150 replies to this topic

[chucklesMuch]

Tarogato, on 13 February 2017 - 07:57 AM, said:

Legitimate question... who's that?


The comp regulars that I know of on the forums are Mcgral [-SA-], Ghogiel [old CSJx?], Lukoi [-SA-], Quicksilver [SJR], Aresye [SJR], Terciel [RAWR], PhoenixFire [BSMC][MRBC ref], Deathlike [NS], Guzzler [NS], me [ISEN]...

I appreciate that you and some other comp players do post here, not only on Reddit.

Edited by chucklesMuch, 14 February 2017 - 12:36 AM.

[Black Ivan]

Russ and his people have stopped listening to the Forums for a very long time and only listen to Twitter

[meteorol]

A forum user roundtable with russ would probably just be forum users grabbing each others by the throat because they can't agree on anything, while russ just sits there thinking "well, i know why i don't read the forums, ever".

[chucklesMuch]

This thread has been both very amusing and interesting... good thing for my monitor that I'm not drinking tea at the moment.

I personally, would like to see what the top issues and future concerns that our 'forum warriors' have. Genuinely interested. lets encourage more proactive discussion. Lets have more time spent of this stuff than... lights OPs, nerf LRMS, rant at PGI, don't like awesome funny guy... seriously!??

I really like threads like TheArisen has posted which promotes useful IS mechs over Nostalgia, encourages discussion. For people like myself its informative, (I have no lore/history)... and maybe more people will start wanting IS mechs that at least have a chance at competing with the top tier clans ones.

A poll with the various things already listed to vote on could be a start?

Edited by chucklesMuch, 14 February 2017 - 03:04 AM.

[Burning2nd]

If you guys spent half as much time piloting your mech as you do typing here... you wouldn't have half of the problems you have.....

[Alistair Winter]

meteorol, on 14 February 2017 - 12:43 AM, said:

A forum user roundtable with russ would probably just be forum users grabbing each others by the throat because they can't agree on anything, while russ just sits there thinking "well, i know why i don't read the forums, ever".

Forget about Russ, for the moment. I'd be interested in seeing if forum warriors could sit down and agree on some key points and ignore the stuff they disagree about.

IIRC, that was one of the reasons the previous roundtable roundbucket was such a let-down. They scheduled to sit down together without Russ first. Just the players. But not everyone did meet up, so when they met Russ, they didn't speak with one voice as often as they could have. And also, some of the people who participated in the roundbucket were inconstructive people who, from the sound of it, had never participated in anything even remotely resembling a business meeting.

Pariah Devalis, on 13 February 2017 - 08:36 PM, said:

It would more than likely be a waste of time.

That would be a novel departure from the norm.

Edited by Alistair Winter, 14 February 2017 - 02:24 AM.

[chucklesMuch]

Alistair Winter, on 14 February 2017 - 02:23 AM, said:

Forget about Russ, for the moment. I'd be interested in seeing if forum warriors could sit down and agree on some key points and ignore the stuff they disagree about.

This would be a good place to start.

Edit: (For the forum warriors that would add something to this, as in not me... though on the other part... business meetings... and meetings about meetings... I would over qualify on that front)

Edited by chucklesMuch, 14 February 2017 - 03:12 AM.

[Bud Crue]

chucklesMuch, on 14 February 2017 - 01:25 AM, said:

This thread has been both very amusing and interesting... good thing for my monitor that I'm not drinking tea at the moment.

I personally, would like to see what the top issues and future concerns that our 'forum warriors' have. Genuinely interested. lets encourage more proactive discussion. Lets have more time spent of this stuff than... lights OPs, nerf LRMS, rant at PGI, don't like awesome funny guy... seriously!??

I really like threads like TheArisen has posted which promotes useful IS mechs over Nostalgia, encourages discussion. For people like myself its informative, (I have no lore/history)... and maybe more people will start wanting IS mechs that at least have a chance at competing with the top tier clans ones.

A poll with the various things already listed to vote on could be a start?

