522 replies to this topic

[Hotthedd]

Kjudoon, on 07 January 2016 - 04:07 AM, said:

MRBC Ratings... marvelous. Make them for all units... including a social aspect where loyalists can vote on how well a unit is functioning within the goals of the faction.

Yes, I want social pressure to have game consequences after some of the bad behavior many units have had abusing the system. And if a unit has too low of a MRBC score, they can't take a contract with some houses.

Nice idea about giving loyalists some input on a merc unit's rating, (maybe tied to the loyalty aspect instead of MRBC).

Ideally, it should not get to the point to where a merc unit CANNOT take a contract with a house, but instead must take a negative modifier to the base contract. We don't want to end up locking players out of some of the content.

That would also be a reason to allow single mission contracts.

oldradagast, on 07 January 2016 - 04:18 AM, said:

Big shock there... the "elite" looking for the free kills to pad their K/D ratio. Then, they come on the forums and whine about how terrible PUG's are and (insanely) about how same PUG's won't join the units that enjoy seal-clubbing them. Top it off with cries against any match-making or limits to the seal-clubbing idiocy (because "skill") and you have CW in a nutshell. No wonder nobody plays it anymore.

I wish Russ and the rest luck, but the damage has been done at this point. Until CW is remade into a game mode that offers something more than a chance for huge mobs to inflate their ego at the expense of casuals, it will be ghost town.

Has PGI changed something? The last I understood was that CW matches did not add to your stats (W/L, K/DR, etc.)

[TWIAFU]

Khereg, on 06 January 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

Oh God yes. Give me 5 minutes and I'll have a list ready.

Wait...

You don't already have a list? Mine grows almost daily.

[Haakon Magnusson]

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).

Multiple characters per account, faction lock mechs so it would be possible to be more canon.

[Kjudoon]

Haakon Magnusson, on 07 January 2016 - 04:42 AM, said:

Multiple characters per account, faction lock mechs so it would be possible to be more canon.

Multiple Characters per account, love it. Always have.

Locking mechs to faction....hmmmmmmmkinnnndaayeahhhhh.... but not the route I'd go.

Three prices for mechs:

Faction Price
(cheapest mechs because hey, they're made and serviced in your faction.)

Retail/Export Price
(Your faction is not at war with where these mechs come from. Just like an import car, it's going to be more expensive and NOT 'book price')

Black Market/Embargo Price
(Your faction is at war with these factions so equipment and chassis... particularly with R&R returning... will be extremely expensive)

But... all are allowed because you're using them to fight for the Faction.

- Discounts can be bought by spending loyalty points (if they finally break down and do the smart thing of making LP currency)
- Loyalist/Merc/Freelancer also affects the price up or down
- Once planets are attached to manufacture of mechs, you can get a bonus for holding that world that makes the chassis or component.


Once again, you must build all these controls around economic... and now social pressures with the added Loyalist control of the faction in terms of battlefront, Merc contracts, freelance contracts and all that. Without this, this game is not going to seriously change or improve.

[Silhouette Shadows]

Throughout history, mercenary units have always been paid more, are often better equipped and in many cases better trained than regular troops.

Many nations made use of them and wars were won (or lost) because of the impact they made.

I see no reason why this would not be the case in mech warrior & don't understand why people who are loyalists think they should be rewarded more than mercs, you are a loyalist because you are loyal to a house, if you are in it for the money that's the whole point of bein a merc.....

Edit: adding to the above, I think mercs should be restricted on houses/clans they can fight for - meaning if a particular house is dominating it may see less reason to recruit a struggling house who would pay far more for the extra help - this would create a more balanced system where mercs would be divided more evenly and factions better balanced overall

Edited by Silhouette Shadows, 07 January 2016 - 05:38 AM.

[Kjudoon]

Silhouette Shadows, on 07 January 2016 - 05:34 AM, said:

Throughout history, mercenary units have always been paid more, are often better equipped and in many cases better trained than regular troops.

Many nations made use of them and wars were won (or lost) because of the impact they made.

I see no reason why this would not be the case in mech warrior & don't understand why people who are loyalists think they should be rewarded more than mercs, you are a loyalist because you are loyal to a house, if you are in it for the money that's the whole point of bein a merc.....

