497 replies to this topic

[Kilo 40]

TWIAFU, on 08 July 2015 - 12:35 PM, said:

core game mechanic.

It's so cute when people parrot words and phrases they've heard before but have no idea what they actually mean.

[One Medic Army]

I'd play more if matching was faster and rewards were more consistent with time invested. It's simply more rewarding to play solo queue and I desperately need CBills generally due to not playing that much.

[Praehotec8]

TWIAFU, on 08 July 2015 - 02:33 PM, said:

So, scarp everything done on Beta 1, 2 and anything else done to date for CW and start over from scratch to push solo over group play, you know, for the sake fun.

How about no.

Instead, inform the solo player about the facts of solo play in CW as designed.

No, what I said in fact is that you really cannot expect the majority of players in an online game like this to expend more than a trivial amount of effort and/or time to join into something like CW, so either make it easy for them, or don't be suprised if they do not participate. It's just a simple fact, whether you like it or not.

MWO appears to have a small enough player base that once the "filthy solo casuals" are weeded out, populating a large scale conflict like the CW map is difficult. If the competitive/group crowd wants the mode to be primarily their purvue, that is fine, but then there should not be any forum complaints about CW being underpopulated. Most players will not join a group for any number of reasons, all of which are valid because it is a game and we all have fun in different ways.

As for the rest of my post, I have played in CW both with a group and a PUG, and it really is not the most exciting game mode available, and really not worth the effort of finding a match right now, purely in my opinion. If I find it improves as it develops, I will return.

Finally, the grand, sweeping intergalactic struggle and map control, etc.. that CW was supposed to be is all well and good, but again, in my opinion is the icing on the cake so to speak. The game really needs (and has needed since its inception) is deep, varied gameplay with multiple maps, modes and objectives, and a fully developed role warfare the encourages players to utilize different mechs for different jobs. Until all of that is complete any CW development will be hindered by the fact that struggling for meaningless planets using the same several (4? 5?) maps, and essentially one game mode, just isn't all that fun for more than a few drops.

TL;DR: There is a place in CW for both solos and groups, and neither is more important than the other, but most casual players will not participate unless it is largely brainless to do so. Currently though CW is essentially pointless, and I personally feel efforts in developing the game would be better spent expanding the core content of the game, rather than what is currently essentially a superficial WW3 map simulator (all of which content would make the CW we have instantly better also).

[bad arcade kitty]

Kyp Durron, on 08 July 2015 - 09:11 AM, said:

Seriously, why are the pug queues full and the CW a wasteland?

may be because cw isn't fun for solo players

[sdsnowbum]

Could be the classic CW burnout. Seems to happen after every CW related event.

[Black Ivan]

Several reasons:

1. CW burnout after several events
2. Game mode is not fun and wortwhile playing at all
3. Rewards suck
4. Serious balancing issues
5. Bad map design
6. No good tutorial or entry for new players
7. Onesided stomps

The other problem is that Solos or Pugs simply are fed up with stomps after 1 or 2 matches versy fast and leave for normal ques. Tried it myself and it is defintily bad for several reasons (not anting to workt together etc. pp...).

[Black Ivan]

Eider, on 08 July 2015 - 12:59 PM, said:

Hardcore mode for the hardcore only, get out filthy casuals! hows that working out for it? Oh right..

Maybe if people could get their heads out their ass and realize you need a casual base also it woulnt be so unpopular. As for the whole 'its in beta' junk. Uhhh then why are so many pro teams in it? But now they are complaining no one wants to play.. meh.

Very well said, big problem of CW.

[Speedy Plysitkos]

Bush Hopper, on 08 July 2015 - 11:18 AM, said:

I can only speak for myself but..


3. Why should I care for planets?

because PGI said it, its fun ha ? UTTER CRAP whole CW.

[Weeny Machine]

TWIAFU, on 08 July 2015 - 02:33 PM, said:

So, scarp everything done on Beta 1, 2 and anything else done to date for CW and start over from scratch to push solo over group play, you know, for the sake fun.

How about no.

Instead, inform the solo player about the facts of solo play in CW as designed.

I won't go into the matter of solo vs. CW or solos in CW. Just some general thing:
Ok, let's see... the majority obviously thinks CW no fun and stays away but you like CW. Yet you want to foce your idea of fun upon the majority.

1. Very bad idea for various reasons
2. I am sorry but I call that hubris

TWIAFU, on 08 July 2015 - 12:40 PM, said:

Ok, how about we start by telling solo's the TRUTH?

Think that would help?

Tell them CW is primarily designed for Group and Unit play. Maybe a big popup when they hit Faction? Big red letters in bold font "Faction Warfare is for Group and Unit Play. Solo play is very difficult" with a nice confirmation box.

Then they would know that this area of the game might not be the best place for them but the actual Solo queue, until they are ready.

