32 replies to this topic

[STEF_]

Alistair Winter, on 03 June 2015 - 05:42 AM, said:

You have to go back and listen to Russ' vision of Community Warfare in earlier Town Hall meetings. There's a lot of criticism being made about CW that is simply complete irrelevant, because Russ has a very specific idea of what CW is supposed to look like:

• Attackers attack the gates. This is isn't a tactical element of the match, so much as a thing they implemented to set the mood. It's like the intro.
  
• Defenders set up in positions inside the base, which is is a relatively open area.
  
• Attackers breach the gates.
  
• Brawl inside the gates.
  
• Attackers die, drop again, rinse and repeat.

The whole point of CW is to get a big brawl going inside the gates. I've seen criticism like:

• We should have multiple objectives
  
• The defenders should be able to push out and attack some kind of command vehicle, like the one in Assault
  
• Maps should have more attack lanes, to make scouting more important for both sides
  
• Only 20% of the map is being used, the rest is just empty space where attackers have to walk to get back in the fight. We should use the whole map!

But this is all missing the point. Russ doesn't want any of that. He wants a big brawl inside the gates. He doesn't like light mech zerg rushing, because it doesn't lead to brawling. And he doesn't want teams to split up and fight outside the gates, because it doesn't lead to brawling. He wants epic battles with 12v12 deathballs, not slow-paced tactical matches.



As long as this is his vision for CW and Invasion mode in particular, there's no point talking about immersion, tactics, strategy, convoy escorts, planting demolition teams, rescuing VIPs or assassinating enemy team commanders. As far as PGI is concerned, CW is all about brawling inside the base.

E-SPORT, Alistair, even in CW.

And for Russ, THIS must be MWO, a grand brawler match. Period.

MWO kinda sucks because of his poor vision.

[LordBraxton]

Stefka Kerensky, on 03 June 2015 - 06:56 AM, said:

MWO kinda sucks because of his poor vision.

/thread. /forum. /game.

[Alistair Winter]

LordBraxton, on 03 June 2015 - 06:53 AM, said:

I'd love a mode where we actually have to look for the enemy... Dream on I guess. :<

Yeah. Even in Recon mode, it sounded from Russ like it's going to be a game of mini-Conquest. Which pretty much means you'll know exactly where the enemy is. I personally would have loved a slow-paced, nerve-wracking tactical game mode in 4v4, like a MWO-version of hostage rescue, plant the bomb or assassination. But if I recall correctly, the Recon mode was about gathering resources, which makes me think it'll be 1 or 3 bases in a game of mini-Conquest.

[Mawai]

I actually liked the planned changes at least in theory.

1) They are moving the spawn points and adding drop ship cover to deter camping. This is good ... folks should not randomly wander into the other team's spawn point if they have been moved - that is a red herring. This way, teams can drop, get on the map and coordinate their movement ... the opponents can still likely camp the access routes to the spawn/drop point but they won't be able to shoot the mechs in the drop ship as they come out one by one and then end up hitting the ground half damaged.

How well this works will depend on where the spawn points are added. It would also be good if the defender spawn point was not too close to the generator. The closer the spawn point to the generator the bigger the defender advantage. On the other hand, it should not be too far away either.

2) Light or medium zerg rushes where the opponents just ignore the defenders and run around committing suicide while blowing up the generator as the defenders try to shoot them down is just a bad game mode. It isn't much fun for either the attacker or the defender. It is simply a tactic that WINS in the current version of the game.

Putting a shield over the generator and a particular point of vulnerability means that the attacker needs to be able to at least partially control the area around the generator .. the attacker can still choose to focus on the generator but they will need good aim ... they could also still try a zerg rush if they want with everyone in a line facing the vulnerable spot ... run at the generator along that line ... fire, circle around and do it again ... they will be more vulnerable than before since they have only one angle of attack but it could still be done.

If they wanted to provide tactical options they could redesign the generator and leave a window of vulnerability on both sides ...


Anyway, from what I have seen, most people have found the light mech zerg rush to be one of the least appealing aspects of CW ... so most may not miss it.

Edited by Mawai, 03 June 2015 - 07:04 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

Stefka Kerensky, on 03 June 2015 - 06:56 AM, said:

E-SPORT, Alistair, even in CW.
And for Russ, THIS must be MWO, a grand brawler match. Period.
MWO kinda sucks because of his poor vision.

Well, to be fair, he has a good vision in some regards. The mechs vs mech combat in this game can be very entertaining, when the meta isn't screwed by bad balancing. But they just fail when it comes to maps, game modes, and... well, many other things.

The ironic thing about CW is that it's basically designed around organized 12-man teams in big units, fighting for fame on the galaxy map. That is the perfect starting point for an e-sport mode. So PGI is trying to cater to both the e-sport crowd and the mil-sim / Battletech crowd in both CW and pub queue, which means both crowds are unhappy about both parts of the game.

They would have done better to make a crystal clear distinction between e-sport (Solaris) and Battletech (CW). I don't think the pub queue is needed at all, if they could satisfy these two major groups in their playerbase. Now, they've basically confirmed that Solaris is coming, so it'll be interesting to see what they do with the pub queue then.

[Ragtag soldier]

1) they needed to buff the dropships because it was leading to the defense turning into the offense at times, mobbing the attacker's drop zone and just killing everyone. either weak or strong, they hurt the flow of the game, but this is the fault of the map deisgn.

2) they needed to shield the generators because, again, you would get the attackers simply ignoring all tactics and bumrushing to kill the generators, making one of the objective settings in CW a one-sided mess. this is the fault of the objectives themselves, but they're not going to scrap CW and start over so they needed to put a band-aid on it.

