183 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

Johnny Z, on 07 September 2016 - 07:49 PM, said:

I have not heard the entire thing but it seems like they are preserving the quick play environment as they go. Smart move since quick play is doing well. Have to see how it all plays out.

They're turning FW into QP. No more factions, just IS v Clans. Should just close it up and make it all QP - with the purpose of faction, merc, loyalist eliminated then why have the planets and map and such? It doesn't make any sense.

[xengk]

Wintersdark, on 07 September 2016 - 06:29 PM, said:

but my favourite is that they're looking to add Quick Play game modes and maps to FP. Note that Quick Play games are not changing in any way, but that there will be skirmish/domination/assault (w/ revamped assault mode)/conquest Faction Play matches with dropship (12x4 vs 12x4) gameplay, as with Invasion.

Been waiting to hear back on Dropship mode and new (base) Assault.
Will have to wait for youtube for summery post, cant stream at work.

[MechaBattler]

I think they should turn the Periphery into a free for all version of the current FW. Let the competitive units fight to be warlords.

Then just focus on more variety in modes. Preferably objective based.

[SilentScreamer]

MischiefSC, on 07 September 2016 - 07:52 PM, said:

No more factions, just IS v Clans.

I did not see the broadcast, but I really hope this is a mis-interpretation. Choosing to play VS. House or VS. Clan matches are what made Community/Faction Warfare interesting to me. Taking that away that choice for players would really rub me raw.

In a poll I posted just before the first roundtable just as many players were frustrated with dull gamemodes as wait times ( http://mwomercs.com/...ulation-survey/ ) I am glad to hear PGI wants to address both these issues but I think PGI is once again changing too much at once. The quirk changes on the same patch as the mech rescale was too much,and probably would have been executed better over multiple patches.

Instead of introducing the QuickPlay gamemodes to FactionPlay AND forcing all players into vanilla I.S. vs vanilla Clan matches, why not spread it out?

Step 1 - October - add QP modes
Step 2 - November/December - faction bucket fix

I will also state again I am against CW/FW going to Clan VS. I.S. only. There are a number of other solutions to reduce "buckets". Just suggestions....hopefully at least one seems better than vanilla Clan VS I.S.

1) Alternate, have 8 hours between Clan vs. I.S.; then switch to Clan VS. Clan and I.S. VS. I.S. matches for the next 8 hours. None of the Factions completely stopped in-fighting during the Invasion.

2) Instead of allowing Merc units to "pile in" on a Faction Contract, have all mercs and freelancers join a queue which places them on the first planet that needs pilots. Only Loyalists will be able to choose to fight for their faction. Ex: if If CJF and Steiner loyalists are short of 12 both sides will get mercs/freelancers, but the merc/freelancers won't get to pick a side, the matchermaker does it.

3) Fight for the right to be a Clanner. If there are less Clan Members queue than I.S. players everything runs normal. If the Clan players outnumber the I.S, on a planet, the excess Clan players drop against each other 12v12 in a Trial. Let players pick 1 mech from their Invasion dropdeck, the match ends when any 12 mechs are destroyed/down. The 12 eliminated get a cooldown of 30 minutes before they can try again. The 12 pilots with functioning mechs get to play Invasion mode.

Edited by SilentScreamer, 07 September 2016 - 08:52 PM.

[Alteran]

Instead of purchasing the Kodiak pack two weeks ago, I should have used that cash for Battletech.

I wonder if they'll give me a refund...

[Johnny Z]

xengk, on 07 September 2016 - 08:10 PM, said:

Been waiting to hear back on Dropship mode and new (base) Assault.
Will have to wait for youtube for summery post, cant stream at work.

Exactly. A lot of changes on the way. Not going to panic until its live.

[LordNothing]

ScarecrowES, on 07 September 2016 - 07:11 PM, said:

Wait a sec.

Did you say rolling Quick Play matches into FP? With respawns?

Those are two things I've been advocating for for years. Is PGI suddenly following my various pieces of advice?

Can we expect Invasion to be replaced by Rush and ED replaced with the TT heat system in the near future?

ive been on about this too. and it might make dropping in cw much more fun. especially with how long join times are in quick play these days. i can wait 10 minutes for a 30 minute match, or i can wait 10 minutes for two 15 minute matches (not to mention all the time wasters like voting, and waiting for players to connect twice instead of just once). all in all its about the same. and i guess pgi needs to get people to buy dropdecks, and the only way to do that is offer more game modes that use them.

on the other hand it is a minimal viable approach. a bunch of copy paste work, and members of the community actually want it. i guess its a win-win if they dont do anything stupid to over complicate things. it might help turnout, and if it doesnt, do more frequent fp events and hike rewards.

i really dont think pgi is taking anyones design advice, i think that its something they figured out on their own. if they read half of the good ideas on this forum, they would have had this game purring like a kitten a long time ago.

