869 replies to this topic

[red kettle]

Intro

I separate the FP playerbase into 4 groups based on performance in matches. See below for their descriptions. Some parts of the FP framework appeal to highly competitive players only (my groups 1 and 2 below), but it also has elements that can suggest PGI is interested in participation from the whole playerbase.

1-All-Stars - Always do 3000 damage, regardless of enemy or map. Only need 3-5 to win against most teams.
2-Good Players - Can put up 3000 damage games, but struggle vs enemy teams of all-stars.
3-Casuals - Can be solid contributors, sometimes specialize in certain roles. Will not carry match by themselves.
4-Ultra Casuals - Under-perform due to poor computer hardware, motorskills, lack of experience or lack of correct mechs


My Question:

Does PGI want the future of Faction Play to appeal to only highly competitive players (groups 1,2 above), or are they interested in appealing to other portions of the playerbase (groups 3,4 above)?

My thoughts would be different based on how PGI answers this, and I feel like the latest statements from PGI and the latest changes to the game mode (leaderboard addition, less attack planets, etc.) suggest this mode is being created for the highly competitive players only.


Suggestions (appealing to non-competitive populations):

Easily identifiable Drop Callers (outside of matches)
Coming from a unit (NTEX) that is comprised mainly of my groups 2,3,4 above, the single most important factor I have seen in getting non group 1 people to participate in FP is having a dropcaller. Expand social tools to let team players identify Dropcallers outside of games. Something like an opt-in system where anyone "tagged" as a drop caller is always listed in LFG, or they get a special color to their name in faction chat, etc. Bonus points for helping drop callers communicate strategy before or during team formation.

Different Objectives/Gameplay settings
Secondary objectives (that have an effect on game) would help give the less capable shooters some way to contribute beyond being a meatshield for rest of team. Generators are great first step, please expand idea (assemble mobile repair base, ability to move spawns closer, build some destructible seismic sensor/UAV towers, repairable turrets, generators that control long tom, etc.)! Find a way to give a sense of progress for those unwinnable matches. Bonus points if objectives can be reset by enemies.

Different tonnage limits to encourage specialized role contribution. Scouting mode was great addition, but it would also be nice to have variations in planet dropdeck weights. (Who does not want to see 4 waves of atlas rush vs 4 waves of kodiak rush!?!?!). With variable tonnage limits you should increase number of attack/defend planets, to allow teams to choose what kind of fight they want.

More to do during The Wait
Help people stay excited while waiting for a match. Being able to socialize (in chatboxes) during wait is great, but we need even more to do, mini-games for small amounts of c-bills, visible info (enemy numbers, scouting progress, etc.), access to mechlab, etc.


Suggestions (appealing to the highly competitive players):

Reduce "Buckets"
I think PGI has done a great job appealing to comp players, but the biggest issue is the gameplay framework is for a much larger population than the actual competitive player scene. Make an expandable framework, but start with it set for a much smaller population than what is currently there (less factions, less attack/defend planets, smaller teams needed to drop (maybe 8v8).

Keep it Exclusive
The original move of separating out non-unit players was correct, and should be re-implemented. Make more restrictions to entry as well (own X mechs, earn X Achievements, etc.)

Individual Accolades (opportunities to brag)
Give more recognition/rewards for personal achievements at end of match (MVP, highest kills, most damage or KMDD, etc.).
Give more recognition/rewards for personal career achievements (FP oriented 'Achievements' beyond LP/MP, rewards for leaderboard leaders, etc.).


Plenty more suggestions for either direction, hopefully the town hall can clarify what direction PGI wants to go!

[Weagles]

Long Toms are cool as is, just require a steep learning curve. To learn could we have Long Tom be a toggle feature in private matches so people can practice tactics to defend and attack with them?

[Bud Crue]

I'm so tired of expounding on what I think CW needs, but for the sake of giving this "round table" the benefit of the doubt I have just a couple of changes that I would like to see (the "doubt" being that I think this is a PR stunt and that NOTHING we suggest here will be considered or incorporated unless Russ et al already have it in the queue):

If you are unwilling to eliminate long tom (which based on the perpetual nerfing of it I assume is the case) put the actual gun in the game so that players can develop tactics to take it out. We need an in game way of countering it. Otherwise it isn't long tom, its a orbital nuke.