Edit: adding to the above, I think mercs should be restricted on houses/clans they can fight for - meaning if a particular house is dominating it may see less reason to recruit a struggling house who would pay far more for the extra help - this would create a more balanced system where mercs would be divided more evenly and factions better balanced overall

Some points I solidly agree with. Mercs do get paid more and are very well equipped... because they are a private enterprise paying much of their own freight and for their own gear. They need the best to have the edge. that's why you control it economically. Sure you get paid more, but the risk is higher and so are the prices... very much like owner/operators for truck driving. Big bucks with all the expenses in most cases.

I wouldn't want to restrict them unless an 'impartial' system is created that is augmented by reputation among loyalist players via a vote system. It's a raw concept, not a finished product but would go a long ways to enforcing some community responsibility among gamers if they were held accountable for their actions.

[Armando]

N0MAD, on 07 January 2016 - 03:09 AM, said:

Pugs dont have problems

There are thousands of threads with ten's of thousands of posts that BEG to differ with you.

YOU might not have problems, I DON'T have problems, but I'm I play the game with a team, as a team (and have GREAT times doing it). If trying to improve the experience for OTHER people is 'bad' I don't ever want to be good brother, while it seem like you could care less as long as it isn't YOU having the bad experience (not saying this is true, only that this is the vibe you are putting off).

Edited by Armando, 07 January 2016 - 07:31 AM.

[Armando]

Haakon Magnusson, on 07 January 2016 - 04:42 AM, said:

Multiple characters per account, faction lock mechs so it would be possible to be more canon.

This is a creative, innovative, and practical solution that just might work. Just so I understand right, you are saying I could have a 'clan character' who has access to all my clan mechs, then a separate 'IS character' who has access to all my IS mechs???

[Tesunie]

Armando, on 07 January 2016 - 06:53 AM, said:

There are thousands of threads with ten's of thousands of posts that BEG to differ with you.

I think (with a little interpretation rights) his comment was a bit more of a remark on the "PUGs are bad" from teams and "Those evil Premade teams" from the PUGs tales...

I get tired of hearing how "evil" the premades are, because they use something called Teamwork.

I get tired of hearing about "those useless PUGs" from teams, because no one communicates with them and don't include them into the team.


I will remark, my unit also fights a lot of PUGs. Not intentionally. Right now we've been hitting the Davion boarder from time to time. On the attack, we tend to see a lot of PUGs, with a rare premade. Units tend to do more of the attacking. It seems to be the nature of the game format.

As far as "merc units", Loyalists tend to have an issue with them not because of their influence, but more so because they often aren't supporting our efforts, and instead "doing their own thing". One example here is, instead of attacking and defending against Davion, Liao Mercs decided to attack Marik. Despite being requested by a lot of Liao loyalists, they continued their attacks against Marik. This is the kind of influence that Loyalists don't want to see from Mercs. I saw Liao losing a couple planets to Davion that those mercs could defend (but units seem to not want to defend much it seems). However, instead of defending, they opened up an entire new path of aggression against a non-active front. Sure they took planets for Liao, but not where Liao wanted to take those planets. (And now, when they leave, Marik and Liao will be working out a way for those worlds to be shifted back.)

[Haakon Magnusson]

Armando, on 07 January 2016 - 07:34 AM, said:

This is a creative, innovative, and practical solution that just might work. Just so I understand right, you are saying I could have a 'clan character' who has access to all my clan mechs, then a separate 'IS character' who has access to all my IS mechs???

This is exactly what I'm saying... a la any other mmorpg game.
Then you can not only have your Clan Wolf bloodnamed warrior or Rasalhagian Mechwarrior, but equally mercenaries or independent bandits. Or independent Clanners (Some clanner can fill in appropriate classification.. some dezgra or whatnot:)


Additionally, add in per character achievements (Less about getting mech bays, more about flawor)

Per faction bonuses to payment if in appropriate mech for the faction you are loyalist in (Technicians in Combine are pretty efficient at maintaining Dragons etc. and nobody can whine why their account can't get these bonuses.. sure you can, play a loyalist char in it)
Naturally your loyalty points (Whichever they end up named) are per Faction. Loyalist gets to vote at his level, your merc can have his MRBC ratings, while having an opposing infamy from factions he has stomped on or broken contracts with.

