104 replies to this topic

[SSSS]

IraqiWalker, on 20 June 2015 - 02:04 AM, said:

100 Games + all 4 mechs in the deck need to be full elites.

LOADED, on 20 June 2015 - 03:08 AM, said:

4 mechs 4 classes 4 playstyles, newbfriendly loadout, unlocked elites.

Enjoy your dead CW.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

fair enough, but those 100 derps have a right to play too. they're not as vocal as as the 5% of "leet" players who think they own a gamemode which wasn't actually made for them alone.

If you don't learn how to work as a team you will always be on the reciving end in CW, every "derp" with at least some working braincells will get that sooner or later.

I also highly doubt that a lot of the oh so skilled player who happen to visit CW only because they can stomp trial pugs with a 12 man premade metasauce will actually stay on CW if said "derps" stay away from CW entirely.

CW isn't a gamemode for selfproclaimed elite players. CW is for community and Trail'mechs, derps, pugs, premades and lonies are all equally part if it.

Matchmaking is at fault too, putting a premade against a full pug is bad.
We would need more premades and even more pugs to set up equal matches. 6 premade vs 6 premade, 12 vs 12, 5 pugs vs 5 pugs. but we simply do not have enough players in CW for it. that is why we should focus on getting as much players into the gamemode as possible, and not how we could look less skilled or less experienced players out of it.

SSSS, on 20 June 2015 - 03:52 AM, said:

Enjoy your dead CW.

Please expain to me why it would be a bad idea to give new players a full functional trail-drop deck.
How would that negatively affect CW?

Edited by LOADED, 20 June 2015 - 04:01 AM.

[IraqiWalker]

LOADED, on 20 June 2015 - 03:57 AM, said:

fair enough, but those 100 derps have a right to play too. they're not as vocal as as the 5% of "leet" players who think they own a gamemode which wasn't actually made for them alone.

If you don't learn how to work as a team you will always be on the reciving end in CW, every "derp" with at least some working braincells will get that sooner or later.

I also highly doubt that a lot of the oh so skilled player who happen to visit CW only because they can stomp trial pugs with a 12 man premade metasauce will actually stay on CW if said "derps" stay away from CW entirely.

CW isn't a gamemode for selfproclaimed elite players. CW is for community and Trail'mechs, derps, pugs, premades and lonies are all equally part if it.

Matchmaking is at fault too, putting a premade against a full pug is bad.
We would need more premades and even more pugs to set up equal matches. 6 premade vs 6 premade, 12 vs 12, 5 pugs vs 5 pugs. but we simply do not have enough players in CW for it. that is why we should focus on getting as much players into the gamemode as possible, and not how we could look less skilled or less experienced players out of it.

Then those derps shouldn't be complaining and whining 24/7 trying to make CW into another public queue.

The problem here is that they refuse to learn the mode, they refuse to work as a team, and still want to win.

SSSS, on 20 June 2015 - 03:52 AM, said:

Enjoy your dead CW.

If a player can't fulfill these SIMPLE requirements, they're not going to be playing MWO to begin with.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 20 June 2015 - 04:00 AM.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

IraqiWalker, on 20 June 2015 - 04:00 AM, said:

Then those derps shouldn't be complaining and whining 24/7 trying to make CW into another public queue.

But CW is a public query, don't mistake it for privat matches.

I don't agree about them not being fitted to complain. they have every right to do so.
(no, not about not winning while playing solo warrior on CW, that's a given of course)
The whole system of Trail'mechs, basic/elite, 3 variants needed to skill with 4 starting mech'bays and godtier modules makes unnecessary difficult for new players to get a foot into CW.

[SSSS]

LOADED, on 20 June 2015 - 03:57 AM, said:

Please expain to me why it would be a bad idea to give new players a full functional trail-drop deck.
How would that negatively affect CW?

Nevermind, I overlooked that "trial" part.

IraqiWalker, on 20 June 2015 - 04:00 AM, said:

If a player can't fulfill these SIMPLE requirements, they're not going to be playing MWO to begin with.

Do you know how much time it takes to get 4 elite mechs without paying?

[IraqiWalker]

LOADED, on 20 June 2015 - 04:10 AM, said:

(no, not about not winning while playing solo warrior on CW, that's a given of course)

Yet that is the CENTER of literally 90% of all complaints I hear from soloists about CW. Especially when it's clear they were derps there.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

IraqiWalker, on 20 June 2015 - 04:13 AM, said:

Yet that is the CENTER of literally 90% of all complaints I hear from soloists about CW. Especially when it's clear they were derps there.

