41 replies to this topic

[OneTeamPlayer]

After pondering and reading i have noticed that many of the group players and "elite" players who discuss solo queue on the forums are of a similar idea- "It is impossible to play in a queue match with any teamwork".

I believe it is this mentality that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy which leads to the types of results we are seeing today.

Much like a politician who says government can't work, then when elected dismantles government so that it doesn't function these players claim there can be no teamwork in queue then:

• drop in groups in silence
  
• have voice comms turned off by default
  
• have ingame text chat turned off by default
  
• do not respond to requests to lead the team if they are the group
  
• do not follow attempts to lead if they are in group or solo

I'm trying to keep this brief, but in short one of the biggest drawbacks of reaching Tier 1 and why so many people mention they had some frustrating, but consistently dynamic matches in the lower tiers while in the higher tiers there is silence and repetition is that a large percentage "elite" players don't have any intention of working with their group inside the queue and thus repeat the lowest possible common denominator strategy that might lead to a win.

There will be no flanking maneuvers, no pincers, no ambush or any interesting tales out of T1 because no one is excited to tell about the match where their team rotated faster than the enemy team as it's a tale that's told literally a thousand times.

Ironically T1 players are often skilled at optimization and by optimizing into the literally easiest to use highest damage mechs (meta-mechs) near exclusively and removing any chance of deviation from a singular strategy (by closing off all avenues of communication) T1 has resigned itself to play essentially the same match on repeat consistently until the end of MWO.

If everyone is a leader there is no team and it defaults to individual play. If groups don't want to lead then it's a chunk and individuals leading to the exact same play. If everyone has no intention of communicating it leads to individuals and there is none of the wealth of possibilities and permutations that could be seen in this game.

To put simply Tier 1 is the way it is because it is a collection of the most proficient individuals in this supposedly "team" game.

Not necessarily proficient at teamwork (and often not ever even considering teamwork), but proficient at individual skills as measured by PSR (in this system especially).

Instead of a sea of possibilities and attack avenues we have a paint-by-numbers which is unquestioned and less than that, argued as the one true path.

In short, we have created our own Purgatory in what should be a Paradise of tactical opportunity.

[Scout Derek]

Nah just lack of good players not on at the same time, + a MM that doesn't take into account player skill but rather just the tier they're in results in god awful matchmaking.

Not like though, this could have been done 2-3 years ago, maybe even further back. It was too hard then. But now? super ezpz.

[Nesutizale]

I agree with OneTeamPlayer. The lack of communication while MWO has a "teamspeak" build in that is actualy working pretty well, compared to other games, is strange.

I remember that when I first dipped my toes into FP the first thing someone told me was "even if you don't talk activate "all chat" as well as VoiP even if you don't want to talk. Just listening in and following what is said is worth gold.

The other thing I learned/was tought is watch where others are going. See where they gather, see when someone needs help, share armor and try to take a second to see where someone is aiming and fire at the same target. Also call out targets that are out of position, even if its just with the radial menu.
Even this non-verbal behavoir helps the team more then anything else.

Edited by Nesutizale, 20 July 2020 - 07:24 AM.

[Bud Crue]

OneTeamPlayer, on 20 July 2020 - 07:12 AM, said:

To put simply Tier 1 is the way it is because it is a collection of the most proficient individuals in this supposedly "team" game.

I've been dropping with the same group of people for years. Now that we have soup queue we are often the single 3-4 man on a given team. Because of the way teams are treated in soup queue we occasionally find ourselves in T1 matches, and let me just say that even when most of us get to T1 individually (some are already there, most of the rest of us are rising in PSR) we will still be the kinds of players that have no business in calling a drop. That's not out of some act of selfishness or ego, and most certainly not out of a sense that we are especially proficient as individual players; but rather an acknowledgement that we are not for the most part, particularly good at the game, tier be damned.

[Kroete]

OneTeamPlayer, on 20 July 2020 - 07:12 AM, said:

Ironically T1 players are often skilled at optimization and by optimizing into the literally easiest to use highest damage mechs (meta-mechs) near exclusively and removing any chance of deviation from a singular strategy (by closing off all avenues of communication) T1 has resigned itself to play essentially the same match on repeat consistently until the end of MWO.

Seems you have never played competive?
Reduce your graphics for a few more fps and use every, not banable, exploit for a little advantage, then find one of the few useable mechs with that one build and you can, maybe, be one of them.
Sounds like fun?

[OneTeamPlayer]

Bud Crue, on 20 July 2020 - 08:20 AM, said:

we will still be the kinds of players that have no business in calling a drop. That's not out of some act of selfishness or ego, and most certainly not out of a sense that we are especially proficient as individual players; but rather an acknowledgement that we are not for the most part, particularly good at the game, tier be damned.

Knowing one's limitations is fair, but i will also point out that in the same way that individual pilot skill and teamwork are two different categories, pilot skill as an individual and tactical ability are also two different skillsets- especially when applied at the real time level.

