429 replies to this topic

[Paul Inouye]

Faction Loyalty

Faction Play was always meant to be the playground of dedicated units of experienced MechWarriors who play in organized and communication heavy groups. Internal structure of who does what within a unit is completely in the hands of the players and unit leaders/officers. This isn't the problem area in Faction Play, the problem stems from the various roleplaying aspects when it comes to lore and the BattleTech Universe. Any number of methodologies and systems can be designed to create battles that integrate into Faction Play but there will always be various blockers that will be discovered when it comes to the mixture of technical implementation and needs/wants of players. The reason I'm bringing this up is, in order to move forward there will have to be give and take on both sides of the equation here. Similar to the discussions that took place previously. There is still a mountain of features that were requested by the community that is still on radar but the need to get the first step of a Faction Play update was to get the key components of a new system in place in order to facilitate the new era of Faction Play.

So let's dive right into this. The writing method used in this post will be a generic design spec and numbered in a manner in which feedback can be directed at key components of the design.


1) Choosing a Faction for Loyalty.

1.1) If a player chooses to be a Loyalist to a Faction, this selection should be persistent to the player's profile.
- This ensures that no matter which subsequent role a player chooses, it will not affect the overall profile Loyalist selection.
- Essentially this allows a player to always fight under the banner of their selected faction without ever needing to switch or display a 'temporary' faction alignment.

1.2) The selection of Faction will be done on the Faction Details (will need to rename this tab) pages which display information about all the factions available.
- A button will appear on each faction's detailed information page which will allow the player to pledge loyalty to said faction.
- The player must be warned that the selection is permanent.

2) Earning Loyalty Points (LP) After Pledging Loyalty

2.1) Faction players will earn LP in the same manner as previously with additional bonuses.
- When a player plays a match with their Faction in a Conflict, they will earn maximum LP for their in-game actions.
- Participation in war obligations while the Faction is in Conflict.

3) Expanding LP Gains Outside of the Player's Faction's Conflicts
- Players should be able to gain LP even when their Faction isn't directly related to the current Conflict.
- The broad term "Alliance" will govern these gains using specialized tables of rewards depending on which Factions are part of a given Conflict.

3.1) The Alliances
- The Inner Sphere Factions will be split into two Alliances.
- While alliances are not strictly lore, for game purposes and keeping queue buckets to a minimum, they serve a major role in allowing players to remain loyal to their faction and still gain LP
- There needs to be 2 Alliances in both the IS Factions and the Clan Factions

3.1.1) IS Alliance 1
- There is a somewhat natural alliance between Steiner and Davion. Adding to this, is a more neutral association with FRR.
- This Alliance (Steiner/Davion/FRR) will always provide LP to their respective partners.

3.1.2) IS Alliance 2
- While not as strong of a bond between Steiner and Davion, there is a loose affiliation between the Factions of Kurita, Liao and Marik.
- This Alliance (Kurita/Liao/Marik) will always provide LP to their respective partners.

3.1.3) Clan Alliance 1
- While Clan Factions were never really 'friendly' toward each other, there was a slight resemblance of tolerance between some of the key Factions involved.
- Clan Jade Falcon/Clan Ghost Bear/Clan Smoke Jaguar had the strongest sense of tolerance among the main invasion force.

3.1.4) Clan Alliance 2
- Wolf was always the lone wolf (no pun intended) when it came to Clan pride over being a good neighbor and this was shared by the secondary Clans that entered the battle later.
- Clan Wolf/Clan Nova Cat/Clan Steel Viper/Clan Diamond Shark would work best as the second Clan Alliance.

NOTE: Yes, there were the Wardens and Crusaders but the volatility in those alliances was so fragile that using that division would mean Jade Falcon would NEVER fight with Wolf. See section 3.2

3.2) How LP is rewarded when a Conflict is in play that does not include the player's pledged Faction.
- The Alliances outlined above will never be in a Conflict within themselves. (e.g. Steiner will never be in a Conflict with FRR)
- This allows all Factions to have an alliance member involved with all Conflicts.
- In the following tables, all indicated LP gains are for the Faction Player's pledged Faction only. (If you are a Ghost Bear Loyalist, all tables are indicating LP gains from Ghost Bear.)

3.2.1) Case 1 - Steiner vs Marik
- In this scenario, all loyalist players in alliance with Steiner (either Davion or FRR Loyalists) will be able to fight on behalf of Steiner while still earning LP for their pledged Faction.
- The amount of LP would be reduced but still significant enough to participate.

