379 replies to this topic

[Sam Slade]

Right now the new player experience in MWO is bad. It's not Trial Mechs or grind or anything like that; simply put we have to do away with four man groups. I've been playing PUGs exclusivly for almost a month now just to see what all the fuss was about... I'm actually starting to dislike the game and play Hawken or something instead.

Generally a four man premade group will contain at least one ECM mech(usually two), they will contain highly speced mechs(all the upgrades, etc...) and they will communicate easily(duh). Combine this with the synch drops(don't care if you're wanting to play against your clanmates... harden up and form an 8 man team), the high chance that at least one PUGer will dc/afk/suicide rush, the fact that ALL ECM counters require teamwork and you have a high chance of ending up on the wrong end of a backside kicking.

All in all this makes for a terrible, terrible new player experience... having played PUGs constantly I can say without a doubt the four man groups are the most negative element in the game. I LOVE mechwarrior but playing as a PUG just sucks.

EDIT: So, it seems the PUG vs. Premade Troll Squads got into this thread and started wailing and whining and grinding digital bones to make their bread... all of theses actions miss the point. The point is the new player experience. I'm not a new player. I could join a premade and stomp around killing PUG players at will if I wished... so for the aforementioned troll squads... issue is new player experience, not how awesome you are(also no Mechwarrior untill you finish your homework).

EDIT: If you can wade through the nonsense there are some solid observations and points made throughout this thread... don't look under the bridge though.

Edited by Sam Slade, 01 February 2013 - 06:49 AM.

[Vlad Ward]

Clearly we should just delete the entire Social tab and friend list functions because camaraderie is toxic to the community.

[One Medic Army]

Or they could just split new players off to only go vs new players... Or use ELO matching to do have new players go against new or bad players.
Just saying.

[Kobold]

The problem isn't the grouping. The problem is a no respawn game mode that requires finding a new game after every round. Bad players (or just players on bad teams) get frustrated. If that bad player were playing Hawken or CoD or BF or whatever, he'd just respawn and stop complaining about premades.

Premade complaints are just an outlet for frustration.

I used to be completely against respawns, but what I am really against is straight deathmatch. Give us Conquest or Assault with 30 second respawn delays, or maybe "lance reinforcements" (every time 4 players on a team die, then 10-30 seconds later they all come back together as a new lance). This would solve lots of people's complaints.

[Brilig]

I'm kinda hoping ELO does the trick too.

[WarZ]

They really should have set it so if there is a premade of any size on one size they always match it within 1 on the other side. I think they understand this but they are moving SO slow to implement even minor changes that this has been really hurting new players. Im saddened that ALL my real life friends who've tried this game have all stopped playing. It is not even remotely newbie friendly. More often newbie painful. Is it any wonder why we see ONLY the same people on the TS servers night after night and the same players in round after round ? Its actually quite scary from a longevity perspective.

[Psychobunny]

well, if its premade, its premade for bouth sides, fair enuff, but i understand also that you would like to keep it compleatly random.. taht should be an option maby, also i would love to have a little bit of rank / trial / noob stage and pro stage, would make it a little easyer at least for the newbs that have no idea what there doing..

[Thirdstar]

How about we all hold our horses till Matchmaking Phase 3 is in? Lets see how the ELO system works and then we can continue all related discussions.

[Ted Wayz]

Who says you have to be bad to get frustrated? If you are a good player constantly going against better players it could get frustrating too.

Since the start I have stated there should be a casual and hardcore mode.

[Applecrow]

More than ever we need a trial only queue.

It's a team-based game, its pointless to call for nerfs to using teamwork.

They took away large groups, and people still complain about premades. They could completely remove grouping, and people will still complain about focus fire, or hax-made groups.

[One Medic Army]

I'd be totally down with a trial only queue. It'd let me test out that spider without the feeling that I'm screwing my team over...

[pcunite]

Maybe not remove 4-mans ... just make for more options. This is beta, so let's test things. What happens if we have different modes? Solo only, 1v1, 2v2, 4v4, and of course 4+Pugv4+Pug ...

