1169 replies to this topic

[Lances107]

Here is my suggestions.

As the developers have said, they plan to take a look at faction warfare. Those of us who knew faction warfare, before its near destruction, found it to be highly competitive. Now it is nothing more than another version of quick play, and just like quick play, it is swarmed by players who do not wish to try hard. Players who wish everything handed to them, and do not wish to try hard in any shape way or form. My suggestions are realistic and can be implemented, they are not suggestions "asking for the moon".


The first is to reinstate at full strength the Long tom. Now despite all the people, and I use that term loosely, complaining about it. It had several positive effects on faction warfare. The first is for the first time, scouting became impactful on a faction warfare match. The second it required many victories in scouting to get it. It must be returned. If someone can't handle getting the long tom dropped on them, then frankly they have no self-control. Furthermore, they should not be in faction play. Lastly, they most certainly should not be in a pure PVP game. Due to the changes not be implemented the balance between IS and Clan is just about where it should be right now. Both sides have access to High end 90+ alphas. How be it on the Clan side that kind of alpha requires a great deal of heat. For this reason, the scouting will not be one-sided.


The last suggestion is to send a powerful signal that faction war is not quick play. It should comprise of siege, escort, and incursion. It should not include any of the other quick play modes. The only change needed is the escort on the clan side needs to be a souped-up version of the Blood asp, with the exact same health as the Atlas on escort.


As you can see each and every suggestion here can be applied, and done with little resources as possible. It is just that a start. The truth is faction play should be a full-blown BattleTech universe. Meaning mech factories, tanks, infantry, aircraft, fuel-air bombs, the works. Complete the start, and then put your entire focus into turning it into the BattleTech universe and you will have all the money you ever wanted for your company. The full-blown battle tech I do not expect in this pass or any other pass any time soon. The afore mentioned suggestions would make faction play unique, and competitive again.

[Natural Predator]

I always thought it would be cool if we combined seige defense and domination together in a sort of capture the base mode that does not involve pve gen rushing.

Step 1 zone of control outside of base, if zone controlled for 1 minute then gates open.
Step 2 zone base defenses, destroy 2 generators to destroy op turrets that you can’t bypass without getting wrecked. The purpose of this is to prevent light rushing to stage 3.
Step 3 contest main bases, hold for 2 minutes for the win. Timer should be long enough for defenders to respawn and push you back.

Still keep each player to 4 mechs so there is some strategy to it..

Have the teams flips sides and attacked becomes defender. Total scores are added up together and that’s how March winner is decided.

Edited by Ragnar Baron Leiningen, 02 August 2018 - 12:06 PM.

[Davegt27]

1) special ops missions (you might even say comp is a special ops mode but without FP maps)
this would be team vs team drops (no seals or pugs) but with a bit more flexibility then is present in comp play

this would allow expansion of the comp level into FP

these could be 4v4,8v8 or 12v12

all the elements are there they just need to put under the same umbrella so to speak


to give a better picture we lowly pugs drop against whatever and whomever on any map at anytime

the special ops/comp level you would get alerted for a special ops mission
you could accept or decline all you will know is it will be against a similar team
no seals

there will be time to assemble your strike force none of this pug crap


GLHF

[Jaybles-The-PegLeg-PotatoCaptain]

For the people advocating raising the base HP in Incursion, that seems a slippery slope. You have to be mindful that if you are defending and the other team base rushes, even if you kill all 48 of them, they will have damaged your base, probably to great extent. Will what's left of your force be able to do enough damage to the opposing base to out damage what was done to yours with the time left? It just seems like a slippery slope that leads back to both sides base rushing. Rather just see the mode removed from FP.

