71 replies to this topic

[DAYLEET]

Gas Guzzler, on 20 February 2017 - 10:46 AM, said:

I wonder if a boatload of new tech this summer will bring an some more players or at least bring BACK some old players.

The skill tree will certainly make a lot of people update the game. How many stays is another story.

[DaZur]

A median number of consistent players +/- around 5 to 7 percent loss/growth deviation is a reasonable metric for any online game.

Snapshot median numbers will always fluctuate secondary to content introduction and mechanic changes... It's the nature of the beast and not a finite qualifier of exodus or growth. You have to measure and track out over a yearly time frame to even come close to establishing any meaningful metrics.

[C E Dwyer]

Appogee, on 20 February 2017 - 10:44 AM, said:

The beta of BattleTech by HBS is only 6 to 8 weeks away.

That will prove interesting.

Yeah but I don't think numbers will go down that much when beta arrives, it gives options, I think if there is a slump it won't be so much in playing numbers, but as I said a few pages back in Paying numbers, when Battletech is completed late this year.

But I don't think either the full game or the beta are going to have as big an impact on P.G.I's income as their home grown idea's with the removal of the rule of three and the skill tree.

People will become more picky with what they buy and how many, because P.G.I are increasing the grind with each mech.

[Stone Wall]

Pariah Devalis, on 20 February 2017 - 07:55 AM, said:

Tarogato posted some numbers the other day. The long and short of it is, "No." The game is NOT dying.

Neither is it growing. We are essentially losing players at a rate similar to what we gain. It is an unsustainable state, as eventually, unless something big shakes things up, those who play regularly will continue to play less and less. However, at this very moment, and since the expected sharp spike and rapid decline after a Steam release, the community's overall numbers have stayed fairly stable.

Pretty much we are looking at stagnation. Until PGI does more of what the community wants, systems like ED and Skill Trees will lessen the number of active players. I say this going by poll data and comments on Outreach.

[slide]

Churn is a thing for almost any activity that requires large numbers of people. The local footy team will have churn just the same as MWO does. So stable numbers is not necessarily a bad thing.

I think what people are seeing and attributing to decline is the drop in longer term players who actually give a **** about the game. These are the people who came to the forums, spent money, formed and kept units together etc. These are the people who are leaving and are generally the ones most missed when their input is gone.

MS is a great example of this. They came from nowhere, almost kept FW alive singlehandedly (or killed it depending on your point of view) and when the leader decided he'd had enough the unit was all but disbanded. That was around 400 players who either stopped playing or had to find new homes. When the movers, shakers and leaders of the community give up on the game, the ones with the most ****'s to give, leave, then the game will die.

I think people here are underestimating the impact the HBS BT game is going to have. All the people that want some more out of MWO than endless "shooting robbits" are going to go there, if they find what they are looking for they aren't coming back any time soon.

When you lose the critical mass of people who want to play, will encourage others to play and get better then that is when you have a real problem. An endless stream of F2P players who don't care and will soon move on and don't spend any money are only good for the game as long as they keep the queues short.

The number of units that seem to be unable to field a 12 man team all the time, or at all, is IMO a better indication of the state of the game than the raw numbers you can glean from the leader boards.

There are many, many reasons for people to give up on MWO, not the least of which is boredom. Unfortunately there are very few reasons to stick with it.

Edited by slide, 20 February 2017 - 05:28 PM.

[Green Mamba]

Pariah Devalis, on 20 February 2017 - 08:44 AM, said:

https://www.reddit.c...player_numbers/

That Graph is from the Fake News Reddit

[Novakaine]

Sigh what the hell does it matter?

[Dr Hobo]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 February 2017 - 01:06 PM, said:

Yeah, I generally don't get a lot of mileage out of AMS, tend to be more about being sneaky sneaky and using cover to flank.... and then getting where I can drop AC20 bombs unseen from behind. Works real well when I leg stuff, since they have no clue most of the time where the shot came from, if you time it to when they are taking return fire.

I like my HBK because it absolutely is like being a baseball pitcher.. a mental chess match between you and the other guy.... to see who really is the hunter. My favorite match for that was one with MeiSooHaityoo on I believe the OpFor... and I snuck off to flank (playing solo) ..we were on Canyon, and the Opfor set up on Theta and the Ramp, and my team was largely on the opposing ridge. I climbed up near the satellite tower behind, and popped a few nice ones. At one point a DWF noticed and broke off to hunt me down. I dropped down into the gully, hung a hard right, found a depression in the rock and made myself as flat as possible. The DWF dropped down looked about and decided I went right toward my own lines. SO once he committed I popped out and dropped a few more ac20s into his back. Being a typical tryhard build, no back armor to speak of, pop goes the ST....guy tries to turn around and I just drill out his CT with hot, sweet ac20 love.

