55 replies to this topic

[Bhael Fire]

Just want to reiterate my belief that a role should be selected by the player at the start of a match and then rewarded according to how well they played that role at the end of the match.

Role warfare should have nothing to do with "modules" or expensive gear in order to participate in. This would be a design misstep IMO.

[Selbatrim]

if they stop rewarding individual behaviour instead of promoting this that would be a good start. Winning is what we should be measured on as a team rather that how much damage was done, how many assists/kills you get. Sure it is a metric and you can gauge your success or failures in damage done or KD ratio but until you remove the indivdual carrots most people will tailor their style to individual rewards and chase kills rather than victories.

Scouting mechanism needs looking at so that the information can be easily accessed by the team. If you can see a mech it should appear as a target even if an unidentified target. a scout should not have to type how many mechs are over the ridge for instance. I'm not a fan of the modules. Reduce individual rewards and increase team rewards to make roles more important to victory. Cap wins (objective wins eventually i hope) should reward equally to kill wins.

[Steven Dixon]

Although I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the opinion that team victory should be rewarded more than individual accomplishment there is a good reason not to - pugs. If you are playing in a pug and you are pretty good you might earn a decent c-bill reward even if you get stuck with a few clueless players that cause your team to lose. If you get almost nothing, there would be even more raging and inter-player hatred. And could potentially lead to a toxic player community which will drive away players. Mechwarrior already has a fairly high learning curve we don't want people to start raging at a noobie for a dumb mistake.

It would also encourage players to do cap rushes. Many experienced players will probably counter this by saying that the team should learn to protect there base and use more coordination. I can agree with this sentiment, but in reality many of the more casual players don't want to play like this. Cap rushes aren't fun to them and they don't want to stay at the base and guard it. So they lose. Getting in a big fight and losing can still be pretty fun, just walking towards the enemy and being told that you lost because your base was captured isn't fun. And because they are more casual and less invested they leave.

Many people don't want to find a group to play with, they just want to hit launch and be rewarded for their individual accomplishments and skill. There are a lot of these players and so many of the gameplay mechanics are geared towards them, that's just the way it is. Offering a c-bill bonus might be a good way to try to encourage these players to play there role more without forcing them to, we will just have to see when we get more details.

[Texas Merc]

Steven Dixon, on 08 December 2013 - 04:43 PM, said:

It would also encourage players to do cap rushes. Many experienced players will probably counter this by saying that the team should learn to protect there base and use more coordination. I can agree with this sentiment, but in reality many of the more casual players don't want to play like this. Cap rushes aren't fun to them and they don't want to stay at the base and guard it. So they lose. Getting in a big fight and losing can still be pretty fun, just walking towards the enemy and being told that you lost because your base was captured isn't fun. And because they are more casual and less invested they leave.

Then let them play TDM?

[r4plez]

Dont believe in what Paul Inouye wrote.. i will give brief exampleto You:




You have been warned.

Edited by r4plez, 09 December 2013 - 09:30 AM.

[Sprouticus]

Bhael Fire, on 03 December 2013 - 02:56 PM, said:

As mentioned by a few others, I think it's a bad idea to incentivize roles with modules that require XP and c-bills to use. Players should be playing roles and getting rewarded for their chosen role right from their first match.

I'd rather see the match rewards completely overhauled and perhaps an actual "role" selection mechanic that players can choose before a match. Their rewards would be based on what role they selected and how closely they performed to their chosen role.

I just would hate to see another confusing and convoluted mechanic added to the game.

I have been saying this since before closed beta. Choosing a role should be part of the pre game model, just like choosing a mech. And everyone on your team should know your role. This could then be built into the MM system.

Having modules based on role COULD be used to provide this kind of model. It could even be worked into the MM system.

I think some of you are misreading the quote. They are introducing a new type of module slot. This means each mech will get a 'role' slot in addition to the module slots they have now (if I read it correctly).

Now depending on the modules, this could be a good start to role warfare. Not perfect but a start. It could even incentive-ize roles.


For instance:

First, reduce all rewards by 75-90% by default. This means you get a minimal CB/XP reward for doing everything, but not much.


However:


If you have the brawler module, you get a lot of CB/XP for doing damage/component destruction/kills with target <500m.