[Paul Inouye]

Bud Crue, on 02 August 2018 - 11:42 AM, said:

Can you give some more guidance here? Your post with its commentary regarding restraints and doing things with “what is currently in FP” suggests that you are not willing or capable of looking beyond the confines of FP as it currently exists. The examples you provide seem to reinforce that. So are you really just looking at proposed changes that don’t actually change the way the mode is currently presented but rather just looking at tangential aspects like how teams are formed within a given match, or use of funds, etc.? If that is the case, I think this “effort” is a non starter. I’m not trying to be provacative here or hating on this, but I really think folks are looking for a hell of a lot more than what is being implied by your post above.

The only issue is development time to reach "hell of a lot more". Let's just put everything on the table and through discussion/podcasts we'll try to address as much as possible. Out of this, I need to find things that you the players want that fall in line with what we can accomplish in a reasonable amount of development time. I'm not in charge of resource management here but at the same time, if I have the ammunition, I can at least put my gun on the table so to speak.

As by the tone of my post above, I hope you understand this is not our usual vetted communications going on here. It's me having a discussion with those with interests in FP and what we can do with it. I hope to keep the communications at a more candid/person to person level rather than our regular comms.

-Paul

Edit: Let me give you an example.

I've seen some posts/docs here detailing the return of repair/rearm. Repair/Rearm was never a popular thing when we had it back in early access. It's a nightmare on the database side of things and people can find themselves in a state where they can't launch due to no funds for (let's just say repair for brevity sake) repair. What happens in this state? Unit coffers are fine for people in units. What about freelancers? Do we take out freelance/solo gameplay? When repair was in the game in the past, we also had people launching in barely operational levels just to farm c-bills. This was a big negative impact to the teams playing. Do we make it so players can't launch in a sub 100% 'Mech? If so we run back into the situation of players not having the funds.

This is the 'fun' part of design/balance. Make one group happy and you isolate another. I've thought of scenarios where you can only participate as a merc unit if and ONLY if you have a 12-man premade of unit members and you will only play against other 12-man premades. Sounds cool as it's part of what makes a company (12 'Mech fighting force) and is what a contractor would be expecting when hiring merc units. However, not all player units out there have the roster sizes to support this idea. So it's back to square one.

-----------

So basically, post your thoughts/ideas and let's discuss.

Edited by Paul Inouye, 02 August 2018 - 12:38 PM.
Adding an example.

[Eisenhorne]

Paul, as long as you put IS vs IS and Clan vs Clan in, so that we don't have a situation where we have 4 teams on IS side and 1 team on Clan side and all IS teams sit around waiting all night, whatever other changes you make are gravy. I know the penalties for swapping sides were removed, but it's unrealistic to ask large loyalist units like HHoD or ARC7 or CGBI to go to the opposite faction to get drops when they're loyalists. There's plenty of infighting in Battletech, so there's plenty of room for it in MWO.

[Lances107]

Eisenhorne, on 02 August 2018 - 12:30 PM, said:

Paul, as long as you put IS vs IS and Clan vs Clan in, so that we don't have a situation where we have 4 teams on IS side and 1 team on Clan side and all IS teams sit around waiting all night, whatever other changes you make are gravy. I know the penalties for swapping sides were removed, but it's unrealistic to ask large loyalist units like HHoD or ARC7 or CGBI to go to the opposite faction to get drops when they're loyalists. There's plenty of infighting in Battletech, so there's plenty of room for it in MWO.

As a Jade Falcon loyalist, I can say I would be eager to stomp clan wolf, and so would many other Jade falcon loyalist I know. The person above is not wrong. Battletech goes hand and hand with betrayal and civil war. Clan and IS. For this to work on the map this means splitting up the territories again by individual faction. So each individual faction can conquer territory, as in say Jade falcon starts conquering clan wolf territory. There is many details that go with this idea, and I am not blind to it.

