103 replies to this topic

[Sjorpha]

Bishop Six, on 23 June 2018 - 02:54 AM, said:

You can be what you are, i'm fine with that. I stay what i am. For me sportsmanship and honour is more important than my epeen. Maybe your "values" are a picture of our society, sad enough. Last word from me to this topic.

The problem is you haven't explained why using LRMs is in any way dishonourable or unsportsmanlike, you simply assert that it is for some unknown reason. What makes playing LRMs + Narc ethically distinct from playing the Queen's indian in chess? It's just a move you can make in the game. Is playing something effectively somehow ethically more wrong than playing it ineffectively, so that LRMs become immoral in the hands of a strong team? Why? Those are the things that doesn't compute in your posts.

And now you're doing some kind of weird self-pity act about how other people are elitists banging you n the head or have some set of undefined bad values that are "a picture of our society", supposedly in a bad way.

That's is both unfair and aggressive. In real life I'm a human rights activist working with refugees in a cooperative business, my values are defined by humanism and the pursuit of well being of all conscious creatures. There is no grounds to link strategies in games to what values a person might hold or pursue in society.

In fact the competitive amoral approach is the nicest and most sportsmanlike way to play games and sports. Simply assuming that everyone plays to win within the confines of the rules. Your team could have simply thought "Ok, how to we answer this strategy" and tried to do so, instead you're bringing negative judgement and irrelevant morals into the equation, that is the only real example of toxicity and lack of sportsmanship in this specific case, unless there were also things like inappropriate chat messages and so on which is another issue.

Edited by Sjorpha, 23 June 2018 - 06:51 AM.

[Weeny Machine]

PuGs avoid FP because it is simply no fun to get rolled by premades. If you want to revive FP, you need to seperate PuGs and premades. However, this wouldn't help the premade players because their part of the game would still be dead.

[Sjorpha]

Also, yes it would be nice if PGI could focus on Faction Play now.

Their hostility towards units and organised play has been going on for too long, it's time to realise that the units and the free work they do for the community, faction play and comp play is the greatest resource PGI has access to, and it should be encouraged rather than actively sabotaged like PGI did with phase 3.

We need a Faction Play that is about self-organisation, units and teamplay. And there needs to be a strategic macro game where capturing territory matters strategically, not just in some reward system. Wars need to be winnable so that large scale player organisation is meaningful.

[Spheroid]

@Bush Hopper: That was already tried in phase three. The solo queue broke down and stopped functioning not the group queue. Why would expect results not to repeat themselves?

[Khobai]

Spheroid, on 23 June 2018 - 07:09 AM, said:

@Bush Hopper: That was already tried in phase three. The solo queue broke down and stopped functioning not the group queue. Why would expect results not to repeat themselves?

because back then every faction had its own bucket, you had 10 different buckets, which is why the solo queue failed. because the game couldnt assemble together enough players when there were so many different buckets.

now theres only 2 faction buckets

thats a huge difference

thats why the results wouldnt repeat themselves


pug vs premade is undoubtedly one of the major reasons FW has been such a failure.

other reasons include: bad tech balance, poor rewards for losing, missing logistical/immersive elements, and lastly the complete and utter lack of dinosaurs.

Edited by Khobai, 23 June 2018 - 07:16 AM.

[Koniving]

Anastasius Foht, on 21 June 2018 - 12:22 AM, said:

FP need SoloQ, whole idea about unit's game play obviously not so popular (same reason why GroupQ is dead - not enough organized people for premade drops).
Made mode between "Scout" and "Invasion", call it "Planetary Militia" phase when defend planet and "Mercenary Pug" when attack, made it SoloQ only, and you lure enough players to try FP at least.

It had a solo queue.
Everyone made one person groups to get the **** out of it.

Thus it got removed.

Problem wasn't solo queue itself, but not enough players played it and abandoned it.

[Mystere]

Khobai, on 21 June 2018 - 10:50 AM, said:

im not even kidding.

LOL! ... ...

[Khobai]

im really not kidding about dinosaurs

orion:prelude is pretty much the worst game on steam, and its sold 2 million copies, which is more players than this game has ever had. you really cant argue with those numbers; its proof that your game doesnt need to be good, it just needs dinosaurs.

Youre all expecting PGI to invest money/devtime in something that wont draw in new players or generate new revenue streams. That would be an extremely poor business decision.

But adding dinosaurs is an easy way to attract new players and milk a couple extra million out of an already dying game. especially with the popularity of dinosaurs spiking recently due to the new jurassic world movie. It even has potential to revive the FP population by adding a new dinosaur faction. It could even possibly save solaris with gladiatorial bouts vs dinosaurs.


"but dinosaurs ruin the integrity of the battletech universe"

PGI has already done that. Games going down the toilet fast. Dinosaurs can save it though.

