869 replies to this topic

[Vellron2005]

Much has been written about FW and how to fix it.. Here are my two cents:

1) The major problems of FW, to cut a long story short - is that it's not the "war" that it needs to be. Its arena-based combat over meaningless dots. There's no reality of war, holding dots means squat for the individual player and his equally meaningless faction. To a player, its completely irrelevant what faction he/she chooses, and how many planets his faction holds. OK, we now get trace amounts of MC if we're hanging out with the "it crowd" of the currently most populated unit, but that too is too little to matter in the grand scheme of things.

2) All the planets look the same (just a dot), all the planets have the same maps, same terrain types, and they all have red moons and orbit giant blue stars. And don't forget about the borgspace. This is absurd.

3) Planets are fought over and won on some remote arena-like bases with orbital cannons. No actual "war" is ever fought. We might as well decide the fate of a planet and it's multi million population with a chess game. And then when you play the chess game, a third player with the name of a male porn star comes along and removes one quarter of your chess pieces, just cose'.

4) No stories are told, no conflict shown, this war is fought exclusively between giant robots. No casualties of war, no heroes of war, no ruined worlds or razed cities. Its the cleanest galactic conflict ever.

5) A galactic war with a non-existent economy. No news from the front lines. if you don't click "Faction play", you'd never know there's a war going on..

Bottom line is - faction play needs more "faction" and more "war".

Get it? ;-)

[Peiper]

Just saw this thread. As this is page 25, and knowing how forums work, I'm probably too late to have an impact, but as the leader of a long standing unit of now mostly bored and/or disillusioned players who feel PGI has missed the boat on many things, well, I have a lot to say and would like to be part of this panel discussion. There are a lot of ideas that may have been thrown away or not considered that would make faction play much more interesting. I will throw them down here in a nutshell.

1. Economy.
A. Planets need meaning. If a planet produces something that players want, they will fight for it. People want what they can't have. That means the planets must produce something players want. That means technology they shouldn't have. Clan tech for IS and vice versa. Whether this is whole mechs, or let's say, 10 percent of a mech per planet, then so be it. Example. If you take Hesperus II as a clan player, you can put an inner sphere mech into your drop deck because, well, you can now make them. Another example: if you control ten clan worlds, you can make an omnimech and add it to your inner sphere drop deck.
B. Salvage. This should have been in the game from the very start of CW. Units collect parts for salvage, put them into a pool (a guild bank) and officers can distribute the salvage to the players in a clan so they can cobble together mechs.
C. Other assets. Control a certain world and you gain AI assets like VTOLS and tanks to bring with you into battle. Also, minefields and stuff for defense.

2. A black market. The black market is the equalizer for units factions that are having a hard time taking planets. Here's how it works:
A. Players and/or units have jumpships and trade dropships. They can fly around as merchants (this is another game mode, that doesn't involve mechs/combat) and visit planets on both sides of the line buying and selling products. These products could be then sold or given to their unit.
B. Money for the black market. Struggling factions pay more to fight for them as they do now, so this will help merchant players get a leg up on the competition.
C. Larger or faster jumpships could be bought or rented by units.

3. Supply lines and maybe unit dropships, also, dump faction capitols.
A. Right now there is no sandbox for CW. We keep restarting at the beginning of the clan invasion over and over, when that doesn't make sense as lore exists simply for flavor in this game and has no real function. Once let lose, even with PGI picking the planets we fight over, lore is broken because, well, players want to do what didn't happen in lore which is part of the reason Terra was taken twice by Clan Wolf, and this time, Clan Wolf is practically non-existent. So, a faction needs to be able to vote on which planets to take, or individual units should be able to attack a front/planet close to wherever their dropships are located.
B. If there are no unit dropships, factions vote on which planet to attack next. As now some planets produce something of value and others do not, factions and units have a reason to fight toward valuable planets.
C. If we have jumpships and dropships, then they exist somewhere physically on the inner sphere map and we move them around. Big or small units can affect the map by attacking planets within their jump range. Small units can do 'raid missions' and large units can lead 'invasions.' Small units can combine or help large units do 'invasion' missions. See below for mission types.
D. Location, location, location. War machines need supply lines. The larger a faction, the more likely they'll stretch their supply lines thin (represented in faction payouts. Smaller factions 'pay' more representing the ease of reinforcement.' A faction can vote on a capital maybe once a week. Capitals are the hub for supplies and there must be a chain of planets to your unit/the front in order to supply the front. If another faction cuts off/breaks the chain, or continues to raid the supply lines, then that faction's front line forces either have to do with less, with no supplies, or have to turn and prevent being stuck in a pocket/break out.

