8 replies to this topic

[Bodha]

Faction warfare proposal.

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This is a lengthy post b/c it tries to offer a method of having hourly faction warfare matches with the amount of matches being determined by the amount of units interested in being in a match any given hour. This method would allow the tempo of factional warfare to swing upwards during hours of peak player activity while diminishing during off hours. It would also prevent one faction from simply conquering enemy territory by attacking during off hours.
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What if faction warfare for any given planet is broken into a series of simultaneous battles. Each planet will have a different amount of battles/maps and each victory for the campaign will be decided based upon a combination of objectives, resources preserved, and resources lost during the matches.

A basic example. Planet FightHere. This planet will be midsized campaign world with only 2 battles that have to be fought. Each battle will occur on one of several random maps that will not be known before hand, although the random set they can come from will be known.

Victory, defeat or a potential draw will be determined by the following. Each side will gain points for every ton of mech of theirs that survives the battles with a small discount for crippled mechs. Each side will also gain points for each mech they destroy and a bonus for meeting any particular match objective. Victory will go to the side that has the most points total for the night, but they must have outright won at least 50% of the battles in the campaign AND must have a point total at least 20% higher than the opposing team. Failure for either team to meet that criteria and the campaign is a draw.
The bonus for outright winning a match should be substantial enough that a side that wins all the matches by a narrow margin should still have enough points to have won the campaign.

These various campaign worlds should not all be up for grabs each night. Instead every unit should request a number of slots in the faction war for one of several time slots. Units that are more willing to play various time slots should have the option to mark that option. 15 minutes before the hour the system should determine how many units at the company size have requested battle for that hour between any 2 factions. The side with the least commitments determines the minimum number of campaign matches that must happen with merc units potentially boosting that number if the other side has much larger numbers. The size with the larger number of requests will receive a notice of how many battle slots are available and how many units have requested to be in the war. They may then bid down tonnage to get in. However units that fail to make into on any given night will get a bonus to future bids until they win a bid. Basically if your faction has way too many units you shouldn't swamp an opponent but you also shouldn't have to bid away your chance at a good battle if you are willing to just store up that bidding bonus.

As an example of this system. Lets say the Draconis Combine faction forces want to fight Steiner and some 40 units apply to fight at the 9pm eastern time hour. Meanwhile another 20 units apply to fight Davion. Steiner has committed only 30 units to the DC border war and Davion 25 units. On the side there are some 30 merc units that have indicated they want to fight at that hour. At the 15 minute before the hour mark the system determines that Steiner vs. DC there 30 definite slots, and DC vs. Davion there are 20 definite slots. However there are also 10 potential slots for Steiner mercs vs. DC and 5 DC mercs vs Davion. The 30 merc units will then have the option of filling those slots during a 5 minute window of bidding. Now with 10 minutes left the campaigns are finalized with 40 Steiner + mercs vs 40 DC and 25 Davion vs. 25 DC+ mercs. Only 15 merc units got left out of the matches for that hour.
If however there is not enough mercs to cover the potential match difference then the houses with too many units will then have 5 minutes to bid down to get into the lineup for that set of campaign matches.

Now the problems I can see are what happens when there are not enough willing mercs to fill the openings for potential matches and what to do about the excess mercs on occasion?

Where the case is the lack of mercs I think the various merc units should get potential bonuses offered to them from each house to encourage them to favor one house over another. These bonuses could be any variety of things, but I think they should have some relation to the house that is needing their service and the degree of disparity between filled and potential matches. If one house has a lot more need of mercs their bonus should be larger in relation to another lineup that has only a few unfulfilled matches. Whatever the bonus is it should be substantial enough to encourage the mercs to play to win.

In the case of too many mercs for the openings I would suggest they get the option bid themselves into the slots. Their bidding should be either in the form of cutting the amount of bonus they desire, or by increasing the minimum tonnage they will bring to the war. I favor them cutting the bonus as a form of bidding.

Now once a particular hour's matches are determined the units involved get to the business of getting readied up with 5 minutes left before the matches. Matches commence, results happen, and you see how things play out and the war map updates. As for who fights who along the lineups that could be done any number of ways which are beyond the purview of this proposal. The only comment I will make on this is that dev's could either have an internal matchmaking system to make it even up a bit, let it be random, or have the unit commanders for each side have some form of picking opponents. All have advantages and disadvantages which could be discussed endlessly. MY one recommendation though is any system needs to keep the amount of time spent determining who fights who to a minimum so we can get on with the actual fighting.

OVERALL MAP MOVEMENT
As one side wins more matches between two houses they should have the momentum swing in their favor in regards to they go on the offensive. Initially both side are fighting over border worlds, but if one side keeps winning the campaign for a specific border world (lets say 3 campaigns in a row) then momentum shifts and that world becomes a non border world and the fighting moves to another world further into the losing sides territory. This means the border world where one faction has been winning a bunch will slide out of border world status and another nearby non border world for the other faction will become a border world. Each world will still have its campaign settings, so perhaps while the momentum has shifted the new campaign world will be slightly tougher to consistently win.


Summary:
This system will lead to everyone who wants to participate in faction warfare having the possibility simply by getting into a unit and having that unit request company slots for the wars. Each hour another round of slot requests will lead to more battles and quiet off peak hours will see less activity. The lack of player control over where they specifically fight and who they specifically fight will reduce the potential for one small group to unbalance faction warfare or to turn it into personal fiefdoms as happens in many other games with maps and pvp.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Devs have said;
"At its core, the territory battle is a fight for resources – planets. Planets are divided into three types. Each type requires a more active level of participation by the player and as a result earns a greater reward.

