284 replies to this topic

[Lieutenant Hedgehog]

Quote

It's not. Your mechs may be in different divisions than you're trying to play them in.
I used to do this regularly, though I've since moved to a bunch of dedicated Solaris builds.
... they do.

Thanks for clarifying ... I'm a relatively new player and haven't had any luck with Solaris yet. I'll give it another try.

[Horseman]

Lieutenant Hedgehog, on 17 November 2020 - 10:31 AM, said:

Thanks for clarifying ... I'm a relatively new player and haven't had any luck with Solaris yet. I'll give it another try.

While I think it is displayed somewhere in the in-game UI, you can use this list to see which of your mechs goes into which division: https://mwomercs.com/s7-mech-divisions

[Greyhart]

New game.mode.

A drop in drop out game.mode, unlimited spawns (or a 4 drop) with bots to make up numbers.

Have a large map with nodes that have to be captured. You have to advance your team from one end to the other by capturing the nodes. Respawn would move as you advance up the map.

Could be tied to FP and have it for capturing a planet.

[Ballistic Panicmode]

Please increase the score values for capturing on a win. Few things are more annoying than spending the match zipping around the map capturing while the rest of your team gets stomped, winning the match as a result, and receiving a double-digit match score for your trouble.

[Reno Blade]

Gameplay changes:
Goal = Interesting game play on top of deathmatch

• Artillery and Airstrikes are real Tank/Planes that can be damaged and killed and called again for reinforcements (e.g. one artillery needs to be called into the map, which is then available to be used for the current consumable, but enemies can find and kill them standing somewhere. Same with air fighters, but they are harder to target because of the height and speed)
  
• Change Incursion mode to 1 base only.
  
• Change Assault to use a Union Dropship as base that can be shot down?
  
• Change Escort to have a large convoi with the path being visible to the defenders only, where each surviving transport/tank gives additional bonus rewards
  
• Implement some part of the InformationWarfare PTS3 from years ago (e.g. radar range, sensor profile, ecm)
  
• For asymmetrical gameplay, add AI tanks that support the assault/defense and acts as easy farmable targets

Metagame:
Goal = Immersion into the BattleTech and MechWarrior universe and the Factions

• Show the IS Map with pulsing planets and number/bar on top, to indicate the warzones
  
• Morph „events“ into „daily missions“ and „campaigns“ with increasing bonus, the longer you stick with some faction
  
• Give „loot“ to victors, boosted by the amount of salvage in the game plus the resources from game modes like conquest (e.g. random weapons + random extra xp/sp/gxp like in the loot-bag events) -> this should also be enough to „lessen the grind“ in general on top of current cbill outcome of a match
  
• Weekly/monthly summary view „Inner Sphere News Network“ (see Elite Dangerous)

Solaris 7:

Goal = Get more out of the games and make it interesting

• Make all games best of 3 or 5, so you have more games and less waiting. Where the outcome of each game increases (to prevent forfeit or dc)
  
• Show a board of the current leaders and current games in progress
  
• Bet certain things like CB, SP, Loot and other stuff that goes to the victor (with x% increase by your standing with the sponsors)
  
• Possibly add all challengers into the same „room“ where the top ranker in the room and anyone can challenge someone ranked higher and everyone can see (even spectators) who is currently challenging someone
  
• Merge all tiers into one big brawl box and just give additional x% for each different tier (e.g. Tier5 mech vs Tier4 mech gets 25% bonus on everything + x per second survived)

Faction Warfare:

Goal = Feel your fame increasing and being part of the faction

• Add secondary objectives (e.g. conquer loot crates, escort artillery team, destroy airfield)
  
• Scouting games give much more xp, while the longer modes give more salvage
  
• Morph the Game to a „constant warzone“ where players are constantly dropping as reinfocements and the games just continue for 1h straight, but you get your final battle-outcome later on (as battle report) in addition to what you get after your 4 mechs are out.
  
• Change the faction standing to provide additional „daily income“ (when logged in) per rank and specific cosmetics, maybe even
  
• Provide additional „privileges“ per rank ingame, e.g. request additional artillery/air reinforcement requests if your rank is high enough (+bonus for lance/company commanders)
  
• Mark all mechs and weapons with Faction icons that give additional bonus if used while playing FP (e.g. playing Awesome with PPCs as Kurita give both Mech and Weapon bonus points for faction fame)
  
• Each ranked players per faction gets a certain bounty that increases as long as the player survives in/out of the match/warzone, this is increased by faction rank. Each kill of such a player gives additional bounty outcome at the end of a battle

Edited by Reno Blade, 17 November 2020 - 11:56 AM.

