533 replies to this topic

[Barnaby Jones]

Thirdstar, on 28 December 2012 - 09:02 AM, said:

I think he was pointing out that PUGs have been facing the same issue you are and have been called all kinds of names for voicing that opinion. That they don't want to be that serious and are getting murdered by more skilled and coordinated teams. I don't think it was directed at you personally.

Pugs THINK they have been facing that issue. There are no facts other than the "1 in 10" statement with which to base that THOUGHT on.

[Teralitha]

Joseph Mallan, on 28 December 2012 - 10:08 AM, said:

Well then you are failing your duty as a Beta tester. Your duty is to test the game and report your findings. Not sulk in the corner like a spoiled little child, because it isn't playing the way you want.

Ive already done all there is to do. Ya dont need to tell me how to be a beta tester. Now im just sitting back waiting for results.

*mumbles to self..* do not feed the trolls....... do ...not ....feed the trolls... the trolls do not exist......

Oh... I see.. the trolls are all former NBT clanners... It all makes sense now. Yall still holding a grudge after all those years?

Edited by Teralitha, 28 December 2012 - 10:57 AM.

[Leimrey]

It's really funny how people are stating that ELO will sort everything out. Come on, guys, the playerbase is way too small to segregate players into different skillgroups. You will literally have no one to play against if PGI makes it so that only teams of similar skill can fight each other.
Let's hope that the game will attract more players in the future, and fast.

Personally, all I want is a tonnage limit for 8 mans. Let's say some 450 tons or something similar.

[Barnaby Jones]

ITT:

A few people who have had decent experiences in current 8 mans.
A bunch of people who have tried 8 mans and left (to smaller groups or other games) because it is not fun.
A shitload of people who don't group at all and are convinced those of us who do are lying about 8mans being boring so we can pugstomp.

Edited by Barnaby Jones, 28 December 2012 - 10:49 AM.

[Roland]

If you want more folks in the 8 man queue, do this:

1) Impose tonnage limits
2) Allow folks to use that tonnage and drop with less than 8 men

And really, it's the second point which is most important... I don't really mind dropping light, but a lot of the time we just don't have 8 men at once. Let us voluntarilly drop with 6-7 guys, if we want.

[Bishop Steiner]

I ran about 8 drops with my former unit, Steele's 1st Legion of Thunder, last night. Been a bit since I had dropped in 8 man.

Results, 7 wins, and don't know about the 8th, because the stomach flu prompted me to disco and run as soon as I got killed. It coulda have headed either way.

3 Things of note?

We dropped against the same team twice, and then after one more match ran into another team twice in a row too. Part of that may be lack of teams, part of it is just the simple fact that you finish the match at teh same time, and their is a goodly chance you are going into the search que again at essentially the same time, hence improving odds of facing the same group.

ECM is still the rule of the day, with every team we faced having at least 3 of them.

BUT, that is down from the 6-8 ECM carrying mechs per group I had been encountering (Usually 6 Atlas D-DC and 2 quicker ECM squirrels). And the mech weights were much more varied, with Phracts, Pults, Awesomes and Hunchies being represented (Even saw a Jenner once or twice, yay for Jenny).

Thing is, I can't tell after a single night if this is indicative of the state of play, with boredom finally getting people to stop min/max groups (seems unlikely among the "Awesome ProGamer" crowd), if people are actually leaving, or.... it's the Holidays and people actually are doing real world things, with real life human beings.

I know.. strange that folks might actually do that whole messy "in the flesh" thing (I mean, ya never have to worry about bad breath online!), but gonna guess it had a little something to do.

[Slaytronic]

Sorry mate but it's called the holidays hell I'm not even playing till after New Years friends, family and tons of beer.

[Bilbo]

Been doing family Christmas things for the past week, so I haven't been able to play at all until sometime tonight. It was always difficult to get 8 players going for any lengthy period of time. Smoke breaks, Bio breaks, RL interruptions, and mech labbing all make it difficult to keep a group running. Couple that with the availabilty issues over the Holidays and your just not going to see a large number of 8-mans at the moment in my humble opinion. Some people just don't want to deal with the delays and others just want to get in a few drops while they have a spare minute.

