137 replies to this topic

[Sader325]

Twitch Links With Recorded Twitch Chat:

https://www.twitch.t...r325/v/80358171

https://www.twitch.t...r325/v/80361502

Edited by Sader325, 27 July 2016 - 09:47 PM.

[Kin3ticX]

heres my shortlist

1. Long tom removed and replaced with air/arty support denial (no arty or strikes when enemy has 90%)

2. MFB worth 1 kill and is a kill tie breaker in case enemy camps spawn

3. Dropships nerfed bigly

4. Objective buffed slightly

5. Dropdeck system rejiggered. Slot 1 and 2 are 2/3 tonnage and slot 3 and 4 are 1/3 tonnage. So you have two tonnage pools. This allows PGI to play with tonnage without having 4 waves of heavy for bigger tonnage.

6. Unit to Unit cbill coffer transfers totally open ended and let the players RP it for whatever purpose. Hire mercs, plot to take over the inner sphere, whatever you like.


7. Remove the Loyalist LP penalty

8. Remove the unit size fee

9. tonnage handicap based on CW tier system similar to whats used in regular queue

tier 1 - base tonnage
tier 2 - ~5 tons
tier 3 - ~10 tons
tier 4 - ~15 tons
tier 5 - ~20 tons
just a conservative example

(note: a tonnage handicap is used in group queue but it is based only on group size)

Edited by Kin3ticX, 27 July 2016 - 10:31 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

Good work guys. I was having as listen at various points. |

Not all I agree with like all things but most of the discussion was good, robust and straight up with no real ego's trying to take over. A really impressive effort IMO.

Hopefully set tomorrow's to be quite good and hopefully get some decent results from it.

I would just suggest to make sure there is a list of "quick wins" ready for implementation within a month and then a longer term plan/items etc. It's all about getting the population back ASAP for now.

You go in with a long list of 15-20 items, you'll get no where. It's gotta be quick, easy and deliver the biggest benefit in the initial term.

Kin3ticX, on 27 July 2016 - 10:08 PM, said:

9. tonnage handicap based on CW tier system similar to whats used in regular queue

tier 1/2 - base tonnage
tier 3 - 10 tons
tier 4 - 15 tons
tier 5 - 20 tons
just an example

(note: a tonnage handicap is used in group queue but it is based only on group size)

A really excellent idea I'd not really seen mentioned much.

Only issue is abusing the MMR with alt accounts, but yeah, otherwise I really would get behind that one.

Edited by R31Nismoid, 27 July 2016 - 10:30 PM.

[iLLcapitan]

Seems like I totally missed the news, what this roundtable is supposed to tackle.
The points listed are fine and well but don't address all urgent issues with CW, imho.

I had hope you guys come to conclusions that allow to get through to PGI with simple, few changes in the mechanics of CW.
Points 2 - 9 are minor tweaks that won't motivate players that not already play CW.

Wait times - a pooling of the factions is what's needed most. If there are 24 people online willing to play CW, they should be able to do so. Remove the game-preventing mechanics we have. If not enough clan players online make 'raids' (call it whatever) to field IS vs IS for example, not enough IS - vica versa.

Incentive for units to fight other units - rank them, give em specials for fighting each other, as long as there is no competition you won't see more of the dedicated units we have back in CW.

Reset Faction trees upon completion - people stopped playing because they reached level 20 a while ago, get them back in.

Maps - use the bigger, new maps in QP in CW or use the existing art assets to create more maps of the same setting (like they did with Grim Plexus - must be cheaper and faster than creating totally new ones). For how long we've been left dry?

Gamemodes - new assault mode could be smth, or anything else really.

Edited by iLLcapitan, 28 July 2016 - 01:14 AM.

[KinLuu]

iLLcapitan, on 28 July 2016 - 01:13 AM, said:

Incentive for units to fight other units - rank them, give em specials for fighting each other, as long as there is no competition you won't see more of the dedicated units we have back in CW.

One could use the leaderboards for that, maybe.

Monthly seasons, with rewards at the end of the season, based on the placement of the leaderboard. That would encourage units to stop or slow the progress of other units.

[JaxRiot]

As I posted in another thread...

I thought this Round Table thing was for gathering immediate and simple ideas that would help the problems that currently plague FP in a timely manner.

Instead these guys are throwing out whoppers that seem extremely costly and time consuming. Nothing even close to immediate or simple.

Edited by JaxRiot, 28 July 2016 - 01:38 AM.

[Karl Marlow]

A crazy thought I had with regard to faction consolidation was it would actually allow more factions to be created. If there was a Fedcom faction for example 61st ices could be a playable house with in that faction. Peeripjery states and additional clans could be added as well.

