47 replies to this topic

[Tarl Cabot]

PGI gave us parts of it, but definitely not in the way most had expected. This is for the launch party. Notice the excitement, enthusiasm. He certainly does not sound like that anymore.

Quote

For those that missed the launch event live stream, I just took down a few notes, not guaranteed to be complete

Concentrating on 3 "Lives" - Mercenary (Lone Wolf) Loyalist (Faction) Unit Life (Merc Units)

• Mercenary: No official assoc with any faction, works for himself, earns prestige through contracts - new players start in this category
  
• Loyalist: Pledged to a House/Faction, Employed by that faction, Grains prestige by earning loyalty points and ranking up within a faction
  
• Unit Life: Agreed to work with others in a structured organization, Is employed by a Merc Corp, Gains prestige through team work and successful group contracts

CONTRACTS:

• Non-Faction Players and Merc Corps can accept contracts on behalf of a specific faction
  
• Have conditions for successful comp result in rewards take as many contracts as they want failure to complete a contract may impact future standings
  
• TYPES OF CONTRACTS include Planetary Assault (skirmish, bounty = which are player created!!! - for cbills?)

LOYALTY POINTS earned by performing feats against opposing factions, benefits and perks, unlocks access to content - fill a bar for a faction, get rewards/content including skins, famous units, etc.
- performance based like XP / CBills

FACTION UNITS STRUCTURE

• Developer created, organized, and structured - Membership in an NPC Faction Unit can be earned, awarded official unit designation, colors, patterns...Exclusive content.
  
• Honorary status if player leaves faction, linked to achievements and loyalty points - mention Wolf Dragoons unit here, must have loyalty points from every faction to join? Seems like an elite unit...

MERC and FACTION:

• Faction Unit combat, get their own private channel can communicate prior to battles
  
• Merc Unit combat join public fight or faction fights
  
• Can own dropships move stuff around time to travel through space via JumpShip to the planet you want to attack (whole thing reminds me a bit of Star Wars: Empire At War in a way)

PLANETARY ASSAULT

Travel through space, Get a contract through planet, Must garrison after fighting for control (not sure how that works, just know that you "need to garrison" after winning)

FACTION WARFARE

• Fight for home/enemy fronts, fronts flip when 100% of planets are controlled by a faction
  
• Every match will affect state of universe (think RISK...each battle is actually fought in a match)

INNERSPHERE

• Mechs can be bought of black market, economy reflects what you control / have access to CW ECONOMICS
  
• Pricing will vary based on faction relationships, mechs produced in your area will be easier to attain, otherwise need to be purchased on the black market

PHASES:

• Phase 1 - leveling system (max level 60 as of now), represented as a unit
  
• Phase 2 - faction play, pub play, every match affects universe - dropship, select from 4 maps, preconfig lances, vote on maps (pre lobby)
  
• Phase 3 - Planetary Assault - capturing planets -
  
• Six months to roll out, Phase 1 really soon after UI 2.0

TO COME:

• UI 2.0 running, framework up, demonstrated - rotate mechs in any view, sort, drop down filters, looks nice!
  
• Want to get to public test ASAP, just a few things to get ready, within next 4 weeks
  
• Working on unified API to bring in loadouts from outside the game (web, mobile, probably)
  
• UI Scales to desktop, even across different monitors (triple configs)

Edited to add MercJ some of his cliffnotes

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 05 February 2017 - 12:46 PM.

[Spheroid]

Bear with me, this is going to be a detailed response.

Right now we have two factions engaging each other on one unifed front. As it stands it doesn't make sense to add "faction flavor" if you are dropping with players of other nations. It is just one big mess.

Additonally PGI is attempting to balance these sides to arrive at a win loss ratio approaching 50/50(which in itself is flawed, but a separate topic). By adding significant faction differnces you would be altering the number of balance choices from two to ten. It is very diffulcult to gauge overall weapon balance, unit skill and significant mech roster variation with a large increase in experiment parameters.

The second issue is what mechanism do you use to intice players to alter a drop deck from the otherwise optimal one? The answer of course is money, but you would need a very large bonus to not only counter act reduced earnings from lack of meta but to offset the additional forgone earnings from a contract bonus win. I have several c-bill boosted mechs but their earning potential seldom causes me to choose them over the correct meta mech for a given map. In my estimation running a lore authentic deck should result in a faction bonus of perhaps 200-500k.

