f13.net

Community Warfare - Phase 2

Sept 10, 2014

Hey folks,

I'm here to give you the opening high level details of Community Warfare - Phase 2. This is where you will be able to partake in the overarching story/progression of MWO's Inner Sphere/Clan conflict.
What I've included below are cut and paste segments from the master design document for Community Warfare. The stuff not included is the technical details used to inform the engineers and artists what is required for each heading. The purpose of this is to give you an outline of what to expect for Community Warfare - Phase 2.

I know you will have a ton of questions regarding more detail for each category and here is what I am planning to do to address this.
Every 2 weeks, I will be updating the progress of these features and answering the most asked questions. I can guarantee you this, I will not be able to answer every single question, but I hope to cover the biggest questions at a minimum. This means that the first update and FAQ responses will be on Wed. Sept 24,2014. I will ask Niko and the rest of the CSR team to compile a list of questions and I'll answer everything I can.

You can post your questions here: Questions on Phase 2 - Part 1
Please keep your questions on topic and concise. I will not have the time to engage in debate but I will address your questions as openly as I can. Do not misconstrue this as not taking feedback, your questions alone indicate what you'd like to see or know more about, I just won't have the time to have a lot of back and forth dialog as I am working directly with the team as they build CW. I just want to be able to open the doors a little wider so you can see the progress of this major milestone of MWO's development unfold.

That being said, here's the first release of information:



OPT-IN TO COMMUNITY WARFARE

When a player clicks the Faction tab, they are opting into Community Warfare gameplay. This means they will be accepting the fact that teams will be split into IS vs Clan ‘Mechs and cannot mix the two technologies.



INTERACTIVE INNER-SPHERE MAP

The Inner-Sphere Map displays the status of the Inner Sphere in terms of borders and conflicts. It shows all planets that we have data for.



INTERACTIVITY

Players can pan the map.
Players can zoom in/out on the map.
Players can click a planet.



PLANET DETAILS

When a planet is clicked, an information panel should show the planet’s detailed information:
Planet Name
Planet Faction Affiliation
Occupying Unit (If applicable)
Any lore from BT we can add (Population, temperature, lore facts)
Indicate if the planet is contested or not (see below)



CONTESTED PLANETS

When a planet is contested, the warring factions are fighting over who will control the planet and reap the associated rewards. For each planet, there is an attacking Faction Unit and a defending Faction Unit.
Contested planets are specially marked on the IS map and can be identified at all zoom levels.
Contested planets are assignable by the design team.



ENGAGING IN PLANETARY CONQUEST

During peak player count times throughout the day, planetary control matches will be kicked off within the Faction tab. Players will see planets on the Inner Sphere map which are currently contested and be able to choose to be part of the fight.



A PLAYER’S FACTION SELECTION

The faction a player has aligned to will be a hard rule as to which ‘Mechs they can use and which planets they can attack/defend.



GROUPS IN COMMUNITY WARFARE

Groups in community warfare will be hard limited to players in the same unit. This is to re-enforce faction gameplay so you will not see groups of mixed Kurita and Davion for example.



INITIATING AN ATTACK

Initial plan is to have initiation of an attack can only be done by a 12-man unit group. The group leader will select a planet and click the attack button.



PRIORITIZATION OF GROUPS

Attacking groups are always placed in a single queue in a first-in first-out logistics order (FIFO). Defending groups are placed in queue and are given the opportunity to choose their group’s ‘Mech weight class build to meet the requirements of the defending team for the given match.



DEFENDING TEAM QUEUE

There are 2 types of defenders for a planet. Contract defenders are the Unit that won the right to defend a planet through the bidding system. Faction defenders are the rest of the players who can defend the planet but are not part of the contract defending unit.



CONTRACT DEFENDERS

When an attack is first triggered, a notification is sent to all members of the unit that is part of the contract defenders.
The contract defenders have [2] minutes to respond by creating a 12-man unit team and clicking the defend button.



FACTION DEFENDERS

If the [2] minute limit expires, the remaining slots available on the team are made publically available.
When this release to faction defenders happens, all faction players are notified via an in-game messaging system.
The remaining slots are filled by faction defenders in priority order in which they clicked the defend button.
Faction defenders when allowed to join a team are given [30] seconds to choose their ‘Mechs to fit the available slots.



DROP DECKS

A drop deck is a selection of 4 ‘Mechs in the player’s inventory. Each of the 4 ‘Mechs must be one of each weight class (one light, one medium, one heavy, one assault). All 4 ‘Mechs must belong to the same technology core (IS or Clan). The Drop Deck is a means for the player to quickly choose their favorite ‘Mech of a specific weight class when in the defender queue outlined above.
The Drop Deck will display the following:
Currently chosen Light ‘Mech thumbnail
Currently chosen Medium ‘Mech thumbnail
Currently chosen Heavy ‘Mech thumbnail
Current chosen Assault ‘Mech thumbnail
A drop down in each 'Mech panel will allow the player to change a 'Mech for an owned, same weight class 'Mech.



PLANETARY CONQUEST GAME-MODE

This new game mode and map is planned to be part of the map/game mode cycle of matches for Community Warfare.
To make taking a planet feel epic, a new game mode would bring the feeling of longer matches and standoffs. Instead of playing a series of death match games to decide who conquers a planet, this new attack/defend game mode would let players feel like they’re truly fighting over something.
Invasion incorporates an attacking drop zone (where attackers spawn) and a defensive base (defenders spawn). The idea is that the attackers destroy the defenders base and defensive structures. At a severe choke point location on the map, a set of defensive barriers prevent the attackers (those who do not have jump jets) from proceeding beyond this point. If the attackers use high ground positions and take out the power plants holding the magnetic doors shut, the doors will lose power and a safety mechanic opens the doors allowing the attackers through.



INVASION MODE - MAP REQUIREMENTS

Maps must have longer travel times to point of first contact. This is important because it also increases the time it takes for re-enforcements (respawns) to arrive back into battle.
Maps must have multiple choke points that encase the defensive barriers. Too few choke points and the defenders will have too great of an advantage focus firing on the points of passage.
Choke points must provide some means of destroying power generators on the defender’s side of the defensive barriers.
Choke points should be protected by defensive turrets.
Defensive barriers should be connected to a power plant.
Destroying power plants open the connected barriers.
Gates should open slowly allowing players to “slice the pie” and engage.
Light ‘Mechs with jump jets should be able to barely make it over the barriers if they so choose.

When an attack is first triggered, a notification is sent to all members of the unit that is part of the contract defenders.
The contract defenders have [2] minutes to respond by creating a 12-man unit team and clicking the defend button

ENGAGING IN PLANETARY CONQUEST

During peak player count times throughout the day, planetary control matches will be kicked off within the Faction tab. Players will see planets on the Inner Sphere map which are currently contested and be able to choose to be part of the fight.


INITIATING AN ATTACK

Initial plan is to have initiation of an attack can only be done by a 12-man unit group. The group leader will select a planet and click the attack button.


DEFENDING TEAM QUEUE

There are 2 types of defenders for a planet. Contract defenders are the Unit that won the right to defend a planet through the bidding system. Faction defenders are the rest of the players who can defend the planet but are not part of the contract defending unit.


FACTION DEFENDERS

If the [2] minute limit expires, the remaining slots available on the team are made publically available.
When this release to faction defenders happens, all faction players are notified via an in-game messaging system.
The remaining slots are filled by faction defenders in priority order in which they clicked the defend button.
Faction defenders when allowed to join a team are given [30] seconds to choose their ‘Mechs to fit the available slots.

When you click the Faction tab, the only 'Mechs you'll be able to use from that point on (while participating in CW) are the 'Mechs associated with your account Faction setting. For example, you are currently set to "Merc Unit". This is an Inner Sphere setting. The only 'Mechs you can take into combat in Community Warfare are your IS 'Mechs. You will be joining your unit and other IS players in the war against the Clans.

If you leave the Faction tab on the main menu and return back to normal public play, all of your 'Mechs are available (both Clan and IS). Teams in public play are mixed technology exactly how the game is playing right now.

So yes, Community Warfare(Faction Tab) is 100% Clans vs IS. Public play (not in the Faction Tab) is mixed tech smashy 'Mech madness.. just like it is right now.

As for the timer on how fast someone can respond to the call to arms, it is both tunable, and that first 2 minutes is allocated so that the Unit who has defensive rights to the planet have priority to answer the call to battle. Remember, the battles take place during set hours throughout the day (peak player times like North America - West Coast, North America - East Coast, EU, Pacific whichever times have high player populations). If your unit has the defensive rights on a planet, it would be in your unit's best interest to be around during those peak times. If you are not around, you will be relying on your fellow faction players to defend the planet for you (who get invited after the 2 minute timer times out).

Merc Units/Lone Wolves = IS

Dagger Star = Clan

Lone wolf players are free to join into the foray, they can step into any battle to defend their home planets. In this case it would be any IS planet being attacked by the Clans.

Question: I guess we'll have to see how this goes... But if, for example, I'm with a merc unit, and not affiliated with any faction per se (house, clan, etc), what impact does that have on us? I primarily pilot clan mechs, but I still have IS mechs. Does this force me to have pilot IS mechs if someone else in our unit attacks a target?

Answer: When you joined your Unit, you should have been prompted to let you know that your faction will be realigned with the Unit creator's faction. If your Unit creator is Kurita, Liao, Steiner, Marik, Davion, FRR, Merc Unit, Lone Wolf, you will be fighting for the Inner Sphere against the Clans. If your Unit creator is Clan Wolf, Clan Smoke Jaguar, Clan Jade Falcon, Clan Ghost Bear or Dagger Star, you will be fighting for the Clans against the Inner Sphere.

Your forum badge shows that you're aligned with Clan Wolf. If your Unit group attacks a planet, it's going to be an IS controlled planet in IS territory. You will all be required to use your Clan 'Mechs in the battle.

Question: It appears that at first it will be the larger Factions/Clans/Merc groups that will be able to take on contracts - ie those groups that can field a 12 person team immediately. Are their any plans to allow the smaller groups to be able to take on contracts for attacking defending planets? Ie - a Possibility that more than 1 contracted group be dropping together. I ask this because otherwise you may find only a limited number of large groups controlling CW because of their ability to drops 12 mans and possibly even undermine the bidding ability of smaller groups.

Answer: There is a bidding system that will be going in that will scale with the size of a Unit that will allow smaller Units to bid on planets. However, the smallest Unit that can trigger an attack is 12 members. Units with smaller member counts will still be able to participate in a defensive manner but the actual triggering of an attack must be done with 12 players. More on the bidding system will be coming in the next update.

Question: Two questions, off the top of my head:

What value will non-jump capable lights have if they cannot circumvent chokepoints?
Why is the disabling the gate control a jump-sniping challenge? Why not just make the gate destructible, and make disabling the generator a quick mode to taking out the gate and turrets?

Answer: 1) Maps are designed to allow the game mode to progress even if there are NO jump jet 'Mechs on a team. The bullet point was provided to give a sense of scale as to how high the gates will be. Light JJ equipped 'Mechs may not want to jump over that gate too quickly as they are probably jumping into a lion's pit on the other side. But sneaky guys might get by.

2) Again, the gates can be opened without a JJ capable 'Mech.

Rest assured, solo, teams of 2-11 and 12-mans can all partake in CW.

Question: So as a member of a merc corps, will we be able to change our faction alignment at any time in order to use our full inventory of mechs and participate in multiple conflicts? Or once Phase 2 is released, will our groups current choice be locked in and us unable to change it in order to play with mechs of other factions

Answer: Once you enter the Faction Tab your Unit group is locked to your aligned Faction's 'Mechs. Units cannot switch Factions once in the CW area of the game.

That being said, this functionality (a cooldown of sorts) you're talking about may prevent a large Unit (ugh.. I'm gonna catch hell over saying that aren't I?) from repeatedly attacking a planet over and over again.

Question: Question: Any chance we can have larger than four Decks? Maybe one of each weight class + a couple optional "Any class" slots? That way we could quickly choose between a couple alternate mechs for our preferred weight classes. I might want to quickly be able to choose between a long range support medium mech, and a short range brawler medium mech.

Answer: In a recent meeting, we discussed the option to allow players to click some sort of button on a slot in the drop deck which would allow you to choose a 'Mech from that weight class slot from your inventory. e.g. You have a Jenner in your light slot. You could click the little button on the slot and drop down and select your Raven instead.

Question: Question(s): How will the mech restriction be handled in this phase? Will we see situations where we are forced to choose from an even more specific list of mechs based on the planet's resources and/or faction? Or are you just implementing that on Phase 3?

Answer: This is something Russ is breathing down our neck about.  :)

Our goal is to eventually support ISvsIS and ClanvsClan as well as maybe things like 3025 Tech only, or some specific lore based battle where only a small subset of 'Mechs are available. I'll inform more as we investigate this part of Faction play.

Question: Sounds like the slots will be filled with randos. Will you be able to drop with an incomplete drop deck, or will Clan players need to purchase four (really twelve!) 'mechs? Will there be weight class restrictions for some planets, ala MPBT3025, where some planets only allowed pilots to use light or medium 'mechs? Will there be any actual benefit to the units/houses/clans based on owning numbers of planets, or even certain planets? (ie increased match rewards or discounts on certain variants of mechs, or weapons, or even modules?)

Answer: Incomplete Drop Decks will not be allowed, however when Phase 2 goes live, Clans should have a full stable of trial 'Mechs available.

See my answer above for your next question.. it's something we're looking into when it comes to very restricted 'Mechs for specific battles. Community Warfare is basically straight up IS vs Clan.

This is something else we've been talking about and a reward structure will be defined in a future post. Currently the plan is to just focus on the fight between IS and Clan and have the IS map change as the war rages on. Faction rewards, as I said, are still on the drawing board at this moment but it is something we're interested in doing.

Question: What sort of incentive will units have to recruit new less skilled player and train them up? Should it better to have a small unit with high average skill level? Or a large unit with a lower average skill, but more pilots and mechs. Will either be viable ways of running a unit? Or will it be advantagious to purge low skilled members from a group up to the point where it would adversely affect your abilitiy to reliably field a 12 man team.

Answer: How you build your Units is completely in your hands. If you field recruits or just seasoned veterans, your entire Faction as a whole will benefit from just being good team players no matter who you're playing with. Mentioned earlier in one of my answers was a bidding system. This system will help you decide as a Unit how big you want to be and really focus on having active players in your Unit. Having a large Unit with a large population of non-active members might not work out for the best.

Question: What about logistics? Repair and rearm? Will you just throw infinite free mechs at a planet to take it? Will there be no supply chain or jumpship requirements to bring up replacements? Will you have any of these types of systems in?

