522 replies to this topic

[Valar13]

To put things in perspective, if a Merc unit had tried to go Clan in-canon, the Clans would have obliterated them mercilessly for honor's sake.

If they had somehow ingratiated themselves into the Clan in some way or another, the Houses would have done the same if they tried to come back.

The hole in this "we're mercs, we should be able to go where we want without restrictions" idea is that people hold grudges - you do enough damage as a paid military force to a nation, that nation is not going to be terribly eager to throw money at you in the future.

[Jenovah]

Greyhart, on 04 January 2016 - 09:09 AM, said:

give control of the money to the loyalist, who clearly want to achieve overall victory for their faction.

Because no "loyalist" faction player is in it for the rewards... I mean, are you for real? And again, where does this magical cbill come from? Not from the factions player base, right? PGI gifts it, factions use it, mercs get charged to play.......

Edited by Jenovah, 04 January 2016 - 09:24 AM.

[Armando]

Valar13, on 04 January 2016 - 09:15 AM, said:

To put things in perspective, if a Merc unit had tried to go Clan in-canon, the Clans would have obliterated them mercilessly for honor's sake.

If they had somehow ingratiated themselves into the Clan in some way or another, the Houses would have done the same if they tried to come back.

The hole in this "we're mercs, we should be able to go where we want without restrictions" idea is that people hold grudges - you do enough damage as a paid military force to a nation, that nation is not going to be terribly eager to throw money at you in the future.

I get the whole 'in the lore Mercs..." thought process, but in the real world I have spend thousand of real life dollars on both Clan and IS mechs, if I am limited into ONLY playing Clan or ONLY playing IS...I will stop buying both (and playing the game).

Edited by Armando, 04 January 2016 - 09:25 AM.

[Jenovah]

Valar13, on 04 January 2016 - 09:15 AM, said:

The hole in this "we're mercs, we should be able to go where we want without restrictions" idea is that people hold grudges - you do enough damage as a paid military force to a nation, that nation is not going to be terribly eager to throw money at you in the future.

This is where the balancing act comes into play; people are going to want to run clan mechs at times- even as a group... Of course, events could be a partial answer ( I missed the last one due to work ) but it sounds like your side was locked once chosen.

Key here is the events have to be more often.

[Valar13]

Armando, on 04 January 2016 - 09:24 AM, said:

I get the whole 'in the lore Mercs..." thought process, but in the real world I have spend thousand of real life dollars on both Clan and IS mechs, if I am limited into ONLY playing Clan or ONLY playing IS...I will stop buying both (and playing the game).

Even if you were restricted to one side in CW that would hardly limit what you can do in public queue.

[Crockdaddy]

NS is formally requesting ANY CW action back in House Kurita. We'd love to go back. We'd love to mostly stay. Please bolster the Smoke Jaguars please and thanks.

Also, stiffen up the Davions. I enjoyed hating them and I need them to queue up for fights.

Simplify the attack lanes ... not so many faction lanes. That way I can take a 4 to 6 man to battle and expect to get a fight within 5 minutes ... not 25 minutes.

[Armando]

Valar13, on 04 January 2016 - 09:32 AM, said:

Even if you were restricted to one side in CW that would hardly limit what you can do in public queue.

Maybe you backed this game to play in the public queue (no judgments here), but I backed this game to play CW. Locking pilots into IS only or Clan only will end with players like me leaving the game altogether. I will be sure to request a full refund for the $5K+ plus I have dropped on the game when I go.

Edited by Armando, 04 January 2016 - 09:44 AM.

[Jenovah]

Valar13, on 04 January 2016 - 09:32 AM, said:

Even if you were restricted to one side in CW that would hardly limit what you can do in public queue.

And while we're at it, lets restrict your account to locusts only..... that would hardly limit what you can do in public queue.

I mean really, do people think before they post?

[Felicitatem Parco]

There are too many people focusing on increasing penalties for breaking contracts, making contracts harder to break, and trying to lock people down. That's not my idea of maximizing fun.

I think that we should focus more on the players that are affected by large group movements instead of focusing directly on limiting mobility.

If a huge merc unit leaves a house, then that house should begin paying its remaining players a higher Bounty for each match (since their forces are depleted and they need to encourage more fighting prowess from their remaining members and to draw new recruits). Also, houses or Clans that are losing too much territory should automatically increase payouts as a function of territory size. This would reflect their desperation snce they are at risk of being overrun. And conversely, houses or Clans that are fighting very well or have bloated troop numbers should pay out less per match (since they are at no risk of being overrun).

The merc unit that moved should enter their new contact at a very low pay rate, and only earn higher pay with time as they gain loyalty. This means hot-swapping would not be profitable in the short-run, and would discourage disloyalty. However, hitting them with a stiffer penalty seems off to me... Did they get a huge cash-advance, or something?


