78 replies to this topic

[ScrapIron Prime]

[mod]This discussion spawned from another thread that was in conflict with the CoC and is no longer availabe. It is, however, deemed to be releavnt enough. Please note that Name & Shame is not allowed and discuss in a constructive manner.
Thank You.[/mod]

OP has a point. Shaming people who use LRM's has become mainstream. Its even coming from official PGI accounts now.

Edited by Ekson Valdez, 10 December 2023 - 11:40 PM.

[Ghostfox1]

ScrapIron Prime, on 08 December 2023 - 07:55 AM, said:

OP has a point. Shaming people who use LRM's has become mainstream. Its even coming from official PGI accounts now.

A meme about emotional support lrm boats which was pretty funny. If you can't laugh at it, that's a problem you need to resolve on your end.

[Shineplasma]

Bud, we as a team have next to 0 voice in the cauldron, funnily enough. Both of our members that are in the Cauldron want to balance this game first and foremost to the benefit of the wider community.

Geeram withdrew from Cauldroni duties for the duration of CS2023 and is now taking a break. You should honestly hear some of our internal discussion haha. Geeram has actually pushed for nerfing mecha that we were currently using in drop decks for tournaments throughout the year and it doesn't always make the other people on the EQ roster happy, especially when we've already spent hours upon hours testing them and then have to change the deck entirely before a match. I probably have dozens of scrim recordings with Nyandere begging and/or cussing at Gee not to nerf something - while we're in the middle of a damn scrim lmfao.

MPG is a great guy and a much loved teammate, but he is also 100% on the side of balancing this game for the majority of the player base, not just us compies.

For the record, I think that's the right attitude! We spend hours and hours practicing before matches, we can adapt to the meta. That doesn't mean people here on the forums should always get 100% of what they yell about all the time, but I digress.

They are also only 2 ppl out of a large council, and not everyone on said council plays comp anyways. *We compies* are not "balancing the game and doing whatever we want".

Edited by Shineplasma, 08 December 2023 - 09:33 AM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Ghostfox1, on 08 December 2023 - 08:43 AM, said:

A meme about emotional support lrm boats which was pretty funny. If you can't laugh at it, that's a problem you need to resolve on your end.

Its pretty funny if you're on board with shaming LRM players, sure. And just because its funny doesn't mean its not in poor taste. These things aren't mutually exclusive.

From streamers harping on "oh here comes the skill" every time they encounter long range missiles, to now quips being made from official accounts, its an issue. And that's a problem that needs resolved on some end other than mine.

[Ghostfox1]

ScrapIron Prime, on 08 December 2023 - 09:38 AM, said:

Its pretty funny if you're on board with shaming LRM players, sure. And just because its funny doesn't mean its not in poor taste. These things aren't mutually exclusive.

From streamers harping on "oh here comes the skill" every time they encounter long range missiles, to now quips being made from official accounts, its an issue. And that's a problem that needs resolved on some end other than mine.

I run lrm boats sometimes. And I have the decal on all my longbows. Yes, it's still funny.

And the issue is on you and everyone else to deal with your irrational outrage.

[LordNothing]

low player count is the reason for a lot of the decline of the game. we saw what catering to a small subset did to fp, you have a small dedicated population that is probibly as fed up at the wait times as i am. but are somehow still willing to put up with it, where as i am not. frankly i dont think ive ever played a game that makes you wait as much as this one does.

if you apply that line of thought to the game in general, its going to suffer the same fate. you do need people with strong knowledge of mechanics of the game to work on it, and high skill players have that. however you also need to make a game thats fun for all the other players as well. where even a low skill player can get something out of a match. and people waiting 5-10 minutes for a match and then spend that match in the ditch waiting for somone to make a mistake. or being taken out by a one hitter the first time you try and see whats going on. that is by no means going to win in any cost benefit analysis of time in vs enjoyment out.

make a game thats fun, you grow the population, more importantly you grow the franchise and get a lot more people into it, and then that incentivizes developers (not just the current once but future devs as well) to make more games in the franchise. if you want to keep it for the grognards alone it dies with the grognards.

