367 replies to this topic

[xX PUG Xx]

A quick question: has the option or possibility of mode voting ever been raised? This is implemented in QP, would it work or be beneficial in FP?

As for Scouting (or Incursion / Conquest) as the only mode available? I DL'd patch, took a wild guess at which side might have lower population, played one game of Scouting and realised it was locked to that mode. Logged out and played PUBG for 2 hours.

I used to consider myself a MWO FP diehard but if this is the direction we're heading then I guess it's goodnight from me.

1. There needs to be some visual or numeric indicators to allow players to choose sides and self-regulate the population balance.

2. PGI needs to seriously listen to its community, we may be the vocal minority on the forums OR we may be the tip of the iceberg. I personally will avoid the game unless Invasion, Assault or Skirmish are the active modes.

I was going to make further suggestions but typing on my phone is a PITA, so I'll leave it at that.

[BROARL]

only the accounts dept listens.
posting here is clearly useless other than for sh*ts and giggles.
...but if you cancel a preorder someone seems to notice quickly enough!

PGI are you trying to train us somehow? perhaps being sensible and polite is being a sucker and a PGI stooge after all...

sorry to annoy you Paul, i will seek my closure from the accounts dept, carry on with all the improvements sunshine o7

[Appogee]

After 2.5 hours of scouting I opted out of the remaining 17.5 hours of scouting.

That's 5 hours I would usually have played MWO where I just went and played something else.

[Rustyhammer]

xX PUG Xx, on 22 May 2019 - 01:01 AM, said:

...
PGI needs to seriously listen to its community, we may be the vocal minority on the forums OR we may be the tip of the iceberg.
...

I love how many veteran players with less than 100 posts appeared in this thread. If anything else, that is a good indication how many of us silent players are pissed off.


On a side note, I also like how there is apparently 5% cbill boost for being a mercenary and at the same time the mercenary rewards tree is also here. So it seems loyalists will keep getting just Loyalty Points while mercs get both Reputation Points (and corresponding rewards) and +5% cbills.
Cannot verify this though as can't force myself to play scouting.

[Appogee]

FP queue is dead. Who could have guessed....?!

Oh, that's right... The couple of dozen of us who play FP daily who previously warned PGI that people wouldn't play Scouting for an entire phase.

[LordNothing]

Rustyhammer, on 21 May 2019 - 10:15 PM, said:

Do you relly think these scouting players will be happy getting they favourite game mode available just for say 2 hours out of 8? You can see how unhappy are invasion players now being locked out of invasion.

Scouting/Invasion were working fine in the old FP. Could be kept with no changes in the new story mode too, but no, PGI decided to screw both groups.

You don't want to merge 2 queues when they serve 2 different gamemodes. Why not to merge QP and FP as well then? Include QP into the story, enable it for a few hours, then scouting, then invasion. QP players will be happy having purpose for their fights, right? It'll be just a little compromise from everyone. /s

making modes a bit more dynamic with population might help. definately do more scouting when its the middle of the oc phase and the game is mostly dead. even throw in a couple 8v8 modes like skirmish and conquest, maybe even use classic maps for those for variety. you could have multiple modes kick off simultaneously as part of a phase, where actions in one effect the other and vise versa.

Edited by LordNothing, 22 May 2019 - 02:20 AM.

[LordNothing]

TheCallandor, on 22 May 2019 - 02:17 AM, said:

[redacted]

we seem to think of a pts as a chance to air our concerns about changes and provide feedback. but what pgi is really doing is checking if their plans are working as intended, even if those plans are horrible and poorly thought out. at that point things have already been done and paid for and its too late to go back. they try to get it to pass for acceptable and move on. this is why fp has gone through what is it 5 iterations now and isnt any better off for it.

Edited by Tina Benoit, 22 May 2019 - 03:39 PM.

[TheCallandor]

LordNothing, on 22 May 2019 - 02:21 AM, said:

we seem to think of a pts as a chance to air our concerns about changes and provide feedback. but what pgi is really doing is checking if their plans are working as intended, even if those plans are horrible and poorly thought out. at that point things have already been done and paid for and its too late to go back. they try to get it to pass for acceptable and move on. this is why fp has gone through what is it 5 iterations now and isnt any better off for it.

So you are saying PGI performing a Pts is useless as they do not pay any attention to what the results are?

