105 replies to this topic

[Zolaz]

BLOOD WOLF, on 28 November 2016 - 08:59 PM, said:

what was the question? you just made a statement, I see deathlike gave a like, when the fact remains you did made a statement that you would like me to spin the facts. To your dismay, I already made an overview of FW, albeit different from Danes in which he focused more on the road to FW, I focused on the implementation and comparison from the one we have now.

but I digress, what is your question?

Glad to see that you have finally accepted reason and reality. PGI has consistently over promised and under performed for the entire life of MWO. I am never happy when the ranks of bitter vets increases, but everyone eventually gets tired of being lied to.

[Carl Vickers]

BLOOD WOLF, on 28 November 2016 - 08:43 PM, said:

ohh well, Great vid Dane, I made an overview of FW, myself. Although I still am not of the mind that everything they wanted to put in or wanted too was a good idea.

Main difference between you and Dane is he has credibility.

[naterist]

lets stop pickin on poor bloodwolf. hes just got some out there ideas.

[Alex Morgaine]

Um....
Actually I'm curious what the question was. Can someone repay the question in mind?

[Carl Vickers]

naterist, on 29 November 2016 - 12:02 AM, said:

lets stop pickin on poor bloodwolf. hes just got some out there ideas.

When he stops posting people will stop pickin on him.

[Kin3ticX]

I am not sure how bloodwolf thinks people are just going to play with how it is now. Thinking back to April even if I got all the Mercstar guys together again we would run into the same trouble

-wait times
-lane voting restricting what we can even do (we used to be able to attack anything on our border)
-once our attack lane is 100%, there is a high likelihood there will be nothing for anyone to do anymore
-wait times

Phase 3 pretty much cleaned out Mercstar, we are no longer a CW centric unit. We are pretty much game wandering now trying to figure out the next focus.

Its hopeless as it is right now. It would be an upgrade to rollback to phase 2

[Deathlike]

Kin3ticX, on 29 November 2016 - 12:57 AM, said:

I am not sure how bloodwolf thinks people are just going to play with how it is now. Thinking back to April even if I got all the Mercstar guys together again we would run into the same trouble

-wait times
-lane voting restricting what we can even do (we used to be able to attack anything on our border)
-once our attack lane is 100%, there is a high likelihood there will be nothing for anyone to do anymore
-wait times

Phase 3 pretty much cleaned out Mercstar, we are no longer a CW centric unit. We are pretty much game wandering now trying to figure out the next focus.

Its hopeless as it is right now. It would be an upgrade to rollback to phase 2

PGI found Mercstar's kryptonite. It was deployed via Long Tom.

RIP

[justcallme A S H]

Kin3ticX, on 29 November 2016 - 12:57 AM, said:

I am not sure how bloodwolf thinks people are just going to play with how it is now. Thinking back to April even if I got all the Mercstar guys together again we would run into the same trouble

-wait times
-lane voting restricting what we can even do (we used to be able to attack anything on our border)
-once our attack lane is 100%, there is a high likelihood there will be nothing for anyone to do anymore
-wait times

Phase 3 pretty much cleaned out Mercstar, we are no longer a CW centric unit. We are pretty much game wandering now trying to figure out the next focus.

Its hopeless as it is right now. It would be an upgrade to rollback to phase 2

See here is the problem it wasn't just MS that suffered... It was everyone playing the damn mode that suffered.

2hrs in pretty much EVERY Faction, meant you had **** all to do after about the first 2hrs once a planet got to 100% due to the single attack lane. Which was the single biggest/dumbest part of the release, and killed the population in less than 4 weeks.

It was such a huge oversight by PGI it absolutely beggars belief how, one of the biggest killers to the mode, hasn't been addressed yet. And buckets does NOT fix it either, because there is now, no population. Absolute loss of faith from the consumer to a point people have just given up.

