66 replies to this topic

[Davers]

oldradagast, on 11 January 2015 - 05:47 PM, said:

Except match-making works fine in the Public Queue - games are found in a reasonable amount of time and blow-outs are less common than in CW.

CW's problem is a small - and dwindling - player base. Adding new maps, more generators, and other random junk does nothing to change the fact that a staggering percentage of the games are utterly pointless wastes of over a half-hour of time because of the total lack of a matchmaker. Games are decided at the drop screen - "ggclose." After a few of those experiences, the average user is going to walk away, not waste his or her time looking for team-speak, scouring the forums for a unit to join, spending a fortune and weeks leveling the meta-mechs of the day, etc.

It has been determined in the past that about 85% of this game's population would be considered casual gamers. That's 85% of the game's population that currently has NO reason at all to play CW. Until that is fixed, every other change made to CW is basically a waste of PGI's resources since there will soon be almost nobody left playing it.

I am not going to argue with you, you do have good points to make. Not going to hand wave them off. But this game is hardly balanced and deep enough to last as an Esport. Without some kind of Metagame, it gets old quickly. Those are the reasons so many players left. They didn't leave because of 12 man groups (or 8 man groups). They left because there is nothing to do in this game but grind out new mechs, just they can make Cbills, to grind out more new mechs. WoT probably has 85% of the player base as casuals too. But their CW attracts competitive units. I don't think I have ever seen a thread on their forums about making their CW more accessible to solo players. But they don't NEED solo players- the game encourages players to join units to play in CW, by giving actual rewards for competing. I think this is the track PGI should take. Let casual players be casual, but give incentives to be more. Hell, even games like Farmville encourage players to be more than just casual! "Oh look, you didn't log in and play yesterday so all your crops shrivelled and died and you are out money. Got to log in more!" I think most games assume there is a progression from newplayer>casual player>guild player. I don't see why MW:O should have vastly different expectations. Even very solo/new player games like WoW constantly put in content to keep it's large guilds and dedicated players interested, even if that content is unavailable to players (who pay the same every month as guild players) due to not being able to make large raid groups and such. This game will never be anything but casual players drifting through if there isn't any depth for them to find. Is the current CW good? Not really. But it is the start of something, and I would hate to see it 'die on the vine' because PGI can't figure out what direction to take this game.

[InspectorG]

Adiuvo, on 11 January 2015 - 02:59 PM, said:

The only thing in CW that matters is numbers. The way you fix this is to force some method for there to be real attrition and essentially remove people's capability from dropping on a planet.

It's not a particularly nice thing, but if CW is ever to be taken seriously it will have to be required.

I inclined to agree.

If they had a way to have comp 12mans fight for 'serious' battles of prime importance,

a way for decent 12mans or 'decent' small units to fight for big chunks of a planet,

and a way for all the, uh, 'soloists' to fill the ranks...

There has to be some kind of proportional system to work this out. Just like real life, the skilled commandos do the secret-sensitive-one chance only-elite stuff. Good units take the main objectives. Grunts catch bullets and hold turf via 'boots on the ground'.

They have to find a way to do something like this, and keep people in factions for decent stretches of time or we will have Unit collusion working the rewards system and lemmings following them leaving some factions empty.

[oldradagast]

Davers, on 11 January 2015 - 06:09 PM, said:

I am not going to argue with you, you do have good points to make. Not going to hand wave them off. But this game is hardly balanced and deep enough to last as an Esport. Without some kind of Metagame, it gets old quickly. Those are the reasons so many players left. They didn't leave because of 12 man groups (or 8 man groups). They left because there is nothing to do in this game but grind out new mechs, just they can make Cbills, to grind out more new mechs. WoT probably has 85% of the player base as casuals too. But their CW attracts competitive units. I don't think I have ever seen a thread on their forums about making their CW more accessible to solo players. But they don't NEED solo players- the game encourages players to join units to play in CW, by giving actual rewards for competing...

I agree in general with what you're saying, except for a few points.

