CG Oglethorpe Kerensky, on 09 February 2013 - 06:51 AM, said:
You know what, playing Eve should be a pre-req to playing this game. A game that forces you to either join a group of people or just flat out quit, where getting blown up has more consequences than just some silly KDR value.
In my opinion, telling everyone to team up is no solution.
This game like most F2P games out there need PUGs to survive. They need to serve them as well as the team players because they also finance the game to a significant amount.
And there are always good reasons to pug. The most obvious is the 20 minute window until you have an real-life appointment or simply need to go to bed. Or you are like me and like to do a little break after a couple of games.
Playing with a group often requires some sort of commitment. They usually want you to stick with them for more than just one or two games. Which is good because most of the time you want to play more games too.
But as much as i like playing together way more than playing alone, there are always situations where you simply want to play a quick game without the need to organize your friends and visit TS.
And in an overall fair/balanced environment this is absolutely no problem. Each player in a PUG game simply needs to use his common sense and magically a team can automatically organize itself without even talking a word.
Of cause many players fail to use that common sense and will hurt their PUG. But the enemy has those guys too, and in the end the team with more common sense (accompanied by skill of cause) probably wins. And this is good, because they were the better team.
And here ECM kicks in. By denying the PUG it's map-awareness it creates a great disadvantage for them. This would probably be ok if the ECM user would have to sacrifice something valuable to do it. But in its current design, ECM is available on the most potent variant of their mech-type (e.g. Raven 3L or Spider 5D instead of the Raven 4X an Spider 5K) and does not limit the firepower, speed or armor of those mechs as a trade of.
While skilled premades can handle this (even if they only need to equip ECM themselves), PUGs cannot. Especially not the poor group where the matchmaker forgot to give them ECM as well.
So forcing everyone to team up is not necessary (as long as the game is fair) and is very harmful for any F2P game because it would lock out a lot of paying players.
Edited by Daggett, 09 February 2013 - 08:15 AM.