113 replies to this topic

[Ballistic Panicmode]

Does anyone have a count how many times 8 v 8 has been run up the flagpole then quicky taken back down?

[KS Highlander]

Bud Crue, on 03 August 2025 - 06:42 PM, said:

This thread reads like some sort of sub-Reddit: r/MWOcirclejerk; I can't tell if ~half the comments (like this one) are supposed to be serious are heavily sarcastic.

In all seriousness, for good or bad, whether this test is timed horribly relative to the current loot bag event or whatever, 8v8 is inevitable given the equally inevitable slow decline of the player base. It's a very old ftp game originally funded off of nostalgia, which is no longer being actively developed and barely maintained...what do folks expect other than a gradual loss of players and paying customers? I'm just happy the powers that be (PGI, Cauldron, etc.) are willing to do ANYTHING.

I agree.
For a game this old and the niche it fills, still glad it is here and that new items are being injected into it.
Eventually, the lights will go out and the servers will go dark. But like it or not, they are trying to keep it interesting anf going. We might not agree with everything being accomplished. But it is an effort.

[ByJingo]

Always good to have a reminder of why I don't pay money into the game.

[w0qj]

Let the 8x8 QP begin!

www.mwomercs.com/clock

Edited by w0qj, Yesterday, 10:48 AM.

[Voice of Kerensky]

A quick play where premades can make up 37.5% of the team?
I'll probably hold off until August 13th.

[Voice of Kerensky]

1453 R, on 04 August 2025 - 08:49 AM, said:

I'd hoped you were better than giving credence to the oft-trumpeted idea that people dropping with their friends just absolutely RUINS the solo experience 4evar!!1! It's a dumb stupid ludicrous notion that has no bearing on reality, the vast majority of group drops are just buddies hanging out and playing MWO together. There is no bloody evidence that groups as a whole have any impact on the match's outcome; PGI simply moderates group numbers and limits as a PR milksop to cope with the fact that PBR jackwits have to have something to blame their endless string of sub-200 losses on and they have erroneously and maliciously settled on People With Friends as the thing to blame.

Groups are fine. Can we PLEASE dispense with this idea that everyone who decides to drop with their buddies is some sort of horrible malicious tyrant who exists solely to farm the poor innocent defenseless solos? Y'all have guns and armor, too. USE THEM. Shoot the enemy instead of chickendicking behind a rock for eight minutes every game and you'll be amazed what you can accomplish.

Excuse me, are you writing from an alternative account?
Your blanket statement seems absurd, to say the least, if you really are a Tier 4 player. Please tell me, how could a player of almost the lowest level know what impact four-person compie premades have on the game at Tier 1?

Edited by Voice of Kerensky, Today, 05:47 AM.

[1453 R]

Voice of Kerensky, on 08 August 2025 - 05:46 AM, said:

Excuse me, are you writing from an alternative account?
Your blanket statement seems absurd, to say the least, if you really are a Tier 4 player. Please tell me, how could a player of almost the lowest level know what impact four-person compie premades have on the game at Tier 1?

Git gud, or relax.

All there is to it.

Highly skilled players deserve to be able to play MWO.

Players deserve to be able to play MWO with their friends.

Both of these statements are true. If A is true and B is true, then AB is also true. Basic logic. Actual basic logic, dredged up from Intro to Logic twenty years ago.

People who scream and rant and kvetch and squeal that all groups should be banned from MWO forevar!!1! are short-sighted, myopic, and the precise and exact opposite of helpful. This game is already on the teetering edge of too small to keep running, and you want to completely and utterly slice off the ability for experienced players to play with their newbie buddies and bring folks into the game? Do you actively desire the permanent death of multiplayer-capable MechWarrior games?

If you're in T1 and facing highly organized groups? Get good enough to compete with them, or relax and accept it without rancor when they outcompete you. They have precisely and exactly as much right to play MWO as you do, so quit blaming their having-of-friends for your losses.

[Voice of Kerensky]

1453 R, on 08 August 2025 - 05:59 AM, said:

Git gud, or relax.

All there is to it.

Highly skilled players deserve to be able to play MWO.

Players deserve to be able to play MWO with their friends.

Both of these statements are true. If A is true and B is true, then AB is also true. Basic logic. Actual basic logic, dredged up from Intro to Logic twenty years ago.

