831 replies to this topic

[Brain Cancer]

GoatHILL, on 07 June 2018 - 07:27 PM, said:

Why the hell do people want to make group 8v8? Most of the groups I play in are 5-10 I am wholly against 8v8 but if it was to come back should it not be solo queue so units can still group.

As for CW no one wants to touch that dumpster fire. Hell make CW 8v8.

I don't want group queue to be 8v8. I want solo queue to be 8v8. Group queue is supposed to be about groups, like FW, so leaving it as 12v12 makes perfectly good sense. In fact, it makes great sense. We can have comp and solo queues be 8v8, FW and group queues be 12v12.

[Xhaleon]

Foo Don Fah, on 07 June 2018 - 07:15 PM, said:

high barrier to entry resulting from a poorly designed UI is the problem

m8 I think you really don't get how potato the vast majority of the casual videogame audience is. Even Tier 5 is less potato on average... maybe. No amount of Apple-fying the UI would make them want to play MWO because they wouldn't grasp the concept and controls, simple enough as it is.

Making it appealing for the average niche mech sim enthusiast though, that's what 8v8 versus 12v12 is all about.

[PraetorGix]

Don't mess with this. It was 8v8, you changed it. Economy, maps, matchmaker, everything was modified for 12v12. Not trying to be offensive, just realistic: with a small team like yours things take forever to get implemented and when they are, they usually bring a ton of problems with them that in turn take a lot of extra time to get fixed. Please don't waste precious time and resources on something you already wasted precious time and resources to change once. If you really have time and manpower to tackle a big endeavor why not work on changing your balancing policy, figuring out how to make a proper weapon convergence system of anything other than this very costly and complicated rollback.

[PraetorGix]

Xhaleon, on 07 June 2018 - 08:00 PM, said:

Making it appealing for the average niche mech sim enthusiast though, that's what 8v8 versus 12v12 is all about.

LOL and how exactly 8 less mech on the battlefield would make MWO appealing for the average niche mech sim enthusiast?
"Oh I really would love to try this game about giant robots, specially because I am a fan of giant robots and this is basically the only giant robot game in the market... ehm, no, waitaminute... are those 24 players? NO WAY IN HELL I'M PLAYING THAT UNTIL I SEE 16 PLAYERS!!11!!one!"

Gawd the things one has to read in these forums somettimes...

[Looming Dementia]

Imperius, on 07 June 2018 - 07:17 PM, said:

Look at all these low count alts saying no all of a sudden. Weird???

They just posted the thread to the main page. This makes sense. A lot of them aren't alts.

[Throe]

[deleted by user]

Edited by Throe, 08 November 2018 - 04:29 PM.

[yrrot]

With the recent adjustments to the Solo QP matchmaker (thanks Paul), 12v12 is fine there. Might be a couple of hurdles, but it's running pretty well right now. Still going to be some stomps, but even off peak times, the match search is rather fast.

Group Queue QP definitely could benefit from faster matchmaking times, and 8v8 might help it. It also gives smaller groups a better chance to feel they can hold their own in the queue (since they end up being a larger portion of their team).

In an ideal world, I think the community would LOVE a more dynamic approach where the matchmaker picks the scale based on how many people were matched into a lobby, then splits them into teams. In the case Paul pointed out, a 10 man drop would have to force the MM to decide on 12v12 and try to fill it, but maybe the next lobby gets made into 8v8 (or 4v4...). That's probably more in depth than you guys are looking to do now, though.

[Looming Dementia]

Throe, on 07 June 2018 - 08:13 PM, said:

So long as by "changes to the economy", you mean increasing match rewards due to the smaller potential for earnings with only 8 opponents, I can get behind this.

There would be very few tweaks necessary. You'd mostly be losing out on small things like kill assists. Most of the rest would be auto-correcting.

You'd have just as much chance for kills, KMDD's, solo-kills, etc, since there would be the same number of enemies as allies. When you'd toss a UAV, you would get almost the same spotting CBills/XP. Tag bonuses, NARC bonuses, etc would balance out. The actual matches should be a bit shorter, so having a slightly lower reward-per-match payout would be appropriate. So, what reduced rewards might exist would be fine.

[Sniper Behind Ya]

My preference is for larger battles, with tree of Mechs on each side:
* 4 Assault
* 8 Heavy
* 12 Medium
* 16 Light

For QP, that suggestion for 12x12 during peak, 8x8 during low sounds reasonable. Even both during massive populations.

[Lord Refa]

I say have both if possible. 12 vs 12 and 8 vs 8.

