261 replies to this topic

[Vercors]

Haipyng, on 27 June 2021 - 06:06 AM, said:

Matchmaker is hopeless ..

I have deleted my post because the traduction i made from the post of Nuttyrat make no sense (english not my native language). this precision is necessary to avoid any unnecessary controversy.

[Dr Cara Carcass]

The Basilisk, on 27 June 2021 - 05:45 AM, said:

Guys, all of you who deny that the game itself hasn't changed due to the last patches are either blind and deaf or so utterly oblivious and jaded that you should considder taking a break for your self to get a correct perspective of reality itself again or you should just stop commenting since you seem simply to be unable to understand what ppl are saying.

Yes the game has changed !
It got faster !
The perceived surviability of mechs dropped to nowhere !
Lights are just footsoldiers now
Mediums feel like micro mechs or elementals
Heavys feel like lights or mediums and the Assaults feel like the Mediums I recall from the start of the game.

Only reason I give this a spin now and then is cuz its an old game I know and shooting other guys faces that aren't so twitchy fast that they have already reacted when I started to lift the weapon makes fun now and then.

But the original reason, because its BATTLETECH is absolutely gone.

Its just a hillarious carricature of mechcombat.
Paste gaudy comicstyle or WoW like graphics over it and nobody would realize the difference till some twitcher or screenshot guy points it out.

Oh...and good work on the Polar map its actualy realy fun even after some playthroughs.

Actually i did not feel any difference in my time to live.

[Novakaine]

It's not the mode or even the game.
I can't even get people from my own unit to stick together in a lance formation.
To even support each other.
Everyone just mindlessly lumber straight to the middle to fight.
Most maps are so huge why fight in the middle every single time?

[GuardDogg]

Novakaine, on 27 June 2021 - 08:44 AM, said:

It's not the mode or even the game.
I can't even get people from my own unit to stick together in a lance formation.
To even support each other.
Everyone just mindlessly lumber straight to the middle to fight.
Most maps are so huge why fight in the middle every single time?

Exactly
The other day, on Polar, I told people to hold a H11 (a base before center). Then snipe at them, "Pull" them in, and some will advance a few at a time. Surprised the other team was doing the same. The team I was in, was getting desperate (wtf is this?), impatient and moved to center. We ended up scattered in center, and won the round. But goes to show players have no patience, run to center and the outcome ends there. Like people have no tactical minds or toying with the other team in having fun. Like does anyone in MWO ever play chess to disrupt the mind of your opponent? That is how I think in MWO as well.

[General Solo]

When their is no reasonable chance of winning game after game due to large skill gaps, hope is replaced by despair
Then pilots trudge towards their fate like automation's on automatic pilot
The spark of motivation, caring and creativity dies.

[Bud Crue]

Haipyng, on 27 June 2021 - 06:06 AM, said:

• Hit registration.

Speaking of hit registration, anyone else having issues with AC20s? I swear the rounds seem to pass right through targets over the last few days.
Other than that, the game is fine. Yes, some of us are getting owned more often than not, what with the increased damage across the board, which seems to me to be favoring more high alpha trading builds; and the return of a lot of old hands who actually know what they are doing, but we'll get used to it. Looking forward to the JJ pass and the quirk pass.

[LordBraxton]

The faster the TTK the less fun this game is.

Game was best in 3025 with single heatsinks tbh, slugfest forever.

Cauldron should have buffed mobility and armor first, and weapons last, if at all.

Edited by LordBraxton, 27 June 2021 - 11:06 AM.

[pattonesque]

General Solo, on 27 June 2021 - 09:45 AM, said:

When their is no reasonable chance of winning game after game due to large skill gaps, hope is replaced by despair
Then pilots trudge towards their fate like automation's on automatic pilot
The spark of motivation, caring and creativity dies.

I see this kind of extreme loser mentality in a lot of pubbies and they'd win far more if they stopped immediately giving up the moment they see a name or two they recognize on the other team

[nuttyrat]

General Solo, on 27 June 2021 - 05:11 AM, said:

Did you know that Jarls can't tell the difference between a new player and an alt account.

https://steamcharts.com/app/342200

Steam only counts steam accounts, not alts unlike Jarls List, and according to steam numbers are down

https://leaderboard.isengrim.org/stats

Many if not most of those new players according to Jarls List can be alts farming skillgap.
No way of telling.
But with Steam an alt user would have to create a new steam account as well to count, as a new user.

So was going to leave it be (I've contributed my piece to this discussion) but a few things about the numbers presented in Steam that you are not taking into account:

1) Steam reports concurrent players in its client, and not total number of unique players in a day
2) PGI has said on a few occasions that you can take the concurrent number and double it to get roughly what the actual number is (A lot of people still install and play via the stand-alone client)
3) Steam does not give you a total count of unique players in a day or month (this is the important part)

The reason it is important to keep these things in mind is because the Steam numbers, while encouraging, can be a bit misleading. They don't show you what the player churn is, for example (churn in this context is where some people stop playing and others start playing). Steam also doesn't report on the very useful metric of new players vs returning players.

To further highlight the challenge of Steam numbers: PGI in its disclosure to EG7 during the acquisition put the number at "tens of thousands of daily players" at a time when MWO was at its lowest. Steam numbers do not corroborate this in any way, however Jarl's does. Jarl's is not perfect though as it doesn't capture the ultra casual player; someone who plays less than 10 games per month.

Re Steam numbers being down for the past 30 days: It is summer time in North America which normally see's a dip in players because most normal people are going outside, on vacations, etc. With COVID lockdowns easing in many countries, I'm willing to bet that folks are more inclined to go out and enjoy the things they haven't been able to do in over a year.

