480 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

Mystere, on 21 January 2015 - 10:29 PM, said:

But isn't that what some people here actually want, direct control of other people's in-game actions?




19 pages say otherwise.

The 19 pages are discussing options and expressing opinions. It's not really about this one group in this one situation but more about what CW is supposed to be - is it supposed to be 10 team deathmatch or setting MW:O in the larger battletech universe, faction vs faction warfare? How deep is it supposed to be? That's a relevant topic.

I don't see players ever controlling factions. As I said before, carrots to motivate merc units would be great. Sticks would be terrible.

[HARDKOR]

TripleEhBeef, on 20 January 2015 - 09:30 PM, said:

Didn't we have a rogue Steiner unit come at us during the Christmas Ceasefire?

No, that was us. We're legit, but we're pirate, so if you make rules, we break them.

[Vlad Ward]

MischiefSC, on 21 January 2015 - 10:37 PM, said:

I don't see players ever controlling factions. As I said before, carrots to motivate merc units would be great. Sticks would be terrible.

See, here's the thing though, you've been bringing up this idea of IS factions donating money to the coffers to be used to pay mercs, right? But what kind of numbers do you think good Mercs will charge?

I want to give you an example. As a unit of around ~20 active members, in the past week playing under Clan Smoke Jaguar our players have collectively earned around 400,000,000 c-bills from CW. We threw 100,000,000 into our unit coffer, and spent the rest buying and moduling out Clan Mechs since half our guys literally started in Clan trials.

This is the earnings potential of a relatively tiny, extremely rusty unit over the course of one week. What the heck kind of payroll are you going to need to provide meaningful incentives to multiple larger units over longer time periods?

Edited by Vlad Ward, 21 January 2015 - 10:54 PM.

[HARDKOR]

How are you taking unit coffers to buy mechs for your noobs?

[Vlad Ward]

HARDKOR, on 21 January 2015 - 10:53 PM, said:

How are you taking unit coffers to buy mechs for your noobs?

No. We're not. I mean we earned various amounts of c-bills individually, totaling to around 400m. I earned around 50m myself, some guys made more, guys in trials made less, etc. It's a rough estimate of total earnings based on match scores and how often we've been playing. The guys in trials used their money to buy mechs, the guys with clan mechs threw some into the bank.

Edited by Vlad Ward, 21 January 2015 - 10:59 PM.

[Davers]

Vlad Ward, on 21 January 2015 - 10:58 PM, said:

No. We're not. I mean we earned various amounts of c-bills individually, totaling to around 400m. I earned around 50m myself, some guys made more, guys in trials made less, etc. It's a rough estimate of total earnings based on match scores and how often we've been playing. The guys in trials used their money to buy mechs, the guys with clan mechs threw some into the bank.

And they say CW doesn't pay....

[Vlad Ward]

Davers, on 21 January 2015 - 11:05 PM, said:

And they say CW doesn't pay....

Smoke Jags so stacked right now. Such money. Much wins.

[dervishx5]

Yeah, those baby seals wont club themselves.

[MischiefSC]

Vlad Ward, on 21 January 2015 - 10:51 PM, said:

See, here's the thing though, you've been bringing up this idea of IS factions donating money to the coffers to be used to pay mercs, right? But what kind of numbers do you think good Mercs will charge?

I want to give you an example. As a unit of around ~20 active members, in the past week playing under Clan Smoke Jaguar our players have collectively earned around 400,000,000 c-bills from CW. We threw 100,000,000 into our unit coffer, and spent the rest buying and moduling out Clan Mechs since half our guys literally started in Clan trials.

This is the earnings potential of a relatively tiny, extremely rusty unit over the course of one week. What the heck kind of payroll are you going to need to provide meaningful incentives to multiple larger units over longer time periods?

Loyalty points, faction perks mostly. Cbills are nice but giving Faction loyalists units a % bonus to give to mercs for example? A lot of things can be worked out.

[Alexander Steel]

Vlad Ward, on 21 January 2015 - 10:51 PM, said:

See, here's the thing though, you've been bringing up this idea of IS factions donating money to the coffers to be used to pay mercs, right? But what kind of numbers do you think good Mercs will charge?

I want to give you an example. As a unit of around ~20 active members, in the past week playing under Clan Smoke Jaguar our players have collectively earned around 400,000,000 c-bills from CW. We threw 100,000,000 into our unit coffer, and spent the rest buying and moduling out Clan Mechs since half our guys literally started in Clan trials.

