80 replies to this topic

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

Mystere, on 01 July 2016 - 07:37 PM, said:

Why do people always call for removing or nerfing something? It's always "I don't like X. Therefore, remove X".

Why not instead add maps of different styles?

Why do people always want to stay to what they know, even when it's broken?

Why not just try something different?

Also:

Maps with choke points are not a problem. Choke points exist in nature.

But every map (of even most) being only choke points means that there is very little choice for point of contact between teams.

No choice, no strategy; it just plays the same over and over again. It's not dynamic and it's not fun.

Edited by Brandarr Gunnarson, 01 July 2016 - 10:49 PM.

[LordNothing]

i see the available population being sub-optimally utilized. you can concentrate it more but it will still have the same level of under utilization. a good example is having multiple half full lobbies. say 3 games worth of players not playing. things like this are sad.

i dont know what you would do to optimize it. ive always pushed for a "join the damn game" button for solo players. this would merge all those half full lobbies into full lobbies, and actually arrange games beyond faction lines. the game knows what factions have the most people sitting in lobbies to fight and can do a better job at picking battle fronts than individual players simply following the heard. say you have 12 steiner players waiting in a lobby against jade falcon. but on the other side you got 12 wolf players waiting in a frr lobby. neither jf or frr have a full 12 players, if the game was managing who was fighting who in an intelegent way, it would stick the steiner players against wolf and call it a game. the way it is now people just sit where they are and twiddle their thumbs.

then again how does that kind of a system do anything for units other than to make their wait times longer? what is actually needed is an all inclusive system that can optimize wait times for both units and solos. i think you actually need to drop the whole planet ownership nonsense, then something like that might be possible. planets go to the faction, if you (or your unit) has a lot of participation and more importantly a lot of victories, then you should get rewards similar to what you get for planet ownership. its more inclusive, which is actually a good thing. unit tags go on the leaderboard where they belong. then everyone can have a "join the damn game" button, and you can solve the other big problems with fp as well.

[A Shoddy Rental Mech]

AssaultPig, on 30 June 2016 - 11:51 PM, said:

hah, yeah

as we'll see this weekend, it's possible to bribe people into FP by offering them big rewards

few of them are gonna stay when the rewards go back to normal though

Not sure the bribing is working. Population may have be up, maybe 2 or 3 times normal population, but 3 times a small number is still a small number.

Wolf and Ghost Bear still seem dead. Smoke Jag showing little sign of life, but will go back to dead after the event.

Seems people are more interested in scouting than invasion.

[Mystere]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 01 July 2016 - 08:45 PM, said:

Why do people always want to stay to what they know, even when it's broken?

Why not just try something different?

Also:

Maps with choke points are not a problem. Choke points exist in nature.

But every map (of even most) being only choke points means that there is very little choice for point of contact between teams.

No choice, no strategy; it just plays the same over and over again. It's not dynamic and it's not fun.

Which is why I want more maps, different types of maps. The same goes for new CW game modes.

[Kanil]

Mystere, on 01 July 2016 - 07:37 PM, said:

Why do people always call for removing or nerfing something? It's always "I don't like X. Therefore, remove X".

Why not instead add maps of different styles?

Because the existing, mediocre maps will still exist, and you'll still have to play on them from time to time.

Sorta like Long Tom, if we removed/balanced/whatever it from half the CW matches, half the CW matches would be better, but the other half would still suck.

[KahnWongFuChung]

What population?

[Mystere]

Kanil, on 02 July 2016 - 05:07 AM, said:

Because the existing, mediocre maps will still exist, and you'll still have to play on them from time to time.

Sorta like Long Tom, if we removed/balanced/whatever it from half the CW matches, half the CW matches would be better, but the other half would still suck.

The current maps are fine. The problem is we need variety and as such need new and different ones.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

Mystere, on 02 July 2016 - 03:15 AM, said:

Which is why I want more maps, different types of maps. The same goes for new CW game modes.

Certainly, more maps of different sorts is better. Modes, too.

