484 replies to this topic

[pbiggz]

OZHomerOZ, on 29 December 2020 - 02:17 AM, said:

And why is that?
Why group queues not viable?

You seem to be incapable of understanding that it is better to fix the problems of group queue viability than to sweep those problems under the carpet/soup queue.

What do you mean why? I just told you why. Not alot of people play this game. You don't get to have multiple separate queues when there's only a few hundred people looking for a match at a time. This isn't complicated, you are just choosing not to accept it.

OZHomerOZ, on 29 December 2020 - 02:17 AM, said:

I mean solo queue was the most populated and viable queue.
The merge rekt this queue for alot of solo's

But perhaps that's PGI's business plan to wind the game down without legal repercussions

I know that this merge has not encouraged me to spend any money, if fact the opposite is true.

More Wrong

The solo queue declined just as much as group queue did, its just easier for the matchmaker to make full matches with single players than it is to match 2 mans and 4 mans and 7 mans and so on, so what you are saying here is not grounded in any kind of fact or reality.

YOU are saying the merge ruined the queue for "alot of solos". This is not a fact, its an assertion you are making, which you are only backing up with your own anecdotes.

Edited by pbiggz, 29 December 2020 - 09:02 AM.

[Trexstvolka]

unpopular opinion time, i guess.
Update the UI.
Most new players i dragged to this game since 2016 were scared away by the dreadful UI.
It is a confusing soup and a mess that has no place in 2020.

Also,
Get rid of SP/XP/GSP/GXP. way too many things. Confusing for new players and adds stuff to the UI, generally overloading things.

Edited by Trexstvolka, 29 December 2020 - 09:06 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Alreech, on 29 December 2020 - 05:34 AM, said:

snip

So let's clear up some things real fast.

• Battlegrid is trash because no one uses it, command wheel is used more. If no one uses it, its not the players at fault here, it is the fault of the feature. This is where pings come in handy especially if you can add context to pings. Grids are decent but landmarks are better, especially if it shows up on the map itself not just your minimap which is one of the important things missing period. Say for example as a scout you could at the very least not have to use a UAV to call the opfor main body on the opposite side of the ridge if you happen to see it. Mind you they won't listen, but more useful in coordinated environments.
  
• Named sections of the map > grids. Maps often have features that don't fit neatly into one grid square (canyon for example), so grids honestly end up being lacking. Having named callouts to maps like a lot of games have started adding (thanks to CS:GO I believe) would be much more beneficial than grids.
  
• Lance commands don't make sense, this game just isn't played like that for this to be necessary, and company command just affords you control over a feature that no one uses because it is such a PitA, it's easier to use VOIP for groups. You are correct that it is easier to coordinate than with 12 people, but comp teams don't use it so how useful can it actually be if it goes unused even in ultra-coordinated environments. Maybe if this games was 16v16 but none of the maps are built for that, hell they aren't really built for 12v12 even so :shrug:
  
• Strategy does not matter because 9 times out of 10 the person suggesting things doesn't know what they are doing, there is no mech selection after map voting and you are generally taking some mid-long range DPS build because again, no mech selection after map voting. Even then, let's say you are in group queue and you want to inform other groups/people of the strat, then use in-game VOIP, chat, or the stupid battlegrid, there is enough downtime before engagements actually happen to ensure that strats are settled without anything else. I don't need roles because really there isn't that many roles in this game, at least ones that are useful anyway. AMS Kit Fox, TAG/NARC light, LRM artillery, these are all ways to play this game that should NOT be encouraged and giving them official icons and things like that only reinforces that. Nothing you have described is going to change groups not listening to strategies of others, hell I know I've disregarded it because again, a lot of the time people using those features have absolutely atrocious ideas. Basically all I'm saying is focus on features that comp players would use because they are the ones who should benefit most from any team play feature. If it is useful it will filter down appropriately to groups for similar reasons, useful for coordination. What is useful is chassis callouts because those can tell you more than AC/Lasers or PPC/Gauss.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 29 December 2020 - 09:16 AM.

