523 replies to this topic

[Speedy Plysitkos]

Joseph Mallan, on 01 July 2015 - 08:18 AM, said:

Are they? Are they waiting for us to show up?

You know what will happen, when steam release has greenlight.
This game is hard to manage, understand, and play.

Current usual COD consoles comunity like to push one button in their games, and still scream, its too dificult.
No matter how hard PGI prepares the game before the launch, a shitstorm will follow, like noone has ever seen here before.

[Joseph Mallan]

Titannium, on 02 July 2015 - 04:19 AM, said:

You know what will happen, when steam release has greenlight.
This game is hard to manage, understand, and play.

Current usual COD consoles comunity like to push one button in their games, and still scream, its too dificult.
No matter how hard PGI prepares the game before the launch, a shitstorm will follow, like noone has ever seen here before.

I don't know... I have had two babies and they both have had diarrhea pretty bad. But i do understand your analogy.

[Sarlic]

Joseph Mallan, on 02 July 2015 - 04:46 AM, said:

I don't know... I have had two babies and they both have had diarrhea pretty bad. But i do understand your analogy.

I laughed. Is this bad? Am i going to hell?

[Wintersdark]

Sarlic, on 02 July 2015 - 04:56 AM, said:

I laughed. Is this bad? Am i going to hell?

Only if you're planning on visiting Joseph. Two babies with explosive diarrhea is a horrible thing. Diapers can never contain it, and you end up with crap *everywhere*

Actually, it's a really good analogy for what this will be like.

[Speedy Plysitkos]

Joseph Mallan, on 02 July 2015 - 04:46 AM, said:

I don't know... I have had two babies and they both have had diarrhea pretty bad. But i do understand your analogy.

well jokes aside, i was not mentioning ill people.

[Johnny Z]

Titannium, on 02 July 2015 - 04:19 AM, said:

You know what will happen, when steam release has greenlight.
This game is hard to manage, understand, and play.

Current usual COD consoles comunity like to push one button in their games, and still scream, its too dificult.
No matter how hard PGI prepares the game before the launch, a shitstorm will follow, like noone has ever seen here before.

Not true. Many new cloned survival games of varying quality have 1 death lose EVERYTHING. In depth base building and defense. Exploration and rescource management.

1000 kickstarters promising in depth game play but never delivering have milked millions out of players just on the faint hope a good game will come of it.

Sci-fi, space, survival, shooter clones en mass, MMORPG clones en mass, all types, players skipping from one to another looking for good game play. I know this so I may take a peek at many games, but I uninstall immediately and just yesterday stopped a download mid way after checking the scene out a bit more while waiting...

Console gaming in no different and thats one of the many reasons computer gaming is so strong.

Edited by Johnny Z, 02 July 2015 - 06:09 AM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Titannium, on 02 July 2015 - 04:19 AM, said:

You know what will happen, when steam release has greenlight.
This game is hard to manage, understand, and play.

Current usual COD consoles comunity like to push one button in their games, and still scream, its too dificult.
No matter how hard PGI prepares the game before the launch, a shitstorm will follow, like noone has ever seen here before.

There are rather indepth and complicated games on Steam, and while the typical CoD console kiddie will give them bad reviews, most of the reviews aren't bad, unless people have a reason to hate on the game, which is what we'll see with MWO, we HAVE a very dedicated anti-MWO/PGI crowd out there already bashing this game on other forums, they've been at it for years.

PGI gets a good NPE going and the reviews will be tempered by the people who actually try the game and enjoy it because a good NPE made it so they weren't tossed into the shark tank without ANY warning at all. Lowering the Elos of new players, which Russ said is going to happen, along with refinements to the Elo system so that being carried by a team won't boost it anymore(YEAH!) will also help quite a bit. New players won't be dumped into games with high Elo players, even the groups will have that problem alleviated quite a bit.

