Darian DelFord, on 21 April 2018 - 07:01 PM, said:
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
I have intentionally not replied to this thread to see what others think and feel. I have also spent more and more time dissecting Solaris 7.
With that being said in my own humble opinion I call it a failure..... correction.... a complete and utter failure. There are many reasons I say this and I will list only a few of the major ones.
1. Mechwarrior Online was rebranded to be Solaris 7. Meaning For the moment they wanted this to be the focal point of all game play. With that being said. They cannot even keep 15 to 20 people in the queues for the divisions. If you are conservative towards Solaris with 7 divisions 20 people (Doubt very serious this is even close) per division then multiple in game. You are at around 200 people at any given time playing Solaris. Seriously? 200 people at any point in time playing Solaris 7. The great rebirth of Mechwarrior Online. It is not uncommon at all, in fact just happened to me for the last hour, to play the same player multiple times in an hour.
2. Division Lists. PGI has stated and I have not seen anything to the contrary they are NOT going to move any mechs to different divisions for 3 months unless they see clear and concise evidence it needs to be done. Well I think we all agree that after the 2nd day there were mechs that ABSOLUTELY DID NOT BELONG IN THE DIVISIONS THEY ARE IN. Which begs the question.... what the hell was PGI thinking when they assigned said mechs to the division. Who were these mysterious (NGNG) competitive people who gave input that a 70 ton mech belongs in the same division as a 20 ton mech.
3. Maps. Completely need to be redone. They are entirely to small. When a mech can literally be at the spawn point of the other mech in less than 5 seconds there is a problem. The maps while aesthetic, I agree, are entirely to small. The choke points are ridiculous and they completely favor that of the brawling builds with any other build being all but useless.
4. ELO. Why do you even have it? The MM DOES NOT care what your ELO is. All it cares about is matching two people into a match no matter their skill level. Currently the highest ELO I have faced is almost 500 above me and the lowest is close to 400. If ELO worked correctly these matchups would NEVER take place. This re-emphasizes point one above... LACK OF PLAYERS in SOLARIS. IF parameters exist in the MM to allow 500+ ELO difference to be paired up, you might as well get rid of the ELO system as it does nothing for you.
5. Cutscene prior to the fight. Honestly this needs to go. It gives way to many advantages to certain mechs and play styles. Whether you agree or disagree, that cut scene sets the tone for what each pilot is going to do, with no mystery to what the other mech is until you actually see them.
6. Load times.... my gawd the load times into the mech bay.... Enough said. (Granted PGI did state prior to launch they are aware of it and are working on "optimizing" this) Seriously you have had how many months to figure this out?
7. Reward system. Way to inadequate for the time and effort for multiple reasons. When you have a 20 ton mech face off and beat a 70 ton mech and is barely rewarded there is a problem. For those that do not understand theh 70 ton mech only has to do around 50 damage (if that) to kill said 20 ton mech. While the 20 ton mech has to do close to 200 points of damage to beat said mech. Yet the rewards really do not reflect this. If a lower tonnage mech beats a larger tonnage mech there should be a greater reward. But all in all the rewards themselves are lacking and really not worth the effort.
One quick play match which on average lasts 7 minutes nets you about 7-10 times the amount you get in a 3 to 5 minute solaris match.
This is but a short list of issues with Solaris 7, the great re-branding of Mechwarrior Online.
Currently there is not a player base for it to keep it headed where it needs to head. PGI MUST and I say this again... MUST address the multiple issues with it and quickly before it turns into another Community Warfare Fiasco. If it does I do not think MWO would recover from it, especially with the age of the game.
Edited by Darian DelFord, 23 April 2018 - 07:27 PM.