48 replies to this topic

[Rejarial Galatan]

Ok, we USED to be able to opt out of modes we did not want by removing the check mark from the box. Russ Bullock comes along, gives us voting, which, by the way, NO ONE BLOODY WANTED, then, he tells us, play or be punished.

I DEMAND, absolutely DEMAND the return of that opt out selector. Why? Well, Domination for one. Its a crappy mode that panders even MORE to the call of duty whiners, its poorly thought out and even worse, it ends up on maps that cripple teams with slow moving mechs. Look, just give us the ability to opt out of modes we dont want to play back. that would be a big help.

Oh and to the trolls, yes, trolls, who will reply: get good, I say, sod off. This is a matter of having our freedom to CHOOSE returned to us. Besides, do you want firepower that makes a difference, or a group of at least 4 mechs who arrive to the fight just in time to see it end because the lights managed to cap the radar dish in domination? your choice. oh wait...thats right, we have no choice any more.

Edited by Rejarial Galatan, 25 March 2016 - 07:22 PM.

[VinJade]

I agree, its even worse with the grim map & the snow plains where the fastest mech wins.

and people b**** about the other wining by base or resource capture making to so fast

here you just have to hold 'em off for a minute and that's it.

hell in the snow plain the largest map in the game it takes heavies with 4/6/x movement what? 1 - 3 minutes alone to get to even the middle of the map?

I would love to have our choices back but what are the odds of people leaving domination marked?
I think very few would leave it marked thus the pool for it really shallow thus it will never happen...

[Rejarial Galatan]

VinJade, see, this is why i keep saying domination is such a poorly thought out and even more poorly executed. Domination should be a light to medium mech ONLY type of match. if you cant move 90+kph then you should not be permitted entry into the match of domination. you are nothing more than dead weight. I had a domination match yesterday i think it was, where, i was at full speed, a stunning 48.6 kph on polar highlands, and wasnt even a THIRD of the way to the middle before the enemy had i kid you not, 15 SECONDS left on the count down clock. I would say, I hope to see something smart happen, but, i doubt it. so, all i can do is suffer my way thru a match where the only xp i get is spotting help from hitting R.

Domination needs a map that is devilishly small, say, 3km radius from the middle to the out of bounds line. OR they can refuse assault mechs and heavy mechs entry to the match <best solution is just flat out return us the opt out option>

[NoiseCrypt]

Thou shall not split the bucket, until thou player base has reached critical mass.

Complaining and opting out is easy, and wont make the game any better. How about you provide some constructive feedback on how to fix the issues you have with the maps and modes ?

[VinJade]

@NC
did you read his reply to mine?

Rejarial Galatan, on 25 March 2016 - 07:56 PM, said:

VinJade, see, this is why i keep saying domination is such a poorly thought out and even more poorly executed. Domination should be a light to medium mech ONLY type of match. if you cant move 90+kph then you should not be permitted entry into the match of domination. you are nothing more than dead weight.

I had a domination match yesterday i think it was, where, i was at full speed, a stunning 48.6 kph on polar highlands, and wasnt even a THIRD of the way to the middle before the enemy had i kid you not, 15 SECONDS left on the count down clock. I would say, I hope to see something smart happen, but, i doubt it. so, all i can do is suffer my way thru a match where the only xp i get is spotting help from hitting R.

Domination needs a map that is devilishly small, say, 3km radius from the middle to the out of bounds line. OR they can refuse assault mechs and heavy mechs entry to the match <best solution is just flat out return us the opt out option>

as you can see he did offer some ideas and I agree with him.
also opt out is a ligament idea.

on a side note I broke up the post a little as I don't like wall text and it is a bit easier for me to read but other than that and the bold I changed nothing to his reply.

Edited by VinJade, 25 March 2016 - 08:17 PM.

[NoiseCrypt]

VinJade, on 25 March 2016 - 08:17 PM, said:

@NC
did you read his reply to mine?



as you can see he did offer some ideas and I agree with him.
also opt out is a ligament idea.

on a side note I broke up the post a little as I don't like wall text and it is a bit easier for me to read but other than that and the bold I changed nothing to his reply.

I read it afterwards...and all his suggestions are based on someone opting out... be it players or mech classes. Splitting the player base will never improve the game with the current player count.

And give PGI a chance to catch up with how stuff plays out. I'm sure that they already know which maps need to have new spawn points.

[Wintersdark]

You're not getting an opt-out. It's just not going to happen. The reason it went away is that we didn't and don't have the player counts for matchmaking to work well, and splitting the pool makes it massively worse. Particularly as we add more game modes, it becomes ever less practical.

