65 replies to this topic

[Armando]

We are in Phase 3, and Community Warfare is a ghost town. Many have blamed Large Units in general, and -MS- specifically for the current state of CW so I wanted to make a post to address this line of thought highlighting 3 main topics....1) Perception vs Reality. 2) Why [-MS-] was successful while everyone else was....less successful. 3) What Faction Loyalist should take away from this post. So, lets get to it...

1) Perception vs Reality:

The Perception:

[-MS-] is 1 Unit made up of 371 members who all play Community/Faction Warfare

The Reality:

[-MS-] is 12 different units, the 'smallest' only has 3 pilots, while the 'largest' unit has 107 members. Many of the units that make up -MS- do not play Community/Faction Warfare, as they spend most of their time playing in tournaments (RHoD, MCW, and most recently the PGI tournament).

2) Why [-MS-] was successful while everyone else was....less successful.

Short Answer:

Selflessness

Long Answer:

Before the launch of Community Warfare, Leadership from 10+ different mercenary units came together to discuss how CW was going to be made up of 10 Factions (4 Clan, 6 I.S.) and how mercenaries could ever hope to make a difference.

The solution that was agreed upon was, the 10+ units represented would combine to make an 11th Faction: MERCENARIES. So was born MercStar [-MS-]. The new 'Unit" (in reality a "Mercenary Faction") would share resources.

The 10+ units would share Drop Commanders (CW groups were lead by DC's from 10+ units)

The 10+ units would share pilots (CW groups were made up of pilots from 10+ different units).

The 10+ units would share a TS server (10+ team speak servers were combined into one server for centralized communication).

To put it another way: 10+ units put the needs of our "Faction" (aka: Mercenaries) over the ego's of our members, The 10+ units would drop their Unit Tags (SwK; TFF; GEMC; ISEN; INTR; etc) for a "Faction Tag" [-MS-]. Hence the short answer of: Selflessness.

3) What Faction Loyalist should take away from this post.

The short answer:

Start acting like a Faction instead of a bunch of single units / pilots.

The long answer (aka: The Point, for those who missed it):

Faction Loyalist: Stop putting your Loyalty to your self (solo pilots) or your unit (unit pilots) OVER your Loyalty to your Faction. Follow [-MS-]'s example, combine your commanders, pilots, and TS and FIGHT AS A FACTION. Communicate with each other. Learn from each other. and this last one I can NOT say enough: FIGHT AS A FACTION.

Edited by Armando, 19 June 2016 - 03:45 AM.

[maniacos]

MS is not a fraction it is still an unit and counted as such in the game mechanics. People see MS they will take MS like any other unit. That they are a fusion of plenty smaller units is known.

But MS is not the reason CW is going down. The reason is PGI and their failure to get a game running. Crude mechanics, developing away from what the community wants, "inventions" that are announced as the next big thing that turn out meh (long tom?) PUGs getting roflstomped by premades and last but not least the fact that in many cases not defending is too often the best "tactic" to defend a planet.

Edited by maniacos, 19 June 2016 - 03:36 AM.

[Alienized]

i lol'd hard.

[Armando]

maniacos, on 19 June 2016 - 03:14 AM, said:

MS is not a fraction it is still an unit and counted as such in the game mechanics. People see MS they will take MS like any other unit. That they are a fusion of plenty smaller units is known.

But MS is not the reason CW is going down. The reason is PGI and their failure to get a game running. Crude mechanics, developing away from what the community wants, "inventions" that are announced as the next big thing that turn out meh (long tom?) and last but not least the fact that in many cases not defending is too often the best "tactic" to defend a planet.

Update post so 'The Point' is easier to detect.

Edited by Armando, 19 June 2016 - 03:43 AM.

[maniacos]

Armando, on 19 June 2016 - 03:36 AM, said:

Cool argument.

[Armando]

maniacos, on 19 June 2016 - 03:43 AM, said:

Cool argument.

And yet another post that has NOTHING to do with the point of the topic.



Updated original post to put even MORE emphasis on "The Point". Maybe your next post will have something, ANYTHING, to do with the point of the topic (one can hope anyway).

Edited by Armando, 19 June 2016 - 03:59 AM.

[Bud Crue]

I play on the FRR TS server, as you know we are lots of different units and we used to play actively on CW "as a faction" working together in the manner described by the OP. So I know exactly what the OP is saying. We all used to play the way he is suggesting you should play...but we don't anymore. We were driven from the game for the same reasons most others were driven from the game, and I gotta tell ya, that when we discuss why we don't play CW anymore, MS never comes up. The population drop off is not because MS killed the game, it is because PGI did.

