190 replies to this topic

[StumbleBee]

DarklightCA, on 02 May 2016 - 06:35 PM, said:

What's really done the most harm to this gamemode is all the lone wolf mentality players that mistake the gamemode for a planetary quick play where they think they can solo queue with ease, get easy rewards for little competition. Those players should be playing a gamemode more suited to what they want which is quick play, not faction warfare.

Put invasion and scouting modes in quick play.There's your solo queue. If you like, require unit membership, a certain PSR, a full elited drop deck, or whatever else to participate in faction play.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

Zoid, on 02 May 2016 - 09:03 AM, said:

Nice strawman you got there. No, this is just asking people to at least stop throwing airballs before they complain about the big mean premades.

First things first, my logical fallacy isn't a strawman at all. That's an entirely different logical fallacy.

Mine is closer to reductio ad absurdum.

However, I used this literary form (overstatement) to make a point.

That point being: Games of all forms provide the opportunity for players of all levels to participate in playing the game. They do not reserve a particular format of the game for the elite players.

Consider basketball. I can go to a gym and, if I get enough people together, can play a formal game of basketball. I am not limited to half-court games because I am not "good enough" to play "real basketball" with the pros.

Thus, my point still stands.

Edited by Brandarr Gunnarson, 02 May 2016 - 07:02 PM.

[DeathlyEyes]

16 alphas from my builds generally do 400 damage.. How you manage to only hit 16 times using 4 mechs is just embarrassing. I think alot of it comes from people using builds they want to work rather than the ones that actually do. I see it alot even from people within ms and we work with them. People need to stop blaming everyone else for their problems and work on improving. This entire generation of gamers need nerf corners on everything. Look at people wanting darksouls hard difficulties made easier. It's really a disgrace.

[fbj]

DeathlyEyes, on 02 May 2016 - 08:00 PM, said:

16 alphas from my builds generally do 400 damage.. How you manage to only hit 16 times using 4 mechs is just embarrassing. I think alot of it comes from people using builds they want to work rather than the ones that actually do. I see it alot even from people within ms and we work with them. People need to stop blaming everyone else for their problems and work on improving. This entire generation of gamers need nerf corners on everything. Look at people wanting darksouls hard difficulties made easier. It's really a disgrace.

I concur.
Now get good.

[Tarogato]

slide, on 01 May 2016 - 10:56 PM, said:

So you are really saying "git gud or GTFO"

Good plan for player retention. That worked really well for FP so far.

[DeathlyEyes]

There's several reasons why pugs get stomped.

1. Mechwarrior favors specialization. When you build your mech it's best to build it to be a master at one thing rather than a jack of all trades. I have laser vomit style builds for mid to long range matches, I have large laser spam mechs for extremely long range maps like boreal on defense, I have mechs like the srm brawling Timberwolf for maps like emerald taiga and I have uac10 Timberwolves for hot maps like sulfurous and vitric Forge. Beyond that the group from MS I play with has all these mechs on standby. We're all on comms and we can all specialize as one thing. Now take that mech specialization I was talking about earlier and apply it to a whole team. Throw that against a team of mixed range jack of all trade mechs and the mixed range mechs will lose. Why? Because we will engage at our optimal range while they are stuck engaging with whatever they happen to have that works. Pugs having better decks setup will help with this but also a longer lobby time. Currently teams have 1 minute to prepare to drop. All of these decks have seismic radar and weapon modules. I also have multiple options and variations per match. I usually have 28 mechs kitted up for the faction I'm playing as. I took it further than alot of other players but there are lots who did this.

2. Pugs seem to refuse to push on attacks. Can't win without being aggressive.

3. The general Mechwarrior player doesn't seem to take advantage of proper quirks.

4. The typical solo player doesn't seem to dedicate the same amount of time to the game as a player in a unit so he/she just isn't as good.

5. Call to arms pulls new players into fw.

To your pro basketball player analogy. MS has alot of average to bellow average players. Typically drops are like how you described, grabbing a bunch of guys to play basketball at the gym. The problem with pugs are they are grabbing a bunch of guys possibly off the couch covered in potato chips and then when they try to play together 2 randomly decide to go home 1 decides he's going to try to dunk every time on his own and the other guy just sits back trying to hit 3s from half court.


