24 replies to this topic

[Vas79]

During a discussion about ghost drops in a thread in the Liao section we hit upon an idea that might be worth while so I throw it up here for discussion and dissection.

All factions face the pain of seeing worlds being ghost dropped during non-peak hours and even with the transition to three windows of attack that probably won't change. An idea that myself and another player from my unit had just tossed randomly out there during conversations about CW was for an individual planet cease fire. We fleshed the idea out some and now I present it here.

Each planet would have a number of tickets that represent the number of mechs that the attacking and defending forces could bring to the battle. For arguments sake lets call it 720 (48 Mechs x 15 zones). Every time the attacking or defending force lost a mech that ticket would be removed from the overall planet pool. You would be able to flip planets in one of two ways as the attacker, the first would obtaining all 15 zones as the attacker or through attrition on the defending faction.

Once the planet was captured it would go into cool down mode and open up the next planet in the corridor allowing the advance to continue on. In order to mitigate ghost drops being the deciding factor 25% of the planet, either as the attacker or the defender would have to be played matches and not ghost drops.

This system may also help curb rushes as the attacking team as your now looking at sacrificing combat power you may need later in the battle for the planet by rushing for the Gens and Omega and earning a win where you lose more mechs then the defending team.

The victory conditions for the attacker are hold 100% of the planet or attrit the defending force to the point where they can no longer mount an effective defense. When all defending forces are removed the remaining attacker tickets would be totaled and zones still in defending force hands may change sides to allow the attackers to be over 53% and claim the planet. It would work the same way for the defending force, once the attacker tickets are spent the remaining defender tickets would be counted and would allow for the defending team to reclaim zones taken by the attackers.

This would also allow a bonus system to be implemented to pay teams who used their resources well during drops. A bonus could be paid for each ticket still in the pool at the end of the round and when the planet flips.

Planet ownership would still be determined by the unit who has the most points acquired on that planet.

The original posts can be found here:
http://mwomercs.com/...d/page__st__220

The conversation about this starts at post 199

Edited by Vas79, 08 January 2015 - 11:24 PM.

[Karl Marlow]

I've been thinkign the same thing. Planets shouldnt instantly flip if we are goign to change to a 8 hour ceasefire cycle. Some factions are already gettign steamrolled extremely fast as it is. Having each ceasefire window only account for a quarter of the planet would create a more dynamic battleground for each panet as each side could, in theory, go back and forth while also making every ceasefire window relevant.

[MischiefSC]

I'm tempted to say it needs to be each player has, say, 16 tickets per planet per 8 hour period. This doesn't punish a faction for having a bunch of pugs and it prevents people smurfing accounts to go waste tickets on a planet.

This way competent units who are careful with resources can defend/attack a planet all day if need be. Keeps the intent but prevents abuse. Pugs can still pug - in fact it solves the 'pug issue' in that a competent team can make up for a LOT of pugs by taking a slow attrition approach. The team that wins consistently is still going to rack up wins, even if they don't do a lot of kills. However if they do it via suicide-rush they will end up getting only 4 or 5 drops on a given world every 8 hours where a team that's careful with its resources gets 8 or 10 or more. The number is adjustable but it keeps the intent without putting too much weight on numbers (good or bad).

Otherwise, brilliant idea that solves a lot of issues.

Edited by MischiefSC, 07 January 2015 - 10:45 PM.

[Kjudoon]

Easy exploit to get around this with the PUG exemption that is already done in lieu of faction drops: sync dropping.

[Roadbeer]

Very rough, needs quite a bit of work, but not the most terrible idea I've seen posted.

I give it a 7/10

[MischiefSC]

The idea is that you've got 2 ways to take a world - you can zerg gens and stuff and trade mechs for wins, but you'll only have about 4 runs per player every 8 hours. You play to attrition you can just keep dropping and dropping. This strongly rewards fighting over suicide tactics without forcing anything. It strongly rewards winning over Turret drops - I say turret drops cost you 1/2 you each 2 mechs. You may be better off exiting before you get a turret drop.

[MischiefSC]

Kjudoon, on 07 January 2015 - 11:28 PM, said:

Easy exploit to get around this with the PUG exemption that is already done in lieu of faction drops: sync dropping.

