869 replies to this topic

[JaxRiot]

Contrex, on 25 July 2016 - 09:00 AM, said:

.

For what its worth, I read the entire post, but just condensing it for ease of reading

Contrex, on 25 July 2016 - 09:00 AM, said:

A ) We have too many factions......

If we can consolidate the ques we could greatly reduce the ques into something far more manageable.

Place IS into two alliances that share attack lanes and unite the Clans so that they share attack lanes. Suddenly we have 12 ques instead of the 40 we have now.

Contrex, on 25 July 2016 - 09:00 AM, said:

D) Unitqueue and Soloqueue: ....

I agree that Pug stomping is a real force that is driving away the casual players and since there are more casual players than more serious players, it makes FW struggle to grow and even encourages population shrinkage. I think the current FP population/participation reflects this.

If the ques were consolidated we might be able to try another solo que (a real one this time), It would bring us back up to 24 ques, but thats still almost half from what we have now, and still not even close to the 80 ques we had the last time a Solo que was attempted

It might work.

Contrex, on 25 July 2016 - 09:00 AM, said:

E) Big Mercunits: .....
.

Its my belief that Merc Units (not only the big ones) are a cancer on FP, There are far too many benefits for being a Merc over any of the other Careers with no downside. Plus, they dont even function at all like they do in Lore.

In my mind, all they have to do to make Mercs less of a problem is to make them Not be able to go Clans (because Clans didnt even use Mercs in Lore), and buff Loyalists rewards

At that point, they basically become an IS faction. It wouldnt matter how big they got or how often they moved because they still couldnt landslide one side or the other, and then Loyalists would have an actual reason to be Loyalists and it would be far more in line with Lore

Bam! Population stability.

And those are easy fixes that dont require any massive map overhauls, ect.

Edited by JaxRiot, 25 July 2016 - 09:54 AM.

[Bombadil]

Johnny Z, on 25 July 2016 - 08:40 AM, said:

I'm getting a laugh imagining Bombadil volunteering to read this entire topic and gather all the suggestions thinking it was going to be 5 or 6 pages long.

I was fully aware and prepared (much coffee), as even the Town Hall threads can get fairly long

[PharmEcis]

Go look at what NBT has done. Mimic what a group of people in their off time has done for no pay. Have successful FW. It's a pretty sad state of affairs when the community makes something better than the actual developer.

[Ryoken]

Bombadil, on 25 July 2016 - 09:58 AM, said:

I was fully aware and prepared (much coffee), as even the Town Hall threads can get fairly long

Do not forget some sweets, coffein alone is ok, but with some carbohydrates it rocks even more. At least in my observation. Ah and ad some good old rock/metal of choice. (Running Wild - Port Royal // Soilwork - Natural Born Chaos // In Flames - Jester Race)

Also I want to ask if it would be totally absurd to ask for a dual career system so we can chose a Clan faction and a IS faction. Depending on which factions a player choses he might get excluded from voting attack options on borders/fronts with interferring interessts to avoid missuse.

Right now half of my mechs are sitting in their mech bays with sad faces.

[Wintersdark]

Ryoken, on 25 July 2016 - 10:10 AM, said:

Do not forget some sweets, coffein alone is ok, but with some carbohydrates it rocks even more. At least in my observation. Ah and ad some good old rock/metal of choice. (Running Wild - Port Royal // Soilwork - Natural Born Chaos // In Flames - Jester Race)

Also I want to ask if it would be totally absurd to ask for a dual career system so we can chose a Clan faction and a IS faction. Depending on which factions a player choses he might get excluded from voting attack options on borders/fronts with interferring interessts to avoid missuse.

Right now half of my mechs are sitting in their mech bays with sad faces.

I always wanted a Faction Play career that would allow any mechs to be used - I'd hoped that mercs would be that way, running salvaged mechs etc. Given I've got roughly 70 mechs of each faction, and would really love to use them without having to faction hop.