[Alreech]

Bring back group quickplay as "Faction Quickplay" to enhance the number of 4 player groups in faction play:

• Max group size of 4 players = same size as a lance = maximum for scouting, 1/2 & 1/3 of the team in 8 vs 8 & 12 vs 12
  
• all players of the group have to be in the same "big faction" (Clan or IS) / or in the same faction
  
• Solo players can join to fill up missing players
  
• Use small drop decks to avoid spawn camping & long matches: 3 Mechs, 165 tons IS / 160 tons Clans, use a time limit like 15 minutes
  
• drop decks have to be either Clan or IS to keep factions appart
  
• use 4 vs 4 (Scouting) 8 vs 8 match size if population is low, 12 vs 12 if population is high
  
• match maker should put groups of the same faction / unit on the same side
  
• players can earn faction reputation in this mode

The old group queue has had the problem that some group sizes (9, 10) only in worked one combination (9+3, 10+2).

Also the balancing by tonnage didn't worked as intended. While bigger groups have had less tonnage per Mech they often used fast medium & heavy Mechs to swarm less coordinated teams with more tonnage (and groups).
A group size of 4 players & drop decks fix both problems (incompatibel group sizes / tonnage / swarming).

Drops decks for "Faction Quickplay" also prevent NASCAR and the "wrong mech for that map syndrome". Additional Dropdecks can also be sold for MCs (monetization).
Spawn camping by one team may be a problem, but a short match time of 12-15 minutes, respawning turrets or "dead zones for the other team in the spawn areas" & game modes with objectives (Assault, Domination, Conquest, Incursion) can counter that.

The goal of this feature is to enhance the number of organised 4 player groups.
This will also benefit Faction Play with Invasion Decks by enhancing the number of faction aligned groups aviable for a call to arms.
It will reduce the number of unwanted groups in Solo Quickplay, improving the match quality for the remaining players in Solo Quickplay.

[thievingmagpi]

Ballistic Panicmode, on 17 November 2020 - 11:49 AM, said:

Please increase the score values for capturing on a win. Few things are more annoying than spending the match zipping around the map capturing while the rest of your team gets stomped, winning the match as a result, and receiving a double-digit match score for your trouble.

Maybe you should spend less time zipping around the map capturing.

[LordNothing]

we really need modes that leverage the fact that qp is always skirmish. where the goal is still to kill everyone, but you are given ways to make that more fun or interesting.

simply by placing towers everywhere that provide certain strategic benefits. one tower might stealth everything standing near it. another might provide a cold zone. another might provide instant missile locks, and another might long tom the insti-lock tower. one might have drop ship air support.

[Heketon]

There needs to be a better way of finding out what units are active and which ones are active and recruiting. Hunting through the forum post was impossible.

Passive way to tell if a unit is active? Mark the unit as active if the leader logs into the game.
Active method: Have the unit select the option in the unit creation menus in Faction Play.

Once a month the unit leader is asked if their unit is recruiting. This adds or lights up a tile to a new page in the Faction Play section. If the unit leader doesn't use the toggle, the unit is no longer recruiting.

This will mean more coding and QA, though.

[Brodie Pryde]

Hey Daeron,

Not sure if this has been mentioned already but a game mode that could be interesting is a domination mode where the capture area moves after the team controls it for enough points or time. Depending on who controls it the next domination point could be further or closer to the team that has controlled it the longest. (Could have a couple capture points but trying not to make it conquest). Could be cool in the sense that it makes a difference for who actually controls the point and utilizing split tactics instead of murder ball all the time. Not sure about time or point limits but might throw in some variety without that much programmable effort..... (At least, I don't think it would be that much, but I am no programmer).

Also, new maps please. lol.

lastly, and I know this is not the right forum topic but what about ranked weapons, like, white, blue, red, orange, purple, etc. for legendary commons ect. Just a thought. Not sure how much that would break the balancing but people would grind for that or possible pay..... maybe.....

