481 replies to this topic

[KingCobra]

Kamiko said (Yes a group of people definitely got shafted and I for one, am hoppng mad about it.
I'm sorry for the snark, but I really cannot stand the smugness of solo exponents smiling about small group's current predicament. Facing up to a four man on ts etc might have seemed bad, try dropping with your two mates vs a competitive 12 man.)

Kamiko you know as well as I do 2 mans-12 mans were killing the game by farming the new players and casuals to a point most uninstalled the game and PGI should have pulled all groups from the solo MM queue in Closed beta and we might have over 100,000 active players still and not 10,000.There was no excuse to let new players and casuals get rolled 24/7 by C-bill farming groups and the situation in the group mm queues is the result of the players not having control over the game like in past MechWarrior titles to chose group sizes to drop with and much more that has been discussed on this thread.

If PGI does not control the groups sync dropping still in the solo MM queues more will leave this game every week until we have 1000 active players left arguing over the same issues. And if they do not fix the group mm private match issue more will leave the game as well.

Edited by KingCobra, 23 September 2014 - 05:30 PM.

[Thunder Lips Express]

5 of my original 8 real life friends who started playing this with me have quit
Not solely because of stomps (mostly because of lack of real content) but partially because of stomps

[themoob]

solo queue sync drops are a myth, or at most a rarity perpetrated by the odd weird individuals.

1. your corp tags show now, so it's fair obvious if sync drops happen. I never see any evidence for it happening

2. there's no reason to sync drop. there used to be when group sizes were limited. but now that you can create a group of any number, it's a complete waste of time and effort to vainly attempt to sync drop.

[Valore]

Oh, oh, is this another 'post anecdotal evidence to try and effect gamewide changes by pretending to be a silent majority' thread? I want my turn too!

I quit this game for about a year and a half, as did most of my 120 man clan. The majority of that was due to how annoyingly difficult it was to even PLAY together.

People want to talk about how QQ and sads they are about being rolled in games?

Well here's a game you can try sometime, maybe you'll be more grateful. Its called 'Let's stare at the spinny game search wheel thingie for 10 minutes, then NOT find a match!' Then play that for an hour!

With the implementation of groups being allowed to drop in loose numbers again, my group, and plenty of others, have started playing actively again. Not all 120 people in my clan came back, but we've got at least a good 50 or so who turn up regularly again.

All I hear when I see these kinds of threads is 'I want the fun and benefit of playing in groups/teams, but I don't like it when other people have better teamwork than I do'.

For those who are playing with families/kids etc, fair enough. I hope a decent PvE mode is introduced, and you get to have fun together against less serious opposition.

For those who are just 'casuals', man up. Whenever I hear 'Oh yeah, I tried to get my friends into this game, but they all died and quit', all I hear is 'Yeah, they want a game which takes no effort to get good at'.

You know what I did when I had new friends who couldn't shoot for crap? I put them in an LRM boat, told them they were only good for being automated turrets who would fire at my mark until they got better.

Or I put them in a Streak boat with BAP, and told them to go nuts.

It was a win-win situation. They got some XP/Cbills, got to feel like they were contributing, and eventually decided they wanted to learn other playstyles and stuck at it until they got better.

Did some of them quit? Yes. You know what they told me? 'This game is too complicated for me, let's play some BF4 later'.

I play MWO with my MWO friends, I play BF4 with my BF4 friends. Problem. Solved.


And this myth that 12 mans are dominating the queue, what nonsense. My clan is one of those who drops in 10-12 mans very often.

Most of the time we end up fighting smaller groups. How is it possible you claim the group queue is infested with big groups, yet us big groups never end up facing each other?

There is a massive silent majority of organised players who have gotten back into this game because of the relaxed group size MM change. For the most part, it is a great change. Don't attempt to 'fix' it unless your fix is SURE to have up sides, or there will be a lot of unhappy people.

Edited by Valore, 23 September 2014 - 05:44 PM.

[Astrocanis]

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.

