62 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

Navid A1, on 04 January 2016 - 02:34 PM, said:

One BIG difference between FPS games like counter strike and MWO is that mechs have... ARMOR!
there is no one shot - on kill. In CS, there is no yolo going on because:
1- it is an urban environment (too many "safe" angles)
2- one player in a good position can annihilate the entire yolo enemy team under 5 seconds!
in MWO... yolo works because mechs torso twist and run, up to the point where they can land a full alpha on the target!

So what? One big difference between World of Warcraft, Quake Arena, Call of Duty, Star Wars Battlefront, Star Conflict, World of Tanks, Star Citizen and Armored Warfare is that some games are one-shot-one-kill, some games aren't. Another big difference is that some of them feature soldiers on foot, others feature ground vehicles, others feature air vehicles and some even feature space ships. Another big difference is that some of them are First person view and others are 3PV.

And yet, many of those games share similar or identical game modes. Go figure.

[Navid A1]

Alistair Winter, on 04 January 2016 - 02:38 PM, said:

So what? One big difference between World of Warcraft, Quake Arena, Call of Duty, Star Wars Battlefront, Star Conflict, World of Tanks, Star Citizen and Armored Warfare is that some games are one-shot-one-kill, some games aren't. Another big difference is that some of them feature soldiers on foot, others feature ground vehicles, others feature air vehicles and some even feature space ships. Another big difference is that some of them are First person view and others are 3PV.

And yet, many of those games share similar or identical game modes. Go figure.

How many of those have re-spawns...?!

you know, MWO is a special case in many many ways. There is no re-spawn, its armored combat, there is no combined arms battle going on. this makes an escort mission with a destroy-able target very very bad... for the defenders!

Edited by Navid A1, 04 January 2016 - 02:51 PM.

[Alistair Winter]

Navid A1, on 04 January 2016 - 02:45 PM, said:

How many of those have re-spawns...?!
you know, MWO is a special case in many many ways. There is no re-spawn, its armored combat, there is no combined arms battle going on. this makes an escort mission with a destroy-able target very very bad... for the defenders!

So now respawn is the issue? Armored warfare doesn't have respawn, Counter Strike doesn't have respawn, there may be a bunch of others I don't know about, because I've only played a limited number of FPS / warsim / MMORPG games.

My point is, I don't like the "apples and oranges" argument because there's very often a way around it. I mean, if I said 20 years ago that "Capture the Flag" from Quake would be applicable to World of Warcraft, I'm sure a lot of people would have said "it's apples and oranges". One game is 1PV, the other is 3PV. One game has insta-killing player-aimed weapons, the other is all about DPS and burst damage and the server determines hits and misses based on probabilities and skills. Truly apples and oranges. But it works.

I think a lot of game modes would work for MWO, but PGI hasn't tried it yet.

[Navid A1]

Alistair Winter, on 04 January 2016 - 02:55 PM, said:

I think a lot of game modes would work for MWO, but PGI hasn't tried it yet.

This I agree with....

But escort, in its traditional concept. Nope!... like never ever!

In fact the main point in an apples and oranges case is that the same conditions do not apply in either of them... one games' mechanic allows implementation of escort mode flawlessly, while the same mode may not work for the other one!... that is where creativity comes in.. in the form of new modes (even modified versions of the traditional escort)

[Satan n stuff]

Ghost Badger, on 04 January 2016 - 08:49 AM, said:

You mean...Team Deathmatch...the most common of multiplayer game modes in any game that involves shooting?

Gonna go with Bishop on this one.

It's Team Survival actually, Deathmatch traditionally has infinite respawn and a kill count goal.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Khobai, on 04 January 2016 - 01:01 AM, said:

The fact that every gamemode is skirmish.



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.

RE: Hand Actuators and Game Mode

I thought that would make an interesting twist on Conquest, though it would likely still get turned into Skirmish in 90% of instances.

Make it so the resources have to be carried from the cap points back to a landing zone. Only mechs with HAND ACTUATORS could do it, of course, and the amount any mech could carry would be determined by its weight class. And of course, arm-mounted weapons couldn't be used while carrying, but the pilot COULD choose to put down the resource cargo (which could then be taken by the enemy, of course, were it to be left unattended) to fight. Also, max speed would be capped at 66.7% (WALK) of max while carrying.

You're right. It probably WOULD suck. F*** it. Let's just do Skirmish 24/7. Or ditch the public stuff altogether and go 100% CW. I hate public queue anyhow...

[Grimvid]

As long as we have control of the convoy route. Throw in a few AI armored escort vehicles and I am in.

[FireDog]

Yep, I wish PGI would burn some midnight oil and code in some useful AI elements. Some scouting hovercraft, 2xLMR15 ACs, 2xAC10 or ErPPC equipped tanks, and attack helos would make for a richer gaming experience and give them the ability to build some nice mission game modes.

