322 replies to this topic

[Mech Nuggets]

Lets face it guys,
the population in FP has been on a steady decline since Cw 1.01.
I don't wanna get into name calling and blaming anyone here for why it has come so far, but lets adress the most common complaints here for a second.
People, esp. Veterans may disagree on this, but if you go through the entries here in the forum one thing sticks out a lot: I am speaking of "Farming" of course

Pgi redesigned Dropzones, buffed Dropships, redesigned maps, added walls, added turrets etc... and still to this day, one of the number 1 complaints is "Farming"

Of course there is also the issues of "no depth", "No meaning", "map control means nothing" etc. etc.
that may be keeping some of the players from the mode but, and hear me out on this. Those that have not been disappointed by whatever reasons pgi may have given them to be and also those that are new to the game give two flying f***s about those issues.
Okay, they get the "Warning": This is the hardcore mode, better git gud b4 play only 1337 plyz here.
But that won't nor should it stop them.
Lets face it, what the mode needs is a steady population of new players.

How do we keep them?
Unlike QP, there is no Matchmaker nothing is gonna stop Tier 5s dropping with or against organized groups.
We can cry as much as we want for split queues, matchmaking or whatnot. We started out with multiple queues and tried all of that. the population is just not there and it will never be unless we the playerbase change something about it.

so here is what we can do.
In an Invasion Match, if we attack and clearly overpower the enemy, regardless if they appear to be unitless or a twelve man, refrain from farming and just finish the match by objective.
In a Domination match, finish capping, instead of pushing out to farm damage at the dropzone.

If you face an equally strong team play as you wish, but a clearly overwhelmed group of players will never learn anything from being farmed in the dropzone. All they will learn is: This mode sucks, I'm not going back here.

My Unit will not participate in farming and I hope others will join us in this. Over the last 3 years of CW/FP the current mindset has clearly failed to increase interest in the mode, and we are all to blame for that.

#makeFPgreatagain

[KHAN ATTAKHAN]

FP is now nothing more than QP but you get to do it with 4 mechs in a drop not 1, maps and game mode are no different so just treat it like that and forget the b*llsh*t hype of it being something special and a pug team can take a 12 man unit down as easily as in QP ( yes I have seen it happen often, 12 man unit drops are no big deal), it's now a matter of adjusting your view of it not super duper secret tactics, strategies or anything else, drop, focus fire, target your enemy (for those who either don't know or have forgotten or a just plain lazy to do so PRESS THE BL**DY R BUTTON) have fun, kill everyone not blue and win.

[Alexandra Hekmatyar]

I don't agree with the farming aspect.
Mean after waiting for like 10 to 20 minutes for a drop we actually wanna have most fun of it by not ending it prematurely.
Now my unit is filled with new folk so we don't have that opportunity that much but when we have we make use of it.

Basically it comes down to the following: I wanna play less of Patience Warrior Online and more of Mechwarrior Online.
By extending the match we play longer of the Mechwarrior Online.

[justcallme A S H]

Mech Nuggets, on 17 January 2018 - 05:37 PM, said:

so here is what we can do.
In an Invasion Match, if we attack and clearly overpower the enemy, regardless if they appear to be unitless or a twelve man, refrain from farming and just finish the match by objective.
In a Domination match, finish capping, instead of pushing out to farm damage at the dropzone.

If you face an equally strong team play as you wish, but a clearly overwhelmed group of players will never learn anything from being farmed in the dropzone. All they will learn is: This mode sucks, I'm not going back here.

My Unit will not participate in farming and I hope others will join us in this. Over the last 3 years of CW/FP the current mindset has clearly failed to increase interest in the mode, and we are all to blame for that.

#makeFPgreatagain

Good for you guys.

But after waiting 3-4mins for a match (either side).
3-4mins for the game to load/lobby.
Walking 2 mins across the map to get to the enemy...

I'm not repeating that time wasting again. FP for a lot of people is about Merc/Loyality points and earning rewards. Less kills/damage etc means, less of those rewards.

So it's totally reasonable to expect people to want to maximise their rewards for time played.

I've put forward a way for players to go into training, so far 3 people have taken it up... Yep, just 3. So if the players don't wanna improve, then that is their problem.

#letthefarmingcontinue

Edited by justcallme A S H, 17 January 2018 - 07:14 PM.