Answer: Phase 2 will not include logistics. The amount of development for logistics is just too big in scope to get into Phase 2. This has always been something we've wanted to do. Bryan even talked about it at the Launch Event. We know the fun factor that would come with logistical Unit management but we cannot put this in right at the moment. It it scrapped and completely off the table? Not in the slightest. We just want to make sure the core of the Inner Sphere vs the Clans was in place first before scoping out features like logistics.

Question: This system begs the question - why aren't there built in tools for (solo) players to find teams? Also, why isn't there a system to find players for a 12-man, since 12-mans are difficult to construct?

Answer: This is something we've always pondered and discussed. One issue is that we do not have a server browser because players are not connected to a server until they drop into a match. This is something we do want to tackle but it will not be done until after CW Phase 2.

Question: Is it one match and the winner take/keeps the planet or can there multiple invasion maps per planet?
Can you explain how the "respawn" mechanic will work? What about solo faction players?

Answer: The plan is that combat for planets happen during specific time periods throughout a day. Over the period of 3-days, wins are tallied for each Faction (IS vs Clan). At the end of the 3-day period, the Faction with the most wins will take the planet.

That respawn thing wasn't really supposed to be there... yet..  :ph34r: . The reason is we are trying to figure out a way to do it that makes sense from both a gameplay and canon sense. One thing we've always been against is creating an infinite "respawn" mode turning MWO into a CoD type shooter.

Solo Faction players: see other responses.

Question: By kicking off planetary conquest instance throughout peak player counts, I assume you mean primetime in the different zones around the world including Oceana, and Europe?

Answer: That is exactly correct.

WE HAVE (already) ENGINEERED THE GAME MODE AND THE MAP IS BEING TUNED.

Question: Thanks for the info...sounds fun as hell. My biggest concern is when will this be released. The reason I ask:
1. Dropship style respawns...not currently possible
2. New combat mode...not currently available
3. Chokepoint/gate mechanism...doesn't currently exists
4. New maps large enough to house number 3 and matter...wow nelly
5. New matchmaker mechanisms for team composition...not currently available
Lots of new stuff here...LOTS. I don't see how you complete this in the next couple of months. So what timeframe are we looking at here?

Answer: 1) Engineers almost choked me out over this
2) Engineering of the new game mode has been done.
3) Chokepoint/gate Mechanism completed
4) Map layout for 3 is done with tuning of game space being looked at.
5) New matchmaker mechanisms are part of Phase 2 development.

Question: Would you guys consider a maximum total tonnage system for selecting a player's respawn mechs? (For example, a 265t total limit allows for 100+75+55+35t) I understand the need to prevent assault spam, but what about players that specialize in the medium-light weight classes who potentially do not own or are not as comfortable with the heavier chassis?

Answer: As I mentioned in another post above... respawn is something we are investigating still.. no guarantee it will be part of the game mode. My bad for messing up the copy/paste but it is still something being actively discussed in the office.

Question: Will an assymetry between number of attacking pilots and defending pilots have any implications? If 240 pilots are on standby to defend against 24 attacking pilots, will the process be any different than if there were 24 available on each side, (would the attackers have to destroy more mechs, win more matches, or anything like that)?

Answer: There is a queuing system that is being engineered that will be discussed in a future post.

Question: Did i read correctly that there is not IS vs IS right now? So what do Liao do? they are not on the clan border?

Answer by Russ Bullock: No we haven't said that, true it is the clan invasion. But yes this whole system will allow us to have IS vs IS battles.

Question: Thanks, Russ - Paul did nto communicate that clearly he said IS vs IS and Clan vs Clan would come later ... i assume he meant clan vs clan only? In any case i figured you had to have IS vs IS.

Answer by Russ Bullock: We'll it's true the clan invasion is the priority. Later in this case wouldn't mean very long at all and POSSIBLY at the same time. Paul and I can discuss tomorrow.

Question: Wait what now? I thought we were on record from the townhall that each IS faction had its only list of available variants?

Answer by Russ Bullock: No. Let me know if I did blow it in the town hall, but I certainly meant IS and Clans - not down to the faction level.

Question: Will you have a 4-lives based Respawn system (i.e Light-Assault Mechs) instead of infinite respawns? It would be really disheartening if the latter was accepted since it offers no tactics and exploitable camping.

Answer: What I can guarantee is there will be no infinite re-spawns. We continue to discuss internally if a very limited re-spawn ability in the new game mode would be appropriate.

Question: Any plans to allow people to select people in their unit to be the Assault mech pilot, or Light pilot instead of making everyone pick one of each? Some people are just plain better in lights and terrible in heavies and assaults. It would be nice if we could assign people to their desired role so long as it doesn't break the rule of 3. I guess what I'm saying is I want to be able to put my aces in their places. Any plans for making room for groups of other sizes than 12, or is that where faction defenders come in at? Can we get an exact list of each factions mechs so we can start preparing ahead of time?

Answer: Your drop deck doesn't prevent you from doing what you're suggesting in terms of saying who pilots what. Think of the Drop Deck as a method of quick selecting a 'Mech weight class when it's your turn to enter the lobby and knowing the available open weight class slots.

Faction defenders are where the smaller than 12 groups reside.

Don't think of the 'Mech Faction restriction being House Liao 'Mechs only or Clan Wolf only. The Faction split is strictly Inner Sphere vs Clan.

Question: So, when should we expect to see the next round of mech balance tweaks? A whole lot of mechs are still terrible underperformers, and this is will be a real issue in Community warfare if we're going to be limited to mechs available to our factions. Any chance we'll see some community-directed balance changes for some of the underperforming mechs?

Answer by Russ Bullock: Next step is a full quirk pass on all IS mechs - working hard on this now and should help greatly for under performers.


Closing words from Russ Bullock:

All the other times we said we were working on this were a lie. But this time we're really working on it. Buy our new grab deal! If you spend $120 and spent $240 on the other clan pack you get a special extra mech!

fantastic.

No more piecemeal UI, maps and database changes to block them.

Now they can get delayed by real feature development issues.

as if they are actually building it properly as a feature instead of fucking around with a 2D map and text descriptions

Hey folks,

Russ and I would like to clear up the top concerns we saw in the feedback thread for Community Warfare - Phase 2.

Faction Switching - Making use of all of your 'Mech Inventory
We were looking at how the IS Map changes over time and how slow the pace would be if we controlled the release of planets to follow the actual invasion timeline. We had reservations about this for a while and with the current feedback from the community, we have started investigating the ability for units and players to switch factions at the end of a season. Seasons would last for [3] months (still to be determined), and at the end of the Season, the IS Map will reset and players will be able to change factions for participating in Community Warfare. This allows players who have plenty of 'Mechs in each faction stable to use them all in Community Warfare in stages. We think this is a fair tradeoff for both role playing aspects and player inventory aspects in relation to Community Warfare.


Inter-Faction Combat
While the primary conflict in Community Warfare is the faction war between Inner Sphere and Clan forces, we do understand the player desires to include the inter-faction conflicts between the Houses/Clans. These are the skirmishes between Davion and Kurita for example. We currently have the ability to put any planet/system on the map up for contention and can use this feature to kick of conflicts along the house borders and clan borders as well.

While our focus is Clan vs IS, there will be opportunities in Community Warfare for players to engage in inter-faction conflicts as well. Why shouldn't Liao be able to push into Davion space? We believe this will add some very interesting dynamics to Community Warfare along with the main Invasion conflict and will be adding this ability with Phase 2.


Respawns
So yesterday when I posted the information about Community Warfare - Part 2, I mentioned it was a copy and paste from the high level design doc. A few items were still being discussed so I pulled them to not put it out there quite yet. I wanted to release those other bits in the next update. But low and behold... 20 minutes after posting... Karl walked up to me and said... "You left respawn in there." After turning various shades of white/grey I saw the error. Too late.. people already commenting on it. Here's the clarification:

Originally it was planned to have 1.. ONE... respawn when the attackers breached the gate in the Invasion game mode. This gives the feeling of re-enforcements arriving because the respawn would happen in the player's respective bases. Basically players who died before the gate breach, would go into a stasis mode and observe like the current spectator mode. Once the gate was breached, everyone in stasis would respawn one time. People who had not died would have a "respawn in their pocket".

Now keep this in mind... I personally am not a fan of respawning but it just made sense for this type of game mode. Russ HATES respawns and when he saw the first design he was like "WOAH!!". So we were in talks about it. Engineering support is already done for it but everything was on hold until we made a concrete decision. Then I made the copy-paste error...

I met with the engineers involved with CW-Phase 2 and we started talking about the game mode and the idea of respawn. Wayyy back in closed Beta everyone thought Drop Ship mode would be very cool... the ability to bring in up to 4 'Mechs (1 of each Weight Class) into a match and choose non-destroyed 'Mechs to respawn back into the match with. This was a high technical risk back then and Drop Ship was put on the back burner.

In the meeting today and planning out how we will be incorporating the new game mode into Community Warfare to make a unique experience... Drop Ship came back up. Now let me tell you this... every time I mention Drop Ship, the engineering team (I'll call them Karl & Friends) would cringe back in fear with eyes that would make an anime character jealous. We all started talking.. what's best for the game?.. what would have to get done?.. everyone agreed the community would love something like Drop Ship.

I'm happy to let you know... Karl & Friends have decided bite the bullet and fully investigate the complete system requirements for Drop Ship mode. During this discussion we have found that this mode is not only cool, but it also helps with some of the match creation process that would be needed for Planetary Conquest matches. It's a scary undertaking but it's something that we are all passionate about in creating a very cool gaming experience for you the community.

Some players may have concerns about being forced into playing one of each 'Mech weight class during a Community Warfare match. Keep in mind that we've spent a lot of time creating a MechWarrior title where lights, mediums, heavies and assault all have a viable role to play on the battlefield. Bringing in your favorite 'Mech is not going to be hindered in any way and that the rest of your Drop Ship provides you with a means to support your Unit if you do happen to be destroyed in combat. Full 12-man Unit groups participating in CW might be able to ensure that they have exactly 12 'Mechs of each weight class among the 48 total. Random groups and Units that are showing up to defend will have little to no chance organizing which 'Mechs to prep and some people may end up needing to take nothing but 4 lights when they only pilot Assaults. Therefore the most balanced solution that will allow the most strategy amongst teams is to have each person bring one of each weight class into battle.

I cannot 100% guarantee Drop Ship mode at this moment, but everyone on board is going to try to make it happen. I will update you all on the final discovery in the next CW update.

Cimarb, on 11 September 2014 - 09:54 PM, said:
I think that all sounds great, except for the "seasonal reset"... That sounds horrible... Please, please, please do not do that. Talk about major immersion breaking! Especially just so whiny people will stop whining about not being able to run any mech at any time, because they STILL will not be able to do that even with this seasonal thing... I am all for compromise - love it - but that is just a poor way to do it.

Answer
We'll first off the length of the season is not determined yet, essentially it will be a determined length that captures the right amount of tension and excitement in watching the IS map being taken over. So I really don't think it's going to take away from immersion as you fear, but that for that thought - we will be keeping an eye on this.
Otherwise it seems just the right trade off to allow players to perhaps flip from clan to IS to not only get a chance to play their other mechs but perhaps to also try to cause a different outcome in the next season.
Also in talking with Jordan Weisman this is how they did it in the past product BT 3025 that everyone remembers so fondly (  :oh_i_see: ).


Geist Null, on 11 September 2014 - 11:42 PM, said:
oh how nice, you've decided to give the klan factions respawns as they tear across the inner sphere in their balanced mechs. so I guess if they each bring 1 of every weight class that's going to seriously boost sales for those timberwolves X12

Answer
Remember you can use trial mechs and they are all champions and pretty decent as is.


Cimarb, on 11 September 2014 - 10:46 PM, said:
I think that is a much better plan than just blindly resetting the timeline every three months.

Answer
The time stamp of 3 months was just a place holder and yes perhaps it could be an event like reaching terra as you suggest. But what if a strong faction gets there extremely fast or maybe they are paused in there tracks forever.
Bottom line is a system like season length will likely need to be adjusted based on real live data before it will find the best place.


Khobai, on 11 September 2014 - 11:56 PM, said:
It needs to reset every few months, otherwise a single faction could continually dominate CW, which is no fun for the other factions.
The question I have is what kindve rewards are going to be given for community warfare? Because the ideas that have been discussed in the past like "lower cbill costs on mechs for owning factory planets" simply dont make for very enticing rewards.
I would very much like to see unique mech and weapon unlocks for each faction. Giving each faction their own unique chassis/weapons unlocks that can only be obtained by climbing the ranks in that faction would give players a reason to change factions each season. And it would help balance out certain factions continually being dominant.

Answer
This is another huge benefit to the season method.
We can basically adjust the rules of each season. Perhaps people will want to try a season where we try a different set of rules or rewards.

Community Warfare - Phase 2 - Update Sept 24,2014


First off, to make things a little easier to communicate, I will be using the following terminology:

Force - Inner Sphere or Clan
Faction - The House controlled IS Factions (Davion, Steiner, Kurita, Marik, Liao, FRR) or Clan Factions (Clan Wolf, Clan Smoke Jaguar, Clan Jade Falcon, Clan Ghost Bear)
Unit - Player created 'guilds'... the ones you have created and invited friends to.
Group - A group of 2-12 players of the same Unit that will enter matches together.
Invasion Conflict - A match happening between Forces.
Border Conflict - A match happening between Factions.


Now some quick updates to cover some new points stemming from community feedback:

12-man Unit Group Requirement for Initiating Attacks

Taking a look at your feedback and the ability of the backend systems and Match Maker, we have decided to remove the restriction of a 12-man Unit Group to initiate attacks. This does NOT mean that we are creating matches of 6v6 or anything like that, just the requirement of a 12-man group is removed. What will happen, is if a less than 12 Unit Group attacks a planet, they will enter an attackers queue for that planet and the Match Maker will be filling the rest of the team with any other attackers attacking the same planet until a full 12 person TEAM is created. Once the 12 person team is created, the attack is initiated and a call to arms is sent to the opposing Force or Faction. More on how this all plays out below. Now remember, a 12-man team does not mean it has to be a 12-man group, it's just that a team has to consist of 12 players from the same Force/Faction wanting to attack.

Drop Ship Mode

Players will be able to prepare their own personal drop ships that house 4 BattleMechs. The limit of 1 'Mech per weight class still remains and if you do not own a 'Mech of a certain weight class, an appropriate weight class trial 'Mech will be used to fill that spot. When CW-Phase 2 is released, both IS and Clans will have trial 'Mechs that cover all weight classes.

