61 replies to this topic

[Hellen Wheels]

Maximilian Thorn, on 04 February 2012 - 01:32 PM, said:

For all of you Lone Wolf players out there, has any of the information recently presented changed your mind? Thoughts?

For me, no, the additional info hasn't changed my mind.

I'm still focusing on playing the toughest XP/Mech tree there is, be it Lone Wolf Scout or medium mech defender enfillade on a hillside, because I like the challenge.

I'm also still of the mind that Lone Wolf Scouts will be the most gimped class in the game, and I think that if anyone tries going that route then they should gain more incentive than what seems to be out there.

I'm a sucker for punishment, I guess...and a firm believer in that what don't kill ya, makes ya stronger.

=H=

Edited by Hellen Wheels, 04 February 2012 - 05:16 PM.

[Xake]

Maximilian Thorn, on 30 January 2012 - 04:53 AM, said:

As a Lone Wolf player, just consider me a 'Merc Corp of One'.

That is exactly what I am about as well. I figure down the road I'll hook up with some cool players and then I'll join up with them.

Edited by Xake, 04 February 2012 - 05:35 PM.

[sabotssnake]

Normally I despise on line multiplayer games. While human players offer a usually varied and dynamic playing experience bots can't match, it is also the very human elements of childish actions, ego, attitude, trashtalk, griefing etc that cross over into the game that makes these games so uninviting. Personally I'm not a social person and dislike people in general. I play games as escapism from the real world and if I wanted to play as part of a team I'd get off my butt and play sports of some kind.

Having said that, this is a battletech / mechwarrior game and I'm a huge fan of the franchises so I'm willing to at least give it a go. However I have no intention of partaking in the politics and rivalries of house / merc groups or other players. Lone wolf is the only way I will play this game as it suits my style. Some of the attitudes expressed in recent posts about the quality of lone wolf players and their relationships with in particular regard to commander units have been pretty annoying and insulting and tend to only reinforce my views expressed above. I will play this game once released my way, for my in game experience, not for someone elses. I actually personally belive there is too much emphasis on team work being built into this game and as a result will put many potential players off. That may be fine for the so called MW purists or elitists but I can see such attitudes being a hinderence to the growth and longevity of this game. I have no intention of pulling dirty tricks on 'team mates' or giving a gift win to the opposition, nor am I stupid enough to blindly charge the enemy, or put my mech in harms way just so someone elses win / loss ratio is in the green. This may also be a pet peev but I don't like the idea of giving XP to other units in the game based upon my actions, ie commanders. If you want XP go get it yourself and not at my expense. This may sound harsh and infringes on the basic principals this games to be built on, but I really don't like giving free XP to level up potential future enemies.

That is also not to say I won't follow some orders that make sense, but I will be playing more a role of mobile hunter / defender that can fill gaps as I see them. Maybe a long range commander killer (hehe). Since I don't have or will use coms, giving me orders will be pretty useless anyway. I'll probably shadow 'team mates' at times and add support if needed but at the end of the day if I feel a hefty repair bill for my mech is coming since I'll have to pay out of my own pocket, I will have no qualms about pulling my support to somewhere else in the line or running the hell away. I will not let anyone use me as a bullet magnet though I have every intention of using other 'team mates' as meat shields when the lead starts flying.

With the expanded information roles information recently released, I find that it's contents benefit lone wolf players. We will be able to pick different modules - once unlocked - that will give us more independence from relying on other units in game. I was worried that only certain modules would be available for only certain roles and thus highly limiting for a successful lone wolf, thankfully this sounds not to be the case.

While most of this post will seem pretty negative and may in fact reinforce the general disdain felt towards the possible motives of lone wolf players and lack of team spirit, I'd rather it be read as a comment on how not everyone will play as "politically accepted or expected." without crossing into cheating and griefing. It is only a game after all, and players will do as players do.

