778 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

pwnface, on 14 January 2016 - 08:15 PM, said:

I think they are trying to make a barrier for this by making it cost c-bills to join a unit.

If I can club seals and they are as bad as tagless generally are, I can make over 1 million cbills per match easy with bonuses and premium time. Easy. I could take a break, farm 10 matches, help flip a world or two for Davion against people who are trying not to choke on their own tongue while swinging their steeringwheel around, then pay 5 million to get back in and be way ahead.

[slide]

Sandpit, on 14 January 2016 - 02:43 PM, said:

those games don't happen with us in Marik now and we drop with everything from players in trial mechs to players who are lucky to break 400 damage.

-snip-

I understand the point you are trying to make, about grouping up and playing with new players, training them recruiting them etc, however your above statement is just not true, it is disingenuous at best and an out right lie at worst. I found this on the Marik forums



Now I believe you are a responsible community member and will no doubt disavow the above group as rogue mercs, but it's that's not the point. These games happen, they happen a lot more than people who group up regularly realize.

What is the fallout from a game like that?

IMO a miniumum of 2 quit CW altogether. Another one probably complained somewhere about it (forums, reddit etc). Worse still more than 1 went back to steam and wrote a horrible review of MWO and a bunch of potential new players don't even bother trying MWO in the future.

This is the fundamental problem. People say that the 12 man boogie man only presents itself in 1% of matches. I say that is entirely dependent of the time of day you play and more than likely true only of events like Tukayyid. Admittedly I play in a low population TZ but that only amplifies the issues. I remember logging in 1 evening to find only 2 planets with activity and about 50 players in total. On one planet we had KCom attacking for JF with random IS pugs defending, On the other Planet we had MS attacking for Wolf with again random IS pugs defending. I dropped on both, got slaughtered both times, logged out and went to bed. On that particular night I am sure 100% of matches were a 12 man stompfest (a certainty for KCom those guys are really, really good). This was not an unusual night either.

Since then we have had an influx of players, both old and new and some units have stopped playing altogether, which has given them a chance to learn some skills with less of a risk of the results like the above. That will change, drastically, once they bring planetary rewards, the units will have something real to fight over and innocent pugs like those above will be nothing but cannon fodder to mow through so units can get their rewards.

If we don't want to go back to CW with a population of less than 200 players, the queues must be seperated, at least until new players have a chance to learn the maps and game mode etc.

[Mystere]

Sandpit, on 14 January 2016 - 07:13 PM, said:

The existing solo experience is awful for some because PGI won't stop being lazy and actually control their campaign map if you want to get real down and dirty about it. Everything in that thread and that post fixes every single thing PGI is trying to fix and is far simpler to implement, isn't intrusive, doesn't punish a segment of the players, and requires ZERO extra coding since all of the mechanics are already in place.

I blame that on the "not invented here" syndrome many developers suffer from.

[Wintersdark]

Mystere, on 14 January 2016 - 08:19 PM, said:

Hold a second!

If unit-tagged players will not be able to drop in the solo queue, then how will they be able to seal club? And in turn, why would you want to discourage units from recruiting if the goal is to stop seal clubbing.

Either I am missing something, or this thing does not compute.

You're missing something - the whole point.

The REASON to charge players to join units (or charge the unit; I'm not sure which way, and it doesn't really matter for the discussion) is that it makes dropping unit to seal club cost more than it's worth.

You just need:

Solo Play Earnings - Cbill Penalty to rejoin unit < Unit queue earnings+planetary income.

As solo play cannot help towards planetary income, the only earnings from solo play in CW are match rewards. Sure, you could seal club and make, more cbills overall per hour (win more matches), but then you have to pay to rejoin your unit or forgo unit bonuses and income.

See, unit players can play in the solo queue only if they leave their unit. They could rejoin after. This cost, then, isn't to punish units that want to grow (per player one time costs for small units would be zero or very little, who cares if it costs you a million cbills to join a unit?) The cost becomes relevant though if you're joining and leaving frequently - which is limited to when you're trying to abuse something. There's no reason to jump in and out of a unit frequently otherwise.

