58 replies to this topic

[MoonUnitBeta]

The solution is not simple. We can stop pretending that it is now.

[Tincan Nightmare]

Kilgorin Strom, on 14 January 2015 - 07:51 AM, said:

The reason you're there is to destroy the orbital cannon, The reason the orbital cannon is there is to shoot up against the enormous ships toting foot soldiers, mechanized warfare machines, and guns with shells the size of buildings from getting close enough to your planet to lay waste to it. With a huge grid of orbital defense, you could send even big ships into life support protocols since they're in space.

The objective is to send 48 mechs to likely heavy losses in the hope of not losing a several mile long ship toting VIP's, equipment and civilians, not to mention riot killing gear, nothing says "don't do that" like a bullet the size of an atlas being fired.

Just gotta say, in BT there is no such thing as 'orbital cannons', at least not for the Inner Sphere. The closest system like that to exist in the BT universe was the Star League's SDS (Space Defense System), which consisted of robotic drone warships and fighters, along with ground based capital guns and missiles. After the SL's collapse, the tech was lost, plus it was only ever installed on the core worlds of the Terran Hegemony and the current successor states never had it to begin with.

Also, in BT interstellar travel is accomlished by Jumpships, but jumpships once they arrive in a system stay stationary at the nadir and zenith jumpoints of the systems star. Drophips carry combatants from the Jumpships to the planet, the same Dropships we are landing in to assault the guns because they are too 'small' for Omega to target them . While large jump capable warships that could manuever insystem like Dropships did exist during the Star League, by the time of the Clan invasion the IS had lost the means to produce them, and any they had were already lost during the first and second succession wars.

Yah this is just all lore fiiller, but it does mean that the objective of CW is pretty foolish set in the BT universe, and PGI did a pretty good job of disregarding the universe the game is supposed to bet set in when they established this mode.

[Karl Streiger]

Tincan Nightmare, on 14 January 2015 - 06:07 PM, said:

Yah this is just all lore fiiller, but it does mean that the objective of CW is pretty foolish set in the BT universe, and PGI did a pretty good job of disregarding the universe the game is supposed to bet set in when they established this mode.

Well the Ship Killing orbital cannon is well established in the Mech/Warrior / Commander series.
Had in MW3 the ship killer Laser Canons - in Mechcommander those huge cannon like objects, in MW 4 the MODL.

but indeed you are absolute right about the drop ships - those cannons should more than capable of shooting down the drop ships.
Maybe the cannons should become secondary targets - if they are destroyed - defenders deploy "nearer" and "faster" - maybe they don't have 4 waves from the beginning but only 2 waves with max of 110t - after destruction they get 2 additional waves of 150t.
That means instead of removing the Zerg Rush it becomes the standard tactic of the first two waves - when the Gauss Cannons are destroyed the primary objective become available. (its called boreal vault - vault for what? -a brian castle? Is my objective to destroy the defenders and storm the castle - or do i want to extract valuable informations (good old listening post Earthsiege 2 Mission)

And of course the "drop" of the defender has to be removed

[Karl Marlow]

You know that TTK issue everyone is screamign needs to be increased and they soubled the armor?

The Light zerg rush is a direct reason why that was a bad idea.

[Anjian]

ThomasMarik, on 14 January 2015 - 11:39 PM, said:

You know that TTK issue everyone is screamign needs to be increased and they soubled the armor?

The Light zerg rush is a direct reason why that was a bad idea.

Nailed it.