Mystere, on 02 July 2016 - 04:52 PM, said:

The current maps are fine. The problem is we need variety and as such need new and different ones.

But the current maps aren't really fine. They are really all the same map with different scenery. They always play the same and result in the same experience; which is usually a bad one, at that!

[Davers]

Just my thoughts as a player who was very interested in FW back at the start..

Factions don't matter.
In the beginning there was a real sense of House vs House, but over time that died. Now even die hard loyalist units are looking to break ties or set up alt accounts to fight in other places. Every Faction is just a new XP bar to grind. Of all the problems with FW, both the ones I mention and others that have been said upthread, this is what really killed it for me.

The map doesn't matter.
Who cares if the FR gets whittled down to it's capitol? Other than not having to have pugs line up for defense missions, it's completely unaffected. While individual planets are worth MC to a handful of players, for the most part the entire map could just be replaced by a graph showing how each faction is doing.

Pugs and Premades don't mix.
Solo players don't like facing units. Simple as that. No one wants to sit in a queue trying to get a game going, only to end up being farmed. And every 12 man unit has done this, whether intentionally or not.

FW has the lowest viable mech diversity of any mode.
Snowflake builds that work in QP don't work here. Neither do LRMs. Right there you have eliminated a large chunk of the population.

Clans are OP. So is the IS.
No matter what anyone says about "the balance is really good right now", many players have an unshakable belief that balance is completely skewed one way or the other, and so playing against whole teams of Clan mechs/IS mechs is a waste of time. I can't count the number of times Ive heard a Marik or Liao player claim they joined a southern house so they would never have to face a Clan team.

The game modes are very limiting.
There really is no way to play each game differently. It's like playing on Alpine, except there is only a trench leading to The Hill, and a trench leading away from it.

You can only fight Tukayyid once.
FW jumped the shark before it even got to Phase 2. We have already played through the entire Clan invasion...twice. Why play the same fights over and over? It's almost like PGI is telling people not to be Loyalists.

[Davers]

The current state of FW:

Marik: Hey Davion, we have some new guys who need mechbays. Want to schedule a few matches?

Davion: Sure, I almost have enough LP for my Lucky Cat Standing Cockpit item! But if you take the planet you have to give it back tomorrow because we like yellow.

Liao: Hey guys, Marik and Davion are grinding out LP so FW is cancelled tonight.

And so the war for dominance over the Inner Sphere continues...

[AnTi90d]

Davers, on 02 July 2016 - 08:40 PM, said:

Liao: Hey guys, Marik and Davion are grinding out LP so FW is cancelled tonight.

If PGI would let us have alliance members in eachother's attack queues, you could join the snakes in some good natured turkey poking.

[LordNothing]

im still leaning towards my 'join the damn game' button as the only solution.


everyone queues up much like they do now, not at a planet, they just click on "join the damn game" button. then every 2 minutes the game looks through all the groups available then it matches up groups in 3 different phases.

first phase:

12s mans vs 12s mans
12 pugs vs 12 pugs
mixed pug+partial group vs mixed pug+partial group

once these have been matched up then it takes the remaining groups and does this:

12 mans vs mixed pug+partial groups
12 pugs vs mixed pug+partial groups

if for any reason there are still enough players to launch games it would do this:

everyone vs everyone

and now all but a few stragglers are matched, they just have to wait another 2 minutes for the game to cycle back through.

[Kanil]

Mystere, on 02 July 2016 - 04:52 PM, said:

The current maps are fine. The problem is we need variety and as such need new and different ones.

I really don't consider that the case. The current maps are pretty much all irredeemable trash. A couple are less bad than the others, but they all feature nearly identical filing through chokepoint gameplay, to attack objectives that are all clustered in the same location.

I suppose if you think they're fine, then fair enough. But if you keep the current maps while adding 6 new fantastic ones, then half of my games are still going to be mostly unenjoyable and I'm still not going to play CW much beyond scouting.

