53 replies to this topic

[Axeface]

WarHippy, on 09 June 2015 - 01:25 PM, said:

Well personally this has me greatly concerned as Assault is my preferred game mode. I tolerate conquest, and despise skirmish primarily out of principal, but also because it is completely without substance and effort on part of the devs. Granted the other two are not much better on the substance and effort part, but hey at least they are not skirmish. My fear is they are going to make it worse leaving me with only conquest.

I dont really understand, I find assault and skirmish to be virtually identical? The only difference is that on assault sometimes teams go saddle. As a game mode assault for me completely fails, it needs a rework and quickly.

Edited by Axeface, 09 June 2015 - 01:31 PM.

[Big Tin Man]

Anything that they do to change assault will be better. As far as I can tell we have 3 game modes:

1. Camping team deathmatch (assault)
2. Nascar team deathmatch (skirmish)
3. Rolling deathball team deathmatch (conquest)

Before turrets, with assault you had to be aware of enemy lights potentially pulling the rug out from under you, so you didn't necessarily commit to full deathballing. Turrets killed this.

Suggestion for assault mode:

Defenders protect a base from damage (think CW light here). Base may have turrets, less than currently in assault, but at least 3. Buff for the reduced # of turrets: turrets can now report target information back to the mechs, and show them on the map, as long as the turret has line of sight. Attackers drop much more spread apart, with no objective to protect, and no turrets. This could encourage some brave tactics for lance v. lance combat.

Suggestion for Russ's other issue of "too many buckets"--voting. Take away the game mode choice (they're all deathmatch, really guys) and let players vote on game mode A on map x or game mode B on map y. Match creator would need to be written that each time the game modes/maps did not match each other so the choices would be very different. Then pick your poison.

Edited by Big Tin Man, 09 June 2015 - 01:39 PM.

[WarHippy]

Axeface, on 09 June 2015 - 01:30 PM, said:

I dont really understand, I find assault and skirmish to be virtually identical? The only difference is that on assault sometimes teams go saddle. As a game mode assault for me completely fails, it needs a rework and quickly.

At least with assault matches have the option of ending in different ways, and have zero chance of ending in a game of chase the light for five minutes like has happened to me almost every time I have accidentally ended up in a skirmish game. I also prefer the sudden change in momentum when someone starts capping a base and the teams scramble to adjust to the situation. Like I said though my hate for skirmish is mostly out of principle and less about the actual function of the game mode.

As for assault needing a rework? Well yeah it probably does, but I am worried it will be worse than it is currently, and no offense but your earlier suggestion would be a perfect example of making it worse in my book. Screw respawns or ticket systems.

Edited by WarHippy, 09 June 2015 - 01:43 PM.

[Big Tin Man]

On a similar note, how about a minor tweak for conquest which would make for MASSIVE changes to playstyle.

Make the capture points destructible.

Now you have a reason not to deathball, because leaving your caps unguarded can leave you in a world of trouble if the other team can destroy two caps and focus on defending the other two.

[LordKnightFandragon]

If we are going to have assault mode, it really needs to be more like Battlefield style CTF with tickets and stuff, rather then 1 base to cap. Then again, thats basically Conquest.

Assault and COnquest should both have some degree of respawns, maybe you get to have a 4 mech drop deck for that as well. 240t all the same as CW

[OznerpaG]

if the team that won by capping got 100k CB bonus and 1000 XP bonus THAT would make for some great vicious strategic gameplay

[Axeface]

WarHippy, on 09 June 2015 - 01:42 PM, said:

Screw respawns or ticket systems.

Could you elaborate on why you think that? I think that a ticket system with longer, drawn-out battles would be perfect for a battletech setting. Battlefield games for example last around 20 minutes and each battle can unfold in many ways. I think the 2 base system, where theb ases can actually change hands could lead to something like that (and seeing dropships on the solo queue would be wonderful).

As we have it now a game usually lasts around 3-5 minutes, and I just dont like it. I have fallen into the trap of accepting it, and accepting the grind mentality that PGI want us to have - but I dont like it.
I find it similar to the mentality of the Metro servers that plague battlefield 3. People join them and grind that map day after day because they can 'deathball' (as mwo player put it) and just grind points.... to me it's terrible, addictive (in a very bad way) gameplay.

Edited by Axeface, 09 June 2015 - 02:02 PM.

[Ace Selin]

Seems like people want a short duration CW map.... how about we leave that for CW & the upcoming 4v4 CW map for that.

[Wildstreak]

No respawns, just no, because then Spawn Camping comes in and that is intolerable in any game I have played. If you want respawns and base assaults, CW.

I used to like Conquest but now avoid it. I would like to see a new Assault mode make use of map areas long avoided.

