99 replies to this topic

[nehebkau]

<sigh>

The problem with small development studios is that you one, don't get enough eyes on design decisions making it harder to spot flaws in designs. Two, don't have enough people to come up with really creative ideas to break you out of design paralysis.

Most studios, at the very least, use individuals out of their community in focus-groups to fill in the blanks.

Edited by nehebkau, 20 May 2016 - 07:08 AM.

[Willard Phule]

nehebkau, on 20 May 2016 - 07:07 AM, said:

<sigh>

The problem with small development studios is that you one, don't get enough eyes on design decisions making it harder to spot flaws in designs. Two, don't have enough people to come up with really creative ideas to break you out of design paralysis.

Most studios, at the very least, use individuals out of their community in focus-groups to fill in the blanks.

Maybe they should incorporate that "successful" bass fishing game as a mini game for people to play while waiting for matches in FW.....

[Speedkermit]

xX PUG Xx, on 18 May 2016 - 08:13 PM, said:

Heres a question:

How does games such as Planetside handle this, I didn't play it very much and can't remember if there were in-game units/teams. I do remember the faction selection screen and it showing the population balance but can't remember if there were teams in there too.

I think the prority needs to be placed on enticing units to become loyalist and the easiest way to do that is to jack up the incentives. Game by game rewards should not be touched but the LP ladder rewards should either have extra rungs or higher individual rewards. Couple this to random rewrds generated for "missions from high command" such as the ComStar missions last year and you might actually get mercenary units spreading around and looking to even out the population.

I agree with someting Mischief said in another thread, without SOME communication between the unit leaders this kind of situation will crop up occasionally. It's good to talk

However the attack lane and defensive stance of factions is beyond the merc units control and IMO should be taken out of the hands of players all together. The simple fact is no player represents the leadership of any faction, this is something that requires either a member of PGI staff or an automated system to generate.

If Planetside 2 had ten different factions, and if anyone could just switch factions every week then it would also be horribly broken.

But Planetside 2 doesn't have any of that because it would be stupid.

[TexAce]

Let's ALL go to jade Falcon. See how that plays out.

[Gigashot]

Speedkermit, on 20 May 2016 - 07:36 AM, said:

If Planetside 2 had ten different factions, and if anyone could just switch factions every week then it would also be horribly broken.

But Planetside 2 doesn't have any of that because it would be stupid.

Correct! Planetside 2 does not have Mercenaries, or the ability for the active population to move between factions. You make a character, pick a faction (while showing you reward levels adjusted by active population to make sure even player distribution) and that's it. You are there. To switch you'd have to make a new character (i.e. a new account in MWO). It works great. It's kind of exactly how MWO should do it. But didn't. Less # of total factions, (2 Clan, 2 IS for example) no Mercenaries. Full queues and everyone's getting into matches all the time.

Edited by Gigashot, 20 May 2016 - 07:44 AM.

[fbj]

Gigashot, on 20 May 2016 - 07:43 AM, said:

Correct! Planetside 2 does not have Mercenaries, or the ability for the active population to move between factions. You make a character, pick a faction (while showing you reward levels adjusted by active population to make sure even player distribution) and that's it. You are there. To switch you'd have to make a new character (i.e. a new account in MWO). It works great. It's kind of exactly how MWO should do it. But didn't. Less # of total factions, (2 Clan, 2 IS for example) no Mercenaries. Full queues and everyone's getting into matches all the time.

BUT THE LORE AND TT RULES WONT ALLOW IT.

SHAME ON YOU FOR SULLYING THE VISION OF THE GAME BUILT BY THOSE FOUNDERS WHO INVESTED IN IT.

On another note. Yea, less factions would mean a lot more games. But as Russ points out who would you cut out of the scene? But then again he can't actually make a decision of such calibre without retracting it 2 days later as his track record has shown on most decisions that affect this game.

So here we are stuck at this crossroad, of single attack lanes being locked up in 2 hours.

[nehebkau]

fbj, on 20 May 2016 - 12:01 PM, said:

BUT THE LORE AND TT RULES WONT ALLOW IT.

SHAME ON YOU FOR SULLYING THE VISION OF THE GAME BUILT BY THOSE FOUNDERS WHO INVESTED IN IT.

Thank your for saying that -- I sometimes feel like I am the only one who recognizes that often LORE gets in the way of making an excellent product.

"But without LORE it wouldn't be Mechwarrior!" Without good game-play and design it won't be Mechwarrior either.

Edited by nehebkau, 20 May 2016 - 02:09 PM.

[DivBy0]

Lore? Big Merc Units who fight for the Clans? Switch every week and give nothing on fraction, map and loyality? Which IS House would give such units a contract? Which Clan would dishonored himself by accept such a offer? Orbital Bombardment is lore?
When all is about Big Merc units, why do not call it Merc Wars and disband all Loyalist Units?