A concern about not being able to bring 4 of a single weight class was brought up. This ties in with player preference of only piloting Light 'Mechs for example. Do not think of Drop Ship Mode being about bringing what you are most efficient in, think of it more along the lines of being able to rejoin the match to support your team in any available resources that remain at your disposal.

Drops between 'Mech destructions will be staged to a global timer. If you do not select your 'Mech and ready yourself in the drop delay time limit, you will be required to wait until the next drop occurrs. Current plan is to have drops happen every 30 seconds (tentative number for now). This means if your 'Mech is destroyed and the global timer has already been counting for 25 seconds, you will have 5 seconds to ready up. If you do not achieve this in that 5 second window, you will have to wait an additional 30 seconds before dropping back into the match. Essentially drops will be in waves.


Merc Corps/Lone Wolves/Dagger Stars

At this time for our first iteration of Phase 2, we are going to require players aligned with these Factions to align themselves with one of the primary Factions. We will watch how the first 'season' works itself out. We will make sure that a system will be in place to allow Merc Units/Lone Wolves/Dagger Stars be independant but we want to make sure the core Faction system meets requirements before adding too many more variables to the equation.

Now on to the main update:

Bidding For Planets - This feature has been removed. Making bidding fair for all size units was making the bidding system far to complex/convoluted to include.

Faction Contracts - This has been added to replace bidding. When players click a planet, they are shown planetary information along with the contract from the Force or Faction who has put the contract out. For example, a Davion player clicks a planet that is contested in Kurita space will see an attack contract. Solo players or Unit Group Leaders can choose to accept the contract and enter the attacker's queue and a call to arms is sent to the Kurita aligned players for defense.

Defending players can now accept defense contracts from the defending Force/Faction. In the example above, the call to arms would have gone out to Kurita aligned players. As the defending players accept defense contracts, they are put into the defending queue. Once there are teams available in the attacking and defending queues, a match is kicked off.

How to Conquer a Planet
There are some new advancements here to make conquering a planet easy to understand and dynamic on a daily basis. First off, planets will transition ownership every 24-hours.

Added is the new aspect of having to hold X number of wins on a planet for the duration of the day's combat phases to successfully conquer a planet.

To make this a little easier to explain, I will break down the average scenario between Clans invading an IS planet.

Scenario setup:
At 0:00 UTC (Acutal time TBD), planets are marked as contested.
For demonstration purposes, let's use "Balsta" as on of the contested planets which is just inside FRR space on the current IS Map.
Combat Phase 1 (First peak time zone) begins
Combat Phases last 2 hours (actual length TBD)

How it plays out for the attacking Force players (Clan players):
* Clan players (either solo or in Unit groups) click Balsta and see a planetary information screen appear.
* On this screen, players can see the contract issued by Clan Jade Falcon (as an example).
* Clan Jade Falcon says the reward of winning your attack match is an extra 5,000,000 CB divided amongst your team.
* An 8-man group clicks Accept Contract.
* The 8-man group is put into the Attacker's queue for planet Balsta.
* A 2-man group clicks Accept Contract.
* The 2-man group is put into the Attacker's queue for planet Balsta.
* The team builder for match making adds the 2-man group to the 8-man group for a team of 10.
* A 4-man group clicks Accept Contract
* The 4-man group is put into the Attacker's queue for planet Balsta.
* The 4-man group does not fit into the current 10-man group in the queue so they are placed on hold.
* A 2-man group clicks Accept Contract
* The 2-man group is put into the Attacker's queue for planet Balsta.
* The team builder for match making adds the 2-man group to the 10-man team for a team of 12.
* A successful 12-player attacking team has been built.
* A call to arms message to all players aligned to FRR is sent system wide. ("A unit group is attacking Balsta! Click the Faction tab to defend!")
* A 3-man group clicks Accept Contract.
* The 3-man group is put into the Attacker's queue for planet Balsta.
* The team builder for match making adds the 3-man group to the 4-man group that was on hold for a team of 7.
This cycle of creating teams and triggering attacks/calls to arms continues for 2hrs.

How it plays out for the defending Force players (IS players):
* A call to arms message is read about a Clan force attacking Balsta.
* IS players (either solo or in Unit groups) click Balsta and see a planetary information screen appear.
* On this screen, players can see the contract issued by Free Rasalhague Republic.
* The FRR says the reward of winning your defensive match is an extra 2,000,000 CB divided amongst your team.
* A 7-man group clicks Accept Contract.
* The 7-man group is put into the Defender's queue for planet Balsta.
* A 2-man group clicks Accept Contract.
* The 2-man group is put into the Defender's queue for planet Balsta.
* The team builder for match making adds the 2-man group to the 7-man group for a team of 9.
* A 4-man group clicks Accept Contract
* The 4-man group is put into the Defender's queue for planet Balsta.
* The 4-man group does not fit into the current 9-man group in the queue so they are placed on hold.
* A 2-man group clicks Accept Contract
* The 2-man group is put into the Attacker's queue for planet Balsta.
* The team builder for match making adds the 2-man group to the 9-man team for a team of 11.
* A solo FRR aligned player clicks Accept Contract
* The solo player is put into the Defender's queue for planet Balsta.
* The team builder for match making adds the solo player to the 11-man team for a team of 12.
* A successful 12-player defending team has been built.
* This 12-player defending team is now in queue to be matched against any attacking 12-player attacking team.
* This cycle of creating teams and defending continues for 2hrs.

Once the above two teams were created, they would be matched together and the game begins.

If the attacking Clan team wins the match, they will win a token (zone, point, something that is collectible and visually representable).

If the defending IS team wins the match, they will have sucessfully defended the planet from that one attack. No tokens are awarded.

Let's assume that the Clan team DID win this match. The Clan Force now owns 1/X tokens for that planet. (for now, let's say X=10)

Here's where the planet conquests rules start to apply. The Clan Force needs to get 10 tokens to successfully take the planet from the IS Forces and the FRR.

When the Clan Force (or any attacking Force/Faction for any contested planet) takes the first token, the opportunity for the IS Force to do a counter attack begins.

The next match after the token is taken, is considered a counter attack. In this case, if the Clan team wins the match, they keep their token. If the IS team wins the match, the token is taken away from the Clan Force. If the IS team wins the match, the next match to take place on the planet is another Clan attack match. This creates a push/pull mechanic for the planet's tokens.

With this scenario playing out over the 3 or 4 peak time combat phases, at the end of the last combat phase, the servers will see if the Clans have maintained at least 10 tokens at the end and if so, the planet is no longer contested and now belongs to Clan Jade Falcon and the border on the IS map reflects this. If the Clans do not have 10 tokens at the end of the last combat phase, the planet remains in control of the FRR/IS Force.

The following question arises: What if the Clans get 15 tokens? The answer is that the IS Forces will have to successfully counter attack 6 times to push the token count back down below 10 to keep the planet.

Unit Coffers

When it comes to Unit coffers and the fact that bidding was removed from Phase 2, coffer monies will be spent on logistical costs for war. Each drop will cost a Unit a set amount of C-bills. This is to pay for fuel/food/supplies and other logistical costs. We are not actually implementing the logistics at this time (maybe in Phase 3) but the cost of operations will be present in Phase 2.

The cost per drop will be scalar based on the number of members in your Unit. This is to avoid smaller units being punished while large units don't notice the cost at all. This is not unlike moving the Swedish army costs compared to the US army costs.

Numbers of Contested Planets

This is going to be a tough one to determine for day 1, but our tentative numbers are 2 planets on each side of Faction borders (so the Kurita/Davion border would have 4 planets in contention, and the Kurita/FRR border would have another 4). There will tentitively be 8 planets along the FRR/Clan invasion path as well.

This brings up the thought of participation. Our current plan is as follows:

Invasion Conflicts will allow anyone from the Inner Sphere Factions to defend. Anyone from Clan Factions can attack.

Border Conflicts will allow only people aligned with the two bordering Factions to participate with one exception. Anyone in any Force specific Faction can defend any conflicted planet, but only the specific Faction aligned players can attack for a Faction. For example, if a planet on the Kurita/Davion border, that is in Kurita space, only Davion players can attack it. Anyone from the other Factions (Steiner, Marik, Liao, FRR, Kurita) can defend the planet. You should notice that Davion cannot defend against a Davion attack. I know this adds a weird twist to the lore of the Houses which is why this particular part of the feature is still being discussed. (I'll let you know that my stance is that only the Faction players aligned with the Factions involved can participate. i.e. Steiner would never defend a Kurita planet from Davion. I'll let you know where that discusson ends up at when we make a final call.)

And yes, there should be a take away from this: IS vs IS and Clan vs Clan conflicts will be part of Phase 2.

FAQ From Last Update:

Note1: I pulled a ton of questions out of the last feedback thread. If you don't see your question, it was because it was answered in this update or it was a duplicate. If I missed something critical, feel free to re-ask your question in the next feedback thread.

Will Hero/Champion 'Mechs be allowed in CW gameplay?
Yes, these chassis will be allowed for use in CW gameplay.

You need Jump Jets to get past the gates? What about the non-jump capable 'Mechs?
No you do not need Jump Jets to get past the gates, the JJ reference from last time was just to give a sense of how high the gates are going to be. There are alternate points on the map that will allow non-JJ 'Mechs to attack the power generators that control the gates.

When will we be able to switch Factions if we want?
Current plan is to have a set season or win condition that will reset the IS Map state. We will be monitoring the IS state at all time to see what is happening. We may allow Faction changes without resetting the IS Map. We are always keeping in mind that we do not want to permanently lock players from playing the 'Mechs they've bought.

Can you use a contract system to allow Units to earn Faction given rewards?
As mentioned in the above update, the various Factions will be providing incentives to players who take the attack/defend contracts. To be included in this are Loyalty Point rewards which will be discussed in the next update.

How will the 'Mech restriction be handled in Phase 2? Will we see even more restricted 'Mech selections on certain planets/scenarios? How about weight restrictions for some planets like MPBT3025?
As mentioned, the only real 'Mech restriction in Phase 2 is Clan players play Clan 'Mechs and IS players play IS 'Mechs. Additional restrictions that align to specific battles/play modes/era specific battles etc will be considered for Phase 3 CW.

Will there be any actual benefit to the units/houses/clans based on owning a number of planets?
This is something still in talks. There's a fairly big technical risk involved with dynamic priceing of items in the Mech Lab. (Not the store) If we can find a way to work this in, it is one of the ideal ways of making control of planets have a lot more impact on the game as a whole.

What about logistics/repair/rearm?
Again, logistics is something we would like to do but it completely out of scope in terms of development time at the moment. The sheer amount of data that would need to be tracked and storing movement of units across 2400+ planets would be astronomical. We won't trash the idea but it is on hold for the moment. As for repair/rearm, this is something we've talked about bringing back but we have to be very careful on its implementation. We will continue to discuss this internally to see when and how we can bring it back into the game.

What are the peak player count times that you described?
We have been watching peak player times constantly since going live with the game. We are currently looking at 6-8PM PDT for West Coast, 3-5PM PDT for East Coast (6-8PM EDT), and 11AM-1PM PDT for UTC (6-8pm UTC). We may also include prime times for AU and Asian times as well. These numbers are all still to be determined but I just want to let you know that we're not just focusing on North American play times.

Will there ever be a chance of attack/defend modes making their way to the public matches?
Can't say never, but for the time being, this attack/defend mode will only be in CW.

What is the expected lenght of a match with Drop Ship mode in place?
Currently, there's an estimated average of 6 minutes per match. We would expect Drop Ship mode to be in the 20-30 minute time frame per match.

How are you going to address the need for more new maps so the attack/defend game mode doesn't get stale really quickly?
With the Mining Collective just going live and codename "Swamp" being beautified, we are looking into the development time invovled with Invasion Mode specific maps. Because the first Invasion Mode map is mostly terrain, it should have a fairly quick turn around. If we apply this style to other Invasion Mode maps, we should be able to turn around more maps soon after launching CW. Reuse of current art assets is key to be able to expedite map creation and this is something we look into whenever we talk about new maps in general.

Will Merc Corps be able to own their own planets within IS space?
No one really "owns" a planet except the Factions themselves. You will however be able to stake claim on a planet if it is contested and your Unit is the highest winning Unit during that planet's combat phase.

Will there be any mechanisms for IS to acquire Clan tech and vice a versa?
Not out of the gate. It has been discussed and even the community has mentioned the use of salvage to allow cross technology but at this moment we're going to hold off on that ability.

What exactly do you mean your Faction dictates the 'Mechs you can use?
This is unclear terminology at work. In the above update, I've started to use a different terminology set to help clairify this. Essentially, it means Clan players can only use Clan 'Mechs and Inner Sphere players can only use IS 'Mechs.

When will you release information on Faction given rewards?
This information will be release next CW update. October 8th.

Will units be able to "claim" a planet that is not contested?
As mentioned above, no. Only planets that have been fought over can be imprinted with your Unit's name/tag.

If the peak times end up too short, will you be willing to expand them in short increments?
Definitely. We will be monitoring how many players are participating and active in CW and will make any adjustments necissary to allow as many players as possible to participate.

Will there be some kind of 'newsfeed' streaming results of battles and other newsworthy events?
Yes, this is something that is needed for the Call to Arms feature which alerts Faction players that one of their planets is being attacked and so on. Inclusion of notable battles would be a cool feature to add to this. The feature itself will grow over time but the basics will be in place for Phase 2.

To reduce confusion between planetary conquest and conquest modes, could you just rename this Campaign?
I'm sure we can come up with better naming. I'll update everyone if anything changes.

Is there a Phase 3 that includes further features?
I don't know if we'll be calling further feature updates Phase 3 but yes, we want to grow what CW is in Phase 2 to even bigger and better things.

How many planets on a front will be available to fight over?
Current plan is to have 4 planets inside each Faction that is attackable from outside bordering Factions. For example, Kurita would have to planets exposed to attack on their Davion border and 2 more on their FRR border.

Can you maintain an LP balance for more than one Faction?
Yes you can. We had Randall Bills help us out with a matrix of who would feel a certain way about someone being killed. For example, if a Kurita player kills a Davion player, Kurita would be happy, but Davion would be angry. Marik wouldn't really feel strongly either way. Steiner would be angry as well. The matrix breaks down how all of these interactions play out and I'll provide more info on how it works in a future update.

Will LP be part of Phase 2 or something later?
LP will be part of Phase 2.
... more incoming...

Will the additional drops be based on a timer?
Yes, as described in the update above, drops will happen in waves on a global timer.


Can you temporarily opt out of CW?
There is no need to. Public game space and CW game space are separate. Want to play in CW? Click the Faction Tab. Want to play in Public matches? Click the Home Tab.


