174 replies to this topic

[CyclonerM]

I have never liked the idea of seasons. At all.

It really kills immersion and defeats the purpose of having a 1:1 timeline, which was cool.

I do not want to fight for months to reach Terra, get close and then seeing everything reset. I would feel that everything was in vain.

The Clan invasion is definitely a turning point in the history of the Inner Sphere. Since we are rewriting history, i want to fight to reach our goal and then see what would happen next.

Will the Great Houses fight togheter to crush the Clans? Will the Capellan Confederation and the Free Worlds League take advantage of the invasion to strike at their powerful rivals (the FedCom halves)? Or will the FWL attempt to seize the tiny Capellan nation?

Or something else entirely?

This is what i want to see. The Clan reaching Terra shall be IlClan forever (unless we can have things like a Trials of Possession for the title, who knows ).

A tournament should be started when a Clan gets 1 jump from Terra. ALL the ComStar player units plus maybe a number of merc units vs ALL the units of the attacking Clan.

Or maybe the IS factions will have decided to create a new Star League and fight the Clans togheter .. In that case, House units instead of mercs should partecipate.

MC prizes should be handed to the partecipants.

This, of course, should be a one-time event, otherwise it will be just too "cheap".

Now, why seasons are used?

- Players can switch faction for a new season:
Easy. You can change faction only once every three months, with huge loss of LPs. Where is the problem?
Maybe mercs should be able to switch more times, losing a lot of LPs every time however.
-A reset would avoid players being stuck in a bad situation, with their faction with few planets etc:
There are solutions to these things that would make CW more interesting IMHO.
-Victory bonuses: a desperate goverment would be willing to give more money to mercs (and regular mechwarriors) to defend its space. Basically, it should be higher risk higher rewards.

These bonuses would be both c-bills and LPs. Fighting for a nation at a disadvantage should give you a loyalty boost.

I do not think this system could be easily abused since you still need to win to get these higher rewards;

-Alliances: players units (or House/Clan leaderships.. Niko for IlKhan! ) might decide to ally with others, even units of different factions. I think player politics would make CW very interesting. For example, if the FedSuns started to become too strong, the FWL and the CC units could ally against it; in another example, Combine units could decide to help the FRR against the Clans.

-A truce feature might be useful: if a factions gets mauled, it will ask for a truce, losing some bonuses for its players but gaining a "shield" time in regard to a particular enemy faction.


Another thing to consider: until logistics, and even with factories, i am not sure if losing planets would give such a huge disadvantage to any faction.


Please propose your ideas. I really want to find better solutions than seasons. Help me!

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

CyclonerM, on 09 October 2014 - 06:55 AM, said:

I have never liked the idea of seasons. At all.

It really kills immersion and defeats the purpose of having a 1:1 timeline, which was cool.

I do not want to fight for months to reach Terra, get close and then seeing everything reset. I would feel that everything was in vain.

The Clan invasion is definitely a turning point in the history of the Inner Sphere. Since we are rewriting history, i want to fight to reach our goal and then see what would happen next.

Will the Great Houses fight togheter to crush the Clans? Will the Capellan Confederation and the Free Worlds League take advantage of the invasion to strike at their powerful rivals (the FedCom halves)? Or will the FWL attempt to seize the tiny Capellan nation?

Or something else entirely?

This is what i want to see. The Clan reaching Terra shall be IlClan forever (unless we can have things like a Trials of Possession for the title, who knows ).

A tournament should be started when a Clan gets 1 jump from Terra. ALL the ComStar player units plus maybe a number of merc units vs ALL the units of the attacking Clan.

Or maybe the IS factions will have decided to create a new Star League and fight the Clans togheter .. In that case, House units instead of mercs should partecipate.

MC prizes should be handed to the partecipants.

This, of course, should be a one-time event, otherwise it will be just too "cheap".

Now, why seasons are used?

- Players can switch faction for a new season:
Easy. You can change faction only once every three months, with huge loss of LPs. Where is the problem?
Maybe mercs should be able to switch more times, losing a lot of LPs every time however.
-A reset would avoid players being stuck in a bad situation, with their faction with few planets etc:
There are solutions to these things that would make CW more interesting IMHO.
-Victory bonuses: a desperate goverment would be willing to give more money to mercs (and regular mechwarriors) to defend its space. Basically, it should be higher risk higher rewards.

These bonuses would be both c-bills and LPs. Fighting for a nation at a disadvantage should give you a loyalty boost.

