869 replies to this topic

[Silas Black]

A few suggestions coming from 420

1. Show team damage dealt and received on the public team damage screen
2. Do not let Mercs come to the Top 2 Factions
3. Allow us to attack faction home worlds once we get within a jump of them
4. Provide a plot line that explains the push you guide us on, instead of making us sort of randomly pushing towards Terra fighting everyone, without actually going where we would choose
5. Give us a Solaris Map / Planet Que (similar to how the battle at Tukkayid was done)
6. Make a 4 man Que like scouting, but for each chassis category.
7. Let clan shoot 3 large lasers without heat penalty. Makes no sense to give IS less penalties on lasers.
8. Offer custom HUD / Crosshairs for sale
9. Give TAG a toggle
10. Make a map where we fight a large dropship instead of a base.

[Kin3ticX]

Man, fixing CW is a laundry list and no one person can put it all together.

I would like unit to unit cbill transfers so we can back our roleplay nerdism with cbills that don't matter for anything really(but we would still pay each other because its cool). I am not asking for cbills to matter, but don't make us entirely pretend to pay each other either.

Perhaps features similar to this are necessary to increase space nerd politics (for lack of a better term). Right now I see a massive lack of care about factions, planets, rivalries, or frankly CW in general.

Help us make deals and we can take 1 step towards making the Inner Sphere great again.

Thats the one thing I champion and its probably fairly easy to do compared with asking the combat mode to be redone or something like that.


Also, can we please have dear Mercstar leader Antonius Rex invited to the roundtables. Hes been on hiatus from CW largely since day 2 of phase 3.

Edited by Kin3ticX, 23 July 2016 - 12:10 AM.

[Tooth Fairy]

Some suggestive thoughts, possibly spelled out elsewhere.

1. Remove Long Tom or make it a once per match event, triggered and aimed through the drop deck commander.

(This is generally more rewarding to the team having the LT advantage, and introduces some element of chance to the opposing forces. The current auto-aiming feature has an anonymous and omnipotent feel to it.)

2. On the planet drop screen, that displays the team forming info, it would be very nice to incorporate the current planet queue situation. This will help prevent people from switching back and forth between screens.

(It so often happens that lesser experienced pilots drop back to the queue screen to select a planet with possibly better match chances, but it ruins the waiting phase for the remainder of the group that stays on the initially selected planet.)

3. Make more maps accessible to FP.

4. Define FP goals to trigger major events/rewards.


That's all for now.

[eddieb]

Some brainstorming ideas.

1) Consider 2-3 factions only to get more drops and population. Clan vs IS... or Clan vs FedCom vs Rest.
2) No long-toms. Instead give constant satellite coverage as a reward.
3) Consider a historical battle scenario that is fought out over 1 month or so. Each scenario can have different mech class/weight restrictions. Or could require faction specific chassis.
4) Reward faction decals for loyalty ranks.
5) Add more loyalty ranks above 20
6) planet capture rewards go to anyone who fought and won to capture the planet. Not just to the most populous unit
7) Consider a quick play mode. All clan vs all IS quick play. These contribute to CW in some way.
8) Logistics.

[JernauM]

Invasion mode is tedious and predictable, and that's because the game mode and maps were designed around a chokepoint warfare concept.

Maps for Invasion mode are so unenjoyably constricted. The most fun fights in that game mode take place on the most open and least restricted terrain, for example:

• Every part of Grim Portico other than the gates. Great map except when a gateway standoff develops.
  
• The outside hilly area of Emerald Taiga.
  
• Alpha gate approach to Sulfurous Rift, from B4 to B6.

Invasion mode should just be something like Skirmish with respawns on maps that offer freedom to maneuver. As it is, the risk of an un-fun match that lasts 20+ minutes is too high for me to spend much time in CW, outside of events.

There are other issues, of course, such as the inscrutable UI and Long Tom / Satellite Sweep, but core gameplay mechanics should be the higher priority.

[Itachi The Prodigy]

Honestly I'm not surprised PGI made this post, yea... CW is dying out slowly... yea and there is a lot to say...


Here are 5 points PGI to make this F2P make you money.

1). PGI needs to up the time frame to at least 3062, what made Mechwarrior living legends one of the best mods out there was the time frame, the weapons included in that time frame, the mechs included in that time frame also.

