57 replies to this topic

[Nightbird]

Knowing what map you're playing on, readying a drop deck for it, and face waves of enemy mechs. Not knowing what map uou're playing on, using general purpise builds, and facing one wave of mechs. Completely different gameplay. Play whichever you like.

[Tiewolf]

Bombast, on 17 October 2017 - 05:37 PM, said:

In before 'FW isn't for casuals.'

In all seriousness though, FW isn't for casuals or pugs. It's painful, and the mechanics often drag losses out for obscene amounts of time, long after the match was decided. The whole shebang should be gated off for premades only, but alas, the population can't support it, so the chum and the sharks gotta play together.

So you have a comp queue, FW, to an extend this out of touch MWOWC and soon Solaris only for the shiny farmer premades while the majority of the players have...well qp over and over? There is obviously a big resource management bias on pgi`s side towards a small group in the game. I guess pgi asks this minority what "the community" wants without realizing that this group got a totaly different agenda then the average player.
But before we talk any further pgi has to fix balance fist and maybe then open a pug only queue for FW like in qp. I suspect it won`t end in a ghosttown cause the rewards are higher. Tryhards have the compqueue now so no need to let pro units club pugs anymore.

Edited by Tiewolf, 18 October 2017 - 06:48 AM.

[R Valentine]

I really wish PGI would stop doing FP events. I didn't even play in the last 3, because it always ends up being more of a head ache than the pitiful rewards are worth. They aren't willing to make it viable for pugs, but at the same time they aren't willing to invest anymore effort into QP, the mode the majority of people play. They keep adding modes or allocating resources into modes that only a fraction of the population actually cares about. MWO will never be an esport and PGI needs to get over that. Either make the game more appealing for newer, and current, players to increase player population or die a slow, painful death.

[MischiefSC]

So if the other team doesn't leave their DZ, you're required to wait? Go back to the 50 yard line maybe? If you're in the DZ in wave 2, the match is largely over. Better to finish it quick and move on.

It was those of us who were puggers who pushed to have pugging in FW. Originally it was going to be units only. I pugged the first 18 months + in FW almost exclusively, we knew it was harder. The majority of players were in units, we knew what we were getting into. It also happened reasonably often that pug teams pulled together and beat units. I finished FW1 pugging almost exclusively with slightly over a 1.0 w/l and I was a Davion loyalist.

The population of FW has changed though. A big chunk of the population now is QP pugs who want to play FW like it's QP and so get utterly destroyed by even a tiny bit of coordination. Spawn camping happens because you don't move out from your spawn. If you're pushing out and fighting mid map your next wave will be on the ground and ready before the wave that rolled you is even close to your spawn.

Go ahead and wait. What you'll find is the other team won't move out. If they do you'll just farm them at the choke points going in and out of the spawn, but with 5 minutes of doing nothing while they get the courage up. Spawns get camped because one side is dominating the other and the losing side is too timid to go out. That happens in pug matches too, just rarely because anymore the pugs in FW are too timid to actually push an enemy team.

[MischiefSC]

Tiewolf, on 18 October 2017 - 06:47 AM, said:

So you have a comp queue, FW, to an extend this out of touch MWOWC and soon Solaris only for the shiny farmer premades while the majority of the players have...well qp over and over? There is obviously a big resource management bias on pgi`s side towards a small group in the game. I guess pgi asks this minority what "the community" wants without realizing that this group got a totaly different agenda then the average player.
But before we talk any further pgi has to fix balance fist and maybe then open a pug only queue for FW like in qp. I suspect it won`t end in a ghosttown cause the rewards are higher. Tryhards have the compqueue now so no need to let pro units club pugs anymore.

Comp queue is new. FW has been there a while and was fu of pugs who knew that FW doesn't play like QP and played accordingly - and as such almost never got "farmed". QP and group queue are for casual play and ignoring teamwork. As comp queue does not pay cbill or xp FW is literally the only place in the game where you can earn cbills doing the teamwork thing.

The mentality of "pro units clubbing pugs" is absolute BS btw. It's like me saying all pugs are incompetent anti-social quitters who can't man up. It's not true and is me trying to make assumptions about what other people are doing and why.

Put the FW content, maps, modes, respawns in QP queue. We could go back to original design for FW and just require grouping up to drop. However there was and still is some skilled people who play to their team who pug in FW and punishing them because some people just want QP with respawns and try to play that in FW.