[Ted Wayz]

Played a MMO with PvP and part of the way to unlock objectives was for people to sit on static objectives. The game boiled down to who could bring the most people to the objective and sit on it. Gameplay was repetitive and boring.

So after a bunch of suggestions and requests the developers changed it from a static objective to an escort mission. Now people would have to escort the resource and battles could occur all over the map and strategies could evolve. And that is exactly what happened. The game became dynamic in nature.

And people hated it. Hated it with a passion. It was too hard and turns out that people like static and ezmode. They would rather sit on a horse in the safety of 100-400 other players rather than have to break into smaller groups where skill became more of a factor. Sound familiar?

It is why their is always a clamor for the "single player experience". A majority of people prefer their PvP to resemble PvE as much as possible.

So escort missions would definitely make MWO more dynamic. But there is a good chance people would not take to it.

[Khobai]

Quote

You mean...Team Deathmatch...the most common of multiplayer game modes in any game that involves shooting?

No I mean skirmish. Team Deathmatch has respawns.

[XphR]

Alistair Winter, on 04 January 2016 - 02:55 PM, said:

My point is, I don't like the "apples and oranges" argument because there's very often a way around it.

Like them both being seasonal sweet tree borne fruits.

[SelectiveCape12]

How about instead of escorting AI entities, the game could randomly designate one player from each team as an "assassination" target, then the teams would go around trying to take out the other team's VIP (or Very Important Person Mech) and at the same time try to defend their own VIP.

It doesn't even have to be just one player from each team, it could be an entire lance that could be designated as VIP. And it doesn't have to be a random designation either. Just like how you can choose to be lance leader during the ready screen, any player can choose to be the VIP for that match. If no one has been selected for VIP by the time the ready timer has expired, then the game randomly chooses a VIP based on specific mech requirements, like any mech that has a max speed that's over 75 kph and/or has a certain tonnage of armor.

Edited by SelectiveCape12, 04 January 2016 - 08:00 PM.

[Lykaon]

Ayrelind, on 03 January 2016 - 10:05 PM, said:

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.

Sounds great but...

it will be another game mode that is not selected in favor of skirmish or when it is rarely selected will be played like a skirmish just like how conquest and assaults are played now.

I am seriously sick to death of skirmish after skirmish after skirmish again and again and only ever seeing an assault when the other option is conquest or when I finally have a significant multiplyer to cancel the massive skirmish vote from everyone else.

Seriously Skirmish game mode is mechwarrior preschool! it's the basics and nothing else. see a badguy shoot a badguy don't die. It's all tactical and nearly zero strategy.

[Davegt27]

Let’s flip things around a bit

The term is interdiction mission

Your mission is to intercept and or interrupt supplies running to the space port

Trains are heavily defended by a contingent of battle Mechs so use your best tactics (I don’t think death balling will work but it might)

There will be two trains on this mono rail system you only need to disable one of them to cut off the needed supplies

Fight through the defenders make it to the rail at one of these two points to disable the train

Good Luck Mech Warriors

[Dirty Scrub Casual]

Again I'm re-posting the IMPORTANT part of my OP... rewards that encourage the completion of non-PK activities. The degree of anti-escort vomit is staggering. Did y'all read the word 'escort' and stop reading?

"Additionally, award proportionately more points for actually achieving objectives (IE: 300 points for capturing a resource vs 2000 points for an enemy kill in a Conquest/Assault map is negative reinforcement)."

Individual player progression currently demands the higher rewarded activity, which is the focused farming of enemies on maps that are supposed to be resource races or base captures. Encourage objective completion by dramatically increasing the rewards for achieving match objectives... maybe offer time-based completion bonuses, too. Otherwise all varieties of matches will devolve into skirmishes regardless of reward value prioritization. Is skirmish fun? Sure. But I can have more fun achieving an actual military-esque objective AND 'skirmish' en route.

This is my primary observation. The 'Escort' match is only one of many possible alternatives and would still fail in intent if kills were still given a higher reward than actually giving highest reward for achieving the match objectives (current Assault and Conquest matches are already there in my observation)... which is my primary purpose for calling the wambulance.

[Jalen]

Escort missions suck? Having to rely on an AI is frustrating? Enemy team going YOLO for the objective?

How about this...

Make it so the enemy wants the thing you're escorting, then they don't want to blow it up or face a penalty for blowing it up (making it win or lose based on not blowing up the escorted objective seems a little harsh, but maybe a c-bill bonus for not killing it or a penalty for killing it).

It could be a mech, it could be a train, it could be a convoy. You could make a train have multiple tracks and the defending team can switch the tracks at a crossing to make it go one of several ways. You could have the drop commander be able to give the mech or convoy directions to choose different paths.

