151 replies to this topic

[Kael Posavatz]

a couple of points:

1) There was a list of topics to be addressed. I think the one put together at the pre-round-table ran something like four or five pages, and didn't hit all the points people want raised.

2) Yes, Bombadil or Russ or PGI picked the queue issue to be tackled first. Why? Who knows. Who cares. One of the things I got from the PRT was that a lot of other issues are interconnected. Take rewards, are we talking the tiered rewards, how will they interface with rewards for daily challenges, what about end-game rewards? (went from one topic t three). Queues are small, distinct, something PGI can take action on in a timely (relative) manner, and changing them won't have a ton of implications for other things.

3) Expecting big changes is unrealistic. PGI is a small studio with something like 50 people on staff. That staff includes a lot of non-game positions that have beans to do with the game. Office managers, probably someone overseeing payroll, tech support (for us players), Community relations, etc. The are not going to stand off and nuke FW from orbit (it's the only way to be sure), and start over. They just aren't. And some of the changes I've seen thrown about, they'd have to do that to the entire game, including the front end UI.

Not going to happen, folks.

4) The Round-Table was productive. I've heard a lot of people say it wasn't, most of them have unrealistic expectations of what they were going to get. Russ and panelists came up with something like a half-dozen ways to reduce the queues that may be practical (single contested planet per boarder, alliances, etc...), identified some that were not practical (1 IS vs IS lane, one Clan vs Clan lane, 1 IS vs Clan lane)

5) And came up with some work-arounds to help PUGs from running into 12-man teams.

6) And addressed problems with Long Tom and three or four possible ways to address it and how the Community in general even responds to the name 'Long Tom'

7) And Blueduck did an excellent job of putting out how a lot of Loyalists feel. He did so in a calm, respectful, and generally positive manner, and then got of the topic.

8) A lot of people felt that Russ and the round-table 'Ran away' rather than take community comments. I'm not sure why. It was well after 8pm local when it broke up, on a Thursday night. The panelists had gone for over six hours the night/morning before. These are real people with real jobs outside of MWO (well, aside from PGI staff, MWO is sort of their job, but still).

Edited by Kael Posavatz, 31 July 2016 - 12:41 PM.

[Void Angel]

... Obtuse much? That's exactly why they need to talk about buckets! Leaving aside your subjective language concerning degree, buckets are an important problem because they exacerbate solving all other problems. If they can't consolidate buckets, it makes feedback and data collection just that much more difficult, because they've got to figure out how much negative participation is due to mechanics in-match, and how much is not being able to get a match in the first place.

Nerdboard, on 30 July 2016 - 10:24 PM, said:

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.

Well, which is it? Is it their game - and their responsibility - or are we designing MWO by committee? If you go have a brainstorming session - in public, with all of the trolls and Salt Islanders looking on and heckling in the stream chat - and then do something other than what any sizeable fraction of the player base wanted you to do, you just get drama. Heck, look at the criticism just in this thread; I mean, look at it: "It wasn't a real round table, because they picked a subject for it to be about, and I wanted to talk about Long Tom that's not what a Round Table is!" "Russ didn't talk about what I wanted to talk about in this one meeting, so he's 'pointing his chest and screaming, 'I know best!'" Now imagine how much more of this horse crap we'd be seeing if they had a completely open discussion to pick apart. "To give truth to him who loves it not is merely to give him more multiplied reasons for misinterpretation."

Elements of this community - particularly the most strident voices - have shown time and again that they'll take any engagement with their viewpoints as an obligation on the part of PGI to do what they want it to do. Then if anything displeases them, they'll maunder on, and on, and on, and on, about broken promises, some mean thing a guy who doesn't even work for the company any more said, etc, etc. Choosing the priority of fixes and setting the topic of discussion is well within PGI's rights, and gives the Islanders fewer things to throw into the old Junk Jet and spew back at the forums at hazardous velocities.

[Bud Crue]

Kael,

Not going to argue but I feel like you and I listened to different round tables. The one I listened to only discussed combining the buckets for almost half of the time, and it was thee only action item that Russ gave any indication that it would be acted on...likely because he proposed it and talked nonstop about it for a solid 45 minutes. As to the meeting being "productive" and/or having "addressed" any other substantive issues (long tom, 12 mans, etc.) I heard lots of ideas from the panelists but nothing from Russ to suggest that any of those ideas would be considered let alone acted on or implemented.