Edited by LordNothing, 08 December 2023 - 11:11 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

LordNothing, on 08 December 2023 - 10:54 AM, said:

make a game thats fun, you grow the population, more importantly you grow the franchise and get a lot more people into it, and then that incentivizes developers (not just the current once but future devs as well) to make more games in the franchise. if you want to keep it for the grognards alone it dies with the grognards.

I think they understand that, but I think there are a lot of limitations that are in place that make things difficult. Lock-on weapons probably being the most glaring thing because there are so many interlocking mechanics that are just not able to be changed so the most that can be done is applying band-aids to get something okay in place.

Maintenance mode sucks unfortunately.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 08 December 2023 - 11:33 AM.

[RickySpanish]

Communication could be better between Cauldron and the official forums, discussion related to balance changes should absolutely be, at the very least, shared on these forums. Right now it happens in a vacuum on the discord, and is only shared here once the decisions have been made. That's ***-backwards in my opinion - yes, it is easier to chat on discord, but updates on what cauldron are discussing ought to be made here before that discussion has effectively closed.

With the above said, we do still unfortunately have one glaring issue in MWO: In a team based game, MOST players prefer to not work in a team. Even at T1, players routinely ignore the information in front of them. They rush at snipers whose position has been made public to the team, they stare at NARC Ravens even after someone else has warned that NARC is in use by reds, they don't listen to information about where the enemy flank is etc. etc. You can't balance a game around these sorts of people, because they refuse to adjust their play style. The game balance right now is very good, all engagement ranges are playable, most 'Mechs are playable. Yet people complain, loudly, that 'brawl is dead' or 'long range is king'. There's no helping these guys.

Right now I think the team sizes are too big. We need 8v8 or 6v6 or even 4v4. With smaller team sizes there's more room on maps to position and there's less chance for players to hide in the crowd doing their own thing, ultimately throwing the game.

Edited by RickySpanish, 08 December 2023 - 11:42 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

RickySpanish, on 08 December 2023 - 11:39 AM, said:

Communication could be better between Cauldron and the official forums, discussion related to balance changes should absolutely be, at the very least, shared on these forums. Right now it happens in a vacuum on the discord, and is only shared here once the decisions have been made. That's ***-backwards in my opinion - yes, it is easier to chat on discord, but updates on what cauldron are discussing ought to be made here before that discussion has effectively closed.

To be fair, the discord is a feedback server not necessarily a discussion channel. Yes discussions do happen there but you aren't really that much more privy to Cauldron discussions internally on the forums than you are here other than the occasional cauldron member dropping some considerations they had thought about which really should just be in the patch notes or something similar (which they got feedback about already)

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 08 December 2023 - 11:43 AM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Ghostfox1, on 08 December 2023 - 09:43 AM, said:

And the issue is on you and everyone else to deal with your irrational outrage.

That's not a good way to run a company, though. Its not like they have so many players that they can afford to alienate people.

I'm not personally outraged here, I've got a thicker skin than that. But I am advocating. There are players who don't like it when they're called "skill lords" or whatever term is used to shame them for playing the game, and some of them will react by just not playing the game anymore. And that's not good for anyone.

[Besh]

ScrapIron Prime, on 08 December 2023 - 12:25 PM, said:

That's not a good way to run a company, though. Its not like they have so many players that they can afford to alienate people.

I'm not personally outraged here, I've got a thicker skin than that. But I am advocating. There are players who don't like it when they're called "skill lords" or whatever term is used to shame them for playing the game, and some of them will react by just not playing the game anymore. And that's not good for anyone.

Making the community less divided along the lines of what is considered "skill" or "being good at the Game" *could* start with those players who are deemed good enough and therefore "worthy" of being members of cauldron . Sadly, using disparaging terms against players not sharing their skillset and Idea of what the Game should be has been made commonplace by the "skillcrowd" years ago .

