246 replies to this topic

[DaZur]

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

PholkLorr, on 29 October 2015 - 09:58 PM, said:

Weak, illogical players destroy their own game. Not the meta.

I would use harsher, simpler and more accurate terms to describe this group of players but i'm not sure if those are against the terms. Ever since i started playing this game, i have seen the same weak, self entitled players whining about how other people are better than them. I thought i'll post a riposte to their whining.

Every one of us have the same options to play whatever you think is the best. Why some people deliberately choose to play a bad build or playstyle and then whine that it is bad is beyond me.

It's like in World of warcraft, knowing that a build is bad and deliberately choosing that build. Or knowing that a 200 dps weapon is inferior to a 400 dps weapon and picking the 200 dps weapon because it's shinier. Or in real life, you need to destroy a wall and were given the option of choosing a sledgehammer or a penknife and choosing the penknife, then whining that the penknife isn't getting the job done as well as your friend who took the sledgehammer.

As to the comment from low skilled players saying that "meta tryhards" are not having fun, i have this to say:

Fun is subjective. Playing sub optimal builds is fun to you. Not so to me. I like playing optimal builds. I like steamrolling my enemies. And so far, i'm having a lot of fun doing just that.

Besides, if you're having so much fun using crappy builds, why are you crying and whining on the forums about how "meta tryhards" are steamrolling you? Or are you afraid that if you actually played the "meta" AND still played crappily, you wouldn't have an excuse to protect your already bruised ego? Your ego would be utterly destroyed beyond recognition.

When you say that you hate meta and that the current meta is destroying the game, what you're essentially saying is not so much that you hate meta. It's more of: I don't like the CURRENT meta and i want MY BUILD (which happens to be bad currently) to be the meta.

Guess what? If YOUR BUILD and playstyle became the new meta, I would take that build and steamroll you with it anyway.

The meta changes constantly. When it was poptarting, i used poptart builds and weapons and steamrolled with it. Now it's even easier, laser vomit. So i use laser vomit and steamroll with it. The meta changes and you must change along with it or be food for the steamrollers. This is the way of life.

Besides, even if you used the meta, you'll probably still be food. Given the same build/mech, some players are just flat out better than others. Given the same weapons, some soldiers are marksmen and some are cannon fodder. Given equal opportunities and equal tools, some people get farther ahead in life than others.

These are the hard truths of life.

Tell ya what, run a 3025 era, single heatsink atlas... and we'll see if you can beat me at my own game.

Go on, I DARE YOU.

[Lightfoot]

FupDup, on 30 October 2015 - 02:47 PM, said:

I remember energy weapons being very meta in MW3 and MW4.

In MW3 the very fast heat dissipation made laser boating easy to manage, which made most ballistics kinda pointless (especially because they had low velocity in that game). But then again, even a handful of Machine Guns in MW3 could chainsaw a full-armor Atlas in half in less than 10 seconds... One of the most infamous builds was the 14 ERSL Strider that had very fast speed.

In MW4 the good ballistics were Gauss, Light Gauss, and LBX. The lower rated ACs and Ultras stunk in that game, and most missiles were kinda meh. Medium and small lasers were nerfed fairly hard, but the ERLL remained quite effective. ERPPCs were prevalent, given that MW4 was the game where poptarting was BORN.

ChapeL, on 30 October 2015 - 02:49 PM, said:

Rose tinted goggles aside, MW3 was the domain of lagging striders/Shadow cats boating cErML and vanilla MW4 was about 6-7 guns Nova Cats and Timber Wolves with pin point instant damage cErLL.

MechWarrior 4 was why we told MWO not to try 3rd person/ pop-tarting and it's why we lost jump jets in MWO. But you just played in FFP=On leagues in MW4 and pop-tarting was cancelled.

MechWarrior 3 had very powerful weapons and heat dissipation, but if you thought the only way to win was Flamers and ER Lasers you would be wrong. My Unit could take any weapon and beat the meta for most maps. Other teams would leave shell-shocked, trying to figure out how we took the non-meta weapons and trounced them. We didn't win every match, but we used all the weapons. We actually countered those Striders and Flamer Owens with SSRMs and won everytime. Just saying the depth and tools were there if you studied the game a bit. Nothing better than the 2xUAC20 Avatar btw.

