43 replies to this topic

[Tarl Cabot]

^^^ /shudders

I have had matches like that today in FP....both sides were on their 2nd wave but both sides already had a total of 3 perm dead and on our side 2 others on their last mech...... it was like each side had a meat grinder on high...

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 02 January 2018 - 08:24 PM.

[ANOM O MECH]

TKSax, on 02 January 2018 - 07:29 PM, said:

After playing faction plan both scouting and invasion modes during the event. What seems to hurt as much as large groups are players who have no desire to bring successful builds and use even the most basic tactics to try and win.

I had 2 matches where people can't even stay alive. Was defending on Boral with an 8man of 228, after the Enemies first wave which was not a brawl rush the score was 12-6. We had one guy on his last mech and one guy on his 3rd mech so these 2 players account for 5 of enemies 6 kills. No amount of split the queue is going to help that. Because in another match that was a pugs no groups which was a domination match after the first 5 mins the score was 15-10 with 1 perma dead on my team and 2 perma dead on the clan team. In the first 5 mins of the match.

This is normal pug behaviour.

There are regulars who pug CW all of the time that run out against the enemy by themselves and then promptly reinvorce.

The same ol crap I see in quick play every day.

There are some players who are almost anti-socially playing a team based game and a mode even more focused on teamwork.

I killed an IS pilot in his lurm Atlas today, three times. I get they have weight and ecm. I get that they can pack a lot of missiles. Not my choice for a boat, but hey...but then the XL to boot?

The first time I killed him, I called it out and we all laughed. The second time I thought surely he'd have fixed it with an LFE or something....NOPE.

The third time was just sad.

These same people come on here and scream that units shouldn't be allowed to play. Units are the reason that CW is unfair.

[The Basilisk]

MischiefSC, on 02 January 2018 - 09:43 AM, said:

Remove pugs from FW.

There you go, then unit size isn't an issue.

Trying to force me to play with terribad players isn't balance, it's saying that we all have an obligation to carry bad players so they don't have to change but can win more often.

That's a terrible, terrible idea. All it would do is remove the bulk of units who still play in FW to stop, significantly removing another chunk of the modes population.

Just put FW maps/modes in QP and let people play it there with the QP matchmaker. Then remove pugging from FW, require people to be in a premade to drop in FW. That was its original design plan anyway. We talked PGI into letting us pug in FW back when we were not a bunch of mewling special snowflake little ******* who understood it was going to be harder and require us to put in extra effort. Clearly the population dynamic has changed, we no longer have the microscopic shred of character required to recognize that the teamwork focused segment of the game has a higher requirement for teamwork to do well in so cut the pugging out.

Sorry dude but this is just not true.
There was mewling and "I want to get something for nothing" even before CW came out.
Remember when there was no solo Queue ?
It was an all mixed queue and the perpetual solopugs mewled about "beeing forced to get sloughtered by groups"
Queues where separated in solo+groups up to 4 and Groupdrops.
Then CW came out and everything was fine till the solos mewled that they too want to be able to get some of the goodies from CW aka mechbays and C-bill rewards.
This went on for some time and due to a lack of content to play and minmaxexploiting wannabe protrollz the population in CW dwindled away.
PGIs solution was to let the solo PuGs in that now got their faces smashed doubbletime....this appeaced the more normal Units because they got something like an averange gameplay experience but this soon faded.
Solopugs mewled on and the solo QPqueue was introduced (yea solo qp came AFTER CWqp).

And from there CW went perpetualy southwards.

And now...well actually I think the general population of the game changed in a way that the older Units where experienced players are amassed ARE the problem.
The more serious players went the E-sports road and either drop solo to get some c-bills or drop in group queue where they are not a problem (large organized groups get low tonnage and smal organized groups may be paired with total scrubs....you have to think if you drop with other high tier players how much high tier guys you can afford before beeing paired with super potato players....that's ok for me)

Now the remaining few "bunchup and **** some pugs with every cheesy tool we got" that lurk in FP will do nothing but empty the FP queues outside of events.
I know I won't go there...not even with some seasoned guys that once where used to play FP back in the days there was actually a the chance to get adversarys between the "all trial mech" and "minmaxabusers" extremes.

