869 replies to this topic

[iLLcapitan]

I'll try to join the discussion on Thursday.

As mentioned earlier, I hope the moderation is competent and we won't get to hear 500 different change proposals.
Like the first post in this threat, we cannot discuss stuff like module sales, when the utter failure of CW is neigh.

I'd like to see people who actually play the gamemode discuss the obvious topics and come to agreements.

[Khan Felix Pryde]

2 cents from everybody! Yay! After 17 pages, any developers reading this might be tired. But here are some idea's not just to keep CW alive, but actually to make it the preferred game mode, as I believe it could and should be. These changes might take years to develop but it will restore health to this game mode.

1) Communication with other factions, even enemies contact each other in a time of war, and we are merely players in a game. Let us talk to each other, coordinate games, ect.

2) LORE, LORE, LORE. Many players play CW because they love the lore, not the game mechanics. A simple but effective solution would be faction specific advantages and disadvantages, and I'm not talking about payout. As a player grows into the uniqueness of a faction they won't be as likely to abandon it. I only play MWO because of Battletech, and the more of it you incorporate into your game the more players will care about your game.

3) increase the loyalist population. Many of the issues of faction balance can be fixed if you keep the current system of penalizing players who switch factions while making being a loyalist more rewarding than being a merc. As it is right now, being a merc is far more rewarding, after all, you can be an IS or Clan mech and move around wherever the matches are. The rest of us are wishing we had been mercs because we can't get games.

3) Not all matches need to have bases, or 4 mechs. If you incorporate skirmish and the NEW assault game mode into CW, and increase the rewards for playing those modes in CW instead of QP then your population problems will dissolve.

4) mechs are not content increases. I know they are a fantastic source of revenue, but why do people play games after they get old? Their replayability, right? To keep MWO fresh things need to be added so that the game is always fresh and exiting to the old players as well as the new.

5) stop resetting CW, you are making all our hard work dissolve with an update. The map resets killed every clan faction except the falcons.

That's all I've got, others have wonderful ideas as well I just wanted to spew my piece. Its worth noting that in FP alpha, my unit of loyalists (JFP) had more CJF tags than anyone else. Now myself, a lower ranking member of the unit has the highest playtime of anyone left with that tag. And I'm pages and pages down on the list. These players are not gone for good, just waiting for something fun and fresh once again. Please invest heavily in big decisions and drastic changes to this game, before its too late.

[DebaucheryNShenanigans]

JUST ADD INCENTIVE (winnings for a LOSS)

FOR LOSING a match.....
at the mo, its ZERO...
so why show if your gonna get stomped.

p.s. LT kills queues. its horrible for that fact alone.

AGREE that loyalists should get TRIPLE the rewards.

Edited by AmmoChauffeur, 24 July 2016 - 11:57 PM.

[feeWAIVER]

One Suggestion:

Stop Running Quick play Events, and start running weekly FP Events.

[K O N D O]

MovinTarget, on 24 July 2016 - 06:57 PM, said:

I would have no problem with a system that allows a unit to be as large as it wants, yet prevents them from being over powered.

I can't recall the last time I saw 228 drop 2 full 12 man's simultaneously... and yet because we happen to have almost 200 players, people have assumed we are trying to wreck FP for everyone else, when more often than not we usually try to get on the lower populated side of an active front so that we can get games and not sit in queue..........

This is the exact system I was proposing back on page 5.
A system that eliminates the stacking of large Units to a single faction and evens out the player base across all factions.
Get the player base allocation system correct to build the foundations for FP. Then you can start tweaking it with other options to improve game play.

http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__5307306

[Wibbledtodeath]

1) CW would be better if it included all game modes (albeit potentially with dropdecks added). Certainly it needs a lot more variety.
2) Allied factions should be in one pool/bucket, able to group etc. PGI can change alliances (or loyalists can) to better balance numbers. Still retains loyalties/banners/colours etc.
Still retains potential for clan vs clan, IS vs IS.
3) More flexibility in numbers so matchmaker can utilise (for example) 9v9 if a full 12v12 is not in queue.
4) faction distinctions- preferably via mech buffs (skills/modules/quirks/pick any other significant buff only apply to mechs of your faction in cw) to encourage, but not force, lore appropriate mechs in a given faction.
5) Variable tonnage in scouting mode.
6) More obtainable planets/territories so smaller units can contribute.

But if I were the holder of an awesome mech game licence- I would add mech repair/salvage/attrition mode to solo play that also involves capturing planets (mech damage reset at the end of a campaign/planet capture).