[ccrider]

[color=#959595]1. Loyalist LP resets at level 20 each time you reach max level. That way loyalists can stay in same faction they identify with and still collect rewards.[/color]

[color=#959595]2. Merc RP resets at level 10. Same thing.[/color]

[color=#959595]3. Scouting tonnage reduced to 40 tons, intel counts towards match points. 55 tonners arent really scouts. 50 and 45 give too much advantage to IS, 40 and below is currently fairly even. Not perfect, but decent.[/color]

[color=#959595]4. Long tom replaced by one ogen destroyed if attackers have it, 1 extra ogen if defenders have it. The side who loses scouting on counter attack lose dropship cover fire. Still worth scouting for but teplave AI god cannons killing mechs and taking the match out of players hands.[/color]

[color=#959595]5. Loyalists pay 50% recruitment cost for new members, units under 25 members pay 0 and mercs pay full price. I'm a merc, i understand freedom comes with a price. Unit recruitment cost is the price.[/color]

[color=#959595]6. Unit coffers can be used to pay merc units to take contracts for your faction, c-bills or mc.[/color]

[color=#959595]7. Loyalists vote for 2 planets to be open each attack phase.[/color]

[color=#959595]8. Alliance system. Either voted for (preferable) or lore based. Each ally can attack from the others planets and tag planets even if their faction doesn't have a border. Seems simple, opens up more factions to relevancy in FP without condensing.[/color]

[William Slayer]

I might be running tournament drops on Thursday night comma so I will try to put these questions into this forum.

Can we draw more players to FP? (FP events bring plenty of non-unit players out, and the new supply caches are a great incentive. Give more to non-unit players and they will come to FP)

Can we get more maps? (Variety is the spice of life. Different maps lead to new/interesting tactics)

Can we make the factions more stable? (Keeping a damper on the week to week hops by the merc units)

Can we make the clan vs. inner sphere battles a bit more even? (Two 'Stars' of clan mechs vs. 3 'Lances' of inner shere sounds pretty balanced to me.)

To sum up-

More players=more fun
More maps=more interesting play
More stability=more 'lore' satisfaction
More balance=more interesting matches

Thanks for reading all of these Bombadil, keep up the good work. :-)

[Lostdragon]

There needs to be a lot more depth to FW. The maps need to be changed drastically and the meta game needs intriguing and deep expansion. I really hope the new skill trees add to this, but I would also like to see pilots added on top of that. My thought being everyone gets 4 slots by default and more can be unlocked with MC. Pilots themselves are earned through play or can be purchased, kind of like mechs. Pilots have base skills that differentiate one from the other and as they level up a player can increase the values of these skills and purchase additional skills that perhaps let a pilot specialize in a particular mech or weight class. Skill resets can be sold for a small amount of MC.

It would also be pretty cool if you could capture enemy pilots and ransom them and/or place bounties on them. If you lose a pilot and only have 3 left you automatically get a new recruit with basic skills so you have enough pilots for a dropdeck. Pilot skills should ideally replace quirks and allow for more customization while offering many valid choices (not just cookie cutter builds that everyone uses). For example, two pilot skills that increase twist speed and decrease laser burn time are mutually exclusive and one may be reasonably chosen over the other depending on the mech or role for the pilot.

[MovinTarget]

JaxRiot, on 25 July 2016 - 09:43 AM, said:

Its my belief that Merc Units (not only the big ones) are a cancer on FP

In my mind, all they have to do to make Mercs less of a problem...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand there it is.

Hi mom! I am cancer!

I reiterate my earlier assertions.
- make Loyalist a more attractive option.
- give loyalists some way, *any* way to use all mechs through some qualifying system
- Make it that we don't have to go looking for fights, they come to any/all loyalists
- make loyalist contracts 30 days or permanent and make the desertion penalty a set amount instead of a percentage

Do all these things and maybe you'll see less mercs (and not in a bad way)

If you throw in that ability to mix tech, you might even sell more mechs to loyalists
I know many lore-purist balk at that idea but if we all make some compromises maybe we can salvage this.

Here is the basic idea:

Loyalist level 9 - unlock a mix-tech drop deck bay - Light mech
Loyalist level 13 - that mix-tech bay can now be light or medium
level 16 - that one bay can be light, medium, or heavy
level 19 - that one bay can be any mech you own, not just your factions, tech

So you can only ever bring one mech of opposing tech, but dangit it would be further incentive to level up and would add just a tad of flavor to drop decks.

