533 replies to this topic

[Insidious Johnson]

Reactor online.
Sensors online.
Weapons online.
Atlas online.
All systems nominal.

[Josef Nader]

The complete lack of restrictions on 8v8 combined with everyone bringing their A-game leads to a pretty un-fun environment, especially for folks like me who like to play while chewing the fat with friends. I don't want to unwind at the end of the day by being super competitive or getting rolled in 8-mans, and as much as I want to play with 7 other friends, I just don't have fun in the super serious business 8 man groups right now. I just don't enjoy playing to win that much, and I'm sure I'm not alone on that.

So yes, I'd rather play casually with friends while relaxing than put on my big-mech pants and fight entire teams of D-DC Atlases and gausscats.

[Major Scumbag]

neviu, on 28 December 2012 - 06:47 AM, said:

8 man, are ruled by ecm,

and lots of hackers these days,

That is my experience. Tried it couple times and always the same build of team. 6 DDC and 2 Raven 3L. Most people are still building up there mech lines to get elite on them. To me not even worth trying to get into it. Some of the shots taken I question if they were using targeting assists hacks.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Major Scumbag, on 28 December 2012 - 01:07 PM, said:

That is my experience. Tried it couple times and always the same build of team. 6 DDC and 2 Raven 3L. Most people are still building up there mech lines to get elite on them. To me not even worth trying to get into it. Some of the shots taken I question if they were using targeting assists hacks.

8 man teams are hackers yo!

[Joseph Mallan]

Josef Nader, on 28 December 2012 - 01:05 PM, said:

The complete lack of restrictions on 8v8 combined with everyone bringing their A-game leads to a pretty un-fun environment, especially for folks like me who like to play while chewing the fat with friends. I don't want to unwind at the end of the day by being super competitive or getting rolled in 8-mans, and as much as I want to play with 7 other friends, I just don't have fun in the super serious business 8 man groups right now. I just don't enjoy playing to win that much, and I'm sure I'm not alone on that.

So yes, I'd rather play casually with friends while relaxing than put on my big-mech pants and fight entire teams of D-DC Atlases and gausscats.

FYI... GaussCats were rare its teh AC20 Cats that are in right now.
...
...
...
Ouch!
Gotta keep my eyes out for those beasts. But keep em coming till you are complaining that I am OP!

[Lyoto Machida]

Gristle, on 28 December 2012 - 08:35 AM, said:

Between players leaving, build tweaks, bio-breaks and game crashes it's frustrating to run an 8-man team. If you're lucky you'll get in 2 or 3 matches in an hour.

Exactly this. Plus there's not much mech variety in 8 mans. Now if there was some way to limit tonnage...

[Roland]

Josef Nader, on 28 December 2012 - 01:05 PM, said:

The complete lack of restrictions on 8v8 combined with everyone bringing their A-game leads to a pretty un-fun environment, especially for folks like me who like to play while chewing the fat with friends. I don't want to unwind at the end of the day by being super competitive or getting rolled in 8-mans, and as much as I want to play with 7 other friends, I just don't have fun in the super serious business 8 man groups right now. I just don't enjoy playing to win that much, and I'm sure I'm not alone on that.

So yes, I'd rather play casually with friends while relaxing than put on my big-mech pants and fight entire teams of D-DC Atlases and gausscats.

On one hand, you say you don't care as much about winning, and just want to play for fun...
But nothing about eight man games prevent this, unless you are afraid to lose.

Sounds like you want to be able to play poorly, but still win.

That isn't how competition works though.

[TheMagician]

So perhaps 8 is too big, and 4s should be 4v4 instead of 8v8 matches? Maybe open an option for 4v4, 6v6, 8v8? Paul stated that this was the plan at one point, to have various sizes of group matches, but that hasn't come to be.

8 people coordinated is bigger than other titles out there, which tend to be 4-5, so I can see this as being somewhat of an issue. I recommend that teams setup specific times for the more organized battles, and hopefully people can clear out RL enough to play some fun dedicated organized 8v8 drops for an hour or so.

[Sir Trent Howell]

Blazing Aces have had the same problem. We usually run our 8 mans in the evenings. Instead we've been trying to find scrimmages with other teams rather than random fights.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Roland, on 28 December 2012 - 01:11 PM, said:

On one hand, you say you don't care as much about winning, and just want to play for fun...
But nothing about eight man games prevent this, unless you are afraid to lose.

Sounds like you want to be able to play poorly, but still win.

That isn't how competition works though.

Ouch those logic bombs.

[TheMagician]

DocBach, on 28 December 2012 - 10:31 AM, said:

Our group has too many vets with PTSD who end up cursing death threats when the game becomes "sit behind this hill with ECM while the enemy sits behind the other side with ECM and nothing happens" or "zerg with six ECM ravens and lagshield kill a lance of assaults" - generally most of us just drop in 4 mans.

You have WWI vets on your team?

We have one who fought in the Crimean war. His name is Vlad. He curses every-time somebody says charge.

[Joseph Mallan]

TheMagician, on 28 December 2012 - 01:19 PM, said:

You have WWI vets on your team?

We have one who fought in the Crimean war. His name is Vlad. He curses every-time somebody says charge.

Murphy's Law is nearly all Military Vets and present service members. Some of us Served in the 80s (like myself 0311 Infantry Marine 2nd Bat/5th MarDiv). Others like Doc, Much more recently. Most of us have served under combat conditions(myself excluded), Get to know us a little, before you joke with us about our service. It would be... polite.

