37 replies to this topic

[Lilferret]

I've been playing games for decades. There are two things I think would improve the overall experience with MWO in a significant way.

1) UI improvements. I have had so many conversations ended by the group dropping into the queue. Discussions with new Cadets I've added and I'm trying to help. People who aren't in our coms that I could chat with.

2) Stop dividing gameplay modes. Integrate Community Warfare into Quick Play. This may be more of a discussion for MWO2 (crosses fingers) but splitting the player base into qp fp and solaris doesn't improve the player base. Instead why not have a lobby (dropship) where the team lead can select from active modes. Let all the modes be significant to FP. You load your dropship up with mechs and when you choose a game mode each player chooses one of the mechs they brought. I realize this will not work with the current match maker but honestly the current map maker throws cadets in with tier 1 players, provides 5 assaults vs no assault matches etc. I don't feel it is really getting the work done.

Single lobby with statistics for each game play mode, Maybe have ton limits on some play modes, maybe have "contracts" you can take where you are dropped into a game mode where you have specific goals that the enemy may not be aware of. Each map may have capture points, turrets, etc. Rethinking queues to put more people into the same queue would be a win. It would also allow devs to see which modes are most popular and easily add/remove modes to the single lobby.

[Knight Captain Morgan]

What’s Community Warfare or Solaris?

[Thorqemada]

The Deathspell for whats left if mindless integrated...

[My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ]

Lilferret, on 13 October 2020 - 11:45 AM, said:

2) Stop dividing gameplay modes. Integrate Community Warfare into Quick Play. This may be more of a discussion for MWO2 (crosses fingers) but splitting the player base into qp fp and solaris doesn't improve the player base. Instead why not have a lobby (dropship) where the team lead can select from active modes. Let all the modes be significant to FP. You load your dropship up with mechs and when you choose a game mode each player chooses one of the mechs they brought. I realize this will not work with the current match maker but honestly the current map maker throws cadets in with tier 1 players, provides 5 assaults vs no assault matches etc. I don't feel it is really getting the work done.

FP and QP fundamentally appeal to different players, merging them in any form will simply drive off players from both sides.

[Nightbird]

Yep, neither side likes the other side's play style. Combining is an easy way to lose players.

[LordNothing]

hell give me a system where i can specify my match priority, in my case fp > qp > solaris. if a space is available in fp it slots me in there, otherwise it slots me into qp, and fall back to solaris if there is nothing. each player could set their own preference of course.

Edited by LordNothing, 13 October 2020 - 12:43 PM.

[LordNothing]

Nightbird, on 13 October 2020 - 12:32 PM, said:

Yep, neither side likes the other side's play style. Combining is an easy way to lose players.

that is unfortunate. i cant help but think that pgi drove the wedge in deeper between solos and team players with some of their decisions around fp. giving the solos the short end of the stick with reguards to rewards, catering only to the whims of the team players, and eventually putting in that popup to scare away new players. long tom did the most damage (which was a shame because those games were fun as hell). they should have found ways to unite them. i know at some point down the line, like now, it would really bite them in the booty.

they could have done some kind of league nights, like what you have at bowling alleys, where there is unlimited team play. and then have casual nights with a four man lance limit. teams seem to play only on certain days anyway. might be able to play fp exclusively if they did that. make the casual days line up with comp play since there seems to be a lot of fp/comp crossover.

[Lilferret]

I think maybe this distinction was overlooked

"Single lobby with statistics for each game play mode"

So instead of switching up in the UI you would open a lobby, see populations for each mode and drop there.
This along with the availability for in game chat while waiting for a drop would allow on the fly choices about what type of matches you wanted to do instead of exiting the search, goin to a different UI and looking to see if anyone else is in that game mode.

[Willard Phule]

Ah, the lobby system. A long forgotten concept, lostech as it were. If only, right?

[GARION26]

I think it's a great idea.

In a low population game having so many 'buckets' you split the player base into is nuts. Solaris for example often has no one dropping in any of the sub tiers at all.

A version of this is used by Walking War Robots - you can say you are only looking for a single game mode, or you can tell the matchmaker to put you in the game mode that will get you a fastest match. They also matchmake by 'level' (roughly equivalent to tier and to size of your mechhanger in MWO.)

Edited by GARION26, 13 October 2020 - 01:47 PM.

[Capt Deadpool]

It's possible I am in the minority--or possibly not--but I enjoy both QP and FP gameplay.

However, at some point fairly early on after introduction of FP when wait times became many multiples of that of QP, I simply defaulted to QP because, for me, likely due to the fact that I do not and have not typically played with large groups in this particular game, the differentiating factors FP offers were not worth the wait times.

