30 replies to this topic

[Kjudoon]

Okay, for the last few days, I've been noticing many people screaming or just plain confused as to the realities of conquest's flow of battle and when a tipping point can be seen. Usually within the first 3 minutes of the fight you can tell how it's going to go either by which team is out capping or out killing. In that spirit, I thought I'd put out some of my opinions.

1. If you look at the scoreboard and you're down about a lance to the other team, you're probably going to lose.

A- If those mechs down are assaults? You're probably going to lose by kill. Why? Because your anchors have either gotten boned or just died stupidly in munchkin blood rage, or people not realizing it's a team game that requires teamwork, not a FPS where they're the hero and the rest of us are stage dressing. Lights cannot (unless they're nerfed spiders) turn the tide of battle against a full strength 12. Never seen it done so far or if it HAS happened, it's the rare exception.

B- If you lost all your lights, you're going to lose to cap. Why? Because slow mechs just are going to ignore capping or not be able to keep up with the other team's lights who will run circles around you capping while their heavies beat you into oblivion because they don't have to worry about minding the store any more.

2. The team who gets a 200pt cap advantage almost always wins.

A-Usuallly this means they capped 3-4 locations or are running a cap accelerator mech or all of the above. This requires a lot of energy and re-focus to reverse and the tactical change usually results in the enemy being able to kill you off faster accelerating the problem

B- If you don't have the lights to counteract this immediately and capture at least 4 caps, you are going to lose. You will not be able to catch up unless all resources are devoted to reversing capture. The more mechs you are down, the more impossible it will be.

C- Heavies can't get you the caps you need most times unless they have freakish XL engines that make them move like a light. Expect them to be too busy brawling though.

D- Lights cannot normally take a guarded cap back unless there are more than one doing it to overwhelm the guard who's usually alone. Why? Because if it's a light and they win, the time wasted in winningrenders it inneffectual. Also, it gives time for reinforcements to arrive and stomp you or drive you off reversing your ploy.

3. If your last lance or fewer mechs are lights and there's more opponents than them, don't expect them to do anything but run/hide/cap.

A- If you are ahead on cap and have a 3-4 cap advantage going? There is no purpose in doing anything but keeping alive. Screaming at them to fight is stupid. Victory is better than a few points in a suicide charge that would cost you the game.

B- If you are behind on cap points or sites, you may as well do a suicide run and get the match over with on as many points of damage as possible. The enemy has the numbers to cap and guard and you will be doing this anyway. Only by a sheer miracle will you change this tide.

C- The instant those remaining cap to catch up or slow them down, the entire enemy group will pounce on you, except for the lights who will go finish capping in most cases leaving it a race to see what wins the game: kill or cap. The smaller the map the faster the pounce.

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So if by 4:30 into a match, I see we're 150pts, 3-2 in caps and down 3 mechs to their one... it's a very safe bet it's a lost cause.

Opine away.

[Nick Makiaveli]

Kjudoon, on 07 October 2013 - 12:53 PM, said:

Opine away.

Why would I when you've done it so well already?

[Johnny Marek Summers]

Only once have I been able to pull off the quiet cap win with my Jenner. And I was under fire when the 750 count came in.

[Kjudoon]

I have an addendum to this. I just witnessed my first 300 point turnaround.

Of course, it is to note that there were only 2 enemy light mechs who were STILL outcapping a very woefully inept group of assaults and heavies, and they scattered to individual caps just in time to stop their capping and guard against those two lights while the rest went hunting.

Final score 750 to 743 with that last poor commando getting HAMMERED.

So that would be an exception brought about by number superiority and just plain dumb luck. Not something to be relied upon.

Edited by Kjudoon, 07 October 2013 - 03:26 PM.

[DyDrimer]

I can tell in the first 30 seconds usually if we are going to lose. The first 30 seconds of pugs spinning in a circle wondering which way to go, if that happens i know its over with, or on assault when the groups break up in to three lances and just roam away. That usually means dead.

[101011]

Kjudoon, on 07 October 2013 - 03:25 PM, said:

I have an addendum to this. I just witnessed my first 300 point turnaround.

Of course, it is to note that there were only 2 enemy light mechs who were STILL outcapping a very woefully inept group of assaults and heavies, and they scattered to individual caps just in time to stop their capping and guard against those two lights while the rest went hunting.

Final score 750 to 743 with that last poor commando getting HAMMERED.

So that would be an exception brought about by number superiority and just plain dumb luck. Not something to be relied upon.

