207 replies to this topic

[Gwaihir]

I think that's where some of the proposals from the first post come in- There should be more and less valuable planets out there on the periphery, so that a smaller group can decide to hold down one as a home base. That goes with mechanics that make it not really worthwhile for a bigger group to expend their own manpower to try and add it to their own holdings (Those jumpships are better used going after bigger fish, or whatever lore explanation makes sense, really).

[RoyalWave]

obviously it depends how closely their system resembles WoT, but the basic lessons might be applicable.

In the end though Community warfare should not be a 1% game, it should have aspects that appeal to everyone. Allowing serious areas, casual areas, in the middle areas, etc. It's got to be very comprehensive, follow some lore structure, but still allow for complexity and self direction. It's a very difficult task to do and implement but the OP here might help them somewhat.

Personally it's a very huge issue to the longevity of the game if community warfare is good. It's probably going to be what keeps people playing by next years time if it's good or not. Any constructive feedback is good. Though I do think the WoT type system might be good as a subset of the bigger picture, with more pieces for solo players, small groups, and other segments of the community to participate in.

[Kenyon Burguess]

i didnt play WOT, but judgeing by the number of ex-WOT players here begging for a change, the ideas mentioned are prolly a good start. what really brought me around to MWO was the possibility of faction fighting where the devs controlled who, what and where the factions fight (which keeps things to lore) and were also going to institute the merc corp feature for control of a few planets/locations in a seperate game mode. i dont think there should ever be a cap on an organizations size, just the number that it can field per match, but at the same time it makes control of a world to be determined nearly impossible. things get even more grim if you can lock your world down for only so many hours per day of when it can be disputed. so after some thought i wanted to try out an idea

-each world has a stability control % and a 1 week timer to track attackers/defenders

-each merc unit has an assault % attached to it that tracks up to a max of 3 worlds and refreshes weekly

-each fight on the world will +/- the % (max of 100%) based on the type of conflict and the results.

-at the onset of a planet assault. all members of the merc group will be given a notification ingame and the option to leave their current instance and travel to the defense location. this will be on a 15 minute timer for transfer, for missions to end if needed. at the end of the 15min all players are transfered into the mission starting area where they will choose their mech to use, but will not have access to mechlab prior to the fight.

-in a loss the players defending a planet lose 1% stability for every player. however, for every NPC/merc they had to field outside their own number, they lose 2% per. by using pugs/npcs to fill merc group gaps a location is never undefended. and ensures that an old merc group who isnt paying attention will always be in the tourny to lose their holdings.

-an attacking merc group must all be members of the same merc group for a min of 1 week. a win earns 1% per player. this prevents short term skilled player stacking and if they can score roughly 3 wins in a week they should be in the weekend tournament.

-if at the end of the week a worlds % falls to 50% or below, the world enters a contested state and any merc unit who scored 30% on that planet during the week time period may enter the weekend invasion for ownership

-weekend invasion is a set tournament, with set times, to make sure merc players are the ones defending it. failure to field enough players to fill the merc team will be replaced by random NPC's/pugs . fights will be held in a ladder fashion since there could potentialy be an unflimited number of attacking merc groups per planet fighting. all merc groups start at the bottom of the ladder and fight for domination. winner holds the planet and its benefits for the week.

anyway thats my very rough idea, im sure someone else could polish it into something better.

[Quincy80]

I'm starting to think that a unified time system might be good. Since there are supposed to servers for each continent they could have all have their own conquest times set up for the local prime times. During this conquest/prime time resources could be commited, player controlled jumpships and conquest of planets happens. Outside this time raiding occurs, where planets can't be taken, but resources can be destroyed of stolen. Raid times wouldn't require strategic resources because they would just be booking passage on comercial jumpships using c-bills.

[Dimestore]

Numlock1776, on 15 August 2012 - 03:46 PM, said:

I'm thinking more a long the lines of the following.

