66 replies to this topic

[Angel of Annihilation]

Nicolai Kabrinsky, on 20 December 2014 - 09:05 PM, said:

It was a tongue-in-cheek comment, but Hollywood has no shortage of movies about a small group of soldiers who go deep into enemy territory, do some damage and evacuate before getting overwhelmed.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059263/


I agree with that last part. And therein lies the balancing factor. It doesn't matter if the attackers lose 10 mechs or 47 mechs, as long as they can take down the gun. It's not the same as when NATO is estimating how many troops are needed to take and hold an enemy defensive position. Modern western armies rarely base their tactics around the premise that they just need a 50% chance to accomplish their goal and it's irrelevant how many lives they lose in the process. It's called zerging because the hive mind doesn't care how many bugs it loses in the process. That's not how modern armies operate, so the comparison fails.

Let's not forget that countries like the USA have a policy to only engage in wars that can be won quickly and decisively, with minimal losses. They're not going for a 50% success rate, but this game mode is, by definition, designed to give the attacker no advantage.

You have to look at really desperate situations in military history to find examples that match the scenario in MWO. Events where one side was forced to attack without the advantage of superior numbers. If you go far back in history, attacking and winning against superior numbers is hardly without precedent.

However, all those scenarios have one thing in common that is what the military likes to call "Force Multipliers".

Definition:

• Force multiplication, in military usage, refers to an attribute or a combination of attributes which make a given force more effective than that same force would be without it.

Some common force multipliers are:

• Morale
  
• Technology
  
• Geographical features
  
• Weather
  
• Recruitment through diplomacy
  
• Training and experience
  
• Fearsome reputation
  
• Deception
  
• Military strategy, such as the Fabian strategy
  
• Military tactics, such as force concentration

http://en.wikipedia...._multiplication

This is why numerically inferior forces win against numerically superior forces. Take Blackhawk down. First we are taking Ranger's here, which are about as Elite as they come without resorting to special operations forces like Detla or SEALs. They have massively better training, massively better equipment, massively better support, etc. which is why they can inflict such horrendous losses on the attackers. In this case their force multipler is like 10x the opposing force or one Ranger = ten Somali attackers. Of course in their case they were outnumbered about 30 to 1 so they couldn't have won and had to retreat. So if you go back in history and look at all those engagements where attacking against superior numbers happened, each and every one of those victories was a result of the attacking force possessing superior force multiplication, ie, that had some sort of advantage.

So what people have been trying to point out is that an attacker either needs superior numbers or some sort of force multiplier (advantage) on their side in order to win in CW. If you take two equal forces with equal quality pilots and leadership, then it is virtually impossible for a attacker to win when the defender also has the advantage of turrets, narrow approach lanes that can be covered by overlapping fields of fire and shorter runs from the dropships.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 21 December 2014 - 01:47 PM.

[KraftySOT]

Espirit de Corps, or "Morale" is the main reason those Delta operators were able to save Michael Durant's life.

A soldiers willingness to put himself in harms way.

Most people dont understand these concepts, and thats why theyre trying to figure out a way to get the attackers to fight the defenders in a big brawl, and the winner of this 25 minute brawl, is the winnah.

To me...some one who does understand these concepts, its literally vulgar to me, the idea of the attackers and defenders bashing each other until someone rises to the top and then, as an afterthought, go and complete the objective.

Like...vomit on the floor vulgar.

And Fabian was the man.

Probably the only person in the world, who has ever been handed absolute power and authority over the most powerful nation in the world, and gave it back voluntarily.

Fabian is also the solution the Zerg Rush...for what its worth. His strategy that beat Carthage.

[kapusta11]

Savage Wolf, on 21 December 2014 - 12:17 PM, said:

Yes. It would be my best option. Otherwise I would shoot back, kill someone and suddenly have an immortal dropship shoot at me while the defender just gets a new mech. The problem remains, nothing changes.

Otherwise, please explain how you suggestion changes the problems that I mentioned in the original post or explain why they don't apply.

And here I assume capping should also be changed so that an enemy mech in the cap zone, doesn't stop capping. Otherwise it would be neigh impossible to pull of.

You'll buy yourself some time to cap by killing enemies, time to drop + time to move to caping zone. You don't need to out kill enemy team, just cap the objectives. Yest capping should be changed, one enemy mech counters one mech from the other team, and defending theam shouldn't be able to capture it back.

Edited by kapusta11, 21 December 2014 - 01:58 PM.

[KraftySOT]

And lets take this a step further...what are MWOs force multipliers?

