425 replies to this topic

[Leggin Ho]

MadBadger, on 01 June 2017 - 07:27 AM, said:

Agreed, I mentioned in another thread that PGI should introduce a very simply MM: tier 4-5 in this queue, tier 1-2 in this one, tier 3's can be used to fill either queue. Groups/tags/etc can be ignored if you put the vets with the vets and the noobs with the noobs.

Then run a week-long FP event every 3rd week for about 4 months. (So no event exhaustion, but a nice stream of events.)

PGI (and the win farmers) spent years killing this mode. They won't bring it back overnight. But if they don't get out of the 'team hardmode' mindset they may as well just stop development on FP and FP balance right now and put the resources to something more useful.

So this is at least the second time I have seen you post about "win farmers", it's funny to me that anyone with 1/2 a brain would think that people playing a team based game mode would do so with any other intention than to win. So can you explain just what you think a team (since that's really who your directing your backhanded comments at) should do other than try to play their best at a game they are spending their time to playi?

[L0stA1m]

MischiefSC, on 31 May 2017 - 06:44 AM, said:

People who flounce when they are challenged is a gravity issue - is what it is. Can't fix people. They'll get and go to d something else to quit on.

FW how is about units. The "solo mentality" is the underlying issue that makes pugs hate FW. The solution isn't to make FW more solo friendly, it's to get more units involved.

The question isn't why pugs are leaving FW. It's why the units didn't stay.

**** maps.
No competition.
Planets doesnt matter.

Now finally the spudteams can say they are Toptier in a gamemode noone cares. lol

Edited by L0stA1m, 01 June 2017 - 11:03 AM.

[Cato Zilks]

Grus, on 01 June 2017 - 08:33 AM, said:

well they arnt HHoD.

LOL!

Right, they are better.
https://docs.google....#gid=1925727843
Better, win%, total wins, and better participation rate

[MischiefSC]

MadBadger, on 01 June 2017 - 04:47 AM, said:

PGI made a decision long ago that FP would be 'hard mode' and 'learn to team or die', thus, no MM.

The average combat-sim player simply does not play that way. Average player goes into FP to see what it's like, gets slaughtered, gets yelled at for being a potato/nub, maybe tries again later. Gets similar experience. Rarely if ever tries FP again.

Lack of MM (even simple segregation into 2 queues) leads to low population. Low population is now used as reason 'FP can't have MM, population is too low'. The people who use FP to farm easy wins with their unit lobby to keep their win farms.

FP dies, everyone blames someone else.

Again. The solution is NOT to just make FP another set of maps/modes for QP. Then it's not really FP, is it?

The point is to have factions at war. This was the original presentation:


That's the idea that got all the units to show up for FW when it was released. That's why so many units and groups showed up and played originally. Pugs were rare; it was mostly a group environment.

Then we realized that the stuff in the presentation? Wasn't in FW. FW was just a mixed pug/group queue with choke points and respawns and absolutely no real depth. No logistics, no purpose.

Yes, there's absolutely room in FW for pug players. Tons of great players pug. You just need to play to your team and play as a team. That's the point of FW - it's the team focused leg of the game. Group queue really isn't; it's designed to favor small groups of casuals. That's what the tonnage scale is there for. It's also why the population in it is so low.

What FW is not and has never been about is a casual pug environment. Not having casual pugs is, in theory, the draw of FW. It's why when someone shows up to potato in bad mechs and refuse to play as a team they get mocked - because that sort of player is who people (in theory) go to FW to avoid. Breaking FW to be just like pug/group queue so people can be bads in bad mechs and play like a solo rambo isn't fixing FW, it's getting rid of it.

What FW needs is the depth of content originally promised that drew groups there originally. It does not and never did need to be attractive to casual pug players. It did, for about a year, survive great without them. What it lacked was depth and purpose to keep everyone else.

[Scyther]

@Leggin Ho:
They could spend a little less time yelling about long drop times and "don't split mah queue!" and a little more time working towards a healthy long-term FP population.

@MischiefSC:
So... how'd that "Not having casual pugs is, in theory, the draw of FW" work out for it? Because what I see is a lively 'casual PUG' queue and near-dead Group and FP queues. Here's a gaming tip that's been borne out by literally dozens of MMOs over the years: if it isn't casual solo friendly, it's niche. BT is already a niche. Niche of a niche = dead queues. (Note: unless your game is entirely and only built around team play, and even then, I can't think of any that are mainstream)

I'd be as happy as anyone to see FW/CW be the rich, interesting, strategic environment that it could potentially be. But PGI didn't deliver that. They delivered a game mode that is far more 'QP with drop decks' and far less 'community/faction warfare'. And they crippled it with a decision to make it non-casual friendly.

The result? A game mode that they have no business reason to develop further. It doesn't sell mechs, it doesn't recruit new players, it probably contributes almost nothing to overall player retention, and it doesn't showcase their game in a flattering fashion.

Now, are they going to spend dev-hours and dev-$$ developing that further? Or could they perhaps change their initial stance, make some simple changes, run some events get some population into it, and then see if it was worth developing further?

