19 replies to this topic

[OP8]

There is a faction play event running currently. I am most often a preacher for the notion that the match maker is as good as it *can be (I'll unpack this sentiment another day), but I need to address a specific set of interconnected phenomena. The binary nature of the faction play team selection has a tendency to pit highly coordinated competitive groups against vaguely equipped random players, and that's fine in normal quickplay because it'll only happen once or twice before the teams get shuffled, but in FP the teams don't shuffle the same and you get the same group of experimenting casuals getting curb stomped by the same pros again and again until they lose interest in the entire game mode. It's really quite anti-fun when you know you're just starting a match to get spawn camped by 8 guys who core out your atlas between falling from the ship and hitting the ground, and knowing that's exactly how it's gonna go for the 4th time with the same unwinnable situation for the last hour. Those are just the guys your drops are synched to tonight, oh well. Makes you want to go do something else with your limited freetime.
But the catch is, there's no way to escape that; it's in the nature of the complexity of the game and the devs can't provide some experiences for some of those players without some necessary evils. The demoralizing experience isn't the fault of the dev's game mode choices or the matchmaker.

A short story about me with a necessary punchline. I began gaming, then modding, then map making with Doom and Doom2. I've worked on maps and assets for well over a hundred games going back to 14,400 USRobotics dialup. In 90's high school, when I built a new map and wanted friends to play it with me, we had small area networks and LAN parties, and ye 'ol telephone cords. I knew the games better than them because I worked on them. I knew the maps better because I built them. Those were inescapable imbalances where I had no choice. Where I DID have a choice, and if I wanted to have friend's to share my fun with, was where I chose to not be in 100% try-hard mode all the time and not be so overpowering as to humiliate them. Sometimes mechanical unfairness is only overcome by ethical respect between the players in the game. If you're at an obvious advantage, you're winning and it's promised, and you're still using honor-bankrupt tactics like 2x+ lance spawn camping, you think that's gonna yield anything other than a whole team of yelling and aggravated people who wont queue up again? How long of a wait and how few players you want in the pool? It's not the devs or the matchmaker, there's too many unpredictable player choices to guarantee a mechanically fair match. The gamers themselves have to decide if they want a lot of friendly people to game with or a small selection of annoyed event grinders looking at the next match as pre-emptively tedious. If you're super good at a game, fine, win honorably. But you're not doing yourself, or your game's following, or your wait times any favors by acting like jerks to your practice fish in the barrel. They already know they can't win. They don't need focused gauss fire from 3 mechs in the back as they fall from the dropship. If I wanted any of my friends to playtest a new Quake3 map with me, (or any other game I've worked on for that matter) I knew better than to hoard the railgun the whole time; or playtest alone.

[Bud Crue]

OP8, on 27 May 2023 - 11:09 PM, said:

The demoralizing experience isn't the fault of the dev's game mode choices or the matchmaker.

Of course it is the fault of the dev's game mode choices.

Could they gate faction play to prevent the new and/or unskilled from playing? Yes. Could they put in limits so that only certain mechs and/or certain team sizes could queue up? You bet. Could they have a simple 'beginner's guide' to explain the pros and cons of specific mechs/builds/strategies that are suitable if not ideal for every single map and mode? You bet they could. Alas, all of those choices would have consequences that for a decade people have argued on these forums and elsewhere as to why any may or may not be a good idea. But those choices are all nevertheless within the realm of the "dev's game mode choices".

The devs specifically designed CW/FP to be the place for organized competitive play between experienced teams of players. There is even a warning screen telling would be participants to be on guard about these aspects.

Asking elite players to not be "100% try-hard mode" for the sake of encouraging others to have a better shot to "share the fun" may seem reasonable, but in the context of the FP game as it was designed, it is not. It is the devs that made the choice to have a special event in their ultra-competitive game mode. While that's on them, it is on the rest of us to have enough self awareness to know if we have any business trying to play in a mode that is advertised as it is. In other words, it behooves all of us to be aware of what FP is all about and to listen to the dev's themselves:

From the Wiki:

Faction Play is where highly-competitive MechWarriors fight for control over the Inner Sphere through distinct game modes. It places a strong emphasis on team cohesion and specialized 'Mech loadouts, and there is no skill-based matchmaking system in place. Faction Play matches are thus often comprised of experienced and well-organized Units of players running heavily customized 'Mechs.

