270 replies to this topic

[50 50]

Nightbird, on 04 November 2018 - 03:26 PM, said:

Drop deck limit changes (mechs number and tonnage) are off the table per PGI. C-bill changes based on your tonnage is a way around that.

Have you got a link to where PGI has said this is something they won't change?

[Nightbird]

50 50, on 04 November 2018 - 06:22 PM, said:

Have you got a link to where PGI has said this is something they won't change?

There are a lot of threads so hard to track down. Russ said this somewhere, but it's easy to understand the problem. Suppose you have valid 4 mech, 250 ton drop deck, launch, and walk away. In the drop screen, rules are changed to 200 tons and 3 mechs. Your deck is now invalid, and 60 seconds pass, you're not back. How does the game proceed? It can't. The current system prevents you from launching an invalid dropdeck or making an invalid drop deck in the drop screen.

[MischiefSC]

I like the concept Nightbird as put forward because it's a solution with potential benefits in FW, QP and GQ. The only real question is if PGI is willing to make changes like this in MWO or if it's just adjusting a few weapon stats twice a year and trying to farm $ from the trickle of un-sullied nostalgia that's left.

[50 50]

Nightbird, on 05 November 2018 - 08:01 AM, said:

There are a lot of threads so hard to track down. Russ said this somewhere, but it's easy to understand the problem. Suppose you have valid 4 mech, 250 ton drop deck, launch, and walk away. In the drop screen, rules are changed to 200 tons and 3 mechs. Your deck is now invalid, and 60 seconds pass, you're not back. How does the game proceed? It can't. The current system prevents you from launching an invalid dropdeck or making an invalid drop deck in the drop screen.

Ah.
You're referring to a change that happens at the point of the match being formed.
Nope.
Completely agree that this is a bad spot to try and implement this sort of change and the only way around having an invalid drop deck at match start would be to force players into a preset 'trial' deck which would simply create confusion and bad player experience.

However, drop deck tonnage changes as part of a stage in an event or a milestone in a campaign, particularly if these are over an extended period would be more reasonable.

[Extra Guac]

They could do it as part of a rating/ELO system. Low-tier players could get 270 tons, high-tier players get less, and everybody can still set their dropdecks before entering the matchmaker. They could also give premades a modest tonnage penalty like they do for QP.

[Nightbird]

50 50, on 05 November 2018 - 01:39 PM, said:

However, drop deck tonnage changes as part of a stage in an event or a milestone in a campaign, particularly if these are over an extended period would be more reasonable.

Sure, that's fine, but symmetric changes for events doesn't help uneven match-ups.

Deepfryer, on 05 November 2018 - 02:06 PM, said:

They could do it as part of a rating/ELO system. Low-tier players could get 270 tons, high-tier players get less, and everybody can still set their dropdecks before entering the matchmaker. They could also give premades a modest tonnage penalty like they do for QP.

Group size doesn't indicate skill, the same way that ELO doesn't indicate skill. If you want to predict W/L, just use past W/L. Trying other stuff requires understanding statistics, and I don't think PGI has that position on their payroll.

[Eisenhorne]

Nightbird, on 05 November 2018 - 02:34 PM, said:

Group size doesn't indicate skill, the same way that ELO doesn't indicate skill. If you want to predict W/L, just use past W/L. Trying other stuff requires understanding statistics, and I don't think PGI has that position on their payroll.

This is absolute truth. Several of the training units that still exist out there have large numbers of very new players, who are not very good at this game. A 4 man lance of very experienced players on the other side, with some modest help from their pugs, can usually slaughter such a 12 man with near contemptuous ease. Large groups do not need a tonnage reduction.

Honestly the same argument can be made for quick play, but it is what it is there. There are plenty of times where I'm rocking in a 4-5 man group in QP, and more and more people join the group, and it gets harder and harder to play because we're not coordinating, we're just playing together, and several of that group are usually new / not great players, so we just lose a lot. Then I get frustrated and stop playing

[50 50]

EDIT: should have quoted Eisenhorne to make that a little clearer in regards to the tonnage aspects in QP vs FP. I'll clean that up a little in relation to the proposal in this thread.

