2 replies to this topic

[Insanity09]

A simple proposal, provide c-bill (&/or xp) bonuses or multipliers for people who play the less frequently seen mech classes (light mostly, but also medium).
Because light and medium mechs are not as popular to to play, queue times are frequently longer than they should be. A little extra encouragement to play the less popular stuff could help that quite a bit.

My dim recollection is that the supposed lore-typical breakdown of percentages of mechs actually seen in combat was something like 40% medium, 30% heavy, 20% light, and 10% assault.
Based on where you typically see mechs placed, lights are usually only in Alpha lance, mediums in alpha or bravo, heavies in bravo or charlie, and assaults in charlie. From that, we could assign values of 17/33/33/17 to light/medium/heavy/assault as ideal.
We don't usually see anything close to that. (frequently: heavies ~40-50%, assaults ~20-30%, light ~10%, and mediums ~20%)

However you come up with the ideal numbers, I would actually tie the rewards in to the actual percentages of mechs being played, updated periodically. I would hope that PGI has the data mining capability to do this. By tracking what the actual numbers are (factored hourly?), then comparing them to what the ideal is considered to be, you could apply a bonus based on how far off the numbers are. I would NOT punish folks for playing the popular classes.

PGI has already tried to encourage the use of lighter classes by improving the xp/cb rewards for non-kill/damage activities. That's great and all, but a) it doesn't seem to be well reflected in match score, and the rewards still seem a little sparse compared to kill/damage.
More needs to be done.

[Kalimaster]

Perhaps an event where lights are treated with extra reward points for say a week long or month long event?

[Insanity09]

I'm not sure if an event would have the desired long term effect. I expect it would boost the numbers during the event, but after that we'd be right back to the limited flavor problem.

As a side note, I have now seen that when the heavy/assault percentages total over 80% of the mechs played (light was around 6%, medium was 10%), you can see heavies all the way into alpha lance. Thankfully, that is unusual.


Edit: I realize that this recent event is centered around an assault mech (MAD-2C), so of late the percentages of mechs being played have been massively skewed. I've been frequently seeing assault in the 40%+ range, with heavies being high 20's or more. Lights and mediums are in the doldrums more than usual at maybe 25% total between the two classes. This sort of situation would be a perfect opportunity for the bonus system to come into play. Not that seeing 6/12 mechs in play be Mad-2C's isn't interesting (it isn't), but a little more variety might be pleasant.

Edited by Insanity09, 15 December 2016 - 06:48 PM.