MechWarrior 4 was much the same way where the map dictated what weapons would do well. Any city or canyon map was LB-20X and lasers. Any open terrain map was Gauss, PPCs, LRMs with ER Large Lasers being used on intermediary and long range depending on the mech. SSRMs could be used to fill out short range configs.

And prior to May 2013 MWO had weapon balance that was almost perfect gameplay-wise. The Gauss recycled too fast and the 2xRecycle overall was too much for the mechs to withstand. Correct fix was give the Gauss Rifle a longer recharge and make the mechs a bit tougher in some way as needed, not do what PGI did, nerfing every weapon to junk until all that was left was laser vomit. Laser vomit always works to some degree in MechWarrior, but no need to make it the only weapon.

[kongman]

PholkLorr, on 29 October 2015 - 09:58 PM, said:

Weak, illogical players destroy their own game. Not the meta.

I would use harsher, simpler and more accurate terms to describe this group of players but i'm not sure if those are against the terms. Ever since i started playing this game, i have seen the same weak, self entitled players whining about how other people are better than them. I thought i'll post a riposte to their whining.

Every one of us have the same options to play whatever you think is the best. Why some people deliberately choose to play a bad build or playstyle and then whine that it is bad is beyond me.

It's like in World of warcraft, knowing that a build is bad and deliberately choosing that build. Or knowing that a 200 dps weapon is inferior to a 400 dps weapon and picking the 200 dps weapon because it's shinier. Or in real life, you need to destroy a wall and were given the option of choosing a sledgehammer or a penknife and choosing the penknife, then whining that the penknife isn't getting the job done as well as your friend who took the sledgehammer.

As to the comment from low skilled players saying that "meta tryhards" are not having fun, i have this to say:

Fun is subjective. Playing sub optimal builds is fun to you. Not so to me. I like playing optimal builds. I like steamrolling my enemies. And so far, i'm having a lot of fun doing just that.

Besides, if you're having so much fun using crappy builds, why are you crying and whining on the forums about how "meta tryhards" are steamrolling you? Or are you afraid that if you actually played the "meta" AND still played crappily, you wouldn't have an excuse to protect your already bruised ego? Your ego would be utterly destroyed beyond recognition.

When you say that you hate meta and that the current meta is destroying the game, what you're essentially saying is not so much that you hate meta. It's more of: I don't like the CURRENT meta and i want MY BUILD (which happens to be bad currently) to be the meta.

Guess what? If YOUR BUILD and playstyle became the new meta, I would take that build and steamroll you with it anyway.

The meta changes constantly. When it was poptarting, i used poptart builds and weapons and steamrolled with it. Now it's even easier, laser vomit. So i use laser vomit and steamroll with it. The meta changes and you must change along with it or be food for the steamrollers. This is the way of life.

Besides, even if you used the meta, you'll probably still be food. Given the same build/mech, some players are just flat out better than others. Given the same weapons, some soldiers are marksmen and some are cannon fodder. Given equal opportunities and equal tools, some people get farther ahead in life than others.

These are the hard truths of life.

biggest pile of bs i have ever read

[Bleary]

SRM hit reg doesn't work. PPC projectiles still clip into every damn thing. IS AC/2s were screwed over ages ago and never refixed - same with machine guns. Most Clan ACs still suck. There has never been a real attempt to make flamers or LBs do anything.

The weapons in this game do not work right. It's that simple. Since they killed poptarting, the meta is merely whatever loadout happens to be least broken at any given time. You look through the list and you choose the only guns that will work reliably.

So we can talk about this absurd state of affairs (and be called 'weaklings' for it, apparently) or we can meekly accept a game full of broken guns and console ourselves by bragging about how competitive we are.

Edited by Bleary, 31 October 2015 - 12:08 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Bleary, on 31 October 2015 - 12:02 AM, said:

SRM hit reg doesn't work. PPC projectiles still clip into every damn thing. IS AC/2s were screwed over ages ago and never refixed - same with machine guns. Most Clan ACs still suck. There has never been a real attempt to make flamers or LBs do anything.

The weapons in this game do not work right. It's that simple. Since they killed poptarting, the meta is merely whatever loadout happens to be least broken at any given time. You look through the list and you choose the only guns that will work reliably.

So we can talk about this absurd state of affairs (and be called 'weaklings' for it, apparently) or we can meekly accept a game full of broken guns and console ourselves by bragging about how competitive we are.

