869 replies to this topic

[Hells]

- remove long tom ffs
- ban from CW players with less than 100 matches in quick play.
- do not accept players with trial mechs.
- faction buffs. like more tonnage for drop or less cd for arriving dropships.
- contest for 1-2 planets to populate queues.
- diverce mercs and loyalists. more tonnage and faction buffs for loyal pilots and money fro mercs.
- make rewards according to match perormance. not KMD or DD. stimulate objective plays.

aside from CW you should fix goddamn textures and meshes. ammo stuck in another invisible wall. your moddeling is bad.
and rework quirk and ghostheat systems.

but! chassis qurks like cyclops sensor array is good. and it will be better if you could combine it with other chassis.

Edited by Hells, 23 July 2016 - 02:30 PM.

[K19]

CW and dry ... Plenty of time to play and with very limited use of tactics.

1º Long tom does not use any level that is still CW game. It has many errors such as shoot the mech.

2º Maps are "bad" to anyone who knows the universe Batteletch.

3º Before thinking about CW update all game maps with type that is used on maps as PH, FC new map are much more interesting than "these things" maps used in CW "FW"

4º MC more in CW. Lower the price for digital icon and $********€ 500MC 180MC. If 10MC gray 20 colors now ok 500 MC and a joke.

For now comes but say one thing to use 1th that exists and then invent. I'm playing Battletech not as MW and a small part. I'm getting tired of waiting and pen and I like the title not properly the game

[Wintersdark]

As much as I don't like it, I really think they need to seriously consider moving to a two faction system. We've got so many factions, and so few players, it's really not sustainable.

I get why people won't like that, but I really can't see a way around that. Keep individual factions in name, but make CW purely IS v. Clan.

[Nightbird]

Some suggestions, probably won't be able to post in twitch discussion.

1) Clans versus IS: share all attack lanes, every IS/Clan faction can attack every contested planet. For the purpose of tags, make victories outside of your faction's lane be worth <half or some other %> towards winning that planet for your unit and faction.

2) Get rid of long toms, give perpetual satellite sweep or greatly reduce frequency (2 per match)

3) Get rid of gates/gate gens for all faction play maps

4) The more planets your faction owns the lower your drop deck tonnage/vice versa if few planets. Dynamic tonnage from 200 to 300. (Stretched logistics)

5) Set minimum pay-out for losing/winning a FP match, such as 500k (proportional to match time, 500k is for a full duration match). This is at the end of match summary, thus if a pilot's earnings already exceed this amount no bonus would be given. Can be boosted with premium time as this is the raw amount. Reason: FP matches can be very lopsided, it's important for pilots to not walk away with nothing after a long match.

Edited by ironnightbird, 23 July 2016 - 02:51 PM.

[Dee Eight]

The OP should add a poll to the topic to track how many actually play, or would play, FW if it was fixed...

[Zuesacoatl]

MovinTarget, on 23 July 2016 - 10:23 AM, said:

Not to be overly contrarian, but 228 makes it a point to *not* get in the same faction as MS. If we end up facing them, fine, but please don't assume MS has assumed star-like mass and all mercs gravitate towards them.

I was actually saying the oposite. It may piss them off, but many see MS avoiding 228. It still does not take away the fact that big mercs can run FW. With one big merch moving to a faction, you will find another in the same faction or in one where they do not have to face said first merch group, it changes the face of the FW map. I do not mid large groups, but in this low pop game, they should be limited in what contracts they can accept.

[MovinTarget]

Zuesacoatl, on 23 July 2016 - 03:35 PM, said:

I was actually saying the oposite. It may piss them off, but many see MS avoiding 228. It still does not take away the fact that big mercs can run FW. With one big merch moving to a faction, you will find another in the same faction or in one where they do not have to face said first merch group, it changes the face of the FW map. I do not mid large groups, but in this low pop game, they should be limited in what contracts they can accept.

I have suggested this in the past, but perhaps mercs ( and loyalist?) Units have a concurrent drop limit instead of the occasionally proposed unit cap. This means a unit can only drop X players over all modes of fp at a time.

The reason i proposed this is because 228 may be a "big unit" but that does not mean we all drop in fp. Many are doing strictly tournament or league play. If its a limit to concurrent players, the effect of a merc unit will be diminished without diminishing the unit as a whole.

As far as controlling where the mercs go. All i can say is that if the choice is taken out of our hands in the name of balance, we better get paid! Any automated system (as some have suggested) has the capacity to get manipulated.

Edited by MovinTarget, 23 July 2016 - 04:15 PM.