Eisenhorne, on 05 November 2018 - 02:46 PM, said:

This is absolute truth. Several of the training units that still exist out there have large numbers of very new players, who are not very good at this game. A 4 man lance of very experienced players on the other side, with some modest help from their pugs, can usually slaughter such a 12 man with near contemptuous ease. Large groups do not need a tonnage reduction.

Honestly the same argument can be made for quick play, but it is what it is there. There are plenty of times where I'm rocking in a 4-5 man group in QP, and more and more people join the group, and it gets harder and harder to play because we're not coordinating, we're just playing together, and several of that group are usually new / not great players, so we just lose a lot. Then I get frustrated and stop playing

The re-adjustment for groups in QP with players dropping in/out can mean players shuffle mechs every match.

I believe the match making was made easier by shifting to a tonnage limit as it removed part of the puzzle, but not necessarily the player group management side of things.

The larger the group, the harder that gets as well and while I did love those 12x Nova drops, people like to use different mechs from their collections.

For Faction Play:
The individual tonnage limit on the drop decks is a value that could have features built around it and other features that react to it such as described in this thread. With this 'handicap incentive' it doesn't force the change on the players, it provides a choice allowing players to even out the fight though a voluntary handicap in mechs to maintain their earnings.

As an added side effect, players for convenience will look towards increasing the number of drop decks they have so they do not need to edit a drop deck before a drop, merely swap to another one. That creates a monetary incentive to add this sort of feature to the game and that sounds like a win/win for the game.

Drop decks as a feature in the game I feel are under utilized as they are and there could be a number of little features added to enhance them.

Edited by 50 50, 06 November 2018 - 01:40 PM.

[Nightbird]

50 50, on 05 November 2018 - 06:19 PM, said:

The re-adjustment for groups in QP

This idea is for FP only. QP doesn't have a drop screen, you can't change anything after a team has been found.

[S O L A I S]

Spheroid, on 25 October 2018 - 09:10 AM, said:

A -50% penalty is nothing. That is still 750k on matches where top tier seal clubbers were earning 1.5 million. Your premise predisposes that large premades are income sensitive. I submit to you they are not. They already forego the most important type of currency, that of loyalty points when they break contract and tech faction multiple times during an evening.

The max penalty needs to be closer to 80% and it needs to scale with premade size in a manner similar tonnage in group play.

Also there are numerous frontloaded dropdecks that would incur no or minimal penalty. A 12 man using MadCats could easily wipe two waves of pugs for little return damage. What you bring for the remaining drops is almost immaterial.

The problem is FP as it is structured now allows too much collusion. Factions should be the enemies of other factions and units should be rivals of each other, not partners. Break the size of the premades through severe penalties and make it so factions of the same tech base fight each other. This simple change would instantly address population imbalance's negative effect on wait times and throw a monkey wrench into attempts of sync dropping collusion. It would take as little as a 2-4x increase in pugs to cripple same faction sync dropping. That could be done with some sort of long duration faction event with rewards.

As a player who is on one of the top tier Units in CW I can appreciate what you are saying. Most of the players I play with who dominate CW have hundreds and hundreds of millions of cbills into the billions even is not uncommon. For example I have 1.7 billion. Cbills would never really be a way to incentivize players.

Loyalty points and such may work for some who would wish to expedite farming free mechbays and mc from faction reputation. I think however seeing how many folks I play with who will play/endure some Solaris with the primary goal to get the valuable GXP that makes skilling out new mechs less painful for some (not me personally the skill tree drop made a huge chasm between vets and new players which I won't devolve into).

Incentives basically should not be cbill based in my opinion either, especially not for veterans. However if a skilled player had the option to run a lighter deck and for doing so it paid off by some of those incentives that reduce grind, that carrot would be something worth grabbing for.

