11 replies to this topic

[naterist]

ok, ques aside, i have an idea on how to make factionplay interesting. to be clear, this is not a debate on balance, or ques or whos op or any of that. this is just brainstorming on how to get a little more depth into the game. the following are a series of ideas that came to me while watching old bobs patch notes review, were he just kinda neglects fw, because theres nothing of interest to many people or units because it has no extra layer to it. these suggestions could be implemented altogether, or just one or two of them, they arent dependant on each other.
this is not a thread to debate ques or pgis willingness to do stuff or anything else, i just want a solid brainstorming/input for how to add depth to both fw, and to some extent the game itself.

1. campaign system

i dont think planet voting is doing anyone any favors, so i think it should be replaced with pgi planning a weekly campaign, with some text wall and maybe spring for some art of the faction leaders to stand behind it, like their sending your unit/you an hpg message or something, explaining your 'orders' for the campaign. then have like.... 7 planets per side preferably in a line, or some way that makes common strategic sense, and have us be "fighting" over those planets. the text wall can even give an explanation for what the strategic thinking is, just change it every week, like make it a monday morning conversation at the office or do it before you leave friday (or have phil and daeron or some bt expert at the office have total control over campaign and the content of the weekly campaign explaination). you can then let the units vote on the planet they want their tags on from the list of planets in the weeks campaign, if theyre successful. then have a weekly leaderboard for the weeks conflict, title it, archive it, let it live forever somewhere so the op winners of a certain campaign can always have that memorialized, then new campaign and its associated leaderboard each week. also, by putting it in pgis hands, they have more control over which factions are making huge strides, and which arent, which is more importent in the interfaction que (coming soon, supposedly), but can also help in the IS v CLAN que. at the very least the borders on the map (which yes, i care a little bit about, even though it means litterally nothing) will make more sense.

2. a unit salvage system

i think every time a phase ends, and planets shift hands, you should give everyone some equipment as salvage, be it randomized stuff, or each planet can have its own percent chance of getting X amount of equipment/weaponry Y. units could recieve equipment as well in a unit inventory, which can then be doled out to members by whoever has access to unit coffers. solos could also be eligible for this, or not, depending on pgis opinions on the matter. i would like to personally request engines be available as salvage were possible, as it would help me get new recruits in fighting shape much faster, but thats a personal request. i think that this salvage system would be better than the mc rewards we currently have, so id be in favor of ditching the mc reward for this, but i dont think they are mutually exclusive. it could go either way.

3. unit landholds/dropships

they dont even have to do anything, but i think being assigned a landhold for your unit, even if you have to share a planet with another unit, is cool, and mercenaries should have dropships. it can be generic AF, and just a name on the screen, or even a career-based background would be nice. personally, i think it should change your mainpage mechbay, so loyalists have a doorway with sunlight, and a landscape through an open doorway, with landscape decided by the overall biome of said assigned planet in lore, and mercs should have a baddass dropship interior, maybe broken down, maybe not (idc, im a loyalist, thats for mercs to bicker about), but no sunlight or landscape. (this is the most far-fetched of my ideas, but it would be soooo cool.)

side note on landholds/dropships. even though its minor, this would be a cool place for cosmetic micro-transaction. be it mc, or rewards from playing... whatever. id love to decorate my units lounge with a minibar and a pinball machine, and a big couch with a tv or futuristic 3d videos, or even a broken old tv set.

4 an in client hiring hall.

this would be a "face" for your unit, located in the fw tab, and if you were too go really deep, youd have 2, one on outreach for IS loyalists, and one on strana mechty, with freelancers and mercs able to go to either one. ideally it would have 2 tabs, one for people looking for a unit to post, and one for units. each tab would have a record of the player/units in game stats both fw, qp, and comp, and a small place for a paragraph description. another box can have said player/units prefered 3rd party voicecomms software. optionally, you could give players/units options for their background, like make it a booth or office like setup, like theres actually a rep from your unit on planet with an office for recruiting, which could be decorated by the unit/player as well.... or maybe just let units decorate theirs with coffer mc. alternatively, no in game "office" and just list with postings and the above information would work too.

