6 replies to this topic

[Foresale]

Outline
Afternoon folks!
So one of the things I'd flat out love to see in MWO is the ability to invade a planet in a manner beyond the normal "drop company, kill company, get planet" manner, and introduce a bit more metagaming and strategy into the proceedings. Of course the option should still be there for the quick and dirty company on company fights, but there should also be the option for more gratuitous violence and metal mayhem.

I've got the inspiration for this from a .NET based CBT game I used to play called Invasion3042. In that, to invade a planet you had to go through several stages. You first had to fight a small battle of around 4-7k BV (so a handful of mediums) to establish a Landing Zone perimeter for the rest of your troops to be able to unload from the dropship and set up shop. After that you had to take control of 3 other zones (in I3042 they were the plains, agricultural, and mining zones, named with regards to the type of terrain there so there was a wide variety) and after you'd taken these zones you could then launch an assault on the enemy's capital. If you win there, you win the invasion, simples.

The easiest way to outline how this system would work in MWO is to go chronologically through the proceedings of one of these invasions. There's a lot I haven't thought about fully or have probably just done a naff job of coming up with, so by all means feel free to suggest alterations, as I don't actually know very much right now about how the community warfare side of things is going to work so some of the things I say may just be plain wrong.

Step 1 - Planning
So there's a world either your House or your merc unit wants, and you're determined to get it. You decide that a standard company drop isn't good enough, so you opt for a full scale planetary invasion. [The rationale behind this would be that winning a planetary invasion gives you more control over the planet and swings it more to your faction's control than just winning a company drop] You gather up your pilots, nominate a certain number of them as your invasion force [if you could bring as many people as you wanted it would ruin the persistence of having mechs destroyed as you'd just swap out that guy for someone else] and flag yourself as ready and waiting to fight a planetary invasion on that planet. For argument's sake, let's call it Epsilon Eridani, because let's face it who wouldn't want more Lineholders. The game then waits for another unit to flag themselves as ready and waiting to defend a planetary invasion on that world, and when it finds someone matches you up and you both get ready to slug it out. At this point each player nominates a few of their chassis to use in the invasion. So for example, if you have a battalion dropping, each player can nominate 3 chassis to bring with them for a total of a regiment.

Step 2 - Establishing an LZ
At this point the defender nominates a lance to defend the Landing Zone, subject to certain restrictions. These might be no mechs heavier than 55 tonnes, or a tonnage limit or some such to stop someone just plonking 4 assault mechs in the LZ and saying "come at me bro" to the attackers. Similarly the attackers also nominate an attacking lance to secure the LZ, again subject to restrictions. The logic here is that they're a forward element that's been deployed in something like a Leopard or hotdropped, in order to secure an area for the rest of the invasion force to land.

I've got two ideas for what might happen if the attackers fail to win the landing zone. The first is that if the attackers lose, that's it, they get sent home and no more fun and games for them. From a narrative point of view this makes sense, but from a gameplay point of view it wouldn't really be very fun as you'd have just spent a while mustering people to go and fight this invasion, then waiting to be paired up, and only got one battle out of it. The other idea is that the attackers can still continue the attack but their mechs take random damage which must be repaired, with a small chance of some of their attacking mechs being destroyed. This one would be much better as it allows the attacker to keep going, and would make the LZ pilots feel good about themselves, as they'd most likely end up being the "elite" pilots because they have a lot riding on them. If the LZ mechs are restricted to lights and mediums as well, then it gives people a real tangible incentive to specialise into those weight classes and become proficient at them.

Step 3 - Planetary Domination
You've got boots on the ground and the shooting match has started, time to get what you came for. At this point as the attacker you need to take the 3 sectors necessary to give you a shot at the capital. I've got a few ideas for how this might work, and I don't know which ones will actually work in practice or be fun, but here's the two most promising ones.

The first is that the attack/defend system works in a turn based fashion, so at first the invaders get to pick a zone to attack, then the defenders, etc. The downside to this is that you might just end up trading the same zone for forever and a day and never actually get anywhere.

The second (and this is the one I prefer) is that the invader picks somewhere to attack, and if they win there, they then get to pick the next battle too. Similarly, if the defender wins a battle it becomes their turn and remains their turn for as long as they keep winning. This allows invasions to "gain momentum" and helps negate the zone flipping problem inherent in a strict turn based implementation.

So you pick your battle, and in a manner similar to the Landing Zone fight, you nominate pilots and go and slug it out. An important factor here is that you can retreat from the battle [Not sure how this would work in game however] if the company commander calls a general retreat. This might be because you can see the battle's lost and you want to preserve you Stalker because you know it's going to be needed in the capital battle. It just adds that little extra layer of strategy.

Step 4 - Planetary Victory!
One of the sides controls all 3 zones. If you're the attacker, your next job is to go and take the fight to their homeland and attack their capital, engaging in an urban warfare battle against the other side. This is it, if you win here, you win the invasion, and gain a healthy share of the planet for your faction. If you're the defender, you've retained all 3 zones, and you're now going to go to the enemy's LZ, march them back up the ramps of their dropships, and kick them off your planet. But be careful, if you lose the enemy can counterattack and it all starts again!