Edited by Wibbledtodeath, 25 July 2016 - 02:29 AM.

[D A T A]

The problems of CW that need to be addressed are, in order of importance:

I) STABILITY OF PLANETS ACHIEVED: this planet is mine ad i play cw cause have something to defend or gain.

1) Cease fire must be each 12 hours: no one loves to see his planet stolen when he was sleeping, almost no corps can cover mwo for 24 hours straight everyday, and drop each 8 hours: people have to sleep, eat, go to job, on vacation etc etc etc....

2) "tag change as a successfull defence" must be reviewed: no one likes to see his tag stolen because a couple of pugs did 1 winning drop on a "ghost attack phase". Example: my squad drops 50 tags in defence and, at the end of cease fire, we take the tag in defence.
After cease fire we go to bed. Some pugs attack again the planet and other pugs of our faction defend and win.
In these 8 hours there is only that fight: the pugs have dropped 2-3 tags in defence and stole our planet: this **** can not happen: the tag must not change unless more than (let's say) 25 tags of the same corporation have been dropped.

3) additional quadrants that have been payed in c bills must remain until the tag changes.

4) pay 20 millions c bills to place 6 additional turrets near omega, each one with 2 streak 6

5) pay 10 million c bills to reposition existing turrets

6) the minimum defensive tags needed to planet tag swich get increased by 5 for each of these upgrades.


II) INTERFACE



1) tutorial on how to use that super complicated and bugged interface: it is completely not accessible by non tier 1 players: you have to point a watever component of the interface and down below there must be a dedicate place in which it explains what the thing you clic means.

2) if i clic the third mech of drop deck and than clic EDIT, it means i want to change the third mech of the drop deck only, not the first.

3) Possibility to save the drop decks (at least 6)



III) BROKEN GAME MECHANICS



1) Long tom arty is a abomination: we do not play this game to get one shotted each 2 mins. REMOVE THIS ABOMINATION: the only effect it has is that when there is tom tom on a planet EVERYONE LEAVES CW AND GOES IN NORMAL DROP MODE, NICE JOB DUDES: long tom killes community warfare, your playerbase and your income.

2) Rank 3 scouting mission: add more turrets or shut down existing turrets depending on who takes it, put this instead of tom tom abomination.

3) counter attack rules are a nonsense: the defensive team camps inside the spawn.
Omega truck must work as a domination beacon if destroyed, but only with 33% range: this way the defender will not be able to spawn camp from the start, otherwise the attacker will just sit near omega for 120 seconds and win. (yes, move it to 120 seconds)

4) people reach 98-100 if scout intel, get max bonus than leave scouting: this way enemies can not take them back cause no one waits 10 mins for a scout ghost.

ghost drop time in scouting missions changed from 10 mins to 3 mins.

5) boost the loyalty points gain and merc reputation gain by at least 20%, we used to go with monthly contracts before with 30% bonus, now we are at 0%

6) 1 planet for each attack phase is not enough for big corps: people must vote for 3 planet consequently: if the first touches 100% you can start dropping on the second and than on the third, but all 3 must me near to your territory.

7) scouting missions during the cw time are an abomination: the scouting missions must be available only in the first 3 hours of the cw phase (with phases of 12 hours) , so they stop dragging people out from normal queue.



IV) TERRIBAD MAP DESIGN


1) review the entrances: make them larger and remove the possibility for the defending team to camp on the doors with ac20 srm and just sit and wait until you go in: no one loves do be forced to suicide pushing in against firing lines. Main problem from attacker point of view is on sulfurus right gate, hellebore right gate, vitric right gate.)

2) take 10 min to design some factory texture and meshes: the cap points in scouting mode should be small buildings, not those stupid lamps on the floor. at east put some destroyed vehicles or, EVEN BETTER, SOME RUNNING CONVOYS THAT YOU HAVE TO ATTACK, SO IT BECOMES AN ASSAULT THE CONVOY MISSION.

3) move the gens behind omega on all the maps, not right and left side, and make so it is not possible to shoot them from outside like on emerald.
Worst gen placement is on emerald, vitric.

Best gen placement is on hellebore, boreal

Edited by IL MECHWARRIOR, 25 July 2016 - 01:42 AM.

[50 50]

Lots of ideas being listed, good to see... and Faction Play is a big monster to tackle. There are so many aspects to it that it's a little hard to see where to start and what to comment on as there are a lot of good points.
However, many of these points refer to add on features that do not address the actual game play and I really believe there needs to be a shift in ideology about what Faction Play is.

