100 replies to this topic

[Adridos]

Kudzu, on 12 November 2011 - 05:35 PM, said:

Think of the clans as the 300 Spartans-- they kicked a lot of **** but were eventually killed by superior numbers.

Superior numbers were not the reason behind their deaths. Persian warriors almost could not touch them with their weapons. It was not more than trying to destroy a tank with wooden stick. But Persians got to them from behind, so other Greeks fled (still about 2 000 stayied along the 300 Spartans) and when the Greeks had to split up, they lost their precious advantage, their tactic was of no use anymore (phalang) and they slowly died 1 by 1. I would be really sad, if I could not even scratch the Clan mechs.

[Steadfast]

More easy: keep Clans and IS completly seperate. How about that?
You could shoot yourself, we could shoot ourself and follow our own ROE's.
~b~
Daniel

P.S:: edited for less harshness.

Edited by Steadfast, 13 November 2011 - 03:09 AM.

[Adridos]

Steadfast, on 13 November 2011 - 03:02 AM, said:

More easy: keep Clans and IS completly seperate. How about that?
You could shoot yourself, we could shoot ourself and follow our own ROE's.
~b~
Daniel

P.S:: edited for less harshness.

Whats a point in being a universe full of war to have peace amongst the good and bad guys?
If you know W40k: Imagine a scene where Emperor plays with Horus in a park, Eldars are feeding their Tyranid pets and Necrons are playing chess with Orcs. --------> NOT FUN

[Gawain Emrys]

A well implemented salvage system would certainly make Clan technology a possibility for Spheroids but, as has been said,such equipment would be irreparable and difficult to replace. It should also be very difficult to fit to an IS 'Mech until their own OmniMechs make an appearance. Look at the trouble we have today trying to combine tech from different manufacturers and continents, and that's much closer together than the Clan and IS technology bases. You can't just plug a Clan ER PPC onto a Warhammer, you have to jury rig power, control and targeting systems to accommodate it, thoroughly test and calibrate it, and then it might work. How you would balance these realism-requirements with game-balance-requirements is, fortunately, not my problem (though, okay, I do have a few ideas).

Zellbrigen is trickier yet. It should be an inherent part of the Clan mentality and those who refuse to follow it banned from Clan play but that simply isn't feasible in game like this. A combination of carrot and stick might work but then a lot more effort is being put into the Clans than the IS, reinforcing the mistaken belief that the Clans are "where it's at". One solution might be to impose a personality system whereby the carrot and stick are applied to all Mechwarriors, with the Spheroids having different criteria than the Clanners, but such a system would really need to be integrated into the game from the earliest points of development. It's effects would be wide-reaching and would up the spec reqs of the game since it would be a separate module monitoring and evaluating all player activity, even down to the salvaging, customising and mission selection level. Sheesh.

The best way to keep the Clans under control might to use Zellbrigen against them by automating the Bidding system. Clan players should always be outnumbered by their opponents since they will have Bid low just in order to be allowed to participate in the conflict. In theory you could have Clan Companies Bid against one another at mission start but that's a system that locks players out of the game every time and also falls down if there isn't an even number of Companies playing at any given time.

To summarise: The Clans are a problem, glad it's not my problem.

[garrett]

Having the game mechanically enforce the Clan rules of engagement could be very interesting, but as chewie mentioned this is very different from how multiplayer games normally work. If this were to be implemented I'd expect it to be one of several game types so that those wanting a free-for-all are not turned away.

[Oppi]

None of this will be in the game. Why ? Because casual gamers who don't know the lore won't understand it and will get angry about it.

And on top of this, it would not at all balance the game, because clan tech is superior, so a clanner will always win a 1on1 against an equally skilled IS pilot.

Edited by Oppi, 13 November 2011 - 03:59 AM.

[Steadfast]

Adridos, on 13 November 2011 - 03:20 AM, said:

Whats a point in being a universe full of war to have peace amongst the good and bad guys?
If you know W40k: Imagine a scene where Emperor plays with Horus in a park, Eldars are feeding their Tyranid pets and Necrons are playing chess with Orcs. --------> NOT FUN

In my universe its easy. Me, my Unit, thats the good guys. Everyone else are the bad guys. Problem solved.
~b~
Daniel

[Stormwolf]

@Feor
Now that's a good start for implementing a honorsystem.

