84 replies to this topic

[MovinTarget]

Meh, don't know that they would go for that.

Unless you set the unit cap at like 200, there would be several units rather unhappy

[Danjo San]

MovinTarget, on 15 June 2016 - 11:56 AM, said:

Meh, don't know that they would go for that.

Unless you set the unit cap at like 200, there would be several units rather unhappy

Yeah, I feel that. And it is a "measurable" concern, because the units would strictly voice their concerns about this. Thats what a workers union does for all the workers within that union whenever the company tries to force new cutbacks upon them. But what needs to be taken into account here is the "non mesurable" amount of Solo's and Casuals and other small Units that are feeling left behind and unheard and thus not coming to the forums, not stating their points, people that resignated because of "the same unadressed problem" of Phase 1-3.
If a Unit Leader calls out to all of his 200-300 members: "PGI is planning a hard Unit Cap We need all of you to flood the forums and Twitter to oppose this atrocity" The impact will be very heavy from that side... However how to organize all the others to approve of said proposal. It is impossible to reach them the same way, have them collectively speak out saying "We need a cap, it is the only thing that will bring balance back to this game mode"
Also one thing not to forget. long before there were units and tags in MWO, Players organized in groups. Back then dropping in QP you'd know regardless if there was a tag, who your enemy was and who was organized together. Point is it is possible to be organized even without a tag. It is possible to have multiple subdivisions in one unit under the same tag, large groups have been doing it that way for a while.
If a cap and organizing in subdivisions is the way to get the decline in population in FP back growing again. Then it is a very small price to pay if you ask me.

[MovinTarget]

Just want to point out that no one is telling me to hit the forums...

Also, basically if whether its a participation cap or a unit cap, the end result is connected sub-units as you say, whats the difference between my suggestion and yours?

...apart from the fact that with my suggestion the unit would only shed players if there were more FP players regularly than what the participation cap allowed.

Edited by MovinTarget, 16 June 2016 - 05:23 AM.

[Danjo San]

MovinTarget, on 16 June 2016 - 04:55 AM, said:

Just want to point out that no one is telling me to hit the forums...

Also, basically if whether its a participation cap or a unit cap, the end result is connected sub-units as you say, whats the difference between my suggestion and yours?

...apart from the fact that with my suggestion the unit would only shed players if there were more FP players regularly than what the participation cap allowed.

I was speaking hypothetically... Sure nobody told you to hit the forums. Nobody from PGI said there will be a strict Unit cap.
I was merely implying, that if Russ spoke up in a townhall saying that they will introduce a hard cap that would reset unit affiliations, large units most likely would instruct their players to hit the forums.
So as long as there is no straightforward announcement from PGI all stays hypothetical.
I believe the drawback to your solution would lie in "active Population Balance", as I mentioned in an earlier Post, having units with a limited size and having limited contracts per faction available based on the active player participation in FW would make the distribution of mercs easier.
You could pull stats over the course of a week and use them to determine the amount of contracts available. Say there were 1000 Mercs active over the course of 1 week and 1000 loyalists (for simple Math, lets say:) 100 active per faction (10 factions) so there is a even distribution you can distribute the mercs evenly. 100 Slots per Faction, add a Buffer say 20 Slots extra per faction to address fluctuation, you'd have 120 available Slots per Faction. Now with small units it would be no problem one 10 man unit, two 30 man units and one 50 man unit take contracts from one faction and done, no more contracts for that phase available in that perticular faction.
I mean most of us would agree on the fact that having all the most active mercs cluttering in one faction is a problem in terms of balance and finding matches. If you now however go with your proposal. the data needed to asses how many contracts slots would be available would be more than difficult to asses. And so the chances for mercs clustering in one faction is still given. Even if you limit the amount of players from the same unit who can drop at the same time.
Also the Scenario of Zerging Planets with one unit is still possible under your solution. Say you have 500 players spanning all timezones, you limit them to 24 players dropping at the same time, in an "ideal lab study" you could have the chance of dropping continuosly on one planet for 21hours straight, changing the 24 every hour.
Obviously it is highly unlikely but the possibility is there. loading up on victory points towards planets in all three cycles sufficient enough to outnumber anyone else.
However if you go with my suggestion the Zerging for one Single Tag would not be possible. take the same number 500, divided into 10 50man units... zerging could still happen but the tags would vary, maybe even leaving enough space for other units to surpass that. Again Lab test condition. each of the 10 Units has 2 hours for drops that's 8 Drops per Unit, at the same time one hardcore diehard 12 man pulls through an entire cycle they could surpass the 10 units and gain a tag and feel their contribution counted... Anyway those are "extreme" examples and are unlikely to occur.
however when skimming through other forum entries large units are being occused of zerging in this manner. Wether its true or not, players out there see little incentive competing in the numbers game at the moment against the large units and so staying away from FW. We however want them back, we want them to be part of the gamemode and we should take their concerns seriously.
On the other side, now talking about the current state of FW, what good does the "balance" system at the moment do? Nothing. On the one hand you have players stating the negative 20% on a overpopulated house don't bother me, it is better to go there than to go where you can get a 20% plus on your contract.
But the whole system says nothing at the moment anyway. If you say there are 20% of your Unit top that play CW, lets assume the same is true for other "larger" units. and you take a contract for a faction it is not the 20 percent that actually count towards the contract modifier it is the entire unit size. And so making this contract modifier a joke in general. If you have 80% inactive in regard to FW, why make them count towards the modifier? Also the modifier bonus states nothing about the activity or actual FW population.
at the moment I see no other solution of breaking down the larger clusters into subdivions to be able to asses valid numbers, valid participation in FW and so make it easier to create a contract system that favours an actual population balance. The modifier has failed.
Just look at the leaderboard for the factions, look at how many matches have been played by each faction. you will see a massive amount of matches played in Jade Falcon, and a very low amount of matches played for Marik. in an ideal balanced system the numbers should be nearly the same, but the gap is massive...