[r4zen]

Mech Nuggets, on 17 January 2018 - 05:37 PM, said:

... but a clearly overwhelmed group of players will never learn anything from being farmed in the dropzone. All they will learn is: This mode sucks, I'm not going back here.

And what do they learn after going 12-0 and then the match ends?

[naterist]

needs better tools for units to be able to do things, and tools for recruiting, and in client methods of finding a good team to play with, so you can learn from, and eventually get recruited by one of, said teams.

teams are the awnser, theres just so much of a gap between pugs and units, both socially and skill wise, that most pugs dont see the awnser staring them in the face.

[LordNothing]

thing is every time there is an event that tries to 'prove' fp to the casual populace a big unit shows up to farm them. last event had a lot of this, but when the event was over those units stopped showing up. these units do not bother me but they sure as hell make the new blood wary of playing fp again in the future. while units dont bother me long wait times do. its sad that these large units who supposedly love fp are so eager to kill it by grossly discouraging new blood.

[a gaijin]

Pgi can make FP/FW a viable and enjoyable option for all players by segregating puggers from teams.
As it stands now, it's not fun for some pug farmers or for all puggers who're getting farmed.

Simply stating over-and-over that you should be in team to play FW is, let's just face it, completely alienating a potentially huge quantity of players.
It's kind of like saying, "You can go to Smoker's Chu-hi Stand, but you won't really enjoy unless you're a smoker..."
Not the right answer.

One easy way to segregate puggers from teams is to incorporate quickplay matches into FW and have the matchmaker fill out teams with puggers, simply segregating them by the mech their in if that mech is in their faction. (i.e. if you're "clan" but for whatever reason if you quickplay in an IS mech you wouldn't be put into the "FW quickplay."
Using that method would not require a dropdeck of four mechs and the matches would last the typical 10 minutes, so it goes without saying that the Faction Points,XP, C-bills earned would reflect that. But some faction points would still be earned, and the match would affect the "battle bar" for whatever planet is being fought over.

Anyhow point is that FW isn't fun for anyone really at the moment and could be fixed, and pretty easily, if pgi was interested in at least testing out a method like "QP integrated FW."


On a side note it's pretty damn sad that the community voices a lot of opinions (some great and some not) in the forums on what we think are constructive suggestions for helping them (pgi) out but we don't get any sign from them that these discussions even matter to them...

[slide]

r4zen, on 17 January 2018 - 07:15 PM, said:

And what do they learn after going 12-0 and then the match ends?

The same thing they will learn going 48-12, how to quit the mode and not come back.

The OP has a point, intense thrashing will only make a very limited number of people stronger and want to come back for more in the hope that they will improve. The problem is whether that limited number of people is enough to replace those lost to natural attrition (boredom/life etc). I contend that it is not.

People can generally rationalize a loss away and come back for more. What they can't cope with is being dead 1 second after they hit the ground, 2 or 3 times in a row. This equates in peoples minds to not only it being a loss but a complete waste of time. Whats worse is that if they see the same people on the other side in the next drop a lot will just give up, to the point of not even trying or even deliberately suicide or quitting the match. In their minds they win by denying the enemy a chance to kill/farm them. There has been reports of whole teams doing this.

Ash also has a point, it can take a long time to get a match, coming out of it with minimal rewards also becomes a waste of time.
There are also those who complain about dunking objectives not giving them a chance to even make something out of the game.

I am not sure there is a solution that can please both groups although I will offer up this one.

It is very rare in my experience for a team that is down 2 waves to come back and win. Therefore at any time when a side is up by 24 mechs the game automatically ends. Call it automatic retreat.

-The win goes to the leading side.
-Salvage is awarded for all undamaged mechs, (this should be much higher than for those destroyed or at least equal to potential damage)
-objective (if there is one ie not skirmish) win is paid a twice the normal rate
-All winning players awarded 2 kills each
-All LP earned to that point paid at twice the normal rate.

Something along these lines will stop the farming whilst awarding the winning side at least as much if not more than farming would have. It might just slow down some of the complaints on the forums too.

