472 replies to this topic

[Kjudoon]

Dimento Graven, on 06 January 2015 - 08:45 AM, said:

I'm not the one asking for 'special protection' though am I?

Ultimately, for the good of the game, for all factions/clans, the ease/speed of turret runs needs to be addressed. A turret run should require more than 15 minutes of effort to complete, 10 minutes of waiting 5 minutes of generator stomping.

Making a turret run require 30 minutes of effort to complete, plus the 10 minutes of waiting, and it almost triples the time required and addresses, to a large degree, the supposed 'greater numbers' issue that started this thread.

It's only the vitriolic shrill whining of Liaos that have almost completely put me off of this altogether.

How do you guys stand them, anyway?

No, but you would want it if it was you on the short end of the stick. that's plain.

[Grynos]

Dimento Graven, on 06 January 2015 - 08:45 AM, said:

I'm not the one asking for 'special protection' though am I?

Ultimately, for the good of the game, for all factions/clans, the ease/speed of turret runs needs to be addressed. A turret run should require more than 15 minutes of effort to complete, 10 minutes of waiting 5 minutes of generator stomping.

Making a turret run require 30 minutes of effort to complete, plus the 10 minutes of waiting, and it almost triples the time required and addresses, to a large degree, the supposed 'greater numbers' issue that started this thread.

It's only the vitriolic shrill whining of Liaos that have almost completely put me off of this altogether.

How do you guys stand them, anyway?

With regard to the amount of time it take to turret drop, yes it needs to not only be increased, but should also have increased cbills and possibly exp to go along with it due the the amount of time invested in the actual drop. Right now it is way to low.

[Abivard]

Grynos, on 06 January 2015 - 09:01 AM, said:

This is one of the reasons that for sometime now I have stated that ghost drops are not the issue. They happen we all know this, they need to be in the game we all know this. Ghost drops gives the higher populations a small advantage. Now last night I played in roughly 5 or 6 drops with my unit. Of the opponents we went up against , I believe we only lost once and that was to ACES . They beat us fair and square , they were better than us. The other groups that we faced were ok but still lost.
There are strong units in every faction.

Yes CW does need more participants overall. It needs to draw in the people who play the game that not only love the lore, but those like myself who like the competition aspect of it as well. Some of the problems hopefully PGI will work out, long queue times, getting solo players more involved, etc.

You both have valid points, but Ghost drops are a problem, they can very much be exploited, they very much do swing planets, they swing them far more during the final two hours than at any other time in the cycle.

They can be deliberate Ghost Drop campaigns where ghost drops are the major part of the planets flip to simple inadvertent ghost drops that mange to barely tip a planet because of a SINGLE ghost drop happening, and that is simply because the player population did not even exist to prevent it.

When in a game or pre queue, no one can see player counts in queues, not even with a 3rd party app so far, 3rd party apps exist that show the win count on planets, but it is often delayed by as much as 15 minutes, that could be two ghost drops in that time.

I see to many people with Tags of factions or units known to commonly employ ghost drops giving excuses about how the victim is really at fault and not them for taking advantage of the situation.

A simple doubling of search time to 20 minutes for a ghost drop would effectively mean a major demise to ghost drops effectiveness.

[Maxwell Albritten]

Abivard, on 06 January 2015 - 09:15 AM, said:

A simple doubling of search time to 20 minutes for a ghost drop would effectively mean a major demise to ghost drops effectiveness.

I would be willing to have them try doubling the search time but then just giving the attacker the point instead of making them shoot turrets.

[Grynos]

Abivard, on 06 January 2015 - 09:15 AM, said:

You both have valid points, but Ghost drops are a problem, they can very much be exploited, they very much do swing planets, they swing them far more during the final two hours than at any other time in the cycle.

They can be deliberate Ghost Drop campaigns where ghost drops are the major part of the planets flip to simple inadvertent ghost drops that mange to barely tip a planet because of a SINGLE ghost drop happening, and that is simply because the player population did not even exist to prevent it.

When in a game or pre queue, no one can see player counts in queues, not even with a 3rd party app so far, 3rd party apps exist that show the win count on planets, but it is often delayed by as much as 15 minutes, that could be two ghost drops in that time.