What about including Comstar TS channel info in the Faction broadcast when an attack happens?
This is a neat idea, but since the Comstar TS server is privately run by one of our community members,it might become unfair to them. Will investigate this and see what we can come up with.


Could the defending unit leader assign a priority of team members so that if an attack happens, the group could be formed with a single click as opposed to inviting people individually?
This is not in the current design but is a very cool idea. Will write it up and see if/when we can get it done.


Why are groups limited to the same unit?
CW is part of a role play experience and Unit gameplay. To keep to this design goal, it only makes sense that groups are limited to the same Unit. Teams will be built out of multiple Units if the Unit group is not a 12-man.


If we are hard limited to certian 'Mechs only, will MWO have a super easy-to-reference table of what I can take into battle?
Yes, we can provide these lists, but with the new way that Mech Selection and Drop Ship configuration will work, only valid 'Mechs will be displayed for any given scenario. But again, yes, we can provide Faction specific 'Mech lists.

Can units have a "freebie" on changing their Faction to fit this setup?
This is the plan. Just prior to Phase 2 going live, we will give everyone the opportunity to make their last Faction prior to the CW lock on Faction switches.

Can the gates be destroyed by shooting them?
Not at the moment but I've been told we can make this so very easily.

Will the IS map change depeding on which planets are captured? Will the colored border around the planet immediately reflect this to show that the territory is now controlled by a different Faction?
There may be a very slight delay in the map updating but it should be minimal. And yes, the map will change and the borders will update. Who knows, maybe you'll see Liao pull a Hail Mary and take over the IS and keep the Clans from invading.  :)

Will some planets be off limits?
Each Faction's capital planet will be off limits. Planets in the Periphery will also be off limits for now. However, Karl has shown me how to make any planet on the map contestable so you never know what may happen outside of the main Faction borders.

Can we get pics? Unfinished screen caps? iPhone pics of a screen with CW on it? Instagram of the coffee you're drinking while working on CW?
You never know what might slip out on a Dev VLOG or twitter or even on the forums. But now that you mention this, I may smack the phone out of anyone's hands walking past my desk.  :)


Will the planets being contested be dictated by lore?
Initial seeding will be done by us. Ideally we'd like to see the Clan Invasion corridor stick to lore but we are really putting the borders in the hands of the players. As each planet is taken, a new planet will be programatically selected to be the next planet up for contention.

Can a contested planet be attacked multiple times by different units simultaneously or will attacks be restricted to a single instance only at any one time?
During the combat phases in a 24-hour day, any valid Faction/Force Unit can attack the same planet. The idea is to allow all Units of any size to help change the ownership of a planet for their Faction.

You have clearly stated that the term Faction at this time refers to IS and Clan. Could you clarify what is the definition of "Unit"?
Units are the player created/registered "guilds" that were added to the game recently.

If the attackers successfully eliminate all the defenders, this presumably constitutes a victory even if not all defensive structures are destroyed or will the attackers be required to cap the base (similar to Assault) before the timer runs out?
Total annihilation of the enemy team will result in a win assuming there are no more drops available to any of their players.

Do mech restrictions (beyond clan/IS) apply to mercenaries who use their own private gear? If so why?
The main focus of CW is the Clan Invasion. Part of that is that we want the Inner Sphere to be more effective in holding the Clans at bay instead of watching the FRR evaporate very quickly. The tech restriction is meant for all players of Clans or Inner Sphere, not just subsets of them.

When will we get the benefits of the Loyalty Point bonuses we paid for over a year ago?
Day 1 of Phase 2.

What role will Premium time play here? Still working as a tagged on Bonus for earnings?
Premium Time behaves the same way it does with public matches. It gives you extra CBills and XP earnings on top of what you get through match performance.

Will there be random drop points?
Part of the drop Mechanic is travel time to get back into the fight. Random drop locations can end up with re-inforcements showing up VERY quickly depending on where the combat is currently taking place. Right now we're going to start with drops at bases and will expand on this if needed.

Will you be able to see who is attacking/defending?
We may work this into the Call to Arms feature mentioned above. "Shack of Squires is attacking your favorite planet!" Something like that.

Is there any team limit on what you take in the first spawn/wave?
Right now we're not planning on having a limit on which 'Mechs are taken in the first drop. If a team wishes to take all Assaults at the start of a match, they're going to regret it as the fight continues and they start losing their assaults and are left with lights at the end of the match.

When you say "click on a planet to attack it"... is this an instant move? Will there be a concept of jumpships/dropships with time for movement of mechs to the planet in question along established jump lanes?
Part of your question indicates logistics which I mentioned above is not going to be part of Phase 2. As for the interface requirement, it will be your group leader clicking the Attack button and from that point on you will be queued in the Attacker's queue.

What (if any) are the "win" conditions for Community Warfare? How does a unit (or units) win the game so that everything starts over?
We've been discussing many possiblities here and the engineering team is working to give us as many dynamic options as possible. Maybe a Faction takes over the entire Inner Sphere, maybe the Clans surround Terra. It's up to what happens during CW that we will determine the best route to a reset if needed.

Is there any opportunity to customize the mech in your drop deck at all before the match starts? I'm assuming the answer is 'No', but wanted to check.
You were correct, the answer is no. 'Mechs should be customized and prepped in the Mech Lab and added to your Drop Ship when ready.

Would you consider allowing TWO mechs of each weight class in the drop deck?
At this time we will not be allowing this. The idea of the Drop Ship is that you are going to make a very conscious decision as to which 'Mechs you are going into battle with.

Can you please answer if the current unit creation form is the one and only form that there will exist in MWO and there won't be a different kind for Loyalists?
If I'm understanding you right, yes, the current Unit creation method that will be used in the game for now. If you're talking about aligning with the sub-units within a Faction, that MAY appear further down the road.

Will there be other sorts of missions in terms of taking over a planet? As I understand it (as do my peers it seems) we will be fighting over static defensive type choke points.
As time goes on, we will be fleshing out anything that will be adding to the feeling of grand battles for planets. New modes, new maps etc. It's just a matter of time.

Is there a possibility of a some type of reward for piloting a mech that are popular amongst your own particular faction? For example a Kurita mechwarrior piloting a Jenner 7-F would be in line for a small reward of some sort or extra compensation?
This isn't planned at the moment but is a very cool idea. Open for discussion on it.

Any thoughts about opening up an experience of contested planets to the solo queue allowing players to pick an involved house, carry its banner and run its favored 'Mechs for the match, get a loyalty points for that house and a tiny bit for their permanently declared faction? Wouldn't have to affect the planet's control much or at all; essentially, themed public matches.
Not immediately out of the gate but this is something could eventually address.

Regarding Unit Coffers: will there be any purchasable items for Units (for instance, base/turret upgrades) included in Phase 2, or will these come in at a later point?
This is still on the drawingboard. It is something we'd very much like to see in the game but it will become an issue finding where we can fit it into the schedule. There is also the point that planets will be flipping every 24-hours. Not sure how players would feel if they upgraded a planet and lost it the next day.

It was mentioned in the earlier design docs posted to the forums that Units would be able to charge their members dues (taxes) in the form a percentage of their C-bill earnings going directly into the Unit Coffer - is that still the plan?
We have decided to make Unit Coffers an opt-in mechanic. This allows players to decide how much they're willing to pay into the Unit Coffers. The ability for the Unit Leader to see who has donated and how much is there to see if members are carrying their weight to their satisfaction. All player controlled.

What are the economic costs to the players, and to the unit (two questions here), for failing in their objective to attack or defend?
There are no direct costs other than not getting as many C-Bills and Loyalty Points for failing.

Will the outcome of a season affect players/factions in the next season?
Any unlocks, such as rewards or achievements would be kept from season to season.

Is "bounty hunting" still going to be a part of community warfare? If so will clans also be able to do this?
Unfortunately this is something we've shelved for now. I won't go on the record saying it will never show up, just that right now we need to focus on the core mechanics of CW and tune it before adding extra gems on it.

So those of us that do not play at peak times will never be involved? Or will there be periphery worlds that can be attacked/defended at slower times?
With the various peak player times throughout the 24-hour day, there 'should' be an opportunity for everyone to partake in CW.

Community Warfare - Phase 2 - Update Oct 8,2014

Let's see... how can we organize this a little better?

1) New Stuff/Updates
2) Changes
3) Questions


All of the next updates will follow the above. Makes it easier to organize and give you all the new, neat stuff up front.

A couple of quick notes. Most of the work for CW-Phase 2 is currently behind the curtain back-end/database stuff. There's nothing visual to show unless I show screen caps of code (and no.. I'm not going to do that). I've included an image that is work-in-progress down below showing how to open a gate without jump jets.

The other note is that the amount of information with each update will more than likely decline as most of the major information is released early and it switches from announcing new stuff to more updates on progress.


New Stuff

Ejecting
We are implementing the ability to eject from your BattleMech for Drop Ship mode. This will prevent running around on the field as a pogo stick if you don't want to be in that situation. The implementation will be as follows:
An assignable key [O by default] will trigger the eject sequence.
The player must HOLD this key down for [10] seconds in order to eject. The amount of time will be determined based on "denying the enemy a kill" mentality which would be rather poor to have happen all the time.
Upon ejecting, a large pulse of damage is sent to the 'Mech's head component and the 'Mech is destroyed.
The ejecting player is sent to the standard "death" screen and eventually to the drop ship selection screen.
Attacking players will still get assist and most damage kill stats, but the final blow stat will not be given.
The Leopard Dropship is now VTAL
The Leopard Drop Ship is now a VTAL (Vertial Take-off And Landing) ship. It will be used to drop 'Mechs off at various respawn points on the map. This specifically allows us to either swoop the Leopard into the game space to drop 'Mechs off at low altitudes, or do high altitude/near hover drops of 'Mechs into the game space. The animations involved are in our test level at the moment and is visible in debug builds. We will probably be doing some video capture next update.

New Map/Mode Update
We completed our first play test session of the new map codenamed "Frost" and game mode codenamed "Invasion". Both of which are in early iteration but the core mechanics are all working. Gates open when their power generators are destroyed. If the attackers destroy the defender's main installation building, the match ends in attacker victory.

The Drop Ship functionality of dropping a new 'Mech into a match is now ready for testing and will happen later this week.

Back End/Server Update
The gameplay logic that drives the overall Faction Warfare loop is near completion. This is the loop that involves looking at the IS Map, selecting a planet, selecting attack/defend and entering the match lobby. There are still few points to finish up but it is tracking on schedule.


Changes

Drop Ship Mode
Drop Ship mode is being changed to a minimum and maximum tonnage limit rather than a strict 1 Light/1 Medium/1 Heavy/1 Assault limit. For example, we might set the Drop Ship limitation to [140] tons minimum and [240] tons maximum. You MUST take 4 'Mechs meaning you cannot take 2 100 ton 'Mechs and leave the other two slots empty. The available tonnage is restricted to your personal Drop Ship. This means if you take under [240] tons, the remaining unused tonnage is NOT shared with the rest of your team.

Merc Units/Lone Wolves
It will still be required that Merc Units/Lone Wolves (MU/LW for the rest of this explanation) align themselves to a House. However, they can switch alignment after a specific amount of time has passed. For example, if a season is 3 months long, at the end of each month, MU/LW's can switch alignment. This alignment switch will come at a Loyalty Point (LP) cost and that cost varies depends on which House is chosen as the new House of alignment.


Invasion Gate Clarification

Players were concerned about being able to open the invasion gates without having jump jets. The image below shows how the level has been designed with side paths that give non-jump jet 'Mechs the ability to shoot over the gate.

Questions & Answers

I'm not seeing the benefit of forming a larger unit at all. Being that there are no other benefits to maintaining a unit coffer, it would seem best to just break-up our units and make lonewolf groups. We can then coordinate joining attack/ defend queues for a cheaper drop cost. Are there no longer any plans of using collected funds for planetary defenses?

Larger units will be able to direct more forces to a conflict on any given planet. Remember, the unit with the most wins on a planet will have their unit tag marked on the planet. Having smaller splinter units will mean your chance of having your primary unit tag assigned to the planet is reduced. As for the planetary defensive upgrades, this is currently on hold with more technical investigation needed. It is not guaranteed for CW Phase 2 but it something we definitely want for CW as a whole.



What about a few sweet animations/short vids before/after a planetary fight? You know, stuff like turrets aiming in the sky, shooting at dropships or hangars where pilots climb in their mechs. Just to add more style and eye candy.

This is something we'd love to do but they're expensive to create and very time consuming on the dev team. Yes we could reuse in-game assets but some of those assets would have to be re-modelled (the pilot for example) because they're very low poly or missing big chunks of geometry. While we explore PVE content in 2015, this may return as something we could do to really sell the feeling of a planetary battle about to kick off.



It would be really cool if each "faction" (Marik, Kurita, Wolf Clan, etc.) had SPECIFIC modifiers (plus and minus) during combat to encourage different play styles and mech configurations depending on the faction you are oriented with.

This was discussed early on when talking about CW. The limitations on what we can dynamically change in the game show that this type of behaviour would be a huge overhaul of key game systems and that is not going to happen in our current time frame. On a side note, we probably wouldn't go to 'Mech subsystem levels for modifiers but more along the line of global economy changes. I will update if we do implement anything along these lines.



How will the date advance if you reset the CW map/season?

The change we made to allow players to control the outcome of the IS/Clan invasion changes the restrictions we'd have for timeline advancement. The thought process behind seasons is a chance for us to make any necissary changes to the planetary systems depending on the outcome of player behaviour and participation. We do not want to see the IS Map get locked down permanently by one faction and never see it change again. However, we are not against seeing one faction dominate the IS, we just want a method of resetting to give everyone a chance again. This also touches on the ability gained by players to change factions between seasons.



The coffer wont get reset at each season right?

Wow.. that would be reallly bad. *writes a note*  ;)   No, we will not reset coffer balances between seasons.



Can you just do a 3 minute promo/trailer video showing (WIP) of all of the CW features? That's a lot of detail that is hard to associate with how it actually applies in the game.

I will gladly do this when we have more visual stuff to present. We are still finalizing layouts and mock-ups for the UI part of CW and the map/mode is near a point of doing captures for display at a WIP level. This will probably happen next update.

Maybe we can see attack and defend mode have different modes or scenarios to give each planet a flavor or symbol likeness to it so that players know that they are invading or defending that particular planet.

It will be very clear as to what is happening on a given contested planet. You will only be able to make choices based on the factions involved and your personal alignment.



One thing that strikes me about the proposed system is the sheer volume of notice spam that is going to occur every time the engagement timer clicks off.

Current plan is a scrolling marquee along the bottom of the FE. This will have prioritized messaging calling out attacks that have been triggered. It will not be a wall of text spewing across your screen. The Call to Arms is more of a "go check out the Faction Tab now" system rather than "Match 10984 is kicking off now".



