153 replies to this topic

[Roadbeer]

HlynkaCG, on 08 February 2015 - 09:30 PM, said:

Thats what your profile says.

He's so smurfy.

[HlynkaCG]

Roadbeer, on 08 February 2015 - 11:05 PM, said:

He's so smurfy.

[crustydog]

Triordinant, on 08 February 2015 - 02:41 PM, said:

Another suggestion has been a solo-only queue for CW. Unfortunately, this won't help much either. The reason the solo-only queue that currently exists works is because the big competitive premade groups can't reliably sync-drop into it. If there was a CW solo-only queue, the big competitive premades CAN reliably sync-drop into it because each team in a match is all of the same Faction so there's no chance their Unit's players will end up on opposing sides. The Natural Law of online gaming states that if something can be exploited, it will be. Not all premade teams aim for easy wins against random PUGs, but many do.

Could this sync drop exploit be somewhat countered if the solo queue factions were limited to Clan and IS, instead of a specific Clan or specific IS sub-faction? Clan can solo drop, but into the next available Clan fight, and only if it is against an IS faction, and same for IS?

I would say your overall analysis of the situation is very accurate.

I would also like to note that I feel a large part of this problem relates to a lack of pug numbers among the Clan forces, which may be related to the game economy... Clan mechs being harder to obtain for pugs... inflating the IS pug population as vrs Clan pug population... skewing the overall game outcomes.

It is my opinion that premade vrs premade battles tend to be fairly balanced, and pug vrs pug battles also tend to be more fairly balanced in the current CW. So I am thinking that a separation between the premades and the pugs could work if the populations of both could be increased to a size suitable to keep the games running.

Edited by crustydog, 09 February 2015 - 12:25 AM.

[Jon Gotham]

Some of you seem to have a massive chip-on-shoulder syndrome about premades and their natural inclinations to farm those poor pugs. Same guy over and over on this thread actually.
No unit I've been with has intentionally sync dropped with the aims of farming pugs. I think you massively overstate people's intentions. It's about time this pro solo-anti group crusade ended. Spend your considerable obsessive energy trying to make the game better for EVERYONE, not just solo players.
If EVERYONE benefits MWO wins big time. WE ALL win big time, if you keep banging on the WWPF agenda SOME people will win.
Do you get it?

[Mycrus]

crustydog, on 07 February 2015 - 12:23 PM, said:

Just played about 8 matches today...

There are around 200 players in the queues...

That is about 60 - 75 Clanners - mostly premades

And about 130 Inner Sphere - almost entirely pugs.

You can well imagine the results.


Truth be told, I can only take so much abuse in one day.

this is what you do to clam premades..

pin them in place for 30 minutes... your fellow pugs would have ghosted their gains...

[NextGame]

crustydog, on 07 February 2015 - 12:23 PM, said:

Just played about 8 matches today...

There are around 200 players in the queues...

That is about 60 - 75 Clanners - mostly premades

And about 130 Inner Sphere - almost entirely pugs.

You can well imagine the results.


Truth be told, I can only take so much abuse in one day.

Yes, it is clearly the fault of the game balance and not because you didn't join a group to play, or your own performance.

[mania3c]

oldradagast, on 08 February 2015 - 07:59 AM, said:

That's because the people defending the current system are missing the point entirely.

Joining a group and getting on TS does not magically make a new player good, fill his mechbay with meta-mechs that are fully leveled, or change much of anything else. It helps, but it is not a cure-all. And most new players - even if they have TS and are in a group - are not going to stick around and practice CW, the train-wreck that it is, until they "get good" at it.

And even if they do become wonderful at CW, because of the lack of match-making and the endless supply of low-skill players, all they've done is earn themselves a ticket to wasting a half-hour on 1-sided games rolling PUG's and newbs. Many people find that boring and a mockery of the supposed "higher skills" required in CW.

Long story short: there's no instant way to make poor players good, there's no reason for players to stick around long enough in CW to "get good," and the reward for "getting good" still includes a large number of pointless, 1-sided games where you stomp some random group... thus wasting everyone's time.

