1579 replies to this topic

[crazytimes]

Brauer, on 13 May 2020 - 08:25 PM, said:

I see attempted Nascar pretty much every game now. The difference is a group can take a power position and murder the opposition on their first lap around the track.

Very much this. On the upside, it will slowly teach those still teachable there are game dynamics besides "rotate left".

On the downside, there won't be anyone left to worry about rotating soon enough... but at least the gameplay is a bit different whilst there's still enough people left to form matches.

[crazytimes]

Rioting Baboon, on 13 May 2020 - 05:32 AM, said:

First off, THANK YOU! My brother and I have started playing again,

I've highlighted and underlined the problem. You two playing again doesn't help anything. An influx of new people with empty garage and full wallets is what is needed to actually help anything. Dropping new players against groups of experienced people is not going to make new people hang around.

[Brain Cancer]

pseudofiction, on 03 May 2020 - 07:17 PM, said:

I like to use battletech lore friendly, realistic builds that are also effective but no matter how effective I make them and although I'm not a complete trash as a pilot, there is nothing I can do against such force.

Hint: Lore builds were never effective, not in a system that decided on things like a heat system considerably divorced from any level of tabletop play. Nor were "realistic" bracket builds effective. Lore builds are inherently flawed in most cases, and that was deliberately done from the FASA-era onwards: Some are just plain not optimized, others are designed for roles that don't exist in MWO where all we do is shoot giant robots and not, say, infantry or aerospace fighters. Aping them in MWO is a great way to remain a mediocre contributor to your team, where your "good games" end up being only in ones where people end up handicapping themselves in similar fashion.

What has changed is fewer people are in the queue that share your illusion and artificially improve your odds by lack of their own competence in play and capacity to build what they bring, thereby breaking it by actually attempting to be competent and making you "look bad" in the process.

[Brain Cancer]

Brauer, on 03 May 2020 - 07:34 PM, said:

TBF the Skill-Veagle ruins the game for everyone, it's not particularly fun to play as or against.

The hilarious thing is that regular AMS use would basically force the ATM-VGL builds into near extinction. ATMs are by far the weakest weapon against them, to the point where things like a single triple-AMS Nova or Kit Fox can cripple one singlehandedly, never mind if people actually habitually used their AMS hardpoint on their builds even in singles.

(It's almost as if putting an AMS hardpoint on nearly every 'Mech in the game was a hint or something.)

But nope. Players would rather complain about ATMs and LRMs rather than give up so much as a single medium laser and a heat sink. Being a missile boater full time, believe me. I know what shuts them down, and it's almost embarrassing watching the same people complain about them while I see teams that are lucky to have one between the 12 of them, never mind any significant antimissile defenses.

[Brain Cancer]

SolahmaWarrior, on 04 May 2020 - 03:44 AM, said:

PGI has already stated that there isn't enough money coming in to justify any new Mech Packs/designs. Keeping the majority of the player base unhappy isn't going to change that... If the monetary stats tank too much, as a business model, there'll be no justification in keeping the servers running. I have not seen anything from Russ to indicate that that is a concern (ie rectifying this issue) and MW5 can only carry the dead weight, monetarily, of MWO for so long.

...if you think MW5 is carrying any weight, a horrible miscalculation has happened. MW5 literally would not exist but for MWO's cashflow being directed into it's development. Much like a certain space game before it, it actually reduced the investment into MWO in favor of attempting to ignite a separate moneymaker.

Nothing from MW5 goes into MWO, but plenty definitely went from MWO into MW5.

[Brain Cancer]

Spare Knight, on 04 May 2020 - 05:30 AM, said:

I played a lot this weekend and I can tell you that I saw more of this than just 1 in 26 games. There was plenty of seal clubbing going on. I don't think you realize how many of these groups there are. There is not just one that you might run across once in a while.

What's hilarious is that if it is happening, it's because the player pool was much smaller than most people assumed in the first place. What's ALSO hilarious is that many of these groups are not nearly as good in terms of individual play, but have gained from having less random team selection due to their grouping.

Bonus: Units tend to effectively inflate their records vs. the same players strictly soloing, simply because groups carry each other more efficiently than single players carry a solo team. Therefore, they make a disproportionately large part of the "top 10%" simply due to teamwork making them able to do more than they would otherwise.

Teamwork, after all is OP.

