353 replies to this topic

[Sprouticus]

Geck0, on 24 September 2014 - 09:09 PM, said:

I understand the need for solo queue people to have to pick 4 different weight classes but I do not understand why this needs to be the case in a group.

Can you set the limitation to be group wise? Just like the group construction is now in the 3/3/3/3 setup. For a group of four set it so they need a minimum of 4 of each weight class for the group and just let each player queue up to fit this. In a group queuing up together they obviously have their preferences and are able to coordinate in having their respective pilots pick enough of certain mechs to meet the requirements.

I (and I'm sure almost every unit registered) find this restriction unnecessary for the group queue. Would you please consider visiting the possibility of a shared weight class restriction for the groups in CW?

I wish I could like this idea more than once. This is brilliant.

[Zeece]

First ...Alot of great information thanks for the update

Are you going to be able to give us the ability to set a tithe for our guild? Having to manually go and ask for coffer funding to do attacks is going to be annoying... also it prevents drama within the guild if someone is caught not paying


We would love if we could see X% of winnings go directly to the coffers.

[DeRazer]

I wanna SEE a dropship crashing in just beyond the playable area when the reinforcement counter ticks down... and if the counter is long enough (1-2 minutes) you could even see them take off again...

[Taifune]

Another thing that came into my mind:

what is the difference in attacking/defending a planet close to nowhere in contrast to attacking/defending a valuable industrial planat somewhere in the heart of a factions realm? At the moment it looks like each and every planet is exchangeable... The different planets have no tactical or strategic meaning at all. Planets are just the foundation for another type of queue, where one can earn LPs...

To give planetes some meaning, it would be nice to have at least planets need different number of tokens to be taken - say, 500 tokens (local regions capital), 100 tokens (important industrial world), others that only need 10 tokens (some rock near the Periphery). Of course, this might be split much more into higher granularity...

In addition, some minor boni would be nice, e.g:
- holding an Industrial world: -0.5% Mech C-Bill cost
- major trading world held: +0.5% C-Bills earned
- local region capital held: + 5% defensive structures armor/firepower in that local region
and so on...

shouldn't be to hard to implement... at least to make the fight for planets somehow meaningful at all... and it would make feel battles over local capitals feel much more epic than for some rock near the Periphery.

Edited by Taifune, 25 September 2014 - 05:41 AM.

[Livewyr]

Legitimate question:

If community Warfare attack and defense is handled by everyone of the faction, on every world in the faction...

What purpose are the Units going to serve? Is that something in Phase 3?

[Sprouticus]

JagdFlanker, on 25 September 2014 - 04:36 AM, said:

everything's not 100% clear for me so hopefully i'm making sense


isn't every battle just plain old IS vs clan? if a planet is contested, does it matter if the IS players dropping on a single planet are a mix of davion, kurita and liao, etc? or the clan players are a mix of different clans?


why do mercs/lone wolfs have to be associated with any house? can't they just constitute the 'filler' in every planet conquest to fill up sides? a davion unit/group with 7 players drops on a planet, if there's no other units to fill in the team to 12 can't it just be filled with mercs and lonewolfs? and since a lone wolf does NOT belong to a unit, instead of going to a unit coffer the CB should go straight to that lone wolf's personal CBs, or auto-create a coffer for each lone wolf they'd use to assault planets with on their own and be used as filler in battles


if any house (/clan) can drop on any contested planet, then the players who belong to the house which that particular planet belongs to should get extra bonuses and/or get to drop for free since their house pays for their RR, but get less CB since you are fighting for your own house, not cash. so if you have a choice of many contested planets to drop on and you are liao, if there are no liao planets contested you can still drop on a kurita planet but you will get less bonuses and/or have to pay RR - but maybe get more CB for the win. mercs and lone wolfs would always get less bonuses and/or have to pay RR, maybe they always get pure CB for the drop win or lose? mercs and lone wolfs should lose less of their CB 'prize' if they are on the losing side since they get paid for their services no matter what, but they should gain less of a CB 'winning bonus' if they are on the winning side also


why such small drop windows? why can't the planet be available to battle for 24hrs (or 12 hour segments or 6 hour segments) so every player in the world gets a chance to attack/defend that planet during a real day? maybe every 2 hours a new contested planet becomes available and lasts for 12 hours so at any given moment there are 6 planets being contested, or maybe every 3 hours a new contested planet becomes available so at any given moment there are 4 planets being contested


thanks!

