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This proposal is for the next MMO Mechwarrior successor to MWO, with priority on delivering an enjoyable and profitable game with a tight budget for version 1.0. It is directed at PGI, with hopes they will read it, sleep on it, and realize that this plan, or something close to it, is a viable way forward with the Mechwarrior IP.
To explain how the goals of enjoyability and profitability are met, this post lists the initial game features, monetization strategy, and a discussion why the ideas presented here are able to thread the needle between the diverse expectations of the player base, realities of customer satisfaction, and investment constaints.
The proposal is separated into two phases, Eternal War, which is an evolution of MWO's QP and FP experience that caters to the existing MW playerbase, and Escalation, which is designed to expand the appeal of the MW Franchise to the general gaming community. (The names I gave are for ease of reference only)
There is obviously flexibility within the proposal, details to fill in, and what is presented is strictly a version 1.0 with many updates to follow if proven economically viable. I did differentiate components I deemed critical (!) to success versus optional (o) components included to paint a clear picture.
Mechwarrior Eternal War Features
(!) A player performance database and a Match Maker that takes a statistical approach to making teams in order to create the most balanced and fun matches possible. In addition to stats tracked in MWO, it records mech variant, build, game mode, and frequently grouped teammates to feed into the Match Maker. The required result is that all players will experience a WLR between 0.9 and 1.1. (Details on why a better Matchmaker is critical to player retention here: https://mwomercs.com...hmaker-is-king/)
(!) All players (solo and groups) for all game modes will go in one queue for PvP matches. This is to present the most players possible to the Match Maker, enable team creation with players of similar skill level. Until the simultaneous online pop reaches 10k, do not consider splitting the queue.
(!) Groups will start with a limit of 4 players until it is proven the Match Maker delivers on the 0.9 to 1.1 WLR requirement for all players (including those in groups). If you can't figure out how to make it work, get a professional involved. From there, slowly increase group limit up to 12 only so long as the WLR range requirement continues to be satisfied.
(!) For accounts with a low number of games, a fire break-like detection code will pull dramatically over-performing players out of a match intended for low-skilled players and elevate their database skill level to proper levels. Griefers can be detected the same way and dealt with.
(o) While there is only one PvP queue, there are separate entry points into the queue: Quick Battle and War mode (Loyalist/Mercenary). Each entry point has their own unique restrictions catering to player preferences. The Match Maker will be aware of the point of entry if the mode restrictions modify player skill.
(o) Each game mode will require a drop deck with mechs selected in order to drop.
(o) In Eternal War, skill grinding is separate for Pilot and Mech. You can hire multiple pilots. The pilot skill tree takes 100-200 games to fill, and cannot be modified afterwards. The mech skill tree takes 10-20 games to fill, and can be modified. When dropping PvP, both pilot and mech can be selected in match to add a layer of strategy. For PvE, multiple pilots can be used at the same time.
(o) Quick Battle (QB) - Similar and different from QP today, playing from this screen makes all mechs and mech lab customizations (except cosmetics) available from the start for no C-bill nor real money cost. However, the drop deck has 4 slots locked with random flavor of the day mech variants (you can still mech lab and customize them) and one slot the user can select their mech choice. This mode is for learning about the game, testing builds, earning C-bills risk free (no mech repair cost), and skilling up both mechs and pilots.
(o) War Galactic Map - Both the Loyalist and Mercenary play styles will use the map to choose which conflict the player fights in, the risks and rewards. The map displays the location of faction battle fleets, of which each faction will control 2 or more. The location of these fleets determines the conflict points for PvP battles. All other planets will have PvE. Loyalists move battle fleets via voting per cycle (25-27 hrs?), and Mercs move their dropship via banked time (earn 7? days per match, up to 60? days banked). Due to the one queue system, loyalties are not displayed in matches and each player's contribution goes to the conflict they select on the map.
(o) Loyalist War mode - Every loyalist has access to the influence screen, which makes decisions pertaining to the faction. Unlike votes which are one per person, influence is based on contribution to the faction (monthly faction leaderboard). Voting takes place for decisions on where to move fleets, alliance/war declarations, and how to spend faction taxes. For drop decks, Loyalists have the following limitations: free access to faction stock mechs with free repairs, can use earnings to upgrade faction mechs and buy personal mechs. However, upgrades (customized mech value - stock mech value) and personal mechs do not have free repair, with the loyalist having to cover 5% of repair costs. Personal mech price is also subject to import cost, modified by global faction relations.
