43 replies to this topic

[Doc Arachinus]

1) slow down invasion process of planets. taking planets should be a lengthy process, consuming several real life days perhaps. Make new objectives to accomplish to ensure victory. Like needing to secure fuel depots and ammo dumps, mech repair bays, factorys and government/military buildings. Make a slide for each one and as you secure them your conquer bars for each will slowly fill up or deplete if defending. This would mean adding or modifying some current structures on the maps. Also ammo/fuel dumps should explode if hit. Note exploding tanks/ammo dumps would cause a mission failure if too many tanks explode (would also result in a loss for defender, so would need to make them have armour like o-gens or something). Could on scouting missions drop with preset nav points that need to be scouted out and same for defenders. obtaining these nav points could result in combat ids of mechs, increased sensor ranges and faster air support.

2) more avenues to invest our c-bills then just buying and modding mechs. with the upcoming addition of a mech hanger maybe we can invest c-bills in storage space for ammo, fuel, armour and all our other extra equipment (for faction purposes only) maybe gives us the ability to invest in esponige assets to sabotage drops (like successful esponige attempts might force the other teams drop zone to spread farther apart or even cause mechs on the 1st drop to drop premature and way outta position, or could cause enemy radars to sudden jam or defense turrets sudden turning on them or not worin at all. This would be based on the results of the team as a whole). Allow for the buying of aero assets and even the purchasing and upgrading of a new consumable... MINES!!. These mines once discovered could be shot and exploded. Also could add in salvage vehicles to assist with increasing cash flow (would need crew hired to operate as well).

3) skill system. instead of just skilling a mech you would half to skill the individual components. So you could have 3 LPLs all upgraded differently and even when unmounted would go into inventory with its skills for use on another mech. also allow for skilling of ammo, aero assets and hanger assets.

4) aero assets. these for the most part would be on paper only as we would not be physically bringing them into fights. buying aero assets for an astronomical amount of c-bills would allow players to use arty/air strikes based on the assets they own (would still limit number allowed to be inline with current amounts). Aero assets could affect cost to join a battle and the amount of salvage a player brings home from a match. for instance the smallest dropship could allow player to bring home an additional 5% salvage from mechs he got the KMDD for and maybe even more if it was a solo kill. These would have a every real life day cost of course which I will talk about in a minute (would require hiring pilots/crews that need maintained).

5) real unit/player econ. For faction play purposes only. Each active mech would have a real life day cost in technicians and daily maintaintance cost. So players would half to hire and maintain techs to keep all his mechs in fighting shape. if player can not afford current cost mechs/ assets can be mothballed for faction play. maybe a player gets into a daily cost of 1 mil c-bills but is horrible at faction and only earns 300k a match so would need to drop 4 matches to break even for the day or run abunch of qp to cover account balance. Players would need to buy warehouses or additional hangers to store ammo which would need to be restocked if used after ever FP match. in addition would need to have room for storeing parts. (not housing cuz they can take their salary and go rent apartments or something) This can be expanded greatly in scope if liked while not having a breaking affect on faction play. would only need to hire techincians for mechs selected for faction play like maybe out of your 100 mechs you only have 20 you really use in faction matches.

6) salvage system: Instead of a generalized salvage calculation at end of match make it reflect a players performance in match. For every KMDD player gets 5% of the value of any un-destroyed components and for solos increase amount to 7% and for the rare head caps give a very small chance of taking home the mech. other salvage maybe like 1% on any assist. These numbers would of course be effected by any aero assist the player owns and even if he owns maybe any salvage vehicles.

7) taking/defending planets should have meaning. Maybe planets can offer various bonuses to players/units that helped in its fight. Can be anything from bonus income at end of conflict to bonus money per real life day or decreased cost in maintance or ammo cost etc...
Maybe add in campaign ribbions for participating in each planets conflict like a soliders tour of duty ribbons.

8) final phase maybe a solo drop only massive fight, a last attempt to take or defend the planet type battle where each side can have more then 12 pilots (not sure how big a match servers could handle here) but would love to see a massive fight where multiply companys are involved on both sides.

[Vectoron]

Heya, Doc!

This is a good start in getting the community more involved. Mind if others use this so that we can stockpile ideas and basically give PGI a large list of features/ideas for them to use? We have ideas we can just attached to this thread for consolidation.

EDIT:

P.S.

