169 replies to this topic

[Hawk_eye]

As a non CW player, a thing or two with re. to balancing came to my mind (and yes, you may dismiss all of the below as the dribble of an un-initiated, but then, sometimes having someone take a look from the outside, someone who doesn´t have a stake in the subject might offer some new insights - not that I claim to be that one, lol)

1. Faction with a smaller area means: Shorter lines of communication.
While the normal CW fight is way below the scale where jumpships and out-of-system reinforcements come into play, it could be abstracted to the amount of time you´ll have to wait to drop in your 2nd, 3rd and 4th mech, i.e. if your faction only holds 5 systems, you can drop within 5 seconds, if you hold 30 planets, prepare for a 30 second wait (not sure this will really have an impact, as I said, I don´t do CW and I pulled those numbers just out of my backside)

2. Economy.
If you hold a planet, you get some rewards for it (the planet produces resources), which are distributed under the unit holding that planet.
If a small unit holds a planet, those resources would be distributed between fewer people than if a larger unit held it, resulting in more rewards for the individual in a small unit than in a large unit.
Add in that important planets generate more resources than regular ones to create an incentive to go after them (see static defenses below)

3. Static defenses
I understand that there already are turrets protecting objectives.
Now, at least in the Inner Sphere, there are your normal, run-of-the-mill planets like Dobson or New Ivaarson in the Federated Suns.
Then there are (I´m again using the FedSuns as an example) the PDZs (Polymorphous Defense Zones) with their Capital, like the Kentares PDZ or the Le Blanc PDZ (Kentares and Le Blanc, obviously)
Another level up, there are the March capitals, like Robinson in the Draconis March
And finally, there is the over-all capital. like New Avalon.
(One could also add otherwise important planets, like Kathil in the Fed Suns or Hesperus II in the Lyran Commonwealth)

Now, I would imaging that the defenses on those planets would be quite a bit stronger than on your average agricultural world (according to rank).
As it currently is for the normal worlds.
At _least_ double for the PDZ capitals
4x to "are you nuts?" times for the March capitals and I don´t know,
"absolutely ridiculous" on the main capital.

If you don´t re-spawn the turrets for a set amount of time (24 hours?), you could wear them down with repeated attacks.
Yes, it would require a _massive_ effort to take a march capital but seriously, taking Okinawa, Leningrad or Berlin in WW2 wasn´t a picnic either (and yes, I know that Leningrad wasn´t taken - which proves my point)

The point here is, that traditionally and as a rule of thumb, you would need a 3x advantage to successfully attack a prepared defensive position (which from everything I have seen and read isn´t the case in CW - quite the contrary, actually)

4. (and last, I promise)
Switching sides all the time.
Yes, you can go the mercenary route and change employer to your hearts content, but sorry, people, the Clans don´t employ mercenaries.
When you enter CW, you have to make a hard decision. You either go IS or Clan. And that´s final.
You know, decisions that have consequences?
Like, you choose your class in an RPG and then you´re stuck with it.
Oh, the Paladin you choose to play because it was the uber-class has been exceeded by the Necromancer due to the latest patch?
Well, tough luck!

As I said, feel free to ignore it or rip it to shreds.

[Khobai]

I agree they need to add some kindve logistics to CW.

Planets that are closer to your homeworld should be easier to capture/defend than planets farther from your homeworld.

Maybe have dropdeck tonnages change based on proximity to your homeworld? The closer to a factions homeworld the planet is the more tonnage that faction gets during drops.

That would make it progressively harder to push deep into a factions territory.

Edited by Khobai, 31 December 2015 - 12:14 PM.

[Famine]

Antecursor Venatus, on 31 December 2015 - 12:04 PM, said:

/*Snip*/

In particular, your decision to have loyalty be a thing that's enforced, could somewhat work. Since we already have players who have invested actual money into mech packs for both sides, forcing them to forever be IS or Clan wouldn't go very well at all. But, the maps have been reset before, and resets for community warfare could be a good thing to avoid stagnation on specific lines. If periodic resets were a thing, I could see that working. Or making faction loyalty contracts unbreakable. Remove the permanent option and replace it with a year option, which is practically the same thing, and prevent units from swapping until that timer is open. Then, only allow units to flag planets if they have longer contracts. If your in for a week, Steiner isn't going to recognize your achievements. But if you've been signed on as a proper unit instead of a short term merc contract, then they'd want to recognize you, to encourage more long term signups. Combine that with increased contract rewards, or actual bonuses for claimed planets, and you'll have units seeing much more incentive to sign on for long term, possible reset-spanning contracts, and have an incentive to renew said contracts to retain control of their worlds.

It wouldn't be perfect, by far, but having units locked into factions for longer periods of time provides a starting point for tweaking other factors. Right now, the flip flop just means PGI keeps having to drop short term changes like tonnage ratings to try and tweak the balance.

[Khobai]

The problem with flipflopping is the loyalty rewards.

