228 replies to this topic

[Kin3ticX]

Koshirou, on 17 July 2015 - 12:26 PM, said:

An ignoramus, apparently. Or a parrot.

Yeap

[R 13]

y'know this all gets solved by implementing logistics and "realistic" (in BTU terms) astrogation timelines.

Then bigger units have to be able to field/maintain more/bigger dropships, pay passage on or own more jumpships (only the largest/richest for the latter), and it will take them longer to move their massive bulk of forces to new systems in order to take planets. Planets should, in turn equal resources, which means there will actually be a point to having a number of planets tagged....either as actual land-holdings for loyalists, or as available/friendly markets for Merc units.

That, in-turn, will incentivise longer contracts (since, when you break a contract as a merc unit, you'd have to start over with a different faction).....

Also, FWIW, operating a Mercenary unit in the Inner Sphere should be somehow more challenging than a loyalist house unit (Save for maybe Kurita because Seppuku, and Liao because death commandos).

I think once you have some differentiation there with resource availability and allotment, and make it a slower process for units to traverse the galaxy at large, then I think the big unit/small unit debate will become less sticky.

[Deathlike]

Well, I'm starting to lean towards wanting a cap, but not too small a cap (I'm thinking 120-150 or so).

However, it speaks to two different things..

1) When any sort of unit competition happens, quantity really has more of an impact over quality unless an event is designed otherwise, and as such I doubt PGI would have any real idea to fixing that, outside of weighing teams by their own team size as I doubt even Mercstar has like 50% of its players active at one time (at least within 1 day, sure I guess, but I mean at any given CW time slice)... and even that is not perfect. One would have to be creative nonetheless to fix this.

2) Mercstar's "claim to fame" as it were is that you'll pretty much be assured an active playing group.

Think of joining Mercstar as a mini-merger, but not quite that. Most unit mergers are usually conducted in order to boost numbers with mutual interests and it is what it is. However, with the game/CW being a bit stagnant, unit growth ends up being stagnant, and mergers become more of a thing. It's not Mercstar's fault for any of this... it's just a symptom of a larger problem.

As there are fewer active faction loyalists in CW, the more Mercstar gets more "control" over the matter. We can easily cite factions that "aren't going to show up" and ghost dropping is so painful in of itself. Also, units more or less have to be bribed (the last event was a weak bribe generally speaking, outside of the very top prize) to play. So, if you really want to fix "big units" that want activity... you'll have to fix up contracts (that need to be dynamic) and give good reasons for people to play CW.

There's no good or clear solution, but it says more about how CW functions relative to MWO than it is Mercstar's or some other large team's fault for how CW operates.

[Skarlock]

Monkey Lover, on 27 June 2015 - 07:13 AM, said:

I don't see how breaking units up even matters .It will end up being ms1 ms2 ms3 and they will all attack the same planet anyway.

Not only that but they'll also probably all be the same faction too (I'm talking clan vs. IS) so they can all play together, as people in a single group are likely to want to do. Because that's the point of being in a group... To play with the people in your group...

The only thing this might do is make it so that during tournaments that involve CW, other smaller groups could actually have a chance to win if they aren't counting planets and are just tallying the win count per group like some of the previous events.

[Chagatay]

TWIAFU, on 13 July 2015 - 03:49 AM, said:

If you mean catering by giving people with a certain playstyle an area to enjoy that playstyle, then yes, they are catering just like they are catering to solo players with a solo queue.

You should not get, IMO, rewards if you do not participate.

Rewards for planet ownership should go to the Units involved with its capture. How are you going to share planet tags with a solo player? Solo without a Unit? Planet owned by: {Unit} and Bob, Furrynutz?

Maybe not planet ownership* but I can't see any wrong in giving some of the perks for said planet capture (if they ever implement such a feature) to solos/other groups. Lets say a planet is worth a 2% bonus to LP while owned. If a solo player did X number of qualifying drops, they get the bonus as well. I would make it so that the bonus is applied tied to last action on the planet so if CJF already had that planet and a solo or group helps to defend it they now get the bonus. Also incentivizes units to defend because if you DON'T defend you lose your tribute pile.

Even so, such a reward structure still rewards larger units more as there is no participation requirements for your members. Joejoe of ClanWinSauce (CWS) still gets his LP whether or not he even participated as long as CWS has such and such planet. I can't see how tossing a bone at the solos that actually did do something in CW is bad somehow........