Edited by sabotssnake, 04 February 2012 - 10:21 PM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

@sabotssnake - Your attitude is why the CO's of many Merc Corps' have said that they would rather drop light than have an unknown playing with them. You are right about one thing though. This game relies too heavily on teamplay and given most peoples nature PUG's will consist of 12 individuals doing what they want. If there is a weight limit then you will get them dropping light on numbers as most will consider they are entitled to drop in an assault and the last come will have no weight left.
I also agree with you that you are not being negative and that they are expecting too much of players to "do what is expected". Like you I play very little on line these days for the same reasons. Having said that the best times I have had are with groups of like minded people in games I enjoyed (which were not necessarily the most popular).

[Joseph Calvert]

I'm still undecided between house faction and lone wolf. The reason behind this is limited play time, but I'm a good team player (US Navy, fight as a team or die). In beta I'm leaning to lone wolf. If I make mistakes I pay, not my team.

What do you think? Any input would be helpful. Thx.

[Rugarou]

It does seem as lone wolf players will be getting little to no benefits from the loyalty point system at this time. Merc commanders also have good reason for not wanting or trusting lonewolf players and dropping light instead. Only way I can see around this is through personal reputation. The community seems pretty tight knit coming from other games and there is definetly a feel of "the old boy" network going on between alot of the veterans. Which is to be expected given BT/MW history as far as games go. Building a personal reputation as a cautious team player should be easy to do and have word get around fairly quickly.

Myself, I'm starting out as lonewolf just for the reasons I mentioned above. I do not know anyone and have never played MW online. I played TT for years starting in the late 80's and MW1/2 when they first came out. So I would like to get a feel for the community first and meet some folks before deciding on which merc/house company to join. Do I expect not to be trusted as a lonewolf at first, sure. Do I expect to be given a chance to prove myself though, definetly.

Plus, there is a certain challenge to operating alone that draws me. It is one of the reasons I will be looking to fill a heavy scout position utilizing those medium mechs suited for the role.

[metalwolf2900]

Im gonna stay lone wolf no matter how gimp they make the position. I for one have been burnt by to many groups to "trust" people. If anything I say trust the lone wolf, atleast you know mostly where he/she stands.

[Tryg]

Seems to me, unless you're part of a pre-existing Merc Corps, running with Lone Wolves will be the only real way you can both evaluate and discover potential recruits. I may have missed a similar post as I just quickly skimmed this one, but being limited in the Loyalty catagory seems to mean that it wouldn't be a huge hit for a Lone Wolf to switch sides (either by joining a House or a Mercenary group).

Yes, there are going to be some pretty big merc outfits at launch, cause there are a number of them doing recruitment now and some bringing full teams from previous or different games. But that won't be the case for all of them. Several merc outfits will want/need to continue recruitment after launch, and they will rely on those lone wolves they meet as they go.

There will always be trouble-makers, that's unavoidable on the net. But whether I wind up going with a Merc outfit or House, if I drop with lone wolves I don't know, I'll give em the benefit of the doubt, sometimes they'll surprise you.

As far as the absence of an in-game benefit goes, I'd say the ability to hold off until later which faction/outfit you want to join is a pretty nice one. Rather then jumping in blind you can play with folks first and then pick a side. And if picking sides isn't your thing? You can still build a name for yourself, I know I'd have no problem dropping with a Lone Wolf I'd dropped with before who functioned well either by playing with the team he's with or by playing well out on his own without dragging the team down.

[AnimalC4]

I understand not having loyalty to a particular house but think there should be some sort of reputation system that your team is able to allocate to you at the end of a match. Just has to be a tick cross or neutral on the score screen against the LW where each member in the team can give you a rating where you go up down or stay the same. This could be incorporated later into some sort of filter where a commander says I have 50T of drop weight available and I only want LW's with a rep of 100 or higher. This sort of reputation idea would be a great idea to work with IMO.