You're crossing the streams.

Everyone says bad balance sucks and needs fixed. Again, the OP put it poorly but there's been a lot of posts lately from people who are effectively blaming bad balance on competitive players when the opposite is true. Everyone, *especially* the people 'playing the meta' want the game balanced better. We all do. All that stuff needs fixed.

The problem however is not people recognizing that all the issues you listed exist and because of that use lasers because, well, they currently work best. That's not 'bad for the game' or 'killing MW:O'. That's people not using the broken ****. Using broken weapons because REAZONS and saying that people who don't use broken stuff are killing the game is the opposite of helpful.

That's the gist of the OP, cleaned up a bit. Yes, the game needs balanced. You'll see competitive players screaming as loud or louder about that as anyone else. Weapons need fixed to be useful and it's a long list of stuff that needs done. However using what works isn't exploiting or cheating or trying to ruin the game for everyone else, which has been a regular accusation in several threads. The people who recognize some **** in this game is broken and as such use what works and get good at using it (because it works) are likely still going to be playing well, using what works and winning matches after things are fixed.

The problem is people who think the problem is people playing what works, not that stuff is broken. Or that if everything was balanced suddenly they would win more often because everyone else was only winning because they were using what wasn't broken. That's not true. The meta (what works and wins) could switch to MGs and SRMs tomorrow and the people who are winning today with laservomit would switch to that, get good at it and continue to win.

Make sense? Some people got very offensive here (largely in response to very offensive stuff from other posts coloring responses here) but that's what it breaks down to. Yes, stuff is broke and needs fixed. Weapons need better balance. Have for years. That's not going to make there not be a 'meta', because the 'meta' is whatever wins best and people who use that and put the effort and energy into getting good at doing what wins are still going to win.

[Red Shrike]

adamts01, on 30 October 2015 - 01:51 AM, said:

Maybe more ghost heat, lower heat cap

Instead of adding more ghost heat or lowering the already suspect heat cap, there should be increasingly worse debuffs as the heat scale goes up. Look at MW4.

[adamts01]

I actually just finished playing theough mw4 for the first time in maybe 10 years. It made me realize just how many problems this game has. All I noticed with heat was everything getting wonky at about 75%. Is that what you're talking about? If so, my timber dumps out 61 damage, reaches 50% and cools down fast. Something should be done so I can't core a medium with one shot as a heavy like I do. That's not how most of us think the game should be played. I personally think 3 or 4 direct fire weapons should be pinpoint, anything after that should get increasingly worse accuracy penalties. On top of a lower heat cap.

[Dino Might]

MischiefSC, on 31 October 2015 - 12:18 AM, said:

Everyone, *especially* the people 'playing the meta' want the game balanced better. We all do. All that stuff needs fixed.

There's a distinct difference between what is being discussed and what you are advocating.
You are advocating for balance of the equipment w/o regard to player skill. Others are commenting that a player with higher skill has the opportunity right now to balance the game by taking a worse mech, something that cannot be done in the system you propose (because all mechs will be ideally balanced). I understand where you are coming from and why, but it's an entirely different philosophy.

The idea that everyone uses the same or equivalent gear so better players should win all the time is a recipe for a dead game. The worse players will eventually pack up and leave. Here we have the OP saying that's how he likes it, and his fun is steamrolling people over and over. Okay, good luck sustaining that.

Others, including myself, simply can't understand why that is fun. Personally, I prefer close matches that could go either way at the end. The two best matches I have ever had in this game ended up with me losing at the end in epic 1v1 duels that went on for minutes. I can't remember the details of any particular steamroll match, but I can tell you just about everything that happened in those other two matches.

So, what some of us advocate is that when you are steamrolling people, and it's clear you have no real competition, take a handicap, get in a worse mech, and make it an interesting fight. When my team is crushing everyone, I'll start taking increasingly bad builds to make it more of a challenge. When we're getting stomped, I'll get in something better. I have the tools at my disposal to help make better matches, ones that are interesting for me and for everyone else involved.

This thread is more a question of what people's motivations are in a game. It is clear that some people only play to win, and will do whatever it takes to win as easily as possible. I can only speculate as to why, but I'm fairly confident my "facebook meme pop psychology" hits pretty close to the mark.

