86 replies to this topic

[Kin3ticX]

ScarecrowES, on 26 April 2016 - 04:26 PM, said:

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.

one of the tweets
https://twitter.com/...946624809361409

I'd like to see a progressive system rather than flat

0-50: 25k
51-100: 50k
101+: 100k

Mercstar is basically going to shrug off the 50k as a non-issue more or less. Like I said before, If you just slightly space tax 200 active players in a 400 player unit, you can easily raise 800 million coffer funds in a month. 800 million can pay for ~40 recruits at ~400 size. If thats how it will be, there is no point to the whole thing at what I consider an annoying sting but not game altering levels.

Edited by Kin3ticX, 26 April 2016 - 05:24 PM.

[White Bear 84]

Let's just end this the best way.. ..make it free to join a unit so that players running casual/group and comp drops don't have to deal with this nonsense.

For FP, create a 'season pass' for each player. New players to a unit and/or the unit have to cover that season pass cost when a new player joins WITH THE INTENTION to play FP. If you don't have a season pass no FP. Want to test it out? Give players 4/5 'free' drops before they are required to have a season pass in order to play FP.

Now only players that are playing FP are paying for unit recruitment costs. Simple.

[Adamski]

Kin3ticX, on 26 April 2016 - 05:08 PM, said:

one of the tweets
https://twitter.com/...946624809361409

I'd like to see a progressive system rather than flat

0-50: 25k
51-100: 50k
101+: 100k

Mercstar is basically going to shrug off the 50k as a non-issue more or less. Like I said before, If you just slightly space tax 200 active players in a 400 player unit, you can easily raise 800 billion coffer funds in a month. 800 billion can pay for ~40 recruits at ~400 size. If thats how it will be, there is no point to the whole thing at what I consider an annoying sting but not game altering levels.

You seriously overestimate casual players earning power.

I mean, I'm glad that the new system works just as well for MercStar as the old system, but considering the new system was 'designed' by Russ/Paul to punish MercStar for having so many active players, I would consider that a SPECTACULAR FAILURE. Especially once you factor in all the casual units that are being hit by this new system.

[Kin3ticX]

i meant to put 800 million, not 800 billion

[MischiefSC]

Kin3ticX, on 26 April 2016 - 05:08 PM, said:

one of the tweets
https://twitter.com/...946624809361409

I'd like to see a progressive system rather than flat

0-50: 25k
51-100: 50k
101+: 100k

Mercstar is basically going to shrug off the 50k as a non-issue more or less. Like I said before, If you just slightly space tax 200 active players in a 400 player unit, you can easily raise 800 million coffer funds in a month. 800 million can pay for ~40 recruits at ~400 size. If thats how it will be, there is no point to the whole thing at what I consider an annoying sting but not game altering levels.

You forgot to add:

"For MercStar" at the end of your post.

I have absolutely no issue at all with mercs getting 1/2 the rewards as Loyalists. Indeed, I don't see why they get big cbill bonuses - I'd say give them a minimum 1 month contract requirement to get any sort of bonus and a 3 month contract to get a full bonus. This would let them move around seasonally and build better map stability as people make alliances and coordinate to deal with power imbalances instead of just try to keep a population shuffle going for a up/down swing in faction successes.

Except of course that this would totally and completely **** the bulk of mercs, who are mercs because they want to move around a lot, play their IS and Clan stables and try to hold big populations together who don't all agree on what they want to do but get around it by keeping times in one place relatively short. However as a loyalist that wouldn't affect me so no problem, right?

For a FW focused group like MS with a huge revenue stream and moderate to high individual performance baseline it's not a big deal. For a ton of other units it is; stifling. There's a lot of units that have players who play maybe 10 hours a week; for them you're talking about a 10% or more pay-cut. There are groups that are mostly casual; they may have 80 members but only 20 play FW, the rest just play group queue. There's innumerable situations where it's a problem.

The only thing limiting or taxing unit recruitment will do, the absolutely only thing, is reduce both the number of players who join units and in turn the number of players who get invested in the game.

