1169 replies to this topic

[Andi Nagasia]

Change up Alliances, every month, this is the Civilwar Era,

for instance this month lets say its,
Davion, Kurita, Liao, Marik, Steiner, FRR,
vs
Wolf, Jade Falcon, Ghost Bear, Smoke Jaguar, Steel Viper, Nova Cat, Diamond Shark,

but next month it could Change to,
Davion, Liao, Marik, Steiner, Wolf, Jade Falcon, Nova Cat,
vs
Ghost Bear, Smoke Jaguar, Steel Viper, Diamond Shark, Kurita, FRR,


mixing up the Battlelines to help keep Faction Pops Balanced as well as play to the Civil war,
if Wolf and Bear have 40% more players this month, why not move one of them to the other side of the conflict?

[Sedmeister]

Hey Paul, I hope you read this one.

Apart from a very small number of snarky comments, it appears to me that the bulk of the responses here:

• Really appreciate the fact that you have initiated this conversation.
  
• Are super appreciative of you giving reasons as to why things cannot be done. We are not left in the dark and whilst some may not agree with your rationale for ruling something out, the fact that we are not left to guess but actually know the mind of the developers makes ongoing participation in the game/community a much more encouraging experience.

So please see that interacting with the community in this way, through PGI's official forums is actually a really positive, important and good thing for the game and for PGI.

I also want to draw yours and everyone's attention to another phenomenon.

Something I thing Cadoazreal discussed, if there were some way we could get a further insight into the decision making logic that you guys use in terms of deciding priorities and/or ruling potential changes in or out, this would only further the health of the game.

For example when you talk about things getting traction, it is effectively a meaningless statement to the player community which leaves us frustrated. How do we get traction on something? Do we need a poll for example? Would that help the devs know the things that are likely to be taken up? Further, how does something get onto the devs radars so they can have a conversation regarding how that said thing will or will not get traction?

If these processes and mechanics were communicated to the community and in addition, if there were some way the community could have a more direct input into those mechanics if possible, once again I think that can only be a good thing for the community and the game.

Forgive my attack of optimism here, however it is your fault Paul afterall for interacting with us in these hopeful ways.

[Will9761]

For FP flare, please:

• Add some Cutscenes explaining what Faction Warfare is about.
  
• Add cutscenes about each faction so we can know more about them instead of rely on a wall of text that tells us about the faction. For example, Selecting House Davion will show a player Davion soldiers fighting House Liao forces and House Kurita committing a massacre on a Davion planet (Kentares Massacre reference). That would be better than reading about each faction.

Make factions more than just game and forum vanity by:

• Adding RP Elements, by giving NPC Portraits. If you can do it with Captain Adams in training, then do it to the FP Screen.
  
• Get rid of the united buckets and return back to pre-Phase 2 status.
  
• Add new game mode dialogue depending on which faction the player is with.

​Entice Loyalists by:

• Give Loyalist extra LP for killing players from rival factions (Davion vs Liao, Jade Falcon vs Wolf, Marik vs Steiner, etc)
  
• Offering better loyalty rewards like faction associated mechs, faction camo unlocks for specific mechs, and faction colors and decals.
  
• Give better loyalty boost for piloting mechs based on what faction they are on.
  
• Let them repeat ranks, but with a new Faction Veteran Rank, like "Steiner Veteran or Ghost Bear Veteran" or with the ruling title of that faction like Coordinator, Khan, or Archon. That should be the main goal for loyalists, to get to the top.

Edited by Will9761, 07 August 2018 - 03:35 PM.

[Paul Inouye]

Sedmeister, on 07 August 2018 - 03:10 PM, said:

Hey Paul, I hope you read this one. Apart from a very small number of snarky comments, it appears to me that the bulk of the responses here:

• Really appreciate the fact that you have initiated this conversation.
• Are super appreciative of you giving reasons as to why things cannot be done. We are not left in the dark and whilst some may not agree with your rationale for ruling something out, the fact that we are not left to guess but actually know the mind of the developers makes ongoing participation in the game/community a much more encouraging experience.