Planet Podunk, a border world held by the Federated Commonwealth, becomes conquerable. As it is on the Border between the FedCom and the Capellan Confederation attack and defense missions will appear (that are visible to the house affiliated units) over the course of the next 24 hours. Lets say 48 total, so two an hour. Each Attack mission will be paired with a Defense mission.

Units affiliated with the house will bid on the right to take that mission, and at the end of the 24 hours the Faction with the most victories gets the planet.

Since there is a limited number of missions (48 Pairs) that show up over the entire 24 hours, it isn't possible to Zerg the planet and we allow players in any time zone to fight for that planet.

Edit: The mission would be up for grabs for an hour. At the end the two units that won the bids fight. If for some reason nobody bid on the mission it would be voided. If only one unit bid on the mission it would be an automatic victory.

I understand the appeal of the base concept but this is a known weakness that has already been exploited elsewhere: fake bids are placed by throw-away accounts to prevent anyone else from bidding thus guaranteeing a victory by either forfeit or throwing a fight.

[Morashtak]

Issue #1 - Will be interesting to see if the Merc Corps are allowed to own a planet or just call one their primary base of operations. Not quite the same as the production goes toward the House that owns it. The Merc Corp might only get some LP for every set amount of time they control it. The rest hinges on this point.

Issue #2 - Membership cap may be implemented but at such a ridiculously high level (~500) that it in effect is meaningless. Agree that a generic Merc Corp will have all levels of activity when it comes to individual players. The leadership will decide how long a member can go absent without an excuse (ex. "Attention: No shows will be booted after 30 days unless you emailed your higher ups a valid reason!").

Issue #3 - Not liking the TZ. Would vote in the negative so that any member could help defend/attack when their own time permitted. As has been said - Devs, do Not make this game just another job to budget my time around. Let us budget this game around our leisure time.

Issue #4 - Can be alleviated by implementing Issue #2; No caps mean no grind as Issue #3 comes into play.


Additional thoughts to piggy-back on others ideas;

• There are a lot of planets in the universe. A large number should be in play at any given time by a combination of all the Houses and Merc Corps.
  
• Not all planets are created equal - Why waste the large expanse of sending a huge MC to attack a backwater planet? That's what Lone Wolfs and pairs of Faction players are for. Let them pug and fight in a low risk/reward environment. Four tiers should work.
  
• Some planets are just not going to enjoy yet another invasion - A higher than normal win/loss ratio might be in order for the defenders to capture the planet. The reasons? Many. Just make it up if the source material doesn't specify.
  
• Some planets are greatly prized and heavily defended. A much higher win/loss ratio may be the order of the day to take and keep it. But the payoff will be that much more.
  
• A few planets may want to switch sides because they used to be "the other guys" or just don't like their current benevolent rulers. As above but switch the win/loss ratio to the attackers favor.
  
• Supply lines - Hmm... Jump Ships kind of negate modern day supply lines. Think of helicopters that materialize near your depot every week or two. May be something that only comes in to play two, three or more jumps away.
  
• Resource points, chips - Might be something that the Houses play in much larger numbers than a Merc Corp. Limited, maybe very limited, number of chips to start (if any) with increasing amount as LP count rises.
  
• House faction players - If they are to play any role later they might be able to vote on where their House's chips are played once they have risen in the ranks to a place where they could influence the placement (very high number of LPs).

Probably more to add but I need to go stompy- pewpew something.

[RoyalWave]

Specific Time Zone Instances of the star map

3pm-6pm - Map Kerensky - all games/matches/planets are specific to this map and do not effect other time zones.
6pm-9pm - Map Victor - all games/matches/planets/conquests are specific to this map and do not effect other time zones
etc for each time zone until a 24 hour period is filled.

Each time zone has a rating based on active players and games played, which effect the value of conquering things or success, so more active times have greater rewards.

Meaning there would actually be say 8 different instances of the game universe. Every 3 hours it would swap to the next, rotating through them all over a 24 hour time period. Any battles or matches started before the time zone switch, would apply to the time zone it started in to avoid switchover problems, with a slight down time where you can't start new matches before the next time zone arrives.