Final thought no more buckets. I see people saying split queue do this do that. We don't have the population to support it. Just stop asking for it. It won't happen.

Edited by DeathlyEyes, 02 May 2016 - 09:34 PM.

[slide]

Tarogato, on 02 May 2016 - 08:11 PM, said:

Cool warning, I wonder how many actually read it?

No where does it say that it is the exclusive playground for Tier 1 players, nor does it expressly exclude anyone.

You confuse me with someone who is against team work etc, I am not, in fact I spend more time playing with other units and on the Davion TS than I do my own.

What I am against is a certain section of the player base trying to dictate how anyone should play a free to play game that they may well have payed money for. Worse is restricting players from the opportunity to learn how to play CW.

You can not build a community by excluding people. Neither can you perpetuate a game mode, one that is entirely dependent on population, by excluding people from the opportunity to learn.

The "Git Gud or GTFO" insult that is consistently preached from players of the highest level in this game, not only stops people from playing, it actively puts resistance into people to not want to get better just to spite those that preach that line of thought.

Telling someone to "Git Gud" NEVER made anyone actually get better at anything ever. Telling them to specifically do something might actually help them.

But you know what, you continue to support the OP and the other Tier1 tryhards and when the event is over and the FP queue returns the same 200-300 people, slowly shrinking away to nothing maybe you'll think back go hey, maybe the OP should not have been flat out obnoxious to 90% of the player base.

[-Vompo-]

It might be a good idea to make FW (CW) locked until you've at the very least completed your cadet matches or some other task. That way you cannot be dropped in the deep end as fast.

Maybe even add a tutorial for FW where you'd learn to shoot the generator at the gate instead of the gate itself etc. It might be also good idea to require new players to complete this tutorial before dropping in FW. We all know that many people just click OK without reading so the welcome message in FW doesn't really do it's intended job. The message could be included as speech (and text) in the FW tutorial.

[fbj]

slide, on 02 May 2016 - 09:37 PM, said:

Cool warning, I wonder how many actually read it?

No where does it say that it is the exclusive playground for Tier 1 players, nor does it expressly exclude anyone.

You confuse me with someone who is against team work etc, I am not, in fact I spend more time playing with other units and on the Davion TS than I do my own.

What I am against is a certain section of the player base trying to dictate how anyone should play a free to play game that they may well have payed money for. Worse is restricting players from the opportunity to learn how to play CW.

You can not build a community by excluding people. Neither can you perpetuate a game mode, one that is entirely dependent on population, by excluding people from the opportunity to learn.

The "Git Gud or GTFO" insult that is consistently preached from players of the highest level in this game, not only stops people from playing, it actively puts resistance into people to not want to get better just to spite those that preach that line of thought.

Telling someone to "Git Gud" NEVER made anyone actually get better at anything ever. Telling them to specifically do something might actually help them.

But you know what, you continue to support the OP and the other Tier1 tryhards and when the event is over and the FP queue returns the same 200-300 people, slowly shrinking away to nothing maybe you'll think back go hey, maybe the OP should not have been flat out obnoxious to 90% of the player base.

What Tier are you?

[Chagatay]

I think that line of thinking is just self-defeating. Preaching the following is silly:

1. "Get gud"
2. Dictating what toys they can play with
3. Telling them they must play with others or not at all

Like hell, this is a damned video game. If I feel like piloting a Mist Lynx then that is what I will pilot (which I did for nearly all the scouting* stuff). Sure I am not opposed to teamwork or organization, but why on Earth should big organized teams be routinely pitted against 12 individuals? It isn't fun for anyone after awhile and the population of FP as a whole reflects this. I may like FP alot (I do as I play it almost exclusively) but even I realize I am in the minority.

PGI as much as I love them really didn't plan the necessary foundation for a solo (if you could even really call it that) queue to succeed. Part of me (the very cynical part) tells me that they really wanted this to fail. The basic mistake here is they put too much in all at once. They could have easily done this in a more piecemeal roll out instead of all at once.

DeathlyEyes, on 02 May 2016 - 09:15 PM, said:

Good points for the most part.

Final thought no more buckets. I see people saying split queue do this do that. We don't have the population to support it. Just stop asking for it. It won't happen.