Nothing else is gonna draw in enough new players to turn things around. Just stopping the bleeding isnt enough. This game needs a full on blood transfusion to survive.

selling out to dinosaur interest groups is the best option to save the game

Edited by Khobai, 23 June 2018 - 08:22 AM.

[Koniving]

Mystere, on 23 June 2018 - 07:15 AM, said:

LOL! ... ...

Khobai, on 23 June 2018 - 07:22 AM, said:

im really not kidding about dinosaurs

He isn't.

Contrary to the short story mentioning an agro-mech, that's a Bushwacker.

Oh, and lets not forget dragons.

Taken directly from Sarna.net
http://www.sarna.net..._Beast_Infantry

Not quite a chocobo, but close enough.

http://www.sarna.net...ounted_Infantry

The giant centipedes on Viridian Bog could also be a fun addition; just have a chance of spawning one that attacks indiscriminately if you happen in its area.

Could treat it like a random chance storm.
In fact the game could use more random chance storms, too.....

[Khobai]

Quote

The giant centipedes on Viridian Bog could also be a fun addition; just have a chance of spawning one that attacks indiscriminately if you happen in its area.

robots vs dinosaurs vs giant insects. that is perfect.

[Koniving]

A call of duty designer on reddit asked what Battlefield had that Call of Duty didn't.

A joking response was "dinosaurs."

And soon after Battlefield 3 had dinosaurs.

In fact..

My Emblem on BF3.

[Koniving]

Actually look up dinosaurs and battlefield 3...and you can kinda see how much people go nuts for dinosaurs even if it doesn't actually happen beyond a few random dinosaur toys laying around in game.

[Nightbird]

Davegt27, on 23 June 2018 - 04:24 AM, said:

Can We Focus On Fp Now?

well no

the try hards constant crying has sort of killed things

they put a lot of work into the mode for phase 4 and they seemed to be a little feed up

give it to around Nov and I am sure they will get back to working on FP

Who is crying? lol

[Humpday]

FP would be nice. Though, I wish it made it more impactful the way "winning" works.

I wish there was a AI commander(I would think most of us have careers/wife's/husbands/etc to deal with IRL, managing a virtual army for real seems a bit much) of the faction directing the army telling you who you Need to crush, and what planets you need to take for strategic advantage.

They need to get more creative. For example, introduce planets that are "supply" planets. If you over extend without properly garrisoning the rear supply lines, and the enemy cuts you off from the supply. Well, those that are cut off lose some ammo per ton, and automatically lose 1 consumable slot. And for energy boats lose DHS/SHS efficiency due to not being able to adaquately maintain their mechs(relax is just an idea). Do things like that, and you'll immediately get less "rush the capital". And people will come off the front to maintain the rear gaurd.

All this is then clearly displayed on the map clearly marking what planets are in danger of being taken and if those planets are of strategic importance. Of course then there is the enemy capital planet, and if your faction can bulldozes their way directly to that planet and take it...you win the "campaign" once won, you get something like a couple million cbills and a 100 bag, grab bag.

At this point the AI can create diplomatic scenarios and let the faction vote on what they want to do. Form an alliance with davion, attack kurita, betray marik, and side with Liao. This will then dictate what your faction does next and what bonuses you receive, either monetarily, or boosts directly to your campaign progression(minor buffs/nerfs to certain weapons, cooling efficiency). Maybe during the "voting" phase you temp become another faction(the weakest) allowing you to keep fighting(and helping this weak faction out), but you "winning" for them only progresses them a fraction of what it normally would.

Anyway, right now everything seems convoluted. You don't ever really feel like your doing anything in the overall aspect of the game.

Edited by Humpday, 23 June 2018 - 11:37 AM.

[Weeny Machine]

Spheroid, on 23 June 2018 - 07:09 AM, said:

@Bush Hopper: That was already tried in phase three. The solo queue broke down and stopped functioning not the group queue. Why would expect results not to repeat themselves?

Well, maybe the FP is really for the minority then. The question is: is it feasible to commit resources to this mode? Just asking. I cannot answer the question /shrug

[Koniving]

Humpday, on 23 June 2018 - 08:27 AM, said:

They need to get more creative. For example, introduce planets that are "supply" planets. If you over extend without properly garrisoning the rear supply lines, and the enemy cuts you off from the supply. Well, those that are cut off lose some ammo per ton, and automatically lose 1 consumable slot. And for energy boats lose DHS/SHS efficiency due to not being able to adaquately maintain their mechs(relax is just an idea). Do things like that, and you'll immediately get less "rush the capital". And people will come off the front to maintain the rear gaurd.

They were creative.

Then they stopped caring.

