272 replies to this topic

[simon1812]

Magic Pain Glove, on 16 August 2024 - 02:48 AM, said:

I sort of support this brief experiment . I do think 8v8 is a superior format and has a lot of benefits in comparison to 12 v 12 .

However , Soup Queue aka groups and solos mixed as usual complicates things somewhat ( thanks to brainiacs that demanded this change 3 years ago).

If PGI is unwilling to do some sort of a hybrid system ( Hybrid system = group fighting groups , unless you cant form a match in under 3 minutes and then you fill the rest of the slots with solos) I do hope if this ends up badly received that they are not afraid to experiment again with 8v8 Group Queue with a 4 player group max limit . In order to avoid group queue tetris problem that was one of the reason why previous group queue died ( having 4 groups of 7 players that could never form a match despite having enough people to form a match ) and then make Solo queue separate from Group Queue again .

Because ... People may not realize this right away but this Quick Play event is getting extremely close to pure group queue when 6 out of 8 players are essentially grouped per side in a 8v8 match . Because it seems that groups are not limited to one per team so in theory you can have two groups of three or one group of two and one group of three on one side in a 8v8 match .Making it into essentially a group queue match in anything but name since 70%-80% of all players in that match are playing as a part of a group. There are a lot of inherent team balancing problems with this but we'll see I guess.

I agree, but!! I do think that it is easier for lonewolves to learn the ways of team play in 8vs8, whereas 12vs12 it is easy (too easy) too get away with a lot of soloing-shenanigans that are too much of a detrimental to the match.

in an smaller team it is just easier to see the impact one can make in the fight, keep an eye on allies, and make adjustments.

8vs8 dynamics of combat feel different from 12vs12's...at least for me...been playing a lot of it lately, I stopped shortly after completing the beach party event a while ago only came back to try the pure 8vs8 goodness and having a blast.

[simon1812]

Strelok7, on 17 August 2024 - 09:40 PM, said:

-

Being against this event in QP; but, recognizing that players have a demand for a smaller 8v8 or 4v4 intimate dynamics (I am occasionally one of them), I can say 1 word = Options.

-


Everyone is protesting everything in Chicago next week. When I am there, I might find time to protest this, as well.


*Hope people will keep it peaceful. Prob not though... Wish me luck.

I like that word "options" I always thought, I am ok with whatever idea they want to throw into the game, as long as it isn't forced on me.

[Yaco_]

8v8 is not for QP

[Tarl Cabot]

Yaco_, on 18 August 2024 - 08:34 AM, said:

8v8 is not for QP

Lets meet in the middle!! Next time lets go 10v10!!

[Bauntihanta]

Please fix matchmaking! We just faced 4 Assaults with 2 heavy mechs! You have to adjust matchmaking when cutting down spots!

[Lord Dantes]

It's difficult to express how much I despise this mandatory "event." First of all, call it test, because that's what it is. While you're at it, please consider it to be a failed test, and never attempt it again. The maps are not balanced for this. There aren't enough pilots per team to allow support units to be anything more than a hindrance. I could see an entirely separate game-mode with the goal of immediately getting into a dirty brawl being fun and successful. Foisting it on everyone isn't fun at all. I love brawling, but even I don't want to do it every game. All you done is take something like half the mechs, and countless builds, and remove their purpose. Don't you have test servers, and an event tab so awful ideas like this aren't maliciously visited upon the rest of us?

[smokefield]

Ruediger Steiner, on 18 August 2024 - 01:38 AM, said:

12vs12 QP already is in a bad state. No teamplay and a broken MM is even worse in 8vs8. I experienced 90% stomps last evening.

that means 90% of other players got wins..so it is not the game..just your perspective. and that its all on you, again, not the game.

Mechstomp, on 17 August 2024 - 03:32 PM, said:

I guess those of us on the lower end of the skill range should just uninstall then?

it means you need to learn/adjust your skills and improve. is that bad to be a teamplayer ?

VeeOt Dragon, on 17 August 2024 - 05:24 PM, said:

i detest this event. i have always found that the more players on the field in a game makes it more fun (at least for me). more players means less reliance on having to play meta builds (lets face it they are boring as hell in most cases) or being able to play more support builds (things like spotter lights and LRM) it looks like i will be waiting until its over before i finish the loot bag event..

neah - you dont like it because it shows you suck at one or all those things i mentioned earlier. you cannot hide your lack of skill behind a bigger team...and that is visible now...

