184 replies to this topic

[Hanky Spam]

Appogee, on 07 January 2017 - 12:04 AM, said:

Check the recruiting threads and join a unit. Many of them are casual units and have minimal requirements.

Or go to one of the faction hubs and start participating in their group drops. FRR is the most active and is very welcoming of new players.

Something that 4.1 taught me was, that it is since 4.1 impossible to play as solo-pug, thanks to the one-bucket.
I just can highly recommend to join an unit and start playing coordinated.

[Appogee]

Just played a FP match where someone on my team did 84 damage.

And he was not a disco. That's was his total damage across 4 Mechs.

He made the guy on our team who did 264 damage look good.

[slide]

Appogee, on 06 January 2017 - 11:29 PM, said:

I said a matchmaker was needed in this thread, and said it's the necessary answer in many other threads previously. However, as PGI has no plan to actually make one, something else needs to be done to make FP viable.

"You and everyone like you need to get over the idea that" grouping up to ROFLstomp teams hobbled by half a dozen inexperienced players will remain a viable playground for you...



Experienced players and small groups won't keep showing up and serving as cannon fodder for you in impossible carry missions. This will just as surely "consign the whole mode to the scrap heap in the same way that has happened before".

There needs to be qualification criteria to be able to play the mode, matchmaking taking into account group sizes, and even better, a weighted incentive system like the one described by Deathlike earlier in this thread.

LOL your complaining about ARMD grouping up and stomping. LOL After I joined that group I think we went about 5 wins and 3 losses and none of the games were stomps by any measure.

But this earlier today


You had the 4 man on your side. No one to my knowledge was grouped on my side and not one word was said in chat or on voip the whole match. Guess the reason you lost was solely on the poor beggar who only managed 84 dmg and apparently shot you in the back as well.

Just because the game deals you a bad hand is no reason to remove 80% of the players. I spend most of my time dropping solo in FP because up until recently almost no one has wanted to play FP in my unit, I play exclusively IS and have seen more than my fair share of idiot pugs (I am level 17 in Davion) and rofl stomp 12 mans (against me) and I still say everyone should be able to play. If as you say PGI won't put in a match maker then the mode is doomed and nothing you or me has to say will change that. All I know for certain is that fewer players (of any level) will make the mode die that much quicker.

EdIt: was posting this picture as you were posting yours

Edited by slide, 07 January 2017 - 04:21 AM.

[Livewyr]

The only way to do less than 500 damage in a FP match (at least last time I played) was to either get steamrolled by a coordinated 12man that wiped your first wave and just spawncamped your team.. (which did happen on occasion)

Or to not have sufficient grasp of the game's combat mechanics, including position and how to "trade" effectively.

I see the OP's point. (Hell, I've *made* the OP's point.) Faction Play was meant to be the end game content... even if PGI didn't & doesn't know how to make it. Bringing in someone who doesn't have a solid grasp on the mechanics just screws over everyone else who does.

Edited by Livewyr, 07 January 2017 - 04:39 AM.

[Appogee]

slide, on 07 January 2017 - 04:18 AM, said:

LOL your complaining about ARMD grouping up and stomping.

No. I am not complaining about people grouping up and stomping. So do not mischaracterise my pov.

I want FP to have balanced matches, and one way to help make that happen is to stop letting unqualified and unskilled players drop into FP matches.

People who want to group up can and should continue to do so. (It would be even better if there was some kind of groupsize matching as well.)

slide, on 07 January 2017 - 04:18 AM, said:

But this earlier today... You had the 4 man on your side. No one to my knowledge was grouped on my side and not one word was said in chat or on voip the whole match.

That was the mildest kind of example of the general point I've been making. It was relatively even match, but it does demonstrate how a couple of totally unskilled players can screw a team over.

The final outcome in that match was 48-33. Two players on our team did 84 and 264 damage, and lost all their Mechs before the 4th wave. So that's 8 fairly useless Mechs out of the 15 we lost by. And that's not counting the impact of the 12 v 10 in the last two waves, after the unskilled players went permadead too early.

But it wasn't a gamechanger because our team deserved to lose that match anyway. It wasn't a "bad" match of the nature of stomps I've been talking about in this thread. Your team played better throughout and deserved to win.

That's why I congratulated your team at the end of the match.

Just FYI I (and the the 4 DSx guys) were trying to get our side to fight more strategically, via chat. If we'd been successful, the result might have only been an 8-Mech loss instead of 15.

slide, on 07 January 2017 - 04:18 AM, said:

Just because the game deals you a bad hand is no reason to remove 80% of the players.

It's not about me or my bad luck in any particular match. It's about keeping the whole mode viable, instead of letting it go back to another desert.

Like you, I can barely convince the guys in my unit to play this mode anymore, because it's either "stomp or be stomped" depending on who gets the unskilled PUGs making up their numbers.

Edited by Appogee, 07 January 2017 - 06:18 AM.

[Insufficient Skill]

redacted

Edited by Insufficient Skill, 26 February 2017 - 05:13 AM.

[blackbullitt]

it always amazing how clanners are ignorant to the real issue killing fw, and thats op clanner mechs. a heavy is is a lot of time no match for a medium clan mech. when the player skill is the same or better on the is side.
i have seen so many switch sides because it is frustrating and pgi knows but wont have the stones to do what is really needed. either go real lore or dump it.
yes you want to think you are just better but your not. its like racing a Ferrari against a vw bettle. there are times the bettle may win. but come on.
look at the next crappy mechs they are giving us. there looks cool attitude but crap doesnt help the spot we are in.
just to be clear i have clan and is mechs the range versitility and alphas of clans are the issue.
it either has to go uneven teams or even mechs. 25 tons is a joke!