2). We need more content from the battle tech universe: playable tanks, aero space, and battle armour just like in mechwarrior living legends, but allow these options for CW only

3). Have a CW dropship mode attack/def mode for leaving the inner sphere, strana mechy or were ever on the star map.

4.) Well this is quite obvious PGI .........add a core-breach system similar to Mechwarrior living legends, this would add a lot of immersion to the game and would also inevitably change the way close quarters engagements are handled as core-breaches can have devastating effects on anything that is in their radius.

5.) Add more factions, originally there are much more factions in the battle tech universe than the ones given in CW, so add more,increase maximum MC earned in CW to 100.


PGI please use this post as a blue print, and deliver ..... so that the community can have an awesome battle tech experience. BECAUSE IF YOU DO NOT ...... IN 4 YEARS YOU WILL LOSE YOUR LICENSE AND RIGHTS TO BATTLETECH.

You guys already have a good game especially with regards to the game customization,load outs feature, that was missing in mech warrior living legends. If you combine both elements from both games...... you will have the best F2P mech game ever

[T I N M A N]

JernauM, on 23 July 2016 - 12:13 AM, said:

Invasion mode should just be something like Skirmish with respawns on maps that offer freedom to maneuver. As it is, the risk of an un-fun match that lasts 20+ minutes is too high for me to spend much time in CW, outside of events.

The whole point of FP is to have long matches that have an advantage for the defender. Choke points are one of those benfits. Planning a defence is part of that. Learning about your opponent over 30 minutes of gameplay is part of that. To erase that is to fully give into the mega FPS gaming industry like CoD where you play quick matches of everything. And that's not what battletech is about. Battletech takes time. Compare it to LoL. Fast matches can take under 20 mins. Long ones over an hour. The length of the match still hasn't deterred people from have over 30 MILLION active players (not all, but active).

Long matches distinguish it from quick play. Defences distinguish it from quick play. You learn about your opponent. You have time to prepare strategies and traps. It's the reason why it is enjoyable. I play faction play because it is not quick play. And I understand your dislike for long matches, but just play quick play then. You're arguing for them to basically turn it into 4 quick play matches in a sense by eliminating the differences between FP and quick play.

I admit, some of the maps are too thin, but eliminating many of those areas and the length of time it takes will ruin the whole point of the game mode. Also, if you bring in more open maps, you would have to give the defenders some other advantage, like advanced deployment or hidden turrets or traps, something to give them the advantage they deserve.

Edited by NightStalker97, 23 July 2016 - 12:39 AM.

[Bradigus]

Pretty sure it's already been mentioned, but FW needs allied factions to be able to participate in attack. Otherwise the factions with any competent, organized units begin absorbing the rest of the population and it ends up with out current predicament - only Jade Falcon attacking, every IS faction defending and other clan units withering away into oblivion.

Another issue is the maps. Maps should be like the quick play ones we have now, with the proposed new assault bases. Destructible, asymmetrical, lots of ways for attack. Current maps are such chokepoint riddled messes that one tech base gets completely neutered by the balance decisions made with quick play in mind.

Repair and re-arm bays and mobile field bases for missile and ballistic builds so as not to be completely outperformed by laser builds.

[Crushko]

Having played more than enough FW here are some suggestions:

1. Not rewarding enough, especially if you are not in a big uniIt

Lets assume somebody is not in a big unit, then rewards look like this:

- You get your first mechbay after hours, the second one after days, the third one after weeks.
The more you play with a single faction including mercs, the less rewarding it gets.
- You get less c-bills via FW than via quickplay per hour, especially considering wait times for getting an invastion match going. Via quickplay you can easily make a million ++ c -bills per hour, even if you happen to be in the losing teams, in FW if you are in the losing team + wait times you eventually make +- 200k per hour.
- You can scout 20 times successfully, providing the Long Tom, helping to take the planet, however if you are not in that big unit the MC rewards you get for conquering/holding the planet are nada//zilsch/nothing.

2. Remove the 25 % reputation loss when switching factions

Lets say somebody is in a currently dead faction aka atm Clan minus Jade Falcon, then he will eventually rather go inactive than switch to an active faction due to reputation loss.

