151 replies to this topic

[Alex Reed]

My only issue with the Round Table was that it was not more streamlined ... It wandered around like a townhall and wasted valuable time.

Those who were unit reps ... Did PGI ask you for your points, questions, and proposals prior to the Round Table? It would have been much nicer if they had known what they were being asked and have answers, docs, and graphics ready to explain rather than Russ putting his fellow Devs on the spot and forcing them to think through something to be able to give an answer. (Never mind, I saw that the pre-Roundtable group did give the Devs talking points. No problem, unit reps ... You did your job. ;-) )

Also, when there is going to be jargon in the presentation (buckets, for example), PGI or NGNG should have some boilerplate ready to copy and paste into chat without asking Devs to waste time explaining buckets... Rule of thumb ... Assume that your audience understands none of your jargon and have quick ways to explain it without sidetracking. (Maybe release a "Pre-Roundtable Primer" where, if you know you are going to discuss buckets, have it explained and illustrated to shut down repetitive needs to explain ... "Dude, here's the link to the explanation" would be much easier than rabbit chasing and shows forethought on the part of the Dev.)

I had no problem with player base reps proposals ... I love the Tug of War idea ... Air superiority makes a lot of sense as well as using the Scout perks depleting the pool of scouting points ... the going in circles in explanations and illustrations was yawn-inducing. I think it was a good starting point with a more genuine attempt to engage the player base and large units that are invested in the game. With some tweaking and pre-planning, PGI might find this to be much better in the long run and cut the town halls altogether.

Edited by Alex Reed, 01 August 2016 - 10:18 PM.

[FallingAce]

AnTi90d, on 01 August 2016 - 03:36 PM, said:

Yep.. even if they stole everyone's buckets except one.. and covered that last bucket in bandaids..

..it would still be a leaky bucket. It doesn't solve any of the flaws inherent with the current systems. It's basically just a waste of time and effort.

Not an accurate picture of a Faction Warfare bucket. That bucket has something in it.

Edited by FallingAce, 01 August 2016 - 07:43 PM.

[Appogee]

Is there a list of who the round table participants were, somewhere? I can't find it.

[Kyrie]

I can't help but beat this dead horse some more. I think I see it twitching. ;-)

What disturbed me about the event is that I did not get a clear sense that PGI understands what the problems are. Its like at some point the week prior the announcement of the round-table was made a PGI assistant walked up to Russ and said, "Hey Boss, no one is playing FP! We are wasting $1000s on idle servers! Something Must Be Done!" And lo, a round-table was called.

I believe PGI has a full-time community manager. It would only have taken a few hours of research to identify the key complaints about:
1) Existing mechanics
2) Absent mechanics
3) Lack of content.

Russ, upon calling for this round-table, should have been in a position to offer us a general address on FP in light of:
1) What PGI can do immediately
2) What PGI will do mid-term
3) What PGI hopes to do long-term.

And then get a discussion going in a series of round-tables down the road. I have no problem with PGI trying deal with Buckets, what concerns me is this lingering concern that there is no intention of really doing much beyond that.

[Zolaz]

We have a Community Manager? I thought someone's girlfriend had the position? No one at PGI takes the player base seriously. It shows every time they interact with us. They dont communicate with us and then wonder why we have such a bad relationship.

[Void Angel]

DaFrog, on 01 August 2016 - 06:19 PM, said:

Void Angel, again you resort to the american way of debating: can't argue, so therefore I will discredit.

The fact that the irony of this statement is lost on you proves that you are out of ideas - as does your recourse to claiming "personal attacks" when confronted with criticism of your ideas. Yes, let's use racism to poison the well, and then claim that you are the one being attacked.

If you really don't care "one iota" about me - which should never be true of anyone for a moral human being - then by all means demonstrate it by taking your racism and bankrupt ideas somewhere else.

[Void Angel]

Zolaz, on 01 August 2016 - 08:29 PM, said:

We have a Community Manager? I thought someone's girlfriend had the position? No one at PGI takes the player base seriously. It shows every time they interact with us. They dont communicate with us and then wonder why we have such a bad relationship.