4. Types of missions with meaning.
A. Invasion. What it was before, but of course, you're taking over a planet of value, ideally, which will help gain assets for your unit and faction.
B. Raiding. Raiding a planet does not mean capturing. It means going in and either stealing supplies or damaging the planet's ability to supply others. It's banditry and thievery. If a small unit wants to raid, they attack a planet, steal some supplies which increase their own faction's supplies by an equal percentage that it damages an enemy factions supplies. Ideal missions for small units, as I envision these missions being 4, 6, or 8v8 missions. For now, they can simply be smaller versions of the public-drop queue death matchs, but the reward for winning would be faction-wide.

So, if you want to do get people to play CW, it comes down to MEANING. Planets must have assets the other faction wants. We must be able to vote as a faction (or simply move as units) to attack planets we wish to attack, or predict and put our Jumpships in range of planets we suspect we'll have to defend. Supply lines must be the game, to add a level of strategy. Raids must be a game type, where we can hurt the enemy and help ourselves with no intention of taking and holding planets. Capital planets can be voted on and changed periodically, unless you're going to expand the map to include the Kerensky Cluster and Pentagon Worlds. Even then, you'll have supply lines to clan homeworlds you can raid or sever. Black Market. The black market is a different game mode that can be used to help a unit's individual economy and supply and maybe also help a faction out. More traders, better economy even if the faction is otherwise down to one single world. they still have a chance to rebuild through the black market. Additional assets, salvage, and fighting for otherwise forbidden gear is also a great motivator. Supposedly clans and IS are balanced now, so why not allow players to have other tech in their dropdecks? Other assets would include stuff you can use to attack or defend planets with that can be from planets you conquer or the black market VTOL's, Tanks, Minefields, Infantry, Battle Armor.

If you put all this in, CW has a chance to be a lot of fun and bring a lot of people back as well as attract new players. Don't and CW is just another game mode/death match type with no meaning other than you get a dropdeck and maybe, if you're big enough, some MC for holding a planet.

Send me a note if you want me on the panel.

[tee5]

K O N D O, on 25 July 2016 - 09:55 PM, said:

tee5: http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__5310398
As Stormbringer13 has already said, it is a 12 v 12 game. A Unit with 40 high level players will always roll a Unit of 400 low level players. However a 400 player unit can mass drop on planets and the 40 player unit just can't keep up.
As an example: If you use your proposal and 2 x Units with 40 High Level players go to Jade Falcon and 2 x Units with 400 players go to Steiner, the Steiner FP drops will get rolled severely by JF. The only way the Steiner drops would win is by ghost drops. Ghost dropping equals lost FP players!!!

However, by allocating Contract Slots by Unit size, you will have a better chance of dispersing skilled and large units across all factions.

Yes people can argue that not all players in a unit regularly play CW/FP, however since they are in that particular unit, they can all start playing FP during events or at key times and you end up with an imbalance again. Therefore unit size has to be calculated on all players in the unit, not just the ones currently playing FW.

Although some tweaking is still needed; my suggestion on the below link is more important to FP balance. Some of the 'nice to have' features should come a distant 2nd to the first priority of player/unit balance across all factions.
It doesn't matter what new feature gets added, if the stomping and shear player volume on certain factions can't be controlled, then players will still move away from FP.

http://mwomercs.com/...06#entry5307306

My suggestion does not involve breaking up large units. This is unfair on those units. However we can make sure that multiple large units cannot all take a contract in one faction.

