80 replies to this topic

[wanderer]

RagingOyster, on 07 July 2016 - 06:00 PM, said:

In my humble opinion, the problem isn't PGI, or balance or whatever else the people on the forums will say. IMO the issue is those very same people. If you are playing a game for the first time, and every match you play has at least 1 or 2 people spamming allchat with how bad PGI is, how broken the game is, how ****** the design team's decisions are etc etc, will that be a game you want to play? Similarly, if you're in your trial mech trying to get the hang of combat and the flow of the game and you're bombarded with "You suck" "Trash" "Noob" "Learn the ******* maps" etc etc, is that a game you'd want to keep going with? The answer to both questions is of course, no. The playerbase has shrunk back down to what it was in beta days because I imagine literally 0 new players stay anymore.

I'll point straight at the PSR/Tier system that injects newbies into the shark tank far, far before they actually belong in the same games as experienced players, and frequently leaves the unskilled and incompetent getting dropped in right next to those who are anything but.

And they naturally hose the game, underperform, and frustrate people. A system that fails to segregate bad players from good players poisons the entire system, becoming a bad experience for new players and an anger-generating one for experienced ones as again and again, they find out the matchmaker has populated their team with potato pilots whose rapid deaths quickly swing a game into a disaster.

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I believe that the game would be thriving were it not for the incredible, LoL-level number of toxic members of the community that seem to have no desire in life other than to rant and scream endlessly about the flaws of a game that they inexplicably continue to play. Is PGI perfect? No, obviously. Are they a good dev team? Yes. It's not like we're dealing with EA games "lol you have to buy ammo refills for $2 apiece real money" or something.

That's because they enjoy the game but hate the system that sticks them with players that have no logical reason to be anywhere near the same team as they are. I know that feeling- games where I end up with multiple solo kills and KMDDs and suddenly, I realize it's 3-9 as my entire team has folded in two and I've just outdamaged two lances of people all by my lonesome, the game ends 3-12 and half the team doesn't so much as have a single assist.

A T2 player should not be in the same game as people who literally do not understand the basic functions of the game, but I see it happen at a disturbing rate...and at T2, I'm in the T1-T3 matchpool.

My Star of the Special Snowflakes award yesterday went to the team-mate with dual ER PPCs and a Gauss rifle on his Marauder.

He never fired the Gauss once in the entire game and complained about how it never fired when he hit the alpha strike button, dying to his own utterly un-used 15-ton bomb when someone breached the torso and it blew him to Kingdom Come.

His team-mate in the LRM-and-AC Jagermech who tried to brawl at point blank with his AC/2-LRM5 combo in a hail of random damage and bouncy duds was a close second, but at least he could fire all his weapons.

And these are T3+ players, folks. At the least, to PGI that's players that are experienced and logically "average" players of the game. They're lucky more decent players don't just spontaneously combust in frustration for being saddled with this kind of inexperience.

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tl;dr MWO is not dead, but new players aren't staying because toxic community drives them off. Stop being a **** and the game would be better.

tl;dr PGI's matchmaking system drops poor players deliberately into the experienced player pool because being bad at lots of games = experienced in the Paul Rankings, causing massive salt generation.

[xWiredx]

RagingOyster, on 07 July 2016 - 06:00 PM, said:

So, I've had a few people in game the past few days saying that the "game's dead lol" and similar stuff. I thought I'd give the community my $0.02 on why I think the playerbase has shrunk and why the game is most definitely not dead, despite what spiteful people may say.

So if we take a look at Steam charts we can see that, since release on Steam in December 2015 the average number of players has fallen by over 50%, from over 4,000 in December to sitting at right around 1000 this past month (July 2016). Using third-party trackers we can find that there are a significant number of people who own the game (something like 30,000,depending on what service you use to look at the numbers). So the question becomes, why has the number of people actually playing been more than halved over the past few months?

In my humble opinion, the problem isn't PGI, or balance or whatever else the people on the forums will say. IMO the issue is those very same people. If you are playing a game for the first time, and every match you play has at least 1 or 2 people spamming allchat with how bad PGI is, how broken the game is, how ****** the design team's decisions are etc etc, will that be a game you want to play? Similarly, if you're in your trial mech trying to get the hang of combat and the flow of the game and you're bombarded with "You suck" "Trash" "Noob" "Learn the ******* maps" etc etc, is that a game you'd want to keep going with? The answer to both questions is of course, no. The playerbase has shrunk back down to what it was in beta days because I imagine literally 0 new players stay anymore.

I believe that the game would be thriving were it not for the incredible, LoL-level number of toxic members of the community that seem to have no desire in life other than to rant and scream endlessly about the flaws of a game that they inexplicably continue to play. Is PGI perfect? No, obviously. Are they a good dev team? Yes. It's not like we're dealing with EA games "lol you have to buy ammo refills for $2 apiece real money" or something.

tl;dr MWO is not dead, but new players aren't staying because toxic community drives them off. Stop being a **** and the game would be better.