[pbiggz]

Trexstvolka, on 29 December 2020 - 09:04 AM, said:

unpopular opinion time, i guess.
Update the UI.
Most new players i dragged to this game since 2016 were scared away by the dreadful UI.
It is a confusing soup and a mess that has no place in 2020.

Also,
Get rid of SP/XP/GSP/GXP. way too many things. Confusing for new players and adds stuff to the UI, generally overloading things.

I don't think thats an unpopular opinion. Its actually quite reasonable. This game is a soup of interacting systems, alot of which don't need to be as complicated as they are.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Agreed, I legitimately don't understand why we need 6-9 different currencies, especially when the mess that is the skill tree requires multiple to get a skill point, just wat? All of this could be accomplished with just two currencies: mc and c-bills

C-Bills for progression on everything and MC for store stuff. The other part is that so much of the game store is outside the game and uses cash instead of MC which is also dumb. Call of Duty doesn't even do that, and its pretty egregious with costs. I think the only thing they do actual money with is any comp support pack or their yearly donation thingy.

[pbiggz]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 29 December 2020 - 09:14 AM, said:

Agreed, I legitimately don't understand why we need 6-9 different currencies, especially when the mess that is the skill tree requires multiple to get a skill point, just wat? All of this could be accomplished with just two currencies: mc and c-bills

C-Bills for progression on everything and MC for store stuff. The other part is that so much of the game store is outside the game and uses cash instead of MC which is also dumb. Call of Duty doesn't even do that, and its pretty egregious with costs. I think the only thing they do actual money with is any comp support pack or their yearly donation thingy.

We inherited alot of stuff from older systems that are either defunct or have since been removed and I think we were just used to it. GXP and HXP used to be Mech XP, back when you needed to skill out 3 variants of a mech in order to get speed tweak. With a modest adjustment (increase) in Cbill rewards from matches, both those could simply be replaced with Cbills.

[DAEDALOS513]

Trexstvolka, on 29 December 2020 - 09:04 AM, said:

unpopular opinion time, i guess.
Update the UI.
Most new players i dragged to this game since 2016 were scared away by the dreadful UI.
It is a confusing soup and a mess that has no place in 2020.

Also,
Get rid of SP/XP/GSP/GXP. way too many things. Confusing for new players and adds stuff to the UI, generally overloading things.

I like to think of it as retro-chic.. it's so old lookin.. it's cool

[Forgeling]

DAEDALOS513, on 28 December 2020 - 01:14 PM, said:

Yep I mentioned this before.. to add some much needed variety to the event prizes.. and maybe even have premium voices costing mc.. they should have voice command 'modules' that you can earn and plug them into your command wheel.. like a warhorn you equip..

I think attaching the voice to a pilot makes the most sense, because it's a pilot who is talking.

[pbiggz]

Forgeling, on 29 December 2020 - 05:50 PM, said:

I think attaching the voice to a pilot makes the most sense, because it's a pilot who is talking.

Planetside 2 has different voice packs you can buy for your characters. Its not a bad idea. Might be worth mentioning in the monetization thread.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

pbiggz, on 29 December 2020 - 08:38 PM, said:

Planetside 2 has different voice packs you can buy for your characters. Its not a bad idea. Might be worth mentioning in the monetization thread.

Imagine this, every mech has dedicated pilots to embody the mech and you can just buy new ones. They all have unique models and are completely voiced with different hints at lore stuff because of their background and can double as warhorns "communicating" a taunt on kill across comms to everyone n stuff like (think taunts/quips from other shooters). Command wheel would use the pilot voice, but there should also be semi-random cross chatter as well. Each mech will have some hero that is meant to be the one that piloted the hero mech originally as an option.

Could optionally remove the mech attachment and allow you to customize them separately and use for any mech, but I like the idea of each mech having a specific pilot that adds some flavor to the mech and help characterize its origin. For example despite being developed by Fire Mandrill, the Viper would have a Ghost Bear pilot with potentially an Ice Hellion pilot as an option given their usage of it later on during the Jihad era.

