70 replies to this topic

[Sigmar Sich]

What i would like to add to faction specific quirks.

First, let's separate them to categories.
1) Mechs
2) Weapons (?)
3) Faction gameplay bonuses
4) Faction flavor.


So, mechs. I believe there should be rewards for using in CW mechs, specific to your faction. Exactly bonuses, not restrictions - restrictions are not fun for most players; any mech could be salvaged, really.
Restrictions, however, could be present in loyalist events like IS vs IS or Clan vs Clan - it will be far more fun when sides will use different mechs, lets say mentioned Davion vs Liao - one team fields Centurions, Enforcers, Jagermechs, Victors; and other fields Ravens, Catapults, Cataphracts, and as super-weapon - Urbanmechs.

What are mech bonuses? +% loyalty points, obviously, and c-bills and xp bonuses maybe. It also can be a discount for your faction specific mechs, increasing with rank. Tonnage discount for deployment?
But you need to make list of faction specific mechs, because subject is far deeper, than tables of available mechs in BattleTech 10979 - Combat Operations.

Faction weapon bonuses. Need to be very careful with this. It is not hard to make lists for faction-weapon, but problem is - what bonuses should be applied. Discount, of course, is the easiest. Free ammo? Maybe different turret/dropship armament?
As for combat values - i wouldn't touch that.

Faction bonuses - i suggest it should be separate from faction bonuses. Here goes most recognisable faction features. For example - Steiners can field assault lance in scouting (not additional tonnage, but option - go normal scouts 0-55, or go lyran scouts 80-100. to avoid heavies, which can be both fast and armed).
Liao can field Urbanmechs for half weight, in full scale CW.
And other such funny features for others. Subject needs exploration and discussion.

Faction flavor - what i want to add to previous suggestions in the topic - maybe different effects for artillery strike / airstrike? For some it can be orbital bombardment from spaceships (clans?), for some - as we have now bombardment from jets; it can be also some helicopters with LRMs. Or MRM salvo from jets.
Or artillery - steiners do only one BIG shot, with horrible accuracy. Others can do many weak shots. Liao can do mortar volley, which could be traceble in flight so you can try to dodge it.. Or whatever we can think of. Main goal - make different feeling for different faction.
Maybe add tanks and other non-walking tech - not as AI, but just as different turrets. Their autoaim can be balanced with cone of fire.

Edited by Sigmar Sich, 28 January 2017 - 05:09 AM.

[gloowa]

CadoAzazel, on 26 January 2017 - 08:01 PM, said:

Steiner -- Structure bonus
FRR -- Heat dissipation bonus
Kurita -- PPC velocity and laser duration bonus
Davion -- Ballistic velocity and MG ROF bonus
Liao -- Heat capacity bonus
Marik -- Missile reload bonus

Jade Falcon -- Reduced cycle times for SRM, small energy, flamer and LBX
Wolf -- Armor bonus
Smoke Jaguar -- Projectile velocity bonus (all types)
Ghost Bear -- Laser duration & cycle times reduced

too hard to balance, one will always be op and others will always be not worth caring about.

Say hi to everyone switching to FRR and Ghost Bear.

[50 50]

If we could spend loyalty points, we could tithe them to our units as well.
That would add another layer to the system.

That is, some benefits could be personal. Others could relate to the unit and be global in nature.

I would also suggest that right at the moment, these benefits are only for loyalists. I believe the Mercenaries and Freelancers could have similar options, but would use their reputation points or.... um.... what do freelancers get?

The easiest permanent options we could implement would be around customizing our mechs. Some loyalty and faction related decals for example.

As a personal option, what about a decal for the mechs that is specific to our loyalty rank and faction?
For the unit, getting a custom unit decal?

As temporary options we want them to be a bit closer the actual combat, this could be as simple as a 'garrison' buff that instead puts you or your unit into the action before anyone else. That is, you are garrisoned on the planet so your first wave mech/s are already landed while the others are still inbound in the dropships.

Buffs that affect combat directly such as bonuses to weapons, mobility or armour I can only see as being a problem for balance.