And we'll want that 12 man group possiblity in the non-CW group que, because more and more players will want to team up and have fun outside of CW. Don't forget, Steam has a LOT of competitive players in many of it's games, allowing teams to play together is a must have thing for any PvP style game on Steam, especially a team oriented one like MWO is. Many of the current games on Steam only allow up to 8 man teams, and that's always a contention point since many of the teams are larger, you always have some extra people to take up the slack for lost connections/no shows, and with a 12 man option, they can ALL play together. That will be a selling point, being able to drop as a 12 man in a team game, oh yeah, big selling point on Steam which has a thriving competitive playerbase. PGI has to keep that in mind, as do all of our anti-social players currently, Steam isn't the place to offer a team oriented game WITHOUT the options to allow those teams to play together outside of CW and private matches, you'll turn off too many potential whales to be that way.

[Gladewolf]

A single player campaign could greatly improve NPE....making it mandatory to a certain point would also help in fixing the problem. You'd at least get players that have learned basic steering and targeting that way.....

[Mystere]

Gladewolf, on 02 July 2015 - 09:09 AM, said:

A single player campaign could greatly improve NPE....making it mandatory to a certain point would also help in fixing the problem. You'd at least get players that have learned basic steering and targeting that way.....

Who's writing the A.I. part?

Edited by Mystere, 02 July 2015 - 09:16 AM.

[Gladewolf]

....Well....I don't know the staff at PGI personally.......maybe they have someone?......(duck, dive, dip, dodge)

[Boris The Spider]

Kristov Kerensky, on 02 July 2015 - 08:54 AM, said:

Don't forget, Steam has a LOT of competitive players in many of it's games, allowing teams to play together is a must have thing for any PvP style game on Steam, especially a team oriented one like MWO is.

I disagree Kristov. Steam release is IMHO not going to provide a fresh injection of large competitive teams. Large groups will almost certainly have heard of MWO and had players splinter off at some point to try it out. If it were the game for them, those groups would be here already, Steam or no wouldn’t be an issue for them. Sure, may get a handful, but the ones that PGI will be hoping to reach is those hearing about MWO for the first time. That is solo players and small groups, in many cases RL friends who would be arriving in groups of two. Nobody can deny that this game does not currently cater for them... just look at this post from a few pages back :

TWIAFU, on 28 June 2015 - 03:31 AM, said:

And if SOLO NEW PLAYERS are joining the group queue in trails, wtf did they think was going to happen? I know, they complain about the other team and how and what they do is evil and has to be nerfed.

This went completely unchallenged. I have seen this exact same advice given out more than once on the 'new player help' forum. It is totally unacceptable and will lock PGI out of a large Steam demographic. Now this may be OK for us, were all having fun stomping round in custom build, leveled mechs, with 2+ years of experience, large social networks of like minded pilots and C-bills spewing out our pockets, but I honestly don't expect PGI to let this chance pass them by.

And I doubt it will be the solo players who take a hit.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Boris The Spider, on 02 July 2015 - 09:52 AM, said:

I disagree Kristov. Steam release is IMHO not going to provide a fresh injection of large competitive teams. Large groups will almost certainly have heard of MWO and had players splinter off at some point to try it out. If it were the game for them, those groups would be here already, Steam or no wouldn’t be an issue for them. Sure, may get a handful, but the ones that PGI will be hoping to reach is those hearing about MWO for the first time. That is solo players and small groups, in many cases RL friends who would be arriving in groups of two. Nobody can deny that this game does not currently cater for them... just look at this post from a few pages back :



This went completely unchallenged. I have seen this exact same advice given out more than once on the 'new player help' forum. It is totally unacceptable and will lock PGI out of a large Steam demographic. Now this may be OK for us, were all having fun stomping round in custom build, leveled mechs, with 2+ years of experience, large social networks of like minded pilots and C-bills spewing out our pockets, but I honestly don't expect PGI to let this chance pass them by.

And I doubt it will be the solo players who take a hit.

Have you checked out the Steam based forums? I did, specifically because it was stated in this thread that the Steam players are waiting for MWO, so I wanted to see what kind of anticipation there might be there.

