47 replies to this topic

[Banditman]

The simple solution to one-sidedness is, as usual, the stick and the carrot.

Less populated factions get bonuses to Cbills on their contracts. More populated factions have contract values cut, even down to negatives. Yes, negatives! Perhaps taking a permanent contract should insulate you from these hits, so if you're really determined to play a faction, you can do so.

Assuming that the contract values are high enough, you'd fix things in a pretty big hurry. Right now, the contract values are just too low to have any effect on player movement. Let's face it, no one gives a crap about LP, and contract Cbills are way too low to matter. You're making three to nine times as much money from the actual match!

For those who are trying to tag planets, the only incentive is to follow the moving front, in effect, pile on to the "winning" side. Until that incentive is removed, the behavior won't change. If you are fighting one the losing side, you'll never tag a planet, and if you do, it will only be for an extremely short period of time.

This can be fixed by not allowing any unit to tag planets in multiple factions. If you want to fight for multiple factions, fine, have a blast. But as soon as you tag a planet in your "new" faction, all your old planets should revert to the faction they belong in with no tags.

[sdsnowbum]

Dawnstealer, on 30 March 2015 - 06:55 AM, said:

Nope, OP: it's none of those things. It's because of population. All the mercs are in the IS right now, so they can queue up and drop Clan worlds away with impunity.

That's all it is. They'll be back soon enough and it'll flip back the other way. And the IS will lose worlds at the same rate they were before. And it won't be because Clan mechs are overpowered, it's because when you get one ghost drop for every four real drops, and two of those remaining drops are organized teams vs PUGs or new players, you're going to win a lot of systems.

I think OP is onto something, but most of those things can be tweaked (better Clan trial mechs, etc) so I don't see it as a long term problem.

As for groups and their impact, I think it's also a matter of their CW strategy. They will focus on winning a planet, and do what they need to to win it. The one thing they can't counteract is huge #s opposing them. Which has got to be frustrating in its own way.

What's hilarious is that the 'opposition' is pretty much totally mindless. Rumor has it that Kurita is organized on a faction level but otherwise I don't think there is much strategy behind the huge #s. Just people playing to get their reward points, on any planet that will give them a match and against (or for) whatever factions are involved.

The increased CW participation means all strategy and organization on a CW map level is thrown out the window. The defend queue on an IS planet was 4 deep at times, there's almost no group big enough to overcome that.

I never though I'd say it, but now I'm wondering if this event has actually increased CW participation TOO much. I definitely didn't like the empty queues before, but with so many planets flooded with so many people, there's no strategy behind it. Therefore the results the planets flipping are kind of meaningless.

[Davers]

Summon3r, on 30 March 2015 - 07:23 AM, said:

good post OP.

i think the fact that the entirety of the clans got utterly roflstomped this weekend speaks volumes itself about a great many things. one can only hope that numbers dont get skewed and that PGI actually takes a 100% objective look into what is going on with how they have decided to balance the game....

I hope this weekend opened many new players eyes to CW and that CW population sores, though at this rate ill be stuck fighting from strana mechty in no time at all lol.

That wasn't my experience this weekend at all. I was winning matches (5-1 ratio) since I went Clan. What I did see was a TON of IS defenders that led us being stuck in Counterattacks (at one point we had 6 Counterattacks going on Accrington, but zero Attacks) and horrible coordination between the Clans (and the individual units within). Everyone is on their own TS, and there doesn't seem to be any communication or battle plan.

[ManaValkyrie]

Actually House Kurita did manage to co-ordinate and direct there battle effort across this weekend. Simply put we used our organised House Units/Groups as effectively as possible. At the height of the weekend we managed to drag enough players into TS to run 6 organised 12 man's, the average was 3-4 over the end of EU and NA phases.

Simply put, we herded by putting an organised 12 man into CW and initiated a suitable attack, as more organised groups cycled in, they cycled in, this brought organised groups into attack. 90% of the time our organised groups were on pure attack and cycling planets. As soon as the numbers flooded in (With pug players attacking) and we cycled attack groups to the next planet and watch the pugs gradually follow (Defenders and Attackers alike).

Under Normal CW circumstances, HK actually has the Issue that clan groups have had this weekend, when we attack. We generally get tied down by too many defenders and get forced into Hold Territory match modes. This means it doesn't matter how many CW matches you win on a planet you gain nothing. In fact we generally have to go for planet exchanges if we do want to flip a planet in our favour.

