14 replies to this topic

[DeathlyEyes]

Warning, the following is a simple fix and is not intended to be perfect. It is a fix that works with a small population and works while not segmenting the population into buckets.


PUG groups have many things going against them. The players in the group do not have similar mechs and they aren't offered VoIP to plan a strategy before the match happens and more often than not, not willing to push as a group. Premade groups have lots of advantages, they are familiar with playing with each other, are running compatible builds and often times the first ones in a FW lobby. Many times PUG groups form from the call to arms. This means that these premade teams have several minutes to iron out what deck and strategy they want to run.

There is always going to be advantages and without a large population, a proper matchmaker would result in impossibly long search times for people trying to drop as a group. A solution is to treat faction warfare as well, faction warfare. You can treat PUG groups as militia. Give them the base defense advantage, perhaps even make a skirmish game mode where they have to hold territory while the other team is forced to attack. Make it so the attacking team can only win if they get 48 kills on the enemy, etc.

As for a quick implementation without needing to design a new game mode: Do not select game mode/map on lobby creation. Allow both teams to form. Then judge the strength of teams based off group size and PSR/ELO from faction stats. If one team has a significant advantage give them the defense, if both teams are relatively even put the game mode to a neutral game mode such as domination or skirmish. More game modes can be added to make more variety for lopsided matchups. Once the lobby is finalized and the game modes are selected give a 2 minute period for teams to select mechs and form a strategy.

Finally, it might be a good idea to see who is actually fighting before the match starts. I can look at who is in lobby usually on my friends list and determine who is going to be on the other team. People who do not have friends from many units are at a disadvantage. This can be fixed by showing which teams are in lobby. Plus in battletech usually the units involved in a battle are known before the battle is fought.

[McGoat]

After the FP patch that is coming I sincerely hope they spend efforts doing other things elsewhere in the game. Most of the effort placed on FP, which is a mode that garners the least amount of interest, can easily be diverted elsewhere for more comprehensive game play updates.

Maybe at one time FP could have been more, but at this point in the game the ROI is nill.

Edited by McGoat, 14 May 2019 - 09:14 AM.

[Bjorn Coston]

Speaking for a 60+ person unit that exclusively plays FP, I'd say FP garners the MOST interest for pilots who join units to enjoy the benefits of coordinated team play and being part of a competitive community. Not everyone wants to do Comp or Solaris and Quick Play is where you go to get progressively more pissed off at random teammates to the point you put your fist through the screen. FP I feel is the safest middle ground between the full potato-mode gameplay that QP provides and the more exclusive realm that is Comp play. Granted, that's just my opinion. I've been a mouth-breathing FP die hard since it came out and stayed through all its ups and downs and although it's far from perfect, it provides the most gratifying level of gameplay MWO has been able to offer so far in its checkered past that it's kept a lot of us here all these years....which may qualify us as insane meow that I come to think about it.

I'd like to see more attention being put forth towards expanding and fixing FP to the standards the community has been yearning for all these years. Although figuring out just what exactly the community wants with so many ideas out there is pretty daunting but just a small amount of forward momentum in that area would be nice Once again however, just my opinion.

EDIT: Oh and I like your idea Deathly. Can't say it's fun being a premade rolling over PUGs consistently so giving them some time to coordinate as well as some advantages would be helpful to enhancing competition in FP. But that also brings us into the realm of catering too much to PUGs who refuse to be coordinated but still complain about how unfair FP matchmaking is and what not. You've seen the forums Don't know how that problem should be addressed but at this point I'm okay with giving PUGs a little bit of an advantage until something better comes along.

Edited by Bjorn Bekker, 14 May 2019 - 10:16 AM.

[McGoat]

Bjorn Bekker, on 14 May 2019 - 10:02 AM, said:

Speaking for a 60+ person unit that exclusively plays FP, I'd say FP garners the MOST interest for pilots who join units to enjoy the benefits of coordinated team play and being part of a competitive community.

The war log and general population balance says you're wrong.

Look, i've played FP for years. I know its merits, I know its drawbacks. There are better things to do with limited resources, like I dunno.. Fixing PSR.

I have nothing against FP and at one time would have loved to see it given something more.

[J a y]

balance suggestion: join ismo
also im down with the lower skill team getting to pick gamemode/map, as long as close/equal teams get random gamemode/map as usual

ALSO speaking as the leader of a 60+ person FW team, most of us went from playing 3-5 nights a week to 1 night a week this season

[Bjorn Coston]

McGoat, on 14 May 2019 - 10:21 AM, said:

The war log and general population balance says you're wrong.