If the defenders of this lunacy could realize that the people complaining about it are not "bads" and that there's more to life than stomping new players, an intelligent conversation could be had... but that will never happen.

you are reasonable ..yet..again, you were shoot down by avid defenders of current system like roadbeer.. this community is beyond help..but I blame PGI for it..really. they didn't open gates for new players...they did nothing to "welcome" newbies, they created this whole elitist meta in game and forum.. there are many great suggestions ..but unless you will play by their rules, "you are the problem..not the game"..it's really lol-worthy when reading these posts ..

honestly..if PGI would just try put invasion map into standard quick play rotation and LP rewards..with matchmaking and everything, you would see how these games would thrive ..now..just several parties are fighting in CW, pugs are stomped, players are leaving CW but you know... "it's problem of players..not the game..."

[Mystere]

mania3c, on 10 February 2015 - 05:52 AM, said:

you are reasonable ..yet..again, you were shoot down by avid defenders of current system like roadbeer.. this community is beyond help..but I blame PGI for it..really. they didn't open gates for new players...they did nothing to "welcome" newbies, they created this whole elitist meta in game and forum.. there are many great suggestions ..but unless you will play by their rules, "you are the problem..not the game"..it's really lol-worthy when reading these posts ..

honestly..if PGI would just try put invasion map into standard quick play rotation and LP rewards..with matchmaking and everything, you would see how these games would thrive ..now..just several parties are fighting in CW, pugs are stomped, players are leaving CW but you know... "it's problem of players..not the game..."

Good suggestions for Community Warfare:

• Better game modes that allow good individual players to thrive
  
• Better maps that that make good individual players excel
  
• Better communications facilities
  
• Better grouping facilities

Terrible Suggestions for Community Warfare:

• Matchmaker
  
• PGI spending time, effort, and other limited resources to cater to players who refuse to improve themselves

[mania3c]

Mystere, on 10 February 2015 - 06:01 AM, said:

Good suggestions for Community Warfare:

• Better game modes that allow good individual players to thrive
  
• Better maps that that make good individual players excel
  
• Better communications facilities
  
• Better grouping facilities

Terrible Suggestions for Community Warfare:

• Matchmaker
  
• PGI spending time, effort, and other limited resources to cater to players who refuse to improve themselves

As I said..beyond help..

[Mystere]

mania3c, on 10 February 2015 - 06:04 AM, said:

As I said..beyond help..

Yes, you are beyond help and as such PGI should not cater to you.

[Dawnstealer]

I PUG drop about 75% of the time just because of when I drop vs when my unit does. My team usually wins.

Type early, type faster, keep typing. Plus VOIP coming with the next update - should balance things out a little.

[mania3c]

Dawnstealer, on 10 February 2015 - 06:07 AM, said:

I PUG drop about 75% of the time just because of when I drop vs when my unit does. My team usually wins.

Type early, type faster, keep typing. Plus VOIP coming with the next update - should balance things out a little.

Yea..I heard that manytimes..yet..when someone asked for some evidence..it never happens ..

Go play 10 pugs game today..and post your end-screens..

VOIP will do pretty much nothing... communication is just one of the many factors, why pugs don't stand a chance against organized premades..and they never will..not matter how many tools you will throw on them.. I see some people like Mystere have hard times to grasp even single concepts how these things works ..but anyway..as long as PGI will be throwing all players into same pool without any regulations, MWO is pretty much dead for most players...

Edited by mania3c, 10 February 2015 - 06:22 AM.

[HARDKOR]

"type early, type fast" is the perfect advice.

Most plans we do as a unit are easily covered in 60 seconds of typing before game.

Coms just lets us bullshit while we shoot.

[Mystere]

mania3c, on 10 February 2015 - 06:18 AM, said:

Yea..I heard that manytimes..yet..when someone asked for some evidence..it never happens ..

Go play 10 pugs game today..and post your end-screens..

VOIP will do pretty much nothing... communication is just one of the many factors, why pugs don't stand a chance against organized premades..and they never will..not matter how many tools you will throw on them.. I see some people like Mystere have hard times to grasp even single concepts how these things works ..but anyway..as long as PGI will be throwing all players into same pool without any regulations, MWO is pretty much dead for most players...

Ahem.

Your preferred solution is a product of what I call one-dimensional thinking, something that unfortunately plagues the player base and game itself. If you do not understand what I mean, well, that is not totally unexpected. An organism living in an N-dimensional reality cannot be expected to know about the existence of N+M dimensions (where M > 0).

