58 replies to this topic

[Cy Mitchell]

Imperius, on 09 December 2016 - 08:24 PM, said:

I"ll play it with my gold dire wolf

Ya know, that might actually be the best defensive strategy there is. Everyone loves to kill a Gold Mech. They may forget about the VIP completely.

Edited by Rampage, 10 December 2016 - 05:14 AM.

[Cy Mitchell]

With the changes to collision, I wonder if the defenders will be able to steer it at all by herding it a bit? I guess that depends on how smart or how stubborn the AI is.

I think that the defenders are going to be at a big disadvantage but it will be interesting to see how it plays out and whether there is room for improvement in the future. Something like adding multiple VIPs could help a lot. I hope that the Atlas has ECM and/or AMS.

[L3mming2]

Rwraith, on 09 December 2016 - 03:44 PM, said:

Just hit it in the CT. It'l go down easy.
If they wanted to make it challenging they should have made it a Locust. Those buggers are hard to kill.

escorting a locust in a dire wolf XD. aaaaaand its gone

[Kargush]

kuma8877, on 09 December 2016 - 06:12 PM, said:

Phil confirmed that the Atlas has a fair boost to survive-ability in the latest NGNG podcast. How much of a boost?...he didn't say.

So 2 Direstars to make sure then.

[xengk]

what if the VIP comes with CT homing aimbot AI and unlimited heat capacity?

[Douglas grizzly]

It depends on the terrain of course but some teams will be able to snipe it from long range. I have seen some guys who skill with sniping borders on the unreal. I count myself lucky to be able to start to hit at 1200 meters now that my fps issue is somewhat resolved.

[cazidin]

L3mming2, on 10 December 2016 - 05:27 AM, said:

escorting a locust in a dire wolf XD. aaaaaand its gone

Alright so we're going to have this hundred ton Daishi protect this small Locust running at approximately 136 KPH towards an enemy lance AAAAAAAAND it's gone!

What do you mean it's gone?

It's gone! It blew up! Let's queue for another Escort Match?

[Lightfoot]

Belacose, on 09 December 2016 - 03:35 PM, said:

Seems like it would be easier to knock out the Atlas than it would be to defend it.

Even pugs would know what to focus.

It will probably not be a normal Atlas. Certainly it will get some special quirks to make the game mode work.

Sounds like fun. Good idea. I have played these scenarios a lot in MechWarrior and MechCommander. I even scripted a MechWarrior 4 Mercs mission on a new map (Big Islands) where you and a squad of nine mechs had to stop a convoy of 3 destroyers and their escorts from crossing a a shallow channel. A fun mission, challenging. (Unfortunately I took my MW4 Mercs maps/missions website down when Microsoft stopped supporting MW4 on current Windows or I would put a link up.)

Edited by Lightfoot, 10 December 2016 - 07:27 AM.

[kuma8877]

The addition of the way points/towers and turrets may make things fairly interesting.

[Davers]

So, if the defenders kill all the attackers, but the Atlas can't get to the extraction zone (because it was legged) on time, the defenders still lose? That's pretty rough.

[Koniving]

Haakon Magnusson, on 10 December 2016 - 05:08 AM, said:

And why not make it a 100t vehicle, it would have MUCH lower profile and would be easier to cover (and have natural cover) from long distance sniping.
Tanks on btech stay on fairly even ground so no exotic pathing needs to be considered (Well, it's propably not going to be exotic pathing algoritm anyways, I guess VIP will follow a road anyways)

And yeah, mwo does not need to have vehicles through the armor crit chance.

Behemoth tank or a command vehicle works. Preferably multiple vehicles of varying sizes with the reward increasing for each one that makes it. By technicality all Battletech campaign matches have 4 levels of success and failure. Total victory, major victory, lesser victory, and draw... while applicable the opposing states to victories are: lesser defeat, major defeat, and total defeat.

Example, if there's a Command vehicle and a few lesser VIP vehicles..
Losing all units: Total defeat for defenders, total victory for attackers.
Losing all defenders, but all vehicles made it, total victory defenders (they did their job and sacrificed their lives to do it just as the objective said.)
Losing the command vehicle but rest make it OR lost some vehicles but the command vehicle and the left overs make it, Major victory.
Lost the Command vehicle and 1 other vehicle OR lost the lesser vehicles but the Command vehicle makes it: Lesser victory.
Got a vehicle other than the command vehicle to the point and that's it... draw.

Ideas like that.

Obviously you have the best cashout for total victory, excellent cashouts for major, decent for lesser, and modest for draw.

