182 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

naterist, on 04 February 2017 - 03:57 AM, said:

units and groups already have comp, go back to that if you want to fight each other.

You mean private matches? Because that's what comp is.

Better idea - have stock/lore contests, run private matches all you want for that.

There is a pug queue, a 1-4man casual queue (what group queue got turned in to) and FW. Groups have 1 queue, that's FW.

I realize it's very threatening to people who just want to derp that there are people who don't want to derp, so there's this steady pressure to try and make derping the top tier and all encompassing environment so people can derp and still pretend they're good at the game.

However this is a 12v12 game. That it already works so hard to dilute the ability and opportunity of players to make groups of 12 and put even a microbe of effort in...., well that's it's own problem.

Go derp in QP. No need to despair every possible corner of the game worth the idea that playing with more than 2 people is like HAX and being able to build a good mech and shoot straight is like bullying.

[naterist]

Reza Malin, on 04 February 2017 - 03:31 PM, said:

That was a thread i made, that got similarly assaulted by a few of the established teams, like this one has.

it always seems like the same guys bashing ideas on here too, dont it, lol.

[AnimeFreak40K]

Here are my thoughts on the matter and you all can take it for what it's worth:

FW should have a wall/gate to it, not a big wall, but a wall nonetheless. That wall is thus:
- Complete the Tutorial/Training area. You don't have to get all the achievements, but you should at least have completed that much.
- Have 1 full drop deck of mechs that you own; no trials. This is not because Trials are bad (though many are...not optimal), but because by the time a player has gotten enough games to own 4 mechs means that they have a pretty decent idea of how the game works and what works for them.
- Complete the Cadet Bonus. This *should* go without saying given that a player should have done this by the time they have earned 4 mechs... but then again, this prevents someone from dropping some real money on the game getting some bots and jumping into FW outright too,

I feel that FW *should* be open to as many people as reasonably possible, but those people should also have an idea of how to play the game, accomplish the missions and function in this game.

The fact of the matter, a fact that I think far too many people are *FORGETTING* is that MWO has a fairly low population, all things considered. More to the point, FW has an even LOWER population. And a lot of the problems that exist in FW are due to that low population. Doing things like implementing a MatchMaker, removing PUGs, limiting units or other suggestions that limit the population of those that can play FW will only make those problems worse.

Did you guys already forget what happened when PGI went and split the Units from the Solos? Because I didn't. Both Units and PUGs were crying all over Twitter to Russ about how they couldn't find matches (I did not run into this problem much myself when I was going Solo...but then again, I only played during NA Primetime, when population isn't much of a problem as a general thing). The queues were merged in a week.

So to you people who want high walls/barriers to get into FW or make FW some sort of place where only units/comp/high-end players go to play need to get over yourselves and face reality. And reality is that MWO does not have the population to support what you want and FW even less-so.

As a point of clarity with regards to my position, I am a casual player, which I define as someone who is about average at best and who doesn't give two f**ks about the meta...or the lore and instead just wants to run around in a giant stompy robot shooting other giant stompy robots. I am more than willing to work as a team and follow instructions, but I won't have someone tell me I can't bring a LRM boat when I want to LRM...nor will I tolerate someone that tells me if I am not running a certain drop-deck with certain mechs and builds. I like my La Malinche, and my LRM Troll-Cat. I like my Shotgun Marauders (both Clan and IS) and my Streak Jenner IIc. I know none of these builds or mechs are optimal, but they're fun and I enjoy them...and that's all that matters to me.
This is why I will gladly join a team and jump on Comms (Naterist and other FRR folks know me well enough, because I don't hesitate to go in the LFG TS when I have an IS contract)...but I refuse to actually join a unit.
Despite this, I understand that FW is where the big kids play. I understand that because of my outlook, my builds and such that I am going to get my teeth kicked in. I get that I am just as likely going to run across a 12-man comp team as I am a group of PUGs that aren't even using team-chat...much less VOIP.