Edited by The Basilisk, 03 January 2018 - 01:48 AM.

[Emeraudes]

I don't understand why you'd post this here, you'll only get the same replies as in Reddit. Surprise, it's not a great solution.

https://www.reddit.c..._matchmaker_is/

[Tarl Cabot]

The Basilisk, on 03 January 2018 - 01:35 AM, said:

Sorry dude but this is just not true.
There was mewling and "I want to get something for nothing" even before CW came out.

Remember when there was no solo Queue ?

It was an all mixed queue and the perpetual solopugs mewled about "being forced to get slaughtered by groups"
Queues where separated in solo+groups up to 4 and Groupdrops.

Then CW came out and everything was fine till the solos mewled that they too want to be able to get some of the goodies from CW aka mechbays and C-bill rewards.

snip

Had to break it up there.. carriage return and line space!!!

The combo group/solo might NOT have been as bad as it was IF there was in-game VOIP, which did not go live until 2-15-2015, 2 months after CW went live. Even the Command Wheel did not go live til June 2016.... Of course there was sync dropping and one could never tell who was in a group or not, primarily due to no unit tags until August/Sept 2014....

Yes, PGI picked up the ball and brought us MWO!!! But also simply pointing out that with MWO being a team-oriented game they took their sweet time bringing the minimum tools to facility it.

[TWIAFU]

TKSax, on 02 January 2018 - 07:29 PM, said:

After playing faction plan both scouting and invasion modes during the event. What seems to hurt as much as large groups are players who have no desire to bring successful builds and use even the most basic tactics to try and win.

I had 2 matches where people can't even stay alive. Was defending on Boral with an 8man of 228, after the Enemies first wave which was not a brawl rush the score was 12-6. We had one guy on his last mech and one guy on his 3rd mech so these 2 players account for 5 of enemies 6 kills. No amount of split the queue is going to help that. Because in another match that was a pugs no groups which was a domination match after the first 5 mins the score was 15-10 with 1 perma dead on my team and 2 perma dead on the clan team. In the first 5 mins of the match.

Didn't get the memo? It not acceptable for groups/units in the unit queue to beat headless chickens 48-12 but it is OK for headless chickens to beat headless chickens 48-12.

Getting clubbed is fine just so long as your not clubbed by teamwork - it is what they are used to from QP.

[TKSax]

The Basilisk, on 03 January 2018 - 01:35 AM, said:

Then CW came out and everything was fine till the solos mewled that they too want to be able to get some of the goodies from CW aka mechbays and C-bill rewards.
This went on for some time and due to a lack of content to play and minmaxexploiting wannabe protrollz the population in CW dwindled away.
PGIs solution was to let the solo PuGs in that now got their faces smashed doubbletime....this appeaced the more normal Units because they got something like an averange gameplay experience but this soon faded.

And from there CW went perpetualy southwards.
.

Your post is hard to follow however from the day Faction Play was released solo players could drop into the faction play queue. There was only the brief time that they had a solo queue and that was just a non unit queue.

[MischiefSC]

TKSax, on 02 January 2018 - 07:29 PM, said:

After playing faction plan both scouting and invasion modes during the event. What seems to hurt as much as large groups are players who have no desire to bring successful builds and use even the most basic tactics to try and win.

I had 2 matches where people can't even stay alive. Was defending on Boral with an 8man of 228, after the Enemies first wave which was not a brawl rush the score was 12-6. We had one guy on his last mech and one guy on his 3rd mech so these 2 players account for 5 of enemies 6 kills. No amount of split the queue is going to help that. Because in another match that was a pugs no groups which was a domination match after the first 5 mins the score was 15-10 with 1 perma dead on my team and 2 perma dead on the clan team. In the first 5 mins of the match.

The fundamental issue is that some people think the solution is to try and change the game so those terribads can somehow win more matches playing just how they are.

Which will never happen. The players themselves don't change - they'll be losing just as much regardless of who's on the other side because they're still incredibly bad at the game.

All that changes is that they won't have a 228 8man carrying them sometimes.