Now to the topic at hand, I think PGI should not get involved at least directly. Maybe find other ways to discourage** massive super groups but not "disallow" them.

*How it is now is fine, top team that contributes gets a tag.
** Discourage by c-bill or other subtle ways (like breaking unit contracts now which greatly penalizes big units). Loss of planetary ownership on defection (defaults to faction control no tags) etc.....

Edited by Chagatay, 17 July 2015 - 03:35 PM.

[TWIAFU]

Chagatay, on 17 July 2015 - 03:28 PM, said:

Maybe not planet ownership* but I can't see any wrong in giving some of the perks for said planet capture (if they ever implement such a feature) to solos/other groups. Lets say a planet is worth a 2% bonus to LP while owned. If a solo player did X number of qualifying drops, they get the bonus as well. I would make it so that the bonus is applied tied to last action on the planet so if CJF already had that planet and a solo or group helps to defend it they now get the bonus. Also incentivizes units to defend because if you DON'T defend you lose your tribute pile.

Even so, such a reward structure still rewards larger units more as there is no participation requirements for your members. Joejoe of ClanWinSauce (CWS) still gets his LP whether or not he even participated as long as CWS has such and such planet. I can't see how tossing a bone at the solos that actually did do something in CW is bad somehow........

Now to the topic at hand, I think PGI should not get involved at least directly. Maybe find other ways to discourage** massive super groups but not "disallow" them.

*How it is now is fine, top team that contributes gets a tag.
** Discourage by c-bill or other subtle ways (like breaking unit contracts now which greatly penalizes big units). Loss of planetary ownership on defection (defaults to faction control no tags) etc.....

If you want rewards from planet ownership, join a Unit as it is designed.

Put it another way;

You cannot get rewards from a Hero Challenge if you are not piloting a Hero Mech. But you want to get partial rewards for a Hero Challenge, while not participating in the Challenge, by just showing up.

So, no.

[MischiefSC]

Planet ownership bonus needs to go to the faction, not the guy tagging it. Tagging needs to be bragging rights - nothing more. Also an advertisement for your merc unit. You demand higher pay cuz you take worlds and get the job done.

You create a system where world tags equate to bonuses for mercs or individual units who can change factions and all you'll do is create an environment that promotes ghost dropping, switching factions and trying to 'tag' any/every world you can. This creates things like jackasses cross-tagging between Marik/Liao for example, or between Clan factions, or Davion/Steiner or FRR/Kurita.

It does the exact opposite of improve gameplay, which is why I fear it will be the Next Big Thing PGI does.

Tags should do nothing. Rewards for planet ownership go to the faction that owns them. You want those benefits you join the faction. A merc gets paid for the work they do at the time they do it. You don't get residuals, what if next week you're fighting for the enemy? Am I still going to be sending you wealth from one of my worlds to help fund your attacks against my borders or my allies?

Nope. Planet ownership rewards need to stick to the faction members

Back on topic....


I struggle with this one. I really do. Maybe 100-150 isn't a bad idea. Almost a good thing, you can have your 'A' and 'B' teams with different IDs. Give you a chance to work your way up in the unit. It serves merc units especially well; you have 3 teams of 100 each you negotiate 3 different contracts based on their individual performance. It better rewards each member of a unit in the context of their impact on the whole increases.

[Chagatay]

MischiefSC, on 18 July 2015 - 08:53 AM, said:

Planet ownership bonus needs to go to the faction, not the guy tagging it. Tagging needs to be bragging rights - nothing more. Also an advertisement for your merc unit. You demand higher pay cuz you take worlds and get the job done.

You create a system where world tags equate to bonuses for mercs or individual units who can change factions and all you'll do is create an environment that promotes ghost dropping, switching factions and trying to 'tag' any/every world you can. This creates things like jackasses cross-tagging between Marik/Liao for example, or between Clan factions, or Davion/Steiner or FRR/Kurita.

It does the exact opposite of improve gameplay, which is why I fear it will be the Next Big Thing PGI does.

Tags should do nothing. Rewards for planet ownership go to the faction that owns them. You want those benefits you join the faction. A merc gets paid for the work they do at the time they do it. You don't get residuals, what if next week you're fighting for the enemy? Am I still going to be sending you wealth from one of my worlds to help fund your attacks against my borders or my allies?

