90 replies to this topic

[Otto Cannon]

I think your way would totally ruin the game for me. I don't want other players to have any kind of real rank or authority whatsoever in the house units. Merc units are player-run but house units should never be, imho.

[Kyrie]

The authority is fairly limited, though. How do you run a war without some kind of incentive system? :-) And conversely, what is the point of joining a faction unit if it is identical to a merc unit?

My main concern is that I do not want this to be World of Mechs - Clan Wars. If you want complete freedom: be a merc. If you want some structure, join the House military. That's the gist of it.

Playing as a faction military member should have a different flavor than being a merc IMHO.

Edited by Kyrie, 16 August 2012 - 06:05 PM.

[cinco]

Otto Cannon, on 16 August 2012 - 05:52 PM, said:

I think your way would totally ruin the game for me. I don't want other players to have any kind of real rank or authority whatsoever in the house units. Merc units are player-run but house units should never be, imho.

there is no real rank or authority, it's a game.

Edited by cinco, 16 August 2012 - 06:26 PM.

[Otto Cannon]

cinco, on 16 August 2012 - 06:26 PM, said:

there is no real rank or authority, it's a game.

Yes there is. Real rank and authority within the game.

In case you're confused, 'real' in this context means able to actually take actions within a faction and affect the playing experience of others, rather than rank being simply a title with no responsibilities attached.

[Kyrie]

What confuses me then is this: What is the point of joining a faction as opposed to merc if not to have a structure to it beyond that of a single unit?

From what I understand, you are against anyone having the ability to affect your game play -- even being a merc will subject you to the merc commander's will. :-)

[Morashtak]

Bryan Ekman did post; http://mwomercs.com/...555#entry227555

"It's under consideration yes. Our long term goal is to slowly introduction a way for players to run the NPC factions as well (hugely ambitious and highly risky)."

... so it's not too far-fetched to think that there will be at least some small way to influence a House's decisions once the player has fulfilled all the prerequisites. But I would hope that it is more influence than running the House. Or with much more diplomacy and realpolitiks involved.

For those that do not wish to play the political game they are free to continue jumping in the Mechs and smashing face.

[CTsai]

I'm probably gonna get flammed for saying this, but hell the entire post can be summarized as:
Let's just follow EVE Online's null sec rule, which, for me, sounds really nice

[Kyrie]

Never really played EVE, but I have sort of followed the game over time. Not sure they have a structured chain of command system in place though?

[Kyrie]

Morashtak, on 16 August 2012 - 06:58 PM, said:

Bryan Ekman did post; http://mwomercs.com/...555#entry227555

"It's under consideration yes. Our long term goal is to slowly introduction a way for players to run the NPC factions as well (hugely ambitious and highly risky)."

... so it's not too far-fetched to think that there will be at least some small way to influence a House's decisions once the player has fulfilled all the prerequisites. But I would hope that it is more influence than running the House. Or with much more diplomacy and realpolitiks involved.

For those that do not wish to play the political game they are free to continue jumping in the Mechs and smashing face.

Thanks for posting that link! I had missed it completely. My concern has always been that PGI would not implement a chain of command; that would make joining a faction as opposed to a merc corp dull in comparison. What really began to concern me is when I actually looked at the url for this site: mwomercs.com

... I am afraid that they are going to develop Community Warfare along a WoT Clan Wars model putting all the emphasis on merc corps, relegating faction to a curiosity.

[CTsai]

Kyrie, on 16 August 2012 - 07:05 PM, said:

Never really played EVE, but I have sort of followed the game over time. Not sure they have a structured chain of command system in place though?

They do. It's the only way player organizations can fight and maintain control over territories, territories that produces resources.

[Kyrie]

Cool! I just never got into the enough to find out.