Not really important I The grand scheme of things but it was something I was thinking about. I'm not a big fan of consolidation to begin with.

[MischiefSC]

You missed the big ones that came up in the meeting -

1. Combining queues. So, for example, the Steiner/CJF front would just be one world with a lot of slices. Everyone is attacking, defending and counter-attacking. No 'units attack, pugs defend' stuff and only 1 world per border. ShimmeringSwords idea is a bit more robust than that and accomplishes that + some but isn't that big a change from what we have now though it would drastically compress populations and reduce wait times.

2. Alliances. You'll vote for alliances that will let you share fronts with 1 other faction. So Liao could ally with Kurita or FRR and go drop against Clans with Kurita/FRR pilots. Creates a fluid population of mercs and loyalists that would let populations fill where the action is.

3. Logistics and planet selection. You'll vote for who you attack and pick one of 4 or 5 worlds, giving factions some control over not just who but where they attack. Combine this with only being able to attack worlds that are directly connected to your homeworld. So if, on the current map, FRR cut off the CJF push then CJF could not continue to attack toward Terra until they'd re-opened the closed lane from the FRR. Even more to the point taken worlds would revert at 1 per 2 or 3 days that a segment is isolated from the homeworld.

Those are three big ones that will fix population issues, give fast drops and provide purpose to FW.

Also touched upon was objectives - both big ones (ones that if accomplished signal the end of the season) and smaller ones (that give rewards to those responsible for the success, like capturing a district capital or taking X planets from faction Y, etc).

Also in there was mini-events. FW based events that are not actually impactful on the FW map - like Battle of St. Ives. So St. Ives opens up to attack. When you opt into the event you select to either be supporting Liao or Davion, you drop there FW style, win prizes and the winning side gets a goody. This lets people play FW events like it was QP, go drop, have fun, get used to the mode without impacting the actual faction map.

Those are just a few. There were a number of excellent ideas that address the big concerns and would be viable to create with the system we currently have. Sure, you also want long term dreams, goals and ideals and plenty of that came up but there was also some tangible, actionable suggestions that will fix wait times, compress populations, add purpose and ownership and reduce pug/premade drama.

[JaxRiot]

MischiefSC, on 28 July 2016 - 01:58 AM, said:

You missed the big ones that came up in the meeting -

1. Combining queues. So, for example, the Steiner/CJF front would just be one world with a lot of slices. Everyone is attacking, defending and counter-attacking. No 'units attack, pugs defend' stuff and only 1 world per border. ShimmeringSwords idea is a bit more robust than that and accomplishes that + some but isn't that big a change from what we have now though it would drastically compress populations and reduce wait times.

2. Alliances. You'll vote for alliances that will let you share fronts with 1 other faction. So Liao could ally with Kurita or FRR and go drop against Clans with Kurita/FRR pilots. Creates a fluid population of mercs and loyalists that would let populations fill where the action is.

3. Logistics and planet selection. You'll vote for who you attack and pick one of 4 or 5 worlds, giving factions some control over not just who but where they attack. Combine this with only being able to attack worlds that are directly connected to your homeworld. So if, on the current map, FRR cut off the CJF push then CJF could not continue to attack toward Terra until they'd re-opened the closed lane from the FRR. Even more to the point taken worlds would revert at 1 per 2 or 3 days that a segment is isolated from the homeworld.

Those are three big ones that will fix population issues, give fast drops and provide purpose to FW.

Also touched upon was objectives - both big ones (ones that if accomplished signal the end of the season) and smaller ones (that give rewards to those responsible for the success, like capturing a district capital or taking X planets from faction Y, etc).

Also in there was mini-events. FW based events that are not actually impactful on the FW map - like Battle of St. Ives. So St. Ives opens up to attack. When you opt into the event you select to either be supporting Liao or Davion, you drop there FW style, win prizes and the winning side gets a goody. This lets people play FW events like it was QP, go drop, have fun, get used to the mode without impacting the actual faction map.

Those are just a few. There were a number of excellent ideas that address the big concerns and would be viable to create with the system we currently have. Sure, you also want long term dreams, goals and ideals and plenty of that came up but there was also some tangible, actionable suggestions that will fix wait times, compress populations, add purpose and ownership and reduce pug/premade drama.

Please dont take this the wrong way, but thats kind of what Im talking about.

Consolidating the ques is awesome. But why complicate it with all that voting stuff? Thats just more coding, more money, and more time.

Just put IS into 2 separate alliances and Clans into 2 separate alliances.

Boom. Drop from 40 buckets down to 16. No muss, no fuss. Simple and easy.

