18 replies to this topic

[nehebkau]

So, you just dropped into a garden paradise and are starting up your mech ready for a braw or a fluid war across the landscape. As you trundle off towards the enemy's base your progress is stopped by the blaring klaxon proclaming "Base is under Attack!" So you turn around hoping to defend your base and the tuna-fish you left in the refridgerator. Arriving on scene you have found nearly the entire enemy force doing unmentionable things to your base. (could they at least flush after they are done?) Within 3 seconds you are cored and wondering if they are going to leave the sandwich for you but you worry about what they've done to it. All the while some juvenile on the other team is relentlessly typing the most offensive comments just to be an arse while giggling like a crushing school-girl over VOIP to his drop buddies.

Total game time: 3 minutes
Total Fun: negative 0

This repeats over and over on the weekend...in Assault modes.

Then I got a clue...the games that were a struggle, where there was strategy and where the players seemed more interested in playing and having fun than capping and trying to grow their e-peens. Yes, Conquest mode, never leave me -- you are the only respite on weekends from the hord of juvenile people that flock to the assault mode like flies to my beloved mother's meatloaf (rest her soul). So, If I gotta PUG, then I'm gunna Conquest PUG.


Now if it only didn't take so long to find a match....

P.S. In case you are wondering, this tongue-in-cheek post is intended to point out some issues with the assault mode, not the least of which is what it brings out in players faced with the cbill grind.

Edited by nehebkau, 13 October 2013 - 02:46 PM.

[Ghogiel]

You should start a counseling meeting for players that are bad at assault mode.

[nehebkau]

Ghogiel, on 13 October 2013 - 02:29 PM, said:

You should start a counseling meeting for players that are bad at assault mode.

I'd rather start a 'group' for people who have an over inflated sense of self.

[Kjudoon]

Hence why I rarely, if ever, play Assault. Twitch munchkins want that kind of action. Don't think, break everything, because breaking anything is still points... right? If we had destructable environments, I'm sure there'd be dorks out there firing AC20's just to watch a non-threatening building explode. Or use their jump jets over and over to get 'landing damage' on a bridge to colllapse it when there's only one enemy on the field.

If there was a large enough community to do age based queues and whatnot, it could be a much different world. But I dream. We'll see if it ever arrives.

[HammerSwarm]

Assault is less fun for me anyways. It was formerly a good scrum with base capping as a minority of games. Tactics have evolved however that make the game more or less fun depending on what is happening. I for one can not wait for team death match so that assault can be what it is, mainly assault. TDM can handle the scrums and the run and hides.

[Amsro]

Assault Mode needs One Base and One attacking team, you know... like an Assault...

as it is now its just a 2 base cap circle and see which team sticks together better.

[Silentium]

Amsro, on 14 October 2013 - 06:12 AM, said:

Assault Mode needs One Base and One attacking team, you know... like an Assault...

as it is now its just a 2 base cap circle and see which team sticks together better.

Quoted for great justice.

[nehebkau]

Amsro, on 14 October 2013 - 06:12 AM, said:

Assault Mode needs One Base and One attacking team, you know... like an Assault...

as it is now its just a 2 base cap circle and see which team sticks together better.

Quoted because it needs more Justice!

[Sug]

I enjoy Conquest until i start noticing i'm earning half the cbills i'd be getting in Assault : /

[nehebkau]

Sug, on 14 October 2013 - 07:04 AM, said:

I enjoy Conquest until i start noticing i'm earning half the cbills i'd be getting in Assault : /

I find that I earn more on Conquest, on weekends. It becomes more of a deathmatch then the assault matches (on weekends) Almost never a cap win.

[NRP]

It always happens on a double XP weekend, where winning just nets so much more XP.

[xhrit]

DEFENDING YOUR BASE takes too many braincells?

Edited by xhrit, 14 October 2013 - 05:12 PM.

[Amsro]

xhrit, on 14 October 2013 - 05:12 PM, said:

DEFENDING YOUR BASE takes too many braincells?

Defending your base solo is not ideal, and the chance of getting the other 11 lawn gnomes to follow you back to base is like pulling teeth. No thanks !

[Zordicron]

Defend base? here is a pug match I had tonight: in my PB awesome

Tourmaline. WHole team headed toward the normal shooting ridge to trey to peek a boo till someone gets smart enough to flank and crush. Anyway, we are right at the edge of the ridges, and centurian team mate says in team chat: 3 lights headed to base along the edge in(XX, i forget coord)" I Stop, centurian is there. We can easily cut them off from base cap, there is onlt one path. It will give us a big advantage, the enemy light lance down right away? how often do you get to ambush a light lance on tourmaline?

