111 replies to this topic

[cellestron]

I've been trying CW off and on for about a week. Here is a relatively new solo players perspective:

I keep seeing post upon post about "teaming up" and "coordinating". And my personal favorite "the tools are there". sorry they are not there. In a week sitting in Steiner LFG I have received exactly ONE group invite. Faction chat is dead no communication at all. A simple "avoid such and such wold it is being camped by a clan team" would go a long way to easing frustrations. No units use it for recruiting? For anything?

TS doesn't count. you can't rely on forums for critical information like that. A lot of good players won't visit the forums due to gaming forums being too toxic. And really if TS is that critical why have I not seen, not once, someone post the server info in Faction Chat? The few times I checked out Steiner TS it was empty anyway. Assuming of course I had the right server.

Not that I am blaming the players. If coordination and teamwork are so vital to CW then the game designers need to come up with better ways to make that happen. I think the number of solo players who would be willing to be a part of a team are much much higher than some think, if doing so was a little more accesible.


The few matches I played in that were something close to competitive were actually a lot of fun. But I won't be back solo. Only if I can find a unit or group that is actually playing CW.

Edited by cellestron, 22 June 2015 - 07:29 PM.

[KinLuu]

cellestron, on 22 June 2015 - 07:21 PM, said:

Faction chat is dead no communication at all.

Praise Clan Jade Falcon, greatest of the clans! Were faction chat is used on a regular basis, to transmit information from the groups to the solo players.

[Koshirou]

cellestron, on 22 June 2015 - 07:21 PM, said:

I keep seeing post upon post about "teaming up" and "coordinating". And my personal favorite "the tools are there". sorry they are not there. In a week sitting in Steiner LFG I have received exactly ONE group invite. Faction chat is dead no communication at all. A simple "avoid such and such wold it is being camped by a clan team" would go a long way to easing frustrations. No units use it for recruiting? For anything?

TS doesn't count. you can't rely on forums for critical information like that. A lot of good players won't visit the forums due to gaming forums being too toxic. And really if TS is that critical why have I not seen, not once, someone post the server info in Faction Chat? The few times I checked out Steiner TS it was empty anyway. Assuming of course I had the right server.

Well, the tools are there. People just don't use them. It sounds like the situation is very similar to the one we have in Kurita: Loyalist, experienced players have simply mostly given up on CW in frustration (and not so loyalist, experienced players have deserted the house for the greater rewards on the clan side), and so there is no one left who could be arsed to guide new players.

Edited by Koshirou, 22 June 2015 - 11:38 PM.

[Black Ivan]

Sometime there were some very good ideas posted

by Warchild Corsair:
http://mwomercs.com/...35#entry4479735

[Vellron2005]

Here's yet another "make CW better" idea..

Ok, so CW should be about conquering planets, right? So, why, instead of arena-based combat, does it not give us ACTUAL realistic objectives that would happen when you'r trying to conquer a planet?

Objectives like:

Defend / Destroy the orbital cannon
Defend / Destroy military instalations such as mech factory, munitions depot, valurable bridge and such.
Defend / Destroy Communications network
Evacuate / Capture VIP targets such as scientists, polititians, hero pilots, and such.
Conquer / Defend a supply route such as a major road, railway, airfield, spaceport, harbor or bridge

Most or even all of these game modes would not require the defenders to hide behid a great wall protected by gates, but would give realistic battle conditions, mobile defenders, time-limited objectives, and great depth and immersion. back this up with battlefront news and in-depth planet info, and letting the pilots know exactly what map they are dropping on BEFORE mech dropdeck selection, and CW would indeed be what it needs to be...

Planetary Conquest mode.

Edit:

Let's say that instead a fix number of "matches" per planet, each planet would get a fixed number of "objectives" that need to be done to conquer it. Eg. Conquer a vital spaceport, capture a certain number of VIP's, destroy the orbital cannon, destroy the mechworks, and destroy three vital bridges.

Also, this number and variation of objectives could be unique to every planet, visible to all players beforehand, and every conquered planet could give faction specific bonuses such as 5% off on all assoult mechs, 10% increased dropdeck tonnage and such.. Unique for each planet. (The dev's would balance this)

Some planets could be designated "Vital" and could have better bonuses and need more objectives to take..