I see to many people with Tags of factions or units known to commonly employ ghost drops giving excuses about how the victim is really at fault and not them for taking advantage of the situation.

A simple doubling of search time to 20 minutes for a ghost drop would effectively mean a major demise to ghost drops effectiveness.

I think if like my buddy Dimento said and actually made them take more time to do it would help with that situation as well. But it also has to be more rewarding than it currently is.

[Abivard]

Maxwell Albritten, on 06 January 2015 - 09:29 AM, said:

I would be willing to have them try doubling the search time but then just giving the attacker the point instead of making them shoot turrets.

I think they should get the reward of being able to explore and test things in the map, so let them kill turrets, and it also means they have to at least get the gates open and kill the turrets, if they cant do that they don't deserve to win.

[Maxwell Albritten]

Abivard, on 06 January 2015 - 09:37 AM, said:

I think they should get the reward of being able to explore and test things in the map, so let them kill turrets, and it also means they have to at least get the gates open and kill the turrets, if they cant do that they don't deserve to win.

I wonder if there has ever been an instance where a ghost drop didn't succeed. I imagine that the only way it could happen is if all 12 players said "screw this" and disconnected right away. I mean, even a solo player would be able to kill omega unless he brought only locusts or something.

[Dimento Graven]

Kjudoon, on 06 January 2015 - 09:06 AM, said:

No, but you would want it if it was you on the short end of the stick. that's plain.

I'm not sure where you're getting this. Nothing I've said has even come close to that, unlike many of the Liao on this thread who have outright said just that.

Or are you commenting on their desires, and not making assumptions of mine. If it's the former rather than the later, then obviously we have no argument.

Grynos, on 06 January 2015 - 09:10 AM, said:

With regard to the amount of time it take to turret drop, yes it needs to not only be increased, but should also have increased cbills and possibly exp to go along with it due the the amount of time invested in the actual drop. Right now it is way to low.

If turret drops can be modified to take a full 40 minutes of time (10 minutes wait, 30 minutes of slogging through turrets), I agree.

As it is now, turret runs are ridiculously easy and shouldn't award any more than they do now, possibly even less.

Maxwell Albritten, on 06 January 2015 - 09:29 AM, said:

I would be willing to have them try doubling the search time but then just giving the attacker the point instead of making them shoot turrets.

Nah, because that's still potentially two turret runs per hour, which for low pop factions can hurt. Ensuring a minimum 40 minute turret run decreases that to 1 per hour, which I think would be more manageable for the low pop factions.

Grynos, on 06 January 2015 - 09:36 AM, said:

I think if like my buddy Dimento said and actually made them take more time to do it would help with that situation as well. But it also has to be more rewarding than it currently is.

Adding that crap-ton of turrets should increase the potential for reward as we would still get our turret kill exp/cash reward. As it is now, if you'll remember back to the stocking stuffer challenge, it wasn't possible to do a turret run and qualify with 80 points. There's just not THAT many turrets.

However, adding enough turrets so that it WOULD be possible, would certainly require more time, add some additional risk, and get you your increase reward...

Abivard, on 06 January 2015 - 09:37 AM, said:

I think they should get the reward of being able to explore and test things in the map, so let them kill turrets, and it also means they have to at least get the gates open and kill the turrets, if they cant do that they don't deserve to win.

Yep, that goes along with one of my original suggestions, Omega shouldn't be killable unless ALL the gates are opened as well as the generators destroyed.

Again, adding to the time required to get through a turret run.

Maxwell Albritten, on 06 January 2015 - 09:47 AM, said:

I wonder if there has ever been an instance where a ghost drop didn't succeed. I imagine that the only way it could happen is if all 12 players said "screw this" and disconnected right away. I mean, even a solo player would be able to kill omega unless he brought only locusts or something.

I really doubt it, unless it was a 'drunk night' drop and everyone set about to TK'ing one another for 48 'mechs...

While fun I think the likelihood quite low.

I know I've been on a drop where all the player deaths were a result of the 'Rabbit' game, and for a while it seemed like the turrets COULD actually win it...

