24 replies to this topic

[Malorish]

Look, I really love that PGI is trying with these changes to Conquest and introducing Domination.

But the fact of the matter is that in every single Conquest/Domination match I've played thus far, the winning strategy has always been "kill all or almost all of the enemy, then cap the objective".

While right now the domination mode is changing play a bit - a lot of mechs are racing to the middle - that will likely settle out as people realize that killing mechs >>>>>>>>> doing the objective.

Why Conquest and Domination are failing as Objective Based Game Modes

It's simple: while doing the objective is "required" to win, doing it better than the enemy while the game is still in doubt gives no tangible advantage. In other words, the objective itself doesn't really influence who wins. As long as you do the bare minimum of not allowing the enemy to cap 5 points in conquest or run their timer all the way to 0 in Domination, killing all enemy mechs wins.

How to Make Objectives Matter to Gameplay:

(these are all possible ideas that can be used solo or in concert with each other)

• In Domination, having more mechs in the capture circle than your enemy gives all weapons a 10% range boost, reduced heat, or reduces damage taken. (Or all of the above). Adjust the % to make it actually matter.
  
• In Domination, field bases grant 10% damage reduction / weapon range / reduced heat / whatever, which stacks to 3. (Add another field base). This effect begins at 2 minutes into the match.
  
• In Conquest, controlling 3 points makes the 2 points not capped begin capping for the winning team (perhaps at a reduced rate, but should be fast enough to have game consequences). Having 4 accelerates this on the one remaining point.
  
• In conquest, 5 caps wins.
  
• Lots of other ideas to make doing the objectives better than your opponent matter to the gameplay, not just to the win condition.

[ThreeStooges]

Frankly I think Dom mode needs a rework. On crimson straight the side that spawns on the pass side can win the match before the enemy's mechs can even get half way to the pass if you're a slow mech. When that dam timer is down to 35 and you don't even half half a team close enough to try and shoot the enemy then the location of the thing is bad.

"In Domination, field bases grant 10% damage reduction / weapon range / reduced heat / whatever, which stacks to 3. (Add another field base). This effect begins at 2 minutes into the match."

My first time playing the mode I had no idea what to do. I tried caping the field base before shooting it thus discovering I could damage and destroy it. I did and expected to see some notification of small cbills and xp like you might get for first spoting enemy, nope nada. Just the thing goes boom. no effect on game play. You are 100% correct in that it is far easier to just kill every thing than go for objectives.

[Mystere]

Malorish, on 18 March 2016 - 08:59 AM, said:

• In Domination, having more mechs in the capture circle than your enemy gives all weapons a 10% range boost, reduced heat, or reduces damage taken. (Or all of the above). Adjust the % to make it actually matter.
  
• In Domination, field bases grant 10% damage reduction / weapon range / reduced heat / whatever, which stacks to 3. (Add another field base). This effect begins at 2 minutes into the match.

I say no to power ups.

[Moomtazz]

I like Domination but if spawns need to be adjusted for fairness that would be a simple fix. Waiting for the Conquest countdown did not improve the mode IMO.

[Macksheen]

Would love some variability in domination locations

[Meathook]

Just take look at the River City placement. One team has the city as cover to approach the objective, the other has... water. Its like PGI just slapped those objectives onto the most obvious landmarks, so they would be done as fast as possible and can go back to "work".

Edited by Meathook, 18 March 2016 - 09:55 AM.

[Tristan Winter]

As always, you have to look at other games to understand why MWO game modes are bad. A lot of people seem to think MWO has good game modes. I chalk it up to lack of experience with other FPS / combat sim / space sim PVP games.

CounterStrike - Hostage Rescue / Plant the Bomb.

• Mission objectives consist of a dynamic element (i.e. Hostages or a bomb) and a static element (i.e. a safe zone or bomb zone).
  
• The dynamic element means that matches are rarely ever the same. Once one side has spotted the objective, they have three options. Go for kills, go for the dynamic objective or guard the static objective. This creates a lot of different tactics and strategies
  
• You can win the match quickly if you have the skills required to complete the objective without killing the enemy team. (i.e. use stealth)
  
• You are well rewarded for a quick victory, especially if you can stay alive while completing it.
  
• It's a fun challenge to complete the objective without killing the enemy.
  
• Nobody ever complains if someone wins a match by completing the main objective.

Compare this with MWO, point by point.

• In every game mode except Skirmish (which is just team deathmatch), the objectives are static.
  
• Static objectives severely reduces the options of either team and leads to more simplistic gameplay.
  
• In Conquest and Domination, it's almost impossible to get a quick and sneaky victory unless the enemy team is grossly incompetent. In Assault, it's somewhat more likely to happen. However...
  
• Rewards for a quick victory are horrible and it doesn't matter if you're dead or alive. Winning a match quickly is generally not worth the time.
  
• It's never a fun challenge to win by cap. It invariably involves standing still.
  
• Cap wins in Assault especially (but also Conquest, on big maps) are usually met with a lot of QQ, even from the winning team!