To date there are No 80+ year old MWO players, so no, we have no WWII Vets as active members. If my dad's hands worked just a little better, I bet I could have had him on Murphy's roster!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 28 December 2012 - 01:39 PM.

[TheMagician]

Joseph Mallan, on 28 December 2012 - 01:35 PM, said:

Murphy's Law is nearly all Military Vets and present service members. Some of us Served in the 80s (like myself 0311 Infantry Marine 2nd Bat/5th MarDiv). Others like Doc, Much more recently. Most of us have served under combat conditions(myself excluded), Get to know us a little, before you joke with us about our service. It would be... polite.

To date there are No 80+ year old MWO players, so no, we have no WWII Vets as active members. If my dad's hands worked just a little better, I bet I could have had him on Murphy's roster!

Thanks for the info. It was obviously a joke comparing that style to trench warfare.

[Fastidious]

Glory, on 28 December 2012 - 08:58 AM, said:

I think what we all expected to happen has happened - the 8v8s are underpopulated because they are too hard for most.

Nah, that's not it at all. Most people who solo queue have bad ratios across the board, yet many of them still play regularly. The metagame in eights is garbage and unbalanced. It's more fun to play a regular game where you don't know what is going to happen and there can be surprises. Dropping with a four man or solo you don't know what you'll find in game. That's not even going into the problems of having eight people all on at once.

Glory, on 28 December 2012 - 08:58 AM, said:

the attitude of most gamers. "How dare you beat me with superior tactics and loadouts, even though they're available to me, too. Fight like a man. Take off ECM so I can kill you."

Again it's the gameplay. Players want most mechs to be viable and balanced. Most players don't even have the preferred mechs to play eight mans and feel like dead weight as a result. Few players are going to grind for the proper mechs to play eight mans. If eight mans are always reduced to a few mech builds they'll never be popular and competitive play will always be a joke. It doesn't matter what the current working builds are but if they are few in numbers and the polar opposite of regular play it'll never take off in popularity.

Successful competitive games use everything across the board that the game offers. In Quake, Starcraft 2, League, etc you don't need artificial limits to make the game good in competition. MWO is already going down the path of limits to fix competition, tonnage limits, weight type limits, and perhaps even ECM limits next. These can be fine if the regular game implements them as well and incorporates them into the design but if it's strictly a competition only ruleset then it's a failure. Having a split ruleset for competition and regular play is terrible (example Tribes Ascend).

If that is how MWO ends up with split rulesets I know I'll never get involved in competitive play and I'm sure most players will be similar. Just for my own back ground, I've won various top leagues in Doom/Quake across the years in North America. However I don't want to play some gimped version of MWO where viable builds can be counted on one hand just so I can have success in competition. PGI needs to balance the game from competition level down to ensure strong variety and use of many mechs. The game at competitive levels needs a healthy complex metagame. ELO and improved match making will help but that can't hide bad balance or weak gameplay. The curent eight mans situation is a result of gameplay. It's all on PGI now to improve it.

TheMagician, on 28 December 2012 - 01:14 PM, said:

So perhaps 8 is too big, and 4s should be 4v4 instead of 8v8 matches? Maybe open an option for 4v4, 6v6, 8v8? Paul stated that this was the plan at one point, to have various sizes of group matches, but that hasn't come to be.

I think this would be a great help for a variety of reasons. You can go through more permutations of the metagame much quicker with smaller groups and test things faster. I also favor 3v3/4v4 given my other FPS back ground. Less players per team is also easier to manage in every sense and things should move faster.

[Joseph Mallan]

TheMagician, on 28 December 2012 - 01:42 PM, said:

Thanks for the info. It was obviously a joke comparing that style to trench warfare.

I understand. Some of us are just a bit touchy. It's why I suggested getting to know us first, then you know which of us will laugh and which may get offended.

(Like me... I don't offend easily at all)

[Kraven Kor]

Erik Jast, on 28 December 2012 - 08:11 AM, said:

Most premades realized they didn't like losing and prefer ezmode pugstomping. The majority are back in the pug queue with their 4 mans, stomping away pretending they are awesome with the excuse that 8v8 is full of cheese players.

This is totally true, because you keep saying so.

Note: Sarcasm. Some groups may be in this boat, but keep on ignoring the actual reasons given and making the claim that we don't 8v8 because we just want to pug stomp.

You keep saying it, so it must be true. :groan:

[Lyoto Machida]

Kraven Kor, on 28 December 2012 - 01:50 PM, said:

This is totally true, because you keep saying so.

Note: Sarcasm. Some groups may be in this boat, but keep on ignoring the actual reasons given and making the claim that we don't 8v8 because we just want to pug stomp.

You keep saying it, so it must be true. :groan:

I say that anyone complaining about "premades pugstomping in 4 mans" should have to drop in 8 man queues for at least 3 hours straight...regardless of if they find a game or not.

Until they fulfill those 3 hours of gameplay, they won't be allowed to PUG again. Go see how fun it is for yourselves...

[SpiralRazor]

Pretty much on strike until ECM changes in a meaningful way, thats where they are at.

[Glory in the Highest]

Lyoto Machida, on 28 December 2012 - 01:55 PM, said:

Until they fulfill those 3 hours of gameplay, they won't be allowed to PUG again. Go see how fun it is for yourselves...

What you talkin' about, Willis? It's the most fun there is in the game right now.

[Mystere]

TheMagician, on 28 December 2012 - 05:44 AM, said:

8v8s are where true competition is at. Where are the teams?

<put In any excuse other than admitting that people were not as good as they thought they were>