41 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

Khobai, on 13 September 2013 - 02:17 AM, said:

Yeah I remember that, but if I recall that wasnt really a skill tree either, it was just a progression tree... you could still unlock every single skill for every single role.

What the game needs is an actual skill tree that forces your pilot to pick a specialization, because then two people can play the same mech, but have completely different roles... it adds way more diversity to the game.

Since we only have one "character" per account, I don't think we can really force people into specializing. I am not gonna open a new account and buy Premium Time for it just to switch from Scout to Commander. Especially not if I got my founder mechs only on my first account!

But there is a way around that! We already have a system for specialization that doesn't even require different accounts or characters - Modules!

Modules - sure, you may have all the cool modules. But you can only equip 4 "role modules", so decide what you want to pick.

---

Oh, man, Alistair, that idea with the grid position is cool. Though we kinda already have this due to the mini-map and target sharing. But IMO, the target sharing is way too easy, anyway. I was expecting that to be already a module feature.

So, we could have something like this:

Basic Information Sharing (everyone does this):
- You give access to the the minimap radar blip, but team mates can't target your target.

Advanced Information Sharing (A Module every mech can equip)
- You give access to the minimap radar blip, and the mech class information to all allies.
- Your can now use this to target the mech, but indirect fire has ****-poor accuracy. About 75 % of missiles lose lock and explode harmlessly along the way.

Superior Information Sharing (Requirement: Light or Medium Mech, or BAP)
- You grant also the target loadout information to allies.
- Indirect Fire Accuracy improves to only 50% losses, and you can keep a lock 25 % longer

Multitarget Module (Requirement: Light, Medium or BAP)
- You can target multiple enemies for target sharing. Basically, anything in your LOS is shared.

Dedicated Spotter Module (Requirement: Light, Medium or BAP)
- Indirect Fire becomes more precise, only 25 % losses, and you can keep a lock 50 % longer.

Advanced Indirect Fire Module
- When delivering indirect fire, your LRM loss is lowered by 25 %, and your grouping will be tighter.

Advanced Target Information Receiver (Heavy, Assault or Command Console)
- When you receive targeting information, you will also get a text message with the grid coordinates and the x-y coordinates of a contact.
- You gain the loadout information even of allies that only have advanced information sharing.


C3
Grants any C3 network member the benefits of Advanced Targeting Information Reciever and Advanced Target Sharing for free.

Indirect Fire vs Direct Fire
Indirect Fire is distinctively different from direct fire. When you indirect fire, you don't get the lock, your ally does. You target the same mech, fire your missiles, and can forget about them, it's now your spotters job to keep a lock. (Keeping a lock now work slike indirect fire works currently, basically, except it's the spotters job)
Using TAG or NARC lets missiles fire exactly where the TAG is aimed at respectively the NARC has hit, similar to direct fire, but you still will lose some missiles along the way.

Direct Fire is just like shooting any other weapon. You aim at the target, and shoot, an the missiles will try to hit where you aimed, with the caveat that they are clustered, so they will always spread around thet arget. You might need to gain a lock, but you can fire & forget afterwards. The LRMs will track the target, but they won't react to stuff like torso twisting or the mech turning. (Basically, the LRMs track a position relative to the "center" of the mech.) This could also apply as a mechanic for SRMs. SSRMs would differ in that they will not fire if your crosshair was not on target.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 13 September 2013 - 02:50 AM.

[stjobe]

MustrumRidcully, on 13 September 2013 - 02:27 AM, said:

[some great ideas]

Great ideas there.

MustrumRidcully, on 13 September 2013 - 02:27 AM, said:

Indirect Fire vs Direct Fire
Indirect Fire is distinctively different from direct fire. When you indirect fire, you don't get the lock, your ally does. You target the same mech, fire your missiles, and can forget about them, it's now your spotters job to keep a lock. (Keeping a lock now work slike indirect fire works currently, basically, except it's the spotters job)
Using TAG or NARC lets missiles fire exactly where the TAG is aimed at respectively the NARC has hit, similar to direct fire, but you still will lose some missiles along the way.