[Kjudoon]

Abivard, on 06 January 2015 - 09:15 AM, said:

A simple doubling of search time to 20 minutes for a ghost drop would effectively mean a major demise to ghost drops effectiveness.

That is actually quite brilliant. I can still see a few exploits to it.

1. Units who do this as a campaign would potentially get multiple ones through before this could be effective.
2. Many groups who employ massive waves are 'coordinated amalgamated groups' of multiple units, and would be unaffected.
3. Without a significant increase where it would be impossible for a planet to be flipped by ghost dropping, this will only solve some of the problem.

Other problems is that players will quit and go drop a PQ match or two instead with increased wait time.

le sigh.

[Dimento Graven]

Kjudoon, on 06 January 2015 - 10:06 AM, said:

That is actually quite brilliant. I can still see a few exploits to it.

Agreed, which is why it's better to increase the difficulty of turret drops so that it requires 30 minutes of slogging through turrets to door generators, then slogging through turrets to kill Omega generators, then finally the final slog through turrets to kill Omega itself.

If you make it that difficult you can potentially make it to where it's possible to FAIL a turret run just by running out of time (your team wasn't capable of killing off all the gens in time, turrets caused enough attrition in the unit you ran out of 'mechs).

It shouldn't be quick and it shouldn't necessarily be an automatic win.

I think there's a lot less to exploit that way, and doesn't inflict interminable wait times on a game that's already filled with interminable wait times.

[Kjudoon]

What do you think of THIS Idea?

http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__4076129

[Abivard]

Kjudoon, on 06 January 2015 - 10:06 AM, said:

That is actually quite brilliant. I can still see a few exploits to it.

1. Units who do this as a campaign would potentially get multiple ones through before this could be effective.
2. Many groups who employ massive waves are 'coordinated amalgamated groups' of multiple units, and would be unaffected.
3. Without a significant increase where it would be impossible for a planet to be flipped by ghost dropping, this will only solve some of the problem.

Other problems is that players will quit and go drop a PQ match or two instead with increased wait time.

le sigh.

Only one match forms at a time per world, not sure I understand your first point.

It would halve the amount of ghost drops possible in an hour at the very least, even one defending team present could have a very good chance of ending match in under 15 minutes requeue and matchup with the opfor before the opfor gets a ghost drop.
Two defending teams would almost guarantee no ghost drops no matter how much the ghost dropper stacks teams.

The extra teams might be thereby encouraged to attack a different faction or planet queue that has opponents.

Factions with extreme over population on limited fronts of low pop might decide to move, thereby balancing faction pops.

And it would be super easy and simple for PGI to implement. Then they can have time to come up with better ideas.

Like splitting cease fire up into 3 times a day, tally the scores for each phase and reset world to zero for next phase and the best 2 out of 3 decides planet's fate at the end of the day. then all three major timezone have an equal impact on the fate of CW.

I believe in K.I.S.S.

[Dimento Graven]

Kjudoon, on 06 January 2015 - 10:17 AM, said:

What do you think of THIS Idea?

http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__4076129

A very interesting alternative, I'm not sure how it helps the low pop factions though.

Although one definitely GOOD thing it does is make the Asia/Euro/Aussie prime times something of VALUE rather than the massive spasmatic battle period of NA prime time being all that matters as it is now.

[Kjudoon]

Dimento Graven, on 06 January 2015 - 10:21 AM, said:

A very interesting alternative, I'm not sure how it helps the low pop factions though.

Although one definitely GOOD thing it does is make the Asia/Euro/Aussie prime times something of VALUE rather than the massive spasmatic battle period of NA prime time being all that matters as it is now.

it needs tweaking but creates a meta game for battles.

[Dimento Graven]

Kjudoon, on 06 January 2015 - 10:22 AM, said:

it needs tweaking but creates a meta game for battles.

Yep, it still has its merits absolutely.

I'd be willing to give it a try to see how it works out, and I know those players who are non-NA prime timers would LOVE having their efforts counted and not just thrown away as they practically are now.

[Noaceik]

Kurita only helped for one day the, rest was Marik and Liao. Kurita is focused on the clans but has to deal with Steiner ghost drops as well. Like how Steiner ghost dropped a planet from us.




