151 replies to this topic

[Baulven]

It couldn't have gone worse, in my own opinion, since Russ wasn't interested on hearing what players wanted or cared for in order to entice new players or units to give faction warfare a try. So honestly at this point I would like the MWO Faction players to start giving ideas and making this thread hot enough that people might actually look at it. I will toss out my ideas (only since I am starting the thread) and I will update the most popular ideas on this initial thread as they are presented.

I think a radical new approach is warranted. If other people want me to chuck them to the dust heap though you will get no arguments from me.

• First: I think the game needs to go to a single conflict point, and be expanded from there. A single thing needs to be right before you start tossing huge maps and star campaigns around.

• Second: I think it really needs to go to a persistent style universe. Scouting objectives, Base Capture, Orbital Cannon Capture. It needs to be one big map where you drop in a mech and play. Repair depots to keep your current mech in play, and the option to swap to another chassis when your mech gets killed. It needs to feel like you are actually accomplishing SOMETHING instead of playing chokepoint warrior online.

• Third: Persistent universe with drop locations means groups and pugs all have to work together. No more super stomps, no need to engage people way over your skill level in a skittle pug grouping, and no wait queues. Drop in and go.

• Fourth: Objectives MUST become important. Without motivation to do objectives, people will just turn it into persistent deathball. The reason to do objectives is that it helps with x, gives you x, etc. Objectives don't get done for objectives sake.

For example if you are running around and you do actual scouting vs collect the intel points this should be awarded.

Rewards could be reworked to be every minute spent in game mode x2000 cbills + normal damage - damage received (does not go below 0) + Objectives completed x 10000 cbills + whatever the hell else is in the game mode. That way no one is tied down for a 30 minute game but can pop in, do some work, then log off.

This cures wait times, it cures people feeling like what they are doing doesn't matter, it cures chokepoint warrior. Make things like artillery come up once every two hours, you have to complete objectives to bring it online, and they are destructible. It would completely change the game for the better.

Edited by Baulven, 30 July 2016 - 09:16 AM.

[Pat Kell]

It absolutely could have gone worse....he couldn't have showed up, he could have shown up, listened to our ideas and said "nope, not going to do any of that", we could have devolved into a yelling match with the head of the company that is trying to improve the game that we all WANT to love. Yea...could have gone worse for sure. Could have gone better but I am happy that things were kept respectful and that he admitted liking some of the ideas. That gave me a glimmer of hope, a glimmer that won't hold on long but at least a glimmer.

Not gonna post anything more on how to improve things as it's all out there and one more thread isn't going to change things.

[Murphy7]

If you expected all the buckets and Pando, well done.

I do not think it went well, particularly with Russ' deliberately obtuse reaction to the Long Tom discussion.

I liked the tug of war suggestion, and I hope they work towards voted alliances rather than forced ones.

[Baulven]

Pat Kell, on 30 July 2016 - 11:23 AM, said:

It absolutely could have gone worse....he couldn't have showed up, he could have shown up, listened to our ideas and said "nope, not going to do any of that", we could have devolved into a yelling match with the head of the company that is trying to improve the game that we all WANT to love. Yea...could have gone worse for sure. Could have gone better but I am happy that things were kept respectful and that he admitted liking some of the ideas. That gave me a glimmer of hope, a glimmer that won't hold on long but at least a glimmer.

Not gonna post anything more on how to improve things as it's all out there and one more thread isn't going to change things.

I'm sorry to say but I don't think saying that the developer showed up and didn't throw a tantrum like a five year old is something to give praise over. They sidelined everyone, essentially said "we aren't going to address anything until we address the number of queues, because we know best" and then ran away prior to the community questions. We had pages of questions, concerns and suggestions. We were told there would be a general Q&A which Russ of course completely refused to engage with, and spent a lot of time figuring out our top concerns and suggestions.

So in short no I won't give a grown man kudos for not acting with less decorum then my seven year old with autism. He should damn well know he can't act that way, he is selling a product. A product he has turned into a minimally viable ghost town. When you lose 2/3rds of your player base over 4 years you need to change something, not keep pointing your chest and yelling "I know what's best!"

[Tavious Grimm]

So it sounds like the usual from Uncle Russ..."I know what's best! Buy a mech pack."