This is how I read it.

There are two primary battle types

Faction (ISvsIS or Clan vs Clan)
Invasion (Clan vs IS)

Faciton battles:
will be limited to people in that faction (DC vs LC or CC vs FS, etc). The exception is that cross faction people can help defend a faction battle. I do NOT like this, but I understand it might be necessary to ensure a large number of defenders are available. Why cant this be the job of Mercs and lone wolves though???

Invasion battles:

Quote

Invasion Conflicts will allow anyone from the Inner Sphere Factions to defend. Anyone from Clan Factions can attack.

This will give FWL and CC folks the ability to fight clanners. It is not a perfect system, but it works.



My only thought is certain cross force faction battles should be allowed (CJF vs LC, FRR vs everyone, CSJ vs DC, etc) as well as invasion battles.

Edited by Sprouticus, 25 September 2014 - 05:13 AM.

[JollyT95]

My unit was specifically set up as a Merc unit so that we could participate with any of the IS factions. With this new restriction are we going to still be shown as a Merc unit with a House Faction "affiliation" or will we show up only as the House Faction that our unit decides to ally with? Will we also be able to change back to a solely Merc Unit when they are implemented later in the phases?

I understand why this has to be done but I still feel that Merc Units are being passed over again, just like in the faction tag and icon for Merc Corps showing as LNW in the match screens.

Come on give the Merc Corps some love.

[Marvin Martian]

I'm excited to have community warfare finally. I like how everything was outlined. Different from what I imagined it would be, but I think it will work.

My #1 suggestion to improve the player experience in the game is to get in-game VOIP implemented as soon as possible. I listened to the last Town Hall meeting and was surprised that there was still doubt from Russ that VOIP would be useful in the game. Of course it is! There is Teamspeak, but you can only communicate with whoever is in your Teamspeak group. If you're not in a 12-man, you can't speak to the rest of your team. You're leaving other's out of the communication loop on your team. Talk about informational warfare - no VOIP is more destructive to information warfare than ECM ever has been.

There would be a lot more use of tactics if there were effective in-game communication tools. It takes too long to type messages to the team. We need VOIP. PUG play would be a lot more enjoyable for everyone. CW is going to have a lot of PUGing, too. You need to get VOIP in.

I've never understood why VOIP wasn't implemented at the very beginning of design. I know of no other online game like MWO that doesn't have VOIP in it. It has been a standard feature for many online games for the last decade.

[OznerpaG]

Sprouticus, on 25 September 2014 - 05:12 AM, said:

This is how I read it.

There are two primary battle types

Faction (ISvsIS or Clan vs Clan)
Invasion (Clan vs IS)

Faciton battles:
will be limited to people in that faction (DC vs LC or CC vs FS, etc). The exception is that cross faction people can help defend a faction battle. I do NOT like this, but I understand it might be necessary to ensure a large number of defenders are available. Why cant this be the job of Mercs and lone wolves though???

Invasion battles:



This will give FWL and CC folks the ability to fight clanners. It is not a perfect system, but it works.



My only thought is certain cross force faction battles should be allowed (CJF vs LC, FRR vs everyone, CSJ vs DC, etc) as well as invasion battles.

i guess my very basic point is maybe PGI should keep it very simple at first and make all the battles pure 'IS vs clan' (invasion) and not worry about the individual faction battles within the IS and clans

make sure the basics of CW work with invasion only, see how it progresses over 1-2 seasons, THEN add faction warfare when you know the basics of CW work first

build the basement before the house - it's a heck of a lot easier and saves hassle later

we already know IS vs IS is balanced, and clan vs clan is balanced so the question mark is IS vs clan

Edited by JagdFlanker, 25 September 2014 - 05:27 AM.

[Hobo Dan]

Was there/will there be consideration for the dropship to be tonnage based instead of one of each weight class?

For example, say the max is 200 tons. I could bring two 100 ton assaults, or 10 Locusts, or any combination in between equaling 200 tons. Obviously you'd have to own all the mechs you bring. So to bring 10 locusts, you'd have to buy and outfit them.

Edited by Hobo Dan, 25 September 2014 - 05:29 AM.

