272 replies to this topic

[Deadeye254]

I think instead of a 3month season there should be an objective like Terra that will end the season with no timestamp. Like whenever a clan unit draws near Terra the clan home worlds become open to attack when Terra or Strana Mechty is captured game over then everything resets. That gives us lore junkies the emersion we want but allows the season thing to happen too, I personally will be very upset if I do not get the chance to take Terra and declare Clan Ghost Bear the new Star League.

[Mawai]

A couple of comments ...

1) I am totally pleased that you left the mention of respawn in the first update. It was a lever to pry a bunch of useful and interesting information which goes a long way towards keeping at least some part of the community happy. What you ultimately decide to do may differ but the comments you added clearly explained the situation with caveats and also helped to set community expectations while keeping them informed ... nice work.

2) On drop ship mode ... one potential issue with respawn giving you a choice of one of four weight classes is that, at the moment, although all mechs are useful they are not all created equal. What is to stop the light or medium pilots in a drop ship mode from a suicide charge just so they can give their side a tonnage advantage when they respawn as a heavy or assault? Would respawn only be allowed when there is an opening for a mech you still have in your mech bay?

I think the concept of a managed respawn is cool ... the challenge will be to make it a game mode that is fun, interesting and not easily abused.

(Also, you mentioned Russ was against respawn ... there was a time when he was also strongly against 3PV ... yet he changed his mind and for some reason made statements strongly supporting the feature ... so clearly he likely has some room for flexibility ).

3) For folks who do not have at least one mech in each class ... would the remaining spots be filled with trial champion mechs appropriate to that faction?

[Cimarb]

Deadeye254, on 11 September 2014 - 07:38 PM, said:

I think instead of a 3month season there should be an objective like Terra that will end the season with no timestamp. Like whenever a clan unit draws near Terra the clan home worlds become open to attack when Terra or Strana Mechty is captured game over then everything resets. That gives us lore junkies the emersion we want but allows the season thing to happen too, I personally will be very upset if I do not get the chance to take Terra and declare Clan Ghost Bear the new Star League.

I think that is a much better plan than just blindly resetting the timeline every three months.

[CrashieJ]

Bishop Steiner, on 11 September 2014 - 05:27 PM, said:

Wow.

Well, for the records. I am RABIDLY anti-respawn.

BUT.

That "single respawn of those dead befor breach as reinforcements" is actually kind of a cool way to approach it, and probably easier to code and implement than say, MM drawing in another lance of players.

There are a lot of specifics I would want details on before I could get 1''% behind it (ways to make sure the Defenders don't game the system to intentionally respawn with their heavier guns against a severely depleted attack force, or other such things).


Have to admit, Dropship Mode does nothing for me either way, but as long as it's optional, like the other game modes, no skin off my back to pursue it. I do tend to have "twitch" responses to the simple mention of respawns though, as (even though there are very competitive twitch teams and players) it seems to cater to even more solo rambo selfish play than we already have.

I love the notions of respawns as long as it's group or "wave" based. the notion of "respawns" does get a bad rep with sim communities due to the notion that it "waters down" choices, and the Call-of-Duty mentality of every man for themselves.

but in truth it allows more flexibility and strategies on the fly with a minor shakeups either fixed or leads increased.

you may be twitched-based in terms of "sprinting towards the finish line" but a lot of people want to see war, not skirmishes, and they are prepared to "slog it out", die or regroup, and then jump into the fray again.

many times I wanted to jump into another mech and help out my team again, either to fix the defeat, or to share in the victory.

this is a plus in my book.

[Targetloc]

The thing I like best about this respawn idea is that if you join a drop and all the heavy slots are taken, maybe the people who got to pick last for their initial mech, get to pick first for their second mech... so you can take a heavy for round 2, and one of the first round heavies has to take a medium or other size for round 2.

[That Guy]

regarding the IS map reseting every few months at the end of the "season". I do not believe that the IS map should be reset. the purpose of CW it to have long lasting and permanent border changes, and this corresponds with the 1 to 1 time ratio that MWO wants to have. It somewhat removes the pressure that factions would feel after loosing territory, and cheapen any victory that a faction gains, as it will all simply be reversed in a month or two with out any player initiative.

from an administrative point its good to have breaks in the action for allowing players to swich sides, have stats, rewards and other such stuff, but if at all possible i think that these regular map resets should be avoided. also try using a different word instead of "season", like "operation", "phase", "front", campaign", or something else that is more in universe.

