0
I'm a pub citizen and didn't bother playing Faction Warfare for a long time. But recently decided to give it a try. Well, mixed feeling. So wrote down uncomfortable things that instantly caught the eye... If some DEV will look them through - will consider myself lucky
1. No ability to filter by the mech type in drop screen. When you own a lot of mechs - navigation is a pain. Dropdown list to select a weight class or a simple box to type in the chassis' name would be great.
2. Planet conquest status needs an explanation.
Maybe for veteran faction player everything is easy to read, but a "Help/Details" button near the planet status with more detailed explanation of conquest/defense stats would greatly improve the involvement. Because at the first glance you got no clue for what you're fighting.
3. Nothing to do while waiting for the queue to fill up. This one is obvious and boring. Waiting times are horrible sometimes. So there should be something to do besides chatting that player can do WITHOUT Alt+Tabbing. Possible things include:
- add ability to see allies loadouts (to maybe update yours)
- ability to navigate the map we're going to fight to actually get to know it before the drop
- ability to select drop point for your mech
- add minigames that allow you to win something small (f.e. some short-time solo mission that can easily stop when the faction drop starts)
4. Unclear progress of waiting queue.
As soon as the player selects a planet - there should be a clear understanding for a player what is lacking that prevents the start of the fight. So, a checklist for a drop should be clearly visible. At the moment you can see the size of the queue for some planet, but when you add yourself to it - you don't see much additional information.
5. Planet descriptions are lacking. Of course, they are not that important for gameplay. But they are damn important lore-wise.
6. When you zoom in on a planet in a galaxy map - view should be more representative to "fighting", not "light bubbles" around the planet.
7. Each rank must have more interesting visual congratulations - not just a message and with text. Engine-made CGI would be nice. Or at least some faction waving flag
8. Incentives to progress and conquer.
Well, that is a big one. And the most important one of them all. Probably, this problem should be divided into two parts:
- solo incentives
- unit incentives
Solo. Yes, earning cash and GXP is nice, but it really doesn't give a damn good reason to fight for some faction. Because factions don't really differ. Inside IS or Clans - most of the rewards are equal, including cockpit items. So except rare faction item it doesn't matter where to fight and whom to support. Rewards should be more meaningful, more faction specific. Some examples that don't require much work:
- Discounts for the mech variants of the faction you put your loyalty to
- Faction patterns/colors for the mechs you use in FW
- Unique mech variants as a reward (should not be available for C-Bills)
- Add cockpit items that represent your rank - since you can show only one title, a separate type of item that will show spectators what rank owner has would promote faction play
Unit incentives. For units besides more meaningful and more faction specific incentives there should be "geographical" ones. Unit must value not the fact that it owns a planet, but that it owns (and defends) a specific planet! The planet should allow the unit to get something valuable either for mechs, or for pilots, or for pilot's ego. While there are a lot of options that require some serious design, it's possible to implement some minor things. Like:
- Discount for mechs or module that a factory on this world produces, if any (stacks with the rank discount)
- Chance to win a module (modules should have a planet that produces it). The chance increases the longer the unit hold the planet
- Achievement for holding the planet for some time
Sol
