429 replies to this topic

[dario03]

GoodTry, on 29 May 2019 - 04:15 AM, said:

I think all of this is basically deck chairs on the titanic, if they don't make it easier to drop and to choose sides to get matches. All these elaborate loyalty systems will amount to nothing if there are no matches.

This is a big part of why I think a simple system is the best system. Don't encourage players to chase rewards by pledging loyalty in game, let them roleplay loyalty without punishment if they want and jump around if they want. No need for the game itself to push loyalty on you, you either are loyal or you're not.

[VileKnight]

shaytalis, on 29 May 2019 - 12:59 AM, said:

Currently:

Something I'm running into on the current format is "stomps." And I don't mean a stomp in a match, but a stomp in a conflict. Looking at the current one:



We have another 11 hours to wait before another phase begins. Panthers are already up by 34 matches. The odds of Nova Cats winning are relatively low for this phase, so we're just waiting for another 11 hours for another phase to start. And even then, Panthers are up by 2 phase wins, meaning that that they have already won 2 out of 3. Will we have to fight a 3rd phase even though the Nova Cats can't win this conflict? Or will we move on to a new conflict since this one's already settled?

Shay - What are you asking for? Do you want more from Nova to be able to hop over to the winning side? A mercy rule? I would expect for the event to finish out. In this case, the Nova Cats need to take their beating and like it.

Regardless of who is winning, stick with your side until the end of the conflict. We can't really use the results from this one conflict to judge how future FP matches are going to go. I think this is a rabbit hole we need to avoid going down.

[SilentFenris]

dario03, on 29 May 2019 - 04:54 AM, said:

This is a big part of why I think a simple system is the best system. Don't encourage players to chase rewards by pledging loyalty in game, let them roleplay loyalty without punishment if they want and jump around if they want. No need for the game itself to push loyalty on you, you either are loyal or you're not.

Really good point on chasing rewards.

A huge flaws with the past and present system is the Finite reward system which REQUIRES players to switch Factions as Loyalist to maximize rewards. Many Players/Units choose to be Loyalists because they want those extra Mechbays and MC, not because they are truly Loyal to any Faction. Also, the Playerbase will never agree on role/terms of Loyalist staus as long as the system retains these flaws.

If PGI is truly serious about maintaining a true Loyalist Career role for players, get rid of the REQUIEMENT to be Loyalist to benefit fully from the Loyalty Point System:
1) Convert the reward Loyalty Point system to a currency system player can keep using rather than the current reward tables
2) All Career choices should earn LP at the same rate. If Loyalists have an edge in earning points over Mercs and Freelancers then Players/Units will continue to flip faction loyalty instead of going Merc or Freelancer which would be more appropriate.

If it is made clear that the playerbase will no longer need to rotate factions as Loyalists to maximize rewards, I think you will find the players who don't move to merc or freelancer and remain Loyalist will be much more unified in answering Paul's question on what a Loyalists role should be in MWO.

[TinFoilHat]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, why was the previous system of faction choice, contract length & role replaced in the first place? I feel this would have worked in the “new” system just as it had in the old one. What issues was it causing that required a full re-write?

[Khalcruth]

One of the things that occurs to me (and which I think other have touched on) - one primary reason people have for switching factions, and especially for just spending a few weeks in each faction, is the so-called "mech bay tour". It seems that some of the ideas here are just to accommodate new players doing a mech bay tour.

Why not just get rid of mech bay tours entirely?

If you really want people to be able to still earn mech bays while doing community warfare, change the system so that they get the mech bays no matter what. Here's an example system.

You get a mech bay every time you earn 8000 Loyalty (/Reward) Points. It doesn't matter what combination you earn them in. So if you get 8000 Steiner LP's, you get a mech bay. If you get 5000 Mercenary, 2300 Liao, and 700 Davion - mech bay. In order to limit inflation,give it a maximum, say 20 free mech bays. At current rates, that's somewhere like 2 years of playing.

Switch factions three times a day, don't switch ever, whatever your heart desires. There's no "penalty", just reward. Play more games, get more stuff.

