9 replies to this topic

[Wendigo Vendetta]

Making CW work: Some observations and suggestions...

1- in a real world offensive against dug-in enemy, commanders favor a 2 to 1 advantage. Why? The static, defensible location offers advantages which need to be overcome, including the enemy's ability to engage with minimal movement to contact.
CW does not allow for this; giving the defenders the defenses, but insisting on even numbers. I understand that PGI has resisted differing team sizes, but something must be done to counter the defenders' advantage or CW will remain catastrophically one-sided.

2- On the topic of one-sided... In the real world, the attacker does have some advantages: He has the operational initiative. He may choose the time and place of the engagement, delaying or blitzing as his strategy dictates. He may disregard targets entirely, shifting to other points of attack or bypassing hardened targets in favor of others. All of this initiative is denied in CW, shifting more of the advantages to the defender and funneling the attacker into very narrow corridors at a precisely known time on delimited angles of attack. Something must be done to counter the defenders' advantage or CW will remain catastrophically one-sided.

3- Here is where I may be hampered by my faction (Marik). But, from my standpoint, the IS can only defend against the Clan invasions, while against any other enemy, I have the choice of "attack" into enemy territory or "defend" our own. The force that only plays defense loses. Even if the enemy only achieves gains 1% of the time, he will constantly, inexorably grind forward until you lose IF you have no chance for counter-gains of you own. Has the deck been stacked to ensure a cannon outcome? This needs to be addressed if so. I, and many others, value the chance to change the outcome and effect the unfolding story. I am NOT interested in rote repetition of an outcome written by some game designers in a now-defunct company from 25 tears ago.

Edited by Wendigo Vendetta, 15 December 2014 - 09:26 AM.

[Darwins Dog]

1) Real world does not apply to MWO or battletech. In the real world a B-52 could stop the gun, but then we miss out on the fun of giant robots. As to the balance between attackers and defenders, the goal from the beginning was to make attacking less successful than defending.

2) See point 1

3) Your chance to attack will come when trying to liberate the planets that they have conquered. Also, both attacking and defending a planet give you the opportunity to play both sides of the scenario, so there is functionally no difference.

[Zypher]

Darwins Dog, on 15 December 2014 - 08:27 AM, said:

1) Real world does not apply to MWO or battletech. In the real world a B-52 could stop the gun, but then we miss out on the fun of giant robots. As to the balance between attackers and defenders, the goal from the beginning was to make attacking less successful than defending.

2) See point 1

3) Your chance to attack will come when trying to liberate the planets that they have conquered. Also, both attacking and defending a planet give you the opportunity to play both sides of the scenario, so there is functionally no difference.

Real world or not the post makes a lot of sense, right now having to balanced teams in skill and mechs the defenders are going to win every time. They have clear out right advantages that need to be balanced out in some form or another.

In the end it's about gameplay and fun, no one wants to feel, "sigh, we are on the offensive, we are probably going to lose again". People already complain about MM, but here is an opportunity to balance things out outside of tweaking MM.

[Varent]

1) Currently the attacker has advantage overall. It is very easy to zerg rush and kill the base once the gates are down unless the team is very well coordinated.

2) A valid point, but I think this is basically Beta Community Warfare. So that may come down the road.

3) Your basically hampered by your faction yes.In regards to the clans at least. You can still attack the groups around you. The bright side is you aren't getting zerg rushed by the clans at the moment. Upside/downside.

[Wendigo Vendetta]

Re: Darwin's Dog

1 and 2- Yes, actually it does and you are wrong. This is one of the many force multipliers that does apply to force on force engagements universally. From there it becomes basic math: Take two balanced sides in a conflict, let one keep their situational advantages and strip all the situational advantages from the other and the outcome may be pre-ordained.

3- Perhaps you do not understand how this works... you may get to play both sides of the CW match types, but if you are defending a planet and launch a counterattack you cannot take a planet, you can only erase part of the attackers' gains and keep the planet. If that is the only option to "attack", you will eventually lose the war. Why? Because when the opposing side has a chance to make gains and you can only attempt to maintain equilibrium, the inexorable process of time and random distribution will eventually wear you down.
So, when I see that other IS forces can only attempt to defend Rasalhague and not help launch an offensive to reclaim territory, the outcome becomes a forgone conclusion.

