81 replies to this topic

[masCh]

Let's list them.

1) Reduce assembly matchmaking time

When an attack force initiates on a planet, the defender is given 10 mins to assemble. This is too long. The defender will only assemble when when the red popup appears anyway (in the last 2 mins). Keep this at 2 min but reduce the queue time from 10 mins to 4-5 mins.

2) Faction wide invitation to fill an attacking company

At this moment we're supposed to get an invitation popup to help fill up an attacking force, but not sure about the timers associated with this one. Let us have a blue popup when an attacking force (at least a group of 4) has initiated on a planet, and colour changes to red/orange when there is only 3 slots or less left to fill.

3) And since CW is in Beta still, lets reinnovate the queue

Let's try, for example (on a CW whole-week event so that you can monitor and collect data) on the first 6 zones of 13 the queue wait time is a maximum of 5 mins. The countdown starts as soon as the first attacker initiates on the planet, and at the end of 5 mins whoever is on the planet gets into the game, regardless if its 12v8, 5v8, 2v1, 1v12, or whatever. This would teach factions to quickly respond to attacks and not just let the ceasefire reset times do all their defending for them.
(The issue is sometiems we have formed a 11-man, or 10-man, and we wait 15 mins to get the extra 2, because the faction solos didn't know we needed 1 or 2 more).

Please add your own quick band-aid s for CW. (it wouldn't let me type BAND-AID5?)

Edited by masCh, 21 September 2015 - 02:26 PM.

[sycocys]

Better maps, may as well use the standard ones until they actually make some.

[masCh]

I would agree, but that isn't exactly going to be an immediate fix (band-aid). But yeah better scenarios would go into the medium-term fix along with this other one

> Fix spawncamping (medium term)

Instead of the current dropship implementation, have a single dropship always hovering at the drop point. Whenever there is a ratio of 3 to 1 enemy mechs to yours, the dropship fires 12 large lasers to the trespassing mechs. If there is 1v2 then the dropship won't fire until a third mech crosses an invisible line on the ground. Therefore this would encourage the spawncamped to wait in a relatively safe spot for other teammates to drop and push out together, and they wouldn't be able to camp at spawns (because if there are too many friendlies at the spawn point, the dropships won't shoot their weapons). We all are aware that if you are getting spawncamped then the game is already lost - but that's not the point - it's not fun for the spawncamped and people will be turned off playing CW. So, any effort towards creating an illusion of hope for the losing team is a good effort.

[sycocys]

Well they could eliminate camping by making it 4 waves and switching maps after a victor was determined from each wave.

[Khobai]

really bad pugs in trial mechs and pug vs premade are pretty big CW issues too

not allowing trial mechs in CW and only matching premade teams vs other premade teams would be positive changes too.

Edited by Khobai, 21 September 2015 - 08:16 PM.

[slide]

How about just letting matches kick off with fewer players.

If it is possible with the groups queued up to attack and defend a planet to kick off a match after 10 minutes then do so. 4v4 or 6v6 etc has got to be better than a ghost drop.

How many times have ghost drops kicked off with 11 people waiting in the defense queue?

Different matches and quicker ones, every one wins.

It can be done in the private queue, couldn't be too hard implement in the CW queue match maker. Obviously MM can't split up a 12 man but if you have a bunch of smaller groups or solos to balance it I don't see the problem.

Edited by slide, 21 September 2015 - 08:18 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

How about just letting matches kick off with fewer players.

isnt that why theyre adding the 4v4 skirmish mode?

[slide]

Khobai, on 21 September 2015 - 08:20 PM, said:

isnt that why theyre adding the 4v4 skirmish mode?

To a degree. It is more of a separate game mode with it own objectives and maps. But who knows when it will actually get here.

My suggestion was in response to the "immediate band aid" portion of the question. Same game mode and maps, fewer players.

I can tell you that during the oceanic TZ the CW servers are often completely empty or have fewer than 24 players, yet they would still have to keep them online (at some cost) just in case some people want to play. A game of 7v7 is better use of those servers, than no one or one side getting a ghost drop.

[Karl Marlow]

Faster drops would go a long way to improving people's moods. Its hard to stir up interest in a 's match when you are proposing a 10 minute wait that /might/ have opposition and may not even progress the capture of the planet of we win.

