250 replies to this topic

[Apnu]

ThomasMarik, on 01 February 2015 - 11:18 PM, said:

When it comes to CW PUG's need to get it out of their heads that Pick Up Groups MUST be random. I get it if your schedule is hecktic and you don't want to tie yoruself down to a unit and their schedules. I understand that the Public Queues makes it nearly impossible to pick and choose who you team up with for the day. In CW you CAN choose who you are grouped up with. You don't need to join a unit. All you need to do is show up when you can and people will pick you up for a group.

At least that is how Marik works. The way people go on and on about how PUGs need to join a group makes me think no other faction has figured this out yet. No elaborate schdules. No mandatory practice times. You just show up and we share some bacon and our secret corn on the cob recipies while getting in some drops.

In some cases factions have significant population issues, FRR and DCMS obviously. They also bear the brunt of multiple clan factions eating at them, especially FRR. Also since you're Marik and I'm Davion, we don't have the pressure of highly organized and motivated units, playing as clans, putting pressure on us. Yes we have our own units and we do lock horns, but really, for us, Marik and Davion is the only action in the lower 50% of the map. Since its IS v IS conflict, the tech is at least balanced. Marik doesn't have to counter-attack against 12 stormcrows, or 12 timberwolves or 12 direwolves. That's what they're seeing up there. My point is, not only to many of the top comp teams play clans, they also leverage the tech advantage on top of hours of coordinated practice in top-tier meta mechs and private voice comms.

And let's face it. DCMS and FRR don't have the people to defend against that many players and PUGs go in because of the enticing call-to-arms, and become fodder for comp team farming. PUGs just melt under that kind of fire. Believe me, I've been there its demoralizing.
What's worse is if we, say HHoD, goes and decides to take a planet from the clans, its yellow, not sea-green or red for FRR and DCMS respectively. So if an economy ever appears in CW, those factions are still buggered despite having the clan faction pushed off that planet. We've done it a couple of times in HHoD, early on when CW debuted.

Don't get me wrong, I get your point, but life for Marik and Davion is very different from the rest of the IS.

I believe there's a place at the CW table for solos and small groups. I think if CW was expanded to include Assault, Skirmish and Conquest matches, one-off matches like the pub. queue. We'd solve that problem. Invasion is fine as a hard-core highly competitive game mode. But not everybody has time for that, as you point out. But the game needs to acknowledge that PUGs pay the bills too and they should have access to the whole game. Which includes CW. Moving the pub. queue games into CW, and having those PUGs, solos, and causals, involved will make CW deeper, wider, and more fun for everybody. Its not hard to do, just enforce PUGs and solos have to group with their faction. As for the lone wolves, force them to acquire a contract with a faction, their choice, in order to drop. Let them acquire contracts on a per-game basis if they want, what's the big deal?

If Assault, Skirmish and Conquest games were in CW, then those players can continue doing what they want, plus get LP and have a stake in the IS map and premades and comp teams can have what they want too. Everybody wins.

[wanderer]

Quote

FASA realized its mistake way too late and eventually threw its hands up in the air, wrote OP Bulldog into the time line (the destruction of the Smoke Jag) and the proxy battle of Tukayyid to halt the clans and give FASA a reason to jump the timeline and have mix tech units. It was a real mea culpa moment in Battletech history.

Zellbrigen was never anything but an optional flavor rule and had nothing to do with rules balance in the first place- but boy, did it get the playerbase up and roaring for new tech when the Clans came along. There were no "balances" for Clans at the time, as they hadn't even bothered.

Cue a nice line of new rulebooks, TROs, and miniatures and oh, how the money poured in- and the first Battle Value system to go with em. If you wanted to keep up, you needed the new stuff.

Ka-ching went the cash registers at FASA. Nothing like new units that make older ones obsolete to drive sales, as Games Workshop could also tell you.

[wanderer]

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Moving the pub. queue games into CW, and having those PUGs, solos, and causals, involved will make CW deeper, wider, and more fun for everybody.

A wide, shallow pool of more meat for the large units to devour until they leave-leave the game without an option to escape the very people many of them cheered getting out of the public queue.

Leave the pubbies where they belong- we already had to get the sharks out of their pool once, dropping them in a NEW pool full of sharks is just plain stupid. You want PUG/solo/casual friendly content for CW, build smaller content. Folks like had trouble functioning well in 8-mans, much less 12-man content that has any valid meaning in CW whatsoever. Remember, no splitting the queue in CW. Everyone's going to have to be allowed. If we don't scale down, there is no place for any of those in a world dominated by large groups working in concert.

