353 replies to this topic

[Kyone Akashi]

Jakob Knight, on 26 September 2014 - 03:00 AM, said:

The primary issue with this idea is that it turns Mercenaries into window-dressing. How is what you are proposing any different than being a House unit? Yet, Mercs are as different to House units as Clan units are to Inner Sphere units....Mercs are the third Faction, after all.

Technically, mercs aren't a faction at all. That is what makes them mercs. For the duration of their contract, a mercenary unit becomes part of the military forces of the government that hired them.

As far as I can see, the problem people seem to have is that contract times are too long. Whilst I agree that this is certainly a matter of opinion and something to discuss, I just wanted to show that the planned approach is actually very much in line with existing Battletech lore, which is the opposite of what some merc players are claiming.

Plus, you need to consider the implications of what it means to fight against someone's forces. Whilst there are indeed some few mercenary units that, over the course of their long history, have fought for every single Great House, this is not the norm and requires (1) significant "peace time" between the mercs and said future employer and (2) the merc unit to appear sufficiently desirable in order to have officials overlook them once having fought against them.

Imagine deploying a regiment of troops next to another and expecting them to work together when both sides are responsible for casualties on the other. You don't fight against Kurita on one week and get hired by them in the next. That's just ... not how it works. Or rather, not how it should work.

Jakob Knight, on 26 September 2014 - 03:00 AM, said:

The only way Seasons could count towards the fulfillment of what Mercs were always declared to be in MWO from Day One would be if House and Clan players and Units could not change their faction at all.

That depends on how changing one's faction will affect their Loyalty Points. A mercenary unit leaving a House after their contract ran out should, by all rights, have a much lesser effect on their reputation than a soldier deserting their clan or home nation.

Also consider that in the current plans for CW, mercenary units are effectively just House units by another name. This is not what "we" wanted, but it's what we are going to get due to plans apparently having been scaled down and the entire system getting simplified. Though personally I don't plan on ever changing factions, it would actually be an unfair advantage if only merc players were allowed to choose a different allegiance, considering that they do not have any disadvantages compared to House players.

Jakob Knight, on 26 September 2014 - 03:00 AM, said:

Right now, a Season is 'the entire history' of the Inner Sphere.

I certainly didn't understand it that way, and I do not expect to see either the Word of Blake or the Republic of the Sphere around here anytime soon.

Jakob Knight, on 26 September 2014 - 03:00 AM, said:

I don't understand why it is so hard for the Devs to put in what they promised they would, yet this seems to be an ongoing issue.

Budget? Prioritisation? A need to go back and reassess the state of the game, possibly having to re-write whole parts of it?

Unfortunately, this is hardly the first time that MWO didn't quite deliver, but you will find that things become much easier to bear if you would lower your expectations. It just seems they bit off more than they could chew at first, but at least they are communicating more openly now and we start to see what actually seems possible with this studio.
Ultimately, we have no other choice than to work with what we are given. If you want improvement, focus on suggesting minor changes that are very easy to implement, and try to justify or at least accept everything else as a fact of life. Demands about half the game being rewritten will only result in frustration for everyone involved, fan and developer alike.

I'm still waiting for a better-looking and more intuitive UI (imho 1.5 was the best so far) and female pilot models (it's funny how Elite Dangerous managed to achieve this during Alpha), but it won't keep me from returning to the cockpit once CW hits to at least give it a try, as I've been waiting a very long time for this aspect of the game.

Keep Calm and Pilot Mechs.

JagdFlanker, on 26 September 2014 - 03:04 AM, said:

i notice some people are bringing up ' merc contracts' - it doesn't have to be so complicated. if a planet is being contested, any IS-aligned person (and any clan aligned person on the other side) should be able drop in on the fight, and if you are a merc/lone wolf dropping on that planet that would be 'your contract' - all your contracts are a single fight.

Ugh. Personally, I would prefer PGI's plans to this, as at least faction alignment would play a major role. I'd certainly prefer to fight alongside other samurai as opposed to Fedrats and Elsies.

Edited by Kyone Akashi, 26 September 2014 - 05:57 AM.

[bane]

Also to add to the above, I don't believe they intend to reset what is gained from one season to the next, but to actually progress the Clan invasion based on the results of the previous season. Now, if they get all the way to Terra and the freebirth scum don't manage to kick them back, well what is a Clanner to do but vacation on Hilton Head.

So basically, the invasion will progress or stall based on how well the two Forces do in each season.

[Reno Blade]

In regards of the regional time frames to enable CW mode:

How about opening up one planet per time window?

Say you have one planet for 6pm-8pm EST, PDT, UTC, AEST (austalia) ...

In this case, you could help to attack/defend one planet without the fear to get the planet snatched away while you are sleeping.
Ofc, the other planets could switch over night, but you would not lose YOUR effort on that one planet.

[Jetfire]

Can the drop deck please have a total tonnage limit to prevent focus on just max tonnage in each class?

[Chronic Rune]

Has pilot death (headshot/cockpit crit) been considered as a limiting factor on dropship respawns?