I will say that there have been too many buckets added for the game's population, and 'group play' and '(the implementation of) Faction Play' should probably have been the same bucket, and solaris should never have been added with the game's population. So then you are left with only three buckets: QP, GP/FP, and private lobbies.

Even when designing discussion forums, you need to be cognizant of balancing population vs. granularity/buckets, and you can see some OCD person at PGI made the same mistake of missing the forest for the trees when designing these forums when you see how many dead/useless 'buckets' there are.

One man's opinion...

Edited by Capt Deadpool, 13 October 2020 - 02:06 PM.

[GARION26]

Capt Deadpool, on 13 October 2020 - 01:51 PM, said:

It's possible I am in the minority--or possibly not--but I enjoy both QP and FP gameplay.

However, at some point fairly early on after introduction of FP when wait times became many multiples of that of QP, I simply defaulted to QP because, for me, likely due to the fact that I do not and have not typically played with large groups in this particular game, the differentiating factors FP offers were not worth the wait times.

I will say that there have been too many buckets added for the game's population, and 'group play' and '(the implementation of) Faction Play' should probably have been the same bucket, and solaris should never have been added with the game's population. So then you are left with only three buckets: QP, GP/FP, and private lobbies.

One man's opinion...

I can't speak for which buckets should exist. But you can put me in the 'enjoys FP and QP' group. FP is attractive if for no other reason that the scenario is a change up from the QP model.

I just don't like trying to find a FP or Solaris match and sitting there watching the matchmaker wheel spin.

[LordNothing]

Willard Phule, on 13 October 2020 - 01:25 PM, said:

Ah, the lobby system. A long forgotten concept, lostech as it were. If only, right?

i miss the way it was on battlenet, old battlenet circa starcraft. not new battlenet. this is where my "more robust custom games" idea comes from.

you could actually have more game diversity that way. like stock mode. right now the only way to play stock mode is to manually find people who want to play stock mode. id love to play a round of stock urbie arena on solaris city. the game has almost everything to make that happen. but its a pita to set up. things would be better with a lobby browser.

you set up a custom game, give it a name, set your game rules and click a button to host the lobby. it then gets listed on a lobby browser. it shows you some basics, like the name of the lobby, map, number of players and number of slots. a mouse over reveals a popup of the complete game rules for that match. you just click on it and you get placed in the lobby.

you would of course get a lot more lobby options than present. including but not limited to:

map
mode
mode options (say number of resources in conquest or objective hitpoints in siege)
time of day
stock mode
tonnage limits
use drop decks (fp respawn rules)
drop deck tonnage
tech base (clan or is)
weapon exclusions (no lerms, gauss only, etc)
mech exclusions (urbies only, assaults only, no squirrels)
match timer
instagib!
map heat
team size
allow asymmetric trams
unlimited respawn
allow consumables
enable long tom

by giving players a lot of different hosting options, you can get a lot more match variety. allow players to save a certain number of presets, and let them get more for a nominal fee. when you join you can either look for a game that interests you in the lobby browser, or make your own and see who shows up. you can also bring back discontinued modes like escort and take up modes from solaris or fp if you choose to shut them down, they could still have their games in the lobby browser.

GARION26, on 13 October 2020 - 02:07 PM, said:

I can't speak for which buckets should exist. But you can put me in the 'enjoys FP and QP' group. FP is attractive if for no other reason that the scenario is a change up from the QP model.

I just don't like trying to find a FP or Solaris match and sitting there watching the matchmaker wheel spin.

i actually lean towards fp myself and usually only play qp to grind events or if there is no other option.

Edited by LordNothing, 13 October 2020 - 02:19 PM.

[Anomalocaris]

LordNothing, on 13 October 2020 - 12:57 PM, said:

that is unfortunate. i cant help but think that pgi drove the wedge in deeper between solos and team players with some of their decisions around fp. giving the solos the short end of the stick with reguards to rewards, catering only to the whims of the team players, and eventually putting in that popup to scare away new players. long tom did the most damage (which was a shame because those games were fun as hell). they should have found ways to unite them. i know at some point down the line, like now, it would really bite them in the booty.

they could have done some kind of league nights, like what you have at bowling alleys, where there is unlimited team play. and then have casual nights with a four man lance limit. teams seem to play only on certain days anyway. might be able to play fp exclusively if they did that. make the casual days line up with comp play since there seems to be a lot of fp/comp crossover.