[JaxRiot]

MovinTarget, on 25 July 2016 - 10:36 AM, said:

Do all these things and maybe you'll see less mercs (and not in a bad way)

No we wont.

The biggest draw of being a Merc is the ability to switch sides from Clans to IS or IS to Clans practically at will. Which by the way, is completely against Lore

Even if we give Loyalists the ability to unlock a mech or two to use in their decks from the opposing side, it still pales in comparison to the ability to jump sides completely, and wont stop the huge migrations of Mercs from one side to the other every time a new Mech Pack comes out.

That Faction Hopping freedom creates a population Teeter Totter effect. It greatly hurts population
stability.

Edit- Just to say that every problem that FW has gets magnified every time the Mercs migrate. Population Imbalances, Longer Wait Times, More Ghost Drops, Whacked out Ques ect, ect.

Just throwing Loyalists a few crumbs so the Merc Units can keep throwing the population and ques out of whack doesnt fix any thing and kills Lore too.

Edit- Not like there is much lore any way though

Edited by JaxRiot, 25 July 2016 - 11:16 AM.

[NAMEUNKOWN]

no mercs allowed in clan factions. only is houses

[S C A R]

Bombadil, on 25 July 2016 - 09:58 AM, said:

I was fully aware and prepared (much coffee), as even the Town Hall threads can get fairly long

So Bombadil, let's check whether you drunk enough coffee and whether you are up for the tast.

Name 10 top topics that people have identified and that are killing the game. Many people have already suggested that you are going to ask Russ some soft questions. Full stop. Let's see if you are up for the task and you do care more about what people want and less about your pay check (man we all have a job and I get it but if you don't ask the serious questions why even bother. People are not stupid). At the end of the day, we are hear to have fun. Am I right or am I right? This might seem to you as a dare but it is not I can assure you. If you can't identify at least 10 items then this is just another attempt of PGI to tell us that everything is going to be fine when it is not. We heard the same story for the last 3 years.

Sorry man for doing this to you but the top 10 topics are:

[Stormbringer13]

in regards to attack lanes and finding matches in FW, I've heard lots of good ideas.

what about the idea of allowing Loyalists to start lobbies in order to attack/defend. If they don't have a full 12-man group, the lobby opens to the rest of the player base, who would just join a general queue for matches. Most pugs really don't care who they are fighting for, they're just looking for matches. They already gravitate to the most populous attack lane anyway.
We can give first preference to fellow House/Loyalist teammates not affiliated with the faction, then House Mercs, then other houses/Clans.
This would help populate attack lanes faster, and perhaps inspire players to spread out to other factions in order to take advantage of the spread of matches.
Being able to start lobbies would be one of many perks to being a Loyalist. The Loyalty Rewards system definitely needs a rework, allowing the ability to earn House/Clan specific items like colors and decals. I was excited when I earned my House Liao Banner, until I realized it was just a cockpit item....but it is the only House/Clan specific item to win.

Merc Companies can be allowed to start Lobbies, but only after earning the privilege by maintaining good relations with the House/Clan and performing well in drops- Call it a Long-term Contract perk. Most Houses would use new Mercs/Troops as fodder anyway, sending them to fill out unit defenses and garrisons. The ability to actually call an attack would only be awarded to the best of the best, ie Gray Death, Kell Hounds, Black Watch, etc etc, not Joe Smiths Whiskey Smugglers who just joined the house 3 weeks ago .

and when it comes to Merc Contracts, there should be a limit on how many Mercs a house can employ. Call it a simple economy based on planets owned, or whatever.
If there are 1000 total Mercs on contract across all Houses/Clans , maybe limit each to being able to pay 200. Now, if your Merc company happens to have 200 players, then that is all that can be hired. If that Merc unit only fields 40 players for FW, well then that's on them. Maybe give House Loyalist units the ability to approve contracts- they are basically The House anyway.
You can also regulate size of Merc units. You require 4 mechs to even start a Merc unit, so that can be the beginning size. Through activity and successful drops, you can buy (with C-bills, unless you pay MC for each victory or participation in planet drops) another Lance, eventually being able to field a Company(3 Lances- 12 mechs).
a Battalion would be 3 Companies- 36 mechs, and would require more investment, possibly even many successful contracts and drops, battle distinctions and whatnot. It's an earned benefit.


the basis of all this is to get enthusiastic players into units to play FW. There can be an option to unlock Auxiliary Forces, which would be the casual players most units seem to be filled with anyway. You can call these support personnel, new recruits, replacement pilots, whatever. But again, it is a benefit to Success/Loyalty.

