35 replies to this topic

[Felix7007]

Imagine how you would describe the game to a new player, how you usually describe the game by it's set of rules.

What we want to describe the game as:

1-12 vs 1-12 combat in the battletech universe storyline. Combat is over planets with variable dropdeck tonnages based on planet and on many maps and game types that stimulate tactics. Planets can be taken over by units and provide C-bills if your unit has the most wins on that planet and is calculated by each player counting as 1 point, most points after planet is taken wins, tie goes to latest point earned. Planets are flipped automatically when a faction or Merc Unit has 10 more wins than the occupying force and the next planet in line is available for attacking/defending. Factions with less planets have higher payouts per contract and will dynamically change accordingly per an algorithm to compensate for lack of player base and thwart aggregation of a single faction. Units can issue contracts to attack or defend factions, planets or units. When a faction takes the main planet of another, the taking faction owns all planets of the other faction. The other faction can only spawn at the main planet to try and re-capture. The war is over when a single faction is left standing.


Currently:

12 vs 12 objective based combat. Combat is over planets consisting of 1 of 2 maps that are designed for rush tactics with a single game mode. Planets can be tagged by the most victorious unit. Planets are flipped every 8 hours after a 30 min ceasefire period and control is calculated by whoever has 51% control at the start of the ceasefire. The next planet a faction can attack and how much each contract produces is decided via a developer when they implement the changes.


I will edit this accordingly. Discuss!

(The descriptions do no reflect the existence of regular matchmaking on purpose because it does not add contrast to CW. They are two separate entities.)

Edited by Felix7007, 07 January 2015 - 07:06 AM.

[oldradagast]

The funny thing is that CW, as released, is not at all "the way things had to be."

Can anyone tell me how a game-mode with: the fewest maps, the fewest viable strategies, the fewest viable mechs, the least need for scouting and role warfare, and with the least balanced "match-maker" (ie: there is none, ggclose, PUGS) managed to be released 2 years into a game that has otherwise done a decent job working around these problems? And can anyone then tell me how anyone can consider such a game mode - a mode more suited for early Beta for MWO in general, much less a creation 2+ years in - can be considered "a true test of one's skills?" It's laughable.

All they need to do is provide:
- Sane maps where it actually makes sense for there to be attackers and defenders vs. the "charge of the light brigade" style kill-zone slaughter fest we have now.
- Maps that have variable objectives so it isn't the same game almost literally every single time the map comes up
- Variable objectives in general: escort missions, search and rescue missions, search and destroy missions, etc. The current "throw yourself against the wall" style mission should be the exception, not the norm.
- Some actual incentive for attacking vs. lower rewards, lower chance of victory, less mech to mech combat, and less fun than defending.
- Variable weight drop decks depending upon planet, mission, etc. so we end the "use the same drop deck everywhere" nonsense that is killing mech variety.
- Some sort of match-maker so we stop having stupid matches of PUG's vs. 12-mans that are decided at match start.
- Fix the planet flipping / cease-fire timing so people all around the world actually have a reason to play.
- In game coms would be nice, though if all of the above was fixed, it wouldn't be required... though still nice to have... provided it has a mute button to silence trolls.

[Felix7007]

I agree with your variable dropdeck statement and will edit the main post. Not only should the planets be variable (Able to fight on many different planets) but it also makes sense that each planet should have its own tonnage limit.

A lot of your post was about map design and when I said "maps and game types that stimulate tactics" it was a huge generalization and you sum up most of what I was trying to convey.

[Latorque]

Funny thing is; this reminds me enormously of the introduction of the "assault" mode in WoT - basically the same mechanics; except for a destruction of any generators or gun emplacements - it was simply a one-sided CTF - mode with tanks and two chokepoints crammed to the brim with slow-moving armored monsters, the defenders didn't even need to aim. It was awful; and lo and behold, tons of tears were shed and many a several-months break was had until one could opt them out.

This is one of the few occasions where RL-tactics transfer 1on1 to virtual matches: you don't attack unless in superior numbers. In MWO there are several problems within the game that can be abused to alleviate this (light swarms with massive hitreg issues, overquirked IS-mechs, unbalanced clan-omnimechs, whatever); but those are basically a massive crutch for leveling the playing field - without those; it would be like shooting fish in a barrel for the defenders...

