32 replies to this topic

[Grus]

"For what, though? What's the endgame? We've been way past Terra before and nothing, just a reset."

This... I mean, don't get me wrong the events are nice here and there. But as a whole FW needs something... extra... it's like eating a meal that needs salt and or pepper but none to be found.. the rewards just arnt there to bring the draw of people us FW units would like to see.

I'm sure a thread lile this has been up befor. Just want this said again to make sure the devs hear the squeezing gear..

[UnKnownPlayer]

The rewards for FP were always ephemeral, the point was pushing the map around, the point was taking planets from units that had tagged them, the point was trying to beat that unbeatable 12 man you keep going up against.

Stop allowing faction / contract changes more than once a month or every 3 months or something, that would bring back some rivalry and get people more interested again. Bring back bonuses based on population but make the gap bigger and maybe base it on coalition states like steiner-davion rather than having too many faction to split the population between (did we even need 2 new clans to further mess up the contract system?).

[Johnathan Tanner]

UnKnownPlayer, on 21 June 2018 - 06:20 AM, said:

The rewards for FP were always ephemeral, the point was pushing the map around, the point was taking planets from units that had tagged them, the point was trying to beat that unbeatable 12 man you keep going up against.

Stop allowing faction / contract changes more than once a month or every 3 months or something, that would bring back some rivalry and get people more interested again. Bring back bonuses based on population but make the gap bigger and maybe base it on coalition states like steiner-davion rather than having too many faction to split the population between (did we even need 2 new clans to further mess up the contract system?).

Why do people keep insisting on being spoon fed a lore experience from PGI? I really dont get it. The flavor was in the player created conflicts driven by space nerds larping on the forums. I knew alot of those guys, Alot of them were terrible players who almost never dropped. But we loved them anyway. Because what they did got us gud fights.

Also population based bonuses are a proven failure. In phase 3 the jade falcon **** train was stacked between 75-85% of the merc population at anyone time. Why?

A. Winning

B. Winning with longtoms

And locking units in contracts for 3 months will result in 2 things.

A 5 minute conversation between unit leaders to decide which side to stack.
And alot of people going inactive because they will get bored of rolling pugs in the same tech for months on end.

Map resets and seasons. Map resets killed it for loyalists, It invalidates all their work. I remember when 30 people on the marik TS said **** this game and left in one night after all they did to wage war against davion was erased. (And this was when their was no payout for planet tags, Just the ability to say WE DID THIS)

I really need to point out that the clans have never taken terra. MS and friends did. Then they marched back up as IS for funnzes. Go back to 2014-15 forums and look at all the large merc unit hate threads. Theres alot of them. Single attack lanes where created not because of population decline, But to check the power of anyone who dared to get on comms and field more than 1 12 man. It failed and instead drove people away from the mode.

Voting. Voting is bad. Like really bad. Loyalist community's of factions with large pug populations often couldn't control their 1 attack lane ( I remember I was doing my rounds on the Marik TS, Spreading the word about who the bosses wanted to put the lane on, Then I go into a channel theres one dude who never plays CW but a votes a vote. So I tell him what his own unit leader told me to do. And he tells me to go **** myself he already voted his way, I said why man you dont even play the mode? His response was I think you guys should fight who I think, But I wont be there.) Its also very easy for alts from the other side to rig your vote.In a game where alts are allowed. Its been done. The reason its not being done now is because no one cares anymore. When we escape the bukkit if voting is a thing im out.

In closing

Have PGI make the mode as originally promised to the playerbase
????
fun

[Leone]

The point is a glorious twelve v twelve game mode focused on teamplay and coordination. We've got group queue for moving from a solo focused Quickplay to a more team oriented mode. Community Warfare is the next stage. It's where you go when you're ready to work together.

~Leone.

[Johnathan Tanner]

Leone, on 21 June 2018 - 08:06 AM, said:

The point is a glorious twelve v twelve game mode focused on teamplay and coordination.

~Leone.

Thats what it is now. If thats all it was ever supposed to be? Then why is it dying?

~Tanner

[UnKnownPlayer]

Tanner, that is EXACTLY what I am talking about, im not bothered about them giving us a story, just allowing us to make our own, everything is short term at the moment, we rarely see the same units on the other side, LAS are a notable exception recently, which makes it hard to generate a decent conflict.

