869 replies to this topic

[Starwulfe]

Here's the bullet point list that the pre-meeting gave to PGI
https://docs.google....uMjMe-6poY/edit

Not everything is fully detailed, it was just an outline.
Tons of discussion on each point.
Just not enough time to get to it in one round table.

Edited by Starwulfe, 29 July 2016 - 06:10 PM.

[Hunka Junk]

Thanks!

[Hunka Junk]

And I just found this over in another section:

http://mwomercs.com/...on-in-progress/

Maybe this thread should be locked so that there aren't two discussions in two different places?

[NAMEUNKOWN]

mmm almost nothing they mentioned is what, is written in this topic or I read it wrong. besides pgi knows all this already.

[KHAN ATTAKHAN]

Yes, let us not rustle anyone's jimmies, but in life some must be rustled so the whole can survive, no, then what is the future of this if the problem is ignored, it will be crushed under the weight of disappointed players and the those who shout loudest will be silent when they log into a game that will eventually be near non-existent.
I love this game and have spent thousands of real dollars to support it and PGI, yes my proposal may cause a bit of sobbing and maybe a few players will leave, but then they are the ones who are self serving and not truly supporting this game or PGI, they can always go back to League or WOW and we'd be better off for it, the game would leap ahead tremendously.
I am but a single voice and not even an important one, I just hope this game breaks the shackles on it and develops into what it should be. No offence intended to anyone, with all due respect PGI should look after its baby not the nannies.

[Llymrel]

The problem you're going to have is probably 80% of the comments on what to fix will be from people playing CW...not that vast population who stopped trying. To me it is pretty easy to know why CW has failed over and over.

1) Many if not most people drop in for some fights and leave for the night. Having a play style effectively requiring TS coordinated hits to win will never work for the masses. Especially when many have set times etc for their team to get on.
2) Its a pretty big time investment for a single drop between waiting and fighting. Get into a poor team and you get nearly nothing for all the time. A poor team in solo queue goes away in minutes as you get wiped and reform.
3) With all the waiting it is a lot easier to get good rewards in solo queue. there is no value to playing CW...in fact negative value.
4) Solo queue lets you cycle through your mechs having a variety of fun.

So how do you address....
1) Significantly up the rewards for CW well pass the solo queue. don't even make it reasonable to think the solo queue is a good idea.
2) Isolate the pug queue again. I will never play CW pug against a 12 man again as a pug drop.
3) Make mech selection easier for having 100+ mechs and wanting to swap out the drop deck options.
4) Consolidate the drop queues to kill the wait time for organizing
5) Make it more rewards to PUG vs. team. After all...you will already get teams dropping to fight, its the PUGs you want. Don't penalize a person for playing PUG.
6) Give participation rewards to the players when planets flip. Not just the holding team. The current system is way over compensated to a single team.

Net...don't let teams cream pugs all the time, and make the rewards silly to go solo Queue. It will change quickly fixing those two key things. Stop making it focused on the units as you are alienating solo and small unit players....and hmm...who are in the solo queue???

If you think people should be in units, than increase the reward system for belonging to units and fighting as a unit. right now...best rewards are fighting solo in the solo queue.

[John McHobo]

Consider one very basic aspect of the games that take place:
The maps which they are played on.

Problems

Map layout: Currently most maps are lane based, with most maps being absolute funnels. Worst example is Boreal Vault (Which imho should have never beeen more than a testing enviroment) followed by Hellebore Springs and Sulphurous Rift (Though on rift there are branchings from the lanes). Less funneled are Emerald Taiga, Grim Portico and Vitric Forge.
Due to this funnel-lane design attack and defense strategies are very limited because both attackers and defenders know that changing routes is almost impossible within an attack.

Structure placement: In the beginning generators where spaced out over the terrain of the defenders. This encoured split attack and defense tactics, rushes and flanking maneuvers and the use of lighter, jump-capable mechs.
And then the whining started and you put all the generators in one place next to the cannon.
https://listenonrepe...c#Spoony_Scream
From then on heavy deathballs and brawls right at the objective where the only logical consequence.
With one swift move you took away viability from any tactic or mech loadout that relied on maneuverability in favor of the brawl. The rest of some of these vast spacious maps became irrelevant (Grim Portico is a great example for this).
Shielding gens from artillery strikes is a good idea, shielding them from every attack expect from the angle right in front is not.

=>The consequence of funnel lanes and clustered structures: Extremely repetitive gameplay with big groups of heavies (brawlers and alpha boats) attacking one point of the map with no other points of interest.

Fixes

Map layout: Lanes are not bad per se, but most lane based games have room to use in between the lanes. This room is usually harder to navigate, takes longer to reach your destination, is never a secret passageway into the enemies base and works better for smaller groups of mechs. Dota2´s jungle terrain is a great example for this.
Mwo´s maps usually have terrain which is impassable or extremely hard to cross (exposure). You have much room for improvement here (Pun intended). Whoever went for the lane design needs to educate himself more on its subleties.

Another idea for maps would be passages that open during the course of the match, or by directing excessive firepoewer (ammo and heat) on them. Starcraft 2 does so very simply by having ramps blocked by boulders with large hp-pools.
That way gamplay becomes flexible during the match.