So please see that interacting with the community in this way, through PGI's official forums is actually a really positive, important and good thing for the game and for PGI. I also want to draw yours and everyone's attention to another phenomenon. Something I thing Cadoazreal discussed, if there were some way we could get a further insight into the decision making logic that you guys use in terms of deciding priorities and/or ruling potential changes in or out, this would only further the health of the game. For example when you talk about things getting traction, it is effectively a meaningless statement to the player community which leaves us frustrated. How do we get traction on something? Do we need a poll for example? Would that help the devs know the things that are likely to be taken up? Further, how does something get onto the devs radars so they can have a conversation regarding how that said thing will or will not get traction? If these processes and mechanics were communicated to the community and in addition, if there were some way the community could have a more direct input into those mechanics if possible, once again I think that can only be a good thing for the community and the game. Forgive my attack of optimism here, however it is your fault Paul afterall for interacting with us in these hopeful ways.

I stopped reading 10 pages ago.

KIDDING!

When it comes to decision making there's a few things at play. The biggest issue is resource management. I could dump a giant doc of stuff you and I would want to see in FP but that would just say nothing is going to get done on anything for a lonnng time.

Re-engineering major systems is also something that cannot be done at this time. And by that, I mean interaction with transaction servers/player records/any sort of major data manipulation that is not already exposed/implemented. For example, some of the suggestions surrounding discounts on stuff in the store/mechlab based on planetary ownership/participation is in a highly unlikely place due to the stuff I just mentioned.

The other problem is feasibility in a time frame that will work out. What I mean by this is that MWO is now 6+ years old. FP has been left rather stagnant for too long... but with the release of Solaris, we are now at a state where we're looking for the next thing to target. This is why FP was brought up unanimously. But at the same time we have to be wary of how far we take this update. We do not have the time/resources to fully re-write the FP codebase.

Without being able to expose too much more than that.. it would just be better to go with what is currently being discussed. Post a quick thought... we'll find out if it's possible or not. If it's possible, we can detail out what would be entailed to get item X into the game.

[C H E E K I E Z]

Paul Inouye, on 07 August 2018 - 09:30 AM, said:

I know how to use and read the intertweetermugbook.

soooooooooo questions?

[creativeabyss]

something tiny, easy, and very doable that i think would have a larger impact than you would expect, is put planet descriptions.

the vast majority of it could very easily be copy pasted from sarna.net

if you dont want to just copy paste for x reason, i have seen a bunch of people who say theyd type it up for you for free. id hit up either kanajashi, who is already hired to work on the mwo wiki, or one of the guys from the first circuit podcast, and ask them to read the sarna post or any source materials, and create an original or abreviated summary of the planet and its history and cool facts about it.

just a text planetary description would have a significantly larger impact on immersion than anything else when considering how little effort it would take to implement, and people have been asking for them for a very long time i believe.

Edited by creativeabyss, 07 August 2018 - 04:21 PM.

[Cato Zilks]

Seriously, Paul, we'd input planet descriptions for free. It is embarrassing that they are still mostly blank after all these years.

Also, here is the first audio thing from Paul so keep some of these ideas in the background for what we are asking here:
https://soundcloud.c...ye-chris-lowrey

note: easy on the hate, it was recorded last week and was prefaced as a first step

Edited by Cato Zilks, 07 August 2018 - 04:45 PM.

[slide]

Paul Inouye, on 07 August 2018 - 03:39 PM, said:

I stopped reading 10 pages ago.

KIDDING!

When it comes to decision making there's a few things at play. The biggest issue is resource management. I could dump a giant doc of stuff you and I would want to see in FP but that would just say nothing is going to get done on anything for a lonnng time.

