334 replies to this topic

[justcallme A S H]

Spider00x, on 20 May 2016 - 07:24 AM, said:

Just to be clear PKRL / However we will continue to defend steiner world's but we're only 30 guys which is my point.

Only one problem with that statement, it's inaccurate.

The attack queue against Steiner planets from CJF was 3-4 deep not two days ago. And you guys were defending FRR planets with your 12 man.

Other PKRL players have openly stated here also that they refuse to defend Steiner planets at the moment.

All if that, unfortunately, totally contradicts what you posted.

[justcallme A S H]

iLLcapitan, on 20 May 2016 - 02:09 AM, said:

So sick of all the lonestarrs wanting to dictate their **** to the units.
PGI set this up, the units/players only react to it in order to get fast drops/play their new swag/competition.
Get rid of your fallacy, the big/good units don't have weekly meetings in order to avoid each other.

Several Steiner / 12DG players individually stated, that they won't drop against Jadefalcon this week, which is more likely a scam than the (predictable) concentration of good units in CJF bc of the Kodiak release.

Everybody on IS side should be happy at this point, for getting fast drops with solid competition.
But it seems every opportunity to blame smth on MS/228/xxx is welcomed by the butthurt.

Hit the nail on the head mate.

Problem is, defenders aren't queuing. They will queue anywhere BUT Steiner planets to avoid the fight. Seen it with my own eyes.

[Avenger 1337]

Pops to TCAF for actually fighting us. Was great fun guys GG's. Somehow i have a feeling 228 is avoiding us... at least after the first match

[MischiefSC]

DarklightCA, on 20 May 2016 - 11:12 AM, said:

Snip

Four times. FW 1 you all were in Kurita, pounding Davion and rolling CSJ back at the end. It's possible 228 wasn't there but everyone else was. Then Wolf saw more traffic than Messalina but, again, not sure 228 was there the same time as MS. Then FRR and CJF. Not that it matters, statistically 4 times in 2 years fits well within odds for 10 factions and weekly movement.

People get upset, make assumptions, delineate us/them groups and paint everyone with the same brush and get angry over things that aren't the real issue.

Real issue is loyalists want a battletech game. They want factions and big wars. Mercs generally want matches with new maps/modes. Don't care who wins or loses. PGI promised the first and delivered the second. So mercs are playing the minimum viable product pgi delivered while loyalists are trying to create the game they were promised out of what PGI plopped out.

Mercs have a ton of benefits and no real drawbacks. Loyalists have a ton of drawbacks and a couple mediocre benefits. That generates hard feelings too.

You guys have bleed the best players out of loyalist units for years, in part because being a loyalist sucks compared to being a merc generally. That creates hard feelings.

MS has shoved the map around and run absolutely roughshod over the factions they've been with repeatedly, which has turned in to "big merc units" and wrapped you guys in over some sense of not wanting to single MS out.

Look, I like MS. Was fun people to play with. I get that they don't care about the stuff other players do. I have a lot of respect for 228, you guys play the merc role, do the fronts you're asked, etc. However PGI absolutely ****** the people who wanted FW to be what was promised and mercs, especially MS, are an obvious symptom of that. Plus all the other stuff and somewhere along the line 228 got painted with the same brush cuz reasons.

There's a lot of "let's go find easy wins" going on too. Every unit does it. It's a reality of the game and pretending it's not is another irritation. There's a lot of units that go out of their way to avoid units and organized fights. That's a reality and frustratingly 228, being a big name, is going to get painted by that too.

The reality is PGI promised a big faction vs faction war and all the lore stuff but delivered a broken QP environment with no MM that lets people hamstring themselves by being loyalists so mercs have someone to farm. You're using the system as designed to your advantage and loyalists detriment. People hate the system and so will hate you for using it. More to the point they hate people who really exploit it and as such hate you guys, who are actually pretty cool about it, by association.

Nobody who owns a Kodiak though gets to complain about it. PGI gave us the system we're paying them to give us.

[Donegal]

Well if this all boils down to a Merc vs Loyalist argument. As in, pick the fights you might actually win. Which is strategically smart btw and loyalists should represent the largest percentage of players but loyalists don't have all the perks. Here's one to send more people to the loyalist camp. Bring back repair bills for everyone except loyalists. In fact make mercs that take contracts in high pop factions pay even more for repairs/restocking ammo. Bring back the company store mentality that House Kurita loves and few others used so well. This has been a stray thought for your local Nasty Thought Director.

Mercs are used as garrison troops far from the front because they are unreliable. They are also used as cannon fodder for assaults to spare House resources and make the mercs pay to rebuild their strength or be in breach of contract. Allowing the House to discharge the Unit without paying the remainder of the contract fee or bonuses. So this brings us back to the Company Store. Control the mercs access to supplies and you control the mercs. the answer is simple, bring back repair/ammo costs for mercs.

Edited by Donegal, 20 May 2016 - 02:52 PM.

[AnTi90d]

I think adding repair and resupply fees would just chase some people out of FW.

After reading pages and pages of threads shooting ideas at the wall, here are four things I think would help the FW population to more evenly distribute:

1.) Limit mercenary groups to 64 members. Set a date that all units over the new population cap would be dissolved if they hadn't already trimmed down. Give each member of a dissolved unit 5 million Cbills as compensation.

2.) Give loyalists back their +50% LP gain.

3.) Add one last REPEATABLE rank at the end of the loyalist rank ladder. Something like, every 200k-500k LP beyond the last rank, you earn 500MC.

4.) Completely block mercenary units from contracting with the most populated factions

[Donegal]

Nope the Company Store is the way to keep mercs from high pop factions. Make repairs/ammo cost so much you loss money going on a mission for them. Thats how you spread the mercs out. Self interest. With the illusion of free will.

Edited by Donegal, 20 May 2016 - 03:03 PM.

[Donegal]

The best way to get anyone to do something. Is to help them think it's their own idea. There is always a choice, even if you don't want to make it. It's my job to funnel you all down the path of my choosing and have you think it's what you want.If you think I'm crazy look at who I quote on my posts. If you don't know who that is, I suggest you get reading.

[DarklightCA]

MischiefSC, on 20 May 2016 - 02:31 PM, said:

Snip

No those were times where factions were dominating Community Warfare. Merc Units may have had a hand in that but by no means was every Merc unit stacking those factions. In every one of those situations there were Merc units in other factions and those with attack/defense lanes even trying to compete against them. Only on two occasions has Merc units completely stacked a faction, currently and once before. Both times a contracting accident being units have no idea where other Merc units are contracting.

You are correct that loyalists care more about faction progress than mercs typically do and what mercs care more about is good gameplay and rewards but how does that present us with a minimal product. Mercs are suppose to be units for hire, organized teams that factions/units can hire and set to a specific purpose, they are not about faction loyalty. Mercs are fulfilling their purpose.

Their is nothing stopping loyalists from fulfilling their purpose either. The only thing stopping them and the reason they hate mercs is that mercenaries are the real people with the power to dictate faction growth and that's not because they are mercenaries faction swapping it's because majority of the mercenary population is organized and skilled units while majority of the loyalist population are solo players and some organized units carrying their faction on their backs.

Perhaps factions and majority of the loyalists should take a example from FRR on how to be a functional faction even without merc help. Besides for FRR only really Kurita and CJF can say the same and they do so by beating mercs at their own game which is organization.

What drawbacks loyalists have or lack of benefits has NOTHING to do with mercs. Again people are blaming a entire playerbase for lack of game design. PGI created a gamemode where planets did not matter but the only thing that did was faction reward trees. Only mercs had access to all the faction reward trees and it benefited them to faction hop to gain access to them all. Did we design it that way? No, but we sure as hell got blamed for it despite the faction even loyalist units/players were doing it as well.

PGI giving mercs their own reward tree that did not change regardless of which faction they contracted with and that was a smart addition only it was added a little too late. Again we as a playerbase have no power in those decisions or design choices so I hardly see how it's fitting to blame us for design choices and timing that we had no hand in.

I can agree that MS stomping all over everybody is a big problem for faction balance and again that's bad game design of PGI not setting a unit cap prior to releasing Community Warfare. As much as I even dislike it that's not really MS's fault either because they don't dictate unit caps.

This game would be a lot better with a actual population that wasn't spread out between 10 different factions but reality is that it's never going to be populated so you need to work with what you have. The main thing most people complain about besides long wait times are organized teams stomping all over pug teams and nothing about that has anything to do with mercs and that's never going to change until either skilled organized teams stop playing or lonewolf players start stepping up.

Edited by DarklightCA, 20 May 2016 - 04:41 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Davion does fine without mercs too. FRR has a huge population because there's a lot of nominally merc units there because they have a lot of fronts.

Given that it's a way better experience to be a merc, make more money, play what you want, go where you want the loyalist populations bled out to mercs (or quirks. A lot just quit). Since being a loyalist largely sucks (I admit I already miss my merc sojourn not long ago) there is minimal loyalist population as most good players leave loyalist to go merc as that's where the good rewards are.

Beyond which loyalists have nothing to do with what mercs do or where. Mercs are like loyalists with a pay bonus who can change fronts every week. They just don't get to vote for lanes - terrible, I know.

I'm not blaming mercs. There is no way for factions to really control faction progress in this environment. Not really. They don't hire mercs, mercs are a huge population of the game because being a loyalist sucks, there are no real tools for coordinating a faction. A terrible faction chat. That's it.

Players blame mercs because you are the symptom and symbol of what a complete pile of **** FW turned out to be in spite of what PGI promised.

You're playing the game like it's QP, but with extra bonus cbills. Which is the game they gave us. That's not your fault however that fact that mercs are here playing FW the way PGI made it (which, again, is not even a minimum viable product) there's no way to even hack/house rules it into something sorta like what was promised.

So they blame you because PGI doesn't care so long as we're still buying mech packs.

Which we do - we buy mech packs which tells PGI we're happy with the game they've made.

[Spider00x]

R31Nismoid, on 20 May 2016 - 01:42 PM, said:

Hit the nail on the head mate.

Problem is, defenders aren't queuing. They will queue anywhere BUT Steiner planets to avoid the fight. Seen it with my own eyes.

Get your eyes checked then cause were in the que nightly... every now and then we may peel off to defend other IS world's in the name of insta drops. Or were trying to grind merik for mc.

[Armando]

Jman5, on 18 May 2016 - 08:20 PM, said:

How are players supposed to know it's so lopsided when PGI's population counter is telling you you're within 1% of the opposing faction's population. And Unlike the Loyalty Leaderboard, the Mercenary Unit Leaderboard does not deign to tell us what faction these Merc Units are assigned to.

I think the Employment Contract information you posted can be attributed to the release of the Kodiak.

Anyone who purchased the package (and there were MANY that did) wanted to play with the new shiny new "Toy" PGI sold them, only to find out their new "Toy" is a teter-totter that has a 100 Ton weight attached to one side.

Edited by Armando, 20 May 2016 - 06:34 PM.

[Contrex]

AnTi90d, on 20 May 2016 - 02:58 PM, said:

I think adding repair and resupply fees would just chase some people out of FW.

After reading pages and pages of threads shooting ideas at the wall, here are four things I think would help the FW population to more evenly distribute:

1.) Limit mercenary groups to 64 members. Set a date that all units over the new population cap would be dissolved if they hadn't already trimmed down. Give each member of a dissolved unit 5 million Cbills as compensation.

2.) Give loyalists back their +50% LP gain.

3.) Add one last REPEATABLE rank at the end of the loyalist rank ladder. Something like, every 200k-500k LP beyond the last rank, you earn 500MC.

4.) Completely block mercenary units from contracting with the most populated factions

Best post in this complete thread. Actualy i hope pgi gonna read this. If the 360 members of MS and the 240 of 228 into Units with a Max sice of 60 AND not allowed to join the most 2-3 crowded factions (here should only merc players count), the problem will be solved instantly!

[DarklightCA]

Contrex, on 20 May 2016 - 09:43 PM, said:

Best post in this complete thread. Actualy i hope pgi gonna read this. If the 360 members of MS and the 240 of 228 into Units with a Max sice of 60 AND not allowed to join the most 2-3 crowded factions (here should only merc players count), the problem will be solved instantly!

Worst post in the thread. It's the biggest FU to mercenaries and the biggest handjob to loyalists. Does loyalists need better incentives? Yes. Do units need to have caps? Yes. All units do not just mercenaries and definetly not 60 players.

[ccrider]

Mischief, you should come merc with us; we installed ball pits in every drop ship, there are waifu pillows in every style and a healthy supply of hair products.



Oh, and pretend I added something substantial to this discussion. Ummmmm.....mercs, blah,blah, loyalists something.....

[Contrex]

DarklightCA, on 20 May 2016 - 09:57 PM, said:

Worst post in the thread. It's the biggest FU to mercenaries and the biggest handjob to loyalists. Does loyalists need better incentives? Yes. Do units need to have caps? Yes. All units do not just mercenaries and definetly not 60 players.

Fine for me. Max sice for loyal units as well. As long as loyalists can choose their faction without any restrictions.

The amount of players in one unit can be talked about as well.... I would have said, even less then 60.

[MischiefSC]

DarklightCA, on 20 May 2016 - 09:57 PM, said:

Worst post in the thread. It's the biggest FU to mercenaries and the biggest handjob to loyalists. Does loyalists need better incentives? Yes. Do units need to have caps? Yes. All units do not just mercenaries and definetly not 60 players.

No point in unit caps. People play with who they want; big units tend to be big because they're good at collecting people and getting them set up to play FW.

The issue isn't unit sizes the issue is bigger rewards for bigger units. Give rewards based on what you did not who you play with. If you play on a world that gets flipped you need rewarded based on how many wins you were part of. That's it. Tagging worlds is part of the issue.

Loyalists need rewards - good rewards, ironically they need rewards even if mercs are winning for them. They need to be directly more profitable than mercs - mercs, conversely, get to move around. Ideally mercs should get to 'apply for contracts' 3 days in advance and loyalists vote for who they want to get the application.

Loyalists need to be able to scale back their rewards to increase pay for mercs. Let the loyalist players 'hire' mercs by making playing there more profitable and then having the yea-nay on contracts there. This would be great to let a faction pick up, say, 228 by just offering big rewards (during which time loyalists will get less rewards) to attract 228 but then reject all the 'also-ran' units who would want to flock to the bigger rewards but who wouldn't carry anything like that weight. Conversely there should be 'generic' contracts without bonuses that mercs can still take with any faction if they can't pull a high-value contract.

There's a million ways to fix contracts. GOOD merc units that factions WANT to hire should make stupid good pay. They should both be and feel 'in demand'. This would show itself not just in merc units that win matches but ones that work well with the loyalists in a faction.

Rewarding loyalists and making mercs 'hired' to have a player-created incentive system to draw great players and teams would be an incredible sort of logistics system for FW. Remove the 'who tagged' it factor from flipping worlds and make it 'how many matches did you help win to take that/hold that planet' and you make cooperation between merc, loyalist, unit and pug rewarded and encouraged. Make 1 world per front so there's no attack/defense queue and you remove the 'units farming pugs' facet instantly.

Let loyalists vote for an 'ally' faction as well with whom they can share fronts to better focus populations and give politics nerds fun.

Any of these mechanics would be less overall effort than Ghost Heat was.

[Contrex]

You realy think the rewards are the reason for big units to play together? They had been big before phase 3 as well.

Its just simple math. Ms+228 = 600 members. Split them to max sice 60 and you got 10 units with active players.
If the system does not allow to join the top 5 most merc supported faction, all those 10 new units gonna be placed on every faction.

And there are plenty other merc units as well. MS and 228 are just 2 of the biggest units.

[DarklightCA]

Contrex, on 20 May 2016 - 10:14 PM, said:

Fine for me. Max sice for loyal units as well. As long as loyalists can choose their faction without any restrictions.

The amount of players in one unit can be talked about as well.... I would have said, even less then 60.

The problem with what you are saying is that you want to turn units from communities into small groups all for one gamemode, not even the most popular gamemode. 228 is a competitive unit that has members from all over the world ranging from NA to EU to OC.

You compare us to MS but majority of the people in our unit don't care about Faction Play. While we maintain a presence at all hours. At peek times we only have 8-14 people playing Faction Play. Even KCom likely has more people active in Faction Play than we do.

You are dictating to our unit that they can't play Faction Play unless they want to decimate the community of competitive teams ranging from all time zones that they spent a long time building up for what? If you look at the leaderboards no unit is having a hard time keeping pace with 228.

The only unit that is out of control is MS, so why should every other unit have to completely gut their communities just because MS is insanely huge and out of control. There are a lot more reasonable numbers that allow units to be a community but still allow other units to compete against them.

[Contrex]

If you are just a community, you do not realy need the 228 tag or? I guess 99% of your communication runs over teamspeak or your forum, right? So if you lose the Tag you will not lose the community. To lose a tag of a community which does not care about faction games anyway, is a small price to pay id say. And i bet you dont Need 260 members for competetive gaming or?

Edited by Contrex, 20 May 2016 - 11:21 PM.