62 replies to this topic

[GreyNovember]

Okay. Let's assume it's a solo match with 12 v 12.

Most likely scenario?

All the lights on your team go YOLO hunting where the enemy spawn might be. All the enemy lights go after you, and may or may not try to suicide rush down the objective. Depending on how squishy it is, and how many people cry that it doesn't have enough HP.

Everyone else deathballs as usual, until they encounter the OpFor.

At this point, it's probably going to become a brawl, with the opponents trying to force their way past and land as many alphas as possible on the target.

That's of course, assuming they play the objective and not Skirmish it.

Your targets are moving. You cannot control their path. So you are forced to move alongside it.


You've basically given us one sided assault, with a moving base that can be sniped to "cap" it.

[VinJade]

You do know these types of missions are the most hated throughout other games, and many developers from what I heard have stopped doing that.

I remember MW 4 Mercs where you had to escort a supply caravan of resources and equipment to a dropship and it was bad enough that Spector said "keep those tracks moving or I'll shoot you myself, I won't take any late fees over some would be bandits".

also the AIs are as stupid as they come.
another good example is MW 3 where my lance mates was so stupid that they lost some good mechs by running into something ant took their heads off.

so No thanks, these types of missions would be a bad idea, more so with ER LL snipers that can hide in plain sight if there are ECMs involved or just being so far out you cannot even see them.

thus escort missions would then be impossible.

[Parnage Winters]

No one likes Escort Missions.

Escort missions and video games go terribly together. No. You can't do good escort missions because escort missions can't be fun. It's either the object/person being escorted is dumb or nearly impossible to be killed so you question why you're around in the first place or you realize how easy it is and get bored.

This does not change when you have people taking up those roles.

No.

[VinJade]

iirc there was a Resident Evil game where you had to escort a girl that was so dumb that you more or less had to hide her in dumpsters.

that is just one and I am sure others can name games with no problem with stupid escort missions.

[Dirty Scrub Casual]

Apparently I published my OP paragraphs in the wrong order.

"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.

[Gamuray]

TheCharlatan, on 04 January 2016 - 12:53 AM, said:

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.

Easily fixed. Make the "VIP" to protect be one of the 4 people on your team with the highest PSR. Makes sense and will help keep the "VIP" from being a suicidal maniac.

To avoid them being ganged up on, an increase scouting is a necessity, only let the enemy know the person's name, but not mech or designation. ECM would be perfect for this.

I think it'd be quite fun this way. You could have an Assault that's super tanky and deadly waiting in a sneak attack or a light playing cat and mouse as your VIP, or anywhere in between. There would be enormous amounts of strategy. Knowing where the enemy is would be absolutely vital to protecting the VIP and avoiding a "round the corner, NOPE, NOPE, NOPE!" situation.

Edited by Gamuray, 04 January 2016 - 08:41 AM.

[Deathlike]

It's not impossible to implement, but it depends on HOW it is implemented.

Here's a very simple concept.

1) One player on a Team is a "designated" VIP. This player's goal is to reach 1 of 2 objective "dustoff" zones (so, you can't just camp one site to win). Kinda similar to Conquest/Assault... this player will have to be @ the dustoff zone for 10-15 seconds (capping) to ensure a secure victory.

2) Secondary objective is to kill everything (gee, no different than it is now).

3) C-bill rewards are dealt VERY differently however...

The VIP cannot find a way to suicide or a massive penalty is invoked for that player. However, this player's C-bill gains increase by some percentage, but survival is the utmost importance of course (this is to compensate for the potential lack of fighting participation, due to what mech the player is dropped in).

The opfor gains more C-bills if they kill the VIP (technically a win condition), although the match itself would end on all kills (or 1 minute after the VIP is killed, whichever happens first).


Of course, one could adapt some sort of MRBC (I think) concepts with the Commanders on both sides.


This type of match could actually be mirrored on both ends... although I guess the problem would be just like Assault in the sense that teams could possibly never meet each other. What would need to happen is to have 3 (or more) potential dustoff zones, but only 2 are actually available and that the "direct path" to the location would involve some sort of likely conflict.

It's doable, but it requires some actual thought and testing.

[AlmightyAeng]

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

But it couldnt possibly be worse than skirmish, which is an atrocious gamemode.

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

Gonna go with Bishop on this one.

[Rhaythe]

Might be interesting if the escortee was a player (IE: VIP mission). But then you get the usual PUG issues of derpy-derp VIPs. Not sure about this one.

[Hawk_eye]

Davegt27, on 04 January 2016 - 02:20 AM, said:

Khobai what do you mean TF2?



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

Ah, TF 1942!
Great game, great memories.

[Almond Brown]

Rushin Roulette, on 04 January 2016 - 12:58 AM, said:

stuff

or a slightly faster Assault with more Armour which can keep up with the rest of the team.

stuff

Anyone else see the irony in that statement? LOL!

[Novakaine]

Escort a players mech would be great mode.
Except each map would need to be exceptionally large.
To give the defender to to deploy and escort.
And to give the opfor time to hunt and set up the ambush.
None of our current maps would work.
Sadly a new game mode would be akin to pulling teeth from PGI.

[Helsbane]

I liked the 'escort' style matches we did in MRBC. One team member was the 'leader' and there was a bonus for keeping them alive, and another for eliminating the enemy leader's team. Fun matches, and without the need for an AI controlled element that would just wander predetermined paths across the map. The leader could be as conservative or aggressive as they wanted in those matches, staying with the group or looking for a concealed location.

