93 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

WhoopieMonster, on 18 December 2014 - 02:19 AM, said:

Alistair Winter, just because something works in real life doesn't mean it will translate well in game.

I know that, of course. But that doesn't mean it can't either.

WhoopieMonster, on 18 December 2014 - 02:19 AM, said:

Defence in depth, as explained by your link, is normally used by a numerically disadvantaged force where attrition and short skirmishes inflicting heavy casualties before retreat to a fortified position are prefered.
In MWO the defenders match the attackers in numbers and likely tonnage as well.

The difference in numbers and the availability of reinforcements is easy to simulate via respawn and reinforcements. If the forward positions were worth defending, the defenders would still be able to respawn and move to the next line of defense if the distances allowed for it. You'll see this in other games, even if it doesn't happen in MWO.

WhoopieMonster, on 18 December 2014 - 02:19 AM, said:

The defenders cannot get out of the gate, even if they could the defenders need to cover 2/3 gates. So they either scout and blob up or split up, both of which are I believe are advantageous to the attacker. The biggest advantage the defenders have is their ability to react quickly due to the small map area they have to cover and the weapon emplacements that occupy that area. If you increase that map size their advantage will dimish.
IS mechs are generally slower (ex lights) than their clan counter part so any kind of fall back strategy will be limited based on speed, which will again reduce the effectiveness of this strategy for IS players.

The idea would be that you wouldn't necessarily have to fall back. If you put 12 mechs on your first line of defence and lose 8 of them, then those 8 mechs would respawn and move to your second line of defence while the enemy killed off your remaining 4 mechs. And if fortifications were good enough, the attackers would be unable to just zerg past the first line of defence all the way to base, because they would be stuck between a locked gate and 12 defenders chasing after them.

Krivvan, on 18 December 2014 - 02:20 AM, said:

All mechs, even a Dire Wolf, can make it up the mountains and over the gate with complete consistency. Almost every Boreal defense game I've played has ended up with us (even when I'm solo or in a small group) pushing out of the gate into the pass, which is a strong position to hold. It really is sometimes the best option to push out into defenders that won't move in when there is weakness.

I've never seen any assault mechs do that, but I'll try it out. It certainly doesn't look like an intentional map feature, but I'll look again.

I've also been in a number of matches, both solo, small groups and large groups. Both on this account and my Clan account. The only time I've ever seen the defenders move out of the gates to engage the attackers away from base (not counting matches where defenders rush out to kill the last few mechs to end the match) was a match where my team of pugs went up against an organized 10-man group. After spending about 10 minutes trying to open one gate on Boreal Vault and losing more than 12 mechs in the process, the defenders just took pity on us and charged out to make it a more even fight without the advantage of turrets.

I often see defenders push out to finish the last retreating survivors, or to catch the first enemy mechs to get in position, if the enemy "vanguard" is being a bit reckless. But that't not particularly exciting to me. It's not the strategical depth I'm looking for, personally.

Your mileage may vary. If things are actually more strategically interesting at higher levels of competition, then that is very exciting to hear. When CW started I saw a lot of people trying to be really strategical, and over the next days it just devolved into zerging deathballs. I'd be very happy if the meta changed from defenders just huddling up inside the base and blasting the legs of anyone who moves through the gate. I'd love to see a tendency of defenders being proactive and trying to take out the attackers before they reach the gates. But that doesn't seem to be what Russ Bullock is aiming for, judging by his comments in the Town Hall meeting.

[Lily from animove]

No the issue is simply, they want some kind of true conquest mode, where the attackers slowly conqur the base, which hardly works, because that concept would require mostly something that is a siege, whith many attackers in a bad position vs a defender in a better position but being outnumbered.

The only true way to achive this is making the landscape in a correct way, so that once the attackers have claimed a part, it will be very hard for the defenders to take it back.

This would require soem dynamic, also, the attackers mayb egetting some turrets set up at the location they have won, and getting a new spawn point being at this new claimed spot.

The problem with MWO is we have limited ressources (dropdeck) and very short ttk's.
Conquest mode actualyl isn't bad, a map with 3 bases wher ethe one wins, that holds two of them at the end would be cool. But again this with the limited ressources would create the typically skirmish scenario where in the end deathbawling eqhc other to death will be the ultimate tactic. Thats a issue with the current game mechanic.