200 elite players on one side and 2500 players not so elite players on the other side, are extreme examples, to make it more obvious. In reality most Units are a mix of different skilled players. Only two or three units are out there that have only elite players. And if such a unit(36 elite players) makes a contract with your faction they are worth 90-120 mediocre players.

I never said that in my suggestion units are split or divided. If a unit switches a faction all quotients of all their players are added up and the sum is added to the maximum quotient of the faction.

If there is enough place in the faction the unit is welcome, if there is not enough space, because Maximum of 2000 faction quotient is exeeded, please go to another faction.

But I think we both want more fair and balanced factions, that what our suggestions have in common.

K O N D O, on 25 July 2016 - 09:55 PM, said:

Yes people can argue that not all players in a unit regularly play CW/FP, however since they are in that particular unit, they can all start playing FP during events or at key times and you end up with an imbalance again. Therefore unit size has to be calculated on all players in the unit, not just the ones currently playing FW.

If people of a unit start to play again, after a long hiatus, or if they get better, their quotient is getting increased, lets make a daily inquire over the quotients. And update these quotients on a daily basis.
If the faction quotient was at 1900 and some people start to play again, their quotient will increase, so the faction quotient will reach 2000. Stop no more new players allowed for that faction. Of course you can not kick out the players that are allready in this faction.

Right now with the current system, one faction can have 90% of the players base, all the penalty they will get is a big Minus on the Base Income. But most of the C-bills and XP are generated via damage, kills, assists etc. So most players don't care over the big Minus of the Base Income.

Edited by tee5, 26 July 2016 - 02:24 AM.

[Satan n stuff]

Repost from Jman5's thread:

Quote

I was actually going to do a mock up of some stuff I'd like to see, but I got bored halfway through and it's a lot of effort for something that likely won't be added anyway.


I did improve on my image editing skills a bit so that's something I guess.

Right now FP is almost entirely about winning more matches than the other faction with basically no real strategy behind it. There have been plenty of suggestions on handling individual matches so I'm not going to go talk about that now, but I'd like to see some strategy involved in which territories players fight over and how scouting and potentially other game modes tie into that.

There should be a territory system that's a bit more indepth than the simple hold the most slices to win system we have now. Specifically I'd like to see territories on an actual map with different ways to access territories and specific defenses to stop each one. Both sides should have to maintain supply lines by connecting territories via ground, air or orbiting dropships. Scouting missions could be allowed further into enemy territory than invasion matches and could be expanded in scope to allow for directly sabotaging defenses to pave the way for the invasion teams.
Both sides should be able to consolidate their gained territory by repairing or replacing damaged or destroyed defenses, defenders should not get a fully operational base for free. This could be a new game mode that involves escorting convoys or something similar.
Capturing key locations such as mech factories and maintaining supply lines for them should give separate bonuses to the players, groups and faction that captured it, a player that attacked or scouted on said territory should be eligible for all three bonuses. Taking and holding specific locations on a planet should be a requirement to actually flip the planet.

I will support anyone who actually wants some depth both on the match level and the planetary level.

Edited by Satan n stuff, 26 July 2016 - 02:34 AM.

[dervishx5]

It would behoove the people in charge of this fun little meeting to include someone from the NBT team since they've spent literally over a decade recreating FW in a far more grand and long-lasting manner.

[Icantswim]

I've been thinking about this for a while and here's what I have to say:

At the end of the day all I care about is my ability to play faction warfare invasion mode and how available it is for me. You know, when I come home in the evening, load up a client, I want to jump into FW match as soon as I can. And there's a number of things that prevent me from doing that.
1 Dropdecks. They are nonexistent. When my unit changes sides I have to set it up again. It's even more troublesome if you have to transfer dozens of modules from one set of mechs to another. In theory you should use different (appropriate) mechs on each map. Maybe even with the right type of camo. Yet it's unnecessarily troublesome to do so.
Look how it goes most of the time:
I jump into lobby, it's not full, we're not locked in, I don't know what map it is yet. I go alt-tab or even afk. When I come back, it's either 10 seconds till the match or the map is already loading. I just can't sit there and wait till we get 12 people, check with my sheet what map it is (i still hasn't memorized it yet and honestly I don't see the point) and then decide like "it's vitric forge, I really need to bring more dakka builds, but it's also 40 seconds on the timer and I don't want to bother cycling through 20 mechs to find the right one".
So what I would like to see is preset dropdecks. Maybe even preset mech loadouts, so that I don't have to either rebuild my mech every now and then or own 3 entities of the same mech variant.
2. As you noticed, the other problem is the amount of time you have to wait till you get into a match. As I see it the problem is that population is divided into different factions and even into different game modes.
2.1 Yet another problem is that we have only one planet to attack. If I come right after ceasefire, there's no one to play with yet. But if I come 3-4 hours after ceasefire, the planet is already 100% and there are 2 attacking groups waiting in the lobby already. So either way I'm not getting into a match.
2.2 Same goes if we get the Long Tom. It shifts population. Say planet has even amount of attackers and defenders, but the moment somebody gets Long Tom it shifts drastically so that there are 2-3 unpaired groups in the lobby.
As for me, planets still don't matter. So why not open a new planet or reset the old one so that matches can keep on going?
2.3 Most of the times I'm dropping solo. And the most frustrating thing is when you've been waiting for 10+ minutes, there are already 11 people in the lobby, and here comes some 6-12 men group, you are getting transferred into the next attack queue and have to wait the whole thing again. So basically groups are stealing matches from individuals that have been waiting for quite a while. That's not nice.
And honestly I have no idea how to solve this. Separating group and solo queue in FW is not an option. We are already as spread out with all the factions and scouting as it gets. Forbid big groups from participating in FW - that's not an option as well.
3. Since we've got that nice FW leaderboard going on, maybe implement some c-bills multipliers based on how high your opponent is on said leaderboard? That way while being wiped out by [EVIL] some will be able so say "at least we are getting paid good money for this nonsense"
4. About planets and mc rewards. Nobody is going to go out of their way to defend some planet that brings mc income. Most of us are just playing the game and won't tolerate longer waiting times and worse game experience in general for some mere 15 (divided by unit member count) mc. So that thing doesn't work. And I honestly don't see it working at all.
Thing is, all I care is fast waiting times, matches availability and ease of use. Those mc I'm not getting is the last thing I worry about.
5. To be honest all the talk about lore, repair stations, additional quirks based on the planets you control - you know, in my opinion it seems to be overcomplicating things. Take that planet based mechs boosting for example. Will it really affect the battlefield? I don't think so. As long as I position myself so that enemies can't return fire effectively, it doesn't matter how buffed their mechs are. And the other way around, when I'm alone against [EVIL] 8 men, it doesn't matter how buffed my mechs are.
6. In one other multiplayer game I saw one interesting thing that might improve MWO as well. So in that game while you're waiting in the lobby it analyzes what builds your team has and displays a warning like "look, your team has 5 lurmboats, it's too many support mechs, so you might be a bit lacking on the front line, it might be beneficial for you to consider bringing more laservomit" or "look, it's vitric forge and your team has 10 laservomits, you might want to bring more dakka for its awesome sustained fire" or something like that.
7. And, on a side note I want to remind you that emerald taiga exploit (you can shoot o-gen or omega in counter-attack over the wall) is still there and should be fixed.

Edited by Icantswim, 26 July 2016 - 02:51 AM.

[Baulven]

Currently the options that hurt player retention are (in no particular order) no group vs solo or small group queue (teamwork is the deciding factor on most maps), current long tom mechanics (I have seen a lot of people announce they won't play the faction mode based on being on the receiving end), map design (choke point city is boring and repetative. We also only have 6 maps for all of faction play.), and no tutorial on how faction warfare works (while it seems straightforward to some others need help. You get growth and detention off of making things easier not harder on the new guys.

Suggestions on these problems (never present problems without solutions.)

Add in group and solo queues. Add alliances (you are a distinct faction but belong to a larger allliance.) This compresses attack options, gives larger pools to fewer choices, and allows people to continue playing the game modes they like.

