25 replies to this topic

[slide]

At the last Town Hall Russ stated that there would be a new dynamic algorithm that would some how adjust contract rewards based on a factions population. The idea being to attract Mercs and solo players to underpopulated factions.

This is a good idea and long over due.

However as of right now there must be large number of dead or idle accounts that are locked into loyalist contracts that will be screwing the figures for some (all) factions. We know from the last two Tuk events that Clan Wolf had the largest numbers of all factions (more than double in some cases) yet at the moment are probably one of the least active factions in the game. At least 2 of the largest units in the game are Wolf loyalists and even if they have trimmed all there inactive players those players will still be sporting Wolf logos next to their names.

Whilst CW3 might see this change there is a good chance that just counting players with faction allegiances will bring results with do not reflect the actual active players. This could cause players to move to factions that aren't as underpopulated as they believe or loyalists in some factions not getting the rewards they deserve.

Resetting every body's Allegiance will at least give the algorithm a fighting chance at being correct from the start and it is not difficult for units/players to sign on again. It could even be an opportunity for some.

PGI have shown in the past that they can overlook these details (Tuk stats for an example) and I would really like to see them start to look at active CW players rather than just overall numbers of aligned players.

After a reset and to prevent a repeat of the issue later PGI need to define some sort of criteria of what an active player is. I would like to see something like 4/7 (4 games in the last 7 days) or a 10/30 bench mark used to define an actual active CW player, who will be counted towards the faction rewards.

This type of benchmark also removes the possibility of a person or group creating large numbers of inactive accounts with the intention of driving a factions rewards down so low that people do not wish to go there or worse current players leave, thus reducing the opposition they face. This has the potential to snowball as well if loyalists just stop playing with out canceling their contract as they will just add to the inactive's upsetting the numbers.

I hope that PGI is ahead of the game and is using active CW players for their calculations rather than aligned player totals. Alas history has shown that they are not always that switched on.


TL;DR PGI need to use active players rather than total aligned players when making decisions on how CW rewards are calculated.

[Sjorpha]

slide, on 11 April 2016 - 11:45 PM, said:

At the last Town Hall Russ stated that there would be a new dynamic algorithm that would some how adjust contract rewards based on a factions population. The idea being to attract Mercs and solo players to underpopulated factions.

This is a good idea and long over due.

No, it's a super bad idea.

The problem with it is that it rewards losing and punishes winning, that is a breach of basic competitive logic and game theory which is ultimately much more demoralising than losing in itself.

It's bad enough that there is no way to win wars in FW, now they want to remove what little incentive for strategy is left by actually punishing winning moves and rewarding losing ones? smh.

It's very troubling that Russ and PGI has this backwards perspective on strategic game design.

Edited by Sjorpha, 12 April 2016 - 01:33 AM.

[BSK]

That would reward the loyalists too much.

[Tarogato]

Sjorpha, on 12 April 2016 - 01:23 AM, said:

No, it's a super bad idea.

The problem with it is that it rewards losing and punishes winning, that is a breach of basic competitive logic and game theory which is ultimately much more demoralising than losing in itself.

It's bad enough that there is no way to win wars in FW, now they want to remove what little incentive for strategy is left by actually punishing winning moves and rewarding losing ones? smh.

It's very troubling that Russ and PGI has this backwards perspective on strategic game design.

Not sure how you're drawing this conclusion.

More populous faction ≠ winning.

Edited by Tarogato, 12 April 2016 - 01:46 AM.

[tenchugecko]

we need the gamemode to develop, not the system that keeps us from playing it.

[Sjorpha]

Tarogato, on 12 April 2016 - 01:46 AM, said:

Not sure how you're drawing this conclusion.

More populous faction ≠ winning.

Sure, the faction that is winning is not necessarily the most populated, it could be that it just has better teams etc.

But I still think the relation between population and success in FW is strong enough that it will very often be one of the major factors. (And btw is population isn't a major factor in winning then why would it need balancing?)

My point is that if a faction is successful in terms of attracting players either by successful warfare or community work or something else they are making a winning move. Punishing winning moves is a very bad idea because it creates perverse incentives.

