158 replies to this topic

[Wendigo Vendetta]

Mechwarrior Buddah, on 11 December 2012 - 05:01 PM, said:

ah, like the devs do when they tell us the data says otherwise?

I have been playing MMOs for far too long to buy what devs say.
Let me give you a little story-time here:

Story One: There was this MMO where a certain skill set kept getting nerfed over and over... players swore that it was drastically underpowered. The devs swore "overpowered!" Forum detractors of the skill set lined up and swore to Jeebus for a thousand years that the complainers were noobs, wrong, fools, trying to troll, etc., etc., etc!
Guess what? The devs and forum ranters were wrong. They were datamining the wrong software load. They were looking at an internal version of the software which had no connection to the in-game set, then turning around and using those numbers to nerf the in-game set. Oops.

Story two: A buffing skill set had been questioned. It seemed to do nothing to boost defenses, but only sometimes. No one could figure out what was going on. Players complained. Devs said, "You're imagining it! It works! We tested it!" Forum detractors of the skill set lined up and swore to Jeebus for a thousand years that the complainers were noobs, wrong, fools, trying to troll, etc., etc., etc!
Guess what? It didn't work all the time. It interacted strangely with other buff sets and often did absolutely nothing regardless of the resources invested in it. Detractors were wrong and the devs (who had only tested it in islolation or in combination with a couple of other buffing skills) had to eat crow after a player reverse engineered their software and ran some statistical tests. Oops.

Story Three: Players using the beta server's version of the game warn the devs that the new system they were about to launch was an exploit nightmare. "Don't do it! Put in safeguards!" The devs replied, "We've looked it over. There is nothing to your fears. Can't happen!" The forum detractors lined up and swore to Jeebus for a thousand years that the complainers were noobs, wrong, fools, trying to troll, etc., etc., etc! They were no dumies, they saw the potential for exploits and wanted some of that action!
So the system went live and within a week the devs were feverishly working on a hotfix and warning players that if they used the new system they could get banned! ( I kid you not!) Oops.

So... "Players are not doing this", you say. "The devs have datamined", you say. You're lining up. Your taking your thousand year breath, and the Jeebus swearing and "noob" smears have begun. OK, gotcha.

Look, I don't know one way or the other. But, "The devs swear" means about as much to me as, "I read the Tarot cards, the game is perfect! Fer realz!"

Edited by Wendigo Vendetta, 13 December 2012 - 04:36 PM.

[anonymous175]

Wendigo Vendetta, on 13 December 2012 - 03:51 PM, said:

I have been playing MMOs for far too long to buy what devs say.
Let me give you a little story-time here:

Story One: There was this MMO where a certain skill set kept getting nerfed over and over... players swore that it was drastically underpowered. The devs swore "overpowered!" Forum detractors of the skill set lined up and swore to Jeebus for a thousand years that the complainers were noobs, wrong, fools, trying to troll, etc., etc., etc!
Guess what? The devs and forum ranters were wrong. They were datamining the wrong software load. They were looking at an internal version of the software which had no connection to the in-game set, then turning around and using those numbers to nerf the in-game set. Oops.

Story two: A buffing skill set had been questioned. It seemed to do nothing to boost defenses, but only sometimes. No one could figure out what was going on. Players complained. Devs said, "You're imagining it! It works! We tested it!" Forum detractors of the skill set lined up and swore to Jeebus for a thousand years that the complainers were noobs, wrong, fools, trying to troll, etc., etc., etc!
Guess what? It didn't work all the time. It interacted strangely with other buff sets and often did absolutely nothing regardless of the resources invested in it. Detractors were wrong and the devs (who had only tested it in islolation or in combination with a couple of other buffing skills) had to eat crow after a player reverse engineered their software and ran some statistical tests. Oops.

