102 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 04 October 2017 - 10:57 AM, said:

Lol, most comp teams don't even bother with FW, in fact most hate it. So I'm not sure why you are blaming them for "killing faction play"

You know who killed faction play? PGI, because the very idea of faction play was doomed before it began.

Nono, it was big units that killed FW. Or mercs. Or pugs. Possibly MS. Potentially it was KCom stomping pugs.

Personally I think it was Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Wrench. It's his beady eyes, he just looks guilty and FW looms like it was brutally clubbed more than a few times.

The concept was great. The design ideas were great. It was leaving all that stuff out and making it QP with respawns that was the problem.

I still recall pugging in CW1 and dropping with 11 other pugs vs Heimdelight in a 12man, us attacking Boreal back when Clans were stupidly OP. He spent the whole match expressing his rage and contempt of the design and how feeble the pugs were. I managed to slip over the gate and use the gen as cover to get the gate open - the response from my fellow puggles was to run back to our own DZ.

I would be the first to agree that the only thing you'd learn in FW if you normally play comp is bad habits. It keeps us peasants in bread and circuses though.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

MischiefSC, on 04 October 2017 - 11:16 AM, said:

The concept was great. The design ideas were great.

The concept was great, the design ideas were flawed from the very beginning because in the end, how do you make a mode that appeals to hardcore players and normal players alike with all the features people wanted like territory to control or resources to manage and the answer is, you don't, it simply isn't plausible as far as I'm concerned. The closest I've seen is the Mekwars Megamek league and even then, it isn't as fun because the territory gained by your faction is based on overall performance of those aligned with that faction which means you could be doing great but the rest of your faction could do horrible causing your faction to lose ground.

The hardcore play that was desired was always best left to 3rd party leagues like NBT. Like I said, FW was doomed from the beginning.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 04 October 2017 - 11:22 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 04 October 2017 - 11:21 AM, said:

The concept was great, the design ideas were flawed from the very beginning because in the end, how do you make a mode that appeals to hardcore players and normal players alike with all the features people wanted like territory to control or resources to manage and the answer is, you don't, it simply isn't plausible as far as I'm concerned. The closest I've seen is the Mekwars Megamek league and even then, it isn't as fun because the territory gained by your faction is based on overall performance of those aligned with that faction which means you could be doing great but the rest of your faction could do horrible causing your faction to lose ground.

The hardcore play that was desired was always best left to 3rd party leagues like NBT. Like I said, FW was doomed from the beginning.

I dunno. You let loyalist units hire merc units directly, you tie good merc bonuses to being hired by loyalist units who give some bonus up to hire them. Based on total drops of both units in contract period to avoid exploits. Casuals play much like now but payouts based on Elo-like rank so CSJ 12man makes way more playing KCom 12man than stomping pugs. Scouting perks letting you see other sides queue and choosing to drop against specific teams. So Smoke Jags have scouting advantage. They see who is in queue and in drops (advanced military info. You know, why armies actually scout) and can choose specific teams to "flag". You will wait in queue until one of them queues up again, then that's who you drop against. Such drops get bonus LP and relative movement of progress bar is higher.

In short, strongly reward good units for playing good units and give them tools to find each other. Put in logistics that are useful at all levels - like ability to force other side to drop on border area you want, let units buy mechs with unit coffers than anyone in unit can play in FW or private drops, etc.

I could make it work.

[Khobai]

Quote

The hardcore play that was desired was always best left to 3rd party leagues like NBT. Like I said, FW was doomed from the beginning.

perhaps. but then by that same logic solaris is also doomed.

PGI should be working on improving the only thing about their game that doesnt completely suck: quickplay


so why doesnt quickplay suck?

1) it segregates pugs from toxic group/unit/comp players. yes everything about those players is toxic. theyve completely destroyed faction warfare with their sealclubbing of pugs and constant switching of sides.

2) you can play pretty much whatever mech loadout you want and nobody really cares. winning or losing doesnt really matter. potatos dont care about the meta, they play what they want.

3) mixed IS/clan mechs for both teams means teams are way better balanced than IS vs clan teams. theres actually a matchmaker in quickplay too unlike faction warfare, yeah its crappy, but its better than NOTHING which is what FW has.

so quickplay is less toxic, less abusive, more varied, and more balanced.

Edited by Khobai, 04 October 2017 - 12:08 PM.

[Verilligo]

Khobai, on 04 October 2017 - 11:54 AM, said:

perhaps. but then by that same logic solaris is also doomed.

PGI should be working on improving the only thing about their game that doesnt completely suck: quickplay


so why doesnt quickplay suck?

1) it segregates pugs from toxic group/unit/comp players. yes everything about those players is toxic. theyve completely destroyed faction warfare with their sealclubbing of pugs and constant switching of sides.