Also, about the drop ship mech selection. i think it may be better if each player joins the match as a class. so instead of one of each class, they have to bring 4 of one class. granted, you have not explained how the match making will happen in these fights (and how ridgedly 3333 is enforced), so depending on that model will determine the best way to choose a mech. from what it seems, it will be more like the private matches as opposed to a random match where you choose the mech in the waiting area, and not choose mech then get launched.

Edited by That Guy, 11 September 2014 - 08:26 PM.

[Skylen]

i just dont get why community warfare is still not a thing.
its just insane that we are still waiting for it.
and holy crap you guys are just starting to talk about the drop ship mode now?! omg we are never going to see it. You guys had to 'bite a bullet' to add another game mode that everyone wants?! wtf seriously.

The snails pace this game is being developed at is just so frustrating. Something is wrong...

Edited by Skylen, 11 September 2014 - 08:32 PM.

[AgroAlba]

Respawns are fine with me, but just make it FEEL right.

Respawn as a defender? Mech spawns in a mechbay, and you pull out of the mechbay onto the field to defend the base. Attacker? Spawn in the exit gantry of a dropship, down the ramp and to the battle.

It'd be way cooler than just popping into existence in the battle

[OznerpaG]

i wrote this rambling bit a couple months back - i guessed the 'seasons' thing almost right lol

JagdFlanker, on 27 July 2014 - 07:54 AM, said:

i'm not sure what PGI had in mind for CW, but i had a simple idea for how it could play out:

IS vs clan matches, the entire campaign lasts 2 real months, start at march 3050 and ends at april 3052 when the battle of Tukayyid is scheduled to start (1 year passes per real month).

on the main IS map that shows the invasion status, the planets would fall on as scheduled over the 3 real months and a higher IS match win% would slow the advance historically while a higher Clan match win% would accelerate the historical schedule.

see how far the clans can get compared to historically, then end off with a "Battle of Tukayyid Week" where the IS and Clans battle it out for the final Trial of Possession - side with the highest win% in that week wins the Battle of Tukayyid

at the end of Tukayyid, the winning side is declared (Clan or IS), and a ranking order of all the factions is listed (the winning faction may not be on the winning side if the other 'allies' didn't do so well)

every week there would be a report stating how far ahead/behind each side is - maybe rewards can be given to the best performing faction.

there should actually be 2 campaigns running simultaneously - since everyone can own Clan and IS mechs all your IS battles would count in 1 campaign, while all your Clan battles would count in the 2nd campaign so you'r not fighting for yourself and against yourself. PGI would assign all players to 1 campaign or the other by how many match minutes they played over the last 2 months - hopefully this will make sure both campaigns have lots of active players on both sides and make everything fair

this would mean though that every player needs to pick 2 factions - 1 IS, and 1 Clan

once the 2 month campaigns are over, a new 2 month campaign would start, and so forth

[Russ Bullock]

Cimarb, on 11 September 2014 - 06:54 PM, said:

I think that all sounds great, except for the "seasonal reset"... That sounds horrible... Please, please, please do not do that. Talk about major immersion breaking! Especially just so whiny people will stop whining about not being able to run any mech at any time, because they STILL will not be able to do that even with this seasonal thing... I am all for compromise - love it - but that is just a poor way to do it.

We'll first off the length of the season is not determined yet, essentially it will be a determined length that captures the right amount of tension and excitement in watching the IS map being taken over. So I really don't think it's going to take away from immersion as you fear, but that for that thought - we will be keeping an eye on this.

Otherwise it seems just the right trade off to allow players to perhaps flip from clan to IS to not only get a chance to play their other mechs but perhaps to also try to cause a different outcome in the next season.

Also in talking with Jordan Weisman this is how they did it in the past product BT 3025 that everyone remembers so fondly.

