Extra Guac, on 27 February 2022 - 07:07 AM, said:
FP wasn't a flop, it was great for many years.
QP is a flop - it's a pointless, boring, and overly simplistic game mode.
Game balance is fine right now, they don't need any more balance passes for the next year. Maybe it's not 100% perfect but it's close enough.
The Cauldron should focus on ways to fix FP without using too many resources from PGI. One option is simply reintroduce planetary conquests, exactly the way it was a few years ago.
It's not about matchmaker either. Just fix the actual game mode - make it more engaging, and people will show up to play.
Admittedly they also need a way to monetize the game if they're going to keep the lights on. Maybe create some FP-exclusive content, idk. Their new parent company is supposed to be the experts on monetization.
The acquisition announcement said that PGI has a 65-person development team. Not sure what they're doing all day.
while most people prefer the boring and stale qp over fp, the thing is thats where the money is. from a financial standpoint messing with qp is financial suicide. fp players spend money too but there are less of them.
a slim portion of the remaining population play fp. so if you upgrade fp:
you are going to piss off all those who dont play it. they will see it as resources which could have improved the game elsewhere.
you are going to piss off those that do play it, because they see any potential patch as disruptive.
also the cauldron can only tweak xml. i dont think "fixing fp' is within their scope. unless pgi want to start giving them dev level access to the game. while that may lead to some good stuff indeed, i dont think it would happen.
matchmaker cannot be fixed in either mode. for reasons outlined
here. consolidating the player base to one mode or the other is going to alienate some portion of the player base. and frankly i dont think it would do that much. even going 8v8 or less wouldn't have the impact people want.
want to do something for fp on the cheap, then i think the best way to do that is to run a copypasta tukayyid event. the people who play fp exclusively can use the opportunity to recruit new blood to the mode (or they can farm and scare away the puggles again). id clear a weekend for that.
if, and only if pgi was willing to sink any real effort into the game (and not just one mode). i think the best change would be to scenario generation. rather than spawn a static scripted scenario (which pgi frequently forgets to update leading to ceasefires), instead take queue content into consideration and then spawn a compatible scenario. the scripted scenarios currently makes terrible use of the players in queue. teams stack one side and wait for what ever is left to fill up the other. that's always going to generate an uncoordinate vs coordinate games. instead if the queue sees 3 teams on the is side and 1 team on the clan side. it will spawn one is vs is and one is vs clan, and the entire queue can be utilized to get the drop rate up. the thing that made me stop playing was the wait times. you could do a planet of the week type thing, and perhaps the top 5 unit tags get a prize for winning the planet. in addition anyone participating in a win gets a smaller victory bonus (and it could just be a big wad of lp/rp).
i think my preference would still be for more mechs and equipment in addition to the mapping developments. those are going to keep everyone engaged, fp and qp. something for everyone and no disruption.
Edited by LordNothing, 27 February 2022 - 02:56 PM.
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