2) you can play pretty much whatever mech loadout you want and nobody really cares. winning or losing doesnt really matter. potatos dont care about the meta, they play what they want.

3) mixed IS/clan mechs for both teams means teams are way better balanced than IS vs clan teams. theres actually a matchmaker in quickplay too unlike faction warfare, yeah its crappy, but its better than NOTHING which is what FW has.

so quickplay is less toxic, less abusive, more varied, and more balanced.

If quickplay doesn't suck, why haven't you played it since season 13? And again, comp players aren't the ones clubbing seals. You're talking about mercs, not comp players. I also have no idea what you're talking about with people not caring what build you take, I constantly hear complaints in QP matches about "idiot potatoes and their potato builds."

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 04 October 2017 - 11:54 AM, said:

perhaps. but then by that same logic solaris is also doomed.

It very much is.

Khobai, on 04 October 2017 - 11:54 AM, said:

PGI should be working on improving the only thing about their game that doesnt completely suck: quickplay

Not necessarily, private lobby functionality is very much desired here just like it is for other shooters like this, or like Overwatch. They can also learn some lessons from Overwatch by having weekly "special" modes like you see in Arena with wacky settings (like say stock Urbies only or something). That said quickplay is definitely more important than FW or this new Solaris mode.

Khobai, on 04 October 2017 - 11:54 AM, said:

1) it segregates pugs from toxic group/unit/comp players. yes everything about those players is toxic. theyve completely destroyed faction warfare with their sealclubbing of pugs and constant switching of sides.

So people who want to play as an actual group in a game that is about team play is somehow toxic.....lolwut. If anything, both queues should be integrated like they are in Overwatch and the matchmaker should just try to be adaptive and fit like sized groups together (but with 8v8 instead of 12v12 to ease the number of different buckets you would have to manage).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 04 October 2017 - 12:39 PM.

[Daurock]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 04 October 2017 - 12:37 PM, said:

If anything, both queues should be integrated like they are in Overwatch and the matchmaker should just try to be adaptive and fit like sized groups together (but with 8v8 instead of 12v12 to ease the number of different buckets you would have to manage).

I'd kill to get this feature integrated into FW. (Though due to population, i think it might be wise to be a bit more flexible than exactly matching groups; i.e. an 8 man drop will see at least a 6 man drop on the other side, but no more than a 10 man drop there.) Fill the rest with rando's, and you'd see a lot of the stomp crying start to disappear.

[Bombast]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 04 October 2017 - 12:37 PM, said:

Overwatch SNIP

I think one has to be careful trying to translate Overwatch gameplay to other games, Mechwarrior in particular. It's massive playbase allows it to do quite a few things other games can't - More than one game has discovered 'Special Modes' split their playerbase too thinly. And the simple ability to respawn indefinitely and quickly has a dramatic effect on player dynamics.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 04 October 2017 - 12:37 PM, said:

If anything, both queues should be integrated like they are in Overwatch and the matchmaker should just try to be adaptive and fit like sized groups together (but with 8v8 instead of 12v12 to ease the number of different buckets you would have to manage).

Maybe... but they'd have to put a hardcap on group sizes. There's a reason MWO's contemporaries do this.

And I'm guessing that the cap would be prohibitively small in 8v8 matches, and even if it wasn't every unit would hate it with a passion.

Edited by Bombast, 04 October 2017 - 12:58 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Bombast, on 04 October 2017 - 12:57 PM, said:

I think one has to be careful trying to translate Overwatch gameplay to other games, Mechwarrior in particular. It's massive playbase allows it to do quite a few things other games can't - More than one game has discovered 'Special Modes' split their playerbase too thinly. And the simple ability to respawn indefinitely and quickly has a dramatic effect on player dynamics.

This is fair, but arena isn't something that really splits the queue that much. Quickplay just like in Overwatch is where a majority of the population will be, with Arena, Ranked, and Private matches being the smaller "queues"

Arena would probably have to be like comp should've been, where it is open for a short window during the day to try and drive people to play it only during certain times. It would also probably be better suited to tying events to them to make events potentially more fun and controlled.

Bombast, on 04 October 2017 - 12:57 PM, said:

Maybe... but they'd have to put a hardcap on group sizes. There's a reason MWO's contemporaries do this.

And I'm guessing that the cap would be prohibitively small in 8v8 matches, and even if it wasn't every unit would hate it with a passion.

Why exactly would they have to hardcap group sizes? If they don't now I don't see the problem with not doing it when group and PUG queue are merged as long as the Matchmaker is prioritizing like-sized groups.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 04 October 2017 - 01:03 PM.

