261 replies to this topic

[BelligerentEngine]

I just started playing the game again (haven't played since launch) and having a decent amount of fun in PSR Tier 5-3 games; got to tier 2 and its a completely different and f---ed up experience for solo queue. No-one uses voip, unbalanced tonnage every other game, every single game is a blowout that's not much fun on the giving or receiving end. The only way I can get a fun game going again is queue with friends who haven't played as much to 'beat up' on lower tiers, or maybe just create a new account.

[w0qj]

A warm welcome back to MWO!
Also been away since MWO launch... came back last summer.

Word has it that Discord is the go-to for ingame voip...

Constantly leveling up your stable of unskilled mechs does tend to keep you in the PSR basement... and then you play your favorite mech(s) for enjoyment

BelligerentEngine, on 30 June 2021 - 07:37 AM, said:

I just started playing the game again (haven't played since launch) and having a decent amount of fun in PSR Tier 5-3 games; got to tier 2 and its a completely different and f---ed up experience for solo queue. No-one uses voip, unbalanced tonnage every other game, every single game is a blowout that's not much fun on the giving or receiving end. The only way I can get a fun game going again is queue with friends who haven't played as much to 'beat up' on lower tiers, or maybe just create a new account.

Edited by w0qj, 30 June 2021 - 07:54 AM.

[BelligerentEngine]

Unfortunately I'm good enough at the game to consistently do well enough to bump my PSR even on unskilled mechs enough to keep me above tier 3. Mind you I'm not complaining about people being _better_ at the game than I am, I enjoy a decent challenge and dislike beating up on the helpless. That's most of my problem with the state of matchmaking, its regularly imbalanced enough where its just shooting fish in a barrel or being carried one way or the other.

[Inatu Elimor]

Me sometimes worries. The discusion in a nutshell:
Khobai accuses Cauldron to manipulate MWO for their own benefit. I admire him for his fighting persistence. Cauldron spokesman Ash denies vehemently.
But... Cauldron is part of the community, not part of the developer PGI. Divide and rule: PGI is now discharged from the perennial accusations of badly balanced gameplay. Giving the chance, the community cannot solve the problems themselves!
Khobai and Cauldron, we should now bring up the rear. The party who refuses carries the guilt.

Edited by Inatu Elimor, 30 June 2021 - 08:11 AM.

[Khobai]

I have given cauldron the chance to consider some of my suggestions. if they do so in earnest they can prove theyre doing whats best for the community.

Leone, on 29 June 2021 - 12:34 PM, said:

They did. You ignored it.

~Leone.

jarls list is not evidence because its a known fact people can create alts on jarls list and jarls list cant tell the difference. unless you can subtract out the exact number of alts created those numbers are meaningless. jarls list also doesnt differentiate steam players from non-steam players so it has no way of knowing how many of those players use steam.


But in any event, If cauldron starts considering my suggestions I will give them the benefit of the doubt. I outlined exactly why I dont think the game is fun anymore.

Edited by Khobai, 30 June 2021 - 08:19 AM.

[w0qj]

I fully support the Cauldron's efforts to revitalise MWO, and they've been successful (April to June 2021)!
http://leaderboard.isengrim.org/stats
http://steamcharts.com/app/342200
http://steamdb.info/app/342200/graphs

In fact, MWO might have died without the Cauldron's vital efforts April to June 2021.

Hey, has everyone forgotten about the ignominious March 2021 patch done by MWO/PGI?
MWO/PGI tried to replicate Gulag/Cauldron's ideas to create their own March 2021 patch, and was (rightly) roundly rejected.

It was so bad that I myself (along with quite a few others) might well have quit MWO right there and then, March 2021.

I fully support the Cauldron's efforts to revitalise MWO, and they've been successful (April to June 2021)!

[Saved By The Bell]

Khobai was right again:

I wanted to play MO many years, but I was busy. After corona spike, my life changed, I bought new PC (for game) and started to play in Autumn 2020, though it was a bit late to begin.

[LordBraxton]

I feel like ppl are fanboying for the cauldron team now rofl.

Khobai is right, this game barely has new players, it would be pretty rational to assume that most of them are coming from the number 1 PC gaming platform in the world, rather than the launcher on the website of this niche title. I switched to steam as soon as they offered it, and the 3 people I recruited briefly this year were on steam.

Asking him to prove it with a full legal briefing and then sticking fingers in your ears is fine too I guess. I'd wager the only people using the launcher are the same boomer diehards who still hate steam like 2005 never went out of fashion. These players have probably been around since 2012 like myself.

