534 replies to this topic

[TygerLily]

In my opinion, the biggest recurring complaint is the lopsided / no match-making games.

Here are my ideas (in pretty form).

Concept

Instead of forcing one-sided tonnage limits to crazy high levels, give the lower skill / less organized teams options. Let them lose the battle but win the war...or avoid the big bad elites by going to Scouting (or vice versa), and let them be buffed if they do have to fight (rather than nerfing the elites).

• If you attack a planet and win Siege, you will reduce the planet's Capture Bar substantially and the planetary defenders will have an immediate Counter Attack against the same attacking team to restore some of the capture bar substantially. The planetary defenders (who you'll remember lost) gain a buff based on the magnitude of their loss. Example, a 45 to 48 loss would not result in a buff to the planetary defenders. A 12 to 48 loss would result in a substantial buff to the planetary defenders.
  
• If you attack a planet and lose Siege, you will reduce the planet's Capture Bar by a minor amount and there will be no Counter Attack. The planetary defender's instead apply some influence to their Scouting Tug Of War bar.

In this way, continual Siege of a planet, win or lose, will cause it to fall. Planetary defenders already have advantage in the moment-to-moment gameplay (its easier to defend than attack). Likewise, if they are losing defensive matches, they will gain opportunities to Counter Attack with buffs. If they are winning defensive matches, they will simply make the capture slow going for the planetary attackers, and will be buffing their Scouting bonuses along the way, and possibly be able to hold out until the Conflict Time ends.

Example: So if a high skill team is attacking a planet, the low skill planetary defenders will tie them up in a second Counter Attack game and be buffed for their troubles. If a high skill team is defending, then the low skill attackers will continue to capture the planet win or lose as long as they keep fighting. Likewise, if they back out and dedicate time to the Scouting queue, they can also help their side who are in the queue fighting the high skill team.

Teamwork/Alliances

Units cannot have players in both Scouting and Planetary Attack/Defense queues. They must choose.

Example: If a high skill unit is currently dominating a planetary attack, then a defending unit has the option to back out and pursue Scouting. The dominating unit will either have to appeal for help to get Scouting under control, back out of the attack themselves (breaking up into 4-mans) to do it, or eat the buffs the rest of the defenders are getting.

A single unit will not be allowed to dominate Scouting to buff themselves in the attack. At least four units (two on each side) will be needed to keep both tracks contested.

Scouting Tug Of War

Scouting | Works as currently with 55 ton limit, however the rewards are very great to allow players an option when facing large organized teams in the planetary queue.

Defense
Level 1 55% | Combat ID & Satellite Sweep
Level 2 70% | Turret Upgrade
Level 3 100% | Objective Passive Repair

Offense
Level 1 55% | Combat ID & Satellite Sweep
Level 2 70% | Objective Lower Health
Level 3 100% | Slower Reinforcement Time


Planetary Attack/Defense

Siege | Reduces a planet's Capture Bar, win or lose.

Counter Attack | Immediately follows a lost Siege battle. The planetary defenders, now attacking, gain buffs based on the magnitude of their previous loss.


Buffs For The Planetary Defenders During Counter Attack
Note: Planetary Defenders will be "attacking" in the Counter Attack match

Small Buff Air Control dropship flyover (as with Incursion game mode)
Small Buff Free Radar Jammer (as per Incursion game mode)

Medium Buff 1.5 times duration/damage to UAV, Artillery, and Air Strikes
Medium Buff Extremely fast respawn times

Large Buff 10% Damage Multiplier
(Example, IS Large laser would go from 8 to 8.8 damage)
Large Buff 1.5 times value to Survival & Firepower Trees
(Example 7.5% Armor Hardening becomes 11.25%
Example: 15% Laser Duration becomes 37.5%)

These are just ideas off the top which use or increase current game mechanics. They do not add anything new! If they are too weak or strong, then please remember they are just placeholder ideas where PGI, with their tools and ability to properly analyze player data, could tailor to be appropriately potent.

