285 replies to this topic

[Adamski]

Grimwill, on 20 May 2016 - 09:38 PM, said:

Yes they need to fix the loyality penalty stuff. For example i was in a unit that was loyal JF...they aren't around much anymore so i left. But now im stuck as a loyalist unable to go anywhere without incurring a penalty.. Basically PGI is forcing me to stay with my faction (or be penalized). Maybe if you leave a unit you should have to re-pick your career with no penaltites?

You must be pretty dense, they just released all the players / units from their Loyalist factions at the release of Phase 3.

They even explicitly stated in the patch notes what the penalties for breaking Loyalty would be.

The only way you would be stuck in as a Jade Falcon Loyalist, is if you were still in your empty unit long enough AFTER Phase 3 launched for your unit to sign back up as Jade Falcon loyalists.

You should have known long before Phase 3 launched what your unit population was like.

Khereg, on 21 May 2016 - 09:48 AM, said:

A little nuance here...

We pointed out that:

1. there wasn't enough population to support it

2. the design to be implemented wasn't going to be effective at separating skill from lack of skill (which is what was/is really needed), and

3. that it was ripe for abuse from high skill but unit-less players.

Pretty much all of that came true exactly as envisioned, although 2 and 3 never really got a fair test owing to the power of 1.

People who only saw "units are against solo queue - it must be because they want to farm seals" were missing the core of the message.

It was worse then that, on Phase 3 Launch, they actually split Faction Wars into 6 queues:
1> Unit Queue
2> Unitless Queue
3> Freelancer (which had a small population spike from Phase 3 resetting everyones contracts)
4> Double all the above for Scouting & Invasion

Which is mind bending, since what everyone wanted was:
1> Group Queue
2> Solo Queue (limit of no more than 2 players from the same unit can be in the same solo queue)

[MischiefSC]

Adamski, on 21 May 2016 - 03:39 PM, said:

You must be pretty dense, they just released all the players / units from their Loyalist factions at the release of Phase 3.

They even explicitly stated in the patch notes what the penalties for breaking Loyalty would be.

The only way you would be stuck in as a Jade Falcon Loyalist, is if you were still in your empty unit long enough AFTER Phase 3 launched for your unit to sign back up as Jade Falcon loyalists.

You should have known long before Phase 3 launched what your unit population was like.



It was worse then that, on Phase 3 Launch, they actually split Faction Wars into 6 queues:
1> Unit Queue
2> Unitless Queue
3> Freelancer (which had a small population spike from Phase 3 resetting everyones contracts)
4> Double all the above for Scouting & Invasion

Which is mind bending, since what everyone wanted was:
1> Group Queue
2> Solo Queue (limit of no more than 2 players from the same unit can be in the same solo queue)

Not what everyone wanted. I would have quit FW, I pug a lot and would rather jump in a wood chipper than pug with only pugs in FW. Saying you can't play FW without grouping or you're playing in windowlicker-only matches old have driven a lot of people off, especially in off hours, euro and oceanic.

Solos made 1 player units to get matches and play with people who wanted teamwork even if they didn't start in a premade.

Solo queue died because the solos won't get in attack queue or fill their own matches. The concept was good just the players were bad. Fix is removed attack/defense queue, one world per front.

[Deathlike]

I don't think people get how "ghost drops" have affected the situation.

If you really didn't want to fight a faction (or a particular unit), all one had to do was to "not play". It's still the #1 strongest defense against any front, even if you did lose a planet in the process. It's self-motivation for killing off FW since Day 1, but mostly seen and amplified in Phase 2.

Population activity does have a lot to do with Mercs, but also how FW is designed... it's never progressed out of "lanes to farm" strategy as people couldn't handle the concept of legging to slow a Light rush and/or gen rushing. I mean, these aren't hard concepts to play or play against, but the reality is that a large chunk of players aren't even trained to do it.

You see enough people staring at a legged mech, but that mech occasionally ends up being cored in the CT, instead of the other leg (there are instances where coring makes more sense, but I'm talking about how people leaving weak targets live waaaay longer than they should).


So, if you really wanted to fix the problems, it's kinda two-fold:

1) Find a way to train solos (assuming they want this) so that they don't become total cannon fodder to the average organized team...

2) Find a way to tweet PGI to death about how bad their map (or simply core) designs for FW happen to be. Obvious funnel is obvious.


I don't really have any solutions other than PGI actually to LISTEN to people that play it and understand FW mechanics... instead of listening to the people who keep trying to trade with medium lasers vs ER Larges (Clan or IS) on Boreal. If that were ever the case, they we'd have a more enjoyable FW.