There would be nothing to stop people from forming casual groups, but they would be last preference in drop formations (Loyalist, House/Clan pugs, House/Clan Mercs-maybe success can allow good units to jump the queue here- , then other House/Clan units, other House/Clan pugs/Mercs, unaffiliated pugs/Mercs).


as for attack lanes. Allow 1 per House. if they have 3 Loyalist Companies, allow the units to be able to purchase the right to start their own attack lane for a specific area(secondary Front). As an example, House Liao has TCAF on the Main Front, driving through Davion space to reclaim planet Liao. House Liao also has 4TCR along with some other smaller Loyalist units than can field over 2 companies. This would allow 4TCR, not wanting to step on TCAF success, to open a Second Front, driving towards St Ives in Davion Space. There are multiple military districts in each House, so this would fit with lore. Our front would deal with that area/district.

It is also very easy to find out what planets have specific factories/benefits on them. My Battletech 2050 readout from 1986 has that info on what planets mechs are built on. Owning that planet could give a discount to Loyalists(only) on purchasing mechs that their House 'owns' Mercs, would pay full price, because they are customers, not army. It's another Loyalty perc.

this is what I got for now. but this is all basic stuff that can be easily implemented to help spread the player base. I may not be wording everything as exactly as I have it in my mind, but it should be pretty simple to understand.

Changes to the awards in the Loyalty tree would be great, more achievements would cool. Even FW specific ones. Many other games award with either unique items, or store(MC items)- yes, you would be paying players to play, but isn't that what this meeting is all about? And it's not like you would be paying them all the time. But every quarter, maybe drop a few few more achievements, quest, goals to players to fight towards. Something maybe for units- capture 1 planet, 3 planets, 5 planets, etc. And Defend 1 planet, etc etc. Rewards could be mech bays for players, unit colors, ability to open another mech/lance spot.

Perhaps even separate phases to attack a planet. Your current idea of building a wall with gates, but not actually defending that wall/gate is kinda silly= all the turrets are on the inside. Show me one base in Military History designed like this.
Phase 1 could be a PvE event. take out all the turrets, generators, etc. This could actually be a good training ground for newer players to FW. Maybe make the scouting event something like this. It should not be easy to beat. It should require good communication/cooperation between players- which is what FW is all about.
Then once Phase 1 is cleared- and there would be one or more of these for every attack lane on a planet - then Phase 2 would be the standard PvP we know, but without the Generator/Omega nonsense. That's all covered in Phase 1. Honestly, limited resources would probably have ground units and armored units trying to take important tech like that. Mechs don't have the finesse, and you would really want to bring defenses back up quickly after taking a territory. Phase 2 would just be straight up mech v mech like QP. Perhaps even a Domination style match to 'control' the territory.

On Defense, Phase 1(scouting) would again be PvE, where the lance gathers Intel or some other item while the enemy tries to stop them. This could also be PvP, getting more people to play defense. success gets turrets up/gates up for Phase 2 defenses.




remove silly requirement to own 3 mechs of a chassis to Master them . I already did that for 3 Hunchbacks, now I still have to do it for any other chassis I buy, screw that, that's no incentive for me to buy any other mechs, it's actually a deterrent.

Edited by Stormbringer13, 25 July 2016 - 12:00 PM.

[T I N M A N]

Yes there needs to be greater differences between Loyalists and Mercs.
There still needs to be a unique appeal to each though.
All loyalists or all mercs is not good.


I think the idea of not having mercs for Clan is alright, but as for right now, it won't be received well until the fix the penalty for leaving a faction as a loyalist.

(Also this is assuming the clans would have enough players without mercs at this time, and that's just not true. For now I don't think the game can handle that change.)

