AlphaToaster, on 29 January 2015 - 06:02 PM, said:
To your first question, no you are not cut out from faction play unless you are in a 12man. I believe I said unless you are mentally and emotionally prepared to face a 12man, avoid CW queue. That means if you are PUG'in and you have a little freak out when your PUG faces a premade, you're probably not mentally or emotionally prepared for CW.
I'm talking about this attitude I see around here that PUGs need to STFU and go back to the pub queue and let the real men handle CW. I'm also talking about PGI making a game mode that's heavily tilted towards 12-man but entices PUGs and solos in to be suckers for PUG stomps.
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If you've decided for whatever reason comms aren't for you, and you don't need to play with other people regularly, then when you drop into CW you can realistically expect most of the time you face a premade, you will lose. It's just how team games go.
Check my sig, I'm HHoD, we have our own TS server. I know all about comms. I happen to split my time between unit duties and PUG life. And for the interest of curisoity I took a plunge in CW solo for a few turns to see what that's like and that's where my outrage comes from. PGI should never have allowed 12-man groups to go against randoms. We did that before Elo, before the group queue. I boggles my mind that PGI forgot that so soon.
Actually I don't think they forgot. Honestly, I think they found out CW was harder to do than they thought, they got a little crazy trying to release something, anything before their Q4 2014 deadline and cut huge corners to get it out. What we've got is, as far as I'm concerned, half done.
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The group that plays together more cohesively and puts more effort into preparation before the drop will win.
If a PUG makes the choice not to use comms, this is not being shut out, this is a decision by the PUG not to prepare. Same goes with grouping within the faction and networking to meet people in your faction who you play well with. These teams on the most part are going through great pains to reach out.
The decision to remove ones self from CW is a personal choice that each PUG makes. No one is shut out from anything.
And so the CW population is withering and dying, most players are back to PUG life and the map is whacked out because of it. PUGs and many other players left because they recognize that its half done or half-assed depending on how cynical the player is.
Since I spend time in PUG land, I do that for recruitment purposes, I listen to a lot of chatter from the PUGs. Many of them are confused and don't know adam from abel. They don't know basic stuff, that you and I, forum junkies, and/or unit members know. They don't know where to find comms and some of them might be shy or confused how to find a group and join them on comms. Then there's the training. You can't take a random selection of mechs you don't have basics on or, even worse, trial mechs into CW. To have a descent chance of success you need mastered mechs with optimal builds, and expensive modules, and you have to listen to the drop commander and do what he/she says when he/she says it with out question or worry.
That's too much for a casual player to take in quickly. They'll just get stomped, ridiculed, and then just walk away. That hurts game growth, competition and general fun for everybody.
Comms don't magically appear when a player creates a new account in MWO. You have to dig for data, there's no help for newbies and there's no help from the forums. Half of this place is still nasty snark and trolling we also have players that are breaking their arms patting themselves on the back, or moaning about having to carry PUGs like they are Mother Teresa.
Yes I know VoIP is coming in the next patch, but we don't have it now. I'll see if my tune changes after that goes in and see what impact it has on game play, both in the pub queue and CW. Hey it might and who knows, perhaps my complaints here will be silenced. I'll be the first to admit it, if true.
As for text chat... Its OK. I've seen it work and I've seen it ignored. It takes too long to type and not get your ass shot off in the process. But don't forget, text is turned off by default, so a bunch of those newbies probably don't even know there's instructions for them to read.
Anyway, CW his a harsh mistress. While that's fine, there's nothing to tell the player what they're getting into. Yet the game entices them constantly to get involved, god help them if they get suckered in.
In my PUG matches in CW I have, not once, been matched against anything less than a 12-man group. Its always some random collection of small groups and solos against a 12-man clan group.... and we're always counter attacking. *sigh*
I don't blame players for bringing their best. Hell I expect it and desire it, its the game mechanics, the design, that needs the most work.
Davers, on 29 January 2015 - 02:32 PM, said:
New map and game mode next week.
Yay new map.
Game mode? Whut? I heard they're changing the counter-attack so the base isn't magically fixed up and instead of killing a big gun, the attackers have to kill the whole enemy team and a mobile HQ.
Not a game mode, exactly, more like changing the way Invasion works.
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