Interestingly enough - we are coming to some of the same ideas in a sense that you are too. Cool stuff!

Honestly if some ideas overlap that is great, because it shows that there are features that we really would like to see as a community.

Edited by Vectoron, 04 March 2018 - 07:49 PM.

[Doc Arachinus]

have at it. the hardest part is game modes and getting the players feeling like planets mean something

Also storming a defensive position should be very hard even for elite teams. I think historically it took 3/1 odd to defeat a fortified force so maybe on the last ditch defensive battle we can use a new map with a bad *** base built for mechs to peak outta and real effective turrets like instead of all lazer turret we can actually get lurm turret (with a reduced range to like 600m maybe unless the map is big enough to allow for normal range. Make walls very durable so as to take serious fire before breaching. Though this mode will probably require attackers to have extra drops, like they can each pick 2 of their mechs to drop twice in their drop deck.

Maybe on one of the maps we can get a river or 2 that are actually deep enough to fully submerge mechs, even assaults. When submerge you get no radar info (friendly or foe) and can only fire lasers which have greatly reduced range. can be a great new tactical option to use.

Edited by Doc Arachinus, 04 March 2018 - 10:52 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

A number of us have tried, many times and with far greater clarity/detail and have not been heard.

I like your enthusiasm but right now we are just getting another half baked 'bandaid' for FP. If proper fixes were done we'd be much better off and would've years ago now.

Sadly upon deaf ears it falls.

[Vellron2005]

justcallme A S H, on 05 March 2018 - 01:02 AM, said:

A number of us have tried, many times and with far greater clarity/detail and have not been heard.

I like your enthusiasm but right now we are just getting another half baked 'bandaid' for FP. If proper fixes were done we'd be much better off and would've years ago now.

Sadly upon deaf ears it falls.

I can't believe I'm agreeing with you, but sadly, you are absolutely right..

"How to fix CW/FW/FP" threads are probably counted by the hundreds by now, and there was even a sit-down directly with PGI staff about this matter, and it all fell on deaf ears..

The very fact that they are removing restrictions for breaking loyalty and contracts is proof enough that they don't want to seriously fix the huge issues with this mode.

Quite the contrary. They are making the mode into QP with dropdecks.

It's all sad really.. :-(

[Vectoron]

A surprisingly simple first pass and rough draft of proposed Faction Warfare changes.

Understand that we know this is going to take a lot of time to do, and implement. However, we also know that faction warfare is in need of a rebirth. This is a list of features we feel like the community wants, and will take a bit of time.

We wanted to do a simple solution pass that was BattleTech friendly, and feasible to MWO. We have other big ideas, but honestly we wanted to keep it short for now to see what YOU thought before we proceeded to do more.

These are simple brainstormed features.

Features

• Making the unit coffer actually matter: We feel that the way to fixing faction warfare may have a lot to do with the Unit Coffer. Making that necessary may result in turning each conflict into a true, interstellar campaign. The following features make that more possible.
  
• Eliminating the risk financial abuse from New Accounts: Before we go further, we have to discuss this part. Rather than giving players a horde of C-Bills, give them an account bound, unsellable mech of their choice upon completing the trail. 8 mechs to choose from on both sides totaling 16 mechs. 8 Clan, 8 Inner Sphere - 2L, 2M, 2H, 2A. This prevents new accounts being made as money machines for unit coffers.
  
• Tech Salvaging: See below this feature list
  
• Black Market: In order to use tech that does not belong to your faction, you can either salvage it - or pay double the usual fee (INSIDE FACTION WARFARE) to purchase the tech. That system would be The Black Market, which has only a handful of mechs, and equipment for sale at any time.
  
• Repair and Rearm: This is to help slow the time it takes units to take a planet, and think about what they are doing before charging headlong into a generator rush. This function should be usable only for FW, and cost less than the initial pass. Units should also cough up the money for the repair bills of their members after a match, units should not be able to redeploy until they have repaired/rearmed all mechs. DO NOT ALLOW BORKED MECHS INTO A DROP!
  
• Unit BattleMech Hanger: We think that the ability to have the unit money spent on buying battlemechs is a fantastic idea! Players could either be loaned mechs (like trial mechs, OR given mechs completely!
  
• Jumpships: Jumpships are required to launch players into FW. The more you have, the more players you could field at one time. They also dictate how many Dropships you can have at one time.
  