[Red Shrike]

If we increase ghost heat and lower the cap, I imagine we'll all end up firing 1 medium laser at a time and waiting 5 seconds in between each laser in order to cool down enough so you can fire another without shutting down. TTK is certainly too short in some cases, but a TTK of several minutes is too long.

Edit:
Your TBR pumps out 61 damage? I'm guessing you ditched the LRM20s.

Edited by Timberwolf581, 31 October 2015 - 06:18 AM.

[oldradagast]

Dino Might, on 31 October 2015 - 06:16 AM, said:

The idea that everyone uses the same or equivalent gear so better players should win all the time is a recipe for a dead game. The worse players will eventually pack up and leave. Here we have the OP saying that's how he likes it, and his fun is steamrolling people over and over. Okay, good luck sustaining that.

It is a classic trait of a hyper-competitive sociopath. There is no "fun" for anyone else - just a competition to prove who is "best." They are completely unable to understand why people people may do something for fun without the end goal of being utterly dominant over everyone else. In the end, everything is reduced down to an epeen competition with these people, and it is maddening. They will bend, warp, and twist the system in whatever way to prove that they are "better" than you while being completely unable to understand why nobody cares and how other people are just playing for fun. Given that these types generally lack empathy and destroy everything they touch, they should NEVER be used as a source of game balance recommendations, a lesson I hope PGI realizes before it is too late.

[adamts01]

Timberwolf581, on 31 October 2015 - 06:16 AM, said:

If we increase ghost heat and lower the cap, I imagine we'll all end up firing 1 medium laser at a time and waiting 5 seconds in between each laser in order to cool down enough so you can fire another without shutting down. TTK is certainly too short in some cases, but a TTK of several minutes is too long.

Edit:
Your TBR pumps out 61 damage? I'm guessing you ditched the LRM20s.

Dino might pretty much ed summed up my approach to this game. Much more elegantly than I could have.

My timber is standard try hard C variant. 2lpl on the right arm and 5ml. This let's me bring the max amount of heat sinks. In less my math is off that's 61 points, brings it up to 50% heat. But it's cookie cutter and boring as hell. If they do lower the heat cap and the new meta wolf is 4ml and a gauss I'm cool with that. It's a lower alpha, needs ammo, has a gun that explodes and there's an extra charging mechanic to deal with. As far as the big picture is concerned that'll still be powerful but harder to use and it'll lower the ttk. So yeah. Cool.

My two current favorites are my 2mpl Mist Lynx and my 3xALRM5 2ml shadowcat. I play those till I start losing then I feel like I owe it to my team to step up in to carry mech. If there was deeper meaning to your comment than just a question I'm too sleepy to catch it.

[PholkLorr]

oldradagast, on 31 October 2015 - 07:31 AM, said:

It is a classic trait of a hyper-competitive sociopath. There is no "fun" for anyone else - just a competition to prove who is "best." They are completely unable to understand why people people may do something for fun without the end goal of being utterly dominant over everyone else. In the end, everything is reduced down to an epeen competition with these people, and it is maddening. They will bend, warp, and twist the system in whatever way to prove that they are "better" than you while being completely unable to understand why nobody cares and how other people are just playing for fun. Given that these types generally lack empathy and destroy everything they touch, they should NEVER be used as a source of game balance recommendations, a lesson I hope PGI realizes before it is too late.

Ever thought that to some people, dominating others IS fun. That's what i've been saying over and over again but some people, they just can't comprehend it. Thinks that steamrollers aren't having fun, despite being told repeatedly by steamrollers themselves that they are having fun.

[Dolph Hoskins]

PholkLorr, on 31 October 2015 - 08:49 AM, said:

Ever thought that to some people, dominating others IS fun. That's what i've been saying over and over again but some people, they just can't comprehend it. Thinks that steamrollers aren't having fun, despite being told repeatedly by steamrollers themselves that they are having fun.

All that means is that you are on one of the extreme ends of the scale. In the overall picture you will either have to come more to center with the balance of features or fall off the end in disregard.

Have a day.

[Sjorpha]

I partly agree with the OP, making suboptimal moves on purpose and then complaining about losing is silly in any game, and so is complaining about other players making the optimal moves as if that was somehow immoral.

There is nothing wrong with playing as well as you can in the strongest build you can make, in fact you need players to do exactly that in order to obtain data for balancing. In other words, games that has no top tier players ("tryhards" or whatever you call em) are impossible to balance because no one is doing the very important work of charting out the boundaries of performance for different strategies.

