13 replies to this topic

[Big Tin Man]

The problem:

Since FW/CW 1 the problem has been mercs jumping around without a penalty from faction to faction collecting those sweet sweet mechbays (edit: not a thing anymore as Raptor pointed out). Rewards balancing never kept up to keep the numbers in check, it just kept the map looking right as one side steamrolled the other over and over. Tonnage adjustments were reactionary to make up for pug skills vs. coordinated unit skills and never solved the core IS v Clan issues, as the data was always tainted by population concerns. And once again, we see that the front in FW has come to a stalemate as the larger merc groups are currently IS and fighting only clan loyalists and pugs, and the tears are flowing from clanner space at the moment.

To fix this, there needs to be a downside to the merc life, and it is the unemployment line.

The concept:

Great Houses issue contracts for the fight, but the houses only have so many generals to manage them and so much money allocated in the defense budget for mercs. Therefore it stands to reason that the IS could get to the point they could no longer accept any more merc contracts. This leaves the mercs with the choice of either: going loyalist [gasp!], accept a contract for the other side, or wait for a call to arms notification to pop up (Faction asking for immediate 1 time help). This discourages or even outright prevents mercs from hopping all over the place and making the population imbalanced.

How it would work (behind the scenes):

It doesn't sound that tough, PGI needs to monitor the overall active merc population numbers, and only allow one side (IS or Clan) to have ~60% of the active merc population* (see below). (number may need to be massaged to allow some movement, but you get the concept). This could be further detailed within clan/IS for internal IS/IS or Clan/clan conflicts if they ever come along (i.e. no single clan faction can have more than 30% of active clan mercs). The contract duration's act as a self regulating device, as contracts regularly expire and players are forced to switch sides, go loyalist, or be unemployed.

This would also have the added bonus of encouraging large merc units to break up. Say your unit wants to go clan, but the clans can only take on 150 more pilots. Well, too bad if your unit has 300 people in it, there isn't enough room. Maybe the numbers aren't even high enough to support a 400 member merc unit from existing on the inner sphere side because the merc active FW population is too low.

The entire idea came to me as my job is shifting back to business development, and seeking out contracts. Public agencies don't just hire an unlimited amount of people immediately, they have limits.

Thoughts? Areas to expand on the idea?

*edit2: Active merc population is defined as individuals who are mercs that have played a FW match within the last two weeks. For example, say there are 10,000 individual mercs that played FW in the last 2 weeks. This means there is a maximum of 6,000 merc pilot spots available for contract on either side of the conflict. This also means there are a total of 12,000 pilot contracts available, so there is always a contract available for a regular active FW player on one side. If they don't like the contract choices, they can still answer call to arms and become an active player without signing a contract. This will raise the cap. As new people play FW and switch from inactive to active status, the overall caps will raise and make room for them.

Edited by Big Tin Man, 18 January 2017 - 11:59 AM.

[RaptorCWS]

mercs only unlock loyalty points for the merc progression tree. they are collecting the same amount of mechbays as loyalist.

[Big Tin Man]

That's right, forgot about that.

Still doesn't change the concept, just changes a bit of the motivation behind the mercs jumping around.

[Stormie]

Why is big merc groups breaking up something you are aiming for. Most of the top performing merc groups
Aren't that big, and the big ones aren't that active...
No need to discourage large unit sizes...
Doesn't affect me, given im in a 13 player unit of which about half regularly play...

[Big Tin Man]

Big merc groups breaking up isn't the primary aim, just a bonus side effect to help spread the player population around. Big groups could still choose to stick together, but they may have a harder time finding the contract they want. And if the big units have a group of active FW folks and a non-active group of FW folks, splitting into two units would be an overall smart decision anyway to reduce recruitment costs. This wouldn't functionally effect FW, but breaking up large units wasn't the point of this either. Again, this is just a potential side effect.

And yes, the top merc groups aren't that big anymore, but there are still some larger more notable units out there that might struggle with this.