Will there be new maps for different planets?

For each individual planet? No, that is logistically not possible. However, we are going to start process refinement to get as many maps out as quickly as possible for CW.



Will we have different models of dropships that we can buy depending on our alignment to a faction?

The Drop Ship is currently just a game mode element. It is not something that you own. Further down the road however, when we decide to put logistics into the game, then yes, drop ships, jump ships etc will start making a difference in how you move around the IS Map and into battle.



As was mentioned earlier... single players queuing up for a drop don't have any logistics placeholder costs that units seem to have, so aren't you essentially taxing the ability to drop with your fellow unit members?

A single player will have a drop cost, it just won't be as high as a Unit.



How do you intend to handle increasing wait-times for matches if there are not enough attackers / defenders for a planet? Would you consider Training Ground like "PvE" filler missions?

If a planet is attacked, and no defenders show up within a reasonable time frame, the attackers will automatically get the win on that planet.



Is it possible to add a little faction icon maybe to every mech in the store / the mechlab, so that one can see at a glance all the factions that use that specific 'Mech?

With Phase 2 focussing on Clan and IS separation only, there is no need for this icon. However, as we move forward into future features like historic or specialized battles, we will indicate which 'Mechs will be valid for which types of conflicts at that point.



What are LPs supposed to be other than a numerical representation of how loyal you are to a faction?

LP will accrue based on your faction alignment and activities in the Planetary Conquest conflict. The higher you go in a faction's loyalty status, the more rewards you will be earning. Rewards can include anything from specialized faction titles to special in-game items to personalize your 'Mech. (Cockpit items, decals, colors, patterns, etc).



What will happen if the attacker receive 10 tokens and decide to not defend against any further counter attacks from the defenders? Can planets be taken without a shot fired if no one is willing to defend a planet vs unit "x"?

Tokens do not belong to a Unit, they belong to a Faction. If Davion forces attack a Kurita planet and get 10 wins in their favor, Kurita can still issue counter attacks. If no-one defends against the counter attack, Kurita will take one of Davion's tokens back.



Is the design goal of planetary conquest to give a match based more on objectives than taking out the enemy forces? To give an exampe, Conquest mode as it exists currently is still primarily focused on taking out the entire enemy team as opposed to winning on capping. Capping is the secondary objective and is the least likely victory condition.

MWO is an online multiplayer game that is always going to be focussed on the PVP aspect of a battle. PVE campaigns have been talked about and will be investigated in the new year.



We have to be able to swap ALL modules between ALL 4 mechs between the spawn periods, otherwise this will be a huge disincentive to all pilots, especially those who don't own that many! You don't want that greenhorn that just bought his first module to feel disadvantaged after he lost his first mech!

Remember that modules are considered end-game content. They are hard to unlock and relatively expensive to purchase which means the decision making behind what you spend your CBills on is a very consious decision that you make on a case by case basis.



Is dropship mode the only mode available for CW? Will there be any way for people who do not want to play respawn mode to not play respawn mode, and still take part in CW?

As stated last time, Drop Ship mode is slated for CW use only.



Are there set number of battles that can occur for a single planet to determine the outcome or is it as many battles within the 24 hour window?

It is many battles in a 24hr period.



Any plans to make respawns that still feel like we are playing a simulation game instead of an arcade?

Since Drop Ship releases 'Mechs in waves and the way it will be presented, it should add greatly to a simulation feel rather than arcade. We are not doing instant respawns like Unreal Tournament. It is a set of 3 relatively intense waves of re-enforcements.



Isn't every battle just plain old IS vs clan? if a planet is contested, does it matter if the IS players dropping on a single planet are a mix of davion, kurita and liao, etc? or the clan players are a mix of different clans?

The invasion conflicts between Clan and IS forces will be supported by all factions under each force. This means any clan can participate in an attack on an IS planet. Any IS faction can participate in defending an IS planet from the Clans. Border conflicts between factions however will only involve the factions that share the contested border.



Why such small drop windows? why can't the planet be available to battle for 24hrs (or 12 hour segments or 6 hour segments) so every player in the world gets a chance to attack/defend that planet during a real day?

We will adjust the conflict windows as needed. We just don't want to strain the public gameplay, where you will be doing most of your C-Bill earning, for the entire day. We will be choosing however many peak player times as possible to accomodate players from all over the world. Again, this is all adjustable based on the number of players participating.



Are you going to be able to give us the ability to set a tithe for our guild?

Taxation for a Unit is something we can add at some point. We just want to make sure we cover the basics first. This is why there's a journal for coffer donations available to the Unit leader.



So for setting up our dropships for CW; could we "favorite" 'mechs so that we can just jump right in and not have to select them each time.

This is something we hope to have ready for CW release.



How strongly are you tied to seasonal resets?

We will be monitoring how the whole CW aspect plays out and will make adjustments as needed. As mentioned above, it also allows players to switch factions at some point so they can play both sides of the Clan Invasion.



Can you make the new invasion map(s) available in the testing grounds and private lobbies so both solo players and units that want to play Community Warfare can try them out and practice on them?

We yet to make the call if we are going to put invasion maps into private matches. Will update when we do.



Are there going to be any governing councils/bodies of any type in CW with real staff playing key roles in their chosen factions? Marik is a representative democracy, Davion a constitutional monarchy etc.

Not for Phase 2. The more we look at true faction role-playing, the more it becomes apparent that this is Phase 3+ content.



Will different planets impact the likelihood of getting different maps?

Our map rotation process is still being planned. Will update as soon as we iron everything out.



Why should we defend our planets? If we don't defend the enemy cannot take them because they can't get 10 tokens.

A non-defended planet will reward the attackers with wins if defenders do not respond within a reasonable timeframe. [10] minutes for example.



Thanks for your questions!

If your question wasn't directly answered, again, please feel free to repost in the next feedback thread. It will get answered eventually.

Community Warfare - Phase 2 - Update Oct 22

Hey folks, back again with some fairly big news about CW. As per discussed in the previous update, I'll organize the information as follows:

1) New Stuff/Updates
2) Changes (Actually included in New Stuff this week)
3) Questions

The big change is the way you will be able to align yourself to a Faction on a temporary or permanent basis.

1) New Stuff/Updates

Faction Selection by All Players

On day 1 of Community Warfare release, all player accounts will be reset to a neutral state. All Faction Units and players will be reset to Merc Units and Lone Wolves respectively. Clan Units and Dagger stars will also be returned to Merc Unit and Lone Wolf status respectively.

Following the reset, all Lone Wolf players and Merc Unit leaders (all players in a Unit will be aligned to the Unit leader's choice) will be presented with a new Faction Alignment flow when entering the Faction Tab.

The first part of this new flow will ask players to select a Faction. Lore information will be given to assist new players in their decision as to which Faction to join.

Upon selecting a Faction, the player is taken to a new screen which will display contracts offered by the selected Faction. These contracts will include the following:
[1] Month Alignment to a Faction
[2] Month Alignment to a Faction
[4] Month Alignment to a Faction
Permanent Alignment to a Faction
*Please note these time periods are purely for example purposes only.




Players can back out of this screen and look at other Faction options until they accept one of the contracts.

Let's look at this firstly from the perspective of a Faction loyalist player. Someone who never wants to change Faction. Any of these players can simply select the Permanent alignment to their chosen Faction. The same applies to a Unit that chooses the permanent alignment option. Upon CW going live, there will not be an in-game option to change Factions if you choose this path. We may look into a solution for changing a permanent alignment but that will not be included in CW Phase 2.

Next, the way Merc Units, Lone Wolves, Clan Units and Dagger Star players interact with this system. These players can choose to align themselves to a Faction for a specified amount of time. For example, a Merc Unit selects a [1] month alignment to House Steiner. For the next month, this Merc Unit can only participate in combat either defending Steiner territories or attacking in the name of Steiner in neighboring Faction territories. The Merc Unit can (like anyone in the game) participate in the Clan/IS border invasion conflicts. Lone Wolf players, Clan Units and Dagger Star players behave the exact same with with the exception that Clan Units and Dagger Star players will be aligning themselves with a Clan.

With this system, it IS possible for a Merc Unit to align to House Steiner for [1] month and at the end of that month, switch to a [1] month alignment to Clan Jade Falcon. Note that this will NOT bypass technology locks. When the Unit is aligned to Steiner, only IS 'Mechs can be used, and when aligned to Clan Jade Falcon, only Clan 'Mechs can be used.

This feature means that we can do away with the initially proposed "Season" system. However, we do reserve the right to reset the IS Map if we find major problems in the system.

We feel that this new system allows greater flexibility for players to be able to play for a given Faction for their choice of duration. Keep in mind, we do not want players to be flipping Factions between matches or every day for that matter. Taking a contract for a House/Clan means that players will be fighting for that Faction for a while. This system also allows the more hard-core Faction players to permanently align themselves to their favorite House/Clan.

Loyalty Points

First off, upon inclusion into the game, Loyalty Points (LP) will be rewarded with an initial, lump sum injection into player accounts who own the Phoenix Package: Loyalty Point booster. From that point on, all players will be rewarded LP based on their actions and their Faction alignment.

What can affect LP gains? Killing opponents of lore based enemies. For example, a Kurita player killing a Davion player will be rewarded Kurita LP. At the same time, that same Kurita player will be losing Davion LP for the same action. Faction LP totals will not drop below 0.

Another means of gaining additional LP is by winning CW Faction conflicts. From the above example, the Kurita player partakes in the Clan/IS conflict and the IS team wins, the Kurita player will earn Kurita LP.

A bigger means of gaining LP is by completing contracts for a Faction. For example, the Kurita player is on a [2] month contract with Kurita, Kurita will reward a large amount of LP at the end of the contract period. The longer the contract, the more LP rewarded.

Special case: If a Lone Wolf player (or any player for that matter) switches Factions after completing a contract, they will lose LP for the Faction they just left. Depending on which Faction the player switches to, this LP loss for a Faction would continue depending on the Factions involved. For example, if the Kurita player from above switches to Davion after the Kurita contract expired, all kills/wins/contracts with Davion will reward Davion LP but will also reduce the LP total they had with Kurita.

Any rewards gained through LP will be retained, but cannot be used unless the LP total for the Faction is at the reward's LP requirement. For example, if the Kurita player unlocked a rank 10 skin, that rank 10 skin is only usable if their Kurita LP is at rank 10 level. In the case of titles, let's assume the Kurita player earned the title of "Gunsho" at Rank 8. If the player has an LP total of Rank 8 requirements, then they can freely use the title "Gunsho". However, if the player switches to Davion for example, and they fight for Davion against Kurita and the player's Kurita LP total drops below Rank 8 requirements, they will no longer be able to set their title to "Gunsho" even if they switch back to Kurita. At this point (we're still debating this one) the player can select "Gunsho" as their title but it will be prepended with "Honorary". The title will become "Honorary Gunsho" until the player gets their LP total back to Rank 8 requirement.

Faction LP rewards can only be used if the player is aligned to the Faction that gave the reward. In the case above, the Kurita player who switched to Davion will not be able to use any of the Kurita rewards they've earned until they switch back to Kurita.

Some planned LP rewards include titles, Faction specific skins, Rank specific skins and other novelites. The full list of rewards will be listed once we have them ironed out with both the design and art teams. On a side note, we are investigating on locations where we can have titles appear in the game and not just on the website. More on this when I have more concrete information for you.

These are most of the questions I'll be answering.. I'll just post the questions and fill in answers as I hammer through them tonight. I put the feedback thread up so you can start commenting on this update. Take a read through these questions before asking your own to avoid duplicates.


I don't like this result. Having matches/planets determined by forfeitures is not productive... like in league play. Why not just increase the Assault window or reduce the token rate (as in it isn't a full token, maybe like a half token)?

Planet takeovers will not occur based solely on forfeitures. This situation should be a very rare occurrence and is part of the reason we have CW time windows. The number of planets up for attack/defend also help remedy this situation. We will be starting with a select few planets in each Faction space available for attack/defend. If we have an overwhelming number of players partaking in CW, we will both increase the time windows and the number of planets up for contest.


Any examples of the benefit a unit/faction gets beyond having it's banner hanging over the planet it just won?

Higher Loyalty Point rewards is a big kicker and there may be some C-Bill incentives to drive this even further.


You mentioned players will still earn most of their Cbills in the public queues we have now. Will the CW matches have similar rewards something completely different or none at all?

Due to the CW time windows, you would probably be playing more in public matches than CW. This does not mean that CW matches will not be profitable (depending on outcome).


Do we have to change our unit faction in the Unit Leaders profile to say Davion for example or will this be a modular in cw that we select our faction.

The setting of Faction (as described in the update above) will be in-game and not done through the web profile interface.


Though, realistically, considering the way you put it... Paul, am I right in thinking there isn't going to be an animation? Is there possibly any way a first person animation, or at the very least a pod flying up from the destroyed 'mech, could be implemented?

We are going to try to make ejections as dramatic as possible, but with our current timeline and resources, a full on 'holy poop!' moment probably isn't in scope. However, we will be able to advance on this feature when CW Phase 2 is out the door and have time to address it.


Will we see the cbill rewards be adjusted since it's going to cost us money to actually participate in cw?

C-Bill rewards will be determined though play testing, observing the mode when it's live and adding additional kickers (destroying a base, destroying a power generator etc) to the mode.


When will my unit be tagged Clan Loyalist ingame? Tag works here on forums, still not showing us as such ingame. Any help coming on that (admittedly minor) item?

Good question... I'll ask around and get you an answer soon.


It would be nice to get a sneak peak at the UI for it though :D Can't you just cover up the actionscript vars?

I'll talk to the UI designer and others about screens that I can show you. I'm always hesitant about releasing information too early and having preconceived notions about what the UI will be like come up when the whole interface could change between now and release. If I'm able to get you some images, I'll post them at the bottom of this thread.


If we are stuck with whatever faction we have now by the time CW start - will we be able to get any loyalty points transferred or at least refunded in some way when we change to the allegiance we specifically want? Or will it be fixed by this point?

This is something we're still discussing. We want to give you your Loyalty Points and be able to choose which Faction you want them applied to. It's up to engineering to come up with a clever way of doing this without having to write a complete new system for a 1 time injection. Will update as we figure out what we can do.


Just a simple question.. ATM is there only the one map to be used in CW? Well a couple more..... Will the gate control (building) be able to be Narced (Narc) or targetable? Will the building take damage from Arty or airstrikes?

Right now "Frost" is the only map being tested. There is another map in progress but you didn't read that here.