The only thing I'd add is that the XP/CB rewards should be split between the spotter and the firer - as it is now, spotting is a very unrewarding job.

[Khobai]

Quote

Since we only have one "character" per account, I don't think we can really force people into specializing.

Sure you can its easy. Before you play each game... you pick a role, just like how you pick a mech. And you can change your role between matches any time you want, just like you can with mechs.

So like you pick recon then pick a commando then play a match... next match you pick assault and an atlas and play a match.... next match you pick support then pick a catapult and play a match... etc...

There would be a skill tree for each role, that you would pay GXP into to unlock different bonuses while playing that role. So one character could play any role, but youd have to spend GXP to level up the roles, so its all monetized... which is good for PGI.

[MustrumRidcully]

Khobai, on 13 September 2013 - 03:25 AM, said:

Sure you can its easy. Before you play each game... you pick a role, just like how you pick a mech. And you can change your role between matches any time you want, just like you can with mechs.

So like you pick recon then pick a commando then play a match... next match you pick assault and an atlas and play a match.... next match you pick support then pick a catapult and play a match... etc...

There would be a skill tree for each role, that you would pay GXP into to unlock different bonuses while playing that role. So one character could play any role, but youd have to spend GXP to level up the roles, so its all monetized... which is good for PGI.

As I said, I see an already existing in-game way to do it- just make the role abilities module abilities.

But your idea also isn't bad. The advantage of switching a role between match could mean that you can ensure that only certain abilities are used together. That can make it easier to balance role and role abilities.

Of course, the drawback is a loss of choice, which, if done reasonably well and balanced, this can create a new level of customization that deepends gameplay further. Of course, looking at weapon balance right now I'd not be too optimistic on "done well and balanced".

[Raidyr]

Scouting in Mechwarrior Online largely fails to be satisfying in three main areas: finding the enemies in the first place, communicating your findings to your enemy, and being adequately rewarded

The Initial Sweep

One thing light mechs (and the Cicada have) that works for the scout role is raw speed. Being able to reach areas of the map quickly allows them to recon the surrounding area and either pick up on other scouts as they meet them or observe via line of sight the approach of enemy forces. This is largely where scouting ends in Assault games. Conquests free-form nature (on most maps) keeps the role more viable for calling out enemy dispersion. In any case, the ubiquitous nature of ECM means that detailed information is almost impossible to get at a distance and thanks to the current mode of tactics being "everyone group together and fire gauss rifles/ER PPC's/large lasers until that robot over there explodes" it's extremely difficult to get any closer than maximum visual range. The best you can do is call out to your team what model mechs the enemy has and where they are going, which leads to the next problem.

Communication

Communicating what you have scouted is made difficult by the lack of quick response capability. The lack of a team voice chat combined with the lack of voice emotes forces scouts who don't happen to be in the pocket for a lance on Mumble/TS/Ventrilo to type out their findings. This leads to the frustratingly awkward act of writing off what you are fighting while maneuvering your 150km/h mech around buildings and Gauss rounds that can send your CT to structure in two shots. Even something as simple as an "Enemy Spotted" call-out would be appreciated so I can tell my team where their blob is without hoping that as I hit Enter to say "8 middle" I don't run into a building then get shot to death.

Rewards

Simple enough: scouting in light or medium mechs doesn't benefit yourself nearly as much in XP or cbills as simply playing a heavy or assault and doing damage while brawling or sniping. This is largely tied into the issue of scouting simply not being supported by the gameplay or it's infrastructure though. I don't think me finding the enemies and telling my team what they are facing should give me as much money as that Cataphract that got 4 kills and 900 damage, but something is better than nothing when I'm sacrificing so much to do it.

Miscellaneous

General thoughts, mostly about equipment and mech stats

ECM: Massively useful to players who want to play the scout role. While it's relatively easy to spot even small mechs at a distance on these maps, the ability to prevent a giant red box from being displayed over you is an invaluable boon to monitoring enemies without dying. It's status as only being available on some variants of some light mechs creates a haves/haves not feeling where you are kind of pigeonholed into playing a variant you might not want to. I like that it makes mechs that otherwise wouldn't be played that much (Commando, Spider, Cicada) more popular but at the same time it's questionable that the best variants of some of these (2D, 5D) get the ECM support. I get that the brawler/striker-built Jenner doesn't need next-generation electronic interference suites, but why can't I play the Spider 5V or the Commando 3A with ECM?