I do not think this system could be easily abused since you still need to win to get these higher rewards;

-Alliances: players units (or House/Clan leaderships.. Niko for IlKhan! ) might decide to ally with others, even units of different factions. I think player politics would make CW very interesting. For example, if the FedSuns started to become too strong, the FWL and the CC units could ally against it; in another example, Combine units could decide to help the FRR against the Clans.

-A truce feature might be useful: if a factions gets mauled, it will ask for a truce, losing some bonuses for its players but gaining a "shield" time in regard to a particular enemy faction.


Another thing to consider: until logistics, and even with factories, i am not sure if losing planets would give such a huge disadvantage to any faction.


Please propose your ideas. I really want to find better solutions than seasons. Help me!

agreed 100%

Seasons are a stupid idea, and show they have ZERO plans of making this anything other than a crappy arena E-sport shooter

[Joseph Mallan]

After one or two seasons I would be done. I will have defended the IS v the Clan Boogiemen and would have no desire to keep fighting the same fight over and over again... Like we are doing now.

[Xarian]

See, this is how it works:

• This is a video game
  
• People don't like fundamental changes to their competition rankings while they are in the middle of competing
  
• Video games often change fundamental game mechanics in order to make the game better
  
• To prevent whining and gnashing of teeth, the competition must be reset after changing game mechanics
  
• The easiest and best way to do this is in seasons

The alternatives:

• No game updates at all
  
• Or, change game mechanics in the middle of everyone competing using said game mechanics

I'd rather have seasons.

[CyclonerM]

Joseph Mallan, on 09 October 2014 - 07:08 AM, said:

After one or two seasons I would be done. I will have defended the IS v the Clan Boogiemen and would have no desire to keep fighting the same fight over and over again... Like we are doing now.

Exactly. I forgot to mention that it would be boring to repeat the same invasion over and over.

Finding out what would have happened if [insert outcome of op. Revival here] would be much more interesting, quiaff?

Spread the word!

Xarian, on 09 October 2014 - 07:21 AM, said:

See, this is how it works:

• This is a video game
  
• People don't like fundamental changes to their competition rankings while they are in the middle of competing
  
• Video games often change fundamental game mechanics in order to make the game better
  
• To prevent whining and gnashing of teeth, the competition must be reset after changing game mechanics
  
• The easiest and best way to do this is in seasons

The alternatives:

• No game updates at all
  
• Or, change game mechanics in the middle of everyone competing using said game mechanics

I'd rather have seasons.

I do not see this as a big issues. People have adapted to Ghost Heat, Clans, JJ tweaks, fall damage, etc. so i think they can adapt. You have a point but honestly i would not use seasons just for this reason. In my view, it is not worth .

Edited by CyclonerM, 09 October 2014 - 07:24 AM.

[Cimarb]

As you all probably already know, I completely agree with Cycloner. Seasons are about as bad of a way to handle this as possible.

Luckily, Paul and Russ already seem to be leaning towards changing this, and I am hopeful this is just one of those things that they threw out there on the spur and now that some thought is going into it, they will change their minds.

For me, I do not understand why you would need any sort of reset at all. Just adjust rewards occasionally to sway the "carrot" one way or the other. One unit getting too strong? Double cbills for all successful attacks on their worlds for the next seven days! Use the Bounty system!

Come on PGI, put a little more thought into this and I am sure you can come up with something spectacular! You have been hitting home runs the last month or two, so we just need another one here. I have faith!

[Cimarb]

Xarian, on 09 October 2014 - 07:21 AM, said:

See, this is how it works:

• This is a video game
  
• People don't like fundamental changes to their competition rankings while they are in the middle of competing
  
• Video games often change fundamental game mechanics in order to make the game better
  
• To prevent whining and gnashing of teeth, the competition must be reset after changing game mechanics
  
• The easiest and best way to do this is in seasons

The alternatives:

• No game updates at all
  
• Or, change game mechanics in the middle of everyone competing using said game mechanics

I'd rather have seasons.

This is not a tournament, or at least it should not be. This is an invasion! It should feel like an invasion, and resetting every three months to rinse and repeat will completely negate that feeling.

If you want your team Deathmatch, stay in the public queue and enjoy the worthy adversaries and similar tourneys. We want the Clan Invasion!

[Livewyr]

Seasonal reset is silly.

WoT had the best idea in their risk type setup for this.
Translated to MWO: Have "landing" points, a few around the periphery 2 for each house/clan. If they get pushed off the board, they can re-enter at their landing zones to begin retaking an an area.