• Core Worlds – Are managed by the dev team. These are worlds that necessary for future planning and part of major historical events.
  
• Faction Worlds – Are fought over by Faction players. These planets buffer core and border worlds, and do not play a significant role in major historical events. Rewards for controlling these planets are directly linked to global bonuses and abilities associated with a player’s Faction.
  
• Border Worlds – Are fought over via a contract bidding system by player run Mercenary Corporations. These planets change hands on a regular basis, and have no impact on historical events. Rewards for controlling a boarder world are significant and go directly to the occupying Merc Corp.

It’s important to state now, that worlds can change from Border to Faction to Core, or any combination thereof, at any time by the development team. This will be necessary to facilitate dramatic changes in faction territory control as we progress through some tumultuous times within the BattleTech® universe."
In other words you can only fight over and win those worlds that the devs allow, you can't choose to attack any world you want.

[CCC Dober]

So it would appear that each faction's territory is layered, where each layer adds increasing resistance against penetration by other factions. And all these layers are in flux, based on historic events. I do wonder however if campaigns could allow the community to influence historical events. Given their importance, the frequency of said campaigns would be rather low and controllable. Just a thought.

[Bodha]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 15 July 2012 - 01:32 AM, said:

Devs have said;
"At its core, the territory battle is a fight for resources – planets. Planets are divided into three types. Each type requires a more active level of participation by the player and as a result earns a greater reward.

• Core Worlds – Are managed by the dev team. These are worlds that necessary for future planning and part of major historical events.
  
• Faction Worlds – Are fought over by Faction players. These planets buffer core and border worlds, and do not play a significant role in major historical events. Rewards for controlling these planets are directly linked to global bonuses and abilities associated with a player’s Faction.
  
• Border Worlds – Are fought over via a contract bidding system by player run Mercenary Corporations. These planets change hands on a regular basis, and have no impact on historical events. Rewards for controlling a boarder world are significant and go directly to the occupying Merc Corp.

It’s important to state now, that worlds can change from Border to Faction to Core, or any combination thereof, at any time by the development team. This will be necessary to facilitate dramatic changes in faction territory control as we progress through some tumultuous times within the BattleTech® universe."

In other words you can only fight over and win those worlds that the devs allow, you can't choose to attack any world you want.

I've seen that posted b4. What gets me though is that it almost sounds like the faction players and the merc corps will not fight each other. Where is the merc vs faction stuff that should be happening? The idea of merc corps basically occupying a border world and getting all the spoils for it doesnt seem all right. I would think they should be getting a payment or reward from one faction for helping them in the faction v. faction stuff.

[Bodha]

CCC Dober, on 15 July 2012 - 02:34 AM, said:

So it would appear that each faction's territory is layered, where each layer adds increasing resistance against penetration by other factions. And all these layers are in flux, based on historic events. I do wonder however if campaigns could allow the community to influence historical events. Given their importance, the frequency of said campaigns would be rather low and controllable. Just a thought.

well if the dev's tweaked it they could push the fighting towards worlds and away from other worlds. For example if DC gains the momentum against Steiner the devs may have several worlds that could be the new border world. Perhaps they pick one world they think will provide an image of an offensive. This could easily be automated though by placing each world on a value to canon system so high value worlds are avoided when the border shifts.

Another option would be to put winning companies along the same segment of the front provided they keep coming back for followup battles. So if your company wins at lets say the 9pm eastern faction cycle AND you enter the 10pm faction cycle you will be placed along the front roughly where you were before. So if you keep pushing it will be noticed. Alternatively if your faction has lost a lot of territory the dev's could put successful companies in the slots to fight the deepest incursions into your territory. That way you can push the attackers back from your territory.

[CCC Dober]

One thing that stands out in games such as EVE is the fact that players (in numbers) have an impact on the whole universe, which makes makes it very attractive and involving. All of a sudden you aren't just fighting some random battles where the outcome doesn't mean squat and simply contributes +1 to the tally. Also, MW4:Mercs had a non-linear campaign with incredible replay value and there were several outcomes that you could influence either directly or indirectly, but at the end of the day your decisions as a player mattered, even decided the outcome of some bigger events. That was magic and I hope we will see something like this reflected in the Community Warfare Pillar.

It doesn't have to be a world-changing influence, just enough to keep the players interested and motivated, granting them some sense of achievement or a chance to leave some footptrints in BT history. It's one thing to accept that historical names are blocked, but to deny players an active participation/influence in the grand scheme of things isn't terribly attractive. I can totally understand when players decide to switch games once this realisation hits home. If our efforts/battles don't matter, they are simply not worth the time we put in.

[Lord Ikka]

Pretty sure that as soon as the community warfare stuff kicks in a few months after the 7th, we will see some historic battles and campaigns.

[Fire for Effect]

sounds interesting but maybe we should simply wait what they announce....

[Bodha]

Fire for Effect, on 15 July 2012 - 05:36 AM, said:

sounds interesting but maybe we should simply wait what they announce....

If they didnt want the suggestion forum to exist... they wouldnt have created it. Not saying they will use this stuff, but you never know when a stumped designer will look here and get an idea or maybe just a reminder of something that helps him get past a particular problem.