Rist138, on 17 August 2024 - 10:41 PM, said:

You act like people can force their teammates to use comms and coordination. I've had far too many teams tonight that did not. Every afk or dc is also extremely punishing as well. Love 8v8 when its coordinated, but there's way too much room for error here. The tonnage balance is also extremely out of whack.

true, because we all got used just to play like headless chickens. but this game can offer one thing that many other shooters cannot. and we need to learn it back. so its not the game or the 8v8 mode, it is our lack of skill to play it different.

this was an excellent event with many learnings from it. if you want this game to become better you need to offer something unique..and that is the coordination and team play. we need this back, we need people to look for a team instead of going solo. this is not meant for solo play. get a buddy and team up. it is 100% better. find a unit. play together. that is what we need back. we are going solo for too long now and it is not improved the game in any way.

[1453 R]

Lord Dantes, on 18 August 2024 - 10:52 AM, said:

It's difficult to express how much I despise this mandatory "event." First of all, call it test, because that's what it is. While you're at it, please consider it to be a failed test, and never attempt it again. The maps are not balanced for this. There aren't enough pilots per team to allow support units to be anything more than a hindrance. I could see an entirely separate game-mode with the goal of immediately getting into a dirty brawl being fun and successful. Foisting it on everyone isn't fun at all. I love brawling, but even I don't want to do it every game. All you done is take something like half the mechs, and countless builds, and remove their purpose. Don't you have test servers, and an event tab so awful ideas like this aren't maliciously visited upon the rest of us?

Hot take: if your "support build" doesn't put up enough numbers to be useful and carry its own weight in an 8v8 match? It doesn't put up enough numbers to be useful and carry its own weight in a 12v12 match, either. Barely-armed NARC caddies that score less than a hundred damage a game "but enable LRM 'Mechs to do well!" aren't helpful in 8v8 or 12v12. Mega AMS COR-7As that hang behind a rock and never fire their guns are ninety-five tons of Detriment To Team regardless of team size. The "I have five hundred and seventy-two tubes of LRMs, twenty-eight tons of LRM ammo, an XL 100 and two and a half tons of armor!" designs are not 'support' designs, they're target practice.

Bad builds are bad regardless of team size. Doesn't mean you can't play bad builds if you like - I play plenty of Compy-Disapproved Dumb Schnitzel myself. Some of my absolute favorite 'Mechs are wacky bracket eclectic nonsense that wouyld give compies seizures just to look at. But man - let's not act like having four extra unnecessary people on a team somehow improves somebody's "fun" build.

[Lord Dantes]

1453 R, on 18 August 2024 - 11:24 AM, said:

Hot take: if your "support build" doesn't put up enough numbers to be useful and carry its own weight in an 8v8 match? It doesn't put up enough numbers to be useful and carry its own weight in a 12v12 match, either. Barely-armed NARC caddies that score less than a hundred damage a game "but enable LRM 'Mechs to do well!" aren't helpful in 8v8 or 12v12. Mega AMS COR-7As that hang behind a rock and never fire their guns are ninety-five tons of Detriment To Team regardless of team size. The "I have five hundred and seventy-two tubes of LRMs, twenty-eight tons of LRM ammo, an XL 100 and two and a half tons of armor!" designs are not 'support' designs, they're target practice.

Bad builds are bad regardless of team size. Doesn't mean you can't play bad builds if you like - I play plenty of Compy-Disapproved Dumb Schnitzel myself. Some of my absolute favorite 'Mechs are wacky bracket eclectic nonsense that wouyld give compies seizures just to look at. But man - let's not act like having four extra unnecessary people on a team somehow improves somebody's "fun" build.

You either didn't play this weekend, or are pretending not to notice the conditions on the ground. Either way, I consider your statement disingenuous. The extra people make the match slower, and provide more opportunity for unit diversity. They allow for the setting up of a proper firing line that isn't easily broken, while still having enough people for a flanking, or recon Lance. The presence of snipers (assuming they don't just sit at the back of the map the entire game) and missile mechs, and ECM skirmishers with NARCs or TAGs become useful with a larger team. Under these conditions anything that isn't a pinpoint brawler, or a face-time DPS build is simply wasted tonnage. My SNAC builds, and Laser Vomits feast under these conditions, but that's not all I or many others care to drop in. I don't care how the event reads on paper. I care how it actually plays, and it plays quite poorly.

[1453 R]

Lord Dantes, on 18 August 2024 - 11:59 AM, said:

You either didn't play this weekend, or are pretending not to notice the conditions on the ground. Either way, I consider your statement disingenuous.

Been playing half the day, actually. Ground out an entire new Lego battlepass thingus, plus finished a few of the Lego bonus event prizes. It's been tons of fun, this has reminded me how much I really miss 8v8. What's "disingenuous" is assuming the absence of four 'Mechs on either side of the game does anything but make MWO a much stronger experience.