None, nada, zilch, absolutely nothing in them, this game isn't KNOWN on Steam, hell it's barely known in the BTech circles, and it's not advertised widely at all by any means. Steam players aren't AWARE of MWO, much less waiting on it. Then again, I can probably name 10 games on the Steam list right now that no one here has ever heard of, I know I wasn't even aware of most of the games listed there right now and I actually subscribe to a couple of newsletters FOR online gaming news. MWO has almost 0 exposure really, MWO needs a real PR campaign and advertising, it hasn't had that and it shows. The competitive gamers on Steam aren't out looking for new games to play outside of Steam unless they've seen an advert for it, it's not something they are usually actively doing. I know, I was a competitive gamer, we don't go looking for new games until the one we're playing and kicking ass in is about to go under UNLESS it's brought to our attention by slick advertising. MWO needs that, it's not really ready for it YET, but if PGI does what they say with the NPE and all, then it'll be time to start that PR machine up.

As for the comment by TWIAFU, some people feel that way, just as some fo the solo players are extremely anti-team, remember? That point of view isn't the majority for EITHER side however, so most of us try and ignore it. Thing is, the anti-social players are the ones who ACTUALLY get catered to by PGI, not the team oriented players, if you actually look at the history of MWO, you can clearly see that fact. It's baffled me for years now why PGI does that, still does, it's bad for the game but PGI doesn't seem to get that, although that may actually be an IGP holdover, since THEY wanted to appeal to the solo player market first and foremost. I think PGI is still working on that same mindset, and it needs to change. MWO IS a team oriented game, you can NOT keep catering to the anti-team crowd and expect to do well with a team game. It's rather like trying to sell bacon at a synagogue, it's just not going to go over well, ya know?

Solo new players shouldn't be exposed to the current group que, but that's due to the total lack of a NPE and the currently bad Elo system tossing them in with vets. No one here denies that, it's a bad system, we've all complained about it, we've all asked for changes. PGI is working on that according to Russ, new Elo ranking system coming into play, much more indepth and it doesn't look at win/loss but ALSO looks at personal performance in the match, so people being carried by a team won't be getting inflated Elos, among other things. He also said they are going to LOWER the starting Elo of new players even more than they currently are, so new players won't be tossed in with good players right off the bat, and it will also help with the group que issues where good players take brand new players with them, but how much that will change is open still. I personally suggest you create a new account for that purpose, so your friend isn't dragged into a much higher Elo bracket due to YOUR higher Elo bracket. Yeah you lose your cool toys, but so what, the point is get your FRIEND hooked, you already are! Getting his ass kicked all over is NOT going to get him hooked, so drop down to HIS level so that doesn't happen, please!

[Boris The Spider]

There isn't sufficient saturation of group players though Kristov, and a lot of that, rightly or wrongly is down to the perception that large groups are waiting to annihilate them as soon as they go anywhere near the social tools. I'm sorry, but until I actually see people using the LFG tool outside of competitions which require it, I wont believe there is a large enough casual group pool to allow new players to enter this game as groups. What is fair is, that new players should be playing against mostly solo players and high Elo solos should be playing against mostly grouped players, When the game is looking for filler for a 10 man, it should be Joseph and Mystere, not a casual two man who have been playing less than a week and may not even be out of trial mechs. But you go anywhere near that suggestion and the anti-social-elite-rambo squad will be out to accuse you of wanting to pug-stomp.

Edited by Boris The Spider, 02 July 2015 - 10:49 AM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Boris The Spider, on 02 July 2015 - 10:39 AM, said:

There isn't sufficient saturation of group players though Kristov, and a lot of that, rightly or wrongly is down to the perception that large groups are waiting to annihilate them as soon as they go anywhere near the social tools. I'm sorry, but until I actually see people using the LFG tool outside of competitions which require it, I wont believe there is a large enough casual group pool to allow new players to enter this game as groups. What is fair is, that new players should be playing against mostly solo players and high Elo solos should be playing against mostly grouped players, but you go anywhere near that suggestion and the anti-social-elite-rambo squad will be out to accuse you of wanting to pug-stomp.

