124 replies to this topic

[RussianWolf]

You want real change in the CW mode? Stop playing it.

Let the queue times for the teams increase to untenable levels and they will start complaining to PGI that they need something to boost numbers and decrease time.

Right now, CW is the old non queue MM that we had at the start.

That failed and they split it to 1-4 and 8 mans (later boosted to 12 mans). The 8 and 12 man queues stagnated because weaker units didn't like playing the competitive units and went back to the 1-4 queue where they stood a chance. And the larger more competitive units complained they couldn't find matches and came back to the 1-4 where they could stomp (I've seen a 4 man Comp team take out 12 enemies with the other 8 players barely doing anything in less than 2 minutes, scarey good).

People wanted to play in larger groups but they knew adding larger groups against solos was a bad idea so we got Solo only and 2-10+12.

Then CW comes out and it goes straight back to the original failed mode. Large groups love it (they loved the old queue as well) and the Solos (for the most part) don't.

So solos, Stop playing CW. Let the groups have it. Let their queue times increase and their complaints increase and PGI will come to the conclusion that they need queues similar to what we have in the Public queue. Remember, in CW they need the Solos as gap fillers for the teams. So they NEED the Solos, The solos DON'T NEED teams/CW.

disclaimer: I am a member of a unit that fields both a competitive team and a CW team. But I want this game to be loved by all so that it succeeds, So I NEED the Solo players to love it so I can play it too.

[sycocys]

Just a thought, but why can't there be some sort of meta-esque territory control for the guys that feel their teams are elite competition teams? Like let them fight all around/for Terra regardless of where their territory is or something.

If looking for good top level competition is really what they are after then why can't it be set up in some way so that the rest of our teams and pugs can do our thing while they have access to what they are looking for at the same time? The way the map is set up now they either need to troll everyone else on the way, really there is no need for all that if those guys actually want to play each other.

[RussianWolf]

sycocys, on 31 March 2015 - 06:14 AM, said:

Just a thought, but why can't there be some sort of meta-esque territory control for the guys that feel their teams are elite competition teams? Like let them fight all around/for Terra regardless of where their territory is or something.

If looking for good top level competition is really what they are after then why can't it be set up in some way so that the rest of our teams and pugs can do our thing while they have access to what they are looking for at the same time? The way the map is set up now they either need to troll everyone else on the way, really there is no need for all that if those guys actually want to play each other.

because, most actually don't want to play each other.

When the 8 and 12 man queues were active. You had teams claim that they wanted more competition. But as soon as they were facing better competition and losing, they would come back to the 1-4 queue saying it was only for the uber-competitive teams. They only wanted to win and stomping pugs was better than losing to actual competition.

This is why the Solo queue was established. Now if they want to play as a unit, they can't face the Solo puggers.

In my opinion CW need more than 1 queue and may need exactly what the Public queue has. They will complain about it saying "no, CW is hard mode. L2P or go away" but that actually doesn't work if you want the mode to have decent population.

[pbiggz]

Die Clanner

[RussianWolf]

pbiggz, on 31 March 2015 - 06:33 AM, said:

Die Clanner

o.0

[Col Jaime Wolf]

so what your saying is the primary reason most large groups exist is to farm pugs and not actually fight other large groups?

methinks you stumbled upon something here.

[Varvar86]

I think CW will evolution step by step. When I joined this game it were only 3 mechs models in each class, few maps and terrible lags/bags everywhere. Now this is TOTALLY different game, so many have been done since that time.
Devs have better instrument among all forum wars - game statistics. Pretty sure they clearly see how bad situation with “spawnkilling”, “Lights rushing” “Units stomping”. See exactly which mech/weapon used more, witch weapons and tactics neglected or forbidden. They see overall game balance. All those numbers speaks for themselves, simple analyses will immediately highlight all this problems. Just nelive in Devs. they will make changes for sure, just give tm time.