(o) Mercenary War mode - To access mercenary mode, you need to first lease a ship and hire a crew ~30 million C-bills per realtime month for a Leopold (with fixed tonnage inventory capacity by dropship type), paid in advance. You can buy any mechs for sale in the faction space you are in, pay to customize them, and use them in PvP missions. However, factions will only cover ~95% of repair costs. Most new merc companies hoping to go after lucrative military contracts go bankrupt in the first year. Potential pay is the highest however... Initially, mission reward is only paid with C-bills but salvage and other mission types can be added later.
(o) Once clan factions are available, QB have will both a Clan and IS drop deck, however when launching you may select if you are willing to use one only, or both to save searching time.
(o) In War mode, you may use mechs from any faction, however purchase and repair cost will vary based on location, relations, import costs and may be prohibitively expensive. (For example, due to distance and poor relations, your mech of choice has to be smuggled in and costs 5x list price for purchase and repairs)
(!) The one queue PvP game modes last ~10-15 minutes and allow different tactics. I quote 10-15 based on the most popular games out today, feel free to change as needed.
(!) Game modes utilize AI mechs/vehicles, support assymetric teams 12vs12, 12vs11, 12vs10, etc... as determined by the Match Maker if necessary, auto-balance capabilities to detect DC/AFK and dropping extra AI to compensate.
(!) PvE is balanced as an easy if slow way to earn Cbills and XP. PvP C-bill earning is balanced around being certain but slow in Quick Battle, harder in Loyalist mode, and hardest in Mercenary mode. This due to the repair cost associated with customized mechs being applied in the War modes making it easy to have minus earnings.
(o) Game Mode - Battle Line - a procedural map with 3 domination points. A city/PoI(point of interest) in the center and 2 smaller PoI on either side (~1-2KM distant) in a line. 3 AI Lances drop every 2 minutes, 1 heading to each of the 3 cap points. There are two victory conditions, one is depletion of the other team's resources (each team starts with 2000-2500 tons and each player mech dropped subtracts its weight in tons from the total). Once depleted, players cannot respawn. The second victory condition is by domination bar. Respawns can choose on a map where to respawn, and be dropped via Dropship or Drop pod on the team's side of the map.
(!) For group play, all players can be added to a group and engage in PvP without limitation to QB or War mode Conflict Location/Faction. Each player will have to follow their own drop deck limitations, and they will earn contribution points from the match towards their conflict. If players in the group are on opposite sides of a conflict, their contribution points will cancel out so it is suggested to group smartly.
Eternal War Monetization
(!) The monetization strategy is based on how a player wants to maintain positive C-bill earnings. This can be done by engaging in Quick Battle and PvE, which offers the F2P option of grinding C-bills for use in War mode. Net positive C-bill earning is intended to be hard in War mode, with cash options primarily around increasing C-bill earning to the point that grinding C-bills in easier modes is not necessary, therefore saving time.
(!) All cosmetics (skin, color, decal, bolt-ons, cockpit items) are free, but with a C-bill cost that has to be paid per drop with battle damage to fix the external items or per destroyed mech for cockpit items. This is not covered by mission damage coverage, and exists as a C-bill sink for all modes including Quick Battle.
(!) All mechs can be purchased for C-bills for mercs and loyalists. No direct $ purchase price, but one can buy C-bills with Micro Transaction (MT). In War mode, repairing damaged or destroyed mechs will be pricy as the repair cost will scale depending on the upgrades done and also parts availability. Adding expensive updates such as XL-engine, DHS kit, and Endo-steel to all drop deck mechs, will greatly increase the repair bill. For the average player, running fully customized drop decks will necessitate playing QB or PvE missions for C-bills, or buying C-bill earning bonuses with real money.
(o) For 9.99$ per month Premium subscription, grants 50% bonus to C-bill and XP earnings from missions, and free cosmetic usage
(o) For 19.99$ per month Platinum subscription, grants 100% bonus to C-bill and XP earnings from missions, and free cosmetic usage
(o) For 4.99$ per month Mercenary subscription, grants free lease of a Leopold dropship and hiring a crew and salary costs for 4 pilots. More dropships can be added to offer greater inventory capacity at a higher lease cost...
(o) For 4.99$ per month Loyalist subscription, grants doubles personal mech bays available (depends on Loyalist rank), doubles influence during voting, eliminates personal mech maintenance cost, and covers salary costs for 4 pilots.
