Thoughts and observations on gameplay, retention, and having been "spoiled"

[12oz Jesus]

Before getting to the meat of my thoughts, I'd like to point out that I recognize 2 things: 1. I have searched and I am aware of the previous discussion and "No" consensus stated by a dev regarding persistence. 2. This mod is its own game (and a very good one at that) and is not trying to be other games or their direct competitors.

That out of the way, my reflection and observations are based on the simple truths that MWLL is fun for a while but doesn't always keep the interest of players (incuding myself) long-term and that the player base of this fantastic mod is MUCH lower than it should be.  The mod (game) should be the worthy successor of such wildly popular free mods such as Counter-Strike or Red Orchestra but instead, IMHO, has fallen prey to gamers who have been "spoiled" by the revolution of persistence.  And with persistence, hand-in-hand goes risk/reward of 1-death-per-match (reluctance to die rather than quick respawn).

What seemed like a gimmick when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and whatever other games really perfected the implementation, became one of the greatest revolutions to gamers - credit for time played.  Who wants to start over every time they re-start a game or map?  As much as our intellect tells us it is just cheese, our inner boy/girl can't help but giggle with glee (on the inside, of course) every time we unlock some new toy or ability.  Case in point, World of Tanks is not half the game that MWLL is visually, mechaniclly, or feature-wise... but its playerbase is astoundingly larger.  My explanation/theory is simply: persistence and reward.

Long post summarized: Implement 1 mode only that utilizes some form of persistent reward in a 1-death-per-round/objective capture mode to gauge its popularity.  If it doesn't work, the mode can be changed or even trashed and you say we tried to find the golden egg but came up short.  If it does work....

The sort of persistence I would suggest is rank - which equates to starting money per round.  Buying each chasis ala World of Tanks probably would cut down on diversity and be a bit unruly given the number of choices.  Rank points (for lack of a better name at this point) would be earned for damage done rather than just kills and would be multiplied for damaging/killing larger mechs and higher ranked players such that newer players gain a bit faster at start and tends to lean toward equalizing players rather than "rich get richer" models.  Naturally, the winners of the round (all vehicles destroyed or objective accomplished) get a 50% bonus to points.

In addition to feeling like the player is rewarded for play-time, different classes and roles for mechs/vehicles will have a more consistent place in battles such that it isn't all lights to start, then mostly heavies near end of a 40 minute match.  win-win for those who love lights/mediums and for those who enjoy more diverse tactical features.

Example: I join a battle as a Lance Captain (I forget acual names, bear with me) and have 62,500 credits to buy my mech/ammo - I start in a medium.  My teammate joins as a Star Colonel and has 84,000 - he starts in a heavy.  Teams are balanced by ranks.

Call me crazy or say I "don't get this mod" if you'd like, but I just wanted to offer my thoughts.  As this is more a philosophical discussion than feature suggestion, I posted in this forum rather than "Suggestions".  I'm a big boy, criticize away!

[CGB [CoffiNail]]

I play nightly, usually for two hours on average... Do you really want the Vets starting with something that can SMASH lights, there would be no progression for new players as they would get crushed to death if people who played longer started with more money.

[Ghiest]

The thing with most persistent games are that you can kill just as well with the standard weapons as you can with the customised versions (in fact some of the 'unlocked' stuff is actually allot worse).  Giving such a bonus in MWLL would be a death knell to any newbies joining because having a boost to starting cash to vets would mean you get your ass rolled in second instead of minutes of battle, and as we all know it just ain't fun getting your ass kicked when you have zero way to come back against it.

[12oz Jesus]

with all due respect and I am sincere in my question: Neither of you read the whole post did you?  Perhaps I was less clear than i thought in my attempt at some brevity, but what I am proposing/discussing would NOT involve newbies getting insta-killed unless they were dumb enough to take their Raven and charge ahead of their own team's heavies and assaults to take on the "vets" in their Atlas.  I also made no mention of special weapons as bonuses - only rank and money to buy the vehicles and variants we already have.

A newbie in a Raven or LRM boat knows that their place is as support.  Find a rock or hill to hide behind and let your own team's heavier mechs take the damage while they scout or shoot-and-duck (while getting valuable ponts and providing roles that the heavies just don't do well).  In addition, the higher ranked heavies on the other team get far less points for squishing a Raven than they would for that Warhammer that is lighting them up.  Lastly, this is for 1 round, not a 60-minute match.  Make a mistake?  Learn from the burning debris of your light mech and take the lesson to the next match stating in 2 minutes.

Ask a World of Tanks (or any of the numerous other persistent reward games) player or check out the forums of said games.  The system works and it is fun.

[Ghiest]

And ill just say again that due to the limits of crysis you wouldn't have tier matching / skill matching so any persistence would be a kick in the balls to any newbies out there even if you try and restrict them to support (hey that would be so much fun right?)