Dude spent the rest of the match screaming and cussing me as a cowardly cheat over the chat box, and apparently in VOIP, while I return to my previous location, snipe some more, and then realizing my team was decimated went full rambo and cleaned up the rest of the OpFor. End of the match, I had half a mech, no right side, 700ish damage, about 6 kills, and a victory.

Whereas if I had camped with my team, the range would have made me totally useless the whole match.

As for Urbies, while my 4MG/1LPL/!ML Deputy UMR-60 is my primary, probably my favorite is this one
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...c719a4da001fdc3
Which stays true to the spirit of URbielightenment.

Had a fabulous match, even though it ended with a loss, where even after my team died, I got to solo kill 3 Assault mechs in Mining Colony, while skirting rooftops and avoiding detection, and jsut popping ac10 shots into backs until I ran out of ammo.

and this is still my favorite VND
VND-1AA

One of the few times I went totally counter to the role and quirks, etc.... (My 1R is my dual 2xPPC/3xML poptart)

Was bored, looking for something to do, and it jsut clicked. I combined it with my SIB to take I believe 3rd on the VND Leaderboards, in only 8 hours of play.

Though my best VND match was in my SIB, on Frozen. Got cored out early, due to zigging when I should have zagged... and was running around, I believe with 2xLPL/1xMPL/2xSRM4...... taking potshots.... and... the team just folds. It's literally me, and 6 opfor spread out on (old) frozen. My teammates start bitching that if I had a real mech maybe we could win, and that I should just run out and die, and a few even started given away my location. I stayed mobile, used cover, spread them out, and picked them off, coming out with the win and 6 kills, 700ish damage.... and a lot of suddenly very quiet teammates.
(This was during the tourney).

So yeah.. I tend to think that the VND gets a bad rap. It's not a great robot... but if you understand it, it can be a very situationally good robot. What it can't do, is stand up to a concerted overrun. It tends to run too hot for that.

AMS doesn't seem like it can handle the LRM rain clouds anymore. It's alright against one or two launchers,but against LRM 500 teams it feels like wasted tonnage. I feel like two,now at least three is manageable in the LRM clouds in tier 3/4


I've had a few clutch moments in the SIB and AA. Did one in Mining Collective? I think it was. I managed to get a clutch headshot on a DW back when it was really easy to head shot them. Down to the last two mechs(my mostly untouched Vindi,missing an arm and most of my leg and RT armor) his mostly fresh(really lacking in leg and back armor) I walked around the corner in that little hangar area and found him. Popped a shot off at his RT and popped that,I'm backing up and he alphas a leg off and I'm pretty screwed and think go for the face. Lo and behold I popped his face in. Probably one of my most entertaining games.

Best one in SIB is hunting down a crippled commando in old Forest Colony. Found him powered down in the deep end of the water. 1V1 there too. He's already scrapped with me a couple times in the match thinking I was an easy kill.

Vindi gets a bad rap like all the non ECM 45t mechs do. It's too light in the game to be more than a fat scout. So it pops instantly in this current Alphawarrioronline.

slide, on 20 February 2017 - 05:23 PM, said:

Churn is a thing for almost any activity that requires large numbers of people. The local footy team will have churn just the same as MWO does. So stable numbers is not necessarily a bad thing.

I think what people are seeing and attributing to decline is the drop in longer term players who actually give a **** about the game. These are the people who came to the forums, spent money, formed and kept units together etc. These are the people who are leaving and are generally the ones most missed when their input is gone.

MS is a great example of this. They came from nowhere, almost kept FW alive singlehandedly (or killed it depending on your point of view) and when the leader decided he'd had enough the unit was all but disbanded. That was around 400 players who either stopped playing or had to find new homes. When the movers, shakers and leaders of the community give up on the game, the ones with the most ****'s to give, leave, then the game will die.

I think people here are underestimating the impact the HBS BT game is going to have. All the people that want some more out of MWO than endless "shooting robbits" are going to go there, if they find what they are looking for they aren't coming back any time soon.

When you lose the critical mass of people who want to play, will encourage others to play and get better then that is when you have a real problem. An endless stream of F2P players who don't care and will soon move on and don't spend any money are only good for the game as long as they keep the queues short.

The number of units that seem to be unable to field a 12 man team all the time, or at all, is IMO a better indication of the state of the game than the raw numbers you can glean from the leader boards.

There are many, many reasons for people to give up on MWO, not the least of which is boredom. Unfortunately there are very few reasons to stick with it.

How rare is it to see a full 12 man in group? Half the time I can't get into group due to it just not working. It seems like it's one or two random groups. I don't see House Kurita anymore,I haven't seen an MS tag in ages even my own unit never plays anymore.

Edited by Dr Hobo, 20 February 2017 - 06:15 PM.

[slide]

Dr Hobo, on 20 February 2017 - 06:14 PM, said:

How rare is it to see a full 12 man in group? Half the time I can't get into group due to it just not working. It seems like it's one or two random groups. I don't see House Kurita anymore, I haven't seen an MS tag in ages even my own unit never plays anymore.

