534 replies to this topic

[Praxx]

I feel that drop zones are too easy to take by the opposite team. The drop ships do not have the firepower they should. I remember taking on drop ships in Mechwarrior games and they were hell! Not only Large lasers, but gauss cannons, etc. I watch our current drop ships come in when our dz is overrun with clan and they hardly take any damage. There is no fear of our drop ships to make them think twice about camping our dz. Taking a large laser hit is no deterrent, but taking multiple large laser, gauss hits can kill a mech. Might just make difference.

On a side note, I'd like to see that our drop ships are weaponized greatly, but can also take damage, and even destroyed, making that single dz unusable. But it is an extreme risk to do such a thing because of the firepower of the drop ships.

[Nightbird]

Praxx, on 11 December 2018 - 11:06 AM, said:

I feel that drop zones are too easy to take by the opposite team. The drop ships do not have the firepower they should. I remember taking on drop ships in Mechwarrior games and they were hell! Not only Large lasers, but gauss cannons, etc. I watch our current drop ships come in when our dz is overrun with clan and they hardly take any damage. There is no fear of our drop ships to make them think twice about camping our dz. Taking a large laser hit is no deterrent, but taking multiple large laser, gauss hits can kill a mech. Might just make difference.

On a side note, I'd like to see that our drop ships are weaponized greatly, but can also take damage, and even destroyed, making that single dz unusable. But it is an extreme risk to do such a thing because of the firepower of the drop ships.

Dropships actually were given that much firepower at one point, but entire teams of people refused to leave their DZ ever. They literally wait there for the other team to attack them in order to use the dropship's weapons, sometimes even ejecting a fresh mech to call in a dropship LOL!

Being able to destroy a dropship would be cool but not sure how to manage that (you can swap people around lances at will after all)

Edited by Nightbird, 11 December 2018 - 11:33 AM.

[Knight Captain Morgan]

Nightbird, on 11 December 2018 - 08:27 AM, said:

Already there in settings, uncheck Call to Arms

Awesome sauce, thanks!

[R 13]

Paul, 'really appreciate the continued determination to get the grand FP experiment sorted out. A lot has been touched on in the thread, I read some of it, skimmed most of it. I'll try to keep this concise; echoing one point that's come up already, putting forth another one, and tossing a clay pidgeon that you can shoot down because PGI doesn't have an EA budget.

• I'd like to echo that dynamic and user-selectable drop/deployment points would go some way to improving quality of life.
  
  • If drop points weren't the same, and users could pick from a selection of landing sites that didn't have LOS to each other this would:
    
    • reduce time to reinforce and if made based on micro objectives would encourage tactical thinking and strategies along those lines (capture a landing beacon etc) Non-"home"-drop point dropships could be toned down weapon-wise to balance
      
    • At the very least it would help alleviate late game spawn camping in lopsided matches since users could just pick the DZ that was the least hot.

• I read a couple of posts talking about dastardly "objective rushing". Maybe a tiered reward system could be utilized here to at least encourage fighting, and potentially removing objective destruction as the end of the "mission".
  
  • Objective-focused strats should be acceptable in a game focused on...objectives. However it's a tough problem to balance. It takes basically world-class focus fire and organization to effectively counter a well thought-through "zerg rush". However, if we used a tiered reward system (e.g. PC Battletech) it might help.
    
    • Reward the achievement of the objective BUT
      
    • ALSO reward elimination of the defending force (measurably reward)
      
    • Then, don't make the objective completion "game over". Among other things this isn't realistic (insofar as a giant robot game can be). So you blew up an orbital gun...good for you, now your still trapped in a small canyon, behind enemy lines, with a now really P.O.ed defending force....good luck.
      
      • Award partial defeat/partial victory rewards to help balance the "it's not worth playing FP because no money for defeat" issue.

• Here's the clay pidgeon, that's also something of an elephant. Have you guys put thought into utilizing the AI design experience accrued during MW5 development to round out FP?
  
  • I played Chrome Hounds back in the day. The game was glitchy as hell, and the min-maxing got absurd BUT....the FP immersion was legit. One of the most terrifying/exciting things about their FP was that when you dropped into a mission you did not know if you were going to hit bots, or live opponents.
    
    How many pins/needles would you be sitting on in that pre-drop bay if you were 80% sure you would hit bots, have something of a milk run, and get paid....but there was a small chance you'd hit an/another organized 12 man of other people looking to get paid?
    
    It could also fix the population issues because nearly every planet could have some plausible or canonical defending force that could be faction specific down to the mech chassis....

Thanks again for the update at Mech Con, and best of luck with this effort.
-R13

[Savage Wolf]

As long as there is no MM or similar in place, FP will remain a mode for the few units at the top. Everyone else is just fodder and no one wants that. Let the strong fight the strong and the weak train with others who are weak. Otherwise, none of these improvements will matter.

