118 replies to this topic

[FRAGTAST1C]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, on 22 August 2019 - 04:47 AM, said:

welcome to mechwarrior.

wanna buy a mechpack to nascar around in?

Soon, in Mech-Racer-Builder Online, we can build our own race tracks, who knows?

[Alloh]

Cross-posting from The-last-match-maker-thread-we-need:

https://mwomercs.com...thread-we-need/

For me, the solution is MERGE GROUP AND SOLO QUEUES... then apply the "sort/split" method described.

For SORT/SPLIT, just treat each group as the "top" player for group... OR add a "same level" pug player for each member of group.

BUT more important than TIER, is the "SKILL", much better represented by RECENT W/L and K/D RATIOS than long-term sum of results. That would be more important for MM to consider.

As wild example, you can have a new account, ALT, from a top-tier player, against an old account of a bad player. The new account would be TIER5, but great WL+KD ratios, while the old bad player can be TIER1 but with quite low WL+KD ratios.

Basically, remove the "cummulative rank" and replace with a "Last Weeks performance rank".

[Daemon Max]

Armored Yokai, on 22 August 2019 - 06:38 AM, said:

Well, PGI has never been the icon of proper balance. This game used to have a large playerbase and it gradually dwindled overtime due to broken promises and improper balancing. I can see why PGI was catering to the "lower level" players, because that's where the possibility of an increased crowd came in with more money and the goal of a company is usually to make money. Unfortunately they took the wrong path to doing that.

If PGI actually kept their promises and made better decisions then I am sure the current playerbase would be x3-x6 the current value, with older and better units playing the game and gradually newer players would come in.

Mechwarrior Online is at the end of it's days and has been for the longest time. I've tried talking to the community with ideas of a going away and moving onto MW5 and potentially a MWO 2.0, but they've been stubborn and continued their beer league antics and saying the game will not die. I don't blame them really, hard to let go of something you put so much time and effort into.

Bud Crue, on 22 August 2019 - 07:16 AM, said:

Ok, lets go over this one more time...

As the population has fallen the only time you can still have a reasonable chance to get a GQ drop, is during NA prime time, which has traditionally been from ~7PM to ~12AM Eastern US time zone.

Now, since Russ’s lovely EOL commentary a couple of months ago, that “reasonable chance” has gotten more spotty/inconsistent. For example some nights the queue doesn’t get a reasonable population of varied group sizes until closer to 8PM. Some nights you might start getting consistent and rapid drops starting at 6PM and then after 10PM it is a ghost town (like last night). Other nights (often mid-week nights it seems) the population is even more minimal to the extent that if you have the wrong group size you might not get a match at all because there is no other group for you and yours to add up to 12 with; and even if you do find one to reach a 12, as soon as one person drops out or comes on, that might be it for not just your group, but for other groups as well.

So anyway, this isn’t a unit problem, it’s a low population problem that has gotten worse over time, and which Russ has exacerbated via his comments last month regarding MWO’s future and the EPIC announcement for MW5. The tenable GQ playing window will continue to narrow and be more and more iffy as time goes on and I can’t see anything reversing that trend.

Agree to this, and alowing myself to the "i told you so" moment, it was foreseen.

PGI is having a hard time to find some "good spot" between making money, mantaining MWO and making good game (MW5) with the increase demand with the new game that this was obvious to happen due to early displays of mismanangment of resources. They still don't listen carefully to the comunity and yet, as my "comrade" Alloh said before, they're actions seem to impose a shady finale, yet even not discussed, to our beloved game.

But Mainly, i believe that MWO 2 is a good term of arrangement in case of an game shutdown. If not, make MWO chargeable, might not even be the awnser becouse it needs not only maintence, but the service and eforts (amount of servers/connection problems and non delivered features that "could have been", maybe becouse the cryengine it's not that good) still not enought not satisfyable as it is to "sell itself".

Apart from the mistakes, PGI could re-think that, since accounts being shutdown at this "time" might mean no sequential/fidelized client to they're following products, even if the people there like what they're doing and not doing it all for the cold hard ca$h. I believe (or i might just go with faith this time) that they can save that damage, but they need some "fresh air".

