259 replies to this topic

[EgoSlayer]

I'd be OK with game mode being a soft selection, but I have a few concerns:

1) Conquest rewards are significantly lower than Assault or Skirmish. That needs to be fixed, or if there is only one game type you don't select and you are matched in that game type you get a C-Bill bonus.

2) Who wins the game mode selection when there is a tie? E.g. 12 man with only conquest vs 12 man with only Skirmish?

3) I think the map selection process is backwards. It should be a vote to NOT play a map so you can't stack the deck for a favorable/perfect map, but you can stack against an unfavorable/disliked map.

Edited by EgoSlayer, 22 September 2014 - 02:27 PM.

[Phobic Wraith]

I like this idea. I'd like it more if there was more differentiation between game modes. Maybe assault victory bonus could be determined by... oh, I don't know, how many enemy 'mechs are left standing? Like in CB?

Just a thought, but I think players would love to play crazily different match types. But we'd probably need to have the ability to pick our ride after we know what the next match will be.

[J0anna]

I don't like this idea. Right now we can only choose the type of match we play in. We have the chance of getting a favorable map and the (good) chance of getting a balanced match.

Instead you want us to have the chance to get the type of match we want, for the (better) chance of getting a favorable map and the (better) chance of getting a balanced match.

I for one, HATE conquest when playing in a slow mech, on larger maps it turns into a mech walking simulator and absolutely no fun the majority of the time. When I'm grinding slower mechs, I avoid it like the plague - now you want to shove it down my throat and want me to like it?

There is only one way I would go for this - give me the ability to exclude trial mechs from being on my team. Face it, it's very unlikely that you can win a match with 2 or more trial mechs on your team. Helping them during combat is impossible as you can't talk and fight. At best you answer a few questions at the start and hope they see it. Not to mention the staggering number of people who grab a trial mech and run off to get killed at the start of the match (or just go afk). In fact I would greatly prefer this over choosing the map I play on.

Most of the matches I play are balanced. Usually when I get wiped 12 - 2 (or less) it because of bad decisions on my and my team's part. Those are my choices, and I can accept them.

Edited by Moenrg, 22 September 2014 - 07:13 AM.

[Bront]

I'm of 2 minds on this:

1) I love selecting any most of the time, but many of the folks I drop with don't like conquest, so I rarely play conquest. This would mean I could play conquest more, and that's not a bad thing.

2) Limiting what people can select is not a great option. What if I want to practice Conquest in the public queue for a private competitive match later? Suddenly I can't. And I'm sure there are teams out there that build a team for a particular mode and the drop in that mode.

Given that, I'm not willing to give up my choice. I feel strong enough about this that I would probably question continuing to play the game. Honestly, I generally hate PUGging in any mode other than conquest (it's just painful at times after being the group queue), and know others who refuse to play if conquest is one of the options.

2 different ideas as a responce to this if you insist on removing the choice:
1) Remove it from the solo queue only. Let groups choose what they want to play.

or

2) Allow members with premium time running choose, non-PT players don't get a choice. It lets players pay for the escape valve, while funneling the free players into more competitive matches.

[BARBAR0SSA]

How about adding in more game modes and eliminating conquest mode.

I'm tempted to vote against this because I know 3/4 of my matches will be conquest, my most hated mode unless I want to be a jerk and play a spider with broken hit detection, then it's ideal.

Change the way conquest is laid out, such as have 3 cap points near one team and 3 cap points near the other team so you can have your assaults sit back there and guard them while you have a force press on to attempt to neutralize one. The currently spaced out with points in the "middle" isn't fun for the big guys.

[Jman5]

I voted Yes. Better matchmaking helps struggling players face reasonable opponents.The people who are going to lose out are folks that are currently annihilating the competition.

However, the map filtering/voting system is what I am really looking for. Frankly, I would be happy with a single map veto option because it would allow me to reduce my drop chances on alpine peaks.

[Felio]

No, absolutely not.

Wouldn't the end result of this be that the only mode we ever get to play is the one that is the most popular? What if I don't like that mode?

I do not have faith that this would normalize and people would rotate their preference. I think I would get stuck playing Skirmish almost exclusively, when I only like playing Conquest.

[Almeras]

Yes but with a caveat, if the following is fixed;

Currently Skirmish is the best play mode for XP/Cbills bar none


Assault - Completing the main object does nothing but troll other players (robbing both teams of XP/cbills), turrets are ridiculously spread, far reaching or blind on certain maps. The cap times also don't vary compared to map size.


Conquest - fails in every respect, you'll get nothing for dutifully conquering objectives all game. Instead its the guy focused on dmg that benefits from your work.

IMO change it to;

• Big XP/cBill tick for capping/flipping an objective for any mech that contributed for the cap in the previous minute.
  
• Smaller team XP/cBill ticks for controlling objectives
  
• Asymmetrical ticks eg: 1 main centre objectives gives 40points per min, 4 outlying objectives gives 20each. Granting much better flexibility in how to win.
  
• Defensive kills should be a 500m radius around the objective, because objectives capture zone are minuscule.
  
• Tick XP/cbills should not be effected by a win or loss. A win should just be a flat xp/cbill reward.

