189 replies to this topic

[Darian DelFord]

I ask this question in all earnest and here is why.

Saturday Night.... EST Prime Time.... and I do not see more than 10 people in my Queues of Division 7 and Division 5. I have had 6 matches in the last 30 minutes and 4 of them have been the same person.
So initial impression.... Did PGI hit the mark or utterly miss it?

Seriously...... I am curious

[Heffay]

110 games into it...

I'd say huge success. At least as far as I'm concerned.

[zeta44]

I'm enjoying it so far, divisions need some work though, YLW shouldn't been in Div 7 and cougar definitely shouldn't be in Div 4
(IMO)

[FireStoat]

I dislike the initial division lists & how ELO is basically useless during late night NA hours. The Population is so small for the divisions, your ranking absolutely doesn't matter for how you get matched.

I do like the maps, general design and initial approach, and I think PGI gave this a rock solid opening for the new game mode. I'm personally not playing it until some time passes and changes happen, but I'm confident I'll be drawn back in eventually once I need a break from HBS Battletech.

Is the game mode a success in drawing in and then retaining a larger player base? I've seen it do the former, but the latter seems to be a failure.

Edited by FireStoat, 22 April 2018 - 11:57 AM.

[JediPanther]

I've not done a single solaris match. a few unit mates wanted to go 2 vs 2 but weren't able to figure out the mess of s ui so went back to qp. QP has been crap all night with me doing very little damage and kills with teams that just yolo. I've won matches so much on objectives more this night than the past few weeks. At least with the dxp I got some more xp on the trash pile of a few mechs I have that are very hard point starved. Even ran the lct 3v and 1m a bit.

[VladK02]

Failure.

Everyone played in a medium mech against a power gamer in a king crab, and said *** it.

Besides, 7 different queues. In addition to faction play, quick play.

Devs are stupid. Instead of doing different queues all at once, and breaking down the player base into 100 little pieces, they should have done a division per day. Mondays is division 1, Tuesdays is division 2, etc.

Force everyone to play something other then king crabs.

And divisions themselves are cancer. i dont know what the solution is, but current system is not it. Forces everyone into top 1-2 mechs in each division, period.

And maps are not there yet.

Where is map thats basically an open field 2km across with an impassable canyon in the center, that forces players to use long range stuff - PPCs, ER lasers, LRMs, ECM, AMS, or have jump jets?

Where is the map thats all buildings, for AC20 hunting and jumping from roof to roof?

Maps should make all weapons useful. Force players to carry balanced loadouts.

Only 5 maps, not enough, not even close. There needs to be ~15 maps (2 for each weapon type/playstyle), so a player can at most ban 1 set of maps he absolutely cannot play, but not more.

Why do king crabs rule right now? because they can ban factory and caves, where smaller mechs stand a chance, and rule the open spaces of every other map. There needs to be more then 1 cave, and more then 1 factory, so crab pilots get to ban EITHER 2 caves, or 2 factories, but not both at once.

Edited by VladK02, 21 April 2018 - 07:31 PM.

[FireStoat]

Your idea of reducing the divisions open to players on a given day to force them to build up a stable of mechs for use is stellar. It makes so much sense I'm surprised it was missed. Your commentary on the maps is pretty spot on as well. It IS a simple matter for a player to weed out the maps with cover to leave one open that has wide open spaces.

Edited by FireStoat, 21 April 2018 - 07:36 PM.

[Elizander]

I really like the game mode so far. Duncan can use some extra lines and improve on existing ones. "Arm gone!" is really boring for commentary, but he has good lines too. Probably need some sick burns for when people damage their own legs from falling, if someone shuts down or if someone dies from overheat. Probably one for headshots and ammo explosions too.

While I do like the mode, it still does feel somewhat incomplete for some reason in terms of being an experience. I am not quite sure what it is exactly, but I do tend to compare Solaris to 1v1 fighting games like Street Fighter or World of Warcraft's 2v2 arena. There's some talk about best-of-three rounds matches which might be good for official tournaments.

I'm just not sure why they picked 7 divisions for it instead of maybe 3 (best mechs, mediocre mechs, trash mechs). On a positive note, I don't think it'll be impossible to compress the divisions later down the line if needed.

I think they missed a good opportunity wit the spectator mode. I think it should be just one lounge where people can log in and chat while watching high level matches that the server queues up. It would be great if there was a mini-screen of this shown in the home screen to make people aware of the mode and they can just click there to join it. Maybe let them turn it off in the options settings too if they don't want it.

Modern day commentary is done by 2 people usually. Duncan might reach the next level if he has someone to bounce commentary off.

Now whether it succeeded or failed depends on context. I like it and it makes me want to log in to derp around a few times in 1v1 and nothing grinds my gears too bad about it. There's certainly a lot of room for improvement. They can probably even set up a 24/7 stream on Twitch/Youtube/Homepage for top matches if they want to.

