107 replies to this topic

[jamesbombed00420]

denAirwalkerrr, on 24 August 2021 - 04:10 PM, said:

Welcome to the club. I also couldn't play QP for more then few matches a month but still played a lot of FP with homies.

yeah solaris never hurt fp or qp, I generally only played while fp was dead.

[denAirwalkerrr]

DAEDALOS513, on 24 August 2021 - 04:17 PM, said:

[redacted]

Imma just say it once: the lower TTK the less advantage "compers" have because the longer it is the more missing your shots impacts the fight. And solaris is extremely competitive gamemode where if you're not playing the most most optimized meta you deserve to lose due to how rules are set. Also cauldron buffing **** mech and **** weapon literally noone ever played besides "new players who have no clue how to make good builds" (Locust-1V says hi) makes it so that people not playing the most optimal builds and chassis will perform better that again shows that your own arguements contradict your narrative as per usual.

Edited by Ekson Valdez, 25 August 2021 - 01:24 AM.
quote clean-up

[Lurm God]

Bugger, I loved the game mode but could never get steady matches in AP timezone. I hope you find a positive way to reinvigorate the mode.

[denAirwalkerrr]

Lurm God, on 24 August 2021 - 04:33 PM, said:

Bugger, I loved the game mode but could never get steady matches in AP timezone. I hope you find a positive way to reinvigorate the mode.

TBH it can be fixed but it’s certainly not something PGI can do anytime soon.

[Rosarius]

DAEDALOS513, on 24 August 2021 - 04:17 PM, said:

[redacted]

PGI / Cauldron changes have shown uptrends in MWO's population from the last new years. Correlation doesn't equal causation, but it does mean that something is going well, yes?

Your opinion is a red herring. You are shifting blame for Solaris' dwindling population towards the Cauldron changes when Solaris' population has been trending downwards since inception due to:

• Dwindling interest of players (eg, due to stomps as mentioned previously, unintuitive UI, lack of resources to help newer players, reward to time investment ratio, players not wanting to play 1v1 or 2v2)
  
• Lack of upkeep from PGI (eg, same warhorn rewards from Season 4 through to Season 10, Solaris Season Start event stopped being offered from Season 11)

I'm sure you aren't the only one unhappy with the changes, it is impossible to please absolutely everybody simultaneously. From where I stand most players I talk to (new and old) are quite happy with the state of the game as it is and where it is going.

Edited by Ekson Valdez, 25 August 2021 - 01:24 AM.
quote clean-up

[Rosarius]

denAirwalkerrr, on 24 August 2021 - 04:37 PM, said:

TBH it can be fixed but it’s certainly not something PGI can do anytime soon.

As much as I love the Solaris game mode and am extremely disappointed in PGI's decision to shelve the season rewards, I do accept that it's low priority and that there are other areas that need addressing first.

I'll do what I can to keep the division queues warm, but I have a feeling I'm going to be spending a lot of time watching the queue timer

[denAirwalkerrr]

Rosarius, on 24 August 2021 - 04:45 PM, said:

As much as I love the Solaris game mode and am extremely disappointed in PGI's decision to shelve the season rewards, I do accept that it's low priority and that there are other areas that need addressing first.

I'll do what I can to keep the division queues warm, but I have a feeling I'm going to be spending a lot of time watching the queue timer

Ye like only reason for it to exist at this point is for fun 1v1s and 2v2s between random players. I think they should just merge all divisions into 1, buff rewards from matches, maybe completely remove elo and let it be.

Edited by denAirwalkerrr, 24 August 2021 - 04:49 PM.

[Reptile Blackdeath]

Been trying to get "They Really Love Me" achievement in Steam.
Don't think it's even possible any more.. tried to just get 10 sponsors over all the divisions this season (did.... didn't trigger the achieve). Fix things like that and you might get some people back even just playing to try and get that.

I don't think the DEVs care about the achievement hunters who will never have that last achieve.

Solaris can fun. Had a ground of mates jump on a few times to just have some fun battling it out and just play will we fluked our wins for the event. Meh.... I'm left just feeling meh... but how about DEVs fix that stupid Acheive.. or maybe just explain how it even works.....

Edit.. I don't think we even got the warhorns this season? No big deal.. I was just trying to get that achieve....

Edited by Reptile Blackdeath, 24 August 2021 - 04:55 PM.

[DAEDALOS513]

Rosarius, on 24 August 2021 - 04:42 PM, said:

PGI / Cauldron changes have shown uptrends in MWO's population from the last new years. Correlation doesn't equal causation, but it does mean that something is going well, yes?

Your opinion is a red herring. You are shifting blame for Solaris' dwindling population towards the Cauldron changes when Solaris' population has been trending downwards since inception due to:

• Dwindling interest of players (eg, due to stomps as mentioned previously, unintuitive UI, lack of resources to help newer players, reward to time investment ratio, players not wanting to play 1v1 or 2v2)
  
• Lack of upkeep from PGI (eg, same warhorn rewards from Season 4 through to Season 10, Solaris Season Start event stopped being offered from Season 11)

I'm sure you aren't the only one unhappy with the changes, it is impossible to please absolutely everybody simultaneously. From where I stand most players I talk to (new and old) are quite happy with the state of the game as it is and where it is going.

I already responded to a 'red herring' comment.. For your convenience: I never said the decline is due to cauldron.. i said their changes do nothing to help the situation. And yes, there are MANY that agree with me..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 24 August 2021 - 05:04 PM.

