425 replies to this topic

[Pat Kell]

Willard Phule, on 03 June 2017 - 01:15 PM, said:

Here's a thought....stupid as it sounds.....

Since PGI is totally incapable of doing anything to balance matches as far as groups and pugs are concerned, how about you just disband groups altogether and make FW nothing but solo pugs. If groups want to drop together, make them try to sync drop.

Yep, I know it sounds stupid, but if every match is a potato match....there won't be any group harvesting going on anymore. May be stupid, but it's definitive.

Sure, that's a great idea. Lets take the one mode that was specifically designed for teams and not let them play together as a team unless they get lucky enough to sync drop.....dear lord

[Insanity09]

I fail to see how the conclusion could be reached that doing any sort of a queue split for FW, be it tier based, group based, or whatever, would actually impact the planet captures.
The way it is right now, this very minute, there are multiple matches (defined in a moment) taking place that impact planetary capture.

There may have been some method to the madness when specific planets could be fought over (as in, you used to select a planet on which there was fighting and chip in). The consensus, afaik, is that... there is no consensus. The only real factor agreed upon seems to be that it is (likely) contribution based, but even that gets a little vague. How much contribution? At what point in the conflict? Number of players? Wins? LP earned? Timing, as in your unit got the last victory that won the world(s)? The planet sectors are gone, and being able to decide specifically what planet you want to fight on (out of the chosen targets) is also gone, so even if those things used to matter they don't any longer. (or you've no control over them, which amounts to much the same thing)
I have tried to find a definitive answer and come up empty, but I've read lots of theories.

(Side note: what the heck is with the folks that believe that you will only defend(& counter?)/attack when the FW bar is all the way to one side or the other? I've been in plenty of FW inavsion drops when the bar was all the way to clan capture side (they were winning) and I've defended, attacked, and counterattacked in that specific situation. Empirical evidence, gotta love it.)

So a match. One 12 v 12 (or 4 v 4, if we're talking scouting) game mode played to completion. Period.

How do you count it? For population or matches, we first need to decide whether we're looking at concurrent or total.

For matches.
Concurrent
Simple, pick a moment, take a snapshot of how many matches are being actively played at that moment. Number, done. Filter by QP/GP/FW-I/FW-S if you wish. Sample multiple times to get averages, medians, or other statistical evaluations.

Total.
Pick your time period. Each match played during that period counts as ONE towards the total matches in that period.
Each specific faction (Davion, Smoke Jag, etc.) that was involved in that match gets a single tick on their matches played.
Each unit involved, whether with one person or all twelve, gets a single match counted towards their total. (waah! unfair! What? Why? How? They played in a single match. They had the advantage of dropping together as a team.)
For the faction and unit totals, think of it like this. A single match was played, did the specific faction/unit have a presence in that match? Yes? Okay, they get another match for their total.

Counting population works much the same.
Concurrent.
At any given moment, how many people are logged in right then? From a particular unit/faction? Playing a FW match? That's the concurrent active number. Again, multiple samples, etc...

Total played.

RW example. The US NFL teams have a 53 man roster (officially). At the end of the regular season, they've played 16 games.
(*assuming each player gets some field time) At the end of the season, what was the match (game) population for that team?
Answer: 53.
Not 16 x 53, just 53. Not some random number between 1 and 16 times 53, just 53. Not some creative accounting method to say that some players should be counted multiple times, just 53. The number of players who represented that team in matches (games) cannot be more than 53, because the roster is only 53.

So, MWO. If you asked me to give a total active population for a time period, or an event, in MWO, I would ask, okay, how many accounts were active (logged in) during that time? Bam. Number achieved. (yeah, yeah, alt accounts, blah, blah, but officially, that counts as another person, so...)
How many people from a specific faction or unit? You get the idea.

If a single person, for population purposes, gets counted more than once for total population during a time period (an event), that IS multi-counting.
(for an MWO example, if my mech has 4 ML on it, and during a match, I fire those four lasers 200 times, I have fired 800 shots, but the my total laser population was only four! Semantics matter for this sort of thing.)
You could count a person as many times as you wanted for each instance of a concurrent population (but only once for each snapshot). You could also use one person once for total player population, once for faction (if applicable), and once for unit (if applicable), because those are counting different categories, and that player may be part of each of those sets.



