104 replies to this topic

[1453 R]

Hoax415, on 26 September 2014 - 11:03 AM, said:

Shhhhhh no no. Even though the MWO competative scene is a fraction of a fraction. Even though in group queue you see lots of groups running sub optimal mechs/builds, or not using much coordination beyond deathball, or using consumables.

Even though there is zero evidence at all backing the claim you will still find many of the vocal anti-group people on this board refusing to believe in any kind of group other than: mandatory practice times, faux military ranks, some kind of hierarchy that orders people around, only meta-mechs and so on.

In fact everyone who tries harder than Mr. solo-only is trying "too hard" hadn't you heard? /s

Its a complete waste of time to talk to these guys. Let them believe what they want. If they want to cut off their nose to spite their face you can't stop them. Its not hard at all to disprove all of these stupid myths about what playing in a pickup group entails in terms of time commitment and putting up with "12 year olds yelling at me" or whatever bullshit they are making up today. But they would rather write up whines on the forums than just go look for themselves.

All I'm gonna say is this: you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Onyxian]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like groups attacking a planet will be primarily 12 mans, while the defenders will often be a hodge podge of whoever answers the call to arms?

I fully expect attackers to win 90% of these unless the defenders are given some help... be it favorable terrain, turrets, closer respawn points, etc.

Edited by Onyxian, 26 September 2014 - 11:15 AM.

[Bilbo]

Onyxian, on 26 September 2014 - 11:13 AM, said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like groups attacking a planet will be primarily 12 mans, while the defenders will often be a hodge lodge of whoever answers the call to arms?

I fully expect attackers to win 90% of these unless the defenders are given some help... be it favorable terrain, turrets, closer respawn points, etc.

A 12-man is no longer a requirement for attacking. Any size group can initiate an attack.

[Hoax415]

Yeah that info is so 2 weeks ago . Now there is zero difference that we know of between attacker queue and defender queue besides the faction restrictions.

[Onyxian]

Bilbo, on 26 September 2014 - 11:15 AM, said:

A 12-man is no longer a requirement for attacking. Any size group can initiate an attack.

Yeah, but what are most 12 mans going to do? Attack or defend? Maybe I'm wrong, I'm wrong a lot, but I suspect most 12 man groups that get together are going to want to attack instead of waiting around.

EDIT - put another way, what % of attacking groups will be 12 mans? And what % of defenders are going to be 12 mans? My guess is the attackers will have a far higher % of 12 man groups than the defenders will.

Edited by Onyxian, 26 September 2014 - 11:27 AM.

[Bilbo]

Onyxian, on 26 September 2014 - 11:24 AM, said:

Yeah, but what are most 12 mans going to do? Attack or defend? Maybe I'm wrong, I'm wrong a lot, but I suspect most 12 man groups that get together are going to want to attack instead of waiting around.

Wouldn't hurt my feelings. It's much easier for the piecemeal teams to successfully defend than to coordinate an effective assault anyway.

[Onyxian]

Bilbo, on 26 September 2014 - 11:26 AM, said:

Wouldn't hurt my feelings. It's much easier for the piecemeal teams to successfully defend than to coordinate an effective assault anyway.

That's a very good point

[Karamarka]

Triordinant, on 26 September 2014 - 08:01 AM, said:

There's really no incentive for soloists to play CW so I doubt many will. In fact, the playerbase will probably double in size if all the big established groups didn't play anything but CW.

That hyperbole just kicked into hyperdrive

[Hoax415]

That would be wonderful if CW makes everyone happier by removing the larger more tryhard groups from the group queue for certain times of the day.

It'd be great if players who don't usually use the group queue tried it out while CW was running. It'd become a defacto casual group queue during those times of day.

I think unfortunately its much more likely that people who are strictly solo players believe that they are owed a CW system that caters to "casual solo" play somehow. I've yet to see a sensible suggest of how that would work but I'd bet a lot of cbills those demands are coming.