Edited by Tavious Grimm, 30 July 2016 - 04:02 PM.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

The important part is that PGI actually done a round table talk.
They went from:

"this is fp"
"this is fp, it's not what we promised, but it's okay"
"okay, you don't really like it, but we came up with some nice stuff like scouting and artillery support."
"okay, this is not what we promised and the playerbase kinda rejects the gamemode now, what can we do?"

That is a huge step in the right direction.

[Danjo San]

To be honest. The only thing that went "wrong" is when discussing Long Tom, that nobody pointed out to Russ that he removed LRM Turrets from the Assault mode because they were OVERPOWERED and not playing out as intended. But he is trying to hold on to Long Tom...
Other than that I stand for a very radical point in limiting unit size. That many out there oppose. Nevertheless I value the effort put in by everyone and my thanks go out to everyone that participated. We are all here to make the game better even if some of our ideas vary. Cheers to all. I do hope next time a Spokesperson for casuals and irregulars has the chance to join.

[gloowa]

Danjo San, on 30 July 2016 - 06:02 PM, said:

To be honest. The only thing that went "wrong" is when discussing Long Tom

Well... other than that, there was this one person from the panelists that kept talking for like 2 minutes and nobody had any idea whatsoever what is he talking about. That was weird...

[Pat Kell]

Baulven, on 30 July 2016 - 03:12 PM, said:

I'm sorry to say but I don't think saying that the developer showed up and didn't throw a tantrum like a five year old is something to give praise over. They sidelined everyone, essentially said "we aren't going to address anything until we address the number of queues, because we know best" and then ran away prior to the community questions. We had pages of questions, concerns and suggestions. We were told there would be a general Q&A which Russ of course completely refused to engage with, and spent a lot of time figuring out our top concerns and suggestions.

So in short no I won't give a grown man kudos for not acting with less decorum then my seven year old with autism. He should damn well know he can't act that way, he is selling a product. A product he has turned into a minimally viable ghost town. When you lose 2/3rds of your player base over 4 years you need to change something, not keep pointing your chest and yelling "I know what's best!"

No where did I give praise for the developer showing up and not acting like a 5 year old. In fact I referred to this situation as an example of how it COULD have gone worse. Plus if he did show up throwing a temper tantrum like a 5 year old, he would have simply been following the lead of many people I see posting things here. Pretending to be of some service to the community as a whole, pointing out the follies of PGI when all it is in reality is someone upset that things aren't going the way they want and throwing a tantrum about it.

I have seen people post intelligent, well thought out arguments about how things should go in these forums but sadly it appears to be in the minority as most of the people who come here to bash PGI do so with faulty arguments and self-serving ideas that are unrealistic and unhelpful. You don't like PGI, we get it but if you really wanted to see things get better, you might try seeing a bigger picture of reality than the one that stares at you in the mirror each morning. There are things that PGI has to take into consideration everyday that you either aren't seeing or refuse to accept it as a part of the equation.

I agree that things could have gone better as I did feel like the direction of the conversation and the outcome of it was already pre-decided but I think the guys on the panel did a good job of at least getting Russ to see other possibilities. I am not praising PGI, I am praising the rest of my fellow panelists who honestly spent more time on this thing than I did for taking a rough situation and turning it into a glimmer of hope. Well done guys.

[MischiefSC]

Toha Heavy Industries, on 30 July 2016 - 04:02 PM, said:

The important part is that PGI actually done a round table talk.
They went from:

"this is fp"
"this is fp, it's not what we promised, but it's okay"
"okay, you don't really like it, but we came up with some nice stuff like scouting and artillery support."
"okay, this is not what we promised and the playerbase kinda rejects the gamemode now, what can we do?"

That is a huge step in the right direction.

We got the value of dynamic alliances and combined attack/defend queue as well as the need to kill LT with fire across. That's a lot of progress. There's a lot more to be done but that's more productive than anything I've seen in over 2 years.

I'll take it.

[FallingAce]

That had more of a feeling of a townhall than a roundtable. A roundtable applies that everyone is equal.
A proper roundtable would start with defining the goals for the roundtable. Define the problem or problems you are trying to correct. Get a concensus on the direction for the rountable to proceed. You don't start a roundtable with the solution (reducing BUCKETS) and ask for ways to make the predetermined solution work.

This rountable went of course as soon as Russ said he wanted to focus on buckets. Buckets are not the problem. Lack of player participaton is the problem.
The roundtable should of started there and worked it's way forward.