Long Tom needs addressed in a meaningful way. This means make it a huge radius small damage mechanic (like an airstrike) or remove it and add in something else. It's not amusing, it's not fun, and a lot of times people stop scouting to make sure it doesn't but the field and kill faction play. The fact that it currently kills faction play makes it a bad mechanic.

The maps are currently nothing but chokepoint brawl city. While qp may thrive off of this it isn't what mechwarrior is about, and definitely not what fp should be about. The attack avenues should be more open, the maps in general are very small, and they are incredibly repetative after your first week. Modified quick play maps would work better.

A tutorial would help the mode a lot. Many people who drop in the first time to faction warfare are under regular impressions: Bring down the gate? Shoot it. Attacking a generator? What do you mean there is a window and this tiny paper thing shack is completely impervious to all damage outside of that area? These things frustrate new players and older players that wind up walking new players through these requirements. A tutorial that address taking down a gate, taking an ogen, and attacking the gun would be perfect for current faction play.

[TWIAFU]

Rampage, on 25 July 2016 - 04:51 PM, said:

I understand but you know that an advance timeline does result in mixed tech, right? What Mech did Victor Steiner-Davian pilot leading up to him arriving at Huntress? After Tukayyid there was mixed tech on both sides. I do, however, understand the resistance to going there.

I was not clear maybe, allow me to try.

Not "mixtec", but an advance in the timeline allows for the IS tech to reverse engineer clan tech and finish tech projects the IS is working on at this point.

Instead of IS able to use Clan mechs/tech for IS dropdecks, and advance in the timeline, say 6 years, the IS would have pretty much all the same weapons systems that the Clans do, just IS versions. New IS AC's, ER Lasers, Streak 4 and 6.

[Baulven]

Honestly if I had a dream for how faction play would work it would be inspired by proxis. Units manage their dropships, mechs are taken out of commission based on damage (not forever but say 30 minutes for complete destruction starting at time of death), salvage giving you random components off of dead enemies (Yay I found a small laser), and other things that actually make you feel like you are managing a war. Mechs are supposed to be scarce, but if you go over how many we destroy in faction play every week both clans and the IS would have depleted everything a long time ago.

[Bud Crue]

As part of this round table I think PGI should take this opportunity to simply level with its customers so that we have a realistic idea of what they are capable of.

What I mean by that is: After having read 25 pages of what folks want for CW and then going back over the last four years of this games development, something just occurred to me, I don't think PGI is capable of incorporating most of the things that people say they want out of this game.

We all know what PGI can do, and that is make a stompy robot arena shooter. In both QP and CW that is essentially what we have, and I don't see that changing just because we have a round table where people essentially say "for CW we want immersion" or whatever. I think the best/most we can expect in that regard are going to be things like more planetary descriptions and maybe things like variable drop deck weights based on the "importance" of planets. We might get a mixed tech mode or environment (perhaps this could be an aspect of mercenary play at the cost of the reputation points tree). We might get things like occasional bonuses for various factions based on a rolling schedule of events (e.g. kurita v davion weekend loyalists each get 10% cbill bonus this weekend, anyone answering call to arms on one of their planets gets 5%, etc.). Stuff like that. Stuff that while a nice change, would still fall far short of what people have asked for in the preceding 25 pages.

TLDR: We are not going to get virtually any of the immersive/interactive things that folks have put forth for the last 25 pages if they would require any substantive changes in the current game play. And I think it behooves PGI to be upfront about that, and the community to be realistic in its expectations. If they don't level with us about this, I foresee see this round table being just another opportunity for the community to howl with rage over more "false promises" from PGI down the road.

[Varvar86]

There is no way to “fix, upgrade, develop or overhaul” existing CW because its build on wrong basis of unachievable dream. I understand why they started this way - because all MW lore is all about that iconic inner sphere map and global war. This is THE CORE, and Holy Grail of all MW universe. This is logical und understandable that PGI wanted to present this CORE idea in MWO game, because if there is no factions/clans, inner sphere/homeworlds all MW will collapse. Idea is right. WRONG APPROACH – that’s the problem.