Some bonuses would be "if you hold these planets" than you get this bonus, so holding several special planets would give better bonuses and such.. varieties are endless!

Edited by Vellron2005, 23 June 2015 - 01:42 AM.

[TWIAFU]

madhermit, on 21 June 2015 - 08:45 AM, said:

The group sizes need to be equally matched. I don't understand how people can rationalize/justify/argue that 10man organized group vs 12 total randoms is fair. If the game doesn't have the population to support a fair matching that aren't completely disheartening the moment you drop in then maybe PGI shouldve thought twice before attempting to put such content in a game.

I can't enjoy a game where I face the concentrated firepower of surgical precision by organized 10 man team the moment I take a peek over any obstacle and get subsequently annihilated and stomped by them. It'd be fair if my team was like that but it isn't. It can't be without organization. And I'm not looking forward to herding bunch of people I don't know who won't listen anyway. At this point people advice me to join a unit. Well I'm not looking for a 2nd job with mandatory activity even when I don't feel like it. After this, people just tell me not to play CW. Well, that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm not playing a gamemode that is borderline unplayable to a solo dropper. Apparently there are many like me and consequently CW remains rather unpopular and unpopulated.

Another BS excuse to have someone else do for you what you can do for yourself but are to GD lazy to do. At least you can TRY to give the appearance of honesty and facts.

Thats a shocker! The game mode clearly stated it is for GROUPS and you are having problems SOLO. DUH!

Solo players in CW are the RedShirts of Star Trek. You are there to fill up the odd 11 man group. You want to enjoy the GROUP part of the game, JOIN A GROUP. Use any one of the several tools asked for by solo players, given to them, and now do not use.

You want fair, stick to your pure pug nascar lemming drops where everyone is [Redacted]

Edited by Rhazien, 23 June 2015 - 08:50 AM.
Flaming

[madhermit]

TWIAFU, on 23 June 2015 - 03:13 AM, said:

Thats a shocker! The game mode clearly stated it is for GROUPS and you are having problems SOLO. DUH!

You want fair, stick to your pure pug nascar lemming drops where everyone is [Redacted]

Explain then why is it possible for solo players to queue up to CW? Where is it stated that CW is meant for unit play? Are you part of MWO devteam? Or are you just trolling with your narrow minded opinion acting like everyone should do as you do?

They want CW to be about groups? Then why don't they make it about groups? Right now it is about everyone but failing to do so because solo players are pitted against grouped teams. This thread is about why CW is bad and why people don't play it. People are saying they don't want to join a unit because the responsibilities and duties involved in being in one far outweight the rewards. How about getting off that high horse with your BS opinion about "too lazy". [Redacted] If they want to make it a job, like it currently it is, I won't play it and neither will many others. I don't really care even though it saddens me to see such potential like Mechwarrior go to waste. This discussion was about WHY people don't play it and discussing about possible solutions. You are not telling why people don't play and have so far offered one single solution: Join a unit.

[Redacted]

And you wonder why CW is unpopulated. Hopefully for you the steam release will give birth to hundreds of successfull units because otherwise CW will remain a ghosttown.

Edited by Rhazien, 23 June 2015 - 08:51 AM.
Language, Flaming

[madhermit]

Koshirou, on 22 June 2015 - 11:38 PM, said:

Well, the tools are there. People just don't use them. It sounds like the situation is very similar to the one we have in Kurita: Loyalist, experienced players have simply mostly given up on CW in frustration (and not so loyalist, experienced players have deserted the house for the greater rewards on the clan side), and so there is no one left who could be arsed to guide new players.

Sorry but there are no tools for group forming in MWO. There is A TOOL called LFG that hardly anyone uses. I miss the old days when games used to have chat lobbies integrated in them. A public lobby system combined with chat rooms would go a long way in this matter. People logging in would automatically connect and join the chat rooms and lobbies.

Or maybe there are more tools that I don't know of? In that case it is pretty easy thing to miss. Really makes me sad to see how assbackwards this game has been developed. It's just shameless moneygrabbing with the constant spam of mechs with no real increase in gaming content.

Edited by madhermit, 23 June 2015 - 08:12 AM.

[Konphujun]

Waiting 15 minutes for a match is the biggest problem. No matter how much people want to puff their chests out and act like CW is somehow "better" than regular matches, people can get into a regular match in a fraction of the time it takes to get into CW, and until that changes, it will never have the largest part of the playerbase.