That's it.

If I make it harder for you to join your local gym that doesn't mean you're going to join the knitting club instead - people are not a fungible resource. They will not just flow into wherever there's an opening. The only thing, at all, that can result from this is less people in FW and less people in units.

As I said before, the solution is to change payouts to reward winners be they big or small groups equally on a per-player basis. Then unit size is largely irrelevant - everyone wants to play against the best opponents they can keep up with and small groups/pugs are directly financially motivated to do what wins, not what gets them a high score.

Punishing people for playing with the people they want to play with and inherently undercutting groups who are good at bringing more people into the game, into units and into FW is an inherently flawed idea.

Edited by MischiefSC, 27 April 2016 - 12:19 AM.

[kapusta11]

Should there be a recruitment cost to begin with? The number of players in a unit != the number of active players. Not everyone can show up every day and play, we have real lives. If system/game rules favors large units change the system, "balancing" social aspect of the game is just stupid.

Edited by kapusta11, 27 April 2016 - 07:36 AM.

[L A V A]

In the last week we have had 5 new recruits to BWC who want to be MWO Primaries. They own respectively: 1, 6, 13, 18 and 30 mechs.

We have applied some very basic requirements to become members of the Unit, things which a normal person would do to move out of the recruit category.

Our folks are "getting it" that PGI are being terds. And as Mischief has stated our veterans are donating to the coffers. Thankfully we have a number of these folks and they won't be intimidated such that PGIs behaviour will force a change in our gaming groups basic philosophy of inclusiveness. I popped 50 million into the coffers, own 130 mechs and still have 10 million in my mech bay. Since the patch we are now closing in on 300 million in donations.

For the smaller groups which don't have the resources... this is a really grim and ill thought out direction by PGI.

[Insufficient Skill]

Smaller units would not have to pay as much, or did I misread the announcement?

[FallingAce]

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.

I guess you have to follow Russ on twitter to get information that should be readily available in-game to unit leaders.

Adamski, on 26 April 2016 - 04:17 PM, said:

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.

With the winner take all mentality of planet tags in faction warfare there is no way for a small unit to thrive and survive.

Planetary rewards should be based on a units contribution to the victory. Get 49% planet tags get 49% of the loot. Right now, 49% can get you zero if someone else has 50 or 51%

Right now you can get a small slice of something (large units) or a large slice of nothing(small units).

Edited by FallingAce, 27 April 2016 - 10:52 AM.

[ScarecrowES]

Insufficient Skill, on 27 April 2016 - 03:05 AM, said:

Smaller units would not have to pay as much, or did I misread the announcement?

That's the intent. And on paper it certainly seems like it would work that way. Larger units are taxed at ever increasing amounts based on how many players they carry. However, larger groups of players also tend to have a greater wealth stream to draw from. While $20mil+ per recruit is a massive investment for a unit to make, the larger units in the game could easily come up with that amount of funds in a matter of minutes from the personal coffers of a mere handful of veteran players. Smaller units have a smaller pool of funds to draw from, which makes the admittedly smaller fees for recruiting represent a larger overall portion of that wealth.

However, the real cost is not so much in sustained recruitment once a unit is up and running at average capacity... it's getting set up in the first place. A unit that's already large has already made that investment, while a unit just starting out has to make it from scratch.

The current cost to establish a new unit and recruit to 50 players is about $61mil. The people who might be interested in establishing new units and recruiting to that level aren't likely to be veteran players with those kinds of funds laying around.

White Bear 84, on 26 April 2016 - 05:17 PM, said:

Let's just end this the best way.. ..make it free to join a unit so that players running casual/group and comp drops don't have to deal with this nonsense.

For FP, create a 'season pass' for each player. New players to a unit and/or the unit have to cover that season pass cost when a new player joins WITH THE INTENTION to play FP. If you don't have a season pass no FP. Want to test it out? Give players 4/5 'free' drops before they are required to have a season pass in order to play FP.