To make a VIP style mode, you could have a mech designated as the VIP and you have to kill it last to get the bonus. Like 8 ball skirmish where you have to sink the 8 ball last.

Back in the Virtualworld days of the Battletech/Red Planet pods they had a version of Red Planet called "Martian Football" where a speedy VTV had to do as many laps as possible to get points while you had "crushers" and "blockers" to try and kill/protect the football. Designate a light mech and make it go from base to base, or collect conquest caps, or just stay alive as long as possible and score points for that. Kinda like a VIP escort thing but much more tantalizingly brutal.

Tons of possibilities to make new modes that work, that don't completely avoid the inevitable collapse into mindless skirmish.

[Navid A1]

Jalen, on 05 January 2016 - 12:28 AM, said:

Escort missions suck? Having to rely on an AI is frustrating? Enemy team going YOLO for the objective?

How about this...

Make it so the enemy wants the thing you're escorting, then they don't want to blow it up or face a penalty for blowing it up (making it win or lose based on not blowing up the escorted objective seems a little harsh, but maybe a c-bill bonus for not killing it or a penalty for killing it).

Another skirmish mode?

Jalen, on 05 January 2016 - 12:28 AM, said:

It could be a mech, it could be a train, it could be a convoy. You could make a train have multiple tracks and the defending team can switch the tracks at a crossing to make it go one of several ways. You could have the drop commander be able to give the mech or convoy directions to choose different paths.

Giving such a non reversible critical choice to a single player who becomes the commander either by accident or by trolling will never end well.

Jalen, on 05 January 2016 - 12:28 AM, said:

Tons of possibilities to make new modes that work, that don't completely avoid the inevitable collapse into mindless skirmish.

It is doable yes.

it could be done as a salvage the cargo type of match. An abandoned high value cargo with both teams intending to capture and escorting it to their home base (or a dropship with live weapons). The cargo exact location is not given directly (a rough area is is given). The cargo is an AI convoy. The convoy ownership can flip mid-match if the escorts are dead and the attackers get within a close proximity for X amount of time.

The cargo needs Y amount of time to get from its initial location to either teams' bases. This will prevent teams from killing the other team first and then do the objective. (if you spend too much time killing the enemy first, you wont have enough time needed by the convoy to get to your base)

Cargo needs at least one escort in close proximity in order to move.

Draw conditions:
cargo is destroyed (with ZERO rewards)

Win/loss:
Cargo is safely captured (rewards can be either one big sum, or depend on number of surviving cargo vehicles)
Killing the entire enemy team gives a boost to your final rewards.
match ends after the cargo reaches a home base (after say, a minute of cargo loading time).

Edited by Navid A1, 05 January 2016 - 01:27 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

I'm not a big fan of an Escort game type for the following reasons. If these are things that could be addressed, then maybe it might be worth looking at further...maybe.

*Convoy susceptible to friendly fire. With mechs being vulnerable to friendly fire, I expect the convoy to be too. With that, light mechs are small and if they are "hugging" convoy vehicles, they become not only difficult to hit, but also shield themselves from fire because the defending team doesn't want to destroy their own vehicles. I can see this being a mess.

* Convoy health. Their trucks, light armor maybe, humvees, etc... They probably won't take much damage before they are destroyed. With the high alpha light mechs like the Artic Cheetah or Firestarter, are they going to get chewed up by a couple of swarming lights? Kind of goes with the first issue too. Also, can a high alpha heavy or assault pick a vehicle off per shot at long range assuming they have some sight line?

* Air/Artillery Strikes. Strikes and Strikes galore! The AI is going to path the convoy along a road. For the match to last 10+ min, that convoy is going slow (with any current map). It will be extremely vulnerable to a team packing air strikes and artillery strikes. The convoy might get chewed up on those alone. Remember, vehicles don't have Assault mech armor, but will most likely be as slow as one (with Locust level armor).

*Death ball. The defending team (in PUG play anyway), will tend to death ball around the convoy in an attempt to fight off lights or block shots from an attacking force. They are going to be in each other's way, blocking teammate's shots while the whole time being rained on by airstrikes.

I just don't see this being fun. You could make the convoy have friendly fire off, but that is kind of weird when other friendly forces are susceptible.

Just overall I see a slow moving mobile death ball getting sniped and rained on with artillery. I just can't see this being fun.

[SmoothCriminal]

Great thread, but we haven't had a new game mode in a while. None have been disclosed to be on the horizon either. So back to TDM scrubs! In all seriousness, the lack of immersion and progression besides the grind is probably (who knows - this is all conjecture) driving away a large player base.

[Dirty Scrub Casual]

Why you all STILL talking about Escort match pros v cons? My primary point is Assault / Conquest objective rewards are about 1/10th as much as a single player kill. THIS is the problem. Escort is just an option, not a solution at all if rewards are still unbalanced.