Edited by LordBraxton, 30 June 2021 - 09:52 AM.

[denAirwalkerrr]

___, on 30 June 2021 - 09:53 AM, said:

Why must the Cauldron and the Khobai fight? We are ALL a Mech Warrior. We LOVE online.

We must come together, both sides, as one. To combine our ideas, in matrimony, to create the best MWO. I beg everyone, please... stop fighting.

Not like they fighting because whatever Khobai says is totally irrelevant to any decisions they will make because for a long time he has been showing total ignorance of other player's opinions in favor of whatever idea fix he has at the moment even after numerous people prove/point out how stupid it is.

Edited by denAirwalkerrr, 30 June 2021 - 11:18 AM.

[Leone]

I'm not even in Cauldron. I'm just trying to keep the misinformation, slander and outright lies at a minimum because I'm worried that some of the new folk I've been seeing might actually believe some of the trash that's been posted, despite the actual evidence posted to disprove it that gets buried under a pile of arguments in poor faith and complete disregard for logic and truth.

Ediit:
For example, this is the 'Proof' that steam's numbers show we've not had a huge uptick in players.

Khobai, on 30 June 2021 - 08:13 AM, said:

jarls list is not evidence because its a known fact people can create alts on jarls list and jarls list cant tell the difference. unless you can subtract out the exact number of alts created those numbers are meaningless. jarls list also doesnt differentiate steam players from non-steam players so it has no way of knowing how many of those players use steam.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 01 July 2021 - 11:07 AM.

[pbiggz]

Leone, on 30 June 2021 - 11:44 AM, said:

I'm not even in Cauldron. I'm just trying to keep the misinformation, slander and outright lies at a minimum because I'm worried that some of the new folk I've been seeing might actually believe some of the trash that's been posted, despite the actual evidence posted to disprove it that gets buried under a pile or arguments in poor faith and complete disregard for logic and truth.

Ediit:
For example, this is the 'Proof' that steam's numbers show we've not had a huge uptick in players.


~Leone.

I will point out that a typical strategy for people who don't have an argument to stand on is to take the quantitative proof you presented for your own argument, and discount it entirely on an arbitrary basis.

I wonder if anyone in this thread has been doing that...

[justcallme A S H]

I have been wondering last few days - what happens in 5-6 months when COVID is pretty much done and MWO population remains around the same level it is now? Suppose that is around Xmas time so maybe it's Santa Claus?

Oddly enough on population looks like June won't be as high as May, guess COVID is over?

Although looking a historical data June is a little lower each year so the trend is being followed. Have to wait and see what July does, going to be an interesting run to the end of the year with new mechpacks and further balance improvements.

[Anomalocaris]

justcallme A S H, on 30 June 2021 - 01:02 PM, said:

Although looking a historical data June is a little lower each year so the trend is being followed. Have to wait and see what July does, going to be an interesting run to the end of the year with new mechpacks and further balance improvements.

Either we're following historical trends or population is being impacted by game development decisions - but you really don't get to switch back and forth when its convenient. If you're going to claim that the precipitous June drop is simply following trends, then you must also attribute April and May gains to historical patterns as well, since we've seen gains every April and May except 2019 when the game was going into maintenance mode and the population cratered.

But I think that would be rather silly as I believe that most population changes in this game are driven by the state of the game - Vxheous pointed out in another thread that you can chart out pop changes and patch notes pretty well and I agree.

While the gains in 2021 were not as substantial as the post-Daeron jumps in 2020, there a lot of positive changes made in the game (and a couple mistakes) in the first half of this year that should get a lot of credit for the population gains. But if you believe that Cauldron changes have improved player numbers and engagement (and I think you do Ash), then you need to seriously investigate why the game would give up 3 months of avg player online gains (see steam charts) in the month of June alone. That's huge, MWO is back below Feb 2021 numbers now. I don't think the actual population will drop that far when Jarl's scrapes the data, but when it comes to short queue times and balanced matches, it's really players online that counts the most and that's way down.

Cauldron has been on a good run. To continue it, really delve into why people aren't playing so much right now, and _if_ it turns out you need to reverse some changes, just do it.

[justcallme A S H]

Of course April and May follow a trend if that's often when people play. Same as holiday seasons for tourist areas and all manner of things - that and sometimes you just can't explain people.

Is the trend the same percentage or larger? It's larger. So that's good.

With the MW5 launch it's not surprising there is a dip. The patch had 8 days vs the usual 12/14 days. The patch was also smaller than anticipated. You also then consider what events were running, what types etc.

