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[InnerSphereNews]

Solaris 7 Season 11 Event and News

Check out the Solaris 7 Season 11 Event

EVENT PAGE >>>

Important Announcement!

As of this season we are changing season-ending rewards for Solaris Mode.

Why are we doing this?

• Solaris is one of the least played modes in MechWarrior Online in terms of total players and time spent in the mode.
• It is also the only mode with "Seasons" requiring more content created for it than other modes.
• In the future (next year) our intention is to continue to create Seasonal Rewards however they will be either Mode agnostic or for a mode that gets the most engagement.

Below are the rewards for Season 11 of Solaris as you can see the Decal and Warhorns have been removed.

Solaris Season 7 Rewards

Criteria to qualify for the prizes, players must have played a minimum of 25 matches in the given Solaris 7 Divisions.

Note that these rewards do STACK if you participated in multiple Divisions.

Per Division	Decal Reward	MC Reward	C-Bills Reward	GXP Reward	Warhorn Reward
1st	No Decal	5000 MC	25,000,000 C-Bills	250,000 GXP	No Warhorn
2nd	No Decal	2500 MC	20,000,000 C-Bills	225,000 GXP	No Warhorn
3rd	No Decal	1000 MC	12,500,000 C-Bills	200,000 GXP	No Warhorn
Top 10	No Decal	500 MC	8,000,000 C-Bills	150,000 GXP	No Warhorn
Top 25	No Decal	250 MC	6,000,000 C-Bills	100,000 GXP	No Warhorn
Top 100	No Decal	100 MC	3,000,000 C-Bills	80,000 GXP	No Warhorn
Everyone with a minimum Participation of 25 + games In Solaris mode	No Decal	50 MC	2,000,000 C-Bills	65,000 GXP	No Warhorn

[RickySpanish]

So to further incentivise participation in this mode, you decided to remove some rewards? Surely I am misunderstanding this? That makes zero sense, why not just keep the previous season's decals and warhorn?

When I read the first part of the post I got a little excited, I thought maybe there was something cool being added to get players to take another look at the mode. But no, the exact opposite is the case.

By the way, while you're lowering expectations, would you mind lowering new player tiers as well?

Edited by RickySpanish, 24 November 2020 - 01:09 PM.

[D V Devnull]

Huh... I think I'm gonna just drop my head on the table here... *facedesk*

To give you a rough idea, PGI Staff, I didn't see anyone at all out there that was having an issue with the Decals being provided. But now, even I won't have a chance to get any of them with these changes if I did ever think of trying to touch Solaris again. Also, people were only asking for re-utilization of more than just one specific WarHorn item, in order to provide better variety. Flatly taking these things away is going to result in more people not wanting to play in the Solaris Mode at all, which is likely counter to anything that you intended.

If you're trying to grow this part of MWO's current design, please start with being less out to junk things, as well as following some of the suggestions that people are trying to get implemented, and instead make the Solaris Mode's Functions more helpful to the player. Like people have already been calling for, allow them to queue for multiple divisions at the same time, and be more transparent with telling them if the MatchMaker is thoroughly unable to manage finding them an appropriate opponent. At that point, people will not be able to blame you folks at PGI so much anymore, and will have to start trying to talk each other into getting into playing the Solaris Game Mode so that they can have any appropriate pool of opposition.

History in regards to MWO has shown that pessimism, negativity, nerfing, and destruction will only lead to collapse. Try being the opposite of that, PGI Staff, and you'll have a chance of having something go in the intended right direction.

~Mr. D. V. "trying to be the voice of reason that helps unbreak Solaris before it dies totally" Devnull

[Domenoth]

65,000 GXP: enough for 81 SP
2,000,000 CBills: enough for 44 SP

80,000 GXP: enough for 100 SP
3,000,000 CBills: enough for 66 SP

Seams odd to offer a "reward" that costs so much more to actually use... especially now that GSP exists.

Edited by Domenoth, 24 November 2020 - 01:28 PM.

[Horseman]

InnerSphereNews, on 24 November 2020 - 12:21 PM, said:

Solaris 7 Season 11 Event and News

Check out the Solaris 7 Season 11 Event

EVENT PAGE >>>

So for a low-engagement mode you've decided to launch an event on a weekday? FFS, I've been telling you guys that you should do it on a weekend and structure the event to reward participation over more than one day.

Quote

It is also the only mode with "Seasons" requiring more content created for it than other modes.

What "content" would that be, the warhorn you've been recycling for two years in a row with one small piece of the texture updated with a different number or the participation reward decals also updated with one small piece of the texture updated with a different number?

D V Devnull, on 24 November 2020 - 01:11 PM, said:

To give you a rough idea, PGI Staff, I didn't see anyone at all out there that was having an issue with the Decals being provided.