The biggest problem, as I see it, is that:

• Faction Play is thought of as 'matches'. A 30 minute (or less) match gives us the wrong mindset for a mode that really should be a battle of different proportions.

There is also a lack of consistency in the different aspects of Faction Play that does not help tie things together. Invasions are by sector, scouting is global, voting is galactic and planetary defences are by unit etc. While it seems that the current structure could continue with separate scouting, invasion and possibly adding in some other mode, I cannot see how it would help stop the mode from further splitting the population and just being a rush to repeat the same activity over and over.

The best option I believe is overhaul the mode into continuous play, look at it on a different scale and combine the different modes. If I look at the different parts of MWO I can see all these different aspects that if we brought them together in Faction Play, it would do so much for the mode.
The short version:

• Redesign and enlarge the Faction Play maps to allow for a combination of conquest, assault, domination, scouting and invasion features in a continual battle using the drop decks as way to control resources.

To elaborate a bit more:

Spoiler

• Either create brand new huge maps, or work out how to combine all the maps of the same tile set so we can traverse between them.
  
  What would this do? It will allow more objectives, different tactics and strategies to be used. I would actually suggest at this stage that a single really big map that can have randomly placed objectives (bases, orbital cannon, radar dish etc) would be the way to go.

2. Divide each planet up into three zones which match the prime playing times for the three servers and remain open for an attack phase for that zone. This effectively replaces the 15 sectors.

Why would this help? It doesn’t stop players from jumping into a battle in a different timezone, but it would give the players in that region more incentive and responsibility in their zone. This would have flow on effects if we think about alliances between units and how we might preserve the efforts of players in one zone while another is active. It also means that the taking of a planet is a world wide player effort.

3. Do not restrict the minimum number of players required to start a battle. If we are stuck with the 12 v 12 limit, then let’s work with that as the maximum on one side at a time, but if a single player wants to drop into a zone where no one else is, they can.

But why? Because it removes wait times and if one person starts others tend to follow. If we also consider the next point it fits in with the different structure. It also means that if there is not a lot of players participating at a certain point in time, the battles can still go on.

4. Allow players to drop in and out of the battles using retreat and reinforcement concepts.

Because? This allows players to rotate through the same battle and feel like they have contributed to the efforts in that zone. It means that even if there are less players on, the battle can still be fought and change dynamically.

5. Take the aspects of conquest, domination, assault, invasion and scouting and combine them on these larger maps. Change the purpose of the capture points to more tangible and tactical objectives that fit in with the larger scale battle.

What does that mean? If on a large map we have conquest points placed around as drop/deployment zones that can be captured, we create fronts in the battle to fight over for territorial control. Larger points such as the bases from Assault, the radar dish from Domination and the orbital cannon from Invasion create large objectives which when controlled provide the team with certain benefits. If these points and objectives can be randomly located (within a certain number of variations) and hidden from an attacking team under a fog of war, suddenly scouting is a different ball game.

I would like to add at this point that I would like to see the all the effects and assets we currently have get used, so specifically for scouting I would suggest that the intel points become an item that can be deployed from a mech as a portable listening post of sorts. Once deployed that have a radar range that will detect enemy mechs and share that information to friendlies within range generating a point of intel for each second the target is tracked. (Or something like that). You can disable an enemy intel point just as we capture them now and the points gathered create a resource pool that we can use in the battle.

6. Use the drop deck as a way to create attrition for a side, introduce a logistics element and add a repair/rearm function.

At the moment it is too easy to drop into battle, get your 4 mechs blown to bits, shrug your shoulders and simply drop again into another battle. Rinse and repeat. With the above suggestion of having a continuous battle, we could look at the drop deck as a way to manage resources in a conflict without making it too complex. We can always add more complexity to it later.

The initial logistical costs of bring mechs to a battle can be based on how many mechs you bring (1 to 4) and how many points of tonnage you want to pay for. As an example: If it cost 500 c-bills per tonnage point multiplied by the number of mechs, players have the option to bring exactly what they want to the battle at their own cost. It shouldn’t matter too much what we bring, but it obviously may not be advantageous to bring all the same mech due to the map size and different objectives. If we think about that for a moment, we can then consider changes in costs with player owned assets and faction sponsorship. This also means that players with limited numbers of mechs, or who might only have a short amount of time can take a smaller drop deck with less mechs and still have a chance to be involved.