[Adrienne Vorton]

well basically, most of the points you mentioned are how i would do it, if i would develope such a game...had many thoughts about that myself, and many of them meet your thoughts...

but i have to say, that while the first part of your rank system was okay for me, i think it should stop at the point, when you have access to all stuff needed... i don´t think, "official" leadership should happen out of player run units (clans/ guilds) .... think it would be okay, if there was (like you say in the "mercs section") AI generated contract/ conflict situations, where ppl can decide to join or not...

i played BattleGround Europe for a while, and i can fairly say, that often it was just frustrating to see, what the high command decided, even if you gave them a hint "not to do this stupid attack"... there should be no faction leaders, imho...(while i gotta say, that BGE/WW2Online had a decent faction war system, just the players in the high command were a bad factor)

and to be honest, the faction and politics-system in eve is the only thing i never liked about that nice game too much

sure i like to have faction warfare, planetary assaults and what ever, but i just don´t want games anymore, where i have to involve myself that much just to get to a point, where it´s halfway enjoyable...and in games like eve, you have to be very very dedicated...

Edited by Adrienne Vorton, 17 August 2012 - 04:04 AM.

[Mangonel TwoSix]

The idea of having player run houses/factions is very interesting. The OP put some thought into this. However I am afraid it would never work. How are you going to decide who is in charge? How do you keep some really stupid person from getting into a command position?

I think the best thing to do would be to run the Houses like merc companies. However say you join the 2nd Sword Regiment or whatever for House Kurita. You run that unit inside House Kurita like a merc company. It is decided by the devs or whoever what the 'goals' are for House Kurita. The house units go about choosing how they want to achieve those goals themselves. You decide the leaders like you would any gaming guild/clan. You dont like the leaders, go make a new unit or join a different one.

Factions can kind of choose their own path within a set framework.

[Kyrie]

Adrienne Vorton, on 17 August 2012 - 04:00 AM, said:

well basically, most of the points you mentioned are how i would do it, if i would develope such a game...had many thoughts about that myself, and many of them meet your thoughts...

but i have to say, that while the first part of your rank system was okay for me, i think it should stop at the point, when you have access to all stuff needed... i don´t think, "official" leadership should happen out of player run units (clans/ guilds) .... think it would be okay, if there was (like you say in the "mercs section") AI generated contract/ conflict situations, where ppl can decide to join or not...

i played BattleGround Europe for a while, and i can fairly say, that often it was just frustrating to see, what the high command decided, even if you gave them a hint "not to do this stupid attack"... there should be no faction leaders, imho...(while i gotta say, that BGE/WW2Online had a decent faction war system, just the players in the high command were a bad factor)

and to be honest, the faction and politics-system in eve is the only thing i never liked about that nice game too much

sure i like to have faction warfare, planetary assaults and what ever, but i just don´t want games anymore, where i have to involve myself that much just to get to a point, where it´s halfway enjoyable...and in games like eve, you have to be very very dedicated...

My concern is that I want faction play to be structured in some way -- some level of organization inherently implemented in the system that is different and unique from the way merc units are going to work. And, in our own way, I want to roleplay the canon -- I want to be able to become not only a unit commander, but perhaps a Prefecture CO if I can prove myself able to do the job.

The way I envision the system is that it works as a system of bonuses as opposed to restrictions. The House Budget system after all is a pool of resources that is independent of what is achieved by the unit/prefecture/district in the actual field of battle. Keep in mind that they can earn Supply Credits from battles directly, not just have it assigned to them.

Roknari, on 17 August 2012 - 05:02 AM, said:

The idea of having player run houses/factions is very interesting. The OP put some thought into this. However I am afraid it would never work. How are you going to decide who is in charge? How do you keep some really stupid person from getting into a command position?

I think the best thing to do would be to run the Houses like merc companies. However say you join the 2nd Sword Regiment or whatever for House Kurita. You run that unit inside House Kurita like a merc company. It is decided by the devs or whoever what the 'goals' are for House Kurita. The house units go about choosing how they want to achieve those goals themselves. You decide the leaders like you would any gaming guild/clan. You dont like the leaders, go make a new unit or join a different one.

Factions can kind of choose their own path within a set framework.

