35 replies to this topic

[Jman5]

Once the intel gatherers get their 10 downloads, all they have to do is bum-rush the extraction square at the last moment and they win. It doesn't matter if a defender is in the square or he's shooting at a gatherer. You have 5 seconds to kill 1-4 mechs while a dropship is blasting you to pieces.

So far it's not so bad because most people don't really know what they are doing, but once they realize how brain-dead-broken the win condition is, it's going to get stupid fast.

Think Gen-rushing but way easier because all you have to do is sprint out of cover into a nearby square at a certain point and you win.

[Afuldan McKronik]

Some of the dropship points are hard to find as defenders unless you already know where all 4 points are.

[Bud Crue]

SInce you bring this up, how does gathering even work?

Last night we played a match, red and blue both read zero - zero. After about 15 seconds in we spot the blue dot in the distance and head over to it (mind you we were on defense) upon "downloading" we look up and see the score is 1 - 11. So the enemy team was able to get 11 downloads in 15 seconds...or is there some other operation/function of the scout mode going on?

[Afuldan McKronik]

Bud Crue, on 21 April 2016 - 09:34 AM, said:

SInce you bring this up, how does gathering even work?

Last night we played a match, red and blue both read zero - zero. After about 15 seconds in we spot the blue dot in the distance and head over to it (mind you we were on defense) upon "downloading" we look up and see the score is 1 - 11. So the enemy team was able to get 11 downloads in 15 seconds...or is there some other operation/function of the scout mode going on?

Nope. Attackers are best served bringing the fastest mechs they can to gather max intel and never fire a shot.

[Bud Crue]

Afuldan McKronik, on 21 April 2016 - 09:35 AM, said:

Nope. Attackers are best served bringing the fastest mechs they can to gather max intel and never fire a shot.

Are some gathering spots worth more than others or something? I am not exaggerating here...in the time it took us to go from being dropped to a single download point, the enemy got 11. Total time elapsed was maybe 20 seconds. I know they are supposed to be randomly scattered but in this case it would suggest that 11 of them were right on top of one another, no? That's why I am wondering if something else could be at play.

[sycocys]

The return of the squawkers is in sight.

[Afuldan McKronik]

Bud Crue, on 21 April 2016 - 09:39 AM, said:

Are some gathering spots worth more than others or something? I am not exaggerating here...in the time it took us to go from being dropped to a single download point, the enemy got 11. Total time elapsed was maybe 20 seconds. I know they are supposed to be randomly scattered but in this case it would suggest that 11 of them were right on top of one another, no? That's why I am wondering if something else could be at play.

20 out of 40 random intel spots, so it could be literally that they all bunched up right close to each other near the attacker spawn. Plus they might be in full squirrel mode. But its supposed to be 3 seconds. Maybe the advanced capture module is working for intel also?

Either way, attacker meta for max intel gain is fast lights, avoid combat, cap everything, kite defenders with one mech while others hide and wait for dropship.

[Bud Crue]

As to Jman5's original point...yes.

People are learning quickly.

Had a match the first day where the enemy ds had arrived and all 4 reds were in the zone. We finally got close enough to engage and they all left the zone to fight us. So we won. Yay for ignorance.

Now I see exactly what you describe. In those matches where the stormcrows don't try to engage us out right, they go to the drop zone and just wait to engage us there. Four stormcrows by themselves are bad enough, but trying to get them while being shot by the ds really sucks.

[LeeNTien]

So, do I get it right?..
A scouting mission is done by scouting in fast mechs who after their scouting run away to get extracted with their scouted intel?...
Hm... you are right, that sounds suspiciously like scouting. Needs to be fixed! We are not here for scouting after all, we only want skirmishes. What an outrage!

Edited by LeeNTien, 21 April 2016 - 09:51 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Afuldan McKronik, on 21 April 2016 - 09:43 AM, said:

20 out of 40 random intel spots, so it could be literally that they all bunched up right close to each other near the attacker spawn. Plus they might be in full squirrel mode. But its supposed to be 3 seconds. Maybe the advanced capture module is working for intel also?

Either way, attacker meta for max intel gain is fast lights, avoid combat, cap everything, kite defenders with one mech while others hide and wait for dropship.