It would solve a lot of problems, only problem is the Clan alts some have (Aherm) which would be nice to integrate to main account and perhaps the number of charts people might add to account (Then again, what's the problem, your status in faction in the end is decided by the playtime and achievements.)

[Lily from animove]

take away the shiny plates for merc units, Merc units fight for houses/clans so hey would never own any planets themselves. And boom one of the only big "epeen" measurement is gone. This will make mercs "settle down". And when leaving a faction for another alos removes these labels, there woudl also be no faction hopping as "non merc" group.

Edited by Lily from animove, 07 January 2016 - 08:01 AM.

[sycocys]

Lily from animove, on 07 January 2016 - 08:01 AM, said:

take away the shiny plates for merc units, Merc units fight for houses/clans so hey would never own any planets themselves. And boom one of the only big "epeen" measurement is gone. This will make mercs "settle down". And when leaving a faction for another alos removes these labels, there woudl also be no faction hopping as "non merc" group.

That would actually be something that PGI might actually be able to accomplish, still would require them to make planets useful/meaningful in some regard though.

[Haakon Magnusson]

Silhouette Shadows, on 07 January 2016 - 05:34 AM, said:

I see no reason why this would not be the case in mech warrior & don't understand why people who are loyalists think they should be rewarded more than mercs, you are a loyalist because you are loyal to a house, if you are in it for the money that's the whole point of bein a merc.....

Edit: adding to the above, I think mercs should be restricted on houses/clans they can fight for - meaning if a particular house is dominating it may see less reason to recruit a struggling house who would pay far more for the extra help - this would create a more balanced system where mercs would be divided more evenly and factions better balanced overall

I think you are taking into account all the HUGE big name units, which actually are turning an profit. For every successful merc unit there is a dozen who are barely breaking even.

And then there is an OOC reason. When mercs jumped the boat from Clanners to IS, FW went upside down. Loyalists make up for a stabilizing mass, again balancing between factions can be incentivized.

[Armando]

PGI 'could' make it so that different types of groups have different goals:

Factions: All about the planets, more planets a faction controls the higher up on they become on the "Faction leader board".

Mercenaries: All about the C-Bills, more C-Bills a Merc Unit has the higher up on they become on the "Merc leader board".

Lone Wolfs: All about the Wins, more Wins a Lone Wolf has the higher up the become on the "Lone Wolf leader board".

Edited by Armando, 07 January 2016 - 08:35 AM.

[Silhouette Shadows]

Haakon Magnusson, on 07 January 2016 - 08:08 AM, said:

And then there is an OOC reason. When mercs jumped the boat from Clanners to IS, FW went upside down. Loyalists make up for a stabilizing mass, again balancing between factions can be incentivized.

I'm not really understanding what do you mean when you say upside down? Are you saying that there is something wrong with the way the map is currently painted? If so, why? If a team who was losing is now gaining ground - what's inherently wrong with that?

[Greyhart]

Ok I've been thinking about this and have a solution, which I am sure no will like. But trying to keep it simple and flexible.

firstly there are 3 types of players (or categories of contract)

1. Freelancer; this is open to everyone even if loyalist or in a merc unit.
2. Merc Unit have to be in a unit that is not loyalist
3. Loyalist

reputation of Units (reputation points)

Each unit has a reputation score with each faction. This starts at 0 and can be reduced to -100 or increased to +100 depending on the actions. simply each drop done for a faction under a mech contract earns reputation points. Each drop against the faction reduces the reputation points. Add in additional amounts for kills of people under contract to that faction or breaching contracts.

If you fight for the Inner Sphere against the clans your reputation points against all clans are reduced. If you fight for the Clans against the inner Sphere your reputation is negatively effected with all inner sphere factions.

Planets

Certain planets produce certain mechs. If a faction captures that planet it will be available to the freelancers. (i'll explain in a bit)

going in reverse order:

Loyalist: they get to vote on who to attack. They pay no charges to drop under a unit contract.

They may also increase the rewards for certain contract i.e. extra 25% for dropping on planet X or extra 10% for fighting under a 7 day contract.