And you can still have (as is currently the case) a separate Loyalty system for each faction. You'd probably pull out the mech bays that are already in there and put in something different, like a faction-specific decal or something.

[SilentFenris]

TinFoilHat, on 29 May 2019 - 08:05 AM, said:

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, why was the previous system of faction choice, contract length & role replaced in the first place? I feel this would have worked in the “new” system just as it had in the old one. What issues was it causing that required a full re-write?

You mean the week/month long contracts under CW1 CW2 and FP?

Totally irrelavent to this topic which is Loyalists, but since you asked...

Off the top of my head complaints were:
1) Contracts were meant to balance membership between factions and population in queue by adjusting contract bonus c-bill earnings. If failed to balance both of the above.
2) Mercs grumbled that if their contract expired while unit officers were offline (gotta sleep and work) they had to "sit-out" of Faction Play until an officer was able to log-in.

[shaytalis]

VileKnight, on 29 May 2019 - 07:23 AM, said:

Shay - What are you asking for?

shaytalis, on 29 May 2019 - 12:59 AM, said:

'snip'

The general topic is "Factions with a small population should not be as hard to leave."


'snip'



I might recommend making the penalty for leaving a Faction lower for smaller Factions.


'snip'

Edited by shaytalis, 29 May 2019 - 09:33 AM.

[TinFoilHat]

SilentFenris, on 29 May 2019 - 08:29 AM, said:

Totally irrelavent to this topic which is Loyalists, but since you asked...

Not entirely true as the “Loyalist” role was a choice made by Unit leadership when selecting the longest term contract for a faction, but I appreciate the answer all the same. With regards to the second point you made, that was quite easily covered by Units assigning the relevant permissions to pilots, so not a game fault, more-so an oversight by Units at the time.

[Bjorn Coston]

Paul, thank you once again for your continued dedication to addressing the myriad issues coming from this most recent patch to FP. I can honestly say as a player who's had a vested interest in FP since it came out, I finally feel that we the player-base are at least having some of our voices heard.

Overall, not a bad concept in my opinion. My only issue like most people it would seem is the locking down of loyalists to their faction. I know this goes against what we were complaining about with the initial release of the patch so please don't facepalm yourself through the back of your skull.

Loyalty should only be for the hardcore players who find more value in sticking with their unit and their designated faction. That's great, more power to them. Yet at the same time, circumstances change. A unit may go defunct, a pilot could be kicked from their unit, or they just get bored and want to explore the lore/tech on the other side of the pond. I personally think that Nightbird's suggestion of a hefty C-Bill fine in game and perhaps a probation period where they don't earn LP (or at a severely limited rate) as they immigrate to their new faction. But once again though, I think this idea has some serious substance and could be a huge benefit to FP if the tech guys think they can implement it! Great work and again, thank you for your continued commitment to the rest of us salty FP pilots.

[Usagiyama Shugo]

To be fare I have only been ranting about what is wrong with the current FP (from my view point) and not providing any suggestions or alternatives. So I would like to take a stab at that.

There are two options that I can see that would remedy most or all of the current problems.

Option 1) Have more, consecutive, conflicts. I would suggest at least 3 different conflicts occurring simultaneously instead of just one. In other words have one IS v IS conflict, one Clan v Clan conflict and one IS v Clan conflict. This could be done one of two ways.

a) Make all the involved houses/clans/allies different in all three conflicts. By this I mean that IS v IS would be house v house (Davion v Liao), Clan v Clan would be just that (Jade Falcon v Smoke Jaguar), and IS v Clan would be Allied IS (minus Davion and Liao) v allied Clans (minus J-Falc and S_Jag). This to me seems to be the best option for giving the majority of even loyalists a choice of which conflict to participate in. In this case Merc units and freelancers would be needed to balance out the queues.

b ) Double up the involved houses/clan/allies for each side. In other word IS v IS would be Davion + allies v Liao + allies, Clan v Clan could be Jade Falcon + allies v Smoke Jaguar + allies. For the IS v Clan, in the unfortunate event that there are not enough players on one side of the other two conflicts give those players a choice to participate in the IS v Clan conflict. Ergo if D v L queue is 32/6 and F v J queue is 2/50 give the higher pop queue the option of joining the IS v Clan conflict (for LP from their respective factions). This to me seems to be the best option for shorter queue times, while still giving people more choices.