Last night I played in the group queue for the first time in months. Over 12 or so matches the two of us launched, the largest group of unit members I saw was a 4 man from 228. The reason I stopped playing Group queue is because it was pointless playing against groups much larger than your own (4v8 for example). That is a very marked difference in only a couple of months but is certainly not conclusive.

However I do play a lot of CW. Particularly over the weekends during my day which is NA prime time on a Friday and Saturday Night. I drop solo mostly so I have a good chance of being on or against larger groups. Whilst I have no doubts a lot of the teams are grouped up I am not seeing the same incidence of units grouping up and dropping together (personally I like it this way, but that's another argument). The number of times I groan and go "oh no it's (insert unit name here)" is getting less and less. Still it's only my limited experience but when you drop several times and get more or less the same players on both sides game after game it suggests there aren't too many in the queues.

One of my former roles with my unit was to liaise with other units in our TZ. Many of those units, including mine had hundreds and hundreds of active players between them. The fact that many of those units no longer exist or can only field a handful of players is indicactive of veterans leaving the game, whilst also showing that most of the new players aren't interested in team play and spend most of their time in solo QP. A place where epeen rules and building community links and interests is far from any ones mind.

These forums are a pretty good litmus test of the people who actually have duck's left to give. It doesn't matter which side of a debate you land on the fact that you come here, even just to read is a sign that you care about what happens to MWO. I spend far too much time here during my work day, but it is obvious from the counter at the bottom of the screen on the main forum page that the number of people logging here has been steadily declining. Therefore I can conclude that the number of people who care, and thus might spend money is getting steadily less all the time. It doesn't matter if the game has 60 or 60000 players, if none of them are invested enough to spend money then the game is on life support

[Marstorius]

People play and get tired of it and then you will see new people who don't know the history join up. They get their fill of running around in a mech and then move on and the next new batch comes. I'd say the number one cause of the turn over is fixing what isn't broken and listening to babies who want a trophy for getting out of bed. Skill and strategy end up not mattering because there aren't many real teams or communication.

[Dr Hobo]

slide, on 20 February 2017 - 07:05 PM, said:

Last night I played in the group queue for the first time in months. Over 12 or so matches the two of us launched, the largest group of unit members I saw was a 4 man from 228. The reason I stopped playing Group queue is because it was pointless playing against groups much larger than your own (4v8 for example). That is a very marked difference in only a couple of months but is certainly not conclusive.

However I do play a lot of CW. Particularly over the weekends during my day which is NA prime time on a Friday and Saturday Night. I drop solo mostly so I have a good chance of being on or against larger groups. Whilst I have no doubts a lot of the teams are grouped up I am not seeing the same incidence of units grouping up and dropping together (personally I like it this way, but that's another argument). The number of times I groan and go "oh no it's (insert unit name here)" is getting less and less. Still it's only my limited experience but when you drop several times and get more or less the same players on both sides game after game it suggests there aren't too many in the queues.

One of my former roles with my unit was to liaise with other units in our TZ. Many of those units, including mine had hundreds and hundreds of active players between them. The fact that many of those units no longer exist or can only field a handful of players is indicactive of veterans leaving the game, whilst also showing that most of the new players aren't interested in team play and spend most of their time in solo QP. A place where epeen rules and building community links and interests is far from any ones mind.

These forums are a pretty good litmus test of the people who actually have duck's left to give. It doesn't matter which side of a debate you land on the fact that you come here, even just to read is a sign that you care about what happens to MWO. I spend far too much time here during my work day, but it is obvious from the counter at the bottom of the screen on the main forum page that the number of people logging here has been steadily declining. Therefore I can conclude that the number of people who care, and thus might spend money is getting steadily less all the time. It doesn't matter if the game has 60 or 60000 players, if none of them are invested enough to spend money then the game is on life support

I don't think MechPacks are enough to keep the game on life support anymore. Every new mech looks less and less interesting.

Sure the Roughneck is a neat one,but no melee so arm saws are worthless.Kinda like HeroClix were or whatever those little random things with the cards were forever ago.

CW was a disaster,the community is all over the board,and honestly I play nights/mornings and more often than not I'm reminded more and more why I keep taking extended months and months long breaks(I have almost a year in Premium time that I wont use)

Marstorius, on 20 February 2017 - 07:20 PM, said:

People play and get tired of it and then you will see new people who don't know the history join up. They get their fill of running around in a mech and then move on and the next new batch comes. I'd say the number one cause of the turn over is fixing what isn't broken and listening to babies who want a trophy for getting out of bed. Skill and strategy end up not mattering because there aren't many real teams or communication.

It's not just that,it's everything is the same because nothing else is effective.

[Bishop Steiner]

Green Mamba, on 20 February 2017 - 05:27 PM, said:

That Graph is from the Fake News Reddit

Reddit... almost as unbiased and reliable as Fox News... or Huntington Post!