467 replies to this topic

[naterist]

12 pages of troll thread yall. I feel like i deserve an accomplishment for this one.

[General Solo]

You deserve a smiley spidey

[ANOM O MECH]

naterist, on 27 February 2018 - 09:18 PM, said:

12 pages of troll thread yall. I feel like i deserve an accomplishment for this one.

I dunno....

Seems like folks took it seriously.

You may have failed at trolling.

[naterist]

tker 669, on 28 February 2018 - 06:56 PM, said:

I dunno....

Seems like folks took it seriously.

You may have failed at trolling.

their argueing over a concept pgi will never even acknowledge, let alone fix, hence, troll thread successful.

[Vellron2005]

In my humble opinion, new players quit for the combination of the following reasons:

1) Extremely steep learning curve, where if you've never played any MW game before, you need a long time to even learn how to move around, while people are shooting at you.

2) Lack of descriptions on anything. Most new players can only learn how game modes work from field experience.

3) Academy not teaching the basics.. most people don't bother with academy challenges, but rather want to jump straight into a high-skill, teamwork-oriented game, and then get stomped repeatedly.

4) Toxicity - most new players, who don't even know how to move properly, let alone be effective, will get lots of negative feedback from toxic players.

5) The game's buggy, half-baked, perma-beta nature, which has so many issues, bugs, and things left unfinished, that many new players will be off-put by simple things missing or promised but undelivered... example: years of play before cockpit monitors were implemented, and we still can't save multiple loadouts, can't place decals properly, and have a gazillion bugs after every patch..

6) Dated graphics - This game is a bit dated in the graphics department.. Non-procedural maps with boxy, blocky graphics, invisible walls, mechs that when you damage them, only get a different texture, some maps still have trees you can walk through, and the ones you can't topple over and roll around like solid pipes, not many destructible things on the maps..

7) Utter lack of immersion - some people need more than just "shoot everything that moves" gameplay to keep engaged and invested. OK, it's an MMO game, but even MMO's can keep a player interested by giving players a rich, immersive world to play in. MWO is basically "go shoot stuff, go spend MC", nothing beyond that..

8) Clan / IS balance - We Battletech fans understand why things are unbalanced. Why clans run the way they do, and IS seems "perpetually underpowered".. but if you have a person that has never heard of BT, or MW... and they start to play.. they will be like "why are clans simply better than IS?" It makes no sense to them. Even after explaining that it's not really that unbalanced, and clans are not really that op, it takes a while for them to understand things.

9) Lack of immersion covered up by extreme mech variety - Sure, veteran players always crave "new skins for old gameplay" in the form of new mechs. But a player that started playing yesterday is faced with 200+ different variants, thinking that each is somehow different and unique. (Sadly, it's not). This can overwhelm most "plug and play" kids that are used to getting everything they want immediately when they want it.

10) Hidden rules and explanations of why and how things work - for instance, did you know that your Artemis bonus only works in LOS? No? Of course you did not, it's not stated literally anywhere in he game.. if you want that sort of pro player info, you have to sift through dozens of patch note pages.. without a working search engine on the forums.

I can go on about the reasons why this game can't retain new players... but I think the 10 points above are enough to get you started..

P.S.

I have personally brought 2 players into this game that are still active, that have never before played, or even heard off Battletech or Mechwarrior.

Both took months of explaining to them how things worked, and the second, more successful one, literally only watched me play for a year before she felt confident she' wouldn't embarrass herself.. and it still took her months to begin feeling confident.

Edited by Vellron2005, 01 March 2018 - 01:20 AM.

[Jon Gotham]

N0MAD, on 15 February 2018 - 03:38 PM, said:

You forgot or ignored to mention that WOT has a max group size of 3, groups of 3 have a lot less impact in a game where pugs vs groups compared to groups of any size up to 12, IMO thats why in WOT you have a lot less rage about groups than here.

Sadly mate, I think with what I have seen here even groups of 2 would be "unfair."
I've never before seen such hate towards social pay, it's really sad to see and baffling.

[Horseman]

Jon Gotham, on 04 March 2018 - 05:36 AM, said:

Sadly mate, I think with what I have seen here even groups of 2 would be "unfair."

For some players, playing with/ against other human beings is "unfair". Let's leave it at that.

Edited by Horseman, 04 March 2018 - 09:02 AM.

[Xannatharr]

naterist, on 27 February 2018 - 09:18 PM, said:

12 pages of troll thread yall. I feel like i deserve an accomplishment for this one.

Achievement: Troller of Forums
600GXP
1,200 C-Bills
Extended Middle Finger Cockpit Item

[Don T]

Let's have 12 more pages!

I don't think the outdated graphics and the toxicity of many players have been covered enough.