• Dropships: Dropships are a stopgap between Jumpships and your forces. They dictate how many MFBs you can have at a time, and how many Salvage teams you have at a time. The more/better the dropships - the better their capacities and unit bonuses.
  
• MFBs: Mobile Field Bases are tools used outside of a match to Repair and Rearm quicker, and cheaper after a match. Each dropship comes with one MFB for “free.” The more you have, the less expensive overtime the repairs of your battlemechs become. Note: Not something you need to 3d model. It's just a “asset” your unit has.
  
• Salvage Teams: This introduces a whole new level and dynamic into Faction Warfare: The ability to field the opposing teams gear in limited quantities! Each dropship comes with one Salvage Team for “free.” For every team you have, the amount of salvaged technology you can scavenge increases as well as the type of loot!

NOTE: The numbers are all up to you. We are just throwing you some cool ideas on how to turn FW from sad, to amazing

Tech: IS vs Clan Tech

Idea A: Tech Salvaging
This idea comes with several moving parts for introduction - but adds a depth of balance to the game by giving the Inner Sphere or Clan the ability to use each others tech in small batches.

The idea behind tech salvaging is to give the IS and/or Clan the ability to pick up battlemechs for Faction Warfare use by playing faction warfare games and winning. We feel that a cap of 16 Clan Battlemechs (if you are Inner Sphere) or 16 Inner Sphere Battlemechs (if Clan) would allow different groups access to the opposing sides tech, and perhaps add a new dimension to Tech balance. Perhaps even allow the use of ONE clan battlemechs per Dropdeck even. Hell, if this goes right you could potentially remove the weight imbalance for IS vs Clan

The idea is that if the enemy has a Direwolf, for example, if you win the game, the computer rolls on a salvage table and gives your team a salvaged direwolf. For units equaling 4+ members, the salvaged Direwolf is added to a UNIT HANGER. In order for it to be used/given to a player for Faction Warfare purposes (either on a loan, like a trial mech or gifted) you have to use the money in your unit coffer to REPAIR THE MECH. Outfitting the mech would also cost UNIT MONEY as well, and you would have to buy the Clan Tech to do so off of a BLACK MARKET.

Basically, in order to use tech from either side - even if you swap factions - you have to have acquired the opposing factions gear via the Black Market, or Salvaging. Basically, you can only gain your own sides tech (at the time) naturally via public queue purchases. A opposing sides mech in your dropship must be obtained via Black Market, or Salvage.

Feature Requirements:

• A Black Market (Solely for Faction Warfare)
  
• Repair and Rearm Feature (Solely for Faction Warfare)
  
• A Unit Hanger

Understand, that these things are intended to ONLY IMPACT FW. No repair/rearm in quickplay or anything like that. JUST FW.

As for pugs? Well, actually some of this could help them too. Like giving salvage opportunities at random or something for good performance.

Anyway, this is a simple list of ideas for the use of PGI, or anyone who wants to add on to them.

Hope you enjoyed.

Edited by Vectoron, 05 March 2018 - 03:21 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

Most of the above are not points PGI should consider.

Quick wins and fixing core issues is what's needed. Not bringing in a bunch of new stuff. And sure as hell not R&R

[Vectoron]

Would you care to elaborate on these quick wins, and core issues? Perhaps you have some idea that you'd like to lay down, or have laid down on how to fix them as your earlier post suggests?

We gave our very simplest idea (frankly it took 10 minutes to piece together). The goal here is to continue to offer suggestion and feedback and get and/or keep conversation moving in the community.

So if you have ideas, we would be happy to see them!

On that note:

Any ideas from anyone, big or small, are welcome here! If you guys reading this have any ideas for Faction Warfare - drop them here!

Edited by Vectoron, 05 March 2018 - 03:09 PM.

[FASA IIC]

Some ideas for the list, these ideas are more for both QP and FP then just FP:

1. Balance games by cost of Mech as well as by weight: Some Mechs cost more then others. Some Mechs in the same weight class outperform some Mechs. By adding a weight of to balancing forces like this, it may prove to be balance out teams better. You still cannot account for player skills from Mech to Mech, but it would improve solo dropping. We already know PGI balances mechs in the store cost wise by a similar system.

2. Adding maintenance / Repair / Salvage to Mechs: An idea occurred to me while reading the OP. Initially I thought doing costs like this would just be a money and time sink for those who do not play often, but occasionally. I think the idea can be improved upon. Add these costs to the game, then add a system in which you pay for said costs with money... but not your money. I will explain.

