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[Elendil]

I see a lot of people posting ideas for fixing or improving FW, or complaining about different parts of it, but no thread specifically for constructive, comprehensive suggestions on the subject as a whole.

So I made one.
This will be really long, and I welcome other really long suggestions too.


Prestige:

• Every faction, unit, and player earns prestige points for basically everything they do. The amount earned for factions and units scales down based on their size. (smaller units and factions earn more prestige for the same actions) (unit prestige takes more of a penalty for population size than factions)
  
• Players inactive for 2 or more full reward cycles (between 2 and 3 weeks) do not count towards population totals.
  
• Every week rewards are given out based on prestige earned that week at the faction, unit, and individual levels. Individual prestige gives the biggest reward, followed by unit, then faction.
  
• The weekly prestige is then moved to a prestige 'rating', which decays by 25% each week. Merc units get more money for contracts based on their prestige 'rating', and it is used for leaderboards, but has no other effect.
  
• The weekly prestige rewards need to be big enough that people actually care about them, not things like 5 MC to split among 200 people...
  
• Faction/unit rewards would be distributed automatically to all players, with a separate reward going to the faction/unit coffers. The rewards would be both C-Bills and MC.
  
• The weekly prestige rewards would replace the loyalty system, which is kind of stupid and grindy for no reason. Every week players are assigned ranks in their faction based on their individual prestige earnings that week.
  
• The weekly Faction prestige reward should help balance merc contract bonuses.

Units:

• Each faction would have a default, non-player controlled unit from canon. All players automatically become members when joining a faction, but can join a different unit at any time.
  
• Any player not in a faction is considered a mercenary, even if they're not in a unit and have no contract.
  
• Individual players may sign merc contracts, but will not receive weekly unit rewards like an active merc unit would.
  
• Mercenary contracts last 2 weeks, but can be renewed (one time) for a bonus.
  
• Breaking a contract is treated like desertion, and forfeits all unit rewards for the current week. It also immediately reduces the unit prestige rating by 50%.
  
• Merc units can be created as a dictatorship, with a commander and officers who make all decisions, or as a democracy, where all significant unit actions (signing, renewing, or breaking a contract) are put to a vote.
  
• Any unit with fewer than 3 active members (see prestige population calculations above) does not receive a weekly unit reward.
  
• There would be no cost to recruit players to a unit, just the prestige penalties based on the number of active players in the unit.
  
• Probation would be earning a set amount of prestige for your faction, not a set number if matches. So good players would prove themselves much more quickly.
  
• On desertion, players could immediately join a new faction/unit, but would not receive faction/unit rewards for the current cycle (desertion should not interfere with the social aspects of the game).

Warfare:

• Every week faction members vote on declarations of war for every faction they share a border with.
  
• Players with higher faction ranks (see prestige rewards above) have more weight to their vote.
  
• Players vote individually 'yes' or 'no' for each valid opponent. If the vote is more than 50% 'yes', you declare war on that faction for the next week. If it is 'no', you don't (unless they declare war on you). You could declare war on several factions at once.
  
• While at peace with a faction, you may be given the option to reinforce them in battle if not enough battles are available for your own faction.
  
• While at war, any player can initiate a scouting match on an enemy border planet at any time.
  
• Unit and faction officers can mark specific planets to request scouting on them (marking a planet provides no advantage or reward of any kind).
  
• Premade groups are not allowed in scouting matches. Players can manually join scouting on a specific planet, or queue up for a random match (which selects a random enemy planet if none are marked, selects a random marked one if available, or a random planet being invaded/defended if any are available)
  
• Once scouting on a planet reaches 25%, it automatically starts an invasion. Scouting is like voting on which planet to invade.
  
• Until an invasion is started, attacking scouts are always on the offensive side of the scouting match. Once the invasion is triggered it is random.
  
• Only one planet may be invaded per day, per enemy. However, they can invade one of yours too.
  
• All 12 vs. 12 invasion matches have a 13th player assigned as a non-combatant commander, who spectates the match with an advanced tactical map and a small video feed he can toggle between mechs.
  
• There will be an option in the group window to volunteer as a commander, so that up to 13 players can join a group. Only one player per group can volunteer as commander.
  
• If multiple groups in a match have commander volunteers, the largest group wins. If it's a tie, it's random.
  
• The commander can give orders, mark objectives and ping locations on the map, and is responsible for targeting all satellite scans, UAVs, artillery barrages, and airstrikes.
  
