23 replies to this topic

[MuKen]

I think MWO is plagued by a certain dichotomy. On the one hand, you want costs to matter, you want more expensive things to be better. On the other hand, you don't want the end-game (where, unlike in real life, everybody is going to have basically unlimited money) to be unbalanced.

To this end, I propose a money-based match type. Each team starts with some amount of money (say 50-100 million c-bills, or whatever works best after some testing). As soon as you drop, the cost of everyone's mech is deducted from the team. Any time you die, you respawn and your cost is deducted from the team. Each team has an actual base (a dropship), and damaging it directly lowers that team's money. When one team is out, they lose.

This would mean there's a reason to build more cost-efficient mechs, which also gives new players a fighting chance (they can bring a cheap mech and it won't kill the team if they die a lot). Of course, I think this should be removed from the "any mode" matchmaker, so that only people who are bringing a build they've prepared for this match type are in it.

Just to be clear, I am not saying players should lose money. When the team loses "money", that is just to determine who wins that match.

Edited by MuKen, 25 March 2013 - 12:27 AM.

[Corvus Antaka]

Muken...this is a GREAT Idea. Would love to see this happen.

[blinkin]

this is very original and i like it, but i think there should be some sort of max per player so that no single player can defeat their own team. it doesn't have to be a straight 1/8 limit, but some sort of protection for the team. i think 1/5 would probably be a good starting point. i am fairly certain you would not want any player to be able to spend any more than half of the team's credits.

without some sort of limitation you are just begging for griefing.

Edited by blinkin, 25 March 2013 - 12:46 AM.

[Scarcer]

I like this idea. Just need a way to balance consumption between teammates.

[MuKen]

Yeah I hadn't thought of that, that's definitely a good point. You wouldn't want one guy to be able to single-handedly ruin his team by dying too much or bringing a ridiculously expensive mech.

Edited by MuKen, 25 March 2013 - 01:22 AM.

[Scarcer]

Better yet, the same money grinding mode that MW:LL had. Start with small mechs and work your way up, and trade money to teammates who need it.

Edited by Scarcer, 25 March 2013 - 01:27 AM.

[blinkin]

Scarcer, on 25 March 2013 - 01:27 AM, said:

Better yet, the same money grinding mode that MW:LL had. Start with small mechs and work your way up, and trade money to teammates who need it.

i think this would be a good idea too, but it is very fundamentally different from the OP. i think this is it's own separate idea. you might even consider giving it it's own thread.

[MuKen]

I don't know how that mode works, could someone explain it to me?

[Adridos]

MuKen, on 25 March 2013 - 05:22 AM, said:

I don't know how that mode works, could someone explain it to me?

Every team has a pool of money and a dropship to spawn from.

Every time someone dies, he has to buy his mech to continue fighting, so if someone brings a stupid build that costs 10 mil and then looses to a guy with a 4 mil mech on the second try, then the guy with cheaper and weaker mech wins. Firing at dropship of the enemy also takes away their money and once they have no money, they can't respawn and thus loose.


A pretty good idea, but what about Assault vs light balance? You know, it is entirely possible even for a non-XL light to bring down an Atlas or Stalker and as such, there could be a really big incentive to stay away from mechs which need XLs (Dragons, Cicadas, etc.), or advanced weaponry to function properly. I mean, I would love to see a game-mode where we actually see many mediums, but seeing a mode where you only ever get to play in a medium is not ideal, either. So I'd suggest looking into that a bit.

Edited by Adridos, 25 March 2013 - 05:38 AM.

[blinkin]

MuKen, on 25 March 2013 - 05:22 AM, said:

I don't know how that mode works, could someone explain it to me?

the living legends model operates on a rank system. at the beginning of each match you start out at rank 0 with enough money to by certain light mechs and maybe a 1 or 2 of the medium mechs. as you get kills and score points you gain rank and access to money. you also gain money directly from scoring points but anything beyond the money from your rank is lost whenever you die. so you are much more likely to get into larger mechs sooner if you survive and return to the base where the mech lab is.

at the beginning of the match every player starts on a level playing field. as the match progresses so does every player. the more effective players end up in more expensive mechs so there is some steam roller effect included in this model.

