47 replies to this topic

[8lindspott]

Sorry about the rant. I am a new player, I know there's a lot involved in learning to play mwo. But after 3 days of losses I'm over it.

I started as most do with trail mechs and just following the group trying my best to do a little damage and not do friendly fire. I asked questions and got started with a Griffen with limited success, the advice with builds, tactic's and skills was very helpful and I thought things were going well.

I have a few other mechs now after saving enough credit, I repeated the same thing with these mechs, advice for builds, skills and tactic's. I started to notice a common trend, on the rare occasion the random teams in quick match win. I noticed when an experienced player takes lead on comms the team work together for the win. Why is that so rare?

But whats up with match maker often putting all the most experienced players in one team and the noobs in the other to be stomped, wtf? You can see all the fractions people are in, safe to say they are more experienced than new players and there they all are, in one team.

Any how, I have trouble with wait time for matches. It takes such a long time, perhaps theres low numbers in Oceania and they're as frustrated as me. I made the mistake of getting 30 days of prem time so once thats finished I'm out.

How can such a great game get it so wrong? Frustrating and stomping on new players just trying to learn. I am looking forward to MW5, I hope they learn from the mistakes made in MWO because the "tier" system is broken.

Your team loses if someone drops out or is AFK, your team loses if learners have weak builds, your team loses if everyone's too spread out. Your team loses all the time and it's far too frustrating when your just trying to learn and there's no more fun.

Edited by 8lindspott, 26 April 2018 - 11:22 PM.

[Koniving]

8lindspott, on 26 April 2018 - 03:04 AM, said:

Sorry about the rant. I am a new player, I know there's a lot involved in learning to play mwo. But after 3 days of loses I'm over it.

I started as most do with trail mechs and just following the group trying my best to do a little damage and not do friendly fire. I asked questions and got started with a Griffen with limited success, the advice with builds, tactic's and skills was very helpful and I thought things were going well.

I have a few other mechs now after saving enough credit, I repeated the same thing with these mechs, advice for builds, skills and tactic's. I started to notice a common trend, on the rare occasion the random teams in quick match win. I noticed when an experienced player takes lead on comms the team work together for the win. Why is that so rare?

But whats up with match maker often putting all the most experienced players in one team and the noobs in the other to be stomped, wtf? You can see all the fractions people are in, safe to say they are more experienced than new players and there they all are, in one team.

Any how, I have trouble with wait time for matches. It takes such a long time, perhaps theres low numbers in Oceania and they're as frustrated as me. I made the mistake of getting 30 days of prem time so once thats finished I'm out.

How can such a great game get it so wrong? Frustrating and stomping on new players just trying to learn. I am looking forward to MW5, I hope they learn from the mistakes made in MWO because the "tier" system is broken.

Your team loses if someone drops out or is AFK, your team loses if learners have weak builds, your team loses if everyone's too spread out. Your team loses all the time and it's far too frustrating when your just trying to learn and there's no more fun.

Still online? I can drop with you and see what might be going on.
Players like to spout advice that works for them, and it doesn't always work for everyone else or in some cases even most people...or sometimes it just won't help certain people.

Whatever the case, I tend to cater my advice to the specific person.

The game doesn't put all the experienced people on one side. (In terms of factions, pretty much half the players do not play faction play because unless you're part of a large group, there is little to no fun to be had in Faction Play under its current state. The only reason I even show up with a faction half the time is it has an auto renewal. I haven't played faction play in about 7 months.)

But in this sort of game, once a team starts leading the battle... the war is effectively lost. All it takes is an advantage of 3 more players alive to effectively call where the game will end. When the deathball comes charging, most players tend to scatter and then that's it...

I'm on MWO. Drop me a message or reply on here, and we'll get together and find out what we're working with.

Edited by Koniving, 26 April 2018 - 03:22 AM.

