729 replies to this topic

[Lukoi Banacek]

CyclonerM, on 07 February 2015 - 02:12 PM, said:

The problem is, if they do so, they are not acting like mercenaries. Mercs, if they want to keep their contract, should respect their employer's rules and alliances. Otherwise, they act like a rogue force, pirates, dark caste, call them whatever you want. This is where their rethoric is flawed, imho.

The flaw in your rhetoric is that you believe your UNIT wishes, alliances and rules are the faction's. They are not.

Your unit enters into alliances, ceasefires etc. You do not speak for your faction.

This is the inherent rub in PGI's design.

There is no bridging of the interests of the two, primarily because PGI didn't see this particular friction coming (or saw it and didn't care, or perhaps wanted to see how community influence would drive the train).

Many players have recommended options that could help keep loyalists and mercs distinct entities with very different pros and cons, and allow for one to influence the other without breaking immersion. We're still waiting for PGI to adjust their beta with those recommendations or not, to see how they attempt to fix these issues.

Edited by Lukoi Banacek, 07 February 2015 - 02:20 PM.

[CantHandletheTruth]

CyclonerM, on 07 February 2015 - 02:12 PM, said:

The problem is, if they do so, they are not acting like mercenaries. Mercs, if they want to keep their contract, should respect their employer's rules and alliances. Otherwise, they act like a rogue force, pirates, dark caste, call them whatever you want. This is where their rethoric is flawed, imho.

There is no player employers, so you can sit on high and make declarations, and the mercs can just wave a finger and do whatever they want.

[CyclonerM]

CantHandletheTruth, on 07 February 2015 - 02:19 PM, said:

There is no player employers, so you can sit on high and make declarations, and the mercs can just wave a finger and do whatever they want.

Lukoi Banacek, on 07 February 2015 - 02:19 PM, said:

The flaw in your rhetoric is that you believe your UNIT wishes, alliances and rules are the faction's. They are not.

Your unit enters into alliances, ceasefires etc. You do not speak for your faction.

This is the inherent rub in PGI's design.

There is no bridging of the interests of the two, primarily because PGI didn't see this particular friction coming (or saw it and didn't care, or perhaps wanted to see how community influence would drive the train).

Many players have recommended options that could help keep loyalists and mercs distinct entities with very different pros and cons, and allow for one to influence the other without breaking immersion. We're still waiting for PGI to adjust their beta with those recommendations or not, to see how they attempt to fix these issues.

Exactly! This is a lack of CW, as i said. Let us be honest: a small number of mercenary units can swing the balance of CW by massively join a faction, and have a big influence on the loyalists' politics.

Aff, technically the players are not the employers: but then, who is he? The faction? There is no actual faction; it is just a bunch of code lines that receives from an algorythm the ID of a couple of contested planets and gives it to the players.

Do you want to be ruled by a bunch of chaotic code that may or may not decide that your faction must go back in Clan space instead of pushing south? Or that you cannot have an allied Clan and, instead, you have to worry about two powerful neighbors even if one of them had been friendly with yours for a lot of time before CW (or at least their main unit was) ?

I know many will disagree, but i still believe that the best option would be to elect a player Khan (and Sakhan and Loremaster, to have the necessary checks and balances), voted by the permanent units' leaders. This is the only way to put some order into this mess, in my opinion..

[CantHandletheTruth]

CyclonerM, on 07 February 2015 - 02:55 PM, said:

Exactly! This is a lack of CW, as i said. Let us be honest: a small number of mercenary units can swing the balance of CW by massively join a faction, and have a big influence on the loyalists' politics.

Aff, technically the players are not the employers: but then, who is he? The faction? There is no actual faction; it is just a bunch of code lines that receives from an algorythm the ID of a couple of contested planets and gives it to the players.

Do you want to be ruled by a bunch of chaotic code that may or may not decide that your faction must go back in Clan space instead of pushing south? Or that you cannot have an allied Clan and, instead, you have to worry about two powerful neighbors even if one of them had been friendly with yours for a lot of time before CW (or at least their main unit was) ?

I know many will disagree, but i still believe that the best option would be to elect a player Khan (and Sakhan and Loremaster, to have the necessary checks and balances), voted by the permanent units' leaders. This is the only way to put some order into this mess, in my opinion..

I sure as hell don't want the self appointed "leaders" dictating my gameplay, that is for sure.

[CyclonerM]

CantHandletheTruth, on 07 February 2015 - 02:57 PM, said:

I sure as hell don't want the self appointed "leaders" dictating my gameplay, that is for sure.