Story Three: Players using the beta server's version of the game warn the devs that the new system they were about to launch was an exploit nightmare. "Don't do it! Put in safeguards!" The devs replied, "We've looked it over. There is nothing to your fears. Can't happen!" The forum detractors of the skill set lined up and swore to Jeebus for a thousand years that the complainers were noobs, wrong, fools, trying to troll, etc., etc., etc! They were no dumies, they saw the potential for exploits and wanted some of that action!
So the system went live and within a week the devs were feverishly working on a hotfix and warning players that if they used the new system they would get banned! ( I kid you not!) Oops.

So... "Players are not doing this", you say. "The devs have datamined", you say. You're lining up. Your taking your thousand year breath, and the Jeebus swearing and "noob" smears have begun. OK, gotcha.

Look, I don't know one way or the other. But, "The devs swear" means about as much to me as, "I read the Tarot cards, the game is perfect! Fer realz!"

What MMO is this? You've sold me on it's quality. I want to try it out.

[Redmond Spiderhammer]

Vlad Ward, on 11 December 2012 - 01:36 PM, said:

This is dumb.

No one would join the "normal queue", leaving no one for 2 or 3 person teams to play with.

ummm except other 2-4 person teams.... they seem common enough in pug games now.. why would a solo queue make them vanish? .... S not every game is 8 on 8... maybe its 6 on 6 sometimes.. big deal, with the size of the maps a smaller pool of combatants might not be too bad once in a while

Or is the assumption that 2-4 man teams wont be interested if they dont have disorganized pugs to stomp?

[Rifter]

Vlad Ward, on 11 December 2012 - 01:36 PM, said:

This is dumb.

No one would join the "normal queue", leaving no one for 2 or 3 person teams to play with.

Cry more, i know it wont be easy for you without pugs to stomp having to play other small groups but you are delusional if you think no one will drop in small groups.

Thats what EVERYONE is doing right now, most teams have gone back to 4 mans because 8 mans have tuned into ECM's online. There is more people dropping in small groups now than ever before. Its the 8 man drops that are lacking teams not the small groups.

There are way more than enough small groups of 2-4 men teams that could be put together to form 8 that they could sustain there own drop option.

[anonymous175]

Dreadnought Assault.

[Zylo]

Rifter, on 13 December 2012 - 08:23 PM, said:

There are way more than enough small groups of 2-4 men teams that could be put together to form 8 that they could sustain there own drop option.

Would this still work with weight class matching though?

I think that's a potential problem with this option, there may not be enough players in small groups to try to weight class match the teams as well.

If the small group drops are still open to sync-dropping "exploits" then similar problems would be seen in the small group drops with 2x 4-player teams sync-dropping to face multiple small pre-made teams. Eventually no one would bother with small drops due to wait time or 2x 4-player teams sync-dropping against small groups and would instead try to sync-drop solo into random games.

Edited by Zylo, 13 December 2012 - 08:44 PM.

[Rifter]

Zylo, on 13 December 2012 - 08:42 PM, said:

Would this still work with weight class matching though? I think that's a potential problem with this option, there may not be enough players in small groups to try to weight class match the teams as well. If the small group drops are still open to sync-dropping "exploits" then similar problems would be seen in the small group drops with 2x 4-player teams sync-dropping to face multiple small pre-made teams. Eventually no one would bother with small drops due to wait time or 2x 4-player teams sync-dropping against small groups and would instead try to sync-drop solo into random games.

The best sync drop exploit solution has already been posted in this thread by jman5. Start a random delay when you hit the drop button of 5-15 seconds. Sync drop issue solved.

[Aresye]

Holy moly have any of you guys actually, "tried," to syncdrop?

Back when 8 man groups were completely abolished, we initially tried sync dropping in order to get our group of 8 together, moreso for the purposes of giving a new member a trial, instead of trying to smash the other team.

The results of sync droppng have been, very, very poor. In fact, out of probably a total of 10 synced drops, it's only worked a grand total of 0 times.

Yes...0.

In fact, the only time we've been able to sync up with one another, was when we weren't even trying for a sync drop, and it wasn't even another 4 man group, but rather 1 of our members in another TS channel who was alone trying out mech configs.

