103 replies to this topic

[Eider]

Make it more casual friendly. I know, i know THOSE EVIL CASUALS. But hows that worked out so far?

[Black Ivan]

Make it attract more people, groups AND Solo players. Make fighting about planets for a faction wortwhile with rewards and bonuses. Make themed planetary maps so that a defending or attacking unit can plan where to drop and load up.

Edited by Black Ivan, 16 May 2015 - 11:23 AM.

[Gaussfather]

The Ripper13, on 14 May 2015 - 07:53 AM, said:

Someone mentioned in another thread, (and I curse them for it because it is such a delightful dream that will never happen) but if CW was like Planetside 2 but with battletech mechs. That would be pure community warfare nonstop around the clock...do you know how many people would be playing that ****....it would be glorious.

I haven only read about Planetside 2 but I agree that is the direction MWO should move... creating more of a living universe to conquer and play in.

Edited by Jman88, 16 May 2015 - 11:53 AM.

[CrazyWorm9]

my 0.02cibills is this make it to where there is no comp meta builds make every weapon viable in cw, by this mg and flamers for them ai targets lrms actually do more damage to stuff at a slower fire rate. make maps open ended like planetside with between 12-30 objective to target.

Make it to where every lance can operate independently without fear of murderball, lance 1 go take objective 1 lance to to objective 30 lance 3 hold LZ

make it to where any mech could be used in a a drop deck without forcing sacrifice. shouldnt have to bring a locust just to run a atlas or king crab that was spent millions of cbills or time to get 3 to master 1 just so you cannot use it in cw not everyone likes lights like a locust. solution is make the player with the drop deck pay extra each drop to bring a oversized drop deck 10k per 5 tons over the max limit. im serious i spent hard grind on a mech to get it to master just so i cannot use it in a important game mode=Fail and rage at wasted time. seriously no point in working for them high tonnage mechs.

and lastly, stop trolling each other on purpose. spawn camp isn't because pgis fault its players fault they do it on purpose to each other. cw maps are bigger than most other pug maps there is good areas to set up and be tactical. what is wrong then? sitting there waiting for the enemy next wave is boring so what do everyone do soon as a gate is open they rush beeline for a spawnpoint to kill everyone that that dies and is dropping in before they can have a chance to fight back. if there was a way pgi could prevent it im sure people wouldn't like that option any better. the best way to prevent spawn camp is nopt spawncamp at all but there is trolls that do what they want when they want coase they can.

regardless if its clan or IS spawn camper trolls have the same spiel about them. they are "COMPETITIVE UNITS""META""JUST TO STRONG" i quoted the common E-PEEN strokes when in reality they are a bunch of people sad in life that get off on ruining fun in any type of PVP game it harkens back to any other MMO FPS game with spawn points. solution pgi can have is have random drop zones in random areas that if more than 3 mechs are near one spawn zone the dropship drops the mech off at a alternate zone farther away in the random zone grid. problem solved.


and lastly all you people complaining about CW as unrewarding are doing it wrong, the rewards come not just from the matches but also building up loyalty did you see the prize for tier 20 faction loyalty there is 50M cbills for grabs thats a whole lotta modules for mechs needing them. on top of that there is also bonus for wining that match that you do not get in pug play. granted a smaller payout on a lose on the end of match contract to pay for medical bills as a consolation would be fun to have but not necessary. CW still has allot of untapped potential the only thing hurting it is us the players cant blame pgi for everything.

[Connor Sellock]

CrazyWorm, on 16 May 2015 - 01:04 PM, said:

Spoiler

my 0.02cibills is this make it to where there is no comp meta builds make every weapon viable in cw, by this mg and flamers for them ai targets lrms actually do more damage to stuff at a slower fire rate. make maps open ended like planetside with between 12-30 objective to target.