Oh and last thing, never underestimate the drive that the better players/groups have simply to just win games. For many that W is the most important thing and far, far more important than any rewards or cbills. I say this as someone with over a thousand games played on the leaderboard and WLR over 10. Just being one of the most difficult opponents around is an incredible reward pride wise and probably ego more than it should. So, from what Nightbird said about PGI's no dynamic tonnage, this incentive idea has to have to real weight for people to risk putting their pride on the line as well.

And if we are going down this route would it not be possible to not penalize the new players in any way if they land in a premade? Just how hero and champion mechs change certain bonuses in the rewards screen I would hope this sort of system could incentivize/penalize the guys in the group while the pugs get full pay for the 500 damage that they do at a minimum. If not I would expect some to simply disco, suck the penalty and try in get into a match they can participate more in and get paid.

[ccrider]

I think this idea has merit, a little incentive goes a long way to motivate players into playing hard against opponents who are clearly stronger than they are. It doesn't have to be much; two nights ago I PUG dropped against your guy's S O L A I S; we lost, 48-28 but the match lasted almost the entire time period and people fought hard, even while knowing a win was VERY unlikely. If someone simply herding a bit can motivate 12 separate people to give it a go against a top team, I think extra rewards would definitely help increase the number of matches that good teams fought that weren't routs after half a wave with people quitting or suiciding or whatever. I'm willing to campaign for this with Nightbird.


Also, stop being lrm robots and splatting me behind rocks. It's rude.

[Eisenhorne]

ccrider, on 07 November 2018 - 06:26 AM, said:

Also, stop being lrm robots and splatting me behind rocks. It's rude.

PGI could stop this at any time, they just need to significantly nerf LRMs. The fact that my Fafnir can dump out ~1500 LRMS before it needs to stop to cool down is just stupid. I'm pretty sure my Supernova is damn near heat neutral at this point. PGI has decided to make LRMs the single most powerful ranged weapon in the game, and this is a consequence of that choice.

A large majority of people who play this game refuse to build LRM boats that actually take advantage of how overpowered they are (putting 4 LRM 10's on a mech with 2,000 rounds is not very powerful) and will fight tooth and nail to prevent LRM boats from being nerfed, because they don't seem very powerful unless you boat them hard.

But that's totally offtopic, extra motivation to get people to do FP is always a good idea

[ccrider]

Eisenhorne, on 07 November 2018 - 07:00 AM, said:

PGI could stop this at any time, they just need to significantly nerf LRMs. The fact that my Fafnir can dump out ~1500 LRMS before it needs to stop to cool down is just stupid. I'm pretty sure my Supernova is damn near heat neutral at this point. PGI has decided to make LRMs the single most powerful ranged weapon in the game, and this is a consequence of that choice.

A large majority of people who play this game refuse to build LRM boats that actually take advantage of how overpowered they are (putting 4 LRM 10's on a mech with 2,000 rounds is not very powerful) and will fight tooth and nail to prevent LRM boats from being nerfed, because they don't seem very powerful unless you boat them hard.

But that's totally offtopic, extra motivation to get people to do FP is always a good idea

LRMs are sky cancer. I refuse to use them. Not because they aren't good at the moment, mostly because of the same reasoning that makes me avoid certain robots. If I don't LIKE something I won't play it. If I do like something, I play the hell out of it and own like 20+ of it. Oh, glorious Onion, roughneck, Atlas and linebacker, how I love thee.

[Extra Guac]

Eisenhorne, on 05 November 2018 - 02:46 PM, said:

This is absolute truth. Several of the training units that still exist out there have large numbers of very new players, who are not very good at this game. A 4 man lance of very experienced players on the other side, with some modest help from their pugs, can usually slaughter such a 12 man with near contemptuous ease. Large groups do not need a tonnage reduction.

Honestly the same argument can be made for quick play, but it is what it is there. There are plenty of times where I'm rocking in a 4-5 man group in QP, and more and more people join the group, and it gets harder and harder to play because we're not coordinating, we're just playing together, and several of that group are usually new / not great players, so we just lose a lot. Then I get frustrated and stop playing

It's not absolute truth, it is pure speculation. You don't have access to the stats.

