632 replies to this topic

[Cmdr Rad]

Russ Bullock, on 12 September 2014 - 10:57 AM, said:

Russ offers the Olive Branch

Thanks Russ. This is one of your most magnanimous gestures to date, and giving the community this chance I think is a great step forward for PGI. And while I do appreciate this, do please forgive me for being a little suspicious. There's no... "System" in place to facilitate this properly, so the chances of failure are increased.

• We could make a poll to get votes and the like from the community here, but, of course, our ability to create polls has been disabled last I checked.
  
• If you had went with #SAVEMWO, and had the players create a council with elected representatives (a la EVE Online), then the representatives would talk to the interest groups that they represent along with players general, and come to some agreement amongst themselves after some compromises, and give you a fairly well thought out system that would represent the "Will of the People" to some extent.

Though it looks like people are already on the way to forming their own council anyway. Let the mobs tear themselves apart in the streets.

[BlakeAteIt]

Let's get this moving in a helpful direction!

Before we get to sharing the ideas we all have on this issue, let's start by deciding what we are looking for in leadership. This is clearly going to be a complicated issue (look at all the solutions alread proposed!), so we should get organized first.

So what are we looking for in a leading council?

[General Discussion Kerensky]

Fierostetz, on 12 September 2014 - 01:17 PM, said:

This was tongue-in-cheek - I remember an NGNG discussion about it on-stream, but I don't remember the outcome

Yeah, I figured. I just can't resist the urge to show off that I've written fiction for the universe.

I'm just a huge nerd, haha.

Edit: Anyway, I think we should wait to see an official thread from PGI. It's too easy to start speculating, let's find out what they want and see if they're willing to make this first small step towards reconciliation with their community.

Edited by Kiyoshi Mizumura, 12 September 2014 - 01:26 PM.

[Zyllos]

Bilbo, on 12 September 2014 - 01:13 PM, said:

Which IS mech do you suppose can afford the weight and crits for that C3 master? How many people do you believe would be willing to give up the speed/firepower/heatsinks to equip it?

That is the hardest thing to balance. 6t/6slots for C3 Master.

I think having the nice bonus of sharing all targets to everyone in the network is nice, it's not enough to make someone decide to equip one in a team. So what other bonuses could be added?

[MischiefSC]

Here is the thread on the council.

We need 2 concurrent but separate conversation environments.

1. Discussion of council, representatives, etc.

2. Discussion of ECM suggestions.

We should probably move from this thread (which is pretty general on the overall topic) into a dedicated ECM concept/discussion one.

We already have a general discussion on the elections that will, I hope, produce decisions that will be refined down into a more focused new topic.

Let's not mission drift here guys. It's an awesome opportunity.

If you've got an opinion on the fact that Russ offered this or PGI or the like, keep those here. It's a great space for them.

Otherwise the other two topics, electing a council and changes to ECM, need to be kept on topic. If you want to debate PGI offering to change ECM based on a player consensus, do it here. If you want to debate ECM changes, do it in the ECM thread. You want to debate who to have in the council (not the idea of a player council all together, that goes here) then do that in the council thread.

Herding cats folks, everyone do their part to help please.

[Wolfways]

Fierostetz, on 12 September 2014 - 01:12 PM, said:

Yeah, I saw it, and then said "adjust the build" - the stock builds are almost all horrible [for the game we play]. Thats why we can customize them. If you choose to leave a mech stock, then you deal with the result. You made a conscious decision, knowing the results.

That's your opinion and i don't agree. I've been playing "almost stock" mechs since closed beta, mainly only customizing because of the need for extra ammo. That need is present because PGI took stock mechs from a TT game which represented a few minutes of real time and they sell those exact same mechs in a game where matches are at least three times longer.
There's nothing wrong with the stock mechs other than PGI not increasing the ammo/ton (and the heat system/ROF of weapons).
My JM6-S with stock weapons is an amazing mech in MWO, but I'm forced to carry 9tons of ammo instead of the stock 3tons when PGI should have just increased the ammo/ton in the first place.

[Prezimonto]

Helmer, on 12 September 2014 - 12:20 PM, said:

Homeless Bill, TopDawg, and Bishop Steiner

I'd gladly back all three of those guys along with DocBach, Koniving, Livewyr and a few comp players for a solid player council.

