465 replies to this topic

[Mycroft000]

I don't know if you're all intentionally ignoring the earlier part of the quote that's been taken from an earlier post "New players to this game are frequently people who are invested in the Lore, not in the gameplay. I know that was the case for me. When I started, and was playing faction play almost exclusively(as a pug), I suffered from enough crushing defeats at the hands of KCom...", but this was in the first 2-3 weeks of playing, before I joined a unit.

Since then, I've done a complete 180, and rarely drop into faction play with less than at least a lance, and when we do drop with pugs, we do our best to coordinate and work together.

Leone, I appreciate the willingness to come to my defense in any form, but if you're going to ignore the fact that I have explicitly said one sentence earlier that is past behavior I'll leave this here for you to read: Selective Quotation

At this point, I'm fairly confident that there's no constructive discussion to be had here as you all seem to be Cherry Picking

[Mycroft000]

Pat Kell, on 06 July 2017 - 11:08 PM, said:

Just because we disagree, doesn't mean I can't respect your position. I simply believe that if PGI is unwilling or unable to put the time and energy into developing the mode into something that naturally discourages spawn camping, we should do so as a community.

[Pat Kell]

mycroft000, on 06 July 2017 - 01:55 PM, said:

I'm looking at the macro here, not the micro. When you step back from the mindset of "We will do our best to win every match at any cost" you can see that in a mode with no division between skilled players and unskilled, or grouped players and solo players, we have to be better about encouraging more people to play the mode. We don't encourage anyone to participate in it when we have large units steamrolling people relentlessly and unapologetically.

If someone wants to play solo either because they're new and haven't found/been recruited by a unit, or because they see the alert in the bottom corner of their screen and click it and get into a match, or because the rest of their unit is offline and they still want to play, why should the bigger more coordinated teams blatantly take advantage of that and show up with a mentality that boils down to "Don't like our tactics? Go away."

Here's the thing. Who decides what is "better" and who voted that person in and why do they get to decide what my responsibility is?

Also, I wholeheartedly disagree with the statement that "We don't encourage anyone to participate in it when we have large units steamrolling people relentlessly and unapologetically."

It was the absolute stomping that myself and the other founders of KCom received at the hands of the LORDS that caused us to form KCom and try to find a way to beat them. And they sure as heck didn't apologize to us or anyone else they stomped the bejesus out of. Granted, we rarely beat them but we kept trying, we didn't give up, we learned, we got better. There was nothing magical about what we did, we just kept trying. I am not interested in making things easier for people who are going to quit the moment things get tough. I am interested in helping people who want to get better and are willing to put in the work to achieve that noble goal. If there aren't enough of those types of people willing to play this game mode, then one day, sooner or later, it will be ghost drops all day every day and I will find a new game to play. Until then, myself and every one in KCom will do their absolute best to win as decisively as we can every single match. Doing any less is beneath our dignity, disrespectful to our opponents and encourages the belief that in order to make things more "fair" it's ok to drag those near the top down to someone else's level rather than helping those below you rise to the top. I do not hold to that.

I have made numerous posts and comments trying to share the things that I have learned while playing CW. Not all of them are right or set in stone of course, but they are all starting points for people to use as they go about trying to figure out what works for them. Those that chose to ignore it and don't put in any effort to remedy their situation, do not have any right to lay a claim on me at all...ever. Trying to do so is an exercise in futility.

Also, you asked "why should the bigger more coordinated teams blatantly take advantage of that and show up with a mentality that boils down to "Don't like our tactics? Go away." The answer to the first part is because they hit the launch button. It really is as simple as that. They know what can happen as do we. The second part isn't quite accurate at least for me. My comment is "Don't like our tactics? Then stop us." This isn't a git gud comment, this is a man up, put your big boy pants on, figure out what needs to be done in order to stop us from terrorizing the known universe (yea yea, bit exaggerated but if you saw the things that were said about us, you might understand a bit more) and get it done. It won't happen over night. Playing at a high level in CW takes a lot of practice, a lot of hard work, a lot of strategizing and a complete and utter willingness to admit when you are doing something wrong. The last part is vital, none of the others matter if you can't adapt.

[Pat Kell]

mycroft000, on 06 July 2017 - 11:13 PM, said:

I don't know if you're all intentionally ignoring the earlier part of the quote that's been taken from an earlier post "New players to this game are frequently people who are invested in the Lore, not in the gameplay. I know that was the case for me. When I started, and was playing faction play almost exclusively(as a pug), I suffered from enough crushing defeats at the hands of KCom...", but this was in the first 2-3 weeks of playing, before I joined a unit.