Edited by Wendigo Vendetta, 15 December 2014 - 09:30 AM.

[Apnu]

Tonnage and numbers. that's how balance should happen.

Ignoring lore and fluff (which I hate do do, but will for the sake of argument), the attackers should either have more players than the defenders and/or more tonnage than the defenders.

In a perfect lore world, the attackers would be clans with 10 mechs but they bring an average of 75/80 tons per player instead of 60. Maybe even give them 350 tons per CW match.

[Utilyan]

The one thing that I'm impressed with in CW is that My mech is actually in the dropship and actually flying to the place rather then dropship flying to the place and me just "spawning" there.

It seems like an out of a way mechanic unless you were planning to do more with it. Like relocating in a insanely massive map with a damaged mech.

Think about 4 alpine like maps and 2 boreal maps combined can be one "planet". They are all connected by landing zones. One map represents friendly base, one enemy base, ect.

Its even possible to have "down times" which I believe can making this game way more fun, its like calm before the storm. Like having to send scouts.....to actually scout. So you can be a scout on a map all by yourself, all clear you go to landing zone pick to land on differ part of planet.

Could even have a persistent battle planet. You can have each zone of the planet represented in battletech hex map.

[Gyrok]

If defending is so one sided...why are we not losing attacks...ever...?

[Darwins Dog]

Zypher, on 15 December 2014 - 09:09 AM, said:

Real world or not the post makes a lot of sense, right now having to balanced teams in skill and mechs the defenders are going to win every time. They have clear out right advantages that need to be balanced out in some form or another.

The balance between the teams is that they don't have the same objective. If both sides had to take out the other, then the defenders would win. In invasion mode the attackers can (and frequently do) win without killing a single defender. That is the balance in the objective. The attackers don't actually have to out fight the defenders. If you want to talk about ways to encourage the attackers to have to fight a bit more, then I'm all ears. Looking at the battlefield, playing matches, and reading other posts on the forums makes me think that defenders aren't at that much of an advantage.

Wendigo Vendetta, on 15 December 2014 - 09:18 AM, said:

Re: Darwin's Dog

1 and 2- Yes, actually it does and you are wrong. This is one of the many force multipliers that does apply to force on force engagements universally. From there it becomes basic math: Take two balanced sides in a conflict, let one keep their situational advantages and strip all the situational advantages from the other and the outcome may be pre-ordained.

3- Perhaps you do not understand how this works... you may get to play both sides of the CW match types, but if you are defending a planet and launch a counterattack you cannot take a planet, you can only erase part of the attackers' gains and keep the planet. If that is the only option to "attack", you will eventually lose the war. Why? Because when the opposing side has a chance to make gains and you can only attempt to maintain equilibrium, the inexorable process of time and random distribution will eventually wear you down.
So, when I see that other IS forces can only attempt to defend Rasalhague and not help launch an offensive to reclaim territory, the outcome becomes a forgone conclusion.

1 and 2 - that only applies to situations when they both have the same objective (to wipe the other force out). As I mentioned above, Invasion has asymetric objectives. Attackers who are only fighting the defenders will always lose (in equal circumstances) because they are ignoring their objective.

3 - Except that you can't lose the war. It's not possible for your capital to fall. I understand that it sucks to lose territory, but that currently has no effect on anything. They will take a few planets, you will be able to take some back. They will eventually run out of planets to take, and then the positions will be reversed.

[Killstorm999999]

Darwins Dog, on 15 December 2014 - 08:27 AM, said:

1) Real world does not apply to MWO or battletech. In the real world a B-52 could stop the gun, but then we miss out on the fun of giant robots. As to the balance between attackers and defenders, the goal from the beginning was to make attacking less successful than defending.

Exactly, the whole premise of taking out the big gun is flawed and should have scrapped on the drawing board.

But I think we are stuck with it ( it is cool looking after all), so we can let realism guide us to a more interesting game still.