86 replies to this topic

[Sniper09121986]

Adamski, on 25 April 2016 - 08:35 AM, said:

Instead of rewarding units for tagging a planet, we should be rewarding units for winning more matches, by tying rewards to leaderboards that focus on success rate.

True that, except there is a more direct way without even touching the leader-boards. The patch notes state that when a member of a unit gets a win on a planet he gets a victory token. The planet occupant is determined by the unit with the most tokens for this planet. That system we have in place ALREADY, so it would be trivial to tie the reward system for units, or even individual players to these tokens. Simple as that.

[Kin3ticX]

Adamski, on 25 April 2016 - 04:42 AM, said:

Yep, the Unit Recruitment cost is back asswards.

Russ got it stuck in his head that the problem with Faction Warfare was units being too big, and has refused to reconsider the position.

Even now, PGI has just introduced a system that encourages larger units, the bigger the better, by tying MC rewards to planetary tags, and Planetary tags are easiest to gain with larger units.

The MC rewards should be based on leaderboard position, not planet tags.
This way, units that want larger rewards are encouraged to break off to another faction for easier leaderboard placement.
Units that constantly follow competitive units around to avoid challenging fights will have to pay for the privilege by being lower on the leaderboards.

No. Right now the MC rewards are too small, even for a 50 player unit. As far as I can tell, the current MC rewards are a placeholder proof of concept number.

[Adamski]

Ghogiel, on 25 April 2016 - 09:21 AM, said:

But the scoreboard is set up like that. And in a mode that is completely about taking and tagging planets, num of planets taken should be the main criteria.

There are supposed to be other controls against unit bloating, member fee being primary amounst them. However PGI implimented it badly and until the atrition aspect of it shows up in larger units with inactive players, all it does is hinder new units and keeps a status quo of older units.
What PGI need to do is drop the recruit cost for smaller unit under 50, and gank it up at 100 players. That way entry to creating viable units that make sense within MWO player base is open to all, deters the unit bloating, and maybe solves some of the issue with the scoreboard being about unit spam in that more smaller units would be competing instead of unit spam wins (just like the old pgi tournies where you just had to poopsock as many matches in the time window).

Right now Member Fee is the ONLY method for controlling unit bloat, and it ignores any units that were bloated prior to Phase 3 implementation.

The MC rewards structure could be a penalty against unit bloat, except it allows units full control over the disbursement of the MC, and the Planet Tagging is primarily influenced by who has the most successful drops*pilots on a planet, so the more members the faster you reach your planetary cap and maximize your rewards.

Edited by Adamski, 25 April 2016 - 11:16 AM.

[Kdogg788]

@Scarecrow:

Here at 9th Sword, I am responsible as Sho-ko for a large portion of personnel recruitment and management. I assume that SWOL as a large unit has their own dedicated TS server. If so, you can use the list clients tool to find the last login times of your players. Another indication of player activity is their faction tag in game, which if you change factions will reflect who changes affiliation with you. The new Phase 3 update also forces players in unit to agree to the path the unit has decided or leave. Those who have agreed and have the Clan Wolf tag have logged on and played since the update as all player allegiances were reset for the patch. We had maybe 125 players a short time ago, and after reducing the roster of inactives we are down to about 70, which is more indicative of real unit size, although this number may be slightly high as well. It allows for easier recruiting without the added cost of having inactives weighing your recruitment down.

-k

[TheLuc]

Regarding incentives, they are so low that many PUGs players wont even bother. Serious adjustment is required.

I didn't even try any of the new features of FP as my Pals are a mix and match in the Mech hangar and since Mechs are faction locked ( if you have an IS contract you are stuck with IS Mechs ) I feel that at least as a Freelancer or Merc group, a bit of more flexibility would have been nice. It could work as using Clan tech in a IS drop reduce maximum tonnage available by a big margin. Yeah I'm now stuck with Clan Mechs in my hangar..

The fact there is now a recruitment cost will tend to just get the best players the Units can have, leaving out the learning players or just the casual ones, this may reduce the population of the game which is already really low.