Example: Lets say a pilot A makes 150k cbills on a win. Instead of just making that 150k, he dedicates a match he has to his House/Clan. The pilot makes no money on this said match, but instead makes three or four times in prestige for that for his House/Clan (450K-600K). This money is then put into a bank account for the pilot, in which the House/Clan returns the favor to his pilot by taking care of that much money in repairs up to that amount for that pilot. I think this way, it would makes Houses more relevant beyond RP usage and "IS or Clan".

Since this example is possible because Pilot A is a loyalist, it would make sense that this would be a safer option financially (Being tied to a great House/Clan that has infrastructure) then it would be to be Pilot B, who is a mercenary and only his himself or his unit. To offset this, as Pilot B, you can make salvaging mechs and the associated parts of them as salvageable after a drop. You could add a market system that is dynamic in what it will at what price at what time. You could make this market completely separate from the real current game market, and the proceeds go to mech maintenance accounts.

Example: Pilot B salvaged a good condition Beagle Active Probe from an IS mech. This week the market is only paying 40K cbills for the component, but the pilot knows he can get a better price for it. He holds the component in his salvage area for a week. Next week the market is paying 120K for the same piece. Pilot B sells it and makes 3 days worth of upkeep on his mech instead of 1 day. Now lets say the same piece next week isn't worth any more and he needs to pay his upkeep. Fortunately, Pilot B was smart and joined a Mercenary Unit. The unit coffer can be used to pay for said costs at the Units discretion.

By doing this, makes the universe more alive, without actually changing the combat.

3. Make Worlds have more strategically worth taking:

When I open up the system map in Faction Play and see all the planets, none of them really seem worth anything more then some MC here or there. There is no strategical importance to almost any of them, beyond that of having more marbles in your color then the enemy color.

Make certain worlds give advantages. You own a planet that makes Commandos? 10% discount in the store for Commandos. Your unit owns the world with a special Mineral? Heres some C-Bills for protecting / owning that mine. You own the planet with the factory that makes the ammunition for the Aero fighters? Here, have a free airstrike every once in a while.

By doing things like this, it brings the map to life, and by extension, makes some worlds worth owning more then others. They can become hotbeds in which people are always fighting over, because they want that world with the factory that makes that makes the special Jagermech widgets and gives you a break on maintenance. What about those other worlds you may ask? Well, maybe you have to slog through 3-4 unimportant worlds to get to the important one.

But the end result is a more enriched FP system in which people can care more about things in it.

Anyways, just a few ideas.

[Doc Arachinus]

I think salvage could be the 1st and probably one of the easiest to implement. Though I'm not sure I would go as far as actually salvaging mechs outright unless they where cockpited or both legs taken and even then I think I would make it a very small chance to actually allow for a pilot to secure. I would think salvage c-bills calculated at end of match could be revamped.
Mercs: you rep level would determine the percent of salvage you collect from any destroyed mechs though assist would only net a small amount of salvage where as a kill would net you slightly more as you secured the kill, and KMDD and solo kills would net vastly greater amounts of salvage. (thought would love to see non-mech asset put into game to help modify salvage amounts)
Loyalist salvage would also be determined by your loyalist rank. Also as a loyalist repair and rearm cost could be offset by your house rank. Loyalist defending their houses planets would always be granted higher rates then mercs.

as for actual parts and ammo this section would take a lot more time to implement though would set a whole new level of engagement in faction.

As for IS salvaging and fielding clan mechs/tech this I think could be a nitemare

Edited by Doc Arachinus, 05 March 2018 - 07:31 PM.

[FASA IIC]

@Doc

If you are referring to what I put for the salvage business, I wouldn't even make it available to Loyalists, due to the fact that you are a soldier of a Great House and not some scavenger doing his own thing. I do like the implementation of the Mercenary level affecting what you can salvage. You could instead have Loyalist Rank determine how much prestige you get for a map, should you opt for that option.

Overall, I would just like this game to feel more... alive, for a lack of better terms.

[justcallme A S H]

Vectoron, on 05 March 2018 - 02:47 PM, said:

Would you care to elaborate on these quick wins, and core issues? Perhaps you have some idea that you'd like to lay down, or have laid down on how to fix them as your earlier post suggests?

We gave our very simplest idea (frankly it took 10 minutes to piece together). The goal here is to continue to offer suggestion and feedback and get and/or keep conversation moving in the community.