Now only players that are playing FP are paying for unit recruitment costs. Simple.

OR... simplify that! Since not every player will make equal use out of the investment of a "season pass," there is great potential for units to waste funds on players who may not then be able to contribute.

How about, instead, we have a sort of "drop fee." Rather than tax recruitment, or creating a player "buy-in" why not establish a system that focuses on how many players a unit is fielding. Have the drop fee be charged per player per drop, but have the fee somewhat progressive based on how many unit members are dropping together in a single match, or how many players are dropping in a given period of time. Something like that.

Now, the fees won't be much. Maybe they are drawn from your match rewards at the end of a match, and represent a fraction of the total amount earned per match. Not painful enough to make playing pointless, but enough to be noticed.

In this setup, we're taxing the degree of participation, not the size of a unit.

So... practical results...

Single players will pay the lowest drop fees. In fact, maybe non-unit players, or unit players dropping solo don't pay a drop fee at all. Units of any size fielding small numbers of players, or fielding incomplete drops would pay more. Large units fielding a large number of players, or any unit fielding 12-man drops would pay a lot. Essentially, the more players a unit is throwing at a planet, the higher their cost to field that many players, and the lower their ratio of direct match rewards will be for doing that. This is in keeping with how real militaries operate... the larger your forces are, the greater their transport and logistics costs will be.

I figure this can offset match rewards with planetary rewards. Smaller units and solo players, who have little chance of capturing a planet and receiving the associated rewards, will receive greater match rewards to compensate. Larger units who push hard to capture a planet will receive a massive boon from owning that planet, but will receive lower individual match rewards as a cost of that campaign.

Another adjustment that could be made here is similar to what FallingAce said... remove the winner-take-all rewards concept from planet capture. Retain certain rewards (like MC) for the unit that gets the tag, but distribute other rewards to all units allied with the winning faction that participated in the conquest of that planet by proportion to their contribution. Since the game now tracks "tokens," that contribution is readily known in PGI's system. In this way, all units that participate get SOMETHING... I'd like to see a c-bill and XP award for a captured planet that would be divided up between all units in that campaign. This amount may go directly to the unit coffers instead of the players, as current MC rewards do.

To my mind, these changes incentivize every sort of play in some manner:

• Solo players get the most per-match rewards. This works best for them because they're less likely to care about or benefit from planetary rewards. The rewards may be so lucrative that it might draw solo players in from Quick Play.
  
• Smaller units, or larger units fielding smaller numbers, will find balance between their match rewards and their planetary rewards. With a greater focus on planetary campaigns, more focus is placed on the rewards received from that campaign. But without the numbers needed to easily sway a planet, match rewards are still granted to players at a steady rate. Because we'd see moderate match AND planetary rewards, small units, or large units fielding small numbers, may see the most overall financial mobility overall.
  
• Large units fielding large numbers will receive the greatest share of planetary rewards by virtue of their contribution to planetary capture or defense, but will see smaller match rewards for individual players. Balance will be struck between success as a unit, and a player's individual financial self-interest. While large units will be able to tread on the beneficial end of this balance spectrum, some units may find themselves too large and unwieldy to sustain continued influence, and may need to be more judicious in how their strength is applied.

But... this is all just me spit-balling.

[Wyattorc]

I was under the impression that the recruitment fee was to keep unit players from leaving their unit, dropping in the solo queue, then rejoining the unit. Now that we don't have a solo queue anymore is the fee even needed?

[Adamski]

Wyattorc, on 03 May 2016 - 03:56 PM, said:

I was under the impression that the recruitment fee was to keep unit players from leaving their unit, dropping in the solo queue, then rejoining the unit. Now that we don't have a solo queue anymore is the fee even needed?

Yes, it was a poorly thought out penalty to try and keep units from becoming "too" large, that did nothing to curb the reason that units banded together to form these "too" large units.

Namely, more players in the same unit increases likelihood of getting Unit tag on a planet, thus earning those rewards. So no matter how much they crank the recruiting fee, it will not fix the problem, and that doesn't even get into how it does nothing about the units that are already "too" large.

