132 replies to this topic

[UncleKulikov]

Salvage shouldn't be nearly as punishing for the losing player.

For salvage to work:
Let's say I win a round, and I destroyed an atlas with a 1 in a million AC20 shot to the head. So it shears the head clean off, leaving the whole mech undamaged.

I would have a chance to salvage (receive a copy of) each undamaged component in the mech that I destroyed. If more than one person damaged the mech, whatever amount of salvagable gear is split proportionally between all players, resulting in C bills if a whole component can't be split.

For the losing player, they would have to pay to "repair" all the items that had been salvaged, as if they were completely destroyed.

Note: mech chassis wouldn't be salvageable.

[Bloody]

i am in 2 minds about this

on 1 hand i seen the effect having an elitist hardcore monopolizing the game and simply driving the newbies away, with salvage this kills games when the start ups feel that they have no chance facing a group of full clan equipped lance versus their hard won newly formed lance. Games die off that way , no one likes losing and pvp games cause of alot of grief. Lets be realistic here no one is gonna keep playing the chump no matter how dedicated. They will quit and when the majority quits the game keels over. I heard all the same bullshit from the elitists going You losers, you suck if you coordinate you can win etc . Yeah go count the pvp mmorpgs that are still going strong. Not many eh?

On the other hand, without loss there is no gain. There is no thrill no anxiety and ultimately no fun when you cannot lose anything except time.

[EDMW CSN]

Bloody, on 24 November 2011 - 01:05 AM, said:

i am in 2 minds about this

on 1 hand i seen the effect having an elitist hardcore monopolizing the game and simply driving the newbies away, with salvage this kills games when the start ups feel that they have no chance facing a group of full clan equipped lance versus their hard won newly formed lance. Games die off that way , no one likes losing and pvp games cause of alot of grief. Lets be realistic here no one is gonna keep playing the chump no matter how dedicated. They will quit and when the majority quits the game keels over. I heard all the same bullshit from the elitists going You losers, you suck if you coordinate you can win etc . Yeah go count the pvp mmorpgs that are still going strong. Not many eh?

On the other hand, without loss there is no gain. There is no thrill no anxiety and ultimately no fun when you cannot lose anything except time.

That is where the TT BV systems comes in.

For example.
The Timberwolf and Marauder are both 75 tons each.

4x Timberwolf Prime is 10948 BV.
8x Marauder MAD-3R is only 10904 BV.

They even have another 40 BV for a few J-27s with AC/5 ammo if they needed.
But balancing by BV is another topic......

Cos in practice, if you put 6 high KDR MAD-3R players with another 2 KDR average players against 4 average KDR Timberwolf pilots... My money is on the guys with high KDR (Kill to Death Ratio).

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 24 November 2011 - 01:40 AM.

[John Clavell]

I'd like to see salvage go into the Merc Corp Inventory or at least the option for pilots to turn over their salvage as part of membership, employment.

[goon]

what you could do to solve public grieving for parts (if that's really that big of an issue, I mean it actually sounds like good way to get people to work together, "hey look it's a big mech with fancy equipment, lets get it!") is have any salvaged bits from public games be immediately liquidated into C-bills.

Edited by goon, 24 November 2011 - 03:12 AM.

[Mainland]

I too think that salvaging is a large part of the game. I assume that if your mech is destroyed there may still be some operating devices. While I wouldn't like to lose an entire mech perhaps what could be salvageable would be devices which are not destroyed and I assume that there will only be a small part of such devices in a annihilated mech.

Then again if the cost of weapons and gadgets are extremely high and you may lose if the other team wins I wonder what that does to game mechanics. Say if you can salvage mechs you have destroyed I would anticipate that everyone would wait for that final shot. In addition battles may become very stiff with teams hiding from each other forever just not to be destroyed and who would like to scout?

[Draco Argentum]

Clark, on 23 November 2011 - 08:43 PM, said:

Pray do tell, how do I make this poll a 'realistic one'? I gave you an option for and against salvage. If you don't like salvage then vote against it. Mainly I wanted the discussion going on now. I like the idea of salvage but the points raised against it are interesting and worth while. I think Psydotek may be on to something here.

Its unrealistic in that its very obvious that we won't be gunning for pink slips. There is exactly 0% chance that having your mech destroyed or otherwise disabled will take it away from you. A F2P game relies on a high player count, having people lose their mechs 50% of the time is a sure way to drive the mediocre through to bad players away.

[Cyote13]

Another way to help with the grieving is to have a good match making logarithms. Most of us want to actually have a chance to take Hesperus, or to defend it and want every single battle we are involved in to be part of a campaign, but I imagine most matches are just going to be a battle on a map.

For the campaigns, yes there should be some sort of salvage rules involved. I shouldn't be able to suicide charge in an Atlas in match after back to back match if those matches will decide the fate of a planet.