For us, the consumers/the gamers/MW fans it's an uncertain thing that its beyond an itch of not knowing whats the next game, but the credibility in the company in making decisions during every stage of the game(s) life(s). EA is a good example in what not to do.

I leave you with even more questions than awnsers now.

[Bud Crue]

Daemon Max, on 22 August 2019 - 10:25 AM, said:

Stuff

There is nothing “shady” about what PGI is doing with MWO. Nor has the present circumstance been anything other than an eventual inevitability (“I told you so”...dude, everyone knew this was coming, it was only a question of when). Roughly three years ago Russ all but announced that PGI would be focusing on MW5. More recently he decided to tell us, with a shocking amount of apparent honesty, that that focus would hence forth be on MW5 to the detriment of MWO, alas. That isn’t “shady” but simply a matter of allocating resources in the way PGI thinks is necessary or most advantageous to their business. They have an obligation to get MW5 released and MWO is not making them sufficient cash. We may not like these decisions or their consequences, but they have been pretty upfront about why they are doing what they are doing.

Historically, this has always been a niche game with a population that has been gradually dropping for the last several years (see Jarl’s population trend), and we are now entering all time lows. This has resulted in group queue becoming non-viable for greater periods. It will get worse.

As to the future of the game, hereto Russ was fairly forthcoming. To paraphrase: if you want MWO to keep going, buy old mech packs. If the game makes enough to keep the servers running, PGI will keep them running. Russ stated that he thinks another 3 years is possible (I think he is delusional, meh). In terms of MWO2 he has also stated that it depends on the success of MW5 as well on whether or not PGI can negotiate a license renewal with Microsoft. One may not believe him or feel he is just blowing smoke, but he has put all that out there.

Edited by Bud Crue, 22 August 2019 - 11:09 AM.

[OldSchoolCav]

Just a note, since you can change sides at any time, it is simple to group up with your unit and/or friends. Use TS or discord and decide together which side to take. Or, if you are a purist, you can see what side your unit/friends have selected in game and get on the same side as them. You can even create a group and invite all your peeps to join it. If they are on the other side, they can spend ~2 minutes to change sides and get a dropdeck or 3 set. We've had no issues whatsoever in grouping up for FP since the update. In fact, it has made it easier to find matches, since we can balance the queue ourselves. Good luck!

[Gilgamecc]

Gilgamecc, on 22 August 2019 - 06:08 AM, said:

[Redacted]

You have to follow the ToS but you are not allowed to talk about or figure out what the ToS actually means in-game

[JediPanther]

Alloh, on 22 August 2019 - 04:39 AM, said:

So, is PGI trying to KILL UNITS?

The major attraction in this game, for me and my group, was TEAMPLAY. You know, make up a group, talk to each other to coordinate, then talk ****, laugh and have fun.

My Unit, FEB, was created for this. We were active every night, with up to 10 players at once, very often... now we no longer have a contract, each member of unit can go to a different side of FP, and it became nearly impossible to find GROUP GAMES...

And since we cannot play in group, in same match, in same team, we are breaking apart. Players are giving up to join our DISCORD ... why, if we try to make a group, hang >10min "SearchingWarrior", then disband and try a sync drop... and when the members are spread among many matches and teams, becomes hard to talk...


So, PGI, what's your plan for UNITs ?

Sounds exactly what happen in 2016. Pgi kept messing with things. Added clans way before weapons were remotely balanced on is, did their shity drop ships with 100% hit lasers, their nuke everyone long tom, etc. People just got fed up with it all including the wait times.

My unit went from 100-200 members to disbanding to just 14 of us reforming the unit and just doing unit stuff in private lobbies screw cw drops.

[Alloh]

Focusing on PUG problems:
1. Cannot find group games.
2. Population decline

Solution:
1. Merge Solo/Group queues, sort/split by recent stats

[Alienized]

LOL

PGI killed this whole game already and you ask if they try to kill units?

Edited by Alienized, 22 August 2019 - 02:17 PM.

[Tranderas]

jss78, on 22 August 2019 - 08:00 AM, said:

This would literally kill the game overnight.

Right now the solo queue is the single, one part of MWO that kind of works very well. Just as a rough guess you have 20+ people there for each player in group/faction queues.

If you break the solo queue by combining the group and solo queues they'll stop playing, and the game is dead.

