16 replies to this topic

[razenWing]

No, not because of perceived imbalance of other subjective BS.

I bet a lot of people don't even realize that Escort Mode is not offered in all maps. And THAT'S why Escort Mode sucks right now. Let's begin by visualizing a Venn Diagram.

How it used to be, is that there used to be one circle, which is game mode, and another circle, which is maps. Now, it used to be that the two circle overlap perfectly. Which means, any map can be any mode, and vice versa.

Now, with the addition of Escort Mode, one big changed happened.

The Venn Diagram now two divergent circles. Circle 1, let's call it "Escort." Circle 2, let's call it "Others"

The problem is that while Circle 2 still has all the maps, Circle 1 only has a portion. As a result, an intersect between the 2 circles are born, and these maps are the most commonly played today:

Frozen City, Alpine, Polar Highland, Crimson Straight, etc etc

So while all maps had equal chance to appear, thus, no matter people's selection mentality, now these maps that are in the middle are the only ones that can appear ALL the time.

Meaning, if you see Escort mode as a choice, forget Mining Collective, Caustic Valley, or Terra Therma. Conversely, if you see those above maps, you can simultaneously forget about ever selecting Escort Mode as a playable.

Now, problem A is obviously that maps are not going to get selected with any sort of balance, because already, people prefer certain maps over others. Now? With the chance of certain maps appearing to be even less? (And just so happen to be the ones that people hate... all your heat maps) I have played 2 days now without seeing Terra Therma or Caustic Valley ever selected.

Problem B is that currently, there is a challenge going on involving Escort Mode, and Escort Mode doesn't have the same probability to appear as every other mode.

So really, it sucks balls on both fronts. You want to complete challenge? Not happening. You want to play different maps? Not happening either.

Luckily, the fix is simple. PGI just needs to hurry with the installation of Escort Mode on ALL the maps. I know it seems counter intuitive to have Escort Mode to have Mining Collective as a choice, but really, are you not going to Escort someone just because you have little room to work with? I think all combinations have their own unique sets of challenges, so rather than worrying about how small maps might be skewed, just implement than worry about balance later.

Anyways, I hope this clears something up for people. And again, science and mathematics, {Dezgra}. Yea, SCIENCE!

[Y E O N N E]

Real problem is that Scouts can't Scout because turrets have ridiculous aim and even two MedLas hurts like h*ll. This forces the entire team to scout as one big unit.

[Mcgral18]

Yeonne Greene, on 17 December 2016 - 01:05 AM, said:

Real problem is that Scouts can't Scout because turrets have ridiculous aim and even two MedLas hurts like h*ll. This forces the entire team to scout as one big unit.

At least they're only 15 HP

One shot-able by most mechs at 300M

[Y E O N N E]

Mcgral18, on 17 December 2016 - 01:31 AM, said:

At least they're only 15 HP

One shot-able by most mechs at 300M

Yeah, but I shouldn't be doomed to eat 10 damage from each turret I try to engage just because I brought a knife-fighter Light. If I knew I was going to get Escort every time, then I could work around it. But we don't know that; it's effectively random.

[Kerensky98]

The turrets are made of paper. They aren't a problem, if anything they should be buffed.

[Elizander]

Yeonne Greene, on 17 December 2016 - 01:05 AM, said:

Real problem is that Scouts can't Scout because turrets have ridiculous aim and even two MedLas hurts like h*ll. This forces the entire team to scout as one big unit.

PGI needs to introduce accuracy to the turrets. Give it artificial reaction time and a chance to miss. It's not hard to make it miss a certain percentage of the beam duration to moving targets and have it not stick to only one component. The turrets could have less beam time on fast mechs based on speed and angle (full damage on still, slow or mechs that move forward or back in a straight line is fine).

[Lykaon]

razenWing, on 17 December 2016 - 12:58 AM, said:

No, not because of perceived imbalance of other subjective BS.

I bet a lot of people don't even realize that Escort Mode is not offered in all maps. And THAT'S why Escort Mode sucks right now. Let's begin by visualizing a Venn Diagram.