I had a 400-450 turnaround on Terra Therma. We steam-rolled their main force in the volcano, then had some mediums hunt down the enemy lights (there were 3, we killed 2) while the rest of us capped.

[Kjudoon]

101011, on 07 October 2013 - 05:09 PM, said:

I had a 400-450 turnaround on Terra Therma. We steam-rolled their main force in the volcano, then had some mediums hunt down the enemy lights (there were 3, we killed 2) while the rest of us capped.

Definitely the exception though, and required one side getting totally steamrolled. So there's your turn around exemption.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Kjudoon, on 07 October 2013 - 07:54 PM, said:

Definitely the exception though, and required one side getting totally steamrolled. So there's your turn around exemption.

"There are exceptions to every rule"

If the exceptions outnumber the rule, then they are the rule and the rule is the exception.

Liked the post by the way.

[ChapeL]

I still think conquest should be a a flat 10 minutes game with the winner being the team that holds the majority of cap locations when the clock runs out. ( points be damned unless to act as a tie breaker )

[Kjudoon]

Bull Frog, on 08 October 2013 - 12:21 PM, said:

I still think conquest should be a a flat 10 minutes game with the winner being the team that holds the majority of cap locations when the clock runs out. ( points be damned unless to act as a tie breaker )

I agree. Ground held is ground conquered. As proven time and time again, the instant you leave a hill, it's no longer yours. I'd go so far as to give neither team a 'base' and make them all go for cap points and only score as long as a mech stands on them. The price of holding land. That last point will fought over bitterly.

Edited by Kjudoon, 08 October 2013 - 01:25 PM.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Kjudoon, on 08 October 2013 - 01:24 PM, said:

I agree. Ground held is ground conquered. As proven time and time again, the instant you leave a hill, it's no longer yours. I'd go so far as to give neither team a 'base' and make them all go for cap points and only score as long as a mech stands on them. The price of holding land. That last point will fought over bitterly.

Third/4th/5th/whatever-number-we-are-up-to-at-that-point game mode?

I would play that one a fair amount, but I like what conquest gives us as well...

[Kjudoon]

Shar Wolf, on 08 October 2013 - 01:35 PM, said:

Third/4th/5th/whatever-number-we-are-up-to-at-that-point game mode?

I would play that one a fair amount, but I like what conquest gives us as well...

True true, but it would stop the capping by a side that just gets in there caps once and never returns if the other side is not capping and then winning by cap even with one mech who just goes somewhere and does a shutdown to let the timer run out on capping. Yes, I'm being hypocritical because I have done the same thing with my outnumbered light. But that's because I exploited a condition.

[NRP]

I hear it all the time in Conquest PUGs: "Kill first, cap later". I sort of know right then and there we're gonna lose.

People want to play Team Slayer, doesn't really matter what the game mode is. It's always Team Slayer.

[William Radick]

NRP, on 08 October 2013 - 01:47 PM, said:

I hear it all the time in Conquest PUGs: "Kill first, cap later". I sort of know right then and there we're gonna lose.

People want to play Team Slayer, doesn't really matter what the game mode is. It's always Team Slayer.

^ my thoughts exactly. I really can't wait for new game modes. (Or really private lobbies... we can all dream)

[Alaskan Nobody]

William Radick, on 08 October 2013 - 01:58 PM, said:

^ my thoughts exactly. I really can't wait for new game modes. (Or really private lobbies... we can all dream)

Always hated the lobbies from older games (one of the biggest things that put me off the 1st person shooters was my experiences with the playerbases)

But this game... yeah I am hoping for something like a lobby/private match type thing

[Kiiyor]

Kjudoon, on 07 October 2013 - 12:53 PM, said:

1. If you look at the scoreboard and you're down about a lance to the other team, you're probably going to lose.

This is very true, but I would go a step further and say that if you're down 2 mechs, it's probably over. The tipping point for a loss is actually a lot smaller than people realize, and losing out on the firepower of 2 mechs (or sometimes even 1) is often enough to tip the scales.

Most of the steamrolls I have participated in or been on the receiving end of are not full of premades, contrary to the usual in match whining. They are instead full of people who don't understand how easy it is for a standoff to turn into a rout.

[Kiiyor]

Kjudoon, on 08 October 2013 - 01:24 PM, said:

Bull Frog, on 08 October 2013 - 12:21 PM, said:

I still think conquest should be a a flat 10 minutes game with the winner being the team that holds the majority of cap locations when the clock runs out. ( points be damned unless to act as a tie breaker )

I agree. Ground held is ground conquered. As proven time and time again, the instant you leave a hill, it's no longer yours. I'd go so far as to give neither team a 'base' and make them all go for cap points and only score as long as a mech stands on them. The price of holding land. That last point will fought over bitterly.