@zudakai
The Smoke Jaguars are a bit short on troops in the Clan faction thread. You might also consider joining the Falcons since you'll already be in the correct invasion corridor (even if you guys loathe the Falcons...).

@Cyber Carns
Thanks.

@chewie
You are absolutely right about the gamemechanics, but MWO is still early in the development stage. I hope that the Devs are reading this thread. There are always players around who see dishonorable behaviour, they can challenge the perpetrators with a Trial of Grievance.

@Amechwarrior
Good, I like that you're putting some thought into this. But I think that player moderation could be useful for when somebody finds a loophole or glitch to exploit.

@Gawain Emrys
Yes, bidding is important, forcing people into a bidding system early on will prevent any abuser from fielding a Dire Wolf against a single Marauder.


Some good ideas about how to implement Zell and challenges into gameplay here people.

I have been thinking about a honor point system myself, the higher your points the better gear you get and the more likely that you can get a Trial of Position (which unlocks even more mechs). Players with low honor would only get a few mechs (most from the 2nd line variety), players with a negative honor indicator would be reduced to salvaged IS mechs (thus denying them the advanced Clan tech).

The more I think about this the more I believe that a Clan Council of sorts should be implemented. The Clan Council would be composed of top Clan players with high honor scores and quite a bit of knowledge about the Clan background.

It would work the same way as the Clan Council in the lore: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Clan_Council

Now this Council could be approached by players with battle recordings to show if somebody is abusing Clan tech. Now the good thing would be that IS players could also bring this up if some surat is spoiling their fun. This would be brought to the attention of honorable warriors who are willing to issue a Trials of Grievance against the perp. These trials would serve to destroy all advanced mechs in the possession of the abusing player and force him/her to pick from the salvaged IS mechs.

Just a idea I've kicking around, it could use some tweaking, I know.

[Steadfast]

Stormwolf, on 13 November 2011 - 04:03 AM, said:

<snip>

The more I think about this the more I believe that a Clan Council of sorts should be implemented. The Clan Council would be composed of top Clan players with high honor scores and quite a bit of knowledge about the Clan background.

It would work the same way as the Clan Council in the lore: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Clan_Council

Now this Council could be approached by players with battle recordings to show if somebody is abusing Clan tech. Now the good thing would be that IS players could also bring this up if some surat is spoiling their fun. This would be brought to the attention of honorable warriors who are willing to issue a Trials of Grievance against the perp. These trials would serve to destroy all advanced mechs in the possession of the abusing player and force him/her to pick from the salvaged IS mechs.

Just a idea I've kicking around, it could use some tweaking, I know.

Absolutely no. Giving players that kind of involvement and power, however capable they may be, no. Just. No. In a game there should not be anybody who has more power over other players other than their skill in said game. If you give them, because of their skill, power over other players that is just wrong. If you do it in your clan/ faction/ unit as you seem fit, your call. But I honestly do hope that anything like that, be it for claner, merc or house units will never be implemented. There should not be any involvement in player behaviour control other than game mechanics or report and controll possibility by staff of Piranha Games.
The reason is simple, I do not trust a fellow gamer to be totaly fair. You may think thats fun and part of the game. I don't. And I think that many a player who does not give very much about BT Lore (which will come to this game and prolly kick our behinds) would ask yourself to shove it if you comeover to him and tell that he lost his rights to use his earned, payed for and died over 'mech.
your milleage may vary of course.
~b~
Daniel

[Stormwolf]

You're probably right, power over other players could be a bad idea.

But I'd still like the IS players to have a method of informing us of fowl play.