Teamspeak
Unit Cohesion
Experience
Meta-building/Equipment
Modules
Singular leadership
Terrain
Good PC equipment (good connection, hi res, fast frame rate)

You guys want to know why you lose? Because youre green. Plain and simple.

People who properly utilize the above force multipliers, win far more consistently than any military force in history. For one simple reason. The vast majority of the opposition are basically peasants with pitchforks against well trained units.

[Savage Wolf]

kapusta11, on 21 December 2014 - 01:57 PM, said:

You'll buy yourself some time to cap by killing enemies, time to drop + time to move to caping zone. You don't need to out kill enemy team, just cap the objectives. Yest capping should be changed, one enemy mech counters one mech from the other team, and defending theam shouldn't be able to capture it back.

Well it's true that I would have a reason to shoot back once I get there, but not before that. Killing a defender does not help me on my way there. So while it does help a little, but it doesn't solve it altogether I think.

Also, one mech counters one enemy mech would go nowhere since the defenders are almost always 12 and attackers numbers are quickly reduced. They would need to not counter at all. And yes, not be able to capture it back.

I think what I dislike the most is simply that I like that we need to blow things up. It fits well as a surgical strike to take out a key structure. But I cannot deny that your idea does have some merit.

[gcmdr chris]

easy, 2 decks, one defense one attack.
attack get +20tons to their maximum, so 180-260 and defense keep the same 240max, but can only take 3 mechs

[LordKnightFandragon]

Well, having just come out of a Counter attack on Ferris, I can safely say the Defense on Borreal needs to spawn behind the gun and come out of hangars or something. Ofc we lost, cuz it couldnt end any other way.

Even if the attack breaks through, the defense drops right on the objective with heavy turret support and shiny new mechs and just mows down the attackers. Then, the only angle to shoot the gun is directly behind it, surrounded by fresh mechs and like 4 turrets.

Sulpher just needs to maybe move the gun back just a bit so it's own angles of attack into the gun are lessened a bit, but Sulpher is a much better overall balanced map. I have seen attack win it every time ive been on it though...sooo yeah. Maybe swayed a bit towards attack...

[StillRadioactive]

The problem with the Invasion game-mode is that people are looking at an individual game as though it should give a 50/50 chance of victory for each team.

This is simply untrue.

Invasion - as a game mode - is not disconnected from the meta level game being played by the unit leaders who sit in command teamspeak channels for hours leading up to each ceasefire and manage their 12-mans for optimum effect. It is not expected that half of the teams will win their individual games, because there is no faction penalty for an attacking or counter-attacking team that fails.

None.

The attacker has nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Thus, if the odds were 50/50, every planet would be dictated solely by which faction can consistently ready up a 12-man the fastest (since the team to build a 12-man first gets the attack). If half of the attackers won and half of them lost, then statistically speaking, it would take 16 games to flip a planet. This is clearly unacceptable.

This means that the Invasion game mode must be heavily stacked in the favor of the defender, since the defender's faction has everything to lose and nothing to gain. As it stands, I'd put the odds of a successful attack on Sulfurous Rift at around 55%, while the odds of a successful attack on Boreal are around 35% with organized groups. When pugs meet pugs, the odds go down to about 40% for Sulfurous and 10% for Boreal.

Sulfurous is, in fact, too easy for the attacker.

Stacking the deck so that the attacker has more tonnage, or more 'mechs, or less of an uphill battle to fight will only exaggerate the problems we see on the meta level - the changes on the faction map, and I think OP understands that which is why he's not saying that the game mode needs to be more BALANCED. He's saying that the game mode needs to stop penalizing the destruction of enemy 'mechs, because right now it doesn't matter how you intend to play the attack, killing a 'mech spawns a dropship and a fresh 'mech right where you need to be, which is a direct disincentive to killing.

I think the ideal solution is to have the defenders spawn either off to the side or far to the rear of the objective, with a walking path between them and the combat zone, that way killing a 'mech will actually take it out of the fight for a while, which means that a killing shot grants a temporary advantage to the attacker rather than a handicap.

To compensate for this, the turrets should have their strength buffed a bit (to stop zerging) but should be more vulnerable to being destroyed (make them fixed turrets, not popups, so that they don't have a damage shield. Thus they can be engaged from outside of their targeting range if you're willing to spend the time doing it.)

[Savage Wolf]

Yes, I was only trying to adress the issue of attackers having no reason to actually kill defenders. Many other facets of this game mode might need looking into, but many of the solutions heard around the forum does nothing to fix this problem. And I think this has to be fixed before any other tweaks should be applied simply because fixing this problem would change what the proper balance is anyway. And no need to balance twice.