Just as true is "so many have NOT complained about lack of content or no objective." Just because a few very vocal proponents did does not mean that others simply didn't care.

And now, they get to pay. "The goal is in sight". Whose goal?

Agelmar, on 23 September 2014 - 11:17 AM, said:

Get on the Comstar NA TS server. If you have a group of 2 find some more people to play with and drop in a larger group.

Have fun.

No?

Valore, on 23 September 2014 - 05:42 PM, said:

Oh, oh, is this another 'post anecdotal evidence to try and effect gamewide changes by pretending to be a silent majority' thread? I want my turn too!

I quit this game for about a year and a half, as did most of my 120 man clan. The majority of that was due to how annoyingly difficult it was to even PLAY together.

People want to talk about how QQ and sads they are about being rolled in games?

Well here's a game you can try sometime, maybe you'll be more grateful. Its called 'Let's stare at the spinny game search wheel thingie for 10 minutes, then NOT find a match!' Then play that for an hour!

With the implementation of groups being allowed to drop in loose numbers again, my group, and plenty of others, have started playing actively again. Not all 120 people in my clan came back, but we've got at least a good 50 or so who turn up regularly again.

All I hear when I see these kinds of threads is 'I want the fun and benefit of playing in groups/teams, but I don't like it when other people have better teamwork than I do'.

For those who are playing with families/kids etc, fair enough. I hope a decent PvE mode is introduced, and you get to have fun together against less serious opposition.

For those who are just 'casuals', man up. Whenever I hear 'Oh yeah, I tried to get my friends into this game, but they all died and quit', all I hear is 'Yeah, they want a game which takes no effort to get good at'.

You know what I did when I had new friends who couldn't shoot for crap? I put them in an LRM boat, told them they were only good for being automated turrets who would fire at my mark until they got better.

Or I put them in a Streak boat with BAP, and told them to go nuts.

It was a win-win situation. They got some XP/Cbills, got to feel like they were contributing, and eventually decided they wanted to learn other playstyles and stuck at it until they got better.

Did some of them quit? Yes. You know what they told me? 'This game is too complicated for me, let's play some BF4 later'.

I play MWO with my MWO friends, I play BF4 with my BF4 friends. Problem. Solved.


And this myth that 12 mans are dominating the queue, what nonsense. My clan is one of those who drops in 10-12 mans very often.

Most of the time we end up fighting smaller groups. How is it possible you claim the group queue is infested with big groups, yet us big groups never end up facing each other?

There is a massive silent majority of organised players who have gotten back into this game because of the relaxed group size MM change. For the most part, it is a great change. Don't attempt to 'fix' it unless your fix is SURE to have up sides, or there will be a lot of unhappy people.

LOL. So you drop in 10-12 mans and because you only fight semi-pugs you refute? Irony. Truly.

As for majority - I'm not claiming majority. I am claiming that dropping as a two with my son is anti-fun. Argue that with me. Tell me to get into a larger group. In other words, you were miserable because you and 119 of your closest friends couldn't play together so now it's fair that I and my son can, but we're not having fun.

In your world, losing us is better than losing yours. I get it. You have made your point. Sort of. I'm just not sure it's a point you'd like to make.

[beerandasmoke]

Im just thinking outside the box here but what if it was possible to make the matchmaker accept larger groups only at certain times. Say make the group que 4mans or under only up until primetime then it opens up for 2 to 3 hours and lets larger groups play. Then after thats over then it goes back to 4man or less only again. That way everyone gets their fix. 2 hours group play american primetime. Then set another 2 hour time period for europe. If casuals dont want to face larger groups then they can avoid that 2 hours and solo drop or play something else. Larger groups would get the large teamwork fix but wouldnt be able to drop 12 and 10 mans over and over to farm casuals. Just a thought and dont even know if its possible or not.

Edited by beerandasmoke, 23 September 2014 - 06:14 PM.