[Koniving]

And for later reading, these are nine tips to help reduce your frequency of getting slaughtered. The first tip, the Blitzkrieg, is how the team can survive the deathball when it advances and what to do depending on where you are (and its brutally honest; if you're at the front of it you're gonna die, Kimosabe, but you can die in a way that saves everyone else.)
https://mwomercs.com...al-tips-to-mwo/

(Removed a superfluous word. "How to the team" made no sense.)

Edited by Koniving, 26 April 2018 - 03:17 AM.

[Horseman]

Quote

I noticed when an experienced player takes lead on comms the team work together for the win. Why is that so rare?

Not all of them are confident in their ability to take the lead.
Also, if you played for some time, you might have seen matches where a vet tries to take the lead and the team - or critical elements of it - just ignores it and promptly loses the match. That can be discouraging to any caller.

[Koniving]

It happens.

In one case I heard someone try to take command during a standoff. He was promptly met with "**** you. I'll shoot whomever the **** I want."
The command was "Focus Bravo he's pushing."

[Koniving]

This
and
This

Spoiler

A note about this story: It happened when the game allowed up to 4 player groups into standard quickplay and only had full 12 versus 12 group play as a separate queue. As such every team had either 2 sets of 2 players groups, a 4 player group, or a 2 or 3 player group with (one or two) someone else of a high ELO thrown into Alpha lance. High ELO didn't really mean crap due to bugs in it. If you had more than 45% of wins you were effectively high ELO.

Koniving, on 21 April 2014 - 02:12 PM, said:

One such match I saw a familiar face from my merc unit on the enemy team while pugging (dropping solo). I'm in Alpha lance. I asked him, "Hey there, you alone or got a group?" "Group, 4." None of them are faces I know, so they're with the Steiner unit he also drops with. That meant assault mechs. We had mostly heavies, mediums and lights. I'm quite literally the only assault and I'm in a Highlander 733 designed as a missile boat. Bad situation to start with. So I asked Alpha lance "Do we have a premade?". We had a group of 2 + me and a disconnect. Asked Bravo. "Bravo, premade?" No other groups on our team. (If there isn't one in Bravo then Charlie will not have one). So I took command. "Listen up, we know the other side has a group and we've only got a two man. We've also got 2 D/C's. I know who it is and chances are they've Sniper's Ridge." (We're on Alpine; it's the large mountain in the middle-ish closest to their side.) I told our guys if we engaged them there we'd have no chance. I assigned locational orders, I had them rush out across the lowest end of the mountain toward a series of two sections of cover.

I chose this area because we had two layers of mech-height unclimbable cover. Most of their mechs were not jump capable and the ones that were quickly fell into our trap when the time came. It took 4 minutes, but the enemy left their position (unable to fight us from there) and charged at us. They kept trying to breach north and south. I assigned myself and Alpha to the North, Charlie and Bravo were alternated between South and center. Instructions that anyone in ranged Jagermechs or Blackjacks get behind the second line and hill hump (it could be climbed, unlike the main hill, giving them the height needed to shoot at them and the ease of escaping when needed.

The fight lasted 9-ish minutes. By the end of it while we did have some badly wounded mechs and many out of ammunition, we lost 4 players -- one who didn't cooperate and died for it (and the whole time told us how stupid we were until he quit) and a few who were guarding the line. With no LRMs left in my LRM boat Highlander (733), I raised my single AC/2 and ML and led the charge near the end. The entire enemy team was wiped out.

My unit mate on the other team couldn't believe it. As adversaries they outdid us in tonnage, outdid us in weapons, and originally outdid us by getting to the meta position. However we took them away from there, fought on our terms, and his team had no communication aside from his group and no one was coordinating their side. Later he told me, "I felt like I was playing against a 12, well 10 man premade. We tried everything but it was too well guarded. No locks for missiles. No line of sight for the guns. All we could do is try to edge the corners and SPLAT! We'd lose another one."

Are great instances, but are not typical.

Though a great personality does help (this sample is Panzer Magier, as captured by John-Paul Khlein.)
(After seeing that one, I made him a character in an ongoing Megamek/Battletech campaign.)