AKA I can have control over 5 planets in the 6pm-9pm time zone instance, but 0 during the other times. Each time zone has a rating based on competitiveness and activity which scales the rewards/risks for conquering things. So at a certain time slot, House Steiner can be mopping everyone up, etc. It also means EU would have basically their own instance of the game universe, that wouldn't effect say US west coast players. You could stay up to a dead 2 AM time, but the rewards would be very minimal, but it would relatively easier to win the matches.

So in effect there would be 8 different universes happening, rotating through each one every day. It solves the problem of waking up and EU lost all your gains, or vice versa, along with not making it too lucrative to play 24/7 to hit the weak time zones, as they would be valued much lower.

Edited by RoyalWave, 16 August 2012 - 03:32 PM.

[Dimestore]

Stargell, on 15 August 2012 - 03:55 PM, said:

To me this brings an another important issue to mind. How do the devs plan on handling house population balance? With no PvE there really is no outlet for players, and if 50% of the players decide to play Davion (yuck) how would the community warfare system balance things? 48 missions might be just right for one faction, way too little for another, and unrealistic for a small or unpopulated faction (say the FRR).

This topic came up before. I suggested a mechanic similar to the one from the OP but in the context of faction warfare way back when (mid-June?)

This can self-balance:

1) every faction world would have a "natural faction" that the population innately prefers. The "natural faction" could even have an "affiliation strength" that could determine the size of penalty/bonus it confers to attackers/defenders.
2) as your faction conquers worlds it has to hop from an existing conquered world to be able to attack another world
3) your fighting ability (drop tonnage, repair costs, etc) is hurt the longer your "supply line" from the closest world with you as a "natural faction" aka friendly world
4) your fighting ability (drop tonnage, repair costs, etc) is helped for fights deeper in your territory.
5) if an enemy "cuts your supply line" by conquering any world(s) connecting you to a friendly "natural faction" world then your fighting ability is severely penalized.
6) holding ownership of a world would provide benefits (likely access/prices for specific components or similar) so it would still be worthwhile for larger houses to conquer.

Points #3 & #4 form the core balancing mechanic: smaller houses would have their territory conquered but would then have perks if you were trying to fight back. This would help gravitate new players to smaller factions since there would be immediate benefits while not innately penalizing large factions since they only suffer when fighting in conquered territory.



In the scenario mentioned above (Davion has 50% of players):

• all Davion players would pay X cbills for a Gauss cannon at base
  
• Draconis Combine world Y has a Gauss cannon factory. It is at closes 6 planets away from the closest "natural" Davion world.
  
• Davion launches an assault into Draconis space, conquering all 6 worlds with ever tightening supply lines making each fight costlier and riskier but finally succeeds in conquering the planet with the factory
  
• For every day that Davion holds the planet, any member of the invading/defending Davion force can buy a set total number of Gauss cannons at a noticably reduced price. Any of this set number not bought by those directly involved in conquering/holding the factory or its supply line would only have the cheaper price at a later point in the day to whatever number were left over. Any not purchased would be considered unused production and would not carry over to the next day.
  
• Draconis would suffer a small price increase for Gauss cannons.
  
• Any Draconis attempt to retake the world would be at a significant relative financial advantage since Davion units would be paying extra for repairs/ammo/etc and Draconis would be paying slightly less since the fight is so deep in their territory.

Lots of room to improve this idea, of course, but I think it's a good start.




Also, I skipped over the detailed mechanics of how to set up the fights for the worlds themselves since that is a different topic than what I'm focusing on.

<edit: numbered list kept showing up as bullet points so manually made it numbered>

Edited by Hax DB Header, 16 August 2012 - 03:43 PM.