However if we would not be limited with a tonnage dropeck and lets say be allowed to have ressources for a fight on the plnet this could be different.

So lets imagine the following:

everyone gets a dropdeck of 200t or 150t he can put together.
everyone then gets 10t of "reinforcements" every minute. And so, when someone depleted his 200t dropdeck, he can just "respawn" in one of 4 selected mechs, if he has enough ressources to pay the emchs tonnage.

Now of course everything would still be abig bunch of massive brawling. Yet conquereing the bases would be the win condition. This would focus battling for the spots instead of battling for the win condition of last team standing. This will not allow "short win tactics" sicne the battle will be 30 Minutes (or maybe make it only 20, numbers are a matter of discussion).

[Karl Streiger]

At first the idea of "creating turrets" sounds strange - but the turret is just a representation of a unit of motorized infantry - and because killing infantry with big bulltes, explosives and flammer would cause another PEGI rating - turrets reflect well.

Mechs conquer - infantry hold.... and a group of heavy infantry that is fortified in a building is the bane of every Mech.

What you did discribe sounds like those MWLL games with multiples bases. WIth the difference that one side already ownes all bases - and the other unit has to take them back.

You also can play with 12 vs 12 - if there are 2-3 attack directions - means a good defense needs intel.
Sulfur is a good example for "the need" of eyes at every gate - and those eyes have to analyse the thread to know if it is a feind or an open assault.

[Lily from animove]

Karl Streiger, on 18 December 2014 - 04:02 AM, said:

At first the idea of "creating turrets" sounds strange - but the turret is just a representation of a unit of motorized infantry - and because killing infantry with big bulltes, explosives and flammer would cause another PEGI rating - turrets reflect well.

Mechs conquer - infantry hold.... and a group of heavy infantry that is fortified in a building is the bane of every Mech.

What you did discribe sounds like those MWLL games with multiples bases. WIth the difference that one side already ownes all bases - and the other unit has to take them back.

You also can play with 12 vs 12 - if there are 2-3 attack directions - means a good defense needs intel.
Sulfur is a good example for "the need" of eyes at every gate - and those eyes have to analyse the thread to know if it is a feind or an open assault.

we cna drop whole mechs, why should a dropship not be able to drop automated turrets once a area is cleared and safe to drop them? Cmon its 3049,l not everything can be lostech at all.

But I never played MWLL so no idea about that part.

[Karl Streiger]

Lily from animove, on 18 December 2014 - 04:06 AM, said:

But I never played MWLL so no idea about that part.

http://wiki.mechlivi...Terrain_Control

http://wiki.mechlivi...tle=TC_DustBowl

i think the same would work good - in MWO.... for example on Alpine where you allready have multiple bases

[oldradagast]

It's a bad idea, IMHO.

Sure, the gate-crashing part of the current setup is boring as heck... defenders sit around watching the paint dry and taking pot-shots, while attackers - who are now very limited in viable builds since they need to be able to hit the gate generators - get to waste themselves fighting NPC turrets... but trying to the set-up into "a big brawl in the base" is just as silly.

There still seems to be a lack of understanding at the top as to why CW matches are currently repetitive and dull:

- Zero tactical movement. The defenders are chained to the base, and the attackers only have one of a few ways to enter and must loudly announce their presence (fighting the gate defenses) when doing so. Remember how boring public games were when everyone did nothing but rush the center on Terra Therma or the I9 hill on Alpine? CW matches are currently the exact same way, except that movement is even more enforced because of static objectives at those points.

- Reduced mech to mech combat: Based upon what I've seen, almost as much time in a CW game is wasted waiting around or fighting NPC's as is spent actually fighting other mechs. The defenders - when the rush finally happens - get some action in, but the attackers literally spend most of the match either fighting NPC's or WALKING at full speed to get to the generator before being legged. There's a lot of risk and very little payoff - oh, sure... you might win the match, but if the process was boring, who cares?