The gate control building will be targetable just like the current turrets in Assault mode. As for NARC, it may or may not work. Will have to test this out tomorrow. Yes, the buildings should take damage from Air/Arty strikes.

Have you considered that the opposing player last to shoot the ejecting pilot's mech the moment before he ejects is ACTUALLY the FINAL BLOW?

This is something we could do but the actual Eject system is still being thought through in terms of timing and people trying to exploit the system to "deny a player a kill".


Isn't that supposed to be VTOL?

These are not the 'Mechs you're looking for... move along.... move along...


Will there ever be a PVP game mode that will be designed with the goal that you are more likely to win in a different manner, like capping for example.

Sorry about the confusion over my last response. Game modes that do not rely on total enemy annihilation is stuff that is being investigated right now. The chances of them being included with CW Phase 2 is not likely but it is something we are looking at in terms of design as a must have feature soon after.


Is PGI looking at any additional new resources for consumables for this DropShip mode? Possibly in the sensor or advanced forward deploying UAV?

We are always open to ideas and investigation into new consumables/modules and DropShip mode will probably need a few new ones. Open to suggestions from the community if you have some ideas.


Just two quick questions, any chance that you will be implementing a "spectator mode" for CW and will you be allowing Trial 'mechs to be taken on the dropships?

Spectator Mode is something we really want to iron out for our competitive players as well as people wanting to create videos of MWO. Right now, as Russ has mentioned, we are all hands on deck for CW Phase 2 and Spectator Mode is currently not on the table. This too is considered a must have feature in the future for MWO.


Can you get more than 10 tokens to have a "lead"? Does it matter if you have one person/group attack an undefendet planet, or 120 players at once, if there is no defender?

Yes you can get more than [10] tokens for a lead buffer. (Note: Anytime you see [ ] around a number, it means we have defined it as a variable that can be tuned.) There are talks about making some planets be harder to take over so that [10] might be [20] for a specific planet. A single player cannot trigger an attack on a planet. They can choose to attack it but unless 11 more people show up to help him/her, there will be no attack made. If 120 players show up and attack, the call to arms of the defending Faction will be sent out as the CW queuing system starts building 12-player attack teams. If no one shows up to defend (and that should be rare as mentioned above) then a zone or two on the planet may be lost.


How are Mech going to reload ammo in prolonged fight ? I don't think it should be prohibited because it's kind of sad to eject just because you're out of ammo. And if it's available, i don't think it should free either.

This is a very delicate discussion in the office. We are talking about the possibility of having reload stations in the map but this is not 100% decided yet. I'll post more on this as we make the final call.


Were the 10 seconds just an example or have you locked that amount of time? If not, may I suggest 2-3 seconds? Another thing, what happens if the player doesn't eject in time?

[10] seconds is a tunable variable that we are using for testing purposes. This could change to any value as we see how it plays out. As for the player not ejecting in time, do not think of this as your pilot's life. If you get destroyed without ejecting, you still move into the drop ship queue just as you would if you ejected.


Have you guys ever thought of creating a map generator using different parameters such as max and min: altitude, temperature, water on ground, building (city, industrial), destruction of the objects (if they are almost all brand new or mostly destroyed), etc; so you can create a base for lots of maps using existing objects in a quicker fashion and possibly generate all maps like this? Also, have you gave any thought of applying specific maps to specific kinds of planets? For example: Hot maps to notoriously hot planets as they are described in sarna?

Random map generators do not create well balanced multi-player PVP maps. They do generate some cool co-op and single player maps. Things random map generators do not take into account are sightlines, pathing, timing/pacing of gameplay and the dynamically changing battlefield in terms of player locations and activities.

We have Randall Bills going over the planets and giving us write-ups about each of them. If we can adopt a map/planet combination that is suitable, we will do it.


Please specifically indicate if you are planning on letting us change out modules between mechs in drop ship, during respawn or not.

Right now there is no plan to allow you to take modules off a destroyed 'Mech and put it on a 'Mech in your drop ship.


I would highly recommend that you add a new restriction preventing new players (those who have not finished their first 25 cadet matches) from participating. This will prevent much rage from competitive teams.

This is something we can discuss and has been mentioned. I'll fill everyone in if anything comes of this. We do think it would not be ideal for a brand new player to drop into CW.


My only question is are you still on target for release this quarter? What's the ETA?

Mid to late Dec. So yes, we're still tracking for that time.


Will we be allowed to use a Mech twice on the dropships? Maybe with two different variants?

You can use any individual 'Mech only once. If you create a Jenner and call it "Maybe", you can only use it once. If you have 4 individual Jenners, you can drop in each of them once. Think of it this way.. if you take a 'Mech into the fight and it gets destroyed, you cannot warp it back to your drop ship all fixed and new and re-drop.


Which maps & modes will be used in CW? Just Frost or will we see assault, conquest, skirmish as well.

Right now "Invasion" (Frost is the codename of the map), is the only mode that we have targeted for CW. But that is right of this moment. We may include some of the other game modes if necessary.


Are there going to be different tonnage limits for IS/Clan units, or will there be a unified tonnage bracket? Or are you planning on using tonnage caps as another way to bring balance to the Clans?

Current plan is 140-240 for both IS and Clan. This does help balance the Clans out a bit, but we will adjust as needed and as more Clan 'Mechs become available.


When we die and are about to respawn, do we get to select which mech we drop in next, or does the game automatically pick the next mech in the dropship queue?

When you are destroyed and returned to your dropship, you will have a limited amount of time to choose the next 'Mech you take into the match. If you miss more than 1 consecutive drop/respawn, the game will automatically select the next 'Mech for you in a left to right order.

Will there be a drop statistic recorded for these things, when a ‘Mech is dropped off. I ask because I have a HALO Achievement for each of the weight classes, but each requires a certain number of HALO drops to earn the Achievement.

Will will be tracking drops just like any other action in the game. As for separate low altitude drops vs high altitude drops, that will probably fall under one stat if we do implement both types of drops. We have to be very careful if we plan on doing high altitude drops because depending on the height of the Drop Ship, players may see beyond the modeled world space of the level. The latest I've heard from rendering and art teams is that they're leaning toward the low altitude insertions. No concrete confirmation on which direction has been made quite yet.


I don’t know how a defense will be mounted against aggressors on worlds where my players are not able to be present?

I'm not sure if you're assuming that only 1 unit can attack a planet or not. There will be plenty of units attacking/defending planets and not every single border planet will be up for conflict at all times. For day 1 of CW we're planning on putting 2 planets on each side of a Faction border up for conflict. (2 inside Davion space and 2 inside Kurita space for example and for every border between the other Houses) Any number of units can attack and any number of units can defend as long as they're aligned with either of the two Houses involved in the conflict. As mentioned in other answers above, the time windows we're working with (prime times with highest player counts) should ensure that there are always plenty of attackers and defenders available. If these time windows are opened too wide or the number of planets in conflict is too high, then and only then would stalls start to happen and that's when we would adjust as needed.


I would request that the maximum of 4 ’Mechs remain, while the minimum number is removed. My reasoning is this... a player bringing too many ’Mechs can really upheave a match, because they can come from multiple directions, at great speeds, and build extraordinary disruptions over the course of a drop period. However, someone bringing fewer than four is simply putting themselves at a disadvantage, as higher numbers on the other side could be used to still overwhelm the fewer numbers of available ’Mechs for the field, but not to such a great degree that better pilots will discontinue being able to drop more ’Mechs with their fewer. As well, if both sides took fewer ’Mechs to the field, the battle will be completed more rapidly, anyway.

You kinda talked yourself through the process of why we are requiring 4 'Mechs in your Drop Ship. Everyone should be bringing as many 'Mechs as they can or you'd be doing your team a disservice by not bringing the additional firepower to the battle. Keep in mind, not all teams going into a conflict consisting of 12 players in a single group. Smaller groups and solo players will also be dropping. Players bringing less than 4 'Mechs, again, are doing nothing but denying their team additional support even if their skill isn't as high in other weight classes. In a mode that will be as long in terms of playtime like Invasion will be, every single point of damage on target is going to help a team achieve victory.


Is EVERY MechWarrior presently engaged in a single mercenary unit required to join the SAME House? If I have fifteen active people in Armageddon Unlimited, would ALL of us have to be registered with House Davion, or would EACH MechWarrior be allowed to select their own alignment, and then the compiled Loyalty Points be the overall calculation for the mercenary unit, as was discussed in the first posting concerning Loyalty Points?

Hopefully this answer will not only cover your question but a lot of questions I've seen popping up again.

When a UNIT decides to align themselves with a particular Faction, everyone in that UNIT will be automatically aligned to that Faction. If a player leaves a Unit, and joins another Unit, that player will be automatically aligned to the Faction that the new Unit is already aligned to. There will not be a mix of alignments within a Unit. If you are a part of a Unit, you fight for that Unit and its cause/contract alignment.

If at the end of a contract, a Unit switches Factions, everyone who is still inside that Unit will be automatically aligned to the new Faction.


Thank God! However, if this turns out to NOT be at the three fixed times per day you were talking about, recently, will we be able to opt-in to email and/or text notifications?

This is something we have considered. It is not off the table in terms of opt-in email even though we do plan on keeping conflicts restricted to the time zones. It's a fairly cool feature and adds a level of fun to the call to arms feature. However, when it comes to texting... that's something we'd have to do further investigation as not everyone has free texting with their phone service providers etc.


With the current population of this game, that is not fair in the LEAST. Please consider allowing unit commander’s to set up times and days for this? Three separate times/dates, three for each Commander, as proposals for the other Commander, should work. If the two commanders are incapable of getting people to any of the proposed times, there should be proxy units proposed by each Commander, and then each Commander can try getting a game together, the first to reach that goal being the winner, by each negotiating with the proxy unit proposed by the opposing Commander. It’s simply extremely UNFAIR and wrong for a group to work hard to gain control of a world, only to have it taken from them, without a fight, because they can’t get anyone there. Now, get the population back up to what you had in pre-Beta 2011, and then that won’t be a problem, anymore. And, don’t try to tell ANYONE here that the population has exceeded that, because we already know it doesn’t. That’s not me being negative, that’s just the truth.

Then don’t make them immediately available. Make it so they’re hidden until a pilot does more than collect enough GXP to purchase the skill, and then allow them to ONLY see what is available to them to spend as a result. Right now, they ARE NOT REMOTELY end-game content, should not be anywhere near as expensive as they are –GXP for each module type/skill is fine, but C-Bills are entirely too much–, and it’s ridiculous that these are available from the get-go, if they’re end-game content.

My use of the term "end game content" has been interpreted in too many ways which is my bad. I apologize for any confusion this may have caused and I'll clarify my statement. All modules, skills and efficiencies are behind fairly high cost walls. Whether it be EXP, GXP or CBills, there is a barrier to entry to get to them. The only way of acquiring these items is to play the game. The more a player plays, the more of these items become available to them. The costs of the weapon modules, for example, are set fairly high as they are meant to be for advanced players who have worked their way through basic 'Mech operations and loadouts and are now able to specialize their builds to suit their play style and 'Mech builds. They are not meant to be an instant gratification item in game where they're easy to acquire and use. They are meant to be items that require some thought into which tech tree do you want to finalize first.. work your way through that tree, get your modules (the lower tier modules are meant to ease your way into the process instead of the high cost top tier being your only option) and equip as desired. This is why each weapon system has its own modules instead of a global "Energy Range +10%" type of module. The cycle ends up as: put your time in, learn your 'Mech and play style, then streamline your customization using the modules, efficiencies, skills and consumables.


Okay, so the unique factions you have set up are, indeed, not unique at all, except in a very notional fashion? I understand the population is low, right now, but when it picks up, will you be looking at greater faction separation? When I say faction, as a veteran BattleTech player, it’s not just Clan on one side, and IS on the other, but it’s Clan Wolf, Clan Jade Falcon, Clan Smoke Jaguar, etc., and it’s House Davion, House Marik, etc., Magistracy of Canopus, Lothian League, etc., Wolf’s Dragoons, Armageddon Unlimited, etc., St. Ives Compact and Free Rasalhague Republic. Methinks y’all better get your heads out and understand the importance of these factions, and that it’s NOT just Clan vs. Inner Sphere. You opened an amazingly HUGE can of whoop-ass, and now you gotta live with it, guys, hehe.

From the very start we stated to the community that we were going to reserve all canon Units/Factions from the very start. This allows us to roll in these Units/Factions as we start developing the intricacies of CW and overall Faction gameplay. Will you be able to align to Wolf's Dragoons? Possibly. Take control of that Faction? No. This is all stuff that will be added to the game as we keep developing CW as a whole.


This is all fine and good and dandy, but it’s bass-ackwards. Contracts should be made between the Employer and the Merc Unit, the money goes to the Merc Unit, and then is dispersed per a system set up by the Unit Commander and/or their Command & Staff.

The Unit Coffers are meant to cover costs of operations. The Contracting Faction would have nothing to do with it. Further plans for the coffer come into play after we start adding logistics to the CW feature but that is not part of CW Phase 2.


What about those of us Unit Commander’s who keep track of our MechWarrior’s? This might really just put a boot straight in the ass of all the work we’ve done.

The way the members of your Unit behave is completely internal to your Unit's organization. Politics, tracking participation, standards of gameplay are completely in the player's hands. If players within your Unit decide to change Factions, that is entirely their call and up to you how you react to that situation.


Will we be able to have any input, whatsoever, on what we would like to see in the Faction Management interface? Will we be able to select plug-in/module items to build our own management interface?

Either I mis-read the original question or you are assuming there may be something there that will not be. :)

I think it was me reading the question wrong. Either way, let me clarify. No there will not be player councils governing Factions.. there are WAY too many variables there and it would be near impossible to set up something that would be considered fair when it comes to player to player interaction at that level. For example, for every player that supports a given "counsel" member's idea, there are just as many who do not agree. This opens a political nightmare and also starts to cater to special interest groups and that is something we'd rather not put our player base through. To that end, no, there will not be a Faction Management interface.

As mentioned in an earlier update.. the further into development we go the less "news" there's going to be since design won't be changing much. Below I'll update you with the news/updates I can share...

Something Stirring

It seems that Thad our Level Designer has been busy working on a second Invasion Mode map. This one has 3 gates in it and will make both attackers and defenders decide early on which path they plan to take or face the consequences of thier choice.

This makes 2 new maps for Phase 2 Invasion mode.

The IS Map Looks a Lot Better

The current IS Map you see in the client has been updated both graphically and interactively. The rendering engineers have put a lot of extra hours into this and it's paying off very well. Can you have a sneak peek? That will depend on who wins an arm wrestle between Russ and myself. I'd like to keep some stuff under wraps for the big reveal when Phase 2 goes live.