[Dimestore]

Popgun, on 15 August 2012 - 04:55 PM, said:

Some thoughts,

Gold Collection

We know fighting in faction battles will earn loyalty points. And we know holding faction planets will provide "global bonuses and abilities." The rewards for holding a border planet will be "significant." I'm curious whether that means they will generate MC, or if they will simply generate CBills for the MercCorps coffers. As it stands, I don't see any reason for PGI to reward MC through gameplay, unless MC is required to engage in community warfare. In a World of Tanks example, to stay competetive with "gold rounds" and "gold consumables." As it stands it seems loyalty points earned by MercCorp players will go to their MercCorp. Perhaps in Corp management a CBill tithe-per-match could be set up as the basis for MercCorp resources.


Landing Zones

We know we'll be fighting on planets, but will a planet constitute one single map match? Or will there be multiple provinces across the planet to hold defend? A few defined areas that will need to be conquered to establish access to the planets critical defenses or infrastructure. Will command staff be moving "stacks" of tonnage around with their bids? Which leads me to...


Projection of Power

The universe already contains some great ways for developers to throttle expansion and provide cost sinks for player organizations. Jumpships and Dropships; Somewhat analogous to WoT's "chip stacks," player groups could purchase dropships which would then define their engagement potential. Competing factions could see what was coming, depending on infrastructure (radar/ladar, whatever) or purchasable intel/automated infiltration if such systems existed. "They're committing a Dictator to this, yikes!" Similarly moving those dropships via jumpship could be prohibitively expensive, or limited to what jumpships were available in system and where they were headed. There is massive potential here for either player owned assets, an organized schedule to movement, or just a simplified "Jumps are regular and cost ___ per ton" with no real logistic complication to movement.

Holding planets could cost monetary resources rather than provide them, instead providing services like dropship manufacturing, or reduced repair costs for members of the MercCorp. Maybe your planet has a massive missile arms factory, and resupplying your MercCorps LRM and SRMs is a fraction of what others may pay. Having planets provide active bonuses rather than passive farming would encourage groups to move more often and to seize what they felt they needed to achieve temporary but specific goals (or to deny those benefits to their opponents), relying on tithe income from active members and successfully completed contracts to fill their coffers.

I like this, especially the projection of power discussion. I'm curious about your feedback on my "natural faction" and localized resources (ie Gauss cannon factory) ideas.

[Dimestore]

Raisinscone, on 15 August 2012 - 07:15 PM, said:

These were excellent points. I liked the idea of Lockdown. It's not something that gets addressed at all by other games yet, the social/team connections are what drives these kind of cooperative games. Even the most dedicated leaders that still love the game and their clan/guild/team/flock will burn out when they miss out on their own personal times because they have to be online to keep things in line. I am looking forward to the implementation of the community warfare and I hope the devs will take some of these into consideration.

Lock-down is focused on addressing a definable and completely defensible need, but it has been badly abused before so great care must be taken to ensure it is not easily abusable.

It is good that the OP listed many ways to make it hard &/or painful to abuse but I can still think of a few ways to break it.

The easiest that comes to mind is to have two Merc Corps working together:

• one attacks a front line world in the periphery held by a third Merc Corps
  
• another attacks the most desirable of the newly conquered planets and is given an auto-win by the first group (forfeit, whether literal or just throwing the fight)
  
• a similar unofficial 'world exchange' occurs in other areas of the map with the second group handing off worlds to the first
  
• the first force engages in a delaying fight long enough for the second one to be allowed to lock down the key newly conquered worlds which can no longer be attacked when the original owner comes to reclaim them
  
• the first group retreats to the worlds it was handed off and both groups are now richer
  
• the victim of the assault has just fought a long battle but has no opportunity to reclaim their worlds since they are stopped by the wall of the second group that it can't attack and the first group since it is now hiding behind the wall of locked down worlds.

This is just off the top of my head; there are certainly other methods for this type of abuse.

The key point being that attempting to block abuse 'in-team' presumes that 'out-of-team' collusion can't occur. On the extreme end of collusion scenarios, I will be surprised if there aren't at least a few merc corps that are built around carbon copies of other corps (ie 50 people all have 3 accounts that are each in 3 different merc corps that they essentially run as one merc corp but are officially unrelated).

<edit: clarified that my example focused on Merc Corps in the periphery not House Faction worlds>

Edited by Hax DB Header, 16 August 2012 - 05:02 PM.

