425 replies to this topic

[General Solo]

If you gonna restrict might as well give the restricted their own buucket

[Leggin Ho]

Cato Zilks, on 01 June 2017 - 06:03 PM, said:

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.

That's more or less what i was thinking, that the units are still the more active part of the population, thanks for the numbers Cato...

[Scyther]

@Cato Zilks and Leggin Ho:
You need to be more careful about interpreting the data incorrectly just because it supports your beliefs.

Those 'top 225' units didn't 'total' 239,659 matches out of 603,363. At least one member of that unit participated in that many matches, in which several other units and several pug/solos likely also participated. It isn't a one-to-one relation.

For instance, if you look at just the 'top 25' Davion units, they participated in 19,253 wins. And yet the total of all Davion faction wins is 17,563. Obviously things are getting counted in multiple categories.

Take an example match. IS has 2 UnitX, 3 UnitY, 1 UnitZ, 6 pugs. Clan has 2 UnitA, 3 UnitB, 2 UnitC, 5 pugs. By the way PGI has totalled the figures, that is going to look like '6 unit drops, # of pug players unknown'.

I already pointed out this multi-counting issue, but you both ignored it since it didn't jive with what you wanted to hear. (Edit: struck out incorrect info, see Cato Zilks post 5 down for corrections)

It was already shown that casuals made up over 2/3 of the players in the event. You are trying to push that number in line with your expectations. So think about this:

Everyone who was competing in the event was trying to accomplish a set number of goals/objectives. Teams/units in general could accomplish those goals/objectives in fewer matches. I saw people claiming to have completed it with their unit in 8 hours.

'Casuals' would have had to play longer, for more matches to meet those same goals. So why would you assume the players who made up the majority of the event population, who had to play more matches to meet the event goals, were somehow 'not dropping as much as the active units'?

Confirmation bias is a thing.

Edited by MadBadger, 02 June 2017 - 12:44 PM.

[Insanity09]

I think I'm missing something here.
Here is what I got from some of the numbers above...

• (Top) Units comprised about a third of the FW population during the Tuk event.
  
• Those same units participated in about 40% of the matches in the event.
  
• The very top teams make up about 1/7th of the population, about 14% (how you got that stat, I do not know, but w/e).
  
• Those same top teams participated in about 20% of the matches.

Summary: Regardless of how you look at it, the highly active players did not even comprise half of the population or matches during a FW focused event.


Curious query, I would guess that during regular (non-event) time, the numbers of "active" FW players/units/teams is a much higher percentage of the total?

Anecdotally, during the Tuk event, I heard quite a few people comment in the QP matches that they were getting or had gotten their event rewards and then they simply went back to QP, no more FW for them.

I too would be interested in the number of QP players and matches during the Tuk event.

Conclusions:

• There is a pool of people that are at least willing and able to try FW, given sufficient motivation.
  
• An FW event has the potential to triple the population, which seems like a good thing.

Corollaries:
If people consider the current, normal wait times in FW acceptable, it would seem that during an FW event, the splitting of the FW queues into solo and group, would likely not greatly alter wait times, given the pop increase. I might expect some degredation of the group based queue, but not much.
Why? Because it seems that the bulk of the group queue would continue to be the existing 'highly active' players and units.
Unless people wish to claim that large numbers of the active unit players would abandon their units to play in the solo queue? Interesting, if true.


I could certainly rehash some of the other arguments in the thread above, but both sides seem to fall on very deaf ears, so there seems little point to doing so.

[50 50]

Some really good points in this thread.

Let's consider both sides of the argument to basically be:

Team Players who don't want to mix with the casuals and would like to enjoy a higher level of co-ordination in a more competitive (no match maker) environment.

vs

Casual Players who would like to enjoy the mode, be part of a faction and just play the game.