[Wing 0]

Mech Nuggets, on 17 January 2018 - 05:37 PM, said:

Lets face it guys,
the population in FP has been on a steady decline since Cw 1.01.
I don't wanna get into name calling and blaming anyone here for why it has come so far, but lets adress the most common complaints here for a second.
People, esp. Veterans may disagree on this, but if you go through the entries here in the forum one thing sticks out a lot: I am speaking of "Farming" of course

Pgi redesigned Dropzones, buffed Dropships, redesigned maps, added walls, added turrets etc... and still to this day, one of the number 1 complaints is "Farming"

Of course there is also the issues of "no depth", "No meaning", "map control means nothing" etc. etc.
that may be keeping some of the players from the mode but, and hear me out on this. Those that have not been disappointed by whatever reasons pgi may have given them to be and also those that are new to the game give two flying f***s about those issues.
Okay, they get the "Warning": This is the hardcore mode, better git gud b4 play only 1337 plyz here.
But that won't nor should it stop them.
Lets face it, what the mode needs is a steady population of new players.

How do we keep them?
Unlike QP, there is no Matchmaker nothing is gonna stop Tier 5s dropping with or against organized groups.
We can cry as much as we want for split queues, matchmaking or whatnot. We started out with multiple queues and tried all of that. the population is just not there and it will never be unless we the playerbase change something about it.

so here is what we can do.
In an Invasion Match, if we attack and clearly overpower the enemy, regardless if they appear to be unitless or a twelve man, refrain from farming and just finish the match by objective.
In a Domination match, finish capping, instead of pushing out to farm damage at the dropzone.

If you face an equally strong team play as you wish, but a clearly overwhelmed group of players will never learn anything from being farmed in the dropzone. All they will learn is: This mode sucks, I'm not going back here.

My Unit will not participate in farming and I hope others will join us in this. Over the last 3 years of CW/FP the current mindset has clearly failed to increase interest in the mode, and we are all to blame for that.

#makeFPgreatagain

Ash has pointed this picture LOUD and CLEAR. Honestly, This complaining about Faction Play farming crap is getting really old. Ive played this mode since DAY 1 and this only happens if you don't play aggressive period. I've been seeing trial mechs on field and players not carrying their own weight. I've seen kiddies on BOTH SIDES of the field not doing jack and scoring below 1k or even below 400 damage against teams. Those players are not taking appropriate builds for Faction Play and are not playing with teams.

Lets say for example, Boreal Vault and the team I'm with is defending. We killed the enemy's first wave 12-5 or so. Do you think were just going to just sit back at the gun and wait for the next push? Nope. Were going to do a preemptive strike against your next wave and maybe farm a few extra kills in the process. The price players pay for botching up in a fight.

If you still don't get it at this point. maybe you came to the wrong place.

#letthefarmingcontinue

[Javin]

All the OP is saying if we are roflstomping there is no need to beat the pug to death.

It is a community. One that needs to grow the player base. If all we do is have fun and stomp new players to the ground, we then do not get those players back and the community gets smaller. The new player leaves. Then the experienced players complain about 5 minute waits between games. Then 10 minute waits, etc. If we all sacrifice a bit of our fun now, we can continue to have fun for a long time.

[GBxGhostRider]

Well OP your ideas are good but you have one big problem this company dont listen to you or anyone do you think MWO would be the way it is if 300,000 players tried to help fix MWO back in Closed beta and before and they were told I quote(your all on a island and we don't here you) and you can see where MWO has gone down hill from then until now.

This company is so afraid of its player base it wont even place a player population counter up to see how many actual players are even left in MWO so what is there left to rebuild? Solaris? ROFL only a few hundred will play it look at comp play? how many play that? a thousand if the game mode is on a good night or a event?

I really don't know what to tell you exept good luck and dont hold your breath on any changes before the servers go dark on FP.

Edited by GBxGhostRider, 17 January 2018 - 10:35 PM.

[r4zen]

Javin, on 17 January 2018 - 10:18 PM, said:

All the OP is saying if we are roflstomping there is no need to beat the pug to death.

It is a community. One that needs to grow the player base. If all we do is have fun and stomp new players to the ground, we then do not get those players back and the community gets smaller. The new player leaves. Then the experienced players complain about 5 minute waits between games. Then 10 minute waits, etc. If we all sacrifice a bit of our fun now, we can continue to have fun for a long time.

I don't buy into this...if I hadn't gotten the crap kicked out of me as a new pug, I wouldn't have gotten better. If I had been given mercy rules and treated nicely, this would be a boring game mode. And I would still be running horrible bracket builds and bringing really dumb mechs/builds for the maps, because I would have been allowed to.

