357 replies to this topic

[Chados]

Cato Zilks, on 27 August 2018 - 03:51 PM, said:

I blame Tina

LOL

[Marius Evander]

Paul Inouye, on 27 August 2018 - 03:02 PM, said:

If we average Skill Rating on teams, this would actually slow the queue down quite a bit. To compensate we'd have to add a long drop timer (in between matches kicking off) to build SSR based match ups. With population levels as they are, this would be a VERY long timer with no guarantee of a match between drops. For example, a team consisting of all 2750 SSR rated players would be sitting in queue for a very long time as average team builds are around 1700 SSR.

2 minutes is too short, 4minutes sounds better imho (since the current system is 10 minutes), a 'next in queue' system would give high ssr teams a drop if they didnt find a decent match the 1st drop cycle the next cycle.

[slide]

Tarl Cabot, on 27 August 2018 - 02:42 PM, said:

How different would the experiences had been if PGI had incorporated ingame VOIP?

In my estimation units would have recruited even more members than they did via text chat. Ideally that would have been a good thing. However most units I know lost so many players to burnout before FP even launched that it may not have made that much difference at this point in time.

By the end of the first year in MWO, ARMD a unit a few of us created just for MWO here in Australia had over 800 members (think about that, MS barely cracked 500 and they dominated FP at one point) OMC another Aus unit had similar numbers, DHB (OC)and RDMX weren't all that far behind. Now RDMX doesn't exist and the other 3 probably couldn't make a 12 man between them most days.

Sync dropping was made an offence but to the best of my knowledge not one that was ever enforced. It was not uncommon for me to log in, launch a random match and find 6-8 unit mates spread across both teams. Oddly that actually made the game more fun in a lot of ways (bragging rights).

Back to MM.

MM will not solve all problems, just like separating the queues wont solve all problems. But it can change peoples perceptions of the game.

By making a MM that stratifies the players as best it can given those on line at the time it should reduce the incidence of sharks feeding on minnows and overall improve match quality. Obviously it gets better with bigger numbers of players.

I know some teams go out of their way to get matches (or to avoid matches) against each other. But no matter how hard they try they are still at the mercy of the MM we have which can foil even the best laid plans. As it stands now the Call to Arms function basically funnels pugs into pre-made teams, it's just the way it works, if a team misses the drop window against another team then they will get pugs or small groups. Having a MM that says we are going to hold onto that 1, 12 man group for a while or launch it against the best of what we have in the pug group, and then launches all the pugs against each other is going to go a long way towards allaying peoples fears of getting stomped. More importantly it will hopefully also mean that even if they do get that worst case match up they wont get it over and over again like they do now. (I've seen that, 5 or more matches in a row against the same group, not pretty).

Getting people to play and stick with FP is a lot like gambling for the first time. If you have a good experience early on you'll likely keep playing perhaps even develop a life long habit. If you have a bad experience you'll probably never do it again, because you never experience the rush from the good experience. FP offers up to many bad experiences to to many people to make it compelling to play. That has to change, one way or another.

[Monkey Lover]

Cadoazreal, on 27 August 2018 - 05:08 PM, said:

2 minutes is too short, 4minutes sounds better imho (since the current system is 10 minutes), a 'next in queue' system would give high ssr teams a drop if they didnt find a decent match the 1st drop cycle the next cycle.

It will end up like solaris if its only 2 minutes where the match maker does almost nothing. If they were smart the wait time would depend on how many players are playing.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 27 August 2018 - 08:16 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

Paul Inouye, on 27 August 2018 - 10:24 AM, said:

Total of 513 players have reached Rank 20.

Davion: 51
Kurita: 34
Liao: 34
Marik: 16
Rasalhague: 44
Steiner: 71

Clan Smoke Jaguar: 26
Clan Jade Falcon: 118
Clan Wolf: 69
Clan Ghost Bear: 42
Clan Steel Viper: 4
Clan Nova Cat: 1
Clan Diamond Shark: 3

In addition to these Q...

Eisenhorne, on 27 August 2018 - 11:03 AM, said:

That's a lot fewer people than I thought. Is that counting for duplicates? Like, how many people have Rank 20 in more than 1 faction? And what about Mercenaries?

I have more in additon to those... Well Mercs, definately want to know that! I know of at least 20 without even blinking an eye.

Also are those numbers based on 'as at current date'? or does it also include those who hit is historically, but are no longer Rank 20.

Remembering that Loyalty Point Penalty for dessertion was removed only recently (the -25% penalty or whatever). There is potential here for a reasonable gap if the numbers are only look at 'current' Rank 20 players as opposed to those who achieved Rank 20 at some point in the game history but might not be Rank 20 in a particular faction anymore.

