48 replies to this topic

[Vassago Rain]

Lord0fHats, on 02 May 2015 - 09:02 PM, said:

Down to 68 now, which is still fairly close to normal in my experience (missing about a 12 man's worth of people for this time of day).

I feel it was well worth 3 years of wait so less than 100 people could play gatewarriors online.

[Lord0fHats]

You know what they say; It's a feature

[GrizzlyViking]

Lord0fHats, on 02 May 2015 - 07:11 PM, said:

To be clear, there is no problem with this change per se. The old method was profoundly broken, as victory went to the more numerous side by default via the ability to trap attackers in counter-attacks and force ghost drops.

Rather now the change has highlighted not a new problem but a problem thats been around since CW started; there just aren't enough active CW players. We have 10 factions with 17k players spread among them during a major event; and of that 17k, half only earned 10 points (or less) during the event. 10 points over an entire week. Those players must have only played 1 or 2 games, maybe 3, a day the entire week taking for granted those same players played games where they earned no points. Many probably played 2-3 games period.

The reality is that there is a big galaxy to fight over, a game mode that assumes players want to fight over it, and the hard truth that there aren't enough of us that actually want to fight over it.

Good insights and you are correct when you say that there are not enough players for the current model to work as designed. The question is whether this is what PGI intended in the hope that Steam will bring in the numbers needed to make the model work. However, it may be the result of a short-sighted band-aid fix that was intended to solve the problem of the Clans having a higher percentage of wins, yet losing the planets issue. I hope it is the first, but I suspect it is the second.

In any case I think we can agree that the current model does not work as intended with the current size of the active CW population. The solution is to either change the model to better accommodate the current numbers of CW participants or to offer greater incentive rewards and many more CW events to grow the CW population.

If PGI decides to keep the current attack/defend rotation, then they should either reduce the number of zones per planet or reduce the number of ceasefires per day. If PGI chooses to reduce zones per planet, they should be reduced to 7 zones/planet to make things reasonable. If they decide to keep planet zones at 15, then PGI should reduce the number of CFs/day to 1 instead of 3.

Edited by GrizzlyViking, 03 May 2015 - 07:52 AM.

[Chef Kerensky]

Lord0fHats, on 02 May 2015 - 06:42 PM, said:

You're just mad you can't roll a planet at will anymore

Yes, actually. When NKVA drops on a planet over and over and wins every single match, I expect nodes to flip.

[Lord0fHats]

GrizzlyViking, on 03 May 2015 - 07:27 AM, said:

I hope it is the first, but I suspect it is the second.

Honestly I think that no matter what change is made, there will remain the fundamental problem that there are not enough CW players (and that small number of active players is very spread across several factions). There are a lot of reasons why people don't want to play anymore and I don't think anything short of resolving the real problems is going to change that.

To clarify, I see those problems as;
-Seal clubbing has burned many a pug out
-Counter Attack is a poorly designed game mode.
-People want to blow up robots, but the fastest easiest way to win Invasion is to just rush rush rush
-3 of the Maps are horrible (Boreal, Rift, and Taiga) in design
-CW matches are long (MOBA long) but if people aren't enjoying them they're not going to play them

I've always felt CW is what this game needs. TDM is dull and boring in a thinking man's shooter. It needs a strong objective game mode. But CW needs a lot of work if it is ever to be what we all really want it to be. The 4v4 game mode might be a nice step towards fixing it.

Quote

In any case I think we can agree that the current model does not work as intended with the current size of the active CW population.

Quite.

Quote

If PGI chooses to reduce zones per planet, they should be reduced to 7 zones/planet to make things reasonable

I've always read that PGI has an unspoken distaste for how rapidly a planet could change hands. This change wasn't just envisioned to fix population imbalance it was was implemented to increase TTTP (Time to take Planet ). PGI seems to want CW to be a big war. DAoC style big where battles can take hours. And yes. They seem to want to implement this large scale CW despite the ever lowering CW numbers.

Chef Kerensky, on 03 May 2015 - 11:47 AM, said:

Yes, actually. When NKVA drops on a planet over and over and wins every single match, I expect nodes to flip.

Kurita seems to be flipping nodes just just fine. Pretty soon you guys will have to fight Davion, cause there won't be any Clan planets left to take

[Yokaiko]

Lord0fHats, on 03 May 2015 - 02:48 PM, said:

Kurita seems to be flipping nodes just just fine. Pretty soon you guys will have to fight Davion, cause there won't be any Clan planets left to take

Calling that a "fight" is a bit of a stretch.

[Lord0fHats]

Call me generous

[Molossian Dog]

You know, by now I think the Dave playing bad is a deliberate strategy.

Making it so boring and laughably easy to beat them will make others just turn away in disgust.

It is a defense mechanism probably developed by observing wildlife. Nobody likes to eat prey that wetted itself.

[AnimeFreak40K]

Lord0fHats, on 03 May 2015 - 02:48 PM, said:

Kurita seems to be flipping nodes just just fine. Pretty soon you guys will have to fight Davion, cause there won't be any Clan planets left to take

You can prolly blame MercStar for that... we generally run 1-2 12-man groups on a fairly regular (if not consistent) basis and we do our damnedest to take as many planets as quickly as possible

The other point that was made, the lack of population, I think that has been a problem for CW from the beginning. Some of the biggest complains that I have seen from people who don't want to do CW is the lack of reward-incentive to do so. Many good players can earn a lot more in the public queue in the time it takes to complete a CW drop.

There are other reasons, of course, and other problems and potential fixes, but the fact of the matter still is that from my perspective, the CW population is rather low and something really should be done to improve it on a permanent basis, rather than for a weekend event.