Is one month cause for concern? Not really.

[Anomalocaris]

Your call, but I like to get in front of stuff personally. Who is choosing to not play (or reduce play time)? Why?

April/May gains this year were 10%. Even including the negative April/May of 2019, average April/May gains over the past 4 years were 18%. Excluding the maintenance mode era of 2019, April/May gains average 27%.

Average June loss over the last 4 years was almost 15%. About what it was this year.

With all the good things Cauldron has done so far, it raises questions. They'll get answered sooner or later I suppose.

[Vxheous]

Anomalocaris, on 30 June 2021 - 06:59 PM, said:

Your call, but I like to get in front of stuff personally. Who is choosing to not play (or reduce play time)? Why?

April/May gains this year were 10%. Even including the negative April/May of 2019, average April/May gains over the past 4 years were 18%. Excluding the maintenance mode era of 2019, April/May gains average 27%.

Average June loss over the last 4 years was almost 15%. About what it was this year.

With all the good things Cauldron has done so far, it raises questions. They'll get answered sooner or later I suppose.

Personally, I think July and August populations are going to tank, and then September will be an uptick, even more so than in previous years due to lock downs and such being lifted after various countries for summer. People are going to be doing stuff outside the home even more so than in years past because many of us have been "stuck" doing indoor stuff for well over a year.

[justcallme A S H]

Anomalocaris, on 30 June 2021 - 06:59 PM, said:

Your call, but I like to get in front of stuff personally. Who is choosing to not play (or reduce play time)? Why?

April/May gains this year were 10%. Even including the negative April/May of 2019, average April/May gains over the past 4 years were 18%. Excluding the maintenance mode era of 2019, April/May gains average 27%.

Average June loss over the last 4 years was almost 15%. About what it was this year.

With all the good things Cauldron has done so far, it raises questions. They'll get answered sooner or later I suppose.

Overall Cauldron isn't concerned about a drop - a handful of us were actually saying internally there would likely be in JUN pretty early in the month. It isn't so much of a surprise in that regard really.

While it does raise questions without data from PGI (which we don't have) - it is a lot of guess work and speculation and if next month stays the same, goes down or rises will be interesting with so many changes going on. Sometimes much as you look for answers you cannot find them.

Personally think it'll rise somewhere between May/Jun as I think there is a large event coming, new mech pack (that's had excellent sales according to Daeron) and updated map where JUN patch was comparatively small.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 30 June 2021 - 07:31 PM.

[Dogstar]

I'm guessing that some of the fall in numbers is returning players who give it a go for a while and then drop it again for a variety of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the Cauldron changes.

We have to face the fact that, despite the improvements to balance put forward by the Cauldron and implemented by PGI, the essential elements of the game have remained almost entirely unchanged for a loooong time. So returning players will not see much of a difference and that most of the reasons that they left, whatever they are, are still present.

PGI should capitalize on that wave of interest generated by MW5 but they seem to be going a bit slow - one replacement map, that hasn't been all that well received, is progress but it's not much so far. Hopefully they can keep it up and start making some significant changes like new game modes and more/better maps.

[Catra Lanis]

Dogstar, on 30 June 2021 - 11:50 PM, said:

I'm guessing that some of the fall in numbers is returning players who give it a go for a while and then drop it again for a variety of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the Cauldron changes.

We have to face the fact that, despite the improvements to balance put forward by the Cauldron and implemented by PGI, the essential elements of the game have remained almost entirely unchanged for a loooong time. So returning players will not see much of a difference and that most of the reasons that they left, whatever they are, are still present.

PGI should capitalize on that wave of interest generated by MW5 but they seem to be going a bit slow - one replacement map, that hasn't been all that well received, is progress but it's not much so far. Hopefully they can keep it up and start making some significant changes like new game modes and more/better maps.

I feel that the laserfish and others that need absolutely no help get buffed but already underperfoming tincans get no help. I returned this easter after a long breakand now I'm reminded of why I quit.

[Dogstar]

Catra Lanis, on 01 July 2021 - 08:02 AM, said:

I feel that the laserfish and others that need absolutely no help get buffed but already underperfoming tincans get no help. I returned this easter after a long breakand now I'm reminded of why I quit.

I think (without checking the numbers) that the Piranha didn't get any buffs worth talking about and, don't quit quite yet, because the quirks pass is coming which should affect the underperforming mechs. We haven't had much news on that yet so hang in there and keep your fingers crossed.