[LordNothing]

ive been saying from the getgo this thing needs a unit browser. not that id ever use it, but it needs one. your a new player you got the game in front of you. people are telling you to join a unit but the game itself doesn't give you any options for doing that. instead of playing mechwarrior you end up doing google fu all night trying to get into a teamspeak server. thats the real metagame in fp, finding the damn teamspeak server.

it would be nice if you can go to a unit browser, where you are being told where to go, what kind of players they are looking for, what kind of unit (merc, loyalist, what faction etc) links to teamspeak and all that even whether or not you are actively recruiting.

[Deathlike]

naterist, on 17 June 2017 - 01:34 PM, said:

ok, ques aside, i have an idea on how to make factionplay interesting. to be clear, this is not a debate on balance, or ques or whos op or any of that. this is just brainstorming on how to get a little more depth into the game. the following are a series of ideas that came to me while watching old bobs patch notes review, were he just kinda neglects fw, because theres nothing of interest to many people or units because it has no extra layer to it. these suggestions could be implemented altogether, or just one or two of them, they arent dependant on each other.
this is not a thread to debate ques or pgis willingness to do stuff or anything else, i just want a solid brainstorming/input for how to add depth to both fw, and to some extent the game itself.

1. campaign system

i dont think planet voting is doing anyone any favors, so i think it should be replaced with pgi planning a weekly campaign, with some text wall and maybe spring for some art of the faction leaders to stand behind it, like their sending your unit/you an hpg message or something, explaining your 'orders' for the campaign. then have like.... 7 planets per side preferably in a line, or some way that makes common strategic sense, and have us be "fighting" over those planets. the text wall can even give an explanation for what the strategic thinking is, just change it every week, like make it a monday morning conversation at the office or do it before you leave friday (or have phil and daeron or some bt expert at the office have total control over campaign and the content of the weekly campaign explaination). you can then let the units vote on the planet they want their tags on from the list of planets in the weeks campaign, if theyre successful. then have a weekly leaderboard for the weeks conflict, title it, archive it, let it live forever somewhere so the op winners of a certain campaign can always have that memorialized, then new campaign and its associated leaderboard each week. also, by putting it in pgis hands, they have more control over which factions are making huge strides, and which arent, which is more importent in the interfaction que (coming soon, supposedly), but can also help in the IS v CLAN que. at the very least the borders on the map (which yes, i care a little bit about, even though it means litterally nothing) will make more sense.

That requires someone to be put in charge of that. The problem is that I don't think PGI will put the manpower into it.

Back in Open Beta, there was "some attempt" to insert lore (like a near daily attempt) to do lore stuff. I believe that wasn't worth their time (you can do whatever want with lore... if people want to listen, and not enough people were listening). Pretty much it's time wasted when it has no meaning.

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2. a unit salvage system

i think every time a phase ends, and planets shift hands, you should give everyone some equipment as salvage, be it randomized stuff, or each planet can have its own percent chance of getting X amount of equipment/weaponry Y. units could recieve equipment as well in a unit inventory, which can then be doled out to members by whoever has access to unit coffers. solos could also be eligible for this, or not, depending on pgis opinions on the matter. i would like to personally request engines be available as salvage were possible, as it would help me get new recruits in fighting shape much faster, but thats a personal request. i think that this salvage system would be better than the mc rewards we currently have, so id be in favor of ditching the mc reward for this, but i dont think they are mutually exclusive. it could go either way.

Stuff like this was requested and still nothing is coming of it. However it's hard to put an actual price on such stuff since it's "shared" as salvage should actually be stuff you'd want, not a random omnipod or millionth IS medium laser and that it would be randomized to each player instead of the shameful sham that is the loot box system.

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3. unit landholds/dropships

they dont even have to do anything, but i think being assigned a landhold for your unit, even if you have to share a planet with another unit, is cool, and mercenaries should have dropships. it can be generic AF, and just a name on the screen, or even a career-based background would be nice. personally, i think it should change your mainpage mechbay, so loyalists have a doorway with sunlight, and a landscape through an open doorway, with landscape decided by the overall biome of said assigned planet in lore, and mercs should have a baddass dropship interior, maybe broken down, maybe not (idc, im a loyalist, thats for mercs to bicker about), but no sunlight or landscape. (this is the most far-fetched of my ideas, but it would be soooo cool.)

side note on landholds/dropships. even though its minor, this would be a cool place for cosmetic micro-transaction. be it mc, or rewards from playing... whatever. id love to decorate my units lounge with a minibar and a pinball machine, and a big couch with a tv or futuristic 3d videos, or even a broken old tv set.