Don't mistake a very loud vocal minority for that what actually happens ingame. Ingame, your average pilot joe joins CW, get's stomped and leaves CW. he doesn't complains and if we're lucky he asked on the forums to why he's so bad on CW, get's better on his own, joins a unit or what not. If we're not lucky, that average joe will never ever set a foot back on CW again.

[IraqiWalker]

SSSS, on 20 June 2015 - 04:13 AM, said:

Do you know how much time it takes to get 4 elite mechs without paying?

Yeah. I do. I mastered 4 mechs before I bought my first Mechbay, and I did it all with 0 premium time, and no hero mechs, or anything like that.

However, that is my ideal situation. At the very least the 4 mechs should have full basics. How about that? It can be done in under 100 drops, even.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 20 June 2015 - 04:20 AM.

[SSSS]

IraqiWalker, on 20 June 2015 - 04:20 AM, said:

Yeah. I do. I mastered 4 mechs before I bought my first Mechbay, and I did it all with 0 premium time, and no hero mechs, or anything like that.

However, that is my ideal situation. At the very least the 4 mechs should have full basics. How about that? It can be done in under 100 drops, even.

Fine by me.

[Simbacca]

Tywren, on 19 June 2015 - 07:11 PM, said:

So your solution to an underpopulated CW, is to keep people out of CW? Let me guess, you also think you can spend your way out of debt, and **** your way into being a virgin, right?

What we have currently is not working.

TWIAFU, on 20 June 2015 - 02:46 AM, said:

I find it funny that solo/casual/non unit players claimed they could not or did not win because they did not have the tools to put them on even footing. Now that they have those tools, and do not use them, they must come up with more excuses why it is everyone else's problem that they are not winning.

During the Battle of Tukayyid event, I played for Clan Wolf. While doing so I won almost all the matches. In every one of those victories I noticed the same problems with InnerSphere players as I posted at the thread start.

While only a handful of individuals use VOIP (my experience generally 2 to 4 players on team [including me]) - and yes it is a contributing factor, that alone does not explain as to the dismal performance of some players. I have noticed some players with such low scores generally burn through their drop deck quickly. In some cases in little as 10 minutes. This to me indicates that their kit and skill is not yet forged.

[Cyborx]

LOADED, on 20 June 2015 - 04:17 AM, said:

Don't mistake a very loud vocal minority for that what actually happens ingame. Ingame, your average pilot joe joins CW, get's stomped and leaves CW. he doesn't complains and if we're lucky he asked on the forums to why he's so bad on CW, get's better on his own, joins a unit or what not. If we're not lucky, that average joe will never ever set a foot back on CW again.

let me summarize:
Option1 : he joins a unit and returns to CW. nice!
option2 : he leaves CW and maybe MWO forever.

advise: Avoid this Option 2! Let them grow in public queue before
their interest and ambitions get burned to ashes.

Thx for sharing our concerns! :-)

Edited by Cyborx, 20 June 2015 - 09:18 AM.

[ArchAngelWC]

Simbacca, on 19 June 2015 - 04:57 PM, said:

For this Summer Heat Event (which I liked the free stuff), it is undeniable that the InnerSphere teams I played on were constantly loosing (only 1 win out of all the drops) due to:
=Trial Mechs
=Really Green Mechwarriors

I suggestion that a player needs 150 drops in solo or group queue before being permitted into CW. That way they have experience especially against Clan mechs, and hopefully have a decent drop deck of fully elited (or mastered) mechs.

Hopefully this will balance the teams better or the very least stop the unending slaughter.

So wait....Your noobs and people who dont care about CW are running shat mechs and builds with possibly unmastered mechs in CW....

EBJ/EXE's cost us 3 days worth of attacks till we finally stopped screwing the pooch and got rolling again

Edited by ArchAngelWC, 20 June 2015 - 09:02 AM.

[Tywren]

Jumping Gigolo, on 19 June 2015 - 11:05 PM, said:

I agree with Cyborx. Rookies should be better off playing public matches than go straight to CW with trial mechs. I also agree with the CW-access criteria thing. Here's what I have in mind:

1. All players will have to unlock CW mode by playing pub games. An "experience bar" should be filled up so you can unlock CW mode. I suggest this experience bar is based on accumulated public match points.

2. Players with accounts starting from June 1, 2015 onwards will have to unlock CW mode. All the rest has theirs unlocked already.