Now, on the subject of unit tags and getting credit for planet claims (and MC rewards).
Whether there is a definitive answer on how credit is determined or not(?), it still doesn't have any bearing on the multiple queue discussion.

Why? Simple. However credit is garnered, assuming it isn't more or less at random, you are still somehow counting what your unit players did during the period of contention. Whether they were in a solo FW queue, a tier FW queue, or whatever, they still did stuff that will be counted. Problem (if there was one) solved.

If you want to multi-count population here for credit purposes, go right ahead. If matches played matters for planet claim credit is the way it works, then yeah, 4 players from a unit in a single match is 4 points of credit for that unit.
Multi-count for credit, not for population.

@MadBadger. Option 2, all the way. That way PGI (and we the players?) can take this huge, fetid, gnarled up problem and break it into small chunks to (hopefully) fix one at a time.

[Pat Kell]

Correct, multiple matches are currently being played at this very moment that determine planetary capture. The problem is that if you split ques and don't deal with this issue properly, there will be matches going on that one side or the other has no ability to be a part of it. This is an extreme example of course but what happens if all the (good) low level tier guys go IS and all the bad low level tier players go clan. This would essentially allow the (good) low tier level IS people prevent the higher tier players from capturing a planet and the high tier level people would have no ability to affect the outcome of any of those matches through participation. That is the issue and while I think it unlikely to occur exactly as I described it, I wanted to make it extreme to be able to get the point across. You have to build 2 maps for a tier splitting idea to work at all. So then, would PGI be willing to double the MC hand outs they are giving currently? Maybe.

[Insanity09]

How would that be any different from what is happening at present? Players, units, have the ability to choose which side they play on.
Ostensibly, units are comprised of better players (certainly better teamwork in most cases), and en masse could simply decide to play for the Clans (or IS). That seems no different from what you describe.

So, either the problem you are describing exists now (and it possibly does), or you are just buying trouble where none exists.

If it does exist now, the queue alteration would do nothing to alleviate it. But that isn't the intention. The queue alteration is intended to address a population issue, not fix a potential faction skill issue.

Also, a tier based queue would not, de jure, prevent units from existing or grouping up, it is simply that a player's tier would have to be public knowledge. If the tier was not public knowledge, then it would kind of de facto cause so many problems that it would prevent groups from working together properly, at least in FW.
This is just one of a few reasons why I would think that a tier based queue is the wrong answer. But that is merely my opinion.

Moreover, nothing that was suggested, at least that I noticed, suggested that units would be done away with. It seems highly unlikely that units would be comprised of only tier 1-2 (and 3) players OR tier 4-5 (and 3). So, since a unit cannot be partly clan and partly IS, at least for FW, you would not end up in the situation you fear, because some units, containing all 5 tiers of players, would be IS, others Clan. In fact, since units, in some ways, represent the training grounds for players getting better, particularly teamwork-wise, that almost guarantees that your worry is unfounded.

[MischiefSC]

We need to forget about splitting the queue. That's not logical. Just put the map/mode in QP/group queue. At that point it's not FW anymore. It's just QP anyway. There's already a matchmaker there and letting people deep around with the content there doesn't affect anyone or anything and it leaves room for doing something useful to improve FW.

[naterist]

I love that people are still argueing that fw is for competetive teams and thats its niche, when comp mode is a month out.

[Crockdaddy]

Lets beat the living .... **** out of this some more. It isn't like we haven't been talking about it for two years now. PGI bailed on this mode long ago when it had a real chance to be something. MWO is a slowly dying game hoping to be invigorated by the Civil War update. I am a pessimist by watching and playing almost 5 years now. I enjoy the IP and I think this game is a great FPS tactical team oriented shooter. Just it can't be everything to everyone that much is clear. My view at this point ... either put some serious dev time and marketing into FP or just toss the mode entirely and quit wasting time on it.