The problem is, as you pointed out, the bs from the anti-social players who keep claiming the 12 mans are just waiting to stomp your ass, eat your baby, steal your girlfriend, kick you dog, ruin your credit AND make fun of you while they do all that with 1 hand tied behind their back. It's total bs and PGI keeps catering to it, they need to stop it instead.

I faced -MS- with a pure PUG group in CW last night, it was a stomp, no two ways about it, but you know what? I had a blast! Those folks are amazingly skilled, they are NOT mean, nasty and insulting, and they make the game fun while kicking your ass all over the place. THAT is what the real 12 man units are like, they are damned good players who aren't out make fun of you and stomp newbies, that's really not fun despite what the anti-social players claim. I can't wait to face -MS- again, they made getting my ass kicked fun, they really did.

THAT is what the new players need to be made aware of, that the big units aren't here to make fun of you and make you quit the game, they want you to have fun and keep playing, get as good as they are so everyone can have more fun playing this game as it was MEANT to be played, a team oriented game that is so much more fun when played as a member of team than as some Rambo only out for yourself. I salute -MS- for their awesome good sportsmanship, I came out of that drop feeling like I'd just had a good time, and I got my ass kicked like I was a newb who didn't know a laser from a LRM!

[Boris The Spider]

This is just denial there is a problem with the group matchmaker though Kristov, and its no better. The month they unrestricted the queues my WL ratio in group play leapt from just over 50% to close to 90%... it was a slaughter. The only ones that remain are the ones who were able to adapt to the new paradigm. We have got better, the solo players have got worse and the doorway to group play is closed to casuals and new players, there is no longer any kind of progression available, PGI have been too slow to address it and we have been too quick to deny it. Its a problem that just feeds on itself and it will require PGI to make some kind of change to the matchmaker, even if it is just longer wait times.. but I fear that wont be enough. Personally, I think the best thing to do as ever, is to kick the high Elo's out of solo. It will improve the NPE and increase the chances of good matchups in group... If we can no longer slum it in the solo queue we would also be more inclined to help mentor new players and play with others in the community. Elo self corrects, so if you could not adapt to rejoining the groups, your Elo would drop and you would no longer see them.

Edited by Boris The Spider, 02 July 2015 - 11:52 AM.

[DAYLEET]

Titannium, on 02 July 2015 - 04:19 AM, said:

You know what will happen, when steam release has greenlight.
This game is hard to manage, understand, and play.

Current usual COD consoles comunity like to push one button in their games, and still scream, its too dificult.
No matter how hard PGI prepares the game before the launch, a shitstorm will follow, like noone has ever seen here before.

We all thought that would happen with Elite Dangerous. The opposite happened, because it was clear and advertised that this wasnt your easier arcadiest game. MWO just need to do the same.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Boris The Spider, on 02 July 2015 - 11:50 AM, said:

This is just denial there is a problem with the group matchmaker though Kristov, and its no better. The month they unrestricted the queues my WL ratio in group play leapt from just over 50% to close to 90%... it was a slaughter. The only ones that remain are the ones who were able to adapt to the new paradigm. We have got better, the solo players have got worse and the doorway to group play is closed to casuals and new players, there is no longer any kind of progression available, PGI have been too slow to address it and we have been too quick to deny it. Its a problem that just feeds on itself and it will require PGI to make some kind of change to the matchmaker, even if it is just longer wait times.. but I fear that wont be enough. Personally, I think the best thing to do as ever, is to kick the high Elo's out of solo. It will improve the NPE and increase the chances of good matchups in group... If we can no longer slum it in the solo queue we would also be more inclined to help mentor new players and play with others in the community. Elo self corrects, so if you could not adapt to rejoining the groups, your Elo would drop and you would no longer see them.

Why would they remove the higher Elos from the solo que? There's no point in that at all, as it's NOT solo players who are stomping the newbs in the group que, since solo players can't JOIN the group que in the first place. I wish we could, but we can't, despite us asking many times for that functionality.

