287 replies to this topic

[Dracol]

Kain Thul, on 02 January 2015 - 04:10 PM, said:

Your post swayed me by a factor of zero.

Fair enough.

[Mao of DC]

RustyBolts, on 01 January 2015 - 06:53 AM, said:

My issue with how PGI has done CW is that they said it was for "Role Playing, Lore Based, unit actions" yet you have Mercs taking Clan contracts which is against lore. These Mercs then conduct war as a Contracted Clan unit against other Clans. This is causing open warfare between Clans during the invasion which is also against the Lore.

So is a Clan (cough cough wolf) making a Cease Fire agreement with a great house say I don't know Steiner. Oh wait Clan Wolf DID make one so it makes sense that the other clan would attack traitors in their ranks.

[Mao of DC]

Pariah Devalis, on 01 January 2015 - 12:39 PM, said:

We can appoint a player council. Does not mean anyone needs to follow the command of said council. We need something that takes the choice away from people. IE: Locking out attacks against a given faction's holdings.

Yes because the basic system doesn't hamstring the players choices as is. I mean only one planet to attack or defend PER border what nonsense. lets make it only one planet to fight over per day regardless of your faction and if the planet isn't in you faction oh well sucks to be you.

[Mao of DC]

DONTOR, on 02 January 2015 - 02:37 PM, said:

Actually a merc. designator for anyone changing factions should be put in the game anyways.

We have one on the forums but in game PGI took it away from us, or made us all lone wolves. I too want my Merc Corp badge back.

[RustyBolts]

I think they should fix it so the MERC/Dagger Stars could only accept a contract with a faction unit that has long term or permanent loyalty to a particular faction. For example, if MERC unit A wanted to take a contract up with Davion, then their contract would have be with a unit(Blazin Suns for example) that has a long term contract or permanent contract with Davion. If MERC A started acting against the Units wishes for which they have a contract, then Blazin Suns could terminate the contract early and MERC A would take a huge penalty. Or if MERC A decided to cancel their contract, they would get the same penalty. It should be hefty in order to be a deterrent. This would also be closer to lore since MERCs would fall under the command of a House unit anyway. The Dagger Star units would work the same way under the Clans.

[ShadowWolf Kell]

This whole thing has been interesting to watch because it's inadvertently forcing PGI to make a hard choice on which direction to go. They can't simply stand by and ignore it and whichever choice they go with moving forward is going to make lots unhappy as well.

Bottom line is, PGI is about to make some critical choices regarding CW and it's going to have a dramatic impact on the game, for good or ill. It might likely be the defining moment that makes or breaks the future of MWO.

My personal favorite is logistics. A unit has ex amount of mechs allotted to them per day that's proportional to the size of their faction, per unit. Once they run out of mechs, they can no longer fight until the next da. That solves the whole House vs Mercs issue given a Merc will never have even close to the amount of mechs to use per day as a house but also runs counter to gameplay mechanics and gives incentive for camping on both sides, people refusing to advance and so on.

[Mao of DC]

ShadowWolf Kell, on 04 January 2015 - 12:13 PM, said:

My personal favorite is logistics. A unit has ex amount of mechs allotted to them per day that's proportional to the size of their faction, per unit. Once they run out of mechs, they can no longer fight until the next da.

And what would this magical number be? My unit as of RIGHT now has 258 members if the number is say 100 mechs a day then 229 members of my unit can't drop that day. This plan favors the small units that can't field a 12 man but can send 4 mans out all day long. Just 2 12 mans will exhaust the total amount of mech usable that day.

200 mechs that's 4 12 mans, 300 6 12 man. you get the picture.

[ShadowWolf Kell]

Mao of DC, on 04 January 2015 - 12:25 PM, said:

And what would this magical number be? My unit as of RIGHT now has 258 members if the number is say 100 mechs a day then 229 members of my unit can't drop that day. This plan favors the small units that can't field a 12 man but can send 4 mans out all day long. Just 2 12 mans will exhaust the total amount of mech usable that day.

200 mechs that's 4 12 mans, 300 6 12 man. you get the picture.

Nothing to do with member size and everything to do with faction size. The largest merc units consisted of several regiments. Most were company or battalion sized which would be 12 and 36 mechs respectivelly. I'm fairly certain there's a good approximation of force totals for each faction in lore that PGI can use as a baseline as many leagues have used it in the past for the same reasons.

Bottom line is, merc units would be elite units with small resources just like they were in lore and the houses would be the massive star spanding empires they were with thousands of mechs available. Less than a handful of mercs even had the capability to field a division and a lot of that was vehicles, not mechs.

Currently, mercs have been demonstrating (and quite clearly) just how broken the whole swapping allegiance mechanic is far more readily than any of the TDR and TBR QQing over the past few months. Currently, the way CW works is the polar opposite of how it's supposed to be and it's a foregone conclusion that it'll be addressed.