Let’s be realistic –all that factions/clans in intergalactic war on GIGANTIC map is very cool but also very ambitious. But even 1000 maps won’t be enough to make this universe feel like a real universe – this is unachievable goal. Even if EA and Ubisoft will combine all their bazzilion employees and will work together with PGI nonstop – still not possible. This “dream mode” as PGI want it too se is TECHNICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. So first step for any developer is to stop, look and their crew and analyze their possibilities. Sometimes to proceed forward you need to make very important step back. I think this step for PGI should be to Admit that their CW idea, as it is now, has failed and accept that they need to do something less scale but more logic and lore based…. And now you can stop reading further, because as we all knows PGI (read here “Ross”) never accepts their fails, so author of this post fully accepts and understands, that everything written below are in category of “unreachable dreams”.. Still, let’s try it:

Reasons. As written above – intergalactic global war mode is technically impossible to implement even for very big developers. Player and fan base of MW never was extremely big. This is old universe and majority on modern people don’t know what it is. This results in player base quantity. MWO should start small and upgrade to big by perfect balance and interesting gameplay – not backwards as PGI tried to do.

FP seasons (actually for some reason we have “season 1” right now) Global mode focusing on LORE and STORY, divided on periods of time and telling the detailed conflict story of few chosen factions/clans “here and now” to keep it within timeline. Reaching different goals of the Season will lead to storyline development/twist/move and consequences opening or closing new stories and involving other factions in next Season.

Scale: Preparation to the season should take into account current player base and use that information for scale up Season to fit all plyers in. Depending on Season scale can focus on single solar system and 2 factions or involve more parties and systems as much as needed to not create overcrowded clusters. Flexibility of this storyline system allows to scale up/down the developments on the fly by adding additional events that will bring new opponents and open/close new systems.

Season Timeline: Depends on players immersion. Again as story is not lineal and all goals are short based all can be corrected of the fly by the scenario. Ordinary season may last 2-3 months before switch to other factions/clans stories and universe sector.

Story: As mentioned each season can be focused of several factions conflict story, lore –based or fresh written (anything will be better that “nothing” we have now). Players can be easily involved on this stage to help developers crate basis for first seasons . Not only houses/clans can be involved, also any kind of mercenaries and special forces which lore can provide, there endless possibilities to create fascinating stories. As result each Season will provide unique background story with set of goals for each involved party, featuring story twists and turns depending on which goals will be reached. Season end will have consequences on next Season.

Technical. Each season features special set of maps for gameplay. Will not touch here map designs (deserves all new topic), will only mention that they will have to represent planet ecosystem. Still players help can be used for this work. Planet randomizer as also somewhere here.

Developers income. Wide possibilities here. Within cooldown period between Seasons lots of packs can be presented. If season will feature story that will involve special faction/clan forces (mercenaries also) such pack of mechs/camos/warhorns/etc. can be presented in store. Providing this pack with detailed story and art (that can be viewed in game store or at any time in game wiki) will kill both goals in one shot – lore and content. All possible cockpit items you can fit here. Preset faction sets… well lots to get income from here.

Positive. All Factions/clans involved one by one (in different combinations tight by the story of the Season). Lore and story is here (separate line in news feed for FP Season only, featuring live changes, news and stories from frontlines ). You get involved and can affect the future story yourself. You participate in short story fitting F2P model that will not repeat, you get special unique rewards and memories that will stay with you. You will be given a chance to play for all factions/clans, become a part of them, and understand their life priorities. Short based goals with forgoing consequences and visible profits.

Negative. Classic “Inner sphere war” idea Scale Down in a name of more depth. No loyalist that want to stay forever and ever with their chosen faction.

… Seems quite flexible idea that can be adapted to better players immersion.

Edited by Varvar86, 26 July 2016 - 03:15 AM.