I think a lot of players would have never played the game if forced into factions, group drops, etc. I know I wouldn't have because I don't have the time or interest in devoting that level of attention to a game. A lot (a majority?) just want to spool up a big stompy robot and go shoot stuff. They don't want to pick a drop deck, they don't want to have to coordinate with other group members, they don't want to worry about ranks, reputation, drop weight, campaigns, etc.

Yeah, its cool if you're looking for immersion and a more well rounded playing experience, and PGI dropped the ball by never continuing to build out that portion of the game for those that wanted it (and were promised it). But if you don't have that core of being able to just go blow stuff up with minimal prep, you can't get volume IMO. Right now they've already crippled things so badly that twice as many people are leaving each month as come in (last couple months, 1500 new players/month, but losing 1500 net players a month meaning 3000 left).

[VeeOt Dragon]

yeah i would play more FP if two things changed since i like both FP and QP.

1) the wait times were shorter but that is a player number issue not a game mechanic one.

2) if every time i did get a match i wasn't up against one of those 12 man premades that will stomp all over any group made with even a couple solos.

then again i don't play much at all anymore because even QP is boring these days. not only are you getting these competitive group drops (i know the reasoning behind it but it still sucks.) but no matter what map or game mode its the same nascar **** over and over. even when there is coms and someone has a better idea they just get ignored or told to shut up by some meta crybaby. 9/10 times this is the match you get in QP. in that very rare instance that you get something else the game is a blast.

[Willard Phule]

LordNothing, on 13 October 2020 - 02:17 PM, said:

i miss the way it was on battlenet, old battlenet circa starcraft. not new battlenet. this is where my "more robust custom games" idea comes from.

you could actually have more game diversity that way. like stock mode. right now the only way to play stock mode is to manually find people who want to play stock mode. id love to play a round of stock urbie arena on solaris city. the game has almost everything to make that happen. but its a pita to set up. things would be better with a lobby browser.

you set up a custom game, give it a name, set your game rules and click a button to host the lobby. it then gets listed on a lobby browser. it shows you some basics, like the name of the lobby, map, number of players and number of slots. a mouse over reveals a popup of the complete game rules for that match. you just click on it and you get placed in the lobby.

you would of course get a lot more lobby options than present. including but not limited to:

map
mode
mode options (say number of resources in conquest or objective hitpoints in siege)
time of day
stock mode
tonnage limits
use drop decks (fp respawn rules)
drop deck tonnage
tech base (clan or is)
weapon exclusions (no lerms, gauss only, etc)
mech exclusions (urbies only, assaults only, no squirrels)
match timer
instagib!
map heat
team size
allow asymmetric trams
unlimited respawn
allow consumables
enable long tom

by giving players a lot of different hosting options, you can get a lot more match variety. allow players to save a certain number of presets, and let them get more for a nominal fee. when you join you can either look for a game that interests you in the lobby browser, or make your own and see who shows up. you can also bring back discontinued modes like escort and take up modes from solaris or fp if you choose to shut them down, they could still have their games in the lobby browser.

I remember the lobby system from MW3, where the person controlling the lobby had control over the environment among other things. But, you could see who was in that lobby before joining, and that's the key. If you glance over a lobby and see 8 guys with the same unit tag, you may not want to join as a solo.

I suppose that would wreck the whole "comp teams harvesting T3 potatoes," so there's no way we'd go to a lobby system. Without a matchmaker throwing in sacrifices to their excellence, they'd all just end up going away.

[martian]

Lilferret, on 13 October 2020 - 11:45 AM, said:

2) Stop dividing gameplay modes. Integrate Community Warfare into Quick Play.

So that 12-man pre-made group with fully skilled optimized meta-'Mechs and pre-arranged tactics can harvest 12 random PUGs and they can not avoid it.

Magnificent idea.

[Willard Phule]

martian, on 15 October 2020 - 07:06 AM, said:

So that 12-man pre-made group with fully skilled optimized meta-'Mechs and pre-arranged tactics can harvest 12 random PUGs and they can not avoid it.

Magnificent idea.

Agreed. In fact, we should just open up QP to full 12 man premades as a test run to see how integration of FP would work.

[RRAMIREZ]

Willard Phule, on 15 October 2020 - 08:12 AM, said:

Agreed. In fact, we should just open up QP to full 12 man premades as a test run to see how integration of FP would work.

call me when the test is over

[Willard Phule]

RRAMIREZ, on 15 October 2020 - 09:08 AM, said:

call me when the test is over

Why bother? If you can't see that casual solos have no place in MWO any longer, then just keep beating your head against the wall.