14 replies to this topic

[Tarogato]

Right now we have a number of problems with the attack window.

• It's the last couple hours that decide a planet's fate, and those hours fall in the hands of NA units and their respective factions.
  a. Work done immediately after the ceasefire is effectively nullified throughout the day, so there's hardly even any point in playing CW until 6 or fewer hours before the daily ceasefire.
  b. Since the number of pips required for a planet to flip has increased, there is zero incentive to drop on very high or very low percentage planets in the last hours of the attack window.
  
• Planets are changing hands rather quickly. In lore, the FRR is down to its last 4-6 planets after 2 years of fighting the clans. In MWO:CW, we're capable of reaching that amount of progress much faster than 2 years (unless FRR puts up a ridiculous resistance)

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Here is my suggestion: Tri-sectors and Zones.

- One Tri-sector is fought over every 9 hours.
- Tri-sectors are comprised of Zones*. Win the majority of Zones in a 9-hour period to conquer that Tri-sector.
- Zones are won on a per-match basis, they are equivalent to our current "pips".
- Once 9 hours have passed, that Tri-sector is locked in favour of the winning faction.
- Win the majority of Tri-sectors to win that planet. (there are three Tri-sectors)
*number of Zones TBD, probably 5, 7 or, 9.

So planets will change hands every 27 hours, a nice irregular cycle which is slower than a day. Since the Ceasefire is shifting every day, different time zones will have the opportunity to be the "last in line". Also, since the cycle is split up between three sectors, every peak phase for the playerbase will be able to participate equally and contribute a worthwhile effort - US, Euro, and Oceanic.

Alternatively, instead of 9 hours it could be 8 hours and have a 24-hour Ceasefire cycle, which is much simpler and more intuitive, though I much prefer the benefits of having a slightly irregular and shifting cycle.

There is an issue with this: Say Jade Falcon wins the first two Tri-sectors in a row on a Steiner planet. Now there's no point to playing that planet because it's already guaranteed to flip to Falcons. Solution: in the case of this event, the last Tri-sector is used to determine the outcome, but Steiner must get at least 80%* of the pips, not a mere 50%. So they are at a severe disadvantage, but it is possible for them to turn it around.
*percentage is obviously a placeholder

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If you have a better suggestion, post it! Because we all know that what we have now just won't do, we need something better.

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Edit: I'll have you know, I made one edit to this post for the sole purpose of adding an Oxford comma.

Edited by Tarogato, 24 December 2014 - 08:32 AM.

[Ax2Grind]

I like your suggestions and would be interested in seeing what mixing up the ceasefire windows would look like, but I dislike you original reasoning and believe it to be illogical. Specifically the fallacy that attacks made throughout the day don't matter.

"a. Work done immediately after the ceasefire is effectively nullified throughout the day, so there's hardly even any point in playing CW until 6 or fewer hours before the daily ceasefire.

b. Since the number of pips required for a planet to flip has increased, there is zero incentive to drop on very high or very low percentage planets in the last hours of the attack window."

Points A and B directly contradict each other. If a planet I need to defend has had all pips filled by the attackers before my faction even gets rolling for the day we have our work cut out for us. Sure we may get it down again, but its going to take time and effort on our part to do that, and if there are other options that matter more to us we may end up leaving it. Clearly strong attacks early on make a difference and effect the play choices for later in the day. In other words, as you demonstrate with point B, attacks made at all times of the day most certainly matter. However, I do not dispute that the last few hours of crunch time before a ceasefire can dramatically affect the end result for the day.

I personally like the simple solution of allowing all attacks and defenses to stack throughout the day, and at the end of it, whoever was more successful has the planet. It's not like the action of "Defending" or "Attacking" a planet make a difference in the mechanics. Allow both sides to attack the planet and just tally wins. No need for changing clock times, everything counts for everybody in every time zone. Simple.

[Lord Ikka]

Well, I remember someone posting suggesting that the attack window be at unknown and varied times, with only a 15 minute countdown before ceasefire. Might be decent, the random nature would encourage round the clock fighting without having 2-3 hour mass pushes.

[Chagatay]

I seriously want the 12hr + random 0-24h sliding window or something similar. Now I know I am greedy but it would fix so much for so little. Ghost attacks are no longer an issue you better pony up 24-7. EU/XYZ players not able to get in during the important hours, problem solved. Slow queue times, ha, thing of the past, all battles might just be the last.

Perpetual war for evermore, everyone is a winner. You are a winner, my enemies are a winner, PGI is a winner.
Lore nuts the winner.