[Astrocanis]

KingCobra, on 23 September 2014 - 05:27 PM, said:

Kamiko said (Yes a group of people definitely got shafted and I for one, am hoppng mad about it.
I'm sorry for the snark, but I really cannot stand the smugness of solo exponents smiling about small group's current predicament. Facing up to a four man on ts etc might have seemed bad, try dropping with your two mates vs a competitive 12 man.)

Kamiko you know as well as I do 2 mans-12 mans were killing the game by farming the new players and casuals to a point most uninstalled the game and PGI should have pulled all groups from the solo MM queue in Closed beta and we might have over 100,000 active players still and not 10,000.There was no excuse to let new players and casuals get rolled 24/7 by C-bill farming groups and the situation in the group mm queues is the result of the players not having control over the game like in past MechWarrior titles to chose group sizes to drop with and much more that has been discussed on this thread.

If PGI does not control the groups sync dropping still in the solo MM queues more will leave this game every week until we have 1000 active players left arguing over the same issues. And if they do not fix the group mm private match issue more will leave the game as well.

2 mans farmed? Really?

[Triordinant]

The only active fix I can come up with so far is if the player population grows by 50%, they can add a third queue for 2-4 man groups. Another possibility is when Community Warfare rolls in, the big groups will leave the group queue and play that instead.

[Valore]

Astrocanis, on 23 September 2014 - 06:11 PM, said:

LOL. So you drop in 10-12 mans and because you only fight semi-pugs you refute? Irony. Truly.

My point is that there's nonsense being made up about 'oh the queue is full of 10-12 man teams'. Its not, and saying it over and over doesn't change the fact. 10-12 man teams are the MINORITY.

Astrocanis, on 23 September 2014 - 06:11 PM, said:

As for majority - I'm not claiming majority. I am claiming that dropping as a two with my son is anti-fun. Argue that with me. Tell me to get into a larger group. In other words, you were miserable because you and 119 of your closest friends couldn't play together so now it's fair that I and my son can, but we're not having fun.

In your world, losing us is better than losing yours. I get it. You have made your point. Sort of. I'm just not sure it's a point you'd like to make.

And your proposed solution is 'drop groups with more people back into limbo waiting for matches, in the hopes this will improve my experience'?

Newsflash, it won't. Your skill ceiling is limited, because as you mentioned, you're not in it for serious play. So you will lose against more skilled opposition.

What if your skill level happens to be in the lower percentile? You lose more. Nothing you say about the group queue is going to change this.

[Lyoto Machida]

Astrocanis, on 23 September 2014 - 06:11 PM, said:

Just as true is "so many have NOT complained about lack of content or no objective." Just because a few very vocal proponents did does not mean that others simply didn't care.

And now, they get to pay. "The goal is in sight". Whose goal?



No?



LOL. So you drop in 10-12 mans and because you only fight semi-pugs you refute? Irony. Truly.

As for majority - I'm not claiming majority. I am claiming that dropping as a two with my son is anti-fun. Argue that with me. Tell me to get into a larger group. In other words, you were miserable because you and 119 of your closest friends couldn't play together so now it's fair that I and my son can, but we're not having fun.

In your world, losing us is better than losing yours. I get it. You have made your point. Sort of. I'm just not sure it's a point you'd like to make.

So don't get on comms then...it's your loss, not ours.

Personally, I'd rather drop in the solo, PUG queue than in a two man on my unit TS for the most part. You don't hear me complaining about it though...it's not the fault of the organized groups that 2 mans don't have a way to communicate with the larger groups easily. Blame PGI for that...a comm rose would help far more than integrated VOIP (and would be most likely used more as well).

Also, it's a myth (or exaggeration, at best) that 12 mans always smash the smaller groups on the other side.

Who knows...maybe PGI ran some numbers and determined that people who play in larger groups spend more money on the game than some guy and his friend/son/wife. Which demographic do you think is going to get appeased first?

[Hoax415]

I can't decide if this post is proof I hate this thread and the disgusting self centered whining it represents or I hate myself. That said lets get to some of the last few pages of ridiculous posts.