[dezgra]

This will never be fixed. Let us look at recent history. Blackwater Security Company; Blackwater Worldwide; XE Services LLC; Acedemi; Constellis Holdings. This is just one private company in the "real world". All it takes is a name change and your in. Mercs are only a problem because the Houses and Clans allow it for the sake of Politics.

[RustyBolts]

The problem is under the current set up the MERCs cannot be held accountable for their actions and the actions of a few are reflecting badly on the factions that they have signed on to support.

[DaisuSaikoro Nagasawa]

What if the contracts for the IS houses were shorter, but the clans were longer. So Clans have one, two and three month contracts while the IS have the 1, 2 and 3 week contracts.

That way it has a higher cost being a clanner and people will really have to think through what their allegiances are, at least clan wise, for different units.

I've been thinking about this as well. The whole MERCs as Clanner thing is just so filthy (no disrespect to those who are just using the system that's been given to them) and I wish/hope something will be done about it.

[CyclonerM]

RustyBolts, on 04 January 2015 - 01:15 PM, said:

The problem is under the current set up the MERCs cannot be held accountable for their actions and the actions of a few are reflecting badly on the factions that they have signed on to support.

This.

[Noesis]

MRBC

[RustyBolts]

Noesis, on 04 January 2015 - 04:26 PM, said:

MRBC

I agree, but it depends on how PGI sets it up. Hopefully there will be someway to hold MERCS/Daggers accountable for their actions.

[CHH Badkarma]

Fidelity will never mean anything in this game to most that play it sadly. People jump in bed at the drop of a hat.

[Dracol]

Was a thinking this morning bout something. Say MRBC is set up and a contract is offered by it that ignores a player established cease-fire. Will there still be cries of foul when the merc unit accepts it and then attacks over the ceasefire?

(assuming of course PGI is the entity that creates the contracts offered as is current. If MRBC contracts were set-up to be player created, that would be a different story, but I doubt it would happen. )

Edited by Dracol, 05 January 2015 - 04:16 AM.

[RustyBolts]

Dracol, on 05 January 2015 - 04:14 AM, said:

Was a thinking this morning bout something. Say MRBC is set up and a contract is offered by it that ignores a player established cease-fire. Will there still be cries of foul when the merc unit accepts it and then attacks over the ceasefire?

(assuming of course PGI is the entity that creates the contracts offered as is current. If MRBC contracts were set-up to be player created, that would be a different story, but I doubt it would happen. )

My personal opinion is that Clans should not be fighting each other at all and this was a failure on the part of PGI. And that there should never be a ceasefire between IS and Clans.

[Dracol]

RustyBolts, on 05 January 2015 - 04:59 AM, said:

My personal opinion is that Clans should not be fighting each other at all and this was a failure on the part of PGI. And that there should never be a ceasefire between IS and Clans.

If Clans never fought each other, that would remove one third of the new game options CW has added to MWO. Clan v Clan combat plays differently than Clan v IS and IS v IS. Why would you wish to have that removed from the game?

Lore wise, its a race to Terra. Clandestine operations against rival Clans to slow them down, IMHO, feels right at home in the Battletech universe. May not have been in the lore directly during the first telling of the Clan invasion, but our MWO community is not doing a reenactment. We're telling our own tale.

Edited by Dracol, 05 January 2015 - 05:19 AM.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Just to,point out.....there is a ceasefire between player led groups of Steiner and Wolf. Not a ceasefire between the factions. Believe it or not, that is an important distinction and one PGI should consider going forward.

Will there always be rogue elements in a game such as this? Of course, but that does not mean PGI cannot firmly establish,an operating framework. Doing so allows the keeping of lore flavor while allowing players to rewrite our BT history.

Currently, there is less and less script (lore) to follow as PGI did not establish a strong framework initially. I think that will change but only time will tell.

Was a great month in MWO imo, even with the pervasive betaness of CW, so hopefully PGI comes back from,vacation ready to read the data and start addressing some of these things!

[Tarl Cabot]

If you look at the initial setup, and this is the initial setup for CW, the contracts make us all mercs, whether or not we see ourselves as mercs. It is still a first step to building a foundation.

As for those with Clan mechs, one approach would be to allow only the usage of clan mechs when fighting the Clans. For the Clans, what does that mean? A few questions to ask, just as: why are mercs accepting Clan contracts then fighting on Clan-to-Clan borders? Is it due to the pay? Is it so that merc unit can use their Clan mechs to fight other Clan mechs? And is it so they can also fight against more unit-centric opponents? Dropping against IS opponents, said unit is likely to be fighting more pug opponents than unit opponents, hai?

The real question that needs to be asked then, is if PGI allowed IS fighting Clans to use Clan tech, would the Clans lose most of those merc units? Would it have a detrimental effect on the game, would the Clans suffer? Or is it better that it is kept in its current or a similar form?

I do understand that many of you are approaching this from the lore side of it, but there is a need to look at it from the gameplay side of it. Many of those actual merc units are doing things for a variety of reasons. Have you asked them why?