Example:
A player maxed Kurita LVL20, received all the rewards and then switched (taking the Loyalty Point Penalty earlier in the year) to say Steiner Loyalist and is currently only lvl 15 there. They would no longer be counted in the Rank 20 Kurita as they would have dropped if they desserted anywhere in the past 24 months+

Definately interesting to know more on those numbers as they definately feel a bit low to me as well.

[Marius Evander]

Oh in regards to the "how many people are rank 20" ? Id be interested in how many people get to rank 15 then change faction because rank 15 is a much better reward to time invested ratio, but with the rate events hand out rewards now, all the loyalist rank up rewards are pretty trivial by comparison for time invested.

Edited by Cadoazreal, 28 August 2018 - 01:35 AM.

[Horseman]

Nightbird, on 27 August 2018 - 03:58 PM, said:

If we know the skill rating difference between teams, why not give incentives to the stronger team to take less tonnage?

Tell you what... why not just give incentives to take less than full tonnage, period? Newbies can drop with their full ton deck, organized players may skip some tonnage.

Quote

A strong team versus weak team, take full tonnage = 50% earning penalty, take 75% tonnage = 0% income modifier, take 50% tonnage = 50% income bonus?

Instead of penalizing them, why not give the weaker team an extra bonus to CB/XP instead?

[Cato Zilks]

Bonuses that jeopardize victory won't be taken willingly. We want better matches, where pugs have more of a chance, not matches where pugs get better pay for dying faster. When it comes to weight balancing that means we have to create hard limits that fall mostly on good players and mostly not on the bad ones. The issue is getting the sorting criteria correct for the player base while not creating a wild system that changes an individuals drop weight every match. I have, and will keep preaching that we should do this through more stable factions.


Here is the long form I have been putting together:

Right now, we essentially have only 2 factions (IS and Clan) each of which is comprised of several sub-teams (the houses and the individual clans). Matches either can be made for the whole community based on the techbase (IS/Clan distinction) or for a subset based on sub-faction fighting (Davion/Liao distinction). Paul has confirmed that the system cannot currently read other “alliances,” such that Ghost Bear and FRR could gang up on Wolf.

This limitation is, I think, one of the most important things that needs to be changed in faction play. I say this with full knowledge of many other problems and complaints, but the inability of the system to interface directly with factions, greatly handicaps PGI’s ability to make any adjustments. Changing the way the game treats factions can have several major improvements for Faction Play.


A) Weight balancing.
Nothing helps balance more than tonnage. We are not looking to make bad factions and pugs dominate the field, just have a bit more of a chance. Likewise, for those groups that do well, we want to give them more of a challenge.

The balancing decisions are currently based on techbase, so IS gets 265 and Clan gets 255. Despite that 10 ton disadvantage, Steel Vipers manage to have a 1.60 W/L ratio. Pug heavy Clan Wolf is the only Clan with losing record at .92 W/L ratio. That .68 spread is really big for two groups that get the same handicap. The spread on the IS side is almost as lopsided, with Kurita (1.45) up .63 in its ratio over Davion (.82).


These numbers scream that it is not the tech, but the players that make all the difference in winning or losing. And while assigning weight caps based on player-skill would be a massive headache both for PGI and us (you’d have to change your decks very frequently), we do see strong correlations between where the bad pugs align and where better players align. Season after season we see Davion and Wolf have the largest pug populations and they continually struggle compared to other factions. These under-performing factions need larger drop weights while the over-performers need weight reductions. Again, this is not meant to bring absolute parity, this is merely a tool to help bring some competitiveness into the mode. And look, if a faction is mediocre but has one amazing team that throws the stats off, thats fine. That insanely good team will either see their compatriots undo all of their hard work or they will train them to play better so they can succeed with reduced tonnage (more on this in section E.)


B. Lore.
PGI took on the hard task of recreating the Battletech Universe. This is not a simple universe, but one with constantly shifting alliances. Phase 2 did allow us to “shift alliances” after a fashion, but the endless sea of attack lanes were overkill for the small population. Phase 3 has been a major over-correction, where we essentially just fight as IS or Clan. But nobody cares about IS or Clans. The narratives that make this universe aren’t about “The Inner Sphere” or about “The Clans”. The stories are about the people, units, and factions that comprise those two overly broad categories. In universe people identify themselves as Kuritans or as part of Clan Jade Falcon. When we play a universe scoped battletech game, we want to do likewise.

