296 replies to this topic

[Mystere]

Fen Tetsudo, on 13 January 2016 - 09:55 PM, said:

ie, you have this great metaphor comparing CW to War that you use as a gotcha question, until people continue the comparison to show you why its not accurate.

What is the setting of MWO? Oh, that's right, it's the BattleTech universe. And the word you are looking for is "analogy".

[Mystere]

adamts01, on 13 January 2016 - 09:50 PM, said:

Show me a single arena where that works.

Where what works? Where predators actively seek prey?

I think you lost me there.

adamts01, on 13 January 2016 - 09:50 PM, said:

You're living in a fantasy if you think that's a possibility. Humans are lazy and selfish. If there's a way to cheat and get away with it, they do. When an exploit is found in this game, it's used to death until PGI patches it out. For all the talk about people wanting even fights, most of their fragile egos couldn't handle losing. Your absolutely kidding yourself if you think players will intentionally gimp themselves to be on an equal footing to a **** team of 12 pugs.

Hey, if people can't handle losing, that's on them. Not everyone went through life earning participation trophies. Some earned real trophies via the "School of Hard Knocks".

Edited by Mystere, 13 January 2016 - 10:16 PM.

[Lazor Sharp]

"I also don't understand this contradiction:

"We can afford to run off new players who refuse to get good!"

"We can't split the que between pug & premade because we don't have enough players"

We dont want to run new players off....!!!!!!!! WE, would like for most of them to at least join a Faction TS and be trained by vets in the team work skills needed to play CW, and perhaps find a unit from there..... WE Do Not Want most of them Dumped into solo Q or to solo CW to learn how to be solo rambos / stray cats / with the ME, ME, ME only Bad Habits, solo / puggie attitude, that turns most of them into baby seals, when faced with any players that can coordinate the least little bit, much less have been in a unit with members that have played together more than a few times..... I think most newbies want to get good, if given the right tools, or info to get with other ppl first thing and learn TEAMWORK....... and if they refuse to get good, or are totally anti social, they do have solo mode to derp around in......

Edited by Lazor Sharp, 13 January 2016 - 10:16 PM.

[adamts01]

Mystere, on 13 January 2016 - 10:13 PM, said:

Where what works? Where predators actively seek prey?
I think you lost me there.

Where predators show prey mercy.

Mystere, on 13 January 2016 - 10:13 PM, said:

Hey, if you can't handle losing, that's on you. Don't project it to me or others. Not everyone went through life earning participation trophies. Some earned real trophies via the "School of Hard Knocks".

Winning is less important to me than a good fight. Exactly why I left CW, good fights were extremely rare.

[Bleary]

Mystere, on 13 January 2016 - 09:09 PM, said:

Community WARfare is a quasi war simulation. In way, you do not seek balance. You seek an advantage and maximize it to the enemy's demise.

CW is not eSports. Go ask for Solaris if that is what you want.

CW is team deathmatch on laned maps with limited respawn. It simulates nothing. It barely qualifies as a separate game type. And the chief means of gaining advantage is getting together and exploiting the lack of match filtering, which is standard in any organized PvP mode that even pretends to be taken seriously and is only lacking in CW because so few people bother to play it that they can't afford to split the queue.

Anything else is rationalization.

Edited by Bleary, 13 January 2016 - 10:21 PM.

[Mystere]

Bleary, on 13 January 2016 - 10:17 PM, said:

CW is team deathmatch on laned maps with limited respawn. It simulates nothing. And the chief means of gaining advantage is getting together and exploiting the lack of a machmaker, which is standard in any multiplayer game that even pretends to be taken seriously and is only lacking in CW because so few people bother to play the mode that they can't afford to split the queue.

Anything else is rationalization.

Which part of "community warfare is just a mere skeleton right now" do people not understand?

[Bleary]

Which part of "I'm not going to discuss CW as though it is or will be the fantasy version you have in your head" don't you understand?

[Mystere]

adamts01, on 13 January 2016 - 10:16 PM, said:

Where predators show prey mercy.

Here you go:

adamts01, on 13 January 2016 - 10:16 PM, said:

Winning is less important to me than a good fight. Exactly why I left CW, good fights were extremely rare.

CW is still woefully incomplete. It lacks any semblance of depth. The "campaign" is a simplistic and ultimately silly "Take 7 or more planets before ceasefire for the win!". There is no intel on who is fighting where.

Take something like this and good fights will happen.

[MischiefSC]

Fen Tetsudo, on 13 January 2016 - 09:59 PM, said:

I also don't understand this contradiction:

"We can afford to run off new players who refuse to get good!"

"We can't split the que between pug & premade because we don't have enough players"

So many of these arguments appear dishonest, like they are situational depending on what fits best at the moment. That's usually a tell that someone is reacting with excuses instead of a making a case built on some principle.