Regarding alt accounts ... I think it is fair to say that some of the new accounts are alts but to claim that most of them are alts is a bit of a reach. Have had numerous new players stop by my twitch streams, and there have been more than a few streamers pick up the game who never played it before.

Anyway, back to the original discussion!

[nuttyrat]

Quote

I'm happy to see this idea make sense for you (even if this is not possible for the reason you say before). Strangely Justcallme A S H like your post and disagree with me when I write the same about spliting grouped players in differents teams.

No matter what, return to a separation of solo and grouped players is already possible now the population ingame have increase.

Vercors .. I wasn't able to see your original post because you deleted it but just to clarify what myself (and others including Justcallme A S H) have been saying all along is that a secondary matchmaker is something that would help to improve match quality, however the post that you linked was saying something very different.

In my example I mentioned a group of 4 JGx players and then two random EmP players. The two EmP players were not in a group in my example, they were both in the queue as solo players. A secondary matchmaker should not split up a formed group of players, but should consider putting skilled players on the other team to go against that group .. rather than putting them on the same team. Right now this is just random, which results in lack of balance within a match. I hope this clarifies things a bit!

Edited by nuttyrat, 27 June 2021 - 11:40 AM.

[Thorqemada]

Jarls does show new players and it seems the majority of the recent playerspike was returners that outnumbeted new players/accounts by a factor of roughly 8:1 which shows the low hanging fruit effort had some impact yet it did not achieve to ignite any interest in the game outside the "circle of the initiated".

If some of these new players/accounts are in fact new alts it means its...sorry...a blurp in a dead ***.

[nuttyrat]

General Solo, on 27 June 2021 - 09:45 AM, said:

When their is no reasonable chance of winning game after game due to large skill gaps, hope is replaced by despair
Then pilots trudge towards their fate like automation's on automatic pilot
The spark of motivation, caring and creativity dies.

While I don't agree with the defeatist attitude, I can certainly agree with you that having an unbalanced lobby can make the game very hard to win, though not impossible. Having a secondary matchmaker after the lobby has been created would help to address this .. it's just too bad that there is a lack of resources available to actually put it into action.

I have won in matches against VERY difficult opponents ... it wasn't easy but its possible if you work with your team!

[Vercors]

nuttyrat, on 27 June 2021 - 11:31 AM, said:

I wasn't able to see your original post because you deleted it

The only think is missing from my original post is the part quoted from your post.

For the rest of your example, this is what I understood too late.

[John Bronco]

Lockheed_, on 27 June 2021 - 11:50 AM, said:

from my understanding getting new players was not the main goal during the current rebalancing phase. They said something along the lines, that they would start advertising and focusing on new players once the overhaul is complete.

Let's be honest this is an oldass game on an oldass engine, it's going to be a lot easier to entice lapsed players to come back (many of whom left due to the past decisions that are now being unwound), than to get brand new people. But either is good of course.

[Tarl Cabot]

General Solo, on 27 June 2021 - 05:22 AM, said:

Well if the game cannot find 7 solo's in T1-T3, then the Tier gates open wide and the game will get them from T4-T5 as well.
So a T4 or T5 solo player will face possibly a T1 group, not the be solution if you want to keep new players.
Well if that keeps up eventually yes the game won't start.

Wait times go up
And History repeats it self, for the 3rd time.

Not all drops have groups in them, and even those you are not sure of is because PGI has not added any additional tags to acknowledge them.

You speak of the MM opening up the gates, but do you realize that Vxheous comment " at least very least, 7 players on each side must be solos or the game won't start" even now, would mean if there were an abundance of groups, the max amount of grouped players is 5 (3-man+2-man), and if the Quick Play queue was LACKING solo players, it would be GROUPED players waiting and waiting...Quickplay is not Faction Play, where in FP it takes groups filled by solo players.

If the solo population was to DROP, grouped players would feel the sting first. Not all drops have groups in them. It would be nice if PGI would follow up on their thread to show the percentage of game formed with groups in them, then break it up as 2-man only, mixture of 2-man/3-man and 4-man only. And overall, weekday percentage vs weekends.

And I will add PGI should replace the tonnage limits and replacement them with 1 mech/weight class, then follow up with matching weight classes on the team vs team. This does not mean matching weight classes for the groups but team overall. 3-man drops with 1 light/1 heavy/ 1 assault, then it is solo players who would be selected to match the 1 light/1 heavy/1 assault.

I would also go as far as limiting to either 2-man + 2-man only, and 3-man would be put in the same class as 4-man, or even removing 4-man completely. Even if it stayed it would be 1 light/1 medium/1 heavy/1 assault.

[Novakaine]

LordBraxton, on 27 June 2021 - 11:06 AM, said:

The faster the TTK the less fun this game is.

Game was best in 3025 with single heatsinks tbh, slugfest forever.

Cauldron should have buffed mobility and armor first, and weapons last, if at all.

I'd pay a monthly subscription fee for a 3025 mode.

[Alex Morgaine]

I just put together a 4HP with 9 lrm5s, Its a blast!
just gotta find stupid or insane things to do

[LordNothing]

justcallme A S H, on 25 June 2021 - 09:17 PM, said:

Can't have been too bad if you've played 1400 games in 7 months

this game has a lot of chasing the dragon. you can do a dozen or so bad games in a row trying to get that one good game that is somewhat of a rare unicorn. its cause for either a temporary or permanent burnout. game needs real and regular sources of novelty. somehow i dont think balance tweaks, new mech variants, and the occasional map redux are enough. these things, while good, are very run of the mill. i only seem to show up when there is an event or a patch, and not for very long.

[Alex Morgaine]

oh burnout, yeah it happens. take a month or two to rest then see if it still tickles your happy spot or if you need downtime still. 'swhat keeps me playing new vegas XD
that and mods

[MechWarrior414712]

Never has been