Option 1.
If we wanted the mode to be exclusive, we should just put Siege and Drop Decks into the Private lobby and be done with it. That way there is no mixed groups where a team feels like they get handicapped by casuals and casuals won't get flamed on by team players if they lose.
After all, the reason to actually fight for your faction has been diminished with the single bucket and can anyone honestly say that just getting a tag and a handful of MC is a real incentive? I'd suggest not.
But that's just sweeping the mode and all it's problems under the carpet and hiding it.

Option 2.
Make it so the Invasion mode can appear in the quick play group queue for selection and uses the default drop deck.
Might get some mixed IS/Clan groups, but seeing as the factions have little meaning... would that matter? Maybe have an additional option in the match maker to look for faction association.
Has a bit of an advantage in that it brings the population back into one system and potentially could feed into the Faction Play map. But... same as option 1 really.

Option 3.
An alternative might be to restrict Faction Play to only be available if you are in a group. This favours units who will have an easier time creating the groups from their members. It doesn't stop casual players from playing, but forces them to make a group and drop together hopefully enabling better co-ordination and building up the team work and experience.
Might need to restrict group sizes to lances or at least to even numbers as the solo players do currently fill the gaps for the teams to meet that 12 player minimum restriction.
But, is that a great option?
Doesn't actually fix any of the problems and does nothing to actually add any depth to the mode.

Option 4.
Do the split queue thing.
Might make it more mode friendly for the solos and casuals but doesn't fix any other problems, do anything for the depth.
It may even make some issues worse, ie. wait times, and there are other problems associated with it when considering the tug of war system.

Option 5.
Take a step back, look at the mode a different way and make some serious changes.
Instead of the mode being exclusive to groups, we should adopt the view that to be able to complete the end goal of capturing a planet, you really need to group up and get that co-ordination happening.
Compare the concept to fantasy MMOs like World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online.
You can run around and do a bunch of things solo, but when it comes to taking on the big challenges, then you need to group up because solo, you just get smashed.
In MWO, this is what Siege was really there for.
But we also have to consider that MWO is a PvP game where as other genres of MMOs typically are not or at least have the PvE element.
Can it be done in MWO? Of course it can... and in a way that would be unique to this game.

Consider Incursion.
We have a base here with a variety of targets to destroy, features that give our teams an advantage, walls and turrets for defence. That's pretty good and as is might be ok for quick play.
However it is possible for a single light mech, a solo player, to run into that base and destroy everything. That's hardly the challenge required for the end of game content.

Consider Siege.
Similar to incursion with the defences and multiple features to destroy.
However, with no opposition a solo player can probably achieve the objective and destroy the Omega.

These bases should be setup in such a way that without defending players it should be impossible for a solo player to complete the objective. It should be impossible for a small group to win on their own and it should be very difficult for a random collection of casual players making no attempt to coordinate efforts.

These bases should be brutal. They should be the end of level boss from an MMO that needs a big group to coordinate and take down.... and then we add defending players into that equation. Why does it needs to be heavily in favour of the defender? I'll refer to you all to an earlier point where the groups only attacked and therefore did not encounter each other. That's because they had no reason to defend which left the solo players as the ones to make up the majority of the opposition. So with this is mind, even if a 12 player group faces off against solo players, it would still be a significant challenge. That gives something for the groups to test themselves against.

What does that leave solo players or small groups to accomplish in the grander scheme of the mode and the glory of their faction?
We need some secondary options.
Scouting was kind of the filler here and while it's fun, it is still better to have a coordinated group and we get the same mismatches in this mode... just on a smaller and faster scale.
So, if a map has somewhere on it a major fortified objective, or several major fortified objectives that really requires a big group to tackle, then we also need some smaller objectives and options for solo players and the small groups.
These could be other modes in Faction Play, like scouting, but this has the problem of separating the players into a different queue. We should be able to incorporate these objectives (and scouting) into the one map and allow both ends of the player spectrum to play the game and contribute to each others efforts without necessarily getting in each others way.

[Wing 0]

Reading these posts has gotten to the point where we need to close it and start cutting throats.