[Bombast]

MischiefSC, on 18 October 2017 - 07:28 AM, said:

Put the FW content, maps, modes, respawns in QP queue.

Why do you think putting dropdecks/respawns in QP is a good idea? It keeps coming up but I don't understand the idea behind it.

[MischiefSC]

Bombast, on 18 October 2017 - 07:31 AM, said:

Why do you think putting dropdecks/respawns in QP is a good idea? It keeps coming up but I don't understand the idea behind it.

Because a lot of the pugs in FW have no interest in playing FW - you know, teamwork, coordination, etc. They just want to play lime it's QP. Okay, so let them play the content without having to totally eff up FW for everyone else. Everyone else plays FW because it is NOT QP. If FW got turned into somwthi g more like QP you'd see a lot more peoe quit and it's not like more QP pugs would join MWO.

Fix tech balance and the horrible loyalist system and penalties and population will rebalance. When tech balance was good (before KDK release and IS nerfs) the IS would regularly go on winning sprees and units were pretty well distributed. I know that most the matches I played in KCom were against other units.

[Bombast]

MischiefSC, on 18 October 2017 - 07:43 AM, said:

Because a lot of the pugs in FW have no interest in playing FW - you know, teamwork, coordination, etc. They just want to play lime it's QP. Okay, so let them play the content without having to totally eff up FW for everyone else. Everyone else plays FW because it is NOT QP. If FW got turned into somwthi g more like QP you'd see a lot more peoe quit and it's not like more QP pugs would join MWO.

So you want to poison QP for the people living there to siphon of the handful of FW players you don't like.

Not that I'm a financial pillar for PGI or anything, but I wouldn't be coming back after a change like that. I have a strong suspicious I'm not the only one. There may be a few people in FW who are treating it like QP, but I feel confident their outweighed by the people in QP that would rather quit than touch FW gameplay with a 10 foot pool.

I suspect you don't care, though.

[MischiefSC]

Bombast, on 18 October 2017 - 07:47 AM, said:

So you want to poison QP for the people living there to siphon of the handful of FW players you don't like.

Not that I'm a financial pillar for PGI or anything, but I wouldn't be coming back after a change like that. I have a strong suspicious I'm not the only one. There may be a few people in FW who are treating it like QP, but I feel confident their outweighed by the people in QP that would rather quit than touch FW gameplay with a 10 foot pool.

I suspect you don't care, though.

Of course I care. The idea is to give people the content they want to play. Make it a mode they can select. So regular QP and QP with respawns. If you try to split FW into pug/premade it's impossible to keep good players from bringing stomps into FW, especially if QP wins affect flipping worlds - which also impacts MC rewards. FW content I. QP would also have the MM to help it. Not saying replace QP, just a new QP mode with respawns. I wouldn't suggest putting Siege in it either.

[Lances107]

Hold on here. I do faction play, and I have zero no interest in seeing quick play merged any more then it already is with faction play. Secondly shorten the fw matches? Uh No. The four mech drop for faction war with restricted drop decks is what makes it fun. If you want quick short wins, I suggest you start playing something like wow or swtor.

If we are going off topic here, which I think we have. The very first thing that needs looked at in faction war is mercs. They lopside the results every time, this discourages people going loyalist, and as a result less people play faction war. The game has all these factions with deep lore in this IP, but being a loyalist is not rewarding.

As for the spawn camping does it suck yes. I have been spawn camped by the head hunters of Davion, 228, and others before. Is it fun? Nope. The thing of it is, there is no pefect solution here. People need to grow a spine and realize it will not be solved to perfection. If you restrict the q to units only, which at this point given all the complaining going on might not be a bad idea, then the q times will increase. If you had a retreat button for a team I have a feeling that will be exploited in some fashion to cheat the victors out of their rewards. Merging qp with Faction play is a terrible idea, because the result will be nothing but a boring generic set up. I have seen enough of that in other games. So you guys dont like faction play? Ok then restrict it to units going forward. I would rather have a longer q then see it merged with quick play.

Edited by Lances107, 18 October 2017 - 12:47 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Curccu, on 18 October 2017 - 05:37 AM, said:

They did not refuse separating groups and solos, they did 2 separated queues and tried it for a week or three(cannot remember) and solo player queue was so low it didn't work.

