415 replies to this topic

[kuma8877]

Alright gents, let's get down to brass tacks here. The thing that scares me about the proposition of going to 8 v 8 as a well invested current player (fairly long term), is that I read the threads about the proposal and what it'll fix here, on redditt and twitter (the vast majority I can agree with), but I never see any proponents accounting for potential problems it could/WILL lead to. Some foreseen, many probably not. 8 v 8 is just sunshine and roses with no downsides that might need addressing to make it work again other than change the player count.

This is just untrue, it's going to need to be supported with wider changes otherwise you're left with the same maps, gamemodes and basic gameplay... just with less people. Sure, maybe a truckload of players comeback for 8 v 8, but what keeps them here if nothing has otherwise changed in terms of gameplay, in what many consider to be a bad/iffy state of balance, just with new shiny's and weapons they can't use properly or in a fun way due to the current meta?

If you guys would start accounting for these kinds of possibilities and proposing solutions to potential problems (or at the very least actually acknowledge them) rather than just trumpeting the greatness of 8 v 8 over every other possible solution.... you might get more people on board. Myself included.

[C E Dwyer]

1. 4v4 in scouting proves less mechs per side does not make stomps less likely.

2. anything Imperius wants and gets behind usually screws the balance and makes things worse.

3 case closed.

[Mystere]

Rycard, on 12 March 2018 - 03:24 PM, said:

I dont want 8v8, i prefer 12v12....heck i prefer 24v24 or 48v48. The bigger the battles the more excited i am with playing.

If 8v8 was indeed better, then 1v1 would be the best ever. That is why this game is being renamed MWO:Solaris, right?

[Brain Cancer]

Cathy, on 12 March 2018 - 03:45 PM, said:

1. 4v4 in scouting proves less mechs per side does not make stomps less likely.

2. anything Imperius wants and gets behind usually screws the balance and makes things worse.

3 case closed.

No, you don't get to go there. This isn't Harry Potter, the Imperius Curse doesn't work here.

4v4 stomps aren't so much stomps as someone full-carrying: I've been in on those stomps, and it's usually one guy with the bucketload of damage and 3-4 kills and his mates getting the scrapings. Last event was a great time to gather that bit of data.

4v1 carry is something even middling me can do. 8v1 carry is more the range of the supergood types, but within the range of possible. But as long as that faint possibility exists in a given match, flips are possible and that's the balancing point.. 4v4 flips? Easy. 12v12 flips? Very hard if not impossible.

8v8 flips are like Goldilocks's perfect porridge.

[Imperius]

Mystere, on 11 March 2018 - 03:34 PM, said:

Yeah, as if MWO's biggest turn off was really 12v12.

WarHippy, on 12 March 2018 - 02:29 PM, said:

What exactly is that trying to show or prove? I see 3 disconnects or more precisely 2 disconnects and one never connected. That could just as easily have happened in an 8v8 game. 5v8 is going to be harder to recover from than 9v12. I'm also curious if any of them reconnected? Is there something I am missing in this pic? I honestly don't know.
No more so than anyone else in this thread. That being said I will edit out the offending part if you would like to elaborate.

I'm also curious why you can't be bothered to quote me like you do others? Feels like an attempt at a rebuttal that you hope I won't see or something. No big deal I guess just strange behavior.

His claim was many people would leave if we went to 8v8 so I countered with an equally crappy rebuttal. Keyword was “assumption” as in I was calling his claim an assumption so I can equally counter just as fast.

I answer most of these on a phone. Multi-quoting is a pain and your posts are sometimes too big and I can’t scroll and edit out parts not directly responding to me. Nothing personal.

[Imperius]

Cathy, on 12 March 2018 - 03:45 PM, said:

1. 4v4 in scouting proves less mechs per side does not make stomps less likely.

2. anything Imperius wants and gets behind usually screws the balance and makes things worse.

3 case closed.

