60 replies to this topic

[Onmyoudo]

It was okay. Had a really bad losing streak to begin with, then a win streak with occasional losses for the middle, and a really bad losing streak at the end. Finished with 50 wins, 57 losses (approx 14 hours game time, total) and some of the worst games I've personally ever played both due to mistakes (forgetting to check to my left when coming over saddle in Crimson and eating a full team's worth of facemelt) and matchmaker lotto loses (LRM boat vs team full of ECM, killed by ammo explosion 3 seconds after engaging).

After the first couple days the suiciding etc seemed to die down a bit but team mates were as randomly-skilled as ever, with lots of carrying going on. Weirdly enough for the first time in a long time I was seeing assaults or even entire lances from the far spawn points being abandoned completely despite the usual "stick together" rigmarole, leading to a number of 12-0 stomps that I was unfortunately never on the shooting end of. I feel like I got unlucky with the matchmaker more than anything, with a lot of hard-fought battles ending in both wins and losses but on the losing side of far more stomps due to poor MM team composition - the most common occurrence of which was a total lack of ECM on my side.

In closing, I wouldn't do it if I was employed right now (or had anything else going on). If they continue with the trend and do something similar next weekend? I'll probably take part to take advantage of the premium time.

[Scurry]

It was okay, except for the mother of all losing streaks on the first day. I took a break to end that one after a particular incident which told me my piloting was starting to get horribly derpy. (Protip: a Raven 3L cannot facetank a PPC/AC20 Misery at 250m)

Just got my 20 and stopped there. I'm really thankful for the tiered rewards, and the fact that they are giving away mechbays like this.

[Funkadelic Mayhem]

This challenge made me loose all hope for a balanced matchmaker.

[Orbit Rain]

Escef, on 26 August 2014 - 06:55 AM, said:

To be fair, you were telling them to do something that's pretty standard anyway. Though it is nice to see some acknowledgement for a change.

Assuming that pugs know the standard strategy is a recipe for failure. I often type in chat "take the hill!" or "Win the right (or left) side" "rush right side, eat their bravo lance" etc to reinforce those obvious strategy lines. If I don't do that, as often as not there will be random wandering with people looking at each other in confusion, cowering by the cliff/cave, and general ass-whooping not on the giving end. If the lance in L7 goes to H7 instead of I10, we most likely would have lost that drop.

[Bilbo]

Bilbo, on 26 August 2014 - 06:02 AM, said:

Bah!!! I came up 2 short. 48!!! Should have played another half hour this morning.

Couldn't leave it two short, so I took an early lunch and finished it up.

[AztecD]

i enjoyed it

[Roadkill]

I liked the challenge and agree with some of the points already posted.

1.) Focus on wins instead of kills or assists. Surprisingly, that does pretty dramatically affect the way that people play in the solo queue, and in a good way.

2.) Layered prizes. We had visitors over the weekend so I wasn't able to play until last night, but that was still enough time for me to get 10 wins (18 total matches) and earn another Mech Bay. It still takes too long to find matches and launch (my 18 matches took almost 4 hours), but with layered prizes everyone has a reasonable chance of achieving something.

3.) Premium time as a reward. Well-placed in the prize tree, in my opinion, and a welcome prize for most people. The economy is horrible unless you're earing some sort of c-bill bonus, so a week of Premium time is a pretty big deal. And once people have experienced how dramatically that changes the economy (read: makes it okay, but still not great), they might buy more. Making it the 2nd prize makes it a stretch goal, but it's one that people might strive for because it's a good prize.

The only thing I would suggest is to have week-long challenges once in a while. Weekend challenges are great most of the time, but some that last an entire week would be nice too.

[Heffay]

I enjoyed it a lot. My goal was just to get to the 20 win mark, but I think I ended with closer to 40. I'm not sweating the missing tier.

I only ran into a handful (<5) suiciders, and my W/L ratio rose a bit, which was nice. It was also a great way of working on mechs that still needed some work to get out of the basics and elites. I didn't meta for the tournament, nor feel the need to do so.

Less than 30 seconds to complete the challenge! GO GO GO!

[Almond Brown]

That is 4 Free MechBays in 2 weeks. What is not to like...

[Votanin FleshRender]

El Bandito, on 26 August 2014 - 03:07 AM, said:

50 wins was really grindy to be sure and I hope PGI makes it bit shorter next time. I spent total of little more than 6 hours on it for completion--all on Skirmish mode. That said, I enjoyed most of the matches. They were fast paced, maneuvre heavy and all around rewarding.

Sure, there were negatives such as suicide rushing, and even killing oneself on spawn by overheating, but overall I got the feeling that the majority of the players actually gave a damn about winning. I have not seen commands and instructions thrown around and have them actually obeyed this much in PUGs since... ...never. Terra Therma used to be one of my worst map but after the challenge I got positive WLR on it! It was fun leading docile pugmates, and was fun being led by competent commanders. I got the distinct impression that win based challenge is much more fun than kill based challenges. Of course, I reported most of those intentional suiciders.

Plus the rewards were way more worth it than tourneys. Last tourney, I spent 9-10 hours trying to get into first 5 spot and failed. The 5th place reward was less than a mech bay worth of C-Bills.
In comparison, the challenge gave me a mech bay, 7 day premium and 6,500,000 C-Bills, which I really need for the Summoner and Direwhale purchase next month. All in 6 hours worth of play time.