Note: an FP that almost nobody plays isn't really FP either. An FP where half the drops are teams against casual PUGs isn't really FP either. You either accept the way people actually game (rather than the theory of how they should game) and work with that to build towards your goals, or just trash FP and work on something that actually benefits the majority of players.

Edited by MadBadger, 01 June 2017 - 12:30 PM.

[Grus]

Cato Zilks, on 01 June 2017 - 11:09 AM, said:

LOL!

Right, they are better.
https://docs.google....#gid=1925727843
Better, win%, total wins, and better participation rate

I don't see mj12 in on the list... or are they 21jm? Either or I haven't run into them enough in 12 man FP to have a opinion. We run into HHoD and 228 a lot. So THAT'S where I have my reffrence.

Or did they just spam scouting to cook the books?

[Leggin Ho]

MadBadger, on 01 June 2017 - 12:09 PM, said:

@Leggin Ho:

They could spend a little less time yelling about long drop times and "don't split mah queue!" and a little more time working towards a healthy long-term FP population.

Well considering that units are typically more active and yet I don't see threads started by them or commented in by most unit members about wait times I'm not sure where your getting your info, I drop almost every night with a few different units and typically get 2 or 3 drops a hour.

So do you have a real thing they can do other than playing a game to win or are you just looking for a reason to bash units in general?

[Pat Kell]

PFC Carsten, on 01 June 2017 - 07:35 AM, said:

Albeit virtual, the very real void and empty halls of Faction Play are prove that you are factually right but failed to draw the correct conclusion, thus becoming a part of the problem instead of the solution.

Actually no, I drew the exact correct conclusion. If people didn't quit playing because they found it too hard or didn't have fun the first time out or whatever excuse they want to put down but instead tried to figure out what went wrong, took action to fix it and continued playing, they would get better and start to have better experiences. I realize this is a pie in the sky dream to have but I refuse to stop preaching it because this type of mentality will pervade the rest of your life as well. When the going gets tough, if you quit, where does it end? Do you ever really get anything better for yourself or do you just keep blaming other people for your own failures, never realizing that only you have the ability to truly make your life better? Everything someone does has consequences and failing to recognize those consequences dooms you to repeating them. Not so bad when the consequences are positive and you get some happy accidents going in your favor. Not so much fun though when they start to affect your ability to become better...at anything.

That being said, I would absolutely be ok with PGI trying some sort of split que, I just don't think it would work. All I have is a gut feeling on this though, no numbers or facts to back it up which is why I am willing to give it a shot. Don't really care what it is and am willing to try multiple variations of it as well. I just don't think it's going to fix the real problem because invariably, a few select people will rise to the top of any split que situation, farm those that aren't as good and drive them away because they chose to quit instead of trying to get better. So as you can see, I have thought about this, I have drawn the correct conclusion (or so I think) but am certainly willing to put it to the test. If I am wrong, we all get a more sustainable CW with faster drop times and if I am correct, well hopefully it doesn't push CW over the final cliff.

[Scyther]

Here's some food for thought:

Tukayyid 3 Top 25 Unit Participation:
Davion: 456 players
Kurita: 351
Liao: 645
Marik: 701
FRR: 442
Steiner: 515
IS Units (top 25): 3,110 players
Total Inner Sphere Pilots: 8,640

Smoke Jaguar: 753 players
Jade Falcon: 449
Wolf: 511
Ghost Bear: 649
Clan Units (top 25): 2,362 players
Total Clan Pilots: 8,641

Total Freelance Pilots: 99

Top 25 Units Player Totals: 5,472 players
Total Number of Unique Pilots who participated in Tukayyid: 17,380

The top 25 units of each faction made up less than 1/3 of the players in the event. Except for Smoke Jaguar, most of those 'Top 25' were getting down to player counts of 5, 4, 3, even 1. So I am guessing the top 25 includes the vast majority of unit drops. Given the small numbers after the top 15, even a lot of those players would have been dropping solo. (Just being in a unit doesn't mean your dropping with the unit)

Almost 70% of the drops in Tukayyid were apparently filled out by 'casual pugs'. So who should this mode be catering to, in the business sense?

Edited by MadBadger, 01 June 2017 - 01:05 PM.

[Leggin Ho]

Now take those numbers and see how many drops the unit players did vs the casual pugs, I'd imagine that on average the unit players drops more on average than the pugs did, no numbers as I'm at work but ill see what I can come up with on it.

[Danjo San]

MadBadger, on 01 June 2017 - 01:00 PM, said:

Almost 70% of the drops in Tukayyid were apparently filled out by 'casual pugs'. So who should this mode be catering to, in the business sense?

I agree ... lets kick out all the tryhards and metas, Faction Warfare would be intresting then ... no more stomps, just glorious potatoe goodness ... Lets hope the Competitive 8v8 Queue sifts most of them out!

[Scyther]

@Leggin Ho:
You aren't seeing complaints about units from drop times exactly because the casual pugs are there to fill any queue. Or does your unit only drop against other units?