And here is where I disagree....
They could easily cut the number of playable factions to 3 (Clan, Davion-Steiner, rest of IS houses). The career paths could be pruned to Mercenary or Loyalist. Solo Invasion queue could have NO map (interface is basically as simple as QP and you are assigned to your faction that you picked to a RANDOM** front) and if you want to play in the group queue and/or scouting you do it just like now. But ultimately developing all that FP content for such a small user base just seems like a waste.

*You can thank me because that directly lowered our ability to get Long Tom killer of FP.
**Alleviate sync drops I suppose. But honestly an invasion format in a QP type format would probably have lots of people playing FP that now avoid it and I doubt this would be a problem.

Edited by Chagatay, 02 May 2016 - 10:21 PM.

[Daidachi]

VompoVompatti, on 02 May 2016 - 10:02 PM, said:

It might be a good idea to make FW (CW) locked until you've at the very least completed your cadet matches or some other task. That way you cannot be dropped in the deep end as fast.

Maybe even add a tutorial for FW where you'd learn to shoot the generator at the gate instead of the gate itself etc. It might be also good idea to require new players to complete this tutorial before dropping in FW. We all know that many people just click OK without reading so the welcome message in FW doesn't really do it's intended job. The message could be included as speech (and text) in the FW tutorial.

The first I like.

The second would rely on PGI doing something other than announcing that they're 'fixing' maps that don't need fixing (Frozen City I'm looking at you). But there are a lot of people who've been after this or adding faction warfare maps into the private lobbies for donkeys.

[Carl Vickers]

Perhaps locked until they have mastered their first chassis?

[slide]

fbj, on 02 May 2016 - 10:15 PM, said:

What Tier are you?

Not as high as you. Not that it is at all relevant to the discussion. But if you must know T3 bordering on T2. However I don't consider it at all relevant to my skill level as I have played no more that a dozen or so PQ matches since CW came out and as it is nothing more than a progress bar, it's not going to progress if you don't play.

I am a slightly better than average player who focuses on CW. I get stomped and I dish out stomps. I have no desire to get to the "competition levels of play" as I find that level of play to be both boring and as far from a Battletech experience as you can get in this game.

You want to go around showing of your epeen go right ahead, I am to old to give a **** about a bunch of little upstarts that think they are better than everyone else.

What pisses me off is when that attitude starts to have an effect on the player retention, which quite frankly is abysmal.

[Starbomber109]

I sense much darksouls in OP's game experience...

Anyway I have a story to tell that is relevant, because I kinda agree with him. 3 months ago about the time the rifleman came out I was brand new to FW. I joined the FRR on a mission to 'get good'. I adopted their "Stormtrooper" deck once I had enough C-Bills, but even with that I was not instantly amazing. I had some ISEN guys carry me through a few matches, and we lost some too. At the beginning, I was barely getting 600 damage per match, terrible I know, but I stuck too it, I hung out on FRR teamspeak and kept trying to get into games. After a couple of weeks I was getting the hang of things and putting out 1000 damage consistently. I hadn't become amazing, but I had gotten better. It made me better in quick play as well.

Now, scout mode is another story lol, I have yet to really figure it out. I do like it because it's different, but I haven't really had time to learn it yet.

I only wish you could share this knowledge with clan players because every time we beat a group of clanners who maybe don't have as solid gameplay or teamwork, they ALWAYS complain how is mechs are op. I'm not saying they aren't, but why is it that certain clan mechs can 1 shot Black Knights? (I had a dakka wolf blast me in a ST and take out my XL BK). Don't complain about op mechs, get better at the game and recognize the weaknesses of those mechs. (Just hit a side torso and it will die if it's a black knight, jagermech, or QuickDraw)

[fbj]

slide, on 02 May 2016 - 10:56 PM, said:

Not as high as you. Not that it is at all relevant to the discussion. But if you must know T3 bordering on T2. However I don't consider it at all relevant to my skill level as I have played no more that a dozen or so PQ matches since CW came out and as it is nothing more than a progress bar, it's not going to progress if you don't play.

I am a slightly better than average player who focuses on CW. I get stomped and I dish out stomps. I have no desire to get to the "competition levels of play" as I find that level of play to be both boring and as far from a Battletech experience as you can get in this game.

You want to go around showing of your epeen go right ahead, I am to old to give a **** about a bunch of little upstarts that think they are better than everyone else.

What pisses me off is when that attitude starts to have an effect on the player retention, which quite frankly is abysmal.