[Paul Inouye]

Eisenhorne, on 02 August 2018 - 12:30 PM, said:

Paul, as long as you put IS vs IS and Clan vs Clan in, so that we don't have a situation where we have 4 teams on IS side and 1 team on Clan side and all IS teams sit around waiting all night, whatever other changes you make are gravy. I know the penalties for swapping sides were removed, but it's unrealistic to ask large loyalist units like HHoD or ARC7 or CGBI to go to the opposite faction to get drops when they're loyalists. There's plenty of infighting in Battletech, so there's plenty of room for it in MWO.

Lances107, on 02 August 2018 - 12:39 PM, said:

As a Jade Falcon loyalist, I can say I would be eager to stomp clan wolf, and so would many other Jade falcon loyalist I know. The person above is not wrong. Battletech goes hand and hand with betrayal and civil war. Clan and IS. For this to work on the map this means splitting up the territories again by individual faction. So each individual faction can conquer territory, as in say Jade falcon starts conquering clan wolf territory. There is many details that go with this idea, and I am not blind to it.

We are making changes to the event system that the marketing team uses to allow us to make Clan vs Clan and IS vs IS a lot easier. Plus adding a story/meaning behind those fights.

[Joshua McEvedy]

Paul Inouye, on 02 August 2018 - 10:19 AM, said:

- I'd like your thoughts on unit coffer use in general. I'm not sure if we will be able to create something like a unit inventory where you buy 'Mechs that unit members can 'borrow' 'Mechs from, but what are some other possibilities of c-bill use in general?

All right, Paul, this is a particular sore issue for me and my unit mates and I've tweeted to Russ about it repeatedly with NO response. Our Marik loyalist casual group, the 13th Oriente Hussars, has been in existence for 4 years now, and currently has 47 members on its roster. Of these only about 10 are active on a weekly basis, but we have some hope that the others will be back at some point, or at least cycle in and out of the game in the coming months. However, over time, we've had about 250 members come and go, and we regularly scrub the in-game roster of known perma-inactives.

With that said, our unit coffers are generally EMPTY because of the hated "recruitment tax," which is currently around $2.5 million C-Bills for each new member who asks to join, based on those 47 members still mustered. Whenever this happens, the ten of us pony up the money from our own funds to pay for the recruit, who often is brand new to the game and doesn't have the C-Bills to immediately reimburse us. Typically, we get a promise from said recruit(s) to deposit the cost of his recruitment into the coffers once he has ground out the C-bills, but before this happens, the recruit(s) often disappear, leaving us in the hole. Needless to say, this situation leaves my active members feeling burned since there is no way to recoup that loss.

Now I understand the original reasoning behind the implementation of the recruitment cost (i.e. to deter the creation of mega units and perhaps even to break up the existing ones, which were manipulating the attack lane algorithm back in the early days of Community Warfare). However, considering that a viable in-game economy based on operations and planet tagging never materialized in CW/FW, in which unit coffers could be replenished, the idea no longer makes any sense. Now its just a legacy feature that is financially crushing what small casual units still remain. Can you please do something about that????

And oh yeah, the implementation of two "buckets" killed any incentive to remain a loyalist, especially a Liao, Marik, or Davion loyalist. That was a terrible idea and led to even more longtime players leaving the game, people who actually cared about their factions. Personally, I don't care about the IS enough as a whole to fight the Clan bucket, but if there was something actually at stake for the Free Worlds League, we'd be fighting tooth and nail for it, just like in the glorious first months of Community Warfare, in which Marik and Davion engaged in huge and fierce battles over border worlds such as Wazan. 2 "buckets" completely destroyed that dynamic and any interest in fighting for no real gain for our faction.

[Paul Inouye]

Spheroid, on 02 August 2018 - 11:00 AM, said:

@Paul: No version of FP will be acceptable unless you bring back the concept of distinct fronts. Your all or nothing tug of war is what is causing the current malaise.

The Tug-of-War mechanic is a thorn in my side at the moment and I'm working on implementation designs to have alternate win conditions that do not use that thing. But it ain't pretty.