Edit: Looking back, I'd definitely have to agree that in-game most people are great (save the guy that rushes in and blames his death on his "bad team") and it's more the forums where you find the toxicity

Okay, hold on a second. 1000 players? If you're talking concurrent players per hour on average, yes. There have been about 33,000 players in the past two weeks total (and that number for any group of two weeks is plus/minus 4000), with an average playtime of about an hour a day (it's about 13 hours per 2 weeks).

If you're going to go on a "player base is dying" rant at all, please at least use the proper numbers and give the proper context.

Also, you're contributing to the "player base is dying" forum echo chamber with your post, even though you seem to not like those kinds of threads because you say they're killing the player base.

Really, though, a lot of it does have to do with PGI and its seemingly endless amounts of miscommunication/mismanagement of expectations, unpopular decisions, failure to deliver on its vision to a great extent after several years, constant money grabbing, lack of ability to quickly refine or properly balance features, weak design management and direction, etc etc etc etc etc.

Seriously, I've given them hundreds because I enjoy the game and the IP, but every time I do I just sigh to myself and mutter about how I really shouldn't. In fact, I have finally put a stop to it. I have not ordered the Huntsman and will not be ordering the Linebacker. I also didn't purchase the Phoenix Hawk. Their continued failures to deliver the grand vision they outlined and what I have been buying into since chipping in as a founder has a lot to do with why many people leave the game.

[TLBFestus]

RagingOyster, on 07 July 2016 - 06:00 PM, said:

So, I've had a few people in game the past few days saying that the "game's dead lol" and similar stuff. I thought I'd give the community my $0.02 on why I think the playerbase has shrunk and why the game is most definitely not dead, despite what spiteful people may say.

So if we take a look at Steam charts we can see that, since release on Steam in December 2015 the average number of players has fallen by over 50%, from over 4,000 in December to sitting at right around 1000 this past month (July 2016). Using third-party trackers we can find that there are a significant number of people who own the game (something like 30,000,depending on what service you use to look at the numbers). So the question becomes, why has the number of people actually playing been more than halved over the past few months?

In my humble opinion, the problem isn't PGI, or balance or whatever else the people on the forums will say. IMO the issue is those very same people. If you are playing a game for the first time, and every match you play has at least 1 or 2 people spamming allchat with how bad PGI is, how broken the game is, how ****** the design team's decisions are etc etc, will that be a game you want to play? Similarly, if you're in your trial mech trying to get the hang of combat and the flow of the game and you're bombarded with "You suck" "Trash" "Noob" "Learn the ******* maps" etc etc, is that a game you'd want to keep going with? The answer to both questions is of course, no. The playerbase has shrunk back down to what it was in beta days because I imagine literally 0 new players stay anymore.

I believe that the game would be thriving were it not for the incredible, LoL-level number of toxic members of the community that seem to have no desire in life other than to rant and scream endlessly about the flaws of a game that they inexplicably continue to play. Is PGI perfect? No, obviously. Are they a good dev team? Yes. It's not like we're dealing with EA games "lol you have to buy ammo refills for $2 apiece real money" or something.

tl;dr MWO is not dead, but new players aren't staying because toxic community drives them off. Stop being a **** and the game would be better.

Edit: Looking back, I'd definitely have to agree that in-game most people are great (save the guy that rushes in and blames his death on his "bad team") and it's more the forums where you find the toxicity

How's that Stockholm Syndrome treating you these days?

[4rcs1ne]

I see very little, if any real toxicity amongst this community. I would even go so far as to say that this is one of the most mature and civil forums I've ever read.

Any supposed "toxicity" in this community can be blamed on PGI when they make stupid decisions like the mini map fiasco, where IMO, PGI deserved every bit of flak they got.

[Belacose]

wanderer, on 07 July 2016 - 07:13 PM, said:

potato pilots

Would like to commend you for being considerate enough to avoid using derogatory terms such as 'scrubs', which could be viewed as rather condescending to new players.

Edited by Belacose, 07 July 2016 - 07:22 PM.

[RagingOyster]

xWiredx, on 07 July 2016 - 07:16 PM, said:

Okay, hold on a second. 1000 players? If you're talking concurrent players per hour on average, yes. There have been about 33,000 players in the past two weeks total (and that number for any group of two weeks is plus/minus 4000), with an average playtime of about an hour a day (it's about 13 hours per 2 weeks).

Should have been more clear, yeah I was talking average players at a given time. It's 1000-ish now, down from over 4000 in December

[wanderer]

Given the leaderboards, we can ignore Steam numbers at this point- though they indicate that MWO has pretty much been favored to use the native launcher vs. the Steam one for players that came over. (As I understand it, Steam puts a slight additional load on MWO player clients).

Last I checked, we had something like 44K active accounts, but a significant chunk (10% w/one game period) having played very, very little (as in under 10 games) meaning the meaningful player count is around 30K or so.

[Death Proof]

Yep. Lots of neckbearded man babies with nothing better to do than devote their meager lives to besmirching a video game because of some injustice they feel has been exacted on them.

[Johnny Z]

Yep this game is being trolled heavily at times.

Yep it was expected that as this game got better the trolling would get worse. The game has a ways to go before its great and I expect the trolling will only increase, in game and the forums.