[Simbacca]

TKSax, on 02 January 2018 - 07:29 PM, said:

After playing faction plan both scouting and invasion modes during the event. What seems to hurt as much as large groups are players who have no desire to bring successful builds and use even the most basic tactics to try and win.

I had 2 matches where people can't even stay alive. Was defending on Boral with an 8man of 228, after the Enemies first wave which was not a brawl rush the score was 12-6. We had one guy on his last mech and one guy on his 3rd mech so these 2 players account for 5 of enemies 6 kills. No amount of split the queue is going to help that. Because in another match that was a pugs no groups which was a domination match after the first 5 mins the score was 15-10 with 1 perma dead on my team and 2 perma dead on the clan team. In the first 5 mins of the match.

Last night I had a completely surreal match on Boreal Vault. Both sides had a total mix, but no concentration of any organized groups. At the end of match, our InnerSphere warriors won a 48 to 10, yes, 48 to 10 victory over the Clans. While the Clanners opened the right side gate, they did not move through it for a good 1 to 2 minutes (which baffled our entire team). We eliminated their entire first wave without a loss. Their second wave opened up and attacked the left gate while certain stragglers kept coming through the right gate. They exploited our poor positioning and destroyed two of the three O-Gens, while damaging the third. This time we took some minor losses. Our side thought maybe they would improve. But in the end they did not.

For the record, I am a freelancer. Not part of any organized team. Yet that level of annihilation is unusual. Usually a match with two unorganized teams yields at least 30 to 40 losses on the winning team.

[justcallme A S H]

You might well have had a group on your side.

Often you won't tell it's an actual group on comms especially with mixed unit tags or people even without them. Happens a lot

[Emeraudes]

Simbacca, on 04 January 2018 - 03:10 PM, said:

Last night I had a completely surreal match on Boreal Vault. Both sides had a total mix, but no concentration of any organized groups. At the end of match, our InnerSphere warriors won a 48 to 10, yes, 48 to 10 victory over the Clans. While the Clanners opened the right side gate, they did not move through it for a good 1 to 2 minutes (which baffled our entire team). We eliminated their entire first wave without a loss. Their second wave opened up and attacked the left gate while certain stragglers kept coming through the right gate. They exploited our poor positioning and destroyed two of the three O-Gens, while damaging the third. This time we took some minor losses. Our side thought maybe they would improve. But in the end they did not.

For the record, I am a freelancer. Not part of any organized team. Yet that level of annihilation is unusual. Usually a match with two unorganized teams yields at least 30 to 40 losses on the winning team.

Not that usual actually. If you didn't experience much return fire then it's entirely possible that the enemy team simply did not bring any loadouts that were advantageous for their group. Plus if they did not coordinate at all the game would quickly snowball into a stomp.

[Bishop Six]

r4zen, on 02 January 2018 - 12:04 PM, said:

The hardcore (non-event) FP playerbase is small, tiny even.

Yeah, we aren't many..but we are sexy as hell

[TWIAFU]

Bishop Six, on 05 January 2018 - 01:44 AM, said:

Yeah, we aren't many..but we are sexy as hell

Wanna talk sexah?

We did 'fun' drops last night, Slow Assault then Urbies....

Nothing more sexah then to see 12 K-9s running around, sirens blaring, laughter overwhelming TS, and finishing matches on the Urbie waves 48-14.

Grown men and women with tears of laughter from Urbie rushes...

Enemy was happy to see so many Urbies and laughed themselves - until we started combat and were suddenly silent.

[Leone]

That brings a tear of joy to my eyes, that does. I could not get my unit to drop an urbie rush, try as I might.

~Leone.

[C E Dwyer]

Look at the star map.

If IS were dominant, there wouldn't be massive clan gains across the map.

I've had no trouble playing scouting as clan, I've certainly won more than I've lost.

Bad clan players will be bad clan players and then try blaming 'balance'

Edited by Cathy, 05 January 2018 - 08:29 AM.

[TWIAFU]

Leone, on 05 January 2018 - 08:18 AM, said:

That brings a tear of joy to my eyes, that does. I could not get my unit to drop an urbie rush, try as I might.

~Leone.

https://youtu.be/huPe2JgREr4

[Nightbird]

Meta breaking strategy? Meta is strategy, unless you've convinced yourself that bringing the right tools to the fight isn't part of the equation to winning.