[Thorqemada]

There is probably a confusion what some Terms mean.
A competitive Player to me is one who seeks challenges against similar or better skilled opponents and participates in Leagues like that gone MRBC one or the current MWO leagues 5 vs 5 Competition - simply grouping up does not make one competitive.

Grouping makes one a Groupplayer of varying skill, experience, success which can include Competitive Players, Veterans, Casual, Cadets and whatever term you like to use for each type of Groupplayer.

Brain Cancer, on 13 May 2020 - 10:52 PM, said:

...if you think MW5 is carrying any weight, a horrible miscalculation has happened. MW5 literally would not exist but for MWO's cashflow being directed into it's development. Much like a certain space game before it, it actually reduced the investment into MWO in favor of attempting to ignite a separate moneymaker.

Nothing from MW5 goes into MWO, but plenty definitely went from MWO into MW5.

To my understanding PGI chose to release MW5 on EPIC bcs they had so favourable terms, that it would made them Big Money no matter what.

[Brain Cancer]

RickySpanish, on 04 May 2020 - 01:08 PM, said:

Group queue shouldn't have been shut down, gq should cater to players who want to fight other groups exclusively, at a high level of play. That way, solo queue can benefit from small groups also participating, although I suspect squads of Riflemen IICs would still find some reason to drop in solo. You know, for science.

GQ was shut down because the viable number of groups to maintain it no longer exists. And, if it existed along with the current grolo queue, it would be even further away from a viable number of groups. Population loss inevitably has a larger effect on how long it takes to get a group game going, simply because groups have and always will be a smaller part of the playerbase- and it has shrunk enough that groups of 3-4 seem to be about the limit.

Even with 8v8, that leaves you with all kinds of issues as you don't have fillers for those people who ended up with 3-mans, and even finding enough duos clearly is awkward. Thus, we have what you have now, as any 2-4 man group can be easily fit into a "group" of solos.

[Brain Cancer]

Zirconium Kaze, on 07 May 2020 - 02:56 AM, said:

What PGI needs are respawns. Like in mw4.

This attitude is hilarious in the face of what community warfare became.

[Brain Cancer]

Brauer, on 13 May 2020 - 08:25 PM, said:

I see attempted Nascar pretty much every game now. The difference is a group can take a power position and murder the opposition on their first lap around the track.

Basically this. NASCAR is the lowest-energy result of MWO play.

Having a competent lance that can take advantage of this and repeatedly kick the offending team in the jimmies for trying it is the new thing grolo queue has added. That is, habitually bad play is more likely to result in "you're gonna have a bad time", as there are now enough people on a team to actively wreck Brownsean Motion Tactics.

[Nearly Dead]

I just have never seen that much Nascar actually happening. Even on Polar it is more often two firing lines on either side of a rise and players move out on both flanks looking for shooting positions where they aren't exposed to 6 enemies at once.

Mostly it is run to xx where there is something to hide behind, snipe, get up or down 2, rush or get rushed.

Nascar almost sounds fun compared to most games lately.

[Zulu211]

I've held off voicing an opinion until I had some experience playing both ways. My clan plays in group drops almost every night since the re-inception and, I can tell you as the average player (usually in the top half for damage in a match) I can't tell a difference. There are a lot of newer players doing a lot of new player things and THAT seems to make a difference. Most battles end up lop sided sure, but that's more a function of how the battle unfolded than what one lance did.

What I see more and more is the new guys discovering the LRM assault and Assaults are getting rekt. Good lights wrecking poorly built assaults appears to be how battles are won right now.

[Chaotic_Harmony]

After playing with this change for the past few weeks, I gotta say...

This is the most blatantly abusable change I've ever seen in any game. Ever.


Now, I'm saying this because I've been one of the ones abusing it. And considering the sheer hate I get from just about any other MWO content provider because of it, I think my point is proven. A 4 man allows you to brute force cheese into the game, whether it be 4 Rifleman IICs with 6 AC2s, a group of Vapor Eagles with ATMs, or in my group's choice LRMs.


We've literally killed people before they can do any damage, and done so multiple times in a match. A good 90% of the "stomps" that PGI is measuring that we've had were my group doing more than the entirety of the enemy team.

THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN. EVER.


But yet it does, and it's done with VERY little actual effort on our part. Please for the love of god restrict groups to 2 players. If people want to group up larger, they can sync drop.