You get rewarded more for swapping factions every week and ranking up in multiple factions than you get for remaining loyal to one faction.

Whoever set up the reward system was a tard.


Its a pretty simple fix:

1) the greatest rewards should be given to loyalists. the longer you stay loyal to a faction the bigger the rewards you should get.

2) leaving a faction should reset the timer for loyalty rewards.


Youd still be able to change factions but you would no longer get rewarded for doing so...

Edited by Khobai, 31 December 2015 - 12:30 PM.

[Mystere]

Death to all mercenaries! Put them all up against the wall to face a PPC firing squad!

Khobai, on 31 December 2015 - 12:26 PM, said:

2) leaving a faction should reset the timer for loyalty rewards.

Leaving a faction should nullify any and all rewards!

[Khobai]

Quote

Leaving a faction should nullify any and all rewards!

Certainly if you stick with the same faction for the whole season you should be entitled to keep all the rewards. And be able to change factions next season.

But yeah changing factions midseason should be super penalized.

best rewards should go to players that stick it out in the same faction all season.

Edited by Khobai, 31 December 2015 - 12:51 PM.

[Hawk_eye]

Famine, on 31 December 2015 - 12:23 PM, said:

In particular, your decision to have loyalty be a thing that's enforced, could somewhat work. Since we already have players who have invested actual money into mech packs for both sides, forcing them to forever be IS or Clan wouldn't go very well at all. But, the maps have been reset before, and resets for community warfare could be a good thing to avoid stagnation on specific lines. If periodic resets were a thing, I could see that working. Or making faction loyalty contracts unbreakable. Remove the permanent option and replace it with a year option, which is practically the same thing, and prevent units from swapping until that timer is open. Then, only allow units to flag planets if they have longer contracts. If your in for a week, Steiner isn't going to recognize your achievements. But if you've been signed on as a proper unit instead of a short term merc contract, then they'd want to recognize you, to encourage more long term signups. Combine that with increased contract rewards, or actual bonuses for claimed planets, and you'll have units seeing much more incentive to sign on for long term, possible reset-spanning contracts, and have an incentive to renew said contracts to retain control of their worlds.

It wouldn't be perfect, by far, but having units locked into factions for longer periods of time provides a starting point for tweaking other factors. Right now, the flip flop just means PGI keeps having to drop short term changes like tonnage ratings to try and tweak the balance.

Hm, how about, upon introduction of the forced faction loyalty, existing players get the (one-time) option to split their account in two, a clan and an IS account and transfer Clan assets to the Clan account and IS assets to the IS account (as many seem to have already done)?

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

If the lore guys arent already going nuts they arent lore guys.

Then again, the only reason the clans won over the IS was technological superiority and they cant have that here so what were we really expecting would happen?

Edited by Mechwarrior Buddah, 31 December 2015 - 01:02 PM.

[Tyler Valentine]

Fen Tetsudo, on 31 December 2015 - 11:02 AM, said:

I don't know about the other two units, but my understanding is that 228 would prefer to be challenged instead of rolling pugs 24/7.

Is that what they told you? LOL!

They are well aware of the fact that other large units went to IS at the same time they did. If they actually wanted a challenge all they had to do was switch back to Clan.

Did they? Actions speak louder than words...

Edited by Tyler Valentine, 31 December 2015 - 01:29 PM.

[Hawk_eye]

Mystere, on 31 December 2015 - 12:32 PM, said:

Leaving a faction should nullify any and all rewards!

Why not do it like in that last event (or was it the event before that?)
If you reached rank-5 for House Steiner and switch over to Davion, you still rank up from rank-1, but won´t receive rewards until you reach rank-6 because, quite frankly, you already _got_ your rewards for ranks 1 to 5
(would have to improve the rewards of course, to account for a lot less rewards to be had)

[Khobai]

Quote

Why not do it like in that last event (or was it the event before that?)
If you reached rank-5 for House Steiner and switch over to Davion, you still rank up from rank-1, but won´t receive rewards until you reach rank-6 because, quite frankly, you already _got_ your rewards for ranks 1 to 5
(would have to improve the rewards of course, to account for a lot less rewards to be had)

the whole point of offering bigger rewards for staying in one faction is to discourage players from switching factions every week.

the biggest rewards should go to the players that stay in ONE faction for the entire CW season.

swapping factions midseason should reset your reward level to 0 for the faction you left. you should not get rewarded at all for leaving a faction and being a traitor.

at the beginning of each new season you would be able to change factions ONE TIME with no penalty.

Edited by Khobai, 31 December 2015 - 01:42 PM.

[Tyler Valentine]

Antecursor Venatus, on 31 December 2015 - 01:31 PM, said:

Why not do it like in that last event (or was it the event before that?)
If you reached rank-5 for House Steiner and switch over to Davion, you still rank up from rank-1, but won´t receive rewards until you reach rank-6 because, quite frankly, you already _got_ your rewards for ranks 1 to 5
(would have to improve the rewards of course, to account for a lot less rewards to be had)

Needlessly complicated. Khobai has the right idea. Loyalists should be rewarded for their... uh... loyalty.

