366 replies to this topic

[RestosIII]

I still think that 2, maybe 3-man groups should be in normal solo QP queue. Make it less terrible for you to introduce a new player to the game.

[Trollfeed]

It's funny how world of tanks got it right with their company battles while MWO is still messed up years later. In short, playing with a 2-3 man lance and you can go to quick play queue while group queue is only for big groups.

I tried to pug with 1-2 friends but they soon quit because group queue is very painful if you aren't in a big enough group. Or you are in a too big group.

Edited by Trollfeed, 03 January 2017 - 10:46 AM.

[Barantor]

Monkey Lover, on 03 January 2017 - 10:26 AM, said:

Do you know how hard it is to play a 12 man team in group q? They cut down your tonnage to medium mechs. If half the team bring lights you can get a few heavy mechs at most.

On the other had you find 3 groups of 4 you they will have 6 assaults.....


What more do you want?

I do realize how hard it is with the tonnage. I also know that I have friends who like the game but gave up after it was too much of a hassle to group up when we had 3 guys.

I've been here since beta, any there wasn't a mass exodus because of one thing, but several.

They have changed CW a lot and I think it is time that it be the large group play option that it is supposed to be. There isn't the restrictions where we had to find 12 folks of Marik anymore.

Games like World of tanks and others limit your group sizes if it is under the full team, this game is one of the few that doesn't and tries to balance with weight, something that isn't as easy to do. There has to be some difficult changes made in order to grow instead of continuing to shrink.

I want this game to succeed, but it has to change and it isn't by catering only to those that are here, but to those that were here or would be with some ease of use and play changes.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Johnny Z, on 03 January 2017 - 10:20 AM, said:

This topic is about faction play, large groups and group queue. So its not about dividing anything its how much bloat the 1% needs.

Actually this topic is about premades in the group queue. Go back and reread it and you will see that.

So again, with a medium mech 12 man fighting against small groups, what prevents folks from building bigger groups? Its n9t an issue of bloat in the slightest.

[Mystere]

RestosIII, on 03 January 2017 - 10:35 AM, said:

I still think that 2, maybe 3-man groups should be in normal solo QP queue. Make it less terrible for you to introduce a new player to the game.

And at the same time, let solos drop into the group queue. We'll show them.

[Ghogiel]

12 mans in group queue are weaker than playing as an 8man imo. With the tonnage limits it hurts too much so if you do run into competition it's nicer to actually have some tonnage in your group and just roll the dice to hopefully to get a 4 man in assaults so they can at least look scary and not just run off and get farmed too quick

Edited by Ghogiel, 03 January 2017 - 11:01 AM.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Barantor, on 03 January 2017 - 10:50 AM, said:

I do realize how hard it is with the tonnage. I also know that I have friends who like the game but gave up after it was too much of a hassle to group up when we had 3 guys.

I've been here since beta, any there wasn't a mass exodus because of one thing, but several.

They have changed CW a lot and I think it is time that it be the large group play option that it is supposed to be. There isn't the restrictions where we had to find 12 folks of Marik anymore.

Games like World of tanks and others limit your group sizes if it is under the full team, this game is one of the few that doesn't and tries to balance with weight, something that isn't as easy to do. There has to be some difficult changes made in order to grow instead of continuing to shrink.

I want this game to succeed, but it has to change and it isn't by catering only to those that are here, but to those that were here or would be with some ease of use and play changes.

This is a great point, but what is the cap for the proposed "small group/solo queue" that is always implied or proposed around here?

I mean, its all arbitrary. 4 man? But my two man doesnt like getting roughed up by 4 mans! So what is the empirical sweetspot? Im down for a small group/solo queue but it will (as previously noted) require monitoring because people will synch drop (same tag or not), soloists will complain about even 2 person groups being involved etc.

You cannot make this game equitable and meet every player's viewpoint of fairness, as there are too many variables. What you CAN do is manage expectations better with players, warning them of what they face by going int9 grpup queue and letting them choose if tonnage vice group coordination is worth it.

I dont tell people they cannot pair up and take LCT's in a mini wolfpack if they want to, but they are leaving tonnage on the table and tonnage is what the group queue offers in compensation for lesser numbers. I also dont tell people to not bring their terrible builds into match...its their choice to outfit their mech how they want, but be prepared to suffer the consequences of that build. I dont tell light pilots that tbey cannot rush off and die in the first 60s of a match, but if they do, it hurts the team. Assaults eanna go capping at the start of a conquest round? More power to ya but when we lose because ya died solo, its n9t our fault for "failing to play the objective."

Bottom line is manage expectations and let people's varying degrees of thick ot thin skins determine where they will assume some risk. Wanting to run 2 man groups in the face of potential 12 mans is the same CHOICE as running LRM's, running twin LCT as a 2 man, or running a direstar and alpha striking. You have options, use them.