If these self-appointed leaders have managed to run a big unit so far,they are at least worth some trust imho.

I would open the vote to every player, but then again mercs would be able to influence the leadership of a faction, and that feels pretty wrong. Besides, how many players know the few leaders that are likely to candidate?

I have played for a while a corean F2P, Air Rivals, where two factions fight against each other, and the players elect three leaders of their factions, which have some powers and have the responsability of uniting the players when they have to fight in special events like massive wars (involving taking down objectives and, eventually, a big war ship). They used to have meetings with the main unit leaders too. It worked and it was interesting

[Noesis]

In essence it has been the lack of "effective" leadership that put clan wolf in their situation in the first place. Imagine what mess they could create if they where given more special priveledges.

Also being ruled by code at least allows for options to occur that wouldn't exist anyhow. You cannot remove options and create a virtual peace if this helps to sustain the status quo, the game needs instability to avoid predictability and also to make diplomacy and player relations relevant. Please don't wrap the community up in cotton wool since one particular faction chose to be socially negative and then want to change the mechanics since they cannot or choose not to engage in the social narrative with other factions more constructively.

Also if PGI consider to just wrap everyone up with cotton wool so that attack options are not plausible and restrict gaming options it might make the CW experience more dull for them or simply not provide sufficient gameplay possibilities.

Mind I also get the impression that some people like their freedoms to exercise what forms of CW actions they prefer despite politics in MWO gameplay. If this is then to be considered as Bandit/Dark Caste play styles in Clan Space then maybe the future might be an even more brighter one for the Dark Born where people are going to prefer to exercise their freedoms more readily?

[Lukoi Banacek]

CyclonerM, on 07 February 2015 - 03:05 PM, said:

If these self-appointed leaders have managed to run a big unit so far,they are at least worth some trust imho.

I disagree with this entirely.

Regardless, while I see what you're saying Cyclone, the reality is the ability to influence others and build consensus can and does successfully drive player politics in many online "sandbox" style MMO's which this game shallowly depicts with CW.

If you cannot marginalize those that you disagree with, or influence enough people to support you, then you deserve to have non-compliant elements within your faction.

While I do think PGI should implement ways to allow influence to work more effectively, that doesn't mean I would like to see player elected faction leaders having the dev-allocated enforcement powers to demand my team plays a certain way or adheres to a certain set of conditions they set.

You can either influence others and build consensus with them to move forward, allocating your collective resource of manpower and man-hours available or you can marginalize those that disagree with you by overtly not supporting their efforts. Those are both avenues to pursue in these kinds of games.

What you advocate for is some haphazard faction election and then enforcement powers given to someone who has no demonstrated ability to lead. Hell...for all you know, they may turn megalomaniac or simply be campaigning for your vote because they are secretly the agent of some other faction.

I definitely do not wish for that. I would definitely be a fan of them building the options I stated above, but not to turn over the faction to some handful of players, mine or otherwise.

[Cimarb]

CyclonerM, on 07 February 2015 - 02:12 PM, said:

The problem is, if they do so, they are not acting like mercenaries. Mercs, if they want to keep their contract, should respect their employer's rules and alliances. Otherwise, they act like a rogue force, pirates, dark caste, call them whatever you want. This is where their rethoric is flawed, imho.

That is exactly what Prussian is advocating in a different thread. Want to be a pirate? Great, this is how it works. Want to be a mercenary? Great, do what these guys say, or do not get paid.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Cimarb, on 07 February 2015 - 04:24 PM, said:

That is exactly what Prussian is advocating in a different thread. Want to be a pirate? Great, this is how it works. Want to be a mercenary? Great, do what these guys say, or do not get paid.

The issue being Cimarb....who gets to be "those guys?"

Plus what happens when loyalists (perm contracted players) disagree and schism over decisions? Who is the merc employer then?

There are many other equitable ways for PGI to set things up to allow mercs and loyalists to interact in a more immersive way than simply giving certain subsets of players the controls.

[Prussian Havoc]

Cimarb, on 07 February 2015 - 04:24 PM, said:

That is exactly what Prussian is advocating in a different thread. Want to be a pirate? Great, this is how it works. Want to be a mercenary? Great, do what these guys say, or do not get paid.

Precisely.