Adjusting the dropdeck tonnage we would also need to be careful of, though a small personal and temporary bonus may not be felt too much. We could assume that loyalists on both sides of a conflict would readily spend loyalty points to be able to use a bit of extra tonnage in their drop decks so it may not be too unsettling.

With a couple of additional features added to Faction Play we would be able to apply more uses for loyalty points.
I like the idea of adding some NPCs to our mechs bays, being able to get dropships and bases which all add a bonus personally and at a unit level, but we need some features in Faction Play to apply these bonuses to.

[Oldbob10025]

exiledangel, on 26 January 2017 - 01:55 PM, said:

this Is were lore can actually come in handy for exemple

Federated sun was very heavy in the autocannon department so quirks could be bases on the factories that are on certain planets.

Thats just cray talk.
If they cant even put in lore for the planets in Faction play or make the Planets worth taking in the first place and because of that they might as well call it "Planet 12345" because how cares about "planet 12345" as its worth nothing then they cant figure out to open a book from battletech that lists EVERY weapon and component in the game where its from and who makes it...

[Palfatreos]

I am against quircking loyalists it seems meanigless and waste of work to try to balance it.


Just like is quircked mechs there only 1 or 2 out of the whole chasis that the best this will be the same with different quircked clan/is faction.

Most mercs will go the best quircked clan or is making a waiting simulator on the side where merc thinks it got best quircks. (after all most merc dont give **** about which faction they fighting for it an empty name looking for the best cbills rewarded faction.).

The imbalance will make people complain that X faction op over Y faction or that there fav lore faction not quircked as good as the rest (clan vs is threads more then enough proof). PGI will try to balance it again with there *random quirck dice skills*. Changing which faction the best again which make people wanna switch again and complain about the desertion cooldown. Rince and repeat it a vicious circle which we already have with clan vs is dunno why you wanna repeat history.


Summary: More imbalance, higher chance of waiting simulator on the best quircked faction, more complains => waste of time and resource.

Note: I am just player who has 0% intelligence or intrest in lore or faction. I just grab the best mech on each side and this probably the same with quircked loyalist faction i just grab which most op quircked. And make a second account on other side to bypass the *waiting simulator side*.
This doesn't prevent me from hopping faction or suddenly being *loyal or lore faction player* it just a way to grab most advantagous position while those loyal lore people get stuck on there infurior quircks.
*loyalist or merc or faction will still be and always wil be an empty word for me* bypassing the restriction and rules is easy for people who are flexible.

PS: if this ever happend put davion and wolfes on lrm quircked faction so i know how much lurm boats the other side has

[SuperFunkTron]

Palfatreos, on 31 January 2017 - 05:24 AM, said:

I am against quircking loyalists it seems meanigless and waste of work to try to balance it.
PS: if this ever happend put davion and wolfes on lrm quircked faction so i know how much lurm boats the other side has

I can understand hesitation toward quirking factions in the interest of balance, but you are essentially asking everyone who has any familiarity with lore to try ignoring all of the great history and personality it has provided for each of the factions. Right now FP suffers a very generic, overwhelming amount of variety with too many different ideas as to what new players "should" be doing.

So consider this, rather than every faction just being a sticker next to your call sign, what if each faction got some small quirks(balancing nerfs as necessary) that helped not only a particular style of play (scouting, counter measures, armor, speed) but created some sort of "feel" for each faction so you know that if you are jade falcon loyalist fighting a mostly Liao drop, that you will likely be dealing with more effective ECM, BAP, and potentially some other strengths that you need to adapt your tactics to. Or maybe you come across a large group of Davion mech warriors and know that you can expect an onslaught of ACs and and improved intel. Little things like this, quirks in small increments that give a slight edge (not an exploitation) over other factions in a specific area related to that factions lore, would add tactics and interesting elements to the battle, especially with groups with mixed factions. Further, having play styles preferred by each faction helps ease in new players into FP by giving them an idea of what function they need to build their mechs to serve. There are a lot of benefits to quirking factions mildly and saying that it shouldn't happen because it poses a risk to balance is essentially advocating "let's not change become it means that someone might be better at something than me (even if its offset by applicable nerfs)". FP, being built on the basis of lore requires some light elements in order to answer the question of "why are we fighting" as well as provide some variety (think age of empires 3 or starcraft where different but balanced is ok). Even at the risk of potential early unbalance, adjustments can be made to make sure that any groups that are under overpowered are fixed quickly, a lot like how the tonnage was quickly balanced.