Table 1

In Table 1, you can see how this plays out in terms of which Factions will still generate LP when backed by Allied Faction Loyalists. The green squares represent a Loyalist Player playing for their pledged Faction. That player will earn 100% LP while playing during that time. The yellow squares represent LP gains when fighting during a conflict that an ally is involved in at a 60% rate. The orange squares represent Factions the player would not fight for as they are part of the opposing alliance. (Remember, allied Factions will never war with each other. This means there's never a case in this scenario of not being able to accumulate LP)

Table 2

Table 2 extrapolates this further to show the Clan side of things.




3.2.2) Case 2 - Kurita vs Clan Ghost Bear
- When it comes to a Clan vs IS Conflict, things need to change. The IS knows that an invasion of any type from the Clans is a bad thing. The leaders of all Factions know that a fight on that front is a fight for the greater good.
- Clan vs IS conflicts will treat all Factions on opposing sides as allies. This means Kurita Loyalists will earn 100% LP gains from Kurita. A Davion Loyalist who comes to the aid of Kurita during this Conflict will earn 60% Davion LP.

Table 3

Table 3 shows how the IS side of things change when the Conflict is a Clan vs IS Conflict. And again, the same is reflected on the Clan side as in Table 4 below:

Table 4

4) The Big Problem Areas


- The following are the biggest glaring holes in this system and while there are some heavy handed solutions to them, it's not what's intended to happen here.
- You the community will have the biggest voices here so please share your thoughts.

4.1) The Faction Selection for Loyalist is currently permanent in this proposed system.
- Should a Loyalist be able to switch Factions? (Remember, the major feedback so far in this area is that a Loyalist would never switch.)
- When would a Loyalist be allowed to switch?
- Would there be penalties of some sort involved in doing so?

4.2) When it comes to Section 3 above, there's a big blocker in place.
- If the Conflict is an IS vs IS Conflict, there is NO way that Clan Loyalists can earn LP.
- If the Conflict is Clan vs Clan, the same thing happens on the other side, meaning IS Loyalists cannot earn LP.
- One suggestion made internally was to just provide a base LP payout when these situations arise. For example, if the Conflict is IS vs IS and a Clan Loyalist plays in the Conflict, they will still earn a 25% LP gain from their Faction for doing so even though it contradicts the idea of a hard core Loyalist.

5) Let's Do This
The main takeaways from this post are as follows:
- We want to make sure that Loyalists do not have to switch Factions to participate in FP
- We want to make LP gains consistent for all Factions.
- This design spec has NOT been through a tech review so there's no guarantees that everything is technically possible.
- This is a big change and will require quite a bit of development time to implement.
- This is not a straight up "this is happening and it's the only way", but it's the strongest candidate that some of you have already touched on in previous comments/suggestions as well. Strongest doesn't mean best/only plan.. it means it fits the majority of criteria with a give/take approach.

This is the FIRST post of a discussion that will be followed just like the other discussions we've had previously. I want to take the same tone as last time and keep it a discussion and not a corporate refined response system.

Looking forward to your thoughts on this spec and trying to finalize something soon so development can start on it ASAP.

-Paul

[Paul Inouye]

Sorry for any spelling/grammar errors but I'm completely exhausted here and my vision has gone completely blurry. Will be back Monday to join in on the discussion. Thanks for your patience waiting for this post.

----

Point 3 Above - Iteration 3 (Copy paste from an inline thread post):

Talking with an engineer about other stuff.. this came up in conversation and addresses the 'take the stick out of the equation and keep the carrot' feedback.

1) You can pledge loyalty on a Trial basis to anyone.
- You can swap Faction loyalty any time you feel like.
- You earn LP at 100% of normal rate while in Trial.
- You earn LP at 140% of normal rate if you pledge permanent.

https://static.mwome..._Loyalist01.mp4

[NullaNulla]

Thnx for the update, much appreciated.

[Ripper X]

I would be totally down for this happening. Hope it happens as described.

Edited by Ripper X, 25 May 2019 - 09:07 PM.

[Nightbird]

Thanks Paul for putting this together, I'm glad FP is receiving the attention it is currently from PGI.

My 2 cents:
The proposed change is unnecessarily costly to implement and will be poorly received because:

1) Loyalty is permanent, which offers no positives to most players and after rank 20 offers no positives to any players. People will pick the wrong faction, or change their minds. Permanent is a bad bad idea. If you want to prevent people from switching often, add a steep c-bill cost like 25 million per person so people aren't skipping between every match.