OR

Option 2) This one stems from a post I saw talking about 11 hour wait times between conflict phases and can actually be used in conjunction with option 1. Cycle the conflicts faster. In other words instead of forcing people to wait 11 hours or more for a new phase of a conflict to start, cycle to a new or different conflict between conflict phases. For instance start a Davion v Liao conflict, when the queue fills and the games starts start a Smoke Jaguar v Jade Falcon conflict. Then do a IS v Clan conflict and keep switching to a new conflict until it's time for the next phase of the Davion v Liao conflict to start and cycle that conflict in. I recon that if there is an 11 hour wait time between each phase of a conflict you could have up to 10 'different' conflicts going at a time.

Either option would give loyalists what they want, to earn LP from their chosen faction and Freelancers/Merc units could be called to arms to fill up unbalanced queues. Giving them a chance to get what they want, loot. Of course Freelancers/Mercs still won't be able to participate in every conflict unless they are allowed to drop mixed decks. That would be super(nova) and awesome. Of course the best case scenario IMO would be a combination of options 1 and 2 + Merc/Freelancer Mixed drop decks.

What say you?

Edited by Usagiyama Shugo, 29 May 2019 - 11:42 AM.

[-Spectre]

Bjorn Bekker, on 29 May 2019 - 11:19 AM, said:

Paul, thank you once again for your continued dedication to addressing the myriad issues coming from this most recent patch to FP. I can honestly say as a player who's had a vested interest in FP since it came out, I finally feel that we the player-base are at least having some of our voices heard.

Overall, not a bad concept in my opinion. My only issue like most people it would seem is the locking down of loyalists to their faction. I know this goes against what we were complaining about with the initial release of the patch so please don't facepalm yourself through the back of your skull.

Loyalty should only be for the hardcore players who find more value in sticking with their unit and their designated faction. That's great, more power to them. Yet at the same time, circumstances change. A unit may go defunct, a pilot could be kicked from their unit, or they just get bored and want to explore the lore/tech on the other side of the pond. I personally think that Nightbird's suggestion of a hefty C-Bill fine in game and perhaps a probation period where they don't earn LP (or at a severely limited rate) as they immigrate to their new faction. But once again though, I think this idea has some serious substance and could be a huge benefit to FP if the tech guys think they can implement it! Great work and again, thank you for your continued commitment to the rest of us salty FP pilots.

Yes, the prevailing thought (and my own opinion) seems to be that loyalists should be highly encouraged to be permanently loyal, but that there needs to be an out, however severely punishing it may be.
Basically, the idea is for loyalists to be permanent, but it shouldn't take a note to support to leave.

[-Spectre]

Usagiyama Shugo, on 29 May 2019 - 11:34 AM, said:

a) Make all the involved houses/clans/allies different in all three conflict. By this I mean that IS v IS would be house v house (Davion v Liao), Clan v Clan would be just that (Jade Falcon v Smoke Jaguar), and IS v Clan would be Allied IS (minus Davion and Liao) v allied Clans (minus J-Falc and S_Jag). This to me seems to be the best option for giving the majority of even loyalists a choice of which conflict to participate in. In this case Merc units and freelancers would be need to balance out the queues.

I think that is a really good idea to keep in mind if we can get the population up. The problem at the moment is that we just don't have enough people playing to have multiple conflicts going simultaneously. With that, even if everyone could fight on either side of any conflict at a whim, I think we would still have some queue time problems. But assuming the available population, I do really like this system.

[dario03]

-Spectre, on 29 May 2019 - 12:02 PM, said:

I think that is a really good idea to keep in mind if we can get the population up. The problem at the moment is that we just don't have enough people playing to have multiple conflicts going simultaneously. With that, even if everyone could fight on either side of any conflict at a whim, I think we would still have some queue time problems. But assuming the available population, I do really like this system.