Don't exempt pugs. Just increase total mechs that can be lost. I'm in favor of 48 per player per 8 hours. That's 4 full drops worth of mechs. So you get PGI to get us an average number of kills on contested worlds per hour and use that as a baseline for flipping a world on attrition.

[Kjudoon]

I am going to throw out something related but kinda non sequiter

I don't like hard capping mechs for some reason as a gamer point of view... but at the same time see that need. So, what about a twist to R&R?

Destroyed or damaged mechs take time to repair. Minor damage and reloading takes minutes while criticals and missing limbs take longer while destroyed mechs take the longest. Make the longest repair cycle like 2-4 hours. Allow the spending of cbills or mc to speed up the cycle. This way the more reckless the battleplan, the more costly and slower that person can go unless they have a stable of mechs.

Now I know this favors the rich in the game, but you can offset this through LP discounts and eliminate it entirely for trial mechs and faction loyalists as perks.
Just thought I'd throw that in the mix now.

[Vas79]

I'm not anti R&R, but I think for the moment for this idea to have a shot it needs to be as simple as possible. Perhaps the maps in later versions of CW will encourage multiple options for how the match plays out, maybe with 8 hour drop windows we'll see the population playing CW again, but I don't think so because even broken into three segments your still looking at the back end two hours of cease fire where the difference will be made.

The tickets on a planet can be set to whatever value for an attacker or defender, this could be used as a way to make assaulting an important planet harder, the defenders would have tickets then the attackers.

[stratagos]

Kjudoon, on 08 January 2015 - 12:50 AM, said:

I am going to throw out something related but kinda non sequiter

I don't like hard capping mechs for some reason as a gamer point of view... but at the same time see that need. So, what about a twist to R&R?

Destroyed or damaged mechs take time to repair. Minor damage and reloading takes minutes while criticals and missing limbs take longer while destroyed mechs take the longest. Make the longest repair cycle like 2-4 hours. Allow the spending of cbills or mc to speed up the cycle. This way the more reckless the battleplan, the more costly and slower that person can go unless they have a stable of mechs.

Now I know this favors the rich in the game, but you can offset this through LP discounts and eliminate it entirely for trial mechs and faction loyalists as perks.
Just thought I'd throw that in the mix now.

I like this spin on repair / rearm. It doesn't force lower skilled players into poverty and Trials if they get beaten on continually; it just requires *time*.

It works for Candy Crush, PGI

[Felix7007]

2 problems:

1) The maps are designed for rushing in waves. Worrying about mech survival is counter-intuitive unless the maps are changed. No one is worried about saving mechs which makes the mech counter detrimentative.

2) PGI would have to program a planet cooldown, a 25% ghost drop limit and mech counter. I do not have confidence that its simple enough to implement. Gotta keep changes simple. You can't make big changes at a time without re-writing a lot of stuff.

Edited by Felix7007, 08 January 2015 - 07:15 AM.

[Vas79]

Your assuming that because everyone rushes to attack that the maps were designed that way. They were made for attacks in waves, so I would counter that mech survival isn't counter-intuitive at all. The "rush" came about because it was the quickest way to victory, and that happened because there is no down side to losing the mechs on the rush other then losing the match itself.

As for the programming portion of it I have no clue, my expertise lies in other areas.

[Felix7007]

Well if I'm forced through a chokepoint, which way do I have to go but forward? Because we can only go forward, we do it fast so we get shot less. What's that called? A rush. Running forward quickly is a rush.

Now that we've determined that's the only tactic, mech survival is limited. You may change the tactic to "Let's rush with the least amount of casualties" but what does that really change?

[Cael Voltek]

A few things up front:

This is all purely hypothetical. None of us actually know what PGI is going to do to solve the issues at hand. We are just hoping that by presenting ideas they might see it, it helps connects some dots, etc, etc. As per ease of implementation, that's a crapshoot as well as we don't know the innerworkings of CryEngine. Being a programmer, I'm assuming they are using workflows of some kinds, so implementing ideas such as this are not out of the question, it's just a matter of time.

R&R is not considered in this idea. R&R, or an economy, would radically change this and any other ideas. I'll state up front, again, that I feel an economy is what is really needed to get CW off the ground.

No matter what the idea is, people will try to exploit any shortcomings in the mechanic. The best we, or PGI, can do is try to minimize those exploits. This idea is as fleshed out as we (Vas & I) could make it, which is why we presented it here, so others could look at it and find holes or add suggestions.