We need to scale back down to what people care about in this fictional universe: factions. To fit this back in with the narrative scope, we the players are the individuals of the lore story, we fight with our unit (like the units in lore), and we fight for our faction (like the people in lore). You can’t make a universe scope battletech game engaging if you insist on only having two teams. It's just not battletech. We need lots of factions with shifting alliances. Factions need to be ganged up on at times and be ganging up at others.


There are more lore reasons we need factions to treated independent and have malleable alliances in the game. We cannot currently advance the timeline (we are currently in 3057). The Clan Wolf Refusal war happens in 3057, so in later years we should expect to see Clan Wolf-in-exile who fights primarily against the other Clanners on the side of the Inner Sphere. Likewise, Nova Cat flips sides and fights for the IS starting in 3058. While we don’t need to add Wolf-in-Exile, we already have Nova Cats in the game. There is no way of having later map dates without having a Clan-techbase faction fight for the Inner Sphere “alliance.” This change is a must for the future of Faction Warfare.


C) Freshness and Skill Balancing
Shifting alliances not only is in keeping with the lore, it also keeps the mode fresh. We don’t have the same teams every day, nor do we always face the same enemies. This helps keep the game from getting boring. One week Nova Cats are helping eliminate the Smoke Jaguars, next week they are defending the St. Ives Compact from Liao aggression. Keeping the mode fresh, keeps people playing, which means PGI keeps revenue.


We can pursue Paul's event oriented FP model but without the disastrous issues surrounding just getting one pick and being locked to a side regardless of how the herd of cats aligned. PGI can divide the faction to give close to equal population or they can focus on dividing it by talent. Fluid alliances would allow PGI to counteract clusters of really talented players from overpowering the map. If all of the best units went to the Diamond Sharks and they were winning at a disproportionate rate, PGI could make them fight alongside the weakest factions. Giving them tighter tonnage restrictions as well as weaker teammate pools, could really put hardmode on for good players while also giving the more middle of the road players a chance to overwhelm the super talented Sharks.

D) How do mercs play into this?
Now, one of the underlying changes we need to make this work is to make the population more stable. This means no more faction hopping all the time (which I gleefully do whenever I want right now). Penalties for breaking contract have been viewed as a bad thing because it locked players into a faction when there were no matches… but there were only no matches because we have population fluctuations. If we cut down on the need to do the do-si-do, the ills of penalties for breaking contracts also fade.

We need mechanisms that (1) “prevent” mercs from switching "sides" of a conflict in the middle of said conflict, (2) keep them from flooding one faction, and (3) prevent good mercs from joining weak factions just to abuse their tonnage advantage. To point (1), if a merc’s contract is expiring then they can re-sign or sign on with the last faction’s allies. If they resign with the same faction, they receive an added 5% bonus to payouts (we want to encourage population stability (also, standard merc payout should be set higher than loyalist, so this would be a boost to the boosted pay)). Now, if they really don’t want to go with any of the factions allied to their current client, then they break contract and suffer penalties, just like they used to for breaking contract (which also makes sense from a reputation point of view). Again, stability is the priority. We want PGI to have some idea about how they are dividing population when they create an event and set alliances. (2) have hard caps on merc population within a faction, after which 0 new contracts will be allowed until the faction is under the threshold. And the solution to (3) has two parts; first, all mercs should be dropping at a slight tonnage disadvantage to the faction they signed with (5-10 tons less which is counterbalanced by their higher pay). Second, whenever a merc unit switches to a faction that allows them more weight, their payout is reduced in % of the number of tons increased, and they will only gain that back through the 5% increase per resigning.


So, if Merc_Team_1 left the top faction for the worst faction which would allow them 40 more tons, that means they would take a 40% pay cut to go there and it would take 8 re-signings to get back up to full merc rate and the 9th resigning would finally get them to the 105% bonus point that resigning normally gets a team to. BUT, if the faction’s W/L ratio improves while mercs are there such that PGI drops their tonnage, the mercs already signed on will gain a % boost in pay for every ton taken away and that boost will stay with them so long as the resign. So if after a year Merc_Team_1 has made what used to be the worst faction into a pretty decent one and thus shaved 30 tons for the faction, then Merc_Team_1 would be paid at 135% of the standard merc rate.

E) Training and Toxicity
This idea of turning a faction around brings me to the final point and I think the most important one for why I want factions to take a more central role in the game. The player base for FP has become much more salty since I started playing (which was around the Steam launch). We had many people training and leading pugs back in the day and the reason was simple: a pug could fill a slot in FP as easily as a competent person. So, if you cared about your faction taking any planets, then you wanted your faction’s pugs to suck less. That meant training them. Players had had a vested interest in making the average player better. I want to go a step further and provide merc units an incentive to train puggles that are drawn to really bad factions. I want to incentivize patience and teaching in the game. This is like parenting, creating good structure with incentives towards good behavior will go along way to making a better community.