About Unit size, already a 100 players Unit for the game was a silly decision from the start, should have been set at company level ( 12 players as in the lore ) for real big groups nothing prevents to break up in smaller cells as example Mech Company 01 or CM01, CM02 and so on.

Now I have no clue if there was plans to increase population but I really think is needed, not everyone is keen on PVP and that aspect hurts the game. I try to get more players involved but already the fact there is no PVE, coop, missions or a kind of campaign draw them away.

Big Stompy Robots. That too is an issue, very select few actually likes Mecha in general and once its split with the sub-genres it,s even smaller groups. Additions of Tanks, Aerofighters and why not the VTOLs ( helicopters ) BattleTech may focus on Big Stompy but there is more to the franchise. Mechwarrior4 Mercenaries did feature those, why not have them and get players from WoT or War Thunder or any players that prefer something else than Mechs.

So that was my little letter regarding the game in general.

[Kin3ticX]

L A V A, on 25 April 2016 - 03:57 AM, said:

You are completely missing the point of the OP.

BWC has a similar structure which is built on inclusiveness and shared gaming experience. We are a gaming group with over 2,000 members of which at any one time about 600 are active playing many various different games. We have 300 members in our Unit, or which we are lucky to have 100 play the game once per month. Many of our members are Active Duty Military who serve overseas for six months.

So it is quite possible to have a large group, but a small active community. And no, we are not going to kick folks out of our Unit because they are on deployment, have had a newborn and don't have the time to play the game, or just want to take a break and play something else for a while.

Basing recruiting costs on raw Unit numbers is a fundamentally flawed system.

PGI has access to the raw data to determine whether or not players in Units are actually playing the game.

Recruiting costs should be based on "active" participation.

Is it so hard for you all to see that there are groups out there who play MWO but are not dedicated MWO Clans?

Is it so hard for you all to see the damage that PGI is doing to these groups with punitive recruitment costs?

Is it so hard for you all to see that by taking a hammer to the problem of large MWO dedicated Clans, PGI will actually exacerbate its problem of a shrinking population playing the game and in fact magnify the impact of large MWO dedicated Clans on game play, producing the exact opposite effect it is trying to stop?

Units such as ours should not be penalized for providing a place where new folks can learn how to play MWO. Where casual folks who do not play the game every night can get together with some friends and play every now and then. Where folks with RL commitments have long term inactivity.

But we are and the unintended consequences will see a collapse in participation in MWO in our gaming group and eventually the end our of groups participation in MWO as a whole.

This whole system of recruitment costs was poorly conceived and it will hurt not only gaming groups and players, but MWO as well, which in fact, it already is.

Well, it could have been worse.

The Nuclear Option would have been to restart all the rosters and slap a unit cap of 100 instead of 512 (though Russ stated he wanted unit sizes of 60). People would have rioted on the forums and twitter though.

Instead we have a very mild recruit fee and still have the same big units more or less. The system has no way to discern from Mercstar and a unit of the same nominal size that is 1/10th as active, and it never will.

Things already went in your favor to tell you the truth. It certainly didn't go the way I hoped it would.

[Ghogiel]

Adamski, on 25 April 2016 - 11:16 AM, said:

Right now Member Fee is the ONLY method for controlling unit bloat, and it ignores any units that were bloated prior to Phase 3 implementation.

The MC rewards structure could be a penalty against unit bloat, except it allows units full control over the disbursement of the MC, and the Planet Tagging is primarily influenced by who has the most successful drops*pilots on a planet, so the more members the faster you reach your planetary cap and maximize your rewards.

That's where PGI ****** up and didn't make the unit member fee retroactive/ start the unit system with a fee and all it does is hurt new units and keeps the status quo. The simple fix is make the fee retroactive.

The MC rewards are basically too low across the board, the basic principal is sound> there should be dimishing returns on earning MC in a big unit since there is both a cap on amount of rewards that can be earned per phase and per planet and that MC will spread thin in big units.

