46 replies to this topic

[C E Dwyer]

Camo decals, planets capture meaning something worth while

NBT league is run like a proper campaign with drop ship ranges, buying the mechs you can use, mech capture, salvage etc, using standard maps.

Basically they are creating what CW should have been, with far less resources, another living example of how bad the department heads of P.G.I are

[DerMaulwurf]

Separating PUGs and premades was the smartest thing that PGI did for the random queue. Then they went ahead and completely ignored that lesson for CW. The issue might be less severe if MWO had a working chat lobby system to help with finding groups and balancing sides before a drop. But as it stands now CW is fundamentally flawed and this is something incentives cannot fix.

[Dino Might]

Alistair Winter, on 27 October 2015 - 07:04 PM, said:

The idea that two units would basically just help each other and let each other win one week at a time only makes sense if helping each other provides greater rewards than fighting each other. And that's not a given. It depends on how the rewards are handed out.

MWO Prisoner Dilemma - I like it!
But in reality, people would game it. Look at what has been done in CW during the events. Heck, look at what was happening in CW even without the events. Gotta gain planets...drop alt accounts amidst enemy force...stomp, repeat. Or, conglomerate 20 different units into one, so we can collectively all get the same reward, because it's not a prize pool divided among winners. Might as well just get everyone into one unit/faction and everyone wins.

Whatever PGI comes up with, there will be a way to game it, and that way will be followed, because humans tend to the path of least resistance. Ironically, cbills actually motivate people in this game, and a majority of them will go for the easiest way to acquire the most of them. Evidence? How many Timberwolves do you see each match? I rest my case...

[TWIAFU]

sycocys, on 27 October 2015 - 07:54 PM, said:

Why exactly wouldn't they game a system like that by letting each other win as fast as possible for MC rewards?

Took me about 2 seconds to realize that is exactly what they'd do with a system like that.

So, they want us to SWOLMS CW then?

WTF!

[KHETTI]

The CW game mode itself SHOULD be incentive enough for players to want to play it.
Past history has shown with this community that anything with meaningful rewards, brings out the absolute worst behaviour where gaming(exploiting) the system is the number one tactic.

Edited by KHETTI, 28 October 2015 - 04:24 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

It's very misleading to talk about cash prizes when Russ is actually talking about MC. Those are two different things. Just because some items can only be bought for MC (and thus, cash) doesn't make it a cash prize. A coupon is not a cash prize.

In other games, gaming and exploiting happens because currency can be transferred freely between players. In MWO, this isn't possible. So what are the huge rewards you can get for MC in MWO? You can buy cosmetic items, premium time and mechs. Well, you can already buy most mechs for C-bills. Are we really that worried that people will go out of their way to cheat the system just so they can afford a new one-shot camo pattern on their Urbanmech?

Is that the big concern? That people will flip out and go crazy for some small MC rewards? To do what? Collect all the different paint colours in MWO?

I'm not seeing it.

Dino Might, on 28 October 2015 - 02:43 AM, said:

MWO Prisoner Dilemma - I like it!

Hmm, that's actually a pretty good description for the solo queue

Dino Might, on 28 October 2015 - 02:43 AM, said:

But in reality, people would game it. Look at what has been done in CW during the events. Heck, look at what was happening in CW even without the events. Gotta gain planets...drop alt accounts amidst enemy force...stomp, repeat. Or, conglomerate 20 different units into one, so we can collectively all get the same reward, because it's not a prize pool divided among winners. Might as well just get everyone into one unit/faction and everyone wins.

Whatever PGI comes up with, there will be a way to game it, and that way will be followed, because humans tend to the path of least resistance. Ironically, cbills actually motivate people in this game, and a majority of them will go for the easiest way to acquire the most of them. Evidence? How many Timberwolves do you see each match? I rest my case...

If you're going to make such a broad statement as "Whatever system is designed with collective rewards will result in gaming and exploitation", which is highly dubious when you consider the literally infinite possibilities for designing this system, then my counter argument would be "Well, maybe that's not a bad thing."

Even if we assume that every system can be gamed and exploited, the benefits of doing so may not be so valuable that it's worth the effort. And indeed, even if some people consider it worth the effort, it may not be a very big problem for the MWO population overall. One example of this is sync dropping. It used to be a big deal. Today, it's not a very big deal. Is sync dropping in the solo queue possible? Yes, certainly. You can even sync drop in the group queue and feed your unit teammates on the other team valuable information. An exploit is possible, but almost nobody's doing it.

[Jetfire]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 27 October 2015 - 08:11 PM, said:

Here's how it went:

Players: Incentivize groups to play against each other! We have too much 12-man v PUGs!

Russ: How about if we cap unit sizes?

Players: No! We'll just all join the same faction anyway!

Russ: How about if we make it so that only one unit can get the benefits of holding a planet, and make those benefits significant?

Players: No! We'll just all join the same faction anyway!

Russ: ??? How is that related to what I just said?

Players: Oh, you said something. Um... we'll just trade planets to spread the benefits around or something.

Russ: What if we limit how many big units a faction will be willing to hire, capping how many units can be in a single faction.

