37 replies to this topic

[Frankenst3in]

There are simply to many factions for the current population, that is the unfortunate and blunt truth. There needs to either be far fewer factions, or a way to allow low activity factions to play on the populated planets of other factions. I am probably one of the higher activity players in Community Warfare, I like to play it at every opportunity, however my unit has taken a Smoke Jag contract, and Smoke Jag is DEAD. If we get a full twelve online, we can occasionally pull pugs in for a game via call to arms, but then its a stomp, and nobody including me has a very good time. If we don't have a full twelve on, I just sit in a lobby for hours. At this point, I think a generic Clan Vs. IS queue is the only answer to keep the (small) remaining population interested. I hate whining, but seriously PGI, CW is dying on the vine with not even a peep about it from you guys. If it does not change soon, the only conclusion I can come to is that you want it to die, in which case, just pull the f*<k1n6 plug already so I can move on to another game.

[DarkMetalBlade]

Wonderful, another thread complaining about CW population being too low.

Listen, if you happened to be in one of those units that kept telling CW Pugs to "GIT GUD OR GIT REKT!!!!!111!!11!one!" my reaction to you making this thread would be thus:

Spoiler

However, from the looks of your OP, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Now, I do agree that CW needs some changes to be made, but if you want to know what will bring the population back, it's to make each & every planet give something to the unit that is holding the planet, like discounts to certain chassis, steady c-bill income, among others. That, in course, will provide at least some meaning to their fights on every planet, & gives them motivation to participate, both in attack & defense. Motivation is the #1 reason why nobody really plays CW, because right now, the planets give the victors little more than their unit tag on their planet, & that has no meaning whatsoever.

However, all that will still be for naught if the Pugs keep leaving CW. If you really want to stop that from happening, my advice is to let them play how they want. Now, I'm not saying to withdraw your forces out of the gates, but rather, to give them enough room to do what they want. Just be sure to stand no further back than right behind their gates, so that they don't get too comfortable.

Oh, & did I mention that there's a non-CW event going on right now?? These are also why the CW population is at rock bottom.

[Livewyr]

The amount of factions are fine, there's just no reason to take & own planets.
If there was a reason to own planets (especially capitals) then you would find a lot more involvement on all sides.

Number one priority for PGI, I think, should be making it actually worth fighting for a planet. Nifty game mode is nice, but there's no reason to go after a planet, nor any reason to defend a planet- unless there is already a fight happening.

How they want to do it? I don't know.. perhaps a CBILL rewards increase per planet, and then individual perks for more notable planets and capitals.

Edited by Livewyr, 08 August 2015 - 05:05 PM.

[Frankenst3in]

Livewyr, on 08 August 2015 - 05:00 PM, said:

The amount of factions are fine, there's just no reason to take & own planets.

I agree with you that a reason to take and own planets needs to be added, I don't agree that the number of factions for the *current* population is fine. As far as I can see, Falcon and Wolf are the only two factions with a daily population, with Davion active one or two nights a week, with every other faction having sporadic activity at best. That is pretty bad man. If PGI gets interested in CW again, and starts adding more reason to play, thus increasing population? Sure, bring on the factions. Right now I am thinking triage, life support to keep this game mode going until those reasons can be added.

Edited by Kiboelt, 08 August 2015 - 05:53 PM.

[Livewyr]

Kiboelt, on 08 August 2015 - 05:52 PM, said:

I agree with you that a reason to take and own planets needs to be added, I don't agree that the number of factions for the *current* population is fine. As far as I can see, Falcon and Wolf are the only two factions with a daily population, with Davion active one or two nights a week, with every other faction having sporadic activity at best. That is pretty bad man. If PGI gets interested in CW again, and starts adding more reason to play, thus increasing population? Sure, bring on the factions. Right now I am thinking triage, life support to keep this game mode going until those reasons can be added.

There already is 2 factions, in the form of defenses. I think if you ditched any factions (or homogenized them into Clan/IS) you would lose the players that play for the houses. (Loyalty Players)

Better to try to increase the blood flow to a starved limb, than to apply a tourniquet and ensure its death.

[Jack Booted Thug]

I would be down for a generic faction attack to match the defend we have now. I can only spam faction chat so much to try and hustle a team together.

[xe N on]

I agree. It should be Inner Sphere against Clans. You should be able to choose sub-factions (Clan Wolf, Steiner), but it shouldn't matter for attacks or defends. There should be only one border: Clan-IS.

Edited by xe N on, 08 August 2015 - 11:30 PM.