Since then, I've done a complete 180, and rarely drop into faction play with less than at least a lance, and when we do drop with pugs, we do our best to coordinate and work together.

Leone, I appreciate the willingness to come to my defense in any form, but if you're going to ignore the fact that I have explicitly said one sentence earlier that is past behavior I'll leave this here for you to read: Selective Quotation

At this point, I'm fairly confident that there's no constructive discussion to be had here as you all seem to be Cherry Picking

Gonna like this post simply because it's so me right now lol.

Next, please don't lecture Leone on selective quotation right after you post a small part of what I sent to you in our private conversation. Leone is one of the most fair guys I know and he was simply pointing out that by deciding at some point in your career as a MechWarrior that ejecting your first 3 mechs was the right thing to do severely hurts any thing you say after that. Doesn't mean that you can't turn things around of course, which it looks like you have. But it does mean that everything you say afterwards (for quite some time) will be inspected thoroughly for any hint that that particular mentality is resurfacing. People do not like joining a match, expecting the other 11 other people to be there and help them to the best of their ability, only to have one just give up and eject. It puts a stigma on that individual for quite a while that is hard to get rid of. It shows that you are willing to sacrifice all the hard work the rest of your team has put into winning. People don't like that in general and certainly don't respect it. Take your beatings like the rest of us have, try your best and move on. Learn from it, give up and quit, join a team, come here and rant and rave about how unfair, do anything but never ever eject and bail on your team like that. You will lose most of your support at this point. I am glad that you no longer do that and I hope it continues because if you preserver through the hard times, you will come out squeaky clean on the other side.

When PGI or anyone else comes up with a way to "fix" spawn camping, I will support it 100%. Not that it will matter because as I have mentioned before, those who are good at the game will simply find another way to win. It happens in everything in life. It will never change and it shouldn't. It's what drives us to become better. We see someone that is doing better than us and we want to do better ourselves. Well, at least the ones that succeed do....the others just tend to look for others to fix their problems for them.

[Pat Kell]

sub2000, on 06 July 2017 - 12:44 PM, said:

Clueless message of Pat Kell is perfect example. I doubt anybody playing as a pug in FW is looking for a lesson from him or anybody else actually.


P.S. In any game 300:1 W2L ratio is beyond ridiculous and it is a clear indication that the game(mode) is broken.

What's clueless is that you don't understand the point of my post to Mycroft at all (in all fairness, he did only post a small snippet of our conversation). I don't care if they learn a lesson or not. That's not my worry, I am here to win as much as I can because I enjoy winning. If others chose to learn from me in a match I am in, great, if not, that's on them. I am simply doing my part in providing an environment where learning something is possible. Not doing my best, diminishes that opportunity. I don't really care what their motive is. I know that I want to win and I know that by trying my best, I am showing them how to achieve their own goals, regardless of what they are. I am certainly not going to try any less so that someone who doesn't really enjoy CW can just come in, get their 10 match mech bay tour or whatever and be on with their day. Those people owe me nothing just as I owe them nothing.

Also, who has a 300:1 win loss ration in CW? Kudos to whoever that is and do you have their contact information because what you see is a "clear indication that a game mode is broken" and what I see is a fantastic opportunity to learn from the best. If that's true, what is broken to me is this communities desire to learn and get better. Why are there not people beating down this teams door, trying to figure out how they are that good and trying to figure out how to beat it? That's just crazy.

Edited by Pat Kell, 07 July 2017 - 12:11 AM.

[sub2000]

ShiftySWP and the Pleated Pants, on 06 July 2017 - 01:02 PM, said:

Your understanding is incorrect.

When the doors open on the bottom of the drop ships... you can shoot into the bay.... legs happen to be the easiest to hit.

Stand corrected.
Was killed in a ship a number of times, and during last event participated in spawn killing (EZ mode against IS pugs).

Quote

Also, all the people that know what they are talking about here (including Pat Kell) are referencing their comments to those folks that want to play FP solo/casually. The point is that FP is not QP. It is not a causal mode. It is not a comp mode. IT IS A TEAM MODE. The lessons being presented by this and literally thousands of threads is directed at those that keep playing FP solo/Rambo/hero style.

To those that are just here for a mech bay and 10 drops, they are not relevant to the larger discussion.