By allowing a player to retreat from a battle, we can also allow a player to repair and re-arm their mech. I would suggest that this is allowed using a fairly simple approach but utilizes an objective in the battle. That is, one of the points that can be captured could be a supply depot. While a team holds this point players in the battle accrue salvage points which can then be spent to repair mechs… basically you buy the tonnage and the mech is marked as ‘under repair’ for a duration. They can be automatically re-armed. Unspent points can go to the salvage bonus at the end.

To make this work, the drop deck would need to be locked in when committing to the staging area for a planet for the duration of the attack phase. This is little more than marking the mech and the drop deck as ‘deployed’ so we can create the effect of attrition and bring value to the ability to repair as well as other features that we may look at down the track.

[MovinTarget]

Il Mechwarrior, preventing planet-stealing could be done easily enough if:
FP phases were 24 hours instead of 8
You cannot attack new planets AS A UNIT when one of your own planets is under attack... or at least while there are more attackers than defenders on your planet.

This slows the expansion of factions, which some people like. And it kinda makes sense that if you took the planet you are invested and would rather try to keep it rather than attack more.

[TWIAFU]

feeWAIVER, on 25 July 2016 - 12:18 AM, said:

One Suggestion:

Stop Running Quick play Events, and start running weekly FP Events.

I cannot count how many BT sourcebooks I have that can be used to accomplish this.

You know what, I really think they do not 'have to' have bribes to get many of us "lorehards" to play more. They could use Comstar Intercepts to promote major and minor battles that actually took place in Lore. Just like historical re-inactors, they do not do it for rewards, they do it for the historical experience and to take part in something. I would really like to think that a good deal of us "lorehards' would do the same, just take part in something we may have read about or took part in.

PGI needs a "lorehard' on payroll.

[axerion]

• make Factions matter (faction specific content - special faction specific dropdecks)
  
• make loyalist and merc-carrer matter (more difference than just the voting thing...)
  
• make planets matter (not with some random MC-reward that doesnt realy mean anything)
  
• remove longtom
  
• count damage against turrets and gens to the damage dealt
  
• reward Dropcallers
  
• increase the indidual rewards
  
• add arena-mode
  
• combine attack- and defenseplanets
  
• let allied forces build ig-groups
  
• listen to those that actually play your game...

[MovinTarget]

axerion, on 25 July 2016 - 02:58 AM, said:

• reward Dropcallers

Cool idea, would recommend it be by vote by the players dropping with the DC rather than automatic. Too easy for somebody that cares more about the reward than leading to just grab lead otherwise.

Or make it that you can donate like 20k to one other person as "thanks" for leading or other heroic deed in match, though i suppose this will mean beggars too...

[TheCharlatan]

I'll put this idea here, maybe someone will read it and like it, and maybe something can be made out of it.

The idea is simple: scrap the FW map, make 1-3 month long campaigns.
Each campaign is based on a lore battle, and takes place between a limited number of planets, between a number of factions decided by the lore of the conflict. Available tech and mechs are limited by year of the conflict, and who is fighting.
At the star of the campaign, people chose between being loyalist to one of the warring factions, a merc (for which the loyalists can offer contracts) and lone wolves.
At the end of the campaign, the players get a reward based on their personal achivements, those of their faction and certain objectives that were indicated at the start of the campaign.

What this does, is create a NARRATIVE: something this game severly lacks.

[Ooorky]

axerion, on 25 July 2016 - 02:58 AM, said:

• make Factions matter (faction specific content - special faction specific dropdecks)
  
• make loyalist and merc-carrer matter (more difference than just the voting thing...)
  
• make planets matter (not with some random MC-reward that doesnt realy mean anything)
  
• remove longtom
  
• count damage against turrets and gens to the damage dealt
  
• reward Dropcallers
  
• increase the indidual rewards
  
• add arena-mode
  
• combine attack- and defenseplanets
  
• let allied forces build ig-groups
  
• listen to those that actually play your game...

Yes, yes and yes!

+Add (much) more flavor to the game from the Battletech canon:


Do you want to play with Raven?
Are you Capellan?
Ohh, you are a free mercenary. Then you get -50% reward in FW with this mech (or increase repair cost if PGI re-implements the feature), and you can't use the ECM variant, because it's restricted to loyalists.


Instead of mech weapon quirks add (Faction dependent) weapon manufacturer's (it looks ridiculous when CAT-2K replaces MG with Gauss and both gets the +20% range...):
Holly LRM-5 has +10% cooldown and -5% Heat generation quirk, while the
LongFire V has +10% range, but has a jam chance depending mech's heat level.



