67 replies to this topic

[Riverboat Sam]

Listened to the town hall on the NGNG podcast and am more than a little disturbed by what I heard about the Community Warfare model everyone thinks will be the holy grail for this game. The key points I heard are:

1. You must form a pre-made group to participate (no random matchmaking).
2. Results of matches are binding, meaning if you win you get the planet and if you loose you're kicked off of it.
3. You have to defend your planets from challengers. What happens if you don't respond to challenges? I assume you would loose by default. How else could they handle that?
4. Finally, you have to play pure Clan or pure IS teams.

I've seen other games try a similar mode - persistent results campaign modes where you have to defend against all comers. NO ONE ever played that mode. The reasons are obvious if you think about it for a few minutes.

Put simply, you have to form a dedicated team of 4, 8 or more players that are consistently available to answer challenges to your ownership of a planet. If you don't answer, you loose your territory. If you can't get your whole team together to answer a challenge, and have to supplement your team with less competent players, then you loose your challenge and loose your territory just the same.

Who will be successful in this game mode? Only the absolute top tier elite players who dedicate a significant portion of their free time to this game every single week. Who will never have a chance and therefore be excluded from this game mode by default? All PUG's. All new players. All casual players.

It looks to me like Community Warfare will be an oddity played by the top 0.05% of the community, while the remaining 99.95% continue to drop in from time to time for a quick match in the PUG queue.

Looks like for all the moaning and groaning about this feature, and all the focus PGI is putting on it, it will be a huge fail.

Thoughts?

Edited by Enlil09, 10 September 2014 - 01:32 AM.

[Impyrium]

Enlil09, on 10 September 2014 - 01:29 AM, said:

1. You must form a pre-made group to participate (no random matchmaking).
2. Results of matches are binding, meaning if you win you get the planet and if you loose you're kicked off of it.
3. You have to defend your planets from challengers. What happens if you don't respond to challenges? I assume you would loose by default. How else could they handle that?
4. Finally, you have to play pure Clan or pure IS teams.

On the contrary, this is pretty much what I hoped CW would be. The only thing is, I'd still like to be able to participate in planet battles by myself, but then again, I didn't hear Russ say anything about needing to be in a group.

And, also, I'm glad PGI are focusing less on the casual now. This entire game has so far been geared toward casual players rather than MechWarrior fans.

Edited by AUSwarrior24, 10 September 2014 - 01:33 AM.

[NextGame]

I can't really comment on this until the details come from the horses mouth, as its really just speculation until then.

[Riverboat Sam]

AUSwarrior24, on 10 September 2014 - 01:32 AM, said:

On the contrary, this is pretty much what I hoped CW would be. The only thing is, I'd still like to be able to participate in planet battles by myself, but then again, I didn't hear Russ say anything about needing to be in a group.

I'm pretty sure he mentioned that several times. Even if he didn't, how are you going to defend your planet? In a one v. one match? Think it through

[Riverboat Sam]

AUSwarrior24, on 10 September 2014 - 01:32 AM, said:

And, also, I'm glad PGI are focusing less on the casual now. This entire game has so far been geared toward casual players rather than MechWarrior fans.

So, you want this game to be an exclusive club for hardcore fans? Do you personally have the financial resources to keep the PGI development team employed? You can't have it both ways. If you want this game to survive you need LOTS of players. You need a steady flow of new players to replace those dropping off. Why would PGI put huge development funds into a feature of the game that supports only a tiny fraction of the community? It is a business after all.

[Black Ivan]

I expect a medicore CW.
Nothing creative or awesome, with a hugh grind for faction reputation and that taking part real money will hae tobe paid.

[Alistair Winter]

Far too early to tell. At best, it will be a great addition to the game. At worst, few people will play it and you won't hear too much QQ, because those who are still waiting for CW to make the game worthwhile will probably pack up and leave by then. The rest of us, who enjoy the game, even in its unfinished state, will still be around. Though there may be some occassional snark on the forums, I suppose.

[o0Marduk0o]

Did you even listened to the full podcast? He hasn't talked about how CW will work out exactly. He said that it will be full IS vs CLAN and that you might salvage clan mechs when the invasion goes on but nothing about how planets are taken.

[Lancer Deistler]

1) IIRC from the presentation on the "Launch Day" Event there will be PGI run Lore Units (e.g. Wolf Dragoons) wich you can yoin as a single player. If they implement a valid VOIP and Lobby for those PUG Pools, than you could participate in CW without having to join a clan. If they will implement this, well we have to wait.
2) Well thats the point of CW
3) Look at Browser games (e.g. Clash of Clans), same stuff and people play it
4) Well it's a roleplaying game mode so what is the point? It's also stated, that there might be Clan salvage for IS in the future.

