10 replies to this topic

[Vellron2005]

So, it's been a few days now after the faction play changes have been implemented..

I guess people have had time to formulate an opinion on weather or not this FP update was a success?

What do you guys think?

Was this a good change? Bad change? Meh change?

Personally, I have the following opinions:

1) Factions have even less meaning now than they used to, if that's even possible.

2) Everyone's a merc now, even loyalists

3) Immersion is slightly higher, since conflicts have a minimal backstory.

4) The match making doesn't seem better at all (which was the main reason for the update). I'm still dropping as a solo or in a small group, against large premades.. still getting stomped.

5) Population ques are very low, even in NA prime time.. not to mention EU prime time, it's virtually impossible to get a match, unless you want to spend 30+ minutes waiting.

6) Can't change sides, which means your account has to be able to field both IS and clan mechs, otherwise you're stuck with terribad trials..

7) Holding planets is still meaningless as it's always been.

8) It seems like it's always the same side that gets invasion attack, and never invasion defense. Attacking on most maps is doomed to fail, especially against premades. This is disheartening.

9) Low population means that once you get a match, you're basically stuck with the same people playing for hours against the same stomping premade - very disheartening.

[- World Eater -]

There weren't several players telling PGI to roll back or anything right after implementation.

[K O Z A K]

Patch was an all around fail. Population dropped even more because people don't want to play this mess/wait for drops. My friends list was less than half of usual activity on the weekend. Some long term FP veterans unistalled out of frustration

8). Pretty sure during the siege phase clans only attacked and IS only defended. Not sure if that was part of the "story" or why they would do that

[Asym]

Vellron2005, on 27 May 2019 - 12:17 AM, said:

So, it's been a few days now after the faction play changes have been implemented..

I guess people have had time to formulate an opinion on weather or not this FP update was a success?

What do you guys think?

Was this a good change? Bad change? Meh change?

Personally, I have the following opinions:

1) Factions have even less meaning now than they used to, if that's even possible.

2) Everyone's a merc now, even loyalists

3) Immersion is slightly higher, since conflicts have a minimal backstory.

4) The match making doesn't seem better at all (which was the main reason for the update). I'm still dropping as a solo or in a small group, against large premades.. still getting stomped.

5) Population ques are very low, even in NA prime time.. not to mention EU prime time, it's virtually impossible to get a match, unless you want to spend 30+ minutes waiting.

6) Can't change sides, which means your account has to be able to field both IS and clan mechs, otherwise you're stuck with terribad trials..

7) Holding planets is still meaningless as it's always been.

8) It seems like it's always the same side that gets invasion attack, and never invasion defense. Attacking on most maps is doomed to fail, especially against premades. This is disheartening.

9) Low population means that once you get a match, you're basically stuck with the same people playing for hours against the same stomping premade - very disheartening.

And, what you have just said is why a great many of us will never return............ Unless, there is a serious effort to modernize FP and the mechanics that drive FP...........especially, a MM that makes sense. Maps and modes that make sense. A story line that makes sense as to why we are "competing" for Planets or Stuff?! A yearly winner that resets.

Premades against pick-up teams never can work. Can not work....period. So, if repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a "different outcome" defines insanity;...." why even participate?

And, that's where we are ! There are hundreds of players like me that haven't uninstalled and yet, find very little "value in the game at the moment..." If PGI were smart, they'd do stuff right to get us back into the game........ But, we talking about a team that simply refuses to listen to it's customers??? What a mess.

[Sjorpha]

I think the new matchmaker is a good addition even if the current low population doesn't support any real improvement in match quality, because it means that other improvements which might boost population could potentially come with better matching as well.

It's good to design for success, assuming failure and constantly scaling back design to deal with smaller and smaller population is where CW went wrong since phase 2.

The worst immediate part of this change is the locking of one game mode for hours, I don't understand where that idea comes from really. That and weirdness of contracts no longer following the unit and getting locked in, but as I understand it that was a mistake and will be fixed.

Looking at the big picture my biggest issue, even though I appreciate the effort to bring some narration and story into the mix, is that this continues on the path of scaling down the scope of CW and moving even further from the player driven, co-created sandbox experience of galactic war that CW was supposed to be.

It is absolutely bizarre that the closest we've ever been to the vision of CW being fulfilled as was in its first phase, or phase 2 as it was called but as phase 1 was just the map and no playability it was in practice the first phase. The natural path of progression would have been more player agency, more interaction with the map, more complexity, unit owned assets, base building, logistics, strategic impact for factions winning planets, political systems for loyalists to decide what their faction does, diplomatic system to declare wars, make peace and forge alliances, contracts for mercenaries to bid on with rewards for completing objectives (such as take planet x, or n amount of planets and so on). Such a great start and so many possibilities.

Could all that have been done? Maybe not, but it could at least have been the goal and general direction. Instead we've had this defeatist attitude where CW gets smaller and smaller in scope and scale with each iteration, and with less and less player, unit and faction agency to create our own stories. "Change battletech history" was the pitch back then, now I don't feel like I'm changing jack ****, do you?

[Novakaine]

I for one enjoy it.
Story mode works and people complain because they can't pad their teams.
But Mainly mercs who can't jump sides willy nilly at any given time.
But perhaps the phases should be 6 - 8 hours long.

[Xeno Phalcon]

Vellron2005, on 27 May 2019 - 12:17 AM, said:

Did We Get A Better Faction Play?

[Mumuharra]

Just a question.
Yesterday I played 3 matches FP again.
Waiting times as clan were not too bad and 2 of the 3 matches were close and fun.
But I did not recognized any kind of background story or campaign.
Still not implemented or hidden too deep to discover?

Edited by Mumuharra, 27 May 2019 - 01:35 PM.

[Monkey Lover]

One step closer to turning faction play into 4 spawn pug q.

[Warning incoming Humble Dexterer]

A MatchMaker update by itself could have spiraled the FP population up, as improving the MatchMaking increases the population, and increasing the population improves the MatchMaking...

But by forcing the story mode down with the MatchMaker update, it's more like the FP population has spiraled down.

However my immersion is at an all time high : The Faction I want to play isn't involved, and neither am I.

[LordNothing]

so far what ive seen the people who like fp dont like the patch, and the players that wrote off fp already still wont touch it with a 10 foot pole. without fresh pugs to seed the new matchmaker its going to be more of the same with longer wait times between matches. im taking a short break until they fix rp on tuesday.

the problems with fp is that its destroyed its reputation with the bulk of the player base already, much of which happened around phase 3. they are happy endlessly running around qp maps ad nauseum and don't want anything to change.