It will be "productive" if anything that the panelists proposed make it into the game. Until then it was at best merely the kind of public relations activities that a company should always be doing, and at worst it was Russ just humoring us. Go back and listen to the oong tom discussion and tell me which you think it was. But productive...no.

Edited by Bud Crue, 31 July 2016 - 01:11 PM.

[Sonny Black]

Stupid Question Time Hooray!

12 V12, Where does it say FW has to be 12 V12? Why not have 4 V 4? 8 V 8? Heck Why not 8 V 4?
This would cut waaaay do on the wait times, and allow players more matches in a given time.

[FallingAce]

Russ has decided 12v12.
So it is written an so it shall be.

[Drunk Canuck]

IL MECHWARRIOR, on 31 July 2016 - 01:44 AM, said:

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

Neither of them should be making major decisions until they are willing to listen to the community members that actually have good ideas. As to how they thought that CW with zero persistent combat, useful rewards or overall fun gameplay is what people wanted, well that I don't know, but it's pretty stupid.

FallingAce, on 31 July 2016 - 01:36 PM, said:

Russ has decided 12v12.
So it is written an so it shall be.

And the community generally has been in agreement that 12v12 was both terrible for game performance and actual fun matches.

[DaFrog]

Void Angel, on 31 July 2016 - 12:51 PM, said:

... Obtuse much? That's exactly why they need to talk about buckets! Leaving aside your subjective language concerning degree, buckets are an important problem because they exacerbate solving all other problems. If they can't consolidate buckets, it makes feedback and data collection just that much more difficult, because they've got to figure out how much negative participation is due to mechanics in-match, and how much is not being able to get a match in the first place.



Well, which is it? Is it their game - and their responsibility - or are we designing MWO by committee? If you go have a brainstorming session - in public, with all of the trolls and Salt Islanders looking on and heckling in the stream chat - and then do something other than what any sizeable fraction of the player base wanted you to do, you just get drama. Heck, look at the criticism just in this thread; I mean, look at it: "It wasn't a real round table, because they picked a subject for it to be about, and I wanted to talk about Long Tom that's not what a Round Table is!" "Russ didn't talk about what I wanted to talk about in this one meeting, so he's 'pointing his chest and screaming, 'I know best!'" Now imagine how much more of this horse crap we'd be seeing if they had a completely open discussion to pick apart. "To give truth to him who loves it not is merely to give him more multiplied reasons for misinterpretation."

Elements of this community - particularly the most strident voices - have shown time and again that they'll take any engagement with their viewpoints as an obligation on the part of PGI to do what they want it to do. Then if anything displeases them, they'll maunder on, and on, and on, and on, about broken promises, some mean thing a guy who doesn't even work for the company any more said, etc, etc. Choosing the priority of fixes and setting the topic of discussion is well within PGI's rights, and gives the Islanders fewer things to throw into the old Junk Jet and spew back at the forums at hazardous velocities.

it was never mentioned that it would be about buckets. We made suggestions about augmenting the player base and the concentration of the players waiting in queues for matches.

Plus the 2 experts ( devs ) basically said jacksh.. the whole frigging time. And when we got to a point where some could have asked a few questions, Russ dismissed them.

It stopped being PGI's game the minute they started dealing with paying consumers. If it is their game, then they can make a private MWO for their sheer enjoyment without having to deal with any criticism whatsoever. It's not a private Hellfire Club, it's a consumer product.

[BearFlag]

This was no round table, not even a town hall. It was, for all intents and purposes, an announcement by PGI that queues would be reduced. The rest was fluff, good fluff, but basically minutiae.

Russ talked for five minutes to "set up" (his words) the meeting. In that he made it abundantly clear that

1) we're going to reduce the queues
2) we're going to talk about reducing the queues
3) we're not "amenable" to bringing up other problems in FW and Inv/CA

That's not a round table. Limit the the first discussion? No. If you're serious about fixing problems the first round table should 1) have been a round table and 2) have been open and free-wheeling to identify the salient problems for later discussion.

Further, some are under the impression that fixing the queues is the first step in fixing FW. Russ was specific in his view. This is the LAST step to be followed by "iterations" over what's already in FW. FW is headed for little further development and, I guess, an autopilot mode.

And it's too bad. I feel FW is the beating heart of MWO and (essentially) abandoning it is a mistake. The low participation is direct consequence of serious design flaws and wait times a symptom of that. And it's fixable.