[Numlock1776]

Hax DB Header, on 16 August 2012 - 03:10 PM, said:

I understand the appeal of the base concept but this is a known weakness that has already been exploited elsewhere: fake bids are placed by throw-away accounts to prevent anyone else from bidding thus guaranteeing a victory by either forfeit or throwing a fight.

Maybe some sort of reverse bid similar to how Taxes used to be collected in Medieval Europe.

Basically tax collectors would pay the king up front for the right to tax certain areas. Then they would use the authority granted by the king to recoup the money they gave the king from the general populace. Naturally they made a great deal of effort to collect more than they gave the king.

So the way this would work in MWO is that you (as a leader of a unit) would bid a certain amount of money (to the House) for the right to take the mission. The Unit that bids the most wins the mission. Naturally you would only bid an amount less than what you would expect to gain from winning the mission. The key to this though is that you pay the money up front.

If you wanted to win the bidding process with a fake clan you would have to spend a lot of time grinding a ton of money in your fake accounts to actually win the bid and then throw the match.

[xMEPHISTOx]

The OP has some good ideas. I too come from WoT playing CW's since the start (7TH/AOD/NUKE) and while there are many flaws as were pointed out in op it still remains imo the best conquest mode of play in a FPS to date. And the fact they include 'gold' rewards to those who are successfull puts it above the rest as it makes it far more serious business than most games that do not offer similiar rewards.
The question will be is how and what will the devs here will take from WoT and include in MWO. I have to beleive they will draw heavily from WoT as it is quite a successfull game that has made loads of money over the past year and a half. And at the same time they will hopefully correct some of the flaws within the CW's system as it stands now.
I guess we will just have to wait and see as I do not beleive there has been any info released on conquest/end game play at this point, if I am mistaken on this please link info as I for one and extremely interested on the subject.

[Dimestore]

Amechwarrior, on 15 August 2012 - 07:58 PM, said:

Lesson #2 Part #1 - Separate the bigger corps from the smaller corps

The raiding/privateer idea posted in the last few pages sounds like it can be perfect for smaller or casual merc companies. Maybe limit raid matches to groups of 4-8. Let privateer work be beginner level merc contracts. You can potentially earn higher salvage, but get less/none of the loyalty points due to the nature of work. You would not pick a planet, but raid a Provence or border zone. Your opponents can be either smaller house groups/pubs of 4-8 or opposing small merc companies on Anti-Piracy Patrol. You would fight loose groups of house defenders to lower whatever resources that zone has and take a little for yourselves. You could even do this without creating new gametypes (but we all would love to do a real smash and grab missions... pipe dreams) by just taking the results from the current deathmatch setup. You win and have less then 60% losses then you successfully raid the stocks. Win, but with more then 60% loss and you have enough manpower to smash the place, but not take the extras. Lose, and the defenders get to keep whatever it is. If enough raids in an area fail, the extra salvage actually boosts that provinces resources. This would give the smaller house groups a reason to stop raids, as it would boost their own economy, not just stop leakage.

The whole point of these is to be able to get your small, amateur group up and running and dropping into combat instantly, any day of the week. You don't have the time or resources for planets, dropships and the daily grind. Your winnings are what you can salvage off the field and raw cash. If your group feels like it wants bigger and better things then you can start to take Anti-Piracy Contracts.

Once you have your group established, the next step is Anti-Piracy. Contracts would provide much more loyalty points and cash from your employer but only average salvage rates. You work legitimately, your team is now fighting against organized raider teams instead of pub faction members. The team has gown better and knows all the ins and outs of raiding and uses those skills against your opponents. You start to do well and after a while you find the organization growing. Most nights of the week you can start fielding full 12 man teams. The time has come, the company is now ready for its first planetary control contract.

Those contracts are dealt with in PCants posts and the dev blogs. But this privateer line works to keep casual groups playing any day of the week, make them a part of the larger inter-planetary meta game and keeps them fighting other groups of similar size and skill levels. The incentives are focused, but not exclusively, on personal cash and salvage. The larger units will want to focus on the higher level contracts that give loyalty points and territory they need to run a larger organization.

