ThirtyOughtSix, on 05 March 2015 - 11:02 AM, said:
The problem is the genre of the game...F2P
Players will come and go because there is really no investment. Coupled with that is the grind. New players need to push real hard to even come up with a 1/2 way decent drop deck. Also, to take the blame off of the little guy there is really no end game..nothing big to have to accomplished. I mean you get to a certain point and say...ok I've got a light, med, heavy and assault. The gameplay really hasn't changed...what now.
You could stop playing come back in a year and the game will be darned closed to a mirror image..
Joining a player created unit adds a great deal more to the game than soloing.
"Players come and go because there really is no investment" is a very solocentric view. Players in units have invested in their fellow players and the MWo player community.
"New players need to push real hard" This is also mitigated by joining player units. Veteran unit members will gladly share their knowledge with new unit members as well as allow the new players to get far better results out of piloting their trial mechs due to team work. And once they have earned their cadet bonuses the Veterans are an excellent source of information on what are good choices to spend the C-Bills on.
"The gameplay really hasn't changed" Again unit play is different. The gameplay changes with the members of your team. One day you may be playing with some of your unit's best light mech pilots learning the ins and outs of light mech wolfpacks the next you may be at the tip of the spear in an assault group learning coordinated assault mech tactics. If the only variables are what map this next skirmish game mode is played on then yeah it gets stale. And let's face it solo queue is exactally that ...what map am I playing my next skirmish on with the same mech I always pilot in skirmishes.
And that leads me to the next part.
PGI out right panders to solo casuals frequently at the cost of gameplay quality for the groups.
Seperating queues may work out great for solos who now have a matchmaker tailored to handle pulling matches together from groups of solos as well as building matches with solos is real fast.
Because of the choices to pander to casuals the group players get a square peg in a round hole matchmaker with linger wait times between matches.
This leads to other things like group tonnage limits. This restricts larger groups by what mechs they can bring.While a solo player can pilot whatever they wish a grouped player needs to meet ever increasing tonnage constraints because they group.
The group tonnage limits are a direct result of the matchmaker not working for group queues.It's a poorly fitted bandaid that reduces options for group/unit players.
I could go on for pages listing blowback effects of casual pandering that negativley effected grouping players and not one of them has to do with losing easy PUG stomping.
My main point is the player units are where PGI will get it's player retention from.It's Units that have the players that will pay (do you think solos care about private match lobbies?) The more alienated units become from this game the further away PGI pushes their reliable income and core community.
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