"Real" engine selection, with Vlar, Nissan etc. engines on the market with restricted availability (you can't just put a 285XL in your mech because it fits, at this time in BattleTech Inner Sphere XL engines are rare things).


I would suggest to remove 90% of the planets, and make the remaining ones more worthy (placing the major industries on those planets).


Long Tom (artillery in general) is implemented the worst way possible. While the Thumper makes some poofs on the battlefield, the Long Tom fires a tactical nuke...
Replace it with Tactical missile strike (makes it's effect more believable).
+Clans using any kind of artillery is a joke. A very bad one. Add "Missile Airstrike" or something, where an Aerospace Fighter makes an LRM-20 attack against mechs in the area.

[Terrastras Rex]

I liked the idea of turning the Longtom into a 30 second EMP. All mechs in radius are shutdown. Then its up to the other team to utilize the boon.

Also if EMP doesn't exist in lore, its because I don't know any lore.

edit: oddly enough, 3 games last night our dropcallers got the supply cache. !! ;D

Edited by Terrastras Rex, 25 July 2016 - 04:09 AM.

[Lostdragon]

Kin3ticX, on 24 July 2016 - 09:43 PM, said:

it was like two townhalls ago, I remember MS people that did listen in mention it but i didnt hear it myself

you are butchering what he said some but I cant remember the exact quote

it was more like "we dont need help from the players" rather than "players dont know what they want"

Well the way you put it makes it sound even worse, but that is probably more accurate.

[Johnny Z]

1. Faction play needs better goals. Maybe capturing capital worlds for instance.

2. Faction play needs better rewards like exp and creds.

3. Starting a match can be to slow and at this point all the waiting has put a downer on it.

There are lots of other improvements to make but those are my top 3 I think. Didn't think to much about it.

[Bud Crue]

Lostdragon, on 25 July 2016 - 05:06 AM, said:

Well the way you put it makes it sound even worse, but that is probably more accurate.

The context was during a discussion of the possibility of getting more combat interaction and effect from critical hits, particularly on engine crits. This segued into a discussion of how complex and "hard core" MWO is compared to other games and how it probably doesn't do the game a service if they made it even more complex. This then lead to Russ going off about how we are lucky to have the game and we should thank him for making it in the first place because Microsoft would have made another Mech Assault if anything. This then lead to the actual statement at issue that: the player base needs to forget the notion that they no better than PGI on how to make the game (that is not a quote but I think it is close).

The actual conversation took place during the April 29th Town Hall. In the video archive it is in part 2 at about the 8:30 mark (I think...I already responded to the original post asking about this but since it is mentioned again I thought I would give more of the context, etc.).

[sparkomech66]

There is a lot of feedback already here so I will keep it simple on my end.
1. FP needs a real economy with true rearm repair.
2. PvE needs to be incorporated with PvP along with new mission types with various goals.
3. Use AI to eliminate wait times as well as allowing missions to scale from 4v4 to 12 v 12 based upon population.
4. Units should have to form a base of operation to place there mech garage then charter dropships to move a limited amount of tonnage around. That would help smaller units to beore mobile while larger units have the logistics to think about.
5. Mech prices and repair availability would be based off of the faction/sector of space you are in. Expanding a faction would expand its supply line and Merc units would occupy worlds on the edges of factions.
6. Planets should have a security rating based upon their depth within a factions boarders. Allowing units choices to where they want to place their unit.
7. Only small light dropships from attacking factions could push into another factions devourer planet to do planetary raid scouting.
8. Development of larger maps that may have two to three separate 4 mans on them going after different but common goals but would not allow enough time for them to just group up and deathball.
9. Make real scouting a thing again.

Ok I tried to make this simple and just give concepts. FP needs a real overhaul in depth and gameplay not looks and just repackaging. Also my fear is that PGI is looking for the quick fix which does not exist which is why my game time has dropped from 25hrs a week t0 4 and depending on the outcome of this possibly more because the current game us too shallow.

[Jack Booted Thug]

1. Maps - better maps with multiple objectives and options for strategy. The choke point maps we have currently all play the same, the colors are just different and this becomes boring really fast.


2. Objectives: please, please dear god, something other than Omega, just sitting there. Sink or destroy a ship, airfields, dams, buildings, a speeding cargo train, whatever.... steal a prototype mech from a hangar... variety


3. Artificial Intelligence - could add to game play, especially ghost drops - and maybe used to prop up bad groups VS good groups if a PSR system were instituted...... in a lopsided PSR match between two teams, give the bads some AI to help and both sides would have more fun


Variety please, when every map is essentially the same, many of us get bored quickly.