[SilentScreamer]

Big Tin Man, on 18 January 2017 - 08:22 AM, said:

How it would work (behind the scenes):

It doesn't sound that tough, PGI needs to monitor the overall active merc population numbers, and only allow one side (IS or Clan) to have ~60% of the active merc population. (number may need to be massaged to allow some movement, but you get the concept). This could be further detailed within clan/IS for internal IS/IS or Clan/clan conflicts if they ever come along (i.e. no single clan faction can have more than 30% of active clan mercs). The contract duration's act as a self regulating device, as contracts regularly expire and players are forced to switch sides, go loyalist, or be unemployed.

This would also have the added bonus of encouraging large merc units to break up. Say your unit wants to go clan, but the clans can only take on 150 more pilots. Well, too bad if your unit has 300 people in it, there isn't enough room. Maybe the numbers aren't even high enough to support a 400 member merc unit from existing on the inner sphere side because the merc active FW population is too low.

Big Tin Man, on 18 January 2017 - 10:13 AM, said:

Big merc groups breaking up isn't the primary aim, just a bonus side effect to help spread the player population around. Big groups could still choose to stick together, but they may have a harder time finding the contract they want. And if the big units have a group of active FW folks and a non-active group of FW folks, splitting into two units would be an overall smart decision anyway to reduce recruitment costs. This wouldn't functionally effect FW, but breaking up large units wasn't the point of this either. Again, this is just a potential side effect.

And yes, the top merc groups aren't that big anymore, but there are still some larger more notable units out there that might struggle with this.

The active vs. non-active population will still be a game-killer even if population caps like you are proposing are put into the Contracts system. In your example, if none of the 150 players who were lucky enough to get into a Faction contract are online or playing, then your queue is just as broken as if there was no cap and everyone joined one faction.

The real problem is the queue populations at any given time. Not the total player population in contract or loyalist status to the Factions. So how do you fix imbalanced queues if Contract payout or population caps won't work?

If the way Mercenaries are implemented changes, I would rather see a system that works to balance current queue populations (ie. the players currently active and trying to find matches) rather than total population in each Faction. I proposed using Mercs as "gap-fillers" in the Faction Play queue. Life for mercs would be very similar to what Freelancers experienced, they would be put in whichever queue needed them with the option to pick either Clan or I.S. on a match-by-match basis. The proposal is now outdated under the "one bucket" system. https://mwomercs.com...06#entry5408106

Edited by SilentScreamer, 18 January 2017 - 10:53 AM.

[Jman5]

We have a balancing mechanic for populations in the game already in terms of Contract bonuses. The problem is that it does a terrible job.

The best thing PGI could do is to stop counting inactive players. They could go even further by not counting players who are aligned with a faction, but haven't played Faction Warfare in 2 weeks.

This the reason why factions like Steiner and Davion will always have low contract payouts. They're saddled with thousands of innactive loyalists

Edited by Jman5, 18 January 2017 - 11:21 PM.

[Big Tin Man]

Contract bonuses are a lagging indicator, and a reflex action to the imbalance already existing. Put that with it needing to be manually adjusted by PGI in a timely fashion, and well... yeah. Not effective in controlling balance.

@Silent: I should have explained that the 'active' population I was referring to was people who have dropped FW in the last 2 weeks. So to guess at some numbers, say 10,000 individuals played a FW match in the last 2 weeks. This means the IS or Clans could have up to 6,000 contracted merc spots available in their ranks. If they're stuck on the outside looking in, answering a call to arms will make them an active FW player and will increase the number of spots available. Will edit the original post to clarify.

And since FW 4.1, the longest I have waited for a match was 5 minutes and that was last night around 11:30pm PST.

[Lazor Sharp]

Your forgetting one of the main drivers of where the FW population goes, is the new mech flavor of the month is why the merc's congregate on one side or the other, and make things lopsided.........

