533 replies to this topic

[Sahoj]

Personally - I don't play any competitive mechs so have slid away from 8-man play to avoid hindering my team.

I drive what I want.

[Vassago Rain]

Duckwalk, on 02 January 2013 - 10:59 PM, said:

I guess I should be worried some anonymous forum troll is out to get me. Too bad I've never heard of you and you neglected to mention who you drop with/when.



Duckwalk
Skye-Rangers.net

Look me up any time

Connor Sinclair. He's covered in hair.

[Scryed]

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

8v8s are where true competition is at. Where are the teams? We queued up last night, and had several time-outs, and then we played a couple teams twice, and a third team once. We should be having many teams playing these. 4v4s are not that much fun are they?

They got tired of ECM cheese. last I heard.

[Moonsavage]

Massaging their epeens and k/d ratios in pug matches.

[AvatarofWhat]

Tried to drop an 8-man today. 4 consecutive failed searches...

Then we lost one of the guys and had to break up....

[Duckwalk]

Vassago Rain, on 03 January 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

Connor Sinclair. He's covered in hair.

???

-Duckwalk

[ConnorSinclair]

Duckwalk, on 03 January 2013 - 04:44 PM, said:

???

-Duckwalk

http://youtu.be/6buWXCpQasI


And all I can be asking myself is " Who are you? "

Edited by ConnorSinclair, 03 January 2013 - 04:54 PM.

[Harmatia]

ECM base rushing Raven's killed it for me and mine. Maybe that changed a bit in the last patch, we haven't had much time to play since then.

[Fastidious]

Mavairo, on 02 January 2013 - 08:12 PM, said:

See, people used to use this same argument in STO (I did myself at one time) about X not being all that bad when the metagame was -forced- to have special restrictions. But the thing is, that's why those restrictions get made. It's not the Normal Metagame that you deal with day in and day out<snip>

I think this hits on the real issue, gameplay and balance. You can restrict and use limits to force a bit of sanity onto MWO. Let's say we do 2-2-2-2 weight limits and limit of 2 ECM (just as an example for the sake of argument). That'd bring back variety pronto. However the guys in the two ECM mechs are going to be very important. If bringing 2 AS7-D-DC ECM was the best strategy who wants to be stuck in a non-ECM light all the time to fill a rule set slot? That's not a bad thing but if PGI doesn't follow this setup for normal play, then game design will not match up. So while this new rule set might be a fix right now, there's a good chance it'll cause conflict later as PGI changes the game. Having competition and regular play be on vastly different rule sets never ends up well. PGI would have a very hard time designing and balancing gameplay for multiple rule sets, if they even tried to at all.

Mavairo, on 02 January 2013 - 08:12 PM, said:

Tournaments aren't the standard metagame. Tournaments that intentionally change things to avoid things like the DDC, 3L spam being an issue only highlight it to be that much worse.

Yeah, it's basically admitting there is a problem and saying the only way to fix it is to limit or ban it. If the metagame is balanced and naturally promotes variety, limits serve no purpose but to restrict. Tribes Ascend (T:A) was the king of these limit and ban rule sets. Let me just explain what happened in that game and why I fear limits in MWO. In T:A you had 9 classes. Public servers could go as high as 20v20 but was more like 14v14 to 16v16 for normal population. There were no class limits or limits of any kind on a normal public server. It was very easy to defensively stack the game and put mass snipers to stop any flag captures in CTF on a normal server. However in serious competitive play or private server pickup games ran 7v7 (which is standard league rules) with various limits, such as 1 sniper per team and various weapon/item bans. Then on top of all that different regions had different rule sets with EU, AU, and NA all had various tweaks on the rule sets. Also various leagues and tournaments ran different rule sets to segment things even further.

The sniper was the supreme defensive class and the pillar of defense. A top sniper could shut out a game by himself vs even good teams. Yet because the sniper was penalized with a huge respawn time upon death (10 seconds vs everyone else at 5) and limited 1 per team in competition people thought it was good enough. Sure, the teams have the same rule set each but it's not balanced at all on an individual level. Who wants to play a team game where one player is the critical element and vastly important while the rest of the team is a meat shield? How many players want to be stuck playing kicker when there's a quarterback slot? Role warfare is great as long as each role remains relatively important yet promotes differences.

MWO could make the rule set 7-0-0-1 (7 Commando with 1 machine gun each and 1 Daishi with any weapons) per team and it'd be balanced per team but who'd want to play such a silly game. Obviously that's a ridiculous example but it points out the problems with limits in a team based game. MWO needs to end up balanced enough that there are reasons to use many load outs and mechs while not just relying on a few builds, or pretending limits fix balance. Limits can work (tonnage, weight class, BV, or what not) but it's another form of balance that needs to be very carefully thought out and implemented by PGI too, not just the community acting alone.

[Zombie SixNine]

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

8v8s are where true competition is at. Where are the teams? We queued up last night, and had several time-outs, and then we played a couple teams twice, and a third team once. We should be having many teams playing these. 4v4s are not that much fun are they?

Sorry, my idea of fun is a mixed lance...not 8 mechs decked out with ECM...yawn...

[Mycrus]

silentD11, on 03 January 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

While this is cute and all (your heart is certainly in the right place) it's hardly a solution. Any solutions like this which are community side are like slapping a Dora The Explorer bandage over the sucking chest wound that is the current 8v8 implementation, it's not really a solution.

I'm not sure that making 8 mans require even yet more effort to get working are a solution when one of the biggest reasons to drop in 4s is that they aren't as obnoxious as getting an 8 man going. Drop restrictions need to come from the PGI side. People will naturally migrate to 8 mans when it's simple to do and the games are enjoyable. Right now it's just too much planning and hoop jumping in the hopes the drops work out.

Yes it is far from ideal, but we are not going to waste time waiting for pgi to fiX IT
We are trying to get as much 8man training as we can in prep for CW...

4-man vs PUGs rots your skills and brains... It is easy mode.... If you run ecm it becomes god mode...

[Cuthbert Allgood]

Tis the thread that keeps on going!

[LaserAngel]

Kong appears to have cleared everyone out. This morning it was nothing but failed to find matches.

I do feel somewhat bad for the team they kept facing 5-6 times in a row.