66 replies to this topic

[Smokeyhavoc]

if the clans are going to be a playable faction, institue the clans own selection process: TRIAL OF POSTION
that way while yes it will more than likely become eliteist you can also limit the number of positions within each clan and also limit the unit sizes to reflect the bidding process.

[IxxxI]

=Outlaw=, on 25 February 2012 - 01:32 PM, said:

Because not everyone will have the game day one, and not everyone plays 20+ hours a week. By requiring players to first grind through IS content to get to Clan content, makes the IS seem as the inferior content. Not good. Many, many gamers are all about progression, and it will create the impression and mindset that being Clan is higher in progression and content tier. In other words, its a higher e-peen status symbol...which means almost everyone will strive to be clan (besides the hardcore IS players). This is NOT an environment you want to create.

Yes, that's fair assumption, but my idea is about balance, so why not counter-balance hardcore Clansmen characters with hardcore IS characters?
I.e. allow players create hardcore IS characters in famous IS regiments like Wolf's Dragoons, Grey Death Legion and so on, with honor system and same limitations still applicable. That would divide MWO playerbase into four categories: hardcore Clan, hardcore IS, Great Houses aligned MercCorps & lonewolfs, freelancer MercCoprs and lonewolfs. Give different level of freedom to these categories - from almost no freedom of choice in Clans to almost total anarchy for freelancers - and that will make people decide what they want from the game. Don't forget about material motivation (or virtual pixels motivation ).

Permadeath for hardcore characters is essential in my suggestion, rest should be balanced further. Hope my 2 cents will help IGP somehow.

Edited by IxxxI, 26 February 2012 - 12:13 AM.

[CCC Dober]

Help me out here guys, when was the invasion again? 3050 something?
So we have to wait 2+ years before we get a chance to play Clans (game starts 3048 and progresses in real time)?

[CoffiNail]

I always love this permadeath thing... do people forget how easy it is to die in mechwarrior games? So I should play a char for 2 weeks and magically i do not get him killed and then a IS scout sneaks up behind me, unknown to me, IS drops LRMS and a airstrike on me and I am dead, with almost no warning and no wrong move on my part... No thanks permadeath is a REALLY stupid idea for a game like this. You know HOW fast players would leave to go find another game after their two week old char is dead for the second time? I see a lot. Maybe some hardcore nut jobs might stay, but even I would just say **** it and go back to MWLL.

[Jaroth Corbett]

Lima Zulu, on 24 February 2012 - 02:21 PM, said:

Well, people discuss clans realisation alot since forum was opened, but I've mostly seen same ideas and same concerns Let's resume.

Idea One: Clans gonna be NPC faction.

Concerns:

1) Way too many people want to play Clans. It's obvious.

2) AI will never compete players, even with overpowered mechs.

3) AI is quite a work for developers.

Idea Two: Clans gonna be playable faction.

Concerns:

1) Clans gonna be overpowered because:

- Every newbie in clan mech will be stronger than seasoned IS player.

- Noone would play IS house, if they will be able to play Clans, using superior Clan technologies etc.

- If Clans will be one faction, it will have more players than any Great House. Or maybe more than all of them.

2) If Clans will be multiple factions, each of them will have less players than Great Houses.

3) By canon, clans not gonna use merc corps, which are backbone of global warfare.

4) How could faction or merc corps players join Clans? It will be quite weird this way.

So, I have an idea of two parts.

Someone of you guys played WoW I believe. Someone even played enough to know what a "Heroic Class" means. For someone, who completely out of it, I'll explain.

Heroic Class - it's a character you can create after getting some quite high level, around 70-80% of maximum. It's created with high enough level and some good equipment, so it can compete other classes. But while in WoW your Heroic Class character belongs the same faction as your main character does, it could be your own Clanner here in MWO.

So, what's a profit:

- People who want play clans have a chance to play it.

- Clans are real people not any kind of AI, and there is no need to make this AI at all.

- Due only highlevels are able to create clan characters, we're not gonna be overwhelmed by them.

- No problem with transfering IS characters to Clans side - you just don't need anything like this - all clanners will be sort of alt.

There are pro's, but there are contra's too:

- Soon or later all people gonna get high level and make their own clanner, so a chance we will be overwhelmed is still there.

- People will level their IS characters only to get Clanner and then will abandon it completely.

Here comes B part - limitation.

Basically, it means that you'll not be able to play your clanner all the time. Let's say it will be one battle as a clanner per day. Or ten per week, no idea. Thus we'll have people still playing IS and having an opportunity to play Clans aswell.

At every else way Clans will work the same as any Great House - ranks, in-faction units, etc. Maybe another currencies - or do Clans need money at all? They not gonna trade with IS, so there is a place for some unique currency system - maybe honor based, for example.

Let us face it, Clans being NPC controlled will suck big time.

