480 replies to this topic

[Dimento Graven]

Martis Gradivus, on 21 January 2015 - 03:03 PM, said:

Demento, I am confused. You claim they ghost dropped and delayed you in the end, but they seem to say they fought some of your better 12 mans in multiple matches......CI, SRoT and -MS- I think he mentionned......

So what is it? Defended drops, unopposed drops. Who lies, who tells truth.

You are right, you ARE confused, I never claimed they did squat to me.

My being a Davion, it was impossible for them to do anything but muck up an alliance between Davion, my current chosen faction, and Steiner, the faction that owned the planet they were attacking.

From what I observed they were running turret drops to about 80% before some Steiner unit decided to try and undo the damage. Of course that was closer to the cease fire period and as far as I could tell from what I observed and was reported to me they did nothing but played as much of a delaying game as possible to keep that Steiner unit tied up.

Quote

PGI is laughing it up now.....maybe they are the rogue unit? That'd be hilarious.

No, I'm pretty sure some of the people posting in this very thread own those throw away accounts, hence the self-serving nature of a lot of the arguments.

[Harathan]

This:

Krivvan, on 21 January 2015 - 04:12 PM, said:

As far as I'm concerned, until there is a system in game for faction politics, all of what "community" means is that everyone is out to make their own faction the greatest.

And this:

Krivvan, on 21 January 2015 - 04:12 PM, said:

If there are unofficial NAPs between units, then sure, but they are unenforceable on anyone else.

are mutually exclusive, because of this:

MischiefSC, on 21 January 2015 - 04:12 PM, said:

Then why have factions or a BT map? Why not just make teams colors, make it a 12 slice wheel and let whatever unit wants to take whatever mech take it? Indeed; since your own faction is largely irrelevant why have CW at all? Just put the Invasion game mode in group/pug queue and have a counter board with wins by whatever 'faction' logo you pick.

There's a massive difference between warfare between factions and having a FFA deathmatch with different colored teams. I'd understood CW as planned as the former and not the later.

Edited by Harathan, 21 January 2015 - 04:16 PM.

[Krivvan]

MischiefSC, on 21 January 2015 - 04:12 PM, said:

There's a massive difference between warfare between factions and having a FFA deathmatch with different colored teams. I'd understood CW as planned as the former and not the later.

I understood this version of CW to be a team deathmatch with 10 teams out to get each other, with an option to help one half of the teams with defending against the other.

[Dimento Graven]

wanderer, on 21 January 2015 - 03:27 PM, said:

...

He who throws the most bodies at a planet wins, after all- and clearly, someone's kenned the numbers game behind CW.

OMG you're still not butthurt, crying about that are you?

[Davers]

MischiefSC, on 21 January 2015 - 04:12 PM, said:

Then why have factions or a BT map? Why not just make teams colors, make it a 12 slice wheel and let whatever unit wants to take whatever mech take it? Indeed; since your own faction is largely irrelevant why have CW at all? Just put the Invasion game mode in group/pug queue and have a counter board with wins by whatever 'faction' logo you pick.

There's a massive difference between warfare between factions and having a FFA deathmatch with different colored teams. I'd understood CW as planned as the former and not the later.

We do have factions with colours. Yours are red and gold. Steiner is blue. You guys are not in the same faction. You might as well be asking "What can PGI do to ensure that Davion attacks Steiner". PGI wants you to, or they wouldn't reward you for doing it.

[Dimento Graven]

digiwaffles, on 21 January 2015 - 04:07 PM, said:

Any tactic is valid against House Davion.

LOL! Well it's understandable your perspective...

[Krivvan]

Harathan, on 21 January 2015 - 04:14 PM, said:

This:
And this:
are mutually exclusive.

I don't see why. Factions are out to make themselves the greatest and that means taking territory from every other faction in the game. Maybe my primary account has switched between multiple factions and the factions I've been on have had no such politicking in them, at least none that I've been aware of.

Steiner attacking Davion and Davion attacking Steiner is 100% fair game. That's all there is to it.

Edited by Krivvan, 21 January 2015 - 04:18 PM.

[Dimento Graven]

RG Notch, on 21 January 2015 - 04:11 PM, said:

How is PGI going to stop alt accounts?

An extremely poignant question to be honest...

[RG Notch]

Dimento Graven, on 21 January 2015 - 04:18 PM, said:

An extremely poignant question to be honest...

There have been a number of important questions asked but few answers provided by those who want more control over other players actions. In addition to how to stop alts, how to choose who's in charge, how to sanction people who don't go along, etc. It's all well and good to identify the problem from your perspective but without concrete ideas to deal with these issues it's not very useful.

[MischiefSC]

Krivvan, on 21 January 2015 - 04:14 PM, said:

I understood this version of CW to be a team deathmatch with 10 teams out to get each other, with an option to help one half of the teams with defending against the other.