The problem with your goal - it's just too much.

To fix the core issues with FP right now:

• Fix the Loyalist Rank 20. Most Loyalists are rank 20. Those Mechdads don't wanna leave their favourite faction they've been playing for 15 years. The game either needs a rank "re-run" system so that once you hit Rank 20, it resets... OR... Make Rank 30. Problem is higher ranks, more LP, more CBF. PGI's incoming fix does not address this issue, which is the big one.
  
• Population Balance. Population is incorrectly calculated and again, has ben since FP3.0. If populatiion did not count players over 60 days inactive. Wolf wouldn't have 14% and Diamond Shark 3%. This would go a long way to fix balance in terms of Merc Contract payouts and population so people would actually know if a side is stacked, or not. Right now it is impossibly hard to tell
  
• New issue of "MERC HOPPING" - Coming with this new PGI fix. If PGI attended to the above issue, this silly idea of Merc hopping whenever they want would not be needed. Doing this is going to make the game utterly stupid IMO. So that will need another fix to fix the fix...
  
• Tug of War bar does not work - A FP4.0 issue. It is flat out broken. You can spend 7.5hrs dropping, not lose a game and max the planet capture "bar" yet you can win 3 games in the last 30mins of the 8hrs cycle and stop a capture? That is just so farken dumb I don't know where to start. It needs to be designed better and not mean the final 3 matches matter each cycle.
  
• Make winning mean something - PUGs/Solos dont care about playing like a team because winning doesnt mean much. They will get the same LP no matter what to farm rewards. So make teamwork important. If you win a game you get 2MC - this accumulates and is capped at 10MC. Losing only gets 0.5MC still capped at 5MC per cycle. It's not a massive amount of MC but it will reward you for winning and working towards winning.

Now this is just the START of what is needed to fix FP. I have more but for the benefit of clarity and simplicity... I'll stop there for now.

Sorry but Repair / Rearm, MFB / Salvage / Black Market - and pretty much all of what you guys are saying is absolute pie in the sky stuff. The mean dev hours it'll take to design all that stuff is absurd. Paul said at Mechcon he thinks investing in FP is a waste of time and you're coming out with ideas that require 6-12 months work. It'll never happen and including or even trying to do so, just clouds and detracts from the major issues that plague the mode that - if fixed / addressed - Might get some people playing again and others continuing....

Most of all? Most of it is simple/easy stuff that can be done in 3-4 months and without a lot of dev hours.

So again you need to get back to reality guys.

[Doc Arachinus]

well a lot of what you are talking bout I want addressed. A lot of the tug of war could be resolved by slowing down the invasion process and making planets meaningful.
Pop balance and merc hopping wasn't something I thought about though the not counting inactive players should be a simply quick fix.
The loyalty issue is a big one. I recently left marik cuz I maxed out my loyalty and no longer had any incentive to continue under their flag when I could switch and have incentive under a new flag.
so our ideals have merit and meaning as they would be a start on fixing core issues.

[justcallme A S H]

Sorry but I don't agree they have meaning at all because you don't understand PGI and the landscape MWO is in. You're literally talking an entire mode revamp. Look how long FP3 0 took, 18months and it didn't deliver 1/4 of what you are proposing... Let that sink in for a second.

What you are asking for is as I said, too much time / money. Plus repairing in game? Do you have any idea how that is going to unbalance the game? I don't think you do. And R&R in mechlab? That just further punishes new players with added cbill sinks. No thanks.

I don't believe you've taken reality into account when putting forward these ideas and I hope they don't get traction for reasons I outlined previously. More important stuff to fix.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 06 March 2018 - 01:37 PM.

[Xannatharr]

Not to be a buzzkill, but Ash has has absolutely nailed it here.

justcallme A S H, on 06 March 2018 - 01:36 PM, said:

Sorry but I don't agree they have meaning at all because you don't understand PGI and the landscape MWO is in. You're literally talking an entire mode revamp. Look how long FP3 0 took, 18months and it didn't deliver 1/4 of what you are proposing... Let that sink in for a second.

What you are asking for is as I said, too much time / money. Plus repairing in game? Do you have any idea how that is going to unbalance the game? I don't think you do. And R&R in mechlab? That just further punishes new players with added cbill sinks. No thanks.

