35 replies to this topic

[XX Sulla XX]

So they are having a FW round table thing tonight with some of the dedicated FW people and PGI people. I know this has been said before but please do not forget all of the people that do not play FW.

For me there are some very basic reasons why I do not play FW.

1. FW game modes just are not fun.
A. Choke point map design is a terrible terrible idea. It makes games repetitive.
B. The length of game hurt because if you get on a bad team you have a long bad game experience you have to suffer through. Lots of the games you can see your team is terrible and you know no matter how well you do your going to loose. In normal drops this is mitigated by the short match times.
C. Many people have lower frame rates in FW because of the way its implemented.
D. Scouting in theory should be better but its setup so that you can just take the fastest mech and never engage. After a few of these games its back to normal drops.
E. Lack of any matchmaking at all means you have a high chance of getting terrible teams. For solo players or small groups this really hurts the experience.

2. Lack of meaning to FW. Honestly this is not nearly as important as 1 but still a factor. The way the map works it just feels like if you are a small unit or solo player or shoot even a big unit that what your doing really does not matter.

3. Lack of interesting rewards. This again is not nearly as important as 1. But because FW is not fun it just shows how lacking rewards are. But honestly if FW was fun to play I would be fine with rewards we have for now.

I am not sure about every way to fix this but I have some ideas on where to start.

- Redo the map and game play so its not choke point warrior.
- Fix the way the mechs are handles so people do not have FPS problems. (Yes I know your computer is great and you do not have FPS problems.)
- Add some kind of basic matchmaking to make games more even when possible. Maybe reduce number of buckets even more to make this possible.
- Add some kind of meaning to the FW mode besides moving points on a map.

Also its possible with the community size of MWO that FW, normal solo queue and normal group queue might need to be merged in some way. This would be hard to get right but there is probably a good way to do it and make it work.

[sneeking]

I gotta say that unless the whole game was a ground up rebuild and didn't suck then the merging of all solo players would se me leave and never return.

This is currently my third time back to check on how things are but that would be the end for me.

Edited by sneeking, 28 July 2016 - 12:39 AM.

[XtremWarrior]

Glad you made another Topic about that instead of using the ones already there.

[XX Sulla XX]

XtremWarrior, on 28 July 2016 - 12:40 AM, said:

Glad you made another Topic about that instead of using the ones already there.

Your welcome I did it just for you so thanks for the validation.

[SnagaDance]

Well he does adress the most basic issue. It just really isn't fun.

It's a game mode that doesn't offer very much else than the QP matches. Kill all mechs and/or destroy a static objective

The map design is very boring in its similarity. In their basic design all CW maps are exactly the same, long choke point corridors from a single side towards a central objective area.

The rewards hardly ever lure me in and with the new 'you need to play X more long boring matches after a long boring wait time until you score faction points' I just tend to hardly bother at all.

If they'd implement a 4 mech respawn in QP I'd probably never touch CW again, rewards be damned!

Does that mean I've never had great matches on CW? Of course I did, and when matchmaking was fast like with the last pre map reset battles it could actually be fun at times (I'm not talking about the first battle of Tukayyid, I was an IS player during that little horror). But it has quickly gone stale, and somewhere inside of me I've actually disregarded it as part of MWO any more.

Which just is a shame. I'd like it to be great, but it needs to be fun in order to be great.

[XX Sulla XX]

SnagaDance, on 28 July 2016 - 01:04 AM, said:

Well he does adress the most basic issue. It just really isn't fun.

It's a game mode that doesn't offer very much else than the QP matches. Kill all mechs and/or destroy a static objective

The map design is very boring in its similarity. In their basic design all CW maps are exactly the same, long choke point corridors from a single side towards a central objective area.

The rewards hardly ever lure me in and with the new 'you need to play X more long boring matches after a long boring wait time until you score faction points' I just tend to hardly bother at all.

If they'd implement a 4 mech respawn in QP I'd probably never touch CW again, rewards be damned!

Does that mean I've never had great matches on CW? Of course I did, and when matchmaking was fast like with the last pre map reset battles it could actually be fun at times (I'm not talking about the first battle of Tukayyid, I was an IS player during that little horror). But it has quickly gone stale, and somewhere inside of me I've actually disregarded it as part of MWO any more.

Which just is a shame. I'd like it to be great, but it needs to be fun in order to be great.

I think there are a lot of people like us that have had the same experience. Its just not fun so we play normal quick drops because it is just a more fun game mode. And giving me larger rewards will not change that.

And I agree I would like FW to be fun. I would like it to offer something deeper than normal quick play. But at the moment it really does neither.

[El Bandito]

XX Sulla XX, on 28 July 2016 - 12:29 AM, said:

2. Lack of meaning to FW. Honestly this is not nearly as important as 1 but still a factor. The way the map works it just feels like if you are a small unit or solo player or shoot even a big unit that what your doing really does not matter.