Regarding them being player controlled, let me reply to each point you raised.


1.I disagree with you though, I do not think everyone will go over to the Clans. The Davion fanboy section on these forums is proof enough. The same way I & others like me love the Clans, I know there are those that love the IS just as passionately.

2. The Clans are SUPPOSED to have less people. I see nothing wrong with this.

3. By canon, the IS uses mercs as a backbone of war. The Clans have their own spine.

4. Not at all. Seeing as there will be people who have played up to a certain level as an IS player, who will go over to the Clans, so can mercs or lone wolves. You do not need a certificate of good character, two references & a letter of recommendation from your previous employer, you only need your skills & a desire to adhere to the laws, lore & customs of the Clans.

Edited by Jaroth Winson, 26 February 2012 - 06:24 AM.

[Outlaw2]

IxxxI, on 26 February 2012 - 12:10 AM, said:

Yes, that's fair assumption, but my idea is about balance, so why not counter-balance hardcore Clansmen characters with hardcore IS characters?
I.e. allow players create hardcore IS characters in famous IS regiments like Wolf's Dragoons, Grey Death Legion and so on, with honor system and same limitations still applicable. That would divide MWO playerbase into four categories: hardcore Clan, hardcore IS, Great Houses aligned MercCorps & lonewolfs, freelancer MercCoprs and lonewolfs. Give different level of freedom to these categories - from almost no freedom of choice in Clans to almost total anarchy for freelancers - and that will make people decide what they want from the game. Don't forget about material motivation (or virtual pixels motivation ).

Permadeath for hardcore characters is essential in my suggestion, rest should be balanced further. Hope my 2 cents will help IGP somehow.

You are talking about a whole new system layered on top on what the devs have already planned... in order to try to make something thats already highly questionable work correctly. This is just unnecessary FEATURE CREEP. For the IS its totally unnecessary, since merc corps is already whats available for hardcore players.

Regardless, it won't work because it will split apart many gaming communities. Casual players will also want to play clan. Many hardcore clan players will want to play with their casual friends. Splitting apart communities is about the worst thing you can do. Don't do it. I am all for balance, but don't use community roadblocking and division as a balancing tool. And stop with the permadeath stuff...its not going to happen.

Edited by =Outlaw=, 26 February 2012 - 10:03 AM.

[Outlaw2]

I need to add that we should keep it simple...stupid. Build upon the systems the game will already have, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.

Step aside from the roleplay for a moment, and simply use the community/faction system for the IS. Then dress it up with clan terminology. Below is clan terminology I got from the top of my head and quickly skimming over sarna. Im sure some of you RP guys can come up with better names .

Loyalty Points = Honor Points
Contract = Trial of [X]
Merc Corp = Touman Cluster
Faction player = Clanner or Trueborn
Lone Wolf = Freeborn

and so on....Don't turn it into rocket science. Its already going to be hard enough to implement clans without having to implement new complicated systems and rules. Think about whats going to work, and not simply what will tickle your RP fancies the best.

Edited by =Outlaw=, 26 February 2012 - 10:21 AM.

[IxxxI]

=Outlaw=, on 26 February 2012 - 09:59 AM, said:

You are talking about a whole new system layered on top on what the devs have already planned... in order to try to make something thats already highly questionable work correctly. This is just unnecessary FEATURE CREEP. For the IS its totally unnecessary, since merc corps is already whats available for hardcore players.

Regardless, it won't work because it will split apart many gaming communities. Casual players will also want to play clan. Many hardcore clan players will want to play with their casual friends. Splitting apart communities is about the worst thing you can do. Don't do it. I am all for balance, but don't use community roadblocking and division as a balancing tool. And stop with the permadeath stuff...its not going to happen.

We'll see what happen, but I bet for new set of rules for Clansmen. So far developers paid great attention to details, we can expect that they will follow canon as close as possible, thus we have a dilemma: how to realize clantech and Clans society specifics. IMO it's not possible in announced LP/C-Bills system. I also think, that playbase division on trueborn/freeborn is not possible at all in our tolerant times)).
Please don't take permadeath as something horrible, the chance of character's death may be very low (ejections, injuries, prosthetics), but it must exist, if developers going to make hardcore gamers happy. The Clans society's greatest motivation is Bloodnames system, if it will be added into MWO, I don't see how it can be realized without permadeath of characters.

[Lima Zulu]

Jaroth Winson, on 26 February 2012 - 06:20 AM, said:

1.I disagree with you though, I do not think everyone will go over to the Clans. The Davion fanboy section on these forums is proof enough. The same way I & others like me love the Clans, I know there are those that love the IS just as passionately.