[ScarecrowES]

Naglinator, on 25 April 2016 - 04:38 AM, said:

Just break yourself down into SWLA, SWLB, etc. You already have a second IS swol group so it's not that much of a stretch

This is actually something that was briefly discussed back when we were sitting at the unit cap pretty much all the time.

The issue, again, is one of cost. For use to push sections of our player base off to newly-created units to essentially sub-diving the base unit into smaller allied companies, you're still looking at an astronomical cost. To set up and recruit into a 50-player unit, the combined cost for recruitment is roughly $62mil for all 50 players. That amount would be $1.25mil per player. It's a lot of money to ask many players to pony up just to reorganize. And to do this over several units? Not very cost effective. But, alas... still, at our current size, that $62mil is equal to recruiting just 3 new players. We have many more than than number requesting to transfer from allied Wolf units.

It's a dilemma for sure.

[ScarecrowES]

Kin3ticX, on 25 April 2016 - 01:02 PM, said:

Instead we have a very mild recruit fee

I'm not sure anyone would call a fee of $23+ million per player "mild."

$5mil, for a unit our size... THAT might be mild.

To the topic at hand... or specifically Merc units...

I don't think we can blame Merc units for doing exactly what those units were designed to do. These are units that are meant to follow the money. And they're incentivized to do that more now than they ever have been before. PGI has actually worked a system into the game that encourages Merc units to use their numbers to influence the map in as great a way as possible. It was always a fairly smart thing to do to set your unit up as a Merc group, as in the long term that offered your unit members the best chance of rewards. The same is just as true if not more so under the current system.

The issue has always been... at its heart... what we could call deck-stacking. The idea that, outside of the game, contracts could be forged, plans could be made, alliances could be cemented... and then merc units en masse could be set against the rest of the Inner Sphere carrying the banner of a single, newly-massive faction. Previously, merc units found this process very lucrative, and this is how some factions (as we ourselves in Wolf demonstrated the folly of quite well) could recruit and use merc units to completely upset the balance of the game. The lack of tangible in-game rewards for merc units allying with factions in need of players made this so.

So if you want to lessen the potential impact of deck-stacking, the obvious answer to that problem is to greatly increase the incentives a unit receives for allying with a weaker faction. This encourages merc units to spread their strength around. Trying to nudge unit size down through taxed recruiting was never going to be the answer.

It really doesn't matter exactly how painful you make it... without the proper tools to manage unit rosters, you're only forcing units to do nothing at all. Obviously, no unit with any character is merely going to start throwing off random names from their rosters in a desperate bid to shed weight. And without an effective way to tell who's who in a unit, this will merely lead to inaction, and then stagnation.

This game can't afford for its most dedicated player base to fall into inaction and stagnation.

[Kin3ticX]

ScarecrowES, on 25 April 2016 - 04:00 PM, said:

I'm not sure anyone would call a fee of $23+ million per player "mild."

$5mil, for a unit our size... THAT might be mild.

To the topic at hand... or specifically Merc units...

I don't think we can blame Merc units for doing exactly what those units were designed to do. These are units that are meant to follow the money. And they're incentivized to do that more now than they ever have been before. PGI has actually worked a system into the game that encourages Merc units to use their numbers to influence the map in as great a way as possible. It was always a fairly smart thing to do to set your unit up as a Merc group, as in the long term that offered your unit members the best chance of rewards. The same is just as true if not more so under the current system.

The issue has always been... at its heart... what we could call deck-stacking. The idea that, outside of the game, contracts could be forged, plans could be made, alliances could be cemented... and then merc units en masse could be set against the rest of the Inner Sphere carrying the banner of a single, newly-massive faction. Previously, merc units found this process very lucrative, and this is how some factions (as we ourselves in Wolf demonstrated the folly of quite well) could recruit and use merc units to completely upset the balance of the game. The lack of tangible in-game rewards for merc units allying with factions in need of players made this so.

So if you want to lessen the potential impact of deck-stacking, the obvious answer to that problem is to greatly increase the incentives a unit receives for allying with a weaker faction. This encourages merc units to spread their strength around. Trying to nudge unit size down through taxed recruiting was never going to be the answer.