Training is very rare now, because nobody cares about this Allies/Axis IS/Clan divide we currently have. Also, the puggles are unlikely to stick it out anyways because once phase 3 rolled out there weren’t queues that lacked top tier teams, which means they were constantly getting their teeth kicked in (MM will help in this regard). And with the all or nothing feature of tug of war, the ideal strategy in this new era of FP was stack a side and kick the crap out of the other side so they were too demoralized to try and and win the last four matches and make 80 victories count for nothing. (I say was because most people hardly care anymore if planets flip, so now the strat is just get quick matches and that frequently means hopping back and forth between Clan and IS clubbing puggles in search of a team.) MM can be a good step, but we need to incentivize a mentality shift to make the community more inviting. Growth can only happen if the game is healthy. That starts with how the game is structured.

Edited by Cato Zilks, 28 August 2018 - 01:23 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Paul Inouye, on 27 August 2018 - 10:24 AM, said:

Total of 513 players have reached Rank 20.

Davion: 51
Kurita: 34
Liao: 34
Marik: 16
Rasalhague: 44
Steiner: 71

Clan Smoke Jaguar: 26
Clan Jade Falcon: 118
Clan Wolf: 69
Clan Ghost Bear: 42
Clan Steel Viper: 4
Clan Nova Cat: 1
Clan Diamond Shark: 3

I interpret the above as a preemptive argument against those who have asked for more open ended rewards paths for loyalists (i.e. why bother with coding new open ended rewards if only 500 people have ever even been in the situation of potentially exceeding the current path, etc.), and that is probably reasonable; but to me, this post more than anything of late, just inspires a feeling of regretful, what if-ing in me, in terms of how much Phase 3 and then the subsequent de-evolution of CW negatively affected the game and its population.

I mean, when I was still a regular CW player I was a member of SO, an FRR loyalist unit, which had ~400 members of which at least half were active though casual (an hour or two during the week and several hours on a weekend night), and a select minority that seemed to be always on. Of those that I played with of the casual ilk, most were around at least rank 10 and many were rank 14-18 when CW, well, fell apart (I think I was rank 16 when I stopped). I wonder how many would have stayed and gone on to rank 20 but for Phase 3, the unit tax, the essential removal of factions with the one bucket solution, etc.? 100? 200? Who can say, but that was just one group of folks, one unit of mostly minimal and casual play players, who were more into the lore and “FP experience” and the rest than they were so much the game itself. I suspect most were on track to sticking with their faction progression (I know I was) until faction progression, not to mention factions themselves became essentially meaningless.

To try and put a positive spin on it...while I look at that chart and see regret for what happened to the mode, its pretense of immersion and “faction” warfare, and all the rest, I also look at it as perhaps an opportunity for PGI. To wit: Make loyalty points valuable. Give greater incentives to stick with the path of progression. Make being a member of a faction in this faction play game a more reasonable and alluring aspect of playing it. Honestly, do that or just dump the factions altogether and have us all be some flavor of mercenary as many back in the day argued we all should be (remember the old chestnut: the website is called mwoMERCS.com after all).

513 rank 20 players, in the entire history of the mode.
Some units once had nearly that many members on their way up the ranks.
Once upon a time.

[Horseman]

Cato Zilks, on 28 August 2018 - 01:09 AM, said:

Bonuses that jeopardize victory won't be taken willingly.

Yes, they will. A coordinated team can win without spending half of their drop deck, let alonghalf their tonnage - I've seen a medium rush eat a wave and a half of assault mechs.
It's a risk vs reward thing - if you are confident enough in your mech choice and skills that you have no issue with willingly handicapping yourself, why shouldn't you be allowed and encouraged to do so?

Quote

We want better matches,

All of us do. Do you think it's mowing down pugs with no resistance is a fun experience? It's not, but the only road to better matches is a larger FP population.

Quote

where pugs have more of a chance,

Forcing handicaps on better players is not the way to do it, it will just cause another exodus.
You either convince the player population to self-regulate - which can be done by incentivizing teams to opt into handicaps that would increase their C-Bills/XP/LP per hour - or prevent the baby seals from plunging head on into the shark tank altogether. One or the other, and gating FP is not much of an option.

Quote

not matches where pugs get better pay for dying faster.