- Far more limited viable mech selection: The clan drop-deck is already hard-coded (3 stormcrows + 1 timberwolf, with a few folks running ECM instead), and the IS drop-deck isn't much better. Scouts serve no purpose - you know exactly where the enemy is unless you're asleep - and there are no distant objectives to capture. Assaults are of limited use, particularly on offense, since they can't move that fast and thus get left behind in the rush. Also, tonnage limits weed out any of the normally less viable but perhaps fun mechs, as does the "tryhard" nature of CW.

Long story short, the current CW game mode has serious fundamental design problems. Adding a few other NPC's to shoot inside the base or trying to "make the base brawl bigger" does NOT address any of them.

[Violent Nick]

Roadbeer, on 17 December 2014 - 09:00 PM, said:

Why would you want to leave your heavily defended fortification?

Do you even tactics?

To spot and gain info, to flank, to rout/demoralise, for precision strikes, to ambush, to prevent artillery...

[Violent Nick]

oldradagast, on 18 December 2014 - 04:18 AM, said:

It's a bad idea, IMHO.

Sure, the gate-crashing part of the current setup is boring as heck... defenders sit around watching the paint dry and taking pot-shots, while attackers - who are now very limited in viable builds since they need to be able to hit the gate generators - get to waste themselves fighting NPC turrets... but trying to the set-up into "a big brawl in the base" is just as silly.

There still seems to be a lack of understanding at the top as to why CW matches are currently repetitive and dull:

- Zero tactical movement. The defenders are chained to the base, and the attackers only have one of a few ways to enter and must loudly announce their presence (fighting the gate defenses) when doing so. Remember how boring public games were when everyone did nothing but rush the center on Terra Therma or the I9 hill on Alpine? CW matches are currently the exact same way, except that movement is even more enforced because of static objectives at those points.

- Reduced mech to mech combat: Based upon what I've seen, almost as much time in a CW game is wasted waiting around or fighting NPC's as is spent actually fighting other mechs. The defenders - when the rush finally happens - get some action in, but the attackers literally spend most of the match either fighting NPC's or WALKING at full speed to get to the generator before being legged. There's a lot of risk and very little payoff - oh, sure... you might win the match, but if the process was boring, who cares?

- Far more limited viable mech selection: The clan drop-deck is already hard-coded (3 stormcrows + 1 timberwolf, with a few folks running ECM instead), and the IS drop-deck isn't much better. Scouts serve no purpose - you know exactly where the enemy is unless you're asleep - and there are no distant objectives to capture. Assaults are of limited use, particularly on offense, since they can't move that fast and thus get left behind in the rush. Also, tonnage limits weed out any of the normally less viable but perhaps fun mechs, as does the "tryhard" nature of CW.

Long story short, the current CW game mode has serious fundamental design problems. Adding a few other NPC's to shoot inside the base or trying to "make the base brawl bigger" does NOT address any of them.

Bit harsh but fairly sound comments here. I would like to see more mixed play whether its via more active terrain inside the walls or outside/different obstacles etc without being trivial. I k ow tbis is beta ut the finished CW should look nothing like what we have now. PGI, take another 6 .months if necessary because this is so important.

[Joseph Mallan]

Violent Nick, on 18 December 2014 - 04:35 AM, said:

To spot and gain info, to flank, to rout/demoralise, for precision strikes, to ambush, to prevent artillery...

Only saw one REASON to leave the base Nick. Can you guess the one.

[Vincent V. Kerensky]

InspectorG, on 17 December 2014 - 08:50 PM, said:

Orbital fire support on the Attacker's drop zone. Support that HURTS.

From who, the defenders? Where is the logic in that? Whose ships do you think are orbiting a planet someone is attacking anyway?

[NovaFury]

Sandpit, on 18 December 2014 - 12:41 AM, said:

Defending forces don't rush their entire military force outside of their heavily fortified base in any kind of military strategy. If they did, they'd lose control of that base and come home to its charred remains.

In siege warfare, if an attacking force did not suitably outnumber a defending force, they would blockade the fortress and force the defenders to rely entirely on internal supplies. If besieged long enough, the defenders would eventually die of starvation. Of course this often meant garrisonning an attacking siege force around a fortified position for months at a time, which was a difficult endeavour but meant you'd eventually just walk in and shank a bunch of emanciated people dying of malnutrition and wave your flag at how badass and courageous you were.

