Discussion about last night's Town Hall with Russ

This thread on reddit already has some good discussion about the issues raised in the town hall so I am linking it here. https://www.reddit.com/r/OutreachHPG/comments/3qi0ci/townhall_notes/

I wanted to briefly go over some of the highlights: Russ spent 40 minutes rambling on about group queue (I forgot how much he loves to talk). He basically said the tonnage was fine for now and he didn't want to split up 12 mans. He threatened us with the nuclear option of having lances only be the same weight class. So one lance of mediums, one lance of lights, etc. Obviously this sounded disastrous so everyone said no, no, no and asked to move to the next topic.

CW phase 3 sounds really exciting. New c-bill bonuses for your unit if you own planets. Possibly fortifying planets with additional sectors. A 4v4 scout phase which could give you battlefield scans and Long Tom artillery for the invasion mode. Possible MC rewards for owning planets like in World of Tanks clan wars. This all sounded good to me, no complaints.

He did say call to arms works well in defending planets and prevents turret drops. He said there was no way to have an effective separation of pugs vs 12 mans. 12 mans would have nothing but turret drops then. Matchmaker wouldn't work either unless we had "the population of Counterstrike.". Later on he used another number saying we would need x10 the current cw population for a psr matchmaker to be effective. He blamed the big units for not joining up in the same factions and pug stomping. He would love the idea of a unit member cap to prevent this. Nearly everyone in chat was opposed to this and said they would still team up anyway, but he would not listen and got mad at us.

Public testing for new infotech game style should be finished by the end of November and phase 3 could be released at the beginning of next year. Also new system in solo and group queue where you vote on the map and map mode. So no more avoiding conquest.

Halloween event this weekend. 125 grab bags with goodies. 1/125 chance to win a TBR-C champion.

I did forget to mention that they will implement ghost heat for medium pulse lasers and said that it was an oversight. So gg TDR-5SS.

Overall I liked what I heard, obviously Russ and pgi in general is very polarizing, but I think these changes will help. I worry about the unit member cap. I think that's a bad move, but we are a small unit so it wont be a problem for us.

Another link to more discussion: http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/213051-townhall-summary/

I still don't understand what the mentality behind dropping tonnage for large groups is.  Sure, groups like -MS-, CWI, SRoT, and 228 aren't going to have issues due to their experience, but when we start hitting that 12 man size, we are going to be at a significant disadvantage even dealing with smaller groups due to not having freedom of tonnage that a team of 3 groups of 4 will (however, I really am not for Phil's idea of lance drops only either).  The unit member limit idea is complete BS and will kill off large units from CW, effectively killing it as a whole, CW is the end-game of MWO and should be unrestricted for unit play (I am actually more for an idea that to play CW, you have to be in a unit).

I think his belief is that the tonnage limit for 12 mans is balanced by the coordination that 12 mans has to offer. It doesn't look like he is going to change his mind on this so the only thing I can recommend is we have training. Maybe even in private matches. Russ made me very nervous because the alternative of limiting groups to just 4 or making each lance a single weight class sounds far worse to me.

As for CW I agree that it's the end game and something for units to do. Solo drops weren't originally going to be included, but people protested so they were added. There is not much more pgi can do at this point. Solo players just need to join a unit that's my only advice to them.

I don't know of a game though that has a member cap. I can't imagine that's a good idea dividing up communities like that.

Hardin4188 wrote:I think his belief is that the tonnage limit for 12 mans is balanced by the coordination that 12 mans has to offer. It doesn't look like he is going to change his mind on this so the only thing I can recommend is we have training. Maybe even in private matches. Russ made me very nervous because the alternative of limiting groups to just 4 or making each lance a single weight class sounds far worse to me.

I guess what irks me there is you can't really put a value on coordination.  That, and the fact that a LFG 12 man is not the same as a CWI 12 man.  So you punish the LFG group and mildly inconvenience the CWI one.  But I will agree, the alternate is a terrible idea.

Hardin4188 wrote: Halloween event this weekend. 125 grab bags with goodies. 1/125 chance to win a TBR-C champion.

I did forget to mention that they will implement ghost heat for medium pulse lasers and said that it was an oversight. So gg TDR-5SS.

I was not able to watch the Town Hall last night. Is there any further information about the Halloween event? Additionally, even with ghost heat I do not feel that the TDR will have too many issues.

Blitz wrote:

Hardin4188 wrote: Halloween event this weekend. 125 grab bags with goodies. 1/125 chance to win a TBR-C champion.

I did forget to mention that they will implement ghost heat for medium pulse lasers and said that it was an oversight. So gg TDR-5SS.

I was not able to watch the Town Hall last night. Is there any further information about the Halloween event? Additionally, even with ghost heat I do not feel that the TDR will have too many issues.

Taken from this r/MWO Reddit post:

Q: Events coming soon?
A: We are thinking about having another Tukkayid type event in this phase of CW, we are going to have a halloween event this weekend. Grab bag type event, fairly strong CW component, 25 grab bags per CW and game modes. There will be more CW involvement. Looks like 125 grab bags. We are going to have a grand prize inside, a tbr-c champion mech full 7500MC. 1 per customer, if you are lucky enough to draw it youll only draw one. 1/100 chance to get it, so is the mechbays, 125 draws statistically speaking everyone will get one.

So, very similar to the Blood Money Event w/ Blood Pact.

Edit: As for the TDR, I don't think it will cause too much of an issue either, I run mine with a torso and arm weapon group, all it will do is hurt the alpha DPS.

You're probably right about the TDR. It has 7 hardpoints? They most likely will do ghost heat after 6 so yeah just do two weapon groups.

Here is more info on the Halloween event: https://mwomercs.com/tournaments
I already won a bunch of swag from preordering the Warhammer pack!

Pre-earned swag, best swag.

On the topic of the town hall, Hardin's already said what I think about most of it.  The real issue is that PGI needs to make CW worth it.  That would solve a lot of your issues in the PUG queues, and drive more people to units to participate in the larger rewards.

I think Phase 3 will help tremendously. Maybe it'll finally convince some more members of the unit to join the LCAF com hub occasionally and drop with us!

Good news everyone! They lowered the match score requirements for the Halloween event! It's only 100 for CW and 150 for regular matches now!

Yeah, I got to go claim a bunch more prizes from previous matches I had already played, so check your tournament sheet

Woo prices, how do I learn about plastic bags?

Lol sorry I meant town halls

Please use the edit button.