[VanReaper]

Hello all, im newer to the Mwo. 2months now. So id like to say a few things from my standpoint as a newer player.
Mercs. 2 consecutive contracts with any faction, then at least one with another. There mercs not loyalist, if wanna only play for Jade falcon be a loylalists.
Loylalists. Faction camo usable for all mechs. Not a gift only usable durring enlistment, if desert camo goes too.
Every army in the world does 2 things, cloths there troops, ie camo. And equips there troops. FP makes me feel like a merc even thou im not, must own own mechs, this leads me into my next and most important thing.
FP drops decks, new players may have several mechs and trials, these will not come close to being competative with experienced players. Each factions should have 2 to 3 premade drop decks or 6 to 8 usable mechs for faction play, like trial mechs but elited and equipped with 2 mods.
Us newer guys WILL try to play FP, so as a loyalist please be an ARMY and supplement my mechs. Im not going to grind for a year just do to FP.
Attack defense. Make it 1 or at least allow clan IS to attack with other clan IS. Ive seen enough of 24 attackers and 60+ defenders, end a match and defenders ghost won all your hard work.
Maps, for invasions add in QP maps randomly selected with random objectives, at least untill new maps are available.
Again newer player, love it. Keep up the hard work.

[KinLuu]

My shortlist of ideas:

• Remove the invasion gamemode. All 12 vs. 12 games should be a modified version of the counter attack gamemode.
  
• Change counter attack to feature a gameending objectives for both sides. Those could be a field base for the defending side and a Union-class dropship for the attacking side.
  
• Change rewards to be more focused on the objectives. Ideally they should be changed in a way that disencourages spawn camping. Because spawn camping is cancer.
  
• Pool the factions into 4 big alliances. Two on the IS, two on the Clan side.
  
• Make beeing a loyalist more attractive. For examples, only Loyalists should be able to tag planets and reap in those MC rewards.
  
• Reward caches and keys to players beeing part of a successfull planet takeover (or defense). The number of rewards should correlate with number of games played and w/l on that planet.
  
• Give meaning to the leaderboards. They should be season based and there should be rewards based on your units placement at the end of the season.
  
• There needs to be a system to seperate(or balance) big groups from small groups and small groups from soloplayers.
  
• Almost forgot! Remove the goddam longtom!

[Twoface]

1. The gameplay itself should make a Player wanna play, not a reward like MC or CBills.

2. Tactical InGame-Communication withoult voice still doesnt work. Strategy Needs communication and Faction Play Games
are heavily depending on strategy. (thats what makes a big part of the fun in FP)

3. All the battle happen in a small area because of the map design, what is quite sad because there would be much more tactical
room if the whole map is used.

4. Maybe the Option for a tactical briefing with your teammates, with a map you can paint on make notes etc. while waiting.

[Twoface]

Baulven, on 26 July 2016 - 03:02 AM, said:

Honestly if I had a dream for how faction play would work it would be inspired by proxis. Units manage their dropships, mechs are taken out of commission based on damage (not forever but say 30 minutes for complete destruction starting at time of death), salvage giving you random components off of dead enemies (Yay I found a small laser), and other things that actually make you feel like you are managing a war. Mechs are supposed to be scarce, but if you go over how many we destroy in faction play every week both clans and the IS would have depleted everything a long time ago.

I really love your Idea of looting fallen enemy mechs!

[Skaav]

I dont know what FW mode people making suggestions here played, but the one I played was flawed at its core gameplay loop, and therefore not as much fun as solo q/grp q/comp.
At no point did I ever think " This would be more fun if my planet had a flavor text" or ";Man, if i just would earn 10 MC,THEN this ******** repetitive map would be worth it"

This thread shows the Problem that PGI is actually facing: They are trying to improve the core gameplay loop currently, but the most vocal part of the playerbase is actually too inexperienced to make sensible suggestions that actually make the mode more fun to play. ( and yeah, people with 2 hours each evening in the last 4 years can also be too inexperienced, since when you're bad and dont undertsand the game and make no effort to further that understanding, just scrubbing around with your scrub 12 man is not gonna change that )

90% of the suggestions in this thread will not help raise player retention, the overall fun/attractiveness of the mode or just even enjoyment for the random casual dropping in. They just introduce 100's of hours of work time for non relevant fluff, which is cool and nice to have and a good time all around, no doubt, but not worth prioritizing developement time over actual sensible game related improvements.