Make it to where every lance can operate independently without fear of murderball, lance 1 go take objective 1 lance to to objective 30 lance 3 hold LZ

make it to where any mech could be used in a a drop deck without forcing sacrifice. shouldnt have to bring a locust just to run a atlas or king crab that was spent millions of cbills or time to get 3 to master 1 just so you cannot use it in cw not everyone likes lights like a locust. solution is make the player with the drop deck pay extra each drop to bring a oversized drop deck 10k per 5 tons over the max limit. im serious i spent hard grind on a mech to get it to master just so i cannot use it in a important game mode=Fail and rage at wasted time. seriously no point in working for them high tonnage mechs.

and lastly, stop trolling each other on purpose. spawn camp isn't because pgis fault its players fault they do it on purpose to each other. cw maps are bigger than most other pug maps there is good areas to set up and be tactical. what is wrong then? sitting there waiting for the enemy next wave is boring so what do everyone do soon as a gate is open they rush beeline for a spawnpoint to kill everyone that that dies and is dropping in before they can have a chance to fight back. if there was a way pgi could prevent it im sure people wouldn't like that option any better. the best way to prevent spawn camp is nopt spawncamp at all but there is trolls that do what they want when they want coase they can.

regardless if its clan or IS spawn camper trolls have the same spiel about them. they are "COMPETITIVE UNITS""META""JUST TO STRONG" i quoted the common E-PEEN strokes when in reality they are a bunch of people sad in life that get off on ruining fun in any type of PVP game it harkens back to any other MMO FPS game with spawn points. solution pgi can have is have random drop zones in random areas that if more than 3 mechs are near one spawn zone the dropship drops the mech off at a alternate zone farther away in the random zone grid. problem solved.


and lastly all you people complaining about CW as unrewarding are doing it wrong, the rewards come not just from the matches but also building up loyalty did you see the prize for tier 20 faction loyalty there is 50M cbills for grabs thats a whole lotta modules for mechs needing them. on top of that there is also bonus for wining that match that you do not get in pug play. granted a smaller payout on a lose on the end of match contract to pay for medical bills as a consolation would be fun to have but not necessary. CW still has allot of untapped potential the only thing hurting it is us the players cant blame pgi for everything.

SACRILEGE!

How dare you hold up the Nova-Bright-Mirror of Truth to us, MWO Gamers!
(It is totally beside the point that many of us agree with you and likewise know the fault resides in us all to one degree or another.)

Edited by Connor Sellock, 16 May 2015 - 02:19 PM.

[HC Harlequin]

Chagatay, on 16 May 2015 - 10:36 AM, said:

Emerald Taiga.....

Jump jets...

[Smag]

Easy. Up the rewards to reflect time.

Avoid outright burnout by adjusting drop tonnage and rewards on a planet basis.

Dropping next to your starting planet? Here's 250 tons, but you'll get normal rewards. Dropping next to the enemy homeworld? Here's 180 tons, but you'll get triple rewards.

[Akklaim]

CrazyWorm, on 16 May 2015 - 01:04 PM, said:

my 0.02cibills is this make it to where there is no comp meta builds make every weapon viable in cw, by this mg and flamers for them ai targets lrms actually do more damage to stuff at a slower fire rate. make maps open ended like planetside with between 12-30 objective to target.

make it to where any mech could be used in a a drop deck without forcing sacrifice. shouldnt have to bring a locust just to run a atlas or king crab that was spent millions of cbills or time to get 3 to master 1 just so you cannot use it in cw not everyone likes lights like a locust. solution is make the player with the drop deck pay extra each drop to bring a oversized drop deck 10k per 5 tons over the max limit. im serious i spent hard grind on a mech to get it to master just so i cannot use it in a important game mode=Fail and rage at wasted time. seriously no point in working for them high tonnage mechs.

