29 replies to this topic

[Prussian Havoc]

This weekend's Challenge is FAR superior to ANY Challenge yet run for MWO.

"Consequences"

Gameplay greatly benefits when a gamer needs to be concerned over the "Mortality" of his MechWarrior.

Yes I have the choice of engaging the Enemy without regard for my own safety, dying gloriously in the process, but earning for my team many points.

OR I can raise my game, fight well, gain the Victory AND live - THIS is the far superior play style.



Up till now MWO has trained us (like so many Pavlovian Dogs) to completely disregard the final state of our Mech or the lives of our MechWarriors.

This Challenge changes that forever. (I would like to see ALL Challenges include a "Survival" requirement.)


Lift you Game, not a whine on the Forums!

Edited by Prussian Havoc, 24 November 2014 - 12:01 PM.

[AEgg]

So you think we should favor surviving over actually winning the game. Yeah, that makes sense...

Surviving and winning isn't theoretically a bad idea, it just doesn't work in practice because you simply can't win without losing a few mechs along the way (well, unless the game is a complete stomp). If everyone is more concerned about survival than winning, well, you can guess what's going to happen.

Maybe this challenge would be better if the requirement was:

1 kill
1 assist
Win
At least 4 of your team mates are alive at the end of the round. (You don't have to be one of them).

Still favors surviving, but it allows you to still help your team and die if that's what it takes to win.

[Lunatic_Asylum]

Yup, I really loved that challenge too!

[Khobai]

The whole point of games is that they dont have the same consequences as real life: like fear of death.

And even if a survival challenge was a good idea, the way it was implemented was still poor, making this a poor challenge.

Edited by Khobai, 23 November 2014 - 07:07 PM.

[Mothykins]

"We're up five, can we push?"

"No."



Actual conversation I just had in game. Tell me more.

[Lynx7725]

Cavale, on 23 November 2014 - 07:08 PM, said:

"We're up five, can we push?"
"No."

Actual conversation I just had in game. Tell me more.

Actually, that's not a bad decision (not necessarily a good one, but not a bad one either). A differential of 5 isn't quite significant enough in the Solo team context (with the corresponding lack of communications and coordination). A margin of 4 or 5 can still be reversed depending on the CLG -- remember, if you have a 4 or 5 mech advantage, that many of your team's mechs would likely be hovering at the edge of combat effectiveness, and a couple of fresh mechs can reverse that advantage easily.

[Mothykins]

Lynx7725, on 23 November 2014 - 07:13 PM, said:

Actually, that's not a bad decision (not necessarily a good one, but not a bad one either). A differential of 5 isn't quite significant enough in the Solo team context (with the corresponding lack of communications and coordination). A margin of 4 or 5 can still be reversed depending on the CLG -- remember, if you have a 4 or 5 mech advantage, that many of your team's mechs would likely be hovering at the edge of combat effectiveness, and a couple of fresh mechs can reverse that advantage easily.

Ok, so, we're up five. I am the most damaged mech on my team, at 70%

I know the opposing Timber has no armour on the torsos, there's a Treb with nothing but LRMs, and the Shadowhawk has no arms and red st.

They should have pushed. I:

[Wintersdark]

This is definitely a case where the theory is better than the actual practice.

In practice, both in game and in real life, cowardice leads to loss and often death. Battles have nearly always been won and lost due to morale breaking, and the casualties have been _vastly_ larger after routing than while fighting.

There's a very solid reason why this doesn't work in game, while its less of a problem in real life. In real life, soldiers are trained and conditioned to follow orders, and there is strong pressure to not lose your nerve and run (as well as very serious consequences for doing that).

In MWO, though, that's not the case. A MechWarrior who refuses to push, who hides in the back to the obvious detriment of his forces, faces no censure beyond some random stranger possibly berating him in team chat. He won't be punished, and he can go into his next battle happy in the knowledge that all is good.

The end result is what we got. It was the best challenge to date, but still severely flawed in how it really pushed players to be very passive and cowardly. Ironically it lead to more 12:11 and 12:10 games than I've ever seen before, but that was only because neither team would push an advantage when they had it.

Ironically this meant almost nobody actually scored, whereas I'd they'd played more aggressively they'd have won far more matches at better casualty counts resulting in many players scoring each match.