Give me depth of gameplay (which I wanted but never really received in FP) or give me a better game with comp side and a QP side and map updates regularly. Make a choice. What it cannot do is hope to be all 3 things ... Comp ... QP .... Deep game with factions.

[Pat Kell]

Insanity09, on 03 June 2017 - 05:12 PM, said:

How would that be any different from what is happening at present? Players, units, have the ability to choose which side they play on.
Ostensibly, units are comprised of better players (certainly better teamwork in most cases), and en masse could simply decide to play for the Clans (or IS). That seems no different from what you describe.

So, either the problem you are describing exists now (and it possibly does), or you are just buying trouble where none exists.

If it does exist now, the queue alteration would do nothing to alleviate it. But that isn't the intention. The queue alteration is intended to address a population issue, not fix a potential faction skill issue.

Also, a tier based queue would not, de jure, prevent units from existing or grouping up, it is simply that a player's tier would have to be public knowledge. If the tier was not public knowledge, then it would kind of de facto cause so many problems that it would prevent groups from working together properly, at least in FW.
This is just one of a few reasons why I would think that a tier based queue is the wrong answer. But that is merely my opinion.

Moreover, nothing that was suggested, at least that I noticed, suggested that units would be done away with. It seems highly unlikely that units would be comprised of only tier 1-2 (and 3) players OR tier 4-5 (and 3). So, since a unit cannot be partly clan and partly IS, at least for FW, you would not end up in the situation you fear, because some units, containing all 5 tiers of players, would be IS, others Clan. In fact, since units, in some ways, represent the training grounds for players getting better, particularly teamwork-wise, that almost guarantees that your worry is unfounded.

The difference is that top tier players wouldn't be able to impact the effect that the lower tier players are having on the mode.

[Deathlike]

Pat Kell, on 03 June 2017 - 09:33 PM, said:

The difference is that top tier players wouldn't be able to impact the effect that the lower tier players are having on the mode.

You could probably try to increase the weight of "real matches" (aka no restrictions) vs those that aren't (like, if you wanted a queue for people needing a clue on how to play CW/FP). Even then, it would just end up needing be some watered down version of Quick Play with potentially some respawns - solo, except with 8v8/6v6/Scouting's 4v4).


I think we've kinda skipped over the original purpose of this topic... that is that CW/FP does need to be gated initially as pretty much ANYONE who just signed up to MWO can play FP/CW directly and most likely will swear off this mode for a while (or the game itself). I'm still not sure how it should be gated, but even Overwatch gates their comp queue (and Arcade mode) with needing to reach a certain level... which really needs to be done here in some form. Heck, if it just outlaws Tier 4 and below, it would probably improve the mode (only so slightly, since Tiers are really an XP box, which is exactly what Overwatch is using ironically for gating comp mode - your comp mode rating is independent of everything else anyways).

Edited by Deathlike, 03 June 2017 - 10:27 PM.

[Danjo San]

I have said this before, but the only gate that makes sense is a gate that actually measures your skill. Not your Tier Level or how many Mechs you own or matches you have played.
If you truly want this to be "for the good players" and "potatoe-free" there needs to be a qualification system.
A mandatory test in the academy, your final exam. It needs to be part tutorial part gate. It needs to be hard enough to keep players out that can't control their mech properly yet, but easy enough to let enough players in. It needs to emphasize teamwork, shooting called targets, it needs to explain the different modes and obstacles, how and where to shoot generators in siege, which towers to power first in incursion. It needs to punish players for not sticking with the group during a push. etc etc.
It needs to be the PHD of MWO.

[Sjorpha]

Danjo San, on 03 June 2017 - 11:23 PM, said:

I have said this before, but the only gate that makes sense is a gate that actually measures your skill. Not your Tier Level or how many Mechs you own or matches you have played.
If you truly want this to be "for the good players" and "potatoe-free" there needs to be a qualification system.
A mandatory test in the academy, your final exam. It needs to be part tutorial part gate. It needs to be hard enough to keep players out that can't control their mech properly yet, but easy enough to let enough players in. It needs to emphasize teamwork, shooting called targets, it needs to explain the different modes and obstacles, how and where to shoot generators in siege, which towers to power first in incursion. It needs to punish players for not sticking with the group during a push. etc etc.
It needs to be the PHD of MWO.

