224 replies to this topic

[Paul Inouye]

Please put your feedback on my latest Community Warfare update here.

Sorry I couldn't get around to answering all questions directly but it's a very hectic time at the office and I'm constantly monitoring progress and in meetings. As I mentioned in the OP... I will continue to trickle information as it becomes available.

-Paul

Spoiler

The Update

First I'd like to apologize for the missed Q&A last week.. it was a crazy number of meetings plus trying to get CW properly prepped.

Loyalty Point Bonuses From Contracts:

There have been numerous questions about the purpose of taking longer contracts with Factions. The varying length of contracts provide Loyalty Point reward bonuses. What this means is that every time you are awarded LP, you will recieve an extra bonus amount of XP that is directly impacted by the length of contract you have signed up with a Faction. The bonus levels are:

• 7-Day Contrate = 0% bonus.
  
• 14-Day Contract = 15% bonus.
  
• 28-Day Contract = 30% bonus.
  
• Permanent alignment = 50% bonus.

This means that if you earn 100 LP after a match, and you have selected a 14-Day contract with House Kurita, you will recieve 100+15=115 LP for that match.

LP bonuses do NOT stack with other LP bonuses. All calculations are based of the base amount of LP being rewarded.

There are 2 methods of earning LP; in-game actions and battle contract rewards. Everytime a group leader or solo player clicks on a planet they can fight on, an attack or defense contract will appear and these are the battle contract rewards. If you successfully complete the contract (win the match), you will earn the LP indicated by the battle contract.

Case Study 1:

• The player is aligned to House Davion on a 28-day contract.
  
• The player clicks a planet in Kurita space that is along the Kurita/Davion border and is under conflict.
  
• A battle contract appears and on the contract it will state that if the player succesfully wins the attack match, they will earn 50 LP.
  
• The player accepts the contract and is dropped into the match.
  
• The player wins the match and returns back to the front-end.
  
• The player is presented with the reward of 50 LP and an additional 30% for being on a 28-day contract (an additional 15 LP) for a total of 65 LP.

The other method of earning LP is in-game actions. This is very similar to how players currently earn XP/C-Bills for in-game actions. This is the current LP reward table:

Spoiler

• Component Destruction = 8LP
  
• Kill = 15 LP
  
• Assist = 6 LP
  
• Team Kill = -20 LP
  
• Kill with Most Damage = 20 LP
  
• Solo Kill = 30 LP
  
• Souting = 5 LP
  
• Flanking = 5 LP
  
• Brawling = 10 LP
  
• Tag Kill = 15 LP
  
• NARC Kill = 15 LP
  
• Hit And Run = 10 LP
  
• Lance Formation = 5 LP
  
• Protected Medium = 3 LP
  
• Protected Light = 3 LP
  
• Saviour Kill = 12 LP
  
• Defensive Kill = 12 LP
  
• UAV Kill = 7 LP
  
• Counter ECM = 10 LP
  
• Counter ECM Locked Damage = 3 LP
  
• Turret Kill = 5 LP

Case Study 2:

In the match in Case Study 1, the player got 4 assists, 2 kills, 3 hit and runs, 1 saviour kill, 1 UAV kill and 3 Turret Kills.

• The player has earned 24 LP from assists
  
• The player has earned 30 LP from kills
  
• The player has earned 30 LP from hit and runs
  
• The player has earned 12 LP from saviour kills
  
• The player has earned 7 LP from uav kills
  
• The player has earned 15 LP from turret kills
  
• This means the player has earned 118 base LP.
  
• The player is on a 28-day contract with Davion, hence will recieve an additional 30% LP bonus
  
• The player has earned 153 (rounded) LP total.

Of Note:
We have also added a 10% LP bonus to Premium Time which works exactly the same as above by being calculated using the base amount of LP earned.. not the sum of all LP plus bonuses. A reminder, Loyalty Points (LP) can only be earned while participating in Community Warfare conflicts.

---

Drop Ships and How They Work

This keeps coming up in a lot of questions so I'll try to clarify as much as I can on the topic.

Consider Drop Ships a loan from the Faction you are aligned to. You are a space hitch-hiker and they're giving you a ride to the battlefield. The reason I say this, is that for the moment, you cannot modify or engage the Drop Ships as they bring players into the game.

You MUST bring 4 'Mechs into the match. The total tonnage of all 4 'Mechs must fall between 140 and 240 tons. You will not be able to save your Drop Ship configuration until this requirement has been met.

There is only one Drop Ship loadout at the moment. This is why you can switch 'Mechs in your Drop Ship right up until the point that the Match Maker kicks in and starts putting you into a match. You will have enough time to configure your Drop Ship if needed and you will also know if you're attacking or defending.

