9 replies to this topic

[Minrah]

wanted to see what people think of this idea of Faction play.

have units work to build their own base and build defense structures and turrets. have the ability to take over units strong holds as well use them for outposts to stage attacks from, redo layout of the map, have to use drop ships and command ships to move to attack on locations. I do not know how to do coding whats so ever, none the less Id like to see this game get more detailed into attacks and Defense in faction play.

[Koniving]

Minrah, on 27 October 2019 - 02:49 PM, said:

Would've gotten more attention in the general discussion thread as opposed to the Battletech/MW5 thread.

We're on an island out here.

Basically...
You've described what PGI promised us faction warfare would be in 2014...
....and never delivered.

What's sad is it is almost completely identical.



I'm just sorry to inform you that while PGI came up with exactly those ideas...they never delivered.

But there's 26 minutes of your life that you will never get back, hearing PGI give all your ideas as how they plan to do faction warfare....
only to realize you ain't gettin' it here.

On a side note, you've also described Multiplayer Battletech 3025 published by EA and sued into oblivion and taken down.


As the entire thing revolved around faction warfare, fighting over planets, moving between them, building supply lines, repair and rearm, building garrisons, etc...
(Despite the credits, technically they didn't get the license rights or it was denied/revoked, I don't remember the full story)

Edited by Koniving, 27 October 2019 - 08:55 PM.

[Koniving]

This is something random but cool I just found by some fluke when the MP BT video ended, this loaded up next for me.



Never knew about this as it apparently never released. Classic Commando in all its glory akin to Mechwarrior 2 Mercs...in sprite form and decently animated considering!

Also...now we know where the jump sail goes.

[Nesutizale]

To bad that they never did what they planed with FP.

[Koniving]

Sadly, being a free to play game and the change of how monetization went from sponsoring future mech collections and cosmetics to monthly mech packs... it was impossible to do a meaningful faction play.

The game's own monetization system killed any hope the game had for being what they envisioned. The very money people shelled in hoping to get that faction play is, ultimately, what may have killed it.

If faction play was put in much earlier and at least ready to beta-test around the same time regular combat was, this game could have turned out far better as they could have come up with monetization ideas around it rather than monetization that actively worked against it.

[Nesutizale]

I don't quite see how monthly mechpacks killed it. PGI has to have monthly income to pay its bills. What I can understand is that people hold back with purchases because they didn't get what was promised.

A thought that just crossed my mind is, maybe they should only have focused on FP and creating a universe where players either join existing merc units or go straight to house units or be freelancers but allways are part of the bigger ongoing conflicts.

[Koniving]

Nesutizale, on 28 October 2019 - 04:17 AM, said:

I don't quite see how monthly mechpacks killed it. PGI has to have monthly income to pay its bills. What I can understand is that people hold back with purchases because they didn't get what was promised.

A thought that just crossed my mind is, maybe they should only have focused on FP and creating a universe where players either join existing merc units or go straight to house units or be freelancers but allways are part of the bigger ongoing conflicts.

As described during Brian Eckman's presentation
Part of the reward for faction play was cheaper prices for mechs based on the factories you've acquired in your territory. Acquiring planets with resources would grant you resources, that's weapons, munitions, engines, etc.
This meant repair and rearm in a war of attrition.
The value of acquiring things to make your mechs cheaper to fix, cheaper to rearm, cheaper to acquire new mechs and potentially lose your current ones... Earlier talks were also about negative income (below 0) and the option join a faction (as opposed to the 'hardcore mode' aka run a mercenary company) in order to get out of debt.

What happens when you can just buy mechs with cash?
Pay to win.
What happens when you can buy cbills?
Pay to win.
And what happens when you can sport lots and lots of cbills and ignore repair bills and get the new mechs before anyone else in a mode where the more mechs you have the more you can make moves around the periphery as a mercenary company, you can run all the meta cheese you want while the poor people have to run economic builds in order to avoid opening their wallets.

Thus, ultimately, the monetization model killed the faction play potential as originally envisioned.

Edited by Koniving, 30 October 2019 - 02:38 AM.

[Koniving]

That's without getting into multiple dropships with the purchasing power of cash (instead of a "deck", they were supposed to be how you move your existing mechs across the IS... assuming they were hoping to go with something Multiplayer Battletech 3025-esque. That also meant that resources would be needed to set up supply lines to get repair and rearm supplies to your front lines. Garrisons to protect your bases (not to mention build up your own bases, which meant having to pay for turrets, having to pay for the walls around your base, having to leave mechs on that planet in order to be able to defend it when a bid (an attack) is declared for that planet... which also meant the more mechs you had, the more you can do, the more you can play, the quicker you can take control of the map...etc...

https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__3276379
That post should give you the gist of what was (collectively over the dev blogs, the developer descriptions of community warfare, and finally the presentation) described to us, including the "you have what you bring against what they bring" nature of faction warfare and transporting mechs.

Edited by Koniving, 30 October 2019 - 02:36 AM.

[Nesutizale]

Okay I get your point in regard of FW and buying mechs. I haven't watched that far into the video or I just ignored it

Anyway I think there could be a fine line where you could still sell Mechpacks for QP but when you enter FW you are bound to what you archived in within the games economy and can't use what you have bought with money. Basicly makeing it two seperate modes.

Also I find it hard to see something that can be monetized on a regular basis with the FW you discribed.
More likely you would have to have a subscription model. On the other hand you could offer QP for free and have FW with a subscription model.
That way players could test the game without any investment, except some time. Sell some mechpacks for those who just seek a quick battle experiance and have subscriptions with much more game depth for those who are dedicated.

[Steel Raven]

Koniving, on 27 October 2019 - 08:52 PM, said:

Basically...
You've described what PGI promised us faction warfare would be in 2014...
....and never delivered.

Yeah, PGI has a long history of putting it's foot in it's mouth regarding making promisses that they never had the capability of keeping (Every interview with Russ, it's honestly sounds like he wants to do all these great things but at the same time, it always sounded like he had no idea on how to actually go about doing it)

Considering the last and honestly bizarre overhaul of the FP system caused many FP regulars to rage quite, I didn't see PGI making any meaningful changes until they are ready to pull the plug and start over. And that's only if MW5 does well enough, they can afford to start over (so get ready for allot of nothing)

Koniving, on 30 October 2019 - 02:24 AM, said:

What happens when you can just buy mechs with cash?
Pay to win.
What happens when you can buy cbills?
Pay to win.

Actually, the only thing PGI has done well has been making sure MWO is not Pay to Win. Painful amount o grinding like in other MMO, yes but the hero mechs and loot boxes don't give you a edge like other games where the guy spending $50-$100 a month has a clear advantage. It's still Mech Pokemon but to be fair, that's been ever inception of Mechwarrior thus far.

What would have made FP great would have been the option of buying Drop Ships and other content not available in Quick Play but as posted above, that was a idea hinted at that PGI had no idea how to actually implement in a meaningful way.