124 replies to this topic

[Mystere]

SethAbercromby, on 04 April 2015 - 03:07 PM, said:

Even if we were to eliminate singles out of the queue, that would mean 11-man groups are again no longer be possible, which can be very annoying with fluctuating numbers in a casual group on a TS hub. Aside from that you'd see much longer wait times for groups, the way CW MM currently operates, it would be simple to get at least 10 people consistently queueing into the same group, defating the purpose.

I agree that something has to change, but it's imo not the solos. A competeive 12-man will curbstomp a casual 12-man. Nerf competeive players? No. What we need is alternate game-modes that help ease newcomers into the game and CW. The current solo-queue, as people have regularly pointed out, currently has the habit of teaching new players very bad habits. These bad habits come to bite them in the ass once they drop into CW. I also think that new players should actively be discuraged from dropping into CW if they have less than 3 personal 'Mechs and/or 100 matches under their belt by the client itself, not just from us in the forums.

How about this for an alternative game mode?

[SethAbercromby]

Mystere, on 04 April 2015 - 03:16 PM, said:

How about this for an alternative game mode?

Resistance and SnD seem a little too unbalanced for their own good. I agree on the Urban Map though. Something that gets really claustrophobic would be a nice change of pace. Wide, staight streets that stech for several blocks, but also a lot of narow pathways between the houses, maybe even gaps only small Lights can fit through. Not only would that be the perfect habitat for the UrbanMech, it would also encurage a very different style of play.

[RussianWolf]

damn. We are actually starting to talk about the problems and possible solutions. Who'da thunk it.

Screech, on 04 April 2015 - 08:42 AM, said:

Lack of players is why we can't have nice things. Blaming new players doesn't really help fix anything. CW is not dying from forum QQ it is dying from lack of players. Which is a shame as it is only mode I really enjoy playing anymore.

1 million likes

[ZeusAlbatros]

Join a premade otherwise no mercy for the weak /antisocial. And no joining a premade is not a hassle takes you a lot less time than waiting for a solomatch

[RussianWolf]

ZeusAlbatros, on 06 April 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

Join a premade otherwise no mercy for the weak /antisocial. And no joining a premade is not a hassle takes you a lot less time than waiting for a solomatch

You don't read much do you?

Edited by RussianWolf, 06 April 2015 - 11:05 AM.

[That Dawg]

ZeusAlbatros, on 06 April 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

Join a premade otherwise no mercy for the weak /antisocial. And no joining a premade is not a hassle takes you a lot less time than waiting for a solomatch

Who dresses you in the morning?

[Lyoto Machida]

TS is right...to get something fixed, you often have to illustrate the issue by exploiting it hardcore or completely abstain (with enough likeminded people) from the entire process.

In this case, if you want to help pugs leave CW, make the executions as quick and one sided as possible...too bad the in game comms can't be used to talk to the other team because it would be a great way to encourage solo players not to return.

[Jon Gotham]

Mystere, on 04 April 2015 - 03:16 PM, said:

How about this for an alternative game mode?

I like some of those ideas A LOT.
However quite a few of them have a glaring flaw. They need the playerbase to work as a team. CW has already highlighted we have many, many players that:
Don't want to join other players in units
Don't want to join other players in groups
Don't want to talk to other players via text chat
Don't want to talk to other players via voip
Don't want to follow advice, or instructions.

I've played 11 CW matches over past week, all SOLO. the above applied to 10 out of those 11 matches.

Your ideas are brilliant, but won't work with the solo focused playerbase we currently have. Anything that requires them to talk or communicate or work as team they seem to not want. Look at the CW whines on the forums. Nearly ALL complaining about being stomped, because the opfor works as a team......and they work as 12 individuals....
Remember how people cried about facing up to 4 people in the original queue? Absolutely NOTHING was stopping people from forming their own groups except from lack of willingness to do so. And now we have the same here in CW, the average player has changed his/her needs.
Anything beyond deathmatch is too much sadly.


But as I said, I'd love to see your ideas in action. I reckon some of them could produce epic games.

[That Dawg]

kamiko kross, on 07 April 2015 - 04:33 AM, said:

Your ideas are brilliant, but won't work with the solo focused playerbase we currently have. Anything that requires them to talk or communicate or work as team they seem to not want.

+1

And the answer is painfully easy.
Doesn't anyone remember the pug que just a year or so ago? SAME problems, same fanboi join a team/pug whines over and over.

The answer arrived with NO solo's seeing group drops-period.

The same would apply instantly to CW- solo's see solo's, end of story. Hot patch, done, easy fix -Too Easy?

Too many of the fixes we need here are painfully easy but never happen...like WHY do I click cancel in CW, then click ok, then when I arrive BACK in mech lab I flipping have to click OK again?
Log out of game..ok? yes...leave game..whats this, the log IN screen? ok, quit....are you sure?
g'dam amount of broke back crap in the game is stunning, but lets focus on CW and keeping fanbase fired up arguing

Does anyone playing mechwarrior, just hate the flipping game? no

We all have valid thoughts, ideas on improv..well, most of us do. yet we get 10 pagers of "no you are" and PGI focuses elsewhere...