[Hoax415]

Reno Blade, on 26 September 2014 - 06:17 AM, said:

In regards of the regional time frames to enable CW mode:

How about opening up one planet per time window?

Say you have one planet for 6pm-8pm EST, PDT, UTC, AEST (austalia) ...

In this case, you could help to attack/defend one planet without the fear to get the planet snatched away while you are sleeping.
Ofc, the other planets could switch over night, but you would not lose YOUR effort on that one planet.

This was how the system from 2 weeks ago was going to work. Except the EST planet would be fought over in EST primetime for 2-3 days and then a winner would be determined.

That whole "official defender unit" system was scrapped at some point and different planets on different schedules along with it.

The huge issue I'm not seeing mentioned with this system is that if all planets run from 0000 UTC to 2400 UTC then whatever the primetime slot is closest to 2400 UTC they are the only one that gets to enjoy the desperate down to the wire struggle who will win who will lose feeling. Everyone else just tries to build a good lead, logs off and hopes the other timezones don't mess it up.

bane, on 26 September 2014 - 05:54 AM, said:

So basically, the invasion will progress or stall based on how well the two Forces do in each season.

No the point of contention about seasons is that seasons imply resetting the map to its original state for the start of a new season. There is debate if that should just happen on a timer or if it should only happen when some objective is accomplished by one or more factions.

Edited by Hoax415, 26 September 2014 - 06:54 AM.

[Kain Demos]

I'm with Akashi on this one.

As far as the Mercs go they weren't able to fight for Liao against the Davions in one advance only to be hired by the Davions later that night and lead the counterattack against Liao the next day.

Basically they would be hired on for the campaign or series of battles to augment their existing forces. These guys weren't 1 day at a time hitmen........they had to gain trust and maintain a good reputation with the house they primarily worked for.

[Thorn Hallis]

I think I understand now why Community Warfare was delayed so often. The original "vision" of CW, you know, stuff like the border planets for mercs to fight for, unlockable NPC-house-units to join, whatever was envisioned before, simply turned out to be impossible for PGI to produce with the given resources at hand. Several times.

Kain Thul, on 26 September 2014 - 07:26 AM, said:

As far as the Mercs go they weren't able to fight for Liao against the Davions in one advance only to be hired by the Davions later that night and lead the counterattack against Liao the next day.

Well, those things actually happened. The MRBC, and the MRB before, took care of such breaches of contracts, but we have neither in MWO.

Edited by Thorn Hallis, 26 September 2014 - 07:35 AM.

[bane]

Hoax415, on 26 September 2014 - 06:52 AM, said:

No the point of contention about seasons is that seasons imply resetting the map to its original state for the start of a new season. There is debate if that should just happen on a timer or if it should only happen when some objective is accomplished by one or more factions.

Agreed, although the point they have made is that they will decide where the borders change too and what planets can be attacked, which would change the landscape each season. This makes me think (a very bad thing in regards to this train of thought) is that they will make things slightly different each time, since just repeating the coreward push to Terra would get boring (not for a while, though, cause I always love shooting freebirth scum).

[Emo Duck]

See, I was under the impression that the reason CW was taking so long was that you were working on it and making sure you had a great system ready for implementation when it was ready, and not before.

All these "example variables" and "we'll figure this out" speaks against that. Have you really just been churning out 500$ gold mechs all this time?

[ApolloKaras]

I'm not quite sure why you all are doing this during peak times. Make it persistent over a week or a few days, and move the battle lines accordingly based on number of wins. This will also get people involved.

[Heffey]

This is all sounding great but are there any screeenshots we can see? Or maybe a video demoing how this all works? If not I'll just file this with my 2012/2013 CW updates.

So far it's patchnotes without a patch.

[Kain Demos]

Thorn Hallis, on 26 September 2014 - 07:30 AM, said:

I think I understand now why Community Warfare was delayed so often. The original "vision" of CW, you know, stuff like the border planets for mercs to fight for, unlockable NPC-house-units to join, whatever was envisioned before, simply turned out to be impossible for PGI to produce with the given resources at hand. Several times.



Well, those things actually happened. The MRBC, and the MRB before, took care of such breaches of contracts, but we have neither in MWO.

Correct, but it was the exception and not the rule and most certainly wasn't good for the reputation of the Merc unit.

[Darth Griffin]

I have 2 questions and will use myself as the example.

1. As a solo player will I be able to participate in CW, or do I have to be a group?

2. Can I form a 2 man group with an FRR aligned friend to defend our homeland, or do we have to first form our own Unit in order to participate in CW?

I love the idea of earning extra LP or some other bonus for using "House approved" 'mechs and other ways of taking your roleplaying to the next level.

Finally, I have a request. I understand that Units and Merc Corps can create a custom decal that will appear of the outside of their 'mechs. Can players who are not in a Unit get our House Faction decal applied to our 'mechs in place of a Unit decal?

