1169 replies to this topic

[Grus]

302 replys as of this post... in 5 days... just sayn'.

[GamerPro4000]

Joshua McEvedy, on 06 August 2018 - 02:24 AM, said:

That's been tried a couple of years back and it failed miserably. The separation of queues lasted less than a week, resulting mostly in ghost drops in both queues.

Did PGI do anything to advertise and give incentives to players to know about these changes? If not, PGI should try it again, but make an event for a a week or two to really get people to play FW with these new changes so they know about the new changes. Having the event posted in front of the MWO page or emailed to MWO players will give maximum exposure to the MWO community about these new changes

Did PGI implement these changes on the beginning of the week when everyone is working or the end of week day when everyone is free?

Edited by GamerPro4000, 06 August 2018 - 11:50 AM.

[Monkey Lover]

Grus, on 06 August 2018 - 10:18 AM, said:

302 replys as of this post... in 5 days... just sayn'.

Just 16 pages that will not happen. Know what will happen no one is asking for ? FP PUG mode. It's already 4 spawn group q , it will soon be 4 spawn quick play.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 06 August 2018 - 12:31 PM.

[Big Tin Man]

The little things that would mean a lot to spicing up FP:

1. Bring back Long Tom and make it a 'consumable' arty strike for the leader on one side to use. It hits with 2x strength of normal arty. 5 minute cooldown. Leader must call it in like a normal arty. (PGI difficulty level to implement: 2)

2. Weekly rotation of IS v IS to IS v Clan to Clan v Clan conflict. I don't think the population is strong enough to handle two bukkits right now (PGIDLtI: 1). Reassess after a few months.

3. Allow players to reset FP loyality points to zero after reaching max rank. (PGIDLtI: 2)

4. Bring back combined ML + LRM turrets for siege defense on certain maps (BOREAL, I'm looking at you) (PGIDLtI: 1)

5. Bring back the very nice waiting lobby screen from FP 3.0 (PGIDLtI: ?)

6. Make factions and mercs different by adding in a special drop deck of preselected 'faction' mechs for new players. I.E. Davion loyalists would get a Davion lore specific deck etc. These would need to be better than the trial mechs, and different enough to make faction choice matter (PGIDLtI: 2)

7. Let us buy more faction decks (PGIDLtI: 1)

8. Put in a hard gate to FP to keep brand new players out and make a better experience for all. 100 games for scouting, 200 games for full FP. Tier 3 or better only. (PGIDLtI: 3)

[UnKnownPlayer]

There are no changes yet, this is the place to give ideas about what would improve the game mode.

[Asym]

Remove the gates and completely eliminate the walls. That will open up a choke points and make the Invasion games more fluid.

As said earlier, rework the spawn points to make them difficult to camp on. Add turrets to the spawn points on both sides.

I'd add an additional consumables to the attacking forces. One time per mech use of Smoke for both teams.

Make the attacking scoring an objective-by-objective scoring system and it allows captured turrets to be used defensively.

Add a MFB to all maps as a random asset never located in the same places.: one per team.

Limit teams to 4 and never greater for all but FFA's which could have 12. Groups of 4 apply to the ques and MM would only allow 2 teams of 4 pilots per named team..... Teams of 12 just don't work and if we want average players to stay in the game, this is a way to do this. Getting slaughtered by 12 man farming team is not fun and it has driven off more players than it has kept.....

JMO

Edited by Asym, 06 August 2018 - 01:26 PM.