World of tanks works because the tanks are tiered, you get something like a group of 4-6 sub-set of tanks that are all fairly equal then you onto the next tier of tanks which are bigger and better.  The lobby matches you to the right tank tier.  If you were placed against tier 4 tanks in the first tier because that's how it would turn out.  That's how it would be because there will never be tier matching with crysis wars.

[xDeityx]

I immediately stopped reading your post when I got to this part:

The sort of persistence I would suggest is rank - which equates to starting money per round. 

The good players already shit all over the rest because of how easy it is for them to make money and have better assets than everyone else.  Why would you think exacerbating that problem would be beneficial in any way?

Maybe there should be persistent rewards, maybe there shouldn't be, but using c-bills as that reward would be disasterous.

Also, many players enjoy starting with a small amount of money and working their way up.  Consider this not-so-absurd reductio: If your suggestion were implemented, eventually it would reach the point where everyone could immediately afford whatever asset they wanted, and the c-bill/rank system would be totally invalid.

/thread

[SquareSphere }12thVR{]

I actually do think this was as well written OP.  While I'm with the vets on the "more starting money for ranks idea",  the over all suggestion of most players of mods/games have been spoiled by "time invested" rewards is completely valid.

Obviously, persistent rewards that can affect gameplay is NOT the way to go, as pointed by my colleagues.  However, small amounts of meta game achievements, like "Top Gun: kill 5 targets using an aero in 1 life" can help those wanting persistent goals.

The other idea that's commonly floated is taking the pub matches' out come and applying it to an large Meta game of "who controls the planets"  Ie if the Clan faction wins a map it added to a Campaign Total and after each week the Campaign is reset.

One sort of persistence I would love is Community Badges, where if you are a participant in a special event like the Dragoon's tourney or a Large Planetary league battle you could earn stripes/badges for the event.

Of course all these are nice to haves and would purely be fore "fun", at the end of the day though they will probably end up on the back burner until we reach 1.0

[CGB [CoffiNail]]

with all due respect and I am sincere in my question: Neither of you read the whole post did you?  Perhaps I was less clear than i thought in my attempt at some brevity, but what I am proposing/discussing would NOT involve newbies getting insta-killed unless they were dumb enough to take their Raven and charge ahead of their own team's heavies and assaults to take on the "vets" in their Atlas.  I also made no mention of special weapons as bonuses - only rank and money to buy the vehicles and variants we already have.

A newbie in a Raven or LRM boat knows that their place is as support.  Find a rock or hill to hide behind and let your own team's heavier mechs take the damage while they scout or shoot-and-duck (while getting valuable ponts and providing roles that the heavies just don't do well).  In addition, the higher ranked heavies on the other team get far less points for squishing a Raven than they would for that Warhammer that is lighting them up.  Lastly, this is for 1 round, not a 60-minute match.  Make a mistake?  Learn from the burning debris of your light mech and take the lesson to the next match stating in 2 minutes.

Ask a World of Tanks (or any of the numerous other persistent reward games) player or check out the forums of said games.  The system works and it is fun.

I actually read your whole post.

This is a mechwarrior game, in which all past games have had YOU in what ever mech you want going up against a group of mechs of all sizes, and you came out a winner. Okay sometimes you had a couple lancemates or something, but really it was you vs the inner sphere.  People ALWAYS come in to this game with that thought. Big robots = invincible, shmuck you up.

You obviously do not play a lot.  The amount of times you see people keep running one at a time to a group of enemies, continuously, for like 30 minutes until one of the vets on the team gets sick of it and tells them to group up and fight as a team...  Yeah, those guys in the light mechs really are thinking they are support running up to a group of assault and clan heavys in their lone starting rank kit fox/uller prime.

World of tanks you are a tank, you need to stick together because you are a tank. In Mechwarrior you are in a walking war machine capable of leveling city blocks yourself.

*edited to add in from SquareSphere*

See something like that is interesting.  Something that is more flash than anything is nice idea.  Just anything ingame would make it a lot less fun for newbies...

[xDeityx]

Achievements I hate, and when we tried to do a persistant 24-hour TC game it was a flash in the pan that lasted for a week, if that.  I can't imagine there'd be much interest in a weekly resetting campaign mode by the general community.  The only people that I can see getting into that are those of us who are already in love with MWLL, and we've got a Planetary League in the works that will be better than that anyway.

If the devs felt like adding persistant aspects of any sort to the game, I'm sure it would be just about the last thing on the priority list considering they've already got plans for what they want to accomplish all the way out to 1.0.

[Odd]

Not that I think persistence can/will/should make it into the game, but if it did...

Why not persistent penalties!?
Say a player tends to take a certain mech or mechs out much more frequently than others (and does well with it).
Well, why not make those mechs more expensive for that player?
Bragging rights: "My Sparrowhawk cost me 60k!"