One of the things that put pugs off FP so badly is that QP earns them more C-Bills. If the rewards were boosted based on the qualify of the opposition, they could still get decent earnings even when badly outmatched. With that in place, you might keep their interest in FP for long enough that some will find it in them to evolve from baby seals into Teenage Sharkhunter Ninja S.E.A.L.S. - or at least get the resolve to try.
How otherwise do you propose to keep them interested in the mode long enough that there's an actual population sufficient for pug v pug matches to ever occur?

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When it comes to weight balancing that means we have to create hard limits that fall mostly on good players and mostly not on the bad ones.

FFS, no.
Stop expecting PGI to, as MischiefSC succintly put it,, "lower the standards more so that no matter how absolutely cowardly, timid, incompetent and terrible someone is, no matter how much they flat out refuse to take even the tiniest step toward improvement, <bad players> should still have decent odds of winning".
The bar for FP isn't high. Some players won't be able to cut it no matter what you do, and right now you're calling for changes that would solely benefit the side that barely cares about FP while penalizing the one that actually does.

Quote

And while assigning weight caps based on player-skill would be a massive headache both for PGI and us (you’d have to change your decks very frequently), we do see strong correlations between where the bad pugs align and where better players align. Season after season we see Davion and Wolf have the largest pug populations and they continually struggle compared to other factions. These under-performing factions need larger drop weights while the over-performers need weight reductions. Again, this is not meant to bring absolute parity, this is merely a tool to help bring some competitiveness into the mode. And look, if a faction is mediocre but has one amazing team that throws the stats off, thats fine. That insanely good team will either see their compatriots undo all of their hard work or they will train them to play better so they can succeed with reduced tonnage (more on this in section E.)

You're right that it's the players. But it's JUST that - the players, not the faction.
You're still calling for weight caps based on player skill - worse, caps based on average population skill.
Having huge pug populations concentrate on factions associated with specific lore or previous mechwarrior games - or simply the first eye-catching banner they see - is not and never was the issue.
Your proposed system would just cause players to dogpile the faction with a perceived advantage - everyone who'se not a loyalist for RP reasons would reinforce a single faction. "Oh look, Davion has a huge drop deck increase" would directly lead to "oh hey, 228, MS and EVIL just went Davion". It would not fix skill levels.

Congratulations, under your system the pugs who chose Kurita would also be penalized while actual good players on Davion side would be unduly buffed! The unit I'm with doesn't need 300 tons of a drop deck just because there's a metric ton of awful pugs coincidentally in the same faction.

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Training is very rare now, because nobody cares about this Allies/Axis IS/Clan divide we currently have.

Training is not rare... puggles looking for training is. Some of them are so unwilling to practice any form of communication or teamwork that they deliberately disable comms and pretend they're playing a solo game.

Look, let me put it this way: when I was solo pugging FP, there were a few times when pugs were actually able to get their heads together and fight a unit drop to a standstill - and even win once.

This who are willing to improve not only have resources available already, but can also reach out to the community for help - Ash has a thread for his training, and just about every unit is willing to show them the ropes if they're only willing to listen.

Edited by Horseman, 28 August 2018 - 06:53 AM.

[Tier5ForLife]

Paul Inouye, on 27 August 2018 - 09:34 AM, said:

Clarification 1:

AI and PvE will not be coming to MWO. Some people have stated that without it FP is pointless. So why should we bother with anything if that is the stance? And because that's your stance, you think that you speak for everyone trying to see what we can do to enhance the experience?

As you can see by the pages of responses coming into these feedback thread, there is a functioning playerbase wanting to see this new stuff added. There's even a much larger active player base who are remaining silent as per any public forum discussion. If PvE in BT and MW5 are what you're looking for, you have some really cool stuff coming your way. But please stop trying to shoot everyone else down who want to play a PvP experience in MWO's Faction Play game space.

I'm not trying to poo-poo on you specific folks here, I'm just trying to get FP in a position where a lot more people are happy with the feature. It won't be perfect or reach that MMO level of depth, but it will be a lot better than it is right now.

I like to ask you a few questions. The first one is something that all players seem to hate but in this, I do not care what anything thinks, I want to know if it is possible.

First thing is adding NPCs to the game. For one thing, this would add Tanks, Hovercrafts, infantry etc to the game. The NPC units would not have any mechs.

Control over them would be none or a little bit depending on the NPC Unit. I can see some of them having personally of their own. Some are cowards, some are hardcore. Some would be aggressive and would be outside the gates and attacking the team that is attacking. Some will run and even run off the map. Some would be just locals helping out and others would be strong units.

There could be an option to use them or not. But Ghost Drops could be a thing of the past. Because there will be a large NPC unit there.

