We will never have role warfare, information warfare, lance warfare, worthwhile objectives, or high time-to-kill without large maps.
Chew on that for a second, you "four pillars" folks.
I'll launch my manifesto right after this public service announcement...
I am @17power, the guy who made the tweet that led to this thread, and I intended it to open a dialogue about maps and not yet another diatribe on PGI's leadership. Ergo, while I am technically powerless to change it, I object to the title of this thread and the constant refrain of unnecessary, personally directed criticisms every other page. THAT is unconstructive and off-topic. And a good way to make PGI defensive and shut down the debate. Please just talk about maps.
Earlier this week, I posted a personal survey on what people were actually expecting from PGI's original vision for the game. It was posted on these forums and both subreddits. The collective answer can be summed up with one word: complexity. Role warfare and information warfare, especially. Needing to work to find enemy forces. Objective-based combat also popped up, as did the Battletech feel of smaller, slower engagements with room to analyze, position, and shoot off arms. In other words, people are lamenting the lack of a "thinking man's shooter".
To those of you who feel this way (and I agree 110%), I pose one simple question:
What purpose on God's green earth do role warfare, info warfare, or lance warfare have on a map the size of Forest Colony?
Seriously. You spawn 60 seconds from your opponent's PPC range. It takes no effort to figure out where the enemy is; just look for the flashy lights. It's not even difficult in Alpine, just gain a little elevation. And in any situation where the enemy is easy to spot, the battle will be joined quickly and ended just as quickly, in what we currently know as an "empty arena shooter". Gamer behavior and prisoners' dilemma ensures this path-of-least-resistance phenomena. Small map = chaotic deathballing.
Large map size is the gateway to role/information warfare. People are tired of deathmatch, but don't seem to realize that small maps guarantee it.
If you want a role for scouts, spoofers, and electronic suites, if you want a "thinking man's shooter", you're going to have to force it. No RL military would strategize if the enemy was ten yards away. It's nonsensical to implement detectors and satellite scans in River City where any Battlemaster can spot the enemy visually, and thus those features won't pass PGI's "do we need to implement this now?" cost/benefit analyses. I can just see Paul and Bryan looking at each other sometime in 2012 and going "Why the hell are we talking about waypoint markers and battlegrid orders? They serve no purpose on most of these maps." And they'd have been right.
The only way to force these forms of warfare is larger maps, where deathballing is made impractical, or at least reduced to one option amongst many, by the distance involved and the lack of quickly-reached visual landmarks. This way, only lights can really find the enemy, therefore giving them a purpose other than "small assault mech". Multi-pronged attacks on bases can become more common. Lances would be presented with a valid choice between assisting a friendly lance under attack or proceeding to the objective. It might also create an Escort mindset by requiring larger, slower assaults to be escorted by mediums and heavies (otherwise you lose a lot of firepower) and forcing a speed-or-firepower tradeoff. Look at all this THINKING that might be required!
I agree that big maps with nothing to do is bad, so objectives are a need. But I also guarantee that your objectives will see almost no use on small maps. Teams will deathball as long as the efficiency of the "kill all enemy mechs" objective competes with any other. That's what happens right now - see enemy mech, converge on enemy mech. Leaving 20% of the map unused is an excellent tradeoff if it ensures that decisions will be necessary and role warfare and information warfare will be worth the development time.
For those of you who don't want to travel for five minutes just to die in ten seconds, consider this:
Large maps would also dramatically increase time-to-kill. You would not be dying in ten seconds; you'd be getting into much smaller skirmishes with fewer mechs, with time to actually analyze, strategize, position, and target and lose components. In other words, BattleTech. Would you like to know why mechs die so quickly in MWO right now? It's because there are 24 of them shoved into a small area. Routes aren't far enough apart, you can just abort and converge whenever something is spotted. Not so in large maps with objectives. There, you HAVE to split up, or at least more often. The resulting matchups would be smaller, more like 4-man lances meeting up, with loadout, speed, and tactics actually contributing to the outcome. Locating enemy forces, baiting, diverging, this stuff would actually matter and require something more than the eyes to spot. Does this not sound awesome? Admit it. It sounds awesome. (It's also the only way to increase TTK without either increasing armor AGAIN or throwing off weapons balance).