Quick question......does anything think CW is marginally better than it was when it was first released?

[Tasker]

Mystere, on 04 April 2015 - 03:16 PM, said:

How about this for an alternative game mode?

Does not matter what new game mode is. Players who are complain about everything of CW will continue complain. Let me give you little secret, reason for complain is not that CW game mode is bad, but rather that player sick of losing. Switch of game mode will not change that.

Only thing that help player who complain about dropship camping or losing all time is to get better at MechWarrior Online. When player do only 300 damage and 48 enemy mechs left in smoking crater, is not problem with game mode.

[Jon Gotham]

That Dawg, on 07 April 2015 - 05:37 AM, said:

+1


Does anyone playing mechwarrior, just hate the flipping game? no

We all have valid thoughts, ideas on improv..well, most of us do. yet we get 10 pagers of "no you are" and PGI focuses elsewhere...

Quick question......does anything think CW is marginally better than it was when it was first released?

I don't understand why you +1'd my post.
Because what I said is NOT GOOD at all. It's true sadly, but paints an awful picture.
PGI should make a solo queue for it if they want the numbers to keep up-BUT I'd daresay you'd see quite a few players walk away from the game if they did. I might be one of them, and I'd pursue a full refund too. Why pay for something I do not enjoy?
Right now CW is the ONLY place I can get team oriented gameplay.
I can't get enjoyable gameplay in the solo queue nor the group (now plays just like solo) queue.

Mystere's ideas were GREAT ideas, but they won't work simply because of the types of player we have whining about CW right now. The join a group fanbois (I mean REALLY?) are not raging at you, they are merely pointing out a FACT. A FACT, many seem to willfully ignore and refuse to realise.
A nasty catch 22 for PGI.
Question is which side of the coin to they flip to?
#1 A worse game, full of team solomatch gameplay but swallowed by the masses or
#2 A better, more team focused affair that has a smaller playerbase?

I don't know, because I'd guess around 90% of the CW ragers don't want the MM part of MMO. Which spells bad news for PGI's creation.
What I's suggest is:
A multiplayer co-op mode like ME3's multiplayer. You could use that for PVE play to BUT the caveat would be ...even that would REQUIRE YOU TO TALK TO YOUR TEAM to succeed. Which means back to square one.
So either the playerbase learns to stop being so anti social or MWO stops at team solomatch and spends it's time making more mechs and maps for said team solomatch.

[That Dawg]

kamiko kross, on 07 April 2015 - 06:52 AM, said:

I don't understand why you +1'd my post.

......because I agreed?

[Mystere]

kamiko kross, on 07 April 2015 - 04:33 AM, said:

I like some of those ideas A LOT.
However quite a few of them have a glaring flaw. They need the playerbase to work as a team.

As we say in the business, it's not a flaw, it's a feature.

That Dawg, on 07 April 2015 - 05:37 AM, said:

The answer arrived with NO solo's seeing group drops-period.

The same would apply instantly to CW- solo's see solo's, end of story. Hot patch, done, easy fix -Too Easy?

I'm sorry but I disagree (and I play only solo). Community Warfare is supposed to be a "war". And there is a very good reason why the Roman Legions dominated the battlefield for quite a while.

[Tasker]

If PGI change CW so is only for solo or small groups (like WoT and WT) would lose key thing that make MWO better than those games, which is support for play of groups 5 to 12 player in size. Do not underestimate, this is very good feature that can sell MWO if game get more exposure (Steam, etc.).

Personally think it is very tough balancing act because many MWO player do not want team play, insist on using bad mech because of 'lore' and think LRM is good weapon system to compete with. In short, lot of player do not want to be good at game, which is very strange compare to other online games. In most other online game, player look around at state of game and see what is good and what is bad, and embrace thing that is good, and try to improve through practice.

In MWO, many player look at what is good and what is bad, and say "oh, good thing is cheap! I will not use this!" and take pride in refusing to use strong game meta or play game in competitive fashion. Then come on forum and complain that losing very badly to newer players who try to play to win. How to keep this player happy while grow playerbase to include player who enjoy good competitive match?

*shrug*

[Mirkk Defwode]

Tasker, on 07 April 2015 - 07:56 AM, said:

...
Personally think it is very tough balancing act because many MWO player do not want team play, insist on using bad mech because of 'lore' and think LRM is good weapon system to compete with. In short, lot of player do not want to be good at game, which is very strange compare to other online games. In most other online game, player look around at state of game and see what is good and what is bad, and embrace thing that is good, and try to improve through practice.
...

This is part of the problem though, all the weapons platforms and categories should be viable in the correct context. For the tabletop version of the game mechs were often build as utility platforms, not situation niches which is how we tend to engineer them now to get the best 'meta' build. Which I personally think is terrible.

You're going to call me a bad player, okay, I can live with that.