But in pick up matches just to have a fun fight players shouldn't loose there shirt if they are teamed up with a bunch of idiots.

So salvage, yes and no and for the appropriate place.

[JebusGeist]

I think salvage of entire mechs is a good idea and the rage quitting can be minimized quite easily, it all relies on how the faction and lance mechanics work.

I think the default mechs offered to pilots should be based mostly on a leveled system revolving around your lances fame/battle experience, partly on what resources are found in the territory your faction controls, and of course, your pilots experience.

Let's say a new player joins Faction X. Faction X doesn't control much territory but part of their territory includes a factory that manufactures Argus chassis which is one of his favorite heavy mechs.
He then has a choice of either starting a new lance within that faction or joining an existing one that has room for another pilot. He joins Lance X who just that day had a slot open up.
Lance X has been around for a while and garnered a decent amount of fame/battle experience within Faction X. Because lance X has gained some fame/battle experience they have a higher status within their faction and because of that the player has a slightly larger and better selection of default(cheap or free) weapons/chassis to choose from.
Lance X's fame/battle experience mean they even see the Argus chassis listed as a default mech loadout. However because the player is new his pilot experience isn't high enough for him to use all the default gear available to his lance (after all you wouldn't hand the keys to your jaguar to someone who just got their learners permit). I am not however suggesting that the players ability to use a weapon or mech necessarily be dependent on experience, just that their ability to get it for free or cheap as a default loadout should be.

The best mechs and weapons are of course never available to anyone as free default equipment no matter what their faction controls or how high their lance has climbed within it. If you want the best, you pay for it, and maybe risk losing it.

This way your lance can salvage some of the enemy lances chassis without the enemy taking as much of a loss because they will still have access to decent default mechs and gear to use to earn up those c-bills and eventually replace their lost gear.

Losing your beloved atlas that you spent a large fortune buying and outfitting with high quality weaponry is a part of the thrill of the game. If you weren't able to risk bankruptcy by blowing all your c-bills on a shiny new toy and taking it out into the battlefield where you might permanently lose it, then, you would be giving up on a lot of the thrill involved in being at that heart pounding moment where the next shot landed by you or your opponent will mean the difference between glorious victory and being cast back down to the slums

That being said, losing ones mech really only makes sense in faction vs faction conflicts over territory for two reasons:

1. If Faction X fights Faction Y over territory and loses, they of course can't get in to salvage and vice versa.
2. If a conflict isn't over control of territory then presumably even if your lance completely fails its objective some other faceless lance of mercs would have been hired to clean up the mess you've made. Then it's only a matter of deciding to modify canon a bit so that at some point it became standard practice for mercs to demand a clause in their contracts holding the contracting company responsible for returning their registered chassis to them if (when) they are salvaged and another clause that holds the merc faction/lance responsible for handing over any registered chassis they salvage to the contracting company.

Chassis salvage could also be available as an option that can be set by the host in PvP battles that aren't over territory (solaris matches etc).

Edited by JebusGeist, 24 November 2011 - 05:28 AM.

[Blacstonn]

winner takes whats left behind, runners get what they can grab or drag and have to get out of range to keep them.

this creates the overwatch need, also it gives the loser a chance to get at least something for there near death exp. losing your fire moth but getting an lrm or large pulse might be even trade.

[EDMW CSN]

Blacstonn, on 24 November 2011 - 06:18 AM, said:

winner takes whats left behind, runners get what they can grab or drag and have to get out of range to keep them. this creates the overwatch need, also it gives the loser a chance to get at least something for there near death exp. losing your fire moth but getting an lrm or large pulse might be even trade.

Let's see I am a IS merc pilot... So losing a CLANTECH OMNI mech is NOT a good trade for an LRM20 !

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 24 November 2011 - 06:47 AM.

[BLeeD]

I almost guarantee there will be no salvage in this game. would be way to hard to implement. Pretty sure its going to follow the Wot model of leveling up. where you lvlv up with you pilot with exp and traits and you lvl up your mech and buy parts that are pre assigned , tell you have enough points to purchase the next mech in the line you are following. you usually start with a basic mech and then it branches off into other trees light , or a certain med class to get to heavy class.

Edited by BLeeD, 25 November 2011 - 07:18 AM.

[Sam Slade]

This is not going to be a 'sandbox' game by all accounts. There is a great sandbox PvP MMO out there with giant robots (Perpetuum Online) and I'd recommend that if you want salvage.

In an FPS/Sim style game with a large casual population and an even larger difference between casual and hardcore fan(I've never seen so man damned acronyms) the only logical result of a 'sandbox' mechanic (salvage) being applied is the casual gamers get bored/angry and quit. Ragequit disconnecting to protect gear would become the norm; if you ended up with a team of 13 year old 'death charge' kids would you stick around or abandon them to their obvious fate?

[Riptor]

Since this is a f2p MMO with cash shop..