Example: It could be common that team [L33T] could win Siege by a large margin against the 853rd Casuals. They would face them again immediately and the Casuals would be coming back with 1.5 times values to their Firepower and Survival tree plus, since their buddies in the [B33R] unit are 100% owning the Scouting queue, they are also coming in with Combat ID, Sensor Sweep, lower objective health, and [L33T] is hit with a slower respawn time.

Changes

• Limit Units from being in both Scouting and Planetary Attack/Defense queues.
  
• Scouting rewards differentiated into Defender and Attacker rewards.
  
• Ability to replace Medium Laser turrets with some upgraded version (higher accuracy, more lethal weapon type, whatever)
  
• Ability for Objective health to restore over time
  
• Siege always drops planet's Capture Bar, win or lose. Wins by a substantial amount, losses by a minor amount.
  
• Counter Attack win always restores Capture Bar by substantial amount and occurs
  
• Defenders winning Siege add to Scouting Tug Of War control as if they had won a 20-Data-Point Scouting win.
  
• Ability to determine if a planetary defending team lost by a small margin (no buff), a moderate margin (small buff), a large margin (medium buff), or an extreme margin (large buff). No buffs add new mechanics. They are either current mechanics in game (such as Air Control or Jammer per Incursion) or temporary adjustments to values like damage or Skill Tree numbers.

Edited by TygerLily, 18 December 2018 - 12:40 PM.

[TheBossOfYou]

Nightbird, on 18 December 2018 - 10:01 AM, said:

Exactly. "Git gud" is great advice for IRL, but in games it's very bad for population. It's far better to create challenges at each player's level, and in a PvP game that means handicaps when the teams are lopsidedly unbalanced.

*PVP-only game. If PvE existed, that would be fine as well.

I heard they're going to make a 1v1 mode with great rewards for winning. I bet it will be very popular. Matchmaking will ensure every fight is at your skill level and everyone will level out at 50/50.

[NASCAR is BAD gameplay STOP IT]

vonJerg, on 17 December 2018 - 10:40 AM, said:

Reward god level player for teaching less skilled ones, reward less skilled ones for playing and hopefully learning from these players.

I like this idea, but how to you work out who to reward? what actions within a match can trigger those rewards. Especially when most of this comes from talking on comms.

Cajun MeTaBoLiC, on 17 December 2018 - 11:50 AM, said:

Most top level players want to stack the group with other top level players and win, not invite a bunch of bad players, only to carry super hard and still lose. We gotta make the lower-skill people stay alive long enough to maybe get a few kills

I actually enjoy training newer players as long as they are willing to listen and attempt to do what the better player is suggesting. Problems are stubbon players who are stuck 'doing it their way' and not learning from mistakes. OR players who listen to someone who is calling bad tactics.
I have met many charismatic leaders in FP who have large groups I've joined only to tear my hair out at their lack of tactics or their methods of reacting to certain enemy tactics. Primarily those who think defending means standing still and waiting for the enemy. No Defence is just attacking in the other direction! Passive play is generally the best way to lose.


Edit: oops i didn't realise i was logged in with an Alt that i've been using to train yolo q t4's - signed: Kamikaze Viking.

Edited by NASCAR is BAD gameplay STOP IT, 18 December 2018 - 04:59 PM.

[Cato Zilks]

vonJerg, on 18 December 2018 - 04:23 AM, said:

That is what I wanted to get to, to encourage new/less skilled players and good players to group up and play together, so currently bad players improve more quickly. Mentor and trainee system of some sort!?!

This is the most important thing that needs to change in the culture of FP. It does happen to some small extent, but the game is not designed to encourage players to form healthy mentoring roles. It is designed to reward winners. I have tried to push for re-writing the structure of the mode to better incentivize good behavior and team/community building, but it is just too big of an overhaul for what Paul has in mind.