[Appogee]

PraetorGix, on 07 June 2018 - 08:07 PM, said:

Don't mess with this. It was 8v8, you changed it. Economy, maps, matchmaker, everything was modified for 12v12.

This. Leave it 12 v 12.

Slapping yet another quick-fix band aid over the symptoms isn't going to solve the actual root cause problems of MWO that lead to symptoms like poor/slow matchmaking and reduced player activity.


New Player Experience:

• More in-game and out-of-game resources that ease the learning curve.
  
• Accelerate new player acquisition of viable Mechs, instead of disheartening them with gimped trial Mechs.
  
• Leverage the lore to get players engaged with the BT story and universe.

New Player & Mid Term Player Retention:

• Matchmake based on actual player skill. Reset the now-meaningless PSR rankings and redistribute active players across a normal curve daily. Players go up or down based on their performance.
  
• More variety through randomised spawns, planetary conditions (eg. variable gravity).
  
• Maps! Accept, validate and go live with at least one community created map per month.
  
• Fix broken game modes like Escort.
  
• QoL improvements like Skill Tree cutting and pasting, build saving and loading (yes I know).

Long Term Player Activity Level

• Give Faction Play depth and meaning by introducing logistics, economy, careers.
  
• Give players a real reason to fight for planets.
  
• Give players a reason to become genuine top tier Mechwarriors. Feature leaders, improvers and rising stars in the game interface.
  
• Leverage the rich BattleTech lore in the map and through the game, including event design.

Community Engagement

• Leverage the passionate and committed Mechwarriors who care about the franchise, and who have stuck with it and with you throughout. You have a volunteer army at your disposal who desperately want you to succeed. Yet you hold them at arms length like they are an annoyance or the enemy.

And there I go again. Another 20 minutes wasted typing out solutions for the benefit of a company that won't even read them, let alone actually consider adopting them.

Edited by Appogee, 07 June 2018 - 09:05 PM.

[Looming Dementia]

Appogee, on 07 June 2018 - 08:54 PM, said:

This. Leave it 12 v 12.

Slapping yet another quick-fix band aid over the symptoms isn't going to solve the actual root cause problems of MWO that lead to symptoms like poor/slow matchmaking and reduced player activity.


New Player Experience:

• Put some effort into easing the learning curve and produce more resources.
  
• Accelerate new player acquisition of viable Mechs, instead of disheartening them with gimped trial Mechs.

New Player & Mid Term Player Retention:

• Matchmake based on actual player skill. Reset the now-meaningless PSR rankings and replace it by redistributing active players across a normal curve. Players go up or down based on their performance.
  
• More variety through randomised spawns and planetary conditions (eg. variable gravity).
  
• Maps! Accept, validate and go live with at least one community created map per month.
  
• Fix broken game modes like Escort.
  
• QoL improvements like Skill Tree cutting and pasting, build saving and loading (yes I know).

Long Term Player Activity Level

• Give Faction Play depth and meaning by introducing logistics, economy, careers.
  
• Give players a real reason to fight for planets.
  
• Give players a reason to become genuine top tier Mechwarriors.
  
• Leverage the rich BattleTech lore in the map and through the game, including event design.

Community Engagement

• Leverage the passionate and committed Mechwarriors who care about the franchise, and who have stuck with it and with you throughout. You have a volunteer army at your disposal who desperately want you to succeed. Yet you hold them at arms length like they are an annoyance or the enemy.

And there I go again. Another 20 minutes wasted typing out solutions for the benefit of a company that won't even read them, let alone actually consider adopting them.

There is a crazy-fast acquisition boost for new players. Check the bonuses for each of a new player's first 25 games. They're listed under the achievements as "Cadet Bonuses".

The first game gives a bonus of 800,000 CBills, in addition to normal match rewards. The bonus drops by 25,000 CBills, each match, ending at 200,000 CBills for the 25th match. The 25th match also includes a bonus of 48,000 GXP.

That's a total of 12,500,000 CBills, in addition to whatever rewards the new player got from the actual matches ... probably 15,000,000 or so, total. That will give the new player quite a head-start on filling the first 4 mech bays. You can buy a few Inner Sphere mechs for 15M.


I'm not sure that community-created maps are a great idea. Solaris City is ****** up quite enough.


They're doing some of the build improvements that you're suggesting, actually. Check the "Roadmap for June, July, and August" heading, under News:

June
New Feature: Build Profile Saving and Sharing

• You will be able to save and load 'Mech loadouts and Skill Tree builds with ease with this new feature!
  
• You can export your favorite 'Mech loadout and Skill Tree builds to share with other fellow MechWarriors or even choose to import other MechWarriors' builds for your own use.
  