Don't forget that mow 95% om MWO forum members are people who really know what BT is, what MW games were and have a clue about factions. And now imagine some newbies come and see clantech and ask themselves - why the hell should I fight with pitchfork and torch against machineguns? If game achieve success, there will be much more newcomers than any faction fanboys and if all of them will think as I suggest, clans will get nuch more people that all IS alltogether.

Quote

2. The Clans are SUPPOSED to have less people. I see nothing wrong with this.

I meant, if every clan will be separate faction as IS Houses, they'll have too few people in each. But with statement above it still could be 20% players to every clan and 3-5% to any IS house.

Quote

4. Not at all. Seeing as there will be people who have played up to a certain level as an IS player, who will go over to the Clans, so can mercs or lone wolves. You do not need a certificate of good character, two references & a letter of recommendation from your previous employer, you only need your skills & a desire to adhere to the laws, lore & customs of the Clans.

Harly can imagine why people will bother themselves with all lore, laws and traditions of clans or IS if they will be able just come and get better mechs and equip at one side. There should be another side of coin being clanner at all, I believe. Basically, some better things should be achieved somehow.

[Gremlich Johns]

@ Lima Zulu - 95% is generous for the amount of forum posters you imagine to really be up on their knowledge of BT - I submit that it is between 40-60% in actuality. Just read some of the posts and you will see what I mean. Any forum poster that says something about Clan(s) is probably referring to a generic group/team of players and NOT the BT Milieu Clans.

[Outlaw2]

IxxxI, on 26 February 2012 - 11:05 AM, said:

We'll see what happen, but I bet for new set of rules for Clansmen. So far developers paid great attention to details, we can expect that they will follow canon as close as possible, thus we have a dilemma: how to realize clantech and Clans society specifics. IMO it's not possible in announced LP/C-Bills system. I also think, that playbase division on trueborn/freeborn is not possible at all in our tolerant times)).
Please don't take permadeath as something horrible, the chance of character's death may be very low (ejections, injuries, prosthetics), but it must exist, if developers going to make hardcore gamers happy. The Clans society's greatest motivation is Bloodnames system, if it will be added into MWO, I don't see how it can be realized without permadeath of characters.

Again, you are letting your RP get the better of you. Its a game, played by people, not clanners. People will be just fine being called freeborn. Most player won't even know what the heck it means anyway, and are only concerned about the gameplay of big giant mechs shooting stuff. They'll read "free", and think heck yea I free!!!1 Plus that was just an example renaming of terms used in the current faction/community system that PGI is basing the entire game around. Call it something else, just keep the current system intact.

You can always call C-bills something else too ...like Isorla points... or whatever. Its not perfectly RP perfect, but many things in MWO won't be. I mean what the heck is a lone wolf in BT? A one man merc unit that can easily fight under any house at any time?. No such thing in the BTU, but you need it to exist in MWO to cater to the lone causal player that doesn't care about RP. Similar things will have to happen for Clans, if we want them to be part of the game...and not break the game

Edited by =Outlaw=, 26 February 2012 - 12:46 PM.

[IxxxI]

=Outlaw=, on 26 February 2012 - 12:35 PM, said:

Again, you are letting your RP get the better of you. Its a game, played by people, not clanners. People will be just fine being called freeborn. Most player won't even know what the heck it means anyway, and are only concerned about the gameplay of big giant mechs shooting stuff. They'll read "free", and think heck yea I free!!!1 <...>

I'm not, actually, for RPing, lets say I'm charmed by Clans idea and would like to see it well realized in MWO. So, please, take it easy, mate.
You have valid point in statement "Its a game, played by people, not clanners.", but:

Quote

We are adhering very closely to the BattleTech® tabletop rules. Some mechanics in the tabletop version of the game do not translate well into a videogame and we are coming up with our own rule sets that mitigate these differences in an intuitive and fun manner.

Clans in TT had broken balance, which was previously broken by Davions faction, as far as I know, I'm not TT player. Plus every MMO depends on its lore, MWO isn't an exception. Combination of these facts makes me think of Clans in MWO as of something specific and different from IS mechanics.

Edited by IxxxI, 26 February 2012 - 02:10 PM.

[Outlaw2]

IxxxI, on 26 February 2012 - 02:10 PM, said:

Clans in TT had broken balance, which was previously broken by Davions faction, as far as I know, I'm not TT player. Plus every MMO depends on its lore, MWO isn't an exception. Combination of these facts makes me think of Clans in MWO as of something specific and different from IS mechanics.

Well if you ever played TT, you'd know balance really wasn't its selling point. The clans just magnified this problem. The game was meant to be played with a small group of friends that made their own scenarios and balance.

It was not a game meant to be play at a competitive level. Of course people tried, and fasa later added the BV (battle value) system to mechs, but it felt like a tacked on feature to appease the poor souls actually trying to organize real tournaments around BT.

