111 replies to this topic

[Kin3ticX]

Everyone, Unit Ldrs/members, Solos, And Inactives. What Are Your Top Cw Criticisms, Compliments, Suggestions(Not Just For Pgi But For The Community)


Just like to start this off with the community puts community in Community Warfare. It's not all on PGI but there is always room for constructive feedback/criticism.

I am calling on everyone to make themselves heard.

These are just some community warfare issues that I have heard or thought about but you may have others to discuss which I missed here.



Low population, wait times, pools, empty planets, shortage of IS players
Seems like CW is slowing down bigtime and people are quitting for various reasons. Could be burnout, frustration, or just waiting for new features. Empty queues and wait times are a big one I suppose.



Tired of repetitive skirmish mode with MOBA lanes, gates, and chokepoints
This is a tricky one because I think its impossible to take the meatgrinder out of MWO. What do people expect here? Both sides have 48 mechs to fight with and all they can do is move and shoot. Did people think they were going to run around in stock Raven-3Ls and do tabletop roleplay or something? Base rushing got abused as much as it possibly could so now that has been nerfed again. The objective is still there but you have to fight harder to work the base objectives.

Regarding map design, I see a lot of criticism in the forums. If we had wide open maps, the attrition standoffs would be even worse. If you think you hate the current "cookie cutter"(i hate it when people invoke cookie cutter so much, especially when they do 297 damage and I offer to help) meta, wait until you get a load of big open maps where you can pick your loadout. At least with some choke points and gates we see mostly intermediate attrition LPL, LL, ERML, Gauss, and have a chance for some close quarters weapons to work too.


People tired of losing, tired of stomping, tired of stacked teams, and want a match maker to make it fair.

There seems to be a general community stubbornness over adapting to the CW learning curve and a refusal to mimic successful players or units. There are a good deal of solos with no units or participation in faction hubs.

Again with the community thing. PGI isn't going to hold your hands through this. If you are the underdog, stop repeating the same stuff that doesn't work. If you don't know what works, start with emulating someone else that does know what works.

I suggested to some struggling players that they should check out my CW guide. The one that said "No Thanks" did 297 damage. I wonder if people realize they have 4 mechs sometimes.

CW needs a mandatory tutorial so badly it almost hurts.

Regarding a matchmaker: These pool sizes make Elo impossible. CW is about factions and planetary control and was meant to be more hardcore than the previous parts. It's not the "I don't give a bleep I just want 2 mechbays mode."

Maybe PGI will make adjustments but the players need to up their game too. I mean, there certainly is room for players to grow right? I see LRM Atlases(plz stahp), stock throwback bracket builds, random experiment mix of the day carnival builds, or worse(yes there is worse, I saw an Awesome-8Q w/ 1 PPC). There is nothing PGI can do to make generalist throwback builds stand toe to toe with tier 1 and 2 specialist customs.


Burnout, Lack of depth, players want reasons to take planets, unit coffer/expenses/dropships/economy?
Some people are burned out, maybe just taking a break until phase 3 or major updates. I think most of this gets improved in phase 3 but we don't have any details yet. What is anyone even hoping is in phase 3 anyways? Turret upgrades, planetary rewards, merc unit contracts? What is important for depth on the faction map rather than in the combat portion?



Should CW have any basic prerequisites like finishing 75 drops or something?
That is like 8-10 hours of play just so they can get their first mech, try the mechlab, and get familiar with handling and weapon groups down.









Anyways, if you have other related stuff about CW that you want to discuss, do it.

Edited by Catalina Steiner, 23 June 2015 - 05:45 PM.

[white0Fox]

Good Post,no MM, 12er vs PUG's (in bad Trail's), thats the reason for many boring Games.

But its a Beta in a early stage of development, faaaaar away from final......

The Community have many good ideas to make CW better, but PGI ignore it.
Its frustraiting to talk about it, look at the last changes in CW, that says all.

Edited by white0Fox, 20 June 2015 - 04:00 AM.

[Mr Hunter]

• The main thing that annoys me is the fact that they seem to be portraying it as "end game" and the still let newbies with trials play (not hating on rookies here)
  
• This ones aimed at the community VOIP, use it! Press CAPS LOCK say your piece, don't rage that will just get you muted, then let your finger off the button and return to killing whomever's shooting you .
  
• Very rare is the match that everyone enjoys, the way cw was intended to work. Normally its either a roll or it just kinda stagnates...
  
