19 replies to this topic

[Sigilum Sanctum]

I've seen a few threads discussing the legitimacy and the overall lack of adequate variety that Assault provides, but I haven't really seen any good suggestions to fix it. In my opinion, Assault needs a complete and total overhaul.

When people hear the word Assault in the context of a game mode, they certainly don't imagine what we have now. Invasion from Halo: Reach, Rush from Battlefield Bad Company 2 (I list this one because it generally had the best Rush maps.), these are a few examples for what come to mind for me. MechWarrior online certainly doesn't play like those games, but it could definitely learn a lot from their map flow, objective placement, spawning etc.

What we have now is a game mode where capturing the base is a convenient option for either team. because more often than not, people end up slugging it out on some random area of the map. When one team gains a significant kill advantage, or they draw the enemy far enough away to land a capture, is the only time I see people go for base cap.

A few of the ideas I'm about to propose might not be feasible considering PGI's work schedule and time frame for what they want to accomplish in the near future, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to TRY and give them some good ideas to sit on for future game mode development. I hope some of you chime in with further ideas to mine and give some good constructive criticism to it.

My immediate change would be to make Assault a one sided Attack/Defense game type. In other words, one team is the attacker and the other is the defender. But I won't limit this to one objective. I believe a multiple objective system would bring a lot of variety to the games. It would also stand to bring some immersion to the game, because as it stands, this is nothing short of an Arena shooter with 'mechs. These machines were built for nothing short of full scale war and flattening cities and strategic targets, current game modes do not do them justice IMO.

A multi-tiered objective system of say 4 bases to capture seems like a good start to me at least. The first problem encountered by this is the current spawning system, I.E. your first death is your only death. This can be mitigated by giving the Attackers a limited number of re-spawns, lets say, 2 or 3 at max. Every time a base is captured, the Attackers can respawn/repair/resupply to max to start the new "round" of taking the next objective. The Defenders on the other hand, can have either unlimited or much greater respawns. If unlimited, lets give them an extensive respawn delay; maybe something like 30-60 seconds, it could possibly be longer. Obviously if the Defenders wipe the attackers throughout their respawns they could win, similar to Rush in BBC2. Defenders lose when all of their bases are captured.

I know repair and resupply was apparently a thing earlier in this games development, maybe this could be a way to bring it back without being too stupid. The immediate problem to the reworking of Assault are the maps themselves. Currently, aside from Alpine Peaks, we don't have a map suited to this idea. The maps suitable for this reworked Assault would need to be massive enough to give a decent enough space between each objective and spawn to where people aren't LRMing or Gauss-ing each other from the get go. The bases themselves cannot be these little tinpot mobile things we see in Conquest or the current Assault. i'm thinking a series of complexes like the refinery on Caustic Valley, or the mining base in Alpine.

That is the biggest obstacle (aside from what they're already developing and the money required).

What are your thoughts on this? Lets keep this civil, I'd like to hear some good ideas, especially since I'm still new here.

Edited by Sigilum Sanctum, 04 September 2014 - 07:15 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

I have been an advocate for Assault to be changed to a single base, assigned to whichever drop deck has the lowest tonnage.

The spawn point and base location needs to be reworked more intelligently than the utterly horrible and largely nonsensical spawns on many maps now, with bases essential in shooting distance of one another, and enemy mechs spawning right on top of each other (can't tell you the number of times I have spawned in Jenner Alley on Frozen in an Assault Mech, with a fast lance of enemies spawning so close that before we can group up, we are getting shot to heck.

It's beyond bad design.

So.


Assault.

1 Base.
Turrets or AI Tanks patrolling in the near vicinity.
Located at the most defensible portion of the Map (because generally Military bases are not randomly dropped in suilly indefensible locations)
Lowest Tonnage Drop Deck gets Defense.
Tie counts as Win for Defenders (as it means the OpFor did not capture the base)
To stop enemy base cap, one must have a single friendly mech in the base zone, to regenerate cap one must out ton enemy mechs in Base zone.
Attackers get doubled rewards for a victory. (High risk, high reward, also represent salvage form base)


And yes, the bases need to be actual defensible bases, like the upper city on Alpine, with the "Cap Zone" being a specific portion in the most guarded are (possibly even subterranean, like theta in HPG)

[Sigilum Sanctum]

I'd much prefer AI tanks to turrets. Turrets aren't lethal since they're stationary. They're just annoying...