The LRM turrets are just too strong. The MLs seem to randomly target you for a 10 point alpha but the LRMs spread all over your Mech making it easier to cripple weak spots. Make them AC turrets if they want long range ones, 2 AC5.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Alistair Winter, on 09 June 2015 - 12:35 PM, said:

It's just another step towards pushing the light mech into the dirt and invalidating short range builds with SRMs, small lasers and SPLs. And obviously, people are gonna say "Well, it's your own fault for not bringing long range weapons on a light mech". Same as in every streak missile debate. Meanwhile, the number of light mechs in the queue is consistently the lowest of all weight classes. As we speak, it's 6% light mechs and 52% heavy mechs in the queue.

Anti-light mech turrets would just be another reason for players to steer clear of them.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I hated Assault before they added turrets. 4 light mechs capping the base for a quick victory and 20,000 C-bills was a huge waste of 5 minutes, every time. But at least light mechs had a function back then. It was something vaguely resembling role warfare, even in a crappy, primitive form. Then they added those uber turrets and Assault became Skirmish with capping as a safety valve for when the last guy is a powered down ECM Spider.

I see your response as an overreaction. MLasers aren't long range weapons.

Ok, a light like a huggin wants to base cap. That mech can attack while being in range of one turret only at a time. They can fire one salvo (maybe two tops) and destroy a turret. They've taken 5 total spread damage per each turret they attacked. This is should not be the end of lights attacking a base.

Also, out of all of this, LRM turrets are more light friendly?

All an SRM turret does is slow down an attacker. He/she can engage outside of the missiles range and take care of them without even getting shot at. If it has to go within range of a turret, a 8 SPLaser light or 2 rapid fire SRM light mech should shred a turret without that turret posing a real threat.

It just slows down a base rush so an enemy can respond, and that is all turrets should do.

Heck, I wouldn't mind ditching the turrets all together and have a base item that needs to be destroyed instead. But then a pilot will complain that they can't win when their mech has no weapons (stripped).

Ultimately we just need a delay tactic for base cap. We don't need LRM turrets that attack people that aren't even that close to the base.

[FalconerGray]

The greatest ever MWO experience I've had was an assault gane on River City. I don't know how exactly it ended up the way it did, but my team spent the entire 15 minutes pinned down in the buildings at our base (Citadel spawn).

It was probably due to poor tactics on our part, but it made for the most intense and - important above all else, most believable battle I've been a part of.

As I recall, an enemy lance rushed water straight away and as we reinforced that front, a light rush hit us from the rear. So we used the buildings for cover and it turned into a ferocious 15 minutes that actually felt like we were desperately trying to hold an objective. At the end, the scores were tied 9-9 and when I realized that the remaining mechs were retreating, I wasn't disappointed that I had lost the opportunity to score a winn, but was relieved that we had turned them away. It felt like a victory to me, despite the score saying otherwise.

I don't know how exactly that can be recreated, but that is the one match that I constantly look back on and think "That was amazing".

[WarHippy]

Axeface, on 09 June 2015 - 01:58 PM, said:

Could you elaborate on why you think that? I think that a ticket system with longer, drawn-out battles would be perfect for a battletech setting. Battlefield games for example last around 20 minutes and each battle can unfold in many ways. I think the 2 base system, where theb ases can actually change hands could lead to something like that (and seeing dropships on the solo queue would be wonderful).

What you think and what I think are clearly two different things. I don't want this to be like Battlefield with respawns and all that nonsense. If I wanted to play Battlefield I would be playing Battlefield not MWO. I do not want respawns or a ticket system. I tolerate it in CW given what that mode is supposed to represent, but I will not accept it anywhere else. I want players to care about their mech and make proper choices with their actions be they good or bad not wave after wave of Rambo mechs bonsai charging into the other team.

Axeface, on 09 June 2015 - 01:58 PM, said:

As we have it now a game usually lasts around 3-5 minutes, and I just dont like it. I have fallen into the trap of accepting it, and accepting the grind mentality that PGI want us to have - but I dont like it.
I find it similar to the mentality of the Metro servers that plague battlefield 3. People join them and grind that map day after day because they can 'deathball' (as mwo player put it) and just grind points.... to me it's terrible, addictive (in a very bad way) gameplay.

Average game time according to PGI awhile back is 8 min. That being said I don't have a problem with that. Currently if we are going to compare this game to another then we should be looking at Counter-Strike/World of Tanks as they are far more similar in setup than Battlefield, but either way let MWO be MWO and stop trying to clone everything else. I'm really not interested in making it more like Battlefield.

[Wildstreak]

From here, edited to relevant part.

Zeece, on 25 June 2015 - 04:32 PM, said:

# Will we see an Aysmentic Assault Game Mode?

* Want to use Union Class Drop as center piece of game mode.
* Attack/Defend Style Mode
* Maybe power-up over time
* Damage-ability of parts
* Hard to Balance
* No Union Class Drop till atleast August

#Off Topic

* probably take turrets out of Assault modes, never really added to mode. Remove tactics from mode.. want to re-introduce tactics so its definitely different from skirmish.

[Zoid]

The base guns need to be stronger but more centralized around the base itself. They're very easy to take out if you want to do so but it's incredibly irritating to be trying to flank around an enemy position and be stopped because you get within 800m of the LRM turrets, which on some maps can cover 1/4 of the map.