Apart from that it reduces the fun and variation if you cannot switch from an IS to Clan faction from time to time and advance in their reward system. Sure you could be a mercenary and hop back and forth, but then you eventually have an up to minus 50 % reward debuff. And you advance only in the Mecenary ranks, which is less rewarding than advancing in multiple lower ranks.

On top of that from a game design perspective, you should never have regression, only progression.

3. We need better maps

I think this is quite obvious. These chokepoints maps lead to a horrible meta, that is wasting the great potential of faction warfare. We need maps with more strategic points of interest that can be captured/defended, leading to a meta where you have to make strategic dicisions: For example having wing teams and a main zerk for maximum map bonuses. Or you just have a main zerk, but then you dont have the boni of holding these secondary strategic points. Stuff like that.

[T I N M A N]

Crushko, on 23 July 2016 - 12:47 AM, said:

We need maps with more strategic points of interest that can be captured/defended, leading to a meta where you have to make strategic dicisions: For example having wing teams and a main zerk for maximum map bonuses. Or you just have a main zerk, but then you dont have the boni of holding these secondary strategic points. Stuff like that.

Yes please. Strategy is what makes FP so great.

[Kabum]

Keep players hook. Right now I play few CW because of a single fact:It does not matter!
Let me exain it a bit. It's in the best interest of developers and community to have a wide strong base. Right now you reward big units and good or very good players. You appeal to CBILLS as reward for actions. You let beside the most important factor that made a player base. You forgot the ego and fluff of the game. Its not only a question of introduccing "lore". It is a question of making the people live it, be a part of it. Also rewards have improved, but are not so much linked to faction or lore. Yeah! we have a new ladder with ranks that is amazing, does it give continuos reward or inspiration: no. Should the game be giving continually assets and losing money, neither. Broke PGI means bad bussines for everyone that wants to play MWO.So what should be done. Problaby a bit of many things.

Stimulate the player, give constant reward for well played matches, create a subdivison that makes feel alive the universe(faction houses with soul and not only the name).

In the personal aspect of the player: people like to see that what they do matter. Right now you playa match and after all the points are alocated (xp and money) it stop to exist. Maybe as player I had the time of my life, crushing with a light 2 assaults and a heavy, all alone and finished withno arms a legs and no armor on the side torsos an central. wow,looks like a tale to be told. Yeahh.... but how... Maybe I recorded the match... maybe not... anyway remember this with a 10 minute video is difficult. Difficult for me to see each time, each frind I want to brag about it or just some extranger that want to know about me.
untill here you agree?
It should exist a file accessible to everybody (public) with different sheets and more important a graphic or 2 ( which could be a uniform and a medal box or similiar). People can assimilate few info easy, so is much more effective to make a general view and later some buttonn or selector to switch to concrete info: Page 1 uniform showing grade (showing different uniforms from enlisted, non-commisioned and commisioned officers) and medals and service branch( most used mech category or similar). the objective is to give deep to the player. Page 2 a cronological list from recent to old in which campaigns(community warfar and weekend challanges each with a name), comendations( introduce this for feats like killing 6 enemy mechs, 10 cw jumps in a weekend with a hight score etc) and medals( really hard hachievements and campaign participation of large consecuences) gets the mechwarrior (all by participation, nothing buying pack related) a deeper profile in graphical form which can be check easy by everyone and make a link to publicate it. this is just an example. can be as simple or complicated.

Ok. this is not even a 10 percent but i'm on a tablet. later more.

[Rebel Ace Fryslan]

Questions:

• to push for more teamplay, can you nudge/force more players to go in teams (tier 3-1 get a 10% bonus for teamplay, -10% for not?) @ either QP to train for FP.
  
• I would like more physical logic in your system, it's now tweaking to the amount of MEMEME from the (loudest) crowd.
  
• smal 1, give each side in FW a bonus CASE. Long game and each side is a winner for playing FW.

[TheLuc]

Keeping the Game PvP only hurts it bad, keeping the game as an arena shooter only hurts it, not having lore motivate the players hurts it and chasing the E-Spurt white whale just drags it further into the ground.

The E-Spurt element can still be there, for this it needs Solaris7 game modes with a crowd and with Duncan Fisher ( I'm certain Mr. George Ledoux would lend his voice again ) Over the top, silly decals every where can then make sense, heck even sponsor decals could be added like Pitban, Martell and FarFire.