I point all of that out about myself as a player, because I prefer FW to QP. I like the addition of the QP maps/missions and the new dynamic. I like the population boost and adjustments so that it's easier/faster to get a match regardless of which side I'm on. As someone who rolls solo 90% of the time and seen some *terrible* builds from both IS and Clan, I do feel that there should be some minimum requirements so those playing can get the most out of the experience.

That's just my spare change on the matter...

[MischiefSC]

I'm against barriers to entry - would rather have better tools to help new/inexperienced players get wrapped into teams. Would rather some sort of matchmaking take place as much as possible to match teams to teams.

Also strongly favor scaling rewards based on relative "PSR" of the teams and bonuses for team dropping in less than 12 and carrying pugs, plus steep bonuses for pug teams doing well (win or lose) vs premades.

A lot of ways to promote good play, skew matches to team v team and still reward people pugging in FW. All QP does is teach people to play poorly, better to learn in FW.

[Clownwarlord]

MischiefSC, on 04 February 2017 - 05:42 PM, said:

I'm against barriers to entry - would rather have better tools to help new/inexperienced players get wrapped into teams. Would rather some sort of matchmaking take place as much as possible to match teams to teams.

I can agree with what you said. Currently MWO has a horrible system to join units. Basically you have to go to a third party website owned by a unit to send in an application. Then comes the wait. They either respond in a day at most if they are looking for people or they never respond ... ever. That is if you are the person looking for a unit, because outside of that you have to find some TS info hop in and hopefully find some people will to talk and play in a group for you to meet.

On the other side of the fence, from a unit stand point. They have to actively come to the forums and search for posts usually found in the same thread "looking for a unit" and then send them in game invites or send them messages here on the website. Issue with that is the disconnect between website and game.

[naterist]

MischiefSC, on 04 February 2017 - 05:42 PM, said:

I'm against barriers to entry - would rather have better tools to help new/inexperienced players get wrapped into teams. Would rather some sort of matchmaking take place as much as possible to match teams to teams.

Also strongly favor scaling rewards based on relative "PSR" of the teams and bonuses for team dropping in less than 12 and carrying pugs, plus steep bonuses for pug teams doing well (win or lose) vs premades.

A lot of ways to promote good play, skew matches to team v team and still reward people pugging in FW. All QP does is teach people to play poorly, better to learn in FW.

you cant expect new people to learn in faction play without trying to seperate them from stomps by guys who spend all nighters memorizing strategies and dps numbers and whatnot, then expect them to just get better. its true learning from experience works, but in a 48-7 game no newb learns anything but how to hate units. thats why were saying it needs to be seperated somehow. until newbs can use mw5 as a training ground to get somewhat OK at the game in a safe environment, we need to think of alternate options.

[MischiefSC]

naterist, on 04 February 2017 - 06:26 PM, said:

you cant expect new people to learn in faction play without trying to seperate them from stomps by guys who spend all nighters memorizing strategies and dps numbers and whatnot, then expect them to just get better. its true learning from experience works, but in a 48-7 game no newb learns anything but how to hate units. thats why were saying it needs to be seperated somehow. until newbs can use mw5 as a training ground to get somewhat OK at the game in a safe environment, we need to think of alternate options.

Nobody is memorizing strategies and DPS numbers. Don't be disingenuous l. The most successful teams in FW just show up, bring good robbits and actually execute on calls. They have enough practice and pay enough attention to have decent aim and positioning. It's nothing any other player can't do with a minimum of effort. That's a big part of the issue.

I see new players get help daily. 90% of what I know about FW that works I learned by playing, sticking with good players, playing to my team and paying attention. That's it.

That's the opportunity you want to give people. Even better I'd love to be able to just click on someones name in a match and invite them to group so right after the match they're already in lobby with us. I'd like to be able to click on "send TS" and they just get a message with a link to the TS I'm in. As you can't even copy and paste in MWO chat that's another hassle.

I'd like the ability to include and integrate people who are not in my unit so it's easy to collect and wrap in new people in FW to help them learn to play.

