287 replies to this topic

[Dracol]

Tarl Cabot, on 05 January 2015 - 06:52 AM, said:

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?

Why you ask? Well, for CI, we have now 250+ members in our casual competitive unit. Although we have serious comp players, we also have a lot casuals just looking to have a good experience. We have some people who are die hard IS, we have some people who are die hard Clan, and we have a majority of people who have paid cash for Clan and IS mechs/packages over the last two years.

In order to provide a variety of match types while also giving all our members a chance to use their mechs, we established before CW was released that we would go back and forth between IS and Clan. This way, our members get to participate in all three new CW game modes: IS v IS, Clan v Clan, and Clan v IS. They also get a chance to use all of their mechs in CW at one point or another.

Edited by Dracol, 05 January 2015 - 10:30 AM.

[Alurath]

Dracol, on 05 January 2015 - 10:28 AM, said:

In order to provide a variety of match types while also giving all our members a chance to use their mechs, we established before CW was released that we would go back and forth between IS and Clan. This way, our members get to participate in all three new CW game modes: IS v IS, Clan v Clan, and Clan v IS. They also get a chance to use all of their mechs in CW at one point or another.

I think a lot of units that change contracts are doing so for similar reasons.
I understand why those who follow the lore want to penalize merc units for changing between clan and IS or prevent merc from doing it at all. Don't forget that there are a lot of players who are here for the combat game and don't follow (or maybe aren't even aware) of the lore. They just want to have some fun getting into combat.

I do think it would be a useful tool to be able to enforce cease fires within the game. The hard part would be determining within the game who gets to decide on cease fires. I think that enforcing them would be pretty easy.

[Alexander Steel]

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.

How much is it lore based when Davion and Steiner units can fight and claim territory from each other? Or really any of the IS forces can fight each other. Real IS on IS action didn't happen until 3057 5 years after the invasion was temp halted.

[CyclonerM]

Dracol, on 05 January 2015 - 10:28 AM, said:

Why you ask? Well, for CI, we have now 250+ members in our casual competitive unit. Although we have serious comp players, we also have a lot casuals just looking to have a good experience. We have some people who are die hard IS, we have some people who are die hard Clan, and we have a majority of people who have paid cash for Clan and IS mechs/packages over the last two years.

If i was a die hard Clan warrior (as i am) looking for an unit i would have not joined a merc unit, but a Clan one. If i was a IS die-hard, i would have known that i could have used only IS mechs. We have to make choices sometimes. I made mine, even if in my case it was so much easier

I still have like 10 IS mechs, but i do not regret not being able to pilot them in CW because i love the Clans and their 'Mechs since MW2.

Alexander Steel, on 05 January 2015 - 12:33 PM, said:

How much is it lore based when Davion and Steiner units can fight and claim territory from each other? Or really any of the IS forces can fight each other. Real IS on IS action didn't happen until 3057 5 years after the invasion was temp halted.

At least you easily solved the problem with a truce that, from what i know, has been pretty solid so far..

[RustyBolts]

I also think that if a Merc unit changes factions, any planets they had switches back to the faction. This should be another incentive to stay with a faction.

I also stand by my opinion that Mercs need to be held accountable.

[Dracol]

RustyBolts, on 05 January 2015 - 04:00 PM, said:

I also stand by my opinion that Mercs need to be held accountable.

Held accountable to what? Agreements between some units in one faction and the units in another faction?

Cause mercs are fulfilling the contracts offered up by their employers (the factions/house themselves, not other units), which includes attacks against all other neighboring factions.

[RustyBolts]

Dracol, on 05 January 2015 - 04:19 PM, said:

Held accountable to what? Agreements between some units in one faction and the units in another faction?

Cause mercs are fulfilling the contracts offered up by their employers (the factions/house themselves, not other units), which includes attacks against all other neighboring factions.

Accountable for their actions. Like certain Mercs who troll a faction, jump to another faction only to troll again.

[CyclonerM]

RustyBolts, on 05 January 2015 - 04:25 PM, said:

Accountable for their actions. Like certain Mercs who troll a faction, jump to another faction only to troll again.

This.

Dracol, on 05 January 2015 - 04:19 PM, said:

Cause mercs are fulfilling the contracts offered up by their employers (the factions/house themselves, not other units), which includes attacks against all other neighboring factions.

Exactly. Player agreements. When most of the faction units agree to a truce, especially between factions that should be allied or at least united by a common goal, you only hamper both the factions' efforts if you violate it.

Oh, i would love so much to have a faction leadership that can refuse a contract to a merc unit, or some kind of reputation system..

[Dracol]

CyclonerM, on 06 January 2015 - 04:36 AM, said:

Exactly. Player agreements. When most of the faction units agree to a truce, especially between factions that should be allied or at least united by a common goal, you only hamper both the factions' efforts if you violate it.