This is an interesting idea, and I realize I forgot to address this point: how to actually implement the selection of senior command personnel. The way it was done in EGA MPBT is that every two weeks, when the game started, a "Promotions Board" (really just a batch process) analyzed the list of everyone who joined the House military, and chose the person with highest rank/standing to occupy the highest position within that structure from top down. So to start the game, the highest ranked player with highest standing was selected House Leader; the same was done for each District; then each Prefecture; up to the Unit level. This created a "seed" of command personnel who at least were proven to be active in the game.

The batch process ran regularly for a while until the players were satisfied that adequate personnel had been chosen; and the players themselves organized themselves into Districts they wanted and units they wanted to help the process along.

After a while this ended, and promotions were done through the chain of command itself: the HL appointed District Commanders, the DC-COs appointed Prefects, and so on.

Once the CoC was in place, the Developers asked all the command personnel to participate in creating a "constitution" of sorts to decide how to replace the senior leadership: HL/HXO. In the case of Kurita, it was decided that a majority vote of the District COs of "no-confidence" in the current HL would force the HL out of office and allow for them to vote in a new leader. The selection of HXO was nominated by the HL and approved by the council of warlords (district COs).

Please keep in mind that this is one alternative. I have a different idea based on the Loyalty Point system to seed the process of selecting leadership.

Instead of doing a top-down batch process to select people who won the most missions in a given time period, I propose that the devs to a bottom-up process during a month long seeding process. First, everyone joins the House Unit of their choice in the District/Prefec of their choice. Within each Unit, the people who want to be Unit CO nominate themselves by "bidding" their available Loyalty Points -- essentially wagering their rank on the chance of being selected. This creates a list of candidates for the position in the order of the amount wagered. The Unit members vote, and the winner becomes the CO for a 2 week period. Every 2 weeks, this process iterates; or sooner if there is a vacancy.

The same thing will occur at the Prefecture level in the second week of the system -- all people who meet the minimum rank/LP qualifications nominate themselves, and one month in we do the same to get District COs. Once District COs get in place, two weeks later people nominate themselves for HL-- and one is chosen by the council of warlords. At least, thats how I feel it would work for Kurita. In the case of Marik, for instance, they might go with a general election system wherein everyone votes on the candidates.

As to how to prevent stupid people from attaining high command: you don't. You replace them by a vote of no-confidence.

However -- one thing I want to reiterate is that the command staff can't FORCE anyone to do anything. All they can do is provide incentives under the system. I did this deliberately; I am aware of the dangers that "energetic stupidity" can generate. In the ancient version of MPBT, command staff had a lot more deterministic authority: they could move and "lock down" lances, lierally forcing people to fight in a given place. Under my proposed system, what they can only do is encourage people to fight in a given spot. The bulk of their "supply credits" could be generated by their own efforts -- allowing them independence of action.

Edited by Kyrie, 31 August 2012 - 04:52 AM.

[Amechwarrior]

I just re-read devblog 1 and I think you are going in the wrong direction on this.

Its not mwosuccessionwars.com

It's mwomercs.com and I think this shows us the priorities of the developers. It is not about the clan invasion, house rivalries ending with reforming the star league. It is about creating and running your own company with "Billybob's Stompy Lasershow" on the bill of charge. The whole deal about jumpships, supplies, prefectures and how older sphere spanning 3rd party leagues did things back in the day don't apply to this games scope. A really big reason is, they don't want to mess with canon. Letting the focus fall on minor, non-canon merc companies lets the players and the developers run free of trying to juggle the reality of online games with the set-in-stone timeline of the universe.

The house faction wars as laid out in the devblog looks like a simpler mechanism for more casual type players. Planetary battles are ongoing, you can jump in any time, your contribution gets thrown in with everyone else and the faction with the most victories get the gold. You can gain ranks, heck if you get high enough maybe IGP will start sending you "orders" from Hanse_Davion@IGP via PM telling you where he would like your house unit to focus its players for the week(I think that would be fricken sweet). Most of us here now, are BT fans, we have favorite houses, once open beta hits people who know the canon will be a minority. The mass of players won't care what a Kurita is, they don't want to be told to follow orders by some guy they never even played with. They will want to get them and their friends to party up, fight robots and do it their way. We, the BT nerds want systems to run the houses, plan jump routes and do just about everything but actually dropping into combat. Grand planetary systems are ignoring the core game(fighting robots) for the metagame(excel spreadsheets and maps.) That's supposed to fluff the combat. Not the other way around.