BAP: Largely useless for the role of scouting. Half a ton too heavy and built more for missile boats who want independence from ECM than anything else. It's detection range is too small to make any use out of countering ECM in the scout role and the detailed information detection is only marginally faster. I only carry this on mechs that I can't fit anything else on, and when it comes to mechs that have 5-10 tons of weight available before weapons that becomes a challenging prospect

TAG: Genuinely good support item. Light and medium mechs have plenty of energy slots and the weight makes sense. Assists in the roles of scouting and general team support pretty well and the range is decently long. Nothing else to say, great piece of kit.

NARC: Exact opposite of above. Even after numerous buffs NARC beacons are almost never seen. The need for a dedicated launcher taking up a whole missile hardpoint, abysmal ammo per ton, and damage/time fall off plus being disabled by the ubiquitous ECM mean that it's all but impossible to use effectively. Suggestion: Buff ammo per ton, raise the damage-taken limit or time on target and make it last through ECM. Only one beacon can be active at a time to prevent one good NARC'er from countering an entire ECM bubble.

Maps and Gamemodes: As mentioned in the body of my post, the map and gamemode you are playing on largely determines how useful a scout is going to be. This ranges from Frozen Colony Assault, where a scouts usefulness ends at about the time he sees 11 people sitting on their side of the map and runs back. all the way to Terra Therma Conquest where movements are largely free form and maintaining line of sight observation on capture points from high ground is critical. Linear maps also have the unfortunate side affect of narrowing the area that snipers (which actually contribute more to team numbers than you'd think) have to observe. Shooting a Raven 3L spotting your team is a lot easier when he has to scout from a narrow street instead of a wide field. More open maps would be nice, but linear maps are fine too, just not particularly friendly to the scouting role.

[BarHaid]

stjobe, on 13 September 2013 - 03:18 AM, said:

The only thing I'd add is that the XP/CB rewards should be split between the spotter and the firer - as it is now, spotting is a very unrewarding job.

That 's a sweet idea. Splitting the damage rewards between spotter and shooter would be a quick and easy way to encourage keeping a lock on somebody.

[Syllogy]

PEEFsmash, on 12 September 2013 - 10:28 AM, said:

Sometimes you just amaze me with your genius. Why didn't I think about getting my whole pug team to come to my teamspeak every single game I play! I'll just spend the first 5 minutes of every game getting them all to my channel, I'm sure they will all come and the enemy will surely let me set this all up, and then we will be good to go!

Or you could actually have friends that play, and drop in a premade that's already in your channel.

Pro tip: If you had enough people you could even drop in 12 man groups *GASP!* what a concept!

[Sanreal]

I think the number one problem of scouting is how to communicate your scouting info with your team in a timely manner. Target locking one contact doesn't really tell your team about the other 6 mechs moving with that contact that you can identify visually, but can't target mark. So your teammates have no idea they're about to get rushed, but instead move out of cover to take a shot on that one target you have locked, only to get a face full of incoming sniper fire and die. In this case, "scouting" as it stands now, is actually hurting your team.

The only viable use of scouting as I currently see it is in premades with lots of missile boat support. Otherwise, scouts are no credit to team.

So I'd really like to see Battlefield style target marking, where scouts can mark as many targets as they like, visible to all of their teammates, but not targetable unless the scout actually radar locks the target. This way, teammates can at least know that there are multiple contacts, and where, in a near instant fashion, no typing required.

[aniviron]

I... I have a really simple idea that would make scouts really valuable.

Let them target 3-4 people at a time from either the pilot skill tree, or as a module. Let one be the 'primary' target that is shown in the top right, but the others are just targets which all have their data relayed to the rest of the team as long as the scout has LOS. Bam. Suddenly a scout just has to hit r a few times and your team knows where the main thrust of the enemy force is (or at least one lance) and what their composition is.