You could get multiple per division per season. The only "issue" with that was with where they were in the decals menu (should appear under a separate drop-down option and NEVER share categories with the others)

RickySpanish, on 24 November 2020 - 01:07 PM, said:

So to further incentivise participation in this mode, you decided to remove some rewards? Surely I am misunderstanding this? That makes zero sense, why not just keep the previous season's decals and warhorn?

You mean the same warhorn they fed us since season four

[Nightbird]

No one plays Solaris, why fuss about nothing? Priority should be this year's Turkey event starting tomorrow.

[FallGuy0815]

Full ACK. "Content-Creation", lmao. Remove the Season-specific part of the warhorns from 1-4 altoghether (one-time effort) and each season hand out "WARHORN_"+(season%4).

Automate the decal-generation. Automate the event creation and rewards process while you are at it. If you are telling me it takes more than a few hours every three months to launch a new solaris season, "create reward content" and launch the event your process is not working perfectly anyway.

Use the time saved to do the multiply division queing DV and others have proposed so many times before.

As for GXP rewards. As a selfish man i would love GSP instead but that would mean a hidden (and substantial) increase in C-Bill rewards. I am "rich" in C-Bills, but lack XP, so from game mechanics it makes sense to hand out free XP and make the C-Bills in your account worth spending for something, no real complaint there (except "gimme more").

[Rosarius]

Do my eyes deceive me? 50 MC participation award, and people are complaining about not getting decals and a warhorn that hasn't changed since season 4? Beggars / choosers I guess...

I believe including 50 MC as a default prize is a step in the right direction if the end goal is to attract players to the game mode. Having the rewards table displayed in the same place as the kickoff event is also a step in the right direction. I'll be interested to see if it has an impact on the number of players who make it onto the ladder at the end of season 11

[Extra Guac]

No one will miss the decals & warhorns too much, but it makes no sense to kill the rewards entirely. What's stopping you from giving seasonal rewards in more than 1 game mode?

[FallGuy0815]

Rosarius, on 24 November 2020 - 02:06 PM, said:

Do my eyes deceive me? 50 MC participation award, and people are complaining about not getting decals and a warhorn that hasn't changed since season 4? Beggars / choosers I guess...

I believe including 50 MC as a default prize is a step in the right direction if the end goal is to attract players to the game mode. Having the rewards table displayed in the same place as the kickoff event is also a step in the right direction. I'll be interested to see if it has an impact on the number of players who make it onto the ladder at the end of season 11

Less than 100 in most divs, as every season. Do not get me wrong, i would trade the damn horns and decals for more participants any day, but "the content creation takes too long"? It ired me. Should have picked my words more carefully, sorry to everyone it concerns.

[VonBruinwald]

InnerSphereNews, on 24 November 2020 - 12:21 PM, said:

As of this season we are changing season-ending rewards for Solaris Mode.

Why are we doing this?

• It is also the only mode with "Seasons" requiring more content created for it than other modes.

Below are the rewards for Season 11 of Solaris as you can see the Decal and Warhorns have been removed.

What I am taking from this is "creating decals and warhorns is too much work".

Warhorns, maybe, but decals, really?

Maybe the intention is to create some generic warhorns that can be reused every season but in that case why not just cycle the ones we have?

So much for my dream of adorning my mechs with a WORD - CLANBUSTER decal. Can we unsticky the thread if all hope is lost.

[Matt Newman]

Creating war horns and Decals is not "too much work"
It just doesn't make sense to do it for the least played mode in the game.
(Which is also getting gamed by the same players season after season to farm MC, C-Bills, and GSP.)
We (Daeron and I) have been examining the feedback of the players but we are also examining the data of what people are playing. We have to consider both sides.

People in this tread complain about the rewards removal when they haven't played Solaris in 4 seasons.
Meanwhile the top earner in Solaris mode earned 47,250 MC in the last 3 seasons.

We're poised to take action on your concerns and we're all chomping at the bit here to transform MWO next year.

This move today just happen to be the right time for me to remove 1 thing that takes up resources so we can start using those resources for the greater good in the future.

I would WAY rather have new Warhorns and Decals for everyone to earn than just the same top 100 Solaris players season after season.

[Horseman]

Matt Newman, on 24 November 2020 - 03:20 PM, said:

Creating war horns and Decals is not "too much work"
It just doesn't make sense to do it for the least played mode in the game.

And you really wouldn't need to if the warhorns and decals weren't tagged with a season. That's the issue, really. If the season references were removed from the warhorn names/textures and the ranking decals you wouldn't need to invest any work into them for the future seasons.
At that point you can just put the warhorns on a rotation so that each of the existing S7 warhorns is obtainable in one season over the year (no more complaints about getting the same warhorn seven seasons in a row) and you're pretty much done with it for the foreseeable future.

Quote

People in this tread complain about the rewards removal when they haven't played Solaris in 4 seasons.

