27 replies to this topic

[Yellonet]

Extraction

This game mode is a combination of Domination and Scouting.

12 vs 12 on domination maps, the circle is still used, so no new maps needed (for this reason).
The addition is a dropship that stays hovering at each teams spawn area.

The idea is to go to the circle, download data, the go back to the ship with the data until the target amount is reached and you win, or if the clock runs down the team with most data wins, or if one team is killed the other team has 2 minutes to reach more data or lose.

To make it so that it's not a certain win to just kill the enemy you can only win if your team has more data uploaded to the dropship than the enemy, this is because once a team is killed the dropship leaves after 2 minutes, and if the dead team's dropship has more data than the living team's ship, the dead guys win (because they get their larger volume of valuable data away first or something...).

So, go to the circle with your mech and while in the circle you have to stand still, when you do a "data extraction meter" fills up in say 5-10 seconds, when it is filled you take your mech back to the drop ship, and there it uploads your downloaded data and you can go for another pickup.

The team to first reach some specific amount of data wins, let's say 1000 points, and perhaps each mech can gather 50 points max (less if you don't let the meter fill up).

Tactics could range from just running as many mechs with data as fast as possible, through ambushing the enemy data transporters on their way back, to taking control of the circle so that the enemy can't collect the data as fast as your team, or combinations.

Obviously, rewards for winning need to be good even if you don't kill any enemy mechs.

[Black Fish]

I kinda like the fact that fast mechs are going to have a very specific role, while the heavies\assaults suddenly lose their importance and are actually providing cover fire for the light mechs.

However sticking a USB to the HQ instead of just transmitting over some wireless method seems kinda weird when it's 1000 years advanced from now

Edited by Black Fish, 10 August 2016 - 12:41 AM.

[Yellonet]

Black Fish, on 10 August 2016 - 12:40 AM, said:

I kinda like the fact that fast mechs are going to have a very specific role, while the heavies\assaults suddenly lose their importance and are actually providing cover fire for the light mechs.

Well the intuitive thing would be for lights and mediums to run with the data while heavies and assaults guard the trail or try to keep the enemy away from the circle.
But who knows, the other way around might work as well, the faster mechs harrassing the enemy data collectors on their side so they can't deliver the data quickly while the heavies and assults run with the data...

Black Fish, on 10 August 2016 - 12:40 AM, said:

However sticking a USB to the HQ instead of just transmitting over some wireless method seems kinda weird when it's 1000 years advanced from now

Well, just say that there is too much electronic jamming and whatnot going on for wireless transmissions to reach very far, that's why you have to get close to the ship... basically, just make something up that makes sort of sense so we can have a fun game

[El Bandito]

I'm fine with this suggestion. It will improve mode diversity and is easy to implement, just like my suggested pellet damage buff to LBX cannons.

[Koniving]

Black Fish, on 10 August 2016 - 12:40 AM, said:

I kinda like the fact that fast mechs are going to have a very specific role, while the heavies\assaults suddenly lose their importance and are actually providing cover fire for the light mechs.

However sticking a USB to the HQ instead of just transmitting over some wireless method seems kinda weird when it's 1000 years advanced from now

One should note:
Despite the year, technology had been decimated through 300+ years of nearly constant wars, during the first two major ones:

• Almost immediately the Ares Convention was thrown out the window as ludicrous ******** made by the very bureaucrats the leaders of the great houses wanted to replace,
  
• over 19 populated planets were completely obliterated,
  
• more than 70 planets could no longer be reached by any faster-than-light method,
  
• one star had been destroyed (taking two populated planets with it),
  
• numerous factories were destroyed, completely annihilating entire 'Mech, vehicle and and equipment lines to total extinction. Some of which would never, ever be recovered.
  
• "Military targets" were also expanded to include "Civilians," "Children," "Schools," "Hospitals," "Emergency Services of every kind," "Educational centers", "Manufacturing facilities," "Materials processing," "Religious Centers," and even "Food and water supplies" such as "Farms," "Fresh Water Sources," and "Ice Ships" which transport large amounts of water to planets that do not have sufficient natural sources of water.
  
• Any factory, facility, or anything involving the manufacture of or processing materials for weapon or vehicle development when at risk of capture was destroyed by its own forces.
  
• Many of the computer systems from the Golden Era (Star League's best years) became nearly impossible to produce. Instead, they were usually scavanged from already existing things.
  
• By the end of the first Succession War, technology was knocked back to pre-24th century due to all the destruction.
  
• Within the Second Succession War, all of the Houses relied on Scavenger Economies, especially after the first half.
  