Back to to the idea:
This idea does not include any mandated cease fire. Each planet would handle it's own cease fire based on zone filps, just like it does now. Each planet would enter cease fire upon: Zones reaching 100% attacker wins or tickets (resources) running out for the attacker or defender. At those points, ownership of the planet can be resolved and another planet opened up. Will this cause the game to "speed up"? Sure, it could, but it could also slow it down. If true attrition is used, it could take some time to lose all of the resources.

If the original attacker just keeps zerging, they will burn through tickets allowing the defenders to keep the planet, even if when they run out they have the majority of zones. Keep in mind, the number of tickets could be adjusted per planet depending upon planet type or if data shows that planet flips are occuring too quickly. This is also handled with the current discussion of "maps were made to attack". I could see where this could be seen as true, but I've been in several matches where the attacker stands and fights. Omega generators and the gun are destroyed after every defender has been destroyed. Rushing attacks are just one tactic that a drop commander could pick. Having to decide the worth or risk of each tactic is what we are trying to enforce.

Edited by Cael Voltek, 08 January 2015 - 09:24 AM.

[Saiphas Cain]

I think the idea is more to implement a military economy than prevent rushes. The idea that an objective is to be taken at all costs is anathema to the Battletech universe. The siege of Stalingrad doesn't even cut it in passing when each tank is almost irreplaceable, which is to say nothing of how badly it shifted the tide of that war. The idea behind tickets is the attacker is only going to commit so much in force to taking a planet before it become economically nonviable. Pyrric victories can't be sustained in a universe where mech manufacture is limited.

[Bigga Moonpye]

AN ECONOMY!!!

[SterlingArcher1942]

Cael Voltek, on 08 January 2015 - 09:22 AM, said:

R&R is not considered in this idea. R&R, or an economy, would radically change this and any other ideas. I'll state up front, again, that I feel an economy is what is really needed to get CW off the ground.

Thank the mech gods, all these ideas that further limit the already tiny population are about to give me a hernia

[HARDKOR]

I support anything that makes CW less irrelevant. Tickets, R&R, bonuses for holding planets, anything is better than what we have.

[Vas79]

Bringing this back to the main page so that hopefully we'll get some discussion on the idea.

[Tiger 6]

Felix7007, on 08 January 2015 - 08:28 AM, said:

Well if I'm forced through a chokepoint, which way do I have to go but forward? Because we can only go forward, we do it fast so we get shot less. What's that called? A rush. Running forward quickly is a rush.

Now that we've determined that's the only tactic, mech survival is limited. You may change the tactic to "Let's rush with the least amount of casualties" but what does that really change?

I have successfully won matches by fighting an attrition battle as the attacker, so I wouldn't say that zerging is the only option available to you.

The other thing to consider is that both of the current maps are not conducive to elaborate strategies - whether that was because they were rushed in their design and testing, or if they were deliberately made that way (to make it obvious as to how the game mode is supposed to play out), you'll have to ask PGI what they were thinking...
With better maps and the proposed new game modes for counter attack, the suicide lemming strategy will hopefully be replaced by something a little more sensible? [insert comment about flying pigs here...]

After some thought, I foresee two potential problems with Vas' suggestion:

1) A team can already spawn camp the enemy's drop zones currently, this would be an even more important strategy with the ticket system in place - even if you manage to loose the match to the one light who evades your team at the end, you could still have won a numerical advantage going forwards by wiping out the rest of the enemy team one at a time as they get dropped off - I don't think anyone really wants this to be a viable tactic when it becomes a cheap way to harvest tickets from the queue. (Spawns really should be placed out of bounds to the enemy teams, but I'm not sure how you would get around the disconnects and that guy who refuses to come out and play )

2) There is the potential for a group of people to drain a significant number of tickets out of the queue without achieving anything - either thru their own incompetence (i.e. suicidal pug zergs ), or to troll units that come on later in the cycle (for example if they were a unit contemplating jumping factions shortly ).
Is this going to be a big issue? I don't know - but you can bet the forums will be aflame when somebody gets upset that he has no tickets left for his group because somebody 'wasted' them

Edited by Tiger 6, 09 January 2015 - 10:34 AM.