334 replies to this topic

[Armando]

Danjo San, on 29 May 2016 - 07:57 AM, said:

Never made this personal about my stats and my experiences. I know how to fight yes, I know how to shoot and kill, I know how to organize and droplead, have done it many times. I am the active recruiting force for my unit and we do conduct training. None of what I said applies to my own self being salty over big units and being pugstomped. I do know the concerns and issues lower experienced players in my own unit have towards FW, I know a lot of other players in small units, that share the same concerns.

I have a long list of TS Servers I join every now and then and drop and coordinate with other players as well too, Quick Play and FW. And as I repeatedly stated I have no problem with effective units and good players.

My suggestions are suggestions of how to make the overall experience more rewarding for everyone and not just players in large groups. Personally I don't care about my Tag being on the map or not, or being able to collect a meager amount of MC to distribute to members of my unit. I have reached the highest level of Faction Rewards long before Phase 3 hit. And even with no incentive of playing FW and getting more "Loyalty Rewards" I choose to play for Liao as a loyalist, because it's what I believe in. Again everything I said is not about me not putting in work, but wanting all the rewards. It never was and never will be. I like FW, and I like to play for Liao. Thats all.

There are others that don't speak up here on the forums. Players have told me they don't play FW because of all those reason I mentioned earlier. Their voice needs to be heard. And when Players of my own unit tell me they don't want to play FW for these reasons as well this evening and rather would quickplay for a couple of hours. It's a concern that is out there and it is a fact. As I said I have a very long friendslist and I drop with pilots from all over the world and believe me or not the issue being large unit clusters is a shared issue all around the globe and should be taken seriously. As it is a factor that is keeping people from playing. Trust me I know a fair share of them...

Again my oppinions and my suggestions are not about my personal stats it's about what I hear dropping with other units and other pilots. Put it how you want, there are players out there that have quit FW for exactly for there being no automated population balance and that some units are too large and just keep sucking in more players.
And no worries no hurt feelings

Learn 2 paragraph...please, pretty please, pretty please with sugar on top.

Also... "My suggestions are suggestions of how to make the overall experience more rewarding for everyone just not players in large groups." ...was corrected to show your suggestions actual affect.

Forcing teams that have been built up over years, to split up, is the opposite of a more rewarding experience for players in a large group. Again, not trying to tell you that PGI shouldn't do everything they can to make your game experience better, but forcing teams to break up is one of, if not the, worst thing PGI could do. I am POSITIVE that a solution that does NOT involve splitting up friends exists.

[Vagosei]

Next time just message me...I'll jump in your teamspeak and tell ya some jokes or something to pass the time.

[slide]

@ Danjo San

Unit size is completely irrelevant to success in FW. Most units have at best 10% of their players actually active in FW. If a unit of 200 has 20 active players and are forced to downsize, then that unit will still have 20 active players. Nothing will change except a bunch of players who have been kicked out now have a reason to be pissed at either their leaders or PGI for making it so. That will lead to fewer (potential) players overall.

I will tell you straight up, if I wasn't an integral member of ARMD I would have quit playing MWO 2 years ago. I have spent more time organizing, liasing and talking with other unit leaders in this game, to get events and leagues going than any person has a right to ask of someone. The one and only thing that keeps a lot of units going is the loyalty and camaraderie built up in it's members. ARMD had 25 members before MWO came out of closed beta, it ballooned to a ridiculous 400+ not long after and has slowly wittled it's way back to a stable (approx) 100. Can I cull a few more, sure, but loyalty is a two way street and I won't be culling more people unless I am absolutely sure that they are not coming back.

There is only one thing that has to change in this game. Population count of ACTIVE players. If a unit member hasn't dropped in CW in the previous 30 days, then their faction allegiance doesn't count, either towards unit participation on the leader boards or towards faction contract bonus's. PGI made a sneaky change to the way unit members allegiance is applied in the phase 3 patch. It was only when a player logged in that the units chosen faction would apply. Now it automatically updates everyone, active or not. This gives the faction numbers a very big bump in the wrong direction when calculating almost anything related to units. Likewise if a unit hasn't been active in the same time frame then they should drop off the leader boards. PGI won't do this of course because it will show how epic a fail FW3 has actually been.

If PGI make the above change and you can conclusively prove via active player count that MS or anyone else is winning through sheer numbers (other than skill), ie saturating a queue with 5 12 man teams, then you may have an argument for a unit cap. Until then it is just a theory that can't be proven and will kill participation even more. It most certainly won't increase participation.

IMO units need to be rated (ie Tier system) and preferably matched up against similarly skilled units. Failing that (due to low population) the better team needs either a tonnage or player handicap to at least give the lesser team a chance. A lot of people refuse to give FW a go, simply because they perceive any attempt at playing to be a futile, waste of time. There are a whole bunch of reasons, getting stomped or not being able to take a planet being 2. Give people a reason to think it is less futile and maybe, just maybe the mode will grow.

(disclaimer: any hope that I had that PGI will make any worth while changes to FW is lost. I fully realize that any suggestions made for the betterment of MWO will fall on deaf ears. Any conversations I have are purely for the sake of the conversation. No I won't by a mech pack)

[Randy Poffo]

Pat Kell, on 29 May 2016 - 04:05 PM, said:

Randy, I am not suggesting that people do something that isn't fun or claiming that just by doing something repeatedly that it will become fun, I am merely pointing out the fact that businesses will supply that which people buy or use. People use QP more than CW and because of that PGI seems to be putting more effort into QP. Supply and demand. I am just pointing out that it's hard to get mad at the supplier for providing what it is that you want (and we can claim all we want that QP isn't what we want but until people start playing CW more, PGI simply won't be capable of shifting those QP money making endeavors over to CW). Granted, they could listen to us on some of the great ideas I have read here about how to improve CW and I think people would shift how they play to some degree but you will never make everyone happy and businesses tend to hold the status quo until there is no other option.

No, I mean, I know what you're *trying* to say but it does not really make sense when you think about it.

What induces a supplier to change a product is when people *don't* buy that product. When people *do* buy a product the company will view that as successful and continue producing more of the same.

So if more people played CW it would not serve to tell PGI to change their model for it. It would give them a thumbs-up to leave it exactly as it is. When people *don't* play CW that ought to tell them that something is wrong with their model and give them a reason to change it.

The fact that it doesn't work that way with PGI is just kind of mind-boggling from a business perspective. If you were a company that made soda and people hated the taste of your soda and didn't buy it, and from that you decided "Well, people must not like soda that much, might as well not change the formula" you'd be out of business in no time. Here, somehow this passes for reasoning.

[Crockdaddy]

MischiefSC, on 18 May 2016 - 07:24 PM, said:

So everyone went to the same faction in the hopes of the easiest possible matches and got nothing.

You all chased the same salmon. Now there's none left.

No this is standard supply and demand. The reality is that is it's a good thing. I realize nobody wants to coordinate but when you don't this happens.

Everyone else in the game except a handful of merc units is shaking their heads in unison going wtf did you think was going to happen?

I'm not kidding when I say you guys may literally be the only ones who didn't see this coming. Of course everyone was going to chase the easy salmon and go CJF. That everyone did it at once is just....

Yeah.

Truth is it's the MERCs own fault. Because they are shifting all the time no one cares about the map. Not even a little bit. Without loyalist there is zero reason to care about the map or have House integrity. Of course PGI should have created a game which strongly favored Loyalist to provide stability and role play (amongst the dozens of other issues). FP should simply be shut down. It is a waste of time as currently constructed.

I mean NS is a unit which has been part of House Kurita for 15 years over 4 different mechwarrior games. Yet we stay MERC and largely don't care anymore. We stick by Kurita (mostly) because we associate our identity with HOuse Kurita ... but otherwise no. Sh ... i t ISEN famous for being FRR and even roleplayes FRR is a MERC unit part of -MS- for FP. The point is ... very few really care. I was a supporter for over a year. I've been around a very long time in MWO / Battletech etc. I've tossed in the towel for FP. It needs to go away and re-built.

[Carl Vickers]

As someone who was a wolf loyalist at heart and played nothing but Wolf for a year and half, I concur with what Crockdaddy says above.

The reason I stopped being loyalist was so I could use my IS shinnies as well as my Clan ones. It adds another level in the game I didnt have before cause being a loyalist doesnt really give me anything.

CW needs a big rethink and re-release to become a relevant end game option it was always touted to be.

Edited by Carl Vickers, 29 May 2016 - 07:57 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Randy Poffo, on 29 May 2016 - 07:09 PM, said:

No, I mean, I know what you're *trying* to say but it does not really make sense when you think about it.

What induces a supplier to change a product is when people *don't* buy that product. When people *do* buy a product the company will view that as successful and continue producing more of the same.

So if more people played CW it would not serve to tell PGI to change their model for it. It would give them a thumbs-up to leave it exactly as it is. When people *don't* play CW that ought to tell them that something is wrong with their model and give them a reason to change it.

The fact that it doesn't work that way with PGI is just kind of mind-boggling from a business perspective. If you were a company that made soda and people hated the taste of your soda and didn't buy it, and from that you decided "Well, people must not like soda that much, might as well not change the formula" you'd be out of business in no time. Here, somehow this passes for reasoning.

No, if a product doesn't sell it's generally abandoned for ones that do. If you pitch an idea and it flops what's not going to happen is the BoD saying '20 million write down on the Exploding Widgets? SPEND ANOTHER 40 MILLION UNTIL THEY LOVE IT!' They say 'Fire the guy in charge and double-down on what's selling best, limit future development costs until we've got budget built up for it. Our own fault for taking a risk of any sort to begin with.'

FW failed because PGI hasn't delivered a fraction of what was originally pitched that people were excited about. Now they're using that as an excuse to abandon it. 'You were excited about the Planetary Invasion system we pitched to you before and during Close Beta and the one we made the video about and said that's what you wanted! Well here's 10% of it. What, you don't think that 10% is as good as the whole thing we promised? WASTE OF TIME! CANCEL IT!'

Having more people play FW would be a logical way to try and get PGI to develop FW more, especially if people bought mechs for use in FW more than they do just because. Unfortunately FW is so bad and PGI has failed so completely on delivering their promises that everyone has pretty well burned out on it.

We've also made it perfectly clear that we'll pay more than ever for mech packs if it's got high mounts and quirks at release, regardless of the state of the game so they have no motivation to improve it. If they can just leave it as is and release mech packs and we'll keep buying them why spend money on something else?

We've paid them to provide us crap, so that's what they provide.

Crockdaddy, on 29 May 2016 - 07:43 PM, said:

Truth is it's the MERCs own fault. Because they are shifting all the time no one cares about the map. Not even a little bit. Without loyalist there is zero reason to care about the map or have House integrity. Of course PGI should have created a game which strongly favored Loyalist to provide stability and role play (amongst the dozens of other issues). FP should simply be shut down. It is a waste of time as currently constructed.

I mean NS is a unit which has been part of House Kurita for 15 years over 4 different mechwarrior games. Yet we stay MERC and largely don't care anymore. We stick by Kurita (mostly) because we associate our identity with HOuse Kurita ... but otherwise no. Sh ... i t ISEN famous for being FRR and even roleplayes FRR is a MERC unit part of -MS- for FP. The point is ... very few really care. I was a supporter for over a year. I've been around a very long time in MWO / Battletech etc. I've tossed in the towel for FP. It needs to go away and re-built.

Sorry to hear it. I'm struggling myself. PGI has spent 2 years doing a tiny bit of work on FW and delivering a fraction of what's needed to get people invested in it. Given that they spent a year prior to its release working on it that's 3 years. That's enough to take a AAA title from concept to beta with orders of magnitude more content than FW has.

There simply isn't any way to look at FW and not see something the developer has no real interest in making successful. Thousands of people beating on the door with money in hand going 'Please sell me THIS' and they're saying..... nah. That would probably be hard. We mostly focus on promising stuff we don't deliver and getting people to pay in advance for related products.

I'm sure we'll see a Solaris-ish thing in a year or two as the population continues to wane and it'll be incomplete and poorly designed and they'll promises fixes and..... years later they'll release a couple mediocre patches with no critical promised content or improvements and then abandon it too.

When I'm at the point where my best hope for MW:O is that PGIs leadership gets convicted of financial malfeasance and someone who actually has some self respect in what they make and is motivated to really make it the good game it could be takes over it's probably time to toss it in and play something else.

[N0MAD]

MischiefSC, on 29 May 2016 - 08:18 PM, said:

There simply isn't any way to look at FW and not see something the developer has no real interest in making successful.

2 years ago i told you CW concept was fail and that PGI couldnt do it, you argued it and persisted with a crap gamemode for over two years.
I dont think they dont want to, this is their income, and after Transvers and this im pretty sure PGI as a gaming company is finished when MWO finally closes servers ( im also sure they will have plenty company names to move to).
Simply they dont have the ideas, knowhow (management) and dont have the staff that can do it, only staff member worth his wage is Alex.
Keep hoping it will improve, but 4 years of history says different.

[Rebas Kradd]

N0MAD, on 29 May 2016 - 10:13 PM, said:

2 years ago i told you CW concept was fail and that PGI couldnt do it, you argued it and persisted with a crap gamemode for over two years.
I dont think they dont want to, this is their income, and after Transvers and this im pretty sure PGI as a gaming company is finished when MWO finally closes servers ( im also sure they will have plenty company names to move to).
Simply they dont have the ideas, knowhow (management) and dont have the staff that can do it, only staff member worth his wage is Alex.
Keep hoping it will improve, but 4 years of history says different.

LOL you've been saying that it will die for 4 years.

At this rate it'll last until 2027, gain some awards, and then finally close up shop, and you'll still be around to yell SEE!!! I TOLD YA SO!!! THEY'RE CLOSING UP!!! FAILS AND SWINDLERS!!!

[Randy Poffo]

MischiefSC, on 29 May 2016 - 08:18 PM, said:

No, if a product doesn't sell it's generally abandoned for ones that do. If you pitch an idea and it flops what's not going to happen is the BoD saying '20 million write down on the Exploding Widgets? SPEND ANOTHER 40 MILLION UNTIL THEY LOVE IT!' They say 'Fire the guy in charge and double-down on what's selling best, limit future development costs until we've got budget built up for it. Our own fault for taking a risk of any sort to begin with.'

FW failed because PGI hasn't delivered a fraction of what was originally pitched that people were excited about. Now they're using that as an excuse to abandon it. 'You were excited about the Planetary Invasion system we pitched to you before and during Close Beta and the one we made the video about and said that's what you wanted! Well here's 10% of it. What, you don't think that 10% is as good as the whole thing we promised? WASTE OF TIME! CANCEL IT!'

Having more people play FW would be a logical way to try and get PGI to develop FW more, especially if people bought mechs for use in FW more than they do just because. Unfortunately FW is so bad and PGI has failed so completely on delivering their promises that everyone has pretty well burned out on it.

We've also made it perfectly clear that we'll pay more than ever for mech packs if it's got high mounts and quirks at release, regardless of the state of the game so they have no motivation to improve it. If they can just leave it as is and release mech packs and we'll keep buying them why spend money on something else?

We've paid them to provide us crap, so that's what they provide.

I actually agree with most of what you say. The soda analogy works on the premise that the company is in the business of producing soda, and its alternatives are to either make a soda that people will buy or go out of business. PGI isn't the same (or is it?). They can get out of the FW business.

Thing is, as things stand currently that would not be a BAD outcome, necessarily. If they're not going to do it right, it would be nice if they invested their resources into something that might stand a chance of working. And that thing, as you say, will (or ought to be) a Solaris-ish thing. Thing is it doesn't have to be super intensive to have something playable.

If they were to introduce a Q today with smaller sized matches (anything 8 or less, I don't care) with an actual ELO system and a ladder, I would switch exclusively to playing it TODAY even if it worked on the same old maps that are used in QP. I would tolerate considerably longer wait times than I would for a QP match, too, and still be thrilled. But as you say, I don't have a lot of confidence they'd pull it off. Sometimes I wonder if they understand "games".

[N0MAD]

Rebas Kradd, on 29 May 2016 - 10:18 PM, said:

LOL you've been saying that it will die for 4 years.

At this rate it'll last until 2027, gain some awards, and then finally close up shop, and you'll still be around to yell SEE!!! I TOLD YA SO!!! THEY'RE CLOSING UP!!! FAILS AND SWINDLERS!!!

Find 1 post ive said it will die in such and such time,, just 1, your silly BS again, as always.
My post was to Mischief, he will confirn i told him CW would fail and why over many debates,, and it has look at it,, and it never was anything to begin with, with a max of 10% of player base ever playing it.
So get out of here with your pointless bs post.
If it wasnt for people like you and the BnB, telling PGI "this is the best thing since sliced bread give me another mech pack" they may of actually listened to the huge amounts of complaints and good ideas from the players and this game may of even been more than minimally viable and very mediocre.
Anyways Mischief,, how long and how many mechpacks do you think this will take to fix? 90 days? 90 mechpacks?, or are they waiting for MS to extend their licence beyond 2018 so they have time to fix it.

Edited by N0MAD, 29 May 2016 - 11:00 PM.

[Crockdaddy]

MischiefSC, on 29 May 2016 - 08:18 PM, said:

No, if a product doesn't sell it's generally abandoned for ones that do. If you pitch an idea and it flops what's not going to happen is the BoD saying '20 million write down on the Exploding Widgets? SPEND ANOTHER 40 MILLION UNTIL THEY LOVE IT!' They say 'Fire the guy in charge and double-down on what's selling best, limit future development costs until we've got budget built up for it. Our own fault for taking a risk of any sort to begin with.'

FW failed because PGI hasn't delivered a fraction of what was originally pitched that people were excited about. Now they're using that as an excuse to abandon it. 'You were excited about the Planetary Invasion system we pitched to you before and during Close Beta and the one we made the video about and said that's what you wanted! Well here's 10% of it. What, you don't think that 10% is as good as the whole thing we promised? WASTE OF TIME! CANCEL IT!'

Having more people play FW would be a logical way to try and get PGI to develop FW more, especially if people bought mechs for use in FW more than they do just because. Unfortunately FW is so bad and PGI has failed so completely on delivering their promises that everyone has pretty well burned out on it.

We've also made it perfectly clear that we'll pay more than ever for mech packs if it's got high mounts and quirks at release, regardless of the state of the game so they have no motivation to improve it. If they can just leave it as is and release mech packs and we'll keep buying them why spend money on something else?

We've paid them to provide us crap, so that's what they provide.


Sorry to hear it. I'm struggling myself. PGI has spent 2 years doing a tiny bit of work on FW and delivering a fraction of what's needed to get people invested in it. Given that they spent a year prior to its release working on it that's 3 years. That's enough to take a AAA title from concept to beta with orders of magnitude more content than FW has.

There simply isn't any way to look at FW and not see something the developer has no real interest in making successful. Thousands of people beating on the door with money in hand going 'Please sell me THIS' and they're saying..... nah. That would probably be hard. We mostly focus on promising stuff we don't deliver and getting people to pay in advance for related products.

I'm sure we'll see a Solaris-ish thing in a year or two as the population continues to wane and it'll be incomplete and poorly designed and they'll promises fixes and..... years later they'll release a couple mediocre patches with no critical promised content or improvements and then abandon it too.

When I'm at the point where my best hope for MW:O is that PGIs leadership gets convicted of financial malfeasance and someone who actually has some self respect in what they make and is motivated to really make it the good game it could be takes over it's probably time to toss it in and play something else.

It is unfortunate. I just feel PGI putting anymore resources into FP is a complete waste of time as it is currently constructed. BTW, when I say it is the MERCs fault for lack of caring about the maps, I am not pointing fingers at MS, NS, 228th, or any MERC unit. It is more how PGI constructed the entire FP setup. For immersion to happen you have to care about the map. You need role play. Largely the Loyalist will provide this. There was no incentive to be loyal or to care. We cared mightily during CW Beta 1 and pulled a massive turn around in House Kurita. Beta 2 was just a f* ing map reset with no enhancements. Screw that. This game was fun when everyone hated NKVA and Kurita hated Davion and Marik and Steiner and well everyone whom had a border. Now ... meh. Bring on MRBC Season 8. At least then I will have a reason to play.

I'd say MWC but to be honest figuring out how to schedule 81 matches sucks ... not to mention the 12 man roster is tough to work with since school is out and adults have other responsibilities beyond MWO.

[Armando]

Right now, Loyalist have no way to 'hire' a Mercenary Unit, and I can't speak for all Mercs but I want to work for the Units / Pilots that make up a Faction instead of PGI's lame automated bonus based on Faction population BS (which Faction Units / Pilots have 0 control over).

Right now, we have Mercs going where they want, when they want, with no real purpose or reason, and you have the Loyalist who get caught up in the crossfire stuck with Merc units they don't want working for them, and no real way to attract (hire) the Merc units they do want working for them.

I would like to see PGI give Loyalist Units / Pilots the ability to hire Mercs to...

...take a planet.
...not take a planet.
...defend a planet.
...not defend a planet.
...defeat a specific unit (unit bounties)
...defeat a specific pilot (contract kills)
...I'm not a loyalist so, help me out loyalist what else would you like to be able to hire Mercs for?

I think this would give Loyalist Units / Pilots greater control of what does or does NOT happen within the boarders of their Factions, and go a LONG way to improve relations between Loyalist and Mercs.
__________________________________________

I specifically think that unit bounties would be an excellent idea.

You REALLY HATE [-MS-] and want to make them SUFFER....

x 50,000 per kill in a loss.
x 200,000 per kill in a win.

...will go a LONG way to motivate any pilot with the stones to trow down with the big boys to do you dirty work for you.

Now if you are a small group that gets pitted against a full 12 man [-MS-] team, even if you lose you can STILL WIN extra c-bills just by take a few of them out before you go.

Not going to say it will change the outcome of the match, but it can have a dramatic affect on the losing teams pocketbook, as in....If the bounty is big enough, a pilot might get paid MORE to lose to [-MS-] than a win against a unit that has no bounties on them, providing they can snipe a few kills in the loss.

Edited by Armando, 30 May 2016 - 01:33 PM.

[Xiomburg]

You want to get people to play loyalists, give them a 'Mech that they can only use in FP while they are with the said House.

If they leave the House/Clan, they lose that 'Mech.

Also, give them unique weapon systems that can only be used while a loyalist and they will lose if they change faction.

Make it so it is part of the reward system Example:

House Kurita

Gains a Dragon BattleMech - DRG-2Y Dragon Yorioshi:

The personal 'Mech of Benjamin Military District commander Warlord Syovo Yorioshi during the DCMS's Third Succession War invasion of Galtor III, all the standard weaponry of a Dragon save the left-arm mounted Medium Laser has been removed. Instead a Large Laser is mounted in the right arm, a Small Laser in the head and a SRM-4 and Flamer mounted where the LRM rack would normally be. With a single ton of SRM reloads, the weight saved allows five extra heat sinks to be carried and three more tons of armor to be added.

HARDPOINTS
LEFT ARM 2 Energy (Actuators: Upper, Lower)
LEFT TORSO 1 Ballistic, 1 AMS
Head 1 Energy
CENTER TORSO 1 Energy
Right Torso 3 Missile, 1 AMS, ECM
RIGHT Arm 1 Energy (Actuators: Upper, Lower, Hand)

Give it some cool Quirks for AMS RoF, Ballistic Cool Down and Energy Range (above the normal +15%).

Weapon System (usable on any 'Mech, but if you change factions, they go away and you lose them) To regain them, you have to gain additional reputation again):

AC10 - Range 500
PPC - Damage 12, Heat 13.
SRM6 - Heat 3.5, Cool Down 3.5 seconds

You can never have more than one of each of the special weapon systems, or the 'Mech.

Edited by MechPorn, 30 May 2016 - 01:36 PM.

[Armando]

@Danjo San:

Instead of using a butcher knife (make every unit with more than 48 members split up), use a scalpel (factor in the enemy teams win% into the rewards)? If a team has a collective 10.00 w/l ratio, take the base rewards for a loss x11 for the payout (x10 for the difference +1 for what you would have gotten anyway).

Give those facing insurmountable odds EXTRA incentive; If the enemy team has a collective 10.00+ W/L Ratio, take the base rewards for a win x10 as well.

This would turn a loss against a team YOU SHOULD lose to into a serious c-bill boots, allowing the people who need it the most to buy/build/module-up mechs that can compete FASTER.

Raise you hand if you have always been the pilot who is getting stomped by 12 man units, you have never be IN a 12 man+ unit drop, and you HATE not getting $%!@t for rewards because you got curb stomped!

If you raised your hand, tell me if xN payout where N is the collective difference between your teams W/L Ratio and the enemy teams W/L Ratio is paid out for both wins AND losses would soften the blow so to speak?

Example:

Enemy Teams Collective W/L Ratio: 10.00
Your Teams Collective W/L Ratio: 0.50
(N) Collective Difference: 10.50

For a loss: Base Payout (current payout) x11.50
For a win: Base Payout (current payout) x11.50

Example 2:

Enemy Teams Collective W/L Ratio: 3.00
Your Teams Collective W/L Ratio: 2.50
(N) Collective Difference: 0.50

For a loss: Base Payout (current payout) x1.5
For a win: Base Payout (current payout) x1.5

@Danjo San: Your thoughts on turning obvious losses into C-Bill boosts for those who need the C-Bills the most as an alternative to breaking up units bigger than 48?

Edited by Armando, 30 May 2016 - 02:04 PM.

[MischiefSC]

N0MAD, on 29 May 2016 - 10:13 PM, said:

2 years ago i told you CW concept was fail and that PGI couldnt do it, you argued it and persisted with a crap gamemode for over two years.
I dont think they dont want to, this is their income, and after Transvers and this im pretty sure PGI as a gaming company is finished when MWO finally closes servers ( im also sure they will have plenty company names to move to).
Simply they dont have the ideas, knowhow (management) and dont have the staff that can do it, only staff member worth his wage is Alex.
Keep hoping it will improve, but 4 years of history says different.

I argue a lot on the forums and am not a big fan of just letting someone spout something that's demonstratively wrong. If it's an argument of opinions I'll endeavor to argue my opinion as effectively as possible.

However when I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I'll cop to this one. You were right - the idea of CW was awesome. The concepts, as pitched originally, would have been a lot of fun. PGI has failed to deliver as you predicted and has now compounded that failure with just giving up. Ironically that's probably better than continuing to promise something that they will, in turn, fail to deliver as well.

On the topic of CW though time proved you were right and I was wrong. I think it's fair to say that.

[Xiomburg]

Well if you want to point out flaws, exploits and disappointments in the system of CW...

• How about when -MS- used their admiral accounts to exploit the system, ruin games for pugs and increase their coffers.

• How about when -MS- switches to a faction to unbalance the map.

• How about when -MS- switches to a faction so they don't have to face a competitive team (I know, I know, you put it up to a vote in your unit and they choose to run away).

• How about when -MS- was telling us that they only have two teams going at a time and it doesn't hurt the game...though they have recorded 29,272 FP matches this season.

• How about when -MS- tells us that they will do anything to win: exploiting the rules for their own benfit.

• How about when -MS- tells us that they don't care about the community, only their unit.

As a large unit, you have some responsibility to the community to help the system grow, make the game better and increase the enjoyment level of it all. It appears a lot of the time that -MS- is in direct opposition to it.

Edited by MechPorn, 30 May 2016 - 02:09 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Armando, on 30 May 2016 - 01:44 PM, said:

@Danjo San:

Instead of using a butcher knife (make every unit with more than 48 members split up), use a scalpel (factor in the enemy teams win% into the rewards)? If a team has a collective 10.00 w/l ratio, take the base rewards for a loss x10 for the payout.

Give those facing insurmountable odds EXTRA incentive; If the enemy team has a collective 10.00+ W/L Ratio, take the base rewards for a win x10 as well.

This would turn a loss against a team YOU SHOULD lose to into a serious c-bill boots, allowing the people who need it the most to buy/build/module-up mechs that can compete FASTER.

Raise you hand if you have always been the pilot who is getting stomped by 12 man units, you have never be IN a 12 man+ unit drop, and you HATE not getting $%!@t for rewards because you got curb stomped!

If you raised your hand, tell me if xN payout where N is the collective difference between your teams W/L Ratio and the enemy teams W/L Ratio is paid out for both wins AND losses.

Example:

Enemy Teams Collective W/L Ratio: 10.00
Your Teams Collective W/L Ratio: 0.50
(N) Collective Difference: 10.50

For a loss: Base Payout (current payout) x10.50
For a win: Base Payout (current payout) x10.50

@Danjo San: Your thoughts on turning obvious losses into C-Bill boosts for those you need the C-Bills the most?

Even better - you simply use the existing PSR ranking system to value each team and have a separate PSR (seeded from QP) for FW.

So if MS fights 228 they are both going to get a crap ton more payout than if MS fights skittles. The skittles MS fights will may way more losing to MS and would make more money if they beat an MS 12man than if 228 beat an MS 12man.

So you get a payout based on both the relative 'value' of the other team as well as a bonus on the relative difference in value between your teams.

This rewards units for trying to play other units and good teams for playing good teams and it strongly rewards everyone else for playing against them.

Remove Attack/Defend queue so there's only one queue on each front, this way if 228 is in Kurita and MS is in Davion and there's fighting on the Davion/Kurita border you don't have both 228 and MS in the attack queues stomping puggles who clicked on defend because most people still, 2 years later, don't understand how (stupidly) FW works. With units going to the front of the line this will generally help shuffle 12mans into fighting other 12mans.

Remove tagging planets from any sort of value. Make it 100% participation based. If a MS 10man drops for 4 hours on a world, every match they win has 2 pugs in it. Suppose there were 30 total winning matches in flipping that world for the winning side. Everyone in those matches, regardless of unit membership or not, gets 1 MC for each winning match and an extra 200k cbills for each match they were in that was a win. Then they get 1 MC and 500k cbills for every full 24 hours it stays in their factions possession.

Just random numbers but the result is that every pug who plays with that MS 10man in winning matches gets the exact same reward as every MS member in those matches for taking the world. This makes playing with units more rewarding for pugs than playing solo rambo. Dropping with a unit or a group now pays them more and if that group drives wins it pays them a *lot* more to be actively trying to flip a world.

Doing these things would completely remove the hostile dynamic between big/good units and smaller units and pugs. Everyone benefits from those units and playing with them as well as against them. It puts the biggest reward on playing more often and playing to your team to win - the two behaviors you want to drive, in a unit or not.

Make LP rewards cycle back to start over when maxed.

We also need to add in a ton of bonuses for Loyalists. Say 15% MC gain bonus, 30% Cbill bonus, 50% LP bonus. Every cycle in which a Loyalist faction takes planets they get a bonus, offset by a negative for losing planets. So a net loss results in a net negative, etc. Loyalists can vote on a 7 day cycle to reduce any/all of those bonuses to provide new bonuses to mercs who take a new contract in that new cycle timeframe.

So you have the vote screen for who to attack then you have another with MC gain, Cbill, LP. You could vote to, say, reduce CBill bonus by 10% to give mercs a 30% bonus and LP gain by 10% to give LP gain a 20% bonus for mercs up to a max of X merc players. If more mercs than that sign up then the Loyalists lose a litlte more bonus % in the next cycle.

Mercs then see what rewards are offered by what factions and the unit leaders choose which to apply for. So suppose a new cycle starts June 1st. The last 7 days of May the Loyalists decide by vote how much of their bonus they're going to give up in the first week of June to attract mercs (if they want). On June 1 to June 7th any merc starting a contract in that faction sees the offering and if they sign a contract they get 7 days from their start date of that reward if they're accepted. They have to try to accept a contract 48 hours in advance.

HOWEVER. They click 'accept' and Loyalists see who applied. Over the next 48 hours loyalists who care can vote to accept or decline. Mercs have to meet a certain threshold to get their contract accepted. The more mercs who are accepted the steeper the cost to Loyalists bonuses for that week.

A merc can always take a contract anywhere with no bonuses.

Essentially this creates a system where Loyalists get big rewards but are stuck in a single location and faction. No running off to play their Kodiaks. They can sacrifice those rewards when needed to attract mercs who get bonuses for the actual drops they make so mercs that don't really play won't see big payoffs. It strongly rewards mercs with a good reputation as the more mercs who accept the more it reduces the loyalist bonuses so it's ideal to get the smallest number of most effective mercs. This makes groups like KCom and 228 every bit as desireable as, say, MS because they're smaller, however MS is a juggernaut that can really move the map for their employer.

Make voting results public so Davion can SEE that Marik, for example, is going to offer *big* rewards to attract mercs next week and as such decide if they want to try and out-bid them or at least try and attract mercs to help them in turn.

This strongly rewards merc units communicating with loyalist units to build ties and trust to increase the odds of mercs getting accepted when applying for a contract there. It rewards merc units for building a good reputation. It rewards loyalists for actively participating in voting that directly affects their own rewards. It helps create the framework for an involved semi-political system for driving actual Faction Warfare.

Anyway. Yes. No question, I am confident I could make FW way better than it is now. The above ideas would all need tweaking but the concept would create the environment we want. Neither it nor anything like it will ever see the light of day.

[Edward Scissorhands]

wait times are nearly unbearable now. my favorite game i cant play...

[Danjo San]

Armando, on 30 May 2016 - 01:44 PM, said:

@Danjo San:

Instead of using a butcher knife (make every unit with more than 48 members split up), use a scalpel (factor in the enemy teams win% into the rewards)? If a team has a collective 10.00 w/l ratio, take the base rewards for a loss x11 for the payout (x10 for the difference +1 for what you would have gotten anyway).

Give those facing insurmountable odds EXTRA incentive; If the enemy team has a collective 10.00+ W/L Ratio, take the base rewards for a win x10 as well.

This would turn a loss against a team YOU SHOULD lose to into a serious c-bill boots, allowing the people who need it the most to buy/build/module-up mechs that can compete FASTER.

Raise you hand if you have always been the pilot who is getting stomped by 12 man units, you have never be IN a 12 man+ unit drop, and you HATE not getting $%!@t for rewards because you got curb stomped!

If you raised your hand, tell me if xN payout where N is the collective difference between your teams W/L Ratio and the enemy teams W/L Ratio is paid out for both wins AND losses would soften the blow so to speak?

Example:

Enemy Teams Collective W/L Ratio: 10.00
Your Teams Collective W/L Ratio: 0.50
(N) Collective Difference: 10.50

For a loss: Base Payout (current payout) x11.50
For a win: Base Payout (current payout) x11.50

Example 2:

Enemy Teams Collective W/L Ratio: 3.00
Your Teams Collective W/L Ratio: 2.50
(N) Collective Difference: 0.50

For a loss: Base Payout (current payout) x1.5
For a win: Base Payout (current payout) x1.5

@Danjo San: Your thoughts on turning obvious losses into C-Bill boosts for those who need the C-Bills the most as an alternative to breaking up units bigger than 48?

interesting idea, i don't know if it would still be enough for "average Joe" to feel that big units are keeping him from being worthy and valuable to what happens on FW, I do like your angle though!
For one thing it does not change incentive for the hardcore loyalists though, as mot of them are in a certain house for lore beliefs, and if they have reached the end of the latter thats that. I do have to say I like Mischiefs comment on staring over the reard cycle for loyalists once they reached the end ... from previous discussions we have not been on the same side, but I do agree with mischief on this one. it would at least keep harcore loyalists to stay with their faction. I mean most would go for more free stuff, but if you could continue to get free stuff while keeping your house alive that would be great...
Other than that, I'll talk over your suggestions with some of my units members and see how their casual approach to MWO follows up on that.