I totally agree with you on that one. My buddies and I have a very small unit. Which means we either drop in very small groups or even solo - that is if we drop at all (it is simply no fun to most of us and each of us has different reasons like map design and so on). We mostly chat on Skype and play the solo queue and enjoy ourselves. To make it short: I have no problem with the situation. After all I have something which entertains me in this game: the solo mode and the chat on skype with my buddies.

However, I read mostly CW player messages on the forum which complain about "solos whining about CW". The truth is, if you look closer at most of those threads and their content, they tell a different story:

1. People talk about the shortcommings of CW like map design, planets providing no incentive to get capture and much more

2. CW "pros" complaining about people who criticize that mode for good reason and calling them "whiners" etc

3. Ironically those CW "pros" tell in those threads solos to gtfo of CW. At the same time those dudes cry their little hearts out that CW is deserted and queue times are long. I mean wtf do you expect when you try to play an "elite" niche mode in a niche game which excludes the majority of the playerbase for various reasons (again I don't want to go into that).

[TexAce]

Until there is no match maker to guarantee fairly even matches for pugs, I won't bother with CW most of my time.

And with fairly even matches I mean as fair as in non-CW matches, that would be sufficient for me.

Tell me wannabe-meta-tryhards: if the CW match maker would be able to let puggers play against other puggers for a part of a planet, what would be negative about it?

I tell you what, NOTHING. They would even have fun for once in awhile in this game mode. Only you guys would have no one to stomp anymore. But that's your problem.

Edited by TexAce, 08 July 2015 - 11:23 PM.

[Weeny Machine]

TexAce, on 08 July 2015 - 11:16 PM, said:

Until there is no match maker to guarantee fairly even matches for pugs, I won't bother with CW most of my time.

And with fairly even matches I mean as fair as in non-CW matches, that would be sufficient for me.

Tell me wannabe-meta-tryhards: if the CW match maker would be able to let puggers play against other puggers for a part of a planet, what would be negative about it?

I tell you what, NOTHING. They would even have fun for once in awhile in this game mode. Only you guys would have no one to stomp anymore. But that's your problem.

I predict the same result as in WoW several years ago when I still played it. Premades always claimed to want to have competitive play and face other premades. As soon as the pugs were in a seperate queue, premade battlegrounds died. Most "pros" were not so pro after all...

[Speedy Plysitkos]

Bush Hopper, on 08 July 2015 - 11:51 PM, said:

I predict the same result as in WoW several years ago when I still played it. Premades always claimed to want to have competitive play and face other premades. As soon as the pugs were in a seperate queue, premade battlegrounds died. Most "pros" were not so pro after all...

They dont like to fight each other, and thats it. Because they loose then too much.
But its damn good, it will die.

[Herr Vorragend]

I prefer having many pugmatches over having a single CW match. Various reasons:
 
 
- stomps
- waiting time
- rewards

- I personally don´t like respawns. When I play like a roflcopter, I gonna be dead. Game over.

- the maps have beautiful settings, I like the assets very much. But I like the open pugmaps more and that´s also a reason why I prefer pugging.
Instead of splitting pug and CW those two queues should be reunited again. How about opening the CW-maps and make them accessible for assault, skirmish and conquest? So no matter if you drop alone pugging or with a group, you´re playing CW automatically.

How could that look like?
View of a solo-dropper:
Nothing changes. You just play your games with usual rewards. One match consists of a single map.
View of a group:
You now have to choose.

- option 1: drop as usual with usual rewards. A match consist of one single map.

- option 2: drop as a "CW-Faction". You´re going to the lobby. Choose 4 mechs and get (now that´s new) a row of 4 maps, which you have to accomplish. If you survive the first map, you still have 4 mechs to choose for your second map. Etc
When you die, the current map is over for you.
 
Why no respawn? Well, if you lose 2 mechs on one map, you will have none left for the forth map. One solution would be:
If you got no mech left, you have to "rent" one which results in lower rewards. The other: Your place will be filled with a solo-dropper.
You will receive a Bonus for how many maps you played in your 4row and how you performed.
 
I recently don´t have any idea what to do with the attack/defeng thing in CW... Maybe someone has a cool idea
Most important to me is:
- reunite pugland and CW
- make all maps and games count
- open up the CW maps and make them accessible for the usual game-modes

Greetz

Edited by Herr Vorragend, 09 July 2015 - 12:16 AM.

[Xetelian]

The toast stops here.

[Thomas G Wolf]

Mawai, on 08 July 2015 - 12:36 PM, said:

3) Folks who like to level up mechs. Gain skill in each mech, customize their skills in each mech to perform specific roles well. These folks would like having 3 variants of each mech that can do different things well. I suspect some of these folks are completionists who like to own every mech. This may make this group a particularly important one since it may have a lot of whales.