TLDR: Russ & Paul are short sighted and have no imagination and cannot think through their goals and how to reach them.

[Iron Buccaneer]

Ultimately this mode needs large units to function properly. Especially since for every 80 or so players you might have 20 of those active at a time in most units. Only the very largest units can consistently put together a 12 man and even fewer can consistently put together more than 1. My unit had 155-160 or so before this update and now we are down to 95 because we removed long term inactive players but on our big CW nights we are lucky to get a 12 man to drop more than a few drops before it starts to break up. During most of the rest of the weeks those of us who like Faction play usually drop solo or in lance sized groups at best.

The biggest problem is that being a faction loyalist just isn't cool enough. It's still better to be a Merc for the most part and all the factions need much better features and much more dynamic and deeper career paths.

[BSK]

Iron Buccaneer, on 06 May 2016 - 09:58 PM, said:

Ultimately this mode needs large units to function properly.

Mostly because the large units can spread knowledge about changes and bugs better than this forum.

[Gerwig]

Units should be hard capped at 50. The game would be better off for it

[Adamski]

Gerwig, on 09 May 2016 - 12:51 PM, said:

Units should be hard capped at 50. The game would be better off for it

And players should be hard capped at 4 mechs.

Wait, those are all horrible ideas.

[fbj]

Gerwig, on 09 May 2016 - 12:51 PM, said:

Units should be hard capped at 50. The game would be better off for it

Better Idea. Units Hard Capped at 12, so you need all 12 on at the same time to do anything effective for CW.

And you can't own more than 2 mechs. Because of things and such.

Then no more TS or community.

Then they should randomly dropped the 12 with other players so team work is even further devalued.

[AssaultPig]

The current system penalizes the wrong people

It means that new/'casual' players that aren't necessarily sitting on a large pile of bills are heavily discouraged from joining units, and the kind of small/'casual' they might be inclined to join is encouraged to remove less-active members to lower joining costs.

Meanwhile more serious players who're inclined to congregate in one big unit to maximize their influence on the galaxy map probably don't have too hard a time dealing with the costs.

I can't really think of a good solution that fixes the 'zerg unit' problem though. Maybe the join cost should only be applied to merc units, and changing loyalist faction become something you only do at the beginning of each season? That might be too extreme.

[Adamski]

AssaultPig, on 09 May 2016 - 01:58 PM, said:

The current system penalizes the wrong people

It means that new/'casual' players that aren't necessarily sitting on a large pile of bills are heavily discouraged from joining units, and the kind of small/'casual' they might be inclined to join is encouraged to remove less-active members to lower joining costs.

Meanwhile more serious players who're inclined to congregate in one big unit to maximize their influence on the galaxy map probably don't have too hard a time dealing with the costs.

I can't really think of a good solution that fixes the 'zerg unit' problem though. Maybe the join cost should only be applied to merc units, and changing loyalist faction become something you only do at the beginning of each season? That might be too extreme.

Make MC rewards dependent on overall unit performance, which means the more hardcore units want to shed dead weight and poor performers, and the casual units can recruit to their hearts content.

Instead of this current system of rewarding MC to the largest units because they can tag planets.

[MischiefSC]

Adamski, on 09 May 2016 - 03:42 PM, said:

Make MC rewards dependent on overall unit performance, which means the more hardcore units want to shed dead weight and poor performers, and the casual units can recruit to their hearts content.

Instead of this current system of rewarding MC to the largest units because they can tag planets.

Reward MC on participation. For every match you helped win on a planet that flips you get 1 MC, so you win 10 matches you get 10 MC. You get 1 extra MC per day for every day it gets held. This keeps MC rewards pretty close to what PGI wants (a tiny bit higher). Juggle that somehow. Quit tying it to tags - all that does is eliminate motivation for anyone but the biggest unit to care about taking worlds aside from dots on a map.

It promotes collecting into bigger units that can get tags. It does the opposite of what PGI is saying they want to do.