1) People leave the GAME because, overall, it is rather shallow. Heck, I admit that I only play it because it's fast, straightforward, and reasonably fun. I can bang out a few games after dinner before bed, and there you go... but it has no depth compared to games that are closing on 20 years old (X-Wing, Tie-Fighter are my most similar examples, but we all have ones we can hark back to.)

2) People leave CW for many reasons, but being constantly stomped by huge teams - who often have a huge attitude on top of it - will quickly turn people off. No player is going to think, "Oh, well - clearly I need to practice lots, buy specific mechs, get on Teamspeak, and join one of those cool units who just insulted me and rubbed my nose in it when they won!" No, they are going to think, "What kind of flippin' idiot creates a game where random new players are pitted against full teams in lop-sided matches... and why doesn't this game have voice coms?!" And then they quit CW and quite possibly MWO soon after.

3) PGI does need the casual gamer to survive. They cannot expect to keep selling endless mechs to the same "competitive whales" over and over again. Also, all games have attrition, and this game, quite frankly, has one of the worst on-boarding processes I've ever seen for a PvP game. Top that off with Community PUG Stomp, the game mode, and natural attrition will cause the game to bleed out even if everything else fails to achieve that goal.

Edited by oldradagast, 11 January 2015 - 06:46 PM.

[Davers]

oldradagast, on 11 January 2015 - 06:45 PM, said:

I agree in general with what you're saying, except for a few points.

1) People leave the GAME because, overall, it is rather shallow. Heck, I admit that I only play it because it's fast, straightforward, and reasonably fun. I can bang out a few games after dinner before bed, and there you go... but it has no depth compared to games that are closing on 20 years old (X-Wing, Tie-Fighter are my most similar examples, but we all have ones we can hark back to.)

2) People leave CW for many reasons, but being constantly stomped by huge teams - who often have a huge attitude on top of it - will quickly turn people off. No player is going to think, "Oh, well - clearly I need to practice lots, buy specific mechs, get on Teamspeak, and join one of those cool units who just insulted me and rubbed my nose in it when they won!" No, they are going to think, "What kind of flippin' idiot creates a game where random new players are pitted against full teams in lop-sided matches... and why doesn't this game have voice coms?!" And then they quit CW and quite possibly MWO soon after.

3) PGI does need the casual gamer to survive. They cannot expect to keep selling endless mechs to the same "competitive whales" over and over again. Also, all games have attrition, and this game, quite frankly, has one of the worst on-boarding processes I've ever seen for a PvP game. Top that off with Community PUG Stomp, the game mode, and natural attrition will cause the game to bleed out even if everything else fails to achieve that goal.

1. Yes. And CW was supposed to add depth. It shouldn't have simply been another game mode with 2 new maps. Heh, TIE Fighter has long been considered one of the best games ever made. No surprise it's still around. I hear you can buy versions updated to be compatible with modern video cards for $10.

2. PGI has to decide what they envision the future of MWO to be, and it unfortunately can't please everyone. Players in units want units to matter in CW. They want to be able to plan and strategize and have the tools to do such things. Otherwise, why not scrap CW and just attach the map to the Public Queue? Just have the map change according to player's stats for the day? "Hey, some Davions had good matches today, let's give them a planet!"

3. WoT excludes solo players from CW and they still spend money. Hell, there was no CW until a month ago and people spent money. Solo players don't need CW for them to spend money.

[ThisMachineKillsFascists]

I see units winning most of the times in cw but in public they get their arrs owned

Edited by ThisMachineKillsFascists, 11 January 2015 - 09:20 PM.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Obviously it's not purely about #'s as some of the very largest units in the game, who are actively playing CW....have very few planets to show for it.

It's skill, time, manpower...many things.

Unfortunately, it's currently very shallow, but hopefully PGI will add more depth as we go. Really, we're still in a stilted, disjointed, proof of concept phase and while it's disappointing to those of us who wanted an NBT-league experience using this game as the platform, it should have been expected.