If anything there should be a system that increases rewards the longer you stick with a faction. That would provide a disincentive to leave. Also the penalty cannot be percentage based. I know guys who are rank 20 who refuse to leave because of how many points they would be losing. (They anticipate that the rewards system will be expanded, as they should.) It should be a set amount of LP's.


Also, in regards to allowing both Clan and IS mechs for IS, I mean it's cool and all. But this game is set in early 3050's, not later, and while it's all subject to change, I think where it is set now is good. It's a time period that has a lot going on. There are plenty of stories and a lot of depth to be explored. It also allows for the choice to be IS or Clan to be more significant at this time.

(Mechwarrior 4 will give you the later 3050/early 3060 experience. You can still find it for free download I bet.)

Edited by NightStalker97, 25 July 2016 - 12:32 PM.

[metallio]

I think lack of information is the key problem here...and this forum is a start at gathering some but I think you/we need a lot more of it.

The salient categories seem to be basic game play and lore/story/etc with a nod to ergonomics (Interface and navigation).

I have thoughts about specific details with basic game play but most of them have been covered well. I do think the problem, at its root, is the focus on the death match. Yes, it's mechWARRIOR and we'd like mechs to actually fight, but the current metric means that it all boils down to excruciatingly patient deathballing or nothing...and I mean NOTHING. Well, outside of Long Tom but hey.

1) Winning means killing the other mechs, period, with essentially zero other conditions having any value whatsoever.

2) Killing other mechs is orders of magnitude more effective with multiple mechs targeting a single enemy mech. This is more than just "duh"...it's the defining facet of how you kill something in this game and it's completely non-linear. If all players can shoot straight your lone mech not only dies faster but does equally lower damage during the time it is alive.

3) Any advantage in this regard very very quickly becomes insurmountable.

4) The result is the deathball mechanic. This requires coordination and patience. The more of each you have the more effective it is.

5) Against an organized group there is zero chance for any pilot, no matter how capable, to make a positive contribution. It's the baby seal clubbing that we're all familiar with and it is everywhere in FW. This is the gold standard of the game. No amount of skill as a pilot is important compared to simply taking orders and patiently waiting in your assigned location to shoot lone mechs that are called as a target.

6) Leaving your group not only gets you killed but rapidly snowballs into the entire group dying. The smallest twitch by your most easily frustrated pilot can be the deciding factor that sets the end of the match in motion. Even in quick play being two mechs down is the first sign that you've lost. At three you just go looking for a few kills before it's over.

6) Individuals come to this game as just that: Individuals. They do not initially have any interest in being a mech "turret" and waiting for the enemy to become more frustrated. It's not fun, so they don't, and they die.

7) This isn't fun, and they leave FW and eventually MWO completely.

There may be more in depth analysis and there are many other details that might change the current stagnation but the above mechanic completely excludes the players who would otherwise join our ranks and grow the game. On the bright side of things fixing this condition is in line with most of the other suggestions already provided.

Maps. Win conditions. Contributing actions.

To defeat the death ball you have to completely remove killing all enemy players as the focus or a win condition. It makes winning easier, but it can't be the end of the match or it's the only thing that matters. If your scenario is set up in such a way that killing all mechs is automatically a win then you have the above, period. It's as much a given as a two party political system if you use first past the post voting.

Win conditions therefore have to be not just something other than killing all mechs, they have to be achievable if you've lost half your team. This game is either the intelligent man's (woman's) shooter or it's team death(ball)match. This will require larger maps. Much larger maps. Polar Highlands is barely big enough. Placement of your assault lance becomes important, vitally important, since they can't move fast enough to respond to changing conditions. Lights become more important...all of them, not just the tanky high alpha ones.

A key point is that very minor map changes have drastic results. We've all played online games for years I'm assuming so perhaps many of you remember Blizzard making minor changes to the Alterac Valley map that dramatically shifted the winning dynamic from overwhelming horde dominance to a more balanced statistic. All they did was move some graveyards a little bit. That's it...and those games could run for hours and still be fun.

This suggests that, as I mentioned above, you don't have the information you need to design the maps in ways that really make a difference. We just don't. We've got what, half a dozen maps? We also don't have the massive resources to throw at analytics like Blizzard or another software giant does.

