I only end up playing a few different mechs because I don't like the rest of them (which isn't too many) for one reason or another and then I get bored because building a new mech is such a gigantic pain in the ass grindfest hassle to get enough of both c-bills and MXP so I just stop playing for a little while.

It isn't fun to deal with, and I'm dreading what it will be like for clan mechs when they are fully available for c-bills because I am interested in using them, but not so much if it's going to be an even worse tedious grind to set up. I realize I can just pay for premium time and other stuff, but guess what I'm not going to do that just to alleviate a worthless, crappy grind, I would rather just not play if it's bothering me too much and that's what I end up doing.

If/when PGI eventually fixes the crappy grinding I will immediately start having a lot more fun with the game and playing it more consistently, until then it's going to be sporadic bursts just like it has been for several months now.

Edited by Pjwned, 04 August 2014 - 03:29 PM.

[WVAnonymous]

Vassago Rain, on 04 August 2014 - 12:45 PM, said:

We have a rule that the 10th guy has to be in the awful light. It keeps groups at 9 most of the time.

Call me and I'll put the modules back in the Ember. No problems with that light.

I really find the match quality is better when your team is in the 5-7 man range. I assume it's because you get very few 2 or 10 man groups that way.