Lord Dantes, on 18 August 2024 - 11:59 AM, said:

The extra people make the match slower, and provide more opportunity for unit diversity.

The extra people makie the match a gol durned slog. Having to chew through ten-plus assault CTs is a gigantic pain in the hindus, and the overtonnage on both teams massively constricts options.

Lord Dantes, on 18 August 2024 - 11:59 AM, said:

They allow for the setting up of a proper firing line that isn't easily broken, while still having enough people for a flanking, or recon Lance.

Tell me you don't bother with regular QP much without telling me you don't bother with regular QP much.

First of all, you can set up a "proper firing line" regardless of player count. Eight 'Mechs were doing firing lines long before we had twelve 'Mechs on a team. The loss of firepower in the line from the four removed 'Mechs is countered by the reduction in the enemy's ability to counterfire from their lost four 'Mechs.

Second of all, The Murderblob is not a "firing line". A firing line is a specific formation with communication and coordination involved, which means it does not exist in the Mosh Pit. Ten 'Mechs clumped together in the middle of the catbox do not a 'firing line' make.
Third of all, no one in the history of MWO Quick Play has ever advocated for a "Flanking" or "Recon" lance. It's All Murderblob, All The Time, and if you're not in the Blob you're part of the problem. Light wolfpacks are already vanishingly rare in this ludicrous fat-leaning game these days, because even if you have three or four fast guys all clumped together, running into twelve Stone Rhinos on the enemy team because the assault queue is never below 40% means you can't do anything with that speed. The twelve-man group size means fatties get more fatties to hide behind, and the Murderblob reaches a critical mass of Lyran Girth that makes any kind of battle of maneuver largely pointless. Why bother? Wherever you go, there's four hundred tons of weapons pointed in your general direction.

Lord Dantes, on 18 August 2024 - 11:59 AM, said:

The presence of snipers (assuming they don't just sit at the back of the map the entire game) and missile mechs, and ECM skirmishers with NARCs or TAGs become useful with a larger team.

If they're worth the bytes their data is made of, they're useful to a smaller team, too. And if they're so lame they can only feel like they "contributed" with eleven other people to haul their dead weight over the finish line? Then this is an absolutely welcome wake-up call.

Lord Dantes, on 18 August 2024 - 11:59 AM, said:

Under these conditions anything that isn't a pinpoint brawler, or a face-time DPS build is simply wasted tonnage. My SNAC builds, and Laser Vomits feast under these conditions, but that's not all I or many others care to drop in. I don't care how the event reads on paper. I care how it actually plays, and it plays quite poorly.

I've spent a good amount of time today in my Scaleshot, testing a new configuration. Fast striker, utterly unable to stand up to a brawl. This is the best Scaleshot has ever done for me, and the most fun I've ever had in a Viper. The reduced tonnage bloat, and commensurate reduction in outgoing damage on either side, has freed me to skirmish like never before. The 'murderblob' in the middle only tends to be five or six 'Mechs at a time, and that is dramatically easier to maneuver around than 10+ Stone Rhinos all having a Hippo Mud Bath at the dom point. it's not necessarily easy, I still have to be on my toes, but man. I haven't felt like my own decisions and abilities have mattered this much in a MWO game in forever.

Hell - earlier today I dropped in my new War Emu and one of our lances was a squad of UrbanMechs. UrbanMechs. Four goddamned Capellan Trash Cans, a Hangover, a Discourteous Doge, a bad triple LPL Victor, and me in my eighty-five ton Australian Murder Chicken which wasn't even fully skilled when this match happened. Enemy team had multiple assaults, at least one Warthog, and a distinct lack of an entire lance of UrbanMechs.

Won that game, 8-5 I believe. Personally scored two kills, and blew off half a Stone Rhino before I went down.

What you're experiencing is the game as it was originally designed to be. Anyone who was here in Ye Olden Tymes is remembering all the tactics you could do with the smaller engagement sizes and having a blast. The new folks who've never played 8v8 are trying to play an 8v8 game like it's a 12v12 game with four disconnects, and that's not how you do. Give up the Murderblob Mentality, take command of your own destiny, and assail the enemy. If you're assailing the enemy as a single ERLL Narctic Cheetah? Cool. Do you. I've got no issues with it. Wins are great, losses are inevitable. Your time for the Great W will come.

Edited by 1453 R, 18 August 2024 - 12:43 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

To add to what 1453R is saying, light wolf packs are actually more dangerous in 8v8 than they are in 12v12 because there are simply less mechs to spot them before they catch an isolated mech. Lights in general are typically more potent when there are less people on the field because they can take more advantageous duels without getting tag teamed by their target's buddy.