[Gladewolf]

Xeraphale, I think you misunderstood my take. I do understand the desire of house and clan units to...control mercs...heck, it's even in the lore as such. But the fact of the matter is, that if a unit could take contracts based on their monetary value instead of having to pledge any sort of loyalty, the system could generate contracts based on need. For example, a faction sheds a planet. Naturally that factions leader should be concerned and issue say a standard contract....then that faction gets hit again and looses another...contract money SHOULD go up. After all...we're losing entire planets here. Key world under attack? Wouldn't it make sense for a factions(computerized) leadership to issue a fat paycheck to all comers? At current, I'm with Davion, so I can only do what Davion's do. How much more interesting would the game be if we could take a contract to attack Clan worlds at the behest of Raslhague.....TODAY......or defend Smoke Jaguar's new territory against Kurita NOW.....because hey,I hear the clans lost a lot of planets(cha ching!).....problem is we can't...because we ARE bound to do only what house and clan units can do. And no matter how you slice it, this game mode is subject to severe time dilation issues. Take an entire planet In what....8 hours?! Jump to the next sector and do it again? The Inner Sphere and Clans we are supposed to be emulating WISH they were that good.

[Hydrocarbon]

Xeraphale, on 30 March 2015 - 03:57 AM, said:

The other issue is that a lot of the Mercs switched sides to the IS before the tourney began for whatever reason and we all know that the merc units swing results probably more than anything else in CW

So, um, did you NOT see the multiple planets with 99+/99+ numbers on them??? I have one screenie showing 10 concurrent fights on one planet. Do you really think a few dozen mercs could make that big of an impact in an absolute sh**storm of PUGs?



Yes, the IS mechs are cheaper. However mech efficiencies is what kicked clanner a** this weekend. IS trials aren't better, more people just had more IS mechs elited so they chose that over buying 2-3 BrokenCrows. Even a Tier 2 IS mech with some EXP can beat up on a Trial BrokenCrow. (<--- that is my attempt at a joke)

I know someone that temporarily went clanner for a week, and he was literally doubling the amount of damage he normally did. Dub. Bul. Ing.

[G SE7EN7]

All that happened was a tailored event that got a ton of players on CW, I bet heaps only had good IS setups for the reasons mentioned.

A few weeks ago there were heaps of merc units on clan sides so they got the big piece of the pie.

Its all player numbers, that is all.

[Xeraphale]

Hydrocarbon, on 30 March 2015 - 11:15 PM, said:

So, um, did you NOT see the multiple planets with 99+/99+ numbers on them??? I have one screenie showing 10 concurrent fights on one planet. Do you really think a few dozen mercs could make that big of an impact in an absolute sh**storm of PUGs?



Yes, the IS mechs are cheaper. However mech efficiencies is what kicked clanner a** this weekend. IS trials aren't better, more people just had more IS mechs elited so they chose that over buying 2-3 BrokenCrows. Even a Tier 2 IS mech with some EXP can beat up on a Trial BrokenCrow. (<--- that is my attempt at a joke)

I know someone that temporarily went clanner for a week, and he was literally doubling the amount of damage he normally did. Dub. Bul. Ing.

IS trials are better, just look at them. The clan trials are set up as they were in TT and are so sub-optiml for MWO it's not even funny.

As for your friend doubling his damage, I'm not surprised. Clan mechs do a lot of damage, but it gets spread out a lot due to autocannons firing multiple shots and laser burn times being so long. IS mechs can do way more pinpoint damage and have much shorter burn times on lasers, thus making them more efficient killers. I'd much rather be doing less damage and putting all my damage where I want to.

And yes, I did see the multiple planets with 99/99, though that isn't really my concern. I'm glad i saw that as it shows that MWO has a good number of players meaning it's healthy. My concern is how CW gets skewed so often by players migrating from faction to faction, especially when they're mercs attacking whoever they like, even clan on clan or house on house.

[Xeraphale]

G SE7EN7, on 30 March 2015 - 11:33 PM, said:

A few weeks ago there were heaps of merc units on clan sides so they got the big piece of the pie.

And there lies the problem, mercs switching sides at the drop of a hat pretty much when they want to attack who they want. We need a proper hiring house and a method of producing cast-iron contracts limiting mercs to the content of the contract.

