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The Simple Reasons Why Fw Phase 3 Isn't Working


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#1 Aresye

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 11:16 AM

1. Units have no incentive.
2. Large units get punished.
3. FW population split between 2 queues.
4. Leaderboards are 100% grind. No incentive there either.
5. Poor balance in scout mode (Clan Streaks wrecking IS. IS Oxides wrecking Clans.)

The biggest problem FW has always had is the lack of incentive for large units to actually face each other, and it remains a problem in Phase 3.

No PGI, a single redeeming value of a 50 MC grab bag reward is not going to inspire players to slave away for an entire month taking planets, and that's being incredibly generous with assumptions. Most players in regularly sized units of 40-80 players will be lucky to even get 10 MC a month.

#2 Kin3ticX

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 11:48 AM

I really like the leaderboard but not in the pure leaderboard sense. I just really like to see the numbers, even if the sorting is on a variable that is 100% grind. They can use a multivariable equal weight ranking system but it may be too complicated to create.

Scout mode has tons of potential but it also has problems to be sure

Russ has tweeted that the MC is going to change. I am just surprised they started at such an obviously low number.

The main problem I have been having with phase 3 is wait times, mostly in the invasion queue

Edited by Kin3ticX, 21 April 2016 - 12:00 PM.


#3 Kael Posavatz

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 12:24 PM

I have to give Russ props for managing to deliver pretty much exactly what he said was coming. Yes, some of the finicky details weren't released (such as the exact number of c-bills indexed to a unit population to bring in new players) otherwise, we got what we told was coming.

But at the same time Phase 3 isn't working because...we got what was said was coming.

The MC rewards aren't even a bad joke.

Factions that have no business fighting each other are at war.

Two faction queues. I was looking at a huge imbalance on the scouting queue on 4/20, but there were no teams queued up so those numbers were over in the solo-queue getting that Long Tom.

Speaking of which, whoever is in charge of that artillery piece should be taken behind a hill and shot because he can and will drop it on friendly forces if they are brawling. Repeatedly.

Those who are loyalist are being punished, while those who faction hopped--something that Russ noted was a problem in Phase I and II--are being rewarded. Yes, I realize they are being given a reward tier of their own, but it is a tier that starts from scratch, and the differences aside from c-bills (gobs of GXP and arbitrary cockpit items) most could care less about. How hard would it have been to make sure Davion loyalists unlocked Davion cockpit items, and Jade Falcon loyalist received Jade Falcon items?

I want to say there are balance issues in Scouting mode, but frankly I wonder how much of what are 'problems' with scouting aren't actually issues with 1) the split queues, and 2) come down to the mechs available and what the IS can do with their engines. I've seen a lot of IS players complain about Stormcrows since Tuesday, but of the 50 and 55 ton mechs the IS has available, the only one without at least one variant capable of running a Stormcrow into the ground is the Hunchback. I can't recall the last time I saw so many TBT-3C or CN9-D. The GRF-2N is, of course, always popular.

#4 DarklightCA

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 12:27 PM

I agree except for #4, leaderboards are suppose to be a grind. If you want to be on the top list than you gotta perform. It was also a really good addition as the people who care about getting their name on there or their units name will be playing a lot more games.

#5 Crockdaddy

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 12:33 PM

View PostKael 17, on 21 April 2016 - 12:24 PM, said:

I have to give Russ props for managing to deliver pretty much exactly what he said was coming. Yes, some of the finicky details weren't released (such as the exact number of c-bills indexed to a unit population to bring in new players) otherwise, we got what we told was coming.

But at the same time Phase 3 isn't working because...we got what was said was coming.

The MC rewards aren't even a bad joke.

Factions that have no business fighting each other are at war.

Two faction queues. I was looking at a huge imbalance on the scouting queue on 4/20, but there were no teams queued up so those numbers were over in the solo-queue getting that Long Tom.

Speaking of which, whoever is in charge of that artillery piece should be taken behind a hill and shot because he can and will drop it on friendly forces if they are brawling. Repeatedly.