In case of both games i kind of wondered about the idea behind those absurdly narrow shooting galleries. I barely played CW so far - and what i've seen i'm not inclined to change that unless the mechanics are redone; but so far i wouldn't have any other idea than stuff my mechbays with a spider/firestarter mixture and relying on their inherent flaws - which would be catering to the meta; but i've never seen the fun in that; i don't really like being forced into a mech i don't feel like playing.

[Alex Warden]

Latorque, on 07 January 2015 - 06:09 AM, said:

In case of both games i kind of wondered about the idea behind those absurdly narrow shooting galleries.

that´s exactly it... the reason why older MW titles felt way more interesting was just the bigger maps with SPREAD out objectives all across a large area, not those 2x2km arenas PGI still produces...

i just wish they´d chosen a less demanding engine that would allow for immensly larger maps, seriously, i could live with less "realistic" grafics (which we don´t have anyway ) if it would add to the gameplay... (not to mention that some games with less "effective" engines look great while providing 10X better performance)

imagine a large area with 6 or more objectives and battles that take 30+ minutes but are THAT much more rewarding fun and rewards wise....areas and objectives that would actually NEED different roles such as scouts, force recon, slow defenders and mobile assaulters...

one can dream, and not that we already had all this discussed with PGI during Beta... no, they wanted an arena shooter with "state of the art grafics" (*cough*), werent´prepared for later progress on the game and now they are at a point where they realize: even if we wanted to, we can´t go bigger...

Edited by Alex Warden, 07 January 2015 - 06:32 AM.

[Vassago Rain]

Alex Warden, on 07 January 2015 - 06:24 AM, said:

that´s exactly it... the reason why older MW titles feeled way more interesting was just the bigger maps with SPREAD out objectives all across a large area, not those 2x2km arenas PGI still produces...

i just wish they´d chosen a less demanding engine that would allow for immensly larger maps, seriously, i could live with less "realistic" grafics (which we don´t have anyway ) if it would add to the gameplay... (not to mention that some games with less "effective" engines look great while providing 10X better performance)

imagine a large area with 6 or more objectives and battles that take 30+ minutes but are THAT much more rewarding fun and rewards wise....areas and objectives that would actually NEED different roles such as scouts, force recon, slow defenders and mobile assaulters... one can dream, and not that we already had all this discussed with PGI during Beta... no, they wanted an arena shooter with "state of the art grafics" (*cough*) and now they are at a point were they realize: even if we wanted to, we can´t go bigger...

One of cryengine's main features is the immensely huge maps. Just because PGI isn't doing anything with it doesn't mean it's not capable of something.

The terrain generation is voxel based for a reason. That's how all the crysis games, even the one with the 'small' maps (crysis 2) did it. Living legends also had huge maps. So does starcitizen. Hell, the new Sonic game, while it's not really good, at least it has flashy graphics, runs pretty well, and comes with HUGE stages. You can't say they didn't use the engine there.

[Joseph Mallan]

Felix7007, on 06 January 2015 - 11:51 AM, said:

Imagine how you would describe the game to a new player, how you usually describe the game by it's set of rules.

What we want to describe the game as:

1-12 vs 1-12 combat. Combat is over planets with variable dropdeck tonnages based on planet and on many maps and game types that stimulate tactics. Planets can be taken over by units and provide C-bills if your unit has the most wins on that planet and is calculated by each player counting as 1 point, most points after planet is taken wins, tie goes to latest point earned. Planets are flipped automatically when a faction or Merc Unit has 10 more wins than the occupying force. Factions with less planets have higher payouts per contract and will dynamically change accordingly per an algorithm to compensate for lack of player base and thwart aggregation of a single faction. Units can issue contracts to attack or defend factions, planets or units. When a faction takes the main planet of another, the taking faction owns all planets of the other faction. The other faction can only spawn at the main planet to try and re-capture. The war is over when a single faction is left standing.