• The above scavenger economy was essentially forced, as entire campaigns were launched to obliterate entire technological advantages another side might have or to eradicate certain threatening designs ('Mechs or otherwise) out of existence.
  
• It is important to note that early Neural Helms, which prevented the ability to move your head at all and required a 180 FOV display condensed into 80 degrees, also had the side effect of causing psychosis after a decade or two of use. Those in disrepair had this issue much faster, so it wasn't too uncommon for someone with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD, called Battle Fatigue/Operational Exhaustion in early Battletech) combined with the psychosis to get sickening enjoyment out of things like crushing families of farmers underneath their 'Mech's feet because it was "funny."
  
• Banditry and Piracy become exceedingly common, especially along the periphery. The Great Houses lose control of these areas entirely, leading to the creation of numerous mini-factions with ever-constantly fluctuating loyalties.
  
• It wasn't until the Third Succession War (between the second and the third, dozens upon dozens of smaller wars took place all over the place) that gradually the attitude towards some targets changed. (More later).
  
• about half the tech we use in MWO was wiped to extinction several hundred years prior (and only recovered thanks to the Helm Memory Core, which Clan Wolf sleeper agents aka Wolf's Dragoons planted for the IS to find due to how overly inferior and unchallenging the IS would be against a Clan assault). Over 70% of Battlemech technology and its understanding was lost, to the point that new Battlemechs in automated factories are barely produced as fast as Battlemechs are getting destroyed.

The average Battlemech is a minimum of 100 years old.

Only some high Nobles possess brand new Battlemechs, and often impoverish themselves in their acquisition.
Most mechs are handed down from generation to generation and are in a poor state of repair.

Example: MechWarrior Regent. Ryal Regent is currently a fire support MechWarrior with House Kurita's Pesht Regulars. She has been in many fights and her Scorpion shows it. The right front leg has been replaced four times and her commanding officers have told her that she will get no more replacements. Regent is an average pilot who is the laughingstock of her company because of her Mech's condition.

Since the average condition of a 'Mech is C and a perfect 'Mech is an F (don't ask I didn't design the system and it confused the heck out of me), imagine what condition Ryal Regent's 'Mech must be in, in order to be a laughing stock, if the rest have "C" for a condition grade (where A is barely functional and - is non-functional). (Side note the average condition of Clan 'Mechs is E.)

Example 2: MechWarrior Wendel Puritan II. Wendel was assigned to House Steiner's Lyran Guard when he was told that his family 'Mech, a Scorpion, was going to be scrapped for parts. He was offered a replacement 'Mech but turned it down in favor of becoming a mercenary. He is employed with Smithson's Chinese Bandits which are working for House Marik. His Scorpion is in near-perfect condition.

Puritan II is an exception, he is filthy freaking rich on top of being a Lyran Guard (which basically makes more money per year than Arnold Schwarzenegger did in his lifetime, which is still far less than a quarter of the rate we earn money in MWO).

Stopping a single enemy 'Mech in the 3025 era was worth throwing more than 3 dozen lives to almost certain death to achieve the goal, and that's the value of stopping a 20 ton light by way of a trap. It was considered that crippling to an enemy force to remove that single threat to be worth that many lives thrown away, at a time when populations are barely recovering from an all time low.

---

The third succession war. At this time it was done out of necessity rather than a philosophical revelation, certain targets became "sacred." Among these are:

• Children. (Civilians not so much).
  
• Jumpships (it would make sense to destroy this as it would destroy dropships, 'Mechs, tanks, infantry, etc., but without these they couldn't wage war at all and so there was a universal agreement that these will not be harmed, or entire planets could become isolated). (Also it is for this reason that MWO's CW Invasion game mode makes no sense, unless the turret pivots and shoots DROPSHIPS as they come down rather than at the JumpShip, where it literally does nothing anyway.)
  
• Suns, planets, and the use of nuclear weapons. (Obvious reasons.)
  
• Factories, manufacturing facilities of any sort, ore processing, etc. Instead, like a game of King of the Hill any forces surrendering these plot to take them back rather than self-destructing them. It would be literally impossible to replace them.
  
• Other obvious forbidden targets.

By the end of the Third Succession War, the average planet's technology had been knocked back to 21st century levels. Many planets that were host to Second Succession War conflicts have technology levels that are pre-19th century (so 1800s AD).

You're looking at the disparity between planets on a higher extreme than Firefly.



---
TL;DR:
Basically tech is screwed for lots of actually surprisingly realistic reasons.
Also:

If first Battletech Novelist William H. Keith Jr. is to be believed as 100% canon, then battlefields are littered with so much ECM (of non-tabletop-relevant natures) that short of HPG uplinks, regular transmissions can't really carry high loads of data wirelessly for more than 120 meters without it being scrambled to the point of being useless.

