213 replies to this topic

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

we don't need to put (more) limits on groups;
-however-
I'm all for having a constant popup in GP/FW that it's a team-mode in a team-game. yolosolos beware and better do QP (better yet: learn how to be part of a team, and not part of the problem ).

[JediPanther]

private lobby is free now. best way to play with a small group. not even 3-4man groups in group q have much if any chance of winning against a bigger group due to the fast the smaller ones are probably all on different voip coms if they use any. Such a shame the game lacks in game communication tools that everyone can use.

[Khobai]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, on 26 September 2018 - 06:11 AM, said:

we don't need to put (more) limits on groups;

then organized groups will continue to abuse the fact theres no matchmaker in group queue and theyll keep stacking teams to radically skew their win percentages. And small casual groups will continue to suffer in group queue.

that doesnt fix the problem.

and sadly there isnt a fix to the problem that isnt going to piss someone off. But given the choice, I would rather have a system which pisses people off and has balanced teams, instead of the current system that pisses people off and has unbalanced teams.

group queue needs to have something in place to balance teams better and/or prevent team stacking.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, on 26 September 2018 - 06:11 AM, said:

yolosolos beware and better do QP (better yet: learn how to be part of a team, and not part of the problem ).

90% of players are solo players. and the vast majority of groups are small groups of 2-3.

players that play in mid to large groups are the minority. it makes no sense to cater to them at all.

probably why MWO is doing so badly. they dont cater to their target audience, which is mostly yolosolos and small casual groups of 2-3.

PGI should just get rid of large groups in quickplay; having only small groups would make a functional matchmaker a more likely possibility, since the large groups could be split up into smaller groups on opposite teams. if you want to play in a large group theres faction play or comp play. quickplay should be more for casual players since there currently isnt a good bucket for small casual groups to play in.

Edited by Khobai, 26 September 2018 - 06:37 AM.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

Khobai, on 26 September 2018 - 06:23 AM, said:

then organized groups will continue to abuse the fact theres no matchmaker in group queue and theyll keep stacking teams to radically skew their win percentages. And small casual groups will continue to suffer in group queue.

that doesnt fix the problem.

and sadly there isnt a fix to the problem that isnt going to piss someone off. But given the choice, I would rather have a system which pisses people off and has balanced teams, instead of the current system that pisses people off and has unbalanced teams.

group queue needs to have something in place to balance teams better and/or prevent team stacking.



90% of players are solo players. and the vast majority of groups are small groups of 2-3.

players that play in mid to large groups are the minority. it makes no sense to cater to them at all.

probably why MWO is doing so badly. they dont cater to their target audience, which is mostly yolosolos and small casual groups of 2-3.

PGI should just get rid of large groups in quickplay; having only small groups would make a functional matchmaker a more likely possibility, since the large groups could be split up into smaller groups on opposite teams. if you want to play in a large group theres faction play or comp play. quickplay should be more for casual players since there currently isnt a good bucket for small casual groups to play in.

sorry, but we have that QP for a reason.. if people wanna play like they are on their own, they should use THAT button; the "QP - f*ck teamplay" button.
if they press the groupplay button, they should at least TRY to play in a group.

imagine a game of soccer, hockey, football or whatever. and now imagine the yolos doing that..... that's QP. and the majority here seems to be fine about it. there is NO need to force those of us who enjoy teamplay into that kinda selfish hell, though.
if you wanna yolo-solo - fine. do that. in the yolo-solo que.


*added
I fully agree that there -is- a problem with 4x3 guys against 1x12.
imHo though, that problem is that one side uses comms, and the other does not.
PGI can fix a few things in the game, but not that "shoot yourself in the foot"-behavior that so many seem to live here.

Edited by Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, 26 September 2018 - 07:19 AM.

[Khobai]

and again theres no bucket thats ideal for small casual groups and there should be

[Ssamout]

Khobai, on 26 September 2018 - 07:16 AM, said:

and again theres no bucket thats ideal for small casual groups and there should be

Yeah, some kind of farming bucket would be cool.

[Nameless King]

MechaBattler, on 25 September 2018 - 01:23 PM, said:

I lamented to my brother the other night that the game wasn't very friendly to casual small groups. We had a mutual friend who we would have invited to play with us. But queuing with just 3 people, with one being completely new, does not seem like a good idea in Group Queue. I know I've seen posts by others over the years with the same sentiment. Of inviting friends to have some fun and then getting rolled by a larger coordinated group.

Being able to casually play with friends is probably the best way to encourage new players to join. But we really don't have that option in this game. MW5 will have the option for coop and that's nice. But we could really use an option for MWO.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Find more people to play with, I have been playing with 2-3 people for a year and More poeple would be more fun. PM me for our TS and we would be happy to play together.

