472 replies to this topic

[Maxwell Albritten]

Guys, can we please try to ignore the Davions? They are succeeded in derailing the conversation and are acting like the complaints that we've had since day one are suddenly their brand new ideas and contributing nothing.

[Dimento Graven]

Grynos, on 06 January 2015 - 01:00 PM, said:

I believe that AeusDief is saying that you and others have to choice not to sit in long queue if you choose to. If you are in a higher population then you need to get in line behind every other person who wants to fight as well. It's funny but also kind of sad that you need to refer to some things as "stupid" just because they are not what you believe. He is right about population being a players created issue. I mean there currently PGI has no limits on how many can join a faction. So technically AeusDief is just making a factual statement.

What kills MMO's is a lack of either money and/or people.

I don't think you know how the CW MM actually works.

If a planet has 60+/60+ that's at least 5 teams per side attacking and defending. Depending on when you launch to join in on the fun you could be behind as many as 3 other teams, for a 30 minute wait, or longer for an enemy.

Not fun.

Plus, at 60+, you don't know if one side has 120 attackers and only 60 defenders, or visa versa, you just know the planet is stacked. It could be you'd be adding 12 more attackers to an already stuffed planet and get nothing but turret runs.

Next option? Find a planet that has less going on and pull some enemies to your planet. Hopefully they have the awareness and ability to get 12 people together to counter your attack, or hold the territory previously won.

Other than that unless you don't play at all, you have to either pile up where everyone else is at, or start a NEW pile somewhere else.

It's "stupid" to berate one specific side for using tactics your side is currently taking advantage of, and it's "stupid" to insist that some people "just not play" or "just not count" because your side happens to currently have less population than the others.

Maxwell Albritten, on 06 January 2015 - 01:35 PM, said:

Guys, can we please try to ignore the Davions? They are succeeded in derailing the conversation and are acting like the complaints that we've had since day one are suddenly their brand new ideas and contributing nothing.

Yeah because OH SO MANY of the Liao suggestions were reasonable and fair...

Edited by Dimento Graven, 06 January 2015 - 02:03 PM.

[BlakeAteIt]

Maxwell Albritten, on 06 January 2015 - 01:35 PM, said:

Guys, can we please try to ignore the Davions? They are succeeded in derailing the conversation and are acting like the complaints that we've had since day one are suddenly their brand new ideas and contributing nothing.

So we agree that the CW system needs work, but don't like each other's tone. Thread over, then?

Or we can talk about ideas to improve it! That might be better.

Here are ideas I've had. (ORIGINAL IDEAS - DO NOT STEAL) (not really)

- Bring back Lone Wolf and Clan Loyalist factions. These can hop on defense for any IS(LW) or Clan(CL) world. Base pay (no faction bonus), pittance LP for whatever faction they helped, but can help anyone. Keeps the "I don't care about the map, I just wanna KILL" crew busy, getting into drops (maybe even give them a "quick drop" button that puts them on whatever eligible team is forming and has space? Maybe weighted by faction pop?), and keeps CW teams filled out.

- Find a way to make turret drops (I'm tired of "ghost" everything now) take longer and be more fun, or just count less.

- Obviously fix ceasefire windows. Russ has mentioned this is happening, no further need to discuss.
- Obviously we need "Faction Groups" to go along with Public Groups and Unit Groups. Russ has mentioned this is happening, no further need to discuss.
- Obviously we need better faction-wide communication. Built in (and opt-outtable) VoIP and faction-wide chat are the current suggestions I've heard. Both would be great. Russ is aware of our desire for these. Maybe keep poking him about these.

[MischiefSC]

Maxwell Albritten, on 06 January 2015 - 06:02 AM, said:

What the eff are your rambling about? Sounds nothing more than a bunch of rubbish to try and excuse you from the fact that you joined the largest faction in hopes of just reaping the easy wins.

And besides, now that Davion can't literally dump 100% of their players on Liao due to the Marik offensive you guys suddenly can't get a win.

I see no issues.