3) they like the idea of e-sports, but they have no idea how those work. hence why we don't have balanced map designs, any real understanding of game flow going into how map objectives are set up, or a particularly deep "meta" in how to approach fighting on a given map. there's usually only one or two ways to move on most maps that will help your team, making the fights predicable, stale, and uninteresting as a prospective competitive field.

i feel a little bad for the people trying to make the comp scene work, since it's DOA with the ease of hacking alone.

[sycocys]

Mostly I just don't understand why he/they completely disregard all the things that made the prior Mechwarrior games so engaging to play. Most everything from the campaign was built with 2 sides of a battle in mind and would translate pretty quickly over to a PVP format.

Pretty senseless to just ignore what has worked with the franchise and jump right to e-sport when you have no experience creating such games. Then hold fast and hard to the e-sport notion when you really aren't doing a very good job in creating that kind of environment in the first place.

[Creovex]

The key to the CW changes is the "move the spawns". If they move the defenders spawns appropriately, this should help with the camping issue and the "generator shield" is required to make up for the extra time required now for the defenders to get back to the Omega Generator after a drop.

[Johnny Z]

sycocys, on 03 June 2015 - 07:13 AM, said:

Mostly I just don't understand why he/they completely disregard all the things that made the prior Mechwarrior games so engaging to play. Most everything from the campaign was built with 2 sides of a battle in mind and would translate pretty quickly over to a PVP format.

Pretty senseless to just ignore what has worked with the franchise and jump right to e-sport when you have no experience creating such games. Then hold fast and hard to the e-sport notion when you really aren't doing a very good job in creating that kind of environment in the first place.

Mechwarrior hasnt rushed into e-sports at all. They have dabbled in it a bit. Which is probly smart. Testing the waters or so.

[STEF_]

Alistair Winter, on 03 June 2015 - 07:06 AM, said:

Well, to be fair, he has a good vision in some regards. The mechs vs mech combat in this game can be very entertaining, when the meta isn't screwed by bad balancing. But they just fail when it comes to maps, game modes, and... well, many other things.

The ironic thing about CW is that it's basically designed around organized 12-man teams in big units, fighting for fame on the galaxy map. That is the perfect starting point for an e-sport mode. So PGI is trying to cater to both the e-sport crowd and the mil-sim / Battletech crowd in both CW and pub queue, which means both crowds are unhappy about both parts of the game.

They would have done better to make a crystal clear distinction between e-sport (Solaris) and Battletech (CW). I don't think the pub queue is needed at all, if they could satisfy these two major groups in their playerbase. Now, they've basically confirmed that Solaris is coming, so it'll be interesting to see what they do with the pub queue then.

Agree 100%

This explains a LOT of mwo flows/issues to me, as you said "both crowds are unhappy about both parts of the game."
The only good idea about this is to follow the lore: E-sport-----> Solaris. And no more than this.

I can understand also that a lot of ppl are not here for doing...sports.
BT and also previous mw (mw2) are all about a big variety of missions, so, yes I can understand why most hard core BT players don't like the eternal skirmish brawling mode we are playing from 3 years.

Anyway, I don't think that a lot of players were/are still here for ...doing sports.....

For me that comment about "mwo is a e-sport" is maybe even worse than "you are in a island" post, for its weird vision of the game, a simulation of war, NOT an e-sport.

[C E Dwyer]

All I saw in the road map was.

We can't make a real game so making this e-sport, but please don't stop the rest of you giving us phat lootz.

when F2P developers can't, they fall back on making something a Guild Wars clone

[occusoj]

MWO cant and shouldnt be made into E-Sports. Especially not CW.
A dedicated solaris mode for sure would be great but even that is far from what can be called ESport. Look at Q3, CS, Dota,... thats esport. Just imagine an important match about serious $$$ with current hitreg. Oh the lols.
This game has nothing on those titles.

Btw. a few guys that call themselfs "competitive" arent an esport scene.

[C E Dwyer]

Alistair Winter, on 03 June 2015 - 05:42 AM, said:

You have to go back and listen to Russ' vision of Community Warfare in earlier Town Hall meetings. There's a lot of criticism being made about CW that is simply complete irrelevant, because Russ has a very specific idea of what CW is supposed to look like:

• Attackers attack the gates. This is isn't a tactical element of the match, so much as a thing they implemented to set the mood. It's like the intro.
  
• Defenders set up in positions inside the base, which is is a relatively open area.
  
• Attackers breach the gates.
  
• Brawl inside the gates.
  
• Attackers die, drop again, rinse and repeat.

The whole point of CW is to get a big brawl going inside the gates. I've seen criticism like:

• We should have multiple objectives
  
• The defenders should be able to push out and attack some kind of command vehicle, like the one in Assault
  
• Maps should have more attack lanes, to make scouting more important for both sides
  
• Only 20% of the map is being used, the rest is just empty space where attackers have to walk to get back in the fight. We should use the whole map!

But this is all missing the point. Russ doesn't want any of that. He wants a big brawl inside the gates. He doesn't like light mech zerg rushing, because it doesn't lead to brawling. And he doesn't want teams to split up and fight outside the gates, because it doesn't lead to brawling. He wants epic battles with 12v12 deathballs, not slow-paced tactical matches.



As long as this is his vision for CW and Invasion mode in particular, there's no point talking about immersion, tactics, strategy, convoy escorts, planting demolition teams, rescuing VIPs or assassinating enemy team commanders. As far as PGI is concerned, CW is all about brawling inside the base.

Big brawls are easier to film and e-sport, than intelligent thinking play.

Why weapons velocity is being slowed down gradually, I think guass rifles will end up slower in a year or two's time, if this game is going to be all about the brawl.