Liao never ghost drops us, only Davion and Steiner. Steiner mercs asked for forgiveness for what the kell hounds did. Davions ghost drop us up to 76% today. They have been doing so for 4 days strait. Yet we have yet to return the favor instead we had good matches with CROW last night after the ceasefire. Then we all left to pug. And even pugged with the CROWS.

Edited by Noaceik, 06 January 2015 - 10:32 AM.

[AeusDeif]

Some people just can't see around their own bias. Observe

SecondReversal, on 04 January 2015 - 12:40 AM, said:

Fact. Capellans are routinely outnumbered. Fact. Davions are not to be blamed for this uncontrollable phenomenon. Fact.

I see this sentiment parroted quite a bit, usually from a Davion poster, even if this one is Liao. 'It's not our fault you can't field as many players/groups as us.'

Players select their own factions and can change them. PGI did not select our factions for us. Therefore, faction pop imbalance is a player-created phenomenon. To say it is uncontrollable would mean that you can't contribute to it or mitigate it. So your facts aren't facts.

In addition, the demonstration of the imbalance has driven players from borders/CW as a whole. Less players means more imbalance and CW gets boring even faster. For an mmo *game* to be sustainable it has to be fun from every angle. So people saying 'real wars have imbalances' are forgetting, if an MMO gets closer to 'real war' than to fun, it dies. Same thing happens if it gets closer to lore, than to fun. MMO's have to walk a fine line. So, neither lore nor realism are a defense for bad exploitable game design.

It's perhaps impossible to build a game which can't be exploited. Devs would have to be smarter than all the players. And exploits have the same effect as cheats over a longer period of time. A godmode cheat is boring because it clearly imbalances the game so there's no challenge or skill or meaningful competition. Same principle applies to exploits; it will eventually bore even the people using it, once they see it for what it is. The problem is when people using it can't see it, not because they're narcissists pretending to be better than everyone else, but because it's subtle and the effect is complex.

I'm convinced the only way for people to see it clearly is 1. playing on both sides of an imbalanced border to see what it's like, and 2. raw and detailed statistics.

We don't have #2, but #1 is readily available to any Davion loyalist. If you aren't willing to play against Davion, why would you expect anyone else to? If it's not fun for you why chide other players for not doing it? Don't be That Guy that can't spot a double standard. And don't turn Davion into 'the Faction of That Guys.'

[Dimento Graven]

Noaceik, on 06 January 2015 - 10:27 AM, said:

Kurita only helped for one day the, rest was Marik and Liao. Kurita is focused on the clans but has to deal with Steiner ghost drops as well. Like how Steiner ghost dropped a planet from us.

I'm sure Kurita is only pleased with your level of 'appreciation' of their efforts...

Quote

Liao never ghost drops us, only Davion and when the Steiner. Steiner mercs asked fr forgiveness for what the kell hounds did. Davions ghost drop us up to 76% today.

Well according to the Liao, they can't ghost drop you because they don't have the numbers.

I guess any time someone a commander sees a planet with even numbers they should move on, looking for a planet with defenders sitting there defending against... Nothing?

But this leads me to understand that the CW drop mechanic is probably needs some tweaking.

Think about it:

There are 5 planets up for grabs and 4 of them are "60+/60+" the current state of the planets is that your faction is holding them by 80% or more.

Do you drop on one of those? No.

Typically no, you wouldn't be making much of a difference there.

You look for a planet where you can make a difference. You see a planet where it's 12 and 12, and your side has less than 50% ownership of it, you attack there, you can make a difference.

It's up to the enemy to muster a 12 to counter you.

Likewise those in search of turret runs/ghost drops could just look for a planet that's 0/0, and again, it's up to the enemy to counter you.

The attacker is relying on the enemy to bother showing up.

It's why Liao, Marik, and even Kurita had so many turret runs the last few days. Davion didn't bother showing up to oppose them as much as we were previously.

The mechanic would need to be changed to somehow eliminate the potential for that, but I'm not sure if there's anything that could be done that doesn't require multiple teams of people sitting in the queue for more than 10/20 minutes at a time, which is an absolutely BAD idea for the long term health of the game.

