354 replies to this topic

[Roadbeer]

DaZur, on 06 April 2013 - 11:14 AM, said:

Just for clarity... And before this good discussion thread burns to the ground...

I don't think any proponent of R&R in this thread can in good faith say the previous R&R was viable for a myriad of reasons. I think most if not all simply are in favor of some of the aspects of it that made MW:O "feel" as if it had more depth of play and encouraged a more cerebral flavor of gameplay.

THIS

[Khanublikhan]

Are any of you old school Mechwarrior / Battletech roleplayers?

There used to be a Mechwarrior roleplay handbook which detailed you rolling up the technical skills of your mech technician crew, as well as those of your mechwarrior pilot. By doing so it made the parallel argument that the mechwarrior's ground crew were the unsung heroes behind the glory of actual mechwarriors (like the ground crews for WWII pilots during the Battle of Britain).

If repair costs were simply an abstraction of this relationship in hiring and training a groundcrew, as laid out in the handbook (and not a 1:1 relation to the cost of parts) it would allow repair costs to be small.

Add the costs diminishing over time idea from above (with the rate of decline based on the efficiency of the hired crew) and you have a working system fitting to MWO, nodding to canon, nodding to C-Bill costs, nodding to time.

Problem solved(?)

Edited by Khanublikhan, 06 April 2013 - 11:26 AM.

[MadcatX]

In regards to R&R forcing players to play smarter, I find that dying quickly and being forced to spectate the entire match to get the rewards at the end is in itself a good way for players to learn. Obviously this has less impact on groups and units and there are some matches that are a blast to watch. And sometimes you learn a thing or two.

But in the end, it will get tiresome of dying first and having to wait to get a low payout in the end anyways since you didn't do much damage anyways.

Not that I'm a big fan of the whole "having to wait" thing in the first place, but it does encourage learning survivability skills.

[Master Maniac]

I'm seeing lots of talk in this thread about a risk/reward system. Well, that's easy. Survival bonus. If you stay alive through to the end of a match, *and* you've managed to score at least one kill for yourself, then you should get a survival bonus that increases based on the overall amount of damage you've inflicted. You risk *yourself* for a reward - you push yourself to perform. Easy. Anything "riskier" than that is just grinding for grinding's sake. And there's already *plenty* of grinding, especially if you like experimenting with 'Mech designs, as I do.

R&R is a terrible idea as long as this game remains as it is now. Maybe if it's part of some larger, better-planned system - *and* if player's c-bill rewards get a MASSIVE boost - then it might become interesting in so-called Community Wars.They made an excellent judgement call eschewing the system from MWO. If your "cup runneth over" with 'Mechs, as someone said before, you are clearly playing far, far too much, because I sink *hours* into this game, hours at a time, and own only two 'Mechs.

Stay dead, R&R. I don't miss you, and I'm glad you're gone, ya pain in the arse.

[ShadowbaneX]

Khanublikhan, on 06 April 2013 - 11:22 AM, said:

Are any of you old school Mechwarrior / Battletech roleplayers?

There used to be a Mechwarrior roleplay handbook which detailed you rolling up the technical skills of your mech technician crew, as well as those of your mechwarrior pilot. By doing so it made the parallel argument that the mechwarrior's ground crew were the unsung heroes behind the glory of actual mechwarriors (like the ground crews for WWII pilots during the Battle of Britain).

If repair costs were simply an abstraction of this relationship in hiring and training a groundcrew, as laid out in the handbook (and not a 1:1 relation to the cost of parts) it would allow repair costs to be small.

Add the costs diminishing over time idea from above (with the rate of decline based on the efficiency of the hired crew) and you have a working system fitting to MWO, nodding to canon, nodding to C-Bill costs, nodding to time.

Problem solved(?)

So something like you can choose to spend whatever amount on your repair crew and depending that it might effect the repair speed. Say 10,000 c-bills and you get a x1 crew, whereas if you drop 25,000 c-bills you can hire a crew that will reduce repair times by 50%?

[Pinselborste]

R&R was stupid, it didnt add anything to the game except People afk farming or People trying to get headshotted so they pay less.

and how in gods Name would a number going from 0% back to 100% while your cbill number goes down add any Immersion.

it would add Immersion if after a match you would have to Play as the mechanic and weld everyting yourself, but a number that changes does nothing.

[Roadbeer]

Master Maniac, on 06 April 2013 - 11:35 AM, said:

I'm seeing lots of talk in this thread about a risk/reward system. Well, that's easy. Survival bonus. If you stay alive through to the end of a match, *and* you've managed to score at least one kill for yourself, then you should get a survival bonus that increases based on the overall amount of damage you've inflicted. You risk *yourself* for a reward - you push yourself to perform. Easy. Anything "riskier" than that is just grinding for grinding's sake. And there's already *plenty* of grinding, especially if you like experimenting with 'Mech designs, as I do.

