21 replies to this topic

[Armando]

There are more than one thread about what is wrong with Phase 3, so I thought I would take a moment to say 'good job' to PGI about the improvements I think they got right...

...Scouting (4vs4):
This is a fun new game mode that makes it easier to enjoy Faction Warfare for players who are not in a large unit and/or don't have a ton of friends on their friends list. So much easier to find 3 other people than it is 11.

A legitimate congratulations to PGI on the new game mode.

...Leaderboards:
Loving this new feature that displays statistics for Freelancer Pilots, Merc Pilots, Loyalist Pilots, Merc Units, and Loyalist Units. It confirmed some things we already knew (EmP, EVIL, Kcom, etc are really good) and opened our eyes to some CW myths (such as....The larger the unit the better they perform; Brotherhood of Randiest [BoR] at 485 members strong is one of, if not THE, largest mech unit and they are currently in 57th place, while Kell's Commandos [KCom] is sitting in 2nd place with only 33 members....who knew it took skill to do well in FW?).

Again, another legitimate congratulations to PGI on creating the Leaderboards, great work.

What did I miss? What else did PGI get right about Phase 3?

[A Shoddy Rental Mech]

More like what phase 3 almost got right.

4x4 is nice but it slanted towards the people gathering. Needs tweaking

For the love of god why can't the leaderboards be sorted all columns instead of just kill most damage.
Why can't they be filtered by groups.

BUGS BUGS BUGS

Grade C- not worthy of praise

[N0MAD]

So after years of developing the All Great end game for MWO, a 4v4 game mode and a Leader board is reason to give praise?? really.
I can see why this game is what it is..

[adamts01]

CW is a giant failure. I hope the new assault mode works out. Please let there be a single base.

[Gerwig]

Yeah they got scouting right, oh wait look at the scout queues..... nope

Leaderboards - almost, unfortunately it's an exp bar though.

[CwStrife]

The whole thing is giant failure. Scouting is such a failure after the event everyone left it for dead. It absolutely sucks, and thank god nobody scouts now.

All they gave us was a prettier interface and that its.

The leaderboard also kind of sucks because for the units it revolves around how many planets you control, which is silly because some units have high win rates but can't take the planet. Other units may just not be big enough. My unit is in 5th place but has only 30 members... but we have trouble taking planets due to so many other units dropping and losing and us not being big enough to drop more than 1 12 man at a time, 2 if lucky.

Regardless PGI has confirmed they have left CW for dead. An entire year of supposed development, I have seen single people create an entire game in that time... PGI doesn't seem to care. Their player base is slowly dwindling, some of my unit members have left the game completely, and it's sad. PGI is putting the last nail in their coffin, but hey it's their company, if they want it to burn to the ground thats on them.

Somebody else will pick up the MW franchise after PGI's contract runs out.

[Bagor Aga]

many times PGI intended to implement something but failed i.e. LFG, chats, mech selection list, mechlab. What they do after it becomes obvious ? - apply fixes to bad implementation and never change bad idea.
4x4 scouting has flaws in implementation but has good idea behind it so I value this as hope they got rid of neuroleptics. But too much things were broken to say Phase 3 exists. They lose population because of pointless CW, CW is in no help with boring quick queue, where broken balance persists for years as they can't manage what are pillars of balance since introduction of clantech. I am happy only with modeller\designers work, not saying UI is permanent ...scaled to fit you...rrrgh!

[LordNothing]

i have to say that the automatic disappointment system worked flawlessly.

[Garuda4711]

CwStrife, on 22 May 2016 - 04:10 PM, said:

Somebody else will pick up the MW franchise after PGI's contract runs out.

I'm looking forward to that date! Does anybody know for certain when that will be?

[KinLuu]

Garuda4711, on 23 May 2016 - 03:39 AM, said:

I'm looking forward to that date! Does anybody know for certain when that will be?

Not before 2020.

[Assault One]

Garuda4711, on 23 May 2016 - 03:39 AM, said:

I'm looking forward to that date! Does anybody know for certain when that will be?

KinLuu, on 23 May 2016 - 03:50 AM, said:

Not before 2020.

Dammit.

Edited by Assault One, 23 May 2016 - 04:33 AM.

[Reitmeier]

The only thing Phase 3 did very well was destroying my hopes that FW will ever be an interesting gamemode.
Combine this with the PGI tournament and it's getting harder to click the "preorder-button" even for a fanboy like me.

[Khereg]

I agree that scouting and the leaderboards are nice additions. Yes, they both need some tweaking, but they're in the ball park and the issues can be addressed without requiring a major redesign.

In particular, I'm finding the bonuses from scouting are actually affecting strategy/tactics in the invasion queue.

There's more I'd like to see, but it's a start. There's plenty I could complain about still , but that would violate the spirit of the thread. FP is more interesting and nuanced today than it was a month ago, so, for that I'm grateful.

Edited to add: As far as the attackers having win conditions that are too easy, I think that could be fixed with a minimum number of intel points to grab to achieve victory conditions. Right now it's 1. Set it somewhere between 5 and 8 and that should make it a bit more balanced.