Everyone one of them is vocal and has shown phenomenally above average ability to communicate in a reasoned manner both on a personal level and on an idea/organizational level. There are other names I could put forward but I think that list is the most well known people around here who use logic, data, passion, and compassion when evaluating topics. There's pretty large pile of us who also fit the bill (IMO) but who either aren't as active or who don't take the time to communicate in as organized and effective a manner.

Edited by Prezimonto, 12 September 2014 - 01:31 PM.

[Christof Romulus]

Well done, Russ. You have greatly impressed me today.

Many people may have missed this, but what Russ did with his post was prove a point. Those of us who read corporate emails all day most likely didn’t miss it, but from how this thread has exploded, I’m willing to bet that many did.

While I am 100% positive that the offer from Russ is truly genuine and this is an olive branch to the community, I would like to draw attention to the point he made.

For those of you who are interested in this point, do the following. Stop reading this post, go back to the beginning of the thread, and read every post up until this post – See if you get the point without me telling you. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Welcome back.

The point is the Mechwarrior Online community can-not agree on anything. Not even remotely.

If you went back through the thread and actually read the posts you will see the community is adamant on two points:
1. ECM needs a change. There needs to be a change.
2. There is nowhere near a consensus on what that change should be.

There are posts saying that ECM bubble should be gone, except for the mech carrying the ECM, there are posts saying IDF (In Direct Fire) needs to be overhauled, some stay on task and are attempting to identify a community leader, some say ECM isn’t the priority at all and the efforts should be focused on ghost heat, some go back to the familiar tune of blaming PGI for previous blunders, but none of them agree.

What this means is the success criteria (what someone considers a good thing) for one person, or group of people is directly or indirectly opposed to the success criteria of another player or group of people. This means that ANY change PGI makes is wrong, as the group who disagrees with the changes are angered or infuriated.

PGI has been operating under this level of dichotomist indecision for years, and this thread is just pure evidence of that.

So, how can PGI succeed when there are no criteria for success?

[Edit]

TrentTheWanderer, on 12 September 2014 - 01:37 PM, said:

PGI hasn't been operating in a state of indecision, it has been sequentially generating indefatigable and unmovable resolution after resolution, without evidence-based approaches to back them up.

And the answer to your question is that there is a criterion for success, but there is *more than one viable method* for achieving that success. Not all the ideas put forward may be right, but composites or modifications of many of them could serve as the baseline for a substantial increase in overall play functionality and ultimately FUN.

Remember fun?

Have you read every post since this one you made?

Do you still think that we, the community, are of one mind? Those posts on ghost heat sure are fun to read... but what was that about ECM again? No wait, community liaison, or was it a council...

There is no criterion for success, TrentTheWanderer. This entire thread, as well as this one and I am sure, soon to be this one are all blazing proof of the COMMUNITY's indecision. If we can not come together and provide unified success criteria (which we, in fact, can not do) then how can PGI ever receive praise for doing the right thing?

P.s. - Anyone who actually reads this post, instead of skimming through eager to shove more opinion on various topics (perhaps mechs should have hats like Team Fortress 2...) if you agree, just like the post and move on. If you disagree, just move on. This thread is already so randomized at this point it's just going to add to the mess that is the proof of the community's indecision.

P.p.s - Once again, well done, Russ. Point taken.

Edited by Christof Romulus, 12 September 2014 - 03:08 PM.

[Bilbo]

Zyllos, on 12 September 2014 - 01:22 PM, said:

That is the hardest thing to balance. 6t/6slots for C3 Master.

I think having the nice bonus of sharing all targets to everyone in the network is nice, it's not enough to make someone decide to equip one in a team. So what other bonuses could be added?

If only one person is required to equip something that the entire team would benefit from, invariably most people will leave it for someone else to equip. Especially for something so expensive in terms of weight and space. Like I said earlier, wouldn't be an issue in the group queue. In the pug queue nobody would bother then be upset because they didn't get one on the team. I can think of nothing that would change that except making it less expensive. It would probably still be a crapshoot though.

Edited by Bilbo, 12 September 2014 - 01:30 PM.

