80 replies to this topic

[Iron Buccaneer]

So it seems as if this two faction Clan vs IS concept is gaining traction sadly. For some reason people have the misguided idea that population is the problem and that if we just reduce the attack lanes we will suddenly have faction warfare going 24/7 and we will never have to wait for a match again.
The problem with that thinking is that population problems are a symptom of what is wrong with Faction Play and forcing the entire population into two factions is only going to aggravate that problem.

With phase 3 the attack lanes were greatly reduced and did that suddenly make things better? Nope it did not. It's just getting worse and worse. In fact we are already playing IS vs Clan on the Steiner/FRR vs Jade Falcon front. Absolutely nothing serious is going on anywhere else. Even the formerly lively Capellan vs Federated Suns front is dead. If that isn't fun for you now forcing everyone into two factions will not help. The faction population imbalance will become even more problematic and we will pretty much be fighting a seesaw battle at best or one faction will dominate all the time. Not to mention it won't be Battletech and believe it or not a lot of us are playing because we want Battletech and not Red vs Blue.

The mode is the problem. Scouting was a nice addition but tac nuke Long Toms empty the que. At best they should be slightly heavier arty strikes. That would still be worth while but not game breaking. "Invasion mode" can be fun but I think it should be used either for more important planets or as final battles fought for individual regions on planets. It should be called siege mode because that is what it really is. Most of our battles could be fought 12 vs 12 on regular maps. People don't always want to que up for larger battles that funnel mechs into the same kill zones. If we had another drop deck for 12 vs 12 that required us to have one of each mech class then matchmaker could choose a good balance and assign each pilots a mech for that battle. It would encourage cross training as well. Raids that would have an affect on faction economy would be nice. Perhaps a faction could vote for one faction to be at war with and two others to raid each phase.

Factions need dynamic content with flavor that fits the faction and mercs could have something that reflects their MRBC ratings. Instead of shorter contracts we should be able to take even longer contracts to promote faction stability. Faction incentives should reflect not only the population of the faction but also the success of the faction.

If this mode had true end game content then population would not be an issue. It wasn't in the past but since we were promised a dynamic end game with Faction Warfare and got nothing but empty promises and tweaks of Beta content even the diehards are burning out. You can tell the entire game took a population hit after the disappointment of phase 3. Dumping us into two factions will not save this mode or this game and neither will E-Sports.

Edited by Iron Buccaneer, 29 June 2016 - 12:33 PM.

[Jman5]

Honestly, I feel like the players are there, it's just most of them don't want to initiate an attack. I keep seeing this. I'll sit in queue trying to jumpstart an attack and get nothing. Then I hop into the defensive queue and lo-and-behold I find half a dozen guys from my faction crowding into an overpopulated world.

Something needs to be done to get factions to fill out their attack queue and stop hiding on defense where they aren't needed. It is the root of all population growth/decline. If no one is attacking, no one can defend. And defense queues are much easier to fill out in IS vs Clan fights.

Edited by Jman5, 29 June 2016 - 01:08 PM.

[dervishx5]

If they are going to simplify it, there should be 4 factions so you can still get IS vs IS games and (lol like this ever happens) Clan vs. Clan.

Homeworld Clans <--> Invasion Clans <--> North IS <--> South IS

[TWIAFU]

Iron Buccaneer, on 29 June 2016 - 12:28 PM, said:

With phase 3 the attack lanes were greatly reduced and did that suddenly make things better? Nope it did not. It's just getting worse and worse. In fact we are already playing IS vs Clan on the Steiner/FRR vs Jade Falcon front. Absolutely nothing serious is going on anywhere else. Even the formerly lively Capellan vs Federated Suns front is dead.

Two words;

Operation Galahad.

[Iron Buccaneer]

TWIAFU, on 29 June 2016 - 01:19 PM, said:

Two words;

Operation Galahad.

That front has been dead since the end of the phase 3 event. Well before your Operation launched.

[TheLuc]

faction play is dead due to bad game design from the start, blaming the players or low population is the proof of that.
I remember the MMO Warhammer Reckoning game which attempted same concept and failed, the game savage that was PVP only was also short lived or more recent, the game Evole is dead. Clan VS IS only will get the population even lower, killing off FP will make matters worse. As long as the game will stay PvP only all the issues will persist.

Announcing the Solaris game mode, its plain ridiculous as that's what we are playing since closed beta.

[Red Shrike]

Iron Buccaneer, on 29 June 2016 - 12:28 PM, said:

The problem with that thinking is that population problems are a symptom of what is wrong with Faction Play and forcing the entire population into two factions is only going to aggravate that problem.

Seems I'm not alone in this.

[MischiefSC]

Jman5, on 29 June 2016 - 01:05 PM, said:

Honestly, I feel like the players are there, it's just most of them don't want to initiate an attack. I keep seeing this. I'll sit in queue trying to jumpstart an attack and get nothing. Then I hop into the defensive queue and lo-and-behold I find half a dozen guys from my faction crowding into an overpopulated world.

Something needs to be done to get factions to fill out their attack queue and stop hiding on defense where they aren't needed. It is the root of all population growth/decline. If no one is attacking, no one can defend. And defense queues are much easier to fill out in IS vs Clan fights.

Going to keep repeating this everywhere in the hopes it filters to PGI somewhere somehow and sticks -

Combine attack/defend. 1 queue per front. This eliminates the myriad of queue issues from pug/premade disparity to filling queues in general.

Also eliminate 3 CF a day and taking zones. Total wins over 24 hours with CF during lowest population timeframe on Oceanic. This makes every win as valid as every other, eliminates sniping worlds and means any time is a good time to FW.