Theres just no way i can see Piranha going to implement Perma destruction of your mechs. I think it will be much more like WoT where you take the wreckage back to base and repair it.

Salvage could work out as someone said before, getting copies of whatever item was not completly destroyed in the battle from shot down enemy mechs.

[Kylarus]

I'd like to see two styles of account/Pilot setups. Think Diablo on this, Normal and Hardcore.

Normal: Standardized Salvage rules, at the end of combat, each 'mech you personally had a hand in gunning down and each piece of equipment on it is rolled for whether it is intact enough to sell. Those that are intact enough are then sold for straight C-Bills(if the game market allows one to buy anything they want) or is loaded up for you to use(this assumes there is an ingame auction as well). Those who lost will lose none of their 'mech, but will have to pay a bunch of C-Bills in repairs.

Hardcore: Similar to above, but the loser will lose their 'mech and everything in it. Destroyed equipment is gone, damaged equipment will need C-Bills for repairs. I'd say to allow cross pollination in the auction houses to keep the number of 'mechs going and allow for people to buy 'mechs and equipment from "other battlefronts." Also, if there is to be a clan roll-out or a SLDF-era equipment roll-out, this should be the starting server-set for it, as the players here are more likely to prize it.

Doing this, people that sign on for Hardcore will know exactly what they're getting into and those that don't want that problem can still play and have fun. Difference in the two is that in one side a losing player will lose stuff and the other one that player won't. The winner in either still gets his/her spoils. I'd probably say to ensure those two types should not be allowed to battle each other, but meh.

[Big Red]

Bloody, on 24 November 2011 - 01:05 AM, said:

on 1 hand i seen the effect having an elitist hardcore monopolizing the game and simply driving the newbies away, with salvage this kills games when the start ups feel that they have no chance facing a group of full clan equipped lance versus their hard won newly formed lance.

On the other hand, without loss there is no gain. There is no thrill no anxiety and ultimately no fun when you cannot lose anything except time.

[EDMW]CSN, on 24 November 2011 - 01:38 AM, said:

4x Timberwolf Prime is 10948 BV.
8x Marauder MAD-3R is only 10904 BV.

Cos in practice, if you put 6 high KDR MAD-3R players with another 2 KDR average players against 4 average KDR Timberwolf pilots... My money is on the guys with high KDR (Kill to Death Ratio).

For those 4 players to get 4 x Timberwolf Primes they aren't going to be 4 average KDRs and even if they are they are more than likely going to be coming up against a group of friends plus some pugs in those 8 Marauders so likely 4 Avg KDR friends + 1 High KDR pug + 1 Avg KDR pug and their BF/GF/Hubby/Wife/2nd Cousin Low KDR and the usual bash and crash ooh look splodies! Low KDR pilot.

If they balanced by BV they would have to have brackets otherwise you would get the situation of requiring too many players on one side to get in many games (there won't be any questing or grinding whilst you wait to get into your match in MWO given it is pure match based PvP at this stage)

Conceivably the salvage option could be included as long as it doesn't negatively affect other players.

Effectively reward system should be:

ZERO reward for a loss and no objectives reached
LOW reward for a loss but with partial objective reached (modified by % destruction)
LOW reward for a win but with an starting advantage (eg 12000-BV v 10000-BV) (modified by % destruction)
HIGH rewards for a win but with no starting advantage (eg 10000-BV v 12000-BV) (modified by % destruction)

[Kurayami]

Personally i'm for full salvage. But players should be given chance to save at least base chassis - with adequate C-Bills\time penalty via repairs\refit. So going commando on your shining new Atlas will not guarantee instantly loosing it (something among 15-25% base recovery chance +- additional circumstance like location, battle performance etc up to 80-90% chance for win and 0% for total defeat) but will force you to think twice before doing it again.
That way salvage list will consist of parts (up to fully fitted mech if someone used catapult) that was not recovered so we will still have chance to salvage something good and new\yoba players will not drop game. As for ragequit - just leave mech on battlefield when player disconnects and ragequit will vanish. tested on endless games - best solution possible imho.

[Tierloc]

Salvage should do provide something to the winning team of the match even if that's just what they call the rewards for winning, not sure it needs to be as complicated as some of the suggestions I've read though.

[Red Beard]

Tierloc, on 25 November 2011 - 12:07 PM, said:

not sure it needs to be as complicated as some of the suggestions I've read though.

Agreed. Seems like there is too much fanboy fantasy going on. Salvage will most likely not carry over into a spoils of war type of thing, but more likely just replenish your mech in-battle somehow. If you could down an enemy mech and take the salvage with you, just imagine the cheating that would take place.

[DocBach]

The original MechWarrior awarded you c-bills for what you salvaged was worth, instead of actually salvaging actual 'Mechs or components. A "salvage" bonus could just be based off how much damage you did to the other team's 'Mechs, with some extra c-bills thrown in for scoring the coup de gras.