[MechaBattler]

Nameless King, on 26 September 2018 - 07:44 AM, said:

Find more people to play with, I have been playing with 2-3 people for a year and More poeple would be more fun. PM me for our TS and we would be happy to play together.

It's more a general question of improving the accessibility of the game to small groups of new players. If the game is going to continue getting by. It's going to need casual players and casual groups. Can't just rely on whales forever.

[Roland09]

Vxheous, on 25 September 2018 - 06:31 PM, said:

It's abuse to play with friends now?

Only when your K/D or W/L is better than that of certain players who most vocally advocate for certain changes. Remember:

"Too much skill
is abuse!
Nerf! Nerf!! Nerf!!!"

[LordBraxton]

since they put all groups in the group queue ive never been able to get new players into the game. My friends want to game with me and they dont want to fight high tier groups of players in fully upgraded mechs. Still think duos should float in both queues.

[MechaBattler]

They should at least experiment with allowing a duo per side in Solo queue. So we can see if it'll have a negative effect on solo queue gameplay.

[Nightbird]

Add a c-bill cost for adding people to your friend's list, and increase the amount need by 50k for each person already in your FL. /s

[Jables McBarty]

MechaBattler, on 25 September 2018 - 01:23 PM, said:

Thoughts? Ideas?

Yeah, I've had this problem with my friends who play less often than me. And even with my better friends, I'm usually down more to hang and have a good time and am not bringing my A game, so we often get rolled, which isn't fun. Or I am bringing my A game, but we end up in a team of skittles against a pretty solid team or just an 8-stack that is on comms and get rolled. So often we end up doing 1v1 or 2v1 or something with stock builds and no skill tree or consumables in a private lobby.

It's not much, but it's fun, and the stock builds help to level the playing field.

Oh, and queue times are really---and I mean REALLY--short!

El Bandito, on 25 September 2018 - 06:39 PM, said:

Or (MS) Crab rush.

First time I got face-***** by 10 crabs in GQ I was laughing so hard i couldn't breathe.

[Lykaon]

Mr Steinbrenner, on 26 September 2018 - 02:03 AM, said:

By allowing 12 mans at all, ever. Groups should have be max 4-6 in every game mode including FP, it could have made the macro side of FP more interesting with large companies on comms across multiple planets attacking simultaneously rather than 12 mans steam rolling one planet at a time. But its all to late for that.

What happened was the developers had a vision initially. That initial vision had the intent of building a game that supported the lore of Battletech.

In that lore famous Battlemech units had an identity on their own and certain individuals within those units were famous/infamous. The units were a driving force behind the established lore as were those distinctive personalities.

I believe the initial design concepts for community warfare we heavily dependent on player units. Units were to occupy planets that they took in combat.Faction leaders would have a say in how/where the fighting took place and in general factional warfare was in it's design concept "player unit warfare"

With that design concept in mind how much identity does a player unit have when it can only ever represent one third of an attacking force?

And then the great puggy sobfest began. A campaign against the very ellements of the community that community warfare was designed to be supported by was prosecuted. The end results are pretty much the death of community warfare as it was first envisioned and pitched to the founders and kick starters of MWo.Many of the founding units were slowly bled to death by removing "groups" and "solos" from a shared experience whenever possible and when it was possible little was done to intergrate the solo players as equal partners in a shared experience.

The end results are there are few players still around from back then and fewer established units from the founding of MWo. The choices to support solos and essentially ignore groups and units has severed the potential to have a deep history within the MWo community.

Because PGI (and at the time IGP) opted to cater to the solo casual player instead of sticking to the design concept we have experienced years and years of a playing a game that feels like it's still being developed.

Instead of working to intergrate the players (solos and groups and large units) the groups and units were effectively cast aside in favor of preserving the revolving door of new solo players.The solo player experience is the one with a match maker the solo play experience is what the Devs balance for.Even the mission rewards favor a solo player over a coordinated effort (see how much running power cells in incursion earns the team player doing it)

The vast majority of developer effort is geared towards the solo player experience and little attention is paid to the groups and units that were initially sold a different product than what materialized.


So had the developers from the very get go planned for only smaller groups sizes than maybe you would be right. But,we were not sold that product as investors years ago.

[Shifty McSwift]

Lance training options.

Edit; I guess it is probably too late for that sort of outlook.

I would say general ease of use in the grouping tools should be something the game does and encourages, maybe lance grouping options?

Edited by Shifty McSwift, 26 September 2018 - 11:28 AM.

[Mr Steinbrenner]

Lykaon, on 26 September 2018 - 11:21 AM, said:

What happened was the developers had a vision initially. That initial vision had the intent of building a game that supported the lore of Battletech.