[N0MAD]

Bombadil, on 23 July 2016 - 01:37 PM, said:

Thank you for the info, and I will take it into serious consideration when gathering feedback.

So as usual you NGNG will consider what feedback to take back to PGI??
Same old softball session i see coming?
So what part of developing do you do?? and why isnt this being done by the Community manager?.
Gona answer this?.
I cant take this town hall as legit after reading your comment..

Edited by N0MAD, 23 July 2016 - 04:31 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

I must admit given the NGNG suggestion(s) to fix FP was not at all well received by anyone I've chatted to over the last 4 weeks.

I do hope said suggestions are not going to form the basis of the solutions here at all.

[Mordale]

Put the,..... "BETA" Sign back up,....it really fits!

[Kargush]

I won't spend time repeating what has been said, so I'll stick to adding my own 2 Rasalhague Kroner.

Game modes: take a lesson from MWLL. That game had field bases with repair facilities. Let the defenders in Invasion mode have a small repair facility at the back of their lines. Make it a 2-bay building, so only 2 can repair at a time. Repair times depends on total damage to mech, so a mech lacking both side-torsi and a leg takes longer to repair than one missing just a side-torso. It should be stuck far enough to the back to make it hard to reach for the attackers, but not far enough back to allow someone to sit in the drop area and fire at anyone coming close to it. Some maps will need a tweak to allow for this.

Counter-attack could be switched to allow the former defenders to sally out and destroy a hasty field base (an FOB) with a couple of turrets, maybe a small wall (high enough to cover the legs of things like Summoners) with 2 open gates. Destroying the base (say, blowing up the command bunker and a fuel storage) would be the Omega of this sort of game-mode. Throw in one or two spots that would allow anyone attacking this field base a spot to snipe from, but otherwise leave it so that anyone wanting to kill the base objectives must go inside it. With the defenders actually hot-dropping into the fight, this lets them have an advantage in reinforcing the fight, but with no repair options and no real cover they could get sniped away if they haven't got someone out there to hold down the one or two spots that allow for overwatching fire.

Perhaps even throw in a game mode where the attackers can capture forward bases, with drop zones moving back and forth as the bases are captured and recaptured, with the final base being the ultimate objective (other possible win condition as always being to wipe out the enemy).

Maps: once again, look to MWLL. There you'll find underground maps, swamps (and not in the sense of tropical death worlds), an airless asteroid map, a desert, the variety is great, and the map sizes are even better. Even on open maps there'll usually be one or two lanes of attack. By way of example (and this might have changed since I last played MWLL, years ago), on Palisades the fighting would usually go on near the two spots where access to the canyon floor was easy, and occassionally a push across the bridge. Once the fighting moved past these spots you'd see more open areas and maneuvers with supporting fire.

Oh, and remove the bloody Long Tom. Or at the very least change it to something only the drop commander can use, with a long cool-down and the same sort of smoke marker as the consumables (and the same ToT to allow people to react).

Moving into pipe-dreams: please add vehicles. Some clans and some Houses make great use of vehicles. We needn't a great variety of them, but if they're cheaper than mechs and not as easy to customize they could be fine way for newer people to get their feet wet. Limited hardpoints, a limited selection of weapons, all these things will help keep them relegated to second fiddle, but they can still be nasty. 2 vehicles in every class, 1 each for Clan and IS, also makes them less varied than mechs. Something like this, say:

Lights: Harasser (IS) and Hephaestus (Clan)
Medium: Vedette (IS) and Epona (Clan)
Heavy: Po (IS) and Oro (Clan)
Assault: Demolisher (IS) and Morrigu (Clan)

And if vehicles proves to both be a stream of income (they could be sold like mech packs, after all...) and even helps with player recruiting and retention, win-win for everyone.

[testhero]

This post grabbed my attention first.

Bombadil, on 23 July 2016 - 11:38 AM, said:

Just curious, in your opinion what are the main differences in the points of view between NA and non-NA players?

North American Players have FP servers while European (and Singaporean/Oceanic) players do not.
Having a percentage of the faction play matches on the European servers would help the growth of FP in Europe.
Every time I look at playing FP I do have to think about giving up 60 to 90 ping.

Having the first up faction banner on the select your faction page change on a regular basis may be an easy way to spread a few of the incoming players more evenly around the factions rather than many who just see the Davion banner and select it.

As the first meeting revolves around the player numbers - buckets and ques issues
I was thinking about the loyalist units that went on secondment to other houses to fight the clan invasion (the Davion guards RTC's fighting in Kurita alongside the Genyosha - the Knights of the Inner Sphere assisting Fed-Com Forces)
I was thinking about loyalist units being able to select secondment offers from traditionally allied houses as a option to open different invasion/counter attack corridors.