Re-engineering major systems is also something that cannot be done at this time. And by that, I mean interaction with transaction servers/player records/any sort of major data manipulation that is not already exposed/implemented. For example, some of the suggestions surrounding discounts on stuff in the store/mechlab based on planetary ownership/participation is in a highly unlikely place due to the stuff I just mentioned.

The other problem is feasibility in a time frame that will work out. What I mean by this is that MWO is now 6+ years old. FP has been left rather stagnant for too long... but with the release of Solaris, we are now at a state where we're looking for the next thing to target. This is why FP was brought up unanimously. But at the same time we have to be wary of how far we take this update. We do not have the time/resources to fully re-write the FP codebase.

Without being able to expose too much more than that.. it would just be better to go with what is currently being discussed. Post a quick thought... we'll find out if it's possible or not. If it's possible, we can detail out what would be entailed to get item X into the game.

That sounds very much like "Maintenance Mode" not development to me.

I thought we had the licence from MS until 2021 thats another 3 years or so. Despite the very good suggestions mentioned thus far in this thread, QOL improvements are not going to revitalize the game enough to keep most people playing for another 3 years or potentially longer.

FP needs a fundamental purpose for playing that will energize the whole player base. Tweaking a few problem areas isn't going to do that.

I was hoping for a reason to get back into the game this isn't doing it for me.

[Paul Inouye]

slide, on 07 August 2018 - 04:48 PM, said:

That sounds very much like "Maintenance Mode" not development to me. I thought we had the licence from MS until 2021 thats another 3 years or so. Despite the very good suggestions mentioned thus far in this thread, QOL improvements are not going to revitalize the game enough to keep most people playing for another 3 years or potentially longer. FP needs a fundamental purpose for playing that will energize the whole player base. Tweaking a few problem areas isn't going to do that. I was hoping for a reason to get back into the game this isn't doing it for me.

That's what I'm doing here. I have a doc already completed for the base update but I want to make sure stuff that the community wants to expand on makes it in as well. So here I am compiling feedback, breaking down technical issues and will be presenting the requests in a Tech review. It is here that we get estimates from all the devs as to what has to happen, what can and cannot be done with the core systems in place etc. At that point I can come back here and let you know the details as to what is moving forward and what won't.

No feedback is off limits.. all I'm asking for is to stay away from completely bluesky suggestions that put us on a development timeline that just won't work.

[Angm4r]

Hi Paul, I appreciate the listerner is back on.

I don't want to go too crazy with "asks" so if we could perhaps baby step into some early improvements while looking at longer term updates I'd be happy with that.

Short list:
- Turn the damn timer down to 5 minutes. I might miss my opportunity to browse the Interwebs, but I doubt it
- Data reporting on the FP list. In addition to looking up my own rank, or manually the rank of any given pilot, I sure would appreciate it if I could get a data dump of my entire unit in one click. Exportable (CSV) to Excel would be even better
- Return of "dummy" mode dry drop. If we're gonna dry drop I would like the opportunity (or the option) to do a dry run for assault scenarios. We take in a lot of new pilots and this would help us orient the new guys to FP. But instead of shooting the 3 towers on the other side of the base (the way "dry drops" used to be), leave the gens up, omega, but maybe add in a bunch of additional turrets; that gives us a training opportunity we lost with that change
- Introductory Line of Supply - If I have a clan invasion on my hands, let me try to cut it off. If the clanners want to fight us they can (pulling away from the front), if they don't we get the dummy drop (but also the win per above dry drop change)
- Mega loyalty - HHOD is never going to go clan. Never. We've been around since the 90's on every battletech platform ever. It's not going to happen. But that being said, we do lose some pilots to "mech bay tours". They switch to go after the imaginary loots, then come back when they're done (sometimes). If we could have an option to "reset" loyalty points, or do a x2, x3, x4, so they can get some of the same loot but without breaking loyalty.

Appreciate your consideration

[Cato Zilks]

Paul, can the system allow us to rework the "alliances" we have at the moment? Could we have events where the say Wolf and Steiner fight on one side against Kurita and Ghostbear? Or are we looking at a hard coded clanforce and isforce?

