275 replies to this topic

[1453 R]

I just don't understand this deep wellspring of trust you have in the integrity and inner excellence of your fellow gamers, Atheus. You, and Keifo, and all the rest seem to think that eliminating capture points in Assault and getting a straight-up TDM mode will just magically make all the game's problems go away. Players will engage in strategic, maneuver-based battles with a wide mix of loadouts, making heavy use of lighter elements for screening and reconnaissance and attempting to execute coordinated maneuvers against the enemy, even in public games, simply because the Sword of Damocles that is a team's base is no longer hanging over their head, threatening them with immediate defeat if they dare try and think?

What the hell game are you playing? I don't know what kind of public games you drop in. Atheus, but in my public games I'm lucky if I can get everyone going in the same direction, or keep them out of the frickin' crater! Not asoul listens to the tactical alerts or contact locations I toss out in team chat, not a one of them responds to cap threats – save of course, for screaming “STOP CAPPING, *******!” in allchat – none of them put the least tiniest iota more effort into any given match than they absolutely have to. It is completely and utterly impossible to underestimate the level of mental ability in a typical public match lobby in any online PvP game, not just this one. However dumb you think the rest of the idjits in the map are, I guarantee you they're dumber than that.

You're trying to lower the effort requirement even more, man. You're giving folks even more leeway to be complete lazy skunks with lazy loadouts trying for lazy kills, and giving the rest of us even less way to try and jolt them out of their path-of-least-resistance approach to the game. And I don't.

Know.

Why.

If I knew why, maybe I'd understand. Maybe you can tell me why?

[Keifomofutu]

1453 R, on 15 May 2013 - 09:57 AM, said:

I just don't understand this deep wellspring of trust you have in the integrity and inner excellence of your fellow gamers, Atheus. You, and Keifo, and all the rest seem to think that eliminating capture points in Assault and getting a straight-up TDM mode will just magically make all the game's problems go away. Players will engage in strategic, maneuver-based battles with a wide mix of loadouts, making heavy use of lighter elements for screening and reconnaissance and attempting to execute coordinated maneuvers against the enemy, even in public games, simply because the Sword of Damocles that is a team's base is no longer hanging over their head, threatening them with immediate defeat if they dare try and think?

What the hell game are you playing? I don't know what kind of public games you drop in. Atheus, but in my public games I'm lucky if I can get everyone going in the same direction, or keep them out of the frickin' crater! Not asoul listens to the tactical alerts or contact locations I toss out in team chat, not a one of them responds to cap threats – save of course, for screaming “STOP CAPPING, *******!” in allchat – none of them put the least tiniest iota more effort into any given match than they absolutely have to. It is completely and utterly impossible to underestimate the level of mental ability in a typical public match lobby in any online PvP game, not just this one. However dumb you think the rest of the idjits in the map are, I guarantee you they're dumber than that.

You're trying to lower the effort requirement even more, man. You're giving folks even more leeway to be complete lazy skunks with lazy loadouts trying for lazy kills, and giving the rest of us even less way to try and jolt them out of their path-of-least-resistance approach to the game. And I don't.

Know.

Why.

If I knew why, maybe I'd understand. Maybe you can tell me why?

Well for one that is why. You don't trust players to perform a basic plan but you trust a game mechanic that can award a single player a win button against the whole team? Beating an entire team should take effort. If it's too easy particularly on certain maps then you have a balance problem.

I'd actually be more preferable to a King of the Hill mode to a TDM. The anti-griefing mechanic is built in and rather than the capping preventing combat it actually augments it. Those battles on the cap that some people talk about happening once in a blue moon would be a regular occurrence.

And I would never turn down an objective based game mode NOT focused mostly on kills if it had the tiniest bit of thought put into it to fun and balance. Fun and balance is not part of assault for me. Not by a long shot. I find conquest much more fun.

Edited by Keifomofutu, 15 May 2013 - 01:13 PM.

[shotokan5]

Neverfar, on 01 May 2013 - 09:42 AM, said:

By "that guy" I mean that unwashed, unsavory, horrible, terribad person who is totally unskilled and dishonorable and with my scrub ways I can not help but cap-threat the enemy base.

