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Right now there are six unique maps in faction warfare. What if a third mode was added to FW beyond scouting and invasion? This would add slight favor but not determine planet ownership.
The hierarchy would be
Invasion = ownership
Scouting = influences chance of success during invasion battles
Quickplay = number of battles need to be won subject to faction skill/strength.
This third mode would affect the number zones contested. Scrub mode would average a 50/50 win ratio so if each win subtracted a contested zone the average number per planet per cycle would be nine, down from thirteen. A weak or underpopulated faction would fair worse than average and strong faction would do better. This would incentivize hiring mercenaries for their skill to counteract faction weakness.
Right now mercenaries are only concerned about contract payout related population imbalances and available combat. My proposal makes weak nations seek those with skill to counteract reduced defense zones. Loyalist units can likewise again find reason to buy additional zones to raise the hard cap beyond six. If your pugs suck you need to spend money to get ahead. This would be beyond the current economics of number balancing. Mercs given the option of two equally populated factions need to be receptive of cash rewards offered by the weaker country.
The important thing though is this scrub mode only effects the chances of the planet of falling, only a faction loyalist or merc unit in invasion can affect concrete territorial gain. I would cap the zone gains at plus three so you never lose the chance at dropping on a unique map. I don't know if you would cap losses but the law of averages says it should not be more than the thirteen zones fought over now.
The matches would play exactly the same as normal quickplay except I would remove matchmaking and segregate the tech base. Matchmaking and mixed tech would be traded for some amount of faction or mercenary points of an amount less than playing invasion or scouting proper.
I.S. vs. I.S. would need no adjustment and I.S. vs clan could if necessary be dynamically adjusted by releasing or constricting a weight class valve(s). The advantage of this is there would be no hard weight cap and the extra assault or one less light would be invisible to the user, it would look exactly like the quickplay wait timers but strive for a balance other than 4/4/4/4. An unaffiliated pug would drop with the tech base of their currently selected mech, and a faction affiliated pug would need to chose correctly or get an error before searching.
The match maker would pull in at least one faction aligned pug and fill the rest of the twelve slot with faction agnostic pugs. The beauty of this system is that it would work with extremely low population numbers. Once the match is over the unaffiliated pugs would be recycled into the next queued faction battle and since they don't care about FW they serve as the perfect filler for those who do. As long as two players for each faction are present the system will work. It has the benefit of being infinitely scalable since all battles populate on one defense world and one attack world. There are no population caps. The unaffiliated spill over to the faction that is opposing a completed twelve man enemy.
(On Edit) The zone ring of these quickplay matches might need a point pool similar to scouting mode so that ultra rapid wins or losses don't throw the status of planetary ownership immediately prior to ceasefire. That or some other mechanism to act as slowing mechanism. Maybe the quickplay ring can consist of thirty segments, five of which add or subtract from one segment of the invasion ring.
Edited by Spheroid, 09 August 2016 - 10:24 PM.
