Feedback: Mason Grimm's Opinion of Community Warfare

Did someone mention my name?

I also saw the day the No Guts No Galaxy spam showed up. Probably just someone trolling Mech Specs in order to get you riled up. I don't know. Regardless, it is no real loss in my opinion. They have been around what? two years now? Their site has been around for what? Two years now? I see more members here than on the PGI sanctioned/subsidized website that tells me something.

Anyways, I've been playing a fair bit of Community Warfare but I usually play with my clan so for me it is not that big a deal. When I have tried to solo drop outside of our scheduled clan drop nights then yes, I also get a little sick and tired of being stomped on. It is rather ridiculous of PGI to expect PUGs to be able to function on the same level as a skilled and practiced 12 man.

One of two things is happening here; Russ is grossly negligent in his vision and management of direction for MWO, or they simply don't have the number of players to be able to split the queues. They are aware of the sheer stupidity of it but their player base can't sustain any other option than what they have in place right now. With some of the problems we are still experiencing, like poor hit registration, players being able to utilize packet shielding and poor map making (as evidenced by Grimm's Raven Haven Benefactor Video) I would bet that it is a little bit of both. They simply don't have the money, or the revenue, to take this game to the level that it could be in the time that would be required to save it.

They will add what they can and sell what they can, for as long as they can, because there is no other option for some of them. Transverse was an epic embarrassment but it was a true litmus test of where the community level of trust is in the studio.

I'm not trying to be a dick here, I am really not. I am just stating facts that have transpired and how they affect the present.

 

Hello Friends,

I am going back to the topic at hand (original post by the grand poohbah..)

I am CO of the Phoenix Dominion, we have over 100 members .
Those are split in two camps: casual and competitive players.
We have taken an temporary contract with house Davion.
We are not a top tier unit but have a large number of good competitive players.

Our situation right now:
Everybody doesnot like the long wait in CW.
Casual members, dont like CW because of the 12 men stomp they get.
Competitive players dont like CW because of the fact that playing Clan mechs gives you better odds in winning. (= they hate the unbalance).
Competitive players only want to play in 12 mens in CW. (= They dont want any PUGs on our side)

Result:
First practice in january; there was not much enthousiasm to play CW.

Conclusion:
I, and most of my unit agree with michael; fix the queu and the unbalance to make it enjoyable for now while going on improving CW.

grtz
El Maestro

 

I think the first thing to do is to fix the queue wait. Balance or not having a round of unbalanced CW is still better than no game at all by miles.
Secound comes map fixing. The maps are just stupid.

 

I want to play CW solo sometimes the same reason I solo drop sometimes despite being in UMAD.

It's usually timing, no one's on etc or I'm not sure how long I can stick around. Sometimes I just want to pop on for a game and hop off.

It's also a different wild-card mode, no coordinated groups etc just everyone for himself despite my teams always seeming to suck balls.

No worrying about coordinated synchronized water-ballet teams like we face doing our 4-man semi-casual UMAD drops for fun.

Besides isn't excluding PUGs from COMMUNITY warfare an oxymoron action?

 

It's quite obvious why the queues aren't separated. The MWO community is already split with the addition of a whole new queue. You now have Solo, Group, AND CW queue not counting the first two are restricted to specific mode choices . This is the same problem Titanfall ran into pretty early on. Splitting the community by different maps and modes adds up QUICK. Even with the combined solo/group queue, wait times seem to already be borderline unbearable. A separated queue with NEW restrictions for groups might help. For example:
- Solo CW queue, all individuals
- Group CW queue, take a step back. Stop allowing odd number groups. REQUIRE groups of 4, 8, or 12. This would greatly facilitate the group queue search times because it limits the combinations of group sizes. Most of the work is done PRIOR to entering the queue while forming your group. It might take you a while to form a group of 8, but once it's formed the search times will be dramatically reduced. Perhaps you can just restrict groups to EVEN numbers and it would work just as well: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12. Easy to combine group sizes.

That seems reasonable to me.

 

It's actually worse than that.
You have solo queue, group queue, Malibu queue, Nykvarn queue, Romulus queue, Teinente queue, Graham IV queue, Kessel queue, etc, etc. And that's just the list for what I (Steiner ATM) can queue on, and that has some people on it atm.

CW is not one queue. It's probably about 20 active queues at any given time.

The rest of your post is very true. With the introduction of CW, they split the queue into a TON of tiny groups. That's very, very bad for finding matches quickly.