[Direwoof]

High Xoltage, on 02 January 2018 - 02:40 AM, said:

The 'Too Good to be True' sales event of the year begins the moment a new strategy to combat the IS's dominance in Faction Warfare's 'Scouting' play mode is discovered.

Ice Ferrets for EVERYONE!

PGI has done an amazing job making the weight classes of mechs all very relevant. I would say that PGI has done a better job balancing 20ton mechs with 100ton mechs than even the original pen and paper, meaning any mech in game has a chance.

Where PGI has constantly failed, however, is 'balance' between the factions, and so long as PGI is unwilling to explore some solutions to breaking up PUG stomps, they never will.
It will be impossible to control for game rules and quirking until PGI finds a way to control for skill level of their players and units.

If you talk to players about Faction Warfare, as it stands - IS players will say the reason for their dominance is because several KEY 'units' have moved to IS and are exerting their dominance in faction warfare - Clan will say that IS dominance is because Scouting so heavily favors the IS.

Basically, this can be distilled down to the IS saying, 'We have skillz, yo!' and the Clans saying, 'You have quirks, yo!'

But disrupting the meta has shown that, yeah, as a matter of fact, IS Faction Warface dominance does depend, at least for the most part, on the Bushwackers and the Assassins having 2.25 and 1.53 tons of extra armor, respectively. Armor ON TOP OF an otherwise important hard limit to total armor.

But let's ignore that. I want to focus on why the 'science' of this is impossible to conduct while we have two HUGE floating matrixes to reconcile, relative rule balance and relative skill levels.
Russ has stated time and time again that the point of Faction Warfare is to be a refuge for organized units of players but that Faction Warfare cannot survive without PUG filler players.
So...spoilers...this leads to pug stomps...and PGI's answer to PUG stomps has always been "MOAR QUIRKS!"

When the large, organized units favored the Clan factions, PGI responded by quirking the hell out of the IS. This moved the meta to the IS and the organized units followed.
Some say "to get more matches"...but that, I feel, only strengthens the arguement that the matchmaker is broken.

So here we are, again, with a meta and an imbalance in the fundimental game mode which carries the game forward.

What's the ONE THING that PGI hasn't changed?

The FW match maker.

Why won't PGI fix it?

PGI doesn't want to create more buckets.

But when people suggest a solution which would PREVENT PUG stomps and DECREASE the number of buckets, PGI claims it will upset their core players.

What is this solution?

Break up organized units in to lances.

Russ will say that this will upset their core group. We'll say it makes the game unfun for anyone who isn't the core group. We'll say that we outnumber this mythical 'core group'. Russ will plug his ears and run away screaming 'la la la la la, I can't hear you' as we also remind him that Faction Warfare can't function without PUGs.

So how do we make large groups and PUGs happy without making more buckets?

*** The proposal to fix this once and for all!!!! ***

Are you ready?

*** here it comes!!! ***

The answer is…. BREAK THE GROUPS IN TO LANCES…. And tell the units, "It's not permanent, we're just changing the rules for a season. If you don't like it, we'll change it back."
See what I did there? I took a proposal that Russ is afraid is too drastic to adopt....and sugar coated it with the caveat, "If you don't like it, we'll change it back."

Just give it a try….

Just give it a try….

Is that too much to ask? Is 3 months of a several years old suggestion too much to ask? Set maximum group size to 4 and call it done for one season.

Then, set up match maker to try and build 8 man or 12 man teams out of unit players if there is an equally matched group on the other faction.

Just...f'n...try it...

Yeah I think that they need to balance the drop deck weight, no reason why IS should get more weight than Clan after civil war. Also think that lance maximum size would help out the solo players alot.

[50 50]

TWIAFU, on 02 January 2018 - 04:01 AM, said:

And at the same time no longer allow for solo drops in CW.

FORCE them into lance groups.