[Bishop Steiner]

Sigilum Sanctum, on 04 September 2014 - 09:01 PM, said:

I'd much prefer AI tanks to turrets. Turrets aren't lethal since they're stationary. They're just annoying...

if you got breaches they are bloody lethal, with their perfect aim (which needs nerfing, IMO) or Lights with their legs.

[Mycrus]

Just take the damn turrets away.

[Nathan Foxbane]

Sigilum Sanctum, on 04 September 2014 - 09:01 PM, said:

I'd much prefer AI tanks to turrets. Turrets aren't lethal since they're stationary. They're just annoying...

If you get legged in a light within range of LRM turrets, it is pretty much a death sentence. The laser turrets wreck most anything with armor breaches that stray too close. They do need to be nerfed.

[Escef]

Assault mode isn't bad, really. However, I'd love to see each map with 2 different base and turret arangements, just to spice things up.

Oh, and River City (especially Night) is still a bad map for assault. And I blame the players for that, they get really spineless and try to play battlemech peek-a-boo from as close to their base as possible. Mostly due to turrets. (Really, the best strat I've seen is to leave 1 or 2 big mechs in the base area to play peek-a-boo and keep the other team in check while everyone else moves up to the highground areas overlooking the enemy team and start hitting them from there.) Anyway, I think the best fix for RC for now would be to leave the base/spawn near the cargo ship where it is and move the other to the "garage" under the dropship (sometimes called the "Champagne Room").

[Tarogato]

I strongly advocate a rework of the assault mode, and I also would prefer to see it become a single base mode. Some smaller maps should be excluded entirely (River City, in particular, unless it were added on to to make it larger, which should be done anyway)

And not base capping, either. Make the base structures targetable and give them HP so we have to actually destroy them (no fancy animations necessary, just give them smoke and some textures for every 33% worth of dmg or something.) Turrets are good, NPVs are good. The assaulting team wins by destroying x% of the base structures, the defending team wins by killing the enemy team or timing out with a surviving base.

If it becomes necessary to play with balance, there are ways of accomplishing that. Since the defenders have turrets on their side, maybe the assaulting team would get a weight bonus in matchmaking, or change the teams to 15 assaulters v 9 defenders, or leave it 12v12 but give the assaulters free artillary (which could be disabled by the defenders actually destroying the artillery vehicles on the other side of the map).

But seriously, anything different from what we have now - base capping by sitting your mech inside a box makes no sense and it's really not very interesting gameplay (esp. when it usually becomes Skirmish No.2 regardless)

Edited by Tarogato, 05 September 2014 - 02:44 AM.

[Blakkstar]

Here's my idea for a better Assault mode, concept is a rearguard/fighting withdrawl:

10 minute game timer, 2 games. The Defender starts with control of a Dropship with a zone of control, and 3 destroyable structures spread on their half of the map (one for each lance). Call them ammo dumps, command posts, whatever. They accumulate points as long as they are alive, similar to bases in Conquest. Counters stop when the Attacker blows them up. Defender also gets points for each mech alive in the Dropship's zone of control when the timer hits zero. That represents mechs that safely dust off of the planet.

So the Defender is the side accumulating points, and they score two ways: base survival points and dustoff points. The kicker is that the timer only stops if both the Defender and all 3 of their base structures are destroyed. The Attacker must complete the objective, and even a wipeout will not ensure complete victory. If the Attacker is wiped out, the Defender gets all remaining base survival points, and dustoff points for surviving mechs.

When round 1 ends, Attacker and Defender swap sides and play again on the 10 minute timer. The side that accumulated the most points as Defender wins the match.

[keith]

Blakkstar, on 05 September 2014 - 04:57 AM, said:

Here's my idea for a better Assault mode, concept is a rearguard/fighting withdrawl:

10 minute game timer, 2 games. The Defender starts with control of a Dropship with a zone of control, and 3 destroyable structures spread on their half of the map (one for each lance). Call them ammo dumps, command posts, whatever. They accumulate points as long as they are alive, similar to bases in Conquest. Counters stop when the Attacker blows them up. Defender also gets points for each mech alive in the Dropship's zone of control when the timer hits zero. That represents mechs that safely dust off of the planet.