• Consumables are not allowed in faction matches. Rather, they are unlocked for the commander's use by scouting and skirmishes (see below).
  
• Scouting unlocks UAVs and satellite scans for commanders (more uses for higher scouting completion).
  
• Scouting also gives a percentage chance of identifying each enemy mech before the match starts, which climbs with scouting completion.
  
• Skirmishes are 8 vs. 8 matches up to 75 tons each, and can be initiated on any planet that is being invaded.
  
• Skirmishes do not contribute to invasion progress, but work like scouting with a separate progress meter. Skirmishes do not have commanders, and consequently do not have artillery etc.
  
• Skirmishes unlock air strikes and artillery for commanders in invasion matches (more uses for higher completion percentages).
  
• Invasion matches are 12 vs. 12, with a commander on each side.
  
• In addition to orders, scans, and strikes, commanders control respawns in invasion matches. Each side has 5 dropships, which redeploy up to 1 lance each.
  
• The commander selects defeated players and spends a dropship to redeploy them at any controlled landing zone (a given player may only be respawned up to 3 times).
  
• There are several landing zones on each map, and they can be captured or recaptured by either side.
  
• There are also other objectives on each map which give bonuses/buffs/debuffs when captured/destroyed.

Holding planets:

• Defending planets start with the 75% scouting rewards and 100% skirmish rewards, so invaders will immediately be at a disadvantage. Invaders will want to focus on skirmishes at first to weaken the enemy defensive infrastructure.
  
• All scouting, skirmish, and invasion progress resets every day. A successfully defended or invaded planet cannot be invaded again for one day.
  
• If an invasion is successful, the unit that contributed the most to it gets control of the planet. Their contribution scores are significantly scaled down for each planet they already own.
  
• Every planet grants bonuses to the unit that controls it, whether that's daily C-Bills, mech discounts, or slight combat buffs.
  
• A unit can control a planet for a month, then it falls under direct control of the faction and is effectively lost. They can also relinquish a planet early, and the next loyalist unit gets control for the remaining time.
  
• If a merc unit contributes the most, they get control of the planet for the next day before handing control to next highest loyalist unit.
  
• However, Merc units can choose to keep the planet... If it's a dictatorship the officers decide, if it's a democracy it takes a super-majority of supporting votes.
  
• If mercs keep a planet, they immediately break their contract, lose all of their prestige, and are considered at war with every faction for the duration.
  
• They can regain prestige as they defend the planet, but can perform no FW actions except defending the planet. They can hold it indefinitely.
  
• They can relinquish the planet at any time, and it will go to the loyalist unit it should have gone to (and gain a day of protection from invasion).

Matchmaking:

• You can queue for either a faction match, or a non-faction match.
  
• When queuing for a random faction match, you can set options for scouting, skirmish, or invasion matches. Groups are not allowed in scouting. There are separate group and solo queues for skirmishes, and solo players can set an option to only use the solo queue if they want to. Invasion matches do not have separate queues.
  
• For random faction matches, the matchmaker prioritizes planets currently being invaded. If no matches can be found for your selected criteria within a certain time, and you are not in a group, you will be given the option to join a match for any faction you are not at war with. You only receive half the normal faction/unit prestige if you do so, but full individual prestige.
  
• When queuing for non-faction matches, you can only queue with up to one lance in a group together, but will never be paired against players who are in your unit.
  
• You do not receive any unit or faction prestige for non-faction matches, and only half personal prestige.

Game modes:

• Each planet is assigned a general temperature tileset. Cold planets will only have cold and temperate maps, temperate planets will have temperate maps, with a few cold and hot ones, hot planets will have mostly hot maps with a few temperate ones, and moons/asteroids will have the space missions. That way the universe would have a little flavor. People could hold hot worlds more easily because nobody would want to invade them, or whatever.
  
• In FW matches you do not vote on the map or mode. It's randomly selected based on the planet. In non-FW matches it works like it does now.
  
• There would be new defense missions where one team needs to defend a town or convoy, and the other team needs to destroy it. They would only appear in FW, since they are not equal for both sides.
  
• There should be free-for-all arena death matches that you can queue for, which award full personal prestige but no faction/unit, and have better C-Bill and XP rewards. Every Saturday there would be arena tournaments that anyone can queue for or spectate.
  
• In all game modes (including quick matches) the enemy team's names, unit, and faction would not be displayed on the drop screen. It would still show their name on death messages, and show everything at the end of the match.

