Feedback: Mason Grimm's Opinion of Community Warfare

I want to facepalm this one LOL

 

I think a newbie would probably have more fun in normal games and skilling the mechs anyway.
And while the time to kill and the way to work around it is an hard topic, and would need a lot of work and thinking to not screw up, the mastered mech only in CW would take like 1 hour of work to make.

Someone using 4 trial mechs shouldn't be really doing CW. I don't care about 12 men, if I'm getting stomped so be it, but at least having a team with only mastered mechs is the bare minimum.

12 men, at least in my opinion, are strong because they group above avg. players. Tactics are important, but over-rated, I've crushed 12 men with a team of pugs of which I knew they were good, like I've lost filling 10 men and being the top scorer, or I've sucked and still won because the opposite teams were people in trial/basic mechs.

I feel like this point it really important, one who has 4 mastered mechs knows the basic concepts of the game, one who doesn't is better off in normal games for exp rate, cbills rate, and fun rate, I don't really see a single reason to play CW with 4 trials, unless the player is new and just clicks on the popup because the lack of tutorials.

To answer the topic in a direct way, I'd always split group que (4+) and solo/small team (1-3).

 

stealth-quote since I edited my post and it was bottom of page1 and would like to hear from Grimm or others on my on-topic question.

 

Sorry @LT Satisfactory it has been a busy busy morning with PMs, Tweets, emails etc.

Why do I want to play as a PUG? Reason #1
I don't give two shits if I hold a planet, take a planet, make the planet change colors etc. I do enjoy farming the Steiner Loyalty Points though and slowly working my way up the chain; my hope is at some point PGI will implement a system that provides more rewards than just some cbills. Level 20 does have an attractive cbill reward though. Personally I don't care what color a planet is, who holds it or why. I'm in it for the money (and LP).

Why do I want to play as a PUG? Reason #2
I don't always have time to wait around for members of UMAD (or any unit for that matter). I often times have weird hours where I am awake and I like to be able to hop on and just play. I've been playing MWO since Friends and Family and have seen it go through every iteration, tweak, addition, set back, step forward etc. I'm bored with Skirmish, Assault, Conquest to the max. CW gives me a purpose until I get bored of it as well. It is something new, different. Currently I'm still under the pseudo illusion that I'm fighting for Steiner and that it MEANS something. Don't pop the bubble I live in LOL

 

I like this. I would also allow pugs the option to queue for both team and pug matches to reduce wait times.

 

Yeah it would be needed. It's pretty easy to join a premade, if you see a planet with 0/0 going 10/0 suddenly, most of time a 10men went there, so a 2 men could que there and still fill it.

 

The moment PGI tells me that I have to play Community Warfare a specific way I will move on to other games. As it is, PGI is getting my business by the hair of the chiny chin chins. I play this game for House Davion and I play HOUSE drops which means PUGs.

Some try hard 12 man team telling me to suck it up and join a team? Get off your fucking clan mech high horses, ass clowns. The problem with Try Hards is the sum of their entire worth is wrapped up in a video game. That doesn't count for anything in the real world. Basement Hero Complex, indeed.

 

Much like Michael, there's a few reasons. One, I love seeing how far I can take a single mech against the onslaught...it's also "the new, big thing" so it's still fun to play as a different game mode. And yes, the additional cbills from loyalty rewards are very nice to get, especially since I need so many cbills right now.

I just want to be able to play the game and pretend that it's going to be fun...and walking into what I know is going to be an instastomp ruins that. The only way I'd even remotely accept PUG and group queue being unified is if they expand it so you can premade regardless of unit.

 

Seriously, tryhard isn't an insult. Not everyone who plays to win uses clan mechs, or is even on clan side. The problem with non-tryhards is that they don't try hard to win, and then many of them whine about it.

It's a game. Like any other game, it takes effort to learn. When people lose at chess to Magnus Carlsen they don't rage and call him a tryhard, they try to get better. In fact, the stupid idea that you should be able to win just as well if you don't try for it seems to be unique to video games. You don't see it in "hardcore" board games like chess and Go, and you don't even see it in casual stuff like Monopoly or Life.

