30 replies to this topic

[Shevy]

couldn't care less about who i fight given my timezone and my playtime for CW is 2 hours after ceasefire
i just want decent matches and decent cue times

btw you get to choose who you fight based on which faction u align with

Edited by Shevy, 07 January 2015 - 09:13 PM.

[Lukestah]

I came back to MWO to check out CW and over the holidays managed to play in NA timezones (playing during the day in Australia). The CW drops were great fun and have rejuvenated this game in my opinion.

Overall CW is a great addition in terms of actual gameplay and I am sure further additional maps and attack/defend scenario objectives will evolve CW and increase the fun for organised groups and pug / solo drop players.

The strategic CW meta game is weak and in need of significant review. Taking and holding terroritory should be the outcome of player-vs-player (pvp) matches and not player-vs-environment(pve).

Currently a faction’s active player population size and more importantly time zone distribution are the biggest contributing factors for CW success in taking or holding territory. If you can play in the hours immediately leading up to the global ceasefire border adjustment you are participating in CW. Otherwise any matches outside of this time window are pointless if you are lucky to get any.

As an Australian player CW is dead in the water. Cross faction co-ordination is required to get a CW drop during our time zones. Wins and losses are meaningless and you will simply get more game play by running public matches.

It would be interesting to see some official PGI stats on faction size and time zone distribution.

Bruce Henderson wrote in 1981 that "Strategy depends upon the ability to foresee future consequences of present initiatives." He wrote that the basic requirements for strategy development include, among other factors: 1) extensive knowledge about the environment, market and competitors; 2) ability to examine this knowledge as an interactive dynamic system; and 3) the imagination and logic to choose between specific alternatives. Henderson wrote that strategy was valuable because of: "finite resources, uncertainty about an adversary's capability and intentions; the irreversible commitment of resources; necessity of coordinating action over time and distance; uncertainty about control of the initiative; and the nature of adversaries' mutual perceptions of each other.

There is no apparent strategy in CW, there is no visibility except the Inner Sphere big map and planets flashing and occassionaly changing colour. There is nothing to see or interact with except a simple queue structure. The numbers of wins/ losses / ghost drops in 3-4 hour time window immediately preceeding cease fire does not really feel epic or provide a mech warrior narrative.

Some ideas I have been mulling over on CW strategic elements;

1. CW requires a player to have a contract (either as an individual or as part of a unit)

2. For the duration of a unit's or player's contract with a faction a specific front is selected (e.g. a Davion assignment to Draconis March would mean Davion vs Kurita engagements). This should lock an organised units and pool of players into fighting on a given front (or border) for a given timeframe.

3. Each faction should have a front for each bordering faction and for IS factions that do not have an actual clan border they have a general Clan front (e.g. Davion, Marik and Liao forces assigned to fight against clan invasion even though there are no planets up for grabs)

4. Publish each faction's order of battle or table of organisation per border / front on the MWO website or in game client with a look-up facility e.g. what units available to attack and defend on what fronts, how big is the pool of players. This should allow for strategic planning finite resources, time, opportunities or weakness to be avoided / mitigated / exploited.

5. Publish each unit stats on the website or in game client. Unit data should include current contract, assigned front, and remaining duration of contract, online member count, and total member count. This should allow for more tactical planning, opportunities or weakness to be avoided / mitigated / exploited.

6. Global faction chat (e.g. /liao or /marik). To allow for those online to communicate easily (e.g. putting the call out, providing TS details for voice comms, tactical info on opposition forces / activities)

7. Adjust the Global Ceasefire mechanic to run every 8-hours. This will encourage action around the clock and across timezones.

8. Dynamically increase in game rewards (C-bills / Loyalty points) for CW activities in under populated factions and timezones to promote movement of units between factions and fronts.

Dividing active players in a faction across specific fronts and introducing a time delay between changing fronts (e.g. moving Robertson’s Rangers from protecting the Kurita border to attack the Mark front) reflects a unit's tour of duty and fits into the FASA lore where jump ships hop between stars instantaneously but spend days recharging.

Publishing stats on units and numbers of players would mimic the level of intel and analysis major powers would have on forces opposing them. This would give a good idea on the size of the market and how many resources it would require to make a major breakthrough or conduct an adequate defence.

A transparent and visible strategic view of the inner sphere with fluctuations in resources across fronts will create a more dynamic strategic game play as well as providing an emerging narrative (history on the hoof) where major offensives and counter offensives roll backwards and forwards and on a quieter front a daring cross border raid can capture a planet or the imagination.

Adjusting planet ownership multiple times I assume would be easy to achieve and may not see any major real estate exchanges but should see more people playing CW which is good for MWO as a game with a focus on community warfare.

[Davegt27]

One thing I did not like was no loyalty points for a loses

Some of my hardest battles where attacks against clan 12 man teams and because of the loses we received nothing

I think during the challenge I went 14 matched straight with no wins

Us inner sphere pugs had to comfort ourselves by saying hey we got 20 or we got 25 if we did real well

This is the only cry I can think of

They said right from the start CW is for hard core teams so I can’t do too much crying
But we sure gave it our all when fighting for some of these factions

[wanderer]

You still got C-bills, but if you got loyalty points for losses, people could get the achievements even by gleefully torpedoing games on alt accounts. Not good.

[Kirkland Langue]

As I've said elsewhere - PGI should limit the planet queues to 24 or so players. This alone would stop planet zerging. If you want to win through ghost wins - it should be possible, but it should take a long time and not just a 20 minute window when you can dump 200 people on a planet.

[Davegt27]

wanderer, on 08 January 2015 - 10:31 AM, said:

You still got C-bills, but if you got loyalty points for losses, people could get the achievements even by gleefully torpedoing games on alt accounts. Not good.

Yeah it’s not a perfect world

But I would lean toward more fun and enjoyment most people are here to have fun
So I can’t worry about the few (I hope it is few) that ruin things for other people

[Shevy]

That sounds like a decent plan making players join different queues spreading out player number instead of only 3-4 active planets

[ZenFool]

If there was an actual fight you still get loyalty points. In fact, you get many more loyalty points for fighting than for winning. Check out the third tab at the end of a battle.

[Banditman]

Do you not get loyalty points for in game actions . . . kills, etc? I could have sworn you did.

[Basilisk222]

Davegt27, on 08 January 2015 - 08:27 AM, said:

One thing I did not like was no loyalty points for a loses

Some of my hardest battles where attacks against clan 12 man teams and because of the loses we received nothing

I think during the challenge I went 14 matched straight with no wins

Us inner sphere pugs had to comfort ourselves by saying hey we got 20 or we got 25 if we did real well

This is the only cry I can think of

They said right from the start CW is for hard core teams so I can’t do too much crying
But we sure gave it our all when fighting for some of these factions

You don't earn the BONUS

You earn default 100 loyalty and I think 100K for a win, that's in addition to what you gain in the match.

I've pulled over 1K LP and 500K for a win and like 600 LP and 300K on a loss before.

The more I read it, I think you're thinking your Match score is your LP gained, it is most definitely not, at the end there's a loyalty points tab to the far right to see what you got. Along with the bonuses to money for component destruction etc, you get LP for those actions too.

Edited by Kilgorin Strom, 09 January 2015 - 06:16 AM.

[Banditman]

Thank you for the clarification. I thought I'd seen LP in losses, just wasn't 100% sure.