Your request for "number of matches" dropped into is a good question but tricky - when a UnitX and a UnitY member drop into a match solo, that counts as a match for each unit. Plus, virtually every match would have had several units and multiple solos on either side, as few matches were 12-man against 12-man obviously. I'll see if any of the published numbers can be sifted in this way but it will be difficult to get proper info I think.

You can refer to many past threads however, particularly around the time of Phase 3, that repeatedly refer to 'there is no reward incentive for large units to face off against large units, so why should they do it?' If they aren't facing off against large units (and unit movement patterns show they in general shift in ways to avoid facing other large units), then what are they working toward? They are working toward drops where they can consistently win rather than face equal competition. Hence, 'win farming'. I'm not saying they should be expected to do that or they shouldn't be, only that it is observably what they do and it isn't healthy for the QP mode.

@Danjo San:
Potatoes are the #1 vegetable crop in many countries because as you say, they are chock-full of glorious potatoey goodness.

[November Juliet]

What is this communist ********. Let's make everyone be average? No meta? You kidding me? There is always gonna be players that are better and run better builds and have better teamwork. You know why? Effort. Everything, including video games, sees productivity and results correspond to the effort put in. So you wanna kick out the top 10 teams? Guess what the next 10 teams will be your new 'meta' players. You people are a joke. Take your social justice warrior mentality of making everyone equal and shove it. Good players get good and play with good players because they choose it.

[Pat Kell]

November Juliet, on 01 June 2017 - 03:13 PM, said:

What is this communist ********. Let's make everyone be average? No meta? You kidding me? There is always gonna be players that are better and run better builds and have better teamwork. You know why? Effort. Everything, including video games, sees productivity and results correspond to the effort put in. So you wanna kick out the top 10 teams? Guess what the next 10 teams will be your new 'meta' players. You people are a joke. Take your social justice warrior mentality of making everyone equal and shove it. Good players get good and play with good players because they choose it.

OMG, I can't like this enough. Thank you November.

[Mycroft000]

I've never actually asked, but have been on the receiving end enough times to feel like it's fairly often: how often do you push Drop Zones?

[maxdest]

MadBadger, on 01 June 2017 - 12:09 PM, said:

Your request for "number of matches" dropped into is a good question but tricky - . I'll see if any of the published numbers can be sifted in this way but it will be difficult to get proper info I think.

I ran some very quick stats using the work done by Cato Zilks on another thread for top 25 units (which actually covers most units). I filtered out units with less than 12 players, and units which won less than 45% (they were not stomping!) and came up with just under 113k matches which were wins which might be considered stomps by a unit. I am unsure how many would be scouting given the ladder method I expect a lot, so halfing the figure to 66k invasion wins.

Based on average of 6 players (i.e. 50% of a team) for something considered a unit stomp, you get 11kish actual matches that were unit stomps (about 1 in 25)

Of course some wide margins of error here, and I may have missed something.

Edited by maxdest, 01 June 2017 - 04:04 PM.

[Leggin Ho]

I like the data but I know my unit (3 Man) played around 85 - 90matches for 2 of us and like 5 for the 3rd member as he is not around often. We finished with q 91% win percentage and played most of our games with KCom and a few here and there with BCMC and EMP guys making a group. I'd be interested to know how many drops each unit member played vs the average pug to see which side is putting in more time keeping this game going.

[Cato Zilks]

Grus, on 01 June 2017 - 12:12 PM, said:

I don't see mj12 in on the list... or are they 21jm? Either or I haven't run into them enough in 12 man FP to have a opinion. We run into HHoD and 228 a lot. So THAT'S where I have my reffrence.

Or did they just spam scouting to cook the books?

they are 21MJ. The players hop from one side to the other. You run into HHOD and 228 because they are bigger units, but MJ12 has, on average, better players.

[Kubernetes]

Blackgodzilla, on 31 May 2017 - 05:39 PM, said:

So MJ12 are potatoes?

Lately I've been farming quite a lot of EVIL. Maybe the new guys aren't working out?

Grus, on 01 June 2017 - 08:33 AM, said:

well they arnt HHoD.

Smh. I can't believe you just compared us to HHoD (no offense to HHoD).

[Cato Zilks]

Leggin Ho, on 01 June 2017 - 01:43 PM, said:

Now take those numbers and see how many drops the unit players did vs the casual pugs, I'd imagine that on average the unit players drops more on average than the pugs did, no numbers as I'm at work but ill see what I can come up with on it.

5,375 people were in the top 225 units. 17,380 total people participated. So 30.93% of the players came from a unit that made the top 225 units list.

Those same units totaled 239,659 matches of the 603,363 in total; 39.72%. So, yes these units were more active on the whole than their counterparts. It is also worth noting that the "top 225" units are not all active FP units.

The top 50 teams by participation comprise 14.07% of the total players involved but account for 20.68% of the matches. That is a sizable increase. And you have to know that some of these units have people just play one or two matches for the event.

Edited by Cato Zilks, 01 June 2017 - 06:06 PM.