109 replies to this topic

[ThundrGod]

Just straight up steal planetsides model. Log in, pick a side where you have perpetual growth(the skill trees, unlocking Mechs, mech bays etc). Make the unlocks faction specific, you can have pilots from each faction( probably have to limit the number of factions to keep the player base from being spread too thin). Choose a battlefield to go to( planets). When you choose it shows the tier levels of the enemy peeps so you can be your own matchmaker. Drop in, fight over bases, die, re-spawn, choose a different mech if needs be, play for hours, take a few planets from the enemy, grind some cbills, unlock some Mechs and skill nodes. PGI sells quicker cbill and xp and new mech chassis just like they do now. Why reinvent the wheel. They would just have to limit the number of players on each "planet" to whatever their servers can handle and voila. Community warfare. No split player base because there's only one game mode. It's quick play disguised as faction warfare but you actually have EVERYONE playing it and fighting over something.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

as Founder of the First Days ,im hoping in this far days of a True FW ,with tactical strategic Element , Factioncamos, Epic Battles, Starlanes true Droptimes and Stationary of Troops like a strategic war game (like Empire at War )Troops of Planets,Factorys (for ammo-a Less = only 3 t LRM ammo in each Teammech for the next week of the Looser,Mechchassies thats only avaible by holding the Facility)...bring AI and Mech troops to planets ...siege of Lanes ...thats long long ago and my Visions not in all ways the same thats other Folks have ...


and now, after five Years, has PGI not the Manpower for better Times ,make the same bad looking animations and 3D models like the direwolf 2014 ,nothing AI ,nothing ideas in teh Leadership for a real further Way of MWO , crosses his Course ever and ever in the false Direction

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 31 July 2017 - 11:17 AM.

[SuperFunkTron]

So I took a look at the most recent roadmap yesterday and I realized they had mentioned that there is something actually lined up for FP in August. I'm curious now when they will finally release more information on those updates and how much/what these updates will entail. I'm hoping there is more substance than just a few light tweaks.




Faction Play Updates
Special Event system
War History
and more

Clan Wave 2 & 3 Hero 'Mechs (Store Page)

Additional Clan Wave 2 & 3 C-Bill Variants

[Methanoid]

How to fix FP.

1) Delete FP.
2) Let ppl queue for Quick Play in the Regular Mode we already have or a Clan vs IS mode.
3) Fixed...

[Imperius]

No now is the time to upgrade the engine!

[Weeny Machine]

It's Time To Push For Faction Play Development!

[Khobai]

need to focus on the gamemode people actually play: quickplay

whats the worst thing about quickplay? every single gamemode being skirmish. thats what needs to be fixed.

[Methanoid]

Khobai, on 11 August 2017 - 01:53 AM, said:

need to focus on the gamemode people actually play: quickplay

whats the worst thing about quickplay? every single gamemode being skirmish. thats what needs to be fixed.

isnt that only because conquest, escort and incursion are total cr*p that make ppl want to /facedesk.

[Khobai]

Quote

isnt that only because conquest, escort and incursion are total cr*p that make ppl want to /facedesk.

actually conquest is the only good gamemode

conquest gets people to play on areas of the map they dont normally play on

conquest gives every weight class something to do

conquest also has a fairly balanced alternate win objective

its what every other gamemode should aspire to be

Edited by Khobai, 11 August 2017 - 06:29 AM.

[Methanoid]

imho conquest "could" be good, but the fact it recycles existing maps does not do it justice, IF maps were made specifically for it, i would probably be all over it, atm tho i dont find it enjoyable on the maps we have, it just feels like a chore that we are basically playing skirmish while circling around capture points with no real thought to a plan due to the lacking terrain/maps.

the weight class thing as well sounds great but most of my lights are clan mechs which are slow as anything, even my hellbringer feels as fast as some lights/mediums.

Edited by Methanoid, 11 August 2017 - 06:39 AM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Imperius, on 11 August 2017 - 01:43 AM, said:

No now is the time to upgrade the engine!

the Cryengine 5.3 in much Details better as the UE 4 (Enviroment,Dynamic lights ) and a converting of the Game is more complicated as a real New Build ,and for a New Build ,you must Have Guys with experience in the Engine ... Folks with this Skill and experience search PGI now for 5 Years ,and many going (to relic 2015 two leading Art Devs)seeing the Converting from Alex good art to the game , the terrible gamemodes (VIP Mode) and many Animations ...no Hope for more as today

UT2004 have more and more funny and interesting Gamemodes as MWO Today

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 11 August 2017 - 07:55 AM.

[Mystere]

Methanoid, on 11 August 2017 - 01:39 AM, said:

How to fix FP.

1) Delete FP.
2) Let ppl queue for Quick Play in the Regular Mode we already have or a Clan vs IS mode.
3) Fixed...

Shut down MWO.

Fixed.

FTFY..

Edited by Mystere, 11 August 2017 - 09:04 AM.

[R Valentine]

You can only fix FP by deleting it and starting over. It isn't worth it, at this point, to waste more dev hours and money trying to finish making it. It's more likely that the majority of time is spent on MW5, so that leaves very little resources left for dumb things like FP. Just make more QP maps, fix the QP modes that suck(incursion and escort) or delete them as well, and call it a day.

[Mawai]

Mystere, on 27 July 2017 - 10:15 AM, said:

Excuse me?
Excuse me?

This was just our own opinion?


Are you saying that video is a complete fabrication and that PGI had nothing to do with it?

I skimmed the video and PGI has actually implemented most of the features. Units/planets/loyalty points and even reward levels for different levels of faction points. Fighting over planets, taking contracts ...