It's not about running anyone off. I play with tons of pugs, TONS, who understand the nature of CW and still enjoy it. Constantly. I have no interest in 'running off' anyone; however if someone doesn't want to play in the deep end of the pool I don't think they should be forced to do so. Hence why I'd like the maps/modes in pug queue.

The problem is that when you start setting the bar for expectations to the lowest instead of the highest level of performance you inherently change the environment. That's why pug queue sucks so much; nobody HAS to care. That is exactly what CW was supposed to avoid.

We'll see how it plays out. I don't think it's going to be what you're looking for though; unless you've got a matchmaker splitting people by PSR it's going to be little different from groups on pugs only more uneven matches - as in more numerous. The reality is that 12 members of KCom pugging will generate 4 ROFLSTOMP matches vs regular pugs from other factions where as 1 KCom 12man only produces 1.

There's almost no way NOT to sync drop in a pug queue. You're pretty much creating a feeding trough.

[Kilo 40]

The problem with CW, well the main problem anyway, is they are trying to slap a strategy game on top of a mech sim/shooter.

and I just don't think PGI has the experience(I.E. none) with strategy games to do anything really in depth.

[Kilo 40]

Fen Tetsudo, on 13 January 2016 - 09:59 PM, said:

I also don't understand this contradiction:

"We can afford to run off new players who refuse to get good!"

"We can't split the que between pug & premade because we don't have enough players"

So many of these arguments appear dishonest, like they are situational depending on what fits best at the moment. That's usually a tell that someone is reacting with excuses instead of a making a case built on some principle.

it's really simple.

They want pugs because pug stomping is fun, and losing to another large group isn't fun. if the queue is split, they can no longer pug stomp, and then they'd actually have to get good and play other teams.

[Mystere]

Bleary, on 13 January 2016 - 10:23 PM, said:

Which part of "I'm not going to discuss CW as though it is or will be the fantasy version you have in your head" don't you understand?

All human wisdom is summed up in two words; wait and hope.
- Alexandre Dumas

Kilo 40, on 13 January 2016 - 10:30 PM, said:

The problem with CW, well the main problem anyway, is they are trying to slap a strategy game on top of a mech sim/shooter.

and I just don't think PGI has the experience(I.E. none) with strategy games to do anything really in depth.

Hope is a risk that must be run.
- Georges Bernanos

[KahnWongFuChung]

PGI should have segregated CW from the start but like all things PGI there 4 cans short of a 6 pack on brains.

If segregation of pugs and 4-12 man groups would have been done in closed beta for solo MM then when CW came out everyone would have been happier with this game and not so many players would have quit or uninstalled MWO.

[dario03]

adamts01, on 13 January 2016 - 09:07 PM, said:

I understand that. Let me ask you, what did you think about 4-mans in solo que? Why would your situation play out differently?

When it was a 1,2,or 3 4mans on each side with pugs filling in and elo matching working then it was fine. Not perfect but not the end of the world either. So it doesn't really need to play out differently except for working more often. But there would be differences since its a different mode with respawns, wouldn't be limited to 4, voip in game now. And if it also included that drops at certain times I mentioned earlier then that would maybe help since the system could juggle teams around for better matching. With that you might not even end up with many matches where pugs and groups are mixed and the ones that do could be something like 2-5mans and 2 pugs on each team which should be fine.

No system is perfect but the current system is set up to where you don't know who you will fight and with many attack/defend lanes that do not share in making matches. So we have matches that are 12 grouped vs 12 pugs even though there are other groups playing at that time. My suggestion is to put in a MM so that the groups would be more balanced on each side, and keep pugs in the same queue to keep the numbers up and have more options for the MM.

I think that would work better than the current system. And it also doesn't split the queue, which splits the player base in a mode that was aiming to encourage team play. Also less worry about players sync dropping since if all we did was make a solo queue with no other changes that wouldn't be hard to do. And again if no other changes are made except for adding a solo queue then you would still see stomps quite often.

Having a solo queue and group queue that solo players could opt into would be better than a full split but I still think it better to just have one queue.

Edited by dario03, 13 January 2016 - 10:48 PM.

[LordNothing]

i had an idea yesterday about default units. rather than have separate pug and unit queues, every faction has two default units, one for new players and one for everyone else (and possibly more if player counts allow). if you do not belong to a unit you get sorted into one of those. this technically makes sure everyone is in a unit. now you can have unit ratings and gated planets. you can gate planets from high rated units, and you can gate planets from low rated units. and so now there is finally a place for everyone. of course high gated planets are worth more than low gated ones, and so good units will always go after the bacon, and noobs will squabble over the scraps. it would seriously cut down on farming since the high value worlds would be better for the units who have the skill to take them.

Edited by LordNothing, 13 January 2016 - 11:21 PM.