There are plenty of players who are average at best at individual piloting who possess an almost Ender level ability to visualize battleflow and direct troops in real-time who are never tapped into because we fetishize individuals so much in a game that is based around teamwork.

It's too late for a "Commander" slot like Battlefield 2 had, but another hope i would have is that one day MWO people will get so bored of repeating the same loop that they consider that tactical ability might actually end them in some interesting and worthwhile matches even if the source has lower than a 99 W/L ratio.

It's a whole system where we place so much focus on the wrong metrics to the exclusion of all else that we make every match a barely palatable gruel and i, for one, am so full up on it that i'm about to vomit.

[Kubernetes]

It's quickplay. Your "team" is an assortment of randos who have a few seconds to figure out what they're going to do. The things you want to pull off require cohesion and trust (and appropriate loadouts).

Oh, you want to send off a lance on a flanking maneuver? Who are these guys in the flanking lance? Are they any good? Are they going to die immediately (and thus put you down 0-4)? Will they cut and run once they get shot at? And what are the guys in that lance thinking-- "Who is this potato telling us to go flank?"

If some rando I've never seen tells me to counter-rotate or move to some far-off grid square... I'm going to watch the mini-map and see what the team does. Sometimes the team moves as one and magic happens. Sometimes the team fragments (some disagree, some have no voip, some don't speak English) and we disintegrate.

I've said it before and I've said it again: Nascar doesn't dominate because some shadowy figures decided on it, it happens because it works, and it works because it's simple and it doesn't require communication or cohesion. No one is tasked with a special responsibility or is required to any special heavy lifting. You get massed firepower without needing any C3. In quickplay your team is only a team for that particular match, so this kind of simplicity is a huge plus: "Be water, my friend."

If you want complexity and interesting tactics, go play faction. Get 11 buddies, plan out strats, drop with mechs and loadouts specifically designed to do what you want to do. You want to drop on Polar with 10 SNV-As and a couple narc-Ravens? Go for it. Hammer and anvil? Double pincer? Sure, have fun. But in Quickplay? You don't even know what loadouts your teammates are carrying.

OneTeamPlayer, on 20 July 2020 - 08:45 AM, said:

There are plenty of players who are average at best at individual piloting who possess an almost Ender level ability to visualize battleflow and direct troops in real-time who are never tapped into because we fetishize individuals so much in a game that is based around teamwork.

People who can visualize the battleflow that well are top level pilots regardless of their mouse-skills, and it would be reflected in their WLR and other stats. That skill can be manifest individually by being able to consistently put yourself in the best place to inflict the most damage.

Edited by Kubernetes, 20 July 2020 - 09:23 AM.

[Nesutizale]

One can be effective even with very little communication by watching what others do and add to what they have in either armor, firepower or awarness. Damn sometimes just pointing your nose in the right direction so that the radar picks up a light that tries to backstab is usefull.

Still if you want better results, communication is king and just listening and accepting another ones commands. Sure a dropcaller might be an idiot but at least he tries and has a plan. Beside thats...plans don't allways work. So even a good drop callers plan might fail because the other guys had an even better plan or like last time we where spotted the last moment and the enemy rushed us before we had established the firing line.

[OneTeamPlayer]

Nesutizale, on 20 July 2020 - 09:25 AM, said:

Still if you want better results, communication is king and just listening and accepting another ones commands. Sure a dropcaller might be an idiot but at least he tries and has a plan. Beside thats...plans don't allways work. So even a good drop callers plan might fail because the other guys had an even better plan or like last time we where spotted the last moment and the enemy rushed us before we had established the firing line.

Truth, but we already have people in here arguing the "but if i attempt to do anything but the same thing i've done in literally every other match i might lose in a video game so let's repeat the same match until the servers shutdown".

This mentality is a virus across the so-called elite and i honestly wonder what incentives it would take to break them of the habit of comfortable repetition on the off chance they might get an interesting game win or loss.

I wish this game actually had an elite community but as it stands it just has a cadre of leaderboard toppers who are terrified of any action that might inject enjoyment at the expense of a fraction of a point drop in any of the precious "stats" which by very quirk of the way they are measured are all literally meaningless.

Truly pitiful.

[Marquis De Lafayette]

OneTeamPlayer, on 20 July 2020 - 10:09 AM, said:

Truth, but we already have people in here arguing the "but if i attempt to do anything but the same thing i've done in literally every other match i might lose in a video game so let's repeat the same match until the servers shutdown".

This mentality is a virus across the so-called elite and i honestly wonder what incentives it would take to break them of the habit of comfortable repetition on the off chance they might get an interesting game win or loss.

I wish this game actually had an elite community but as it stands it just has a cadre of leaderboard toppers who are terrified of any action that might inject enjoyment at the expense of a fraction of a point drop in any of the precious "stats" which by very quirk of the way they are measured are all literally meaningless.

Truly pitiful.

What would most likely “scratch the itch” you want scratched is Faction Warfare (FW). I know a new-ish unit (I am not in it, but drop with them some) that makes (generally) good and interesting calls...communicates the whole match and is trying to train some new pilots to the mode. They have a couple of good players, but the majority are new to FW and some to MWO. They are fun to drop with and while they win more than they lose... they aren’t obsessed with w/l. You would probably enjoy them. If you want to contact them, message me and I will get you their contact info.