Why do I do this horrible thing?

In most cases, because at least one Mech from the other team is expected to come and chase me, and preferably more than one. That means people from my team have less Mechs to clash with at the front. That improves the chances for a victory.

Rage often ensues. Which works in my favor. I need them chasing me, on me, trying to drive me off, which improves my team's chances that much more.

Sometimes I continue capping. Why do I do this horrible thing?

Because my team is losing. However, the enemy team is overstretched. In strategic abstract terms applicable to the setting, they took "a bridge too far" and were cut off from behind. In more direct "this game in the here and now" terms, they overinvested in PPC bloat boats with tiny engines and lost because everyone wanted in on that instead of preparing for me.

It doesn't always work. I've been legged from over a kilometer out by a good shot. That's fine. Sometimes I tangle with another light, and that's also fine. I actually welcome it.

What I don't welcome is the shrill nasal rage I get for doing what I do. I've heard it all before, in game chat and on this forum. Nothing you can say I haven't heard already, if you're coming from the camp of "the only honorable skillful way to play is to play exactly as I expect you to, on my terms, under conditions favorable to me".

I'd welcome some metagame changes, a whole lot of them. Removing capping or other "simple" solutions would only give me a lot less to do except feed the needs of the guy in the paragraph above.

I have seen this a number cases when the word outcast is right. I have never not followed a direct order but my belief in the light fast or a wolf pack has time and time again made the difference in the game. But the real credit is the one that got the highest score while the lite that made the difference is looked a as well you got a real low score. It is sad that so many clans, houses and Merc units will go so far as blackball a player just for suggesting another idea or tactic. Don't you have joined a unit and been their a great deal of time working hard to gain better skills, only to be told by a secret vote that you are not wanted. You are not told why of course or instead of being told that you need to work on this or that just a secret vote. This means that it is run by a group of egocentric general want to bee's. That will do more to kill this game than anything else. What about community of the player who just does not the right stuff. To bad for you. No, being a foul mouth , bad loser, are good reasons but not because a bunch of hooded monks somewhere make a choice. In the U.S.A you have the right to face those who accused you of not being fit, not cast aside like an old shoe. This game will win or lose on new players older players but not by a click of elitist's who seem that they can do anything they want people will lose interest in the game and it will die a quick death. These are the ones he speaks of that will be to blame.

[Atheus]

1453 R, on 15 May 2013 - 09:57 AM, said:

If I knew why, maybe I'd understand. Maybe you can tell me why?

Okay, this may sound really snarky, but it's really not intended to be: it sounds like you're just playing with newbies. Your description of team cohesion does not match my experience except in rare occasions, and I am guessing those rare occasions are when I get fudged into a lower ELO by the player-starved matchmaker. I am not a legendary player or anywhere near it, but I know I'm at least far enough above average that I almost never see a trial mech in my matches. The only thing you talk about that resembles my play experience is peoples' harsh reactions to base cappers.

I did, however, notice that the in-game culture was vastly different when I bought my set of Ravens a while back. Up to that point I hadn't piloted any lights since ELO was introduced. Thus, I started out at the beginner's ELO and went down from there, because I didn't even bother to upgrade my throw-away RVN-2X to DHS. In that grim recollection, the game looked a lot more like what you're describing.

If your overall win/loss ratio is around 1 or lower (meaning your ELO would be similarly low), that could explain why our general experience would be so different. If you're playing with newbies who haven't yet figured out how to take advantage of their team and build some instincts on enemy movement and how to react, it would pretty much make sense.

Now — lowering the effort requirement? I'd say removing the option to just stand on a magic box as a path to victory could only increase the overall effort requirement, considering both teams of any match currently have that option. If you're comparing player laziness, the guy standing on the win box who never fired his weapons is pretty much top of the list, don't you think?

Since you bring it up, though, here is what straight up TDM would accomplish over Assault:

• The entire map becomes a viable stage for conflict, rather than a skinny turnip shaped heat map connecting two bases, facilitating more options for maneuvering, scouting and just plain variety of point of engagement.
  
