90 replies to this topic

[Kyrie]

@Mantiis,

I like your ideas! Regarding Clan Tech, I had an idea that perhaps each unit could have a research pool that is filled by salvaging Clan Tech. That research pool contributes to the overall House Pool but allows the Unit CO to "unlock" one piece of clan tech at a time. The House Leader gets to set a priority on the general category of research, if the unit CO picks something from that priority category the Unit will get a bonus that will make it easier to acquire.

Unlocking it gives the Unit the right to request the manufacture and shipping of that particular item for the unit based on its Supply Credits -- and I agree that it should be hugely expensive to install for the first time, and to replace when needed.

[Ray Gunn]

I think Clan Tech (and Star League tech) should be limited, for instance, instead of being able to build the items, you get a limited number and then when you use them up, they're gone until you find more. Or, maybe it only becomes available for purchase for limited times based on events in the world. For instance, if pirates manage to gain control of a Clan Tech warehouse or Star League cache they could make it available on the black market for a time. These items could be treated like rares and legendary items in other mmo's. Very expensive and hard to find, in other words.

I think Star League tech fits the game's initial timeline better than Clan tech but that will change as the timeline advances.

Edited by Ray Gunn, 05 September 2012 - 09:30 PM.

[Kyrie]

@Ray Gunn,

Yeah I see what you are saying. But it kinda all depends on how PGI plans to balance Clan Tech vs IS Tech.

What is pretty clear is that based on TT, Clan Tech is a massive advantage... if the IS can't upgrade itself, there will have to be some other more artificial controls such as limiting/reducing the Clan side vs I.S. either in mech numbers or BV or some such.

[Kyrie]

Returning to the topic of CW, I found this link to what appears to be the "canon" TO&E for House Kurita in 3050. I cannot vouch for its authenticity, but it looks good, and seems to be a reasonable starting point to analyze possibilities for how CW might handle the TO&E.

The upshot is that we are talking about 99 regiments,a bit under 20,000 total House-playable slots (non-command personnel) in the canon.

This is so far off the mark for what is going to be required given pre-open beta population that some major, major surgery has to take place for this to make any sense. Last time I checked, a few weeks ago, we had passed the 250K mark of registered users.

So not even counting for growth down the line, we are looking at needing at least 5x the capacity for line pilots by day 1 of CW.

Now that is going to be some major reconstructive surgery to shoehorn all those extra regiments into the official canon .

It is technically doable. I would propose working off an open ended "Aide" system; that is, for every three dynamically spawned units, a new Prefec Aide slot is created under the Pref CO. For every three new Prefec Aides, a new Military District Aide is created under the Warlord.
When I refer to dynamically spawned units, we are talking about system created units that are created as described in the MPBT:3025 thread. There would be a generic unit naming convention specific to each Prefecture; and based on that nomenclature new units would come to exist as the initial ones get filled up.
At least, this is my first reaction on confronting the harsh realities of canon based TO&E -- either its going to be abstracted into non-existence or there will be some serious surgery done on the canon for House factions .

Thoughts?

EDIT: Corrected major organizational and mathematical flaw; erroneously equated company level to regiment as that is how it was done in MPBT EGA version.

Edited by Kyrie, 13 September 2012 - 09:54 PM.

[Ray Gunn]

Well it's not like every mechwarrior that ever lived is named in the canon. The number of players registered versus the number of players playing the game will never be the same and players don't die (well, not from in-game causes), whereas mechwarriors do, and new ones rise to replace them. In short, there's so many variables that all of this stuff could very well just be abstracted anyway.

It's also important to remember that not everything has to depend on events on the battlefield. Politics, espionage, and logistics can change the course of a war in ways that no firefight can, and these are areas where a technological advantage may not necessarily be enough.

Edited by Ray Gunn, 11 September 2012 - 11:15 AM.

[Kyrie]

@Ray Gunn,

My objection to "abstracting" the TO&E is that it will, I feel, lead to shallow game-play on the role-playing side. Following the MPBT:3025 model, my preference is that every House military player is either in an active unit of any given type, or in the Reserves (inactive). This will mean that if you are an active House military player, you are in a unit.

This means that we would need a system of dynamic mobilization and demobilization of battalions and regiments.

In my previous post I screwed up the numbers when analyzing the total TO&E slots, I got confused with how Kesmai implemented EGA MPBT. In the EGA version, only one company of each regiment was implemented (three lances), and I mistakenly equated company to regiment. It turns out that in the classic TO&E there are a bit under 20K slots for pilots.