Right now, rainbow PUGs exist to be farmed unnecessarily because they aren't even in the mindset to work with each other, and treat the mode as if it were the solo queue. That's where 99% of the complaints are coming from IMO.

Edited by Deathlike, 21 May 2016 - 05:05 PM.

[Adamski]

MischiefSC, on 21 May 2016 - 04:24 PM, said:

Not what everyone wanted. I would have quit FW, I pug a lot and would rather jump in a wood chipper than pug with only pugs in FW. Saying you can't play FW without grouping or you're playing in windowlicker-only matches old have driven a lot of people off, especially in off hours, euro and oceanic.

Solos made 1 player units to get matches and play with people who wanted teamwork even if they didn't start in a premade.

Solo queue died because the solos won't get in attack queue or fill their own matches. The concept was good just the players were bad. Fix is removed attack/defense queue, one world per front.

So you would have quit CW instead of use the built in LFG tool, or whatever passes for other factions comm hubs, or faction chat, or find just 1 friend online to make a duo team with?

I didn't realize those were such onerous burdens.

And Russ likes to tout his 2% ghost drop number, thinking that it means faction play is that well balanced, instead of realizing just how much work players are putting in to avoid ghost dropping.

[Deathlike]

Adamski, on 21 May 2016 - 04:50 PM, said:

So you would have quit CW instead of use the built in LFG tool, or whatever passes for other factions comm hubs, or faction chat, or find just 1 friend online to make a duo team with?

I didn't realize those were such onerous burdens.

To be fair, I rarely use the LFG tool. I don't know what it is, but either literally noone is there, or I forget and/or don't use it (because adding people from the unit/faction hub is more productive usually).

Quote

And Russ likes to tout his 2% ghost drop number, thinking that it means faction play is that well balanced, instead of realizing just how much work players are putting in to avoid ghost dropping.

Russ, like some @ PGI, do not understand their own telemetry. Ghost drops virtually kill groups wanting to queue up (assuming there's not enough pieces taken). One would argue you'd have to be playing your own game to know this.

[FallingAce]

Armando, on 21 May 2016 - 08:38 AM, said:

In one word.....together.

In order to TRUELY "Fix" the game "We"...the player base, and, PGI....together...need to be the ones that make it happen.

To make that happen I would like to see PGI be less "Would you like to buy a Mech-Pack?" and more "What can we do to improve your gaming experience?".

To make that happen I would ALSO like to see the player base be more "Intelligent, insightful, and 'elegant' (easy for PGI to implement) with feedback about how PGI can improve our gaming experience posted in the MWO Forums", and less "My E-Peen is > than your E-Peen", or worse yet "The Big Bad "TEAM" touched me in places/ways that made me feel dirty, and my eyes all salty".

Is that likely to happen?

That is up to "US".

Funny how the "we" known as MS joined Jade Falcon, the number 1 faction in the game. If MS really cared about the game they would of took their shiny new Kodiaks and signed up to play for, oh i don't know, ghostbear maybe? A faction that needs help. Not one that was doing fine without them.

[Randy Poffo]

MischiefSC, on 21 May 2016 - 04:24 PM, said:

Not what everyone wanted. I would have quit FW, I pug a lot and would rather jump in a wood chipper than pug with only pugs in FW. Saying you can't play FW without grouping or you're playing in windowlicker-only matches old have driven a lot of people off, especially in off hours, euro and oceanic.

Then it sounds like there's an easy fix - being able to opt in to the group q if you want to. This is not that hard to implement - in fact, PGI actually did allow for this, it's just that all the other aspects of implementation were broken.

MischiefSC, on 21 May 2016 - 04:24 PM, said:

Solos made 1 player units to get matches and play with people who wanted teamwork even if they didn't start in a premade.

Solo queue died because the solos won't get in attack queue or fill their own matches. The concept was good just the players were bad. Fix is removed attack/defense queue, one world per front.

No, this is simply misinformed, and you shouldn't be repeating this if you weren't paying attention at the time.

PGI did not *allow* freelancers to get in attack queue. And that is why those queues were empty. If you were a freelancer you were not allowed to enter any queue at all, you could only accept one if it popped. Only that rare unicorn of a creature, the solo loyalist, could get one going in the first place and there weren't enough of them, so any time one did pop all the freelancers who had been sitting there for ages got to fight like wolves over who could click the button in the 0.5 second window it took to fill. More solo loyalists might have helped but PGI, in its infinite wisdom, decided to make going solo loyalist a decision that locks you into something with draconian penalties if you ever want to change faction (which might be necessary if you ever did want to join a unit in the future).

