Feedback: Mason Grimm's Opinion of Community Warfare

As per this topic: https://www.mechspecs.com/threads/right-or-wrong-my-take-on-community-warfare-today.8177/#post-63033

I will never have it said that I offered a public opinion and didn't provide a venue for people to comment upon it. Whether you agree or disagree, I respect your right to share your opinion equally with my own.

Behold, your soap box. Climb on up.

 

It is rare that I agree with you Grimm, but this time I can not find any fault in your logic.

 

Looks confused - perhaps a link to this topic might help?

 

https://www.mechspecs.com/threads/right-or-wrong-my-take-on-community-warfare-today.8177/#post-63033

 

A minor comment - never heard of Edward Ironclaws and Imperius always sends the most fanboi psychopantic twitters. Now bear in mind I'm a fanboi who has two gold mechs so its mildly amusing me saying that but he's.... well sickening. Imperius is one of Bishop Steiners stock mech cult.

I'm sort of a half way house on this argument as for me its clear aimed at units but as my unit is almost defunct I actually pug in CW. Its hard work in all honesty and definitely easier when I hop on House Davion comms. Except those are mainly US TZ and I'm a Euro....

Actually I think I just sideways argued the same as you - as a whale if I'm isolated from CW it hurts PGI a lot.

 

As a slight tangent, what exact is this stock mech cult I keep hearing about?

 

Ok...so...replies...I'll offer my thoughts bit by bit.

I definitely agree with this, but for different reasons. I actually apped to UMAD specifically to get some group drops in sometime (though my sleep schedule means I'm usually on when no one else is), but I put 99% of my time in this game into PUG mode. There was a problem months ago where PUGs were being put up against the group queue when the matchmaker bugged. I remember making an irritated post when my 100% PUG group went up against a Lords 12-man in a game of assault, and the inevitable stomp ended with them talking a ton of shit nonstop. As I looked at my team, I noted 5 people who were in (C) mechs that were trials at the time. The argument back then was that people were asking 12-mans to take some time off from doing that, because it was bad for the game. People who were playing their first few games were going up against 12-mans, and getting utterly ruined...then belittled because of it.

It was a problem then, and it's still a problem now. As people have mentioned here, one of the biggest problems with CW is that there are those little popups saying "CLICK HERE, (place) needs defenders!" A friend of mine loaded in, had never even set foot in a match, saw that, and clicked it...so his first ever shot at the game was a round of CW where he was attacking. I walked into the room about 1/3 of the way through the match, and he was not having fun, so I had him pull up the player list...and he was up against a 12-man defense team. Said friend tried a few normal drops after that, but his first impression was so bad that he's already uninstalled the game. It may not have been much improved if it had been a PUG vs PUG drop, but he would've at least had SOME chance to do something in the game.

Again, we're in agreement here. There is a reason that the group and PUG queues were separated initially for the normal game. I realize that Russ and PGI want CW to be a group queue playground, but it doesn't change the fact that there are still a massive number of people who play solo either exclusively, or nearly so. If they continue to tell every one of those players (who I would still bet are in the great majority) that CW is not for them, then CW will die out before it's even begun. That would be a disaster.

On the other hand, I've been on the opposite side of the equation. There was a counter-attack drop where our 100% PUG team came up against a full 12 man of Jade Falcon defenders, all coordinating on TS3 against us. Our side managed to get 10 of our team consistently waiting for typed commands, and in the end we actually rolled through them and won. It was a hell of a feeling and a great victory, though a rare one in such a situation. That sort of thing happening feels great...though I would hardly say it makes up for the number of roflstomps from more skilled 12-man units.

There's always people who try to justify that "if you don't/didn't do this, you can't complain about it," and that point of view is inherently flawed. PGI doesn't have the luxury of ignoring or alienating a large part of their population; it's not WoW, with millions of concurrent players. If they can't ignore those opinions, then there's no justification for telling people they can't express them.

In the end, PGI is going to have to make changes to CW...there are a number of problems with the way the matches unfold that go beyond the queue, such as map issues and the mode itself. They do still have the "beta" tag attached to CW, which is a good thing IMO. There is a lot of time for things to change and improve, and the game itself could massively benefit from having a blanket queue mode similar to the main queue, where you simply select attack, defend, or both, and pop into the queue either solo or with your group, and it automatically matches you up with others the way the MM does normally now. Right now, I think that separating the queues will be the best thing that can happen to the game, and the reason is the same as what I give whenever a lot of things get done in this game.

