110 replies to this topic

[ccrider]

MischiefSC, on 16 July 2016 - 08:40 PM, said:

Yep, it's largely gone and unlikely to return by gentlemans agreement unless things really turn around.

I'm pitching but nobody wants to bat.

Prior to the event we were approximately 20 players short of breaking even based on total available matches. CBR1 would be the pop we needed to break even and possibly even flip one back in NA primetime. Just need to get people to come back....

However the frustration is real. Working on it.

bring 'em back. We're here till 1st tuesday of august, then we go clan for a week (clan week is tradition, can't upset tradition) then we'll go steiner again to help ya'll.

[Brain Cancer]

Size matters not, eh?

Give units a reason to stay with a faction. Reward top units with benefits that stay as long as they do, divided between the unit members. Megaunits get less candy per person.

Rather than charge people to join units, charge unit coffers to maintain them. The more people in the unit, the more it costs the coffers. Failure to pay penalizes CW rewards as each member is docked for money to keep the unit going instead.

Smaller, more productive units will matter.

[Daidachi]

Brain Cancer, on 16 July 2016 - 09:30 PM, said:

Size matters not, eh?

Give units a reason to stay with a faction. Reward top units with benefits that stay as long as they do, divided between the unit members. Megaunits get less candy per person.

Rather than charge people to join units, charge unit coffers to maintain them. The more people in the unit, the more it costs the coffers. Failure to pay penalizes CW rewards as each member is docked for money to keep the unit going instead.

Smaller, more productive units will matter.

These are GOOD ideas.

[Danjo San]

Armando, on 16 July 2016 - 09:08 PM, said:

MWO is not the lottery, my chances of winning are not 1 in 175 Million. My chances of winning (W/L ratio) sit firmly at 8.21 and it has nothing to do with luck.

So you are saying that a 1 man Unit that wins every match gets the tag on the Planet, or ist it the large Unit that can field 2 Dropships and loses half of their Matches and wins the other half? Same amount of Matches played. More Tickets = Higher Chance of Taking the planet.
The 1 man plays and wins 12 Matches = 12 Victory Tokens (360 minutes)
The 12 Man plays 12 Matches and wins 6 = 72 Victory Tokens (360 minutes)
A Four man group plays and wins 12 Matches = 48 Victory Tokens (360 minutes)
the 24 Group (2Dropships) plays and wins 4 Matches = 96 Victory Tokens (120 minutes)

More Wins don't mean you get better chances for the "end game content achievement goal" of tagging a planet. Numbers give you more tickets. As you can see by my numbers up here less time, less Matches, less wins. still more victory tokens... why? numbers!

[Danjo San]

Another thing is Ghostdrops... add those into the equasion. "wins" ... aka tickets for the planetary lottery. It's the same deal. More Tickets = more Tokens in the pool to determine the winner.
A Unit with 2 Dropships plays 2 Matches and wins and has three Ghostdrops aka. uncontested Victories = 120 Victory Tokens
Time spent (90 minutes)
The least amount of time, the least amount of effort, just 2 real wins. Gets the Tag... why? Numbers!

[ShiftySWP and the Pleated Pants]

MischiefSC, on 16 July 2016 - 06:07 PM, said:

Players are not interchangeable. They have different things they want and enjoy, different motivations.

Units have different levels of leadership and coordination, different aptitudes for on boarding new players.

The only thing a unit cap would do, at all, is reduce total players in units. That's it.

Someone attracted to Unit A, who has friends in Unit A isn't going to join Unit Q because A is full. A can't just boot someone to make room.

It ignores the fundamentals of human behavior. We gather I to groups based on a number of factors and a big part of that is leadership and presence. Every unit doesn't have identical leadership and presence. As such populations won't distribute evenly. That will never happen.

The real fix? As much hate as this will get -

Loyalists get a 25% LP/CBill bonus over existing default pay. Mercs get absolutely no bonus. Instead they get to move around on Contracts.

Loyalists can vote to reduce their bonus by 5, 10, 15, 20, 25%. This is then goes to mercs. Mercs bid to the contract to take the bonus in part or in whole and the loyalists vote to accept. So Steiner could offer up 15% and CBR1 could take 7% and MS 8% for the length of the contract (probably 2 weeks).