Add descriptions for the planets. Make more maps to correspond to those descriptions.

Make factions matter. Give each faction a couple of positives and a couple of negatives with real in game consequences then balance those against one another so that players have real consequences when they choose one (e.g. Steiner loyalists get +10 percent c-bills, -10% loyalty points, and get 20 extra tons for their dropdeck, no xp bonus for designated loyalty mechs based on lore; Lao loyalists get -10% cbills, +10% loyalty points, tonnage is neutral, get 20% xp bonus for designated loyalty mechs...THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE TO ILLUSTRATE A MEANS OF GIVING FACTIONS A FLAVOR).

Mercs should be rewarded with cbills (I think the current rewards tree is fine and could stay or go with this), when they win they should get A LOT of cbills and when they lose they should get zip (and lose points from their reputation tree assuming it remains)

To make scouting mechs more useful make the maps bigger and with more ways to approach the base (I am assuming that we are stuck with the base attack/defend aspect...it would be great if this was added to with other goals but I digress).

Make planetary rewards matter, and make them unique...more important/core world planets should be harder to take (regardless of actual player contribution) and should have greater rewards than other planets.

Remove the unit tax mechanism. It is absurd to me that a mechanism was inserted into the CW mode that is designed to punish people for getting together (forming a unit) and playing the game. That right there is reason enough for some to have stopped playing regardless if their unit can afford to bring in recruits or not.

Speaking of recruits we need a lobby and a mechanism for interacting with one another so that we can actually recruit.

That's enough for now. My tldr summary is please make CW have mechanisms that make factions unique and motivate players to be engaged.

[Weagles]

In Faction Warfare it is rare for Long Toms to be available in IS vs IS and Clan vs Clan battles. The mechs are balanced in these cases. IS vs Clan normal condition is Long Toms for clans.

Instead of nerfing Clans could at the end of the match the amount of intel gathered by clans gets halved and rounded down for moving the balance?

Clans would have to win twice as much to get to Long Toms and this should reduce the frequency in which they obtain it.

Edited by Weagles, 23 July 2016 - 08:37 AM.

[MovinTarget]

Bud Crue, on 23 July 2016 - 07:19 AM, said:

Remove the unit tax mechanism. It is absurd to me that a mechanism was inserted into the CW mode that is designed to punish people for getting together (forming a unit) and playing the game. That right there is reason enough for some to have stopped playing regardless if their unit can afford to bring in recruits or not.

This mechanism penalizes units that have (large) contingents of players that don't even drop in FP nor care about FP. There are units that have divisions for various comp leagues. We all share the same tag with pride.

[Weagles]

Can we have Long Tom light Consumables?

Treat like an arty or air strike but instead of targeting where the purple smoke occurs the smoke is placed at the feet of the mech that called it. Being a light version the blast radius is halved and the damage is quartered.

[MovinTarget]

Weagles, on 23 July 2016 - 07:26 AM, said:

Can we vote for alliances?

Too many opponents for some factions means limited or no options for other factions, time of day dependent. Loyalists and Mercs get contracts for dry drops on some fronts. Waits are long and the action is limited.

Alliances condense the factions cutting the number in half while still retaining loyalty benefits.

The setup for Faction Warfare is rich and expansive. It is for a larger player base. To keep the existing structure and concepts we need an addition to the voting function. In addition to voting for hostilities there should be a second vote, which faction to be Allies with. IS can only choose IS for alliances, Clan can only choose other clans for allies.

This.

Though I would vote that we have "wacky weekends" where alliances are not limited to tech. Have IS and Clan alliances for the lulz, but perhaps not as a constant option.

[Weagles]

Can we more faction maps?

[C E Dwyer]

Assuming a complete redesign is out the question, I strongly suggest the following.

Only Loyalist units of ten or more players get to vote on which faction to attack, generals and monarchs make choices not a pair of rich brothers owning a few mechs.