The warning screen:

If a player decides to ignore that warning and go forth just for the chance to get the goodies from the event, then they need to recognize that they are going to have a hard and potentially a very unpleasant time of it. The consequence of that decision is not on the Dev's, the mode, the "elite 12-mans" or anyone else other than the player making the decision; just as the devs intended.

Edited by Bud Crue, 28 May 2023 - 04:47 AM.

[feeWAIVER]

I didn't read either of these posts, because I already know what they say.
This is why FP is dead while Event Queue is popular and fun.

We can post that tired warning screenshot every day, but it doesn't solve the problem. It only absolves our own guilt for cupping our nuts in a dead game mode.

[RickySpanish]

OP you aren't going to find too much support for your idea of honour here. If you look over the forum posts recently, we've all sorts of rubbish about, for example, players buying the Scattershot and expecting it to be a pay2win type situation indefinitely. Then, you've got Highly Skilled Players rightfully denigrating said posts who will probably also come here to tell you to suck eggs. I watched a stream of a group of Highly Skilled Players last night get roflstomped in the FP event by a group of Even More Highly Skilled players. At the end, the streamer remarked that he still didn't really like FP. Lol, I wonder why? They formed a very competitive team expecting to, as their stream title stated: Farm FP. My heart ached for their loss, truly! ... I agree with you though; and I think a sense of fair play tends to come more freely with age, especially if you have kids and you realise that absolutely destroying them in a competition is just pointless. Unfortunately I think your advice will fall on deaf ears, because the overwhelming majority of Highly Skilled Players In Groups seem purely intent on winning as hard as possible.

Edited by RickySpanish, 28 May 2023 - 06:08 AM.

[Rondoe]

I can agree with the OP and sympathize with their thought train. In a perfect world that is how things would work.

I am not elite or even mediocre, I suck! plain and simple. Been bouncing around between t5 and t4, not that it matters.

I hate stomps just as much as anyone else!

It encourages me to GET BETTER (git gud lol) but even then, as stated-too many variables just based on humans as a species, that no AI right now is able to make a balanced and fair teams.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

2cents from an fp-player when I was active:

yes, there IS a warning screen. and yes, people SHOULD read it. and yes, people should do THEIR BEST when they join a premade as solos, to listen & follow the rest. to yolo is to do it wrong, intentionally, and that's not cool and very disrespectful to the rest of your team.


HOWEVER;
it's a faction EVENT right here; it's prone to have A LOT of randoms and yolos. which is fine, as long as they don't run into a premade. when they do, however:
@premades - you know you got an autowin here. so be good sports and good winners; throw the pugs a bone or two, and have some fun while doing so; drinking games, dropping in odd mechs, doing odd stuff and maybe give em a fighting chance by ejecting a few mechs, TK'ing your buddies who you never liked anyway , and so on..
take the win, have some fun - but let the others have fun, too.
the worst thing that could happen is that some of the pugs come around and like the mode, and will join up after the event is done. now wouldn't that be nice?

[crazytimes]

I like the idea of FP. I don't like getting ROFLstomped. So I don't play FP. What I also don't do is expect people to play suboptimally for the sake of "honour" or misplaced "sportsmanship". It's a farming mode with pugs as the crop. If people choose to play solo with trial mechs, thats their choice.

[Curccu]

crazytimes, on 29 May 2023 - 01:04 AM, said:

I like the idea of FP. I don't like getting ROFLstomped. So I don't play FP. What I also don't do is expect people to play suboptimally for the sake of "honour" or misplaced "sportsmanship". It's a farming mode with pugs as the crop. If people choose to play solo with trial mechs, thats their choice.

People I play FP with want to get good challenging games against other capable groups, because there is no matchmaker we don't get it always.
IF there would be a way to know what kind of opponent we are getting when we select dropdecks we would love to take suboptimal stuff and have better game but we do not know what we are going get before we chose our mechs.
And no it is not farming mode, that is just stuff that happens when we have total amateurs dropping in and we do not have matchmaker. It is not what most FP players want.

Edited by Curccu, 29 May 2023 - 04:37 AM.

[PocketYoda]

If they want people to do Faction play events they need to disable the groups while the event is on.. groups are why no one wants to join faction play.. its an elitist fest by design..

You want more people to enjoy a faction play event you disable the elitists so it plays better.. After the event let the elitists play again.. they live for that space.

Faction play events were dumb either way obviously it will devolve into a mess.. Glad i gave the whole thing a miss myself.