However, the system design should take into account the likelihood that the number of players interested in playing House military is likely to explode, so I figure we need a variety of unit types: Canon (Elite, regular, training) and Non-Canon generic ones that are created on demand to meet the need -- as described in the MPBT:3025 document. In other words, IMHO, we need a system that brings everyone into the TO&E and has the capacity to handle dramatic growth.

[Ray Gunn]

I'm all for more roleplaying authenticity and more options for roleplayers, but sadly the proportion of roleplayers to other types of gamers is quite low. Most people either don't like roleplaying (some to the point of disliking other players who roleplay), or they just don't have enough time/interest to really care about it. In my own experiences with developing roleplaying-friendly games (not roleplaying games persay), I find that treating non-roleplayers almost like an advanced form of NPC works well. Usually they don't care because if they did, they'd be roleplayers. This doesn't always apply to everyone, but that could be what the Merc outfits are for - those oddballs who don't really fit in anywhere else.

Edited by Ray Gunn, 21 September 2012 - 05:15 AM.

[Kyrie]

Yeah. I'm kind on the fence on how exactly to do it -- my first instinct is that I would have generic units be open, with larger capacity, and more casual. I would then reserve canon units for more hardcore players on a sliding scale: elite units for the most hardcore, regular/green units for more casual (all within the "hardcore" scale).

So I figure we can have the strongest implementation of a chain of command within the hardcore-elite units, and then make it progressively more simplified and abstract as we go down the unit classification. The people themselves will choose where they want to go.

Also, being in an elite unit will be an earned privilege -- after meeting the requirements to join only then can someone choose to join it.

[Ray Gunn]

It would be interesting to see how an MMO could handle paying recognition to hardcore roleplayers. You don't see that in MMO's really. You see them giving things to hardcore fans and people who play the game alot, but not necessarily to roleplayers. I'm not sure it'd be a good thing or a bad thing - I suppose it depends on how exactly it's handled by the devs.

[Kyrie]

Yeah, too true. CW is so far down the road that it is really difficult to guess which way the devs are leaning. All we can do is suggest and speculate :-).

From the tea leaves I've seen to date, the speculation is that factions may be viewed as being "passive", making the merc side the "hard core" side. What I'm hoping to suggest is that within the Faction side itself we can accommodate hardcore participation as well as casual participation.

For instance, in a generic unit there may be a much more flexible policy regarding activity level -- like say one login every two weeks controlled by the devs. But in a hardcore unit the CO (player controlled) may be able to set a stricter requirement (with exceptions like vacation mode, and so on).

[Ray Gunn]

Games like Planetside (and Planetside 2 for that matter) handle this fairly well via the Outfits system. If you're into roleplaying, you join a roleplaying outfit. If you're into large-scale tactics and organization, you join an Outfit that specializes in that. If you're a casual player, you can solo it or join an outfit of casual players. In Planetside and Planetside 2, going solo usually doesn't work out so well since you'll usually be outnumbered and outmatched, but it's an available option for those who want it. MWO doesn't seem to have that problem since every match basically puts you on a team with other players. You don't really get overwhelmed, but the ability to coordinate still makes a huge difference in terms of winning or losing. Some casual players may not like that, but then again, if they don't, maybe they're playing the wrong game.

[Kyrie]

I've been looking at games like Planetside2... its just waaay too twitchy for me. :-)

However, on the Outfits system, I see your point. Its fairly clear that something like that is going to be the way mercs will work, but with a BT feel of course. I fully expect to see a lance/company system integrated into battaltions up to at least Regimental level. In terms of success in the metagame its pretty clear to me that forming consistent teams that play together regularly is going to be the key to success militarilty, and for the mercs, financially...

[Ray Gunn]

Indeed. From what I've seen of MWO so far I'm optimistic about future developments.

[Kyrie]

Agreed! The devs are really into the game, and they really understand what its all about. Thank god there aren't any "empty-suits" in charge of the project, like there would be if it was EA...

[Kyrie]

Returning back to CW, I was surprised to learn that MW:T is also planning an overarching meta-game ("community warfare" in PGI-speak). I've scoured the MW:T forums and there are no details whatsoever other than that there will be "factions", and I presume that there will also be mercs (not confirmed!).

And this is going to create a bit of a conundrum for me -- I am really intrigued by this, and I am wondering which game will end up with a more in-depth meta-game.

Judging by the numbers, its clear to me that MW:O has a larger following (registered users at MW:T forum are about 22K as of this writing, whereas in MW:O we are probably past 300K by now.) However, these numbers are to my mind both a blessing and a curse -- there will be a strong temptation to simplify and abstract as much as possible to appeal to a broader audience. MW:T is planning to be more hard-core BT driven.