[Wo1verine]

Force respawn in faction, timer based (potential for higher rewards to higher skilled players more damage etc)

Free for all mode in quick play

Grinder mode ( player groups ranging from 1 to 12 can launch a match against a player determined amount of ai opponents, that respawn continuously until either a timer runs out or all group players are disabled )

Better rewards to increase population

If above is achievable higher pop means an elo can be applied to faction play search criteria for better balance

Or skill level faction play can be categorized into skill levels giving players a choice of skill level of opponents, with tier level giving access to different skill categories so new players can’t spam higher skill matches, also team sizes can be graduated for fp based on skill level, tier 5 fp would be 4 vs 4 - tier 4 8 vs 8, tier 3 12 vs 12, tier 2 & 1 24 vs 24, also increased rewards as you progress, this way incentives are spread across all the categories, this allows time in game to be an incentive at the same time it gives new players a chance to get comfortable as team groups increase in size

A new search formulae that uses current online traffic to determine whether a match is 4 vs 4, 8 v 8, 12 v 12 and my favourite idea of all 24 v 24 ( quick play )

All of this is dependant on population levels which will have to be seriously looked at, ie - way better rewards across the board as stated above, idea is little less profit per player but higher player base can offset loss of revenue from single accounts

[Marius Evander]

Joshua McEvedy, on 06 August 2018 - 06:49 AM, said:

Yes, it did. I was there, and it didn't work.

Great "no u" argument. Go read and explain how what really was tried (which was completely different) was actually exactly the same (already explained on page 10 -11 how it was not) as what I and others have been proposing / asking for, for years.

Also explain how the contributing factors to why "it didnt work" are irrelevant.

Otherwise your irrelevant. Which I hope your not and can prove me wrong / help us find a medium / better solution.

fenomeno, on 06 August 2018 - 09:07 AM, said:

Noone can be bothered doing that, my dude... just because you played 7000 hours (not that I ever see you in FP), doesn't mean you need to write 7000 words

I should not have told someone to read the whole thread, even though I have twice. Heaps of people are posting without reading anyone else's posts and with little knowledge of FP.

I am irritated by people who were obviously in large units when SCOUTING MODE LAUNCHED saying that single players did not want a single player Siege queue and were only playing a brand new shiny scouting mode because "Solo no unit tag siege queue didnt work".

Obviously NO ONE wants to try something COMPLETELY NEW with the time they have to play, they would obviously rather go play a mode that had been around for years, just with a different less Seal Clubbing queue type when there is a new alternative game to try.......... (sarcasm)

When a lot of the solo people had their own Solo unit tags, so were considered grouped (UNIT) queue anyway, and most of the population was trying out the new game mode just added for those 2 weeks. Anyway i am repeating what I already explained better previously that you couldn't be bothered to read.

My 7000 words are relevant issues to improving the game mode / stopping the new player constant deterrance with "heroic mode seal clubbing".

I haven't seen you in FP either ? whats your point ? how much FP do you play each day ? 48 hours on weekends on multiple computers so you see people playing when you would normally be sleeping or in a different match to them? I can guess by the time you posted you play when I am sleeping. No I haven't played MUCH FP since solaris launched, but NOTHING HAS ALTERED IN FP in over 9 months except queue numbers continuing to deteriorate without large incentive event rewards to bring players back.

Edited by Cadoazreal, 06 August 2018 - 03:23 PM.

[Marius Evander]

Cheekies add spoiler /spolier in [ brackets to your repost, I am sure Paul is capable of working out from his own posts where he read up to, but the fact Monday is a Public Holiday in Canada and the FP meeting / podcast is Tuesday, I doubt anything added since Friday will be covered, I really dont think we want me reposting all my posts "so their on the most recent page" which somehow increases the chance of Paul seeing / reading them?...................................

Edited by Cadoazreal, 06 August 2018 - 01:58 PM.

[creativeabyss]

can you make the text warning show up more often. having it pop off once in the generation of 3 second attention spans results in threads like this.... https://mwomercs.com...urn-people-off/


please make it a reccruing popup, and maybe change what it says so that it directly references the fact that many people are on ts or discord with a large group while playing this, and that there is no matchmaker, and that most of the players are teir 2 or 1 and that teir 5s are gonna have a rough time if their not in a unit/group yet. and maybe include a link to the recruitment sections of this sub forum

Edited by creativeabyss, 06 August 2018 - 02:22 PM.