Edited by Hoax415, 26 September 2014 - 12:29 PM.

[Dolph Hoskins]

@ Hoax415

In theory the system they are currently proposing should give good chances for solos and small groups as long as they have the balls to stay in the CW battles.

It will be a cascading #'s scenario, lots of small mixed groups and 1's will mitigate the effects of 12 mans. Less of the small groups and 1's means large block groups will roll easily across a great % of battles.

If there is a lot of joining up it would likely be a neat battle of attrition with planetary victory points constantly going up and down. If it gets stagnant it will be 0-15 all of the time.

[Triordinant]

Karamarka, on 26 September 2014 - 12:21 PM, said:

That hyperbole just kicked into hyperdrive

LOL, thank you for not taking it literally. But seriously, new player retention should improve when CW kicks in and most big groups flock to play CW exclusively.

[Triordinant]

Hoax415, on 26 September 2014 - 12:29 PM, said:

That would be wonderful if CW makes everyone happier by removing the larger more tryhard groups from the group queue for certain times of the day.

It'd be great if players who don't usually use the group queue tried it out while CW was running. It'd become a defacto casual group queue during those times of day.

I think unfortunately its much more likely that people who are strictly solo players believe that they are owed a CW system that caters to "casual solo" play somehow. I've yet to see a sensible suggest of how that would work but I'd bet a lot of cbills those demands are coming.

I made a suggestion to Russ that in the (unlikely) event that a lot of soloists want to play CW, maybe they could fight the Border Conflicts and groups can fight the Invasion Conflicts (as defined in Paul Inouye's update).

[KuroNyra]

Triordinant, on 26 September 2014 - 12:46 PM, said:

I made a suggestion to Russ that in the (unlikely) event that a lot of soloists want to play CW, maybe they could fight the Border Conflicts and groups can fight the Invasion Conflicts (as defined in Paul Inouye's update).

No, I want to fight for my Clan, against the Innersphere. Even if I'm a Solo on status.
Not everyone got the time to be full-time part of a large group. Most of them are pseudo-military force and not everyone have enought time for that. But they do to join some teamspeak and fight with groups.
Or just in solo.

[Wintersdark]

Triordinant, on 26 September 2014 - 08:10 AM, said:

I agree that those are all good reasons, but I suspect that when soloists discover they're up against the same big groups they successfully threw out by establishing the solo queue, many will decide it's not worth it.

Keep in mind, "Soloists" are not all the people you think they are. Solo players are highly diverse, and while the vocal whiny sorts are vocal whiny sorts, they do not represent all of the solo players of even necessarily the majority.

There are many, MANY solo players who, like me, prefer playing alongside groups, or at least are indifferent to the notion - and certainly aren't going to complain about groups being present in what is clearly a group oriented activity. The thing is, us sorts? As we never had an issue with that in the first place, we were ranting about The Big Bad Premades on the forums, we were in game playing.

CW is, by design, not balanced by player skill. There's no Elo, or intent to include it. I, for one, find that exciting as it means those battles depend on the pilots directly... You can't rely on (probably) having like-skilled pilots on both sides.

(However, I can't help giggle at those in small groups crying now because the Group Queue is so scary for them; that's just hilarious)

Russ Bullock, on 26 September 2014 - 08:38 AM, said:

Wasn't able to read all the posts so I might be repeating things here.

The latest iteration on the CW design has solo players accepting contracts to jump into planet attacks and defense. The unit and group will just provide extra incentive to achieve things as a unit.

But everyone gets to play

This makes me very, very happy.

1453 R, on 26 September 2014 - 08:59 AM, said:

This is a really easy question to answer.

Solo players have no place in Commodity Warfare, and neither Commodity Warfare players nor Piranha have any desire to give them one. Join a group and be a good little soldier for Internet Napoleon #47865, or GTFO.

And people wonder why I have no interest in this particular "feature".