Thus the defenders, when feeling an advantage, would 'sally forth' in a wave suddenly while the attacking besiegers were unprepared in an attempt to drive them off and regain logistical control of their position. In many cases, this was a 'do or die' tactic because you had no food, in other cases it was common in an attempt to cast off small forces attempting to threaten vital locations.

TL:DR; If the defenders are winning significantly they can and should just go out and kill the attackers en-masse. Nobody wants to wait for ten minutes sitting on their butts. Or if they're bads and can't aim, you should be able to push them back as far as you want. AD Atlas Solo top, AP Stalker Mid, Support and DPS mediums bot, let's go.

Edited by NovaFury, 18 December 2014 - 04:53 AM.

[Abivard]

Joseph Mallan, on 18 December 2014 - 04:41 AM, said:

Only saw one REASON to leave the base Nick. Can you guess the one.

Can you say "Spoiling Attack" children?

[L A V A]

Agree, the format could get boring fairly quickly.

How about using regular skirmish maps for the first 75 to 80% of planetary conquest and finish off with assaults on Omega as the final phase.

Gives us lots more maps to fight on, plenty of brawling and a lot of variation to keep things interesting.

[Mawai]

"he thinks trading shots at the gate leads to boring gameplay."

... and I have to agree with him to be honest. Pot shot sniping at the gates just isn't much fun.

I think one of the biggest issues with the game mode are the reinforcement drop zones.

When an attacker pushes all the way to the canon, the defender drop zone is right next to the canon. This means that the attacker usually gets wiped after a certain point since their reinforcements can't catch up in time to keep the battle going while the defender reinforcements drop directly into the fight.

Similarly, in some other cases, the defender has pushed out far enough to camp the attacker drop zones. If the attacker does not coordinate a mass drop ... then they have a problem. In addition, the defender can camp one of the three attacker drop points and eliminate 4 mechs with focused fire ... damaging them while still in the drop ship and then get to face the remaining 8 mechs split into two groups at their drop points.

I think this latter tactic is why the attacker drop ships have been upgraded to 12 ERLL from 7 medium lasers and the defender drop ships have been dropped to 7 ML from 7 ERLL. The defender doesn't typically need the extra support on their drop zone since the attackers are usually going for the gun. It will be interesting to see if this significant reduction in defender drop ship firepower will encourage some folks to camp the defender spawn points.

[Roland]

Mystere, on 17 December 2014 - 08:40 PM, said:

Oh **** it, just replace Invasion with Skirmish already, as that seems to be what the larger mentally-challenged portion of player base wants.

Community Warfare, it was nice knowing you.

There's really nothing about Community Warfare which implies a need for some objective destruction based game play.

Community warfare just implies the overall context within battles exist.

In the old MW4 planetary leagues, 99% of battles were team attrition matches. The interest came from the overall league context, and the strategy used to defeat each other.

If you want to increase the complexity of gameplay in mechwarrior, the answer is not to make idiotic boxes that need to be stood in or destroyed... because ultimately, those simplistic types of goals result in simplistic gameplay (run to area X as fast as you can and dump as much fire onto box B as possible... win).

The answer to creating complex gameplay is to provide large maps with relatively long game cycles. We had infinitely more complex combat in MW4, because of two things:
1) The maps were like 4 times the size of MWO's largest map
2) The games were between 30 minutes and an hour

The problem that MWO is running into is that it's basically got mutually exclusive requirements.. you want to have deep, complex gameplay... but you want to make it quick and easy for casuals to pick up. Sorry, but you can't really have both those things.

Deep, complex games require some minimal level of committment from those playing them.



The greatest level of depth you will achieve is from a simple game type like deathmatch, but after giving players the tools to leverage various strategies... Then, the complexity comes from the players, who are an infinite font of depth as they are intelligent beings, rather than trying to construct artificial complexity via artificial game mode goals like boxes.

[Bigbacon]

Roland, on 18 December 2014 - 06:26 AM, said:

There's really nothing about Community Warfare which implies a need for some objective destruction based game play.