Like I said - I see new/inexperienced players get help daily. That needs to be easier. There's no magic, no memorizing strats and dps or such. What's a good robbit, stick with the team, follow the calls, learn through trial and error good and bad choices on positioning, twisting, etc.

A new player with a great attitude could Rocky Training Montage up to a 1K average in short order. Couple of weeks.

[Carl Vickers]

naterist, on 04 February 2017 - 06:26 PM, said:

you cant expect new people to learn in faction play without trying to seperate them from stomps by guys who spend all nighters memorizing strategies and dps numbers and whatnot, then expect them to just get better. its true learning from experience works, but in a 48-7 game no newb learns anything but how to hate units. thats why were saying it needs to be seperated somehow. until newbs can use mw5 as a training ground to get somewhat OK at the game in a safe environment, we need to think of alternate options.

Problem is, MW5 is not going to fix the issue. It may teach them positioning, but Im not sure it will, it wont teach them mech lab fu as the rumors are no mech lab, or very minimal at least and the final thing it wont teach them social skills.

[MischiefSC]

It's a team game. Full stop. Teamwork is more critical than aiming accuracy in MWO. I can have pretty poor aim but run splat boats and face-huggers and if I'm a fearless team player I'm still going to be a good contributer.

You can never join a unit and be a great team player. FW has many of those.

Edited by MischiefSC, 04 February 2017 - 06:50 PM.

[AnimeFreak40K]

Carl Vickers, on 04 February 2017 - 06:47 PM, said:

Problem is, MW5 is not going to fix the issue. It may teach them positioning, but Im not sure it will, it wont teach them mech lab fu as the rumors are no mech lab, or very minimal at least and the final thing it wont teach them social skills.

I'll go one further - MW5 may well and truly destroy much of the population of MWO.

Don't get me wrong, MWO is a fine game, even with all of the problems (big and small) that it has, and is quite fun. But the fact of the matter is that there are a number of folks here that don't want PvP. They never wanted PvP...the only reason why they came here in the first place is because there was the implication that there would be PvE.

Some of these folks have moved on, some hold out hope that there will be full PvE in MWO at some point (I honestly doubt this myself) and others are just hanging out here because they get their giant stompy robot fix in while waiting for MW5, because MW5 will be PvE only (at least that's my understanding of it).

[Reza Malin]

I see a lot of guys here, repeating the same things over and over. People just banging on about teams and joining VOIP, like they haven't been doing that for the past 3 years now, even before FP or in game chat existed. It hasn't achieved f**k all.

This is just my opinion, but maybe because, once you join a unit, the majority of them turn out to be some strange pseudo-military wannabe group, with "training" sessions, and telling people what they should or shouldn't be doing.

The problem isn't that the system for joining units is difficult, far from it. Its not hard to enter a TS channel or apply on a website. Its because some of the units are bloody strange, and people just can't be arsed with the hassle. A lot of people just want to play the game, and play FP rather than QP, without having to justify everything they do.

[Carl Vickers]

Reza Malin, on 04 February 2017 - 08:14 PM, said:

I see a lot of guys here, repeating the same things over and over. People just banging on about teams and joining VOIP, like they haven't been doing that for the past 3 years now, even before FP or in game chat existed. It hasn't achieved f**k all.

This is just my opinion, but maybe because, once you join a unit, the majority of them turn out to be some strange pseudo-military wannabe group, with "training" sessions, and telling people what they should or shouldn't be doing.

The problem isn't that the system for joining units is difficult, far from it. Its not hard to enter a TS channel or apply on a website. Its because some of the units are bloody strange, and people just can't be arsed with the hassle. A lot of people just want to play the game, and play FP rather than QP, without having to justify everything they do.

Hey, no issue with people wanting to play games, just dont whinge and whine why you get slapped cause you brought lurms to a direct fire fight.

From my own experience with units, some are good some are bad and make you jump through hoops. Just find some peeps you like dropping with and either join their unit or make a unit.