If PGI would look into adopting an escort mission of this nature instead of attempting an AI based system, a match like this would be lots of fun and lead to matches in all corners of the maps.

[Squirg]

Any objective based game mode will ultimately devolve into skirmish no matter what as long as there are no respawns.

[Screech]

Escort would need to play on big maps with the defender able to control the route of the convoy at 2 or more junctions.

Also the convoy should have multiple high HP targets with only one being the required target. You would need close range scanning in order determine the correct target.

Also the attacker should be able to delay one route through obstructions in order to have scouting be meaingful for both sides.

Only thing that would ruin this mode would be the players which is nothing new.

[Percimes]

I've always hated escort missions. I hope to never see any in MWO.

[xTrident]

I understand everyone questioning how an escort mission could actually work or simply not liking them... But does that mean everyone is good with what we currently have? Which is just different variations of a skirmish? Not only that but I can usually tell before the match starts how badly we're going to get beat based on the amount or lack thereof, of assaults on the team.

If not a escort mission just some campaign type of things to do would be awesome fighting different levels of AI. All of this of course leading to being awarded c-bills and what not. It would just be cool if there was something... ANYTHING else to do other than essentially skirmishes. Maybe it's just me, but I thoroughly enjoyed the single player story mode of Mechwarrior 4 and Mercenaries.

[Darlith]

Not usually a big fan of escort missions. When it is an AI more often than not it is useless and likes to run off to strange places. If a player...well most of us have played in the solo queue, you know what would happen nine times out of ten. Only real way to do it would be like tf2 where it is an invulnerable object that the teams have to wrest control from the other and move across the map, trouble is it works in tf2 because of respawns, not sure it would work in this game with single spawn. Additional problems with a destructable escort is the massive alphas and focus fire possible in this game, target would have to have some serious defenses to avoid just being blasted as soon as it comes out of cover.

There are some game modes I like from other games I would like to see adapted for this one. In star conflict which I don't play as much anymore, there was a commander mode where one person on each team was made the commander, the commander got increased defenses and could always see where the other team was. As long as said commander survived the other people on his team could always respawn, to win you had to kill the other commander and keep yours alive, or if both died have the most kills on time out. Though honestly not sure it would work for this game now that I think on it more, it would just be another death ball mode.

Another I liked from that game was a variant on the normal point capture mode in which the points would randomly appear (not so random really, game chose from like five points they always showed in) causing both teams to rush to cap them and hold them until the timer on that point ran out, only to do it all again in say 2 minutes. Winner was whoever reached the resource cap first. Sadly, another mode dependent on the ability of respawns. As long as you can kill the other team off many of these modes just don't work.

[Alistair Winter]

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.

There's no need to reinvent the wheel. Look at CounterStrike.

Hostage rescue:

• Terrorists guard hostages. They win when the time runs out or when all Counter-Terrorists are dead.
  
• Counter-Terrorists have to save the hostages and escort them back to safety. They win when hostages are safe or when all Terrorists are dead.
  
• Anyone who kills a hostage receives a massive personal penalty. If all hostages are killed, it becomes team deathmatch.

Plant the bomb:

• Terrorists plant the bomb. They escort a random player who is given the bomb to one of 2 destinations. The bomb cannot be destroyed. If the player carrying the bomb is killed, another player can pick it up and complete the mission. Terrorists win when the bomb is planted and explodes.
  
• Counter-Terrorists protect the 2 destinations. They win if the bomb is disarmed or all terrorists are dead.

2 different game modes, supremely easy to modify for MWO. Replace bombs and hostages with NPC vehicles with limited speed. Make them near invulnerable if you want to prevent sniper trolls. They made CounterStrike one of the most popular FPS games of all time, they are far more dynamic and entertaining than the game modes we have in MWO.

It's easy. Just look at what more popular games are doing.

[Navid A1]

Alistair Winter, on 04 January 2016 - 02:27 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.

There's no need to reinvent the wheel. Look at CounterStrike.

Hostage rescue:

• Terrorists guard hostages. They win when the time runs out or when all Counter-Terrorists are dead.
  
• Counter-Terrorists have to save the hostages and escort them back to safety. They win when hostages are safe or when all Terrorists are dead.
  
• Anyone who kills a hostage receives a massive personal penalty. If all hostages are killed, it becomes team deathmatch.

Plant the bomb:

• Terrorists plant the bomb. They escort a random player who is given the bomb to one of 2 destinations. The bomb cannot be destroyed. If the player carrying the bomb is killed, another player can pick it up and complete the mission. Terrorists win when the bomb is planted and explodes.
  
• Counter-Terrorists protect the 2 destinations. They win if the bomb is disarmed or all terrorists are dead.

2 different game modes, supremely easy to modify for MWO. Replace bombs and hostages with NPC vehicles with limited speed. Make them near invulnerable if you want to prevent sniper trolls. They made CounterStrike one of the most popular FPS games of all time, they are far more dynamic and entertaining than the game modes we have in MWO.



It's easy. Just look at what more popular games are doing.

One BIG difference between FPS games like counter strike and MWO is that mechs have... ARMOR!

there is no one shot - on kill in MWO.
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!

Edited by Navid A1, 04 January 2016 - 02:35 PM.