20 replies to this topic

[Greyhart]

Is there really anyway to make this work and have a cost reward for fielding mechs?

What I would like in FP (or end game if you will) is the feeling that you are managing and maintaining a mech. That this machine is large expensive, rare and powerful.

Frankly the 4 mech drop deck flys in the face of this, but you could overlook that.

However the real problem is once you've purchased and elited a mech that's it. It's there ready sitting around in a hanger gathering dust until you decide to take it out.

There's no risk to loosing that mech. Its destruction means nothing but mild inconvenience. there is no risk to taking it out.

Currently all FP is, is a QP with respawns and its own game mode.

To create a narrative frame work in any real sense, or any sense of attachment to a mech you've got to wall off the QP garage from the FP garage.

I think there has to be a way to make running and maintaining a mech significant.

perhaps if you renamed Mech XP to Tech time. In QP you can get the upgrades and they stay but in FP over time the upgrades degrade unless you put in more tech time (which would be earnt like XP currently so in FP and QP).

anyway just spitballing and wasting time at work.

[BuckshotSchell]

you think PUGs will queue up to get stomped when they have to get stomped again in the garage to fix their broken toys?

[Greyhart]

BuckshotSchell, on 02 November 2016 - 07:35 AM, said:

you think PUGs will queue up to get stomped when they have to get stomped again in the garage to fix their broken toys?

That really wasn't the thought I was going with. Of course if more people play FP then a lot of those types of problems start to fall away.

I wasn't thinking practically what people would do. But conceptually can you make FP feel meaningful if the mechs are disposable?

[Tavious Grimm]

While I agree with spirit of your post, its simply not feasible. They tried that back in the early days in QP, it didn't last long. With Faction its a whole different beast. You gather a group...let's say you wait 5-10 minutes in queue before your match. Get in and within 3 minutes your vaped by a KDK-3. If its an assault mech that's buku bucks to rearm and repair. Now add 3more mechs to that. If you remove mechs you make it worse. Die within 3 minutes plus the 10 minute wait..whew the boards would raging....more then usual. A possible work around word be to increase C-Bills, and then deduct the cost of replenishing ammo and reduce repairs by say half...with the other half being picked up by the unit/faction. Just my two C-Bills worth.

[Spheroid]

I am in favor of a repair timer penalty not a c-bill penalty. With hundreds of mechs I can easily survive getting farmed by multiple twelve mans and still be combat ready.

In that manner CW would be transformed into the unlimited grindfest it should be where there is a never ending quest for duplicate meta mechs and their associated mech bays through which PGI generates stable income not reliant on creation of new content.

The space poor can use trials. The more you grind the more you free yourself from trials and work for the geopolitical expansion of your nation state.

I spent years building the ultimate mech arsenal for what is now a dead gamemode. I want my arsenal to be useful in a war. I want attrition to disadvantage my enemies.

Edited by Spheroid, 02 November 2016 - 09:05 PM.

[Albino Boo]

CW already has a high barrier to entry, adding anything that increases that barrier will not work. It takes time to learn how to play CW and making people pay Cbills to learn will not increase the number of players. Even experienced players are unlikely to pug if you end up out of pocket. The idea of locking out mechs for a time period will only increase ghost drops and give free mc to the large units that can zerg.

[Willard Phule]

Huh....good idea, in concept. Not sure how it would work in practice.

There's a HUGE chunk of the FP population that has trouble with unzooming and moving forward. Getting to a mobile field base or hangar to get repaired would be way beyond their abilities.

[TWIAFU]

Albino Boo, on 03 November 2016 - 02:24 AM, said:

CW already has a high barrier to entry, adding anything that increases that barrier will not work. It takes time to learn how to play CW and making people pay Cbills to learn will not increase the number of players. Even experienced players are unlikely to pug if you end up out of pocket. The idea of locking out mechs for a time period will only increase ghost drops and give free mc to the large units that can zerg.

?????

High barrier? There is NO barrier.

Literally; install game, click Faction, ignore warning box, make Trial Drop Deck, complain about getting rolled.

We actually need a barrier.

[Albino Boo]

TWIAFU, on 03 November 2016 - 02:57 AM, said:

?????

High barrier? There is NO barrier.

Literally; install game, click Faction, ignore warning box, make Trial Drop Deck, complain about getting rolled.

We actually need a barrier.

Yeah thats right the huge numbers of players that are in CW clearly means we have to reduce the numbers.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

Albino Boo, on 03 November 2016 - 02:24 AM, said:

CW already has a high barrier to entry, adding anything that increases that barrier will not work. It takes time to learn how to play CW and making people pay Cbills to learn will not increase the number of players. Even experienced players are unlikely to pug if you end up out of pocket. The idea of locking out mechs for a time period will only increase ghost drops and give free mc to the large units that can zerg.

There is literally no barrier to entry FP other then choosing a carrier patch. You don't need to own mechs, you don't need to play quickplay matches, a tutorial or whatnot.

Repair and rearm can always work.
If your faction gets hammered, simply lower the the cooldown on repairs down up to instant.
If your faction is the hammer, raise it to the point where even putting some points of armor back on a mech will cost a considerable amount of c-bills.

The system would be great to add meaning and substance to FP, but it is also very unlikely that PGI is even able to code something remotely similar.

If i recall correctely, it should have been one of the core elements from way back then when Faction Warfare was announced.
U'known.. when people actually had hoped PGI would deliver.