[Amechwarrior]

Nice Ideas Stormwolf, but the Council would basically be players who could never play a normal game, imagine the flood of low to no merit false flags we would have to watch? It would combine whiny Clan players and whiny freebirths! Some of us would step up, some of us would actually want that kind of power over others, but balancing that kind of power would be paramount. You are asking the developers to hand power to ban and restrict other (possibly paying) users, and asking them not to exploit it. It might be a step too far. I also do not think the developers want the job of watching our endless replays and becoming judges. If any developers are reading this(subliminal message: give us beta), I think the Clan Honor codes can be hashed out and extensively tested in beta, have a team dedicated to trying to find loop holes in Honor before it goes live.(subliminal message: give us beta)

As I was reading your post, I was forming the same ideas about replay based review. I do not think, honestly, that if a Clan team barely wins a match and knew one guy made a minor infraction that they would be willing to forfeit the win to rat him out. Once that happens it is a slippery slope, which is the problem of player moderation. Even if the dishonor only affects the dishonorable, the other players might feel tainted by association. IS side grievances will be a must, even if it will be abused. Maybe a support forum for posting, in detail why and how a player exploited the system?

I think that the Honor Point system to fully replace a cash and salvage mechanic is a good and simple one(assuming the game has one for the IS side, we really do not know anything). More Honor, more access. Less Honor, less access. Everyone can understand that.

One problem with Trials is, how do we ensure all the correct parties are online in a timely manner? How can we enforce that in game if say, the accused just goes dark for a month by playing their older starting IS character? Or we have scheduling problems due to life, work or real world military reasons?

Or say you are now eligible for a Trial of Position, presumably you would fight your peers of the same rank as you for it but what if you are only Star Colonel online for your faction? "I just got my final prerequisite for promotion at 3am eastern time, now you are telling me I have to wait for others to sign on before I can get access to my Timber Wolf?"

I am not so hot about mandated trails against humans, but say if Position Trials were vs. AI it might be easier.

Edited by Amechwarrior, 13 November 2011 - 04:40 AM.

[zax]

Attempting to enforce lore-based rules in a computer game is futile. The only way you can balance clan tech vs IS tech is to have in-game mechanics that FORCE the clans to be outnumbered in any match. You cannot force players to fight 1-on-1, and you cannot rely on players to know or care about any mechwarrior lore.

Simple rule to balance the clans (if/when they're implemented) with the IS: The clan side is always outnumbered 2:1. That's it.

A lot of the mechanics you guys are talking about will only work in a private league where all players who sign-up agree upon certain rules. In any kind of public game, you cannot expect players to obey arbitrary rules based on lore unless those rules are somehow hard-coded into the game.

Have you guys EVER played a computer game before?

Edited by zax, 13 November 2011 - 05:31 AM.

[Jaroth Corbett]

Stormwolf, you got a +1. Explained in layman's terms. Well done ovkhan!

torgian, on 12 November 2011 - 07:35 PM, said:

Not sure if this was brought up or not, but if more than one enemy attacks a single Clan warrior, then the rules of zellbriggan go out the window at that point.

Also, it seems that in the Blood of Kerensky book series, the Clan warriors are at a bit of disadvantage when fighting up close and personal. this is probably due to inexperience, at least early on in the invasion.

Quite right.

MagnusEffect, on 12 November 2011 - 11:00 PM, said:

Also, THIS:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Clans

Has everything you need to really know.

Sarna is like wikipedia; anybody can write anything without a proper source. They have good stuff but I would not make an argument based on what is on that site. Source books FTW!

feor, on 13 November 2011 - 12:04 AM, said:

In terms of enforcing Zellbrigen in game. That's easy. You start the match at 100% honour.

You attack target A, target A now becomes your opponent. You're free to attack someone else if you see fit, but every attack made against another enemy deducts from your honour. However, every dishonourable thing done to you (say, attacked by a second enemy without having strayed from your opponent) restores a bit of honour. Have other obvious things alo move your honour up & down.

This way, if the Inner Sphere is fighting dirty, and you respond by fighting dirty, it all balances out in the end. If the Inner Sphere is honourable, and you fight dirty you lost honour. And at the end of the battle how much honour you have left factors into how much reward you get from the mission.

Not a perfect reflection of Zellbriggen, but the details of Zell are dang complicated (For example, if Wolf A is fighting Falcon A, he can choose to also attack Falcon B, which is considered implicit approval for them to engage him 2 on 1. If he wins the honour will be great because he has defeated two enemies, if he loses neither Falcon will lose face. But if Falcon B just wants to be helpful and attacks wolf a without being engaged Falcon B will lose face, and Wolf A could potentially earn even greater honour, as he was not truly prepared to fight 2 on 1, but won anyways. And if Falcon A calls for help from Falcon B, that is a great loss of face for Falcon A whether he wins or loses) and the interpretations of Zell's fine details can vary from clan to clan. (My beloved Ice Hellions, for example, consider a full light star engaging a single assault mech to not be dishonourable, provided that the star commander calls them off once the enemy has been reduced to the effectiveness of a light, at which point the star members will start bidding for the right to finish the mech off.

