29 replies to this topic

[TheAstroPub]

I know there has been some suggestions about nerfing this or changing that and I thought I might change this discussion to become more constructive. Please weigh in on these ideas and give your own if you have them. In general though I believe in giving advantages to units and groups more than disadvantaging solo players in CW is the way to go.

Group and PUG Queue

Quote Russ all you want about CW being more Unit focused, that doesn't mean that punishing PUGs is a good idea. PUGs wander into CW to try it out, get stomped, leave CW and maybe even MWO and don't come back. The game and PGI already has an up hill battle with marketing and selling with previous reputations earned from the games development. That being said I believe you can still make CW focused towards Units with out punishing solo players.

Separating solo PUGs and groups like is already done in public matches would help solo players experience CW to get a flavor of the game play to see if they enjoy it. Now of course you will have to make sure that these solo drops aren't going to be more effective than unit drops in the group queue. This can be done by simply making two separate counts for planetary conquests, they can averaged together, be separate, or be some other way. Making the group queue have less requirements for total victory will convince people to join units but of course there could be other things to make it more advantageous for people to join groups and Units.

Unit Perks

Units are a big thing, and should come with a big boost for the players in them. Below I will give a few examples of some things which units might get access to over your average solo players. There could always be balance issues which can be worked out, and these are generally ideas and not perfect on their own, but in general the idea is to give some advantage for people to join and play CW with a unit.

• Unit Dropships: Having Dropships which are upgradeable and multiple types of dropships would give some serious perks in a battle to units. Allowing for ships to have custom weapons load outs, dropping in ammo or repair items to aid the team as a whole. Perhaps even having Union Class and up which stay on the field to act as defense, refit, and repair for the team for the units with the most cash.
  
• Unit Commands: Being able to drop markers for unit members as well as having markers for unit members in other lances when playing in multiple group drops.
  
• Unit Mechs: Units able to donate old mechs to function like slightly modifiable trial mechs for other mermbers, with permissions. However these mechs can be reclaimed only by the original owner. This way people will be more interested in joining units as they can try out other mechs which they can tweak to see if they like with out dumping c-bills.

Edited by Bzerker01, 05 January 2015 - 12:33 AM.

[Kjudoon]

Player population is far too small to handle any further segmentation like this, plus there should never be the foolishness of a solo queue in CW. You have it in the PQs. Be happy.

If/when MWO gets over a quarter million players then this would be a viable option. Heck, a lot of options become available, but I would bet this won't happen till MWO comes available through steam late this year, early next year if at all.

[TheAstroPub]

Kjudoon, on 05 January 2015 - 02:09 AM, said:

Player population is far too small to handle any further segmentation like this, plus there should never be the foolishness of a solo queue in CW. You have it in the PQs. Be happy.

If/when MWO gets over a quarter million players then this would be a viable option. Heck, a lot of options become available, but I would bet this won't happen till MWO comes available through steam late this year, early next year if at all.

I am part of a group, we learn to deal with smaller groups by coordination. I'm not making this suggestion out of frustration but more out of concern for how the community is split. There is a way to accommodate solo players while making it more advantageous for units. If you ignore PUGs you doom the game to never having a high population. If you continue to push this foolishness that CW is only for elite ultra competitive units you are punishing the PUG population from even trying the game type. If PUGs get destroyed every time they are more likely to quit than find a unit.

This insistence that PGI punish PUGing in CW is flawed and will hurt the population further. Doesn't matter if they release to Steam tomorrow the current frame work needs to change if they want to get and keep players they get from Steam. Making the game, and all game modes, accessible to all is better than closing them off and will grow the population over time.

[focuspark]

Kjudoon, on 05 January 2015 - 02:09 AM, said:

Player population is far too small to handle any further segmentation like this, plus there should never be the foolishness of a solo queue in CW. You have it in the PQs. Be happy.

If/when MWO gets over a quarter million players then this would be a viable option. Heck, a lot of options become available, but I would bet this won't happen till MWO comes available through steam late this year, early next year if at all.