TygerLily, on 23 September 2014 - 12:08 PM, said:

What ever happened to sending 4 or less to either queue? That always seemed good to me ESPECIALLY if the MM attempted to match 2-mans with 2-mans or 3/4-mans with 3/4-mans. That means there's a chance for lances to find games of varying levels of difficulty throughout the night.

1) you answered your own question if 2-mans are solo queue then 10-man groups are out. 2) solo players who are by far the most numerous and where lots of people are learning the game or just trying to grind to where they can compete if they are f2p guys, they really really really dislike having groups in their solo queue. Its a bad idea that breaks more than it helps and you'd just see threads crying about how "I can only play with one friend at a time or else we have to go to big bad group queue waaaaaaa"

Lorgarn, on 23 September 2014 - 11:55 AM, said:

[I can't group and I can't tryhard]

Appreciate your honesty, but you can solve these problems quite easily if you tried. I don't mind if you don't try to solve them but I mind if you complain about the results of your own inaction. The units are only for people on voice who have 20 hours a week to commit to the game is BS. Also I've never had an issue writing down people's name from the endgame screen and adding them after. But yes, being able to add people from the endgame screen would be a great QoL change.

Phaeric Cyrh, on 23 September 2014 - 01:19 PM, said:

The problem is that new players are more likely "casual" and most players will be playing is groups of 2 before they get to larger groups.

I would imagine that most people who just start playing have 1 or two real world friends that they will convince to try it with them. These players join up in 2 man groups and proceed to have a miserable time in the group queue for various reasons and feel mostly "left out" of the team dynamic.

There is a good chance at least one of these new players is going to get frustrated and quit.

Most of them are quitting. And it sucks. And I am 100% behind some kind of special exemption that lets new players be mentored in the solo queue. I don't care that the majority would be upset there aren't enough new players for it to make any kind of huge wave. It would spark off the solo queue purist crazies but its worth it to up MWO's retention of new players. I'm in favor and have posted so in every one of these threads. It kills me that more people don't see what a problem this is.

Steel Claws, on 23 September 2014 - 01:48 PM, said:

While I understand the frustration casual players feel about this there is no good answer. The only way that anything could be done would be to place all small groups who would have to meet some kind of max number of games or ELO requirement into some special queue. Even this would probably not them from getting farmed.

Let's face it, the same issues are present in other online games. People who haven't spent time learning the ins an outs of good play get rolled. This isn't something new or unique. It may be more obvious here because some thought is required and there isn't any respawn. Is there an answer for this. The only one that comes to mind is true of anything else in life, practice and get better at the game.

/thread. Best post possible. <S> to you sir. Bonus points for resisting the obligatory "git gud"

Lyoto Machida, on 23 September 2014 - 04:45 PM, said:

Would people really go to the casual queue to farm when it would mean slowing your rate of income by 1/2 or 1/3?

I bet if you penalized casual group queue by 20% there would be crickets in it. It'd make for a great term paper thought experiment but its not worth PGI's time.

kamiko kross, on 23 September 2014 - 05:17 PM, said:

It's just such a shame, that the solo queue's implementation has been so detrimental to casual players grouping with their friends.
Johnny solo has gotten what he wanted now. No evil people who speak to other people and make friends!

Strong start. I agree with your derision. Johnny Solo sucks but we need him, the friends he brings (that might not all stay anti-social asses). They keep the playerbase just barely big enough for this to not all come crashing down. It hurts but Johnny Solo is someone who has the right to make demands. Live with it.

Quote

Only two types of player have benefited from this farce, the meta competitives and the solo players. Small groups might as well not bother.

Oh no. You've lost the plot completely. So sad. Let me tell you something. I'm not good enough to ever see a 12-man Lords drop in group queue but I see their 1-4 drops. They always win, no matter how small their group is.

Your argument really is this: The only person who hasn't benefited from this is the small group who refuses to play anything approaching tryhard but could have gotten wins before by being up against a team of lost pugs in solo queue.