[Krondor]

Bishop Steiner, on 28 December 2012 - 10:48 AM, said:

I ran about 8 drops with my former unit, Steele's 1st Legion of Thunder, last night. Been a bit since I had dropped in 8 man.

Results, 7 wins, and don't know about the 8th, because the stomach flu prompted me to disco and run as soon as I got killed. It coulda have headed either way.

3 Things of note?

We dropped against the same team twice, and then after one more match ran into another team twice in a row too. Part of that may be lack of teams, part of it is just the simple fact that you finish the match at teh same time, and their is a goodly chance you are going into the search que again at essentially the same time, hence improving odds of facing the same group.

ECM is still the rule of the day, with every team we faced having at least 3 of them.

BUT, that is down from the 6-8 ECM carrying mechs per group I had been encountering (Usually 6 Atlas D-DC and 2 quicker ECM squirrels). And the mech weights were much more varied, with Phracts, Pults, Awesomes and Hunchies being represented (Even saw a Jenner once or twice, yay for Jenny).

Thing is, I can't tell after a single night if this is indicative of the state of play, with boredom finally getting people to stop min/max groups (seems unlikely among the "Awesome ProGamer" crowd), if people are actually leaving, or.... it's the Holidays and people actually are doing real world things, with real life human beings.

I know.. strange that folks might actually do that whole messy "in the flesh" thing (I mean, ya never have to worry about bad breath online!), but gonna guess it had a little something to do.

That's encouraging. I hope thhat's the way things are going now.

[Leimrey]

Roland, on 28 December 2012 - 10:47 AM, said:

If you want more folks in the 8 man queue, do this:

1) Impose tonnage limits
2) Allow folks to use that tonnage and drop with less than 8 men

And really, it's the second point which is most important... I don't really mind dropping light, but a lot of the time we just don't have 8 men at once. Let us voluntarilly drop with 6-7 guys, if we want.

Although I support your proposition for tonnage limits and the ability to drop with less than 8 men, I think that literally no one would ever drop undermanned, since having more skilled guys is WAY better than having bigger guns, IMO.

[Glory in the Highest]

Teralitha, on 28 December 2012 - 10:46 AM, said:

the trolls do not exist......

Yes. Yes they do.


How heavy is that bridge, btw?

[Roland]

Leimrey, on 28 December 2012 - 10:54 AM, said:

Although I support your proposition for tonnage limits and the ability to drop with less than 8 men, I think that literally no one would ever drop undermanned, since having more skilled guys is WAY better than having bigger guns, IMO.

We already choose to drop with mechs in 8v8 that we KNOW will be extremely undertonned.

And, back in league play, there were times when we chose to drop with less men, to use the tonnage.

Certainly, having more pilots is generally better, and if we had the men we'd field 8... but we'd choose to play in the 8 man queue if we could drop with less than 8... and having a tonnage limit would mean that it'd be a little more fair.

[Sears]

Roland, on 28 December 2012 - 10:47 AM, said:

If you want more folks in the 8 man queue, do this:

1) Impose tonnage limits
2) Allow folks to use that tonnage and drop with less than 8 men

And really, it's the second point which is most important... I don't really mind dropping light, but a lot of the time we just don't have 8 men at once. Let us voluntarilly drop with 6-7 guys, if we want.

Would there be a minimum tonnage limit? Why not use 8 ECM ravens?

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Leimrey, on 28 December 2012 - 10:54 AM, said:

Although I support your proposition for tonnage limits and the ability to drop with less than 8 men, I think that literally no one would ever drop undermanned, since having more skilled guys is WAY better than having bigger guns, IMO.

Yea they would, it was a staple thing to do in leagues past and can work played correctly.
But i think the biggest bonus about it, is for those smaller units who don't have 8 on all the time, or have 8 and 1 has to go AFK an hour.
They can continue to play.

[Teralitha]

Glory, on 28 December 2012 - 10:55 AM, said:

Yes. Yes they do.


How heavy is that bridge, btw?

Not as heavy as your own... clanner. Are you still holding a grudge after all these years? Priceless....

Edited by Teralitha, 28 December 2012 - 11:03 AM.

[Promptus]

Krondor, on 28 December 2012 - 10:33 AM, said:

4 man games are much more fun right now, win or lose.

