99 replies to this topic

[WVAnonymous]

Stahlherz, on 19 May 2016 - 07:41 AM, said:

I am very sure that BMMU would absolutely not have switched to CJF if they had known MS and 288 would go there. We were actually looking forward to have some drops with BMMU to fight on the Steiner front.
MS and 288 switching was a total surprise and we suffer from it as everyone else. Too many people for attacks and since noo ne is attacking us there are no outlets to spread pilots to.

Despite current tin-foil-hat conspiracies about merc super-pacs we do not arrange such situations among each other.

We switch out of FRR when the bonuses get irresistible. I assume everyone else does something similar. I would think that a tweak to the contract system would handle this, since wherever MS goes, the payouts should drop once they move in.

Also, if the current contract system went into effect for everyone at the same time, aren't we all switching contracts on basically the same day? Should be easy to take the 10 largest active unit populations and stagger the expiration dates a little.

[Davers]

CwStrife, on 19 May 2016 - 06:07 AM, said:

Sure Davers I understand that 100% I know how MS works, i've dropped with them plenty when they are steiner... which isn't often but still...

In any case if you have MS split up into 4 60 man units you may find that maybe one or two of the units will go another faction and they may swap around a little bit more. Or it may not happen, but at least the option is there ya know.

The problem isn't the unit- it's the TS. You could abolish all units tomorrow, but all the guys on the TS will still be dropping together and still be a dominant force in FP.

Its not MS's fault they are so big. Its everyone else's fault that they didn't coordinate as well as them. Steiner is the perfect example. Back in Phase 1 there was at least 3 different units, all onseperate TS that claimed to be the spokesperson for the faction. Just imagine if all the Steiner units played under one umbrella unit- it might be bigger than MS.

[Dee Eight]

You also need to look at the numbers in a bigger picture... when MWO launched on Steam in december it was pulling about 4k players an hour at an average. The past thirty days the average is down to around 1200. There's no reason to think the numbers on the stand-alone client aren't any different.

[Virlutris]

Koniving, on 19 May 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

If I may ask because I've been needing clarification...

Mercs: Do we earn the ranks/unlocks as in phase 2? Or is it just "If you own planets we pay you MC"? Or there a separate 'merc' system of earnings compared to loyalists?
Loyalists: These are earning ranks/unlocks as in phase 2, right?

Hey Kon, noticed nobody answered you.

Loyalists have pretty much the same ranked achievement unlocks they did before, so yes, as in phase 2.

Mercs have a similar ranked achievement unlock system. It's got the same total point scale scale (1 million-ish at the top end) with fewer ranks (half the number), some different rewards, some same rewards. Loyalist Rank 2 is the same point total (merc rep, not loyalty, but you get it) as Merc Rank 1. Loyalist 6 = Merc 3, Loyalist 10 = Merc 5, etc.

The thing reward-wise that mercs get is rewards that scale to to population balance. Lightly-populated factions give bonus pay, heavily populated captions pay less.

Merc and loyalist units both get MC if they've got a planet tagged, no unlocks of any kind required, beyond winning enough matches to tag it in the first place.

[Deathlike]

Virlutris, on 19 May 2016 - 01:19 PM, said:

Loyalists have pretty much the same ranked achievement unlocks they did before, so yes, as in phase 2.

It's actually less.

Being on a perma-contract in phase 2 is the equivalent of being a loyalist, EXCEPT that there was an innate 50% FP associated with the perma-contract.

Unless that was rolled into the FP gains (which it has not been confirmed either way - I assume no bonus was applied), the gains that formerly were there are not anymore.

Right now, the difference between Freelancer and Loyalist is literally the LP gains (RP from Mercs just another grind mechanism that cannot be gained outside of being a Merc).

If you were already a Rank 20 loyalist, going Merc makes more sense at this point, since you get to access other rewards (and can still defend your faction).

Basically, if you gained all the rewards in your faction before Phase 3, there is no real incentive to be a faction loyalist.

Edited by Deathlike, 19 May 2016 - 02:09 PM.

[Virlutris]

Deathlike, on 19 May 2016 - 02:08 PM, said:

It's actually less.

Being on a perma-contract in phase 2 is the equivalent of being a loyalist, EXCEPT that there was an innate 50% FP associated with the perma-contract.

Unless that was rolled into the FP gains (which it has not been confirmed either way - I assume no bonus was applied), the gains that formerly were there are not anymore.

Right now, the difference between Freelancer and Loyalist is literally the LP gains (RP from Mercs just another grind mechanism that cannot be gained outside of being a Merc).

If you were already a Rank 20 loyalist, going Merc makes more sense at this point, since you get to access other rewards (and can still defend your faction).

Basically, if you gained all the rewards in your faction before Phase 3, there is no real incentive to be a faction loyalist.

Well said.

I was attempting to refer more specifically to the ranks themselves, and the point totals at which they unlock, not so much the rate at which the LP were earned.

[Dee Eight]

By the same token, if you achieve merc rank 10, you can then go loyalist and try and grind thru 20 levels of that too.

[GI Journalist]

PGI seems to be running out of steam.

My understanding is that Faction Play has reached its final form, with PGI making only minor adjustments from this point forward. Therefore, PGI either must have a plan to increase the population, or the game mode is doomed. FW seemed more playable during the Prove Your Allegiance event, but there is little otherwise to motivate players to participate in numbers.

Were I given the choice, I would vote to scrap Faction Warfare in favor of a Solaris-style gladiator combat game which uses all of the existing game modes and material. All the modes would make a lot more sense in the context of games on Solaris or Clan trials rather than as examples of planetary battles.