Edited by Koniving, 10 August 2016 - 05:01 AM.

[AWOL 01]

I actually really like this suggestion... PGI! Make it happen!

Some other ideas I had:

Add "Alpha" and "Beta" from Domination, but have them affect the enemy's extraction rate - if one gets destroyed you gain 5 points of intel per second instead of 10, if two get destoyed you gain 2 per second.

Make so that as long as you're in the circle you gain intel - light mechs are soft, chewy cookies when they're standing still, so let them move around a little.

Have the Intel Center only have a certain amount of info (say, 1500 points) so that once these are depleted by the teams, no more intel can be gained. That way you can't just farm intel after you destroy the enemy team if they had already gained more intel before they died.

Also, @Black Fish, while MWO is set a thousand years in the future, because of the constant wars they have very little understanding of how their machines and technology work, so while it seems futuristic, it's basically WWI or WWII in terms of understanding. For example, BattleMechs were usually hundreds of years old because they only knew how to repair mechs, not build new ones.

[Alistair Winter]

I don't understand. If you kill the enemy team and you don't have enough data, you lose? How does that make sense? So if the enemy team has 1 guy left and he suicides when you don't have enough data, then you lose? Wouldn't killing the enemy team mean that they don't have anyone left to extract the data, while you do? I mean, if this is a critical mission where you have 15 minutes to get some data, why is it a bad thing to destroy the enemy team in 3 minutes? Doesn't that mean you have 12 minutes left to get the data?

It seems like an arbitrary solution to stop this from becoming a deathmatch.

I don't think this game mode would work. Because it relies on someone walking into the ring of fire to extract data while they're under heavy fire and both teams are just sniping all day at anyone who gets inside the circle. That's already what's happening, except in this game mode, everyone would probably yell at light mechs and medium mechs to risk their lives, while heavies and assaults stay behind cover, lobbing LRMs and firing gauss and ppcs, or poking with medium lasers that don't do damage.

Furthermore - and this is the most important part - it's not fun to stand in circles. Or squares. Or any other geometric shape.

If you play Capture the Flag, it's fun to carry the flag and fun to stop other people from carrying it. If you play Plant the Bomb, it's fun to plant the bomb and disarm the bomb. If you play hostage rescue, it's fun to rescue hostages and fun to kill the people trying to sneak hostages to safety. Why? Because those are all dynamic objectives that require some degree of thinking on your feet.

This game mode has a little bit of that, but it wouldn't actually play out like that, because both teams would form a firing line and it would basically be impossible to intercept any light mechs running back and forth to the dropship.

I think the solution is to look at good game modes from other games, not invent new ones. You can invent new ones, but it's just really hard. Which is why most popular FPS games have pretty similar game modes.

[Yellonet]

Alistair Winter, on 10 August 2016 - 05:11 AM, said:

I don't understand. If you kill the enemy team and you don't have enough data, you lose? How does that make sense? So if the enemy team has 1 guy left and he suicides when you don't have enough data, then you lose? Wouldn't killing the enemy team mean that they don't have anyone left to extract the data, while you do? I mean, if this is a critical mission where you have 15 minutes to get some data, why is it a bad thing to destroy the enemy team in 3 minutes? Doesn't that mean you have 12 minutes left to get the data?

It seems like an arbitrary solution to stop this from becoming a deathmatch.

What?! Not at all........

It was the best I could come up with in a few minutes when I wrote the general idea.
I'm sure there are solutions to this, I just don't want another skirmish mode.

Alistair Winter, on 10 August 2016 - 05:11 AM, said:

I don't think this game mode would work. Because it relies on someone walking into the ring of fire to extract data while they're under heavy fire and both teams are just sniping all day at anyone who gets inside the circle. That's already what's happening, except in this game mode, everyone would probably yell at light mechs and medium mechs to risk their lives, while heavies and assaults stay behind cover, lobbing LRMs and firing gauss and ppcs, or poking with medium lasers that don't do damage.

Furthermore - and this is the most important part - it's not fun to stand in circles. Or squares. Or any other geometric shape.

If you play Capture the Flag, it's fun to carry the flag and fun to stop other people from carrying it. If you play Plant the Bomb, it's fun to plant the bomb and disarm the bomb. If you play hostage rescue, it's fun to rescue hostages and fun to kill the people trying to sneak hostages to safety. Why? Because those are all dynamic objectives that require some degree of thinking on your feet.

This game mode has a little bit of that, but it wouldn't actually play out like that, because both teams would form a firing line and it would basically be impossible to intercept any light mechs running back and forth to the dropship.

