189 replies to this topic

[MadcatX]

Kjudoon, on 21 December 2013 - 11:40 AM, said:

Look, you asked for skirmish mode, and got it with all it's patently obvious problems. I do this on any mode that I am left unable to win and only see certain failure. It usually comes when I'm the last guy left alive and there is no chance of winning. Why bother letting some twitch monkey get his rocks off at my expense with no possible gain for me? No, doing 5-10 points of damage for CBills is not worth it. I've no obligation to die in a stupid jesture.

I've stated from the first announcement of this mode it was a bad Idea I do my best to not associate with it. At times, as well as PGI saying it will be the case, I will be forced to play it for CW and other times. So if I'm left alone in 12-1 curbstomp and I can slip off, shut down and hide, I'm going to do that. If they offered a 'retreat' option, where I'm not penalized by point or C-Bill I'd do that. If this is griefing, call me guilty. I call it intelligent play in an untenible situation that I am on occasion forced into. If you don't like that, well, maybe you should play assault and cap if you get bored and can't find a pilot like me who's not going to play 'firing squad'.

I refuse to die like an ***** in a game!
I'll just sit here, powered down, wait until the timer runs out and STILL lose (unless teams are tied I believe, I have yet to play a skirmish that ended in a tie, usually one side had one more mech).

[MischiefSC]

Kjudoon, on 21 December 2013 - 11:40 AM, said:

Look, you asked for skirmish mode, and got it with all it's patently obvious problems. I do this on any mode that I am left unable to win and only see certain failure. It usually comes when I'm the last guy left alive and there is no chance of winning. Why bother letting some twitch monkey get his rocks off at my expense with no possible gain for me? No, doing 5-10 points of damage for CBills is not worth it. I've no obligation to die in a stupid jesture.

I've stated from the first announcement of this mode it was a bad Idea I do my best to not associate with it. At times, as well as PGI saying it will be the case, I will be forced to play it for CW and other times. So if I'm left alone in 12-1 curbstomp and I can slip off, shut down and hide, I'm going to do that. If they offered a 'retreat' option, where I'm not penalized by point or C-Bill I'd do that. If this is griefing, call me guilty. I call it intelligent play in an untenible situation that I am on occasion forced into. If you don't like that, well, maybe you should play assault and cap if you get bored and can't find a pilot like me who's not going to play 'firing squad'.

Now I get it. You *need* it to fail. You're invested in the idea that it's got to be 'worse', now that it's not you need to give the impression that it is.

There's no issues in Skirmish. Nobody is having issues with griefers any more so than they do in Conquest or Assault - in fact it's considerably less common. Capping in Assault was a crutch for bads who couldn't win a fight and needed some way to grief the people who whupped them. That Skirmish is, in fact, a ton of fun has got to be annoying from that perspective - you can't grief nearly as easily and even if you manage it nobody seems to really care. I can see where that would be a problem if that's your take on gaming.

Well, Skirmish rocks. No griefers, great combat with far richer tactics, complexity and the value of each player on each time shines through far better. One or two players regularly swing the whole match with a well timed ambush, flank or disruption of enemy position. Untethered to magic boxes coordination is far more valuable and thus more common. Skirmish is turning out to be a better game experience for playing actual Battletech. If that's not your thing well good for you. Stick in Assault or Conquest. The rest of us are having an awesome time and will never go back.

[OneEyed Jack]

Prezimonto, on 19 December 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

I've always thought it was strange in this setting, where mechs are hyper-expensive war machines, that we wouldn't be rewarded for bringing the things home again.

They did, but people whined about how they didn't make money fast enough while getting an XL engine blown up every match and going through a Light mech (in c-bills) worth of ammo.

MischiefSC, on 19 December 2013 - 09:20 PM, said:

If Skirmish isn't your cuppa and you like the complexity of standing in a square or you want a way to win when your team can't out-fight the other there's still Conquest and Assault.

The only problem with this, is that it's currently a 1-or-all decision, rather than an opt-out. I'm not complaining about Skirmish, though it could have been done better. It's simply an issue with having more than 2 game modes at all with the current mode selection system, and will be worse if/when they add more modes.