This part really turns me away from FW. There is no point, except grinding out loyalty points.

[kesmai]

Yep. And that grind gets really hard. By the time you hit 500 000 LP you clocked insane amounts of game time.
Waiting.

[XX Sulla XX]

El Bandito, on 28 July 2016 - 01:30 AM, said:

This part really turns me away from FW. There is no point, except grinding out loyalty points.

Exactly not fun and no point to it so might as well play what ever the most fun game mode is instead.

[JaxRiot]

I like FP and I think it could be fun. I used to try and play it a lot when I first started.

My problem is that Im a Puggle. And that game mode is very Puggle unfriendly.

Back when they tried the Solo que (which wasnt actually a Solo que), I had some of the best matches and the most fun in MWO since I started playing 2 years ago. I thought it was great.

But alas that was short lived, and the mode went back to being unfriendly to me. So I went back to avoiding it.

[Chuck Jager]

As part of a unit that is specifically set up for FW, it is a blast. We do play clan for the most part and the games where we are matched evenly are the best.

Sometimes it feels like we are the 90s Chicago Bulls going up against a coed league team when we are matched with pugz.

The choke points serve a purpose to force close range matches so that IS has the ability to use their advantages.

When playing with more than 8 on comms VS more than 8 on comms the repetition is not a factor because it is the ability of the team to counteract the known issues (like chess - with only one map).

IF you are not on a team that fields more than 6 players, you are basically fodder for the grinder. I do think all group play needs to be shifted into FW so that they rely less on PUGZ to keep the mode going.

I never take a mech that is not basiced and has all module slots equipped and our team has strict requirements on direct fire and mandatory comms, because this is what we need when we face the same level of competition. So why would folks who want to play for fun and do not have enough modules and meta builds ever feel welcome?

If you have a chance to drop with an A level deck and a team on comms, FW is great compared to the standard group mode. If that is not your cup of tea, stick with pug play. This is not a git gud comment, but just the basic reality of the situation.

[XX Sulla XX]

JaxRiot, on 28 July 2016 - 01:51 AM, said:

I like FP and I think it could be fun. I used to try and play it a lot when I first started.

My problem is that Im a Puggle. And that game mode is very Puggle unfriendly.

Back when they tried the Solo que (which wasnt actually a Solo que), I had some of the best matches and the most fun in MWO since I started playing 2 years ago. I thought it was great.

But alas that was short lived, and the mode went back to being unfriendly to me. So I went back to avoiding it.

I agree FW is not pug friendly but even with a good team its still not fun. If you have a good team then its just baby baby seal clubbing.

[Alistair Winter]

The problem is that PGI is mostly done with FP / FW / CW. They poured a bunch of money in it, took it to Phase 3 and now they're looking for cheap solutions to make it better, quickly and easily.

However, this roundtable is....

Two years too late!

All of the most important issues, like the terrible game mode, the terrible maps with bottlenecks and pointless gates, the lack of meaning (remember when we used to speculate about IS players getting access to Clan tech via CW?) and the lack of strategy and role warfare... all that was pointed out 2 weeks after CW Phase 1 was released. In many cases, even after 1 week.

As soon as people realized the best strategies on Sulfurous Rift and Boreal Vault, and then extended this to future maps, we realized what a failure this was. And then PGI had to try bandaid-fixes like O-gens and armored shields in front of Omega and all that. But it didn't fix the real issues, as pointed out in the OP.

They wasted a lot of money because they didn't listen early. And now they want to look for more cheap solutions. Sorry, bruv. You can maybe replace the game mode, but there's only so much you can do with those maps that are specifically designed for a flawed and boring game mode.

Edited by Alistair Winter, 28 July 2016 - 02:04 AM.

[XX Sulla XX]

Chuck Jager, on 28 July 2016 - 01:54 AM, said:

As part of a unit that is specifically set up for FW, it is a blast. We do play clan for the most part and the games where we are matched evenly are the best.

Sometimes it feels like we are the 90s Chicago Bulls going up against a coed league team when we are matched with pugz.

The choke points serve a purpose to force close range matches so that IS has the ability to use their advantages.

When playing with more than 8 on comms VS more than 8 on comms the repetition is not a factor because it is the ability of the team to counteract the known issues (like chess - with only one map).

IF you are not on a team that fields more than 6 players, you are basically fodder for the grinder. I do think all group play needs to be shifted into FW so that they rely less on PUGZ to keep the mode going.

I never take a mech that is not basiced and has all module slots equipped and our team has strict requirements on direct fire and mandatory comms, because this is what we need when we face the same level of competition. So why would folks who want to play for fun and do not have enough modules and meta builds ever feel welcome?

If you have a chance to drop with an A level deck and a team on comms, FW is great compared to the standard group mode. If that is not your cup of tea, stick with pug play. This is not a git gud comment, but just the basic reality of the situation.