[Johnathan Tanner]

UnKnownPlayer, on 21 June 2018 - 08:39 AM, said:

we rarely see the same units on the other side,

Well to fix that the factions would need their identity and more importantly their attack lanes backs. Then you need to give people a reason to queue up, Hard to do if your team is consistently being out skilled by the other side (Happened to me alot taking pugs against the golden horde in phase 2) Coarse thats where faction identity and the forum larper's come into the picture. trust me it works. Teams that would rage quit against evil after 1 drop can go all night long if they feel like what their doing matters.

[Marquis De Lafayette]

I am not hopeful that we will get the “flavor” back....even though we need it...badly. Everything we have seen them do lately is about improving functionality (two buckets, easy contract flips to help balance queues, etc) . We have a more functional, but a more boring, bland version of the mode than we had in Phase 3 (which had flavor, but was more broken...longtom, etc)... don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy it far more than other modes...but it lacks most of the things a mode like this should have.

Lack of flavor doesn’t mean that PGI can’t get population into the mode whenever it wants to though...The truth is PGI can get nearly whatever population they might want in the mode whenever they want it via just giving players stuff. Look at the sheer amount of MC they are giving away over these couple of weeks in this latest QP event. It’s a lot. If PGI did that for FW, queues would be hopping as even the rawest of pugs will grind the mode for premium in-game currency....ironically while much seal blood would be spilt, there would also be plenty of pug v. pug games that happen just due to the lack of active FW units. You can actually have a lot of fun solo pugging during big giveaways, as the chance of your pug team running into another pug team is much higher. Even some GQ units that avoid FW might venture in for some of that sweet MC. However, without “flavor” to the mode only a few will stay once the MC (warhorns, etc) stops flowing. Flavor is what kept many here and once the flavor started to depart...some of the playerbase did as well.

[50 50]

I think the best thing we could do right now would be to:

Ignore the map.
This is to get rid of the limitations created by having a border decide who we can fight against.

Change the teams so they can only consist of players from a single faction.
This is to get players to re-identify with their faction and not just be a mixed team of skittles.

Change to a free for all system.
Let any one team from one faction get matched against any team from another faction.
This is to allow any combination of IS vs IS, Clan vs Clan or IS vs Clan match to occur.
It is to also combat wait times simply by allowing the battles to occur if there is enough players in another team from another faction ready to go.


WARNING:
The above changes may require more flexibility in the match maker to allow for varying team sizes.
This is because we have 13 different factions.
To do this means limiting individual groups to a maximum of 4.
However, add to that a way to basically legitimize 'sync dropping' by linking up to three groups of a single faction so that if another faction happens to have enough players, the match maker can get players into a battle be it 4v4, 8v8 or 12v12.

I would also seriously suggest we need to combine some factions into 'sides', most notably the clans and while they can still retain that individual faction identity, there should perhaps just be a 'Warden' and a 'Crusader' side.
This is to also allow the introduction of new clans without further diluting the players.
The same could be said for the Inner Sphere as there are a few other factions that could be added, but they should go into a single 'side'. Eg: FRR, St Ives Compact, the various periphery states could all be one 'side'.



The Benefits
Large groups, typically because these are units and units always belong to a single faction, should be able to match up against each other pretty easily and have some good fights.
Smaller units that might only make one or two lances will also be able to get matches because there are probably quite a few floating between the different factions.
It also means that a larger group will still be able to get matches as their linked group can be split to fight multiple smaller groups.
We get immediate variety because we get inter faction conflict.
We get immediate variety because there is the potential for different sizes of battles.
We could seriously reduce wait times.

But more than that, as soon as we get some of that faction identity back, we can start looking at the next part which is the map and all that goes with it. ie. Planets with values, supply lines, logistics etc.

Edited by 50 50, 22 June 2018 - 07:08 PM.

[W4R GOD]

We cant even engage in some witty banter on the forums without a mod parking the fun bus.

How the hell can we get rivalries going and inject "flavor"?

[Nightbird]

I agree, just having salt is good but can get boring, can we get some BBQ or Cajun sauce? Thx

[Grus]

W4R GOD, on 23 June 2018 - 06:34 PM, said:

We cant even engage in some witty banter on the forums without a mod parking the fun bus.

How the hell can we get rivalries going and inject "flavor"?

Yeah I mean it's rare a EVIL post gets past page 3...

