170 replies to this topic

[Rascula]

All looks very intriguing and shall be interesting to see how it plays out. It'll take time but it looks like a lot of thought and good ideas have gone into this. Nice one PGI.

And cheers for posting the vid Koniving!

[Wintersdark]

And, indeed - map selection will obviously not be one map per planet, and likely not even environment specific initially. This shouldn't surprise anyone.

Realistic (non-harbinger-of-doom) expectation: Simply random map chosen for each battle as per now; moving to slightly environment-specific maps, but never one-map-per-planet. That's just silly, there are thousands of planets in the IS. And community created?

Yeah, no. You couldn't get enough, and quality control would be a serious issue. Yes, there could be some really awesome community created maps, but there would be exponentially more unbalanced/buggy maps with no QA staff available to test them adequately. It takes a LOT of man-hours to test a map like this, and you cannot rely on the submitter to have done so. You can clearly see how limited PGI's QA team is right now, they'd be unable to test said community created maps at all.

They'd basically get the odd map added that's actually usable, and thousands of garbage maps (and, before anyone ******* about their favourite hated map in game, I'm talking far, far worse than that one) to sift through. It'd be a huge investment in resources. Maybe a good one, maybe not, but they've not gone that route and it's absolutely not a "simple choice" to use community content like that.

Edited by Wintersdark, 27 September 2013 - 08:18 AM.

[Dawnstealer]

Koniving, on 26 September 2013 - 09:52 PM, said:

Enjoy.

Really sounds awesome and everything I hoped it would be. So...holding out for it. I still think they dropped the beta tag early, but I think that might have been more benchmark deadline they had to meet or they'd have their funding pulled or something. Missing so many key features to a game like this, it's hard to believe the decision to go gold was a willing one.

Great game and sounds like it's getting better.

...bounties...hmmmmmm

[Karl Marlow]

Wintersdark, on 27 September 2013 - 08:12 AM, said:

In short - and they've always been along this line for CW stuff - if you already own everything you want and already have zounds of cbills, then yeah, there won't be much for you. Rewards for CW have always been largely economic and "fluffy" (camo patterns, unit designation for faction players) which that's been well known since PCGamer's article.

This is a major reason why they stomped down on cbill gain. If you go into CW with a huge stockpile of cbills, you have far less reason to care about who controls what. Obviously some reason, as it's still bragging rights, but economics are a design pillar of motivation here.

Then what is the point? I don't want to go full on EVE here but IT would be nice if there was some reason to have a mech factory beyond the initial purchase. It hurts new players more than it does established players. Are the current mech prices the standard prices or the black market prices? If we are currently looking at the standard prices then even the discounts we can fight for won't help new players. Instead the mechs we don't have access too are just harder for them to get.

Besides Why not just skip over to the faction who has the mech and buy it from them before moving back? Is it a matter of rank within the faction? If so how much grinding will it take before we can buy these mechs. If its a high level then it is another barrier a new player has to overcome in order to buy their mechs. If it is low then there isn't any reason a player can't just faction hop to the supplying faction.

[Koniving]

ThomasMarik, on 27 September 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

I only really have two notes.

First, It looks like the Merc units are getting most of the fun goodies while those who want to be a part of the houses are being left out.

Second, Why does it matter so much if an Atlas is cheaper to buy if I won a planet? I already own mechs and C-bills will accumulate even for the more expensive mechs. This seems like a barrier to play for newer people. Unless you are adding in some sort of Mech Durability to the game. Which I wouldn't be opposed to.

On the first note, I sort of agree but that's not to say that some of this stuff couldn't make it to the factions. In reality the factions are getting all the free content -- camo skins, emblems, fancy stuff, there's also better access mentioned in your second one.

On the second note, I think this is actually intended to help diversify both the playing fields as well as make things lore friendly. Since you can leave and join any other faction, the concept is to try and have you play all the factions at some point, to unlock all the access. The overall intention appears to be to extend the life of the game as long as possible. I confess right now the immediate access to everything means we're eating up content faster than it can be spewed out. I have more than 84 mechs. 84 mechs! It's been too easy to get everything. Though I don't like what we're earning, and with the sinks this is going to suck unless we start earning more over time.