Should this equipment bonus apply to mercs or only loyalists? Mercs are owners and operators of their own equipment. I don't see why they would prefer to utilize house mechs save the availability of parts and supplies to maintence said mechs while on contract. Making the loyalist career path attractive should be a priority in CW v5. Higher earnings vs. the merc path is the first step.


My proposal for determining a lore modifier would be to assign multiplier values for each of the four mechs in the drop deck and taking the sum of the value for final value. Below is an example

Kurita Deck
Panther-10K(.95) + Wolverine-6K(.8) + Thunderbolt-5S/5SS (0) + BJ-2 (-.85) = .9
Final payout = base match score + (base* faction equipment modifier) + contract win bonus.

Davion Deck
Wolverine-7D(.9) + Jager-DD (.75) + Jager-DD (.75) + Marauder-3R (0)


Faction equipment list


Jade Falcon

Kit fox
Hellbringer
Summoner
Nighty Gyr

　
Wolf

Adder
Ice Ferret
Linebacker
Timberwolf
Orion IIC
Gargoyle
Direwolf

Ghostbear

Viper
Stormcrow-C
Mad Dog
Executioner
Kodiak

Smoke Jaguars

Mist Lynx
Artic Cheetah
Shadow Cat
Huntsman
Stormcrow
Mad Dog
Ebon Jaguar
Warhawk
Direwolf

Steiner

Commando
Firestarter
Wolfhound
Bushwacker
Griffin
Zeus
Stalker-5S
Banshee-3S
Atlas

FRR

Panther?

　
Kurita

Spider
Jenner
Panther
K-variant mediums
Kintaro
Crab
Dragon
Jager-DD
Victor-K
Battlemaster-2C
Mauler
Atlas-K

　
Marik

Spider
Cicada
Hunchback
Shadow Hawk
Trebuchet
Quickdraw
Orion
Awesome
Stalker-5M

　
Liao

Urbanmech
Raven
BJ-3?
Vindicator
Catapult
Cataphract
Highlander?

Davion

Javelin
Blackjack
Centurion
Enforcer
Rifleman
Jagermech
Victor

　
I.S. Generic

Locust
Spider
Hunchback
Wolverine
Griffin
Shadow Hawk
Rifleman
Thunderbolt
Grasshopper
Warhammer
Archer
Black Knight
Marauder
Orion
Awesome
Stalker
Battlemaster
Cyclops
Atlas
King Crab


As we can see certain factions have much better favored equipment than others. If people chase meta, then certain factions will not be equally populated. I would like to get back to a situation where each nation has a separate front. That way Liao would get beaten to a pulp with its junk equipment until such time as Comstar or the mercenary economy swoop in to redress the balance of power by brining whatever equipment is necessary to carry the day. Alternatively a Kurita player could bring pure meta reenacting Operation Bulldog taking the offensive to the Smoke Jag border as long as the player was willing to burn money for territory.

For my system of economic balancing to work a third modifier should be added, that of territorial integrity. A realm that has 50% of its mapped star systems would be neutral. As an example the FRR if swallowed by the Clans and running lore authentic builds would be a very lucrative place to fight from. Top units wanting to make bank might take up this challenge, so the whole system would be self-balancing.

Finally stock loadouts is a non-starter. Favored chassis by faction is sufficient.

Edited by Spheroid, 05 February 2017 - 03:08 PM.

[Bud Crue]

Spheroid, on 05 February 2017 - 12:14 PM, said:

Bear with me, this is going to be a detailed response
...
For my system of economic balancing to work a third modifier should be added, that of territorial integrity. A realm that has 50% of its mapped star systems would be neutral. As an example the FRR if swallowed by the Clans and running lore authentic builds would be a very lucrative place to fight from. Top units wanting to make bank might take up this challenge, so the whole system would be self-balancing.

You're list needs a hell of a lot of work (by a dedicated group of loretards) before I could get on board, but your heart is in the right place. Alas, my likeing it is irrelevant: negative modifiers and PGI being PGI (this would be abused to sell new mechs) could never make this work successfully. See Deathlike's, Carl's and Ash's responses above regarding past events being predictors of future potential.

[Spheroid]

@Bud Crue: Negative modifiers are already present with merc contracts. Nothing would change.

The fact that the mech modifier is completely customizable across four mechs means the player is in ultimate control of the bonus. Additionally the most common meta mechs( for I.S.) are all from the generic list so at worst nothing would change.

Also a detailed reading of technical readouts 3039 and 3050 is sufficient to give general availability rankings between the factions. More detailed lists have already been created by table top players on the internet.


