49 replies to this topic

[Sjorpha]

The way I see it, a game is not a proper game if it has no win condition.

This is the current state of FW and this is why taking planets seems so pointless, if there is no way for you faction to win then there are no winning moves and therefore no reason to do anything.

This is a problem that is not solved by improving the unit rewards for holding planets, or increasing the complexity of the tactical battles, since there is still no strategic reason to take the planet or win the battles.

My suggestion:

Taking capital planets
The planets around a factions capital should be harder to take, and once taken they open up the possibility of attacking the capital planet.

Taking the capital planet causes the faction to be occupied by the attacking faction. When this happens all merc units in the occupied faction are relieved of their contracts, and all the loyalist units go into resistance mode.

Rebellion
Loyalist units in occupied factions fight special resistance battles to retake their capital planet, and if they succeed in doing so their faction rebels and becomes a proper faction again. Occupied territories slowly become assimilated by the occupying faction so the sooner you successfully rebel the more of the occupied planets you regain when retaking your capital.

Winning the war: Clans
At any time the clans have 2 or more IS factions under occupation, it opens up the possibility of attacking Terra from that moment onwards. The Clans win if they can hold terra for 3 full days.
(All IS players would be able to defend/attack Terra, and vice versa for clans, so opening Terra for attack would turn into a "tukayyid" type of battle.)

Winning the war: IS
IS wins the war if at any time they have 3 or more Clan factions under occupation at the same time.

If either faction fulfills their win condition rewards and credits are handed out to the most important factions/units and the map is reset. Voila, there you go!

Of course this is a very crude and sketchy framework that could be completed with all sorts of complexity. Such as special game modes and maps for the resistance/capital/terra battles and so forth, as well as all the systems added in phase 3.

But I deliberately kept it very simple and overarching to convey the main point, which is to provide a basic set of goals that the factions can try to achieve, and to do so in a way that makes things interesting for members of both winning and losing factions.

Thoughts?

Edited by Sjorpha, 11 April 2016 - 11:49 AM.

[Tyler Valentine]

Great ideas here. What you laid out is relatively simple and sounds WAY more immersive and fun than what we have now. +10

Question: If I'm a Merc for Kurita and Luthien gets captured, do I have to join another IS faction or can I switch to Clan?


Why did you post this... Now I don't want to play regular CW anymore

[sycocys]

I'm not against any of these ideas at all - but no amount of "meta" game for CW matters so long as the playable portion of CW is boring as f.

[Tyler Valentine]

sycocys, on 01 April 2016 - 01:46 PM, said:

I'm not against any of these ideas at all - but no amount of "meta" game for CW matters so long as the playable portion of CW is boring as f.

Yeah, the drop itself could use A LOT of work too but Sjorpha's ideas certainly wouldn't hurt the mode overall.

[sycocys]

Tyler Valentine, on 01 April 2016 - 02:01 PM, said:

Yeah, the drop itself could use A LOT of work too but Sjorpha's ideas certainly wouldn't hurt the mode overall.

No they won't hurt at all, but they offer nothing that will cause replayability in the mode, because more than anything its the actual gameplay of CW that destroys its population.

QP -
finds matches in less than 3 minutes on average
different objectives/modes (though most player's play them all as 1 skirmish...)
minor amount of player balancing
better average payout across the board (w/l + good match vs bad match)
a fair amount of maps, that are also far better in design compared to CW maps

When it all boils down, add layers of fluff on top of a mode that has little to no actual game play that makes people want to come back will just continue to make things worse with a shiny mask.

-- But yeah, like I said Sjorpha's ideas are nice. It's just that they add to the issue that broke CW from the start, designing the "end/meta" game -out of match- systems before there is actually a game behind them worth playing.

Edited by sycocys, 01 April 2016 - 04:12 PM.

[Tavious Grimm]

Sounds good, but one minor point...and this is the lore nerd in me speaking, we'll use Kurita in this instance..even if Luthien fell it wouldn't be the death knell for the House. The military districts all have a capitol world. Even if Luthien fell and the royal family or parts of it escaped they would simply relocate to the nearest military capitol world. Unless your suggesting that particular planet enters Resistance mode?

[Sjorpha]

Tavious Grimm, on 01 April 2016 - 04:20 PM, said:

Sounds good, but one minor point...and this is the lore nerd in me speaking, we'll use Kurita in this instance..even if Luthien fell it wouldn't be the death knell for the House. The military districts all have a capitol world. Even if Luthien fell and the royal family or parts of it escaped they would simply relocate to the nearest military capitol world. Unless your suggesting that particular planet enters Resistance mode?

