377 replies to this topic

[Imperius]

Mechwarrior Buddah, on 23 August 2015 - 02:37 PM, said:

I see you didnt even read the rest of the stats SEVEN KILLS

Wouldnt expect you to see anything more than you want to lol

Grats you finished off people then...

Mechwarrior Buddah, on 23 August 2015 - 02:46 PM, said:

The guy that kills 0 ppl is more useful than the one that kills 7...

ok youre high

You need to understand the difference between killing a mech and being annoying that is all an LRM mech is annoying but never a threat.
Who cares dude you had one good game in LRM's 98% of the time you're a handicap for your team.

Mycrus, on 23 August 2015 - 02:56 PM, said:

Big talk because what you bought a goldie?!

I'm roughly $2500 so far, 2 Gold mechs every top tier pack and some MC packs and a few Heroes. Just trying to see how much these solo guys swing cash wise toward the game. Honestly if you haven't put in at least $60 you have no right to be making decisions.

Edited by Imperius, 23 August 2015 - 03:43 PM.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Imperius, on 23 August 2015 - 03:41 PM, said:

You need to understand the difference between killing a mech and being annoying that is all an LRM mech is annoying but never a threat.

rofl your mental gymnastics are Olympic

[Mycrus]

Imperius, on 23 August 2015 - 03:41 PM, said:

Grats you finished off people then...


You need to understand the difference between killing a mech and being annoying that is all an LRM mech is annoying but never a threat.
Who cares dude you had one good game in LRM's 98% of the time you're a handicap for your team.



I'm roughly $2500 so far, 2 Gold mechs every top tier pack and some MC packs and a few Heroes. Just trying to see how much these solo guys swing cash wise toward the game. Honestly if you haven't put in at least $60 you have no right to be making decisions.

Your $2500 doesnt give you the 'right' to make decisions either...

[Kjudoon]

The tryhard contingent here defending seal stomping has their Jimmys all sorts of rustled.And vlad i am done trying to explain sociological causality to you. You just wont accept anything that doesnt line up with your self interst no matter who gets screwed over by it.

Edited by Kjudoon, 23 August 2015 - 04:09 PM.

[Aresye]

Kjudoon, on 23 August 2015 - 04:02 PM, said:

The tryhard contingent here defending seal stomping has their Jimmys all sorts of rustled.And vlad i am done trying to explain sociological causality to you. You just wont accept anything that doesnt line up with your self interst no matter who gets screwed over by it.

This is a COMPETITIVE game in the sense that every game mode and objective is designed to have a WINNER and a LOSER. Draws are the odd exception that very rarely happen. They are not the PRIMARY objective of the game, which is to WIN.

If you refuse to play to win, then there's absolutely no reason to get butthurt towards those that do. PGI designed this game for one side to win, and one side to lose, so if players play in a way that is counter-intuitive to winning, there is absolutely no ground they can stand on to say, "This isn't fair."

I personally can't wait for the Solaris mode, and I hope PGI eliminates the solo team queue since most solo players look at that as the "anything goes" queue anyway, and refuse to play as a team. Players that want to play solo can play solo in Solaris. There they can play however they want to their heart's content, and if they don't want to play to win, they're free to lose on their own as much as they'd like.

The problem now is that players feel they are entitled to win without putting forth any effort to do so. They want to run their special, completely useless builds, but expect the other players on their team to still win the game, or they want PGI to design a matchmaker so perfect, that they can take the most horrendous build imaginable and still win. Both are completely unrealistic expectations that will neither happen, nor should people be encouraging to have happen.

[Nyden]

I agree 100% with the OP.

The terrible matchmaker was the main reason for the terribad stomps. That's why separating the ques never really solved the problem. The result has been a massive drop in player population and a huge skill gap between unit players and PUG only players.

I'm not ashamed to say I play solo only. I have neither time nor the inclination to join a guild but I'd still like to play with people that value teamwork and unit tactics. I tried CW, but we saw what the lack of a matchmaker led to there. For the record I was still okay with the stomps for the opportunity to play with units but the rewards for the amount of time combined with the still complete lack of a meta game made it not worth my time.

