335 replies to this topic

[Lily from animove]

Cimarb, on 23 June 2014 - 07:20 AM, said:

You are making a lot of assumptions there. First, salvage is completely up to the contract. Especially at the onset of the Clan invasion, salvage was often for the Mercenary unit to keep. Once the contractor started seeing what was being salvaged, I'm sure that shifted, but it was still usually a percentage, not just full confiscation. If I had a mercenary unit myself, I know I would be making the contractor forfeit any and all salvage, as I know they NEED my services during the invasion and have little ground to negotiate.

Secondly, while your mech needs to be repaired and rearmed, I am all for using lore in regards to that. You can see my poll regarding that at http://mwomercs.com/...st__p__3498001. I do refer you to the fact that not a single person in lore had 50+ PERSONAL mechs sitting in their mechbay, though, so the argument is a bit shaky. I'm trying to improve the solidity of the lore, not use broken lore to break it more. (Hey, I rhymed)

THEY NEED YOU? HAHAHA, not really. where is the place of a mercenary in an clan invasion? Basically it normally is either I hire them or they. And if the clanners would win? where would the mercenaries go to? But I doubt clanners would hire mercenaries for their invasion. Or would they?

Cimarb, on 23 June 2014 - 12:18 PM, said:

So you are saying a salvage system will make the planets important? AWESOME!

I don't see a downside to this. Want to keep your Clan manufacturing plants? Better man up and defend them, then!

Well no, it would only make this important for the IS, because they can make use of their superior customizeable IS mechs with superior Clan weaponry, while clanners would hardly have much use of that, except from using IS mechs too and stuffing their weapons into them, which would be awkward by lore. Its more or less a weired game design concept which would make players do this to optmize mechs. Vut in the end, we would see mostly IS mechs running around with Clanweapons. And this can hardly be the point of the game. Imagine alone what a Catapult can do with Clanweapons or a Jeager.

Maybe a cool feature would really be a single Frankenmech slot for a salvaged Mech allowing even mixtech, but if you lose a match or win and lose components the mech would be gone or the components. But that would be a horribe amount or recoding for such a small feature.

[TamerSA]

TamerSA, on 22 June 2014 - 11:12 PM, said:

I also think that mercs or lone wolves should be allowed access to both Clan and IS mechs. A simple way (off the top of my head) to balance this is to make it a perk of choosing merc/LW. In other words, simply give factions perks over mercs/LW that would make the choice harder.

I just read The Plan again today... and I'm convinced that this will not only be a solution, but might even be the direction they are heading with this.

The "Loyalist Life" section reads: "Players who choose to be part of a faction will enjoy a rich and rewarding experience fighting on behalf of the faction..." whilst the "Mercenary Life" section reads: "Those who wish to control every aspect of their fate will find all they need within the Mercenary Life".

On a side note: It was quite a pain finding the roadmap again... maybe there should be a tab for it somewhere or something?...

[Cimarb]

Lily from animove, on 24 June 2014 - 02:07 AM, said:

THEY NEED YOU? HAHAHA, not really. where is the place of a mercenary in an clan invasion? Basically it normally is either I hire them or they. And if the clanners would win? where would the mercenaries go to? But I doubt clanners would hire mercenaries for their invasion. Or would they?

Well no, it would only make this important for the IS, because they can make use of their superior customizeable IS mechs with superior Clan weaponry, while clanners would hardly have much use of that, except from using IS mechs too and stuffing their weapons into them, which would be awkward by lore. Its more or less a weired game design concept which would make players do this to optmize mechs. Vut in the end, we would see mostly IS mechs running around with Clanweapons. And this can hardly be the point of the game. Imagine alone what a Catapult can do with Clanweapons or a Jeager.

Maybe a cool feature would really be a single Frankenmech slot for a salvaged Mech allowing even mixtech, but if you lose a match or win and lose components the mech would be gone or the components. But that would be a horribe amount or recoding for such a small feature.

You obviously don't know how war works. Do you really think mercenaries weren't vital in the fight with the Clans? Do you really think the Houses were at an advantage in the negotiations with them during the invasion? You have got to be trolling at this point, because that is pretty silly.

Also, I never said anything about adding mix-tech. I don't agree with it, yet. Once we have manufacturer variants covering the gaps, we could then look at mixtech, but not before.

[CyclonerM]

Cimarb, on 24 June 2014 - 06:33 AM, said:

Also, I never said anything about adding mix-tech. I don't agree with it, yet. Once we have manufacturer variants covering the gaps, we could then look at mixtech, but not before.