Edited by Koniving, 26 April 2018 - 05:48 AM.

[WildMoustache]

Bad days are to be expected at any time. You can spend 300h in the game and still have many consecutive losses.

Sometimes it's your opponent making a great play and just fighting better than you can.
Sometimes the two teams are too diverse and the map greatly favours one (LRM heavy team on polar against mostly brawlers is brutal).
Sometimes your team has no coordination and just get picked off one by one.
Sometimes you get one or more people who are in a bad mood or outright trolls and you are effectively short of that player, making that much easier for the enemy to get the advantage.

All of this is what you have to consider that's mostly out of your control. If you feel the frustration, try to focus on your own gameplay. Hone your personal skills at movement, map awareness and fighting and take joy in your own progress. When you feel you have progressed enough, you can try to take control of the whole lance or company.

Also in a first approach to the game, finding a buddy to drop with can help alleviate the stress and frustration of having to deal with people. There are reasons why retail and PR jobs are usually terrible. People are.

[Koniving]

()

[loopala]

One other thing with the kick off of Solaris 7 the quick play population is very down. Making match maker make even worse matches then usual.
Chin up I myself have faced the dreaded "OMG how can my team just get wrecked so fast" syndrome for a couple of days/weeks. Sometimes it is about doing your best and losing anyway.
The best part is, if you can stick it out, you will have that glorious match where everything goes right and you stomp the reds 12 to 0. Followed by 4 or 5 drops where you get headshoted in the first minute. Take Koniving up on his offer to group up. Heck jump over to the looking for group and get with some guys grouping up and using voice. Trust us it does get better. Heck even look me up.

[Dragonporn]

Hate to be that guy, but MWO might just not be for you, if you're truly are in 3 days of losses... This game doesn't play like your regular shooter, you need specific approach to it, it's not hard by any means, just different. I find it easier than any regular arcade FPS because I'm not so fast and my fingers aren't that twitchy anymore, but I still can concentrate and be aware in slower gameplay MWO offers.

My personal experience was different, started up around XMas, tier 5 was very-very forgiving for me, both in trial mechs and especially in custom ones I build with the help of forum-mates. By tier 3 it started to get harder, but now I adapted and it gets somewhat easier again further I progress.

Can't say matchmaker pitting experienced players against noobs that often. Actually I see good mix of different pilots, from ones moving, twisting like real pros and shooting ultra-accurately to those who can barely shoot straight and have no idea about positioning. MWO has this specific that in average match it takes barely a small mistake or a slip up by even one player for the whole thing to crumble and turn into brutal stomp. More you play, you'll notice it more clearly. And yeah, no matter how good pilot you are, you still can't do much when stomping is in full swing. You can actually try Solaris if you don't like to be depending on team so much, or find unit to drop with, but it may be quite time consuming and become very competitive in nature.

And yeah, finally I hear Oceania suffers from higher ping and pop issues, you might simply be out of luck with the region.

[MechaBattler]

Pug life is hard. It isn't for the faint of heart. You have to keep as much an eye on what your team is doing as what the enemy is. And even with hand holding, sometimes people just get impatient and wander into the enemy alone. Or they stay in cover and get plinked apart. It's the circumstances of 12 randos playing together. And the matchmaker being what it is. Doesn't mean everyone in the group is on the same skill level. Honestly I wish they would have dropped it back down to 8.

[Squiggy McPew]

I'm wondering if premades are getting mixed in with the solo players due to the low quick play population after the launch of solaris and battletech mooching off a fair chunk of players. I do well enough in quick play but noticed myself that the losses are far outweighing the wins due to what seems like a random mob on my side vs organized play on the other. Luckily I only care about stomping around in big shooty robots so the constant losses don't matter to me but for others this could certainly be a detriment if the mm is imbalanced due to the low pop.

[MechaBattler]

I doubt they're getting mixed in. But its possible to sync drop, probably easier to do in low pop hours.

