680 replies to this topic

[darthJaeger]

DDO has a great system for forming groups (with integrated VoIP). When you start a mission (quest) you have the option of making that mission public for 5 minutes. That essentially means that anyone can join your team (party) within that time frame. After the timer expires any new members must request to join the group and the group leader makes the decision to accept or rejuse the request.

You can start a mission with a premade group and still accept pickups along the way. After the mission the pickup also have the option to stay with the group or leave. The team leader can also kick pickups that dont meet that particular groups' play style.

Its a great system that IMHO really has the right balance.

[Taryys]

That sounds interesting...

[EMonk]

brienj, on 17 October 2012 - 06:19 AM, said:

Couldn't have said that any better. There are some people that look at their stats, a leaderboard, or what have you, and are good, but not really the best, so they join up and team with other people that are the same as them, then they carefully plan out how to make the game work for them and get those easy stats. This describes the majority of people that join a team.

No, this is your perception of people who join teams. And it is completely skewed.

Last night, for the first time, a bunch of us from my team did a quick comparison of our stats. Several of our players had to be coached on where to find the stats page, since they didn't even know there were stats.

Does that sound like a group of predators who only teamed up to twist the game to their own ends? If so, you're f*cking nuts.

Most of the people I've spoken to who are in groups of their own are of the same opinion as me. Stats don't mean anything much, they're just mildly interesting on occasion. We play together because we're buddies, and working as a team means not getting rolled all the time. Those two reasons are ALL of the reason we play together.

But we get accused of all sorts of evil crap by people like yourself, who think that every time they get stomped on it's because the other team was an evil bunch of monsters, not because they're too lazy to learn to play in a f*cking team.

The majority of people who join teams are doing so because it's a team game.

[brienj]

EMonk, on 17 October 2012 - 01:51 PM, said:

No, this is your perception of people who join teams. And it is completely skewed.

Last night, for the first time, a bunch of us from my team did a quick comparison of our stats. Several of our players had to be coached on where to find the stats page, since they didn't even know there were stats.

Does that sound like a group of predators who only teamed up to twist the game to their own ends? If so, you're f*cking nuts.

Most of the people I've spoken to who are in groups of their own are of the same opinion as me. Stats don't mean anything much, they're just mildly interesting on occasion. We play together because we're buddies, and working as a team means not getting rolled all the time. Those two reasons are ALL of the reason we play together.

But we get accused of all sorts of evil crap by people like yourself, who think that every time they get stomped on it's because the other team was an evil bunch of monsters, not because they're too lazy to learn to play in a f*cking team.

The majority of people who join teams are doing so because it's a team game.

There are the few that don't fit the mold, but the majority do and they get together with other people that pilot a K-2 with Gauss or an A-1 with Streaks ...

Edited by brienj, 17 October 2012 - 02:07 PM.

[Squidhead Jax]

brienj, on 17 October 2012 - 02:05 PM, said:

There are the few that don't fit the mold, but the majority do and they get together with other people that pilot a K-2 with Gauss or an A-1 with Streaks ...

********. Every group will have its optimizers, sure, but even there I've observed a lot more attempts to come up with effective designs that aren't the same ******* cookie-cutter cheese builds.

Of course, pretty much everyone in a group is going to be playing to win, because... um... duh? So are lone wolves, except for jackass suicide/AFKers.

[EMonk]

brienj, on 17 October 2012 - 02:05 PM, said:

There are the few that don't fit the mold, but the majority do and they get together with other people that pilot a K-2 with Gauss or an A-1 with Streaks ...

I have a gauss cat - don't use it. I have a streak cat... don't use that much either. My favorite mech is a multi-role Awesome with LRMs, streaks and lasers. Does damage at multiple ranges.

I've seen plenty of pugs with every abusive build under the sun, so don't go blaming the prebuilds for being primary offenders.

Your posts clearly show that you think that premades are the root of all evil, and probably think that team tactics is OP and should be nerfed. You've probably been rolled so many times that you've gotten bitter about it, right? You feel like it should be a lot easier to just drop and run and get kills like you can in TF2 and CoD and CS, without ever having to consider anything as crass as actual teamwork... is that how it is?

I started the beta the same way the bulk of people did, as a pug. I died a lot - and I mean a lot - while I was learning what did and didn't work. Then they brought in premade groups and I died a lot more. After a couple weeks of this, I was pretty well bummed over not being able to achieve anything... and then I got invited to join a team of players who are in it for the fun of playing team-style. We win pretty often, and even when we don't we're fine with that. Our tactics don't always pan out, sometimes the opposition are just plain better than us.

I still drop solo sometimes, and I enjoy that too. Don't dig getting rolled on a pug team, but generally when that happens its generally more to do with the group went charging off in different directions than anything the opposition might be doing. I've been in several pug drops where we cleaned up against premades simply because someone typed in a tactic and the group went with it.

The moral of the story is that teamwork is necessary in this game, even when you solo into a pug group. Try to pull a CS-style solo run against a team and you're going down. Stick with the team and call your plays, focus fire and all the other things that teams do, and you're going to get better results every single time.