2) People want to be able to play matches. Sitting in queue with 4 to 48 for 30 mins is a good way to convince people to do something else. Unless the population counter is perfect, which it won't be, the queue will be lopsided (US favors IS and Europe favors Clan, getting a 50/50 pop overall is pointless as both time zones will still have long waits). Let people change sides based on the queue. Whenever the difference in queue is more than 24, ex. 3-38 or 30-5, let people change from the over-pop side to the under-pop. Having games needs to be the highest priority, lore needs to be written around it, since no games = unhappy customers. https://mwomercs.com...fix-current-fp/

3) The MM is extremely biased against the under-pop side. When the queue is 12-48, the MM takes the strongest group in the 48, and put it against the only group it can make from the under-pop side. It also greatly increases the wait time for solo/small groups on the over-pop side who are skipped by the MM and who you prevent from switching to balance queues. I posted this when the day the new MM is proposed, and I'll re-post it now, the new MM is a disaster that cannot possibly work in real-life scenarios. It can only work in perfect scenarios that do not exist. (If you want people to have good games, you need to allow people to switch and also prioritize the weakest teams first. I.e. when queues are 12-48, grab the solos and small groups first from the 48-queue, and face them against the only group that can be made from the 12 queue. This means larger groups in the 48 queue are encouraged to switch to get a match. Sure, if the queue is 48-48 perfection, you can use the current MM, but when it is lopsided, the current MM is greatly exacerbating the problem)

Edited by Nightbird, 26 May 2019 - 12:21 PM.

[GweNTLeR]

Paul Inouye, on 25 May 2019 - 05:54 PM, said:

Faction Loyalty

4) The Big Problem Areas


- The following are the biggest glaring holes in this system and while there are some heavy handed solutions to them, it's not what's intended to happen here.
- You the community will have the biggest voices here so please share your thoughts.

4.1) The Faction Selection for Loyalist is currently permanent in this proposed system.
- Should a Loyalist be able to switch Factions? (Remember, the major feedback so far in this area is that a Loyalist would never switch.)
- When would a Loyalist be allowed to switch?
- Would there be penalties of some sort involved in doing so?

Regarding this problem: I propose usage of call to arms mechanics to fix underpopulation problem.
I'd like PGI to allow faction switch during call to arms.
The way I propose it work:
If the match is not created during X cycles due to high amount of players on the other side in queue, show call to arms message. If a player clicks on it, show a warning message "you'll be playing against your faction as a freelancer, do you want to continue?".
If a player presses yes, put him into the queue as a freelancer.
Topic and poll link
I believe it is easy enough to implement, since almost everything is present anyway, and capable of somewhat fixing this problem.
by the way, those who want to stay loyal to their faction could just switch off call to arms in options (there is such option as far as I remember).

Edited by GweNTLeR, 26 May 2019 - 02:03 AM.

[Bravado]

Nightbird, on 26 May 2019 - 12:04 AM, said:

US favors IS and Europe favors Clan

Genuine curiosity: Where did you get this idea?

[shaytalis]

One of my concerns that I don't want to be making decisions in the interface that have unclear rewards and/or repercussions. The second concern is having difficulty scheduling group play around unpredictable conflict timing.


You touched on the first issue partially here:

Paul Inouye, on 25 May 2019 - 05:54 PM, said:

1.2) The selection of Faction will be done on the Faction Details (will need to rename this tab) pages which display information about all the factions available.
[color=#00FFFF]- A button will appear on each faction's detailed information page which will allow the player to pledge loyalty to said faction.[/color]


[color=#00FFFF]- The player must be warned that the selection is permanent. (emphasis added)[/color]

It would also be valuable to know clearly what the rewards will be for particular selections. If I'm a Jade Falcon loyalist and I'm about to join a conflict to fight with Clan Wolf (for some reason), letting me know what the reward will be before I confirm that selection would be helpful. It wouldn't have to be a warning message, but some text that is generated based upon your Loyalty so that you can see what you'd earn (credit, 25% LP, 60% LP, etc.) Similar to how Salvage Rights appeared in old Mechwarrior Mercenaries missions before you selected which one you wanted.