Edit - To be fair to loyal troops, houses should not suddenly decrease payouts to loyal fighters just because a huge merc group joins their house. Players with high loyalty should experience significantly delayed payout nerfs when dynamics hit. However, the payout nerf should eventually come into effect tonreflect the fact that the house has to spread out their funds now across a larger pool of recipients.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 04 January 2016 - 10:40 AM.

[LeeNTien]

Valar13, on 04 January 2016 - 09:15 AM, said:

To put things in perspective, if a Merc unit had tried to go Clan in-canon, the Clans would have obliterated them mercilessly for honor's sake.

If they had somehow ingratiated themselves into the Clan in some way or another, the Houses would have done the same if they tried to come back.

The hole in this "we're mercs, we should be able to go where we want without restrictions" idea is that people hold grudges - you do enough damage as a paid military force to a nation, that nation is not going to be terribly eager to throw money at you in the future.

But if one's to follow this, then new players would have to pick IS or Clan when they create their accounts, and from that point on having two completely different gaming experiences, with different mechs and even mechanics (because clans would have to incoroprate the bidding and the factions infighting, and the way they fought etc etc).
And if we are to still have the mechanics in use right now - then no one should be able to fight for the Clans in CW at all. They should be NPCs, who'd be fought by IS loyalist or merc units for the chance of capturing Clan tech and using it themselves.

Edited by LeeNTien, 04 January 2016 - 12:07 PM.

[Greyhart]

the question is what do you want each way of playing to feel like what is the difference in playing mercy or loyalist?

In my view a merc is in it for the money and a loyalist is in it to see his faction win. So how should the game facilitate this?

Well in order to facilitate the win that means the loyalists must have control of what troops they have and where they are deployed. The major fluctuating factor is merc units and they are following the need for max reward for least risk.

If you make it harder for mercs to move then why don't they just become loyalists?

If there is infinite money available there is no incentive for the merc units to compete or change faction. Therefore money must be limited and the rewards on offer must vary.

If you create an automated system people will find a way around it and all the factions will act the same. So better have the loyalists offer the mercs contracts that way you get vendettas and people being refused contracts for various reasons rather than a fixed system. Having to work with other groups would be a skill as well.

Edited by Greyhart, 04 January 2016 - 01:43 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

Greyhart, on 04 January 2016 - 01:42 PM, said:

the question is what do you want each way of playing to feel like what is the difference in playing mercy or loyalist?

In my view a merc is in it for the money and a loyalist is in it to see his faction win. So how should the game facilitate this?

Well in order to facilitate the win that means the loyalists must have control of what troops they have and where they are deployed. The major fluctuating factor is merc units and they are following the need for max reward for least risk.

If you make it harder for mercs to move then why don't they just become loyalists?

If there is infinite money available there is no incentive for the merc units to compete or change faction. Therefore money must be limited and the rewards on offer must vary.

If you create an automated system people will find a way around it and all the factions will act the same. So better have the loyalists offer the mercs contracts that way you get vendettas and people being refused contracts for various reasons rather than a fixed system. Having to work with other groups would be a skill as well.

Just to note, PGI wanted to run CW as "seasons" but the vocal community did not want that and spoke very loudly, so we have what we have now, almost continuous warfare without an seasons. Of course at the time we were not aware of shallow the CW would be at the beginning, the need to flesh it out, as it was and still is skin and bones.

I would say know is the time, at least with the current setup, to go the seasons route, 3 months at a time. The unit contracts would be for 1 and 2 month lengths. A unit can accept a 1month and at the end of that month, they can stay for another 2 months or switch to another faction. Or take the 2 month then switch factions for one month or stay. Breaking contracts would be more expensive could only be done once per season.

Loyalty points - switch faction then fight against your former employee would generate negative loyalty points at an accelerated rate. Lets say you are rank 3 but you switch faction and fight on former employee worlds, you loss rank with that faction. If you join them again, you can re-earn your ranks but get nothing in return (on the rewards, as they can only be obtained once) and your loyalty points are reduced for set amount of time.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 04 January 2016 - 08:02 PM.

[DarklightCA]

Armando, on 04 January 2016 - 09:24 AM, said:

I get the whole 'in the lore Mercs..." thought process, but in the real world I have spend thousand of real life dollars on both Clan and IS mechs, if I am limited into ONLY playing Clan or ONLY playing IS...I will stop buying both (and playing the game).

You can play both mechs, play your IS mech's in Community Warfare and your Clan mech's in regular que or vice versa... just saying. Though I don't think he's talking about locking merc's to one side just giving merc's negative effects for faction swapping.