So yeah...the whole multiple complaints and accusations in this thread against sync droppers? I don't buy it. Not one tiny bit.

*Edit*
Also, if you think about it, a successful sync drop would only result in a 50% probabiity that the other group that dropped with you is on your team. In other words, not only do you have to have considerable luck to get a sync drop to work in the first place, you'd also have to have even more luck to have them appear on your team.

Edited by Aresye, 14 December 2012 - 08:47 AM.

[LethalMezzle]

Mack1, on 11 December 2012 - 01:35 PM, said:

Devs am not here to say I told you so but you really should listen to your more experienced gamers, we do know a lot better than you what will happen in games, we are the gamers, we know eachother a lot better than you lot do.

Urgh. Please take your head out of your arse.

You might have a legitimately good suggestion here but assuming you know better than the developers is extremely arrogant.

[Desirsar]

Sync dropping isn't the huge problem everyone makes it out to be. Full 4-man teams on one side against a team full of new players or even one AFK on the other side makes the battle ridiculously lopsided. Lots of great suggestions have already been posted, I only ask... why not ALL of the suggestions, together?

Random delay after launching before being included in matchmaking AND only matching same sized opposing groups AND balancing mech sizes between groups AND a queue option for solos only AND a queue option for trial mechs only?

Someone will say "that will fracture the players too much and matches will never launch!" as if these are perfect substitutes (go look it up in your economics textbook) for each other. If someone gets tired of waiting for one match type, they'll switch to a busier one. If someone refuses to play the others, they may wait longer for matches. Ultimately, it gives the end user more choice over their experience, and, as I try to explain to developers of MMOs, Youtube, anythng... more options is ALWAYS better.

[verybad]

I don't believe "pug stomping" is an actual thing. Maybe when it was 8premade vrs pugs.

Now I think 4 premade on one side give n advantage, but a pug with decently players that use chat will still have a chance.

In most games, once one side gets an advantage, they extend that advantage, that's why stomps are pretty common.

[MagicM0E]

PANZERBUNNY, on 11 December 2012 - 02:16 PM, said:

Pug stomping will never end unless they make a daycare play mode.

"...daycare play mode." That's just too funny!

OK, TLDR. The group of pilots I drop with try to sync-drop when we have between 5 & 7 online. It works some of the time, but mostley it doesn't. Sometimes we make it into the same game but end up facing each other, which is actually quite fun. Occasionally we do have 7 pilots on the same team. Sorry, I don't have any stats to show how often this happens, but my gut feeling is very seldom.

Notes...

We only do this until we get an 8th pilot.
We only do this as we don't have an option to drop normally with 5, 6 or 7 pilots.

Suggestion...

Re-introduce the smaller groups, but give the PUG's a choice of whether they drop with the more experienced team players or stick with the other pure PUG drops.

Everyone happy?

[Rifter]

verybad, on 14 December 2012 - 09:03 AM, said:

I don't believe "pug stomping" is an actual thing. Maybe when it was 8premade vrs pugs.

Now I think 4 premade on one side give n advantage, but a pug with decently players that use chat will still have a chance.

In most games, once one side gets an advantage, they extend that advantage, that's why stomps are pretty common.

I agree with this. Although if you get 4 very good pilots together and face 8 pugs the pugs dont stand a chance.

[GetinmyBellah]

I agree, Aresye, and even when you do manage a sync-drop more often than not your teammates are on the opposite team, which makes for a more interesting match no doubt... but overall sync drops are not easy to achieve and the likely hood of you getting an 8man out of a sync drop is 9 out of 10 for my clan, and that's being modest. Those crying sync drop this and that are full of hogwash. If you get rolled by a team and yours isn't even communicating, calling out where the area is, like "4-5 at D5", then you're already doomed. I bet the other team that rolled you started out with a strategy and stayed together and focus fired. Stop the whining about things you know nothing what you speak of folks. It makes you look like an *****.

