117 replies to this topic

[turtleQld]

The Rearm & Repair for CW, could be a consumable quantity on the map.
It is capable of only so much before becoming useless. An amount detirmed by Dev.
It will mean watching its usage & planning its usage.

Or it could be a consumable purchased by a player to rearm/repair his Mechs only & only if the Depot/location is won/taken.

----------------------------

Question,
I may have been confused somewhere, with CW will we be taken 4 Mechs into combat, or is this a different thing, ie "Drop Ship mode"?
In eaither case, i saw somewhere that it may be a restriction to have you select 1/1/1/1 mech Classes. i dont play Light or Assault mech, i dont own either type, being forced to play these types will disavantage my side.
So what if i'm in an Assault Mech... i cant operate it efficiently & my team will suffer.

[Cimarb]

The easiest way to have field repairs/rearms would be to require you to shutdown for a considerable length of time to do so.

As an example, you would "dock" somewhere on the map, shutdown, and after 10 seconds it starts to repair and rearm your mech. Every 10 seconds, a percentage of total armor is repaired and ammo restored. The whole process would require anywhere from 10-100 seconds, and powering up resets the timer.

This would make you extremely vulnerable while being repaired, which offsets the benefit of R&R

[Logan Hawke]

I mentioned this in another CW thread, but what about cockpit items and keepsakes that we can permanently unlock for our use through participation in CW? Little things here and their as mementos of our accomplishments and battles? (This is especially important for Merc units that). If it's a possible, a seperate currency (Campaign Service Acknowledgement maybe?) could be earned and spent on them.

Basically, while I approve of the way the LPs are now being stated to be handled, I still think it would be beneficial and quite awesome to have a seperate category of stuff that can be earned permanently as a sort of 'I was here!' or 'I participated in so-and-so' expression.

[Hoax415]

Cimarb, on 10 November 2014 - 06:46 AM, said:

The easiest way to have field repairs/rearms would be to require you to shutdown for a considerable length of time to do so.

As an example, you would "dock" somewhere on the map, shutdown, and after 10 seconds it starts to repair and rearm your mech. Every 10 seconds, a percentage of total armor is repaired and ammo restored. The whole process would require anywhere from 10-100 seconds, and powering up resets the timer.

This would make you extremely vulnerable while being repaired, which offsets the benefit of R&R

Pretty sure repair is a bad idea but that's how I envision reload (which invasion better have) working. And the reload "dock" would be something that can be destroyed/captured.

[Hoax415]

the second line saying "100 Kurita LP" is unclear why its there.

the green + lock system is kind of unclear. You might want to represent that in a more clear way. Maybe the LP "bar" needs to be highlighted of the faction the player is in?

[Prussian Havoc]

turtleQld, on 09 November 2014 - 05:40 PM, said:

...Question,
I may have been confused somewhere, with CW will we be taken 4 Mechs into combat, or is this a different thing, ie "Drop Ship mode"?
In eaither case, i saw somewhere that it may be a restriction to have you select 1/1/1/1 mech Classes. i dont play Light or Assault mech, i dont own either type, being forced to play these types will disavantage my side.
So what if i'm in an Assault Mech... i cant operate it efficiently & my team will suffer.

The 1/1/1/1 restriction of having to take one of each weight class of Mech into a CW has fallen by he wayside. So you can now take four 60-ton Mechs into combat or any other combination of 4 Mechs that total out to be 140-240 tons.

So dust off those Mediums and Heavies and start laying in C-Bills to buy duplicate, triplicate or more of those necessary modules. From what I understand we leave our initial Mechs (and their modules!) laying in the dust as we MechWarrior race for our second, third and final Mech!

[Eboli]

I don't particularly mind the respawn mechanic and a waiting period between each respawn in order to allow a player to decide which next mech to use.

I suppose I do have some questions about the use and abuse of the respawn tactic.

Assuming most of the team members are using TeamSpeak:

I would see that it would be of good advantage to ensure that all of the current "dead" pilots to organise themselves to respawn at the same time in order to have an advantage of a number of fresh mechs entering the battle at the same time and taking on the battle damaged enemy. This could quickly turn the tide of battle albeit the same may occur with the enemy returning the favour. When the majority of players are on their 4th mech this may be a crucial tactic to use.

What happens when a team is being severely rolled in a match where most players on a team have used their 4th mech. Can and should those remaining few players be able to hold out using their 4th mech for as long as possible for the next respawn time making the enemy players wait it out twiddling their thumbs?

I suppose this tactic could be used as a form of griefing and tying up the enemy team for as long as possible before the game actually ends. This tactic could be used very well if you want to tie up a very good team of 12 whom you know you cannot win against and just to peeve them off by taking away their enjoyment of being able to drop in another game.