[50 50]

The use of Faction specific mechs and also equipment has come up a few times.
Instead of changing weapon combat values or giving mechs new quirks, a simpler and less problematic option would be to provide discounts on those mechs and bits of equipment.

[Jables McBarty]

Spider00x, on 27 January 2017 - 09:19 AM, said:

Yeah guys these buffs dont have to neccisarily be weapon focused, It could be as simple as Davion gets a Cbill bonus for being the wealthiest empire, or Steiner gets 5 extra tons on a drop decks, keep brain storming

I support these concepts. I could get behind the UAV boost type of concept, but don't know if there are enough "indirect" things to buff.

Is there room for "Faction Specific In-Game Rewards"? Currently everyone has Kills/Assists/KMDD/Lance in Formation/Scouting/TAG Damage/etc. Maybe certain factions have a Cbills boost to certain of these?

IDK the factions very well, but say (spitballing here)
-Liao gets x4 Cbills for Scouting Bonus and Assists,
-Marik gets x2 for Lance in Formation and Protection Proximity,
-Davions x2 for KMDD
-Kuritans x4 for Capturing/First Capture, x2 for Component Destroyed
-Steiners get a special bonus for "Damage Taken"...
-Clanners get x5 for Solo Kill or smtg to simulate Zelbringen

Could indirectly encourage different playstyles due to payout without nerfing or buffing a particular weapon or faction or mech.

-Waffler, on 27 January 2017 - 10:46 AM, said:

I'll keep out of balance/buff issues, but honestly I would like to see other incentives for playing loyalist. Meaning I don't want to be bribed with c-bills or enhanced performance to go loyalist. I think that if you're, say, a Steiner loyalist, you should have access to the loyalist colors/paint scheme while you are in. Things like that.

Yep. Faction weapons quirk balancing would be a quagmire.

Mech The Dane, on 27 January 2017 - 01:50 AM, said:

I follow what you're saying, and I like it. What are your ideas for what the community could spend loyalty points on..?

Composite Armour, on 27 January 2017 - 11:03 AM, said:

They could add loyalty points as an alternative currency after you reach the highest rank with your faction.

They could then be spent on faction paint, warhorns and the like for the appropriate faction.

Also maybe apply a discount to the favoured mechs on each faction? Say a 30% discount on Atlas if you go Steiner, with the option to buy it for LP also. If you were to go to extremes you could include faction exclusive variant of mechs that could only be bought with LP.

Simple stuff, nice rewards(well I like paints and warhorns).

I like it.

Tesunie, on 27 January 2017 - 11:23 AM, said:

(snip)
Instead, we got an experience rank system, that just never felt right. It's interesting, but as mentioned in here already, what do we do once we max out that gauge? Change factions? But what if we really like our current faction and wish to forever "stay loyal"? It just stopped being rewarding at that point.

I've always wondered about this--is it not possible to make the top rank recurring? Or do like Modern Warfare 2 (last CoD I played) where once you reach top level you gain a "Prestige Level" and then go back to Level 1.

Maybe each Prestige Level/Rank gives you a Loyalist earnings bonus...

Tesunie, on 27 January 2017 - 11:23 AM, said:

They could have even (as a random idea right now) had it where you could spend loyalty points to increase your rank in your faction as a one time purchase. Increase rank could mean increase C-bills earned from a CW match (when in that faction). And to entice you to stay with a faction, one of the penalties for leaving a loyalist contract would be the lose of such purchased rank.

I liked this idea when it was mentioned in the RT--each rank gives you a +X% boost to earnings for that faction. Mercs currently get a contract bonus for going to low-pop factions; this would be a fair counter-balance--continually make more for staying with the same faciton.

50 50, on 31 January 2017 - 01:10 AM, said:

I would also suggest that right at the moment, these benefits are only for loyalists. I believe the Mercenaries and Freelancers could have similar options, but would use their reputation points or.... um.... what do freelancers get?

Absolutely. Mercs get flexibility to switch factions, Loyalists get add'l benefits. I'm a Merc and I think that's fair.