Players: NANANANANA I can't hear you!

Russ: Screw this noise. I'm out.

Pretty much. It would not be hard to limit gaming. Just make it less productive to try to game the system than to just play the game. Make rewards on planets deplete over time making it more productive to continue conquering new systems than to trade a few back and forth. At that point it would be too complicated to try and swap the planets back and forth fairly and someone would always be getting the short end of the stick. Additionally you could make the rewards deplete faster the longer you hold the planet.

Then on top of it all make the rewards pools on different planets vary. AND give a small tithe of the benefits to all the faction players not just the unit that controls it. So there is an incentive to defend any planet not just your units.

Example:

Planet A has 10,000 MC on it
-at the end of every day a unit controls it they get 1 MC + 1 MC for each previous day of control
-at the end of every day a faction controls a planet each aligned player that has played a match that day gains a small fraction of all the rewards from all the planets in faction (say 1-10%)
-when the MC pool on the planet depletes it begins to refill slowly and offers no rewards until completely refilled

And to make it worth stealing planets the unit that steals the planet away take a one time payment of half what the previous unit would have earned for the day. Essentially stealing their escaping products before having to rebuild.

Edited by Jetfire, 28 October 2015 - 04:59 AM.

[Clownwarlord]

The biggest problem has been Jade Falcon and Wolf made a pact to not attack each other (now some groups have joined those factions and attacked each other but not enough to make much change). So due to that pact they pushed all the way down to Liao with out having any issues.

My suggestion would be reset the map and then have attacks on clans being any IS can help in the attack. The current system only allows IS cross faction defending, and this has hurt the IS because they get pugs who lose the planet for them instead of getting pugs to attack for them. My second portion is allow factions to take planets from the clans even if they do not have a border with them.

[pbiggz]

clownwarlord, on 28 October 2015 - 05:02 AM, said:

The biggest problem has been Jade Falcon and Wolf made a pact to not attack each other (now some groups have joined those factions and attacked each other but not enough to make much change). So due to that pact they pushed all the way down to Liao with out having any issues.

My suggestion would be reset the map and then have attacks on clans being any IS can help in the attack. The current system only allows IS cross faction defending, and this has hurt the IS because they get pugs who lose the planet for them instead of getting pugs to attack for them. My second portion is allow factions to take planets from the clans even if they do not have a border with them.

beta 1 is proof that player made truces dont matter. In fact, alot of the fun from cw beta 1 came from when we smashed all those fragile truces and started full out bloody wars. Any issues with CW stem from the game mode's contrived nature, and the lack of content and replay-ability associated with it. In other words, its not done.

[Alistair Winter]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 27 October 2015 - 08:11 PM, said:

Here's how it went:

Players: Incentivize groups to play against each other! We have too much 12-man v PUGs!

Russ: How about if we cap unit sizes?

Players: No! We'll just all join the same faction anyway!

Russ: How about if we make it so that only one unit can get the benefits of holding a planet, and make those benefits significant?

Players: No! We'll just all join the same faction anyway!

Russ: ??? How is that related to what I just said?

Players: Oh, you said something. Um... we'll just trade planets to spread the benefits around or something.

Russ: What if we limit how many big units a faction will be willing to hire, capping how many units can be in a single faction.

Players: NANANANANA I can't hear you!

Russ: Screw this noise. I'm out.

QFT! And then even Phil joined the choir and said "Russ, everyone is saying No in the chat, bro".

It's not often I'm a Russ apologist, but it's just frustrating to see people shout him down with childish objections and invalid arguments before he can even explain what he's thinking.

[Timuroslav]

People don't want to play Community Warfare for some fairly simple reasons.

-Organized drops; If you're not taking Meta-I.S. mechs then you just screwed your team. Also prepare for 30 minute wait times.

-Timber Rush> I.S. Rush. So the reality of it is, if the Clans want to win they can because they have faster mechs with longer range Weapons. So people don't want to compete with that anymore. Honestly, I don't blame them. P.G.I. tried to balance this problem by making Every Community Warfare map a Funnel shape; so that way the Clans can't just out maneuver the I.S. forces. They still do, hence the appearance of a dead C.W. Now that the Clans have several good Light mechs, who wants to fight that?

-The maps kind of discourage tactical play, because if the maps were wide clans would again win because of speed.

-People want to play their own mechs, not the Meta ones. Every time my drop leader says bring a firestarter or Raven ECM or go home I say "ugh"

Arctic Cheetah and Timber
nuff said

Edited by Timuroslav, 28 October 2015 - 05:52 AM.

[KuroNyra]

Elizander, on 28 October 2015 - 12:34 AM, said:

It could just be a fixed reward that only one unit per faction can win in a given time frame.

Terrible idea.
A huge unit could very likely use guys who are not on the main group trying to get on the other side and try to destroy the job done by other unit in order to make HIS unit achieve it. With a secondary account it's largely possible... And maybe already happened.


But seriously, the way Russ was treated. It proove even more he shouldn't be paying attention to the players considering the kind of result we give to him.
Heck. I could almost understand if he decide to just screw this up just and piss us off.