That's all from Russ, so arguing we do have enough players now is pointless. He thinks we don't and he's the guy with the data and who makes the decision.

So, instead, you're going to need to put on your thinking caps and figure out ways to fix the modes that aren't stupid. Making modes "light and medium mech only" is a freaking stupid idea and, if it wasn't tongue in cheek, he should feel embarrassed for suggesting it. First, it's splitting the player pool (bad, matchmaking, see above). Second, it's taking the least played and most needed weight classes away from the other modes, making them even more heavy/Assault only.

[VinJade]

yeah pgi is sooo well know for being able to balance things out in the past without mucking things up far worse than they are, lol.

All joking aside, pgi shouldn't have added a mode without truly putting any real thought into it. if they had they would have seen the problem with the mode from the start.

hell they even reduced it from three minutes to one minute and it takes about three to get to the blasted locations to start with.

three ideas:
1: make just domination the only mode that can be locked out
2: have only some maps that domination can be on
3: increase time from one minute to five

@Wintersdark
then it was stupidity on Russ's part then as he clearly never thought all the way through when it came to this mode.

he clearly didn't think about how long it would take some mechs to reach some points on a massive map meaning we have actual hundreds of tons of dead weight that cannot come close to matching many faster mechs speed such as the AC, Jenner, Locust, ect.

Edited by VinJade, 25 March 2016 - 08:56 PM.

[Rejarial Galatan]

Yes, this is a wall of text, yes, you really should read this. I am not going to leave a tl/dr summary at the bottom. You dont want to read it. do not respond to it.

Well, I am a heavy mech pilot and an assault mech pilot. I run a TBR Prime and a champion class Dire Wolf. I am NOT a fast moving pilot when comes from going from point A to point B. As I pointed out, I had one domination on polar highlands where by time i got only ONE THIRD OF THE WAY FROM DROP TO CIRCLE OF GREEN, the count down clock for my enemy was already reduced by 45 SECONDS. I do not like light to medium mechs because of the way I play and they do not suit me. Having a poorly made mode such as Domination, makes most heavies and until the Kodiak arrives, ALL assault mechs entirely useless unless its a VERY open map and they can gauss or er ppc snipe. When I say we need the opt out back, I am NOT joking. How many times have you been on say game mode: assault and some player rushes to cap the enemy base <which I usually do, because, hey, its my job as an assault mech> and the match ends before you get your skirmish fix? Not fun for you is it? Well, its not fun for a slow and heavy assed mech to be about 95-100% useless on domination because it ends before we can arrive.

We had the opt out and the quality of game play was superior to what it is now. I am beyond sick of being on my beloved assault mode or conquest mode only to see the match over because the skirmishers ignored the objective, and I am sure they are sick of seeing ppl play the objective.

You claim we are losing players or rather, do not have the player base to have the opt out back, well, think about it for a minute, why is that? I can tell you EXACTLY why. 1 person. Russ Bullock.

Want me to delve deeper? Ok. Lets take a journey back to 2012 when this game was just STARTING to be developed. What I am about to say, I say with having been here since MARCH 2012, so, I speak with 4 YEARS of time as a forum member. This game was sold to us as having some core pillars or fundamental ideologies that were touted as how it was to be. One of those pillars was NO THIRD PERSON VIEWS, this game was ORIGINALLY slated to be a First Person ONLY Mech Simulator. I quote from something Paul Inouye stated, if you desire the link, I will provide, but, read:

[color=#00FFFF]MechWarrior Online is being designed to put you the player in the seat of the pilot. It is 100% first person view only. Being the pilot is one of our key design pillars and 3rd person breaks that pillar on multiple levels as seen in many of the other 3rd Person discussions.[/color]

[color=#00FFFF]We will investigate 3rd person in the far off distance for special game settings, but this is very far off in the distance.[/color]

[color=#00FFFF]While we appreciate those who enjoy 3rd person, MWO will be 1st person out of the gate and in the near future.[/color]

[color=#00FFFF]-Paul[/color]
[color=#00FFFF]Lead Designer[/color]
[color=#00FFFF]---------------------------------------------------------[/color]

A bit more than a year later, after a "bunch" of whining from players on twitter and facebook, Russ comes along and shatters a core pillar and adds third person to this game. You see, when they <the designers> will NOT adhere to their own publicly stated ideologies, you lose faith in them and then you leave.