Omg my sides lol. Ok let’s list of things I’ve “got behind” and how I destroyed the game.

VOIP
Better new user experience
Training Grounds
Separation of brand new players from vets
Better trial mechs
Not splitting up group in a team game (they were going to stick to max team of 4)
Some actual lore
Engine Upgrade / Unreal / Single Player - CO-OP (Never happened yet we got MW5, kinda did)
Inverse Kinematics (Never came)
Personal Mechlab you can walk in ( I wanted it bigger, but better than nothing)
Removal of 1:1 timeline
Mad Cat MK II (Great mech, people are still bitter?)
Collisions (Never came)
Actual color blind support (Never came)

Things I was constantly against:
3rd person (why do we still have it?)
Community Warfare (Waste of time because the engine limitations and Spaghetti code doomed it from day1)
Engine Decoupling
Ghost Heat
Energy Draw
Gauss Charge
Keeping LRM’s junk
Match Maker trying to keep 50/50 win loss
12v12

That’s about all i can think of off the top of my head.

[GoatHILL]

So say you get your 8v8 that means 6 man groups are limited to 330 tons. There will be no 7 mans so 8 will drop you to 300 tons or less.

Seems like that's going to limit mech choice quite a bit.

If there has to be an 8v8 mode use solo and leave GQ 12v12.

[Mystere]

GoatHILL, on 13 March 2018 - 12:54 AM, said:

If there has to be an 8v8 mode use solo and leave GQ 12v12.

Considering I do not do GQ, no.

[PocketYoda]

Cathy, on 12 March 2018 - 03:45 PM, said:

1. 4v4 in scouting proves less mechs per side does not make stomps less likely.

2. anything Imperius wants and gets behind usually screws the balance and makes things worse.

3 case closed.

There are pretty nasty weight limits in Scouting 8vs8 QP has no weight limits and you can use any mech.. Nice try though.

[Jess Hazen]

Kageru Ikazuchi, on 02 March 2018 - 07:06 PM, said:

Per Russ in the Mar. 2nd production update on twitch, shifting Quick Play back from 12v12 to 8v8 didn't get enough response to warrant any development.

In the hours where the population is low, wait times in Quick Play group queue (sometimes in solo queue) are horrendous. Adjusting back to 8v8 would help alleviate this, right?

Discuss.

good we don't want 8v8, we want the game to be successful and maintain 12v12. in the mean time train your patience for 1min at a time.

[Jess Hazen]

instead of discussing 8v8, i propose we discuss 20v20. discuss

[El Bandito]

kuma8877, on 12 March 2018 - 03:36 PM, said:

Alright gents, let's get down to brass tacks here. The thing that scares me about the proposition of going to 8 v 8 as a well invested current player (fairly long term), is that I read the threads about the proposal and what it'll fix here, on redditt and twitter (the vast majority I can agree with), but I never see any proponents accounting for potential problems it could/WILL lead to. Some foreseen, many probably not. 8 v 8 is just sunshine and roses with no downsides that might need addressing to make it work again other than change the player count.

This is just untrue, it's going to need to be supported with wider changes otherwise you're left with the same maps, gamemodes and basic gameplay... just with less people. Sure, maybe a truckload of players comeback for 8 v 8, but what keeps them here if nothing has otherwise changed in terms of gameplay, in what many consider to be a bad/iffy state of balance, just with new shiny's and weapons they can't use properly or in a fun way due to the current meta?

If you guys would start accounting for these kinds of possibilities and proposing solutions to potential problems (or at the very least actually acknowledge them) rather than just trumpeting the greatness of 8 v 8 over every other possible solution.... you might get more people on board. Myself included.

That would go off topic. While it is highly probable that 8v8 can improve gameplay, improving player retention requires far more fundamental change, suitable in a separate thread. For now, it is enough that most of people who bothered to vote, or gave their opinions, chose 8v8 as their preferred numbers. And that is enough for this thread. They also already gave their reasons why.