For the sake of game design clarity, and to be realistic about what PGI could implement well, I think the state of being in resistance to occupation would have to represent all those lore intricacies.

Taking a capital (remember, this should not be easy) represents occupying a whole faction, and the fight for retaking the capital planet represents the totality of the rebellion against the occupying faction.

Remember that we are in danger of not getting any strategic layer or win condition to FW at all, so shooting down ideas prematurely with unrealistic demands on lore based complexity I think is putting the cart before the horse.

It would be better and more realistic to first implement the basic system and then look at fleshing it out with faction specific rules in a later development pass.

sycocys, on 01 April 2016 - 04:10 PM, said:

No they won't hurt at all, but they offer nothing that will cause replayability in the mode, because more than anything its the actual gameplay of CW that destroys its population.

I actually disagree with this, I think the tactical gameplay is decent but the lack of a strategic layer and win condition makes it all feel pointless. Personally I consider the strategic layer just as much "actual gameplay" as the tactical one, so from my perspective you're making a false dichotomy in you post here. That is of course not an argument against improvements in either area and I agree there is much to be asked of the fights themselves.

Quote

When it all boils down, add layers of fluff on top of a mode that has little to no actual game play that makes people want to come back will just continue to make things worse with a shiny mask.

-- But yeah, like I said Sjorpha's ideas are nice. It's just that they add to the issue that broke CW from the start, designing the "end/meta" game -out of match- systems before there is actually a game behind them worth playing.

I a little confused here, in what sense did they design the ""end/meta" game -out of match- systems before..." when there IS no end game in FW and never has been?

They have yet to implement any kind of end game or win condition, so they can hardly be accused of having designed them "early".

I for one would not describe adding a win condition to a game as "fluff", that is like saying the conditions for checkmate in chess is "fluff" that adds nothing to gameplay, when in fact it is the base condition for how to play and win chess.

FW right now is like playing chess without checkmate. You can make the rules, moves and balance as perfect as you'd like but chess without a possible checkmate is still pointless. This is why designing the win condition is the basic choice in all game design, everything else depends on it and a lack of win condition can never be substituted by anything else no matter how perfect.

Now I agree completely with you that there is much to be asked when it comes to FW tactical gameplay, we need better maps and modes and what have you. And we can work together to discuss and fight for improvements in that area, I wouldn't pitch those two topics against each other because they are complimentary rather than in conflict.

But we also have a FW game without a win condition, and a game without a win condition is in serious trouble because it's not a proper game if you can't win or lose it.

Also consider that implementing a basic strategic framework like the one I'm suggesting would be a good base for adding improvements to what you call "actual gameplay". For example the resistance battles could have their own maps and game modes added to them, how about a sabotage mission on a metropolitan map?

Edited by Sjorpha, 02 April 2016 - 03:43 AM.

[invernomuto]

Sjorpha, on 01 April 2016 - 07:49 AM, said:

The way I see it, a game is not a proper game if it has no win condition.

This is the current state of FW and this is why taking planets seems so pointless, if there is no way for you faction to win then there are no winning moves and therefore no reason to do anything.

This is a problem that is not solved by improving the unit rewards for holding planets, or increasing the complexity of the tactical battles, since there is still no strategic reason to take the planet or win the battles.

My suggestion:

Taking capital planets
The planets around a factions capital should be harder to take, and once taken they open up the possibility of attacking the capital planet.

Taking the capital planet causes the faction to be occupied by the attacking faction. When this happens all merc units in the occupied faction are relieved of their contracts, and all the loyalist units go into resistance mode.

Rebellion
Loyalist units in occupied factions fight special resistance battles to retake their capital planet, and if they succeed in doing so their faction rebels and becomes a proper faction again. Occupied territories slowly become assimilated by the occupying faction so the sooner you successfully rebel the more of the occupied planets you regain when retaking your capital.

Winning the war: Clans
At any time the clans have 2 or more IS factions under occupation, it opens up the possibility of attacking Terra from that moment onwards. The Clans win if they can hold terra for 3 full days.

Winning the war: IS
IS wins the war if at any time they have 3 or more Clan factions under occupation at the same time.