and lastly, stop trolling each other on purpose. spawn camp isn't because pgis fault its players fault they do it on purpose to each other. cw maps are bigger than most other pug maps there is good areas to set up and be tactical. what is wrong then? sitting there waiting for the enemy next wave is boring so what do everyone do soon as a gate is open they rush beeline for a spawnpoint to kill everyone that that dies and is dropping in before they can have a chance to fight back. if there was a way pgi could prevent it im sure people wouldn't like that option any better. the best way to prevent spawn camp is nopt spawncamp at all but there is trolls that do what they want when they want coase they can.

regardless if its clan or IS spawn camper trolls have the same spiel about them. they are "COMPETITIVE UNITS""META""JUST TO STRONG" i quoted the common E-PEEN strokes when in reality they are a bunch of people sad in life that get off on ruining fun in any type of PVP game it harkens back to any other MMO FPS game with spawn points. solution pgi can have is have random drop zones in random areas that if more than 3 mechs are near one spawn zone the dropship drops the mech off at a alternate zone farther away in the random zone grid. problem solved.

Are you seriously suggesting that we could have the opportunity to pay to come in over tonnage? Mind you, I'm part of -MS- and would love the ability to do so, but I already see that being a recipe for disaster. I drop no lighter than 230 tons, and I make between 600k-1m per CW on most matches (<3 premium time). If I was allowed to pay to overton my drop deck, the amount of money I would make would more than offset the increased initial cost. 3 STK-4N and a RVN-2X? Sign me up! 3 TBR and a HBR? Please.

If you want to further alienate those who cannot pull the damage to out-profit the public queue in CW, this would make it far worse for them. It's bad enough the trial mechs are disasters, many lone wolfs refuse to coordinate, those that did somehow grind enough cbills to purchase mechs throw LRMs in every available missile hardpoint (cuz why not LRMs?) further making their mech less viable in CW where direct, sustained fire is key. Now you're saying those same pugs have to face twelve mans running overtonned decks when those same pugs wouldn't be able to compete if the twelve mans dropped in 190 ton decks as opposed to 240?

You also don't understand the definition of "meta". PGI institutes the quirks/etc, and that, on top of a mech's hardpoints/mounts/chassis/etc determine if it's more viable than others. If a mech is that much better than others within its weight class or chassis, you're doing yourself a disservice by not using it. I play to have fun, I have fun by winning, and I win because I not only optimize my mech builds, but am versatile enough to know when to bring certain mechs to certain maps, and when to bring each mech within my current deck.

You want to fix CW? Give the players a reason to play it over the public queue where they can get instant gratification and essentially bring any mech they want. Want to bring a LRM 100 Stalker? You're only getting carried by your team for 5-8 minutes instead of up to 30 minutes.

Tired of bring spawncamped? It's PGI's fault for placing the objective smack in the middle of all the dropship spawns. If a group were to attempt to charge in to rush the objective while killing mechs, they'd have dropships and enemy mechs shooting them in the back. Tactically, removing virtually all potential rear ambush opportunities before advancing is the smartest move, securing a position before advancing. Also, since there is no other way to earn the majority of cbills in CW, killing all 48 mechs creates the highest cbills over time ratio as opposed to gen rushing. Until PGI can come up with an alternative, it's the only option. Even if there was a dynamic system to adjust who spawns in which lance to avoid dropship spawncamping, what will stop groups from forcing you to spawn at a specific point by manipulating the cut and dry system? Just bring LL/ERLL/Gauss mechs to force the engagement exactly where one wants? Instead of having one lance camped from one spot, now you have three all dropping in the same place getting arty spammed and focus fired in a giant killbox.

I've had my rant -- that post was pure cancer and I will have no more of it.

Edited by Akklaim, 18 May 2015 - 12:29 PM.

[The2ndPete]

I returned this weekend for some MWO after a long absence.
After some matches solo (well, with two friends) to get back into the controls and see if I had my mechs still the way I remembered them we went into CW.
Well, it certainly was better than back at the first try.
But there's so much that's totally off balance.