[Bud Crue]

naterist, on 27 February 2018 - 09:18 PM, said:

12 pages of troll thread yall. I feel like i deserve an accomplishment for this one.

This thread is a glory to behold. It is not about anything other than the BS of this game and this forum
caused by:

Moribund population levels as a consequence of the devs failure to understand the
obvious shortcomings of the mode. This includes the contradictory and fairly
dubious goals of providing a more competitive team environment and one that has an
environment, which is “immersive” so as to appeal to the nostalgia crowd. What has
resulted is a self-defeating form of game play that no one is particularly
attracted to but rather all feel “stuck with”. What we have however, is
truly as good as it gets. There is little hope for big changes and the more
iterative sorts of changes we are used to just don’t cut it for new players or
old ones alike. Alas, new players leave because there is simply
nothing to keep their interest.

I hope the initial thrust of my thesis is as clear as naterist's OP was.

[Sniper09121986]

Bud Crue, on 05 March 2018 - 01:11 PM, said:

This thread is a glory to behold. It is not about anything other than the BS of this game and this forum
caused by:

For the sake of clarity, I am not a new player. But still, I find current FP matches
unfair. There is currently no reason for any number of new players to
come into FP and have any hopes for anything other than Hard
Knocks High School. If only it actually taught something.

I was there from the get-go. I was hammered by premades and matched up with
nannies who thought that slinging LRMs like they used to do in QP would actually
do them any good. Nobody has told them otherwise. I tried to survive as best as
I could. I threw what CBills I had in the bottomless pit of meta builds. And you know,
for some time it seemed to work. Five out of ten matches I actually killed somebody
for a change. Then Tukayyid 1 happened. And guess what, I have actually
entered a TS of a casual unit and rolled with them. And boy did it make some
real difference for the game. I found out I could score almost as well as
everybody. Then I went on to other games, tried my hand and reflexes in
nothing other than Quake Champions, and after a while, guess what? I have
come back. I do much better now, but somehow I still get rekt almost
every time I face premade firing squads. What is there to like about that?

[Keladin]

Verge of quitting. I know people will say to join a unit, but I do not have that much time and feel I am a liability.

I wait 15 to 20 minutes to get into an FP match. Its Domination I believe...where we need to stand in a yellow circle. Anyhow I am in a slow mech and the team is behind me...WAY behind me. Me and two others get in the circle and the rest of the team is hiding WAY back...vs clan...the guys with superior range.

Anyhow my team gets its *** kicked and pushed all the way back to drop zone and after fighting off the enemy team....they all run off after a single mech in the WRONG DIRECTION! The timer just clicks its way down while me and those other two on the team try to stop the ticker.

Talk about frustrating! How am I supposed to get money for mechs?!?! I guess I can buy them...but it reminded me of a saying my dad had....

"Looked like a bunch of monkeys ******* a football! Lots of noise and screaming but nothing get accomplished"

[Jaybles-The-PegLeg-PotatoCaptain]

Keladin, on 10 March 2018 - 08:03 AM, said:

Verge of quitting. I know people will say to join a unit, but I do not have that much time and feel I am a liability.

I wait 15 to 20 minutes to get into an FP match. Its Domination I believe...where we need to stand in a yellow circle. Anyhow I am in a slow mech and the team is behind me...WAY behind me. Me and two others get in the circle and the rest of the team is hiding WAY back...vs clan...the guys with superior range.

Anyhow my team gets its *** kicked and pushed all the way back to drop zone and after fighting off the enemy team....they all run off after a single mech in the WRONG DIRECTION! The timer just clicks its way down while me and those other two on the team try to stop the ticker.

Talk about frustrating! How am I supposed to get money for mechs?!?! I guess I can buy them...but it reminded me of a saying my dad had....

"Looked like a bunch of monkeys ******* a football! Lots of noise and screaming but nothing get accomplished"

The best advice I can offer is check out the recruiting threads and find a casual unit. There are many out there of all skill levels, and most don't care that you don't have a lot of time to play, you don't even have to join them, just get on their teamspeak or discord and drop with them. For me, 95% of the fun in playing anymore is the group of azzhats I'm lucky enough to drop with. Outside of that, when I was teaching new players the ins and outs of CW/FW/FP, the first thing I always said was to stop thinking about it in terms of winning and losing. Start thinking about being a good teammate. Stay with the group, shoot what others shoot. Try to follow the calls the best you can if any are being made, and just try to do better each match. If you do 500 consistently, try for 750. If you do 1000 on average, try to raise it to 1250 etc. Evaluate yourself and try to improve your performance. And if you insist on soloing know that you're playing the pug lotto and chances are you won't be blessed with Grade A quality spuds most of the time.