But I also played in the NBT which was very team focused in it's gameplay, and forcing that behavior by having the matchmaker already be fairly random when it comes to planets doesn't push people toward team play anymore than the solo queue does. Everyone says to get on the faction TS and find a group that way. But that isn't always a viable option - sometimes people just want to sit down and play.

You look at team focused games that have been recently released toward smaller group play. The games are engineered to allow for achieving the objectives with minimal communication and a great level of diversity in approach.

Personally I think CW feels like a regression rather than a step forward. The gameplay is the same as the Solo queue, find the combat point, march into enmasse as a deathball slug it out. Otherwise it's charge the objective and overrun that as fast as you can making for a very short game. Either way these don't feel rewarding to me. Its Napoleonic war tactics or Blitzkrieg on a fixed position. I think those issues fall down to the MOBA style map design (really, we have funneled lanes...) and the simplicity of the game design. Give the defenders and alternative means to win beyond killing all the attackers, Give the attackers more objectives to hit where they need to do like 2 out of 3 to win to break up the defenders a bit.

Larger open maps would be amazing as well, I don't like feeling like I'm being funneled into a killzone (which we are if you're attacking). I understand the desire to create a form of intensity by forcing the combat to occur in a specific location but it doesn't leave options to attack in different ways. Hell you play most of the solo queue maps they're design like donuts. Fight around this central "bowl" of some kind. Terra Therma has that literally. River City it's often the palace in the middle, Crimson is the shipping dock with a literal mountain being the center of the map. This doesn't feel like dynamic map design when combat is always at the same spots. More often than not the fights break down the same way as well.

[Tasker]

You want more varied and complex map and objective, but insist that player should not have to coordinate?

*head explodes*

[Jon Gotham]

That Dawg, on 07 April 2015 - 07:25 AM, said:

......because I agreed?

Which bit? I'm genuinely confused.

Mirkk Defwode, on 07 April 2015 - 08:43 AM, said:

Personally I think CW feels like a regression rather than a step forward. The gameplay is the same as the Solo queue, find the combat point, march into enmasse as a deathball slug it out. Otherwise it's charge the objective and overrun that as fast as you can making for a very short game. Either way these don't feel rewarding to me. Its Napoleonic war tactics or Blitzkrieg on a fixed position. I think those issues fall down to the MOBA style map design (really, we have funneled lanes...) and the simplicity of the game design. Give the defenders and alternative means to win beyond killing all the attackers, Give the attackers more objectives to hit where they need to do like 2 out of 3 to win to break up the defenders a bit.

I dunno what CW you have been doing...because teams I have been in have not done stuff like that......we have used lots of manouvering, force switching...feints....what you describe DOES fit a team full of solos though....


And one more thing, I hate this thread MORE than ever because it made me agree with Tasker. Oh Dear Co-ordinator.....

[Havyek]

I'd love to see CW more competitive, but MWO simply doesn't have the numbers to support multiple queues for solos and larger groups. It also doesn't solve your situation of larger groups breaking up into 2-4 man groups and dropping.

The biggest issue I've seen in this game is mentality. Solos/PUGs complained that organized groups were unfair to play against because they were usually on coms together. PGI gave PUGs in-game VOIP to communicate. It doesn't get used, or when it does only 1/3 of the team pays attention to what's being said.

You can't MAKE anyone co-operate against their will, just like you can't herd cats.

[Mirkk Defwode]

kamiko kross, on 07 April 2015 - 09:58 AM, said:

Which bit? I'm genuinely confused.

I dunno what CW you have been doing...because teams I have been in have not done stuff like that......we have used lots of manouvering, force switching...feints....what you describe DOES fit a team full of solos though....


And one more thing, I hate this thread MORE than ever because it made me agree with Tasker. Oh Dear Co-ordinator.....

I play solo, often end up with solos, when I attempt to lead no one listens or the rare few do, so I stopped trying to lead and just follow the herd.

Regardless, I think CW should try to aim for what MAG did in their maps, tiered objectives that start on the small scale and work toward a large scale battle at the end. It'd go from Squad based objectives, lances in this case, to having platoon objectives, to a company objective at the end to win the map as the attacker. As the defender you had the choice to force defend the first area by all piling onto one point, or each have a squad defend one for the line. The maps were big, though often cluttered, and allowed for more flexibility and options.

[Apnu]

Community Warfare should be more than just one game mode (and no, Counter Attack isn't a game mode). It should have modes that cater to groups (8-12), modes that cater to solos and small groups (4 or less), and modes that cater to units (logistics, multiple 12-man planet assaults, map control).

Community Warfare as it is, right now, is an inch deep and an inch wide. The vast majority of active MWO players don't touch CW right now. They don't care, I ask them in chat on the public queue. They think it sucks and is boring. They don't want extra maps, they want more interesting and rewarding modes.

It also doesn't help when getting stomped in CW the winning team starts calling out the losers and rubbing it in. I hardly see that stuff in public queue games, but I do in CW often. Its unusual when I get to the end of a match and see gracious winners.