[killkimno]

There is a problem that there is no matching because there are few current Solaris users.
The problem is that the queue is distributed by division.
Divisions should be toggled and queues should be united into one

[AndiMech]

DAEDALOS513, on 24 August 2021 - 05:09 PM, said:

[redacted]

Again, Solaris Thread! How many bottom lines, and "one more on the subject" you gonna do in this Thread. Solaris Thread not Cauldron... Please Stop litering in this Thread!

Edited by Ekson Valdez, 25 August 2021 - 01:27 AM.
quote clean-up

[Khalcruth]

Die in a fire Solaris. Die.

[Stonefalcon]

DAEDALOS513, on 24 August 2021 - 05:04 PM, said:

I already responded to a 'red herring' comment.. For your convenience: I never said the decline is due to cauldron.. i said their changes do nothing to help the situation. And yes, there are MANY that agree with me..

Do you need one of these?



It'll help with that hole you're digging.

[L1f3H4ck]

Populating game modes with events you say... Why no FP events?

[LordNothing]

MechWarrior177013, on 24 August 2021 - 05:48 PM, said:

Populating game modes with events you say... Why no FP events?

ive postulated that regular fp exclusive events would make the mode playable again.

[Heavy Money]

The core problem with solaris is that MWO is balanced around group combat, and that balance does not really hold up in 1v1 or 2v2s. A large amount of mechs and weapons just don't work well in these settings, which cuts down the amount of usable game content, and leads to a fairly polarized meta.

I'm not saying it can't be fun or that it should be removed or anything, I'm just acknowledging that its a huge challenge to really make it work.

The best that can probably be done for it is to throw it into one fast queue, and cut down on things like the cutscene times at the start of a match to let people run through matches faster. (Duncan can be talking as you start moving, and give an option in Sound to mute him.)

[SoulRcannon]

Solaris is dead. Long live Solaris.

I hope that what the rewards for Solaris were when they were around can become something offered more broadly, be more perceivably attainable and ultimately distributed to a larger part of player base going forward. Things like this can feel arbitrarily gated off, another example being the loyalty reward system for faction play, work that's gone into things like that should just be a part of the game, not relegated exclusively to corners of the game many don't interact with.

In the future it'll be good to offer a system to players regularly beyond the existing event structure that help them skill up their mechs, which Solaris rewards once fulfilled to the (small) part of the player base that regularly utilised it. If said rewards become less top heavy so more people can get them, so be it, but where you speak of new player experience, I consider something like this to be essential to improving it.

This move by you at PGI will likely kill this mode, but the assets and systems from Solaris can be put to use in other places, I think it'd be silly to do away with all of it altogether when parts of it will still prove useful. For example, I think it'd be fun to have a Solaris uprising map that features some of these Solaris maps blown open and spilling into each other (heck, release it with a second map, a reworked Solaris City that's a little less cluttered and more vertically played owing to it becoming a warzone).

It does feel like part of the game that needs consolidating. However you see it, 7 sparsely populated buckets did not a captivating experience make for many of us. It sucks for those truly invested in this mode, but if enough of an argument can be made to a reimagining of it going forward, what it turns into could be something better. This is potentially a chance to make a case for it. We'll see, I suppose.

[PraetorGix]

I won't read every post to check if somedbody already said this, because I know someone already have. But the easiest/fastest fix (in terms of game design, no idea how hard would be to implement from a dev perspective) Is to make S7 a battle royale arena. No, not the Fortnite crap, I mean an everyone vs. everyone match, where only one player emerges victorious. No more divisions, just let me enter the battle with whatever mech I choose and fight everything I see until there's one man standing, exactly like it was on the old Mechwarrior games. You can also keep the 2v2 variant we have now, but also without caring about divisions.
The main problem of Solaris was the 1v1 design, it was problematic from the start. Remove that and you're already well on your way to make the game mode good and fun.

[Attercop]

Just repurpose the maps for QP/FP.

[Makenzie71]

I've played Solaris since season 2. I would have played season 1 but I didn't discover it in time. Since discovering Solaris I have played over 16,000 matches and only had a low showing in season 10 due to health and family issues. I have played Mechwarrior Online since 2013 but my draw to it was a fascination with the Battletech universe. Quick play was fun for quite some time and I enjoyed the game enough to send PGI a fair bit of cash, but Solaris was my hook. The other modes do not appeal to me any less than they ever have, but getting involved in Solaris simply highlighted that their appeal wasn't that strong to begin with.

I have watched as PGI chiseled away at the userbase from the very beginning. Completely ignoring the trash-talking regulars and the fact that PGI's code of conduct does not exist in Solaris and the blatant manipulation that happens...things that would drive away any green player by themselves...PGI has taken step after step to ensure the game mode is less and less appealing to the typical player. Let's advertise less and see if that helps! Let's reduce the rewards and see if that helps! Let's make sure that each division is dominated by a single META build and see if that helps! Let's do fewer events and see if that helps! Lets do NO events and see if that helps! Let's take away the end of season rewards and see if that helps!

The next announcement will be "we've tried everything we could think of and people STILL didn't want to play so we're turning it off."

I'll still continue to play because I'm not doing it for the rewards or the points. I enjoy the game mode. I play Solaris because I like playing Solaris. I'm a little amused that in 16,000 matches I've only seen like 5 of the commenters here so far in Solaris. I hope to see more of you play. If everyone who didn't play Solaris because no one else plays Solaris would actually PLAY Solaris, the mode would be jamming.

I wish you luck, PGI, but stuff like this is why you guys aren't getting back into my wallet. I'm sure you won't notice, but I notice. At least my wife will a little less miffed with me since, once you pull Solaris, I'll be spending a lot less time in front of my computer.