"Lesser teams" would have NPC support. They can be anything from a local NPC unit to a Merc unit to a Loyalist unit that was brought in to help. And this help could come during the match. After two drops the team that is down 24-3 would see landing ships coming in and quickly unload an NPC unit to help.

This would make it harder for the better teams to win but then they would get more experience and IMO, more fun because it adds so much more to the game. We talk a lot about Lore but where are these vehicles? Where are the tanks and other forces?

I'd also like more things to blow up. For several years in Total War, if a building is in your way, you bring artillery up and flatten it.

Clearly, the biggest problem will simply be money as in most things. I'd offer the players to pay for another "help the game" thing like you already do and more items or whatever that will allow them to earn more XP and C-Bills. But they would know that this money is going towards improving Faction Warfare.

Much like I think you should do the same thing about running some Superbowl ads (I will keep bugging PGI about this until after the Superbowl)

The way I understand it, MechWarrior Online is owned by Microsoft and PGI is leasing it. So let say I won Powerball 3 times and I decided to buy the game and pour money into it. Could you do it?

The 2nd thing is an FW academy. New players would have to walk the maps (with arrows pointing the way) and learn to destroy turrets, lower gates, find the Gens and Omega and learn where to fire at them to destroy them. Some of the better FW Units could also help build this and there would be arrows to show the best way to go. Prompts would come up not to shoot here, but to RUN and do not block the rest of your team.

As the player improves and proves he knows certain things, NPC Mechs start dropping with him. And after a while, there will be an NPC unit on the other side.

The first time through this the players would receive C-Bills etc. But after they have passed all the "training", they could still do it but with no C-Bill bonuses.

The last thing would be text messages for FW games. The 15-20 minute wait itself is not what bothers me. It is the fact that I have to sit here in this chair watching the screen and waiting. Humans are not made to sit in chairs, it is unnatural and one of the things that are killing Americans. And/or Killing our healthcare budget because so much goes to people who ate too much or sat too much. If you look at nations where back pain is low, they squat instead of sitting in chairs.

So I like to get up, stretch and take a short walk, change some sprinklers, water some plants, take some cuttings, mist and check on other cuttings, pick up fallen limbs to make Biochar, to mow part of my yard, rake leaves, chip leaves, turn compost piles etc. There is ALWAYS something to do and almost all of them are better than sitting in a chair and watching the Monitor.

But if PGI could send a text message to those that listed their contact information saying "2 minutes" or even 90 seconds would IMO, be a plus. I've played a lot with teammates who simply get bored waiting and go off to play Quickplay or another game entirely. So now there is me and one other guy instead of 12 of us with others waiting for a spot.

Edited by LikeUntoBuddha, 28 August 2018 - 09:18 AM.

[Kell Aset]

Peter2k, on 27 August 2018 - 12:24 PM, said:

Well Paul mentioned that Loyalty Points might be used as a currency.

So planets you own could produce LP, maybe?

That still does not address lore though.
Maybe you could throw something in on that front?

I think Paul already said that planets that have lore wise manufacturing plants for certain weapons or mechs, giving cost reduction for purchasing or something like that, is a no go.

Yea I was expecting that in the near future we will be just hoarding LP and picking what we want from some kind of LP rewards list. l guess planets controlled by faction could give faction members LP but would we also ge getting LP from FP matches like we do now? If not then conquering planets would actually matter, well kinda but only if LP rewards would be good buuut, we would be conquering planets just to get LP rewards, rewards would be the most important thing here and not the planets really.
Still I would like to see this planet upgrade system I mentioned before where planets make"money" of some sort that high ranking faction players could use to build stuff on those planets. I want to see that bc it would add some variety to our matches, same maps but with different buildings having different effects/powers.
I see one problem with my idea tho, factions with more planets will be richer and will be able to build faster, more and more expensive buildings on their planets, making them possibly harder to attack, unless planet X can be upgraded only with money "produced" by this very planet, that would a little bit strange tho.

The lore tho, not sure how could it be added to pvp multiplayer shooter that MWO is in a meaningful way then again I really don't care about it all that much, not when it comes to FP mode at least, i need something else behind FP to get me interested & motivated, smth that will make me care about my "faction" about capturing planets, holding planets and something that will make me care about losing planets, Why planet C is important? why planet B is less important? if I will be told "because lore" I won't care. I love games with good story sure but story/lore is rather something for single player games where missions are scripted and stuff like that

And yea, i know no mech/weapon discounts etc. for owning planets, I wouldn't care about that anyway, I have all the mechs I need and more cbills than I need, new players tho would probably like to get some discounts.