If you have the sniping/support module, you get a lot of CB/XP for doing damage/component destruction/kills with target >400m.

If you have the scouting module, you get a lot of CB/XP for spotting/TAG/NARC/etc.

If you have the command module you get lots of CBXP for people doing the tactic you suggest (going to locations, hopefully doing dmg to a called target in the future)



splitting the rewards system this way would enable PGI to be a lot more granular about rewards too. They could give more rewards to say a Locust who got a kill while setup as a brawler or support mech than an Atlas. They could give me CB/XP for light scouts than mediums. This would then give people a reason to bring smaller mechs as opposed to just the toughest/fastest. (coughcoughShadowhawkscout). They could give rewards for head shots to support/snipers but not brawlers. They could give rewards to commanders is their team won by cap if they ordered the team to cap, but not if he did n't and a bunch of lights just ran up and capped.They could give rewards to scouts who spot a mech after it has been out of LoS for more than 60 seconds.

And as I suggested above this could also be used to balance the MM system if they only put 1-2 command, 1-3 scouts per match and the rest split between support and brawlers.


Now, many of you will say 'but that is not role warfare'. And you are correct. But what it does is encourage people to play different roles and that will hopefully lead to Role Warfare indirectly. If the scout CB/XP is a great carrot.

Sure, there might be limits, but that can be overcome with proper config on the backend. If the wait time for brawlers becomes much longer in the MM, more people will use scouts. If people then try to drop in a brawler with a scout module, the lack of rewards will fix itself. If that 'scout atlas' only get 50k CB and 200 XP because he cant scout properly, people will not take it just to drop faster.

The only correlary (and it is not perfect) was when they introduced role based queues in PUG dungeons in WoW. People would play healers and tanks more because it was much easier to get into groups. And while yes, sometimes the healer was terrible or the tank was undergeared, it DID solve the 'everyone is dps' issue fairly well.

[Bhael Fire]

Sprouticus, on 09 December 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

I think some of you are misreading the quote. They are introducing a new type of module slot. This means each mech will get a 'role' slot in addition to the module slots they have now (if I read it correctly).

I fully understand that there is going to be a role slot; but I still think it's a bad idea, unless the role module is free. New players should be able to participate in role warfare right from their first match.

But yeah, if it's free, a role module system could be a satisfactory method of selecting a role.

[Sprouticus]

Bhael Fire, on 09 December 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

I fully understand that there is going to be a role slot; but I still think it's a bad idea, unless the role module is free. New players should be able to participate in role warfare right from their first match.

But yeah, if it's free, a role module system could be a satisfactory method of selecting a role.

I agree. Role modules should be free or minimal cost. The value of having a system is way to high not to.

[Balsover]

What will happen is the same thing that happens with everything in MWO:

Players will determine the most efficient/best C-Bill earning role module, and that's what everyone will take. If a brawling module pays more over the course of a game because it's based on damage dealt, no one will bother with anything else.

[Kanatta Jing]

Balsover, on 09 December 2013 - 02:59 PM, said:

What will happen is the same thing that happens with everything in MWO:

Players will determine the most efficient/best C-Bill earning role module, and that's what everyone will take. If a brawling module pays more over the course of a game because it's based on damage dealt, no one will bother with anything else.

I haven't seen the 12 highlanders jump sniping yet. I think we will instead have what we actually have now. 2 or 3 perfect builds that we see every match and 2 dozen imperfect builds that fill in the rest.

[Chemie]

Snoopy, on 03 December 2013 - 01:40 AM, said:

After checking the Dev post... I feel they (PGI) has no idea how the can achieve the original concept they praised during the Founder program.

Now they try to implement "something" to provide RW.

Imho modules could support Roles, but are not suited to be the Role. Modules have to be considered "end game" and are expensive. A Role should be available for everybody, right at the first match ever played.

PGI gave interviews in the spring where they explained CW in detail and gave "end of summer" timing; yet they have never even started to lay this down on paper let alone program. If they can give a 15 min interview on vaporware, ,they can make a command post about anything. Point is they have not thought about it and have not even started to program it. What you get (1 year from now), will be poorly thought out and poorly implemented.

[Sprouticus]

Balsover, on 09 December 2013 - 02:59 PM, said:

What will happen is the same thing that happens with everything in MWO:

Players will determine the most efficient/best C-Bill earning role module, and that's what everyone will take. If a brawling module pays more over the course of a game because it's based on damage dealt, no one will bother with anything else.