Also some other stuff but these would be huge.

[justcallme A S H]

Spot on Bucc. People are scared to attack.

If attacking rewards were higher than defensive, that might change things but that is a dangerous thing to think about because then defense queue's will dry up and people will just sit in attack ones.

There needs to be a motivator for both attack/defence and that is MC per victory (no matter what mode)

Jman5, on 29 June 2016 - 01:05 PM, said:

Honestly, I feel like the players are there, it's just most of them don't want to initiate an attack. I keep seeing this. I'll sit in queue trying to jumpstart an attack and get nothing. Then I hop into the defensive queue and lo-and-behold I find half a dozen guys from my faction crowding into an overpopulated world.

Something needs to be done to get factions to fill out their attack queue and stop hiding on defense where they aren't needed. It is the root of all population growth/decline. If no one is attacking, no one can defend. And defense queues are much easier to fill out in IS vs Clan fights.

I could not agree more with this.

This stupid idea is the RESULT of the Phase 3.

Going back to Phase 2, look at why it was good - intermix some of the good stuff from Phase 3 (as there is some ok changes) and then Phase 3.5 could actually be half decent.

Edited by R31Nismoid, 29 June 2016 - 03:08 PM.

[Jman5]

R31Nismoid, on 29 June 2016 - 03:06 PM, said:

Spot on Bucc. People are scared to attack.

If attacking rewards were higher than defensive, that might change things but that is a dangerous thing to think about because then defense queue's will dry up and people will just sit in attack ones.

There needs to be a motivator for both attack/defence and that is MC per victory (no matter what mode)

I think the only solution is to create a general faction play queue and have a matchmaker organize the queues itself.

[MischiefSC]

Turning FP into A QP queue isn't a "fix". It's eliminating FP and adding the maps/modes to QP.

I'm all for adding the content to QP. Fixing FP is a completely different thing - that consists of making it more than just new maps/modes for an otherwise QP environment.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

We simply need more rewards.
Beside faction loyality we should get different rewards for different modes. Like a seperate counter for attack/defense/counter-defense mission played and/or won.

rewards in general are just to swallow, why there are no faction related real rewards which actually feel faction related and like something worth to accomplish is beyond me.

How about a really beefed up hellbringer with green/gold falcon camo if you reach rank.. dunno 15 for jade falcon?
Or a shiny dragon with unique kurita camo for, well... kurita.
Folks would storm into FP and camp the queues...
..and if that is much to implement, at least a new variant of an icon, faction related mech ONLY accessible through FP rewards.

Or, my all time favorite, make loyality a currency and let folks decide what they want as a reward.

Edited by Toha Heavy Industries, 29 June 2016 - 04:09 PM.

[Kin3ticX]

i dont really see that much space nerd politics nor the population for 10 factions so i'd just gut the map down to 4 factions for starters. I reluctantly volunteer house laio to be axe'd first

there are so many planets on the map who's going to miss a few


right now there are 10 factions and 10 attack lanes

just to fill every attack lane with 1 game each you need 240 players but you actually need way more for the queues to be healthy. that doesnt include thinking about 4v4 btw

240 players is like 1/4 the steam population lol


dont forget its possible for pockets of active population in CW/FW/FP whatever its called now to be isolated from each other and cant fight

Edited by Kin3ticX, 29 June 2016 - 04:11 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

Yeah it's the isolation combines with single planet attack lanes per house that is hurting.

[Tarl Cabot]

Just to be clear, for others new to FP, that the attack issue is primarily IS pilots not queuing up to attack planets, especially vs Clan than IS planets. It generally takes a unit to initiate the attack unless it the players are co-oping and on TS to initiate the attack. Of the ST/FRR/Kurita, FRR does it most often. The other side of the coin will also depend where some of the major units are contracted with.

The factions with less active group/personnel may very well do all they can do, be it defend. There is also the splitting of the FP queue with both Invasion and Scout drops. And how many people are simply shying away due to the Long Tom capabilities.

Would upping the pay/rewards really get people into FP now? I would not expect it would bring in the players now. This is where AI mechs/tanks/elementals/powered suits and a heck lot more turrets would need to be brought in.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 29 June 2016 - 04:27 PM.

[Mystere]

Downgrading to only Clan and IS (i.e. no factions) is nothing but a desperation move. We might as well just shut down this game.

[Kin3ticX]

has anyone counted how many planets are on this map? there could be more planets than people playing the game

[MischiefSC]

So vote for allies like you do enemies. Allies share fronts. So you can concentrate players on the fly while maintaining factions and making that concentration movile. So one week it might turn into CJF vs Steiner and might shift over to Kurita vs CJF or whatever, all while you've got Liao and Marik attacking Davion, etc.

Player driven concentration is good. Game mandated concentration is bad.

[AnarchyBurger]

Gotta agree although I skimmed most of the topic. I personally think a quick play IS vs clan with some more objective based modes and possibly daily quests is a better idea, but who knows.

[El Bandito]

MischiefSC, on 29 June 2016 - 04:42 PM, said:

So vote for allies like you do enemies. Allies share fronts. So you can concentrate players on the fly while maintaining factions and making that concentration movile. So one week it might turn into CJF vs Steiner and might shift over to Kurita vs CJF or whatever, all while you've got Liao and Marik attacking Davion, etc.

Player driven concentration is good. Game mandated concentration is bad.

I personally think there are too many factions dividing the population, but this works too. I also hate the fact that big merc units have more population than most if not all big house units. Immersion breaking. Where is the thrill and risk of being a merc if you can bully your way through factions with greater number?

Edited by El Bandito, 29 June 2016 - 06:05 PM.