IS vs Clan
Well, they certainly did get the vastly superior tech of the clans attacking the IS right.
Some IS mechs are capable of carrying ECM while most clan mechs (no, I didn't count) have at least one variant that can if it's not fixed built into it.
This makes many mechs impossible to detect due to several drops/waves starting without any ECM and being unable to use any long range weapon reliably while the clanners can pound them with better LRMs, faster locking sSRMs and so on.
Add to that the targeting comp that's basically "every single weapon module x 0.25 bundled up in one component" and you see a very steep cliff the IS has to climb before seeing any chance of sunlight.

"Yeah, but you only need to coordinate a bit and you're totally better and can counter that"
Sure. Ever tried coordinating 12 people of which you know 1 or 2 others into a fighting force against an opponent with superior equipment? Good luck with that. 6 won't read anything but rather play something on their smartphone while the others most likely are against everything you say. Because principles!

"But the IS players all have more experience and thus better equipment and modules and all the Mech perks unlocked"
Ever looked at the match results?
I might be VERY unlucky but the 7 matches I played from sunday noon until now (yes, I did play other stuff in that time, more on the queue later) ALL ended with clans winning, the best saw the IS getting 33 kills. That's a third of the clan force. Wohoo! And the clans wiped out ALL IS pilots while only 3 of them were dead. That means? More survivability for the clanners, obviously. Better equipment on the clan side, too (more compact internals, weightless automatic CASE, smaller double heatsinks and so on). Try to counter that with modules on your mech. Those are DAMN expensive and you can fit what, three max on a mech?
Remember, that was the BEST match. most others ended with clanners breaking through and standing around the dropzone, instantly shooting everything dropping from a lander.

Maybe I'm just playing to early and have to wait for some more time until they allow the nice tech for the IS like C3 computers and Arrow Missile Systems to place minefields...

Possible Solutions
For one: The clans don't fight with groups of twelve. Their equivalent to a 4 mech IS lance is the 5 mech star. -Lore! He's citing LORE! Get stones. Torches. Stakes! Murder him totally dead!-
PLEASE allow that totally unfair disadvantage in numbers. That might mitigate the vastly better equipment the clans have.

Another point since the first won't be done due to being totally unfair:
The clans in this period of time were -lore! Oh no, he's bringing up more lore! Burn him! Stakes ho! Dance macarena on him with a Dire Wolf!!- bound to a honor code of single duels.
So make clanners loose a part of their match reward for every point of damage they do to a target another clanner has done damage to.
Start with 2% for every point of damage and allow them to get down to a total of 1 XP and 1 Credit.
AND MAKE THAT CLEAR THE MOMENT SOMEONE DECIDES TO ENTER A CW MATCH ON THE CLAN SIDE.
IN BOLD BRIGHT LETTERS.
Like:
DON'T FOCUS FIRE. FIGHT DUELS 1-1 OR YOU LOOSE XP AND CREDITS!

Sure, there'll be idiots who strafe enemies with a batch of pulse laser fire "for da funz" so maybe add a small timer. More than half the time of a weapons firing time on target - loss starting.

Number of Players
I don't see what's the big problem with taking the solo matches into the CW.
Just have them be on one or more of the arena worlds like -Ah! MORE LORE! BAN THE ACCOUNT!!- Solaris VII. So players who want a quick, uneventful match without influence on the politics make their pick of one of the arena worlds and you let them SEE that there is a whole bunch of waring factions in which these non-political matches are placed.
Most will just continue their matches, maybe change the worlds they fight on for a different flavor of non-consequential background info. But a fair deal might wonder what happens if they click on a non-arena world that's blinking on the borders of one of these factions.
Give them a very basic, quick intro:
This world is currently owned by [Faction 1] and under attack by forces of [Faction 2].
If you want to take part in this war take a side: [Button: select Faction 1] - [Button: select Faction 2] - [Button: become a Merc]
This change will be permanent as long as this world is under attack. Afterwards you can choose to either stay with this faction, become a mercenary or choose another faction.

