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Fundamentally Broken Game Structure.


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#1 Guffrus

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Posted 13 September 2017 - 09:31 AM

I recently came back having previously quit after the skill changes.
I have enjoyed making some new mechs with the new possibilities that came with the additional weapons.
That's not really to do with my post though so I shall move on to the purpose of my posting.
Match quality is bad and getting worse and I really don't think it has anything to do with match maker or tiers.
Certainly the tier system has huge scope for being improved and that could help and is one of the things I think is an important thing to put effort into improving but the problem is really much worse than that.
The main problem is that outside of the matches we are all collecting a garage full of mechs and having to level them up and pay for all the stuff etc. so many of the mechs brought into matches are prototypes, some of them aren't even what the designer wanted to try out, they are a compromise based on what they could afford to buy, particularly with engines.
Its not just the mech that is being tested but there many different types of mechs and styles of play which pilots must also learn, just because a player is good at one style and role does not mean they will be good at another.
For me, my favourite matches are ones which see both sides spread out and take up tactically advantageous positions serving strategically important purposes and after a period of poking and trading, scouting and counter scouting and lrm support fire exchanges, climaxes in an intense close up brawl leaving 2 cored weaponless one legged mechs hopping at each other in an hilarious cripple fight.
That's not what happens.
What actually happens is everyone goes to the same place they always go, they stand around and wait for a scout that doesn't exist to give information to a caller who doesn't exist and then they get hit by artillery a few times before sighting the entire opposing team nascar murder balling incoming from the left at which point they all run away until they are all defeated in an order determined by their mechs speed however the fastest mech gets to feed on the slowest mechs of the other team before losing and in doing so earns personal rewards for themselves in the form of tier ranking, score, exp and cbills. That's right the reward system in the game punishes team play and rewards the psychopathic sacrifice of allies.
If you just want to win the match, the most simple and unreasonably effective thing to do is to just ball up and run in and most of the time you will win, almost always actually.
So why doesn't everyone just do that every time?
Well, because don't want games to play out like that.
Why would they?
We are here to play mechwarrior, we want all this complicated information sharing, ecm, narc, tag, lrm, heat management, lock time stuff to matter.
If you just want to charge at the enemy screaming and shoot until you win or die horribly screaming then go and play.. I dunno whatever, I cant actually think of a game like that, but most of mechwarrior is pointless if you do that.
So people don't do that, they want the game to go long, they are also afraid of stepping out of cover to engage because they know if they go alone they will die and people will be mad at them and even if people are talking about all pushing and going in you don't know anyone is going to go, if you are on the back foot already its really hard to get anyone to push back even when everyone knows that's the best thing to do. They have no faith in their team mates, they don't want to sacrifice themselves by going out first, there is no incentive to do anything and mostly they just end up dying. Then you get some guy at the end who thinks he is a pro who made damn sure he used every last team mate as a shield and manage to do some damage and secure a kill or 2 and says, well I did my part, shame you are all useless noobs who lost the game for me.
the game is so toxic and its nothing to do with the players, at all.
People cry about the afks and the dcs claiming that the result would have been different if they had been playing, we lost because of them and this is almost never true and could only ever be true in games which were actually good games anyway, because they were close games and if anything the addition of that missing player would probably have been more likely to upset the balance of the match and turn it into an unenjoyable stomp instead of a satisfying long and even game.
The reward system needs to be completely overhauled and serious work needs to be done to make sure that every single reward signal that is in there is something which is influencing players to take actions which result in good games
I realise that people have the option of joining clans and getting involved in competition play and that this could remove some of the problems I have been talking about, but it also introduces new problems, some of which are significant, like match availability and balancing.
I've seen plenty of stomps and even potato builds in competition play so that is not an answer. and I don't want to be involved in that, I have no interest in all the politics and scheduling etc. which goes into being on a team like that.
I just want to be able to log in and play, but I want to play good matches and that's totally possible with random people on the internet, I have enjoyed many thousands of hours in various games competing in team based pvp, a lot of it didn't even need voice chat.
What you do have to have is an environment which shapes player actions through personal reward which results in a collectively good experience.
Mwo is currently setup in a way which actively destroys its own community and ruins its own matches through an ill conceived reward structure,
Its supposed to extract money from people I think, but don't think it even does that.
When the player environment is set up correctly people will gravitate towards a play style which makes use of all items and weapons and they wont complain all the time.
Right now you are maybe 5 times more likely to get someone being abusive to you than having a team caller and maybe 10 or 20 times more likely to get a stomp than an even game and its 100 percent the games fault, its nothing to do with the people in it.
Get out of this mind set where you think you have to rip people off to get their money, you don't have to be a parasite, you don't have to trick and cheat people and manipulate them.
Selling hats is enough, its all you ever need sell.
But you need a big enough marketplace and you wont get that all the time you are destroying your own environment.
If you were a hotelier you would get more customers and more money if you stopped charging them for clean towels and removed the bear in the lobby which takes limbs as trophies. You don't have to trick them into being sleepy and away from their homes and steal from them while they are out sightseeing, just make a nice hotel and you will do just fine.
If the game is good people will play it.
Here is a good lecture on the subject of game communities:
Guffrus