The point is you are clueless about people you fight against.
20-50%(depending on a time of the drop) of the IS pug team (and around 10% in clan) are mechbay tourists. do call of arms week long and just listen what your teammates say. Most of them are quite frank, just like they are quite frank about not being interested in winning. They keep Rambo/hero style not because they are "ramboes" (most of them are quite timid in QP mode, many of them are quite good teammates actually) but because they want to get their kill assists (loyalty points) and grind their 100 loyalty points per match. The rest can and often go Rambo because 8vs12 is hardcore even in QP mode. It is not interesting.
People don't do TS or group queue not because "they want to stay bad" but because they are not interested in socializing, adjusting their play style to the DC requests, or simply afraid to commit their time to group. Nobody of them is interested in your advises, those who want something ask in general section, hang on faction TS etc. sites or just follow metamech. The rest want to have fun. Play a game.
Do you want to make FW a team mode. Demand it. Make FW a group queue where both teams should be groups from the start.

[Kwea]

kf envy, on 28 June 2017 - 11:08 AM, said:

just give the drop ships there proper weapon load out and have all 3 hang around the LZ for a minute

IS dropship should have 2x PPC 3x LRM20 7x ML 5xLL
and clan dropship has 2x ERLL 2xERPPC 8x MPL 2x ERSL 1x AMS 5xLRM20 w/atms 2x SSRM6

BAD AT MATH and CAN'T READ! WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!

Edited by Kwea, 07 July 2017 - 12:32 AM.

[Pat Kell]

sub2000, on 07 July 2017 - 12:17 AM, said:

Stand corrected.
Was killed in a ship a number of times, and during last event participated in spawn killing (EZ mode against IS pugs).

The point is you are clueless about people you fight against.
20-50%(depending on a time of the drop) of the IS pug team (and around 10% in clan) are mechbay tourists. do call of arms week long and just listen what your teammates say. Most of them are quite frank, just like they are quite frank about not being interested in winning. They keep Rambo/hero style not because they are "ramboes" (most of them are quite timid in QP mode, many of them are quite good teammates actually) but because they want to get their kill assists (loyalty points) and grind their 100 loyalty points per match. The rest can and often go Rambo because 8vs12 is hardcore even in QP mode. It is not interesting.
People don't do TS or group queue not because "they want to stay bad" but because they are not interested in socializing, adjusting their play style to the DC requests, or simply afraid to commit their time to group. Nobody of them is interested in your advises, those who want something ask in general section, hang on faction TS etc. sites or just follow metamech. The rest want to have fun. Play a game.
Do you want to make FW a team mode. Demand it. Make FW a group queue where both teams should be groups from the start.

None of those people matter to me so I am not sure why I need to understand them in the first place. To be fair, I know that they exist, I just ignore them and try to win without their help. I am certainly not going to base my play style on people who play CW for those reasons. They are absolutely free to play this mode however they wish, ignore advice, not care about winning, in it for the free mechbays but I am not about to take any of their concerns seriously. What I don't seem to understand is that you expect us to understand their views and concerns about CW but they are not being asked to do the same? Yea, they can come in and Rambo everything they want, it's their game they can play it how they want. But I don't like losing so rather than subject myself to that kind of game play I have done 2 things. I helped to form a unit full of people I can trust to be their when I need them and I avoid QP like it's the plaque (because it is absolutely chocked full of people who have no idea how to play like a team).

As far as demanding a group que, I could care less what they do as long as we can continue to get drops. I am not going to demand anything because I don't know how to fix the issue that your speaking of and based on what you have written, I don't think you do either. You think it's as simple as group que and solo que and it's not, or at least I don't believe it is as I have seen no evidence that it would fix anything. I believe it would make it worse and open up a whole new line of problems...population being the least of it.

[Kwea]

KCOM, MS, 54MR, BCMC and many other good FW groups spend a lot of their time and energy helping other people as well as just playing. I would suggest that anyone who is in synch with them faction-wise come over and drop with them. As long as you are willing to follow their drop calls (and they don't have unit members waiting to join) most of the time we would prefer playing with more people on comms, and like meeting new people.

This isn't JUST happening to pugs, you know. MS went through a restructuring, and while we have some good players for a while there we lost a lot of organization and it affected how we played. Part of how we gauged ourselves was how well we did against other units, because beating pug groups often is more about brute force rather than tactics and discipline. It's taken a while, but it is nice to see us improving again....and we know we are doing well, win or lose, when each wave is distinct, and neither team gets a chance to move in to spawn range....or if they do our response wipes them quickly.