QFT

PGI needs to get off the group train and start servicing your prayer base. Teams are nice, support them, but don't cater to them.

[Kjudoon]

I do agree with your concern. My job in my unit is to work with our casual pugger and non competitive guys. I want a place for them, but let's face it, that isn't CW. Its supposed to be "Hard Mode" according to Russ himself. Plus the population is majorly segmented into 7 queues currently.

Down the road... yes... we should look at this. In 8 to 16 months. Not before.

[J0anna]

I think a better solution/focus is to make it easier for PUGs/solo's to communicate before and during the battle. Additionally MWO needs to promote joining a unit/clan as much as possible.

1) We need a pre-battle lobby where people can communicate with each other in CW. Even if this communication is via text. This needs to be flexible enough to allow people to form groups for the coming battle and discuss plans/setups in private.

2) MWO needs some formal voice program during combat. If unable to integrate it into the MWO client, MWO should host a server on one of the popular voice programs (TS, vent, whatever). This should download simultaneously with the client/patch and the popup messages should announce this.

3) We need to address new player experience and communicate to them the huge advantage of joining a group/clan and direct them to these forums to find them. i.e. when you click to join a faction have a popup that states something like "I see you want to join "XYZ" faction, Have you checked out mwomercs.com/forum/xzy to find other units you might be interested in joining..."

4) Eventually we need to put some limited trading between players in a unit/faction into the game (after we can talk to one another, so that players can show the actual advantages of joining a clan/group. Then we could even put subtle things to make units/clans more powerful (i.e. if you're part of a unit/clan you make 3% more cbills per battle in CW due to not having to pay Comstar transportation charges...)

5) Finally MWO needs to overhaul the in-game communication tools, whether a battle wheel , interactive minimap, whatever. The focus needs to be on ease of use and speed. There are many games that do it so much better than we do, we have to be able to learn from them.

[Kjudoon]

The solutions to the need for an easy/new player experience is PvE. Not CW.

[focuspark]

Screw CW as "hard mode" it is going to be "dead mode" if PGI can't find a way to make it not stuck for the majority of players, including PUG, non-NA, and players with real life commitments. Right now CW is designed for groups of people who take the game seriously and, for better or for worse, that's a fairly small population.

CW is starving, it'll only get worse now that the holidays are over. Time to rethink its design and make it inclusive, not exclusive.

[C E Dwyer]

I think you limited by what PGI can code, and your also forgetting that its easier for people to complain here than actually join a group, if you give groups perks you won't see people joining groups to get the perks you'll see more complaints here, about how unfair it is that soloists can't get the new shinny.

I am pretty much solidly solo player if I did join a group it would have to be eurocentric, and they would have to put up with me not being here after 9pm CET/8pmGMT, and playing in the afternoons when they are at work or after they go to bed.


I didn't stop playing CW because it was 'to hard' for soloists I wanted the challenge of disproving the you can't do well if your not in a group, in non meta mechs people.

I stopped playing because of the wait and how mind crushingly boring game play is, until this is changed then perks will have a minimal amount of effect on population and as pgi told us 85% of player are solo or play in groups of less than 4 you have to really wonder at a company that makes such a large undertaking for 15% of the population on a low population game.

Then it fails so hard it not funny

Edited by Cathy, 05 January 2015 - 04:41 AM.

[C E Dwyer]

Kjudoon, on 05 January 2015 - 03:01 AM, said:

The solutions to the need for an easy/new player experience is PvE. Not CW.

Have to agree, I loved MW3 for its PvE campaign not its PvP, I played it, but not often because of the childish ranting of the internet hero's.

However over the years since I played it, my expectations of the human race are in the gutter, so it surprises me more, these days when there isn't some {LT-MOB-25} calling its team crap

[Budor]

The public queues need to be incorporated into cw somehow in order to have the whole playerbase = cw population. If everything is part of cw i see no issues with having a solo and a group queue, it worked just fine in the past.

Edited by Budor, 05 January 2015 - 05:01 AM.