So far last CW event, that caused hundreds of players get back to CW, might be a part of the experiment that will allow to compare results “before” and “after”. So your idea might have sense. Anyway we don’t need to ask players to play or not to play. If players don’t like existing balance - they wont anyway. If they like existing balance – they will continue play anyway. I’m sure, that after event will end, population of CW will decrease significantly. Many people in this holidays have agreed that to many issues must be reworked in CW to make it more logical and playable.
Personally I will take brake in CW till new changes in this mode.

Edited by Varvar86, 31 March 2015 - 07:05 AM.

[sycocys]

Well I know while my unit/team never pushed for competition worthiness, we do have a lot of really great players and personally before CW I had a lot of fun when the teams were limited for the standard drops. The occasions we'd get sync dropped were always funny because half the time it would be against each other making for some fun duels.

That would be the one thing I'd see as a driving problem with CW though if you didn't give the groups a place to go since you eliminate that chance they would play against each other. It'd just be those trolling type teams syncing in 4 man (whatever the max you set) squads and still facing off against pugs.

In that regard making a separate queue really isn't going to solve anything, mostly just make the problems as bad or worse for the solo players because then the metrics would appear to be more balanced for them team wise while actually changing nothing.

To me the only viable solution would be to find a way to give teams something meaningful to fight over that also keeps them in the mode but directed to a different part of the map. Fighting over Terra in a way that isn't trolling everyone else would be my first idea.

Maybe having a fight over Terra with public unit rankings and better rewards for fighting on that planet? Add in a couple things that might actually stroke their epeens a little and see how it works out. Like a daily tournament with c-bill, equip, mc rewards for the winning team and have their unit/id's tagged somewhere in the front of CW as the kings of the universe for that day or cycle.

[Lord Jay]

There will be Pugstomping in CW as long as there are Pugs.

So if you are a solo CW player...

If you are a solo and you do not like your CW experience then do not play it. Play the aspects of the game that you do enjoy.

If you are a solo and you want to improve your CW experience please at least investigate joining a casual unit or at the very least check out your faction TS and drop with some folks.

The impression of organized teams by the general solo population seems very skewed. Most teams are very friendly. Most teams do not have playtime requirements or force people to tryout in order to join. In fact most teams want you to join!

If you join a unit and find you don't like the people, find another unit. There are so many units with different schedules and styles (Mil-Sim, Role Play, Casual, Competitive, etc).

The majority of players find dropping with others a very positive friendship building experience. If you don't like it, try another unit or return to solo dropping. No permanent harm done.

If you are unable or unwilling to join a unit or even try a public TS then your CW options will likely remain limited to mostly pug vs. unit drops. That is the unfortunate reality of the CW experience for the foreseeable future.

PGI has few viable options to change it but you can take steps to try to change your experience.

[RussianWolf]

Mellifluer, on 31 March 2015 - 07:00 AM, said:

so what your saying is the primary reason most large groups exist is to farm pugs and not actually fight other large groups?

methinks you stumbled upon something here.

not specifically, but there are players who have the "I must win to have fun" mentality and that can be detrimental when placed against new players. And some of those players formed teams with that mentality.

We need the new players to stick around long enough to actually learn the game and feel that they can be successful.

The concern way back when was that the teams were in effect chasing off new players because the "pug experience" wasn't fun. That's bad for all of us. More players = better games for all.

A new player plays in the hardest mode this game has. Think about it. You are new, know no one. Comms are spotty at best. You have to play Trials to start which while better than the original trials (stock builds) are no longer optimized the way they once were. And if they drop in CW... oh boy, Hard mode big time. And we want them to stick around?

Got to give them some kind of bone, or at least make it where they can't accidentally drop in cW and get super stomped their first day. Solo queue is hard enough for a new player.

We have a couple new players in our unit. trying to teach them in game is a challenge because we can't drop in the training grounds with them to show them how stuff works. So you have to drop in the group queue with them and hope you can teach enough before the enemy closes. I wouldn't even consider taking them into CW.

[Lily from animove]

RussianWolf, on 31 March 2015 - 06:29 AM, said:

because, most actually don't want to play each other.

When the 8 and 12 man queues were active. You had teams claim that they wanted more competition. But as soon as they were facing better competition and losing, they would come back to the 1-4 queue saying it was only for the uber-competitive teams. They only wanted to win and stomping pugs was better than losing to actual competition.