[Mister Blastman]

I kind of think the pugs are getting the short end of the stick as much as us 4-man teams are. Think about it...

The PUGs get slaughtered by people that are frequently playing with each other getting an easy ride. They hate this.

At the same time, most 4-mans don't like having an easy match, either.

[AceTimberwolf]

Sam Slade, on 31 January 2013 - 09:10 PM, said:

I'm actually starting to dislike the game and play Hawken or something instead.

(don't care if you're wanting to play against your clanmates... harden up and form an 8 man team),

If you want to be taken seriously don't mention hawken. de-values your opinion.

Ah and you haven't been there when you have 8 people and you try for an hour to get a game and no other 8 man is around. Eventually If you Ｇｅｔ your weights right you can play against each other atleast。Ｋｉｌｌ　ｏｆｆ　ｔｈｅ　ｏｔｈｅｒ　４　ｑｕｉｃｋｌｙ　ａｎｄ　ｙｏｕ　ｇｅｔ　ａｎ　ｅｎｔｅｒｔａｉｎｉｎｇ　ｂａｔｔｌｅ　ａｔｌｅａｓｔ．

[Ravill]

Matchmaking needs lots of work for both the pug and group side of things, but pugs don't have an excuse for not trying to get grouped up. Well, short of not having a mic (which are dirt cheap), hating the sound of human voices, and only having enough time for one round. If I just described you please uninstall because online gaming is not for you.

[Frostbeast]

Premades are there to destroy those [Redacted] called pugs. Join us or rot in hell! Your tears is like ambrosia to me.
Today YOU and tomorrow the WORLD!

Edited by Egomane, 02 February 2013 - 09:43 AM.
CoC Violation

[Sam Slade]

Vlad Ward, on 31 January 2013 - 09:12 PM, said:

Clearly we should just delete the entire Social tab and friend list functions because camaraderie is toxic to the community.

I think you missed the point... actually I know you missed the point.

If the ELO system works out then all's well but ELO systems are tricky to implement(understatement) as they cannot reflect all the elements of a players ability. Plenty of players will have great XP and KDR numbers but be utterly useless players without their ususal backup.

A trial only que would also be a great farming ground for experienced players.

My boots are very much in the form a full team or take your chances and learn to adapt camp.

[Chavette]

2-4man+pug teams should be matched up against other 2-4man+pug teams.

Is it really that hard ?

Edited by Chavette, 31 January 2013 - 09:41 PM.

[Thirdstar]

AceTimberwolf, on 31 January 2013 - 09:38 PM, said:

If you want to be taken seriously don't mention hawken. de-values your opinion.

Ah and you haven't been there when you have 8 people and you try for an hour to get a game and no other 8 man is around. Eventually If you Ｇｅｔ your weights right you can play against each other atleast。Ｋｉｌｌ　ｏｆｆ　ｔｈｅ　ｏｔｈｅｒ　４　ｑｕｉｃｋｌｙ　ａｎｄ　ｙｏｕ　ｇｅｔ　ａｎ　ｅｎｔｅｒｔａｉｎｉｎｇ　ｂａｔｔｌｅ　ａｔｌｅａｓｔ．

Advocating team killing? Wow, just wow.

[armyof1]

Thirdstar, on 31 January 2013 - 09:21 PM, said:

How about we all hold our horses till Matchmaking Phase 3 is in? Lets see how the ELO system works and then we can continue all related discussions.

When is thing going to be in use? Because right now with 4 man team drops and ECM/LRM being put there randomly I think through my close to 500 PUGs I've seen about 15-20% of the games that are somewhat even and fun playing. A huge majority of the time it's one team wiping the others out and get maybe one or two dead, with the winning team having ECM and LRM while the other team have neither and just getting beat up.

As it is now newbies are pretty much just cannonfodder for experienced players that work in a team and thinking about it I'm surprised I've lasted as long as I have. I hope they'll do something drastic about it soon because despite how much I like the game mechanics, I'm starting to see how few games are actually worth playing. I think they need to split up PUGs and actual teams first of all, and also have newbies playing amongst themselves. Otherwise you will have very few players finding it worthwhile being target practice.