Also, level 4 Zellbriggen is not that rare, the Clans will forgo Zellbriggen when fighting any members of the Bandit caste, and several Inner Sphere units have earned the distinction of always having zellbriggen ignored (WoB being the prime examples) of course, there's also Inner Sphere units who have earned the right to have Level 1 Zellbriggen applied (Knight of the Sphere leap to mind, I believe).

And just for reference, by Clan Law, Wolf's Dragoons are members of the Bandit Caste.

That is actually not a bad idea. +1

zudukai, on 13 November 2011 - 12:51 AM, said:

Those who would break this oath are heretics! Worthy of neither pity nor mercy!

Honor to the Clans! for the Clan Beyond my dying breath!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

p.s. i am an Adder, i want to be part of the fight but my Clan is holding home turf at this point, who should i bunk up with till i get to be with my true brethren.

I think lyran till fellow clansmen show or dragoon, then i am not sure. (Don't want to stray too far from my ideals and have not gotten too deep in the lore yet)

*sniff sniff* *sniff sniff* I smell Halo 2 quotes there but it was used in context so you get a pass.

Edited by Jaroth Winson, 13 November 2011 - 05:38 AM.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Missing a few vitals here.

Clan Military Ranks:
Warrior - Lowest rank possible.
Point Commander - Every Clan MechWarrior is one, effectively.
Star Commander - Commands a Star or Nova.
Star Captain - Commands a Binary, Supernova, Trinary, or Supernova Trinary.
Star Colonel - Commands a Cluster.
Galaxy Commander - Commands a Galaxy.
saKhan - The Clan's second-in-command.
Khan - The Clan's commander. Also known as kaKhan in archiac form.

Military Structure.
Point - Basic combat unit consisting of a single 'Mech, two AeroSpace Fighters or Tanks, five ProtoMechs or Elementals, or 25 Conventional Infantry.
Star - Unit consisting of five points of the same type, compares roughly to the IS Lance and ComStar/WoB Level II.
Nova - Unit consisting of two Stars of different types.
Binary - Unit consisting of two Stars of the same type (usually).
Supernova - Unit consisting of two Novas.
Trinary - Unit consisting of three Stars.
Supernova Trinary - Unit consisting of three Novas.
Cluster - Unit consisting of four to five Binaries, Supernovas, Trinaries, or Supernova Trinaries.
Galaxy - Unit consisting of three to five Clusters.
Touman - The entire fighting force of a given Clan.