[sdsnowbum]

Xeraphale, on 31 March 2015 - 12:40 AM, said:

And there lies the problem, mercs switching sides at the drop of a hat pretty much when they want to attack who they want. We need a proper hiring house and a method of producing cast-iron contracts limiting mercs to the content of the contract.

Question, why is that actually a problem? Is it because the mercs seem to work against the 'faction interests' in some way?

Well what are the 'faction interests' and who decides this?

The biggest question to me in any hiring house scenario is, who actually controls the hiring?

Similarly who speaks on behalf of a faction? What makes a faction loyalist, and in case one faction loyalist disagrees with another who does the faction actually listen to?

[CyclonerM]

sdsnowbum, on 31 March 2015 - 08:56 AM, said:

Question, why is that actually a problem? Is it because the mercs seem to work against the 'faction interests' in some way?

Well what are the 'faction interests' and who decides this?

The biggest question to me in any hiring house scenario is, who actually controls the hiring?

Similarly who speaks on behalf of a faction? What makes a faction loyalist, and in case one faction loyalist disagrees with another who does the faction actually listen to?

That is, imho, the main reason why we need player KhanS/First Prince etc.

Anyway, from what i can see most of the loyalist units in most factions talk with each other, coordinate and/or at least agree on a generic plan. Loyalist units are permanent contract units that stick with a faction. Basically, regular units of the army of a faction. Even though merc units may take permanent contracts and stick with a faction, i would not call them loyalists however. "A very loyal mercenary unit" would do

Besides, the faction interests should be those decided by most loyalist units, which should be those doing most of the work in CW. When merc units dictate what a faction and its loyalists should do, you know there is something wrong with CW.

Edited by CyclonerM, 31 March 2015 - 09:02 AM.

[Xeraphale]

sdsnowbum, on 31 March 2015 - 08:56 AM, said:

Question, why is that actually a problem? Is it because the mercs seem to work against the 'faction interests' in some way?

Well what are the 'faction interests' and who decides this?

The biggest question to me in any hiring house scenario is, who actually controls the hiring?

Similarly who speaks on behalf of a faction? What makes a faction loyalist, and in case one faction loyalist disagrees with another who does the faction actually listen to?

Well, as far as the clans are concerned their faction interest is to take Terra. We had a situation earlier in CW where the mercs decided that they were going to start a war between clan factions because they fancied some clan on clan action. Well, that wasn't what the CGB, CW, CJF or CSJ wanted but it's what they got.

I don't take much notice of what IS factions get up to, so i can't comment on that but as I stated, the mercs did what they wanted and messed things up for a while for the people who had "hired" them.

As for who does the hiring, well i suppose that's something that could be done by the most senior people in each unit and if we can't decide on who hires mercs, well then maybe mercs are something that this game can do without. There is probably too much faction switching as it is.

CyclonerM, on 31 March 2015 - 09:01 AM, said:

Besides, the faction interests should be those decided by most loyalist units, which should be those doing most of the work in CW. When merc units dictate what a faction and its loyalists should do, you know there is something wrong with CW.

This 1,000%

[Machinae Mortis]

Xeraphale, on 31 March 2015 - 09:56 AM, said:

There is probably too much faction switching as it is.

This is something I find really annoying. I'm not a big fan of CW, and I'm definitely not a big fan of aligning myself to any other houses than Kurita, but due to the reward design we have incentivized disloyalty. It is extraordinarily easy to get the first mech bay from each faction, so by not being disloyal you're screwing yourself out of 9 free bays (10 minus the one faction you would've stayed loyal to). Double that if you can manage to get to the next bay, but if you don't like CW then that's probably too much work for the reward.

It's a horrible, horrible systems design, and creates way too much liquidity in population numbers. What makes matters worse is it's kind of hard to reverse at this point, because then everyone that hadn't gotten their bays yet would be extremely upset.

I'd have permanently aligned myself with House Kurita on day 1 if it didn't equate to shooting myself in the foot.

[Mystere]

Hydrocarbon, on 30 March 2015 - 11:15 PM, said:

I know someone that temporarily went clanner for a week, and he was literally doubling the amount of damage he normally did. Dub. Bul. Ing.

Double damage does not say much, if anything. Kills, and going for objectives, are what win matches in CW.

[CyclonerM]

Machinae Mortis, on 31 March 2015 - 10:07 AM, said:

This is something I find really annoying. I'm not a big fan of CW, and I'm definitely not a big fan of aligning myself to any other houses than Kurita, but due to the reward design we have incentivized disloyalty. It is extraordinarily easy to get the first mech bay from each faction, so by not being disloyal you're screwing yourself out of 9 free bays (10 minus the one faction you would've stayed loyal to). Double that if you can manage to get to the next bay, but if you don't like CW then that's probably too much work for the reward.