Edited by Toha Heavy Industries, 03 November 2016 - 03:12 AM.

[Albino Boo]

Toha Heavy Industries, on 03 November 2016 - 03:10 AM, said:

There is literally no barrier to entry FP other then choosing a carrier patch. You don't need to own mechs, you don't need to play quickplay matches, a tutorial or whatnot.

Repair and rearm can always work.
If your faction gets hammered, simply lower the the cooldown on repairs down up to instant.
If your faction is the hammer, raise it to the point where even putting some points of armor back on a mech will cost a considerable amount of c-bills.

The system would be great to add meaning and substance to FP, but it is also very unlikely that PGI is even able to code something remotely similar.

If i recall correctely, it should have been one of the core elements from way back then when Faction Warfare was announced.
U'known.. when people actually had hoped PGI would deliver.

Oh for god sake, there is barrier to entry. There is no tutorial, there is no separation based on skill and only 1 map is lrm friendly. The average starting player with 4 trial mechs would be hard pressed to break 500 damage. Under either proposals in this thread you will penalise people for losing. If you keep adding disincentives to play CW you dont get fresh players.

[Greyhart]

Albino Boo, on 03 November 2016 - 05:25 AM, said:

Oh for god sake, there is barrier to entry. There is no tutorial, there is no separation based on skill and only 1 map is lrm friendly. The average starting player with 4 trial mechs would be hard pressed to break 500 damage. Under either proposals in this thread you will penalise people for losing. If you keep adding disincentives to play CW you dont get fresh players.

But the hypothesis is that FP is not appealing on the basis it is in effect little different than QP.

It is about consequences. If there is no consequence to dying then there is less consequence to winning and surviving

[Penrose Willoughby]

That hypothesis is untrue. The loyalty rewards alone make FP extremely appealing.
I mean, free mech bays, free mc, free money. You have to really really screw up to make people ignore rewards like that.

Having 50 seperate queues, and seemingly setting up the mode purposely to let organized units is one way to really screw it up.

Making people have extra penalties for losing is somehow even worse. The penalty for losing is you don't win, that's enough.

[BuckshotSchell]

you get no loyalty points on a loss as well, which makes it harder to get the rewards.

[Kael Posavatz]

This sort-of-might work for Mercs, but in the various Factions Mechs are largely (there are some exceptions in the IS) military-issue equipment.

I suppose something could be set up where if you are X Faction-loyalist you get Y c-bills or points to outfit/repair/upgrade/etc mechs associated with that House or Clan and you have to make up the difference out of your own pocket.

The two problems with it I have are:

1) Adding lore-immersion for FW is, at this point, unwarranted if not stupid. There are a lot of problems with it from a gameplay perspective that need to be addressed to make FW long-term viable before 'housekeeping' can even start to be looked at.

2) The balancing on this would be very touchy. It would be easy for one really bad match to create a deficit--and it doesn't really matter if it's c-bills for repair/rearm, or XP can you can expend for temporary upgrades--that can be hard to climb out of. If you start without those upgrades, which is the sense I got from the OP, then there will be brief period where everyone is on the same playing field as they level up, but a couple months down the line any new players coming in with unleveled mechs will meet only/mostly upleveled opponents which will make it difficult for that player to gain the same benefits.

Edited by Kael Posavatz, 03 November 2016 - 10:47 AM.

[Deathlike]

To be fair, there needed to be a barrier to entry, if only to make sure the extraordinarily new player was going to participate.

At this point, a serious rework of FW has to occur.

I think a barrier to entry still needs to exist, mostly because it's hard to get going in CW w/o a reasonably sizeable dropdeck... even the bare min of each weight class having elited out a mech would be a starting point (you don't want to run non-elited mechs in CW unless you are well off).

[B L O O D W I T C H]

Albino Boo, on 03 November 2016 - 05:25 AM, said:

Oh for god sake, there is barrier to entry. There is no tutorial, there is no separation based on skill and only 1 map is lrm friendly. The average starting player with 4 trial mechs would be hard pressed to break 500 damage. Under either proposals in this thread you will penalise people for losing. If you keep adding disincentives to play CW you dont get fresh players.

Duh, there is no entry barrier. You just said it yourself "The average starting player with 4 trial mechs would be hard pressed to break 500 damage"
I got what you meant to say, tho.
Then again:

Newbie friendly enviroment
Die hard endgame mode

choose one

[Willard Phule]

End game content with beginning game mechs and players. Not sure how that's supposed to even work.

[Zolaz]

Russ was able to run off all the big units with Phase 2 and 3. You would think you would go the other way and add features to make people want to play instead of the other way around.

[Bud Crue]

Zolaz, on 07 November 2016 - 04:23 PM, said:

Russ was able to run off all the big units with Phase 2 and 3. You would think you would go the other way and add features to make people want to play instead of the other way around.

The unit tax still inspires a sense of awe in me. The shear absurdity of having a mode focused on team play and introducing therein a mechanism specifically designed to punish those attempting to build and play as a team. Its one of those "wow did they think this through at all?" moments. When viewed in the context of the rest of the Phase 3 changes its even more mind bogglingly impressive. Phase 3 took the barely functioning game mode of Phase 2 and absolutely destroyed what little appeal it still had to anyone but the most hardcore and ardent players of it. It really is kind of awe inspiring in a "break my nose to spite my face" sort of way.