Lexicon:
Abjuration, Trial of - Ritual Trial to exile a Clan from Clan society.
Abtakha - A captured warrior who has been accepted into his new Clan as a warrior.
Aff - Short for "affirmative" or "yes".
Batchall - Ritual by which the Clans issue challenges. Usually begins by the challenger identifying himself, the prize he is after, and requests with which forces the defender has at his disposal. After which the bidding will begin.
Bloodcount - The number of active Bloodrights associated with a given Bloodname. Traditionally the count is 25, but will be less for inferior Bloodnames.
Bloodname - The surname of the 800 warriors who stood with Kerensky to form the clans. Only Bloodnamed warriors may become saKhan, kaKhan, Loremaster, or sit on the Councils. A Bloodname is always traced matrilineally.
Bloodname House - Acts as a substitute for family.
Bloodheritage - The history of the Bloodnamed warriors of a given Bloodright.
Bloodright - The specific "lineage" of a Bloodname.
Bondcord - A woven bracelet worn by Bondsmen.
Bondholder - The owner of a given Bondsman.
Bondsman - A prisoner who is held in a form of indentured servitude until released or accepted into the Clan.
Bondsref - Ritual Sacrifice allowing a warrior to avoid being taken as a Bondsman.
Chalcas - Someone who challenges the Clan's Caste system.
Circle of Equals - The area in which a Trial takes place.
Cloisters - Political-military factions of Clan Cloud Cobra, organised around religious beliefs.
Codex - Usually worn as a bracelet, the Codex contains a warrior's identification and service record, as well as Bloodline, Bloodhouse, Generation, and an electronic representation of his DNA.
Cutdown - The minimum amount of forces necessary to win the trial, winning a trial with forces below the accepted cutdown brings great honour.
Dezgra - A disgraced and dishonourable individual or unit.
ecKhan - Leader of a Clan Cloud Cobra Cloister.
Founder, The - Nicholas Kerensky.
Freebirth - Clan epithet for freeborn, using it against another trueborn warrior is considered a mortal insult.
Giftake - A sample of DNA taken from a warrior who died with great glory in combat. Considered to be one of the greatest honours.
Grand Council - The governing body of all the Clans, with two representatives from each Clan.
Great Father, The - Alexandr Kerensky, Nicholas Kerensky's father.
Hegira - Honorable withdrawal from battle granted by a Clan warrior to a defeated enemy.
Hongaurd - The Honour Guard which escorts a Giftake to the Genetic Repository.
ilChi - The ambassador-messengers from Clan Blood Spirit.
Isorla - The spoils of battle, including bondsmen, claimed by victorious Clan warriors.
Keshik - A combination of bodyguard and command unit, usually serving the Khan. Size ranges from a Trinary to a Cluster.
Kindraa - The political-military factions of Clan Fire Mandrill, each composed of one or more Bloodname Houses.
Kurultai - War Council.
Loremaster - The keeper of a Clan's laws and history.
Neg - Short for "negative" or "no".
Oathmaster - A person who is the master of any given ceremony.
Ovkhan - A term of repect for someone of higher rank.
Powless - The vulnerability of a warrior forced to fight without his or her customary weapons.
Propagation - Ritual of increasing the Bloodcount of a particular Bloodname.
Quiaff - Word used at the end of a question in which an affirmative response is expected.
Quineg - Word used at the end of a question in which an negative response is expected.
Ransom - The gift received for a warrior who completes his Trial of Position, ranges from a personal weapon, to a 'Mech, or even a unit to command.
Reaving - The Ritual to reduce the Bloodcount of a particular Bloodname.
Rede - Clan honour-bound promise. Breaking a rede can be punishable by death.
Rememberance, The - Ongoing heroic saga detailing the history of the Clans, from the Exodus to the present. Each Clan has slightly different versions reflecting their own opinions and views.
Ristar - Short of "Rising Star", a title given to a particularly gifted warrior.
Safcon - Ritual which allows Clan warriors to land on a planet in advance of a Trial unmolested by AeroSpace units.
Satarra - A veto used to settle of postpone disputes within or between Castes.
Savashri - Clan Epithet.
Seyla - Ritual response in Clan Ceremonies. Origin is unknown, possible from "Selah".
Sibko - Short for "Sibling Company". Initially a group of up to 100 "children" which share the same geneparents. Usually, only 20 or less will survive to become warriors.
Sibkin - Warriors from the same Sibko, or siblings.
Sibpatent - One of several warriors who raise a Sibko together until they are old enough to undergo warrior training.
Solahma - Clan warriors who are considered to be too old to serve in mainstream units. Typical behavior in combat is rather suicidal.
Stravag - Clan epithet that can loosely be translated as "freeborn".
Surkai - The Rite of Forgiveness.
Surkairede - The Rede of Forgiveness.
Test-Down - The demotion of warriors who fail to perform as expected in a Trial of Position to maintain or advance their rank.
Trothkin - Members of an extended Sibko.
Trueborn - A Warrior born from the Clan's Eugenics Program.
Vineers - Some Clan members take keepsakes from battles. One notable Clan doing so is Clan Nova Cat. Word originates from "souvenir".

Typical issue of a Challenge goes as forth:
First the issuer of the challenge identifies himself, his Clan, and which 'Mech he pilots in which Star. Followed by describing the target of his challenge. For example:
"I am MechWarrior Seth of Clan Steel Viper. I pilot the sole Summoner in Alpha Star. I hereby invoke the ritual of zellbrigen and challenge the pilot of the Orion adorned with the unit designation eleven to a duel of warriors. In this solemn matter, let no one interfere!"
Challenging multiple opponents at the same time is allowed, and grants more honour if you can defeat them both.