It would be easy to re-imagine all the units as stables of fighters on Solaris and the lone wolves as independent fighters. We could abolish the user abused planetary queues entirely, in favor of a faction fight match maker.

[Xiomburg]

All I see FP as right now, is a MC grind for the bigger units, being rewarded for crapping on FP and the other units.

[DarklightCA]

MechPorn, on 19 May 2016 - 06:34 PM, said:

All I see FP as right now, is a MC grind for the bigger units, being rewarded for crapping on FP and the other units.

Except a unit with 100 planets to their name makes the same amount of MC as a unit with 6 planets to their name. Pretty sure the bigger units aren't enjoying the MC grind as much as the smaller units are.

[Count Zero 74]

And then split up the handfull of MC's between a few 100 players.....

[Livewyr]

Symptom of an algorithmic queue system in what was supposed to be a player driven "community warfare."

It died on arrival, it's just decaying. Currently the big merc units are the only hamster wheels with any movement... so get on that wheel or... well.. do something else. Sorry.

(That is 100% a design flaw from inception.)

[Xiomburg]

Are we not as a community, supposed to split up and populate the houses and clans to have a better experience? But, alas, no...we cannot do that.

[Daidachi]

MechPorn, on 19 May 2016 - 08:45 PM, said:

Are we not as a community, supposed to split up and populate the houses and clans to have a better experience? But, alas, no...we cannot do that.

I think your issue there is going to be picking favourites.

Specifically, think of it this way - two of the guys I enjoy dropping with the most in my unit, who are on at similar times to me, prefer a completely different faction to me. So do you force players to choose a loyalist faction they actually don't enjoy just to satisfy queues?

Or from another POV - my two buddies and I like sports. I like basketball, they like aerial ping pong (better known as AFL). Do you force them to play basketball, and then get surprised when they stop playing altogether?

The answer is actually fairly easy.

1.) Canon has already been discarded at this point, and we're all more interested in a working game than we are in slavishly pretending this is canon.

2.) Make specific faction choices (individual houses and clans) cosmetic things, nothing more.

3.) 4 factions - Federated Commonwealth/Concord of Kapteyn for IS, Crusaders and Wardens for clans.

That allows some variety and for IS to fight IS/Clans to fight clans, whilst consolidating player numbers.

It also allows units to keep hold of their identity.

4.) beef up loyalist rewards heavily. Incentivise the bejesus out of them.

5.) Determine population balance for contract rewards based on logins - Clan Wolf for example will always be hampered by the number of Phelan Wards that created an account and went loyalist/joined an open invite unit before never logging back on again.

Mercs really don't need changing under said system.

Edit: I should also clarify that if for some reason population spikes up in the future, you can easily choose to break up some of the alliances to better redistribute player numbers - IE the Lyran Alliance/Fed Com civil war, wolf v ghost bear conflict, etc.

If the faction choices are cosmetic (user icons, cockpit items), it also opens up the money earner of items/tags for the smaller, more obscure factions.

Periphery states?

Homeworld clans?

Some tasty extra income opportunities.

Edited by Daidachi, 19 May 2016 - 09:20 PM.

[vocifer]

MechPorn, on 19 May 2016 - 06:34 PM, said:

All I see FP as right now, is a LP/RP grind for the bigger units, being rewarded for crapping on FP and the other units.

Fixed^

[Widowmaker1981]

Karmen Baric, on 18 May 2016 - 01:40 PM, said:

Faction Play phase 3 puts all the Merc units together.


EVIL, Kcom, 228, MS, BMMU, maybe others, all went to Jade Falcons together and likely will go to next faction together & the one after that. Now i hear people talking to not bother attacking or defending against Falcons as the best units are all there. Way to ruin the game.

The things we consider when choosing our faction are this:

Where are we likely to get the fastest queues?
Which mechs do we want to use this contract?

That is literally it. We don't check or care where other units are going. Its only about what mechs we want to use (right now, Kodiak, duh) and where we think we will get drops quickly, because none of us currently care at all about the actual map (we are too small to make a big impact on it, plus in this non persistent FP it means nothing). Wolf and Bear are stuck in their corner, so not going there (plus never going Wolf, because Wolf pugs).. so choices are limited.

[KinLuu]

Well.

What made you think you would get quick queues in CJF?

The CJF-QQ that they get no games?

The Steiner-QQ that they wont defend?

The queue issue was already obvious last week and the week before.

[Ghogiel]

Widowmaker1981, on 20 May 2016 - 02:08 AM, said:

The things we consider when choosing our faction are this:

Where are we likely to get the fastest queues?
Which mechs do we want to use this contract?

That is literally it. We don't check or care where other units are going.

We do. We hate having any big unit around in the faction we in. That mess with drops the most.

[Widowmaker1981]

Ghogiel, on 20 May 2016 - 04:04 AM, said:

We do. We hate having any big unit around in the faction we in. That mess with drops the most.

We are quite small, which means we are often queuing as 3-4 mans or whatever - that means never going Wolf, for a start, because Wolf pugs are utterly awful (likewise with Davion when IS).. in hindsight we probably should have gone Smoke Jags, but thats where we were last time we were Clan.

Tbh wtb a quickplay invasion queue. FP is pointless while we can faction hop like this.

[Willard Phule]

You know, we used to wonder if PGI were sabotaging themselves on purpose back in open Beta. In fact, that whole thought process has come up a number of times.

Turns out that no, they're not doing it on purpose, it's just a simple matter of them not listening to their community and doing whatever they think best. Which would work if the developers actually played the game. Instead, they listen to their PAYING player base for things that need to be "fixed" (and by "fixed," I mean beaten into oblivion).

Is what it is. PGI only listens when you fill up their coffers.