All of that other stuff can come later if the alliances actually work.

I mean, thats what they want right? Simple and fast? And probably as cheap as possible?

Edited by JaxRiot, 28 July 2016 - 02:12 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Voting already exists.

If you just combine factions into a couple of groups you eliminate the point of FW - just make it a QP map/mode that splits you on Clan/IS lines, uses the MM and away you go. Throw in a leaderboard so your wins give points to your faciton.

Which will also eliminate all the people who play FW since you don't really have FW at that point, do you?

I'm all for FW content in QP so people can get used to it. Turning FW into QP isn't fixing FW though - it's eliminating it.

Edited by MischiefSC, 28 July 2016 - 02:16 AM.

[JaxRiot]

MischiefSC, on 28 July 2016 - 02:15 AM, said:

Voting already exists.

If you just combine factions into a couple of groups you eliminate the point of FW - just make it a QP map/mode that splits you on Clan/IS lines, uses the MM and away you go. Throw in a leaderboard so your wins give points to your faciton.

Which will also eliminate all the people who play FW since you don't really have FW at that point, do you?

I'm all for FW content in QP so people can get used to it. Turning FW into QP isn't fixing FW though - it's eliminating it.

Sure sure Voting is there, and Im not talking about removing the ability to choose who to attack or which planets to attack.

Im talking about the idea of adding in more voting for who youre going to ally up with, and all of the details and coding and development time that all of that would imply.

And Im not saying that its a bad idea. Im just saying that for right now, start with a simple static alliance package and see how that works out.

From there it can be built and grow.

Edited by JaxRiot, 28 July 2016 - 02:24 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Except it would pretty much empty FW of who is left. Faction identity is one of the few things that still keeps people in FW. It's the crux of it; the idea of factions competing. You eliminate that identity you eliminate the point of the competition.

Any change at all is going to involve voting. Combining factions would involve coding as well. Voting for allies does the exact same thing but makes it flexible using an existing mechanic.

I get the desire to make things fast and simple but the only fast/simple fix anyone came up with is 'remove LT tomorrow'. Then when opportunity permits add in 'air support' that denies other team the use of arty/airstrike or adds in regular airstrikes for the side that has it.

FW needs some real changes, not small ones. Combined queues and alliances lets the population self-regulate for where the action is, reduces waiting dramatically and gets people into drops sooner. That's one of the biggest black eyes with FW right now - the waiting.

[JaxRiot]

MischiefSC, on 28 July 2016 - 02:31 AM, said:

Except it would pretty much empty FW of who is left. Faction identity is one of the few things that still keeps people in FW. It's the crux of it; the idea of factions competing. You eliminate that identity you eliminate the point of the competition.

Any change at all is going to involve voting. Combining factions would involve coding as well. Voting for allies does the exact same thing but makes it flexible using an existing mechanic.

I get the desire to make things fast and simple but the only fast/simple fix anyone came up with is 'remove LT tomorrow'. Then when opportunity permits add in 'air support' that denies other team the use of arty/airstrike or adds in regular airstrikes for the side that has it.

FW needs some real changes, not small ones. Combined queues and alliances lets the population self-regulate for where the action is, reduces waiting dramatically and gets people into drops sooner. That's one of the biggest black eyes with FW right now - the waiting.

Meh, ok. I was just trying to help

The more complicated the idea the longer it will take to implement if they even accept it, and it Im pretty sure its going to take them 6 months to a year anyway.

So back to Pug Land for me.

Good Luck guys.

Edited by JaxRiot, 28 July 2016 - 02:37 AM.

[AnarchyBurger]

Make CW fun....
But no seriously.

-Quick que mode with game types that take into effect planet invasions (Base assaults taking away tonnage from drops, domination adding ammo stations, etc)
-Keep scouting within a quick que but maybe make low ton 4 man que option, like scout mode, destroy the base mode (with one side defending), or low ton skirmish mode.
-work around invasion mode with the above.
-Special rewards for loyalty houses... I.E. Steiner-Atlus more movement, Kurita-Dragon higher heat cap.... ETC. Maybe even make house specific mod weapons, but thats more of a whatever.
-Adjust certain rewards, such as MC rewards for all, or things like scout beacons being more meaningful point wise.

Honestly the biggest issue with CW IMHO (and i'm a dirty pugger) is that its long waits for a god awful boring mode (unless of course your a 12 man stomp group). People just are not going to remain engaged in it unless you make it more interesting.

Edit: And as far as simplicity these are grand ideas. You could probably solve it quicker and easier by just adding a quick que mode such as the normal game except clan vs IS w/ Faction point rewards. As I said before, invasion mode sucks unless your a group, and scouting while fine is kind of pointless and quick for the amount of wait time.