IMO making FP that elitist is neither desirable or realistic.

The gate should just gate out complete newbies, not all bad players.

[TWIAFU]

Willard Phule, on 03 June 2017 - 01:15 PM, said:

Here's a thought....stupid as it sounds.....

Since PGI is totally incapable of doing anything to balance matches as far as groups and pugs are concerned, how about you just disband groups altogether and make FW nothing but solo pugs. If groups want to drop together, make them try to sync drop.

Yep, I know it sounds stupid, but if every match is a potato match....there won't be any group harvesting going on anymore. May be stupid, but it's definitive.

You know, your "side", not "team" as you never used any teamwork, would have done far better if you didn't play CW as QP.

With no disrespect, but if that is how your "side" plays in CW, no wonder you get crushed. Your "side" played a "team" and lost because of it. If your "side" played as a team, you would have done better. But your "side" played QP, sat at max range, like they do in QP, and relied on that to win. Your "side" was spread out all over doing that. What happened when we did not allow your "side" to do that? Were slaughtered and rightfully so.

Now you want to end groups so you can do that all the time, sit at max clan range, and snipe enemies in the clear, farming seals.

Not going to happen.

If every match for you is a potato match, stop playing with potatoes or stick to the potato queue of QP.

Pat Kell, on 03 June 2017 - 01:33 PM, said:

Sure, that's a great idea. Lets take the one mode that was specifically designed for teams and not let them play together as a team unless they get lucky enough to sync drop.....dear lord

Dropped against him last night. The idea makes total sense after that experience.

[RogoRogo Wolf]

okay... not that it matters.. because it is not going to happen.... but just a few words of reason....
It's simply a fact that PGI is incredibly... bad at grooming its playerbase.. the consequences have already happened.
Also PGI's CEO is incredibly adept to pay only attention to things no longer than 140 chars but nothing else and listening only to the completely wrong people.... (long before MWO).. because he is a very special snowflake.... the consequences have already happended.... numbers and game are as they are now.
DIVISION, SEPARATION AND INACCESSABILITY ARE NOT A SALVAGE EFFORT!!!
First of all.... FW has to be more accessible to whats left of the playerbase.... but Russ B has flatout VETOED integrating the nonsensical separated UIs between QP and FW (we all should click around on the same UI as we have only 3 gamedrops... ONE MECH or two varations of FOUR MECHS).

Then FW should be more accesible by gameplay, fe also by objective rewards and map and gameplay design (none of this is going to happen, by managment intent and also by lack of capable HR).
It also (although the playerbase in not there anymore and also... PGI lacks the engine knowledge to implement that) should be 20 vs 20 with a variable gamesize due to queue.

And most important of ALL.. across the board in every and all gamemode drop premade TEAM/GROUPsize should be limited to ONE LANCE aka 4 players. This works perfectly with many many games to keep them playable for everyone.
The full PREMADE battles are a separate mode in every other game.... and they even exist in MWO... it is called the TOURNAMENT client....

That is a short version... the lore stuff, the design stuff.. how this actually makes more money... all this has been discussed, laid out, explained, offered many many time in many many variations over 4 years.... feedback... ZIP... you can even listen to podcasts where Mr. Bullock gets presented a laid-out solution or a thouroghly analyzed problem... and his repsonse has nothing to do with what was just said.... I don't know if he doesn't get it (I mean.. he really doesn't pay attention to anything more complex than twitter), if it's a problem of self-absorbance (not totally unlikey) or he FALSELY believes that the few reamining big and active unit are the revenue stream and if he doesn't build the whole public game around their pseudo-"e-sport" needs that goes away (that is the thing I really do not get... how can someone be so subjective in such important matters.. I mean... as someone running a company I would permanently want to know where the money comes from... and how I can keep it coming in....).