Next came things like MC consumables, this angered people as yet another pillar started to crumble, the one of: your skill as a pilot, NOT your wallet will determine the victor in a fight. Well, consumables looked to be the start of Pay to Win. Then came hero mechs, champions and that pillar crumbled more. Granted these items did not provide a true edge over a free only player, but the damage was done and more players left.

I left myself for some time and only came back last year. Then out of the blue russ decided he wanted to give us voting for modes and maps. This angered people again, as it broke the game in our veteran eyes, as it signaled the loss of our freedom to choose. We lost our ability to stay off modes we hated and only play with those who shared our way of playing. Russ then decided to PUNISH players who still refused to play by implementing the ability to report players for nonparticipation either via disconnecting from a match or suicide. This was and STILL IS uncalled for bullying by Russ. You see, it is in human nature to want to be able to choose what we do, and when you lose that freedom to choose, you either leave or end up in a dictatorship.

What started to happen when we lost our ability to choose to stay out of modes we do not like, is players stopped playing their hearts out and did just enough to avoid the non participation thing, by suicide charging the enemy. This hurts the team in general. What fun is it when you want to skirmish and the rest of your team wants to play the objective? OR as it is more often than not, the skirmishers are having a blast regardless of mode and the one or two players who want to play the objective get harassed for playing the objective. I myself have lost count of the times people have snapped at me for going after the base to capture it while they are busy trying to skirmish, even tho, I am in assault mode, in an ASSAULT mech doing what my weight class was intended for.

NOW, we have a new map, Grim Plexus, which, for some modes like assault or conquest is a perfectly fine map, works alright for skirmish too, but, is such a bad choice for domination. We also have domination, a mode, that lets face it, with its 1 minute countdown clock and some very very large maps, and some very slow moving mechs, you can have upwards of 2 lances of mechs that cannot get into the fight before its over because they are too slow to out run the lights that take all of 20-30 seconds from power up to nearly clearing that clock out. That is not fun for anyone over say 60 tons. Given that you choose your mech FIRST then get to see what your "choices" are, its a lose lose. No, we NEED that opt out back, or a set of conditions that make it so you face a not so dissimilar enemy so that the match is even and fun for all.

[VinJade]

nicely said RG.
I know what you mean by being yelled out for something that is actually following the mode.
My Stalker once was heavily damaged no weapons, missile dry, lasers dead and no armor over 90% of my mech. so no enemy in sight I just run after the base and start to capture it.

the other players was whining about me taking too long and not just going out and getting killed just to end the match early for them.

then on the Domination mode my leg was gimped from damage I was going at about 25 kph at best over the Grim and people telling me to hurry up and then we lost just as I managed to get close because the time ran out.

who was the ones they way blaming? Us the Assault pilots.

I seen a SwayBack IIC(missile one) move at maybe 10% of its speed taking pot shots at enemy mechs as they walked their way there on the large snow map.

Someone threatened to report them but the player stated 'I am still shooting at the other team, so I am breaking no rules as I am still participating in the fight'

and the player was right, they was still 'trying' which was part of the rules.

[NoiseCrypt]

All your bitterness wont change the fact that without a significantly larger player base, opt-outs will make it impossible for the match maker to pair 24 people within 5 minutes (just like those magical unicorn pre-alpha days where everything was perfect)... and if the opt-out is implemented fairly it might prevent certain combinations from ever getting a match.
(please search the forums for the bucket/playerbase explanation... this topic has been covered extensively.)
http://steamcharts.com/app/342200
That of course doesn't take non-steam users into account. But its interesting numbers... and they don't promise well for the future.

Democratic voting is the most fair choice for everyone. Saying that voting has removed your choice, is just failed logic and a spoiled opinion.

If the lights and fast mediums don't understand that they have a responsibility during the beginning of domination. That's just a bad match. The same can happen for other game modes and mech classes as well. People make mistakes, people have bad matches, and some people take a long time to learn. And that person will probably be the major cause of the team loosing that one match. But guess what. It happens to all of us.
Domination is a good twist on skirmish, but making it work on 12 different maps in one go is a lot to ask. So it will need some adjustments.
But that should in no way warrant the option for people to screw over the rest of the playerbase by letting them only play their favorite mech on their favorite map in their favorite mode. MWO is a game of customization and adaptation. And as i see it, opt-out only detracts from that.

Edited by NoiseCrypt, 26 March 2016 - 04:19 AM.