[MadTulip]

Do relatively low technical efford/cost but huge content/variety gain things like:

- more and different gamemodes: attack/defend, ambush, pillage, king of the hill, assainate single target, ...
- more equipment constantly: C3 networks, Ammo types (LRM: mines, faster, incinerating, ...), smokescreen
- extremly expensive deep grindable skilltrees for quirks maybe with A OR B choices so you can grind it twice
- more damage model detail: critical hit gyro, sensors, hip, lower arm activator
- maybe league of legends style minions (tanks) driving around with 1 ML just spicing things up
- more maps

Do not bind every ressource to huge projects like adding singleplayer right after CW is done please. There is so much little things with so much gain for the game to be done first. We have such huge assets of mechs and weapons already. Lets play them out in all variety instead of just 12vs12 deathmatch with little variations every single game. This game lives from constantly adding, changing and evolving the system which is why the discussion is so heated and controversial. Think about how to get in more variety and stuff that people want to spend time with/grind for which can be produced efficiently first. This will bind huge ammounts of people. You already have the assets.

sorry for hitchhiking the topic!

Edited by MadTulip, 12 September 2014 - 02:07 PM.

[Hoax415]

I'm not sure what this thread is for anymore but let me say this. Nominations to a "player council" being done as a popularity contest or given to the posters with name recognition because they have 5k+ posts is not going to result in a very effective group.

But above all else I want to know: Why on earth are we even talking about ecm? Could ecm and indirect fire be much more realized in this game and be truer to TT and better for gameplay? Yes yes of course they could.

But lets be real there are two massive problems that are all bad for gameplay and fun and balance and new player experience on top of that.

1. Ghost Heat.
Its a confusing, secret system that barely band **** a very real problem that is spawned from several other systems being exploitable. Unfortunately those systems are huge integral parts of the game and quite complex so fixing them to fix ghost heat is quite the burden. It would be infinitely easier for PGI to at least rework ghost heat into something universal and understandable.

1a.Hardpoints.
Our hardpoint system in this game leads to all sorts of boating possibilities by restricting only by the 3 weapon types and nothing else. A small laser can become a ppc. A machine gun can become a AC20. Only missiles have some kind of check on this with the tube restrictions.

1b.Heat scale.
Anyone who knows battletech knows that the heatscale in MWO barely has half the proper penalties. Running too hot just isn't enough of a combat performance deterrent in MWO. Reworking the heat scale could dramatically change both TTK and what weapon combinations are considered "meta".

2. The pinpoint alpha issue aka TTK.
PGI says they don't like it. We don't like it. Everyone knows this issue is at the heart of almost every single nerf in the last two years. Nothing improves the feeling of piloting a mech like not dying as if you were driving something made of paper mache. I think the systems here are well known. The most obvious one is convergence. There's a pilot skill mentioning it for a reason.

So please tell me, why would ECM which could be better but isn't a no questions asked negative part of the game be the issue we are focusing on?

Hell I'd rather a community council be formed to rework the module system into a series of trade offs instead of the vertical powercreep they represent now.

Can someone please tell me why ECM should be this important?

Edited by Hoax415, 12 September 2014 - 01:38 PM.

[buttmonkey]

OK I have a message to pass on from Sandpit
If you agree or not, don't shoot the messanger!


"There's a ton of things that need to happen within the community on the forums there and they need to happen quickly for this to work and not spiral into "us vs. them" or "white knights vs. black knights"

Ok, look, for those who are NOT banned...


I'm imploring each and every one of you to set aside your personal animosity for a bit. I don't care if you like one another, PGI, Russ, niko, paul, Bryan, me, Road, heffay, Helmer, etc.

Have a discussion ABOUT THE SUBJECT, not each other.[/color]
not a year ago
]not 2 years ago
]not who's "right"
not whether you believe it or not (if you don't believe it there's no point in you being in the discussion in the first place)

I'm going to say two more things

1) If you can't put aside your personal issues in this and say anything other than "PGI sucks" or "(insert name here) is just a black/white knight" then you honestly and truly don't care about MWO itself. There's plenty of people in the community I don't "like" but they want to play MWO just the same as I do and if they have a good idea, they have a good idea. Vice versa, there's plenty of people I do "like", if they have a bad idea, it's a bad idea. Circle jerks of arguments aren't going to do anything except show PGi they were "right" in that this community is a bunch of trolls that they can't make happy no matter what they do
2) Get with your units, I don't care WHAT your ideas/suggestions for ECM are, POST THEM, in a civil and articulate manner. If you yourself are incapable of doing that, have someone who IS articulate help you write it out.