However, there is quite a bit that they didn't implement mostly because it wasn't even designed when they gave this talk. There are clear and obvious flaws with a significant subset of ideas that they presented in this video.

Examples:
- bounty contracts - can you see this being used as a griefing mechanism? I can. Imagine newbs getting bounties put on them by wealthy players just to make them feel bad. Also, just imagine the chaos when an entire team scrambles to kill the opposing mech with a bounty instead of playing for objectives. How do you assign the bounty? Whoever gets the kill shot (gives a new meaning to kill-stealing) or do you have add new code to record the damage done to every mech on a team by every player so that you can properly distribute bounties to everyone who contributed?

- all the "economics" ideas are completely broken. Losing access to a mech because you lose control of the planet where it is built. In many cases, people will have paid REAL money for these mechs (eg hero variants or C variants) ... it is probably illegal to deny players access to purchased content due to some ingame event. Giving players exclusive access to mechs or tech because they control planets introduces all kinds of issues depending on whether there is any balance between the mechs and tech ... it leaves open options for abuse.

- as we have seen even with the all the current implementations - FW is NOT balanced. Clans so far have had the advantage though I don't know the current status after the tech upgrade. If one side has an advantage and gets access to all the cool stuff because they win ... then almost everyone will join that side. It is a fundamental design issue that has affected factional warfare design from the beginning and that simple fundamental issue breaks all of the so-called "economic" ideas in this talk.

- in addition - there is no "economy" without inter-player exchange. The whole black market idea among other things. PGI has never had sufficient staff to properly design and build any sort of real economic model that spans the range of players from occasional casual to career mercenary to full-time factional warfare group leader.

The bottom line is that PGI has implemented the reasonable bits of their manifesto and have just quietly ignored all the impractical dreamy type suggestions they may have made in the past (Like Russ' famous statement that FW would be in the game within 90 days of going to open beta ... LOL). Even watching the video, it is clear that these are just ideas and dreams, not promises ... these are the things they would like to do ... not a list of things it might be possible or practical to do.

P.S. The video came from the launch party ... a full year after open beta.

[Mawai]

Exclusively clan vs is matches will NEVER work in FW unless you want to have ghost drops since the number of folks dropping on either side is NEVER exactly equal. Queue times grow at an incredible rate even for slight differences in population/side.

For example ... 1000 players queue/hour ... 550 clan, 450 is ... sounds pretty even right? However, in one hour you only launch 450/12 matches = 37.5 matches or 1 match/1.6 minutes ... after an hour there are 100 clan players sitting in the queue to find a match ... 100 players needs 9 matches ... so the wait time for clan players after one hour is about 15 minutes to find a match ... after 2 hours with the same ratio it is 30 minutes.

Functional factional warfare needs to form three kinds of matches ...
IS vs IS
Clan vs Clan
Clan vs IS

Clan vs IS are formed first then depending on which side has a queue surplus intra-faction matches are formed. Unfortunately, there are so many faction groups within the IS and clan that it is unlikely that the matchmaker could form reasonable intra-faction matches like Steiner vs Kurita for example (which would be ideal) ... the first cut would be simply IS vs IS or clan vs clan skirmishes in order to make sure that there is no queue backlog developing.

The other issues with making fun and balanced matches are:
- player rating system - reflect player skill
- mech rating system - reflect mech and build effectiveness
- tech balance - clan vs IS
- map balance - some of the starting points are not created equal - also some variety in starting position would mix things up a bit and perhaps let more of the maps see some use
- of all the game modes in MWO, personally, I find the siege mode among the worst ... and it is at the center of FW

[Mystere]

Mawai, on 11 August 2017 - 10:30 AM, said:

I skimmed the video and PGI has actually implemented most of the features ...

If by that you meant "a skeleton of a game with fillers" then, sadly, you are correct.

[DAYLEET]

Old MW4 Ranger, on 11 August 2017 - 07:21 AM, said:

UT2004 have more and more funny and interesting Gamemodes as MWO Today

That's an unfair but fair comparison. Unfair because UT2K4 was and still is one of the best and most complete game out of the box when it was released and most tripple A games cant come close. Fair because after 5 years maybe we should get the hint that fw is never going to work in its present form and need a complete overhaul if not scraping entirely to be remade anew.

I remember that vid about cw that Mystere posted, it hyped me enough to get the Phoenix Pack. After the excitement left my body i couldnt figure out how they would make it work. It wasnt long until i started questioning the premise of cw and after 5 years, no one has figure out how to make it work. "But DAYLEET! It works! its faction versus faction and you win planets" yeah? see how popular that is in its current implementation. Look at other games with faction vs faction with objective.

Watch that vid again, nothing make sense in the past and present format of the game. Its was too late to make a faction driven economy before cw was even released. You can't have anything engaging and lore driven without missions, story and ai. Apparently we cant even have faction rewards because of the current monetisation system(monetize everything!). We dont have any lore incentive to be part of a given faction beside cbills bonus. In a game that is so deeply rooted in a rich universe like battletech, all we are is an arena shooter. Why do you think we dont even have mech description and their story in the store? because we dont want people to get interested in that kind of way. just buy a mech and drop with it.

Edited by DAYLEET, 11 August 2017 - 11:57 AM.

[Cy Mitchell]

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/

Edited by Rampage, 11 August 2017 - 12:45 PM.

[Pjwned]

Here's an idea that would work pretty well.

Try focusing on making FP modes & maps not absolutely terrible & uninspired, so that it's actually fun to play it.

Wow, that took a lot of thought.

[Spheroid]

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.