PS. Check out the Golden Foxes merc unit on the recruiting forums or at darkjedi.org. They are a new player and casual friendly unit with a lot of great people to drop with. It is where I got my start.

[Horseman]

Keladin, on 10 March 2018 - 08:03 AM, said:

Verge of quitting. I know people will say to join a unit, but I do not have that much time and feel I am a liability.

You don't necessarily have to join a unit - just drop by one of the voice chat hubs ( such as the Davion hub found at ts3server://ts3.hhod.com/?port=7345 ) and see if there are any drop groups going. If any of them doesn't have a full 12-man, then pop in and ask if you can join (provided there are no channel / server rules posted about that that impose a different protocol)

Edited by Horseman, 10 March 2018 - 11:26 AM.

[Rogue Jedi]

as a veteran of new player help, in my experiance the main causes of new player frustration seem to be in approximate order:

wasting the 18million+ they get for training and 25 matches on the "wrong" Mech ^{(there are several causes of this, they may not give us anything to go on and not like a generic sugestion, often a flavor of the month Mech is sugested then nerfed a few days later, or the design requires advanced skills, or they buy Battlemechs and do not leave money to upgrade them)}

not being willing/able to work with the team, then complaining that they cannot solo half the enemy team in their first few matches

ignoring the disclamer on faction play and joining a FP match unwilling to work with a team while bringing trial Mechs ^{(which goes about how you would expect)}

belief that people are hacking ^{(usualy due to lag while spectating)}

insuficent paitence to learn to play

getting to a higher tier too fast

being concerned about stats

taking too long to earn stuff or considering Mechs too expensive

[Grus]

Grus, on 14 February 2018 - 02:37 PM, said:

my guess is they get the biggest trial mech they can find first time out and, with the thought line of "im the biggest swinging **** here muhaha! IM INVINCIBLE!" and then someone that's been playing for a bit comes up behind them with a light mech, drops a arty on them, removes all back armor, and then proceeds to touch them in their no no spot. Said new player is now viewing the death screen sitting there like..

after reading a few pages i stand by my earlier statement.

[S O L A I S]

The problem isn't why new players quit CW. New players shouldn't be there in the first place.

The real question is how to attract veteran players and retain them.

[Eirik Eriksson]

S O L A I S, on 10 March 2018 - 04:35 PM, said:

The problem isn't why new players quit CW. New players shouldn't be there in the first place.

The real question is how to attract veteran players and retain them.

If they want to attract veteran players they better give the mode a major overhaul and a relaunch. I still get a sour taste in my mouth thinking about all the pugstomping that took place in early phase 3. For a solo player like me getting a win ratio of closer to 90-10 is ridiculous and I would have preferred 30-70 so I could have an incentive to improve myself.

[S O L A I S]

Slow Speed, on 10 March 2018 - 05:29 PM, said:

If they want to attract veteran players they better give the mode a major overhaul and a relaunch. I still get a sour taste in my mouth thinking about all the pugstomping that took place in early phase 3. For a solo player like me getting a win ratio of closer to 90-10 is ridiculous and I would have preferred 30-70 so I could have an incentive to improve myself.

You're not getting it.

Since there is zero for match maker, you are going to have a tough time as a tier three.

Since you are a pug and from your comment uninterested in doing anything other than soloing, the place for you is quick play.

CW should be where units and groups fight it out for the planets and such. It is the focus and idea behind it, and really the only reason to be in a unit at all.

Maybe if they did a re-haul, they could include a pug queue with no rewards and no effect on the planets so brand new and 'others' could pug it out and learn a bit. Problem is however you don't learn what you need to actually be effective and succeed in pug on pug matches.

[Eirik Eriksson]

S O L A I S, on 10 March 2018 - 06:15 PM, said:

You're not getting it.

Since there is zero for match maker, you are going to have a tough time as a tier three.

Since you are a pug and from your comment uninterested in doing anything other than soloing, the place for you is quick play.

CW should be where units and groups fight it out for the planets and such. It is the focus and idea behind it, and really the only reason to be in a unit at all.

Maybe if they did a re-haul, they could include a pug queue with no rewards and no effect on the planets so brand new and 'others' could pug it out and learn a bit. Problem is however you don't learn what you need to actually be effective and succeed in pug on pug matches.

How long have you even been playing?

There was a time when solo players like myself, if we were many enough, could fight full 12 man teams on pretty equal terms. Each of us maybe not among the best but still did 13-16 hundred dmg and 3-6 kills per game. And dont involve the tier here, I started FP on a very low level and have done hundreds of FP games, but really not ever liked the QP mode.

Edited by Slow Speed, 10 March 2018 - 07:11 PM.