62 replies to this topic

[Dirty Scrub Casual]

Sooo many players mob queuing Skirmishes. Assault and Conquest add strategy but get much less action. Add an Escort match where one team is randomly given a convoy to escort from Point A to Point B. Assign other Team an objective to either destroy the convoy or the enemy mechs.

Additionally, award proportionately more points for actually achieving objectives (IE: 300 points for capturing a resource vs 2000 points for a mech kill... in a Conquest map is negative reinforcement). Encourage objective completion by increasing the rewards for achieving objectives. Otherwise all varieties of matches will devolve into skirmishes regardless.

[Navid A1]

what will prevent the attackers from yoloing the convoy or sniping it from 1500 m away?


Because as far as i know... in an escort scenario, defense is a million times harder than offence.
You can put serious weight restrictions but that will create more buckets for MM.

Edited by Navid A1, 03 January 2016 - 10:09 PM.

[SQW]

Make it escort but one of the random player mechs (limited to medium or light). Like the 2nd part of the Capture the Flag where Red is gunning for you and Blue team mates try to keep you alive. Maybe remove assaults from queue to speed up the tempo too.

Also, PGI has spent 0 hours on AI. I mean, the mechs in tutorial and testing ground doesn't even move. The OP's suggestion would require PGI to actually code a vehicle so it can move from A to B while avoiding collision etc - not gonna happen.

[Bishop Steiner]

Seriously...Escort matches? The most universally hated and reviled of all game play modes?!?!?!?!

[Khobai]

Quote

what will prevent the attackers from yoloing the convoy or sniping it from 1500 m away?

terrain?

Quote

Seriously...Escort matches? The most universally hated and reviled of all game play modes?!?!?!?!

you really need to stop trying to state your opinions as fact. actually you should just stop stating your opinions too.

plenty of popular games have escort gamemodes that arnt hated or reviled. In fact payload is one of the most popular gamemodes in TF2.

Not saying an escort gamemode would necessarily work that well in MWO. But it couldnt possibly be worse than skirmish, which is an atrocious gamemode. And I would definitely like to see some NPC vehicle assets developed for use in different gamemodes.

Edited by Khobai, 03 January 2016 - 10:41 PM.

[SQW]

Bishop Steiner, on 03 January 2016 - 10:31 PM, said:

Seriously...Escort matches? The most universally hated and reviled of all game play modes?!?!?!?!

lol, that's because in SP games, your escort is always a brain dead AI that makes you want to shoot him/her/it yourself. Left for Dead is like escort game and that's immensely popular. Like I said, make the escort target one of the players and it's actually a viable game mode that requires team work to scout, screen, protect and use terrain/ecm for cover.

Then again, we are talking about pubby games....

[Navid A1]

Khobai, on 03 January 2016 - 10:36 PM, said:

Navid A1, on 03 January 2016 - 10:06 PM, said:

what will prevent the attackers from yoloing the convoy or sniping it from 1500 m away?


Because as far as i know... in an escort scenario, defense is a million times harder than offence.
You can put serious weight restrictions but that will create more buckets for MM.

terrain?

Nope!

Unless the target is an stationary building in a cave or faced towards a wall.... its gonna get rekt!

[Karl Marlow]

You guys can't even escort assaults. Why should anyone expect you to be able to escort a npc?

[Metus regem]

Ugh... I hated, hated, HATED!!!!! Pulling convoy escorts when I flew Apaches in the Army... So much crap can go sideways very fast....

Thanks for the idea, keep working on them I'm sure a good one will strike soon.

[Monkey Lover]

So, i searched for "escorts" on google images and i can say i am a lot more open to this idea.

[TheCharlatan]

This will be a f***ing nightmare to balance...
How are you going to avoid one team just YOLOing on the objective, or dropping a narc on it and covering it in LRMs?
Make one of the players a VIP to be protected? Prepare for infinite forum whine: "my VIP is always a s***y player who just suicides in the enemy team! this mode sucks!!!!11111!!"

Not saying it's impossible, just really hard to make it work.

[DrxAbstract]

Khobai, on 03 January 2016 - 10:36 PM, said:

terrain?



you really need to stop trying to state your opinions as fact. actually you should just stop stating your opinions too.

plenty of popular games have escort gamemodes that arnt hated or reviled. In fact payload is one of the most popular gamemodes in TF2.

Not saying an escort gamemode would necessarily work that well in MWO. But it couldnt possibly be worse than skirmish, which is an atrocious gamemode. And I would definitely like to see some NPC vehicle assets developed for use in different gamemodes.

What's wrong with Skirmish?!

Ammo and repair trucks!

Spectator-ish Mech Commander mode + 13-man CW drops!

Planetary Supply Lanes with Raid + Defense options for CW!

Better Machine guns and Flamers! ... Really reaching for the sky on that one.