Someone suggested a "Join first available battle" button in CW. That would be fantastic. Don't make people wait ages for a match and they'll be more inclined to play it.

[GeistHrafn]

Some good points and ideas made in this thread, please keep it civil folks!

[Tom Sawyer]

Been shouted from the roof tops to the valleys beyond.......

Does PGI even listen? I have been in a few town hall meetings. For me at least every time a hardball question came up it got the uhhhh we will look into that answer

Big walls, Big gun, Big stompy robots, rinse repeat.

Oh have you seen our latest mech bundle? You should buy it, its awesome

[Malcolm Vordermark]

madhermit, on 23 June 2015 - 08:10 AM, said:

Sorry but there are no tools for group forming in MWO. There is A TOOL called LFG that hardly anyone uses.

The LFG tool, CW faction chat, match chat, the faction and merc recruitment forums on this site, community made recruitment sites, and community team speak servers.

It only takes a minimal amount of effort to find a group in this game.

[Surn]

I developed and ran a resource based planetary league for about 10 years....I posted 50 ways to make cw better in the forums with no response. At the very least allow the api to create cw games and let other people give meaning to cw. I know that i can give cw meaning...and i have a proof of concept.

[Kin3ticX]

Rhazien, on 23 June 2015 - 08:54 AM, said:

Some good points and ideas made in this thread, please keep it civil folks!

Yeah folks, lets avoid getting nonconstructive and toxic leading to needing moderation.

Just as a periodic recap, this is what seems to be the general concerns

• Stomps (groups stomping solos, stronger units stomping weaker units, driving players from the game mode): Some people want some form of MM which limits 12 solos from facing a large groups. I am not sure how PGI can do this.
  
• Wait times, Low population, perhaps too many factions / pools, Players Leaving or Burned out

• Basic entry requirements to participate in CW. Prevent absolutely brand new players from getting rekt-o-rama'd in CW. Suggest starting with requiring 100 drops in the regular queues.

• No official CW tutorial, More solos than we realize, players that need resources don't find their way to CW forums to locate guides, hubs, units. Apparently new players and solos rarely check forums. For those that do check the forums, we could organize things better to funnel players towards the information they need. (faction hubs, active units, community-made guides, all in a streamlined sticky of its own) Any mods willing to team up with me on this? I am willing to type up a short all-in-one guide if need be. Still have not been able to get this pinned http://mwomercs.com/...-warfare-guide/

• The combat part: Some players unhappy with "glorified skirmish", the objectives, and map design. Its a commonly mentioned topic but there are also wildly different expectations voiced by the community. Perhaps what is needed here is communication from PGI regarding their decision to go with gates, chokepoints, and lanes. I suspect it was meant to prevent walking for several minutes without getting to fights, keeping matches down to 30 min, and preventing an all or nothing ERLL+Gauss meta(I could easily be wrong about that).

• The faction map part: Best to wait for Russ's phase 3 roadmap. (4vs4 may be used to alter attack lanes, coffer functionality improvements, turret upgrades?, etc)

Edited by Kin3ticX, 24 June 2015 - 06:55 AM.

[AlphaToaster]

The map design with regards to the gate generator placement sets the bar for overall tactical complexity rather low. I feel with such a low bar, it sets the precedent that every other remaining objective towards destroying Omega should be as equally devoid of any tactical insight or forethought. This overly simplistic gameplay leads to boredom rather quickly for those seeking more depth to the battles.

I say make the gates the first real challenge in MWO. Put the gate generators out of LOS from the attackers, bring them back to a safe place inside the gate. Force a wave of jump capable mechs to clear the wall and make a fast assault on the gate generators. This would put LRM support on the table for the attackers. This would put AMS on the table for defenders. I would allow the gate generator to be hit by arty/airstrikes but make it require many direct hits, and limit the places where someone can indirectly target it from outside the gate. Like a wall or mountain which can be targeted and the damage still hits the generator. Say the elevated places where attackers stand now, use those LOS points to determine where the strike would need to be placed, but don't allow direct fire.

The first major part of the battle should be over opening the gates, so lets make it something with some substance. I think all the tactics employed by attackers and defenders would be healthy for new players and would cause players to have to coordinate their drop decks. Attacking the gate generator would become a role to fill in every drop that requires someone to specialize.