[VladK02]

There is a lot that can be improved. division per day is just common sense - and that schedule itself can be rotated, so that people with work schedules can be accomodated - first week of the month, division 3 playes on tuesday, but second week, it plays on wednesdays or something. or random generator assigns which division plays in which day in any given week.

Map selections and bans - to further randomize, the final selection should be made by a random script, not by players. Give them 15 maps, but only 5 bans each. Computer selects final map from the leftovers after bans.

Further on maps, environmental effects should be there - lava, night/day/fog. Force people to use heat vision and stealth armor to beat it - a map for every configuration, every playstyle.

Point is, if you have a wide variety of maps, you will be forced to carry a balanced loadout if you want to be consistently successful. And thats where different mech strengths like acceleration etc. will matter as well - for poking, for jumping across otherwise impassable canyons or walls (like jumping on top of HPG manifold walls, only a few mechs can do that).

I even think that a wide variety of maps will fix the division cancer organically. Shadow cat is mostly garbage now - but give it a few maps where its jump jets and low profile matter a lot - and suddenly, it could be interesting. Same with weapons too - flamers are garbage now, but if there are a few lava maps - well, maybe its worth it to carry 3 flamers in the arm all of a sudden.

[mogs01gt]

Sometimes it makes me go "WTF, I just dumped 5 alphas into that mech and only did 90 dmg.." and then I rage quick because HMG are lame.

[DaZur]

It's both exhilarating and frustrating at the same time..

That said, it is a welcome diversion from the tedium of QP and CW in my opinion.

[Nightbird]

It's a success

[Asym]

Played one match and listened on TS for about 20: not me.... All it was was hiding with a meta never moving.

Sorry, the same people for 3-4 matches. Small ques in NA prime time. None of the team I was with is going back anytime soon.

Back to sea ! A T10 IJN DD awaits !!!

[DeadEye COTP]

I love Solaris, but it does have some glaring oversights.

It's obvious how some 'mechs managed to make it into certain divisions when they clearly outmatch just about every mech there.

The other big problem, as mentioned here, is that there just aren't enough people for the 1 minute queue time or even at all in some cases.

People have made some good suggestions like every day of the week is a different division or lengthening the time, which no one wants I'm sure.

I actually talked to Russ on the NGNG stream the other day and it's truly troubling how defensive he gets when you mention any kind of change that is counter to their original plan. I saw it coming right from the start so I said "what if each day of the week was a different division" and he went off on some tangent about how they had to increase server capacity and failed to ever address the point.

Oh well, PGI doing what PGI does best.

Edited by DeadEye COTP, 21 April 2018 - 08:31 PM.

[Humpday]

Asym, on 21 April 2018 - 08:13 PM, said:

Played one match and listened on TS for about 20: not me.... All it was was hiding with a meta never moving.

Sorry, the same people for 3-4 matches. Small ques in NA prime time. None of the team I was with is going back anytime soon.

Back to sea ! A T10 IJN DD awaits !!!

Whats your issue? You can't drop a mech heavier than you?
You're always complaining about sucking balls man.

Look in the mirror.

[Lightfoot]

Division setup is a flop. Maybe they were thinking tiny Solaris 7 maps are the same as the Quick Play huge maps. I don't mind a good challenge, but if I want to bring a Heavy mech I should not be facing top Assault mechs (KDK-3 and such) to do so. What Battle Value is that from? Maybe Quick Play, you can use range in Quick Play to enable a Heavy vs Assault match. You can't do that on the really tiny Solaris 7 maps.

So I feel Solaris will be a success, but only if they fix the Divisions. Division 2 is very active, but the shine will wear off fast if you don't want to take a KDK-3.

IMHO the Divisions should be based on weight class, unless the mech is too weak to fight mechs in it's own Class.

I have played 130 Division 2 matches, but there is no point in continuing because everytime I get to 500 I face a series of KDK-3's and they blow any Heavy mech apart in a few seconds. So nothing left to do in Solaris 7. I'll play it now and then, but that's about it as it stands now.

[Luminis]

Success.

Edges are rough, as expected, but nothing I can't deal with after playing MWO for so long.

Long story short, I got an actual matchmaker and I'm winning or losing solely based on my decisions and my actions, which is huge for me. And no matter how much people complain about the Divisions forcing people into the respective top Mechs, I've seen and fought Mechs that no competent player brings out anywhere else.

[Armored Yokai]

Fun but irritating dealing with mindless metards andmost of the mechs don't belong in the divisions
LK and phract need div 3 and Shadowcat needs division 5 or 6/7

[IllCaesar]

Success.

I like it, though I feel as if there should've been one or two more divisions. I also think 2v2 should've been available without grouping up, as that would help fight against certain dominant builds. Its certainly got issues to work out but its fun enough right now. There is an issue of running across the same folks in the queue but I think if you just alternate which division you play every other round that it'll be fine.

[El Bandito]

I enjoyed it, but it needs work.