I imagine this is partly what bounties are for -- missing from my video is that Lone Wolfs are also able to take contract missions just like mercs can, and they don't need friends to do them either. Faction A could offer a contract to Lone Wolf B to assist in the invasion of Target C for a bonus sum of Amount D. Things of that nature.

Lone wolves (aka new players) also don't have to manage dropships or taxes and such either.

But back on the faction diversity topic, there are universal mechs but then there are faction specific warehouses that produce stuff that you would want to take over. Thus, giving you a reason to vote towards one assault or another.

For example much to my surprise, according to Sarna, the Kuritans have the Yori Mechworks group, which produces the Atlas K, the Atlas K-2, and the Catapult C3. If this is exclusive, then they would have significantly easier access to these things than even the Atlas-loving Steiners!

Honestly this is one of the few things PGI has thought of that I would not change. Although I would add weapon variants, engine variants, armor variants, etc. to this list.

For example, the VLAR 300 and 400 XL engines, the Hermes 400 XL engine, Magna 260 standard and Pitban 320 engines are all produced at Yori Mechworks.

The Tiegart PPC and the Dragon's Angst Gauss Rifle is also produced here.

Brand name armor, brand name Jump Jets, and brand name Endo Steel is also produced here.

What if the game really had a difference to these?

What if the Dragon's Angst Gauss Rifle did 15 damage in 4.75 seconds like the normal Gauss Rifle, but it could fire once every 2.375 and did 7.5 damage per shot? What if PPCs weren't hardset in how they work; for example what if the Tiegart PPC did 9 damage but traveled faster and a little farther?
-------
What if these things actually mattered, diversified the battlefield and made it more interesting, but at the same time wasn't truly superior to something else?

What if one brand of jumpjets was designed to give you a violent upward-forward thrust but couldn't sustain you in the air? What if another brand of jumpjets was designed to allow you to hover? What if another brand was designed to allow you to thrust exclusively forward for a very short period of time (I'm thinking knockdowns here) yet took a long time to recharge?

What if one brand of anything could do what another brand does, but does it better in one aspect with a drawback in another?

A random example is the Crusher Super Heavy Cannon AC/20. There are, in fact, 3 different manufacturers. What if owning all 3 made it much cheaper? But better, what if one of them had the 10 shot (2 damage per shot) AC/20 in an MG style, churning out 10 shots in 4 seconds with no cooldown; it'd be like a 14 ton AC/2 that fires faster! (Spoiler note 1). Meanwhile, another must be a burst type churning out 10 shots in 0.9 seconds, with 3.1 seconds of cooldown, and another might have a slower burst (1.4) with a cooldown of 2.6 seconds (Spoiler note 2.) In MWO video example found under spoiler note 3.

Spoiler

Note 1: (The MG style Crusher would get 70 shots per ton using the rules I established, which is an MG-type would define the shot to damage to time ratio, in this case 10 shots to do 20 damage and compare it to how many shots a single shot version gets, which is 7 shots in 1 ton. To get the same result from a 10 shot gun, times the single shot count by the multi shot count. 70 shots.)

Note 2: They all do 5 dps, equal to a single shot -- though many have said that single shots should get a slight DPS reduction to better balance the difference, an example being a single shot Ac/20 getting its DPS from 5 changed to 4.

Note 3:


The video demonstrates the Crusher, the Chemjet Gun, and MWO's single shot AC/20 (and referred to it as the Devastator which is not what it really is). The info is dated and somewhat incorrect [Chemjet is in a book as a 4 shot AC/20, the Devastator is a Cauldron Born mounted 203mm single-shot style UAC/20, and this is what I was referring to as unable to be mounted on an Atlas due to recoil, not the single shot AC/20].

I got them mixed up.

On the positive side, studies from the books and information collected by some awesome people show that, with a little bit of math, the 120mm Deathgiver of the King Crab is a 12 shot AC/20, the 100mm style Deathgiver made by a different manufacturing planet mounted on the Atlas is a 15 shot AC/20. Video evidence by Microprose of the Hunchback Tomodzuru Autocannon Mount Type 20 is a 5 shot AC/20, though official Battletech-tabletop sellers commissioned art evidence suggests it is a 4 shot AC/20.

