50 replies to this topic

[feeWAIVER]

I went to the Cauldron to present my thoughts on Faction Play.
I was met with what I perceived to be unwarranted, but not unexpected hostility.

They asked me to poll the faction play community, because those few were not receptive to my ideas.

Maybe I'm wrong.
Please read my thoughts below, and if you agree, we will let Cauldron know.


Here's how you use the Event Queue tool to fix Faction Play-

Spoiler

First understand that Event Queue is not a Game Mode. It's not flashy sounding, it's not sexy, it's not marketable.

What Event Queue is, is a phenomenal game system or GM tool. It's an achievement, certainly, and it needs to be integrated into Faction Play. I'm not talking about unlimited jump jets, or other sillyness- it needs to maintain some integrity- but make no mistake that if Faction Play is going to be fresh and inviting again, it's going to need the Event Queue's help.

Okay, so here's what you do.

Use the Event Queue to create faction flavored events.
You focus on one conflict between two factions per week, month, whatever.
Start with smaller battles and increase to bigger conflicts. Try to create some dramatic tension.

Periodically, the events should culminate in capturing a planet somewhere. This will coincide with a new map release from Francois.

As the Event Queue allows, you can do any variation on team or solo drop rules. You can run missions that have drop decks or not. etc.

I'd suggest that as each conflict escalates, the requirements for drop decks and 4man or 12man teams start coming into play.


Modes that work for Single Drops-
Assault, Skirmish, Domination.

Modes that work for Drop Decks-
Conquest, Siege.

Conquest really shines in Faction Play, with Drop Decks. That should be the majority of games, in my opinion.

I also want to touch on the importance of using the Event Queue tool to prevent Team vs Pug drops. Either go with teams or go with solo drops, but this pug farming was never healthy for the mode. It has to stop.

Borreal Vault is the first map that needs to be looked at by Francois.

That's basically it. I think I summed it up.
I think it's a pretty simple plan, but it could breathe new life into Faction Play and MWO as a whole.

You can use the event queue to tailor games for the population to play it, with bigger games during peak hours. You can bring back scouting missions to appease the group of players who wants that. You can keep siege periodically for the diehard faction players. You can make Everyone happy.

[Nightbird]

no

[feeWAIVER]

I love you Nightbird, more than you no.

[Nightbird]

Look, FP being team based is what makes it fun, you can't change it to solo only like QP.

All FP needs is a tonnage limit based on teams. To "ready" or "launch" you need to pick a minimum drop deck (160tons) and then in the lobby the amount of tonnage is loosened based on the strength of each team and you can pick a heavier drop deck. This would be enough to make farming much more rare and still allow plenty of strategy and favors of drop decks that FP is known for.

The EQ model is too manual to be successful, or at least I don't trust PGI anymore.

[ccrider]

I'd love something to be done with FP but at this point if it doesn't get worse id call it a win. Hell, just redoing Boreal would make me happy. However, id take them not "fixing" it and doing what they've done since CW 3.0 and up to them touching it.
At all.

Edited by ccrider, 22 July 2022 - 10:16 PM.

[feeWAIVER]

Nightbird, on 22 July 2022 - 08:57 PM, said:

Look, FP being team based is what makes it fun, you can't change it to solo only like QP.

All FP needs is a tonnage limit based on teams. To "ready" or "launch" you need to pick a minimum drop deck (160tons) and then in the lobby the amount of tonnage is loosened based on the strength of each team and you can pick a heavier drop deck. This would be enough to make farming much more rare and still allow plenty of strategy and favors of drop decks that FP is known for.

The EQ model is too manual to be successful, or at least I don't trust PGI anymore.

Nobody said it can't be team based.
Does PGI have the ability to do what your asking? Because the Event Queue is real.
Why would you turn your nose up at the a variety of modifiers on FP, like Assaults Only, Heavies Only, Mediums Only, 8v8, 4v4, 1-2-3-4 Drop Deck size, etc etc etc -- With the ability for faction play to be refreshed every hour?

Why?

Edited by feeWAIVER, 22 July 2022 - 10:39 PM.

[Nightbird]

feeWAIVER, on 22 July 2022 - 10:37 PM, said:

Nobody said it can't be team based.
Does PGI have the ability to do what your asking? Because the Event Queue is real.
Why would you turn your nose up at the a variety of modifiers on FP, like Assaults Only, Heavies Only, Mediums Only, 8v8, 4v4, 1-2-3-4 Drop Deck size, etc etc etc -- With the ability for faction play to be refreshed every hour?

Why?

Because it means when you want to play FP, the team-based game the current pop has gotten used to, it may not be available. Even when EQ was open, they didn't close QP or FP. You're asking for a replacement. If you want EQ to have FP flavors, go ahead, but I wouldn't want to see FP changed to a permanent EQ.

Edited by Nightbird, 22 July 2022 - 11:09 PM.

[Nathan White]

ccrider, on 22 July 2022 - 10:14 PM, said:

I'd love something to be done with FP but at this point if it doesn't get worse id call it a win. Hell, just redoing Boreal would make me happy. However, id take them not "fixing" it and doing what they've done since CW 3.0 and up to them touching it.
At all.

Every time, when PGI trying to change something in FP, they only made it worse. The best thing what they can do at a present time, just make def/att side random for every match and dont touch FP anymore.

[Sjorpha]

I don't think anything that requires manual maintaining by pgi staff is a good idea, they already failed to restart the conflicts several times leaving faction play down for hours each time so what happens when they forget to create a new event or don't have the staff for it?

