49 replies to this topic

[Nubirak]

I dislike the idea of splitting the matchmaker between PuGs and Units. First of all, I feel it brings more problems than it solves:

1- It puts unnecessary stress into the matchmaker which makes queues longer for both sides (and I feel queues for CW are already borderline).

2- It is bad for the meta, PuG matches stray farther from organization as there is no one to teach it first-hand. Unit matches run the risk of devolving into boring gameplay everytime (everyone just ignore the defenders, for instance).

3- Some groups aren't 12-man. These are the most interesting matches for me, when there is a half-formed unit trying to build up something with the puggers. These groups would either dominate the pugs matches everytime or wouldn't be able to queue at all.

The other aspect is that CW shouldn't be viewed as an alternate matchmaker queue. It is Community Warfare. Even if you aren't in an unit, if you are playing CW it should be because you are interested in the metagame aspects of it. If this metagame aspects should be improved is another discussion.

[Aresye]

xpaladin, on 05 January 2015 - 05:00 PM, said:

Not to mention the tools to "organize properly" aren't readily available in game. No VOIP, no faction chat, nada. It's also a little rough to subject PUG players to the scrutiny of "IF they want to organize" etc. I'm sure they do, but without the tools there's little recourse.

Zoid, on 05 January 2015 - 05:24 PM, said:

It's not that PUGs are opposed to being organized units, it's that most of us don't want to go through that headache. I played WoW for a couple of years and I'm not about to try herd cats in another game. I like this one because I can just hop on when I want and blow some stuff up. When that ceases to be possible, I won't play anymore.

Joining a competitive unit helps with learning the mechanics of the game, but the coordination competitive teams use is not out of reach for any normal players. I was surprised to find that many of the Lords would frequently drop without being on comms together.

I think the best example is when the solo leaderboard tournaments roll around, and you end up in games with 6-10 high Elo players on both teams. Most of these players are part of competitive units, but for the tournament everybody is solo and not in comms with each other. Regardless, both teams play like seasoned competitive teams, often creating a very intense and close game.

The reason these players can just randomly work together is because they know the mechanics of the game. They know the meta builds, they know the maps, and they know to stick together. Heck, I've never been part of a true comp team, but I can hold my own and contribute to the win because I know the mechanics.

There is a wealth of information available online for all players that goes over how to build competitive mechs, which chassis to take, basics of competitive play, etc.

VOIP and dropdeck coordination is nice and all, and makes a big difference when 2 equally skilled competitive teams go against each other, but for normal play, the basics of picking the right mechs and sticking together is often the deciding factor.

Edited by Aresye, 05 January 2015 - 11:05 PM.

[Kirkland Langue]

Kirkland Langue, on 05 January 2015 - 02:07 PM, said:

Here is probably the answer I would go with, even though I recognize that it's impossible to make everyone happy.

1. Get rid of Normal Group Queue completely. Even if the rest of the idea is frowned upon, I still believe this is a MUST for the health of the game.

2. Modify the existing Normal Queue maps so that they can work in CW. The smaller maps should be 8v8 and the larger ones should be modified so that they work with the existing CW game mode.

3. Change the planet capture mechanic to have more than 15 "zones". Raise it to 45 or even 90. Then have different CW game modes award different amounts of "zones". Maybe the longer games win you 5 zones while a quick skirmish is only worth 2.

4. Have 2 different CW queues:
a. Dropdeck queue where ONLY groups of 4, 8, or 12 can join 12v12 battle.
b. Single Mech queue where 1, 2, 3, or 4 players can join for a 8v8 battle.

5. have a single Normal Queue which is ONLY solo-drop.

Just placing this here because it's more relevant here than where I placed it.

Edited by Kirkland Langue, 06 January 2015 - 12:11 AM.

[N0MAD]

Its not Pugs and a pug Q that CW needs, in reality pugs will be a no consequence thing to CW, they come and go and really treat it as just one of 4 game types, if Q time is longer they will discard it.
The 2 to 4 man group is what is being overlooked here, the Pub Group Q is very alive and well, very well populated and not your below average solo player with no interest for tactics or teamplay, a large % of the community that is reliable, smart and organised even if in very small groups, this is the Q that should of went extinct with the intro of CW.
Yet it flourishes, why are these people there and not in the CW Q?, you may want to ask yourself that..
MW2 thru to MW4 was kept alive near 2 decades by small/medium groups of people playing the leagues not by half a dozen comp groups or pugs.
Why is the Pub Group Q so well populated.....

