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I would like to introduce to the community, for your perusal and debate, a concept for a revamped competitive league based entirely upon Community Warfare.
Marik Civil War Season 5 (MCW)
also to be known as
The MercStar Community Warfare Challange (MCW)
The unfortunate reality of season 2 of PGI's CW is that it has been rather... lackluster. It seems that many units are kinda burnt out since the epic Tukayyid event, with CW pop numbers at an arguable low point in history. All the big structural changes that were meant to get people excited for this season were all introduced at the end of season 1, but these changes kind of... backfired.
The change in the attack/defend structure should have worked really well. It was what a lot of units wanted to have during season 1, and it would have made planets battles much more relevant, in that it wasn't going to just be the team with the higher pop wins, more or less by default.
This actually backfired with the start of Season 2 CW. With lower population numbers across the board, and units being less able to field numerous effective combat teams, it became difficult for most units to make continuous progress anywhere on the map. Many unis have simply given up, presumably waiting for the next season or new changes that will pique further interest in CW. The lower pop numbers coupled with the changes in the planet capture mechanics have made the already way to expansive 10 Faction set up, in my mind, unfeasible.
Our plan (prior to this comp league proposal), in which we used MercStar's military and political might in CW to accomplish, was reasonably straight forward. "Encourage", through a number of methods, all units who actually still cared to participate in CW in a meaningful way, to migrate towards the Northwestern 4 factions of Falcon, Wolf, Steiner, and FRR.
The end result we hoped, would be that we see a large influx of players and units to a much smaller "war zone" involving only the mentioned 4 factions. This way we could bring the number of meaningful attack lanes more in line with the current pop numbers and hopefully have a good old fashion brawl for a month or two until PGI end's this season and introduces the next wave of structural changes.
We did this through a number of methods, primarily convincing and/or hiring units to migrate to new warzones, as well as the somewhat infamous "Operation Bulldog"
http://i.imgur.com/W52zUZ5.jpg
Bulldog was important (I'm sure I'll get some hate mail for this) as we effectively reduced the Northern factions from 7 down to 4. We effectively wiped out Bear and Jaguar, and screwed over Kurita in the process. Bear and Jag have basically been out of the war ever since, with last night's exception of Bear taking a planet for the first time since Bulldog's completion. Go Clan Kodiak!! (CK). A number of units for both, have migrated elsewhere in search of glory.
Kurita got intentionally screwed in that we removed both of their Clan attack lanes through conquest. This is important, in that now HK does not have a call to arms queue into the clans, which basically is the source of any easy to find games in CW. Now they are reduced to hoping poor Davion pugs will show up on that border to get beat on. The end result being, another migration of units and personnel from HK to the NW 4 factions.
This was the -MS- plan to try and help save CW Season 2. And so far, it seems to be helping. A number of units from the Bulldog zone have migrated and we are seeing an increase in activity along the borders of the NW 4. Having just spent a tour in Steiner, I can personally attest to this. Things got interesting with a number of powerful units throwing their weight around with a number of planets shifting back and forth, back and forth, in an orgy of robotic explosions. This has definitely been the most enjoyable tour for us of CW Season 2, with great fights to be found each and every phase.
Then the other day, I had an epiphany. A Community Warfare League simply wasn't possible back in Season 1 without CW maps being playable in private lobbies. But with what we had started to accomplish here in season 2, the dreams of a CW league started to sound like something that could actually be pulled off.
MCW Season 5: The Concept
Phase 1 of MCW: Season 5 would be an open, exploratory affair. Less about who wins and who loses, and more about testing the concept, and getting units, and hopefully the community, excited about what competitive CW matches could be. The secondary goal would be get PGI moving on introducing CW maps to private lobbies, so we can do all of this without the headache and expand upon the ruleset and options available for use.
Structure (example):
8 units volunteer. 2 units would go Falcon, 2 go Wolf, 2 go Steiner, and 2 go FRR.
4 series season
Each team plays both teams on each cross apposing factions in the "square"
Falcon - Wolf
l -------- l
Steiner - FRR
Example: Unit A and B in Falcon would both play 1 series against both teams in Wolf and both teams in Steiner
A series would consist of Team A attacking Team B on their planet, then Team B attacking team A on their planet (with both teams getting to attack the other teams base) followed by a 3rd game. The 3rd game could be something like, Counter attack on either planet, with the lower seeded team getting the choice (to attack or defend)
Whichever team has more wins at the end of the 3 games wins "the series".
Whichever unit has the most wins at the end of the season is crowned "the winner".