[Clideb50]

So for setting up our dropships for CW; could we "favorite" 'mechs so that we can just jump right in and not have to select them each time. The best example I can think of is that old ui where you could favorite up to 4 'mechs.

[Reno Blade]

JagdFlanker, on 25 September 2014 - 05:24 AM, said:

i guess my very basic point is maybe PGI should keep it very simple at first and make all the battles pure 'IS vs clan' (invasion) and not worry about the individual faction battles within the IS and clans

make sure the basics of CW work with invasion only, see how it progresses over 1-2 seasons, THEN add faction warfare when you know the basics of CW work first

build the basement before the house - it's a heck of a lot easier and saves hassle later

we already know IS vs IS is balanced, and clan vs clan is balanced so the question mark is IS vs clan

Thats how I read it.
The initial release will have Mercs and Lone Wolves as loyalists, so we can still experience and test out Faction vs Faction (IS vs IS) warfare and NOT ONLY Force vs Force (Clan vs. IS).
Just another limitation, but I think a better one.

I expect more from phase3 with logistics and economy similar to the Loyalty Points matrix depending on who you attack and defend.
This could also include having Mercs as freelancing teams to attack and defend for every house with less LP effects, but more money effects and more work with the units money coffer.

[OznerpaG]

Hobo Dan, on 25 September 2014 - 05:26 AM, said:

Was there/will there be consideration for the dropship to be tonnage based instead of one of each weight class?

For example, say the max is 200 tons. I could bring two 100 ton assaults, or 10 Locusts, or any combination in between equaling 200 tons. Obviously you'd have to own all the mechs you bring. So to bring 10 locusts, you'd have to buy and outfit them.

that would be bidding tonnage, and i'm pretty sure i read they are dropping that for now. maybe later though

[BlackJackRaider]

Quote

Drop Ship Mode

[color=#00FFFF]Players will be able to prepare their own personal drop ships that house 4 BattleMechs. The limit of 1 'Mech per weight class still remains and if you do not own a 'Mech of a certain weight class, an appropriate weight class trial 'Mech will be used to fill that spot. When CW-Phase 2 is released, both IS and Clans will have trial 'Mechs that cover all weight classes.[/color]


[color=#00FFFF]A concern about not being able to bring 4 of a single weight class was brought up. This ties in with player preference of only piloting Light 'Mechs for example. Do not think of Drop Ship Mode being about bringing what you are most efficient in, think of it more along the lines of being able to rejoin the match to support your team in any available resources that remain at your disposal.[/color]

This is really stupid. As in tragically stupid. So long as each team has access to the same number of mechs of each class, it shouldn't really matter in balance terms how many of each an individual player takes. Forcing people to take mechs for a playstyle that they hate will simply encourage them not to play.

I know I don't intend to play dropship mode if this restriction is left in.

Here is what you ought to do instead:
Current implementation=12 players x 1 mech of each class for a total of 12 mechs of each class,

You simply use the current screen from the 12 man which lists the number of mechs from each class currently used (ie x/3 lights, y/3 mediums, z/3 heavies, n/3 assaults), except that each player now selects four mechs which appear in the screen, and the totals would be out of 12 instead of 3. As people add their list of four mechs, totals are added up in the same way, but now out of 12.

In the case of my unit, we have 3 guys who really specialize in light mechs--and when I say specialize, I mean that is literally all that two of them play. They could each take 4 lights, leaving M/H/A slots open for the rest of us. This is more fun for everyone, as our lights hate playing heavies, and our heavies/assaults prefer the big guys and snipers anyways.

Your excuse "[color=#00FFFF]think of it more along the lines of being able to rejoin the match to support your team in any available resources that remain at your disposal."[/color]is just lazy. Why would you take a resource to battle that you knew you weren't going to use? No army logistic command is that stupid, and every decent team/army is going to encourage people to specialize in what they are good at.

I know that Russ made a post recently about not saying that something is easy when we don't have all the details, but you have to do way better than this in explaining why using something like the current 12 man drop screen won't work if you expect us to believe you at all. This seems like simply shoddy and lazy design work, especially since an analogous asset already appears to be in place.

[Vandamsel]

Looking good, can't wait till December!

[Lily from animove]

Many things sound good. Especially having a dropshp.