PGI is a small company, struggling to figure themselves out here, so while I don't excuse a ******-beta, I do understand why it is what it is and frankly, should not have gotten my hopes up otherwise.

At least they're working on it and I expect it to get better.

[Ax2Grind]

Lukoi Banacek, on 11 January 2015 - 09:43 PM, said:

Obviously it's not purely about #'s as some of the very largest units in the game, who are actively playing CW....have very few planets to show for it.

It's skill, time, manpower...many things.

This. If numbers were all that mattered a number of units would be doing better. If it was only about pure raw skill, same.

One thing that I have personally experienced from being apart of a Merc group is that alliances and diplomacy, and coordinating attacks and defenses, make a huge difference in how well a faction does as a whole, no matter if we are Clans or IS. If you combine coordination with skilled units that use Teamwork your probably going to see some concrete success in CW. And to tell you the truth I did not expect the Beta of CW to offer that much depth over all. CW needs quite a lot of work, but it shows some promise.

[Alex Wolfe]

Lukoi Banacek, on 11 January 2015 - 09:43 PM, said:

PGI is a small company, struggling to figure themselves out here, so while I don't excuse a ******-beta, I do understand why it is what it is and frankly, should not have gotten my hopes up otherwise.

At least they're working on it and I expect it to get better.

"A small company, struggling to figure themselves out here"? Really?

It's not some awkward teenager struggling with his identity we're talking about here, they existed in some capacity since the year 2000, and developed over a dozen of games either as PGI or Jarhead Games (most of them what one would refer to as "shovelware", but also apparently "AAA titles such as Need For Speed: Undercover and Duke Nukem Forever"). They have history, and they have experience, quality of their work notwithstanding. What they don't have after those 14 years is an excuse like the kind you seem to be giving them.

Hell, if the company was a human, they'd be an actual teenager by now. MWO probably has some players younger than that.

Edited by Alex Wolfe, 12 January 2015 - 04:10 AM.

[oldradagast]

Davers, on 11 January 2015 - 07:14 PM, said:

1. Yes. And CW was supposed to add depth. It shouldn't have simply been another game mode with 2 new maps. Heh, TIE Fighter has long been considered one of the best games ever made. No surprise it's still around. I hear you can buy versions updated to be compatible with modern video cards for $10.

2. PGI has to decide what they envision the future of MWO to be, and it unfortunately can't please everyone. Players in units want units to matter in CW. They want to be able to plan and strategize and have the tools to do such things. Otherwise, why not scrap CW and just attach the map to the Public Queue? Just have the map change according to player's stats for the day? "Hey, some Davions had good matches today, let's give them a planet!"

3. WoT excludes solo players from CW and they still spend money. Hell, there was no CW until a month ago and people spent money. Solo players don't need CW for them to spend money.

1) Agreed.

2) If people actual want CW to be a place of skill where units matter, they would also want a match-maker system in place that prevented utterly pointless drops with full teams vs. random PUG's. Such nonsense wastes over 30-minutes of everyone's time, is utterly one-sided and dull, and turns new players away from CW. I have yet to see a single valid reason against this proposal... since, in the end, it's all too often "skilled" people in units complaining that their free wins might be taken from them.

3) The addition of CW to a game with an already poor new user experience has not helped it. If anything, it has made the new user experience worse since if some new player - heaven help them - drops into CW, they will immediately be frustrated and walk away from CW and perhaps the game.

If PGI is going to continue to throw limited resources at CW, making the games matter needs to be a top priority, and achieving that can only be done by minimizing utterly pointless, one-sided stomps that dominate the queues currently and simply waste everyone's time (at best) or turn them off to the game at worst.

Edited by oldradagast, 12 January 2015 - 04:11 AM.

[EvilCow]

Planning
Knowledge
Training
Communication
Coordination
Configurations
Skill

All the above matter.

[Joseph Mallan]

ThisMachineKillsFascists, on 10 January 2015 - 03:47 PM, said:

.No, you rush base, dont even shoot at the enemy and win. Coordination matters. Skill does not that much.

