1169 replies to this topic

[Wing 0]

creativeabyss, on 16 August 2018 - 06:28 PM, said:

Dont listen to the first one paul, playing objectives is fun and adds variety. I dont especially disagree with the siege map tweaks, but the suggested mode tweaks would just turn everything into skirmish with red and blue colors next to your huds kill counter, which i DO heavily disagree with. Skirmish is fun, but playing objectives every now and then adds a deeper level to the base gameplay. Inflating timers and resource points needed for objective wins kills that deeper strategic gameplay.

That's rich coming from someone who prefers PvE over PVP.

[creativeabyss]

Wing 0, on 16 August 2018 - 06:50 PM, said:

That's rich coming from someone who prefers PvE over PVP.

hey, just because you cant, or choose not to, defend your objectives, doesnt mean im wrong for taking advantage of that fact. no need to crank up your salt levels over it.

btw, this is exactly what i was talking about in...

creativeabyss, on 16 August 2018 - 06:46 PM, said:

also, if your opponent is playing the way you say, avoiding objective in favor of farming, then it actually provides less skilled groups a means of overcoming that better unit by using their hubris against them.

ive seen it done many times, particularly (one might almost say exclusively) to guys in this thread who are asking for longer objective timers, which makes me question their motives for asking for longer timers.

[Nightbird]

[Redacted]

Edited by draiocht, 17 August 2018 - 01:05 AM.
unconstructive, replies removed

[Peter2k]

Paul Inouye, on 16 August 2018 - 01:02 PM, said:

Hmm.. will have to ask. Flash <> Scaleform -> CryEngine isn't fun.

I do wonder, from a general game design perspective, would Unreal Emgune (like MW5's) handle such things with more grace?
Just out of curiosity frankly

[Marius Evander]

Make objectives matter more so farming to 48 happens less. Worse mechanical skill beating higher mechanical skill through tactical awareness is much better than Skirmish trading, Skirmish and assault are worse than incursion. Conquest and domination are the most fun because the objective matters and waiting for the last dude with 3 mechs left's dropship to arrive is a waste of time.

[Redacted]

Edited by draiocht, 17 August 2018 - 01:06 AM.
Quote Clean-Up, reference

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

Paul Inouye, on 10 August 2018 - 10:00 AM, said:

I have another question I need to look into here...

Unit Size Restriction. ...
(snip)
What am I getting at? Can the community get behind a unit size cap of X size? And I'm guessing that X would be less than 100.

From the perspective of an officer of the 228th IBR ...

When the match payout rewards were based on faction population, we would chase the CB, switching factions every two weeks, alternating between IS and Clan, and joining the faction that paid the best.

For major FP events ...

... When the best rewards are specific to the winner of the event, we will usually go with the faction we believe to be most likely to win. We don't always guess correctly.

... When the rewards are geared towards participation, we will usually go with the faction that we believe to be underpopulated so that we have less waiting time in queue. We have seen some units switching factions mid-event immediately after a string of losses to us. We have switched factions mid-event in order to reduce our own queue times.

Our experience as a unit with global presence is that we need about 24 members in the Oceanic region -- extrapolate that out to about 150 globally, based on a very rough approximation of player distribution -- to maintain 24-7 presence in large FP events. Add in inactive players, new recruits and trainees, and alts and family friends and this number is closer to 200.


When the rewards were for the "best unit" (thanks for the [228] dog tags, by the way ... still my absolute favorite hanging cockpit item), that's when there needs to be some limitation on unit size.

Speaking personally, a unit size cap of roughly COMSTAR Level IV (216) size would be flexible enough to allow global events without becoming a logistics nightmare for unit leaders. Once you get down to Regiment (108) or Cluster (75) size, though, you're going to marginalize and alienate units with presence outside of the NA Prime Time (even more so than they already are).

The Asia-Pacific-Oceanic team leaders are some of your most dedicated fans ... don't forget them. Give them the opportunity, and they will #MakeMech_ConGreatAgain

OBTW ... if competition has taught me anything, it is that we will find a way to bend the rules to our advantage, given the opportunity.

[Deathshade]

Paul Inouye, on 16 August 2018 - 01:06 PM, said:

Pod cast was recorded on Tuesday... it's fairly long... Daeron needs a bit of time to edit.

tell Daeron to step away from the beer . . . .

