533 replies to this topic

[Slanski]

On the 27th, early evening European time our unit (12th Donegal) couldn't get a single 8man opponent team for 15 minutes. This game lives and dies by providing opponents to play and matchmaking for a decent fight. Currently it neither incentivizes nor sets up for a good varied match. 8 man games give you a harder fight which takes longer and does not reward you for it.

No drop limits and no qualified match making means that there is a free for all of the worst min maxing available. The matchmaker is not designed. Not implemented.

Which means the mission critical package is failing and so will the revenue! I love the idea of MWO, but PGI needs to permit the players to play eachother in well balanced challenging matches. The current no weight limit all ECM Frankenstein 8 man drops are the absence of game design.

[Krondor]

Vassago Rain, on 29 December 2012 - 06:05 AM, said:

If they're so bad, why don't you roll them? I know we roll people who mass stalkers and fatlases all the time.

Because. It's. F--king. Boring.

Playing against the exact same composition of opponents time after time after time makes for an incredibly dull and repetitive game.

Also Vassago, you're really funny. You'll cry about premades stomping in PUG games, and then turn right around and go on about how premades all suck and are easy to route.

Edited by Krondor, 29 December 2012 - 06:16 AM.

[p4r4g0n]

Barnaby Jones, on 29 December 2012 - 06:04 AM, said:

A premade looks very similar to a group of pugs who understand coordinated play even with a lack of communication. When I pug in my Assaults and a phract, or hunchie shadows me, when I shadow in my mediums or heavies, or when I swat the lights off my slow movers in my light: it looks alot like there may have been communication between me and them, even when there wasnt. Thats the difference between being a good player, and a great player/teammate: how effectively you work together in absence of any form of communication. Reactionary play does not require comms, it only requires situational awareness.

Agreed and I've seen some good matches that went this way which were way enjoyable.

My post was a response to Lykaon telling solo PUGgers to be grateful for premades on their team. If winning was that important to me, I wouldn't be playing a game like this with my 300ms latency.

Edited by p4r4g0n, 29 December 2012 - 06:17 AM.

[Vassago Rain]

Krondor, on 29 December 2012 - 06:15 AM, said:

Because. It's. F--king. Boring.

Playing against the exact same composition of opponents time after time after time makes for an incredibly dull and repetitive game.

Also Vassago, you're really funny. You'll cry about premades stomping in PUG games, and then turn right around and go on about how premades all suck and are easy to route.

Welcome to competitive gaming, where everybody uses the min-maxed option that gives as big a chance as possible of winning.

Sol Badguy is on your left, and you'll find Akuma three rows down to the right.

[Stone Wall]

Slanski, on 29 December 2012 - 06:08 AM, said:

On the 27th, early evening European time our unit (12th Donegal) couldn't get a single 8man opponent team for 15 minutes. This game lives and dies by providing opponents to play and matchmaking for a decent fight. Currently it neither incentivizes nor sets up for a good varied match. 8 man games give you a harder fight which takes longer and does not reward you for it.

You shouldn't expect this game to be at max population while in Beta.

[Krondor]

Vassago Rain, on 29 December 2012 - 06:21 AM, said:

Welcome to competitive gaming, where everybody uses the min-maxed option that gives as big a chance as possible of winning.

Wasn't as near a problem until PGI dumped in ECM. You still had teams boating, but they were the exception rather than the rule.

Edited by Krondor, 29 December 2012 - 06:32 AM.

[Stone Wall]

Krondor, on 29 December 2012 - 06:31 AM, said:

Wasn't as near a problem until PGI dumped in ECM. You still had teams boating, but they were the exception rather than the rule.

In my experience, 80% of my matches had 3-4 LRM mechs hanging out in the back blasting everything with in 800m to bits.

[Vassago Rain]

Krondor, on 29 December 2012 - 06:31 AM, said:

Wasn't as near a problem until PGI dumped in ECM. You still had teams boating, but they were the exception rather than the rule.

INCOMING MISSILE.
INCOMING MISSILE.
INCOMING MISSILE.
INCOMING MISSILE.









LRMs keep falling on my head.







Adding ECM is the smartest move PGI's made so far.

[Alalcomenous]

I generally don't do 8-mans with my group because, I will admit it, I suck. I am usually one of the first to die if I go for a short ranged mech, get picked off because I am a short ranged mech, and in general, I just don't feel like I contribute to a match. I did when ECM wasn't in the game because I could support with LRMS, not anymore.

I also don't do 8-mans because I want to have fun in the mech I want to fight in. I want to fight in Hunchbacks, not force myself to strap into a Light Mech with ECM or a ****** Atlas-D-DC

[StandingCow]

The problem is there are no weight restrictions. Wish PGI would set a hard weight limit for 8 mans.

We tried like 8 times to get an 8 man this morning, no dice.

[Vassago Rain]

StandingCow, on 29 December 2012 - 06:48 AM, said:

The problem is there are no weight restrictions. Wish PGI would set a hard weight limit for 8 mans.

We tried like 8 times to get an 8 man this morning, no dice.