The Faction battles play to this, 6 great house superfactions with an endless churn of online members to fight each other. They don't want the high level planetary drama/grind/dedication that comes with owning your own merc company, not yet. Those that grow to the challenge will seek it out by going merc. The fact that they are now playing "outside" of big canon events/units/factions means they can pursue as much glory as the game will allow.

A lot of posts on the forums focus on the grand schemes in the vein of a 5th succession war. I don't think that's the kind of game this will shape up to be. I am not saying the devs can't make an about face and turn it into such a game, but the media we have seen so far doesn't support that. Since CW has been put on hold, who knows what it will really look like.

[Kyrie]

Well, that is pretty much what I'm afraid of -- that we are going to end up with Merc Corps being the only interesting part, and a clan wars WoT-style implementation of territorial conquest.

I'm hoping that this doesn't end up being the case in the end; this is what motivated me to start this topic.

I realize that this is "mwomercs.com". However, I would like for factions to be an equally viable alternative for us BT nerds--something with just as much depth as what I imagine will be implemented for Mercs.

Edited by Kyrie, 17 August 2012 - 05:47 PM.

[Amechwarrior]

Kyrie, on 17 August 2012 - 05:40 PM, said:

Well, that is pretty much what I'm afraid of -- that we are going to end up with Merc Corps being the only interesting part, and a clan wars WoT-style implementation of territorial conquest.

I'm hoping that this doesn't end up being the case in the end; this is what motivated me to start this topic.

This is where I think the devs may have misjudged the audience a little. The core BT fans want to play as the houses, the known units, the Davions, Liao and Kuritas. Core fans want "TOTAL mechWARrior: Online" and I don't think this game is going in that direction. Not saying the metagame won't be fun or engaging for the hardcore audience, but unless they drastically increase the scope of CW on-top of throwing out the timeline, we won't see it.

You are worried about it becoming like WoT. Many posters on here are. I have not played it myself but it seems it does have some problems with grind and the pressure to always be playing. We don't even know how much like WoT our metagame will be. Posters just use it because its core gameplay is very similar. If House Wars was implemented in full like on the merc side you would either have too many people fighting over one slice of rock or too many rocks changing hands and suddenly you have the CapCon up in Kurita territory when the clans drop and messed up sync with the canon timeline. Whatever system you use, if faction warfare is just like or very similar to merc warfare what stops a massive merc unit from effectively becoming a new great house, or preventing a current house from being wiped off the map the same way a merc company can be?

[Rugarou]

I think the houses will be valid for you guys Kyrie. Though the amount of control you will have over them will be limited. The devs stated that only border planets and periphery worlds would be fought over and exchange hands (barring major canon battles). The "core" worlds of each house would be static and follow canon.

One thing I see with both your and pringle's assumptions is that both of you think that this will be a major territory control game dealing with the whole Inner Sphere. I think that assumption is incorrect given what the devs stated already. Sure there are plenty of worlds to change hand in the border Marches and periphery, but as far as having one house/clan/merc corp taking over huge swaths of area or changing canon I just do not think it is going to happen.

Now, as far as you guys in the house factions having major influence/control over other players within your faction, that again I just do not see happening. Maybe you get control of a lance or company and can influence to some degree what battles you want to fight sure. But actually being able to tell other players what they are going to do without their consent would be detrimental overall imo.

Edit: having a large degree of control over another player would be more the realm of merc companies, but even then it is dependent on how that company is organized.

Edited by Geaux Tiger, 17 August 2012 - 06:21 PM.

[Kyrie]

Geaux,

I agree total command control at higher level would be problematic; but I do want at least some tools to plan the battles. That's what I'm hoping we can discuss here: how much is the "just right" amount to allow player freedom but still allow for battle planning.

For instance, I'm not proposing that lances can be "locked down" by higher command unlike EGA MPBT...

[Rugarou]

Ah sorry I misunderstood that part then.