[Tier5ForLife]

Nightbird, on 16 August 2018 - 08:50 PM, said:

[Redacted]

Using the word "redacted" just cracks me up.

[Tier5ForLife]

Eisenhorne, on 15 August 2018 - 06:08 AM, said:

I like this idea. A "Faction Play" pack, kinda like you guys did a Solaris pack. Pick 4 mechs that have their tonnage add up to 255-265 (for IS) or 245-255 (for clans) w/ 4 mech bays, and allow duplicate selections (so if you wanna do 3x WHM-6R and a BSW-X1 you can). Charge like $10.00, and include a month of premium time along with it.

OMG!

OK, here is another one. PGI should be able to send you a text message when your FW match is a few minutes away.

[Jman5]

Did anyone request PGI to upload the Faction Play leaderboard to the website like Solaris/Quickplay has?

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Peter2k, on 16 August 2018 - 11:28 PM, said:

I do wonder, from a general game design perspective, would Unreal Emgune (like MW5's) handle such things with more grace?
Just out of curiosity frankly

The MWLL Team in the old days fight like PGI with this Problems and the Cryengine ?

and please : the Conquest Counter in FW is ok ,so not all can first kill the Reds and ignored the Objectives like QP

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 17 August 2018 - 01:08 PM.

[Korz]

Currently getting into faction play and to be competive takes a long build up time. Leaving many people out of the chance to even play.

I would like to see something along the lines of:

Each faction would be run by a number of players example 10. These people would be from the top 10 faction earners from the previous season. For the first season a single dev would be placed incharge of each faction
This council would be responsable for a certain number of planets and each have access to a set amount of resources. The planets they have over watch of have to be defended with resources but the council can use resources to launch attacks as well.

Mechs allocated to a planet can be used to defend the planet or be used to launch an attack. The number of mechs put out is how many players can actually fight the battles. So if a planet has only 12 mechs defending it then the defenders would only be able to drop once to defend. Yet if the attacker only attacks with 12 then they can only drop once to attack. Other then this current faction battles would be unchanged.

If a battle is lost then all mechs are up for salvage by the winning side. Which then gets added to the resource pool for that side. If a side runs out of mech resources they it will have no defense except for mercenaries unless they also run out of cash.

Cash is allocated like mechs but it is used to pay mercenaries. A contract will have a salvage value, cash value, time value and fail value. Each side sets its max and then negotiates till they reach an agreeable amount.

Each faction would have a set number of mechs or cash. These numbers would be increased by donations from players and planets won.

Players would be locked for the 3 month season into the faction, they would gain faction points by playing missions for thier faction. Or donating mechs or cash to the faction. Cash donated is from the players C-bills and are gone but the player will recieve faction points for the donation. Mechs donated are locked for the season to that side and when donated this way the mechs can't be placed in a drop deck or used for FQP (faction quick play). The player recieves FP for the mechs donated in this way.

There would be a new que for quick play faction battles. This would be the "new player" friendly que for FP. They would be just like current quick play but would be limited to Clan on one side and IS on the other or faction against faction all depending on population. Reward in faction points would be payed out the lowest here but the resources lost in QP don't come out off the Faction resources. The rewards to a faction for these battles would be resource points that could be spent by the council to increase one of the resource pools. This would be the factions way of buillding up resources for actions. This que should be dynamic in the number of players so you could drop with only 4 per side if population is to low.

All of the above could expanded depending on what players want including adding in parts as resources and making people pay to repair thier mechs before they go back out in battle to having a completly seperate market place to buy and sell salvage you earn on. You could even restrict mech types by faction or salvage.

Edited by Korz, 17 August 2018 - 01:32 PM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

fine Idea Korz

PGI say ...nothing repair &rearm in each sense...
and what the most have seeing in the years-nothing interest by more logistic or Strategical Elements (thats come all the Years from the Com as ideas)...not to Garrisons ...fabrications ...chassielimits (Chassies thats special by hold Fabrications or for Factions) or salvaging or ammolimits by lost of Planets ...Jumplanes and Jumptimes ...no PVE element while to strong to write a AI for MWO..all was more a edit XML Files is to hard and is like a new Game

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 17 August 2018 - 02:12 PM.