On the second issue:

The other concern is basically the RP side of things. I know there are folks in my unit who will balk at playing a conflict as a mercenary or in the service of another Clan. So I'm worried that we may not get to play frequently or at all if we don't know when Jade Falcon is coming up in the queue / if it doesn't come up very much. It would be worthwhile to me for there to be some sort of a calendar of upcoming conflicts, but if that calendar does not fit with our RL schedules then we may still be out of luck. Overall this creates a problem where "true loyalists" are unable to actually group drop consistently.

[tacorodwarrior]

[color=#00FFFF]"You the community will have the biggest voices here so please share your thoughts."[/color]

I just want to make sure everyone seen this in there. is this a new policy?

[Triaxx2]

Within Lore, some of the clans ended up with IS Allies, might be a useful thing for faction equivalence. Say Wolf and Steiner are allied, so they get FP the same as a Steiner ally would in an IS conflict. That way clan loyalists can still earn LP, but at a reduced rate.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

tacorodwarrior, on 26 May 2019 - 02:25 AM, said:

[color=#00FFFF]"You the community will have the biggest voices here so please share your thoughts."[/color]

I just want to make sure everyone seen this in there. is this a new policy?

yeah.. right. I would follow that up with a "lol", if it weren't so smack-in-the-face unfunny.
how many times were those voices not heard, with full intent?
as if it were different this time..

[shaytalis]

Triaxx2, on 26 May 2019 - 02:40 AM, said:

Within Lore, some of the clans ended up with IS Allies, might be a useful thing for faction equivalence. Say Wolf and Steiner are allied, so they get FP the same as a Steiner ally would in an IS conflict. That way clan loyalists can still earn LP, but at a reduced rate.

If we were not bound by known lore regarding the future beyond the MWO timeline, it would be cool to be able to play out different alliances over time. So that at any given time there are a small number of alliances but that these could change through in-game storylines. The problem is I suppose how consistent this would need to be with established lore.

[Racerxintegra2k]

Thank You Paul, i know i have been a vocal critique since the last patch. This if implemented correctly could really be a boost for Faction Play. Once we have how we earn loyalty points i think a reworking of the rewards should be somthing to consider.

PS: I really like Nightbird's idea that breaking loyalty will cost you a Cbill penalty. While i myself will never switch from Davion, other Loyalists may not be so loyal and require that infrequent move.

[Sjorpha]

Imo very important questions remain unanswered here, crucial to making loyalist contracts meaningful.

How can loyalists have agency in the conflicts, what is the strategic and narrative role of factions on a gameplay level? Basically why form a community around a faction again like we used to do in phase 2, what could those communities hope to accomplish in faction play today?

What is the point of earning loyalty, what will you be able to do with it? Just silly rewards or something more relevant to impacting the war?

Some questions about unit agency are related. How can units impact the wars strategically? What will units be able to do with their coffers?

And so on. Simply making loyalist contracts possible in the system is fairly pointless in itself, there needs to be some distinct role and function for them to fulfill.

Basically make the contract system not just a cosmetic/role-playing choice, it should have real gameplay impact.

[Van mw]

Quote

[color=orange]2) Earning Loyalty Points (LP) After Pledging Loyalty[/color]

2.1) Faction players will earn LP in the same manner as previously with additional bonuses.
- When a player plays a match with their Faction in a Conflict, they will earn maximum LP for their in-game actions.
- Participation in war obligations while the Faction is in Conflict.

Basicly this section matters after the questions from the previous post are addressed.
What kind of obligations could it be? Like minimum LP gain through an event? What about real life circumstances when? It should encorage participation but not block the ones who are "forced" to be offline for some time. Maybe CB tax for the each event missed out of the ranks, something worth an event (1-5 mil C-bills, possible with a default value but adjustible "manually" at event creation stage according to "importance" and duration)? So it would separate the folks who wants just the banner and not defend the borders.

Maybe those obligations applies to a unit (if can be loyal, like they used to be) unless you are lone loyalist without one. This way units give some "protection" to the members but are responsible for all the pilots. And there is unit coffer existing appear

P.S. Thank you, Paul. You saved my weekend mood after the "unforseen circumstances" have arised.

Edited by Van mw, 26 May 2019 - 05:06 AM.

[OldSchoolCav]

Nightbird, on 26 May 2019 - 12:04 AM, said:

Having games needs to be the highest prioritized, lore needs to be written around it, since no games = unhappy customers.

^^^^This.