Random fun fact: The Huncback IIC's twin UAC/20 is depicted as two separate 6 barrel AC/20s, which means between 6 and 12 shots to total 20 damage, with the option to double its rate of fire or double tap.

Though I don't think PGI will get that complex, it had already been said that weapon variants are in a concept stage as of December/January and mentioned back in May in an ATD [the famous purple large laser comment] (now backburner with CW and clans on full front). Engine variants were also something they mentioned but it was more of a passing comment than anything we could hold them to.

(Edit: HTML error spam fixed. Link given to Yori Mechworks details on Sarna.)

Also did you know? There are over 44 Regular Medium Laser Variants in the MW universe! That's not counting pulse or clan lasers! Some are rapid beams, some steady sustained beams, some short-beams and all of them do the same DPS and similar range, yet are different enough to compete with one another as 'favorites' for different groups.

Edited by Koniving, 27 September 2013 - 12:32 PM.

[Karl Marlow]

I get what you are saying Koniving and I like what I'm hearing.

I really liek the idea of giving certain factions a lfavor. The problem I am having is the flavor is instantly lost.

For example and for purposes of demosntration let us assume people have not bought mechs yet.

If House Marik Pushes into Liao space and captures the Raven Factory then suddenly we will start seeing Marik Pilots running around in Ravens, in addition to whatever else we get. I can see two scenerios from that. If bought mechs, and equipment, are permenant then it no longer matters if we lose that planet. WE have our Ravens and we can move on to something else. If, on the other hand, we can lose those mechs somehow then slowly Our Raven mechs will start thinking out and it would actually matter if I lost that factory.

I'm actually kinda thinking of a durability system would work really well here. Let me put an arbitrary number of 10 durability on a mech. Whenever you lose a match with your mech you lose one durability. If your faction owns that mechs factory you gain one durability back every hour, for example. If, on the other hand you lose that mech producing factory then you have to pay a black market premium for durability to be restored to your mech. That way you would never truly lose your mech but it would become unusable for a while until you get it repaired. It become important to have those factories for the free repairs and those who want to pay can get durability restored and keep using their old mechs.

OF course they could also just keep surviving and never lose durability in the first place. You could also probably add in some MC items that let you restore durability instantly or something as well. The same could be done with certain items and equipment.

[Al Bert]

Niko Snow, on 27 September 2013 - 08:36 AM, said:

So how many of you are going to put a bounty on me?

Where is the poll? Memememe, first! 40.000 C-Bill, like for the UAV

[CyclonerM]

Niko Snow, on 27 September 2013 - 08:36 AM, said:

So how many of you are going to put a bounty on me?

Wintersdark, on 27 September 2013 - 08:16 AM, said:

And, indeed - map selection will obviously not be one map per planet, and likely not even environment specific initially. This shouldn't surprise anyone.

Realistic (non-harbinger-of-doom) expectation: Simply random map chosen for each battle as per now; moving to slightly environment-specific maps, but never one-map-per-planet. That's just silly, there are thousands of planets in the IS. And community created?

Yeah, no. You couldn't get enough, and quality control would be a serious issue. Yes, there could be some really awesome community created maps, but there would be exponentially more unbalanced/buggy maps with no QA staff available to test them adequately. It takes a LOT of man-hours to test a map like this, and you cannot rely on the submitter to have done so. You can clearly see how limited PGI's QA team is right now, they'd be unable to test said community created maps at all.

They'd basically get the odd map added that's actually usable, and thousands of garbage maps (and, before anyone ******* about their favourite hated map in game, I'm talking far, far worse than that one) to sift through. It'd be a huge investment in resources. Maybe a good one, maybe not, but they've not gone that route and it's absolutely not a "simple choice" to use community content like that.

MW:LL has a good number of nice community-created maps.

Niko Snow, on 27 September 2013 - 08:36 AM, said:

So how many of you are going to put a bounty on me?