New player experience is totally effed. Needs to be better. Part of that is on the community. Most of it is on PGI.

As always, we're each individually way more in control of our own experience in FP than these forum posts make it seem. Don't like getting stomped? There's a multitude of solutions. Quitting is one of them. Grouping up and/or working hard to get better are others.

[Mech Nuggets]

Javin, on 17 January 2018 - 10:18 PM, said:

All the OP is saying if we are roflstomping there is no need to beat the pug to death.

It is a community. One that needs to grow the player base. If all we do is have fun and stomp new players to the ground, we then do not get those players back and the community gets smaller. The new player leaves. Then the experienced players complain about 5 minute waits between games. Then 10 minute waits, etc. If we all sacrifice a bit of our fun now, we can continue to have fun for a long time.

Javin gets it!
Wing0 clearly didn't read what I wrote

[Wing 0]

Mech Nuggets, on 17 January 2018 - 10:40 PM, said:

Javin gets it!
Wing0 clearly didn't read what I wrote

I did. I just find your post lame and not helpful at this point. Besides that, you clearly stated you don't want to finish a fight early when that chance is given to you. The comp teams in faction play will hold nothing back in combat.

[Mech Nuggets]

Wing 0, on 17 January 2018 - 10:06 PM, said:

Ash has pointed this picture LOUD and CLEAR. Honestly, This complaining about Faction Play farming crap is getting really old. Ive played this mode since DAY 1 and this only happens if you don't play aggressive period. I've been seeing trial mechs on field and players not carrying their own weight. I've seen kiddies on BOTH SIDES of the field not doing jack and scoring below 1k or even below 400 damage against teams. Those players are not taking appropriate builds for Faction Play and are not playing with teams.

Lets say for example, Boreal Vault and the team I'm with is defending. We killed the enemy's first wave 12-5 or so. Do you think were just going to just sit back at the gun and wait for the next push? Nope. Were going to do a preemptive strike against your next wave and maybe farm a few extra kills in the process. The price players pay for botching up in a fight.

If you still don't get it at this point. maybe you came to the wrong place.

Ok... next time maybe read before you answer.
I said:
so here is what we can do.
In an Invasion Match, if we attack and clearly overpower the enemy, regardless if they appear to be unitless or a twelve man, refrain from farming and just finish the match by objective.
In a Domination match, finish capping, instead of pushing out to farm damage at the dropzone.

I call over Voip, relay relevant Information to my Teammates who are not on TS with me.
I've lead Pugs to victory against full groups of 12.
I've dropped in 4 Trials and pulled 2.5k
I've also dropped since day 1
Players have thanked me for taking lead and not yelling at them if we lose anyway

Your example of the preemptive strike. Yes absolutely, I called just that last night! only 2 others from my unit, the rest were randoms. We were defending Emerald Taiga against an organized Mercenary Unit. Told my Team exactly what was going to happen and we smashed them to shards, and yes then you call the preemptive strike, you push out, waste your mechs, damage as much as you can, get fresh and defend at the cannon against a 3/4 lance pushing in. Absolutely legit!
There is no way a sane dropcaller would not call that! There is no way to end this other by kills for the defender!
The defender is playing the objective!!!!

Now the other way around is a totally different story. You attack, obliterate the enemy, take out all the turrets, fire down the gens, damage Omega to the point where it only needs a scratch of a laser to drop and then you sit at the exit of the dropzone alpha striking helpless players? that is like kicking one while he's down. You have the power to put him out of his misery, but yet you choose to prolong the torture to the very last second. knowing that on the very slim chance the enemy actually gets up and fights you back you only need one little ****** to slip through and scratch the scab open to win.
The enemy has already lost. You were more aggressive. Point made. End it and start a new round.

I remember dropping along an uncanny notorious mean unit, it was Polar Highlands Domination. We push to the beacon, devastate all of the enemy forces. Voip commands come in to "leave the circle and farm the pugs"
I was not going to do that. I state my oppinion on seal clubbing. People start yelling at me "Get the F~~~ out of the circle" and I am like uhmm.. no!
So I took a Dual Gauss to the dome! My Teammates executed me for not wanting to participate in the farming of pugs. I come in the Dropship walk back to the Domination point, at this point it's at around 22:1 the team is snatching kills straight as they drop from the ship. It is when I saw an enemy locust who managed to slip by reach domination point. I was so surprised, suddenly the happy farmers are yelling at me again "Get in the circle!" I tried to reach it but I must have gotten stuck on some terrain or something, I just couldn't get there in time with my Hellbringer. We lose!