Or, have the first on the field for a team be normal price, the next (if the first is still actually on the field) a bit more expensive, etc.  (in other words, more variety in what is fielded).

Again, not that I think this should happen, but it would certainly be more interesting than giving me more money at the start of the round.
If it were possible (for rewards or penalties), I would think it should be server settings for existing modes, and that only a few servers should turn it on.


I could see the following as a possibly interesting option:

• Ability for the server to choose which direction to move through the map rotation depending on previous winner (one end is a Clan "homeworld", the other is an IS faction "homeworld").
• Ability for the server to display a "Worlds held" count at the beginning of the round (much like the "welcome, here are the rules" messages)
• Middle maps could be well balanced, end of list maps could possibly favor the "home team" more and more (if there were enough maps to have such).

I have no idea if even something as simple as this is an option in CW, but it should be reasonably easy if:

• the CW server reads in the maps rotation list between rounds (but I think it reads it at startup), and
• it also reads the in game message at the start of the round (again, I'm betting at startup, but this could possibly be an automated admin message)
• results of a round can be accessed outside of the CW server

I have no idea about the game engine, so this is just my cheap ½¢ along the lines of "wouldn't it be nice...".

Edit: just fixing misspellings. 

[Ressk [CSF]]

tee hee persistent penalites, vets have to work harder to get their "good shit" rolling.

i can see problems and benefits there.

and the less this game looks like the mainstream, the more i like it. maybe we just need advertising.

[Bloodycrow]

That out of the way, my reflection and observations are based on the simple truths that MWLL is fun for a while but doesn't always keep the interest of players (incuding myself) long-term and that the player base of this fantastic mod is MUCH lower than it should be.  The mod (game) should be the worthy successor of such wildly popular free mods such as Counter-Strike or Red Orchestra but instead, IMHO, has fallen prey to gamers who have been "spoiled" by the revolution of persistence.  And with persistence, hand-in-hand goes risk/reward of 1-death-per-match (reluctance to die rather than quick respawn).

I won't disagree with you here, but I personally think the player base is lower due to the technical hurdles in playing this mod; not only do you need a high end system to even get a decent playable look-and-feel (read:FPS) but just getting the mod up and running and be able to join servers is somewhat a hassle that some gamers just aren't willing to put the effort into.

I do completely agree that it seems only hardcore Mechwarror fans are the ones that stick around and play this mod consistently, and while that does limit the community size drastically and keep this mod out of the limelight that it deserves, I can't help but think: "what's so bad about that?"

[Bill]

This thread is interesting, I'm going to wait to see a few more posts before I wade in with my dumbfounded opinion.

[=CJW=YalK]

Op, it's a good idea....just not here, I'm afraid....

You know what games I don't play anymore? CoD and WoT

You know what game (singular) I've played for over a year at least 3-4 times a week? MWLL

Wanna know why? (Other than I've been a raving BT fan since I was 7)

WoT (beta): bought the Pershing (high level medium)
CoD: Prestiged 6 times (don't hate, my friends played alot so I did too)

CoD I got burnt out on, namely because the best stuff you get at lvl 1- 18 and it's just as repetitive so ranking doesn't help and WoT might as well be called "World of Grinding"

As an aside, WoT had it's problems.....ones that argue against you, being I can't count the number of times I was in a Sherman or light tank (Tier 4-5) and got put into tier (8-9) battles....yay, insta gib here I come

Anyway, the draw for me and MWLL is I can get on and play with whatever I want, when I want...I work for a living, so no time for grinding.....

(Wade on in Bill, the waters fine)

[Taemien]

The charm of MWLL is that everyone starts out in lights and the game progresses each game. Due to the number of variants and the fact that they are tailored to being good for situations means that each game is different.

I don't think I've seen the same assets used game after game (or when they are, that team is the losing one). In order for Light mechs to be used after the game has matured (meaning ranks and starting cash is top heavy in the community), they would need to have heavily specialized roles, even more then they already do.

This means each and every asset would need to be rebalanced.


Your idea, OP, is sound about keeping the number of ranks even per side. However. It has one GLARING flaw. The people that grind and play the most will always be at the top. The best best veterans won't always have the ability or time to get the heavier assets at all. Only the ones who play hours and hours a day who might not even be very good.

With the current system. Each new game is a means of getting to the top. Each person has an equal chance to get the best mechs out there. IMO the current system is the most fair to both new guys, people in the middle, and vets. Each has an opportunity each game to get in just about anything.

If it was changed to keeping rank from game to game. I wouldn't play this mod. I like the raven, but being stuck in it for weeks because I only play once or twice a week wouldn't be that fair. You shouldn't be rewarded for playing the game, playing the game IS the reward.