[iLLcapitan]

Thanks for this crushing vid Dane and for everything you're doing for this community.
My hopes never been so low though - how many kicks can you take, when you're down already.
It just does my head in if I think about it.
All they had to do is to link maps, modes and stuff thats already in the game, add in some flavvour texts to create 'thee feeling' of a actual campaign. AT LEAST. No big effort, no new programming, just give us minimal immersion.
But no, rather bleed us out for freaking 3 years and never take down your carrot.
I wont spend another dime on this fraud.

Edited by iLLcapitan, 29 November 2016 - 04:10 AM.

[Van mw]

justcallme A S H, on 29 November 2016 - 03:36 AM, said:

2hrs in pretty much EVERY Faction, meant you had **** all to do after about the first 2hrs once a planet got to 100% due to the single attack lane. Which was the single biggest/dumbest part of the release, and killed the population in less than 4 weeks.

It have killed mode for you (MS). However original case (2hrs until planet 100% captured) killed the mode for others. It's not right or balanced when 1-3 factions have 100% in several hours constantly. I think only alliances may possibly deal with such imbalance and keep CW/FW interesting for everyone, not just the biggest/strongest units.

[Bud Crue]

Wintersdark, on 28 November 2016 - 09:10 PM, said:

probably, hell certainly. But I'd argue that their failure to make CW as it was originally envisioned is not because they lied, or because they set out to mislead.

Rather, I just think it was beyond their capabilities and/or resources. It's very doubtful they chose to make the hot mess we have, they just got here despite the best intentions. After all, it's in their best interest to make a fun and engaging CW, so obviously that was the goal.


I'd say, though, use of the word "promised" in these discussions is prone to problems. Designs shared for a creative work that has not yet been made are by their nature subject to change, and PGI certainly didn't use the word "promise" in any of their descriptions.

PGI is not innocent, but it does no good to act like a hurt child either. They're a business, nothing more or less. They set out to make CW, and they failed pretty spectacularly. They may fix it - I hope they can salvage something good - but I doubt it. Still, there were no promises. This is simply how game design - indeed, any creative work - is. You've got an idea of what you want, but the devil is in the details, in the execution. What you get is never what you wanted initially. Sometimes it's better, usually it's worse. In some cases (such as here) much worse.

Again, no absolution here, just reality.

PGI didn't set out to fail, they just failed. *Shrugs*. No malice.

I think you may very well be right. But if it is truly the case where they did all this failing without malice or forethought then perhaps at some point between 90 day and the subsequent thousand or so, they should have addressed that potential for failure? Perhaps even mentioned that they were having a wee set back or two? Maybe even level with their customers and said something along the lines of:

"sorry folks, we know you are disappointed in our progress here (we read the forums after all) and honestly, this is not what we had in mind when we originally advertised CW to you, but we will keep working on it to make better and until we have the capabilities to get it right."

If there was not an intent to mislead, that is all it would have taken to address that potential and a lot of bad feelings. Instead, they gave interviews, held town halls and continued to advertise the mode as "working as intended". Even during the round table Russ said in summary that "the core game play is fine".

They may not have been malicious but they most certainly were and remain utterly indifferent and/or oblivious.

[Marquis De Lafayette]

I am not bitter... yet, I do not understand (as a business) how PGI could have been tone-deaf about major problems like long-Tom (for example) for as long as they were. Everyone knew long Tom (the tactical nuke verison) was a bad mechanic within like a week (at most!) of its introduction. Queues emptied anywhere long Tom went up and while the IS could certainly win scouting battles, they could not win anywhere near enough to prevent LT from going up anywhere Jade wanted. This was clear really, really early.

Yet...LT wasn't finally dialed back to current levels for many, many months. It can't have been that hard to change the damage values in the coding. C'mon...

I do think PGI meant well in adding LT. They were trying to give us a feature...Yet, it was clear from the start that it was a game-breaking mechanic that couldn't be effectively countered in-match (although the suicide runs to attempt to have the LT drop on the Jades themselves were a lot of laughs)...

It was clear to everyone it was broken . It drove people away from the mode, not to it! Yet, it wasn't a situation where PGI responded immediately and said "whoops...not working as envisioned in-game., we will fix this ASAP". Players would have generally believed the best and bore with PGi's mistake on this. Yet, instead of an immediate fix, there was glacial speed progress to where LT is at now.

