481 replies to this topic

[Fonzie260]

Here's a solution,


Join a Clan. Even Clans have casual players and groups for such occasions.

[9thDeathscream]

I have 2 boys who play this game and they avoid the group queue like it has the plague.

A 10 and 11 year old saying that group queue is horrible and NO FUN. Man outa the mouth of babes. Do you guys need anybody else to tell you whats happening? How small groups are being hammered.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

I drop often with my dad, who isn't the best mechwarrior in the world, and we often have a perception of losing a bunch. However, both of our win/loss records are quite positive.

I strongly suspect that much of the pain of the group queue is a matter of perception. I know that my wins and losses with my dad tend to come in runs, and sometimes it feels like the matchmaker has it in for us, but on balance we win more than we lose, even when it doesn't feel like it.

As for 12-mans in the group queue, I can remember several recent games where our team was 3-4 different teams (including my little 2-man) against a 12-man and we won (at least one of those wasn't even close, 12-5 in our favor).

[AlmightyAeng]

Piney, on 23 September 2014 - 10:23 AM, said:

One of the big problems with playing in a small group alongside a larger group is the large group will not communicate with the small group most of the time. The small group isn't on the team's TS and gets ignored / used as cannon fodder.

The small group is left to determine the game flow on their own and hope for the best.

So, you guys in large groups - let the small groups in on your plans and work with them. They just might be very helpful in winning the match.

That does suck...and then the larger portion blames them. And it's not always their fault.

Generally when we drop we try to assign someone to be our PuG liaison. With the unit tags they can see that we're a large group now, so generally we don't need to point that out, but we'll talk in TS and figure out WTH we're doing and then relate it via chat.

"We're heading to location X. We'll try to put up letters to focus fire. Stick with us and let's have some bloody fun." Etc.

It's hard to do in the heat of the moment...but at the very least it can keep your other 4-man from going AWOL into a corner of the map and getting their faces ripped off.

[9thDeathscream]

Mickey Knoxx, on 23 September 2014 - 10:37 AM, said:

Personally I think people are missing the ultimate goal some are trying to achieve..

With what some presume will be coming with CW. Where they hope and intend on fighting for territories as a 12 man. Taking the opportunity we have now to grow from a 4 man, to a 5, to a 6 and so on. Working up to a functional semi competitive unit to actually be effective against people who have had established 12 man groups for a couple years on here. Using this time to work out effective group builds and strats while not being fed straight to the sharks when it happens.

So what it seems is there allot of casual players who have no long term goals to try to do the same. And are only focused on the match to match satisfaction of a win or loss without any concern for what is to hopefully come.

So many have complained about "lack of content" or "no objective" to the game. However when it appears the goal is in sight, rather than seize the opportunity to build up now, they just focus on trying to keep the rest down to where they are.

Fonzie260, on 23 September 2014 - 10:38 AM, said:

Here's a solution,


Join a Clan. Even Clans have casual players and groups for such occasions.

Players shouldn't have to be forced to do that! You are missing the point of the term "casual"

[totgeboren]

The only group drops I do is with one friend (the only one I know who also plays), and I admit it really is a struggle. I win way more often than I lose in PUGs and often place top three in damage/points, but when me and my friend (who is definitely a better player than me) drop in groups we get stomped way more often than we win.

However, we have started doing the opposite of what Piney says. Instead of hoping that the bigger groups let us in on their plan, we just tag along and shoot at whatever they shoot, and it has had some positive effects.

So in short, if you drop in groups of 2, you need to just swallow your pride and try to be a team player. It is definitely not casual-friendly, since it requires that you have some battlefield awareness and press 'b' once in a while to see where everyone is at. But it helps.

[AlmightyAeng]

Akulla1980, on 23 September 2014 - 10:42 AM, said:

Players shouldn't have to be forced to do that! You are missing the point of the term "casual"

Casual means different things to different people. For me, casual means I'm drinking gin, or beer, and have less than 11 other buddies in my group.

Casual to you might mean dropping with only 1-3 friends at a time.