[LordNothing]

im a pug and i dont think a match maker would work. it doesnt even work in quick play very well. but i have mentioned systems that would help players self regulate.

honor system, use less tonnage, fewer mechs, etc, you should get extra for it. im thinking up to 2-4x planet capture progression or extra cbills or something like that. its totally opt in and you get to see your enemy first. makes some matches fairer.

unit rivalries. encourage units to play units in scheduled ranked games. a 12 man exclusive feature. victories do count towards planet capture and are worth more. make it a choice between farming pugs for 8 hours or fighing units for 4 hours. gives 12s a more lucrative path to planet capture and removes them from the regular lobby, so more pug v pug games.

group type sorting. minimalist non-psr based matchmaker (though i hate to use the term because the psr based matchmaker will never work in fp) that only cares about group composition (pugs, groups, 12 mans, or mixed). groups are given a puginess rating (numberPlayers - (numberGroups - 1)) and opponents are matched by closest ratings first. coordination level balanced, not fool proof but better than what we currently have.

freelancer as noob mode. give freelancer its own bucket and skill tree. skill tree serves as a gate to other career paths. you would need to get rank 3 to play call to arms and rank 5 to change careers. you would be permitted to use trials in the freelancer bucket (they would be banned in other career modes) and there would be mixed teams (clan and is on same team, sort of like quick play), possibly 8v8. potatos could stay until rank 10 and collect rewards and it would be a place where t4s and 5s can hang out. this gives you new player experience, training, potato containment, gating, getting rid of trials in fp.

Edited by LordNothing, 05 February 2017 - 12:47 AM.

[TWIAFU]

Reza Malin, on 04 February 2017 - 08:14 PM, said:

I see a lot of guys here, repeating the same things over and over. People just banging on about teams and joining VOIP, like they haven't been doing that for the past 3 years now, even before FP or in game chat existed. It hasn't achieved f**k all.

This is just my opinion, but maybe because, once you join a unit, the majority of them turn out to be some strange pseudo-military wannabe group, with "training" sessions, and telling people what they should or shouldn't be doing.

The problem isn't that the system for joining units is difficult, far from it. Its not hard to enter a TS channel or apply on a website. Its because some of the units are bloody strange, and people just can't be arsed with the hassle. A lot of people just want to play the game, and play FP rather than QP, without having to justify everything they do.

And you know this because you have actually joined a majority of them or you just talking out your ***? We already know the answer, talking out your ***.

Now that we established you are full of ****, let me tell you about Unit training. Unit's train members so all are on the same page. If there is no set standard then you have no organization and no teamwork, your playing QP with a bunch of self serving 'tards. Unit's train so they all have the same understanding of the game. Unit's train so they know how to work with each other as a team, since this is a team game. Unit's train to establish and foster leadership skills that help with drop calling. Units train to share knowledge and experiences with each other so all become better pilots.

I see a lot of special snowflakes perpetuating the ******** that units are some hardcore, six day a week, 2 hours a day, second job. Im sure there are and they have W/L ration to back up that kind of training, most are not, clearly not your "majority". Usually the same few complaing how evil Units are without any knowledge of Units, a total refusal to participate based on ********, and the removal of Units from Unit queue from non-unit, non-group solo players.

[KingCobra]

DeathLike said (would argue skittles vs skittles are the worst.

"Close" games tend to be chaotic... because very little teamwork (let alone intelligence) is actually being applied.

Skittles groups teach you nothing, and allow bad habits to be exhibited there.

It's bad for the game as a whole.)

Sir the only group splitting the FW queue would be bad for is groups because then they would only play other groups and the seal clubbing would end just like it did inn solo MM queues.

Once Russ pulls his head out and realizes that groups are the ones actually driving away new players from the game and those new players are not paying into a game where they (new players/casual players )go 20 loses and 1 win a night he might get smart and finally separate groups from the rest of the MWO population for good.

And like I said groups finally would then get there hard core mode in MWO as all they would play is other groups if they cry to PGI then I would tell the groups to bad you asked for it carry harder. LOL

[Deathlike]

KingCobra, on 05 February 2017 - 08:21 AM, said:

Sir the only group splitting the FW queue would be bad for is groups because then they would only play other groups and the seal clubbing would end just like it did inn solo MM queues.