Edited by KuroNyra, 28 October 2015 - 05:53 AM.

[Clownwarlord]

This is a bad idea ... just increase C-Bills for those dropping in CW not in a group ... yeah frack the groups and their pug stomping.

Actually that gives me an idea ... get rid of groups in CW heck the units are already grouped up by faction anyway.

[pbiggz]

clownwarlord, on 28 October 2015 - 05:53 AM, said:

This is a bad idea ... just increase C-Bills for those dropping in CW not in a group ... yeah frack the groups and their pug stomping.

Actually that gives me an idea ... get rid of groups in CW heck the units are already grouped up by faction anyway.

[Dino Might]

Alistair Winter, on 28 October 2015 - 04:43 AM, said:

Even if we assume that every system can be gamed and exploited, the benefits of doing so may not be so valuable that it's worth the effort. And indeed, even if some people consider it worth the effort, it may not be a very big problem for the MWO population overall. One example of this is sync dropping. It used to be a big deal. Today, it's not a very big deal. Is sync dropping in the solo queue possible? Yes, certainly. You can even sync drop in the group queue and feed your unit teammates on the other team valuable information. An exploit is possible, but almost nobody's doing it.

I'm with you. I don't think people gaming the system is a big problem, at least not one that's worth much attention or just giving up on trying to implement something new. It's going to happen, so what? Why should I care that some dudes got more spacecash than me? Does anyone really weep over the fact that they didn't get the Tukayyid 1st place trophy?

Maybe I'm just too self-absorbed, but I'm going to play for my own personal enjoyment, and everyone else can do w/e the heck they want. I'll drop in my pink barbie jeep Catapult with 6 streak 2s just because it makes me laugh. I'll queue up CW wtih a Direstar despite the planet being completely overrun by 12-man TDR5SS squads, even if I get some alt-AFKs on my team. As I have begun to make the game less about winning and more about having fun, I have, surprisingly, been having more fun. Let all the winners and whiners duke it out.

As you said, at the end of the day, it's not worth the effort to fight over who has the best/most pixel mechs or who is the #1 MWO team in the world. I just can't summon the requisite cares.

[Almond Brown]

GreyNovember, on 27 October 2015 - 08:34 PM, said:

To be fair though, who actually cares about MC anymore?

On those occasions when we get XP conversion x 2 deals, MC is your best friend... Receiving new FREE Mechs and having GXP to Elite them instantly is never a bad thing.

[Almond Brown]

Cathy, on 28 October 2015 - 12:47 AM, said:

Camo decals, planets capture meaning something worth while

NBT league is run like a proper campaign with drop ship ranges, buying the mechs you can use, mech capture, salvage etc, using standard maps.

Basically they are creating what CW should have been, with far less resources, another living example of how bad the department heads of P.G.I are

And if not for the work of the Department heads at P.G.I NBT would have SFA to use to create that campaign. So there is that ...

Edited by Almond Brown, 28 October 2015 - 06:31 AM.

[rolly]

Perhaps the best incentive would be a fully working game with additional mechanics (not just fluff features) beyond the minimal viable product.

The best and most populated games are ones where they are fun, have something for every type of player and are robust (in mechanics) enough that you don't need to incentivize anything. If you bring the general population up of a game, the natural progression will be more people playing CW, they also stand to benefit with a greater population injecting cash to make up the initial investment. Not this claw back system they have going on.

[DAYLEET]

Alistair Winter, on 28 October 2015 - 04:43 AM, said:

It's very misleading to talk about cash prizes when Russ is actually talking about MC. Those are two different things. Just because some items can only be bought for MC (and thus, cash) doesn't make it a cash prize. A coupon is not a cash prize.

They are not so different and that's not even the point so why are you avoiding it. Using monetary reward to be more popular is wrong in many ways.

First it shows that your game mode sucks balls and need fixing.

Second we already saw what happens when a ridiculously low amount of mc given in events do to people. Imagine how that will degrade CW.

CW needs a lot more content first. It's going in that direction slowly but it is going there. CW isnt the main game mode, you don't need to try and get everyone in it but when no one plays it and ***** in the forum then you need to fix it not give candy. So, how is mc going to improve CW again? More people wont make it any better.

[Imperius]

You can't fix Community Warfare, because the problem is in the first word. I've been saying that CW was a lost cause since last November.

Until MWO offers a new place to enjoy MWO and meet people and not their egos, CW will not not grow or be successful.

We need more focus on PVE and a good co-op mode with group matching and before you cut my head off hear me out.

When it has come to gaming all the friends I have ever made I have only made through a relaxed PVE type environment where you get to actually meet the person and not their ego. It's quite strange people are ok with AI destroying them or getting destroyed, but the moment the openent becomes a player it's not ok. With a more laid back atmosphere you can shoot the **** while sharing a common goal without having to lose to whatever group/players people's egos are hurt by. This creates new groups and foundations for new units, then they can practice in the group queue (rivalries will start to form), and when they think they have a solid group that works well together, they will head into CW.

Edited by Imperius, 28 October 2015 - 07:08 AM.