It really doesn't matter exactly how painful you make it... without the proper tools to manage unit rosters, you're only forcing units to do nothing at all. Obviously, no unit with any character is merely going to start throwing off random names from their rosters in a desperate bid to shed weight. And without an effective way to tell who's who in a unit, this will merely lead to inaction, and then stagnation.

This game can't afford for its most dedicated player base to fall into inaction and stagnation.

if you space tax 200 people 1 million per week (4 million per month), that raises 800,000,000 cbills.

Lets say this unit has 400 people (50%) active. That means the recruit fee will stay around ~20 million cbills.

With 800,000,000 cbills you can fund 40 recruits.

AKA, doesn't do jack. hence why I say it's mild

Edited by Kin3ticX, 25 April 2016 - 04:12 PM.

[MischiefSC]

DarklightCA, on 25 April 2016 - 09:06 AM, said:

Too large of units are not the problem of Faction Warfare but they are a problem, when you have a unit that can put out much more 12 man's than other units to swarm wins on a planet. It's extremely hard for other units to compete against that even if they are winning every single one of their matches. There are some units in this game that make you question if there is even a limit to the amount of members units can have.

As for the planetary reward system, I question that you even read the patch notes. The current system favors smaller units over larger units. Even if units cared to fight over planets and the pitiful rewards they give, the rewards are capped at 6 planets which means smaller units with a lot less planet captures will make as much income as larger units with more planets.

Additionally this is a gamemode about planetary conquest so planet captures are the only way it makes sense to reward units. Also the unit leaderboards are based on planetary captures so the two are one in the same regardless. If units also broke off to other factions, they lose all their planets which in turn makes them lose their place in the leaderboards. So how does that give them easier leaderboard placement?




Loyalists get the ability to decide attack lanes, Mercs lose all planetary progress they make when they switch factions. How is it that the game caters to Mercs exactly?

You need to reward total matches won on a planet - this strongly rewards hard-fought over planets, so if you have to win 40 matches to take a world against an enemy who's dropping just as fast as you and winning almost as much you get way more reward.

That's why I say make payout 1x 2 MC per win you helped accomplish that wasn't a ghost drop on a world your faction took, plus 1 MC per cycle that the world is held up to 1 week.

The point being that it's per player. That eliminates the problem of big units tagging and earning all the reward and leaving smaller units/solos with absolutely no investment in any way in worlds flipping. The business of 'tagging worlds' has always been a bad one as it is what puts big units against small units. Reward everyone who drives a win the same and suddenly having big units is a GOOD thing. Building mixed 12mans is a GOOD thing. The reward is based on your ability to put the effort into finding people to communicate and coordinate with and doing so, be that as a unit member or solo, not just your tag.

Then you scale rewards by who you beat and you've got a self-sustaining system for driving units to seek other units and pound it out against the toughest people they can for the hardest fought worlds they can. Sure - 228 members who play a lot of FW and drive a lot of wins will make enough MC to, god forbid, buy a copule camos or a mechbay once every two weeks. That's good motivation without breaking the economy. The current payout is both largely irrelevant to big units and largely irrelevant to medium/small units and completely irrelevant to solo players. It's not only not a motivation but a further motivation for small/medium units and solos to hate big units.

[MischiefSC]

Kin3ticX, on 25 April 2016 - 04:09 PM, said:

if you space tax 200 people 1 million per week (4 million per month), that raises 800,000,000 cbills.

Lets say this unit has 400 people (50%) active. That means the recruit fee will stay around ~20 million cbills.

With 800,000,000 cbills you can fund 40 recruits.

AKA, doesn't do jack. hence why I say it's mild

Except any sort of unit limits is stupid. Units are not businesses. They are not random strangers signing up for a job, getting a paycheck and going home. They're friends and they're people playing a game for fun - as such they will want to gather with friends and play how they find fun. They'll gather to big units if they want the big unit experience; they'll go to comp units if they're competitive, casual units if they're casual, groups of friends based on how many friends you group up with.