People call it a "mech hiking simulator"? Well, you know what? If you want ANY sense of mission in a map other than "arena shooter", it's going to necessitate a little hiking. Otherwise, players will simply deathball. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
A "thinking man's shooter" requires patience. I personally would LOVE to hike across kilometers of flat (or gently rolling) land to reach a goal. The constant tension and fear of discovery would be immersive, realistic, and utterly epic, much more like previous MechWarrior games. Especially if I'm missing an arm or a torso. I want the terror of feeling alone at night on some unpopulated, empty planet with enemy mechs SOMEWHERE in the area. I want maps that turn engagements into a story that I can tell in the barracks. "Yeah, we got worn down by scouts before we hit the bridge, and then ran into this veteran Dire Wolf...he killed two of us, but us last two finally took him down. Then we had to limp all the way home with half weapons and ECM scouts on our tail...in the dark...they got my last lancemate...I can't believe I made it". I want distinguishable ebbs, flows, and turning points that settle into a tale to be told.
I've had exactly ONE such match in MWO so far. One. Guess which map it was on? Alpine Peaks, before 12v12.
So, the question boils down to this: do we want "Instant Action", or do we want tactics and strategy? Because we cannot have both at the same time. If the map is small, deathball becomes the prevalent strategy and role/info warfare are irrelevant. If the map is large, tactics become a factor; you just need a little patience.
* The case for size: I do believe that something Alpine or bigger is needed. In order to necessitate role/information warfare, you need a map large enough to get lost in and to prevent quick, cheap responses. The only map that accomplishes this purpose right now, ironically, is the most hated: Terra Therma. By virtue of its spare lines of sight, it's actually legitimate tough to find enemy mechs. The central volcano undoes much of this potential, of course, but the point remains. If we're going to prevent quick responses and mindless deathmatches, I do believe a map must be the size of Alpine or bigger.
* The case for flat land: not only is it geographically more realistic and reminiscent of previous MW titles, but it helps conceal weapons fire. In current maps, terrain is varied and elevation provided in order to force consideration of mech pitch quirks and prevent the game from devolving into simple circle-strafing. Fine and good. But it also results in people SHOOTING UPWARDS to hit opponents, leading to lasers and PPCs going up like flares and shouting "HERE'S THE HOTSPOT" to the rest of the world, making role/information warfare a joke. Flat land would prevent that by keeping the combat on the same elevation. Yeah, you get more circle-strafing, but that circle-strafing also has more room for considering enemy components. It's a good tradeoff and a welcome change of pace. (It would also be quicker and thus cheaper to produce, PGI.)
* The case for objectives: Well, I don't know about that. On a big map, objectives would be necessary, but it also works the other way: for objectives, big maps are necessary. The objectives will need longer for PGI to code. The big maps can be started on now. And while Skirmish on a huge map would try the patience of some (especially codependent Assault pilots), it would also force variety and tactics even without objectives. Skirmish on a huge map would still have room for role warfare and lance warfare if necessary. Things would become more interesting right away while we waited for further refinements.
TL:DR
PGI: The next stage of this game after Community Warfare should be a movement towards the originally promised vision, the essential ingredient of which is larger maps. If you're concerned about the less patient casual gamer, separate the larger maps into a new game mode. Call what we have now "Instant Action" and start developing a new class of gameplay to encompass the pillars you laid out in 2011. After Jungle and Mech Factory arrive, start working on a relatively flat map of rolling hills and forests (you've already fulfilled your beauty quota with the other maps); it should go quicker and cheaper, and pave the way for THINKING. We're not going to get it otherwise.
"Thinking man's shooter" doesn't come without patience. If the community votes down patience, they vote down the thinking man's shooter. The casual FPS crowd is a valid part of the community, like it or not, but it doesn't mean we can't have both styles. I see no other way to claim the original vision of the game, which I hope is not entirely dead.
Edited by Rebas Kradd, 29 June 2014 - 03:00 PM.
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Sky Legacy, on 20 June 2014 - 06:27 PM, said:
