272 replies to this topic

[MauttyKoray]

Thanks for the update. Love the 'reinforcement' idea behind the Invasion mode. Hopeful for Dropship as well but I understand that has more technical work behind it and won't hold it against you guys if you need to make it a little more basic or push it to the side for other content (other modes, maps, chassis, tech, etc).

[Haroldwolf]

@Frozen Spirit Jac

I like that idea of repair or swapping a mech. Maybe the swap could be 1 weight class lower than what your had been driving.Repair might be limited to taking armor back to 90%, restocking ammo but NOT replace a destroyed weapon?

[Haroldwolf]

Felio, on 15 September 2014 - 01:54 PM, said:

Re:
We should be able to join a house AND a clan, and we would be fighting for one side or the other depending on the 'mech we had selected. That way we get our pure faction vs faction matches and get to use the 'mech we want at any given moment.

I know the game isn't trying to be canon :-(, but that does happen in the canon universe in 3050-3060 with Clan Ghost Bear and Clan Nova Cats.

Edited by Haroldwolf, 18 September 2014 - 06:21 AM.

[William Hamblin]

I'm super excited about all this and would point out that I, as poor player of MWO would hate to be stuck with my merc unit playing clan mechs and me trying with everything I've got to save the 13,8__,___ c-bills for a Thor without engaging in community warfare whilst I stare with rage at the company plus pile of IS only mechs in my garage.

If this is how it must truly be, please make c-bills more abundant or prices lower . . .

[DasSibby]

Sounds great to me! More game-types=more fun!

Especially if this helps encourage lower mech usage.

[RustyBolts]

I would love to see respawn and drop ships. Drop ships lands and 12 mechs in the 3/3/3/3 format come out and move to the objective. But they have a choice. Defend the drop ship or not. The mechs choose not and continue to the objective. In route one of their scout mechs get destroyed(the pilot is not killed) he gets rescued(respawned) back to his drop ship where he can choose one of his remaining 3 mechs. Since his heavy mech is set up for long range and this is alpine peaks he takes his heavy mech and moves to rejoin the fight.

Once back in the fight he gets ambushed by a bunch of lights (never happens) lol and this time he is killed. (Only one respawn allowed).

These lights then move to the unguarded drop ship and proceed to drop arty and air strikes on it while pumping it full of ammo until it is disabled. (I know. Lights will not destroy a drop ship)

Since the assault team did not defend their drop ship they can no longer respawn. Had their drop ship not been disabled each pilot could have been rescued once and picked one of their remaining mechs that they think would provide the best options.

Just my opinion.

[Threat Doc]

Will there be a planetary map for the faction to play on when they click on a world they're preparing to attack, or that they can arrange defenses and fights on? Is there a way, via the lore, to have designated which maps will be used for the world, such as a world being a desert planet and using Canyon Network and Tourmaline Desert for maps on which to fight, which could also be supplemented by more environmental maps, later? Will there be a way for Unit Commander's, and/or their designated representatives, to get together and determine at least which section of the world map is to be fought over, first, then second, and so on? When will objectives, like you intend to put on the Invasion maps, and objectives that are not just "destroy such-and-so so you can simply deathmatch all over, again", be added?

If your design document(s) are incomplete, I understand, but now that you have leeway, you have money and time, and you all have a grand vision, why not get it down on paper?

[Darth Griffin]

I only have two concerns, and it would be helpful to have them cleared up ASAP so we can prepare.

1. Does this mean that those of us who job specialize in say light mechs will now have to purchase and start skilling up some ponderous Heavy and Assult mechs so we can fill out the "1 per weight class" requirement in our dropship?

2. Will the only Faction restrictions on mech selection be IS or Clan, or will each House be restricted to lore specific mechs and variants? If the later can we get the list of House approved mechs ASAP so we can buy and skill up the proper ones?

Other than that I'm very excited to hear this news.

[Threat Doc]

Darth Griffin, on 24 September 2014 - 04:21 AM, said:

1. Does this mean that those of us who job specialize in say light mechs will now have to purchase and start skilling up some ponderous Heavy and Assult mechs so we can fill out the "1 per weight class" requirement in our dropship?

IAW what Russ said in the recent Town Hall, which you can find all three hours of on YouTube, that's exactly what it sounds like. My alternate recommendation for these Drop Decks are to quadruple the standard 3/3/3/3 ideal, and put it to the unit to get straight their decks, so Light drivers can have three Lights and, say, a Medium, where those of us who utterly suck in Lights can drive our Heavies and Assaults, etc.

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2. Will the only Faction restrictions on mech selection be IS or Clan, or will each House be restricted to lore specific mechs and variants? If the later can we get the list of House approved mechs ASAP so we can buy and skill up the proper ones?