If the only thing you do is troll that thread, russ, or PGI, for asking the community to give them feedback, then you're not helping. I understand all too well the frustrations we ALL feel regarding MWo and PGI, I've spent just as many hours (although probably not as much money as some) playing, writing, posting, guides, etc. as anyone else, BUT if you REALLY enjoy Btech and MWO, this is YOUR chance to prove that.

You've already proven as a community what you can do and accomplish in getting a complete 180 out of PGI. You won. Accept it. Own it. Be proud of it. Now, much like any victory party, we need to get back to the business of rebuilding. "

Edited by buttmonkey, 12 September 2014 - 01:36 PM.

[IanSane]

Honestly astounded people would say LRM's need buffed. Please identify the one weapon that allows a player to spam an enemy target while remaining completely immune to return fire and requires FIVE different things to counter it (mobility, Radar Dep, ECM,Cover, AMS). Right now LRMs are what causes a lot of people to quit playing. If you think LRMs need buffed please play an assault and I will get 3 or 4 people to spam you to death. That should cure you. Here is the easy fix for LRMs....no more U-turns....if the LRM boat loses lock its lost and that volley of missiles goes ballistic and whatever they hit they hit. No more of this reacquiring lock and having the LRMs do a U-turn. People that write 5000 words extoling the virtues of LRMs and how they need buffed needs to gain some skill and quit playing mech-turret online.

Edited by IanSane, 12 September 2014 - 01:42 PM.

[TrentTheWanderer]

Christof Romulus, on 12 September 2014 - 01:29 PM, said:

PGI has been operating under this level of dichotomist indecision for years, and this thread is just pure evidence of that.

So, how can PGI succeed when there are no criteria for success?

PGI hasn't been operating in a state of indecision, it has been sequentially generating indefatigable and unmovable resolution after resolution, without evidence-based approaches to back them up.

And the answer to your question is that there is a criterion for success, but there is *more than one viable method* for achieving that success. Not all the ideas put forward may be right, but composites or modifications of many of them could serve as the baseline for a substantial increase in overall play functionality and ultimately FUN.

Remember fun?

[Gas Guzzler]

IanSane, on 12 September 2014 - 01:34 PM, said:

Honestly astounded people would say LRM's need buffed. Please identify the one weapon that allows a player to spam an enemy target while remaining completely immune to return fire. Right now LRMs are what causes a lot of people to quit playing. If you think LRMs need buffed please play an assault and I will get 3 or 4 people to spam you to death. That should cure you. Here is the easy fix for LRMs....no more U-turns....if the LRM boat loses lock its lost and that volley of missiles goes ballistic and whatever they hit they hit. No more of this reacquiring lock and having the LRMs do a U-turn. People that write 5000 words extoling the virtues of LRMs and how they need buffed needs to gain some skill and quit playing mech-turret online.

Inb4 you get ripped a new one by all the LRM Jockeys

Anyway, your concern is the reason we want direct-fire players in the council.

[TheCaptainJZ]

I would not be in favor of a persistent council. There's too much potential for abuse of power and discourse. I agree on a new and healthy discussion of ECM within the community. When an overwhelming consensus has been reached, then it can be given to PGI. I would propose that the playerbase, through a representative, propose the changes along with a few backup suggestions.

Edit: I believe this is exactly what Russ is asking if we want to do, not no "must be 80%" thing.
Edit3: What he wants to see is overwhelming agreement.

In the case of ECM, the most common complaint is that it is overpowered because it does far more than it does in the lore. So the main proposal here is to return it to it's original form and work out what that would be like (with proposed numbers). Then we can discuss if we'd like to change anything else from that base proposal.

Edit2: For players who have been banned, someone can research what their past propsals are. We don't need to include them since they will either want to sabotage the efforts or they won't have any more to add to their original arguments and ideas. Alternatively, dialog with them can be done outside of the forums, if they are interested in participating. The proposed document can be posted publically somewhere.

Edited by TheCaptainJZ, 12 September 2014 - 01:47 PM.