See, any online game has a direct problem, and it needs a direct resource to deal with it. The resource, in every case, is an influx of new or returning players who will keep the game alive through play. Happy players will share the game with friends, who may in turn become more happy players, and continue the cycle. While this is happening, some players will tire of the game, or get angry at the mechanics (or simply dislike it when they try it), and end up quitting. So long as the influx of new players offsets them, the game can survive and even grow. However, MWO has a lot of challenges: it is NOT newbie-friendly; with the exception of one roommate of mine, every person I've gotten into this game has played it a few times before quitting and uninstalling. The mechanics are poorly explained, the controls are difficult to get used to, and players are often matched up against far more skilled opponents very early on, since there is nothing like a level system similar to Blacklight: Retribution, where newer players are matched up against other new players.

CW has only exacerbated this particular problem; as I mentioned above, it's very easy for a new player to think that they are meant to click on those popups to find their first games, and end up mixed into an arena with no ELO, no solo queue, and a far more complicated arena and gametype than they would find in any other mode. PGI needs to take steps to help prevent new players from being thrown into the worst possible situations, and getting utterly dominated as a result. Part of that is removing as many obstacles as possible...and sorry folks, group queue is an obstacle for both old and new players. If MWO is to survive and continue to grow, there is a lot of work that needs to be done, and doing CW in a way that makes it easy and enjoyable to play is far more important to catering to only one part of the population.

Edit: Bottom line, expect a guaranteed response if PUG interest in CW vanishes, and the number of people playing plummets at any point. If that happens, you can rest assured that the queues will get split.

 

@Durandal Thoroughly agree though my one point I'd slightly pick at it is I often find that 12 man players aren't necessarily the best pilots, they're just very experienced at working together and not showboating. That's basically a trained response as it runs counter to our instincts in many ways. They play the numbers game rather than the flair game.

 

I agree, a separate pug/small group queue would be great.

Not sure that we have the population to sustain that. Pretty sure they loosened up the matchmaker quite a bit when CW beta hit to keep games moving on the non-CW side.

Even the guys that have played all the MechWarrior titles.

Not to mention newbies dropping against maxed out mechs with all efficiencies unlocked.

Something like getting to have trial free modules during your cadet games (or X days, 30?, 60?) would be huge. The game really opened up to me when I finally got a Seismic Module. Glad I stuck it out.

Try explaining to a person in their first game, that the other guy knows where you are from the other side of the hill, but you can't, unless you unlock it with GXP and spend 6 million C-Bills... Oh, you are still saving to buy your first mech and unlock cool run... Did I mention that the others guys can shoot faster, move faster, cool down faster and ...?

"What the hell is this red smoke...? Again, more smoke?"

"Think I'll go play Xbox or look longingly at the Star Citizen webpage."

/Uninstall

 

CW needs a simple tweak at the moment, a bit rude for new players but effective: selected mech must be mastered.

I'm sure this would improve things drastically.

After the hype I don't see many reasons to play it anymore, since I'm mostly solo/pug/small unit, I've switched back to normal games while something changes.

 

Russ will just say you don't belong in CW as that 'mode' is meant for groups and direct your attention to the solo queue where your game modes of choice are assault/conquest/skirmish.

While I believe I've expressed my complete disinterest in CW and always found it to be a complete waste of PGI time and resources from their business perspective as well as a player perspective, I believe the real way to 'solve' this issue is to bring dropship mode to the solo queue. You get a fun new game-mode with pugs, and CW stays pure and holy for the groups. The groups, at the surface, should like this as well as they now have a more direct impact on gaining new planets or defending the ones they have (I hear the bitching all the time on OutreachHPG how uber-unit X won 15 straight games but they still lost the planet because of the fucking pugs or attacker auto-wins).

Of course, if this route was taken, the groups would hardly ever get a CW game without pugs to fill in and pugs would be happy as pigs in shit for something new to do by COD respawn mode and CW would die which would suit me just fine and my dream Solaris would come into being.

Sure, dropship mode in solo isn't the same thing as seeing a plaent change colors so you don't have that uh..immersion... (still think people are fucking retarded for caring what color a planet is that they don't even have full control over because of uneven attacker/defender player counts - autowins - complete lack of enough players to get in a game and most contested planets don't even get battles on them)... so you may not be completely happy with that, Grimm, but I think it's the path of least resistance for all sides.

 

Why didn't UMAD join the NG NG round table last night around CW? At least PGI is expressing an interest in evolving their hot mess.
http://www.reddit.com/r/OutreachHPG/comments/2r4yg7/cw_round_table_discussions/

Hope someone posts the discussion there.