[DivBy0]

Without an Opt-Out Option->

Domination could be a good mode with 3 minutes on the start clock and better domination points. But with 1 minute... one thing must clear... only those who vote for domination have to enter the circle of death. Not those who have not votet for it, because they are no LRM-Boat or ECM-TAG-NARC-Sniper.
I had several stupid games in domoination mode with a lot of LRM-boats (the voter) and sniper (the voter) hiding and demanding a push and locks. No! The domination-voter have to push... the other will follow. What? No push because they are "support" ... so be it. Next game

[Rejarial Galatan]

Here is the thing tho, that A LOT of people are forgetting, we USED TO HAVE OPT OUT as recently as less than A YEAR AGO, more like less than 5 MONTHS ago!!! See, the game is being hurt by the fact that people are being forced to play modes they are not suited for.

Take my timberwolf prime, it is an energy boat with nothing but CERMLs on it, between 6 and 8 <been on my DWF-W(C) too long now to remember the exact load out on my TBRP in terms of just how many there are> it is a mech designed for hit and run objective based play. My DWF has 2 (two) Clan Ultra Class Autocannon 10s with 1560 rounds in total, it is a brawler, and has its place in SOME skirmish situations, but, is suited for capture as I can back up to the objective and gun down what ever is coming at me. Both mechs move below 90kph with the Direwolf doing 48.6KPH, please, tell me, how me in either of these two mechs HELPS with say, Domination? More often than not, I arrive too late to do ANYTHING but go, oh look match over.

What is worse is what happens in modes where <and i do not consider domination to be anything more than a joke> objectives matter, and you get a bunch of people who just want to skirmish, but, because the "choices" were conquest or assault, they STILL SKIRMISH. This takes the fun out of the game for players who like to play objectives, as it strips the fun away from the skirmishers when enough players who enjoy the objective actually PLAY the objective and cut the match short because hey, we took the base while you people were glory hunting.

Whats worse than worse? Russ Bullock punishing people for trying to get out of matches in modes they never played, dont know how to properly play, or flat out dont care to play. How is that fun for anyone to be stuck with people who couldnt give less of a **** about the mode and just do eff all of nothing to help the team?

Lets put this yet another way, lets say you <and just bear with me here> and a group of 11 of your closest friends want to go and do something, but dont know what exactly. SO, you suggest a pair of choices, say for argument sake, a trip to the beach for the day, or say take in a movie. Both are fine choices wouldnt you say? SO, they all agree that those are indeed fine choices, so, yall put it to a vote. 3 vote for the beach and 9 for the movie. YAY democracy right? NOPE! Those 3 who voted beach decide to say screw it and decide to bug out and go to the beach, but, they dont say anything, and lets say ONE of those 3 is your significant other! For what ever reason, they dont say anything as they vanish and you fail to notice because you are engrossed in conversation with the other 8 who chose the movie. SO, you arrive at the theater and notice that your significant other is gone. You cant call them because your phone has died and the movie is like a minute from starting, so, you take your seat and cant enjoy the movie cuz your significant other is missing. Forcing others into modes they hate is kinda like this, its just not fun for anyone. Now, please spare me how I am reaching with my example, I already know that, I already know that it would take some very rare circumstances for my example to actually happen, but, the point is still valid.

It helps no one to force people into modes they dislike, and it just makes you <in this case PGI and Russ> look like tyrants who refuse to give a single rats fart about the clients when they create a climate in which this happens and then punish people for trying to make it unhappen. I think something like this happened in real life, but, I for the life of me cant think of a place or time in which a tyrant took away freedoms and choice in the name of trying to make a utopia...nope...just cant nail down what im thinking of...

[Wintersdark]

Rejarial Galatan, on 26 March 2016 - 01:53 PM, said:

Here is the thing tho, that A LOT of people are forgetting, we USED TO HAVE OPT OUT as recently as less than A YEAR AGO, more like less than 5 MONTHS ago!!! See, the game is being hurt by the fact that people are being forced to play modes they are not suited for.

And it didn't work well. The change resulted in two things.

First, it allowed more game modes: hard game mode selection meant we could never have more game modes, because each additional mode would divide the resultant player pools.

Second, it dramatically improved matchmaking (whether you want to believe it or not), Russ showed the MM accuracy values after the change. This was particularly significant in the group queue, which is already well below desired player targets.


Keep that in mind. It was, with 3 modes instead of 4, just not good enough; a severe problem that needed fixing then. With 4 modes now, it'd be worse.

[Appogee]

@OP.

Stop relying on large, slow Mechs as a crutch. Take more rounded Mechs that can better adapt to different maps and modes.