Edited by El Bandito, 13 March 2018 - 07:14 AM.

[Mystere]

Jess Hazen, on 13 March 2018 - 07:10 AM, said:

instead of discussing 8v8, i propose we discuss 20v20. discuss

Nah, I'd rather go with lore-friendly Clan and IS formations with QP drops being forced Clan vs. IS, Clan vs. Clan, or IS vs. IS based on player availability. Then have drop size on both sides be tailored to the randomly selected game mode and map.

If we're going to go big ...

Edited by Mystere, 13 March 2018 - 08:30 AM.

[SFC174]

Scout Derek, on 12 March 2018 - 02:49 PM, said:

Point it's trying to prove? That 12v12s are still not a stable way to play if worse case scenarios happened.

And actually, it would be easier to recover from a 5v8, case in point. Evidence? Personal Experience. I know I can do more work against 8 opponents as opposed to 12. Am I going to have to work with 4 other mechs against 8? Or am I going to have to work with 8 others against 12?

Faction play, by far, is the best example of how critical and damaging 12v12s can be lopsided. No, don't bring your "But Pugs vs organized teams!" argument. I've played the pug games too in faction play, pugs vs pugs. When a player disconnects, that's one less man the enemy has to worry about and one more the team would need. In bigger battles, every man makes all the difference.

Not to mention, but did you notice the tonnage the disconnects had in total? (The One with no mech but disconnect was a warhawk by the way) Over 200 tons gone. 200 tons we could have really used. But nope, instead, our team gets wiped due to them disconnecting. Tonnage we could've used, players we could've had on our team.

None of them reconnected back. at all.

Derek asked me in game if I was still in favor of 12v12. I believe my response was, "Yes, could you imagine 8v8 with 3 discos". We had f*** all chance of winning this one, but it would've been hard to even get a kill with 8v5.

[Splatshot]

wont going 8x8 make all the maps that are already to freaking big, even more empty?

Didn't they resize the maps to be bigger back when we moved to 12v12?

[WarHippy]

Scout Derek, on 12 March 2018 - 02:49 PM, said:

Point it's trying to prove? That 12v12s are still not a stable way to play if worse case scenarios happened.

8v8 would be no different so I am not seeing the point you are going for. We are still going to have disconnects and stomps etc..

Scout Derek, on 12 March 2018 - 02:49 PM, said:

And actually, it would be easier to recover from a 5v8, case in point. Evidence? Personal Experience. I know I can do more work against 8 opponents as opposed to 12. Am I going to have to work with 4 other mechs against 8? Or am I going to have to work with 8 others against 12?

Personal anecdotes are not exactly a winning argument for either of us to make.

Scout Derek, on 12 March 2018 - 02:49 PM, said:

Faction play, by far, is the best example of how critical and damaging 12v12s can be lopsided. No, don't bring your "But Pugs vs organized teams!" argument. I've played the pug games too in faction play, pugs vs pugs. When a player disconnects, that's one less man the enemy has to worry about and one more the team would need. In bigger battles, every man makes all the difference.

Well yeah, losing players is going to put you at a disadvantage. Personally, I find having more players on the teams to be a better scenario when dealing with disconnects, but either way you are already behind.

Scout Derek, on 12 March 2018 - 02:49 PM, said:

Not to mention, but did you notice the tonnage the disconnects had in total? (The One with no mech but disconnect was a warhawk by the way) Over 200 tons gone. 200 tons we could have really used. But nope, instead, our team gets wiped due to them disconnecting. Tonnage we could've used, players we could've had on our team.

No doubt you could have used them, but that would have been just as true in 8v8. Missing players is going to put you at a disadvantage no matter the team sizes.

Scout Derek, on 12 March 2018 - 02:49 PM, said:

None of them reconnected back. at all.

That is unfortunate, and still irrelevant to the size of the team.