So the Defender is the side accumulating points, and they score two ways: base survival points and dustoff points. The kicker is that the timer only stops if both the Defender and all 3 of their base structures are destroyed. The Attacker must complete the objective, and even a wipeout will not ensure complete victory. If the Attacker is wiped out, the Defender gets all remaining base survival points, and dustoff points for surviving mechs.

When round 1 ends, Attacker and Defender swap sides and play again on the 10 minute timer. The side that accumulated the most points as Defender wins the match.

a dropship is a bad idea. did u ever play MW4 assault maps(think they were called that). some had dropships loaded with a crap ton of light guass and large lasers, ppl just ended up camping behind them because they could core u in 1 shot. will say MW4 assault maps were much better designed maps made for that purpose. that is what we need, not the same map with crap thrown in it

[Bigbacon]

i would say just start with a much larger incentive to actually cap the base over get kills/damage/etc.

also a rework of the maps that assault is on and base placement might also help. Look at alpine, the team that has a base by the hill has little incentive to do anything but hump the hill (which is annoying me to no end anymore in any mode) that team has a distinct advantage at the start and a harder base to assault anyway.

fix the maps in other ways to sort of push players from doing the norm.

remove the mode from maps like river city and forest colony. too small for it.

I like assault and I like being the moron that runs to their base alone, destroys the turrets and starts capping until that single mech on their side gets a clue and comes back. I can get more XP that way then actually just fighting.

Edited by Bigbacon, 05 September 2014 - 05:06 AM.

[Blakkstar]

keith, on 05 September 2014 - 05:03 AM, said:

a dropship is a bad idea. did u ever play MW4 assault maps(think they were called that). some had dropships loaded with a crap ton of light guass and large lasers, ppl just ended up camping behind them because they could core u in 1 shot. will say MW4 assault maps were much better designed maps made for that purpose. that is what we need, not the same map with crap thrown in it

So just give the dropship less or no firepower. Put it on a map edge with the zone of control facing outward so you can't hide behind it. Simple problems to solve.

The point being then it actually looks and feels like a Battletech game instead of defending oil drilling rigs or whatever the heck current bases are supposed to look like.

[Sigilum Sanctum]

I like the dropship idea, but with limited or no firepower. I wasn't able to play the older games so I'm not familiar with how lethal they are. But I'm sure something like that could definitely help in terms of variety and immersion, which is what this game lacks.

In its current state, I think we have plenty of mechs, in fact I'm starting to worry about any future mechs having overlapping roles with our current line up. What we need now, or after CW, is map and game mode variety.

I still think a Horde mode would be amazing for this game, but thats just me.

[Troutmonkey]

+1 for BFC2 Rush style game mode with respawns, but in addition to Assault.
It will require new and bigger maps, and we all know how fast PGI release maps...

[Escef]

Sigilum Sanctum, on 05 September 2014 - 05:47 PM, said:

I like the dropship idea, but with limited or no firepower. I wasn't able to play the older games so I'm not familiar with how lethal they are.

The Leopard, a fairly light military transport, mounts 2xPPC, 3xLRM20, 5xLL, and 7xML. It has as much firepower as an entire lance of mechs.

[AdrenaHawk]

Personally, I think Assault needs to be scrapped. It just doesn't work with the current gameplay dynamic. If you want it to be 1 base, make it one neutral base in the middle of the map, with no turrets. The team that can push and hold the ground wins. Does it favor heavies/assaults and deathballs? Yes. But at least it doesn't promote camping.

[Kiryuin Ragyo]

All we need is Siege Mode... where one team is defending and other attacking. But with current 12 vs 12 that's would be a bit difficult, need more players like 20 vs 20 or more. Plus stage/phase combat when the stage/phase is ended team espawns for another current stage/phase upcoming.