How often do you see people in other games complain because someone won the match early? "Omg, you captured the flag? GTFO, loser!" "You idiot! Why did you plant the bomb and destroy everyone?" "You assassinated their captain and won the match! How dare you!"

In my experience, you never see any comments like that in other games. But it happens in MWO all the time. Why?

The game modes are terrible.

[sycocys]

Objectives should be dynamic - as in capture/destroy/target points should have dozens of locations to randomly spawn in.

Primary objectives should be the focus. If you fail at them or refuse to do them you fail the match.

Singular primary objectives reinforces deathball - needs to be at least one for each lance outside of a mode like Invasion, but even that could do well with spreading out the match with initial objectives.

Completing your objectives should be actually rewarded, and rewarded better than killing all mechs.

Quick play should be skirmish only - CW/FW should have all the campaign modes integrated into it. Pug droppers have proven pretty well over the past 3 years they can't handle anything more than a single objective and half of them only want tdm in its various forms so let the tactical play happen in the mode it should be happening in anyhow.

[MrMadguy]

No, modes like Domination are stupid enough already. On maps with open center, like Alpine, players already refuse to go into circle to let enemies Snipe/LRM them till death - they just let enemies cap, grab their 25K for just one minute of match and move on. So you want Conquest to be the same? One team will just pretend, that it's Skirmish, ignore capping, deal as much dmg, as they can, lose in 1 minute, grab their 25K and move on.

Why can't developers understand, that they can't force maps/modes, we don't like, on us? We will never play them properly anyway. And this will always spoil game on this maps/modes both for us and players, who like them. So why can't we implement feature, that will allow us to skip matches, we don't want to participate in and we won't participate properly anyway? Just simply pretend, that we haven't entered this match and replace us with someone else, who want to do it or at least don't cares about it?

[Lozruet Gravemind]

Malorish, on 18 March 2016 - 08:59 AM, said:

Look, I really love that PGI is trying with these changes to Conquest and introducing Domination.

But the fact of the matter is that in every single Conquest/Domination match I've played thus far, the winning strategy has always been "kill all or almost all of the enemy, then cap the objective".

While right now the domination mode is changing play a bit - a lot of mechs are racing to the middle - that will likely settle out as people realize that killing mechs >>>>>>>>> doing the objective.

Why Conquest and Domination are failing as Objective Based Game Modes

It's simple: while doing the objective is "required" to win, doing it better than the enemy while the game is still in doubt gives no tangible advantage. In other words, the objective itself doesn't really influence who wins. As long as you do the bare minimum of not allowing the enemy to cap 5 points in conquest or run their timer all the way to 0 in Domination, killing all enemy mechs wins.

How to Make Objectives Matter to Gameplay:

(these are all possible ideas that can be used solo or in concert with each other)

• In Domination, having more mechs in the capture circle than your enemy gives all weapons a 10% range boost, reduced heat, or reduces damage taken. (Or all of the above). Adjust the % to make it actually matter.
  
• In Domination, field bases grant 10% damage reduction / weapon range / reduced heat / whatever, which stacks to 3. (Add another field base). This effect begins at 2 minutes into the match.
  
• In Conquest, controlling 3 points makes the 2 points not capped begin capping for the winning team (perhaps at a reduced rate, but should be fast enough to have game consequences). Having 4 accelerates this on the one remaining point.
  
• In conquest, 5 caps wins.
  
• Lots of other ideas to make doing the objectives better than your opponent matter to the gameplay, not just to the win condition.

Easier fix for Conquest is just change the Tick rate or Score needed. If the Caps earned points at a fast enough rate that you COULDNT ignore them then people would have to PTFO. This could also be accomplished by not upping the Tick rate but simply by lowering the Points needed for a win, 350-450 for a win or somthing like that. I dont know what you could do with Domination because with one point it will ALWAYS be a Murderball brawl for the win.

[Deathlike]

Tristan Winter, on 18 March 2016 - 10:01 AM, said:

As always, you have to look at other games to understand why MWO game modes are bad. A lot of people seem to think MWO has good game modes. I chalk it up to lack of experience with other FPS / combat sim / space sim PVP games.

CounterStrike - Hostage Rescue / Plant the Bomb.

• Mission objectives consist of a dynamic element (i.e. Hostages or a bomb) and a static element (i.e. a safe zone or bomb zone).
  
• The dynamic element means that matches are rarely ever the same. Once one side has spotted the objective, they have three options. Go for kills, go for the dynamic objective or guard the static objective. This creates a lot of different tactics and strategies
  
• You can win the match quickly if you have the skills required to complete the objective without killing the enemy team. (i.e. use stealth)
  
• You are well rewarded for a quick victory, especially if you can stay alive while completing it.
  
• It's a fun challenge to complete the objective without killing the enemy.
  
• Nobody ever complains if someone wins a match by completing the main objective.

Compare this with MWO, point by point.

• In every game mode except Skirmish (which is just team deathmatch), the objectives are static.
  
• Static objectives severely reduces the options of either team and leads to more simplistic gameplay.
  
• In Conquest and Domination, it's almost impossible to get a quick and sneaky victory unless the enemy team is grossly incompetent. In Assault, it's somewhat more likely to happen. However...
  