According to everything that's been said in the past, and it's sort of borne out recently, primary restrictions are that, if you're Inner Sphere, you can drive Inner Sphere, and if you're Clan, you drive Clan. The House's will also have restrictions, so if you are in a place where you have no faction, 'Mechs will be much more expensive to purchase.

[Toaster Repair Pony]

What about for Mercenary Units... why can't we salvage Clan Mechs?

Use a level up type of system... Unit A can only use IS Mechs until they win 3 battles, then they can field 1 Clan Mech. Win 6 battles, field 2 Clan Mechs.

Edited by Faythh, 24 September 2014 - 07:22 AM.

[Hoax415]

If we get CW. Its going to be without any mechanism to allow IS factions to pilot Clan mechs and Clan factions to pilot IS mechs.

Period. Point Blank.

If CW launches, there will come a time when the question is: what will make this new game mode deeper and better?

That's the time to discuss adding in economic systems or salvage systems. Believe it or not there are people who would rather not have every single player acting like he's in Wolf's Dragoons. Maybe by that time we'll have a functioning player council system and they can take the pulse of the community and figure out what to do about mixed mech-faction teams.

[Joseph Mallan]

Redshift2k5, on 11 September 2014 - 04:52 PM, said:

Good update.

I second this!

[Wolfways]

Well i thought it was funny.

We say every weight class is viable but feel they aren't so we needed to introduce 4x3 and also make players use mechs they don't like.

Sounds about right?

[Heffey]

Screen shots or video demo please. Patchnotes without a patch so far.

[Mawai]

Two quick comments on drop ship mode.

1) 1/1/1/1 will tend to encourage people to take the maximum tonnage in each weight class since they tend to be somewhat more effective in the long run. In order to inspire more thought and meta-game elements ... you could consider 1/1/1/1 plus a tonnage limit of 240 tons or similar. Taking the maximum weight in each class requires 35+55+75+100 = 265 tons. By limiting available tonnage/player to 240 this means that 2 of the mechs in the drop list could not be the maximum tonnage for the weight class. This might tend to encourage a wider variety of mechs and builds in community warfare.

2) Module costs. Currently I have ONE of each of the modules I have actually purchased since they are so expensive varying from 2 to 6 million each. One of my mastered mechs can have more than 20 million in modules (3 x 6 million mech modules + 2x 3 million weapon modules + consumables). I have a number of mastered mechs but one set of modules. Drop ship mode will require 4 sets of modules unless you change the system (e.g. GXP + 6 million cbills gives you as many of the module as you want to install). I was wondering if you had considered this in the design ... and whether you were considering alternative ways/pricing for modules or simply having the bulk of CW mechs drop without modules with the exception of those folks with really deep pockets.

[Threat Doc]

I've brought up the modules several times in the past, because they cost entirely too much.

My thought was that the 2-6,000,000 C-Bills for a full Company worth (12) copies of the module, or the modules could be reduced, in cost, to between 170,000 and 500,000 each, though even less than that would be cause for more folks to purchase and use them.

[wanderer]

Better idea: Rather than simply going L/M/H/A, allow people to go with 4 slots that equal it or less.

Light = 1, Medium = 2, Heavy = 3, Assault = 4. So the current 4-slot option is "10".

Someone like me might go with three heavies (9 points) and one light (1 point) for a total of 10. That is, three of the usual missile support chassis I'm fond of, and likely a light for ECM support/spotting as needed. Going with less than the full 10-point rack of 'Mechs reduces drop costs, meaning more return for the risk. If I, oh went with one heavy and three mediums, it'd be only 90% the normal drop costs instead. A killer light pilot with a four-light rack would only cost a mere 40% of normal to drop. Higher risk, sure- but also more return on your run.


This also allows people in mediums or lights to use a full rack of lighter machines if they don't want to be stuck in slower rigs. Or heavier pilots can go H/H/M/M or A/A/L/L instead, giving them a long period of time riding in their weight class of choice.

[Reno Blade]

Some very nice replies from Russ in the "about that dropship mode we all been waiting for"-thread:
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__3765636
and
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__3766502

Russ Bullock, on 26 September 2014 - 08:33 AM, said:

I admit I read very little of the entire thread - too little time in a day.

I will say this - in a perfect world we would have our groups limited to 4, 8 and 12 in CW and make each lance of a light, medium, heavy and Assault pilot with their drop ships full of those types of mechs - that way our MM can very easily put together matches.

But we know the players wouldn't like this concession they would prefer to have their groups of 5,6,7,9,10....

When you have group sizes like this it gets very difficult on the MM as seen in the public Group Queue - one group of 10 might not even fit with some of the groups of 2 based on all the heavy or assault slots being taken and it goes from there.

1 of each weight class gets past this and ensures variety.

However internally we are now discussing tonnage limits for CW and I am pushing this notion pretty strongly. It will end up providing more flexibility to players who want to perhaps take nothing but their Jenner's out for instance. But will become more restricting as you go higher, for instance nobody is going to take 4 Direwolf's - in fact if they take 2 their last two mechs are going to be pretty dang light.

