10 replies to this topic

[Karl Streiger]

I was searching something in the forums and found a CW related topic that was writen even before the Clan Mechs appeared in MWO.

This article did already pointed out that were issues would appear and how to circumvent those.

The idea behind is to play seasons -not timeline
For example season 1:


This is the first season. Its the Smoke Jaguar invasion corridor.
You would have 2 settings.

• a main battle planet (lore faction) could only be attacked by the main factions (House Kurita and Clan Smoke Jaguar) - this planet has special rewards for those loyalist
  
• a secondary planet - allows all other "loyalists" to fight for
  
• the season may only last 1 week
  
• each season has one event - for example Turtle Bay - including leaderboard and special prices

After the season we jump to another corridor. If a corridor is not conquered at least by 75% by the "invader" during the season - the fight will again start in this corridor otherwise the battle moves on to another map sequence.



Planet distribution: 50% second class; 40% primary (lore) class 10% event driven.

Each day there would only 3 (weekend 4) planets available.

• Solo Player
  
• Group Player
  
• Loyalist - Solo and Group - FP

---

about loyalty:
You choose once - only once and it can't be changed
This choice is including all BT factions (including Clan Hellhorse or Marian Hegemony..)
When you did choose Merc or a faction not yet available you become a Merc/Freelancer

• a freelancer is a solo a group - there side would be applied by load balancing
  
• a Merc is a solo or group - he get paid after the season not during
  
  • each Merc get a contract based on size
    
  • a >36 men unit might get the contract (keep/conquere Planet Schwartz)
    
  • a single Merc might get - a head hunting job (kill 12 Smoke Jaguars via Solo Kill)
    
  • if the contract is fullfilled they get a bonus - otherwise they get a equal pay as any other player not committed in LoreFaction battles

Special gimmicks:

• Discount for Mechs that are common within your house
  
• Discount is based on your teams performance during a LoreFaction Battle
  
• Salvage (mixed tech for very successful units)

Changes:

• no attack corridors - 23 hours endless battles for a single planet
  
• after those 23 hours, the planet might change sides or not
  
• no ghost drops - there should be enough players participating

---

Sound complicated?

Not really, most of this work is for server/database and include mechanics already implemented.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 08 July 2016 - 02:09 AM.

[LordNothing]

there just arent enough players to make up for galaxy worth of continuous warfare. so im all for doing campaigns, which focus all the players into a smaller part of the map. running a campaign every week lets you keep the map, and condense the player base. end of the week you tally up the points and alter the map. this utterly removes the need for doing ceasefires several times a day. you just have the one each week for each new campaign (or season if you will). and then you get your rewards.

id actually simplify the game joining system too so you (or your group) just hit a button, you are assigned a planet and drop there. you can actually have some kind of minimalist matchmaker, which only matches based on group type. there would be 3 different types, unit groups, pug groups, or mixed smaller groups and pugs. it would attempt to match groups of the same type first, then it would try matching mixed vs pugs or mixed vs unit, and if nothing else is available then it would match unit vs pugs. this would run every 5 minutes or so and the game would match up as many teams as possible. this would bring down the wait times a lot.

rewards are issued based on factors like participation level, level of success, and career type. you would have a minimum threshold for participation, say 5-10 games. and you might get bonuses if you play above the minimum participation level. these would pay out gxp, cbills, lp and rp (depending on career). you would also get victory pay if you managed to play well so its not like everyone gets a trophy. you might get payed 1 mc for every 5-10 victories in a season. this actually encourages all players, not just the ones in mega units to do their best. it might even illicit more unit like behavior in pugs, because right now they tend to create an us vs them hostility that divides the camps rather than try and bring them together.

i wouldnt go too much into mechanics, because at its heart it just needs to be a way to condense the faction system down and at the same time greatly simplify game joining. id actually remove freelancer or make it a solo merc. this simplifies the systems a lot. call to arms wouldnt exist anymore as it is now, it might be instead indicate that a series of games are about to kick off and prompts loose players to join up. if you dont want to wait 5 minutes you can play qp and only join fp if it looks like you can have a reduced wait time.

even then you still need something to spice up fp. like a couple new game modes and some new maps are the usual recipe to fix that problem. id actually make the modes somewhat interrelated so that successes in one has benefits in others. you pretty much get allocated to a random mode (likely proportionally so 33% goes to invasion, 33% goes to counter and 33% goes to scouting).

scouting kind of poses an interesting problem. being the oddball mode with its 4 player group size and mech weight restrictions, its kind of very hard to allocate for. i assume break down a team of 12 into 3 groups would be the easiest way. you could also use solo pugs and groups of 4 or less (provided they meet weight restrictions) for loose scouting missions once all the other larger groups are allocated. however if you can solve that problem, you might make way for other sized modes like 8v8.