Except for Loyalist vs Mercs, merc contracts, loyalist hiring mercs, etc. Without some sort of functionality for factions to act like cohesive factions all you've got is another layer of matchmaker that tries to match what faction color you picked for the teams.

Again, defeats the whole point of having faction warfare. We had weekend challenges as complex as what you're describing - just without matching factions on the same side. So what you're seeing for CW is just... that weekend faction challenge made permanent and matching faction units with each other and a pretty background map?

If that's all there is to MW:Os 'Community Warfare' then stick a fork in it. WoT is more complex than that.

I'm not in favor of players running factions but there needs to be a bit more depth than just a 10 color team FFA. That would be pitiful and pointless.

[Vlad Ward]

MischiefSC, on 21 January 2015 - 04:12 PM, said:

There's a massive difference between warfare between factions and having a FFA deathmatch with different colored teams. I'd understood CW as planned as the former and not the later.

I was under the impression that CW would involve Merc factions owning their own periphery territories and units requiring ~150 million c-bills to found. Is this what we have now? Nope. Does this bother me? Eh, I'm over it. Am I having fun in the existing environment? Yes.

Are you? This is the most important question. I'm not talking about some hypothetical CW we may or may not get in the future, or some idealized version of what we have now. Do you enjoy the game in its current state - rogue units and all? That's all that really matters. If people don't, PGI will fix it. If people do, well, I'm sure PGI will fix that too.

[Lukoi Banacek]

I'm all for faction warfare myself but until we have it, we have this.

As to the question of what is PGI to do to stop alt-accounts....why do they have to?

I do not see them having a problem.

[RG Notch]

Lukoi Banacek, on 21 January 2015 - 04:24 PM, said:

I'm all for faction warfare myself but until we have it, we have this.

As to the question of what is PGI to do to stop alt-accounts....why do they have to?

I do not see them having a problem.

I don't see a problem either, I'm just curious for those who do view it as a problem how they expect PGI to stop it.

[Dimento Graven]

RG Notch, on 21 January 2015 - 04:21 PM, said:

There have been a number of important questions asked but few answers provided by those who want more control over other players actions.

Some have had suggestions, others didn't need them.

Quote

In addition to how to stop alts,

Unanswered.

Quote

how to choose who's in charge,

No answer needed, it's already been worked out, the largest of the units for each faction are communicating with each other and are more or less functioning as a circle of peers directing how the largest and most commonly active players will direct their efforts. It has grown, 'organically', and for the most part functions well.

Quote

how to sanction people who don't go along,

Definitely unanswered and needs to have some facilitation somewhere as that's the primary point. Had Davion been able to spank the faux Davions directly, the problem probably would have been resolved before it ever got to this point. As it is, we're missing that functionality.

Quote

It's all well and good to identify the problem from your perspective but without concrete ideas to deal with these issues it's not very useful.

Not true, once you identify what the problems are you can start working on the solutions. Up to this point I don't believe people identified, specifically, the problem of people creating throw away accounts just to troll an entire faction...

[MischiefSC]

RG Notch, on 21 January 2015 - 04:21 PM, said:

There have been a number of important questions asked but few answers provided by those who want more control over other players actions. In addition to how to stop alts, how to choose who's in charge, how to sanction people who don't go along, etc. It's all well and good to identify the problem from your perspective but without concrete ideas to deal with these issues it's not very useful.

I've got no issue with alt accounts - there isn't a fix that isn't far more trouble than it's likely to save and you're just going to create a system that's easy to abuse. Besides; it's a stupid idea to do. If some Clanner faction wanted to invest the time and resources building up IS accounts to smurf and attack Steiner in order to draw off Steiner units from the Clan front.... they could just drop in Clan mechs and tie up the exact same Steiner unit for the same amount of time with less effort and their wins actually would benefit their own faction.

Smurfing accounts is a stupid idea that is inherently self-defeating and self-punishing. Not too worried about it.

I would like to see more tools for factions to organize internally and create/maintain some sort of command structure, House Loyalist units having resources to offer merc units being a great example. I'm against giving players sticks but carrots is just fine for moving things along. Having your unit have an advantage to having its name on a planet adds another perk; if you're not a valued member of your faction they're not going to help protect your world, better to let it fall then retake it.

There's indirect tools for letting factions self-police and self-organize and those rewards are as inherent as playing in a 12man vs pugging. Coordination works and it wins.

If CW is just a FFA team deathmatch though with players functionally encouraged to just hop groups, collect rewards from LP and move on it is a system inherently designed to make players not care about it. In the long run that's terrible. You get players invested in their factions and units and the politics thus created and you tie them to the game long term. That's been a tool of successful game design for a long time.

[Koniving]

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

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

All I can think of as I read that and the Davion attacking Steiner tidbits is....
Black, unmarked Battlemechs (fighters) being used to attack units. (Wing Commander IV reference).