[MovinTarget]

I'm not gonna lie.

That thar is a frickin big wall of text... I totally skimmed it and I am sorry...

I guess my point is that, and I think you actually would agree, is that no matter what measures PGI takes to balance things in FP, there will be people/units that will actively try to break it either to their advantage, to make a point, or to stroke their epeen.

Why should areas of the game unrelated to FP be adversely affected because they can't get the balance right?

[iLLcapitan]

Danjo San, on 15 June 2016 - 11:48 AM, said:

Would it really be so bad to have
[1ST] 228th - First Division Rangers
[2nD] 228th - Second Divison
[228F] 228th - Faction Warfare Force
[WWW] 228th - Wicked Wild Warriors

*shrugs

You think it's funny to break units... Because you are not affected (nor am I), but your attitude I find kinda strange here.
You still try to make big units the boogeyman, your argumentation is seriously flawed though, your numbers as well.
500 players zerging a planet? On which server do you play CW?

Total nonsense.
Small teams can and do get planets.

Irritating to see that you add your personal agenda to almost every CW discussion.

[Danjo San]

iLLcapitan, on 16 June 2016 - 09:55 AM, said:

You think it's funny to break units... Because you are not affected (nor am I), but your attitude I find kinda strange here.
You still try to make big units the boogeyman, your argumentation is seriously flawed though, your numbers as well.
500 players zerging a planet? On which server do you play CW?

Total nonsense.
Small teams can and do get planets.

Irritating to see that you add your personal agenda to almost every CW discussion.

500 Players was a pure hypothetical number, maybe you should have read the text. Never said this was reality. I was speaking of a hypothetical scenario.
Personal agenda? Yeah, I want more players in CW.
Which is why I voiced my concerns as loud as I could, when Russ had the fabulous Idea to split the queue.
During Phase 1 I experienced players complaining about large units.
During Phase 2 I experienced players complaining about large units.
Now in Phase 3 I experience players complaining about large units.
Personal Agenda... sure call it that way if you want. I'll continue to speak out for this, because I believe it is the right thing.

[Danjo San]

MovinTarget, on 16 June 2016 - 08:21 AM, said:

I'm not gonna lie.

That thar is a frickin big wall of text... I totally skimmed it and I am sorry...

I guess my point is that, and I think you actually would agree, is that no matter what measures PGI takes to balance things in FP, there will be people/units that will actively try to break it either to their advantage, to make a point, or to stroke their epeen.

Why should areas of the game unrelated to FP be adversely affected because they can't get the balance right?

Well Russ is speaking of it to be end game content. Anyway I get your point and all, but why should areas of the game that are completely unrelated to FP affect FP? Players in a unit not participating count towards the population modifier affecting the contracts. Now take a large group of players that don't play FP, never. When all of them are in a Cluster, let's say in Clan Smoke Jaguar. it would appear that the population is relatively big, but in reality, there is no activity in CSJ... the contract system balances nothing.

[iLLcapitan]

You argument to break existing units with hypothetical numbers - that's a slap in the face for members of such units

What drives you? I don't get it. Is it because your unit is not able to capture planets?

[MovinTarget]

Danjo,

Sounds like we're at an impasse then, the reality is that whatever they do, they run the risk of driving away more players... If they they had true military structure then certain players could be "activated/volunteer for FP duty" and such... then perhaps the limitations could be applied...