FYI Coordination is a skill. Look at the uncoordinated teams complaining cause they can't beat coordination! If you have to work at it to have it, its a skill.

[meteorol]

Given the current implementation, the number of players online for a faction in the last 2 hours before the ceasefire is what decides CW.
Compared to numbers, skill is a non-factor.

[Karl Streiger]

Joseph Mallan, on 12 January 2015 - 04:48 AM, said:

FYI Coordination is a skill. Look at the uncoordinated teams complaining cause they can't beat coordination! If you have to work at it to have it, its a skill.

I beg to differ.
Because skill has two parts: capability and qualification
To have the skill of coordination you need the capability to coordinate

I know its possible for most "usual" premade teamplayer even in solo to play there kind of game - because everybody has the experience of coordinated battles.

but to learn this you need to get the xp first - hardly possible outside a premade team.

considering the inability of every player in this game to decide a game on its own (something that is possible in the similar game WoT) - the learning of this "coordination" skill is one of the most important assets in MWO (imho)

I would simple assume that every body has the qualification - to use Teamspeak, speak the same language and is able to learn new things.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 12 January 2015 - 05:02 AM.

[Kenyon Burguess]

Organization, tactical awareness, and the ability to remain calm and accurate under pressure. Those are the skills you need. If your idea of leet skills is based on kdr, then you are not ready for cw. 12 solo players will not be able react to coordination. Last night a good Team missed a powered down wounded centurion, they focused instead on rushing out the gate to dominate our team. Even when the cent powered up and attacked, they didnt turn back assuming someone else would do it. That organized team lost to our pugs who simply talked to each other

[Joseph Mallan]

Karl Streiger, on 12 January 2015 - 05:01 AM, said:

I beg to differ.
Because skill has two parts: capability and qualification
To have the skill of coordination you need the capability to coordinate

I know its possible for most "usual" premade teamplayer even in solo to play there kind of game - because everybody has the experience of coordinated battles.

but to learn this you need to get the xp first - hardly possible outside a premade team.

considering the inability of every player in this game to decide a game on its own (something that is possible in the similar game WoT) - the learning of this "coordination" skill is one of the most important assets in MWO (imho)

I would simple assume that every body has the qualification - to use Teamspeak, speak the same language and is able to learn new things.

And thats where you are wrong. I can coordinate with a team without Comms. I can stay with my Lance, focus fire with them, provide another AMS by proximity, and maneuver to bring flanking damage or a bigger target to allow a flank all without talking to my team. coordination is a skill That does require practice, and works better with comms but does not depend on them.

Teams can do it easier, but if you don't practice it in PUGs that is your fault. (The royal you not you specific Karl)

[Karl Streiger]

Joseph Mallan, on 12 January 2015 - 05:28 AM, said:

And thats where you are wrong. I can coordinate with a team without Comms. I can stay with my Lance, focus fire with them, provide another AMS by proximity, and maneuver to bring flanking damage or a bigger target to allow a flank all without talking to my team. coordination is a skill That does require practice, and works better with comms but does not depend on them.

So you learned that from the cradle?
I know you learned in the "real life" with addition of TT tactics - (and thats the good about MWO - tactics that work in Real life - and TT work perfect in MWO) - but you have to consider that mabye half of the MWO don't have a idea how formations work - to begin with.

[Basilisk222]

Alex Wolfe, on 12 January 2015 - 04:03 AM, said:

"A small company, struggling to figure themselves out here"? Really?

It's not some awkward teenager struggling with his identity we're talking about here, they existed in some capacity since the year 2000, and developed over a dozen of games either as PGI or Jarhead Games (most of them what one would refer to as "shovelware", but also apparently "AAA titles such as Need For Speed: Undercover and Duke Nukem Forever"). They have history, and they have experience, quality of their work notwithstanding. What they don't have after those 14 years is an excuse like the kind you seem to be giving them.