[Tincan Nightmare]

Karl Streiger, on 14 January 2015 - 11:24 PM, said:

Well the Ship Killing orbital cannon is well established in the Mech/Warrior / Commander series.
Had in MW3 the ship killer Laser Canons - in Mechcommander those huge cannon like objects, in MW 4 the MODL.

but indeed you are absolute right about the drop ships - those cannons should more than capable of shooting down the drop ships.
Maybe the cannons should become secondary targets - if they are destroyed - defenders deploy "nearer" and "faster" - maybe they don't have 4 waves from the beginning but only 2 waves with max of 110t - after destruction they get 2 additional waves of 150t.
That means instead of removing the Zerg Rush it becomes the standard tactic of the first two waves - when the Gauss Cannons are destroyed the primary objective become available. (its called boreal vault - vault for what? -a brian castle? Is my objective to destroy the defenders and storm the castle - or do i want to extract valuable informations (good old listening post Earthsiege 2 Mission)

And of course the "drop" of the defender has to be removed

Well they may be 'established' in a few of the video games, but its the same as PGI's orbital gun since all are creations designed to be 'cool' in a game, but that don't really mesh with the universe its set in. Aerospace defense for planets in the Inner Sphere are friendly Dropships and Aerospace fighters going after there counterparts on the enemy's side, hopefully before they can land ground forces (or drop mechs from orbit). At this point in the BT timeline, the only force with ground to space weapons would be Comstar and the SDS systems they rebuilt on Earth, and the only warships belong to the Clans!

It just really bums me out that PGI didn't do their homework, because there are a lot of objectives that would have made more sense to attack/defend in CW. We could be going after spaceports (to obtain aerospace superiority), trying to capture a planetary capital, taking over a mech repair/manufacturing facility, capturing a supply depot or warehouse, the options are pretty large. Instead we get a big generic 'gun' to blow up, one that shouldn't even exist in the BT universe (unless we were assaulting Terra during the Jihad).

[MischiefSC]

Lights were broken and left broken just a bit so that they're viable in pug queue. The problem is that with 12 of them you start to get significant hitreg issues. We've played with the 2 or 3 light back to back to back zerg rush and you could get a group of drunken hobos to win with it. Doesn't matter; you get passable builds (not even great but passable) and take a few seconds to group up and a generla guideline of who's attacking which ogen and, well, you clear all 3 ogens and some of Omega on 1st wave. 2nd wave should be able to finish Omega. Crazy situation or solid 12man on the other team and it'll take wave 3 to finish. Absolute worst case you run 12 Atlas for 4th wave, amble up and give it the last little kick. You can also go zerg zerg heavy heavy.

That's it. It trumps any and every other drop deck, by a huge margin. How do you deal with it?

You have 3 or 4 mechs JJ up on Omega and block it with their bodies. So if you're defense it's Shawk/Griffin/Cataphract

So these two insanely cheap tactics are pretty much trump now. That's it, that's the game now. You can do that or you can lose to those who do. Sure, you can win attrition matches with a good team and few pugs but you can win zerg/zerg/heavy/heavy 80% of the time with windowlickers.

The biggest issue is getting folks to JJ up to block the gen. First wave will be lights clearing Ogens, by 2nd wave the defender needs to be standing on the Omega ledge.

The main reason this isn't what everyone is doing all the time is.... it sucks and its boring so most people don't want to. The issue is that they lose to those who do.

So how do we fix it? You can't unbreak lights; then they can't work in pug queue. More turrets further out instead of just base? With a focus on legs.

[Karl Marlow]

Well as I said before its a TTK issue. If an attacker can just ignore you pouring fire into them and still hit Omega there is a problem. Maybe the fix is to remove doulbe armor for CW matches.

Another problem is Ghost heat. Allow me to explain. Right now ghost heat puts a soft cap of 30 damage on mechs. Most lights can hit that soft cap. Meanwhile Heavier mechs are handicapped by it. Heavy mechs can't unleash their full potential safely. So even if we disregard the double armor and hit reg issues. Having a Heavy or Assault isnt much better on defence than having smaller mechs. They dont have more stopping power really. That breing said they tend to be able to mount teh heavier direct PPFLD weapons which is good but in raw damage numbers there isn't much difference.

As for what to do about ghost heat I'm less certain. I know it isn't ideal but not having it would be even worse. Alot of this game has been balances around 'fun' and now that the rules have changed what was 'fun' is creating problems.

[Herzog]

+1 for MischiefSC

1) I like the idea of secondary turrets with small pulse lasers that aim low

2) I really like the idea of fixing lag shields (yes, still broke)

3) Landmines?