[Johnny Z]

Lukoi Banacek, on 03 January 2017 - 11:04 AM, said:

This is a great point, but what is the cap for the proposed "small group/solo queue" that is always implied or proposed around here?

I mean, its all arbitrary. 4 man? But my two man doesnt like getting roughed up by 4 mans! So what is the empirical sweetspot? Im down for a small group/solo queue but it will (as previously noted) require monitoring because people will synch drop (same tag or not), soloists will complain about even 2 person groups being involved etc.

You cannot make this game equitable and meet every player's viewpoint of fairness, as there are too many variables. What you CAN do is manage expectations better with players, warning them of what they face by going int9 grpup queue and letting them choose if tonnage vice group coordination is worth it.

I dont tell people they cannot pair up and take LCT's in a mini wolfpack if they want to, but they are leaving tonnage on the table and tonnage is what the group queue offers in compensation for lesser numbers. I also dont tell people to not bring their terrible builds into match...its their choice to outfit their mech how they want, but be prepared to suffer the consequences of that build. I dont tell light pilots that tbey cannot rush off and die in the first 60s of a match, but if they do, it hurts the team. Assaults eanna go capping at the start of a conquest round? More power to ya but when we lose because ya died solo, its n9t our fault for "failing to play the objective."

Bottom line is manage expectations and let people's varying degrees of thick ot thin skins determine where they will assume some risk. Wanting to run 2 man groups in the face of potential 12 mans is the same CHOICE as running LRM's, running twin LCT as a 2 man, or running a direstar and alpha striking. You have options, use them.

"Soloists" as you call them are team players as well, but do not feel the need to sit around stacking a full 12 man full of well equipped experienced players to stomp around with.

The only ones that have cause real complaints were the players that wanted to form large groups because 4 mans were not enough in group queue, get that straight. Large groups were openly synch dropping, OPENLY, to make that clear, synch dropping in regular queue until they got a group queue.

Your entire reply ignores concerns of small groups.

At the moment regular queue has no complaints. Fast matches no problem. Personally I don't mind what sized group comes into regular queue. Some may, but I have my doubts about who those will be. Seriously. The closed setting of group queue allows a lot of farming and other problems to go on and the group queue stats are worthless. As it is some of the group queue problems still leak into regular queue, such as synch dropping and match fixing etc. Although lately matches have gone really well for me in regular queue... but doesn't change the entire scene.

Edited by Johnny Z, 03 January 2017 - 11:27 AM.

[Barantor]

Lukoi Banacek, on 03 January 2017 - 11:04 AM, said:

This is a great point, but what is the cap for the proposed "small group/solo queue" that is always implied or proposed around here?

I mean, its all arbitrary. 4 man? But my two man doesnt like getting roughed up by 4 mans! So what is the empirical sweetspot? Im down for a small group/solo queue but it will (as previously noted) require monitoring because people will synch drop (same tag or not), soloists will complain about even 2 person groups being involved etc.

You cannot make this game equitable and meet every player's viewpoint of fairness, as there are too many variables. What you CAN do is manage expectations better with players, warning them of what they face by going int9 grpup queue and letting them choose if tonnage vice group coordination is worth it.

I dont tell people they cannot pair up and take LCT's in a mini wolfpack if they want to, but they are leaving tonnage on the table and tonnage is what the group queue offers in compensation for lesser numbers. I also dont tell people to not bring their terrible builds into match...its their choice to outfit their mech how they want, but be prepared to suffer the consequences of that build. I dont tell light pilots that tbey cannot rush off and die in the first 60s of a match, but if they do, it hurts the team. Assaults eanna go capping at the start of a conquest round? More power to ya but when we lose because ya died solo, its n9t our fault for "failing to play the objective."

Bottom line is manage expectations and let people's varying degrees of thick ot thin skins determine where they will assume some risk. Wanting to run 2 man groups in the face of potential 12 mans is the same CHOICE as running LRM's, running twin LCT as a 2 man, or running a direstar and alpha striking. You have options, use them.

Four pilots is a lance in the IS which at least works with the game. There are hundreds of games out there with 4 players as the mulitplayer maximum and they just work.

Warning them has been the mantra since the beginning, but it still doesn't make it fun.

I'll explain a scenario, one that has happened to me in the past in group queue and trying to get friends to play.

Jim is a fairly casual player, he played some MW4 and Mechcommander. Jim plays maybe once a month, sometimes he will play a few weeks in a row once or twice a year and has around 12 mechs.

Bob is Jim's friend. Bob plays twice a week at least, sometimes more. Bob pays for premium time off and on when he has big stints of playing, but doesn't consider MWO to be his primary game. He has around 20-30 mechs.

Carl is a friend to both Bob and Jim and plays in a group that drops almost nightly. He has over a year and a half of premium time active has almost every mech and considered going to mechcon, but it was too close to the holidays.