Merc Units exist in the lore, but they have very very long lasting contracts. Sometimes many years and more.
To many fractions and the job hopping merc units are a big part of the problem. The Loyalist should allowed to vote if they want offer a contract! And how many month! it will bind a unit without exit.

I think we all have the desire to play FW. There must be a way that we can play FW! If this way is against the lore... who cares!

[Galenit]

Felio, on 18 May 2016 - 10:30 AM, said:

From the way they hamstrung the solo queue and ensured it would fail, whether intentionally or just by being unwilling to compromise in the slightest to allow it to succeed, I think they want things to stay exactly the way they are. Like Russ really, really likes the idea of it, or something.

Less then two weeks to undo the queuesplit, but some month (or years if we talk about flamers and mgs and rescaling and ....) for other balancing topics says a lot and it also says you are right ...
Now we have the old pugs/groups problem again but with less rewards for pugs and less players playing cw.

But iam sure "E-Sports" will change all and save the game and will give us much more players and stuff ...

I am also sure fw is not sabotaged by purpose,
to do it intetional you must know the system and understand what happens.

[Gigashot]

Just posting here cuz its Friday night and I can't even get into a FW match. 20 minutes and no end in sight.

This. is. ********.

[Ace Selin]

fbj, on 20 May 2016 - 12:01 PM, said:

BUT THE LORE AND TT RULES WONT ALLOW IT.

SHAME ON YOU FOR SULLYING THE VISION OF THE GAME BUILT BY THOSE FOUNDERS WHO INVESTED IN IT.

On another note. Yea, less factions would mean a lot more games. But as Russ points out who would you cut out of the scene? But then again he can't actually make a decision of such calibre without retracting it 2 days later as his track record has shown on most decisions that affect this game.

So here we are stuck at this crossroad, of single attack lanes being locked up in 2 hours.

You still pick your IS or Clan Faction, you have the tag of whoever you chose, ie i have FRR, but when you go to play you play as IS, with all other IS players and people who chose Ghost Bear or Wolf get to play as Clan. Two sides but people still have their specific faction. So you dont cut anyone out, but rearrange how they play.

Edited by Ace Selin, 20 May 2016 - 08:18 PM.

[Breidr]

2 faction downsizing is almost a must. Keep the houses and clans for flavor, but we are spread WAY too thin. If some sort of lattice could be implemented to funnel population it would help too.

I'd love to see an "instant action" button that queues me for FW like QP.

[Freeman 52]

von Haudegen, on 20 May 2016 - 02:56 PM, said:

Lore? Big Merc Units who fight for the Clans? Switch every week and give nothing on fraction, map and loyality? Which IS House would give such units a contract? Which Clan would dishonored himself by accept such a offer? Orbital Bombardment is lore?
When all is about Big Merc units, why do not call it Merc Wars and disband all Loyalist Units?

Merc Units exist in the lore, but they have very very long lasting contracts. Sometimes many years and more.
To many fractions and the job hopping merc units are a big part of the problem. The Loyalist should allowed to vote if they want offer a contract! And how many month! it will bind a unit without exit.

I think we all have the desire to play FW. There must be a way that we can play FW! If this way is against the lore... who cares!

This. Right here. There is no actual justification in either game desing logic or Battletech logic for the current system as is. In game, short contracts with 10 factions lead to the current mess, and further complicate the task of getting people to identify with in-game identities and get to know each other over time. In BT, some of the biggest merc units in the Inner Sphere spend decades affiliated with a house, some of them eventually transitioning into regular units. And the Clans should be proud to be clan warriors instead of relying on dishonorable mercs.

So again: No justification whatsoever for the current system of capricious faction hopping.

[Dee Eight]

von Haudegen, on 20 May 2016 - 02:56 PM, said:

Lore? Big Merc Units who fight for the Clans? Switch every week and give nothing on fraction, map and loyality? Which IS House would give such units a contract? Which Clan would dishonored himself by accept such a offer? Orbital Bombardment is lore?
When all is about Big Merc units, why do not call it Merc Wars and disband all Loyalist Units?

Well the last stand-alone mechwarrior game for PC was Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries...so MWO is the evolution from that. But yes, Mercs should not be able to get contracts from the clans as except as covert intelligence gathering recon groups (as were Wolf's Dragoons), they don't employ mercenaries at all in the 3049 game timeline. If you want to represent for the clans, you should only be able to do that as a clansmen career path. That's all there should be...two career paths....inner sphere or clans (clans after all had a system for capturing warriors of other clans who would then fight for them instead called bondsman).

[Zolaz]

PGI has gone after the esport crowd and gave us some poorly made socks for FW or CW after 3 years. Our current iteration of FW is what happens when you live on an island and arent the target audience.