Now where did I put that Oprah gif?

Edited by Chagatay, 25 December 2014 - 05:57 AM.

[Elizander]

If there is no point to the first 80% of the attack window then it's rather pointless and a waste of player's time. It's better to get 3 smaller attack windows (that matter) and place them during EU, US and SEA primetimes.

If you want CW 24/7 then anything in between these main attack windows should not flip planets to a certain extent but cannot go any deeper. For example, there are 2 planets on each side of the border that you can flip anytime of the day, but that's that. Any further conquest will have to be done within the designated major attack windows.

If PGI can include other objectives other than flipping plannets:

Supply raids
Sabotage
Assassinations
Recon/Data Retreival

Vague, I know, but it should be something worth doing. Whether or not actions in those 'side missions' affect the main planetary conquests is another thing entirely.

Remember that games are exciting if you follow a proper interest curve with appropriate slow build ups that lead to a good climax and a cool off period afterwards. Just making people smash heads constantly just makes it into another grind after awhile.

If flipping the planet is the climax, then PGI will have to pad CW with other features for the buildup and proper closing. This can also be applied to the modes themselves (note that Dota intentionally keeps the game slow at the start and it builds up over time due to the design of the towers and the level/item requirements).

[ztac]

Or they could just use a clear wins to flip each planet and not have the 24 hour timer? A bit like a see saw if you will ... 100 wins to flip , but each win pushes the slider one way , a loss (win for other team pushes it the other). Oh and they really need to do something about ghost capping and factions having a lot more people than others.

[Kirkland Langue]

Right now Planets have 15 zones. I'd like to see that increased to more like 50 zones. If an attacker captures 40(?) of them, then they claim the planet. Get rid of the peace times - just have it keep going until the attacker captures that many.

This would open up different game types having different capture values. Maybe one game will win you 3 of the zones, while another is only worth 1 zone.

[Ax2Grind]

ztac, on 25 December 2014 - 06:33 AM, said:

Or they could just use a clear wins to flip each planet and not have the 24 hour timer? A bit like a see saw if you will ... 100 wins to flip , but each win pushes the slider one way , a loss (win for other team pushes it the other). Oh and they really need to do something about ghost capping and factions having a lot more people than others.

Not having a 24 hour timer could work. However the best way to fix Ghost Caps is to get more people playing at all times of the day.

Edited by Ax2Grind, 26 December 2014 - 06:51 AM.

[Asmudius Heng]

I like the idea of side missions that effect the outcomes of the main planetary assaults but not sure how it might be implemented.

I am finding that its hard to motivate people to fight in CW if we are wanting to make a real impact. Fighting for the sake of fighting and enjoying the game mode is fine - but the meta aspect is harder to make people sit up and take notice because so much effort seems to be for nothing.

If you are a big unit its much easier, you know when you push with your guys you are going to sway things.

Smaller units though if dropping at the wrong times etc are generally just throwing themselves into a meat grinder and thier actions rarely matter unless you are coordinating with a larger unit (What i am choosing to do for the moment)

I have always said that CW needs to bring MEANING to each drop, but the way its currently implemented is not quite hitting the mark. Its not terrible, for the time PGI had on this (as in since the fall of IGP) its not a bad start.

So back to my first line on side missions:

If the main taking of sectors is where the hardcore guys are at which make the difference in actually flipping a planet but they are only contexted in those last two hours then having an alternative fight that effects those findal hours would be more beneficial for units outside of NA also.

Here is how i envision it.

My unit House Jurai group up and decide we want to make those Kuritan ******** suffer, however we know that if we go an hit a Drac planet we might win a bunch of drops before we disband for the night - we also know those drops would largely be irrelevant once the real contesting starts and there are so mnay other drops drowning out our efforts it feels like we would be doing nothing.

Instead we decide that we want to help our faction during the hot contested times and decide to atttack a planet and select "Supply Raid" or something.

A raid would target a section of the map - one of the zones that is owned by a defender. If we win a raid that zone gets an icon next to it stating that the defenders in fighting for that zone would have a disadvantage when it came to a real attack. This event STAYS until the ceasefire. This emans we might launch a series of raids on the planet that would hopfully help cripple the planets ability to defend itself when the real fighting starts.

If however the enemy defends itself from a raid that sector is then BOLSTERED for the defender and counted as reinforced giving the defender a bonus instead. This makes each raid MEANINGFUL as it can only be done ONCE per period before a planet flip.