Game's already dead, might as well throw it at the wall and see what sticks rather than have a do-nothing patch like we saw two days ago.

[GeminiWolf]

Alloh, on 22 August 2019 - 04:39 AM, said:

So, is PGI trying to KILL UNITS?

The major attraction in this game, for me and my group, was TEAMPLAY. You know, make up a group, talk to each other to coordinate, then talk ****, laugh and have fun.

My Unit, FEB, was created for this. We were active every night, with up to 10 players at once, very often... now we no longer have a contract, each member of unit can go to a different side of FP, and it became nearly impossible to find GROUP GAMES...

And since we cannot play in group, in same match, in same team, we are breaking apart. Players are giving up to join our DISCORD ... why, if we try to make a group, hang >10min "SearchingWarrior", then disband and try a sync drop... and when the members are spread among many matches and teams, becomes hard to talk...


So, PGI, what's your plan for UNITs ?

So let me get this straight, its PGI's fault that players choose not to play Group Play?

[FRAGTAST1C]

GeminiWolf, on 22 August 2019 - 08:11 PM, said:

So let me get this straight, its PGI's fault that players choose not to play Group Play?

That is not quite right though. Players want to get into the action. If making a group and waiting for 20 mins to get 1 game is tiresome, then the only option is to play solo and sync drop. Where the fault lies is PGI's inability to divide players based on actual skill instead of exp bar. Instead, they split Group and Solo play to reduce the chance of finding matches.

If someone remembers the time when games like CS 1.6, Quake 3, UT, etc., were around, players would find a server and play there. If the players there were already of high skill, the new guys would get trounced but there was no need to bicker and cry about it. They'd either find new servers or play there, make friends, change game modes or what-not. PGI's method was not to incentivise players to pick up new joiners to the MWO community but instead remove most aspects of team-play even in Instant Action.

The solution right now is to push for FW. Make it as attractive as possible so that players like me who haven't tried that yet, mostly 'cause of time zone and a bit of lack of proper mechs, would finally go there and start playing, find games at all hours and leave the Instant Action mode to actual newcomers. For that to happen, we probably need a tiny miracle and a change in attitude, which I don't see happening any time soon.

Look at the current Battle Royale games like PUBG, Apex Legends and Fortnite. People can team up with friends and launch right into the game. Sure they lose but they are PLAYING WITH FRIENDS and anything is great with friends, even watching paint dry (ok, that's an exaggeration). Do they care about stats and W/L ratios there? Only competitive players do. Others just have a lot of fun playing together. Sometimes, duos get teamed up with solid players in squad mode in those games and they feel like they're part of something good 'cause of those experienced players. But the point is, teaming up with friends, who haven't played those games before or are very new to gaming in general, in those games, is as easy as getting into QP in MWO whereas in MWO, it's the opposite. You can barely get to play with friends and if you do, it's like a miracle. Hell, forget that! Once you start to search for a game in Group Queue, you can't even chat with group members inside the game. How atrocious is that design?!

[Feral Clown]

FRAGTAST1C, on 22 August 2019 - 08:58 PM, said:

That is not quite right though. Players want to get into the action. If making a group and waiting for 20 mins to get 1 game is tiresome, then the only option is to play solo and sync drop. Where the fault lies is PGI's inability to divide players based on actual skill instead of exp bar. Instead, they split Group and Solo play to reduce the chance of finding matches.

If someone remembers the time when games like CS 1.6, Quake 3, UT, etc., were around, players would find a server and play there. If the players there were already of high skill, the new guys would get trounced but there was no need to bicker and cry about it. They'd either find new servers or play there, make friends, change game modes or what-not. PGI's method was not to incentivise players to pick up new joiners to the MWO community but instead remove most aspects of team-play even in Instant Action.

The solution right now is to push for FW. Make it as attractive as possible so that players like me who haven't tried that yet, mostly 'cause of time zone and a bit of lack of proper mechs, would finally go there and start playing, find games at all hours and leave the Instant Action mode to actual newcomers. For that to happen, we probably need a tiny miracle and a change in attitude, which I don't see happening any time soon.