Actually we're winning consistently, save yesterday. Just not winning all the time every match. Working as intended.

What I find funny is your need to ad hominem to justify why you're acting like, well, a brat. I joined FS because the group of people I liked was already FS. Before that the only tag I ever used was Steiner; that and DC (once or twice FWL) were the only factions I really played in TT.

Yet you make sweeping assumptions about other people and their motivations. Everything you write sounds defensive like you got bullied as a kid and are now coming into your own. There are some smart and interesting people in Liao with funny and interesting stuff to say - quit trying to make them look bad.

I called this a month ago. Early on population density favored Davion, it's swung a bit and now we're going to take a drubbing for a while. It'll come back in time. I recall days upon days of people in the Liao forum saying it was all broken and there was no point in playing, etc. etc.

No issue with Davion losing worlds. It was inevitable. CW is a marathon, not a sprint. No issue with turret drops; it's a mechanic that needs to be in the game or else you can run up 100% and just not show to claim a world. Numbers matter and should matter. Overall most worlds flip on PvP matches but without a turret drop mechanic people would game the system even more.

I'll post where I want by the way. In fact because of your tear-sodden hanky you're waving all over the place I'll make at least 10 more posts on this sub-forum. Maybe I'll make a new thread here.

[MischiefSC]

BlakeAteIt, on 06 January 2015 - 02:08 PM, said:

So we agree that the CW system needs work, but don't like each other's tone. Thread over, then?

Or we can talk about ideas to improve it! That might be better.

Here are ideas I've had. (ORIGINAL IDEAS - DO NOT STEAL) (not really)

- Bring back Lone Wolf and Clan Loyalist factions. These can hop on defense for any IS(LW) or Clan(CL) world. Base pay (no faction bonus), pittance LP for whatever faction they helped, but can help anyone. Keeps the "I don't care about the map, I just wanna KILL" crew busy, getting into drops (maybe even give them a "quick drop" button that puts them on whatever eligible team is forming and has space? Maybe weighted by faction pop?), and keeps CW teams filled out.

- Find a way to make turret drops (I'm tired of "ghost" everything now) take longer and be more fun, or just count less.

- Obviously fix ceasefire windows. Russ has mentioned this is happening, no further need to discuss.
- Obviously we need "Faction Groups" to go along with Public Groups and Unit Groups. Russ has mentioned this is happening, no further need to discuss.
- Obviously we need better faction-wide communication. Built in (and opt-outtable) VoIP and faction-wide chat are the current suggestions I've heard. Both would be great. Russ is aware of our desire for these. Maybe keep poking him about these.

All good stuff but you need turret drops in some form. I hate to say it but... I'd say make them faster. Just call it a win without the drop itself. PGI isn't going to make more complex AI or challenges. They've made that clear; not until they hire the folks for a single-player of co-op aspect of the game which they've been hesitant to do.

The better option is some way to make all timezones relevant. There have been a lot of solid ideas on this from most wins in 24 hours to 30 or even 50 zones to fight over. Having 2 'crunch times'.... meh. If no other option works I guess. Had an idea bout 30 zones and once one side gets 15 wins or more it starts a 6 hour timer. Other side has 6 hours to push it under 15. If they do, it resets the next time it's 15+. This means the attacker has to keep over 50% of the world for at least 6 hours. This will likely slow the rate of worlds falling as well which isn't a bad thing.

Right now this situation with Liao being pinned to Davion is just crap. Even if you fix everything else that's going to be an issue. The entire Liao faction is functionally tied to the ebb and flow of Davion and Marik. CW isn't a 3 month event; this is years we are talking about. You think this topic is getting tired now wait until 2 years from now and still the only option Liao has is either

A) break the Marik treaty or

B ) attack Davion - I just looked at the map and did a quick count. You've got about 140 worlds you would have to take to get to the Kurita border. That is assuming you take ~140 worlds and Marik takes 0, because Marik will take about 55 and functionally cut you off from Kurita and Steiner both. So if the entire Davion population goes away and you guys turret walk the same faction and same units for almost 4 months you get....