Basically the very low elo and no desire to be better "casual small group" isn't going to win a lot of games in group queue. Why? Because a) they aren't any good and c) there aren't enough small casual groups for them to always be matched against equally bads.

And that's what this thread boils down to. If your 4-man was consistently losing even though you all use Elite'd good mechs with good setups, you bring and use consumables, you have full modules...

Then this would be cause for concern. But if you do none or almost none of those things and you often get rolled... What do you expect?

His final point is a solid one. Maybe the MM needs a tweak. Something like this:
-When MM is putting a 2-man team with a 10-man team. The avg elo of those two groups needs to be quite close.
-When MM is putting a 3-man team with a 9-man team. Relax that requirement a little.
-When MM is putting a 4-man team with an 8-man team. Relax that requirement a little.

You get the drift.

Basically it probably is very poor if MM uses a 2-man of low elo players to balance out a team's elo. In that example MM is basically saying:

"you 10-man fight this 12-man who isn't as good as you. you other two idiots are fodder, I expect nothing from you two but quick futile deaths".

Edited by Hoax415, 23 September 2014 - 06:35 PM.

[Astrocanis]

Valore, on 23 September 2014 - 06:17 PM, said:

My point is that there's nonsense being made up about 'oh the queue is full of 10-12 man teams'. Its not, and saying it over and over doesn't change the fact. 10-12 man teams are the MINORITY.




And your proposed solution is 'drop groups with more people back into limbo waiting for matches, in the hopes this will improve my experience'?

Newsflash, it won't. Your skill ceiling is limited, because as you mentioned, you're not in it for serious play. So you will lose against more skilled opposition.

What if your skill level happens to be in the lower percentile? You lose more. Nothing you say about the group queue is going to change this.

Did I express any willingness to throw you under a bus? I can't recall that. What I am confused about is you and your ilk's ability to placate your own egos by simply refusing to consider our dilemma.

As to skill level, you have no idea what my skill level is. And I don't feel it necessary to debate it with you. If you need to feel that you're superior, feel free.

Your antagonism towards any viewpoint other than your own and your willingness to operate at extremes of opinion are not traits I think will benefit you in the long term. Others here are more considerate. Makes one wonder why you can't bring yourself to be.

The group queue is preventing me from playing with my son as it's simply too frustrating. I was a member of a group that dropped in 12 mans pretty much nightly and simply didn't enjoy it much. Not because, as you so eloquently put it, I had a "low skill cap", but because I didn't enjoy it. Nothing more and nothing less. Now I don't group at all.

[Valore]

Astrocanis, on 23 September 2014 - 06:36 PM, said:

Did I express any willingness to throw you under a bus? I can't recall that. What I am confused about is you and your ilk's ability to placate your own egos by simply refusing to consider our dilemma.

You haven't proposed any solution other than 'I dislike the current system, because of anecdotal evidence with no real concrete backing'.

Astrocanis, on 23 September 2014 - 06:36 PM, said:

As to skill level, you have no idea what my skill level is. And I don't feel it necessary to debate it with you. If you need to feel that you're superior, feel free.

You play with your son, you don't play with an organised group. From that alone, you are not in the highly competitive group bracket. There is nothing disparaging about this.

I never said you were crap. But you will be inferior SKILL WISE to people who train and drill day in, day out. Simple as that. Someone who puts in the hours will likely be better than someone who doesn't.

If you want to take that statement as a personal insult, by all means.

I'm not the one being rude. You're the one being over-sensitive and defensive about things.

Edited by Valore, 23 September 2014 - 06:46 PM.

[Astrocanis]

Valore, on 23 September 2014 - 06:41 PM, said:

You haven't proposed any solution other than 'I dislike the current system, because of anecdotal evidence with no real concrete backing'.



You play with your son, you don't play with an organised group. From that alone, you are not in the highly competitive group bracket.

I never said you were crap. But you will be inferior SKILL WISE to people who train and drill day in, day out. Simple as that. Someone who puts in the hours will likely be better than someone who doesn't.

If you want to take that statement as a personal insult, by all means.