Sorry, this does probably belong in the monetization thread, but this is also technically a new feature. Honestly, I really want to see warhorns replaced or done away with because it definitely ruins the vibe of the game a little bit sometimes. There is very different feels between the Battletech and this, and Battletech has the better spirit.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 29 December 2020 - 10:42 PM.

[General Solo]

pbiggz, on 29 December 2020 - 09:00 AM, said:

What do you mean why? I just told you why. Not alot of people play this game.

Yeah you did say why but your why is garbage

If group queue dead due to low population and Faction Queue hobbling along due to low population

Why was solo queue the only viable queue, 1000's of times bigger queue that group queue**, despite low population.

** What is a 1000's times bigger than zero, ok solo was million times bigger! Maybe infinity bigger

To refresh your memory the queues were merged due to group queue not being viable, not the other way around

Guess PGI wished some of solo queues viability rubbed off


I have more data points I win!

You have urban mech

I hate beating on the lil guy

They so cute

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 30 December 2020 - 12:18 AM.

[Alreech]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 29 December 2020 - 09:05 AM, said:

So let's clear up some things real fast.
Battlegrid is trash because no one uses it, command wheel is used more.

So you don't open the minimap to check there the enemy or your team is?
The battlegrid itself (minimap) is usefull, it tools to place orders are trash (and could replaced with the same command wheel used in the UI).

Quote

Named sections of the map > grids. Maps often have features that don't fit neatly into one grid square (canyon for example), so grids honestly end up being lacking.

Grid coordinates are named sections of the map. And they work universal.

Quote

Lance commands don't make sense, this game just isn't played like that for this to be necessary, and company command just affords you control over a feature that no one uses because it is such a PitA, it's easier to use VOIP for groups.

You are right, Lance Leaders and Commands are not necessary for premade groups who know each other and use their own VOIP.
It's necessary for a team of 12 random players who just meet, some of them don't want to use VOIP due language.

Quote

You are correct that it is easier to coordinate than with 12 people, but comp teams don't use it so how useful can it actually be if it goes unused even in ultra-coordinated environments.

• Comp Teams don't meet 90 seconds before the match starts the first time.
  
• Comp Teams use their own command structure (drop leaders) and own VOIP.
  
• Comp Teams use strict discipline while using VOIP, and their own "language" of shorts to communicate (making tools like the command wheel or grid coordinates obsoletet).

So what's your idea to improve the coordination of a "team" of 12 random players who never meet before?


"Just do it as the comp scene does it, you don't need no ingame tools"

Quote

Strategy does not matter because 9 times out of 10 the person suggesting things doesn't know what they are doing, there is no mech selection after map voting and you are generally taking some mid-long range DPS build because again, no mech selection after map voting.

That's the reason stuff like choosing Lance Leaders, choosing Mech, ect should be done before match making even starts.

And that's the thing premade groups do:
They choose their mechs, they choose a drop leader and then they go into matchmaking.

Quote

Even then, let's say you are in group queue and you want to inform other groups/people of the strat, then use in-game VOIP, chat, or the stupid battlegrid, there is enough downtime before engagements actually happen to ensure that strats are settled without anything else.

And that's the reason we have NASCAR as only game mode in Quickplay.

Quote

I don't need roles because really there isn't that many roles in this game, at least ones that are useful anyway. AMS Kit Fox, TAG/NARC light, LRM artillery, these are all ways to play this game that should NOT be encouraged and giving them official icons and things like that only reinforces that.

O.k., lets remove them from the "12 vs 12 game mode on big maps", because they work best with coordinated teams that use teamwork, and 12 vs 12 should be "no teamwork & close combat" like Solaris?

Solaris is a much better game mode for that:
Small maps, fair matchmaking, nor LRMs, no NASCAR ect...

Quote

Basically all I'm saying is focus on features that comp players would use because they are the ones who should benefit most from any team play feature.