• Very few people play anymore, the early stages of Beta 1 were kind of a disaster, they defenders just stacked big assaults at the gen and the attacker just rushed lights. Yeah, needless to say this scared off quite a few people...

Edited by B8hunter, 20 June 2015 - 04:09 AM.

[Kristen Redmond]

Needs a "join first battle" button to shorten queue times

[VATER]

It lacks depth imho.
Why not add strategic points, like i.E. a destructable fully usable mechbay for each team, that has to be unlocked. Lets say via a conquestpoint. Then you have an additional objective to kripple the OPFOR and an additional spot to be defended.
One additional strategic dropzone for the attacker, like a bridgehead.
Place the bases in a way, that makes them attackable from all 4 directions, that way the defenders have to keep mobile.
You could do so many things, that would put depth into the current CW...a lot of things that were implemented in former MW Games already.
On a sidenote: Alpine Peaks would make an amazing CW map.

[KinLuu]

Criticism:

There is no way to end a counterattack (or a invasion game as defender) early. You HAVE to grind through all 48 enemy mechs. This is a horrible situation for the losing team, as their morale probably was already shattered and they might have already lost their best drops. This was the reason spawncamping happened.
And spawncamping is horrible and should not happen, because it drives away players - and there are not enough players in CW to begin with.
There needs to be a way to end games early. Either by an objective of some kind, or by giving the losing team the option to surrender.

Suggestion (stolen from teh GMAN):

give dropships regular larges instead of ERs
have spawns be behind a rock formation or whatever so you cant be hit
have a dropship which is permanently near attacker's spawns with twice as much hp as omega, and when it dies defenders win

Criticism:

PUGs and groups are thrown into the same queue.

Suggestion:

Split the queues, like it was done for the normal queue. Incentivice grouping by boosting rewards in the group queue by 50-75%,

Edited by KinLuu, 20 June 2015 - 05:13 AM.

[xe N on]

CW ist just unfun, because of bad design in every point.

Edited by xe N on, 20 June 2015 - 06:13 AM.

[Triordinant]

Kin3ticX, on 20 June 2015 - 02:24 AM, said:

Anyways, if you have other related stuff about CW that you want to discuss, do it.

My comment from another thread.

[pbiggz]

The gameplay seems shallow and stale. Its thinly veiled moba gameplay rather than a well thought out tactical scenario in which both teams need to use a solid mix of mechs to take advantage of a map that ISN'T arena balanced.

Maps are dull and arena balanced. Some of the newer maps have worked out better. Grim Portico and Vitric Forge seem much better than Boreal, Sulfurous, and Helbore, but in essence they are all the same. Jam your team through a bottleneck, hit the objective, and win. PGI doesn't seem to know exactly what it wants to do so it's dithering and giving us a gamemode that lacks complexity and depth and in recent patches they have made it quite clear that hitting the objectives isn't even what they want. They seem to want it to be a glorified TDM.

If we had larger maps with spread out objectives for both teams, a sort of pseudo-mission play scenario where both teams had to work against eachother to complete objectives that may not even be the same, where the size of the map works against you, so you have to take advantage of all mechs and weight sizes (like ice ferrets for the clans, which are useless right now), if the maps had random elements to them so that every drop was different, necessitating scouts to discover what parts of the map are useful to your team and what parts may present risks.

We have none of these things. I had ALOT of fun in CW when it was released, and iv continued to have fun when iv played it with my friends, but without depth that fun doesn't tend to last too long.

[sycocys]

Lack of people using LFG/faction chat to find groups for CW. One weekend of a LFG event simply wasn't enough to really get people, especially the guys that normally pug and ts players, acquainted enough with the feature.

Less than stellar communication that the feature exists for players that didn't happen to be playing that event that one weekend is also troublesome.

-My number one issue with CW is the same thing it was when I first started it - total lack of depth in the gameplay and total lack of meaning to the outcomes. The lack of depth in the gameplay is far more of an issue as CW is really nothing more than standard mode with 3 more drops.

Wide open maps could work wonders here, IF there were objectives for lances to accomplish instead of force feeding everyone into a blob through one of 2 gates. There's so many options from the previous MW titles that could be pretty simply implemented to give the matches a wide variety of things to be vying for and the tech is in place (and has been since they made rail running dropships) to start feeding almost all of the sortie missions we had in other games right in.

But realistically until the bosses come on back down to the real world and decide to develop an actual Mechwarrior game instead of a generic fps with robots nothing is really going to ever actually advance beyond what we have already.