While I am very much in favor of many of the things Paul is suggesting, the PGI team is a bit late coming to the table and at this point they are trying to fix big problems with bandaids. I believe it was Pat Kell that suggested a way to match 12 mans back at the FP round table. That was July of 2016. I am glad the development team is working on a solution... but Paul... man, hit the dadgum gas peddle. In the intervening time the FP population has dwindled. We no longer need fixes to stop the hemorrhaging of players, we need the mode reconstructed in ways that help us draw in new ones.

Nightbird, on 13 December 2018 - 06:49 AM, said:

*shrug* they're not considering it. We'll get a new MM but without any pop to use it with, so stomps will continue and people will continue to leave.

If you're winning some and losing some you won't get a tonnage reduction to begin with.

You have been beating this drum pretty hard, and I agree with that we need some more active balancing measures put in the game besides a MM that will, in reality, be forced to pair the only 24 people in the mode against eachother regardless of skill or group size. While we don't agree on how (and I am not looking to rehash those arguments), I think it is really important that we all make it very clear to Paul and the PGI team that some feature that handicaps and buffs based on some metric of skill disparity be added. It can be based on faction, it can be by team SSR, it can be by something else entirely. We need to make the matches between the top 10% and the bottom 80% to be less stompy. MM will not do that at all, it just makes it more likely better teams will see eachother if we have a decent population. But in no way will MM solve the main gameplay problem that MWO has.

[Kamikaze Viking]

Cato Zilks, on 18 December 2018 - 08:14 PM, said:

This is the most important thing that needs to change in the culture of FP.

100%

And this can only done by talking to people and training them before they learn bad habits and lock them in, which is my current goal.

[GweNTLeR]

NASCAR is BAD gameplay STOP IT, on 18 December 2018 - 04:58 PM, said:

I like this idea, but how to you work out who to reward? what actions within a match can trigger those rewards. Especially when most of this comes from talking on comms.

Long ago I played a game called s4 league. There was a mentor-tutor system. A mentor was earning some minor stuff for tutor's progression.
As for mwo, it is easy to implement similar system based on amount of KMDD or wins tutor gets in FW. Nothing way too extraordinary.

[vonJerg]

Hmmm,...so:
1.- separate web page for applying for mentor program, so you can make a database of mentor-trainee relations. Mentor and trainee have to have certain avg. matchscore difference in last 2 weeks ( like 50 ms difference or more)
2.- after action log check, to see if mentor-trainee pair was in same FP game, if they were award them with something (like a few MC per game, or +10% c-bills bonus for that game,....) through web page (similar to event page)
3. - follow trainee progress, award both if trainee's avg.matchscore went up after each 7 days
4.- Once Trainee gets close to mentor in regard of avg.matchscore, stop the mentor-trainee relation

[slide]

One of the ideas I am seeing in this thread is to reward low/new skilled players for trying (learning) and punishing high skilled players for farming the low/new. The problem with punishing skilled players for being good, is that it will ultimately just force them to quit.

The other issue is that rewards are largely based around damage done. This encourages farming (to the extent that I have seen team mates TK'd to prevent objectives being completed, thus ending the game).

So the question becomes can we discourage farming in completely lopsided matches whilst not arbitrarily punishing skilled players AND encourage low skilled to try harder?

PGI mooted a long time ago the idea of player BOUNTIES. I suggest we get rid of the the damage/kill reward and replace it with with Bounties, derived from the players FSR (Faction Skill Rating). Therefore:

High FSR players have a high value Bounty.
Low FSR players have a low value Bounty.
(Note: FSR can't just be an EXP bar like PSR is for this to work, needs to be zero sum).

So depending on player numbers and the matchmaker we can get the following scenarios.

-Even Match: Players on both teams have similar Bounties (FSR), all players get similar rewards, based on what they do.
-Lopsided Match: High Skilled players get low rewards because targets aren't worth much, Low skilled players get higher (but fewer) rewards for killing high value players. This encourages low skilled players to try harder and not just give up. This will also encourage high skilled players and teams to seek out other high skilled players to keep their rewards up.

