93 replies to this topic

[justcallme A S H]

The amount of people this event who don't even know where to shoot a generator is worrying and frustrating. The previous event, I noticed very little issue.

At least most understand if you tell them over VOIP (and they actually have it enabled).

That said I'm yet to see a seasoned player that won't help noobies, it's just when the "noobies strike back" with acid comments/ignoring and so on. And this event there is a LOT of that going on (last one there was not).


Maybe that is the difference between Davion PUGs and other faction PUGs?

Edited by justcallme A S H, 13 September 2016 - 08:35 PM.

[762 NATO]

It has all been said. But +1 to OP and Bump. Look at me with next to no time in Community Play Faction Warfare and still I end up drop calling because of events and such. Just don't ever take trials or mechs that you haven't mastered or moduled out. Or lurms. You pugs are killing me.

[Digital_Angel]

762 NATO, on 13 September 2016 - 10:33 PM, said:

It has all been said. But +1 to OP and Bump. Look at me with next to no time in Community Play Faction Warfare and still I end up drop calling because of events and such. Just don't ever take trials or mechs that you haven't mastered or moduled out. Or lurms. You pugs are killing me.

While I don't disagree with the fact that mastered mechs and certain load outs are superior, you don't get to tell other players what to run or not run, even when you have to play on a team with them. Let people play their game. Sure, give them advice if they ask questions, and someone else may or may not agree with all the advice you give or might give different advice. All people giving other players grief in Faction or even QP over what weapons or mechs they choose to use does is run off new players and keep the player base from growing.

Especially when events roll around, like the current Faction only event, many new players don't have a fully mastered drop deck worth of mechs for each side yet. Especially for F2P accounts, that takes a few months worth of grinding, including needing either Faction or events to earn the bays needed to get several mastered mechs unless they are just using 4 variants of the same chassis.

[FEK315]

I hear you about arrogant Knewbs, sometimes it's their pride talking back because they feel you know more then them and other times it's just because they are arrogant players. .
But don't let that stop you from helping people out if they are tolerable.
If they start to anger you then let them be with a, " Good Luck Buddy! ".

I love this community! Out of my 13 years of playing Mechwarrior this community, by far, is the best I have ever had the pleasure of playing with. Thank you fellow MechWarriors !!!!

[50 50]

One of the problems is that Invasion is not a mode we can 'practice' on in quick play to learn the ropes.
Nor is there any elements of quick play translated over to faction play to help in the transition.
While this may change in the future, familiarity with the objectives and how they work would help players 'graduate' into faction play.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

To be fair, I think a big opportunity was missed with the Steam launch. Having a tutorial before that? Woulda rocked. MAYBE would have retained some more of the Steam crowd, many of whom bailed HARD after a frustrating first hour or two in FW.

Water under the bridge.

That said, IF/WHEN any significant change to FW comes around, it should be accompanied by a tutorial. Same for quick play. But who knows what the future holds? Russ sure stirred a pot o' brown gold when he casually mentioned the game engine update possibility several months ago. Lord knows what this game would look like after a migration to even just a newer CryEngine, let alone if it went to something badass like Unreal. And some core game mechanics are still in question (check the 'Energy Draw' PTS), so it reminds us that the game changes over time. Tutorials must also change to reflect the current state of the game.

Really, just ignore me. I haven't played a live drop in a couple months, I think...

[James Argent]

As someone who has been sufficiently warned away from participating in FW without even trying it, I may not have any 'cred' to say anything except that I'm not going to sign up to be anyone's b*tch. However, if you want the opinion of someone who wants to play FW but is unwilling to do so under the current implementation, PUGs and premades must be separated. I read a post early on in the thread that talked about there being insufficient numbers to do this, but dumping everyone together is the entire reason there are low numbers in FW. The big ol' bad-*** premades are going to have to just suck it up and wait to fight each other, because right now they're eating PGI's seed corn and no new big ol' bad-*** premades will ever grow from new players being mercilessly curbstomped into quitting, or not even trying in the first place. FW is apparently in lean times...it needs to adopt lean times strategies not just to keep it alive, but to allow it to eventually come off of life support.