However, it's an entirely different, and also legitimate, to complain about genuine imbalances. Adapting to the meta is one thing, and talking about changing the meta to be more varied and interesting is another thing. Conflating the two leads to nonsense.

So I adapt to meta and don't complain when others are better players than me, or I play experimental builds for the extra challenge and don't complain if they perform worse than other builds.

But I also want the meta to change and balance issues to be addressed, these things are not mutually exclusive in any way.

Edited by Sjorpha, 31 October 2015 - 09:22 AM.

[Dino Might]

PholkLorr, on 31 October 2015 - 08:49 AM, said:

Ever thought that to some people, dominating others IS fun. That's what i've been saying over and over again but some people, they just can't comprehend it. Thinks that steamrollers aren't having fun, despite being told repeatedly by steamrollers themselves that they are having fun.

I believe you when you say that is fun to you, but my question remains.... WHY?
It requires some introspection and honesty with yourself. Warning: You might not like the answer.

[ShinVector]

Dino Might, on 31 October 2015 - 06:16 AM, said:

This thread is more a question of what people's motivations are in a game. It is clear that some people only play to win, and will do whatever it takes to win as easily as possible. I can only speculate as to why, but I'm fairly confident my "facebook meme pop psychology" hits pretty close to the mark.

See how come across OP all the time in Oceanic SOLO queue all the time...
He is just someone simply enjoying his game... And he doesn't get to ride on his steam roller all the time...

If you want to talk about about SteamROLLs... That would be group queue in the past...
Loading as many OP pilots as much as possible... And wipe out red team 20 of 20 times in 2 mins.....

While it is hilarious at first... But it wears of quick and is simply... Not Fun...

My message is.. You are reading into too much... Just let him do what he wants to do...

Edited by ShinVector, 31 October 2015 - 10:09 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

ShinVector, on 31 October 2015 - 10:07 AM, said:

See how come across OP all the time in Oceanic SOLO queue all the time...
He is just someone simply enjoying his game... And he doesn't get to ride on his steam roller all the time...

If you want to talk about about SteamROLLs... That would be group queue in the past...
Loading as many OP pilots as much as possible... And wipe out red team 20 of 20 times in 2 mins.....

While it is hilarious at first... But it wears of quick and is simply... Not Fun...

My message is.. You are reading into too much... Just let him do what he wants to do...

that's grand... "tolerance" goes both ways. The OP is pretty against non meta tryhards doing what they want to do.

Just a thought.

[MischiefSC]

Dino Might, on 31 October 2015 - 06:16 AM, said:

There's a distinct difference between what is being discussed and what you are advocating.
You are advocating for balance of the equipment w/o regard to player skill. Others are commenting that a player with higher skill has the opportunity right now to balance the game by taking a worse mech, something that cannot be done in the system you propose (because all mechs will be ideally balanced). I understand where you are coming from and why, but it's an entirely different philosophy.

The idea that everyone uses the same or equivalent gear so better players should win all the time is a recipe for a dead game. The worse players will eventually pack up and leave. Here we have the OP saying that's how he likes it, and his fun is steamrolling people over and over. Okay, good luck sustaining that.

Others, including myself, simply can't understand why that is fun. Personally, I prefer close matches that could go either way at the end. The two best matches I have ever had in this game ended up with me losing at the end in epic 1v1 duels that went on for minutes. I can't remember the details of any particular steamroll match, but I can tell you just about everything that happened in those other two matches.

So, what some of us advocate is that when you are steamrolling people, and it's clear you have no real competition, take a handicap, get in a worse mech, and make it an interesting fight. When my team is crushing everyone, I'll start taking increasingly bad builds to make it more of a challenge. When we're getting stomped, I'll get in something better. I have the tools at my disposal to help make better matches, ones that are interesting for me and for everyone else involved.

This thread is more a question of what people's motivations are in a game. It is clear that some people only play to win, and will do whatever it takes to win as easily as possible. I can only speculate as to why, but I'm fairly confident my "facebook meme pop psychology" hits pretty close to the mark.

Everyone plays to win. We can get into the psychology of why some people sabotage themselves but biologically you and every other human being is designed to want to win in any competition. That's a whole other discussion.

