86 replies to this topic

[ScarecrowES]

Greetings Mechwarriors.

This post will be very long, and I don't blame anyone for not reading through to the end. However, I hope interested persons will try to get through the whole thing.

With the recent update of Mechwarrior Online to Faction Warfare Phase 3, a number of changes have been implemented that are causing quite a lot of havoc across the many players that engage in Community Warfare (now Faction Warfare) on a consistent basis. For better or worse, this is a mode that has long been the home for the largest dedicated player base for the game... the people who invest the most time and energy, not to mention money, on the game on a consistent basis. As such, while Quick Play queue certainly sees the greatest amount of play, Faction Warfare is the pulse of MWO.

While I applaud many of the additions to the game that came as a part of the Phase 3 update, there are a number of other changes that have had far-reaching consequences for units large and small... units being the life-blood that keeps FW operating. One of the changes having unexpected consequences is the addition of a cost for recruiting players to a unit. While this has been seen as a move to curtail the size - and thus influence - of larger units, it has, in fact, added a layer of difficulty to recruiting across units of any size.

The costs have been set up in a way that new units struggle to accumulate the funds necessary to recruit more than a handful of players. The total sum cost for a new unit to recruit 50 players is approximately $62 million, with a rough cost per unit member of about $1.24 mil. Now, as a veteran player, I generally have at least a few million c-bills laying around that I can donate to my unit's coffers... but I can't imagine many new players looking for a unit home - or young and newly formed units looking for members - have that much extra money laying around.

For larger existing units, the costs of recruiting new players is astronomical. As a representative of SWOL - perhaps the largest casual/social unit in the game - I can tell you our current recruitment costs are approximately $28mil per interested player. Our coffers are fat, certainly, but not that fat.

And these costs have caused a bit of a crisis of identity for my unit. SWOL has always been an inclusive unit. For any of you that know us, you can attest we've always been open and active in the community. We've allowed any interested party to join, rarely ever turning players away unless we were at capacity. We've never had an application process. Never required players to fill out forms or pledges. Never required players to prove their worth or commitment to the unit.

Moreover, we've built an environment that encourages new players to develop their game knowledge as well as their drop decks and c-bill stashes. We've built a casual-friendly home for players who just want to pop on and play with a community of like-minded individuals without having to feel pressured to invest a certain amount into the game or play a certain way. Our open recruiting and friendly, casual attitude toward the game is what's attracted so many players to our unit over the years.

We've actively promoted interest in Community Warfare amongst the community at large perhaps more than any other unit in the game, and have even provided a gaming hub large enough for the entirety of Clan Wolf to participate together. These traits, I think are what make SWOL a great example in the community to follow in FW.

However, the changes made by PGI to recruiting are forcing us to change our attitude toward the game and the community at large. I fear that gone are the days of inclusion and casualness... replaced instead by conversations on player "value" and "contribution." We've had to change our views on who can be included in our space... limiting our selection from "any interested person" to only those people who can demonstrate they'll be worth a nearly $30mil investment. Gone are the days where we'd push you an invite just for asking to sign up, and here are the days where we may need to interview you to see if you fit our unit goals.

I am quite ashamed of what PGI is forcing my unit to become. We've long been the anti-unit unit. And now... I'm afraid we're just becoming one of the fold.

We currently have a player base of over 450 players. Many of those players... perhaps most even, are not active. PGI hasn't graced us with the tools to determine who's been playing and who hasn't. Who's taking a break and who's never coming back. We'd love to trim the fat in our unit and whittle down to a lean-and-mean group with the same mentality as always... but alas, PGI hasn't given us the ability to do that. Even should we trim more than half of our players, and reduce down just to those who are active with regularity... it's unlikely we'll drop below 200 players. Even at less than half the size, recruiting will be extremely expensive.

Changes like these (and the creation of a unit and solo queue in FW) were made to, perhaps, increase the enjoyment of FW for a few select but vocal minority players. These players pushed hard to separate solo players from having to play units, and to punish large units for well... being large. "I'm tired of being stomped," they said. "Let units play themselves," they added. Well, now according to Russ, those players who screamed loudest about wanting to curtail the influence of units have shown a sheer lack of interest in playing the mode they felt the need to change.

So few non-unit players play FW that PGI is seeking to re-combine solo and unit queue after a mere few days.

