6 replies to this topic

[a 5 year old with an Uzi]

6 man heavies 2 man groups on Luthien (says Forest Colony but w/e). No MM, don't care, it feels better with fewer mechs, cbill and xp boosts. Brawlers more forgiving even on Luthien. I like this. People are talking and more or less trying to work together a decent amount of the time.

I am not going to mince words, something bad and stupid was done when 8v8 was discarded under pressure.

Edited by a 5 year old with an Uzi, 21 September 2025 - 12:41 PM.

[crazytimes]

Bit of a rollercoaster post. Your ideas of "brawling only works where there is no MM" is interesting. It does go hand in hand with "low tiers talk more" though.

Do you feel the talking enhanced the actual gameplay, or did you just like the sound of voices when brawling with no MM? Did it add some battlefield realism to the experience perhaps?

[a 5 year old with an Uzi]

No MM is kind of beside the point (maybe?) - the games do feel good even without a MM though. The small match size is a huge thing. The comms and the slightest bit of hey-lets-try-this and people seeming more inclined to do so than in QP was the kicker. The assault 5v5s that were next seemed a bit less like that but there were some matches with that feel. I chalked the paucity of comms and the frigidity of players up to time of day and Assault player habits to some extent.

The stretch with the Heavies felt really fun overall.

Not necessarily a MM function but turning the damn green/red arrow off is probably a good idea even when MM is active.

Edited by a 5 year old with an Uzi, 21 September 2025 - 10:48 PM.

[LordNothing]

12v12 is one of those things that gets all the stubborn heel draggers out of the woodwork. its a terrible use of the available playerbase that makes match making less granular and it makes the game too punishing on new players.

you can drop single lances in 10 minute games and make up for the lack of score by playing more games in the same time allotment with less waiting. but that's an even harder sell than 8v8.

make quickplay quick again.

Edited by LordNothing, 22 September 2025 - 10:52 AM.

[crazytimes]

LordNothing, on 22 September 2025 - 10:45 AM, said:

12v12 is one of those things that gets all the stubborn heel draggers out of the woodwork. its a terrible use of the available playerbase that makes match making less granular and it makes the game too punishing on new players.

you can drop single lances in 10 minute games and make up for the lack of score by playing more games in the same time allotment with less waiting. but that's an even harder sell than 8v8.

make quickplay quick again.

8V8 had quicker MM because the settings were being tweaked, and tier gates opened earlier. The quality of the matches went down real hard for some parts of the player base- ie some people just farmed, and others got farmed hard. Turns out both ends don't particularly enjoy that.

I did not enjoy the gameplay- less numbers to absorb DCs or LAMS based stealth assault bracket builds. I'd happily take 8v8 if people could be just banned for bringing potato builds, but that would upset most of the 8v8 demanders.

[LordNothing]

crazytimes, on 22 September 2025 - 02:08 PM, said:

8V8 had quicker MM because the settings were being tweaked, and tier gates opened earlier. The quality of the matches went down real hard for some parts of the player base- ie some people just farmed, and others got farmed hard. Turns out both ends don't particularly enjoy that.

I did not enjoy the gameplay- less numbers to absorb DCs or LAMS based stealth assault bracket builds. I'd happily take 8v8 if people could be just banned for bringing potato builds, but that would upset most of the 8v8 demanders.

8v8 will require more mm tweaks. either they got fed up with the negativity and canned the project or they found an ideal configuration. the population has to tank again before we can see if they go through with it during the slow months. were back up to 12k as of august, though jarls population charts usually have august as a summer peak followed by the fall crash.

its not so much that the mm will be rainbows and unicorns with 8v8, its that it is about as good as 12v12 was when it had more population, say 12-15k. having a third fewer players means its demanding less on the player pool. i dont see us having much luck with 12v12 with populations in the 8-10k range, it would be match maker off most of the time, like it is now off peak (same players match after match), but with a narrower peaks.

i think a 4v4 quick play might actually be a lot better in terms of match quality if the maps weren't so damn big. either do small maps or subdivide existing maps, like have 3 different areas with different boundaries and a dice roll determines which is played. then maybe we can utilize some of the less used parts of maps. classic maps work in 8v8, but you could also include 50% subdivisions in some of the bigger maps for that. if 4v4 can be workable you can leverage eq or perhaps even fp for large format games durring peak months, or do a dynamic system that can shift match size on the fly based on the present active player pool, possibly updating hourly.

Edited by LordNothing, 22 September 2025 - 03:37 PM.

[AvocadoKai]

For no MM, could introduce a version of faction play that skips the drop deck and lets people just join ongoing territory battles of all sizes. Let people join as mercs so anyone can fight.

Edited by AvocadoKai, 01 October 2025 - 01:45 PM.