[n r g]

Definitely would do anything to get more even, competitive matches.

Could careless about the gamemode, as-long as the match is balanced and competitive!

[Kotzi]

Ye, y dont you just select the mech and the mode for us. Who cares what we want to play. But if thats the only way to fix the lack of players go ahead. Because 33333 works so well...

[OffC3nter]

I'd be 100% okay with it, I pretty much always have all game modes selected anyway and tend to pick light or medium mechs if they have the lowest % in the little pop up over the play button. I could be dreaming but I fully believe that doing this gets me into better, usually closer games.

[MuzMuzMuz]

I only play skirmish and simply don't enjoy the conquest and assault modes - especialy on the solo drop que.

Time and time again playing assault 1 lance has skipped past and capped the base for a match finished in minutes - 20 mechs still standing - why bother even loading up if we're not going to fight.
I find conquest maps simply extend the time the last enemy light mech runs around the battlefield.

If MM cannot find two teams of 12, I'd be happy to drop 8v8 or 4v4. Ideally 1v1 solaris style combat with a leaderboard would be great. I play for mech on mech combat, not capture the flag/cap the point games. I'd rather just play skirmish.

Edited by MuzMuzMuz, 22 September 2014 - 07:45 AM.

[DasSibby]

Most of the time I don't lose matches because of the game-mode... I lose them because of a bad team.

So yeah, while I'd like to be able to choose game-types, I'd prefer a better team build than choosing which gametype to die in.

(P.S. This post makes me sound disgruntled, I'm not! I love playing MWO and just bought a Wave 2 pack to get that new Atlas AS7-S!)

[Voivode]

kyrdragon, on 21 September 2014 - 10:21 PM, said:

I have only one concern here, and that's getting stuck playing Conquest if you are wanting to launch your extremely slow mech, like the direwhale. That has never been fun, especially in the solo queue where the team will leave fat one of the bunch to get eaten alive in a 5vs1 engagement. The group queue is a bit better, but it doesn't change the fact a few mechs are too slow for conquest.

Otherwise I'm all for this.

I have the opposite concern. I remove Skirmish from my game modes because I find Skirmish to be the worst game mode. I have a feeling with the vote all I'd ever see is Skirmish, which would ruin the game experience for me.

[Bhael Fire]

I am all in favor of this change; most of the current game modes play very similar to each other as they are all essentially team death match with some slight variables.The ability to chose between these modes is basically just splitting hairs compared to the option of having a higher degree of match quality.

Make it so!

[MoonUnitBeta]

Russ Bullock, on 21 September 2014 - 10:34 PM, said:

Thanks for your question I should make it clear that in your example it isn't that Crimson would be chosen, it would be that Crimson had about a 33% chance of being chosen. Also we would likely give each map at least a vote of 1, therefore everything would have at least a very small chance of being chosen with the % increasing with the number of votes.

Would it not just be best to give an option of 4 maps randomly chosen by the matchmaker, and let people vote on those options instead?

[Felbombling]

I'm all for it if it creates better matches. The games played this weekend were all very similar in tactics [death ball], but at least the rolfstomping had died down to a degree. Still plenty of lopsided matches, but a few gems in there for a change. I want more of that, so you can do whatever you want with the matchmaker, Russ. I don't even care what map or mode I play, so long as the competition is fierce.

[Maver0ick]

Gumon Choji, on 22 September 2014 - 07:01 AM, said:

I am in the minority and dislike skirmish. The fact every time I group up I only get to play that one mode is tiresome. The idea that my pug matches could be voted to only playing that mode is not fun. I play for fun. This is a game. Games must be fun.

Then Russ's proposal may be a good thing for you because in the group queue, there is a possibility that you don't get skirmish even if that's the only thing the rest of your group votes for.

[Almeras]

I'm against any choice on maps (even thought I would gladly burn river city night to the ground), you'll get problems with teams min/maxing too much.

With problem maps they just need to fix them to play better..

[Gyrok]

Odins Steed, on 21 September 2014 - 11:35 PM, said:

I'd be interested in this if the game modes that weren't Conquest were better, or even if it was more popular in the community, but as it stands I'm going to be forced to play non stop Skirmish with a side of Assault with the changes. Skirmish suffers heavily from tutle tactics, lights hiding/delaying the match signficantly and is rather boring, with the only tactic being murderball and kill. Assault offers an alterternative objective but nullifies it's worth with stupid turrets and poor positioning, while being just as vulnerable to turtling as Skirmish. Conquest is the only mode with alternative victory conditions, without being hampered by stupid turrets, and their spread out nature forces teams to move.

PGI, please think of the people who want to play more than Assault/Skirmish all day.

See, I feel exactly the same about Conquest...I abhor conquest and I hope I never have to play it again...

Frankly, I hate assault as well.

I hate capping modes...they are boring and predictable.

If you HAVE to come kill me, then you will do so by engaging me, and not win by capping a base even though we killed most of your team, or by cap points because you had more/faster light mechs.

Where as if you can win by cap, then the modes default to the most crucial cap points on the map and have no other interesting or dynamic outcomes.

Edited by Gyrok, 22 September 2014 - 08:30 AM.