63 replies to this topic

[Redshift2k5]

Get rid of it? No.

Longer time viewing the target before dorito? Sure.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

I like that, the Magic Dorito.

For MWO game balance, sensors do need a tweak, I'd be fine trying a change like this.

[Lykaon]

Foxfire, on 22 April 2014 - 01:44 AM, said:

As an example, Frozen City last night, I moved around the enemy line, take up position at the edge of the ridge on the east side near the south base(behind the enemy line, not parallel to the drop ship) to spot enemies at the saddle. All it took to wreck my effort was on person at the hill, to make a turn to move down the hill to be counter spotted. It only took a second and the entire effort was worthless.

Oh, I am not saying to get rid of targeting but to slow down the rate at which you are identified and highlighted. The current near instantaneous tagging of enemies makes the scout a useless entity on the battlefield.

Was it worthless? I assume you did in fact see the enemy before they did turn and face you?

What I see in this situation was you wanted the ability to sit in the back and not have to move or use cover to maintain "stealth"


What is actually deminishing the role of scout/spotter is a combination of poor design choices.

First let me define what I interpret the role of scout to include.

1) Locating the enemy and relaying mech chassis type and loadout to the main force.
2) Clearly determining the speed and heading of enemy lances or formations.
3) Determining the current condition of objectives,is it guarded is it isolated and unguarded?

Secondary roles are:

1) base/objective rapid response and defence.
2) Spotting for friendly indirect fire LRMs/Artillery.
3) Anti scout/harasser.

So starting with primary function 1: locating the enemy and determining type and loadout.
This is not all that important because the current meta is so stale you can pretty much bet the farm on that Highlander or Victor being in the enemy formation and that it will have 2 AC5s and 2 PPCs.There are very few variations in top tier Elo brackets that it's a given that certain mechs will be present in number with specific loadouts meaning the enemy engagement protocol will be poptart/hide and peek.

The maps even the largest have highly predictable routes of travel,the vast majority of engagments happen pretty much in the same place every time with possible mop up taking you out of the "comfort zone" .With such predictable patterns why do you need to scout to know the enemy is moving into the same grid to get behind the same cover they always do?

Getting onto reporting speed and heading: it will be fastest speed to the same grid to get behind the same cover they always use.So not useful since we can guess with high accuracy that at least 3 mechs with jumpjets and 2 AC5s and 2 PPCs will be setting up behind cover X in grid Y because this is how it goes down nearly every time.

As for current condition of objectives? well we know exactaly where they will be and we can pretty much take it for granted that anyone can get to that object to defend/attack in short order because many maps are so small that standing at the far side of the map covers 75% of the area with the AC5/PPC combo (Just try to get out of range on river city or forest colony)
So the condition is subject to such rapid change that reporting condition is a waste of time.

Secondary roles?

Base/objective response : well since an assault mech can get there in short order on many maps why bother with using a fast under guned squishy mech when you can plow in with an assault lance? So...no needed on many/most maps.

Spotting for indirect fire? answer,why bother if ECM persists to be the perfect counter to indirect fire.The risk is to high to expose your scout to enemy fire to TAG for the few LRMs that may be or may not be on other mechs in Pug drops.As for premades 12 v 12 it is a common practice to not even carry LRMs due to the dicey prospect of potential heavy ECM use.

Anti scout/Harasser: well this is what most light mechs end up doing these days fighting each other or harassing the larger enemy mechs. so essentially the same role everyone else is doing dealing damage.

So my solutions:

Keep skirmish untouched and on the current map sizes.

Conquest and assault will need larger maps (nothing smaller than Alpine)

Conquest and assault may require longer game timers (20 mins)

All mission critical objectives in conquest will spawn in random locations requiring both teams to locate them in order to cap them.The spawn points will never be closer to each other than the starting distance of either team from any objective.Each team will spawn in a random location at a standardized "safe" distance from each other.

Assault will include multiple mission critical locations to be destroyed by the enemy.These mission locations will always be a min. distance apart and randomly spawned on the controlling teams quarter of the map.
Each team will control an ammo depot,comm center and dropship landing site.the controlling team knows the locations of the locations they control.They do not know where the enemy critical locations are at so,you will need to scout them to attack them.

New game mode Attack/defend: Defending team is spawned at a mission critical sight that must be destroyed by the opposing team.The game timer is slowed by the presence of attacking mechs within the defending team's base boundry.The timer speed is increased by the defenders destroying attacking mechs.

victory conditions are team with last mech standing or destruction of base.

Edited by Lykaon, 09 May 2014 - 12:16 PM.

[InspectorG]

Not being ironic, maybe you are reading me wrong.

Dimento Graven, on 09 May 2014 - 07:44 AM, said:

No. Rear view, or some form of squished 360 view to be a TRUE BattleMech simulator.

Do it right darn it.

Of course you're being ironic as according to BattleTech cannon, INDEED, there were mechs that had REAR MOUNTED weapons.

More intentional irony I'm sure, as many 'mechs, according to BattleTech cannon did indeed have arm flipping (Rifleman and Jaeger come to mind as 'mechs that supported this).

Yes, some battletech mechs could flip arms, but not all of them. Implementing this would give MWO more variety and likely more use of less favorable mechs.
Agreed but im saying this if that werent possible due to (whatever PGI says) programming concerns.

As far as the Occulus Rift, need to look behind you? Easy, turn your (RL) head. They would just need to add more 'windows' to the cockpit to allow 360 degree view.