6 replies to this topic

[50 50]

Unit size is a problem as it consolidates all activity to one banner and is not promoting warfare as evenly around the galaxy as it could.
Merc units are a problem as they have no loyalty and are only jumping from one faction to another so they can earn the loyalty points and all the bonuses that go along with it.
This creates the shift in power to one or two of the factions and therefore dramatic shifts in the borders.

So the questions are really:
1.How to distinguish clearly between being a loyalist vs a mercenary?
2.How to promote an even spread of players across the factions?
3.How to provide appropriate incentives and ranks for them?

The main objective is to have these features self regulate the unit sizes while still allowing for some tweaks and bonuses, particularly during an event.
There is quite a bit of info below so I have broken it into sections.


Loyalist vs Mercenary

Spoiler

This is fairly complex.
Firstly it boils down to having different scales for each of them.
For mercenaries, there should be a Performance Rating. This is a score, based on the units results at the end of any battle and averaged over the number of players in that unit. The more people in that unit, the harder it will be to raise their reputation if only a handful are truly active. However, we could also expect that that a larger unit will also achieve higher scores.
Mercenaries also need a Reputation Rating. It's a little harder to define but should be a measure of how active they were after taking on a contract, how many victories they were involved in, how many of their unit participated, did they break contract, kill friendlies... all that sort of stuff. All the metrics from the battles.
These two scales work together to determine both a competitive rank for game matching purposes and also how much they can earn on their contracts.
For loyalists, it's the same. Performance and Reputation but working on the loyalty scale which provides bonuses for continued service and also works as the competitive rank.
The other distinguishing feature is that mercenary units need to be self sustaining. The unit coffers need to come into effect here with the introduction of logistical costs to get to and from battles. The larger the unit, the more it costs to transport all those mechs.
However the trade off in costs is flexibility of contract and I dare say drop deck limits, high payouts and salvage from battles but they get no freebies for their rank. It's all about the c-bills.
Loyalists are on the other side of the coin. The pay is small by comparison and has no contract that can be negotiated. Drop decks are determined by the battles the faction is responding to and therefore drop deck limits are set. There is no salvage from the battles, but they are rewarded for continual loyalty with bonuses.
It's also important to recognise that mercenaries do not belong to a house or clan faction though they may have close ties. They should be a separate selectable option of 'Mercenary'.

Spreading out the player base

Spoiler

It occurred to me today that there is a way using a population count combined with a base salary for the loyalists that would work. This is for the loyalists only. The changes outlined above along with some contract changes which I will not go into just at the moment should be enough for the mercenaries.
Firstly, what we need is for an optimal population size to be set for each faction. This can also be measured
by how many battalions this may translate into for that faction as a tier system so extra functionality can be built into it as needed.
How would it work?
Say for example that the optimum population for any one faction is 108 to 180 players or 3 to 5 battalions.
At this level, players earn a base salary of 50,000 c-bills per match they participate in. (Please note that I am just throwing these numbers out there).
As the player numbers increase in that faction, the base salary decreases as the faction cannot support as many players.
Likewise for factions that have a low player count, they earn more if it is below the optimum level.
This will help regulate the house and clan unit sizes.
An important aspect to have is to allow both the population/battalion count and the base salary be adjustable.
It will help to work out the balance, also allow for factions to be different and importantly allow PGI to provide incentives and bonuses for events.
It's a time of war, the faction is paying more and raising more battalions to fight for their cause.

Incentives and Rewards

Spoiler

I have covered aspects of this in the above points but will extend it here a little.
The advantage of a mercenary unit and the incentive to fund and run one needs to be utilized through the unit
coffers.
These need to be practical options such as being able to adjust their drop deck limit.
As well as cosmetic options so they are recognised such as unit camo schemes and decals for mechs and dropships.
For loyalists, it is similar but granted as rewards.
Discounted prices on faction related items, equipment and mechs would be a big incentive.
I'm sure units would also like to have their own dropships, camo and decals relating to their units but there should be less individuality in the loyalist ranks compared to the mercenary.
I'm sure there are plenty of ideas out there but it is important to make sure that both options are equally as enticing to the players.

Edited by 50 50, 20 July 2015 - 04:54 AM.

[Kin3ticX]

50 50, on 20 July 2015 - 04:53 AM, said:

1.How to distinguish clearly between being a loyalist vs a mercenary?

Cant do anything until we get more features. Refer to the last town hall, there will be a new "Notoriety Point" to distinguish Mercs from Loyalists. For now, loyalists get 50% extra LP but they are essentially mercs still.

50 50, on 20 July 2015 - 04:53 AM, said:

2.How to promote an even spread of players across the factions?

Need some kind of auto adjusting reward system. Unfortunately, for supply side incentives to work efficiently you have to have a big enough supply of active players to fill 10 factions. Something else is also needed here like demand-side rewards such as event goodies and higher baseline cbill match rewards. I also suggest hard alliances (fedcom and such) to drop the faction count down to 5. There is so much grinding behind the MC at level 10, 15, 20 that its practically a non influential component to CW as it is right now.

50 50, on 20 July 2015 - 04:53 AM, said:

3.How to provide appropriate incentives and ranks for them?

Right now if someone wants to hire Mercstar with cb, they have to temp join MS and donate. We need a feature for this bad because if someone wants to hire, they have to cover all the costs on their own rather than tap into their unit coffers. Unit to unit transactions would come in handy here.

