9 replies to this topic

[Scum of the Earth]

Greetings Mechwarriors!

So, I am a "relatively" new player now. I started back at the end of last December here so I have 2 months under my belt now. I consider myself to be an average player with 1st person shooters probably my weakest division of games I play. During this time, I have seen several events come and go. As a new player, I have struggled with these events as I was still on the learning curve of how to play and the quality of mechs I had to bring to the battlefield. Now with the weeks of playing and free event items, I feel my stables are pretty well rounded out and I'm able to compete with everyone else better.

So, I know there is a big argument and complaining about whatever format is used during these events. Do you need kills and assists, do you need to have a win with them, do you just need a win, do you need a certain amount of points that rewarded assists more than kills, or do you use the match score at the end? I am all about numbers and the statistics of how much effort is needed to obtain something. I have been through most of these events now so here is the numbers I came up with.

For the Stocking Stuffer event back in December, I had just started out so I was very green. I completed all 25 of the Conquest, Skirmish, and Assault within the free 7 days of free premium time I received for starting in December too. However, there of course was the advantage of having 7+ days to complete that event. As a reflection to that event, December is the season for giving so of course just needing a match score of 30 was easy for a new player to obtain, let alone someone that has been playing for a long time now. Then again, the rewards were random and in quantities that also ranged from high to low. So, it was what it was, an event of giving out "free" things that were a surprise and a gift.

The Cataphact event was my first true event. It took me 168 games to get to 30 points. It was of course an event where I barely had my first mech, let alone the 3 I needed to start mastering them. It was very difficult for a new player like myself. I was really appreciative that they extended it the following weekend with extra goodies to obtain. It took me 98 games to get my other 20 points to get to a total of 50.

The Raven event was my next event. It took me only 112 games to get to 25 points and I had hoped that they would extend it another weekend like the Cataphact weekend so that I could get my statue and paint job. Sadly, they only extended it one more day to Tuesday morning but I am literally away from home during the whole week for work and was unable to obtain them. Too bad for me I suppose, I like playing my Raven and already had it mastered when the event came out and I had actually been eying the one shot Virus paint scheme for it.

So, that brings me to this past weekend's event, the Adder Up event. The win condition was taken out but you literally needed twice the amount of points to get to the end objective. I feel that the format rewarded the individual for their good playing versus needing a good team PLUS playing good to get a point. I saw a LOT of kill stealing in this event more than usual... I would say maybe about 20% of my matches I had someone cut in front of my while I was shooting to get a kill. Of course, if they're going to do that then I'm not going to stop shooting for them and if they want 2 AC20's in the back from my Crab, then by all means I will oblige. I even saw once where someone was trying to finish off the last guy with a huge advantage and their own teammate dropped an arty strike on them both to try to steal the kill. However, there was more of a grind to it by needing so many more games to play than the other events. I added up all of my matches it took me to get to 80 points and this is what I came up with statistically.

It took me a total of 172 games to get to 80 points. That's a little over 46% of the time I played and earned a point. I added up all the times I had a point (a kill and an assist) and compared them to how many of those games were wins and I had 42 (so about 53% of the games I had a point in). That means I only would have earned a point in less than 1/4 of the games I played. So, I did get to the end a lot quicker in this format (80pts vs. 50pts) and it felt like I was making more progress in my goal by earning a point more often than if the win condition was needed.

Another stat to toss into this mix was how many winning games was I in that I didn't earn a point. In those 172 games, I had 29 wins where I didn't have a point. Of those 29 wins without a point, I was alive at the end in 11 of them. So, about 1/3 of the time we won and I played well did I not earn a point for my effort. Of course, there was plenty of games in there that I did over 500 points of damage, sometimes as high as 850 points of damage and didn't earn a kill. That's also not to say I was the 1st one on my team to die or I was the second to the last guy to die before my last teammate got the winning kill.

So to sum it all up on my feelings of this past weekend's format...

TL:DR

Adder Up event was as much as a grind as my previous events but was more generous with giving out points. Loved that it had 9 total tiers of prizes but again, a huge grind to get to the top. Invested a huge amount of time get to the top even with decent play style. I like it much better than needing a win condition but more kill stealing then when assists were rewarded more than a kill was.