Another idea would be for some of the larger (mainly mercenary) units to become one or more of the periphery states as the clans were also raiding or invading in the periphery as well as the closer inner sphere.

THe other ideas and proposals that caught my attention:
I also like the proposal for faction based trial drop decks
The upcoming drop-deck saving mechanism will be a big advance.
The ability to see the scouting report while waiting to drop would be great.

It is great that Bombardil has been made available to monitor this forum. This is a big step up in customer care and I appreciate his time. It emphasizes the commitment to making community warfare a better part of MWO. THanks.

[Uncle Stickyfinger]

I am a new player, only been here ~ 6 months, and I want to stress that bc I *want* to play FP, I *want* to participate in the grand conquest/defense of the galaxy advertised this mode as. I've focused on building reasonably useful builds and mastering mechs that are viable in QP, but I see that as a grind to play the 'real' game on the Faction Play tab. (no I have not 'got gud' and am a noob but honestly you veterans should try and realize that as you all burn out there needs to be someone trying to step in and keep things moving. i personally want you to stay bc you guys are amazingly skilled at this game and I learn a lot from you, even if I'm not as fast as internalizing as I'd like.)

All that being said maybe I have no right to weigh in on a mode some of you have been trying to help shape from it's initial introduction. If so then ignore this. If not, would it possible to:

• Consider implementing faction styles/potential pros and cons to which side or individual house someone chooses? Mercs/freelances would not get these and would have more versatility, but
  
• Make being loyal to a House/Clan REALLY feel important and reward you? If we agree to the aforementioned bonus/restrictions proposed rather than to run as freelancers/mercs, offer those people something tangible and unique (and I don't mean cockpit items either)
  
• Could loyalty/faction points be spent on some sort of career tree in FP to add personal quirks to suit your own playstyle? these quirks would not transfer over to QP, as that's a "sandbox mode" where what you do has no impact on the galactic battle. Having a rank title is nice, but being an "intelligence officer" with some sort of sensor bonus or "munitions expert" with free c.a.s.e. or ammo quirks would make me feel like a unique player on this stage and would tell the team what it is that I do well.
  
• Anything really that can increase immersion and a sense of the scale of what we're trying to represent with these battles. This scope is truly epic and I want to feel a part of THAT, not just a part of a stomp on Grim Portico The Customization of MWO is impressive- play to that strength and add some personalization of some sort as well. Let those who are amazing snipers be rewarded with accolades that all can see in a FP update dossier of some kind- give people bragging rights, they work hard for it and deserve to be known (and targeted) by rivals

I guess that's about it. Yes I like the idea of "special snowflake" rewards, but if the scope and feel of battling the Clans for the fate of the galaxy could be more accurately conveyed somehow, we could feel like heroes or conquerors, or shady scoundrels who play both sides for suckers. Besides, team game or not, don't we all play this game to do our best and to showcase that to the other players?

Final caveat: I am well aware of the numerous technical and gameplay changes that need to be implemented in general and those should take priority. I am suggesting things to fold in as those get resolved. I am not speaking to those because there are people on this threads with thousands of matches worth of experience and have the knowledge to do so. I do not. My two cents on LT, for example, are meaningless bc I don't drop with it nearly as much as you guys do, etc. I trust the experience of the veteran FP warriors and will let them speak on those things. And I ask PGI to not dismiss the people who DO drop in FP as "bittervets". They're out there using your product; listen to their feedback, please.

[Cato Zilks]

Sorry Bombadil, I just could not stop adding things.

The round table:

I know the large merc units want/expect a spot, however, I think it more important that each faction fave a loyalist rep that is active in CW. We cant let the Merc crowd drive this conversation. Maybe a rep from one of the top loyalist units of each faction and one rep from each of the top five merc units. That makes a 15 person roundtable with a strong, but not overwhelming, loyalist voice.

Scouting:

Everyone is throwing around weight caps, this is silly because it just changes what the "heavy" mechs are. If you drop to 45 ton cap, everyone will run 45 and 40 tons and commandos and Mist Lynx will still be rolled. Instead, be smart and make a team weight cap. We can mange ourselves when dropping in public group ques, we could do the same here. Maybe a drop weight of about 150 tons, that allows a 55,55,20,20 or a 40,40,40,30. (helps limit the 220 ton brawl crew mentality and diversifies scouting decks.)

Double the spots for beacons and put beacons in high places that need Jumpjets. You can force different play styles by changing where the beacons are. (also limits the 220 ton brawl crew mentality.)