AdrenaHawk, on 05 September 2014 - 07:41 PM, said:

Personally, I think Assault needs to be scrapped. It just doesn't work with the current gameplay dynamic. If you want it to be 1 base, make it one neutral base in the middle of the map, with no turrets. The team that can push and hold the ground wins. Does it favor heavies/assaults and deathballs? Yes. But at least it doesn't promote camping.

Conquest must be scrapped it's a the most useless mode atm.

[InspectorG]

Maybe a simpler 'fix'.

Leave maps and bases as they are.

Instead of capping the base area, it should be a destructible building.

Destroy the building, you win.

[Troutmonkey]

Kiryuin Ragyo, on 06 September 2014 - 03:53 AM, said:

All we need is Siege Mode... where one team is defending and other attacking. But with current 12 vs 12 that's would be a bit difficult, need more players like 20 vs 20 or more. Plus stage/phase combat when the stage/phase is ended team espawns for another current stage/phase upcoming.


Conquest must be scrapped it's a the most useless mode atm.

Conquest would be fine if only they'd revert the cap times back to Open Beta levels instead of them taking literally 3 minutes to cap with one mech, or 2m 30s with a cap accelerator. Needs to be around 1min

[Hellcat420]

Sigilum Sanctum, on 04 September 2014 - 07:11 PM, said:

I've seen a few threads discussing the legitimacy and the overall lack of adequate variety that Assault provides, but I haven't really seen any good suggestions to fix it. In my opinion, Assault needs a complete and total overhaul.

When people hear the word Assault in the context of a game mode, they certainly don't imagine what we have now. Invasion from Halo: Reach, Rush from Battlefield Bad Company 2 (I list this one because it generally had the best Rush maps.), these are a few examples for what come to mind for me. MechWarrior online certainly doesn't play like those games, but it could definitely learn a lot from their map flow, objective placement, spawning etc.

What we have now is a game mode where capturing the base is a convenient option for either team. because more often than not, people end up slugging it out on some random area of the map. When one team gains a significant kill advantage, or they draw the enemy far enough away to land a capture, is the only time I see people go for base cap.

A few of the ideas I'm about to propose might not be feasible considering PGI's work schedule and time frame for what they want to accomplish in the near future, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to TRY and give them some good ideas to sit on for future game mode development. I hope some of you chime in with further ideas to mine and give some good constructive criticism to it.

My immediate change would be to make Assault a one sided Attack/Defense game type. In other words, one team is the attacker and the other is the defender. But I won't limit this to one objective. I believe a multiple objective system would bring a lot of variety to the games. It would also stand to bring some immersion to the game, because as it stands, this is nothing short of an Arena shooter with 'mechs. These machines were built for nothing short of full scale war and flattening cities and strategic targets, current game modes do not do them justice IMO.

A multi-tiered objective system of say 4 bases to capture seems like a good start to me at least. The first problem encountered by this is the current spawning system, I.E. your first death is your only death. This can be mitigated by giving the Attackers a limited number of re-spawns, lets say, 2 or 3 at max. Every time a base is captured, the Attackers can respawn/repair/resupply to max to start the new "round" of taking the next objective. The Defenders on the other hand, can have either unlimited or much greater respawns. If unlimited, lets give them an extensive respawn delay; maybe something like 30-60 seconds, it could possibly be longer. Obviously if the Defenders wipe the attackers throughout their respawns they could win, similar to Rush in BBC2. Defenders lose when all of their bases are captured.

I know repair and resupply was apparently a thing earlier in this games development, maybe this could be a way to bring it back without being too stupid. The immediate problem to the reworking of Assault are the maps themselves. Currently, aside from Alpine Peaks, we don't have a map suited to this idea. The maps suitable for this reworked Assault would need to be massive enough to give a decent enough space between each objective and spawn to where people aren't LRMing or Gauss-ing each other from the get go. The bases themselves cannot be these little tinpot mobile things we see in Conquest or the current Assault. i'm thinking a series of complexes like the refinery on Caustic Valley, or the mining base in Alpine.

That is the biggest obstacle (aside from what they're already developing and the money required).

What are your thoughts on this? Lets keep this civil, I'd like to hear some good ideas, especially since I'm still new here.

these changes have been suggested many times, but fell on deaf ears.