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Events Should Encourage Players To Play


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#1 Tastian

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Posted 21 September 2015 - 05:10 AM

Weekend events should reward and encourage players to play. There have been some rough events but the Territorial Challenge was imho the absolute worst imaginable. This is why:


* random map lottery
* 300 and 400 point thresholds rewarded high damage builds only
* disconnects and rambos were rampant
* super easy to exploit for large groups
* all or nothing reward gives nothing to new players or casuals


Please PGI do not EVER do this type of tournament again.


* footnote - I initially tried narcing and tagging in lights. Even getting 2 and 3 kills with lots of narc and tag bonuses did not even reach 300. I had to abandon those for heavies and assaults. In fact, a near meta Dire Wolf gave me my highest score.

#2 BMR1580

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Posted 21 September 2015 - 02:06 PM

I agree with this sentiment. Worst event ever.

#3 unwary

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Posted 21 September 2015 - 05:20 PM

I don't mind the challenge being an actual challenge but the more casual players need their participation awards too. A simple +100k cbill per match above 150pts would be enough for them. If you want the premium time and mc then you need to put some effort and not let the good players carry your butt as usual.

The tier system was a good thought imho but the random map stuff can really make things take a long time. Especially in CW where the queues and matches are lengthy. So you really need to grind and hope you get the correct map, get a group that isn't terri-bad, and avoid dying too much to not be screwed over by bad CW match calculation (score divided by your dead mechs).

#4 Warzog

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Posted 21 September 2015 - 05:28 PM

Today, the last day, there have been tons of disconnects from folks trying to find that last map they need to just get the event completed.
Seemed like the only maps I was dropping in were the ones that I'd already got tier two qualification in. So, I, too, started dc'ing trying to get to the right map. (I had all of my mechs and a couple trial mechs stuck in matches.
And... I couldn't help but notice that whenever one side or the other had more Community Warfare folks in the Public Queue's, they usually slaughtered the other side.
And it looked like the Community Warfare folks were also getting priority placement in the queue with matchmaker. There were always fewer than 7 or 8 players that weren't Community Warfare folks.
Perhaps the next event could pit guildies against each other and the rest of us against ourselves?
And maybe set something up to where we don't get forced into repeating the same maps so often?
(After 14 hours of play, I only got to the Viridian Bogs twice. Slaughtered by the Community Warfare folks.)

Edit:
A side note: A bug I presume. Every time I select my SDR-5K since the event started, it wants me to pay 40k c-bills to reload my UAV. When I check in the mech lab it is already reloaded. I did pay the first time, but it does it every time.

Edited by Warzog, 21 September 2015 - 06:56 PM.


#5 Zomboss

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Posted 21 September 2015 - 06:02 PM

Ea! Worst event ever! Entire day I'm or played good on wrong map or I was slaughtered by some 12 premade clan on right map.
Push down tier1 for Community Warfare please...

Edited by Zomboss, 21 September 2015 - 06:09 PM.


#6 GI Journalist

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Posted 21 September 2015 - 07:47 PM

This kind of event is a poor substitute for game features. Worse, it does nothing to encourage role warfare or team play. When exploits were demonstrated, PGI failed to acknowledge the problem, spawning rumors and dissatisfaction.

Events like this seem likely to drive players away from CW, public queues, and the game in general.



#7 50 50

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Posted 21 September 2015 - 07:53 PM

Note that neither the Frozen City maps or Alpine were in the mix.
In hind sight it could have been broken down a bit more and into themes.
ie.
This week it's the desert challenge and we only play on the hot maps: Tourmaline, Caustic, Canyon etc.
Then the week after it could have been urban warfare and we only have River City, Crimson, Mining on there.
Less maps, more rotation, players can kit out their mechs accordingly in terms of loadouts and camo.

I also agree that it could have used an additional one or two tiers for the rewards but measure this against what was being given away.
The prizes for the events, now and before, have been quite generous and these tier rewards did give quite a lot.