SuperFunkTron, on 31 January 2017 - 07:44 AM, said:

I can understand hesitation toward quirking factions in the interest of balance, but you are essentially asking everyone who has any familiarity with lore to try ignoring all of the great history and personality it has provided for each of the factions. Right now FP suffers a very generic, overwhelming amount of variety with too many different ideas as to what new players "should" be doing.

I'd say this is the cost of playing a PvP FPS based on a tabletop game. Just look at the mess of balancing IS v. Clans.

Do you really want them to balance IS v IS v IS v IS v IS v IS v IS v Clan v Clan v Clan v Clan?

[Naelbis]

Bring back Repair and rearm for FW only. Mercs get higher payouts for matches but have to cover their own R&R costs. Loyalists get lower payouts but R&R is covered by their government. LP should be a usable currency for loyalists to buy faction specific paint schemes and equipment. Mercs fight for money so that should be all they get. The longer the contract they take, the higher the payout.

Edited by Naelbis, 31 January 2017 - 03:54 PM.

[Carl Vickers]

The problem with adding faction specific quirks is people will gravitate to the faction/s that give the most useful. That is not balance.

I like Naelbis's use for LP.. Loyalists should get high LP rewards and mercs higher space bucks.

[MacClearly]

I personally like the idea of a cbill discount for certain mechs that are associated with a particular house.

Really though if something is not done for mercs too people will complain. Needs to be a fair give and take for everybody.

[50 50]

Naelbis, on 31 January 2017 - 03:52 PM, said:

Bring back Repair and rearm for FW only. Mercs get higher payouts for matches but have to cover their own R&R costs. Loyalists get lower payouts but R&R is covered by their government. LP should be a usable currency for loyalists to buy faction specific paint schemes and equipment. Mercs fight for money so that should be all they get. The longer the contract they take, the higher the payout.

Being able to adjust the payout for contracts would be a good use for spending reputation points for a merc. It's like cashing in on your reputation.... and that seems cool.
Mercs should also be able to spend points outfitting their holdings at a personal level and unit level as well. Thinks like the NPCs and dropships would be just as nice for them. Same for the Freelancers.
However, to make the Mercenary system more robust we need to revisit how the contracts work and a few other bits so it would be nice to spend an appropriate amount of time going over those ideas and really define the differences between Loyalist and Mercenary.
Then we need to have a look at Freelancers. Lets not forget them. They are the Knights and Barons of the Innersphere who held properties and inherited mechs. We can do some interesting things with that career path.
But lets not make them all the same.

I think a repair and rearm system in faction play would be a good feature to use loyalty bonuses with. Eg. Spend points to add a NPC tech to our mech bays which reduces the cost of repairs. There are a few options we can explore if we have some additional features added.

[SuperFunkTron]

Jables McBarty, on 31 January 2017 - 02:51 PM, said:

I'd say this is the cost of playing a PvP FPS based on a tabletop game. Just look at the mess of balancing IS v. Clans.

Do you really want them to balance IS v IS v IS v IS v IS v IS v IS v Clan v Clan v Clan v Clan?

Just because a plan hasn't been put out yet is no reason to discourage the attempt to test a working model. Giving faction related quirks would be a process that would work to make sure that one faction doesn't end up being disproportionately desirable over the others. Just look at the ongoing measures that are being taken to not only balance tech but also balance FP itself. The values could be adjusted easily for factions that are overperforming to restore balance. Plenty of other games have units that perform with certain quirks that help them perform a task or role more effectively and still manage to find a balance with the other groups involved. I've already started typing out a model for faction specific mech bonuses that is almost ready for some review, but am still collecting information to get more ideas for faction quirks, but I strongly believe that if the right traits are adjusted, each Faction could be known for bringing particular strengths to the battlefield that are complimentary to a company as well as associated costs for those benefits that would encourage mixing of factions or for new tactics to be developed in relation to other factions' strengths. This game needs to take advantage of the identity it has available as opposed to trying to achieve balance through mediocrity.

[Carl Vickers]

The answer is still no, PGI has enough issues with quirks and balancing and you want to add anther layer to this, answer is still no.

Find another way to keep faction identity, quirks wont work and wont happen.