I'm not the one being rude. You're the one being over-sensitive and defensive about things.

I wasn't aware that "fun" could be measured objectively. By definition, "fun" is anecdotal. Please expand upon your evidence and prove me wrong? And you were quite insulting. Whether you meant to be is immaterial, perception belongs to the one being perceived. Text can be, and will mostly be, misconstrued.

You're right - I'm not in the highly competitive bracket. That doesn't mean I'm bad. It doesn't mean anything other than "I don't want to fight against competitive groups all the time." I don't need to test the measure of my mettle. I don't "need" anything from this game or from the players. I do ~wish~ to be able to play with my son and enjoy it. Again, nothing more and nothing less. Unfortunately, neither of us are masochists, although when dropping in the group queue as a two, that might make it at least more interesting.

[Valore]

Astrocanis, on 23 September 2014 - 06:48 PM, said:

I wasn't aware that "fun" could be measured objectively. By definition, "fun" is anecdotal.

I don't disagree. Which is exactly why I said above in my earlier post:

Valore, on 23 September 2014 - 05:42 PM, said:

For those who are playing with families/kids etc, fair enough. I hope a decent PvE mode is introduced, and you get to have fun together against less serious opposition.

Its not my fault you chose to ignore that part and be personally insulted by what I said.

Astrocanis, on 23 September 2014 - 06:48 PM, said:

And you were quite insulting. Whether you meant to be is immaterial, perception belongs to the one being perceived. Text can be, and will mostly be, misconstrued.

Oh trust me, I fully said it in a derisive tone. But the fact that you chose to focus on the sarcasm/derision, rather than realise the point behind it had full merit reflects more on you than anything else.

Tell you what, I'll say it again, this time without the sarcasm, just as a fact, not meaning to be insulting.

Your skill cap, compared to other more serious players, is likely lower. If so, it is only logical you lose more as a result.

Why does changing the current group system, which is probably only a side factor to your losses, seem like a good solution to solve the issue you're having?

(Hint: Its not a good solution, its a terrible solution.)

Astrocanis, on 23 September 2014 - 06:48 PM, said:

You're right - I'm not in the highly competitive bracket. That doesn't mean I'm bad. It doesn't mean anything other than "I don't want to fight against competitive groups all the time."

I've underlined the exact part of what you said that I disagree with. That's the 'anecdotal evidence' I was referring to.

Please stop making it that big groups are the majority that you fight 'ALL THE TIME' and are the major cause of your losses. They're not. This entire argument is based on a false premise.

Edited by Valore, 23 September 2014 - 07:03 PM.

[At least I can shoot]

Perhaps a 2-4, 5-8, 8-12 queue (like the old system but more lenient, so the 2-4 queue can only go up against other 2 to 4's. And pugs fill the empty ranks.

[L A V A]

Most, if not all the leagues, have gone to 8 man play.

Set-up the queues like this:

Individual (12 v 12)
Lance - 2 to 4 players (12 v 12)
8 man - need full 8 man team (8 v 8 - 2/2/2/2)
12 man - need full 12 man team (12 v 12 - 3/3/3/3)

Easy solution to stop the stomps, allow friends to play with each other for fun AND let competitive teams play against each other.

So obvious...

[Asmudius Heng]

Yea I really do not know how to fix this.

Sometimes I play with some very skilled friends, but sometimes we bring in some guys who are much less practiced and less motivated. It is a call for us to train our newbies more for sure, but it does make it hard on both groups.

However, I like the group queue mostly, and now we can see how many 12 mans there really are ... mostly I only see 4-8 of the same unit which is not so bad.

The problem is that using ELO in the group queue just does not work, there are not enough groups of different sizes, skill levels and weight classes to be able to create balanced matches.

What I do hope is that the hardcore will be in CW mostly and the 'group' queue will be less infused by the big boys who are fighting over planet while less hardcore group players would be less likely to go to CW.

No system is perfect but the 4 man limit before just did not provide a good experience for the most part.