[Cavendish]

Since I only heard about bidding to attack a planet:

3. You have to defend your planets from challengers. What happens if you don't respond to challenges? I assume you would loose by default. How else could they handle that?

Easy, they put the attackers up against randoms from the faction group queue. Most games that specify that "unit A has to defend against attacks and if they dont they lose by default" tends to be dominated by whatever timezone is currently at prime-time (unless there are guilds who can field people at all times which I think are very very few in MWO. Besides, I have heard nothing about bidding to defend a place.

Main question is what the "spend unit currency from the cofferts to improve defense of a planet" that Paul (I think it was?) posted earlier will mean. More turrets? Require you to win more then one match to capture the planet?

Edited by Cavendish, 10 September 2014 - 01:52 AM.

[Riverboat Sam]

Alistair Winter, on 10 September 2014 - 01:44 AM, said:

Far too early to tell. At best, it will be a great addition to the game. At worst, few people will play it and you won't hear too much QQ, because those who are still waiting for CW to make the game worthwhile will probably pack up and leave by then. The rest of us, who enjoy the game, even in its unfinished state, will still be around. Though there may be some occassional snark on the forums, I suppose.

I agree. I do think it COULD be very good though. Phil mentioned that after CW is implemented one of the next things the team will look into is NPC opponents. At least, I think I heard that. If only NPC opponents could be part of CW. How awesome would that be? Any group of any size could go against NPC opponents to play out different lore based battle scenarios. Now THAT offers the potential of a rich gaming experience accessible to all levels of players. Probably just a pipe dream.

[Riverboat Sam]

Cavendish, on 10 September 2014 - 01:52 AM, said:

Since I only heard about bidding to attack a planet:

3. You have to defend your planets from challengers. What happens if you don't respond to challenges? I assume you would loose by default. How else could they handle that?

Easy, they put the attackers up against randoms from the faction group queue. Most games that specify that "unit A has to defend against attacks and if they dont they lose by default" tends to be dominated by whatever timezone is currently at prime-time (unless there are guilds who can field people at all times which I think are very very few in MWO. Besides, I have heard nothing about bidding to defend a place.

Main question is what the "spend unit currency from the cofferts to improve defense of a planet" that Paul (I think it was?) posted earlier will mean. More turrets? Require you to win more then one match to capture the planet?

I see where you're going with that and agree. Note that he did mention a couple times the the ownership of the planets would be "re-set", after every, "season"; though he was not sure how a season would be defined. The terminology he used there suggests permanent teams playing for territorial gains over a finite period of time. Hmmm.....

[Kilo 40]

Enlil09, on 10 September 2014 - 01:29 AM, said:

1. You must form a pre-made group to participate (no random matchmaking).

I didn't hear anything like that at all.

[Talis Thunder]

Just relax, OP.

If PGI regards CW as a new source of revenues, they will definitely design game mechanics that allow PUGs/solo players to participate in CW easily. From the financial perspective, it doesn't make any sense to offer a new game mode which has been in development for 2+ years just to satisfy the needs of the "top 0.05% of the community".

I'm very confident that PUGs / casual / solo players will be able to join CW easily because these players are also important cash cows for PGI.

[Jacob Side]

The thought of 12 random pugs fighting 12 random pugs to determine control of territory on the map terrifies the hell out of me..

[ice trey]

Enlil09, on 10 September 2014 - 01:41 AM, said:

for hardcore fans?

All I wanted was a single player game with a good story that fits in the canon, with character development, that recreates the feel of the universe and adheres to the mechanics of the boardgame to a good extent, only diverging when it's Impossible to program a mechanic that emulates the effect.

After having waited for 12 years, and the mod community doing absolutely zilch for the single player gamers, exactly who do I have to throw my money at to get my immersive Battletech experience?

And how much?

Edited by ice trey, 10 September 2014 - 03:38 AM.

[Javin]

I agree with Ice trey.

[Joseph Mallan]

AUSwarrior24, on 10 September 2014 - 01:32 AM, said:

On the contrary, this is pretty much what I hoped CW would be. The only thing is, I'd still like to be able to participate in planet battles by myself, but then again, I didn't hear Russ say anything about needing to be in a group.