Oh, i would love so much to have a faction leadership that can refuse a contract to a merc unit, or some kind of reputation system..

When a portion of a faction's population makes an agreement that increases queue time due to the entire faction forced to fight on one planet while also removing one of the two types of CW matches that faction can participate in, maybe some outside influence is required.

Operation Snowflake seems to be providing Wolf players not affiliated with a unit the chance to participate in Clan v Clan combat while providing another queue for Clan players to find a match with.

[Amro One]

How is PGI going to deal with the irrelevancy of Lore and realistic player behavior.

[Joe Mallad]

LastKhan, on 31 December 2014 - 10:53 PM, said:

isnt that what the regular que is for? you can play with all your mechs and dont have to wait forever in que like in CW.

no that's not what it's for. A LOT of people bought clan mechs in prep for CW. PGI should have made the announcement before the release of clan mechs that only Clan players would be able to use them in CW. They did no such thing. They started selling Clan Mechs and packages and only later did they than come out and say if we were not going to play as Clans, we could not use our Clan mech in CW.

But I understand why they didn't say anything as if most of use would have known this from the start, we would not have wasted $250 on Clan package full of mechs we could not use in CW.

So they very quickly and porely through together this "everyone" is like a Merc ability to jump around so everyone could play with all mechs. But now it's causing other problems like Mercs taking Clan contracts just to troll Clans or clan units joining IS factions to do the same. Again, something I don't think PGI even thought about lol.

Edited by Yoseful Mallad, 06 January 2015 - 06:37 AM.

[CyclonerM]

Dracol, on 06 January 2015 - 06:09 AM, said:

When a portion of a faction's population makes an agreement that increases queue time due to the entire faction forced to fight on one planet while also removing one of the two types of CW matches that faction can participate in, maybe some outside influence is required.

Operation Snowflake seems to be providing Wolf players not affiliated with a unit the chance to participate in Clan v Clan combat while providing another queue for Clan players to find a match with.

But, maybe, just maybe, when we have to defend two planets or take one from a House, we would rather have all our numbers on that planet, quiaff?

[Joe Mallad]

CyclonerM, on 06 January 2015 - 04:36 AM, said:

This.

Exactly. Player agreements. When most of the faction units agree to a truce, especially between factions that should be allied or at least united by a common goal, you only hamper both the factions' efforts if you violate it.

Oh, i would love so much to have a faction leadership that can refuse a contract to a merc unit, or some kind of reputation system..

i agree, I think the Merc units should be contracted under real player based units of a faction. Let the units decide what Merc units work for the faction. This would allow for human to human negotiations and the Merc unit would know off the bat, what's expected, who's at war, who has a truce and so on. By anyone just taking a contract from a computer ran system that doesn't know any better, anyone can take a contract and do anything they want. CW is supposed to be about "the community" right? So let us run it and decide contracts and who works for who.

There are going to be units that really have a dislike for another unit. It's a competitive game after all and is to be expected. However in the current system, one of these units can take a contract with the other's faction/Clan and the other unit has to except it and possibly play next to these guys they don't like... Because they are now working for the same faction/Clan. If the contract system was a community player based run system, lines would be drawn and some units and Merc units just would not work in some places because of their reputation.

Edited by Yoseful Mallad, 06 January 2015 - 06:38 AM.

[General Pete]

the awful truth is: many of us players have reasons we're bouncing from house to clan and not respecting truces and such.
1) We have lives- not trying to insult, just pointing out we have too little time to have truly in-depth recreation time. We need a game we can jump in, shoot something, and get out. Doing research on what units in a faction have decided (which takes a lot of forum reading) is not possible. For all I know, I violated a truce somewhere by dropping and have no idea I did it.
2) Some of us have little to no idea of the background lore of the game. I was working for House Davion recently- I personally would not attack a Steiner world, but hordes of people out there probably wouldn't have known to think twice about it.
3) People paid for their mechs. Either in cash, or in lots of time (and time is money). They deserve to use them all.
4) People are free. Taking choices away from them will not make them happy. It will not bring people to the game.

Some people love belonging to a house unit or a clan, enjoying the camaraderie and chance to employ coordinated teamspeak tactics in a match, working in a simulated military chain of command and even trying to jockey up a rank ladder. For them, I can see why it's frustrating trying to work with people who are lone wolves who were forced to 'hide behind a banner' by choosing a faction.

The solution to all this is: education and tolerance. Mostly tolerance, cause most pugs have not the time to learn the intricacies of inner sphere politics. We haven't all spent the last 25 years reading the books and playing the game.

[CyclonerM]

It takes something like 5 minutes to open the forums, read "clan wolf/bear ceasefire" and read a couple of lines and the latest news.. That is not an excuse, i am sorry.

