The New Matchmaker

Nice that it worked out for you.

Did you link up on comms or at least communicate by chat?

 

Well weird thing was no. There were a few comments in chat at the start and then we sort of worked off each other.

TBH like you I've seen some utter disasters in situations like that before but people just seemed to work off each other. For example, I'd peek around a corner in my Kitfox (triple AMS, ECM, 2 C-ERLL) and fire a volley, then duck back into cover and an instant later the other two paired lights would pop up in a different location and shoot whoever tried to shoot me.

Was a fight that I couldn't fault anyone which was genuinely nice.

 

I've had similar results.

Solo has been generally okay. I'm either way better than I thought, or everyone else is much worse now that premades are gone. I'm leaning towards the latter. It's still fun though, except when I die early and watch a bunch of idiots in DDCs firing LRMs at a Puma 1.2 km away.

I have only had a few matches with group (7 I think), and they were all just myself and a friend I am trying to get into MWO. Needless to say the first game went horribly, as we dropped on Terra Therma, and he forgot to move his graphics settings from SUPER HIGH DEF AMAZING. One thing led to another, and the end result was "Hey Sucitraf, your Golden Boy is about to get a golden shower". Not fun (took out a Daishi though, so I felt special).

The other games were okay, with a mix of stomps (win or lose, fairly even) and one good close game, where my friend actually got the last kill! Hopefully it didn't scare him off too much, as it is especially fun to see his responses to the less than friendly criticism he received.

I think what depresses me most is the lack of Light/Medium pilots out there nowadays. I think I saw 8% light and 6% medium before a drop one time. Oh well, I'll keep dropping in my Golden Boy and SDR-5K (and finish leveling Dragons too) and keep murdering assaults.

 

The lack of ppl playing lights and medium mechs are directly related to the higher damage output currently. When even a partial hit from a clan heavy or assault can kill you dead (CT/RT/LT)...

That said, I enjoy lights and medium still.

 

While I have all the clan mechs, I have been playing the heck out of my IS mechs, especially the Shadowhawks. Unlocked speed tweak on my Phoenix 2H tonight. And my 2K is right behind the 2H. The clan mechs are tough, but nothing says loving like large lasers and srms to the face.

 

Something I have noticed about PUG MM, when you get a 3-4 man group, it can be painfully obvious how bad a team you have within minutes. I had a game on Alpine where I watched a single Kintaro basically dismantle our entire team by NARCing random people while his 3 buddies focused them with massive barrages. Then I'd watch as people would peel off after the KTO in DWF and AS7s, alone, only to catch a NARC and LRM barrage in their faces too. The LRM kiddies all broke 1k damage, the rest of their team did squat...and most of our team barely broke 100.

I am enjoying the 100% PUG matches I get, or the ones that are 10 with a 2-man group, but it does seem like the worst types of mouth breathers are the ones left behind in the solo queue a lot of the time.

 

Mmh problem though in the solo queue atm is no one seems to be using ECM/AMS and playing to facilitate the team. In 3 matches last night me and another direwolf got totally abandoned by the rest of the team incl. ECM etc. Really great feeling....

In one match on HPG yesterday I solo held off 2 direwolves, a C1 (?) LRM boat and a timberwolf after I'd been left behind. Killed one timberwolf by shooting it after "sneaking" behind while it was trying to flank the team and killed one of the direwolves by firing on it from above so getting in two good volleys before it could respond. Unfortunately then the C1 and second direwolf put me down hard though I turned the DWF's CT/RT bright red and took its right arm because of the shielding.

.... then I started spectating... and got the joy of watching a direwolf trying to shoot a light on the wall for two minutes.... while the assaults on their side chewed on our mediums and heavies. We lost our last 7 for 1 kill....

Sometimes the solo queue is plain frustrating.

 

well the problem the group queue brings as well is 'THE FUCKING MISSING INGAME VOICE'

sorry for my short rage, but they know it for long enough now

 

Finally had time to sneak some games in on the new solo queue... the matches go NOWHERE without a premade lance making plays. People can aim and shoot, and the matches are decently close, but my god... these guys have no idea what they should be doing. Zip by the main mass in a light and everyone's just looking around at everyone else, waiting for something to fall into their laps.

 

yup, i imagine you should be adding some new high scores to your sig in lights/mediums as you'll be able to solo kill huge stacks of them without much fear of reprisal.

 

Well the opportunity rate for large rounds would seem to have gone up in solo queue with how passive the rounds are when no premades are there to make plays. Little risk of your PUGs beating you to too much of the action.

 

That's putting it lightly. My last round before work was a curbstomp when I (along with 4 mechs) moved out, and the other 7 people stayed in base...6 hadn't even moved when the other team came crashing down on the 5 of us who had moved out. Was a complete massacre That said, while I'm only relating the bad games, I have had plenty of good ones too...it's just that the worst of the worst tend to stick out like a sore thumb.

 

Strangely the battles I've been in haven't been that passive but then I'm quite an aggressive player so I often find people follow me atm.... often when I don't want them to.

Maybe that's a certain time of day thing?

I've had some absolute humdingers of battles but also the usual frustrating ones as well.

 

For me....
Solo Queue:
Pros: Games seem to be more even. Players seem to be worse, allowing me more chance to rack up damage. Can relax nicely.
Cons: Players are worse, drop at the wrong time of day and you will be staggered by the incompetence on display.

Group Queue:
Pros: I can play in larger groups now, no one gets left out.
Cons: Meta cheese, arty and airstrike spamfests. Pug teams who won't talk to each other. Getting matched up against larger teams most of the time. Gradually realising if I want to win I'm going to have to start packing meta mechs.
The relaxing side of the game gone. I feel like I have to put in 110% ALL THE TIME.
Not having as much fun as before patch.

 

My big problem with the silo queue is that I end up in games with paste-eaters and pug-stomped, with nothing in between. On one match I saw a Battle Master with 6 flamers and one AC/2 and a Dire Wolf with one er large and one large pulse... Everyone else was in meta builds.

That's not super common, but common enough to be frustrating. At least when I get wrecked by an organized group, I have fun.