A Kurita border. So how likely is it that you'll take 140 worlds without Davion taking a single one and Marik doesn't really take any?

See where that's going? Turret drops and timezones are issues on their own. The first is a necessity and it's our falsely placed sense of 'fair play' that makes it an issue. It's a gravity issue and we need to get past the turrets thing. Timezones is a much bigger issue and one that can be and should be resolved, which will indirectly make the whole turret walk thing less relevant because we've got the full 24 hours in a day relevant to deal with population fluctuation.

The lack of Liao borders though is going to hamstring the Liao faction in ways nothing else will and if it's not fixed then you're just ****** in the long run. Assuming the CW population grows (cross those fingers kids) that population disparity will increase, not decrease. It's a byproduct of Liao being in a ****** map position. Most the big merc groups don't care much for lore - at all. They have very big, very special epeens that need measured and swung around at other specific groups and they'll shuffle around wherever they can get measured most prominently and swung in the face of the people they want to swing them at and get their names on planets. That is 99% likely to never be Liao. Even if they want to face-**** Davion they'll go Marik or Kurita, where they have other fronts to exploit.

Liao map position functionally locks it out of the biggest units. They're going to look at the same math I put forward above and go 'pfft. We'd get more done more quickly in faction X'.

We need faction quirks and Liao needs a way to open other fronts. It needs done *fast* or the population disparity will get steeper over time and the changes needed to give Liao a balanced opportunity with the other factions will get bigger and more problematic. Fixing timezone issues is a given. It always was a given and it's a broad issue with broad appeal that everyone can agree on and as such we can expect PGI to fix that regardless. The Liao issue is more complex and specific but it knocks one full faction out of the game before it starts. It needs pushed to PGI with some sort of viable solution or they're going to put it off until Liao withers on the vine. If Marik calls truce with Davion tomorrow and suddenly Liao is losing every day again, how long will that go on before your faction just doesn't show up? Given that Liao has absolutely no where to go but through Davion, why WOULDN'T Davion keep perpetual pressure on Liao, especially with a quiet marik and Kurita border it'd be the only place to get units names on worlds. That sucks and it needs fixed now before it's too broken to be fixable.

Edited by MischiefSC, 06 January 2015 - 03:03 PM.

[Faith McCarron]

Dimento Graven, on 06 January 2015 - 08:19 AM, said:

You're an idiot and about to make it to my forum ignore list. Actually Davion had LESS numbers than all the other factions combined, not equal.

It just proves that having less numbers than your combined enemy makes things challenging.

Your incessant, shrill whining on the matter is convincing me it was stupid to agree with you that something needed to be done to affect the game so that numeric superiority wasn't the ONE SURE method of winning a territory.

Screw it, as far as you and I are concerned, the game is perfect as is, and the only reason Liao is losing because a majority of their pilots suck balls and probably should just uninstall this game and go play Team Fortress... The only way Liao has ANY chance at all is if Marik and Kurita helps them by pulling Davion forces away from Liao planets.

Now now, name calling AND crude references? Take it from me, that's 2 violations right there. Ease off on the salt, brah, it's bad for your blood pressure.

Dimento Graven, on 06 January 2015 - 08:27 AM, said:

Well, you're an idiot. Not all of us ever thought this was 'working as intended' or believed that the game would continue to function as it currently is.

OBVIOUSLY there will be some changes, PGI has said as much.

But YOU my friend have taken someone who STARTED OUT agreeing with you, that something needed to be done, and vitrioled him right into the opposite camp.

So, screw you and your whiney little Liao idiot friends, suck it up. IT IS working AS INTENDED and no changes are necessary.

Salty Davrat is salty.