The inner workings and discussions should be more openly communicated . It does the Game no good to foster the impression of an elitist Group deciding the fate of the Game . YES, the Cualdron IS an elitist Group ( only "good" players opinions are important) , and YES, they HAVE Biasses ( denying bias in decision making, even in a group of "diverse opinions", is ridiculous).

edit: typos

Edited by Besh, 08 December 2023 - 01:49 PM.

[Heavy Money]

ScrapIron Prime, on 08 December 2023 - 09:38 AM, said:

Its pretty funny if you're on board with shaming LRM players, sure. And just because its funny doesn't mean its not in poor taste. These things aren't mutually exclusive.

From streamers harping on "oh here comes the skill" every time they encounter long range missiles, to now quips being made from official accounts, its an issue. And that's a problem that needs resolved on some end other than mine.

Why is it a problem? I play LRMs a lot. They don't take as much skill as other things. So what?
And why is a play on words of "Fire Support" such an insult?

[ScrapIron Prime]

Heavy Money, on 08 December 2023 - 01:42 PM, said:

And why is a play on words of "Fire Support" such an insult?

Oh that Facebook post wasn't the problem, it was just a symptom of the pervasive scorn. Streamers like D A T A and TTB verbally heaping salt upon anyone who uses LRMs, that behavior has penetrated the player base and been normalized.

Some random player on the internet can say anything they want to about anyone and its almost never cause for alarm, but when an official account from the game developer does it, its time to assess the situation in terms of "is this helpful for our player base?"

And secondarily... if that weapon system is so despised that players insult other players just for using it... shouldn't that be on the radar to fix? Maintenance mode or otherwise, the controversy keeps a number of people from playing.

[Besh]

ScrapIron Prime, on 08 December 2023 - 01:54 PM, said:

Oh that Facebook post wasn't the problem, it was just a symptom of the pervasive scorn. Streamers like D A T A and TTB verbally heaping salt upon anyone who uses LRMs, that behavior has penetrated the player base and been normalized.

Some random player on the internet can say anything they want to about anyone and its almost never cause for alarm, but when an official account from the game developer does it, its time to assess the situation in terms of "is this helpful for our player base?"

And secondarily... if that weapon system is so despised that players insult other players just for using it... shouldn't that be on the radar to fix? Maintenance mode or otherwise, the controversy keeps a number of people from playing.

Tbf, the framing of LRMs as "no skill weapons" has started ~8 years ago . Sad thing is it continues to this day . Nvmnd LRMs have the highest amount of hardcounters in Game, are counterable on any Map, and DO require Aim ( you have to keep lock ) . They are "slower" than the other point and click weapons, but that is more than countered by best not standing still, and keeping the brackets on a moving Target .

Edited by Besh, 08 December 2023 - 02:25 PM.

[KingCobra]

Man this game has fallen far from what it once was when players had fun with LRMs to AC20s on any maps and game modes. You have to ask why this is a game everyone should try to have fun with not discredit players who are still hanging with a 10-year-old game.

The Cauldron should get there shhjttt together how you profess to work for all the players in MWO but put them down behind their backs? Personally, I play what i want when i want too and no group of jackasssses bother me with their comments.

They forget we do have contests from time to time that require players to play specific weapons ETC to achieve the goals of the event. Plus, I hear it on comms all the time during game play (I hate missiles) I just respond get a LAMS or use cover its part of TT- all MechWarrior games.

People have become so bitter in this game it's unreal they should be like hey I'm just glad MWO is still around and playable after 10+ years. All those who play all there weapon types and mechs old and new and configs they like still in MWO carry on and don't let the Aholes destroy the game with their comments.

MWO does not need to lose any more players.