3. Furthermore on #1, I suggest 3 thing to unlocks:

3.1) the ability to get invited in a CW group. Unlocking this will enable you to "LFG" for CW group. You can be able to play CW as long you are in a group. You must rack up 7,000 total public match points to unlock this feature.

3.2) the ability to create a CW group. A CW should have at least 4 players in it before you can launch. You must rack up 8,500 total public match points to unlock this feature.

3.3) the ability to solo drop at CW. There are really good solo players out. Its either they are really innate good PC gamers or are really veteran Battlech/old Mechwarrior gamers they can gel with anyone in CW and perform great without the need of formal comms. I've seen pugs who actually lead mix groups in several CW matches and won. But to unlock this feature you should rack up 10,000 public match points.

By the time a player unlocked the first CW feature he must have farmed enough and have a decent dropdeck and gained enough basic experience i.e. locking targets, moving with the group without stopping in the middle of the gate, focusing fire, efficient mechbuilding, not chasing that light mech... things like those.


Furthermore, I suggest PGI should make CW games "more interesting and rewarding" aside from getting free mechbays and rewards from faction loyalties. I can't think of anything at the moment but I feel CW games should have more incentives.

No, no, no, no, no ,no, no!

Somehow there are people who think this is going to swell CW numbers, but it won't!

As an example as to why it won't work, lets say i'm a member of a small group of friends (actual friends, not some over bloated, 500 person conglomerate) who normally drop 4 man groups a few times a week. Now one day we get a new player in the ranks. Do you really think we're going to say "good luck in the pub que, see you when you unlock CW"? No, i, and my small group are going to drop out of CW to play with the guy you're excluding, so you're not loosing 1 play, you're loosing 5. That's almost half a drop worth of people who could be speeding up that 20 min wait time.

It's a stupid idea.

Now, if PGI where to start implementing Elo in CW, and worlds were given value, then you could have "priority targets" where you need a certain Elo rank to drop on a given world. That way new players would be dropping on low value targets with smaller payouts while the vets with more skill, have the option to drop on the important worlds with larger rewards.

Now, in this system a vets could play on lower priority world, but their (the vet's not the team as a whole) payout in C-Bills, XP, and LP will be reduced. The higher the Elo difference, the greater the reduction. This will allow them to play with lower Elo friends who are more casual, as well and lead new recruits in training, but discourage forming groups just to go pug stomping. Likewise these higher Elo vets will provide bonuses to XP, C-Bills, and LP for the newer players for damage, component destruction, and kills against them, so if a group of stompers do show up, it will still be in the new players interest to play things out, just to rake in those bonus points for doing the best they can.

Edited by Tywren, 20 June 2015 - 01:55 PM.

[xWiredx]

Congrats on being the umpteenth person to suggest this and get nowhere with it but stirring up really old debates, OP.

Would it be nice to require at least some exposure to the game before joining CW? Yes. I think the end of the cadet bonus should be enough. Yes, those players will still probably be less effective than seasoned players, but denying them for too long will just make them leave. PGI could also do some work on the matchmaker for CW to attempt to piece teams together based on average matches played per group, too. Are either of these suggestions realistic considering the low population? No. At this point, the population will take every spare member it can get.

[Appogee]

I don't know what to do about it, but something has to be done before it also keeps experienced players away from CW.

I just top-scored on my IS team in a CW match (8 kills 2300 damage) piloting three unElited and one unBasiced non-meta Mechs with no strikes.

It wasn't due to my being particularly good. It was that two-thirds of the players I dropped with were so bad.

I mean, really teeth-grindingly bad, standing at the back the entire match, hiding, peeking occasionally. It didn't matter how much I exhorted them to move up, either typing or VOIP, they just stood there. And the closer the enemy got, the more they ran away. At the end, evening though we'd kept the O-gens alive until the final 5 minutes, they ran all the way back to the base spawn and stayed with the drop ships as the enemy surrounded Omega.

It's just awful spending a half hour trying to carry that level of derp. I logged out after that game and went for a walk.

Edited by Appogee, 20 June 2015 - 11:16 AM.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

Cyborx, on 20 June 2015 - 08:57 AM, said:

let me summarize:
Option1 : he joins a unit and returns to CW. nice!
option2 : he leaves CW and maybe MWO forever.

advise: Avoid this Option 2! Let them grow in public queue before
their interest and ambitions get burned to ashes.