[Vxheous]

masCh, on 21 September 2015 - 02:56 PM, said:

I would agree, but that isn't exactly going to be an immediate fix (band-aid). But yeah better scenarios would go into the medium-term fix along with this other one

> Fix spawncamping (medium term)

Instead of the current dropship implementation, have a single dropship always hovering at the drop point. Whenever there is a ratio of 3 to 1 enemy mechs to yours, the dropship fires 12 large lasers to the trespassing mechs. If there is 1v2 then the dropship won't fire until a third mech crosses an invisible line on the ground. Therefore this would encourage the spawncamped to wait in a relatively safe spot for other teammates to drop and push out together, and they wouldn't be able to camp at spawns (because if there are too many friendlies at the spawn point, the dropships won't shoot their weapons). We all are aware that if you are getting spawncamped then the game is already lost - but that's not the point - it's not fun for the spawncamped and people will be turned off playing CW. So, any effort towards creating an illusion of hope for the losing team is a good effort.

How about just letting the game win for you and award C-Bills for no effort? The current Dropships are already the MVP of CW, and encourage teams to turtle under dropzones when they have a lead, Spawn camping pretty much only happens with the last 4-5 mechs remaining on the field, when the score is already 40+ for the winning side.

Edited by Vxheous Kerensky, 26 September 2015 - 12:46 AM.

[Telmasa]

Reducing the wait time from 10 minutes, I totally agree with.

Intentionally starting matches with an uneven number of players on each side is no bueno, from my POV. But MM can certainly be experimented with.

I think switching over to using alpine peaks/updated forest colony/updated river city, and just, like, removing the current CW maps until they can be overhauled, would go a long way as a temporary fix.

That and make planet ownership mean something...even paltry amounts of c-bills *for now* would be an improvement.

Edited by Telmasa, 23 September 2015 - 09:33 AM.

[wanderer]

Allowing games to go with reduced queues would be begging for planet-match-throwing of epic proportions.

I mean, all you'd need is one sockpuppet account at a quiet point in gameplay and you could easily flip a planet. We already saw that some units are capable of setting up facerolls of full 12-mans as it is.

[Davegt27]

Quote

(The issue is sometiems we have formed a 11-man, or 10-man, and we wait 15 mins to get the extra 2, because the faction solos didn't know we needed 1 or 2 more).

I thought solos' were not supposed to go into CW?

[Bullseye69]

One dropship union class ground and stays the ground armed with the following
2 Gauss rifles one for each side of ship.
2 Large Laser per side of ship so on 2 would fire the large laser would each cover 1/4 of the dropship.
3 medium pulse laser per side same coverage as the large laser.
1 ER PPC to cover exactly like the Gauss rifles.

Kill zone is the max range of each weapon.

No body would be able to survive to spawn camp.

Plus to the dropship targeting so it hits every shot.

So if a dire wolf rolls up and start shooting his dual gauss the dropship fires back.

Something like this or go with one spawn zone like we have now and dropship getts to cover those way into drop zone with over superior firepower.

[Havyek]

Spawn camping being a problem is total BS.

If you've been driven back that far, the only thing spawn camping does is prevent the match from taking as long as possible.

People shouldn't be able to hide in their spawn points and drag the match out.

LLAS on dropships shouldn't be coring out enemies that aren't even attacking the spawn (can't tell you how often I've been beat to hell by dropships on Vitric Forge just by having the audacity of being by one of the generators.)

IMO remove LLAS from the dropships and replace them with AC20s and make the spawns more accesible. Not going to be many people camping when they have to deal with AC20 shots that don't miss. Also don't need to worry about the dropships shooting at people trying to take out gens or set up an ambush.
People should be able to be ganked at the spawn areas if they've been pushed that far back.

[Bashfulsalamander]

masCh, on 21 September 2015 - 02:24 PM, said:

Let's list them.

1) Reduce assembly matchmaking time

When an attack force initiates on a planet, the defender is given 10 mins to assemble. This is too long. The defender will only assemble when when the red popup appears anyway (in the last 2 mins). Keep this at 2 min but reduce the queue time from 10 mins to 4-5 mins.

2) Faction wide invitation to fill an attacking company

At this moment we're supposed to get an invitation popup to help fill up an attacking force, but not sure about the timers associated with this one. Let us have a blue popup when an attacking force (at least a group of 4) has initiated on a planet, and colour changes to red/orange when there is only 3 slots or less left to fill.