[Koniving]

Sync dropping is possible but difficult to pull off. (Last 20 attempts I've had have all been failures. The only partial success had us on opposite sides.) Completely separate queues and servers.

[ExoForce]

Horseman, on 26 April 2018 - 04:54 AM, said:

Not all of them are confident in their ability to take the lead.
Also, if you played for some time, you might have seen matches where a vet tries to take the lead and the team - or critical elements of it - just ignores it and promptly loses the match. That can be discouraging to any caller.

You described Europe servers daytime

My observation CET+1:

07:00 - 09:00 Best time for me - vets setting directions and calling targets, others obey - interesting prolonged matches
10:00 - 14:00 deaf-mute headless chickens playing solo game in a team mode, kiss your nerves goodbye
21:00 - 23:00 good games, helping teammates
23:00 - 01:00 Tier 1 big boys - very short and intense matches - not so much fun but good for learning

I will add that joining any unit and using voice even in a quick play is totally different experience

And recently I have lost 14 matches in a row (third time IIRC). And I won 15th doing nothing!

Edited by ExoForce, 26 April 2018 - 02:04 PM.

[Spunkmaster]

PGI designed MWO with serious unintended consequences. The player base is abysmal. Solo quick play (PUG - pick-up game) is really the only opportunity we have to keep new pilots. Unfortunately, it is also the worst mode in the game. It has only gotten worse since the matchmaker was dramatically loosened up to reduce ridiculous wait times. PGI had a great concept that has been poorly executed from day one. Many experienced players sadly add to the troubles.

Remember, MWO is a team game. Individual pilots' success or failure depend on the team. While there are far too many variables to actually account for, simply sticking together and focusing fire will win you the game in PUG matches 70-80% of the time. Success requires pilots to pay a bit of attention and be willing to be a part of a team. It ain't rocket surgery, but much of the player base acts as if it is.

There is a new player "training unit" lead by experienced players. Known as "The Reserves", new pilots are brought up to speed quickly in basic team play and tactics. A Teamspeak server is used for communication as the in-game VOIP only works about 40% of the time in PUG que. Check out the link below for more info.

Good luck!

https://mwomercs.com...t-the-reserves/

[3HeadedDragon]

I recently restarted(new account) and I noticed that the wait times was rather long but got better once I got out of tier 5. Now I don't know if that applies to you but I definitely think that's part of it. As for the population playing in Oceanic I wouldn't know but PGI recently moved the servers to better serve the player base in that region.

My best advice is judge yourself on what you do and not what the team does. Secondly, mastering out a mech does have benefits keep that in mind when you're judging your performance in that mech.

I consider premium time a perk and this game is perfectly playable without it.

I do find it easy to burn out on this game as some of it is just a constant grind. Watching my children rage quit Fornite for the 3rd time in a week is more fun.

GL/HF

Edited by 3HeadedDragon, 26 April 2018 - 08:12 PM.

[calmdawn]

No idea why, but during the morning - day my team wins almost all matches ( 9 of 10).

In the evening, my team looses in the same way.

I have no idea why/

But I can still get my damage to keep my rating or what ever/

Edited by calmdawn, 26 April 2018 - 08:44 PM.

[calmdawn]

Well, maybe in the evening older ppl come home and they tend playing as a team, following commands and so on.

[8lindspott]

Thankyou everyone for your response and in some cases a reality check. MWO isn't easy and isn't forgiving, I am realistic and open to feedback. I am new and have a lot to learn, I am a tier 5 noob that's guilty of getting frustrated with losses. But it's a team game, so as hard as I've tried to do well in matches ultimately it's a random group of players thrown together to win a match.

loopala, on 26 April 2018 - 09:50 AM, said:

Take Koniving up on his offer to group up. Heck jump over to the looking for group and get with some guys grouping up and using voice. Trust us it does get better. Heck even look me up.

So how do you find players for group matches? I have no "friends" and only able to play at different times after work and life. Also I'm on New Zealand time, I cant imagine there's many Kiwi's playing