That and support builds just aren't good in either, your individual impact just matters more in 8v8 which is why it sucks for them because they really didn't have impact in 12v12, they could just skate by thanks to their teammates carrying them.

[VaelophisNyx]

I keep seeing everyone yelling they love the event just putting out further proof and points that if THIS is the gameplay you like, 50% of all chassis and variants can be deleted, along with all "support" equipment that you deem unneeded, and the game wouldn't change
that is not a good thing.

Remember that support is GOOD and not useless. FFS you all sound so self absorbed 24/7.

EDIT:
Oh right also may as well erase all lights, they're clearly a waste of tonnage to an 8v8 game environment

Edited by VaelophisNyx, 18 August 2024 - 01:45 PM.

[vet123]

just got out of a match that was a perfect example of what i hate about this-

red - 2 nightstars, a corsair, and 2 fafnirs plus a flea, pirhanna, and an artic wolf

blue - a marauder iic backed up by a dragon, then dervish, black lanner, uziel, hunchback, hellbringer, and bushwacker


guess which team won? lol

[Quicksilver Aberration]

VaelophisNyx, on 18 August 2024 - 01:40 PM, said:

I keep seeing everyone yelling they love the event just putting out further proof and points that if THIS is the gameplay you like, 50% of all chassis and variants can be deleted, along with all "support" equipment that you deem unneeded, and the game wouldn't change
that is not a good thing.

The meta wouldn't change in either 8v8 or 12v12 if you did that, if you think it would the only one deluding themselves is you for thinking those were ever good in the first place. Let me put it this way, if those were actually useful, don't you think you would see it used in more competitive environments?

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 18 August 2024 - 01:45 PM.

[smokefield]

the more coordinated one

[vet123]

smokefield, on 18 August 2024 - 01:49 PM, said:

the more coordinated one

tbh it was closer then i would admit on here we had sweatlords on our team. still lost tho, and it just doesnt feel very fair.

Edited by vet123, 18 August 2024 - 01:52 PM.

[patrat124]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 18 August 2024 - 01:44 PM, said:

The meta wouldn't change in either 8v8 or 12v12 if you did that, if you think it would the only one deluding themselves is you for thinking those were ever good in the first place. Let me put it this way, if those were actually useful, don't you think you would see it used in more competitive environments?

yeah but we're not playing competitive. we're playing quick play/casual. most of the builds I rock on a regular basis would probably be utterly useless in comp but has the ability to rock worlds in casual. which is why I play casual in most games. it's way more fun. I agree that the meta doesn't change. but support builds can be good and viable in casual queues. I have a locust with double laser AMS as a super fast support build to run around and protect from LRM boats that often pop up. whenever I'm in a match with more than one LRM boat on the opposite team it's very easy for me to completely nullify thousands of damage (I have three matches where I've destroyed more than two THOUSAND incoming missiles because my ams never turned off the entire match). I made the mistake of dropping with that locust into 8v8 before I realized what was going on, it was my first match in 8v8 and I was utterly useless because guess what isn't viable in 8v8. fun support builds, whether that be LRM or AMS focused builds. there simply isn't enough armor to be effective doing things that are fun

[patrat124]

I think my final post in this thread is just going to be: I wish this wasn't forced on me in my rare free time. thinking about it a bit more rationally on paper 8v8 does seem way better and it is definitely something I want to look into more as I continue playing the game. preferably I'd even find people to play it with so that I didn't feel like such an outcast dropping in solo for more than 90% of my matches. to sum it up "it's a whole thing" lol. was just going over it and rethinking 'why do I even care so much?' which I mean the best answer is I really care about this game. it's one of my favorite multiplayer games of all time and I'd hate to see it go the way of the dodo due to a string of bad decisions.

one thing I can definitely say for sure though is trying to actually play 8v8 is the most toxic experience I've EVER had in mechwarrior online. I've never had more people yell at me (either through text or voip)

[smokefield]

well, dont do stupid **** and the number of players yelling should decrease

[1453 R]

This particular 8v8 experience has been marred by some unfortunate oversights, and it sucks that these oversights are messing with people's enjoyment of the mode. My hope is not to say "your experience was better than you say it is shut up", but rather to simply remind folks that many of the problems they're having with 8v8 is with this implementation of it, not 8v8 in general. Tonnage mismatches, group issues - those are legitimate gripes.

The rest is...less so, when 8v8 neatly and elegantly solves almost every single common complaint people have with the game. or if not solves it, at least improves it significantly.