This is the earnings potential of a relatively tiny, extremely rusty unit over the course of one week. What the heck kind of payroll are you going to need to provide meaningful incentives to multiple larger units over longer time periods?

Faction loyalists who want the ability to direct the way the game plays have suggested several times in this thread that they are the majority. If your tiny unit of mercs can make 400 Million, the loyalists would be making many many many times that. So yeah the numbers are going to be "huge".

[MischiefSC]

Alexander Steel, on 22 January 2015 - 12:03 AM, said:

Faction loyalists who want the ability to direct the way the game plays have suggested several times in this thread that they are the majority. If your tiny unit of mercs can make 400 Million, the loyalists would be making many many many times that. So yeah the numbers are going to be "huge".

Don't want to brag but... 400 million for a whole unit in a couple of weeks isn't a lot of scratch. That's, what, 100 matches? I have more than 10 most days of the week. A unit with 30-100 members... is making a lot more than that every week. Plus, you know. Additional perks for loyalists to make up for their 1/10th the total rewards available for LP gain among every faction.

[Vlad Ward]

MischiefSC, on 21 January 2015 - 11:54 PM, said:

Loyalty points, faction perks mostly. Cbills are nice but giving Faction loyalists units a % bonus to give to mercs for example? A lot of things can be worked out.

MischiefSC, on 22 January 2015 - 12:06 AM, said:

Don't want to brag but... 400 million for a whole unit in a couple of weeks isn't a lot of scratch. That's, what, 100 matches? I have more than 10 most days of the week. A unit with 30-100 members... is making a lot more than that every week. Plus, you know. Additional perks for loyalists to make up for their 1/10th the total rewards available for LP gain among every faction.

Well, PGI has already said straight up that no units will be getting total control over a faction, so I highly doubt there will be a fair way to decide who gets to assign LP bonuses to other units. I'm thinking strictly in terms of one unit removing money from their coffer to be given to members of another unit, or added to another unit's coffer.

It's true that a unit the size of HHOD or RRB can probably grind enough money in a week to have 400m to spare, but what will that get them? A week of the services of a mid-range 20-man unit? What kind of money will it take to buy the services of larger, stronger merc groups? What about a behemoth like MercStar? They probably gross billions of c-bills a week. Will 400m split among all of their members mean anything to them?

Unless PGI gives faction units access to some sort of "House Bank" to pay units from, which I really hope they don't do for obvious reasons, Faction units can't afford Mercs.

[MischiefSC]

Vlad Ward, on 22 January 2015 - 12:28 AM, said:

Well, PGI has already said straight up that no units will be getting total control over a faction, so I highly doubt there will be a fair way to decide who gets to assign LP bonuses to other units. I'm thinking strictly in terms of one unit removing money from their coffer to be given to members of another unit, or added to another unit's coffer.

It's true that a unit the size of HHOD or RRB can probably grind enough money in a week to have 400m to spare, but what will that get them? A week of the services of a mid-range 20-man unit? What kind of money will it take to buy the services of larger, stronger merc groups? What about a behemoth like MercStar? They probably gross billions of c-bills a week. Will 400m split among all of their members mean anything to them?

Unless PGI gives faction units access to some sort of "House Bank" to pay units from, which I really hope they don't do for obvious reasons, Faction units can't afford Mercs.

There will be perks for Faction Units, the original idea is that they would generally be the ones hiring mercs for their factions.

That's the tradeoff - Faction Units get some perks and some carrots to offer merc units, merc units get to grind LP in various houses and Clans. Otherwise House Units are just units that get 1/10th the total rewards of mercs in return for.... the opportunity to get 1/10th the rewards.

[Joseph Mallan]

WarZ, on 21 January 2015 - 12:21 PM, said:

Which basically does not even remotely answer my question to you Aside from stating what you "want"

I don't have a concrete answer. I want there to be Someone in charge of the factions. So that if some players are breaking with the "spirit" of teh game, they can be given a warning and/or removed from the faction.

How it is done... I'm not really worrying about, other than it should not be a player or group of players. There needs to be someone "In charge" of teh forces. Otherwise it will just be a bunch of what we are already doing, and that... I have done for 3 years now.

[Budor]

Someone played the game on another account, big deal. Why is this thread still alive

[Joseph Mallan]

cause ...reasons.