[Danjo San]

MovinTarget, on 16 June 2016 - 11:42 AM, said:

Danjo,

Sounds like we're at an impasse then, the reality is that whatever they do, they run the risk of driving away more players... If they they had true military structure then certain players could be "activated/volunteer for FP duty" and such... then perhaps the limitations could be applied...

That would be nice, you could have that within the unit management system. That is a nice Idea. Within a Unit you would have to opt in to play FP... you could distinguish population better, and such apply limitations. the only problem I would see with this if there was something like a contract cap. say 100, and a unit of larger size takes that contract, once the opt in, volonteer FP Duty or what ever you'd call it meets the contract cap, players within that unit would not be able to play, which in return would cause disturbance ... I do like the idea, it would have clear benefits... Also what desperatly needs to be implemented is a "last login" display available to the commanders that have the "manage member" permission. Would clearly help sweep out the inactives without having to rely on gut and hear say from the others...

[Danjo San]

iLLcapitan, on 16 June 2016 - 10:59 AM, said:

You argument to break existing units with hypothetical numbers - that's a slap in the face for members of such units

What drives you? I don't get it. Is it because your unit is not able to capture planets?

please read before answering ... I was referring to a hypothetical scenario that under certain circumstances could lead to said events. It was not my main argument for a cap! so please don't say i am making up numbers and using them as arguments!

[Chuanhao]

What Mech the Dane has suggested, or at least a variant of it, would be the simplest way to "fix" Faction Play.

There are many issues for Faction Play. But we have to start somewhere first, and low hanging fruits with a good ROI should be the first.

That would be the long wait times and the seemingly lack of an end state.

PGI can define a cycle. For each cycle, each faction has one attack target and one defend target. Within that cycle, all factions have at it and at the end of the cycle, possession of the targea planet is resolved and we move on to the next cycle.

At the end of X cycles, we have an outcome. Factions which have done better have a better reward for all loyal mechwariors.

So I agree with the principle. Less attack lanes, focused attention on a single planet, higher probability of a game, less waiting times, more players.

Other issues like "predictable" maps are not so easy to solve, so that can come later.

As it is, the only goal in quick play is to level up more mechs, and that can be tiresome. I have given up buying three of a kind and just having fun owning one variant per mech chassis and just seeing what it can do. I don't need a fully expert mech seeing that I don't have much use for it. Faction play was the answer, hopefully it can become less painful (waiting)

[Deathlike]

Merging all of the factions would increase the pool of players participating... except that's not the core problem.

There's the NPE relative to FW... which is non-existent.

There's the maps, which promote funneling to target practice.

Then there's the ultimate goal... which is to do what exactly? For IS or Clans... what is the actual endpoint goal?


Throughout the various phases, PGI has failed to addressed foundational issues with their implementation of FW, and often compounds the problems with the wrong fix, or taking too long to address them (like the spawn in the middle of the firefight/spawn camping).

I don't see how just one change would magically fix what ails the mode. It would require a total comprehensive fix... all of which would unlikely to happen by PGI.


Consolidation only proves for the most part is that there's not even a real goal by other factions to show up... like Ghost Bear or Marik (post Phase 1).

Seriously, you have to think more about the other problems before trying to bandaid a problem with more bandaids.

[Carl Vickers]

Personally I think PGI intentionally sabotaged the split queue thing in phase 3 to show everyone it wouldn't work.

What I think should have happened was split the queue same as QP, have a solo and group queue. No more than 4 people from the same unit can be in the same drop in the solo queue, to minimize sync dropping, groups do whatever they want in their group queue. If you are grouped up, group queue for you. If more than 4 peeps from the same unit queue up, the ones after the first 4 get dumped in another attack/defense queue.

The other thing was there is no reason for someone who is merc to be in a unit, everyone not loyalist is a merc, keep the 1 week contract but non affiliated can pick a house or clan they want to sign on with and don't need the house/clan flag for the week. By not doing this they are keeping a portion of the population out of FW, those who want to stay lone wolf. They know who they are fighting for, they signed up with them for a week.

Non-affiliated units can do a similar thing and still get their tags on a planet for the house/clan they are signed on with.

I would have also changed the maps to the QP maps, they promote more diverse play, add in the bases they are using for the new assault and yay, CW phase 3 that would have worked in my mind, but I am one person.

Edited by Carl Vickers, 16 June 2016 - 05:46 PM.

[Karl the Plumber]

man whenever I hit the FP section of the forums I start reading and I'm not sure if I'm even playing the same game as you guys anymore.