TL;DR People wanted to play but the system was arranged in a way that prevented them from doing so. And that makes it a bad concept. Stop blaming the players for that fiasco.

[JaxRiot]

Adamski, on 21 May 2016 - 03:39 PM, said:

You must be pretty dense, they just released all the players / units from their Loyalist factions at the release of Phase 3.

They even explicitly stated in the patch notes what the penalties for breaking Loyalty would be.

The only way you would be stuck in as a Jade Falcon Loyalist, is if you were still in your empty unit long enough AFTER Phase 3 launched for your unit to sign back up as Jade Falcon loyalists.

You should have known long before Phase 3 launched what your unit population was like.



It was worse then that, on Phase 3 Launch, they actually split Faction Wars into 6 queues:
1> Unit Queue
2> Unitless Queue
3> Freelancer (which had a small population spike from Phase 3 resetting everyones contracts)
4> Double all the above for Scouting & Invasion

Which is mind bending, since what everyone wanted was:
1> Group Queue
2> Solo Queue (limit of no more than 2 players from the same unit can be in the same solo queue)

Actually it was worse than that.

Each Faction (10) had a Solo and a Unit que = 20

Then each Faction (10) had a Unit and Solo que for Scouting = another 20.

Thats 40 total ques.

The Solo que was severely hamstrung because in order to play as a Solo player and get rewards, a player had to be a Loyalist since Freelancer didnt have jack squat for rewards and wasnt even worth the time.

The 1 man Merc Units became a big thing because the new Merc path had a whole new rewards system plus a whole lot more Faction jumping freedom without the severe penalties that Loyalists have.

Edit- I keep seeing people saying that the best players that wanted teamwork went solo Merc because of those reasons. I disagree.

In my mind reason so many went solo Merc was because that the career path was almost too good to pass up. New rewards and Faction flexibility. A very tempting combination, but the drawback was that they had to be in a Unit. So they made one man Units.

Had Freelancers had a rewards system worth a crap or if Loyalist had new rewards and less harsh penalties they solo ques might have been a lot healthier.

Edited by JaxRiot, 21 May 2016 - 05:09 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Adamski, on 21 May 2016 - 04:50 PM, said:

So you would have quit CW instead of use the built in LFG tool, or whatever passes for other factions comm hubs, or faction chat, or find just 1 friend online to make a duo team with?

I didn't realize those were such onerous burdens.

And Russ likes to tout his 2% ghost drop number, thinking that it means faction play is that well balanced, instead of realizing just how much work players are putting in to avoid ghost dropping.

Yeah. Because nobody, and I mean nobody, uses LFG except to fill groups they already know.

When I did rank 6 in FRR about 1/3 of my drops or more were pugging while I tried to find a group to sync up with.

While sitting in the FW LFG room on FRR TS and FRR is one of the most active factions in actively building groups. You either need people on a group in your friends list who are not already in a drop or you need to find a group on TS with less than 12 and go into their TS, interrupt their conversation and ask if they have room then wait 10-20 minutes for them to finish a drop then get added - and then kicked when one of their unit members gets on and potentially drop with a bunch of a-holes or nitwits.

12man building in FW is ****. All that? That is in NA primetime in FRR TS for someone with over 1k names in his friends list and some good tags next to his name (2k, Stormtrooper, I forget what else). Off hours? Euro, Oceanic? Forget it. Davion is actually a bit better but Davion is unquestionably the best coordinated faction. Anywhere but those two you need a unit to drop with who plays when you do to plug in with or you're just pugging.

Pugging in a FW queue with just solos and no matchmaker is refining the worst possible experiences in FW down to their most miserable and then trapping you there for 30 minutes. I wouldn't even be the first one out the door if that happened.

[Adamski]

MischiefSC, on 21 May 2016 - 05:13 PM, said:

Yeah. Because nobody, and I mean nobody, uses LFG except to fill groups they already know.

When I did rank 6 in FRR about 1/3 of my drops or more were pugging while I tried to find a group to sync up with.

While sitting in the FW LFG room on FRR TS and FRR is one of the most active factions in actively building groups. You either need people on a group in your friends list who are not already in a drop or you need to find a group on TS with less than 12 and go into their TS, interrupt their conversation and ask if they have room then wait 10-20 minutes for them to finish a drop then get added - and then kicked when one of their unit members gets on and potentially drop with a bunch of a-holes or nitwits.