 

Oh wow, yeah I didn't think about all the CW planets being separate queues... wow!

 

I think they should make attacker/defender/counterattack queues for each fraction instead of each planet.
That way people with no planet preference (like some PUGS including me) can just queue for that.
It is easier to fit into blocks.

 

Not really true unless you've just not noticed what the system does - just the letters NGNG get auto censored. As I said that makes it very hard to direct players to the two largest TS3 servers where players congregate. Theres a few like that and at least in the UK none I've had changed have been swear words. Links to the MWO main site also get censored which are the only ones I used to add here as I don't go to the NGNG site (ok once a quarter maybe to watch a video like the pre quirk ones!). I was always taught that you should attribute sourced data or its called plageurism and thats hard to do when the site removes the relevant link where you got the data from but leaves the data you've copied putting you in just that position. That said I do just attribute nowadays by naming the person so I accept its not a big deal in some ways but it feels as if people are terrified of or have a grudge against both entities.

Coincidentally I've not had anything censored on the MWO main site and have only as many warnings from admins as I do here.

(looks vaguely innocent and deletes his warning emails)

[Mod Removal Team has been Dispatched]

... couldn't resist....

 

Absolutely not...

I spent yesterday evening dropping with two players that have just returned to the game helping them get back up to speed. That sort of grouping is critical to the game not just the larger more organised groups that are avoiding or training for CW. It was bad enough dropping with them on our first drop and looking at the other side to realise there was a 7 or 9 man UMAD team led by @Falconium waiting for us.... Wow to say i didn't rate our chances is an understatement! As it was our little 3 man got all 4 kills against them including that mysterious Warhawk who charged in! We still got crushed 12-4 though.

Irony atm is a lot of the time I feel as if the group queue battles are more one sided and tilted than CW as people are quite understandably using it for training purposes so its dominated by groups trying to play as a focused unit in tricked out/meta mechs. Try fighting that with new players who don't even know about quirks.

Coincidentally the quirks lesson came after a later battle when I noticed the WVR-6K pilot was using a LL and ML's....

*ooops*

 

Nice idea as we are supposed to be fighting for a faction and peopel would probably accept that compromise easily if they're solo dropping.

Has to be said there is another variable thats not been mentioned much. CW is very tilted access wise to North Amercian TZ's. It really makes it harder to get many matches as it has to be night/late evening for us.

 

Hail,

"Community" Warfare....

As a long time supporter of this game, I tend to roll with the punches. I see this mode as an opportunity to bring players together and Smoke Adders have been working towards this with a goal of 48 active pilots per evening. Right now we are at 100 players in the unit and Community Warfare has been pretty good for our brand.

This does create Administrative work and I am ok with that, I have created and run Leagues before.

I would never agree forcing anyone to a style of play makes sense and no matter what mode your playing, if you hit a PUG versus premade it normally favours the premade (sometimes rather one sided).

The thing I really cannot tolerate are the trolls and disrespect I see almost every evening from some teams towards new players.

Seyla,

 

@Michael

Case proven as I just received a formal threat of banning for using the no guts no galaxy initials in this post.

 

I'm sorry? It didn't come from me. Please forward me the threat.

 

BACK TO THE TOPIC!

I was suggesting a queue for the lose change players so they can fit into places easier. If you are a PUG or in a small lose change group it is hard to formulte a plan to defend certain planet anyways, so why not just choose attack/defend/counterattack and let the queue decide where they drop you? You get a game faster, groups on the planet get a game faster, everyone is happy.

PS: It is unfortunate that the NG thing has to be banned due to stupid spammers, causing posting of the teamspeak server thing getting hurt in the process. But I do think that is a special event, probably better to deal with it in Bitching Betty's Playroom. As for me, the word filter is free enough, case proven as I can still swear when needed. Also, I don't get banned when I am referring to the NG site, or spelling the whole thing out. See? No Ducks No Fantasy!

 

Yeah I get it entirely I just sort of dread taking new/returning players there atm.

Have a soft spot for Warhawks tbh and never understood why people originally slated them.

 

The admin cc'd you in at the time.

 

Yes, I see that. Dealing with all that now with the two of you. This topic can return to its regularly scheduled programming.

 

DWF hype. I'd be happy to get cbills back from them, I see no reason to use DWF for how I play once I can pilot WHKs. Plus, I don't even have fun using them since I play at most in small groups, they perform better when the team is build around them.