I don't believe you've taken reality into account when putting forward these ideas and I hope they don't get traction for reasons I outlined previously. More important stuff to fix.

We need to shoot for very modest goals to address low-hanging fruit that requires minimal development time to implement.

The opportunity to get a fully-immersive game mode with amazing details to build player investment has passed. We are talking about a niche game mode in a niche game built on a game engine that was already showing its age when it was deployed... six years ago.

Perhaps Mechwarrior 5 will bring the golden opportunity for awesome "think big" concepts. For now, let's just see if we can get small, measurable improvements that sustain interest in the mode.

Regards,

Xann

Edited by Xannatharr, 06 March 2018 - 02:40 PM.

[Doc Arachinus]

justcallmeash well 1st thing I never wanted R&R that's just too much nor do I want in game repairing. Repairing in the middle of a match would be a balance killer. What we were talking about was for an after match repair/rearm feature to add some realism/econ feature to the faction part of the game, though this is low on the totem pole for priotities. I'm shooting for small changes over time. Salvage re-calc would be a small change. I'm fully aware of what ive been asking for. that's why ive been wording what I have the way I have. Not sure why your calling on all this other stuff. Yeah there are some things in there that will take some time but u just put it on the to-do list and just one by one slowly tick them off your list. Think once we get acouple smaller items pushed through it will be easier to get others. Its clear everyone wants to slow down the invasion process and make planets mean something, this part will not be small how ever.

[50 50]

Doc Arachinus, on 04 March 2018 - 06:27 PM, said:

1) slow down invasion process of planets. taking planets should be a lengthy process,
2) more avenues to invest our c-bills then just buying and modding mechs.
3) skill system.
4) aero assets.
5) real unit/player econ.
6) salvage system
7) taking/defending planets should have meaning.
8) final phase maybe a solo drop only massive fight

1) Can agree with that to allow more participation and make the conquest of planets more meaningful. However, I feel that it is not practical with the map we currently have. Too many planets = not much value in them. There is also a problem with individual factions having very small borders and therefore can't protect planets of greater strategic value easily because it is just too close to a neighbour. Look at the FRR vs Steiner for example.
2, 4, 5 & 6) Very similar concepts. Allowing players to invest into the map and the war is what it boils down to. Great ideas but certainly need to have some other pieces in place before being able to get to this. Currently there simply isn't any features that support us spending our c-bills on... except perhaps the consumables, but that means changing the way they currently work.
However, a big point to take in here is that if the actual battles are literally 'quick play with drop decks' then the areas that more depth can be built into site in the before and after of the battles. Ie. Some sort of preparation/staging that we need to invest into and some sort of impact to ourselves and our group from the outcome of those battles.
3) Expanding the skill tree is probably not going to get anywhere. It's pretty messy as is and the original concept did have individual weapon trees which got down voted.
7) Can't really because of the map. See 1
8) Game limit of 12 v 12 unfortunately. Only way around that might be to implement a drop out, drop in sort of system that cycles players through from the queue when a player dies. Whether that is even possible... ie. being able to join an existing instance of a battle... don't know.
I would go so far as suggesting as it could be given some of the other features we have and that are on the way.
I believe it actually means 24 active players in the battle. We know this because we can get two spectators in on private lobbies and 30 or something for Solaris? We can have more than 24 mechs active because there is that thing in the Escort mode.
However, would need to address some other issues such as drop zones because the spawn camping would be epic. Could only see it working for skirmish mode as well due to the other modes having an alternative objective that can end the match. Pretty easy to extend the match timer, question would be extend it to what? An hour?

justcallme A S H, on 06 March 2018 - 01:11 AM, said:

To fix the core issues with FP right now:

• Fix the Loyalist Rank 20.
  
• Population Balance.
  
• New issue of "MERC HOPPING"
  
• Tug of War bar does not work
  
• Make winning mean something

• Fix the Loyalist Rank 20 - Extending the ranks to level 30 won't fix anything, just delay it for what.... a month? Setting it up so that you can re-earn the ranks would work but it just seems such a dirty fix. Right at the moment, we can't lose ranks, but we do lose points if we break contract. (because we could earn the same rewards by farming lower levels) That suggests that there is already in place two separate scales we can work with, a point balance and a rank achieved. Best answer: Put in place an option to convert points to c-bills/MC once we reach a certain rank. (That shouldn't be hard, look at all the conversion things we have for skill points). This creates a need/desire to earn those points back so we can spend them again.
  