[Yokaiko]

wanderer, on 02 February 2015 - 12:27 PM, said:

A wide, shallow pool of more meat for the large units to devour until they leave-leave the game without an option to escape the very people many of them cheered getting out of the public queue.

Leave the pubbies where they belong- we already had to get the sharks out of their pool once, dropping them in a NEW pool full of sharks is just plain stupid. You want PUG/solo/casual friendly content for CW, build smaller content. Folks like had trouble functioning well in 8-mans, much less 12-man content that has any valid meaning in CW whatsoever. Remember, no splitting the queue in CW. Everyone's going to have to be allowed. If we don't scale down, there is no place for any of those in a world dominated by large groups working in concert.

Sure there is, its called be in a group.

...and large is somewhat subjective, my unit rarely goes over twelve online, I think there are under 30 memebers less than half of which are ever present.

THERE IS NO NEED TO SOLO, NONE.

[wanderer]

Quote

THERE IS NO NEED TO SOLO, NONE.

Given the immense size of the solo queue vs. the group (and the entire CW queue), I beg to disagree.

Clearly, there's a ton of people who feel the need to solo and if you want them in CW, put in content that isn't overwhelmed by large team vs. soloers.

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my unit rarely goes over twelve online

8-10 (or 12 people) is all it takes for a proper CW stompy group to be at peak effectiveness. What you seem to fail at understanding is how many people avoid CW entirely simply because they don't want to be near you. And you can't split 12-man content into solo/group queues in CW, as the abuse of such would be insane.

Build in CW content that's scaled to those demands, and you'll get them playing CW. Jam them into CW without a care, and we revert to the old days of one queue and endless screaming butthurt.

[Yokaiko]

wanderer, on 02 February 2015 - 12:40 PM, said:

Given the immense size of the solo queue vs. the group (and the entire CW queue), I beg to disagree.

Clearly, there's a ton of people who feel the need to solo and if you want them in CW, put in content that isn't overwhelmed by large team vs. soloers.



8-10 (or 12 people) is all it takes for a proper CW stompy group to be at peak effectiveness. What you seem to fail at understanding is how many people avoid CW entirely simply because they don't want to be near you. And you can't split 12-man content into solo/group queues in CW, as the abuse of such would be insane.

Build in CW content that's scaled to those demands, and you'll get them playing CW. Jam them into CW without a care, and we revert to the old days of one queue and endless screaming butthurt.

Yeah, except the screaming buttmads can now do whatever it is they do IN THE PUB QUEUE. There is no need for them to come get stomped on in CW games. None. They can sit in the pub queue and MAKE MORE MONEY, seriously with all of the downtime you are making better solo dropping than you would in CW unless you have premium time, all champ/hero mechs AND consistantly rake over 2,600 damage.

I'm fine playing a larger team, I do it all of the time. If you can't handle it? pub FFS.

[Das Grab]

so its simple. band all pugs from CW (I play it solo.) Then no pugs at all and watch it die.
I have seen many PUGs on clan and IS sizes. I have seen a 12 man group roll a group of PUGs, and i have seen a group of 12 been rolled by PUGs.
So its hard to say what is best. remember time zones play a big part of it. lots of clans get ghost drops when a large group of ppl are sleeping.
if you belong to a group that is canada and your in england, times zone dont match for a good game.

[wanderer]

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I'm fine playing a larger team, I do it all of the time. If you can't handle it? pub FFS.

You missed the part where the quoted wanted nobody to solo at all, apparently.

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band all pugs from CW

And then there's this shining example of what can go wrong with a prefrontal lobotomy.

[Apnu]

wanderer, on 02 February 2015 - 12:17 PM, said:

Zellbrigen was never anything but an optional flavor rule and had nothing to do with rules balance in the first place- but boy, did it get the playerbase up and roaring for new tech when the Clans came along. There were no "balances" for Clans at the time, as they hadn't even bothered.

Cue a nice line of new rulebooks, TROs, and miniatures and oh, how the money poured in- and the first Battle Value system to go with em. If you wanted to keep up, you needed the new stuff.

Ka-ching went the cash registers at FASA. Nothing like new units that make older ones obsolete to drive sales, as Games Workshop could also tell you.