[Leggin Ho]

@MadBadger, some of that may be true, but the simple fact is that per individual the unit's would have played more games per person since most folks in the group wanted the unit level participation or their unit name in lights where as you and Insanity09 said, the normal QP pugs finished the event and stopped playing the mode and went back to QP.

[Scyther]

@50 50:
Some good thoughts, but got kind of vague there at the end. Mostly that seemed to be wandering off into "PGI needs to re-design maps and objectives, create new ones, and somehow make valid play elements in those new ones that both encourage and reward solo as well as group play". A nice general thought, if somewhat fuzzy on details.

Only problem being that PGI has not shown much ability to accomplish that objective to date.

The 'Warcraft/LotR team up for endgame' example is good, but it doesn't quite point out that a) there are hundreds of levels and continents of maps for players to engage with if they don't want to raid and b.) the rewards for raid/large team pay are significant and unique to that style of play and c) both those games have/had much larger player bases than MWO, wherein 'raiding' is a well established game mechanic.

I'm all for PGI inventing new maps/modes/objectives, but since I suspect they will never do so, I'd settle for them just making simple changes to get the current Faction Play setup working somewhat better.

@Leggin Ho: That isn't actually a simple fact. It's a simple supposition, that you are assuming, that Cato backed up with incorrect figures, and even the incorrect figures barely support the hypothesis. I'm not saying it's wrong but unless you can come up with better numbers to support the idea, it's just what you prefer to believe. (Also, Insanity09 may have said that, I didn't.)

Edited by MadBadger, 01 June 2017 - 07:52 PM.

[50 50]

MadBadger, on 01 June 2017 - 07:42 PM, said:

@50 50:
Some good thoughts, but got kind of vague there at the end. Mostly that seemed to be wandering off into "PGI needs to re-design maps and objectives, create new ones, and somehow make valid play elements in those new ones that both encourage and reward solo as well as group play". A nice general thought, if somewhat fuzzy on details.

Only problem being that PGI has not shown much ability to accomplish that objective to date.

The 'Warcraft/LotR team up for endgame' example is good, but it doesn't quite point out that a) there are hundreds of levels and continents of maps for players to engage with if they don't want to raid and b.) the rewards for raid/large team pay are significant and unique to that style of play and c) both those games have/had much larger player bases than MWO, wherein 'raiding' is a well established game mechanic.

I'm all for PGI inventing new maps/modes/objectives, but since I suspect they will never do so, I'd settle for them just making simple changes to get the current Faction Play setup working somewhat better.

@Leggin Ho: That isn't actually a simple fact. It's a simple supposition, that you are assuming, that Cato backed up with incorrect figures, and even the incorrect figures barely support the hypothesis. I'm not saying it's wrong but unless you can come up with better numbers to support the idea, it's just what you prefer to believe. (Also, Insanity09 may have said that, I didn't.)

Yeah.
It's detailed in some other posts and I reckon I've been on about it under a variety of different threads so was avoiding making direct reference to it again.
In essence, yes.
Overhaul the design.
Don't really need new maps, there are a few that are probably big enough to have multiple objectives.
Should be pretty easy to expand a few areas if needed, we've seen that done pretty quickly in the past.
New modes, sort of. I feel we could take some of the existing assets and alter them slightly to achieve it, but it's more about combining these into one map, one mode and allowing players to rotate through a single scenario.

Don't really see the point of continually putting band-aids on something that needs surgery.

EDIT: I'll also add that in terms of allowing solo players and smaller groups to go off and do their thing, ie. the equivalent of the continents and zones etc, that we have got a rather big galaxy we can utilize.
It shouldn't just be about 'capture the planet'. That is the end game part. But if we really want to bring the galaxy to life we need to allow things like raiding and scouting that may never eventuate into a full blown invasion. We have the fantastic opportunity to allow players to set up a 'zone' for other players to invade.
I'll refer you to the various posts under feature suggestions, but there is one here about the next round table that has the links and starts to give a few more details.

Edited by 50 50, 02 June 2017 - 02:42 AM.