[Nightbird]

Nightbird, on 07 August 2018 - 05:08 PM, said:

https://mwomercs.com...rovement-ideas/

Some ideas that are intended to be implementable quickly and improve QoL

[Bowelhacker]

re: Comstar as a faction - it'd be a great opportunity to add in Comstar specific TRO 2750/SLDF mechs that we don't already have in game (Hermes or Thug or Crockett etc) and give some Comstar quirk variants for the ones we do have (Crab, Highlander, Black Knight etc).

And even though people hate Escort mode, change the dopey Atlas to a Mackie and let it do some firing with a weak arse PPC or two the way turrets do. The mission is to escort this valuable relic to safety. Lore nerds might like it...

[LordNothing]

i think id do away with the rewards tree and just give away a rare supply cache every 10k lp/rp.

[slide]

Paul Inouye, on 07 August 2018 - 05:01 PM, said:

That's what I'm doing here. I have a doc already completed for the base update but I want to make sure stuff that the community wants to expand on makes it in as well. So here I am compiling feedback, breaking down technical issues and will be presenting the requests in a Tech review. It is here that we get estimates from all the devs as to what has to happen, what can and cannot be done with the core systems in place etc. At that point I can come back here and let you know the details as to what is moving forward and what won't.

No feedback is off limits.. all I'm asking for is to stay away from completely bluesky suggestions that put us on a development timeline that just won't work.

Ok. Fair enough.

Maybe my salt got to much of me. I understand pie in the sky stuff is off the table but that post read like even small database manipulation was out too.

Sorry!

[MischiefSC]

Paul Inouye, on 07 August 2018 - 05:01 PM, said:

That's what I'm doing here. I have a doc already completed for the base update but I want to make sure stuff that the community wants to expand on makes it in as well. So here I am compiling feedback, breaking down technical issues and will be presenting the requests in a Tech review. It is here that we get estimates from all the devs as to what has to happen, what can and cannot be done with the core systems in place etc. At that point I can come back here and let you know the details as to what is moving forward and what won't.

No feedback is off limits.. all I'm asking for is to stay away from completely bluesky suggestions that put us on a development timeline that just won't work.

Walls in DZs are bad. I get the intent - stop people farming the DZ from 1600m away, because when they were added ERLL and gauss ranges let that happen. Game balance has changed a lot since then. With the rise of brawling the walls have made it *easier* to farm people in the DZ. Dropship lasers also motivate people to stay in or at the DZ for 'protection'. The problem is this puts them in an absolutely terrible position and makes separating them from their team and farming them in groups of 4 easier.

There's a couple of maps that probably need a wall. Alpine and Polar being examples. However they should be minimal and not obstruct teams getting out of the DZ and moving forward. Spawncamping happens because the losing team didn't move far enough from their spawn before the fighting started. Good teams beat worse teams all the time. There's a winner and a loser every single game. However good pug and decent premade teams don't get spawncamped because they don't fall for trying to just hide in their spawn, they are motivated and easily able to move up. Your spawn should NOT feel safe. You should want to get out of it and as far from it as possible asap.

Have spawns within support range of each other.

If possible have respawns automatically put as far from the enemy as possible instead of their existing lance respawn.

Biggest, most valuable change IMO -

As stated before we need an Elo/player ranking for FW. Seed it from QP, whatever, doesn't matter. Have relative team ranking affect payout. So good teams make more fighting each other and less farming pugs. Pugs make way more if they put the effort into making a good fight vs good teams - ideally as much or more than they would make playing vs other pugs.

This motivates everyone to play as a team and seek out the best challenges possible. More carrots, less sticks.

Edited by MischiefSC, 07 August 2018 - 06:10 PM.