So make random maps. Design puzzle piece sections and randomize how they come together. The objectives are static (also mentioned earlier in this forum) while the interconnecting pieces and their elevations etc are randomized, as is the location of all of the pieces. Scouting missions could give a relative sense of the location of the objectives when you drop...and they'd actually be scouting. Few of these would support choke points and death balls because randomizing wouldn't create those locations often unless it was specifically coded in. Think Starcraft random maps. Taking objectives moves you towards a win but because you're far enough apart you have to commit fairly early in a drop and cannot respond quickly to an attack in another quadrant easily. Yes, it sounds like fancy conquest. That's what taking over a planet is, not brawling. Taking an objective should not be easy but it should be very difficult to reclaim by the opposing faction. I could develop this in detail but I don't have the expertise to make it "right".

Watch what works. Adjust the RNG so that what produces more even games that are more fun is created more often. Is it complicated city maps? Is it the randomness of the map? Is it so large that no fighting actually occurs and it's no fun or is it so small that death balls come back? Selectable new drop points help you respond after the fact and make sense...they're drop SHIPS and they can fly wherever there isn't AA...which you could put into the game.

Play random until you see what works. Gather data. Do it on the PTR and don't change the main game if you like...it's what the PTR is for right? Publish it as an option on the main game so more people play and see what changes to the data. You already have a map making utility I'm sure...so write the randomization in and see what happens. Some of it will be ridiculous, some will require jump jets to do anything...maybe you can even give people a glimpse of the map while they build their drop decks, which would be even more like reality. Maybe you could tie that information in to scouting as well.

I'd like to see scouting changed so that scouting is the entire point. Match score is only marginally influenced by damage done and instead is influenced by how much intel the invader captures. Make the defender unable to cap intel (they already know) and an absolute win condition that you've picked up all the intel on the map (make many more intel capture points). Randomized maps work here very well...since no one actually knows, that's the point of scouting. Give a big bonus to surviving but don't make it the primary point...intel is transmitted as soon as it's picked up. You can extract at any time (still have to get picked up) but lose out on intel gathered while getting the survival bonus. Scouting intel bonuses need drastically changed. Potentially getting a map ping whenever there's a scouting "win" (yes this means that other concurrent matches influence one another). Maybe showing objective locations, drop points, spawning UAV towers which throw out a drone every 2-3 minutes, or giving artillery (not the current Long Tom).

Not being able to save drop decks, mech configurations, and the terrible navigation of the owned mechs are all issues but I can play past them as long as the game play is there. Right now there is no GOOD reason for any individual to get their *** kicked playing FW except them thinking that they'll "get better". After they've played long enough to realize it's not about getting better they quit and that's what we're trying to avoid.


Oh, I also like turning long tom into a free regular artillery call, lowering scouting tonnage, allowing smaller groups to drop (4v4, 8v8, etc), progressive planetary capture (set and tiered objectives so capping a planet always starts with scouting and ends with capturing the capital or w/e), and more of what's been mentioned.

People love the lore of the game and we do need to introduce it back...I just haven't thought much about it because there's so little point when the gameplay is this bad.

[Cygone]

Honiara, on 24 July 2016 - 12:22 PM, said:

There has been some suggestion that PGI may look to remove some of the queues on FW to improve drop times, you should really be looking at getting people in to FW rather than combining the people already in FW. All you are going by combining queues is to move the low population issue further down the time line, you need to make radical game modifications to make people want to play this mode.

Below are some suggestions that would improve the game mode, and bring something more than a longer version of quick play (you can spin FW any way you like, it's just a 4 mech drop deck version of QP with bad maps)

1. The basic (not even game play) elements of this mode are badly done. For instance the audio of "all of our blast doors are open", well this just sounds stupid on a map with 2 blast doors, the audio should be "both of our blast doors are open", this infuriates me every time I hear it and gives the impression of poor workmanship, there is no reason for this.