Community warfare just implies the overall context within battles exist.

In the old MW4 planetary leagues, 99% of battles were team attrition matches. The interest came from the overall league context, and the strategy used to defeat each other.

If you want to increase the complexity of gameplay in mechwarrior, the answer is not to make idiotic boxes that need to be stood in or destroyed... because ultimately, those simplistic types of goals result in simplistic gameplay (run to area X as fast as you can and dump as much fire onto box B as possible... win).

The answer to creating complex gameplay is to provide large maps with relatively long game cycles. We had infinitely more complex combat in MW4, because of two things:
1) The maps were like 4 times the size of MWO's largest map
2) The games were between 30 minutes and an hour

The problem that MWO is running into is that it's basically got mutually exclusive requirements.. you want to have deep, complex gameplay... but you want to make it quick and easy for casuals to pick up. Sorry, but you can't really have both those things.

Deep, complex games require some minimal level of committment from those playing them.



The greatest level of depth you will achieve is from a simple game type like deathmatch, but after giving players the tools to leverage various strategies... Then, the complexity comes from the players, who are an infinite font of depth as they are intelligent beings, rather than trying to construct artificial complexity via artificial game mode goals like boxes.

big maps would be awesome.

whats funny is the game has had an objective based mode for a long time and no one care to actually do it. Now that there is a pretty map, everyone wants to actually go for the objective.

[Roland]

Bigbacon, on 18 December 2014 - 06:31 AM, said:

big maps would be awesome.

whats funny is the game has had an objective based mode for a long time and no one care to actually do it. Now that there is a pretty map, everyone wants to actually go for the objective.

That's not really it.

People are taking the "objective" because it's the easiest path to victory. This isn't really the same as people "wanting to go for the objective".

If you gave folks a version that had no objectives, and was simply attrition based deathmatch, then more folks would probably play that mode. As an added benefit, you wouldn't be limited to only two maps.

[AlmightyAeng]

Mystere, on 17 December 2014 - 09:13 PM, said:

<steps out of the shadows>
Psst! People are already successfully employing layered defenses to stop rushes.
<steps back into the shadows>

And these changes will probably make that easier...because if your first 2 layers of defense are breached, attackers won't be able to AS quickly and easily kill your cannon. You'll have a better chance to push them back and reset your lines.

Shrug. Okay. Defender buff. Fine.

Edited by Ghost Badger, 18 December 2014 - 06:47 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

Roland, on 18 December 2014 - 06:26 AM, said:

The problem that MWO is running into is that it's basically got mutually exclusive requirements.. you want to have deep, complex gameplay... but you want to make it quick and easy for casuals to pick up. Sorry, but you can't really have both those things.
Deep, complex games require some minimal level of committment from those playing them.
The greatest level of depth you will achieve is from a simple game type like deathmatch, but after giving players the tools to leverage various strategies... Then, the complexity comes from the players, who are an infinite font of depth as they are intelligent beings, rather than trying to construct artificial complexity via artificial game mode goals like boxes.

Wish I could like this post twice.

Mawai, on 18 December 2014 - 06:06 AM, said:

"he thinks trading shots at the gate leads to boring gameplay."
... and I have to agree with him to be honest. Pot shot sniping at the gates just isn't much fun.

Pot shot sniping at the gates only happens because we can't have any meaningful engagements at the gate. It's not like a normal siege where the defenders have the advantage of superior positions and can fire at incoming attackers. There's just two hills on either side of the gate, with just enough room for 3-4 guys to trade gauss rounds and blue lightning balls.

That comes down to bad game design. It's not a fundamental flaw in this game mode. It's just the way they implemented it. By the way, I agree with him too. But it didn't have to come down to this kind of choice.

[Violent Nick]

Joseph Mallan, on 18 December 2014 - 04:41 AM, said:

Only saw one REASON to leave the base Nick. Can you guess the one.

Was talking about traditional siege warfare.. all valid reasons why a defender may leave a fortified position to one degree or another. You apply these to MWO how you want.

Edited by Violent Nick, 18 December 2014 - 10:52 AM.