53 replies to this topic

[Itsacon]

The change on River city night is BAD

This removed the only tactical choice this map had (going upper or lower city) and turned it into a plain old Death Match Arena in the middle of the water.

The team starting on the side of the ramps also has a great tactical advantage, as they can get the high ground on the center building without the other team ever getting there without jumpjets.

[Sable Dove]

Yeah. Easily one of the least popular maps, and the changes are absolutely horrible. Not to mention that one team gets more cover and better positioning.

[candybag]

Interesting changes. I'm yet to experience anything positive about it tho. I suppose it works out for premades, but pugs might be a different story. Tourmaline wasn't really a hit spawning ~1000 meters within an enemy lance.

[Corvus Antaka]

happy with the changes so far. taking command and people paying attention is more important now, hopefully that combined with rewards will lead to much more fun. the small scale lance vs lance battles that develop are much much better already with many new tactical options available and a need to think on your feet.

[Jun Watarase]

Pros : Eliminates most of the pointless walking time. Promotes lance teamwork.

Cons : Leaves lances isolated and unable to support each other. Initial combat is then very much dependant on lance composition. A lance of 4 assaults will steamroll a lance of 4 mediums/heavies. After the initial fights, surviving lances are often left confused as to where the enemy is, and where they should go. They either stay put at their cap point or wander around lost. The isolated nature of combat also makes it much harder to get saviour/defensive rewards, and consequently, less xp/c-bills. The smaller fights also result in less xp/c-bills overall as more resource wins occur and damage done is more spread out among team members, rather than concentrated in a few top performing players.

Edited by Jun Watarase, 03 December 2013 - 01:55 PM.

[Evax]

Light Lances are the only lance that should be set apart from the group. For a TEAM oriented game, PGI likes to do things that point to the opposite. I don't want to spend 1 to 2 min grouping up with the other assaults or getting jumped by a bunch of lights that happen to spawn close to my position. In pug matches I've spawned off to the side with 3 lights who promptly ran off and left me alone going 70kph only to be jumped by a 2 Jenners. With no way of asking for help short of walking in a straight line while typing, I could not get help from my TEAM.

PGI might get new people to stay long enough to learn the game if they didn't feel like a mute mech standing in the middle of people who are supposed to be helping or giving info about where to go.

[TheCaptainJZ]

This is a new and fairly radical shift for everyone, so I think it will be some time before we really know how this affects the game. I think it has the effect of breaking up the giant blob in PUGs that ensured victory by suppression. Now, it appears we might have 3 separate Lance-level fights going on in a map. Except River City of course. That map is simply too small already. It needs to be at least twice the size.

[MasterGoa]

Just out of two matches in lavaland...

HORRIBLE!!!!

A lance spaned 2.4KM from us, actually quite near the enemy and were mowed down within 2 minutes.

Twice in two games.

PGI WTF are you guys doing???

[Corvus Antaka]

jee all the assaults whining.

if you took more mobile mechs it might be easier to get away or reinforce each other

[John MatriX82]

Horrible choices in Terra Therma and River City. I hope they'll revert them back soon. Pair this up with the matchmaker that it's completely nuts on weight coupling and the game has even more devolved..

[Jim Kodiak]

When I first read new spawn points I was pumped, but this has made pugging impossible to deal with.

[John MatriX82]

Dear, also Tourmaline is changed. But it's not so bad, now action starts earlier, though the most "right" winged spawns are too near to the main group of the enemy.

[Ezazel]

I played six or so assault matches after the patch and my first experiences were very positive. There was more space to move and each lance now kinda has their own sector to watch, at least on bigger maps (didn't see em all yet).

Alpine was clearly better. It was exciting to find an enemy lance in a surprising place and engage them with one lance only.

[Thorqemada]

After a few matches i feel this is a rather good change but only the future will tell how Players adapt to it over time...

Edited by Thorqemada, 04 December 2013 - 06:28 AM.

[Elder Thorn]

i like the change itself, but people need to adapt to it. Most people will still try to get back into one huge blob, which leads to slower mechs being cut off and picked off by faster enemys. Sucks to play like that.

[Nightcrept]

This change could be good but implementing it before the matchmaker is able to consider weight is a major mistake and creates the unbalanced games.

Eventually this change would have been good. You see the drop location and you decide which units would go in which lances at each drop point.

But as is it is completely random and can lead to some very very lopsided fights.

Currently on some maps lights and fast meds rule. If you're in one of the closest drop points and you aren't in a fast mech you just hope that your buddies stay close enough to you that you can make it to a rally point. If you drop with a group of lights and other fast meds then you go hunting and try to catch the enemy team before they can figure out what they have to fight with and can coordinate.

In short it's leading to even more chaotic and lopsided games then before.

[C12AZyED]

the new spawn point change is great. matches are much more action packed and frenetic and way more fun for brawlers. there seems to be less time for blobbing up and standing around yawning.

[Scandinavian Jawbreaker]

First of all, I don't care about where I drop in PUGs. However I do care how far away rest of my predefined lance drops in the 12-man queue. Alpine seems to be the worst case scenario where 12-man drop decks predefined lance can drop 3 km from each other. It takes a lot of time to regroup that lance, thus waste of time.

Has anyone tested this in 12-mans? Our company drops today, so I can test this out. In theory though, the new spawn points suck hard when we don't have proper tools to define lances before drop. Even if lances are formed in the ready-screen, the matchmaker still drops Mechs on random (unless this is fixed this patch, no mention though).

[oldradagast]

Overall, I like it:

1) Eliminated the long, dull walk to the map center where the ritual combat will take place

2) Encourages more movement and scouting since it is no longer exactly obvious where the enemy will be... you know "behind that same wall of rocks that they hide behind every game."

3) The game is less predictable now, which encourages more variety and interest.

That being said, this doesn't mean all the new spawn points are perfect - more playtesting will be needed to clean up any ones that are poorly placed... but let's not kid ourselves - the previous system with the single spawn points also had problems and imbalances.

[Panthros]

I am absolutely amazed how spread out everyone is with the new spawn points. Why would a drop ship put everyone so spread out? it makes no sense in canon and honestly I have played all of the new maps with new spawn points and I am generally frustrated with the new setup. Nobody I seem to talk to is happy about them.

It would have been nice to put this out on the test server to "test" and provide feedback. PGI amazes me again with how they go about pushing out changes without measuring success in test before hand.