165 replies to this topic

[Khereg]

Benjamin Davion, on 21 July 2015 - 03:37 PM, said:

Honestly, here's the deal. The way MS works right now, capping the unit size won't change anything, they'll just split up into separate groups and keep operating as a giant zerg.

As we've said ourselves previously...

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I honestly believe MS should split themselves up, go back to their constituent units, and stop operating as a single outfit. If the units that make up MercStar were scattered around and fighting each other from time to time instead of trying to manipulate the map CW would be a much more diverse place. But whatever, they can do what they want.

The main reason we don't is that we actually need this size to consistently fill up drops in CW. Even with 300+ members, we only field 1 - 3 12-man's during NA prime time outside of special events. Our regular participation rate has dropped along with other units now that the novelty of CW has worn off.

I hope everyone understand that if unit sizes are capped at the 100 - 150 level, very few units will be able to field even a single 12 man on a regular basis. That may sound glorious to people who want to pug exclusively, but to people who want to drop with friends, it will be a significant detriment. There has to be a balance where groups and pugs can coexist.

The solution as I see it is to grow the CW active player base substantially, to the point where ideas like splitting queues into solo and groups (similar to regular queue now) become viable. In my estimation, that happens if the active player base in CW grows 5x, which is a tall order. All prayers to Steam to help.

This is the motivation behind -MS-'s cooperation and information sharing work with various factions. Contrary to what others may say, we want a higher CW population and we think the way to get there is to promote more competitive players across the board who won't shy away from a 12-man when they see one. It's a difficult road, but I think it's ultimately worth it. The alternative is to ask good players to play poorly, or outright hamstring them in one or more ways (like, say a unit size cap). That isn't good sportsmanship no matter how noble the intent.

Edited by Khereg, 21 July 2015 - 05:44 PM.

[MischiefSC]

The problem is that with CW being pointless only a tiny fraction of people want to play it. At the moment it is more or less inferior to just playing in the pug/group queue. Generally less pay for the time invested. The factions and such are about as relevant as your personal KDR stat. Maybe you like to pull it out for bragging rights but really? Irrelevant.

You put ~2k active players in about every faction and suddenly a group like MS is still relevant but not overwhelming. The solution is not to try and force people not to play with their friends. That's a patently absurd solution doomed to failure.

Unfortunately any real solution isn't one PGI is looking at in the next 6-12 months, at least.

So such debates are entertaining but largely irrelevant. PGI will probably make some flailing, broken in the opposite direction (like unit caps) approach to 'fixing' CW, it will fail and they'll blame the community or aliens or whatever they blame when a bad idea comes out and gets treated like a bad idea. Then they'll ignore it for another 6 months.

If you expect otherwise you are basing your decision off of something beside historical record.

[Soulstrom]

Until taking planets means something, CW is just another public game mode with more maps and much longer wait times.

[Murphy7]

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I hope everyone understand that if unit sizes are capped at the 100 - 150 level, very few units will be able to field even a single 12 man on a regular basis. That may sound glorious to people who want to pug exclusively, but to people who want to drop with friends, it will be a significant detriment. There has to be a balance where groups and pugs can coexist.

THIS.

9th Sword of the Dragon, [9SD] purportedly has 130 members. We struggle to get a single, full 12-person group going. There is a segment of our membership who do not show the Kurita tag because of the unit glitch while back - that's how long since some have logged into the game.

-MS- being the size they are isn't the issue.

Kurita digging out of the hole it was in the first CW iteration was partly due to the dedication to task shown by units such as Night's Scorn, NKVA, Arkab, 3rd Takata, the 11th, amongst others. A bigger reason from my perspective is the House Kurita TS group. You might face a pile of different Kuritan unit tags in a drop, but there is a strong probability we are all in the same channel on the HK TS. I see that as a direct analog to MercStar; disparate groups teamed together over comms.

[Repasy Cooper]

Murphy7, on 22 July 2015 - 09:04 AM, said:

THIS.

9th Sword of the Dragon, [9SD] purportedly has 130 members. We struggle to get a single, full 12-person group going. There is a segment of our membership who do not show the Kurita tag because of the unit glitch while back - that's how long since some have logged into the game.

-MS- being the size they are isn't the issue.

Kurita digging out of the hole it was in the first CW iteration was partly due to the dedication to task shown by units such as Night's Scorn, NKVA, Arkab, 3rd Takata, the 11th, amongst others. A bigger reason from my perspective is the House Kurita TS group. You might face a pile of different Kuritan unit tags in a drop, but there is a strong probability we are all in the same channel on the HK TS. I see that as a direct analog to MercStar; disparate groups teamed together over comms.

