2 replies to this topic

[MuKen]

Re-posting an idea I put up before the forums got changed, I think it's becoming even more relevant now that the game is skewing more and more towards heavies and assaults.

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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.


Good suggestions posters made from the last thread:
- Players can't spend more than a certain fraction of their team's money (say in an 8man, if you spend more than 1/5 the team money, you get put into spectator mode)
- Allow people to change the mech they are deploying mid-match, perhaps not being able to deploy more expensive mechs until they perform well in-game
- Make the dropship provide its own fire support
- Add smaller objectives around the map that serve small benefits to the team (money regeneration, disabling dropship weapons, etc)

[Neolisk]

Yes, but it sounds too complicated to implement. Something like this would take PGI 1-2 years to implement/balance properly, with how things are going. Therefore, No. I mean they should better focus on improving simple things about the game, such as balance, adding weapons, improving maps layout etc.

[MuKen]

In all of its details, perhaps it is complicated, and better for a long term goal.

But in the short term, a simple money-based, re-spawning, win by draining their money mode would not be that much to implement. And it would address a lot of weight and balance issues. All of a sudden there's a reason to take SHS on some mechs, and lights and mechs become useful as cheap troops (what they are used for in canon), endo-steel isn't a no-brainer for 80% of mechs, etc. etc.

It even opens the way for making some useless chassis, like the MG spider, useful by lowering their price further.

Edited by MuKen, 05 June 2013 - 12:38 PM.