Edited by Karl the Plumber, 16 June 2016 - 06:08 PM.

[Dagorlad13]

We need all the factions because this is "A BATTLETECH GAME". Unfortunately, we do not have the population to make FW work the way it is implemented, so what do we do? I think that the best compromise is to keep separate factions, but make the fights all Clan vs all Inner Sphere. Mercs should have to permanently choose either Clan or Inner Sphere, but they can take short term contracts within their faction "group". Then there can be leaderboards for each side and for each faction and there can be rewards for performance. Of course there should be seasons and the season should end once the Clans reach Terra, or the IS manage to keep the Clans away from Terra for a predetermined amount of time. Also, the rewards for factions holding planets should remain and even be Improved, but this is a different topic.

[MovinTarget]

Lots of good brainstorming here, though I think Mech's original question was, what can *we* do about it w/o waiting for PGI to make changes.

Now having said that, Let's get back to endless conjecture on things PGI will probably never implement!

How about this:
Simply make a Tukayyid-style event be permanent so there is *always* somewhere to go if nothing else is going on HOWEVER there would still attack/defense lanes for the players looking to get their names on planets.

Yes, you have a mishmash of the two, but... options?

Perhaps you can't queue on Tukkayid if someone is attacking your faction's planet(s)? As in there are attackers waiting for a match.

When queuing on Tuk, you might attack *or* defend, need to be prepared to have any of the four scenarios hit. The side with the most "pie pieces" at the end of the day/cycle/determined time period gets double MC from planetary gains until the next phase.

Perhaps it could work in a way that we aren't "stealing" players from active fronts, but giving those stuck in dormant factions an outlet.

Edited by MovinTarget, 16 June 2016 - 07:15 PM.

[Karl the Plumber]

MovinTarget, on 16 June 2016 - 07:12 PM, said:

How about this:
Simply make a Tukayyid-style event be permanent so there is *always* somewhere to go if nothing else is going on HOWEVER there would still attack/defense lanes for the players looking to get their names on planets.

Oh man, yeah. If there was a call to arms popup that was just "Fight on the Front!" and it took you to whatever planet/whatever faction/wherever, I would love that.

[MischiefSC]

Deathlike, on 16 June 2016 - 04:42 PM, said:

Merging all of the factions would increase the pool of players participating... except that's not the core problem.

There's the NPE relative to FW... which is non-existent.

There's the maps, which promote funneling to target practice.

Then there's the ultimate goal... which is to do what exactly? For IS or Clans... what is the actual endpoint goal?


Throughout the various phases, PGI has failed to addressed foundational issues with their implementation of FW, and often compounds the problems with the wrong fix, or taking too long to address them (like the spawn in the middle of the firefight/spawn camping).

I don't see how just one change would magically fix what ails the mode. It would require a total comprehensive fix... all of which would unlikely to happen by PGI.


Consolidation only proves for the most part is that there's not even a real goal by other factions to show up... like Ghost Bear or Marik (post Phase 1).

Seriously, you have to think more about the other problems before trying to bandaid a problem with more bandaids.

Consolidation is an admission of failure and trying to make FW just new modes in QP. Currently though I'm not sure what else PGI is willing to do. Fixing FW means making a better, deeper game environment.

Simplest solutions to start with -

1 world per front. No attack/defend, just 1 world. The winner gets it, next world on that front is in the losers territory.

--- This eliminates the pug vs premade issues created by units attack pugs defend and consolidates players on each front, also eliminating the "ghost drops to defend, everyone to attack queue" issue.

Make winning total wins over 24 hours. No taking zones, no 3 CF a day. Total wins over 24 hours with attacker needing a threshold of wins vs losses to take the world.

--- This makes every match and playtime relevant. It prevents huge swaths of time being irrelevant because you don't have enough people on to flip a world in a timezone. It eliminates planet sniping and a dozen other problems created by the zone system and varying populations by timezone. First win as meaningful as the last, any time is a good time to play.

Make rewards participation based not tag based. If you're pugging and participate in 10 wins on a planet that flips you'll get the same rewards as a unit member who got 10 wins while dropping in his 12man. Call it 1 MC per win you were in and 1 MC per day you hold it.

--- This eliminates the struggle between pugs and premades by making playing with a premade as a pug every bit as rewarding as being a unit member. It also rewards being in a winning match more than just trying to farm cbills while losing. It strongly rewards pugs who play with teams they drop with.

There Really numerous other things but these would change the nature of FW significantly enough to maintain a population while more complex changes to give actual purpose are implemented.

Edited by MischiefSC, 18 June 2016 - 01:32 AM.