181 replies to this topic

[Geewiz 27]

Matt Newman, on 30 October 2018 - 03:21 PM, said:

I'm probably going to regret asking this but how exactly am I Ignoring/punishing loyalists?

Explain to me how to make an event that doesn't make them feel ignored or punished?

I am asking because is genuinely don't want that to be the sentiment when I create events.

I know this set of faction events isn't particularly creative but i wanted to include all factions and i also wanted to do more Clan vs Clan and IS vs IS as it has a positive response in the past and Faction Play is the only place I can do that.

Re: Probation Period - I am having this investigated to see if and when it could be removed from the game as it also comes up every time a faction play event is created.

Regular Faction Play is turned off to reduce the number of matchmaking buckets

Hi Matt thanks for asking the question it's been good to see you guys engaging the community a lot this year. I personally don't have a problem with the event setup as I'm now in a Merc unit that swaps loyalty regularly chasing the C-bills going where the action is. And the FW events this year have been great.

Where the problem lies is your loyalist units which some are large and contain a significant % of the regular FW players get to do there 1 section of the event and that's it, I was in a Jade Falcon Loyalist unit for over a year and missed out on a lot of these events so I know how they feel. I think the way you've set these events with specific factions against each other is cool and a point of difference to other straight clan v IS events. And I think we all agree the IS v IS and Clan v Clan has been great fun. I personally would just like to see the 10 probation matches removed or reduced which I think would encourage more people unit's that are close to switching loyalties for these types of events possibly do it to help with the numbers.

PS. keep up the good work mate.

[justcallme A S H]

Nightbird, on 30 October 2018 - 03:47 PM, said:

There's not enough loyalists to kick off any games. You more often get people trying to do the event dropping in it by accident and being annoyed.

Irrelevant.

You're excluding parts (lots of them) out of the overall population. This is not good for the game / queues / matches no matter which way you look it.

[ArticArcher]

Thank you Matt for taking the time to ask for clarification on they loyalist issue. My idea would be do a FP Is vs Clan event where you declare your loyalty and from that you receive the rewards for that group only. If you want to make one main faction vs another main faction you could allow 'allies' to support 1 group and then your group and pilot would then be locked to that side for the event. This should remove the perk for being a merc over loyalist and allow full faction play for all that are interested.

[Nightbird]

justcallme A S H, on 30 October 2018 - 04:28 PM, said:

Irrelevant.

You're excluding parts (lots of them) out of the overall population. This is not good for the game / queues / matches no matter which way you look it.

It looks like they didn't get rid of the IS vs Clan queue. Enjoy circle warrior online...

[Geewiz 27]

ArticArcher, on 30 October 2018 - 04:34 PM, said:

Thank you Matt for taking the time to ask for clarification on they loyalist issue. My idea would be do a FP Is vs Clan event where you declare your loyalty and from that you receive the rewards for that group only. If you want to make one main faction vs another main faction you could allow 'allies' to support 1 group and then your group and pilot would then be locked to that side for the event. This should remove the perk for being a merc over loyalist and allow full faction play for all that are interested.

Problem with your idea Artic is that's basically normal FW with event bonus's. Where the IS v IS and Clan v Clan is different and fun. Not that I want to penalise people for being loyal to a faction though.

[Cryzak]

Can u do this as merc or do u need to be loyalist?

[HenryFA]

Sale? What sale?

[UPnADAM]

matt just ignore all the haters. You could literally stand on the street corner and hand out hundred dollar bills and some of the ppl in this game would still wine

Edited by UPnADAM, 30 October 2018 - 05:36 PM.