[Paul Inouye]

Joshua McEvedy, on 02 August 2018 - 12:49 PM, said:

All right, Paul, this is a particular sore issue for me and my unit mates *snip*

Note.. the snip doesn't mean I'm not reading or interested in what you said.. just an easier way of me quoting you without the large body of text.

Recruitment tax was exactly as you explained it... a way to minimize massive unit creation. It's something we sat for a very long time mulling over and trying to figure out best path to target. What led up to the final decision was that we needed a way to stop units from forming massive units filled with various players and alt accounts. The unit size was the biggest issue. We discussed capping unit size but we all know that that route will cause a lot of noise out there in the community. Why? Where do we draw the cap? 24 players? 48? 64,128,256, over 9000?

The only way to do it was to hit the bottom line of merc units. The all mighty c-bill.

There's another approach we 'could' do (Russ might come over here and turn my PC off saying stuff like this), have a unit size tax pull directly from the unit coffers. For example, once a week, we will pull 150,000CB (number pulled out of thin air for example purposes) per player in your unit at it's maximum size over that 7 day period. (This prevents units from kicking a bunch of players just before tax day and then re-inviting them). This way, in your case where you mentioned the new players joining, you and your unit make the decision if that new person is worth 150,000CB/week. If he leaves, your entire unit saves 150,000/week after he leaves. What does this 150,000CB go to? Well it's common knowledge that a typical MechWarrior uses 2.5 rolls of toilet paper, 4.5 GB of data on their mobile plans, 130 minutes of HPG long distance calling etc. (I.e. logistics cost).

Thoughts on that?

[cBiscuit]

I know I do not have much to say here, but I will say that Queenblade's "Repair and Refit" section of his document is the most comprehensive game plan I have seen on this thread. It is very detailed, and I believe it makes sense.

Here is the link to it for those that have yet to see:

https://docs.google....dit?usp=sharing

[Joshua McEvedy]

Lances107, on 02 August 2018 - 11:50 AM, said:

The first is to reinstate at full strength the Long tom.

Which would kill the game mode instantly. The community just won't tolerate it. No thanks.

[NeirSolon]

Would add my support to the aspect of Queenblade's doc noted by Eisenhorne on variable drop deck tonnage by planet/mode/etc.

I think of all suggestions it might (with a dose of salt) be the simplest way to add a good amount of new diversity into FP. Would also add the QoL improvement in turn to increase final countdown to launch to 2 minutes instead of 1 to compensate for increased need to reorient drop decks.

[Reno Blade]

From my old post:
https://mwomercs.com...-and-gp-united/
(I will leave out the #1 from that post as it contains a mix of QP and FP that is rather difficult to manage and doesn't belong here.)

So, some changes to the Map/Planetary system come into play to gain and spend resources.

2.) Faction Play lobby will have a new interface for spending the resources.
Players, Factions and Units gain resource points for each game (Scouting / QP / FP), with a soft cap, (more from conquest/domination modes and more for FP games in general) which can be used to "unlock" certain stuff for the Faction Play games by the group/company leader(s) each game.

2a.) Unit officers can use unit resources/coffer

2b.) Any player can add his personal resources (even Loyalists)

2c.) Points are only spend if the group has enough points to unlock the feat together

2d.) Factions have different bonus values that can increase if the faction owns more planets

2e.) Units automatically gain 5% resources into the unit coffer (similar to the 5% GXP of the mech XP)


3.) FP Drop Feats to unlock with resources on the launch window
Multiple areas to spend your pilot/group/unit resources
- Faction Camo and colors (default colors) automatically set ingame for the player/team - low cost per game

- Turret upgrades (health / range / dmg) for Invasion defender game - medium cost per game
- Generator upgrades (health) for Invasion defender game - medium cost per game
- Tower upgrades (health / duration / range) only for Incursion game modes - medium cost per game