One aspect with this particular event was it was heavily in favour of doing damage. I feel this reflects more on how the role warfare needs to evolve and provide appropriate in game benefits and recognition. We shall see how that evolves with the re-balance

So to provide some useful feedback for future events in this vein I would humbly suggest changing the structure so that:
1. If relying on the map rotations, make it more in line with a theme and have far less maps.
2. More diversity/steps in the rewards, as has been done in prior events, so that players have smaller more achievable goals.
3. If adding tiers with some 'package rewards', these can have a higher requirement but should be different to step rewards.
4. Consider also using regular achievements per match just for having a go.

EG:
Desert Challenge
If during any match you attain a score of:
Score: 50pts+ Reward: bonus Coolshot 6.
Score: 100pts+ Reward: bonus Heatsink
These would be regular achievements that you get each time to participate.

Step 1.
Attain a match score of 150pts+ on Caustic, Tourmaline or Canyon to get +50,000 c-bills.
Step 2.
Attain a match score of 250pts+ on Caustic, Tourmaline or Canyon to get +100,000 c-bills.
Step rewards you only get once per map when you hit the threshold.

Tier 1.
Attain a match score of 200pts+ on Caustic, Tourmaline and Canyon to get 200MC, 1mil c-bills and some fluffy dice.
Tier rewards are the hardest ones to attain requiring multiple thresholds to succeed and are also only rewarded once.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on it.

#8 AntiGravPilot

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Posted 21 September 2015 - 09:13 PM

I'm still going to be feeling salty about this event as a whole because, as I have worked extremely hard to bump my 300 score to 400, the recent change to the event (making the threshold for T2 rewards a score of 300) put all of my hard work to waste. I'm now sitting in CW at 10pm not getting the map I need for CW. The one time I did we ghost dropped.

This has easily been my least enjoyable experience with MWO, despite having only played for little over a couple weeks. I do hope that PGI doesn't make as large of a mistake in designing the events as they did this time. Though I can wish them to extend the event to let players who did solo games first get an edge on CW, I understand that the patch coming out Tuesday would probably get in the way of that.

#9 LiquidDivide

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Posted 21 September 2015 - 11:24 PM

The lottery as the worst part. I don't play a ton, but I got on tonight with only 3 maps to go. I played for 3 hours, dropping at least every 15 minutes, and only dropped on 2 of the needed maps. Using the other night I played for a similar amount of time, that's roughly 24 matches. I would have expected to play each map at least 2x given the number of games, but no. I still haven't dropped on HPG Manifold.

If a challenge is going to be based on maps like this, the game should at least let players prioritize their needed maps and make decisions that way. Dropping with my unit there were at least 4 of us needing that map and we never saw it.

#10 BlackHeroe

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Posted 22 September 2015 - 01:46 AM

The Map rotation could be ok, if there would be much more time - or less maps. I nearly got all - 1 day before they dropped the match score.

Especially at CW its hard, you get most of the time Boreal (and thats especially hard for ISlers). Also Attacking is much harder, cause you have to push and will loose Mechs, so the score isnt really achievable (also not likely for good PUG Gamers).
Got x times Boreal, Taiga also Sulfurus. But rarely Vitric Forge and Grim Portico, Hellebore Springs i only got 1 time (even if i played half of the weekend) - and we were attacking, and an elite Clan defended, you can guess how many match scores even our FRR Elites can do (right not one achieved the tier 1 score).

Also its very exploitable, as to be seen on the leaderboard, yust stand back (were you are out of IS reach) and/or Jump jet snipering, so you can make a lot of damage with yust one mech, that pushes the score.

...and i really tried hard, but mech colours seem to be far away. Yes you fellow FRRs will call me now MadHeroe - cause i almost got insane by trying :P

#11 Pragr

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Posted 22 September 2015 - 03:51 AM

Any match score challenge in MWO is bugged. The match score favors the heavy/assault mechs always, so as dedicated light mech pilot I know I'm excluded from the business.

Just two examples.

1) Last week I made decision to level up my first assault. Zeus. Just for CW. I got 1010 dmg during the second public match in the assault with no skill unlocked. 500 or 600 match score in lost game. All this with no experience in assault mech class and almost "no brain" use during the match.

2) Two games with Commando 2D in public games. Both below the 200 score. The second match was really "successful". 1 kill, 9 assists, around 200 dmg, 2 kill most damage, 5 spottings, 3 destroyed components, 1 counter-ecm, 5 scoutings, first cap bonus + three other captures. We won on kills (12) at the time we had 720 resources collected while enemy had less than 300. Result? I got whole 176 points match score. In fact the guy in Mauler I killed and got the kill most damage credit for got higher match score than me :)

What's my point?