I don't feel the need to reiterate everything in this thread, but basically, a better matchmaker and improved coordination tools should be able to make up for the early problems with a single cue (I actually agree that the cue needed to be separated because this team based pvp game lacked VOIP, but at least we got river city and the pheonix mech pack in before launch)

With a higher total population the release valves can be tightened and fewer matches will fall into the edge case category.

I, for one, am all for a "add me to group cue" checkbox for solo players and I think (in the interest of good data) it should be checked on by default

Note: the following has no bearing on the topic at hand and can be ignored.... unless you've literally read all of at least the first 10 or 11 pages:

Kjudoon, while the OP has been extremely patient with you, for the most part, and has even denied that he believed you were a troll, let me go on the record as saying you, sir, are a troll. I am both smart enough and well read enough to understand all of your unnecessarily long winded rhetoric. If you spent half as much time trying to understand what others have written as you did trying to use a lot of big words to say very little this discussion might be going somewhere by now, but we're basically swimming in the same circles because you won't budge and you can't make an actual argument for your position.... unless your argument is that you know more than everyone else so we should just take your word for it. What did you call that? An appeal to a false authority, I believe?

If you're not actively trolling this thread than basically your argument is that most people play in the solo cue so, clearly, most people don't want to play with groups and if we force them to than no one will play at all. Well, correlation doesn't imply causation. We don't really know what people want to play unless we ask them. All we really know is that most people who play MWO don't currently want to join a guild and they most often play by them selves. The former could have a lot to do with the lack of any meaningful reason to join a unit outside of the meaningless CW, the latter could be because playing in a group has been a terrible experience for the casual player, so far, but we have no way of knowing unless the paradigm changes or we actually ask them (not the ones screaming on the island, but the ones actually playing the game).

I hate trolls that derail important discussions because they have nothing better to do today, especially ones who are good at it because they usually succeed. I don't usually post unless I have something very important and usually a little emotional to say, so good job for drawing me out of the wood work but I gotta ask: Heffay, is that you?

[9thDeathscream]

Had about 20+ friends quit because of their terrible experiences in group queue. If your small and or a casual group then what's the point. The rest either play CW occasionally or just do what I do and drop solo. At least you have a chance. PGI listened to the big teams and catered to them in the group queue. Then listened again and did CW. Meanwhile the small groups got the pineapple. Now that CW is running, put a hard cap on the group size and force the big teams into CW. Fixes the group issue and helps CW population.

[Kjudoon]

Nyden. Thanks man. That was so dense it bent light. I needed a laugh like that.

By your standard anyone who doesnt agree must be a troll.

So dont be to offended if i dismiss your entire wall of text as an opinion since you show you have genuinely missed or deliberately ignored my core argument and supplanted your own in its stead. I have neither derailed this topic nor wandered off it. If you truly believe that youve not read the thread or kept up with context. On more than one occasion i have dragged it back on and central issue of forcing people to play against groups when they dont want to for the benefit of a few players.

The opinion of bullies on the playground mad nobody will play with them anymore doesnt bother me.

[Kjudoon]

Akulla... Vlad death nyden and several others dont seem to care. You must be forced to play with them even if it sucks for you.

[Deathlike]

Kjudoon, on 23 August 2015 - 04:02 PM, said:

The tryhard contingent here defending seal stomping has their Jimmys all sorts of rustled.And vlad i am done trying to explain sociological causality to you. You just wont accept anything that doesnt line up with your self interst no matter who gets screwed over by it.

I'm not even defending seal stomping... I'm pointing out that there are major flaws in your defense of solo players.

The thing about learning how to play is that it so much harder to do or learn w/o being in a team. If you don't desire to be in a team, so be it, but that learning curve is so much harder and greater and grasping stuff that higher level teams understand and present often gets lost on a solo-only player.

It's easier for a player that's on a team to solo, rather than a solo player to get up to a team player's level of performance in group.

If you assume that all 12-mans are actually EmP level quality players.. then there's no helping you.