I think the solution is to look at good game modes from other games, not invent new ones. You can invent new ones, but it's just really hard. Which is why most popular FPS games have pretty similar game modes.

Well, CTF would seem a bit strange in this game... also, the key to this idea was that there would have to be no new assets or major changes, a new game mode from minimal effort, thus making it more likely to become real.

[Alistair Winter]

Yellonet, on 10 August 2016 - 05:29 AM, said:

What?! Not at all........
It was the best I could come up with in a few minutes when I wrote the general idea.
I'm sure there are solutions to this, I just don't want another skirmish mode.
Well, CTF would seem a bit strange in this game... also, the key to this idea was that there would have to be no new assets or major changes, a new game mode from minimal effort, thus making it more likely to become real.

I totally get where you're coming from. I just think that it would be hard to get this to work, especially with the way PGI designs maps to force players to engage in tiny grind zones. Take Viridian Bog, for example. It's almost impossible to sneak past enemy lines undetected on Viridian Bog unless you're a fast ECM light mech, because the map is basically a narrow, curved strip of land where both teams engage in the middle. And on HPG Manifold, it's very hard to sneak unnoticed behind enemy lines to reach the enemy bases / bases, because you have to cross an open no man's land on the same side as the enemy team is holding.

I actually think CTF would work in MWO if the 'flag' was a drone that limited your max speed, preventing Firemoths from engaging MASC and just speeding away at 200 kph with 500 ping. If the drone could only be escorted at 100 kph, then even Locusts would be possible to hit. (CTF doesn't just work in games where everyone moves at the same speed, CTF is also very popular in MMORPGs where some characters have crazy speed bonuses)

[s0da72]

I like the idea, it would make domination play different than Assault which would be a welcome change.

[Johnny Z]

Koniving, on 10 August 2016 - 04:50 AM, said:

One should note:
Despite the year, technology had been decimated through 300+ years of nearly constant wars, during the first two major ones:

• Almost immediately the Ares Convention was thrown out the window as ludicrous ******** made by the very bureaucrats the leaders of the great houses wanted to replace,
  
• over 19 populated planets were completely obliterated,
  
• more than 70 planets could no longer be reached by any faster-than-light method,
  
• one star had been destroyed (taking two populated planets with it),
  
• numerous factories were destroyed, completely annihilating entire 'Mech, vehicle and and equipment lines to total extinction. Some of which would never, ever be recovered.
  
• "Military targets" were also expanded to include "Civilians," "Children," "Schools," "Hospitals," "Emergency Services of every kind," "Educational centers", "Manufacturing facilities," "Materials processing," "Religious Centers," and even "Food and water supplies" such as "Farms," "Fresh Water Sources," and "Ice Ships" which transport large amounts of water to planets that do not have sufficient natural sources of water.
  
• Any factory, facility, or anything involving the manufacture of or processing materials for weapon or vehicle development when at risk of capture was destroyed by its own forces.
  
• Many of the computer systems from the Golden Era (Star League's best years) became nearly impossible to produce. Instead, they were usually scavanged from already existing things.
  
• By the end of the first Succession War, technology was knocked back to pre-24th century due to all the destruction.
  
• Within the Second Succession War, all of the Houses relied on Scavenger Economies, especially after the first half.
  
• The above scavenger economy was essentially forced, as entire campaigns were launched to obliterate entire technological advantages another side might have or to eradicate certain threatening designs ('Mechs or otherwise) out of existence.
  
• It is important to note that early Neural Helms, which prevented the ability to move your head at all and required a 180 FOV display condensed into 80 degrees, also had the side effect of causing psychosis after a decade or two of use. Those in disrepair had this issue much faster, so it wasn't too uncommon for someone with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD, called Battle Fatigue/Operational Exhaustion in early Battletech) combined with the psychosis to get sickening enjoyment out of things like crushing families of farmers underneath their 'Mech's feet because it was "funny."
  
• Banditry and Piracy become exceedingly common, especially along the periphery. The Great Houses lose control of these areas entirely, leading to the creation of numerous mini-factions with ever-constantly fluctuating loyalties.
  
• It wasn't until the Third Succession War (between the second and the third, dozens upon dozens of smaller wars took place all over the place) that gradually the attitude towards some targets changed. (More later).
  
• about half the tech we use in MWO was wiped to extinction several hundred years prior (and only recovered thanks to the Helm Memory Core, which Clan Wolf sleeper agents aka Wolf's Dragoons planted for the IS to find due to how overly inferior and unchallenging the IS would be against a Clan assault). Over 70% of Battlemech technology and its understanding was lost, to the point that new Battlemechs in automated factories are barely produced as fast as Battlemechs are getting destroyed.