People who scream and rant and kvetch and squeal that all groups should be banned from MWO forevar!!1! are short-sighted, myopic, and the precise and exact opposite of helpful. This game is already on the teetering edge of too small to keep running, and you want to completely and utterly slice off the ability for experienced players to play with their newbie buddies and bring folks into the game? Do you actively desire the permanent death of multiplayer-capable MechWarrior games?

If you're in T1 and facing highly organized groups? Get good enough to compete with them, or relax and accept it without rancor when they outcompete you. They have precisely and exactly as much right to play MWO as you do, so quit blaming their having-of-friends for your losses.

From your angry speech and lack of direct answers to directly asked questions, I can only draw one conclusion: your experience playing at a high level with compie premades tends to zero. Right?
So all your categorical statements that groups have no influence on the game are not supported by anything? Right?

You know, on the very first day of the launch of the combined group and solo queue in quick play, theB33f held a stream. [228] apparently decided to clearly demonstrate to the PGI what their decision to combine the queues could lead to. [228] got together in a group of four people, took four Rifleman IIC with 6xAC-2 and played quick play for several hours.
By the end of B33f's stream, the score was 34:2. Guess in whose favor this score was? In favor of the opponents of B33f's premade? Or in favor of B33f's premade?
I think you've already guessed that I'm more inclined to trust my eyes (I watched that Biff stream) and my personal experience as a Tier 1 player than you, a Tier 4 player who just doesn't have enough experience and statistics to draw objective conclusions.

[1453 R]

Voice of Kerensky, on 08 August 2025 - 06:51 AM, said:

From your angry speech and lack of direct answers to directly asked questions, I can only draw one conclusion: your experience playing at a high level with compie premades tends to zero. Right?
So all your categorical statements that groups have no influence on the game are not supported by anything? Right?

You know, on the very first day of the launch of the combined group and solo queue in quick play, theB33f held a stream. [228] apparently decided to clearly demonstrate to the PGI what their decision to combine the queues could lead to. [228] got together in a group of four people, took four Rifleman IIC with 6xAC-2 and played quick play for several hours.
By the end of B33f's stream, the score was 34:2. Guess in whose favor this score was? In favor of the opponents of B33f's premade? Or in favor of B33f's premade?
I think you've already guessed that I'm more inclined to trust my eyes (I watched that Biff stream) and my personal experience as a Tier 1 player than you, a Tier 4 player who just doesn't have enough experience and statistics to draw objective conclusions.

You want a direct answer to the question? Okay.

As a T4 player, I have no direct personal experience with the effect of "Compie Premades" on T1 play. You want to say they Destroy T1 Play Forevar!!1!? Okay.

Who cares.

Seriously. Who. Cares? It's a problem that affects a very small percentage of the playerbase - that is, the subset of T1 players who are A.) not compie players themselves, B.) averse to friendship, and C.) are turbosweat tryhards unable to tolerate any form of lost game for any reason. Whereas turning off groups forever - because that's THE ONLY-*** THING any of you EVER propose - in order to avoid the uncommon-at-best occurrence of a tight-knit competitive team Ruining Your Game™ by...playing MWO better than you...means not one single player in the entire population gets to play with their friends without grief ever again.

This is not okay. You do not get to tell all of the T2 and below players that they must abandon forever any prospect of playing MWO with their buddies because you and other turbosweat tryhard T1s - again, not all the T1s, mind, just the aforementioned turbosweat tryhard subset - can enjoy a world free of highly competitive players....who will just sync drop and play together anyways. Because those players are naturally very tight-knit and cohesive and syncdropping isn't an issue for them, while it's an increasingly dealbreaker hassle for regular schmoes.

Your personal anecdotes and "directly experienced" level of buttmad over compies beating you up and taking your lunch money do not override the fact that turning off groups would quite probably be the death's knell for MWO. And no - you are not permitted to lie and say "I don't want groups gone, I just want them back in their own queue!" THIS ENTIRE 8v8 EVENT is happening because queue times in our one single quickplay queue are growing untenably long. Cull every single Person With Friends from that queue and tell them to go sit around in a 'Group Queue' instead? NOBODY gets a game.

Your occasional pain facing down a compie premade is a much lighter cost to the game than turning off the ability to play with friends for its entire population, top to bottom. Ergo:

Git gud. Or relax and stop being buttmad when other people play MWO better than you do.