If I told you that some 12-mans are like 12-solo PUGs, would you think of them differently? Very often, "large teams" are not always coordinated (poor drop calling combined with poor group play). I probably should pull some pic from the day before PSR hit where I was part of a winning team that beat SJR (I'm sure they weren't as happy, but it was a close game). It takes a lot of work with the players you have to work with to follow instructions and be useful in combat (even if it's just telling us where they are coming from and/or are flanking) - such things you rarely see going on in solo matches.


It is always been my policy that solo players drop in the faction's TS for CW or even my unit's TS for group drops. No commitment is required other than to follow and listen to directions. Many units offer this and it's not mandatory to join a team to learn such stuff. I'm sure there will be some top teams that don't allow for this, but the vast majority of teams allow others not from their unit to drop with it.

Even while dropping with some top teams where there are some losses... and that's usually because of breakdown of team communications and execution. Losses happen... even for the top teams.


So, you can't sum all of the issues in just blaming top teams... how about looking at the huge level of non-teamwork many solo players don't exhibit and often blame premades (EVEN IN THE SOLO QUEUE where those accusations still happen, even in jest) when they don't realize that part of their team probably got themselves killed in the first few seconds "doing their own thing".


TL;DR

This solo vs group argument breaks down to "who is willing to do actual teamwork?" As it's been said in the forums many times before.. teamwork is OP. Once you don't commit to teamwork, you shouldn't expect positive results consistently.

[Deathlike]

Kjudoon, on 23 August 2015 - 05:16 PM, said:

Akulla... Vlad death nyden and several others dont seem to care. You must be forced to play with them even if it sucks for you.

I care a lot, but you're not even reading my argument and countering any portion of it. Either I'm completely "out of touch" or you don't have a leg to stand on.

Playing with teams is not an evil.. it's a necessary building block to get better at the game. Whether you choose to work with your team is a whole different manner. Sometimes it is the difference between success and failure.


Once I joined a team, things got easier. I could trust people to do things that wasn't accomplished in solo matches. I still have a lot to work on, but frankly the game is a much better place with teams, and people wishing to learn (and even question the popular opinion/tactic) and get better.

That's the most important thing that people want to happen more often than not in the game... If you don't want that, then there's not much else to say is there?

[9thDeathscream]

Kjudoon, on 23 August 2015 - 05:16 PM, said:

Akulla... Vlad death nyden and several others dont seem to care. You must be forced to play with them even if it sucks for you.

I'll stay in the underhive or whatever. Big groups enjoy your wait times and dwindling population. I'm doing fine where I am.

Edited by Akulla1980, 23 August 2015 - 05:27 PM.

[Kjudoon]

Deathlike. Back during the sync drop panic of 14 i pointed out several times that dropping solo does not mean avoiding teamwork. I quit playing in groups because it quickly proved to be lances from teams or even whole teams pounding guys who got together and hang on the same team speak. They were only a half a step above pugs and together because they enjoyed each others company. Sure they worked together and often did great in leading the teams as a whole.

These are precisely the same people who quit cw because they got thd tar kicked out of them for dozens of losses in a row with little to no reward and a crappy team experience while being slaughtered wholesale or worse, toyed with by large organized groups like a malicious child with a magnifying glass on an ant hill. I have been there on both sides of that coin and to be honest the experience is revolting win or lose morally. So i quit it.

I went to the group queue to ay with a couple of friends Nd quickly discovered that the sMe units were practicing there and doing the sMe tricks on people in the group queue that they were doing in cw. So i quit group queue because yet again i hated the experience. Now i am back to where i was when i startex playing the game. Without. unit and dropping alone because as bad as it is... This is the most enjoyable form of the game right now. To be honest... If i did not have premium time to burn i would not have returned.

I know what its like to drop call and listen to a dropcaller and play in an organized competitve fashion. I dont like it. I dont feel it is right to force anyone to play this game that way either. Too many seem to think this is okay since they are the ones who stand to benefit. This is unethical... But this community seems to have a derth of ethics which is a stinging condemnation of modern society imho.

