144 replies to this topic

[KHETTI]

Maybe PGI should jump on the current bandwagon and change Solaris to be a Battle royal mode.
Myself, the reason i stopped playing a long long time ago is burn out pretty much and getting invested in other games, saying that though, MWO is always in the back of my head and i mean to get back into the game at some point.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

its like MW5 ..in December 2017 PGI searched ideas for missions ...by twitter and NGNG ...not in his own Forum

https://twitter.com/...093215563366400

thats was interest has PGI to his own forum and Customers ...

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 22 August 2018 - 10:12 AM.

[Alan Hicks]

-Get rid of the skill tree, get rid of the skill tree, get rid of the skill tree !

(a good, simple and motivating new mech progress system would have been nice, the old one had to go, but we got something worse instead.)

-Do something to neutralize one of the worst changes in MWO history: the engine d-sync.

-I guess that with the current low population of the game we can trash any hope for better matchmaking. Around the time the game has been active this was a critical issue, but too late is too late.

And there is more to add or over a dozen main issues addressed here in this topic, but anyway, I've seen PGI does not pay that much attention to their main player base. That makes hard to implement good changes of the game to improve. They may listen to the wrong people or just do what they think the game needs.

Over the years they have ruined their own game.

Knowing their behavior I guess is time to prepare for a slow MWO death. The signs are there.

The game population will dwindle until there is almost no one left.

And when the few ones who refuse to leave stay, in the end they will find squat to play with.

I wish I could be more positive about all of this, but being a witness over the years about how this game has changed for worse and the reasons for that, leaves me little doubt.

Edited by Alan Hicks, 22 August 2018 - 06:07 PM.

[Blockwart]

XX Sulla XX, on 20 August 2018 - 10:22 AM, said:

What is the very least PGI has to get right to start getting players back in decent numbers?...What do you guys think?

Start from scratch.

[R5D4]

Alan Hicks, on 22 August 2018 - 01:47 PM, said:

-I guess that with the current low population of the game we can trash any hope for better matchmaking. Around the time the game has been active this was a critical issue, but too late is too late.

This is part of the reason why I say reduce/merge the game modes, take what little population you have and consolidate it so the MM has a chance in hell of working. For once PGI could put their spreadsheets to use and determine which modes factually aren't being played and go from there.

[Astrocanis]

Rather than only worry about "getting the guys that quit back", I think they should worry in general about inflow and retention. While the intro is actually pretty well done (although paced very slowly), the NPE experience is negative because group play is absolutely brutal to new players. The workaround for me is for my friend and I to share screens through Discord, talk on Discord together and attempt sync drops. [edit] I should mention that he's a new player.

I think the #1 issue has nothing to do with balance. Really. I think the #1 issue has to do with the lack of persistent chat, lobbies, the ability to directly whisper people. I get "friend requests" all the time from people. I have no idea who they are, what they invited me for. They can't even attach a note to the friend request to let me know. I had a bad experience with someone giving me crap because of something I did, or he did, or we did (can't remember) who "friended" me simply to verbally attempt to kick the crap out of me. Not interested. The "total stranger" factor in the game is very high. And depending on forum posts, Discord / Teamspeak / Ventrilo / Mumble communities to build that social aspect is a serious weakness in this game. People play with friends. In Warcraft I made friends 10 years ago that I still chat with. This game makes it very hard to meet people. At all. If you want to increase numbers and retain them, you HAVE to add features that enable people to meet and play with each other.

Edited by Astrocanis, 22 August 2018 - 02:28 PM.

[4rcs1ne]

Best way to save the game and get new players back? New devs.

[General Solo]

Nightbird, on 20 August 2018 - 02:05 PM, said:

Change Tiers to reflect player skill, change MM to balance teams based on skill, and in cases where there is no MM (FP) adjust tonnage limits based on team skill difference.

Yeah the number one thing, fix Match Maker('s)

Only needs a simple change



On wins the carriers go up and the carried go down PSR - Matchmaker fixed

[Shinskii]

My suggestions (or at least some not entirely mine but I agree with for the most part and will echo from around here and other places)?