I am not saying this list wouldn't need detailed review, it clearly would. The Oxide is not a massed produced mech nor is the Pirate's Bane. If you don't make mechs somewhat universal though you are left with garbage like the LCT-1V instead of the 1E, which is associated with the Davionesque Erradani Light Horse. The two best Thunderbolts I believe are somewhat Steiner. The 5S is the only true universal. In practice most values would lay between 0 and .5 with negatives only for those houses from which a mech was not produced or originated(i.e. the Raven, Cataphract, etc.).

Edited by Spheroid, 05 February 2017 - 03:04 PM.

[Sagamore]

I could see this working with maybe a Battle Value instead of tonnage to fill out your drop deck. There are some stock variants that are already kitted out with double heatsinks and fairly optimal builds.

Stock mode was fun at Mech Con 1v1 SOLARIS ARENA but people quickly realized that the NTG-B comes stock with dual Gauss. There are some really decent stock mechs and some really bad ones.

[Cptn Goodvibes Pig of Steel]

I'd like to see a stock mech option in any future MWO mode or CW/FP revamp. However, it will be argued that it'll split the population, though I suspect that the player numbers are not what they once were. So maybe PGI has missed the boat on this one? Many lore orientated players (myself included) are sick to death of the meta and much prefer stock mode. True, not all stock mech's are equal, but maybe faction availability and usage could be governed by rarity factors to encourage or dissuade usage of various mech's according to the lore. Sadly for myself, MWO is on the wane, though I did note that the largest turnout for my group in two years has been for participation in a recent stock mech gathering. Go figure!

Now for something out of left field in an approach towards CW/FP. I myself, have 100+ mech's and I've divided them up into their respective Inner Sphere factions for my own peace of mind. Maybe we could have a future stock campaign where participants align, assign or register each of their mech's to a particular faction, instead of just one player to one faction. Include single stock and group stock play for the meat of this campaign, with group play having the higher rewards and strategic value. That way everyone can play all factions, though this is limited by the mech's that they use. Unfortunately, I don't see how stock Clan mech's can be catered for, without a drastic departure from the standard 12 v 12 format.

Regardless of above, the ball is always in PGI's court. It is for them to provide guidance, however slow, unchanging and glacial it may be. Maybe it is best for MWO to peacefully fade into oblivion when new programs enter the market. Is there someone new who could do it better?

[meteorol]

I'm pretty sure stock mode is nowhere even close to being popular enough to justify anything it that regard.

[Valhallan]

Rather than hardlocking stock mode/bribing with money imo it would be better to just implement the reason most go stock in lore in the first place, R&R (properly and not the weird one we used to have that allowed trolling for some reason). To prevent old players with bottomless c-bill coffers from abusing it and from making the npe even more terrible, R&R would only affect FP and uses a separate resource/money specifically for FP only (rewarded for fp activities, also a allowance with say 1 free repair a day or even more cuz the pop is so small right now). You also cannot drop unrepaired, while this happened in lore, have to remember that we are restricted to 12v12, as such allowing damaged dropping is nuts. This can even be used to finally give loyalists a bone by giving them a discount or something, whereas the mercs could retain their bonus payments, this would even help spread out the merc pop more, since if all pile on one side and the payments become penalized they might not make enough R&R resources even on a win to repair properly.

[Stikyard]

I dont like the idea of further splitting ques. I think a stock build and or battle value system needs to be inplemented to restore balance and get back to lore. FW in its current state is just QP with respawns and a few major groups stomping everyone else.

[MacClearly]

Nothing to figure out. You can do that all you want now. Just load up your drop deck and launch. Hey if you make a twelve man out of it you might even be able to break 300 damage!!!

[Carl Vickers]

Lore goes out the window for FPS. TT does not translate to FPS either.

You have your stock leagues, keep your stock builds there.

FP is bad enough with the amount of lurmers currently playing, most of them dont get over 500-600 damage per match, your stock build will get less damage.

If PGI had not put in a mech lab this wouldnt be an issue but they did so meta will happen.

If you really like stock mechs, in around 12 months time MW5 will be coming out, no mech lab and no other human players to get in the way of your stock builds, please enjoy.

[Stikyard]

Are you really happy with only a handful of mechs being viable options for decent play? Everyone seems to hate LRM's... why? Are they not a part of the universe? Oh, you found a more effective way to deathball and melt people so LRM's aren't good enough.

I certainly hope with new Tech comes some AOE. Split that deathball up real quick!