Can MWO survive long with QP and mech packs? I dunno.

Edited by BearFlag, 31 July 2016 - 02:32 PM.

[gloowa]

BSK, on 31 July 2016 - 01:26 AM, said:

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?

Sooo... because Sader is a jerk (you are Sader, sorry) you walked away from a chance to give you perspective on what changes you would like to see in the game you like to play. You decided to throw a tantrum and scorn the hand PGI extended towards you, because some players you dislike decided to meet up and exchange ideas between them.

And now your boast with that on the forums, like that wasn't the most childish, immature and outright stupid thing to do.

Great job sir. What you did is BOUND to make SUCH a difference.

[Void Angel]

DaFrog, on 31 July 2016 - 02:02 PM, said:

it was never mentioned that it would be about buckets. We made suggestions about augmenting the player base and the concentration of the players waiting in queues for matches.

Plus the 2 experts ( devs ) basically said jacksh.. the whole frigging time. And when we got to a point where some could have asked a few questions, Russ dismissed them.

It stopped being PGI's game the minute they started dealing with paying consumers. If it is their game, then they can make a private MWO for their sheer enjoyment without having to deal with any criticism whatsoever. It's not a private Hellfire Club, it's a consumer product.

What a load of horse crap. You're telling me you go into your local store and tell them what to do because "you're the customer?" Go try that, and see how it goes. The upshot of it all is that you seem to want to choose the direction of the game, even to the point of micromanaging discourse between the developers and players, because you're "the customer." This is asinine; it's game design by opinion poll, and it will not work. Listen to yourself! You're mad because they didn't clear the docket with you - because "we" didn't get to dictate which concerns were heard first? Because you didn't get to control the topic of this one meeting, during which we could not possibly have addressed all of the problematic issues with the game, suddenly now you're being misled?

And what's the difference between "buckets" and "concentration of the players waiting in queues for matches?" There isn't one - which leads me to doubt your internal honesty here, taken together with the utter nonsense you just babbled about being a "paying customer." You give lip service to the idea that "ultimately no side knows best," but that's all it is - lip service, and not very convincing at that. Your attitude and statements show very well that you think you know best, and that PGI and everyone else should agree with you. Which is why using "knowing best" as a pejorative is mush-headed and silly, but hey - par for the course.

Edited by Void Angel, 31 July 2016 - 02:49 PM.

[Pat Kell]

BearFlag, on 31 July 2016 - 02:09 PM, said:

This was no round table, not even a town hall. It was, for all intents and purposes, an announcement by PGI that queues would be reduced. The rest was fluff, good fluff, but basically minutiae.

Russ talked for five minutes to "set up" (his words) the meeting. In that he made it abundantly clear that

1) we're going to reduce the queues
2) we're going to talk about reducing the queues
3) we're not "amenable" to bringing up other problems in FW and Inv/CA

That's not a round table. Limit the the first discussion? No. If you're serious about fixing problems the first round table should 1) have been a round table and 2) have been open and free-wheeling to identify the salient problems for later discussion.

Further, some are under the impression that fixing the queues is the first step in fixing FW. Russ was specific in his view. This is the LAST step to be followed by "iterations" over what's already in FW. FW is headed for little further development and, I guess, an autopilot mode.

And it's too bad. I feel FW is the beating heart of MWO and (essentially) abandoning it is a mistake. The low participation is direct consequence of serious design flaws and wait times a symptom of that. And it's fixable.

Can MWO survive long with QP and mech packs? I dunno.

Again...yes, he set the direction of the meeting but I think the panelists did a good job of getting him to see other possibilities. After gving our ideas of reducing the ques, he even said that he came into the meeting expecting it to end with "CW needs to be 1 bucket, IS vs Clans and that's it", but then he appeared to change his tune when we brought up the tug-of-war option with alliances and the red button for getting 12 mans to fight each other more often. Not saying he is going to implement anything we suggested as he very well might have gotten out of meeting and said "nope, not gonna do it" but until we see any action or lack of action on PGI's part, it's all just assumptions.

It was a round table in the sense that he was willing to listen to the ideas we had brain stormed. Just because he set the topic doesn't make it any less of a town hall. This isn't poilitics, this is the life and death of his company and he's not just going to open it up to any old hair-brained idea that comes into people's head. He wanted the talk to be productive and while I think he could have handled the intro a little better at first, he at least kept an open mind and seemed to be seriously considering many of the ideas we suggested to him.

