105 replies to this topic

[Jarl Dane]

Here ya go.

That's a word for word of the entire meeting.

[FallingAce]

Another SOON™ 90 days

"PGI: Balance - good teams would all just go loyalists and roll"

Russ is afraid mercs will go loyalist. 40% of the player base can switch sides every 7 days. PGI will never balance that. A larger loyalist player base is better for the game(and balance). If half the "good teams" went clan and half went I.S., this wouldn't be a problem. But we know that wouldn't happen.

"PGI: IDK, maybe if we did contract wipes?!
Community: no"

Russ is worried about unit leaders that haven't logged in the last 6 months? What a joke. If your unit lead hasn't logged in the last 6 months, maybe you need a new unit/leader.

Guess i missed the small print in the phase 3 loyalty contract that stated you'll be a loyalist till MWO shuts down it's servers.
There should be at least a 7 day window to break contract without penalty.

[naterist]

i was pleasently surprised that 4.2 is on its way in april, but i thought they had the IS events planned for this past patch. kinda disappointing, but not a massive buzzkill.

[Monkey Lover]

Contract wipes might help a tiny bit but really my old unit had hundred ish players. Maybe 15 playing and out of these maybe maybe 4 played cw.

Out of these 4 some 1 would play often others would play rarely.

How do you balance factions population like this?
They have to balance by how many games each faction played every month.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 28 January 2017 - 02:08 PM.

[naterist]

you should balance by w/l ratio imho

[Monkey Lover]

naterist, on 28 January 2017 - 02:41 PM, said:

you should balance by w/l ratio imho

How should they go about this?

Adding more players to a faction might even decrease w/l ratio.

[Jman5]

Monkey Lover, on 28 January 2017 - 02:07 PM, said:

Contract wipes might help a tiny bit but really my old unit had hundred ish players. Maybe 15 playing and out of these maybe maybe 4 played cw.

Out of these 4 some 1 would play often others would play rarely.

How do you balance factions population like this?
They have to balance by how many games each faction played every month.

During the round table discussion Dane suggested just basing populations off active players and PGI was receptive to the idea. So if your unit has a ton of innactives it won't count those in the total. This will get us most of the way there in terms of true faction population.

For example in the case of your old unit its footprint on their Faction population goes from +100 to +15. Having it only count the 4 would be ideal, but 15 versus 100 is still a huge improvement.

Edited by Jman5, 28 January 2017 - 02:57 PM.

[LordNothing]

saves me from having to watch four hours of people pretending that they are drunk.

nothing of any real relevance discussed. no pugs to demand better working conditions, no freelancers on the panel to complain that their career mode is bs (loyalists at least get chips). none of my usual mechanics that would solve all the problems: free trade down to inferior faction for loyalists, unit rivalry system (give them more chips for fighting eachother), honor bonuses for units that bid down in case of pugs (dane actually did kind of touch on this one), no making freelancer the new player experience/training/potato storage career where potatos in trial mechs are welcome and have to get gud before they change career.

Edited by LordNothing, 28 January 2017 - 03:42 PM.

[Commander A9]

Even if mercs go loyalist, there's really nothing to stop mercs from switching sides still.

Once you get the loyalty point achievement, you can't lose it.

So that 25% penalty is irrelevant.

[Monkey Lover]

Jman5, on 28 January 2017 - 02:55 PM, said:

During the round table discussion Dane suggested just basing populations off active players and PGI was receptive to the idea. So if your unit has a ton of innactives it won't count those in the total. This will get us most of the way there in terms of true faction population.

For example in the case of your old unit its footprint on their Faction population goes from +100 to +15. Having it only count the 4 would be ideal, but 15 versus 100 is still a huge improvement.

I wouldn't say Russ reply was receptive more of a "ya that could work". Over all active pop is still not the same as how strong the faction is populated. Some players are playing more matches than the next 50. Of course right now it doesn't matter we have 1 bucket....

Edited by Monkey Lover, 28 January 2017 - 04:20 PM.

[Starbomber109]

Did you seriously play the FRR warhorn at the end? I gotta go back and watch the whole thing!

[Bogsveigir]

Hi Jarl!

I have a thought. I'm listening to the discussion now, I'm about 30 minutes in. I'll revise if I hear anything that invalidates this idea.

The Dropship issue . . .

I hear people talking about the flight-paths and the conflicts/crashes. What about larger Dropships? If there is more than a lance to drop at once, a larger Dropship is used. If a lance or less is used, then the smaller Dropship would be used. That would alleviate the conflicting flight-path issue, but at the expense of having to create a new asset for the game.

Example. Smaller dropships could be used as-is, Ship-Alpha to Drop-Alpha, S-Bravo to D-Bravo, etc., unless you select some toggle for Group-Drop, which would allow waiting for lance-mates. Lance-Command then selects the Drop-Zone. Lance Command could also opt for Company-Drop, which would wait for a second and/or third lance, and call-in an Overlord/Conquistador or intermediate ship, that adds more firepower to combat spawn-camping, and lets one ship drop everyone all at once. The logic could have a race-condition that allows the Overlord/Conquistador to take priority selection, the smaller ships either wait or re-route to alternate DZ.