Nightbird, on 24 June 2018 - 11:58 AM, said:

I agree, just having salt is good but can get boring, can we get some BBQ or Cajun sauce? Thx

Agreed, I'm not asking for a new experience just some added flavor. Something, anything really.

[McGoat]

I have tried many times to stir up some banter and get the folks wanting to kill win against us even more than they do now*..
Each time I have had my posting rights revoked.

In order to add flavor one must be willing to add a little spice. The problem is sous chef is allergic to all spice (haha, all-spice!) and bans it
*Well, when they actually come to play the game vs watching their friends list for the one or two players who haven't removed opposition yet.

Edited by McGoat, 27 June 2018 - 09:06 AM.

[MischiefSC]

How about we have actual factions that mean something?

Oh, wait, we did but apparently that wasn't a useful facet to Faction Warfare so that got removed for 1 Bukkit - so that, ironically, the matchmaker could more easily handle the voiding of population that adding 1 Bukkit would create.

We had several windows over the years to make meaningful changes to FW. Several. We were vocal about them, we had face to face talks with PGI about them, PGI didn't just ignore them - it responded by shooting FW in the gut and leaving it to bleed out.

PGI screwed and abandoned FW so badly that it genuinely deserves a magazine article writeup on 'this is absolutely what you do NOT do, ever, as a game designer'. At this point the only thing PGI could do to **** CW more would be to have a spinning image of the whole PGI leadership team going 'LOLOLOLOLOL' while stuffing a raised middle finger at your face as the waiting screen for ghost drops.

Edited to add -

I'm just a pinch salty.

Just a pinch.

Edited by MischiefSC, 27 June 2018 - 12:06 PM.

[Grus]

McGoat, on 27 June 2018 - 09:06 AM, said:

I have tried many times to stir up some banter and get the folks wanting to kill win against us even more than they do now*..
Each time I have had my posting rights revoked.

In order to add flavor one must be willing to add a little spice. The problem is sous chef is allergic to all spice (haha, all-spice!) and bans it
*Well, when they actually come to play the game vs watching their friends list for the one or two players who haven't removed opposition yet.

maybe graduated magnacumloada from evergreen PC doctorate program, a well earned degree to be sure. But yes, it's to the point that you have to have some SERIOUS R.P. script to "throw a gauntlet" as it were to skirt ever so slightly under a mods ban hammer... walking on egg shells in a room of snowflakes is my take on this.

[Q]

This thread made me think to google 'snowflake vs toxic' and I found this internet gem:

http://oldfashionedh.../snowflakes.pdf

I think I was able to get to page 2 or so.

[Xannatharr]

This is the main Flavor my team got served up last night...

But we ate the meal like men, had some fun brawls and worked on what we wanted to work on. Props to the Comstar hub premade we bumped into; it's nice being able to make a gentleman's agreement to leave the bases alone on Incursion so you can have a good fight!


Stuff like this is probably the only seasoning we are going to get guys, so let's make the most of it while we still can.

Xann




(hopefully he who shall not be named will not say this is a non-constructive or vulgar post due to the visible "***" on the "***" on the label...)

Edited by Xannatharr, 27 June 2018 - 01:16 PM.

[McGoat]

Xannatharr, on 27 June 2018 - 01:15 PM, said:

This is the main Flavor my team got served up last night...

But we ate the meal like men, had some fun brawls and worked on what we wanted to work on. Props to the Comstar hub premade we bumped into; it's nice being able to make a gentleman's agreement to leave the bases alone on Incursion so you can have a good fight!


Stuff like this is probably the only seasoning we are going to get guys, so let's make the most of it while we still can.

Xann




(hopefully he who shall not be named will not say this is a non-constructive or vulgar post due to the visible "***" on the "***" on the label...)

That was an EVIL/BCMC small group plus randos - I think we had 5, maybe 6. I was equally impressed in your willingness to GA no base rushes. Cheers to you!

[Kubernetes]

I heard Grus smells like an unwashed swamp Atlas and that he chainfires MGs.

/gauntlet

Edited by Kubernetes, 29 June 2018 - 11:45 AM.

[Grus]

Kubernetes, on 29 June 2018 - 11:41 AM, said:

I heard Grus smells like an unwashed swamp Atlas and that he chainfires MGs.

/gauntlet

Ha! Love it!

Funny thing too I was playing around with my atlas just a few days ago too... I'm sticking to the build I made, works really well. Lbx20, 2 mrm20 4ml