So when can we expect a detailed Command Chair post about the new revealed CW details? Or do you think that should be a kept secret ?

EDIT: about exclusive 'Mechs: it would be nice to need to own the factories, but after the succession wars all the successor states have some of the most common designs obtained trough salvage,so i think they may reflect this with the black market feature (of course being rare they will have a much higher price).

Edited by CyclonerM, 27 September 2013 - 08:52 AM.

[Koniving]

ThomasMarik, on 27 September 2013 - 08:39 AM, said:

I get what you are saying Koniving and I like what I'm hearing.

I really liek the idea of giving certain factions a lfavor. The problem I am having is the flavor is instantly lost.

For example and for purposes of demosntration let us assume people have not bought mechs yet.

If House Marik Pushes into Liao space and captures the Raven Factory then suddenly we will start seeing Marik Pilots running around in Ravens, in addition to whatever else we get. I can see two scenerios from that. If bought mechs, and equipment, are permenant then it no longer matters if we lose that planet. WE have our Ravens and we can move on to something else. If, on the other hand, we can lose those mechs somehow then slowly Our Raven mechs will start thinking out and it would actually matter if I lost that factory.

I'm actually kinda thinking of a durability system would work really well here. Let me put an arbitrary number of 10 durability on a mech. Whenever you lose a match with your mech you lose one durability. If your faction owns that mechs factory you gain one durability back every hour, for example. If, on the other hand you lose that mech producing factory then you have to pay a black market premium for durability to be restored to your mech. That way you would never truly lose your mech but it would become unusable for a while until you get it repaired. It become important to have those factories for the free repairs and those who want to pay can get durability restored and keep using their old mechs.

OF course they could also just keep surviving and never lose durability in the first place. You could also probably add in some MC items that let you restore durability instantly or something as well. The same could be done with certain items and equipment.

I do see that. Of course, it no longer matters to those who own said mechs. You lose the planet, and those that don't have those mechs...don't have those mechs. Now, Bryan specifically said you can get "everything" at the Black Market at higher costs.

This is why I liked the repair and rearm concept I had, which only targeted upgraded mechs and ammunition boats (because combined with the lock threshold rather than MWO's current increasing threshold; most boats would be virtually impossible to alpha strike except ballistic boats, and you control them by limiting their viable ammunition).

So say if my repair and rearm concept were implemented and Marik took the Raven factory, got some Ravens, and then lost it. Well then the ability to fix those Ravens would become impaired as well. Now, either they would no longer be able to cover repairing a Raven's standard structure/equipment under the faction's dollar instead of your own or be unable to replace some aspects (let's say that Raven factory produced a specific kind of XL engine. It's listed as the Hermes XL 210 engine for the Raven 3-L). I'm really thinking both actually. But well XL engines are covered as something you have to pay to repair in my concept, and so it'd get harder to repair it, more expensive. Worse yet, what if Hermes-brand engines were ideal in Ravens? What if a VLAR brand engine isn't as good in a Raven as it is in an Atlas? Sure you might have cheaper access to a VLAR or other brand engine, but the Hermes brand is what you really need, and you have to have that Raven factory in order to get that Hermes brand! Now you have a reason to hold it beyond cheaper Ravens and simple repair costs of the mech itself.

Sadly, the faction aspect doesn't apply to Mercs. They can't get the cheaper prices except through working for specific factions. At least from the sound of it. Perhaps mercs can trade some of the contract income for some ease of access for the faction territory they just assisted in taking over -- example what if I of the Zhizhu Mercenary Corporation was contracted by Liao to take over the planet Loxley to secure a Norse-Storm Technologies Incorporated factory? Say Zhizhu was less interested in a large sum and instead more interested in easier access to the Thunderhawk mechs produced there, then that'd be a neat option. Otherwise from what was said, Mercs have to deal almost exclusively with the black market. We make the most, we pay the most, and under repair and rearm we'd be the most hurt.

But that's only speculation. The hardcore details aren't hashed out yet. I hope we can influence them.

(Speaking of which I want a BJ-2. Gimme!)

