116 replies to this topic

[Horned Bull]

yeah, sure sync drops doesn't exist. It's just a conspiracy, a tin foil hat tier one.



Remember, pub stomping synch dropping happens only once in one million games!

[Protoculture]

soarra, on 01 January 2013 - 12:15 PM, said:

How come no one can lose to a better team without yelling premade. SOmetimes the other pug group is just better and actually have a plan at the beginning.

Because this is about a billion times more rare than a group of people who know each other from other games coordinating via voice comms trying hard to get in to the same match.

[Voidsinger]

Founder, and I PUG.

In fact, I'm earning my way up through the tonnages, mastering every variant along the way so I won't have to worry about it later (Up to Phracts).

You do see the occasional 8 man. Most aren't. In fact, nearly all premades will never declare themselves as such (fear of reputation tarnish?).

This game can be really cruel to new players. That PUG stomping reaches esport level with some players (who generally can't cut it against better groups) doesn't help, nor do snide remarks.

It would be better if PGI actually had an icon next to players dropping in a premade. It would solve a great many issues with misattribution of blame. It would also help to explain to new players frustrated at losing why, and maybe get them over the hump.

Groups haven't changed. There will always be those who PUGstomp, and insult the other teams. Of course, there are some great people who declare themselves, or do try to help PUG newbs get better. That's human nature, it's a roll of the dice who you end up with.

So, if you're premade, announce it. Or help a new player each day, and they might stick around.

[One Medic Army]

Korm, on 02 January 2013 - 09:15 AM, said:

yeah, sure sync drops doesn't exist. It's just a conspiracy, a tin foil hat tier one.



Remember, pub stomping synch dropping happens only once in one million games!

Well, I see that they only had a team of 7, and you had a team of 3, and you managed to go 8-4. I've had terrific games that went 4-4 and then the landslide only happened after both teams were halved (and 4 survivors were all near death).

What, you say? The end of match screen doesn't tell the whole story? You didn't have a 3man on your team? But you had 3 Founders!
Everyone knows that founders are always part of premades!

/sarcasm

[Horned Bull]

One Medic Army, on 02 January 2013 - 09:27 AM, said:

Well, I see that they only had a team of 7, and you had a team of 3, and you managed to go 8-4. I've had terrific games that went 4-4 and then the landslide only happened after both teams were halved (and 4 survivors were all near death).

What, you say? The end of match screen doesn't tell the whole story? You didn't have a 3man on your team? But you had 3 Founders!
Everyone knows that founders are always part of premades!

/sarcasm

when you get full golds on the other side it's more than suspicious. Especially when they steamroll with three A1 and one ecm raven. A pure coincidence I guess.

[One Medic Army]

I see 8-4, hardly a steamroll.
I also see 3 useless players on the other team (defined as <100 dmg).

As a "gold" founder myself, I sometimes see myself on a team full of elite/legendary founders, and I can assure you it's not a sync-drop when I'm part of it. In fact I'm usually only with 1-2 other people when I'm grouped.

Was there a premade on the other team? Possibly. We're there two? Possibly. We're they sync-dropping? Possibly.
If you want to prove it, keep track of names and find out which merc corp it is. None of the random groups from the TS servers intentionally sync-drops.

[Roland]

Korm, on 02 January 2013 - 09:32 AM, said:

when you get full golds on the other side it's more than suspicious.

Why?

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Roland, on 02 January 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

Why?

Because all gold founders belong to the same unit, duh.

[Horned Bull]

One Medic Army, on 02 January 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

I see 8-4, hardly a steamroll.
I also see 3 useless players on the other team (defined as <100 dmg).

As a "gold" founder myself, I sometimes see myself on a team full of elite/legendary founders, and I can assure you it's not a sync-drop when I'm part of it. In fact I'm usually only with 1-2 other people when I'm grouped.