Those who are loyalist are being punished, while those who faction hopped--something that Russ noted was a problem in Phase I and II--are being rewarded. Yes, I realize they are being given a reward tier of their own, but it is a tier that starts from scratch, and the differences aside from c-bills (gobs of GXP and arbitrary cockpit items) most could care less about. How hard would it have been to make sure Davion loyalists unlocked Davion cockpit items, and Jade Falcon loyalist received Jade Falcon items?

I want to say there are balance issues in Scouting mode, but frankly I wonder how much of what are 'problems' with scouting aren't actually issues with 1) the split queues, and 2) come down to the mechs available and what the IS can do with their engines. I've seen a lot of IS players complain about Stormcrows since Tuesday, but of the 50 and 55 ton mechs the IS has available, the only one without at least one variant capable of running a Stormcrow into the ground is the Hunchback. I can't recall the last time I saw so many TBT-3C or CN9-D. The GRF-2N is, of course, always popular.


MRBC -- The Hunchback 4SP (lives!) SPL's 2 SRM 6 ... I'll meet you on the battlefield durty clanner (RP humor) against your streaks Posted Image

Edited by Crockdaddy, 21 April 2016 - 12:34 PM.


#6 Afuldan McKronik

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 12:42 PM

View PostCrockdaddy, on 21 April 2016 - 12:33 PM, said:


MRBC -- The Hunchback 4SP (lives!) SPL's 2 SRM 6 ... I'll meet you on the battlefield durty clanner (RP humor) against your streaks Posted Image


I see your 4SP and raise you one LBX/MPL Stormcrow.

#7 Iron Buccaneer

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 12:53 PM

As someone who is a pirate playing as a Merc I am most disappointed that being a Loyalist is still kinda lame. I hate all the IS houses and the Clans equally but being a house or clan loyalist should be really cool. This mode needs hardcore loyalist units who get cool and exclusive things for being loyalist. Until we get a solid core of loyalist this mode will never work.

We need better rewards like faction paints and patters. Nice faction cockpit items. Faction reward mech variants that you can only get by either attaining a certain rank or getting faction commendations to turn in. Factions should get certain mechs cheaper than other factions based on the lore and some equipment as well.

MRBC could have it's own commendations system too and even freelancers could earn some kind of something but instead there is still no endgame other than reaching your max faction rank and no good reason to join a faction.

Some good changes in this chapter but they missed the biggest problems.

Edited by Iron Buccaneer, 21 April 2016 - 12:53 PM.


#8 Moebius Pi

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 01:13 PM

Just to add a bit of something something given my first impressions: it isn't just Big units getting the shaft (and loyalists). Almost everyone gets a pineapple top first in the ****.

Most large units that are already filled out, don't -need- more players to actively recruit. They'll be fine where they are for activity and being able to front multiple drops. The expenses of recruitment are a non-issue in that instance. They reap the rewards and none of the real drawbacks if you're not doing big membership turnovers, and can reduce it be trimming the excess inactive fat if they do want to go on a recruitment drive (nevermind they'll on average have far more coffer surplus anyhow from prior farming without expenses).

If you're a small or new unit wanting to grow though, its pure drawback. If everyone was starting from the ground up, you'd see some parity occurring, but not in the current environment. It's a good idea that... doesn't actually achieve what it intended, because the mode is already long-since stangant. You're spending from the ground up to recruit everyone. Those expenses add up, especially if you want an active player base capable of hammering at planets and lack the constant activity to constantly buffer the coffers quickly, due to, well, being -small- and lacking the numbers. Toss in other expenses like defense blocks, and ouch. Very ouch. Ongoing non-stop ouch.

Even if you manage to take a planet, which is unlikely to be tagged for you if a larger number of other tagged unit players are present in the matches, (even if performing very poorly), retaining it is unlikely given the numbers game (nevermind the alt issues that crop up now and then...), making the incentive to defend a world you have pretty non-existent. The Hotfix will have to really, really ramp up those MC earnings to make it worthwhile for a large established unit, nevermind to give smaller groups the incentive to bother.

If you want the dismal earnings and boredom of constantly scouting with it's piddly earnings so another unit can reap the benefits, woop-dee-doo. If anything it puts some incentive on small unit mergers for an initial expense to have an easier time getting somewhere in the long term, vs growing all grass roots style. May just be my initial impressions there, but the ongoing stagnation doesn't seem to be all that remedied.