[Livewyr]

Jack Booted Thug, on 08 August 2015 - 11:26 PM, said:

I would be down for a generic faction attack to match the defend we have now. I can only spam faction chat so much to try and hustle a team together.

xe N on, on 08 August 2015 - 11:30 PM, said:

I agree. It should be Inner Sphere against Clans. You should be able to choose sub-factions (Clan Wolf, Steiner), but it shouldn't matter for attacks or defends. There should be only one border: Clan-IS.

At that point, the map could be replaced by a tug of war rope, or even just entirely removed and replaced by "Clan vs IS Tech" Game mode queue.

[xe N on]

Livewyr, on 09 August 2015 - 01:26 AM, said:

At that point, the map could be replaced by a tug of war rope, or even just entirely removed and replaced by "Clan vs IS Tech" Game mode queue.

At this point, yes. But at this point planets still mean nothing, despite the fancy map. In the end, it is just a fancy 3D war rope. Because the border means next to nothing, beside that some factions cannot attack each other.

Edited by xe N on, 09 August 2015 - 01:36 AM.

[Livewyr]

xe N on, on 09 August 2015 - 01:30 AM, said:

At this point, yes. But at this point planets still mean nothing, despite the fancy map. In the end, it is just a fancy 3D war rope. Because the border means next to nothing, beside that some factions cannot attack each other.

Correct, and that is why I say: Make the map worth playing, rather than ditch the map.

[xe N on]

Livewyr, on 09 August 2015 - 01:41 AM, said:

Correct, and that is why I say: Make the map worth playing, rather than ditch the map.

No one want to ditch the map, just simplify it for more game play convenience. Make a asymmetric map with 10 faction that can fight each other playable gives any developers headache. If something becomes too complex, controlling and balance becomes next to impossible.

Most games already have problems to balance 3 factions ...

Edit: If planets become more individual with different strategic meanings and different defense ratings, the map again would become necessary.

For example: the direct attack on Terra would lead through the center. But here planets would have higher defense ratings, but also higher value. Planets on the outer rims would have less defense ratings but less value.

So, do you take the painful path straight through the middle or do you prefer to conquer a corridor around these military bastions?

Edited by xe N on, 09 August 2015 - 01:54 AM.

[Livewyr]

xe N on, on 09 August 2015 - 01:47 AM, said:

No one want to ditch the map, just simplify it for more game play convenience. Make a asymmetric map with 10 faction that can fight each other playable gives any developers headache. If something becomes too complex, controlling and balance becomes next to impossible.

Most games already have problems to balance 3 factions ...

Edit: If planets become more individual with different strategic meanings and different defense ratings, the map again would become necessary.

For example: the direct attack on Terra would lead through the center. But here planets would have higher defense ratings, but also higher value. Planets on the outer rims would have less defense ratings but less value.

So, do you take the painful path straight through the middle or do you prefer to conquer a corridor around these military bastions?

Once you add the reason to play, You get more players. Once you get more players, you can enjoy the multiple factions.

(And, balance-wise, there are only two factions..you can take clan mechs, or you can take inner sphere mechs.)



I am pretty sure that if you (essentially) made the Tukayyid event every day, the population would flatline if it went anywhere.

[Koshirou]

Livewyr, on 09 August 2015 - 01:26 AM, said:

At that point, the map could be replaced by a tug of war rope,

Which would actually be fine. Keep the map for immersion, but reduce its essence to a simple plus/minus scale. Okay with me. Maybe the actual planets changing hands could be influenced by specific sub-factions' contributions (for example, if CW has been most active in the last "round", a planet in the CW corridor is contested next.)

Quote

(And, balance-wise, there are only two factions..you can take clan mechs, or you can take inner sphere mechs.)

That would only be the case if the above were implemented. As it is, the strategic balance is crucially affected by factions' positions on the map.

A two-faction CW system would be more appropriate for the current population levels and would make balancing much easier to work on.

Edited by Koshirou, 09 August 2015 - 05:20 AM.

[Gladewolf]

Comm Warfare isn't active at the moment because of the non Comm Warfare inclusive challenges PGI insists on running. People are after the free stuff...honestly, I want more war horns as well, but we'll be back once we've got our grab bag full of goodies.

[Livewyr]

Koshirou, on 09 August 2015 - 05:17 AM, said:

Which would actually be fine. Keep the map for immersion, but reduce its essence to a simple plus/minus scale. Okay with me. Maybe the actual planets changing hands could be influenced by specific sub-factions' contributions (for example, if CW has been most active in the last "round", a planet in the CW corridor is contested next.)


