41 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

Now, it's kind of hard to fundamentally change the game modes, because the maps are, in my opinion, quite flawed to begin with. But I do wonder if there's some leeway to improve Skirmish and Conquest. I'll start with Skirmish in this thread.

The definition of 'skirmish' is "A brief battle between small groups, usually part of a longer or larger battle or war."

Now, the problem I have with Skirmish right now is that it turns into deathball a lot of the time. There's very little lance vs lance combat going on, because all three lances on a team are closer to each other than to the enemy. So you can't really catch anyone out, except for when pugs leave their Dire Wolves behind.

Lance vs Lance engagements don't happen, because it's better to regroup than to try to chase the enemy.

This is the status quo:

What I'm proposing is to place each spawn point so that the closest enemy lance is closer than the closest friendly lance. So you get lance vs lance combat straight off the bat. If people try to regroup, they're going to get chewed out as they run away.

This would basically simulate a situation where a company is splitting up to search for the enemy and you suddenly encounter the enemy force, without time to regroup. On some maps, there isn't enough space for three engagements right off the bat. So you could have two initial engagements and both teams have 1 lance deployed further behind, with the choice to support either lances on the front.

This is my suggestion:

Hopefully, this would be a nice change from the 12 vs 12 deathballing that has pretty much defined MWO since, what, 2013? You would have a lot more small skirmishes, in the proper sense of the word, and eventually victors would be free to help out their teammates.

Of course, ideally the maps would be big enough that you didn't have to drop within 500 meters of the enemy to accomplish what I'm going for. It would be nice if scouting was required, while achieving lance vs lance engagements. But as soon as you place two teams 2 kilometers apart, they're just going to form deathballs. So now assault = deathball, skirmish = lance vs lance, conquest = a combination of the above.

I'm presenting the general idea here, I don't need to know if one example has a spawn point 10 pixels too close to the enemy or whatever. They're just illustrations.

Thoughts? Would it work? Would it be fun?

Edited by Alistair Winter, 10 January 2015 - 09:12 PM.

[cSand]

Some good things here and I like the idea

but I can just see the QQ when 5 seconds in to the match you're being slammed with arties before you even got your headphones on

[Alistair Winter]

cSand, on 10 January 2015 - 09:20 PM, said:

Some good things here and I like the idea

but I can just see the QQ when 5 seconds in to the match you're being slammed with arties before you even got your headphones on

People who are AFK when the match starts can collectively ************* anyway

I see what you're saying though.

EDIT: What in the actual ****? MWO forum just censored this insult: Really, PGI? Really?

Edited by Alistair Winter, 10 January 2015 - 09:24 PM.

[cSand]

Alistair Winter, on 10 January 2015 - 09:22 PM, said:

People who are AFK when the match starts can collectively ************* anyway

I see what you're saying though.

EDIT: What in the actual ****? MWO forum just censored this insult: Really, PGI? Really?

Lol hey I agree man.

But, the QQ. I mean look at it now. Just imagine. JUST IMAGINE

[cSand]

You know what would be cool, is if the lance commander in pug matches (to prevent much trolling), could deploy the lances within a certain area of grids. IE, you choose to place your lance in B4 or w/e... maybe you need a command console for this or something. That would be legit and would mix things up a bunch cause you'd never know where the enemy was starting their lance.

I mean I'm sure there are issues that would come about that I can't even imagine right now but being able to place your lance would be ****


edit: they blanked out my word for boobs

Edited by cSand, 10 January 2015 - 09:30 PM.

[Slow and Decrepit]

Thats a very good idea as long as we were expecting the shooting to start right away, otherwise the players that don't pay attention will be qqing about the whole thing and sayin' things like WTF man, it's not suppose to be this way!

[Vanguard836]

Definitely an interesting idea, not saying I'm for or against it, but definitely interesting.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Would be a good chance of pace.

But I would allow for maps to have several variants so that each map that could do this would have different sets of starting points.

So Players would only see the current names Alpine Peaks and so on, but sticking with Alpine Peaks it could have say three different starting point sets.

AP -1: Current Starting Points
AP - 2: Proposed Starting Points
AP- 3: Third set of Starting Points

This way more existing assets can get reused and we increase variety with game modes.

[cSand]

Yoyu know, it wouldn't be half bad if they kept the current starting points, but also added someting like yours into the mix as well. So, you might get the same map twice but different starting points layout

Edit: Praetor KNight beat me to it

Edited by cSand, 10 January 2015 - 09:49 PM.