[SuperFunkTron]

Carl Vickers, on 31 January 2017 - 06:09 PM, said:

The answer is still no, PGI has enough issues with quirks and balancing and you want to add anther layer to this, answer is still no.

Find another way to keep faction identity, quirks wont work and wont happen.

PGI's answer is "no" or your answer is "no"? No one will come to a solution by discouraging those who are trying. But it must be much easier waiting for other people's ideas to shoot down than trying to come up with even partial ideas or functional concepts that may contribute to a large scale solution.

The whole point of this thread is to toss around ideas and discuss strengths and weaknesses of potential changes, not discredit something before its even been presented

[Carl Vickers]

I see proposed quirks for factions, still not going to happen and TBH its a bad idea.

It should not have been discussed at the round table at all, there are bigger issues that need to be fixed first before this kind of fluff gets looked at.

[SuperFunkTron]

Carl Vickers, on 31 January 2017 - 06:55 PM, said:

I see proposed quirks for factions, still not going to happen and TBH its a bad idea.

It should not have been discussed at the round table at all, there are bigger issues that need to be fixed first before this kind of fluff gets looked at.

I have been hearing about these "bigger issues" for months and still haven't had them outlined specifically. If you are referring to drop zone camping, drop zone selection, and current clan/IS balance, then we need to start questioning what "big" means. Could you explain to me what you believe is so imperative to address before adding depth to a game mode that is essentially rooted in lore?

[Carl Vickers]

justcallme A S H, on 29 January 2017 - 08:12 PM, said:

Agree. It didn't cover the real problems. The stuff about "Faction perks" was just totally going off on a random tangent that offers nothing to FP right now.

1. Population drop off - It's real, it's already happening now the "shiny/new" has worn off. Ghost drops are back and there are more each week.

2. Quality of player in 4.1 - Fact is FP is now just filled with T5-T3 users cause they think it's QP, bring **** builds and simply don't care - then cry hacks... So;
a. Proper tutorial
b. Attempt at a matchmaker.
c. Some kinda better UI even to allow units to recruit ingame so they can train up these T3-T5 players.
d. Hell even gate the mode. Make it 200 matches of QP before you can FP. I see some T5 users posting in "new player help" and "Hi, I've only played for 2 weeks and wanna do FP"... That can't be allowed, I know that'll upset people, but they just don't have the experience of how the game works and won't for a while. It'll discourage them forever. Or even make it match score based - Avg of 180 or something. Not this stupid PSR bar which almost anyone half competent can get into T1 with.

Addressing some of the above will, potentially, slow the spawncamping issue as long as the population decline is STOPPED. If it continues a MM won't help. It will likely be too little/too late.

3. Eternal QP modes was lightly touched on and it was clear PGI have seen this issue... But, no solution or even idea how to fix it? It's driving most people I know crazy playing say, 4 games of domination in 1.5-2hrs.

4. Skirmish just needs to go


I could go on for a while about the actual problems... But that's the issue in itself, if problems are not addressed, people keep bringing up wild/crazy ideas - which some are great, they are - but they are for LATER. Once the core stuff in the mode is fixed to stop the increasing population exodus.

Work on those then lorenard stuff.

[SuperFunkTron]

Carl Vickers, on 31 January 2017 - 07:18 PM, said:

Work on those then lorenard stuff.

1. The player retention is week for 2 main reasons. First,newer players are thrown to the slaughter with little guidance and a lot of verbal abuse. Second, the current "end game" goal is to simply convert the dots on the map using the full arsenal of weapons allotted to your chosen tech tree without any reason, mission, or associated challenge. It is incredibly bland because it lacks any semblance of faction flavor beyond Clan vs IS.

2. a. The addition of a tutorial in the academy that requires a player to open a gate that leads to a few turrets, gens, and eventually opens up Omega gen is all that is needed to give the basic idea of invasion maps. Same can be done for capture game types by having a tutorial mission requiring someone to stand by a resource drill or satellite dish.
b. Matchmaker in FP can't happen because of the poor population retention mentioned in point 1.
c. You can lead a horse to water, but can't make them drink it. Even if you force people to join a unit to play FP, that doesn't make them better players. Having people join better players is nice and the mentoring is a positive thing, but it is a solution that works over time.
d. a gate is more of a discussion point until population is large enough to allow for it.
Follow up point to 2. Spawn camping was addressed enough during the round table, no need to talk about it here.