[Kjudoon]

focuspark, on 05 January 2015 - 03:07 AM, said:

Screw CW as "hard mode" it is going to be "dead mode" if PGI can't find a way to make it not stuck for the majority of players, including PUG, non-NA, and players with real life commitments. Right now CW is designed for groups of people who take the game seriously and, for better or for worse, that's a fairly small population.

CW is starving, it'll only get worse now that the holidays are over. Time to rethink its design and make it inclusive, not exclusive.

Cathy, on 05 January 2015 - 04:33 AM, said:

I think you limited by what PGI can code, and your also forgetting that its easier for people to complain here than actually join a group, if you give groups perks you won't see people joining groups to get the perks you'll see more complaints here, about how unfair it is that soloists can't get the new shinny.

I am pretty much solidly solo player if I did join a group it would have to be eurocentric, and they would have to put up with me not being here after 9pm CET/8pmGMT, and playing in the afternoons when they are at work or after they go to bed.


I didn't stop playing CW because it was 'to hard' for soloists I wanted the challenge of disproving the you can't do well if your not in a group, in non meta mechs people.

I stopped playing because of the wait and how mind crushingly boring game play is, until this is changed then perks will have a minimal amount of effect on population and as pgi told us 85% of player are solo or play in groups of less than 4 you have to really wonder at a company that makes such a large undertaking for 15% of the population on a low population game.

Then it fails so hard it not funny

Sorry man, Cathy depth charged your argument. We must:

A- Be reasonable in our own behavior
B- Take into account what PGI can and cannot code at this time.
C- Review data over the last 24 days
D- Give them time to implement changes post-holiday
E- Remember first and foremost: This is a Beta rollout, not a completed product.

Am I satisfied with what I have? Great jumping gumdrops NO! I'm pretty angry about some of the exploits that population imbalance and ghost drops have wrought. In fact, I'd go so far as to say once serious changes have been made, they probably will have to reset the map and try again. But I am realizing I need patience that this may take weeks and/or months to fix and bank my nerdrage.

I've wanted to parse modes more in the past, but with how weak I've discovered the player base, I've had to grow to accept that this is not going to happen until a quarter million or more players show up. As it stands, if we have more than 100k in players I will be surprised and glad. I think it will happen too, but not till MWO hits Steam or some other major ad campaign kicks off.

Yes, there needs to be a better new player experience. The solo queue was necessary. A solo queue in CW is probably a good idea to avoid. Although if you help european and Oceanic or Asian players with servers over there, you will have even smaller player bases. This might work to grow those areas over time, but in the short run it could be a fatal drop in player base. Again, down the road as we give good word of mouth to this game (something this thread is not accomplishing).

So, for all the outrage and demands, let's give PGI a couple weeks to assess and start putting out what they're going to do.

mmkay?

[Bigbacon]

why dont they try this...

public queue for CW that works like the regular deal, tosses 12 folks, loosely based on ELO (or 2 mans) into a queues and drop them on a planet based on faction. They still choose a faction. the bigger teams can still group up and join a queue and the blanks get filled in as normal. the game put those groups together and drop them, sorry your wait may be longer. for the ultra comp teams they can some how schedule a battle on special contract planets that come up daily or something and duke it out until someone takes the planet or cease fire comes along. You could have multiple comp groups then fighting over one territory with special incentives to do so. they get out of the way of the majorioty of the player base.

their biggest mistake was calling it "Hardcore mode" they should have never use that term because really all they did was drop ELO and the grouping requirements and allow anyone to fight anyone. obviously that didn't work before so why would it work now??

that and they need to drop the beta altogether and stop using it as a crutch. think the whole thing through before you drop it out there. like they did it to hopefully cash in on the holidays even though they knew it wasn't even close to ready. Your product should never stay in perpetual beta...if it does that should tell you something. that and players use it as an excuse for the whole thing.

Edited by Bigbacon, 05 January 2015 - 06:28 AM.

[Vassago Rain]

As long as you guys keep using it as an excuse, I'll keep reposting this picture.

[Kjudoon]

Static universe model is not universe.

Edited by Kjudoon, 05 January 2015 - 06:48 AM.