P.S. If you keep the damn thing how it is, fix the goddamn spawns. Tourmaline Desert and Forest Colony in particular.

[Knight Captain Morgan]

Chaotic_Harmony, on 14 May 2020 - 07:35 AM, said:

After playing with this change for the past few weeks, I gotta say...

This is the most blatantly abusable change I've ever seen in any game. Ever.


Now, I'm saying this because I've been one of the ones abusing it. And considering the sheer hate I get from just about any other MWO content provider because of it, I think my point is proven. A 4 man allows you to brute force cheese into the game, whether it be 4 Rifleman IICs with 6 AC2s, a group of Vapor Eagles with ATMs, or in my group's choice LRMs.


We've literally killed people before they can do any damage, and done so multiple times in a match. A good 90% of the "stomps" that PGI is measuring that we've had were my group doing more than the entirety of the enemy team.

THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN. EVER.


But yet it does, and it's done with VERY little actual effort on our part. Please for the love of god restrict groups to 2 players. If people want to group up larger, they can sync drop.

P.S. If you keep the damn thing how it is, fix the goddamn spawns. Tourmaline Desert and Forest Colony in particular.

One wonders what the motivation would be behind other content providers giving you hate over this. Perhaps they desire this change to be permanent so they can form premades to farm pugs in perpetuity. A would see anyone revealing the truth about what this change does to be a threat to that agenda. Or perhaps they just got roflstomped by your team and their egos got bruised. Lol

[John Bronco]

Or perhaps they reacted as most do to getting clagged nonstop and just got annoyed with it?

[Anomalocaris]

DAEDALOS513, on 13 May 2020 - 07:03 PM, said:

Nascar happened a lot more before, now it happens a lot less.. is that acceptable for you?

I'll go with Brauer's take, thank you.

[Anomalocaris]

Zulu211, on 14 May 2020 - 06:15 AM, said:

I've held off voicing an opinion until I had some experience playing both ways. My clan plays in group drops almost every night since the re-inception and, I can tell you as the average player (usually in the top half for damage in a match) I can't tell a difference. There are a lot of newer players doing a lot of new player things and THAT seems to make a difference. Most battles end up lop sided sure, but that's more a function of how the battle unfolded than what one lance did.

What I see more and more is the new guys discovering the LRM assault and Assaults are getting rekt. Good lights wrecking poorly built assaults appears to be how battles are won right now.

No offense intended, and your opinion about whether this merge is good or not is valid whether I like it or not, but let's not misrepresent our skill levels here.

Anyone can check jarl's list to see where they stand in the grand scheme of things

https://leaderboard.isengrim.org/

[ERescue]

Rank Percentile Pilot Name Games Played W/L Ratio Survive Rate K/D Ratio Average Score Adjusted Score Progress Light Medium Heavy Assault 16632 27% ERescue 6397 0.82 14% 0.28 145 151.9 12% 34% 18% 25% 21% 22056 4% ERSmurf 25 0.79 12% 0.05 99 16.3 56% 0% 44% 0% 16675 27% Zulu211 2162 0.82 16% 0.49 158 151.1 2% 3% 33% 39% 24%

@Anomalocaris: I am sorry to bother you and I apologize for the extremely bad formatting of the copied stats, but would you kindly explain to me, whether Zulu211 is somehow entirely mistaken or is this a case of me not understanding what I read as, IF I am reading the Jarl's list comparisons right, he and my main account are of fairly similar level and I am pretty much at the bottom of tier 5 according to the ingame bar... And my ERSmurf account has a really horrible K/D ratio compared to both.

@All: Anyone who has plenty of experience with the Jarl's list is welcome to chip in. I would like to understand / learn something new here. Thank you to all in advance!

[Anomalocaris]

Well we don't want to name and shame here. But to call oneself average you should probably have an average match score around the average (about 230 these days) and a WLR somewhere near 1:1. I wasn't anywhere near average in my first 8-10 seasons on my old account (PTW) (I was really bad, but I'll blame my laptop for that, couldn't have been me, no sir), so there's no shame in not being there yet.

Edited by Anomalocaris, 14 May 2020 - 10:10 AM.

[Mister Smile]

@ Chaotic_Harmony:

I'm so glad that i only had to play twice against you and your boys. It wasnt funny to be on the receiving end...