This game would still be easily salvageable... it could be much more immersive, mechy, accesible, FUN with minimal effort... yet... ressources always go the wrong way.... shame.
Plus... with a single player game currently in development.... and things like "transverse" still in my mind.... one wonders where attention and funding goes.... and how things turned out in the past (marine sharpshooter, the nukem workbenching...)

ssigh....
But still.. at least the community aka the playerbase should be INCLUSIVE and not further SEPARATION... that is just plain - sorry to type - stupid!

P.S. Sorry in advance, I just quicktyped that without really looking to get it out of my system and did not proofread it for a second....

Edited by RogoRogo Wolf, 04 June 2017 - 05:34 AM.

[Danjo San]

Sjorpha, on 04 June 2017 - 04:09 AM, said:

IMO making FP that elitist is neither desirable or realistic.

The gate should just gate out complete newbies, not all bad players.

I was referring to OP, although I didn't quote him specifically, cause others in this thread had similar ideas... I'm all for including all levels of players, I will bring new recruits with trial mechs to FP together with the vets in my unit. How else are they supposed to learn...
That said, people are crying for a gate, I just wanted to point out that a gate needs to make sense...
for example the OP said you have to be at least Tier 2... I know many Tier 2 players that play like taters. and I have Tier 4-5 players in my unit that do good in FP. Plus I can go and create an alt account where I will start out as Tier 5 but my skill level and knowledge is higher... I want to say the Tier gate is faulty and can not be used to effectively gate quality players from the "end-game"
The same goes for "you got to at least own 4 Mechs fully mastered" I don't get the logic at all behind this... what if you start out, are a great player but all the mechs you bought are IS-Lights? You enjoy playing lights in Quick Play... For Scouting that might work out, but on Invasion you'll need more tonnage, so either you don't play with your friends or you take some decent Trials.
Also if Players like myself can create an Alt and drop in full Trial Decks without having played one single QP or even bought a single mech and still come out of the match with the highest matchscore, most kills, and most damage dealt, how does this gate make sense?
The next gate being asked for is you have to had at least X-amount of matches... I see players on a regular basis in FP, that have been there ever since day 1 and cannot do jack... they hardly break 300DMG, These Players have played for years and still don't understand how the gamemode works... so obviously this gate would not work as intended either.

However if you had a task in the academy and only after completing that task you'd be able to drop matches in FP, that would gate according to skill and understanding of the mode. nothing more, nothing less.
Thats actually all I wanted to say...
Cheers

[Leggin Ho]

Fastest and least amount of coding fix would be to only allow people to drop FP if they have 4 mechs, NO TRIALS,.... is it perfect? Nope but then the folks that drop in will at least have put the effort of getting the mechs and hopefully skilling them out before they jump into FP. will they still lose if they try to play FP like QP, most likely yes. But maybe in the time it takes them to get the required mechs they may see the advantage of playing as a group player and not Rambo....

Edited by Leggin Ho, 04 June 2017 - 09:43 AM.

[Commander A9]

Perhaps they should incentivize playing as a team by offering a GXP or C-Bill reward which is multiplied by the number of tagged team members you have in your individual drop group?

If, say, you get a $10,000 C-Bill and 1,000 GXP bonus per tagged teammember in your drop group, and you drop with a full 12-man, congrats, you earned yourself $120,000 C-Bills and 12,000 GXP independent of any other game rewards, win or loss. Call it a Unit Bonus. This could be multiplied even further by the number of planets your unit has tagged.

We're all mercenaries after all...

[SuperFunkTron]

Commander A9, on 04 June 2017 - 10:08 AM, said:

Perhaps they should incentivize playing as a team by offering a GXP or C-Bill reward which is multiplied by the number of tagged team members you have in your individual drop group?

If, say, you get a $10,000 C-Bill and 1,000 GXP bonus per tagged teammember in your drop group, and you drop with a full 12-man, congrats, you earned yourself $120,000 C-Bills and 12,000 GXP independent of any other game rewards, win or loss. Call it a Unit Bonus. This could be multiplied even further by the number of planets your unit has tagged.

We're all mercenaries after all...

They already incentivize team work through in battle rewards for group formation, protected medium, etc... And it is not the an absolute that solo players aren't coordinating, the issue is the players that do not cooperate and refuse to cooperate. I've seen plenty of units lose miserably because they cooperated very poorly.