[Cato Zilks]

MadBadger, on 01 June 2017 - 06:39 PM, said:

@Cato Zilks and Leggin Ho:
You need to be more careful about interpreting the data incorrectly just because it supports your beliefs.

Those 'top 225' units didn't 'total' 239,659 matches out of 603,363. At least one member of that unit participated in that many matches, in which several other units and several pug/solos likely also participated. It isn't a one-to-one relation.

Well I am not given direct access to the data. Matt Newman is the person to talk to at PGI about these numbers. The point was that these units participated in a larger portion of the battles then their portion of the population.

To answer the question asked about where I get my numbers, I compiled them here: https://docs.google....#gid=1004596245
from data that PGI posted.

MadBadger, on 01 June 2017 - 06:39 PM, said:

For instance, if you look at just the 'top 25' Davion units, they participated in 19,253 wins. And yet the total of all Davion faction wins is 17,563. Obviously things are getting counted in multiple categories.

No, you just can't read. The top 25 Davrat teams had 9,923 wins; they participated in 19,253 matches.

Furthermore, I think you are trying to spin this in ways that just don't work. I do not think there is double counting at all. The faction totals presented by Matt tally up to 601,814 matches played by "factions" leaving 1,549 matches for the 99 freelancers that took part (~15 matches per).

Now, the numbers were likely edited down in some ways by Matt, before he published them (I think he took discos out). But, I still think they are accurate and reliable data. The total 603,363 represents the total number of player match evals; each two full teams play (no discos), 24 matches happen. There is no way for 17k players to support 600 thousand matches if each "match" requires 8 or 24 people. Even assuming 400k of the 600k "matches" were scouting it would require that players averaged 85 hours of game time assuming an avg match time of 15 on invasion and 5 min on scout (so really conservative numbers).

So, when a mixmashed IS team (4 Steiner, 2 Marik, 1 Liao, 3 Kurita, 1 Davion, 2 FRR) won a watch against a 10man of clan Wolf +2 discos; that game is recorded as 22 matches played with 4 steiner wins, 2 Marik wins, 1 Liao win, 3 Kurita wins, 1 davrat win, 2 frr wins, and 10 wolf losses.


Nothing is double counted.

MadBadger, on 01 June 2017 - 06:39 PM, said:

Everyone who was competing in the event was trying to accomplish a set number of goals/objectives. Teams/units in general could accomplish those goals/objectives in fewer matches. I saw people claiming to have completed it with their unit in 8 hours.

'Casuals' would have had to play longer, for more matches to meet those same goals. So why would you assume the players who made up the majority of the event population, who had to play more matches to meet the event goals, were somehow 'not dropping as much as the active units'?

Confirmation bias is a thing.

Leggin ho has already pointed out why this is dumb on your part. But let me add, that I, and many in these top units finished all of the personal objectives in 1 day. My alliance has 2 people and I won the alliance wide score for my compatriot on day 1. Unlike the Pugs, we keep going.

Edited by Cato Zilks, 01 June 2017 - 09:08 PM.

[MischiefSC]

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.

@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.

So your approach is to kill FP all together and just wrap FW maps/modes into QP, because there's more casual solo players in a F2P game.

Almost everyone I know who plays FW has spent hundreds (no few of them over 1k) on MWO however. That's probably part of it.

Quantity /= quality. FW had, originally, tons of unit member players. That's who FW is aimed at, that's the people it was created for. That's the people who, originally, played it. That's also people with more vested interest in staying and playing and often spending money on the game. I'd say that's worth some investment from PGI.

The solution is not 'aim for the lowest standard and lowest common denominator'. The solution is 'what's the most results we actually want (more units/team oriented players) we can get with the least effort/cost'. There's several answers to that. 'Make it like QP, reward people for showing up and playing badly, make it more solo/rambo friendly, get rid of the teamplay stuff' is just a recipe for failure.

[PFC Carsten]

MischiefSC, on 02 June 2017 - 12:11 AM, said:

Almost everyone I know who plays FW has spent hundreds (no few of them over 1k) on MWO however. That's probably part of it.