Why bother with CW when you can only get one drop in every hour (or longer) and make so much LESS money than getting a minimum 4 drop per hour rate in the pub queues doing skirmish/assault/conquest? You're still having access to 48 'mechs to kill1, BUT, you're not sitting there bored out of your mind for a majority of the time.

Not only should in game waits be diminished (appropriate to some logic and balance) but avoided at all times.

Most other games you go in, drop, and play, die, drop, and play, in a near continuous stream with waits rarely ever exceeding a few minutes. Aside from getting organized for raid level encounters back in my EQ days, I've NEVER had to wait so long to play a game as I do in MWO...

All that waiting is what eventually killed EQ for me, and I had had a 10 year investment when I finally stopped playing. That's a LOT of monthly subscription fees and expansion packs...

It could be what ends up killing MWO for a lot us, unless something is changed.

[Dimento Graven]

AeusDeif, on 06 January 2015 - 10:39 AM, said:

...

I see this sentiment parroted quite a bit, usually from a Davion poster, even if this one is Liao. 'It's not our fault you can't field as many players/groups as us.'

There's no observation bias there, it's a fact that Davion can't control how many players Liao field.

Quote

Players select their own factions and can change them. PGI did not select our factions for us. Therefore, faction pop imbalance is a player-created phenomenon. To say it is uncontrollable would mean that you can't contribute to it or mitigate it. So your facts aren't facts.

I think this is completely stupid. You're suggesting that players change their current faction because some OTHER faction doesn't have enough numbers?

Regardless of the stupidity of that thought, PGI actually encourages this sort of activity through increasing how much the lesser factions are rewarded for battle. Those in it solely for the 'cash' CAN and HAVE change factions to follow the money.

Those who are in it based on some personal RP preference won't follow the money. That's why some Marik/Kuritan mercs jumped ship and went Liao.

Quote

In addition, the demonstration of the imbalance has driven players from borders/CW as a whole. Less players means more imbalance and CW gets boring even faster. For an mmo *game* to be sustainable it has to be fun from every angle. So people saying 'real wars have imbalances' are forgetting, if an MMO gets closer to 'real war' than to fun, it dies. Same thing happens if it gets closer to lore, than to fun. MMO's have to walk a fine line. So, neither lore nor realism are a defense for bad exploitable game design.

It's perhaps impossible to build a game which can't be exploited. Devs would have to be smarter than all the players. And exploits have the same effect as cheats over a longer period of time. A godmode cheat is boring because it clearly imbalances the game so there's no challenge or skill or meaningful competition. Same principle applies to exploits; it will eventually bore even the people using it, once they see it for what it is. The problem is when people using it can't see it, not because they're narcissists pretending to be better than everyone else, but because it's subtle and the effect is complex.

Well forcing people into playing in ways that are nonsensical, stupid, or outright counter to how they want to play also kills MMO's, perhaps even faster than making it function logically, according to the lore of a pre-existing IP, or 'real war.'

Quote

I'm convinced the only way for people to see it clearly is 1. playing on both sides of an imbalanced border to see what it's like, and 2. raw and detailed statistics.

We don't have #2, but #1 is readily available to any Davion loyalist. If you aren't willing to play against Davion, why would you expect anyone else to? If it's not fun for you why chide other players for not doing it? Don't be That Guy that can't spot a double standard. And don't turn Davion into 'the Faction of That Guys.'

We're not 'chiding' anyone for NOT playing against an overwhelming force, we're chiding the unreasonable morons who think we shouldn't be allowed to play if their side can't bring enough players to face us.

We waited for 10 minutes for someone to show up, now apparently some people are insisting that we all just BLOW UP, if the MM doesn't give us an enemy.

Silly.

Of course sitting there waiting endlessly for an enemy that may never come, ALSO unreasonable and silly.

Now, what's a REASONABLE solution?

[Grynos]

I believe that AeusDief is saying that you and others have to choice not to sit in long queue if you choose to. If you are in a higher population then you need to get in line behind every other person who wants to fight as well. It's funny but also kind of sad that you need to refer to some things as " stupid " just because they are not what you believe. He is right about population being a players created issue. I mean there currently PGI has no limits on how many can join a faction. So technically AeusDief is just making a factual statement.

What kills MMO's is a lack of either money and/or people.