Let players take over history from here. (If [sic] Liao wants to ally with Steiner and kick Davion out, more power to them.)
If Davion gets kicked out, let them land at their landing points from the periphery and retake their home.

Seasons means whatever you are doing is work jack s*** a couple months later... (Just like playing in CBT) Why the hell would I want my end-game to be CBT forever?

[EDIT] As far as faction changes.. let people change faction, and have a 1 month cooldown on doing it again. (Perhaps an MC price for doing it at two weeks)

Edited by Livewyr, 09 October 2014 - 08:11 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Cimarb, on 09 October 2014 - 07:22 AM, said:

As you all probably already know, I completely agree with Cycloner. Seasons are about as bad of a way to handle this as possible.

Luckily, Paul and Russ already seem to be leaning towards changing this, and I am hopeful this is just one of those things that they threw out there on the spur and now that some thought is going into it, they will change their minds.

For me, I do not understand why you would need any sort of reset at all. Just adjust rewards occasionally to sway the "carrot" one way or the other. One unit getting too strong? Double cbills for all successful attacks on their worlds for the next seven days! Use the Bounty system!

Come on PGI, put a little more thought into this and I am sure you can come up with something spectacular! You have been hitting home runs the last month or two, so we just need another one here. I have faith!

The Clan Invasion was fought in Waves. Could the game work if we had waves instead of seasons? Could players opt into Wave2 or stay in Wave 1? What could be the Abused part of Waves?

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 09 October 2014 - 08:15 AM.

[Hillslam]

Seasons schmeasons. Bad idea. Also, I just don't care for being foisted upon one opfor when there are choices in the game world.

What if I only want clan on clan? Some dog vs parrot action.
Or, even better, IS on IS: being the Blue Fisters attacking the eggrolls or the squawking purple birds?

I'd get real sick of fighting the clan invasion over and over and would be gone real fast. Especially since the whole idea and implementation of the clans was stupid to begin with 25 years ago. (I threw that last bit in there for Livewyr because we're not allowed to agree too much in any one thread)

Edited by Hillslam, 09 October 2014 - 08:17 AM.

[KraftySOT]

Completely disagree. Seasons work great and ensure the longevity of the game, as well as the ability to tweak between seasons.

Its also just not feasible for them to keep developing at the pace required by the timeline...once you pass something and cant add it, or do it right, its missed, forever.

Cant get some huge battle together before it passes by? Never gonna happen then.

Also, if you miss something as a player, its missed forever.

If your deployed over seas right now, and come back next year. Sorry, you missed the clan invasions. That sucks.

By doing it in seasons you can always play the part you like. If you want to sit out the rest of hte season because its tedious. Thats up to you.

[KraftySOT]

And I usually use this game as a bad example of development, but finally I get to use them as an example of good game development.

The one thing World War II Online/Battleground Europe did right...was the seasons. It had tech trees, it had commanders, it had supply lines, it had tables of equipment, it was the invasion of France by Germany 2:1 scale, every 4-6 months, for 13 years now.

It allowed them to get that one period (and a little leeway into the early Tiger/US stuff/FW190A) exactly right, instead of blowing past it and making all the work they did for 1939 completely pointless.

If PGI keeps going with the timeline, eventually all the work theyve done up to this point, becomes useless and wasted effort.

The right thing to do is perfect the clan invasion, and if you can get that right...then if youre still turning a profit, start working on another "theater" and advancing the timeline.

What you guys are suggesting is awesome dont get me wrong, but its neither feasible, nor good game design.

[Cimarb]

Joseph Mallan, on 09 October 2014 - 08:14 AM, said:

The Clan Invasion was fought in Waves. Could the game work if we had waves instead of seasons? Could players opt into Wave2 or stay in Wave 1? What could be the Abused part of Waves?

The Waves would be a good way to make some sort of "allowed change" system, where you could change factions and such freely, but honestly I see no reason to not allow faction changes at any time - just have a timer like Livewyr suggested to avoid abuse.

I would not want people, to be in different waves, though, as that would get messy real quick, and highly complicate the whole system, as PGI would have to keep track of everyone in "wave 1 season" separately from everyone in "wave 2 season", etc.

KraftySOT, on 09 October 2014 - 08:24 AM, said:

Completely disagree. Seasons work great and ensure the longevity of the game, as well as the ability to tweak between seasons.