And Elo isn't self correcting, it's self balancing, to the average, in the solo que. It only goes UP if you are in the group que, Russ said this at the Town Hall, it's a problem they've identified and it's part of why they are revamping how Elo works and how it's calculated going forward. Drop solo currently, you'll stay where are you, you won't go up and you won't go down, which is exactly how Elo works in a team game with solo players, its why so many of us were totally against it being used, it does NOT function when the individual is part of a group but is judged individually. PGI is going to start factoring in more variables, such as how well you actually DID instead of just whether you won or lost to determine how your Elo score is adjusted. So people with high Elos currently who are literally being carried by their team will find themselves with a lower Elo as time goes on, and people with lower Elos in the solo que who constantly do well but their TEAM loses will find their Elo going up.

And they are lowering the Elo of new players so they aren't being placed against good players right off the bat, which will also have an effect in the group ques, no idea how much, and I personally don't see how that will really change the issue of high Elo players trying to group with friends who just started the game, that's STILL going to mean higher Elo players facing that newb. I advocate for players to create a new account to bring their friends in, that way your Elo doesn't screw them over, and they can learn to love the game instead of hating it because they get stomped on. Yeah, you give up your toys, but so what, the objective is to get your FRIEND hooked on MWO, you already are, so suck it up and help them learn to love the Mech!

Better yet would be a group que for New Players, 1 Vet limit but up to 4 players total, one where the Lowest New Player's Elo is set as the Elo for both themselves AND the Vet player with a higher GAME COUNT(this matters), so the group que will match them with lower Elo players based on the lower Elo. The Vet will also be restricted to using only Trial Mechs and have the Experience on that Mech set to 0, so they are using an un-skilled up Trial Mech, so that low Elo Vets(easy to do) will NOT be able to get in the New Player group que and roflstomp Newbs with top tier tricked out Mechs, and lets face it, we have too many PoS players who would do EXACTLY that if we didn't restrict them this way. Again, you, the Vet, are stuck without your toys, and again, so what, the objective is to get your FRIEND/S hooked on MWO, you are already addicted. The up to 4 person limit is because we DO have people who've gotten 2 or 3 friends to try the game together, and this will allow them to actively show them how the group que works AND how much fun team play in MWO really is.

Simple enough solutions, probably NOT doable with our current playerbase if we run it by Russ, but I think it would work even if implemented now. Yeah, it might take a little longer to find a match, but how many of us are WILLING to wait for that knowing it would be a much better experience for the New Players? The New Players would be willing to wait for it I bet, and I know us Vets would who would love to mentor people but don't dare due to the current Elo/group que issues, right?

[Boris The Spider]

Of course high Elo solos are not stomping new players in the group queue because that is clearly impossible!!! But if you increase the population in the group queue, its easier to build better matches. If you add an Elo multiplier based on group size, it would effectively mean at lower Elo's the matches as built would be high middle level Elo solos and low Elo groups. While not perfect, that would make the group queue slightly more accessible than it is now, and dropping solo less attractive to experienced players. If a high Elo solo player found he was unable to compete and became a liability for his team, his Elo would decrease to the point he no longer qualified for the group queue.

[Thumper3]

AlphaStruck, on 26 June 2015 - 05:23 AM, said:

The matchmaker is designed specifically to ruin our matchs. The idea to use newer or lower ranked players to dead weight older players is EPIC STUPID.

Agreed. Teaming a new player with vets just to "balance" the experience for the opposing force doesn't do anything but make that new player stare at the "You have been destroyed" screen for a second, then calmly start the uninstall process. Just because the new guy has 11 vets on his team doesn't mean he or she can't just run out in the open and do something foolish just from being new and get killed. How is that balance?

Anyway.....

Kristov Kerensky, on 02 July 2015 - 11:01 AM, said:

The problem is, as you pointed out, the bs from the anti-social players who keep claiming the 12 mans are just waiting to stomp your ass, eat your baby, steal your girlfriend, kick you dog, ruin your credit AND make fun of you while they do all that with 1 hand tied behind their back. It's total bs and PGI keeps catering to it, they need to stop it instead.