MS and cooperative ("selfless" goes to far some of the egos on some top players is anything but selfless ) play did not drive people away. What has driven everyone it seems -including MS and everyone else was PGI's jihad against "large units" and some really poorly thought out game mechanisms of P3 which ended up affecting everyone and acted to destroy the motivation that a lot of people had to play the mode:

-putting a mechanism in place to ensure that units were punished for bringing in members,
-failing to put in a mechanism for recruiting of any kind,
-then ironically putting in a mechanism which ensures that the largest active teams will almost always win (you have enough players to spam scouting, you get long tom, the long tom helps ensure victory for whomever has enough players to dominate scouting, reset).
-including a mechanism that actively encourages individuals and small teams not to fight (uh guys, the long tom is active on planet X lets pick another planet...oh wait that is the only planet we can choose right now...screw it lets go to QP).
-creating a reward/career path that favors older players and actively discourages faction loyalty.
-etc, etc, etc.

MS and cooperative play didn't kill CW. PGI did.

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

FRR is operating with the same principles, sharing pilots, dropcommanders and ressources. Oh wonder, they're doing well.

[Bud Crue]

LOADED, on 19 June 2016 - 03:52 AM, said:

FRR is operating with the same principles, sharing pilots, dropcommanders and ressources. Oh wonder, they're doing well.

Yep, we used to. Nowadays you see maybe 1-2 ~12 mans running during US prime time. After that we can't seem to muster much of anything. See above.

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

Bud Crue, on 19 June 2016 - 03:55 AM, said:

Yep, we used to. Nowadays you see maybe 1-2 ~12 mans running during US prime time. After that we can't seem to muster much of anything. See above.

That is still 1-2 12 man more then other factions have to offer. tho, i agree with your post you wrote above.

[maniacos]

Armando, on 19 June 2016 - 03:50 AM, said:

And yet another post that has NOTHING to do with the point of the topic.

I know that reading comprehension is an issue for many people here.
"Many have blamed Large Units in general, and -MS- specifically for the current state of CW"
"But MS is not the reason CW is going down."
The suggestions you make won't heal CW as I pointed out since the issues are on another paper. It would maybe make one or two matches in a time for PUGs more successful (and thus more interesting and challenging for units), but it won't heal CW unless the other issues are addressed and taken care of.
However I didn't even attack your point, but you took it as an attack. That however is not my fault.

[Armando]

Bud Crue, on 19 June 2016 - 03:51 AM, said:

I play on the FRR TS server, as you know we are lots of different units and we used to play actively on CW "as a faction" working together in the manner described by the OP. So I know exactly what the OP is saying. We all used to play the way he is suggesting you should play...but we don't anymore. We were driven from the game for the same reasons most others were driven from the game, and I gotta tell ya, that when we discuss why we don't play CW anymore, MS never comes up. The population drop off is not because MS killed the game, it is because PGI did.

MS and cooperative ("selfless" goes to far some of the egos on some top players is anything but selfless ) play did not drive people away. What has driven everyone it seems -including MS and everyone else was PGI's jihad against "large units" and some really poorly thought out game mechanisms of P3 which ended up affecting everyone and acted to destroy the motivation that a lot of people had to play the mode:

-putting a mechanism in place to ensure that units were punished for bringing in members,
-failing to put in a mechanism for recruiting of any kind,
-then ironically putting in a mechanism which ensures that the largest active teams will almost always win (you have enough players to spam scouting, you get long tom, the long tom helps ensure victory for whomever has enough players to dominate scouting, reset).
-including a mechanism that actively encourages individuals and small teams not to fight (uh guys, the long tom is active on planet X lets pick another planet...oh wait that is the only planet we can choose right now...screw it lets go to QP).
-creating a reward/career path that favors older players and actively discourages faction loyalty.
-etc, etc, etc.

MS and cooperative play didn't kill CW. PGI did.

PGI has done little / nothing to provide pilots with the tools and resources for pilots to play a team based game AS A TEAM.

That said, we as the players have also "F'ed Up" too, there are many things the player base 'could have' and still 'can do' to make the game better for everyone. Sharing resources such as Commanders (one of the rarest and most important resources in the game), Pilots, and Voice Communication at a Faction Level would go a LONG way to making this game more enjoyable for EVERYONE who plays....that is on US, not PGI in my opinion.

Edited by Armando, 19 June 2016 - 04:12 AM.

[Armando]

maniacos, on 19 June 2016 - 04:03 AM, said:

I know that reading comprehension is an issue for many people here.
"Many have blamed Large Units in general, and -MS- specifically for the current state of CW"
"But MS is not the reason CW is going down."
The suggestions you make won't heal CW as I pointed out since the issues are on another paper. It would maybe make one or two matches in a time for PUGs more successful (and thus more interesting and challenging for units), but it won't heal CW unless the other issues are addressed and taken care of.
However I didn't even attack your point, but you took it as an attack. That however is not my fault.

I did not take your post as an attack, I took your post for that of someone who focused on framework leading up to the point, but did not address the point. (as someone who missed the point).