[50 50]

Paul Inouye, on 07 August 2018 - 05:01 PM, said:

That's what I'm doing here. I have a doc already completed for the base update but I want to make sure stuff that the community wants to expand on makes it in as well. So here I am compiling feedback, breaking down technical issues and will be presenting the requests in a Tech review. It is here that we get estimates from all the devs as to what has to happen, what can and cannot be done with the core systems in place etc. At that point I can come back here and let you know the details as to what is moving forward and what won't.

No feedback is off limits.. all I'm asking for is to stay away from completely bluesky suggestions that put us on a development timeline that just won't work.

As with the others, really appreciate that there is some feedback going on.

Firstly.....
It seems to me that a lot could be gained by breaking up the conflict from the single Clan vs IS situation we have now.
To me, part of the reason phase 2 was not sustainable was because of the map and the limitation created by imposing borders.
It doesn't seem practical to return to that phase, as it was, but it seems that it would greatly benefit the mode to bringing back the variety that the inter faction conflict allowed.
I recognize that there may be too many factions to represent individually, but some of those could be grouped into a side while still allowing a break down to enable inter-faction conflict.

I posted this elsewhere a few times but would be interested to know if it's feasible:

• Break the Clan into Warden and Crusader sides containing the relevant factions. This creates 2 clan sides allowing for Clan vs Clan conflicts to occur but also allows room for more clan factions to be added without further diluting the pool.
  
• Break up the 5 great houses into their own side. Liao, Kurita, Davion, Steiner and Marik.
  
• Put the FRR into an 8th side that can also be expanded to include new IS factions such as St Ives Compact and Periphery states.
  
• Keep the one bucket but disregard the map as it currently is so it is possible for any one of these 8 sides to face any other.

As a first initial step, is it possible to allow multiple sides in the one bucket so match to match there is the possibility of having a Clan vs Clan, Clan vs IS or IS vs IS conflict?

It would then seem plausible to adjust and simplify the map to a handful of planets controlled by each side that the players can then fight back and forth over and bring back some of that 'space nerd politics'.

Second....
Wanted to comment on the career paths and topping out at level X.
Can the loyalty points be unlocked at a certain level to allow the players to convert them to MC so we can then buy things like faction camo, warhorns and decals?
I really don't need any more fluffy dice for the cockpit.
It would seem self fulfilling, especially for loyalists, to remain loyal and earn keep earning the points if we could spend them.

[GBxGhostRyder]

OK here is my suggestions for FP to revive the game mode and retain new players .

#1 Split the FP queues like you did in Quickplay (solo players in one queue)(2v2-12v12 premade groups in another queue) and for premade groups just use 2v2,4v4,6v6,8v8,12v12 even group numbers to make a 12 man group. Many will say yes we tried this but in reality PGI did not do a total split last time and did not even give it a chance to work.

This last event has been very fun and the best matches were solo or small group 2v2-4v4 combos on both sides which resulted in very close down to the wire matches. Then you have the opposite terrible and fast matches that you were just being farmed by 8 man and 12 man premade teams mostly on Kurita.

Personally I never thought solo players and premade groups should have had to play each other from day 1 of mwo in any game modes it just aggravates the player base one both sides and 90% of the time solo players are just farmed by premade teams which has resulted in a lot of uninstalls by players just looking to play MWO in a fun casual way.

#2 To make battle time longer per player per battle in FP and MWO I would suggest doubling the armor on all mechs and adjust ammo for weapons as needed. The reason I say this is a lot of MWO weapons are boated per mech and the combined firepower of just a few mechs can easily kill one mech under 2 minutes in a battle which makes a lot of players say WOW why do I play a game I die so fast and I learn so little per battle as in skills?

#3 FP and MWO has needed a huge Social lobby system for 5 years it is one of the things from old BattleTech,MechWarrior and even TT that brought the community together share info chat and find battles in game modes and leagues, Plus players could chat talk builds go test together find friends and family to play together and teams to find players to recruit for FP.


Just these 3 things could turn around FP and MWO in general as far as gameplay and player retention please PGI look into this thanks .