Once the faction is chosen there is a further vote on which attack lane (planet) gets picked out of a choice of three all Loyalists get to vote on this.

Scouting
The progress bar starts in favour of the defended planet, the whole idea of scouting is to look for weak spots, and exploit them. defenders know where everything is, why are they scouting their own planet sorry but this never made sense.

Only surviving mechs of the information gathering side (attack) scouting points are used.

Scouting is supposed to be just that, scouting, not gathering up to knock the hell out of each other, this slows down the progression of the bar, it also reduces frustration of defenders that have the match end in a loss, because one ecm light makes it to the box, and instantly wins, when the defenders were on top.

Planet capture has to be a lot slower, and much harder. increase segments for all planets, double that for regional capitals, quadruple for faction Capitals. Turkeyaid levels for Captials, they should be attackible, but virtually impossible to take.

Because it is much harder, there should be better rewards, and those rewards should effect all people, not just those putting in effort of fighting out the planet.

C-bill costs of mechs and parts should go up, and down, depending on which planets are taken, if the planet was a mech producing one in lore, and its lost, prices for the people that took it ( the faction) go down, losing it (faction)prices go up.

Works for any item that can be purchased with C-bills.

Winning a planet should be hard work and take effort, currently its far far to easy.

Attack rotation if your defending against a planet you should be defending it, not off attacking another, same goes for offensives, yes i'm fully aware that counter offensive, is often used to blunt an offensive, but this is a game with a low population and some area's must be abstract.

Using Jade Falcon and Lyran Commonwealth as examples.

Clans are invading Jade Falcon obviously starts off on the offensive.

It attacks planet A for a specified time period of days I'll pull out my backside 3 days as a pure example.not three cycles in an R.L day.

If it manages to take that planet, it stays on the offensive Attacking planet B then C and D should it maintain the initiative.

Should however planet A not be taken it withdraws from that planet for any abstract reason you chose, Casualties, lack of spares, Run out of toilet paper, the I Khans mother to him its time for bed ! anything goes.

It then becomes the Lyran Commonwealths chance to go on the offensive. they attack planet 1 under the same conditions then possibly planet 2,3,4 or maybe they don't take 1 and the Jade Falcons have regrouped, or the I Khan is playing truant from school again the reason is abstract, it doesn't matter.

In this case yes the Lyrans could also be defending planets against Draconis Combine, and Free Worlds League, but they only have one attack lane chosen by the small -large units, and which planet by the singles and micro units as well.

Rewards

It must be something that can only be found in F.W if you can buy it for credits or M.C in other sections or there is no Hook or drive.

Decals and Camo yes its a new thing just out, but this is something i've been saying F.W needs from the first day of it becoming a reality.

You get the kill shot on say 200 Adders you get a small and tasteful note, small and tasteful dacel of a dead well yup, I'm Mr obvious, Dead Adder.

You've fought 100 Battles in the defence of the Planet Coventry, and it hasn't fallen you get again, small tasteful see those two words small tasteful, Decal stating the fact, or a slight variation of a camo pattern or a colour that can only be awarded for taking part in actions for certain conditions.

Yes really 200 and 100 respectively these things should be hard to get and only after lots of dedication, I have an event banner because the unit I joined after the event won it, and that's plain wrong, you don't put in the hours you shouldn't get.

Merc's

Who in hell is going to hire Merc's if they keep swapping sides every two weeks, its stupid and the original time periods should have been stuck to, but to many merc units cried tears because they wanted short contracts to make it easier to game the system, and sadly P.G.I obliged.

Minimum contract should be one month, three if the merc unit wants to be getting decals for hitting more than kill targets.
suggested decals laurels of varying colours for taking of defending planets, and higher pay levels by the houses.

The Eridani are Merc, they were awarded a planet in the Federated Suns and are virtually a house unit, all the powerful highly regarded units are on long term contracts and rarely move house, once settled.

Solo folks well..kill Decals and Solaris

Ah

Long Tom, must be neutered hard, if it is to remain a thing, talking longer gaps, and far far less damage, which falls inside an area half its current size, in a pattern similar to arty strikes so there are gaps, and doing 50-100% of an arty strike.