So the best merc units will still get some bonus but most mercs will make way less than loyalists.

The only "bonus" to being a merc is that you can move around. THAT would help a lot. A stable population can be worked around with alliances and natural migration. The current transient one absolutely can not.

Unit caps are irrelevant aside from keeping people from playing with their friends and trying to block the natural results of leadership skills.

Such a good idea!

WHY WHY WHY wont PGI look/listen to this?!?!??!?

Derek, Andi.... GET THIS TO PGI. MAKE THEM SEE!

[justcallme A S H]

I love how this thread, like all the others, is 1-2 people annoyed with large units.

Yet everyone else has no issue, and some of them are from SMALL units.


Laughable.


And yeah KCom ain't elitists lol, hell sometimes I just stop past and talk **** with Pat for the hell of it. Great bunch of guys.
In fact most people in the community are awesome. I'm always TS hopping and forever having laughs with so many of you, it's awesome. Big units mean more activity to be found simply on a numbers scale, in a game that struggles for player base, more activity is good.

[Baulven]

Damn it all people! NOW I wish that faction warfare was in depth enough to require us to do things like buy and maintain dropships. This will never happen! You did this!

[Unendingmenace]

MischiefSC, on 16 July 2016 - 06:07 PM, said:

Players are not interchangeable. They have different things they want and enjoy, different motivations.

Units have different levels of leadership and coordination, different aptitudes for on boarding new players.

The only thing a unit cap would do, at all, is reduce total players in units. That's it.

Someone attracted to Unit A, who has friends in Unit A isn't going to join Unit Q because A is full. A can't just boot someone to make room.

It ignores the fundamentals of human behavior. We gather I to groups based on a number of factors and a big part of that is leadership and presence. Every unit doesn't have identical leadership and presence. As such populations won't distribute evenly. That will never happen.

The real fix? As much hate as this will get -

Loyalists get a 25% LP/CBill bonus over existing default pay. Mercs get absolutely no bonus. Instead they get to move around on Contracts.

Loyalists can vote to reduce their bonus by 5, 10, 15, 20, 25%. This is then goes to mercs. Mercs bid to the contract to take the bonus in part or in whole and the loyalists vote to accept. So Steiner could offer up 15% and CBR1 could take 7% and MS 8% for the length of the contract (probably 2 weeks).

So the best merc units will still get some bonus but most mercs will make way less than loyalists.

The only "bonus" to being a merc is that you can move around. THAT would help a lot. A stable population can be worked around with alliances and natural migration. The current transient one absolutely can not.

Unit caps are irrelevant aside from keeping people from playing with their friends and trying to block the natural results of leadership skills.

Someone pin this post please, this is it! Agree with you 100% on all points dude. There definitely needs to be more incentives for people to want to be Loyalist and less inherit bonuses for Mercs (Unless as you said the Loyalists vote to give them more if they need them) . The bonus of being Merc is just that.. you're a merc and can hop around.

R31Nismoid, on 17 July 2016 - 03:59 AM, said:

I love how this thread, like all the others, is 1-2 people annoyed with large units.

Yet everyone else has no issue, and some of them are from SMALL units.


Laughable.


And yeah KCom ain't elitists lol, hell sometimes I just stop past and talk **** with Pat for the hell of it. Great bunch of guys.
In fact most people in the community are awesome. I'm always TS hopping and forever having laughs with so many of you, it's awesome. Big units mean more activity to be found simply on a numbers scale, in a game that struggles for player base, more activity is good.

Man some of the BEST times have been from dropping by to different TS servers hey. Always a pleasure when you and your guys stop by, the good parts of the community are definitely one of the more enjoyable things about this game.