Well yes. I wasn't getting into the business side of things for FASA, but was talking about game mechanics and attempts at balancing clans vs IS games on the tabletop. And they failed at it. Players there the clan culture out the window and mixed everything up, so FASA threw in the towel and let that happen in the canon.

[Apnu]

Yokaiko, on 02 February 2015 - 12:53 PM, said:

Yeah, except the screaming buttmads can now do whatever it is they do IN THE PUB QUEUE. There is no need for them to come get stomped on in CW games. None. They can sit in the pub queue and MAKE MORE MONEY, seriously with all of the downtime you are making better solo dropping than you would in CW unless you have premium time, all champ/hero mechs AND consistantly rake over 2,600 damage.

I'm fine playing a larger team, I do it all of the time. If you can't handle it? pub FFS.

All this does is ensure the player base stays separated. Then we have a whole mode of the game, built off probably the biggest and most important pillar of MWO held in reserve for the exclusive use of a few. MWO's 1% if you will. While the money's made off the PUGs whooping it up in the pub queue.

Divide player base is the short bus to collapsed game. Plus all the tryhards and comps complain endlessly how bad PUGs are, how stupid PUGs are, and how PUGs never learn. Well, if we continue to give them a place that reinforces bad play and bad habits, they'll never have the opportunity to improve.

Getting the PUGs in CW, not just the Invasion game mode, but the rest of it -- faction, community will improve their play and skill. Incentivize the PUGs to play CW, to be part of a team, help them feel like they belong in a faction, make it easy to get to know your faction mates and to stay informed and involved in the goings on of the IS map and they'll improve on their own.

As it is now we have two cultures in MWO and its becoming something of a civil war. We have the solo rambo-like PUGs and the premades. This game won't last very long if the player base stays divided like that.

[wanderer]

You can divide the playerbase- as long as content provides for both.

The casual and the hardcore player are part of most online gaming from the start. Now, choking off one half to provide for the other? That's a Bad Idea.

[Mystere]

wanderer, on 02 February 2015 - 12:40 PM, said:

Given the immense size of the solo queue vs. the group (and the entire CW queue), I beg to disagree.

Clearly, there's a ton of people who feel the need to solo and if you want them in CW, put in content that isn't overwhelmed by large team vs. soloers.

8-10 (or 12 people) is all it takes for a proper CW stompy group to be at peak effectiveness. What you seem to fail at understanding is how many people avoid CW entirely simply because they don't want to be near you. And you can't split 12-man content into solo/group queues in CW, as the abuse of such would be insane.

Build in CW content that's scaled to those demands, and you'll get them playing CW. Jam them into CW without a care, and we revert to the old days of one queue and endless screaming butthurt.

How low should we go, 1 vs. 1? Based on past whining on the solo queue itself, even that will not quell the many noisy ones, simply because they will never admit that many people are just plain better than they are. They will quickly demand separation from "experienced" players.

I fear only single-player PVE will quell the unrest ... but I and many others came here for PVP, not PVE.

Edited by Mystere, 02 February 2015 - 03:35 PM.

[wanderer]

At that point, they can go take a flying leap, as PvE isn't part of CW and never will be. This is a PvP game. You can dilute the effects of focus by reducing the maximum number of 'Mechs doing it, but you'll never be totally without.

I can say without reservation that it took longer for an 8-man to destroy an 8-man than 12v12. I expect 4v4 will actually take longer still.

[ThisOneDiesALot]

The Wakelord, on 30 January 2015 - 03:53 AM, said:

As a fellow PUGer, thank you.

However, when you are on the wrong end of a larger (8+ group) group, it is a pretty pathetic match, especially when the other team doesn't have the decency to blow up Omega, just waits in the wings for each spawn at the defenders camp. That was my last, and final, game of CW for quite some time. Poor sportsmanship on their side, and poor implementation of CW.

sorry but it has nothing to do with bad sportsmanship or bad implementation. its YOUR teams fault not to defending your landing zones. im mean, you see the enemy team standing next to *each* spawn point? you are a 12 man... all you have to do is to stomp any fourman of the enemy at each point one after an other. if you give up your spawn points to the enemy YOU are the one with the bad sportsmanship because you leave your TEAMmates to get instantly killed by the opponent. and its an unbelievable dumb movement i see always in pug matches, esp on the hot map in c2. they abbandon the place once the gen3 is down completly and hiding at omega. by that, that team gives up their reinforcements advantage that they should have. because the opponents spawn is FAR FAR AWAY. but i see so many dumbish pug moves in CW. especially the giving up a drop zone thing. its unbelievable. really. i dont understand how you can leave your TEAMmates to die out there!!!