The majority of this community are old timers, veterans to the Battle-Tech Universe and many don't even care what happens here on the forums seeing as what they've become. This game holds a lot of HONOR and RESPECT that so many other communities lack. However, the MWO forums have succumbed to the trolls, whiners and general haters. Which is sad, but true. At least some of you are still fighting the good fight but at the end of the day who's voice is heard more? I hope those of logic and fact.

I'm through with this thread regardless. <S> Mech-Warriors and good hunting!

Viva La Luna Wolves!
http://clanwolfusa.enjin.com

[VerusZetec]

Mack1, on 11 December 2012 - 01:35 PM, said:

Devs am not here to say I told you so but you really should listen to your more experienced gamers, we do know a lot better than you what will happen in games, we are the gamers, we know eachother a lot better than you lot do.

This is the height of arrogance, and frankly, is offensive to anyone who's ever worked on a game.

Edited by VerusZetec, 14 December 2012 - 09:25 AM.

[WildeKarde]

This is one of the major issues in the game, PUG's are no fun if you get a run of bad games. I've joined in games where someone has announced on the other team they were a company and took us apart for no losses. Even had games where everything is balanced 0-0, saw a mech went after it, killed it and when I looked up at the scoreboard I was the only one standing , must have been under five minutes we lost a whole team - I didn't walk away from that either.

Now maybe some of the PUG's are just really well organised but I think ingame comms as standard would at least be a start. If you never talk at least all teams have it open in a match.

Also how do you balance experience easily?
- Number of games doesn't work as you could have lost 95% of your games but got 7 kills per game
- skills don't work as some folk may only have played a single mech and nothing else
- kill/death ratio? maybe but then you could have got a load of last shots for a few of them

Pilot skill should be a ratio when balancing the teams along with mechs and equipment.

[Greyfyl]

VerusZetec, on 14 December 2012 - 09:24 AM, said:

This is the height of arrogance, and frankly, is offensive to anyone who's ever worked on a game.

No more arrogant than many of Paul's posts towards the people paying his salary.

The sad part is that I often believe that developers in the gaming industry have developed the 'corporate america' syndrome. Young, relatively smart people that will absolutely not listen to anything anyone else has to say....they know everything. You need look no further than the ******** lead developer for Diablo 3 that had no clue how to make a fun game even though the blueprint was right there in front of his face.

verybad, on 14 December 2012 - 09:03 AM, said:

I don't believe "pug stomping" is an actual thing. Maybe when it was 8premade vrs pugs.

Now I think 4 premade on one side give n advantage, but a pug with decently players that use chat will still have a chance.

In most games, once one side gets an advantage, they extend that advantage, that's why stomps are pretty common.

A 4man premade in TS is still a HUGE advantage even with average players. Go into the TS servers tonight and get a good look at just how many 4man teams are in there. Last Friday I counted over 40 during early evening hours.

Edited by Greyfyl, 14 December 2012 - 09:49 AM.

[demoyn]

bLaCkMaMbA, on 11 December 2012 - 02:11 PM, said:

This is exactly why the ELO system makes the most sense. People of specific skill level are only matched up against equivalent skill level... this way theres no more excuses of why you lose and no more of this advanced players stomping on new players.

Everything you've said was spot on... except for this. ELO has absolutely nothing to do with skill level when used in team games. It's a blatantly horrible system that punishes you while learning the game and once you finally know the game sticks you with bad teammates that never allow you to consistently win games against people with less skill than you.

For example, I used to play League of Legends. I had two different accounts, but played the same champions on each account and, obviously, was the same player on each account. This means that the only difference when I joined a game was the skill level of my teammates, yet my "skill level" between accounts had over 400 ELO of difference. On one account I was "horribly unskilled" and on the other I was "well above average". I don't know if you realize this, but I HAVE THE SAME SKILL LEVEL AS ME!

[MaddMaxx]

Belorion, on 11 December 2012 - 02:09 PM, said:

2+2+2+2

2+3+3

2+2+4

5+3

6+2

7+1
...

But then just imagine the wrath of the "Quad Sync'ing" QQ thread makers. That would then become the norm. LOL

This place cracks me up...