2 replies to this topic

[metallio]

Lots of ideas to change FP these days, but I'd like to focus on one: The economy.

There are complex and interesting ideas that are going to take time to work out and I'd enjoy seeing some more thought put into the time line for rollout of those and hear your ideas about what would be most "fun".

In the short term I think we need something that plugs in well with existing systems and still gives the game some flavor without punishing people too hard.

So here's my idea:
Mech damage and salvage is the beginning so just implement that for now. All damage and destroyed weapons must be repaired/replaced. The currency for this will be your LP/rep points which regenerate regularly, perhaps hourly. FP inventory should be separate from QP inventory but the initial inventory will be whatever everyone has on hand "right now" so no one loses out on their purchases over last x many years.

New players use their faction's trial mechs, they don't own any. You can buy mechs with LP (maybe LP can just generate separate "resource points") so as it builds you get access to more. Prices can remain the same, you just spend resource points to get it. LP should decay if you don't play (very, very slowly) and if you fight for an opposing faction it should go down (very, very slowly).

Your access to repairing mechs, weapons, and equipment is based on your inventory (from salvage and purchases) and your faction. If your faction doesn't fabricate it (or have captured a planet that does) then you can't purchase it and have to rely on old inventory or RNG salvage...or get a mech that has your faction's weapons on it.

The nice part of all this is it uses pre-established systems, values, and code. It also disrupts total meta builds and adds lore and bonuses to the game. As you rank up maybe you'll get access to the black market and get to buy horribly over-priced clan tech as IS to repair your clanner gear if you want to use it. Maybe make the opposing sides gear MC purchasable (hey, PGI has to see a route to funding in here somewhere).

It'd be a total sh!t-show at first as balance was worked out, but it's doable with minimal effort. Yes there's quite a bit to do, but the general lore about which faction used which mechs and fabricated which items is already written. It can even be screwed up and simplified and it would still be fun.

It also comletely changes min/maxing and the meta because you can't just buy whatever weapon you could possibly want and use whatever mech you possibly want. That could remain in QP but wouldn't always match up in FW.

Long term players would have advantages, but it would just be in how fast they could repair and refit, and access to slightly different loadouts...you'd have to balance like mad as people found exploits, and probably severely limit the Black Market so it wasn't pay to win, but I think it's the simplest, fastest way to introduce economy into faction warfare as something I'd enjoy.

Yeah, I'd like to see more/better maps and scenarios, fixed x-y-z issue but this economy works with almost every change that might be made. I think it or something like it is the best first step to establishing a semi-persistent economy and we need a stepping stone to get to more complex and interesting things.

What do you think? Other ideas and simpler things to implement? Throw it out there man!

[SteelMantis]

You have some interesting ideas.

I hate separating mechs/gear. People new to FP have a hard enough time and forcing them into trails would make it much worse. Were in turn would damage overall population

I also doubt it would change the meta like you think. Instead I'd guess that you would quickly have a few clans/factions that were favored by the meta and have most of the players flock to them.

[metallio]

SteelMantis, on 28 July 2016 - 09:34 AM, said:

Instead I'd guess that you would quickly have a few clans/factions that were favored by the meta and have most of the players flock to them.

I agree to an extent...it makes min/maxxing far more difficult and that's where balancing has to come in. It's a lot simpler in this model than trying to make something obviously better like laser vomit not as good as heavy ballistics that run out of ammo and that miss all the time.

This route means that maybe the black knight faction doesn't have access to pulse lasers at all for instance. You can also do like I've seen elsewhere and adjust weapon weights in any given faction so that ye olde medium laser is 1.1 or 0.9 tons etc. affects armor and accessories which adds up.

I just think it offers the most opportunity to micro-manage balance while feeling like it fits into an actual Battletech universe. Worst case it's as bad as what we have now.

On the separate mechs/gear front I'm not sure how to fix that. The option to modify your garrison mechs (trial mechs) while with a faction might make all the difference. Still costs C-bills (from QP) but those are lost when switching factions.

Honestly I like the idea of forcing mostly stock mechs from your faction but I think I'm in the minority so not pushing the idea. Fun if we had 100x as many players and could split to that sort of queue but definitely not something to do right now. I think. Maybe. It'd damn sure level the playing field with new players now wouldn't it?