In the past, I've had the idea of balance through asymmetrical objectives. I'm not sure how to apply it to MWO, I'll put some thought to it, but the idea came up while I was into Star Trek Online(shut up!). In this case, I played Klingon. We had two major drawbacks: 1)A significantly smaller faction population so we would always be out-numbered and easily stretched thin if their were ever to be several battles waging at once in a true faction war(which never came to fruitition as far as I know). 2) Our ships were ambush/guerrilla oriented in terms of combat systems, but all the matches were timed, pre-defined, "play dates".
Number two was a huge, but easily missed disadvantage. It meant we could never effectively use our only combat strengths effectively if the Federation players knew we were there(because the matches were queued Fed vs Kling), had a timer for match start(essentially a timer to tell them when to go on high alert, literally and figuratively)...and a timer to tell them how long until they could stand down. We rarely benefited from surprise, complacency, fatigue, etc...all the things ambush forces rely on.
It dawned on me(this is the part I've trying to get to), the Klingon faction would never be able to effectively combat the Federation players if we were forced to have the same objectives and goals as the Fed faction. The goals and objectives were inherently stacked in favor of the Federation's forces which were geared toward conventional warfare: Engage in numbers, occupy, then hold/defend. There is no way we could use our assets the same way, for the same goals in timed, "play date" death matches.
Instead, we needed to have a totally separate set of objectives and means to feed our war machine and claim territory for our faction. Even down to the matches, we needed to have separate objectives and/or separate means of achieving the same objectives. We needed to do our best to work on our goals while impacting the enemy in thier ability to achieve theirs.
I think some spin off of this theory what would be needed in CW. First, we must seek to determine what are the fundamental differences in the IS and Clan weapon platforms(strengths, weaknesses, design philosophies, etc) differences, if any, in faction motivations, create mechanics that reflect unique aspects of each faction, like lore population numbers, player population numbers, etc.
In identifying these differences, you can better create objectives that are 1) more geared toward each faction, 2) objectives that are common between the two and then lastly, provide varying mixes and combinations of these objectives in the matches and in the larger campaign as a whole.
Edited: for typos.
Edited by CocoaJin, 16 September 2014 - 10:16 PM.
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