Structure placement: It will take time and experimentation to reach a point where the both teams need a reason not to be next to the objective or gate without screwing themselvers over, but the current state makes 60% of those beautiful maps superfluous - and thats a shame. I am not sure if the current design team is aware of how their maps are played.
If the attacker manages to rush one generator that is fine, the defenders can focus on defending the other 2 now, if the attacker splits up to attack several than that risk should be rewarded, not punished from the start.

Other things

Map groups:
Currently no one knows what type of map he can expect and all the planets feel samey and without any defining character.
If you create a map pool based on the main maps you have more variation while you can recycle assets. Basically like Grim Plexus uses the basic visuals of Portico you could have a Grim Portico north, east, west and south (having a nice represantation of a whole planet being under assault). This gives players over several matches the feeling of really fighting over this strange landscape and having more varied gameplay. At the same time each player can bring along a deck of which he knows its never totally useless, making stomps less likely.

Map assets:
This is a general issue I have with your works and it really should be fixed after all this time. I can only guess that in the beginning of graphic asset design the visual part and the mesh part must have been built in disconnected processes.
The result is that everytime you reuse an asset like, say a building from the old river city or one of the thick trees from Crimson Straits there is a high chance that mesh and visual dont fit, making the asset block shots and movement mid-air.
Same with the dropships: One gets stuck on the new Frozen City, exactly like it did on Forest Colony, so there must be an error within the dropship coding itself. And still it gets reused. You need to cleanse your libraries and straighten out the design process for maps, or you end up copy pasting the same faulty objects over and over.

Consider the following:

There is much work to be done, in many aspects of Faction Play: mechs, game play and maps - and you need to take care of all these aspects. But mechs and gameplay, the very game itself, take place on maps.
If these maps don´t work, they will taint every other aspect, so make good maps.


Edit: Just realized that the table already happened, and apparently maps were no part of the discussion...

Edited by John McHobo, 30 July 2016 - 06:34 AM.

[AmazingOnionMan]

I like that you list obvious problematic issues, of which many can be fixed with minimum effort. On the off-chance PGI reads this, they should take notes.

[Zolaz]

I think it is hilarious that people want to give PGI a kickstarter or more money for Phase 4 Faction Warfare, This Time We Really Are Going To Make The Game You Always Wanted. P. T. Barnum was evidently right.

Based on what PGI has done for the past 4 years, let me gaze into my crystal ball and tell you what will happen. There will be a lot of promises. There will be giddy fanbois on the Forums. There will be delays, deviations from the original plan, and finally something minimally viable that sort of resembles the original concept rolled out. Russ will beam on a video. People will show up for the mechpack/event roll out then leave because the implementation was horrible.

But, go right ahead give PGI some more of your money. Im sure this time it will be different.

[Remover of Obstacles]

Add in game rewards for damage to objectives.

[codynyc]

Zolaz, on 30 July 2016 - 10:43 AM, said:

I think it is hilarious that people want to give PGI a kickstarter or more money for Phase 4 Faction Warfare, This Time We Really Are Going To Make The Game You Always Wanted. P. T. Barnum was evidently right.

Based on what PGI has done for the past 4 years, let me gaze into my crystal ball and tell you what will happen. There will be a lot of promises. There will be giddy fanbois on the Forums. There will be delays, deviations from the original plan, and finally something minimally viable that sort of resembles the original concept rolled out. Russ will beam on a video. People will show up for the mechpack/event roll out then leave because the implementation was horrible.

But, go right ahead give PGI some more of your money. Im sure this time it will be different.

Completely agree. They got me in founders on promises and then came the changes... NEVER will i be suckered into a game like this one again. Which is why i stopped buying mechs and been playing other games. I also feel PGI cater to clans( as they are the ones spending the most money) . And the lack of Cheat prevention is insane.

Edited by codynyc, 30 July 2016 - 03:18 PM.

[Sedmeister]

Most of it has been said already.

I'd add...

Lore is terribly underutilised and a huge reason many play. Do stuff like a) clan/house specific mechs like the Kurita Grand Dragon and only factions holding certain planets that manufacturer specific mechs being able to take those mechs into CW, representing repair abilities etc.

Also on lore, missions that interact with the rich universe. Currently the universe is too generic. To an uninitiated player it's hard for them to differentiate between Battletech and Starship Troopers. Utilise the rich lore of the Battletech Universe.

Long Tom? I'd you're going to keep it, at least give the opposition the ability to do something in game about it. Make it a destroyable piece on the map like an alpha node in Domination play.

Balance teams. If a pug heavy team is going up against KCom, allow the weaker side a) more mechs, more tonnage, c) bigger rewards, d) more and/or tougher turrets, e) a more defensible map and the list could go on. PGI REALLY needs to think this through. I have spoken to so many pugs who get rolled and plan to uninstall. You want to increase your user base, not demoralise them and drive them off.

Give units the ability to temporarily add pugs. A trainee or recruit option where the pug won't be massively penalised for deciding they want to switch from one house to another or IS to clan after learning the basics with an aligned unit.

Everything else has been said I reckon.