[Herodes]

I exclusively PUG. I am not a very good nor a very bad player, my Mechs are all fully mastered and moduled and I do well in standard matches.

Now in CW ... I don't do well. Tried it, and quit it. No more CW for me for several reasons:

- too long to find a match. I don't throw away free time waiting in front of a computer.

- strange tactics that break immersion. Zerg rush, shooting legs only and such ... all nice and good, but I am here to play Battletech and this just hasn't the feel for me.

- 48 Mechs without reasonable coordination always ends in chaos. Disorganized chaos is not fun to play. The defeat is not the point, it is the senseless chaos of the 48 Mech PUG teams. This is way better in the standard queue where it's only 12 Mechs.

- playing against organized clans nearly all the time makes the PUG inherent disorganization seem even worse.

- CW forces me to play Mechs I don't like or don't pilot due to tonnage restrictions.

In the end, CW is frustration.

I would really like to join CW and have fun and I hope PGI manages to develop a system where most of us can be happy campers. If not, then so be it. IMHO we will have to accept the fact that the player base is not a homogenius group but a big mix of different player types. It is PGI's own interest to capture the majority of those players. If they develop the most interesting game mode (CW) for only a fraction of their players it simply won't work, as we can witness now.

[Mystere]

Herodes, on 10 February 2015 - 08:44 AM, said:

I exclusively PUG. I am not a very good nor a very bad player, my Mechs are all fully mastered and moduled and I do well in standard matches.

Now in CW ... I don't do well. Tried it, and quit it. No more CW for me for several reasons:

- too long to find a match. I don't throw away free time waiting in front of a computer.

- strange tactics that break immersion. Zerg rush, shooting legs only and such ... all nice and good, but I am here to play Battletech and this just hasn't the feel for me.

- 48 Mechs without reasonable coordination always ends in chaos. Disorganized chaos is not fun to play. The defeat is not the point, it is the senseless chaos of the 48 Mech PUG teams. This is way better in the standard queue where it's only 12 Mechs.

- playing against organized clans nearly all the time makes the PUG inherent disorganization seem even worse.

- CW forces me to play Mechs I don't like or don't pilot due to tonnage restrictions.

In the end, CW is frustration.

I would really like to join CW and have fun and I hope PGI manages to develop a system where most of us can be happy campers. If not, then so be it. IMHO we will have to accept the fact that the player base is not a homogenius group but a big mix of different player types. It is PGI's own interest to capture the majority of those players. If they develop the most interesting game mode (CW) for only a fraction of their players it simply won't work, as we can witness now.

The problem with CW right now is that it is just a shell of what it is (hopefully) supposed to be. It needs more game modes and maps, including those that promote individual skill as a soft counter to an organized team.

For example, consider two complementary and co-dependent game "modes":

• Search and Destroy
  
• Resistance

Let us then have a map whose characteristics are as follows:

• large-scale urban
  
• lots of skyscrapers (damaged or otherwise)
  
• lots of long and narrow streets
  
• lots of places to hide and ambush
  
• EMF-noisy environment

Let us then set up these two game "modes" as follows:

• "Search and Destroy" requires a "special forces" team to mop up the remnants of a defeated enemy discovered hiding in a large city.
  
  • tailored for groups, but anyone is allowed to join
• "Resistance" requires a team of hardened and veteran freedom fighters to repel the enemy.
  
  • tailored for solo players and small groups (2-4) only
• The "Search and Destroy" team is possibly larger (more players, higher tonnage and/or larger drop deck).
  
• The "Resistance" team is possibly smaller (less players, lower tonnage, and/or smaller drop desk),
  
• The "Search and Destroy" team needs to clear the city of the enemy (kill them all).
  
• The "Resistance" team merely needs to survive.
  
• Time limit is (for argument's sake) 45 minutes.

It's not your regular Skirmish mode, obviously.




Here's another example:

• Escort
  
• Ambush

I leave how to construct the scenario to you.

Edited by Mystere, 10 February 2015 - 09:47 AM.

[Jon Gotham]

mania3c, on 10 February 2015 - 06:04 AM, said:

As I said..beyond help..