[Danjo San]

Community and Unit are two different entities. You are saying it for yourself, always TS hopping, going to different Units dropping with friends and having a laugh... All that can be done.
Yet when I say, cap the Units you say you want to make it that friends can't play with each other anymore... see the irony in that?
having massive groups moving in bulk is creating problems, having unlimited contracts are causing the possibility to cluster. If you can field 2-3 Dropships, even if you invest less time and effort you can get the "end game prize"
Thus limiting the max. size of a unit creates the same basis for all players.
You keep pretending and telling yourself that a unit cap would be like. Okay now I pick my best 30 friends and they are the only friends that remain, I can no longer be friends with anyone else.
"Hey Dude, can you send me an Invite to your group, I'd like to drop with you" -
"Sorry Bro, We are no longer friends... GTFO!"
"But we are on the same Teamspeak Server, my Unit has it's channel right below yours!" -
"Didn't you hear what I said, we are no longer friends, I WILL NEVER DROP WITH YOU AGAIN! you are in a different unit"
"But we play for the same faction..."
"You don't get it, do you? Different Unit-Tags mean we cant be friends!"

[Danjo San]

Small Unit A Drops with 6 Players for 12 Matches, kickstarts the Planet, drops with Pugs, coordinates wins. 6 Players with 12 Wins equal 72 Victory Points. shortly after that 2 Dropships of a large Unit drop in. Dropship 1 gets the Match Dropship 2 Ghostdrops both do that 3 Times... 72 Victory Points For the large Unit. They add one more Ghostdrop to that 84 Victory Points.
those 6 Players put in hours of work and effort, kickstarting the Planet and everything. After all that work and effort one large unit floods the queue and takes it. 12 Matches for 6 Players, mean a load of work, lots of waiting for other random pugs to show up etc. etc. The large Group just sweeps over and gets more credit for it for having 24 Players wearing the same tag. Now If those two dropships we're players from the same community, but wearing different Tags, because they are part of multiple subdivisions. Maybe the 6 Man group could have a chance of getting credit for that work and effort and time invested.
If this happens more than once do you think the 6 man group is really willing to put in the same amount of effort and time into FW when a large group can just outnumber them and buy the planet?
12 Matches mean solid 6 hours of time invested, and the large group can collect the same amount of points in 90 Minutes.
6 hours vs. 90 Minutes. How is that balanced? How is that fair? how is that "working as intended"?
It drains the incentive of players.

[MischiefSC]

Danjo San;

I get the intent. I do. However groups of people are formed around specific people with specific leadership and social skills. Those people have different drives and create environments that appeal to different people. You'll have units that appeal to different people based on that and they're not interchangeable or replaceable.

The only thing capping units will do, the only thing, is reduce the number of players in units. That's it. You'll just have more pugs and less total players in units. The current number of units would be pretty much the same, the smaller units would have the same populations, the bigger units would be smaller and we'd have more pugs.

Who would have less unit experience because the big units that train a lot of people would no longer be training a lot of people.

Since you'd have less people able to join units because units would be capped odds are really good you'd have less people playing and enjoying FW, because pugging is horrible.

Capping units isn't going to create more people with the leadership and organizational skills and personality type to create and grow units. That's not how people work. I get that you're upset that a big unit makes your small unit feel taken advantage of. I do. 22AL is a small group and HHoD is an order of magnitude bigger than us. So we never get tags even if we win a lot of matches. So what we did instead was work to integrate with them, drop together and share successes. A big group isn't there to pick on you; it's just got the people and the tools to attract, maintain and entertain a bigger group of players.

Your answer to that should not be 'make them be smaller' but 'what are they doing that I could do as well if I want to be bigger'.

Big units are a boon to FW. They exist for a reason, they are the byproduct of good choices and people having fun. Trying to 'nerf' them is nerfing good choices and people having fun.

[ccrider]

MischiefSC, on 17 July 2016 - 12:06 PM, said:

Danjo San;

I get the intent. I do. However groups of people are formed around specific people with specific leadership and social skills. Those people have different drives and create environments that appeal to different people. You'll have units that appeal to different people based on that and they're not interchangeable or replaceable.

The only thing capping units will do, the only thing, is reduce the number of players in units. That's it. You'll just have more pugs and less total players in units. The current number of units would be pretty much the same, the smaller units would have the same populations, the bigger units would be smaller and we'd have more pugs.

Who would have less unit experience because the big units that train a lot of people would no longer be training a lot of people.

Since you'd have less people able to join units because units would be capped odds are really good you'd have less people playing and enjoying FW, because pugging is horrible.