Edited by LordNothing, 07 September 2016 - 09:26 PM.

[RestosIII]

LordNothing, on 07 September 2016 - 09:23 PM, said:

if they dont do anything stupid to over complicate things

[LordNothing]

RestosIII, on 07 September 2016 - 09:38 PM, said:

oh thats right, this is pgi.

[Johnny Z]

ScarecrowES, on 07 September 2016 - 07:26 PM, said:

And a perfect example of a mode that really won't work without some sort of respawn system. Too much going on for elimination-style gameplay.

This sounds right to.

When someone says respawns I cant stand the thought but dropship mode is awesome.

[Mystere]

MischiefSC, on 07 September 2016 - 07:47 PM, said:

So they're admitting total failure on FW and closing it up. Cool.

Huh?

[Kurbeks]

Alteran, on 07 September 2016 - 08:53 PM, said:

Instead of purchasing the Kodiak pack two weeks ago, I should have used that cash for Battletech.

I wonder if they'll give me a refund...

Buying Kodiak pack 2 weks before it's relased for Cbills - LOL

[Wintersdark]

ScarecrowES, on 07 September 2016 - 07:18 PM, said:

Well, the reasons are pretty simple... first, all of the modes PGI uses for quick play are designed around respawns. Even limited respawns would make those modes play better. And, realistically, ALL modes should fall under the FP umbrella. Quick Play shouldn't be a separate entity. Rolling those modes into FP even as its own thing lets us test and see if that's the way to go. I think it is already.

I agree, but what's happening is Quick Play is totally unaffected.

They're just adding quick play modes to FP to increase variety, and they're doing it with dropship respawns (exactly as per Invasion game mode dropship respawns). They also said, on a related not:

1) They'll still never have unrestricted respawns, but
2) If it turns out the 4-mech dropship respawns work out well in FP with regular maps and modes, they'd be interested in trying it in quick play in the future.


McGral has valid points, but he's upset and ranty and exaggerating things, so he's likely to create confusion.

Individual factions still exist, and have their own planets they are fighting for, but each flip period, all the contested planets either flip to clan or is control (in the hands of the respective factions depending on who was attacking/defending). Thus, a less populous or fairly inactive faction won't either away to nothingness, it'll grow/shrink along with the rest.

This has some benefits for less populous factions, somewhat less depressing.

It does water down faction identity somewhat, but to be honest that was totally inevitable. Many games with orders of magnitude more players than MWO struggle with just three factions; 9 is ridiculous.

There's no point in being upset about that; it was an unsolvable problem. No matter what PGI did, they'd never get enough players to make 9 factions work.

In practice all that happened for us is we would have 2 or 3 active factions then a lot of dead ones that basically serve as traps for people who wanted to fight for them (but would be forever unable to get matches).

Hopefully we'll end up with something playable, though, as the current FP really isn't, and can't be.



I do think they should just tie QP into FP and call it a day. Then you're fighting for your faction whether you like it or not!

But I'm really looking forward to CQ/Dom with dropships. That'll be a blast.

[Wintersdark]

Johnny Z, on 07 September 2016 - 10:31 PM, said:

This sounds right to.

When someone says respawns I cant stand the thought but dropship mode is awesome.

Yeah, I really despise unrestricted or ticket based respawns, but dropship respawns get the benefits of both worlds: you get multiple mechs, so objectives matter more (can kill em all so fast), but at the same time each player has his fixed set of mechs so you don't have people setting away burning the communal ticket pool (death is a personal cost, rather than a burden on the team - I find that bit tends to make a big difference).

And hey, it basically gets us for new game modes, because the dropship respawns will totally change how they play.

[Wintersdark]

LordNothing, on 07 September 2016 - 09:23 PM, said:

i really dont think pgi is taking anyones design advice, i think that its something they figured out on their own. if they read half of the good ideas on this forum, they would have had this game purring like a kitten a long time ago.

Certainly not to stand up for PGI - they've made a lot of really poor choices - but going to players for design advice is a lost cause most of the time.

Sure, there's good ideas, and ones that seem good, and it's easy to call them that when you can hand wave over the difficult spots. There's also a lot of ideas that initially seem awesome but would totally break other systems, or be easily broken by players.

The sad reality is that most of PGI's messed up ideas HAVE been ideas from the community. Hell, pretty much all of them have been, for good or ill. Ghost Heat. Conquest. Domination. Energy draw. Skirmish. PPC empty effect. Gauss charge. VoIP. Jump jet shake. The list goes on and on.

It's like asking a random guy how to build a house. He may know what he wants in a house, what kind of houses he likes, but that doesn't mean he knows how to lay out a good foundation or ensure that upper floors are properly supported in the lower floors, or that there's a good path for plumbing, etc.

Now assume that thousands of unique people are going to be living in the house, and ask them how they want it built.