Merc companies: For each drop they have to pay a drop ship fee based on the amount of tonnage they are dropping (and could also be on DPS or max alpha strike). So they have an incentive to be tonnage efficient.

they have the option of taking various types of simple merc company contracts with each faction.
Single drop contract the unit pays full drop ship charges or they can sign up for a period of time and the price is reduced on a sliding scale with a max reduction of 90%.

At the end of the fight the pilots get their reward which is Base award plus any % increase given by loyalist plus % reputation.
For example Pilot in merc company X drops for clan wolf under a single drop contract and gets a base reward of 1mil c-bills. This is then increased because clan wolf loyalists added a 10% incentive to the drop to 1.1mil c-bills BUT merc unit X has -50 reputation points with clan wolf so that the amount awarded is reduced by 50% to 55,000 c-bills less dropship charges (which might make it a negative number).

Freelances (canon fodder)

This is a separate queue to the unit queue (but could be against units if the population is a problem). Anyone can drop in this mode as either a single person or in a group of 12. If you are a part of a unit your actions effect the unit reputation.

The group leader would select freelancer contract when you drop for the planet.

There are no drop ship charges on a freelancer contract but you do not get to select you drop deck. Instead you get a drop deck of Stock mechs that are available to the faction you are dropping for (i,e. dependant on what planets the faction holds). this will give people the much wanted Stock mech mode. This will also even things up with new players and between PUGs and teams. It provides a means of making money even if you've no mechs or you've no money for the drop ship charges. And also this Lore friendly (hopefully).


The reputation points would encourage merc companies to be stay loyal or avoid fighting previous employers. It would provide a bonus to those that are most loyal and a penalty to those that jump around a lot. It allows them to change employer but they would loose income and would have to work to increase that income with the new employer.

Edited by Greyhart, 07 January 2016 - 09:22 AM.

[Hotthedd]

Silhouette Shadows, on 07 January 2016 - 09:10 AM, said:

I'm not really understanding what do you mean when you say upside down? Are you saying that there is something wrong with the way the map is currently painted? If so, why? If a team who was losing is now gaining ground - what's inherently wrong with that?

I suppose there is nothing WRONG with it.

...but we may never get another "Battle of Tukkayid" again.

[Hotthedd]

Greyhart, on 07 January 2016 - 09:17 AM, said:

*Lots of good ideas*

Loyalist: they get to vote on who to attack. They pay no charges to drop under a unit contract.

They may also increase the rewards for certain contract i.e. extra 25% for dropping on planet X or extra 10% for fighting under a 7 day contract.

*More mostly good ideas*

This is the part that I have a major problem with.
Having some players have a monetary oversight over another group of players opens up countless opportunities for abuse.

I think that having a set mathematical algorithm would be the fairest system.

[Nastyogre]

There should be no Clan Mercs, It goes against everything the idea of the Clans represent. Want to use Clan mechs in CW? Become a clanner. Merc units should ONLY be for Inner Sphere.

Negative loyalty should be earned for fighting against the other houses. Big negative loyalty = crappy pay, exp everything.
What's more the units should be balanced. The factions need to be actively moderated by the PGI staff. Who is hiring etc. If the DC is kicking butt and has 100 of 1000 mercs employed, then they wouldn't hire any more and don't need more. No contracts available. Go play for a faction that needs/wants you. It could be a sliding scale. IF you have great loyalty for a faction and want to come back but they don't need you, MAYBE you could come back but it wouldn't pay well.

It's not that PGI needs to look at each contract, no, but they need to set the parameters by which the factions hire, probably on a weekly basis. The idea of an entirely automated campaign is the problem. The system can't really handle the variables. Success, % of players (mercs of otherwise) in a faction etc. So PGI needs to look at this themselves and actively moderate the campaign to an extent.

[sycocys]

Different option that might be more palatable -

Replace # of days with # of matches or # of wins (or both) - the larger your unit the larger required number of drops you must complete. It's far more equatable to having an actual contract than "stick around for 30 days".

Less flopping around and less focus on having a huge amount of barely active players. If you want to constantly tour you have to drop a lot with the active players or shrink down your size to get more efficient contract sizes that match up to your active player pool.