Rather than seek to curtail unit play in Faction Warfare, perhaps PGI should be doing the opposite. Given that the entire mode is built around a sense of faction identity and affiliation, it makes more sense to encourage participation in units, rather than seeking to prevent units from operating cleanly. Moreover, if the concern was that large mercenary units were able to swing the mode too heavily in favor of one faction or another, why change the game in such a way that large merc units are rewarded even more for their influence - and accordingly, why then punish loyalist units at all?

It seems to me that the spirit of Faction Warfare is contained in the hearts of units. And units, especially those who proudly fly the flag of their chosen faction, should be rewarded, rather than punished, for their participation. We should encourage inclusiveness.

If PGI insists on a recruitment cost for units (something I neither agree or disagree with on principle) then such a system needs to be reworked to make it easier for smaller units to get established, as well as to not unduly punish units who've successfully made a place for themselves in the game.

I would suggest a progressive system of costs. Player cost would increase by tier, based on the number of players in the unit. Perhaps for the first 25 players, the cost per player would be $25,000 instead of $50,000. Or perhaps $10,000 for the first 10, $25,000 for 11-25, and then $50,000 for 26-50. The lower up-front costs would make it vastly easier for smaller units to establish themselves with little investment.

Beyond that, I suggest that a steady progressive increase in costs reach a hard cap for maximum recruitment cost. Let's say that the cost to recruit a new player will never exceed $5mil (current for 100 players). Or perhaps lower... $2.5mil (current for 50 players) c-bills. This should still make mass recruiting too expensive to be practical, but still allow larger units - and especially those with heavy player turn-over - to continue to operate as openly and inclusively as they'd normally be able to.

Moreover, as the return to a single FW queue seems inevitable, I'd like to see PGI finally implement a series of unit tools to allow units to better manage their players. And more tools that encourage solo players to find and join units, as well as units to locate prospective players. I think that these sorts of additions will encourage a better sense of community and belonging within the player base of MWO, and attract more players to FW - a mode being kept on life-support by the very units being hamstrung by the recent FW changes.

My feeling is that the success of Faction Warfare, and MWO as a whole, depends on the tone PGI strikes for team-based play and community spirit. The recent changes, arguably, are a step in the wrong direction.

[crustydog]

I clearly recall in my early days with MWO, visiting with SWOL and CWI, dropping in CW with their units. Although being quite new to the game, lacking proper mechs, basic game knowledge, and in game social contacts, nobody at SWOL or CWI said to me "you are unwelcome here...." that even in spite of my Merc newbie status at the time.

In fact, I had a great time, and the experience there helped me greatly with the whole being part of an organized drop concept.

ScarecrowES words here are quite correct - we will integrate a far greater number of the player base into the CW/FW realm through inclusionary policies rather than exclusionary ones.

Over the last year or so, policy seems to be following a trend of ever greater restrictiveness, and generally more punitive in nature - and what have we also achieved during that time? A lot of angry players, for one thing. A lot less players, for another.

Countries die off by doing that, so do companies, does anyone think that games are exempt from the same consequences?

Alarm bells are ringing - and sometimes that means the building is actually on fire. The prudent course of action is to play it safe, just in case it really is.

[DarklightCA]

I do agree that the focus of Community Warfare (faction warfare) should be units. However I also agree with the recruitment costs. It's really a big failure on PGI's part for not defining unit sizes prior to allowing people to create units or even prior to Community Warfare's launch.

But 450 players in a unit for a niche and low populated game such as this is pretty ridiculous. Especially considering how many 12 mans you can form to flip planets, one of the reasons why MS always leads in planet count. This game needs more units, not units with the population of entire factions and I do believe that those heavy recruitment costs are helping doing that.

Big units are not recruiting as much, they are even trimming the fat which leaves smaller units more open than before to accept those players that the larger units could not recruit which is a good thing. I do agree that PGI needs to create more unit management tools, especially in regards to recruitment. Small units struggle way too much to recruit a proper roster to play grouped Faction Warfare and they need all the help they can get.

As it stands 200 players is a reasonable number for a unit, it's large and supports a large community of players. If you want a unit bigger than that you have to pay a more expensive cost, I really like that system. The only thing I will add to this is that the income of planets and the reward cap is a joke.

The max income a unit can get from this system is completely pitiful and completely removed any form of competition planetary rewards could have brought Faction Warfare. A unit with 12 planets makes the same pitiful amount as a unit with 6 planets. How are people suppose to care about planet conquest in a gamemode about planet conquest with that crap incentive.

Edited by DarklightCA, 24 April 2016 - 04:31 AM.