KCOM usually wins against us these days, but they rarely get to spawn camp us unless we are running a training group. It's hard to get new team members to move out aggressively enough....but we use a lot of the same type of tactics KCOM and BCMC use, so we know we can't hang back most of the time or we will be seeing them in or at our spawns. Why not? It's what I would do, and have done, given the chance.

So drop with a team that does it, and you might find out that most of the time spawn camping happens it's because either people are hiding in spawn trying to snipe, or because we are trying to burn mechs and ....well, sometimes teams aren't good enough to kill us even when we Leeeroy Jenkin's it. It;s not because we want to crush the life out of people, but because it is solid tactics....and you fight the way you practice. If you want a chance of beating a KCOM or BCMC group you have to play every match as well as you can, so doing the right thing becomes automatic. Even against pugs.

Edited by Kwea, 07 July 2017 - 12:58 AM.

[Reza Malin]

justcallme A S H, on 23 June 2017 - 06:12 PM, said:

BCMC, you guys are an excellent FP team.

Can confirm. They play very well and have great fire discipline.

[Kwea]

BTW..... FW IS the team mode. It always has been and was always intended to be.

[Vxheous]

Kwea, on 07 July 2017 - 12:59 AM, said:

BTW..... FW IS the team mode. It always has been and was always intended to be.

To be honest though, facing EmP in the Comp Queue makes FW feel like pre-school.

Edited by Vxheous Kerensky, 07 July 2017 - 01:05 AM.

[Kwea]

Vxheous Kerensky, on 07 July 2017 - 01:04 AM, said:

To be honest though, facing EmP in the Comp Queue makes FW feel like pre-school.

Yeah, just addressing all the "you need to ask for a group queue" crap.

[Rogue Jedi]

Since the spawn points were moved to discourage spawn rushes I have not seen a team which had not already won ^{(as in did not have at least a 20 Mech lead)} spawn camp. If your team was in a position where the enemy could do that there was almost nothing you would be able to do to pull it back, so the other team was just preventing you from drawing the match out for potentialy another 20 minutes.

If you want something to discourage spawn camping the solution is simple, your faction clears the zone ^{(as the zone is saturated with 100 arty strikes or 5 of the old long toms)} a few seconds before the drop ship arives. spawn camping becomes suicide for the enemy, however this would also mean that hiding inside your spawn area or going AFK for 1 minute after you die become suicide.
The problem with my solution ^{(and I am guessing the reason PGI have yet to implement something like this)} is that people would likely complain that they would not be able to wait in the drop zone for their team to gather because if you are in the situation where the enemy could spawn camp there is no-where outside the drop zone you can wait and 4-6 Mechs dropping in at once are no match for 12 competant players working as a team waiting for you to stick your head out, but 12 players working together would likely also be no match for that setup

[ShiftySWP and the Pleated Pants]

sub2000, on 07 July 2017 - 12:17 AM, said:

The point is you are clueless about people you fight against.

You should have just posted this instead....

[Mycroft000]

Pat Kell, on 06 July 2017 - 11:55 PM, said:

Gonna like this post simply because it's so me right now lol.

Next, please don't lecture Leone on selective quotation right after you post a small part of what I sent to you in our private conversation. Leone is one of the most fair guys I know and he was simply pointing out that by deciding at some point in your career as a MechWarrior that ejecting your first 3 mechs was the right thing to do severely hurts any thing you say after that. Doesn't mean that you can't turn things around of course, which it looks like you have. But it does mean that everything you say afterwards (for quite some time) will be inspected thoroughly for any hint that that particular mentality is resurfacing. People do not like joining a match, expecting the other 11 other people to be there and help them to the best of their ability, only to have one just give up and eject. It puts a stigma on that individual for quite a while that is hard to get rid of. It shows that you are willing to sacrifice all the hard work the rest of your team has put into winning. People don't like that in general and certainly don't respect it. Take your beatings like the rest of us have, try your best and move on. Learn from it, give up and quit, join a team, come here and rant and rave about how unfair, do anything but never ever eject and bail on your team like that. You will lose most of your support at this point. I am glad that you no longer do that and I hope it continues because if you preserver through the hard times, you will come out squeaky clean on the other side.

When PGI or anyone else comes up with a way to "fix" spawn camping, I will support it 100%. Not that it will matter because as I have mentioned before, those who are good at the game will simply find another way to win. It happens in everything in life. It will never change and it shouldn't. It's what drives us to become better. We see someone that is doing better than us and we want to do better ourselves. Well, at least the ones that succeed do....the others just tend to look for others to fix their problems for them.

