118 replies to this topic

[pbiggz]

SFC174, on 06 December 2022 - 01:49 PM, said:

Calling big steaming b.s. on this statement. Simply because we have numbers and dates.

Soup queue went into effect at the end of April 2020. Likely due to pandemic lock downs, population had grown from a low of 10k in Feb'20 to nearly 15k by the end of April'20. Population climbed to over 17k by the end of May. People trying out soup? Continued lockdown gains? Some combination of them? Don't know.

From that peak in May, population then dropped down to 14k by the end of September'20. That's a nearly 20% loss during the time one would expect the biggest impact from a major change like Soup implementation.

You may choose to suggest or posit other reasons for the drop in population. But forum opinions at the time of Soup implementation were highly polarized on either side of the issue, which suggests soup was going to have some effect on population. But to suggest that soup saving the game is "extraordinarily likely" is about as unsupported an assertion as you could make at this point.

What happened after Sept'20? PGI announced new hires and the restart of some level of game development, and the population took off. People were excited for the game to get better. Lots of promises were made. The gains continued unabated until May'21. Since then it's been a pretty steady decline with the exception of Dec'21 rewards spike and the Crusader drop. I'll leave it to the readers to debate what happened in Q2 of 2021 to reverse population gains and kill nearly half the population in the next 18 months.

And now MWO has about the same number of total players per month, and avg players per day (Jarl's and Steamcharts) as it did in April 2020. Whole lot of effort and grief to end up back where you started.

All of this hinges on the assumption that the queues are the only thing that can depress player counts. This is false. Do you know what else we havent had since then? New content. A couple of map reworks don't count and games naturally attrit users over time if they dont continue to provide reasons to return and play aside from lootbox events.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 01:55 PM, said:

My axe to grind wasn't even with you until you jumped in and indicated that you intended to align with whatever I was against. If you are convinced that combined queue is a permanent feature you wouldn't be pushing against any suggestion to change that dynamic. You're here because you think your gravy train is in jeopardy. Any argument that you're trying to "get through to me" or people like me rings pretty damn hollow, because you don't act like you have any investment at all in changing minds - you're doing, in your mind, either a victory lap, not protecting something you think is important, not setting up for an exchange of olive branches or even a mutual understanding - or you see the possibility of having to find a better way to do this lest you lose what you have.

So which is it? Right now any claims that doing away with combined queue sound much more like veiled threats to take your ball and go home if you don't get your way.

You think you're engaged in some kind of virtuous struggle against an illegitimate foe, but by your own admission, you simply don't like the way some people play the game and you think you'll win more if you can somehow convince PGI to remove those players from your matches. You don't really care how, splitting the queues is just a pretext. You'd just as happily see them all banned. As long as they're gone. Its the textbook example of an ulterior motive, which you have now repeatedly accused me and others of having.

You are exactly what you accuse your opponents of being. You don't get to keep lying. As long as you do, i'll keep tacking a response on to remind passersby that you are lying.

[pbiggz]

One of us is recounting facts, the other is trying to get a chunk of the playerbase soft banned because he doesn't like them.

[ccrider]

Game is almost 10 years old. Most of the players are older. It's on an obsolete engine. Young kids aren't attracted to it. It will probably get shut down as soon as the license expires. If you like it, play some till it dies. If it stresses you out, quit; it's not like other games don't exist. But we all need to accept that changes, big or small are very unlikely to occur and what we are playing is on life support and only clinging to life cause people are spending just enough to keep the servers going. This is the best and worst it's probably gonna get.

[SFC174]

pbiggz, on 06 December 2022 - 02:22 PM, said:

All of this hinges on the assumption that the queues are the only thing that can depress player counts. This is false. Do you know what else we havent had since then? New content. A couple of map reworks don't count and games naturally attrit users over time if they dont continue to provide reasons to return and play aside from lootbox events.

Nothing of the sort was said or assumed. I chose my words carefully. I said that your assertion that it was "extraordinarily likely" soup queue saved the game was not only unsupported by facts, but more likely contraindicated.

You made a bold statement based upon ideology, belief, or wishful thinking. I simply pointed out where you departed from reality.

[Meatbags]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 01:09 PM, said:

And why did group queue die? Will they point the finger at anyone else or will they acknowledge that it was a shark tank, and they didn't get to be the sharks often enough? In FP's case an argument can be made that it was neglected by PGI. GQ was a free standing thing, a product ultimately of those that chose to inhabit it.

