534 replies to this topic

[Nightbird]

Vectoron The Black Minister, on 01 January 2019 - 05:14 PM, said:

Adding ways to distribute or use the C-bills inside of unit coffers would allow unit members to be rewarded for their hard work.

Why jump all the hoops? Click on a player in unit list, send cbills.

[Vectoron The Black Minister]

Nightbird, on 01 January 2019 - 08:55 PM, said:

Why jump all the hoops? Click on a player in unit list, send cbills.

Sorry, would like a little clarification.

Are you referring to that one sentence, or the two bullet points that were provided on accomplishing that?

Edited by Vectoron The Black Minister, 01 January 2019 - 09:14 PM.

[Nightbird]

Vectoron The Black Minister, on 01 January 2019 - 09:11 PM, said:

Sorry, would like a little clarification.

Are you referring to that one sentence, or the two bullet points that were provided on accomplishing that?

Nothing on the bullet points, limits is something PGI will determine anyways. For example, it can cost 20 million to buy and customize a mech, so 20 mil a week limit for a unit might as well be nothing.

I've no problem with transferring cbills from coffers to a unit member. In most cases though, you'll simply want to send help to a buddy. In that case, it's unnecessarily tedious to force them to join the same unit, transfer to the coffers, then have (perhaps someone else) send it to that person. If we're gonna allow sending of cbills, then just make it P2P.

[Vectoron The Black Minister]

Nightbird, on 01 January 2019 - 09:37 PM, said:

Nothing on the bullet points, limits is something PGI will determine anyways. For example, it can cost 20 million to buy and customize a mech, so 20 mil a week limit for a unit might as well be nothing.

I've no problem with transferring cbills from coffers to a unit member. In most cases though, you'll simply want to send help to a buddy. In that case, it's unnecessarily tedious to force them to join the same unit, transfer to the coffers, then have (perhaps someone else) send it to that person. If we're gonna allow sending of cbills, then just make it P2P.

Oh sorry, I think I see where there was some confusion!

For clarification, the numbers are an idea or starting point. Not completely set in stone, just an offering to PGI.

Also I feel it may have been a tad misunderstood or miswritten. I firmly suggest about 5-20 million PER PLAYER given a bonus (which 20 is still A LOT per week imho). Some units have crazy C-bill counts. Much respect.

With that - I'm talking about unit rewards via C-Bills given to pilots (and possibly more), not total grind elimination.

Use the coffers as a mean to simply further goals and reward participating players accordingly - and you start seeing more interest in group involvement and group games.

Does that clear it up a little?

[Nightbird]

Vectoron The Black Minister, on 01 January 2019 - 10:00 PM, said:

Does that clear it up a little?

Sure, if that's the case I would change "Allow units to distribute a total of 5-20 million c-bills a week between any number of pilots" to "Allow pilots to receive a total of 5-20 million c-bills a week from unit coffers".

Otherwise, you create just more hoops of joining multiple units to... say.. transfer 100mil cbills.

[Vectoron The Black Minister]

Nightbird, on 01 January 2019 - 10:05 PM, said:

Sure, if that's the case I would change "Allow units to distribute a total of 5-20 million c-bills a week between any number of pilots" to "Allow pilots to receive a total of 5-20 million c-bills a week from unit coffers".

Otherwise, you create just more hoops of joining multiple units to... say.. transfer 100mil cbills.

Word! Thank you!


EDIT: Changes were made to my original post to make that more clear, and to close that loophole.

Thank you very much for your feedback!

Edited by Vectoron The Black Minister, 02 January 2019 - 07:32 AM.

[Paul Inouye]

First off, sorry if it has seemed like I went radio silent... well.. I guess in a way I did... I'm in a state a lot of salaried employees in high-tech here in British Columbia of needing to burn vacation days or I'll just straight up lose them. Still have a week plus I need to burn off. But I'm back in office for these first few days of January to ensure the FP Update is progressing.

That being said, here are the meeting minutes of today's prioritization and scope discussion:

Jan 2/2019
Primary discussion - Identify key pillars for the update and set priority.
Staff: Project Manager, Senior Software Engineer, Software Engineer, UI Software Engineer, Lead Designer

Pillar 1: Update the MM to sort groups and players according to the discussed points.