Serapth, on 20 December 2013 - 11:10 AM, said:

I do have a question about win conditions... what happens if a team kills all but one player on the other team... say an 11v2 win, with one light hiding... if everyone DCs except the light, wouldn't the team still win? If so, this seems like a problem that will solve itself.

If anyone DC's prior to dying, then they are no longer considered part of the team for victory conditions. It would award victory to the one guy left standing, by the "All enemy mechs destroyed" default. No different than if the same thing were to happen in Assault or Conquest.

[Prezimonto]

OneEyed Jack, on 21 December 2013 - 12:23 PM, said:

They did, but people whined about how they didn't make money fast enough while getting an XL engine blown up every match and going through a Light mech (in c-bills) worth of ammo.

Oh I remember. The thing is they need to bring back RnR, not through out of game cbill balancing but through short (multi-match) campaign style balancing. So you drop in your first match, there's an objective, and there's side objectives that are supply depots. You need to control those supply depots to get full repairs on match 2. Not debilitating loses, but say 15% to something for every depot you don't control for at least 2 minutes during the match. Could be your engine is slower, or less ammo/ton or not quite full armor or internal HP on certain portions of your mech. Most of your supply is fine, but you figure some of it will have been assumed to be salvage you might not make. So match 2 happens, everyone's a little battered, those supply depots are still around... take your lumps... go for a 3 or 4 match cycle and then figure your done with that campaign.

Now, give the standard technology benefits... like it always repairs, or perhaps you always get back all but 5% of it.. something... all upgrades are more rare... so you take a chance... that first match might go really great but if you're only 50% effective by the 4th match and the standard technology users are still around 80% effective, things might go very differently.

Add in an option to pay MC to leave a campaign once started.... now you never HAVE to play through the campaign, but you do have to pay real money to bow out (or perhaps have those mechs locked up "in transit" for a few hours).

Edited by Prezimonto, 21 December 2013 - 01:12 PM.

[Kjudoon]

MischiefSC, on 21 December 2013 - 11:55 AM, said:

Now I get it. You *need* it to fail. You're invested in the idea that it's got to be 'worse', now that it's not you need to give the impression that it is.

There's no issues in Skirmish. Nobody is having issues with griefers any more so than they do in Conquest or Assault - in fact it's considerably less common. Capping in Assault was a crutch for bads who couldn't win a fight and needed some way to grief the people who whupped them. That Skirmish is, in fact, a ton of fun has got to be annoying from that perspective - you can't grief nearly as easily and even if you manage it nobody seems to really care. I can see where that would be a problem if that's your take on gaming.

Well, Skirmish rocks. No griefers, great combat with far richer tactics, complexity and the value of each player on each time shines through far better. One or two players regularly swing the whole match with a well timed ambush, flank or disruption of enemy position. Untethered to magic boxes coordination is far more valuable and thus more common. Skirmish is turning out to be a better game experience for playing actual Battletech. If that's not your thing well good for you. Stick in Assault or Conquest. The rest of us are having an awesome time and will never go back.

I don't "need" it to fail. I need to keep away from it every time, purely because Assault is so much nicer and smarter now that the thug pugglies are in Skirmish mode screaming Mech Smash. Now, people realize when they're down 6-2, it's probably time to start considering victory by cap and see if the other team is smart enough to defend their base as ANY smart military unit does.

So don't project your thoughts on me. I don't need anything except more intelligent game modes that are not only won one way and have no strategic concepts to them.

So, you go off to scream in your skirmish sandbox, and if I am bodily dragged into it by my lancemates, I'll keep on keeping on with no psychological need to do more than smirk at the angst from those not happy with their new toy.

Edited by Kjudoon, 21 December 2013 - 01:48 PM.

[Spawnsalot]

Kjudoon, on 21 December 2013 - 01:37 PM, said:

I don't "need" it to fail. I need to keep away from it every time, purely because Assault is so much nicer and smarter now that the thug pugglies are in Skirmish mode screaming Mech Smash. Now, people realize when they're down 6-2, it's probably time to start considering victory by cap and see if the other team is smart enough to defend their base as ANY smart military unit does.

So don't project your thoughts on me. I don't need anything except more intelligent game modes that are not only won one way and have no strategic concepts to them.

