Concerns Regarding Cw Queue Behavior - Russ

The upside of being Merc Corps is I work for every faction

Incidentally, I just saw this travesty on Twitch...TheFoxyShortbus had a 12-man dropping in all King Crabs. Every one had either Gauss, PCC, or AC20+ builds. Took this screenshot near the end of watching their match:



Luckily for me, they are all Kurita-aligned, so there's no chance I will end up against them on a map...but jesus...they were 34-0 at the end. 12-mans OP

 

Have to admit I bailed on Sunday to level up my KCB's and GAR's and wow the HSR on lasers seems to have been totally switched off. The group queue is full of smaller teams practicing for CW so its "odd" at the moment. Really fast to get in a game in an assault as people are practicing in mediums/heavies. Was chatting to a few frustrated players in the group queue who had come back and were getting absolutely raped. A lot of frustration. It was hard to argue the improvements when people were constantly dc'ing at the start, hits just weren't registering on lasers, organised teams were practicing ... and the end screen doesn't even display mechs. MWO took a huge step backwards in quality for the group and solo queue this weekend.

 

Second that.
CW is not supposed to be candyland for puggers, 12man drops is what this was designed for. If smaller groups or solo droppers get stomped in CW I don#t feel sorry for them.
On the other hand if unit members want to drop with a 4man group I won't join in because I know it's gonna suck.

But what the hellhappened to hit registration, that was totally uncalled for and is just super lame.

Gman said: "MWO IS OFFICIALLY IN BETA! Up until now it’s been alpha because it was missing a (some would say “the”) core feature, but now it finally meets the definition of a beta game."

Yeah that is true. It's about time to build a 2nd server location, e.g. eastern Europe or something.

 

Well, changes are incoming. All in all CW is fun, while it still can be frustrating when some players tend to stay back the whole game (only to be stomped when the counter-attack comes )....

We'll see what happens next. I'm positive.

 

it's the maps. When has PGI ever re-vamped their maps? I don't see that coming.
Hey people are complaining about balance issues, drop ships, "snipers OP in cw" and so on but the reason for all of this is the map design.

 

In fairness, Russ has said a few times in the past couple months that map revamps for the older maps (Forest Colony, River City, etc) are coming soon(tm), including efforts to expand them so that they fit 24 mechs better. With luck, the CW maps will both see some revamping as well (the hot map needs more love IMO, but they both could use some retouching) and the mode will be more fun to play.

 

I'm sorry dude, but I disagree wholeheartedly.

If I come home from work and there are no UMAD guys on then why should I be told "you can't play CW because this here was designed for 12 mans". Guess what, there are more PUG players out there than there are 12 man groups. Guess where the majority of the money comes from? You know, the money that keeps this game on life support? Now tell those players again they can't play that part of the game because it wasn't designed for them! See where your game is in a year.

 

But how does this in any way reflect on the awfulness of the solo/group experience now that CW has arrived. Actions being taken to facilitate the CW side are directly impacting on the rest of the game. If CW is aimed at 12 man play it should in no way negatively impact on areas of the game custom designed for solo and group play. Simple as.....

When I stop playing CW and go to level mechs in the solo or group queue I shouldn't find that experience is being sacrificed to facilitate CW. That was clearly true yesterday from my groups experience over several hours play.

For the first time in a long time I really had to force myself to keep playing just to get my KCB and GAR daily doubles or targets done. Other players I fight with every day (and are really skilled veterans) just decided it wasn't worth playing in the solo or group queue last night and said they'd see us again when PGI next patched it was so unplayable.

Its that bad at the moment.

 

Amen. The give away that its not just aimed at 12 man premades is that they're non stop spamming people not in groups even with notices to help defend planets.

 

Lets put it this way, i pug. The wait maybe bad, but it is still fun. What annoys me is the framerate drop, and that you have no way of seeing how many is in a lobby when you wait, or how many people are waiting on a planet.
Hack, the "ALL" chat does not work either.

 

Coincidentally despite my current frustrations I do think CW is great its just..... well frustrating.

 

From what I got from the devlog, they're more concerned about re-vamping look & feel of the old maps, not the topology.. but we'll see.
link to my longer text: https://www.mechspecs.com/threads/feedback-community-warfare-is-live.7997/page-3#post-61184

The current negative effects on the solo & group queue are bugs and will be addressed asap, no doubt.

But having longer queue times for solo or small group is natural if you look at Russ' post about the matchmaker in CW, and I'm fine with that (that it prefers 12man)

 

I think 12 man is a bit harsh as they are not all that common.
12 man is fine, but giving some love to 4-6 people group is good too, cause that is the most common size.
I do solo, but I think solo can fit well in lots of places.

that, and as a solo if I am leveling up I would not be doing it in CW cause of the weaker xp. So people that are solo in CW are probably serious about it too. Next time you see one, just yell out some kind of game plan, chances are we will stick to it. (you don't really have to worry about survival, cause pug people survive quite good on their own, given that we never have people watching out for our back)

 

I agree with @enileph people are usually listening in solo, we are still mostly failing on counter attacks, but at lest we usually get to the cannon and hit it.

 

Maybe I got something wrong, but why not adding a global 'CW Play' button, similar to the one we already have. Then you can tick
[ ] Attack
[ ] Defend
[ ] …
and you're added to a global queue, from which the matchmaker can create 12 man groups and then assign to a planet.

When I play solo or in a small group I don't care too much about a certain planet; I just want to play.

 

One way to succeed with a PUG in a counter attack: spam a TS3 channel over and over. If you can get at least 8-9 people on board, odds are you have a good chance.

Get fewer, your chances go down People react a lot faster to a voice in their ear than to text that fades on a screen

 

No no no ..... the ability to just pick defence battles...

 

Being able to choose attack/defend/counter-attack specifically would probably be detrimental overall to CW for exactly the same reasons having the choice causes problems they tried to address in the regular queue (but said fix was bad for other reasons, so they're looking for a better solution). Only made worse, because unlike the lumped matchmaker you've got to have a foe eligible for the same conflict and then you extend that kind of gridlock potential to everyone.

I can get behind the concept of just a pure faction queue, because many players don't care about a specific territory, they just want a match. "I don't care where Faction XYZ sends me, just get me to the front so I can earn my C-Bills and fulfill my contract" fits pretty well with the idea of MWO*Mercs* and could be a supported playstyle. My reservation is that this would inevitably lead to certain planets becoming very highly contested and others being not, more by nature of population than anything resembling logical choice of attack corridor or defense strategy. I still think it could work, but how the process flows is the determination. Lumping teams together from a faction, then throwing them into an actual match queue, and then having the queue determine best available conflicts based on the number of teams available and actual conflicts possible might work. Then insert crying from Lore nuts as the conflict corridors are messed up. Oh, wait, they're doing that anyway because we as players get to choose? Fork them, then, make it happen.

 

It would definitely benefit from the Planetside 2 "hot drop" ability, where you are sent right to where you need to be for the most likely instant action. Hopefully they can streamline the process a bit soon.