In that lore famous Battlemech units had an identity on their own and certain individuals within those units were famous/infamous. The units were a driving force behind the established lore as were those distinctive personalities.

I believe the initial design concepts for community warfare we heavily dependent on player units. Units were to occupy planets that they took in combat.Faction leaders would have a say in how/where the fighting took place and in general factional warfare was in it's design concept "player unit warfare"

With that design concept in mind how much identity does a player unit have when it can only ever represent one third of an attacking force?

And then the great puggy sobfest began. A campaign against the very ellements of the community that community warfare was designed to be supported by was prosecuted. The end results are pretty much the death of community warfare as it was first envisioned and pitched to the founders and kick starters of MWo.Many of the founding units were slowly bled to death by removing "groups" and "solos" from a shared experience whenever possible and when it was possible little was done to intergrate the solo players as equal partners in a shared experience.

The end results are there are few players still around from back then and fewer established units from the founding of MWo. The choices to support solos and essentially ignore groups and units has severed the potential to have a deep history within the MWo community.

Because PGI (and at the time IGP) opted to cater to the solo casual player instead of sticking to the design concept we have experienced years and years of a playing a game that feels like it's still being developed.

Instead of working to intergrate the players (solos and groups and large units) the groups and units were effectively cast aside in favor of preserving the revolving door of new solo players.The solo player experience is the one with a match maker the solo play experience is what the Devs balance for.Even the mission rewards favor a solo player over a coordinated effort (see how much running power cells in incursion earns the team player doing it)

The vast majority of developer effort is geared towards the solo player experience and little attention is paid to the groups and units that were initially sold a different product than what materialized.


So had the developers from the very get go planned for only smaller groups sizes than maybe you would be right. But,we were not sold that product as investors years ago.

If 12 man murder squads never existed the term pug would never exist. You guys killed yourselves dont blame the vast majority of normal gamers who play either alone or in small groups. If what you say is true then its on pgi for ever thinking that was a good idea.

When it comes to lore all the best novels were centred around ragtag groups of a few mechwarriors overcoming the odds.

[JC Daxion]

I dunno what they can do about 2 mans.. But i think there is a place that they can go with 4 mans in FW. It won't be easy mode, but i think this player base is to small for that. But you would still be a step above PUGers so there is that.

Now what can they do in FW, with an update to make it more fun for 4 mans? We have scouting, but i'd love to see some sort of scouting change that would let people not just use lights/meds.. Perhaps some sort of variable weight classes, or at times a different style of scouting.

Sort of like how in the group drop they move through game modes.. Skirmish, conquest siege ect.. they could do something similar in scouting, but perhaps it would have different weights and objectives. Obviously they would need to add more to the mode which i think they should anyway.

[Tatula]

I think your best bet is to find another group of 3 (maybe advertise in the forums) and play private matches until your new player is comfortable enough to play in the regular Group Queue.

[Jables McBarty]

Lykaon, on 26 September 2018 - 11:21 AM, said:

So had the developers from the very get go planned for only smaller groups sizes than maybe you would be right. But,we were not sold that product as investors years ago.

Quick question: Unless I completely misunderstand how the system works, early (kickstarter?) supporters are not investors...unless you received stock when you put your money down?

The concept they sold you sounds nice but I honestly don't ever see it working. It's just too fundamentally unbalanced, and PvP cannot be too unbalanced if you want people to play.

Now, did they fix it correctly?

I think there's tons of room for discussion on that. And I think they made a bunch of short-range jury-rigged fixes rather than taking a long hard look at what works and what doesn't. IMO they should have made interfaces to make it easier for PUGs to organize (e.g., carrying over groups from game to game, default assignment to a "house unit" that is built into the game, better out-of-match LFG and communication channels that don't disappear as soon as you go from one screen to the next).

But instead they "fixed" things as you said, driving the two parties apart, rather than finding ways to get them closer together.

[Tarl Cabot]

MechaBattler, on 26 September 2018 - 09:17 AM, said:

They should at least experiment with allowing a duo per side in Solo queue. So we can see if it'll have a negative effect on solo queue gameplay.

iie, PGI would screw it up totally because they would their form of KISS. There would be no restriction on the number of duos per team, they would use average PSR instead of the higher PSR of the duo, and likely would not have any weight restrictions... then the question would be duo dropping in both Solo and Group or either/or...

Others will say no because there is already an issue that PSR is really a PEL (player experience level) and a duo on one side does not necessarily be equivalent to duo on the other team, provided PGI could actually code to allow only ONE duo per team...

Gomen'nasai, I currently do not have much faith in PGI doing what needs to be done, only providing a minimum viable product. Sadly it is the only IP I am interested in.. hai, I suck...