 

The big issue wit CW queues is that they're separate for each planet. Look at the numbers: most of the time those 60+ planets soon fade to 589/59, then go back up... There aren't hundreds of people when it says 60+, there are 60-80 or so. You only see that on a few planets per faction, so I'd guess that the number of concurrent users for CW is somewhere in the 1000-2000 range.

CW queue should be unified. Click "play", the matchmaker builds a team, builds an opposing team, and drops them on a planet. Allow people to still choose to attack/defend specific planets, so that people who care about territory can take it. I've no idea why anyone would care about territory, other than some strange sense of faction loyalty. There are no rewards for taking territory. There are no penalties for losing territory. Territory does not matter to the gameplay, it just changes the map graphic. Change that, and maybe I can see fragmenting the queue as much as they already have, but at the moment there is no reason whatsoever to care who controls what planet. PGI should unify the planet queues and separate solo from group queues.

 

First of all, I love the adult attitude towards all topics discussed in mechspecs and this on in special. thx

To be honest I think the game is still online for a particular reason, which a devoted battletech fanbase. Don't know if PGI realizes how committed many players are, that want to keep the game online and improve or develop it even further. Not that long ago, PGI (or most probably IGP) delayed development of the game resulting in several justified accuses of lying to the playerbase only extracting money for rather less returns in gameplay. Right now MWO still is a kind of Pokemon. An arena deathmatch with no final goal than mastering your mechs and hope to achieve good games or whatever you're looking for with them. Real content is negligible. CW must step beyond that. For now I would vote for separated pug/group queues in CW as well. Thanks Micheal for posting that suggestion to Russ ... regardless of the outcome.

I get your point, as CW would then a kind of mid to endgame content. My first mech was a Jagermech,
and it took weeks as a casual player to master it. A single chassis btw. I could understand,
if newbies aren't that committed to the grind as "we" are and quit playing prematurely.

Thing is that the time to kill decreased drastically. First when the clan mechs arrived and second when the IS mechs got their quirks. First thing should be to increase time to kill and let the game be more foregiving again. Got cored yesterday be a 12xcSPL Nova in less than a second ...
such should not be.

Word!!!

I'm already planning to introduce a good friend of mine to the game, so we're finally a full lance to drop either in CW or public queue. But I said planning as I'm well aware how utterly difficult it will be to keep him playing, as it takes weeks, if not months to become an average/good player and learn the ropes. Back in 2013 beta I remember how hard it was to get all the mechanics and differences between maps, mechs, weapons, rewards, skills, pilot trees, modules. And I'm into BT since MW:2 in the mid ninetees. He isn't and I'm afraid it might not work out regardless how much I like him to like MWO. That should change.

 

I would be really interested to see what percentage of the CW population are pugs that fill gaps and make games happen.
Defending teams especially seem to be a mix.

 

hey PUGS make up a huge part of the player base. These guys need to know their place before bitching, they are getting lots of people mad. Thing is, PGI knows that there are lots of PUGS, which is good, cause they need them $$$ from this player base. Which mans they would protect PUGS player to a certain degree at least.

No, I don't have a unit. I don't want to be tied to a playing schedule. This is entertainment gor me, not a job. Yes I know UMAD is a good unit, but I don't like to get my TS going all the time... so there is that.

I don't mind there is some piority towards units in CW, really, but at least leave a reasonable part for PUGS. At least allow groups to drop together in CW as long as they are on the same fraction.

And the major thing I hate about CW is that unit people are always bitching about the PUGS. There isa reason why I fucking Leg a few of them in a game after the argument. If you don't like us don't talk to us and just play the fucking game.

 

How about 10-mans?



Totally for separating PUGs/Teams.

Thank you to the teams and pugs that actually work together.
Very disappointed when we face a preform and immediately a few teammates disconnect. Especially when it goes down to the wire.

 

off-topic, but since seeing the screenshot, interesting that Lords had to open up their memberbase with their split. OHAI exUMADs, I mean Lords

on-topic: Grimm, can you please expand on WHY you want to play CW (as a pug, or in a group)? I think SAI nailed it about there being zero reason to take/hold a planet. This is a different and semi-fun (I guess) game mode only, not a strategy-laden interstellar war. First, I don't even see why it's possible that me as a Marik can choose to defend a Kurita planet, but SAI's point is on the opposite spectrum but just as valid - why attack/defend any planet anyway?