Force the invading team to destroy an anti aircraft gun so their dropship can pick them up. (forces teams to bring some firepower - no locust-pb rush)

Scouting Rewards:

Permanent satellite coverage at 80%, does not detect ECM.

Longtom - I happen to love it, I get that others dont. Lets make it so that the company commander can pick 3 sectors that LT can target (no dropzones). Give it a 4 minute cooldown, but when charged it just waits for a target in one of the 3 sectors. It makes LT useful but limits it from crippling combat entirely. Once sectors are picked, they cannot be changed all match. If the company commander does not pick sectors, LT does not fire.

Invasion:

Allow units to beef up defenses when they tag a planet. (more turrets, better turrets, different turrets, UAV poles, ECM poles)

Stop opening clan/IS defense lanes for everyone. Switch to alliance attack/defense sharing.

Use the lore alliance networks for the IS: Kurita-Liao-Marik, Davion-Steiner, and FRR on its own. Have the clans be allied to one another. Allow allies to attack each other, but keep the attack/defense sharing; essentially allowing a civil war where say Steiner could both attack and defend a Davion planet they voted for.

Change arty and air stikes. Arty increases its area of bombardment by 4x and drops twice the shells. Air strike drops one big bomb with larger area effect (even upgraded turrets get wasted).

FW general:

Make the pay scaling 2x as extreme for pop balance. If CJF has 15% of population mercs get -90% cbills. It will hurt to all go to the same place. (pop balance)

Unit caps. This needs to happen. I like dropping with MS or 228, but the mega sized merc units need to go. The portion of these units that are active in CW is relatively small (less than 20% of MS or 228 shows up in the FW ques), so realistically they could form units just of their FW players. OR . . . they could go loyalist. The game is ruined for loyalists when their faction can drop huge numbers and be competitive one week, but have nobody the next and get crushed (CSJ phase 2).

Change the role of Faction Warfare and Quickplay. Lower the cbill rewards for QP by 60% and rasie the EXP rewards by 40%. Raise FW 40% cbills from where it is now but -50% on EXP. FW is the spot to make your money with your mastered mechs. Also, increase the cbill reward for losing in FW. Pugs need a reason to come back.

(a big request) Give the planets some personality:

Match FW and QP maps into groups and assign each planet a map-group. Hoth Group, Mining Group, Temperate Group, Dessert Group, Urban Group, etc,

The first 5 slices for the planet are QP maps where we play a super version of conquest. (Keep the 4 decks of mechs and cap up to 3000 points). The last 8 slices are traditional FW maps with the traditional objectives.

This does a few things: 1) varies mission type (not always invade/counterattack). 2) changes tactics (not always about gateway chokepoints), 3) adds a personality for a planet. 4) mitigates the inherent disadvantages of Pugs by giving them some maps they know. 5) makes lights and mediums a bit more relevant as their speed is essential in a longer conquest match. 6) Better represents an invasion: resources need to be secured in addition to bases.

Edited by Cato Zilks, 23 July 2016 - 05:27 PM.

[Cato Zilks]

Forgot one thing, we should punish factions for allowing ghost drops. If you get 2 ghosts in a row on invasion (attack the slice, then defend from counterattack) that slice is permanently red. We cannot have factions ignoring defenses and then pile on in the last hour. It demotivates players that don't live in the right timezones.

[MovinTarget]

Cato Zilks, on 23 July 2016 - 05:15 PM, said:

Unit caps. This needs to happen. I like dropping with MS or 228, but the mega sized merc units need to go. The portion of these units that are active in CW is relatively small (less than 20% of MS or 228 shows up in the FW ques), so realistically they could form units just of their FW players. OR . . . they could go loyalist. The game is ruined for loyalists when their faction can drop huge numbers and be competitive one week, but have nobody the next and get crushed (CSJ phase 2).

Okay I just want to point out that as a member of 228's FP "subunit" (the '206th') I don't get why we get lumped in as a mega presence in CW when apart from our practice nights, we rarely field more than a 12 man which many loyalist units can do.

I don't see how unit caps will work better than simply a "X members of a unit can drop at one time" cap. Many of our players do not play FP (and many other units have the same thing) so why break us up?

Edited by MovinTarget, 24 July 2016 - 02:21 AM.

[Sunstruck]

PGI please just revert as much back to how it was in phase 2, aside from scouting and leaderboards so we can have FP/CW back. Phase 3 "buckets" and planet selection is a disaster, it isn't an improvement, just switch it back to how it was.