[Void Angel]

Baulven, on 30 July 2016 - 03:12 PM, said:

I'm sorry to say but I don't think saying that the developer showed up and didn't throw a tantrum like a five year old is something to give praise over.

You mean like most of the criticism in these forums? It's not the developers who are most likely to throw a tantrum, here. Focusing on one thing at a time is rational, and characterizing that as "pointing your chest and yelling 'I know what's best'" is unhelpful and self-absorbed. What you're actually saying is that you knew what was best, and you're offended that you didn't get to determine the topic and direction of conversation yourself. If you want to actually have an influence over people who don't answer to you, you might want to stop with the accusations and egotism - quit insulting PGI whenever your preferred changes aren't implemented, or when you dislike a change that is made (which seems to be the same thing.)

If you can't approach this like a grownup, you're going to be ignored like an angry child, whether or not you're right; so, you have a choice - get over yourself and be constructive, or build self-righteous sand castles on Salt Island. The choice is yours.

[Pat Kell]

FallingAce, on 30 July 2016 - 08:36 PM, said:

That had more of a feeling of a townhall than a roundtable. A roundtable applies that everyone is equal.
A proper roundtable would start with defining the goals for the roundtable. Define the problem or problems you are trying to correct. Get a concensus on the direction for the rountable to proceed. You don't start a roundtable with the solution (reducing BUCKETS) and ask for ways to make the predetermined solution work.

This rountable went of course as soon as Russ said he wanted to focus on buckets. Buckets are not the problem. Lack of player participaton is the problem.
The roundtable should of started there and worked it's way forward.

I agree that buckets aren't the long term problem but they are the short term problem. If we can't get matches for the few remaining people who want to play CW, there isn't much point to it all. I think the idea of merging the attack lanes into a tug-of-war situation where everyone can flock to depending on the situation is a good way to both reduce the buckets without reducing the individual factions and try to minimize the 12 vs pugs situation that drives many solo players off. 12 man teams often times attack, just a simple fact and because of this, 12 mans often end up missing each other. By combining the ques this way and adding a "red" light, it forces 12 man's to fight each other more often and hopefully solo players will come back as they are more likely to fight opposing solos. Could even make it so that anything over 6 or 8 players goes into this 12 man que to discourage teams from splitting into smaller groups and still trying to pug farm.

Void Angel, on 30 July 2016 - 09:15 PM, said:

You mean like most of the criticism in these forums? It's not the developers who are most likely to throw a tantrum, here. Focusing on one thing at a time is rational, and characterizing that as "pointing your chest and yelling 'I know what's best'" is unhelpful and self-absorbed. What you're actually saying is that you knew what was best, and you're offended that you didn't get to determine the topic and direction of conversation yourself. If you want to actually have an influence over people who don't answer to you, you might want to stop with the accusations and egotism - quit insulting PGI whenever your preferred changes aren't implemented, or when you dislike a change that is made (which seems to be the same thing.)

If you can't approach this like a grownup, you're going to be ignored like an angry child, whether or not you're right; so, you have a choice - get over yourself and be constructive, or build self-righteous sand castles on Salt Island. The choice is yours.

Don't know why, never met this guy, but I like him. Lets get him on the panel next time. He can take my spot.

[Nerdboard]

I get the frustration with the 'round table'. Like it has been said here before setting the topic from the top like Russ has done (and without getting protest from the other participants) already makes this is more of a town-hall or whatever you want to call a 'russ-explains-how-he-wants-things' than a round table.
Obviously beating down on the thing wont help, we should be happy about any kind of interaction. It'd be nice however if the moderation would be improved and participants would be more equal in the sense of what they have to say and being able to chose what they want to talk about.

Personally I also doubt that the participants were really representative of the community. Again, thanks to all the people who participated for taking their time and trying to get something done. But I would like to see more 'average joe' players being invited to these things. Kcom, MS and HHOD do not fill that description. Neither do any of the forum warriors.
At this point I really wouldnt know how to organize that though. Again, dont take this a criticism of the participants or their efforts. But basically everyone I regularly play with has a different opinion on what is an issue and should be change and/or how than the opinions voiced in the round table.

edit: @Void Angel:

I agree with you that a discussion like that should be held in a mature way. Pretending that either side ultimately knows the best solution is not the way to go. But what in my opinion should have been done - and still could be done - is to have the first meeting set up as a discussion about possible topics where everyone gets their share to say what they feel the issues are and then prioritizing this list together. Of course PGI gets the say in the end, its their game.