This isn't EVE, a good faith effort needs to be made by PGI to provide CW with as many BattleTech Trappings as is possible. Mercenary Corps Units should NOT be able to set themselves up as Factions-onto-themselves. Example - Merc-Contracts should be for one Front alone. House Kurita for example could let contracts for Mercs to fight Marik or for Mercs to fight Davion, but under one contract the Mercenary could NOT fight along BOTH fronts. It is one or the other and the Merc CDR had better make the best decision possible to keep his Unit as fully occupied with potential matches.

Only LOYALIST Units should be able to move across ALL fronts for a given faction.

This dynamic (1-Front vice all-fronts) would come to define MWO:CW. Given time and it being incorporated well prior to Launch, it would be accepted as a foundational aspect of Gameplay, with expectations shifting accordingly.

According to Lore Mercenary Corps Units were EMPLOYED in just such a manner... AND NOT given UNCONSTRAINED free reign within a factions boundaries to ATTACK WHOMEVER THEY PLEASE.

The more I think on it, it is just patently wrong for a MERCENARY to pick and chose whom to attack - Ally and Foe-alike in potential and equal danger according to the whims of a CONTRACTED force.

Yes, it should be hard-wired that a CONTRACT is for one front and one front alone.

Let there be this and other undergirding, structured relationships between categories of units - Loyalists, Mercenaries, Pirate, Bandit.



Now in Beta is the right and proper time to hash all this out.

Hopefully soon PGI will give evidence if we are going with COMPLETELY unconstrained BattleTech-like environment (on the order of EVE) or if BT Lore will give purpose and consequential structure to Factional interactions.


Either way, I intend to continue to buy Mech Packages and play MWO all the chances I get.

Edited by Prussian Havoc, 07 February 2015 - 09:23 PM.

[Cimarb]

Lukoi Banacek, on 07 February 2015 - 05:15 PM, said:

The issue being Cimarb....who gets to be "those guys?"

Plus what happens when loyalists (perm contracted players) disagree and schism over decisions? Who is the merc employer then?

There are many other equitable ways for PGI to set things up to allow mercs and loyalists to interact in a more immersive way than simply giving certain subsets of players the controls.

"Those guys" was probably a poor choice of words. Mercenaries should not have unrestrained access to attack whatever they want, though.

For example, my unit should be able to spend coffer money to put up a contract for a certain planet that we need help with. Mercenary units, then, should be able to accept that contract and get paid to take it. That should be how mercenary contracts work.

Pirate units would be more like how mercenaries currently are handled. They can attack whatever they want, but not be part of a particular faction at all, not get contracts, etc.

I do not want players to be in control of other players, but the mercenary system currently sucks and needs to be fixed. We are just throwing around ideas to fix it.

[Repasy Cooper]

Prussian Havoc, on 07 February 2015 - 09:01 PM, said:

Precisely.

This isn't EVE, a good faith effort needs to be made by PGI to provide CW with as many BattleTech Trappings as is possible. Mercenary Corps Units should NOT be able to set themselves up as Factions-onto-themselves. Example - Merc-Contracts should be for one Front alone. House Kurita for example could let contracts for Mercs to fight Marik or for Mercs to fight Davion, but under one contract the Mercenary could NOT fight along BOTH fronts. It is one or the other and the Merc CDR had better make the best decision possible to keep his Unit as fully occupied with potential matches.

Only LOYALIST Units should be able to move across ALL fronts for a given faction.

This dynamic (1-Front vice all-fronts) would come to define MWO:CW. Given time and it being incorporated well prior to Launch, it would be accepted as a foundational aspect of Gameplay, with expectations shifting accordingly.

According to Lore Mercenary Corps Units were EMPLOYED in just such a manner... AND NOT given UNCONSTRAINED free reign within a factions boundaries to ATTACK WHOMEVER THEY PLEASE.

The more I think on it, it is just patently wrong for a MERCENARY to pick and chose whom to attack - Ally and Foe-alike in potential and equal danger according to the whims of a CONTRACTED force.

Yes, it should be hard-wired that a CONTRACT is for one front and one front alone.

Let there be this and other undergirding, structured relationships between categories of units - Loyalists, Mercenaries, Pirate, Bandit.



Now in Beta is the right and proper time to hash all this out.

Hopefully soon PGI will give evidence if we are going with COMPLETELY unconstrained BattleTech-like environment (on the order of EVE) or if BT Lore will give purpose and consequential structure to Factional interactions.


Either way, I intend to continue to buy Mech Packages and play MWO all the chances I get.

Nailed it! +1

This is a good idea, you should post this in the suggestions section.