[Ax2Grind]

Apnu, on 02 February 2015 - 11:22 AM, said:

My point is, not only to many of the top comp teams play clans, they also leverage the tech advantage on top of hours of coordinated practice in top-tier meta mechs and private voice comms.

What's worse is if we, say HHoD, goes and decides to take a planet from the clans, its yellow, not sea-green or red for FRR and DCMS respectively. So if an economy ever appears in CW, those factions are still buggered despite having the clan faction pushed off that planet. We've done it a couple of times in HHoD, early on when CW debuted.

I edited your post down to two points.

The first I know for a fact is false. Most of the comp teams have switched repeatedly back and forth from IS to clan throughout CW, and some have spent the majority of that time in IS. Many of the foundation "loyalty units" in the clans have been what most would call "casual" groups. They use TS and they play together but they are not "comp" or "elite". Many of them run less than OP clan mech configurations. The IS/Clan border boils down to the other aspect you brought up...it's generally filled with IS PUG's not using teamwork or Voip against players who are using Voip and might even have a Drop Caller they are all listening to. In other words, teamwork and communications versus chaos. Clans don't need to be elite players and they don't need meta mechs if they are facing an army of uncoordinated LRM boats. This is why all the factions to my knowledge have encouraged PUG's to use a faction TS and drop with others in some kind of group...because the resulting "skill" gap is really that wide. By all means, PUG if you want to, but when you know your likely going to face a group...why not even the playing field for yourself?

The second point is just confusing. Are you trying to suggest that when you defend a world as HHOD, it becomes a Davion faction planet, even though it was an FRR world? Because that is incorrect. I may just be missing the your real message but I can't figure it out. What do you mean it turns "yellow"?

[oldradagast]

Yokaiko, on 02 February 2015 - 12:31 PM, said:

Sure there is, its called be in a group.

...and large is somewhat subjective, my unit rarely goes over twelve online, I think there are under 30 memebers less than half of which are ever present.

THERE IS NO NEED TO SOLO, NONE.

Except 80%+ of the game's population is casual gamers, many of which PUG and solo. Just because there is no "need" to play a game a certain way doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Heck, from the viewpoint of the majority, there's no need to join a group, and from the viewpoint of life, there's no "need" to even play MWO.

Point being that expecting people to get ROFL-stomped repeatedly and respond to that with "Why, gee - I should join that group that just trash-talked me!" is laughable. That's not how humans work. If you present them with a joke of a game mode that regularly coughs up one-sided matches decided at the team pairings, the people getting the short-end of the stick are going to leave that game mode - and possibly the game - not try really hard to join the people who just ran them over, often with poor sportsmanship.

And even if they DO join a team, what's the benefit? Oh, that's right - because of the lack of any match-making in CW, they can now "enjoy" stomping PUG's with a few decent, balanced fights through in now and then. Maybe that's "fun" if it's all about "winning," but for most folks, that gets dull fast.

So, we now have game mode that has zero appeal to 80% of the population AND limited appeal to some number from the remaining 20% who, even though they are in groups and can win CW matches, are very tired of utterly pointless battles that are decided at match pairings. That's not much of a business plan...

Edited by oldradagast, 02 February 2015 - 03:56 PM.

[Thunder Child]

Whelp, I'm not going to be pugging the CW queue. I just spent 40mins in a match, just so that I could earn the same amount I could earn in a 10min match.

And I don't know where all this BS about Clan Tech being OP super uber P2W NURFNAIO is coming from, because not only did we get rolled, we got farmed. By IS. We weren't bad players, for the most part. We coordinated our shots, picked targets. Grouped for a Zerg, instead of single-file feeding. But there is not much you can do against a full team of Super-Quirked Meta.

So, I'm gonna rofl around in the Instant Action queue, and only bother with CW my unit has at least a 4 man. It's just not worth the time and suffering as a Solo (for me. Other opinions WILL vary).

[Ax2Grind]

oldradagast, on 02 February 2015 - 03:53 PM, said:

Except 80%+ of the game's population is casual gamers, many of which PUG and solo. Just because there is no "need" to play a game a certain way doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Heck, from the viewpoint of the majority, there's no need to join a group, and from the viewpoint of life, there's no "need" to even play MWO.

