Name115734, on 27 February 2014 - 02:57 AM, said:
So the latest metrics tell us that teams are dwindling more and more. I have personally experienced this after coming back from 9 months of not playing to find most of the people used to play with and their respective teams either completely vanished or lapsed into inactivity.
When 8v8 came out in December 2012 our channels in the NA teamspeak would fill up fast with people looking for 8's, once the initial novelty wore off, only true premade teams would bother going through the hassle, and what a hassle it was, to actually try and get 8 man's going. Players didn't stop 8 man's due to competition, as premade haters, would like to believe, it came down to being a HUGE hassle to try to get an 8 man going.
So here we are 12's have come and very few people play them, 1%. Teams have either died out or lost many members. And we are stuck with a PUG experience, because to be honest PGI catered to the PUGs like an 80 yr old grandmother does her so-cute-its-ugly puppy.
Do you want to see teams come back in this "team oriented" game, or are you all for the randomness of these seeming endless meaningless battles?
Imagine what "Community Warfare" will look like if this 84% trend continues to grow, who cares about loyalties and fighting for houses or clans, we might as well all just stay mercenary.
Who really wants to play as team right? Its just so HARD to coordinate with other people and actually learn to cooperate.
I agree that the game would be infinitely more enjoyable if it had more depth and complexity combined with its fun gameplay.
What I would really like is a complex financial system within the game. Repairing mechs, rearming them, selling components, etc.
There should be more value attached to cbills besides buying new mechs or equipment. They should allow you to e.g. hire engineers or scientists for your garage which are expensive but lower overall repair costs. There should be powerful mechs and builds but they should be very costly to maintain and wont allow you to earn much as they require all the cash to maintain or most of it. So you can drop in heavy or assault mechs with 50 + alpha strike damage but if you drop with them all the time you will eventually be broke. Something along these lines would give mech/loadout choices more importance.
Right now, as the op mentioned, there is only meaningless combat. The gameplay is fun. The combat is fun but right now it is only that. Combat. There is no depth in terms of how to "manage" your mechs and resources. This sense of accomplishment is completly missing as anybody can get any mech after playing (or even losing) a dozen or two dozen games. I remember the sense of accomplishment and thrill when initially saving money for the first mech. That was great. And back then it really felt as if a mech is really something of worth that you gotta work for.
If I had a say I would build the system around this sense of accomplishment and reward. Let a victory or defeat be meaninful at least in terms of the money system. Losing your mech or the game should be expensive. At the very least losing a mech or the game should earn absolutely 0 money. How can I lose my mech, all the weapons and lose the game and then earn 150 k cbills without any kind of prime time or hero mech.
Huge amounts of money flow in and out so everybody can play any mech at any time without worrying about anything else. But that worry builds part of the immersion.
Besides the combat on the battlefield there should be a constant struggle to financially support your mechs, equipment, engineers/scientists.
I would just love a considerable shift from arcade action to simulation at least when it comes to the Mechlab and the organization as well as distribution of resources and equipment. If anybody remembers ufo enemy unkown (haha yeah yeah I know) it had a great, simple resource system and you always had to consider your resources. If you lost too many of your forces you would at some point struggle to even recruit new soldiers or buy new weapons or crafts.
The more you lost in a mission the stronger your economy needed to be to compensate for the loss of an entire craft with all its personell and /or a failed mission.
That was fun and when you won a lot of money or could sell stuff you had this amazing feeling of actually accomplishing something in the game.
And why cant we 'loot' destroyed mechs and sometimes find weapons we can sell, or engines or equipment to help earn more money. There could even be a module which lets you scan and then store looted equipment.
There are so many ideas or possibilities. But as the op mentioned combat is good and all but why is everything automated? Why cant I repair and rearm my mech while trying not to drift into bankruptcy.
Right now it is only click click play. And cofiguring your mech...come on guys. After you have configured your first mech and played around a bit it takes 1 min to build a mech from scratch if you know what kind of build you want.
There is no depth or complexity there.
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