Spheroid, on 06 December 2018 - 12:46 PM, said:
The current levels of collusion are an entirely predictable response to the collapsing of all factions to a two sided conflict. There is no opportunity for competition absent the ability to fight your own tech base blood rivals. The removal of same tech base conflict means there no longer is a possibility to seek conflict elsewhere or desync. Complete faction switching freedom eliminates any possibility of geographic sanctuary.
Also the static universe devoid of planet capture means that the former e-peen trophies of planets and tags have replaced by the "game" of competitive matchscore or damage farming. That is a far more toxic sport and not compatible with the original design vision of player populated interstellar war simulator.
before bucketpocalypse i was pushing for a 4-faction system. the problem isnt just dogpiling to the winning side but also dogpiling to whatever tech base is perceived to be the most powerful at the time. under a four faction system if one tech base is currently superior and that causes dogpiling to that tech base you still have 2 factions that can fight eachother. you end up with more civil wars. underdog factions would provide extra bonuses, thus solos would flock to those to maximize rewards. however if winning is your game, forgoing bonuses in order to play your preferred tech base and faction.
needless to say however factions are configured i think everyone can agree that personal gain play needs to go. it shouldnt even be a factor. high skill players would need new trophies to offset the stats padding, but restoring planet cap would do that. if you somehow manage to sort teams in a way that maximizes 12v12 drops and minimizes 12vpugs, then the possibility of some kind of unit leveling features might come into play. jockeying for things like vote weighting, or letting units build a stronghold somewhere. trials of possession anyone? perhaps unit-owned mechs paid for with the unit coffers (that would really help units recruit new players who dont have huge mech inventories). lots of stuff you can do to provide needed trophies that dont go against victory.
of course then were getting into "too hard for pgi" territory.
Edited by LordNothing, 06 December 2018 - 01:16 PM.