Or unmarked units in Front Mission.

Spoiler

The scenario. A combined German Blauer Nabel (a Wanzer special forces unit) and Zaftra (Russian) force attacks a German base in order to stir suspicions and chaos. Seen here.

Unmarked units were used.

Shortly after the attack, the Blauer Nabel is deployed (in marked units) to protect the site as well as to 'supervise' the alternate Earth's equivalent of a U.N. investigation team (in this case called The Durandel).

Several further but unsuccessful attempts are made to stir Europe.

Sometime later, the unmarked forces invade and attack Poland to destroy their resource base. This in turn cripplesa huge chunk of the European Coalition's economy. Skip to 2:05.

This, combined with planted evidence, greatly raises the tensions between the E.C. and the UCN (don't ask; for some reason after a mistranslation in the original FM, every single game since then has referred to the USA as the USN or UCS in the few 'corrected' English versions, add to it that America is an empire. Go figure, eh?). The UCS, depicted as very proud and arrogant, retorts the accusations with threats of invasion.

Attempts by the Durandel to pursue the forces led them back into Germany, where immediately they are halted and engaged by the Blauer Nabel coincidentally and perfectly at the very spot they chose to cross the boarder and within incredibly short time.


Continued degradation of relations between the accusing European Coalition and the accused UCS results in the UCS invading (I call plot convenience).
Skip to 36 seconds.


Later, it turns out the Blauer Nabel are acting under the orders of a General who does not agree with the politicians of Germany, and through the assistance of Zaftra (Russia), sought some craziness. Zaftra, on the other hand, is seeking to force some distance and distrust between the UCS and the EC so that the EC will instead lift its sanctions on Zaftra and begin importing again to boost Zaftra's failing economy.

<.<; Seems CW is getting interesting.
(Edit: Been playing earlier FM titles which have the USN mistranslation; corrected with UCS).

Edited by Koniving, 21 January 2015 - 04:52 PM.

[N0MAD]

MischiefSC, on 21 January 2015 - 04:21 PM, said:

Stuff..

Bro some of us told you that CW would be, click a name on a list (planet) pug match would then take place, after a certain amount of time points would be tallied and a winner would be announced, no strategic input by the units no logistics no consequence, you, the ones saying it was the best thing since sliced bread have got what you wanted, a scenario where the computer selects planets and any tom, **** or harry can launch an attack, bahh just wasting my breath, enjoy what you have created..

[Harathan]

Krivvan, on 21 January 2015 - 04:14 PM, said:

I understood this version of CW to be a team deathmatch with 10 teams out to get each other, with an option to help one half of the teams with defending against the other.

Ok. So apparently the disconnect is here.

Some of us are playing CW the way we hope it will work; player organised communities working together for their faction, Factions existing as functional political entities, etc.

Some of us are playing CW like it's just an extra game mode, with no real interest in why it exists.

Good grief, no wonder there's so much aggro over it.

Edited by Harathan, 21 January 2015 - 04:39 PM.

[Lukoi Banacek]

DG

If units can self-police and organically grow in influence as you suggest, then there's literally not a problem here.

Frankly I agree, units who band together under a common "policy" do have the ability to influence others via their support or lack thereof.

That does not mean they deserve the right or ability to sanction those that fall out of line. That's also, as others have noted, probably not necessary anyway. False-flag operations are more likely to die on the vine due to a lack of support and no one elected or appointed anyone to be the faction police.

So...influence people as you can, but to lobby for police powers is simply conceited and self-serving in the extreme.

There's no social contract in this game. If players disagree with your outlook on where they should fight, YOU don't get to tell them where to go. We had the same misstep in CSJ. People telling or implying that Mercs could not play the way they wanted. That's BS. No one had that right within the faction.

We made our case as to why we would not support their various agendas. They were largely unmoved. There ya go. So they do what they want and we will endeavor to hold the faction together when they leave (which I believe all three will eventually).

Why is it any different for people who want to play alternate accounts, potentially because of RP reasons, or tech reasons or whatever else?

Personally, I think "voting" Mercs out of contract via an MRBC tool makes alot of sense, but not House/loyalist units, but that's a discussion for another time. Until then, folks should stop trying to tell people how to play the game.

If you cannot co-opt people into your way of thinking via influence, discussion, camaraderie etc then you just have to deal with the fact that some people want to play the game differently than you do.

FFS this is like bad balance discussions all over again.

[Krivvan]

Dimento Graven, on 21 January 2015 - 04:26 PM, said:

No answer needed, it's already been worked out, the largest of the units for each faction are communicating with each other and are more or less functioning as a circle of peers directing how the largest and most commonly active players will direct their efforts. It has grown, 'organically', and for the most part functions well.

It evidently does not function well. You're also only describing Davion.