[Sniper09121986]

The solution may be to simply pass the recruitment costs to the applicants themselves, and it is not as scary as it sounds. The maximum 10 mil CBills is less than a stock Stormcrow. And even I tend to earn 150k-ish in Quick Play and 400k-ish in CW every match. These 10 mil would take me, like, 25 CW matches or 60 CW matches, doable in two weeks or some-such. The units may use that period to run with applicants in a group, and if it does not work out the applicant still has the CBills to give it a try with another unit. Also it would encourage the applicants to treat their unit affiliation more seriously, having personally invested in it, and take some time with the unit at least to earn it back.

[ScarecrowES]

DarklightCA, on 24 April 2016 - 04:29 AM, said:

I do agree that the focus of Community Warfare (faction warfare) should be units. However I also agree with the recruitment costs. It's really a big failure on PGI's part for not defining unit sizes prior to allowing people to create units or even prior to Community Warfare's launch.

But 450 players in a unit for a niche and low populated game such as this is pretty ridiculous. Especially considering how many 12 mans you can form to flip planets, one of the reasons why MS always leads in planet count. This game needs more units, not units with the population of entire factions and I do believe that those heavy recruitment costs are helping doing that.

Big units are not recruiting as much, they are even trimming the fat which leaves smaller units more open than before to accept those players that the larger units could not recruit which is a good thing. I do agree that PGI needs to create more unit management tools, especially in regards to recruitment. Small units struggle way too much to recruit a proper roster to play grouped Faction Warfare and they need all the help they can get.

As it stands 200 players is a reasonable number for a unit, it's large and supports a large community of players. If you want a unit bigger than that you have to pay a more expensive cost, I really like that system. The only thing I will add to this is that the income of planets and the reward cap is a joke.

The max income a unit can get from this system is completely pitiful and completely removed any form of competition planetary rewards could have brought Faction Warfare. A unit with 12 planets makes the same pitiful amount as a unit with 6 planets. How are people suppose to care about planet conquest in a gamemode about planet conquest with that crap incentive.

We would agree that 450 is too large and unwieldy. That number reflects our current assigned player roster, but not our active player roster. We estimate that only 200 or so of the players we have aligned with us actually still play the game, or should have reserved slots. Of those, no more than 30, I'd say, are ever logged in at one time during peak North American play hours. Sometimes more during events or tournament play.

Our current size is the result of our open recruitment policies, which see us accept pretty much anyone who wishes to join. That, and our inability to actually remove anyone from the unit thanks to a sheer lack of tools from PGI to do so.

Unfortunately, PGI has not graced units with the tools to to be able to see which players are active, and which are not. We don't even have the ability to send out unit-wide notifications. As such, the best we can do to determine whether or not someone hasn't been around for awhile is to poll the most active members of the unit across different server zones and ask, "has this guy been around? Do you know him?"

As such, should we make a mistake and remove a player from the unit we thought was inactive, but who was actually still interested in playing with us - even if we manage to drop down to 200 or so players - it's still a $10mil mistake. That's just too dang much.

I don't know that we're strictly opposed to having a recruitment cost. I can actually see how this could have some benefit to having a unit weigh its need to recruit players with its need to influence the map. However, the point of recruitment costs, as per PGIs wishes, was to somewhat diminish the influence of the large mercenary units. The idea was to force them to rethink their size and where they put their contracts.

But in the end, this system doesn't punish the large mercenary units at all. Those units, the largest ones with the most influential and competitive player bases, are also the ones who undergo the most stringent recruitment processes. Most of these units wouldn't bat an eye at dropping $10mil each for the few players that make it through such a process.

And even so... the current contract system which greatly incentivizes merc units joining weaker factions over highly-populated ones already provides more financial constraint for those units than the recruitment costs do. Taking a contract with an over-stuffed faction will ensure that every match reward that faction gets will be significantly reduced. I don't see too many merc units slitting their own throats in pursuit of the paultry reward for planet captures over the stuffed bank accounts received from greater match rewards.

No... I'm not sure the system does what it was aimed to do. The system doesn't seem to hurt large static units at all. It hurts newer, smaller units which likely don't have the funds necessary to bring in players. And it hurts medium to large units with open recruiting and frequent turn-over.

Obviously, the system needs to be reworked. Thankfully, PGI is already seeing the error of their decision to split the queues. A fine example of what happens when you listen to the whining of a small but vocal minority. Perhaps they'll re-examine their tuning for recruitment costs and planetary rewards too.