[Bombast]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 04 October 2017 - 01:02 PM, said:

This is fair, but arena isn't something that really splits the queue that much. Quickplay just like in Overwatch is where a majority of the population will be, with Arena, Ranked, and Private matches being the smaller "queues"

Smaller queues that, even being only a fraction of the population, are still well manned. MWO cannot do this - Either everyone gets split evenly, and everything slows to a crawl, or its not, and all these 'new modes' may as well not even be there, becoming yet another thing new players come to the forums to ask questions about, the answers invariably being 'Oh yah, that. Takes 3 hours to get a match, don't bother.'

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 04 October 2017 - 01:02 PM, said:

Why exactly would they have to hardcap group sizes? If they don't now I don't see the problem with not doing it when group and PUG queue are merged as long as the Matchmaker is prioritizing like-sized groups.

Because as much as it annoys me when people harp on about it in (Solo) QP, teamwork is OP, and they need to be balanced out just like the MechLab and boating does. It's a problem many games like MWO have had - WoT in particular had to put a hard cap on group sizes (Three last I played) because anything bigger and team balance becomes meaningless. Even those small three man groups have a huge impact on matches, to the point where the best indicator of who's going to win is to check the groups

And WoT's teams are made up of 15 players, not 8.

Edited by Bombast, 04 October 2017 - 01:15 PM.

[Mole]

Why do we balance the game around the 5% of the playerbase that actually plays comp anyway? I see and use ACs plenty when I play and they work just fine. LBX cannons certainly do need help though, and I never liked Gauss because of the chargeup mechanic but it's been a while since I've seen one even in casual play.

Edited by Mole, 04 October 2017 - 01:22 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Bombast, on 04 October 2017 - 01:15 PM, said:

MWO cannot do this

FW events say otherwise. I've played both QP and FW during an FW event and they tend to have acceptable wait times when both are active. Given that I mention you could set it such that these are only available during prime times (just like Comp queue SHOULD'VE been), the split population shouldn't be an issue.

Bombast, on 04 October 2017 - 01:15 PM, said:

Because as much as it annoys me when people harp on about it in (Solo) QP, teamwork is OP, and they need to be balanced out just like the MechLab and boating does. It's a problem many games like MWO have had - WoT in particular had to put a hard cap on group sizes (Three last I played) because anything bigger and team balance becomes meaningless.

That's kinda the whole point of trying to match like-sized groups (which is less of a problem the fewer sized groups you can have, thus why I suggested shrinking team sizes to 8), so you don't HAVE to implement group size caps.

Mole, on 04 October 2017 - 01:20 PM, said:

Why do we balance the game around the 5% of the playerbase that actually plays comp anyway?

Because balancing based on PUG queue is a pointless exercise unless you can accurately gauge player skill and factor that in to a mech's overall effectiveness.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 04 October 2017 - 01:36 PM.

[Bombast]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 04 October 2017 - 01:35 PM, said:

FW events say otherwise. I've played both QP and FW during an FW event and they tend to have acceptable wait times when both are active. Given that I mention you could set it such that these are only available during prime times (just like Comp queue SHOULD'VE been), the split population shouldn't be an issue.

My wait times have doubled during the FW event (Along with some other MM tomfoolry I'm having a hard time figuring out, but that's besides the point).

Quote

That's kinda the whole point of trying to match like-sized groups (which is less of a problem the fewer sized groups you can have, thus why I suggested shrinking team sizes to 8), so you don't HAVE to implement group size caps.

Something WoT does as well. And yet, caps remain, because it still causes balance issues.

Quote

Because balancing based on PUG queue is a pointless exercise unless you can accurately gauge player skill and factor that in to a mech's overall effectiveness.

There's also the theory that competitive play is basically just regular play refined, and that the constant min-maxing of a bunch of players hellbent on winning 30 thousand dollars will find and display balancing issues, even if the overall play at that level is significantly different.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Bombast, on 04 October 2017 - 01:40 PM, said:

Something WoT does as well. And yet, caps remain, because it still causes balance issues.

And yet Overwatch does not, and I'm willing to trust Overwatch devs over WoT devs given their history with "balance." Being unable to spam the same hero also helped with Overwatch and something I wish MWO did in a way that made sense (for example selecting mechs AFTER maps were chosen).

Bombast, on 04 October 2017 - 01:40 PM, said:

My wait times have doubled during the FW event (Along with some other MM tomfoolry I'm having a hard time figuring out, but that's besides the point).

Having wait times double is only problematic if they are beyond acceptable limits so you are going to have be a bit more descriptive (for example going from 15 sec to 30 seconds really isn't that bad of a wait increase).

Bombast, on 04 October 2017 - 01:40 PM, said:

There's also the theory that competitive play is basically just regular play refined, and that the constant min-maxing of a bunch of players hellbent on winning 30 thousand dollars will find and display balancing issues, even if the overall play at that level is significantly different.

This is also true.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 04 October 2017 - 01:45 PM.