Could you imagine if somehow the old LT got randomly inserted into QP matches? It would have to be fixed immediately. People would quit playing MWO within a week.

For CW, queues emptying meant people weren't playing the mode.. people not playing the mode is obviously bad for the mode's future. I can't believe PGI spent this amount of effort on CW to kill it... yet, when response is so slow and seemingly so divorced from what the engaged players are seeing in-game it is maddening and people then start being tempted to believe that PGI wants the mode gone. I am "for" PGI...I want them to do well.... just can't believe the way it's all been handled from a business standpoint.

Edited by Marquis De Lafayette, 29 November 2016 - 07:44 AM.

[Sjorpha]

Excellent video MtD, good work as always.

I really hope Russ has the decency to at least watch it.

As for being banned, that would be silly and very surprising. The critique in this vid is 100% respectful and actually rather softballed in a lot of ways. It's just the history as it is and it's not MtDs fault that PGIs history speaks for itself.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Carl Vickers, on 28 November 2016 - 11:55 PM, said:

Main difference between you and Dane is he has credibility.

so we say nearly the same thing and its credibility? never stop trolling do you. At least I don't need to lie about past things to justify my position.

Carl Vickers, on 29 November 2016 - 12:18 AM, said:

When he stops posting people will stop pickin on him.

who is "people", its just the same guys over and over again. If you think I feel like I am being picked on from some guys on the internet, you just don't know me well enough.

"when I stop posting", You are pretty much admitting that you are just out to troll me.

Kin3ticX, on 29 November 2016 - 12:57 AM, said:

I am not sure how bloodwolf thinks people are just going to play with how it is now.

I just want to buzz some activity. Some people do want to play now. Look at the falcon Steiner front. I dunno why Me wanting to play and trying to find others that want to play is a bad thing.

one a separate note.Seriously, will some of you ever stop this petty, childish, vitriolic, egotistical, nonsense, grudge against me because I don't agree with all your points, and I have called some of you for flat out lying or making stuff up. I know the nature of the internet, but most of us are adults. I don't agree with most of my colleagues, I often call them wrong about various topics, and don't agree with certain histories about issue. Not one has anyone ever went on an internet grudge against me.-talking to carl and players like him, not to you Kin3ticX

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 29 November 2016 - 01:04 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Deathlike, on 29 November 2016 - 02:26 AM, said:

PGI found Mercstar's kryptonite. It was deployed via Long Tom.

RIP

That and recruitment fees to punish units for being good at onboarding players into FW.

[Jarl Dane]

I think a lot of PGI's problems in MWO stem from them not actually playing the game. They are unable to make meaningful tweaks to Community Warfare because they don't know what is wrong with it because they aren't experiencing it first hand. Instead they have to sort through essentially random and often erroneous feedback on the forums, twitter, and reddit.

They then double-down on this process when they start only listening to people who are extremely positive, rather than perhaps, honest or realistic.

A long time ago Paul was dropping in Pug queues and had all his weapons blown off, rather than kill him the enemy team just kept ramming him, abusing the knock-down mechanic in the game at the time, and basically trolled him until he finally died. There is actually a video of it somewhere. A week later the knock down mechanic was removed from the game and Paul has, to my knowledge, never dropped in public queue since. Instead he plays on a private server.

I know there are other factors. IGP, company size, experience etc - but I think not playing the game hurts. Heck if you check PGI's forum accounts you'll see they are for the most part Tier 4 or Tier 5. Which we know is almost impossible to remain in if you play the game regularly.

At this point, despite it having no relationship on new content, I think PGI announcing a new initiative where all the devs play the game significantly more - would honestly be a big deal and welcome news.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Mech The Dane, on 29 November 2016 - 01:29 PM, said:

They then double-down on this process when they start only listening to people who are extremely positive, rather than perhaps, honest or realistic.

weren't you at the roundtable?