Prior to dropping into a match, make sure you select which 'Mech you want to drop into battle with on the first pass. If you're 'Mech gets destroyed, you will see the standard death screen like you currently do in public matches. On this screen is a Drop Ship selection button which will bring up the interface to allow you to choose your next 'Mech to pilot. On this screen you also see how much time is remaining before the next wave of Drop Ships head into the battlefield. I don't want to spoil what happens during this time so you'll have to wait and see. It's pretty cool!

Once all 4 of your 'Mechs are destroyed, you will be able to spectate just you can right now in public matches.

---

Contract Length Reductions

A lot of people are not on board with the recent change in terms of contract lengths.

We wanted to make sure players had enough flexibility to play their various 'Mechs and to play the role of Mercenaries while staying within the contraints that we need to have in place to make CW work.

That being said, the 7,14 and 28 day contracts are currently implemented, but these numbers can be fairly easily changed. Russ and I have been talking about these times and we are both seeing the positives on both longer and shorter contracts. We MAY change these numbers sometime between now and the release of CW. I'll let you know when the numbers are locked down.

---

Grouping In CW

To re-emphasis what has been mentioned before. Community Warfare is primarily directed to role-playing and unit gameplay. It is because of this that groups in CW (Unit Groups) will consist of only players within the same unit. A team can have players from multiple units but groups themselves will only consist of players who are in the same group/faction.

---

Summary

We are only a few weeks away from Community Warfare being in your hands and playable. That being said, not a lot is going to change between now and December 16th. We need to stabilize the build and continue testing as much as we can to make sure the feature is ready to go on to the live servers.

This is the last major update before that time. I will however keep trickling information out as it becomes available with more and more finalized implementation and testing.

Community Warfare - Phase 2 is now in a state of fruition with numerous possibilities for growth and expansion as we head into the new year. It's an exciting time for us here at PGI and the entire development staff is eager to get it in your hands and watch a new era of BattleTech InnerSphere history unfold as you, the community, drive the direction the invasion and Faction conflicts go.


As per usual, feedback can go into the feedback thread located here:

It is now 11:52PM.. I'm dead tired but might be able to let some more media slip tomorrow.

[STEF_]

Great!
Ready to go.

[Will9761]

Thanks for the information as always!

[luxebo]

Paul Inouye, on 03 December 2014 - 11:53 PM, said:

It is now 11:52PM.. I'm dead tired but might be able to let some more media slip tomorrow.

I commend you sir, working till 12 midnight is NOT easy at all!

However, I have a suggestion to contract times: Allow a more flexible limit in how far one can switch contracts. Basically allow 7, 14, 21, 28, 2 months, 3 months, and then continue more so people can gain heavily if they so desire, and also rack LP bonuses slowly rather than such a huge increase.

And also, just in case spread the options in ui, someone might be drunk or something and accidentally pick permanent when they want 3 months or similar. I would really hate it if I accidentally selected a different faction than desired and what contract timing I want at a time.

[Lyoto Machida]

Nice...was catching up on dev posts and a new one appeared. Kinda hard to believe some form of CW is actually about to be here.

[Dirk Le Daring]

Are loyalty points awarded for a match completion, or a win ? Do we get loyalty points if we lose a match ?

What is the loyalty point scale (between ranks/levels) ? Is it like GXP...... A very heavy grind.

Why not the same bonus as XP and CBills for premium time ?

Too much grinding for ranks will not be good.

Is the mercenary finally extinct ? Sure looks like it. And yes, I am cut on this.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Dirk Le Daring, on 04 December 2014 - 12:23 AM, said:

Why not the same bonus as XP and CBills for premium time ?

My guess is since the LP gives you ranks rather than income, they want to stay a little farther away from Pay-To-Rank. It's more reflective of skill and time spent fighting with that faction this way.

Also, LP can be lost. So if you can earn it back easily, the penalty for switching factions would be moot.

[9erRed]

Greetings all,

You stated this is the last update for this year.
- Will we be getting a VLog before the years end?

Can we see a few video seconds of the Dropship approach and Mech drop off?
- Think of it as a game 'Teaser' for the real thing.

Sounds great for what is to be included.
- Will there be a scale chart for changing Factions or contract time limits and the plus's and negatives of each decision? (ie: change from Faction #2 to #5 and gain or lose 'x' LP. Changes if the Factions are or are not at war with each other.)

Thanks for staying and completing the Info, drive safe.

9erRed

Edited by 9erRed, 04 December 2014 - 12:51 AM.

[Dirk Le Daring]

TheCaptainJZ, on 04 December 2014 - 12:41 AM, said:

My guess is since the LP gives you ranks rather than income, they want to stay a little farther away from Pay-To-Rank. It's more reflective of skill and time spent fighting with that faction this way.

Yeah, don't take it the wrong way, but I want to hear it from the horses mouth.

[Seth]

Will I have the opportunity to move modules from a destroyed 'Mech my next one?