[MischiefSC]

We need King of the Hill events. Teams who made semi-finals vs everyone else. Whichever comp team gives up the fewest points wins, whatever of the other teams scores the most points wins, participation awards for everyone. Several games do this and it vastly expands the reach and lifespan of their comp scene.

Selecting mechs AFTER map choice increases tactical options and strategies and depth. Making you pick ahead of time forces you to generalize which hurts strategy choices overall.

[Bombast]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 04 October 2017 - 01:43 PM, said:

And yet Overwatch does not, and I'm willing to trust Overwatch devs over WoT devs given their history with "balance." Being unable to spam the same hero also helped with Overwatch and something I wish MWO did in a way that made sense (for example selecting mechs AFTER maps were chosen).

I'm just going to leave it at this: Transferring Overwatch design decisions over the MWO 'Just Because' they have better developers will have as good an impact on this game as using hummingbird blood for a transfusion in an ER would have on hospital patients.

They don't play the same, they don't have the same core mechanics, they don't have anywhere near the same player base, and I'd need a lot more than 'It works on Overwatch' to take such suggestions seriously.

Take all that for what you will.

[Prototelis]

If you balance from the bottom up it only gives the people at the top a bigger advantage.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Bombast, on 04 October 2017 - 01:51 PM, said:

They don't play the same, they don't have the same core mechanics

The fundamentals of the game still fall down to do more damage than you receive (adjust accordingly for different health levels). Trades are still very much important there, and because of the different speed/health/range/etc of characters you will have different roles which is not really represented well in many other games (I mean you can survive multiple hits in Overwatch with tanks just like assaults can in MWO). There is a reason most players who come from other shooters can do relatively well in MWO (most of them probably find the pace of the game too slow mind you).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 04 October 2017 - 02:14 PM.

[AncientRaig]

Mr Goldenfold, on 03 October 2017 - 04:35 AM, said:

Pretty much this. I watched some NGNG streams lately and Sean could shoot all day with his 8MPL hero Timby and didn't even get close to overheating.

Instead of buffing other weapons I'd prefer if they nerf Lasers though. (Well, maybe increase projectile speed too, 1200 m/s of the PPCs is just silly for the enormous heat you're building up.)

Before we get another round of nerfs to energy weapons I think PGI needs to go back through the current changes and fix the goddamn Clan lasers. The damage nerf did some hilarious things to them that you have to see for yourself to believe that someone at PGI was stupid enough to include in the final patch.

[Shadowomega1]

Khobai, on 03 October 2017 - 10:51 PM, said:

yeah but thats exactly how it should be. brawling builds should dominate gauss at that range.

gauss is a sniping weapon and thus should be poor at brawling. If gauss was good at brawling there would be no reason to ever use anything other than gauss.

so really you shouldnt be comparing how gauss stacks up to brawling weapons but comparing how it stacks up to other sniping weapons like ERLL and ERPPC.



nope im not saying they have to go. im just saying the game should stop pandering to those people.

PGI should focus on making the game more enjoyable for the other 95%

comp play isnt fun. its this game at its absolute worst. people only use a small handful of mechs and weapons while ignoring the rest and they play the game in the most absolute boring way possible hiding behind rocks and !@#4. thats not battletech or mechwarrior.

and those same people have all but killed faction play by preying on pugs and small groups. theyre toxic to the community and the game and PGI needs to realize that faction play is never going to work as long as that crap is allowed. And likely faction play can never come back from that even if they fixed it.

and solaris is dead end development for this game. nobody is going to watch 1v1 or 2v2 matches that last less than 1 minute because of how ridiculous damage is on meta builds. comp players are pushing for PGI adding solaris but its not the direction this game needs to be going in. the game needs to focus more on the only thing it actually does well: quickplay. quickplay is what PGI needs to work on improving above and beyond anything else. thats what 95% of people play.

The whole reason most of the mechs do that hide behind a rock is due to the current meta of tossing out 50-100 damage alpha's which generate 60 to 70 points of heat and only bring the mech up to 50-70% heat. Get that damage tossed out in short order by just a single mech is devastating not increase the number of mechs firing that same alpha.

If we had a fixed 30 or 35 heat value than those 50 to 100 point alpha would be dang near impossible without causing the shooters mech from going pop. Ghost Heat currently is nothing but a band aid for the situation, however with all the heat cap increasing skills and HS/DHS giving more heat which negates a good chunk of that ghost heat increase. Best way at the moment is to cap heat points at 35 and increase the cooling rate of hs/dhs, and start from there.

As for AC's underperforming the only ones I see being as rubbish is the clan ACs (not the cUACs).

Now LBX AC lost most of their punch with the introduction of the Skill tree and the number of mechs that sink massive amounts of points into the survival tree and become dang near immune to critting.