Except for those who, like myself, have played it season by season.

Quote

Meanwhile the top earner in Solaris mode earned 47,250 MC in the last 3 seasons.

That sounds like a problem with the reward structure rather than player engagement - although the former can drive the latter. Maybe if there were more low-hanging fruit casual players could get from S7 more of them would queue into it? Just a thought.

Quote

I would WAY rather have new Warhorns and Decals for everyone to earn than just the same top 100 Solaris players season after season.

While the warhorns weren't great, when S7 was the only place to obtain those specific horns it was a small extra reason for more players to engage with the mode. Keeping the same warhorn for seven seasons kind of removed that motivation and now you're cutting it away entirely.

Edited by Horseman, 24 November 2020 - 04:37 PM.

[FallGuy0815]

Just a quick reminder that the game is still named "Mechwarrior Online Solaris 7". You (not you as in Matt/Daeron, but PGI) decided to _REBRANDED_ the entire game for this one.

It is not about the horns/decals - take them away, you are right: You have more important places to spend your time. But Launching S7 with such a fanfare and then telling us it is not worth 8h of dev time to keep it in suspended animation as a side notice ... it does not spark joy.

Blaming the players who actually play the gamemode of "abusing the system" does not help either.

PS:
This gamemode ist fun, the learning curve is just even steeper than QP or (at the beginning) even FW, and forcing cadets who installed "Mechwarrior Online Solaris 7" to play matches against skilled out meta-mechs in an Osiris or a not fully armored Nightstar drives them away for sure.

I will play against the usual suspects when i get the chance. However, this gamemode deserves more love, not less. If this is not viable in the near or far future, i can fully understand, but then think about switching back to simply MWO instead of MWOS7 - would be a hard bullet to bite, but carrying S7 in the name while openly admitting that no one is willing to touch S7 with a ten-foot pole is not helping new player experience either.

[The6thMessenger]

Just got 3 matches off Div1, and now I can't get anymore.

I don't think you can just garner more interest by putting in more rewards.

[thievingmagpi]

Matt consistently the best part of PGI

[RickySpanish]

The6thMessenger, on 24 November 2020 - 06:14 PM, said:

Just got 3 matches off Div1, and now I can't get anymore.

I don't think you can just garner more interest by putting in more rewards.

You certainly won't garner interest by making it even less interesting though.

[Tenchuu]

I tried once when I rejoined, got blasted to hell in a small mech doing almost no damage after waiting in que for a long time, and didn't bother going again. I'm delighted if the extra time is spent elsewhere. But it makes a lot more sense to announce at least some of the new items at the same time. I agree on the steep learning curve, I agree with the reduced prizes, it seems very much to me like you were trying to solve the problem of the outlier when the basis is the issue. Great, someone got way too much out of it by gaming it. Well, those few people are almost definitely not people the rest of us are going to come into contact with on a regular basis, so why does it matter? I honestly don't care if a few people are cheating and it's not actually affecting the game balance, and I honestly don't see why you do, either. If anything, trying to fix that problem should have fallen to the wayside. I was assuming this new season was going to be an attempt to make it better, or at least make sense...hell, you could even set it to only run on certain days or certain times so you can up the number of people in que, but in any case focusing on some form of "gaming the system" is not nearly as important as finding ways to make the game fun and profitable, which making even slightly better might do. Less punitive, more positive, as others have said.

[Voice of Kerensky]

Someone complained that they got tired of the same prize warhorn at the end of the every season.

InnerSphereNews, on 24 November 2020 - 12:21 PM, said:

Below are the rewards for Season 11 of Solaris as you can see the Decal and Warhorns have been removed.

Hahahahhaaaa!!! XD I love you, PGI!

P.S. Be careful with your wishes, guys, they may come true. Only not at all in the way you would like.

[LordNothing]

Matt Newman, on 24 November 2020 - 03:20 PM, said:

Creating war horns and Decals is not "too much work"
It just doesn't make sense to do it for the least played mode in the game.
(Which is also getting gamed by the same players season after season to farm MC, C-Bills, and GSP.)
We (Daeron and I) have been examining the feedback of the players but we are also examining the data of what people are playing. We have to consider both sides.

People in this tread complain about the rewards removal when they haven't played Solaris in 4 seasons.
Meanwhile the top earner in Solaris mode earned 47,250 MC in the last 3 seasons.

We're poised to take action on your concerns and we're all chomping at the bit here to transform MWO next year.

This move today just happen to be the right time for me to remove 1 thing that takes up resources so we can start using those resources for the greater good in the future.

I would WAY rather have new Warhorns and Decals for everyone to earn than just the same top 100 Solaris players season after season.

can you bake the seasonal solaris rewards into the accolades system and remove the seasonal resets all together? rewards to those who play the mode, proportional to their engagement.