Quantity /= quality. FW had, originally, tons of unit member players. That's who FW is aimed at, that's the people it was created for. That's the people who, originally, played it. That's also people with more vested interest in staying and playing and often spending money on the game. I'd say that's worth some investment from PGI.

… and that's why FW is a thriving environment full of dedicated players? Got it.

[Sjorpha]

I looked over the FP matches played I played the past few days, and actually most of these matches had groups of 3+ players in them, and almost half the matches had groups of 5+.

Not all of these were good games because some groups aren't offering much in terms of challenge, also we got stomped a few times by larger or better groups, a few games were really really good like one against BO and one against EVIL.

The point is my recent match record does not confirm the "endless pugstomp" description that is sometimes attributed to FP, not at all actually.

FP match quality seems quite acceptable at the moment, also faction tech balance is decent now with the tonnage advantage making a pretty fair trade for the worse IS equipment.

I still think a minor gating would be good, just a little stepping stone gating out complete newbies, but I don't think the situation is as horrible as some people seem to think.

I'd love to see real statistics on how many FP teams are composed with groups in them, my guess would be that complete solo teams aren't as common as confirmation bias might have you beleive. I think at least half of the "stomps" are simply a matter of good groups beating bad groups and therefore not an argument for split queues. But yeah real stats would be nice there.

Edited by Sjorpha, 02 June 2017 - 03:14 AM.

[Scyther]

@Cato Zilks:
You are correct, I pulled the wrong column to add up for Davion wins (grabbed matches instead). Also, thank you for the analysis on how matches are counted/totaled. It was late, I was getting tired, and it looks like I misread how that data was presented (largely because I grabbed the wrong column without realizing it, and that made it look to me like multi-counting was occurring). When I get done today I will look at that analysis more closely for double-checking, but on first read it looks good.

To clarify, I am not trying to 'spin' anything. I don't have an FP agenda, I don't have a Clan/IS agenda (other than to accurately estimate and find interesting ways to balance the sides), I don't have a group vs. pugs agenda, I don't even have an 'I feel the need to win more' agenda. My only concerns are:
-that MWO as a whole should present a variety of interesting and different game modes
-that FP should support enough population and enough player interest to make it worth developing
-that it should be interesting and rewarding to play both IS and Clans
-that these goals should support player spending at a rate sufficient to keep PGI developing MWO as a title

I try to get the clearest and most factually supported info I can from what we have available, and use that to draw conclusions from. Apparently you feel the same. If I make an error I am happy when someone corrects it, so long as they provide actual reasoning and figures that check out, and don't just counter with 'well my opinion is a fact so you're wrong!'.

As for "Leggin ho has already pointed out why this is dumb on your part.", he has not, in fact, done so. He stated an opinion, unbacked by facts. Which is basically the same you are doing here, although you have a little more numbers to back it. You still have no actual data on how many games pugs played vs units overall, only a somewhat-calculated rough guess. Your rough guess differs from mine, in that I don't feel the 'active FP units' played, in total, more matches or the majority of matches in the event. They may have, proportionally, played a certain amount more per player than the average solo casual. For the purposes of the conversation, it's a distinction without a difference.

@MischiefSC:
My 'solution' is not about killing FP, nor does how much some players you know spend on MWO have anything to do with the conversation really. Unless you think PGI somehow knows they spent that money because of FP.

You said: "The solution is not 'aim for the lowest standard and lowest common denominator'. The solution is 'what's the most results we actually want (more units/team oriented players) we can get with the least effort/cost'."

As PFC Carsten said, that approach demonstrably leads to a dead FP. People need to stop asking 'how can PGI force players to play this mode the way we in theory want the mode to be played?' and start working with 'what will attract an actually viable population to play FP, enjoy it, and keep on playing it?'. Putting the cart before the horse doesn't get you very far in reaching your goals.