So, you propose a REWARD for playing well, but provide no RISK for playing poorly, or foolishly?

Master Maniac, on 06 April 2013 - 11:35 AM, said:

R&R is a terrible idea as long as this game remains as it is now. Maybe if it's part of some larger, better-planned system - *and* if player's c-bill rewards get a MASSIVE boost - then it might become interesting in so-called Community Wars.They made an excellent judgement call eschewing the system from MWO. If your "cup runneth over" with 'Mechs, as someone said before, you are clearly playing far, far too much, because I sink *hours* into this game, hours at a time, and own only two 'Mechs.

"so called"??? It's a core tenant of the game FFS

Edited by Roadbeer, 06 April 2013 - 11:43 AM.

[Khanublikhan]

Heh. It was me who made that "cup runneth over" remark.

I'm not actually playing that much. I am a Founder. I have been using my Founder's bonus. I own four Founder's Mechs, four standard mechs and three hero mechs. I have very little cash mind yo - about 5M cash left.

It just feels slightly odd to me to be owning so many mechs. I feel like I am playing MechCommander as opposed to a Mechwarrior game by having such a choice. A topic for another day perhaps.

[Accursed Richards]

Narcisoldier, on 06 April 2013 - 10:50 AM, said:

I support any gameplay mechanic that punishes bad players disproportionately.

We were all bad players when we started out.

[Master Maniac]

Roadbeer, on 06 April 2013 - 11:40 AM, said:

So, you propose a REWARD for playing well, but provide no RISK for playing poorly, or foolishly?

Your risk is getting dead, and striking a 'Mech off your team's roster, and making the odds better the other team secures a win. This equals a crappy c-bill reward, and your loss is that you've wasted your time on a bad match with a paltry reward. That's your risk. That's your loss. Unless of course you're a shill without a job and can play MWO all day long - then I guess your time means less to you.

Players should ABSOLUTELY be rewarded for doing particularly well. Once I eliminated half the enemy team single-handedly when my team got reamed. I should have a friggin' medal.

[Khanublikhan]

ShadowbaneX, on 06 April 2013 - 11:39 AM, said:

So something like you can choose to spend whatever amount on your repair crew and depending that it might effect the repair speed. Say 10,000 c-bills and you get a x1 crew, whereas if you drop 25,000 c-bills you can hire a crew that will reduce repair times by 50%?

Yes. That is the idea. Though the prices might be better capped as a percentage of a typical game (pulling a figure out my *** of say 40% of average players match earnings). Other factors could be: Was armour merely stripped? Were internals badly damaged? Were you forced to eject? (you died).

It needs to reinforce good play; but as long as it is not exorbitant (causing the player to suffer, get disheartened), it works.

[Roadbeer]

Master Maniac, on 06 April 2013 - 11:45 AM, said:

Your risk is getting dead, and striking a 'Mech off your team's roster, and making the odds better the other team secures a win. This equals a crappy c-bill reward, and your loss is that you've wasted your time on a bad match with a paltry reward. That's your risk. That's your loss. Unless of course you're a shill without a job and can play MWO all day long - then I guess your time means less to you.

That's not a risk, there is no penalty. That's everyone getting a trophy for participating, just some get slightly larger trophies.

[Adridos]

... and you blame PGI for stupid game design decisions...

[MadcatX]

Roadbeer, on 06 April 2013 - 11:40 AM, said:

So, you propose a REWARD for playing well, but provide no RISK for playing poorly, or foolishly?


"so called"??? It's a core tenant of the game FFS

It was a core tenant of the SINGLE PLAYER PC games. I don't remember a rearm and repair feature in any of the multiplayer of those. As for TT, if you were playing a campaign, perhaps. But if you just had one-off's, r&r was not part of the equation there either.

[Master Maniac]

Khanublikhan, on 06 April 2013 - 11:47 AM, said:

Yes. That is the idea. Though the prices might be better capped as a percentage of a typical game (pulling a figure out my *** of say 40% of average players match earnings). Other factors could be: Was armour merely stripped? Were internals badly damaged? Were you forced to eject? (you died).

It needs to reinforce good play; but as long as it is not exorbitant (causing the player to suffer, get disheartened), it works.

There is already enough suffering with the grinding in this game. Make a bad choice with a loadout you're just trying out? Boom, you're out two matches' worth of C-bills. There's already a ton of grinding going on, and as some of the more enlightened posters here have already pointed out, this will drive people FAR AWAY from MWO. Unless there is a much, much better system in place, such as one supported by the *possibility* of salvaging disabled-rather-than-dead 'Mechs, anything that punishes the player for playing the game is a terrible idea.