[Carl Vickers]

Lurms are an ineffective weapon.

Take a lurm 60 vs a 60 point lazor alpha.

Lurm 60 does 60 points spread over multiple parts of a mech. 60 point lazor can be put on one location (provided a steady hand is used).

How much FP have you played? Are you a member of a unit, if so how many members does the unit you are in have?

TBH, that you are asking why people dont like lurms says most of what I need to know about you already.

[Sjorpha]

I wouldn't play a mechwarrior game mode that doesn't allow me to bring my own mech builds, I think that goes for a quite large part of the population.

Could I sign up for a stock mode private match between friends? Sure, but you wouldn't see me in stock mode FP.

I see there is a lot of detailed ideas how to work with incentives and whatnot complex systems to get around this, but I feel that PGI is the kind of hamfisted dev that would have to go with either enforced stock mode or not. Also there is no incentives that could make me stock it, and if there are relative penalites to bringning my own builds I'd say **** it and leave.

[Stikyard]

I like the diversity of different mechs providing unique rolls. LRM's may not have the precise firepower but they can be used effectively to provide suppresive fire and make mechs find cover.

Overall, aside from going stock, I think its plain to see we need a battle value system. Tonnage alone does not account for superior mechs owning the battlefield. Im a little tired of shooting the same four mechs over and over again.

Population is an issue and if you want FP to not only survive but grow, you have to accept new players and have a balanced system where they can at least have a good game. Not just walk into meta murder.

Thats why QP is slightly better. The randomness of the teams, the ability to flank on open maps and the option to use LRM males for more diversity and an actual fighting chance to win on either side.

[justcallme A S H]

Stik - you've played 13 games and only managed to do 3 KMDDs, 6 kills and 44 deaths.
That is pretty much the bottom of the barrel performance wise. Not being rude but you clearly don't understand how the game is played at a higher level than T5.

QP is slightly better? Usually the team with the most LRM PUGs loses... Just like in FP.


I can only guess you are a mass LRM'er

Sjorpha, on 14 February 2017 - 10:40 PM, said:

I wouldn't play a mechwarrior game mode that doesn't allow me to bring my own mech builds, I think that goes for a quite large part of the population.

You and the majority of MWO

Anyway...

Tell your friends to come and cast a vote. Apparently only the minority want FP / Custom mechs.


https://mwomercs.com...ow-lore-or-not/

[Stikyard]

justcallme A S H, on 14 February 2017 - 11:18 PM, said:

Stik - you've played 13 games and only managed to do 3 KMDDs, 6 kills and 44 deaths.
That is pretty much the bottom of the barrel performance wise. Not being rude but you clearly don't understand how the game is played at a higher level than T5.

QP is slightly better? Usually the team with the most LRM PUGs loses... Just like in FP.


I can only guess you are a mass LRM'er




You and the majority of MWO

Anyway...

Tell your friends to come and cast a vote. Apparently only the minority want FP / Custom mechs.


https://mwomercs.com...ow-lore-or-not/

And for the record, I don't think any of my mechs have LRMs, I rarely use them. I prefer lighter quick mechs. Probably why I die a lot. I see light population at around 10% to 15% and they have little or no place in FP. That's an issue, when a vast majority of mechs and weapon systems are deemed obsolete.

[justcallme A S H]

The fact you are not LRM boating makes your stats even more horrible.

[DarklightCA]

Stikyard, on 14 February 2017 - 07:37 PM, said:

Are you really happy with only a handful of mechs being viable options for decent play? Everyone seems to hate LRM's... why? Are they not a part of the universe? Oh, you found a more effective way to deathball and melt people so LRM's aren't good enough.

I certainly hope with new Tech comes some AOE. Split that deathball up real quick!

LRM's aren't good because they spread their damage and can't focus kills, they aren't good because they have no ability to counter anything that gets close to them. They aren't good because all their damage can be easily avoided by simply slipping behind some cover. They are completely unreliable and that's why people don't play them.

It's far more effective to play anything that can actually damage what you aim for as taking mechs off the field before they do a lot of damage is the best way to win a game. Meta has and always will be direct fire in whatever form that takes. I see a lot of poptarts lately but I also see a lot of dakka and laser vomit as well as a lot of straight brawling teams in the form of SRM's. I don't understand how the meta isn't diverse when all that can be effective.

[Appogee]

Imagine a developer and a game where ideas raised in their forums actually had a chance of being adopted.

Wouldn't that be amazing?