Anything I suggest is a change that I think will make the mode more viable, backed up with actual observable gamer behaviour. It's intended to open up realistic ideas. "Let's continue down the road that killed FP, only more so" isn't a realistic or viable way to rescue FP.

Edited by MadBadger, 02 June 2017 - 03:21 AM.

[Crockdaddy]

metallio, on 31 May 2017 - 07:36 AM, said:

Guilds come, guilds go.

Units come, units go.

Why didn't we get more units coming to FW to replace the ones that left? Because of everything discussed above.

Individual "gravity" isn't any different here than it is in the rest of the world and there's a huge gaming presence online, including massive numbers of people who make a game their second job, putting more into it than their actual employment and families.

Mechwarrior is practically a legendary IP. We don't need to fix people, they'll play if the game gives them any reason to care.

FW doesn't. The reason is that units are made up of individuals, who all start as solos...pugs. You sh!t on them ever day and make FW something they won't even pretend to get involved in as if they should care because you have an established presence there and they should be honored to bask in it. They, and everyone with a hint of self, already told you to F off by not playing in your sand box.

You can give them a reason to come back and they'll form relationships, and then units, in your FW corner of the internet. Then you'll get to play with them. Those people you think could use fixin' and look down on. Unless you think there's just some group of hard shootin' gamers out there who need talked into seein' how things run 'round heah 'cuz they'll see how cool it is to be a part of what you've got goin' and stick around, making it awesome.

Those people don't exist. They're the pugs and solos you keep sh!tting on, after they've gotten to love playing the game and garnered some experience.

Give them a reason to show or keep eating the loneliness around these parts, because it's all you're gonna get.

Solo Q would bring them in to take a look and give them a reason to play. Look how easy it is to get a scouting mission. That's practically "FW solo Q" lite. People play it all the time, and it lets those dirty PuG players do something to support FW.

Honestly, with the attitude around here that 90%+ of the MWO community is lazy, stupid, worthless, and whatever else you mouthbreathers want to call them because they don't play your game I'm not certain there's ever going to be a way to bring the population back, but solo Q would actually give it a shot.

Not likely to happen, nor is anything else that makes sense, but what the he11 I'll keep saying it. I like the game and the IP and I'd rather see it rise than fall.

The issue you describe exists in all games. Just because you need a hug in order to play a given game doesn't mean others do. Jump into a CoD , BF, Overwatch game a year after launch and you will get "rekt" by folks who play that particular game often. If you want to have a good experience you will basically need to "git gud" quick or just be ok with losing all the time. Obviously I am being a bit mean / sarcastic here but honestly splitting the queue on a low pop game is pretty dumb. Lowering the barrier for entry would make quite a bit of sense at this point but PGI needs its whales to stay feeding it so the price stays stupid high for most things within this game. The whales are almost always going to have some advantage (because that is how F2P works).

My dream ... would be a bunch of small groups 3 to 6 man mixed in with solo's. That gives a good mix of skill / experience / organization with likely newer or less organized folks. Or 9 man groups and above always go into the "attack" queue and do not get to defend. This games invasion choke point model makes very little sense and its rewards system is only for Killing, damage not objectives (rewards farming damage).

[Lolo van Trollinger]

so you want some seasoning with that salt, when your talking about seasoned players ?

what is the tier telling anyway ? i have seen players in tier 2 which suck at anything but LRMs and they bring LRM to such maps as grim plexus (i can see a point in taiga or sulphour with a premade or defending on boreal, if you know what to do).
and... they then deliver less then 590 damage all match.
I have seen Tier 5s with direct fire lasers do 1400, when they follow the drop caller.

how about we restrict it to only premade teams with a officially approved drop leader and people who follow commands, no matter how suicidal ?

if you do not want to drop against pugs, i can fully understand it. its boring.
thats why we need zellbrigen rules for such cases. thats why we need bidding away mechs.
if you feel your so over the top against them, why not drop 1-2 mechs from your dropdeck or a decent amount of tonnage for increased rewards ?

or why dont you guys give up calling targets and start duelling mano a mano ?
why not drop a deck with urbies and try dealing them a full wave of stock UM-R63 urbies, if you are so over the top ? just for the fun, its a real challenge. i get up to 3 kills out of one stock urbie...

there is more then one way to make it fun again. be creative.


or suffer my tongue *evil grin*


PS: tier only tells you i have been driving stock urbies again lately.