Excellent work here. Like the casual gamer friendliness of this approach. I don't see any obvious holes in this set-up.

Amechwarrior, on 15 August 2012 - 07:58 PM, said:

Issue #3 Timezones

I don't like the 24 hour "open for battles" when talking about Merc side CW that some people are posting. That kind of thing can be fine for the massive numbers in the great house faction warfare but if you have a small or casual company you're going to get kicked off your planet at 4am by larger groups with members around the world playing 24/7. I also don't like the reality of scheduling fights around mainland US evening times (Hawaii mechwarrior here) but I can't find a better solution that would force both sides to show up at the same time. It sets a clear and narrow window for either side to be online.

Both sides must have incentive to show up together. A win by default can feel like a loss if you took time and effort to wrangle your buds, spend your MCs and practice teamwork all for a "Congrats, no one wants to fight you. YOU WIN!" on the one night you set aside to stomp robots. We should strive for a system that forces combat matches and routes around "No one is online right now, please try again later" and for what I can come up with, setting a time and place in-game gets it done.

I agree that this is problematic but I'm still optimistic that there is a better way to balance these issues. It might just be my lack of experience on this topic, though.

Amechwarrior, on 15 August 2012 - 07:58 PM, said:

Disclaimer:
Another goon here, also a huge BT nerd. Most goons honestly enjoy playing the game and don't want to see it fizzle out 6 months after launch like so many other online games. We will back up good ideas like lockdowns and unlimited group size and debate against bad ideas. Goons are not the only mega faction here. Other groups like cReddit, DHB, Blackburn's Raiders, bronies, Black Wovles and countless others have 70 or 100+ members for a game that is only in closed beta. A limit on corp size would split a very large section of their current paying customers that have been waiting for a decade to play giant robots with friends.

Despite my reservations about the flaily cow-like end of goondom I expect those on the semi-pro end such as you appear to be to add a lot to the game. Looking forward to some fun battles; if you guys stepped on the flaily end rather than milking them as a cow-like resource your rep would be better.

I agree that size limits are not a good idea but my stance is that they are artificial and might lull the devs into a false sense of comfort. Just because people can't officially group doesn't mean they won't act like a group. If you acknowledge right up front that you will have vast disparity in group sizes and complicated collusions between groups you will try to make it work. If you impose a cap on group size then you will be tempted to think your job is done and meanwhile the group of 500 will split itself into 5 groups of 100 who then work together, possibly even benefiting because they won't obviously be members of a coordinated group.

The key point is to ensure that although large groups might have perks they don't auto-win. Also try to minimize the benefit of collusion, especially for bid-rigging and throwing matches.

[Numlock1776]

Hax DB Header, on 16 August 2012 - 04:11 PM, said:

The easiest that comes to mind is to have two Merc Corps working together

There could be a mechanic to eject player run units out of your faction. Though this obviously would be open to a lot of abuse without heavy moderation that I doubt the Devs would be willing to provide. My god the troll threads would be amazing though.

Probably a better way of doing this is to simply not allow Player run units to directly control the worlds they attack and Conquer. Worlds would be owned by a Great House and units would rent them from the Great House, essentially granted the feudal rights to that planet.

What this would mean in game is that there would need to be a person in charge of each house (who would probably have to be an employee of Piranha, at least technically for this to work) who could grant the what essentially amount to feudal rights to a world held by that House. What this would mean in game is that a unit awarded the rights to a planet would have to defend it (they auto win bids to defend their own planet) but in return would get a regular income from it.

So conquering an enemy world doesn't directly benefit you, but your faction. Do enough and you get the rights to your own world. Similar to what happened to the Gray Death Legion and the Wolf's Dragoons (ignore the part where they all died).

Edit:

Maybe it would be even better if the Leader of a faction was elected from (and by) the commanders of units affiliated with that house (say you need at least 50 active players in you unit to participate). Basically how the Holy Roman Empire did it before the post basically became hereditary. A lot of trolling but dam it would be fun.