If all the big units are struggling to get a single 12-man together, then why do you have so many players in your unit? Perhaps it's time to make some cuts? Lol, if a player isn't active there's no reason for them to be in a unit anyways, and they can always rejoin a unit once they activate.

By restricting the # of players per unit, it not only forces inactive players out of units but also fosters more dedication from the active players, as keeping a unit together will require a stronger presence from each individual. I think this would actually benefit all the top-tier units. Thus, I just don't understand the argument behind keeping unit size unrestricted.

[Thumper3]

Kjudoon, on 21 July 2015 - 05:00 PM, said:

Thumper you are missing causality and splitting zemantic hairs. The principle is still sound.

What's a zemantic? LOL

And I am not MISSING causality, I am stating it is not there when you believe it is.

Taxes do not reduce sales, especially when levied on products people need (or think they need), they will continue to buy those taxed items and cut down if needed on other items to compensate. Do you buy less gas because of the taxes on it? no, so why would a MWO unit buy fewer rounds of AC20 ammo than it needs if it was taxed? And why would they buy MORE if it wasn't?

Subsidies do not CAUSE increased sales, they only allow a non-profitable product to be sold at a profit. So the semantics in the argument would be that yes, 1 sale is more than 0 so in that limited way subsidies "increase" sales, but it's a flawed conclusion.

I have stated before that a "tax" on units would help with unit size and locations, but that's really just an over simplified term for use in a game. In reality it's not a "tax", but rather realistic operating expenses and costs. If those were implemented in whole (repair/rearm, etc) than no "taxes" would be needed on the PGI side, only on the unit side individually levied by each group's leadership on their members to cover costs.

So sure, we're splitting hairs......but what else are going to do? lol

[Murphy7]

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If all the big units are struggling to get a single 12-man together, then why do you have so many players in your unit? Perhaps it's time to make some cuts? Lol, if a player isn't active there's no reason for them to be in a unit anyways, and they can always rejoin a unit once they activate.

Some are deployed and expected back when they can make it back. Many have been with the unit through many iterations, not just MWO, so they are retained.

As an aside, it would be nice to have an indication as to when a member was last active in the game. Cutting people from the unit does not mean everyone else is suddenly more active - it just means a shorter unit list.

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By restricting the # of players per unit, it not only forces inactive players out of units but also fosters more dedication from the active players, as keeping a unit together will require a stronger presence from each individual. I think this would actually benefit all the top-tier units. Thus, I just don't understand the argument behind keeping unit size unrestricted.

I think it's a terrible idea, for similar reasons as you describe - if units can only maintain themselves if players commit to treating the game like a job, then it's really only there for a few die-hards. There isn't much we can do with units at the moment, unit coffers have no purpose; if there was more to incentivize being in a unit that might help. CW is a very shallow game mode with long wait times, poor rewards for time invested, and the dots on a map mean what?

[MischiefSC]

As I said on the unit cap thread, it's a terrible idea. It's flat out stupid to think that unit caps will just make friends stop playing together and break up into smaller, independent units. They'll still play together - or if they can't are more likely to just not play.

The goal of making friends not play together is flat out stupid. Orgs are not just going to boot a bunch of members who will then just wander off, join another faction and make a new small unit.

[Kjudoon]

Thumper3, on 22 July 2015 - 10:47 AM, said:

What's a zemantic? LOL

Well, a zemantic is a semantic when your fingers are too big for your phone's keyboard.

[Kjudoon]

MischiefSC, on 22 July 2015 - 11:11 AM, said:

As I said on the unit cap thread, it's a terrible idea. It's flat out stupid to think that unit caps will just make friends stop playing together and break up into smaller, independent units. They'll still play together - or if they can't are more likely to just not play.

The goal of making friends not play together is flat out stupid. Orgs are not just going to boot a bunch of members who will then just wander off, join another faction and make a new small unit.

Or, they just stay on the same teamspeak, and break up the names and membership and nothing changes. The only way (and I am not advocating this for a split second) would be to in-client, prevent names not in your unit from teaming up. Something that PGI could not do and have the game survive.

In other words, the plan is not going to work because human nature already has it's workaround.

This will continue to be a problem as long as it is economically preferential to be a merc over loyalist, refuse to integrate a real economic model with greater benefits towards loyalists, prevent units from instantly travelling across the entire map, introducing in-game travel costs and logistical impact.

Again, till these things are done, this is just a fancy leaderboard of epeen.

[Khereg]

Repasy, on 22 July 2015 - 10:16 AM, said:

If all the big units are struggling to get a single 12-man together, then why do you have so many players in your unit?

Because units exist for more than CW. They also drop in the group queue and congregate for comp play, although the latter isn't strictly required, it is customary.

Also, as stated by others, some units are focused on casual players who might show up infrequently. They're still part of the unit, just like a friend you haven't seen in years is still a friend.

Edited by Khereg, 22 July 2015 - 03:29 PM.

[Repasy Cooper]

Khereg, on 22 July 2015 - 03:12 PM, said:

Because units exist for more than CW. They also drop in the group queue and congregate for comp play, although the latter isn't strictly required, it is customary.

Also, as stated by others, some units are focused on casual players who might show up infrequently. They're still part of the unit, just like a friend you haven't seen in years is still a friend.

I think you guys are dodging the point I was trying to make. Surely there are players in those +150 member units that haven't played this game in a year, maybe longer. What I was asking is simply this: What is the value of keeping players who haven't played this game for that long in your units? I'm sure that if unit restrictions were set at a cap of somewhere between 72 - 120 players you guys wouldn't experience any change whatsoever in the number of active members.. Community Warfare OR otherwise.

[Khereg]

Repasy, on 23 July 2015 - 06:32 AM, said:

What I was asking is simply this: What is the value of keeping players who haven't played this game for that long in your units?

You'll have to get that answer from someone else, I'm afraid. -MS- does routinely kick inactive members, mostly b/c if we ever break a contract early we must pay the penalty for every member on the rolls.

Even doing this is an inexact science. There's nowhere in the game that shows last login for a member, so when we do a purge, it's a group of leaders on teamspeak going through the member list and asking. " Anybody seen Bob lately?". If not, he gets kicked. Bob inevitably signs in a week later and asks, "WTF?" and we re-invite him to the group. The entire process is a hassle and I could imagine that's it's just a lot easier to leave inactive players on the rolls.

Another, more specific situation I've heard of is that some groups have members that are active military who go on extensive hiatus during deployments and the like. I'm told it's deemed disrespectful to kick those people while they're gone. Not military myself, so can't vouch for this - just something I've heard in passing.

tl;dr - leaving inactive players on the roster eliminates the work involved in identifying and kicking inactive members, but other groups should speak for themselves about other benefits.

[TWIAFU]

Repasy, on 22 July 2015 - 10:16 AM, said:

By restricting the # of players per unit, it not only forces inactive players out of units but also fosters more dedication from the active players, as keeping a unit together will require a stronger presence from each individual. I think this would actually benefit all the top-tier units. Thus, I just don't understand the argument behind keeping unit size unrestricted.

With MS being the evil boogeyman, lets look at their stats. 349 members, 203 active for 5069 matches.

Next highest, is 512 members, 166 active, 2694 matches.

What happens if they cap at 200?

MS kicks 149, still have 200 active.
Next kicks 312 members! and still has 166 active.

Both still drop the same, no change.

Cap at 100 and it is worse for members but makes no difference on activity numbers, just splits activity up and even further separates friends/family.

Smaller sub units still drop the same as they would under one tag, only change is the face of the map on names over planets with the addition of a number. Will see just as many MS planets as before, due to activity and organization, as we do now, just the addition of MS1, MS2 instead of just MS.

Nobody is going to leave friends/family to go off and make another Unit in another faction. To think otherwise is an admission that one does not understand nor value relationships.

So, this is going to solve what?

[TWIAFU]

Repasy, on 23 July 2015 - 06:32 AM, said:

I think you guys are dodging the point I was trying to make. Surely there are players in those +150 member units that haven't played this game in a year, maybe longer. What I was asking is simply this: What is the value of keeping players who haven't played this game for that long in your units? I'm sure that if unit restrictions were set at a cap of somewhere between 72 - 120 players you guys wouldn't experience any change whatsoever in the number of active members.. Community Warfare OR otherwise.

There may not be "value" but you do come to think of these people in your Unit, Guild, whatever as friends/family.

To kick them out is almost like saying; Your not my friend anymore.

IF Unit caps are needed in the end, I would much rather see them TRY something else first. Member numbers, active and inactive, seem to be a core thing.

I would much rather see PGI make some changes to how the Member list is done. Automatically set members inactive, and no longer count on Unit roster as a member, after a set amount of time.

Maybe even improve Unit Management tools. Allow us to set Inactive status time. Auto remove with a message/warning, after set amount of time.

There ARE ways to go about this first without limiting the number of friends one Unit can have. That should be the final step if nothing else worked, not the first.