Edited by Kell Aset, 28 August 2018 - 11:12 AM.

[Tier5ForLife]

The Sims meets MWO?

Edited by LikeUntoBuddha, 28 August 2018 - 10:40 AM.

[Rizzelbizzeg]

Paul Inouye, on 20 August 2018 - 02:54 PM, said:

<snip>

1.2 Creating a singular queue system

• Faction Play queues will be merged into one single queue.

<snip>

I'm confused by this part, what queues are being merged into one queue? I thought FP was already just one queue. Does this mean scouting and invasion in one queue?

[Eisenhorne]

Horseman, on 27 August 2018 - 11:20 PM, said:

Tell you what... why not just give incentives to take less than full tonnage, period? Newbies can drop with their full ton deck, organized players may skip some tonnage.

Because you never know what team you're facing against. If you drop against a team of equal skill, and you've under-tonned because you expected newbies, you're going to lose. If it gave some kind of indication of relative strength of the teams, it would be a lot easier to pick under tonned or "fun" mechs instead of taking meta tryhard mechs because you actually have a fight.

[Cato Zilks]

Horseman, on 28 August 2018 - 06:29 AM, said:

Yes, they will. A coordinated team can win without spending half of their drop deck, let alonghalf their tonnage - I've seen a medium rush eat a wave and a half of assault mechs.
It's a risk vs reward thing - if you are confident enough in your mech choice and skills that you have no issue with willingly handicapping yourself, why shouldn't you be allowed and encouraged to do so?

Yes, I know lighter mechs can win, I have been part of light rushes that killed more than two waves. I have been up against pug teams that would have required us to be restricted to 4 waves of Spider 5V's for the match to be competitive. Would any competent team ton down to face such teams? Of course, duh. It means the match we end sooner becasue light mechs are faster. But you don't know who you face until after the drop selection. So would you gladly ton down to Assassins and Cicadas to face EVIL, MS, etc? No. When facing competent people, you want to play with full tonnage. You are offering an irrational gamble. Staying at full tonnage gives me the chances for the win in all scenarios and especially once we have this MM, it be most likely to keep my C-Bill payout the highest over time.

• If I stay at full tonnage, I will win against pugs and get a million cbills.
  
• If I stay at full tonnage, I will win against a good team and get a million cbills.
  
• If I drop tonnage, I will win against pugs and get 1.5 million cbills.
  
• If I drop tonnage, I will win against a good team and get 500k cbills.

Horseman, on 28 August 2018 - 06:29 AM, said:

Forcing handicaps on better players is not the way to do it, it will just cause another exodus.
You either convince the player population to self-regulate - which can be done by incentivizing teams to opt into handicaps that would increase their C-Bills/XP/LP per hour - or prevent the baby seals from plunging head on into the shark tank altogether.

So, I might have sympathy if this was just targeted on "good players," but I am intentionally creating a system that does not single the player out for drop weight reduction. Lets say PLAYER_X is 99th percentile but does not want to play with a reduced drop weight. PLAYER_X can go to any faction that sucks, be their best player and not have a tonnage restriction. These forced handicaps are a way giving PGI balance tools and a means of distributing talent. Paul is already looking for ways of not having one side stacked or having people jump over to the winning side. These are issues because "self-regulation" is not going to cut it in a video game (where we are dealing with a closed system). PGI keeps opening things up so we can self regulate and the mode keeps getting worse. "Oh, there is population imbalance, we here now you can just jump sides all willy nilly, sort yourselves out. What!?! population imbalance problems are still there, but now we have a rapidly fluctuating population with generally dwindling participation from the larger community?"

Horseman, on 28 August 2018 - 06:29 AM, said:

How otherwise do you propose to keep them interested in the mode long enough that there's an actual population sufficient for pug v pug matches to ever occur?

Though this one would have been clear from the post. Make a mode that they care about and where they form a sense of community.

Horseman, on 28 August 2018 - 06:29 AM, said:

FFS, no.
Stop expecting PGI to, as MischiefSC succinctly put it,, "lower the standards more so that no matter how absolutely cowardly, timid, incompetent and terrible someone is, no matter how much they flat out refuse to take even the tiniest step toward improvement, <bad players> should still have decent odds of winning".
The bar for FP isn't high. Some players won't be able to cut it no matter what you do, and right now you're calling for changes that would solely benefit the side that barely cares about FP while penalizing the one that actually does.