Ah. That makes sense. It was a one off event (thus far) and so I just figured it was a bug or something. But since I don't pretend to be anything other than ignorant about the game mechanics, and my teammates were/are of the same mind, none of us could account for the sudden count, so quickly. For what it is worth it was on the new Grim map.

[Jman5]

LeeNTien, on 21 April 2016 - 09:48 AM, said:

So, do I get it right?..
A scouting mission is done by scouting in fast mechs who after their scouting run away to get extracted with their scouted intel?...
Hm... you are right, that sounds suspiciously like scouting. Needs to be fixed! We are not here for scouting after all, we only want skirmishes. What an outrage!

That's the intel gatherer's objective. The other team's objective is to kill them. You do realize that only one side gets credit for downloading right? If you're on prevent, you download 10 beacons, and the other team extract successfully, you get nothing. If you're on prevent, you download 10 beacons and you kill the other team, you still gain no intel for your side.

Edited by Jman5, 21 April 2016 - 10:03 AM.

[Afuldan McKronik]

LeeNTien, on 21 April 2016 - 09:48 AM, said:

So, do I get it right?..
A scouting mission is done by scouting in fast mechs who after their scouting run away to get extracted with their scouted intel?...
Hm... you are right, that sounds suspiciously like scouting. Needs to be fixed! We are not here for scouting after all, we only want skirmishes. What an outrage!

Its boring. We dropped against a 4 man MS unit who did this, at the end of the match we all went, "uh...... gg i guess?"

[Mystere]

Jman5, on 21 April 2016 - 09:26 AM, said:

Once the intel gatherers get their 10 downloads, all they have to do is bum-rush the extraction square at the last moment and they win. It doesn't matter if a defender is in the square or he's shooting at a gatherer. You have 5 seconds to kill 1-4 mechs while a dropship is blasting you to pieces.

So far it's not so bad because most people don't really know what they are doing, but once they realize how brain-dead-broken the win condition is, it's going to get stupid fast.

Think Gen-rushing but way easier because all you have to do is sprint out of cover into a nearby square at a certain point and you win.

Then suggest some fixes and/or changes.

To start, here are a few off the top of my head while quite drugged up by allergy medication:

• increase the size of defending garrison to 8 or 12
  
  • gives the defenders a better chance of hunting down the enemy scouts
    
  • I want more asymmetry in MWO, dang it!
• use larger maps
  
  • to compensate for a larger garrison
• let the extraction drop ship appear on the edge of the map opposite to the drop zone
  
  • allows the defenders to see where the scouts will be escaping to
• arm the drop ship with better weapons
  
  • to compensate for revealing the location of drop zone
    
  • to discourage merely camping
• let the drop ship strafe all enemies that get within range as it heads for drop zone
  
  • Why not?

As I said, I'm currently drugged up by medication.

Edited by Mystere, 21 April 2016 - 10:57 AM.

[Kreszentia Carns]

one of my problems with this new mode is nobody wants to "invade" anymore. Being a "pug" player we rarely smash through planets in an hour or so and im looking at all our planets to attack or defend and its almost truce time and there is no activity everyone has been scouting for those advantages for invasion the whole time! so what dose this mean all those c-bills spent on heavies and assaults were just a waste? maybe its just because its new. and I hope its not that people think the rewards for scouting are a huge advantage?

[LeeNTien]

Th boring bit could be accurate, yes. And I can't argue, that it needs adjusting. Not into yet another skirmish though.

[vocifer]

As long as invaders and defenders have equal numbers of attack/defend drops, we can live with it.
Ok you've got a defense. It's "unfair". But think of your next team, who gets a counter-scout.

Just adjust your goal:
as defender - minimize your enemies points
and as attacker - maximize yours.

and overall score will be on your side.

[Want0n]

You raise a good point Jman. Winning thd gather intel mode is very easy. Last couple of drops I have simply taken a CDA-3M, hidden during the dropship timer and rushed the square in the last few seconds. Almost impossible to stop someone doing this. Downsides are that it is somewhat boring and the rewards are low, but if you want to maximise intel and wins for your faction then it is effective.

The suggestion of having no defenders in the extract point might work, as might requiring a mech to be present for longer. It does risk having the mode become yet more skirmishy however.

Brawling in a GRF is a lot more fun but there needs to be multiple ways to achieve the same win condition for both sides. Currently taking ECM mechs on gather intel drastically improvrs your chances of winning the match. Protect mode requires mechs that can kill but finding your opponent is the hard part, especially on god forbid polar highlands...