[Prezimonto]

Bilbo, on 12 September 2014 - 01:13 PM, said:

Which IS mech do you suppose can afford the weight and crits for that C3 master? How many people do you believe would be willing to give up the speed/firepower/heatsinks to equip it?

I agree it's not going to be an easy piece of equipment to fit. It's also not a necessary one, but something that could be an asset and help drive role warfare on top of information warfare. It's size dictates that it will be a nearly exclusively heavy or assault mech item. It essentially replaces a large weapon (LL/PPC/AC5/LRM10 to 15) ect... If it gives a targeting computer to your every mech in your lance I don't think that's a bad trade.

As for who will equip it? I would. But then I liked taking TAG and NARC and playing spotter before it was cool. Past that I don't know what to tell you. If you think 4 TC's isn't enough you could give it an AOE and just say every mech in the radius gets the TC's... at least at 5tons and 5crits you feel like you're paying for a potential whole team advantage. It might also need to get the benefits toned down if it just get's an AOE effect.

Thing is, I understand that balance will need to happen. My point by support Khobai is to get discussion going. I DO NOT expect that even if we get a proposal to PGI that it will be implemented without tweaks, so I don't plan on sweating the reallllllly minor details.

One of the best things we can do as a community is mostly agree that ECM needs a rework, at best rough in a few guidelines for direction and get everyone to agree. The more details we have the less consensus we'll receive as player x and play y disagree on the details.

[Stormwolf]

So Russ, why haven't you posted this on R/MWO yet?

Reaching out yourself would go a long way towards restoring even a small part of the disappointed community.

[Gas Guzzler]

TheCaptainJZ, on 12 September 2014 - 01:41 PM, said:

I would not be in favor of a persistent council. There's too much potential for abuse of power and discourse. I agree on a new and healthy discussion of ECM within the community. When an overwhelming consensus has been reached, then it can be given to PGI. I would propose that the playerbase, through a representative, propose the changes along with a few backup suggestions.

Edit: I believe this is exactly what Russ is asking if we want to do, not no "must be 80%" thing.

In the case of ECM, the most common complaint is that it is overpowered because it does far more than it does in the lore. So the main proposal here is to return it to it's original form and work out what that would be like (with proposed numbers). Then we can discuss if we'd like to change anything else from that base proposal.

You are right, the council should be for the ECM/Information Warfare issue alone. Don't need a small group of players dictating every little thing as we go down the road.

[Clit Beastwood]

Wolfways, on 12 September 2014 - 01:24 PM, said:

That's your opinion and i don't agree. I've been playing "almost stock" mechs since closed beta, mainly only customizing because of the need for extra ammo. That need is present because PGI took stock mechs from a TT game which represented a few minutes of real time and they sell those exact same mechs in a game where matches are at least three times longer.
There's nothing wrong with the stock mechs other than PGI not increasing the ammo/ton (and the heat system/ROF of weapons).
My JM6-S with stock weapons is an amazing mech in MWO, but I'm forced to carry 9tons of ammo instead of the stock 3tons when PGI should have just increased the ammo/ton in the first place.

Well yeah, double armor values implemented to increase TTK. It's nearly impossible to port a TT game based on chance to an electronic game based on skill. *IF* we could get the game popular enough that we had the player base to support it, I'd love to see an official "stock mech" mode. What I'd want though, is to take any one of the mechs I've already built or customized, and it lets me drop in the "stock" version of it. Stock mech mode with TT armor values, no customization, etc. to keep the TT nerds happy, then they'll be less frustrated by the rest of MWO. Anyone who's a fan of one side or the other can always choose to jump over to the other side when they need a vacation.

Sidebar: I tried TT a few times. I am not a frequent TT player - I did not like that my hits, etc. were based on chance. I was a competitive shooter - I can aim a weapon, I don't want the roll of a dice to determine *anything*. Heck, bring windage into the game, give the UI a basic way to "guesstimate" shots, and have command modules/targeting computers serve the role of automatically calculating where you need to aim to hit a target. Bam - you just "deconverged" energy and ballistics, made a reason to carry a targeting computer, and added more immersion. While we're at it, make LRMS and streaks follow TAG lasers if there's no target selected - I've killed plenty of mechs with dumbfired LRMS but this does not seem to be widespread. Why not laser guided missiles?

Edited by Fierostetz, 12 September 2014 - 01:52 PM.