[Curccu]

PocketYoda, on 29 May 2023 - 06:05 AM, said:

If they want people to do Faction play events they need to disable the groups while the event is on.. groups are why no one wants to join faction play.. its an elitist fest by design..

You want more people to enjoy a faction play event you disable the elitists so it plays better.. After the event let the elitists play again.. they live for that space.

Faction play events were dumb either way obviously it will devolve into a mess.. Glad i gave the whole thing a miss myself.

So we are elitists because we play FP like it was designed to be played by devs.

[PocketYoda]

Curccu, on 29 May 2023 - 08:53 PM, said:

So we are elitists because we play FP like it was designed to be played by devs.

No you are elitists by how the top tiers relish in smashing pugs so they never return..

Edited by PocketYoda, 30 May 2023 - 05:44 AM.

[Curccu]

PocketYoda, on 30 May 2023 - 05:44 AM, said:

No you are elitists by how the top tiers relish in smashing pugs so they never return..

I have never relished smashing pugs, it's boring as fu** and waste of my time.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

PocketYoda, on 30 May 2023 - 05:44 AM, said:

No you are elitists by how the top tiers relish in smashing pugs so they never return..

shows exactly how much you know about those who enjoy FP on a regular basis.
honestly, before you throw around blind accusations just stay in QP and enjoy whatever you get out of that.

[CFC Conky]

I played FP during the last Tukkayid event and when there were lots of solo players on both sides it made for fun matches. On occasions where my team would have an experienced, albeit smaller group, the abuse from these experienced players directed towards me and other solo players was pretty brutal and when I would ask for suggestions or offer support to their attack/defence, their advice usually placed me right in front of the enemy firing line and I was told more than once that solos was a liability to the team and it was best that I die early so yeah, in my opinion, FP groups are pretty elity.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

Edited for clarity.

Edited by CFC Conky, 30 May 2023 - 08:21 AM.

[feeWAIVER]

Friday night I played team vs team and it was fun.
Saturday morning it seemed to be all pugs vs pugs, and it was fun..
Saturday evening I played two games and both were my pug team assaulting a nut cupping team on defense. Sad!
Sunday seemed to be all pugs again, and it was fun.
Monday was all pugs and it was fun.

[Davegt27]

FP
as we say
it is what it is with PGI's MWO

I am glad they had a FP event and a ton of players jumped in to give it a try

I got 3 wins so I am happy about that
one win the team got 22 kills on the first drop
pretty amazing
I did nothing lol

GLHF

[An6ryMan69]

After playing quite a bit on this event I could see FP being really good fun for either teams or randoms, but not both in the same match. And having the matchmaker respect player Tiers, at least for the randoms, should be a pre-requisite as well.

[Ihlrath]

I mean I had fun with it for the most part. I can totally understand the aversion to playing it most the time just due to the mudstomping. I found it more engaging and entertaining for the most part than QP. I am not, however, good enough to go up against that level of player so instead of drag a team down I'll stick to QP where I can suck out loud and.. not stick out too badly.

[Gas Guzzler]

My suggestion if you are solo:

Play defense if you can (this weekend there was some requirement to play on both sides so you might have been forced to play offense, and I know some groups played defense based on the faction requirements, but by in large its easier to "get by" solo and uncoordinated playing defense)

Favor mid to long range mechs. They are less dependent on team coordination, so if your team evaporates you have more chance to reposition and not get ran over extending your fun. That doesn't mean hide, it just means you can engage aggressively without having to have your face ~1-200m from 12 assaults and heavies. Those targets tend to melt unless you can guarantee that you have 11 other assaults and heavies on your side that you can cycle damage with. That's a tough guarantee when you are solo.

If you are on offense, don't stream in your next mech after dying, try to hold off until you have a full wave. Also don't hang out too close to the gates unless you are balled up with teammates. Defenders may push out the gates to exhaust their current mechs and get fresh ones.

Similarly, if you are on defense, don't come off uber aggressive in your second mech if most of your team is still fighting in their first mechs. You want to spread the damage out and not be the guy that is out of mechs when its time for the 3rd wave.

If you see small groups that seem to be doing well, ask them if you can join up. Some personalities are easier than others but most people are pretty welcoming and will share tips.

Bring good builds. Its not the place to try mixed loadout clunky bracket builds. If you do take those... you lay in the bed you make.

Faction Play is rough balance-wise and why most of the time I prefer quick play. It was nice to have a good population this weekend as a change up from standard MWO, but balance in quick play is much better on average.

[CFC Conky]

Excellent advice Gas Guzzler.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky