35 replies to this topic

[Murphy7]

The very most I've enjoyed MW:O was when 9SD decided to participate in Marik Civil War, which just predated the release of Community Warfare. Community Warfare, now called Faction Play, has been the next best thing.

In MCW there was a galactic map, units aligned with different factions, planned and scheduled attacks that were unit on unit battles, with several matches across a rotation of maps and the unit composition and strategy was an important feature to the competition.

At its best, Faction Play emulates pieces of this. I like having four mechs in a drop, that objectives can be important, that there is a faction component that can matter. And in the current iteration, scouting missions are fun and the leaderboards allow you to see your improvement, see how you fare against others inside and outside your faction, and even foster some competition within the same unit.

The main problems with Faction Play are when you don't have a good group to play with - pug teams and long wait times are the real banes of Faction Play - not the long tom or massive mercenary units.

[PFC Carsten]

Stikyard, on 24 May 2016 - 12:08 PM, said:

With too many battles spread thin across the galaxy, broken Long Toms and, balance issues, Why do you play FW?

Short answer: I don't (anymore). The re-merging of the queues was what coffined my last shards of hope I had for PGI to have some sense. But they don't. Sadly.

Hopefully the next guy who picks up the Battletech/Mechwarrior franchise has more sense and more willingness to develop a good game, because even with this bunch of crap, people are willing to shell out money like mad - now imagine what amounts of cash you'd rake in with a game that's actually fun to play and has more content to offer.

[xX PUG Xx]

xX PUG Xx, on 24 May 2016 - 04:31 PM, said:

Why do I play FP?

Good question, I thought I knew once but nowadays I find myself asking "Why do I play this game?".

*Edit*

OK. So as not to look like a child throwing a temper tantrum and give a little context, I will try and elaborate. It's a bit of a therapy session so spoilered for those that can't be bothered scrolling past.

Spoiler

If you check my "join date" you will see I have been around for almost four years and unlike a lot of other Closed Beta Founders, I have never "taken a break". I have played virtually every week and a lot of the time I have played every day, at least a couple of drops anyway.

I have been a member of three major units and helped to start a small one which sadly didn't take off, all the while preparing for the release of the game mode that attracted me to the game four years earlier. I was always the one saying "CW will be great, it has huge potential" "Come join us and get ready to fight for planets, this will be an epic interplanetary struggle for dominance". Hell, I even wrote some fan fiction based on the release and the game as a whole inspired me write a short story.

I was almost always upbeat about the POTENTIAL of CW/ FP, once the mode was finally released and players attention seemed to slip away from it I was the one always trying to bring them back. Eventually I kept track of how many of my "friends" in the unit I was with were playing the mode I had waited so long for and realised that I was one of those players "on an island". Over the course of two months I was the only person playing FP out of 45-50 people on that unit's TS server, it was very lonely and TBH it made me feel pretty stupid.

So now that Phase 3 (praise be) has turned out to not have provided any real depth beyond a "who grinds the most" leaderboard and some nifty UI additions (which are still pretty unintuitive but having been here for so long, it doesn't bother me), I have finally hit rock bottom.

I still login most days and can sit and play for hours as I do (mostly) enjoy the combat mechanics of the game and think I can give a decent accounting of myself from a skill POV. However I have found that I am so disappointed in the shallow, underwhelming experience and the never ending complaints have dragged me to the point that I find it hard to show the slightest bit of motivation.

Perhaps the future "small updates" will add some flavour to the mode but at this point I'm afraid my faith has been well and truly shaken. I will continue to play when I feel like it but at the moment I'm not really feeling like it

Original post editted for those that thought I was being a twa... child.

[Jman5]

The limited respawn and dropdeck system makes it more fun for me than quickplay.

The biggest issue holding it back are the wait times. Two things I would do to improve it:

1. Don't waste everybody's time by loading into a map for a ghost drop. It should be an automatic win and contract reward. It will reduce the load on your servers, it will make wait times more bearable, and it will hamper factions from using ghost drops as defense tools (bore people off planets).

2. Auto merge queues from different planets when possible. This isn't as polished an idea yet, but I think there should be someway of grabbing all the people waiting for a match on different planets and grouping them up when possible. So if one team is trying to drop against smoke jaguar, but smoke jaguar can't fill their game after 5-10 minutes, it will grab some guys waiting from Wolf, or Ghost Bear, or Jade Falcon. And not just on defense, but on attack as well.

[WVAnonymous]

I came back vigorously when the Scout Mode came about, and had a good time for several days. Then the Kodiak challenge sucked all the right back out again and there was nobody home.

I'll look again this weekend, maybe there'll be some action.

On the rare days that my unit gets 6 or more on line (preferably 9 or more) if it looks like there's a good possibility of actually getting a drop, we'll take a shot at Invasion mode.

[jss78]

I mainly play scouting these days, so my opinion on FW is an opinion on scouting. I love that game mode.

I'm mainly a medium, occasionally light pilot. I've long lamented how far MWO has drifted from a lore-correct weight distribution. Our 'mech companies are basically ridiculously overweight. I love how scouting puts the real cornerstone mechs, lights and mediums in the forefront, although that took the heavy-handed solution of throwing out heavies and assaults.

[Commander A9]

Why do I play Faction Warfare?

To win alongside my team.

Edited by Commander A9, 26 May 2016 - 11:14 AM.

[ice trey]

Because it's the closest I'm going to get to Mechwarrior 5 campaign mode single player.

[BattleBunny]

I play it solo because I like dishing out damage while making money.

I sometimes play it in groups cause on my unit TS, thats where sometimes were the group is at.

I used to play it to gain loyalty points for the faction I am with and get mechbays. Thats gone and replaced with the merc rewards, which have already stagnated to the point its not a reason to hop into CW anymore.

[Count Zero 74]

I just press them buttons and kill them Clanners.

[DarthHias]

For Fun and Profit of course.

[Mystek]

I play it for the game like I had last night: Dropped with a four man and the rest pugs (none from my unit were currently on) against a merc 11 man and a pug. Counter attack so kill more mechs and destroy the objective. We won (48 kills to their 36 or 37). It was back and forth until wave three when we rolled them up. It proves not all 12 man (or in this case 11) are unbeatable with a pug team and makes it that much more exciting when people try even against presumed odds against them.

Edited by Mystek, 27 May 2016 - 06:18 PM.

[nimdabew]

I got tired of dropping with pugtards. 12 man FP is what this game was supposed to be.

[MischiefSC]

Inertia.

The people I play with.

QP is worse and I've got the sunk cost fallacy going for me.

[SlightlyMobileTurret]

Why do I play FW?

Hmm,,interesting.

1) I'm a F2P player

2) I like cbills

3) PGI isn't giving me mechbays in events

4) Solo queue nascar is boring.

[Breidr]

PFC Carsten, on 26 May 2016 - 05:05 AM, said:

Short answer: I don't (anymore). The re-merging of the queues was what coffined my last shards of hope I had for PGI to have some sense. But they don't. Sadly.

Hopefully the next guy who picks up the Battletech/Mechwarrior franchise has more sense and more willingness to develop a good game, because even with this bunch of crap, people are willing to shell out money like mad - now imagine what amounts of cash you'd rake in with a game that's actually fun to play and has more content to offer.

Sadly, this is the way with a lot of franchises without a HUGE fan/playerbase. If it's not CoD or whatnot, prepare for it to be crap. Minimum Viable Product sums up a bunch of my favorite "games" right now. Go have a look at Blood Bowl 2, the latest iteration of another one of my favorite franchises. Release a ****-tastic game with 1/4 the content of the prequel and DLC the rest. The fanboys eat that **** up. When all the whales are gone, abandon ship.

Tribes: Ascend also comes to mind. Glad we could help fund the development of Smite before Hi-Rez canned it. It got a new patch recently.... but it's still a ghost town. Too little too late.

PGI seems to be feeding us the same crap that Cyanide fed the BB community. You'd better buy the DLC/Mech Packs so we can make a profit, or we might not finish the game.

Edited by Breidr Breidsson, 29 May 2016 - 03:57 AM.