[CocoaJin]

Put in a second gun?

[Karl Marlow]

I have an even simpler way to stop the Zerg rush.

Landmines.

[Kenyon Burguess]

adding more automated defense isn't the answer. its learning curve. put scouts out, find the path of the lights, wreck them with direct fire. understand that you cant just lay in wait in little ambush/sniping positions and that you have to pay attention and move your forces around the map to counter the enemies tactics. learn that meta isn't always correct when choosing a mech. example: the ppc spewing thunderbolt is great to snipe assaults with, but not so great to chase lights who know how to dodge. bring something else in your first slot that is capable of chasing a light AND fighting off an assault charge and wont overheat....you know a medium mech.

[Targetloc]

Davers, on 14 January 2015 - 05:42 PM, said:

Any game mode that can be decided by destroying 'something' will favour light rushes. Doesn't matter if it is a convoy or a big gun. We can either accept that light mechs have a powerful role in CW or design game modes that promote heavier mechs. If you had to capture the generators rather than destroy them, it would be a radically different game mode.

Why not have both?

[baropara]

Get know of plans to announce a new clanpak like new experience needed... At the same time, I witnessed how to win 9 of 9 in about 2 hours without adequate defense (ie PUGs vs teammates). We're waiting 10 minutes , 1 minute to collect opponents, 3-4 min to finish Omega. All this was done using existing mechs. If CW in current design has such distortions, it is unlikely that new stuff will cure rather deeper the sickness. I wish our community a greater conservatism - as long as we continue to collect models and textures this game gets new factors of entropy - not a really quality change. Where are real improvements in gameplay design?

[Joseph Mallan]

Targetloc, on 27 January 2015 - 11:14 PM, said:

Why not have both?

Why assume PGI isn't trying to come up with a means?

[Mogney]

No, you need those generator objectives or the game will get very dull with the defense team just taking big mechs and huddling.

Slight tweak to your idea. You need to kill 100% of the enemy before you can destroy Omega, however for each of the three generators that you destroy, it reduces that total by 20%. So if you take out all three gens you only need to destroy 40% of the defenders mechs before blowing up Omega. that is 19 of the 48 mechs.

This makes those generators worth defending and attacking, would still allow a zerg rush to take those generators, but wouldnt allow a zerg rush to win the game in just two waves.

Edited by Mogney, 28 January 2015 - 08:12 AM.

[Almond Brown]

ThomasMarik, on 27 January 2015 - 09:44 PM, said:

I have an even simpler way to stop the Zerg rush.

Landmines.

Landmines are indiscriminate though. Once planted they blow up for anyone who steps on them. So how do you Mine the Defense perimeter, make sure the PUGS know where the fields are and change them every Match so the enemy just doesn't avoid them after they have played a Defense match with them in play.

Does each Players get a Module and drop them by themselves? Second wave defenders would have to stay at base for fear of blowing off a leg on an unexploded mine (or do Allies get a visual?) which would be rather bogus...

[Mogney]

The truth here is that a zerg rush can be stopped, when I drop CW (which isnt often anymore) its all we see and we manage to defeat the zerg rush probably 9 of 10 times. It just takes a coordinated defense is all.

The reason I dont play CW much isnt because I dont want to defend the Zerg, thats actually alot of fun, I could happily defend zergs all night I just dont want to zerg rush myself, because that is super boring. And that seems to be what happens all the time.

[AztecD]

make it more complex

defense positions should be "around" a complex, not the other way arround

the old MW4 maps where basically landscapes depicting cities and settlements that some mechs would battle on occasionally.

a city map, a desert map, a lone outpost in the mountains.

it seems that CW just has a map that emulates a planet, and that just seems wrong for some reason

[movingtarget]

I have a better way to reduce rushes , Im going to use boreal vault as a example. you know the 2 paths leading behind the mountans from alpha and beta gates? My idea is to add in 2 sub gates there only blocking the path so they ether need to batter it down or go over the hills to rush.This gives the defenders more time to catch up to them .