Otherwise this phase does one thing; It benefits large pre-established units that already farmed their bays, flat out.

Everyone else gets to bend over and bite the bullet repeatedly and unavoidably. The road to hell is paved with good intentions; I'm going to go with it, but I can already see the environment it's creating right now, nevermind long-term, and I'm not-so-sure it's going to achieve the desired effect without some additional relatively harsh changes/fixes.

I won't even get into the Leaderboard; I -wanted- that to be introduced, like ranked ladders you had in other competitive games so all playstyles had their respective areas to enjoy.

Tacking it directly onto CW and CW alone though... that just stinks of laziness, and doesn't bode well for the more immersive aspects like faction flavour folks were wanting out of the mode to put some distinction between them, and, you know a reason to join one that wasn't related purely to earnings. Now it's reinforcing the pseudo-competitive mode it does a piss poor job of representing. But not really, because you know, third party leagues and the World Championships.

Still scratching my head at that one. I guess it's the "buckets" BS coming to the fore again, and wanting CW to somehow cater to everyone, while inadvertently floundering because of it.

Edited by Moebius Pi, 21 April 2016 - 01:19 PM.


#9 Aresye

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 01:43 PM

View PostDarklightCA, on 21 April 2016 - 12:27 PM, said:

I agree except for #4, leaderboards are suppose to be a grind. If you want to be on the top list than you gotta perform. It was also a really good addition as the people who care about getting their name on there or their units name will be playing a lot more games.

Okay, let's say Player A starts playing for loyalist day 1 of FW. Player B switches from merc to loyalist 4 months into FW. Both play 6 hours of FW a day, and get the same amount of KMDD.

Player B will NEVER catch up to Player A, despite them essentially contributing exactly the same amount towards their games.

Does that sound like a good leaderboard system? Only those who start Day 1 have any hope of being on it?

What about 2 years from now, assuming FW is still around and the leaderboards have never been reset/changed. Any new players coming into the game, no matter how good they are, will never come even close to getting high on the leaderboard, unless those ahead of them literally stop playing altogether.

My proposal:
Use the top 20 KMDD games out of a player's last 100 FW games. Each day they don't play, they get a 0 KMDD score, so if they stop playing for 100 days, they'll fully lose their spot on the leaderboard.

#10 Dracol

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 03:28 PM

View PostAresye, on 21 April 2016 - 01:43 PM, said:

Okay, let's say Player A starts playing for loyalist day 1 of FW. Player B switches from merc to loyalist 4 months into FW. Both play 6 hours of FW a day, and get the same amount of KMDD.

Player B will NEVER catch up to Player A, despite them essentially contributing exactly the same amount towards their games.

Does that sound like a good leaderboard system? Only those who start Day 1 have any hope of being on it?


I am under the impression the leader boards will be reset every season. If that is the case, does your view point change? Should a player who has been putting effort in all season be penalized to give late joiners a chance?

Edited by Dracol, 21 April 2016 - 03:29 PM.


#11 Triordinant

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 03:30 PM

Russ is ready to throw in the towel:

http://mwomercs.com/...90#entry5149290

#12 MadcatX

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 03:59 PM

View PostAresye, on 21 April 2016 - 11:16 AM, said:

1. Units have no incentive.
2. Large units get punished.
3. FW population split between 2 queues.
4. Leaderboards are 100% grind. No incentive there either.
5. Poor balance in scout mode (Clan Streaks wrecking IS. IS Oxides wrecking Clans.)

The biggest problem FW has always had is the lack of incentive for large units to actually face each other, and it remains a problem in Phase 3.

No PGI, a single redeeming value of a 50 MC grab bag reward is not going to inspire players to slave away for an entire month taking planets, and that's being incredibly generous with assumptions. Most players in regularly sized units of 40-80 players will be lucky to even get 10 MC a month.


Any unit that states that "they're not getting enough free stuff for their FW play" ought to look hard in a mirror for some entitlement issues. If a large unit does not want to face another large unit in FW because they lack some sort of "incentive" beyond a good fight, use of strategies\tactics they may have practiced and good communication.

"Oh PGI, we'll fight other large units if you give us more MC!!", that's talk I'd expect to hear at a collective bargaining agreement, not from a mechwarrior.