Currently:

12 vs 12 objective based combat. Combat is over planets consisting of 1 of 2 maps that are designed for rush tactics with a single game mode. Planets can be tagged by the most victorious unit. Planets are flipped every 8 hours after a 30 min ceasefire period and control is calculated by whoever has 51% control at the start of the ceasefire. The next planet a faction can attack and how much each contract produces is decided via a developer when they implement the changes.


I will edit this accordingly. Discuss!

(The descriptions do no reflect the existence of regular matchmaking on purpose because it does not add contrast to CW. They are two separate entities.)

You left out that it CW is presently in Beta. That is a point needing to be added.

[Alex Warden]

Vassago Rain, on 07 January 2015 - 06:29 AM, said:

One of cryengine's main features is the immensely huge maps. Just because PGI isn't doing anything with it doesn't mean it's not capable of something.

The terrain generation is voxel based for a reason. That's how all the crysis games, even the one with the 'small' maps (crysis 2) did it. Living legends also had huge maps. So does starcitizen. Hell, the new Sonic game, while it's not really good, at least it has flashy graphics, runs pretty well, and comes with HUGE stages. You can't say they didn't use the engine there.

yea well, maybe i should underline that PGI can´t use the CE for large maps... you know how well the assets they create seem to be optimized... even if they could create maps double the size of Alpine, i doubt they could have an object density like on Crimson or such... what i know is that PGI created their own dev-tools for CE3, because at the time MWO was one of the first MPO games in development to use it, and there were simply no tools available they needed to create a MechWarrior game (that´s what they said at least)... what i don´t know is WHAT they developed, in which way they customized the engine, and most of all, in which way others customized the engine later that PGI is not able to profit themselves from now...

fact is, with THIS version of CE (and appearently the tools and capabilities they use) there is no way we could see a huge map + alot of of stuff in it...( i think Alpine is mostly white and empty for a reason)

Edited by Alex Warden, 07 January 2015 - 06:45 AM.

[Felix7007]

Joseph,

Do I want to give them a crutch? No. 2 years or whatever it is, tells me no at this point. Stating it's currently in beta takes away from the timeline aspect of this post and gives players the false impression that they just need to wait when nothing promises change in the right direction.

If we were promised content, I might add something but the latest content we were hinted on is possibly skirmish mode but you know timelines are broken regularly by PGI and any FUTURE content can't be assumed in the CURRENT game description.

Edited by Felix7007, 07 January 2015 - 06:50 AM.

[Thorn Hallis]

Joseph Mallan, on 07 January 2015 - 06:32 AM, said:

You left out that it CW is presently in Beta. That is a point needing to be added.

While this is indeed true, I don't see PGI altering CW into something different. They might correct some flaws and add more maps later on, but the "basic concept" seems to be set in stone.

[Vassago Rain]

Alex Warden, on 07 January 2015 - 06:39 AM, said:

yea well, maybe i should underline that PGI can´t use the CE for large maps... you know how well the assets they create seem to be optimized... even if they could create maps double the size of Alpine, i doubt they could have an object density like on Crimson or such... what i know is that PGI created their own dev-tools for CE3, because at the time MWO was one of the first MPO games in development to use it, and there were simply no tools available they needed to create a MechWarrior game (that´s what they said at least)... what i don´t know is WHAT they developed, in which way they customized the engine, and most of all, in which way others customized the engine later that PGI is not able to profit themselves from now...

fact is, with THIS version of CE (and appearently the tools and capabilities they use) there is no way we could see a huge map + alot of of stuff in it...( i think Alpine is mostly white and empty for a reason)

Well, we can all conclude that whatever they developed during the past 3 years has proven to not be of much use for CW, which allegedly was the end-game product, the last piece of the puzzle, the hyped, mystical community warfare mode.

I have this ancient screenshot here of what they said when they first embarked on this journey.



It's been quite some years, and all the old stuff's mostly been wiped, but I do recall them wanting destructible terrain, large maps, some kind of procedurally generated maps for CW, and so on. Cryengine, at the time, was pretty perfect for that.

Maybe there's some learned guys in here who can tell us just what went wrong.

[Bigbacon]

Vassago Rain, on 07 January 2015 - 06:50 AM, said:

Well, we can all conclude that whatever they developed during the past 3 years has proven to not be of much use for CW, which allegedly was the end-game product, the last piece of the puzzle, the hyped, mystical community warfare mode.