That would only be the case if the above were implemented. As it is, the strategic balance is crucially affected by factions' positions on the map.

A two-faction CW system would be more appropriate for the current population levels and would make balancing much easier to work on.

What would be the point, at that point? They could save themselves all the trouble and just add a 4th checkbox to the public queue system.

(That's not community warfare, any more than the public queue is community warfare.)

They could save Forum space by deleting the faction forums!

Vapor NINE, on 09 August 2015 - 06:12 AM, said:

With CW's current staleness and planets being completely irrelevant, I propose they set it up like they did for the Tukayyid event.
1 big cue for all.

You do realize that Tukayyid was only played for the bragging rights before the map reset, correct? (And resulted in CW being dead for weeks afterward)

If every day was Tukayyid, the population would crash shortly, if not immediately.

---------------------

Why are people so insistent on killing the only thing that might actually save this game?

Endless public queue would be a failure, I can damn near guarantee it.

(The only solace I find, is that PGI doesn't actually take anything major, suggested by players, seriously. So this has about as much chance of happening as ECM being reworked.)

[Livewyr]

Vapor NINE, on 09 August 2015 - 12:58 PM, said:

I dont know why i bother here in these forums, waste of time. I'll try this once more. What I am trying to say is that if that map and planets dont matter, just create 1 CW cue LIKE they did with tukayyid event.

Believe it or not..I understand that.
What you fail to understand, is that to do that would be POINTLESS.

Don't nuke the planets, make them worth fighting for. I do not know how to make that any clearer...

[Rahul Roy]

The problem there is that the queue would get incredibly full for one side or other, just like Tukayid did. Even with 63 sectors to fight over (or however many) there were at times every sector with an active fight and 20+ teams one one side waiting to fight on them.

Even if the numbers between clan and IS would have been completely even, it still would have been like 10+ teams waiting on the queue on each side, and being forced to wait because there was no sector that didn't already have a fight.

Better might be some dynamic system, where once one planet's queue with more than say a 3 team surplus of waiting teams in the queue, on either side, they would make 2 of the waiting teams do some sort of scrimmage against each other.

Of course this is all a little academic and if it got to that it would be too much like the normal non-CW game modes.

[KinLuu]

The problem with making planets worth fighting for, is that most people no longer believe this is realistic to happen.

So we rather have a solution that works now (like a Tukayyid-type queue), than a better solution, that might never actually be realized.

[Koshirou]

Livewyr, on 09 August 2015 - 07:45 AM, said:

What would be the point, at that point?

Have a simpler, more workable CW system? Which would indeed be a CW system, no matter how much you attempt to suggest otherwise with the rest of your passive-aggressive rantings.

Quote

Don't nuke the planets, make them worth fighting for. I do not know how to make that any clearer...

It is abundantly clear, it's just not going to improve CW in its current state. This suggestion would add complexity, would introduce an additional element of "the rich get richer" and would further complicate the already-borked balancing.

Under your suggestion:

What exactly would be the incentives for people to join factions that are already getting clobbered?
How would you balance factions that are basically guaranteed to be eventually obliterated thanks to their placement on the map (FRR) with factions that are bound to expand?
What would be the relative incentives of factions that can only expand (Clans) vs factions that will be mostly defending what they have (northern IS) and those somewhat in between (southern IS)?
How would your system disincentivize constant faction-hopping to take advantage of imminent conquests?

These are just a few of the questions one would need to think through before even considering such a system. And I get the nagging feeling that you haven't thought through even one of them.



All assuming, of course, that your suggestion is actually meant to improve CW for everyone. And not, y'know, just meant as a ploy for you and your MS buddies to get more goodies as a reward for having the highest throw weight...

Edited by Koshirou, 10 August 2015 - 01:43 AM.

[Livewyr]

KinLuu, on 09 August 2015 - 11:09 PM, said:

The problem with making planets worth fighting for, is that most people no longer believe this is realistic to happen.

So we rather have a solution that works now (like a Tukayyid-type queue), than a better solution, that might never actually be realized.

If you think it's unrealistic for them to add rewards to taking planets, why do you think it is realistic that they are going to do away with the map and factions they did in order to make Tukayyid an every day non-event?

Koshirou, on 10 August 2015 - 01:31 AM, said:

Have a simpler, more workable CW system? Which would indeed be a CW system, no matter how much you attempt to suggest otherwise with the rest of your passive-aggressive rantings.

I think we can just hold up right here.
I am curious- how, in your mind, that is community warfare?

(Once you answer that, I would address the rest of your questions.)