The basic problem:
A group that can field more 12-man units on a specific target where the opposition cannot put up enough defenders to counter all the attackers will get nice-and-easy ‘ghost drops’ and be able to take the planet easily. In real life, that’s just the way things go – superior numbers often turn the tide of battle, in a game – that just causes people to switch factions and the disadvantaged faction to eventually be a ghost-town. I have seen this in many PvP based games – one faction eventually becomes devoid of all but the most hard-core players. In each of the games where this has happened game-play for all sides eventually degraded to the point where PvP was stagnant or non-existent. Usually some radical balancing mechanic had to be employed that completely threw off the game for years. As i stated above, this dynamic, when expressed to its fullest, will eventually result in one or two factions having all the population and they will only ever be able to fight each other as all the other factions have little to no population. Is that going to be fun?
How this pertains to MWO:
Regardless of if we like it; certain factions will have more appeal to the general game population than others. Be that because of technology (clans tech vs is tech) or based on lore (Can anyone deny that the Ghost bear’s legacy intro video is anything but uber cool?) In the FRR, in particular, we have already seen many people opting to switch over to a ‘winning’ faction. Regardless of the actual balance in the games (technology wise) you will have people jump-ship if they perceive that there is some advantage to be gained by jumping ship.
Likewise, I have seen, on many many many occasions, where larger units have swamped a planet with attackers and ghost-dropped their way to swapping a planet over in the last hour or two of an attack cycle. Granted, and I say this again, in the real world numbers are often the deciding factor in battles, but I say that it’s a game and we must balance reality with good game-play. Let’s face it stompy-stompy robots with giant lasers and pew-pew-dakka-dakka are fictional.
My suggestion for changes:
When the system is planning out which attack routes a faction gets, it balances the NUMBER of attack-able squares based on the population of that faction. Currently there are 15 attack zones per planet, regardless of population. I suggest that that number be increased or decreased based on the population of the faction that is getting the attack. A faction with a very high population may have the planets they attack have 23 attack zones while factions with very low populations may have planets with 9 attack zones. I would require PGI to dynamically adjust the attack zones on each planet after the attack phase ends and when attack routes are calculated.
What will this affect?
First, it will make it slightly harder for a larger population base to take a planet – rather than holding 8 of the 15 zones on a planet, they may have to hold 12 of 23 zones and conversely, a very small population faction may only have to hold 5 of 9 zones.
Second, and the biggest effect, would be on factions that receive a big influx of merc units during an attack phase. I’ll pick on –MS- right now for this because –MS- has highlighted this weakness. –MS- can bring a large number of 12-man groups to a battle and significantly alter the attack population of a faction (overwhelm a faction). In essence, the game can be held hostage to –MS- whim. If an even bigger cooperative were to develop, which it most likely will with the current mechanic, the problem would be even worse. What balancing based on population would initially do is reduce the effect of this mercenary influx on planetary battles. Longer-term it would provide a means where lower-population factions would still have a chance to have some effect on game-play.
Countering Arguments:
Now, for those of you who would retort that its more realistic for a larger population to affect a battle let me add these points to show you how you can’t crutch on the ‘real world’ argument by showing you ways that the game bypasses reality (i.e. the game is not real world). I do this in the hopes that you will realize that this is a game and one of the most important aspects of a game is balancing.
- There are huge logistics involved in setting up battles including finding available supplies. In history mercenary units have always bore the brunt of these issues making them less effective in large-scale operations. The larger the mercenary group you try to field, the faster these issues grow (the game deals with none of this – when have you had an LRM ammo or food shortage?). Merc units typically become less effective the more you use -- in the real world.
- These are canned battles, not real. Taking a planet involves more than taking out 15 installations. Planets are HUGE. Taking one would take months, if not years of constant battle. (we just get to fight in little sandboxes that really have no value) For example, think how small Vietnam or Afghanistan were and how difficult it was to battle in those places– now think of an entire planet.
- The game does not take into account travel time to planets – flying many light years, according to what I recall from the game lore, would take quite a bit of time. (you get to click and go without regard for where you mechs were in the previous phase)
- Units that have just completed a large-scale battle and they would need significant time to repair, reload and rest the unit before attacking – we don’t do that in MWO. (In game we just get to click ready and all the dents are instantly buffed out and arms magically reattached)
In Conclusion:
We should all recognize that this is a game. We should all recognize that ensuring that players at least feel like they have a chance of succeeding is important. We should recognize that population imbalance is inevitable and that will affect the quality of game play. We should make allowances to make it a little easier for lower-population factions to actively participate in CW by making their attacks on worlds a little easier and attacks against them a little harder. In my opinion, it is going to be necessary to proactively put something in place to balance population imbalance before we go to Steam.
P.S.
I doubt mechs will ever be balanced. So long as revenue is generated by new mechs, there has to be some reason to get them and usually (and most easily) that is achieved by making them slightly better in some way.
Edited by nehebkau, 13 March 2015 - 10:20 AM.