I do not agree with 'if you win, take a worse mech'. At all. If you win, you need to be kept to matches with other people who win or at least people who volunteer to play you anyway (like CW). I'm a big fan of a good matchmaker. You can't reasonably attempt to handicap everyone who's above average, this creates a disincentive to improve. It is functionally punishing people for playing better. The goal isn't to win at any cost, it's to win against better and better people. Be it moving up classes/grades in sports or ranks in chess or moving up the ladder or the leader board or whatever mechanism you want to mention every single multiplayer game that involves PvP is, by its very nature, competitive. Competition by its nature drives improvement (or withdraw).

A big issue right now is that a lot of people in MW:O don't want to play PvP. They'd rather be playing Co-op if it comes down to it. That's not bad or negative. If we had a good PvE environment for this game you'd rarely see me in PvP. So you have an environment where competitive PvP play is in part populated by people who really don't want to be competing.

The point though, fundamentally, is this -

That's not the fault of the people who are competitive and are playing this game as a competitive PvP game. They're not doing it to ruin the game for everyone else any more than the guy who takes an LRM XL Stalker is playing the game to ruin it for everyone else. They're playing the game, as it is. Everyone wants more options and more balance. Nobody is trying to cancel anyone elses birthday here. Was just reading in another thread as someone rages about 'tryhards'. Like somehow people putting in effort to improve and to win the game is a bad thing. It's not; blaming other people actually putting in effort for 'ruining the game' is bad though.

I'm all for people playing what they want. You want to step your mech down when you're on a winning streak, good on you. Someone wants to play an XL Stalker, I'll wince and be irritated but okay. That's their thing. What is bad and should be called out as bad is when that guy in the XL Stalker gets killed quickly and immediately starts complaining about everyone who took laservomit. Like somehow it's their fault that his bad build did bad.

If some 'tryhard' is acting like an arrogant prig in chat he should be reported. If he legs a teammate for bringing an XL Stalker, report him. He's being an a-hole. Nobody is trying to make an excuse for that sort of behavior. However the meta is the meta because of game balance issues. Those need fixed, absolutely. However it's not a secret or a mystery. If someone wants to bring non-meta, good on them. Jman is a mother ******* CHAMP for how he plays Hunchies and wins. He puts in a ton of effort to play what he wants and win regardless of the games bad balance. He's a mother ******* paragon of how to play against the meta.

He is in a whole other universe from the 'the game is bad because mean meta-humping tryhards keep taking stuff that works and learning to use it well so when I'm half-assing it in my terrbad build I get rocked. It's their fault I'm losing!' Someone wants to take a non-meta mech, that's cool. Learn to play it well. Understand you're playing at a disadvantage by choice. ***** at PGI for fixing balance so slowly that glaciers have been formed, rolled down to the equator and melted in global warming faster than we've had actual balance driving fixes.

Blaming other people for their losses though is absolute unmitigated bull ****. Being a 'tryhard' is a good thing. Respectable, even if it isn't your thing. Playing how you want and putting the effort into it? Also very respectable. I respect the effort Bishop puts into playing his builds well. He actually rocks the Vindicator and does it well. He makes his choices in what to play and doesn't blame other people when he loses. Well, maybe his own team when they suck but that's another thing we can admittedly all agree on.

The only thing you can blame on 'tryhards' is putting more effort into the game. The only thing that 'ruins' is the illusion that putting in 1/2 the effort should still provide the same amount of success at the same level of play. Even if the game was perfectly balanced and we had a population big enough to not have to mix tiers though they'd still be better at the game. That's not an insult to anyone; it's not intended to belittle anyone, it's not saying anything bad about anyone. It is not, however, something a 'tryhard' should feel ashamed of.

I ain't a tryhard either. More of a trysometimes. I swim every day in the psychology of human motivation, success and getting people on a cycle of improvement. Excuses are the devil. Take them away whenever you can.

[TheOtherDino]

MischiefSC, on 31 October 2015 - 10:30 AM, said:

Competition by its nature drives improvement (or withdraw).

And some (many) will withdraw. It's okay if that's what you want. If not, then ya gotta change something about the game. Right now, PGI isn't changing things quickly enough, so it's on the players to do so. Can't eat your cake and have it, too.

If you want to treat a game as some real life competition with significant meaning, then by all means, go for it. Just don't expect everyone to ride along. When there aren't enough players to keep the game running, you'll have your final victory, I guess.