Edited by Wintersdark, 14 January 2016 - 08:45 PM.

[Mystere]

Wing 0, on 14 January 2016 - 07:36 PM, said:

So.. Where do I go to get my 1200$ back? if russ wanted to fk us over and changing the main concept of what Community Warfare is then he should pay back the people he double crossed. We have a PUB QUEUE. WE DONT NEED A SOLO QUEUE IN CW. IF YOU PLAY SOLO IN CW, PLAY AT YOUR OWN RISK. This was asked about awhile back and they said It wouldn't work. so what makes them think the steam scrubs going to make things work now..

Desperation?

[Wintersdark]

MischiefSC, on 14 January 2016 - 08:20 PM, said:

If I can club seals and they are as bad as tagless generally are, I can make over 1 million cbills per match easy with bonuses and premium time. Easy. I could take a break, farm 10 matches, help flip a world or two for Davion against people who are trying not to choke on their own tongue while swinging their steeringwheel around, then pay 5 million to get back in and be way ahead.

But what if you only help flip a world for Davion against other tagless who won't gain planetary control that actually benefits? That is, Davion units aren't going to make more money as a result, because it's a tagless planet, not a unit planet. Sure, your faction gains a world. It's a dot on the screen, though, nothing more.

You gain, say, 2 million cbills (lets call it +200k average per match over 10 matches, playing in the solo queue where you're looking at pretty even 50:50 WLR, vs. playing unit CW in a competent group). But it costs you 1m to join your unit.

You're 1m cbills ahead, right? Except if you spent those 10 matches helping your unit get a unit tagged world, you'd have been earning cbills and MC from that world. Is that 1m cbills worth it?

Mystere, on 14 January 2016 - 08:49 PM, said:

Desperation?

It is.

Not in the "OMG OUR GAME IS DYING" way (note how we're still setting ever higher "most players online of all time" records) but because CW, as it stands, is not being successful.

They HAVE to fix it, and they have to fix it for solo players. There's no alternative. There just are not enough unit players playing CW to work without the soloes.

I'm really not saying Russ's idea is the best. I'm not even saying it's particularly good. But it does look like - alongside the other P3 stuff coming - it'll improve things for those solo players. They'll be able to play without it being horrible, and hopefully that'll lead to more retention, which leads to more players moving to the (more profitable) unit queue.

Or not. But they ARE desperate, and have to find a way to patch up CW. The original design just isn't working.

[Y E O N N E]

I like all the theory crafting going on in here on how to still game the system by using alts, sync-dropping, etc.

It's like Russ was right on the nose about it coming down to the players to not be d*cks at some point or something...

[Monkey Lover]

slide, on 14 January 2016 - 08:22 PM, said:

Now I believe you are a responsible community member and will no doubt disavow the above group as rogue mercs, but it's that's not the point.

What is the fallout from a game like that?

This is the fundamental problem. People say that the 12 man boogie man only presents itself in 1% of matches.

These were mercs, and people dont say 1% RUSS says it happens few percent of the time. The 12 man buggyman kills my 12 man unit too. Not all 12 man terms are kcom level. Few of the 12 man teams i play with this week had a hard time fight 12 pugs. Of course now these teams im guessing will not play cw and will only solo or quit the game. Who wants to fight 12 man comp teams all day.

At the very least now when i setup a 12 man team i will have to tell people who are only average we can't have them play because we're fighting pro teams now. They will have to go back to solo q. You can guess how long this would last.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 14 January 2016 - 09:05 PM.

[Sandpit]

slide, on 14 January 2016 - 08:22 PM, said:

I understand the point you are trying to make, about grouping up and playing with new players, training them recruiting them etc, however your above statement is just not true, it is disingenuous at best and an out right lie at worst. I found this on the Marik forums



Now I believe you are a responsible community member and will no doubt disavow the above group as rogue mercs, but it's that's not the point. These games happen, they happen a lot more than people who group up regularly realize.