This group would like a revised an updated XP system so that each mech could have customized benefits ... so that having 3 variants has greater meaning and so that YOUR variant of a mech might play differently from someone else's because you chose to unlock different XP benefits than the other player. Perhaps this group has a lot of min/maxers? In any case, this group has been pretty well ignored so far ... but I suspect that this group may account for a lot of the folks in the solo PUG queues.

That is me to a T, mix in alot of 1) and I would be in absolute BT/MWO heaven, as it is I am having fun and it seems to be getting better, at least for me, and I am old enough to know that waiting and having patience can sometimes bring good rewards. I was excited about CW but it is not what I had hoped that it would be so I wait and see what happens as there are enough people with good idears that are sharing them with us and PGI and hopefully some will get impilmented.

[QuantumButler]

Because it takes like at least 10-20 mins to even get into a CW match, which half the time is a Ghost drop and the other half the time the typical player gets slaughtered by elite 10-12 mans running only the most meta mechs and builds. Plus the fact that you need to have 4 fully kitted out goodmechs to really stand a chance against the better players, when most players can barely afford to master one chassis so they have to take terrible trialmechs, mans that CW will always be a very niche mode that most people will never really play much, and you wonder why people stick to the normal queue?

Now personally I have fun in CW but only if I have at least 3 other guys in my group and preferably a full 12 man, and even still sometimes when we run into full elite hardcore 12mans all the time we get demoralized pretty quick and we just go do something else.

[QuantumButler]

Bush Hopper, on 08 July 2015 - 11:51 PM, said:

I predict the same result as in WoW several years ago when I still played it. Premades always claimed to want to have competitive play and face other premades. As soon as the pugs were in a seperate queue, premade battlegrounds died. Most "pros" were not so pro after all...

Yes, because it turns out no one wants to repeatedly lose when they play games because it's no fun, how about that?

Lots of the folk who claim they "want to face other skilled groups" vastly overestimate their own skill.

[Sjorpha]

Main problem is that it is so incomplete, there's not enough to do and not enough reasons to do it.

CW needs macro lever strategy, where planets are important to have, where units can use their money and influence in many ways, where mercs and loyalists work differently and have different roles, where there are different kinds of missions and game modes and where sending people on those missions makes a strategic difference.

It also needs a macro level endgame, a way for the factions to win or lose wars rather than just matches and territory, and where there are major strategic goals to achieve.

It needs contracts for mercs that are controlled by loyalists, giving them a new relationship to each other.

A political system where loyalists can influence and take part in the leadership of their faction as a whole, and where the faction can change it's official relationship to other factions.

Logistics where you have to actually travel where you want to go and where resource control and supply lines are important.

Integrated PVE coop/solo missions for solo and casual players, where the difficulty is determined by how much defences the defending unit or faction has bought, the mission is determined on type of contract issued by the attacking unit or faction, and where success or failure has an effect on the following PvP matches on that planet, such as number of turrets or gens, preopened gates, airstrike cooldown, sensor interference etc, there are lots of cool effects you could have.

Small PvP matches with 4 vs 4 and 8 vs 8 and varying dropdeck limits, this seems to be in the works yay!

So much to do before it becomes a real CW.

Edited by Sjorpha, 09 July 2015 - 03:55 AM.

[QuantumButler]

Sjorpha, on 09 July 2015 - 03:49 AM, said:

Main problem is that it is so incomplete, there's not enough to do and not enough reasons to do it.

CW needs macro lever strategy, where planets are important to have, where units can use their money and influence in many ways, where mercs and loyalists work differently and have different roles, where there are different kinds of missions and game modes and where sending people on those missions makes a strategic difference.

It also needs a macro level endgame, a way for the factions to win or lose wars rather than just matches and territory, and where there are major strategic goals to achieve.

It needs contracts for mercs that are controlled by loyalists, giving them a new relationship to each other.

A political system where loyalists can influence and take part in the leadership of their faction as a whole, and where the faction can change it's official relationship to other factions.

Logistics where you have to actually travel where you want to go and where resource control and supply lines are important.

So much to do before it becomes a real CW.

None of this is ever going to happen BTW, at least the pie in the sky stuff about endgame winning or losing or supply lines.

At best owning planets will give your faction a benefit of something easy and boring, like a stipend of X thousand cbills per day per planet owned.

The keyword for all of CW is "Minimally Viable", there is no point in getting your hopes up for amazing things because this is the wrong game and the wrong developer to expect such things from.

If you want galactic supply lines and logistics you need to find a super grognard-y space 4X game.

[TWIAFU]

Jack Corban, on 08 July 2015 - 02:42 PM, said:

Instead play your Community Warfare population nothing? Ok Deal have fun playing yourselfe.

I play on a team and in a group so I have a ton of fun in CW.

Maybe you should stop playing with yourself and try it or can try to come up with some original excuses as to why you cannot play as part of a team.