This is the kind of stuff that would "feel nice", but is mostly cosmetic is not really necessary nor required for the functionality of CW/FP. Essentially, if PGI is primarily putting effort here, it's a total waste. Ideally it's supposed to be a supplemental feature that is an addition BUT NOT something you build around.

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4 an in client hiring hall.

this would be a "face" for your unit, located in the fw tab, and if you were too go really deep, youd have 2, one on outreach for IS loyalists, and one on strana mechty, with freelancers and mercs able to go to either one. ideally it would have 2 tabs, one for people looking for a unit to post, and one for units. each tab would have a record of the player/units in game stats both fw, qp, and comp, and a small place for a paragraph description. another box can have said player/units prefered 3rd party voicecomms software. optionally, you could give players/units options for their background, like make it a booth or office like setup, like theres actually a rep from your unit on planet with an office for recruiting, which could be decorated by the unit/player as well.... or maybe just let units decorate theirs with coffer mc. alternatively, no in game "office" and just list with postings and the above information would work too.

Technically it's doable, but the question is it worth the manpower to commit to something like this. For unit recruiting and all that jazz, I guess it would be a plus, but it's actually incumbent upon PGI to determine it is worthwhile spending resources on it... and based on prior history... it's not worth it for them and/or it wouldn't be that well designed (like a lot of UI elements in this game).


While this all sounds like "filler lore elements", it provides little to no depth into the game. At best, they suffice as filler content to more important design concepts/additions, yet not be something to be drooling over. It's polish if PGI decided to put in actual polish, but don't mistake it for real content. It's not the content people are really looking for.

[MischiefSC]

Anything that gets units feeling invested in FW isn't wasted. In fact it's exactly what's needed. Landholds and dropships that have some sort of impact on the game, some sort of logistics mechanic, would make a world of difference. While factions didn't mean much but when they were eliminated the bulk of the Marik, Liao and Davion loyalists quit. Possibly FRR, Kurita and Steiner but I don't know that for sure.

FW is about more than the actual gameplay. It's about factions, belonging to them and fighting against them. Giving that depth, purpose and identity is whay people wanted and never got from FW.

[Deathlike]

MischiefSC, on 21 June 2017 - 07:06 AM, said:

Anything that gets units feeling invested in FW isn't wasted. In fact it's exactly what's needed. Landholds and dropships that have some sort of impact on the game, some sort of logistics mechanic, would make a world of difference. While factions didn't mean much but when they were eliminated the bulk of the Marik, Liao and Davion loyalists quit. Possibly FRR, Kurita and Steiner but I don't know that for sure.

FW is about more than the actual gameplay. It's about factions, belonging to them and fighting against them. Giving that depth, purpose and identity is whay people wanted and never got from FW.

It would have to be more than what's suggested here (we're talking about an order of a magnitude of difference) as most of this doesn't do anything for me particularly... and I suspect it will be the case for others.

You'd have to move the needle quite a bit, and that's besides the obvious fundamental changes that need to be made.

[iLLcapitan]

Simple change: Let people play the ******* game instead of 'Waitwarrior Online'. One side (IS / clan) will ALWAYS have more players than the other. 2 full queues on clan side -> match them against each other, same for IS. Maybe preference clan vs IS or not, I don't care. LORE (lol I said it) is full of that stuff, but I know you don't care.

[G4LV4TR0N]

They could even make small checkbox for groups/players: "If no enemy team on opposite side, match against own faction [ X ]", to please certain type of no-no people.

[Naglinator]

Because PGI will do anything beyond the bare minimum....

[naterist]

i think 2 of my above ideas would help get units more invested, and thats the shared item coffer idea, and the unit recruitment hall.


as someone above mentioned, the meta in fw literally is finding the teamspeak/discord. after that its much easier. putting an in game recruitment hall with all that info is a borderline nessessity (and in light of pgis problems with faction chat, id have it update itself like... once a day, and if need be have messages expire after x amount of time). THAT would be worth the kind of effort you put into comp play, seeing as how this game, above almost all other games, is built on working with and as a team. helping encourage that with an in game feature dedicated to it would highlight the importance of units/teamwork to new players exploring the game tabs for the first time, and it helps units to both start up, grow, and get newer players invested, which is another thing this game desperately needs. putting it in fw and theming it as "on" outreach is just my preferred implementation of the idea.

shared item/coffer idea is, i think, a very comprehensive solution to about 3 seperate problems.