3) And since CW is in Beta still, lets reinnovate the queue

Let's try, for example (on a CW whole-week event so that you can monitor and collect data) on the first 6 zones of 13 the queue wait time is a maximum of 5 mins. The countdown starts as soon as the first attacker initiates on the planet, and at the end of 5 mins whoever is on the planet gets into the game, regardless if its 12v8, 5v8, 2v1, 1v12, or whatever. This would teach factions to quickly respond to attacks and not just let the ceasefire reset times do all their defending for them.
(The issue is sometiems we have formed a 11-man, or 10-man, and we wait 15 mins to get the extra 2, because the faction solos didn't know we needed 1 or 2 more).

Please add your own quick band-aid s for CW. (it wouldn't let me type BAND-AID5?)

1.) first of all there is nothing wrong with the 10 min wait time because for units or even pugs that look at the list to see where people are dropping that gives them time to form up, or find other other pugs.

2.) i agree, but i also do not really know much about it. Guess LFG was supposed to fix that?

3.) faction chat helps with pugs not knowing that a planet needs members ( if they cant count). Secondly planet drops are random, so the first 6 may not even be played the first 6 times, which pretty much would serve no purpose other then an exploitable tactic, such as tying up a 12 man then getting lucky and landing on one of the 6/13 slots with decreased drop time.... hello ghost drop/planetary takeover.

sycocys, on 21 September 2015 - 03:53 PM, said:

Well they could eliminate camping by making it 4 waves and switching maps after a victor was determined from each wave.

It really would not be waves then it would be matches.. for a slot. not to mention that would completely destroy the whole benefits to having actual tactics and positioning. rather then all teams using the death ball mentality or the we will just snipe and wait for you get near the objectives.

Khobai, on 21 September 2015 - 08:15 PM, said:

really bad pugs in trial mechs and pug vs premade are pretty big CW issues too

not allowing trial mechs in CW and only matching premade teams vs other premade teams would be positive changes too.

CW ( community warfare) ..... what is part of a community? groups, so what happens when a lone wolf tries to take on a pack of wolves? it dies... that is the way the world works and honestly i am glad its like that in MWO.. maybe players will learn to join a unit, use VOIP, and form groups...

ThomasMarik, on 21 September 2015 - 09:41 PM, said:

Faster drops would go a long way to improving people's moods. Its hard to stir up interest in a 's match when you are proposing a 10 minute wait that /might/ have opposition and may not even progress the capture of the planet of we win.

its only a ten min wait time when there is NO MATCH..... really do you just want to ghost drop a planet? sounds fun enjoy Matchmaker online.... Also when i play CW with my unit or a group of friends i hardly wait more then 5 min, so i really do not see why people complain about something that is working just fine. of course it will take longer if your a pug.. it takes time for a bunch of mindless dogs to find a butt to sniff then follow it.

Vxheous Kerensky, on 22 September 2015 - 11:21 AM, said:

How about just letting the game win for you and award C-Bills for no effort? The current Dropships already already the MVP of CW, and encourage teams to turtle under dropzones when they have a lead, Spawn camping pretty much only happens with the last 4-5 mechs remaining on the field, when the score is already 40+ for the winning side.

+1

Davegt27, on 23 September 2015 - 10:54 AM, said:

I thought solos' were not supposed to go into CW?

heh. not sure if that passes for humor. But think of it as your parents bedroom... can go in there, but should you?

Bullseye69, on 23 September 2015 - 11:11 AM, said:

One dropship union class ground and stays the ground armed with the following
2 Gauss rifles one for each side of ship.
2 Large Laser per side of ship so on 2 would fire the large laser would each cover 1/4 of the dropship.
3 medium pulse laser per side same coverage as the large laser.
1 ER PPC to cover exactly like the Gauss rifles.

Kill zone is the max range of each weapon.

No body would be able to survive to spawn camp.

Plus to the dropship targeting so it hits every shot.

So if a dire wolf rolls up and start shooting his dual gauss the dropship fires back.