What is the fallout from a game like that?

IMO a miniumum of 2 quit CW altogether. Another one probably complained somewhere about it (forums, reddit etc). Worse still more than 1 went back to steam and wrote a horrible review of MWO and a bunch of potential new players don't even bother trying MWO in the future.

This is the fundamental problem. People say that the 12 man boogie man only presents itself in 1% of matches. I say that is entirely dependent of the time of day you play and more than likely true only of events like Tukayyid. Admittedly I play in a low population TZ but that only amplifies the issues. I remember logging in 1 evening to find only 2 planets with activity and about 50 players in total. On one planet we had KCom attacking for JF with random IS pugs defending, On the other Planet we had MS attacking for Wolf with again random IS pugs defending. I dropped on both, got slaughtered both times, logged out and went to bed. On that particular night I am sure 100% of matches were a 12 man stompfest (a certainty for KCom those guys are really, really good). This was not an unusual night either.

Since then we have had an influx of players, both old and new and some units have stopped playing altogether, which has given them a chance to learn some skills with less of a risk of the results like the above. That will change, drastically, once they bring planetary rewards, the units will have something real to fight over and innocent pugs like those above will be nothing but cannon fodder to mow through so units can get their rewards.

If we don't want to go back to CW with a population of less than 200 players, the queues must be seperated, at least until new players have a chance to learn the maps and game mode etc.

and I stand by what I said. Not a single solitary unit that drops on our TS server and has a loyalist unit set up there participates in this.
Stop with your propaganda

[Mystere]

Wintersdark, on 14 January 2016 - 08:43 PM, said:

You're missing something - the whole point.

The REASON to charge players to join units (or charge the unit; I'm not sure which way, and it doesn't really matter for the discussion) is that it makes dropping unit to seal club cost more than it's worth.

You just need:

Solo Play Earnings - Cbill Penalty to rejoin unit < Unit queue earnings+planetary income.

As solo play cannot help towards planetary income, the only earnings from solo play in CW are match rewards. Sure, you could seal club and make, more cbills overall per hour (win more matches), but then you have to pay to rejoin your unit or forgo unit bonuses and income.

See, unit players can play in the solo queue only if they leave their unit. They could rejoin after. This cost, then, isn't to punish units that want to grow (per player one time costs for small units would be zero or very little, who cares if it costs you a million cbills to join a unit?) The cost becomes relevant though if you're joining and leaving frequently - which is limited to when you're trying to abuse something. There's no reason to jump in and out of a unit frequently otherwise.

Ahem!

As Russ himself said, as the unit grows, so does the cost of recruiting new members. If the increasing cost per recruit is charged to the unit, then you are in fact discouraging units from growing up to a certain point. It's even worse -- not to mention silly -- if the increasing cost is charged to the recruit.

Also, if a unit of size A decides not to grow, but allows B% of its members to temporarily drop their tags for C amount of time and club seals to earn D c-bills before eventually returning, there will be optimum values for A, B, C, and D where doing just that becomes very profitable for every member of the unit. Is PGI going to figure this out and calculate what those optimum values are? Or are they going to remain clueless on the matter until someone tips them off (or more probably, someone loudly whines about the "exploit")?

[Mystere]

Wintersdark, on 14 January 2016 - 08:53 PM, said:

But what if you only help flip a world for Davion against other tagless who won't gain planetary control that actually benefits? That is, Davion units aren't going to make more money as a result, because it's a tagless planet, not a unit planet. Sure, your faction gains a world. It's a dot on the screen, though, nothing more.

You gain, say, 2 million cbills (lets call it +200k average per match over 10 matches, playing in the solo queue where you're looking at pretty even 50:50 WLR, vs. playing unit CW in a competent group). But it costs you 1m to join your unit.