The problem is that there's a wimpy, weak way out of playing people on your own level, and until this is addressed, you'll keep having the mechwarrior equivalent of Daigo dropping against a class of preschoolers.

[Kelb]

My company is changing over right now, several players wanted to leave and find others to play with and the rest of us are having problems rounding up 8. Many players may be taking time off for the holidays too.

[Krondor]

Vassago Rain, on 29 December 2012 - 06:43 AM, said:

INCOMING MISSILE.
INCOMING MISSILE.
INCOMING MISSILE.
INCOMING MISSILE.









LRMs keep falling on my head.







Adding ECM is the smartest move PGI's made so far.

Never had too much of a problem with LRMs in 8v8. LRM heavy teams were easy as hell to counter. They were somewhat unbalancing in PUG matches because puggers still don't have a clue how to use cover.

But since LRMs have been the crybaby's favoured targets since CB it's no surprise they got a huge nerf. Bigger problem with ECM in 8v8 is it's made two classes of mechs (mediums and heavy) completely obsolete.

I've seen exactly two Jenners in 8v8 since ECM. I've seen exactly one Commando. Maybe a small handful of hunchbacks. I still see the occasional Gausskitty or SRM kitty, no other variants. Only Dragon I've seen is the one I'm piloting. Can't remember the last time I saw a Cent.

Edited by Krondor, 29 December 2012 - 07:08 AM.

[Glory in the Highest]

Krondor, on 29 December 2012 - 07:05 AM, said:

But since LRMs have been the crybaby's favoured targets since CB it's no surprise they got a huge nerf.

Which is a little bit amusing, considering LRMs were never very good to start with (except for that one patch where they came down vertically).

[Xeven]

They are not there for several reasons. 1. Game has not enough content to keep people on and interested. 2. There is no depth of objectives, missions, cool rewards, no feeling of being in the battletech universe, to keep people interested long term. 3. 8vPug = Stats look great. 4. 8v8 means stats go south because your not going to win as much against other organized team speak teams. The last two are probably why the current people playing are not doing 8v8 as they worry bout there stats and don't like getting rolled on by truly good teams.

[Krondor]

I don't mind losing, especially when the fight was good (by God, if you're going to kill me, I'm going to make you work for it!) or I can learn something from it.

With the current state of 8v8 right now, it's neither. The fights are boring. Opposing teams are almost without exception Atlas DCs and Raven 3Ls. Nearly all semblance of tactical play has been eliminated. No long range matches. No need to advance under cover. No need to outmaneuver your opponent. No need to even play smart. Just run at eachother and hope you outshoot the other guy. 90% of the time.

The good matches where tactics, planning, and just plain smart play count as so ********* rare right now it's stupid.

If they leave ECM as it is, they need to give us much bigger maps.

Edited by Krondor, 29 December 2012 - 07:19 AM.

[Barnaby Jones]

Xeven, on 29 December 2012 - 07:12 AM, said:

They are not there for several reasons. 1. Game has not enough content to keep people on and interested. 2. There is no depth of objectives, missions, cool rewards, no feeling of being in the battletech universe, to keep people interested long term. 3. 8vPug = Stats look great. 4. 8v8 means stats go south because your not going to win as much against other organized team speak teams. The last two are probably why the current people playing are not doing 8v8 as they worry bout there stats and don't like getting rolled on by truly good teams.

The reason people dont do 8s are NOT because of stats.

How many times do we have to reitterate that the issues with 8mans are because of lack of weight restrictions, ecm proliferation, and lots of time waiting (both in and out of matches) before you people believe what we are saying?

[TB Freelancer]

Thontor, on 28 December 2012 - 09:12 AM, said:

i think Matchmaking Phase 3 will go a long ways to fix a lot of the issues people are bringing up. If I were PGI I would wait and see how that plays out before making any kind of restrictions on the team compositions.

I'm willing to bet that's exactly what they'll do. Release the matchmaker just as they announced they would. Then they'd see how it works, where the problems are, and tweak it a little further down the line.

[zenstrata]

Getting exactly 8 people together for extended gaming is very difficult. You have to wait around a lot as people do bathroom breaks, have to take care of kids, get food, etc. People also have different schedules, not everyone can be around at exactly the same time to play. So when you finally get 8 people going, you maybe only get 3 games (or 4 if you are lucky!) per hour. This means it is more efficient and fun to just play 4 man groups because people can hop out or in whenever they want without completely screwing the team.

This is also because 8 man teams are now incredibly competitive. So you can't drop with just 6 or 7 and expect to be able to be effective because missing gaps are not filled with other players. You have to be dropping with exactly 8 people, you all must be in the right type of mechs, usually these days everyone must have ECM because you know that every other team out there will have at least 4 ECM mechs - or more usually 6 or even a full 8 ecm mechs.

8 man groups work well in theory, but have not held up in real life due to the above issues (and the other things people have mentioned in this thread).

Edited by zenstrata, 29 December 2012 - 07:34 AM.

[Felix]

they were too busy being ******** and pug stomping