Something like this or go with one spawn zone like we have now and dropship getts to cover those way into drop zone with over superior firepower.

i would run with a 12 man of awesomes with ER PPC's and thunderbolt 5SS's with ER large lasers just to rage you.
i mean really? WTF if your team is bad enough to get spawn camped you deserve it. most of the time the enemy takes damage to their CT, which the current dropships are more then capable of finishing. Also i have experienced more drop zone camping then farming where pugs decide " i am just going to hold you here and delay the match.... oh no JJ's HAHAHAAH.." Or " USE THE DROPSHIPS TO OUR ADVANTAGE!!!" while the attackers just look at the tasty generators like why do they bother? Some teams will even use the dropships in counterattack after securing the kill lead and destroying omega they fall back and camp the rest of the game. ( this takes good teamwork and tactics though, so kudos when it works for whoever)

SO yeah lets add a OP dropship as a guardian angel for all the mutts... GGCLOSE

Edited by Bashfulsalamander, 23 September 2015 - 11:58 AM.

[Bashfulsalamander]

Havyek, on 23 September 2015 - 11:47 AM, said:

Spawn camping being a problem is total BS.

If you've been driven back that far, the only thing spawn camping does is prevent the match from taking as long as possible.

People shouldn't be able to hide in their spawn points and drag the match out.

LLAS on dropships shouldn't be coring out enemies that aren't even attacking the spawn (can't tell you how often I've been beat to hell by dropships on Vitric Forge just by having the audacity of being by one of the generators.)

IMO remove LLAS from the dropships and replace them with AC20s and make the spawns more accesible. Not going to be many people camping when they have to deal with AC20 shots that don't miss. Also don't need to worry about the dropships shooting at people trying to take out gens or set up an ambush.
People should be able to be ganked at the spawn areas if they've been pushed that far back.

that would actually be pretty cool, but why not ac 10's and ac 20's? or even better Ultra ac10 and 20 with no jam chance and always double tapping? Guess that would not be very realistic though for a dropship to have only balistic weapons though nor would it look .. as mechwarrior~ish.

Edited by Bashfulsalamander, 23 September 2015 - 12:05 PM.

[El Maestro]

I would love to see continous battle combined with safe spawn points:

Safe spawn points => let the dropship drop you off at the spawn point with least enemies nearby. (No pilot is dropping off stuff in a hot LZ when there are better options nearby)

continous battle => if your 4 mechs are done, you are replaced with a fresh pilot with 4 mechs until one side wins. (only complication will be counter attack win conditions)

What do you guys think?

[Karl Marlow]

Bashfulsalamander, on 23 September 2015 - 11:56 AM, said:

its only a ten min wait time when there is NO MATCH..... really do you just want to ghost drop a planet? sounds fun enjoy Matchmaker online.... Also when i play CW with my unit or a group of friends i hardly wait more then 5 min, so i really do not see why people complain about something that is working just fine. of course it will take longer if your a pug.. it takes time for a bunch of mindless dogs to find a butt to sniff then follow it.

I wouldn't have said what I said if it wasnt taking us a good 10 minutes to find a match. People rarely fight on our border Even in Phase one when we were expanding everywhere It took about an hour of ghost drops before whoever we were attacking felt threatened enough to bother defending. Want to know why Marik was so efficient at the light rush? There it is we had ALOT of practice. We would challenge ourselves on what the fastest and most efficient way to take out the generators was just out of sheer boredom waiting for people to show up. Then when people did show up we would treat them with kid gloves and make them think they had a chance and a good fight so they would come back again.

More recently the wait time is around 8-9 minutes before a pug team will show up. With the new rules of alternating between attack and defend It is usually now takes twice as long to actually take a planet. The change to alternating attack modes was detrimental to the low population houses even as it was needed on fronts that has constant action.

What used to take 2-3 hours now takes about 5. What used to be a long night became impossible for anyone who has a job. Lowering the initial wait time to 5 minutes brings things back to a reasonable 2-3 hour mark to take a planet. Hell it brings it back to a reasonable 4-5 minutes wait to find a match vs pugs if not a unit.

This isn't about us wanting ghost drops. Quite the opposite. We just want to force people to show up within a reasonable match wait time. Forcing people to defend is why there are ghost drops in the first place. It is there so you can't just ignore a front that is being attacked. This also isn't about anyone PUGing in CW. I know very few people who would even bother with a PUG group especially vs clans. Hell I know very few people who will even bother dropping as a group in CW. Marik stopped fighting and all of the above is a big reason why.

[Av4tar]

We should try it. let the Uniondropship guard the dropzone.
And if a player hide to long in his dropzone the dropship sees him as desertuer and start shoting him aswell for cowardness.

Edited by Eden Blackheaven, 23 September 2015 - 01:06 PM.