[BlueDevilspawn]

Groups in QP (aka Soup Queue) is here to stay. That ship sailed years ago when the decision was made to go to soup queue.

The main decisions to be made are size of the match (related to population and matchmaking time), size of groups (3 or 4), and number of grouped players allowed per side (e.g., max of 5 so groups of 2+2 or 2+3).

[1453 R]

BlueDevilspawn, on 08 August 2025 - 09:34 AM, said:

Groups in QP (aka Soup Queue) is here to stay. That ship sailed years ago when the decision was made to go to soup queue.

The main decisions to be made are size of the match (related to population and matchmaking time), size of groups (3 or 4), and number of grouped players allowed per side (e.g., max of 5 so groups of 2+2 or 2+3).

Curious: do you happen to have stats on what percentage of the playerbase plays in groups? Like, X% of drops while in a group, or X% of average concurrency in groups? I imagine it's not actually all that high, but I was quite surprised at how bottom-heavy the tiers were in that other recent thread on tier gates. The silent majority strikes again. Be interesting to see how grouped players fall out.

Edited by 1453 R, Today, 09:46 AM.

[BlueDevilspawn]

1453 R, on 08 August 2025 - 09:46 AM, said:

Curious: do you happen to have stats on what percentage of the playerbase plays in groups? Like, X% of drops while in a group, or X% of average concurrency in groups? I imagine it's not actually all that high, but I was quite surprised at how bottom-heavy the tiers were in that other recent thread on tier gates. The silent majority strikes again. Be interesting to see how grouped players fall out.

I'm not sure I can share it, but yes and frankly the number of 4 mans in drops is a pathetically small percentage. On top of that, more 4 mans are throw groups rather than tryhard groups. I think people's experience getting rofl-stomped by a tryhard 4-man is very memorable though, which is why the outsized fear of their influence.

[1453 R]

BlueDevilspawn, on 08 August 2025 - 09:50 AM, said:

I'm not sure I can share it, but yes and frankly the number of 4 mans in drops is a pathetically small percentage. On top of that, more 4 mans are throw groups rather than tryhard groups. I think people's experience getting rofl-stomped by a tryhard 4-man is very memorable though, which is why the outsized fear of their influence.

Honestly unsurprising, though I'm curious if the number of two-man team-ups is significantly higher. But yeah, if I were to hazard a guess I would've guessed that maxed-out groups are pretty dang scarce, much more so than even the 11% of T1 players out there, and that the vast majority ofgroups are just friends goofing off.

This idea of "but what if I fight a T0 Ultracomp 4-man optimized to within an inch of its life that's out for blood?!" is a horrible looming shadow in the minds of turbosweats that cannot stand not being at the top of the food chain, but I have to imagine those groups are basically statistical noise. So rare/seldom that there's really nothing to be done that hasn't already been done - limit group size, and cut group tonnage so the Evil Cheating Baby-Eating T0 Ultracomps can't just drop in four Banes.

[Oriffel]

after some rounds, turns out i don't like 8v8 for quick-play.

What'd be way more fun? 16v16 or 24v24. bring on the total war chaos! It'd be a fun event at least once.

[Tywren]

They you guys need to go back and adjust the summer event requirements, if there are 1/3 fewer players on the field, that's 1/3 less match score that can be obtained.

[Delios]

8v8: Yep, tried it and found it to be crap!

That's how you scare players away, oh, there are hardly any left anyway!

[Rex Metal]

I just came here to say I don't like 8v8. I have reasons I don't want to waste time typing them so let's go with "I just don't like it." and hope that my voice gets counted among my brethren.

[Oriffel]

Tywren, on 08 August 2025 - 11:42 AM, said:

They you guys need to go back and adjust the summer event requirements, if there are 1/3 fewer players on the field, that's 1/3 less match score that can be obtained.

good point! Makes playing the event even more of a needless grind.

also, disconnected players are pretty much a death sentence for the team, with so few players. And there's no shortage of those going on right now.

[a 5 year old with an Uzi]

Well, guess I will see what queue looks like when I get home from work. Posts so far not engendering optimism.

[Rastan Laval]

I don't like 8 vs 8
battles are too fast
no tactics at all: losing a key mech is losing the battle