Also, trial 'mechs have to be allowed for PUG play. If the way to get FTP mechbays is by amassing LPs, nobody can expect new FTP players to get everything 100% right to fill a dropdeck correctly (or even to QUALIFY, given tonnage restrictions) when they buy 'mechs for their four starter bays. PGI needs FTP players in FW more than they need to start excluding willing players with a new paywall. If you premade guys want to not allow trial 'mechs in premade play, that's fine, I guess. In PUG play it shouldn't matter as much to not have super-elite mastered 'mechs because they wouldn't be fighting against the bIg ol' badass premades.

I'd certainly like to join in the larger war for the Inner Sphere and do more than just queue for quick play. But it needs to be fun or I simply won't bother.

Edited by James Argent, 18 September 2016 - 07:59 PM.

[Digital_Angel]

James Argent, on 18 September 2016 - 07:58 PM, said:

*good points*

James, you are correct that FW play is the main way the F2P account get the bays needed to build up in this game. The only other way that is still free is some of the events, although some of those involve FW as well.

Should you try to take mechs into FW that you have skilled up already if you have them available? Yes, those bonuses make a huge difference in the way a mech performs, and so greatly increase your odds of doing well in the match (and hence getting more RP from it). Still, people need to be more forgiving of the fact that new players don't start with that already built up and FW is the main way to earn more bays in this game without spending money. The good news is that even losses get you some LP/RP towards your faction ranks.

This game has a great community on the forums, YouTube, and Twitch supporting it, but sometimes the individual players in a match can get a little salty. I understand that loosing isn't always fun. Things like the current event push a lot of people into FW that would not normally be playing FW much yet. Since IS mechs are cheaper on initial purchase, it also means that a lot of the new players joining in are on the IS side. I noticed the quality of the teams I was on for the IS side of the event going down during the event and wins were harder to come by. I suppose I could have gotten bitter and left my unit for one with a Clan contract, but I kept going. The only way new players get experience if through playing, and hopefully some help from those of use that have been here a while. I've been around close to 2 years and am still learning from people who have been here longer than I have about things. Heck, just the other day I was watching a stream of one of the NGNG guys and he admitted when someone pointed it out that he had never realized a few points about the way overheat damage is distributed when you are shutdown. We all have things we can learn from other players, no matter how long we have been around the game. Getting mad at someone for running a build or using a play style that you consider sub par helps no one and only aggravates everyone. I wish more people around this community would just let other players play their own game more and complain at people doing it "the wrong way" less. Some people don't know where the line is between constructive criticism (especially if the person didn't ask for the advice) and general belly aching.

Anyway, welcome to the game, and newbie or not I know some guys and gals that will be more than happy to drop with you if time zones line up.

[James Argent]

Oh, don't get me wrong...losing can still be fun if it's a good fight. I just won't have any fun if there's no possible way for my team to win because 'lol spawncamping noobs.' Neither am I the kind to avoid paying my dues, if they're reasonable and I get to learn how to become better in the process. But with too large a gap in skill/equipment levels, neither side can learn anything except contempt for each other.

To get back to the real topic, would a tutorial help? I'm sure it would at least clue people in on what they need to do instead of, for example, shooting the gates. But it wouldn't help with the unit tactics required to win. And I think that's OK as long as in the real FW they last long enough against comparative equals to learn them.

[Dave Forsey]

Thanks for getting back to tutorial related...

The bottom line is that to create an interactive tutorial that covers even a portion of the items mentioned in this stream, and to produce adequate AI would be months of work (better spent on other things), would be out of date before it came out, and be a constant maintenance nightmare sucking up programmer, designer and quality control resources.