Comp groups don't need team play features, the use their advantage of coordination to compensate missing team play features.

• Comp groups use their own VOIP, lets remove the VOIP from MWO?
  
• Comp groups play 8 vs 8, lets remove 12 vs 12?
  
• Comp groups use only few mechs, remove all others from the game?

It's quite the opposite: look on the advantages comp players have (coordination) and try to improve that for all players.


And as coordination can't be done in 90 secondes pre match, it must be done before match making starts. That's only possible with groups (choosing Mechs, choosing Leaders.)

Solo Players need a way to group up, and LFG isn't a good tool for that, so it should improved.

• Make it a real Lobby with all active groups listed
  
• Add filters for language, Ping, prefered game mode, ect
  
• Add a chat
  
• Just the stuff mentioned in the 2015 feedback thread...

Solo Players don't have their own VOIP, so the group function needs a VOIP channel that works between the matches.

Edited by Alreech, 30 December 2020 - 04:04 AM.

[DAEDALOS513]

OZHomerOZ, on 30 December 2020 - 12:15 AM, said:

Yeah you did say why but your why is garbage

If group queue dead due to low population and Faction Queue hobbling along due to low population

Why was solo queue the only viable queue, 1000's of times bigger queue that group queue**, despite low population.

** What is a 1000's times bigger than zero, ok solo was million times bigger! Maybe infinity bigger

To refresh your memory the queues were merged due to group queue not being viable, not the other way around

Guess PGI wished some of solo queues viability rubbed off


I have more data points I win!

You have urban mech

I hate beating on the lil guy

They so cute

Groups were merged because people couldn't drop with their friends.. the main highlight of this team-based game. Once they were merged comments stating positive things about the merge far outweighed the negative ones which mainly came from the same people over and over and over again.. many comments were also made about players re-installing the game for the first time in years. The merge, although not ideal, was for the greater good.

Forgeling, on 29 December 2020 - 05:50 PM, said:

I think attaching the voice to a pilot makes the most sense, because it's a pilot who is talking.

Also voicepaks or individual lines for bitchin betty would be cool to earn or pay for..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 30 December 2020 - 09:43 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Alreech, on 30 December 2020 - 03:59 AM, said:

So you don't open the minimap to check there the enemy or your team is?
The battlegrid itself (minimap) is usefull, it tools to place orders are trash (and could replaced with the same command wheel used in the UI).

The battle grid is a separate feature from the minimap, the battlegrid is how you plant the attack/defend things, the minimap is just that. You can have one without the other. That said, having visual nav points or symbols on your screen instead of the minimap would actually be more useful because well its important enough that it can clog my screen up and be okay with that.

Alreech, on 30 December 2020 - 03:59 AM, said:

Grid coordinates are named sections of the map. And they work universal.

I mean I'd be okay with both but you would need a way to change between the two because having them layered over each other would most likely be too much.

Alreech, on 30 December 2020 - 03:59 AM, said:

You are right, Lance Leaders and Commands are not necessary for premade groups who know each other and use their own VOIP.
It's necessary for a team of 12 random players who just meet, some of them don't want to use VOIP due language.

• Comp Teams don't meet 90 seconds before the match starts the first time.
  
• Comp Teams use their own command structure (drop leaders) and own VOIP.
  
• Comp Teams use strict discipline while using VOIP, and their own "language" of shorts to communicate (making tools like the command wheel or grid coordinates obsoletet).

So what's your idea to improve the coordination of a "team" of 12 random players who never meet before?


"Just do it as the comp scene does it, you don't need no ingame tools"

That's the reason stuff like choosing Lance Leaders, choosing Mech, ect should be done before match making even starts.
And that's the thing premade groups do:
They choose their mechs, they choose a drop leader and then they go into matchmaking.

And that's the reason we have NASCAR as only game mode in Quickplay.

