20 replies to this topic

[Shivaxi]

So I looked at the road map, and the new Assault mode sounds like it could be a good idea, but the main problem I see with it is that most people will probably just kill each other first anyway, despite the fact that now you have to capture the base if everyone is dead. So I was thinking, wouldn't it make sense to allow respawns on this new Assault mode, which would further allow the teams to focus more on capturing the base? It would make perfect sense, and finally we'd have a game mode where you can respawn, a good objective other than "shoot the mech to win", etc, and potentially be a lot of fun.

What do you guys think?

Edited by Shivaxi, 14 July 2016 - 11:47 AM.

[Kanajashi]

Yes I would love to see re-spawns in a quick play mode. The goal of the game mode should be taking the base and shouldn't end until one has been taken or on time out the one that is the most destroyed. Currently the objective based game modes require much more effort investment to win through the objective than winning through killing. This is why the current 'Kill first, cap after' mentality exists.

On a side note, this game mode should be asymmetrical. One group attacks and another defends. The concept is assaulting an enemy base, so why does our military group have a base within walking distance of the enemy? doesn't make sense. Where the defenders should get some turrets and walls to help, the attackers should get AI helicopters and tanks to help serve as fodder/meat shields.

[Night Thastus]

If it's symetric and there aren't any respawns, we'll run into both teams either:

A: Hiding out in their base, waiting for the other team to push into their good defenses (not likely)
B: Run into the middle and fight it out like it's skirmish.

Think about it. If you're doing this game-mode, why would you ever push out as a team to the enemy's well-defended base? If they see you coming, they'll just defend it and due to the advantages the base gives, there will be no way in hell you'll win. They'll always have the advantage.

So, logically, your team will stop half way there and use ERLL or Guass in an attempt to whittle down the base before pushing it. That seems good, right?

But both teams will do this, it's the best course of action. And if both teams are in the middle, what happens? Skirmish. Whatever team wins said skirmish will then poke the base from afar until it's dead, then just take it.

Edited by Night Thastus, 14 July 2016 - 04:51 PM.

[NocturnalBeast]

No, people need to stop asking for a respawn crutch that rewards careless playing. There are many other FPS games with respawns that you can play, so let us players who love BATTLETECH and the MechWarrior franchise have our game without respawns the way it should be.

Edited by Ed Steele, 14 July 2016 - 05:14 PM.

[SaltyStrudel]

I think respawns are really the only way you can insentivise attacking the base( if it isn't asymmetrical) instead of both teams just brawling or holeing inside the base. Without respawns it's the same assult, with more camping.

[Impyrium]

Ed Steele, on 14 July 2016 - 05:14 PM, said:

No, people need to stop asking for a respawn crutch that rewards careless playing. There are many other FPS games with respawns that you can play, so let us players who love BATTLETECH and the MechWarrior franchise have our game without respawns the way it should be.

Oh, do stop.

It's more than a little frustrating to have people claim that a lack of respawns has anything to do with BattleTech or MechWarrior. News flash- it doesn't!

It doesn't make your game anymore hardcore. Doesn't make it anymore strategic. Doesn't make it harder, doesn't make it more advanced, and you need to stop with the mentality that a lack of respawns is the only reason a game like this is a BattleTech one. If anything it makes the game lend more to shooters like Counter Strike and World of Tanks rather than the sim that it ought to be.

You ever played Living Legends? That game/mod was built around a respawn/rebuy mechanic and was leagues more advanced than MWO, which is nothing but an arcade arena shooter in comparison. Learning to play around map objectives takes considerably more brain power than teaching your fingers twitch shooting.

Here's what no respawn does do- it makes a game mode like skirmish a little more advanced and is good for regular competitive play. That's it. And that's fine, because the way MWO is played now is fun. But beyond that, it does jack all. It just ensures that every game mode is just another skirmish and that MWO's gameplay remains a deathmatch in an arena.

Edited by Dingo Red, 14 July 2016 - 05:52 PM.

[NocturnalBeast]

Dingo Red, on 14 July 2016 - 05:51 PM, said:

Oh, do stop.

It's more than a little frustrating to have people claim that a lack of respawns has anything to do with BattleTech or MechWarrior. News flash- it doesn't!