How it used to be, is that there used to be one circle, which is game mode, and another circle, which is maps. Now, it used to be that the two circle overlap perfectly. Which means, any map can be any mode, and vice versa.

Now, with the addition of Escort Mode, one big changed happened.

The Venn Diagram now two divergent circles. Circle 1, let's call it "Escort." Circle 2, let's call it "Others"

The problem is that while Circle 2 still has all the maps, Circle 1 only has a portion. As a result, an intersect between the 2 circles are born, and these maps are the most commonly played today:

Frozen City, Alpine, Polar Highland, Crimson Straight, etc etc

So while all maps had equal chance to appear, thus, no matter people's selection mentality, now these maps that are in the middle are the only ones that can appear ALL the time.

Meaning, if you see Escort mode as a choice, forget Mining Collective, Caustic Valley, or Terra Therma. Conversely, if you see those above maps, you can simultaneously forget about ever selecting Escort Mode as a playable.

Now, problem A is obviously that maps are not going to get selected with any sort of balance, because already, people prefer certain maps over others. Now? With the chance of certain maps appearing to be even less? (And just so happen to be the ones that people hate... all your heat maps) I have played 2 days now without seeing Terra Therma or Caustic Valley ever selected.

Problem B is that currently, there is a challenge going on involving Escort Mode, and Escort Mode doesn't have the same probability to appear as every other mode.

So really, it sucks balls on both fronts. You want to complete challenge? Not happening. You want to play different maps? Not happening either.

Luckily, the fix is simple. PGI just needs to hurry with the installation of Escort Mode on ALL the maps. I know it seems counter intuitive to have Escort Mode to have Mining Collective as a choice, but really, are you not going to Escort someone just because you have little room to work with? I think all combinations have their own unique sets of challenges, so rather than worrying about how small maps might be skewed, just implement than worry about balance later.

Anyways, I hope this clears something up for people. And again, science and mathematics, {Dezgra}. Yea, SCIENCE!

I'm fine with that because in actual practice the map selection was as follows

If Canyon was an option it was chosen unless canyone and HPG were choices then HPG barring that if mining collective were in the mix Mining collective would be heavily weighted in votes as well.

I still have never played on the new terra therma (I was not playing during the day or two of curiosity when it was selected right after it's release)
Without escort I would not see forest colony pretty much ever. etc.

[Tier5 Kerensky]

" With the chance of certain maps appearing to be even less?"


And why is that? I think I can see your error.

[Darian DelFord]

Yeonne Greene, on 17 December 2016 - 01:05 AM, said:

Real problem is that Scouts can't Scout because turrets have ridiculous aim and even two MedLas hurts like h*ll. This forces the entire team to scout as one big unit.

Nailed it.....

The moment you pop out of cover your CT gets hammered. There is no time to aquire the target. The moment you can be hit... they fire.

[Tier5 Kerensky]

Scouts with short range weapons are not scouts.

[Darian DelFord]

Teer Kerensky, on 17 December 2016 - 05:10 AM, said:

Scouts with short range weapons are not scouts.

LOL sorry but not putting a PPC on my locust.

[Tier5 Kerensky]

Darian DelFord, on 17 December 2016 - 05:16 AM, said:

LOL sorry but not putting a PPC on my locust.

I don't usually have one on my Mist Lynx either, as I prefer two ERL and it can't carry two PPCs. But there is middle range too.

Laser vomit lights don't scout. They try to attack lone assults and the like. Thus with or without ECM, they avoid seeing and being seen.

[Darian DelFord]

Teer Kerensky, on 17 December 2016 - 06:37 AM, said:

I don't usually have one on my Mist Lynx either, as I prefer two ERL and it can't carry two PPCs. But there is middle range too.

Laser vomit lights don't scout. They try to attack lone assults and the like. Thus with or without ECM, they avoid seeing and being seen.

Few light mechs can use dual ER LL's effectively and most use ECM to be effective. NOt to mention to be effective using the dual ER LL builds you have to be a good 600+ meters away and hope no one is looking your way. This is really not inductive for scouting either depending on the map. ECM does make scouting much easier.