If either faction fulfills their win condition rewards and credits are handed out to the most important factions/units and the map is reset. Voila, there you go!

Of course this is a very crude and sketchy framework that could be completed with all sorts of complexity. Such as special game modes and maps for the resistance/capital/terra battles and so forth, as well as all the systems added in phase 3.

But I deliberately kept it very simple and overarching to convey the main point, which is to provide a basic set of goals that the factions can try to achieve, and to do so in a way that makes things interesting for members of both winning and losing factions.

Thoughts?

Very good ideas. I like them, expecially the Rebellion one. I would also like a little bit of diversity for planets: right now there are hundreds of planets that have the same strategic importance.
We could have Factory Planet that, if owned, could grant some bonus to the factions that own them (like a discount on mechs prices, weapons and equipments) or something similar.

[Musashi Alexander]

I like those ideas. Realistically, anything resembling an end game is better than, 'hey, we have some "updates" and enough time has gone by, let's have a random event and reset the map'

[Sjorpha]

Tyler Valentine, on 01 April 2016 - 01:22 PM, said:

Great ideas here. What you laid out is relatively simple and sounds WAY more immersive and fun than what we have now. +10

Thanks.

Quote

Question: If I'm a Merc for Kurita and Luthien gets captured, do I have to join another IS faction or can I switch to Clan?

My suggestion is that the contract would simply be canceled, so you could go wherever you like.

But now that you mention it, an interesting rule could be that maybe you can't switch to the occupying faction for the first two weeks or so, because they don't trust you after having fought against you. So in this case your contract would be canceled and you would have to go to a faction other than the occupied/occupying ones.

Quote

Why did you post this... Now I don't want to play regular CW anymore

Sincere apologies from the bottom of my heart. *serious face*

I want to start a discussion to cause pressure on this topic, I think it's the single biggest issue with faction warfare that it has no win condition. I don't actually expect my suggestion to be implemented, but I'm hoping to contribute to PGI becoming aware that some kind of win condition is necessary to make FW a real game and just adding rewards and tactical stuff is not enough.

[Sjorpha]

invernomuto, on 02 April 2016 - 03:01 AM, said:

Very good ideas. I like them, expecially the Rebellion one. I would also like a little bit of diversity for planets: right now there are hundreds of planets that have the same strategic importance.
We could have Factory Planet that, if owned, could grant some bonus to the factions that own them (like a discount on mechs prices, weapons and equipments) or something similar.

Yeah, the diversification and strategic impact of specific planets have lots of potential.

I'm a little skeptic about bonuses in the form of rewards and discounts, because they are outside FW as a game and don't really impact the strategic possibilities. For this reason I don't really care about the upcoming MC rewards for holding planets either.

What I would do in the case of a "factory" planet for example, would be more along the lines of increasing max tonnage for drops withing a given distance from it by 5 tons, so that holding it would actually matter for the faction strategically. You could also make a macro level on that so holding 10+ factories withing the faction in total increases you drop tonnage faction wide. Things like that it what I'd like to see instead (or in addition to) cbill/MC rewards.

If we follow that thought and imagine that every planet has a "resource type", factory being one of them, and that holding x planets of a given type conveys a strategic bonus, we could have a pretty interesting metagame around that.

I think some kind of "zone of control" system is worth exploring too. Strategy game buffs will know what I'm talking about, it means that you can't just move past units/planets/bases/hexes controlled by enemy forces willy nilly. So in MWO it would mean that attack lanes couldn't be too narrow, you'd have to carve out your borders in a more realistic fashion. Say for example that you need two supporting planets connections to attack a third one, if there is only one connection to a given enemy planet you'd have to attack another neighboring planet to open it up for attack. Something like that.

This is getting way complex though, I'd like to underline that I still think the main point is to have a basic win condition for FW. Like Musashi Alexander says almost anything is better than not having one at all.

Edited by Sjorpha, 02 April 2016 - 03:36 AM.

[sycocys]

I think we are going to be in major disagreement about the status of the actual gameplay in CW.

[S T I N G S]

sycocys, on 01 April 2016 - 04:10 PM, said:

No they won't hurt at all, but they offer nothing that will cause replayability in the mode, because more than anything its the actual gameplay of CW that destroys its population.