It doesn't make your game anymore hardcore. Doesn't make it anymore strategic. Doesn't make it harder, doesn't make it more advanced, and you need to stop with the mentality that a lack of respawns is the only reason a game like this is a BattleTech one. If anything it makes the game lend more to shooters like Counter Strike and World of Tanks rather than the sim that it ought to be.

You ever played Living Legends? That game/mod was built around a respawn/rebuy mechanic and was leagues more advanced than MWO, which is nothing but an arcade arena shooter in comparison. Learning to play around map objectives takes considerably more brain power than teaching your fingers twitch shooting.

Here's what no respawn does do- it makes a game mode like skirmish a little more advanced and is good for regular competitive play. That's it. And that's fine, because the way MWO is played now is fun. But beyond that, it does jack all. It just ensures that every game mode is just another skirmish and that MWO's gameplay remains a deathmatch in an arena.

MWO was sold to me as "A thinking man's shooter", respawns do not encourage playing smart.

And no, unfortunately I missed MWLL when it was popular, but I did play all of the other official MechWarrior games (granted I was only able to play MW4 very briefly).

[Impyrium]

Ed Steele, on 14 July 2016 - 05:57 PM, said:

MWO was sold to me as "A thinking man's shooter", respawns do not encourage playing smart.

And no, unfortunately I missed MWLL when it was popular, but I did play all of the other official MechWarrior games (granted I was only able to play MW4 very briefly).

Only if respawns were included in a game mode with no other objectives. ie. a deathmatch. But this wouldn't be that. If you don't play smart, even with respawns, you're still going to do badly and lose just the same. The difference is that you can no longer rely on just killing off the enemy team to win and ignoring objectives.

It is still possible to have a thinking game mode with respawns if designed right. It's not going to be a deathmatch, because you can't win by playing it like that.

A 'thinking man's shooter' would be more than just skirmish missions IMO.

[Shivaxi]

https://www.reddit.c..._have_respawns/

Posting this link here as others have made some excellent points and constructive criticism around this topic

[NocturnalBeast]

Dingo Red, on 14 July 2016 - 06:05 PM, said:

A 'thinking man's shooter' would be more than just skirmish missions IMO.

I agree with you on this point and I would love to see more objective-oriented game modes.

[Drenath]

I worry about combination of re-spawn + destructible components without some sort of suicide mechanic. Getting your weapons blown off would be worse than getting killed.

[Scarall]

short : no
long: noooooooo

[NocturnalBeast]

Drenath, on 14 July 2016 - 06:25 PM, said:

I worry about combination of re-spawn + destructible components without some sort of suicide mechanic. Getting your weapons blown off would be worse than getting killed.

Indestructable parts + respawn? Sounds like a seriously dumbed-down shooter.

Edited by Ed Steele, 15 July 2016 - 01:46 AM.

[Rebas Kradd]

I want relevant objectives, too, but respawns have the following problems in my mind: they...


1. Ignore the real problem.

A gamemode like King of the Hill is going to stay Skirmish - even with respawns - as long as the objective is in one place. This is because of player behavior. Some people just want to kill. QP is the queue for slap-dash lone wolf teams who don't necessarily share a goal, and for many people, their goal is killing. That's just the nature of gaming.

We already have respawns in CW; it didn't fix much, because the maps and objectives were poorly designed and promoted deathballing themselves. I really don't see how this will change with or without respawns.


2. Reduce earnings

Matches with respawns will take longer. Unless rewards increase accordingly, the time-to-earnings ratio will increase and players won't be earning as much. And if you're going to increase earnings, why not just do that from the outset? Good way to incentivize objectives.


3. Increase the meta gap

Respawns turn the game into an attrition match in which damage output becomes even more important. Which means that players will be more encouraged to take "meta mechs", i.e. heavy damage dealers, and will move even further away from lighter mechs, bracketed builds, or role players, because they won't let a player keep up with the attrition game. Respawns would be bad for balance.


4. Promote careless behavior.

I know AUSwarrior24, He of the Great Respawn Campaign Leadership , and some others are sick of hearing this argument, but I don't see how it's wrong. Respawns will cause players to devalue their durability. Specifically it will make games an attrition battle, which will cause players who lose an arm to suicide, and rightfully so - it's inefficient to your team's goals to continue with a sub-optimal mech. The lack of respawns is what contributes to players' willingness to keep fighting with damaged limbs, which is a huge part of the game and of Battletech.