Satellite sweeps, keep but they only cover 25%-50% of the map each sweep, and none know which section

Edited by Cathy, 23 July 2016 - 07:42 AM.

[Weagles]

Can we have a drop commander 13th position which sees the battle map not the battle field?

Their role is to direct the lances and can call two orbital sweeps and 1 targeted orbital strike per match. A future feature would be to have a drop commander skill tree. The map they see is the B map with the information that each of their team's mechs see.

[Tarl Cabot]

Posted this in another thread but why LT for just one side? Scouting is collecting intel, not harassing nor attacking LT installations

Quote

Primary Option - LT used by both only when either side owns 6-8 sectors, regardless of Scout percentage. Overall damage should still be reduced even more.


Scout Mode 90% +

Sub-option 1 - LT firing differential - one side fires 1st and fires 2 LT for every 1 LT of the enemy. LT fired off @ 2 min/4 min mark then their opponent fires their LT @6min mark, rinse and repeat.

Sub-option 2 - Extends LT usage from 6-8 owned sectors to 5-9 sectors.

Sub-option 3 - Reduces LT usage from 6-8 owned sectors to 7-8 or 6-7 owned sectors

With the 6-8 own sectors mentioned in the previous post, sub-option 1 would be the secondary best option. With scouting, that intel collected and shifted through would mean missions that force some of the LT batteries to move, reducing the amount of incoming fire, while for the other side it would mean more active LTs.

The above would be a better usage of the LT, forcing both sides to slug through out during that period. For either side the LT does not become a one-sided affair where players will go elsewhere, whether or not their faction controls the majority of the planet or not.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 23 July 2016 - 07:44 AM.

[Weagles]

Terrastras Rex, on 23 July 2016 - 04:36 AM, said:

This is my FEEDBACK as a FP player, no flaming please.

Rewards
-Solo players don't get any reward for playing FP. They earn more CBills in QP.
-Give everyone 1mc per loss, 2mc per win.

The MC reward for playing invasion with a match score of >100 may induce more players.

[Marquis De Lafayette]

Pretty much everything Jman5 and R31Nimoid said.

Also, a couple of thoughts:

- contract penalty system isn't really working to push people to lower population factions. The "rich" (in population) factions get richer as mercs pile in (just to get drops). There probably needs to be a faction cap on Merc contracts offered. A cap would also give maybe the only advantage you could to being in a smaller unit.. Meaning that you could more easily find work...

I.e... A nearly full faction might not desire or be able to afford to bring on yet another 300 member merc unit when they already have so many on the payroll. It's unrealistic and causes population imbalance to have unlimited jobs available for mercs in single factions.

If this was combined with the bonuses/penalties of then current contract system, units and solos might be tempted to get more creative (vs just going to 1 or 2 big factions) and find a way to work for the lower population factions.

- I do like the idea (mentioned elsewhere) of getting some insignificant mc for playing FW. I mean at 1 or 2 mc an invasion match you would have to play a ton just to get a mechbay. It would take forever (in terms of number of games), but it would still motivate me. Give some sort of continual motivation to both old and new players to show up and drop. Something more than exists today, it doesn't have to be large enough to cost PGI revenue. Just something more to keep us coming back. The supply caches are a nice idea...But so far I have spent mc to get a items of less value than I would get in a single FW drop. Maybe I will hit something worthwhile eventually.

Even with this supply cache incentive it would be better to play QP... Just to get more matches (FW invasion matches take longer to play and have longer wait times)!and increase ones odds of getting one. We need something that makes the time and effort of FW worth it for those not getting planet tags (not part of bigger units)

[Kodiak Jorgensson]

Suggestion for Russ to consider.

Quick play (QP) should be a casual queue with 2-4 man teams only. My suggestions is this- Remove Large groups from QP reduce it to 4 man group sizes. We tried a Solo only queue for CW which was removed the following week, so why don’t we try 4 man teams only for Quick play to try encourage the larger groups to move into CW where they are needed?