Look at the current Battle Royale games like PUBG, Apex Legends and Fortnite. People can team up with friends and launch right into the game. Sure they lose but they are PLAYING WITH FRIENDS and anything is great with friends, even watching paint dry (ok, that's an exaggeration). Do they care about stats and W/L ratios there? Only competitive players do. Others just have a lot of fun playing together. Sometimes, duos get teamed up with solid players in squad mode in those games and they feel like they're part of something good 'cause of those experienced players. But the point is, teaming up with friends, who haven't played those games before or are very new to gaming in general, in those games, is as easy as getting into QP in MWO whereas in MWO, it's the opposite. You can barely get to play with friends and if you do, it's like a miracle. Hell, forget that! Once you start to search for a game in Group Queue, you can't even chat with group members inside the game. How atrocious is that design?!

It's too bad more players in this game did not share your attitude. I remember when I was in HHoD and we had a twelve man in group queue that was absolutely obliterated by a twelve man EmP in uac2 Hunchie IIC soon after they came out. Six of us were laughing and admired the precision and skill, the others where crying hacks and other nonsense.

Thing is EmP were stuck having to run 12 fifty tonners because of how hard mech dads cried to have something be done to discourage strong, large groups and tonnage restrictions didn't make good coordinated teams any less effective, if anything it gibbled those of us who weren't very strong. That was when the population was more than 4x to 6x times it is now.

All circles back to that well rotted horse back there....matchmaker and psr. When I was absolutely terrible at the game I still managed to make it into tier one, with all those EmP dudes in under 6 or 7 months. So to matchmaker we were two tier one teams going up against each other.

As far as CW goes, it seems to be the only place available to play in a group these days and for now you can get games. There still is functionally zero matchmaking and there are always going to be people who get upset that they are mismatched against better teams, and even mid level teams who will avoid fighting strong teams so they can prey upon pugs.

In these times, I guess we really just have to suck it up and be grateful for any game we can get. Really hope though that if PGI ever decided to create any other pvp game they'd understand how important it is to rate people properly so that players can be matched up against people of similar skill.

Edited by Feral Clown, 22 August 2019 - 09:43 PM.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Feral Clown, on 22 August 2019 - 09:41 PM, said:

In these times, I guess we really just have to suck it up and be grateful for any game we can get. Really hope though that if PGI ever decided to create any other pvp game they'd understand how important it is to rate people properly so that players can be matched up against people of similar skill.

Agree completely with that but one more thing is needed, which I think is very, very important. In a multiplayer game, make sure that gamers can invite and play with their friends. Do not make that bit hard to do.

[Feral Clown]

FRAGTAST1C, on 22 August 2019 - 09:49 PM, said:

Agree completely with that but one more thing is needed, which I think is very, very important. In a multiplayer game, make sure that gamers can invite and play with their friends. Do not make that bit hard to do.

I agree.
There have been two traditional camps round these parts fighting it out. One of them hated the restrictions put on them cause a couple of six mans that were decent or some other mix now had an unfair advantage, the other complained vigorously that PGI didn't go far enough to restrict skilled players from playing.

[Thorn Hallis]

PGI doesn't know about your unit.

[Feral Clown]

Thorn Hallis, on 22 August 2019 - 11:13 PM, said:

PGI doesn't know about your unit.

Not the point. That PGI can't tell the difference in game between HHoD and EmP is a clear indication that psr is horribly, horribly broken and ineffective if both are equal in their eyes....

[PhoenixFire55]

GeminiWolf, on 22 August 2019 - 08:11 PM, said:

So let me get this straight, its PGI's fault that players choose not to play Group Play?

Its PGI's fault that 98% of initial player population - hardcore BT/MW fans at that - abandoned the game. So yes, it is their fault.

[Feral Clown]

Alloh, on 22 August 2019 - 02:14 PM, said:

Focusing on PUG problems:
1. Cannot find group games.
2. Population decline

Solution:
1. Merge Solo/Group queues, sort/split by recent stats

Sure....no problem for me most of my friends are in the 98th or above percentile. How's that going to go for you though??? Since our lovely PSR system thinks all tier one's are equal????

[Prototelis]

Honestly, they should let solos opt into GQ.

This MAY help ease those issues (probably not)

But they should NEVER allow groups in solo. We done tried that. We done tried it with limited group sizes. The result was not fun.