55 replies to this topic

[Egomane]

Jman5, on 08 October 2014 - 02:19 PM, said:

So in a near optimal scenario, your getting 5,000 cbills advantage for wins, but taking a 23,000 cbill hit for losses. You'd need something like a 5:1 W/L ratio to make up the difference.

See my edited post above, with my stats.
While I have a better win/loss in conquest then in assault, it's not even close to your 5:1 ratio.

[AssaultPig]

The only thing 'wrong' with conquest is that the incentive to split up and cap points isn't quite strong enough. Right now deathballing is still usually a winning strategy, especially on small maps.

Rewards can be tuned easily enough; just give a bigger bonus for resources or attach some cbill reward to a cap or to defensive/offensive kills

[Koniving]

Livewyr, on 08 October 2014 - 12:26 PM, said:

-------------------------------------------------------------
[EDIT]
What we have so far:
Capture takes too long. (Tedium, exposure, etc...)
Maps too small.
Griefing mechs (shutdowns)
Capture point logic flaws (Drills in runways, etc...)
Too easily played like Skirmish. (Insufficient reason to cap, small maps)
Poor rewards
Effort/Reward ratio insufficient (capping/time)
Mobility of Assaults.
Boring Capture Mechanic
Combat Avoidance
Confused/disorganized combat
Point Req too high.
Point Req too low
No Respawn

To interpret: Point requirement too low on large maps.
Point requirement too high on small maps.

To add:

• Number of capture points on small maps too high.
  
• Capture points on larger maps are too close; before the distance seemed fine but they were unfairly placed (some maps favored one team with closer / easier to get to capture points). Originally they were also considered too far because there wasn't an ability to choose between game modes and no genuine rewards for protecting capture points that are blatantly in the open.
  
• Lack of surrounding cover on some maps.
  
• Capturing points should be a team effort, but the method of capturing points by standing in a box is a solo activity. (If one player had to do something with a console in his cockpit or something at least, requiring a second player to protect him, then it'd be a group activity).
  
• The act of capturing a base is rewarded exactly once, regardless of if you performed the capture or if you assisted. But the task requires repeated captures.
  
• Conquest itself makes no sense. There are already established resource stations that are not owned by either party, now go out there and capture them all. Regardless of anything else including enemy survivors, if one team manages to own the drills that get X number of resources first it wins. Where is securing the resources it harvested? Where is hauling resources to a dropship? Where is losing resources when the drill you own is captured by the enemy? Somehow you magically still have them.

Additional stuff:

• With base captures being so long, there is absolutely no need to have a defender protecting it. The entire team can move from one side of Terra Therma to the other in time to stop any attempt at capturing a base from full blue to full red. This gives assaults nothing to actually do; resulting in the default behavior of meet up in the middle and kill each other.
  
• A thought: What if one side owned all the drills, and the attacking team must prevent the defending team from collecting all of the resources? What if capturing all the bases (for the attacking team) would require the enemy team to retreat? What if the defending team had to go out, collect the resources and bring them back to a main facility and the attacking team had to prevent that from happening? What if the mode had real context?

[Deathlike]

Assault 1,295 734 551 1.33 1,664,375 141,683,689
Conquest 368 199 169 1.18 371,270 33,700,688
Skirmish 1,352 749 598 1.25 1,710,057 148,995,555

It's obvious that I play Conquest less, but the #s don't lie.
Assault: 109408 C-bills/match
Conquest: 91577 C-bills/match
Skirmish: 110203 C-bills/match

I'm unsure if Premium Time is applied here, but eh, it's there.

It's hard to prove the point though if you don't even have a winning % in the other modes.

[55555]

I know "poor reward" is already on there but...

As a light with a cap accelerator, my job is to cap points. and i do so. And i barely get enough cbills to cover a UAV and zilch xp.

Perhaps every 10 seconds of capping, you get a reward?

[Jman5]

Egomane, on 08 October 2014 - 02:23 PM, said:

See my edited post above, with my stats.
While I have a better win/loss in conquest then in assault, it's not even close to your 5:1 ratio.

Are you looking at Current or Archived stats? Conquest used to reward much better than it does nowadays. Other than that, I can only think of 3 plausible reasons to explain your situation.

1. You played more Conquest with Premium time/Hero Mech than you did with Assault
2. You have an unusual playstyle that doesn't net you many traditional combat rewards. (lots of base capping in assault and conquest).
3. PGI ninja changed the Conquest values since I last checked and never bothered to tell anyone.

I dunno, almost everyone I talk to has a higher average income in assault/skirmish than conquest and the reward numbers seem to support that logic.

Edited by Jman5, 08 October 2014 - 03:35 PM.

[Belkor]

Combat avoidance is a big one for me. The whole concept of running around to cap simply doesn't interest me. I play the game to blow up other mechs, not run around capping.

[Egomane]

Jman5, on 08 October 2014 - 03:22 PM, said:

Are you looking at Current or Archived stats?