I get you were being sarcastic, but Russ is actually working hard on allowing Solo play in CW. No Elo or Solo only queue, but this just means CW is For Big Boys - not the most skilled, but rather for people who want to stand up and fight for a reason, and are willing to accept their losses legitimately. You're going to meet players and groups that are simply better than you, but this provides an opportunity to learn and grow that's missing in the normal game. We'll see how it pans out, and whether or not things need to change in the future.

I get that there will be oceans of tears from some. That'll happen, garaunteed. But I think the current setup is great for solo players in the same way it's great for groups. We get to be involved, and stand on our own two feet.

---

I do think that PGI - and some here - are going to be very surprised by the volume of players, particularly non-hardcore and/or solo players, who really want to be involved in CW, fighting for their faction.

CW is currently designed largely as a tool for groups to fight each other, and that's cool and all... but I'm willing to bet they(PGI) are vastly underestimating how much Regular Average Players crave Battles That Matter.

[Thorn Hallis]

Onyxian, on 26 September 2014 - 11:24 AM, said:

Yeah, but what are most 12 mans going to do? Attack or defend? Maybe I'm wrong, I'm wrong a lot, but I suspect most 12 man groups that get together are going to want to attack instead of waiting around.

EDIT - put another way, what % of attacking groups will be 12 mans? And what % of defenders are going to be 12 mans? My guess is the attackers will have a far higher % of 12 man groups than the defenders will.

It remains to be seen how "clever" the matchmaking will be. The best way would be that if a 12-man-group attacks a planet that the matchmaker will look for a 12-man-groups that answered the call to defend. If no 12-man-group is availabe it will look for the next biggest group. And so on and on.

But to speculate on your question - I guess the % of 12-man-groups will probably depend on the faction itself. Dunno how many Steiner-groups would want to face the Clans instead of Marik, Kurita or Rasalhague (no Joseph, you are no group! ^^).

[LauLiao]

KuroNyra, on 26 September 2014 - 01:24 PM, said:

No, I want to fight for my Clan, against the Innersphere. Even if I'm a Solo on status.
Not everyone got the time to be full-time part of a large group. Most of them are pseudo-military force and not everyone have enought time for that. But they do to join some teamspeak and fight with groups.
Or just in solo.

This is the biggest problem I've seen. There's this idea among Soloists/Pugs/Casuals that being in a group means being forced to play certain ways and/or at certain times, and that in general, organized groups are only for hyper competitive players.
Well I want to champion the idea of the Casual unit. There simply aren't enough of these in the game. My own unit is super casual. We have members, most of whom solo drop regularly. When 3-4 of us are all online at the same time, someone will say, "Hey, let's group up" and we'll form a lance or whatever and have our matches. The only difference between the unit experience and the solo experience is that I play with the same group of people on a semi-regular basis, and we (sometimes) are on TS together.
The last few days I've seen more Solo players complaining about the "super-hard-core" nature of player units than I think I ever have. Not to say that these are basless complaints. In fact, most of them are right on. A LOT of units in this game take themselves WAY too seriously for the average casual player. What I don't get is the resignation to being left out of CW I'm seeing. If you think units are too strenuous/demanding/hardcore, why not form your own group? Make the ultimate casuals unit.

[Mystere]

Did someone call for Sgt. Dipprasad Pun?

Edited by Mystere, 26 September 2014 - 02:11 PM.

[KuroNyra]

LauLiao, on 26 September 2014 - 01:50 PM, said:

This is the biggest problem I've seen. There's this idea among Soloists/Pugs/Casuals that being in a group means being forced to play certain ways and/or at certain times, and that in general, organized groups are only for hyper competitive players.
Well I want to champion the idea of the Casual unit. There simply aren't enough of these in the game. My own unit is super casual. We have members, most of whom solo drop regularly. When 3-4 of us are all online at the same time, someone will say, "Hey, let's group up" and we'll form a lance or whatever and have our matches. The only difference between the unit experience and the solo experience is that I play with the same group of people on a semi-regular basis, and we (sometimes) are on TS together.
The last few days I've seen more Solo players complaining about the "super-hard-core" nature of player units than I think I ever have. Not to say that these are basless complaints. In fact, most of them are right on. A LOT of units in this game take themselves WAY too seriously for the average casual player. What I don't get is the resignation to being left out of CW I'm seeing. If you think units are too strenuous/demanding/hardcore, why not form your own group? Make the ultimate casuals unit.