So you don't have "casual" players influencing the politics and big wars unless they commit to a faction.

Oh and most important:
FIX THE VOICE CHAT!
Make teamspeak a must if you can't figure out how to do it.
And make it mandatory ON. On 5 of the 7 matches I played the voice didn't work.
Well, most don't listen to it anyways because they are totally badass and don't need any help from those idiots clustering like frightened chicken. But it'd be nice to have a chance to yell at those idiots...

Edited by The2ndPete, 18 May 2015 - 12:28 PM.

[Moldur]

PGI should shut down CW altogether.

[Akklaim]

Smag, on 18 May 2015 - 11:01 AM, said:

Easy. Up the rewards to reflect time.

Avoid outright burnout by adjusting drop tonnage and rewards on a planet basis.

Dropping next to your starting planet? Here's 250 tons, but you'll get normal rewards. Dropping next to the enemy homeworld? Here's 180 tons, but you'll get triple rewards.

This would be fantastic, but one would need more than 60 seconds to prepare. Maybe raise drop prep time to 90 seconds and that could be a really good concept.

[Smag]

The2ndPete, on 18 May 2015 - 12:19 PM, said:

Some IS mechs are capable of carrying ECM while most clan mechs (no, I didn't count) have at least one variant that can if it's not fixed built into it.

PGI please make this guy's hallucination a reality.

[Apnu]

Eider, on 16 May 2015 - 11:18 AM, said:

Make it more casual friendly. I know, i know THOSE EVIL CASUALS. But hows that worked out so far?

Black Ivan, on 16 May 2015 - 11:23 AM, said:

Make it attract more people, groups AND Solo players. Make fighting about planets for a faction wortwhile with rewards and bonuses. Make themed planetary maps so that a defending or attacking unit can plan where to drop and load up.

These two things are related. And they are correct.

[Apnu]

The2ndPete, on 18 May 2015 - 12:19 PM, said:

Like:
DON'T FOCUS FIRE. FIGHT DUELS 1-1 OR YOU LOOSE XP AND CREDITS!

Sure, there'll be idiots who strafe enemies with a batch of pulse laser fire "for da funz" so maybe add a small timer. More than half the time of a weapons firing time on target - loss starting.

I've always thought that PGI should find ways to incentivize clan players through monetary rewards to get them to play like the clans of lore.

Not everybody is going to do it, but also in the lore, clans had loose interpretations of clan rules and cultures. Jade Falcon on one side and Fire Mandril way on the other. Jade Falcon strictly adhered to Batchall and Zellbrigen procedure, Fire Mandril just ignored them willy-nilly.

But anyway, back to MWO. Giving clan players larger c-bill and GXP pay outs for following clan battle doctrine would help several things at once: First it would add some RP depth the game lacks, making the clans seem less like IS players with a different HUD and more like a different alien race. Second it would help with clan players, quite justified, complaint about the expensive economics acquiring and mastering clan mechs. Third it would help balance the game a bit, allowing PGI to maybe relax the nerfs on clan tech (both impending on the May 19th patch, and baked in when they rolled out clan tech)

Its fairly simple to do. Give clan players big payouts for solo kills and stuff like that, Give them poor payouts for high assists. Give them special payouts for special actions, like targeting the first enemy mech they see and staying targeted on only that enemy until its gone. Which is part of Zellbrigen.

[Insects]

Separate PUG queue "play now" button.

"But but but there won't be enough players in the CW group queue!"
What the group queue which is currently dead?

[Khobai]

Quote

They need to combine the queues.

Move the Assault, Skirmish and Conquest game modes into CW.

THIS.

1) combine the queues. combine all gamemodes/maps into CW. make everything count towards CW.
2) increase the rewards for solo players/small groups so getting pugstomped is worth your time. If you cant get rid of pugstomping than at least make it bearable to the team getting stomped by giving better payouts.