It would make more sense to emphasize and increase the in game incentives for team work rather than just incentivizing the addition of a unit tag.

[Insanity09]

Ah, now I think I understand what you are saying, Pat Kell.

You seem to be taking it as given that a tier-based queue would be implemented. By no means is that a certainty, and it is only one method that has been suggested (not even the main one, as far as I've seen).


However, in the FW tier-queue situation...

You can't be worried that one side or the other would have all the high tier players (and the other all the low?), because that is not a reasonable concern (nor would it differ from our present methods, as I said before). It is only sensible to expect that both sides would have players in all tiers.

Nor can you be worried that high tier matches would no longer affect the game, because it is simply the case that matches in the high tiers and the low tiers would each be moving the capture bar.

You could be worried that number of low tier matches would totally overwhelm the high tier matches, and thus count for more. Not knowing the population distribution, tier-wise, I couldn't comment on that directly, except to point out that, as mentioned above, it is reasonable to expect that both sides would have players in all the tiers, so there would be fighting going on at all levels. Yes, the more numerous matches (low tier?) might be capable of moving the bar more, but that is a far cry from saying that they are the only matches that would matter.
But I don't think that's the issue.

It seems you are worried that the top tier players won't be matched against lower tiers, thus crushing them utterly, over and over again. That fear is very well founded, and is exactly the point!

The counterpoint, the reason for the various queue change suggestions, is that many folks are concerned that the crushing of new FW players over and over is driving population away, i.e. folks that are trying out faction warfare for the first time (or first several times) are getting annihilated, often. As a result, they are finding the game mode totally un-fun, and since the point of a game is to have fun, they go back to QP (if we're lucky).
People can say, "they should just git gud" all they want, but if the difference is feeling competitive and having fun in QP (and maybe GP?), and getting destroyed so badly you can't even learn from the experience in FW, the FW mode simply isn't going to get new people.
Add in a few people in FW (and it only needs to be a few, or even one per match) screaming insults at and blaming the new players for not knowing what to do (which they mostly can't help, they're green), and poof, FW pop declines and doesn't rebound.

The situation is analogous to many PvP games where high level and well geared people (doesn't need to be many) hunt the newbie spawning grounds, just to slaughter the easy pickins'. Result: such PvP games nearly always end up ghost towns; with no new blood coming in, attrition eventually eats up the population.


Some folks are trying to put forward suggestions on how to make the transition from QP/GP to FW a more gradual and fun experience. Changing the way the queues work is one of the main proposals that could help. (worth a shot, with FW pops being considered only one step up from comatose)
Allowing the new FW players time to learn, while being competitive and making a contribution seems like a good idea to many of us (based on many posts I've read). In the short and long term, we believe it will make FW a more highly populated place for everyone, perhaps even more enjoyable (I certainly hope so), and as a result it might even get PGI to devote more resources to making needful improvements in FW.

I hope I've misinterpreted your post and your concern, and I would be happy to read the specifics and a better explanation so that such a misunderstanding does not continue.

[Pat Kell]

Just to be clear, I don't want to fight against people who are new to the game or who aren't very good. It gets boring. My concern is the same as it was with long tom. A separate game mode would essentially determine the winner of another game mode if one side could completely dominant the other. If you are going to split the ques, you have to have separate maps for each que that you create imo. I was simply pointing out an issue with splitting it into tiers (as one possible example). If you think that I want to farm pugs and utterly crush them, you are wrong. Not sure how else to put it. I just don't want to fix one "unfair" situation by creating another one. I have said it before, I don't know the answer to this issue or if there even is one, I just think that you have to be careful not to create additional problems when trying to fix the one that is being claimed here.

[Scyther]

There is a difference between fixing a known, demonstrable problem that has a record of complaints stretching back to the creation of CW, and worrying about a potential but unlikely problem that only seems to be possible if you postulate an extreme player imbalance of some sort.

Do you really feel that teams of newbies, tier 4's, and 'better player alts' are going to start sweeping planets and claiming rewards? Are the current FP rewards even really worth worrying about? Are the FP units and teams unable to take planets from newbies?