See the thing is your in the minority. Most people do not enjoy FW. And it not being fun for a lot of us is not related to not being able to play it well when we do play.

Also I really disagree that the choke point style maps are a good thing.

[XX Sulla XX]

Alistair Winter, on 28 July 2016 - 02:01 AM, said:

The problem is that PGI is mostly done with FP / FW / CW. They poured a bunch of money in it, took it to Phase 3 and now they're looking for cheap solutions to make it better, quickly and easily.

However, this roundtable is....

Three years too late!

All of the most important issues, like the terrible game mode, the terrible maps with bottlenecks and pointless gates, the lack of meaning (remember when we used to speculate about IS players getting access to Clan tech via CW?) and the lack of strategy and role warfare... all that was pointed out 2 weeks after CW Phase 1 was released. In many cases, even after 1 week.

As soon as people realized the best strategies on Sulfurous Rift and Boreal Vault, and then extended this to future maps, we realized what a failure this was. And then PGI had to try bandaid-fixes like O-gens and armored shields in front of Omega and all that. But it didn't fix the real issues, as pointed out in the OP.

They wasted a lot of money because they didn't listen early. And now they want to look for more cheap solutions. Sorry, bruv. You can maybe replace the game mode, but there's only so much you can do with those maps that are specifically designed for a flawed and boring game mode.

I agree they should have done this a lot sooner. But I think they can make some changes that would work that could be done in a reasonable time. Not that it would be perfect but positive changes to create more fun game play would be welcome.

[kesmai]

Pgi.
Pgi never changes.

That round *buy supply cache keys* table will *go buy the next mechpack* change nothing *praise us we are the only hope for mechwarrior* at all.

Edited by kesmai, 28 July 2016 - 02:19 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Eliminate choke points and you make attacking even easier. Good map design for an asymetric game mode is hard to quantify. If it was just a TDM then sure - open map, it'll play out like group queue on Tourmaline.

So you remove gates and choke points and defenders either have to run fast mediums/lights or hug their base; which means the attacker can win via objective rushes. If the map doesn't force engagements in key areas then it hands success to the attackers.

I get the issue, I do. However the point is not to make FW play like QP so people who like QP like FW too, because they play out the same. As others have said it's designed as 'end game content'. So instead of making it play more like QP the goal is to make it less like QP but have purpose, engagement and depth to make people looking for end game content in MWO stay and play it longer.

[XX Sulla XX]

MischiefSC, on 28 July 2016 - 02:37 AM, said:

Eliminate choke points and you make attacking even easier. Good map design for an asymetric game mode is hard to quantify. If it was just a TDM then sure - open map, it'll play out like group queue on Tourmaline.

So you remove gates and choke points and defenders either have to run fast mediums/lights or hug their base; which means the attacker can win via objective rushes. If the map doesn't force engagements in key areas then it hands success to the attackers.

I get the issue, I do. However the point is not to make FW play like QP so people who like QP like FW too, because they play out the same. As others have said it's designed as 'end game content'. So instead of making it play more like QP the goal is to make it less like QP but have purpose, engagement and depth to make people looking for end game content in MWO stay and play it longer.

Problem is depth, purpose, engagement, end game content does not make it more fun. So what you are doing is adding content for the people that already play it. (For the most part.) But I agree solutions are not always easy or intuitive.

[MischiefSC]

XX Sulla XX, on 28 July 2016 - 02:44 AM, said:

Problem is depth, purpose, engagement, end game content does not make it more fun. So what you are doing is adding content for the people that already play it. (For the most part.) But I agree solutions are not always easy or intuitive.

There's literally a couple thousand who enjoyed FW in concept but left due to lack of depth, purpose or engagement. FW was never going to draw the whole QP population - that was never the point nor should it be. The goal is to get back the people who played it, enjoyed the idea of it, but left because in the end it was just a QP environment with new maps, modes, and longer waits. Wasn't worth the time invested.

I'm all for adding FW maps/modes to QP. That way people who just want a quick throw-away game maybe with a respawn or two and whatever can have it. Go nuts, I'd vote for it. If being a part of a faction and trying to help your faction accomplish large objectives over an extended period against other factions isn't what interests you though then it's probably not going to be what you're looking for. I'd rather count bumps on sandpaper than play QP. Couldn't be more pointless to me. I go there to test mech builds and level up mechs. It's not 'fun' and if FW didn't exist I'd have removed MW:O long ago. That's okay; people enjoy different things in games. However making something 'fun' doesn't always mean making it 'like something else'.

[H I A S]

Quote

I do think all group play needs to be shifted into FW so that they rely less on PUGZ to keep the mode going.

If that is coming i will never play in a group again.
the maps are so bad designwise that u can only walk 2-3 ways. fp is just boring as hell.