But, what will prevent every clanner to put a Direwolf, Timberwolf, Stormcrow and kit Fox into their Dropships? Somewhow some intentions to play underrated or lower tonnaged mechs should exist.

Groups in Clanwars.
Actually it makes me a bit sad that groups can only be made of Unit members. They should actually be allowed to consist of the same faction. This may be important for smaller Units Or single players to take part in the Community war. Especially lineWolfs, Mercs and Clanloyalists should have that option to join other groups not belonging to their Unit. Because CW will very much limit playing together with friends not being in the same faction already. Limiting CW now even further to your own Unit.

Edited by Lily from animove, 25 September 2014 - 06:09 AM.

[CyclonerM]

Spoiler

Quote

12-man Unit Group Requirement for Initiating Attacks

Taking a look at your feedback and the ability of the backend systems and Match Maker, we have decided to remove the restriction of a 12-man Unit Group to initiate attacks. This does NOT mean that we are creating matches of 6v6 or anything like that, just the requirement of a 12-man group is removed. What will happen, is if a less than 12 Unit Group attacks a planet, they will enter an attackers queue for that planet and the Match Maker will be filling the rest of the team with any other attackers attacking the same planet until a full 12 person TEAM is created. Once the 12 person team is created, the attack is initiated and a call to arms is sent to the opposing Force or Faction. More on how this all plays out below. Now remember, a 12-man team does not mean it has to be a 12-man group, it's just that a team has to consist of 12 players from the same Force/Faction wanting to attack.

This is sad Not sure if the whine was for the too little time given to 12men groups to be formed, but i think if you let pre-made groups drop instantly in an attack instead of requiring the leader to invite his warriors after the timer starts, it could be easily done. Please, reconsider this. This was one of my favourite new features of CW. It was really cool and made sense: after all, a border planet in the FRR, attacked by an unstoppable force of alien invaders, would ask sending an élite unite like the Drakøns regiments first, then the desperate central government would send lone mercenaries and smaller FRR units. Most of the battles are fought between a line or militia unit and another one, not between little bands of mechwarriors loal to a faction and a few lone mercenaries, cobbled togheter to form regiments lol.

Spoiler

Quote

Drop Ship Mode

Players will be able to prepare their own personal drop ships that house 4 BattleMechs. The limit of 1 'Mech per weight class still remains and if you do not own a 'Mech of a certain weight class, an appropriate weight class trial 'Mech will be used to fill that spot. When CW-Phase 2 is released, both IS and Clans will have trial 'Mechs that cover all weight classes.

A concern about not being able to bring 4 of a single weight class was brought up. This ties in with player preference of only piloting Light 'Mechs for example. Do not think of Drop Ship Mode being about bringing what you are most efficient in, think of it more along the lines of being able to rejoin the match to support your team in any available resources that remain at your disposal.

Drops between 'Mech destructions will be staged to a global timer. If you do not select your 'Mech and ready yourself in the drop delay time limit, you will be required to wait until the next drop occurrs. Current plan is to have drops happen every 30 seconds (tentative number for now). This means if your 'Mech is destroyed and the global timer has already been counting for 25 seconds, you will have 5 seconds to ready up. If you do not achieve this in that 5 second window, you will have to wait an additional 30 seconds before dropping back into the match. Essentially drops will be in waves.

I still think this is just a fancy name for "silly respawns". Just with a different 'Mech. Sure, if we have to have reinforcements i would rather have the wave system like in MAG, but i still think it is not the best way to make battles last longer.

Repair bases and supply caches would add depth to the game, adding more targets and more tactical options. You want to win quickly? Try to go straight and en masse toward your main target as fast as you can! Maybe you want to have any advantage: try to send your lights to cap the supply and repair bases. But maybe the enemy company commander has the same idea and is about to send the whole company to one of them. Maybe it is better to capture just the repair bases, sending a mobile force of lights and mediumds while the heavier ones offer fire support. Or maybe your company is mainly based on missile boats -and ammunition-based builds - you may want to keep your fire line close to the supply bases. But your enemy might always try to slip behind you and take them with some ECM cover..

After all, respawning in another 'Mech is not realistic (not even considering a rescue after ejecting from your 'Mech). Only downside, if you die early you have to wait until the battle ends; one more reason to think about your approach and not go rambo alone.