[Neutron IX]

I'm not sure if this has been addressed or not, but it would be quite cool if we had the ability to either create a second "pilot" on each of our profiles, or merge two existing profiles into one and trade mechs/other stuff to the second profile.

I suggest this based off the fact that many of us (myself included), have purchased both Inner Sphere and Clan mech packages, and it would be nice to have a way to use them all in CW without breaking the immersion via allowing IS to pilot Clan mechs and vice versa.

I would love to just simply create a Clan "pilot" on my current profile and assign all my Clan mechs and any Unlocked Clan content (cockpit items, modules, etc.) to said pilot in some fashion.

[charov]

Quote

You MUST bring 4 'Mechs into the match. The total tonnage of all 4 'Mechs must fall between 140 and 240 tons.

I like it!

[bar10jim]

Seth, on 04 December 2014 - 12:52 AM, said:

Will I have the opportunity to move modules from a destroyed 'Mech my next one?

No. This was addressed in an earlier post. The module is still in the wreakage of the previous mech down on the planet.

[Will HellFire]

Excellent!

Thank you for the news Paul.

Can we have confirmation of how many maps will we have to play CW when it arrives on our computers?

[Toraz888]

Paul, thanks for the continual updates - its great to hear about the progress behind the scenes.
I have a question about the scheduling and opposition in CW Matches.

There currently 6 IS Factions : Davion, Kurita, Liao, Marik, Rasalhague and Steiner
and 4 Clan Factions : Jaguar, Falcon, Wolf and Ghost Bear

Are all factions going to have an equal amount of CW Battles?

So for instance every day will there be 5 "Events" going on matching Factions up?

Also will battles follow Lore - So if I were to chose Marik or Liao - then I would only be fighting other IS opponents, rather than facing the Clans?
If so, then Liao would only get get to fight either Marik or Davion.
Where as Kurita would get to fight Steiner, Davion, Jaguar or Bears?

Also what happens with negative LP for fighting a faction you previously worked for?
Would this be a set amount, or based on how much LP you earn fighting against them?

[Gryphorim]

I too would like the ability to have separate profiles for clan and IS mechs/characters. When I bought the Clan invasion pack, at that time, salvaging of clan-tech was still being advertised as the intent for CW (excluding first "season"), that is not in the plan any more.

[Davegt27]

Quote

[color=orange]Grouping In CW[/color]

To re-emphasis what has been mentioned before. Community Warfare is primarily directed to role-playing and unit gameplay. It is because of this that groups in CW (Unit Groups) will consist of only players within the same unit. A team can have players from multiple units but groups themselves will only consist of players who are in the same group/faction.

ok that went right over my head

can someone help me out

[xengk]

9erRed, on 04 December 2014 - 12:44 AM, said:

Can we see a few video seconds of the Dropship approach and Mech drop off?
- Think of it as a game 'Teaser' for the real thing.

[Reno Blade]

Toraz888, on 04 December 2014 - 01:53 AM, said:

Paul, thanks for the continual updates - its great to hear about the progress behind the scenes.
I have a question about the scheduling and opposition in CW Matches.

There currently 6 IS Factions : Davion, Kurita, Liao, Marik, Rasalhague and Steiner
and 4 Clan Factions : Jaguar, Falcon, Wolf and Ghost Bear

Are all factions going to have an equal amount of CW Battles?

So for instance every day will there be 5 "Events" going on matching Factions up?

Also will battles follow Lore - So if I were to chose Marik or Liao - then I would only be fighting other IS opponents, rather than facing the Clans?
If so, then Liao would only get get to fight either Marik or Davion.
Where as Kurita would get to fight Steiner, Davion, Jaguar or Bears?

Also what happens with negative LP for fighting a faction you previously worked for?
Would this be a set amount, or based on how much LP you earn fighting against them?

From earlier posts (see command chair section) it was said that you will have something like this:
- 2 planets on each side of each border (ie. Steiner/Marik 2 on each side = 4 on this border, Steiner/FRR 4 on this border and so on for each faction/faction border..)
- All IS factions can help attack/defend the IS/Clan border (ie. Steiner/Jadefalcons fight on one planet, Liao can help)
- Only the faction on the border can start attacking, but other factions (clan/IS) can join that attack as well (yay for PUGs).

I think LP was about some kind of allies/enemies table with % of lost LP.
fighting for Steiner will probably give you no negatives for Davion, but a lot of minus for Kurita.
Not sure if killing Kurita players would further reduce Kurita LP, but I guess the end result (see Pauls example) would be used to calculate any substraction from other factions.

[Will9761]

It would be cool if you guys gave Dropships their own art assets so that way we could know which faction is attacking. Something like red accents for Kurita Dropships, or brown tinted dropships for Clan Wolf with their respective faction decals.

Edited by Will9761, 04 December 2014 - 05:59 AM.