[Cato Zilks]

Leone, on 06 August 2018 - 07:11 AM, said:

Wait, what? No. You lie. Boreal Vault is one of my favourite brawling maps. I mean, granted, Vitric forge and grim Portico are better for it, but Boreal Vault is just such a blast I always enjoy it when it comes up. Your opinions are not 'everyone's'.
~Leone.

Leone, you are happy when you get attack on Boreal? You dont think that Boreal gives the largest advantage to defenders of all the seige maps? I will gladly make a poll to give Paul some data.

Edit: Here is the poll, vote away: https://mwomercs.com...eal-vault-poll/

Edited by Cato Zilks, 06 August 2018 - 03:26 PM.

[Marius Evander]

My "help us find a medium / better solution" Got me thinking and I believe brought me to a better understanding of why people are so quick to try to stop a solo queue being added to FP by trying to look at the problem from a mediocre mechanical gaming skill 40-50's year old battletech teen joystick warriors point of view.

The following is Subjective/theoretical/Hypothesising and much of it may be completely wrong !

Back when we had 2 buckets going on on every border with an attack and a defence planet ( 24 ish buckets at a time? ) and scouting didnt exist. We had the higher skilled players (ON AVERAGE, THE BEST MECHANICAL GAMING SKILL PLAYER IN THE GAME MIGHT HAVE BEEN LIAO) tending towards the northern factions, Clans, Kurita, FRR, Steiner. But after years of these players pushing into the Southern zones and seal clubbing casual lore roleplayers a decent number of them had had enough and called it quits. They enjoyed the start of a season when Merik,Liao and Davion fought each other at a similar beer league joystick warrior skill level, but when Mercstar/Kcom etc reached them and started seal clubbing them they no longer enjoyed the fights, (who would), so our population dwindled and queue's had to be merged, this is when Solo and grouped should have been introduced correctly, and not turned off during everyone trying a new different game to Siege.

The 'NO SOLO QUEUE ITS BEEN TRIED' people miss the glory days of being able to queue with their friends AGAINST SIMILAR SKILL LEVEL OPPONENTS.

Heres the thing, that's not going to happen again, and by holding onto that "NO SOLO Q FOR U" attitude for so long you have probably killed the next best alternative, as not only is our population now definately too low to return to 24+ (x2 with scouting) buckets, its probably too low for grouped and solo queue to not have stupendous wait times, (which we would have had the pop for up until several months after Civil war, and definately had during tukayid3)

THE CHOICE BETWEEN
- QUEUEING AS A GROUP WITH YOUR BUDDIES AND A HIGH CHANCE OF GETTING SEAL CLUBBED FOR BETTER REWARDS,
- OR QUEUEING INDIVIDUALLY, IN SYNC, AND MOST OF YOU GETTING IN THE SAME MATCH with a close fight, based on SSR (AFTER A SERIES OF UNENJOYABLE 10? PLACEMENT MATCHES)

That was the choice, congratulations on throwing a tantrum that you couldn't roleplay and killing off the next best alternative.

The current event shows people are willing to risk Seal clubbing in 'heroic mode" for better rewards.

If we supported an SSR solo queue maybe the Seal clubbing issue would be solved well enough to bring people back to the game, I believe the biggest problem with FP is the Seal clubbing 1 sided games, if we solved that population may increase instead of deteriorating and after the amount of time it has spent going down, we might eventually get high enough population to be able to reintroduce more LORE/RP stuff.

Grus, on 06 August 2018 - 10:18 AM, said:

302 replys as of this post... in 5 days... just sayn'.

What are you saying Grus ? this thread would have been 50 pages by now 2 years ago. Not 16....

Edited by Cadoazreal, 06 August 2018 - 03:32 PM.