Fix FP ? Been years that the community is rolling down ideas but the recycling of skirmish game mode has taken its toll. I doubt the round table will change anything.

[Swagpanda89]

Here are some questions/improvements from members of the 77th Grey Guards, subunit of Mercstar:

1) Any plan on new maps or reworking them? More open areas like polar for example...

2) Any plans to strengthen the incentives for loyalists? Special gifts like decals or unique camos!?!?!

3) Prices are way to low and to less people can win them inCW/FP!

4) We have to many factions for to low numbers of players. Either you find a way that borders can be skipped or factions need to shrink.

5) Only 1 planet per attack cicle is not enough!!!!

6) Houses should be able to pay mercs, but therefore loyalists need to be buffed.

7) We need again that lore/roleplay, which was a big part of cw phase 1.... maybe make homeplanets being attackable or implement something like factories, which will be under war between houses!

Edited by Swagpanda89, 23 July 2016 - 01:42 AM.

[Colonel ONeill]

I played a lot of CW the last year and a half, served in different units, and played pretty much every different faction. Some of the biggest problems in my opinion (and the guys I played with) are :

• Maps: We need a lot more maps! But we also need maps, that are not of this pipe-map character. Something like Polar would fit better in CW than in the regular games.
  
• Objective: Right now there is at least one guy (usually 4 players) without any clue what to do, to actually win the game. I can not count the games where the score is like 47-14 on a counter attack and the last guy is in a locust shooting omega and announcing via VIOP: "Guys, we got this! I nearly got Omega!" These guys have clearly no clue about the objective. And that is happening all the time. Another problem is, that many players think they gonna defend if they click on defend the planet. Now these guys end up in a counter attack. This should be somehow changed.
  
• Lock out solo: I know that this is unpopular, but I think it would help the gamemode if NO solo players would be allowed. Change the lobby instead! Let em easily create groups (maybe even with different faction on defense games). LFG might not be 'nuff for this. Let the players see who is willing to play, maybe let em even see their tier rating or the rank of the faction, so you get an idea of his skill. A result could be that you have to get 12 players in your group to start the search for a game. I would not mind that, should be easy with LFG if that is the way how it works. But why dont you allow smaller groups? I would have played with a 8-10man all the time. 8 strong players are more than enough to win a game vs a weak enemy. Let the group decide if they wanna do it as a 8man or wait for 4 pugs from LFG.
  
• DC penalty: if a player is DC or AFK, let him die every 5-10min. By that you dont have to wait for a JJ-mech in the end of the game to farm the DC and wait like 4min for his respawns.
  
• scouting: I think it is a bit strange that your game is affected by people who are not in your group/game/unit and are just losing intel to the enemy. maybe give some sort of other rewards for scouting?
  
• maphack/longtom:I think most better players dont want these kind of things in the game at all. the maphack is by far the worst thing because every flanking or tactic at all can be spotted. that is what lights/scouts are for! If you tweak Longtom a bit, it could be possible to give it from start on or during the game to the weaker team! That would actually make sense and balance the game a bit. Reduce the FF by Longtom tho.
  
• Planet win/rewards: right now the best thing to do is: be a big unit. You can lose all your games on a planet and still get the tag from what I know. What I would like is more some kind of be good. If you just have 10 players in your unit but win every game -> you get rewards. And dont allow another unit to steal your tag by just defending ONCE in the next attack phase. That is really mean. Another example: If you have one group going and win pretty much every game, but two pug groups are playing on the planet as well and are losing every game, it is pretty much impossible for you to get the planet right now. That is something that reall annoys a lot of groups.
  
• Lobby: Please remake the faction tab screen and lobby screen. Pls let us see how many enemy players are there (all the time) and what the Longtom status is. By that it is easier to find a game.
  
• Dropdeck: We really need dropdeck slots for every map (prob. attack and def). It is a pain to change all 4 mechs in one minute after waiting 8min. You might be alt+tabbed or afk or something. Assign a dropdeck to a map would help a lot!

Sorry for this wall of text, but CW was my favourite gamemode before phase III, and I would really like improvements here. This kind of stuff should have happened a year ago tho...




