7 replies to this topic

[TheArisen]

To start I want to ask that people be civil, that for the sake of discussion we let go of old arguments & grudges to seek solutions that work for as many players as is possible. Let's drop the whole "us vrs them" deal,etc.

Now, to be clear I'm not saying theres a big conflict problem in the community exactly, this is actually more about how to find solutions that work for as many people as possible. Obviously you can't please everyone but here's hoping. Let's just try & come together to determine what we actually want & how to achieve it so that PGI can at the least have more confidence in what's asked for. Let's try to present a more unified playerbase which can lead to more happy players & Devs.

PGI isn't a perfect developer but IMO one of the difficulties is how fragmented the desires of the players are. One group of players will ask for X feature/nerf, push for it & it gets done. However then comes along another group that hates it & then claims PGI doesn't listen or is out of touch. (Yes sometimes thats true but lets stay on point)

This creates a confusing picture & it can be difficult to just pick something & go with it.

Therefore, lets's discuss what the issues are & how to address them.

- TTK, too low? Fine?

- How to reinvigorate the playerbase?

- More maps? Modes? Mechs? Weapons/Defensive tech?

We all know the topics, lets try to find a solution so that just maybe, just maybe in the dream of dreams, the playerbase & PGI will truely understand each other & PGI can choose a direction for the game that the players enjoy.

Edited by TheArisen, 16 October 2016 - 09:23 PM.

[Mcgral18]

Let's be fully honest: You'll never get the forum community to fully agree on something.
You'll have those hipsters who don't want it.



One option would be in-game Polls, to gather feedback. Now, this will be Potato laced, but it will still contain the majority, and rule out people who haven't patched. Maybe offer it after 10 matches, or whatnot.

That can address multiple situations, where warranted.


As for reinvigorating the playerbase, better communication. More than just Mechpacks being announced. I'm quite honestly sick and tired of the only thing coming from Russ being Mechpacks. Mechpacks and bad ideas.
Buckets and Ghost Heat Mk2 are the most recent highlights, aside from the constant Grabdeals.



Old maps would be a plus, for Frozen, and Forest

Iterative balance...now that would get some money from me. If it was good...PTS5 just made me sad with some of their decisions.

[Alistair Winter]

For the sake of being constructive, I would say that the key issues that create discontent are:

• Lack of substantial new content. New mech packs don't count. Maps every 2-3 months are good, but not enough. New content means PVE, Solaris, new tech, game altering mechanics (role warfare, infotech, knockdowns, melee, etc) or new game modes (they would have to be more than team deathmatch, more like convoy escort, commander hunt, hostage evacuation, etc).
  
• Lack of communication. We have no active community manager, we have practically no dev logs, virtually no PGI communication through the forums, the series of roundtables seem to have ended after a single attempt, no "Ask the devs" and the so-called Townhalls are just sporadic interviews carried out by PGI employees, never giving much information about the sticky questions.
  
• No clear vision for the game. We don't know how Solaris, QP, FP and PVE are going to fit together in the future. We don't know if PVE will be online content run on PGI servers or if it'll be offline content like other Mechwarrior games. We don't know where PGI imagines this game will be in one year, two years or three years. They seem to be improvising a lot, because key questions (like the relationship between QP and FP) don't seem to have an actual tentative answer whenever Russ is discussing these things with the players.
  
• No iterative balancing. Instead of monthly tweaking, we get monster updates like "The quirkening" and "The quirkening 2" with potentially a year between them. Some elements, like MGs and jump jets and certain mechs, are basically untouched for years. New mechs that are released (e.g. Archer and PXH) and found to be underperforming don't get fixed for ages.
  
• Public test server isn't used properly. Without rewards for participating (not as much as a useless cockpit item), there's no incentive for helping PGI with balancing. Especially when it's uncertain that they would listen. It's potentially a huge waste of time, and hardly anyone is doing it. It's basically impossible to help unless you're doing it with your unit. And to actually participate in a constructive manner (i.e. trying to min-max and finding potential problem) takes a lot of time and number crunching. If PGI had rewarded players for participating and acknowledged some of the individuals who went above and beyond the call of duty, the testing would have given more useful results. Right now, it seems to be mostly a handful of people dropping on the public test server with their standard builds, going "Yeah, it's not that different, I guess, I don't know. Ok, this is boring, let's play on the live server, there's an event going on."

[Alistair Winter]

Mcgral18, on 16 October 2016 - 09:31 PM, said:

Let's be fully honest: You'll never get the forum community to fully agree on something.
You'll have those hipsters who don't want it.

Let's be honest, even if the forum community gets the magical "80% consensus" that is required in order for PGI to care, it's still unclear whether the forum actually represents the community or whether the forum is just a vocal minority. Maybe Twitter is the community, maybe Reddit is the community, maybe NGNG is the community. Even some people on the forums don't consider this to be the community.

"There was a dream that was the MWO community. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile." - St. Paulus Aurelius

[El Bandito]

Another big discussion thread with proposed civility? Good luck with it. I'm not gonna touch it.

[Lyoto Machida]

Alistair Winter, on 16 October 2016 - 09:47 PM, said:

Let's be honest, even if the forum community gets the magical "80% consensus" that is required in order for PGI to care, it's still unclear whether the forum actually represents the community or whether the forum is just a vocal minority. Maybe Twitter is the community, maybe Reddit is the community, maybe NGNG is the community. Even some people on the forums don't consider this to be the community.

"There was a dream that was the MWO community. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile." - St. Paulus Aurelius

I did not say I knew Paul...I said he touched me on the right torso once!!!

[TheArisen]

Perhaps....

[BLOOD WOLF]

I am all for it. As I always say they can bark as loud as they wan't. The stronger arguments wears Earmuffs