And even then, mixtech might kill this game, so i would be against it. Besids, even if some units in lore could be equipped with some IS 'Mechs upgraded with Clan tech, in MWO everyone would have them. After all, in MWO everyone has full access to Star League technology, while in 3049 only ComStar probably had such an army of Star-League era 'Mechs.

[Cimarb]

CyclonerM, on 24 June 2014 - 10:47 AM, said:

And even then, mixtech might kill this game, so i would be against it. Besids, even if some units in lore could be equipped with some IS 'Mechs upgraded with Clan tech, in MWO everyone would have them. After all, in MWO everyone has full access to Star League technology, while in 3049 only ComStar probably had such an army of Star-League era 'Mechs.

I agree, and don't really care to ever truly get mixtech, but at some point, if manufacturer variants are implemented as I would like them to be, there will be so many variants and options available that the difference between Clan and IS is negligible, at which point separating them would only be a complication of the system and not truly of any benefit.

[Linkin]

TamerSA, on 24 June 2014 - 02:58 AM, said:

I just read The Plan again today... and I'm convinced that this will not only be a solution, but might even be the direction they are heading with this.

The "Loyalist Life" section reads: "Players who choose to be part of a faction will enjoy a rich and rewarding experience fighting on behalf of the faction..." whilst the "Mercenary Life" section reads: "Those who wish to control every aspect of their fate will find all they need within the Mercenary Life".

On a side note: It was quite a pain finding the roadmap again... maybe there should be a tab for it somewhere or something?...

This sounds like a rather reasonable way to handle it. Mercs/Lone Wolves get more choices in some areas, such as mech type, but they lose on other benefits that the factions get.

[Lily from animove]

Cimarb, on 24 June 2014 - 06:33 AM, said:

You obviously don't know how war works. Do you really think mercenaries weren't vital in the fight with the Clans? Do you really think the Houses were at an advantage in the negotiations with them during the invasion? You have got to be trolling at this point, because that is pretty silly.

or maybe you are overprizing your little mercenary ego.

[Cimarb]

Lily from animove, on 09 July 2014 - 01:49 AM, said:

or maybe you are overprizing your little mercenary ego.

Nice necro.

Maybe that Devoted badge has went to your head? Read some history about how war and supply/demand works before insulting people, please.

[Gorgo7]

Just what % of innersphere Mech forces were mercenaries vs. house units?

That alone, perhaps with proximity, would determine the value.

Academic.

[Cimarb]

Gorgo7, on 09 July 2014 - 06:16 AM, said:

Just what % of innersphere Mech forces were mercenaries vs. house units?

That alone, perhaps with proximity, would determine the value.

Academic.

I get what you mean, but there really is no way of telling that. Only the really big merc organizations were detailed enough to get rosters.

Regardless, supply/demand is a very situational issue. If you are winning, you will have mercs much more willing to take lesser pay because their cost (in equipment and casualties) will likely be much less as well. On the losing side, you will have much higher costs, as well as the very obvious chance of complete destruction. Balancing both sides, though, would be "loyal merc" units (not loyalists in MWO) that would be willing to accept less pay because they are fighting for a cause regardless of whether it is winning or losing currently. Another wrench would be merc units that get the most money out of the employer in dire circumstances as they can, knowing they will betray them as soon as they get most of the payment.

[Gorgo7]

Cimarb, on 09 July 2014 - 08:04 AM, said:

Another wrench would be merc units that get the most money out of the employer in dire circumstances as they can, knowing they will betray them as soon as they get most of the payment.

Very "city state" Principalities, hehe, just like the innersphere!

[Deacon412]

ha ha okay paul. ya stumped me. IF I AM in a unit.. how do i manage it...add players and kick inactive ones. Hmmm?

[Vermaxx]

Nothing short of a major incentive to be IS will KEEP people IS - like fluff oriented team sizes and Clanners being smaller groups.

As it stands, clan tech is better. People can say anything they want about balance and how bad Clan LRMs are etc - the 400m medium laser and the gauss-busting ER Large disagree with you. There is no incentive to stay IS in a game where everything is almost equal but clan tech is just higher damage / lighter / smaller crit sizes.

And I still think focusing the game on "Merc Units" is a damned mistake. The bulk of armed forces in Battletech are regular military - NOT mercenaries. SOME mercenary units are essentially regular military and only fight for one government. Most of them are not very large, dissolve frequently, and switch loyalties as often as pay rates change.

If people want to be "mercenaries" fine, but give us a system where we are not just "Liao" mercenaries instead of for-hire units. I want a clear differentiation for loyal line units.