[Rushin Roulette]

Monkey Lover, on 04 January 2016 - 12:42 AM, said:

So, i searched for "escorts" on google images and i can say i am a lot more open to this idea.

Too true.. however Im too scared of finding out what would come out if I searched for you in that context .

Yes. An escort game mode would be great. However there needs to be some kind of advantage for the VIP/escorting team to make this even remotely balanced. One of my favorite game modes in CSS was VIP. Basically the target was selected randomly from the defending team and had to reach point X on the map. The target was unarmed but could run maybe 25% faster than anyone else on the map.

Translating this to MWO would be difficult, but theoretically possible.

Let it be any mech in the lineup for the defending team (no restriction in weight class), but that mech can move 25% faster than usual and had +25% armour but all ECM, weapons and ammunition except for AMS/TAG/NARC are removed (Player cant damage the enemy directly, but still support the team if necesary). If this player reaches point X behind the attackers spawn points, the game is won for the defenders. If he is destroyed, then the attackers win. The VIP is not distinguishable by the attackers, except when he is directly locked on (maybe target designation H-VIP)
This way you can theoretically end up with a super fast light that can rush the extraction point (although risking destruction through overextension) or a slightly faster Assualt with more Armour which can keep up with the rest of the team. This also opens up various tactics such as distract the enemy team with the main force while the VIP breaks for it seperately at a certain time or the defending team plow through with the VIP in the middle of them.

[Inveramsay]

Escort could well work but in reality it will be frustrating when the mouth breathers don't understand what they are meant to do.

Killing the commander mech could be interesting as well necessitating the team to either death ball or splitting up with some going on the offensive. May be too much to ask for though.

King of the hill with two or three reinforcement mechs could be fun

Capture the flag would work

The last two would certainly be best with reinforcements though

[Khobai]

Quote

What's wrong with Skirmish?!

The fact that every gamemode is skirmish.

Quote

Capture the flag would work

Would definitely be an interesting gamemode. Especially if only mechs with hand actuators could carry the flag. Because hand actuators would have an actual use then. It would also have to slowdown the mech thats carrying it considerably (like 50-60kph top speed).

Although the flag would have to be something that makes sense in the battletech universe... like a navigational blackbox that contains the coordinates to a lostech cache or something like that.

And yeah capture the flag obviously needs respawns to work. CTF just doesnt work without respawns.

Edited by Khobai, 04 January 2016 - 01:07 AM.

[XphR]

I like the idea of escort the assault.

[MadcatX]

Every fiber of my body wants to just yell NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! But in truth and in theory, escort missions could work, there would be some pretty interesting strategies involved. But in reality, not counting high-level unit games, group strategy takes a back seat to KDR more often then not. Although one cannot deny that killing many of your opponents yourself is definitely a valid strategy, it's not one that incorporates a whole lot of planning other then your loadout so I can see escort missions essentially always using the strategy of everyone grouping up around the escort, the other team forming the blob and essentially both collide in one go so we end up with another game mode where, yea you could destroy the escort objective just like you could cap the base, capture the conquest points, defend or blow up buildings but in the end it'll still usually end up just being another skirmish.

[Davegt27]

Khobai what do you mean TF2?

Quote

you really need to stop trying to state your opinions as fact. actually you should just stop stating your opinions too.

plenty of popular games have escort gamemodes that arnt hated or reviled. In fact payload is one of the most popular gamemodes in TF2.

Not saying an escort gamemode would necessarily work that well in MWO. But it couldnt possibly be worse than skirmish, which is an atrocious gamemode. And I would definitely like to see some NPC vehicle assets developed for use in different gamemodes.

The reason I ask is my all time favorite PC game is TF1942 what a great game it was an escort mission game sort of

The game is set from "Guadalcanal campaign"

The game played out in the campaign mode ---you had to resupply the base a Guadalcanal with supply missions
The other side’s job was twofold one to stop the supply missions and two to resupply there troops on the island
Going down the famous slot

The engagements happened as you intercepted the Japanese task force or if you played Japanese side intercept the American task force

I could go on and on why and how this game was so good but it was loosely an escort game mode but you fought hardly knowing there were supply ships you were supposed to be protecting

So I think it could work if done properly

[MeiSooHaityu]

Bishop Steiner, on 03 January 2016 - 10:31 PM, said:

Seriously...Escort matches? The most universally hated and reviled of all game play modes?!?!?!?!

I thought the same thing. I HATE escort missions as well.

I'm glad tho OP is thinking about possible new ideas, but I just can't get excited for implementation of a notoriously hated game mode type.

[Raggedyman]

Navid A1, on 03 January 2016 - 10:06 PM, said:

what will prevent the attackers from yoloing the convoy

a decent defence, possibly some turrets

Navid A1, on 03 January 2016 - 10:06 PM, said:

or sniping it from 1500 m away?

a reasonable map, although it just needs to make it not "insta kill" as a long game is a valid approach

It wouldn't be easy, but it wouldn't be impossible.