[Jaroth Corbett]

Amechwarrior, on 13 November 2011 - 04:39 AM, said:

Nice Ideas Stormwolf, but the Council would basically be players who could never play a normal game, imagine the flood of low to no merit false flags we would have to watch? It would combine whiny Clan players and whiny freebirths! Some of us would step up, some of us would actually want that kind of power over others, but balancing that kind of power would be paramount. You are asking the developers to hand power to ban and restrict other (possibly paying) users, and asking them not to exploit it. It might be a step too far. I also do not think the developers want the job of watching our endless replays and becoming judges. If any developers are reading this(subliminal message: give us beta), I think the Clan Honor codes can be hashed out and extensively tested in beta, have a team dedicated to trying to find loop holes in Honor before it goes live.(subliminal message: give us beta)

As I was reading your post, I was forming the same ideas about replay based review. I do not think, honestly, that if a Clan team barely wins a match and knew one guy made a minor infraction that they would be willing to forfeit the win to rat him out. Once that happens it is a slippery slope, which is the problem of player moderation. Even if the dishonor only affects the dishonorable, the other players might feel tainted by association. IS side grievances will be a must, even if it will be abused. Maybe a support forum for posting, in detail why and how a player exploited the system?

I think that the Honor Point system to fully replace a cash and salvage mechanic is a good and simple one(assuming the game has one for the IS side, we really do not know anything). More Honor, more access. Less Honor, less access. Everyone can understand that.

One problem with Trials is, how do we ensure all the correct parties are online in a timely manner? How can we enforce that in game if say, the accused just goes dark for a month by playing their older starting IS character? Or we have scheduling problems due to life, work or real world military reasons?

Or say you are now eligible for a Trial of Position, presumably you would fight your peers of the same rank as you for it but what if you are only Star Colonel online for your faction? "I just got my final prerequisite for promotion at 3am eastern time, now you are telling me I have to wait for others to sign on before I can get access to my Timber Wolf?"

I am not so hot about mandated trails against humans, but say if Position Trials were vs. AI it might be easier.

The dishonorable stains the dishonored, his star, his binary or trinary, his cluster, his galaxy & his clan. Star Colonel Adler Malthus ( a competent warrior) led the Falcon Guards to their doom at The Gash in Twycross. Was it an aberration? Certainly! Nobody on either side would expect Kai Allard-Liao to have pulled off that near suicidal move but he did & in the end he won. The clan believe in results (honorably of course, but results nonetheless) & 1 man destroying an entire unit (an elite unit at that) gains serious praise for the victor & utter shame for the vanquished I cannot remember the book right now (heading off to work) but 2 Falcons were discussing the incident & one said Adler Malthus cannot be held responsible for an aberration & the other quickly retorted he should have sent in a scout to check the area but his ego cost him, the Falcon Guards, & Jade Falcon a victory. It was so bad that the Malthus bloodline was tainted because of Twycross & (if I remember correctly) all warriors with the Malthus Bloodname were recalled to Ironhold. (not 100% sure, will verify that last part when I get to work)

Honor system for Clans vs. cash/salvage system for IS = I agree +1

Of course the Trials should be against humans. That is how it is done. If you are going to fight someone you have to wait til they get home from school or work, power up the PC & log into the game. Deal with it.

Edited by Jaroth Winson, 13 November 2011 - 05:51 AM.

[Adridos]

zax, on 13 November 2011 - 05:28 AM, said:

Attempting to enforce lore-based rules in a computer game is futile. The only way you can balance clan tech vs IS tech is to have in-game mechanics that FORCE the clans to be outnumbered in any match. You cannot force players to fight 1-on-1, and you cannot rely on players to know or care about any mechwarrior lore.

Simple rule to balance the clans (if/when they're implemented) with the IS: The clan side is always outnumbered 2:1. That's it.

A lot of the mechanics you guys are talking about will only work in a private league where all players who sign-up agree upon certain rules. In any kind of public game, you cannot expect players to obey arbitrary rules based on lore unless those rules are somehow hard-coded into the game.

