109 replies to this topic

[R Valentine]

Spheroid, on 11 August 2017 - 01:01 PM, said:

Quickplay is the shallow pool for lessors. Where is the progression system? Where is the long term motivation for continued play?

I have 342 mechs, QP offers nothing for me. FP requires the opitimal combination of mechs for the map type and tonnage. The use of duplicates increases my grind and keeps me in the game. I collected those mechs with the expectation that I would have as assets in war of attrtion where I could drop for days, irrespective of faction equipment limits, map conditions or repairs. My goal is galatic domination and glory.

Because of the folly of map voting and taking the best in class mech by weight class the long term need to collect and level mechs is quite limited, perhaps less than a dozen needed across all gamemodes. As a long term playerbase retention strategy prioritzing QP is highly flawed.

Group play sucks as well. If you don't take all that avaible tonnage you are placing your team at a substanital disadvantage. Unless you drop with a narrow range of players the chassis choices feel like wearing a straight jacket.

A long term strategy involving FP is highly flawed also, on account of FP has never been anywhere close to complete and PGI hasn't touched it in over a year. They didn't even give us a *gasp* CIVIL WAR with our Civil War patch. That's on top of the myriad of other problems it has, like technical issues that leave you stranded on the drop deck screen, full teams of solos vs. a 12 man premade, and very poorly balanced invasion maps.

[Spheroid]

@Kiran: Why don't they let people help them? There are people here who would do the necessary work for FREE. I guess companies can never take such offers even if honest as the legal costs of contested ownership would be prohibitive.

I have simple ideas the could improve the current FP model with a month's worth of work. The outline would be perhaps four or five pages. Its not clear that an official audience for any such ideas exists in regards to player/dev interaction though.

Edited by Spheroid, 11 August 2017 - 01:25 PM.

[kuma8877]

Rampage, on 11 August 2017 - 12:43 PM, said:

Everything that Community Warfare/Faction Warfare/Faction Play was supposed to be is being offered in the new NBT planetary league. If you have not done so, you should check it out and give the description of what they are doing there a read.

The community has always been the provider for the end game in all the MechWarrior titles. They provide the depth and lore and intrigue that all the developers have failed to provide. PGI had lofty plans but did not invest the time or effort to provide anything that would even remotely challenge what NBT is offering. It is time to accept that fact and embrace what the community is developing to fill the void.

https://mwomercs.com...egin-july-18th/

Now take this idea, and flip it on it's head.

I actually think one of the easiest/fastest ways for PGI to garner new/rekindle old interest in FW is to simply create an ongoing narrative of battles and clashes thru events. Change the faction specific rewards to better reflect each house or clan as per lore (give a reason to care a bit) and then let us drive a storyline for a season (like mini campaigns).

If coding isn't their strong suit, then do it the old fashion way. DungeonMaster the game mode. With a little thought and planning it could easily keep most factions involved throughout the season and help us perceive that the timeline is moving forward with us as players. The understructure for utilizing the broader multi bucket system should still be there, use it and the event system to create the civil war battle narrative and the feeling of persistence and progression (the "story" moves forward).

[LordNothing]

sure i want to see more fp development. start with making the mode inclusive to all player types. then everyone wont spew salt about being left out and stuck in underdeveloped quick play. short of having back to back fp events in perpetuity (that last fp event was great imho). in fact we need that kind of thing. a mere 200k cbills was enough to get people to show up again and again.

if i have to wait 20 minutes to play and dont get paid enough to cover my consumables, its time wasted. infrequent drops means it takes forever to move up the ranking trees and much of that time is spent waiting for a match. more rewards and make that 150 match score bonus permanent.

no this is not another match maker or split queue request, i have sense enough to know that those will never work. but do something about the damn seal clubbing. every time this happens to a new player a, pug swears off of the mode in perpetuity, does not join a unit, and that kills population. instead do a fuzzy queue system. teams with a group of more than 6 players are considered coordinated and only drop against other coordinated teams. pugs drop anywhere in both coordinated and uncoordinated games. freelancers would only drop in uncoordinated games (freelancer should be noob mode). eases (not removes, potatoes will potato) pug stomps, gives new players a place to get gud, gives teams better games. if you are freelancer and cant find games, move up, you are a team and cant find games break up and play multiple drops. it would fix everything.

[Kyrie]

I am a legendary founder, and I was sold on the CW pillar. Remember the pillars of yore?

I have the links to the 2012 discussions on CW in my sig.

[QuantumButler]

Why? It's a mode nobody enjoys playing, why would PGI allocate valuable dev time to it instead of churning out more cashgrab mechpacks?

[Jun Watarase]

Spheroid, on 11 August 2017 - 01:20 PM, said:

@Kiran: Why don't they let people help them? There are people here who would do the necessary work for FREE. I guess companies can never take such offers even if honest as the legal costs of contested ownership would be prohibitive.

I have simple ideas the could improve the current FP model with a month's worth of work. The outline would be perhaps four or five pages. Its not clear that an official audience for any such ideas exists in regards to player/dev interaction though.

Theres another reason why they may not want anyone helping them : they dont want their power being taken away. Ever encountered clubs/societies/etc in school that always claim they are short of people to help, yet, they wont accept help outside of a small circle of people who are in their clique? Or a group working on a video game mod who says the same thing? Being part of a small group of people working on one thing gives you lots of power (and credit), having more people helping gives you less.

[Johnny Z]

Savage Wolf, on 27 July 2017 - 08:19 AM, said:

But some good things have come of Faction Play. It's the place where the game modes actually function the way they should. So my suggestion is to scrap Faction Play and instead have Objective Play. Like Quick Play, but with the Faction Play game modes and drop deck. Or Faction Play with matchmaker and pug queue.

Lots of good comes from faction play. It shows ambitious design ideas, different gameplay, a start to galactic map interaction and all sorts of great things.

Edited by Johnny Z, 14 August 2017 - 06:04 AM.

[Methanoid]

Johnny Z, on 14 August 2017 - 06:01 AM, said:

Lots of good comes from faction play. It shows ambitious design ideas, different gameplay, a start to galactic map interaction and all sorts of great things.

that are a confusing mess and unenjoyable at present by the masses.

[SuperFunkTron]

QuantumButler, on 13 August 2017 - 11:07 PM, said:

Why? It's a mode nobody enjoys playing, why would PGI allocate valuable dev time to it instead of churning out more cashgrab mechpacks?

How do you arrive at the conclusion that no one enjoys it? I know quite a few people who prefer it to quickplay, myself included, and we would like to see features added to it. There are plenty of people who want even basic, lore inspired features to help differentiate the factions to crate some diversity, as well as more meaningful map and dynamic events that occasionally mix up the Clan vs IS monotony.

No one is forcing you to play in that mode and quickplay will still be open to everyone who has no interesting in FP, especially a more developed one. Don't dump on the people who are hoping to play something that resembles the game that was originally pitched. Regardless of when people came in, be it close beta or 6 months ago, the improvement of FP has been hung as a carrot in front of the player base the whole time. If you don't believe that, just go back and check the road maps. We've been told this entire year that we should be expecting major FP updates and the most recent that were scheduled for August have been pushed back to at least September. We're just stuck waiting until a town hall or the next patch to get more info to give us an idea of the direction that they are going in with its development.