Being better than the average player who focuses on CW doesn't really mean much.

Most of the better CW players I know are about 11 years old, who understand how to shoot and hold a laser on target and are willing to try different builds meant for different maps.

Having people play whatever build they want are fine. But if you expect to excel against players who are taking the most optimized decks to be played then come on to the forums to whine about how they are getting beat by players utilizing such builds. Is as annoying and bothersome as the players screaming at people to get good.

You are just as much of problem as the rest of the community. Don't hold yourself any higher than the rest of us goons.

Edited by fbj, 02 May 2016 - 11:45 PM.

[Crockdaddy]

slide, on 02 May 2016 - 10:56 PM, said:

Not as high as you. Not that it is at all relevant to the discussion. But if you must know T3 bordering on T2. However I don't consider it at all relevant to my skill level as I have played no more that a dozen or so PQ matches since CW came out and as it is nothing more than a progress bar, it's not going to progress if you don't play.

I am a slightly better than average player who focuses on CW. I get stomped and I dish out stomps. I have no desire to get to the "competition levels of play" as I find that level of play to be both boring and as far from a Battletech experience as you can get in this game.

You want to go around showing of your epeen go right ahead, I am to old to give a **** about a bunch of little upstarts that think they are better than everyone else.

What pisses me off is when that attitude starts to have an effect on the player retention, which quite frankly is abysmal.

You lost me once you did the reverse diss. To be clear most comp players don't play much CW. If they did the butt hurt would go through the ceiling. I think we should treat pugs with more respect but it's a two way street. To be fair ... Every single online game has this problem it's only high lighted here becasu the relative small population size. Groups vs pugs happen everywhere.

[the punk who stole your thunder]

Aresye, on 02 May 2016 - 09:22 AM, said:

You wouldn't believe how frighteningly common it is nowadays to see somebody get < 100 damage across all 4 mechs...ON A WIN!!!

Sometimes when dropping with my unit i have to be really quick and fast to find some enemy mechs still standing that i can damage

... and sometimes i even have to shoot my teammates just to do same damage at all

SCNR - just kidding

[invernomuto]

Zoid, on 01 May 2016 - 01:55 PM, said:

So be bold, fight hard, and get better. There's a pretty low skill cap in this game due to how most 'mechs don't avoid damage, they just spread it. It's not like Starcraft where a pro can take on 5 average players and win with ease. If you kill them they will die of it just like anyone else.

While I agree with you it's really difficult to get better when you get 400 dmg with 4 mechs in FW and you run out of mechs after 12 minutes.
In "Prove your Allegiance" event I have 13 invasion games played with 3 victories. I am not complaining (I had some stomps but also a few pretty good matches), I'm just stating a fact that for me is quite obvious: FW it's NOT for casual play, it's for experienced players.
If you're a casual (and not experienced) player you will very probabily face a stomp by the vets. To get better you have to train, to get into an unit / group and to play in an organized way: the opposite of "casual" playing.
In quick play things works better because the players are grouped with the Tier system (it's not perfect but it gets the job done).
I do not foresee any easy solutions: PGI tried to split the queue in solo and unit players but FW has not the required population to substain a doubled factions play (one for solo and one for units). A tier sstem like in quick games so does not seem viable.
Moreover, at least for me, the problem is not really being stomped by more experienced players. I can live with it, like in quick game matches. For me the main issue with actual CW gameplay is the snowball effect: PGI should really put an "evident superiority" end condition to the FW matches: in a lot of cases the match clearly lost (the majority for me ) or won in the first 10-15 minutes and I have to spend the next 15 looking at the turkey shot party of the red in the role of the target...

Edited by invernomuto, 03 May 2016 - 12:50 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 02 May 2016 - 07:00 PM, said:

First things first, my logical fallacy isn't a strawman at all. That's an entirely different logical fallacy.

Mine is closer to reductio ad absurdum.

However, I used this literary form (overstatement) to make a point.

That point being: Games of all forms provide the opportunity for players of all levels to participate in playing the game. They do not reserve a particular format of the game for the elite players.

Consider basketball. I can go to a gym and, if I get enough people together, can play a formal game of basketball. I am not limited to half-court games because I am not "good enough" to play "real basketball" with the pros.

Thus, my point still stands.