Alexander Steel, on 06 January 2015 - 08:33 AM, said:

Let me answer this two ways. Would I be happy as a fan of the Davion Side? No. Would I be happy as a fan of MWO that it could happen? Yes. Do I think it's a good idea. Completely. I think it would be cool as hell if CW ran for say 4 months and at the end of that time 1 faction was all that was left and then they restarted the map back to 3048-3050. Sort of like how a Sports seasons tends to have 1 winner at the end, and the next year everything is reset and you get to try over again. Sure 30 or so teams end up not winning, but the fact that one wins is cool. Which is why I hated the College Football Bowl system.

I'm not a fan when my teams in any game lose, but I'm glad they can lose. If you can't lose, you can't really win either. Games that nobody loses and nobody wins, are boring to me.

It's very easy to take that position when you have 407,498 worlds, so it would take like 70 years for your faction to get wiped out.

[wanderer]

Quote

- Bring back Lone Wolf and Clan Loyalist factions. These can hop on defense for any IS(LW)

I can already run defense on Kurita, FRR,and Steiner worlds without complaint. I have plenty of non-Liao options I can help out with.

What would be nice is allowing Marik or Kurita (Concord mutual defense pact) defenders, Davion getting Steiner (FedCom), and the FRR getting Kurita and Steiner (friendly neighbors) alliances.

And as far as lacking borders- well, if it means I don't have to deal with Clanners? That's awesome. Marik gets the same deal, so does Davion. If that means low E-peen counts, bravo.

[MischiefSC]

wanderer, on 06 January 2015 - 04:10 PM, said:

I can already run defense on Kurita, FRR,and Steiner worlds without complaint. I have plenty of non-Liao options I can help out with.

What would be nice is allowing Marik or Kurita (Concord mutual defense pact) defenders, Davion getting Steiner (FedCom), and the FRR getting Kurita and Steiner (friendly neighbors) alliances.

And as far as lacking borders- well, if it means I don't have to deal with Clanners? That's awesome. Marik gets the same deal, so does Davion. If that means low E-peen counts, bravo.

It also means low total population and no real option to expand. It means you're locked in a box. That all you want? Just... hang out in the corner, no real expansion, no real change? Maybe go help someone else win themselves some worlds sometimes?

The problem with letting factions drop to help other factions is that PGI is strictly trying to avoid having players run Factions. This includes things like alliances. If we have them they are unofficial and unenforceable. I like the idea - I'm just not sure if it will see any play.

[Alexander Steel]

Quote

It's very easy to take that position when you have 407,498 worlds, so it would take like 70 years for your faction to get wiped out.

Really? If I flip my unit tag to Liao or one of the clans ((they have fewer worlds!)) suddenly my words are more believable? Really?

[wanderer]

MischiefSC, on 06 January 2015 - 04:48 PM, said:

It also means low total population and no real option to expand. It means you're locked in a box. That all you want? Just... hang out in the corner, no real expansion, no real change? Maybe go help someone else win themselves some worlds sometimes?

The problem with letting factions drop to help other factions is that PGI is strictly trying to avoid having players run Factions. This includes things like alliances. If we have them they are unofficial and unenforceable. I like the idea - I'm just not sure if it will see any play.

You do realize we already CAN drop to help other factions, right?

This actually limits it to more reasonable levels.

Liao-Marik-Kurita. Steiner-Davion. Steiner-Kurita-FRR. We get two alliances with a third composed of members of each allied with a unique faction, with Clanners gonna Clan.

As it is, I can go fight on a Steiner world- something that in the game fluff would cause the Lyrans to jettison bricks from their fancy pants.

Alexander Steel, on 06 January 2015 - 08:08 PM, said:

Really? If I flip my unit tag to Liao or one of the clans ((they have fewer worlds!)) suddenly my words are more believable? Really?

Actually, after Justin Allard....naaah.

We do find it hilarious that Fedrats love to come to the Liao forum to jaw about things, though. It's a good indicator on how overpopulated they are that they even feel the need to invade our forum to flex their mistaken "manifest destiny".

[Vas79]

We lost No Return to a ghost drop just as cease fire started tonight.

[Ace Kaller]

Yep, we watched the ghost drops flip it the last 10 minutes here or so.