This is not about teamwork but on matching skill. Right now solo queue is the most balanced in making sure you face similar opponents. Why? Because psr is calculated individually. The group queue uses an average psr which can hide significant differences in players and calls it balanced. This is a crock. It is also acknowledged fact by PGI to be a serious problem with the group queue. To then force people who are being consistently victimized by groups unintentionally or deliberately gaming the system is not kosher by any stretch. That is my problem. If they could fix this in the group queue where i could play with my friends and not suffer this gaming of the system intentional or not i would be interested in playing against my friends again. I would not have a problem with facing large groups either because they couldnt hide a few ringers on their team to unbalance the entire match.

In the end that is what this comes down to but too many do not want to hear this or get the issue because they either benefit from the flaw or they just cant comprehend.

[Nyden]

Kjudoon, on 23 August 2015 - 05:13 PM, said:

......of forcing people to play against groups when they dont want to for the benefit of a few players.

And here's the rub. How do you know that other players don't want to play against groups? I know you don't want to play against groups. There are a few others who've expressed similiar opinions in this thread. I, for one, don't have a problem with it. If your whole argument is "I don't want to play against groups because I'll lose more" than allow me to reply to that argument.

Things have changed since the cues were separated. We have VOIP, we have LFG. Most importantly (I can't stress how important this is to the existence of this thread) we have a new and, theoretically, better matchmaker. The old matchmaker was based on win/loss while the new one should be ranking you with people who play the game in a similar way and that's a huge difference in terms of who you're getting matched against (and with). The matchmaker needs time to get everybody into the tier they belong but, let me remind you, your tier should be based on your ability to contribute to the team, not on your ability to score damage so It seems unlikely that a Tier 1 or 2 player would ever end up in a group against teir 4 or 5 players. Not to say it can't happen (edge cases, remember) but it would be rare. Keep in mind that Tier 4 or 5 players are not really keen on playing as a group or they would not be in that tier and they will be nothing but dead weight in a match against mostly Tier 1 and 2 players or organized Tier 3`s.

Let me also explain the way averages and probability work: You`re equally as likely to get a premade on your team as the other side. Every time the matchmaker puts you in a sub par situation you are just as likely to end up in a situation where your side gets the advantage. It may not seem that way, and bad runs do happen, but the fact is, if your losing every time you play, it isn`t the matchmaker gunning for you and, under the new system, you`ll eventually end up in a tier where premades are rare as gold anyway.

The point is, there isn`t any objective reason to believe that mixing the cues will cause solos to lose all the time. There are several objective reasons to believe that it won`t make any difference as far as win/loss ratio goes but it may improve quality of life for many players (especially new ones who can play with their friend and not get stomped by horrible mismatch's do to low population)

Maybe I'm wrong and training on Teamspeak causes the side with a 7+ premade to win every single time but that wouldn't effect the solos (who are just as likely to get teamed up with one as they aren't) it would just horribley inflate the tiers of the premade players so that Tier 1 and 2 become defacto group cues anyway. In truth we won't really know, objectively, until we try and so, I'm all for trying.

Remember, I'm a solo player. I've never played in a premade. I'm not looking for a seal clubbing. I think a single cue, or something to that effect is the best move for both the quality of play and for the best retention of players and new players going forward.

We don't need separate cues anymore, things have changed.

[Deathlike]

Kjudoon, on 23 August 2015 - 05:40 PM, said:

Deathlike. Back during the sync drop panic of 14 i pointed out several times that dropping solo does not mean avoiding teamwork. I quit playing in groups because it quickly proved to be lances from teams or even whole teams pounding guys who got together and hang on the same team speak. They were only a half a step above pugs and together because they enjoyed each others company. Sure they worked together and often did great in leading the teams as a whole.

Sync drop in what.. solo or groups? If it's the former, I don't subscribe into mudhut-isms. If it's the latter, it's because working together increases success. I'm not sure how else are you supposed to succeed when the game is primarily revolved around teamwork. If you care too much about your stats and not about getting the win, then that's going to be a problem.

Edit:
With regards to sync dropping in the group queue.. it's been attempted before and it never really works the way it should. Even then, the point of teamwork requires people to play together. I suspect many units dissolved over the lack of being able to play together for an extended period of time. 4-man premade max or 12-mans only (used to be 8-mans before prior to 12v12) made things tough for smaller teams that had regular active players between like 6-8 on a good day. Remember this was even before the LFG was around.