Just consider that it would actually be beneficial for a core of loyalist units to try and drive pugs and mercs away from their faction to earn more Cbills. This is especially true as long as FW has no win condition, since it would benefit their only current in-game reward incentive for playing FW which is cbills/loyalty. That's just one example of the perverse incentives this kind of system creates.

It also represents the idea that factions losing wars/population is some kind of huge problem. It's not. This is supposed to be a strategic warfare simulation. Factions are supposed to crumble and fall, that is what creates a dynamic story on the map. The idea that everything should be kept balanced and artificially pushed towards a status quo is ridiculous.

[Tarogato]

Sjorpha, on 12 April 2016 - 02:03 AM, said:

Sure, the faction that is winning is not necessarily the most populated, it could be that it just has better teams etc.

But I still think the relation between population and success in FW is strong enough that it will very often be one of the major factors. (And btw is population isn't a major factor in winning then why would it need balancing?)

My point is that if a faction is successful in terms of attracting players either by successful warfare or community work or something else they are making a winning move. Punishing winning moves is a very bad idea because it creates perverse incentives.

Just consider that it would actually be beneficial for a core of loyalist units to try and drive pugs and mercs away from their faction to earn more Cbills. This is especially true as long as FW has no win condition, since it would benefit their only current in-game reward incentive for playing FW which is cbills/loyalty. That's just one example of the perverse incentives this kind of system creates.

It also represents the idea that factions losing wars/population is some kind of huge problem. It's not. This is supposed to be a strategic warfare simulation. Factions are supposed to crumble and fall, that is what creates a dynamic story on the map. The idea that everything should be kept balanced and artificially pushed towards a status quo is ridiculous.

Except ... winning factions don't necessarily attract players. Incentives do, such as C-Bill and LP bonuses per faction. Sure, an underpopulated faction can really struggle to make any gains, but if successful and winning factions attract people, then why is Davion so large and the Clans have always been vastly outnumbered by IS players? It's almost like... there's more important factors at work.

[sycocys]

Spending 40+ hours writing a complex code to handle something that could be done in ~5 minutes a week by a human....

Sounds like the PGI logic train.

[iLLcapitan]

sycocys, on 12 April 2016 - 02:45 AM, said:

Spending 40+ hours writing a complex code to handle something that could be done in ~5 minutes a week by a human....

Sounds like the PGI logic train.

this +1
if PGI would only dedicate one 'gamemaster' for FW.

[Rushin Roulette]

sycocys, on 12 April 2016 - 02:45 AM, said:

Spending 40+ hours writing a complex code to handle something that could be done in ~5 minutes a week by a human....

Sounds like the PGI logic train.

Um... Ill call BS on that figure of 5 Minutes a week by a human, if it were need to be done by a Human once a week, that will definitely take more than 5 minutes, because he will also need to manually review the performance of all factions against each other before deciding on something. These minutes/hours are also time taken off from other tasks which may be more important (such as finding new mechs to sell in pre-order packs or deciding on which regular mechs will go on Sale for MCs ). Take 1 hour a week as a minimum needed to make a decision for all clans and houses this will mean that after less than a year PGI would be at a loss in terms of work costs if they only needed 40 hours of programming for the automatic system.

Plus. lets also take into account that this is not a 1 man business we are talking about. There may need to be weekly committee meetings to discuss and debate the changes before they are implemented and that means a bunch of poor sods will be forced to sleep sit through a weekly Powerpoint presentation.

[xX PUG Xx]

I agree on the issue of resetting Faction loyalties, as for how to promote balance and more importantly competition once the FW "season" is up and running that WILL require some sort incentive system.

Perhaps we're looking at it from the wrong angle; LOYALIST numbers should be balanced or perhaps representative of the Factions size. Their incentives should be based on LP and territorial rewards, as far as I know this is the system that is incoming.

Whereas Mercenaries and Lonewolves should be "employed" on an objectives basis, eg. 228th IBR accepts a contract from House Kurita to capture/hold X number of planets within/for 7 days from House Davion. The contract should have a base rate as well as a completion bonus. Now although this doesn't offer a balance by itself, the availability of contracts themselves could be used to regulate the number of Merc/Lonewolves being drawn to the respective Factions.