Should there be a maximum time which if a player hasn't launched then the game will automatically launch them anyhow thus removing the above issue?

If your team are being completely rolled can a player have the option to withdraw completely after using their 3rd mech? Could this option be implemented based upon the running scoreboard of kills (as seen in current games) so if a certain ratio is met a withdraw/surrender button becomes available.

Example: Red Team have 44 kills while Blue Team has only 20 kills. Red Team only needs to kill the last remaining 4 enemy mechs while Blue Team have the task of destroying 28 enemy. Most likely an impossible scenario. Can the last 4 surviving players (who have yet to launch their last mechs) have the option of hitting a withdraw/surrender button, thus ending the game and freeing up the enemy (and spectating friendly players) to go play another game?

Ejection option is going to be available but that will occur once you have respawned after the next window of opportunity. The withdraw/surrender option just speeds things along.

Already we see the discussion of Griefing being talked about in topics while Pugging and Group play and CW will be no different. CW games will last much longer and the potential to delay the result of a match becomes even greater. Also there is likely to be greater tensions as players battle of the taking of planets for their Faction and such tactics being used by unknown but certain future groups could become an issue. Working out ways to deal with this now to avoid it may be worth thinking about.

Anyhow,

Just a few questions/observations from myself.

Cheers!
Eboli.

Edited by Eboli, 10 November 2014 - 03:03 PM.

[Prussian Havoc]

As I read it, there is no option to wait between Mech, the Dropship literally kicks you out at the next time hack of 30-seconds. Of course Gamers could play hide and seek after that, but the overall Mission Objective should be timed in order to dissuade this behavior. If the Attackers do not indeed attack, the Defenders should win by default.

Defenders hunting down and eliminating derelict Attackers could be incentivized for both groups if there were isolated Secondary Attacker Objects at distant corners of the map (on the order of a few "Cap"able" Resource Buildings.) When denied their primary objective (given the 44 to 20 kill disparity) Attackers could try to defray the cost of their drop (since unit funds will be needed for Unit Drops) by holding one or more secondary resource points through the end of the timed Attack.

Just one quick idea, but the closer we can get both sides to "Mission Set Of Orders" conditions, the better I'll like it and the deeper the potential immersion.

[Eboli]

Thanks for your response Prussian Havoc as it was quite a long post of mine. I hadn't read all the details from Russ (was away in China for a while) so am glad that the potential of abuse is minimised.

Capturing secondary and tertiary objectives is also a good idea for bonuses to the side that gets them.

Cheers!
Eboli

[MauttyKoray]

With the addition of Decals, would a rudimentary Decal maker with basic shapes, colors, and design options be possible for units?

IE
A ) 3 layers, background shape (basic shapes, shields, etc), midground shape (smaller background shapes, odd shapes light lightning bolts, etc), foreground shape (animals, letters, objects, etc)

B ) Colors for each layer.

C ) Ability to create white/black 'outline' for each layer to make shapes discernible from one another.

Edited by MauttyKoray, 10 November 2014 - 07:12 PM.

[CyclonerM]

Well, i see as totally logic that a damaged unit would pull back, wait for reinforcements (aka respawns) , regroup and then go back into the battle. To prevent this, the other team could simply pursue the enemy to prevent it from reorganizing.

[Ballimbo]

Thank you for all the information-flow, really appreciated.

Some questions (as you can see on my profile, the following questions are mainly based off FRR's situation, and I do know the lore a little, so I'm ready for rough times ):

1. How many Clan-Factions are bordering the FRR territory at the start? 3? or all 4? Figuring out how many contested planets the FRR-Population is going to face right off the start.
If it stays with the 2 contested / attacked planets in owned territory against every bordering faction, and assuming 3 clan factions at the gates, the FRR could end up with 10 planets under attack from day 1, aye?

2. Will there be information on the "queueing" state of matches for contested planets? I think seeing some numbers (not particular players or groups or units or the like, only plain numbers) would be helpful to coordinate solo players better. Information such as "8 players in queue" or maybe the other way around "3 more players needed". To avoid "spreading out thin".
E.g. 3 Players are waiting for the timer to run out (not enough players joined in) in an attack-queue for planet X, whereas planet Z is in defense, maybe 9 tokens down to the attacking opponents, and in need of 3 players to fill up the team to rescue that planet. Or what I could imagine too, is that there could be some unwanted "hopping" between queues rsp. planets. Someone sees 4 planets are marked as "we attack", joins one queue to find 2 people. 20 secs noone else joins, so that person backs out and joins another planetary-attack queue, to find 4 people there, because 3 have done the same as our player and backed out to join another queue etc. and in the end, no queue gets filled in time or maybe only after half an hour of hopping around...