Zolaz, the bad relationship came from communication, not the other way around. Let's remember our history; I'm not saying it was good communication, but the toxicity in some people's relationships with PGI came out communication with the player base. When any announcement is met with acrimonious carping and personal attacks, it's a great temptation to withdraw, or lash out. That's precisely the trap PGI fell into (think "islands;) but now the players making the toxic critiques have revised history and used the silence to claim that PGI doesn't listen to them - by which they mean "doing what I wanted."

If they didn't care about the player base, they wouldn't be hosting public discussions and trying to engage with our ideas. If a player can look at this town hall and find nothing to the good, it says more about the player than PGI.

[AssaultPig]

I listened to most of the roundtable and tbh, most of the discussion was happening at way too high a level

issues about units taking planets, 'persistent combat,' and even such as buckets/matchmaking are secondary to just making the gameplay enjoyable. None of that **** is remotely relevant as long as the long tom is ending games before they begin and matches are heavily slanted in favor of the defenders (especially in public groups.)

[Baulven]

AssaultPig, on 01 August 2016 - 09:28 PM, said:

I listened to most of the roundtable and tbh, most of the discussion was happening at way too high a level

issues about units taking planets, 'persistent combat,' and even such as buckets/matchmaking are secondary to just making the gameplay enjoyable. None of that **** is remotely relevant as long as the long tom is ending games before they begin and matches are heavily slanted in favor of the defenders (especially in public groups.)

Unfortunately Russ has already determined the mechanic is staying and "will continue to have a big impact on invasion mode" which means everyone that dropped against it in the last two events still won't touch FP with a 10 foot pole. I know of more than a dozen people that quit halfway through the event because of long tom, and more that announced they would skip future FP events because of the mechanic. Without a major rework (or even rebranding at this stage) it will continue to force people into ghost town mode the moment someone scouts to that level. While there have been a lot of suggested fixes that could augment it to prevent the current issues PGI hasn't indicated what direction it would be willing to take so we have nothing to go off of. It is possible we will see another token nerf soon but I don't expect it to be enough to fix the concerns present in its current iteration.

[Kyrie]

Long Tom is just such a bad idea I am surprised there is reluctance on Russ' part to address it.

[Thorn Hallis]

I can understand that the first topic to be discussed would be queue times and buckets. PGI had always took a short-term-business apporach to things. Idle queues means idle Servers which means they are pissing money away, something they do not seem to appreciate.

[RottenFoot]

In order to get any response one has to resort to being a douche cause it doesn't matter what you say as player who plays the game every day(19k+ games), its the people who play once a new moon who think they know the game and made/make decisions based on that one game. Now after ignoring the players who actually play they look at numbers not even the game play..and even any good ideas, like to improve that "faulty" GAME PLAY TO BRING BACK THE NUMBERS, is dismissed.

It is not number of buckets, but WHY the ques are empty in the 1st place to be adressed...and somehow everyone who plays this game knows the answer to it, yet everyone sitting in the position to do something about it, is oblivious to it.

The fact is PGI should be happy people get angry at them and their product, as this shows their passion for the product/game, and if they can get it right they'll have those players.

I proposed months ago, when longtom was 1st released, to make longtom a EMP bomb..all players i've shared this with, and I've got a friendlist of around 2k, all have welcomed this idea. I've also posted it earlier on this thread too.
How come this idea was not thought over or presented, is it cause its not LORE? what about this game, except the names are still part of lore?
The Longtom is a serious threat to this game at the moment, how come everyone dance around it like that's not the real issue is beyond me, well its 30% of your problem at least, cause that's the amount of people who left after its release.

[Dawnstealer]

Baulven, on 30 July 2016 - 09:16 AM, said:

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.

yeah, all of this.

[Dawnstealer]

On further thought, going with the OP's idea of a single avenue, what about just making FP Tukkayid for now?

Not only is it canon, but there's a WHOLE SOURCE BOOK on it. Maps, battles, goals, etc.