We have almost reached the limit of the English language's ability to restate this for you, but let me try and simplify one last time.

MWO is a niche game and interest in it has predictably declined. The cause and effect is as follows: population killed the split queue, not the other way around.

There is now only enough player population for a single queue. By definition, solo players can participate in a group queue but groups cannot participate in a solo queue. As with most online games, many players are inclined to seek out friends to play with. The game encourages this through the Unit system.

Faced with the very necessary decision to ( a ) keep the mode that accommodates both solo and group players or ( b ) keep the mode that only accommodates solo players, PGI made the incredibly obvious decision to consolidate both queues into Quick Play and as a compromise to solo players, the maximum group size was reduced from 12 to 4.

You are free to pretend that there is a third option or that Solo Queue is coming back. You are also free to scream at the clouds when you want it to stop raining.

Edited by Meatbags, 06 December 2022 - 02:58 PM.

[pbiggz]

Jesus dude are you really this dense?

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 03:07 PM, said:

The ideas that "players come here to group with friends" and "GQ died because not enough people came here to group with friends" seem contradictory.

If 3 4 mans and a 12 man are in the queue, the next group, a 5 man, will simply never match. This is essentially exactly what played out. Without solo players to fill in blanks, the group queue simply couldn't form matches. I've stated this already, but you elected to ignore it.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 03:07 PM, said:

The population issue itself can and almost certainly does have causes outside GQ

It does. That is not a possibility its a certainty; externalities exist.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 03:07 PM, said:

but if group drops were what people came to do as a general rule group droppers would outnumber solo droppers. The queues today would be mostly premade groups with a tiny sprinkle of solo filler.

This is a bizarre claim based on flawed assumptions; groups have never made up a vast majority, but groups tend to be active. As I have stated before, not all players have an equal impact on the population, a solo who logs in once a year wont dramatically improve your wait times, but a group of 3 guys who play every other day will absolutely form matches in their tier bracket; and the loss of those players will be felt.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 03:07 PM, said:

Is that the case or is it not? Are group droppers keeping the lights on

Active players are. Group or otherwise, and any effort to essentially soft ban those players would be tantamount to PGI shooting itself in the foot. This has been explained to you several times, but you are choosing not to understand it.

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 03:07 PM, said:

or are patient solos keeping them on?

You are not a victim.

[Meatbags]

pbiggz, on 06 December 2022 - 03:16 PM, said:

If 3 4 mans and a 12 man are in the queue, the next group, a 5 man, will simply never match.

This is the heart of it.

People can hate on PGI all they want but when it comes to Quick Play, 4 man group limit with solo fill is a solid compromise that has given us remarkably short queue times given how few people are actually playing.

Edited by Meatbags, 06 December 2022 - 03:45 PM.

[ccrider]

If any change ever occurs to this dinosaur, I'd like 8 man teams to be it. 8v8 for every mode, including faction would make it easier to kick off more matches. It would also put less strain on the match maker that's looking for 24 players of similar tiers; it's 33% easier to find matching tiers when it only needs 16 players.

[ccrider]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 04:02 PM, said:

Weren't a lot of EQ games 8v8s?

Yes, but EQ is underutilized AF. Populations dropping, 8v8 just means what's left can get quicker games. I'd at least try it.

[feeWAIVER]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 04:11 PM, said:

Have they given any reason why the EQ isn't being used more?

My guess is it requires someone in the office to manually set it up and schedule it.. it's not automated.

[ccrider]

feeWAIVER, on 06 December 2022 - 04:15 PM, said:

My guess is it requires someone in the office to manually set it up and schedule it.. it's not automated.

That's my assumption as well.

[ccrider]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 04:35 PM, said:

Was this what happened with FP scheduling as well?

FP also requires a manual start to each of it's "story lines." It's why every once in a while you'll see a thread saying that FP is offline. Originally, FP/CW had lots of units and players in it, with varied attack lanes and unit rivalries and some depth. Instead of continuing that, they dumbed it down to the current abomination it is. That's not to say I don't primarily play FP; I do, but its more out of nostalgia and enjoying drop decks than the mode being good. Friday night, my unit (all 3-4 of us left active) got in 3 matches in 1.5 hours which was fine. Saturday, we got in 1 then waited 35 minutes to get skipped and just quit for the night. Everything in MW:O is kinda half-assed atm; I just enjoy the people I play with and the BT universe so I play 2-3 hours a week unless I have something better to do, but it's not because the games good. It just scratches my BT itch when I get it. It's why I don't stress about it now; no false hopes to get me worked up.