[Duke Nedo]

I like the notion, but I don't think it would play out that way in practice... the team that forms the deathball nearly always wins and I think that wouldn't change. It would just take slightly more determination to get that deathball formed.

For it to work, I think that each lance would need to be following a 1-1-1-1 rule, that would make it harder for the "light" and "medium" lance to just run off and create a 8v4 or 12v4 on another part of the map. Another incentive to actually fight out the lance v lance skirmish before regrouping could be to also place an objective near the lance-pair that gives the winner an advantage. This would add to the snowball-effect of winning the skrimish, but something like that might be needed to make the skirmish happen in the first place... ?

[The Wakelord]

I like the general concept, and Duke Nedo's additions to it.

The closest I see to skirmish is actually at Kappa on Terra Therma. Usually a lance gets there at the same time, and you get a pretty hectic battle as you never know if the enemy team is Jenners, Jaegers or Matcats.

[Duke Nedo]

Actually, a better idea than using an objective to promote lance-vs-lance engagement could be to add a reward for winning a lance-vs-lance skrimish. A bit tricky to define, but if possible it could work out like a "sprint price" you have in long distance cross-country skiing competitions to spice things up (like bonus seconds in tour-de-ski and money rewards in other races for being the first to reach certain checkpoints) and probably other sports as well.

[Warchild Corsair]

Nice ideas to freshen up a dull gamemode. I would like to try the new starting points.

[Quaamik]

I like the concept, and with bigger maps it would work.

But with most current maps it would force drops within 1 k or less of an enemy lance.


People who are AFK aside, Ive seen issues where lag puts a delay on some startups. Not long, maybe 30 seconds from when the first mech can move till the last. Also, one of the things you gain in mastering a mech is faster ignition time. That said this would be the death of people with poor connection and of new mechs.

Imagine you drop against a team where everyone has master their mechs in you brand new XXX mech. You have barely come online when missile warnings are screaming at you and you find 80 LRMs inbound. You lance mates, having got full ignition 3 seconds before you, are already moving to engage or find cover. You survive, but your heavily damaged littlerally before you are fully in the game.

Its even worse with those occasional drops where someone starts up 45 seconds a minute ate due to connection issues.

A second issue is balance. Are you going to place ones sides assault lance close to the other sides light lance? Will PGI be able to consistently do that without giving away on the pre-screen when enemy lance is which? I doubt it. Wich means you are going get lance vs lance fights of mediums vs assaults, lights vs heavies, and lights vs assaults.

[Quaamik]

The big maps (terra therma, Alpine) this could be done though. They are big enough that you could start two lances 1.2k from the enemy and the third lance 1.6k from either. That should give enough spacing so a small fast lance (lights or mediums) could disengage if they wanted, yet far enough apart that heavies and assaults would have to commit or risk being chewed up before they could group up. Especially if you picked locations where the path to the enemy was almost straight line, and the path to group up was longer than the straight line distance.

Edited by Quaamik, 11 January 2015 - 06:27 AM.

[Bartholomew bartholomew]

Meh, truly random starting points would be better. Otherwise you can bait hunt when the MM throws you a good lance.

[Joseph Mallan]

cSand, on 10 January 2015 - 09:20 PM, said:

Some good things here and I like the idea

but I can just see the QQ when 5 seconds in to the match you're being slammed with arties before you even got your headphones on

You mean some players don't have them on before the game even loads?

[Shatterpoint]

You're giving way too much credit to the average player, wish you weren't but you are.

Average player: "oh a shiny light mech better chase it, it's OBVIOUSLY the priority in this entire match"...6 of your team chase the light mech screwing over the rest of your team in a 12vs6 focused fire fuckfest.

[cSand]

Joseph Mallan, on 11 January 2015 - 07:57 AM, said:

You mean some players don't have them on before the game even loads?

lol, ok maybe just me


I just realized that arties have a cooldown period anyways, lol.

Shatterpoint, on 11 January 2015 - 08:18 AM, said:

You're giving way too much credit to the average player, wish you weren't but you are.

Average player: "oh a shiny light mech better chase it, it's OBVIOUSLY the priority in this entire match"...6 of your team chase the light mech screwing over the rest of your team in a 12vs6 focused fire fuckfest.

doesn't this happen anyways?

Edited by cSand, 11 January 2015 - 08:24 AM.

[Shatterpoint]

cSand, on 11 January 2015 - 08:24 AM, said:

lol, ok maybe just me


I just realized that arties have a cooldown period anyways, lol.




doesn't this happen anyways?

Enough that it should be a 3 strikes and you're temp banned after your cadet period. Such a monumental dumb ass move means you're not ready for the general population yet.