I think you have a little high expectations of 12 random strangers. Currently no one is going to pay attention to it and if they do it is most likely going to be some harebrained idea of someone who doesn't know what they are doing. I see it used maybe 5% of my games and it is generally by someone awful. Get rid of them and just give us better way to do callouts and that's about all you can do to make PUG queue more coordinated. Ultimately coordination is about trust, this is the main reason NASCAR happens. I can't hold a position if I don't trust you to hold your angle and deter the enemy from pushing me with a murderball. You aren't going to build that trust with all the features in the world and thus why you will always end up with these things.

Alreech, on 30 December 2020 - 03:59 AM, said:

Comp groups don't need team play features, the use their advantage of coordination to compensate missing team play features.

• Comp groups use their own VOIP, lets remove the VOIP from MWO?
  
• Comp groups play 8 vs 8, lets remove 12 vs 12?
  
• Comp groups use only few mechs, remove all others from the game?

I think you are taking my meaning a bit out of context, what I meant was more focus on teamplay features that comp players use in the game to make things easier. One feature MWO added that MW4 didn't have for example is the little letter designation by each target. We used to callout by the callsign of the pilot. This makes it much easier (though it using the phonetic alphabet would actually be better imo). Things like:

• Making it easier to designate priority targets for example. Called targets can be rough if there are duplicate chassis, so having a way to indicate visually and on the map would be awesome.
  
• Be able to ping locations with different context like enemy location, targets under ECM, hold/attack/defend positions, etc all without having to go in to a separate screen and lose the ability to pilot while doing it.
  
• Something that indicates chassis/weight class of targets so you can actually view drop decs as they are detected.
  
• Last known damage readout for targets.

Things like that are useful for everybody but just so happen to also be useful for comp. Those are good features.

Also, I do support the removal of 12v12 both for the concerns that too many people on the map makes the experience worse but also because the population isn't big.

Alreech, on 30 December 2020 - 03:59 AM, said:

Solo Players need a way to group up, and LFG isn't a good tool for that, so it should improved.

• Make it a real Lobby with all active groups listed
  
• Add filters for language, Ping, prefered game mode, ect
  
• Add a chat
  
• Just the stuff mentioned in the 2015 feedback thread...

That'd be nice, but I don't think that is a necessity nor would I say that is a huge priority with moving the minimum viable product further along. That's something you add once you start to experience some growth.

Alreech, on 30 December 2020 - 03:59 AM, said:

Solo Players don't have their own VOIP, so the group function needs a VOIP channel that works between the matches.

That's fair, most games support this as well.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 30 December 2020 - 05:08 PM.

[Tarteso]

DAEDALOS513, on 30 December 2020 - 09:44 AM, said:

Groups were merged because people couldn't drop with their friends.. the main highlight of this team-based game. Once they were merged comments stating positive things about the merge far outweighed the negative ones which mainly came from the same people over and over and over again.. many comments were also made about players re-installing the game for the first time in years. The merge, although not ideal, was for the greater good.

People can play with friends in FP anytime. Most positive comments came from group players, of course. I remember some of those positive comments, like "less NASCAR now" or "most ejoyable and balanced matches" or "less stomps now", etc which have been proven false.

A lot of people -not the same people over and over again- think that the merge has been less than ideal, trashing even more the balance and nullifying any posible improvement from the new PSR system. Because the real thing is that people don´t group just to play with friends, they do it also to win more matches. More wins=more fun, right?
A better and smarter from PGI move would have been the improvement of FP for group play (the real team-based game) and don´t mess with QP (the quick random pew-pew game most people want just to play a few matches and waste some free time). But the soup was the fastest and cheaper move. It was ok then (maintenance mode), but if they keep this now I´m waiting for a honest and reasoned story.

Anyway, I think that most solos would not have any problem with groups in QP IF both the MM and PSR system worked reasonably well and match results like 12-2 were rare.

[DAEDALOS513]

Tarteso, on 30 December 2020 - 11:20 AM, said:

People can play with friends in FP anytime. Most positive comments came from group players, of course. I remember some of those positive comments, like "less NASCAR now" or "most ejoyable and balanced matches" or "less stomps now", etc which have been proven false.