Look, we all agree (I hope) that QP should have a MM that sorts players. Or to say the same thing differently, we agree that a 99th percentile player player a 1st percentile player is lame as **** funny non-ideal. So, if we aren't keeping the plebs and princes separate (1 queue for FP), then we want some sort of handicap system. This is a game where the fun is in the competition. Aiming to make the games slightly more competitive is a virtue. This is why the IS has quirks and a tonnage advantage. Clantech is currently better than IS, so to improve balance we have handicaps. That doesn't mean that PGI is ruining the game and making it easier for those "bad IS pilots" to win without trying to make improvements. It means they acknowledge a competitiveness gulf and they want to lessen it. (FYI, I still think the gulf between player skill far exceeds the gulf between techbases.)

Horseman, on 28 August 2018 - 06:29 AM, said:

You're right that it's the players. But it's JUST that - the players, not the faction.
You're still calling for weight caps based on player skill - worse, caps based on average population skill. Having huge pug populations concentrate on factions associated with specific lore or previous mechwarrior games - or simply the first eye-catching banner they see - is not and never was the issue.

Well, if we want some kind of balance by talent pool, then yes it is.

Horseman, on 28 August 2018 - 06:29 AM, said:

Your proposed system would just cause players to dogpile the faction with a perceived advantage - everyone who'se not a loyalist for RP reasons would reinforce a single faction. "Oh look, Davion has a huge drop deck increase" would directly lead to "oh hey, 228, MS and EVIL just went Davion". It would not fix skill levels.

1) thats why there are restrictions on where mercs can go.
2) they would bring up the average for your Dav pugs and that tonnage advantage would dry up. And in the meantime, PGI could pit the fictional Davion superpower against an array of good teams.

Horseman, on 28 August 2018 - 06:29 AM, said:

Congratulations, under your system the pugs who chose Kurita would also be penalized while actual good players on Davion side would be unduly buffed! The unit I'm with doesn't need 300 tons of a drop deck just because there's a metric ton of awful pugs coincidentally in the same faction.

As to the Kurita Pug, sure they are short on tonnage but have a disproportionate chance of dropping with a winning team. Their matches are more likely to be competitive.
Sure, HHoD does not need the tonnage, but the masses of terribad pugs that far outnumber HHoD, do need a leg up. They are very likely to not be on a team that is competent.

Horseman, on 28 August 2018 - 06:29 AM, said:

Training is not rare... puggles looking for training is. Some of them are so unwilling to practice any form of communication or teamwork that they deliberately disable comms and pretend they're playing a solo game. Look, let me put it this way: when I was solo pugging FP, there were a few times when pugs were actually able to get their heads together and fight a unit drop to a standstill - and even win once. This who are willing to improve not only have resources available already, but can also reach out to the community for help - Ash has a thread for his training, and just about every unit is willing to show them the ropes if they're only willing to listen.

Oh, I know many puggles don't listen. (Admittedly, I have tk'ed puggles that refused to listen and blocked a chokepoint.) But, Pugs being defiantly bad doesn't make training not rare. Ash offered training because there are masses of people complaining in the forums and average competitiveness in matches is declining. We need to incentivize growth in the game mode. From the puggle side, that means we make the game mode something that is more engaging and something that ideally has a less steep curve. From the vet side, it means we need to create incentive structures to get the good players/teams interacting with and training the bad players.

[Cato Zilks]

Also, keep this is mind Horseman. Right now we have no way of putting good teams on opposite sides of a conflict. Currently they can just pick whatever side they want and in Paul's proposals they can just pick whatever side they want (and then be locked in for the duration of the event.)

I am proposing a way to pit teams against each other. And its a way to not always face the same teams.

[Nightbird]

Don't bother discussing dynamic tonnage limits, they already said it won't happen.

Changing rewards based on tonnage can probably still be done though, so that's where my focus is.

Keep in mind if mandatory handicap is put in, it there would need to be a system to determine which team is stronger. If you're the much stronger team, it would still be up to you if you take less tons or just take the earnings penalty.

[Cato Zilks]

Dynamic tonnages based on individuals would be a major overhaul for the system and is rightly off the table. For factions though we already have W/L record kept, and you don't need a complex automated system in place. Somebody at PGI would make the call to adjust weight changes for a faction. The roadblock is be rewriting how the game interacts with factions, but again I see this as a change that PGI has to make at some point down the road.

[justcallme A S H]

Rizzelbizzeg, on 28 August 2018 - 10:06 AM, said:

I'm confused by this part, what queues are being merged into one queue? I thought FP was already just one queue. Does this mean scouting and invasion in one queue?

It's been explained very clearly in past pages, even with screenshots of how the match maker will work for it. Please go back and read them.