This is why the Solo queue was established. Now if they want to play as a unit, they can't face the Solo puggers.

In my opinion CW need more than 1 queue and may need exactly what the Public queue has. They will complain about it saying "no, CW is hard mode. L2P or go away" but that actually doesn't work if you want the mode to have decent population.

the problem is:

How should a CW solo queue looks like?

A drop is created when 12 people are on the same planet, thats easy mode synch dropping for a ts coordinated premade.
How does it contribute to the map when 12 Mans can't conquer planets because they can' play vs solos. This makes mechanic wise no sense at all. 12 Warriors not able to fight because they are in the wrong queue.

CW is made of many many factions, would it only be clans vs IS, it may have worked better, Weekend was quite great, so the CW success and fun depends on the people playing in CW. but on non event, its too few playes for too many factions. And clanners currently do not even attack eack others.

[RussianWolf]

Lily from animove, on 31 March 2015 - 08:17 AM, said:

the problem is:

How should a CW solo queue looks like?

A drop is created when 12 people are on the same planet, thats easy mode synch dropping for a ts coordinated premade.
How does it contribute to the map when 12 Mans can't conquer planets because they can' play vs solos. This makes mechanic wise no sense at all. 12 Warriors not able to fight because they are in the wrong queue.

CW is made of many many factions, would it only be clans vs IS, it may have worked better, Weekend was quite great, so the CW success and fun depends on the people playing in CW. but on non event, its too few playes for too many factions. And clanners currently do not even attack eack others.

I don't have an easy answer, but I know this.

If you want more people to play (without incentives like free mechs) then it need to be a fun experience for everyone.

And before someone reads into that, a win =/= the only way to have fun. I can have plenty of fun in losses.

PGI threw this event and the pop went up. (I didn't play so I'll take you guys at your word) and fun was had, but many played to get the prize and immediately left. What does that tell you? It must not have been too much fun or they would still be in CW playing.

[Lily from animove]

RussianWolf, on 31 March 2015 - 08:34 AM, said:

I don't have an easy answer, but I know this.

If you want more people to play (without incentives like free mechs) then it need to be a fun experience for everyone.

And before someone reads into that, a win =/= the only way to have fun. I can have plenty of fun in losses.

PGI threw this event and the pop went up. (I didn't play so I'll take you guys at your word) and fun was had, but many played to get the prize and immediately left. What does that tell you? It must not have been too much fun or they would still be in CW playing.

there could be "raid planets and invasion planets on the borders.

Invasion planets:
as CW currently is.

Raid planets: 8vs8's no team queue, just "pug" queue. as the standard queue now is. More cbills, less loyality points than Invasion planets.

RussianWolf, on 31 March 2015 - 08:34 AM, said:

I don't have an easy answer, but I know this.

If you want more people to play (without incentives like free mechs) then it need to be a fun experience for everyone.

And before someone reads into that, a win =/= the only way to have fun. I can have plenty of fun in losses.

PGI threw this event and the pop went up. (I didn't play so I'll take you guys at your word) and fun was had, but many played to get the prize and immediately left. What does that tell you? It must not have been too much fun or they would still be in CW playing.

People are weird, not much will even get the 20 matches together, so basically, they went there for cockpit items.
But most probably do not know that cockpit items, mechbays and even mc's are able to be farmed via faction ranks. Thats why they don't go CW normally. Also its more to grind, but I guess majority doesn't even knows about the rewards.

Edited by Lily from animove, 31 March 2015 - 08:44 AM.

[Mirumoto Izanami]

Lily from animove, on 31 March 2015 - 08:42 AM, said:

Invasion planets:
as CW currently is.

Raid planets: 8vs8's no team queue, just "pug" queue. as the standard queue now is. More cbills, less loyality points than Invasion planets.

I love this idea. I FRIKKIN LOVE THIS IDEA.

You could even have raids influence the status of the planet when it finally goes up for invasion and becomes switchable, ie, give the winning 'raiders' (or winning defenders) a bit of a headstart on the flip, or something else.