Jim and Bob aren't playing much MWO, but Carl talks them into redownloading it and running some matches with him. Bob plays a match or two so he isn't rusty, but Jim got off work late so they group up right away. Unfortunately it is prime time for the US server they are on and they run up against 12 man after 12 man. Jim tries his best and does ok given the circumstances but it isn't very fun for him. He plays a few solo matches the next day, but the whole reason he plays games online is to group with his friends.

I've been Carl and I'm sure folks will say that Jim should play more, but we need more Jim's to play if we want those bigger buckets. For every few Jims that play and have fun, a couple will stick around.

Carl still gets to play with his group in FW, the so-called 'end game' content. Hell there are only two sides now so he can make groups with his friend Earl who plays for those dirty Davions.

[MischiefSC]

So, lemme get this right -

You want to remove groups from the group queue?

Admittedly we did just remove factions from faction play.

However it sounds like OP wants to make the group size limit "no bigger than however many people I'm dropping with".

Get more friends.

[1453 R]

Somebody's going to take it square between the cheeks no matter what you do.

Do a single mixed queue, no separation between groups and solos? Then the solos kvetch all the live-long day about how Evil Cheating Baby-Eating Premade Farm Squads are Ruining Their Fun Forever™

Do the current situation, with a solos queue and an 'all other' queue? Then you substitute the two-man buddy drops and other small, casual groups for the solos in the above statement.

Do a bit where large group play is heavily restricted/banished to Commodity Warfare? Then the big-group folks kvetch all the live-long day about having no one to play with and how the game is so violently anti-friends.

Whichever way you do it, somebody's gettin' it in the pants. Currently the small-group guys are offered the bone of increased overall tonnage compared to big-team drops (which sucks if you've got guys who don't want to tool up in MegaFatbros all day long considering NOBODY LETS PIRAHNA RELEASE FATBROS WITH FEET...but hey. Something, I suppose). Frankly I don't see a ton of twelve-mans as it is, and when they do turn up they have weird compositions that are generally weak to Streak launchers.

I'm for a toggle that lets solo players opt into the group queue on top of the solo queue if the like, to help relieve queue times for groups and let those solos who prefer group queue (My sometimes drop buddy Maker doesn't have a Klan to play with given how viciously exclusionary most of them are, but prefers the group queue strongly to solo play and is always desperate for at least one partner to try and run with to get him into it. I know he's not alone), and possibly the reciprocal of allowing duo drops to land in the solo queue. Clean up matchmaking times some for both sets of players, give people some options. Spread the love, and also the buttpain, around a little bit.

Not that Piranha will ever do so. Just brace for the Groupocalypse every time you want to drop with a buddy, I suppose. Or do the incredibly distasteful thing and just play nothing but assault 'Mechs all day erry day in small-drop group queue no matter how much you might want to run your Shadow Cats or your Vipers or your whatever-elses.

[Lupis Volk]

MischiefSC, on 03 January 2017 - 11:48 AM, said:

So, lemme get this right -

You want to remove groups from the group queue?

Admittedly we did just remove factions from faction play.

However it sounds like OP wants to make the group size limit "no bigger than however many people I'm dropping with".

Get more friends.

Better yet find your factions TS hub and go there.

What is it with people refusing to use the tools at their fingertips to better engage with the community?

[RestosIII]

Lupis Volk, on 03 January 2017 - 11:50 AM, said:

Better yet find your factions TS hub and go there.

What is it with people refusing to use the tools at their fingertips to better engage with the community?

Maybe we don't want to "engage with the community", but just play with 1 friend without getting turned into target practice for a group on TS comms that have the coordination of a flight control tower?

[Lupis Volk]

RestosIII, on 03 January 2017 - 11:55 AM, said:

Maybe we don't want to "engage with the community", but just play with 1 friend without getting turned into target practice for a group on TS comms that have the coordination of a flight control tower?

well bully. You get this in any other online game.

Go play co-op oriented game. This game isn't about 4v4 it's 12v12, There's more people than just you and your "buddy".

[xTrident]

Lupis Volk, on 03 January 2017 - 11:50 AM, said:

Better yet find your factions TS hub and go there.

What is it with people refusing to use the tools at their fingertips to better engage with the community?

They don't want to better engage with the community. They want to enjoy playing the game with their two or three buddies.

I don't have a problem with that but I think the OP is going to be s.o.l. because of it, if that's the way they choose to play.

Edited by xTrident, 03 January 2017 - 12:10 PM.

[RestosIII]

Lupis Volk, on 03 January 2017 - 12:09 PM, said:

well bully. You get this in any other online game.

Go play co-op oriented game. This game isn't about 4v4 it's 12v12, There's more people than just you and your "buddy".