Edited by Khereg, 23 May 2016 - 06:30 AM.

[Gerwig]

Your right, scouting does affect tactics in the invasion queue, get long-tom clear the planet and no-one drops

[Kyle Wright]

Scouting was somewhat interesting, but repercussions for factions to swarm it are tremendous. As soon as gets LT queues go completely dead as there is no incentive to fight hard for it. Invasion mode is a joke as it's one big funnel game that dictates how well you can gen rush or stop said gen rush. Leader boards don't actually show skill level as it's. Pure numbers game, more players in a unit the easier it is to farm planets. And again no major incentive to play FW over public queue. This weekend I decided to farm QP in my Black Knight and switch to my Black Widow when I died. I was averaging 420k cbills a match with some in the 530k range for 4-6mins of work. Compared to FW where you wait 20minutes to find a group and queue, then get gen rushed or gen rush yourself and make maybe 700k cbills if you are decent. God forbid you face off against the LT as no one knows how to spread the F out. I'm more excited to do the alpha field test tonight for NBT against 4TCR as it has actual FW prospects. Things such as raids, planetary assaults, repairing of mechs after fights, salvage of down mechs, a black market to buy mechs, and no dang funnel system to defend or attack through. Mechs are still off balance with weapons, maps play in the same damn spot day in and day out(why design huge maps if you force the battle in the same place.), Lack of maps, lack of information warfare as every damn mech has 1000m sensor range so good luck trying to be sneaky and set a ambush. The only saving grace is Alex and his design skills, if Microsoft made a Battletech Movie or cartoon.Alex would be god to little kids with the toy market.

[Moebius Pi]

I don't consider the leaderboards as a plus point.

Leaderboards for a Ranked Ladder like other competitive games, with a competitive queue to expand and grow that aspect of the game, hell yes. I'd give it a giant thumbs up, especially to promote these World Championships, you know, instead of relying on often problematic third party leagues with their own drama, politics and occasional stagnation issues to fill that gap.

Leaderboards as is for Faction Play? Nope. Some of the ratios are nice to see via KDA and Win/Loss, but the majority of it is flat out useless ******* grind. Get higher via grind. That kinda negates anything I see worthwhile in them, especially such a lazy, LAZY tacking onto the already bad and struggling CW/Faction Play to do, what... drag competitive play back out of the Third Party Leagues and revive the game mode, without actually properly addressing the real issues that have contributed to ongoing decline and -severe- stagnation?

Naw. They ****** up. I hate being salty about something relatively irrelevant, but I had some weird hopes they'd build some infrastructure to better cater to and support the competitive segments, rather than a quick tack-on.

It's another token low-effort placation at best that entire missed the mark, blatantly so in a vain band-aid fix thinking it'd make some sort of appreciable resurgence in CW. The Leaderboards as is stink of it to boot in a facepalm worthy way in their current implementation.

Sometimes I wonder why PGI used MOBA style **** in this game at all (see CW maps) where it isn't a a seemingly good idea at all for a FPS, but yet fail to implement the very-MOBA-style aspects that contribute to building a strong competitive game community and segment and increase interest in said game (as well as player retention via in game rewards for rankings). You know, **** that would may sense with their "turn MWO more competitive" angle lately.

Maybe the exhaust fumes from the parking lot are creeping into the ventilation ducts a bit too often there, I dunno. It boggles my mind enough I have to make some humorous jab about it to make it have some sense to it vs taking it as a serious and intended development path.

[Murphy7]

I love the scouting mode, and while it is slanted towards gatherers, I think it can be addressed by scoring - similar to Khereg's suggestion, maybe have leaving with1-4 intel is a draw.

I do wish the leaderboards were able to be reordered by different stats. I disagree in part that they are an xp meter, you have many stats there to get the picture of what people are doing.

Kmmd ordering values contribution through efficiency or tenacity. If your much better on your skills/efficiency but pages back due to not having put the games in, are you really more valuable to your faction? It's a fair question.

[Appogee]

I enjoy scouting.

The Leaderboards are poor as they effectively recognise units with the most members.

[Helsbane]

I enjoy scouting mode a lot. Granted I wish PGI had had the forethought to see that smoke diving would be an insta win for the gatherers and fixed that aspect, but whatever. That's like expecting a decent meal at McDonalds. Yeah, it's a meal, but it's not what you'd call 'good'.

The rest is rather what we've come to expect from PGI. That is to say, a lot of overblown talk followed by abysmal implementation and lackluster creativity. It is what it is and won't improve under the current regime. Russ and Paul have a 'vision', or some such thing, and won't listen to the thousands of voices that table better ideas and simpler solutions. I still believe that their 'vision' for the MW IP is to drive it so far into the ground that no one in their right mind will ever touch it again.

[Khereg]

Appogee, on 23 May 2016 - 02:08 PM, said:

The Leaderboards are poor as they effectively recognise units with the most members.

They should be sortable to recognize other metrics. NKVA was always proud of their win rate...

Other "per capita" metrics would alleviate the "how big is my unit" syndrome.

Like I said, minor tweaks. Not major surgery.