• Population Balance - Contract reset will help somewhat, but I have no idea why there isn't a more dynamic system in place to provide a more accurate figure. The alternative would be not to use the population but some other metric such as 'how many planets does your faction control'.
  
• New issue of "MERC HOPPING" - I.... um..... yeah.
  
• Tug of War bar does not work - same thing happened when the planet sectors were used. Can only think that a tally system might solve this so that a side that does spend the 7.5 hours fighting and winning accrues more points than a side that only drops for 0.5 hours can. Highest tally wins. Encourages greater participation. It would be worth extending the attack phases as well to allow more players to participate in each conflict, but not while there are 4 billion pointless planets to manage.
  
• Make winning mean something - losing gives no LP so it would serve as it's own encouragement to do the best to win (ie. team up) if earning the LP had more meaning. See converting LP to c-bills/MC.

[justcallme A S H]

So I was wondering, how much FP you guys with the wild ideas have played...

FP games played Season 2 (so, 9 months???).

Doc Arachinus - 63 games
Vectoron (Unit BLF) - 51 games
FASA IIC (Unit BLF) - 26 games

So what we have here is 2 unit mates posting ideas of a mode they clearly do not fully understand because, they've never played it. And then another guy that hasn't played either.

I've played 1,226 just this season. IIRC it was about that last season as well.

Doc Arachinus, on 06 March 2018 - 03:56 PM, said:

justcallmeash well 1st thing I never wanted R&R that's just too much nor do I want in game repairing.

It does not matter "who" said it specifically... My response was in general as between Vectoron, FASA and yourself - you guys just don't get it. There is no other way I can say it and you clearly don't have any concept of just how bad your ideas are mate.

I mean if you want me to go into specifics - Your stuff:

Doc Arachinus, on 04 March 2018 - 06:27 PM, said:

3) skill system. instead of just skilling a mech you would half to skill the individual components. So you could have 3 LPLs all upgraded differently and even when unmounted would go into inventory with its skills for use on another mech. also allow for skilling of ammo, aero assets and hanger assets.

Doc Arachinus, on 04 March 2018 - 06:27 PM, said:

6) salvage system: Instead of a generalized salvage calculation at end of match make it reflect a players performance in match. For every KMDD player gets 5% of the value of any un-destroyed components and for solos increase amount to 7% and for the rare head caps give a very small chance of taking home the mech. other salvage maybe like 1% on any assist.

#3 - pie in the sky. PGI not capable, should never happen anyway. Impossible to balance.

#6 - hurts new / lower skill players.

Both bad, sorry.

Same with slowing the invasion process? It should take days? Well what then about units winning a cycle for MC? You've just discouraged even more players from the mode. People are not commit days to a cycle, nor is the community big enough to do it, never will be.

You 3 guys clearly do not understand the impacts of what you are proposing nor how impossible they are and the dangerous flow-on effects.

Anyway not a lot more I need to say here. I've said enough.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 06 March 2018 - 11:00 PM.

[Kubernetes]

Know what I would like to see? A unit mech pool. Every member can select one mech from each class from his own garage that can be "borrowed" by a fellow unit member for a match. It would allow unit members to test-drive your builds or fill out a deck for a particular map. If I want to show illCapitan my sweet new Wolverine build, I can designate it for the pool and let him drive it for a match. It would also help new players who join units (and perhaps even incentivize them) because they could borrow optimized mechs from vets for FW drops instead of using trial mechs.

[zolop]

I think ash they just wanted more depth in the system for faction warfare besides system ownership and loyality bonuses. The tug of war system is simpleistic and boring. It would be far more interesting if we had a global map where we could attack/defend the supply lanes between bases, supply raids on bases, then the attacker has to escape or other missions that would effect the global picture of that planet. Then we could choose to more our lance to areas where it is needed to defend or attack as game time goes on. There are lot more interesting options that PGI can look into than adjusting the tug or war system. Then we could keep the larger picture of warfare on the galactic map. MAybe I just need to Battletech Online already from harebrained schemes.


What would make me come back to FP on a regular basis (and maybe the unit I was in)...
Repair and Rearm
Player DropShip
Unit/Merc Dropship
Player/Merc Base
Salvage of mech parts, weapons and the inner components/system of mechs.
Black Market buying and selling based on player's location.

Edited by zolop, 06 March 2018 - 09:09 PM.