[Bobzilla]

People used CW as a metric to Nerf clans. Cw is determined by skilled units. Clans win 2nd invasion after big Nerf, people still want clan Nerfs because of that.

Skilled units decide to force balance/change by most going IS making clans useless, ruining cw for many.

[Celtic Warrior]

Antares102, on 31 December 2015 - 06:21 AM, said:

SWOL on FFR has tagged a SINGLE planet.
228 has tagged > 10 planets.
You think you are doing the work?

When our IS acct is winning 90% of our matches... Yes we are doing work. Planet count doesn't mean as much as you think. I haven't played my clan acct since the last clan nerf, playing IS at the moment is like hitting the big red easy button.

[BigBenn]

Don't think for one second that there isn't some uber unit in CW looking to switch to the Clan side at the right time and walk all the way to Steiner, FRR, and Kurita home worlds, and Terra too for that matter.

The best thing PGI could do is to manage the map themselves and allow the different units to fight each other in a round robin sort of way.

[Dirt6]

Antares102, on 31 December 2015 - 06:21 AM, said:

SWOL on FFR has tagged a SINGLE planet.
228 has tagged > 10 planets.
You think you are doing the work?

Our IS unit is rather small at the moment at only around 110 players; however, it has managed to seize 3 planets on the attack. Typically around half of the guys are on trial mechs at the moment which is slowing down our ability to net wins.

The big deal was we pulled our wolf unit out of dedicated CW play (largely we just have a couple of smaller teams rolling around for LP) so that wolf defenses would collapse and that Jade Falcon would be the only target. Essentially, by doing one thing of nothing we did more than we ever could by doing something.

We are hoping that this will lead to some new thinking in regards to CW Phase 3 where Loyalists are actually offered something for sticking with a faction.

Like it or not SWOL was king maker in this round as it was only after we allowed Wolf to collapse that MS, 228, and IS SWOL could concentrate exclusively on the Falcon and overwhelm DW, BO, and Kcom.

Edited by Greenduck, 31 December 2015 - 02:12 PM.

[Nika Romanova]

Greenduck, on 31 December 2015 - 02:09 PM, said:

Our IS unit is rather small at the moment at only around 110 players; however, it has managed to seize 3 planets on the attack. Typically around half of the guys are on trial mechs at the moment which is slowing down our ability to net wins.

The big deal was we pulled our wolf unit out of dedicated CW play (largely we just have a couple of smaller teams rolling around for LP) so that wolf defenses would collapse and that Jade Falcon would be the only target. Essentially, by doing one thing of nothing we did more than we ever could by doing something.

We are hoping that this will lead to some new thinking in regards to CW Phase 3 where Loyalists are actually offered something for sticking with a faction.

Like it or not SWOL was king maker in this round as it was only after we allowed Wolf to collapse that MS, 228, and IS SWOL could concentrate exclusively on the Falcon and overwhelm DW, BO, and Kcom.

I was kinda annoyed at first about going back to I.S... but the 'mech bays do kinda make it worth while. And for those wanting to remove anything loyalty-wise for switching factions... Then there will be next to zero loyalists IMO... Be careful what you wish for.

[Tyler Valentine]

Bud Crue, on 31 December 2015 - 11:27 AM, said:

As already said the OP issue is about merc units. I am to the point that the lore based factions are pointless as long as merc units are allowed to control this game mode the way they are. Look to the FRR as an example. Note I mean no offense to merc units or my fellow FRR loyalists, I simply point out these facts to illustrate the problems as I see it. FRR was at one point down to a single planet. Mercs...who had previously helped the clans take our planets...switched affiliation and we were able to get many of the planets back.
No point in pretending this yo-yo trend is an aspect of lore based clan v is and great play by loyalist on one side or the other. Its not...it can't be...there are not enough players for the faction loyalist to make the differences that we see in the map over fairly short periods of time. It is clearly and obviously a function of the mercs ability to go where they want essentially without cost.
Now this is not necessarily a bad thing. These units ability to move about help with cue times and keeps a low population game playable. But the state of the map at any given time has nothing to do with balance...rather it has everything to do with where the comp (Merc) teams are at tbe moment. PGI needs to address this if we want the map to have any meaning in re the factions.

The thread should have ended here. Well said sir... minus typos

[Inkarnus]

Greenduck, on 31 December 2015 - 02:09 PM, said:

it has managed to seize 3 planets on the attack.

Some guy gave me this pic today and i cringed as i read your post. Is that even legal to do such syncdrops?

[Kraftwerkedup]

Numbers move the map.

Yep.

Wherever the big units go, thats whose going to win. Its like this in every single persistent game like this.