Have you guys EVER played a computer game before?

OK, HAVE YOUR MECHASSAULT WITH COD PLAYERS WHO MADE A MISTAKE AND LEARNED ABOUT GAME WITH BIG GUNS AND LAZORS WHERE YOU SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOT. "pew, pew, pew.... I like this abomination"

People, you must understand that EVERY game has its limits and is made for different people. You can't just strip the game of all its features, because some ***** will like going with the biggest, talliest, most OP pice of ***** called mech and will pay 3 cents to have even bigger gun. That's why CS isn't arena game, so everyone will like it. That's why serious games don't have autoheal. That's why strategic games are about something more, than just A-moving. That's why you have to use the whole keyboard in simulators. That's what makes those games unique and appealing to everybody. Devs don't care if some 12-years play their game, because they will pirate it, or in the case of F2P won't support anything.

Sorry for my rage and bad language, but some people drive me mad.

[Hardcover]

chewie, on 13 November 2011 - 02:11 AM, said:

Look at CoD, BF, WoT even the old MW4, MW:LL, Space Marine....any game where you have a MP aspect, its just a free for all until 1 side achieves a victory.

Players of the current generation do not understand going 1 on 1, because they have never had to (accept for when they come across someone on their own while sneaking about the battlefield).

...

I'd like to hope that clan players would *play by the rules* because of their inherent advantages they have from their weapons once they are added to the game, but I won't be counting on it.

This. Inevitably, we're going to see payers who don't know or care about the lore, and just want to play Big Stompy Robots. (Because, as we all know, chicks dig giant robots.) And they're going to find out, one way or another, that the Clans have better Big Stompy Robots, and so they're going to want into the Clans so they can have the best Big Stompy Robots, and will just laugh you off and call you noobs (which would be ironic, now that I think about it) and then proceed to flagrantly ignore any and all implementation of zellbregien.

Granted, at this point all we're doing is engaging in some major speculation; the devs may have plans or procedures in place to prevent this... or are just expecting us to shrug and accept it as part of the modern multiplayer combat environment. Either way, I expect we'll find out in the months ahead.

[Amechwarrior]

Jaroth Winson, on 13 November 2011 - 05:50 AM, said:

The dishonorable stains the dishonored, his star, his binary or trinary, his cluster, his galaxy & his clan.

...

Of course the Trials should be against humans. That is how it is done. If you are going to fight someone you have to wait til they get home from school or work, power up the PC & log into the game. Deal with it.

Great use of source material, I think it might have been the 3rd Jade Phoenix or one of the Blood of Kerensky books. However, we do not all live in a Clan society were our honor is linked to our real lives we cannot escape. We play in a video game, a free to play video game. That means trolls, free sign up for trolls, teamkillers, ragequits, spammers and deep cover traitors who will shoot you in the back just before your team wins for the ultimate in Lulz. They can do this anonymously and with this game, at no real cost and never sign back on again. This is inevitable as "Tides go in, tides go out" you can not explain them, but there they are here every day like internet clockwork.

This is why you do not want to entwine one Starmates Honor with another. The systems we are contemplating here are just rough ideas, they can be honed and focused to the finest detail. But I would rather just talk about the grand concepts, again we know nothing about this game and even less about how the Clans will be represented. In the large scale, the system has to be fixed against exploitation from all angles, griefing, cheating and exploiting internally and externally. They will find loop holes, and they must be fixed quickly. This is normal for any game, heck Skyrim had been out for a few hours and already people found out how to steal everything in broad daylight.

You know, you might be right about the real person trails, but this has down sides. What if the player is a light 'mech specialist whose character is speced out for the communication role(these things being core gameplay mechanics we know the developers are putting high value on). He has no chance against brawler speced pilots in heavy and assaults in a Clan trail by combat. He could be a better scout and more useful to the clan as a whole then the mediocre brawlers he is put up against, but his electronic based skills are his eulogy in the pit.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

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This is normal for any game, heck Skyrim had been out for a few hours and already people found out how to steal everything in broad daylight.

Then again, that's the quality that I expect from Bethesda these days.

[Duffanichta]

Stormwolf, seyla!.. You are one of the bright lights here.. in all that BT grieving darkness......