So, yeah. In theory, some measure of self preservation is awesome, but in practice this challenge just resulted in a lot of terrible passive mechwarriors. No. Not mechwarriors. The chicken shits don't deserve that. Children in stompy robots.

[Mcgral18]

Cavale, on 23 November 2014 - 07:19 PM, said:

Ok, so, we're up five. I am the most damaged mech on my team, at 70%

I know the opposing Timber has no armour on the torsos, there's a Treb with nothing but LRMs, and the Shadowhawk has no arms and red st.

They should have pushed. I:

At that point, it's best to take a Heavy or Assault mech, a mech that can carry, then kill them all for yourself.

Fair is fair.

[Wintersdark]

Lynx7725, on 23 November 2014 - 07:13 PM, said:

Actually, that's not a bad decision (not necessarily a good one, but not a bad one either). A differential of 5 isn't quite significant enough in the Solo team context (with the corresponding lack of communications and coordination). A margin of 4 or 5 can still be reversed depending on the CLG -- remember, if you have a 4 or 5 mech advantage, that many of your team's mechs would likely be hovering at the edge of combat effectiveness, and a couple of fresh mechs can reverse that advantage easily.

Over thousands of drops, I could count the instances making a solid push with a 5 mech lead led to loss one one hand. On the other hand, though, I've seen MANY come back wins because the lead team couldn't find its balls and actually seal the deal.

[Lynx7725]

Cavale, on 23 November 2014 - 07:19 PM, said:

Ok, so, we're up five. I am the most damaged mech on my team, at 70%

I know the opposing Timber has no armour on the torsos, there's a Treb with nothing but LRMs, and the Shadowhawk has no arms and red st.

They should have pushed. I:

Like I said, not necessarily a good or bad decision, depending on the circumstances. Since it's difficult to tell the CLG of your team's mechs, it's hard to actually make a good call. PGI's fault for not providing a good way to gauge combat effectiveness of your own team...

I'm continually amazed at how many people refused to make use of battlefield intelligence such as damage status of enemy mechs, weak spots, etc. For a thinking man's shooter, we are attracting an amazing amount of non-thinking people. So while you do know that the enemy is weaker, the others may not.. and that's a damn fatal flaw in the info dissemination process in MWO.

BTW, 70% can be near "down and out". That usually is about one location stripped and ready to go, and if you're running an XL engine in a stripped side torso, you could be one shot away from being taken out.. the % number is very deceptive.

[Prussian Havoc]

Cavale, on 23 November 2014 - 07:19 PM, said:

Ok, so, we're up five. I am the most damaged mech on my team, at 70%

I know the opposing Timber has no armour on the torsos, there's a Treb with nothing but LRMs, and the Shadowhawk has no arms and red st.

They should have pushed. I:

Realism.

Hesitancy in the face of Combat... excellent job PGI!

[Mothykins]

Mcgral18, on 23 November 2014 - 07:22 PM, said:

At that point, it's best to take a Heavy or Assault mech, a mech that can carry, then kill them all for yourself.

Fair is fair.

I'm driving a 3L. My Stalker just goes out like the Hindenburg.

[Deathlike]

Lynx7725, on 23 November 2014 - 07:24 PM, said:

I'm continually amazed at how many people refused to make use of battlefield intelligence such as damage status of enemy mechs, weak spots, etc. For a thinking man's shooter, we are attracting an amazing amount of non-thinking people. So while you do know that the enemy is weaker, the others may not.. and that's a damn fatal flaw in the info dissemination process in MWO.

While we have 3 versions of deathmatch, people once upon a time complained about how Assault was CapWarrior when turrets weren't in existence.

In essence, plenty of people refuse to use their brains when there's an objective that's not solely involving killing other mechs.

We reap what we sow.

Edited by Deathlike, 23 November 2014 - 07:30 PM.

[Lynx7725]

Deathlike, on 23 November 2014 - 07:29 PM, said:

While we have 3 versions of deathmatch, people once upon a time complained about how Assault was CapWarrior when turrets weren't in existence.

In essence, plenty of people refuse to use their brains when there's an objective that's not solely involving killing other mechs.