However low rewards won't be enough to discourage farming. There needs to be a thresh hold where completing objectives is worth more than just farming out the low skilled team (note:objectives v killing would have to be exclusive thus making it a choice, other wise people will do both to max rewards Ie. leave the last alive and dunk the objective, the game must end when either team is dead or the objectives are completed and you get the the reward for the respective win condition). This number would be set such that:

-low level teams would fight for objectives for highest reward, thus learning the game
-mid level teams have either the option of taking the objective or killing the other side for similar rewards.
-high level teams would go after each other for max rewards
-high v low, high would go for objectives as this will max reward v time, the other team simply isn't worth killing. The low side aims to kill as many high value players as they can.

Bounties could also be added for group size difference, say 10% per player, so a group of 6+pugs v 8+pugs would get a 20% bounty on earnings. 12 pugs v a full group would get 120%

Bounties could also be added to units, making high skill players in good units particularly valuable.

I also think that to encourage team and thereby group play. Bounties should be awarded evenly across all players on the team. By not having people hanging back for the kill shot, team work such as focus fire, armor sharing and generally following a plan or orders will be encouraged. It is also less painful for a less skilled player on a skilled team to keep up with the crowd.

[Mechwarrior 37]

Great stuff!

I hope it was a joke when you said that "9 out of 12 units said no". Because that sounds like "units" just made/changed the rules.

Sort of like some podcasts I've listened to.

Next year I might try Faction Warfare again. I was addicted to Call to Action pop-ups.

[GutterBoy5]

what if teams got the attack matches , and solo/unorganized groups got defence. Rather than buffing inexperienced players. buff the base defenses ie actually make it a fortress ,hard to bring down . lets face it a organized experience team its just easy to bring a base down.
add more turrents, & bigger more deadly ones at gates. & a base/fortress would have ground & air support , so give defense team arty/airstrike controllable on minimap. for out gate defense. this would give experience team more to deal with & less experience or solo groups more of a chance, but make game more intense for all.

and i dont meen the old longtom thing we had for outside defense , like what we got now but contolled on minimap for defenders

Edited by GutterBoy5, 20 December 2018 - 03:20 PM.

[Gully D]

Lt Blackthorn, on 06 December 2018 - 09:02 PM, said:

This mode suffers from objective rushing as a cancerous playstyle as is. It sucks the fun out of the mode because it leads to repetitive matchflow and overly quick matches.Increasing payouts for it is a step in the wrong direction.

Doing objectives is exactly what it is designed for, that is take a planet

[Gully D]

Nightbird, on 07 December 2018 - 09:19 PM, said:

PGI is the only party present with the power (can change game mechanics at will) and incentive (makes more money if pop is high) to create better game experience for people of all skill levels.

As a player in the game, I can't voluntarily ton down without knowing who is on the other side. I can't split a strong team because then the next strongest team will win against us. So what can I do? I play by the rules PGI set, which is bring the best pilots and mechs I can and if the other side turns out to be pugs... there's nothing I can do. PGI doesn't empower players with mechanics to create challenging rather than stompy matches.

Best thing for you and yours to do Nightbird (as you are OP and I m not trolling, you are a good shot) is not troll and split into two groups of 6 or such and play one another'

[Nightbird]

Gully D, on 21 December 2018 - 12:31 AM, said:

Best thing for you and yours to do Nightbird (as you are OP and I m not trolling, you are a good shot) is not troll and split into two groups of 6 or such and play one another'

This may benefit you, but why should we weaken ourselves to lose to the other 12 mans that queue up?

[starscream75]

Nightbird, on 10 December 2018 - 02:53 PM, said:

While you're waiting for the fix, just hit Tab once. Fixes it.

tab does not fix it

can someone help with this problem

being dropped in faction play without the hud system

[Nightbird]

starscream75, on 21 December 2018 - 08:31 AM, said:

tab does not fix it

can someone help with this problem

being dropped in faction play without the hud system

Someone else posted the key bind in settings to turn HUD on and off, have you tried that?