1. For Balancing, start with the Community Balance Update suggestions that were brought up by those competitive fellas (and disregarded...) I may not have been here as much as some of you, but from my time here, I've seen mostly nerf, nerf, tiny heat tweak band-aid, nerf, okay an actual buff finally, nerf, band-aid fix to some system that didn't need it there, nerf. This has led to some of the current meta setups being the few that seem to do something or not be a pure headache to use still with most other options being lackluster in comparison. Not only will it be nice to see the other toys get some buffing love without trashing whats left to use, but it'd show that you are listening. At least try it on PTS and go from there.

1b. Balancing continued, or Rebalancing Agility; another reason oft explained on why some of the hard hitting laser builds hurt as they do is that many 'mechs have had their agility slashed and feel like you are piloting a rusted-mud-caked brick with legs, barely able to torso twist off damage even with Mobility skills. Restoring agility values would help towards not only reducing the impact of laser drill builds, but would make piloting in general feel more responsive and enjoyable.

2. The Skill Tree. Spooky, still a hot fire on who likes the thing or hates it. While I'm happy to see the Rule of Three preceding it gone and am not personally bothered by it, it does interfere and provide another variable/complication when trying to do balance. Oh, and the fact most of the playerbase takes Survival tree for extra HP effectively makes any new 'mech have less HP out of the box and thus be fighting at a disadvantage from the get go. So you know what? Chop that codetree down. One less thing to worry about while doing aforementioned balancing, and one less thing to worry about for players new and old.

3. Matchmaking: This one has been a longtime issue from even before I started. Definitely needs to be dealt with. Ontop of needing a zero-sum system for PSR and PSR decay, it needs to not do things like stack several 99% players on a single team in solo queue for example.

Sure, it might be too late at this point or "too difficult", but hey doesn't hurt to type does it?

[gauss musket]

What PGI really needs to do is to give solo'ers / pugs an alternative to quickplay with completely random teams every single time. I.e. if people could join lobbies so that you can play with the same people for a few rounds, it would do wonders to build teamwork and fix the absolutely salty player base this game has. This is really the main issue with the game, because no matter how technically good or visually impressive a movie or game is, the main thing that will make a person want to re-watch or re-play it - or not - is how it makes them feel.

I have played this game on and off for a few years and invested a hundred or two into it. I was of fairly average skill, being in T3 about 75% of the way to T2. But I've probably given up for good, the main reasons being as follows.

When you're playing on a team that is communicating and working as a unit, the game is usually very enjoyable and rewarding. Even then, so many times I played a great match only to have to join a completely new lobby via quick play. It's annoying. And there were so many matches where barely a person would communicate because they were nervous about speaking with strangers, which usually resulted in a loss. The constant lack of teamwork and cohesion made people sour and it got old really quick.

My inspiration for a solution to this would be like Team Fortress 2, where you can either join a third-party server directly, or use quick play to get into a match quickly. The best servers were great mainly because of their regular players. Yes, I know there are groups but they don't accomplish the same thing. In these servers balancing usually wasn't much of an issue because it was accomplished either via automatic team switching routines, or by good players making the conscientious decision to switch teams so that the game would be more fun.

Something tells me that third party wouldn't be compatible with the in-game achievement, player ranking, and compensation systems as-is. But I'm sure that the underlying issues could be addressed.

Edited by gauss musket, 22 August 2018 - 06:59 PM.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

Most won't ever come back.

It is known.

[Dimento Graven]

blah, blah, blah...

It's not a matter of bringing the "old" players back, it's a matter of having a continuous stream of NEW players coming in. Just like the original players not "ALL" of them will be permanent players, but a measurable portion of them WILL be.

Really, simplest answer:

ADVERTISE, YOU SILLY MOFOS

Seriously, in NA we were seeing prime time nation wide advertising of WoT, WoWS, WoAS, etc., and not a damned thing for MWO.

Ran into someone today, 2018/08/22, who would LOVE to play MWO, hadn't EVER heard of it after all this time.

WoM advertising will only take you so far and is only so reliable: ADVERTISE, ADVERTISE, ADVERTISE...

If it works for religion, it'll work for video games...

Edited by Dimento Graven, 22 August 2018 - 07:57 PM.

[visionGT4]

Has to be MM. Prime time oceanic is effectively unplayable at the moment due to what can only be described as tier5 levels of operator proficiency. Even moving to a grid position and shooting guns at the bad guys is to much to ask.

[Black Ivan]

The game would need several things to get players.