[TexAce]

What do you suppose I should do when 4 Streakcrow camp my LZ and I'm in a cicada? Fight them to death?

yeah right.


Scout is fine as it is. For every match the IS runs away like that, there's the opposite match where the IS has to defend against 4 crows and get shred to pieces.

Kreszentia Carns, on 21 April 2016 - 09:04 PM, said:

one of my problems with this new mode is nobody wants to "invade" anymore. Being a "pug" player we rarely smash through planets in an hour or so and im looking at all our planets to attack or defend and its almost truce time and there is no activity everyone has been scouting for those advantages for invasion the whole time! so what dose this mean all those c-bills spent on heavies and assaults were just a waste? maybe its just because its new. and I hope its not that people think the rewards for scouting are a huge advantage?

perhaps its just more fun? Finally something else than pick-meta-heavy-mech-and-skirmish-it-out-matches

wait times are super low too.

Edited by TexAce, 22 April 2016 - 03:07 AM.

[maniacos]

LeeNTien, on 21 April 2016 - 09:48 AM, said:

So, do I get it right?..
A scouting mission is done by scouting in fast mechs who after their scouting run away to get extracted with their scouted intel?...
Hm... you are right, that sounds suspiciously like scouting. Needs to be fixed! We are not here for scouting after all, we only want skirmishes. What an outrage!

The problem is that, as soon as you are in the square with min. 1 mech at 0:00 you are safe. That it is only one mech makes sense, lets say one mech collects the info downloading it from a beacon and shares the data in his team so everyone has the same data and can escape with it. The problem is just that you have to be in square at 0:00. The dropship doesn't have to pick you up and get away with you. Defenders can not shot you from the cable of what ever pulls you up into the ship. Defenders can also not attack the dropship or like fire a salve of rockets into the loading bay right before it closes or something. That makes it highly unrealistic.

What if there were like MFBs (that can be destroyed) where you have to stand for a while to upload your data to the network which is then send from MFB to a sattelite or something. Each second one "chunk" of information gets uploaded, and you need to have at least 10 uploads for a complete set of information to win the condition. Defenders could seek and destroy MFBs, fight you while uploading or hunt you midwhile. But if your mech is fast enough you can cancel the upload and try to escape to the next uploadpoint/MFB what ever it might be. Have the maps also big enough so that doing this mode in light (in sense of fast) makes sense but also a medium with firepower makes sense since it can kill a light faster but also a light with enough firepower could try to defend itself while uploading.

Or something like that. What ever, jumping into a square at the last second and the game is over is not realistic.

Edited by maniacos, 22 April 2016 - 03:20 AM.

[TexAce]

maniacos, on 22 April 2016 - 03:15 AM, said:

The problem is that, as soon as you are in the square with min. 1 mech at 0:00 you are safe. That it is only one mech makes sense, lets say one mech collects the info downloading it from a beacon and shares the data in his team so everyone has the same data and can escape with it. The problem is just that you have to be in square at 0:00. The dropship doesn't have to pick you up and get away with you. Defenders can not shot you from the cable of what ever pulls you up into the ship. Defenders can also not attack the dropship or like fire a salve of rockets into the loading bay right before it closes or something. That makes it highly unrealistic.

What if there were like MFBs (that can be destroyed) where you have to stand for a while to upload your data to the network which is then send from MFB to a sattelite or something. Each second one "chunk" of information gets uploaded, and you need to have at least 10 uploads for a complete set of information to win the condition. Defenders could seek and destroy MFBs, fight you while uploading or hunt you midwhile. But if your mech is fast enough you can cancel the upload and try to escape to the next uploadpoint/MFB what ever it might be. Have the maps also big enough so that doing this mode in light (in sense of fast) makes sense but also a medium with firepower makes sense since it can kill a light faster.

Or something like that. What ever, jumping into a square at the last second and the game is over is not realistic.

Lets say you make it mendatory to stay in the LZ for 5 seconds.
4 Stormcrows camping the LZ can kill EVERYTHING in 5 seconds. Especially lights who have to stand still in a tiny box.

If you really would make such a change, then the dropships would need 4x the weaponary. Because the 2LL and MLs they are pewpewing dont help at all.