[Dee Eight]

codynyc, on 30 July 2016 - 03:15 PM, said:

Completely agree. They got me in founders on promises and then came the changes... NEVER will i be suckered into a game like this one again. Which is why i stopped buying mechs and been playing other games. I also feel PGI cater to clans( as they are the ones spending the most money) . And the lack of Cheat prevention is insane.

If you play via steam, you at least have the option to report cheaters thru the steam system admins and end-run the PGI yes-men who allow it to continue.

[axerion]

Remove the MERC-Path and make every UNIT loyalists - so this merc-train hopping ends and big merc-units avoiding each other while enjoying the seal clubbing and then complaninig why nobody wants to fight them...

Let the Players vote the Attack/Defense Planet and merge them

Balance Factions based on actual FP players - i.e. if MS joins JF no other units are allowed to do so just becaus of the big numbers, unless their numbers are stacking

and many other things written in here...

[Kcanni]

I know its a bit late, but just thought of this..
Since mercs are for hire. make them only choose IS or Clan side, then they can drop on all planets of that side.. and they can go help where needed..

[JaxRiot]

Blackcanni, on 31 July 2016 - 10:41 PM, said:

I know its a bit late, but just thought of this..
Since mercs are for hire. make them only choose IS or Clan side, then they can drop on all planets of that side.. and they can go help where needed..

Thats exactly how they functioned in Lore.

In Lore, Mercs supported the IS Houses.

In Lore, Clans never used Mercs.

In MWO, Mercs are nothing like they are in Lore

[MrMasakari]

JaxRiot, on 01 August 2016 - 12:38 AM, said:

Thats exactly how they functioned in Lore.

In Lore, Mercs supported the IS Houses.

In Lore, Clans never used Mercs.

In MWO, Mercs are nothing like they are in Lore

I'm not a lore bunny but why Clanners would ever chose to work with Freebirth scum and vice versa is just silly, ridiculous almost. Mercs have it much easier and represent a fluid population of the game that can easily tip the balance one way or another, so much more than being a loyalist who actually end up quite penalised by comparison, espescially in rewards. This shouldn't be the case, all paths should be fair and acceptable and share equal rewards, with the exception of a.) using lore to balance certain things, whether it be alliances or the dual attack system talked about at the table etc. b.) Under/overpopulated faction mechanics that adjust rewards/payouts accordingly. c.) A system that doesn't punish pugs/newer players from wanting to take part.

Truth is though having 'increased' payouts/rewards alone as an incentive, when you can't do anything because your faction is dead/being stomped doesn't solve anything. If you can farm easy wins off stomping pugs who cares, whilst it might not be fun for the larger units who actually want to do 12v12 action, it will always be there. The bucket problem, whilst yes it exists is a side effect of a much bigger problem that has been discussed in countless other threads. Sooner or later someone is going to have to take a hit in order to make the system better, and not everyone is going to be happy at the end of it.

Edited by Artaire, 01 August 2016 - 02:10 AM.

[Falconer Cyrus]

Starwulfe, on 29 July 2016 - 06:08 PM, said:

Here's the bullet point list that the pre-meeting gave to PGI
https://docs.google....uMjMe-6poY/edit

Slightly (or maybe not so slightly) dissapointing.
There are a lot of inessensial details instead of defining the game GOALS.
This game is not a sandbox, it does require the GOALS to be defined first.

[MovinTarget]

axerion, on 31 July 2016 - 05:20 PM, said:

Remove the MERC-Path and make every UNIT loyalists - so this merc-train hopping ends and big merc-units avoiding each other while enjoying the seal clubbing and then complaninig why nobody wants to fight them...

Let the Players vote the Attack/Defense Planet and merge them

Balance Factions based on actual FP players - i.e. if MS joins JF no other units are allowed to do so just becaus of the big numbers, unless their numbers are stacking

and many other things written in here...

I won't deny that the merc path is by far the most attractive path. Just don't assume we are all about seal clubbing and easy money, that pretty much insults most of the guys i know who are mercs.

No.

Instead consider what makes being a merc attractive:
Ability to move to where the action is.

Ability to use our full arsenal of mechs in the FP format.

(Pre phase 3) could get rewards working different factions.

Its not seal clubbing. There is no glory in that.

So instead of pointing your finger at us consider asking PGI to do something for loyalists so that they can have attractive options too.

Maybe each account should have 3 different pilot/characters a merc and a loyalist for each side. Each one has its own "path". You can't join into fp under one path or another if an imbalance would be made too extreme and there would be incentives to drop as the pilot type most needed.

I would even go so far as to say you'd have to level applicable mechs under each pilot since that would be slightly more realistic.

Again, i am just trying to find answers b/c merc bashing is not a solution. You will lose a considerable chunk of players if you simply remove the merc path.

[eggyh4ck99BarrelsAndRumAint1Yar]

Fw/cw needs to be a full military rpg simulation

Quick play needs to change to the ultra competitive arena Solaris championships that is spectator friendly
Think fame and glory

What we have right now are 2 different versions of arcade style death match.
Not completely engaging.
We have tons of beautiful mechs now let's find some beautiful places to put them