[ScarecrowES]

Sniper09121986, on 24 April 2016 - 09:36 AM, said:

The solution may be to simply pass the recruitment costs to the applicants themselves, and it is not as scary as it sounds. The maximum 10 mil CBills is less than a stock Stormcrow. And even I tend to earn 150k-ish in Quick Play and 400k-ish in CW every match. These 10 mil would take me, like, 25 CW matches or 60 CW matches, doable in two weeks or some-such. The units may use that period to run with applicants in a group, and if it does not work out the applicant still has the CBills to give it a try with another unit. Also it would encourage the applicants to treat their unit affiliation more seriously, having personally invested in it, and take some time with the unit at least to earn it back.

Perhaps if players were further incentivized for unit association, having players foot some of the bill for recruitment might make sense. If, for instance, planetary rewards were higher, or there was a unit bonus for victories if at least a certain percentage of your team was made up of players from your unit. Basically, if your actual rewards were higher for being a part of a unit than for being solo. This would encourage players not only to join units, but play with those units as well. Your best rewards would come from fighting as an organized team, as it should be. Such a bonus need only be a mere 10% improvement over standard rewards to be worth it.

[Afuldan McKronik]

Solo FW wouldn't be too bad, if it was solo non unit and solo unit members. The problem with that is we would still end up with solo unit members sync dropping to make most/all of a 12 man. The only bandaid to that would be to put a hard cap on the number of same tagged players in one queue. Say 3.

Would still allow some unit players to play together in solo queue, so that the queues can be filled, but prevents gaming the solo queue system for farming pugs.

[Iron Buccaneer]

It's really hurting casual semi competitive and non competitive units out there. Only some of my unit plays FW. Most do not but we have stopped recruiting because of the associated cost. We are about to undergo a large purge which is something we thought we would never do but at 150 members it cost us enough to build that we are holding off.

The Brethren have always been a newbie friendly and very casual pirate unit and now we have to think about what a new member can bring to the table. In the past we could handle a few one drop wonders but now every new pilot we pick up who drops out after a week or two cost our unit millions of c-bills.

I'm not sure I'm totally opposed to recruitment cost but at the moment they are hurting the veteran community and creating a barrier between veterans and new pilots.

[Davegt27]

Just pass on the cost to the player

If they want to join your unit make them pay the recruitment cost

[Iron Buccaneer]

So right now we ask a new player to pony up 8 million c-bills? Just to join our casual unit. That's a lot of a player new to the game.

[Afuldan McKronik]

Sorry but if I had gotten asked to pay 8 mil cbills or more to join a unit I would tell the unit to kiss my ***. If my unit wants to invite someone we all chip in for an invite ticket and let them know the people they will be dropping with paid for their way in. Usually followed by "how do I give back some/all of the cost?"

[Javin]

I think they should not charge for the first 50 or so people then start ramping up the costs. If I had been asked as a new player to pay millions of c-bills, I would have said no. Knowing I wanted to play FW and would have to join a group to be effective, along with the time to earn 10 mil c-bills, would basically kill me interest in the game.

I do not mind costs going high for large units. Just let the smaller units have some leeway.

[MischiefSC]

The problem is that units are not about size, they're about what the player wants and who he wants to play with. You restrict that and you restrict peoples desire to play.

The idea that you can somehow compel people to play with groups and people they don't like as much as others is just false. They just won't play. Bigger units are bigger because they are better at recruiting and have an environment that more people want and enjoy. Maybe that's a cult of personality thing, maybe it's just a fun environment, maybe it's a particular unit ethos or drive that a lot of people share but they join units for a reason.

The only thing restricting unit recruitment does is reduce overall population. That's it. People don't just go settle in to play where there's room. They play what they want with who they want or they play something else. Recruitment costs are a bad idea.

A vastly superior solution is getting rid of the 'tags = rewards' idea and making rewards collaborative so your MC reward for taking a planet is based off how many wins you got there. That's it. So a solo unit who drops like a madman and gets 10 wins is going to get more reward for flipping a planet than a unit member who showed up for 3 drops before going back to quickplay, even if his unit won most the matches on the planet.