If you then tie in a Reknown Points system to offer modifiers to more successful Mercenary units and Lonewolve players, we have the beginnings of a system that regulates transitory numbers AND rewards success.

[sycocys]

If it takes 1 hour or more for someone to look at faction populations and adjust a couple lines in a xml file to change the earnings then that person needs to be fired and replaced with someone that shows up to work sober.

[Jman5]

Faction population should only count people who have dropped in a Community Warfare match in the last week. If my unit joins a faction with its 100+ man roster, but only 30 log in this week and just 10 play CW, we should only increase the faction's population by 10. The 70+ people who didn't log on this week and the 20 who only did Quickplay shouldn't impact CW.

[Aiden Skye]

At first I though OP was suggesting a loyalty point wipe. I would have had to take him out behind the woodshed....

[JasonIIC]

If you get the same rewards for ranking, I would be down.

[Davers]

Sjorpha, on 12 April 2016 - 02:03 AM, said:

Sure, the faction that is winning is not necessarily the most populated, it could be that it just has better teams etc.

But I still think the relation between population and success in FW is strong enough that it will very often be one of the major factors. (And btw is population isn't a major factor in winning then why would it need balancing?)

My point is that if a faction is successful in terms of attracting players either by successful warfare or community work or something else they are making a winning move. Punishing winning moves is a very bad idea because it creates perverse incentives.

Just consider that it would actually be beneficial for a core of loyalist units to try and drive pugs and mercs away from their faction to earn more Cbills. This is especially true as long as FW has no win condition, since it would benefit their only current in-game reward incentive for playing FW which is cbills/loyalty. That's just one example of the perverse incentives this kind of system creates.

It also represents the idea that factions losing wars/population is some kind of huge problem. It's not. This is supposed to be a strategic warfare simulation. Factions are supposed to crumble and fall, that is what creates a dynamic story on the map. The idea that everything should be kept balanced and artificially pushed towards a status quo is ridiculous.

You acknowledge that there is no purpose to CW other than grinding out Cbills and loyalty points, but think this is some kind of strategic warfare simulator? LOL It was never that, even though that was what they originally told us. Its just another game mode with different rules and rewards.

[Aylward]

OP has a point, and also, if/when they reset this, I would suggest that they should also make House Liao the first name that shows up on the faction selection page for new pilots in the IS section, since that faction always seems to have most trouble with population historically.. Many new pilots don't realize they can scroll thru other choices there (or that other choices even exist since they don't know the lore) and just click on the first one they see, which by default in the client, is Davion...(I've heard that answer more times than i can count)... and hence the huge Davion pug population sans clue.

[Davers]

Aylward, on 16 April 2016 - 07:00 PM, said:

OP has a point, and also, if/when they reset this, I would suggest that they should also make House Liao the first name that shows up on the faction selection page for new pilots in the IS section, since that faction always seems to have most trouble with population historically.. Many new pilots don't realize they can scroll thru other choices there (or that other choices even exist since they don't know the lore) and just click on the first one they see, which by default in the client, is Davion...(I've heard that answer more times than i can count)... and hence the huge Davion pug population sans clue.

Liao's main problem, outside of lore, is it's position on the map. It only has 2 possible opponents, and even if they are victorious the majority of the time it would still take months to fight their way to a third front- by which time the map resets and they have to do it all over again. The other choice is to just defend against the Clans- but why would players who wanted to fight the Clans go Liao in the first place?

[Aylward]

you missed my point completely Davers... Liao may have those issues, but this would at least pump up their population regardless..

[RF Greywolf]

I think the first screen new players should see is an option of clan or IS, then go into a screen with the factions of that choice. That screen should show all of the factions with no focus on one over the other. That way the new player can see that there are options that they can choose and even if the players just clicks so they can play, they have a possibility of clicking any of the factions on the screen, not just agree to the first faction that shows up. It wouldn't hurt to have it so they can't sign a permanent contract with anyone right off the bat.

As for the OP, I would agree that it would be great to get rid of the people that no longer play (and will not come back) so that the metrics can be more accurate. I would also see this being good to do every time they reset the map. Now they could probably have a metric to save the people that do play from being reset, such as 'Have they played FW in the past month?' Not sure how that would be made to include units but it would be a start.