With damage impossible to eliminate, suiciding would simply become the optimal strategy. You already see a little of this in FP, though not much because respawns are limited to four and FP is inhabited mostly by smart teams. Toss respawns into the Tier 6 Potatolord Pool of Quick Play, and I'll bet money that you'd see a lot more suiciding.





I want relevant objectives too, but I'd prefer to use the carrot and not the stick.

If you want to make objectives relevant, give them an impact that players will care about. The most obvious way to do this is to make objectives relevant to killing; if you don't do the objectives, killing gets harder. Plenty of creative ways to do that - ECM towers that make it easier to find the enemy, landing zones that drop you off closer to map center, capturable artillery emplacements. Be creative. Be interconnected. Don't just throw in abstract features like respawns, that's every bit as much a band-aid as Ghost Heat, doesn't actually fix much, and introduces new problems. It's bad game design IMO.

[Requiemking]

Here is an idea to make objectives more important. Remove/ restrict combat based bonuses. Seriously, who's idea was it to make so many of the in game bonuses revolve around combat? That guy needs a paycut and a demotion. Why is it that, in an objective based mode like conquest, I receive about 100 cbills(I'm probably wrong here) per tick for doing what I'm supposed to, while Mr. Hurhurhur over there in the same mech is getting more that three times what I'm earning by playing in the most unintuitive way possible, which is "Shoot the stompy mech".

Edited by Requiemking, 15 July 2016 - 10:01 AM.

[Drenath]

Ed Steele, on 15 July 2016 - 01:45 AM, said:

Indestructable parts + respawn? Sounds like a seriously dumbed-down shooter.

Other way around. If there is respawn I want an eject button for when my weapons blown off. Otherwise the game will become a race to turn the other team into sticks without killing them.

I'm not opposed to a QP/PUG mode that uses dropdeck, just not sure how that would be worked into the voting system.

Edited by Drenath, 15 July 2016 - 10:09 AM.

[Hotthedd]

Ed Steele, on 14 July 2016 - 05:14 PM, said:

No, people need to stop asking for a respawn crutch that rewards careless playing. There are many other FPS games with respawns that you can play, so let us players who love BATTLETECH and the MechWarrior franchise have our game without respawns the way it should be.

Well said.

[CainenEX]

I would like respawns and have it be asymmetrical so that there is one attacker and one defender.

[NocturnalBeast]

Drenath, on 15 July 2016 - 10:07 AM, said:

Other way around. If there is respawn I want an eject button for when my weapons blown off. Otherwise the game will become a race to turn the other team into sticks without killing them.

I'm not opposed to a QP/PUG mode that uses dropdeck, just not sure how that would be worked into the voting system.

I will repeat myself in much greater clarity: Having respawns and having Mechs without destructible parts at the same time is completely wrong for a Mechwarrior game and will turn it into a very dumbed down Call of Duty clone (without sidestepping).

Edited by Ed Steele, 16 July 2016 - 08:35 PM.

[Hunka Junk]

The good: The ADHD set may be attracted and spend their money on MWO.

The bad: endless lrm-ers, gauss snipers, and the occasional suicide beserker who charges in with his AC-20, trying to reach the lrm-ers and gauss snipers before he gets his actuators handed to him.

While we're at it, why don't we get rid of heat? Not ghost heat. All heat.

In a slightly more serious tone, two further points:

1) It is probably too late in development to make things asymmetrical.
2) The "game doesn't end till the objective is achieved" premise will result in people ignoring the objectives and playing an endless tdm, replete with people screaming at anyone who actually dares to complete the objective. In other words, it will be TF2 cp_orange.

IF people really have to have respawns, let it be limited to the drop deck of 4 format. Mind you, in QP this is tremendously to the disadvantage of newer players. Specifically, giving the noobs a do-over gives everyone a do-over. This means the noobs will lose 4 mechs before some people even lose 1, thus exacerbating the issue some might think they are addressing.

In the end, a far simpler solution is simply not going down this road.