I do not blame you for missing the point, as I did a piss poor job of pointing it out (that is on me my friend), So I updated my original post to make 'the point' more clear. If it hasn't been clear, I have nothing but <3 and respect for you!

[maniacos]

Armando, on 19 June 2016 - 04:11 AM, said:

I did not take your post as an attack, I took your post for that of someone who focused on framework leading up to the point, but did not address the point. (as someone who missed the point).

I do not blame you for missing the point, as I did a piss poor job of pointing it out (that is on me my friend), So I updated my original post to make 'the point' more clear. If it hasn't been clear, I have nothing but <3 and respect for you!

See, the problem is that you didn't read what I wrote in the way I intended it to be read. I have nothing against your suggestion (besides that I oppose the part with your interpretation of -MS- as a fraction, it might have been the idea but it is not a fraction in the game mechanics - and also not in the way some members of -MS- appeared here), as pointed on, because it would make games for us more interesting. I just don't see how it could heal CW. Besides the fact that a fraction of random loyalists will never show the same performance of an organized unit, the playerbase already suffered a huge punch down after phase 3 didn't come out as the great leap forward as it was promised. Now I read that ghost drops will not happen anymore so there is hope that "defense through ignorance" will become less successful, however the people gone won't come back as long as they still get roflstomped by premades or nagged by long toms.

If you ask me, CW needs scrapping and a reboot from scratch, with some actual thought through concepts behind it - and removing QP completely, including it as a PUG mode or something in CW. When they split solo and group queue in CW, they had a good intention but didn't think it with the low number of players active and thus made it even harder to get a match going hence it was removed again reverting to the old problem of solo players getting stomped by organized teams. So the playerbase is already split between CW and QP, why not bringing it back together into *one game* with *one mode*...

Edited by maniacos, 19 June 2016 - 04:29 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Armando, on 19 June 2016 - 04:04 AM, said:

PGI has done little / nothing to provide pilots with the tools and resources for pilots to play a team based game AS A TEAM.

That said, we as the players have also "F'ed Up" too, there are many things the player base 'could have' and still 'can do' to make the game better for everyone. Sharing resources such as Commanders (one of the rarest and most important resources in the game), Pilots, and Voice Communication at a Faction Level would go a LONG way to making this game more enjoyable for EVERYONE who plays....that is on US, not PGI in my opinion.

Perhaps, but alot of players play CW because they want to play "a battletech game". If my team wants to be a loyalist so that my inner child/lore nerd can be the knight in shinning armor that is Davion, how in the current game do we share commanders with a brilliant comp team leader who is running clan, or even as a mercenary. In the latter such sharing is impossible, in the former it is at best incremental. That is the sort of failure that is on PGI.

Some folks have tried to utilize the team/unit/faction ideal of the mode many others have not, and I think many of the mechanisms of P3 don't help and in fact hinder the sorts of things you are suggesting people do to "share resources" etc. Certainly folks could (and have) come up with work-arounds and do some of the things you suggest, but if the clear intention of PGI (via the mechanisms of the game) discourage such things, a lot of folks are going to have the attitude of "why bother this is just too much work to be fun". Yes, the onus to overcome the burdens of poor game mechanisms is on the individual and team, but geez it sure would be easier if PGI actually encouraged team play rather than...whatever P3 is supposed to be doing.

Edited by Bud Crue, 19 June 2016 - 04:27 AM.

[Appogee]

I believe everyone should join MercStar.

Thus the 'strength in numbers' strategy will reach its logical conclusion, and people will either need to find a different way to exploit the game mechanics, or PGI will need to change the game mechanics.

Win-win.

[SteamCharts Kerensky]

A bunch of people who don't like each other group up to get colored dots through sheer weight of numbers, then implode and disband when even they can't pretend to care about the colored dots anymore.

A real epic saga here.

[darkcyd]

OR we can all just go back to quickplay which is at the moment the only fair system to play for a non united player.


How I see FW at the moment is a buncha units kicking crap outta a buncha pugs OVER and OVER and OVER.

I can't imagine this is fun for the units or the pugs. We've decided instead of splitting FW into smaller brackets that would be more fair to keep it as is so those units can farm as many pugs as possible. As a solo player I have no interest in the current system.

Its not MS's fault anymore than any other unit but the system is unfun all around and because of that it will bleed players until it dies. It is sad PGI put so much time and so many people had so much hope into a game mode that will never yield fruit.

Had they lowered the entry level cost into FW when they steam released and fragmented then, we would have had a game mode. Too late now.

Edited by darkcyd, 19 June 2016 - 07:47 AM.

[Harvey Batchall Kerensky at Law]

Or this game is dead so who cares

[Zolaz]

I like it when PGI tells me that they know what is best for the game. Then 6 months later scraps everything they did and listens to their community.