We reap what we sow.

Truth be told even killing other mechs take a bit of brainpower. Especially if you want to survive doing that, and to do it again and again in a game. You can't get good in this game without investing some skullsweat.

If you're used to playing the "survive and win" game, that's business as usual. But a lot of people over this weekend is experiencing it for the first time, so their brains aren't firing -- and the quality of games, for me at least, suffered.

[Master Pain]

If we are going to have a survival requirement because it would be realistic, then we should have an eject button, because in battletech lore, a mechwarrior would keep fighting untill his mech was all used up, then eject so he didnt die. Not hide from battle because he was scared to fight If you survive the battle(still in your mech or ejected) and win, that would be alot more realistic and more fun.

[Deathlike]

Lynx7725, on 23 November 2014 - 07:32 PM, said:

Truth be told even killing other mechs take a bit of brainpower. Especially if you want to survive doing that, and to do it again and again in a game. You can't get good in this game without investing some skullsweat.

That's the thing about perception and reality. Most of the perception is self-inflated, and once reality sets in... well...

Not everyone is taught or given an explanation on how or when to be aggressive and people who refuse to learn or understand the group queue tend to get beaten down repeatedly early and often. That's what tends to separate most people in this game. You either learn to be the best, or repeat dying as target practice. There's really no in-betweens, for better or worse.

Quote

If you're used to playing the "survive and win" game, that's business as usual. But a lot of people over this weekend is experiencing it for the first time, so their brains aren't firing -- and the quality of games, for me at least, suffered.

It's not "hard", but it's very much a mentality that helps or hurts teams. Back when people were arguing to separate queues, one of the issues with the "coexistence" of both groups and solos was the simple fact that many solo players didn't understand BASIC teamwork skills. While this is generally a product of having a poor New Player Experience (in the form of tutorials), learning to play the game does involve watching, understand, and learning what went wrong.. with honest self-reflection. The people that get better continue to get better... while the people that think they are "good enough" stay where they are... either mediocre or plain bad. While it's best termed "learn to play", it's hard to argue against success... or repeated failures.

I don't really know what else to say. Can't help everyone that doesn't wish to get better.

[Lynx7725]

Deathlike, on 23 November 2014 - 07:43 PM, said:

You either learn to be the best, or repeat dying as target practice. There's really no in-betweens, for better or worse.

I'm stealing this one.

Deathlike, on 23 November 2014 - 07:43 PM, said:

It's not "hard", but it's very much a mentality that helps or hurts teams.

Very true. Still, I think PGI's approach currently to changing the mentality is literally throwing people who aren't prepared for it into the deep end. That works, but more often you get a pile of dead bodies at the bottom.

Personally I think PGI's criteria should not require survival to be a requirement, but as a bonus. You get one more point for surviving the match. That will still prompt strange behaviours, but at least, hopefully, when it requires dying in game to get the job done and win the game, some of the "getting better" players would step up and get the job done.

[Deathlike]

Lynx7725, on 23 November 2014 - 07:53 PM, said:

Personally I think PGI's criteria should not require survival to be a requirement, but as a bonus. You get one more point for surviving the match. That will still prompt strange behaviours, but at least, hopefully, when it requires dying in game to get the job done and win the game, some of the "getting better" players would step up and get the job done.

I'll put it this way.

People claiming that surviving "rewards cowardice" is clearly misunderstanding.

It rewards the opfor that your cowardice is their gain. That's reality.

[Andi Nagasia]

truthfully i under stand why they would do a survival challenge, that said,
i still have to earn my first point, ive had horrible luck all weekend, all of my games have ether
i get a kill then ended up dieing at the end, or won and survived with 8-10 assists but no kills,
in the 200+ games ive played, 34+ hours of game play i still have no points,

personally i play a support, thats my style of play, i really dont get kills, assists ya i get those allot,
the problem is that more times then not in this event people have gotten 1 kill then retreated and hid,
ive tried Lights/Mediums/Heavys/Assaults, LRM-boats/High-Alpha-Energy-Boats/Balistic-Boats,

im trying and ill keep trying, but this is the first MWO Event where ive played all weekend,
and have yet to get a single point to the reward, and its irritating me as im sure others as well,