Hope this sparks some ideas and comments.
See you on the battlefield

-Brodie Pryde - 07

[Vercors]

The6thMessenger, on 17 November 2020 - 02:43 AM, said:

If you want people to play for objectives, you need to add respawns in QP

Yes, like the Onslaugth mode in unreal tournament 2004.

Edited by Vercors, 17 November 2020 - 10:50 PM.

[Sir LRMsalot]

I have one major concern about reducing AMS match score

Ok, match score farmers are annoying... but ATMs (and LRMs in lower tiers) are even more annoying.

Reducing the average number of AMS per match will be an indirect buff to all missile systems, including ATMs.

PLEASE consider this balance implication before implementing this change.

[AnAnachronismAlive]

# Modes

The6thMessenger, on 17 November 2020 - 02:43 AM, said:

If you want people to play for objectives, you need to add respawns in QP, or just remove every other game mode except skirmish on QP.

In the light of actual game-flow, I somehow like the idea of limiting quickplay to skirmish only and moving more sophisticated game-modes to faction play, although this implies re-fining/overhauling the other game modes somewhat.

Furthermore some Free4All-Mode in Solaris (could be modified with randomly staggered - like all 30 seconds - drop ins), but gotta think that through en detail first. Never really played the existing Solaris, so can not judge upon what made the mode as deserted as it is now.

What we gotta think about hard and practical is, how to implement relevant and FUN objectives game-playwise without hampering the fun-core of this game too much: mech combat! Hardest obstacle to overcome if ye ask me, but most fruitful for a sustainable playerbase.

Like limiting max-team-dropdeck tonnage for 12men-teams depending on the mission objective in general (Examples: Assault, Siege = high with 4 mech drop deck; some kind of extraction mode and conquest = low(er) with less or none drop ins). Some game modes might even imply the possibility to deny or shift the focus on certain areas of the map in between a game (general or called in massive artillery strikes, mine fields, gun-dropships forcing you to withdraw/move to a certain position or pay a lot more attention to your mechs movement for a certain period of time).

Will post one or two ideas for game modes end of the week. But there have been some decent approaches in here (thx Garran Tana) and in older threads already that need to be taken into account. No point in gobbing ideas around without thinkin em through / discuss their pros n cons with other players en detail tbh.

Edited by AnAnachronismAlive, 18 November 2020 - 06:09 AM.

[The6thMessenger]

AnAnachronismAlive, on 18 November 2020 - 03:44 AM, said:

In the light of actual game-flow, I somehow like the idea of limiting quickplay to skirmish only and moving more sophisticated game-modes to faction play, although this implies re-fining/overhauling the other game modes somewhat.

...

What we gotta think about hard and practical is, how to implement relevant and FUN objectives game-playwise without hampering the fun-core of this game too much: mech combat! Hardest obstacle to overcome if ye ask me, but most fruitful for a sustainable playerbase.

FP hosts the same game-modes as QP does, in addition of Siege. They just need to remove every other gamemode.

I would actually like it if FP is the only place where objectives are done. Although I am still convinced of respawns than just mere drop-decks, because it implies that you can still kill players 4 times then they won't be able to do the objectives at all, that means they can just ignore the objectives and proceed with the killing.

Also Spawn-Camping, while I agree that it's the team's fault for getting spawn-camped, It is not a pleasant experience. It should be rid of by having turrets on the spawn location.

Or, they could simply just drop mechs all at once, instead of one-by-one.

As for a specific gamemode, Domination sucks. It's just a bad KOTH, and encourages nascar on a very small location. Why not have the Domination-Area change locations in the map so we're incentivised to actually relocating?

Edited by The6thMessenger, 18 November 2020 - 04:38 AM.

[Brizna]

Match Making: Variable Team Size

Given the lack of players Match Maker generates lower quality games and longer wait times. In order to alleviate both problems at the same time allow MM to use TEAM SIZE as another variable it can tweak to create balanced games faster.

For Quick-play games it's pretty much straightforward to implement
For FW (which need it even more than QP given how stagnant the game mode is) it is a bit more complicated:

• You need to adapt hit points of Turrets, Generators and Omega to the number of players to keep the balance.
  
• You need to put an small delay before MM actually reduce team size, otherwise most games will be 8 vs 8.