Best of all, I was too jaded to level up my Ember, Firestarter-S, and recently bought Stalker-5M, but soon the 7 day premium made it a breeze. Those 3 mechs were what I used to complete the 50 win challenge and even though they were initially only at Basic skill level, I managed to finish Elite-ing the Ember and the 5M.



As you can see, my KDR sucked with the Firestarters, but I got more wins than losses so that's what mattered. Had to invest in both Arty and NARC to contribute to the team even if I do not play well. Still, that 2.6 WLR on the FS9-S really caught me off guard, considering its absolutely crap KDR and damage done.

You did the whole thing in 6 hours? How many games an hour do you squeeze in? You've got 90ish games played just in your 3 new mechs there...

Methinks someone banditoed ElBandito's watch

[Bilbo]

Votanin FleshRender, on 26 August 2014 - 10:14 AM, said:

You did the whole thing in 6 hours? How many games an hour do you squeeze in? You've got 90ish games played just in your 3 new mechs there...

Methinks someone banditoed ElBandito's watch

I managed it in 8-9 hrs and my win percentage wasn't quite as good. Probably doable. The first 20 went by pretty quick. As I got farther into the twelve pack, the wins didn't want to cooperate nearly as much.

[Fut]

El Bandito, on 26 August 2014 - 03:07 AM, said:

...overall I got the feeling that the majority of the players actually gave a damn about winning. I have not seen commands and instructions thrown around and have them actually obeyed this much in PUGs since... ...never.

This was my observation as well - People were actually trying to win matches, the communication levels in the average match were through the roof! It was great, and I hope that the PUG Queue continues this way despite the fact that the challenge is over.

[Azar Javed]

The Challenge was good, although a bit steep. Problem was of course, that we were forced to abandon our friends and play "alone". I gotta say, I have seen quite some Chaos during this challenge, but there were a lot of matches with good leadership and surprisingly organized fights.

I totally like it, when people are all communicative and working together, calling out important spots or UAVs, announcing tactics and the outcomes of important engagements including new orders/suggestions for the rest of the battle and stuff like that. That was awesome!

Edited by Azar Javed, 26 August 2014 - 10:33 AM.

[Sephlock]

It was alright, I just wish that I could have banked the time.

[TLBFestus]

El Bandito, on 26 August 2014 - 03:07 AM, said:

50 wins was really grindy to be sure and I hope PGI makes it bit shorter next time. I spent total of little more than 6 hours on it for completion--all on Skirmish mode. That said, I enjoyed most of the matches. They were fast paced, maneuvre heavy and all around rewarding.

6 hours? Really? That would be a little over 8 wins per hour for the whole 6 hours, and no losses. You might want to check your watch, I think it's running slow.

[Haji1096]

The challenge was slightly entertaining. I decided before I got started I would get to 20 and not give a **** about winning 50.

I used light mechs, mostly the dual ERLL Raven 3L. Best way to cover my team and deal damage.

[Frostfire]

I have to say I really enjoyed it, and it did, in fact, encourage team work as far as I saw.

Though 50 was grindy, the big ticket item, the free mechbay, was at 10, so that was pretty reasonable to players who have like, work and stuff (I still got my 50 though, relax).

But, definately, there was teamwork. More so than the first two challenges.

First Challenge: Kill steal. It was the name of the game and I found that awful. Seriously. People would just wait around till a mech was at very low and then just shot at it. I even caught one guy powere ddown till mid match and then he booted up, so he could LRM boat all the kills he wanted while everyone else did the work

Second challenge: Much better. I'm an assist machine, so this was right up my alley. May not do many kills in a light mech just yet, but It made the competition more even.

The Last Challenge: At first, I was worried. I said there was no way I was going to make 50, because I wasn't a good enough player. But I listened to orders, made suggestions, and people overall worked as a group. It was about enjoyment of a game, not just jumping in to kill steal or people rushing at each other.

[RussianWolf]

Fiona Marshe, on 26 August 2014 - 03:45 AM, said:

Maybe, "Win the Game... and survive" with a lower threshold of games.

Then you'll just have people run to a fringe, power down and disco.

maybe "much be in match at finish" which may suck from people with connectivity issues, but should end the farming outright.

I enjoyed it overall, I only worried about the first 20 which I was able to do on Friday. From there I played like normal on a weekend. I got to 50 on Sunday midday for a nice cbill bonus. Given that I actually enjoy the game, I try to play a good bit on the weekend and an hour or so each night.

Edited by RussianWolf, 26 August 2014 - 10:50 AM.

[ProtoformX]

It was tedious; that's for sure. I don't tend to grind in MWO. I play when I want to play. I feel like I had to play way too much this weekend. The surprising thing is that I only pushed for the 20 win prize. Those of you that did 50 wins have the patience of a saint.

[Escef]

ProtoformX, on 26 August 2014 - 11:13 AM, said:

It was tedious; that's for sure. I don't tend to grind in MWO. I play when I want to play. I feel like I had to play way too much this weekend. The surprising thing is that I only pushed for the 20 win prize. Those of you that did 50 wins have the patience of a saint.

I already play the game a lot, so I didn't stress about it too much. Got my 50 with 4 hours to spare.