Tryharding is the ENTIRE POINT of playing games. You TRY HARD to WIN, and thereby have FUN! Even if you lose, the competition is fun! But if either player isn't actually competing, it's not fun anymore.

And that's where getting totally stomped (or totally stomping) stops being fun: there's no meaningful competition.

I should also say that there's plenty of room for "shits & giggles" stuff to be fun. But it works best in pre-organized groups. "Three-legged" races where two people get their legs tied together, then pairs try to race. Stock Mech Mondays. Etc.

 

I agree @SAI Peregrinus and I disagree at the same time.

Yes, you should "Try To Win", but then there are those who feel their measure of self worth increases when they win as opposed to when they lose. Those are the guys who talk shit about specific units one second and then join them (switching to clan mechs) the next, even adopting their insultingly silly mantra. Those are TryHards and yes, that IS an insult in my eyes. Whether anyone else draws that connection isn't relevant to me.

I was just in a PUG match where were defending; we defeated an organized DERP and 267 (or whatever they are called, forgive me) team. That is the first win tonight out of 10 matches, all against 12 mans in PUG groups. 1 win and 9 losses isn't a great batting average and I'm an above average pug player. Imagine what the new players are experiencing. One guy tonight had never done CW before and we were stomped by a 9 man + 3 man. He was like "Welp, that was not enjoyable. See ya".

 

That last sentence is the one that drives me crazy, since I always know what I'm going to see in chat after a stomp from certain units in this game. It's going to be a repeated and consistent collection of "ggclose" and "rekt", both of which should just be trigger words that disable your internet access for a week

 

Counter argument from a self acknowledged role player and House Davion pilot:

That utterly defeats the purpose of playing as a faction. I ONLY care about fighting for House Davion. I either want to defend our planets or take whatever target we're attacking currently. If you notice House Davion is doing well despite not having anywhere near the numbers of some other factions. Its because we're organised and work together. Guess what we defend and attack together. Its called Community Warfare for a reason not "I don't give a shit" Warfare. Mysteriously we keep succeeding at our objectives despite most of us being solo. Ultimately the people that don't give a shit and don't care about lore will just gravitate to whichever entity of the week has a higher reward %. That's players like you from your statement - that's not being nasty its just the view you espouse. If you watch twitter etc you'll notice that the more organised factions mysteriously use it a lot to announce what their factions are doing. Which planet(s) or fronts we're pushing for or defending. Its a pride thing and so yes to us it matters if we blunted House Liao's push on Velhas last night and retook it. You play because its another game mode or for isk we play for our faction.

PS: If they ever have Faction House units in game then I'm in there.

 

Honest comment - start them with people on comms so they have a good support structure. All my friends I've introduced to the game that way played or play a lot. the ones I couldn't devote that time to helping with didn't. Even somewhere like Comstar NA or NGNG. Not only is it incredibly useful as a training tool it also establishes a social investment in playing.

 

Of course as this is probably the most censored MWO site I use there's an utter irony to your statement.....

Just try typing N G N G when trying to direct people to the two largest public comms servers in the game or putting a link to the main MWO forums and watch the auto-censorship software go into action. While I might prefer people on Comstar NA, as that's where I play, it just makes me cringe.

For many its an insular inward looking site and yes the historic rabid anti views I used to see here a year ago do rather marginalise all the incredible stuff here. So when someone goes and espouses a view on the Mechspecs twitter its already facing an uphill battle. Same as if I post on my main twitter it gets auto blocked/ignored by certain of the most rabid pro stock chassis proponents because I dare to have a different viewpoint and ask them to justify theirs (they never do coincidentally because that takes it out of the slogan only requirement).

If you think that's me exaggerating well sadly for you I'm one of the few people that visits the main site and are always pushing people here - that comment gets bounced back to me every now and again - this is the "anti" site (that's me being polite). Its just lucky that the main sites general forums are so toxic that people are eager for something (IMO) better.