So, you go off to scream in your skirmish sandbox, and if I am bodily dragged into it by my lancemates, I'll keep on keeping on with no psychological need to do more than smirk at the angst from those not happy with their new toy.

Hey, whatever helps you sleep at night.

You keep on enjoying your tactical red square and we'll keep enjoying engaging combat.

[Kjudoon]

Spawnsalot, on 21 December 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

Hey, whatever helps you sleep at night.

You keep on enjoying your tactical red square and we'll keep enjoying engaging combat.

Absolutely... but I don't wanna see you QQ when the spider hides on you for 10 minutes when you roflstomp the other 11. If you do, I'll be enjoying my schadenfreude.

[Junkman7mgte]

Kjudoon, on 21 December 2013 - 02:31 PM, said:

Absolutely... but I don't wanna see you QQ when the spider hides on you for 10 minutes when you roflstomp the other 11. If you do, I'll be enjoying my schadenfreude.

Really easy to not qq. Smoke break, go make a drink, bio break. But, I would actually love to see a better method of mode select. Personally, I'd like to turn off the option for conquest on certain mechs.

[Lyoto Machida]

Kjudoon, on 21 December 2013 - 11:40 AM, said:

Look, you asked for skirmish mode, and got it with all it's patently obvious problems. I do this on any mode that I am left unable to win and only see certain failure. It usually comes when I'm the last guy left alive and there is no chance of winning. Why bother letting some twitch monkey get his rocks off at my expense with no possible gain for me? No, doing 5-10 points of damage for CBills is not worth it. I've no obligation to die in a stupid jesture.

I've stated from the first announcement of this mode it was a bad Idea I do my best to not associate with it. At times, as well as PGI saying it will be the case, I will be forced to play it for CW and other times. So if I'm left alone in 12-1 curbstomp and I can slip off, shut down and hide, I'm going to do that. If they offered a 'retreat' option, where I'm not penalized by point or C-Bill I'd do that. If this is griefing, call me guilty. I call it intelligent play in an untenible situation that I am on occasion forced into. If you don't like that, well, maybe you should play assault and cap if you get bored and can't find a pilot like me who's not going to play 'firing squad'.

Ahh..."twitch monkeys." That explains it. You're getting old and can no longer keep up, reaction time-wise. No shame in admitting that...happens to everyone eventually.

I love "these patently obvious problems" you keep talking about, with all the screenshots to back it up. Can't wait for the devs to come out and put up some stats on Skirmish results to shut people like you up.

[Kjudoon]

Upon further review of the latest responses, I can see that my comments have proven to be something I ought not have even gotten into so, conclude whatever you want and think however you please. Its best not feed this... poetic result... anymore.

[/thread]

[MischiefSC]

Nobody is QQing except the people who want to pretend there's something to QQ about.

I *invite you* to come try to troll in Skirmish. I've never seen it work. I've seen a couple of people try, get ruthlessly and entertainingly mocked in chat and run to ground. One got picked apart, disarmed and there was joking of just ramming him to death until someone saved us all a bit of time and popped him.

Skirmish matches last longer, involve more and more complex tactics and don't give any cheap and easy tricks to win. You've got to fight harder and smarter than the other team. Have to coordinate better, adapt better and perform better. You can't force the other team to run to cap or stand in a magic square to win after you've gotten your a$$ handed to you on the battlefield. There's no screaming, no QQing. I played a match earlier where my whole team of pugs + 1 premade coordinated very well in chat. Called targets, called locations, organized an ambush, identified and blocked enemy flankers and then in mediums and heavies and a couple of assaults coordinated the tracking down, pinning and destruction of the last lone Raven 3L who tried to run off and hide - on Alpine. He had 2 ERLLs and ECM and we still found, chased, corralled and destroyed him.

So stay out of Skirmish. Maybe it's not the right place for you, there's no cheap tricks, the meta isn't as advantageous, you have to coordinate well with pugs, pay a lot of attention to the map and both teams position. You need to help scout for your team if you're in a light, help flank in mediums and fast heavies and help guard against flanks in heavies and assaults. If you end up 6 mechs down and still want the win you'll have to do it by skill and cunning. There's no magic box to save you.

That's not for everyone. Stay in the shallow end, it's safer.