It's a horrible, horrible systems design, and creates way too much liquidity in population numbers. What makes matters worse is it's kind of hard to reverse at this point, because then everyone that hadn't gotten their bays yet would be extremely upset.

I'd have permanently aligned myself with House Kurita on day 1 if it didn't equate to shooting myself in the foot.

I have enough mech bays, i could not care less about getting more of them. And since i am loyal to my faction and especially my unit, even if i needed more bays i would have not even thought of switching.. But i agree, i alwasy said myself that the current loyalty rewards are backwards..

[Machinae Mortis]

CyclonerM, on 31 March 2015 - 10:27 AM, said:

I have enough mech bays, i could not care less about getting more of them. And since i am loyal to my faction and especially my unit, even if i needed more bays i would have not even thought of switching.. But i agree, i alwasy said myself that the current loyalty rewards are backwards..

I've got 119...120 in one more CW match. But there's always room for more. Can never have enough death robots.

I suppose this represents an even greater increase to F2P newcomers. I know CW isn't supposed to be for noobs, but truthfully if I was just starting out that'd be the first thing I'd do. Tons of free bays.

Edited by Machinae Mortis, 31 March 2015 - 10:49 AM.

[Leeroy Mechkins]

The same problem again. New players to CW go IS side and screws the CW map up and screws matchmaker up.
This better be fixed before MWO is released on Steam.

Or there will be tons of new players to CW all waiting for queues for CW and giving up disgusted with the game.
Devs got to really spend time and effort to figure out a solution because this may be the biggest problem with CW.

Looking at the queue now I see IS numbers 2x or 3x that of clan and its impossible to get a CW match as IS.
Devs, its not acceptable to have a game mode where its only possible to get a match on certain days a week or certain times a day.

Edited by Leeroy Mechkins, 31 March 2015 - 05:13 PM.

[Alabaster Black]

Been playing for over a year. Played this tourney as IS pug only.

Lost 15 of 16 matches played.

A balanced and speedy match making system that allows casuals access to the content would be a nice start.

Oh, the one win was because no one queued to defend and was 10 point insta Omega blow-up.

Edited by Alabaster Black, 31 March 2015 - 07:54 PM.

[J0anna]

I think the solution might be far simpler than some of the suggestions here. I would like PGI to make the following simple change. The "penality" for killing enemy mechs jumps by a factor of 20 and counts against you. A simple example:

Lets say I kill 3 steiner mechs and win 1 match, instead of (-15 x3) or (-45) points with Steiner, I now get (-15x20x3) or -900 points with Steiner. I would supplement this by -500 LP's for any time you beat House Steiner troops. If I then decide after 1 week to switch to Steiner, I would start out having to overcome -1400 LP's before I gain ANY LP's with Steiner. In other words, the "House" faction is wary of you and holds your past against you.

This would make your actions have long term effects and make swapping contracts less enjoyable, as you will have a much harder time gaining significant levels of loyality (which, if you think about it should be the case). True you can get more cbills and/or LP's chasing contracts on a per match basis, but the higher levels of loyality will be beyond your grasp. As of now, swapping factions has almost no penality - that really needs to change. With this system in place, gaining levels will be much harder and thus PGI should increase the value (of rewards) at higher levels to match the required dedication effort.

[Dino Might]

Faction decisions should rest with the unit that owns the most planets in that faction. That unit (faction) leader should choose the attack lanes for next period. Absent a leader's choice, it goes to the algorithm. Give a reason for wanting to stay loyal to a faction and take more planets.

If you want something more parliamentary, then each unit gets a number of votes equal to its number of owned planets. There are voting periods every day for attack lanes, which are determined by majority number of votes.

There have been some fantastic ideas for implementing hiring of Merc units, including contract pay and stipulated bonuses for performance. These contracts could also be voted on. The Mercs could accrue reputation points as a sort of ranking system that the houses could use to judge, in case they didn't recognize all the units available for hire. If no house hires, then Mercs can go freelance, which offers a base rate of pay that may be less (or more) than what a particular house is offering. The Mercs accept the contract terms given by the house or they don't. If they go freelance, they get to fight on a one-week rotation for any house they want.