Group size is most likely a pretty good predictor of w/l (with some exceptions of course).

The problem with Nightbird's idea is that it's voluntary, and most experienced players don't really care about c-bills all that much. C-bill adjustments or not, the stomps would continue.

The best solution is a dropdeck adjustment which would be managed before entering the matchmaker - so it wouldn't be "dynamic". Each player has their own dropdeck tonnage limit based on their personal w/l.

[Eisenhorne]

Deepfryer, on 07 November 2018 - 08:30 AM, said:

It's not absolute truth, it is pure speculation. You don't have access to the stats.

Group size is most likely a pretty good predictor of w/l (with some exceptions of course).

The problem with Nightbird's idea is that it's voluntary, and most experienced players don't really care about c-bills all that much. C-bill adjustments or not, the stomps would continue.

The best solution is a dropdeck adjustment which would be managed before entering the matchmaker - so it wouldn't be "dynamic". Each player has their own dropdeck tonnage limit based on their personal w/l.

That's not the best solution... because it doesn't take into consideration opponent strength, or your team's strength. I will drop with the BCMC/Evil group frequently.... but I also drop with HHoD, MS, DSx, and other units from time to time depending on who's on. Reducing my available tonnage because I have a very high W/L rate while playing with one group will very negatively impact my play when joining another group, where I would have a much lower W/L rate because the group may have weaker players in it.

It needs to be done on a per-match basis, so dynamic tonnage maxes is right out, because as Nightbird pointed out, PGI isn't going to go for that. Giving bonuses to XP, LP, CBills is probably the best way to go, because most players will care about at least one of those 3 things.

[Nightbird]

It's down to the pilot. Some will be willing to earn 700k cbills in a 25 minute FP game rather than 400k cbills in a 7 min QP game, same for LP and XP. No solution is perfect, especially one that is entirely voluntary, but on average, it will work. Most will give up 20 tons rather than face a 50% earnings penalty, some will give up 50 tons, fewer will give up 100 tons. Scale the penalty based on the tonnage, if you give up 60 tons instead of 100, get a lighter 20% penalty. Encouraging better matches will move gameplay in a better direction.

Group size doesn't reflect team strength, there are plenty of trainee groups that are worse than random pugs, using tonnage on group sizes destroys the social aspect of the game. It did in QP GQ as most average skill groups are now limited to 4-6.

Limiting tonnage only based on individual player skill rather than relative team strength doesn't make sense. When two very skilled teams meet, they should be allowed their full arsenal to face each other.

[El Bandito]

Pretty sure tryhards won't give much damn about C-Bill penalties. They would want their sweet stats.

Not even LP penalty would mean much now since events give far more MC.

Edited by El Bandito, 07 November 2018 - 10:15 AM.

[Extra Guac]

Nightbird, on 07 November 2018 - 09:10 AM, said:

Limiting tonnage only based on individual player skill rather than relative team strength doesn't make sense. When two very skilled teams meet, they should be allowed their full arsenal to face each other.

It makes perfect sense.

You could keep the current tonnage limits as the default dropdecks for highly-skilled players. Then if 2 skilled teams meet, nothing would be different. Weak pilots could get some extra tonnage.

[Eisenhorne]

Deepfryer, on 07 November 2018 - 11:40 AM, said:

It makes perfect sense.

You could keep the current tonnage limits as the default dropdecks for highly-skilled players. Then if 2 skilled teams meet, nothing would be different. Weak pilots could get some extra tonnage.

I can see it now, your reward for doing well in FP.... "Congrats, you now have a lower max tonnage because you are too good!". Yea, that wouldn't go over well. If I'm playing with a group of players who are less skilled than my normal FP group, I don't want to be hamstrung by limitations. All it would do is drive away more people who actually know what they are doing.

[MechaBattler]

I remember during a townhall Russ liked the idea of giving players the option to bid away some of their tonnage for greater c-bill rewards. But nothing came of that. I assume the programming proved to difficult to implement the feature. It might not have helped with every match. But some bored 12 mans might have been up for the challenge and a few seals would have gotten it a tad easier.