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Holding territory needs to mean something tangible. There needs to be an incentive. My proposal is to develop a reward system whereby eligible players (those that have played a least x number of CW matches in a week, maybe 3-5) are given a tiered C-Bill bonus each week. The amount of bonus should be based on several factors;
- Amount of territory held by the faction: A simple base C-Bill amount per planet would be fine.
- Number of individual players in the faction during that week.
- Length of contract: Loyalists would receive 100% of the bonus while those holding progressively shorter contracts would see an increasingly non-linear reduction in bonus (e.g. bonus modifiers of 1 for loyalist, .4 for month long contracts, .2 for two week, and .1 or less for one week contracts). There needs to be a significant reduction in the bonus outside of loyalists.
Player Bonus = ((#Faction Planets * Planet Base Value)/Faction Player Base) * Contract Modifier
Example: Assuming 10M C-Bills as a base planet value. In a faction with 2000 players that meet the eligibility requirement and 100 planets held at the end of the week long cycle; loyalists would receive 500,000 C-Bills, month long contracts 200,000 (.4 modifier), and so on.
Loyalist: ((100 Planets * 10,000,000 C-Bills)/2000) * 1 = 500,000
PGI could evaluate the planet base value against their current player base to make the actual bonus in something meaningful. I’d think that all variables being equal the bonus should be in the range of 1M C-Bills per week to have a meaningful impact on behavior.
Now, here’s why I think this system could help solve a few of the current issues with Faction Play.
First, this essentially creates a market system where Units/Players may be attracted to a faction with a huge planet base because of the larger potential C-Bill bonus. But as the faction membership swells in comparison to other factions the overall bonus has be shared between more and more players, creating an incentive for mercs to move on. This should help balance the general player base as well as provide an incentive the large merc units to play in opposing factions: the C-Bill bonus would be very diluted if several of the large Mercs were in the same faction.
Second, it now means something to hold a planet! If PGI were to value some planets differently then we could start to see some strategic game play on the map. Planet values could receive a modifier on the base value according to its natural resource abundance, industry base and mech production facilities, commerce hubs, or just its place in the universe as an attack/defense pathway.
Anyway, most of the chatter I've been hearing involves limiting unit size or mandating where larger or tier 1 units can move to. I personally prefer carrots to sticks.