[Colonel ONeill]

red kettle, on 23 July 2016 - 07:19 AM, said:

Does PGI want the future of Faction Play to appeal to only highly competitive players (groups 1,2 above), or are they interested in appealing to other portions of the playerbase (groups 3,4 above)?

Really good question and detailed post! I talked to some good players (clearly group 1) and most of them are not really intrested in CW right now. There are mixed reasons for that. But you can clearly see that not even during CW events the units with the best players get really active.
I think they aim for groups 2 and 3. But I would really like to have that answered by PGI!
I always thought that CW was designed as some kind of endgame mode, not a farming place for fresh accounts or casuals.
Keep me updated if you get a answer...

[Weagles]

Can faction loyalty earned after achieving max rank in a faction be applied as General Faction Points to other factions?

The loyalty medalions had that ability and this way you can stay in a faction and still get the rewards from other factions.

Edited by Weagles, 23 July 2016 - 08:14 AM.

[Weagles]

Can we reduce scouting countdown to 5 minutes with an immediate call to arms?

[Wintersdark]

Weagles, on 23 July 2016 - 07:19 AM, said:

Long Toms are cool as is, just require a steep learning curve. To learn could we have Long Tom be a toggle feature in private matches so people can practice tactics to defend and attack with them?

You really think people just need to "learn to play"? It's not that people don't understand them. Maybe you don't mind them, but as soon as the Long Tom goes live, people stop playing. It's not a lack of education, it's just ***king stupid.

I said it earlier: If players dislike a mechanic so much that they stop playing rather than deal with it, that mechanic is broken and needs to go.

[Weagles]

Can we vote for alliances?

Too many opponents for some factions means limited or no options for other factions, time of day dependent. Loyalists and Mercs get contracts for dry drops on some fronts. Waits are long and the action is limited.

Alliances condense the factions cutting the number in half while still retaining loyalty benefits.

The setup for Faction Warfare is rich and expansive. It is for a larger player base. To keep the existing structure and concepts we need an addition to the voting function. In addition to voting for hostilities there should be a second vote, which faction to be Allies with. IS can only choose IS for alliances, Clan can only choose other clans for allies.

The list of planets that result after voting is limited to:

The attack planet against the faction your faction voted hostilities against.
The attack planet against the faction your Ally voted hostilities against.
Defend any of your faction’s planets against factions that voted hostilities against your faction.
Defend any of your Ally’s planets against factions that voted hostilities against your Ally.

Every faction gets two attack planets and the possibility of multiple defends. Depending on who you ally with your choices could include IS vs. IS, Clan vs. Clan, and/or IS vs. Clan. The automatic defend IS vs. Clan options would be eliminated from all lists.

You can not Ally with any faction that voted hostilities against yours.

If your first choice is hostile then check the second until you find one that is not hostile. If all are hostile then your faction has plenty of battle options and does not need an Ally.

Ceasefire resolution is simple.

With alliances when ceasefire happens successful attacks are assigned to the faction that voted for the hostilities. The unit tag goes to the unit that had the most votes even if they are an Ally unit.

Unit tagged planets and contract changes:

Units could have tags in more than one faction. If the unit leaves their current faction they loose all planets except for the planets they have in the faction they join.

[Major0103]

Invasion-scouting: I think that one grand pool of intel points for a planet, soon leading to a 'Long-o-Tomy' (and auto-win...) is very discouraging. However, I like the idea of a certain unpredictable element, cause FW matches feel kind of repetitive to me. My idea is following: let a single scouting match decide on a single event of LT (possibly seriously nerfed) or satellite sweep, i.e. every few minutes in the invasion match the attackers OR defenders are reinforced with one or the other, depending on the outcome of a single scouting match. Win scouting with e.g. more than 10 (or 15?) intel points -> your side gets single LT, win with less than 10 (15), your faction gets a satellite sweep. This should bring in the emotions PGI has shown in the trailer, cause now every single scouting match matters. Also, dominating scouting can help, but it cannot autowin a planet and blocking the intel points by defenders has more meaning than currently, cause it prevents LT.