• Rewards for a quick victory are horrible and it doesn't matter if you're dead or alive. Winning a match quickly is generally not worth the time.
  
• It's never a fun challenge to win by cap. It invariably involves standing still.
  
• Cap wins in Assault especially (but also Conquest, on big maps) are usually met with a lot of QQ, even from the winning team!

How often do you see people in other games complain because someone won the match early? "Omg, you captured the flag? GTFO, loser!" "You idiot! Why did you plant the bomb and destroy everyone?" "You assassinated their captain and won the match! How dare you!"


In my experience, you never see any comments like that in other games. But it happens in MWO all the time. Why?

The game modes are terrible.

You won the Internets today.

Now go wait out the timer in Conquest+Domination as your reward!

[David Sumner]

Yes.
1 UP the "not kill everyone" rewards unless it's skirmish, or DOWN the "kill everyone" reward
2 Make WINNING a match faster worth more
3 Give us the option to exclude 1 map and 1 game mode. (personally I'd rather never play skirmish, I like POINT to my matches)

Can we add "hold the line" as a game mode?
If an enemy mech can spend1 minute in the exit zone (say 5/6 squares on one edge) for your team, they leave the match. If the enemy team gets 3/4 mechs out, they win.

[Cy Mitchell]

David Sumner, on 02 April 2016 - 02:02 PM, said:

Yes.
1 UP the "not kill everyone" rewards unless it's skirmish, or DOWN the "kill everyone" reward
2 Make WINNING a match faster worth more
3 Give us the option to exclude 1 map and 1 game mode. (personally I'd rather never play skirmish, I like POINT to my matches)

Can we add "hold the line" as a game mode?
If an enemy mech can spend1 minute in the exit zone (say 5/6 squares on one edge) for your team, they leave the match. If the enemy team gets 3/4 mechs out, they win.

Yes, it is simple economics. All PGI has to do is to make playing the objectives significantly more profitable than just playing a skirmish game. They also need to make Exp gain much higher for completing task that lead to winning via the game objectives. That is all it will take to make everyone, except the skirmish only players, want to play other modes. Simple fix.

Russ did say that there is work going on to correct the locations on the Domination maps so some of the complaints about advantage vs disadvatage to teams on some maps should be resolved in the near future.

Edited by Rampage, 02 April 2016 - 02:18 PM.

[Triordinant]

Let people choose their game mode again. If most people rarely choose a game mode it's because they think that game mode sucks. If PGI notices certain game modes are rarely played they should FIX them or get rid of them instead of forcing people to play them.

Edited by Triordinant, 02 April 2016 - 02:39 PM.

[Lupis Volk]

If we are to keep Dom we need maps made with it in mind. The current trend of slapping every game mode on every map isn't good. Also respawns would make Dom so much better.

[stocky0904]

Dom is fun most of the time because both teams are fighting for the same objective. And there is no running away from this fight.

Conquest is.... Conquest. But most of the people play it like skirmish and sometimes are outcapped by a lone light leading 11:5 in kills. (even in tier 2)

What i most like when playing assault are teams that cap the enemy base within 2 minutes after start with 11 mechs. Nobody gets points or kills or whatever. A real waste of time.... and nothing to be proud of.

Edited by stocky0904, 02 April 2016 - 04:30 PM.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

Tristan Winter, on 18 March 2016 - 10:01 AM, said:

• Rewards for a quick victory are horrible and it doesn't matter if you're dead or alive. Winning a match quickly is generally not worth the time.

This particularly strikes me.

Perhaps they could introduce better rewards for quicker victories?

C-bill and XP rewards based on the time remaining might indirectly reward aggression and cause people to push more.

Not an end-all fix to the game modes, but would certainly help and easily implemented.

[Trauglodyte]

Well, the biggest problem is that you don't get nearly the PSR gains from doing the objectives. And, nobody gets a big stiff epeen by posting pics or youtube/twitch videos of them capping. "Dude, I totally stood in that circle like a boss" is never said.

[Mystere]

Tristan Winter, on 18 March 2016 - 10:01 AM, said:

• Rewards for a quick victory are horrible and it doesn't matter if you're dead or alive. Winning a match quickly is generally not worth the time.

I disagree. The vast flowing rivers of male nerd rage tears are absolutely delicious.

Rampage, on 02 April 2016 - 02:15 PM, said:

Yes, it is simple economics. All PGI has to do is to make playing the objectives significantly more profitable than just playing a skirmish game. They also need to make Exp gain much higher for completing task that lead to winning via the game objectives. That is all it will take to make everyone, except the skirmish only players, want to play other modes. Simple fix.

Russ did say that there is work going on to correct the locations on the Domination maps so some of the complaints about advantage vs disadvatage to teams on some maps should be resolved in the near future.

I'd go an extra mile and say we should move to a winner-takes-all reward system. That should keep the stat ****** at bay and compel people to play to win.

[lkraider]

I just want to select the game modes I want to play, I hate the voting system when all these modes suck and disconnecting makes you lose points.