53 replies to this topic

[Kjudoon]

Then I stand corrected. They really need to add a 'merc' tag when you work for a faction.

[Kjudoon]

And post fix, reset map.

[Ax2Grind]

Kjudoon, on 24 December 2014 - 05:25 PM, said:

And post fix, reset map.

Just to be clear, I wouldn't mind a map reset, I just don't think it's necessary or important in getting CW on a stronger track. The map is arbitrary. The devs could halve the number planets all factions got at first and call it good and it still wouldn't matter to me. Improving the game mechanics is what I am interested in.

[Kjudoon]

Ax2Grind, on 24 December 2014 - 05:32 PM, said:

Just to be clear, I wouldn't mind a map reset, I just don't think it's necessary or important in getting CW on a stronger track. The map is arbitrary. The devs could halve the number planets all factions got at first and call it good and it still wouldn't matter to me. Improving the game mechanics is what I am interested in.

And that I absolutely respect. What I don't like are some who are crowing over victories on all sides for victories they didn't really earn. What's going on in the Sarna March... definitely earned in many cases, but not all, from what I have seen.

[InspectorG]

Dawnstealer, on 24 December 2014 - 09:13 AM, said:

That sounds like a winner. It should count, but not like a full battle.

Or maybe have an unaffiliated "Merc Pool" that can hop in without a contract? An "emergency hire?" I haven't seen too many ghost drops, and sure they're an easy win, but if I wanted an easy win, I wouldn't be playing CW.

Weighted victories and perhaps 'merc hires' like you said.

That and fix the timezone problem and it should be moving in a better direction.

Question:

If someone attacks an undefended planets, do you need 12 attackers to launch a ghost match?

[Ax2Grind]

Kjudoon, on 24 December 2014 - 05:35 PM, said:

And that I absolutely respect. What I don't like are some who are crowing over victories on all sides for victories they didn't really earn. What's going on in the Sarna March... definitely earned in many cases, but not all, from what I have seen.

The Clan vs IS battles are the most contested battles in CW from what I have experienced. I haven't taken part in a single planet battle that was not earned, but I have had to face turrets when attacking IS vs IS on a number of occasions. When I was fighting for the clans, turret battles were rare. Why would you think many battles are unearned? Even the battles against underpopulated fronts like 228 vs Marik, takes some effort. They have to get 12 people together and queue over and over again to get enough victories to even take a planet. Those guys were actively taking part in CW, and creating battle opportunities for the opposite faction. Yet the gut reaction I am seeing is blaming the folks actually trying to play the game, and putting down a turret win as if they should be ashamed of being the ones in queue.

InspectorG, on 24 December 2014 - 07:22 PM, said:

Weighted victories and perhaps 'merc hires' like you said. That and fix the timezone problem and it should be moving in a better direction. Question: If someone attacks an undefended planets, do you need 12 attackers to launch a ghost match?

Yes

Edited by Ax2Grind, 24 December 2014 - 08:11 PM.

[Armando]

Three fold solution:

ONE: No more turret matches ever. That said, it has to be replaced with something, so I submit the following 4 steps.

Step 1) create a missed queue counter for each pilot.

Step 2) reduce the time a group is looking for match to 5 minutes max (no turret games EVER, you don't get a match you drop out of queue). If they get a match during that time, missed queue counter resets to 0. If they don't get a match each member get 1 tick added to their missed queue counter.

Step 3) Much like "Planet xyz needs attackers" or "Planet xyz needs defenders", let the community know that the queue for a planet is experincing missed queue counter increse and the planet is in danger of giving up an auto win (give notification to the community if/when it is about to happen).

Step 4) Groups with highest missed queue counters are moved to the front of the line. 3 missed matches in a row (15 minutes of queue time) and the group gains a 'win'...no battle fought at all (no more turrets please).

TWO: Give every faction a 'mercenary unit budget'. The lower the population of the faction he bigger the budget. Let the mercenary units be the balance. Budget of what you ask? Loyalty % boost, up to and including the same bonus given to "Loyalists" if the Faction is in need of that many pilots / units.

THREE: This is the most important....make planet change cease fire random. No less that 18 hours in between planet change, no more that 36 hours between planet change. Give players x minutes notice of planet change (x=90, or 60, or 30 minutes...what ever works best). If the planet change is random, and know one knows WHEN it it going to happen, then Factions / Units can't plan the last 2 hours (because no one knows when it will be)....no more stacking the queue the last 2 hours.

The 'solution' can be any one, or a combination of some/all of them....but John Wolf is right. The way CW works now is not as good as it could be (or should be), Not that I am upset with PGI (quite the opposite) as I am happy that CW has been released and this is after all "CW Beta".

Edited by Armando, 24 December 2014 - 10:43 PM.

[Grynos]

From what I have seen so far in CW, there are a few issues with the current system. Here are some problems and possible solutions.

1. Ghost drops due to population differences.
No one really likes them, but they are necessary to some point. Without them the defending faction would never have to defend, thus providing a stalemate. I realize that PGI tried to put a quick fix in with the 10 min countdown timer and increasing the amount of wins needed, but that is not the solution to the problem. If there are 24 people defending and 60 people are attacking essentially 3 groups are ghost dropping in ten minutes, couple that with the fact that the other two groups that are actually fighting can stall and make the match last the full 30 mins ( which I have seen a couple of times now ) it means 3 groups can wait 10 mins,cap in 3 mins, requeue and have another set of wins before the defending 2 groups finish, that is a 6 point swing even if the defending group wins both games. Now for my solution to this.
The first 2 groups of attackers/defenders would go into battle, the third group of attackers will wait their 10 mins and enter to ghost drop, now the other attacking groups will still be in queue waiting to drop, the will wait until that third group has finished the ghost drop (roughly 12 to 13 mins) or if the another set of defenders queue, groups four and five would then move up on the priority list. This way ghost drops are still possible, but flooding a planet with attackers will mean longer wait times for the other groups.