- Dropship upgrades (higher tonnage) unlocks "extra" dropdeck - high cost per game
- Dropship downgrade (lower tonnage, faster respawn speed) allows to "save" some resource points with lower drop weight for a 5th mech drop - medium cost per game

- Air supperiority provides you shorter cooldowns on Airstrikes and longer cooldowns of the enemy airstrikes - high cost per game (only one team can have this active)
- Ground supperiority provides you shorter cooldowns on Artillery support and longer cooldowns of the enemy Artillery - high cost per game (only one team can have this active)

- AI controlled resource/repair convois that can repair turrets/towers/generators if they reach the base - can be intercepted by the enemy team - Air/Land crafts require "Air/Ground supperiority" - high cost per game



4.) Faction Bonuses (always active in all modes, if applicable)
Multiple bonuses can be applied and are depending on owned/conquered Planets per season:
- all IS factions get 10-30% discount on "Air/Ground" feats
- all Clan factions get 20-50% discount on "Dropship downgrade" (down-bidding)
- all Clan factions get X% less payment on losses, but X% more ressources/loyalty on victories
- all Clan factions get bonus to xyz
- all factions get bonus loyalty/ressources when piloting faction specific variants
- all factions have 5-10% better armor/agility when piloting faction specific variants
- Mercs get 50% of their employer bonuses
- Mercs get X% more resources/payment
- Mercs get X% discount on "Ground supperiority" feat


- Weapon buffs to range/cooldown about 5-10% (depending on planets)
- Steiner gets 15-40% discount for "Dropship Upgrade" feat
- Steiner gets X% buff to Assault mech speed and Gauss Rifles
- Davion gets X% buff to agility of Medium mechs
- Davion gets X% buff to Ballistics and ML
- Liao gets 15-40% buff to range/duration on ECM, BAP, Stealth Armor, UAV and scouting/incursion sensor effects
- Liao gets X% buff to SRM and Pulse Lasers
- Marik gets 15-40% discount on all turret/tower/generator and convoi feats
- Marik gets X% buff to speed of Heavy mechs
- Marik gets X% buff to LLaser and LRM
- Kurita gets 25-50% buff to all faction bonuses
- Kurita gets X% buff to PPCs and LRM
- FRR gets 15-50% discount for "Air supperiority" feat
- FRR gets X% buff to ER Lasers

- Clan Wolf gets X% buff to short range weapons and UACs/LRM
- Clan Jadefalcon gets X% buff to medium range weapons and LBX/PPC
- Clan Smoke Jaguar gets X% buff to long range weapons and Gauss/Streak
- Clan Ghost Bear gets X% buff to short weapons and SRM/Laser


5. Faction Group Composition is decided by the largest majority group.
- The matchmaker will prioritize one side and tries to do between 75% and 100% on one side (e.g. 10 IS Mechs and max of 2 Clan Mechs)
- - If the group consists of mostly IS Pilots, the drop is on the IS side (and same for Clan side)
- - Dropdecks need to be pure tech for each pilot (e.g. 10 IS pilots all needs to have 4 IS mechs and the 2 Clan Pilots need to bring Clan mechs only)
- - Group wide Faction Bonuses are depending on the groups major faction (e.g. major IS faction is Steiner, so you only get Steiner Feat bonuses)
- - Personal Faction Bonuses are independent on the groups major faction (e.g. as a Steiner Pilot, you will still get your X% buff to your Assault mechs, even if the group is Clan Wolf)


Drop in - Drop out system when you have used up your dropdeck:
- If you are dropping with a FP dropdeck with 4 mechs, you can then drop out at the end, or keep spectating (moved to spectator slot).
- If you are dropping as a solo QP player, you will have only one mech, but then just drop into an running battle in one of the next spawns with others together.

The total spawn time and server joining process would need to be adjusted a bit, but it could turn the whole QP experience from simple deathmatch to a persistent warzone with an outcome that is dependent on many more players.