Besides, not being able to count on the mode playing as expected when you plan play times and strategies with your unit could ruin a lot of game evenings, predictability is important for this kind of game mode that is built around organized teams.

[Yondu Udonta]

Wouldn't be opposed to a testing phase for a smaller number of players required to start a game during OC hours. Still, I want to see commitment from PGI to wanting to fix FP before I would agree to such changes. Paul literally left us with a ****** MM with one side always attacking/defending and just ****** off without allowing any tweaks and whatnot.

[IronWolfPack64]

Nightbird, on 22 July 2022 - 08:57 PM, said:

Look, FP being team based is what makes it fun, you can't change it to solo only like QP.

All FP needs is a tonnage limit based on teams. To "ready" or "launch" you need to pick a minimum drop deck (160tons) and then in the lobby the amount of tonnage is loosened based on the strength of each team and you can pick a heavier drop deck. This would be enough to make farming much more rare and still allow plenty of strategy and favors of drop decks that FP is known for.

The EQ model is too manual to be successful, or at least I don't trust PGI anymore.

For the first time ever I have to agree with you. This would be a cool change that I think could help fix some problems (also cause new ones for sure) if they do this however they would need to add in a minimum tonnage if 80 tons for maximum flexibility for coordinated teams and increase the in lobby time to like 3/4 mins. But yea I would be down.

To the original poster (Taking groups out of faction won’t work btw there is not enough population to support such a model and definitely not for a match maker to be involved, I know for me and mine we would just sink drop 20 pilots and y’all would still be out there fight 10-12 mans you just would have guaranteed all pugs on your team. The best part about this game as a whole is the group play if you take on mass group play out of the game completely the game will die.

[IronWolfPack64]

Nightbird, on 22 July 2022 - 11:08 PM, said:

Because it means when you want to play FP, the team-based game the current pop has gotten used to, it may not be available. Even when EQ was open, they didn't close QP or FP. You're asking for a replacement. If you want EQ to have FP flavors, go ahead, but I wouldn't want to see FP changed to a permanent EQ.

I like this as a big team because it would encourage more parity in types of mechs used and for players with more limited skill sets you can assign them specific roles (more realistic) to make it easier for everyone to succeed. But again time to get set up would take a lot longer for big teams. But the in lobby time needs to be increased anyway so strategies can be more complex to promote more team based coordinated play.

[feeWAIVER]

Alright maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe faction play really is about smashing pugs, and maybe that's okay.
I'll stay out of faction play discussion going forward. Good luck, have fun.

[Ignatius Audene]

When are u playing that u meet all these groups? The only thing I see is the big defence hiding, but that is because pgi cant get away from their fixed attacker/ defender roles.

Edited by Ignatius Audene, 23 July 2022 - 12:55 PM.

[-Mean Machine Angel-]

Ignatius Audene, on 23 July 2022 - 12:54 PM, said:

When are u playing that u meet all these groups? The only thing I see is the big defence hiding, but that is because pgi cant get away from their fixed attacker/ defender roles.

Dude. Can you really be so oblivious ?

[IronWolfPack64]

feeWAIVER, on 23 July 2022 - 10:15 AM, said:

Alright maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe faction play really is about smashing pugs, and maybe that's okay.
I'll stay out of faction play discussion going forward. Good luck, have fun.

Faction play is supposed to be about big teams smashing other big teams. We need to encourage pugs and solo players to join groups/units. If they don’t want to join groups to play with. Then it’s up to them to lay in the bed they made by dropping alone.

[feeWAIVER]

IronWolfPack64, on 24 July 2022 - 09:19 AM, said:

Faction play is supposed to be about big teams smashing other big teams. We need to encourage pugs and solo players to join groups/units. If they don’t want to join groups to play with. Then it’s up to them to lay in the bed they made by dropping alone.

See, here I thought faction play was supposed to be about IS v Clan, Drop Decks, and Siege mode.
My bad, it's about making those stupid pugs lay in the bed they made for themselves. That sounds way more healthy.

[Nightbird]

Is it really not possible to ask for a change that benefits you and everyone else that plays faction? Do you really have to screw over part of the pop with your request?

[IronWolfPack64]

feeWAIVER, on 24 July 2022 - 09:47 AM, said:

See, here I thought faction play was supposed to be about IS v Clan, Drop Decks, and Siege mode.
My bad, it's about making those stupid pugs lay in the bed they made for themselves. That sounds way more healthy.

It’s not supposed to be a soup queue mode my guy. Right now the way to fix these problems with the mode is to do everything in our power to Encourage more unit play. For individuals to make their own groups/join already existing ones. Making the game mode new player friendly is not about making it individual player friendly but making it worthwhile for units to pick up players who are new to the game and for new players to want to get into faction play. Making it soup queue completely defeats the purpose.

[feeWAIVER]

IronWolfPack64, on 24 July 2022 - 12:33 PM, said:

Right now the way to fix these problems with the mode is to do everything in our power to Encourage more unit play.

Would giving some time for Solo Drops be part of the all encompassing "everything"?

The idea is to create a narrative and hype it. Like Jade Falcon vs Kurita or whatever... Do solo drops early in the campaign and build up to team drops as the campaign progresses.

Francois releases a new map, and the fate of a planet is up to the best teams.
People could stream it, it could be an event to get hyped for at the end of each month or so.
News Articles could be written on game sites, etc.

The overall community could be invited into Faction Play via solo drops, and encouraged to find groups as the campaign escalates.

Edited by feeWAIVER, 24 July 2022 - 02:11 PM.