Without prioritizing actually getting FP drops, the rest of this is worthless. No one wants FP to be two highly rated 12 man groups playing match after match while the queue goes from 40/7 to 52/19 every 20-30 minutes. Any options that freeze players into watching the timer count down again and again will only benefit PGI’s competitors. As a member of a unit that has no problem running one or two 12-man groups most nights, this seems clear - and it must be worse for players dropping in smaller groups. Why not divorce faction loyalty (permanent or semi-permanent - I.e. identity for all players) from these conflicts? Award LP at 100% regardless of conflict for all players with a rotating bonus LP for conflicts that are aligned with the player’s selected faction. So an ARC7 GB loyalist gets 100% loyalty to GB regardless of conflict with a bonus percentage whenever GB is a central faction during a conflict. And let players switch sides at any point during a conflict without penalty if there are enough players in an unbalanced queue to trigger a call to arms.

Edited by OldSchoolCav, 26 May 2019 - 04:49 AM.

[VonBruinwald]

Paul Inouye, on 25 May 2019 - 05:54 PM, said:

[color=orange]4) The Big Problem Areas[/color]

- The following are the biggest glaring holes in this system and while there are some heavy handed solutions to them, it's not what's intended to happen here.
- You the community will have the biggest voices here so please share your thoughts.

4.1) The Faction Selection for Loyalist is currently permanent in this proposed system.
- Should a Loyalist be able to switch Factions? (Remember, the major feedback so far in this area is that a Loyalist would never switch.)
- When would a Loyalist be allowed to switch?
- Would there be penalties of some sort involved in doing so?

4.2) When it comes to Section 3 above, there's a big blocker in place.
- If the Conflict is an IS vs IS Conflict, there is NO way that Clan Loyalists can earn LP.
- If the Conflict is Clan vs Clan, the same thing happens on the other side, meaning IS Loyalists cannot earn LP.
- One suggestion made internally was to just provide a base LP payout when these situations arise. For example, if the Conflict is IS vs IS and a Clan Loyalist plays in the Conflict, they will still earn a 25% LP gain from their Faction for doing so even though it contradicts the idea of a hard core Loyalist.

4.1 - You can't lock loyalty, players should be able to switch sides freely:
This could (and has) lead to population imbalance where players are unable to play a match despite the numbers because they're all locked to one side. Punishing players who switch sides increases the chances of this happening. It's a good thing having players willing to switch sides in order to create matches, even if they do feel like they're being disloyal.

4.2. - This is where Faction loyalty comes into play.
Hardcore loyalists will not switch when it's a Clan vs. Clan / IS vs. IS conflict.
Softcore Loyalists will switch when it's a Clan vs. Clan / IS vs. IS conflict.

What we need it a way to separate these two groups. A nice way of doing this is to add a +5% LP gain when a conflict finishes, regardless of who's participating. If you switch factions this multiplier resets. Cap it at +100% so things don't go crazy.

This means a Hardcore loyalists who plays (or not) through 20 conflicts under their banner earns double LP. Enough to offset what they would miss out on in conflicts they're excluded from.

This rewards loyalists rather than punishing them with lower LP payouts if they remain exclusive, and indirectly punishes softcore loyalists who continuously switch factions.

Edited by VonBruinwald, 26 May 2019 - 05:30 AM.

[TinFoilHat]

There's still a gap not covered by this - the ideas are a decent start, but are all taken from an individual player's standpoint. What about choices for Units, both Loyalist and Merc alike?

Previous FP incarnations have had the Unit leadership select the faction and contract duration - players then joined Loyalist units already aware of what faction they would be representing. Merc units could then fulfill their own choices of following Cbill bonuses for joining under-populated factions in conflicts, or having the option to terminate their contract and switch sides. Why was this removed? For the large part, this worked fine as far as I was aware - most of the gripes seemed to be about map design, spawn camping, large groups stomping over singles, etc. There were no issues around what contract people chose, just as long as they could represent their faction they wanted to at any given moment.

Edited by TinFoilHat, 26 May 2019 - 06:23 AM.

[Appogee]

I for one look forward with enthusiasm and confidence to a newly-revitalised Faction Play.

[Shanrak]

Locking people to loyalist factions is a terrible idea, it severely punishes newer players by making them unable to earn those easy mech bays in the first few tiers.

Instead of punishment loyalists should be rewarded by giving them extra rewards when they do get to fight for their faction or alliance.

Also allow everyone regardless of loyalty to earn rep with the factions in the current conflict without having to switch for every conflict.

Edited by Shanrak, 26 May 2019 - 07:15 AM.