[Kyone Akashi]

Kain Thul, on 26 September 2014 - 09:15 AM, said:

Correct, but it was the exception and not the rule and most certainly wasn't good for the reputation of the Merc unit.

It's basically the mercs chaining themselves to their new employer, because every other House will just be like "why should we trust you?" from that point onwards.
Heck, even your new employer will not trust you all the way, always keeping in mind that you betrayed your former boss in order to go to him.

It's pretty much a form of political suicide, the impact at best lessened by there also being lots of smaller employers (private companies) that would hire you because you're cheap. But if the list of employers is limited to the Successor States as it is in MWO, you're bound to run out of options sooner or later.

Darth Griffin, on 26 September 2014 - 11:03 AM, said:

As a solo player will I be able to participate in CW, or do I have to be a group?

From how I understand the announcement, you will be able to participate in CW as a solo player, as long as you pick a faction - but grouping is only available between members of the same unit? This could use some additional clarification.

Edited by Kyone Akashi, 26 September 2014 - 11:08 AM.

[Hoax415]

Saxie, on 26 September 2014 - 08:07 AM, said:

I'm not quite sure why you all are doing this during peak times. Make it persistent over a week or a few days, and move the battle lines accordingly based on number of wins. This will also get people involved

The reason to limit the times is to prevent CW queue from being too empty so that waiting for a match takes forever or matches just aren't firing off.

Basically the primetime system creates an environment where all players and units know what time to all get online and get together and be ready to drop if they care about CW. Its a vastly superior system as well to alleviate all the complaints about people not getting to use all their mechs (clan and IS) in CW and concerns about solo players in CW.

Basically limited CW will help the quality and speed that people find CW matches and gives it more of a special feeling while also meaning that PGI's claims that public queues will continue to function and exist remains true.

Darth Griffin, on 26 September 2014 - 11:03 AM, said:

1. As a solo player will I be able to participate in CW, or do I have to be a group?

2. Can I form a 2 man group with an FRR aligned friend to defend our homeland, or do we have to first form our own Unit in order to participate in CW?

What we know at the moment:

1. solo players are just as eligible as anyone else for attack or defense drops. Its just based on which faction they are in that determines which planets and which side they can fight for. Being solo doesn't disqualify you from any particular drop. You can hit drop completely solo if you want and the system will place you onto a team with other solos and/or groups until it gets to 12.

HOWEVER THERE IS NO SOLO QUEUE IN CW. Also at this time there is no plan to use your elo. So CW drops will be like dropping solo in the group queue but even nastier. CW is for people wearing their tryhard pants or who are ok with losing. Prep for QQ.

2. this is more confusing. what restrictions/unlocks occur by being in a unit isn't 100% spelled out. There was some language that sort of implied that maybe groups could only be formed by units? But that is nonsensical and overly restrictive so for now I have a hard time believing that could be the case.

Edited by Hoax415, 26 September 2014 - 11:18 AM.

[Felio]

For players who don't particularly care one way or the other, could you have the faction select screen suggest the faction that would most help with matchmaking?

Like the weight-class mouseover or the server suggestions in MMOs that have multiple servers to put your character on.

[Quincy McAllister]

Quote

Regarding Unit Coffers: will there be any purchasable items for Units (for instance, base/turret upgrades) included in Phase 2, or will these come in at a later point?

This is still on the drawingboard. It is something we'd very much like to see in the game but it will become an issue finding where we can fit it into the schedule. There is also the point that planets will be flipping every 24-hours. Not sure how players would feel if they upgraded a planet and lost it the next day.

Special auxiliary units may be potential benefits that can be obtained, and they may not necessaryl have the drawback that they are lost if the planet changes hands as they are mobile and not fixed (although it could be interesting if such special units could be lost and won).

Coolant trucks: Better heat dissipation or a prerequisite for coolant modules to work in CW
Mobile repair facility: Allow repairs to varying degrees of damage (a small facility may only repair armor, whereas the high end repair facility may also be used to repair fusion engine hits). Logical consequences are different repair times for light and sever damage. This may be interesting in a sustained campaign, when the ability of a party to bring fresh troops into follow up battles may be decisive.
Ammunition truck: Ability to rearm
MASH: Ability to care for injured pilots. As a consequence a new status “injured” would be needed for mechs / pilots that suffered a cockpit hit.
Mobile HQ: Could have many possible advantages, e.g. the ability to relocate forces between different combat zones, advanced information warfare capabilities, etc.

[Dracol]

Hoax415, on 26 September 2014 - 11:16 AM, said:

2. this is more confusing. what restrictions/unlocks occur by being in a unit isn't 100% spelled out. There was some language that sort of implied that maybe groups could only be formed by units? But that is nonsensical and overly restrictive so for now I have a hard time believing that could be the case.

The impression I got was that groups could be formed by players of the same faction, not just a pre-existing unit, but I could be mistaken.

[Thorn Hallis]

Kain Thul, on 26 September 2014 - 09:15 AM, said:

Correct, but it was the exception and not the rule and most certainly wasn't good for the reputation of the Merc unit.

Totally true of course.