I have this ancient screenshot here of what they said when they first embarked on this journey.



It's been quite some years, and all the old stuff's mostly been wiped, but I do recall them wanting destructible terrain, large maps, some kind of procedurally generated maps for CW, and so on. Cryengine, at the time, was pretty perfect for that.

Maybe there's some learned guys in here who can tell us just what went wrong.

time, money, and resources.

[Latorque]

I wouldn't go so far actually. I left 6 months ago with the last Lurmfest after the speedbuff; and a friend of me (whom i had originally introduced to the game ) convinced me to give it another shot - at the time of my departure i had little hope there would actually be a MW:O to return to. No doubt about that; there were massive improvements in a rather short timespan since ditching IGP; so i see no reason why CW shouldn't improve.

I just can't get behind the reasoning of those moronic "assault" - invasion mode gameplay styles. I can't imagine it working in any game environment - the usual maps actually offer far more variety; they don't force you to play in a predetermined way - of course, Alpine Peaks is most often decided on the hill; but who of us hasn't seen a match completely fought in the base to the northeast or in the southern valley? More open maps would naturally lead to far more variety in dropdecks; i guess. You have no idea if the enemy team shows up favoring speed, Long Range, Brawling, Jump Capacity; so you better come prepared for anything (which will force the enemy to do the same in the long run).

Some kind of Bad Company 2 - assault style gameplay would be a natural choice for Dropship-dependant battles i feel; but this would admittedly be hard to implement...

Edited by Latorque, 07 January 2015 - 07:08 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Felix7007, on 07 January 2015 - 06:42 AM, said:

Joseph,

Do I want to give them a crutch? No. 2 years or whatever it is, tells me no at this point. Stating it's currently in beta takes away from the aspect of how we wish we could describe the game and gives players the false impression that they just need to wait when nothing promises change in the right direction.

But the game isn't finished yet. CW is in its first rendition of "playable" Letting someone judge the game on a first pass beta of the main body of the game would be inappropriate.

2 years of running just the combat engine was far to long. CW as it is is barely better than PUG que. There is no rhyme or reason to the fighting still. there is no generals controlling where the fighting is happening. It is so haphazard nothing will be achieved unless someone is directing the mayhem. The "Story" needs to be added or else this is going to be a couple hundred people having beer run battles.

Beer Run Battles: Side a and Side b come together to play The game. they are told you are the attacker you are the defender you are fighting for "this" (Often just a case of beer) fighting ensues.

Does anyone know WHY they are attacking Zotemeer? Or are they doing it cause the most players are there?

Do we want A weekend game of MW:O at billy's house or The Official "Clan Invasion" Where you and your Unit can have an impact on the MW:O Universe?

I ran events for TT that were world wide events that actually had an impact on the fiction to be wrote in the up coming Sourcebook. That is what MW:O can be a real time on going Sourcebook we write and update from day to day. That is the game I signed up for 3 years ago.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 07 January 2015 - 06:58 AM.

[Alex Warden]

Bigbacon, on 07 January 2015 - 06:53 AM, said:

time, money, and resources.

and a wrong weighting regarding staff ... too many people who create mechs and fluff, and too few actually developing the game around them... if i remember right, PGI kind of admitted it last year....

plus, the screenshot above states how promising the CE was for PGI... i remember how excited they were about it... i also remember how many people warned them... and i remember some posts from PGI guys about how they had to develop the development tools because there were none available, how they had to customize the engine because it wouldn´t support mech combat...

i don´t know if it was russ back in the day, but someone of them told us "CE is perfectly suited for infantry level combat, not so much mechs"... then the next problems were with the scaling of the surroundings and blablabla, a lot of issues PGI ran into, making changes to the engine to support this game...

seems like other companies had less trouble with that ... after all, MWO ended up as a performance trap...

that´s the stuff i remember from the days of friends&family tests, while all we did was hanging around the forums day in and day out just to share our dreams of a future mech warrior game... so the memory might have some gaps here and there

Edited by Alex Warden, 07 January 2015 - 07:12 AM.