Merc Corps/Lone Wolves/Dagger Stars

Spoiler

Quote

At this time for our first iteration of Phase 2, we are going to require players aligned with these Factions to align themselves with one of the primary Factions. We will watch how the first 'season' works itself out. We will make sure that a system will be in place to allow Merc Units/Lone Wolves/Dagger Stars be independant but we want to make sure the core Faction system meets requirements before adding too many more variables to the equation.

Numbers of Contested Planets

This is going to be a tough one to determine for day 1, but our tentative numbers are 2 planets on each side of Faction borders (so the Kurita/Davion border would have 4 planets in contention, and the Kurita/FRR border would have another 4). There will tentitively be 8 planets along the FRR/Clan invasion path as well.[/color]

This brings up the thought of participation. Our current plan is as follows:

Invasion Conflicts will allow anyone from the Inner Sphere Factions to defend. Anyone from Clan Factions can attack.

Border Conflicts will allow only people aligned with the two bordering Factions to participate with one exception. Anyone in any Force specific Faction can defend any conflicted planet, but only the specific Faction aligned players can attack for a Faction. For example, if a planet on the Kurita/Davion border, that is in Kurita space, only Davion players can attack it. Anyone from the other Factions (Steiner, Marik, Liao, FRR, Kurita) can defend the planet. You should notice that Davion cannot defend against a Davion attack. I know this adds a weird twist to the lore of the Houses which is why this particular part of the feature is still being discussed. (I'll let you know that my stance is that only the Faction players aligned with the Factions involved can participate. i.e. Steiner would never defend a Kurita planet from Davion. I'll let you know where that discusson ends up at when we make a final call.)

For Kerensky! Please no. Even when they banded togheter to face the Clan invasion, no Fed Com unit ever defended a Draconis Combine planet, with the exception, maybe, of Hohiro Kurita's rescue by Victor Davion's Revenants. Please, please, please, do not let this happen

About mercs, lone wolves and daggerstars: it is actually really simple concemptually. Mercs and lone wolves can fight on behalf of ANY IS faction while Clan loyalists can fight for any Clan. It can help balance things when a faction is too heavily stomped: much higher c-bill payments will attire the most money-grabbing mercs from across the Inner Sphere.

About Loyatly Points for mercs, i have a simple suggestion.
-Contracts! This is what mercs are all about. Mercs could accept a 1day/1 week/1 month/3months contract. If you fullfill the terms of your contract and get at least X wins as an unit, you will get a high amount of loyalty points and money rewards. However, if your merc unit (or you as a lone wolf) changes faction and takes another contract, it loses loyalty points (the more time you have fought for your old faction the less LPs you will lose) and get much less money.

I am glad you have not ruled out R&R completely, i think it would offer many advantages: less R&R for faction-produced 'Mechs gives a very good reason to conquer factories and planets. It would differentiate loyalists (who would have less R&R on their 'Mechs anyway) and mercs, who would have more freedom somehow but would have to pay full R&R.

How to Conquer a Planet[

Spoiler

Quote

There are some new advancements here to make conquering a planet easy to understand and dynamic on a daily basis. First off, planets will transition ownership every 24-hours.

Added is the new aspect of having to hold X number of wins on a planet for the duration of the day's combat phases to successfully conquer a planet.

If the attacking Clan team wins the match, they will win a token (zone, point, something that is collectible and visually representable).

If the defending IS team wins the match, they will have sucessfully defended the planet from that one attack. No tokens are awarded.

Let's assume that the Clan team DID win this match. The Clan Force now owns 1/X tokens for that planet. (for now, let's say X=10)

Here's where the planet conquests rules start to apply. The Clan Force needs to get 10 tokens to successfully take the planet from the IS Forces and the FRR.

When the Clan Force (or any attacking Force/Faction for any contested planet) takes the first token, the opportunity for the IS Force to do a counter attack begins.

The next match after the token is taken, is considered a counter attack. In this case, if the Clan team wins the match, they keep their token. If the IS team wins the match, the token is taken away from the Clan Force. If the IS team wins the match, the next match to take place on the planet is another Clan attack match. This creates a push/pull mechanic for the planet's tokens.

With this scenario playing out over the 3 or 4 peak time combat phases, at the end of the last combat phase, the servers will see if the Clans have maintained at least 10 tokens at the end and if so, the planet is no longer contested and now belongs to Clan Jade Falcon and the border on the IS map reflects this. If the Clans do not have 10 tokens at the end of the last combat phase, the planet remains in control of the FRR/IS Force.