Lights in general are limited to less than 300 meters in most of their weapon choices, due to weight limitations, if they wish to be able to contribute.

This limits them to SL's SPL's ML's MPL's and SRM's

Edited by Darian DelFord, 17 December 2016 - 07:02 AM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Teer Kerensky, on 17 December 2016 - 05:10 AM, said:

Scouts with short range weapons are not scouts.

Really. Then way do recon vehicles in real life often mount nothing more than a Heavy Machine Gun.

Sorry but a true scout is one that doesn't fire their weapons and just observes and spots their targets, preferable from stealth. If someone truly wanted to scout they would run a tiny ECM equiped mech like a Pirates Bane, paint it in camo that make is hard to visual see and it would look for a vantage point next to a rock or hidden in a tree where it could spot the enemy and NOT MOVE ONE INCH because movement attracts the eye. It would most definitely not fire because that would give away is position and invite return fire.

That is a true scout.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 17 December 2016 - 07:53 AM.

[razenWing]

As expected, a whole bunch of people have opinions and do not bother to take the time to see the math behind what I am trying to talk about.

I call this phenomenon, 'Meta-talk." Everyone has the same subjective opinion with no statistical basis, and want to share the exact same opinion in EVERY single thread. As if the ten other subjective discussion about "o, the turret is too powerful" or "armor is too much/little" aren't enough, let's make the one objective thread with REAL mathematical principle into another one of those "meta-talk/whine."

Yup, I expected as much from the forum. Good job, guys. You never disappoint me.
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For like the 2 people that bother to stay on topic, I will respond to the one person that raised doubt. I like to know the possible error in my logic. The way I see it, no matter how you slice it, the choice generation can only occur two ways:

1) Random generator select 4 maps first. Check to see what possible game mode choices are there. So, if HPG, Caustic, Terra, Mining, and etc are chosen, escort mode is automatically ruled out. Now, we can do this by probability. The chance of having Escort Mode is as followed:

Escortable Maps: 8 FC, FRC, RC, AP, TD, CS, PH, GP
Non-Escortable Maps: 6 CV, CN, TT, HPG, MC, VB

slot 1: 8/14 = ~57%
slot 2: ~57% * 7/13 = ~30%
slot 3: ~30% * 6/12 = ~15%
slot 4: ~15% * 5/11 = ~7%

So by slot 4, there's a 7% chance that Escort Mode will be offered as an option. But clearly, we see Escort Option more than 7% of the time. Which brings us to method number 2...

2: Say PGI decide to increase the odds of Escort Mode by prioritizing mode generation. Then odds is a lot easier. If Escort mode is set to appear 30% of the time as oppose to the default 20% (1/5)

slot 1: 30% to 70%
slot 2: 30%/70%= 21% to 70%/70%=49%

Meaning, Escort Mode has a 51% chance of generating, eliminating 6 of the possible 14 maps.
What if PGI didn't mess with the odds?

slot 1: 1/5 = 20%
slot 2: 1/4*80% = 20%

In total, there's a 40% chance of Escort Mode appearing, and eliminating 6 of the possible 14 maps.

--------------------


Obviously, from individual experience, we can debate the numbers and the actual odds, but the point is, no matter the number fudging, not all maps OR modes are being represented equally. And until PGI make the remaining 6 maps to be Escort-able, that will remain a problem for a large number of maps being under represented.

Edited by razenWing, 17 December 2016 - 06:51 PM.

[somedood]

This "problem" is solveable with time, and I'm personally ok with having fewer maps support this game mode as it is a pretty big playstyle change. I'm sure they'll add more maps to this with more time.

[razenWing]

somedood, on 17 December 2016 - 07:42 PM, said:

This "problem" is solveable with time, and I'm personally ok with having fewer maps support this game mode as it is a pretty big playstyle change. I'm sure they'll add more maps to this with more time.

"Luckily, the fix is simple. PGI just needs to hurry with the installation of Escort Mode on ALL the maps"