Edited by AnarchyBurger, 28 July 2016 - 02:43 AM.

[AnTi90d]

My concern is, what happens when everyone votes to ally with the faction that's next to them, clockwise. Does no one ally?

What happens when the two factions with the highest populations ally with each other? That doesn't sound fair or fun.

I think voting for allies is easily abused and has a lot of grey areas that would need to be worked out, first. It would be a lot easier to just have PGI set the factions up with concrete alliances.. at least for now.

--

I'm also opposed to combining attack and defense queues. It takes choice out of the players' hands and would require extensive coding and testing on PGI's behalf.

--

Allowing players to choose which exact planet to attack is a good idea, but it will require money to implement and it won't draw people back into FP.

--

Deck weight handicaps would 100% be abused by alt accounts, especially alts that never quickplay so they're perpetually tier 5.

--

I see most of what was suggested in the 3 hour session as the wishlist for big units that won't help FP population, just make their lives better and generally only benefits them. No one gives a flying Flea about what solo loyalists or freelancers want because it was, yet again, an exclusive circlejerk club of all the important people while the rest of us sit in the back of the bus, hoping to be thrown a few scraps. People didn't put their ego aside to see things from anyone else's perspective and they didn't stick to the goal of increasing FP participation. It was akin to watching a kid go through the old Sear's Xmas catalogue, marking down all the toys that they want, knowing that their parents can't afford most of them.

[MischiefSC]

JaxRiot, on 28 July 2016 - 02:36 AM, said:

Meh, ok. I was just trying to help

The more complicated the idea the longer it will take to implement if they even accept it, and it Im pretty sure its going to take them 6 months to a year anyway.

So back to Pug Land for me.

Good Luck guys.

I get the intent, I do.

In the short term the best idea was Jagers 'FW events' idea. So while everything else is going on have regular 'events' that are based in FP but don't impact the FP map. Could even make it split pug/premade like QP - so you've got more balanced play environments. This lets people play the FP maps/modes/content without having to go 'all in' until the bigger issues are fixed and it's more engaging overall.

Crux of the issue is that without more depth, purpose and ownership in FP it's not going to be engaging in the long term. There's nothing it offers that QP doesn't aside from maps/modes. MC rewards if you're in a huge unit I guess? However all that is going to be a big deal to fix and it'll take time but there's not really a fast substitute for it.

So simple fixes, what Aylward called a 'Pain Relief Package' of reasonably fast stuff (LT changed out, queue compression, basic logistics, alliances) to make it funner for people who are willing to play what's already there plus events to get more people exposed to it while the bigger stuff gets worked on seems the most likely to work out.

[MischiefSC]

AnTi90d, on 28 July 2016 - 02:42 AM, said:

My concern is, what happens when everyone votes to ally with the faction that's next to them, clockwise. Does no one ally?

What happens when the two factions with the highest populations ally with each other? That doesn't sound fair or fun.

I think voting for allies is easily abused and has a lot of grey areas that would need to be worked out, first. It would be a lot easier to just have PGI set the factions up with concrete alliances.. at least for now.

--

I'm also opposed to combining attack and defense queues. It takes choice out of the players' hands and would require extensive coding and testing on PGI's behalf.

--

Allowing players to choose which exact planet to attack is a good idea, but it will require money to implement and it won't draw people back into FP.

--

Deck weight handicaps would 100% be abused by alt accounts, especially alts that never quickplay so they're perpetually tier 5.

--

I see most of what was suggested in the 3 hour session as the wishlist for big units that won't help FP population, just make their lives better and generally only benefits them. No one gives a flying Flea about what solo loyalists or freelancers want because it was, yet again, an exclusive circlejerk club of all the important people while the rest of us sit in the back of the bus, hoping to be thrown a few scraps. People didn't put their ego aside to see things from anyone else's perspective and they didn't stick to the goal of increasing FP participation. It was akin to watching a kid go through the old Sear's Xmas catalogue, marking down all the toys that they want, knowing that their parents can't afford most of them.

So we got into the stuff that would increase population but the reality is it would all be a lot of work and take a lot of time. We're all for it - it's what we all want in the long run. The big stuff, districts, hiring mercs, training areas, buying 'unit trials' to give to new players to help them get into FW, none of that's happening any time soon though.