.

You seem to be making the mistake of me presenting my “opinions” as facts so don’t expect me to play the “right” and “wrong” forum game. I’m not trying to be malicious and I respect your “opinion” don’t get me wrong. Just putting out an alternate observation to your post from the side that are still active in FP and want to see continued development. Out of curiosity where are you more active in MWO meow if you’re not in FP?

And there definitely is a lower population and those of us that are still active make do with what we got. And like Jay, our unit only has one official drop night per week.

Edited by Bjorn Bekker, 14 May 2019 - 10:48 AM.

[Nightbird]

Well, given that QP was and still is an Academy for trying out mechs and training basic piloting skills, there's no real game mode in MWO and never was. The last shot was spent on Solaris, there's basically nothing in this FP patch (new MM is DOA).

PGI can't maths.

[Hierarch]

First start to fixing FP is make the planetary map more volatile. Make the bars matter more make scouting a two way street. Make stuff more interesting of late every real change to the game has made FP more bland.

[Bjorn Coston]

Agreed. MM looks like it's going to be a bust and the FP map/planet significance is meaningless without incentives for units to actively seek planets besides a small intake of MC IF you can win a planet cycle which is rare these days. Which is just another dimension of the many that FP needs to be more enticing.

[Charles Sennet]

Part of your idea is simple and I've been saying this for years... when premades fight PUG's, let the PUG's defend and force the pre-mades to attack. This could be a good thing even in the upcoming FP MM when one side is clearly more stacked than the other.

As for FP being dead... I've played thousands of matches in the current season, probably around 30K overall, and I'm clearly not playing the mode alone. While group queue has fallen off a cliff, FP is the main game mode for a lot of units.

[K O Z A K]

DeathlyEyes, on 14 May 2019 - 07:57 AM, said:

Make it so the attacking team can only win if they get 48 kills on the enemy, etc.

Big no to this. People will just troll the stronger team by hiding with stealth/ecm lights all over the map

Otherwise I'm all for helping weaker groups with modes, etc. But I don't see them doing anything at this point

[LordNothing]

McGoat, on 14 May 2019 - 09:13 AM, said:

After the FP patch that is coming I sincerely hope they spend efforts doing other things elsewhere in the game. Most of the effort placed on FP, which is a mode that garners the least amount of interest, can easily be diverted elsewhere for more comprehensive game play updates.

Maybe at one time FP could have been more, but at this point in the game the ROI is nill.

i dont think the qp crowd wants updates. they are happy with the same old wash rinse repeat style of gameplay and would shudder in horror if you did anything to change it. you might put the money into maps, which is a good thing, but would likely get voted out in favor of one of the easy mode map that always comes up. other than vote stacking you might see those maps show up in fp more.

you could put that money into solaris, which was always a train wreck, and not quite what we wanted of solaris (we wanted what mw4 or mwll had). you could put it into comp play which is only for the top 1/10 of a percent of the player base. you could put it into mw5, which you would end up paying for again as dlc.

maybe we should be focusing on stuff that helps the whole game. maps could be applied to multiple modes. weapon packs also breathe a lot of new life into the game, resurrecting old mechs and giving minmaxers new opportunities to create metas. an engine upgrade to get over the glaring flaws in mwo's design, probably to expensive to do without rebranding as mwo2 and making us buy everything again. it might be worth it if we get the proper mmo we wanted out of it rather than an arena shooter. but thats pie in the sky stuff.

i figure at some point the modes are going to have to be consolidated to accommodate a shrinking player base. merging everything into fp with its new matchmaker and story system. qp modes are already integrated and i figure solaris modes could be as well. winning the match in the archons honor might turn steiner to your side. qp might get replaced with more robust custom games, and that might be the final fallback before game death so its a good time to put it in. if we go the pure quick play route id probably just leave. you just cant axe a mode without some of the population leaving in disgust. but its ok, mw5 will be out soon.

[justcallme A S H]

DeathlyEyes, on 14 May 2019 - 07:57 AM, said:

Spoiler

PUG groups have many things going against them. The players in the group do not have similar mechs and they aren't offered VoIP to plan a strategy before the match happens and more often than not, not willing to push as a group. Premade groups have lots of advantages, they are familiar with playing with each other, are running compatible builds and often times the first ones in a FW lobby. Many times PUG groups form from the call to arms. This means that these premade teams have several minutes to iron out what deck and strategy they want to run.