1) It's funny to see someone complains about the the exploiting the match score during the challenge. The whole match scoring system is bad. That people try to exploit it is just a side effect.

2) No one needs to cheating during this challenge. Just spawn assault and your high score is guaranteed. If you still need to exploit the game, you're so mean player you really need some help.

Note: Since there was nothing like "You shall not farm on your mates to get the score" I doubt these people could be banned/excluded from the challenge. They broke no rule, at least as far as I can found in event description, thus they hardly could be punished. I agree they broke "good general behaviour" in certain terms and should be excluded i.e. from future challenges anyway.

Edited by Pragr, 22 September 2015 - 03:54 AM.


#12 Chagear

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Posted 22 September 2015 - 05:28 AM

This event was infuriating! I played 7+ hours yesterday to get the 2 maps I still needed, and a big fat nope is all I got from the match maker. Out of the reduced list of available maps, it should not be a problem to get the map you are needing. The feeling that the game weighted the maps you needed less really got my blood boiling. Not to mention the then really high amounts of disconnects and the damage weighted scoring system.

PGI: I am a regular supporter of this game from a while back, but with this event you erned yourselves a "no sale" on the new pack for bad game practices.

P.S. - If PGI wants role warfare, why did an event that LITERALLY works against that idea get past the "is this a good idea" part of event development?

Edited by Chagear, 22 September 2015 - 05:31 AM.


#13 Apollo 42

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Posted 27 September 2015 - 06:13 PM

This event is Broken on so many levels, it was set up with a score that seems to be based on what an assault or what a meta heavy can do, not on ones tier rating, and such the average score that one could expect based on ones mech chasis. I always felt that a 45 ton shadowcat should not be treated as an equal to a 55 ton stormcrow, yet that is what mm seems to be and the event seems to be geared toward, all meta no tactics or actual thinking. Lets See a Dev get 300 score with a light evertime, in every Tier bracket regardless of load-out. these Type of events at this level should not exist till the scoring system does nto reflect actions that while not damage intensive, still lead to a teams overall victory. For example say someone builds a light to harrass larger targets with the goal of targeting important areas like weapons and legs of larger mechs, they will not do tons of damage, but they will help the team by only placing fire on important areas of a target, instead of milking damage output, yet this is not quantified. Or say a mech does sniping and uses a guass rifle, by its nature on most mechs they get one on a med, now lets see it has great range, but a slow rate of fire for what it does to a target, so a high score is much harder for that role to get 300, lest its a long match where a mech can get out all its shots. these scores need to be based on tier level averages. IE what the average score is at each bracket not a magic number that seems to have no good explanation and fails to reflect the fact that the score system is FAR from perfect it still rewards the player with the kill better than the one that creates the opening for a bud to secure the kill, seems a bit one-sided to encourage solo kills only for what is a TEAM based tactical game. Each event one has should encourage team warfare, not Meta Rambo only tactics, that is not fun. fun is using the mechs and weapons one likes with the load-outs they want and to try to improve ones abiliites with those favored systems, not conforming to a meta as its the only shot get a score that is too high less one is lucky, or has infinite time when compared to the more casual gamer whom plays for fun, how is it fun to try to play a role one likes, that will never get a 300 score yet is needed to have a higher chance for a TEAM win. Where are teh more fun events like the trick or treat of the Christmas challenge, those were more reasonable, a little frustrating, but still were far more feasible esp in regards to the match type, instead of based on a MAP, that was a very bad Idea, many decided to phone it in once they had that map, causign loads of grief if it was a assault or a key heavy, how is an event possible when its setup allows people to do behaviors that tank it for the rest that did need that map.

#14 Aidan Pendragon

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Posted 29 September 2015 - 04:13 PM

Dear PGI: For events in general (including the current "Payback"), 300 pts is way too high a bar. If you get a bag PUG team, forget about it--but I even had several wins with multiple kills and assists where I fell short. And all for 50k/qualifying win? I agree with others here that the threshold for qualifying should be much lower; try starting with 200 pts. and consider lowering to 150 if needed.





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