[Khanublikhan]

Master Maniac, on 06 April 2013 - 11:45 AM, said:

Players should ABSOLUTELY be rewarded for doing particularly well. Once I eliminated half the enemy team single-handedly when my team got reamed. I should have a friggin' medal.

Absolutely! Success needs to be rewarded. Failure, while it does not need a big stick, does need to make you go, "hmm. that was a bad game. did i do something wrong? yeah, i stuck my mech's left arm and torso out at the wrong time and lost the left arm - oh and look, I have to invest in a work crew to repair for my error. I'll do better next time."

Good players need to be rewarded. A well designed R&R system is like good punctuation. It helps to get your point across.

Medals are a good idea too! If I saw you playing well during a match, I would love a system where I could mail / nominate you for a medal afterwards.

Maybe there could be a nomination system for "player of the match". That player could benefit from a C-Bill multiplier or a reduced R&R cost.

Edited by Khanublikhan, 06 April 2013 - 11:59 AM.

[Master Maniac]

Roadbeer, on 06 April 2013 - 11:48 AM, said:

That's not a risk, there is no penalty. That's everyone getting a trophy for participating, just some get slightly larger trophies.

Are you unable to listen properly? Let me repeat that for you, slowly.

When. You. Lose. You. Have. Wasted. Your. Time.

You hop into a match. You do poorly because of, let's say, just run-of-the-mill bad luck. You die right at the beginning of a FIVE MINUTE LONG MATCH. Your 'Mech is inaccessible to you, and that sucks, because hey, you like that one. It's your favorite. If you want to use it, you have to wait five minutes for the match to end. You got a crappy, paltry reward of 40,000 C-bills because your team lost. Have a laser, the virtual equivalent of a candy bar, to make yourself feel better.

In this scenario, the player HAS been punished for losing. They wasted their time for a pithy reward. It is as it should be: they lost.

Let's look at the same scenario. Exactly the same scenario, execpt at the end instead of a paltry, insubstantial reward the player gets a 500,000 C-bill repair bill - which is extremely optimistic from a realism perspective because, hey, his 'Mech got cored - instead. Several (successful) matches' worth of money, not including the possibility of more random bad luck.

The player in this scenario is going to say, "nope nope nope" and drop this game like a rock. Just like I would.

[Caladan Nix]

No.

Why? Because right now, there is no endgame/persistence/fluff. So why the hell would I want all the drawbacks of such systems when I can't possibly have the benefits?

When CW finally comes around, maybe R&R should return. For right now, let's fix everything else that's wrong.

[Khanublikhan]

Master Maniac, on 06 April 2013 - 11:49 AM, said:

There is already enough suffering with the grinding in this game. Make a bad choice with a loadout you're just trying out? Boom, you're out two matches' worth of C-bills. There's already a ton of grinding going on, and as some of the more enlightened posters here have already pointed out, this will drive people FAR AWAY from MWO. Unless there is a much, much better system in place, such as one supported by the *possibility* of salvaging disabled-rather-than-dead 'Mechs, anything that punishes the player for playing the game is a terrible idea.

I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment. However, if a player pays C-Bills for a loadout - he is taking risk for reward. Perhaps the first match in new mech loadout does *not* suffer the same repair costs. Solved. (Though there is a whole forum section devoted to asking for a decent build).

As for salvage for disabled-rather-than-dead mechs? Again, that is an excellent idea you have suggested.

[Master Maniac]

Caladan Nix, on 06 April 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

No.

Why? Because right now, there is no endgame/persistence/fluff. So why the hell would I want all the drawbacks of such systems when I can't possibly have the benefits?

When CW finally comes around, maybe R&R should return. For right now, let's fix everything else that's wrong.

Exactly. If we have the possiblity of assembling teams, strategizing, and preparing for combat in maps that AREN'T just linear arenas, then we can discuss risk/reward tom***kery. Until that time, MWO is an arena fighting game in which you can have the bad luck of getting HUD-glitched or HDR blinded by a 5 AC/2 Rifleman-lookalike. It's fun and enjoyable in this state, just as it is, don't get me wrong, but there's NO reason to add R&R to this formula.

You know why R&R was fine in the Mercs MW games? YOU COULD LOAD A SAVE OR RESTART THE GAME.

Edit - Khan's idea of "nominating" top players for medals and c-bill bonuses is bawss. I'd take it a step further and allow players to nominate other players for honor, sportsmanship, attitude, etc.

Edited by Master Maniac, 06 April 2013 - 12:10 PM.