You can not try to manipulate social dynamics financially in this sort of environment. The only thing limiting unit recruitment will do, at all in any way, is reduce recruitment. That's it. Smaller groups won't recruit more than they would already - many will still recruit less because casual players hate the idea of paying to recruit. Big units who recruit, train and often release a ton of players will do so far less, resulting in fewer players getting onboarded and trained.

Think about how many players MS recruits, trains, and then churns out. That's actually a good thing - those people are learning about the game, getting invested in it and picking up useful skills. The whole game benefits.

[Kin3ticX]

MischiefSC, on 25 April 2016 - 04:33 PM, said:

Except any sort of unit limits is stupid. Units are not businesses. They are not random strangers signing up for a job, getting a paycheck and going home. They're friends and they're people playing a game for fun - as such they will want to gather with friends and play how they find fun. They'll gather to big units if they want the big unit experience; they'll go to comp units if they're competitive, casual units if they're casual, groups of friends based on how many friends you group up with.

You can not try to manipulate social dynamics financially in this sort of environment. The only thing limiting unit recruitment will do, at all in any way, is reduce recruitment. That's it. Smaller groups won't recruit more than they would already - many will still recruit less because casual players hate the idea of paying to recruit. Big units who recruit, train and often release a ton of players will do so far less, resulting in fewer players getting onboarded and trained.

Think about how many players MS recruits, trains, and then churns out. That's actually a good thing - those people are learning about the game, getting invested in it and picking up useful skills. The whole game benefits.

This 50k per player feature doesn't do jack so either take it out and give up or increase it to 100k.

I am for a unit cap. A 512 unit cap exists but it is so high it might as well not be there just like how low the 50k penalty is. It probably would improve the game if the unit cap was at 128 which is ~regiment size. I say do it and let the sparks fly, and let everyone belly ache a 50 page thread about it.

The 512 unit cap actually rivals the past nominal sizes of Laio and Marik not even considering active vs inactive.

[L A V A]

Kin3ticX, on 25 April 2016 - 05:14 PM, said:

This 50k per player feature doesn't do jack so either take it out and give up or increase it to 100k.

I am for a unit cap. A 512 unit cap exists but it is so high it might as well not be there just like how low the 50k penalty is. It probably would improve the game if the unit cap was at 128 which is ~regiment size. I say do it and let the sparks fly, and let everyone belly ache a 50 page thread about it.

The 512 unit cap actually rivals the past nominal sizes of Laio and Marik not even considering active vs inactive.

Boy, you just don't get it do you?

Go to the Merc Leaderboard and see how many planets BWC has captured. Look at how may planetary attacks and defenses we have carried out. Look at how many planets we have tagged. WAIT... I'll tell you ZERO.

Not all large groups are MS... but the simplistic and rather stupefying bludgeoning tactics of Russ and yourself, tell me you have no idea who makes up your community. That is the whole reason for this thread, to try to shine some light on an area folks just want to ignore.

I say again, BWC is a gaming group which plays all kinds of games. We have over 2,000 members of which 300 are in the MWO Unit, of those probably 100 at active (play at least once per month). Our gaming philosophy says that if someone wants to play MWO, they can.

Instead of providing us with tools to manage our Unit you and Russ want to Nuc it. How about allowing us to be able to place folks in an inactive reserve status? Simply doing that would allow us to prune our unit by at least half. We have folks who go on 6 months deployments overseas. We have folks who have babies. We have folks who want to try another game for awhile.

But NO! We don't care about gaming groups... If you have more than 10 people you are an evil empire that must be taxed out of existence!

Look, here is the bottom line. The BWC has a web site and our own Team Speak channel which we maintain with real money. Games are separated into Primary and Secondary games. Primary games receive priority for things like TS channels. MWO is a Primary game in BWC but to maintain the status of a Primary game requires a large level of activity. If that activity drops and the game is reduced to a Secondary game... participation plunges.

Now I now you could care less... like so many other folks around here who just can't seem to understand that a game is as healthy as its community.

When you do things that harm your community participation drops and you won't have to worry about how many folks are playing Laio or Marik, because the lights will go out on the MWO servers for ALL the factions.