As for your durability prospect: PGI has considered (from an ATD question/suggestion) and were a little too intrigued (for my tastes) with the idea of being able to completely lose your mech in a hardcore thing -- that sounds like something that'd really, really suck. Especially as a new player. Then again I don't care if I got 84 mechs. You ain't destroying mine completely! Mine! Though I don't mind nasty repair bills for fully upgraded mechs in factions, and in my own repair and rearm concept Merc Corp members paid for all repairs and rearm out of their earnings for everything instead of just upgrades. (Clearly it hurts me being a merc more than it hurts a random faction member).

Edit: On this same topic, an amendment can be made to my original Optional Entry (Spoiler footnote) R&R re-design concept to include the importance of holding planets with factories. Example: If the Steiners hold Norse-Storm Tech Inc., then the faction is more than happy to replace your Nightwind brand-variant Large Laser free of charge (as it's not considered RareTech; your faction has the factory). But what if it is lost? Repair costs will kick in, because the faction no longer has it. So you could change to another variant of large laser that your faction does have available (though you may not like that variant) but at the same time, what if your faction no longer has access to manufacturers of any large lasers? O_O Better go take some planets! NAO!

Spoiler

Optional Entry: (i.e. you choose how far you participate with what you install into your mech -- and as you rank up in your faction or group you build up additional income and as your income increases, you can gradually afford the repair costs of the pricey things which creates a sort of tier system to help prolong the climb of content rather than 'oh you bought a mech and bam upgrade it to maximum effectiveness immediately or you'll suffer')

Edited by Koniving, 27 September 2013 - 10:04 AM.

[Hexenhammer]

I drank the Community Warfare Kool-aid two years go and it left a bitter after taste.

Until it's in game it's all talk. We're doing cool things! But you'll have to wait. And while you wait here's another sale!

Niko Snow, on 27 September 2013 - 08:36 AM, said:

So how many of you are going to put a bounty on me?

People will have to be paid to kill you were as people will pay to kill Russ.

Edited by Hexenhammer, 27 September 2013 - 09:42 AM.

[BarHaid]

I think that faction-adjustable repair and re-arm costs would fit well into CW. Unfortunately that boat has sailed, I think.

[Sybreed]

Niko Snow, on 27 September 2013 - 08:36 AM, said:

So how many of you are going to put a bounty on me?

Moving my thread to a non-visited subforum: that's a bounty
closing my thread in favor of a friendlier one : that's a bounty
edit my post without telling me: that's a bounty
Move, edit and call my posts as unconstructive: Oh you better believe that's a bounty

Edited by Sybreed, 27 September 2013 - 07:39 PM.

[Koniving]

CyclonerM, on 27 September 2013 - 08:07 AM, said:

Nice post as always.. I never read this, but i am new to the game compared to the closed beta veterans.
So i understand this: each front showed in the CW presentation should have no les than 10 planets i suppose; and i assume that there will be no less than 5 border regions. this means there will be for example 8 icy planets, 8 snowy planets, 8 desert planet ecc.? Well,this is still better than what i feared but i still think they should have tried to use community created maps.

EDIT: I wonder why they didn't post ANYTHING in Command Chair,they could have posted a link to this awesome video.. Are they not interested in their own big announcements?! If Russ announced in a NGNG podcast that the game'd be shut down and no one of the community posts some notes, there would be a big surprise for 95% of the players.

To your edit: It was on the front page. But it's 8 hours long. MWO's channel and NGNG on youtube are likely to put these on youtube today or tomorrow. Game news groups at about the same time. Remember I recorded it live when it came up, though I wasn't the first to upload it two people beat me to it. I was just the first to put it on the forums in find-able places.

To the meat: Planetary Assault was explained in a specific example as "4 battles" to decide the winner of the planet. These may take places in different maps, or similar maps (River City Night and Day for example). A series of 4 missions with an attack and defense theme, in other words. Taking over the planet would give a +1 or -1% to the front line. This means 100 planets in that front line, and when one side gets 100%, the front line gets pushed (at least as far as the concept was explained). These line pushes could last for weeks, or a matter of days. Just depends on how long it takes.