Pointing out what someone has explicitly said was something that happened during their earliest experiences in a game mode with an extremely steep learning curve, and a mode in which new players receive absolutely no real guidance, and where they can join matches in trial mechs before they've even completed their first 25 matches in quick play, is very different than my quote where I selected an entire paragraph and unless I've completely misunderstood your stance is a fair summation of your opinion on the matter. If I'm wrong about my assessment of that quote, I apologize, but I did not lift a quote that began mid sentence in a way that would clearly distort what you were saying.

Am I proud of what I did at that time? No, but I'm not going to hide from it because I do not think it's a true failing on my part because at that point in my participation of the game and mode, I wasn't aware that there was no matchmaker, or that there was no division of skill levels in FP. When I saw the warning upon entry into Faction play, I can't deny that it's possible that I clicked okay without reading it, would that be my fault in some part? Yes, however there is nothing in the game that really and truly acts as a speed bump that would slow a new player from treating the warning like every other EULA that we've been conditioned to not bother reading, and click okay.

Spawn camping isn't the only thing that PGI needs to address in the game mode, but it is one of the most egregious.

I believe that PGI should spend the time and energy to improve the mode, which I would be more than willing to pay for, forget mechpacks, let me subscribe to faction play and give it the support it deserves.

[Pat Kell]

I certainly respect the honesty you are showing here and wouldn't suggest being anything other than that. I am just pointing out that sometimes our history comes up to haunt us and we have to be willing to suffer the consequences. Granted, you were new and were not having a good time and because of that, you made a wrong decision. It happens. My one true hope here is that you learn from it and try to push through those hard times in the future because when you reach the light at the end of the tunnel, all the hard work, practice and perseverance you put in will absolutely 100% be worth it.

[Mycroft000]

I'm well past that now. And I was well past it almost as soon as I joined a unit. Now even if I feel like I'm fighting an uphill battle, the worst I'll do is try to get as many kills/assists as I can and try something different from what I see as the typical losing tactic. Even if it doesn't win, at least I've tried something different. Many times when my unit has done things like this were we take the typical strategies and turn them on their sides, we've won fairly decisively.

And my actions back then are exactly why I speak out against spawn camping now. It's not the new players' faults for being given virtually no direction when entering into faction play for the first time.

There should be a portal that opens on your first entry that has an in game Hiring Hall where new players can find units who want new recruits, there should be an academy style mini game that guides new players through the mechanics of a siege match, there should be multiple stages before a new player can simply drop into a faction match having been given no clue that shooting the gate does nothing, that shooting the orbital canon itself does nothing, and they should have to acknowledge several times that they are in fact choosing not to play with a group if they want to solo drop. If those were all in place, then I would say it's on them to have consciously decided against grouping.

Without real support from PGI for new players, the best I can do is advocate for them, which I am well aware is more of a losing battle than dropping solo in faction play, but I'm not going to give up the "good fight" until we get better support from PGI(yes I'm tilting at windmills here but at least I'm being consistent and persistent).

[LORD ORION]

gamingogre, on 21 June 2017 - 07:35 PM, said:

Every time I get spawned ***** I report the team as exploiting and quit for the night. Spawn killing is unacceptable. Why has PGI allowed this? Fix the maps or remove them from a multiple waves of drops. Please understand this is non-negotiable. Fix. The. Spawn. Killing.

Spawn camping occurs when you are bad.
Join a team or GTFO.

[Pat Kell]

I will only say that while I agree with most of what you say there. It would be nice to have a lot more things in place from PGI to help new players transition into CW in an easier way. However, I still believe that some of the fault lies at the feet of the new player as well. They are wanting to try something new, that's great but if they are just going to dive right in, without taking the time to read any forums advice, test the waters in QP first, go through the basic tutorial that is in place, then the experience they get is at least partially on them. This may be a bad metaphor but if someone doesn't know how to swim because they haven't taken the time to learn how, what should they expect to happen if they dive into deep water? Granted, having more assets in place to help new players "learn how to swim" would be nice but it either has to come from PGI or from the voluntary action of it's player base. Voluntary is the key word there. I will help new players out whenever I can by giving advice, sharing load outs, sharing strategies and tactics, directing them to the forums and other sources of information but one thing I am not willing to do is put out unit in a situation where I am asking people to hold back and not try as hard as they can. I've stated why several times now so no need to rehash it other than to say that I will never ask anyone else to do that for me and I am not going to do that to any one else (yes, I typed that right, I would find it a bit sickening to not give every match my all on purpose).