Spoiler

[b]	1.1Creating a singular queue system[/b]
[list]
[*]Faction Play queues will be merged into one single queue.
[*]Matches will kick off every [2] minutes.
[*]All Solo/Group players will be placed into this new singular queue.
[*]When the 2 minute launch timer runs out, the Match Maker uses a priority algorithm to create teams.
[/list]
[b]	1.1.1Prioritization Algorithm[/b]
[list]
[*]The Match Maker should sort the queue by group size and temporarily ignore Solo players.
[*]First priority is filling teams based on group size.
[list]
[*]Biggest groups should be placed on opposing teams in sequential order.
[*]If a group doesn’t fit in a group match, a new match will be created.
[*]This will continue until no more groups are in a free state in the queue.
[/list][*]Filling matches with Solo players
[list]
[*]The Match Maker should now sort all Solo players by their SSR (or Elo) rating.
[*]The Match Maker starts filling slots from the biggest group match to the smallest.
[*]The Match Maker should alternate placing Solo players from top to bottom in terms of SSR (or Elo) rating.
[*]If there are no further group matches available, a match will be created using the remaining solo players.
[*]If there are not enough solo players remaining for a match, they will be queued for the next match kick off in [2] minutes with priority placement above all other solo players entering the queue.
[/list]
[/list]

Pillar 2: Update participation choices and story driven conflicts.

Spoiler

[b]	Adding Participation Choice to Conflicts[/b]
[list]
[*]With the action of removing penalties from player faction/participation decisions, this update will look into making the choices more relevant while maintaining player freedom.
[*]Players choose their method of participation on a per event basis.
[*]It will be possible for a player to play both sides of a conflict between events.
[/list] 
 
[b]	Participating as a Freelancer[/b]
[list]
[*]Freelancers are deposited into the general queue.
[*]Freelancers CANNOT enter the queue in a group.
[*]Priority for Solo players will be to fill gaps in the group queue if needed.
[*]Freelancers receive a slight [5%] XP boost for every match they play.
[/list]
[b]	Participating as a Merc Unit[/b]
[list]
[*]Merc Units are deposited into the general queue.
[*]Merc Unit participation requires a group of [2] or more. (Critical: this should be tunable via Configurations in MC^2)
[*]Merc Unit participation gains a small [5%] CB boost for every match they play.
[/list]
[b]	Participating as a Loyalist[/b]
[list]
[*]Loyalists are deposited into the general queue.
[*]Loyalists can join the general queue as a solo player or a group.
[*]Loyalists earn LP for loyalist titles and rewards.
[/list]
The reward structure for loyalists needs to be expanded.

These two pillars are considered 'core' to the update. These are not definitions as to the totality of the update, just the most important things to consider as 'must at least have these'. These two things take priority over all other MWO requests both internally and externally to PGI.

Point 1: Any member of a Merc Unit can choose the faction they wish to fight for during an event. However, once the decision has been made, that player is locked to that faction and cannot launch with Merc Unit members who did not make the same faction choice at the start of the event. Merc Units are expected to be organized and communicate with leaders/officers as to which Faction to align with for a given event. That being said, we will try to add more outward facing metrics to unit Leaders to see participation levels of each of their Unit members.

Point 2: An event can be a singular conflict or can be a series of chained conflicts/phases which will determine the outcome of the event overall.
Example:
Planet X is under attack from Faction A and is to be defended by Faction B. If Faction A wins, they will flip the planet in their favor. For the first part of this event, 12hrs of Scouting Mode only will occur as the attackers must gain information about the planet and its defenses. The next 24 hrs will be Skirmish on various maps between Faction A and B. (Players are still locked into the Faction they chose). The next 24hrs will be Assault on various maps between Faction A and B. (Players are still locked into the Faction they chose). The last 48hrs will be Siege on the map that makes the most sense for the planet's ambient environment. At the end, the Faction with the most wins over the course of the event, will be declared the victor. If Faction A has the most wins, the planet will flip ownership.

The above example is a simplified story of how a planet got taken over. The story will be much better written and will be fed in a sequential manner between the phases of the event. An event can be however long design makes it and can have branching story plot lines. For example, an event could be 5 days long... or it could be 1 hr long, it's scaleable depending on the story being told.

Please consider this the first out of many communications as to the progress of the FP update.

[Paul Inouye]

Tesunie, on 31 December 2018 - 02:20 PM, said:

I just want to say, please don't. Not unless you have really increased account security. As much as I would love to give stuff to friends, I can see the "gold" farmer accounts starting up... Not being able to trade nor give keeps this game safe from a lot of potential problems.