THAT is what the new players need to be made aware of, that the big units aren't here to make fun of you and make you quit the game, they want you to have fun and keep playing, get as good as they are so everyone can have more fun playing this game as it was MEANT to be played, a team oriented game that is so much more fun when played as a member of team than as some Rambo only out for yourself.

Well said. More to the point, what big groups REALLY want is for people to see what can be accomplished in this TEAM BASED GAME and decide to stop solo'ing and instead join a group and get in on the real fun. It doesn't matter if the group size is 12 or 6 or even 4.......it won't change the fact that a solo player will be grouped with other solo's or small groups and enacting any real strategy or skill even with in game VOIP will be a challenge. And the game requires tactics and strategy. Even if you are super casual and want to run an Atlas with flamers and LRMs doing that in a team makes it way more fun and a better chance of winning.

Make the group size max 4, you will still see stomps as the MM pits solos and a group against 3 4-man teams. The problem is with the game and MM, not group size.

Kristov Kerensky, on 02 July 2015 - 10:31 AM, said:

None, nada, zilch, absolutely nothing in them, this game isn't KNOWN on Steam, hell it's barely known in the BTech circles, and it's not advertised widely at all by any means. Steam players aren't AWARE of MWO, much less waiting on it. Then again, I can probably name 10 games on the Steam list right now that no one here has ever heard of, I know I wasn't even aware of most of the games listed there right now and I actually subscribe to a couple of newsletters FOR online gaming news. MWO has almost 0 exposure really, MWO needs a real PR campaign and advertising, it hasn't had that and it shows. The competitive gamers on Steam aren't out looking for new games to play outside of Steam unless they've seen an advert for it, it's not something they are usually actively doing. I know, I was a competitive gamer, we don't go looking for new games until the one we're playing and kicking ass in is about to go under UNLESS it's brought to our attention by slick advertising. MWO needs that, it's not really ready for it YET, but if PGI does what they say with the NPE and all, then it'll be time to start that PR machine up.

How is it that a smartphone app game like Clash of Clans can spend millions of dollars on advertising (and is a F2P game) and yet I have never seen an ad of any form for MWO?

I think they are counting on the advertising might of STEAM to propel them, they are banking on STEAM funneling them players for free. It may actually work, at least a little, but how can there be players "waiting" when as you said, no one even knows about this game??? lol

Edited by Thumper3, 02 July 2015 - 01:33 PM.

[TWIAFU]

Kristov Kerensky, on 02 July 2015 - 11:01 AM, said:

The problem is, as you pointed out, the bs from the anti-social players who keep claiming the 12 mans are just waiting to stomp your ass, eat your baby, steal your girlfriend, kick you dog, ruin your credit AND make fun of you while they do all that with 1 hand tied behind their back. It's total bs and PGI keeps catering to it, they need to stop it instead.

I faced -MS- with a pure PUG group in CW last night, it was a stomp, no two ways about it, but you know what? I had a blast! Those folks are amazingly skilled, they are NOT mean, nasty and insulting, and they make the game fun while kicking your ass all over the place. THAT is what the real 12 man units are like, they are damned good players who aren't out make fun of you and stomp newbies, that's really not fun despite what the anti-social players claim. I can't wait to face -MS- again, they made getting my ass kicked fun, they really did.

THAT is what the new players need to be made aware of, that the big units aren't here to make fun of you and make you quit the game, they want you to have fun and keep playing, get as good as they are so everyone can have more fun playing this game as it was MEANT to be played, a team oriented game that is so much more fun when played as a member of team than as some Rambo only out for yourself. I salute -MS- for their awesome good sportsmanship, I came out of that drop feeling like I'd just had a good time, and I got my ass kicked like I was a newb who didn't know a laser from a LRM!

Met them last night too and had the same result. But that experience had us talking about it and what we could do differently and what we should try next when we encounter them and the tactics we experienced.

Losing and failing are two different things. The ones that fail are the ones that do not or can not learn from a loss.