I also think a fix to this problem would make a lot of the people that prefer deathmatch a little happier, knowing there is a place for some mech to mech combat as well for attackers. As long as they still support the effort of getting the objective.

[Wolfgang2685]

Savage Wolf, on 20 December 2014 - 10:27 AM, said:

1) The time for a defender to respawn needs to be higher.

2) Defenders need to respawn further away from the objective. Maybe even in a base so they do not get the support of a dropship above the objective.

Another important chance is that the time to respawn should be based on when the kill happens, not based on drop times so that you can get lucky and kill him when it takes the longest time for him to respawn or unlucky and he respawns the next second.

regarding 1 - 30 seconds, from the moment you die. Absolutely yes.

regarding 2 - heavily turreted bunkers out of sight of the omega that wont shoot at passerby, only campers. All of my yes.

Also global attacker rewards for killing turrets

Also global attacker rewards for killing generators, and even more for omega.

Even if a failure, killing some objectives gives LP rewards for attackers.

Defense gets an LP boost per every objective defended (including turrets which count as 1% LP bonus each, not including bunker turrets). This would just about make CW perfect in my personal opinion.

[Cerberias]

Everyone says that the attackers are in such a terrible position, but in an organised group the defender has to react to your moves. An attacking team could for example take very long range weaponry and harass the defenders and wear them down or they could take a heavy brawling deck and get in close - they have the initiative - and you should never underestimate the initiative.

A defender free firing is a hell of a lot of damage, one that has to move back into cover and dodge to avoid taking fire is doing less. If you can lever it well enough so that you can maintain a positional advantage by hitting them on two fronts so they can't move on your position, you can do a lot more damage than you take with the right mechs. Nothing to stop attackers from putting the defenders in a position of 'between a rock and a hard place' and pinned in cover under heavy fire. Wear them down and it not only makes it harder for them to justify taking risks, which lowers their overall damage output, but it puts them under pressure - leading to mistakes. You can win games on attack by just wiping them out.

Obviously this isn't an easy task, and is extremely hard with a pug group, which is probably why we see very few attackers for a lot of defenders all the time..

Edited by Cerberias, 26 December 2014 - 06:27 AM.

[Basilisk222]

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Legend:
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G = Generator
X = Concrete platform
S = Spawn Points
++ = Gun
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Now, as you can see, the map as I've cobbled together has a lot of open space. It doesn't reflect a lot of the hills in the center part of the map.

But, as you can see, there is an enormous distance from the gates to the objective. If you look at the other map (sulfur), you'll notice the objective is closer to the gates. The walk to the gates however, is longer.

I fully believe this is why Sulfer is easier to attack than Boreal. There's simply less time to get destroyed before you make it somewhere. this is what I propose:


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reduce the inner base bit by about 25%.

What this does, is move the drop points in range to people at the buildings with LRM.

The gates then become much more of a contested area, as breaching them becomes much more dangerous.

I'd argue increasing number of turrets would make the change more interesting.

Edited by Kilgorin Strom, 26 December 2014 - 10:58 AM.

[HARDKOR]

Raise the respawn time to a hard 45 seconds and it becomes quite advantageous to kill the enemy before you run in.

Currently, my solution to the lack of fighting is that I provide cover fire for the rush and go through the gate last with the mission of taking the heat off the runners(anyone who didn't bring a proper meta build should just run in and fight npcs since they are less effective at the actual killing part.) .

[Basilisk222]

Now, more on topic here, how to get the brawls going. more often,

I like the idea of penalizing defense more for their spawns in practice, but I don't like it logistically.

Defense should by all rights have their stuff right at their fingertips, they should be quicker to respond and reload than the attackers, after all, they're home.

But I do think defense should have a mech fielded penalty, they should have to work with less resources on the back foot.

Leave the tonnages the same, but drop the defense deck by a mech. 36 vs 48. That means, defense can bring 2 big mechs and a small helper. or 3 heavies. or 3 mediums or 3 lights, whatever they want. But having less overall resources keeps them more conscious of what they're fielding, and changes the dynamic, often, first wave will wipe out 2-3 defenders and all 12 other mechs. Second, there's some catching up but often losses are similar. by the time the real fight over the guns break out. defense usually has killed in the 30's and offense has killed in the 20's At no point in a game should you have an "expendable" mech. Ejecting should be reserved for zombies or a complete ammo dispersion.

Punish Defense for wasting resources, reward attackers more for taking those resources.