• With 100% of the focus on eliminating the enemy force, no players would wind up being essentially left out of a match due to focusing on some secondary objective which did not come into play - like defending a base that didn't get attacked, or walking to meet the enemy force only to have one or two players capture the enemy's base or your own before you even start fighting.
  
• Light mechs' role would be simplified to assisting in defeating the enemy in combat, rather than choosing between that and a non-combat objective, making ELO a more homogeneous indicator of one's ability to fight for both capture oriented players and their victims.
  
• Less impact from matchmaker weight class snafus involving uncontested lights.
  
• More creative map layouts and drop positions become possible (winding caves and tunnels!)
  
• With everyone playing the same objective, one less divisive rift in the player-base.

If you want a secondary objective, here is my suggestion for compelling objective design:

• Do not place any objective(s) so far from the field of battle that it takes literally several minutes to reach it from the front lines. If the only thing that makes an objective difficult is that it's far away, you're basically making a giant "kick me" sign for light mechs.
  
• Tie the objective to the combat/survival of the players so that it's not an either/or situation that determines victory, but both. For example, when you take damage, you might/must use your team's resources to repair it, causing you to be less likely to obtain victory. When you damage the enemy, you rob them of resources. Maybe when you kill an enemy, you gain resources from their dead mech. The team who runs out of resources first loses.
  
• Make sure every type of mech is equally capable of contributing to any objective. A mech that works one objective rather than the other because it's ill-suited to one indicates a balance landmine.

Edited by Atheus, 15 May 2013 - 03:08 PM.

[Raso]

Few things anger me more than when my basis is being capped and I'm the only sucker returning to prevent to cap only to be met by several enemy lights or mediums. Sometimes I'll be in an assault and simply lack the ability to make it back in time (and why should an assault RTB when there are healthy mediums and lights running around?).

The worst is when my team complains that the other guy only won because he didn't have the gonads to fight. Really? You want combat? You want action? You looking for someone on the enemy team? There's a guy on your base! Go shoot him! It's that simple! Rather than playing peek-a-boo with the other team's pop-tarts and trading alphas every 20 seconds why not go and throw down on the base and stop that little pest from capping?

I do not blame people like the OP for doing what they do, it's a valid tactic and one which I've used or encouraged my team to use many occasions. I blame the morons on my team who want to be the hero of the team but can't seem to find any glory in defending the home base from enemy assault.

[Sephlock]

Raso, on 28 May 2013 - 07:07 PM, said:

Few things anger me more than when my basis is being capped and I'm the only sucker returning to prevent to cap only to be met by several enemy lights or mediums.

[Agent CraZy DiP]

This Thread = Q.Q
Me = <(o)__(o)>

Hilarious.

[ChuChuRo]

I would appreciate the simple solution, a new game mode. All battle, no caps.

Then those light pilots who are afraid to fight can continue their game of trying to brood an egg. And 100 engine assaults who are too 'oblivious' to care for said egg can stop bothering in their own games. And if either one joins a game of the other, they'd inevitably have to adapt.

And maybe eventually someone will come up with another mode where the slower of the mediums can fit in again, as they already look a bit out of place.

[YoMomma1991]

Honestly the biggest problem is that we don't have options. Why would you play Assault? when there is Conquest. Base capture changes the game, doesn't make it more fun or better for light mechs (that really depends on the person). It is just another thing to worry about. If i wanted to play a match that just focused on shooting mechs then i should be able to play that. Why can't we just have the option?
In all fairness, capturing can be fun. But one you get that one jerk on your team that ditches you for the base instead of helping, then the balance is lost. Ya we might have won because he captured, but i can honestly say i don't appreciate the low points we get and the fact that it feels like there was no honour in that fight?

[Sephlock]

^ What if he manages to divert several enemy mechs, handing you what should be a clear win (if not for the incompetence of teammates)?

[White Bear 84]

My personal opinionis that capping without fighting is a waste of time and is akin to trolling; it just ruins the fun for everyone else. What would you rather get; 25,000 for a cap win or 130,000 for a game win?