3. Can a faction get wiped out? In the sense of not having any planets left. There was maybe something with the capital planet not attackable? Not sure anymore. What if nearly everyone leaves the faction then, so that the "left-overs" will not be able to conquest another planet back (due to different time zones etc.)? Are there "plans" for such factions "in dire need"?

[Cimarb]

MauttyKoray, on 10 November 2014 - 07:11 PM, said:

With the addition of Decals, would a rudimentary Decal maker with basic shapes, colors, and design options be possible for units?

IE
A ) 3 layers, background shape (basic shapes, shields, etc), midground shape (smaller background shapes, odd shapes light lightning bolts, etc), foreground shape (animals, letters, objects, etc)

B ) Colors for each layer.

C ) Ability to create white/black 'outline' for each layer to make shapes discernible from one another.

Likely not. PGI has stated that their biggest issue with a deckle system would be that people would make penis shapes all over the place, which is a very valid concern with the gaming community, lol. All you need are circles, squares and shield/triangle shapes to do that.

I would prefer some sort of submission system mixed with premade, lore-based options. So you could use the premade options from PGI, or you could submit an idea, likely for considerable MC to offset the time it would take to have someone at PGI vet the design, which would be made an option for anyone in your unit once it was approved.

[Hoax415]

Ballimbo, on 11 November 2014 - 08:31 AM, said:

1. How many Clan-Factions are bordering the FRR territory at the start? 3? or all 4? Figuring out how many contested planets the FRR-Population is going to face right off the start.

If it stays with the 2 contested / attacked planets in owned territory against every bordering faction, and assuming 3 clan factions at the gates, the FRR could end up with 10 planets under attack from day 1, aye?

I think you are misreading things. I think they intend to start with every IS faction having 2 planets (at most?) under attack during a given day.

I'd imagine something like this might work:


Basically there are four Clan vs IS planets. Two are FRR worlds 1 Stiener 1 Kurita. The way I'm imagining it could work (they have said nothing) is that 2 of them would be eligible to be claimed by Falcon or Wolf and 2 of them would be eligible to be claimed by Bear or Jaguar.

On top of those four there would be some amount of IS vs IS worlds. It might be 3 if PGI feels its important that every faction has a planet they can lose each day. It might be eight if every faction has two planets they can lose each day.

I personally if I were them would go with something along the lines of:
Liao/Marik vs Davion
Liao vs Marik
Davion/Steiner vs Kurita

That plus 4 clan invasion worlds would mean that no matter what faction you are you have at least two eligible planets in CW going each day.

More if you allow "allied" factions to drop liberally like PGI has said they plan to do with the IS vs Clan worlds.

But really there are tons of options and methods and the "smart" way to do it is unknowable until we see how many players we are talking and how balanced the factions are population-wise.

But we just don't know yet, I'm sort of doubtful Paul knows exactly how it will work yet. They may tweak it up to the moment they see how many players/units sign up for CW.

I could easily see the first few days of CW being Clan vs IS only. Afterall they have said that they intend to make most/some/all (???) of the Clan vs IS planets open to everyone. Any IS player can defend and any Clan player can attack. Rather than it being 1 faction vs 1 faction.

Quote

2. Will there be information on the "queueing" state of matches for contested planets? I think seeing some numbers (not particular players or groups or units or the like, only plain numbers) would be helpful to coordinate solo players better. Information such as "8 players in queue" or maybe the other way around "3 more players needed". To avoid "spreading out thin".

Very good point, hope Paul sees this question.

Quote

3. Can a faction get wiped out? In the sense of not having any planets left. There was maybe something with the capital planet not attackable? Not sure anymore. What if nearly everyone leaves the faction then, so that the "left-overs" will not be able to conquest another planet back (due to different time zones etc.)? Are there "plans" for such factions "in dire need"?

I think you are getting pretty ahead of yourself worrying about that. Afterall even FRR has over 80 worlds I believe on the CW map. So we're talking even if they lose 2 planets a day each day for a month they won't be out of it. If that's how things are going PGI will have to start to make adjustments because something is messed up probably in the population balance.

Edited by Hoax415, 11 November 2014 - 02:07 PM.

[CyclonerM]

I would like to see dynamic alliances between IS Houses. For example, at the start of CW House Marik could ally with the Capellans to try to backstab the Lyran half of the FedCom while the Capellan Confederation strikes at the Davion half (FedCom players can play against both Clans and IS and the spin-ward Houses players have someone to fight). After some months, PGI could decide that, if House Marik gets too powerful, the Capellan Confederation will declare war against it; if the Confederation gets too weak, it can consider allying back with House Marik and the Mariks would accept them back as the FWL it is already busy with a strong enemy (the Lyrans) .. Until something changes again.