[BLOOD WOLF]

Hanky Spam, on 07 January 2017 - 02:52 AM, said:

impossible to play as solo-pug, thanks to the one-bucket.

That has been the case since FP was introduced. Why attribute it to it being one-bucket?

[Gas Guzzler]

Hanky Spam, on 07 January 2017 - 02:52 AM, said:

Something that 4.1 taught me was, that it is since 4.1 impossible to play as solo-pug, thanks to the one-bucket.
I just can highly recommend to join an unit and start playing coordinated.

I'm not sure if that's true. I dropped in an all pug match and we beat a large Clan Wolf group yesterday.

[Willard Phule]

Gas Guzzler, on 08 January 2017 - 08:43 AM, said:

I'm not sure if that's true. I dropped in an all pug match and we beat a large Clan Wolf group yesterday.

You say that like it's an accomplishment. Clan Wolf hasn't been challenging to anyone since they became "Clan Lurmwolf."

[Appogee]

Gas Guzzler, on 08 January 2017 - 08:43 AM, said:

I'm not sure if that's true. I dropped in an all pug match and we beat a large Clan Wolf group yesterday.

Miracles will occasionally happen.

However, I suggest to you that IS soloists beating a Clan Wolf group is less of a miracle and more analogous to Clan soloists beating a Davion group

[Gas Guzzler]

Willard Phule, on 08 January 2017 - 10:43 AM, said:

You say that like it's an accomplishment. Clan Wolf hasn't been challenging to anyone since they became "Clan Lurmwolf."

No I didn't, don't make things up. I was just saying it as a counterpoint to "It's impossible to play Faction Play 4.1 as a solo pug." Did you not read the context of my post?

[Appogee]

Willard Phule, on 08 January 2017 - 10:43 AM, said:

You say that like it's an accomplishment. Clan Wolf hasn't been challenging to anyone since they became "Clan Lurmwolf."

On a related point, about 5 of us from my unit dropped against a TCAF 12-man yesterday. They were defending Sulfurous Rift and used 6 or more LRM boats in every wave.

[Gas Guzzler]

Appogee, on 08 January 2017 - 10:53 AM, said:

Miracles will occasionally happen.

However, I suggest to you that IS soloists beating a Clan Wolf group is less of a miracle and more analogous to Clan soloists beating a Davion group

Sure.. it is possible to have a good game as a solo, hence, not impossible.

[WhineyThePoo]

We can clearly see that just a few bad players can screw over their team.

[Redacted]

Edited by draiocht, 08 January 2017 - 12:57 PM.
name & shame

[Davegt27]

he already explained he got team killed and then disconnected out of frustration

that is probably one reason the name and shame is put into place

there might be other reason for poor performance
but we like to paint with a pretty broad stroke don't we
we often assume we are great and have God like tactics and piloting skills

[Appogee]

WhineyThePoo, on 08 January 2017 - 11:59 AM, said:

We can clearly see that just a few bad players can screw over their team.

I wrote in a separate thread about how I got trolled in that match from the moment I spawned, then got TKed by the troll, and then disconnected (first time I've ever done that deliberately in more than 10,000 matches).

In fact, I announced that in game before I disconnected, to your team and to mine.

But it made no difference to your group drop, did it. Kerching, 600 damage, not even a single Mech killed in the process. WP, potato farming at its finest.

However, I don't begrudge you or anyone playing in a group, or winning through individual skill. I like playing in groups - and against groups - too, when I can.

It's the matching of groups against soloists - especially completely unskilled soloists - that risks the ongoing viability of FP.

Maybe you don't care whether skilled soloists stop showing up for FP matches. Maybe you're happy to just keep farming potatoes with your buddies.

But I think it would be better if there were a way skilled soloists could be encouraged to keep dropping, perhaps by matchmaking based on group size. That would even the matches out somewhat.

Edited by Appogee, 08 January 2017 - 01:25 PM.
Quote Clean-Up

[Appogee]

Davegt27, on 08 January 2017 - 12:35 PM, said:

we often assume we are great and have God like tactics and piloting skills

Those guys were either a few groups who dropped together, or maybe a larger group, hard to know.

Either way they were skilled pilots, playing against soloists. They deserved to win what was clearly a very imbalanced match.

The question raised in this thread is whether skilled soloists should be dropped with unskilled soloists, and then be matched up against large groups.

As I've explained, I doubt it's viable in the long term.

Edited by Appogee, 08 January 2017 - 12:56 PM.

[VonBruinwald]

Quote

For some of us, the fun comes in playing against other experienced players, in evenly-based contests of strategy and skill. Faction Play is the mode that was designed for us to have that kind of fun.

I'll agree that faction play was intended for competitive pay but if you really want the newbies to give you your space remove all the incentives to play FW. Those loyalty rewards should be migrated across to QP and the MC rewards for conquering planets needs to go. That way you can have your competitive play without the lure of incentives FW offers drawing the newbies. As it stands, newbies are encouraged to play FW if only for the free mechbays.

[Appogee]

VonBruinwald, on 08 January 2017 - 12:55 PM, said:

As it stands, newbies are encouraged to play FW if only for the free mechbays.

Good point. I hadn't thought of that aspect.