[Gigashot]

Please PGI. Hear our prayer.

[Count Zero 74]

Don't know what all the fuss is about tbh, Sunday evening :



Fairly well balanced population, moderate wait times, good matches too most of the time

[Randy Poffo]

Zolaz, on 22 May 2016 - 12:58 PM, said:

PGI has gone after the esport crowd and gave us some poorly made socks for FW or CW after 3 years. Our current iteration of FW is what happens when you live on an island and arent the target audience.

FW is pretty much the opposite of what you want in an esport. Lack of some constraints on matchmaking is pretty much awful for competition. I know that people like to say that having no matchmaking is "competitive" in some weird usage of that term, but think of every other sport you've ever heard of...

Imagine if major league baseball, for example, expanded and threw every team that existed at every level, from the New York Yankees to the minor leagues to college intramural teams to little Jimmy's peewee league, all into one bucket. This would obviously make the league *less* competitive, not more. Competition thrives when you have matches that could go either way, and so baseball (and every other sport) organizes into leagues, sometimes with multiple divisions for different levels of play. And honestly this just *is* a form of matchmaking. The same applies to pretty much any other thing where people compete, going all the way back to chess and all the way forward now to professional esports, where typically there are multiple leagues and levels of play. LoL, arguably the biggest esport game at present, has national pro leagues, amateur circuits, and collegiate play. Even existing MWO leagues have divisions.

I don't know how to describe what FW is meant to be, but "competitive" isn't it and neither is "esport". For people whose complaints center around competitiveness (and I in my own way am one of them), we need to recognize that so long as a stance against *any* form of constrained matchmaking - even in an indirect, limited, and very weak way - is part of the design philosophy of this mode, our concerns about competitiveness will never be addressed and *can never be addressed* whether PGI wants to or not.

Ironically, while you talk about PGI being on an island, I think part of the reason that this design philosophy is hardwired in is that this is the message that the community, over a long period of time, has expressed to PGI that they want.

[BattleBunny]

Stahlherz, on 19 May 2016 - 07:41 AM, said:

I am very sure that BMMU would absolutely not have switched to CJF if they had known MS and 288 would go there. We were actually looking forward to have some drops with BMMU to fight on the Steiner front.
MS and 288 switching was a total surprise and we suffer from it as everyone else. Too many people for attacks and since noo ne is attacking us there are no outlets to spread pilots to.

Despite current tin-foil-hat conspiracies about merc super-pacs we do not arrange such situations among each other.

correct.

[Zolaz]

Randy Poffo, on 22 May 2016 - 01:46 PM, said:

FW is pretty much the opposite of what you want in an esport. Lack of some constraints on matchmaking is pretty much awful for competition. I know that people like to say that having no matchmaking is "competitive" in some weird usage of that term, but think of every other sport you've ever heard of...

Imagine if major league baseball, for example, expanded and threw every team that existed at every level, from the New York Yankees to the minor leagues to college intramural teams to little Jimmy's peewee league, all into one bucket. This would obviously make the league *less* competitive, not more. Competition thrives when you have matches that could go either way, and so baseball (and every other sport) organizes into leagues, sometimes with multiple divisions for different levels of play. And honestly this just *is* a form of matchmaking. The same applies to pretty much any other thing where people compete, going all the way back to chess and all the way forward now to professional esports, where typically there are multiple leagues and levels of play. LoL, arguably the biggest esport game at present, has national pro leagues, amateur circuits, and collegiate play. Even existing MWO leagues have divisions.

I don't know how to describe what FW is meant to be, but "competitive" isn't it and neither is "esport". For people whose complaints center around competitiveness (and I in my own way am one of them), we need to recognize that so long as a stance against *any* form of constrained matchmaking - even in an indirect, limited, and very weak way - is part of the design philosophy of this mode, our concerns about competitiveness will never be addressed and *can never be addressed* whether PGI wants to or not.

Ironically, while you talk about PGI being on an island, I think part of the reason that this design philosophy is hardwired in is that this is the message that the community, over a long period of time, has expressed to PGI that they want.

Did they have reading comprehension in your school? Then I went and read this article, ... http://www.readingro...d-worst-readers, and realized what happened. Here let me try and help you out some more, since either you are new to MWO and dont know the history of the past 4 years or you are just incredibly bad at understanding English.

PGI has more emphasis on esports at the moment and isnt really putting assets toward making FW. PGI has had over 4 years to create the game that they promised in their original pitch to the player base. Old "I need a drink" Russ Bullock, has told the FW players that they live on an island and are no longer the target audience. While I suppose you can compliment Russ on his honesty you have to take what he says with a grain of salt. Russ loves to flip flop on his statements and proclaim was merely his position at the time. Well, and then go hide on Twitter and stop commenting on the Forums where people gang up on him.