[Kenyon Burguess]

oh how nice, you've decided to give the klan factions respawns as they tear across the inner sphere in their balanced mechs. so I guess if they each bring 1 of every weight class that's going to seriously boost sales for those timberwolves X12

[Russ Bullock]

Cimarb, on 11 September 2014 - 07:46 PM, said:

I think that is a much better plan than just blindly resetting the timeline every three months.

The time stamp of 3 months was just a place holder and yes perhaps it could be an event like reaching terra as you suggest. But what if a strong faction gets there extremely fast or maybe they are paused in there tracks forever.

Bottom line is a system like season length will likely need to be adjusted based on real live data before it will find the best place.

Geist Null, on 11 September 2014 - 08:42 PM, said:

oh how nice, you've decided to give the klan factions respawns as they tear across the inner sphere in their balanced mechs. so I guess if they each bring 1 of every weight class that's going to seriously boost sales for those timberwolves X12

Remember you can use trial mechs and they are all champions and pretty decent as is.

[Kenyon Burguess]

that wasn't a comment about making money Russ, that was a comment about getting dominated by 75 ton mechs

[Khobai]

Quote

regarding the IS map reseting every few months at the end of the "season". I do not believe that the IS map should be reset.

It needs to reset every few months, otherwise a single faction could continually dominate CW, which is no fun for the other factions.

The question I have is what kindve rewards are going to be given for community warfare? Because the ideas that have been discussed in the past like "lower cbill costs on mechs for owning factory planets" simply dont make for very enticing rewards.

I would very much like to see unique mech/weapon unlocks for each faction. Giving each faction their own unique mech/weapon unlocks that can only be obtained by climbing the ranks in that faction would give players a reason to change factions each season. And it could help balance out certain factions continually being dominant.

Edited by Khobai, 11 September 2014 - 08:59 PM.

[Russ Bullock]

Khobai, on 11 September 2014 - 08:56 PM, said:

It needs to reset every few months, otherwise a single faction could continually dominate CW, which is no fun for the other factions.

The question I have is what kindve rewards are going to be given for community warfare? Because the ideas that have been discussed in the past like "lower cbill costs on mechs for owning factory planets" simply dont make for very enticing rewards.

I would very much like to see unique mech and weapon unlocks for each faction. Giving each faction their own unique chassis/weapons unlocks that can only be obtained by climbing the ranks in that faction would give players a reason to change factions each season. And it would help balance out certain factions continually being dominant.

This is another huge benefit to the season method.

We can basically adjust the rules of each season. Perhaps people will want to try a season where we try a different set of rules or rewards.

[Rogue Jedi]

I find if I keep switching Mechs my skill level drastically decreases, if I get into a light Mech pilots mindset then switch to a heavy or assault it tends to lead to disaster, even changing from a Spider to a Cicada often ends badly for me because of the differences on the way they play so I would much rather have a weight limit to select Mechs rather than 1 of each weight class.

other than that the whole update sounds great.

p.s
even if you do decide to go 1 of each weight class I would hope for a weight limit, e.g. 240 tones so you cannot just go for the heaviest Mech of each weight class

[StillRadioactive]

DEMAX51, on 11 September 2014 - 06:40 PM, said:

"Drop Ship" would be awesome. I really hope the engineering team is able to overcome any hurdles.

To make one suggestion though: you should place tonnage limits on each player's Drop Ship, such that they don't have enough tonnage to simply pick the highest-tonnage 'Mechs in each weight class.

Eh, everyone would just shave off 25 tons by going with a Dragon Slayer and a CTF-3D.

[Felbombling]

If your current Mech is FUBAR... as in a total mess, missing half the weapons/components, will we have an option to eject so that we can spawn into one of our ready, more combat capable Mech in the 'dropship' hangar?

[Kaeseblock]

Thanks for the info.

And thumbs up for Dropship Mode. I'd really like to see it in game.

Being able (but also having) to decide when to use your Light, Medium, Heavy and Assault depending on the current battle situation, time needed to reach the battle with your reinforcement mech, etc... sounds like a lot of fun.

[StillRadioactive]

Russ Bullock, on 11 September 2014 - 09:01 PM, said:

This is another huge benefit to the season method.

We can basically adjust the rules of each season. Perhaps people will want to try a season where we try a different set of rules or rewards.

This. This is good.