This is why player transfer of C-Bills is becoming highly unlikely. We do not want to open the doors for "gold farmers". However, there are some insights later on in the thread as to potential slowing of transfer capabilities that might curtail.. might not... at least it's been noted.


p.s. Planet Iowa.... NO.

[J a y]

Paul Inouye, on 02 January 2019 - 03:44 PM, said:

However, there are some insights later on in the thread as to potential slowing of transfer capabilities that might curtail.. might not... at least it's been noted.

STEAK DINNER, PAUL, STEAK DINNER!!!!

[Shadowomega1]

How about loaning a unit member a mech. The mech shows up in their list for 48 hours is treated as a trial mech but comes with all the skills the owner has in it. The mech becomes grayed out for the owner for the time it is loaned. The owner gets 25% of xp, and c-bills earned, the person that got the loaned mech will earn xp normally on the mech variant loaned unlike the current trial mechs which do not gain any xp.

[Vectoron The Black Minister]

J a y, on 02 January 2019 - 04:05 PM, said:

STEAK DINNER, PAUL, STEAK DINNER!!!!

Paul Inouye, on 02 January 2019 - 03:44 PM, said:

However, there are some insights later on in the thread as to potential slowing of transfer capabilities that might curtail.. might not... at least it's been noted.

EDIT:

I have other suggestions and more data on how to better achieve the... control of flow you may be looking for. I have not shared them with the class because they could anger large, C-Bill producing units.

Oh well, lets try it - and see what happens. PULL!

In addition to my main post-

Going forward, place a cap on how many C-bills can be DONATED TO A UNIT per week based on unit size (Scalar) - or - Just flat limit of donation per week. Same rate for everyone? This likely isn't really necessary, but exists if you really think we need it.

Total picture here

• Allow units to donate a total of 5-20 million C-bills to pilots (number of pilots able to receive bonus uncapped) in their unit. (Pilots may only receive a total of 5-20 million c-bills a week from Unit Coffers.)
  
• Starting now: Hard Limit the amount of C-Bills able to be donated to ANY UNIT regardless of size to (say... 50-100 million C-Bills) a week. Units should always have something to work for, and now that this money is spendable – it should absolutely be something that needs to be worked for. This also further limits/prevents account liquidation abuse.
  
• Pilots must spend at least 25 Million C-bills before they are permitted to donate to their unit. This is to prevent players form using cadet bonuses as a means of gaming the system.

More fun ideas to come after this discussion!


EDIT: Clarified donation cooldown.

Edited by Vectoron The Black Minister, 03 January 2019 - 07:51 AM.

[Samuli Salonen]

There are numerous things killing FP. Here are a few suggestions.

1) Mechs need to be levelled up to be competitive and it takes forever to get them skilled in FP. It takes way too much time in QP as well, but generally is faster and so attracts more players. Remove skill trees or boost xp/gxp gain. It shouldn't take so ridiculously long to get mechs skilled.
2) New, more interesting maps.
3) Remove scouting mode. It creates a weird imbalance and there are too few players as it is to split the playerbase between two modes unnecessarily.
4) Incentivize joining a unit or simply make it a requirement.
5) Lore is fun to think about but its a waste of time for you to spend precious development hours on. FP players are really here for strategic mech play. We can imagine our own lore. We want tangible, gameplay-based improvements to the game.

[Kell Aset]

Main "list" seems so weak, I don't see anything on it that will make me want to play that game mode, nothing that will finally make it any good. New FP matchmaker yea sure it will be useful, there are also quality of life improvements on this list, some polish.

As for lore, meh this ain't a single player game, leave story & lore for your MW5, here I need a real reason to conquer planets, to defend planets, to care for my "faction" and I'm not talking about personal rewards.

You will be adding improvements/polish thats nice and all sure but you also will be avoiding the main problem of this game mode. Your so called "Faction Play" is shallow & pointless, wins/losses/planets/borders/factions/ranks don't matter, universe map is useless, this game mode is basicly Quick Play with respawns and occasional siege map.

Faction Play should be a war mode, there should be a clear goal, consequences of wins/losses both grand and small(currently scouting influences invasion mode a little so that is a + I will give u that), economy, planet management of some sort (something like buying and adding to the planets/maps we will play on some additional turrets, walls fortifications, radar towers, seismic detectors, radar jammers and, destroyable buildings, buildings that "produce" income, some currency that high ranking faction players could use to upgrade planets, even if enemies invading won't win and conquer the planet they can destroy its $$$ value, well destroy it at least for some time till those buildings will be up and working again, perhaps even buildings spawning little vehicles supporting us in battle to give us this nice combined arms feel, since you can't for some reason do npcs u could do what u did with VIP Atlas (building spawns few tanks they go thru predetermined route for "patrol" and fire at anything nearby, when tanks get destroyed after x minutes another group of tanks gets spawned). We already have destroyable buildings on siege maps, and we already have buildings with "special powers" in Incursion mode.