I love the idea of the Lone Wolf, Being an aussie it is often hard to find times when I am online with clan mates in NA however I won't be playing it until there is some sense of achievement added to the class. The response "We will be adding to LW after launch" is nice to hear but I would have thought this was one of the more vital areas to be addressed pre-launch or soon after.

[Tryg]

The hazard to such a system is that do you use it in a two stage? Plus or Neutral? or a Three stage? Plus, Neutral, or Negative? The down side to a three stage is a crew that decides you did poorly or just because you didn't take that suicide run their commander wanted you to do, vote as a block to derail your reputation. The downside to a two stage system, is that people look at players with no rep and can't tell are they bad team players? Or are they just new to the game?

This would also assume the players in the Faction/Merc outfits get to determine the lone wolves playing in round with them. It's entirely possible the system will be set up so if you're light in players, it will grab at random from a pool of Lone Wolves who happen to be queued up for a match at that time.

[sabotssnake]

I maybe getting paranoid and reading too much into things and probably not making myself popular, but I personally believe lone wolf players are being hounded unreasonably enough without instituting a reputation rating. Why should such a thing be implemented for lone wolves only - if that is the suggestion? If so ALL players regardless of faction should be so rated for fairness. Every "lone wolf" thread I read always seems to degenerate into calling the motives of a LW player into question. "Mmm, lone wolves.... dunno 'bout them." "My unit is dropping into battle 3 players light but I don't want any lone wolves to make up numbers because I can't trust them." "Do they have honour and are they worthy of fighting beside my lance in battle?" "Will they follow my orders?" "Are they a complete noob?" "Do they know any of the game lore?" "Is this lone wolf a better player than me and will he either kick my butt or show me up as being a useless ****?" "Why are there even lone wolves when this game is about team work and factions?" yadda yadda yadda...

People seem to forget that the recent iterations of online mechwarrior: MW Mercs and Living Legends were all open affairs except for league games where everybody are mainly playing for themselves - hence lone wolves anyway. It's been these games that have kept the MW universe open and available to both new and old players for many years. Why the sudden change in attitude? There seems far too much pressure and emphasis on incentives to join a house or merc faction unit and nothing for a lone wolf at this time, why should a lone wolf player who simply wants to play the game suffer? A reputation system is WAY too open for abuse. Examples:

A lone wolf is taken out by a lucky head shot in the first 2 minutes of a game by a very good opposition sniper. <beep> Negative rating because that player obviously sucks and dies too easily.

A lone wolf player decides to follow an order to advance position, into enemy fire and gets killed. <beep> Negative rating because that player died and now leaves a hole in the line.

A lone wolf decides to not follow an order to advance into enemy fire. <beep> Negative rating because that player obviously wasn't aware of the tactical situation and didn't follow an order given by a self appointed armchair general.

A lone wolf player kills 5 enemy mechs while the 'friendly' mechs hardly damage anyone. <beep> Negative rating because the lone wolf made that faction unit look bad and gets more XP.

A lone wolf is shooting down a narrow alleyway at an enemy mech when a 'friendly' mech side steps out of another alleyway into the lone wolf's field of fire, taking the hit instead. <beep> Negative rating because that player is obviously trying to grief the second 'friendly' player.

A lone wolf is the only player left on his side and holds out against the enemy and time limit for a draw <beep> Negative rating because the player is a coward and should have gone for the win.

A lone wolf player tells his 'commander' to go $%^& himself as they want to play the game their way. <Beep> Negative rating because the lone wolf obviously has an attitude problem and doesn't want to be part of the team.

A lone wolf joins a game. <beep> Negative rating because you're a lone wolf.