• planet uniqueness (each planet would get its own weighted salvage rewards, giving diferent planets unique flavors based on what the rewards are ie: hespurus 2 rewards mechs/engines while the backwaters hand out medium lasers for days. on the off chance someone reads this from pgi, stating the percentages for getting a specific item as salvage on each planet would be a great way to fill in planet descriptions, which have been blank for forever)
  
• getting units into fw (you cant fill a unit inventory if you dont play fw and get it filled with salvage, as i dont see them allowing players to fill the unit inventory with their private inventorys)
  
• getting new players up to speed (sharing inventories allows units that recruit new players, like my unit and -so- before us and others, to have a faster turnover rate, and allows us to get players not only trained, but equiped for FW faster, allowing population to hopefully grow. that double gap of skill and equipment leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and if your already in a unit and doing these things your supposed to, then allowing us to equip them would just help so, so much. i have several highly skilled players, who got skilled by competing in non-meta mechs and making the most of it, and cant afford to really switch over their mechs to the fw meta AND put in engines and weapons and whatnot. this would greatly benefit that type of player with their problems as well by allowing their unit to help them out, and i think people would appreciate this, as it is a common problem for new players im noticing)

in the end though, i gotta say that we as a community really missed our opportunity. i think its possible pgi wanted to go into that last fw roundtable to get ideas on how to add that extra layer of depth that everyone talks about, and we focused on ease of life improvements. im guilty of it too, but i fear that left pgi thinking that the players goal for fw is to have improved gameplay, and i really think that adding that extra depth, that feeling of fighting for a faction in the depths of the bt universe that i think mischief was alluding too, is equally important, and we dropped the ball on bringing that to pgi's attention last time. i really hope pgi understands that fw needs that extra depth as well as the in match adjustments.

now to be blunt, it is actually my personal belief that fw will never be fixed by giving it unique in match features, though i appreciate those as common sense, short term milestones that must be reached all the same. however i think what will make or break fw in the long run, and at the moment its at the "break" end of the spectrum, is the depth of things to do in between matches, and success atm entails having unique things that you get/effect your unit out of match, without those things requiring prolonged periods of time to do, since people need to get in and out of ques quickly to keep things running. thats why not many of my suggestions are long proccesses for the player. short and simple, yet interesting and immersive are the type of fixes that i think will improve fw as the meaningful part of the game. when there are enough people in game that theres a unit for every planet at all times online, THEN i think making a long and complex economy and transport system with transportation wait times and preplanning and all that would work. as of now however, simple, fast, and effective is, in my view, the goal. the single que does however work, i que up instantly most of the time, its the people dogpiled in one side that have que issues. be an individual instead of following the crowd and you wont be waiting forever.

[Deathlike]

naterist, on 22 June 2017 - 10:47 PM, said:

i think 2 of my above ideas would help get units more invested, and thats the shared item coffer idea, and the unit recruitment hall.


as someone above mentioned, the meta in fw literally is finding the teamspeak/discord. after that its much easier. putting an in game recruitment hall with all that info is a borderline nessessity (and in light of pgis problems with faction chat, id have it update itself like... once a day, and if need be have messages expire after x amount of time). THAT would be worth the kind of effort you put into comp play, seeing as how this game, above almost all other games, is built on working with and as a team. helping encourage that with an in game feature dedicated to it would highlight the importance of units/teamwork to new players exploring the game tabs for the first time, and it helps units to both start up, grow, and get newer players invested, which is another thing this game desperately needs. putting it in fw and theming it as "on" outreach is just my preferred implementation of the idea.

Honestly, an "easy button" to click on to get people using the in-game TS to connect to an external TS (usually the Teamspeak hub of the faction) would make things far better, but that idea became Lostech or something like that.

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shared item/coffer idea is, i think, a very comprehensive solution to about 3 seperate problems.

• planet uniqueness (each planet would get its own weighted salvage rewards, giving diferent planets unique flavors based on what the rewards are ie: hespurus 2 rewards mechs/engines while the backwaters hand out medium lasers for days. on the off chance someone reads this from pgi, stating the percentages for getting a specific item as salvage on each planet would be a great way to fill in planet descriptions, which have been blank for forever)

PGI has not made any efforts to change the value of planets whatsoever (not even having different dropdeck tonnages for each planet, let alone specific rewards).