But Tonnage restrictions does allow us to change it per planet if we desire.

I know players would like to push the tonnage limit up as high as possible so they can take as many of their favorite heavy mech as possible but I currently like the number of 240 tons.

Russ Bullock, on 26 September 2014 - 01:17 PM, said:

Quote

Your argument assumes that players will be able to take more than 4 'Mechs. I don't think that's how it'd play out. I think a more likely scenario, if they go with tonnage limits, is that you'll still be required to take 4 'Mechs into the fight - no more, no less (well... possibly less, but definitely no more. I don't even think more than 4 mechs per person would be technically possible, considering the Engineers were already worried that each player having 4 'Mechs would put too much strain on the servers)

This is correct you will be limited to 4 and you will have to take 4 as well. You can't give your excess tonnage to a team mate so he can take 4 DW mechs.

Everyone takes 4 - so the Timberwolf pilot will have a tough time even taking two unless since he has 70 tons left for the final 2 mechs.

Yes I guess it is possible that someone takes out 4 commando's and taking only 100 tons into battle is going to be tough on your team but this is really no worse of a problem than using 1/1/1/1 since people will still tend to Min/Max and make sure they are taking 35 ton lights, 55 ton mediums etc.

We just can't feasibly share tonnage, 1) there is a limitation to 4 mech's each technically 2) if CW was a mode for just 12 mans or even only preset groups but it is available to solo players as well.

We need a system that works for anything from Solo players, groups of 2-12 all getting formed into a 12 man unit within a couple of minutes of launching into an attack or defense, they will not be able to coordinate drop tonnage together and if you do not allow them to when full 12 mans have? the 12 man will absolutely demolish them.

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Tonnage limit is definitely the way to go. Having a parameter to work with will help balancing the CW and give also lesser mechs in each class a reason to be.

If someone wants to drop 2 assaults and 2 locusts, why not? the global balance of the drop will be preserved anyway.

Yes this is where I am at.

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Players should be able to maximise their tons (be it 200 or 240) or otherwise, if you want to bring 4 spideys, you are 100 tons too light, and thus can get yout team into a ton-disadvantage.

if, however, you can maximise - say - your 200 tons, you can bring 4 spideys and 2 cicadas.

Its important to field nearly equal amount of tons as the enemy, not equal amount of mechs to get a balanced match.

Not technically feasible - getting everyone a 4 mech Dropship is pushing the limits to the very edge. Everyone will need to take 4, no more or no less.

Quote

A big question is this.Do we get to pick which mech deploys of the four or is it random?Which means no 12 light mechs swarming/legging everything in sight.

Goal is to let players decide the order on the fly as they are about to drop back in. So based on how the battle seems to be going you can choose what to take out next.

Quote

Could tonnage limits replace the 10v12 solution to the "Clan OP" discussion? Rather than 10v12 with slightly stronger clans, maybe clan drops would have 185 tons vs IS getting 200. This would somewhat match lore in that clans would bid low for honor.

Yes maybe. We will see, but at least we have this to play.

[Hoax415]

omfg pls 240 sounds like a fine limit. That system is so much better than forcing 1/1/1/1 drop decks, gives reasons to pilot so many forgotten chassis lets specialist pilots stick more to the mechs they feel best in.

I literally see zero downside.

Edited by Hoax415, 27 September 2014 - 08:00 AM.

[IrrelevantFish]

TigersRoar, on 11 September 2014 - 07:27 PM, said:

I only run mediums, so one of each weight class will not work for me, nor do I want to be forced to buy and pilot mechs that I do not want, only to participate in CW. Simply let me pilot my mediums and I will be happy.

There's two ways to do what you want:

• Let people bring whatever mish-mash of mechs they want.
  
• Force people to bring four mechs of a single weight class.

The former will make weight-balanced matchmaking completely impossible. (How would you weight-balance 96 mechs when any given multiple of four of them may be inseparable?) The latter will either result in a bunch of try-harders dropping with nothing but four copies of the latest flavor-of-the-month mech (eg, the last few days of Dire Wolf-mania multiplied by four) or result in a lot of failed match-searches (eg, good luck finding a match in your treasured mediums when the Stormcrow's released for CB).

OTOH, requiring everyone to take one of each weight class would guarantee a 3-3-3-3 match, no exceptions. Just think: you'd never, ever have to face another all-meta-all-the-time team of super-try-hards. Isn't that worth expanding your horizons a bit?

Besides, specialists like you are sooooo missing out. Each weight class offers a uniquely rewarding experience. If you're having trouble with a new weight-class, group up with a pilot who already knows it well and follow them around for a while. It's totally worth it, in the end. For example, I absolutely loathed mediums, at first, and refused to pilot them for the longest time, but I'm glad I got over it, because ATM, they're my favorites and my best performers.