[Vas79]

We dropped our last match on it 1 minute before cease fire started, when we came out we saw a 12 man attacker still in match, that was the deciding match for the planet.

We lost our match and therefore the planet, if we had countered their zerg better we may have prevented the flip.

Edited by Vas79, 06 January 2015 - 09:00 PM.

[MischiefSC]

wanderer, on 06 January 2015 - 08:28 PM, said:

You do realize we already CAN drop to help other factions, right?

This actually limits it to more reasonable levels.

Liao-Marik-Kurita. Steiner-Davion. Steiner-Kurita-FRR. We get two alliances with a third composed of members of each allied with a unique faction, with Clanners gonna Clan.

As it is, I can go fight on a Steiner world- something that in the game fluff would cause the Lyrans to jettison bricks from their fancy pants.


Actually, after Justin Allard....naaah.

We do find it hilarious that Fedrats love to come to the Liao forum to jaw about things, though. It's a good indicator on how overpopulated they are that they even feel the need to invade our forum to flex their mistaken "manifest destiny".

I'm 100% onboard with pre-established alliances to allow cross border drops for specific factions - the problem is that PGI has already said they don't want official alliances and such. I'm game with the idea and it helps blend populations to balance them out; not a bad thing.

However it still leaves Liao with only 2 options. Attack Marik or attack Davion.

[Verenix]

Know what's funny? Its really MischiefSC that's causing the grief in this topic. Living up to your name? with you continuously posting...it makes whatever you say obsolete. Do you like repeating yourself?...because it seems like it.

This topic was made to show PGI that Liao is getting ghost dropped. Driftwood collected meaningful data that shows the numbers right before ceasefire.

Now because of you and other Davions, this topic has lost its original meaning. You're so bored of ghost dropping us that you're going to grief us on our own forums?

This topic wasn't for discussion on how to make CW balanced, or how to fix ghost drops, or how to fix the uneven populations within the houses.....it was simply to show the overall liao CW data.....

Just get out man, after 9 pages I think everyone can agree they've read enough of your crap....

[MischiefSC]

Verenix, on 06 January 2015 - 09:41 PM, said:

Know what's funny? Its really MischiefSC that's causing the grief in this topic. Living up to your name? with you continuously posting...it makes whatever you say obsolete. Do you like repeating yourself?...because it seems like it.

This topic was made to show PGI that Liao is getting ghost dropped. Driftwood collected meaningful data that shows the numbers right before ceasefire.

Now because of you and other Davions, this topic has lost its original meaning. You're so bored of ghost dropping us that you're going to grief us on our own forums?

This topic wasn't for discussion on how to make CW balanced, or how to fix ghost drops, or how to fix the uneven populations within the houses.....it was simply to show the overall liao CW data.....

Just get out man, after 9 pages I think everyone can agree they've read enough of your crap....

Actually we covered that earlier. If what you want is a thread where you can pretend that PGI doesn't actually have the data, only the real stuff and not anecdotal screencaps, good luck with that. Maybe you want a thread to hand-wring and say how the whole system is stacked against you and only you and that's just THE MAN KEEPING YOU DOWN, which, again, good luck with that.

There have been a lot of useful ideas put forward here. If you want to pretend that it's actually all just ghost drops beating Liao, who otherwise win every match and never actually win a drop by ghost drops you're going to find that it's going to get called out as BS. Which it is. Absolute, complete and total BS. Every faction has ghost drops for them and against them and they account for ~3% of total drops. How they work (they can't happen with 36+ people in queue on the other side for example) has already been explained.

The problem isn't ghost drops. A single NA ceasefire? Serious problem. Liao having only 2 borders? Big issue. Ghost drops? 97 matches play, 3 of the ghost drops, the idea that those 3 drops were what swayed it and not the other 97? Couldn't have been 1 of those, right?