Edited by Numlock1776, 16 August 2012 - 04:36 PM.

[Dimestore]

Numlock1776, on 16 August 2012 - 04:32 PM, said:

Probably a better way of doing this is to simply not allow Player run units to directly control the worlds they attack and Conquer. Worlds would be owned by a Great House and units would rent them from the Great House, essentially granted the feudal rights to that planet.

Ah, I wasn't clear in my original post: I was referring to Merc Corps colluding against other Merc Corps in the periphery.

The factions are likely to have larger numbers so I hadn't put much thought into this issue for them since it seemed less likely to come up.

[TLBFestus]

Rychard Starheart, on 16 August 2012 - 12:49 PM, said:

This. While very well put together and thought out, (truthfully interested if OP has had any experience in game design) the whole thing feels like a set up. It honestly feels like there are wheels turning in the background that they have not let on to. I just cannot bring myself to support this, at least not fully.

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who gets "itchy feet".

I don't mean to slam the OP but as a goon he immediately has to overcome a lot of bias. Is he truly interested in furthering the game, or furthering the swarms goals in the game?

It's been stated by others that the goons want to have a successful franchise, that they want the game to succeed, BUT due to their reputation of using game breaking mechanics and exploits, it could be successfully argued that they can just as easily contribute to the destruction/failure of a game before the developers have a chance to implement change to improve a broken mechanic.

I really like some of OPs suggestions, and I hope that the developers take them into account. Actually I know they will since Mr. Elam and I are very, very close buddies (I sent him a PM once and he replied). I would still hope that developers with good hearts, an interest in the community, and an IRON WILL to protect their product will watch carefully to protect their product and ruthlessly crush anyone, person or group, who plays fast and loose with the rules (Apologies to Mr. Asimov).

Rule #1. We must make money

Rule # 2. We cannot make money without a vibrant and involved Community, so we will protect said community.

Rule #3. Anyone screwing with Rule #1 or #2 will be dealt with in a draconian and unsympathetic manner as befits our Overlord status.

[Supraluminal]

Please, please focus on the content of the ideas presented, not on who's presenting them. I'm not saying you aren't entitled to consider someone's motivations when they make a suggestion, but speculating about vague conspiracies here in the thread isn't going to help. Instead, look for specific ways that the ideas presented could be abused or exploited, and if you feel like you've found something, speak up about it. Suggest improvements or alternatives. That's the way to help this discussion yield some kind of positive result for MWO - concrete suggestions, not fighting amongst each other.

On that note, someone earlier commented on Pringles' suggestion that player unit sizes be uncapped, with a concern that this would give large groups an unbeatable edge over small ones. This is a valid concern, but note that it is addressed in the OP:

Quote

Lesson #2 Part #1 - Separate the bigger corps from the smaller corps

When you implement your system, make sure there is a meaningful area for smaller clans to participate in. World of Tanks fails in this because in order to make significant amounts of gold you simply need to have a lot of players in your clan. There isn’t anywhere you can go that has scaling, where you make less money but you also need less people so it works out in the end. They don’t have any area where you only need 10 or 5 people for battles, but with a lower amount of gold as a reward. This means that you need either 15 people with the best tanks available every single night WITH an alliance to support you, or 30+ people every night without an alliance.

However if you do implement such a system take care that there isn’t an incentive for the bigger clans to just try to takeover the territory meant for starter clans as well. Simple distance would probably be the most effective, have the good territory that requires lots of people in the outer area of the sphere, and the less gold but less people per battle territory closer in to the center territory. That way if the bigger corps want to go after the smaller territory they will be stretched out too thin.

I mention this for two reasons:

One, because I think it's an important point and I want to emphasize it. There is a very real danger of super-groups dominating the CW scene; it's largely what happened in WoT and it was really disappointing. Systems have to be put in place to prevent this. I actually have concerns about soft incentives/penalties (distance, territory value, etc.) as a means of achieving this - people like conquering stuff, and if a big group can feasibly take over newbie territory I think it's likely that it'll happen at some point. Mechanical limits on what territories are fair game for which size group may be advisable, or else an entirely separate venue for smaller groups outside of the territorial control arena, such as the raiding/patrolling concepts discussed earlier in the thread.

