59 replies to this topic

[Quicksilver Aberration]

process, on 10 January 2017 - 11:48 AM, said:

Voting is a useful tool to avoid bad maps and, to a lesser degree, bad game modes. If PGI were to make every map and mode good, then I would be fine with random.

This ^

[Deathlike]

WarHippy, on 10 January 2017 - 11:44 AM, said:

I never saw any improvement in wait times when they implemented voting, but I did have a less enjoyable gaming experience after voting was added. Normally I am pretty sympathetic to other peoples problems, but if voting in this game has taught me anything it is that I just don't care anymore about what others want. So as someone that normally plays in US peak time and refuses to select anything other than N.American server after they added voting I absolutely would trade longer wait times for me to be able to avoid skirmish forever. That being said at this point it would be better if it was just all random all the time as a form of compromise. For me voting has been and continues to be one of the worst things they ever added to this game, and all of the problems I knew it would cause have happened(same damn maps again and again and again etc.).

Well, I personally didn't limit gamemodes, so these changes have no effect on me.

If you were totally reliant on said changes and didn't notice any difference... then congrats.

I've already read enough complaints where people were playing in off-peak times (primarily Oceanic) and wondering why they weren't getting games, particularly because they limited gamemodes. This ontop of selecting limited server regions (I'd say most people by default would have removed 1 of them, due to latency) would do the same job.. if not worse than we have right now.

Unless you're on the West Coast side of North America, you would less likely to consider Oceanic as a valid server choice (most likely you would consider Europe instead).

Modes don't bother me (I would still pick my preference during the silly voting process - some modes still suck) as much as latency.

Edited by Deathlike, 10 January 2017 - 01:30 PM.

[Snazzy Dragon]

process, on 10 January 2017 - 11:48 AM, said:

Voting is a useful tool to avoid bad maps and, to a lesser degree, bad game modes. If PGI were to make every map and mode good, then I would be fine with random.

I don't know about that. I put a 10x vote AWAY from polar earlier today and got to be narced on a team with 0 ECM mechs (thanks PGI) on that damn map.

I high tailed it outside of 1k meters but it cost me an arm

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Snazzy Dragon, on 10 January 2017 - 01:50 PM, said:

I don't know about that. I put a 10x vote AWAY from polar earlier today and got to be narced on a team with 0 ECM mechs (thanks PGI) on that damn map.

I high tailed it outside of 1k meters but it cost me an arm

Polar isn't really a bad map, that said NARCs are stupidly powerful in solo queue on that map, enough that I wish it was nerfed a bit in how long it stays attached to a mech.

[Mystere]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 January 2017 - 01:54 PM, said:

Polar isn't really a bad map, that said NARCs are stupidly powerful in solo queue on that map, enough that I wish it was nerfed a bit in how long it stays attached to a mech.

If we nerfed anything and everything that was so-called "stupidly powerful in solo queue on that map", then all we will end up with are stupidly useless things on all other maps.

[Snazzy Dragon]

Mystere, on 10 January 2017 - 02:02 PM, said:

If we nerfed anything and everything that was so-called "stupidly powerful in solo queue on that map", then all we will end up with are stupidly useless things on all other maps.

We obviously must nerf everything until the inner sphere small laser is the most overpowered weapon in the game!

[Crockdaddy]

Mawai, on 09 January 2017 - 01:11 PM, said:

Unfortunately, they can't give the players back choice without breaking the game and queue times.

Period.

The longer answer is that MANY players prefer one or two modes and those are the only ones they select.

The recent stocking stuffer was a good example. I had 13 skirmish, 13 assault, 8 domination, 8 escort and 5 conquest matches. See a pattern? Even with the choice of only 2 game modes ... certain modes are selected far less often. However, if you translated this into hard choices rather than votes you would probably very rarely get an escort, domination or conquest match.

Even when we had game mode selection, I initially played only skirmish. I later switched to any of the three ... however, most of my matches were still skirmish.