[Jaeger Hunter]

Whats the odds we can jump the heat on lurms to avoid some of the lurm fests that currently occur and force players to actually learn how to aim? LOL (disclaimer, I never said I PERSONALLY could aim )

[Warning incoming Humble Dexterer]

It's a good idea to give groups MatchMaker priority over solo players, and give bigger groups priority over smaller groups...

But when one side of the conflict runs out of groups, put groups on backburner and switch the MatchMaker priority to 12 solo vs solo matches, until each side has at least one group available, even if it's only a group of two players.

This gives a good incentive of joining a group to get faster matches then solo players can, while getting solo matches when one side has completely run out of groups.

[JUGMAN]

Nightbird, on 06 December 2018 - 02:15 PM, said:

I don't see anything to allow teams of unequal skill to have a fun match. Everything else IMHO is tweaks on the icing without addressing the core experience.

It doesn't have to be what is suggested in the link below, hoping helps get my meaning across.

https://mwomercs.com...n-in-one-month/

good post Nightbird. I hope he answers this directly. If he doesnt I will be very disappointed.

[justcallme A S H]

Humble Dexter, on 11 December 2018 - 06:44 PM, said:

It's a good idea to give groups MatchMaker priority over solo players, and give bigger groups priority over smaller groups...

But when one side of the conflict runs out of groups, put groups on backburner and switch the MatchMaker priority to 12 solo vs solo matches, until each side has at least one group available, even if it's only a group of two players.

This gives a good incentive of joining a group to get faster matches then solo players can, while getting solo matches when one side has completely run out of groups.

Have you even looked at Paul's video on match maker etc? All of that is covered.

[Arguss10]

Paul I honestly hope these proposals for faction play are implemented in a timely manner . The problem I have right now regarding what’s going on was these improvements should have been done when all us backers invested in this game all those years ago. I for one backed this game on the premise of a first person faction warfare game, not just a quick play game. Long wait times in faction warfare when it finally came in,and no real storyline in faction warfare really killed it for me as at the end of the day it was really just a extended version of quickplay. You guys had so much battletech history and storyline’s that could have been implemented in faction warfare, yet you chose virtually none. I for one thank you in one respect for bringing back battletech to the pc as now I get to play the HBS battletech strategy game now which has a storyline in the game. I really loved playing your game and wished you had implemented storyline in your game all those years ago. MWO is great for mech action , but it lacks the soul of battletech.

[Nightbird]

justcallme A S H, on 11 December 2018 - 09:04 PM, said:

Have you even looked at Paul's video on match maker etc? All of that is covered.

Well, let's moderate expectations a bit on the new MM. Initially, there will not be enough population to support matchmaking. We'll need some sort of major incentive to get people to give FP another shot, and only if their experience is markedly better will we see a long term improvement.

Edited by Nightbird, 11 December 2018 - 09:33 PM.

[Curccu]

justcallme A S H, on 11 December 2018 - 09:04 PM, said:

Have you even looked at Paul's video on match maker etc? All of that is covered.

Paul's video? Where? Link please...

[BARRY SHlTPEAS]

The changes that you have made to the friends list are awful and unintuitive.

[BodakOfSseth]

So maybe I've missed it, but there's 11 pages, and I haven't seen this yet.

My $0.02:

Considering the time line, there's plenty of mechs that have been captured and are possessed by each of the factions. For example, lore wise, the MCII was actually produced and sold to different factions, including IS groups such as Draconis Combine and Federated Commonwealth (per SARNA).

One of the things that I thing would go a LONG ways towards actual balancing the factions would be this:
Allow the drop decks to include 1 mech of the other faction. This would only be allowed for FP, not Scouting.

This gives the Clan units access to a round of more durable, cooler running, brawly IS mechs, while IS units gain access to a round of longer range, higher alpha, hotter running mechs. It provides other benefits, as well:

• Coupled with a benefits system to loyalist units remaining, it gives the loyalists a chance to explore new tactics and strategies.
  
• It encourages pilots to pick up more mechs from the other factions
  
• PGI doesn't need to develop a bunch of new weapons and retrofit the equipment for a timeline advance to shake up balance, refresh tactics, and change the meta.
  
• PGI doesn't need to figure out how to put clan weapons and equipment into IS chassis.

Then there's this idea:

Let the community build maps.

• Do some review on submitted maps.
  
• Put them into the PTS for people to play with and try out
  
• Vote for the keepers and include them
  
• OR set up a system where a few of these maps are rotated in and out every month. Really popular maps can be voted on for permanent inclusion in the game.

Edited by ScottAleric, 11 December 2018 - 11:56 PM.