€dit: As an addition: CW is not intresting for the top players right now. Prett much no top50 or even top100 player is participating. CW in the current state is more a lower and mid tier playground. sure, there are some higher tier units, but pretty much no top-unit or players do really care and bother. I think it would help the gamemode if those guys would play as well. Otherwise it will never be the "hardcore" or "endgame" mode it wants to be!


O'Neill
carryharder™

Edited by Colonel ONeill, 26 July 2016 - 01:06 AM.

[ShiftySWP and the Pleated Pants]

Lots of great ideas here with some great detail. Ill just add some bullets as votes to things that have already been mentioned...

-Fewer attack lanes. AKA, align some of the factions along the lines that have already been mentioned.
-Loyalist rank increases vote weight.
-Loyalist rank increases per/game earnings.
-Remove merc tree rewards in favor of the possibility of loyalists increasing merc per game/contract payout.
-Loyalist need access to unique skins, decals, warhorns, etc. Mercs get to move.
-REMOVE long tom. Any mechanic that can auto kill is not fun for either side.
-Decrease scouting tonnage.
-Remove/change/modify scouting win conditions that allow smoke jumping. Again, not a fun way to win for either side.

Bottom lines. Long tom is bad. Scouting needs a couple tweeks. Loyalists need to be much more worthwhile while mercs get freedom of choice.

[ShiftySWP and the Pleated Pants]

Oh, and Long Tom.....

Replace it with field logistics. If you scout enough, you get a deployed logistics hub that refills ammo, consumables.

Hub is placed in your spawn so you have to fall back to use it... aka a tactical and meaningful choice for the user/team.

Hub is destroy-able or potentially even usable by counter force..... aka COUNTERPLAY! If you let the enemy get in your spawn, shame on you.... oh and that is a tactical and meaningul choice by the counter team as well because.... DROP SHIP JESUS.

[LordNothing]

i would like to see some top pugs invited to the roundtable. according to this survey i did awhile back:

http://mwomercs.com/...l-clubbin-unit/

strictly pug players outnumbered strictly unit players. players who belong to units but arent beyond pugging when populations are low make up the largest group. the round table should represent a fair sampling of different player types who play fp regularly and not be one sided.

i for one would love to see a solution to pug funnel and would like rewards across all player types be normalized.

Edited by LordNothing, 23 July 2016 - 02:04 AM.

[AngelusDD]

There are countless details which could be implemented into FP to make it better. Many has been posted already.

But there are a few major reasons who make me play FP or not. Also several have been named already.
Making a comprehensive list would be TLDR.

So i write whatI feel is necessary to keep me playing MWO (not only FP wise):

BattleTech Lore is what brought ME here. And only lore can keep ME here.


I. The first major part of the lore is the political and military conflict in the Inner Sphere.
Faction Play, right now, does NOTHING to resemble that.

The best era for such thing in a game would be the 3025-28 era (and in some regard til 3049), which is, unfortunately, not possible for MWO anymore. (or is it?)
Only in this era the fighting was relatively even and limited in terms of technology, unit sizes, political agendas etc.
The major factor for those battles are limited logistics in terms of supply, number of mechs and transportation.

Since 3050, with the advent of the clans, in terms of BattleTech content, things got very unbalanced by design.
The solution for the BoardGame and the lore was the introduction of a different tactical unit size for the Clans (5/10/15/x over 4/12/x) and it gave Clanners a form of honor code to limit it´s effects. Also the written lore limited the strategic effect of clan warfare as whole.

The problem for MWO as a strategic FP game is that there is virtually nothing that you can do to limit things in a similar manner. Since the measurement in a MMO is the individual player because he or she is the individual source of money.
Numbers count, and larger numbers count more....lore and balance goes overboard with that.
You can only stay away from such global gameplay in a game which breaks down to single players in a single mech.

II. The second major part of the lore is the fame of the individual mechwarrior and the fame of house or merc units. Faction Play does NEXT TO NOTHING to resemble that.

Fame for units:
Keeping units interested in the FP (and keep players interested in units) is to make a unit a meaningful element.
Having a nametag on a planet for a few days is not enough, and the MC income is laughable.
An unskilled players is even overwhelmed by the numbers of planets, and hardly finds the unit tag on a certain planet.
So it does not mean anything.

Fame for Individuals:
Since not every player is in a unit or plans to do so, there need to be other ways to keep him playing.
Give him individual fame as a warrior! Solaris mode is incoming so it hopefully adresses that.