In my case, I know wich Galaxy I would liketo join. The Alpha Galaxy of the Mighty Clan Wolf.
http://www.clan-wolf.info/

That Galaxy follow the lore, and I have great interest in there way of working. Also the fact that I already fought with some of them make me want to join them even more.
The problem is the lack of time.
I am already part of a Community playing almost every day on another game.
I already had been part of a Clan in World of Tank and I know it was pretty nice. But there is also a problem of my own...

It may sound stupid but: The language can be an obstacle, you may think I don't really have trouble speaking the english language. Yet it is sometime hard for me.

English isn't my native language, French is... And damn your ears will bleed if you hear me speaking. ^^ (French accent are problably one fo the worst ever... No, seriously! It's a shame for me to be French, never had the chance to get to know battletech before because of that!)

And I also have trouble understanding talked English at hight speed. I know, it's stupid, but when you are used to read a language, it doesn't mean your used to HEAR it. And that too is a problem.


And for the Francophone units... I have never heard of an existing one... Battletech and Mechwarrior are almost non-existant in France, I'm not even sur the Battletech book have been translated in French!



I know there is some group made for casual player. Yours for example. The other problem is, that I wish to fight for the Clan Wolf. Not for the Liao, the Steiners or the Davion, I do not wish to fight for the Jade Duck Falcon, The Ghost Beer Bear or the Smoke Cat Jaguar (sorry guy's, I simply can't miss the opportunity to make a joke about the name. Here's one for the Clan Woof Wolf! )


But even if I can't join a unit, I want to be able to give all the support I have by fighting alongside them, and Protecting the planet they Took.

[LauLiao]

KuroNyra, on 26 September 2014 - 02:32 PM, said:

In my case, I know wich Galaxy I would liketo join. The Alpha Galaxy of the Mighty Clan Wolf.
http://www.clan-wolf.info/
...

I know there is some group made for casual player. Yours for example. The other problem is, that I wish to fight for the Clan Wolf. Not for the Liao, the Steiners or the Davion, I do not wish to fight for the Jade Duck Falcon, The Ghost Beer Bear or the Smoke Cat Jaguar (sorry guy's, I simply can't miss the opportunity to make a joke about the name. Here's one for the Clan Woof Wolf! )


But even if I can't join a unit, I want to be able to give all the support I have by fighting alongside them, and Protecting the planet they Took.

I'll concede that you have number of (valid) requirements for any group you join. The language thing is a big deal and I understand and respect that, and you're dedicated to a particular faction, which again is cool too (I personally actually joined a Ghost Bear affiliated unit even though I personally prefer Liao). You may never find a group that meets all your requirements. What I'm saying is that it's not fair to dismiss group play out-of-hand just because of some broad generalization about the people who are members of that group. That's about as unfair as the groups saying that Solos don't deserve to participate in CW because they're not skilled enough, or not dedicated enough or whatever.

[KuroNyra]

LauLiao, on 26 September 2014 - 02:59 PM, said:

That's about as unfair as the groups saying that Solos don't deserve to participate in CW because they're not skilled enough, or not dedicated enough or whatever.

A group of 2 surviving guy from a group mocked me while I was the last survivor of my team during a PUG match.
Saying I could surrender and they would finish me and my Yen-Lo-Wang quickly...

I challenged them to come and get me... And they died. ^^
It's always a pleasure to destroy in a 2 vs 1 Battle a Dire Wolf and an Atlas. =3