However, if you insist on taking large, slow Mechs to every match, prepare to be penalised in some matches where your self-imposed limitations and attempted min/maxing of armor/speed will cost you some competitiveness... just as it will favor you in some maps and modes.

The restrictions on game modes/maps are necessary to achieve the collective good of better and faster matchmaking. So please stop demanding that everyone else compromise the way we can play, just so that you can continue to min/max Mechs within your narrow preferences.

Edited by Appogee, 26 March 2016 - 02:40 PM.

[VinJade]

@Appogee
Who gives you the right to say what a player should or should not use?
Why should we be punished for using slower machines because it suits our play style?
We should be allowed to use machines that suit us and NOT be punished for it.
just because you might be lacking in the ability to use assaults/heavies doesn't mean you get the right to mock those that do use them.

I now believe more so then ever that the domination mode needs to be removed and replaced with something that doesn't pander to lights, mediums, & dare I say cod players.

Edited by VinJade, 26 March 2016 - 05:25 PM.

[Rejarial Galatan]

@appogee I finally get to use one of my favorite reasons why people like you are 100% wrong to think you have any right to tell me or anyone else what mechs we should or should not use, how we should be treated if we do not use what does not suit us:

I paid for the MC paid for my mechs, which means, it was my money, not YOUR money. This by absolute and unbroken logic means, that, it is MY choice to play what I want and exactly HOW I so desire. This means, that, in our case here on MWO, seeing as I am by the actions of a member of PGI FORCED into playing modes I do not wish to partake in, such as Domination <where I am more often than not 99.7 tons of continental drift, that only occasionally impacts the area> am forced to hinder the team because my top speed is 48.6KPH.

For you to claim that I should be penalized for utilizing my free will to play a mech or mechs that I adore because, shockingly I want to have FUN, that I should suffer some form of penalty is insane at best, criminally stupid at worst. I will not sit here and say to you, YOU must run an urban mech with small pulse lasers and machine guns, because thats what I think YOU should run. NO. I will not do that, aside from the example of what I will not do. Why? Because I am not paying for you to do anything in this game. It would be like <which has sadly happened> someone on FFXIV ARR Heavensward telling me that I should use a warrior to tank instead of my dark knight. NOPE. Its my money again there too. Either we can have our opt out, or ability to change mechs AFTER we see what we are getting FORCED into, or, people like you, can go suck a big fat ostrich egg as we assaults and heavies lumber our way across the field of strife.

[Dee Eight]

Yes, and chances are many others in the matchmaker pool paid also... and their voices are equally important... BUT...at the end of the day...this is just a video game... and if the company operating and developing that game doesn't have the player pool to allow opting out anymore because it slows the start of games so much that the actual players are going elsewhere... then they're not going to take the risk anymore on that happening.

Did you even bother to look at the steam stats for their player pool of the game ? Its dropped by a third in the past 2 months from where they were in January. Now granted the steam audience for all their games bounce around based on whats the flavour that month. Rise of the tomb raider went from over 10k in feb to half that this month, and tomb raider itself has gone up and down from a peak day high of 29k+ back in Mar 2013 to a low of about 18 hundred in May 2015. But those are games with players like this one who do it for nostalgia really. The true gamers... the ones PGI needs to attract... that play counter strike for example... a quarter million a day stuff... that's not going to happen with a opt-out option to matching up players to begin games which delays the start of matches. Right now MWO is ranked 108th on their top games listing at 1912 current players online at this moment. Microsoft Flight SIM gets more players than us. There's a farming simulator doing about 25% better than us.... DOTA 2... got a one day record 1.291 MILLION players online in just the past 30 days, and that's a game that debuted with 52 thousand players nearly four years ago. Even righ now, 1AM EST they're over 400k players online...on zombie jesus day.

http://steamcharts.com/

Edited by Dee Eight, 26 March 2016 - 08:56 PM.

[VinJade]

in order to attract counter strike players will most likely have them do more and more stuff that could push away other players.
I have to wonder, does pgi want a flow of players that odds are will just loose interest in five seconds when something new and shiny come out or do they want a flow of players that they can count on always being there 90%+ of the time?

something I have noticed about the counter strike players that I have come across and that is they lose interest in a game quickly unless it is more like CS.

and the last thing I want to see is BT of any form become nothing more than a brainless and empty husk just to appeal to those types of players...

[Dee Eight]

Then write your own video game, or stop spending dollars on this one, or stop using the quick matches because game companies aren't concerned with keeping a few loyal customers at the cost of bringing in many times those numbers in new customers.