[Kin3ticX]

there are more planets than steam players

[GI Journalist]

I'd be fascinated to hear PGI's take on this system. It seems straight forward and would focus players on a few planets. Players could still keep their factions, and the focus could jump around the map, season to season.

Edited by GI Journalist, 08 July 2016 - 10:04 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Wouldn't play it. Can't judge the value/validity of it but all we really need to concentrate populations is the ability to vote for alliances. You vote for an Alliance with a faction just like picking attack fronts; allies share borders. BOOM. This lets fronts and player concentrations form organically. Having a system that involves PGI having to actually do something, make decisions or put something together is an idea doomed from the outset.

[Insufficient Skill]

GI Journalist, on 08 July 2016 - 10:03 PM, said:

I'd be fascinated to hear PGI's take on this system. It seems straight forward and would focus players on a few planets. Players could still keep their factions, and the focus could jump around the map, season to season.

You would need to tweet this to Russ, I guess.

[GI Journalist]

Any feedback on the forum from PGI on the topic of faction play would be welcome. Relying on tweets to and from Russ would be a poor customer engagement strategy.

[Karl Streiger]

MischiefSC, on 09 July 2016 - 04:05 AM, said:

Wouldn't play it. Can't judge the value/validity of it but all we really need to concentrate populations is the ability to vote for alliances. You vote for an Alliance with a faction just like picking attack fronts; allies share borders. BOOM. This lets fronts and player concentrations form organically. Having a system that involves PGI having to actually do something, make decisions or put something together is an idea doomed from the outset.

Right but you would still have multiple fronts and a good part of people that would ignore alliances.
The proposed system would reduce the number of queues towards 3.

With say 75% classical 20% invasion and 5% scout missions you also might merge it with the qp.
So even your short battle before breakfast might have consequences. But this part is not even necessary.

[MischiefSC]

Karl Streiger, on 09 July 2016 - 01:19 PM, said:

Right but you would still have multiple fronts and a good part of people that would ignore alliances.
The proposed system would reduce the number of queues towards 3.

With say 75% classical 20% invasion and 5% scout missions you also might merge it with the qp.
So even your short battle before breakfast might have consequences. But this part is not even necessary.

So just close FW and make it new maps/modes in QP, then we can have a matchmaker and such. Have a leaderboard that assigns points to your faction when you win.

At the point we functionally eliminate faction identity like this down to just a couple of options you eliminate the point of FW. No real point to loyalist or merc either.

Instead of removing FW and just having QP how about we fix the huge issues like, say, LT, lack of real purpose or depth, scouting balance, point of being a loyalist, etc. Instead of just finishing FW off because nobody wants to play it why not address why nobody wants to play it.

[Karl Streiger]

Well why do you think you would remove FP when you have Seasons?
You might not be able to fight every day on the Falcon - Steiner front - but maybe once per month a week long - fighting special missions and event offers only available for you and those parrots.
This would grant 246% more lore friendly background in direct comparison to the current implementation.
Of course stuff light the LT keeps sane people broken and headshaking... but Mm is important or let's say it's a waste of development resources to have MM for Yolo games but not for the main content.

Speaking of events and seasons better to play a "event" for Trellwan only available for Steiner and Falcons - but to have just a name on the planet list when half those slots were ghost drops

[MischiefSC]

I'm a Davion. We went Steiner for Operation Galahad in order to spark some FW interest and get some matches. However if you told al the people involved that they would be doing something similar on a semi permanent basis they would go. They're in FW to play Davion and do Davion stuff.

No interest in a "season" system. The conversations in officer chat between units is comparable. You'd eliminate the loyalist populations. The only question is if you'd pick up enough casuals to make it worthwhile.

We're here for the big galaxy map. The interplay between factions and such. Staged matches between 2 or 3 players isn't it. Plus it would involve an active role from PGI which will never happen.