I don't play internet robots to be bored to death.

[Bishop Steiner]

Leimrey, on 28 December 2012 - 10:46 AM, said:

It's really funny how people are stating that ELO will sort everything out. Come on, guys, the playerbase is way too small to segregate players into different skillgroups. You will literally have no one to play against if PGI makes it so that only teams of similar skill can fight each other.
Let's hope that the game will attract more players in the future, and fast.

Personally, all I want is a tonnage limit for 8 mans. Let's say some 450 tons or something similar.

Truth to tell, unless they keep FAR more extensive stat data, ELO is as utterly meaningless as our corrent stats. All high damage usually indicates is that you drive a SPAM Boat. High K/Dr is easily buffed with Pug Stomps, Kill Steals and Disco/pre death (and yes, I still see plenty of little beeyotches pulling this. Stroking e-peen must be a hugely addictive thing). W/L is again pretty easily swayed too.

I find that the truth of 8 man sync dropping against PUGs (from my experience) to lie somewhere in the middle, as not near as many as the QQ portion of PugNation wants to report (or even the 8man groups who think they are so good they have scared half the other units off, lol.) and not near as rare as Merc Corps want to admit.

I ran into 2 groups of Mercs I knew by name, including one dropping from within the Comstar NA channel. Can't say how many more may be doing the same from NGNG, or even their own private channel. Another group I was rolled by, I encounter 2 hours later in 8 man, where I recognized 6-7 of the same names, so am Guessing they were attempting Sync drops until they had a full 8.

Regardless, it is the last bastion for those who can't cut the grade against "equal" competition. I don't 8 man a lot, due to 1) not being in a Merc Corp anymore, and 2) Got real bored of dropping 7 out of 10 against min/maxxed 6 Atlas/2Cicada units, which essentially really limited what you could choose to run if you wanted a better success rate...... I love driving Mediums to Heavies, and in the ECMWarrior it became on 8 man after the start of Phase 2, those designs were fast obsoleted for the most part.

So out of 20 drops last night, I can categorically confirm 3 out of 20, or somewhere around 15%. Have suspicions about a couple others, but can't prove it, and too often the PUGs I dropped with just did the "shotgun" run to the 4 corners approach and would have gotten mopped up by a single 4 man, or even a semi competent group of Pugs, let alone those lovely drops where someone grabs Drop Command, plops way markers and give orders. Which I find I might get to run with that sort of group MAYBE 1 in 8.

Bottom line, as a PUG player, most PUG stomping is initiated by poor pug play and coordination.

Wow that got a little off topic on ELOs, but there ya have it. I agree, the Stats Matrix, and player base are way to immature for ELO to be effective right now.

I think the other option listed, with a Random Drop Weight Matrix, and the ability to attain that weight with any number of players, would improve 8 man signifigantly. And for easing the matchmaking, have a weight randomizer that allows for a +/- 15% margin on weight. Once you do that, the Groups that like their 6 Atlas Stomps will quickly find themselves only facing the same, and getting punched in the nose far more often, those dropping with Locust Swarms, teh same.

And somewhere in the middle, groups who actually run well balanced groups will get the majority of the matches.

[PropagandaWar]

After the holidays it'll pick up. My lance (We have lances in our group) the last two weeks has been painful. My last 8 man match was fun even though we lost for me anywho because I blasted away two assaults with my new Flame that was almost a week ago. After that hell I have only been able to get a game in here or there. Anywho if you see a Skele hunchy sp Black/White with bloody fist and feet that'll most likely be me.

[Erik Jast]

Promptus, on 28 December 2012 - 11:03 AM, said:

I don't play internet robots to be bored to death.

Some people prefer ezmode wins to make themselves feel better. Where do you find easy wins? 4-man grouping to slaughter pugs as chances are, the pugs have no idea what they are doing and lack coordination. Like taking candy from a baby, but in a gang of four!

[Barnaby Jones]

Erik Jast, on 28 December 2012 - 11:06 AM, said:

Some people prefer ezmode wins to make themselves feel better. Where do you find easy wins? 4-man grouping to slaughter pugs as chances are, the pugs have no idea what they are doing and lack coordination. Like taking candy from a baby, but in a gang of four!

http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__1672128