Then unit size doesn't matter so much. The idea that 'big units were flipping worlds' just didn't pan out. Like I said elsewhere; MS was rolling the map with CSJ running 2 x 12mans, sometimes just 1. They just won a lot, won fast and got back in the queue. Sure, there are population variations. Liao is an example of that - however those variations tend to show up by timezone and there's no easy fix for that. Davion has way more players than Liao but Liao has more than Davion is the Euro-Oceanic timeframe, so our border is a treadmill. The same is generally true all over safe factions that just don't draw/maintain people.

That's a problem for the faction. If a faction isn't bulking up it needs to gets its act together and coordinate.

[fbj]

Death to small units.

[demoyn]

Every word that DarklightCA said was correct. We definitely need unit tools (and PGI was aware of this long ago, they just don't seem to care). While we're at it, we could really use a search by name function for the leaderboards. At least that way we could make informed decisions on who brings the most to their unit when it's time to purge people.

On the other hand, I'm torn in regards to new units. The costs for small units aren't much to a veteran player, and there's really no reason for new players to be starting units themselves anyway; they should be joining others and learning the game first. On the other hand, there's no real reason to penalize units under 25 members no matter how small the penalty is.

As far as SWOL goes, you need a message board community, not a unit tag. If you're all casual having a unit tag doesn't really mean much anyway.

[Fiona Marshe]

Easy test.

MOD = "everyone must donate 50k to unit coffers. Failure to do so will result in your pilots removal as inactive."

The coffer lists donations now, so the only way to check for activity.

[ScarecrowES]

Fiona Marshe, on 24 April 2016 - 02:19 PM, said:

Easy test.

MOD = "everyone must donate 50k to unit coffers. Failure to do so will result in your pilots removal as inactive."

The coffer lists donations now, so the only way to check for activity.

I've noticed the coffer donation list is... wonky. For instance, I know certain members of my unit have donated massive sums of money, but many of them don't show up on the donation lists at all. It's a mess, certainly.

Beyond that, donations of a mere $50,000 per player won't work. If a new unit forms, due to per-player increases in recruiting costs, it would take roughly $62mil for a unit to recruit and build to a size of 50 players. That means each players' contribution is more like $1.25mil, not $50k. How you come up with those contributions can end up very unfair.

Now, if you're relatively new players looking for a unit to help easy your transition into the game... so you can play with a group of people who can teach you and help you find your legs... you're probably not going to have $1.25mil just lying around. Moreover, if you're a new unit and a lot of your player base is not built on long-time vets, most of your players won't be able to donate much to the coffers. This puts a massive burden on the vets to carry the cost of recruiting, not to mention the unit organization and mentoring that follows. That doesn't give vets incentives to invite newer players looking for mentoring, as they're a financial liability.

This is the exact opposite of the attitude we need to show players new to the game. It leads to exclusiveness, not inclusiveness, which will only kill FW.

We need to get more players into units and dropping, not fewer.

[Kin3ticX]

i think the better question is why was the unit cap ever as high as 512

[RedAnxiety]

Kin3ticX, on 24 April 2016 - 04:30 PM, said:

i think the better question is why was the unit cap ever as high as 512

Dev 1: I'm going to set the unit cap to 256.
Dev 2: Nah, give them a bit more.

I'll see myself out....

[ScarecrowES]

Kin3ticX, on 24 April 2016 - 04:30 PM, said:

i think the better question is why was the unit cap ever as high as 512

512 players for a "guild" isn't all that high. Only by comparison to MWO's very small player base is that number by any means large.

Of course, most units, even the largest and most active ones, will never even approach that size. The only reason SWOL had gotten so big is because we lack the tools to properly manage the unit. Hell, if they'd just give us a "last login" date in our member roster, I guarantee we'd be a lot smaller now than we are.

Now... that's the "how" of where our inability to shed dead weight comes from. The "why" of how we got that big in the first place is equally simple. We've created an environment within our unit that reduces the stress for new and leveling players, and makes it fun for veteran players to continue to grind it out in modes that haven't offered much that's new or interesting over the last 4 years.

MischiefSC has this exactly right. It's not merely the idea of playing as a team that draws players to larger units. It's the environments those units offer. It's about finding a group of people you actually ENJOY playing with. It's about finding a place you belong.

Now, my unit has recently seen a mass exodus of many of our senior leadership and comp players. Being part of the unit kept those players hanging on. Our little community kept those players playing far longer than the game alone would incentivize for them. And even though those players are not activley playing MWO, we're still playing together as SWOL throughout a dozen other games. That's the community we've built. Who you play with can make or break the experience of this game for most players.

We should be encouraging these sorts of experiences... not hamstringing them in every way possible.