So, while in theory a nice idea, it has not crossed PGI's mind last I checked.

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• getting units into fw (you cant fill a unit inventory if you dont play fw and get it filled with salvage, as i dont see them allowing players to fill the unit inventory with their private inventorys)

I don't see this working w/o a logical mechanic...

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• getting new players up to speed (sharing inventories allows units that recruit new players, like my unit and -so- before us and others, to have a faster turnover rate, and allows us to get players not only trained, but equiped for FW faster, allowing population to hopefully grow. that double gap of skill and equipment leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and if your already in a unit and doing these things your supposed to, then allowing us to equip them would just help so, so much. i have several highly skilled players, who got skilled by competing in non-meta mechs and making the most of it, and cant afford to really switch over their mechs to the fw meta AND put in engines and weapons and whatnot. this would greatly benefit that type of player with their problems as well by allowing their unit to help them out, and i think people would appreciate this, as it is a common problem for new players im noticing)

I think something like that was suggested - a shared inventory of mechs from a unit member for the unit so others can get a "feel" of what a "tricked out"/well optimized mech looked like. In fact, there were suggestions when UI 2.0 (way back in beta) was being designed and it was to be able to test builds WITHOUT having to buy it just yet (using the training grounds to drop in first - to see how a build feels before buying) but that didn't come through.

Well, that might be another form of PGI Lostech.

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in the end though, i gotta say that we as a community really missed our opportunity. i think its possible pgi wanted to go into that last fw roundtable to get ideas on how to add that extra layer of depth that everyone talks about, and we focused on ease of life improvements. im guilty of it too, but i fear that left pgi thinking that the players goal for fw is to have improved gameplay, and i really think that adding that extra depth, that feeling of fighting for a faction in the depths of the bt universe that i think mischief was alluding too, is equally important, and we dropped the ball on bringing that to pgi's attention last time. i really hope pgi understands that fw needs that extra depth as well as the in match adjustments.

They haven't yet to date... I'm unsure if they'll ever get it.

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now to be blunt, it is actually my personal belief that fw will never be fixed by giving it unique in match features, though i appreciate those as common sense, short term milestones that must be reached all the same. however i think what will make or break fw in the long run, and at the moment its at the "break" end of the spectrum, is the depth of things to do in between matches, and success atm entails having unique things that you get/effect your unit out of match, without those things requiring prolonged periods of time to do, since people need to get in and out of ques quickly to keep things running. thats why not many of my suggestions are long proccesses for the player. short and simple, yet interesting and immersive are the type of fixes that i think will improve fw as the meaningful part of the game. when there are enough people in game that theres a unit for every planet at all times online, THEN i think making a long and complex economy and transport system with transportation wait times and preplanning and all that would work. as of now however, simple, fast, and effective is, in my view, the goal. the single que does however work, i que up instantly most of the time, its the people dogpiled in one side that have que issues. be an individual instead of following the crowd and you wont be waiting forever.

If mech balance existed in any proper manner, then the distribution would be more relatively equal (would still be slanted one way or another due to "politics" (things that don't really exist anymore because people don't care enough anymore)... so until that's ever "fixed", it becomes very difficult to address in a vacuum and PGI's basic/lazy answer is tonnage limits.

[naterist]

maybe we can preorder a good factionplay....

[Tarl Cabot]

MischiefSC, on 21 June 2017 - 07:06 AM, said:

Anything that gets units feeling invested in FW isn't wasted. In fact it's exactly what's needed. Landholds and dropships that have some sort of impact on the game, some sort of logistics mechanic, would make a world of difference. While factions didn't mean much but when they were eliminated the bulk of the Marik, Liao and Davion loyalists quit. Possibly FRR, Kurita and Steiner but I don't know that for sure.

FW is about more than the actual gameplay. It's about factions, belonging to them and fighting against them. Giving that depth, purpose and identity is whay people wanted and never got from FW.

This as a start. And Planet Uniqueness. Why is taking Rasalhague the same amount of work as taking a border/periphery world?

Never mind canon units being added to planets, changing either the percentage amount won would be smaller for the Attacker than for the Defender.

But we are all dreaming.../shudders the thought on the feel for Solaris if it is added

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 24 June 2017 - 04:39 PM.