[HARDKOR]

I rarely use more than two mechs on defense and often end the game yellow and on my first one. Three waves for defense is probably fine.

[Tarogato]

Here's my brainstorming:

: Significantly longer respawns for defenders - killing a defender actually means something.
: Defenders spawn in mechbays instead of dropships.
: Take away defender dropships completely - replace their firepower with more turrets. This makes it more necessary to fight your way up and take out turrets as you go, because just zerg'ing will get you own'd by turrets every time unless you take them out.

[MischiefSC]

KraftySOT, on 20 December 2014 - 12:15 PM, said:

*Superior fire

Equipment, espirit de corps, training, numbers, terrain, positioning, all these things play a factor, and any one can be the main factor of the effort.

But yeah people dont seem to understand its not about holding what youve captured, or even taking the territory, its about destroying an objective.

Imagine an action like, an infantry company with some support, moving to contact, then tasked with bringing down a barn or house that spotters are using to direct artillery fire. (same basic premise as destroying the orbital gun)

They can do that with a small portion of that infantry company, even if more than company holds the surrounding area. Its about the schwerpunkt. Its about the focal point. You make contact with the smallest force possible, leaving your units able to manuever to good positions, then rapidly build up fire, force the enemy off their defensive position, destroy the target, fall back.

While two companies or even the better part of a division may hold the area, the rapid build up of fire, gaining fire superiority at a focal point, can be done with a variety of means, even at a force deficit. Force multipliers can make a very small force, a very powerful force. Those multipliers can be anything these days, since NCOs are pretty much running actions since Tank Attack! made the case for it.

And its moderately off topic.

People seem to have this idea that its SUPPOSED to be a big giant brawl and the gun is destroyed all the time with only moments to spare.

When in reality, no matter what you do, the people who know what theyre doing, are always going to do the same. Make contact with a small force, use TS as a force multiplier, manuever to build up fire superiority, move the defenders from their positions, then complete the objective.

No, it's exactly the topic. It's why the shell game works well on attack with pugs and the murderball works poorly with pugs but with an organized unit the opposite is true. With pugs you split into lances and try to put each lance in a position to generate crossfire or bypass enemy fortified positions because they lack the tools (and the focus) to lay down supporting fire in a line. With pugs you use your teammates as bait to draw the defenders out of superior position (a light rush to a gen, causing them to pull out to respond or have 3 or 4 assaults go right up the middle, a threat they have to turn from their firing line to address) and the other more as a wave than a line.

With an organized team it's almost the opposite - you position to attack points that will then put you in a position to overrun defensive positions that open up the objective or, while on defense, you create a firing line or channel that leads the enemy into a vulnerable position.

You sound like someone with a military education. School or service if I can ask?

[Savage Wolf]

Kilgorin Strom, on 26 December 2014 - 11:19 AM, said:

Now, more on topic here, how to get the brawls going. more often, I like the idea of penalizing defense more for their spawns in practice, but I don't like it logistically. Defense should by all rights have their stuff right at their fingertips, they should be quicker to respond and reload than the attackers, after all, they're home. But I do think defense should have a mech fielded penalty, they should have to work with less resources on the back foot. Leave the tonnages the same, but drop the defense deck by a mech. 36 vs 48. That means, defense can bring 2 big mechs and a small helper. or 3 heavies. or 3 mediums or 3 lights, whatever they want. But having less overall resources keeps them more conscious of what they're fielding, and changes the dynamic, often, first wave will wipe out 2-3 defenders and all 12 other mechs. Second, there's some catching up but often losses are similar. by the time the real fight over the guns break out. defense usually has killed in the 30's and offense has killed in the 20's At no point in a game should you have an "expendable" mech. Ejecting should be reserved for zombies or a complete ammo dispersion. Punish Defense for wasting resources, reward attackers more for taking those resources.

That would not yield any rewards for the attackers before they have destroyed at least 25 mechs. That's a long time to wait before getting any rewards and if they never get that far, all their efforts are equal nothing. I think we need a more immediate reward to motivate any fighting with the defenders except for some hardcare skirmish fans that would fight no matter what.

[BourbonFaucet]

We need the respawn time for the defenders to be significantly larger. One minute. Something to make them think, or at least allow the push from the attackers to work. Would not help zerg rushes since it's hard to knock out enemies with lights.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

Am I one of the few that prefers the Attack more than the Defense?

I mean the attackers get the initiative. The defenders more often have to react.


Other than that, I think PGI needs to borrow a few books from the BF series, TF2, and a few other very, very popular multiplayer games. They don't have to reinvent the wheel.