This is an arena shooter. In comparable arena shooters, like the entire Wargaming line and War Thunder, 2-3 man groups are 100% fine. And telling people to shove off if they don't want to run 8 man groups without getting creamed is how you keep new players from joining. I have several friends that are actually interested in MW:O, but won't play because it would suck to try and play without us dropping together, and dear lord we don't want to commit suicide.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

RestosIII, on 03 January 2017 - 12:12 PM, said:

This is an arena shooter. In comparable arena shooters, like the entire Wargaming line and War Thunder, 2-3 man groups are 100% fine. And telling people to shove off if they don't want to run 8 man groups without getting creamed is how you keep new players from joining. I have several friends that are actually interested in MW:O, but won't play because it would suck to try and play without us dropping together, and dear lord we don't want to commit suicide.

Which is why this game really needs a more adaptive matchmaker than it currently has, one that you might find in something like Overwatch where everyone whether solo or a 6-man is technically in the same queue but the matchmaker tries to group those who are close together in size with each other. Really given the status of the release valves regarding PSR in all but prime time, the size of the group should take priority over PSR of the group.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Barantor, on 03 January 2017 - 11:33 AM, said:

Four pilots is a lance in the IS which at least works with the game. There are hundreds of games out there with 4 players as the mulitplayer maximum and they just work.

Warning them has been the mantra since the beginning, but it still doesn't make it fun.

I'll explain a scenario, one that has happened to me in the past in group queue and trying to get friends to play.

So again you pick a rather arbitrary # of four stating that it just "works." CoD and BF seem to work with no min/max groups....does that mean it translates here? Maybe, maybe not, but it doesnt make the justification any less arbitrary and anecdotal.

It doesnt adress the fact that soloists will complain about facing four mans. And while I too want to bring in and retain as many chads, jims, johns etc the arbitray 4 man limit you espouse means I cannot bring in and retain Tim, Tom, Larry and Zeke really.

Any group size in solo queue will be complained about. Any size group mixed in solo queue will he exploited by some crew that wants to take advantage of clubbing seals. Two man, four man, six man. Doesnt matter. This is why I am not a fan of adding groups, no matter how small, to the solo queue currently. If the game had a larger playerbase where MM could function effectively and use not only tieriing but group sizes as well in setting up teams, then I would argue that solo queue should go away entirely but thats all hypothetical at this point.

The difference here regarding capping group queue is that NOTHING but player choice prevents folks from getting together and forming larger groups and in fact you have a plethora of tools to accomplish just that. So, capping grpup size to cater to a small grpup demograhic is the same as penalizing players for playing builds optimal in this game because frankenmech/LRM/lore build pilots believe its unfair to them. Its not unfair. Its a choice. You choose to not use the tools and build a larger group, or use voip, or build good mechs etc and then folks complain the matches arent balanced.

RestosIII, on 03 January 2017 - 11:55 AM, said:

Maybe we don't want to "engage with the community", but just play with 1 friend without getting turned into target practice for a group on TS comms that have the coordination of a flight control tower?

So the group of guys that want to play together in a coordinated fashion, that already suffer a significant tonnage penalty, should be further penalized so you can play with your one buddy? Doesnt seem like a great balancing idea in the slightest.

[RestosIII]

Lukoi Banacek, on 03 January 2017 - 12:18 PM, said:

So the group of guys that want to play together in a coordinated fashion, that already suffer a significant tonnage penalty, should be further penalized so you can play with your one buddy? Doesnt seem like a great balancing idea in the slightest.

I have no idea how getting a 2 man group into QP would penalize the 6-8 man groups in group queue. I'd like to hear you explanation as to how it does penalize them though.

[xTrident]

RestosIII, on 03 January 2017 - 12:12 PM, said:

This is an arena shooter. In comparable arena shooters, like the entire Wargaming line and War Thunder, 2-3 man groups are 100% fine. And telling people to shove off if they don't want to run 8 man groups without getting creamed is how you keep new players from joining. I have several friends that are actually interested in MW:O, but won't play because it would suck to try and play without us dropping together, and dear lord we don't want to commit suicide.

The White Knights, whales and other PGI apologists don't seem to care whether or not MWO gains any new players though...

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 03 January 2017 - 12:16 PM, said:

Which is why this game really needs a more adaptive matchmaker than it currently has, one that you might find in something like Overwatch where everyone whether solo or a 6-man is technically in the same queue but the matchmaker tries to group those who are close together in size with each other. Really given the status of the release valves regarding PSR in all but prime time, the size of the group should take priority over PSR of the group.

At this point I agree with so many others that point to the game population or lack thereof on why it's just not possible... Wait times would increase drastically while the match maker tries to find the most fair match possible for each player. There simply isn't enough of a player base right now.

Edited by xTrident, 03 January 2017 - 12:28 PM.