Thx for sharing our concerns! :-)

But you don't learn what you would need in the pubilc queue, that's just pugs fighting pugs.
new players getting lured into CW for the mechbays. which is wrong as of now.

[IraqiWalker]

Tywren, on 20 June 2015 - 10:58 AM, said:

No, no, no, no, no ,no, no!

Somehow there are people who think this is going to swell CW numbers, but it won't!

As an example as to why it won't work, lets say i'm a member of a small group of friends (actual friends, not some over bloated, 500 person conglomerate) who normally drop 4 man groups a few times a week. Now one day we get a new player in the ranks. Do you really think we're going to say "good luck in the pub que, see you when you unlock CW"? No, i, and my small group are going to drop out of CW to play with the guy you're excluding, so you're not loosing 1 play, you're loosing 5. That's almost half a drop worth of people who could be speeding up that 20 min wait time.

It's a stupid idea.

Now, if PGI where to start implementing Elo in CW, and worlds were given value, then you could have "priority targets" where you need a certain Elo rank to drop on a given world. That way new players would be dropping on low value targets with smaller payouts while the vets with more skill, have the option to drop on the important worlds with larger rewards.

Now, in this system a vets could play on lower priority world, but their (the vet's not the team as a whole) payout in C-Bills, XP, and LP will be reduced. The higher the Elo difference, the greater the reduction. This will allow them to play with lower Elo friends who are more casual, as well and lead new recruits in training, but discourage forming groups just to go pug stomping. Likewise these higher Elo vets will provide bonuses to XP, C-Bills, and LP for the newer players for damage, component destruction, and kills against them, so if a group of stompers do show up, it will still be in the new players interest to play things out, just to rake in those bonus points for doing the best they can.

Here's the mistake with your calculation:

This might drop CW numbers in the short run, but adding some kind of restriction to prevent new players from entering CW will:

1- provide consistent gameplay in CW, at least more consistent than now

2- Ends up actually increasing the numbers of CW, because once your buddy is done with his requirements, he's gonna want to try this CW mode you guys were playing very often until he arrived.

3- reduces the drop rate from CW, because now people have the understanding that it DOES require more skill, even different skills, and higher end mechs to perform well in there. Instead of walking into it, thinking it's like any other mode. Get burned to cinders, and never try it again, and if we're lucky, still play MW:O.

The difference here is that we're looking at the long term, not the short term, profit. I don't really care if we have to struggle through 3 months of low population numbers, before they start growing. It's infinitely better than a short swell in numbers, followed by a massive drop within a couple of months.

That's the main difference between what you're thinking of, and what we're thinking of. We're going for the long term profit, which inevitably has a better pay out.

Two more points:

1- You 4 are not going to be lost from CW, because you'll still play it when you can, and don't have your 5th around

2- Even if you do do drop, you're coming back with a 5th, so in the long term, we gained another player. Not to mention that unlike most players coming newly into this mode, he'll be able to work with your group REALLY well. Since he had to do drops with you guys dozens of times.

TL;DR: Our solution focuses on the long term health of the mode. It clearly can survive on life support for months on end, and that should be enough time for us to get fresh blood, with higher expectations into the mode, without annihilating new players, and turning them off of CW, an possibly MWO.

[Tywren]

IraqiWalker, on 20 June 2015 - 04:13 PM, said:

Here's the mistake with your calculation:

This might drop CW numbers in the short run, but adding some kind of restriction to prevent new players from entering CW will:

1- provide consistent gameplay in CW, at least more consistent than now

2- Ends up actually increasing the numbers of CW, because once your buddy is done with his requirements, he's gonna want to try this CW mode you guys were playing very often until he arrived.

3- reduces the drop rate from CW, because now people have the understanding that it DOES require more skill, even different skills, and higher end mechs to perform well in there. Instead of walking into it, thinking it's like any other mode. Get burned to cinders, and never try it again, and if we're lucky, still play MW:O.

The difference here is that we're looking at the long term, not the short term, profit. I don't really care if we have to struggle through 3 months of low population numbers, before they start growing. It's infinitely better than a short swell in numbers, followed by a massive drop within a couple of months.

That's the main difference between what you're thinking of, and what we're thinking of. We're going for the long term profit, which inevitably has a better pay out.

Two more points:

1- You 4 are not going to be lost from CW, because you'll still play it when you can, and don't have your 5th around

2- Even if you do do drop, you're coming back with a 5th, so in the long term, we gained another player. Not to mention that unlike most players coming newly into this mode, he'll be able to work with your group REALLY well. Since he had to do drops with you guys dozens of times.