Well I believe that the goals of a forum and particularly a forum warrior are to inform, entertain and when appropriate engage in legitimate discussion. While something like a round table should focus on tha later, I think given the general disdain that better players have for the opinions of players of lesser "skill" that are often illustrated around here all a forum warrior round table would be is entertainment for the elite and yet another opportunity for PGI to ignore a segment of their community -regardless of the issues being discussed. That being said, I put forth my top issues back on page 2 and they have nothing to do with OP lights, nerfing LRMs, etc. but there is a bit of a rant at PGI though I believe deserved. In any case, I hope it fits your implied stereotype.

[TercieI]

Burnin2nd, on 14 February 2017 - 01:32 AM, said:

If you guys spent half as much time piloting your mech as you do typing here... you wouldn't have half of the problems you have.....

I have always played more than I forumed, though lately I'm doing less of both.

On topic: lol. Phone me if this happens, but it won't.

[Bud Crue]

Burnin2nd, on 14 February 2017 - 01:32 AM, said:

If you guys spent half as much time piloting your mech as you do typing here... you wouldn't have half of the problems you have.....

If I could play at work...you'd never see me on the forums again.

[TercieI]

Bud Crue, on 14 February 2017 - 05:10 AM, said:

If I could play at work...you'd never see me on the forums again.

Substitute "on my phone" and ditto.

[Lily from animove]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 February 2017 - 07:35 AM, said:

Oh this will go over well.

You KNOW one has to be an UberComp UltraTryhard to have ANY understanding of the game, and thus anything useful to contribute.

Even if the game that 99% of the playerbase plays is NOTHING like the game the Comp Teams play against each other... and balance in tier 5 is totally different than in tier 1. Or that a goodly number of Comp players are not inherently more "knowledgeable" than anyone else, but simply have really good reflexes and follow the leader well, belong to very disciplined teams and know how to copypasta MetaMechs.com. Oh, and the genuine metric shitton of bad ideas posted by players with a "1" under their names. (Mind you, there are several metric shittons of bad ideas from players without that "1", but that's to be expected, since among other things..players with those other numbers outnumber the "1" on at least a 20 to 1 ratio, if not more)

But ya know...aside from that.




This. PGI has always had a bad habit of putting too much weight on the thoughts of a select group of players... many of whom are more concerned with the competitive play, than the lore of the IP. And on the other extreme, the forums have quite a few players who are far too entrenched in the "but in TT it's done THIS WAY!" mentality.

What is needed is for Russ to listen to a broader cross section of players, from all ends of the spectrum.

You absolutely NEED the input from Competitive Players, because if something is broke, they are guaranteed to be abusing it. You get less reliable info on what is actually bad though, as in general, if it's not the bleeding edge, it's cast aside period, which makes it a lot less clear just what is how bad, and why. Far too much of the "if it isn't Optimal, then it's not Viable" mindset. Also, sometimes, I believe tehy can forget that while they may be the elite, they represent a minuscule percentage of the playerbase.

At the other end...you have the Potatoes. Now the Comps say they have nothing to add, and you can't balance based on the BADs. And there is truth to this. And yet... you can't ignore the Bads, either... because 1) there are more Bads, than Goods, and 2) most New Players, start as Bads, and if the NPE is too bad, then the New Player Retention goes to crap, and the community and game, stagnate and die. For example... in top tiers.. LRMs are BAD. Thing is, for a lot of New Players... LRMs are OP. So no matter hoe inconsequential the Competitive Scene may find LRMs to be... if they are wrecking the NPE, those players are unlikely to stick around long enough to "GitGud".

Not necessarily related to being Good, Bad or Ugly... you have the battle of Lore vs Competitive Balance. You have a number of people who are so entrenched in Lore, they cannot think straight when it comes to balance. And you have the other side, where these people may care nothing at all for the "fluff", and all that mattes is the FPS aspect. With a Storied IP, like Battletech, you need to walk the line between the two extremes. You NEED to be as true to lore as is possible. But you also have to be able and willing to bend lore, where the realities of being translated to a FPS videogame, come to loggerheads with Lore.

So, in short, while I am against any sort of player councils, and have no clue how effective Roundtables are.. I do find it troubling that Russ has focused most of his attention toward in the end the Comp Perspective in these Roundtables in the past. What is needed, is for Russ to really get input from all walks of the MWO Community. Well, that, and actually being willing to LISTEN, and not get upset whenever we as a community do not agree with something that PGI thinks is simply the Cat's Meow.

but even if comp or not, we can at leats tell rus what is not working, because there are elemtns who don't work in comp and even non comp conditions. All we need to do is fix the lower end dead concent and we improve the game a lot.