While most of these examples are fairly exageratted, I think they bring home the possibility of reputation wars between players that simply don't like each other regardless of how these players actually perform in game. And what happens to a lone wolf's reputation if at the end of a game a group of faction players go along with their leader who felt the lone wolf player didn't play well enough to their standards - is that one reputaion point loss overall or one for each player in the faction group? Clearly this is not a good way to go, or if it is unfortunately implemented then lone wolves should also be able to rate each of the other faction players equally, and how could any claims against a player be proven anyway? A blacklist for intentional cheating and griefing (with proof) - yes, reputation - no. How about a simple win /loss, kill / death ratio instead if something is needed at all? A drop weight limit? Again no. Who decides who gets priority in mech weight? Faction players? Why? Doesn't a lone wolf have the right to pilot a mech they have been levelling up for ages - and which may only be their sole mech to start with - be not allowed to drop because it doesn't fit into a weight limit? What proportion of player numbers and allegience do people really expect? I can almost hazard a guess there will be a lot more unaffiliated lone wolf style players than there will be faction players.

Also should a faction team be able to disallow lone wolves from joining a drop? No. Why should they be able to dictate how or if other players who wish to play the game are allowed to do so. What makes these faction players so special that they deserve the sole right to play this game at the exclusion of others? Such arrogance! Maybe and only maybe if they are contesting a historical battle that has relevance to timeline events hinted at by the devs on specific servers could a decision be even remotely justifiable. If they do so and drop light then they only hamper themselves and limit their own chance for success. Why? On open servers the WoT principal of pooling players is the only fair way to play. You go with the team that gets randomly selected. Even in real world military groups there will always be varying levels of experience and skillsets in both regular and elite units, not to mention those associated with second line troops, auxilliaries, re-enforcements etc, and no one sees these units denying support when it's available to get the mission done. View MWO along these lines and not "faction elites vs the rest" and it should be fun for all.

My views anyway.

[Star Ranger]

I joined as a lone wolf becuse i have only a specific amount time that i can dedicate to the game because of real wold obligations but i hope that it does not keep me limited as to what i can do in the game i have sent all my mech budies pm to start on here as yet i have not heard back but if play testing starts soon i hope to have them on board by then even though we may not always play together a little rivalry is fun too

[Lorcan Lladd]

I'm going to go Lone Wolf because that's just how I see MechWarriors - the romanticized pilots whom owned their 'Mechs and made a living in the battlefields of the Succession Wars.

[Hellen Wheels]

sabotssnake, on 04 February 2012 - 10:18 PM, said:

.....

While most of this post will seem pretty negative and may in fact reinforce the general disdain felt towards the possible motives of lone wolf players and lack of team spirit, I'd rather it be read as a comment on how not everyone will play as "politically accepted or expected." without crossing into cheating and griefing. It is only a game after all, and players will do as players do.

It did seem a bit negative, but your post brought up some aspects of the role of Lone Wolf that (to me) reinforced my opinion that it will be a gimped role and the incentives for playing House / Merc outweigh the benefits of being Lone Wolf.

Like it or not, MWO is a TEAM game...two teams enter, one team wins. Usually, the better organized team (the team that communicates and acts towards their common goal) will win. The team with a Lone Wolf who takes it upon themself to "do what they will" will be at a disadvantage against a team that is cohesive with highly cooperative players.

The Lone Wolf who acts only in their own best interest, to the detriment of the team, will earn a bad reputation. And every Lone Wolf who earns a bad reputation sheds a little bit of bad on every "good" Lone Wolf who plays for the team and not for themself. That's just the way its going to be.

I would like to see a "sandbox" arena for players (not just Lone Wolf) to shoot it out as they want (I think that's called the Solaris Arena or something like that.) Planetside, you'll find yourself toasted and shunned if you take that kind of attitude into a team environment. I'm not saying that your attitude is wrong--its just the wrong attitude to bring to a firefight when your team is depending on you to be part of the team and win--whatever it takes.

I see a lot of potential for misuse and abuse of the Lone Wolf role. I expect there to be some incentive for being a "good" Lone Wolf, just like I expect there to be consequences for being a "bad" Lone Wolf. Most of the incentives and consequences are going to derive from mere reputation.