The following question arises: What if the Clans get 15 tokens? The answer is that the IS Forces will have to successfully counter attack 6 times to push the token count back down below 10 to keep the planet.[/color]

Series of battles to conquer and reconquer areas on the planet's surface sounds great and was my idea too. However i am not sure that 24 hours is enough.

And then, fighting the same match over and over may not be that fun after you do it for so many times. I would suggest alternating "invasion" game mode battles with Skirmishes to reflect the different kind of battles fought between attackers and defenders in a planetary assault.

Now, this is where you can have some more immersion: obviously a map planet with conquered areas for each planet is just impossible, unless it is a very generic and standardized map.. But a loading like MechWarrior 2 would be EPIC, if you know what i mean..

Unit Coffers

Spoiler

Quote

When it comes to Unit coffers and the fact that bidding was removed from Phase 2, coffer monies will be spent on logistical costs for war. Each drop will cost a Unit a set amount of C-bills. This is to pay for fuel/food/supplies and other logistical costs. We are not actually implementing the logistics at this time (maybe in Phase 3) but the cost of operations will be present in Phase 2.[/color]

The cost per drop will be scalar based on the number of members in your Unit. This is to avoid smaller units being punished while large units don't notice the cost at all. This is not unlike moving the Swedish army costs compared to the US army costs.[/color]

Yes! Logistics! I want to spend money for the Jumpship and DropShips needed for a planetary assault.

Oh, and increasing the time to conquer a planet, for example two or three days, could also help if for the upgrading issue. I do not want them to be too cheap as no war has ever been cheap. If we upgrad Dropships, turrets and whatever i better fight hard to keep that planet!

Quote

And yes, there should be a take away from this: [/color]IS vs IS[color=#00FFFF] and [/color]Clan vs Clan[color=#00FFFF] conflicts will be part of Phase 2.

Awesome! I even have a short backstory for it..

"After the destruction of the Succession Wars, a new threat came from nowhere: the Clans. However, an extraordinary recover of Star League technology (paired with easy access to once-lost tech) and the reported defects of Clan weapons, suddenly performing worse than they used to, has prompted the Inner Sphere realms' leaderships to underestimate the Clan invasion. They will rather take advantage of it to go at each other's throats, especially Capellans and Free Worlders.

In the meantime, the Clans have their share of infighting: Trials of Possession for the most valued planets in the corridors have been issued.

What will happen?"

I will also take one more chance to express my dislike of seasons. The Clan invasion should be a history-changing event, not a mere sport season. Please, never reset the map, unless a really extreme situation happens. Use rewards to push more players to fight for a nation at disadvantage. Please. Please.

Edited by CyclonerM, 25 September 2014 - 06:21 AM.

[Kill Dozer]

"Drop Decks"

PGI: Can you seriously consider putting the ability to save mech configs in the mechlab? Every other MW game had it and it is crucial for being able to put together a drop deck in the shortest amount of time.

As it is, group players spend as much time in the lab as they do in the game if they have to change up anything between matches. I realize you want to provide incentive for people to buy more mechs/parts/moduls etc but try and find a way to make it happen, even a cbill charge or something per mech chassis would work.

I have more mechs and parts than I can count but I'm not going to buy multiple's of the same variant to be ready to put a drop deck together, I'm just not going to do it and I'm not alone in that thinking.

Regards,
Dozer

[Yukichi Fukuzawa]

Thanks for the detail Paul. I would say, why would we want to be merc in this setting? All the advantage is for faction units.

[Flashripper]

Question:

I have purchased Overlord Phoenix package when there wasn't even a hint about Clans introduced in CW. By that time only option was to participate in CW by choosing one of IS factions.

Now i have option to select 4 of 6 absolutely useless medallions.

Assuming the feature i payed for was never provided, and things moved so far now that those medallions are worthless for me, now that I can openly play for Clan Wolf, I would like to change ALL of them to ONE medallion of Clan Wolf, as the option to play as Clans is finally in game.

Once again, i am a member of Russian Clan Wolf since the Closed Beta Testing, and purchased those Overlord badges only because there was information from developer side that CW will be available at first only for IS Factions.