[Joseph Mallan]

Vassago Rain, on 04 January 2015 - 11:26 PM, said:

MW4 was player run. MWO is based around PGI's finances.

It's in everyone's best interest to draw in as many players as possible, and keep them playing as often as possible. Even if CW was designed for the 12 manz uber mega comp teams, that's been proven to not work. Actual good players, not even talking good TEAMS, are few and far between in MWO.

You can't suddenly take a super casual robot grind game and say, this is now hardcore. You better get good, or get out. That's what killed 8 manz and 12 manz.

No what killed it was making it that you had to have full teams to participate. We could get 6-7 guys together and not be able to play in 8s so back to playing a 4 and 3 man. Awesome for working on teamwork!

PUGS want PUGs want PUGs want. Teams get shoved in a corner. Well CW is where teams get to cut loose. PUGs have an entire QUE all to themselves and are not happy!

[Tom Sawyer]

Faction Drops

Lobbies where you can group up and create your OWN 12 man groups

I have backed on VoiP- 3rd party voips like team speak now make more sense to me.

But being allowed to recruit from outside your group would help a ton. So you enter the lobby with your 5 man group. Normally it would be 8 but 3 are eating, sleeping, ect ect. You look around the lobby and you see some GREAT solo players who just for what ever reason don' group. Send them an invite. Now your 5 man is a solid 12 man. All on team speak. All having a plan.

Much more fun than a grab bag dropping against a dedicated 12 man group. Both sides will have more fun. Unless the 12 man is just there to roflmstomp pugs. Which itself just makes pugs quit the game, lose money for PGI, and eventually close the doors on the game itself.

[ztac]

Splitting won't really work anyway ... people will still sync drop ... there is no rating system in place and the MM in the solo queue does not work properly anyway so no chance it would work in CW. Also there is quite simply not the player base to support this.

The Ball has been dropped some time ago and the real problems never addressed but plenty of pay for content added ! So the next question is where is MWO headed? who knows for sure , but no doubt there will always be some dedicated diehard fans that will continue to play it! And of course it is free ...... so always get some people in on that too!

[wanderer]

Community warfare is for units and organized groups.

PUGs are the very antithesis of organization and disdain units.

The PUG queue is wide open. Enjoy it, or if you prefer CW, form or join a unit and realize that CW takes organized efforts to make a difference. Or remain target practice. I've seen 4-man units that can wreck faces. But don't go solo in and expect to succeed unless you can read the unit you dropped with as filler and support them. And don't expect a 12-man that's all-PUG to do anything except an oversized version of Skirmish play, followed by losing because CW isn't Skirmish.

It doesn't help that I generally see PUGs come in on the same piles of scrap they'd pilot in solo queue and wonder why they die first. Your AC/2 + LRM-5 Shadow Hawk doesn't cut it. That 34kph Catapult with SRMs doesn't cut it when your opponent is more interested in ganking a generator vs. killing you and just zips on by while you complain about not fighting.

Yes, I've seen em both in PUG drops. PUG drops let you be a special snowflake. CW is intolerant of it, because people at this point actually consider those fights meaningful and don't sit there derp-dropping when there's worlds to be won or lost...that is, if they're into organized play.

I ran some defense drops on a Kurita world getting Clan stomped. Observed my "team" of PUGs, with such gems as Davion players fighting on Kurita defenses. Compared it to the Clan forces. Went back to Liao fights. Suddenly, you were seeing units fielding organized groups, meta-strong Mechs vs. randurrs, even the relative gag units like [BASE] dropping with swarms of matched types in concert (yay, VOIP!) vs. the disjointed spasms of the PUG.

PUGs should never be the focus of CW. They shouldn't be barred from it, but it should be blatantly obvious that this kind of warfare takes -units-, not randoms.

Night and day.

[C E Dwyer]

Davers, on 04 January 2015 - 08:09 PM, said:

You mean like all the other games like WoT that don't even let pugs play in their CW?

Assuming MWO has 250,000 players and each server from world of tanks is 500,000 and we all know its a lot higher as wragamming net isn't scared of showing its population figures thats 3.5 million players, wargamming net can afford to be picky

[Prophetic]

So how long are we going to wait for a match?

If you want a MM then do public drops.

No to any sort of MM in CW.