[Erikwa Kell]

I stated something similar in another thread, but i'll sum it up here


Scripted events.

take the map(reset it obviously) and set it to an EXACT date in the lore.
then every week, advance the boarders based on the won or lost boarders in the lore.
the outcome is always pre determined and out of the players hands.
all the players do is pick a side based on WHO's fighting that THAT TIME.
be given SOME period of time to chose loyalty per event with sub factions (the separate clans and houses would be cosmetic)(or maybe give some sort of event long buff/quirk based on who ya chose)
the "winning" side, regardless of lore, gets a prize. Losers drink from the cup of defeat.

lore continues and map advances to next week in game, and next event ( major battle or whatever ) get announced and loyalty voting starts again. ( allows people to change sides as they see fit ) ( people who DONT vote are auto placed to balance )
"events" will be series of game modes representing the overall battle taking place over the week between the chosen sides.
example : clan vs IS, Clan vs Clan, IS vs IS, **MERC vs MERC** (neutral esk battles on more random maps, your pugs if you will)
Obviously the time intervals can probably vary both ways, and this can give them excuses to release mech as they are "invented" in the lore.

people love having freedom and ownership in games, but in this lore heavy universe giving players the ability to shape ANYTHING just causes problems that can NEVER be fixed.
it's a rare case of needing some guide rails to keep stuff on track.
that's my 2 cents.

[Red Shrike]

Davers, on 02 July 2016 - 08:10 PM, said:

Just my thoughts as a player who was very interested in FW back at the start..

Factions don't matter.
In the beginning there was a real sense of House vs House, but over time that died. Now even die hard loyalist units are looking to break ties or set up alt accounts to fight in other places. Every Faction is just a new XP bar to grind. Of all the problems with FW, both the ones I mention and others that have been said upthread, this is what really killed it for me.

I gotta admit, even though I'm a Wolf Loyalist, there's very little to actually remind me of that fact. I may not be a walking lore encyclopedia, but I'm willing to hazard a guess that there's enough material out there, to at least make the factions a little bit unique.

Edited by Red Shrike, 03 July 2016 - 05:39 PM.

[Kin3ticX]

It isn't the population (it is)

[LordNothing]

Kin3ticX, on 03 July 2016 - 06:45 PM, said:

It isn't the population (it is)

i think the fix is a little of everything.

break everything down to 2-4 alliances, all factions at war:
clan vs is
or
clan vs fedcom vs everyone else
or
wardens vs crusaders vs fedcom vs everyone else

individual factions still exist, but in a friendly competition with eachother for standing. so you could still have your lore themed units and the like. now we got our faction populations focused. we still have planets, each a bucket and a bottleneck to game formation. so get rid of planet ownership and lobbies, instead each alliance would have an attack and defence lobby for each other alliance.

planet ownership rewards would be replaced with a more generalistic rewards system. you instead get your unit's glory represented on a weekly leader board, possibly with prizes for the top 5 units every week. pugs would get a weekly leaderboard+prize too for fairness. possibly you might also have victory pay, where you get 5 mc for every 25 victories, it would be easy, fair and might get more people to play fp.

join the damn game button. see my previous post. kind of a very minimalistic matchmaker, it doesnt care about player skill, but will match up based on group type (pug, unit, mixed) if it can, otherwise match what players are available. this will fix pug funnel in addition to make game start faster. you might introduce game voting, vote to play invasions, counter attack, or split the teams into 3 and start 3 scouting games. this would open fp up to more modes and maps, since you could just add voting options at that point. the very limited gameplay options in fp certainly are keeping a lot of people bored.

[Baulven]

AnTi90d, on 02 July 2016 - 08:51 PM, said:

If PGI would let us have alliance members in eachother's attack queues, you could join the snakes in some good natured turkey poking.

That doesn't work when the entire inner sphere counts each other as alliance.

[badaa]

yea god forbid the units dont get to pug stop

[Red Shrike]

Kin3ticX, on 03 July 2016 - 06:45 PM, said:

It isn't the population (it is)

Having more players will not make FP more fun to play. The maps and gamemodes will still suck.