14 replies to this topic

[GreyNovember]

Some people don't want combat lights, despite damage being a good influence for match scores.

How about this.

We already have brawling rewards for heavies. Let's give lights a specific bonus for slapping a Narc on a target, and for reward update tick the narc remains active.

10k for the first narc of any target. Succeeding hits do not count.

15k for narcing an ECM equipped mech.

1k for every reward update.


Let's say a single narc is 10 Match score, and every tick is 1 after that.


We'd then have the "Recon Infotech Scout" light mechs some people so insist on, less lights carry heavy weaponry, which means they contribute less to pure damage when cornering something. In exchage, being a light actually pays something now when you invest in Narc and Narc Ammo tonnage.

[fat4eyes]

Agree with rewards for NARC tick count. Scouts need money too. Though rewards should be lower than OP's suggestion. Probably good to scale it so that getting 4 mechs narced to the full duration is equivalent to damaging and killing 1 enemy mech.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Aggressive reward levels for non-damage actions are necessary if they'll ever be worth the opportunity cost.

[GreyNovember]

fat4eyes, on 28 September 2015 - 07:11 PM, said:

Agree with rewards for NARC tick count. Scouts need money too. Though rewards should be lower than OP's suggestion. Probably good to scale it so that getting 4 mechs narced to the full duration is equivalent to damaging and killing 1 enemy mech.

Bearing in mind that a Narc carrying light is much less likely to be getting Solo Kills and Kill Most Damage Dealt, as well as the low ammo/ton of Narc, and it's tendency to be innacurate?

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 28 September 2015 - 07:27 PM, said:

Aggressive reward levels for non-damage actions are necessary if they'll ever be worth the opportunity cost.

Do I take that as you agree with my reward structure, or insist on a different value set?

[John1352]

NARC needs to pay for something other than just the kill, at the moment you can win a game with NARCs (i.e. your team is made up of cowardly LRM boats), but because they were finished off with a different weapon, you get nothing.

Edit: The bit about hitting an ECM mech is especially important, that should pay really well.

Edited by John1352, 28 September 2015 - 07:36 PM.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

GreyNovember, on 28 September 2015 - 07:32 PM, said:

Do I take that as you agree with my reward structure, or insist on a different value set?

In part it's a statement of principle that backs your goals without committing to your specific proposals, but in part it's tacit approval of the general plan you've proposed. In particular, shutting down ECM with a NARC ought to be payed very nicely.

[monk]

Narc and TAG need significantly improvements and rewards for those taking the time to use them.

Suggestions - feel free to adjust/fill in values:

- Successful narc placement (only once per mech per duration of narc.): 1000cbills, 15xp
- Damage by ally on mech with your active narc beacon: 10cbills per point of damage by lrm or ssrm. 3cbills per point of damage not by lrm or ssrm. Only first narc on a mech counts (so you don't have 12 players narcing the same mech just to gain rewards)
- Mech you've narced is killed while narc is active: 1000cbills, 25xp (narc is always useful, but this isn't a huge accomplishment and we don't need to track how much your narc helped since that's kind of complicated anyhow - the damage bonus is already sufficient).
- tag damage bonus: 15cbills per point of damage by lrm or ssrm by other players (you don't get a bonus for tagging for yourself). no bonus for other damage types (why would you? You're tagging for missile locks, right?)
- tag should be invisible to all players unless thermal/heat mode is enabled. Could be visible in smoke (would be cool and atmospheric).

[GreyNovember]

monk, on 28 September 2015 - 08:16 PM, said:

Narc and TAG need significantly improvements and rewards for those taking the time to use them.

Suggestions - feel free to adjust/fill in values:

- Successful narc placement (only once per mech per duration of narc.): 1000cbills, 15xp
- Damage by ally on mech with your active narc beacon: 10cbills per point of damage by lrm or ssrm. 3cbills per point of damage not by lrm or ssrm. Only first narc on a mech counts (so you don't have 12 players narcing the same mech just to gain rewards)
- Mech you've narced is killed while narc is active: 1000cbills, 25xp (narc is always useful, but this isn't a huge accomplishment and we don't need to track how much your narc helped since that's kind of complicated anyhow - the damage bonus is already sufficient).
- tag damage bonus: 15cbills per point of damage by lrm or ssrm by other players (you don't get a bonus for tagging for yourself). no bonus for other damage types (why would you? You're tagging for missile locks, right?)
- tag should be invisible to all players unless thermal/heat mode is enabled. Could be visible in smoke (would be cool and atmospheric).

Why so skimp? I understand you're open to value adjustment, but why start with this?

At this rate you're still better off doing the damage yourself than assuming people will make active use of your lock.

[monk]

GreyNovember, on 28 September 2015 - 08:38 PM, said:

Why so skimp? I understand you're open to value adjustment, but why start with this?

At this rate you're still better off doing the damage yourself than assuming people will make active use of your lock.