[Summon3r]

very simple, there is nothing to CW, it is 1 dimensional, no depth to taking over a planet, taking over a planet means zero unless you just like the color of your faction. never feel like you actually in a theatre of battle with. the maps are absolutely atrocious on every level.

in terms of maps/battlefields i had envisioned HUGE maps where you would changing dynamic battles not static boring funnel through gates to one area over and over again.

pug stomping is ultra boring on both sides of the fence, most fun i have ever had in CW is when both sides are mix of pugs and small groups.

oh and the way mercs function is an absolute farse, no offence to any merc units.

Good post OP its a shame it will likely go ignored or unnoticed

Edited by Summon3r, 20 June 2015 - 08:15 AM.

[MischiefSC]

I was a big cheerleader for CW for a long time. Very active, hundreds of drops on every front, active on my faction TS, dropped with a lot of units in addition to my own.

I wish PGI wanted a good, complex CW. Read Russ' tweets - I don't think he does. I don't think he gets or has any interest in why people want belonging to a faction to matter. He seems to want a drop in drop out disposable F2P shooter and anything more than that.... well, they pitch it, drive some sales, make some small changes and then drop it.

Faction membership means nothing. You are punished for staying with a faction.

Winning/losing matches and planets means nothing beyond the payout at the end of the match.

All game balance is moving away from rewarding complex tactics and coordination. At this point the performance difference between an organized 12man with a plan and 12 pugs is more about better focused fire than rewarding strategy of any sort.

PGI has made their priorities very clear. I'm not talking about new mech packages; I absolutely get that it's a different group of folks. No, it's been about tweaking maps to be more skirmish-style, a pure skirmish 4v4 drop-mode (don't for a moment think it's going to be more complex than the 12v12, it'll be less) and the like. Adding depth or purpose to CW, making faction membership relevant for more than the color of your dots on a meaningless map or Clan/IS mech selection isn't even on their radar. It's a 'later' thing. Like fixing ECM.

I love my friends in MWO. I play with an awesome group of people. However there are tons of games being made by developers who really want the game to be fun and engaging and who engage with their community and do so well. We've got the pug/group queue for the people who just want meaningless big stompy shooty robots. CW was supposed to be more; was supposed to be for the rest of us. That was the idea, that was what was sold. So it got released with promises of 'more', and now is steadily being whittled down to big stompy shooty robots *now with RESPAWN!*

CW means nothing. It's pointless. You get punished by the game mechanics for even trying to play it like it means something more than the payout at the end of a match or that the faction tags are relevant to anything.

It feels much like the AMS and head missile quirks on the Grasshopper. It's not just a 'I don't care' response from PGI, it's them stuffing a raised middle finger in your face and going 'LOL. You thought this wasn't going to be mediocre, didn't you? DUMBA$$ LOL LOL LOL!' CW is bad because actual effort is going in to make it so. That....

that's pretty disheartening.

Edited by MischiefSC, 20 June 2015 - 08:14 AM.

[Dolph Hoskins]

I like CW when I am in the mood for it. Pretty much I would consider myself as waiting for new content to be worked into it. CW is really not near as bad as the forums make it sound as long as your expectations are actually in line with what it is. For that matter I would definitely say the best, as in most on edge and intense battles have been in CW.

Also some of my worst battles. The worst ones come no doubt from dropping with encumbered non elite skilled mechs and with no team. Those two things are not necessary for CW, but they make a huge difference. I know this ahead of time if I choose to drop under those circumstances. No complaints on that part.

A problem I think is true with the community, are the people who don't even play CW ragging on it non stop. This helps nothing and nobody. Especially the people who might be interested in doing it but are unsure. If you don't play the mode and make no effort to come somewhat prepared and informed don't comment. That is my stance on community. Other than that most people you drop with in CW are actually OK most of the time.

On PGI's end they need to follow through with the additions they have proposed such as the scouting mode, new maps, faction loyalties, planet importance such as bonuses etc, merc contracting....and I'm sure I'm missing some stuff.

In regards to the drop zone and gen changes. In the 5 or so matches I've played with the new features it really seems to improve the game play to me. Teams cannot just rush in a parsed out disorderly line of mechs and expect to survive on the offense. It seems to bring the elements of a coordinated assault back into relevance. Mech losses are almost always meaningful now. Also spawn camping is still possible, but only if one team totally collapses...which is fine. That is how it should be. Drop ships that have been moved back further behind the defensive line are actually less of a threat to those who are attacking the objectives now, so I see that as a good thing. There has been a somewhat adequate level of compromise between the difficulty of attack and the protection of defense.