Having something like a always on ISvClan mode and a rotating ISvIS or ClanvClan mode could possibly work if players were able to switch easily.

[Usagiyama Shugo]

-Spectre, on 29 May 2019 - 12:02 PM, said:

I think that is a really good idea to keep in mind if we can get the population up. The problem at the moment is that we just don't have enough people playing to have multiple conflicts going simultaneously. With that, even if everyone could fight on either side of any conflict at a whim, I think we would still have some queue time problems. But assuming the available population, I do really like this system.

I understand your point about the FP pop, however my point is that forcing half or more of the FP player base to sit out for weeks/months on end ins't going to increase the FP pop, it's going to reduce it. There are other things that could be implemented that would make it a viable option. Some of them have already been suggested, like siding with your factions allies (without changing loyalty status). Posting the queue pop for each side of a conflict before they chose a side might also help, especially in the case of Freelancer/Merc units. So that people don't chose one side just to find out the queue is drastically lopsided. Putting a time limit on the conflicts (or the phases of one) is also an option. If a certain amount of time passes without a conflict being resolved (strictly because of a lack of participants) then the side with the higher pop wins by default.

Another option might be shorter (one or two phase) conflicts that could lead up to bigger ones. They don't all have to be month long endeavors do they?

EDIT
Some other options would be dropping smaller teams, 2v2, 4v4, 6v6, 8v8, 10v10, if the queue pop allows it. It should at least be an option already. As far as IS v Clan or even Clan v Clan goes if the IS queue outnumbers the Clan (10 to 7 for instance) the Clan team should have the option to drop with current members. That sounds more like a bid for ToP to me.

Edited by Usagiyama Shugo, 29 May 2019 - 01:21 PM.

[Paul Inouye]

Popping in.. letting y'all know I'm still reading through everything. I just feel that I need to get some sort of presentation up that will better define the OP and the first set of revisions based on feedback so far. I think a video would be best (kinda like the match maker video) since inline images just add to that feeling of a wall of text.

There's a few things I have on my plate that I have to clear out before getting to this however, but Friday will probably be the day of the video going up. Until then I'm still monitoring and taking notes as to what to include in the video.

Note: I'm suggesting this video because the thought process is complex, not the actual implementation. Just trying to get everyone on the same page.

[-Spectre]

dario03, on 29 May 2019 - 12:22 PM, said:

Having something like a always on ISvClan mode and a rotating ISvIS or ClanvClan mode could possibly work if players were able to switch easily.

Merc players should be able to switch easily. Not sure exactly what the plan for them is, but that has always been the purpose of the merc path. Still not sure if two buckets would be feasible, but if it is, that sounds like a good idea. That's more of a question for the devs, I guess.

Usagiyama Shugo, on 29 May 2019 - 12:47 PM, said:

I understand your point about the FP pop, however my point is that forcing half or more of the FP player base to sit out for weeks/months on end ins't going to increase the FP pop, it's going to reduce it. There are other things that could be implemented that would make it a viable option. Some of them have already been suggested, like siding with your factions allies (without changing loyalty status). Posting the queue pop for each side of a conflict before they chose a side might also help, especially in the case of Freelancer/Merc units. So that people don't chose one side just to find out the queue is drastically lopsided. Putting a time limit on the conflicts (or the phases of one) is also an option. If a certain amount of time passes without a conflict being resolved (strictly because of a lack of participants) then the side with the higher pop wins by default.

Another option might be shorter (one or two phase) conflicts that could lead up to bigger ones. They don't all have to be month long endeavors do they?

EDIT
Some other options would be dropping smaller teams, 2v2, 4v4, 6v6, 8v8, 10v10, if the queue pop allows it. It should at least be an option already. As far as IS v Clan or even Clan v Clan goes if the IS queue outnumbers the Clan (10 to 7 for instance) the Clan team should have the option to drop with current members. That sounds more like a bid for ToP to me.