This way we would have a reason to care for some planets more, planet upgrades would add at least a little variety to our matches and at the same time high ranking faction players would have something to do.

Been ages since beta and official "release", I have been waiting quite a while now for good faction war mode here and I lost hope already. Seems like making Community Warfare aka Faction Warfare aka Faction Play into something that is actually worth playing is a "pie in the sky" idea from the start, since PGI is mostly interested with "low hanging fruit" kind of ideas and such just won't cut it and are obviously not cutting it for a while now since FP is usually a ghost town outside of events. These new updates won't change much if anything at all.

Edited by Kell Aset, 03 January 2019 - 03:26 AM.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Paul,
What are some rewards for taking a planet? I think it would be neat to do something like...the winning faction gets a discount on all variants of X mech if they hold Y planet or Z weapon if they hold Y planet. And have a reward tied to each planet or at least each event. It can be a temporary bonus. Is this doable? For Loyalist, they would get the best perks.

[Appogee]

The one thing I want above everything else is: more drop decks.

Has there been any commitment/communication on whether these will be made available?

[TinFoilHat]

Paul - these two points seem contradictory, unless you're going to allow mercs to drop as long as at least two pilots sign up to a different faction to the rest of the unit?

Paul Inouye, on 02 January 2019 - 03:38 PM, said:

Pillar 2: Update participation choices and story driven conflicts.
[*]Merc Unit participation requires a group of [2] or more. (Critical: this should be tunable via Configurations in MC^2)


Point 1: Any member of a Merc Unit can choose the faction they wish to fight for during an event. However, once the decision has been made, that player is locked to that faction and cannot launch with Merc Unit members who did not make the same faction choice at the start of the event.

[Nightbird]

Sighz... nothing that encourages more people to play

[Oor Wullie]

Trying to figure out why different unit members of a unit would be on different factions???? This doesnt make sense to me.

[JUGMAN]

Some of you guys need to understand the balance of running a gaming company and pleasing your customers (gaming community). You see there is alot of content that is presented to PGI from the player base which must be deceminated, prioritized and implemented. Some of the suggestions are simple low hanging fruit that can be easily fixed. Some are issues that will take development over time taking resources from MW5. Unfortanetly the truth of life is MW5 will take assets away from MWO. What will this mean to the MWO community? There are only so much development resources that can be brought to bear on any game. PGI is like any other company.....they need to make money. The money has too be allocated between expenditures to keep a company running. Lights, payroll, marketing. The only way the company can stay viable (paying the bills) is looking to the future. MW5 is that future. MWO is a stepping stone to MW5 pure and simple.

That being said we are looking at a list of solutions without looking at the cause of the so called lack of progression on key issues that the player base wants. The cause is MW5. Resources are spent there to bring a game that is overdue online. I am betting there was not a max influx of new talent to develop MW5. I am thinking there was a crossover of talent from MWO to MW5. That means less talent to improve MWO with the player base suggestions. The recent meeting agenda proves to me that PGI is grabbing for the "low hanging fruit" issues and solving a small portion. Why? resources are tight and the improvements although small to our standards are huge for a company splitting resources.

I think PGI bit more off than they could chew with the MW5 project but they have spent huge amount of resources and made some promises that they must deliver on. MWO is a viable game that can imporve with the right amount of resources applied to the game. In my opinion, PGI is stretched thin or at least keeps MWO at arms length until MW5 comes on line. Time will tell.

This is not aimed as a criticism of the game. I actually enjoy the game as it stands. Nothing is ever perfect for everyone. I have enjoyed my time playing this game. MY bank account proves as much.

Edited by JUGMAN, 03 January 2019 - 11:17 AM.

[Yondu Udonta]

Paul Inouye, on 02 January 2019 - 03:38 PM, said:

For the first part of this event, 12hrs of Scouting Mode only will occur as the attackers must gain information about the planet and its defenses.

As much as I understand the idea of lore, I think the majority of FPers would agree with me that scouting is boring and would not want to have a scouting-only queue for half a day. Just to let you know.