The bottom line is that game mode choice does not work with the number of available game modes, game population and reasonable queue times. In fact, I suspect that their current matchmaker would not work at all with hard game mode selection and would need to be significantly upgraded to deal with it. As a result, for all these reasons, I don't ever expect to see hard game or map mode selection available.

Conquest is the most interesting mode. It also pays the best by far. It is largely a death match mode with a hint of possibly some other outcome and best of all ... when the douche bag Shadow Cat with ECM hides and wall runs you don't have to run it down to finish the match.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Mystere, on 10 January 2017 - 02:02 PM, said:

If we nerfed anything and everything that was so-called "stupidly powerful in solo queue on that map", then all we will end up with are stupidly useless things on all other maps.

That's mostly because LRMs don't do effective damage, give them the ability to auto hit the CT and faster travel times and that tune would change. The problem with NARC is much like LRMs but magnified, when it does work, it is brutal and is only countered by time (which it can take what, 40 some odd seconds with modules or something?), range (1000m is a long distance), and ECM otherwise it is mostly worthless. If it were able to be knocked off by certain amounts of damage like they were in MW4 it would be much better and have much better counter play.

I'm normally of the opinion that things should be balanced top-down, BUT, there are some stupid mechanics that can be abused when there is a lack of coordination and those things must be considered as well.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 10 January 2017 - 02:10 PM.

[Deathlike]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 January 2017 - 02:10 PM, said:

That's mostly because LRMs don't do effective damage, give them the ability to auto hit the CT and faster travel times and that tune would change. The problem with NARC is much like LRMs but magnified, when it does work, it is brutal and is only countered by time (which it can take what, 40 some odd seconds with modules or something?), range (1000m is a long distance), and ECM otherwise it is mostly worthless. If it were able to be knocked off by certain amounts of damage like they were in MW4 it would be much better and have much better counter play.

I'm normally of the opinion that things should be balanced top-down, BUT, there are some stupid mechanics that can be abused when there is a lack of coordination and those things must be considered as well.

Relative to NARC, it took forever before PGI finally made it useful... essentially being a counter to NARC.

Making it only be effective for a certain amount of LRM damage was kinda silly though, due in part to spread effect of LRMs (which since this change have a much better spread now), but that's something that iterative changes would have resolved.

You know... Lostech.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Deathlike, on 10 January 2017 - 02:16 PM, said:

Relative to NARC, it took forever before PGI finally made it useful... essentially being a counter to NARC.

Making it only be effective for a certain amount of LRM damage was kinda silly though, due in part to spread effect of LRMs (which since this change have a much better spread now), but that's something that iterative changes would have resolved.

You know... Lostech.

Well part of the problem is the difference between MW4 as well, in that missiles locked on thanks to NARC still track normally rather than track the location that was narced like they did in MW4. Basically MW4 allowed missiles to be a lot more surgical than they are in this game and things like LRMs are worse off for it.

[Deathlike]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 January 2017 - 02:19 PM, said:

Well part of the problem is the difference between MW4 as well, in that missiles locked on thanks to NARC still track normally rather than track the location that was narced like they did in MW4. Basically MW4 allowed missiles to be a lot more surgical than they are in this game and things like LRMs are worse off for it.

Well, LRMs in MW4 tracked to it's final destination and IIRC if your cursor was on the CT of the mech (while having the lock) it would hit it.. otherwise it would hit a random location on the mech (or something to that effect).

NARC in MW4 allowed a player to NOT have a lock on the mech, and track to the location of the NARC beacon once LRMs were fired. However with the weirdness of the netcode or NARC itself, it wouldn't quite always sync up properly as it should.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Deathlike, on 10 January 2017 - 02:24 PM, said:

However with the weirdness of the netcode or NARC itself, it wouldn't quite always sync up properly as it should.