Point being that expecting people to get ROFL-stomped repeatedly and respond to that with "Why, gee - I should join that group that just trash-talked me!" is laughable. That's not how humans work. If you present them with a joke of a game mode that regularly coughs up one-sided matches decided at the team pairings, the people getting the short-end of the stick are going to leave that game mode - and possibly the game - not try really hard to join the people who just ran them over, often with poor sportsmanship.

And even if they DO join a team, what's the benefit? Oh, that's right - because of the lack of any match-making in CW, they can now "enjoy" stomping PUG's with a few decent, balanced fights through in now and then. Maybe that's "fun" if it's all about "winning," but for most folks, that gets dull fast.

So, we now have game mode that has zero appeal to 80% of the population AND limited appeal to some number from the remaining 20% who, even though they are in groups and can win CW matches, are very tired of utterly pointless battles that are decided at match pairings. That's not much of a business plan...

Your data...60% of the time...it works EVERY TIME.

We have no idea what the current breakdown is between solo's and groups. Once PGI changed the ability for groups to be as small as 2 players there might have been a huge shift. And on top of that we have no basis for understanding what that breakdown has been for CW. You keep basing your arguments on data that doesn't even reference CW. Now that is not much of a business plan...

Logically if more PUG's formed groups the benefit would be clear. There would be more group fights, not PUG stomps.

Edited by Ax2Grind, 02 February 2015 - 04:04 PM.

[pwnface]

oldradagast, on 02 February 2015 - 03:53 PM, said:

Except 80%+ of the game's population is casual gamers, many of which PUG and solo. Just because there is no "need" to play a game a certain way doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Heck, from the viewpoint of the majority, there's no need to join a group, and from the viewpoint of life, there's no "need" to even play MWO.

Point being that expecting people to get ROFL-stomped repeatedly and respond to that with "Why, gee - I should join that group that just trash-talked me!" is laughable. That's not how humans work. If you present them with a joke of a game mode that regularly coughs up one-sided matches decided at the team pairings, the people getting the short-end of the stick are going to leave that game mode - and possibly the game - not try really hard to join the people who just ran them over, often with poor sportsmanship.

And even if they DO join a team, what's the benefit? Oh, that's right - because of the lack of any match-making in CW, they can now "enjoy" stomping PUG's with a few decent, balanced fights through in now and then. Maybe that's "fun" if it's all about "winning," but for most folks, that gets dull fast.

So, we now have game mode that has zero appeal to 80% of the population AND limited appeal to some number from the remaining 20% who, even though they are in groups and can win CW matches, are very tired of utterly pointless battles that are decided at match pairings. That's not much of a business plan...

I read all of this and heard...

"I'm a bad solo pug and want PGI to make this game easy for me"

and

"I can throw up arbitrary numbers to support my poor argument"


Poor sportsmanship can be found both in groups and in solo pug matches. Solo players don't have to group up if they don't want to. Grouping up is probably going to improve their overall experience, but it is possible to solo pug in CW and carry your team against an organized 12-man (if they aren't that good). If you are getting ROFL stomped repeatedly and can't be bothered to figure out why or learn how to avoid it, you have no one to blame but yourself. If you don't like it, feel free to play in solo queue aka non-CW matches.

[oldradagast]

Ax2Grind, on 02 February 2015 - 04:03 PM, said:

Your data...60% of the time...it works EVERY TIME.

We have no idea what the current breakdown is between solo's and groups. Once PGI changed the ability for groups to be as small as 2 players there might have been a huge shift. And on top of that we have no basis for understanding what that breakdown has been for CW. You keep basing your arguments on data that doesn't even reference CW. Now that is not much of a business plan...

Logically if more PUG's formed groups the benefit would be clear. There would be more group fights, not PUG stomps.

Except, as I've stated, people don't respond well to idiotic game modes that encourage one-sided stomps. They don't think: "Wow, that team that just rolled me and insulted my mother and racial background is exactly the type of people I want to join! Then, I can get good and heap the same abuse upon the next batch of PUG's!"

Instead, they play casually with some friends, most of whom they probably know in real life, and then, after stepping foot in the steaming pile of CW, they laugh at the idiotic "match-making," post angrily on the forums, get shouted down about how rolling PUG's is part of the "skill" in CW - and then quit CW, if not the game.

You don't kick somebody in the face repeatedly and expect him to want to be like you, especially not in what is basically a casual game where nothing is at stake but free time. If the people in CW teams were getting paid big bucks, you'd have a point about how many people will want to join the big teams, but that's just not reality.