Was there a premade on the other team? Possibly. We're there two? Possibly. We're they sync-dropping? Possibly.
If you want to prove it, keep track of names and find out which merc corp it is. None of the random groups from the TS servers intentionally sync-drops.

Actually few threads ago (and like a month ago in standard time) there was a guy who actually confirmed that he plays sync drops. Chances are he was trolling, but still seeing this was at least unsettling. Even if it wasn't a sync drop I'm pretty much positive there was a premade on the other side. It's rare to see high concentration of cheesy setups on one side in pure pub fight.

Also as a typical paranoid pub player I tend to keep my own rooster of "they owned me hard" groups. I was able to confirm few 4 mans already. Yet I only saw one sync drop that actually confirmed sync dropping (goons to be precise).

Roland, on 02 January 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

Why?

A personal paranoia from the times of good old 8man stomping. Also full group of founders is rather a rare thing to see this days.

Edited by Korm, 02 January 2013 - 09:52 AM.

[Kraven Kor]

Vassago Rain, on 01 January 2013 - 11:34 PM, said:

It's not viable. It's so not viable, I've had people ask me to push the issue for a very long time.

When you solo, you do so knowing you'll have about a 90% chance of losing every game, no matter your own performance. Right now, making money isn't tied to winning, so you can make 100k from losses, if you're good enough at carrying.

So, when I PUG, and win about 50% of my matches... that is not viable?

When I PUG, and make 100k+ from a loss, that is not viable?

What is viable?

[Bguk]

Korm, on 02 January 2013 - 09:15 AM, said:

yeah, sure sync drops doesn't exist. It's just a conspiracy, a tin foil hat tier one.

Remember, pub stomping synch dropping happens only once in one million games!

I don't see anyone stating they don't exist, just not at the level of "ZOMG DEY ALL URRR ON TEH SAME TEEM AN GROOP ALL TEH ITME!!!!@!1!!". Simple fact is we all, on all sides of the argument, have no idea what the group makeup is on the other side when we lose. There are no in game markers to denote who is grouped with who. Do people group up and stomp? Yes. Do people group up and lose? Yes.

[Endbr1nger]

Cryos420, on 02 January 2013 - 08:17 AM, said:

First off, no I wasn't Trolling, I was bringing up a major flaw in the game. I can pick up new COD or Battlefield and within 2 days be getting consistent kills and a positive score. Hell most games you can start getting decent score after 100+ games. I should know I've been playing them for 15 years.

Sounds just like this game. After a couple of games you should have more kills than deaths. If you think that you should have more wins, well that is totally wrong. Anyone could pick up CS and play for a couple of days and get better. In counter-strike's hayday it was the most popular FPS game in the entire world. If a new player joined any decent server you would never break a 1-1 unless you had weeks or months playing, and were intelligent enough to constantly improve (most people don't have the mindset to do this). I killed the same scrubs on my normal servers for years, yes years. They were sometimes breaking 1-1 when they started, and a year later they still couldn't break 1-1. This is your average video game player, he plays, has fun shooting and running around, then leaves. These people cannot be seperated from the above average player, who plays but only has fun by improving. If they were, then the above average player gets games with the same 20 people, and the crappy player has no exposure to how good he could be. Just like kids looking up to NBA stars, people need someone to role model even when its clear they will never play for the NBA.

CS was the most popular FPS in the world for at least a year? Longer I think? You don't need to dumb down a game to be popular. In fact when CS dumbed itself down (Source) the good players left in droves and the casuals left soon after. I would want to have MWO go down the same path.

While ELO will be a good thing, it will not end this whining. Look at SC2, which has a great match making system. You will consistently win 50% of your solo games. As you get better you play with better people. It isn't until you hit pro-gamer levels of skill that you start to skew away from 50%. Sounds great until you realize how soul crushing that actually is. Bust your butt, practice 1k games, great, you still only win half the time. The vast majority of players will never ever get to the level to break out of the roughly 50% win rate. That means no matter how good you think you are, no matter how much you practice, it will make no difference, you will sit at 50%.