Video is the only way to go with a moving target like this. (along with better in-game presentation/access to those videos... )

[Bud Crue]

I wonder if following the podcast, there is any point to creating a tutorial? Given the extensive nature of the changes being proposed/asserted by Russ, it seems that FP will soon be a very different critter. The (pardon me) critter that it is to become can just as easily be represented with the existing QP academy/tutorial with an added section for gate and gens. Seems like at that point such a tutorial would be pretty simple.

Edit: though I suppose a video will still be necessary to explain scouting.

Edited by Bud Crue, 19 September 2016 - 04:55 PM.

[Kin3ticX]

Dave Forsey, on 19 September 2016 - 04:07 PM, said:

Thanks for getting back to tutorial related...

The bottom line is that to create an interactive tutorial that covers even a portion of the items mentioned in this stream, and to produce adequate AI would be months of work (better spent on other things), would be out of date before it came out, and be a constant maintenance nightmare sucking up programmer, designer and quality control resources.

Video is the only way to go with a moving target like this. (along with better in-game presentation/access to those videos... )

you would get much more bang out of an official wiki rather than a video. All the little ins and outs of CW would drag a video out beyond most attention spans and make it hard to fact find.

What do I mean?


-what are planet chits
-what does destroying the MFB do in counter attack
-how do I tell if I am attacking or defending
-how do I tell what map I am fighting on
-how do I tell if I am winning or losing a planet.
-how to use the planet finder to get a game
-what happens if I attack a planet at 100% progress
-why cant I queue up for a match? (then talk about ceasefire)
-can I leave CW matches early if I am dead and play a new one?
-how many turret drop queues can happen simultaneously on the same planet?
-what happens if I kill people from my old faction?
-unit coffers

and that is probably just scratching the surface

I still see people rushing the MFB like they will single handedly win the game and there is just no place for them to even go to get up to speed

I had big plans to make a comprehensive CW guide myself but I just dont have the time and perhaps the motivation

https://docs.google....9cf7a47f5_204_0

Edited by Kin3ticX, 19 September 2016 - 05:39 PM.

[Tuann]

Dave,

To be fair, it allready would help if in the testing grounds, you have the gates and turrets and gens active version of the map.
Right now, you have an empty map with some mechs in testing grounds.
Have the same map now present in testing ground with the above mentioned features + the dummy mechs.

It will allow new players to actually try to open the gates, shoot turrets, kill the gens and destry omega. They will learn and train all the needed things to participate in a real fw match..

Should hopefully not be too much work to keep that updated, as you can allready do it now with empty maps perhaps ?

Edited by Tuann, 19 September 2016 - 11:49 PM.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Kin3ticX, on 19 September 2016 - 05:32 PM, said:

you would get much more bang out of an official wiki rather than a video. All the little ins and outs of CW would drag a video out beyond most attention spans and make it hard to fact find.

What do I mean?


-what are planet chits
-what does destroying the MFB do in counter attack
-how do I tell if I am attacking or defending
-how do I tell what map I am fighting on
-how do I tell if I am winning or losing a planet.
-how to use the planet finder to get a game
-what happens if I attack a planet at 100% progress
-why cant I queue up for a match? (then talk about ceasefire)
-can I leave CW matches early if I am dead and play a new one?
-how many turret drop queues can happen simultaneously on the same planet?
-what happens if I kill people from my old faction?
-unit coffers

and that is probably just scratching the surface

I still see people rushing the MFB like they will single handedly win the game and there is just no place for them to even go to get up to speed

I had big plans to make a comprehensive CW guide myself but I just dont have the time and perhaps the motivation

https://docs.google....9cf7a47f5_204_0

If I'm not mistaken (and after 4 years of MWO, I had better not be), yours is the single most often-quoted, often-cited, often-recommended CW/FW guide there is. There is no video series, forum thread, reddit post, anything, that I've seen cited NEARLY as often as your guide, for the basics of FW and getting new players to understand it. Not going all fanboi on you here, and there ARE some other sources of user-created content that are informative and quite helpful. But your guide is the gold standard, last I looked around.