[Paul Inouye]

Peter2k, on 16 August 2018 - 11:28 PM, said:

I do wonder, from a general game design perspective, would Unreal Emgune (like MW5's) handle such things with more grace? Just out of curiosity frankly

The biggest issue is the Flash<>Scaleform pipeline. Two devs, like a UI artist and a UI programmer cannot work on the same screen/element at the same time because you cannot merge the changes like you can with a text file (code, xml, etc). What you see in flash doesn't translate to the exact output you will get from Scaleform. This is all slightly exasperated by the way CryEngine renders the HUD/screens.

Unreal can handle output from Scaleform a bit cleaner but at the same time, Unreal has it's own UI systems built directly into the engine for better asset management and performance. At the same time, Unreal doesn't have the flexibility in terms of features that Flash/Scaleform do. It's a trade off mechanic that you find in all varieties of game engines.

[Bombadil]

The Faction Play podcast with Paul was really long, so the editing process has taken me longer than expected. It'll go live Monday morning, and thank you for your patience!

[Paul Inouye]

Bombadil, on 17 August 2018 - 03:49 PM, said:

The Faction Play podcast with Paul was really long, so the editing process has taken me longer than expected. It'll go live Monday morning, and thank you for your patience!

..... what are you saying!?

[Wing 0]

uh oh..

[Bombadil]

Paul Inouye, on 17 August 2018 - 03:50 PM, said:

..... what are you saying!?

It was all Russ? Wait, he wasn't on...

[50 50]

REGARDING : Conquest vs other modes.....

Why is Conquest good in Faction Play.

It pops up repeatedly that Conquest as a mission has worked out really well in Faction Play.
But why is that.....
Particularly compared to the other modes.

In a nut shell, I'm going to say:

• Multiple Objectives
  
• It makes lance actions and success important as a contribution to the larger team which creates dynamic shifting battles.
  
• A win condition based on the objectives (ie. that you can still lose the mission if you can't capture the points)
  
• The longer timer for the win condition combined with the multiple drops tends to ensure a longer game.
  
• It moves the objectives away from the dropzones.

There are probably some other points so feel free to add to this line of conversation.
I am also well aware that for every player out there that likes a mode, there is someone else who doesn't so please don't get caught up on that.

@Paul
However, based on the points above, what could be done to the other missions that would give them a similar dynamic and is this something worth pursuing with the development team for making such changes?


For example:

Incursion
Instead of each team having a base, there is 3 smaller bases around the map that must be captured and held for X time to win.
-This creates multiple objectives for control.
-The ability to capture and recapture a location creates the back and forth battle over the points.
-Which can extend the duration of the game.
-While in control of the base, the team gains the benefit of the the tower in that location. (Radar, ECM, Air Control)
-This moves the objectives away from the drop zones.

As an additional option:
Place the power cells near the drop zone.... like a supply drop location and have certain base defenses require power to operate.
-This keeps that original design idea of having a mech take on the role of courier to keep the base defenses powered on.

------------------------------

Along the same line of thought, is it possible to combine modes?
For example, what would Assault + Domination be like as a combined mode?

------------------------------

Is it also possible to randomize some of the objective locations?
A little like how the scout intel points are a little random.
A bit of a fog of war regarding the objective points would make a bit of a difference in the matches combined with some random placement.

For example:
In Assault if the bases were not visible on the map or compass until discovered and could be located in 1 of 5 positions on the map.
How would that affect game play?

[Paul Inouye]

50 50, on 17 August 2018 - 04:02 PM, said:

*snip*

A lot of what you're suggesting requires some significant investment into increasing the size of maps to allow proper pathing. The idea isn't bad... hell.. I even wanted to look into getting Rush game mode into FP.. but the size of maps would be a critical issue along with the number of respawns required to make Rush work.

I'd say that the idea isn't off the table.. there's a lot of map rework requests. It's going to be a fairly big pull on resources to drastically change the size of a map. Due to that fact, this thought process might need to take a bit of a back burner to other suggestions already made.

But that being said, that's what this discussion is about. Let's see what's on the table. We'll have to make cuts, but we'll do the best to accommodate what we can for the biggest bang for the buck. Even just now (like literally about 10 mins ago), I spoke with Russ on some of the items and we even brought up more items to think about. We just want to make sure we can get it all done in a timely manner.