[Triordinant]

This needs repeating. It's at the core of what's wrong with CW.

[Ace Selin]

With the population numbers as low a they are at present i think CW is dead. They need to close it down for 6 months rework it and reintroduce it and hope this time it is more involved, more rewarding to the players and more encompassing to drive the player volume CW needs.

[Cervantes88]

Bah.

MWO is nothing more than World of Tanks or War Thunder with mechs and battletech instead of tanks and WW2. CW was a valiant yet futile effort to try and make it more than that, but let's face it, the people who play MWO are the same kind as those who play WoT/WT : hoarders who want to buy/level up new stuff, just for the sake of having an objective (i'm one), and power gamers who want to be competitive in a matchmaker-based game. And those are the players who bring the money into the game.

For both those players CW holds no interest simply because you wait too long for nothing more or better than normal queues. The people who still try and play CW atm are desillusionned battletech fans who cling to the only somewhat lore-friendly game mode, and unit players who just want to simulate having some sort of impact on a larger scale than the classic group queue.

I have never played CW and will probably never play it, when I log on MWO it's because a new mech that I like the style of has come out and i have to play it until it's elited. There is no metagame as in "end-game" or "global objective" in a matchmaker-based WoT clone, just individual goals that are served better by playing the normal queue.

And honestly, all games tend to be like that, regardless of the format. Planetside 2 which has been cited in example in this thread as to what CW should aspire to become has been criticized for its lack of actual metagame at launch, because farming the opponents at their warpgate after dominating the continent wasn't much of an end-game. Even now with the continent-locking the game is only motivating to the majority of its players because of the new stuff to unlock with certifications that you grind with XP. And once you're done unlocking what you want and playing a bit with it, you're done with the game. And Planetside 2 has a persistent world far from what MWO can hope to achieve at any point.

So I'd say PGI's best bet is to stick with the WoT clone, it's a good game to play on occasion - and it's up to PGI to create more occasions with weekend events, new maps and new mechs to add to the regular queue, and at least at my ELO those queues are healthy enough not to last for more than a minute on average. CW and any sort of attempt to create a lasting metagame are very likely to fall flat.

[Kjudoon]

What would it take to fix CW at this point? Some huge things actually. Well, some not so huge, but this is what I need to see.

1. ACTUAL Logistics
- Dynamic economy based on scarcity, faction production, faction access, unit access, supply and demand with dynamic pricing in the mechlab.
- Salvage for component destruction and economically balanced payouts based on contracts
- The return of rearm and repair balanced with salvage and the dynamic economy
- Unit items for base planets
- Treating units like actual assets in game with logistical needs and costs, taxation/tithe functions from members.
- Transportation costs to relocate unit to new fronts.
- Personal contracts (we're talking bonus cash for killing mechwarriors that have contracts put on them from other players

These are all things that PGI has been getting mileage from due to the "Soon^tm" status.

Of course, there needs to be some severely big game fixes too.

2. Elimination of perfect convergence and implement cone of fire or dynamic convergence if at all possible. This isn't a "it would be nice", it's a "do it and I will return" level of fix.

3. Rearm and repair in PQs with salvage bonus and private contracts like in CW.

4. Battle value for matchmaking in the PQ or intel in CW to tip you off on the power of the force you're facing.

5. A real moderating system that is either handled by PGI or the community at large for cheaters and bad actors in the game.

That's what's needed to fix this game. Till then, nope. No more money, no more matches. I watch in hopes PGI will understand this and implement this in some functional and entertaining form.

Of course, I understand this is a wish list, and unsolicited game design that will be ignored, but since nobody asked my opinion and this is the internet, I figured I'd speak up with just as much right and authority as any other player here.

Aka: I expect them to do none of this.

Edited by Kjudoon, 19 May 2015 - 06:52 AM.