You come on this thread and arrogantly dismiss him. You are indeed beyond help. He made some good suggestions.
"change the game to cater to casuals" isn't a good idea. Lookat what happened to Wow/SWG etc....
Make things better so we can include them more is a good idea. The ideal for a community based game is to get the individual to want to engage with the community. Stronger the community,stronger the game's chances are.
You don't break the community down to pander to the individual.

there is a subset of the community which is not as large as it thinks, that flat out refuses to even come halfway to the table. It came to the game knowing it was ABCD, gets there finds out ABCD needs them to engage and not do what they want-response is to scream I want EFGH!!!! But I also want A and B back.....
Imagine what PGI think when reading these forums?

What we should be doing is getting much better tutorials set up. We should be making it easier to find groups and units-yes that's right GROUPS AND UNITS. Get people engaged, get them set up right and engaged. Simple things like the launcher, that should have basic info in front of people's faces-it should whisk them straight to useful info.
The mechlab? It should have built in guides on how to set up mechs i.e brawler, support and ranged sections. It should have built in clickable videos that pop up explaining what stuff does.
There should also be a faction tab where there is a way to at least text chat, with sort of facebook style pages to UNITS..Make it easier for people to find other people to play with! Wow has a guild finder built in, alibet simplistic it helps newer players find others to play with.
We should not be encouraging people to play solo, in a team based game. We should not EVER be catering to people who refuse to engage with others.The truth is, wether you want to admit it or not...there is a sizeable group who are poison. Why should I? they scream. I don't want to conform, I do what I want.
Rather than encourage this, I say we try to encourage positive things-like getting and retaining new players into the COMMUNITY. Not the 10 minute members club.

[Mystere]

kamiko kross, on 10 February 2015 - 10:13 AM, said:

You come on this thread and arrogantly dismiss him. You are indeed beyond help. He made some good suggestions.
"change the game to cater to casuals" isn't a good idea. Lookat what happened to Wow/SWG etc....
Make things better so we can include them more is a good idea. The ideal for a community based game is to get the individual to want to engage with the community. Stronger the community,stronger the game's chances are.
You don't break the community down to pander to the individual.

As I alluded to earlier, you can't make a one-dimensional person see the existence of other dimensions. It's really unfortunate, more so in real life.

[crustydog]

kamiko kross, on 10 February 2015 - 04:25 AM, said:

Some of you seem to have a massive chip-on-shoulder syndrome about premades and their natural inclinations to farm those poor pugs. Same guy over and over on this thread actually.
No unit I've been with has intentionally sync dropped with the aims of farming pugs. I think you massively overstate people's intentions. It's about time this pro solo-anti group crusade ended. Spend your considerable obsessive energy trying to make the game better for EVERYONE, not just solo players.
If EVERYONE benefits MWO wins big time. WE ALL win big time, if you keep banging on the WWPF agenda SOME people will win.
Do you get it?

Who said anything about a "pro solo - anti group crusade?"

If I appear to be pro- solo, it is simply that I recognize the simple undeniable fact - without the solo players, there will be no more units.... and there will be no more game.

It's very much the same as gardening - you plant the seeds, grow the crops, and harvest your new unit members at the end of the season. It is very important not to ruin the soil and destroy the possibility of growing next year's crop. That is exactly what we are doing right now. We slash and burn out the new guys - and CW cannot get enough unit players because of that.

Denial of a problem solves nothing. It's broken, let's fix it and move on. The future of the units depends upon it.

[AlphaToaster]

MWO has a steep learning curve, that is for sure. This game is brutal. This game is automatically put into a hardcore mode bracket compared to games with a respawning deathmatch mode like COD because we get 1 life per mech and that's it. No infinite respawn until the final score.

It already takes a certain personality type to be willing to play a game where when you die that it's for you for the round. These are not the faint of heart.

I believe the bulk of players who have a problem with this brutal nature and are not willing to adapt to the environment are in for a tough time. I only say this because the trend among them is the same. They don't want to be in comms, they don't want to group up with other faction members, they want a solo experience in a team based game. Not all of them, but at least 2 of those 3 are true statements for many who are having problems. Self inflicted problems, but still problems.

When a problem lies with the behavior of the one having the problem, then it's up to that person to change the behavior for themselves. Lashing out angrily at people who point this out is a whole other level of denial entirely.

People don't like being told they are responsible for their own situation, because that means they have to do something about it themselves and it's not anyone else's fault but their own.