[Grus]

Kubernetes, on 01 June 2017 - 05:26 PM, said:

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




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

Well that's who we run into a lot. HHoD fought us back to back a lot last night. I'm not gonna measure someone's ability off of numbers or spreadsheets because those can be cooked. I'd rather get in the ring and throw some hits.

[Grus]

Lolo van Trollinger, on 02 June 2017 - 05:26 AM, said:

so you want some seasoning with that salt, when your talking about seasoned players ?

what is the tier telling anyway ? i have seen players in tier 2 which suck at anything but LRMs and they bring LRM to such maps as grim plexus (i can see a point in taiga or sulphour with a premade or defending on boreal, if you know what to do).
and... they then deliver less then 590 damage all match.
I have seen Tier 5s with direct fire lasers do 1400, when they follow the drop caller.

how about we restrict it to only premade teams with a officially approved drop leader and people who follow commands, no matter how suicidal ?

if you do not want to drop against pugs, i can fully understand it. its boring.
thats why we need zellbrigen rules for such cases. thats why we need bidding away mechs.
if you feel your so over the top against them, why not drop 1-2 mechs from your dropdeck or a decent amount of tonnage for increased rewards ?

or why dont you guys give up calling targets and start duelling mano a mano ?
why not drop a deck with urbies and try dealing them a full wave of stock UM-R63 urbies, if you are so over the top ? just for the fun, its a real challenge. i get up to 3 kills out of one stock urbie...

there is more then one way to make it fun again. be creative.


or suffer my tongue *evil grin*


PS: tier only tells you i have been driving stock urbies again lately.

I WOULD LOVE TO BATCHALL!! Seriously though that would be a blast, increased rewards for being lower tonnage than your target and less rewards for being over.. he'll if you go WAY over you lose money..

But you would have to bring TT figures back for clan mech's and I'd add in only stock loadouts for clan.

Force the clan drop to have to bring a %lower then the defenders to make any progress on capture threshold.

And if they are at an even further % throw in a small MC reward on a victory.

For IS if they want to bring a Stiner Scout lance then so be it. But total tonnage must be upfront for clans to see so they can bid correctly.

[James Argent]

Um...if you're the PUG, the 'endless PUGstomp' does, in fact, happen. 'Look at all these balanced matches' is cold comfort to those who don't ever get to experience them.

Personally, I don't give a rip if a big bad would want to slum it to farm the uncoordinated PUGs in a solo queue. There won't be 7-11 of his usual teammates in the drop, each of them competing with each other to farm uncoordinated PUGs at the same time. One hotshot may get a lot of kills, and may even win the drop for his team, but it won't be as unenjoyable to lose this way as it would be on a 48 to less than 12 stomp when he has his unit dropping with him.

[Insanity09]

Actually, from the description above, by my definition, matches were being multi-counted.

A single match, which included 2 from Davion Unit x, 6 from Liao Unit y, two non-unit Steiner, and 2 FRR Unit z, is not four matches (or five), it is a single match. One.

That single match should then be counted as a match for each unit/faction that participated in it, but you cannot go back later and total up all the unit (or faction) matches, by unit, and give that as the total number of matches played (4 or 5 matches, depending on whether the non-unit people count for one or two, based on faction or individual presence).

Now, I may have misunderstood what was being stated above. I have not looked at the source data, and do not know how it was adjusted, organized, or otherwise massaged before presentation by PGI.

All I can say is that based on how it was described above, it is the very definition of multi-counting (as far as the overall event totals, individual unit/faction totals seem like they should be fine).

Does that change the meaning of some of the percentage numbers? Probably not, but it does call into serious question the supposed population involved, and how active the community truly was.