[Felix7007]

Latorque,

I absolutely agree with everything you just said. Especially that the open maps of public drops offer way more variety in tactics.

Joseph,

I'm not saying the game won't get better. I'm Saying, "This is how we want to describe the game and this is how it is now". I agree with your "Beer run" comment and will edit the main post. We have to have a larger reason to fight. Something to help motivate decision making. A call to action.

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

[Vassago Rain]

Joseph Mallan, on 07 January 2015 - 06:57 AM, said:

But the game isn't finished yet. CW is in its first rendition of "playable" Letting someone judge the game on a first pass beta of the main body of the game would be inappropriate.

2 years of running just the combat engine was far to long. CW as it is is barely better than PUG que. There is no rhyme or reason to the fighting still. there is no generals controlling where the fighting is happening. It is so haphazard nothing will be achieved unless someone is directing the mayhem. The "Story" needs to be added or else this is going to be a couple hundred people having beer run battles.

Beer Run Battles: Side a and Side b come together to play The game. they are told you are the attacker you are the defender you are fighting for "this" (Often just a case of beer) fighting ensues.

Does anyone know WHY they are attacking Zotemeer? Or are they doing it cause the most players are there?

Do we want A weekend game of MW:O at billy's house or The Official "Clan Invasion" Where you and your Unit can have an impact on the MW:O Universe?

I ran events for TT that were world wide events that actually had an impact on the fiction to be wrote in the up coming Sourcebook. That is what MW:O can be a real time on going Sourcebook we write and update from day to day. That is the game I signed up for 3 years ago.

The game you signed up for never happened. This is the hand we've been dealt.

[Karl Streiger]

Joseph Mallan, on 07 January 2015 - 06:57 AM, said:

I ran events for TT that were world wide events that actually had an impact on the fiction to be wrote in the up coming Sourcebook. That is what MW:O can be a real time on going Sourcebook we write and update from day to day. That is the game I signed up for 3 years ago.

so you want to tell the story about the infamous SRM Carrier that won the battle of Tukkayyid?

I'm sure we are trapped in a kind of parallel BattleTech Universum - because we are all baron and lords in elite units - or we are even better - because even Victor did pilot a standard VTR-9B in the beginning

[JackkyChan]

Here is how I would explain MWO to a new player if one ever came along hahhhaaaa.

To bad so many have dumped this awful game but its the DEVS fault for not listening to the Old gamers that knew what was fun about MechWarrior from the older PC MechWarrior games and implementing it into MWO. Instead we got a lame FPS with tard controls no joystick support.Lame game modes half asss maps and a progression system that goes to know where but unbalance and stomps in matches.

But the worst part about MWO is CW the long wait times 15 min+ per try coupled with boring as helllll game modes and no Social atmosphere makes it a total loss.I understand why you uninstalled OP and im very close myself after PGI/DEVS will not even make MWO fun and fresh. MWO is just another lame asss FPS in mech skins and it looks like that's all it will ever be.

[ExoForce]

Alex Warden, on 07 January 2015 - 06:24 AM, said:

that´s exactly it... the reason why older MW titles felt way more interesting was just the bigger maps with SPREAD out objectives all across a large area, not those 2x2km arenas PGI still produces...

i just wish they´d chosen a less demanding engine that would allow for immensly larger maps, seriously, i could live with less "realistic" grafics (which we don´t have anyway ) if it would add to the gameplay... (not to mention that some games with less "effective" engines look great while providing 10X better performance)

imagine a large area with 6 or more objectives and battles that take 30+ minutes but are THAT much more rewarding fun and rewards wise....areas and objectives that would actually NEED different roles such as scouts, force recon, slow defenders and mobile assaulters...

one can dream, and not that we already had all this discussed with PGI during Beta... no, they wanted an arena shooter with "state of the art grafics" (*cough*), werent´prepared for later progress on the game and now they are at a point where they realize: even if we wanted to, we can´t go bigger...

I come from MW4 and UT3 Warfare. I dream Avalanche map with mechs... Existing code for sliding lava from Terra Therma can easily be reused to produce the avalanche effect (and others).

Spoiler

Edited by ExoForce, 07 January 2015 - 07:13 AM.