Face facts: if you can't or won't learn to work with a team, even if it's a team of pugs, you're going to get rolled hard for the rest of your time in this game. That's not the fault of the teams that do work together, it's the fault of the people who won't work together.

[Broceratops]

was a long time coming, sounds good to me

[BFalcon]

brienj, on 17 October 2012 - 02:05 PM, said:

There are the few that don't fit the mold, but the majority do and they get together with other people that pilot a K-2 with Gauss or an A-1 with Streaks ...

News for ya, m8... I don't think any of our unit cares a **** about stats... again, when we checked the last time, most of us had either forgotten there WERE stats or didn't know in the first place.

We group for two reasons: We're part of the same unit and like to work together and 2) we're sick of "Rambos" who think that solo fighting is the way to go: News for you guys, the IS way of fighting is based around a Lance working together, not around a bunch of individuals all working towards their own ends.

Sounds to me, Brienj, like you need to stop going on one or two bad experiences (if, indeed, you are going on ANY experience) and start thinking about the possible advantage that dropping with people you know might bring.

And yes, I do know a couple of people who like SRM A1s or Gausscats, but they're about the same proportion, if not less, than the population at large - myself, I pilot either a near-stock Hunchback or Atlas and I know that most people in our unit use designs ranging from stock to completely custom, but each mech fits the personality of the pilot and is not just to try to maximise damage based around the flavour of the month.

I'll also say this: A1s are vunerable to having their "ears" (ie the side pods) shot off and Gausscats are vunerable to crits on those side torsos (harder to achieve, but even more effective). Strip the A1 of its launchers and you can just leave it alone, almost, since it has no weapons. Hit the Gausscat's Gauss and there's a good chance it'll explode and take most of the mech with it. The K2, when packing Gauss, is also pretty slow (or will be packing an XL, turning the mech into a walking time bomb). Torso weapons also limit the arc of fire, so get in close and flank.

I used to pilot a Gausscat and was pretty good at it - and that's the key issue with the Gausscat - it only really works if you ARE good at piloting it. If your aim with a Gauss is poor, you'll not hit enough targets to make the risk worthwhile.

Anyone complaining about Gauss or A1 is, in my opinion, sadly lacking in skill, experience and/or knowledge and are likely to be complaining about Atlases with XL engines too (another deathtrap).

[Smoked]

Thank goodness you guys are adding the premium start button. Guess I'll start playing in half a year or so when the game feels different from closed beta.

Edited by Smoked, 18 October 2012 - 02:09 AM.

[Tice Daurus]

bump

EDIT 9/26/2013: I remember bumping this because when I read this originally, this was incredible news from Paul regarding the game. It's sad to read this thread now and the how PGI broke their promises from this game. Sad.

Edited by Tice Daurus, 26 September 2013 - 09:49 PM.

[Vigilantee]

I just wanted to take a moment to say THANK YOU for making this game, I love it and Im stoked to be playing it and helping shape it into a winner winner chicken dinner!! Keep up the great work and Im so glad to see hwo intently you guys keep up with what we are saying!

[brienj]

I love how these people assume I don't know how to play as a team, or know how to help my team ...

If I went off on my own all the time, you are right, I would be killed. That isn't the case. I watch my teammates' backs whenever I can. When I make a dumb mistake and get killed, I own up to it, and go on, but when facing a team with nothing but cheese, there is very little teamwork that can overcome it, except standing still and not doing anything, but wait. I played a game the other day where the team had nothing but LRMs. Our team would have people pop-up, draw some LRM fire and take cover, over and over and over again. It was a huge stalemate for over 10 minutes. Is that any fun? That's why I hate the LRM cheese teams, the GaussCat cheese teams, and the StreakCat cheese teams, and it's even worse when all combined. Nothing usually happens if you play "smart". So I guess all games should end in a tie, eh?

BTW, I've never even played TF2, CoD, or CS online ...

Edited by brienj, 18 October 2012 - 02:57 PM.

[Todeskrieger]

i heard that you gonna reset the accounts, when open beta starts - is that true?

[EMonk]

brienj, on 18 October 2012 - 01:44 PM, said:

I love how these people assume I don't know how to play as a team, or know how to help my team ...

We only get to see what you post, and you post a lot about getting rolled. I've been on pug teams that worked well together without VOIP, and on plenty of occasions those non-premade groups have defeated premade teams by using actual team-work and situational awareness.

brienj, on 18 October 2012 - 01:44 PM, said:

If I went off on my own all the time, you are right, I would be killed. That isn't the case. I watch my teammates' backs whenever I can. When I make a dumb mistake and get killed, I own up to it, and go on, but when facing a team with nothing but cheese, there is very little teamwork that can overcome it, except standing still and not doing anything, but wait.

But there's a big difference between being able to watch someone's back in a group of staunch individualist and coordinating a team of people.

When was the last time you dropped in a Jenner?