This might give a seried of fights that would add real meaning to that last phase of taking the territory and its permanance means that it has real meaning beyond a single drop.

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I am sure there are plenty of ways to break this system and what penalties/bonuses team get from it i am not sure (better health for generators, slight reduced respawn time, extra turrets etc etc) but i really feel this would help the entire process and add more immersion.

[B0oN]

Cut down attack/defend vectors (allowed games per planet) to utilize the low population time, re-up those attack/defend vectors as soon as the high population times roll back in .

E.g.:
A planet is getting attacked by 72 players in total , which equals out in 6 matches more or less simultaneously .
All the while there are over 100 players ready to defend, overarching and defeating the attackers tries to get a foothold down by having empty games.
Solution: Disallow empty games, keep att/def sides equally strong .

Another idea could be to widen attacker win conditions so they include not only killing the orbital gun, but also killing all the defenders . After 48 defenders are defeated have a maximum amount of time to destroy the orbital guns .
This references to siege tactics, where attackers won by starving holders of fortifications to death or demoralize them by all the known means from the fun and dark age of medieval times to force them out of their keep and go about killing them.
An empty castle is still a castle worth taking and that taking is getting that much easier when there aren´t hordes of determined and capable defenders, neh ?

Solution : Add "Kill all defenders, destroy O-gens and Omega within 120 (apparently this time is pulled straight out of my nose, so a placeholder, but given the sizes of the maps so far 2 minutes seem to be okay-ish) seconds of the last defender falling"
Failing this, face fresh reinfocing troops and get hulksmashed by them (we could make this scenario playable or just have an auto-win for defenders here, that is pretty free to be decided) .

Another idea was pooling attacker wins/defender wins AND their respective damage numbers/or kills (whichever) and then evaluate who trumps whom to decide after ceasefire has kicked in yo .

Debate !

[Duke Nedo]

Posted some ideas here,

http://mwomercs.com/...pice-things-up/

summary: Battle for each planet is a finite nr of matches based on the scale of the invasion (how much the attacker invested in the attack -> a number of dropships invade). Also suggest that destroyed mechs can't be used again for that particular planet, would be interesting imo!

[IsaAurinkoinen]

Whats wrong with count all games and look which side has been more victorious at the end of day. And now you have system where all fights counts equally.

Edited by IsaAurinkoinen, 26 December 2014 - 04:04 AM.

[zeves]

Tarogato, on 24 December 2014 - 08:18 AM, said:

Right now we have a number of problems with the attack window.

• It's the last couple hours that decide a planet's fate, and those hours fall in the hands of NA units and their respective factions.
  
  a. Work done immediately after the ceasefire is effectively nullified throughout the day, so there's hardly even any point in playing CW until 6 or fewer hours before the daily ceasefire.
  b. Since the number of pips required for a planet to flip has increased, there is zero incentive to drop on very high or very low percentage planets in the last hours of the attack window.
  
• Planets are changing hands rather quickly. In lore, the FRR is down to its last 4-6 planets after 2 years of fighting the clans. In MWO:CW, we're capable of reaching that amount of progress much faster than 2 years (unless FRR puts up a ridiculous resistance)

not sure im seeing an actual problem here
things seem fine as they are right now,
with only the last few hours before a ceasfire being active means the people that just want to play CW for fun have an actual timeslot to work with to avoid the serius competition, sure eventually there will be a need to adress the fairness of when the ceasfire is going to be, but by that time i hope theyv actually made it realtime instead of a coffe break kind of thing.
I dont really care ether way but always nice to think of it from another angle.

[Lord Ikka]

zeves, on 26 December 2014 - 04:04 AM, said:

not sure im seeing an actual problem here
things seem fine as they are right now,
with only the last few hours before a ceasfire being active means the people that just want to play CW for fun have an actual timeslot to work with to avoid the serius competition, sure eventually there will be a need to adress the fairness of when the ceasfire is going to be, but by that time i hope theyv actually made it realtime instead of a coffe break kind of thing.
I dont really care ether way but always nice to think of it from another angle.

It's a problem for the players in a different timezone than the window's end phase. If all the drops mean nothing but the final two hours, whats the point of playing? This isn't just a NA game, there are masses of players in the Russian/SEA/EU zones that would like to have a chance to be meaningful as well.

[Ax2Grind]

Why do folks keep insisting that only the last two hours are meaningful even though a good number of battles have been decided by the work of teams at various time zones? Sorry, it is not a fact that the last two hours are the only time that makes a difference. It is the most intense time of conflict...it has a large impact, but it is not the only impact.