Focus FP down to one world and one classic battle until everything's fixed, balanced, and so on. Everyone dropping in FP is dropping on the same world, so they're not spread out in different buckets, PGI can focus on fixing this thing or that thing, introduce new things and see how they play, and so on.

It's clear that FP is still very much Beta - WHY NOT MAKE THE GAME MODE ACT LIKE A BETA?

http://www.sarna.net..._(scenario_pack)

[RottenFoot]

Dawnstealer, on 02 August 2016 - 07:36 AM, said:

On further thought, going with the OP's idea of a single avenue, what about just making FP Tukkayid for now?

Not only is it canon, but there's a WHOLE SOURCE BOOK on it. Maps, battles, goals, etc.

Focus FP down to one world and one classic battle until everything's fixed, balanced, and so on. Everyone dropping in FP is dropping on the same world, so they're not spread out in different buckets, PGI can focus on fixing this thing or that thing, introduce new things and see how they play, and so on.

It's clear that FP is still very much Beta - WHY NOT MAKE THE GAME MODE ACT LIKE A BETA?

http://www.sarna.net..._(scenario_pack)

great idea, yet if there is a longtom on that 1 que its over

[Kyrie]

Long Tom needs immediate deprecation, and I support the single-world battle idea.

[Baulven]

Dawnstealer, on 02 August 2016 - 07:36 AM, said:

On further thought, going with the OP's idea of a single avenue, what about just making FP Tukkayid for now?

Not only is it canon, but there's a WHOLE SOURCE BOOK on it. Maps, battles, goals, etc.

Focus FP down to one world and one classic battle until everything's fixed, balanced, and so on. Everyone dropping in FP is dropping on the same world, so they're not spread out in different buckets, PGI can focus on fixing this thing or that thing, introduce new things and see how they play, and so on.

It's clear that FP is still very much Beta - WHY NOT MAKE THE GAME MODE ACT LIKE A BETA?

http://www.sarna.net..._(scenario_pack)

Tukkiyad would be a great starting point. If they ever went to the persistent fight where you have to get the long tom constructed and subsequently defend it I wouldn't mind it in its current iteration; you could quite literally go over and destroy the damn thing if it was causing issues (light assault anyone?) I highly advocating something like tukkiyad which has tons of things to insert (therefore to tweak and get right) that would eventually be used on other planets.

Hell with persistent combat zones people might tell them three planets to fight over is too much. Unless we see a massive influx of brand new players highly interested in FP. Even if everyone came over from QP it likely wouldn't be able to actually populate three planets at a time with fighters if built right.

[Dawnstealer]

Or even just made the Long Tom Scouting mission and ACTUAL MISSION. So rather than automatically getting a Long Tom, let's say that after you win 60% of Scouting Mission (or higher? Lower?), the LONG TOM MISSION pops up.

Bump up the tonnage for the defenders a little bit, but also have a Long Tom model. It would be awesome if it was moving on its own, but it doesn't have to (at first). Attackers have to destroy the Long Tom, defenders have to defend it. Blow up the Long Tom, no Long Tom in FP. The Long Tom survives, you get Long Tom in FP. A clear 1:1 cause-effect thing.

And WAY more fun than "kill everyone, leg the last guy, then stand on these pylon things where data is stored for some reason..."

[Mystere]

AssaultPig, on 01 August 2016 - 09:28 PM, said:

None of that **** is remotely relevant as long as the long tom is ending games before they begin ...

You're looking at the tree instead of the forest. Although the Long Tom has it's issues, that is not the main problem with CW.

AssaultPig, on 01 August 2016 - 09:28 PM, said:

matches are heavily slanted in favor of the defenders

I actually like this one. You're attacking what is supposed to be a fortress. It better be hard to do.

Edited by Mystere, 02 August 2016 - 11:56 AM.

[Davegt27]

Quote

Appogee
Is there a list of who the round table participants were, somewhere? I can't find it.

did you ever get an answer to this?

we can probably tell you from memory

I don't think any of the participants are one the forums

Pando box FRR
Mech the dane FRR
xavier MS
antonious rex MS (and another unit I forget)

Edited by Davegt27, 02 August 2016 - 12:17 PM.