[LordNothing]

i dont think keeping people from switching around is the right way to go about it. what you want is to leverage human behavior (specifically greed) to self-balance the factions. incentives certainly can get people to switch where you want them. every time you change tonnage or tweak rewards it causes people to re-examine their chosen career path and faction allegiance. give me a 40% bonus in liao and i will usually go liao. pugs will usually go where the money is.

but you really got to leverage different rewards for different types of players. good units will usually play at a loss and make up the difference by winning more games. there is no incentives to fight hard targets or to go to the inferior side. recruitment costs might be an incentive. like if there are a lot of top rung units on one side, maybe offer the first few units that switch over 50% off recruitment fees. if the units are balanced but the pugs arent, provide incentives to pugs that help fill the gap.

even then you want some small resistance to change (we have a little too much right now, but we still want a little). throw out the old system and replace it with jump fees. a failing house might pay your jump fees if you join them, but one that is bloated with good players might have you pay your own way. this is what i like to call the free trade down mechanic. you shouldn't ever be penalized for doing something that is helping to balance the game. both at the individual and the unit level. if people are still doing things that unbalance the game, then one must identify who and why and then create an incentive to rectify it.

Edited by LordNothing, 18 January 2017 - 02:12 PM.

[Big Tin Man]

This strategy of 60 percent of merc population max will defend the 'flavor of the month' mech run around.

And Lordnothing: you are describing the exact system we have had since the start of cw/fw. It has two main problems: 1. It only corrects a problem once the problem exists (and usually over-corrects) and 2. It relies on PGI making constant adjustments which they have repeatedly demonstrated they either cannot or will not do with enough regularity to make it work.

And you're also assuming the top units care about money. At 1 million per fw match, winning teams don't care about a 100k bonus. They care about winning.

[justcallme A S H]

Stormie, on 18 January 2017 - 09:34 AM, said:

Why is big merc groups breaking up something you are aiming for. Most of the top performing merc groups
Aren't that big, and the big ones aren't that active...
No need to discourage large unit sizes...

Exactly. The old Danjo mantra is just that, old. It makes no difference.

Big Tin Man, on 18 January 2017 - 10:13 AM, said:

Big merc groups breaking up isn't the primary aim, just a bonus side effect to help spread the player population around. Big groups could still choose to stick together, but they may have a harder time finding the contract they want. And if the big units have a group of active FW folks and a non-active group of FW folks, splitting into two units would be an overall smart decision anyway to reduce recruitment costs. This wouldn't functionally effect FW, but breaking up large units wasn't the point of this either. Again, this is just a potential side effect.

And yes, the top merc groups aren't that big anymore, but there are still some larger more notable units out there that might struggle with this.

My unit has 103 currently. Maybe 35 are semi active. 15 are super active.

There is zero point in forcing a split. We are a unit, we wanna be able to have the same tag if we drop:
Faction P
Quick P
Competitive scene

There is more to units that just FP, so people need to stop blaming unit size or looking to break them up.. People do not wanna split, it offers absolutely NOTHING to the community.

Jman5, on 18 January 2017 - 11:36 AM, said:

We have a balancing mechanic for populations in the game already in terms of Contract bonuses. The problem is that it does a terrible job.

The best thing PGI could do is to stop counting players inactive players. They could go even further by not counting players who are aligned with a faction, but haven't played Faction Warfare in 2 weeks.

Yep, that is the issue. Also larger Merc units (that have a bunch of inactive players, as well as loyalists) also tips that unnecessarily and is unavoidable.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 18 January 2017 - 11:18 PM.

[Big Tin Man]

That's the beauty of this: odds are there will be a contract available. It might not be your first choice of faction, but there will be a home somewhere. This option does not force anyone to break up their unit, but it does keep the playing field level wrt number of mercs on each side. Again, the more people that play, the easier it is to move around.

And you can always go loyalist if this really upsets you, though I wish pgi would reduce or cap the lp loss on breaking loyalty. 25 percent is a steep price once you're high up in rank.

[WANTED]

Yes something needs to be done rule wise and logistivs wise. This goes in that direction. Now clans are crying imbalance cause no surprise most well known units all switched to IS. Merc sysyem has too much freedom as is and money does not carry incentives for large well known units its winning and name recognition