That said, my opinion on capping as a distraction, is that it is a perfectly viable tactic as it gives your team and advantage by breaking the enemy ranks and causing them to make a retreat - so you can fight more on your terms.

The whole notion of gettting their cap down as low as possible so that IF your team starts losing you can snag the cap win is perfectly acceptable. This just means that the enemy are responsible for defending their turf and if they dont, they can lose.

NB. Referring to 1/2 lights capping and not cap rushes by whole teams. I frown apon that as well.

[Sephlock]

White Bear 84, on 05 June 2013 - 05:24 PM, said:

My personal opinionis that capping without fighting is a waste of time and is akin to trolling; it just ruins the fun for everyone else. What would you rather get; 25,000 for a cap win or 130,000 for a game win?

On Alpine? The former. Definitely.

[Tenpin]

Disapirro, on 09 May 2013 - 05:52 PM, said:

Ah good mr self-rightous himself. Firstly, I play a spider and last time I checked it was a light. Second, I choose not to employ a cheap tactic, which by the way, is very boring for everyone else. You choose being the guy because you cannot deal with HSR and/or your precious 3L hit boxes are fixed, or streaks-ecm combo not quite as powerful for you as it once was. So your throwing a tantrum by doing something that annoys a lot of others and you get a kick out of it. Typical me first attitude and again, evidence of your character as a t u r d.

Time for me to speak up.

I'm "that guy" too.
I pilot a RVN 3L. It was the first mech I bought and frankly, it is my mech of choice despite having many others in my hangar.
It suits my play style. I enjoy sneaking past your line - oftentimes in plain sight because the blob is SO predictable and trudging to the same damned place every time by the same route, all the while staring straight ahead. (look at the heat maps) that I don't have to skirt the edges of the map.

Cheap tactic? I think not. My job is to scout, evade, distract and harass and by doing so, give my team an advantage.
My job, in this build, is not running willy nilly into the fray and playing rockem sockem robots with you.My job is to make you fallback or risk losing. My job is to dispatch whomever comes back (if I can) or to keep you engaged and away from my team.

Disapirro - bring your spider back and kill me since you abhor cappers so much. I welcome you.
I'll wait.
You have as long as it takes for the timer to run down.

[StonedVet]

The most worthless person on any team is the light that base rushes to cap without providing feedback to the rest of the team about what they are doing and where they are deploying and in what numbers. Base rushing is not the concept of a scout, providing critical information about enemy deployment is. AFTER that is done then hells yes go touch base if you want if it tickles your fancy. Nothing worse then starting a match down 1-2-3 due to lights running off to base cap the enemy team.

Edited by Lowridah, 11 June 2013 - 01:44 PM.

[Petroshka]

Ngamok, on 01 May 2013 - 10:27 AM, said:

For epic staring matches.

I've had plenty of 8-mans end in a 0-0 or 1-1 draw because both teams are playing turtle games. they are actually just as fun as slugfests. It comes down to who can steal that kill close to the end. Nerve wracking.

[Disapirro]

Tenpin, on 11 June 2013 - 01:04 PM, said:

Time for me to speak up.

I'm "that guy" too.
I pilot a RVN 3L. It was the first mech I bought and frankly, it is my mech of choice despite having many others in my hangar.
It suits my play style. I enjoy sneaking past your line - oftentimes in plain sight because the blob is SO predictable and trudging to the same damned place every time by the same route, all the while staring straight ahead. (look at the heat maps) that I don't have to skirt the edges of the map.

Cheap tactic? I think not. My job is to scout, evade, distract and harass and by doing so, give my team an advantage.
My job, in this build, is not running willy nilly into the fray and playing rockem sockem robots with you.My job is to make you fallback or risk losing. My job is to dispatch whomever comes back (if I can) or to keep you engaged and away from my team.

Disapirro - bring your spider back and kill me since you abhor cappers so much. I welcome you.
I'll wait.
You have as long as it takes for the timer to run down.

You make me smile.