That makes sense to me for a full 12-mech drop on one TeamSpeak, or for multiple Lances that can work together, getting over their egos. It allows for at least two Lances coordinating with a lance of PUGs. Overlord/Conquistador with priority drop still makes for one Dropship and flight-path, leaving two alternates open for a lance of individual drops.

. . .

That's one idea. In FP/CW drops, there's a 15 to 60 second delay between returning anyway. In that time-frame, it would allow time for the selection(s).

The thing that I think makes that idea work is having 'Lance Command' and 'Company Command' mean a bit more. When you return-drop in the current system, you have the option of racing back to the mech-grinder, or to report to X# and re-group before resuming the push as a group. I'm not a FP/CW master, but most drops that I've made that weren't mostly PUGs, involved the latter re-grouping. The time spent doing that could be spent in the DropShip readying to drop as a Lance/Company.

That's my main thought.

. . .

I do have a second idea. I forget who made the comment about Pod-drops, and the advantage of a DropShip drop adding firepower.

What if the DropShip came in and launched the pods on a ballistic trajectory instead of a vertical drop? Multiple could aim for the same DZ walled area. It would be the same general idea but you could theoretically have an array of three Leopards providing cover over the area.

. . .

Tertiary, and my weakest idea. What if the spawn points were DropShip landing zones. The continued presence of the DropShip would deter spawn-camping to some degree. Especially if a Scouting Mode unlocked something like Calliope Turrets for the DZs? That would mean that each Lance only dropped or emerged from that DropShip location when they respawn. That would do nothing for the isolated drops like were mentioned, but at least getting farmed would be a little more costly. The guys set-up to alpha-strike mechs as they fall helpless from the sky would be less likely if they're taking return-fire from Calliopes and Leopards/Conquistadors/Overlords. . . .

Just ideas.

[Positive Mental Attitude]

So 7 days to switch units if theyre in a diff faction? That should work great....

[Dracol]

Saw mentioned of perks for loyalists. Not so in favor of game mechanic bonuses, however I always tought it would be cool if liyalists were able to earn unique items. A unique skin for a mech would be ideal, but time to make vrs return on investment would be too much I can imagine.

But, we have decals now. Imagine earning a few decals that can't be purchased and are locked to the chassis of the tech base they were earned in.

Unique colors would be cool and easier to implement then a new skin.

Pilot tags were another rewaed I can't believe they never offered. Only usable while in the factoon you earned it. Drop in a FW match, look across the board and see a team conprised of all rank 20 tags and now you know you're facing serious compitition.

[Sixpack]

Spawn camping issue:

1. Remove Skirmish (<- this is important)
2. Unify spawn area (<- no long trecks to group up)
3. Make sure nobody can snipe in to those spawnpoints (<- giant walls if lazy, otherwise move spawnpoints, but we realy need new maps)
4. Add 2+ patrolling leopard dropships to the spawnzone (<- anybody that wants to spawncamp needs to push in to these AND the dropship making its delivery)
5. Add a breaker so that the dropships coming in do not collide with the patrolling ones if need be.


Should be easy enough and has all the necessary assets already there.

Edited by Sixpack, 29 January 2017 - 10:18 AM.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Sixpack, on 29 January 2017 - 10:17 AM, said:

1. Remove Skirmish (<- this is important)

Go back and revise step 1

[Sixpack]

BLOOD WOLF, on 29 January 2017 - 10:30 AM, said:

Go back and revise step 1

Denied. Skirmish is a bad game mode that either:

a) Allows the winning team to hang out in their dropzone and abuse any defensive measures they get as well as fast reinforcements.
b ) Allows the winning team to just crush the enemy in their dropzone.

a and b depend on the skill level of the players and measures taken by PGI.


The removal of skirmish is paramount to creating a better game experiance by having game modes that make players go out there and fight or lose for sure. Though neither assault nor domination are realy good modes either. Seeing as the first is skirmish with some dressing and the second can be over after the first wave got destroyed. No real staying power in those game modes.

Edited by Sixpack, 29 January 2017 - 10:37 AM.

[Tarogato]

Sixpack, on 29 January 2017 - 10:35 AM, said:

Denied. Skirmish is a bad game mode

Seconded. Skirmish with respawns is uninteresting, and most likely to end in a spawn camp out of any of the game modes. In fact, there's no way to end an imbalanced Skirmish match without farming people as they spawn. It contributes nothing to the game and it should be removed from CW.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Tarogato, on 29 January 2017 - 11:07 AM, said:

Seconded. Skirmish with respawns is uninteresting, and most likely to end in a spawn camp out of any of the game modes. In fact, there's no way to end an imbalanced Skirmish match without farming people as they spawn. It contributes nothing to the game and it should be removed from CW.

Then stop camping near the base then when you get crushed the enemy is only a grid or two away.

How are these problems created by a complete lack of player awareness a bold assertion to remove the entire game mode?

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 29 January 2017 - 11:20 AM.

[Zito]

Seems the conversation was dominated by Loyalist ideals. Not much there about making the mode more fun. Variety in play, lower wait times, and specific improvements to the mode should be dominating the conversation. Please stop trying to push your agenda.

#SquareTable