Except you're wanting to win a Regional Championship and compete for big contracts and deals while still being minor league. You want major league rewards and to participate in major league events you need to be up for major league play.

The point being that actually, no. You're not good enough to play with the pros if you're not a pro player and that's okay. That's why there's different leagues - in this case that's why we have QP and FW and why we're arguing that the FW content needs to be available in QP.

The solution is not to let minor leagues and casual basketball players play against each other but still 'win a NCAA Div I Championship' specifically because they never had to play any Div I teams. Nor do you require all Div I teams to break up and play pickup games to 'make it fair for the minors'. You make different leagues with different scales of reward. That's not mean or exclusionary or unfair - it is in fact exceedingly fair; you're rewarded relative to your competence and the environment you're able to compete in.

That's all anyone is asking. Put the content in QP so everyone can play it casual. That's great; good for everyone. If you want to play full on FW (for bigger rewards) you have to compete at the same level as the units and organized teams that are playing and winning there. It's certainly more effort; that is exactly why people who are dedicated casual players don't do it, right? If it's absolutely no different in effort than casual play then why isn't everyone doing it? There is a significant difference and that difference is why there's a gap in the rewards.

The rewards need reworked too. Not arguing that - you need rewarded for every match you win on a flipped planet not just who tagged it and you need cbill/LP payout based on the skill of the other team relative to yours. So 228 playing MS is going to net the winner many times more than either vs a skittle team. QP version needs to payout comparable for the time investment relative to existing QP matches.

We needed a split queue - we just needed to do so not via a quasi-matchmaker in FW but by adding FW content to QP. It's a vastly better solution and it keeps everyone in FW happier.

[102_devill]

MischiefSC, on 03 May 2016 - 12:56 AM, said:

Except you're wanting to win a Regional Championship and compete for big contracts and deals while still being minor league. You want major league rewards and to participate in major league events you need to be up for major league play.

The point being that actually, no. You're not good enough to play with the pros if you're not a pro player and that's okay. That's why there's different leagues - in this case that's why we have QP and FW and why we're arguing that the FW content needs to be available in QP.

The solution is not to let minor leagues and casual basketball players play against each other but still 'win a NCAA Div I Championship' specifically because they never had to play any Div I teams. Nor do you require all Div I teams to break up and play pickup games to 'make it fair for the minors'. You make different leagues with different scales of reward. That's not mean or exclusionary or unfair - it is in fact exceedingly fair; you're rewarded relative to your competence and the environment you're able to compete in.

That's all anyone is asking. Put the content in QP so everyone can play it casual. That's great; good for everyone. If you want to play full on FW (for bigger rewards) you have to compete at the same level as the units and organized teams that are playing and winning there. It's certainly more effort; that is exactly why people who are dedicated casual players don't do it, right? If it's absolutely no different in effort than casual play then why isn't everyone doing it? There is a significant difference and that difference is why there's a gap in the rewards.

The rewards need reworked too. Not arguing that - you need rewarded for every match you win on a flipped planet not just who tagged it and you need cbill/LP payout based on the skill of the other team relative to yours. So 228 playing MS is going to net the winner many times more than either vs a skittle team. QP version needs to payout comparable for the time investment relative to existing QP matches.

We needed a split queue - we just needed to do so not via a quasi-matchmaker in FW but by adding FW content to QP. It's a vastly better solution and it keeps everyone in FW happier.

But Mischief, right now as a solo player you can play in the big leagues, you go through all that ordeal, but you don't get the reward! If a pro team in your faction conquers a planet and you were in a fight with them, you don't get anything. They get the MCs, yet you were there in the melee. How is that fair?

The IS map should not be the end level content in this game. Because there is no other level to it except QP. You should not have to be a pro player to have an impact on the franchise's only lore represented in the game (the map). If you are a casual player you should have the opportunity to play something other than QP but lore related. Casual players are mostly here because they like the franchise so cutting them off from the only franchise content (except mechs of course) is ridiculous.

However, there should be a layer above that which should be the niche for competitive pro play. That's the layer where you make MCs. And if I don't want to invest time in gitting gud, its totally ok that this layer is off limits to me. But again, this layer CANNOT BE the only layer in this game where you have franchise lore (what little of it there is).

Edited by RokerSaMoravu, 03 May 2016 - 01:15 AM.