Shiroi Tsuki, on 13 February 2017 - 08:17 AM, said:

You can like yourself (as in having self-esteem) and not like your own posts. Like the old saying in Facebook "Liking your own posts is like sucking your own... uhh.... lower CT"

you can bet sucking your own lower CT would happen regulary if it would be possible.

Edited by Lily from animove, 14 February 2017 - 05:51 AM.

[Scandinavian Jawbreaker]

I've been active player in MWO since closed beta back in 2012 and if there's something I know it's that no round table is going to change a thing and it doesn't matter who is talking bs with Russ there. They are there to create the illusion that playerbase is being listened to in the future development of the game. If someone thinks Russ is taking notes about those conversations or even giving second thoughts about them, well time to wake up.

They do however listen to players. When the noise is enough to stop them making catastrophic decisions like infotech, energy draw or the recent version of the hilariously defected skill tree. Negative feedback is so enormous that they are afraid of losing paying customers. It's just bad business.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind people talking about matters. I think it's healthy. Personally though I'm at the point not to care enough but still enjoy the gameplay. So I play the game, abuse some broken mechanics and play leagues cus this game shines on 8v8, 6v6 and 4v4 battles. But the 12v12 was forced just "because we can" so I don't mind farming pugs as long as I get something out of it.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 February 2017 - 11:03 AM, said:

I will say, most of the people I'm aware of that Russ blocked tended to hover somewhere between Troll and Cyberstalker.

Hey man, that hurts... I was only ever nice to him... and I got blocked for warning him of an incoming riot in the playerbase!

the tweets are so old, I can't even find them anymore... but I was never harassing or rude. Frustrated sure.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Lupis Volk, on 13 February 2017 - 08:52 PM, said:

This is my only issue with Battletech. Those who shackle devs to a medium that can't translate easily to video games. The Roughnech outrage was proof enough.

Here's the issue Lucas... there are ways to translate what's in tabletop, to a videgoame format, and not loose the overall flavor.

Keep in mind too, there are certern things done in tabletop, to mitigate weapons, that we just don't see here. A great example is Gauss min-range... I've argued for years now, that Gauss should NOT be useable as a close in, viable weapon at under 90m. In tabletop, you'd get a "to hit" penalty, because the length of the gauss, has to be compensated for by the targeting software in the mech, and it's essentially "Zeroed" for a 100m+ engagement range, anything closer tends to throw off targeting and the pilot has to manually compensate.

In MWO, there's literally NOTHING preventing PGI from putting in a "PPC-esque" min range solution to the Gauss Rifle... to help mitigate it's brawling potential further... but instead, people have argued "It's not realistic."

Newsflash, BATTLETECH, AND BY EXTENTION MECHARRIOR, ARE INHERENTLY UNREALISTIC!

Trying to apply Realisim to Battletech, is like trying to get a fish to breathe out of water... IT DOES NOT WORK.

Now keep in mind, my gauss example above, is just that, an example of one of hundreds of changes that could be made that would pull MWO back in line with Tabletop "flavor" and be a balancing tool.

The thing is, the comp, meta. "muh ppfld." folks up in Tier 1, don't want that, they don't want a flavored, interesting game, they want a game where they can pilot big stompy bots, and at the same time, play a fast paced shooter...

Mechwarrior, isn't ment to be "fast paced." There are tons of other, more interesting games for that... Slow, plodding, combat is Mechwarrior's forte, and MWO has strayed far, far from that.

look at Mechwarrior 3, Mechwarrior 4, hell even Living Legends has longer TTK than MWO!

And it's sad, this game could be great, it could be the mechwarrior game we deserve... but instead, it's a cash cow that's out to milk players of money, and Hey, I get it, it was forced into this market by the industry... it doesn't mean I'm happy about it... or that others are either.


At the end of the day, PGI has decided to do, mostly, what PGI will do... I've been here long enough to see it. Launch with crappy economy for new players, Coolantgate, 3pvgate, LRMGate 1-4, The Island, Change to thermal [I still want my old pred-vision thermal back] downgrade of graphics and effects for potato's, constant inability to change even minor XML cells for weapon balance, complete ignorance of their own game in some respects.