Edited by ccrider, 06 December 2022 - 04:45 PM.

[ccrider]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 04:49 PM, said:

The more I think about it the more it seems like figuring out some way to use EQ as a bridge to revitalize FP would potentially resolve a lot of the issues we are currently bickering about.

If whoever is in charge signed off on Cauldron community balance maybe community event organization is in the cards? Is there any precedent for that?

There have been community comp events and charity events, like MRBC and such, but they were in private lobbies. PGI has never given any sort of control to the player base over public queues. I'd be ok with EQ if it was an FP alternative with drop decks and could group with my unit, but who decides what is good for EQ? I rarely play with more than 3 plus myself, but others might want 8-12 or no groups at all. Too many variables amongst the players to make everyone happy. And the EQ problem would still be there; manual starts will be forgotten like they are in FP which just pisses people off and makes them find other things to do.

[Pika]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 10:02 AM, said:

"Can't beat them, join them" is rather unattractive when what I am joining is something I disagree with profoundly. This sounds like an invitation to take the easy and ethically questionable way out. I'd personally rather spend a year clawing through as a solo and at the end be good enough to beat you and your premade friends, and remind you I did it as a solo every time it happens. I gained minimal insight at best as some fifth wheel when I group dropped in the past. I don't want to be your flunky or tagalong and I harbor absolutely zero illusions that I would ever be viewed as anything but in that environment.

Excuse me?

Where did all this come from? I pointed out that the old group queue was removed and that you should consider playing with friends so you're, you know, on even footing with them rather than seeing yourself as the tag along.

If you want to "crawl through mud" for some minute victory my man, you do that. I'll keep dropping with my friends for that entire time and play the game as intended.

Edited by Pika, 06 December 2022 - 05:17 PM.

[ccrider]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 05:22 PM, said:

Why don't more people play via private lobbies? Do you know?


Okay, I see what you mean, though I'm not confident what footing I'm even on.

No drop decks, no access to siege maps, no in-game earnings and you need to schedule a time for every player to be on. There's a lot of organizing that goes into private lobby matches that most of the players aren't interested in. Plus it's limited. And if you need c-bills it's useless.

Edited by ccrider, 06 December 2022 - 05:29 PM.

[ccrider]

By Any Other Name, on 06 December 2022 - 05:42 PM, said:

Not exactly what could be done about the scheduling beyond things people already seem to do (Discord etc), could Siege maps and drop deck functionality be added to lobbies? I wouldn't expect earnings or stat tracking to be a thing there but I would think these things would matter significantly less if the purpose was to just organize a game with like minds from the outset. Maybe I'm wrong.

Yes and no. Yes I'd think it was possible to do those things but no because any major changes to the games functionality seem to be off the table. We get minor quirk/weapon changes, re-colored robots with c-bill boosts and maps that have become bowls. That's what we get. You're suggestions are valid but I don't think anything major is going to change. Like I said, this is as good and as bad as it's gonna get. We wanted Italian food, we got Olive Garden.

[feeWAIVER]

ccrider, on 06 December 2022 - 04:44 PM, said:

... so I play 2-3 hours a week unless I have something better to do, but it's not because the games good...

Fundamentally, at it's core, this game is good. It didn't last this long because it's bad.

[Nightbird]

feeWAIVER, on 06 December 2022 - 06:48 PM, said:

Fundamentally, at it's core, this game is good. It didn't last this long because it's bad.

It has good moments, however as a whole it's not successful. It it was, the company would not have been sold off.

[feeWAIVER]

Nightbird, on 06 December 2022 - 07:23 PM, said:

It has good moments, however as a whole it's not successful. It it was, the company would not have been sold off.

There's a plethora of games that don't last 6 months.
MWO has been around for almost 10 years.

Selling the company does not mean it's a failure. Was Warner Bros a failure? Was Lucas Arts?
Verant created EverQuest and sold off to Sony, not a failure.
Blizzard was bought by Activision, not a failure.
Etc
.

[Bowelhacker]

It's exceptionally tiresome to keep having to fight the massed ranks of the heroes of DSX or GNX, but they rarely seem to come up against each other at least when I am around. That'll be because DSX are a bunch of pugsmacking bullies...