First PGI would have to actually start advertising their game continiously and aggressivly.
Second they have to make a better NPE, which might include a starter mech and a better MM.

[crazytimes]

Black Ivan, on 22 August 2018 - 11:26 PM, said:

The game would need several things to get players.

First PGI would have to actually start advertising their game continiously and aggressivly.
Second they have to make a better NPE, which might include a starter mech and a better MM.

I don't know if better MM is going to help anything.

I am much less concerned about MM than actually getting a match at the moment. I started cooking a curry and and got to this line of this post before I got through the MM queue. Hard to work with such low numbers I suppose. No algorithm can tweak 17 people into a fair 12v12...

Edit- I've been in the queue for 19 minutes now, with a midway change to the 'choose assault mechs for a shorter wait' option. The 1 game I have played in my 40ish minutes of game time was not great either.

Edited by crazytimes, 23 August 2018 - 12:00 AM.

[Asym]

To bring players back to "what?" What is MWO and what is it supposed to be?

A "Value Proposition" MWO doiesn't have..... WoTs and WoWs have "value propositions" and you know exactly where and what those games involve. MWO's value proposition is UNKNOWN? Only those from within the MW or BT Universes have an idea what MWO is about.....and, even then, it's really unclear now? Is it Solaris (a FPS) or Faction Play (a team matrix?)

The mentioned ship have linear created progressions........stuff to work for and for a reason.
MWO doesn't..... One, because there is no game play goal at all because there is no value proposition. Two, MWO's skill tree make little or no sense to most people.....why would you buy an "incomplete combat vehicle" to take into combat with highly skilled and trained enemies? That is just illogical. The other examples give you complete combat vehicles where you then can "enhance them" to.......and here's the difference, add depth to their operations; not just, to be a complete vehicle...

I demo'd MWO to the players union at school last year. About 300 University aged gamers. The play and meet several nights a week and play several games and have forums of game discussion. Every week, a new game is demo'd. I used MWO.
Almost zero interest from this generation of players. I showed them the semifinals from last year and they were "completely unimpressed and bored to death". Nor, did they have any idea what the MW universe is or was..... Zero.

So, how do you get an extreme, highly polarized and older niche market back? That is a simple answer: an Occam's Razor moment: give them what you said you were going to build day one: a complete Universe to support the power struggle between the Inner Sphere and the Clan........ AND, of course, have mercenaries because the last single player game was about mercenaries and additionally, mercenaries are a good place for "everyone else" not interested in either IS or Clan stuff.... Just build what you said you were going to build and get the heck out of the nerf and buff BS business.....

[Mystere]

Asym, on 23 August 2018 - 04:10 AM, said:

To bring players back to "what?" What is MWO and what is it supposed to be?

A "Value Proposition" MWO doiesn't have..... WoTs and WoWs have "value propositions" and you know exactly where and what those games involve.

Not to mention War Thunder will soon have helicopters.

Helicopters!

Edited by Mystere, 23 August 2018 - 04:15 AM.

[Anjian]

Mystere, on 23 August 2018 - 04:15 AM, said:

Not to mention War Thunder will soon have helicopters.

Helicopters!

They ran attack helicopters on their tests before, or basically, test events masquerading as April Fool's events.

Speaking of helicopters...

[Humpday]

I didn't read through this mess, but the god honest truth?

Create drama on the low low...

Create tension between squads, and promote competition, stronk competition.
Create drama between streamers(ok none are left but new ones can come on).

Pit people/squads/clans/units against one another, create an atmosphere of chaos...

You should be having people talking sh*t about one another on twitch, or steam.....make a commotion man... come on.

[Naduk]

Let us actually play the game with groups

Group play outside of USA peak times are next to impossible

It can take up to 20mins of searching with a 4man team in group quick play during OCE peak times

Thats utter nonsense and it ALWAYS ends in a 2min game due to bad MM rules

They need to merge ALL team play modes into one Queue
Faction play, group play, scouting, Solaris... its all far too much for this anaemic playerbase

Put us all into one pool
The menus don't even need to change much, just make it a requirement to have your drop decks ready
Make a group and go
After the MM finds you a appropriate team+opponents then figure out what game type to use
It will be easy with a vote or just based on team size

But what ever the solution
I want to play
NOT SIT IN BLOODY QUEUE FOR HOURS