The average Battlemech is a minimum of 100 years old.

Only some high Nobles possess brand new Battlemechs, and often impoverish themselves in their acquisition.
Most mechs are handed down from generation to generation and are in a poor state of repair.

Example: MechWarrior Regent. Ryal Regent is currently a fire support MechWarrior with House Kurita's Pesht Regulars. She has been in many fights and her Scorpion shows it. The right front leg has been replaced four times and her commanding officers have told her that she will get no more replacements. Regent is an average pilot who is the laughingstock of her company because of her Mech's condition.

Since the average condition of a 'Mech is C and a perfect 'Mech is an F (don't ask I didn't design the system and it confused the heck out of me), imagine what condition Ryal Regent's 'Mech must be in, in order to be a laughing stock, if the rest have "C" for a condition grade (where A is barely functional and - is non-functional). (Side note the average condition of Clan 'Mechs is E.)

Example 2: MechWarrior Wendel Puritan II. Wendel was assigned to House Steiner's Lyran Guard when he was told that his family 'Mech, a Scorpion, was going to be scrapped for parts. He was offered a replacement 'Mech but turned it down in favor of becoming a mercenary. He is employed with Smithson's Chinese Bandits which are working for House Marik. His Scorpion is in near-perfect condition.

Puritan II is an exception, he is filthy freaking rich on top of being a Lyran Guard (which basically makes more money per year than Arnold Schwarzenegger did in his lifetime, which is still far less than a quarter of the rate we earn money in MWO).

Stopping a single enemy 'Mech in the 3025 era was worth throwing more than 3 dozen lives to almost certain death to achieve the goal, and that's the value of stopping a 20 ton light by way of a trap. It was considered that crippling to an enemy force to remove that single threat to be worth that many lives thrown away, at a time when populations are barely recovering from an all time low.

---

The third succession war. At this time it was done out of necessity rather than a philosophical revelation, certain targets became "sacred." Among these are:

• Children. (Civilians not so much).
  
• Jumpships (it would make sense to destroy this as it would destroy dropships, 'Mechs, tanks, infantry, etc., but without these they couldn't wage war at all and so there was a universal agreement that these will not be harmed, or entire planets could become isolated). (Also it is for this reason that MWO's CW Invasion game mode makes no sense, unless the turret pivots and shoots DROPSHIPS as they come down rather than at the JumpShip, where it literally does nothing anyway.)
  
• Suns, planets, and the use of nuclear weapons. (Obvious reasons.)
  
• Factories, manufacturing facilities of any sort, ore processing, etc. Instead, like a game of King of the Hill any forces surrendering these plot to take them back rather than self-destructing them. It would be literally impossible to replace them.
  
• Other obvious forbidden targets.

By the end of the Third Succession War, the average planet's technology had been knocked back to 21st century levels. Many planets that were host to Second Succession War conflicts have technology levels that are pre-19th century (so 1800s AD).

You're looking at the disparity between planets on a higher extreme than Firefly.



---
TL;DR:
Basically tech is screwed for lots of actually surprisingly realistic reasons.
Also:

If first Battletech Novelist William H. Keith Jr. is to be believed as 100% canon, then battlefields are littered with so much ECM (of non-tabletop-relevant natures) that short of HPG uplinks, regular transmissions can't really carry high loads of data wirelessly for more than 120 meters without it being scrambled to the point of being useless.

Awsome sentiment.

I am thinking more along the lines of a Cyberpunk theme than a Firfly theme though. Both similar in every way but style really. I would even go so far as to say Firefly is cyberpunk, especially taking the movie story into account. Classic cyberpunk, beauty and dangers of technology and all that. Wont ruin it by saying any spoilers though.

BTW Firefly movie is awesome, a must see really. Lets just say that movie has charm and makes a person think a bit.

Edited by Johnny Z, 10 August 2016 - 05:48 AM.

[Koniving]

Yellonet, on 10 August 2016 - 12:35 AM, said:

To make it so that it's not a certain win to just kill the enemy you can only win if your team has more data uploaded to the dropship than the enemy, this is because once a team is killed the dropship leaves after 2 minutes, and if the dead team's dropship has more data than the living team's ship, the dead guys win (because they get their larger volume of valuable data away first or something...).

Alistair Winter, on 10 August 2016 - 05:11 AM, said:

I don't understand. If you kill the enemy team and you don't have enough data, you lose? How does that make sense? So if the enemy team has 1 guy left and he suicides when you don't have enough data, then you lose? Wouldn't killing the enemy team mean that they don't have anyone left to extract the data, while you do? I mean, if this is a critical mission where you have 15 minutes to get some data, why is it a bad thing to destroy the enemy team in 3 minutes? Doesn't that mean you have 12 minutes left to get the data?