Things unrelated to FW:

This stuff is just cool ideas that I've appended here.

Mech Advancement:

• Only the Prime version of each mech should be available in the store. Then you buy it and spend XP in an upgrade tree which unlocks the other variants.
  
• For example, if you get the prime Jenner, then purchase all the laser upgrades, you unlock the (D) with the 6 laser slots, but if you go down another branch you get the SRM version, etc.
  
• You could use MC to buy a variant without unlocking it first.
  
• The the variants have trees that aren't as deep, but have advanced upgrades for whatever they do which the prime doesn't get.So, the prime will be the most versatile and have the most upgrades, but the variants will be best for min/maxing.
  
• The prime would start out with the most basic gear, like slower engines and no endo-steel (so it's cheaper), but the other variants start with more expensive gear.
  
• They should roll quirks into the upgrade tree.

Bounties:

• You volunteer to join the bounty system, and automatically have a bounty placed on yourself. The more bounties you collect without being killed by other bounty hunters, the higher your bounty gets.
  
• Only players who have bounties on them can see and collect bounties, and only on the opposing team. You cannot collect bounties on allied players, or even see whether they have bounties.
  
• There is a cooldown of several days once your bounty is collected before you can opt back in, to prevent everyone from bounty hunting at all times (If you had a lower bounty, the cooldown is shorter).
  
• When starting a match as a bounty hunter, opposing bounties will be marked in the drop screen.
  
• During the match those players will show as a different color on radar and in HUD markers.
  
• If you get the killing blow, you collect their bounty and they are opted out of the bounty system. They need to go back and manually opt in again (after the cooldown) to start over.
  
• Anyone who TKs automatically has a large bounty placed on them, but gets none of the benefits (seeing and collecting other bounties). If they are a bounty hunter already, they lose all those benefits until someone collects the bounty on them. If someone gets a bounty in this way, it warns them on every drop screen that they have a bounty (until it gets collected), and they receive a special mark of cowardice that other bounty hunters can see. They also receive the maximum cooldown to opting back in (to prevent abuse).
  
• While bounty hunting, committing suicide by any means will act as a TK for bounty purposes (you lose the ability to see or collect bounties, receive the special mark of cowardice, and are put on the max cooldown for opting back in).
  
• There is no reward for having a high bounty, only for collecting them (so people won't throw themselves onto the swords of non-bounty hunters to preserve it).

Tutorial:

• The training mission is fine, it get the basics down. But the tiered rewards for the "race" need to be removed. Enticing newbies to spend 10 minutes trudging around in a circle trying to get better rewards is not good design.
  
• Once basic training is out of the way it should drop you into your hangar, and have an interactive tutorial for how to select a mech, how to change your loadout, how to buy new mechs, and how to spend your XP.
  
• During this whole time your Quick match button is locked out.
  
• Once that's done, it directs you to the Academy.

• Instead of the open map, the academy would be a progression of missions that you select from your hangar. Each time you complete one successfully, the next opens up and you get some cash.
  
• Each mission would drop you in a different mech.
  
• After the basic academy missions quick matches get unlocked, but also optional advanced training missions.

The basic academy training should cover:

• Targeting specific components, and why/how not to splash damage everywhere
  
• Heat, and weapon ranges/types
  
• Defensive tactics and how to stay alive
  
• Information warfare (spotting, ECM, etc.)
  
• Role warfare, and have you practice each role in a group setting (with bots)

After that you can teach whatever in the advanced modules.


Stuff that will never happen:

• AI mechs and PvE content.
  
• You could have defense missions where the defenders get 2 lances of AI mechs who only defend a base, and 2 lances of players to go against 3 lances of attacking players. Or for skirmishes: 2 of AI, 1 of players, 2 of a attacking players. Or huge cities defended by AI and players for a final climactic battle when invading a planet.
  
• Copy and paste some missions from old MW games, or whatever, just to appeal to more casuals.
  
• If needed, put a limit to the number of PvE missions per day, like mobile games do, so that people run out fairly quickly and have to do PvP if they want to keep playing that day.
  
• Make a pool of faction-related PvE missions, and choose a couple at random as daily missions for each faction that you can only do once a day.
  
• PvE missions would award no prestige and half C-Bills and XP, but with some bonus for the daily FW missions.
  
• Ability to drop AI mechs into duel mode with very basic programming.
  
• AI tanks and planes, just to spice things up.

Edited by Elendil, 02 May 2016 - 01:28 PM.