Nope. Planet ownership rewards need to stick to the faction members

Back on topic....


I struggle with this one. I really do. Maybe 100-150 isn't a bad idea. Almost a good thing, you can have your 'A' and 'B' teams with different IDs. Give you a chance to work your way up in the unit. It serves merc units especially well; you have 3 teams of 100 each you negotiate 3 different contracts based on their individual performance. It better rewards each member of a unit in the context of their impact on the whole increases.

Agree with most of it, but you probably need to tie an individuals contribution to the rewards. If you just give them to whomever is currently aligned with the faction you get people that just switch to the faction that has the most cookies.

TWIAFU, on 18 July 2015 - 03:37 AM, said:

If you want rewards from planet ownership, join a Unit as it is designed.

Put it another way;

You cannot get rewards from a Hero Challenge if you are not piloting a Hero Mech. But you want to get partial rewards for a Hero Challenge, while not participating in the Challenge, by just showing up.

So, no.

I get it you hate casuals and/or PUGs. So let me put it to you in another way. If there were no PUGs allowed in CW how long before it would be a complete ghost town?

Answer:
Not very long. They tried that once. 12-man queue was indeed a true ghost town.

Last time I checked it is labelled COMMUNITY WARFARE, not group only warfare, and certainly NOT only big merc group warfare. Certainly, there can be a place for groups and solos alike no? Rewards to loyalist units/soloists seem to be in order as this mode is about Faction vs Faction.

Edited by Chagatay, 18 July 2015 - 09:13 PM.

[Deadfire]

Still trying to figure how to take this thread seriously when I keep reading "Those guys are doing better than us, nerf them!" or "They aren't having fun correctly".

Edited by Deadfire, 18 July 2015 - 11:37 PM.

[TWIAFU]

Chagatay, on 18 July 2015 - 09:07 PM, said:

Last time I checked it is labelled COMMUNITY WARFARE, not group only warfare, and certainly NOT only big merc group warfare. Certainly, there can be a place for groups and solos alike no? Rewards to loyalist units/soloists seem to be in order as this mode is about Faction vs Faction.

When you checked, did you read the part where it clearly states CW is made PRIMARILY for group and unit play and solo play is supported in as far as they are used to fill out the rare 10-11man?

Have you yet noticed in solo queue, half are members of Units and rest are lone wolves?

Yes, there are places for group and solo alike!

If you want to drop solo, play in solo queue.
Want to play in a group, drop in group queue.
Want a more dedicated group experience, play CW.

However, solo do not always want to play where there were designed to primarily play. They want to take the group/unit designed area and change it into solo with group options, or ability to skip playing a group, skip maps, end teamwork of all kinds, and make it into generic mech skinned shooter #3221.

Do you want groups, up to 12man, complaining they cannot drop in solo queue? No, you do not want your solo area to be changed into something it is not, neither do I or others that seek group, unit, and teamwork based play.

Edited by TWIAFU, 19 July 2015 - 03:34 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Chagatay, on 18 July 2015 - 09:07 PM, said:

Agree with most of it, but you probably need to tie an individuals contribution to the rewards. If you just give them to whomever is currently aligned with the faction you get people that just switch to the faction that has the most cookies.



I get it you hate casuals and/or PUGs. So let me put it to you in another way. If there were no PUGs allowed in CW how long before it would be a complete ghost town?

Answer:
Not very long. They tried that once. 12-man queue was indeed a true ghost town.

Last time I checked it is labelled COMMUNITY WARFARE, not group only warfare, and certainly NOT only big merc group warfare. Certainly, there can be a place for groups and solos alike no? Rewards to loyalist units/soloists seem to be in order as this mode is about Faction vs Faction.

You get rewards in faction points, as in only faction loyalists get points from owning worlds. LP generate a permanently recycling list of rewards that bumps up each time. More to the point you should get bonus faction points from worlds taken; this way only active members in a faction who are dropping are reaping the rewards for the taken worlds.

Mercs get cbill bonuses for winning matches and being hired by faction loyalists, who can spend faction points to give mercs perks.