[p0rtal00]

1, nerf the heck out of long tom, it's a great idea but when your opponents loose mechs in their dropships and from some vids I've watched lose 16 of their team to it there is something wrong.
very, very wrong. it is not fun or fair to play against or with. like i said a good idea but poorly executed, the damage needs to be lessened dramatically, the drop frequency needs to be lengthened and maybe given control to the drop leader.

2, do something about the maps, every darn map is a bottleneck map. push through the tiny hole and hope you survive is sloppy design for game play and map design.

3, differing objectives or multiple objectives, watch some battlefield games and learn from them. at the moment it's rinse repeat, rinse repeat and rinse (sorry for swearing here) bloody repeat. it's very, very boring game play. if in a multi objective scenario a forward base has been overun by your team your next drop should be able to start there. if you take and hold a radar installation your team should get limited radar over that area (cut off from cnc the radar installation should only provide limited cover)

4, drop time waits, i've waited over 20 mins to get a game only to ghost drop. simple solution - split the team along weight and possibly psr and have two teams of six fight it out. get rid of ghost drops - more boring and sloppy design. be able to do something other than stare at the same screen for those 20 mins

5, if there are many posts on the forums regarding a single issue don't ignore them, at least post a news item regarding the issue and maybe even a fix or a poll regarding possible fixes. this way a modicum of control is still possible but at least it will show the community that broken mechanics are important and possibly fixable.

6, keep scouting, great idea but maybe with more objectives such as the intel gathered could provide locations of hidden radar installations or defensive batteries. possibly have some of the radar installations or defensive batteries in the scouting match also.

7, drop decks, this could be difficult but since a lot play qp not all modules and weapons are on the mechs we'd use in fw. is it possible for a drop deck selection to remove any modules that are on other mechs and placed on the drop deck mechs?

it's like pgi don't want us to have fun whilst we play, i mean we are supposed to be having fun aren't we? people will not play if they are not having fun and at the moment fw is just not fun it's a boring exercise in patience hoping that something might happen.
i periodically look at fw to see what is happening and usually there is nothing. just so you know i won't be returning unless there are events for it and i'm certain that there are a lot more who feel this way which is quite sad. but you've brought this upon yourselves by giving us a broken game mode with pathetic maps and sloppy game design.

[BearFlag]

Cato Zilks, on 23 July 2016 - 05:15 PM, said:

Sorry Bombadil, I just could not stop adding things.

The round table:

I know the large merc units want/expect a spot, however, I think it more important that each faction fave a loyalist rep that is active in CW. We cant let the Merc crowd drive this conversation. Maybe a rep from one of the top loyalist units of each faction and one rep from each of the top five merc units. That makes a 15 person roundtable with a strong, but not overwhelming, loyalist voice.

No offense, Cato, but if the goal is to fix FW, excluding that 90% of the player base who don't play/quit playing is not good idea. What you'll get is more miss-the-mark tweaks from PGI when the population killing problems run much deeper and are more basic than queue changes, rewards, UI, unit caps, etc, etc, etc.

THE biggest problem with FW for most of the population is easy to express and difficult to fix. Basic game play for most of the players in most of the games is just not fun. That's the real culprit, the real murderer of FW. And until PGI is willing to admit and address this, FW will continue it's downward spiral punctuated only by FW events and disappointing tweaks.

I'll post later more details on the problems (not that there isn't a hundred such post already in this thread and on this forum).

[Xiomburg]

Ideas:

Remove all guilds from faction play (they can still be in their group for quick play and friends lists and such).

Add the following to Faction Play:

Mercenary Units

A. Maximum unit size: 20 players.
B. Maximum Drop: 6 players.
C. Clans cannot hire IS Merc Units.
D. IS cannot hire Clan Merc Units.
E. Must fulfill contracts to get paid.
F. Cannot have more than one Merc unit drop on a side at a time.

Clans

A. Maximum unit size: 40 players.
B. Maximum Drop: 10 players.
C. Must Bid to drop on a planet.

1. The lower the weight, the higher the payout.

D. Cannot have more than one unit drop on a side at a time.

Inner Sphere Houses

A. Maximum unit size: 50 players.
B. Maximum Drop: 12 players.
C. Must follow House drop weight commands.

1. More valuable planets have a higher drop tonnage.
2. Less important planets have a lower drop tonnage.
3. Extremely high value planets cannot be scouted and have Long Tom active at all times (Capital Planets and such)

D. Cannot have more than one unit drop on a side at a time.

Freelancers

A. Maximum unit size: Cannot be a part of a unit.
B. Maximum Drop: 1 player.
C. Can drop for Clans/Inner Sphere.

Edited by MechPorn, 23 July 2016 - 06:33 PM.