In answer to your question @LT Satisfactory there were some of us there arguing a Mechspecs viewpoint despite it being set in a TZ thats awful for us, we just don't use a MWO ticker there as we use our Eve Online tag's. I didn't even necessarily agree with some of the viewpoints I espoused on Reddit but I felt the varied Mechspecs views needed representing.

On the last sentence @Vergere - no we don't all agree with with the blanket line that pugs should play pugs as then in my opinion its just the solo queue. I'd prefer balanced teams but I don't care if its 6 solo players and a 6 man ... as long as that's close to what they're fighting against. One of the largest problems CW has atm is people just constantly switching faction to follow the rewards and not spending time on their respective faction servers. If people did then at least they'd be able to coordinate. That's not arguing they'll be the same as the 228th but at least coordinating and playing together is a lot easier.

 

I don't quite agree on these.
In video games most of times people stack up to not try hard, to win easily, and to be on the side with a huge advantage.

If not they'd just set up 12vs12 on specific planets instead of stomping clueless people in trial mechs

 

Well, there are two sides to it.

Some people (sadists) have fun just stomping unskilled players, kicking over sand castles, etc. There are others who want to win, and don't care how they do it. Many of them will cheat. These aren't the tryhards, since they're not actually putting in effort to win. They're attempting to avoid effort and still get a win.

The tryhards put in the work to win consistently, no matter the opponent. The vast majority of these players end up in some sort of league play, whether 3rd party (like in MWO) or built in (like Starcraft, League of Legends, etc). That doesn't mean all of them succeed, or that there aren't non-tryhards in league play. But the people at the top in everything but a snakes & ladders tournament are pretty much always those who worked hardest to win (or cheated, but that is extremely difficult to get away with in many games).

 

@Remarius we actually only censor three or four words. Three of them are racially offensive or gender offensive. The last one is for the No Guts URLs. This was done a couple of weeks ago because people were coming here and spamming advertising their links. MechSpecs is not here to provide a free source of advertising for two guys working from home; sorry.

I hardly think that qualifies us as the most censored site lol we even allow a fair bit of friction before people are pulled aside and we encourage people to ask the hard questions without ignoring them or censoring; look at @Jacob Ling or @Soy

 

This is true I suppose. The sadists are the one who give bad names to try hards.

I can't fault someone for training to win no matter the opponent but I do fault those who think they have won a great victory and are uber players when they stomp pugs.

I have run in to a few 12 mans in CW who get bored stomping pugs. They have even stated as much. They want to face other teams with the same level of skill. Not a random eclectic mix of players. Those guys have my respect.

 

Sorry to derail here but I remember this day! Was this the day that there were like 50 links to a No Guts No Galaxy YouTube thing spread all over the site? I saw them when I logged on from work and then they were gone within like 2 minutes.

 

Yes Bob, that is the day I am referring to; someone signed up a brand new account and did a Forum-Run pasting No Guts video links everywhere. I banned that individual by IP range (his entire fourth octet is banned). I know it wasn't Sean or Bomb or anyone directly related to No Guts but it was extremely annoying and something I had to deal with while I was at work myself. Rather than run in to that again I simply added a filter that removes the pertinent echo; problem solved.

Now, back on topic here. There are a lot of differing opinions and that is what I like to see. The entire purpose of me posting my own thoughts on Twitter was to spark some sort of dialogue; either for or against. The problem usually is too many people are afraid to voice their opinions and being branded a White Knight or a PGI-Hater and nothing gets done. The only way PGI will place a priority, or even move on things, is when they see the public is addressing it.

Whether you agree with me, or you don't, I'm glad that each and every one of you has put the time and effort in to expressing your opinions. In the event that Russ ever stops by and reads this stuff he can see all the sides and weight their decision accordingly. Yes, whichever way they decide to go, will take them time, effort and money but the game will be better for it in the long run.