And, also, I'm glad PGI are focusing less on the casual now. This entire game has so far been geared toward casual players rather than MechWarrior fans.

Well as most groups are going to be Mercs working for the Houses, If you don't join a command you should be able to solo in any Davion drop on the CW map. At least that is how I would design it.

I still think the DEVs need to start filling Canon units now so We can have Davion Heavy Guards and Lyran Royal Guards stomping around.

[Garandos]

Enlil09, on 10 September 2014 - 01:41 AM, said:

So, you want this game to be an exclusive club for hardcore fans? Do you personally have the financial resources to keep the PGI development team employed? You can't have it both ways. If you want this game to survive you need LOTS of players. You need a steady flow of new players to replace those dropping off. Why would PGI put huge development funds into a feature of the game that supports only a tiny fraction of the community? It is a business after all.

No, you need to provide something which KEEPS player in your game.

"Replace the steady flow" is just abusive milking of quick bucks.

Be it the F2P player, never paying anything, be it the people which pay low sums every now and then, the average guy who pays steadily the same sum (for ex. for premium time each month) or the guy who spends hundreds each month.

You need to keep ALL of them, as long as possible,
the entire F2P should be a major focus, as those provide the baseline of "content" for your game, namely "Targets to shoot at"
people whic pay low sums, can be "directed" at what to buy, by smart placements of sales and offers.
Your average guy needs to be there, to provide a steady income, which covers some of the fix costs, and the rich people,
should help leverage new developments.

but if you play on "fast replacement" how will that end?

the Number of possible players for ANY given game is FINITE.

there are just so many customers going arround.


If you lose big chuncks of you core audience, you need to start tailoring the game for a new audience, ensuring in the process, that the core audience will a) dwindle even more, because "this is turning into something i do not like anymore" and NEVER look back, because "This is no longer what i came here for in the first place"

Your new audience, is not here because of your product at all, but because they want to take a look, or because there is nothing which satisfies their specific taste at the momment, but those guys will be gone even faster, then your core audience did.

So you need to find NEW circles to cater to, ending up with desperately fishing for Farmvile players to get ANY usable ammounts of players to pay you money.

So, to emphasize on this:

You need MANY players, here we are in agreement.
And you need to KEEP your playerbase.

Blizzard has shown, with WOW, how to NOT do it.

Yes the game STILL has 7 Million subscribers *but* they managed to piss of their core audience so hard, that they lost 50% in the process, they not only lost "customers"
they lost a LOT of valuable assets to the community aswell.

Without community, others will ask themself "Why do i play an online game anyway? Its stupid, i pay and play, but there is nothing a single player game could not do better anymore"

So people start to get back to single player games, which have a fixed price tagged onto them, and are done with it.

We somewhat see this approach (to keeping customers) currently with MWO, as Russ said "we now want to focus on our long standing players, new users come second for the time beeing"

Okay, they slapped EVERY long term customer in the face, while doing so, but then, PGI has a remarkable history of incredible bad wording of everything they say.

But thats, in theory, how it should be done, keep your long term players, and add more over time.

But, about the Topic, the challenge System did work in other games,
its a question of how it is done.

If you just do it the stupid (and proven that it does NOT work) way, you go about like:

"Challenge for a planet, if the enemy does not respond: autowin"

Creating a system where its just a matter of "Who has the most players active at odd times"

The working approach would be:

Challengers issue a challenge, with time/Date

Challenged are allowed to accept the Date/Time (could be as low as 2 days ahead the least, or one week the least)
or to deny it, if they deny it, the challenged team hast to set an own Date/Time at which to play it out.

The challengers now can accept the newly set Date/Time for the challenge, or step back.

Yes, it STILL allows for some kinds of abuse, like defenders allways rejecting, and setting akward times themself,
but, it still is fairer then a simple "auto win on challenge during odd times"

[Belorion]

ice trey, on 10 September 2014 - 03:29 AM, said:

All I wanted was a single player game with a good story that fits in the canon, with character development, that recreates the feel of the universe and adheres to the mechanics of the boardgame to a good extent, only diverging when it's Impossible to program a mechanic that emulates the effect.

After having waited for 12 years, and the mod community doing absolutely zilch for the single player gamers, exactly who do I have to throw my money at to get my immersive Battletech experience?

And how much?

They have stated several times that a single player mode is not in the cards at the moment. If that is what you are looking for you will be disappointed. It sounds like Community warfare is exactly what I thought it would be from the very beginning. Anyone who thinks differently has fooled themselves.