This could be used as another balancing tool, togheter with higher rewards for mercs and loyalists.

[Hoax415]

Things like that work but you have to remember the more PGI micro manages the outcome and takes things out of the players hands the more players will feel cheated and that what they do doesn't matter because PGI just rigs it.

Its much better for PGI to use incentives for fighting or switching or staying on the losing/smaller factions rather than swapping to the winners.

For instance if Davion has double the next highest faction's population and is working Liao and Kurita over:
-Their merc contracts could start paying out way worse. To prevent mercs from just signing on for the easy wins.
-Kurita and Liao merc contracts could start paying out way better. This is to encourage mercs to sign on to fight for the underdog against bad odds.
-They could be faced with a few extra planets to defend (to spread their numbers) but not so many that it feels like PGI is ganging up on them (that is bad).
-Maybe their primary opponents get bonus LP for defeating them. This is to encourage Liao and Kurita players to not just abandon the Davion front (where they feel like they can't win) or to not abandon CW all together.
-Maybe you give Marik bonus LP for defeating Davion to encourage them to fight more against them to help even the odds.
-Some Liao or Kurita planets could get bonus tokens (hardened defenses) or more/better turrets (within reason). Not sure what the players would be ok with and what would feel like cheating.


That way you shift the populations around hopefully but you don't give players the feeling that: "Davion you are winning too much, so PGI is going to punish you and take away your gains arbitrarily".

That feels bad and will be bad for CW.

Its hard and its a balancing act. In fact its so hard that I was always in favor of at least an initial season so that PGI could test and get used to all the moving parts and players could find and exploit whatever there is to exploit. A 3 month test seemed like a prudent idea to me considering how much PGI still has to figure out about how to basically GameMaster this mode.

Edited by Hoax415, 12 November 2014 - 11:49 AM.

[KuroNyra]

Cimarb, on 11 November 2014 - 08:35 AM, said:

Likely not. PGI has stated that their biggest issue with a deckle system would be that people would make penis shapes all over the place, which is a very valid concern with the gaming community, lol. All you need are circles, squares and shield/triangle shapes to do that.

I would prefer some sort of submission system mixed with premade, lore-based options. So you could use the premade options from PGI, or you could submit an idea, likely for considerable MC to offset the time it would take to have someone at PGI vet the design, which would be made an option for anyone in your unit once it was approved.

Being able to place the Clan Wolf decal on your mech... Niiiaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh *very suspect noise*

My Timber Wolf would feel much better with that!

[Ballimbo]

Hoax415, on 11 November 2014 - 01:44 PM, said:

I think you are misreading things. I think they intend to start with every IS faction having 2 planets (at most?) under attack during a given day.
[...]

First thank you, for your elaborated statements.

That's quite probably the case (the misreading), as I'm not a native english speaker. So there's a good chance for wrong interpretations all over when I get into things here
Yeah, your thoughts sound more reasonable than what I understood - let's hope it is meant like you outlined it (NOT having like 10 planets attacked a day )

Hoax415, on 11 November 2014 - 01:44 PM, said:

Very good point, hope Paul sees this question.

Let's cross our fingers

Hoax415, on 11 November 2014 - 01:44 PM, said:

I think you are getting pretty ahead of yourself worrying about that. Afterall even FRR has over 80 worlds I believe on the CW map. So we're talking even if they lose 2 planets a day each day for a month they won't be out of it. If that's how things are going PGI will have to start to make adjustments because something is messed up probably in the population balance.

Nah, I'm not worried like I can't get no sleep anymore or something, mind you It was more of a general thought like "what if...", generally, sometime in the far future, with any faction. Really wondered if there's is a plan, sort of, to remedy or better prevent such a situation. Nothing more. No panic
(ok, if you look at it from my first question, that there could be 10 planets under attack, and say, like losing 8 a day, then those 80 planets in the FRR could go in - with some back and forth - let's say 2 weeks but yeah, see above concerning the "10 planets under attack")

[Blacke]

For those of us who purchased both clan and innersphere mechs for real money, are you going to allow us to take a one set of faction mechs and transfer them to an alt account so we can participate in community warfare with all our purchased mechs?

[Koda Shy]

Maybe I speak for the other 80% of mechwarriors that visit the forums..........but I have no f'ing clue what the hell is going on with this whole CW thing.

Ive read the whole thread, im totally lost....