I think the Viridian rework shows how drastically even little changes can alter the flow of a map, and IMO this should be the priority for FW, reworking the maps, overhauling the objectives and thereby trying to reduce the static nature of FW these days.

[BatWing]

This thread as 25 pages growing...

all of the comments are pointing out to the same constant notes and complains. just to quickly round up it would bring out to this:

PGI has just a bare layout of a Stellar Map, to make it short they need:
1 - Maps
2 - Missions
3 - Economy
4 - Goals to achieve
5 - a Story line engaging the crowd (at least a bit..)
.. just to name some...

this is not rocket science, if PGI need a Round Table to understand these primary needs, it means a chipmunk has more IQ than them. I am pretty sure they already know all of this, they need to...

Between UNDERSTANDING what they need and Having RESOURCES and SKILLS to program and render all of this there is a huge leap...

PGI had 5 years of design time, if they didn t get it so far, these Round Tables are just a joke in the consumer face.

Edited by BatWing, 26 July 2016 - 05:25 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Skaav, on 26 July 2016 - 04:42 AM, said:

I dont know what FW mode people making suggestions here played, but the one I played was flawed at its core gameplay loop, and therefore not as much fun as solo q/grp q/comp.
At no point did I ever think " This would be more fun if my planet had a flavor text" or ";Man, if i just would earn 10 MC,THEN this ******** repetitive map would be worth it"

This thread shows the Problem that PGI is actually facing: They are trying to improve the core gameplay loop currently, but the most vocal part of the playerbase is actually too inexperienced to make sensible suggestions that actually make the mode more fun to play. ( and yeah, people with 2 hours each evening in the last 4 years can also be too inexperienced, since when you're bad and dont undertsand the game and make no effort to further that understanding, just scrubbing around with your scrub 12 man is not gonna change that )

90% of the suggestions in this thread will not help raise player retention, the overall fun/attractiveness of the mode or just even enjoyment for the random casual dropping in. They just introduce 100's of hours of work time for non relevant fluff, which is cool and nice to have and a good time all around, no doubt, but not worth prioritizing developement time over actual sensible game related improvements.

I think the Viridian rework shows how drastically even little changes can alter the flow of a map, and IMO this should be the priority for FW, reworking the maps, overhauling the objectives and thereby trying to reduce the static nature of FW these days.

How is the gameplay loop of QP that much different that FP? Best I can tell is that the gates are really the only difference but once they are opened it is still Move mech - find enemy mech- shoot enemy mech- repeat. Yes you can base rush in FP, so to can you base rush in Assault, but in the end the loop darn near the same. So how does making the maps a bit better or the map based objectives different change that loop for the better or improve player retention any more than QP does?

To my way of thinking many of the features of "immersion" that us players of "Mechwarrior Online A Battletech Game" are requesting are what potentially differentiates the gameplay loop of FP from QP. But I admit I, like most of the posters over the last 25 pages, am one of those less than sensible people that you dismiss as causing problems for PGI with my desire for "non relevant fluff" and so I probably don't follow your higher level of analysis.

Edited by Bud Crue, 26 July 2016 - 05:48 AM.

[smokefield]

Reality : Round table main topic : we will release a new mech soon...its amazing. wanna buy it ?

[Lehmund]

In a nutshell, FP first and foremost needs larger maps that allow multiple strategies and mech composition to get wins. This means fewer choke points as well.

In addition, instead of needing to destroy the generators around Omega to open it up, I would recommend Conquest-style capture points 500m from Omega on this larger map that need to be capped. Each cap = 1 destroyed O-Gen. Then the attackers need to dominate areas of the map to get things done. Gen-rushing won't work anymore, but lights become more relevant for sneaky capping etc...

Everything else, including LT tweaks can be considered afterwards.

The changes above would make FW alot more fun for all and would change everything.

A personal request that should be pretty simple and mentioned here and there: add lore and perks to individual factions and planets when owned/won to make things relevant to the advancement of territories for different factions.