These numbers, and the huge success of the MWO Founders program, lead me to believe that PGI will have a lot more staying power to actually develop a deep meta-game if they choose to do so. But perhaps MW:T might make a more hard-core BT oriented meta-game. :-)

So I am wondering if perhaps MW:T will cannibalize some of MW:O's hardcore fan base...

[Jess Hazen]

i'm very interested in this topic, any new news from pgi about this?

[Kyrie]

I dream that one day PGI will invade this thread and lay down their vision. :-)

However, it really is too early -- they honestly might not have a clear design plan at this point that they can share. In a previous post I suggested that perhaps they need the Open Beta period to get a feel for what the community might be like, to have a sense of scale and analyze the demographics game-wise. They really have to analyze the playerbase to determine just how hard-core the CW mechanics can be without affecting the bottomline; to analyze the right amount of immersion that actually drives conversions rather than drive people away.

Implementing a hardcore chain-of-command driven implementation of Factions for CW is something I am desperately in favor of, more or less along the lines of MPBT:3025 with extra options to allow for casual players. However, this is at odds with the initial vision PGI announced in several different places: devblogs, interviews, etc. One of the key concerns is that if you implement massive total war with a "strong" implementation of factions, the meta-game will stop following the canon pretty much on day one. To me this is a non-issue, but it is apparently of some importance to the way they plan to drive future content of the game based on the timeline.

Another key concern is that one of the larger market segments for this game could well be people completely unfamiliar with BT, looking for a Big Stompy Robot game, a segment that might reject out of hand any kind of chain of command implementation simply because they just want to play the combat sim.

The central idea I've been advocating throughout the forum boils down to: immersion yields conversions, therefore an in-depth faction implementation is warranted. If you do it right, you can make it appealing even to those unfamiliar with the BT canon. I'll use myself as an example: back in 1992, I had never even heard of BT, but was sucked in completely by Kesmai's roleplaying shell in MPBT (EGA) on GEnie. I learned a lot about the lore, the game, and so on from the hardcore vets playing game. To this day I've yet to play the tabletop version.

All this being said -- the decision to implement hardcore factions is a significant risk as observed by Bryan Ekman (see index post in this thread for link to Morashtak's compendium of dev posts on this topic). The safe play is to abstract house factions and let players do merc outfits whichever way they want to do'm -- this is the vision we have at the moment. What I'm hoping for is that down the road, we get in-depth implementation of house factions.

EDIT: Added paragraphs to go into what might be some of the key concerns..

Edited by Kyrie, 23 September 2012 - 08:54 AM.

[Kai Lae]

Thanks to Kyrie for writing up the topic. There are, excellent, IMO, ideas in there. However, I don't think the highly organized nature of houses you are suggesting will work. I'll explain.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but MPBT only ran for a short time and never made it out of beta? If so I'm not sure if the command system was ever "stress tested" under large player interaction. I didn't play it so I don't know. What I do know is that I have played a game that has all out combat on a massive scale, with player run territories totally controlled by players, with owned territory and assets, with resources that are fought over - that's eve online. I'm a very long time player of that game and this is why I don't think some of your ideas will work, because I've seen how people in a game with a large server population interact with each other on a full time basis. It's just way more chaotic than you think it is IMO.

What I'll do is explain eve online's system of player organization for territorial combat - which is nearly no organization officially. At the basic level you have a corporation. This is very analgous to a unit in mech games - group of people who form together. It will have a leader (CEO), a XO (deputy or head director, depends on the corp) and officers (directors/assistant directors) who perform various functions assigned by the corporate leadership (recruiting, internal security, production management, facility managment for bases, etc). A corporation is an in game supported function - it is created in game, and players then join it for membership in game and become officially recognized members. However, that's where the in game control basically ends, other than the tools provided by the devs to support the functioning of the corporation (funds auditing, member management etc). The leader of the corporation is basically chosen by the members. This is important to remember because no one will follow someone they don't trust or consider competent for any period of time - if a corp is run by an ineffective leader, it will bleed members until it collapses or the leadership changes. Remember this is a game and people can instantly choose who they wish to hang out with in their spare time. If the situation is not to their liking, they will leave - and this can happen quickly. The officers and deputies are sometimes also elected but in many cases are appointed by the leader (CEO) of the corporation. Corporation sizes vary but they can run from the 20's to over 500 - but larger corporations generally have an advantage in the territorial warfare department (can take more losses, more resource/financially secure, etc).