2. Why are we destroying generators to OPEN a door? the entire mechanic of this is just wrong!

3. For members on the defending team, why does it take several minutes from being destroyed to getting a heavy/assault mech back to Omega? the drop zone is so far away for defense that you cannot effectively re-enforce. This turns FW in to a 12v12 game mode with 4 waves. Why do the attackers have to run 15000+m to get the the gates? and 1800+m to get to Omega, this entire mechanic stops re-enforcement, again making this a 12v12 mode with 4 drop decks. If you want to keep the asymmetric assault mode, allow the attackers to get additional drop zones closer to Omega, that can be contested by the defenders. Perhaps make the game 3 Lances, vs 2 Stars or 8v12 and increase the base's defenses, do something to make this game mode fun and different to QP

4. Mercenary's they cost money, who's paying them? the Loyalists for a House/Clan should have an input on who they hire, therefore mercenaries go where they are paid not where they want to go, after all they are mercenaries and that's what they do. The payment for these mercenaries can come from the house/clan home-world so no player unit pays the costs. The further back a house/clan gets pushed towards its home-world the more money the home-would would invest in mercenary hires and the more it is willing to pay out for a win, and visa-versa the more planets a clan/house owns the less investment the home-would would be willing to make . Mercenary contracts would not be time based by money based, therefore if Jade Falcon offered 500 million C-bills for a contract the money per game is handed out to the wining Merc unit, once the money has ran dry then the contract expires.

Each house/clan would have a maximum it can spend on mercenaries, and if too many mercenaries are hired then the unpaid mercenaries loose their contract and are back on the free market. Each mercenary unit should have a MRBC rating (based on win/loss and KDR) and the higher the rating the more they cost, Merc units should also cost more for each active FW (therefore units that have 50 members and only 5 active FW members do not get punished) member they have. e.g -MS- would cost the most as its the biggest Merc unit. In the current IS map Jade Falcon would have to let -MS- go due to the range/sprawl of their territory and the amount of money willing to be spend on Mercs. This would force -MS- to move and they could be hired by Ghost Bear who would pay them allot more, -MS- should only be able to choose where they go based on the offers from houses/clans available to them, they are Mercenaries after all. If -MS- don't like it, they they can become Loyalists. If no house/clan could afford -MS- then the unit would have to split up into smaller units, again because mercenaries are only loyal to money.

5. Non Dynamic Drop Decks. Why is every drop deck 250 tonnes? This lets everyone set up a deck of 4 'Mechs they can use for every game going forward. Each planet should have a different drop tonnage, This would make for masses of variation on all drops, encourages the purchase of more modules and quite probably additional Premium 'Mechs to fill holes on weight classes.

6. Every planet is the same; have the individual planets effect the game play map. The planets have Population, Gravity, Temperature and Water Percentage already assigned to them (mostly), If a planet has a 1.2G modifier this should have an effect on jump jets, fall speed and damage. Currently the temperature of the planet has no relevance on the game map. If the Planet is set to 30deg then each game map that is played on that planet should have a temperature set to 30deg.

7. Why do we care for a planet? do we care if Jade Falcon takes Terra? No we don't because Terra does not mean anything. Make the planets meaningful, denote planets that have factories, e.g these 5 planets have factories for Atlas's therefore if your faction controls any of these planets then the cost for repair per planet is reduced by 50% (e.g 2 planets with Atlas factories, means that your repair costs are 0). Hell you could go even further and dictate what chassis are available as base chassis for a House or Clan, and that the only way a House or Clan gets to field more mech types is to take a planet that has that mech factory. Why not have Jade Falcon or Clan Wolf be able to field Atlas's if they have planets with Atlas factories.

8. bring back R+R to FW, this is not 'quick play' give the mode some proper depth. Do not do R+R like last time, with 75% free as that system can be game'd, make R+R a total of 10% (or less) of the cost to buy the item, none of this 3,000,000 to repair an engine. have worlds that manufacture these engines like chassis to reduce the cost of repair. This could help make you mech choices for FW based on how you repair your items. Some planets could be your major AreoSpace fighter repair facilities or staging area, holding this reduces a house/clan Air Strike Cost by 20% if captured they lose this.

9. Remove trial 'Mechs from Faction Warfare, if you don't have a drop deck, then you are not experienced enough to play, trial 'Mechs are very badly optimized (read, not optimized at all), alternatively rebuild the trial 'Mechs with meta builds.

10, Remove Long Tom, its so bad, watch what happens to the queues when a planet has Long Tom enabled. no one fights there because of this very badly designed mechanic, take a look at Russ's twitter feed when he discussed it, a huge percentage of people just said remove it.