TL;DR: Our solution focuses on the long term health of the mode. It clearly can survive on life support for months on end, and that should be enough time for us to get fresh blood, with higher expectations into the mode, without annihilating new players, and turning them off of CW, an possibly MWO.

Ok, and does the target priority system i proposed not also do the exact same thing?

Also, you mentioned needing different skills in CW, and this is true. Wouldn't it be a better idea to teach people how to play CW from the ground up by playing CW, instead of having to break bad habits they picked up in pub que? Wouldn't it better for them to learn from their first battle that shoehorning in as many LRMs as possible isn't a working strategy when facing a proliferation of countermeasures, or that builds with high damage output, but artificially short lifespans like a BoomCat, are ineffective in the longer, drawn out battles of CW?

Edited by Tywren, 20 June 2015 - 06:09 PM.

[IraqiWalker]

Tywren, on 20 June 2015 - 06:09 PM, said:

Ok, and does the target priority system i proposed not also do the exact same thing?

Also, you mentioned needing different skills in CW, and this is true. Wouldn't it be a better idea to teach people how to play CW from the ground up by playing CW, instead of having to break bad habits they picked up in pub que? Wouldn't it better for them to learn from their first battle that shoehorning in as many LRMs as possible isn't a working strategy when facing a proliferation of countermeasures, or that builds with high damage output, but artificially short lifespans like a BoomCat, are ineffective in the longer, drawn out battles of CW?

Technically it would help, but CW comes with a much higher skill floor to begin with. So it's better they learn to pilot a mech, and build a mech in the public queue. The only skills that exist in CW, and don't really get learned as well in CW are teamwork skills, and if you use the group queue, you can train those effectively. Getting a pilot that doesn't know how to set up weapon groups yet into CW is bad, on every account.

Not to mention that at least in the public queue there's Elo matching that helps lessen the blow of running into better mechs. You're also more likely to run into mechs that aren't optimized out the wazoo in the public queue. People will run non-meta builds, people will run derp builds, and will even run troll builds in the public queue. In CW, none of that should happen.

So you teach the new players in the public queue, because it's like being at the gym, you can spar, you can train, and you can try anything crazy you want. You don't get a rookie and toss them into the olympics, when don't even know the basic stance yet.

You also don't train new pilots in the middle of a very competitive battlefield. Even though the planets are technically inconsequential, your teammates will still be very pissed off if they lose, because they had 3 or 4 pilots on the team that needed to be hand held, needed to be told how to disable 3PV, how to chain fire, and what torso twisting is.

So in short: No, it wouldn't be better to train them in CW itself.

The public queue is where people go with their training wheels, and where they practice new things. CW is where they go to compete, and see how much they've improved.

I'll give you a real life example that works with this situation:

Should a white belt, who had just joined the dojo be put in a duel against black belt? NO!

The guy doesn't even know the rules yet, let alone how to kick and punch.

You don't train the white belt by tossing him at the black belts every day, unless you're training him in how to get his @ss kicked. No, you show him how the moves are done. You let him train by himself, maybe against a training dummy, and once the white belt passes the tests required of them, they can move up in rank, rinse repeat, until they are a black belt and can compete against other black belts.

So what we need is:

1- Tutorials

2- Entry restrictions for CW (at least 100 matches, all 4 mechs with full basics at least)

3- More recorded matches of CW for new players to see.

4- a Mentor mode, where I can help teach a new player how to do things, without needing to sink premium time, and costing them their 1 day of premium time.

Not to mention your suggestion of Elo dropping in CW randomizes which planets we're hitting, and invalidates any choice the players have of what they want to fight for. We're restricted enough as is in CW. Now I'm gonna wonder if I'm dropping on a defense mission for the FRR, when I want to hit Marik, or that we'll lose a planet because we have only low Elo pilots defending a Davion world?

Randomization in a competitive environment is NEVER good. Especially when it comes to player choice.

I think part of the problem is that people expect CW to overtake the public queue. It never will, and it never should. If we end up with more people playing in the competitive queue than in the public queue then something has gone horribly, HORRIBLY wrong.

[Dirk Le Daring]

Livewyr, on 19 June 2015 - 05:51 PM, said:

25 games group queue? (This one is iffy because the moment you require someone to be come part of the community in some way, in order to play community warfare, the casuals begin to vibrate vigorously.)

Not a bad idea 50/25, and remember there is the LFG function now.