[Jetfire]

The only answer to this is tiered player pools ALA starcraft Bronze/Silver/Gold/Diamond ranks. MWO does not really have the player base right now to support this.

[Joseph Mallan]

Cathy, on 23 September 2014 - 10:05 AM, said:

I feel like I've been kicked in the font.

However, yes what your talking about, was the casualty of people wanting unlimited sized groups, in the format presented.

I was against this, from the start, but its what, the people most likely to be in the players committee, wanted, which is another reason I'm also dead set against the committee, because they won't do what good for the majority, they will push for what they and their immediate friends/unit want.

No way is going to be perfect which ever way P.G.I chose.

I used to like just pairing with my daughter, that doesn't happen now because, two's will nearly all ways end up as fillers in groups, same as the three's

Now another step pgi could take is to add another tick box for groups of two or three that just want to have fun and, or o.O don't use viop, as to which stream they want to be in PuG or team play.

However I doubt very much that this will be adopted, because,

1, You'll get people in groups of four that feel hard done by and say it sucks because two's and three's get the choice.

2, The people that want to group in numbers between 4-10 will find match maker fail time after time as most the smaller groups opt in for Pug play, and complain.

3, The soloists will complain about being farmed by the well organised groups dropping in smaller numbers.


You might remember how P.G.I were surprised by the high number of people that dropped solo around 85% if I remember correctly.

Yet they chose this route, because a very small minority, wanted full company sized battles, and the other 14% that grouped complained because their five buddies couldn't team up anymore, with a limit of four as the old way.

So yes casual team play is dead, depending on your view of what casual team play actually is, and its this way because the community 'wanted it'

At least I was nominated Cathy. So not everyone wanted... THIS.

[Piney II]

Ghost Badger, on 23 September 2014 - 10:41 AM, said:

"We're heading to location X. We'll try to put up letters to focus fire. Stick with us and let's have some bloody fun." Etc.

It's hard to do in the heat of the moment...but at the very least it can keep your other 4-man from going AWOL into a corner of the map and getting their faces ripped off.

This is what the small group needs. Point them in the right direction and let them work with the team.

Edited by Piney, 23 September 2014 - 10:48 AM.

[Theaus]

Just wanted to add, always go to teamspeak or ventrilo for group que; don't be a group that's not on comms. I do think eventually that the game may create an IS vs IS only zone for new pilots. Like in zone around/after Terra. Either that or we need to start hosting rooms in TS that are doing training matches of smaller than 12 man groups with two people willing to waste their premium time. I know I'm going to a friends at end of month and plan to host just small 2 v 2 or 4 v 4 matches. Maybe even 4 spiders vs Atlas (until PGI releases Elementals) fun matches. It would be possible to have 'Historical Battles' were the mechs and equipment were predetermined. That would at least be more forgiving to new pilots.

[9thDeathscream]

Ghost Badger, on 23 September 2014 - 10:44 AM, said:

Casual means different things to different people. For me, casual means I'm drinking gin, or beer, and have less than 11 other buddies in my group.

Casual to you might mean dropping with only 1-3 friends at a time.

Exactly. So this is what the big group organizers need to understand. We don't all want to have to submit to their own ideas what group playing style should be.

[Remarius]

Our company got rolled by a Swedish training team on Saturday so lessons...

1) Lan and his Swedes are scary
2) If you go in and do it properly you can succeed.

[AlmightyAeng]

Wasn't there an idea at one point for players to get the option of "Would you like to remain with this group?" And then those people could keep dropping if they had a good game/experience?

I'd LOVE to have that kind of match-to-match longevity and offer to get PuGs into our TeamSpeak for an introduction to a different way to play Mechwarrior.

Akulla1980, on 23 September 2014 - 10:47 AM, said:

Exactly. So this is what the big group organizers need to understand. We don't all want to have to submit to their own ideas what group playing style should be.

Agreed. But it doesn't mean that having a larger group of guys messing around is bad either. Separating small groups from mid-size groups might just be too much for the matchmaker to handle, since it currently uses those groups to fill the gaps.

