210 replies to this topic

[Supremacist]

Kyrie, on 21 August 2012 - 02:44 PM, said:

I agree in principle that this can be done. However, my preference would be to have open warfare not just along a narrow border, but allowing for in-depth conflict. If we are limited to say only a depth of about 2-3 planets, the possibilities for strategy on the interplanetary-map level are quite limited. If we allow for a depth of at least 7+ planets, then things get more interesting. Issues regarding supply-lines become a serious concern -- getting cut-off in a deep-strike campaign becomes more of an issue.

Rewards and incentives aside, my concern is for having a system that is strategically challenging with multiple levels: planetary combat system and interplanetary supply lines for example.

Agreed, that is far too few a number of planets for thousands of players to fight over.

With just a dozen planets to fight over on the borders of each house, and thousands of players involved, it nullifies the effect of small units entirely.

Even units such as mine would have a small but slightly significant part to play in the capture or defense of a few planets and we number over 200 easily. This is not a plan that is going to work to keep small and medium size units interest in the game, it will not make them feel a part of the universe, it will not make them invest time and money in a game where their contributions are not felt to any significant degree.

You can use WOT ideas as pringlescat has laid out so that even small and medium sized clans will have a place to call their own, while at the same time giving them an ability to defend it; and if they want or can, to attack other lands/planets.

Finally, Im hoping PGI sticks to an earlier mention they made regarding certain high ranking members of factions having some say on what planets are to be attacked by the entire faction, this will set it apart from WOT where each clan only cares about its own land.

By having certain people from each house have an ability to "call the shots", similar to a commander in a theatre of war, it gives people in that theatre an overall goal they would want to work towards, it gives them something to work for in addition to their own goals and gives them a purpose that either complements their own units desires or replaces them.

Now the person who is able to get this ability should have to earn it, just as the post suggested, the person would have to be of sufficiently high rank in the house, earned through playing the game. We havent heard much of this in months, and I hope it wont be months before we hear more.

Edited by Supremacist, 21 August 2012 - 10:59 PM.

[Hax DB Header]

WardenWolf, on 21 August 2012 - 02:12 PM, said:

In a related vein, I would like to see many new mission / game modes introduced - and then used in progression during the battle to take a planet. For example, if House Davion was assaulting a Kuritan world:

- Early games in the campaign would largely focus on dropship landings, scouting, and some early attempts to capture advanced bases (by the Davions)
- If that went well, the map modes would switch to fighting over resource points and the Davions hunting down supply depots, convoys, etc.
- If things continue to go well, it would transition more to attack / defend missions with the Davions trying to capture major control points and bases, along with Davions trying to take out planetary leaders (escort missions).

If at some point the Davions started to lose heavily, things would slide back and the Kuritans would have missions to destroy or capture Davion footholds, and eventually to taking our Davion dropships as the Davions would be trying to retreat or escape.

With things like that in place, even a single campaign to take a given planet would have a neat incentive system built-in, encouraging players to fight for their factions (or whoever will pay them the most C-bills!). There could be in-game ISN updates as the progress in capturing a world proceeds, and maybe even mention there of players who make monumental contributions during the campaign. These things will all provide great non-tangible rewards and incentives

Yes.

Yes, yes, and yes.

Yes.

This would lend importance to every 12v12 drop and could even lay the groundwork for more complicated match-ups once the matchmaker is more fine-grain and robust.

Early recon missions might have highly imbalanced tonnage limits but would balance that with highly imbalanced experience factors. A 450-ton recon lance drops into heavy territory and must secure a landing zone against an 800-ton defensive force in 12vs12 match. The recon lance is composed of elite and master pilots but the defensive force is nearly raw recruits (no elites, only a few thousand XP per mech).

I don't know about you but I would have huge fun on either side of that equation.

[RAM]

As mentioned in your other thread, it would have been more relevant if you had actual MPBT experience. MPBT did this 20 years ago, and did it far better.


RAM
ELH

[Nekki Basara]

Care to explain how MPBT did it better in the specific cases mentioned here?

[Kyrie]

PMJI, I believe he is referring to the threads that summarized first how EGA MPBT worked, and the very ambitious plan for 3025. I've linked these previously.