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Behemoth Tanks. I would prefer the Armor Config, which has superior armor to even an Atlas (so rather than 612 [or BT's 306] which is the maximum that can be put on a 100 ton 'Mech, the Behemoth Armor variant carries 336 which in MWO is 672 stock.)
It is armed with twin AC/10s, twin SRM-6 (all turret mounted) and 4 LRM-5s (mounted on the front of the tank and is independent of the turret, with 2 tons per weapon type. Which reminds me if the VIP does have weapons it should have finite ammunition supplies).

This is me using a Behemoth tank (and a Commando), versus an Atlas custom armed with quad LB-10x and 8 Enforcers... Up to this point my tank already has 3 kills and has already disabled a few more as can be seen. In this very move, the Behemoth levels the Atlas in a single blow.


In the end my tank had 5 kills, 3 disables before it was finally destroyed. (...Admittedly my left track was destroyed in the first shot I took, and a mech had to stand behind me and continuously hammer me for 40 seconds to take me down).
(The four arrows leading to Enforcers are separate commands to fire an LRM-5 launcher at each target. Since the turn is within 10 seconds, it's lock, launch, lock, launch, lock, launch, lock, launch. The one off to my far right (I'm facing South West) missed. The others all made their marks and I made another disable in this turn. The arrow pointed at the Atlas is me channeling my twin AC/10s and SRMs on his rear torso.)
(Environment is a Solaris Arena. The arrow hexes are pillars that could go up or down. Green ones are about to or currently moving. Red ones could move but are not in the process of doing so within the next turn.)
----
Looking up command vehicles, I discovered the Puma combat vehicle, which is a 95 ton tank.

Crew of 7. Wields: a Donal (brand) PPC on the turret. A Holly-20 LRM launcher on each side with a combined 180 degree firing arc (90 degree per launcher) with a total of 12 reloads between them (or 2 tons, so.. in MWO it would be 18 reloads). A pair of Krieger (brand name) medium lasers and a Holly SRM-4 mounted forward with 25 reloads (1 ton). Finally it has a Krieger small laser and a Skylight Model 5 flamer both for anti-infantry use. M

Makes a good VIP escort vehicle, its armor is 368 in MWO (that's after doubling it) so while it is offensively formidable, it is easily destroyed and goes roughly the speed of a Dire Wolf (53 so in MWO that'd be 48.6). Before I realized the armor I would've said it would have made a good VIP vehicle. In truth, it is an old SLDF command tank.

The mobile field base PGI has already done a 3D model for is more than sufficient though. Have it and its trailer (or sans the trailer) be the VIP.

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This said... I'd prefer to be able to give commands to the vehicle or have it choose a player to follow and in the event that there are no players left to follow, to head for the objective as fast as it can.

Edited by Koniving, 10 December 2016 - 09:52 AM.

[L3mming2]

Douglas grizzly, on 10 December 2016 - 07:07 AM, said:

It depends on the terrain of course but some teams will be able to snipe it from long range. I have seen some guys who skill with sniping borders on the unreal. I count myself lucky to be able to start to hit at 1200 meters now that my fps issue is somewhat resolved.

they are nerfing gauss (no more 3 x max range)
and PPC have range but give heat so they can put out less sustained dps ..
dont know if they did this with escort in mind but it might have had a influence

[nehebkau]

VIP: "Keep me safe boys its what I'm Paying you for!"

Player1: "How much is he paying us?"
Player2: "50,000 cbills"
Player3: "How much is his atlas worth?"
Player4: "about 13,000,000 cbills."

<slight pause>

Player5 "Guys I have a way we can get 20 times our pay"

[Koniving]

nehebkau, on 10 December 2016 - 09:53 AM, said:

Player4: "about 13,000,000 cbills."

In Battletech, the Atlas K is worth slightly over 26,000,000 cbills.

Food for thought.

[JonDunbar]

Davers, on 10 December 2016 - 07:42 AM, said:

So, if the defenders kill all the attackers, but the Atlas can't get to the extraction zone (because it was legged) on time, the defenders still lose? That's pretty rough.

There is really no need for a clock on this game mode. Hopefully PGI realizes this and doesn't enable one.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

The Atlas K also has an XL engine. If that's the variant they picked for the VIP, we'd be doubly screwed.

[nehebkau]

This game-mode is going to be

"Run in LEG the atlas RUN out"

[Haakon Magnusson]

Koniving, on 10 December 2016 - 09:43 AM, said:

Behemoth Tanks. I would prefer the Armor Config, which has superior armor to even an Atlas (so rather than 612 [or BT's 306] which is the maximum that can be put on a 100 ton 'Mech, the Behemoth Armor variant carries 336 which in MWO is 672 stock.)
It is armed with twin AC/10s, twin SRM-6 (all turret mounted) and 4 LRM-5s (mounted on the front of the tank and is independent of the turret, with 2 tons per weapon type. Which reminds me if the VIP does have weapons it should have finite ammunition supplies).

