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

[Flyingdebris]

Here's an idea


Lets say for one, that vehicle nicknames appear in the targeting info of other players.
Now lets say that for whenever you meet some milestone with any given vehicle.  Maybe some combination of time spent piloting/kills/times purchased or something. You are allowed the option to give a name to that variant and add it to your buy menu.

So then players can essentially come up with their own unique nicknames for their favorite machines, and for whenever the mechlab comes out, give names to their customs that other players can see.

It has zero affect on actual gameplay, even if people try and hack it or farm to get the points, it would offer zero advantage, but it'd be a neat little touch to give people the feel that this is THEIR mech/tank/aero/vtol

[derpaderp]

this game does not need a complex system of rewards/achievements, the current cbill system is pretty good imo (you don't need kills to earn money, for one, i LOVE that), the problem is mainly with rounds too easily becoming one-sided, particularly the maps without all the assets available

i just got off a horrendous round of Marshes where i switched to the other team a few minutes in to balance them out, all the vets on my former team said "Hey thanks for switching, derp" and proceeded to roflstomp me for the next 45mins; i was keeping a consistently high score and was at the forefront of all the major pushes that ended up being satisfying but all too brief point caps for my team, not just because my team had a lot of quiet types but we were all pretty much inevitably stuck in subpar assets, and it's not like i could beg them for money just so i could buy an MKII and faceroll what few meds/heavies i could find, we were all broke and it just didn't make any sense to me to try and be superman in a light asset for a couple deaths by myself just to save up money, wouldn't have helped my team one bit

i really felt like if i could get some ASF in the air i could've maybe at least picked off lighter guys around the map a lot easier and told my teammates where to cap, etc; thunder rift is a good exception to what im saying though, i hated that map at first but its grown on me a lot

point is, there needs to be something that can give the team with the lesser momentum a chance to build some back up, it needs to be fairly obvious to new players but it can't be too helpful nor can the winning team be totally excluded from its benefits; that, or the servers just need some better admin presence to mix the teams up when need be, i cant even remember the last round i played with an admin around

im not trying to be confrontational here, but i've been playing a lot of lopsided rounds lately and it's starting to get frustrating

[Flyingdebris]

listen to the recent dev interview on youtube, they're talking about a variant of TC called domination, where each base gained by your team transfers a lump sum of tickets to your team, and takes that equivalent amount away from the enemy.  Allowing for much more back and forth, and late game comebacks.

[Deathbane]

Here's an idea


Lets say for one, that vehicle nicknames appear in the targeting info of other players.
Now lets say that for whenever you meet some milestone with any given vehicle.  Maybe some combination of time spent piloting/kills/times purchased or something. You are allowed the option to give a name to that variant and add it to your buy menu.

So then players can essentially come up with their own unique nicknames for their favorite machines, and for whenever the mechlab comes out, give names to their customs that other players can see.

It has zero affect on actual gameplay, even if people try and hack it or farm to get the points, it would offer zero advantage, but it'd be a neat little touch to give people the feel that this is THEIR mech/tank/aero/vtol

This idea is actually pretty cool. Anything to do with increasing personalisation will help make the abttlefield feel slightly less sterile as we go forward.

[=CJW= Bin Fish]

It is obvious.

Mechlab is needed. That is/was/has/always will be the thing that defines the mechwarrior series.

Maybe this could come into the game in a drip fed way, where the longer you play the more things you can change.
But also contained within the aforementioned requisition points.

i.e, starts with so many hours played letting you change names, or icons/decals/paint on the mechs.
Then uses up req points to changing small weapon pods.
Then uses up req through the weapon pods to assault/siege.
Then with hours played and req points to adjust speed/chassis/armour, to make make people really work for those glass boats.

Then these would become optional purchases during a game at an equal price to whatever the A variant is.
Unless of course by this time the devs have worked out a level pricing structure for each chassis and pod/weapon/system.
Then is could be bought on its own individual cost basis.

You would only be allowed to have one variant of each chassis to stop things getting silly and would also keep people experimenting with different weapons.
This would hold off the stale feeling we sometimes get playing several rounds of the same old mechs, knowing exactly what kind of heat they are packing.

The requisition points will have to be tied into the K/D ratio and or RANK though as well to stop mindless damage spamming or people joining games and being no help at all just waiting out rounds to get more req.

This is the only game breaker that sours my MWLL experience. Everything else is already so much more than I could have asked for. I bow to you dear devs. Apart from you Bane. You get special CJW luvvins.

I know the idea I have suggested is probably well outside of the coding you are allowed to use/bend to your will. But I hope I have given some ideas and leave you with what all this eventually boils down to.

Personalisation for the way you personally want to play.

[Bill]

Got to partially disagree with you here BinBro.

Anything that rewards (with gameplay affecting stuffs) hours of gameplay over actual skill is a no no for me.

Personally I'm very dubious of the mechlab making it into the game without some sort of proper balancing, I feel the boat tax is likely the way forward for this myself.

I do however like the idea of hours rewarding players with personalisation and such. Paint schemes and all that.

I'm still sitting this one out for the most part, but it's pretty cool seeing the divergence of opinions on this subject.

[=CJW= Bin Fish]

Got to partially disagree with you here BinBro.
...
Personally I'm very dubious of the mechlab making it into the game without some sort of proper balancing, I feel the boat tax is likely the way forward for this myself.

Yeah, that's why I said the drip feed approach. Stops people doing grinding crap for hours and then going "look at my uber ERMBL boat of doom with minmax armour/speed."
That would suck.

Would need to be added over time, and reward skill through a combo of rank achieved and kills to deaths over a period of time played. But hey, that is what beta testing is for. To help the devs make us even happier.

[Odd]

I just skimmed, so I hope I didn't miss anything related to this, but:

For LTS, why not base it on TC rather than SA/TSA?  No re-spawns, and decided by "tickets" if one team gets to zero
(tickets would really be a diminishing score, not a number of re-spawns/reinforcements left).
That would prevent camping in main bases/hangers, since you would certainly lose if you did.

And for LMS, is there a way to extend the time one can be out of bounds?  If so, is there a way to make hangers out of bounds?  If yes to both:
Can't make it out on the field in the first minute?  You lose, move faster next time.

[Brainwright]

Here's an idea


Lets say for one, that vehicle nicknames appear in the targeting info of other players.
Now lets say that for whenever you meet some milestone with any given vehicle.  Maybe some combination of time spent piloting/kills/times purchased or something. You are allowed the option to give a name to that variant and add it to your buy menu.

So then players can essentially come up with their own unique nicknames for their favorite machines, and for whenever the mechlab comes out, give names to their customs that other players can see.

It has zero affect on actual gameplay, even if people try and hack it or farm to get the points, it would offer zero advantage, but it'd be a neat little touch to give people the feel that this is THEIR mech/tank/aero/vtol

While I like the idea, I'll just say that it's a little demanding on the players.  We like to look down on the drunken frat boys who come up with classic names like, "ButtRaper," and, "kiCkinyoFACELOLO," but seriously, they don't have many other good names to choose from.

Just tossing out an idea, a series of rankings for each asset where top performing players will receive custom asset nicknames for the top ranks might be a cool addition.