In a nutshell: Global unified IS Map. Unlimited Warfare. Discrete and complete implementation of House Factions per canon. Lance Leaders, Unit COs, (for the sake of clarity, I'll give Davion examples), PDZ COs, March COs, HLs. Each level starting at the unit level also had an XO position (EGA version). Creation of merc units upon reaching a minimum rank. Allowing an individual merc unit to grow to be stronger on balance than 2-3 full House units.

Strategic interplanetary deployment of lances; lances being the discrete unit that allowed attacks and defenses to take place. No lance, no joy. What is particularly special and unique in the proposed MPBT: 3025 version is the hex planet combat system; an improvement over the way EGA did it which was an abstraction of planetary capture points achieved by multiplying a "mission value" against a force balance value to obtain actual gain in the planet ownership pie-chart.

Also I found very interesting the idea of a dynamically growing or shrinking TO&E for Houses based on the actual presence of players in the particular units of a House.

A sensible command and control system proposed in 3025 that dealt with some of the major problems of high command micromanagement issues of the EGA version.

Given the strong resistance I've seen expressed against ideas like this system I proposed a much watered down version prior to actually locating the original 3025 thread.

There is really no comparison to what is being proposed here. As suggested in my other thread on this topic, EGA and 3025 were House-centric implementations of BT to allow for total war.

Edited by Kyrie, 23 August 2012 - 03:08 AM.

[deathTouch]

As the former commander of MLP in WoT, I absolutely agree on everything that pringles has written in this thread.

For those of you who are unaware of what MLP was in WoT, it was one of the most successful clans in WoT clan wars (arguably the most successful during the first 6-12 months), acquiring an enormous amount of territory for the relatively few active players that we had at the time (75).

The grind that was associated with the need to have seasoned members online EVERY SINGLE NIGHT for 3-4 battles/night was absolutely horrendous. Rather than play the game on our schedule, the game dictated what we did every single evening of our lives during that period of time. If you missed an evening it could mean the loss of a match and the subsequent headache that resulted when enemy clans "death blossomed" your territory, so everyone kept coming back night after night even though we were sick and tired of playing the same map every single evening. This was especially true for the "battle commanders" of the clan, which were pretty much tied to their duties 7 days a week. One of our battle sub-commanders even logged on immediately after his wedding to help lead a battle because he felt he jeapordized the clan if he was absent, considering the battle commander for that division was taking a leave of absence that day. This unrelenting stress resulted in the eventual burnout of many of the top players in not only our clan, but other top clans in the game.

When the new rules were instituted that pringles' mentioned in his post, the added chore of defending multiple landing zone-bordering territories coupled with the fact that clans could no longer devote chips to actually expand their land (and thus could never really achieve any sort of "ultimate conquest" of the map) resulted in mass burnout of MLP and MLP leadership, eventually fracturing the clan and resulting in my own permanent departure of the game.

I fully endorse the suggestions made in pringles' post to help curb the problems associated with the WoT map model.

P.S. Is SGLE/NDP coming over to MWO?

Edited by deathTouch, 24 August 2012 - 02:09 AM.

[Helter]

deathTouch, on 24 August 2012 - 02:05 AM, said:

P.S. Is SGLE/NDP coming over to MWO?

A bunch of the old guard have been playing in the beta. You should pop by KoL's Teamspeak server and say hi.

[deathTouch]

Helter, on 24 August 2012 - 05:36 PM, said:

A bunch of the old guard have been playing in the beta. You should pop by KoL's Teamspeak server and say hi.

Gotcha, will do.

[Terry Ward]

I support this product. Since goons were/are the greatest abusers of game mechanics in Eve (and I mean that in a positive way, cause you showed CCP what is possible in many ways) he should know about what he is talking about and it makes absolute sense.

[Tank Boy Ken]

/random bump

[King Bong]

Many of the items discussed in this op are what is going to make MWO a 6-10 year game, rather than a 6-10 month game like so many other high profiled MMORPG's. As a current player of EvE, WOT, and MWO I 100% agree with what this man is saying.