So yea... be a silly like Russ and PGI with their childish narrow views on their community and prevent folks from being able to manage their units except trying to tax them out of existence.

But to be quite honest, that is not just silly, it is stupid and the consequences will not improve the game, but only make matters worse.

Edited by L A V A, 26 April 2016 - 09:24 AM.

[L A V A]

So... what can PGI do to help folks manage units:

1. Allow ranking individuals to see when was the last time a member of the unit logged onto the game.

2. Create a "Reserve Inactive" category which folks can be placed in and not counted as being "in the unit." This "Reserve Inactive" category, when combined with the date of the last time a member of the unit logged onto the game can then be used to move folks out of the Unit after a certain Unit Imposed time. Members who return to the "Unit" from the Reserve Inactive list should be billed 50,000k for re-activation in the unit.

3. Allow ranking individuals to be able to move not only MC but also CBills to individual member accounts. By being able to do this, friends can help out new members by donating CBills to them so they can buy new mechs. This will not only help new folks playing MWO in general, but FW in specific.

I read all the time how new folks should join a Unit. Doing things that I just listed will not only help Unit management but also help create a feeling of community and allow totally new people to get a taste of MWO greater than a couple hours.

The Devs actually have an opportunity to make being in and/or creating a Unit a real positive force to expand our community.

But by targeting a few large MWO Clans with a Thermonuclear device, they very well may be causing so much collateral damage that the game may never be able to recover from.

[Kin3ticX]

L A V A, on 26 April 2016 - 12:08 PM, said:

So... what can PGI do to help folks manage units:

3. Allow ranking individuals to be able to move not only MC but also CBills to individual member accounts. By being able to do this, friends can help out new members by donating CBills to them so they can buy new mechs.

they will never do that, its against the very core of the business model

[Kin3ticX]

L A V A, on 26 April 2016 - 09:20 AM, said:

Boy, you just don't get it do you?

Go to the Merc Leaderboard and see how many planets BWC has captured. Look at how may planetary attacks and defenses we have carried out. Look at how many planets we have tagged. WAIT... I'll tell you ZERO.

Not all large groups are MS... but the simplistic and rather stupefying bludgeoning tactics of Russ and yourself, tell me you have no idea who makes up your community. That is the whole reason for this thread, to try to shine some light on an area folks just want to ignore.

I say again, BWC is a gaming group which plays all kinds of games. We have over 2,000 members of which 300 are in the MWO Unit, of those probably 100 at active (play at least once per month). Our gaming philosophy says that if someone wants to play MWO, they can.

Instead of providing us with tools to manage our Unit you and Russ want to Nuc it. How about allowing us to be able to place folks in an inactive reserve status? Simply doing that would allow us to prune our unit by at least half. We have folks who go on 6 months deployments overseas. We have folks who have babies. We have folks who want to try another game for awhile.

But NO! We don't care about gaming groups... If you have more than 10 people you are an evil empire that must be taxed out of existence!

Look, here is the bottom line. The BWC has a web site and our own Team Speak channel which we maintain with real money. Games are separated into Primary and Secondary games. Primary games receive priority for things like TS channels. MWO is a Primary game in BWC but to maintain the status of a Primary game requires a large level of activity. If that activity drops and the game is reduced to a Secondary game... participation plunges.

Now I now you could care less... like so many other folks around here who just can't seem to understand that a game is as healthy as its community.

When you do things that harm your community participation drops and you won't have to worry about how many folks are playing Laio or Marik, because the lights will go out on the MWO servers for ALL the factions.

So yea... be a silly like Russ and PGI with their childish narrow views on their community and prevent folks from being able to manage their units except trying to tax them out of existence.

But to be quite honest, that is not just silly, it is stupid and the consequences will not improve the game, but only make matters worse.

Reserve status would be nice but it is virtually the same thing as removing them from unit and then bringing them back with 2 clicks when they become active again. Besides, even if we had that feature, unit leaders would just use it as an unlimited extended roster.