[Grynos]

Kriwan, on 21 January 2015 - 09:43 PM, said:

That's exactly why this alt is on Liao, figured you all needed help.

Bring some friends as well, Liao's money is very green and does not discriminate.

Vlad Ward, on 22 January 2015 - 12:28 AM, said:

Unless PGI gives faction units access to some sort of "House Bank" to pay units from, which I really hope they don't do for obvious reasons, Faction units can't afford Mercs.

Here's the way I look at it.. PGI can be the only one who should give monetary bonuses for factions. In no way should the player base of any faction be able to "buy" the contract services of Merc units.. PGI has to have a way to try to "balance" out the factions/clans per say, without actually putting population caps on factions/clans. The easiest way to do that is by giving bonuses to the lower population factions/clans to sway people to those factions/clans. In the future they could also give other incentives or bonuses, for loyalists as well as for Merc units if they join certain factions/clans... It is basically a passive way to produce movement in populations without hard population caps.

Giving the player base the ability to buy Merc services would directly go against the reason why PGI has it setup. Think about it, if a very populated unit in a faction can farm up enough money to pay mercs, how is the underpopulated faction unit going to be able to compete?? It's not..

[Joseph Mallan]

Grynos, on 22 January 2015 - 03:32 AM, said:

Bring some friends as well, Liao's money is very green and does not discriminate.





Here's the way I look at it.. PGI can be the only one who should give monetary bonuses for factions. In no way should the player base of any faction be able to "buy" the contract services of Merc units.. PGI has to have a way to try to "balance" out the factions/clans per say, without actually putting population caps on factions/clans. The easiest way to do that is by giving bonuses to the lower population factions/clans to sway people to those factions/clans. In the future they could also give other incentives or bonuses, for loyalists as well as for Merc units if they join certain factions/clans... It is basically a passive way to produce movement in populations without hard population caps.

Giving the player base the ability to buy Merc services would directly go against the reason why PGI has it setup. Think about it, if a very populated unit in a faction can farm up enough money to pay mercs, how is the underpopulated faction unit going to be able to compete?? It's not..

I'm look at this right now. Its an interesting situation? I see what you are saying are the fail points, but also see where it could be interesting. I'll work it through and see what I come up with, that could "balance" a wealthy Unit hiring another Merc Corp.

[Alexander Steel]

Quote

Otherwise House Units are just units that get 1/10th the total rewards of mercs in return for.... the opportunity to get 1/10th the rewards.

I'm not sure this is a problem. If for example I choose only to play 1 variant out of 3, should the game reward me for being a Mech Loyalist and give me added perks and benefits that make up for the 2nd and 3rd tier of mech specialties that a non-loyalist can get? Or if I only play Clan mechs and never touch an IS mech, should I get some special reward for choosing to not take advantage of the rest of the game's content. What about if I only play Assault Matches?

I could understand the argument that Loyalists should get something if the game forced you to be a loyalist, but it doesn't. It's a choice. That said, it really doesn't matter what my opinion is, Russ and company seem like they are inclined to give loyalists something.

[Grynos]

Alexander Steel, on 22 January 2015 - 04:17 AM, said:

I'm not sure this is a problem. If for example I choose only to play 1 variant out of 3, should the game reward me for being a Mech Loyalist and give me added perks and benefits that make up for the 2nd and 3rd tier of mech specialties that a non-loyalist can get? Or if I only play Clan mechs and never touch an IS mech, should I get some special reward for choosing to not take advantage of the rest of the game's content. What about if I only play Assault Matches?

I could understand the argument that Loyalists should get something if the game forced you to be a loyalist, but it doesn't. It's a choice. That said, it really doesn't matter what my opinion is, Russ and company seem like they are inclined to give loyalists something.

Here is what I understand to be the logic for it... Merc Units could hypothetically receive ( although very unlikely ) all the rewards from every faction in the game. Now if you are a loyalist, after you get your level 20, as it stands right now , you would get nothing, which means you would either have to switch to a different faction or gain LP that goes nowhere.

Now there are a couple of ways PGI could handle this. One, is by making a lone wolf/ Merc faction, that way everyone would get the same thing, the only difference would be the lone wolfs / Merc units could fight on any front. The second way is by giving those who are loyalists, a blind reset after finishing level 20.. ( think like prestige mode in CoD ) They would still have the maximum title and all the rewards along the way, but then it would cycle all over again.