#2 Davegt27

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Posted 13 September 2017 - 10:40 AM

I read you whole post very interesting
I sort of agree with you but you would need to get more specific or people will get on your thread and crap all over it


the video is one everyone should watch

MWO at its core is a great game but they have been chipping away at the other things
and its hurting the game

I know a lot of times if I can squeeze out a good match I quickly log off so I can finish on a good note
I don't really care about the rewards and even winning and loosing take a back seat to being able to have
fun

I have the most fun when I get to fire my weapons and when I get to use some tactics
most of the time I melt without firing my weapons say 10 times (probably less then that)

I hate running to the center of the map man do I hate that
I think way points for specific lances then join up might work better (just a thought)

#3 Livaria

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Posted 13 September 2017 - 12:07 PM

While there are many issues to be had. I'm still wanting to have better-designed game modes. You don't always have to drastically change the game modes themselves, but one thing that they can always do; is to tweak these game modes in some areas.

Rewards is obviously a big one, since completing an objective is not rewarding in the slightest. I can single handedly win the game through an objective, and it won't count for barely anything.

Another one would be that; objectives would have to be accomplished in a much faster manner than it does now. Objectives have to be straightforward and impactful enough so that a game will end quickly if left completely neglected by the enemy team. Right now, objectives are actually hard to accomplish, especially in the time-frame in which the enemy teams wins by elimination. The game needs to have a tighter objective leash in the game modes.

Edited by Livaria, 13 September 2017 - 12:11 PM.


#4 Rick T Dangerous

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Posted 13 September 2017 - 03:56 PM

View PostGuffrus, on 13 September 2017 - 09:31 AM, said:

Match quality is bad and getting worse and I really don't think it has anything to do with match maker or tiers.


Exactly. And based on what the two guys in the video said (both parts well worth watching), the problem is how new players are introduced to the game. PGI's approach to solve the problem was to shift around values for weapons, mechs and stuff like that. IMHO that made the problem worse, because it made long time players stop playing. And it didn't help new players at all. How could it? I'll never forget the qp-match were we shot a mech that was still at the drop zone, he wasn't AFK, but he also didn't shoot back. I guess somebody had told him to "roll off the damage, spread it over the components", so he stood there turning on the spot like a dog chasing his own tail.

The academy is nice, but doesn't help new players understand how to build a mech or how team work works. There are some videos on YouTube by various people that explain some of the major points, but we can't expect new players to watch those or to search the forums for useful information. New Players want to play, and that's where they can be taught by the experienced guys. Keeping them away from the experienced guys via tier system is contraproductive in that regard (so the tiers might have a little to do with match quality?).

On occasion we had some new players in FP drops, and it was chilling to see how the other players patiently explained to them what to do and what was what. Didn't matter if we won or lost, there's some new guys to be introduced to the game. AFAIK that's sometimes very different on the IS side. I don't want to flame "the other side" when I say that, because it seems to me that the damage is done long before that.

The in-game chat could be a first step in the right direction, but it needs some more work and fine-tuning. The constantly blinking thing at the bottom of the screen doesn't help much.

#5 TheFallOfTheReaper

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Posted 18 September 2017 - 03:07 PM

They also only reward you based "mostly" on dmg dealt, meaning rushing screaming=good idea. This isn't cod, and playing in the same 11spots or whatever gets old, group up and force your teams to move, walk elsewhere with a lance of assaults, tell the taters to follow you if they want to live :3

#6 Nothar

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Posted 18 September 2017 - 05:18 PM

View PostGuffrus, on 13 September 2017 - 09:31 AM, said:

the game is so toxic and its nothing to do with the players, at all.

I realise that people have the option of joining clans and getting involved in competition play and that this could remove some of the problems I have been talking about, but it also introduces new problems, some of which are significant, like match availability and balancing.

/Cringe worthy
As a competitive, Inner sphere pilot this offends me.
I do however agree with the reward system being re-appealed. Civil war tech has not been optimized with the inbuilt free to play currency. C-Bill rewards abroad need to be x2 the current bare minimum. No one can pull players over to Mechwarrior because Mechwarrior cost and arm and a leg to play at a healthy state. 98% Pay to play. The other 2% may have severe internet addiction.

Edited by Nothar, 18 September 2017 - 05:19 PM.






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