Alliances lets populations condense on the fly. It lets Liao go play with Kurita or FRR or whoever for wherever the action is. If the two biggest guys gang up on the smallest guy it would be like... when all the mercs join one faction. It happens, it's inevitable and what fixes it is normally everyone else shifting away from them so they get ghost drops. Or everyone else ganging up on them. Alliances would let populations shift organically to where the action is. If the big action becomes Kurita/CSJ tomorrow would Davion try to ally with Kurita? I dunno. That's part of what adds interest in it. We've all got people we like and dislike.

Combining attack/defend queues is probably the smallest possible change; I don't get where it would be hard. If you don't do that then the game will continue to be premades stomping pugs, without question, and that's a huge complaint. Instead of having an 'attacker' profile and a 'defender' profile everyone has the same profile. I can spend cbills and add slices to a planet I've tagged; just adding slices to the planets isn't hard either.

Combining queues is literally there to benefit pugs/small units. The whole reason the 'solo queue' failed in FW is because pugs would rather not play than drop in attack queue while units go there first, resulting in 'FW solo queue' being empty because nobody started an attack and 'FW unit queue' being all ghost drops because nobody wanted to defend (because defending is a losing proposition). So one queue that's both attack and defend on a front eliminates those problems while the '12mans go to the front' queue system will push 12mans to fighting other 12mans and make unit v unit more common and pug v pug more common.

It was open to anyone who wanted to show up and speak. We had a lot of talk from people in small units (like me and Wonka and a few others as an example) that got handled just like everyone elses. Also splitting payout for taking worlds up by contribution so if you dropped in a 4man and won some matches on a world that flipped you'd get a commensurate % of the reward for taking the world, etc.

None of it was really about benefiting units. There was some pie in the sky talk about units owning districts on planets and such but we all know that's never going to happen. Pretty much everything suggested seriously is there to compress populations without breaking faction identity and balance out pug/premade matches. Not sure how that's 'their agenda'. Anyone could participate in this talk and put ideas out. An hour was spent fielding and including ideas from forum posts and commenters in the live stream. If you didn't show and didn't participate how is that something someone did to you?

[AnTi90d]

MischiefSC, on 28 July 2016 - 02:58 AM, said:

If you didn't show and didn't participate how is that something someone did to you?

I was there for the whole three hours.

Several people had something to say in chat. No one cared.

No one in the meeting represented solo loyalists. No one in the meeting represented freelancers. None of those people were asked to join.

• SoaqMWO : if you are a unit leader or a unit rep and want to have your voice heard. come to the MS TS now and join in.
  
• SoaqMWO : !ts
  
• sadpandas.failnoob.com:8344 - MercStar TS - Come Join

Quote

SoaqMWO : if you are a unit leader or a unit rep

..and today's meeting will be the exact same way. Units get a voice, everyone else gets crapped on and ignored.

Edited by AnTi90d, 28 July 2016 - 03:21 AM.

[AssaultPig]

Kin3ticX, on 27 July 2016 - 10:08 PM, said:

heres my shortlist

1. Long tom removed and replaced with air/arty support denial (no arty or strikes when enemy has 90%)

2. MFB worth 1 kill and is a kill tie breaker in case enemy camps spawn

3. Dropships nerfed bigly

4. Objective buffed slightly

5. Dropdeck system rejiggered. Slot 1 and 2 are 2/3 tonnage and slot 3 and 4 are 1/3 tonnage. So you have two tonnage pools. This allows PGI to play with tonnage without having 4 waves of heavy for bigger tonnage.

6. Unit to Unit cbill coffer transfers totally open ended and let the players RP it for whatever purpose. Hire mercs, plot to take over the inner sphere, whatever you like.


7. Remove the Loyalist LP penalty

8. Remove the unit size fee

9. tonnage handicap based on CW tier system similar to whats used in regular queue

tier 1 - base tonnage
tier 2 - ~5 tons
tier 3 - ~10 tons
tier 4 - ~15 tons
tier 5 - ~20 tons
just a conservative example

(note: a tonnage handicap is used in group queue but it is based only on group size)

this guy has the good ideas

the only thing I'd add is that they should seriously consider reducing each CW 'season' to a single campaign involving maaaybe 3-4 factions. Get the whole population on a couple of factions and let us have at it, rather than spreading people all over the place as is the case currently. You can come up with some lore justification if you wanna.

Mercs can still be mercs, and maybe even be incentivized to change sides based on how the clan/IS border is moving

[iLLcapitan]

All this voting stuff just make things overly complicated. Let everybody be in his/her faction but pool them in IS / clan.
I don't get what's the problem here, nobody's gonna loose their faction.

I find it mind-boggling, that while looking at the atrocious state of CW, the supposed representatives come together and talk about unit coffers and dropships. Anyway to each of the grand committee good luck carrying your agenda to Russ ears. I'm done with this show.