Personally I think only VOIP and better communications tools in game will lessen the gap.

[Triordinant]

At least I can shoot, on 23 September 2014 - 07:05 PM, said:

Perhaps a 2-4, 5-8, 8-12 queue (like the old system but more lenient, so the 2-4 queue can only go up against other 2 to 4's. And pugs fill the empty ranks.

PUGs have a solo-only queue that groups won't ever be in, based on what Russ Bullock said. Any solution won't include any changes to the solo-only queue.

[Kjudoon]

Alwrath, on 23 September 2014 - 08:30 AM, said:

Tired of getting rolled in the group que by organized lances or 12 mans when im just dropping with my casual friends that are not part of a unit, and they are sick of it too. Totally unfair to newer / less skilled players and you are losing a part of the player base over this. Figure out a way to fix this please Russ, because as of right now, its solo dropping or dropping in a unit, nothing in between works, you will get stomped every time. Most of the time its 1 or 2 friends that join up, and they are less skilled. They get there asses kicked and go play other games after 3 or 4 losses. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. Its a shame really, some of them really like the game and have supported it and bought hero mechs, but they leave frustrated and believe the game is totally unfair for them.

It's why I've just about quit the game. I tried a little to get the new map today. No luck after 5 tries 4 of which were stomps and 1 narrow victory left me saying it wasn't worth to keep trying in the stomptown to try it when it's on such light rotation as compared to say what Crimson Straits got. The only way I experienced it was to get into the training grounds and I came to a few realizations quickly:

This is a brawler map and its layout will force people into fights instantly with no chance for any strategic development.
It's beautiful and has lots of cover.
It's too small by half and should have been at minimum the size of Crimson Straits or HPG.
Regardless of game mode, you're playing skirmish.
The layout is going to render all non-combat options for victory, moot.


I did make a big realization about Stomptown: Most groups do not use TS to coordinate a gameplan. They use it to socialize and pug together in an enjoyable form of gameplay. Unfortunately, this is a losing strategy nearly every time unless very lucky. The teams that use it to coordinate, battle call, balance meta beforehand, execute practiced battle plans are the ones that win. As long as 4 people do it, they generally will win, and the larger force that does this if both sides are doing it, is the side that wins generally.

This means that there is little to no victory possible among the social gamer who doesn't spend their time doing map analysis, coordinated coms where only 1-2 people are talking and everyone else is only calling targets in a battle strategy with minmaxed drop decks.

I quit 12man play because that style of play sucks IMNSHO. I do not enjoy it, and can't stand playing with people that consider it the only way to play the game. Conversely, going to the Pug Queue eliminates the other reason for me to play: social contact and shared enjoyment. With the recent freakout over sync drops by a bunch of vocal minorities on players managing to get into matches together on purpose or accident and playing socially, there is no reason to play there either because of the teamkilling and legging going on when it happens.

The special interests are being served, but the majority is not. We need a return to social gaming where the small group is king and those who enjoy playing a few games with friends is the goal and coordination is minimal at best. Not this competition style play is everything, or collective rambotardia playing Chinese fire drill.

To use another game to illustrate, this is the equivalent of a Magic: The Gathering tuned competition deck going against an open box booster deck just put together. The comp deck wins nearly every time. I don't know if PGI realizes they're setting this up with their game design, but they should really look at what Wizards on the Coast did to deal with competition types versus casual play. You could only have 4 of any card save land (back at the height of this game's craze), and special cards were limited to 1. PGI started that with 3/3/3/3 and that's helped, but it's not there yet because specific equipment (ECM) still unbalances the game. Then they've brought in mechs that are deliberately overpowered, but have no real restrictions (10v12 and no mixing must be implemented) or these problems will continue and destroy the gameplay for everyone not interested in playing that game. I suppose you could say "L2P", but really what will happen is "L2P some other game".

You can have a straight forward competition or an 'open box/booster pack' competition where everyone has the same footing to start with... but you can't mix both.

Edited by Kjudoon, 23 September 2014 - 08:52 PM.