I used to crusade hard, for a lot of things, some of them were probably bad ideas, other's, I still feel vidicated on, but at the end of the day, PGI, will PGI, and they'll do what they want.

[Appogee]

CK16, on 13 February 2017 - 07:27 AM, said:

What would you guys think of a round table at some point with Russ, and him sitting down with some of us who are frequent forum posters?

Great suggestion!

I'm tired of having my good ideas ignored in these forums, on Twitter and Reddit.

I'd like to also be ignored in a round table.

Edited by Appogee, 14 February 2017 - 08:26 AM.

[Alan Davion]

ugrakarma, on 14 February 2017 - 05:59 AM, said:

I've been active player in MWO since closed beta back in 2012 and if there's something I know it's that no round table is going to change a thing and it doesn't matter who is talking bs with Russ there. They are there to create the illusion that playerbase is being listened to in the future development of the game. If someone thinks Russ is taking notes about those conversations or even giving second thoughts about them, well time to wake up.

They do however listen to players. When the noise is enough to stop them making catastrophic decisions like infotech, energy draw or the recent version of the hilariously defected skill tree. 1. Negative feedback is so enormous that they are afraid of losing paying customers. It's just bad business.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind people talking about matters. I think it's healthy. Personally though I'm at the point not to care enough but still enjoy the gameplay. So I play the game, abuse some broken mechanics and play leagues cus this game shines on 8v8, 6v6 and 4v4 battles. 2. But the 12v12 was forced just "because we can" so I don't mind farming pugs as long as I get something out of it.

1. And they should be afraid, given how often, and how spectacularly they screw up some of the changes they make, or attempt to make in this game, and part of the reason they screw up so often is because they try to cram too many changes into the PTS at the same time.

Check out Kanajashi's recent PTS videos for how they screwed up the Skill Tree PTS, but they did the exact same thing with Energy Draw and Info War before that... Especially Info War... Jesus, I still get the shudders when I remember how much crap they tried to cram into that.

It's like PGI is incapable of understanding the concept of iterative changes. They can't make just one change to the game and see how its affects ripple through the game, they have to make twenty changes and the ripples all interact and interfere with each other making it impossible to get a clear read on everything, and they just do it again the next time.

2. How exactly was 12v12 forced on you? When the Clans were introduced it was necessary to go from 8v8 to 12v12. 8v8 worked because it was just IS v IS, but with how flipping OP the Clans are the IS would have needed more mechs.

They tried the 12v10 TT rule but it so utterly borked up the matchmaker they had to settle on 12v12 and then introduce quirks to IS mechs to bring them up high enough to have a snowballs chance in hell against the Clans, granted that chance has gotten smaller and smaller over the years with the introduction of more and more powerful Clan mechs. Kodiak, Marauder IIC, etc. And then certain Clan mechs had to be quirked to bring THEM up as well.

So... I don't see how you can say 12v12 was forced on you "because we can". There was a clear and present reason for the increase in numbers.

[Appogee]

Alan Davion, on 14 February 2017 - 08:58 AM, said:

They tried the 12v10 TT rule

When? I'm not aware of it ever actually being attempted.

AFAIK PGI simply didn't want to redo the matchmaker and team screens and that would accommodate 10v12.

I don't believe they ever actually tried it.

[Lostdragon]

Alan Davion, on 14 February 2017 - 08:58 AM, said:

2. How exactly was 12v12 forced on you? When the Clans were introduced it was necessary to go from 8v8 to 12v12. 8v8 worked because it was just IS v IS, but with how flipping OP the Clans are the IS would have needed more mechs.

They tried the 12v10 TT rule but it so utterly borked up the matchmaker they had to settle on 12v12 and then introduce quirks to IS mechs to bring them up high enough to have a snowballs chance in hell against the Clans, granted that chance has gotten smaller and smaller over the years with the introduction of more and more powerful Clan mechs. Kodiak, Marauder IIC, etc. And then certain Clan mechs had to be quirked to bring THEM up as well.

It makes no sense to say 12v12 was added to give the IS an even footing with the Clans. 8v8 or 12v12 is still a 1:1 ratio so that logic is silly and I never recall PGI going down that rabbit hole.

[kesmai]

good luck finding a table big enough.