[MechWarrior3671771]

Lazor Sharp, on 13 January 2016 - 10:15 PM, said:

"I also don't understand this contradiction:

"We can afford to run off new players who refuse to get good!"

"We can't split the que between pug & premade because we don't have enough players"

We dont want to run new players off....!!!!!!!! WE, would like for most of them to at least join a Faction TS and be trained by vets in the team work skills needed to play CW, and perhaps find a unit from there.

Okay, great idea. Why isn't that happening?

From where I sit, people post the "join a team, hop on faction comms" line, and then do nothing. That's why I don't take the argument seriously. Are you reaching out onto the Steam forums and the New Player forums here to do all that? Because I'm not seeing it. And that's why I treat it as just another excuse - "tell them to join a team so we feel less bad about farming noobs"

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Fen Tetsudo, on 13 January 2016 - 11:32 PM, said:

Okay, great idea. Why isn't that happening?

From where I sit, people post the "join a team, hop on faction comms" line, and then do nothing. That's why I don't take the argument seriously. Are you reaching out onto the Steam forums and the New Player forums here to do all that? Because I'm not seeing it. And that's why I treat it as just another excuse - "tell them to join a team so we feel less bad about farming noobs"

Then your sitting in the dark side of the moon. You only have to take a casual look at the new player forums or have some varied friends in units to see that plenty do pull new players in while they play.

Problem is not every solo or new player wants to do that. And guess what, if that means CW ain't for them

[iLLcapitan]

Ok some people have to get things straight.

"Dropgroups" or "premades" aren't the bogeyman, they are the audience for which CW is mainly set.

When we drop as a group, we long for other groups to come up against. You should behold the disappointment on TS, if we see only pugs on the opposing team. I don't think any halfway competent player enjoys a pugstomp, you do your job and get the cbills. I haven't met any competitive group yet, that seeks to drop against pugs. Pugstomps make you sloppy.

OP I really think you got good intentions on this and I feel for the fresh meat too. But I don't think we should try to cure the symptoms, when the root of the problem is the unfinished state of CW. Hopefully phase 3 will bring more players and groups back to the table. Splitting the queue at the current state will simply kill the gamemode. Mabye implement some barrier (NoTrialsAllowed! Mandatory Introduction!) to make people realize the competitive nature of CW.

[Soultraxx]

I say split the queue.

Units say they dont want to face PuGs or farm PuGs.
Most PuGs dont want to face units.

Wheres the problem?

Some units say (note I say SOME not all) "its hard mode/ read the pop up/ expect to lose"

But then they also say

"Bbbbbbut we dont like to farm PuGs"


Whats the old saying about having your cake and eating it?

Hypocrites.

[BearFlag]

CW was stillborn and has been on life support ever since. CW as it was originally released (and remains little different) was a collection of bad decisions that would still drive players away even if there were a decent matchmaker.

Among the more prominent:

No matchmaker. Sorry, it's up to the designer to provide a fun and challenging game. Not the player. CW fails. As an exclusive club it fails as ghost-town. The little disclaimer screen is not an exoneration, but an admission of failure. Without a matchmaker, CW dies.

Channeled maps. All of them. Dumbfounded. Single mode maps that are useless for other modes without heavy editing. Maps themed on environment rather than campaign stage. Maps designed for single purpose rather than multi. Without a variety of maps and modes, CW dies.

Double the Death. As if choke points weren't bad enough, let's ram four times as many mechs through them. 96 in 30 minutes vs. 24 in 15 = twice the death rate. Unless we see large, flexibly programmed maps (Cryengine supports this.) that allow maneuver, CW dies.

One objective. One map designed around the "orbital cannon" is potentially fun. Even better, run-time applied to a versatile map, with or without nonsensical "gates". Oh wait, this repetitious objective is on ALL of the CW maps and the maps have been designed specifically for it. Without map variety (which does not mean a different color and texture pallet) and game-relevant objectives, CW dies.

One game mode. Sorry, there's only one game mode in CW. The Counter-Attack variant is so little different it doesn't deserve to be called a mode. The whole difference is whether the gates are open and whether the game can be won by an Omega rush.

Spawn Camping. Still here. Still a "strategy." Months later and no fix - just mitigating bandaids. No abort mission (which is what would happen in a real failed battle). No alt drop site. No staging area. No exclusion zones. No solution.

No Depth. No immersion, no purpose and no real reason to play it. Existentialists die without purpose. So does CW.

CW as currently configured is a failure. Given PGI's track record of bad decisions (PTS 2 any one?) and glacial work rate, CW is probably irredeemably lost. It should have been scrapped a month after release and ground-up redesigned. What, 9+ months have been spent doubling down on bad expecting good to come from it? I see there's some interesting stuff planned for Phase 3. But if the issues above are not addressed, it'll be lipstick on a gorilla.

Edited by BearFlag, 13 January 2016 - 11:57 PM.