Double-edged sword. I like this queue version MUCH better than 1-4 and 12. I like being able to add in my boys as they slowly get off work and log on...accruing friends and beer-level with every game. It's like having reinforcements show up with dakka, hound-grins and innappropriate humor. Makes me smile every time

Edited by Ghost Badger, 23 September 2014 - 10:51 AM.

[-Natural Selection-]

Akulla1980, on 23 September 2014 - 10:42 AM, said:

Players shouldn't have to be forced to do that! You are missing the point of the term "casual"

Sooo, what does casual mean? That some wish to drop into a match as a group, against other groups and not do the things a group should try to do to win and in return expect a win?

[Krigherren]

Yep. This is a problem and it sucks majorly. My closest friends can't get into it and beat themselves up because they aren't doing well and as a result, aren't really having fun. Being someone who has loved MechWarrior for as long as I can remember, plays MWO regularly and has done so for quite awhile now and enjoys the game very much, hearing that from them hurts. Kind of a lot.

I'm not really sure how to combat this myself, but one thing I've thought of is to remove the premium time cost for being able to drop 1v1 in private matches. At least then I'd be able to aid them in getting used to how the game works in a controlled environment, free of the stress and more often than not, insult, that comes with not doing very well in public matches.

With public queues, as said, 2 mans and 4 mans generally end up as filler for larger groups. So aside from tightening ELO restrictions in some way, I have no idea what they would do. I like the idea of a tick box for a fun/practice queue, but I just can't see such coming soon, if ever. As we all know progress is very slow. Especially in comparison to other games. Not really going to get into that, but it is a factor.

I really want this game to succeed and the player-base to increase greatly. However, I'm having a hard to time seeing that with how difficult it is for new players to get comfortable and enjoy themselves, even more so when they try to do it with buddies.

This needs to be resolved.

Edited by Krigherren, 23 September 2014 - 10:59 AM.

[AlmightyAeng]

Just a shout-out to you guys stalking the thread...would making 'solo queue' involve solos AND 2-player groups be an equitable compromise? Just curious. 4-mans farming pugs could totally happen. 2-mans? They'd need to carry HARD.

Edited by Ghost Badger, 23 September 2014 - 10:55 AM.

[Kassatsu]

Jetfire, on 23 September 2014 - 10:46 AM, said:

The only answer to this is tiered player pools ALA starcraft Bronze/Silver/Gold/Diamond ranks. MWO does not really have the player base right now to support this.

It never will either.

There's no way to differentiate somebody's "level", and there's not even a tech tier like just about every other game to ever copy/paste world of tanks' game mode (to be fair they didn't exactly invent the whole team last man standing and/or stand in the square mode, but it's the most common comparison and the one people are actually copying due to its success) has done, even if that level just means the time they've played the game - A legendary founder could have easily taken a lengthy break from the game and come back and get matched up against people that started a month ago, yet play the game 24/7 and *should* have higher rankings, and are piloting vastly superior meta builds or just in general, better mechs. Except they don't.

That alone is enough to turn a LOT of people away from the game. There's also no indication of whether or not a build is "good" or bad, the forced money sinks EVERYWHERE have been ridiculous from the start, I'm not even sure what to call them now with all these weapon modules.

Edited by Kassatsu, 23 September 2014 - 10:56 AM.

[Davers]

Hopefully one day there will be a PVE mode for 'casual players'

[Triordinant]

Phaeric Cyrh, on 23 September 2014 - 10:01 AM, said:

I think they should put the 2 player group back into the "solo" que. I notice when dropping with just 1 other of my unit that we mostly feel like a 5th wheel when paired up with larger groups, and being out of the loop of their voice communications, and since they are mostly on VOIP there is almost no text chat as in the PUG games.

As a 2 man you have little hope of swaying the battle and I don't see how 2 man groups would be unfair to solo players. Even when dropping with 3 I notice a significant improvement of battle effectiveness over a 2 man drop.

Russ Bullock has already shared this about the solo queue.