Hell, if the company was a human, they'd be an actual teenager by now. MWO probably has some players younger than that.

Here I am again appearing to white knight. (I'm not) PGI made 3rd party titles for game consoles/PC, and were contracted by larger publishers to do it. they've only done medocre titles with limited scope, Now not to bash them, but they've never really hit critical acclaim, and they've never particularly stood out in any one genre. Coupled with the fact that most games hey've made have been OK to meh games on the charts, means as a dev, they're not really a main studio, they're not exactly an outsourced studio, but their titles make me think "here's an IP, here's what we want, make it, you have X time."

They've only recently (in the last year) bought the rights to calling all their own shots. Before, they weren't big enough to afford this kind of business model. Honestly, i'm still not sure they are, but all the same, it would seem to me that it's going better than it was before.

They're still very much figuring out how to flesh themselves out, that's more than obvious. They're fumbling about with marketing and allocating resources effectively. They may have done games before, but they haven't done Multiplayer centric, the Free to Play, or primarily Online types of games. MWO is their first for all 3. They bit off way more than they could chew, and it has shown.

They are definitely struggling against their own reputation , IGP's reputation, and the challenges of being their own business without outside reimbursement (publishers). I'd say they're figuring themselves out a lot.

[Mordin Ashe]

Skill always matters, but skill comes in many forms ;-)

It can be proper aiming that enables you to gun down two or three charging Mechs, making your odds look much better.
It can be your positioning that gives you the edge you need to stop the whole enemy train for a while, or even make them turn around and reprioritize.
You can also say that skill is what you need to simply move from point A to point B without being shot to pieces.
Or a coordination. Also valid point.

But the problem is that lately quite many people only see skill as the last thing - coordination. Or rushing in CW terms. Do the same as the rest of your team, go forward, ignore/leg all enemies and shoot generators. Such people, while seen as skilled by some, are very poor players that end up dead and smoking in the middle of their march. It is important to keep in mind what you wish to achieve, but it is called "goal-oriented", not "rush like there is no tomorrow". If you try to rush mindlessly , even in a coordinated team, you will simply get shot by others sticking with doing the right thing, because coordination, doing things together, doesn't mean that it can compensate for poor tactics. It is coordination coupled with situation awareness, position and gunnery skills that make you successful, not charging towards the generator.

[Kjudoon]

Mordin Ashe, on 12 January 2015 - 06:09 AM, said:

Skill always matters, but skill comes in many forms ;-)

It can be proper aiming that enables you to gun down two or three charging Mechs, making your odds look much better.
It can be your positioning that gives you the edge you need to stop the whole enemy train for a while, or even make them turn around and reprioritize.
You can also say that skill is what you need to simply move from point A to point B without being shot to pieces.
Or a coordination. Also valid point.

But the problem is that lately quite many people only see skill as the last thing - coordination. Or rushing in CW terms. Do the same as the rest of your team, go forward, ignore/leg all enemies and shoot generators. Such people, while seen as skilled by some, are very poor players that end up dead and smoking in the middle of their march. It is important to keep in mind what you wish to achieve, but it is called "goal-oriented", not "rush like there is no tomorrow". If you try to rush mindlessly , even in a coordinated team, you will simply get shot by others sticking with doing the right thing, because coordination, doing things together, doesn't mean that it can compensate for poor tactics. It is coordination coupled with situation awareness, position and gunnery skills that make you successful, not charging towards the generator.

But we are told only twitch matters because twitch IS all skill!

[EvilCow]

Skill is also very generic, even looking at piloting-related skills you can talk of:
- Gunnery
- Movement
- Positioning
- Evading
- Spreading Damage
- Situational Awareness
- Terrain Awareness
- Team Mates Awareness
- Mech Status Awareness (what side to expose, turn to cover the damaged leg without having to even THINK about it).
- Reaction Time

Those are all things that differentiate a lot among pilots and probably I forgot some others.

Edited by EvilCow, 12 January 2015 - 06:21 AM.