If there was a tie, we could probably have a finals game between the two to determine "the super winner"
As far as rules for drop decks and event structure, I would think something pretty simple and standard would suffice for the open beta season.
Normal roster rules. Maybe a 16 man minimum roster size and 24 cap or perhaps unlimited. Or use the SiG Invitational set, and no rosters, but a player can only play for 1 team during a season.
Likely keep it simple and use no mech or weapon restrictions, as CW is pretty new still and there is a reasonable amount of variation as to what is good and not good on different maps. We could explore that one more in later seasons. Maybe do something like
And that is... basically it. As mentioned, the opening beta season would be meant to explore what is possible, and garner interest in comp CW. Once we have CW private Lobbies, we can basically go nuts with this idea, and develop it in a number of different ways.
I am going to be posting this here, on the MWO forums, as well as on reddit. I will make some cross links. I want to see what interest is out there for a project like this, as well as have the community help generate ideas. Much like previous seasons of MCW I hope to sit down with unit and community leaders and get a sense of what people would like to see.
I am getting the production team that helped bring the community 4 seasons and over 2 years of MCW carnage back together for something fresh. I hope that a bunch of MCW veteran units as well as some new blood are willing to explore with us, what is possible in this newest form of competitive MWO.
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Q&A Stuff:
But Rex, will units really be willing to migrate to the NW 4 factions just to participate in this event?
I think so, yes. We have already seen a number of high profile units migrating to those factions, with more likely to follow. Another reason I think units would be willing to do this, is the fact that many units basically don't play CW anymore. I suspect units like SJR, EmP, AS, even 228th or QQ would be willing to move around. At present, none of those units, and many, many more besides barely play CW. So why would they care which faction they are in if they aren't playing the game mode anyways? Not to mention all the work -MS- has put in to "encourage" units to come this way.
But Rex, won't it be brutal to effectively "synch drop" in order to get our games in?
First off, to anyone who has been in the comp scene long enough to remember the dark age of "synch dropping", this should be significantly easier. 1. we can actually see pop numbers and derive from that and through communication, who is actually in those queues. 2. Instead of only having 1 group queue to work with, we have a multitude of different, and independent, attack/defense lanes to work with. Many of them completely empty of players and perfect for an easy synch.
IS vs IS and Clan vs Clan will be super easy to do. Clan vs IS will be harder, as people actually use those queues, but it should be possible to do, and still easier than the old days. We could also utilize the second unit in each faction as a "queue clearer". Exactly like the old days, but with the added knowledge that the CW interface gives us. We also have the option to say have FRR fight Falcon, even though they don't touch in CW. Falcon can attack Steiner, and FRR can defend Steiner. Bam.
But Rex, what about the potential Clan vs IS imbalance? And what about units that want to play both Clan and IS during the event?
That balance may be an issue, as presumably, until private lobbies host CW, we are likely restricted to pure IS or Clan drop decks (private lobby CW games with IS and Clan mechs available to each team would be friggin awesome!) But hey, who better than the comp scene to actively test the balance between the two factions. PGI desperately wants accurate data.
As far as swapping factions goes, i would be easiest to have everyone stay 1 faction for the event, but if there was enough desire for it, we could "rotate" the units around. say do the 4 week season as one faction, then "rotate" units and do it again from the other side.
Hey Rex, what about the IS light rushes?
Tbh, PGI has done a decent job reducing the amount of that going on. New gen stats, and better designed maps have done a decent job eliminating that issue. Of course, this being a competitive event, we could do something as simple as, the attacking unit loses the match if they destroy the enemy base within the first 8-10 minutes. Easy Peasy.
Hey Rex, What do you think this could do for CW and the MWO community?
The dream here is twofold. On the one hand, this will hopefully bring a number of experienced comp units to the warzone, and get them to start playing their practice nights, in CW. This will increase pop numbers as well as bring much needed experience to all 4 factions, perhaps even helping to balance out the field, which would be great. On the other hand, newer units wanted to participate will also flock to these factions, hopefully taking the time to scrim with and learn from the stronger teams, much like in previous seasons of MCW.
All in all, the more interest and higher pop numbers we can bring to CW the better. That is, in my mind, the only long term way out of this current CW slump, and frankly, is my newest way I can think of doing my part for the betterment of the community.
I will continue to add things as I think of them, and probs include the better comments from the community as they develop.
Here is a link to the reddit post on the same topic:
http://www.reddit.co...y_warfare_only/
Edited by Antonius Rex, 22 May 2015 - 12:35 AM.