It wouldn't sync visually all the time, but it still worked. I learned this during HC when Arrow IV had 2500m range and NARCs had 1000m range. You would use damage to figure out whether you got a successful NARC (since attrition gave you points based on damage) and then let arrows loose, some would describe the arrows as just flying straight yet still get points for doing damage because according to the server the missiles tracked the NARC. It was a weird desync but they did work.

Deathlike, on 10 January 2017 - 02:24 PM, said:

NARC in MW4 allowed a player to NOT have a lock on the mech, and track to the location of the NARC beacon once LRMs were fired.

This is true, but that's because the target never appeared on radar like they do in this game. I prefer MW4's approach but this is what we have sadly.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 10 January 2017 - 02:28 PM.

[Deathlike]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 January 2017 - 02:27 PM, said:

It wouldn't sync visually all the time, but it still worked. I learned this during HC when Arrow IV had 2500m range and NARCs had 1000m range. You would use damage to figure out whether you got a successful NARC (since attrition gave you points based on damage) and then let arrows loose, some would describe the arrows as just flying straight yet still get points for doing damage because according to the server the missiles tracked the NARC. It was a weird desync but they did work.

Well, MW4 had a proper HTAL (another Lostech concept). You could actually tell which component got hit by NARC.

Quote

This is true, but that's because the target never appeared on radar like they do in this game. I prefer MW4's approach but this is what we have sadly.

Yes... where LRMs would not be denied locks... just radar pickup by sensors depending on whether the target is using active/passive and that all you really needed were eyes (hovering the cursor over the target would still enable locks)... you know, that OP thing above dat nose that comes in pairs.

Edited by Deathlike, 10 January 2017 - 02:35 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Deathlike, on 10 January 2017 - 02:34 PM, said:

Well, MW4 had a proper HTAL (another Lostech concept). You could actually tell which component got hit by NARC.

You couldn't trust that with NARC all the time thanks to passive radar and ECM (meaning you didn't always have HTAL since NARC was 1000m range).

[Deathlike]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 January 2017 - 02:44 PM, said:

You couldn't trust that with NARC all the time thanks to passive radar and ECM (meaning you didn't always have HTAL since NARC was 1000m range).

I don't remember how effective it was honestly... and if it had that much range... well, lol.

Passive radar was a thing in MW4.

Good radar in MWO? Lostech.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Deathlike, on 10 January 2017 - 02:47 PM, said:

I don't remember how effective it was honestly... and if it had that much range... well, lol.

It had that range only in a specific mod (NBT-HC's special snowflake mod), in the Mektek mod I believe it was only 600m which really limited its viability (since that put you well within LL/ERLL murder range).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 10 January 2017 - 02:49 PM.

[Deathlike]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 January 2017 - 02:49 PM, said:

It had that range only in a specific mod (NBT-HC's special snowflake mod), in the Mektek mod I believe it was only 600m which really limited its viability (since that put you well within LL/ERLL murder range).

That's what I thought.

But you know what, we can still use the inferior IS version that has no real benefits over the Clan version. Yay! Balance!

[Crockdaddy]

Deathlike, on 10 January 2017 - 02:51 PM, said:

That's what I thought.

But you know what, we can still use the inferior IS version that has no real benefits over the Clan version. Yay! Balance!

At least now I know how Deathlike spams his forum count up. Sheesh

[Deathlike]

Crockdaddy, on 11 January 2017 - 09:52 AM, said:

At least now I know how Deathlike spams his forum count up. Sheesh

Who said that was hard? It doesn't take much.

It's the better game within the game!

[Dollar Bill]

Deathlike, on 10 January 2017 - 03:25 AM, said:

I don't think it would work.

Any extra constraints on the MM means longer wait times regardless of the desired outcome.

Is that what you'd be willing to trade, especially in non-peak US hours?

The old system never bothered me. Plus the voting system is not that much faster, and to me it's not worth losing the power of choosing how you want to play. What's the point of quickly getting into a game mode you hate? I'd rather wait for a mode I like than to waist my time waiting for a mode I hate, playing it out, then waiting and hoping for a mode I like.