Can the mechanic for ghost drops change? Sure. Longer timeframe for them? Not a bad idea. They have to exist and everyone on every side of every conflict, every single faction, deals with them. We just don't have reams of whinging on about it, because we recognize it for what it is and how minimal its overall impact is. The mentality of 'PGI can't possibly understand THE STRUGGLES OF MY NOBLE PEOPLES' like somehow they haven't already address the actual metrics of ghost drops already, weeks ago.

Read back. Plenty of useful posts in this thread. Discussions on the actual problematic metrics and issues. Also I think Alex has more posts here than me but it could be close.

Also, look at my last post, responding to Wanderer. Discussing actually, you know. useful stuff. The original topic was wrong and a bit silly. That people turned that into something useful is far from wasted time.

[Dimento Graven]

Verenix, on 06 January 2015 - 09:41 PM, said:

...

This topic was made to show PGI that Liao is getting ghost dropped. Driftwood collected meaningful data that shows the numbers right before ceasefire.

...

Yeah so does EVERY OTHER FACTION...

[Kjudoon]

Dimento Graven, on 06 January 2015 - 10:15 PM, said:

Yeah so does EVERY OTHER FACTION...

And this is why it needs to be fixed so Ghost Drops do not count or are rendered nearly worthless. They are pretty much the only way to win now.

As for much of the rest I'll let the Bard Collins sum it up.

Edited by Kjudoon, 06 January 2015 - 10:42 PM.

[Dimento Graven]

Kjudoon, on 06 January 2015 - 10:35 PM, said:

And this is why it needs to be fixed so Ghost Drops do not count or are rendered nearly worthless. They are pretty much the only way to win now.

Again, I think we agree just differ in the extremity of the change necessary to fix it.

Turret runs, when they happen, shouldn't be as quick, or easy as they currently are.

Yes, they SHOULD still count against a faction when they occur, as punishment for not organizing themselves appropriately and/or a lack of recruitment, HOWEVER, it shouldn't be a defacto auto-win either.

Take No Return for example. My unit was one of the ones dropping against a Marik planet at the time, after we actually WON our match, we came out into the Cease Fire and found No Return had one more active unit with no defenders on it.

Had the turret run been modified so that there was an EXTREME amount of active turrets to get through, there could have been at least a 50/50 chance that Liao could have kept the planet.

As it currently is, a turret run is an automatic win, and really, that's just kind of silly. The win should be more meaningful than "We showed up and blew up some generators in under 5 minutes." Had there been ANY OTHER turret runs on No Return that had followed the model I suggested, where it requires significant work and upwards of 30 minutes to complete, No Return would have had LESS potential turret runs occur against it, and maybe Liao would have held on to it... Though Liao would have also had to have not lost that last match to my unit either...

[MischiefSC]

Dimento Graven, on 06 January 2015 - 11:43 PM, said:

Again, I think we agree just differ in the extremity of the change necessary to fix it.

Turret runs, when they happen, shouldn't be as quick, or easy as they currently are.

Yes, they SHOULD still count against a faction when they occur, as punishment for not organizing themselves appropriately and/or a lack of recruitment, HOWEVER, it shouldn't be a defacto auto-win either.

Take No Return for example. My unit was one of the ones dropping against a Marik planet at the time, after we actually WON our match, we came out into the Cease Fire and found No Return had one more active unit with no defenders on it.

Had the turret run been modified so that there was an EXTREME amount of active turrets to get through, there could have been at least a 50/50 chance that Liao could have kept the planet.

As it currently is, a turret run is an automatic win, and really, that's just kind of silly. The win should be more meaningful than "We showed up and blew up some generators in under 5 minutes." Had there been ANY OTHER turret runs on No Return that had followed the model I suggested, where it requires significant work and upwards of 30 minutes to complete, No Return would have had LESS potential turret runs occur against it, and maybe Liao would have held on to it... Though Liao would have also had to have not lost that last match to my unit either...

Not to mention that there were ghost drop wins on the world lost to Liao, and Marik.

Which I don't consider terrible - I'd rather see worlds change far more slowly and take more overall invested time. I wouldn't say the best solution is changing turret drops - better to make it a chnage overall in how worlds are flipped.