[creativeabyss]

Cadoazreal, on 06 August 2018 - 03:20 PM, said:

snip

another solution, may to be to have the main que which is mixed groups and solos as we have it now, and another event, themed around smaller foruces within a faction hiring mercs by the lance, and have that other event only allow groups of 4 or less. units could use this small groups que to recruit and get new players aware of the units they can join up with, and new players would be able to get their feet wet in fw with less risk of running into a demoralizing match on their first try in fw.

so this is what itd look like, when you click fw to que, youd have 2 options:

option 1-fight for comstar vs the clan invasion (this is the main que that we are familiar with)

option 2- fight in a same tech que, which would be small groups of 4 or less.


the "option 2" que could be on continuously, every weekend, or pgi could only turn it on as a special event type. can this type of idea be bypassed by sync dropping? yes.is that an issue though? is it an issue for solo que qp? same answer, no, because ideally thered be enough people in the que that youd never get your full 12 into the que due to other pugs queing up.

Edited by creativeabyss, 06 August 2018 - 03:57 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

Splitting queues helps no one. Groups need PUGs and PUGs need groups. You guys all think it's fine and dandy in peak population times but you are totally forgetting about ~12-14hrs per day in the game is LOW population. Neither side will realistically have enough to get games if the queues are split.

I mean even in the peak US yesty I was in a 6man and we needed 6 PUGs to fill the ranks to get a drop. That's what it's like outside of peak just about every day.


Also Cato - a single poll over a single map without commentary is a bit, one dimensional.
There are multiple maps that need attention, focusing on one doesn't help much - better to say 'which' maps need fixing. Boreal / Sulfer / Vitric are the biggest ones with issues. Overall I don't mind Boreal Attack, but there is a 'knack' to doing it that is above most of the playerbase unfortunately.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 06 August 2018 - 07:10 PM.

[creativeabyss]

I mean, if your adjusting everything around non peak hours, we might as well just delete fw since games don't go off during oceanic unless its early risers in the eu, or late nighters in NA.

forget the viability during oceanic. fw will never be viable during oceanic tzs since genrally less than 24 people actually PLAY during oceanic tzs. every game actually dies a bit during oceanic tzs, since half of that timezone is pure ocean, with 0 population. forget that time, focus on the eu and NA experience, and if those are good enough, maybe the far east will leave gundam long enough to get into MechWarrior just based off of their eu and na compatriots reviews.

Edited by creativeabyss, 06 August 2018 - 07:44 PM.

[Marius Evander]

justcallme A S H, on 06 August 2018 - 05:20 PM, said:

Spoiler

Splitting queues helps no one. Groups need PUGs and PUGs need groups. You guys all think it's fine and dandy in oeak population times but you are totally forgetting about ~12-14rs oer day in the game is LOW population. Neither side will realistically have enough to get games if the queues are split.

I mean even in the peak US yesty I was in a 6man and we needed 6 PUGs to fill the ranks to get a drop. That's what it's like outside of peak just about every day.


Also Cato - a single poll over a single map without commentary is a bit, one dimensional.
There are multiple maps that need attention, focusing on one doesn't help much - better to say 'which' maps need fixing. Boreal / Sulfer / Vitric are the biggest ones with issues. Overall I don't mind Boreal Attack, but there is a 'knack' to doing it that is above most of the playerbase unfortunately.

Then we need to remove grouped queue from the game and make it solo queue only with closely matched SSR across the 2 sides, your have had grouped queue for 4-5 years, all it has done is drive player numbers down. Its time to try queueing on our own only. 10 ****** SSR placement games then matching SSR after that should get BETTER MATCHES than the current system.

Edited by Cadoazreal, 06 August 2018 - 05:44 PM.

[Jaybles-The-PegLeg-PotatoCaptain]

Cadoazreal, on 06 August 2018 - 05:43 PM, said:

Then we need to remove grouped queue from the game and make it solo queue only with closely matched SSR across the 2 sides, your have had grouped queue for 4-5 years, all it has done is drive player numbers down. Its time to try queueing on our own only. 10 ****** SSR placement games then matching SSR after that should get BETTER MATCHES than the current system.

How does making everyone drop solo and removing the reason for units entirely help immersion and faction play having a 'point'? It sounds a lot like throwing the baby out with the bath water.

And to your point about there never being a FP 'Solo' queue..... there has never been a FP group only queue either.... I could argue just as hard that forcing everyone to group up in order to play FP is better for the game.