Partial conditions sound good, actually having those in other game modes would be as welcome.

Behemoth sounds interesting, though I fear giving weapons to VIP or possible escorts given FWs previous MVP dropship with weapons, which they then gave to LT
Maybe a use-case for lbx on the tank though

I just fear that here we are making ideas which might actually be really good when implemented, but the final result will not be anything like it

[Koniving]

Haakon Magnusson, on 10 December 2016 - 03:41 PM, said:

Partial conditions sound good, actually having those in other game modes would be as welcome.

Behemoth sounds interesting, though I fear giving weapons to VIP or possible escorts given FWs previous MVP dropship with weapons, which they then gave to LT
Maybe a use-case for lbx on the tank though

I just fear that here we are making ideas which might actually be really good when implemented, but the final result will not be anything like it

In regards to your examples:
The dropship weapons actually helped reduce spawn killing against the offense. The issue is that these weapons were given to the defense dropships.
Worse: The defense was given dropships.

What should have happened is that the first three of four machines per defense player should actually have occurred at on-site Mechbays.

A given example on a redesigned planetary invasion mode:
Lets say that it was more like the upcoming Assault mode, which is based on MechCommander, which based their schtick on Mechwarrior 3050, which based its schtick on Battletech campaigns.

Spoiler

Assume now that the attackers already have a wave on the ground that has been traveling to the site. This is where attackers start. Defenders start with some mechs inside and some outside. Gates can be controlled from the inside and left open or closed; these could also be hacked or simply destroyed.

Now. Lets assume the attacking force has to disable something which would allow their dropships to come in unharmed. The scatter positions of the defense would actually add a smidge of realism and more importantly a need to get coordinated as the attackers make their first move. Granted if the attackers fail at this first part, they are wiped out.

Next, assume the attackers made it to this point. They now have dropships that can come in and resupply their lines.

Defenders which have died will respawn at a Mechbay of their choosing (I imagine about 4 or 5 different locations), whether it is a full bay, a resupply station, etc. I also imagine these to be destructible, but will not stand out on the HUD. Sadly PGI's idea of a mechbay showcased by MW5's reveal is an underground bunker with a ginormous elevator... instead of those represented in past mechwarrior games which are less impressive, but pretty practical in that it would allow mechs to activate and rush out to join the fight. Something akin to MW4's trailer or Front Mission's Wanzer Bunkers shown here:


Keep in mind, defense turrets will help keep attackers busy while players spawn, especially if new ones can emerge from the ground at the time a player goes to spawn (and retract after the newly spawned player has cleared). Much like weapons on dropships would help attackers get into the field without being ravaged by spawn campers.

Notice already we're a good way into a fight and the defense hasn't had a single dropship. When the base's own mechs begin to deplete aka you have your last mech, a dropship may come to make the delivery of the final defensive mechs that could be mustered.

Granted I kinda redesigned the whole game mode a bit, but even if you just take that one aspect... There's no abuse that could be had with defense dropships before the situation becomes desperate. And the attacking team's dropships can still defend against spawn camping.

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

The LT I assume is the Long Tom? The issue -- while it being automatic does suck and I'd prefer it to be targeted via lore, aka via TAG -- the problem is PGI created a tactical ******* nuke... for a weapon that is 10 shots per ton, and does a maximum of 270 damage including the epicenter... spread in units of 5 damage... across a total radius of 90 meters (aka 180 meter area of effect). This is the total damage potential assuming it hit 19 mechs in all 19 affected hexes of the attack.
If we double it to account for double structure and armor, that's 540 damage that it should cap out at and 180 meter explosive splash diameter.

PGI's version... goes much farther, and does over 1,370 damage in the first 30 meters "PER MECH". Far less outside of that epicenter but the point remains.
270 * 5 = 1,350 damage.
PER MECH, PGI's Long Tom does MORE than 5x the tabletop's Long Tom damage....
in a BIGGER area...

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That all said, oh we know most of our ideas won't get implemented.

I'm not afraid of the VIP having weapons, in fact I'd prefer it.
What I'm afraid of is it having unlimited ammo and unlimited heat, like MWO's turrets. It needs limiting factors.
MWO's dropships don't have limiting factors like heat. Nothing stops it from shooting eternally.

Edited by Koniving, 10 December 2016 - 04:15 PM.