Design by committee doesn't work. Ever. Mind you, Design by Paul hasn't been great either >.<

We'll see how Derek does.

[Johnny Z]

Wintersdark, on 07 September 2016 - 11:46 PM, said:

Certainly not to stand up for PGI - they've made a lot of really poor choices - but going to players for design advice is a lost cause most of the time.

Sure, there's good ideas, and ones that seem good, and it's easy to call them that when you can hand wave over the difficult spots. There's also a lot of ideas that initially seem awesome but would totally break other systems, or be easily broken by players.

The sad reality is that most of PGI's messed up ideas HAVE been ideas from the community. Hell, pretty much all of them have been, for good or ill. Ghost Heat. Conquest. Domination. Energy draw. Skirmish. PPC empty effect. Gauss charge. VoIP. Jump jet shake. The list goes on and on.

It's like asking a random guy how to build a house. He may know what he wants in a house, what kind of houses he likes, but that doesn't mean he knows how to lay out a good foundation or ensure that upper floors are properly supported in the lower floors, or that there's a good path for plumbing, etc.

Now assume that thousands of unique people are going to be living in the house, and ask them how they want it built.

Design by committee doesn't work. Ever. Mind you, Design by Paul hasn't been great either &gt;.&lt;

We'll see how Derek does.

I think they have done an excellent job, my only complaint being taking to long and even that complaint isn't entirely right considering how long it takes to make an entirely new none clone game from what I have read.

Half the things you listed are still in game and work great. Ghost heat worked as a place holder for a long time just like the skill tree.

You mention a house being built, well its entirely different if a house has never been built before. That's what this game is doing.

They deserve all cheers if anyone knows anything.

Watch this on gamespot about the biggest game company in the world trying to make its 4th game in a series. That game will go into the hundreds of millions being built and they have a giant base already on which to build.

http://www.gamespot....e/2300-6434403/
(looks like gamespot is hacked or being dosed or being run by idiots so this link isn't working very well. Hire someone from youtube morons. Gamespot is great but always laggy to one degree or another and sometimes completely useless.)

Basically the guys were saying that this game may even get delayed again because gameplay shown was so limited. They are showing more gameplay later this year but it wont be ready till 1st quarter next year at the earliest.

So adding this instead.



It was supposed to come out this year and its been delayed. They don't even have a budget limit to speak of.

Edited by Johnny Z, 08 September 2016 - 01:06 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Mystere, on 07 September 2016 - 10:36 PM, said:

Huh?

Factions pointless, just IS v Clan, respawns. Removing a bunch of what little sliver of depth/complexity/faction identity is left so it plays more like QP to get drops faster.

Nothing to get more people to play, no. Just get it to drop faster for the few people left in return for.... removing the only reasons some of the people left still played.

[Johnny Z]

MischiefSC, on 08 September 2016 - 12:34 AM, said:

Factions pointless, just IS v Clan, respawns. Removing a bunch of what little sliver of depth/complexity/faction identity is left so it plays more like QP to get drops faster.

Nothing to get more people to play, no. Just get it to drop faster for the few people left in return for.... removing the only reasons some of the people left still played.

This should be obvious but I will point it out anyway. Its like many things that were taken out and added again from closed beta. I totally agree this game needs more depth but as anyone can see they are building from the ground up. There is a depth to faction play in the works as anyone can see.

[DaynarFaol]

What has always made the MechWarrior games fun has been immersion.

With these new changes to FW we are loosing ALL immersion.

This is no longer going to be MechWarrior. Just another spawn and kill FPS which happens to use BattleTech names for Mechs.

They should be focusing on getting the AI up. Getting a campaign, both single and multiplayer; going.

They should make FW immersive as hell. Have an AI that controls everything from green militia units to the Kell Hounds or Wolf's Dragoons.

Have weekly or monthly videos from each factions command staff.

Let units win faction based awards like the Dragon Slayer ribbon. Or the Order Excalibur.

Give players a REASON to play FW. The dots don't mean anything and will mean even less now.

Honestly these changes are going to make MWO a much more casual game for me. One I maybe play when I have nothing else to do.

I wont be buying any more packs. Nor anything else really. Was actually looking forward to the Bushwhacker, but now I would rather save the money for something else.

Because if I wanted to play an FPS spawn and kill clone I would play that.

I wanted this to be a true heir to the legacy of BattleTech.
To give me the same feeling of being IN the Inner Sphere and fighting for it like MechWarrior 2: Mercs did so many years ago.

But it seems I will have to wait a decade or two to see such a legacy.

[Sader325]

So, I like everything they said in this podcast and agree with everything but one thing.

I personally don't think factions need to be collapsed, the rest of the proposed ideas are enough to revive FP for a good 7-10 months.

It would be a great first step while working on later content.

Edited by Sader325, 08 September 2016 - 12:49 AM.