---

In regards to global campaign: i thought of some kind of event like global mission before.
Rewards should be campaign participation banners that people can see on your profile like medals.

e.g.
Daily missions:
- Kill 20 players of Faction XYZ
- Defend 5 Bases while having a Loyalist contract
- Win 10 battles in a Davion mech with autocannons
- Survive 10 battles
...

Weekly missions:
- Complete 5 daily missions
- Defend 3 Planets
- Scout on 5 different planets
- Place on top 50 rank on class/mech xyz
- Salvage 5mio CB worth of battle salvage
...

Monthly missions/campaigns:
- Complete 3 weekly missions -> participation ribbon
...

season campaigns (3-6months):
- Compete 12 weekly missions -> war veteran ribbon/star
- Place on top 50 players in x weeks -> Champion banner/star

And ofc the whole idea of these is to have some kind of story/lore background/reason.

[Naglinator]

A) Never thank Ash, it sets a bad precedent

For the most part I've like FP the way it was originally. Just fix the maps so they aren't so defender bias.

C) The real problem has always been major merc teams floating btw contracts and changing the whole war with them. No house or Clan matters(or even tech balance) as the whole things boils down to which major unit sides with who.

D) It was the constant clan nerf bias which finally turned me off from FP. Clans aren't balance? That's how it just it is, if you're going to make a battletech game, deal with it. Otherwise come up with your mech IP and do what you want with that.

[Xannatharr]

Lances107, on 02 August 2018 - 11:50 AM, said:

The first is to reinstate at full strength the Long tom.

The first is to reinstate at full strength the Long tom.
The first is to reinstate at full strength the Long tom.
The first is to reinstate at full strength the Long tom.
The first is to reinstate at full strength the Long tom.


How about "No".

[Davegt27]

2) more of a living galactic map

or what are we fighting for? where are we going? where are the front lines?

the FP mode needs star lanes and jump points and weight of planets

some of this is in the game already
https://mwomercs.com...a6b4d5d29c9.png

the skill tree turned on its side

we just need to change the contents of the hexagon to planet names
and the lines connecting them would be the star lanes

this is needed to add a sense of direction for battles and a location for the front lines

also it lays the ground work for adding more of an economy to FP
economy is you get money from playing and you spend money for Mechs, weapons, and later down the roadmaybe something else

[QueenBlade]

You mean something like this Davegt27?

[Joshua McEvedy]

Paul Inouye, on 02 August 2018 - 01:05 PM, said:

There's another approach we 'could' do (Russ might come over here and turn my PC off saying stuff like this), have a unit size tax pull directly from the unit coffers. For example, once a week, we will pull 150,000CB (number pulled out of thin air for example purposes) per player in your unit at it's maximum size over that 7 day period. (This prevents units from kicking a bunch of players just before tax day and then re-inviting them). This way, in your case where you mentioned the new players joining, you and your unit make the decision if that new person is worth 150,000CB/week. If he leaves, your entire unit saves 150,000/week after he leaves. What does this 150,000CB go to? Well it's common knowledge that a typical MechWarrior uses 2.5 rolls of toilet paper, 4.5 GB of data on their mobile plans, 130 minutes of HPG long distance calling etc. (I.e. logistics cost).

Thoughts on that?

Thanks for the response. I actually do appreciate it. The problem with your weekly tax scenario though is that my small casual unit (and others like it) still don't have any real way of making C-Bills at a macro level in-game (since we can't take and tag planets on our own), and that the burden of paying the weekly danegeld would fall on the same ten always active members. Just to survive, we'd end up culling out the 37 semi-inactives, who'd probably leave the game for good, which is counterproductive for all concerned. And like I said, our coffers are nearly always at zero, so how could we pay the tax each week, and what would happen if we defaulted? I for one don't enjoy grinding out C-Bills only for Comstar to come in behind us each week to take them as tax.

If you want to implement a system like this, then you have to give us some way of making money as a unit besides individual member contributions to the coffers.