Is it a million times easier to win with a pre-made? Absolutely. Just like every other game ever made. If I join in with 3 of my friends I will clean up a server. I have never played a game where that was not true. Does that mean that pugging is broken? No it doesn't, you can still get a lot of kills while pugging, its just more difficult. Welcome to life, somethings are hard, if you want to get more kills in a pug, play better.

Edited by Endbr1nger, 02 January 2013 - 12:07 PM.

[Havyek]

So, has this gone from whining about pre-mades to whining about people who have been playing longer?

[Kunae]

BDU Havoc, on 02 January 2013 - 12:15 PM, said:

So, has this gone from whining about pre-mades to whining about people who have been playing longer?

Sure... gotta whine about sumthin.

[3ffigy]

Even trying to get some 8v8 scrimmages going via sync dropping is a lot of hassle and rarely works even in the 8v8 queues unless you put more than two 8 man groups into the sync rotation due to the lack of any real match-making. Even back when we could do full 8 mans and try to sync based on some arbitrary group make-up we'd frequently fail to sync up about 50% or more.

I can't imagine wasting any time trying to get two 4 man groups to sync up. I'd expect you'd be as likely to face each other as to be on the same team. That said I have on occasion randomly dropped against or with another 1-4 man from my merc corp without the use of sync drop techniques. I also find it strangely amusing when I drop into the exact same match two matches in a row with the same players, but possibly in a different combination. I think the reality is that the active player pool at any given time of day is limited enough that you see the same players frequently enough that you not only know their names, but recognize their tactics and know what kind of mech they are likely to be piloting.

Edited by 3ffigy, 02 January 2013 - 12:23 PM.

[Grabes]

Oh.

I thought OP was going to ***** about how groups suck *** now.

I've stopped playing for a bit cuz generally everyone left on the comstar's TS during the days sucks hard.

Four people can pull the weight of eight.
One can't.

[RayBotiiC]

Ardem, on 01 January 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

I make hardline decisions with my own business often and it is profitable.

You try to stand in the middle ground, and be everything to everyone, eventually you go under, because it not sustainable and not profitable. You cater to people that do not put money in you still need to provide them server time and tech time and programming time. In the end you **** off both sets and they leave.

If you don't know this, then I know your never been in business.

Taking a hard line stance can be totally acceptable, but I don't believe the hard line supporters of this particular franchise have a proven track record of supporting a profitable video game franchise long term. There is a reason it's been 10 years since we've gotten a MechWarrior game. Sure there are other factors what with different legal entities retaining rights to portions of the content. If this game can't bring in more than just the hard liners, then it'll be more than 10 years before we see another attempt to resurrect the video game version of MechWarrior when this one crashes and burns.

Good or bad, if the game can't help facilitate the community interaction needed to retain the players for profitability it will not succeed. MVP (minimum viable product) should be the focus. MVP is what can be marketed, sold and used to generate revenue while they continue to improve and build a bigger better product. You are losing site of the bigger picture. Community is indeed what this game is about, but I'm sorry... every game out there has a forum, wiki and frequently private VOIP servers. Many of those games have a distinct lack of "community" about them. In the absence of PGI stepping it up and addressing it through the game itself, members like you and I have to help build that community. And taking the hard line is not going to get the job done in an exceeding competitive industry where games rise and fall very quickly.
.
Be careful you don't hard line yourself into memories of a what could have been a great game, rather than the great game itself.

I find it hard to believe that being in business you find requiring 4 or 8 customers to all essentially buy and use the same product leading to a larger revenue stream than if you can hook them one at a time, facilitate their interaction with others and build a community that keeps them all coming back.

Like I said specialization has its place, and more businesses succeed that get it than that don't. But not all industries are the same and games are a dime a dozen. Hard line this one into irrelevancy at your own risk.

Edited by Waurgrim, 02 January 2013 - 01:53 PM.