Edited by Pat Kell, 31 July 2016 - 02:39 PM.

[Baulven]

Void Angel, on 31 July 2016 - 02:26 PM, said:

What a load of horse crap. You're telling me you go into your local store and tell them what to do because "you're the custome?" Go try that, and see how it goes. The upshot of it all is that you seem to want to choose the direction of the game, even to the point of micromanaging discourse between the developers and players, because you're "the customer." This is asinine; it's game design by opinion poll, and it will not work. Listen to yourself! You're mad because they didn't clear the docket with you - because "we" didn't get to dictate which concerns were heard first? Because you didn't get to control the topic of this one meeting, during which we could not possibly have addressed all of the problematic issues with the game, suddenly now you're being misled?

And what's the difference between "buckets" and "concentration of the players waiting in queues for matches?" There isn't one - which leads me to doubt your internal honesty here, taken together with the utter nonsense you just babbled about being a "paying customer." You give lip service to the idea that "ultimately no side knows best," but that's all it is - lip service, and not very convincing at that. Your attitude and statements show very well that you think you know best, and that PGI and everyone else should agree with you. Which is why using "knowing best" as a pejorative is mush-headed and silly, but hey - par for the course.

PGI going out of it's way to give us "what it knows best" has given us the ghost town we have today. I would say that is going swimmingly in a mode that rarely isn't a ghost town if it isn't an event weekend. If it is event weekend, I know that the skittles aren't going to stay in the game after taking that much abuse at the hands of coordinated groups.

Would reducing buckets work? There needs to be things in those buckets before we ever know, and reducing the attack lane options might bring a few people back. I don't expect any of them to stick around, the gameplay is super repetitive and boring chokepoint warrior but we will see. In the meantime the major problems remain and won't be addressed for many more months.

[Void Angel]

"Many more months;" "what it knows best;" "ghost town." You like to put words in other people's mouths and use dramatic phrases - but the substance of your subjective opinions needs work. Perhaps if you could even try to present some kind of logical reason why streamlining the queues as a first step to fix balance is an absolutely bad idea - much less respond to any of the multiple times I've explained why doing so is reasonable.

But no, you quoted me excoriating someone else for their own paternal attitude and hypocrisy, then post a total non sequitur in response. I'm increasingly unsure whether you even understand the conversation at this point - or if you want to. You seem intent on repeating silly objections that have already been answered, over and over, until the grownups get tired of responding to a gussied up version of stamping your foot and yelling "nuh-UH!" Argumentum ad nauseum has likely worked for you in the past, and it will probably work in the future - but it won't make you right, or even reasonable. In fact, the opposite is true.

Edited by Void Angel, 31 July 2016 - 03:01 PM.

[Baulven]

Void Angel, on 31 July 2016 - 03:00 PM, said:

"Many more months;" "what it knows best;" "ghost town." You like to put words in other people's mouths and use dramatic phrases - but the substance of your subjective opinions needs work. Perhaps if you could even try to present some kind of logical reason why streamlining the queues as a first step to fix balance is an absolutely bad idea - much less respond to any of the multiple times I've explained why doing so is reasonable.

But no, you quoted me excoriating someone else for their own paternal attitude and hypocrisy, then post a total non sequitur in response. I'm increasingly unsure whether you even understand the conversation at this point - or if you want to. You seem intent on repeating silly objections that have already been answered, over and over, until the grownups get tired of responding to a gussied up version of stamping your foot and yelling "nuh-UH!" Argumentum ad nauseum has likely worked for you in the past, and it will probably work in the future - but it won't make you right, or even reasonable. In fact, the opposite is true.

How many months did it take for them to edit an xml file to change long tom damage from 165 to 120? They had inout since MAY, and it still took two months. But if you think that something as easy as editing values in notepad on an already built mechanic isn't an indicator of a deeper problem ( particularly when nothing needs built) that's your perogative.

[Void Angel]

Really? That's all you have? Yet another non sequitur conflating the "ease" of mechanically inputting a change with actually gathering data to make the change? Again ignoring everything that was said, and phrased as a straw man, to boot!

Hey, kids! It's time or Amateur Sophistry Hour with Baulven!