Its also just not feasible for them to keep developing at the pace required by the timeline...once you pass something and cant add it, or do it right, its missed, forever.

Cant get some huge battle together before it passes by? Never gonna happen then.

Also, if you miss something as a player, its missed forever.

If your deployed over seas right now, and come back next year. Sorry, you missed the clan invasions. That sucks.

By doing it in seasons you can always play the part you like. If you want to sit out the rest of hte season because its tedious. Thats up to you.

Sure, it lets people that are not playing the game play it eventually, but it makes it horribly boring very quick for all of us that are actively playing the game now, and have been for the first two years of Team Deathmatch: Online. I want a CW that matters, not a pretty map to go with another ladder board tourney...

[Cimarb]

KraftySOT, on 09 October 2014 - 08:28 AM, said:

If PGI keeps going with the timeline, eventually all the work theyve done up to this point, becomes useless and wasted effort.

The right thing to do is perfect the clan invasion, and if you can get that right...then if youre still turning a profit, start working on another "theater" and advancing the timeline.

What you guys are suggesting is awesome dont get me wrong, but its neither feasible, nor good game design.

Wrong. On a 1to1 timeline, we have over 100 years worth of conflict waiting for us. That is a little different than a war that lasted, what, 2-3 years total?

If this game survives for 100 years, I will happily vote for a seasonal reset!..

[Tombstoner]

Joseph Mallan, on 09 October 2014 - 07:08 AM, said:

After one or two seasons I would be done. I will have defended the IS v the Clan Boogiemen and would have no desire to keep fighting the same fight over and over again... Like we are doing now.

Unless of course we could found our own periphery state and carve out a section of the IS ourselves and declare me... i mean US leaders of the new Star league.

Having a special event for the fight over terra would be nice. it does provide a reasonable stopping point but it would get old very fast unless it provided you the right to form your own faction. then you could be incentivised to retake Terra multiple times for faction rewards.

[KraftySOT]

Cimarb, on 09 October 2014 - 08:29 AM, said:

The Waves would be a good way to make some sort of "allowed change" system, where you could change factions and such freely, but honestly I see no reason to not allow faction changes at any time - just have a timer like Livewyr suggested to avoid abuse.

I would not want people, to be in different waves, though, as that would get messy real quick, and highly complicate the whole system, as PGI would have to keep track of everyone in "wave 1 season" separately from everyone in "wave 2 season", etc.


Sure, it lets people that are not playing the game play it eventually, but it makes it horribly boring very quick for all of us that are actively playing the game now, and have been for the first two years of Team Deathmatch: Online. I want a CW that matters, not a pretty map to go with another ladder board tourney...

Well im pretty sure youll still have that. Planets change hands, with them go production facilities giving your side a bonus.

What you wont have is Marik winning, and then the timeline ending. If you do the timeline 1:1 youre more likely to be hamfisted into "historical" happenings where its just a ladder tourney with PGI flipping planets per the lore.

That would suck. The only way you make it work is with constant resets. Otherwise you get so far from the timeline...that its pointless to follow it.

What happens if Marik takes Tukkyid before the clans ever get there? How do you have everyone in that battle per the lore? You cant.

Cimarb, on 09 October 2014 - 08:34 AM, said:

Wrong. On a 1to1 timeline, we have over 100 years worth of conflict waiting for us. That is a little different than a war that lasted, what, 2-3 years total?

If this game survives for 100 years, I will happily vote for a seasonal reset!..

No its not wrong, because you dont have 100 years worth of conflict waiting for you because the game wont last that long. No game ever has and no game ever will. If you miss something in the timeline, you never ever ever get to participate in it.

Clans on Luthien? You were at work? Sorry...never going to happen again.

[KraftySOT]

The better scenario is seasons. You go to 3052 and reset. If someone "wins" before that. You reset.

Every 4-6 months you get all the things you want to participate in. If you miss it, youve got another chance. You get to be the guy on the field deciding the battle of Luthien.

But thinking were going to get to protomechs is pretty insane.

We need to stick to the timeline were doing, and do it right. Id rather have 3 years ad naseum that were done correctly, than 20 years of never getting it right, and all the stuff we have now, being pointless.

Its also just not feasible to actually do, in real time. Its bad for players, its impossible to develop, and outside of something like Star Citizen where they can make it up as you go along, youre stuck with what "happened".

Youll lose just as many players hamfisting them into the historical "lore" as you will making it open ended seasons not tied to the history but for events.