There is always going to be advantages and without a large population, a proper matchmaker would result in impossibly long search times for people trying to drop as a group. A solution is to treat faction warfare as well, faction warfare. You can treat PUG groups as militia. Give them the base defense advantage, perhaps even make a skirmish game mode where they have to hold territory while the other team is forced to attack. Make it so the attacking team can only win if they get 48 kills on the enemy, etc.

As for a quick implementation without needing to design a new game mode: Do not select game mode/map on lobby creation. Allow both teams to form. Then judge the strength of teams based off group size and PSR/ELO from faction stats. If one team has a significant advantage give them the defense, if both teams are relatively even put the game mode to a neutral game mode such as domination or skirmish. More game modes can be added to make more variety for lopsided matchups. Once the lobby is finalized and the game modes are selected give a 2 minute period for teams to select mechs and form a strategy.

Hmmm if you make higher ELO groups continually SIEGE-attack it's going to become pretty stale pretty quick for everyone. The variety in maps/modes is crucial to enjoyment IMO.

Also locking close ELO games into just QP modes again detracts from getting Siege which is much more a game of chess. I know people say defenders have the "advantage". If it is two even teams then that, IMO, is very much negated and comes back more to strategy. I can think of a number of maps where even with even teams - Attackers can have a distinct advantage if they are smart about it and break up defenders lines early. Again that comes back to tactics and near-even teams should have that game of chess. If they just wanna blindly through 12 assaults at each other without a little bit of strategy well they get what they get as the end result - whatever that may be.

So overall not onboard with that one. Remember FP is and has been designed around group play. It needs to be encouraged not discouraged or built around. PGI been pretty clear on that so not sure it would change anyway.

DeathlyEyes, on 14 May 2019 - 07:57 AM, said:

Finally, it might be a good idea to see who is actually fighting before the match starts. I can look at who is in lobby usually on my friends list and determine who is going to be on the other team. People who do not have friends from many units are at a disadvantage. This can be fixed by showing which teams are in lobby. Plus in battletech usually the units involved in a battle are known before the battle is fought.

Can't agree with that. It's bad enough now with Merc able to swap and teams avoiding teams is more prolific than ever.

If you can see who it is before you even lock into a lobby it will lead to more avoiding the fights or deliberate "we can't win, lets just gen rush" type behaviour. Making the mode further annoying and frustrating all over again.

LordNothing, on 14 May 2019 - 05:50 PM, said:

i figure at some point the modes are going to have to be consolidated to accommodate a shrinking player base. merging everything into fp with its new matchmaker and story system. qp modes are already integrated and i figure solaris modes could be as well. winning the match in the archons honor might turn steiner to your side. qp might get replaced with more robust custom games, and that might be the final fallback before game death so its a good time to put it in. if we go the pure quick play route id probably just leave. you just cant axe a mode without some of the population leaving in disgust. but its ok, mw5 will be out soon.

The population, overall - while low has remained pretty stable for a while now.

When MW5 hits - post 6-8 weeks, will be interesting times for MWO.

[LordNothing]

justcallme A S H, on 14 May 2019 - 06:41 PM, said:

The population, overall - while low has remained pretty stable for a while now.

When MW5 hits - post 6-8 weeks, will be interesting times for MWO.

mw5 is going to seriously change the dynamics. i wonder if the lack of mech packs lately is pgi anticipating the change and preemptively implementing a solution. or simply diverting the staff to mw5 since its in crunch time.

mw5 is definitely going to suck up a lot of denizens of quick play since that mode is really really stale. these are likely the players who would rather fight bots with their friends. i dont see fp going anywhere though. even as a pug its still the best mode in the game. not sure what im going to do, i expect to take a month or more off of mwo when early access comes out, but i might ultimately split my time.

Edited by LordNothing, 14 May 2019 - 07:26 PM.

[50 50]

Hazeclaw, on 14 May 2019 - 12:18 PM, said:

Big no to this. People will just troll the stronger team by hiding with stealth/ecm lights all over the map

Otherwise I'm all for helping weaker groups with modes, etc. But I don't see them doing anything at this point

I would have thought it would have been the other way around reading the OPs post and the Militia group ends up getting camped defending the location because to win, the other team needed 48 kills.

I would be more inclined to have the militia drops (call to arms) as a single wave only and treat it more along the lines of being a hastily put together group that is trying to fight at a location.
Less resources. More likely to break and rout... simulate what a militia force might mean a little.