Now again, a corp is like a unit - just like you see people with unit sigs on this forum you'll see people with their corp sigs on a eve forum. It of course is not a house, or even a military prefecture (stealing the term you've used from TT). This requires corporations to associate together, in something called an alliance. An alliance is a in game supported function that basically ties multiple corporations together to in effect, form a super corporation. Where a corp has individual players as members, an alliance has full corporations as members. This then forms what would be analgous to a military prefecture or house. It will have a leadership structure; an alliance leader, a deputy leader, a diplomatic staff, and other officers to perform whatever functions are decided as necessary. The leader is generally selected by agreement by the CEO's of the member corporations and serves as long as he/she cares to and/or shows that they are good at it. If they aren't, the member corporations players will begin to complain to their CEO's and there will be a change in leadership or the corporation will leave the alliance. I've already said this once but remember this is a game and people can instantly choose who they wish to hang out with in their spare time. Bad leadership is probably the primary way alliances fail, and you'd be suprised how fast that can happen.

The reason I've stated the above is this is why I think the setup you're suggesting with large formalized organization just won't work. If you end up under someone you don't like or respect, you can simply change the orginization you're with using a few mouse clicks. Having it organically form under player driven direction is much better and more effective to boot, as the people that are considered for these positions are almost always well known, respected, and competent - they are people that other people in game will follow. To put it in another way - you don't even NEED to have devs/game people to pick who goes where. People in game will do it themselves and do a better job of it too boot.

Now for territorial warfare itself, based on my experiences, you don't need hexes just have planets and areas of responsibility. This is how it's generally done in eve; corporations and groups of corporations are assigned to be in certian areas and cover them (in eve they "live" there and operate all of their operations from these areas). If assaulted they fight the initial wave while alliance leadership forms a relief effort/sends reserves to the area (other corps move in to help). It's probably going to be very different because in eve everything is very mobile, so to use a battletech example, a unit stationed on the davion front can be moved to fight the FRR literally tomarrow or even the same day (this is probably not a great idea in this game). The keys to making large scale warfare work are that you need to have planets with resources that are very valuable, and therefore worth fighting over. In other words, having them or denying them to your enemies makes a difference. This will naturally generate combat as plans are made to protect them/take them, other less valuable planets are selected as targets for bases to make the attack/staging areas - all the good stuff we want. In eve fights of this nature can become very large as everyone and his dog jumps in on one side or another - I've been in a 1600+ man engagement for example, which shows just how much effort can be placed in them. Again, if it's worth it, people will fight over it, and fun will be had.

Now obviously MWO isn't eve, and shouldn't be the same. But I would urge everyone to keep in mind 2 key concepts that I think should be. With in game organization, less is more with regards to how much the devs or game should dictate. Let the players decide how they want to do things for themselves. What is right for one group can be really wrong for another group, after all. Second, place things out in the game that are valuable and worth fighting over. They will rapidly become centers of conflct and will drive the story in of itself of MWO with no effort or intervention from the PGI staff. I suppose this actually brings up a final overarching concept that I wish to bring up last - let the players control the community warfare game - trust me it's more fun that way

[Kyrie]

@Kai Lae,

Very well thought out post! A few quick reactions:

1) In the EGA version of MPBT, there was a hardcore, hard coded chain of command that promoted fairly atrocious micromanagement. It ran for years with success under an hourly usage charge, $12/hour day, $6/hour at night; shifting to $3/hour at night towards the end. The player community was in the thousands, but not the 100ks that are the norm for MMOs today. I played from 92-94 approximately, long long time ago..

2) In the system I am promoting I would suggest bottom-up election cycles to determine leaders. Unit members choose unit COs, unit COs choose the next level, and so on. Probably on a 2-week cycle. This means at the heart of it that the grunts choose their leaders.

3) I am trying to leverage the BattleTech IP to its fullest -- that game designed a house chain of command, was successfully implemented in Kesmai's BT game, and could be done in some fashion in this game. That;s one of the main points I am trying to present -- implemented houses could be really fun. :-)

4) Its fairly clear from what we know at this moment that mercs will be the initial focus of faction warfare (mwomercs.com ;-) ). Mercs will be akin to EVE's Corps with player driven structures throughout. I'm hoping this changes though.

Edited by Kyrie, 23 September 2012 - 04:45 PM.

[Trooper60709]

You also forget to add some way of joining or ranking up. I don't want some nooby founder already a commander and us grunts staying poor, underpayed grunts who get pushed around. We need a fair system of getting leaders who have good tactics. Also, if you want this system, you need to have a planetary map, a sector map, and different maps for the same planet to have any real tactical command. Also, pirahna games need to make a salery system. some people get in slums and don't have the cash to upgrade and repair their mechs.