Thats why translating the TT directly for the game and expecting balance is never going to happen, and is part of the reason why PG stated "we are coming up with our own rule sets that mitigate these differences in an intuitive and fun manner".

Even so balancing the clan tech with IS tech will be a real challenge for PGI, so lets not over complicate things. Keep the community aspects for each side exactly the same. Focus on balancing via the actual matches and gameplay. You balance that, and you won't have to worry about the community stuff.

Don't worry too much on the RP fluff. Don't split communities. Don't force players to grind through IS content to get to Clan content.

Edited by =Outlaw=, 26 February 2012 - 02:47 PM.

[CCC Dober]

Tbh, I feel a bit hesitant to play the game, knowing that Clans are not part of it from the beginning. That's probably just me, being used and spoiled by all the fancy clan tech in previous games.

However, should the opportunity present itself to link up with Wolf's Dragoons right from the beginning, then I wouldn't mind to wait a bit for the official introduction. Having limited access to Clan Tech from day one is certainly better than no access at all until 3050, which is anything in between 1-2 years away.

Another option could be to allow Clan players to duke it out among their own in the home worlds, bidding for the right to take part in the coming invasion. There was a lot of infighting and the Clans are by far not as cohesive as the invasion indicates. They are pretty happy backstabbing each other, just like the IS, but with style and 'honor'.

[Jaroth Corbett]

No that is me as well, having played MW3, MW3:PM, MW4:V, MW4:BK & MW4:M & being forced to play as the IS. I will endure this beginning of MWO until I can cast off these IS shackles & become a Clansman again. Can you imagine having an itch from since 1999 & not being able to scratch it? Devs better do a damn good job with the Clans. NO halfassing.

Edited by Jaroth Winson, 04 March 2012 - 06:00 AM.

[CCC Dober]

Yeah, I'd immediately volunteer to beta the clans while other folks enjoy their shiny IS ponies. Certainly beats playing stuff you don't really want in the first place. Oh well, just an idea ...

[Gremlich Johns]

CCC_Dober, on 04 March 2012 - 03:36 AM, said:

However, should the opportunity present itself to link up with Wolf's Dragoons right from the beginning, then I wouldn't mind to wait a bit for the official introduction. Having limited access to Clan Tech from day one is certainly better than no access at all until 3050, which is anything in between 1-2 years away.

an extract from Sarna re: what the Wolf's Dragoons had when they ventured in (links intact). I am unsure how these will be facilitated and we may not even see some of these until 3050, if at all. I think "limited access" is optimistic at best:

"They were equipped with what the Clans erroneously believed to be an average lineup of outdated BattleMechs, supposed to make them appear wholly inconspicuous: Five regiments of ’Mechs, including designs that were either essentially extinct in the Inner Sphere (such as the Flea, Falcon, and Hoplite) or had never before been seen there (such as the Imp and the Annihilator), complemented with likewise extraordinary support units, Dropships, and Jumpships. The Dragoons also had Hephaestus Station, a (mobile) space station with a BattleMech assembly line for the Dragoons' exclusive ARC-2W subvariant of the Archer.

Before entering the Inner Sphere proper, the Dragoons created a supply cache in an unknown location where they left behind some of their more advanced equipment, including six WarShips.

Noteworthy sub-units of Wolf's Dragoons include their elite Black Widow Company, their powerful Zeta Battalion of assault 'Mechs, and the special forces of the Seventh Kommando.

En-route to the Inner Sphere, Jaime Wolf decided to create a secondary mission of finding and examining lost Star League caches. This would eventually lead to the formation of the ostensibly independent mercenary group Snord's Irregulars."

[CCC Dober]

Yeah, that was along the lines I had in mind. It would certainly give the Clan Players something to look forward to. This outdated line-up of Mechs surely included some of the more advanced technologies that the Inner Sphere was busy to reinvent in later years. Better heatsinks, more efficient reactors, better armor, better electronics, smarter missiles, better optics and longrange capabilites, CASE, AMS and other stuff. It wasn't just the weapons making their Mechs more powerful but also the stuff that kept it moving and functioning being more robust and reliable. Honestly, I don't mind giving up OmniMechs for a while if I can get access to stuff like this and creep around the Outer Sphere with an occasional contract in the Inner Sphere.

[fire2100]

I love the Clans and believe that they should be played, they have always been playable since the start of battle tech and mechwarrior

[Righ]

A LoTR:O style of PvP would be good. Simply have people join matches as Clanners if they like, but they don't keep 'mechs or gain stats from it. Maybe offer some sort of reward if they do well. This way people get to play as the True-borns, but we don't see a massive migration from IS to Clan.

For the record, if given the chance, I would love to create a Steel Viper star with some of my old Battletech buddies and tear things up, but I'm an Inner-Sphere man at heart. More specifically, a money-grubbing Mercenary. I'd never abandon my free-born bros.