[BumbaCLot]

UPnADAM, on 30 October 2018 - 05:36 PM, said:

matt just ignore all the haters. You could literally stand on the street corner and hand out hundred dollar bills and some of the ppl in this game would still wine

You apparently don't grasp everything being discussed here.
I'm in a 110+ man unit. We literally won't be able to play faction play for the next two weeks except for two days.
A large portion of our group don't play anything but faction play, don't care about events in quick play. We do switch loyalties every few months so new members can earn mech bays at level 2 and 6.
It currently costs 5.2M for each recruit and goes up.
And with 10 probation matches per day even if there was a senior officer on at exactly 8PM every night to change the faction it would still require 10 scouting matches or 2+ hours before people earned anything.
So the MC, CBills, and warhorns etc that people most likely already have would be a massive grind.
So while we have been waiting for a faction event for a long time, this probably is the most annoying and bothersome way to have one, and will potentially bring in some casual players but the pacing will make everyone hate it and they won't make any money at all.
It's not a gift in any way, shape or form.

Edit: Apparently to not exclude loyalists from even playing the normal non-event queue was left open. This can confuse new players who will get no rewards, but at least everyone can play FP.

Edit 2: I guess this was only temporary for 6 hours, so initial point stands. My unit went merc for the event, and they plan to switch every 2 days? I will know when I know. Not leadership so will see popups.

Edited by BumbaCLot, 31 October 2018 - 06:25 AM.

[justcallme A S H]

^ Exactly that.

Nightbird, on 30 October 2018 - 04:48 PM, said:

It looks like they didn't get rid of the IS vs Clan queue. Enjoy circle warrior online...

Yeah exactly - that is what I (and others) mean.

With the 'general queue' still there, those players will never get matches. So effectively a loyalist will not get matches outside of the 2 days the event is in 'their' queue.

We've seen this time and time again in past faction specific events.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 30 October 2018 - 06:23 PM.

[Rustyhammer]

It would be great if we can get IS vs IS and Clan vs Clan matches going at the same time during the event. Split IS population in 2 groups, do the same for Clans, let these groups fight each other and everyone will be happy.
Unfortunately, the current event system does not support alliances if I remember correctly, so you cannot have i.e. 2 IS factions fighting 2 other IS factions. This can be a good FP improvement but considering that development even a tiniest FP feature takes at least 3 month there is no hope it will ever be done.

[Mikayshen]

Too late to redo it, but I'm thinking this event would have been done better by making it 2 weeks long and having it be IS vs IS and Clan vs Clan. At the end, loyalists get a bonus (loyalist determined as someone who is 'Loyalist' and was part of the same Clan or House for the event's duration).

For challenges maybe 'Earn 5 victories' with a reward of 2.5 mil cbills and 250 MC, or 'Earn 10 solo kills and Earn 40 Kills/KMDDs with a reward of 2.5 mil cbills and 250 MC. At the end of the 2 week time frame to accomplish everything everyone who completed all challenges get 10 hanging, 10 standing and 10 warhorns of the faction they were a part of at the end of the event. Loyalists additionally earn their choice of a mech that is associated with their House/Clan and they get an additional 10 hanging, 10 standing and 10 warhorns.

This is my 2cents for what I'd like to see in the next FP event. This way Mercs can be Mercs and Loyalists can be loyalists and they get a lagniappefor being Loyalists.

*edit* Maybe lock Merc units to their House/Clan that they had a contract with at the start of the event (though I'd add this should preceded by a 72 hour announcement about it so people can get their ducks in a row.

Edited by Mikayshen, 30 October 2018 - 07:01 PM.

[fedratsailor]

Seriously PGI you guys need to fix boreal vault. attackers can't do anything. the ability to strike and fire at them before they can even open a gate, just ruins the game.

[Kamikaze Viking]

repeated from outreachHPG:

------------
There are some people who will NEVER switch factions. and hence events structured in this way mean that those hardcore loyalists effectively have a 24 hour window to complete their 1/7th of the challenge and will never have a chance at the rest. while the rest of the merc population will just back and forth and complete all the challenges.

Now I realize that these loyalists are effectively self handicapping. But this is the system and players we are stuck with unless the fundamental structure of faction play changes (which i doubt at this point). And from their perspective (well some of them) these type of events cater to those filthy mercs because PGI knows that hardcore loyalists exists, and its not possible for them to get all the rewards.

loyalist example: I have one friend who still goes on about events from 3 years ago when Isengrim went on a mechbay holiday to Liao (for a week) and he quit the unit because we were no longer FRR and never came back.