It's hard to practice when you can't really play together (and the private matches didn't come early enough for many to boot).

Creating a 12-man was rare, and you had to be good enough to do them as many comp units used them to scrim with each other in the absence of private matches for a time). Most "casual" 12-man games were stomps.. because of the "human requirement" was strenuous but also that people weren't really qualified to face comp 12-mans.

I say this all the time about 12-mans... they aren't all the same. Won enough matches against 12-mans that weren't really all that good in a smaller premade... because there's usually not enough people driving that 12-man in a way that resulted in success.

Quote

These are precisely the same people who quit cw because they got thd tar kicked out of them for dozens of losses in a row with little to no reward and a crappy team experience while being slaughtered wholesale or worse, toyed with by large organized groups like a malicious child with a magnifying glass on an ant hill. I have been there on both sides of that coin and to be honest the experience is revolting win or lose morally. So i quit it.

If it's solos.. it's because the barrier to entry in CW is "too low" (there is no real floor to speak of) which is problematic because a lot of basic tier requirements of teamplay are not ingrained into them (either by PGI's poor NPE/tutorials - there's plenty of reasons to pull from here). I feel bad for all solos that don't understand the commitment they need to succeed, and thus get thrusted into an environment that punishes you for it.

For the groups though, there are different reasons for it. I suspect a lot of them that have bailed early are more "casual" level of players... but not dedicated enough in the teamwork aspect of things... but I believe even the comp units are mostly disinterested in CW (like I am) due to poor rewards/gains for success. Getting a planet means what exactly?

Quote

I went to the group queue to ay with a couple of friends Nd quickly discovered that the sMe units were practicing there and doing the sMe tricks on people in the group queue that they were doing in cw. So i quit group queue because yet again i hated the experience. Now i am back to where i was when i startex playing the game. Without. unit and dropping alone because as bad as it is... This is the most enjoyable form of the game right now. To be honest... If i did not have premium time to burn i would not have returned.

I'm not even sure what tricks you speak of. You have to elaborate on that.

Quote

I know what its like to drop call and listen to a dropcaller and play in an organized competitve fashion. I dont like it. I dont feel it is right to force anyone to play this game that way either. Too many seem to think this is okay since they are the ones who stand to benefit. This is unethical... But this community seems to have a derth of ethics which is a stinging condemnation of modern society imho.

I'm a dropcaller myself, but I'd rather listen to someone more experienced that myself to run it. The key thing is really trust. I'm pretty lax in what you take (unless it's LRMs in CW, in which I warn you that you are on your own on that), and most of the responsibility is really on the players to execute to the best of their ability. Of course, the dropcaller is responsible when the dropcallers themselves makes a mistake, and it's fine to provide constructive feedback towards them.

I don't think it's an ethics issue. It's more of a "do you like how this is running?". If you do, then that's the group to be with.. if you don't, then that's fine too. Remember, this isn't like hardcoded to every dropcaller or anything... you just have to understand that there are implied things that are demanded of you (like if you're going to drop in a comp match, a Mist Lynx/Lolcust is not what you should be bringing to the fight). I consider the group queue in MWO "casual+" in that you can bring your LRMs, but don't be surprised when direct fire is all over the place, ready to stop you from raining on them.

Quote

This is not about teamwork but on matching skill. Right now solo queue is the most balanced in making sure you face similar opponents. Why? Because psr is calculated individually. The group queue uses an average psr which can hide significant differences in players and calls it balanced. This is a crock. It is also acknowledged fact by PGI to be a serious problem with the group queue. To then force people who are being consistently victimized by groups unintentionally or deliberately gaming the system is not kosher by any stretch. That is my problem. If they could fix this in the group queue where i could play with my friends and not suffer this gaming of the system intentional or not i would be interested in playing against my friends again. I would not have a problem with facing large groups either because they couldnt hide a few ringers on their team to unbalance the entire match.

I'm not sure if it's working, but everyone is actually pushing, focus firing, and doing stuff... which is better than the "what are you guys doing?" type of mentality.