[SkubaSteve]

Solo / Group Queues

According to average match score data available from Jarl's List, multiple others and my own experience, the state of quick play has been declining quickly since Nov 2019. July was our lowest point since may 2018 with only a 1 point difference. The reasoning is pretty simple from what I can gather. Nobody is stepping forward to lead the teams. The direct reason for this I'm unsure of, maybe those players left, maybe they are tired of leading. The interesting part about it though is the group and solo merge seems to be reversing the downward trend! Since July (right after players would have gotten used to the merge), average match scores have increased quicker than at any point since 2018. It would appear that the small level of coordination and the spread of groups in QP (I see a group in almost every match now even when I'm solo), has elevated the overall performance of everyone involved. We all know this game heavily favors teamwork so this is no surprise to us who have played a while.

What this brings up however is how do we encourage a team environment? Someone brought up a good point the other day during a match. A big part of the NASCAR play is people going out on their own trying to get sneaky kills. Then the rest of the team has to follow them or die in the rotation. This bit of selfish play style is hurting the game with frustrating predictability and makes a lot of slower mechs feel pointless.

I believe smaller teams and a system to incentivize teamwork would help a ton. That system could simply be a training course, or perhaps increase the payout (xp, c-bills, whatever). The groups merging with solo's has increased the fun of this game substantially. We all like playing with our friends and this has been a great change for us. The people who say otherwise probably don't have people to drop with, so we could really benefit from a more engaging UI to motivate people to click around and find a chat room or something.

Thank you for your hard work Daeron, and good luck.

Edited by SkubaSteve, 18 November 2020 - 10:20 AM.

[Mycroft000]

Revisit some of the LOOOONG threads in the faction play forum to see some of the numerous suggestions for improvements.

[Tarteso]

New game mode suggestion (QP): Defend/attack base, pretty much same as Siege in FP, maybe simplified and shortened (15-20 min). For example, instead of killing gens and cannon, hold a small "key" point uncontested for 30s.

il1il, on 17 November 2020 - 08:16 AM, said:

QP - its self seems to be suffering from "soup" group mixed with solo players and the heavy sorting for average damage found in match score. Most of the problems could be solved by invisible sorting by average win/loss. Damage is a horrible incentive to give players it corrupts the incentives of players away from team work. and selfless strats into damage hogging and hiding.

Faction - is low pop because solo player don't want to enter Q and wait for 45 mins while 3 games pass them by because groups took their spot. so they go to quick play and get a quick game. if there were no QP faction would have less problems but solo players are at a major disadvantage especially new ones.

This. And PGI combined the queues instead of encourage group play into FP, which is bad for both QP and FP. Further, groups and actual MM config makes the new PSR "solution" innefective. My suggestion is split again the queues and save QP at least.

[Anomalocaris]

Just give us a solo queue back. Make it skirmish, assault and domination only (all variants on a theme). That's all I want. I don't want to find a group. I don't want to make more friends. I just want to drop with a random team of 10-20 other players (yes big teams are more fun to me even if they're aren't going to happen at current population) and get stuck in. I want to spend maximum time in combat and minimum time socializing, looking for groups, respecing my skill tree or anything else.

Won't play otherwise (quit playing after the merge took place).

[Rogard]

Hi Everyone,

So here is my thought around modes, I feel to balance the Match Maker in Quickplay we need to balance the mechs brought to the match by setting up the Lance builds to require 1 of each class. This way we eliminate these Group drop Light Packs or Missile Packs that take the fun out of Quickplay. By doing so we setup the Drops to be evenly balance on both sides with 3 of each mech class.

This should eliminates the need to worry about tonnage limits for group drops and hopefully making it easier on the match maker. It will also eliminate matches with 5 to 8 Assaults in a drop or one side with no Assaults due to a Group Drop mishap.

Another Benefit to this change would be the poor placement of Drop zones with all the Assaults in a single lance getting taken out by Light Packs and providing each assault mech with protection. Balancing Drop Placement and eliminating behaviors that are driven by this as well with the infamous Nascar or Alpha Lance rush that can take out a whole lance within the first 2 minutes of the match.

I would love to get others thoughts on this and see if there is any logic that brakes this type of grouping. I really feel this change would even impact player behavior within a team.

Lets keep MWO moving forward and not just look at what was fun in the past but how we can really enhance the player experience at all levels within MWO.

Pilot: Rogard