And two, because I hope the fact that Pringles included this can go some distance to allaying concerns about SA goons plotting to dominate or even destroy the game! If that was his real, ulterior motive for creating this thread, why on Earth would he have made this specific suggestion? That's not a loaded question, by the way! I sincerely invite anyone to answer it - by identifying ways his suggestions could be misused by large groups and suggesting better options.

Edited by Supraluminal, 16 August 2012 - 07:21 PM.

[chaosmarine113]

(i only read to pg4 before getting fired up to reply that being said, sorry if I unintentionally anger someone.Be gentle)
I am agreeing with pringles on almost everything and btw have no idea what a goon is so i guess im not one just to let you all know. Pringles is bringing great ideas to the table. However, I also enjoy the idea of having houses/corps batling it out for x number of hours but have a minimum number of games that have to be won, in an attempt to stop ignoring battles. (im talking a good number, not like 3or4 maybe past the 10 range?) I am a casual gamer and his ideas on the nonlimited corps I thought were brilliant. I will also say i dont have community warfare expierience so I am not speaking from a position of exp but of what sounds fair and stable

Hat off to you pringles and many others!

Edited by chaosmarine113, 16 August 2012 - 07:37 PM.

[Gwaihir]

^^ I wish I could like Supraluminal's post some more.

Edited by Gwaihir, 16 August 2012 - 07:32 PM.

[RoyalWave]

chaosmarine113, on 16 August 2012 - 07:30 PM, said:

(i only read to pg4 before getting fired up to reply that being said, sorry if I unintentionally anger someone.Be gentle)
I am agreeing with pringles on almost everything and btw have no idea what a goon is so i guess im not one just to let you all know. Pringles is bringing great ideas to the table. However, I also enjoy the idea of having houses/corps batling it out for x number of hours but have a minimum number of games that have to be won, in an attempt to stop ignoring battles. (im talking a good number, not like 3or4 maybe past the 10 range?) I am a casual gamer and his ideas on the nonlimited corps I thought were brilliant. I will also say i dont have community warfare expierience so I am not speaking from a position of exp but of what sounds fair and stable

Hat off to you pringles and many others!

yep, as important as it is to cater to groups, units, guilds whatever you want to call them, they also need to make systems for average 3 hour a week players or whoever else plays the game who might not want to join one but still fight for his faction. I really hope they do some sort of subsystems aimed at each demographic of player

example:

Battlefront System -

Zerg Battlefront - constant battles, max of 2 entering together, earn Faction point rewards etc. Minimal Impact on the overall scheme of things.

Canon Unit Battlefront - still constant battles, max of 4 entering together but must be in same canon unit, pay FP to join a canon unit with more prestigious lore wise ones costing more. Most important for battling for overall faction rewards and in a separate front from the player controlled space.

Player Unit Battlefront - Separate planetary systems from the overall war that are player unit occupied. Player Units have to farm FP to launch invasions on planets, costing exponentially more to launch one on someone in the same faction and causing a slight FP hit to all participating invaders. These are time zone specific real match environments and not ever present. Sort of the "competitive match" zone of the game for more serious players. It's not as important for overall factional dominance but is more personally rewarding to the winners.

So you have some ways for new players to participate, more experienced players to join canon units and battle it out in the important matches 24/7, and a way for more serious players to have matches and control territory in their own areas. Merc corps would be similar but battle it out between each other for periphery planets instead of ones between houses.

People would also be able to be a member of a canon unit and a player unit at the same time, for a max of 2 possible units you can belong to. Canon units could have their own sections on the forums and private chat in game for organizing and giving people a sense of belonging if they don't want to or can't join a player unit.

Edited by RoyalWave, 16 August 2012 - 08:06 PM.