What might work is separated 12-man queue and groups up 4 + solos queues.

Don't know if there is enough players to implement any kind of working MM, outside of the events probably not.

They didn't split the single player and the group queue, they split the unit and the unaffiliated player queues. That is not the same.

People can be in a unit but still queue up solo because no one else is on or able to play. Logically, this should mean the player is to be treated as a "solo" player, because he is queuing solo, but in their glorious system, he was put in the same queue as the people that were actually queing together with others.

[Tarl Cabot]

MustrumRidcully, on 22 October 2017 - 11:22 AM, said:

They didn't split the single player and the group queue, they split the unit and the unaffiliated player queues. That is not the same.

People can be in a unit but still queue up solo because no one else is on or able to play. Logically, this should mean the player is to be treated as a "solo" player, because he is queuing solo, but in their glorious system, he was put in the same queue as the people that were actually queing together with others.

Yeap, and they kept it up that way for 4 days? It was a very short period of time.

[MustrumRidcully]

One important thing to realize is that it's pointless to appeal to players with words. Be it in game or on the forums. You don't change how players play the game.

The only way to change how players play the game is changing the game in some way. Introduce a new mech or technology. Introduce a new rule or a new reward structure. You need to do something with the game mechanics.

[xxRCubedxx]

So, I am admittedly new to FW but have played the game for quite a bit and consider myself an average player skill wise. I can hold my own. It seems to me the balance issue is that there are 12 Clan mechs vs 12 IS mechs. Why not just drop the Clan to ten?

[SmokeGuar]

10 vs 12 just makes balancing so much harder. Game mechanics, such as having front loaded armor, makes asymmetrical fighting extremely difficult. Moment somebody gets behind you, it is game over.

How exactly do you expect to make 10 vs 12 functional? How do you then balance mechs?

[OrmsbyGore]

Kin3ticX, on 17 October 2017 - 06:36 PM, said:

I think CW is a product people thought they wanted but it turned out too hard for the typical player.

For example, making a dropdeck gives you 4 ways to fail. Four lives gives you 4 ways to fail. People wont organize up into units and units got tired of farming baby seals.

Yeah PGI made a substandard CW implementation but they probably also saw that players werent climbing the learning curve of CW itself.

CW as originally advertised would have been awesome. This 4 mech per person skirmish pokefest that was delivered has left a large chunk of the fan base disillusioned. With no real objectives, every map and mode turns into running to the same spot on the same maps over and over again, with victory going to whoever is most practiced at these repetitive tasks.

And you can't blame new players for not improving very quickly, especially when the game makes absolutely no effort to teach new players how to play. It took years for the academy as it exists now to be implemented, and the game throws new players into the fire very quickly (though it's not as bad as it was 4 years ago)

[Khobai]

um FW has already failed with no chance of being salvaged. where have you been?

[ANOM O MECH]

John Archer, on 17 October 2017 - 05:33 PM, said:

I just got out of a FW, (Faction Warfare), match. I now play on the Clan side. I figured I purchased enough Clan mechs over the years that I should probably play them.

I digress.

I just got out of a FW match where I was the PUG in a 10 person unit. The IS team was pretty much all PUGS.

By the 2nd drop for most of the unit, it was stated over comms to push their spawn point.

That, to me is a piss-poor way to play a game. They literally yanked the fun of playing away from the other team as they swarmed them and killed them in rapid succession.

Something needs to be done about this. There are many casual gamers out ther, myself included, who play MWO for... fun. Getting swarmed as one spawns, and thus not getting the chance to play fully, is wrong and not very sporting.

I stated on comms that I was not going to participate in attacking their spawn point. That's about all I could do.

Oh and get this: The unit considers PUGS, 'Skittles'. Basically just cash cows I guess. The unit I dropped with stated, after I made my objection, that they just want to get the c-bills and quickly get on to the next match.

Seriously??? Is this what this game has come to???

As frustrating as that might have been for you, there is no point in dragging a match out. Units also make cbills and like to tag planets. Quick wins and enough tags and you actually start making a little mc over time.

Most times even easing up good units still end up having to push spawn. A lot of IS pugs actually choose to fight from their spawn.

In the end don't take it personal, and just do the best you can. A lot of times you can actually make even a stomp fun by setting personal goals.