Thank you PGI for the rewarding weekends but just one word of advice. Spread them out a bit more than EVERY weekend. Many people I have talked to are feeling burnt out by Saturday night on the constant grind weekends. Plus, many players don't come in at all on the weekends because they don't want to deal with the idiots.. errr... I'm sorry, I meant noobs on their team. It makes for an easy win when you watch the other teams crack suicide team rush in and then be down 8 to 12.

[orcrist86]

Excellent and honest write up with data. Good on you. This agree that many are seeing challenge fatigue. Party is the purpose of these events is to enable new players to get more mechs, I would suggest that mech based prizes be done only once per month with another event that rewards cbills instead to give newbies more choice. Something like 25% cbill weekend, or every 10 wins nets 1 million cbills up to 6 million. I'd also like to see another chassis tournament

[Dimento Graven]

I agree if we're to have this type of event in the future PGI makes sure that:

1. If a kill and an assist is required for a point, DO NOT make winning or survival a requirement.

For the public solo queue, you're reliant on 11 other people to play effectively. You can only HOPE that MM is capable of creating 'balanced' matches, so too much is out of your control. You can't count on the 11 other people playing up to, or beyond your own skill level, and you can't count on MM to create balanced matches, PLUS, there's the stability of the MWO client. As happened to me many times during this weekend the client would crash and I'd come back to a dead 'mech.

2. Always have multiple tier rewards. It was very nice getting 'freebies' (even though I probably won't ever use most of 'em) every 10 points. It alleviated a lot of the 'grindy' feel to the challenge as you had the feel of "Hey, I just got level 4, only need 10 more for level 5, that wasn't so bad"...

3. Maybe future challenges would be based on actual match score so that people would do more to increase scores (UAV usage, spotting, component destructions) instead of trying to go for the absolute quickest kill.

Anyway, this last challenge was definitely "more fun" that last week's...

[Zakizdaman]

I'm just sad that I didn't get a dashboard trinket because my match didn't end 10 seconds fast enough

[Dimento Graven]

Zakizdaman, on 02 March 2015 - 10:11 AM, said:

I'm just sad that I didn't get a dashboard trinket because my match didn't end 10 seconds fast enough

Brutal brother. You deserve your dash trinket...

[Nori Silverrage]

It took me 70 games to get 50 points. So 71.4% of the time I got the points. Would have gone for the cockpit item, but I didn't have time to play more games.

I actually liked this event more than the last two since you didn't need a win condition and it was primarily up to your personal skill/ability.

[Nixak]

I enjoyed the event also. I played 104 matches to score 70 points. That is just under a 70% point gain rate per match. I had some really fun matches and some that were just shy of pulling teeth. Some matches where I played well, and others where I died first because I made a mistake.

The only thing I would have changed about the event was the limit of points earned per match. If that was raised to 6 points (6 kills, 6 assists) per match I would have reached 80 points after 60 matches.

[Sorbic]

I prefer the match score challenges we had in the past. With how easy it is to hold a shot/rush nearly dead mechs kills don't really reflect a lot on how much you helped your team. Being rewarded for smartly removing half/most firepower when you see a weak ST/arm or taking a battered leg makes more sense. The kill factor also rewards those who ignore advancing enemies or don't help a battered team mate and instead blast the unarmed mech running around.

[Christof Romulus]

Previous Event: 160 games for 50 points (31.25% chance for a point)
Recent Event: 130 games for 80 points (61.54% chance for a point)

It was a grind either way, but it didn't feel nearly impossible.

[Greenjulius]

Christof Romulus, on 02 March 2015 - 02:21 PM, said:

Previous Event: 160 games for 50 points (31.25% chance for a point)
Recent Event: 130 games for 80 points (61.54% chance for a point)

It was a grind either way, but it didn't feel nearly impossible.

How many hours did you put into it? I had nearly the same number of matches for Adder up, 133, but spent over 22 hours doing so. THAT'S INSANE.

It only took me 106 or 108 matches for the Raven event's top rewards, and ~100 for the Cataphract top rewards. Both required I put in at least 20 hours each, which is simply too much for a weekend.

I feel bad for the OP. This game demands that you put in far too many hours to qualify, especially if you're new.

Edited by Greenjulius, 02 March 2015 - 02:39 PM.