• Sharing build codes has been made much easier as well with a small update to the Floating Chat system.

July

Build Profile Saving and Sharing Improvements:

• Allowing players to try out imported 'Mech loadouts using Testing Grounds.
  
• Showing invoice for extra cost of using imported loadouts.

Edited by Looming Dementia, 07 June 2018 - 09:26 PM.

[Samual Kalkin]

12v12 is big factor in why I hardly ever play anymore.

With ridiculous alpha strike firepower that so many newer mechs have, it gets boring being focused to dead in 5 sec or less.

[Tank]

If you want eSports and what not then you should go down to standard - 5vs5. Then personal skill will matter, 8vs8 is still too big - do it right or don't touch those buckets.

[NocturnalBeast]

Tank, on 07 June 2018 - 09:38 PM, said:

If you want eSports and what not then you should go down to standard - 5vs5. Then personal skill will matter, 8vs8 is still too big - do it right or don't touch those buckets.

The problem is that in BATTLETECH and MechWarrior by extension, IS drops in 4 Mech Lances and clans drop in 5 Mech (or elemental point) Stars. it would also take quite a bit of work on PGIs part to make it odd-numbered groups.

[Grumpy the Madcat MkII]

I voted maybe because:

If i drop with friends, mostly more then 6 players are from one clan. I think if you make a 8vs8 qp, they can fill up matches alone. For new players, who joins with friends can it be frustrated if they got focused by 8 players and get killed in seconds.

On the other side, if 8vs8 qp get an restriction for max 4 players of an group it could be possible get better for new players. All who wants to join with more than 4 player can get into faction play. Maybe factionplay can be get more action.

Maybe Quickplay with groups can be get founded faster. But this is all a thing of maybe.

My opinion, try it out. Give us a chance to get choice. You can see in your system how many players are for 8vs8 and how many take a choice for 12vs12.

I think 8vs8 with some balancing can be good for new players, but can split up the old players.

[Laser Kiwi]

Looming Dementia, on 07 June 2018 - 09:24 PM, said:

There is a crazy-fast acquisition boost for new players. Check the bonuses for each of a new player's first 25 games. They're listed under the achievements as "Cadet Bonuses".

The first game gives a bonus of 800,000 CBills, in addition to normal match rewards. The bonus drops by 25,000 CBills, each match, ending at 200,000 CBills for the 25th match. The 25th match also includes a bonus of 48,000 GXP.

That's a total of 12,500,000 CBills, in addition to whatever rewards the new player got from the actual matches ... probably 15,000,000 or so, total. That will give the new player quite a head-start on filling the first 4 mech bays. You can buy a few Inner Sphere mechs for 15M.

15 million is about enough for 2 decent mechs IS and not quite 2 clan, you forget, without double heat sinks endo and a better engine a lot of these mechs are FUBAR on ignition.

New players also make bad choices so there ya go.

i am on the fence, i don't know what 8 v 8 is like in random play, but it is the comp standard so maybe its a worthwhile thought, however you might be missing the critical mass needed for good 'conversation' with 8 strangers rather than 12.
PS my tier one bar is totally maxed out, it can't go backwards proving my tier is not based on actual skill, can we have a psr reset sometime.....

[Lt Blackthorn]

Do it on a trial basis at the very least, to allow the community to really assess how the it affects the game in its current state.

[Cyriann]

This will be only detrimental to the game’s feel of scale, Battlemech battles are supposed to be immense in scale especially when two units, aka three 4 mechs lances, collide into one another.

The game is supposed to be team based and you, our devs, have built around 12v12 since its beginning, it would only be an error to drop one of his game’s selling point for its most played format.

One option, if you all still concider 8v8 would be “better”, then I think you can makeit a new mode to start with and then later on a dedicated 8v8 playlist. Otherwise it will only alienate the way the game actually work and be detrimental to it, especially if the weapon balance isn’t looked over soon.

[NocturnalBeast]

Cyriann, on 07 June 2018 - 10:31 PM, said:

This will be only detrimental to the game’s feel of scale, Battlemech battles are supposed to be immense in scale especially when two units, aka three 4 mechs lances, collide into one another.

The game is supposed to be team based and you, our devs, have built around 12v12 since its beginning, it would only be an error to drop one of his game’s selling point for its most played format.

One option, if you all still concider 8v8 would be “better”, then I think you can makeit a new mode to start with and then later on a dedicated 8v8 playlist. Otherwise it will only alienate the way the game actually work and be detrimental to it, especially if the weapon balance isn’t looked over soon.

I have played since 2012 and have extensively played 8v8 and 12v12 and 8v8 was much better, for the reasons that many have stated earlier in the thread.