Edited by Vermaxx, 10 July 2014 - 04:57 AM.

[EarlGrey83]

Keep up the good work.

And this makes me happy. Make it happen.

Paul Inouye, on 18 June 2014 - 05:06 PM, said:

A Clarification:

On a side note, I've seen the rumblings of people thinking that mixed teams of Clan and IS 'Mechs will be the norm from here on out. This is not the case. Faction (IS/Clan) combat is a big part of Community Warfare as are the skirmishes between the Houses themselves and the Clans themselves. This requires additional work to the database, player data and match making systems and will come out at a later time.

[Kyrie]

The issue of restricting the use of Clan Mechs in CW is a lot more annoying than is obviously apparent. Because this game embraces the F2P model, multiple accounts are going to be a serious concern for CW on many levels (spying, sabotage, etc). Now, people have an incentive to have at least one extra account -- to buy the Clan pack in. Not only will you have your spy in place in the Clanner ranks, but you will be doing so in style. :-)

Because of this, I must regretfully embrace the position that it makes no sense to restrict mechs. This game was always premised on the "gotta collect'm all!" model, and making an exception for the Clan mechs that are now supposedly balanced with the IS counterparts is not really a great option.

[CyclonerM]

Vermaxx, on 10 July 2014 - 04:56 AM, said:

And I still think focusing the game on "Merc Units" is a damned mistake. The bulk of armed forces in Battletech are regular military - NOT mercenaries. SOME mercenary units are essentially regular military and only fight for one government. Most of them are not very large, dissolve frequently, and switch loyalties as often as pay rates change.

If people want to be "mercenaries" fine, but give us a system where we are not just "Liao" mercenaries instead of for-hire units. I want a clear differentiation for loyal line units.

I agree with this!

Kyrie, on 10 July 2014 - 12:06 PM, said:

Because of this, I must regretfully embrace the position that it makes no sense to restrict mechs. This game was always premised on the "gotta collect'm all!" model, and making an exception for the Clan mechs that are now supposedly balanced with the IS counterparts is not really a great option.

But.. But.. This is a BattleTech game..

[Cimarb]

Vermaxx, on 10 July 2014 - 04:56 AM, said:

And I still think focusing the game on "Merc Units" is a damned mistake. The bulk of armed forces in Battletech are regular military - NOT mercenaries. SOME mercenary units are essentially regular military and only fight for one government. Most of them are not very large, dissolve frequently, and switch loyalties as often as pay rates change.

If people want to be "mercenaries" fine, but give us a system where we are not just "Liao" mercenaries instead of for-hire units. I want a clear differentiation for loyal line units.

I also completely agree with this, though we honestly have not learned anything about how Loyalist or Lone Wolf will be set up, so it is hard to tell which group will be more influential. I hope PGIs implementation of CW is more like their Clan success than most of their previous ones...

[Deadmeat313]

The ideal solution for me would be Dual Nationality. Accounts with both IS and Clan Mechs should be offered the chance to pick two factions - one from each culture.

Your faction in a particular match would then depend on whether you equipped a Clan ir IS Mech.

In my case, I would be Capellan in my IS Mechs, and Smoke Jaguar in my Clan machines. That way if I'm having fun in my Clan Mechs, I can quickly redeploy to the Capellan Confederation when they inevitably get in trouble.

Faction LP would obviously only be generated for the appropriate faction per battle.

The forum tag could indicate one's Primary faction, with a small inset alternate faction.

[Peter2k]

I don't think they will restrict mechs for players in the long run
Mechs are too expensive to model
More for events like the clan invasion, since the IS has not salvaged any mechs yet

I bet the timeline will be adjusted a little bit so you can pilot "salvaged" mechs for whichever faction you go to battle for after a while
I mean I won't be playing this game in 300 years so I can pilot some neat stuff that came out at that time

The thing with the houses was supposed to make faction specific mechs and weapons more expensive to you if you're on the wrong site
Making you level up relations with all factions; grinding is a free to plays best income, or rather trying to reduce the grind

Wouldn't be surpised if in a year or two you can buy a timber for only like 75% more cost on a black market if you're a IS pilot
Except if you have leveled up you're realtions with the responding clan, then you might get even a rebate

[Vermaxx]

A timber is going to cost 25mil to start. I'm not paying 44mil for one variant just to get it on the black market. I don't care how much you play, that's obscene for anyone.

If they restrict mechs, and clan mechs are still clearly better, and there is nothing going on to entice people to stay House, you're going to see a lot of auto win matches or flat out clan on clan just to keep things going.