To me that would be ideal and give pretty much an ideal reward layout. Very difficult to 'game' and rewarding actually showing up and playing, it gives rewards to both mercs and loyalists - loyalists are rewarded for doing whatever it takes (including hiring mercs) to win battles, take and hold worlds. Mercs are rewarded for fighting and winning; the better they are the more they can expect to get paid and bribed to fight by the various factions. Just like now they don't have a big interest in who wins or loses; their interest is being paid to win.

[Asaru]

MischiefSC, on 19 July 2015 - 10:00 AM, said:

You get rewards in faction points, as in only faction loyalists get points from owning worlds. LP generate a permanently recycling list of rewards that bumps up each time. More to the point you should get bonus faction points from worlds taken; this way only active members in a faction who are dropping are reaping the rewards for the taken worlds.

Mercs get cbill bonuses for winning matches and being hired by faction loyalists, who can spend faction points to give mercs perks.

To me that would be ideal and give pretty much an ideal reward layout. Very difficult to 'game' and rewarding actually showing up and playing, it gives rewards to both mercs and loyalists - loyalists are rewarded for doing whatever it takes (including hiring mercs) to win battles, take and hold worlds. Mercs are rewarded for fighting and winning; the better they are the more they can expect to get paid and bribed to fight by the various factions. Just like now they don't have a big interest in who wins or loses; their interest is being paid to win.

I think this sounds close to what is needed. However I would add that instead of worrying about unit size as a whole what PGI should do instead is cap the numbers of merc players that can move into any one faction at the same time.

This would take PGI doing a better job of monitoring faction population (active CW pop and not just total tag members). Then setting limits on how many merc units can move into any given faction in one period (I would make that one week given that's the shortest contract PGI has said they will offer).

If Liao has really low loyalist activity then they could take in more mercs then say Kurita who has a slightly higher active population. In this example a merc unit with 500 members goes to Kurita for one week and this might hit Kurita's limit and so no other merc units could join Kurita until the 500 member unit leaves or Kurita's active loyalist population drops lower and opens up more contracts. In Liao's case because they are so low they could take 700 merc players so they could get one 400-500 size unit and two 100 man units. Once Liao and Kurita top out any mercs still looking for new contracts would need to go to one of the other factions.

A system like this would keep all the merc units from dogpileing into one faction and causing huge swings in faction population and skill. Because when you come right down to it this is not all about numbers but also the distribution of high skill players. The more we can spread not only the players but also the talent around the better the games everyone should be able to get.

Edited by Asaru, 19 July 2015 - 03:26 PM.

[Khereg]

So, apparently a cap already exists and is set at 500 members. Does this change the discussion at all?

What if the active player base tripled? Would you want the cap set at a hard number, or maybe as a percentage of the active player base?

Edited by Khereg, 19 July 2015 - 07:35 PM.

[Kyrie]

Khereg, on 19 July 2015 - 07:33 PM, said:

So, apparently a cap already exists and is set at 500 members. Does this change the discussion at all?

What if the active player base tripled? Would you want the cap set at a hard number, or maybe as a percentage of the active player base?

The number should potentially be capped at what is determined to be the optimal number to allow for units to plan for matches easily, but not so large that smaller units are rendered irrelevant. That is the balance point. At present there are no interesting mechanics in CW that require a balance point (logistics, meaning attached to capturing planets, etc)... but when this comes in, a limit might be needed. My intuition tells me that a limit of around 200 might be workable, double that of Clan Wars in World of Tanks.

[50 50]

The Optimal number... that's the trick.
I don't believe it necessarily needs a cap on how big any unit can get.
I would think that the factions would be capable of sustaining larger units and that's where the whole thing can become self managed.
The key words are optimal populations and sustainability.

I ended up creating a post after considering how this could be implemented in game.
Would be interested to get your feed back and hear your ideas.
http://mwomercs.com/...s-units-and-us/

[TWIAFU]

Chagatay, on 18 July 2015 - 09:07 PM, said:

Agree with most of it, but you probably need to tie an individuals contribution to the rewards. If you just give them to whomever is currently aligned with the faction you get people that just switch to the faction that has the most cookies.



I get it you hate casuals and/or PUGs. So let me put it to you in another way. If there were no PUGs allowed in CW how long before it would be a complete ghost town?

Answer:
Not very long. They tried that once. 12-man queue was indeed a true ghost town.