2. The bonus money for mercs as well as lower population factions/clans is not high enough.
I'm sorry but 50% increase is nice but not effective. There needs to be enough of an increase to entice those who do not have strong loyalties towards a faction. I mean some factions /clans have high population yet Merc groups still go there instead of smaller factions/clans. That coupled with the previous point about the struggle of the lower population factions/clans against higher population factions/clans means that it is a constantly losing battle. Now if the monetary amount was to be 150%-200% for the matches perhaps that would help in balancing out the populations a little more.

3. The changing of the planets being done at the same time and length of time between the changing of planets.
I know it must be frustrating at times for the European,Oceanic, and Asian players logging in the next time to see no difference and another planet lost because they are either sleeping, working, etc. Having a 26 or 28 hour window would make more sense but not sure how that tough that would be to implement into PGI's programming .

Edited by Grynos, 25 December 2014 - 02:10 AM.

[Ax2Grind]

What is the downside to no ceasefire window? Is there one?

[Texas Merc]

-MS- is a quality crew and they are some of the toughest sobs I have fought in CW but we have witnessed what happens night in and night out now with CW.

Ghost drops are a real thing and if it doesn't change then everyone will be forced to join 3-4 factions or just quit playing the game mode all together.

[Ax2Grind]

Texas Merc, on 26 December 2014 - 02:04 AM, said:

-MS- is a quality crew and they are some of the toughest sobs I have fought in CW but we have witnessed what happens night in and night out now with CW.

Ghost drops are a real thing and if it doesn't change then everyone will be forced to join 3-4 factions or just quit playing the game mode all together.

Thanks Texas. Appreciate the nod.

Agreed that something needs to be done about ghost drops, but that's a lopsided population issue usually when it happens a lot, and most of the solutions being presented just punish the folks getting on to play the game, rather than look for ways to reward them and create less turret runs. We need more people on period, playing on all faction sides for this system to work. If we nullify or limit a team that gets on to attack while no defenders rally you kill CW completely, large factions or not.

I also think its being claimed to happen much more than it really is. I have been on the other end of a lopsided planet battle. I understand the frustration of watching the counter tick down no matter the number of wins you place on the world. I do not doubt turret wins happen, especially on low population front borders (Steiner and Marik are a great example), but I have seen plenty of examples where, from what I can see of a planet battle, and on the basis of getting our unit tag on the planet (and knowing how often and what size our drop crew was), a planet did not change hands based on Ghost battles yet it is claimed to have done so.

I also recognize that in the case of Marik (and other low pop areas), often there are players who were available to fight those battles, but they chose to fight the battles on the Davion front instead. Essentially leaving the border planets empty by choice. I guess my point is that, if there is population fighting over a world, I would hope that there would be little in the way of ghost drops, but if there is little to no population on a front then let the ghost drops happen to keep the game in motion. No matter how much population we get I think this question will always be relevant - How long is it ok to keep people waiting in queue before you give them the nod of victory or some kind of battle?

Something that seems to affect the swing of a planet is the Pug battles vs Teams. In a message between a teammate and Russ, we were assured that the losses we saw on a contested planet, no matter our string of personal Unit victories, was due to Pug matches taking place at the same time that were ending in failure after failure. The lopsided nature of these battles are going to take a heavy toll on a planet. I have already seen a few teams I know get frustrated and leave certain factions were they felt the Pug's and other teams were not able to "pull their weight". I have a feeling this disparity has been at the core of many of the "ghost drop" cries I have heard. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe PGI has lied and the planet battles are mainly based on ghost wins and I have just been exceedingly unlucky and faced teams and pugs galore in over 90% of my CW matches. But just so you understand my perspective, I fought on over 19 planets that got the MS tag at one point or another in CW so far and none of them were taken through a string of Ghost Wins. I have a hard time believing that -MS- just happens to face a real enemy most of the time, while everyone else winning planets gets turrets.

Edited by Ax2Grind, 26 December 2014 - 06:48 AM.

[Mao of DC]

Here is my solution to the issue, two or more ceasefires a day.

http://mwomercs.com/...__fromsearch__1

Edited by Mao of DC, 26 December 2014 - 07:45 AM.

[Shade 03]

Another approach to this problem could be to put a cap on how much a planet can change percentage over time.

This would allow wins early in the cycle to matter.

So let's say, for ease of calculation, that the cycle for attacking/ defending a planet is 10 hours.

A cap of 10% change of a planet per hour is allowed regardless of the number of battles fought in that hour.

So it would take a long time to move the percentage over the course of the cycle.

This would make it so the gains made during the entire cycle would matter, as opposed to the last few hours, and put more weight toward the entire day's fighting.

While this doesn't entirely remove the ability of a larger house to roll a planet just based on numbers, it gives more weight to the players fighting in different time zones and prevents final hour instant rolls.

Larger houses could still make a difference with their numbers per hour, but it would relax the frantic pushes I've been seeing just before cease fire occurs.

Wins by euro players early in the cycle would matter.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Slepnir, on 23 December 2014 - 10:30 PM, said:

I only see a few ways to solve this-
1. count all matches in the comat window, all 20 hours of it as part of the final tally
2.randomise or short rotate ceasefire every 6 hours or
3.limit both sides to equal numbers of attackers/defenders

basically were looking for a way for everbodies contributions to count.

I like the first idea though you would still have the same issue as now with the more numerous factions being able to rack up more wins. Really this issue is that, that last 2 hour window is way too important. There needs to be a system that measure everyone's contribution throughout the battle cycle, not just which factions wins the majority of the last 15 matches.