12man building in FW is ****. All that? That is in NA primetime in FRR TS for someone with over 1k names in his friends list and some good tags next to his name (2k, Stormtrooper, I forget what else). Off hours? Euro, Oceanic? Forget it. Davion is actually a bit better but Davion is unquestionably the best coordinated faction. Anywhere but those two you need a unit to drop with who plays when you do to plug in with or you're just pugging.

Pugging in a FW queue with just solos and no matchmaker is refining the worst possible experiences in FW down to their most miserable and then trapping you there for 30 minutes. I wouldn't even be the first one out the door if that happened.

I get a lot of groups on the FRR HUB, and don't have any of the tags for anything.

If I'm looking to play some FW, first thing I do is get in game and set myself to LFG for FW.
Then I hop onto the FRR HUB, and either sit in the LFG channel there, or start browsing any active channels.

If I find an active channel, I do a quick player count to see if they are already full / have backup. If they are close to full, I just type a message in that channels chat to add me to the list of replacements, or if there is a lull in the conversation I will ask in voice.

If I haven't found a group after 5 minutes, I create my own, and either pull some people from LFG, or I just solo in one of the Scouting Channels and wait for some other players to join me.

Also make sure to use the built in Faction Chat, which is mostly crap, but will help pull other players that might be sitting in queue for a planet.

[MischiefSC]

Adamski, on 21 May 2016 - 05:31 PM, said:

I get a lot of groups on the FRR HUB, and don't have any of the tags for anything.

If I'm looking to play some FW, first thing I do is get in game and set myself to LFG for FW.
Then I hop onto the FRR HUB, and either sit in the LFG channel there, or start browsing any active channels.

If I find an active channel, I do a quick player count to see if they are already full / have backup. If they are close to full, I just type a message in that channels chat to add me to the list of replacements, or if there is a lull in the conversation I will ask in voice.

If I haven't found a group after 5 minutes, I create my own, and either pull some people from LFG, or I just solo in one of the Scouting Channels and wait for some other players to join me.

Also make sure to use the built in Faction Chat, which is mostly crap, but will help pull other players that might be sitting in queue for a planet.

All that just to get a group in FRR, one of the active in building groups and likely in NA timeframe. It was often an hour plus to get into a group. It was generally faster to queue hop, looking for a 6man+ waiting in a queue, pug in with them and hopefully try to sync up at least.

Again - that's the best case scenario in a faction that is one of the best to do that in. Everywhere else but Davion would be drastically worse so you'd be pushing the bulk of players in most factions into the windowlicker queue.

[Randy Poffo]

MischiefSC, on 21 May 2016 - 05:54 PM, said:

All that just to get a group in FRR, one of the active in building groups and likely in NA timeframe. It was often an hour plus to get into a group. It was generally faster to queue hop, looking for a 6man+ waiting in a queue, pug in with them and hopefully try to sync up at least.

Again - that's the best case scenario in a faction that is one of the best to do that in. Everywhere else but Davion would be drastically worse so you'd be pushing the bulk of players in most factions into the windowlicker queue.

So rather than use an easy workaround it would be best to force everyone into a system that you prefer and that manifestly isn't working.

[MischiefSC]

Randy Poffo, on 21 May 2016 - 05:55 PM, said:

So rather than use an easy workaround it would be best to force everyone into a system that you prefer and that manifestly isn't working.

No, what I'm recommending would actually let the solo queue work again. One world per front eliminates the attack/defend queue issue that stymies the timid solo players.

You have a tag, you're in a unit, you play in the unit queue. You are tagless you play in tagless queue. Ideally even have different worlds so nobody you can't play against is undercutting your hard work.

I don't prefer the current system. It's **** and barely manageable. I've recommended several better ones. Forcing me to play in pug queue if I'm not grouped however is far worse.

Edited by MischiefSC, 21 May 2016 - 07:11 PM.

[Randy Poffo]

MischiefSC, on 21 May 2016 - 07:10 PM, said:

No, what I'm recommending would actually let the solo queue work again. One world per front eliminates the attack/defend queue issue that stymies the timid solo players.

You have a tag, you're in a unit, you play in the unit queue. You are tagless you play in tagless queue. Ideally even have different worlds so nobody you can't play against is undercutting your hard work.

I don't prefer the current system. It's **** and barely manageable. I've recommended several better ones. Forcing me to play in pug queue if I'm not grouped however is far worse.