14 people in there, and you are going to tell me that they only listened to people who are extremely positive, whatever the hell that means.

Oh and I am sure, only you and the others you deem worthy are honest and realistic.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 29 November 2016 - 01:38 PM.

[Jarl Dane]

BLOOD WOLF, on 29 November 2016 - 01:32 PM, said:

weren't you at the roundtable?

I was, but PGI had limited control over who the panelists were as the entire project had been mostly outsourced to -MS-. And perhaps PGI does take my commentary serious, but I know they almost never re-tweet me and when I asked if I could have a booth at MechCon they didn't even bother to say "no", silence was the only answer for my impertinence.

It seems though they often reply to or repost or recognize critiques that support their viewpoint, which since they aren't experiencing things first hand, makes it more difficult for them to realize the best decisions.

Case in point that terrible mini-map update. There was a huge community uproar about it before it was released. But somehow PGI managed to be oblivious to the feedback.

If PGI actually played the game more though, they'd likely have realized on their own how much a misstep that map update was, which would have helped them see past the misleading barometer of yes men.

Another thing about the town-hall was how entrenched Russ was about the TOM-TOM gun, and how he reacted to many of our concerns about it as if they were new. This was the kind of thing that anyone who played CW regularly would have learned on their own.

EDIT: You edited your post and added more while I was typing mine.

BLOOD WOLF, on 29 November 2016 - 01:32 PM, said:

and you are going to tell me that they only listened to people who are extremely positive, whatever the hell that means.

Listening to people who agree with you, yes-men, echo-chamber. Certainly should not be an unusual concept.

BLOOD WOLF, on 29 November 2016 - 01:32 PM, said:

Oh and I am sure, only you and the others you deem worthy are honest and realistic.

I am sorry, but I am not following your train of thought. My main point was that PGI needs to play this game more. Are you disagreeing with me about that point? If you are, well, that's your opinion, and if you feel that way at this stage I doubt there is anything I could say to change it.

Edited by Mech The Dane, 29 November 2016 - 02:00 PM.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Mech The Dane, on 29 November 2016 - 01:46 PM, said:

I was, but PGI had limited control over who the panelists were as the entire project had been mostly outsourced to -MS-. And perhaps PGI does take my commentary serious, but I know they almost never re-tweet me and when I asked if I could have a booth at MechCon they didn't even bother to say "no", silence was the only answer for my impertinence.

It seems though they often reply to or repost or recognize critiques that support their viewpoint, which since they aren't experiencing things first hand, makes it more difficult for them to realize the best decisions.

Case in point that terrible mini-map update. There was a huge community uproar about it before it was released. But somehow PGI managed to be oblivious to the feedback.

If PGI actually played the game more though, they'd likely have realized on their own how much a misstep that map update was, which would have helped them see past the misleading barometer of yes men.

Another thing about the town-hall was how entrenched Russ was about the TOM-TOM gun, and how he reacted to many of our concerns about it as if they were new. This was the kind of thing that anyone who played CW regularly would have learned on their own.

so to start you complaining that MS got the biggest voice? as for the tweets and booth, no comment

well if you think they only reply and support points that share their viewpoint, if that were the case, then the townhall would not have been the way it was. Nor would they have bothered to implement any idea that was an improvement on their design.

last I don't know how entrenched russ about the tom, from what I know its going to be replaced.

All of that was huge negation of my contention of your original claim. "They then double-down on this process when they start only listening to people who are extremely positive, rather than perhaps, honest or realistic."

I don't know how this is even remotely the case, given the roundtable, Seems to me russ was willing to listen to players, but you claim that they are all extremely positive, so where the other 13 players all pro-PGI on anything?

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 29 November 2016 - 02:17 PM.

[Jarl Dane]

BLOOD WOLF, on 29 November 2016 - 02:08 PM, said:

...

Alright. Interesting take. I am afraid I don't see any benefit of going on the tangent you want in this thread, at this time. If you have serious questions I'd be willing to answer them in a PM or in a different forum topic.

As I was saying I think a lot of problems could be resolved by PGI playing the game more.