(o) To help fund development of MWEW, offer 20/50/100/200$ packages that gives the equivalent amount of goodies for both MWO today and MWEW in the future. Can offer new items such as mechs in MWO as well but that requires asset costs...
(o) premium currency MC still purchasable in bundles and noted as (MT) micro transaction below
(o) For 5$(MT), make a mech variant premium with 10% cbill bonus if in drop deck (stacks with multiple mechs)
(o) C-bills can be purchased for about 5mil Cbills/1$(MT) (saves 10 matches time)
(o) For 1$(MT), a mech variant has free C-bill cosmetic customization unlocked
(o) For 1$(MT), premium time for 1 day, 3$ for 1 week
(o) For 5$(MT), respec a pilot (saves 100-200 matches time)
Eternal War Discussion
I feel the most valuable lesson from MWO is that both sides needs a challenging game they feel they can win or lose. Month to month player retention data tells us that players with low or high Win Loss Ratio (WLR) have 2x-3x attrition rates compared with players with WLR around 1. Yes, people complain about features, tech balance, and maps, but plotting data shows exactly how many people leave because of the MM. This means the benefits for resolving this problem is visible from past data. The MM is also an easy fix, just data mine player performance and use math to create a good Match Maker. You can hire a statistician, I'd even do it for free,
After addressing player attrition rates, the next step is giving the paying players what they want. In MWO today, QP is the most popular mode and this is inherited by QB. As for the rest, data trends show that population collapsed when FP development was given up upon (30% of the pop was lost when Solaris was released instead of CW/FP improvements). War mode is intended to add enough features to bring back players that wanted CW/FP. While the proposed features are light, it provides a foundation for future development, such as more granular inventory management, planetary effects on the war effort, economy, war material production, bases, etc. All this in addition to a promise of better match making should bring people back.
I offered only one game mode suggestion to showcase the issues it should address. MWO QP is often criticized for being too friendly to brainless deathball (nascar) tactics. The Battle Line game mode I proposed may seem similar to QP Conquest. where multiple cap points do not work to stop deathballing, but this is due to the snowball effect from players having only one mech. With respawns, the number of active players will not reduce for most of the duration of the match, keeping the snowball effect from starting. Once it is impossible to take an early kill lead and do objectives later, splitting of teams will occur naturally. By tweaking the domination timers and tonnage resource, it is possible to choose the proportion of games that end by either objective.
Making QB mechs unlocked and free is intended to solve multiple problems. 1) It's impossible to sell mech packs over again to the MWO community, even C-bill grinding for mechs from the beginning will likely be unwelcome, 2) The new player experience in MW is difficult, it is hard enough to learn the game controls. Moving the need to grind C-bills for mechs and mechlabbing cuts the pain points in half. 3) The end game for MW has always been accumulating mechs, and meaningfully risking them in battle. However this is too hard on a new player, hence this part of the game has been entirely moved to War mode.
Adding an influence system for Loyalist War mode is intended to both offer FP/CW players some macro strategic depth and also to distribute the population naturally. If the monthly leader-board is used to award influence, the top units will want to go to under-populated factions to gain greater influence. By having a faction budget, a faction with a large military (large active Loyalist population) will have less to offer as incentives to Loyalists and Mercenaries (in terms of mission C-bill bonuses or reduced repair costs).
Adding pilots serves as a C-bill sink, adds an interesting dimension of being able to pick pilot and mech at time of drop, and moderates the grind by removing unskilled mech grind (after you level the first pilot, you will have 10 leveled mechs, and from there on, you can choose to use unskilled pilots with skilled mechs or vice versa to avoid starting with nothing)
From a development cost perspective, I hope it can be recognized that the number of new assets needed to start MW Eternal War is minimal. Going from MW5 to this UE MW MMO is mostly UI work, net server code, and Match Maker. It can re-use MW5's procedural map, most UIs, mechs of course, MWO's inventory system, and match database(expanded). I estimate that a budget of 2-3 million should be sufficient for this minimalist alpha version, PGI please correct me if I am wrong.
Monetization in this proposal is centered around C-bill sinks. PvE and QB allow easy if slow grinding of C-bills, while 10-15$ per month will make that grinding unnecessary to play War mode PvP continuously. This toes the line between F2P and P2W without crossing it. The subscription model will also generate more stable revenue than the mech pack model, as long as people can be enticed into playing War Mode and have money to spend, it should be possible to earn a sub from them.