[starscream75]

i cant find it in settings

[Oor Wullie]

Is the hotkey not f7 or something. Been awhile since i used it.

[Nightbird]

Yep, F7 is default 'Toggle UI'

Edited by Nightbird, 21 December 2018 - 08:51 AM.

[Warning incoming Humble Dexterer]

Right now there's 3 IS teams and 1 Clan team queued up, which is directly related to IS having won 17 out of all 22 games since the last reset...

Make the two best IS teams fight each other, give the last Clan team the weakest team to go fight, and those last Clan players will last longer then if they continue to get clobbered by ~impossible odds.

It's the difference between making 4 teams fight, or making the last Clan team leave and making 3 IS teams take turns Ghost Droping.

[Gully D]

Nightbird, on 21 December 2018 - 08:19 AM, said:

• This may benefit you, but why should we weaken ourselves to lose to the other 12 mans that queue up?
  

Hi Nightbird

thanks for replying

As usual you and others want to grow the community, and i think as you have stated and are aware (along with others) that FW is a steep learning curve.

With the current population of very few if only one or 2 groups (not even units) able to compete with your style of play that pug stomps (and i'm glad that groups you are in have stopped trolling, ty) it discourages people to return.

I am aware that you change sides to get games cause of ghost drops(which is good IMO), and that people complain about you and your pug stomp behaviour (go to IS or Clan chat complain and tell people not to drop or TS or Discord etc) so people actually warn others not to drop against you. (maybe this is also why you think FW is dropping more than others). Also when on in your timezone it is" claimed" that all the other units go your side to avoid you, and yes I hear alot, even daily, in TS and Discord and yes I drop with many many groups.

So lets reframe this. It is not to "weaken" you but to balance the current time frame you play in, the FW drop situation. As you do not drop with a "unit" that captures planets I infer its more about winning game to game, Is that right? However to have a good close game matching your top skills with others, you know it would make PUGs and others understand what to do. This is especially true when you call or tell people what is good to do. No one expects you to form a unit to train people and for you or others you play to be "Stewards" or "Elder Statesman" to help pugs grow and learn (although this would absolutely fantastic and snaps to you if you did).

The obvious bonus is:

That pugs dont feel 48-20 or less and that they had a "chance" not even having a chance means people do not return, to FW or drop that day or time period.

That pugs can say at the end of the game it was close, exciting and want to do it again

Someone maybe you or others said some great things that helped eg stay to that wall it gives you cover or even Torso twisting!!

"watchout for the smoke", "Hey your down to 60% let me take front" or even "Dont take lurms because ...", "Hey are you mech dependent or dont have many what about considering this mech next?"

That people who have played a while think "That's Nightbird wonder if he will help or answer what to do next with XYZ" "Hey its only a six man thats fantastic" or "OMG hes playing against his friends"

OMG he and his friends are leading a push and sharing armor with the pugs, using coms to tell them where to go, encouraging the people on comms with praise.

Now this may be too much to ask and you may disagree with all or any of it. I appreciate you and others have said to me "the pugs dont listen", I actually would say to that if one pug listens every drop that means 365 per year possibly and yes people are undependable and uncertain its human.



Its great that Ash said he would do training come January, I look forward to this iteration of stewardship. Jay Z also offers training in my timezone and he is a saint. He is so patient and giving, doesn't keep "secret" meta builds offers advice every game i've been in and never talks down to anyone that i've seen. People like this encourage and develop better play.

Whilst drop deck nerfing of winning teams may be useful it would also be useful to increase others skill level. Hey dropping with you is fantastic to hear what you do and notice how you position, also watching the streams of your group is also great fun. I know its hard to not drop with friends but sometimes shooting friends is a hoot.


I know this is long winded but I think you and others deserve a complete and frank read. I and others would be keen to hear your and other's thoughts.

-Also in general advertising FW is useful (PGI NEEDS TO DO THIS) as many new players dont know or hear about it till they are asked to join units etc.

Thankyou and Merry Xmas all

Edited by Gully D, 21 December 2018 - 10:58 PM.