[Zerberus]

CyclonerM, on 09 October 2014 - 06:55 AM, said:

I have never liked the idea of seasons. At all.

It really kills immersion and defeats the purpose of having a 1:1 timeline, which was cool.

I do not want to fight for months to reach Terra, get close and then seeing everything reset. I would feel that everything was in vain.

The Clan invasion is definitely a turning point in the history of the Inner Sphere. Since we are rewriting history, i want to fight to reach our goal and then see what would happen next.

Will the Great Houses fight togheter to crush the Clans? Will the Capellan Confederation and the Free Worlds League take advantage of the invasion to strike at their powerful rivals (the FedCom halves)? Or will the FWL attempt to seize the tiny Capellan nation?

Or something else entirely?

This is what i want to see. The Clan reaching Terra shall be IlClan forever (unless we can have things like a Trials of Possession for the title, who knows ).

A tournament should be started when a Clan gets 1 jump from Terra. ALL the ComStar player units plus maybe a number of merc units vs ALL the units of the attacking Clan.

Or maybe the IS factions will have decided to create a new Star League and fight the Clans togheter .. In that case, House units instead of mercs should partecipate.

MC prizes should be handed to the partecipants.

This, of course, should be a one-time event, otherwise it will be just too "cheap".

Now, why seasons are used?

- Players can switch faction for a new season:
Easy. You can change faction only once every three months, with huge loss of LPs. Where is the problem?
Maybe mercs should be able to switch more times, losing a lot of LPs every time however.
-A reset would avoid players being stuck in a bad situation, with their faction with few planets etc:
There are solutions to these things that would make CW more interesting IMHO.
-Victory bonuses: a desperate goverment would be willing to give more money to mercs (and regular mechwarriors) to defend its space. Basically, it should be higher risk higher rewards.

These bonuses would be both c-bills and LPs. Fighting for a nation at a disadvantage should give you a loyalty boost.

I do not think this system could be easily abused since you still need to win to get these higher rewards;

-Alliances: players units (or House/Clan leaderships.. Niko for IlKhan! ) might decide to ally with others, even units of different factions. I think player politics would make CW very interesting. For example, if the FedSuns started to become too strong, the FWL and the CC units could ally against it; in another example, Combine units could decide to help the FRR against the Clans.

-A truce feature might be useful: if a factions gets mauled, it will ask for a truce, losing some bonuses for its players but gaining a "shield" time in regard to a particular enemy faction.


Another thing to consider: until logistics, and even with factories, i am not sure if losing planets would give such a huge disadvantage to any faction.


Please propose your ideas. I really want to find better solutions than seasons. Help me!

While my overall plan and yours are more or less identical (take terra and become the ilClan), I`m actuallynot to bothered by the whiole seasons idea.

That said, I do find a "total reset" to be a bit much, esp if it were, say, every 3 months (which seems like a reasonable timeframe to me at this time).

I would rather see, say, 50-75% of territory gains /losses from teh last season removed... meaning that some factions will have a few more planets at the start of the next round, simply because they kicked ass last round. And vice cersa.

No core planets, at least not at the start, but if, for example, kurita gets overrun season after season after seqason,. eventually after 10 seasons or so Kurita will be a capital planet and nothing else. And THAT is teh point where I would say, ok next season will be a reset to original pre-invasion status. Or, even better, to a timeline correct map, assuming a canon one is available for that time period.

Of course, there would need to be some form of "lasting" memento of Clan wolf`s dominance,... Maybe a trophy of a Clkan mech standing over a battered IS mech or vice versa (or factions /factions, or, or..... ), and an achievement "Participated in CW phase x"

Edited by Zerberus, 09 October 2014 - 08:46 AM.

[VanillaG]

The reason for seasons and potential resets is for the long term viability of the game. If one faction takes over and controls the entire map it could have a potential affect on attracting new players down the road. Since planets can be flipped in a 24 hour period, the map changes to too fast.

My proposal would to have planetary battles last over a 72 hour period so only 2 planets a week could change hands per faction. Schedule the battles so that the are Wed-Fri and Sat-Mon with Tuesday having no battles since that is patch day. Slowing down the change in the map would reduce the need to reset after each season.

[Malcolm Vordermark]

Seems to me that your choice are:

1) Be allowed to win/lose with resets
2) No resets but you can't actually win (Clans take Terra) or lose (be forced out of the game completely). Might be a problem with the second option if one faction takes over everything.