Some More Clarifications

Faction Point Usage

It's been asked if Loyalty Points are a spendable currency. The answer is no. Loyalty Points are similar to XP in which players will earn LP while aligned to a Faction and those points will reward the player at certain milestones. Essentially it's a leveling system with rewards that are Faction specific. Things like titles, cosmetics and infamy.

Merc Units and Mercenaries (Lone Wolfes) along with Dagger Stars who align themselves with a Faction using the previously discussed Faction Contracts will earn LP at varying rates depending on the length of contract they take. The fastest means of earning LP is to permanently align yourself with a Faction.


Switching Units and Faction Alignment

When a Merc Unit enters CW for the first time, the Unit Leader will be selecting a Faction Contract. Once selected, all members of the unit will be automatically aligned to the Faction. At the end of the contract, the Unit Leader has the option to retake a contract with the same Faction or to switch to a contract from a different Faction. If the Unit Leader switches to a different Faction, all players within the until will automatically be aligned to the new Faction.

The basic premise is, when a player is part of a unit, they will automatically be aligned to the Faction that the Unit has aligned to. This includes switching Units. For example, if a Unit is aligned to Davion for 3 months, and 1 month into the contract a member decides to leave, that member will be switched back to a neutral alignment (Mercenary/Lone Wolf). In order to continue to participate in Community Warfare, this player must choose a contract from one of the Houses/Clans OR join a new Unit. If this player joins a Unit that is aligned to House Kurita, the player's alignment will automatically switch to Kurita.

This may bring up the question of, what if the Unit Leader wants to change Faction before the contract is up? In this case, the Unit Leader has 2 options. The first is to disband his/her Unit or to pass Unit Leader to another member and then leave the Unit and follow the same process as the above description. A Unit Leader cannot disband a Unit unless it is empty and he/she is the last person remaining.

Unit Coffers and the Faction Reset on Release of Phase 2

It's been asked a couple time now... will the Unit Coffers be reset on day 1 when we reset alignments? The answer is no. We can't be that mean... <_< ... yeah.. we can't be that mean.

After Phase 2 is out, will future CW content be released iteratively (i.e. smaller additions that occur more often - say, monthly), or more like expansion packs (i.e. larger bundles of content dropped every 3-6 months)?

More than likely we'll be adding bigger stuff with longer intervals. At the same time we'll be fixing and addressing current features that need to be revisited.


How are contracts structured? i.e. is there any point in staying loyal if the faction you chose loses every significant engagement in the first month? I haven't seen any mention about whether CW combat provides C-Bill / XP rewards or should I just assume that it will be similar to the Public queue rewards? If a player loses the LP of the Faction they just left when switching, how does the player continue to lose LP for that Faction since all of the Faction's LP would already have been lost after the switch?

You will be earning XB/CB like you do in public play. We are working on balancing the reward system for CW to make sure you don't notice a significant difference from public play.

Faction alignment will not affect you if the Faction is always losing, only the IS map will change to reflect that.

Players will not ZERO out LP if they leave a Faction. They will take a penalty amount initially and from that point on it will depend on which Faction they switched to, to determine any further losses. If you have 100 LP in Kurita and switch to Davion, you will take the initial hit of, let's say 20 LP for example leaving you with 80 LP. If killing a Kurita player as a Davion player costs 1 Kurita LP, then your Kurita standing will be 79LP but you will be climbing in Davion LP.


Why can I not create a Clan persona and an Inner Sphere persona?

This is something that was discussed internally. It is a HUGE rewrite of our database/back-end systems and much larger than the plan we have in action right now. It was originally designed to have an IS profile, and a Clan profile for CW but due to technical hurdles that would have to be implemented, we moved away from profile selection to what we have now.


Can I get more information about the LP boosters from the Phoenix packs? And, finally, will Loyalty Points degrade over time?

LP will not degrade over time. As for LP booster, if you got one with your Phoenix Package and equip it when you're aligned to that Faction, you will get your extra LP per match from the booster on top of your normal earnings. This operates much like XP/CB boosters in Hero 'Mechs for example.


Regarding Loyalty Points, have you made any provision to insert loyalty medallions for Clan players who bought the Phoenix Packages or are these boosters going to be restricted to Inner Sphere Factions?

This is something I can bring up in the next production meeting with Russ and Matt.


How will faction loyalists who commit permanently be rewarded above contract players?

The thing about permanently aligning with a Faction is that you will earn higher LP per match than part-time contract players.


So, what's the point of Loyalty Points if you plan to be a Mercenary unit for a Clan?

Clans will be giving out rewards just like IS Houses do.


So for us Mercs that means, that Faction Rewards can only be used while we are contracted with that specific faction... if we are playing our role properly, we would be fighting for a lot of houses, which means all faction rewards will just be senseless for us?

If you keep switching Factions then you won't be able to maximize the awards you get from the Factions if you were to stay with them longer. Constant flipping of Factions is something we do not encourage but it's up to you the players to choose what to do. If you do frequently flip Factions, you will have low LP totals for numerous Factions instead of high LP for a single Faction.


Is the LP system only going to be counting CW matches?

LP is Loyalty Points, this is part of the CW part of MWO. So yes, LP will only be earned in CW gameplay.


On behalf of the large and lively Nova Cat faction existing within your playerbase I´d like to ask:Should we go for timed clan loyalist contracts and hope, or go permanent?

This is up to you but I would suggest going for the longest part time contracts for now. Once we add Clan Nova Cat to the game, you can then switch to it when you see fit.


Will specific mech chassis used mainly by a specific faction give you any bonus or boost to LP earned for each faction during CW play?

Not at this time but it is something we could add in a future expansion.


Have you considered placing Ammo Supply Points (ASP) on the map and allow the units to either attack it or defend it? Maybe one on each side of map or just one located on the map. It then becomes a decision of securing the ASP first or take out the gate first? Or try to do both. Make the players decide and fight over the ammo.

If and when we do add an ammo supply system into the game, we probably will do it as you mention where they are vulnerable to attack.


So... what is CW for a newb like me and will it modify in anyway the way I play now? I would not like to be forced to join a faction because I don't know nothing about any and I don't feel to do some intensive reading about where all this is originating from.

Community Warfare is an Opt-in section of the game. You are a public/PUG player, you can continue to play as such without any interference from CW if you so choose. If you do not launch into a match from the Faction tab, you will launch as you do right now.


StalaggtIKE(Big set-up block of text for a question but here's the answer):Is such a system being considered? Will there be any incentives to choosing one over the other?

Half of your question relates to items we would include with logistics. As mentioned in other updates, logistics would be a large undertaking which we'd have to do in a Phase 3 type of expansion.

As for reducing prices on items based on Faction play, this is something that our database is not built to do. It is something that we will continue to investigate but it will not be in Phase 2 of CW.


Could you not manage the CW, that if somebody wins a planet, they could it hold without fear (fight) for a [week] long or such... Because, fighting for a planet 90 days long day-after-day is just boooooring?

When a planet is successfully taken over, the game will select an adjacent planet to put up for contest next. So yes, if you do successfully take over a planet, it will remain in your control as long as the opposing faction doesn't push you back through counter attacks on the nearby planets.


This is something we can discuss and has been mentioned. I'll fill everyone in if anything comes of this. We do think it would not be ideal for a brand new player to drop into CW." Really? While I agree it might not be ideal, are we catering CW to the 1% ?

Miscommunication here... this decision has nothing to do with competitive players, it has to do with us not wanting to drop brand new players into this experienced/role playing aspect of MWO.


Butane9000: Map alternative suggestions

Great suggestions here and we'll look into this as we develop CW.


Jetfire: Consumable suggestions

Some good thoughts here, a few that would be problematic but thank you for your suggestions!


Can you expand on what you mean by zones?

What have you guys thought about or worked on to deal with population imbalances between the factions? Would it work to stagger the faction contract sign ups instead of doing them all at once? Do you have plans to use population and faction successes to determine the number of CW planets that are contested at a given time?

We recently pulled the data on Faction alignment from a Unit perspective. What is surprising is that currently Units are fairly evenly spread across the 10 Factions. There will be the Faction reset at the start of CW that may change this and we will be keeping an eye on this carefully. While the game system will be in charge of planet contention, we do have the ability to add/override any planetary conflicts. If Steiner has a ton of people defending their border, we could easily add more Steiner planets into a contested state and open the floodgates to attack Steiner.


Will Wolf's Dragoons ever be a faction in this game? If so, does the original plan of attaining a certain amount of LP in each of the IS houses before you can join them still hold true?

It is our plan to add Wolf's Dragoons but not right away. When they do appear in the game, they will earn and lose LP in a different manner than a "pure" Faction/Merc Unit player would.


Clarification: "You say that you keep your loyalty rewards, even after you change factions. You also say that you lose all loyalty points upon changing a faction."

Again, you do not lose ALL LP when switching Factions, but there will be a hit to your total.


I'd like to know, whether repair and rearm will be implemented in community warfare. So for all intents and purposes there aren't really any "house units" but rather "mercenary units" taking a "permanent alignment" contract?

First, repair and rearm is something we have to be very careful about. We do not want to cause a situation where players lose so many CB through RnR that they can no longer play. We bring this topic back up every 2-3 months and still are looking into a way of bringing it back in a manner that makes sense and is fair to the player.


If there are 36 players attacking a planet, split into 3 groups of 12, will I be able to view the members and choose which group I want to defend against?

Matches will be created by 2 groups of 12 players. How those groups are constructed is on a first come first serve basis. You will not know who is on the other team until the match starts.


What is your relationship with Catalyst Labs? Are they working with you to make the game more canon?

Randall Bills has been working with us since near the beginning of the project. He's an invaluable resource when it comes to lore and information not generally available online. Very cool guy and I'm lucky enough to have a picture of him and myself choking each other out. But yes, he's a go to guy for lore and was also behind the InnerSphere News items that we used to have running.


Some players are purist and will only play IS mechs (Maybe some will only play clan mechs as well. But I’m going just talk about IS purists). Others, may not want to put out the cost for clan mechs. So, if the unit leader picks an IS fraction for a month of contracts, everyone in the unit can participate. However if he changes it up to a month of clan contracts, now everyone in that unit who does not own a clan mech is unable to play CW for 30 days!

This is entirely up to the player Unit to decide on. It is no different than playing a guild in an MMO where every decision is made by the players and the leader of the guild.


Clarification: I read Paul's post and I didn't see anything that said you wouldn't be able to equip cockpit items you earned (or purchased) from factions you aren't aligned with.

Items that you currently have (and can still buy after CW launches), such as a Steiner flag will always be usable. It's the rewards that are given out by a Faction (i.e. not purchased) that will be locked to Faction alignment.


SovietArmada: Ammo Center suggestions.

Again, some good ideas and thanks for the suggestions!


What kind of Loyalty Points am I going to need to get my Wolf's Dragoons decal?

There will be full disclosure when we get around to adding Wolf's Dragoons as to how they will be part of the game.


With the rank specific items are we talking about faction ranks or ranks based on our individual unit basis?

Faction ranks are ranks given by the actual Faction. The Factions will reward players with ranks as they accumulate enough LP to meet their thresholds. Yes, you will be able to get Faction specific ranks that are pulled from canon.

Primary Topic - Community Warfare


Are you really dropping all the regular maps and going 100% invasion for CW?

- Changes in CW has made it harder to use the old maps and modes
- 2 Confirmed Maps... 3rd will be complete in early Dec Alpine theme, Canyon Network theme, Caustic Valley Theme
- 3 different lance dropzone for Leopard dropships
- Normal maps won't be included in CW intitially.. will need to be upgraded/overhauled to support new Invasion functionality



Due date for CW Dropship testing?

- Tomorrow Nov 14 - starts Friends and Family CW Testing
- Its big feature so need encompassing testing
- Dec 2nd patch very light
- Dec 16th still target for CW release
- Need to decide on Invitation mechanic for testing



Will Solo Faction Players be supported in CW without units?

- Yes we expect you to be reasonable participate in CW
- Attack and Defend as a Solo Player with Contracts
- Que will build up to 12 players and then launch.. mix of Solo and Group



Attack windows seem very inconvenient any chances they will be changed?

- Attack Windows gone.. open all the time
- Will watch ques and put in extra Calls to Arms during peak times to draw people into CW
- Want to support players to exist exclusively in CW.
- Will watch battles alot / gating implemented to try to prevent auto wins. Perhaps a 10 minute wait for defenders to show up
- Need to get alot of real data to help make decisions



How are you going to prevent large factions from ganging up on smaller and what rewards will you provide if you help them out as Mercs?

- Capital can never be taken... always a base
- All factions will initially start to pay the same to attacks
- Can alters reward structure as the game goes to help out weaker factions
- Smallest Faction is atleast 1000 players



what are you going do to maintain faction balance?

- Change rewards to influence player behavior



Will Dropships be armed?

- Will be armed and customized with turrets.. Significant damage output to prevent spawn camping



Can you separate CW and Competitive players by allow people to be in both a unit and SolarisVII stable?

- Not now.. but in the future



Large units have both hardcore IS and Clan players... can this be supported?

- No.... This is why they went with Contracts to allow individual players to switch sides.
- Probably never salvaged mechs allowing IS unit to have Both Clan and IS mechs on same side



Clan tech on IS mechs?

- YES, but way down the timeline



Will the Concept of Attrition be in CW?

- Not in the beginning
- plays into logistics which isn't available at the beginning
- Doesn't want to handicap players since this modifies and sent players away



What are the planned limitation on Group Creation in CW?

- None.. this is suppose to be hardcore mode
- Large Groups and Competitive teams are not going to be stopped by groups of Solo Players. The Counter for these are more of the same.
- Big groups want to see big rewards.
- Solo player support needs to be watched, as its going to be very hostile for these players, but there will be trade offs that will need to be evaluated.
- Probably very tough for Solo players
- Battle Wheels and VOIP additions on the board to get into the game.



Warning to Solo player that click on Faction Tab so they know how dangerous CW will be for them?

- No



Set of Module of cost more mech with upgrades. Makes Dropship mode VERY expensive to outfit mechs. Will this change

- Maybe change modules system to that modules are cheap but are permanent additions to mech.
- Perhaps MC to remove them like WoT
- likes the expensive but interchangeable



What will make Permanent Contracts stand out for Long Term

- Longer the the higher the multiplier for LP
- Permanent created to support those types of players that don't want to
- expect vast majority of players to do 1 2, or 4



Intensives to use Faction Mechs in CW?