QP -
finds matches in less than 3 minutes on average
different objectives/modes (though most player's play them all as 1 skirmish...)
minor amount of player balancing
better average payout across the board (w/l + good match vs bad match)
a fair amount of maps, that are also far better in design compared to CW maps

When it all boils down, add layers of fluff on top of a mode that has little to no actual game play that makes people want to come back will just continue to make things worse with a shiny mask.

-- But yeah, like I said Sjorpha's ideas are nice. It's just that they add to the issue that broke CW from the start, designing the "end/meta" game -out of match- systems before there is actually a game behind them worth playing.

I would have to disagree with you on the average payout for QP. I get 250,000 per QP match, and get usually around 1,000,000 in a FW match

[sycocys]

GeneralKota307, on 02 April 2016 - 06:44 AM, said:

I would have to disagree with you on the average payout for QP. I get 250,000 per QP match, and get usually around 1,000,000 in a FW match

I guarantee that's not your average.

[Sjorpha]

250.000 and 1.000 000 both seem a bit high for average numbers, I think my numbers are more like 150.000 and 650.000 on average without premium. Still FW pays about as much as QP does when you get matches going.

I don't care about rewards though, they're not important IMO. They could increase the CW rewards 10x and it wouldn't add any real motivation since I still need the matches to be moves made towards a win condition for the faction or there is no real point to them.

Edited by Sjorpha, 02 April 2016 - 08:46 AM.

[Willard Phule]

Good suggestions, but WAY too complicated for the current playerbase you find in FW.

Granted, I'm not speaking from the oraganized group side of things...I'm speaking as a solo player. And before anyone says "FW is for groups, not PUGs," MW:O is for all customers....especially those that invest hard earned cash in the company. Our money is just as good as yours...there should be a place for us, somewhere.

And that place is as "filler"....ESPECIALLY for the Clans. The vast majority of people that fall under the category of "solo player" are new, inexperienced and don't own their own mechs. "End Game" content with beginning game equipment and players, so to speak.

Making FW more complex is only going to chase away the already dwindling playerbase. That and I wouldn't expect PGI to move very quickly on fixing anything but mechanics and balance. That's pretty much all they do.

[Sjorpha]

Willard Phule, on 02 April 2016 - 11:12 AM, said:

Good suggestions, but WAY too complicated for the current playerbase you find in FW.

Granted, I'm not speaking from the oraganized group side of things...I'm speaking as a solo player. And before anyone says "FW is for groups, not PUGs," MW:O is for all customers....especially those that invest hard earned cash in the company. Our money is just as good as yours...there should be a place for us, somewhere.

And that place is as "filler"....ESPECIALLY for the Clans. The vast majority of people that fall under the category of "solo player" are new, inexperienced and don't own their own mechs. "End Game" content with beginning game equipment and players, so to speak.

Making FW more complex is only going to chase away the already dwindling playerbase. That and I wouldn't expect PGI to move very quickly on fixing anything but mechanics and balance. That's pretty much all they do.

It would only add complexity for those trying to organize and coordinate factions, and there are lots of players who are prepared to do that, anyone else would just keep dropping as before. So I don't really see the problem.

[Willard Phule]

Sjorpha, on 02 April 2016 - 12:37 PM, said:

It would only add complexity for those trying to organize and coordinate factions, and there are lots of players who are prepared to do that, anyone else would just keep dropping as before. So I don't really see the problem.

And I hope it works well for both of them.

Unfortunately, once they've got their thing organized and are ready to roll....they're going to end up with 10/12 players that don't know how to unzoom without looking at their hands.

If only PGI would buff LRMs...then the new guys could actually stand a chance.

[Sjorpha]

Willard Phule, on 02 April 2016 - 02:18 PM, said:

And I hope it works well for both of them.

Unfortunately, once they've got their thing organized and are ready to roll....they're going to end up with 10/12 players that don't know how to unzoom without looking at their hands.

If only PGI would buff LRMs...then the new guys could actually stand a chance.

That has zero relevance to this discussion, whether matches have bad players in them or not isn't dependent in any way on the win conditions for FW.

[Willard Phule]

Sjorpha, on 03 April 2016 - 08:51 AM, said:

That has zero relevance to this discussion, whether matches have bad players in them or not isn't dependent in any way on the win conditions for FW.

Every match will have "bad players" in them...that's how PGI designed this game. Since day one, it's been all about "the better you are, the more you have to carry." Buffing LRMs.....the weapon of choice for those that can't aim...will allow the new players to stand a chance against the baby seal hunters that don't use LRMs to begin with.