This is all fine and dandy because its an example of a community band-aid to the horrific lack of features in the current beta. Mercstar uses the cb often to cancle contracts early. Anyways, few are doing it because there is really no point to it besides max endgame nerd RP.

If tagging planets had individual special micro quirks such as
+%cbills
+%LP
+% notoriety
special planets worth MC
camo discounts
faction mech discounts etc etc

general interest in CW may increase. These new features could be used to further differentiate mercs from loyalists, but I don't know how it should be done to be fair (whether mercs have to be attached or hired by loyalists or whether Mercs get different rewards from loyalists). Mercs that nobody wants to hire still need ways to get matches and rewards.

Edited by Kin3ticX, 27 July 2015 - 08:02 PM.

[Araevin Teshurr]

You have to keep in mind, people were so looking forward to being a mercenary unit. When PGI rolled out mercenary units, people were left scratching their heads going, "What is this? This is it? Boring.", they left soon after, and nothing has been done to improve mercenary unit playability since then. What has happened, is that everyone in the MWO player community is screaming how broken merc units are, posting tons of ways to 'fix / restrict' them, and nothing has been done.

Mercenary units should be suspended until PGI pays a real game content creater to figure out how to listen to the players and incorporate the player bases suggestions into the game correctly. That would be the best fix for now.

Edited by Araevin Teshurr, 28 July 2015 - 08:04 AM.

[50 50]

@Kin3ticX
Thank you for your comments and input, much appreciated.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the notoriety. I do believe that mercenary units need their own scale independant and different to the one for loyalists. However I believe that both of them need a dynamic scale based on what is effectively a combat score combined with a performance rating.

With the spread of the populations, having a unit cap as was suggested in the town hall and elsewhere is really not going to help. I am against the idea of putting in a hard ceiling for unit sizes as it doesn't do anything with population sizes at all.
By populations I am directly referring to how many players are fighting for a particular faction. Not how big their unit is.
This is also a distinction between a mercenary unit and a loyalist unit as both need to have a different mechanic for it to work.

Loyalists

Spoiler

It should be defined by an Optimum Population level for the faction. Players still create their own units (or not) but when they join a faction as a loyalist they are added to the population count.
The population count is a range based on how many battalions (36 mechs) this equates to.
The base pay for a loyalist is then determined and scaled accordingly. While within the optimum range, a loyalist gets a base c-bill payment for participating in a battle of X. Go under that range and the pay increases. Go over and you get less.
It needs to be built in such a way as to be easily adjustable by PGI so the game can cater for different overall player numbers and also to allow for event specific changes.
It also needs to allow for each faction to be unique. Eg. Davion might have a higher limit, but doesn't pay as much overall, where as Liao may have smaller numbers but are better paid.
The real key is to make it self managed so players sort it out themselves.

Mercenaries

Spoiler

The size of a mercenary unit is not an optimum population limit defined by a faction but does have similar measures.
For these units, it's about logistics and sustainability and will tie in with the contracts and has to involve the unit coffers.
Moving a unit to and from battles is an expensive undertaking. Effectively, deploying more players to a conflict requires more dropships and therefore more cost. There would be some logistic sweat spots, probably easiest to base it on the dropship capacities.
Once again though, it should be self managing using cost vs reward. If transporting X players to a battle is going to cost more than what you can make back from the contract, then the population of the unit will fluctuate until it can be sustained and then become profitable.
This is why it's necessary for units to have a dynamic scale based on their score and reputation. It has to influence the contracts which then in turn influence the unit size.

Incentives and rewards on either side of the loyalist/mercanary clan are important as we want to make either option as appealing, but for different reasons.

Mercenaries want to know that they will be paid well for participating in a battle. It's an upfront incentive tied directly to the contracts.
Get paid wads of c-bills.
Get salvage rights..... which would be brilliantly done by giving each player random item drops at the end of a battle when victorious. There have been numerous ideas about salvage put up in the forums and I think this would be a great incentive for mercenaries.

Loyalists on the other hand want to know that their loyalty to a faction is appreciated. They want to be rewarded for staying with that faction.
Bonuses for achieving different levels of loyalty as we have now is pretty good but I would suggest a few tweaks and changes.
Discounts on faction specific equipment and mechs for example.
Improved base pay according to loyalty rank.
I'm sure there are other options which would be very good. I feel that modifiers to drop deck limits could be an option here as well, but perhaps as a possible limit that the unit has to finance up to for each battle.

Plenty of additional options to be added in for using the coffers as well. Building up planet defences has been mentioned. That's great for loyalists.
I think everyone would like to have their own camo schemes and decals.
Lots can and should be done.

Edited by 50 50, 29 July 2015 - 07:20 PM.

[Vellron2005]

Tooooo..... Muchhhh...Reading....

[50 50]

@Araevin
Completely agree with you.
Playing as a mercenary unit should be a lot of fun. It should also be a lot of fun for loyalists to hire mercenaries.
The biggest problem of which is the way the contracts are setup at the moment and a lack options allowing different units to interact with each other in game so it's interesting to read what Kin3ticX wrote about how MS has handled it.
They shouldn't have to do that.
There needs to be functions put into place that allow a proper interaction between units, particularly in regards to mercenaries, but also between the different factions so there are options for player driven alliances.

How's that Vell?
Split it up for you.

[50 50]

Great to see the upcoming changes that are in Phase 3.
The dynamic contract system for Mercs.
Some nice differences between the three career paths.
It's a huge step in a good direction and will be interesting to see how it works out and if it has an effect on populations.