So again, on PGI's end they just need to follow through on the content and features. The mode is what it is, which seems to be a more on edge version of battles that the rest of the game is built around. However the star map, factions, mercs, planets, and all of the CW players' actions need to have more meaning entirely within the mode. As it is now, it just battle mode 2.0 with a cool drop deck feature.

Edited by The Ripper13, 20 June 2015 - 11:40 AM.

[madhermit]

Kin3ticX, on 20 June 2015 - 02:24 AM, said:

People tired of losing, tired of stomping, tired of stacked teams, and want a match maker to make it fair.

There seems to be a general community stubbornness over adapting to the CW learning curve and a refusal to mimic successful players or units. There are a good deal of solos with no units or participation in faction hubs.

Again with the community thing. PGI isn't going to hold your hands through this. If you are the underdog, stop repeating the same stuff that doesn't work. If you don't know what works, start with emulating someone else that does know what works.

I suggested to some struggling players that they should check out my CW guide. The one that said "No Thanks" did 297 damage. I wonder if people realize they have 4 mechs sometimes.

CW needs a mandatory tutorial so badly it almost hurts.

Regarding a matchmaker: These pool sizes make Elo impossible. CW is about factions and planetary control and was meant to be more hardcore than the previous parts. It's not the "I don't give a bleep I just want 2 mechbays mode."

Maybe PGI will make adjustments but the players need to up their game too. I mean, there certainly is room for players to grow right? I see LRM Atlases(plz stahp), stock throwback bracket builds, random experiment mix of the day carnival builds, or worse(yes there is worse, I saw an Awesome-8Q w/ 1 PPC). There is nothing PGI can do to make generalist throwback builds stand toe to toe with tier 1 and 2 specialist customs.

PGI can fix this by disallowing organized groups dropping against groups of total randoms. That goes a long way balancing and fixing the issue. I'm not looking for a 2nd job from MWO by joining a unit, just want a team oriented gameplay with a little more depth to it than what standard queue gives.

ELO has nothing to do with this. Stomps happen in total random games too. But CW is nothing but that with the organized 10-12 man groups vs randoms. You can whine "for the hardcore" all you want. As long as it stays like this, I'm not touching it even with a long pole. It is not enjoyable to the individual unless youre some sort of masochist or part of a group. Or maybe group of masochists.

Anyway I don't care for CW anyway. The faction rewards can be nice but it's still just glorified deathmatch. Capturing/defending a planet means nothing. Well unless you take pride in being part of a faction, but really that's all there is to it. I guess we can be thankful for it being atleast that even if its almost nothing.

If the universe was like EVE online? Where owning different regions of space means you get your hands on different types of resources and benefits? Now then it would matter.

[Hoffburger]

No solo queue = I'm not playing it ever again once the current event is over.

[Monkey Lover]

Everyone I talk to sees no reason to take planets anymore.

Due to this people don't play many games.
No one stays up late.
Most people on the marik ts just public q because its almost the same as cw now.

How do you fix this?
Simple give people an reason to care about planets.
Cw needs to be a resource based game.
We need to be able to hire mercs.

[Zimm Kotare]

I really enjoy CW a lot of the time, win or lose, but it certainly isn't all it could be. I don't think I'd want to lose the current gametypes it has available to it (though I'd definitely lose the shielding on those Gens, I know the new changes are quite popular but to me the Gen shielding seems to have just made the mode into a straight up eliminate the enemy team mode & I'm not seeing a lot of variety in how those games play out), but I would like to see more modes to keep it fresh/varied & as people have said; bring in some value for owning a planet. My thoughts, some of which are blatant repeats of other's far more eloquent proposals;

1) A rolling battlefield mode (ala Battlefield), in truth, a glorified elimination mode whereby progression across the map unlocks drop zones closer to your lines, have to fall back? Enemy takes that line & they gain the choice of a closer drop zone. Risky & may be a complete bust, but I could see this offering some very dynamic game play (plus plenty of thrown away mechs for anyone not paying attention!). Would of course require some decent sized maps, but hey, with a decent time limit & 4 mechs a piece, this might actually allow for more interesting/clever/tactical maneuvering.

2) As has been said; value to planets, could be something as simple as a C-Bill % bonus per planet, could be "we've got key industry here, have a few extra tonnes to your drops".