NOPE. they all kept going. Turns out, it was 4 lights, and a cicada that came along shortly after. I asked for help in team chat. Nothing. Me and cent almost cored the jenner and got most of their armor in the orange, I think one was yellow. 2 ECM ravens, an ECM spider, Jenner. And then Cicada.

So defend base you say? Maybe in an organized drop. In a pug, **** no, you can not count on your team to help you do anything unless the whole team is in a giant cat herd to shoot whatever they see.

[Zordicron]

I used to stay away from conquest like the plague due to inevitable cat herding. There is always 3 groups of players. The "I will kill them all no matter what!" This player came to fight. maybe in his 2 SL jenner, maybe in his 100 ton brawl fatlas. It doesntmatter, he will fight.

Type 2 is the "I am going to cap, because conquest is for capping". maybe this player is in his 2 SL jenner. maybe he is in his 100 ton brawl atlas. It doesnt matter, this player is going to cap.

Type 3 is me. And maybe one or two other guys. We try to help the cats that have strayed from the herd. It is really hard. We try to team chat, call out enemy, call out when to cap, call out what enemy is capping where. We try to move to help the brawling guys, so they dont get overwhelmed.


But you know, After seeing what the last month of weeken play has been, I am going to try it again. I mean even if it turns out the same, it has to be better then the base race.



You know, last night a PGI guy was in 3 drops with me. First one was in Forest. It was a base race. my team went up the hill towards the tunnel(on the big hill side with the giant cargo crane thing) and the enemy moved 6 mechs, 4 with AC20 and 2 streaks through water and onto base. ^ mechs makes the base go down quick, so we scrambled to get back, which of course they just blew our faces off as we tried to go up the ramp to the base. They only got 3 kills(rest of team was 150M out yet) but they won. Total play time was like 2 minutes.

I commented to PGI guy, "Hey PGI guy, see how fun and tactical base cap is in assault? We used 5% of this map"

The other two matches involved 10 seconds of a tactical base touch and zero seconds of base cap respectively(Caustic and River City) And were very close and very tactical and used over 50% of the map each. Also earned 10X the rewards.

Base Race needs an overhaul.

[Shakespeare]

Yes, BOTH teams in assault should defend base!

And stash books in their cockpits, since they'll be sitting there doing nothing for 15 minutes.

If both teams did the smart thing all the time, then nobody would have any reason to do the fun thing - destroying battlemechs.
I understand the purpose of the caps, so I'm not one to scream "caps don't belong in assault!", but lets not pretend you're accomplishing some great feat as a light lance running straight for cap at 140kph and duping the team 'stupid' enough to actually take initiative and go looking for a fight. What you're really doing is cutting a game short for bragging rights, and encouraging people to camp base. Enjoy your 12 minute wait-a-thons, 'base defenders'.

[Gr4p3 4pe]

One way of resolving the base race would be to make a minimum number of team mates needed to cap the enemy base providing a necessity to fight and opening up a chance later in the match when both teams are exhausted and worn down to cap the base. Say you require 50% of your team on base to cap that prevents a light lance from running ahead and capping or leaves your team down enough mechs to stage a viable defence. Another option may be to put a countdown before bases may be capped.

Anybody who thinks a light mech is only viable for base rush probably hasn't learned yet how to scoot and shoot or how to orbit an enemy to avoid their guns without crashing into a wall.

[Lukoi Banacek]

I earn more cbills and xp prr match on conq. I attribute it to the fact that matches always play out to some significant degree with combat action everytime whereas in Assault some double digit % can end in a base rush.

The same holds true for my smurf and for many of the people I play with. While I enjoy assault mode, it is more profitable per minute played for me to play conq. I only play "any" for my personal enjoyment in an effort to keep it from getting too dull by focusing on a single gake mode.

[Kjudoon]

Shakespeare, on 15 October 2013 - 11:13 AM, said:

Yes, BOTH teams in assault should defend base!

And stash books in their cockpits, since they'll be sitting there doing nothing for 15 minutes.

If both teams did the smart thing all the time, then nobody would have any reason to do the fun thing - destroying battlemechs.
I understand the purpose of the caps, so I'm not one to scream "caps don't belong in assault!", but lets not pretend you're accomplishing some great feat as a light lance running straight for cap at 140kph and duping the team 'stupid' enough to actually take initiative and go looking for a fight. What you're really doing is cutting a game short for bragging rights, and encouraging people to camp base. Enjoy your 12 minute wait-a-thons, 'base defenders'.

So what you're saying is this game is for stupid people who want to play berserker and should be the ones who PGI coddles and works to satisfiy?

If that becomes the case, I'm walking the hell away from what could have been a great game.

Edited by Kjudoon, 15 October 2013 - 12:39 PM.