It seems like an arbitrary solution to stop this from becoming a deathmatch.

Actually if throwing 3 dozen lives down to stop one 'Mech still means something even if you have no one left to use for fighting after the fact is considered a victory for the lives it saves down the line... then it makes good sense. It requires a caveat, however.

Lets try it this way:
Once 2/3rds of the team is destroyed, the dropship will leave in 2 minutes or less. With or without the remaining force.

We now have different levels of victory.

So in the scenario of the defeat described, the following will happen.
2/3rds of the team is destroyed, the dropship prepares to leave. If it has more data, the defeated team is still likely to have the higher win. Even if you destroy all their mechs, it is likely to end closer to a draw or minor victory for both sides.
There is still the dropship which you must bring down.
To add to the fun, defeated players could even be given the option to control one of the dropship's weapon turrets (shared with other dead players).
Destroy the dropship and you can get a moderate victory (due to the info being mostly lost as a result).
Once the team itself is completely destroyed, the dropship leaves within 30 seconds or less, in the longest possible route to withdraw (ensuring as many chances as possible to encounter and destroy it).

So what we need is conditions for the following...
Major Victory.
Moderate Victory.
Minor Victory.
Draw.
Minor Defeat.
Moderate Defeat.
Major Defeat.

With prospective reward modifiers for each.

Edit: Corrected my fractions.

Alistair Winter, on 10 August 2016 - 05:36 AM, said:

I actually think CTF would work in MWO if the 'flag' was a drone that limited your max speed, preventing Firemoths from engaging MASC and just speeding away at 200 kph with 500 ping. If the drone could only be escorted at 100 kph, then even Locusts would be possible to hit. (CTF doesn't just work in games where everyone moves at the same speed, CTF is also very popular in MMORPGs where some characters have crazy speed bonuses)

You would immediately run into this problem.

Edited by Koniving, 10 August 2016 - 05:53 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

Koniving, on 10 August 2016 - 05:42 AM, said:

Actually if throwing 3 dozen lives down to stop one 'Mech still means something
even if you have no one left to use for fighting after the fact
is considered a victory for the lives it saves down the line...
then it makes good sense. It requires a caveat, however.

Koniving, I'm not trying to be a d*ck here, but your post made my brain bleed. I'm breaking down these sentences, but I still don't understand what you mean. Could you explain a little more clearly? It feels like a lot of information in your post is implied, but I don't understand the implication.

My point is that I can't really fathom any kind of military scenario where two opposing forces are trying to extract information from an objective and manually return it to their dropship (i.e. no wifi upload as in Scouting game mode)... while also coming up with some kind of explanation for one force should be penalized for immediately destroying the other force. That doesn't make any sense to me.

It creates a "perverse incentive", where players are actively trying to avoid killing their enemies because it may have negative consequences. This is similar to the flaw in Domination mode and Assault mode, where players are trying to avoid a quick cap victory, because it leads to smaller rewards. So instead of trying to accomplish the objectives, the players have a gentleman's agreement to just fight each other instead.

[Koniving]

Alistair Winter, on 10 August 2016 - 05:52 AM, said:

Koniving, I'm not trying to be a d*ck here, but your post made my brain bleed. I'm breaking down these sentences, but I still don't understand what you mean. Could you explain a little more clearly? It feels like a lot of information in your post is implied, but I don't understand the implication.

My point is that I can't really fathom any kind of military scenario where two opposing forces are trying to extract information from an objective and manually return it to their dropship (i.e. no wifi upload as in Scouting game mode)... while also coming up with some kind of explanation for one force should be penalized for immediately destroying the other force. That doesn't make any sense to me.

"Actually if throwing 3 dozen lives down to stop one 'Mech still means something
even if you have no one left to use for fighting after the fact
is considered a victory for the lives it saves down the line...
then it makes good sense. It requires a caveat, however."

Okay rewritten:
Consider this.
Say that Team A manages to stop something on Team B from being a threat in the future, and in the process all of Team A's currently deployed forces are lost in the process, it is still considered a victory for Team A. Not an ideal one, but the lives saved in future battles are worth the losses. The battle is considered a victory in spite of the defeat, because the objective is achieved and it permits the campaign to continue. It may even change the tide of the war.

If this information is that crucial, say if it was data from the Helm Memory Core, then whoever has the most control over this data would literally become the second most powerful force in the Inner Sphere, seconded exclusively to Comstar.