[Lucky Moniker]

The answer is really very simple. You set up to play a game mode, and drop on that mode. You want to shoot ****? Go heavy and hit Skirmish. Want to cap? Conquest. People bitched to no end for Skirmish, so they delivered finally. And thankfully they did, if you only play on "Any" you handicap yourself for not bringing an optimized mech for that game. It has been that way since they introduced conquest even, play smart and win, be lazy and lose.
andnwhile yes there will always bebgriefers, no matter what they will do just that,bno matter the game mode.

[xhrit]

I got to run the timer out on a skirmish game last night in my Raven 3L.

It was epic fun.

It happens so often my premade jokes I should get a title "sole survivor".

MischiefSC, on 20 December 2013 - 05:41 PM, said:

I'll put it up again - open challenge, 3 screen caps of matches that ended with one mech on one side and 3+ on the other, timer run out. I'm over 50 drops and never seen it, nobody I play with has seen it. If it happens once every 100 games then it's less common in Skirmish than it was in Assault.

Pics or it didn't happen.

I should start taking more screenshots. ^^

Here is a match from a few nights ago - It was about the 5 min mark that I found myself alone against 5 enemy mechs.

I am sure the other team would have run the time out searching for me, but I managed to kite them around and kill 3 of them, so the rest just decided to cap.

I let them.

Edited by xhrit, 21 December 2013 - 05:40 PM.

[Roland]

So the one screenshot of someone running of and hiding is actually from an assault game, rather than skirmish.

Derp.

[Sandpit]

Not to mention killing 3 of them isn't hiding.

If I'm in a light mech and there's multiple chewed up enemy mechs I'm going to do my best to run around and take pot shots (which is what a light should be doing most of the time anyhow)

[MischiefSC]

3 screenshots, 4+mechs on one side, 1 on the other, timer run out. I'd love to see it. The presence of caps changes how people play. Without them there they're more careful and methodical in hunting lone survivors. I've had several games where we had 2 people hide near one side and the others chased the last light into them. On one occasion we called out what grids we'd searched and found someone powered down on top of a hill on Terra Therma. Took about 2 minutes, about as long as it would have taken to get onto cap and cap it out. He died like a *****, mocked by his own team. It was far more satisfying than capping and letting him protect his KDR.

[Sandpit]

aren't screenies without redacted names name and shame?

[xhrit]

Sandpit, on 21 December 2013 - 07:02 PM, said:

Not to mention killing 3 of them isn't hiding.

If I'm in a light mech and there's multiple chewed up enemy mechs I'm going to do my best to run around and take pot shots (which is what a light should be doing most of the time anyhow)

I would not have killed anyone if I had not ran away to hide. At one point I actually powered down in the waterfall to let a pair of mechs pass by without being seen. Many times during the match people on my own team complained that I was running and hiding - "don't be a coward, fight", "just die already", "stop wasting time", "run out of bounds", "just let them kill you".

By the end of the match when those 2 mechs were capping they were complaing at me to try and "fight on cap" - I told them flat out no. Nope, sorry, not happening. I can't win 1v2 in an enclosed area - the only reason I was able to take out any mechs at all once I was solo was because I kited them out using hit and fade surprise attacks from max range, lured them into an isolated area, and fought them alone one by one. Any time I was facing more then one mech at a time, I broke combat until I regained the element of surprise.

And the only way to gain the element of surprise is to hide and wait for the opportunity to set an ambush.

Edited by xhrit, 21 December 2013 - 11:23 PM.

[Carrioncrows]

Just make the time limit = to the remaining number of players on a team.

Full 15 mins for full 12.

If a team is reduced to only 1 player the time limit is lowered to 3 minutes and a warning sounds.

[xhrit]

Roland, on 21 December 2013 - 06:15 PM, said:

So the one screenshot of someone running of and hiding is actually from an assault game, rather than skirmish.

Derp.

Win or lose, I tend to not bother taking screen pic of a scoreboard unless I have ~5 kills, or ~1k damage.

I checked my folder to see if I had a pic of a time over on skirmish, but that was the only match I had with less then 2 min remaining.

Trust me tho - I run the time out a lot. I will start taking screencaps of when I do, just for this thread.

Edited by xhrit, 21 December 2013 - 11:38 PM.