[WarHippy]

Imperius, on 12 March 2018 - 10:45 PM, said:

His claim was many people would leave if we went to 8v8 so I countered with an equally crappy rebuttal. Keyword was “assumption” as in I was calling his claim an assumption so I can equally counter just as fast.

Understood. Yeah, it isn't a good assumption to make for either side. My big thing is that there are no real certainties one way or the other with a chage like this.

Imperius, on 12 March 2018 - 10:45 PM, said:

I answer most of these on a phone. Multi-quoting is a pain and your posts are sometimes too big and I can’t scroll and edit out parts not directly responding to me. Nothing personal.

Fair enough. Just seemed strange and was the only reason I asked.

[JohnnyWayne]

GoatHILL, on 13 March 2018 - 12:54 AM, said:

So say you get your 8v8 that means 6 man groups are limited to 330 tons. There will be no 7 mans so 8 will drop you to 300 tons or less.

Seems like that's going to limit mech choice quite a bit.

If there has to be an 8v8 mode use solo and leave GQ 12v12.

Personally I'd limit group size in QP to 4. Then make the match maker dynamic: 4v4, 8v8, 12v12 on a random basis and how it fits the matchmaker best.

CW is 12 man groups, Comp is 8 man, QP is 4. Solaris brings 2v2 and 1v1. Scouting can go suck a big one, gimped *** mode with poor mech selection.

[kuma8877]

El Bandito, on 13 March 2018 - 07:12 AM, said:

That would go off topic. While it is highly probable that 8v8 can improve gameplay, improving player retention requires far more fundamental change, suitable in a separate thread. For now, it is enough that most of people who bothered to vote, or gave their opinions, chose 8v8 as their preferred numbers. And that is enough for this thread. They also already gave their reasons why.

They are connected by virtue of how much time do you think PGI will have to keep those returning players around if it isn't part of the downshift? Unless you are just trying to momentarily bump stats, the two go hand in hand. Get them back, keep them around.

Also, I understand their arguments for, I didn't ask about that, I asked about acknowledging potential pitfalls to the proposal if poorly supported or thought thru before implementing it. There's a distinct difference.

[Solahma]

Jess Hazen, on 13 March 2018 - 07:10 AM, said:

instead of discussing 8v8, i propose we discuss 20v20. discuss

PGI stated long ago that 24 players was "pushing it" and that adding more than two spectators was also an issue because of Engine limitations. Same technical reasons why we don't have a rear-facing camera iirc.

Ultimately, the game would feel strangely similar to how it does now: crowded. Map sizes are fairly large to accomodate 12+ players on each team. The problem is that meta-strategy does NOT support utilizing open terrain, splitting up, etc. There is nowhere near enough coordination in quick-play to use advanced positioning strategies. Hell, it's already quite difficult in competitive 8v8.

So what would you be adding to the game for 20v20? Longer wait times to gather 40 players. Much wider skill gaps from top to bottom, partially due to matchmaker necessity to get 40 players together in a timely manner. More mechs and firepower on the field can easily lead to more lop-sided incidents. Death-balling becomes more effective than it already is. Not just because of the numbers, but because there is no balancing builds on each team. So a team with more brawlers than the other will probably death-ball and have a better chance of picking-up momentum.

Now, if it COULD be done and there were no performance issues, server impacts, and logistical nightmares. What would 20v20 add? You'd have 5 lances. You could implement an actual command structure with more depth than the Team/Lance command options. I imagine you'd have very similar situations to what we have already: trading sessions where one team makes less mistakes than the other (usually in the form of which team has the most low-skill players on it) OR more extreme death-balling that will contain a much greater amount of chaos for the receiving team.

I'd love to see what realistic expectations someone would have from increasing match sizes. I personally couldn't think of anything that would warrant more players. It would be less enjoyable, worse performance, and turn the game into a hodge-podge of mediocrity.