- Probably not since it will be limiting to the player... maybe in the future



Will you force 1PV only for CW

- Sure it makes sense but He really doesn't care about forcing
- Will Faction Rewards be truly special?
- Wants to make truly unique rewards (player driven)
- LP will be under used to start with
- 20 levels of LP... Phoenix packers will start between Lvl 1 and 3
- Titles will appear in game within 1 to 2 months of CW launch
- Decal system will launch shortly after CW launch
- Wants to avoid Faction skins since the time involved to create them is immense.
- to start with will look an achievement system.. will evolve over time.
- Perhaps add in discounts for equipment
- Will get lower rewards if added and you are already higher level



CW Summary?

- All Players be set at Mercs - Now Choose
- No planned Seasons, want persisent, much might need to reset at some point
- Contracts to start 1, 2, 4 months and permanent
- Want to make faction decision feel weighty
- Each Attack / Defend Contracts will tell you the rewards upfront
- LP as you fight
- Unit Players will ALWAYS drop as a Unit/group.. never solo
- As you gain planets the map will change
- Highest Performing in attack/defend Unit Tag will appear next to Planet
- Universe Map has had a major upgrade
- 140 to 240 starting dropdeck
- Will vary by planet.. but 140 to 240 will be most common
- 3rd Person view as the initial drop starts
- First Death sends you back to drop ship lobby and select next mech
- 30 second respawn timer
- Thinks match lengths last no more than 30 minutes
- Main Objective will be giant anti-drop ship gauss rifle
- 24 hours to fight over 11 zone. who ever has 6+ zones at the end gets the planet
- December 16th is the target release
- Beta Test with Friends n Family starting Nov 14th... will expand via invitations
- Initially Faction will care BETA tag so that we know its a work in progress
- Probably wont have Drop Costs to start with. Unit Coffers wont be needed to start
- Wants Coffers to be able to upgrade planetary defense upgrades



Whats the incentive to go Merc vs House?

- None to start with, tossing around ideas for change in rewards
- Would like to evolve it.
- wants to prevent faction flipping as much as possible to prevent gaming the system for better rewards
- will take ideas from players on how it can be improved



What were your takeaways from the Weekend Challenge with Weight Limits to help Group Queue MM

- Keep 3/3/3/3 in UI make it more restrictive 2 - 1/1, 4 1/1/1/1, 8 2/2/2/2, 9 3/2/2/2
- Provide Small Handicap to Small groups... with tonnage restrictions 2 man 60 - 175 3man 120 -230tons 12man 480 - 720
- Match up group sizes on each side
- Layer in Average ELO for groups
- Reintroduce Game Mode voting with ability to veto ONE and Only One Mode



When will these changes be made?

- After Christmas



Are you worried about player backlash on this proposal?

- Players have to accept things have to change for the betterment of the game. Something has to give.. cant get something for nothing.



Any plans to fix JJ animation on certain mechs that allows them avoid/spread damage?

- Aware of issue but not near future fix.. 2015



TTK Triple HP on all mechs to make everyone will more survivable?

- Match Length since Quirks has dropped only 15 seconds.
- Trying to find a good way track this better.
- Based on Match length the TTK probably has only drop a small amount.
- Might consider increasing Armor and HP in short term.
- Current Meta from their stand point is all MPL and SRMS now.
- Looking for balance... always going on



If we get Clan Hero Mechs will they get Omnipods or Locked Hard points

- Assume there will mechs but no timeline
- Not really thinking about them right now so can't really answer it well
- Don't see Clan Hero mechs breaking Omnipod rules.



What was the result of the community outreach on ECM?

- Still committed to attacking the ECM problem with directed Town-halls
- Probably post Christmas
- wants to talk ECM, Ghost Heat



Do you have plans to review mechs that have fallen short of the mark on Quirks?

- already have a list building
- probably no changes until Dec 16th build at the earliest and even then will be small to start



Add Non Weapon IS Quirks? Consumable, Sensor Range, etc...

- Absolutely no list right now



What was the reason for adding the S Variant of the Timberwolf... seems overpowered. Consider changing it to provide better balance?

- Wont be removed from game
- Can't forsee everything.. sometimes things get added. Sold alot.. not going to take it away from anyone
- Nerf it? Maybe... but that's apart of the balance equations... maybe add negative quirks



Would you consider a longer release schedule because of the price point of mech packs?

- yes



Possibility for a bigger, more organized, better marketed tournament?

- Yes, would love one soon!



Urbanmech ETA?

- Alex has mocked up the Urbanmech



How the API coming along?

- didn't comment



How is VOIP coming along?

- not worked on at all... want Buckton on it soon.. A TOP priority



Command Wheel?

- Would like but not priority



Any plans for global help and chat tabs?

- Huge revamp of UI underway
- Smurfy Mechlab + Collapse Smurfy view
- Potential to drag weapons directly onto the mech
- Alot of work.. most after the New Year
- If going to go Steam 1st 1/2 of next years need a FTUE overhaul including help and new tutorials
- No ETA



UI 3.0 when?

- You can call the above 3.0 if you want
- 1st 1/2 of 2015
- He will call it 2.5
- it will be wicked



Colorblind friendly mode for UI?

- Doesn't have an answer?



Plans to take smaller maps out of rotation, enlarge or revamp them?

- Been talking about reworking them
- Using them for FTUE to ease new players into the game in 4v4 games



Any Re-flavoring of existing maps in the works?

- Possible
- Working on Time of Day functionality probably see it in CW Invasion maps first



Would be nice to have a module swapper

- Much easier in new UI..
- will know what mechs they are on!!!!!!



Map release schedule? How often?

- Fairly quickly AFTER CW
- Maybe as much as once a month for re-flavored maps
- 5 new maps this year... just sayin



Will some maps be available for Dropship mode and Public Que modes?

- Effort need to make the two compatible... definitely not day one of CW... in the future maybe



How happy are you with Clan Engine XL drawback? Most players don't seem to notice it

- We can grow it pretty easy
- For now no immediate plans to change it
- Will wait for CW and review



Mech Collisions and Knockdowns implemented soon?

- Top Priority for Russ.. but need resources to become available after CW to look at it



Will we get additional Omnipods added to Ice ferret and Summoner to give them more variety?

- Yes but no schedule at the moment



Is PGI willing to create variant for Chassis that don't have lore variant that are available?

- Yes



Custom Hangers for MC? Things to customize Hangers

- Great idea! Just need available resource



Mauler Update?

- Not really but its an obvious good candidate



Considered IIC mechs?

- Yes.. will be a timeline thing
- Very focused on Clan Invasion



Any last comments?

- Very glad we got chance to have another one before CW release
- Work very hard to get CW into the hands of the community ASAP
- Some players will be disappointed but that will always happens you do your best to please as many as possible.
- Very excited and nervous in the time leading up to CW.

Community Warfare Update – Nov 20

Inner Sphere Map

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/MWO%20map.jpg)



Drop Ships

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/MWO%20dropship.jpg)


As each wave of ‘Mechs enters the battlefield, a Drop Ship will be entering the playspace for each lance. Everyone in Lance Alpha, will be spawning from the same Drop Ship, and the same goes for Bravo and Charlie.

Currently each Drop Ship wave is spaced at [30] seconds apart. If there are no players in need of a drop, no Drop Ships will appear. The [30] second timer is a global timer. For example, players who get their ‘Mechs destroyed at time X, will be dropping back into the game at the same time as players who had their ‘Mechs destroyed at X+25 seconds. A player who had their ‘Mech destroyed at X+29 seconds will have to be fast with their ‘Mech selection or they will carry over to the next [30] drop meaning they will drop back into the match at x+31 seconds.

Players can only miss 1 drop. If a player does not make a valid ‘Mech selection within 2 drop cycles, they will automatically be assigned the first available ‘Mech from left to right in their Drop Ship layout.



Contracts

Contract times have been reduced from 1 month, 2 months, 4 months and Permanent to 7 days, 14 days, 28 days and Permanent. We have also added the ability to break a contract but it will be at the cost of both Loyalty Points and C-Bills. Further detail on the actual costs will be outlined in the next update as we are still testing 12v12 x 4 outcomes in a CW match to see where the economy will be sitting when CW goes live.



Invasion Game Mode

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3584773/MWO%20gates.jpg)

This is coming along nicely. The map has gone from the terrain map it was to a nicely art covered map. It is still an open map so keep your heads down and moving. There are now turrets mounted on the gates. Breaking through the gates is not meant to be an easy task but it is also not meant to be a drain on your logistical resources (ammo).

As per usual, feedback can go here: http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/178784-community-warfare-update-nov-20-feedback/
And I'll post answers to questions later tonight.

The Update

First I'd like to apologize for the missed Q&A last week.. it was a crazy number of meetings plus trying to get CW properly prepped.

Loyalty Point Bonuses From Contracts:

There have been numerous questions about the purpose of taking longer contracts with Factions. The varying length of contracts provide Loyalty Point reward bonuses. What this means is that every time you are awarded LP, you will recieve an extra bonus amount of XP that is directly impacted by the length of contract you have signed up with a Faction. The bonus levels are:
7-Day Contrate = 0% bonus.
14-Day Contract = 15% bonus.
28-Day Contract = 30% bonus.
Permanent alignment = 50% bonus.
This means that if you earn 100 LP after a match, and you have selected a 14-Day contract with House Kurita, you will recieve 100+15=115 LP for that match.

LP bonuses do NOT stack with other LP bonuses. All calculations are based of the base amount of LP being rewarded.

There are 2 methods of earning LP; in-game actions and battle contract rewards. Everytime a group leader or solo player clicks on a planet they can fight on, an attack or defense contract will appear and these are the battle contract rewards. If you successfully complete the contract (win the match), you will earn the LP indicated by the battle contract.

Case Study 1:
The player is aligned to House Davion on a 28-day contract.
The player clicks a planet in Kurita space that is along the Kurita/Davion border and is under conflict.
A battle contract appears and on the contract it will state that if the player succesfully wins the attack match, they will earn 50 LP.
The player accepts the contract and is dropped into the match.
The player wins the match and returns back to the front-end.
The player is presented with the reward of 50 LP and an additional 30% for being on a 28-day contract (an additional 15 LP) for a total of 65 LP.
The other method of earning LP is in-game actions. This is very similar to how players currently earn XP/C-Bills for in-game actions. This is the current LP reward table:

-Component Destruction = 8LP
-Kill = 15 LP
-Assist = 6 LP
-Team Kill = -20 LP
-Kill with Most Damage = 20 LP
-Solo Kill = 30 LP
-Scouting = 5 LP
-Flanking = 5 LP
-Brawling = 10 LP
-Tag Kill = 15 LP
-NARC Kill = 15 LP
-Hit And Run = 10 LP
-Lance Formation = 5 LP
-Protected Medium = 3 LP
-Protected Light = 3 LP
-Saviour Kill = 12 LP
-Defensive Kill = 12 LP
-UAV Kill = 7 LP
-Counter ECM = 10 LP
-Counter ECM Locked Damage = 3 LP
-Turret Kill = 5 LP


Case Study 2:

-In the match in Case Study 1, the player got 4 assists, 2 kills, 3 hit and runs, 1 saviour kill, 1 UAV kill and 3 Turret Kills.
-The player has earned 24 LP from assists
-The player has earned 30 LP from kills
-The player has earned 30 LP from hit and runs
-The player has earned 12 LP from saviour kills
-The player has earned 7 LP from uav kills
-The player has earned 15 LP from turret kills
-This means the player has earned 118 base LP.
-The player is on a 28-day contract with Davion, hence will recieve an additional 30% LP bonus
-The player has earned 153 (rounded) LP total.

Of Note:
We have also added a 10% LP bonus to Premium Time which works exactly the same as above by being calculated using the base amount of LP earned.. not the sum of all LP plus bonuses. A reminder, Loyalty Points (LP) can only be earned while participating in Community Warfare conflicts.



Drop Ships and How They Work

This keeps coming up in a lot of questions so I'll try to clarify as much as I can on the topic.

Consider Drop Ships a loan from the Faction you are aligned to. You are a space hitch-hiker and they're giving you a ride to the battlefield. The reason I say this, is that for the moment, you cannot modify or engage the Drop Ships as they bring players into the game.

You MUST bring 4 'Mechs into the match. The total tonnage of all 4 'Mechs must fall between 140 and 240 tons. You will not be able to save your Drop Ship configuration until this requirement has been met.

There is only one Drop Ship loadout at the moment. This is why you can switch 'Mechs in your Drop Ship right up until the point that the Match Maker kicks in and starts putting you into a match. You will have enough time to configure your Drop Ship if needed and you will also know if you're attacking or defending.

Prior to dropping into a match, make sure you select which 'Mech you want to drop into battle with on the first pass. If you're 'Mech gets destroyed, you will see the standard death screen like you currently do in public matches. On this screen is a Drop Ship selection button which will bring up the interface to allow you to choose your next 'Mech to pilot. On this screen you also see how much time is remaining before the next wave of Drop Ships head into the battlefield. I don't want to spoil what happens during this time so you'll have to wait and see. It's pretty cool!

Once all 4 of your 'Mechs are destroyed, you will be able to spectate just you can right now in public matches.



Contract Length Reductions

A lot of people are not on board with the recent change in terms of contract lengths.

We wanted to make sure players had enough flexibility to play their various 'Mechs and to play the role of Mercenaries while staying within the contraints that we need to have in place to make CW work.

That being said, the 7,14 and 28 day contracts are currently implemented, but these numbers can be fairly easily changed. Russ and I have been talking about these times and we are both seeing the positives on both longer and shorter contracts. We MAY change these numbers sometime between now and the release of CW. I'll let you know when the numbers are locked down.



Grouping In CW

To re-emphasis what has been mentioned before. Community Warfare is primarily directed to role-playing and unit gameplay. It is because of this that groups in CW (Unit Groups) will consist of only players within the same unit. A team can have players from multiple units but groups themselves will only consist of players who are in the same group/faction.



Summary

We are only a few weeks away from Community Warfare being in your hands and playable. That being said, not a lot is going to change between now and December 16th. We need to stabilize the build and continue testing as much as we can to make sure the feature is ready to go on to the live servers.

This is the last major update before that time. I will however keep trickling information out as it becomes available with more and more finalized implementation and testing.

Community Warfare - Phase 2 is now in a state of fruition with numerous possibilities for growth and expansion as we head into the new year. It's an exciting time for us here at PGI and the entire development staff is eager to get it in your hands and watch a new era of BattleTech InnerSphere history unfold as you, the community, drive the direction the invasion and Faction conflicts go.

Finally get them to address population balance systems and the response is: "it looks balanced enough".

Except:
1. Mercs/LNW are a HUGE population dwarfing any of the other factions in population.
2. Everyone gets to "re-pick" their faction at launch.

At least they acknowledged that more planets to spread out the population of bigger factions works, for sure they won't have a procedural system to handle that though at launch.