#13 pwnface

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 04:32 PM

View PostMadcatX, on 21 April 2016 - 03:59 PM, said:


Any unit that states that "they're not getting enough free stuff for their FW play" ought to look hard in a mirror for some entitlement issues. If a large unit does not want to face another large unit in FW because they lack some sort of "incentive" beyond a good fight, use of strategies\tactics they may have practiced and good communication.

"Oh PGI, we'll fight other large units if you give us more MC!!", that's talk I'd expect to hear at a collective bargaining agreement, not from a mechwarrior.


Large units have little to no incentive to play FW at all let alone to look for quality opponents. MC payouts for planetary ownership is the carrot that PGI dangled in front of units to try to increase activity but that carrot is seriously wilted and pathetic. 90MC a day max is pitiful when measured against the combined effort required to take and hold 6+ planets.

Large units regularly fight each other in FW, the delusion that they don't comes from all the poor pugs who happen to run into them on occasion. This has been proven multiple times with countless screenshots of MS, KCOM, 228th, NS and other units fighting each other.

Large units do not sit down and schedule matches against each other, because there is absolutely no incentive to do so and it takes quite a bit of time and effort to organize a 12 on 12. Players that want actual competition sign up for player run leagues like MRBC and MSI.

#14 Karamarka

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 04:34 PM

View PostAresye, on 21 April 2016 - 11:16 AM, said:

1. Units have no incentive.
2. Large units get punished.
3. FW population split between 2 queues.
4. Leaderboards are 100% grind. No incentive there either.
5. Poor balance in scout mode (Clan Streaks wrecking IS. IS Oxides wrecking Clans.)

The biggest problem FW has always had is the lack of incentive for large units to actually face each other, and it remains a problem in Phase 3.

No PGI, a single redeeming value of a 50 MC grab bag reward is not going to inspire players to slave away for an entire month taking planets, and that's being incredibly generous with assumptions. Most players in regularly sized units of 40-80 players will be lucky to even get 10 MC a month.


1) I agree. If there was more MC, there would be more interest = more players = faster queues.

3) Russ said himself that solo FW gets on average, 1 invasion game per 1 hour over the WHOLE game. LOL

5) Need to cap at 45-50.

#15 Deathlike

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 04:50 PM

I wonder if it's actually worth altering the match rewards based on the opponent.

While I'd love being rewarded if we beat a unit like Mercstar, I wouldn't want to be rewarded that much for facing SWOL for instance.

I thought units would get some sort of "MRBC rating" or did I miss something? This would not be perfect, but I thought there was supposed to be some modifiers for units attempting to face off against one another... intentionally.

#16 Kin3ticX

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 04:57 PM

maybe pgi is willing to post leaderboard spreadsheet data every once in a while and we could manipulate any which way you like

#17 Aresye

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 05:06 PM

View PostDracol, on 21 April 2016 - 03:28 PM, said:


I am under the impression the leader boards will be reset every season. If that is the case, does your view point change? Should a player who has been putting effort in all season be penalized to give late joiners a chance?

I was under the assumption these were permanent leaderboards. If they're being reset every season, I have no problems with their current implementation.

View PostTriordinant, on 21 April 2016 - 03:30 PM, said:

Russ is ready to throw in the towel:

http://mwomercs.com/...90#entry5149290


but...but I thought casual solos made up over 90% of the FW population?!

#18 Deathlike

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 05:11 PM

View PostAresye, on 21 April 2016 - 05:06 PM, said:

but...but I thought casual solos made up over 90% of the FW population?!


It was the position at the time.

Although, rest assured... their telemetry is perfect, that's why the Oxide only needed a torso twist bonus removal in addition to the Jester having a mega-durability nerf.

#19 Gotham by Knight

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 05:11 PM

View PostAresye, on 21 April 2016 - 05:06 PM, said:

I was under the assumption these were permanent leaderboards. If they're being reset every season, I have no problems with their current implementation.



but...but I thought casual solos made up over 90% of the FW population?!

I know right? the irony is pure delight.

#20 AnimePops

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Posted 21 April 2016 - 05:22 PM

I think the leaderboards is one of the few things they got RIGHT.





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