Edited by AlphaToaster, 23 June 2015 - 02:16 PM.

[NGxT]

I just want to mention that the new spawns have unbalanced some maps in very bad ways. Namely boreal and Cybertron, the defenders spawn so far that they can't get to the gates to set up defenses before the attackers can get the gate down and start getting inside

[Sodapop]

The main thing that has disappointed me with regards to CW has been a lack of a logistic element. Maybe I set myself up for being disappointed, but, after coming from NBT in MW4, I was really hoping it would be kinda like that.

[Wildstreak]

Criticisms of CW.

#1 - Respawns.
Not just in this game. Respawns lead to spawn camping lead to other stuff that just ruins any game. Not realistic and bad game design. Eliminate respawns, let death mean something. People play differently when faced with the truth that if they die, they are dead compared to the unrealistic suicide runs knowing another Mech waits in the hanger after the Magic Rebirth.
Yes this will shorten match time, honestly we wait around long enough as it is just to get in a match.
Yes, this will mean changes to bases in Invasion. Assault is more fun than Invasion and I see base capping happening more in the Usual Queue, not always but often enough.

#2 - Not New Player Friendly.
Then keep them out. Make a requirement you cannot play unless you use Mastered Mechs. So you need 4 Mastered Mechs for a Drop Deck, don't have 4 Mastered Mechs within tonnage limits? Sorry, no CW for you. That should be a good barrier to new folk using trial Mechs or those with newly purchased Mechs still learning.

#3 - No More Ghost Drops.
Really, if a group of attackers has no defenders, just set it to end the match without a fight, auto-win, move on.

#4 - Rank the Teams.
We have separate Elo rankings for Solo and Group in Usual Queue, assign a rank system to CW. PUGs ALWAYS have a rank of 0. Then allow people somehow to see the ranks of groups waiting at a planet and match up ranked teams.

#5 - Set Certain Planets to 4v4.
When it comes out, some planets should only be 4v4 fights. Not all planets had equal value so why send an entire 12 man there? This is a simpler way of how in military engagements both real and fictional, you do not always send big important units to every combat location. Would shorten queue times at some locations. Said planets can also have a new mode(s), no need for bases.

#6 - Token System Rewards.
Lots of games use special tokens as alternate currency for special items. Bring in Faction tokens, use as rewards for playing a Faction, either only for Loyalists or give them a boost in Token rewards. Faction tokens allow purchase of special Faction things.
Mercs do NOT need tokens for their Factions perhaps not even need Token rewards at all, Mercs already have an advantage no Faction has, switch sides, rank up in that Faction, gain their Achievement bonuses. Really, Loyalists are hurting now compared to Mercs, there is no incentive to be a Loyalist.

#7 - Boreal Vault aka the Shooting Duck Gallery.
I have played on a couple of the maps, explored the others. Really, only this map has a problem that being the Defenders can just shoot down the attackers with ease. Those long corridors with no obstacles make it easy. Flip it around or something.

#8 - Player Attitudes Regarding Mechs.
Yes, I understand frustration at bringing Trial Mechs. I am sure there are suggestions like #2 to keep new people out even though there are now votes being given for new, community created and approved Trial Mechs.
Thing is, demanding players only run a small poll of Mechs with certain builds is going to far. The community cannot just limit any player to a very small number of Mechs to play and only with certain builds. The community should be attempting and putting more effort into making other Mechs useful so there can be a larger group of Mechs usable creating more variety and interesting gameplay. That is onle of the reasons some people left CW, they got tired of hearing how they should only play with certain Mechs & builds. If need be, get a ranking system like #4 or something.

Edited by Wildstreak, 23 June 2015 - 02:57 PM.

[Gorgo7]

Current populations of the southern states is too small.

[Catalina Steiner]

Wildstreak, on 23 June 2015 - 02:57 PM, said:

#4 - Rank the Teams.
We have separate Elo rankings for Solo and Group in Usual Queue, assign a rank system to CW. PUGs ALWAYS have a rank of 0. Then allow people somehow to see the ranks of groups waiting at a planet and match up ranked teams.

I know it's not the topic, so just a short statement: I don't think so. We have different Elo values for all four classes.