It's not really that bad. One would also hope that you were assisting in doing the damage. But for example, if you narced a mech and 300 points of damage were done it it before dying, you've be seeing a bonus of 1000cbills for the initial narc, 3000cbills for the damage done, and another 1000 for the kill. So that's an additional 5000cbills plus any damage you did against it (or maybe you even got the kill). Not a bad reward for simply assisting your teams aim. If you happen to narc 3 or 4 like this during a match, suddenly you're making an extra 20k. Not a ton, but again, we could increase those values to where they felt right. The counter point will always be avoiding having people game the system and just narc everything in sight all the time to just get cbills and xp bonuses. There needs to be a proper balance between rewards and costs to the equipment. I'd rather err on the side of a little low to start.

[GreyNovember]

monk, on 28 September 2015 - 08:45 PM, said:

It's not really that bad. One would also hope that you were assisting in doing the damage. But for example, if you narced a mech and 300 points of damage were done it it before dying, you've be seeing a bonus of 1000cbills for the initial narc, 3000cbills for the damage done, and another 1000 for the kill. So that's an additional 5000cbills plus any damage you did against it (or maybe you even got the kill). Not a bad reward for simply assisting your teams aim. If you happen to narc 3 or 4 like this during a match, suddenly you're making an extra 20k. Not a ton, but again, we could increase those values to where they felt right. The counter point will always be avoiding having people game the system and just narc everything in sight all the time to just get cbills and xp bonuses. There needs to be a proper balance between rewards and costs to the equipment. I'd rather err on the side of a little low to start.

20k is admittedly not a trivial amount.

Though, keep in mind that this is a bonus to lights. Mechs without much tonnage to work with if they intend to go fast. A Narc usually means a significant sacrifice in the Armor, Speed, or weapons department if they decide to bring one, coupled with the fact that the projectile itself travels fairly slow.

If anything, would that not be desireable, having lights narc whatever they see?

I'm of the opinion that, if your primary role is to be the Narc mech, you should be rewarded aggressively for it due to those limitations.

[fat4eyes]

GreyNovember, on 28 September 2015 - 07:32 PM, said:

Bearing in mind that a Narc carrying light is much less likely to be getting Solo Kills and Kill Most Damage Dealt, as well as the low ammo/ton of Narc, and it's tendency to be innacurate?

On my Raven 3L I have 3.5 tons of NARC ammo. That's 42 shots. And 3 medium lasers on top of that, not a bad alpha for a light mech.

You can get crazy accurate with NARC on the Raven 3L with Enhanced NARC (increased narc range and speed). With practice you can routinely hit moving assaults at 500m. 10K for every first narc hit is too much, considering that in other mechs if get a 500 damage game you probably would only get around 150-170k without premium time. In a 3L I can probably NARC around 6 different mechs as long as I don't killed early, and do additional damage on top of that.

Though I would probably profit from the rewards you suggested, it feels wrong for me to earn as much as the people who actually dealt the damage and got the kills. Maybe if I got a percentage from any damage dealt to a NARCed target instead (not just LRM damage), then I'd feel more justified.

Don't get me wrong though, I like the idea of more NARC bonuses, because NARCs really do help your team win. It's just the reward amounts that will have to be tweaked so its fair to the non-scouts as well.

Edit: NARC ammo count.

Edited by fat4eyes, 28 September 2015 - 09:09 PM.

[monk]

GreyNovember, on 28 September 2015 - 09:04 PM, said:

20k is admittedly not a trivial amount.

Though, keep in mind that this is a bonus to lights. Mechs without much tonnage to work with if they intend to go fast. A Narc usually means a significant sacrifice in the Armor, Speed, or weapons department if they decide to bring one, coupled with the fact that the projectile itself travels fairly slow.

If anything, would that not be desireable, having lights narc whatever they see?

I'm of the opinion that, if your primary role is to be the Narc mech, you should be rewarded aggressively for it due to those limitations.

I agree the reward should justify the risk and costs. Adjust up as necessary. =) I don't have enough data on how others perform with narc to make a stronger argument either way. But I do agree that it's a cost to the lights to equip the systems. If you tied in the narc to make lrms a viable system across all levels of play it would be an added perk. Also, consider that some mechs could easily take 400-600 points of damage under missile fire so some of these narc shots could end up having some significant returns if used properly.

Again, just tweaking needed based on data.

[Cyborne Elemental]

I miss all the little trickly rewards that used to be associated with TAG/NARC.

If sombody hits your NARC target with LRM, you should get a tiny reward for it.
As well as Getting a small scout bonus when a teamate targets your NARC target.
Also should be getting ECM knockout points for hitting a mech with ECM, just the way Counter does with BAP or your own ECM.

[Devayner]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 28 September 2015 - 07:27 PM, said:

Aggressive reward levels for non-damage actions are necessary if they'll ever be worth the opportunity cost.

^^ yep.

[GreyNovember]

Actually, now that I think about it, there's really no point to a rewad on Narc per update tick.

A Narc is set to last x Amount of time. For consistency's sake, that default time period should be just lumped into the "First Narc" bonus per target. Less things to add, less things to go wrong when covering things like a Narc under ECM, or if a Narced mech dies before the Narc can fully expire.