[Vxheous]

I occasionally bring out a LRM 105 Blood Asp for the lulz with a few friends, then people get mad when they get narc'ed and like LRM 300 clag them to oblivion and start complaining. /shrug

[Besh]

RickySpanish, on 08 December 2023 - 11:39 AM, said:

Communication could be better between Cauldron and the official forums, discussion related to balance changes should absolutely be, at the very least, shared on these forums. Right now it happens in a vacuum on the discord, and is only shared here once the decisions have been made. That's ***-backwards in my opinion - yes, it is easier to chat on discord, but updates on what cauldron are discussing ought to be made here before that discussion has effectively closed.

With the above said, we do still unfortunately have one glaring issue in MWO: In a team based game, MOST players prefer to not work in a team. Even at T1, players routinely ignore the information in front of them. They rush at snipers whose position has been made public to the team, they stare at NARC Ravens even after someone else has warned that NARC is in use by reds, they don't listen to information about where the enemy flank is etc. etc. You can't balance a game around these sorts of people, because they refuse to adjust their play style. The game balance right now is very good, all engagement ranges are playable, most 'Mechs are playable. Yet people complain, loudly, that 'brawl is dead' or 'long range is king'. There's no helping these guys.

Right now I think the team sizes are too big. We need 8v8 or 6v6 or even 4v4. With smaller team sizes there's more room on maps to position and there's less chance for players to hide in the crowd doing their own thing, ultimately throwing the game.

Make individual rewards way more weighted towards "Did your team win, or loose?" . Smaller queues *should* be for Groups and Solos who opt in . QP should stop being a mixture of "standing around online" and "damage farm for better players/groups" . Qp should be the mode to quickly drop in, and play together with strangers to actually win . But with the exclusive bearing of personal Matchscore on payouts and clout, this is not happening. The drive to move the Game to so strongly emhpasize personal effort ( personal score over anything ) started early in MW:Os career . In Beta and for ~2 years after it, everyone was keenly aware of the snowball effect, and entire Teams of 8 did their best to act as a Unit, knowing winning or loosing depended on their working together .

And yeah, I know . "Personal skill should be rewarded." Ofc . But rewards based on individual performance should not be structured in a way that actually entices people to care eff all how their Team is doing as long as they can "farm" enough dmg and kills. Instead, reward structure should be such that there is no doubt the best thing to do is playing with and for your Team .

We had those discussions ages ago . The outcome is known . The effects of the resulting decisions have plagued MW:O ever since .

Edited by Besh, 08 December 2023 - 03:16 PM.

[Horseman]

ScrapIron Prime, on 08 December 2023 - 09:38 AM, said:

Its pretty funny if you're on board with shaming LRM players, sure. And just because its funny doesn't mean its not in poor taste. These things aren't mutually exclusive.

Okay, bruh.
I've spent 200 in-game hours piloting Awesome 8R's built for LRM boating (yes, plural; I have three). It's literally THE single most-played chassis in my stable (8% of my matches) with the next contenders being at measly 70-ish hours.
Yes, I enjoy LRM boats. And I found the joke funny. Maybe, just maybe, you're a bit oversensitive?

[Besh]

Vxheous, on 08 December 2023 - 02:52 PM, said:

I occasionally bring out a LRM 105 Blood Asp for the lulz with a few friends, then people get mad when they get narc'ed and like LRM 300 clag them to oblivion and start complaining. /shrug

Yeah . And people complain about HAGs, LazorVom, unhittable 'Mechs, 'Mechs that get hit and take no damage . And a Myriad of other things .

What do you mean to say by your humble presentation of your exploits ?

Edited by Besh, 08 December 2023 - 03:32 PM.

[Vxheous]

Besh, on 08 December 2023 - 03:20 PM, said:

Yeah . And people complain about HAGs, LazorVom, unhittable 'Mechs, 'Mechs that get hit and take no damage . And a Myriad of other things .

What do you mean to say by your humble presentation of your exploits ?

That bad players will complain about anything.

Edited by Vxheous, 08 December 2023 - 04:41 PM.