A few Ideas for Development ( Long )

To Whom It May Concern;

Hello my Codename is Bruigaar and for a very long time I have had fun playing many games. With my 20+ years of playing games I have had many ideas for what would make some of those games so much more. And yet I have never spoken about these ideas. Yet when I heard of a new Mecha game coming about and being set in the MechWarrior Universe I actually had a tear come to my eye. With MechWarriors rich lore and vast universe I began to formulate what my idea of the perfect game would be. I do not know if any of these ideas can actually be implemented in a game (I for sure would not know as I am not a programmer just a gamer). But I thought that if I shared them with others somehow it might expand this game and maybe others as well.

This letter may be long and I may jumble my words a bit for I am not a well spoken person but if you would bear with me and please read this in its entirety ( many ideas mix together but I feel it would make this even longer if I did not separate them ) I would be very much appreciative.

Idea #1 -AI War Organizers
Working with such a vast universe can cause many problems if left completely up to the player base to make decisions and act upon them. And with so many factions if that said player base became lop sided it would ruin the fun for everyone. So if each faction had a ruling overlord making many of the decisions for them it would allow the players to act accordingly and have more fun while doing so. Give each faction a ( WarGames ) computer that calculates many aspect of the warfront for said faction. Now those Overlords would could also limitedly communicate with each other to balance the game as discussed in a latter idea.

Idea #2 –Seeded World Generation
It being a large universe I know that it would take a lot of time and money to actually create many fields of battle that spread across countless worlds. If said worlds were slowly generated while the overall warfront was happening you would have endless amounts of area to have such battles. While you only have to come up with a certain amount of textures a program could generate mostly everything for you. From urban areas to dessert plains and beyond. I know many game developers take a lot of time and spend a lot of money on balancing many aspects of a particular map that that use in there game but in a real war that never happens. And if you really look at most urban areas they are built with the same ideas worldwide let alone universe wide. When said map is generated it can be saved as a seed and reused buy the game when ever and where ever it needed.

Idea # 3 – Squads, Platoons, and Battalions
Instead of creating a GUILD formatted system you do just as the idea states and break the player base up in many different ways. Squads can be formed by the players themselves or they can be assigned to a squad temporarily as if they are in a match making system. Where platoons and battalions would be you actual Guild and Alliances.

Idea #4 – Different ranking systems
Going with idea #3 each player grouping size would have a different variable upon the overall ranking system. Squads that where put together temporarily would use the individual members rankings to determine that squads overall ranking. A squad of people who joined each other under a particular name ( what in gamers terms would be like a ranked team ) would have a ranking of its own not from the individuals but of how the team has done together in the past. There we can go to Platoons and Battalions where they would have there own rankings but I have no idea on how that would be best handled as for by the individuals or as in a whole. This would also give the overlord a base number on how best to deploy its troops.

Idea #5 – Customization, Customization, Customization!
I believe it was MechWarrior 3 (correct me if I am wrong) that allowed you to customize basically everything you could about your mech. Only hampering you with certain placements of items and being limited by tonnage, this gave a great variable for a player to play as his or her own play style. The same system would make me very happy and would also encourage an economic system which goes into the next idea.

Idea #6 – Salvage, Economy, and the Black Market
After a battle is won by the players those players receive a salvage list. this list being generated by what was destroyed upon the field. players that lost would not have to lose their materials but what the did bring to the battlefield would be marked on the list and possibly dropped as “Loot”. This salvage list can be distributed in many different ways but I suggest a lottery type system where each winning player is given a random # and then called upon to sift through the salvage. Or if it is an established set of players Squad and up you can give them the option of distributing it amongst themselves. This would be a players “PAY”. Each player would then either be able to sell those items for scrap, keep the items for themselves to use, or place the items on an open intergalactic market. That would make up your economy, but in order to make the Black Market you would have to place certain monetary parameters upon items in the open market. Because the Black Market would then be your real money ( forgot the actual term) Virtual Market. Any item being placed on the open market would be regulated in value because that same item would also be given a Black Market value where a player would be able to purchase said item for real currency. When that item is purchased in either way the seller would then be given ( I believe C-bills is still the lore monetary system ). You as the Black market would also have other things for sale but many of the things available for real purchase would be dependent on supply and demand in the games economy.

Idea #7 – Point to Point battle system
I have seen a few games that had a few good ideas on world base combat but it always seemed to create in the end a cluster of people not really doing anything but going at each others throats, or a repetition of the same events over and over again making battles never really happen how the game developers intended. Using the Overlord in Idea #1 many people can gather into a specific spot and as groups can be assigned to the battlefield for different missions and even given smaller objectives within those missions. The Overlord using the intelligence that it gathers from previous missions can now formulate the best course of actions for the over all Universe Wide objective. It can also even the battles by using the ranking systems to pick which players, or group of players it would use on a mission. An overlord could even use missions to specifically gain more intelligence.

Idea #8 – Mercs and where they would fit in
Mercs would be the second balancing factor of the game. Mercs would be able travel the vast universe and accept missions from many of the different factions. They would always have the ability to deny these requests for their own flavor. But the would be the gap fillers for many of the aspects of such an undertaking as universal conquest. Them having the freedom and choice in these things would however come with a slight penalty ( something like they would get 10% less salvage ) but that is just an ide within an idea (I know it sounded like I just did an inception).

Well I do have more ideas and will be willing to share more but I would like you to look over these and let me know what you think before I continue. Thank you very much for taking you time to read this and hope to hear from you .

@OzBrad
I feel your pain on ranking systems but truth be told a good system in place actually balances out the playing field. Where a bad system unbalances it to an extreme. I don't think anyone can actually build the best way to measure a individuals skill among the masses. But without it you also face the problem of hard cores always getting mashed up with newbies and pugs. And even though I consider myself a decent player in most games if I "always" had to face better players it would eventually bypass my "ok I just need to get better" mode to "why do I even play this game its just no fun anymore" mode.

@nik Van Rhijn
Thank you for making me feel welcome and I have looked a bit over the blogs. But I don't wanna get to much into them for I can hype myself up or drag myself into *** would they do that (*&8 .... I just wanted to spread some ideas I had into the mix because I think they are good and would help out the game a bit. Of course they are my ideas so I am gonna think they are good...Hehehe. Even if none of the ideas get used it plants that seed of creative imagination in everyone that reads them and they might just even spread and get better.

@ the development team
I hope that what ever you create gives me countless hours of fun game time. Just don't let it SUCK.........Hehehehe

A few Ideas for Development ( Long )

#1 Bruigaar

#2 OzBrad

#3 Nik Van Rhijn

#4 Bruigaar

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