Even if all the forces were lost and yet the Dropship got away with that kind of data... your faction is as good as extinct. You've lost the battle that will cause you to lose all the wars that will ever occur in the future.

Now this data probably isn't "THAT" important. But it sets a precedent.

----

Also if you read further into my post, I created a caveat, that is a "warning or proviso of specific stipulations, conditions, or limitations' that would be a required factor here:
You must destroy the Dropship, an incredibly difficult task with the enemy ground force still alive, a challenging task even after their destruction.
Otherwise the information can escape.

I also put in that there must be varying levels of defeat and victory, each with its own reward modifier.

In other words you aren't punished for killing the enemy; you are punished for failing to destroy the dropship (which can be done, I've achieved it in tabletop with 10 mediums and 2 assaults, and a Leopard dropship is a HELL OF A LOT MORE DANGEROUS in tabletop than in MWO).

Edit:
Also in that same post:
If your enemy ground force is completely destroyed, the Dropship will leave in 30 seconds or less + flight time to travel across the map at a gradually accelerating rate.
If the enemy force is weakened to 4 'Mechs or less, you have 2 minutes + flight time to destroy the dropship, giving you more time to accomplish the goal of destroying the dropship as the it is waiting for those who are withdrawing/retreating to board.

Edit 2:

A video example of the retreat I'm speaking of.

Edited by Koniving, 10 August 2016 - 06:12 AM.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Alistair Winter, on 10 August 2016 - 05:36 AM, said:

And on HPG Manifold, it's very hard to sneak unnoticed behind enemy lines to reach the enemy bases / bases, because you have to cross an open no man's land on the same side as the enemy team is holding.

Lights with JJ can use the wall and can usually get there without getting shot too badly.

But... since you make next to nothing by capping... I don't typically bother.

[SnagaDance]

Koniving, on 10 August 2016 - 04:50 AM, said:

• one star had been destroyed (taking two populated planets with it),
  
• and only recovered thanks to the Helm Memory Core, which Clan Wolf sleeper agents aka Wolf's Dragoons planted for the IS to find due to how overly inferior and unchallenging the IS would be against a Clan assault).

Hi Kon, never heard these 2, where are these from? Or are they maybe part of the rumor filled Jihad documents books?

[Alistair Winter]

Narcissistic Martyr, on 10 August 2016 - 06:25 AM, said:

Lights with JJ can use the wall and can usually get there without getting shot too badly.
But... since you make next to nothing by capping... I don't typically bother.

The bigger issue, for me, is that even though you don't get shot up, it's basically like a batsignal to every streakboat out there to follow you. And yeah, it may be bad for their team that they sent 2 streakboats to chase a squirrel, but that doesn't help me personally if I'm making 20,000 c-bills and doing 50 damage in that match.

Koniving, on 10 August 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

Okay rewritten:
Consider this.
Say that Team A manages to stop something on Team B from being a threat in the future, and in the process all of Team A's currently deployed forces are lost in the process, it is still considered a victory for Team A. Not an ideal one, but the lives saved in future battles are worth the losses. The battle is considered a victory in spite of the defeat, because the objective is achieved and it permits the campaign to continue. It may even change the tide of the war.
If this information is that crucial, say if it was data from the Helm Memory Core, then whoever has the most control over this data would literally become the second most powerful force in the Inner Sphere, seconded exclusively to Comstar.
Even if all the forces were lost and yet the Dropship got away with that kind of data... your faction is as good as extinct. You've lost the battle that will cause you to lose all the wars that will ever occur in the future.
Now this data probably isn't "THAT" important. But it sets a precedent.

I understand that, but this doesn't cover the whole situation in this game mode. Your example only applies if Team A is wiped out, but got more data in the process. Otherwise, you would have to come up with some crazy far fetched explanation. And what if Team A got 0 data and got wiped out. Would Team B win automatically?

Koniving, on 10 August 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

Also if you read further into my post, I created a caveat, that is a "warning or proviso of specific stipulations, conditions, or limitations' that would be a required factor here:
You must destroy the Dropship, an incredibly difficult task with the enemy ground force still alive, a challenging task even after their destruction.
Otherwise the information can escape.

But it still seems like a better idea to just go ahead and kill the enemy team. Because if the enemy team is dead, then they can't prevent your dropship from escaping either. Think of it like this.

• There are 20 data points total.
  
• After 5 minutes, Team A has 3 data points, Team B has 2 datapoints.
  
• Team A has 5 mechs left, Team B has 1 mech left

In this scenario, if the last mech on Team B is killed, then the dropship leaves and you have to destroy the dropship. But that's not really a deterrent. Because even if Team A gets wiped out trying to destroy the dropship... Team B still can't prevent Team A's dropship from leaving either.