[LordNothing]

TheCallandor, on 22 May 2019 - 02:43 AM, said:

So you are saying PGI performing a Pts is useless as they do not pay any attention to what the results are?

no, the pts serves a function to pgi. its just not the function us players think it should serve. pgi is looking to make a qualitative assessment that the changes they made work as intended and to provide data for last minute tweaks. its just by the time the pts rolls around, its really too late for a complete redesign of the intended feature should it prove to be a total flop. in that event they either abandon the branch (that happened on the energy draw pts), or gets tweaked to be less bad and implement it anyway (fp phase 3 was a good example of this).

Edited by LordNothing, 22 May 2019 - 02:54 AM.

[SmokeGuar]

Fundamental problem is that PGI cooked something in kitchen, did not tell customers what, and decided to throw surprise party.

SURPRISE!

Yeah.

This story mode is OK for events, not for daily playing.

Side stacking was issue years ago, reason being that "story" back then required map to advance and this led to stacking. Additionally PGI gave MC candy to those that could hold planets and only way to do that was to continue push. And minimum contract was one week. But this was wayyyyy back then, it has not being an major issue for over a year.

[Reno Blade]

If I'm looking at the system and the reactions here, i get the impressions that we need multiple parallel conflicts at any time, to cover multiple game modes for people hating certain ones, or at least scouting to be separate again.
But this would split the buckets again and without faction hopping, you would need to be aligned to a specific faction PER CONFLICT.

TL;DR:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Options to not "force" players into certain modes (for too long):
- 1. Multiple Conflicts overlapping to give multiple game modes at the same time (more buckets... didn't work in the past)
- 2. One Conflict with one active game mode / Phase
- 2a. very short phases (30-60 min), to complete a full Conflict in 3h
- 2b. phase length depending on games played instead of fixed time.
- 3. Scouting not part of the phases, always available (optional)

Next step: try 30 minute phases with about 2h for the complete Conflict
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Details

1. Overlapping Conflicts:
As a base, this would always allow 2 Conflicts to overlap, but still you would get Scouting only 1h every 3h if you want to scout.
e.g.
Conflict1 Wolf vs Ras starts at time 0 for 6h until 6
Scouting 1h -> Conquest 1h -> Invasion 1h/Defense ->
Skirmish/Assault 1h -> Incursion/Assault 1h -> Invasion/Defense 1h.

Conflict2 JadeFalcons vs Steiner starts at time 3 for 6h until 9
Scouting 1h -> Conquest 1h -> Invasion 1h/Defense ->
Skirmish/Assault 1h -> Incursion/Assault 1h -> Invasion/Defense 1h.

Conflict3 SmokeJag vs Kurita starts at time 6 for 6h until 12
Scouting 1h -> Conquest 1h -> Invasion 1h/Defense ->
Skirmish/Assault 1h -> Incursion/Assault 1h -> Invasion/Defense 1h.



2. One Conflict:
Having very fast phases allows for multiple groups to have "random game modes"-feeling, as the time window might be already over by the time the next group gets the match.

If the conflict planner is flexible enough, it would be better if the game modes require only a certain amount of games to switch to the next phase.
This would allow active population to rush determine the speed of progress of the Conflict phases.

Now let's imagine the proposed flexibily phase duration (by more matches won = faster next phase):

e.g.
Conflict1 Wolf vs Ras starts at time 0 for 6h until 6 (but goes only until 2 by quick wins)
1h phase windows go now down to 20 minutes due to very quick victories of a large group of players
Scouting 20min -> Conquest 20min -> Invasion/Defense 20min ->
Skirmish/Assault 20min -> Incursion/Assault 20min -> Invasion/Defense 20min.

Now the planet is conquered in 2h already and the complete Conflict is over after about 2h instead of 6h.

If there are overlapping Conflicts scheduled, the next Conflict was only scheduled to start after 1 more hour... (3h overlap)
This means, the following Conflict need to start already when the first is halfway done, to generate an overlapping pattern

Alternatively you auto-generate Conflicts for very small amount of people/games instead of certain time windows (e.g. 1-2 teams per side):

Conflict1 Wolf vs Ras starts at time 0 for 2h until 6
Scouting 3 games -> Conquest 2 games -> Invasion/Defense 2 games ->
Skirmish/Assault 2 games -> Incursion/Assault 2 games -> Invasion/Defense 2 games
If there are more than



Bottom line for the next step:
My personal feeling would be to try 30 minute phases with about 2h for the complete Conflict and see how it goes.
This would feel very active and "sitting out" would be a valid option (counts as defeat for the current active branch for the next phase).