--------------------------------------

ERGO: Since the faction play with the factions can not be realisticly balanced to resemble battletech lore, there need to be a focus on the player´s unit. Limited Logistics, Limited Supply, Limited Mechs.
Diverse but limited mission goals for "Unit Gameplay". Capture factories, cities, depots. (not only orbital defense guns and generators), Airbases, Ports.

TIPS for PGI:
=> Break down galaxy warfare to planetary warfare.
=> Have not the whole inner sphere as playground, but make a monthly campaign over a single planet (or maybe 3 on different fronts for different factions)
=> Give that planet a lore meaning with a planetary map! (Make something up if lore doesnt tell it already - Since only few planets are necessary, you have time to create new planetary maps within that month)
=> Planetery Zones to conquer and hold with industry, repair grounds, supply caches with ammo. (MAYBE even limited to certain timezones for US/EU/EA)
=> Tie the zones to credible maps. Forest zones, Urban zones, Ice zones. Not every planet has Crystal zones with 150 degrees temp.
=> Put the UNIT DECAL into a captured zone so every player can see it.
=> Units need a zone conquered before a mech can be repaired/resupplied etc.
=> Mechs can be destroyed for the time of a campaign or a given time.

=> Get rid of countless and meaningless drops over and over again with virtual queues most players don´t even understand.
=> Make a few, fixed number of drops (i.e. attack on consecutive zones) per evening where players can plan to attend or not.
(WoT has a nice credible strategic gameplay system, which could be adopted, just dont have hundreds of zones but only several dozens - we have fewer players afterall)
=> Have a unit play on several consecutive days, if it wants to gain ground aka operational/strategic gameplay!
e.g. Zones A&B can be captured on day 1 as a prerequisite to capure zone C&D on day 2 etc.
(Atmospheric drops on planets were not made every 24h even in lore)

=> Use accomplished monthly campaign goals to keep your own lore warfare going (Planet 1 was captured, so next month campaign is over Planet 2) - create your storyline plot while the current campaign is still going.

Edit:
=> Tie bonuses to zones: Repair Bay - repairs your mech within 1 day, Factory - Your unit gets 1 mech to distribute among its players etc.

This also encourages players to have more mechs (i.e. PGI earns money), and units to help their players.
Countless possibilities arise from this.

For ME, the task for MWO/PGI is to take ME as a individual player with my mech right into a position where my actions as a pilot MATTER in the Inner Sphere.

Edited by AngelusDD, 23 July 2016 - 05:31 AM.

[Capitalism Kills Our Future]

I find it very boring, that in this large galaxy every planet has the same few maps. FW NEEDS RANDOM MAPS, that always change, at least partially. I call it "zone limited random skripts" - i use this in my turn based strategy game, which i develop, so every game is different. That means, some (important) areas are designed by hand and dont change, but everything else is random. Surprise is the essence and in actual FW there is no surprise. Always the same routine, its more like Solaris arenas, not like a war area. And the maps need MORE PLAYERS !!! The scale is too small for a battletech war. 50 ag. 50 should be the goal. (fewer players should be ok too, but if there are enough waiting players, it should be possible to have a larger scale of battle)

In addition there should be SPECIAL HAND DESIGNED MAPS FOR KEY WORLDS, like donegal, tharkad and places that many of us know from the books like "the rock" etc.... Special missiongoals for this worlds would increase the immersion and the fun too.

The COMPLEXITY OF MECH FIGHTING, especially in CLOSE COMBAT is not good. I want to bend fore and backward, to kneel, to kick, to stomp on lying enemys and punch with my mech. Elite players should be able to win like Kay Allard against multiple enemys at once. Now its impossible to beat multiple enemys at once in close combat, at least if they have average aim, skill and good armor.

I know this is ambitious, it needs a better engine and needs investements. But it would bring back old customers and a lot of new ones. In additon funds could be raised over the community or kickstarter. At least PGI could ask, if people would support them with money, IF they make a REAL step forward in MWO. (so many people are willing to pay for colors, mechs etc. so how much more would they be willing to pay for a real improvement ???)

p.s. sorry for my english, its not my native language

Edited by Metalgery, 23 July 2016 - 05:17 AM.