Furthermore, even if Team B has 4 datapoints and then gets wiped out and their dropship leaves with 4 datapoints while Team A only has 3 datapoints... there's still 10 minutes on the clock. Why wouldn't Team A just keep collecting data and have 16 datapoints after 15 minutes?

It's just very convoluted and arbitrary, it doesn't make sense unless you imagine some kind of crazy story to go along with it. Furthermore, it seems like it would be the best strategy to just get kills anyway. The more kills you get, the harder it becomes for the enemy to stop you from gathering data. Once the score is 10-2, the winning team can just send 5 mechs back and forth to collect data. So just like Conquest, just like Domination, just like Assault... the winning strategy would normally be to get kills instead of caps.

[Kirkland Langue]

When it comes to game modes - the first thing PGI should do is get rid of the rewards for dealing damage.
Until they do that, no matter what game mode you imagine, it will always be a variant of skirmish because breaking mechs is what PGI rewards.

Which is why Light mech pilots feel they should be able to deal as much damage as assaults - and I don't really blame them thinking this, because damage is what PGI rewards, but it's ridiculous to a level that should amaze everyone.

[Big Tin Man]

THIS IDEA WOULD BE MUCH BETTER IF IT WAS AN ALTERNATE 4v4 SCOUTING MODE.

edit: and some minor changes.

1. The data collection point is destructible
2. Either side can gain intelligence from it (net differnce in intel collected)
3. You only get rewards for gathering and returning intel
4. Mechs can only hold so much intel before returning it to the dropship (because they are running potato powered hard drives)

Edited by Big Tin Man, 10 August 2016 - 06:59 AM.

[Koniving]

SnagaDance, on 10 August 2016 - 06:34 AM, said:

Hi Kon, never heard these 2, where are these from? Or are they maybe part of the rumor filled Jihad documents books?

The prior is among the speculated reasons (unprovable rumors) why one of the solar systems can no longer be reached through FTL jumps (which require getting close to the sun/star of any solar system in order to achieve, and if there is no longer a sun there you cannot jump there anymore, thus it makes sense. No star, no jump, "Must be gone.").


The second, Wolf's Dragoons as Clan spies, is found here. Their defection is how the other Clans see it. Clan Wolf and thus later Clan Wolf in Exile, actually ordered Wolf's Dragoons to fight for the Inner Sphere against the Clans as the most recent developments that the IS had after the Helm Memory Core were still not enough for the IS to prove to be enough of a challenge for the Clans.

Do not forget, Clan Wolf (and later Clan Wolf in Exile) are Wardens, whose goal is to defend the Inner Sphere by becoming the former Star League. Not conquer it. The Crusader Clans want to conquer it.

Helm Memory Core's story has been rewritten several times and changes depending on whose perspective you see it from. Wolf's Dragoons have the perspective that when they discovered the poor condition the Inner Sphere was in, they sought ways to improve the Inner Sphere's ability to defend itself against the incoming Crusader Clans. This came in many forms, including the planet Outreach, awarded to them by Hanse Davion. Their mercenary tour, which allowed them to work for a length of time for each of the major factions, steadily improving their employers as they go. And ultimately, the location of the Helm Memory Core aka Star League Field Library Facility, Helm, DE890-2699, prior to the battle of Misery. It is during the Lyran employer in battles against the Kurita. The first to discover the existence of the Memory Core is a series of Kurita nobles including Duke Hissid Ricol, later (due to transmission), Precentor Emillio Rachan of Comstar (whom sought to get it for Comstar and keep it out of the hands of the warring factions, for the purposes of what would later be known as "Blakist" intentions.) This discovery of its existence came from Wolf's Dragoons though whether it is intentional or not is unknown.

Gray Death Legion however is the group that actually took the data and ensure it got distributed by many "independent" groups such as traders, spreading it in a way that would improve all sides without giving a blatant advantage to one side, as Clan Wolf had gambled.

It is very loosely "tied" to Wolf's Dragoons, for spilling the beans of its existence somehow (and prematurely). This all came from bouncing between novels, Sarna, Mech Factory (the app), and sourcebooks. The Wolf's Dragoons sourcebook, Heir to the Dragon, Price of Glory, and "coincidences" in the Gray Legion Scenario Pack are the main sources however. The story between the lines.

Interestingly, The Battle of Misery is there in the Wolf's Dragoons page. This is where the hero 'Mech "Misery" came from and it is piloted from a very important character in that battle, this character had a customized Stalker with a Gauss Rifle and the Stalker was permanently scarred with surface damage that could not be fixed.

Edited by Koniving, 10 August 2016 - 07:21 AM.