Agreed.
Where there is friction in the player base is between players who will function as a team and players who won't.
There is a healthy number of players who would drop solo into Faction Play and who are willing to work as a team.
Where these players disadvantage themselves is in not being able to co-ordinate and plan before dropping with other players because they are not in a group but they may be more likely to group up.
There is also an unhealthy number of players who would drop solo into Faction Play and seemingly refuse to work as a team.
These players probably refuse to group up and probably never use quick play group queue.
They may only be there for the events because there is the chance to earn that shiny loot.

So enforcing Faction Play to be the 'Group Queue' or 'Group only mode' may set a better expectation and improve the overall experience for everyone.
Limiting groups to a lance might help to reduce the chance of having a complete team of pugs face up against a full premade as it could mix up the lances a bit. It makes it a little easier for the solo players and newer players who may not know that many people in game to get a small group together and be involved and learn the ropes.

[Kwea]

High Xoltage, on 02 January 2018 - 02:40 AM, said:

The 'Too Good to be True' sales event of the year begins the moment a new strategy to combat the IS's dominance in Faction Warfare's 'Scouting' play mode is discovered.

Ice Ferrets for EVERYONE!

PGI has done an amazing job making the weight classes of mechs all very relevant. I would say that PGI has done a better job balancing 20ton mechs with 100ton mechs than even the original pen and paper, meaning any mech in game has a chance.

Where PGI has constantly failed, however, is 'balance' between the factions, and so long as PGI is unwilling to explore some solutions to breaking up PUG stomps, they never will.
It will be impossible to control for game rules and quirking until PGI finds a way to control for skill level of their players and units.

If you talk to players about Faction Warfare, as it stands - IS players will say the reason for their dominance is because several KEY 'units' have moved to IS and are exerting their dominance in faction warfare - Clan will say that IS dominance is because Scouting so heavily favors the IS.

Basically, this can be distilled down to the IS saying, 'We have skillz, yo!' and the Clans saying, 'You have quirks, yo!'

But disrupting the meta has shown that, yeah, as a matter of fact, IS Faction Warface dominance does depend, at least for the most part, on the Bushwackers and the Assassins having 2.25 and 1.53 tons of extra armor, respectively. Armor ON TOP OF an otherwise important hard limit to total armor.

But let's ignore that. I want to focus on why the 'science' of this is impossible to conduct while we have two HUGE floating matrixes to reconcile, relative rule balance and relative skill levels.
Russ has stated time and time again that the point of Faction Warfare is to be a refuge for organized units of players but that Faction Warfare cannot survive without PUG filler players.
So...spoilers...this leads to pug stomps...and PGI's answer to PUG stomps has always been "MOAR QUIRKS!"

When the large, organized units favored the Clan factions, PGI responded by quirking the hell out of the IS. This moved the meta to the IS and the organized units followed.
Some say "to get more matches"...but that, I feel, only strengthens the arguement that the matchmaker is broken.

So here we are, again, with a meta and an imbalance in the fundimental game mode which carries the game forward.

What's the ONE THING that PGI hasn't changed?

The FW match maker.

Why won't PGI fix it?

PGI doesn't want to create more buckets.

But when people suggest a solution which would PREVENT PUG stomps and DECREASE the number of buckets, PGI claims it will upset their core players.

What is this solution?

Break up organized units in to lances.

Russ will say that this will upset their core group. We'll say it makes the game unfun for anyone who isn't the core group. We'll say that we outnumber this mythical 'core group'. Russ will plug his ears and run away screaming 'la la la la la, I can't hear you' as we also remind him that Faction Warfare can't function without PUGs.

So how do we make large groups and PUGs happy without making more buckets?

*** The proposal to fix this once and for all!!!! ***

Are you ready?

*** here it comes!!! ***

The answer is…. BREAK THE GROUPS IN TO LANCES…. And tell the units, "It's not permanent, we're just changing the rules for a season. If you don't like it, we'll change it back."
See what I did there? I took a proposal that Russ is afraid is too drastic to adopt....and sugar coated it with the caveat, "If you don't like it, we'll change it back."

Just give it a try….

Just give it a try….

Is that too much to ask? Is 3 months of a several years old suggestion too much to ask? Set maximum group size to 4 and call it done for one season.

Then, set up match maker to try and build 8 man or 12 man teams out of unit players if there is an equally matched group on the other faction.

Just...f'n...try it...

you are a moron.