[Dracol]

CyclonerM, on 06 January 2015 - 06:31 AM, said:

But, maybe, just maybe, when we have to defend two planets or take one from a House, we would rather have all our numbers on that planet, quiaff?

When more than 180 pilots (12 per match, 15 games max per planet ongoing at once) are queue on a planet, than it is just wasting time for those not already in game. At the moment, the queue numbers only go up to 60+. We can't know for sure if a queue has reached that number.

I can tell you when CI was part of Clan Ghost Bear and the Kurita corridor was closed, there were way more than 180 queued on the lone IS plant they were able to attack. When the Wolf planet showed even a little bit of action, the lone wolves and small groups flocked to it. Dropping solo during that time, I read a lot of thankful in game comments about Ghost Bear players finally finding matches.

Now, Wolf may have low population numbers and never see more than 180 pilots on at a time so this issue may not have been apparent to you.

Edited by Dracol, 06 January 2015 - 07:32 AM.

[Alexander Steel]

RustyBolts, on 05 January 2015 - 04:25 PM, said:

Accountable for their actions. Like certain Mercs who troll a faction, jump to another faction only to troll again.

What you call trolling is playing the game as PGI designed it. They went out of their way to say that Factions would not be controlled by the players. If my unit joins Clan Wolf, and we decide to smack some Sick Turkey around, we can do that. The game actively encourages it by giving us contracts to attack their territory. If PGI didn't want the clans fighting each other, or the IS members fighting each other, they could have made it impossible to do so.

Edited by Alexander Steel, 06 January 2015 - 08:03 AM.

[Dagorlad13]

Alexander Steel, on 06 January 2015 - 08:03 AM, said:

What you call trolling is playing the game as PGI designed it. They went out of their way to say that Factions would not be controlled by the players. If my unit joins Clan Wolf, and we decide to smack some Sick Turkey around, we can do that. The game actively encourages it by giving us contracts to attack their territory. If PGI didn't want the clans fighting each other, or the IS members fighting each other, they could have made it impossible to do so.

It seems to me that by allowing anyone, especially the top comp teams to change faction at the drop of a hat, PGI has inadvertently allowed players to "control" the factions.

[Ductus Hase]

Duration of Contract
If someone wants to troll a faction or incite interfactional conflict, all that has to be done is create an alt. Acc, join a faction and play. Some moves might be against the rules... those accs might be reported and deleted. Rinse and repeat.

If mercs would only be able to fight for units with an permanent contract, all they need is one Unit contracting them - an easy to circumvent barrier - they just get some buddies or even alt. Accs to create a unit.

Flagging mercs
I like that.

Mercs in Clans against lore
Lorists: Think of them as temporary Bondsmen.
Public matches aren´t in invasion mode by the way... if I want to play clan, I play clan... if I realize you guys aren´t my type, I want to be able to return to IS.
Stop trying to dictate how I play.

Mercs inciting infighting
Guys - just don´t jump on the train. Works great between Davion and Steiner.

I would like PGI to change the system for Planets up for attack - lost planets should be included into the chain of possible planets to attack... with priority given to them. That way the loyalists can right the "wrongs" with diplomacy and Ghost-Drops later on.


Player Concils and politics
Established Units can do politics - everyone can and should be able to do so actually.
No one should be forced to play as some other players try to dictate though... not even mercs .
PGI should give us better means of communication: Faction chat comes to mind - but no "hierarchy" forced upon us.

Punishment by players
Don´t even wish for that... who watches the watchers?

[Soule]

I had to read the entire thread before I realized what it was that was being discussed.
I have to be honest I had no idea that some of the players have been trying to control the game and are upset that others aren't following the rules that they set up.
To be honest some of my friends/family started the LTC merc company just because we wanted to play together and loved the idea of being a small non house loyal merc company. Now we are adults or in the case of my nephews collage age kids so we have work, school, and family to keep us busy and do not have the time to read pages of forum posts, in fact we have not been on since well before Christmas. We also don't like that "signing a contract" makes us part of a faction, we wanted to be mercs only.
So with that in mind if you want to have this kind of control over the game you need to petition the devs for it, or the devs need to exorcise it them selves (probably the best way) and offer real contracts to the mercs. For example attack this specific planet and you get your money/points if you succeed. or the second way would be restrict the planets we can attack in game we are mercs right? if we sign a contract we are supposed to fight who we are contracted to fight.
I can't say anyone else feels this way but I can tell you that I and my merc group do not care what treaties you sign, neither do we care if you limit us to attacking one group as long as we can play AND choose our own contracts, just because we signed up with davion for now does not mean we always want to work for them.

Edited by Soule, 06 January 2015 - 09:46 AM.