Capping units isn't going to create more people with the leadership and organizational skills and personality type to create and grow units. That's not how people work. I get that you're upset that a big unit makes your small unit feel taken advantage of. I do. 22AL is a small group and HHoD is an order of magnitude bigger than us. So we never get tags even if we win a lot of matches. So what we did instead was work to integrate with them, drop together and share successes. A big group isn't there to pick on you; it's just got the people and the tools to attract, maintain and entertain a bigger group of players.

Your answer to that should not be 'make them be smaller' but 'what are they doing that I could do as well if I want to be bigger'.

Big units are a boon to FW. They exist for a reason, they are the byproduct of good choices and people having fun. Trying to 'nerf' them is nerfing good choices and people having fun.

I wholeheartedly agree with Mischief; my unit is 1
27 strong with members all over the planet and activiy levels. Some play a lot, some every few months. Some are focused on QP, some on FP. The one thing all have in common is that they are friendly. No one ******* about a loss or another member, no one rags on mistakes, they just log in when they want, talk with friends and play some stompy robots. The good thing about the number of members is that there is always a few of us online at anytime so you can have someone to play with in FP or QP or simply talk in TS while derping around the mechlab. Viciously cutting guys who arent more FP minded would only cost me some awesome guys ghat i can hang with when i log in. Its not like 127 members allows us to flood the queues or anything. During a peak time, like an event, we may have 18 online at one time. Normally its 6-10.

[justcallme A S H]

Unendingmenace, on 17 July 2016 - 05:50 AM, said:

Man some of the BEST times have been from dropping by to different TS servers hey. Always a pleasure when you and your guys stop by, the good parts of the community are definitely one of the more enjoyable things about this game.

Yeah for sure, especially the aussie style of gaming whilst heavily under the influence... Makes for some hilarity

Danjo San, on 17 July 2016 - 07:16 AM, said:

Community and Unit are two different entities. You are saying it for yourself, always TS hopping, going to different Units dropping with friends and having a laugh... All that can be done.
Yet when I say, cap the Units you say you want to make it that friends can't play with each other anymore... see the irony in that?

There is no irony.

There is only alienation.

You force people to split up their larger units/communities that will be the nail in the coffin for some of them. Some people prefer a larger community/unit and share the one tag, some do not.

To alienate one specific group because you were upset that one time a larger unit tagged a planet for 15MC... Back to reality please.

[Armando]

Danjo San, on 17 July 2016 - 01:58 AM, said:

So you are saying that a 1 man Unit that wins every match gets the tag on the Planet, or ist it the large Unit that can field 2 Dropships and loses half of their Matches and wins the other half? Same amount of Matches played. More Tickets = Higher Chance of Taking the planet.
The 1 man plays and wins 12 Matches = 12 Victory Tokens (360 minutes)
The 12 Man plays 12 Matches and wins 6 = 72 Victory Tokens (360 minutes)
A Four man group plays and wins 12 Matches = 48 Victory Tokens (360 minutes)
the 24 Group (2Dropships) plays and wins 4 Matches = 96 Victory Tokens (120 minutes)

More Wins don't mean you get better chances for the "end game content achievement goal" of tagging a planet. Numbers give you more tickets. As you can see by my numbers up here less time, less Matches, less wins. still more victory tokens... why? numbers!

What part of 'win 4x more games' as an individual, than the best unit in Liao' didn't you get? Once you get your mind around that....then realize that I'm not sporting the best W/L ratio in my unit (we have a guy who has 304 matches played, 279 wins = 11.16 W/L ratio; which is over x5 greater than the best unit in Liao)

Let me put this another way:

What do you think happens to the W/L ratio of -MS- if -MS- were forced to 'trim the fat' back to only 36 members? (Hint: -MS- W/L will go up).

Lets take a look at 36 -MS- pilots and add up their stats:



11,553 Wins....[-MS-] with only 36 Pilots STILL tops the leaderboards in total wins.

In short: You plan will have ZERO effect on the Leaderboards. [-MS-] tops the leaderboards because when we play we win....and we play A LOT. Reducing the total number of members only increases our W/L ratio, it does NOTHING to change our place on the charts.