The best part is, unlike most modules, this would not be all that useful for an assault, it would actually be role specific.

I dunno, sounds pretty easy to me.

[BarHaid]

aniviron, on 13 September 2013 - 06:54 PM, said:

I... I have a really simple idea that would make scouts really valuable.

Let them target 3-4 people at a time from either the pilot skill tree, or as a module. Let one be the 'primary' target that is shown in the top right, but the others are just targets which all have their data relayed to the rest of the team as long as the scout has LOS. Bam. Suddenly a scout just has to hit r a few times and your team knows where the main thrust of the enemy force is (or at least one lance) and what their composition is.

The best part is, unlike most modules, this would not be all that useful for an assault, it would actually be role specific.

I dunno, sounds pretty easy to me.

THIS. This this this!

[Carrioncrows]

See:



It revamps the entire MWO Scouting, Recon and EW warfare.

[Kazairl]

As a Scout, even with Vent, Teamspeak (ick) or Mumble, describing what you are seeing and then having people actually comprehended what is happening is next to impossible. Taking a photo of your screen and sending it to your mates achieves more. Which is what my pilot would be doing if mobile phones worked on alien planets.

A scouts sensors should report the location of all visible targets to everyone on your team, possibly with yellow brackets to suggest there is no target lock.

[GRiPSViGiL]

The idea of filling in the scoreboard with enemy mechs info is where this should be solved. So long as a scout holds target long enough the info can be obtained.

[Gizmoh]

What I do while scouting, is take a second to cycle through all visible targets with R, and then keep one targeted, usually works . .

[GRiPSViGiL]

Carrioncrows, on 13 September 2013 - 09:08 PM, said:

See:



It revamps the entire MWO Scouting, Recon and EW warfare.

Bravo good sir. I fully back everything you laid out. Very intuitive. I hope you are making PGI aware of this, where is the thread that headlines this?

[Punisher22]

Lot of great ideas have been listed, but I think modules are the way to go forward. Scouting is for the most part without reward. Let's face it most of our teammates see the lights as someone to send back to base when it is being captured. The two ideas that stand out are the automated message giving type and location, and multiple targets being shown. As played now, all mechs have C3, that is we can share any target info for a 'locked on' target. The ability to quickly communicate location as well as type, (note that I am not including loadout), is what will make scouting valuable for an entire team, especially a commander, lance or company. The idea of putting these into modules will make scouting more specialized. As far as rewards, bonus xp/cb's for being the first to locate and ID each mech. This would have to be limited to the lights and the Cicada. The idea of fire and forget missiles could also be a module for the heavier mechs, letting the scout 'take over' the LOS, I did this in Iraq using laser designators to illuminate targets, and give both the shooter and spotter credit.

[Carrioncrows]

GRiPSViGiL, on 13 September 2013 - 10:50 PM, said:

Bravo good sir. I fully back everything you laid out. Very intuitive. I hope you are making PGI aware of this, where is the thread that headlines this?

http://mwomercs.com/...rior-balancing/

Part 1
Covers fixing FF and standard structure, terrain and collision for knockdown.

Part 2 is a lot of energy balancing and fixing.

Part 3 you saw.

[Kazairl]

Carrioncrows, on 13 September 2013 - 09:08 PM, said:

See:



It revamps the entire MWO Scouting, Recon and EW warfare.

I think your ideas on missiles are really silly. The current problem with missiles is they don't hit what they are aimed at. How is making locking longer and harder going to help that?

I also think your ideas on target sharing via C3 are backwards. A smart phone has better target info sharing than is in currently in game. This game is set in 3050...

Your other ideas though are great.

[Carrioncrows]

Kazairl, on 14 September 2013 - 12:25 AM, said:

I think your ideas on missiles are really silly. The current problem with missiles is they don't hit what they are aimed at. How is making locking longer and harder going to help that?

I also think your ideas on target sharing via C3 are backwards. A smart phone has better target info sharing than is in currently in game. This game is set in 3050...

Your other ideas though are great.

A lot of peopled miss this point, but it's in there.

Missile's get a speed bump, a big one.