[Jody Von Jedi]

Lily from animove, on 31 March 2015 - 08:42 AM, said:

there could be "raid planets and invasion planets on the borders.

Invasion planets:
as CW currently is.

Raid planets: 8vs8's no team queue, just "pug" queue. as the standard queue now is. More cbills, less loyality points than Invasion planets.

4v4 mode is coming. Hopefully, it will have both queue types, group and solo.

[Davers]

I think the upcoming 4v4 mode will really help solo players who want to play CW.

[Mystere]

RussianWolf, on 31 March 2015 - 06:29 AM, said:

In my opinion CW need more than 1 queue and may need exactly what the Public queue has. They will complain about it saying "no, CW is hard mode. L2P or go away" but that actually doesn't work if you want the mode to have decent population.

Player separation via independent queues is not the solution in something like Community Warfare. What we need are more and better game modes.

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

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.

I would like planetary invasion to be represented as a directed graph of actions and counteractions of both sides instead of the simple and very high-level "take or retake 15 territories" abstraction we currently have. Those actions/counteractions involve, but are not limited to, attacks, counterattacks, beachheads, skirmishes, recon, ambushes, search & destroy, and other game modes. Also, it would be preferred if each planet had its own unique set of "territories" represented in those same directed graphs.

For game mode examples, 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 deck),
  
• 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, 31 March 2015 - 09:16 AM.

[sycocys]

I've been saying and agreeing with Mystere on that part since the first time I played CW. It's far too thin, and even though it would in some ways make it harder for solo/new players it would give them options of things to do that they felt like more like they were actively contributing to every match. Even in matches you end up losing when you have more depth that engages players, makes it feel more balanced -even though nothing in the balance would change but player/lance/group separation- it really makes a huge difference all around.

Doing things like that to the existing maps would keep it 12v12 and even pug v team but also change it to lance against lance and if all the matches started out that way then worked into the final assault it would feel much more inviting to new players than running into a wall of focused laser vomit and it would still give teams the advantage of knowing what each are bringing/supposed to be doing and experience together.

Honestly I don't think we need 4v4 matches, we just need the current setup guided away from blob warfare - at least until you close in on that final push to secure the base. If you had 2 waves of split combat/objective competition and 2 pushing into/capturing/defending a base it would feel a lot more like Mechwarrior.

[Darwins Dog]

I will grant you that CW needs improvement, but you have some pretty flawed arguments. You seem to think that PGI is unaware of the problems, but I seem to recall a beta tag on CW. That implies (to me at least) that they know the mode needs more work.

As to your claim that groups only formed for pugstomps: I don't even know where to start there. Where do you get the idea that people group up because they want easy wins? I joined a group because the lack of teamwork in the solo queue was maddening. The game is at it's best (for me) when two teams of roughly equal skill are facing each other. I know I'm not the only one who feels that way. That is part of the reason why the max size group queues dried up; there are some really really good teams out there, and it's pretty disheartening to get wrecked by them over and over.

Also, lots of groups formed because playing games is more fun when you are playing with friends. It's an added bonus that teamwork is OP, and groups who are working together tend to win more.

Teams don't want competition? The number of leagues and tournaments going on would suggest otherwise. Lots of groups really do want to face better competition.

Now I know that there are plenty of groups who just want to pugstomp everyone, but in my experience they are the minority.

The problem in CW is not with pugs vs. premades, it's with "solo" players who refuse to work with a team, turn off voip, ignore text chat, and then come to the forums to insult the "leet pro meta tryhards who only want to win". CW is and should be a place to bring your A game and work with your team.

Maybe Solaris (if and when that happens) will give the true lone wolves a place to thrive and shine.

[Screech]

Davers, on 31 March 2015 - 09:00 AM, said:

I think the upcoming 4v4 mode will really help solo players who want to play CW.

Seems that would be more of a boon to the small group folks then solos. I don't see much of an upside as a solo player in 4x4 and see a tremendous downside. Though I might be on island on this one as I prefer CW to the solo queue in general.