As for "Tags"....hate to break it to you, but ALL merc units lose 'tags' on all planets each time they take a new contract....right now [-MS-] has ZERO tags on ANY planet.

Edited by Armando, 17 July 2016 - 05:00 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Armando, on 17 July 2016 - 04:45 PM, said:

What part of 'win 4x more games' as an individual, than the best unit in Liao' didn't you get? Once you get your mind around that....then realize that I'm not sporting the best W/L ratio in my unit (we have a guy who has 304 matches played, 279 wins = 11.16 W/L ratio; which is over x5 greater than the best unit in Liao)

Let me put this another way:

What do you think happens to the W/L ratio of -MS- if -MS- were forced to 'trim the fat' back to only 36 members? (Hint: -MS- W/L will go up).

Lets take a look at 36 -MS- pilots and add up their stats:



11,553 Wins....[-MS-] with only 36 Pilots STILL tops the leaderboards.

In short: You plan will have ZERO effect on the Leaderboards. [-MS-] tops the leaderboards because when we play we win....and we play A LOT. Reducing the total number of members only increases our W/L ratio, it does NOTHING to change our place on the charts.

It would be disingenuous to say it wouldn't have an impact -

All those players who got cut out wouldn't get to play with and train with the others as easily, most would not enjoy the game as much. It's not like they would magically generate the leadership skills to create and run the units themselves so most would either not join a unit or quit.

So it would have an impact. Less people would be having fun and the total population would almost certainly decline. It would have no positive impact on the FW map though. Just negatives to the player experience.

[Armando]

MischiefSC, on 17 July 2016 - 04:49 PM, said:

It would be disingenuous to say it wouldn't have an impact -

All those players who got cut out wouldn't get to play with and train with the others as easily, most would not enjoy the game as much. It's not like they would magically generate the leadership skills to create and run the units themselves so most would either not join a unit or quit.

So it would have an impact. Less people would be having fun and the total population would almost certainly decline. It would have no positive impact on the FW map though. Just negatives to the player experience.

I didn't mean to say there wouldn't be an impact.....just that there wouldn't be an impact to the top spot on the leaderboards.

If PGI were to follow though on Danjo San's plan, and every unit with more than 36 pilots were forced to split up into 'splinter units' the impact would be the death of the game. Like for REAL dead....a dead that makes the current faction warfare landscape look like WoW in it's hayday kind of dead.

As for impact to the leaderboards there would be ONE major difference....6-12 units who are listed in the top 20 would be knocked out of the top 20 replaced with [-MS-] / [228] 'splinter units'.

Edited by Armando, 17 July 2016 - 05:17 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Armando, on 17 July 2016 - 05:05 PM, said:

I didn't mean to say there wouldn't be an impact.....just that there wouldn't be an impact to the top spot on the leaderboards.

If PGI were to follow though on Danjo San's plan, and every unit with more than 36 pilots were forced to split up into 'splinter units' the impact would be the death of the game. Like for REAL dead....a dead that makes the current faction warfare landscape look like WoW in it's hayday kind of dead.

As for impact to the leaderboards there would be ONE major difference....6-12 units who are listed in the top 20 would be knocked out of the top 20 replaced with [-MS-] / [228] 'splinter units'.

Pretty much. Teams are built around leaders - not just groups of players not already in a team. There are different approaches to leadership and different team environments that appeal to different people. Most teams are, at heart, really built around 1-4 people that if they left or were not involved the team wouldn't really work.

Limiting teams to 36 players would just kill units. We'd have the exact same number of units we do now, possibly a bit less - they'd just have way less players. We'd have pugs and people who quit otherwise.

We are not play-dough. You can't just pull pieces out of one pile and mush them up and make a new equal sized pile. Human social dynamic is a bit more complex than that.

[Carl Vickers]

The only and I mean only way limiting unit numbers would have worked is from the start of FW, the boat has well and truly sailed on that.

Even then it would have worked if it was set to something like 108 people.

[Tarl Cabot]

Carl Vickers, on 17 July 2016 - 05:47 PM, said:

The only and I mean only way limiting unit numbers would have worked is from the start of FW, the boat has well and truly sailed on that.

Even then it would have worked if it was set to something like 108 people.

Yeap - Regimental size