There are ways to fix that:

1) Balance it well. People like different roles, so if things are even remotely close, they will take the role they WANT instead of what gets the most XP

2) Use the MM to enforce a set # of each roll per match (1-4 scouts, 1-2 commanders, 2-4 snipers, 6-8 brawlers as an example). Once we have the lobby system in you could show the role in the lobby.

[oldradagast]

The flaw with this concept is that a GOOD team full of TEAM players will adapt in the game. If the players don't get rewarded for this - "oh, no - my light mech saved a team mate by brawling, but my bonus didn't happen, so why bother?" it'll discourage team play.

Ironically, this change hurts Mediums the most since they are the mech type most likely to fill any role. An Atlas probably won't cap, and a Locust won't brawl (much), but a Medium will do all of those things, often in the same match... but if they have 1 role to play for the bonus, they won't get as big a reward as "big, dumb assault mech that picks brawling every time."

Yeah... not impressed thus far.

[Asmudius Heng]

Roles should be about the interaction with your team not just what you do personally.

This is what makes it so difficult to build into the game where you have such flexibility in loadouts and mechs etc.

Scouting right now does reward players but I don't know if it is enough to get people to do it. There needs to be more gameplay effect to roles as well as rewards to encourage usage.

What sort of roles do we have in mechwarrior too and what is thier purpose? This the key question that needs to be answered before features get implemented.

For example:
Scouting - all about information distribution and aiding your teams movements and abilities

Harassment/flanking - this is a function of mech building your speed and weaponry. The payoff should be hurting the enemy without taking much damage back, turning enemies to face small numbers splitting teams, causing chaos etc. this all happens it is a role i like but there can be no in game reward to tell me I am doing this job right ... I have to take personal satisfaction in that role.

Tanking - soaking damage and being the centrepoint of a charge. This is a. Valuable role but is stupidly risky and often is totally unrewarding. With pinpoint accuracy the best tanks are fast mechs running distraction not the atlas. A tanky type mech should get some sort of bonus to taking fire. There are no rewards for this though its too hard to apply fairly but you could easily have ways to make mechs more damage resistant at a cost of firepower or speed or both.

Sniping - totally a function of weapons choices, I don't see a way to reward this in game apart form damage at range which is meh.

Indirect Support - this is a horrible word but I will apply it to LRM boats in this case with indirect.flushing out enemy, hitting them without being able to hit you back is a role. Causing chaos by indirect fire is a good role to have but I don't think LRMs do this very well and there is little way to reward it in game.

Jake of all trades - what do good mixed loadouts do? How do you rewards role? Have them earn bonuses by assists maybe as they typically will be involved at all ranges and actions ... Seems hard to apply and is not a defined role as such as being the line mechs that make up your bulk.

Brawlers - damage dealing in fighters all about mech build

More?

Anyway ... This brain fart is bringing me to a point.

All of these individual roles are very individual and not tied to teamwork that much. Scouting does very well as a teamwork functions about the only exception. A good role warfare system will make each element tie together well to support each other ... But how to communicate this and provide real feedback on its effectiveness in game? This is the challenge.

How do you reward and a tank for leading the charge of brawlers? Thats a good role to have makign the enemy waste Ammon nd heat on you while your in fighters close ... How do you reward snipers? Could unaware enemies or scouted enemies take more damage from a sniper ? That could be abused, but would create a synergy between scouts and snipers.

Role ware is such a difficult thing to implement except at a mech level as the build of your mech defines your role more than anything. Each chassis has a role from lore that would be best exploited by quirks for individual mechs to encourage that tactical usage.

Rambling ... Bottom line is that role warefare needs to be embedded in this game at such a deep level that PGI may have missed the boat, but there are better ways to encourage interaction of roles and visibility of roles on the battlefield

[stjobe]

Dev Blog 4: Role Warfare.

These new modules are a (small, very small) step in the right direction.

They just need to take a lot more similar steps before I can get as much out of dropping in a 1xML, 1xTAG SDR-5V as I can in a 6ML JR7-F.

[ZippySpeedMonkey]

The simple solution would be to give scouts and increased bonus above their current levels for spotting, capping and tagging...