You're 1m cbills ahead, right? Except if you spent those 10 matches helping your unit get a unit tagged world, you'd have been earning cbills and MC from that world. Is that 1m cbills worth it?



It is.

Not in the "OMG OUR GAME IS DYING" way (note how we're still setting ever higher "most players online of all time" records) but because CW, as it stands, is not being successful.

They HAVE to fix it, and they have to fix it for solo players. There's no alternative. There just are not enough unit players playing CW to work without the soloes.

I'm really not saying Russ's idea is the best. I'm not even saying it's particularly good. But it does look like - alongside the other P3 stuff coming - it'll improve things for those solo players. They'll be able to play without it being horrible, and hopefully that'll lead to more retention, which leads to more players moving to the (more profitable) unit queue.

Or not. But they ARE desperate, and have to find a way to patch up CW. The original design just isn't working.

Wouldn't creating a game mode (or series of game modes) specifically designed to soften the blow for solo players be more effective than creating separate a queue and risk pissing off groups and solos alike?

A small-team game mode that does not directly affect the map but provide off-map resources available for 12-man teams to use in battles (e.g. artillery, air strikes, more drops, larger drop weight, etc.) could get the job done by making solo players feel they are still making a difference.

Or is PGI too unimaginative to be able to come up with such game modes?

Edited by Mystere, 14 January 2016 - 09:34 PM.

[Mystere]

Yeonne Greene, on 14 January 2016 - 08:57 PM, said:

I like all the theory crafting going on in here on how to still game the system by using alts, sync-dropping, etc.

It's like Russ was right on the nose about it coming down to the players to not be d*cks at some point or something...

There is a huge difference between people trying to anticipate exploits in order to mitigate them, and doing the same thing to actually abuse them. Tsk! Tsk!

[DaZur]

I love ya bud... but this is a little Chicken Little'ish.

I get your points and agree with them, albeit not quite as vehemently, I do. That said, for every group that has the best interest of the community in mind like the FWL there is another that is hell bent on denigrating every new player they have opportunity to. IMHO a lot of the disorganization and fumbling in the dark new player experience is because of the intimidation factor, be it real or perceived.

Most new players would like to experience CW on "their terms" not forced into conscript cannon fodder because it's in their best interest to learn from the experienced groups... It's just going to take them a lot longer in their own queue to figure it out without vetted direction and leadership.

From my perspective new CW players need a tutorial and a padded room to learn and experiment... But you know me. I don't follow the pack and I've been know to launch fiery troll dolls out my arse... What the hell do I know.

[Y E O N N E]

Mystere, on 14 January 2016 - 09:36 PM, said:

There is a huge difference between people trying to anticipate exploits in order to mitigate them, and doing the same thing to actually abuse them. Tsk! Tsk!

You should see the other, related threads on unit recruiting fees. Already plotting to get around these new barriers...

The players also can't themselves mitigate them. That's out of their hands. The only thing they can do is choose not to use the exploits. And it's not an exploit PGI can do anything about unless they want to start banning player IPs when they make multiple accounts. It really does boil down to players choosing to not deliberately make alts for the purpose of sync-dropping (which is hilariously easy to successfully coordinate in CW) against newer/worse players.

[Kilo 40]

so to sum up the thread...

pugs are going to be upset about this.

groups are going to be upset about this.

expect grave unforeseen consequences

this doesn't mean anything, and nothing will really change.

[slide]

Sandpit, on 14 January 2016 - 09:04 PM, said:

and I stand by what I said. Not a single solitary unit that drops on our TS server and has a loyalist unit set up there participates in this.
Stop with your propaganda

It's not propaganda when it's a fact. I accept when you say that no Marik Loyal unit does this deliberately. It doesn't change the fact that it does indeed happen. Very often. It doesn't matter who does it or even if it's deliberate. It adversely effects player retention.

This is the way it is seen by new players (simply).
pug v pug - "oh well they played better lets try again, I might have better team mates next time"
unit v pug - "******* ********, never gave me a chance to do anything, ******* stupid game" - hits uninstall button

Player retention is key for several reasons
-an active game
-PGI's profits
-good reviews

Every player chased out of this game is bad for the game and the community.