The reason the Match Maker is listed first is because putting queues together is impossible without it. A player's skill is not just one number, but varies depending on the mech and build they are using, whether they are QB/Merc/Loyalist, and the skill of the group they are playing in. To give good match experiences, only the Match Maker that considers and adjusts for all impacting factors will be successful. Without it, team balance will suffer.
To succinctly explain how this proposal is economically viable: This proposal makes the game easier to learn by 1) eliminating early pain points by making mechs and mech labbing free in QB, 2) importing PvE modes, and 3) investing in a MM and better designed games modes that improve a player's PvP experience. Once a new player got to enjoy MW in QB and PvE, they will have earned C-bills. There is however no way of spending C-bills in QB only. This encourages players to try War mode. War mode is a challenge when playing for free because pilots that learned using QB will have gotten to try many mechs (4 random mechs in drop deck), and have developed mech and loadout preferences. To buy and maintain their preferred drop deck, players will need a constant stream of C-bill earnings. This can be done by grinding QB and PvE occasionally, or for players with the means, by subscribing. To keep people in War mode, developments in addition to those I listed would be needed, but unlike one-time revenue from mech packs, these developments will earn long term loyal customers. By addressing concerns for new players, adding QoL for current players, developing campaign features for past supporters, tying it all together with a natural game flow that earns subscriptions while remaining F2P, with hope to grow the game's player base, a self-reinforcing cycle results.
Mechwarrior Escalation Features
(!) Escalation is intended to expand the appeal of the Mechwarrior Franchaise, and as such, takes more risks. This part of the proposal is only recommended if MW:EW is successful and a gamble to dramatically increase the player base is possible.
(!) FPS games are far more popular than Simulation games, and can serve as an entry point to introduce someone to mechs.
(o) Escalation is the latest blood sport developed on planet Solaris for the enjoyment of fans. The winners of the Escalation Grand Prix are acclaimed as the greatest warriors in the galaxy.
(o) Escalation is a free-for-all mode, where players are dropped onto a map in their pilot suit and side-arm.
(o) In the first of three phases, players fight using small arms, collect C-bills by finding caches and defeating other players.
(o) C-bills can be spent at any time to drop weapons and supplies from a dropship overhead, or helpful items such as cover, smoke, automatic turrets, UAVs.
(o) In the second of three phases, players can use the C-bills they amassed to buy battle armor which provide more firepower and armor and speed than any human can hope to match. Players can still fight without it, but at an enormous disadvantage. (Switching out of a damaged battle armor by buying a new one is possible)
(o) In the last phase, players can use C-bills to buy mechs. (Pilots that eject can buy another mech if funds are available). Last man standing.
(o) Destructible buildings
(o) The map shrinks as time progresses, players that spend too much time outside forfeit.
(o) In MW fashion, different battle armor chassis are available and can be customized, and a player should prepare different price points in consideration of the C-bills available during an Escalation match. Same for mechs.
(o) In MW fashion, rather than having all players be the same size, you can customize your pilot's strength (more increases body size, hitbox, hp, and slows speed accel/decel), agility (increases speed, accel, decel), and intelligence (increases initial and maximum skill points)
(o) Yes, a skill tree, and you can train multiple pilots.
(o) In a monthly competitive tournament, for 3 hours, you pick 3 of your pilots to create a team and play 10 matches. However, unlike regular matches where deaths do not happen, in Competitive Escalation (Grand Prix), if you are downed by a battle armor while in a pilot suit, or downed by a mech as an elemental, or you are head shot in a mech, your pilot dies permanently. Teams with at least one surviving pilot earns ranking and prizes.
Escalation Monetization
(o) Premium time can apply here with C-bill earning, XP gain and free customization, and other similar games demonstrate many MT options
Escalation Discussion
It should not be too hard to implement a basic shooter in Unreal Engine, however a great number of new assets would be needed to implement Escalation. I would not expect to see the amount of polish as other big budget FFA games. If starting with 3 each of pistols, smgs, assault rifles, a sniper, a shotgun, 3 battle armor/elemental chassis that can reuse small mech weapon assets, a hand crafted map, and the game mode itself, my rough estimate is a 5 million dollar commitment (correct me if wrong). I know it's not exactly an easy sale, however, the critical questions are: does this sound fun? To the current MW player base? What about a larger player base? Being utilizing a successful FFA formula, and leveraging the BT IP, you can create something unique.
Comments on this proposal appreciated. I will refine the post based on your feedback before tweeting PGI. (Please start a new thread if you want to write about your own idea)
Edited by Nightbird, 22 November 2020 - 08:49 AM.