P.S I really would like to play Solaris but its just to unbalanced game play for me could you just make it 4 divisions? (lights-mediums-heavy's-assaults) no mixing mechs in divisions and let us play any mech in the four divisions we own in our mechbays?

Edited by GBxGhostRyder, 07 August 2018 - 10:03 PM.

[Horseman]

Angm4r, on 07 August 2018 - 05:13 PM, said:

- Mega loyalty - HHOD is never going to go clan. Never. We've been around since the 90's on every battletech platform ever. It's not going to happen. But that being said, we do lose some pilots to "mech bay tours". They switch to go after the imaginary loots, then come back when they're done (sometimes). If we could have an option to "reset" loyalty points, or do a x2, x3, x4, so they can get some of the same loot but without breaking loyalty.

Which is also one of the reasons faction-restricted events are a bad idea, and why for the purpose of inter-faction event the existing loyalties should be mapped to one side or the other rather than having to be broken to participate...

[Cato Zilks]

50 50, on 07 August 2018 - 08:13 PM, said:

As with the others, really appreciate that there is some feedback going on.

Firstly.....
It seems to me that a lot could be gained by breaking up the conflict from the single Clan vs IS situation we have now.
To me, part of the reason phase 2 was not sustainable was because of the map and the limitation created by imposing borders.
It doesn't seem practical to return to that phase, as it was, but it seems that it would greatly benefit the mode to bringing back the variety that the inter faction conflict allowed.
I recognize that there may be too many factions to represent individually, but some of those could be grouped into a side while still allowing a break down to enable inter-faction conflict.

I posted this elsewhere a few times but would be interested to know if it's feasible:

• Break the Clan into Warden and Crusader sides containing the relevant factions. This creates 2 clan sides allowing for Clan vs Clan conflicts to occur but also allows room for more clan factions to be added without further diluting the pool.
  
• Break up the 5 great houses into their own side. Liao, Kurita, Davion, Steiner and Marik.
  
• Put the FRR into an 8th side that can also be expanded to include new IS factions such as St Ives Compact and Periphery states.
  
• Keep the one bucket but disregard the map as it currently is so it is possible for any one of these 8 sides to face any other.

As a first initial step, is it possible to allow multiple sides in the one bucket so match to match there is the possibility of having a Clan vs Clan, Clan vs IS or IS vs IS conflict?


It would then seem plausible to adjust and simplify the map to a handful of planets controlled by each side that the players can then fight back and forth over and bring back some of that 'space nerd politics'.

I am 100% with you on wanting to bring back the forum warrior space nerd politics aspect that we had going on years ago. Inter-faction ****-talking is at an unacceptably low level. I don't think that creating fewer teams and having a large scrum or creating many smaller buckets is going to bring us back to the glory days. Our population is currently too small to handle lots of queues, but we want to fight for individuated factions and to take planets for our faction. And if we do keep it within one bucket, as you say you want, then we are just doing what we are doing now, but with fewer factions.

We need a system that handles low pop just as well as high pop while still giving us some ability to fight for our team. I propose we have the teams be malleable so we don't have the same conflict always going on. More importantly, we always have a smaller side conflict going on. That way we keep most of the population in one bucket, but we have a small side event going for some segment of the population at all times. If things get stale, then we have factions switch sides... like Nova Cat fighting alongside IS or FRR fighting alongside clans. Or if we ever have another Jade Falcon situation, everybody vs CJF for the main queue and then some small side fights amongst the large anti-CJF coalition.

Lets say that Steiner-Davion **** gets real on the forums, the devs can say "cool, civil war starts next weekend and lasts for a week." So for that week we have regular Clan v IS, and Steiner and Davion have a side conflict. Sure this will take people from the main front and IS will likely lose some worlds... but thats what you get. These kinds of side conflicts are there to draw our lore-nerds back into FW and net increase the FW population. I would hope that this would not only balance, but also increase the activity in the main queue.