A lot of people -not the same people over and over again- think that the merge has been less than ideal, trashing even more the balance and nullifying any possible improvement from the new PSR system. Because the real thing is that people don´t group just to play with friends, they do it also to win more matches. More wins=more fun, right?
A better and smarter from PGI move would have been the improvement of FP for group play (the real team-based game) and don´t mess with QP (the quick random pew-pew game most people want just to play a few matches and waste some free time). But the soup was the fastest and cheaper move. It was ok then (maintenance mode), but if they keep this now I´m waiting for a honest and reasoned story.

Anyway, I think that most solos would not have any problem with groups in QP IF both the MM and PSR system worked reasonably well and match results like 12-2 were rare.

-The population is too low atm to support all day FP (and playing against same team, win or lose, gets stale fast).. so telling groupers to go there not viable.
-There will always be stomps regardless.. whether in solo or group.. i played in both in the past. People just like placing blame when they get stomped.. before the great merge MM was the culprit.. now it's soup queue..
-PGI wasn't about to invest the time and money into improving FP.. the timing wasn't right. So ya, they picked the low hanging fruit of combining queues. I'm sure this will be temporary if all goes well.
-Yes, winning is fun.. playing with friends is moar fun.. win or lose.
-When so many people decided to reinstall the game after years... it can't have been all that wrong a decision.
-and yes, whiners do post and repost much more often than those expressing praise.. sad fact

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 04 January 2021 - 10:44 AM.

[Vlad Ward]

I don't think 12-2 will ever really be rare in MWO simply because there are no respawns (even FP doesn't have "true" respawns. Once your 100-tonner is gone it's gone).

In a perfectly balanced match, the first team to get a kill is going to have an advantage. From that point onwards the match is no longer perfectly balanced. 12 players are fighting 11 players. Then 12 players are fighting 10 players. The advantage compounds and the opportunity to regain equilibrium vanishes quickly.

Matches that actually do end 12-10 are not just close. They're razor thin.

Edited by Vlad Ward, 30 December 2020 - 11:45 AM.

[DAEDALOS513]

Vlad Ward, on 30 December 2020 - 11:44 AM, said:

I don't think 12-2 will ever really be rare in MWO simply because there are no respawns (even FP doesn't have "true" respawns. Once your 100-tonner is gone it's gone).

In a perfectly balanced match, the first team to get a kill is going to have an advantage. From that point onwards the match is no longer perfectly balanced. 12 players are fighting 11 players. Then 12 players are fighting 10 players. The advantage compounds and the opportunity to regain equilibrium vanishes quickly.

Matches that actually do end 12-10 are not just close. They're razor thin.

Yep.. not only lack of re-spawns, but the sheer amount of variables that go into each match (pilot skill; is pilot in a mech he does well in (regardless of skill); is mech unskilled; how many meta mech's are on each team; does your build support the map your on; did pilot forget to equip ammo; and on and on).. all these variables makes eliminating stomps a fools errand.

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 30 December 2020 - 11:56 AM.

[KillerCat]

I'd like to see these new systems as part of a "Timeline Advancement" (even though some of them are suppose to be available in the civil war era)

IS :
- X-Pulse lasers
- Light Autocannons
- Endo-Composite
- Heavy Ferro-Fibrous

Clan :

- Hyper Assault Gauss
- Ferro Lamellor

There's also Variable speed pulses and MMLs, but since those weapons are most likely going to be implemented like the Snub-nose and ATM respectively, I'd rather not see them at all (or fix the ATM mechanics first before addind them if they do make the cut)

[Gas Guzzler]

How about adding Hyper Assault Gauss Rifles? Clans didn’t exactly get a bunch of new ballistics with the Civil War tech. Between LBX and Gauss Charge, I feel like it would be some combination of those three mechanics.

Charge up, fire an LBX style spread with Gauss projectile/velocities. I would tune it with a tighter spread than current LBX though.