Are you one of those people that disconnects from the game as soon as your mech is destroyed? Or do you hang around and offer assistance to your team by providing battlefield intel so that others on the team don't have to stop fighting to type? If the former, you're not a team player no matter how often you help out a fellow pug. If you don't care what happens to the rest of the team once you can no longer pull the trigger on your own mech, you're just another Action Hero.

And we face these teams too you know. We occasionally get to drop against organized cheese-merchants, and we don't tend to die just because the opposition are tooled up with the latest abusive builds. Your inability to coordinate a reasonable opposition to them isn't a global shortcoming.

Of course we don't face them that often because we generally drop with a wider range of mechs. That's something you could do as well, if you didn't have a pathological hatred of the concept of playing in a team in a team game.

brienj, on 18 October 2012 - 01:44 PM, said:

I played a game the other day where the team had nothing but LRMs. Our team would have people pop-up, draw some LRM fire and take cover, over and over and over again. It was a huge stalemate for over 10 minutes. Is that any fun? That's why I hate the LRM cheese teams, the GaussCat cheese teams, and the StreakCat cheese teams, and it's even worse when all combined. Nothing usually happens if you play "smart". So I guess all games should end in a tie, eh?

I've had exactly one MWO game end in a tie, ever. One. And that was because the last two guys on a pug team were hunting a Jenner that had been stripped of his weapons and was running around hiding, instead of wandering over to capture his base like the rest of us were telling them to do. They spent the best part of 8 minutes trying to track him down and failed. Action Heroes, both of them, and the Jenner pilot was laughing at them the whole time. He was taunting them and laughing at them in chat while he ran around outside range of their weapons, and they swallowed the bait like the good little FPSers they were.

If you can't deal with LRMs then you need to upgrade your tactics. They can't hit you if they can't target you, so take down any scouts they have in the field. Move from cover to cover and advance on them until you get in range of your weapons, then snap-shot while you move inside their minimum range. Focus fire from the group to take them down one at a time and roll your most damaged mechs back into support positions when they can't face the barrage.

None of this is hard to pick up. Sure, LRMs do plenty of damage. But they rely on you hanging your butt out in the breeze for them to actually put the LRMs on you. If you can't - or won't - learn to deal with that, then you're playing the wrong game.

Gauss cats are harder, and I agree that they're an abusive build that shouldn't be allowed. I see plenty of pugs with them too, and we manage to deal with them fairly well. But with the cycle time on the gauss rifle, the firing delay and the effects of lag, they're not the uber-powerful monsters most people seem to think they are. They make pretty fireworks when they explode too.

Yes we have a couple people on our team that insist on using gauss-cats sometimes. And yes, sometimes we run LRM-heavy. But as a team we don't build our strategies around abusive builds. We drop in whatever we're having fun with at the time, and build tactics around the load-outs.

The only advantage we have, even when dropping only 4 or 5, is that we can communicate without having to take our hands off the controls. I can call tactical updates to my teammates without having to stop firing, and I don't have to draw my attention away from the target to read whatever someone just typed. Solid communication is the one thing that differentiates a premade from a group of randoms who are able to work as a team, and it's a fragging huge difference. Install Teamspeak and join a group in the unofficial TS server and you'll see what I mean.

[Wyr]

Sounds great… I'm looking forward for the patch on 23th.

[Gunship]

This p timer is BS

It should start counting when open beta starts AND be reset when the game goes live.

You pay for live, not a beta!

[Kingdom Come]

Concerning Phase 2, I like the idea of 8 premade vs 8 premade. However, I don't want to be penalized as a premade team when it comes to finding an opponent. Specifically, I don't want to be stuck in "searching for a group" time and time again without finding a match. I think after several tries, the next best group should be found to avoid long waits.

[Todeskrieger]

Thontor, on 18 October 2012 - 02:47 PM, said:

yes

c-bills get reset to zero
MC gets reset to full Founder's amount + purchased MC
Purchased mechs get removed
Founder's mechs get reset to stock
XP gets reset to zero
GXP gets reset to zero
Mech efficiencies, and pilot modules get rest to zero

and if i forgot anything, it gets reset too

where did you get this information?

[Lillian StarChild]

I'm mainly concerned about the meta-game, the 8 on 8 was fun for a while but I don't care much for it, something along the line of Planetside2 with dropships / jumpships, active combat worlds. Resources for factions and the like. Not having seen anything re faction warfare makes me think it wont materialise. Which is a shame.

[warp103]

Thontor, on 18 October 2012 - 02:47 PM, said:

yes

c-bills get reset to zero
MC gets reset to full Founder's amount + purchased MC
Purchased mechs get removed
Founder's mechs get reset to stock
XP gets reset to zero
GXP gets reset to zero
Mech efficiencies, and pilot modules get rest to zero

and if i forgot anything, it gets reset too

wow this is the first tclose beta were xp or lvl has been reset or wiped. I have been though 2 this will be number 3.
That was one of the gifts that showed your hard work bug testing beside join date.

Edited by warp103, 19 October 2012 - 08:57 PM.