Edited by Nerdboard, 30 July 2016 - 10:34 PM.

[Vasili Kerensky]

Looks like that this game is dying - which is obvious since the Faction Play is a dead zone where there's one battle going on at any one time and that one's Jade Falcons against someone (usually Steiner) and that it's a bad time to invest time and effort to get into it. A pity...

[BSK]

Predictable.

When I saw the name who would host the preliminary round table I could not hold back my laughter. How could someone who bullied and harassed 2 of my members ingame so much that they stopped faction play forever, one even leaving the game as of now, be in the first place for the selection of members for the round table? This guy got 20 reports in day from my unit and he gets into first place to speak about how to improve faction play?
I told Bombadil that I am in no way interested in this farce, because they aren't either. Didn't even read his email, outright deleted it.

Faction play could be fixed within one day if the whole staff of PGI created alternate accounts and played the game from their homes for a week-end. The flaws are obvious. The game is in a bad state. Why is the unit chat still not fixed?

[MrMasakari]

I watched both the pre table talks, and the round table talks for the full durations, and I have to say a huge thanks to those guys who actually sat there and had those discussions.

I've played since closed beta on and off, and witnessed the best and worst bits of both PGI and the community.

Yes there was no- "Omg wow what a great idea! Come work for us guys." and a bit of obtuseness regarding certain things that even made me kind of sigh, but there were a lot of thought provoking ideas that even Russ said would be worth investigating. The fact that this discussion between the community, and the developers occurred in this live table fashion was a huge victory actually.

There is no need to be childish about it, and manners cost nothing, burying your head in the sand and just shouting how bad devs are or how crappy the community is, is not beneficial to anyone and undermines both sides. As Pat Kell said(o7), we all want to play a game that we love, and to turn it into that epic experience. But it's going to be a slow but steady process to get things moving in the right direction. If you think this talk was anything but that, then I'm afraid you are the one being obtuse. This talk could of not happened and the devs could have just carried on doing their things without the input of the largest parts of the community. Both PGI and us want a game that is enjoyable and worth playing.

Again, I thank those guys who went to talk on our behalf, and engage with the devs in a constructive way. The devs could have never had this discussion, scoured through the threads and just gone and carried on with their own thing.

Edited by Artaire, 31 July 2016 - 01:42 AM.

[D A T A]

Until russ bullok choses the main line and paul inuye whatever does the quirks, PGI is going to fail.

Edited by IL MECHWARRIOR, 31 July 2016 - 01:55 AM.

[The Basilisk]

What I do not get is that ppl refuse to do some research on PGI and realize from this knowledge that they are FAR from able to change anything fundamental in this game in timeframes below a year or two.

They are quite good in doing artwork and creative stuff but when you look at their history of game development you see a fishing game as their only standalone, a CS addon, and the multiplayer version of duke nukem forever (and I think everybody knows how that went). They seemingly co-worked on some other games but aren't listed as developers or publishers.

So...what do you ppl expect.
They took a preconfigured (and unsiutable due to cryengine inability to have multy directional windows and the speed cap) gaming engine and managed to get some mechs and maps running on it and with the "experience" from DNF got even some kind of netcode running.
Things that are bread and butter stuff, aka the loweset possible basics, of every MMO like background server and database architecture where new to them.

Thats MWO.

What I do not get is why they tryed something like faction warfare instead of a Solaris VII arena game.
More diverse weapons (solaris has huge potential for crazy prototype arena stuff), smaler battles/teams (performance), more shops (PROFIT), more smal maps/possibilitys (cavesystems, enclosed spaces --> performance) and larger opportunities to make some cash with premium stuff.

Edit: All that PGI bashing aside Russ is quite right when he states that we shouldn't hope for PGI dropping MW due to the fact each and every other big company shied away from doing an other MW title because of the smal and difficult fan base.
The MW Fanbase is split by default because there are the action MW enthusiasts, the SimMecha Fans and last but not least the spreadsheet Battletech enthusiasts (I'm one of those thinking they should adhere to lore and drop that a computergame cant work with boardrules nonsense argument, its about balancing around a timeframe and this frame is 10secs)

Edited by The Basilisk, 31 July 2016 - 03:38 AM.

[DaFrog]

No point talking about buckets when they are almost completely empty.