Missiles as they are at 120 m/s I propose making LRM's 300-380 m / s That's almost triple the speed of the current LRM's making them fast and hit hard and quicidently solves the issue with them hitting lights. The LRM's would also track like streaks aiming for locations rather than center mass. (as explained) Naturaly AMS would be uppped.

They also get 50% maximum range making LRM's 1000m effective and 1500m maximum. Passed effective range they begin to lose lock. (Speed determined by lots of factors, also explained)

Right now spotting is a joke. Any Tom, {Richard Cameron} and Harry can just spot for anyone with LRM's can just lock up and launch.

There is no reason for Tag (Beyond defeating ECM mechs)
There is no reason for Narc (None)
There is no reason for Recon's
There is no reason for Scouts.

I would like to put this equipment and give mechs a role to fill, namely mostly the light mechs role to scount, recon and paint targets so that your friendlies could "THEN" rain down LRM's indirectly.

LRM's would have the option of course to dumbfire on bombard mode. Where if a scout / recon spots enemy mechs but doesn't have the Tag / Narc system to allow you to direct fire on them, you can still switch to bombard mode and rain down LRM's on them in a big saturation template.

And because of the new speed of the LRM's you could actively dumbfire the LRM's as a way to hit targets that you are unable to engage.

Say you are 600m from an DDC Atlas with ECM and he is strafing to the right of you firing. You could switch to bombard mode and lead him by placing your templates far enough out that he walks into them when they LRM'***** the template. So even though ECM is still powerful this would allow you to still use LRM's. Though not as effectively, but still any damage is a lot more useful than a 1.5 ton weapon taking out the entire missile tree.

As for C3, there is something to understand about the Battletech universe. It's a lot like madmax out there. Battlemechs are rare, they have lots a lot of their abilities for sophisticated electronic warfare. The majority of factories that pump out battlemechs are automated and when parts breakdown they do their best to substitute with inferior equipment. In 3050 they are just beginning to recover a fraction of what the SLDF used to have.

Think of it like this.

We have a modern tank, lets say our goodl ol fasion Abrams. It has GPS, Satalite communications, Tac-Grid and a battle computer that can keep track of the entire divisions worth of tanks and coordinate maneuvers and firing angles.

But take that Abrams and throw it on the moon, now the majority of it's electronic systems are useless, there is no GPS, no satellites to track targets, no tac-grid and the battle computer that's so amazing, well it blew a fuse. A simple part but nobody makes them anymore which makes that million dollar computer just an afterthought.

That kinda gives you an idea where we are at in the Btech universe. Yes it's 3050 we have space travel and giant robots but the constant war has regressed our higher level technological abilities to basically now.

[Epic Fail]

Viktor Drake, on 11 September 2013 - 12:25 PM, said:

You realize that "Real Scouting" is actually a very simple process. You just take your mech forward of your team, find the enemy and report their movements and composition. That it!!! Scouting is no more or no less than this and really any mech can do to, though obviously lights are better at it.

As far as game mechanic, the only real enhancement to assisting with this would be better tools like maybe an automated role call of spotted mechs. Example:

You see the enemy mech and as you put your cursor on each enemy mech, a message is generated to your team:

Target Spotted: Alpha - Jagermech - D3
Target Spotted: Bravo - Centurion - D3
Target Spotted: Charlie - Atlas - D4

So on and so forth. This basically allows light mechs to pretty much continually keep their team notified of what they have seen and where they have seen it. To cut down on the Spam, one a enemy is spotted by a light, it will not generate a new message for 30 seconds.

Basically they just need a tool that allows scouts to keep feeding info to the team. I would probably make these modules and limit them to being used on light mechs plus a select few mediums like the Cicada. I would also make them cheap to aquire.

It's less of a question of how to scout, and more of a question of a reward for those that actually do in game. Aside from the fact that I can pretty regularly push 1K damage in a Jenner, I don't think that that particular model is working in terms of making solid scouts in game via reward system. That's all.

I like the idea of a module being able to work with other team members to feed info, esp with the command console, having your LL with a CM would feed info back to the lance they command would be ideal, and also awesome.