Last time I checked it is labelled COMMUNITY WARFARE, not group only warfare, and certainly NOT only big merc group warfare. Certainly, there can be a place for groups and solos alike no? Rewards to loyalist units/soloists seem to be in order as this mode is about Faction vs Faction.

No, I don't. I hate that they want the Group/Unit driven part of the game to be opened up to solo. How much rage would you have if Group players wanted solo queue to open up to them? A whole hell of a lot.

Yes, it IS Community Warfare. But did you read the rest of the CW announcement? CLEARLY states CW is primarily designed for Group/Unit play. CLEARLY states what the role of solo will be and the difficulty they will have. Did you skip over all this or just not even pay attention to it? Solo place in CW is to fill out the rare 10-11 man GROUP.

So, why again should the Group/Unit focus of this game mode shift to be solo? With areas in this game designed for specific playstyles, why not stick to game modes that support that style? Me being a Group player, you sure as hell do not want me to have solo queue change so Group layers can drop in solo queue do you? No, you dont. Just like I do not want CW to be a solo playground.

You place far to much "value" on PUGs and their numbers. If you can count, drop in solo queue and count the number of solo and the number of people in Units. You will see the numbers are even, give or take one or two. Drop in Group and count, you will see more Unit players over solo. Drop in CW, and you see how many solo? MAYBE a handful in an evening of drops.

Since it is Wednesday, maybe join for Wednesday Night Warfare and see what CW can be like in a group, with friends, and with great people and pilots. Don't be afraid, not all strangers are bad. It is safe to talk to strangers there. They are only strangers up until you say Hello.

[TWIAFU]

Khereg, on 19 July 2015 - 07:33 PM, said:

So, apparently a cap already exists and is set at 500 members. Does this change the discussion at all?

What if the active player base tripled? Would you want the cap set at a hard number, or maybe as a percentage of the active player base?

Just means capped Units will have to break into 5 to 10 smaller Units, all under same faction tag, all in same TS, all attacking same planets.

Imagine the nightmare breaking up a Unit into 5 to 10 smaller ones and try to manage that without any tools in game.

This will make the non-group and non-unit players giddy until they realize nothing changed.

Stockpiling popcorn now....

[Jarl Dane]

Isengrim is in the 50-100 area, and we routinely remove inactive members from our unit. Pulling together a 12 man for CW is pretty rare for us though. We did early when CW was new and we really burnt ourselves out. Now days it might be once every few weeks for 2-4 games.

[MischiefSC]

One mistake I see repeated here is the idea that unit caps will make people not play with their friends or go join ransom other units or some such.

That is flat out absurd. Stop it. In no way, shape or form will unit caps change what units people join our play with. All it will do is make unit management more complex but prevent units from winning unit challenges by size alone.

That is it.

Unit cap of 100 won't make SWOL kick 400 players. It'll just make them split tags to swo1, swo2, swo3, swo4 and swo5. They will still play and group together though it will screw up their unit rankings when they mix which swol groups they play together.

No impact at all on the effect of big groups on the rest of the game save possibly irritating enough players in big groups for no reason that they play less.

It is an absolutely stupid idea if the goal is to alter the impact of big units on cw.

[TWIAFU]

MischiefSC, on 22 July 2015 - 06:08 AM, said:

One mistake I see repeated here is the idea that unit caps will make people not play with their friends or go join ransom other units or some such.

That is flat out absurd. Stop it. In no way, shape or form will unit caps change what units people join our play with. All it will do is make unit management more complex but prevent units from winning unit challenges by size alone.

That is it.

Unit cap of 100 won't make SWOL kick 400 players. It'll just make them split tags to swo1, swo2, swo3, swo4 and swo5. They will still play and group together though it will screw up their unit rankings when they mix which swol groups they play together.

No impact at all on the effect of big groups on the rest of the game save possibly irritating enough players in big groups for no reason that they play less.

It is an absolutely stupid idea if the goal is to alter the impact of big units on cw.

Well, Russ did say he want these broken up Units to move into other Factions.

So, EvilUnit1 in Wolf and EvilUnit2 in Davion. They meet in CW, say Hi, and one side lays down for the other team to easily win.

Yea! System works!

Actually, this makes total sense!

We want and need more Groups and Units in CW so the best answer is to limit the size of Units!