[Colby Boucher]

Holy crap, this Idea is amazing. I would love to see this integrated into dropship mode when It comes out - BUMP THE HECK OUT OF THIS THREAD.

[MuKen]

Adridos, on 25 March 2013 - 05:34 AM, said:

Every team has a pool of money and a dropship to spawn from.

Lol, I wasn't asking how my own suggestion works, I was asking how LL works.

blinkin, on 25 March 2013 - 11:37 AM, said:

the living legends model operates on a rank system. at the beginning of each match you start out at rank 0 with enough money to by certain light mechs and maybe a 1 or 2 of the medium mechs. as you get kills and score points you gain rank and access to money. you also gain money directly from scoring points but anything beyond the money from your rank is lost whenever you die. so you are much more likely to get into larger mechs sooner if you survive and return to the base where the mech lab is.

at the beginning of the match every player starts on a level playing field. as the match progresses so does every player. the more effective players end up in more expensive mechs so there is some steam roller effect included in this model.

Hm, we could borrow the rank system for this idea too, as a means to keep people from using too much of their team's money. You have to do well and rank up in the match before you can access more of the team's money.

[MuKen]

Adridos, on 25 March 2013 - 05:34 AM, said:

A pretty good idea, but what about Assault vs light balance?

A good point, teams would probably have to be forced into specific drops for this idea to work (i.e. 2 assault, 2 heavy, 2 med, 2 light).

[Side Step]

Sounds like an intriguing concept. Single heat sink builds could actually be viable for something.

If everyone are drawing from the same money pool, with the big variance of aggressive/defensive mindsets of players, it would be problematic if some players feed the enemy with big mechs while some others play more defensively. It might be good to tune the rules and in-game rewards, as not to encourage the behavior of saccing mechs in quick succession in order to for example get quick kills and then bail from the game.

Alternatively, let players have separate pools of money they draw their mechs from. Some players able to respawn more times than others.

Edited by Side Step, 25 March 2013 - 07:14 PM.

[MuKen]

Side Step, on 25 March 2013 - 07:13 PM, said:

it would be problematic if some players feed the enemy with big mechs while some others play more defensively.

Another good point. Rather than give people separate money pools though (I think it'd detract from the feeling of team coalition), you could just encourage the right kind of play by making the rewards based on a ratio of how much money the enemy team lost in total (so you work together instead of trying to be the solo hero), divided by how much you personally cost your team in deaths.

Combined with a rank system like LL had that limits how quickly people can spend team c-bills out the gate, things should be kept under control.

We could make damaging the enemy base a big part of damage done, so there's still encouragement to bring hefty mechs like atlases and stalkers that can put a pounding on a stationary target if they reach it.

Edited by MuKen, 25 March 2013 - 07:54 PM.

[McWhat]

I just want to +1 this. This sounds like a pretty fun game mode. Maybe allow people to switch to different ready mechs, this way they could start with the lights and rank up to the assaults. As an alternative they could switch down to cheaper mechs to stretch the budget out if needed, or other strategic/tactical considerations at the moment they died.

[Noth]

Scarcer, on 25 March 2013 - 01:27 AM, said:

Better yet, the same money grinding mode that MW:LL had. Start with small mechs and work your way up, and trade money to teammates who need it.

This is what they said they don't want. It essentially turns a game with no Tiers into a game with Tiers.

[Telthalion]

I would certainly play this mode.

Bonus points if the dropship-bases actually provide fire support too - going up against an enemy dropship is always a highlight of any Mechwarrior game. LRMs and possibly some extreme-range gauss rifles (out to 2000m, but still do half damage) that ignore close-range targets; to discourage people from just sitting back sniping the enemy dropship from a safe distance.

Would provide a sense of urgency and "larger battle raging around you", and make people think about their approaches and location a bit more.

For more light-'mech-viability, there could be smaller capturable objectives around the map that give bonuses to the team that controls them. Capture a jamming tower and shut down the enemy ship's LRMs while you hold it, hold a supply cache to grant your team a small amount of money regeneration, or such.

Would take a lot of balancing, but it could provide some amazing experiences.

[QuimMorius]

+1 to this idea. Love it!

[Blackfire87]

http://proxis.midgar...u/mwo/rules.php

Here ya go. The league is fun and based around what you can afford to produce.