Edited by Reno Blade, 22 May 2019 - 04:28 AM.

[denAirwalkerrr]

Shortly on conflicts - hell yes we need to split one gamemode into three! It worked so good with Solaris didn’t it?

[justcallme A S H]

Reno Blade, on 22 May 2019 - 04:27 AM, said:

If I'm looking at the system and the reactions here

Splitting the queue into 3 buckets?
And how can you have a 30min phase when games take 25mins?


Absolutely do not want any of that.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 22 May 2019 - 04:51 AM.

[Grus]

justcallme A S H, on 22 May 2019 - 04:50 AM, said:

Splitting the queue into 3 buckets?
And how can you have a 30min phase when games take 25mins?


Absolutely do not want any of that.

We've had a split que (invasion/scouting) for a long time now. With the population as it stands BEFORE this trainwreck wasn't helping lower game que times.

Now... loyalists are ****** and now dont want to play the mode... so reduction to one que, one game mode is necessary to just get lobbies going.

[Charles Sennet]

Don't forget that forced Scouting mode will require groups larger than 4 to break up every few hours. (Kerensky please save us from that hell)

Here's a quick fix until we decide how to move forward:

• Give us pre-patch Invasion and Scouting modes minus Incursion (just remove from the optional modes chosen at random).**
  
• Implement the new MM but allow people to switch sides like before so we can get matches easier.**

**If these take longer than today to deploy, then just rollback the FP changes entirely so we can play standard Invasion.

Edited by Charles Sennet, 22 May 2019 - 05:28 AM.

[Captain Caveman DE]

first up: I'm salty since patch. so pls forgive my maybe harsh language.

Paul, I gotta be blunt: what the hell are you guys actually thinking? we test 'something' on a PTS 3 times, we all give you feedback.. and you drop THIS HERE on us.
is canada in another dimension? do you have 'opposite day' there? is it 'opposite day' 365days a year?

when we were testing a new matchmaker no word was lost on how the rest was implemented at the same time - without actually taking or listening to any feedback you were given on that.
there are SO MANY things people said were plain BAD, that you should CHANGE (look through the rest of the forum FOR ONCE) - that you gave us ANYWAY..
words fail me at how disappointed I am right now.

I know ultimata from a single one of your ever shrinking playerbase are probably a joke to your company - still, I can't see myself investing any more money into this game, and I'm srsly considering cancelling my mw5 order.
we get a slap to the face every time feedback is not only ignored, but twisted into its opposites - I see no point in supporting that further.

[Marquis De Lafayette]

If they had asked anybody (who is a regular) in the FW community about the details of this patch they would have gotten at minimum the following:

-combining scouting and what was invasion is a bad idea. It forces big groups to break up (when scouting is up) and smaller groups (who might prefer a 4 v 4 mode where they can be more cohesive) into invasion. No one was complaining about there being those 2 modes existing as they were
-any cycle that is going to be pure incursion will be a ghost town. Pure conquest (fun for a couple of games) and pure scouting (a niche mode) will be underpopulated
-making loyalist a reward choice vs. a “lifestyle” (for lack of a better word) is going to totally alienate a bunch of players. As some will only want to play FW for a particular faction. This lowers queue population as well.

I think most people either like the idea of a story (at least in theory) or don’t care either way....just this all was implemented in ways that are going to get as close to universal condemnation as you could find in FW.

This is Original Long Tom 2.0......maybe worse

[Reno Blade]

justcallme A S H, on 22 May 2019 - 04:50 AM, said:

Splitting the queue into 3 buckets?
And how can you have a 30min phase when games take 25mins?


Absolutely do not want any of that.

Did you read everything I wrote, or just a glimps of it?
I already said that multiple buckets didnt work in the past!
Also were you counting Scouting + 2 buckets if you said "3 buckets" ?
Two parallel Conflicts would at least give the option of chosing which game mode to fight with.
But tbh: a Conflict should have to go through certain modes to make sense. No invasion succeeded with skirmish only.

Sure 30 minutes for a Invasion match of 20-30 minutes will not work, but for scouting.
So wanna try 1h phases?
I barely tried to give options to the many concerns posted here how a quick fix (or workaround) could look like that doesnt need extra development.

[VonBruinwald]

Please allow us to see the population distribution before joining a side!

[Warning incoming Humble Dexterer]

My selfish main issue is simple enough : I can't earn Loyalty points from the Faction of my choice, because it's not involved.

And switching to Freelancer or Mercenary won't change that.