10 replies to this topic

[Crockdaddy]

Loyalist Units have caps of 512
No cost to add to unit (House is paying anyway)
Re-work reward system or at least reset it for the Loyalist.
Loyalist should earn greater MC than MERCs for planet ownership.

MERC Units 128 (MS can just chunk up into different regiments and heck even fight each other for fun!)
MERCS should pay for new recruits like they do now (I am in charge of a MERC unit so for me it isn't a Loyalist vs MERC thing but right now MERC is EZ mode when compared to Loyalist)
MERCS keep the pay bonus based on Faction Pop and maybe enhance this a bit
MERC reward system stays in place.
MERCS cannot tag planets but gain prestige or RP based on planet victories and Unit wide cBILLrewards


House Units should be by far larger than MERCS. Currently in FP there is almost no reason to go Loyalist aside from voting. There isn't any lore built in for immersion and the rewards are crap.
SWOL and HHoD and -SO- are great examples of units loyal to a faction. WE should Encourage this more not less. The faction stability should be emphasised. Instead MERC play is given the entire emphasis which means very few care about the map at all.

Random thoughts ... could be the dumbest set of ideas or maybe not.


Also, allow for Leaderboard table sorting, let the community get an XML dump of the leaderboards.

Last .. if a Faction will not queue up to defend a border, then the attacking faction should not have to Ghost drop 14 times to flip, the planet should flip in 7 attacks (haven't check math on this).

[Stahlherz]

If Mercs cannot tag planets
"MERCS cannot tag planets"
how do they earn MC (less than loyal units)
"Loyalist should earn greater MC than MERCs for planet ownership."

[BSK]

There were several big merc units and only a few big loyalist units in the lore. And right now with a non existing game-wiki, huge confusion about game mechanics, a non public bug ticket system, bugged message system, seperated forum from the game and obsolete tutorials, big units are what keeps this community running.

[Daidachi]

BSK, on 08 May 2016 - 01:03 PM, said:

There were several big merc units and only a few big loyalist units in the lore. And right now with a non existing game-wiki, huge confusion about game mechanics, a non public bug ticket system, bugged message system, seperated forum from the game and obsolete tutorials, big units are what keeps this community running.

To be fair, that depends on what you were reading. If we're referring solely to novels, then yes a lot of it was mercs - it made more sense from a narrative standpoint for protagonists to be able to freely move around (or in the case of clan based fiction, to be able to invade world after world), as it prevents the setting from getting stale.

But that doesn't take into account the huge amounts written up on units in the various field manuals over the years. The Genyosha of House Kurita, Warrior house Imarra of House Liao, The Knights Of The Inner Sphere of House Marik, The Davion Heavy Guards of House Davion, The Skye Rangers of House Steiner, the Tyr Regiment of the Free Rasalhague Republic...just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to loyalist units.

Hell, that's without mentioning the periphery states - Cohors Morituri of the,Marian Hegemony or the Black Warriors of the Circinus Federation anyone?

I think the main issue is that if ghost drops are unavoidable, then you need to be able to do -something- while waiting. Whether that be being able to still use the in game chat client (preferably with timestamps), fooling with the mechlab (non queued/non locked mechs only would be fine), or being able to look through the leaderboards, review the FW map, etc.

[Palfatreos]

Crockdaddy, on 08 May 2016 - 12:34 PM, said:

MERC Units 128 (MS can just chunk up into different regiments and heck even fight each other for fun!)
MS is the biggest *active* FW unit and that why they have most impact in FW. I don't see why people target them to make them split because it most likely won't happend they simply adept. While other unit with same size or bigger but aren't that active are the ones who are getting the beating.
All this does from MS as merc flipping alot planet to MS as loyalist flipping alot planet doesn't change a thing just one word changed.

Currently in FP there is almost no reason to go Loyalist aside from voting.
I agree there no reason to stay loyalist in a faction if you max rank on that faction.

Personaly i don't see what much difference it will make if a unit is merc or loyalist. It doesn't make FW better it just push the opporunist units into 1 of the 2 words that reward them most.

[Crockdaddy]

Palfatreos, on 08 May 2016 - 02:37 PM, said:

Personaly i don't see what much difference it will make if a unit is merc or loyalist. It doesn't make FW better it just push the opporunist units into 1 of the 2 words that reward them most.

Loyalist can make a faction stable. MERCs by their nature don't care and will shift. The current system basically says ... why even bother to be a Loyalist. There is no clear advantage, just negatives for being a Loyalist.

[Murphy7]

Because I can find myself on the loyalist player leaderboard rather easily but the merc board is largely disorganized...

Seriously, all good points, Crock.

I would appreciate if it were possible to have a tab in the leaderboards that filtered to results just for the unit you belong to, regardless of Merc or Loyalist.

[Stahlherz]

I think we have to distinguish three sorts of Mercs here.

1) successful Mercs
Merc units that put their tags on multiple planets and are capable of taking or holding more.
Basically those units which earn MC.

2) unsuccessful Merc
Merc units tha can't do the above mentioned things due to a variety of reasons.

3) the inbetweeners
Merc units which are able to put tags on planets but can't hold them for long, or change factions regularly etc. They earn small amounts of MC.

Categories 2) and 3) are way more likely to hop factions.

But category 1) qualifies as semi-loyal. As long as such units hold tags or are getting more they won't hop, because otherwise they would face unnecessary loss of MC. Only drastical changes of the overall situation would cause them to switch and carve out another farming zone of their own elsewhere. These units will also have the biggest influence on the fighting power of any faction they align with. In some cases even more than local loyalist units have.

[Benjamin Kirsch]

Except as a merc you have to renew your contract each week, which risks getting a negative chill bonus if the population is too big. My unit actually has a negative bonus this past week due to coming back to FRR. I actually agree with Crockdaddy, loyalists need to make up the bulk of the faction, having large merc units moving around the map imbalances the population. Loyalist should also have better rewards to make up for the lack of freedom that mercs get.

The problem with FP is it doesn't focus on factions, individual units hold more sway than the overall faction. In lore, mercs didn't get planets, the faction did, mercs just got paid.

Edited by Benjamin Kirsch, 09 May 2016 - 09:28 AM.

[Stahlherz]

I don't mind earning less C-Bills. That currency is easy to come by.

[Adamski]

You don't need to limit unit size or incur recruitment costs if PGI would address the root cause that encourages players to all band together into overly large units.