3) Following on from 2, would it be incredibly difficult (I have no idea) to allow a faction to reinforce a planet? I don't mean; "oh ****, they've bought themselves turrets for our mechs to shoot", I mean; "Ah, they've bought themselves Space Defence Systems/Ships, so now we have to decide whether to spend our own coffers on getting through that". In truth, likely a tangled nightmare which would never work, but to me it always seems like the fights for planets are just too ephemeral, too push/pull we take/you take back etc etc. Like I said, I don't think it would be easy to pull off & is probably an accident waiting to happen!


In honesty, I can see why CW gets the ragging it does, but I enjoy it, I just think it can be much more than it is (good start, now lets make this something special you know?) & I think variety would be a big part of that, I'd like to see a little surprise in some matches; "We know they're out there, but we don't know where they are, we've got to get from here to there, out route might take us right through them, or they might miss us completely. If we send out scouts, they could shield us but they could also light our position up if we're unlucky."

I wonder if inspiration could be drawn from certain items of the fiction, ie; a mode where one team is in retreat through territory with numerous routes, some of which would require smaller mechs, or JJs etc, do you stick together, or lead the enemy off? Will they suddenly appear above you on a cliff only some of your force could have reached (wouldn't need drop decks for this mode I guess). I'm thinking of a specific engagement on Huntress here, destructible terrain/bridges etc "oh hoho, you thought to follow us across the bridge? Bye bye!" or trigger a rock fall & block a passage/damage some mechs etc.

In summary, for me personally, I'd love to see coffers etc used, but of more value to me as a player, would be interesting, varied modes as at the minute I feel like I'm just playing team deathmatch where before I had an objective with multiple potential routes to the completion of that objective.

[Kin3ticX]

madhermit, on 20 June 2015 - 12:22 PM, said:

PGI can fix this by disallowing organized groups dropping against groups of total randoms. That goes a long way balancing and fixing the issue. I'm not looking for a 2nd job from MWO by joining a unit, just want a team oriented gameplay with a little more depth to it than what standard queue gives.

ELO has nothing to do with this. Stomps happen in total random games too. But CW is nothing but that with the organized 10-12 man groups vs randoms. You can whine "for the hardcore" all you want. As long as it stays like this, I'm not touching it even with a long pole. It is not enjoyable to the individual unless youre some sort of masochist or part of a group. Or maybe group of masochists.

Anyway I don't care for CW anyway. The faction rewards can be nice but it's still just glorified deathmatch. Capturing/defending a planet means nothing. Well unless you take pride in being part of a faction, but really that's all there is to it. I guess we can be thankful for it being atleast that even if its almost nothing.

If the universe was like EVE online? Where owning different regions of space means you get your hands on different types of resources and benefits? Now then it would matter.

Some evenings the hot planet has 50-50 players or less. If PGI puts any kinds of constraints on that....the wait times will totally kill CW. The solos are really a love hate thing. They do a wonderful job of filling in 2-4 guys for a 8-10 man. There are too few units actively playing now so they also wind up being 12 solos or making up the rest for small groups of 2-4.

Hoffburger, on 20 June 2015 - 12:59 PM, said:

No solo queue = I'm not playing it ever again once the current event is over.

Never said to remove the ability for solos to play

[Hoffburger]

Kin3ticX, on 20 June 2015 - 04:03 PM, said:

Never said to remove the ability for solos to play

That wasn't directed at anything you said. I was just posting my reasoning why I don't like CW currently as per the request in the subject line.

[Kin3ticX]

B8hunter, on 20 June 2015 - 04:06 AM, said:

• The main thing that annoys me is the fact that they seem to be portraying it as "end game" and the still let newbies with trials play (not hating on rookies here)
  
• This ones aimed at the community VOIP, use it! Press CAPS LOCK say your piece, don't rage that will just get you muted, then let your finger off the button and return to killing whomever's shooting you .
  
• Very rare is the match that everyone enjoys, the way cw was intended to work. Normally its either a roll or it just kinda stagnates...
  
• Very few people play anymore, the early stages of Beta 1 were kind of a disaster, they defenders just stacked big assaults at the gen and the attacker just rushed lights. Yeah, needless to say this scared off quite a few people...

Yeah those trials, ugh, not even tailored for use in CW.

Voip is nice but doesn't replicate being in a highly organized and prepared to play unit. Most of the good VOIP can do is help a 8-10 man communicate better with its solo fillers. Against a 12-man, VOIP won't do much for solos unless they happen to get some real fken good solo players.

Yeah I think some people were scared away by the stomps and gen rushes.