[Lily from animove]

cool stuff for units, like:

unit decals (said to some somewhen)
maybe unit colored dropships

we don't need real unit advantages but cool unique unit stuff and maybe something cool like unit vs unit fights where some special prices are to get or a ranking bord so that units have an intention to seek out fighting other units (or at leats the plaents they own).

[focuspark]

Kjudoon, on 05 January 2015 - 06:22 AM, said:

Sorry man, Cathy depth charged your argument. We must:

I don't see it that way, in fact I see Cathay's argument as a great addition to mine. CW is broken by design, not by coding. The code is fine, the quality of the code is fine, the design and game play are broken. CW needs to change if it's going to reach the scale the devs need to make it successful.

Kjudoon, on 05 January 2015 - 06:22 AM, said:

A- Be reasonable in our own behavior
B- Take into account what PGI can and cannot code at this time.
C- Review data over the last 24 days
D- Give them time to implement changes post-holiday
E- Remember first and foremost: This is a Beta rollout, not a completed product.

As a professional developer, I don't buy ( at all since I'm not asking for code changes. I'm asking for an open discussion from the developers about how they're going to make CW inclusive and not exclusive.

Kjudoon, on 05 January 2015 - 06:22 AM, said:

Am I satisfied with what I have? Great jumping gumdrops NO! I'm pretty angry about some of the exploits that population imbalance and ghost drops have wrought. In fact, I'd go so far as to say once serious changes have been made, they probably will have to reset the map and try again. But I am realizing I need patience that this may take weeks and/or months to fix and bank my nerdrage.

The design is flawed at the core. There's no point in waiting to tell the devs CW is broken.

Kjudoon, on 05 January 2015 - 06:22 AM, said:

I've wanted to parse modes more in the past, but with how weak I've discovered the player base, I've had to grow to accept that this is not going to happen until a quarter million or more players show up. As it stands, if we have more than 100k in players I will be surprised and glad. I think it will happen too, but not till MWO hits Steam or some other major ad campaign kicks off.

Yes, there needs to be a better new player experience. The solo queue was necessary. A solo queue in CW is probably a good idea to avoid. Although if you help european and Oceanic or Asian players with servers over there, you will have even smaller player bases. This might work to grow those areas over time, but in the short run it could be a fatal drop in player base. Again, down the road as we give good word of mouth to this game (something this thread is not accomplishing).

So, for all the outrage and demands, let's give PGI a couple weeks to assess and start putting out what they're going to do.

mmkay?

No, it's not OK. The devs need feedback early and often. I've done the sit back and trust PGI to do the right thing and that didn't turn out well.

[operatorZ]

focuspark, on 05 January 2015 - 02:43 AM, said:

QFT

PGI needs to get off the group train and start servicing your prayer base. Teams are nice, support them, but don't cater to them.

I hope we don't have a "prayer" base...that would be horrible.....

[focuspark]

operatorZ, on 05 January 2015 - 01:45 PM, said:

I hope we don't have a "prayer" base...that would be horrible.....

Written from a mobile device... autocorrect fail I believe (or at least claim).

[Kjudoon]

focuspark, on 05 January 2015 - 01:32 PM, said:

I don't see it that way, in fact I see Cathay's argument as a great addition to mine. CW is broken by design, not by coding. The code is fine, the quality of the code is fine, the design and game play are broken. CW needs to change if it's going to reach the scale the devs need to make it successful.



As a professional developer, I don't buy ( at all since I'm not asking for code changes. I'm asking for an open discussion from the developers about how they're going to make CW inclusive and not exclusive.



The design is flawed at the core. There's no point in waiting to tell the devs CW is broken.



No, it's not OK. The devs need feedback early and often. I've done the sit back and trust PGI to do the right thing and that didn't turn out well.

Well, then you have your mind set on what you're going to be satisfied with regardless of what realities are. So there's no reason to discuss this anymore.

Oh, and historically PGI takes almost no advice, ideas or input from the forums. Doesn't stop us from voicing it, but don't expect to be listened to.