7 replies to this topic

[Lord Ikka]

I was wondering if anyone has info on whether or not there will be intra-lance data flow- basically if the scout Mechs from one lance will distribute their scout info to the Mechs of another lance. If so, it will allow the option to have a scout lance, a combat lance full of medium and assault Mechs, and a support lance for long-range firepower, rather than having three jack-of-all-trades lances. Any thoughts?

[Remarius]

Doesn't seem to be anything in to date, ergo all the matches people joke about where a group of lights and mediums find themselves going up against a line of heavies and assault. That said this is early beta and an awful lot isn't in yet apparently. Hoping they enable company sized "group" battles in which case you'd be planning stuff yourselves. Same for lances - just going to have to cover each other. Will be interesting to see if they can find a way to balance 12 vs 12 firepower wise without forcing people into specific mechs.

[Zack Delphirian]

If I understood any of it, I'd say it's more a 12vs12, period.
So you can organize yourself in 3 Lances, but it's not mandatory. This way you just have to have 2 scouts or so in a team of 12 and it should do the trick if they know what they're doing.

I'm not certain of what I'm saying though...

[Omicron Omega]

This is a pretty interesting idea that the role of lances may be dependent on the type of game.

If we are talking about a match where the goal is to destroy the opposing team, I would prefer to have three general purpose lances that each have a dedicated commander. Each lance could be somewhat specialized in that one lance may have two mediums and a quick heavy to take out more mobile targets, while another lance would have an assault and heavys to bring down the big boys. The role of these lances is to pick off one enemy mech at a time. One lance, one target. This way you can systematically reduce your opponents numbers. Also, once the lances begin to loose members, they can combine with the others. The lance commanders would need to assign command priority before the match so that chain of command is maintained if the lances reform with multiple leaders.

I can also see the benefit of having specialized lances for matches like capture the flag/base. The scout team is given the order from the mission commander to scout three designated points on a rotation. The recon commander is in the scout lance and coordinates this mission for his/her team. Recon commander is responsible for making sure that the locations are monitored even after some of the scout are disabled. There would also need to be a chain of command within the lance to pick up slack if the commander is forced to eject. The other lances would possibly be an attack lance of mediums, heavies and assaults, and a command/firesupport/artillery lance that does just that.

What do you think?

[Kumakichi]

I was guessing that drops would be by tonnage. If 2 people in one lance take assaults it just left enough tonnage for a couple lights. So first people in get first choice. Or maybe its some kind of matchmaking system where if you queue solo as a light mech you get into the first drop that has an open slot.

[Astaroth]

Obviously, the ideal organization of a company or lance varies depending on the mission and terrain. There are times when a full scout lance is appropriate, and times when it isn't. There are times when you want everyone in lights and times when you want everyone in the biggest mech they can get their hands on.

While I think it would be unfortunate if you couldn't organize your team into three lances before a battle, I can certainly understand why PGI wouldn't want to make the effort to implement such a feature. There will be a lot of players who are interested in having that level of organization, with set command structures, lance commanders, clearly defined roles for each lance, etc. However, PGI has probably also anticipated that this game will draw a lot of casual players who just want to drop into a match and blow some stuff up without having to deal with any of that overhead. The players who want to organize their lances, command structures, comms, etc. will be members of merc corps and house "guilds" with behind-the-scenes systems in place to handle that for them.

[Omicron Omega]

It is definitely going to be a difficult task to balance between casual players and organized merc corps. I'm really looking forward to how they will deal with this. They may have different rooms for solos and teams. That could work.

[Glythe]

There's nothing broken with you and 3 friends forming a lance; if you happen to be really good you shouldn't be punished. Trying to handicap good players by giving them bad team mates to counter balance them does NOT balance them. All you can really do from a fairness perspective is balance the weight of the teams and let the players do the rest.