Yes I agree totally, the "farming" complaints are getting old. But why is that? Because it's happening! It's out there!
I proposed to refrain from it in Domination and Invasion Attack. It's only a small gesture. The 1337 epeen stroking can continue and will continue in all Conquest, Skirmish, and Defend modes.

At this point we have unloaded so much salt into the enviroment that it has become hard for a new plant to grow. I am asking to make it a little less hostile.

thank you

[denAirwalkerrr]

Mech Nuggets, on 17 January 2018 - 10:40 PM, said:

Javin gets it!
Wing0 clearly didn't read what I wrote

Point is your suggestion won’t happen for the reason ASH stated. Units aren’t playing for controlling planets right now, they’re playing for getting maximum loyalty point per game to get loyalty bonuses. And after 2-3 ghost drop in a row winning by objective is the bloody last thing I’d wish to do and will farm all 48 mechs despite the fact that it might somehow decrease amount of people in FP in general.

[Mech Nuggets]

justcallme A S H, on 17 January 2018 - 07:13 PM, said:

Good for you guys.

But after waiting 3-4mins for a match (either side).
3-4mins for the game to load/lobby.
Walking 2 mins across the map to get to the enemy...

I'm not repeating that time wasting again. FP for a lot of people is about Merc/Loyality points and earning rewards. Less kills/damage etc means, less of those rewards.

So it's totally reasonable to expect people to want to maximise their rewards for time played.

I've put forward a way for players to go into training, so far 3 people have taken it up... Yep, just 3. So if the players don't wanna improve, then that is their problem.

#letthefarmingcontinue

I understand your point,
But as I just replied to Wing0 above, I am asking to restrict your self in two scenarios. just two!

And yes, It sucks, when new players don't take that helping hand offered to them.
I have seen it the other way around too.
Boreal Vault - Attack, I am rallying forces to do a proper aggressive push, We group up, all the Pugs listen, do exactly as they're told, all but 2 Players (high ranking in the leaderboards, their unit as well as themselves) deliberatly stay back. They had voip active, they heard me, they know the procedures! Later on during the match, which we lost, obviously, they we're cussing over voip.
Git Gud? work as a team, but how can you when your own hard hitting veterans stay back and ignore orders and don't call in better tactics?
Now here's a whole different issue.

But speaking of maximized rewards over time played. Go scouting, it offers the highest C-Bill per Minute Payout, if you fight that is.

[Helsbane]

While I understand the premise of the original post, there's the problem of my Cbill account. I only get paid for shooting enemy robots. Capturing nodes or shooting gens is fine and all, but playing the objectives pays jack sh*t. So, yeah, in a game where I get paid to shoot giant robots, I'm gonna shoot giant robots until they make playing the objectives pay comparably. And, we all know that isn't gonna happen, because then people will whine and moan about objective rushes in CW and we'll have a river of tears about units steamrolling their way to wins in under 5 minutes by playing the objectives instead of farming.

[Mech Nuggets]

denAirwalkerrr, on 17 January 2018 - 11:39 PM, said:

Point is your suggestion won’t happen for the reason ASH stated. Units aren’t playing for controlling planets right now, they’re playing for getting maximum loyalty point per game to get loyalty bonuses. And after 2-3 ghost drop in a row winning by objective is the bloody last thing I’d wish to do and will farm all 48 mechs despite the fact that it might somehow decrease amount of people in FP in general.

So with all the QP Maps and Modes added: Skirmish, Conquest, Incursion, Domination and the Invasion Maps with Siege Attack and Defend, and I am asking to restrict yourself from farming Pugs for the sake of the playerbase in Domination and Siege Attack
If I counted correctly that is 16 out of possible 54 Scenarios. which equates to 29% Now consider that even if you happen to fall within the 29% of these modes you still have a chance of not facing pugs.
Basically what I am asking is on a very slim margin.
And it's not going to happen? because of loyalty points?
Yeah ok... I resign. trying to make a small difference is too much aight!