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

Additional: Many players don't have the required rank/permission within their unit to change contracts even if they wanted to. On top of that some units have leaders with those permissions who stopped playing long ago. Hence the remaining players in that unit cannot change unless they leave the unit which many don't want to do for loyalty reasons.

Edited by Kamikaze Viking, 30 October 2018 - 08:40 PM.

[Kamikaze Viking]

fedratsailor, on 30 October 2018 - 07:58 PM, said:

Seriously PGI you guys need to fix boreal vault. attackers can't do anything. the ability to strike and fire at them before they can even open a gate, just ruins the game.

Its not fixable without a complete rebuild.

Attackers or defenders it doesn't matter. Whoever is the aggressor needs to be extremely well co-ordinated when pushing in/out of the gates, else they get chewed up. Otherwise you just get passive teams wasting 30 minutes of each others time.

But this is a side topic for another thread.

Edited by Kamikaze Viking, 30 October 2018 - 08:43 PM.

[Steel Raven]

I'll play the FRR vs Steiner event. Don't have enough time to keep switching faction but one event gives me enough after the Halloween grind fest (so many goodies but nearly burnt out)

Tempted to go Clan Wolf as they get the first and last event but I want my mech bay from the FRR first.

[Tarl Cabot]

Matt, thanks for the faction event, though as noted a number of players will not be able to participate every day for reasons already listed, which also means the queues will also be smaller.

On the other hand, this is the IP MWO is built on, and the setup PGI has setup. Initially every unit were "MERCS" with different contract lengths then that was broken down to Loyalists and Mercs.

On top of that PGI has not built in enough flexibility in the game. It has almost always A vs B or G vs H, faction-wise or Clan vs IS. It has yet to be AB vs EF or CD vs LM.

Whether or not your post is indicative of PGI viewpoint on faction play, PGI has already shown that in the longview a reluctance with FP updates, or even being extremely slow to reacting to severe negative effects put into play then allowing to fester (Long Tom).

Again, thank you for the events and your follow up posts. Though it might have been frowned on, it is a start of a conversation and allows both sides to actually be heard. Whether or not anything actually comes of it, at least there is the discussion.

hmm.. did I really just finished that 12-pack?

[BARRY SHlTPEAS]

Matt Newman, on 30 October 2018 - 03:21 PM, said:

I'm probably going to regret asking this but how exactly am I Ignoring/punishing loyalists?

Explain to me how to make an event that doesn't make them feel ignored or punished?

I am asking because is genuinely don't want that to be the sentiment when I create events.

These events lack any feeling of gravitas. A year or so ago there was an incentive to get on and try and push towards Tukayyid / Tharkad / Luthien etc. Our efforts as a community triggered the big events, as opposed to this new system of them being arbitrarily contrived.

Its only natural that, since our agency over influencing these events seems to have been removed, folks will feel excluded when they can't participate in the whole event under the new homogenised system. A while back we were all lumped into "Clan" or "IS" instead of our respective Clans or Great Houses, and now events try to draw distinctions between the different sub-factions. It is backwards.

These events are without soul. There is no objective to aim for, no planet to be taken, no reason to get invested. Just do a bunch of damage and kill X amount of dudes.

Also, events are at saturation point. I can't remember a time when there wasn't an event going on in MWO.

They have ceased to be eventful.

Edited by Verticorda, 30 October 2018 - 10:03 PM.

[Dran Dragore]

well done PGI! Both Events (Halloween and this) are realy nice! Like it realy

[Warning incoming Humble Dexterer]

fedratsailor, on 30 October 2018 - 07:58 PM, said:

Seriously PGI you guys need to fix boreal vault. attackers can't do anything. the ability to strike and fire at them before they can even open a gate, just ruins the game.

I agree that part is broken, but a mech with jumpjets can jump on the hill right in front of the left side generator, and safely shoot it from there.

If your team has no jumpjets to do that, you're out of luck : The enemy team will be sniping and arty striking anyone who tries to open the gate, from ~1200m away.