Once Russ pulls his head out and realizes that groups are the ones actually driving away new players from the game and those new players are not paying into a game where they (new players/casual players )go 20 loses and 1 win a night he might get smart and finally separate groups from the rest of the MWO population for good.

And like I said groups finally would then get there hard core mode in MWO as all they would play is other groups if they cry to PGI then I would tell the groups to bad you asked for it carry harder. LOL

Seal clubbing happens when there are "skittles" (aka rainbow pugs) or when teammates don't work together. This is usually the #1 problem above all else.

There needs to be some level of gating for new players only to avoid this... this is NOT where they should be jumping into in any immediacy.

Groups are not driving away players... PGI's insistence of not having a good NPE (in the form of not ever really addressing it) and not giving the tools for new players to learn (through grouping, ideally though the LFG) is the core problem.

Blaming groups is what above all else is how you kill the game. A game that promotes teamwork, but never actually provides methods of achieving it... well, that's a developer's problem.

[KingCobra]

DeathLike said (Seal clubbing happens when there are "skittles" (aka rainbow pugs) or when teammates don't work together. This is usually the #1 problem above all else.

There needs to be some level of gating for new players only to avoid this... this is NOT where they should be jumping into in any immediacy.

Groups are not driving away players... PGI's insistence of not having a good NPE (in the form of not ever really addressing it) and not giving the tools for new players to learn (through grouping, ideally though the LFG) is the core problem.

Blaming groups is what above all else is how you kill the game. A game that promotes teamwork, but never actually provides methods of achieving it... well, that's a developer's problem. )
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Sir groups have been MWO biggest problem since the beginning of closed beta groups should have had there own separate mm queues from the start with there own Social lobby system to recruit players and train players and play 2v2-12v12 solaris and planetary games.

The rest of the new players/casuals/pugs should have had there own solo and FW mm queues from the start of this game then both types of players could have been happy and payed into MWO more over the years instead PGI in there arrogance and incompetence in game design threw all the new players/casuals/pugs to the wolfs we call groups to be chewed up as cannon fodder over and over again until we have lost over 500,000 good prospective players and payers.

So now we have such a low game population it may never get back to what even the population was at the end of closed beta so Sir you are quite wrong.

[PFC Carsten]

justcallme A S H, on 03 February 2017 - 07:00 PM, said:

I'm not missing anything.

A whole lot in fact. For example that facts do not speak in your favor. But continue on in that separate little world of yours. Faction Play will surely continue to thrive like it has been doing all along. LOL

[Deathlike]

KingCobra, on 05 February 2017 - 09:35 AM, said:

Sir groups have been MWO biggest problem since the beginning of closed beta groups should have had there own separate mm queues from the start with there own Social lobby system to recruit players and train players and play 2v2-12v12 solaris and planetary games.

The rest of the new players/casuals/pugs should have had there own solo and FW mm queues from the start of this game then both types of players could have been happy and payed into MWO more over the years instead PGI in there arrogance and incompetence in game design threw all the new players/casuals/pugs to the wolfs we call groups to be chewed up as cannon fodder over and over again until we have lost over 500,000 good prospective players and payers.

So now we have such a low game population it may never get back to what even the population was at the end of closed beta so Sir you are quite wrong.

Actually, the bigger problem is beta (at least in Open Beta) was actually forcing 4-man teams max. That was actually a fundamental population culling method deployed.

Solos eventually got their own solo queues too many years too late, but what's worse is that the level of play is so low level, you would think players are all meant to be selfish instead of trying to work in a teamwork oriented game.

It's certainly a fault of PGI's, but blaming on groups is a very faulty assertion when the game is all about teamwork.

[KingCobra]

Look I play in a huge group with meta players and I play solo and I can tell you groups have always been the problem because they drove the seal clubbing meta and Russ and PGI went along with it until the game population is in the dumps.

And even today PGI is unwilling to listen to reason and save there game they would rather let the groups=there playing buddies ruin the whole game and be shut down than change the core of the game to suit everyone.

END OF STORY.