I check out Fallout 4's forums quite a bit. Epic none stop around the clock troll spamming how bad that game is. As if spam trolling that game will make their games any better.

On launch day of Fallout 4 the foums were flipping 1 full page of topics a second. 90% negative. Yet reviews are mostly positive. But to give a review an account has to actually own and have played the game. Fallout 4 is I think the top money making game of all time. Not sure.

By the way, Mechwarrior Online reviews are mostly positive to.

Edited by Johnny Z, 07 July 2016 - 07:54 PM.

[Papaspud]

I don't know if you are right about the community, butI know that the numbers are declining rapidly in the group I am in. Used to have 20-30 people any time of the day,but now there are usually less than 10.

[GreyNovember]

wanderer, on 07 July 2016 - 07:13 PM, said:

And these are T3+ players, folks. At the least, to PGI that's players that are experienced and logically "average" players of the game. They're lucky more decent players don't just spontaneously combust in frustration for being saddled with this kind of inexperience.

Why is it that I never seem to find these people?

Worst I ever find is an LRM boat alone.

Edited by GreyNovember, 07 July 2016 - 07:54 PM.

[ComradeHavoc]

Sorry me dumb dumb, me opinion no count, me no develope game.

But seriously, there's two sides to every coin, and there are very solid reasons why members of our community feel horrendously let down. This isn't a fluke or whatever, PGI has time and time again disappointed and directly ignored and insulted their community.

[Johnny Z]

ComradeHavoc, on 07 July 2016 - 07:54 PM, said:

Sorry me dumb dumb, me opinion no count, me no develope game.

But seriously, there's two sides to every coin, and there are very solid reasons why members of our community feel horrendously let down. This isn't a fluke or whatever, PGI has time and time again disappointed and directly ignored and insulted their community.

So you say.

[Funkin Disher]

The vitriol I come across is 90% limited to the forums.

I jump into a match and the people who ***** and moan are told to get out very consistently. I only hear rants every dozen games or do.
In fact people seem rather muted, every 2-3 matches I see some activity in chat or a couple players using mikes all the way through the match but its predominantly a silent game from my perspective.

New player experience has always sucked though

[Navid A1]

This community is the reason why PGI ship is still afloat despite all the horrible mistakes.
They are the ones who accept being ripped off with ridiculously expensive mech packs.
This community is among the best in online games. They have successful lives, are well mannered, mature, and polite.
They play the role of game tutorial for PGI.

and somehow the OP has the audacity to say, the community is the problem.

A Shameful thread.

[Moonlight Grimoire]

One, the steam numbers aren't even half the story. Second, the in game leader boards are actually pretty reasonable to see how alive the community is, yeah sure there are people doing only one match per class of mech but, at the same time you can sort it, look at everyone with more than say 20 games played, I bet it isn't so small as 5k players, the 19k that the leaderboard has is I feel pushing it, but, active players? I would wager is probably around 10k of active players, 15k or so during events for quick play, only PGI can tell us for certain but the quickplay leader boards tell us part of the picture.

I... honestly have seen little hostility in game beyond the rare ragers who flip out when someone clicks back in and grazes them by accident and then goes nuts and wipes out the rest of the assault lance in their 4xUAC5 king crab. I have seen a few people do shaming for load outs or taking certain mechs, but, that was mostly in tier 5 which is... a mess. In tier 4 most people are cheery and assume people taking a mech with a certain loadout is because they are doing it for a reason. But, everything I have heard is T4 is a weird place compared to everywhere else in the PSR brackets.

In terms of toxicity MWO is far better than any other f2p game that is set around matches (instead of wandering about). WoT you can count on seeing insults flying before you have even finished loading into the game, same with LoL, or DotA, even World of Warships. MWO's playerbase isn't without it's toxicity of players who have personal axes to grind with devs, game mechanics, or in some situations certain weapon groups. Still though, people attacking others for their load out or being in a trial mech is absurd and should always be reported, we should not tolerate people attacking others for trying things out and learning.

[Vashramire]

I want to know what tier the people that are quitting on steam are. I don't know the status of lower tier toxicity myself, or the amount of smurfs stomping.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

We all begun like the new Folks,with enthusiastic Energy, Dreams ,Hopes ,like a young People by the Wedding Day…Years later, you seeing , all Energy invest in the false Partner Its time for new Milk Cows ;-)

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 08 July 2016 - 02:10 AM.

[DaZur]

The real answer is "both"... As in both the community and PGI.

There is no refuting PGI has continued to be their own worst enemy in both word and action/inaction. That said, there's still a lot about this game good enough to keep quite a few players hanging around.

That said, there are definitely a handful of truly disenfranchised players who regularly drop by to remind us what dreck MWO is, what drooling slack-jaw developers PGI devs are and that any amount of our continued patronage to this forum and to this game is nothing but propping up a failed enterprise.

Mind you... There is a big difference between general grousing by grognard and newbie alike and being a butthurt neckbeard man-baby with atonement issues.

Edited by DaZur, 07 July 2016 - 08:47 PM.

[Kubernetes]

I'm so confused.

I just want to know who to blame.

Because surely I have to blame someone.