[CyclonerM]

Lukoi Banacek, on 07 February 2015 - 05:15 PM, said:

The issue being Cimarb....who gets to be "those guys?"

Plus what happens when loyalists (perm contracted players) disagree and schism over decisions? Who is the merc employer then?

This is why i was advocating some kind of player leadership. Even if it is some sort of council, i think a majority can be reached. Anything is better than giving the mercs free reigns to do anything they want. I second Prussian's suggestions

[Prussian Havoc]

Repasy, on 07 February 2015 - 09:46 PM, said:

Nailed it! +1

This is a good idea, you should post this in the suggestions section.

Submitted it... good suggestion, thx!

[Repasy Cooper]

Prussian Havoc, on 10 February 2015 - 12:23 AM, said:

Submitted it... good suggestion, thx!

Perhaps what we need is some joinable mercenary factions for units that wanna go merc, the no-brainers would be:

Gray Death Legion
Northwind Highlanders
Kell Hounds
Wolf's Dragoons

Merc units could join one of the four mercenary factions with the idea that they're "Sponsored" by the factions.

Each of the four mercenary factions would have different contracts w/ house factions, and these contracts would change over time with some sort of algorithm based on each faction's loyal player count. So for an example, if you're a unit sponsored by Wolf's Dragoons and they're currently under contract to Steiner, maybe one month you have the option to take a 30 day contract to take and hold planet x for Steiner, with successful completion earning bonus payment to unit members and your coffers. There's also an option to take a contract with the same faction for 14 days to defend planet y, which is currently under heavy assault by mercenaries from Gray Death Legion who took a contract from Marik this month. Lastly, there would be a 7 day contract to execute a deep space raid into enemy faction territory to take and hold planet z.

Something like this could be really cool, and give Mercs a chance to fight for many factions interchangably while building up loyalty points with the sponsoring Mercenary faction. Would have a very MW4Mercs flavour to it.

For the clans... maybe instead of having supporting Merc factions for them, we would have the option to run with one of the 2nd wave auxillary clans:

Diamond Shark
Nova Cat
Steel Viper

The three Auxiliary Clans would support clan corridors in the same way that Mercenary factions support Inner Sphere factions.

People who want to join a main Clan or Inner Sphere house would only have the option for Pledge of Loyalty, and would only be able to switch by paying the high penalty to defect. Auxiliary clans and mercenaries would have the options for 7 day, 14 day, 30 day, and pledge of loyalty, but this would be limited based on player counts IS vs Clans. If there was a surplus in the Clans for that month, you'd only have option to join Merc factions until the player counts leveled off. If there was surplus later in IS, only auxiliary clans would be available for contracts.

Edited by Repasy, 10 February 2015 - 12:36 PM.

[Jaroth Corbett]

That first is suspiciously similar to MW4:Mercenaries but it does make sense. I like the Clan part as well. You have my support.

[Cimarb]

I like the idea, Repasy. It would be a good start.

Rewards for loyalty really need to matter far more than they do currently, though. It does not matter what system you put in place, if the rewards are the same, the vast majority will still go with whatever gives them the most freedom, which is currently 7 day Merc.

[CyclonerM]

Cimarb, on 10 February 2015 - 02:09 PM, said:

I like the idea, Repasy. It would be a good start.

Rewards for loyalty really need to matter far more than they do currently, though. It does not matter what system you put in place, if the rewards are the same, the vast majority will still go with whatever gives them the most freedom, which is currently 7 day Merc.

What bothers me is that the rewards for loyalty , instead of , well, rewarding loyalty to a faction, are rewarding jumping from a faction to another

#WorkingAsIntended

Edited by CyclonerM, 10 February 2015 - 02:12 PM.

[Repasy Cooper]

Jaroth Corbett, on 10 February 2015 - 01:35 PM, said:

That first is suspiciously similar to MW4:Mercenaries but it does make sense. I like the Clan part as well. You have my support.

Lol... is there a problem with that?

Repasy, on 10 February 2015 - 12:25 PM, said:

... Would have a very MW4Mercs flavour to it.

[Cimarb]

CyclonerM, on 10 February 2015 - 02:12 PM, said:

What bothers me is that the rewards for loyalty , instead of , well, rewarding loyalty to a faction, are rewarding jumping from a faction to another

#WorkingAsIntended

Yeah, it is not a loyalty reward, though. It is an almost total lack of loyalty reward that is causing it.

If loyalty and contracts REALLY mattered, you would not see the faction dance hardly at all...