Though I don't think they'll use 100% as the marker, and instead favor something like 60% and push it in a direction (after all we're supposed to choose what we take over). It'll be a bit more dynamic that way.

[Koniving]

Wintersdark, on 27 September 2013 - 08:16 AM, said:

And, indeed - map selection will obviously not be one map per planet, and likely not even environment specific initially. This shouldn't surprise anyone.

Realistic (non-harbinger-of-doom) expectation: Simply random map chosen for each battle as per now; moving to slightly environment-specific maps, but never one-map-per-planet. That's just silly, there are thousands of planets in the IS. And community created?

Yeah, no. You couldn't get enough, and quality control would be a serious issue. Yes, there could be some really awesome community created maps, but there would be exponentially more unbalanced/buggy maps with no QA staff available to test them adequately. It takes a LOT of man-hours to test a map like this, and you cannot rely on the submitter to have done so. You can clearly see how limited PGI's QA team is right now, they'd be unable to test said community created maps at all.

They'd basically get the odd map added that's actually usable, and thousands of garbage maps (and, before anyone ******* about their favourite hated map in game, I'm talking far, far worse than that one) to sift through. It'd be a huge investment in resources. Maybe a good one, maybe not, but they've not gone that route and it's absolutely not a "simple choice" to use community content like that.

On this topic: I think a combination of the quality style areas, as well as generic random maps of non-specific areas. Let's say there's a winter world. What if one map has the landing zone in Randomly Generated Frozen map 1, the push goes on to RGF map 2, then 3, and finally it reaches Frozen City! The Randomly Generated Frozen Maps need snow, some ice, maybe broken ice and water spots, hills, and a border of glaciers that closes it off somewhat but not completely. Beyond that it needs no specifics, no identifying marks that would scream "Oh god it screwed this design up too."

The same could be done for a tropical environment. Really all it needs is a texture set that can be associated with the planet type and a 'real' map as the end-match.

Leave quality for the high-end, end-match maps. Not every place is perfectly balanced and designed for months in advance; sometimes you're just in a random spot of Vietnam when a Wild Kuritan appears in generic forest 3! All it needs to do is work well the movement code and not be littered with too many pebbles.

(But having stated this; do not have randomly generated urban maps. Just generic, non-specific areas. Jungle. Forest. Alien forest. Swamp. Tropical Islands. Etc.)

Edited by Koniving, 27 September 2013 - 09:55 AM.

[Vassago Rain]

Niko Snow, on 27 September 2013 - 08:36 AM, said:

So how many of you are going to put a bounty on me?

>implying you'll have it as hard as me.

[TexAce]

2 year old {Scrap}

[Artgathan]

Koniving, on 27 September 2013 - 09:25 AM, said:

*SNIP* R&R Stuff

We do need a way to make the acquisition of mech factories meaningful, but I don't think R&R is the way to do it (since we're unlikely to see R&R again, and I wouldn't be happy if we did see it). Perhaps just putting a "tax" on your winnings if you pilot a mech not produced by your faction? This way there is some incentive to control production sites but it's not extremely punishing if you don't.

[Protection]

So... more 12v12 random deathmatch on the same maps we have now, with an artificial grind to level 60 for Wolfs Dragoons Clan Tech.

Oh boy.





Here, this is how to do a persistent universe economy:

[Livewyr]

Niko Snow, on 27 September 2013 - 08:36 AM, said:

So how many of you are going to put a bounty on me?

Once I find out how big a bounty I can place...

[100mile]

Dawnstealer, on 27 September 2013 - 08:20 AM, said:

Really sounds awesome and everything I hoped it would be. So...holding out for it. I still think they dropped the beta tag early, but I think that might have been more benchmark deadline they had to meet or they'd have their funding pulled or something. Missing so many key features to a game like this, it's hard to believe the decision to go gold was a willing one.

Great game and sounds like it's getting better.

...bounties...hmmmmmm

I wish people would pay attention.....They have no funding....PGI started this on their own and although they have sponsers...they have no major backers...Part of the reason it is harder for them to get stuff done...