Step 5 - The Spoils of War
After the invasion the game decides how much of a share of the planet you just won for your faction. What I'd like to see would be longer invasions with more battles earning more points than times when only a handful of battles took place. Not enough to make people be tempted to deliberately throw games to prolong the invasion, but say an extra 20% more just to acknowledge the fact you've been thrown into a meatgrinder and come out the other side.




So that's my rough idea of how this would all work. It's got a few advantages to it that would add a lot of depth.

1) Unit Rivalries and History You might end up tangling with a few units and thinking "wow, these guys are pretty good" and end up having an inter-unit rivalry, something which we see a lot of in CBT. When you launch an invasion and see them on the other side of the battlefield, you'll know what you're up against and you'll be trying damned hard to beat them to make up for the last time you clashed and got given a beating. It also lets those more organised units keep a sort of unit history if they want, or just gives players stories to tell like "hey, remember that time on Kalidasa when...."

2) Expandability The system can also be expanded to take advantage of any new game types that get added. Instead of wiping out the other team you may need to capture a weapons depot to supply your invasion, or ambush a supply convoy. You could also truely go to town with it when more maps are added. The three "zones" which need to be taken to allow a capital assault could become "continents," each with their own 3 battles which must be fought and you need to control 2 out of 3 to control that continent. So you can expand it in gameplay terms by adding new game modes, or expand it in terms of scale and player involvement.

The continental style invasions could be used for community warfare events ran by the Devs. They post contracts for the different continents, and merc units and houses get involved and start hammering each other. This would obviously need to be fleshed out more in terms of how you'd decide who wins, as there'd be no central landing zone or capital to assault [If you have, say, 12 house units on each side slugging it out, it'd be unfair to let only one of them fight in the LZ or Capital] but the potential is there to create something really amazing.

3) Possible expansion of the merc contract system. You want to invade a planet, but you're short one fire support jockey? Find a lone wolf, using some sort of lone wolf directory, who has the skills and equipment you need, toss him a wad of C-Bills, and have him fight on your side! This also allows individual players to build up a reputation for being an elite pilot and charge more accordingly, again mirroring things that we see in the novels. If there's a big continental style invasion kicking off and your house can't find enough players to get involved, then the game could autogenerate a merc contract to get some guns for hire in to shore up the numbers. You could even pay the mercs bonuses for things like taking a continent quickly or such like. The scaling potential of this system is pretty immense.







If any of you have managed to make it this far, then I'm really impressed and thank you! Apologies if some of the stuff I've said either doesn't make sense or is just a bit stupid, feel free to suggest alterations or just flat out say a certain mechanic is stupid, after all this is just an early concept.

Cheers guys!

[Foresale]

Just realised I didn't put anything in about the penalties for having mechs destroyed. One of the ideas I was toying with was that when one of your mechs is destroyed in the invasion, that's it, it's not available for the rest of it. This would create a cap on the length of these invasion scenarios, and would also open up some interesting tactics. As the attacker, you could decide to bring along a specialised company of hit and run ninjas. You dart in to an enemy zone, destroy a few key mechs, and then leave. The risk here is that then allows the defender to counter attack, and what if you use up all of your other mechs so all you're left with is the hit and run mechs? If you just have those 12 sat in the LZ with no support, they'll get minced by a well balanced company in a stand up slugging match.

[PhoenixGuard88]

^ love this idea

[Vandamsel]

PhoenixGuard88, on 24 July 2012 - 10:27 AM, said:

^ love this idea

This.

[Jack Lowe]

love this idea as a basic framework. You realize implementing a form of this idea would mean that many of the "game modes" that are currently being suggested become nothing more than mission types. Different forms of raids, or phases of assaults and their correlaries in defense. All of which can be either assigned to house units or contracted out to mercs. This should increase expansion possibilities further. The base of that idea is one I've kicked around trying to figure out how to adapt it to a sort of mechcommander type style where u could actually have an overall regiment or battalion commander. With combat still being 12 v 12, becomes rather complex quickly however, but sounds like alot of fun. Would also give some meaning to the ranks I read about in the community warfare blog. In any case yep this idea get's my vote as a excellent way to build and expand the game.

[Foresale]

Sorry I only just noticed your post now Jack, just coming back to this thread to say that I'm going to update and flesh this idea out more as the game is updated so I can see what sort of things the community would look for in a game system such as this. If it gets added, it's such a big chunk of new gameplay that it makes sense to get the broadest possible cross section from the playerbase.

And I agree, it would allow for all of the different game types that have been hinted at to be rolled into one larger framework. From looking at what's happened since open beta and the high demand for some sort of organised Unit vs Unit warfare I think something like this would prove very popular. We're already starting to see rivalries develop between different merc units, and with a system like this that could be expressed on the battlefield and via community warfare and add an extra element of depth to the community.

I'd also go as far as to say that if MWO ever decides to go down the eSports route, a system like this would be fantastic. A 12 v 12 company match, while exciting to watch, is fairly short and wouldn't really take advantage of the vast amounts of mechs and equipment that's rapidly becoming available to the game, whereas if you have the two eSports teams fight each other in a planetary invasion you'd be showcasing a much broader range of mechs and tactics, and bringing in an element of strategic skill as well as tactical battlefield skill.

[IceSerpent]

Like the idea. Another similar system that PGI can use a starting point (and adapt for MWO) is NBT rules (mostly "Attacks &Battles" and "Planetary Assault Rules" sections).