But as Ash Stated above, groups need pugs and pugs need groups. And it makes no sense to talk about splitting the queues once more.

Focus on the QoL suggestions, the map fixes, the rewards system fixes, game mode fixes etc.

As an aside, there was a feature that was asked for way back when the first FP round table. It Involved allowing groups of 6+ to check a box that meant they would be willing to wait in queue longer in order to be paired against an equal or greater sized group. Having played exclusively Davion in this current event with groups of 9-12 mostly, I can tell you we would gladly wait an extra few minutes to be paired against a team rather than solo pugs.

Maybe Paul can talk to why this feature was never added from the previous FP round tables.Is it easily implemented, or requires too much back end work etc?

[Cato Zilks]

Jaybles-The-PegLeg-PotatoCaptain, on 06 August 2018 - 06:29 PM, said:

Maybe Paul can talk to why this feature was never added from the previous FP round tables.Is it easily implemented, or requires too much back end work etc?

Please do

[justcallme A S H]

Cadoazreal, on 06 August 2018 - 05:43 PM, said:

Then we need to remove grouped queue from the game and make it solo queue only with closely matched SSR across the 2 sides.

Why should solo players be pandered to in a Group Mode? The whole POINT of Faction Play is Units / Groups / Fighting together etc etc.

You force people to drop without being able to be in a team etc, that is the mode dead right there and you will send a bunch of units into the grave as well. Same thing that happened with FP 3.0 deployment and unit kill off. Legit that will hurt the game even further. Anyone advocating such a thing is just being selfish.

Cadoazreal, on 06 August 2018 - 05:43 PM, said:

your have had grouped queue for 4-5 years, all it has done is drive player numbers down.

.

If you think that is the sole reason for the population decline in Faction Play - Which is inline with the overall decline in MWO population - then you are very misguided.

The FP changes - predominately FP3.0 - is what has lead to the main drop off. That has nothing to do with match quality and everything to do with what was lacking in the delivery and has been lacking since then... Something Paul, so far, seems interested to address what one can.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 06 August 2018 - 07:29 PM.

[Marius Evander]

Jaybles-The-PegLeg-PotatoCaptain, on 06 August 2018 - 06:29 PM, said:

Spoiler

How does making everyone drop solo and removing the reason for units entirely help immersion and faction play having a 'point'? It sounds a lot like throwing the baby out with the bath water.

And to your point about there never being a FP 'Solo' queue..... there has never been a FP group only queue either.... I could argue just as hard that forcing everyone to group up in order to play FP is better for the game.

But as Ash Stated above, groups need pugs and pugs need groups. And it makes no sense to talk about splitting the queues once more.

Focus on the QoL suggestions, the map fixes, the rewards system fixes, game mode fixes etc.

As an aside, there was a feature that was asked for way back when the first FP round table. It Involved allowing groups of 6+ to check a box that meant they would be willing to wait in queue longer in order to be paired against an equal or greater sized group. Having played exclusively Davion in this current event with groups of 9-12 mostly, I can tell you we would gladly wait an extra few minutes to be paired against a team rather than solo pugs.

Maybe Paul can talk to why this feature was never added from the previous FP round tables.Is it easily implemented, or requires too much back end work etc?

-"How does making everyone drop solo and removing the reason for units entirely help immersion and faction play having a 'point'?
You still drop for your faction, how you perform effects your specific border, you do mini events like the current one, eveyone ticks which side they want to support without having to up and change loyalty.
How has the current system helped LORE units? The majority of LORE units stopped playing when buckets were merged so activity only effected the Clan/IS borders.

-"And to your point about there never being a FP 'Solo' queue..... there has never been a FP group only queue either.... I could argue just as hard that forcing everyone to group up in order to play FP is better for the game."
Thats very similar to the "only decent players should be playing FP argument, Its working really well isn't it, are the LORE players, the majority of whom were playing battletech in the 80's in your mainly in the "decent players" category, or do they tend to be the ones running stock loadouts for LORE? I would prefer we had both seperate queue's, we could have done it
at Civil war launch or Tukkayid 3. Probably cant now which is why, a QOL improvement in making matches more contested and enjoyable by being closer and therefore more exciting than the stompfest needs to be implemented by switching to Solo queue only.