[John Bronco]

More it and more it just seems like you're just playing the wrong game mode.

Many of the players at the top of the leaderboards do craft new strategies and decks to attempt to innovate on a way a map is usually played, or in an attempt to catch their opponents off guard.

But you need an actual team and planning to pull that off, which of course you will never get in quick play.

[R Valentine]

Tier 1 isn't the best players. It's the best NASCAR drivers. I've never seen teams rotate so hard, so fast, and complete so many laps until I hit tier 1 in this new PSR system.

[Spheroid]

I think segregating the tiers is not a good business decision. Since build variety is punished, leveling mechs is punished as is collecting (aka pokemech) getting to tier 1 will ultimately end with a very small pool of meta mechs and playstyles that do not promote ongoing digital sales, the only thing keeping the lights on at PGI.

For whom are these complete packs targeted towards if ultimately one of seven mech variants is meta and one out ten chassis is not complete trash?

Previously tier one pilots could farm or troll in a combined pool to great success. That behavior is considerably less prevalent from what I have so far seen. A tier one previously might bring an Anasasi out of boredom, would that happen now in the cut-throat war for quickest possible TTK?

The psychological pressure to see a skill bar increase as well as avoid social shaming in game and in the forums is continuous and not trivial. This end result of this pressure will result in fewer sales as I don't believe tier 5-3 mech collectors outnumber those who gain higher satisfaction from being labeled a winner.

Edited by Spheroid, 20 July 2020 - 10:37 AM.

[DevinMace]

Most of the tier 1 players I know in groups go counter nascar, from what they say on discord.

[Nesutizale]

I think a big problem we have with MWO and QP in particular is that there are very different expectations projected into it.

Basicly we have three groups that could generaly be sorted like this

A- A match where I jump in, shoot other people.
B- A place where my skills are put to the test.
C- I want to play with a team of like minded.

Whats is behind that?

A- Is QP with a rough balance so that matches aren't to stompy
B- Is competetive play. Be it 8v8 or Solaris 1v2 or 2v2
C- Is FactionWarfare, as it was originaly intendet

Now because of low population and the popularity of QP everyone is going there and brings with him complete different expectations.

We hardly can fill all these buckets at the moment. QP works (kinda). Don't know about the competetive scene beside S7 beeing dead. FW....haven't been there for years. Is it still a thing?

So what we are stuck with is that we need to get QP up and running with people needing to adapt their expectations.
Group A might need to learn to listen and communicate with others as well as Group B.
Group B has to either teach more people about the meta and stuff to get people up to speed.
Group C would have to show that communication can work.

Overall I think there is the possibility to get all three groups together, a slim one at best but its there. Everyone just has to adjust a little bit.

[pattonesque]

idk aside from the match wait times the actual quality of my T1 matches has gone up dramatically, so much so that I had an adjustment period as things I used to be able to get away with were punished severely. You do still get stomps and matches in which you get a bunch of T3s who don't know what the minimap is but when you get put in that T1/T2 exclusive bucket then all of a sudden you have people responding to calls, counter-NASCARing, NOT dying immediately, etc.

[Horseman]

Nesutizale, on 20 July 2020 - 11:17 AM, said:

We hardly can fill all these buckets at the moment. QP works (kinda). Don't know about the competetive scene beside S7 beeing dead. FW....haven't been there for years. Is it still a thing?

Comp scene exists, but remember that playing in private lobbies gives ZERO rewards.
S7 isn't related to comp scene, it's just ranked dueling. Very, VERY different skillsets.
FW is still a thing, against all odds. But the wait times are atrocious and it's more likely you'll get pitted against a gaggle of headless chickens than competent opponents.

[General Solo]

OneTeamPlayer, on 20 July 2020 - 10:09 AM, said:

........ i honestly wonder what incentives it would take to break them of the habit of comfortable repetition on the off chance they might get an interesting game win.....

Opponents that can counter the comfortable repetition, thats what I want.

I don't want to have to downgrade, they have to upgrade

My opponents have to meet my comfortable repetition and exceed it.

Otherwise

They are not worth the effort to be tricky, have variety, take risks etc.

The opponents haven't earnt that

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 21 July 2020 - 03:19 PM.

[denAirwalkerrr]

Ha-ha nascar go brrrrrrr

[My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ]

OneTeamPlayer, on 20 July 2020 - 07:12 AM, said:

Much like a politician who says government can't work, then when elected dismantles government so that it doesn't function these players claim there can be no teamwork in queue then:

How many times does someone need to touch the stove before they realise its a bad idea? For me, consistently calling rapidly becomes a painful experience either because pugs don't listen or they berate you when the enemy team wins. I even had an alt account in T3 where I called a lot so don't think this is just an opinion of someone who was in T1, its an issue that is throughout the tiers.

Edited by Hawker Siddeley, 21 July 2020 - 03:47 PM.