That.... is an intriguing concept. It sounds like a far more tactical conquest game, which would be amazing for group play, and agonizingly frustrating in PUGS (yet still awesome). Lights and fast mediums would have a FAR more important role in shaping the battlefield, and assaults and heavies would tend to be lynchpins of point defence, but not if they are spread too thin...

And the TACTICS! Do you split up early in the hopes that you can out maneuver the enemy? Do you maintain a larger force and attempt to destroy enough of the enemy to hamper their ability to cap? At what point do you split your forces and attempt to go for the win? How do you decide to abandon points as a lost cause?

Intriguing.

The biggest issue with this would be match times when there is no chance for one team to win (i.e. only 2 mechs left, no possibility of capturing enough points, one ******* remaining spider pilot practicing their squiggely weaving skills).

Perhaps the game could have a hard limit of functional mechs - less than X, the game is over.... OOH! Or, the depleted force has to withdraw! X minutes to reach a dropship, where reaching it awards a substantial CBILL bonus for the retreating team, and dying means the same bonus is given to the attackers!

[Kjudoon]

Kiiyor, on 08 October 2013 - 08:07 PM, said:

That.... is an intriguing concept. It sounds like a far more tactical conquest game, which would be amazing for group play, and agonizingly frustrating in PUGS (yet still awesome). Lights and fast mediums would have a FAR more important role in shaping the battlefield, and assaults and heavies would tend to be lynchpins of point defence, but not if they are spread too thin...

And the TACTICS! Do you split up early in the hopes that you can out maneuver the enemy? Do you maintain a larger force and attempt to destroy enough of the enemy to hamper their ability to cap? At what point do you split your forces and attempt to go for the win? How do you decide to abandon points as a lost cause?

Intriguing.

The biggest issue with this would be match times when there is no chance for one team to win (i.e. only 2 mechs left, no possibility of capturing enough points, one ******* remaining spider pilot practicing their squiggely weaving skills).

Perhaps the game could have a hard limit of functional mechs - less than X, the game is over.... OOH! Or, the depleted force has to withdraw! X minutes to reach a dropship, where reaching it awards a substantial CBILL bonus for the retreating team, and dying means the same bonus is given to the attackers!

You either have a draw state, or it becomes a deathmatch on those remaining, or both sides lose because as we know (I suspect) a Pyrrhic victory is no victory at all. I'm all in for peeing into twitch munchin's cornflakes. So anything that reduces that kinda play, I'm game.

Edited by Kjudoon, 08 October 2013 - 08:34 PM.

[Kiiyor]

Kjudoon, on 08 October 2013 - 08:33 PM, said:

You either have a draw state, or it becomes a deathmatch on those remaining, or both sides lose because as we know (I suspect) a Pyrrhic victory is no victory at all. I'm all in for peeing into twitch munchin's cornflakes. So anything that reduces that kinda play, I'm game.

Nice idea. Whilst I have seen (and participated in) some EPIC last man standing matches, the vast majority of my fights tend to be spent either hunting for an elusive light as my life slowly drains away, or retreating to guard a cap point... as my life slowly drains away.

I'd like to see some form of 'hurry up' added to matches, to give a sense of urgency to a win or defeat. Something to entice me to stay for the whole fight if i'm dead, instead of disconnecting to drop in another mech. As it stands, matches become very predictably boring once certain victory is assured, and whilst I wouldn't go so far as to end a match completely, I think a retreat/withdrawal mechanic would add spice to all game modes.

[Kjudoon]

Kiiyor, on 08 October 2013 - 08:58 PM, said:

Nice idea. Whilst I have seen (and participated in) some EPIC last man standing matches, the vast majority of my fights tend to be spent either hunting for an elusive light as my life slowly drains away, or retreating to guard a cap point... as my life slowly drains away.

I'd like to see some form of 'hurry up' added to matches, to give a sense of urgency to a win or defeat. Something to entice me to stay for the whole fight if i'm dead, instead of disconnecting to drop in another mech. As it stands, matches become very predictably boring once certain victory is assured, and whilst I wouldn't go so far as to end a match completely, I think a retreat/withdrawal mechanic would add spice to all game modes.

I may suck at playing, and am massively disenchanted with the complexity of the game right now.... I'm hell at game design. This game desperately needs some real RPG aspects to make it more than an arcade game.