The thing about solo should generate a response of "what could I have done to do better in this match?" instead of "why are these guys not pushing when I'm pushing?"... or sub in focus-fire, moving, and other words instead of pushing... because those are the kinds of building blocks for success long term.. not just the solo queue, but in group matches as well.

Quote

In the end that is what this comes down to but too many do not want to hear this or get the issue because they either benefit from the flaw or they just cant comprehend.

I'm not sure what they are "abusing", so I'm not sure what to tell you what it is supposed to mean. Consistency through success by knowing what to do and when to do stuff when appropriate is the best way to get better at the game. I'm not sure what other exploit other than skill and situational awareness is usually what decides who wins and loses.

Edited by Deathlike, 23 August 2015 - 06:19 PM.

[Chados]

I'll say that the admittedly limited experiences I've had in group queue have been good ones. The regulars all seem to be good folks.

Using me as an example. The fact of the matter is that when I bring a missile Catapult, no matter how much the greater community hates LRM mechs, I'm more likely to be on the winning side than if I bring the Jester or K2. With a C4....average damage scores high 300s, multiple assists, counter ECM locked damage, savior kills, team wins more often than it loses. Bring the Jester, and if I'm not shooting my own teammates by accident then I do 75 damage and maybe one assist, and lose 3/4 of the time because I'm still too noobtastic to pull my weight the way I should. By the way, I've mastered the Catapult A1 and elited the C1 and C4, and have 218 drops in the missile variant Catapults now. Knock LRMs all you like, but that seat-of-the-pants metric says something to me-that if I'm doing *things* then I'm contributing to victory, no matter how small the way it is. In mechs that aren't as friendly to a slower and more deliberative playstyle, I contribute less no matter how the greater player base values that type of play over that I'm better at.

I'm a casual player. And I nearly left the game the second week because it sucked getting stomped all the time and not contributing, and feeling like I was spinning my wheels. Be careful what you all ask for. You could kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

By the way, every single Clanner mech packs LRMs. All of them. If they suck so bad and serious player don't use them, one wonders why all those unit-tags in solo queue and in group queue seem to use them so much, and why enemy teams focus so much effort (I had FIVE light and medium mechs hunting me-personally, me-in Caustic Valley on the last drop I did fifteen minutes ago) on hunting LRM carriers?

[Kjudoon]

How do i know? Simple. My teamspeak has had to set up solo queue channels for all the teammates who are sick of the group queue. We solo drop together occasionally facing each other and have a good time of it. I know because i watch it happen eveey night i play and hear it from several other friends in other units.

That experiential evidence trumps other people' s word on it.

As for losing i lose only slightly less in solo queue but the stomps are less severe or morale crushing. You are playing with more players there to have fun rather than work on unit tactics or lance maneuvers which really makes for lousy team play cause they are doing their own thing or demNding everyone else follow them. Again... I have been on both sides of this.

Groups unto themselves are not the problem. I say again for the cheap seats.... Groups unto themselves are not the problem. PSR mismatches and group behavior is the problem. PSR mismatches are caused by psr averaging. This is currently unavoidable unless you lock the tiers so only same tier can face each other OR limit who can group by tier. Neither one of these solutions are good. Even though i like the direction we are going with psr... It is going to take time to shake out even with using the lasrlt 8 months of data to hehelp because that was under the old matchmaker plus the group queue distorts matches badly.

In a month or two, those who drop solo will be in their appropriate tier. Those who play group will be better but still not correctly seeded due to psr averaging. Btw this is all off topic. Something you accused me of doing consistently. Just so you know.

We need 3 queues. Things have changed for the worse and psr averaging is still not gone.l unless you lock tiers or limit grouping.

[Kjudoon]

Now here is a psychological experiment for you. If group tags did not show in the group queue nor faction tags would you recognize groups or psr mismatches? Made me think that is for sure.

[Imperius]

Kijudoon you're just done talking thanks. You group in solo queue now that sounds like pug farming...

[Kjudoon]

No we are not pug farming in the solo queue. We dropped separate and on occasion we faced each other. Or are you gonna go full mudhut and scream about the evils of sync dropping now?