11. C-Bills, Playing a 7 min game in Quick Play earns about 200,000 C-Bills (Accounting for Premium Account and Premium 'Mech) A FW game takes 15 mins in Queue and 30 mins in game, the rewards for losing need to be dramatically increased to they are above that of the QP queue, 1.5 million seems more like a figure we should be seeing.

12. You should look at removing groups larger than 4 (a full lance) from the quick play queue, if people want to play in larger groups then they should be in the FW game mode (see point below about larger groups).
eg. Solo Queue and Lance Queue, thats it, anything over that tips the balance of power some matches are won just by being in a big team.

13. the new Assault mode you have mentioned that is coming in September, should be an asymmetrical assault mode into the QP game, then take all of the QP maps and take them into FW, this way new FW players actually have a clue on how to play the game mode, you do not need different maps between QP and FW, you are simply doubling up your work, the game does not have enough maps as it stands why do double the work to get 1 new map into each game mode. This way you can remove the horrible bottle neck game mode that is invasion.

Yeah this, read this post please

[blackbullitt]

the wait times needs to be looked at, 20 min wait is ridiculous, the long tom is a failed experiment, storm crow op in scouting,faction play seams to be a team game, leave it that way, quick play gets your skills up to play faction, promote it at that, the missile fest that occurs in quick play is not what i believe anyone wants in faction, you could do experience based awarding, where the less you have the more you earn, i understand also you want to make money but the pay for key thing is not helpful either.c bills ok but mc come on.
also stop the back and forth with the mechs, we buy them for quirks then you change them, so what does that want me to do not spend my money. i love the game but that pisses me off.

[Rebel Ace Fryslan]

BUGS: SO MANNY BUGS

forgot to mention them because we call them features by now.
They stay on so long or always come back after patches.

Set up bug hunting teams.
recruit 10 players to work closely with on bug hunting.
And change them every month.

Get it sorted.

[DevilCrayon]

Two things from me:
* It would be nice to come up with a clan attack option for the rimward houses, especially Marik and Liao, be it direct or via some sort of alliance mechanism with houses with clan battlefronts.
* Long Tom. Please. Fix. It's still so painfully unbalanced.

[Bombadil]

S C A R, on 25 July 2016 - 11:09 AM, said:

So Bombadil, let's check whether you drunk enough coffee and whether you are up for the tast.

Name 10 top topics that people have identified and that are killing the game. Many people have already suggested that you are going to ask Russ some soft questions. Full stop. Let's see if you are up for the task and you do care more about what people want and less about your pay check (man we all have a job and I get it but if you don't ask the serious questions why even bother. People are not stupid). At the end of the day, we are hear to have fun. Am I right or am I right? This might seem to you as a dare but it is not I can assure you. If you can't identify at least 10 items then this is just another attempt of PGI to tell us that everything is going to be fine when it is not. We heard the same story for the last 3 years.

Sorry man for doing this to you but the top 10 topics are:

I think maybe you're misunderstanding the purpose of this Roundtable, and the format in which it will be held. This is not a podcast, and this is not even a Town Hall, where we usually relay community-submitted questions to Russ ourselves. This is going to be a panel of players, probably landing somewhere between 6 and 12 individuals, who will be speaking directly to Russ and the devs, asking questions, offering solutions, and having conversations about improving FP. My only role will be to moderate if necessary, and to keep things moving forward and on-topic. I'm gathering notes as a way to have those that cannot attend have a voice, if appropriate. For example, if someone says "How does the community feel about the Long Tom?", well I have a pretty clear picture of that, at least from the perspective of those who have posted to this thread. But again, this first Roundtable will be primarily focused on large-scale issues, like player population, buckets and queue times, solo and group play, factions, and the overall format of Faction Play (ie. 24/7 vs. scheduled times or other options). If successful, this Roundtable will lead to more meetings, which can then focus on additional topics, such as game modes, rewards and incentives, lobbies and chat, maps, the role of mercenaries, barriers to entry (ie. new players), PvE, lore, and on and on. But again, this isn't about me. If the players involved in this discussion want to make something a higher priority than I have suggested here, excellent!