3. Also addressed at the round table, but ideas that adequately address are also lore based.

Spoiler

This is still very unrefined and open to improvement but would be another way of adding depth, meaning, and significance beyond just changing planet color.
This is a bit of a direct attack on lore, but because MWO is essentially a player driven game with no real story line (beyond the lore that gave us our mechs), I have a proposition on how to make the the IS map an over all concept of Faction Play more compelling: Wipe the history and allow us to create it seasonally! The only context for this that is needed is that the Clans are working to reclaim Terra and control of the IS.

Fundamentals: Organize planets (or regions on a single planet) into small groups of 4 to 8 (half belong to faction A, the rest to the faction B ) and allow battle window to be an attempt to gain as many of those planets in the cluster as possible (clusters should not be permanent groupings but rather dynamic to each battle window). Within each cluster, planets should offer different benefits and key services (insert better ideas here) such as Industry (mech availability/ mech cost), Intel (scouting mode benefits), and Logistics (payouts). Different game modes can even be associated with particular planet types (Domination for Intel planets and conquest for logistics).

Through out the battle window, players are dropped onto the different planets/regions (to be voted on once a 12 man is formed, attacking team decides) in an attempt to take over as many of them as possible while gaining/losing the benefits each of them provide.

Planet/region benefits explained:

Industry planets could be implemented as the loss of availability of a certain mech to drop in (with trial mechs being the default replacement if a player lacks sufficient mechs) or the the allowance of a mech not specific to their faction (see above Factions) without any additional cost.

Intel - very similar to what we have now for scouting, but with any of the great improvement ideas many others have posted here.

Logistics- improves or harms c-bill payouts (or even MC) payouts. Eventually, ammunition availability/costs could be added here if mech maintenance becomes a thing

Which Planet/region is attacked?: This would be determined by a company (or binary vote) once the group is formed. They would be shown the attack progress on each of the planet/region types an given a 10 second window before the voting is started (this will give time for the more informed to make their case or direct other players) and another 10-20 seconds to vote. The voting is implemented so that there is some level of potential gain/loss for the type of planet/region they'd like to potentially gain.

Game mode preference can additionally be addressed simply by associating certain modes with certain planet/region types. Assigning 2 or 3 game modes to a planet type with differently weighted likelihoods will provide both diversity as well as a known tendency to provide a specific game mode more than others all the while still providing a meaningful objective and meaning to the FP battles extending beyond pushing a slider and changing a map dot color

4. that's someone's opinion. Some people enjoy skirmish with drops very much.

Faction specific mechs and eventually faction quirks provide a whole lot of solvency for player retention through rewards as well as providing direction for new players coming in. Sure, we can agree that the correction of certain mechanics need to be fixed, but without any depth or added meaning and conditions to those battles, its going to be tough to keep people interested, let alone encourage them to invest emotionally into the game. Emotional investment and deeper strategy is what grows patient population, not the maintenance of a generic, "us vs them" tech vs tech, meaningless battle mode.

The issues you quoted are solved TOGETHER with providing the meat to the increasingly stable bones PGI has thus provided.

[Kael Posavatz]

Okay, here are some possibilities

Lyran Commonwealth:
--First 2 assault mechs treated as 5 tons lighter for purposes of dropdeck tonnage
--Atlases treated as 10 tons lighter

FedSuns--
--Autocannon cooldown buff
--autocannon ammunition buff (carries more ammo)

FWL
--upgrades (Endo, ferro, double HS, Artemis) cost less, but duration for 'desertion' is 2 weeks instead of 1


Mech Specific
--give mechs particularly associated with a faction a boost
--Liao Ravens get extended ECM range,
--Kurita Panthers get PPC velocity quirks
-- Smoke Jaguar EbonJags get a little more armor
--Wolf DireWhales go a little faster
--Steiners can scout with Atlases, but only when dropping 4 of them. Unless it is a FedCom formation (3 Steiners and a Davion) in which case the Davion can drop a Victor instead.