Just speculating.
=H=

Edited by Hellen Wheels, 07 February 2012 - 04:04 PM.

[Kobriel]

No love for houses, clans, guilds, orders, leagues, whatever. From my experience, the MW players used to enjoy fair matches. Something happened and 5 out of 16 players in a team left during the match? Some players switched the teams, just like that, rebalancing the game and the fun was back. No hard feelings, no respect lost. I've met teammate killers, from time to time, or whiners (waa-wee-bloody-legger-fight-like-a-man, or waa-wee-camper and so on), but they weren't really a concern. And the lone wolf pilots were more often than not fierce and skilled pilots and overall, more often than not, smarter, better teammates than the members of the clans they happened to fight along with. I used to pick a different team when I saw some known callsigns, just to have a chance to fight against those lone wolfs I respected, well aware that that match was going to be difficult, challenging, fair and fun. I don't want to end up by playing a single game either, no matter how good is it, so I don't have the amount of time my formal affiliation with some group in MWO would require (training, meetings etc.). I'm not interested in politics, real life or virtual life, so the whole conquest thing, no matter how dynamic are they going to make it - I'm just not interested. I'd also hate to be stuck with a group of people that I found I didn't like (and apparently it won't be that easy to switch allegiances in MWO). And there's more. Anyway - my point - lone wolf would be the only way I'd like to play this game, for better and for worse. Playing in a team and for the team is nice, but this is were the whole affiliation thing ends for me. It's just a game, not my life. I wouldn't like to play it as a job.

[Name140704]

My view on lone wolf has not changed. I will still be one simply because I work too much to worry about loyalty points on a video game.

[Hellen Wheels]

Well said, and I agree completely.

I think the majority of players in MWO will be of the same mind.

I'm here to have fun and enjoy playing the game, when I have a chance to play it.

Looking forward to being a scout for an elite group if that's what they need, or,
just dropping into a full 12x12 with nothing but LWs is fine by me, too.

Just playing the game and having fun doing it is what it's all about.

Cheers!
=H=

[Maximilian Thorn]

Star Ranger, on 07 February 2012 - 05:04 AM, said:

I joined as a lone wolf becuse i have only a specific amount time that i can dedicate to the game because of real wold obligations...

I share this situation as well. Due to real-life responsibilities, my online time is limited. That being said, when I am online and in-game...I plan to win for my temporary team, my teammates and for myself...and have a fun time in the process.

Edited by Maximilian Thorn, 08 February 2012 - 04:28 AM.

[Star Ranger]

Nice to know that there are a few other that are here just for the spirit of the game

[Opus]

Maximilian Thorn, on 04 February 2012 - 01:32 PM, said:

http://mwomercs.com/...-3-role-warfare

http://mwomercs.com/...le-warfare-cont

http://img.mwomercs....ev_blog4_01.jpg

http://img.mwomercs....ev_blog4_02.png

Based the Devs' Blogs on Role Warfare (please see links above), there are some interesting developments.

While the Devs noted the information was a prototype at this time, it definitely looks like they are making good on their original plan of using information in a way that has not been experienced in previous MW video games.

The up-side
These features (i.e. artillery, satellite sweeps, etc.) give an added sense of realism to the game.

The (potential) down-side
A fully-formed Merc Corp unit may have an advantage over an unprepared group with Lone Wolf players.

I still plan on starting the game as a Lone Wolf player. Remember, this game is still in development. Furthermore, even after its release, more changes may be implemented that may benefit the Lone Wolf player. I want to stick it out and see where this path leads.

For all of you Lone Wolf players out there, has any of the information recently presented changed your mind? Thoughts?

No not really, I am like you; Wait and see what cards get put on the table.

There is a ton of recruiting going on now, but I threw my hat in that ring, only start questioning how game play vs. team play was going to go

I am holding out that we'll find a niche for us Pirates

Edited by Opus, 08 February 2012 - 08:05 AM.