'-But as Ash Stated above, groups need pugs and pugs need groups. And it makes no sense to talk about splitting the queues once more."
And who keeps playing and who keeps leaving causing this decay in numbers? Groups need pugs, pugs dont need groups, pugs would have a much better time if groups didnt exist in a skill matching SSR not Tier system.

-"Focus on the QoL suggestions, the map fixes, the rewards system fixes, game mode fixes etc."
The biggest QOL issue in Faction Play is the 1 sided stomping Seals nature of the game mode. Look at WoW for an example, I KNOW THIS IS NOT W.o.W. but comparisons can be made, vanilla WoW, player numbers were stagnating, Naxxramus/Blackwing Layer too hard for the Majority of players, they Interoduced a heroic and casual mode to their end game content, numbers exploded. Keeping Only Grouped FP stomping taters will only continue to decay the game no matter what other changes you make to FP.

justcallme A S H, on 06 August 2018 - 07:16 PM, said:

Spoiler

Why should solo players be pandered to in a Group Mode? The whole POINT of Faction Play is Units / Groups / Fighting together etc etc.

You force people to drop without being able to be in a team etc, that is the mode dead right there and you will send a bunch of units into the grave as well. Same thing that happened with FP 3.0 deployment and unit kill off. Legit that will hurt the game even further. Anyone advocating such a thing is just being selfish.

If you think that is the sole reason for the population decline in Faction Play - Which is inline with the overall decline in MWO population - then you are very misguided.

The FP changes - predominately FP3.0 - is what has lead to the main drop off. That has nothing to do with match quality and everything to do with what was lacking in the delivery and has been lacking since then... Something Paul, so far, seems interested to address what one can.

-"Why should solo players be pandered to in a Group Mode? The whole POINT of Faction Play is Units / Groups / Fighting together etc etc."
Why should they be excluded / turned away by being mashed ? Some people do not have the mechanical skill or patience to git gud, other much more succesful games cater to them as well as the elitists and Flourish. The whole Point of Faction play is good fights that effect planet held, you can still sync and chat on voip apps, the "units/groups" are the FACTIONS , not 12 [EVIL] merc faction hopping whenever they choose.

-"You force people to drop without being able to be in a team etc, that is the mode dead right there and you will send a bunch of units into the grave as well. Same thing that happened with FP 3.0 deployment and unit kill off. Legit that will hurt the game even further. Anyone advocating such a thing is just being selfish."
As stated above, catering to the more casual, less elitist Majority of your audience has more likelyhood of success than continuing down a path that has already failed by turning the majority away from 1 sided matches. It is Selfish to believe, what I have heard you say many a time, that Potato's should not be in Faction Play, when I expect they have made up more than 50% of the games total playerbase since launch and probably 80+% of the LORE players. Continue only catering to the Top 5%, I thought people would have woken up after so many years of this.

-"If you think that is the sole reason for the population decline in Faction Play - Which is inline with the overall decline in MWO population - then you are very misguided."
If you bothered to read my posts, instead of searching desperately for snippets you could attack you would realise I have mentioned multiple causes.

-"The FP changes - predominately FP3.0 - is what has lead to the main drop off. That has nothing to do with match quality and everything to do with what was lacking in the delivery and has been lacking since then... Something Paul, so far, seems interested to address what one can."
Match Quality was one of the bigger factors in the 3.0 Dropoff, IS players particularly Davion,Merik and Liao were forced to fight the elitist players, rather than continuing their ISvsIS mainly LORE players battles against each other.
It is extrememly difficult to add Depth and Lore to a slower paced mech lab based First Person Shooter, especially when playerbase has fallen off so drastically. I would love split borders and more dept of LORE, but it is not going to have effect unless you address the underlying 1 sided matches issue.

Edited by Cadoazreal, 06 August 2018 - 10:00 PM.