Splitting the queues may not be the perfect solution but it is a very good start.

Edited by slide, 14 January 2016 - 10:00 PM.

[Sandpit]

DaZur, on 14 January 2016 - 09:37 PM, said:

I love ya bud... but this is a little Chicken Little'ish.

I get your points and agree with them, albeit not quite as vehemently, I do. That said, for every group that has the best interest of the community in mind like the FWL there is another that is hell bent on denigrating every new player they have opportunity to. IMHO a lot of the disorganization and fumbling in the dark new player experience is because of the intimidation factor, be it real or perceived.

Most new players would like to experience CW on "their terms" not forced into conscript cannon fodder because it's in their best interest to learn from the experienced groups... It's just going to take them a lot longer in their own queue to figure it out without vetted direction and leadership.

From my perspective new CW players need a tutorial and a padded room to learn and experiment... But you know me. I don't follow the pack and I've been know to launch fiery troll dolls out my arse... What the hell do I know.

yes they do
unfortunately that's not how PGI sees it which is exactly why I AM so vehement. Your idea of tutorial and padded room do much more than any kind of this continued segregation. PGI says it doesn't want any players feeling "alienated" yet all the continue to do is put up barriers between players forcing them into arbitrary decisions instead of simply letting them log in and play how they want.

I'm not goin chicken little, I'm pointing out that this is another in a long list of things that appears to be ridiculously more complicated than it needs to be and still doesn't fix the underlying issues causing grief to other players.

The queue that really will be hurt by this is the "no unit" queue "solo: queue, "whatever they call it queue"

I haven't made any doomsday prophecies. I've repeated what Russ has stated and my personal opinion on that. My thing has been, we've been down this road before and if PGI doesn't handle this VERY well and VERY carefully with a lot of finesse, (and every time a new piece of info comes out it reduces my faith in that) this will be a large issue for the community as a whole.

[Sandpit]

slide, on 14 January 2016 - 09:56 PM, said:

It's not propaganda when it's a fact.

you trying to imply I was dishonest in any way shape or form
period

slide, on 14 January 2016 - 08:22 PM, said:

however your above statement is just not true, it is disingenuous at best and an out right lie at worst.

I don't take troll bait, go elsewhere

[slide]

Sandpit, on 14 January 2016 - 10:05 PM, said:

you trying to imply I was dishonest in any way shape or form
period

Did you read the rest of the sentence?

slide, on 14 January 2016 - 09:56 PM, said:

I accept when you say that no Marik Loyal unit does this deliberately.

Oh and you were implying that I was dishonest by supplying propaganda and not facts.

From google
propaganda
noun
1. information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.

I wasn't being misleading or biased when I produced evidence that ridiculous stomps do in fact happen, despite your previous assertion that they don't.

As stated it is irrelevant to this topic of conversation who the perpetrators of the said stomp were.

Edited by slide, 14 January 2016 - 10:26 PM.

[Mystere]

Yeonne Greene, on 14 January 2016 - 09:50 PM, said:

You should see the other, related threads on unit recruiting fees. Already plotting to get around these new barriers...

I am in those threads. So I can say with certainty that not everyone there is plotting to get around said barriers.

Yeonne Greene, on 14 January 2016 - 09:50 PM, said:

The players also can't themselves mitigate them. That's out of their hands. The only thing they can do is choose not to use the exploits. And it's not an exploit PGI can do anything about unless they want to start banning player IPs when they make multiple accounts. It really does boil down to players choosing to not deliberately make alts for the purpose of sync-dropping (which is hilariously easy to successfully coordinate in CW) against newer/worse players.

I know it's out of players' hands. But, they can most certainly make PGI aware of them in the hope that PGI would reconsider their design ... or just jettison their really bad ideas.

Edited by Mystere, 14 January 2016 - 10:34 PM.