Then you're ignoring my response to you above. The problem with the solo q as they implemented it was not a laning issue - or at least, that never really got a chance to come into play. The problem was the giant pile of freelancers who were literally not allowed by the system to initiate a q.

[Ace Selin]

meteorol, on 20 May 2016 - 08:21 PM, said:

Phase 3 fell flat on its face. Except 4v4 it failed to add anything that could help CW to gain more players or fix the glaring issues we are having since day 1 of its release. well at least we have a second xp bar now (Leaderboard)

Ones more Russ announced big and delivered litttle (which was to be expected).

Scouting is a mode i play and like, but it also takes players away from Invasion, so its a double edged sword for CW.

[Adamski]

MischiefSC, on 21 May 2016 - 07:10 PM, said:

No, what I'm recommending would actually let the solo queue work again. One world per front eliminates the attack/defend queue issue that stymies the timid solo players.

You have a tag, you're in a unit, you play in the unit queue. You are tagless you play in tagless queue. Ideally even have different worlds so nobody you can't play against is undercutting your hard work.

I don't prefer the current system. It's **** and barely manageable. I've recommended several better ones. Forcing me to play in pug queue if I'm not grouped however is far worse.

Your system makes it so that players cannot cross over between the 2 queues. (Unit vs Non)

My proposed system makes it so that players CAN cross over between the 2 queues depending on the players needs and the queues needs. (Groups vs Solo)
Eliminates one of the biggest sources of clubbing (Organized groups generally remove the window lickers from their groups through education/information or kick, which means more window lickers populate the solo queue)
And has an easy stop to abuse (cannot have more than 2 players from the same unit in the solo queue, if there is more than 2, they have to group up and go to the group queue).

Having separate planets for solo players and group players would be a good idea though.

[MischiefSC]

Randy Poffo, on 21 May 2016 - 07:38 PM, said:

Then you're ignoring my response to you above. The problem with the solo q as they implemented it was not a laning issue - or at least, that never really got a chance to come into play. The problem was the giant pile of freelancers who were literally not allowed by the system to initiate a q.

What I'm proposing is that each front, say Davion/Marik, that's open as one queue. Attack/defend. So the solo queue if you're in Davion you probably have 2 lanes, 1 for Liao and 1 for Marik unless Kurita is attacking. If you go fight on the Marik front you're there with every other solo player who can play there. Freelancer, loyalist or merc. No longer an issue with Freelancers who can't queue for attack.

I get the issue - hence the solution. If you're in a unit but pugging on the Marik front you'll be mixed with every unit or unit member against every Marik unit member. No longer an issue with Units in attack queue largely playing small units and pugs who are Defending. You'll play whoever is on that front so more 12man v 12man matches since both tend to go to the front of the queue.

[Adamski]

Ace Selin, on 21 May 2016 - 07:42 PM, said:

Scouting is a mode i play and like, but it also takes players away from Invasion, so its a double edged sword for CW.

I like both modes, but find Scouting gets a bit stale with its lack of variety for viable mechs & builds, lack of maps, and overall ease of exploiting the dropship.

I have nothing but respect for the skilled players trying to hold back the tide of windowlickers from giving the enemy all 600 data points.

[MischiefSC]

Adamski, on 21 May 2016 - 07:51 PM, said:

Your system makes it so that players cannot cross over between the 2 queues. (Unit vs Non)

My proposed system makes it so that players CAN cross over between the 2 queues depending on the players needs and the queues needs. (Groups vs Solo)
Eliminates one of the biggest sources of clubbing (Organized groups generally remove the window lickers from their groups through education/information or kick, which means more window lickers populate the solo queue)
And has an easy stop to abuse (cannot have more than 2 players from the same unit in the solo queue, if there is more than 2, they have to group up and go to the group queue).

Having separate planets for solo players and group players would be a good idea though.

I absolutely do not want crossing over. That creates both skill and behavior expectations in both queues. I loved the matches after the queue split - best pugging in FW I ever had. Majority of players on the unit queue teamed up and played as a team, it was awesome.

Better option is just put the content in as QP maps/modes but PGI won't because it would be work. So instead we do unit members for "I want to play in a team" and "I do wut I want" gets solo queue. Tons Of unit members who like playing to a team pug and pug often - largely have to because of the existing system. Trying to force them into scrub queue will just mean only big units and a handful of TS diehards will play in FW.

[Commander A9]

I certainly hope the rest of the Mechwarrior community doesn't blame MercStar for the flaws in Community Warfare...

I mean, how could they? And no, I'm not being sarcastic.