[Repasy Cooper]

TWIAFU, on 23 July 2015 - 07:08 AM, said:

With MS being the evil boogeyman, lets look at their stats. 349 members, 203 active for 5069 matches.

Next highest, is 512 members, 166 active, 2694 matches.

What happens if they cap at 200?

MS kicks 149, still have 200 active.
Next kicks 312 members! and still has 166 active.

Both still drop the same, no change.

Cap at 100 and it is worse for members but makes no difference on activity numbers, just splits activity up and even further separates friends/family.

Smaller sub units still drop the same as they would under one tag, only change is the face of the map on names over planets with the addition of a number. Will see just as many MS planets as before, due to activity and organization, as we do now, just the addition of MS1, MS2 instead of just MS.

Nobody is going to leave friends/family to go off and make another Unit in another faction. To think otherwise is an admission that one does not understand nor value relationships.

So, this is going to solve what?

What happens if they cap at 100?

Both units have to split up. This would probably be a good thing.

To be honest, I feel like the lastest hardcore unit tournament was a test to see which units are oversized and by how much (I am glad you pointed out the statistics of the tourney). I'm sure PGI is aware that the ComWar scene is dominated by a select few units (not even going to bother naming them, everybody knows who they are by now). That's probably not what PGI intended, seeing as the idea of competing units was to have a bunch of groups compete at the same level, not have 2 or 3 supergroups who beat everyone else into submission and pretend it has anything to do with skill. Pfft. I have a hunch that this tournament's objective was to collect the data needed to make the best judgement on where to set the unit membership cap (ie. the cap that will affect the least number of units).

Are you saying you are friends with every single person in YOUR unit? Pleeeeeeease. Most members of those superunits are grouped up for the sole purpose of being associated with one of the largest hardcore units, no matter what their skill level is or who their friends are. In fact, they probably joined one of the largest units around due solely to the fact that they DON'T personally know anyone who plays this game. "Hi! Howz it goin? Wanna group? :3" does not count as a 'valuable relationship' friend.

With the addition of population control per faction (ie. restricting players from joining factions that already have a surplus), that solves the problem of too many sub-units dropping on same faction. Some would be forced to drop on an enemy faction. Seeing as this would lead to a more balanced population and thus more games taking place, I think that's a small sacrifice for the good of a game that has been beaten down continually by the actions of its players.

Your arguments are invalid.

EDIT:

Forgot to make one more point. Losing membership in a unit =/= losing your friends. You would still be able to contact them all in-game via friend chat, so my solution does not restrict someone from making relationships in any shape or form.

Edited by Repasy, 23 July 2015 - 10:19 AM.

[Rahul Roy]

MischiefSC, on 22 July 2015 - 11:11 AM, said:

As I said on the unit cap thread, it's a terrible idea. It's flat out stupid to think that unit caps will just make friends stop playing together and break up into smaller, independent units. They'll still play together - or if they can't are more likely to just not play.

The goal of making friends not play together is flat out stupid. Orgs are not just going to boot a bunch of members who will then just wander off, join another faction and make a new small unit.

Friends would still be playing together if they are on the opposing sides.

Although it would be quite a different experience. But think of it like when you see people from the same unit on opposite sides in a non-CW match. It's not the end of the world and they generally have a nice word or two of greeting for each other in the start. Doesn't stop them from doing their best to kill each other in the match itself.

[MischiefSC]

Rahul Roy, on 23 July 2015 - 11:36 AM, said:

Friends would still be playing together if they are on the opposing sides.

Although it would be quite a different experience. But think of it like when you see people from the same unit on opposite sides in a non-CW match. It's not the end of the world and they generally have a nice word or two of greeting for each other in the start. Doesn't stop them from doing their best to kill each other in the match itself.

Only it won't work that way. They're already playing together - all that will happen is that they'll have slightly different unit tags. They'll play together in the same TS on the same faction. It's flat out silly to think people will do otherwise. They're going to drop together like they've always done.

It's just going to be more of a hassle.

[Tasker]

*checks win rates*

Oh, look like you still inferior to #1 IS unit, NKVA.

Well, bye.

*deliver flying elbow drop*

Edited by Tasker, 23 July 2015 - 05:34 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Tasker, on 23 July 2015 - 05:34 PM, said:

*checks win rates*

Oh, look like you still inferior to #1 IS unit, NKVA.

Well, bye.

*deliver flying elbow drop*

Do you guys just wander the interwebs in packs or did you all just get a 30 day ban that stopped at the same time?

There was this total lack of NKVA hijinx for weeks, now suddenly you're all drifting back in.

One of the new mods not pay their protection money?

Edited by MischiefSC, 23 July 2015 - 08:15 PM.