• step one; ignore what was actually said and throw up an unrelated factoid or objection.
  
• step two, be sure to do exactly what you were just scolded for, and put words in someone else's mouth (this is called "lying.")
  
• step three: wait for a response - any response, you're not going to really read it anyway.
  
• step four: profit! Or more likely just go back to step one after skimming for buzzwords.

At this point, we're not even having a conversation, here. You just skim whatever post you're "responding" to, and post some groundless claims, dishonest rhetoric, or uninspired sophistry. That was only impressive the first time it was done, and you do it poorly, anyway. Go back to Salt Island and soak your head - you can come back when you're not too delirious to hold conversations with people other than yourself.

Edited by Void Angel, 31 July 2016 - 04:42 PM.

[Nerdboard]

Void Angel, on 31 July 2016 - 12:51 PM, said:

Well, which is it? Is it their game - and their responsibility - or are we designing MWO by committee? If you go have a brainstorming session - in public, with all of the trolls and Salt Islanders looking on and heckling in the stream chat - and then do something other than what any sizeable fraction of the player base wanted you to do, you just get drama.

I never said - and didnt intend to imply - that the community is or should be designing the game. And sure, there are different approaches to how to do such a discussion each with their pros and cons.
But PGI clearly implied this to be an open discussion... which is not exactly what it ended up to be. To my knowledge (not a direct source, so bear with me if its wrong) some of the participants didnt even know what the discussion would be about up until the point that the meeting started. Thats not a healthy concept.

Discussions of any kind are usually more efficient when the ground rules are clearly defined beforehand. That is the core feedback which I wanted to give with my statement... and I hope its not too much to ask for.

[BearFlag]

Pat Kell, on 31 July 2016 - 02:36 PM, said:

Again...yes, he set the direction of the meeting but I think the panelists did a good job of getting him to see other possibilities. After gving our ideas of reducing the ques, he even said that he came into the meeting expecting it to end with "CW needs to be 1 bucket, IS vs Clans and that's it", but then he appeared to change his tune when we brought up the tug-of-war option with alliances and the red button for getting 12 mans to fight each other more often. Not saying he is going to implement anything we suggested as he very well might have gotten out of meeting and said "nope, not gonna do it" but until we see any action or lack of action on PGI's part, it's all just assumptions.

It was a round table in the sense that he was willing to listen to the ideas we had brain stormed. Just because he set the topic doesn't make it any less of a town hall. This isn't poilitics, this is the life and death of his company and he's not just going to open it up to any old hair-brained idea that comes into people's head. He wanted the talk to be productive and while I think he could have handled the intro a little better at first, he at least kept an open mind and seemed to be seriously considering many of the ideas we suggested to him.

Yes, you guys did a good job extending the queues discussion. But this after Russ made it clear the decision was made.

I think most of us were expecting a real round table discussion of the serious problems FW has. And I don't mean Long Tom (yes, a big problem). I'm talking about the year and half running problems that PGI ignored or tweaked. Single mode, double death, chokepoint maps, spawn camping, grotesque mismatches. Long wait times did not cause long wait times - poor gameplay did.

And to repeat myself, I think people are missing what Russ said. Go back and listen. One last push, that push is queues. Thereafter, smaller iterations.

They've given up. PGI is putting FW out to pasture.

[KingCobra]

When you as a developer does not understand your players and what they want in the game you have designed or how to attract and retain new players to your game you have already lost the ability to fund said game and develop it properly in the future.

Russ and PGI did not understand how the older PC MechWarrior2-4 and expansions and BattleTech games worked and held the IP's players together for 20+ years having fun with the games play styles game modes maps plus Socializing world wide for 10+ years.

Russ & PGI still don't understand this simple concept after 4 years so MWO and FP is in decline going from over 500,000 at opening day of active gameplay down to less than 15,000 players today. And he still wont let the community in to help him in a smart decisive way throwing aside ideas that could rebound the game and its community and let the company prosper for 20 years.

Just a Old guard MechWarrior2 player signing out not wanting to see the end of a once great IP game.

Edited by KingCobra, 31 July 2016 - 05:49 PM.

[KingCobra]

[FallingAce]

Imagine a restaurant owner asks you how to improve his business. You put time and effort into many suggestions about food quality, service, ambiance, prices etc.

Then when you finally sit down with the restaurant owner, all he wants to talk about is the arrangements of the chairs in the dining area.