Total! While there was a time when Conquest earned more, it shouldn't have such a noticable impact, as it wasn't for long.

Jman5, on 08 October 2014 - 03:22 PM, said:

1. You played more Conquest with Premium time/Hero Mech than you did with Assault

Nope! I just recently activated my banked premium time and except for the founder, phoenix and now clan mechs, as well as a lone Ember, I did not own any other c-bill bonus mechs. Most (almost all) of my playtime is in normal mechs which do not have such a bonus.

Jman5, on 08 October 2014 - 03:22 PM, said:

2. You have an unusual playstyle that doesn't net you many traditional combat rewards. (lots of base capping in assault and conquest).

This is a nope as well. At least not that I would be aware of it. I usually don't cap in Assault but I do in conquest. I'm also doing good damage in both match types, usually in the top third, if I don't die early.

Jman5, on 08 October 2014 - 03:22 PM, said:

3. PGI ninja changed the Conquest values since I last checked and never bothered to tell anyone.

Not to my knowledge.

Edited by Egomane, 08 October 2014 - 04:03 PM.

[Deathlike]

Jman5, on 08 October 2014 - 03:22 PM, said:

Are you looking at Current or Archived stats? Conquest used to reward much better than it does nowadays. Other than that, I can only think of 3 plausible reasons to explain your situation.

1. You played more Conquest with Premium time/Hero Mech than you did with Assault
2. You have an unusual playstyle that doesn't net you many traditional combat rewards. (lots of base capping in assault and conquest).
3. PGI ninja changed the Conquest values since I last checked and never bothered to tell anyone.

I dunno, almost everyone I talk to has a higher average income in assault/skirmish than conquest and the reward numbers seem to support that logic.

I thought about it for a bit, and there's only like 1 major thing to factor in.

Conquest punishes efficiency... in that if you kill things fast enough, the resource rewards are poor compared if the cap points close towards the cap max.

If you excel in Assault and Skirmish, being inefficient doesn't really affect your score. Time is a non-factor in rewards. For Conquest... the longer the match is played, the rewards tend to grow.

Also, compare the rewards towards a "close Conquest game" that is near the max, vs one that's "low scoring" resource-wise.

Cap Win @ 750 Max
750 max * 50 C-bills = 37500 C-bills
Cap Loss @ 749
(749/4)[truncated] * 50 = 9350 C-bills

37500-9350=28150 C-bills

Cap Win @ 300 (avg or min)
300 * 50 = 15000 C-bills
Cap Loss @ 300
300/4 * 50 = 3750 C-bills

15000-3750=11250 C-bills

The difference between winning early and winning late is essentially a 20k difference.

You can see a sizable difference in rewards, but the differences magnify the longer you play Conquest.

TL;DR
Conquest only rewards you if you are inefficient... staying on the map longer gets you more rewards when you win.

Edited by Deathlike, 08 October 2014 - 04:44 PM.

[Sorbic]

I wonder if making the caps earn points faster for the first ~2 minutes (forcing teams to split up) would help discourage murderballs. I don't play conquest that often but I do enjoy the games when you get some good lance on lance action.

[Hospy]

Only problem I have with conquest is that you don't make as much money.

Otherwise I like it.

[Training Instructor]

They should make it more fun, like no team gets points from a location until a mech has been killed there.

[Xeven]

It completely destroys any semblance of emersion into a battletech world. It turns this game into a arcade game.

[Livewyr]

Thank you all much, I have updated the OP with all the issues presented (objectively, whether I agreed with them or not) and will create a new thread for discussing how to fix them.

There were a lot of good things in here (some of which even *I* did not think of... and I am omniscient!)

Thank you all for the overall productivity in this thread, I hope the next will be just as successful.

[Cyborne Elemental]

There is zero incentive to actually cap the points.
Typically it just ends up being skirmish + distraction flags to lure away your teamates.

On rare occasion the objective of flag capture actually plays a part in winning.

Its the small maps that just do not work for the game mode, Forest Colony, Frozen City, RIver CIty, Caustic Valley, they always end up no differently than any skirmish.

Everyone races around in a circle and beats up the slowest guys, then the heavies and mediums have a whack at it, and then survivors chase down the lights.

Big maps like Tourmaline, Manifold, Crimson, Terra Therma or well layed out maps such as Canyon network favor Conquest a little better.

I think reducing flag capture time would help some, but also start adding in rewards for going to those Flag spots, and if that means only Lights and Mediums are reaping those benefits, so be it, a win should apply the majority of Cbills regardless.

[jozkhan]

Back in the old days I used to love playing conquest but ever since the changes to increase the cap times I dont play it willingly any more really.

The main reason being is that you can't really make a difference anymore. With the old cap times you could make a difference and even win a game for your team in a fast mech (not necessarily a light, I used to play it alot in my Dragons) with some cunning and good awareness.

If Cap times were reduced I would play it again happily.

Also and I'm not so sure about this second point but maybe Conquest was more fun in 8 v 8 rather than 12 v 12?