You can trim your roster by half now and Russ is even willing to send you an XML showing last login.

Removing someone from your unit is not as big a deal you make it out to be. Every unit has player turnover, even BWC. The difference is, you openly refuse to trim your roster and at the same time, think the fee ruins the community.

Edited by Kin3ticX, 26 April 2016 - 01:55 PM.

[L A V A]

Kin3ticX, on 26 April 2016 - 01:54 PM, said:

Removing someone from your unit is not as big a deal you make it out to be. Every unit has player turnover, even BWC.

Sorry, mate.

We have gone through our Roster of 296 members and less than a dozen of them no longer belong to BWC anymore.

At any moment, perhaps if the game became more engaging, any of the inactive people in our Unit have the right to play.

And you are right, PGI almost certainly would not allow Units to give CBills to people, not because it is against their business model, but because they are short sighted and ignorant of the things Units like us do which help newbies get past the steep initial learning curve and become long term enthusiasts.

Instead, they kick dirt in our faces.

[Adamski]

L A V A, on 26 April 2016 - 02:54 PM, said:

Sorry, mate.

We have gone through our Roster of 296 members and less than a dozen of them no longer belong to BWC anymore.

At any moment, perhaps if the game became more engaging, any of the inactive people in our Unit have the right to play.

And you are right, PGI almost certainly would not allow Units to give CBills to people, not because it is against their business model, but because they are short sighted and ignorant of the things Units like us do which help newbies get past the steep initial learning curve and become long term enthusiasts.

Instead, they kick dirt in our faces.

Yep, the problem isn't with large units, its with the incentives that encourage large units.

PGI is just focusing on the symptom rather than the cause.

[ScarecrowES]

Kin3ticX, on 26 April 2016 - 01:54 PM, said:

You can trim your roster by half now and Russ is even willing to send you an XML showing last login.

Where did you see this? If this is an option, I'm certainly interested in taking it. That would be an invaluable asset for our unit to have right now.

Buuuuuut... back to the space tax.

So, I'm a veteran player. Been at this a few years. Have a pretty big stable of mechs. I'm by no means wealthy in terms of the economy of the game, as I've always been in the process of leveling mechs since I first started playing. As soon as I master a chassis, I buy another. My personal coffers are never particularly fat, but I carry at least a few million c-bills at any time. I donate to my unit with regularity, which saps a small amount of my wealth, as voluntary tribute to my unit. Any money I spend is replaced relatively easily, because I'm fairly decent at the game and am smart about maximizing the effectiveness of how I play. I also tend to play at least a few hours every week.

I do not represent the majority of my unit's player base. Most are relatively new, with very light mech garages. As you might remember, it's tough being a new player. You never seem to have enough money to do anything... chassis, weapons, engines... and beyond, modules, consumables, etc. And what little money you have, you often make mistakes with... buying a mech that doesn't fit your playing style... building a bad build and the wasted components that go with it... etc. While the occasional donation of $1mil isn't much trouble for me at all, for most new players $1mil is a massive chunk of their income. It's a pretty hefty tax for a rookie.

I wouldn't even remotely support an increase of the recruitment fee from $50k to $100k. For a new unit to go from founding to 50 players would cost a total sum of $122.5mil. That's an investment per player of $2.45mil. Absurd. The current costs for new units to establish themselves are ridiculous as-is. Currently the cumulative cost for 50 players is $61mil. That's already well beyond the reach of most players who might be even remotely interested in the idea of establishing a small merc unit.

The current system punishes units of all kinds. It greatly discourages the establishment of new, smaller units by making it prohibitively expensive for anyone but rich veterans to do. Large units can probably weather the cost of recruitment at absurd levels better than smaller ones - though this generally requires them to operate on the more serious and professional side, which goes against the character of many units that wish to operate in the casual and inclusive space. And honestly, the most established and successful units on the field will probably weather the system the best - as those units will feature a large number of veteran players, and a culture producing a higher percentage of successful rookie players that will be able to produce better financial gains for the unit as a whole. So though ALL are punished, the small units and newer players feel it the worst.