Yes, forcing half of the population out half of the time would decrease the population, which is why we are working out a way for everyone to play in every conflict without switching factions. We can dip into Jihad and later lore to justify it on that front, and make it so that certain Clans are allied with certain Houses when it comes to IS v IS conflicts and Clan v Clan conflicts, which would allow the side that isn't technically included to still play, without changing loyalties or even drop decks. It would have the added bonus of allowing mixed tech bases in given drops, which would bring a new element to Faction Play (though the original Clan v IS will still be there--just not sure if people will want to give up the idea of IS players getting to fight only IS mechs sometimes and Clan players getting to fight only Clan mechs sometimes)

Edited by -Spectre, 29 May 2019 - 01:54 PM.

[Usagiyama Shugo]

This will likely be my last post at least for a bit.

-Spectre, on 29 May 2019 - 01:53 PM, said:

Yes, forcing half of the population out half of the time would decrease the population, which is why we are working out a way for everyone to play in every conflict without switching factions.

I'm not so sure that assuming everyone wants to play in every conflict is even the way to go. I highly doubt that this is the case, with or without the ability to switch factions on demand. Though I'm sure that it is PGI's goal to have everyone 'want' to participate in every conflict. There is just not enough incentive for say a Clan loyal player to participate in an IS v IS conflict, or vise versa, even 'if' they had the mechs to build the necessary drop decks and decent LP from their faction. Even if you allowed everyone the option of dropping mixed decks the incentives would still have to be high enough to a) get said player interest in fighting in a conflict that they normally wouldn't and b ) give them a vested interest in the outcome of said conflict. Even rank amateurs would be preferable to someone who doesn't care who wins.

[Geewiz 27]

Tarogato, on 27 May 2019 - 04:09 PM, said:

Forgive my pessimism, but what dedicated units remain in MWO to this day? Almost all of them have eroded or disbanded, and what is left in Faction Play is mostly a bunch of people who could care less about unit affiliation, let alone lore, and simply want to play 12 vs 12 with respawns. Almost all of the people who cared about Faction Play initially... are gone because the game mode itself, you know the part that you play with the actual mechs shooting each other... was lacking.




So you're unaware that one of the only true emergent player-driven alliances still in the game presently is FRR-Kurita? We share a teamspeak and discord server - at least, what very few players are left. Seems kind of a shame to work directly against that.

It's a bit unrealistic to expect Paul know that you guys have that situation or to base game decisions around 1 hub of players?

[SeventhSL]

I think we have loyalist desires locked down pretty well now. To summarise in order of priority:

1. Loyalists want to be able to choose any faction not just those in the current event.
2. Want to fight under their chosen faction’s banner which will display as their forum profile etc.
3. Do not want to be excluded from fighting in any event.
4. Want to be able to change faction easily just in case of the unforeseen.
5. Would like a reward for being long term loyalist that is not available to those who swap factions often.
6. Would like the “level 20 what then” issue solved.

As I read it, Paul’s last suggestion ticks off all but point 6 which has been a community wishlist item for a long time now.

I believe the other concerns, like getting games, premades avoiding each other and population balance, are really related to match maker so I’m ready to start the discussion about match maker and those topics.

[Cato Zilks]

-Spectre, on 29 May 2019 - 12:02 PM, said:

I think that is a really good idea to keep in mind if we can get the population up. The problem at the moment is that we just don't have enough people playing to have multiple conflicts going simultaneously. With that, even if everyone could fight on either side of any conflict at a whim, I think we would still have some queue time problems. But assuming the available population, I do really like this system.

I am not sure we don't have the population. I do doubt we will have 40 people in each queue at all times, but we currently have a lot of people avoiding FP because they get stomped. Back in phase 2 if you met a much better 12-man in one planet's queue, you could just switch planets and keep playing FP while avoiding the match in which you would be stomped. We might be able to float multiple queues just with portions of the population avoiding stomps (people who used to flip to the winning side but now are locked in).

But this is probably going off topic.