[Khobai]

Bush Hopper, on 23 June 2018 - 08:47 AM, said:

Well, maybe the FP is really for the minority then. The question is: is it feasible to commit resources to this mode? Just asking. I cannot answer the question /shrug

its not feasible for PGI to devote resources into anything that doesnt attract new players or generate new revenue streams at this point

and the disgruntled current/former players are mostly tapped out as a source of future revenue

[Brain Cancer]

The problem is that FP and the playerbase are like attempting to combine sodium and water. You generally just get something exploding.

Most of the playerbase is conditioned to play games where they don't have to get in line with a unit, don't have to worry about whether their robot is Clan or IS, etc. etc. Rewards for FP that encouraged other tactics simply got us merc units that harvested those rewards by cheerfully going from one faction to the next, as there was no reason for loyalty to any of them.

All FP does right now is plow any player potentially interested into games with said organized farming, and them puts them down for the count until they go back to QP, where nobody bothers them and fun occurs.

Mixing IS and Clan robots in QP teams should never have happened. It should have been IS vs IS, IS vs Clan, or Clan vs Clan. We would then have had a seamless transition to FP, as you could have at the least built something around the QP mode models to a more campaign-like system.

PGI instead has squandered their options until we ended up locked into what exists now, and a dead FP system for lack of sufficient players to populate it, being forced to jam everything into IS vs Clan with whatever they can scrape together.

The best thing that could happen to FP now is a mercy shot between the eyes, an attempt at a kind euology, and burying the entire thing in the nearest trash heap.

[Vellron2005]

I posted this in the other similar threads too, but wlll also post it here, cose' I think it has merit..

I have been literally saying this for years.. Faction Play needs to be "campaign mode" while QP needs to be "arcade mode" - not by name, but by how they are treated..

Right now, QP is main course, and FP is main course with dropdecks..

Here are, yet again, a few suggestions on how FP should be:

1) Factions must be distinctive - Certain mechs available only to certain factions at normal prices - all other factions have to buy on black market at higher prices

2) Planets must have value - logistics, supply lines, mech factories - all to help lower mech and weapon prices and availability. Holding planets must have value. Loosing planets must be felt by everybody in that faction.

3) Loyalist vs. Mercenary vs. Freelancer must be a serious tradeoff in terms of not just match rewards, but mech availability, prices, and event availability.

4) There needs to be much much more immersion - we need to feel that we are a part of an interstellar war.. not an e-sport arcade shooter. Give us news from the front, give us famous heroes, celebrity faces and frequent special missions.

5) IS vs IS and Clan vs. Clan combat needs to be a thing.

6) Disband all units - focus on factions. Open dedicated Faction VOIP servers and TS servers - In-game. No more Evil, CWI, 12DG.. only Clan Wolf, Steiner and such..

7) Add proper tutorials for FP, with how to play, good strategies, and training.

8) Make the maps and map rotation make sense... If a frozen planet is being attacked, don't drop us on Vitric.. Also, make attack phases make sense, and be immersive.

9) Raid events - Make events that are a few days long, and effect the war effort, have a clear objective (like taking a valuable planet, or destroying it's mech factory ect.), and have the results of that raid have an impact on the factions involved. (Like if a planet with a mech factory producing Atlases got leveled, Atlas prices are 10% more expensive for a week).

10) Make more FP-only maps.. don't make them totally one-sided like or impossible to win on like Vitric.. Add other objectives other than taking out Omega. Space cannons are not the only important thing when attacking a planet.. Make us hunt for VIPs, disrupt supply routes, take out bridges, factories, or space ports.

11) No Ghost drops - if no players join to oppose attackers, fill the ranks with A.I. controlled opposition - possibly including tanks, aerospace and other assets besides mechs.

12) Faction leadership sponsored by PGI - hire people who will take on famous celebrity leadership roles, like Melissa Steiner, Victor Davion or the clan Khans. Make them manage factions, pick attack routes based on popular vote, and help new players. Make their presence in-game visible and useful. Make them drop-command.

13) If one side reaches objective, like if the clans win Terra or IS takes a clan homeworld - season ends, and there is a loud, obvious announcement, special event and rewards, and only after you publicly acknowledge the result, then you can reset the map.

It would be awesome if PGI took note of this..

[Mechwarrior1441491]

Bush Hopper, on 23 June 2018 - 06:52 AM, said:

PuGs avoid FP because it is simply no fun to get rolled by premades. If you want to revive FP, you need to seperate PuGs and premades. However, this wouldn't help the premade players because their part of the game would still be dead.

I've posted concepts before, where there is the regular map and also a pirate worlds map. The pirate worlds FP is for Solo players. MAYBE groups of 2. Push it to 4 if they must, but the point is to have new or not that talented players feel they can get some experience in it without being a ball and chain on experienced players. So, give them 8-12 worlds to mess around over. Learn the maps etc. Eventually they will team up and get friends to move onto actual FP.

Sort of like the Quickplay of Faction Play.

So say we all.

Edited by Mechwarrior1441491, 26 June 2018 - 06:46 AM.