Edited by l)arklight, 04 January 2016 - 08:36 PM.

[Armando]

l)arklight, on 04 January 2016 - 08:35 PM, said:

You can play both mechs, play your IS mech's in Community Warfare and your Clan mech's in regular que or vice versa... just saying.

This doesn't work when the pilot never plays in the solo queue....also, just saying.

Edited by Armando, 04 January 2016 - 08:37 PM.

[DarklightCA]

Armando, on 04 January 2016 - 08:36 PM, said:

This doesn't work when the pilot never plays in the solo queue....also, just saying.

Well then that's tough luck for you, though I don't currently see the difference between regular que and Community Warfare other than CW gives you more drops. Need's a whole lot more content for any actual difference so by phase 4 in 2020 you may have a Community Warfare that isn't exactly like the solo que.

Edited by l)arklight, 04 January 2016 - 09:04 PM.

[Armando]

l)arklight, on 04 January 2016 - 09:02 PM, said:

Well then that's tough luck for you, though I don't currently see the difference between regular que and Community Warfare other than CW gives you more drops. Need's a whole lot more content for any actual difference so by phase 4 in 2020 you may have a Community Warfare that isn't exactly like the solo que.

A well executed Public drop is over in under 3 minutes (if you are REALLY good under 2 minutes 30 seconds)...most of the time it takes longer than that to find a match in the Public queue. So yes you can in fact play more games (in raw numbers) in a given period of time, however, you eat more queues AND longer queues. Add to that reduced rewards (no extra bonuses for wins, no faction level rewards) and Public queue is a serious waste of time outside of special events for anyone that can consistently win matches in either game mode.

When you have 300+ mechs to load-out / module-up you can't waste time eating queue...you gotta keep that c-bills per hour up baby. Of course if PGI goes and does something stupid like tie pilots to ONLY Clan or ONLY IS making 1/2 my mechs useless in CW not only are there guaranteed to lose 50% of my business (why by a single IS mech, when you can ONLY take Clan mechs to the fight)...there is a very good chance I'll be done playing the game altogether (More money to spend on Star Citizen).

Edited by Armando, 04 January 2016 - 10:41 PM.

[El Bandito]

Armando, on 04 January 2016 - 10:41 PM, said:

(More money to spend on Star Citizen).

[Widowmaker1981]

Valar13, on 04 January 2016 - 09:32 AM, said:

Even if you were restricted to one side in CW that would hardly limit what you can do in public queue.

For some people, like myself, the Dropdeck game mode is enjoyable and we want to be able to play it with all of our mechs.

Id be completely fine with locking to IS or Clan in CW if invasion and any/all other CW game modes are also added to a public queue with no effect on the galaxy map. PGI wont do that though, because it would mean they would have to actually give the Galaxy map some persistent value or no one would ever play CW.

edit: They actually do need to lock people from swapping between Clan and IS, because otherwise it is literally impossible to give the Galaxy map any value. Either short(ish) seasons of no more than 3 months so you can swap every 3 months if you want, or add invasion to the pub queue in some way.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 05 January 2016 - 03:22 AM.

[Hotthedd]

Armando, on 04 January 2016 - 10:41 PM, said:

A well executed Public drop is over in under 3 minutes (if you are REALLY good under 2 minutes 30 seconds)...most of the time it takes longer than that to find a match in the Public queue. So yes you can in fact play more games (in raw numbers) in a given period of time, however, you eat more queues AND longer queues. Add to that reduced rewards (no extra bonuses for wins, no faction level rewards) and Public queue is a serious waste of time outside of special events for anyone that can consistently win matches in either game mode.

When you have 300+ mechs to load-out / module-up you can't waste time eating queue...you gotta keep that c-bills per hour up baby. Of course if PGI goes and does something stupid like tie pilots to ONLY Clan or ONLY IS making 1/2 my mechs useless in CW not only are there guaranteed to lose 50% of my business (why by a single IS mech, when you can ONLY take Clan mechs to the fight)...there is a very good chance I'll be done playing the game altogether (More money to spend on Star Citizen).

PGI could allow each account to have 2 pilots, a Clan mechwarrior and an I.S. mechwarrior. Each pilot could join a different unit. This would ensure player number parity for I.S./Clan balance as well.

[Lupis Volk]

Jenovah, on 04 January 2016 - 10:11 AM, said:

And while we're at it, lets restrict your account to locusts only..... that would hardly limit what you can do in public queue.

I mean really, do people think before they post?

Oh boy please do that to me but it's all lights. Also i'd get all lights for free.

(light lover and somewhat a Frankenstein monster. seriously i can be frightening in lights when o have zero cares in the world.)

Edited by Lupis Volk, 05 January 2016 - 05:13 AM.