[Cajun MeTaBoLiC]

Regarding the variable tonnage restrictions: What happens when I step out to burn one or grab a drink while MWO is searching, then we get an insta-drop?

Example: I stepped out at the searching screen, got insta-drop against total pug team, game determines that our team is required to bring lower tonnage deck, but I am not there to build a new deck.

Every once in a while I come back to the computer, and I've already missed the whole lobby and am loading into the map. I just go with whatever my last deck was. No big deal, but if that deck is no longer valid once I get a lobby, and I'm not there to change it, what happens?

[Nightbird]

Cajun MeTaBoLiC, on 12 December 2018 - 03:16 AM, said:

Every once in a while I come back to the computer, and I've already missed the whole lobby and am loading into the map. I just go with whatever my last deck was. No big deal, but if that deck is no longer valid once I get a lobby, and I'm not there to change it, what happens?

You'll have a cbill penalty for that match if overtonned, no big deal since it happens rarely. Most people play FP to customize their drop deck for the match after all.

With the new MM you'll also have a countdown to launch like Solaris instead of a indeterminate spinning circle so it's easier to decide when to step away.

Curccu, on 11 December 2018 - 11:03 PM, said:

Paul's video? Where? Link please...

Edited by Nightbird, 12 December 2018 - 07:04 AM.

[taurgis]

So whilst I'm a bit new to all this I had a few ideas. (One for a fluffy form of balance another for faction play itself)

For a way to balance clan and IS mechs:
Let's assume in this scenario we have players with drop decks that can have 250 tons, with 1000 tons per lance.
For clan mechs, better technology. Lazers are more heat efficient and cool down faster, missles lock faster and load faster, ballistics generate less heat per use and have a lower chance of jamming etc.
For IS? They get an extra 25 tons onto there drop decks, allowing them to feild more inferior but still strong mechs.

This would mean that IS could field heavy mechs more often requiring the clans to make better usage of there superior technology in order to triumph

And an idea for maps could be to just use the quick play maps with some edits.
Instead of channels with gates and turrets there could be a mission similar to escort in structure.

The defenders would have a base that they must defend with defensive turrets near it and at sensor arrays.
The defenders using a mixture of sensor arrays for map vision, turrets to discourage recklessness and preset minefields (for usage as general deterrents) have to defend there base from the attackers, or else kill all the attackers.

The attackers would have three spawns near there edge of the map that they could choose from after the Inital drop
(So as to be a soft counter to spawn camping)
And would have to take the sensor arrays to gain map vision and to be able to see mine clusters on the mini map and nearby via HUD
The attackers would win via killing all the defenders or mounting a successful assault on the enemy base.

[Cajun MeTaBoLiC]

Nightbird, on 12 December 2018 - 06:48 AM, said:

You'll have a cbill penalty for that match if overtonned, no big deal since it happens rarely. Most people play FP to customize their drop deck for the match after all.

Ok, thanks. I guess just have to spend the 1.5 billion C-bills I have left wisely, lol. Not everone plays FP to "customize their drop deck for the match". A lot of the time, I'll pick a good deck that works for most maps and just pray that I don't get Polar Highlands or Alpine Peaks. It's pretty common for 2 or 3 of us to be AFK or forget to hit select or something silly. So it's not really a restriction, more along the lines of a suggestion. Sounds good

[Oor Wullie]

Why punish players for actually being decent at the game and working as a group to get wins? Sorry but the tonnage restriction is more of a turn off for me. I want to get better at the game and to do that i need to play against players that are better than me in mechs they are good in.

Also last night we had a few games and won a few in a row but none of them was a stomp all really close call matches, would that mean that cause we got lucky and after x amount of wins we now got to choose between tonnage and c-bills?? Nah screw that I out.

Faction Play is meant to be the end game you are meant to work as a team. It bloody war you don't send half your units in and half home just cause you on a winning streak.

They could just drop the min requirment for a drop deck then if someone wanted to go with 175t deck then np, I just don't want to feel like i getting punished because I did something right.



Oh and i mainly on the side getting seal clubbed, and i still go back for more games.

[Cajun MeTaBoLiC]

I'm with him ^. I don't really want to fight a nerfed (reduced tonnage) team. It just makes it that much more disheartening to know that you won/loss against a nerfed team. It's insulting, really.

If you win, the other team says, "You only won because we're so good that PGI had to nerf us."
If you lose, the other team says, "Wow! PGI nerfed us, and we still beat you."

If the stacked teams that are "winning too much" want more challenging games, then go play comp, or split up and play each other, or try to sync drop against other stacked teams. To fight on an uneven playing field is just disgraceful.

I'd even go so far as to eject one or two mechs to nerf my deck to the same extent that the enemys' has been to even out the tonnage. At least we'd win/lose on a fair playing field. Hopefully the devs aren't seriously considering a change like this, but if so, please don't.