40 replies to this topic

[Humpday]

Been playing for a couple days now and am starting to finally get a hang of how to pilot properly, however I don't' get this scoring system.

How is it that, for example in game mode "Conquest", that regardless of how many outposts you as an individual or a lance capture, but have little to no kills, that you basically score the lowest when its you or your 1-2 teammates that decided to come a long who's actually completing the objective while everyone else sits there an shoots each other in the face?

I just got out of a domination match where i was the only one sitting in the stupid circle alone, in a light mech and no one would come out of hiding from the ridge tops from my team... We won that game, but only because i stood there the whole match unable to engage.

How is it that come end game, my match score gets a like 59? And those points are defensive and from me chasing off a raven from my position. Seems like I might was well not do the objective and focus on doing the most damage to the other team as this is what I've seen yield the highest score and cbill and xp?

[Humpday]

By the way I do like the game and already got suckered into paying real $$$. I'm just trying to get some clarification here as I want to be efficient at gaining xp/cbills ect...

[Shiroi Tsuki]

As much as I'd like PTFO to be rewarded, unfortunately, most of your C-Bill income comes from damaging enemy Mechs. Although, you get more C-Bill rewards in Conquest if you gather more resources, regardless if you win or lose

[Roadbuster]

Match scores are like



You get great scores for fulfilling objectives... as long as you deal alot of damage and get kills and assists.


Honestly. The objectives don't matter most of the time. And if you fulfill the objective it benefits the whole team. Individual contribution doesn't net you much, compared to damage and other fight-related stuff.

Escort: no matter which side you get, the team will push to a.) prevent the enemy from reaching the VIP b.) get to the VIP
Conquest: teams will try to get at least 2-3 points, then kill the enemy and continue capping
Assault: is like Skirmish and capping the base is regarded as a bad thing (except as distraction), because it means people won't get the chance to kill eachother
Skirmish: well...
Domination: it's like Skirmish with someone brave enough to run into the circle and stay there

Edited by Roadbuster, 15 February 2017 - 02:37 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

Here's the basic truth:

PGI wants to encourage the gameplay that they believe will make players happy. They don't want to encourage capping too much, because matches where people cap too much and fight too little make the players unhappy. When the match is mostly determined by fighting, the majority of players are happy.

In Conquest, Domination and Assault, capping is almost a secondary objective that creates a minor incentive to avoid the standard Skirmish tactics on some maps. But PGI doesn't want it to be the primary objective, because too much capping makes the game boring for most players. And to be fair, capping in MWO is usually boring as hell. It involves standing still on squares for literally minutes throughout the match.

PGI giving you crappy rewards for actually completing the objective is their secret way of saying "Psssst... just brawl, bro."

It sucks, but the real problem is that the game modes are so bad that they have to punish players for actually trying to complete the objectives. That's how bad the game modes are.

[Tarogato]

Alistair Winter, on 15 February 2017 - 02:00 AM, said:

It sucks, but the real problem is that the game modes are so bad that they have to punish players for actually trying to complete the objectives. That's how bad the game modes are.

Then what are some good gamemodes?

[Alistair Winter]

Tarogato, on 15 February 2017 - 02:49 AM, said:

Then what are some good gamemodes?

Well, that's where opinions differ. Always gets tricky when it comes to coming up with alternative solutions.

For my money:

• I really love game modes where the players have to bring an objective from one part of the map to the other. Examples of this game mode include Capture the Flag from Team Fortress, or Hostage Rescue and Plant the Bomb in CounterStrike, or Detonation in Star Conflict. In MWO, the flag / bomb / hostage would need to be some sort of drone / hover craft that follows a certain player until he either drops it (via Command wheel?) or dies. The drone / hover craft would probably need some sort of speed limit that could be tweaked for balance (no Firemoth MASC auto win)
  
• I also love game modes where certain random areas of the map have to be captured / fought over. Examples of this game mode include Drop Zone in Star Wars Battlefront or Beacon Hunt in Star Conflict. In MWO, this would basically mean that a green smoke grenade marks a location on the base where some Beacon is activated and needs to be captured. After x amount of time, or after a team has captured the Beacon, a new Beacon is activated. The scouts have to constantly try to locate the currently active Beacon. (yay, role warfare) Teams then have to decide whether to kill the slow assault mechs or the fast light mechs first. (yay, strategy)
  
• I'm also a big fan of game modes where certain players are VIPs, either nominated by their team or designated randomly. Examples of this include Combat Recon in Star Conflict and Hero Hunt in Star Wars Battlefront. I think Star Conflict handles this perfectly by giving both teams unlimited respawns while the Captain is alive, but losing your Captain means you get no more respawns. You win the match by killing all enemies. In MWO, a full drop deck would probably be better than unlimited respawn.

The obvious flaw to the first and third type of game modes is that they are more vulnerable to griefing or matches ending early due to inexperienced players controlling the objective / being VIPs. The obvious advantage is that letting players control the objective / be the VIP creates more unpredictable, dynamic and fun gameplay than having some Zombie VIP Atlas waddle through pre-determined checkpoints. High risk, high reward. But note that I am using examples from some relatively popular games, not obscure games people have never heard of. It can work for MWO too. Well, it could have worked. I doubt we're getting any new game modes after "Incursion".

[Tarogato]

Alistair Winter, on 15 February 2017 - 03:12 AM, said:

Well, that's where opinions differ. Always gets tricky when it comes to coming up with alternative solutions.

For my money:

• I really love game modes where the players have to bring an objective from one part of the map to the other. Examples of this game mode include Capture the Flag from Team Fortress, or Hostage Rescue and Plant the Bomb in CounterStrike, or Detonation in Star Conflict. In MWO, the flag / bomb / hostage would need to be some sort of drone / hover craft that follows a certain player until he either drops it (via Command wheel?) or dies. The drone / hover craft would probably need some sort of speed limit that could be tweaked for balance (no Firemoth MASC auto win)
  
• I also love game modes where certain random areas of the map have to be captured / fought over. Examples of this game mode include Drop Zone in Star Wars Battlefront or Beacon Hunt in Star Conflict. In MWO, this would basically mean that a green smoke grenade marks a location on the base where some Beacon is activated and needs to be captured. After x amount of time, or after a team has captured the Beacon, a new Beacon is activated. The scouts have to constantly try to locate the currently active Beacon. (yay, role warfare) Teams then have to decide whether to kill the slow assault mechs or the fast light mechs first. (yay, strategy)
  
• I'm also a big fan of game modes where certain players are VIPs, either nominated by their team or designated randomly. Examples of this include Combat Recon in Star Conflict and Hero Hunt in Star Wars Battlefront. I think Star Conflict handles this perfectly by giving both teams unlimited respawns while the Captain is alive, but losing your Captain means you get no more respawns. You win the match by killing all enemies. In MWO, a full drop deck would probably be better than unlimited respawn.

The obvious flaw to the first and third type of game modes is that they are more vulnerable to griefing or matches ending early due to inexperienced players controlling the objective / being VIPs. The obvious advantage is that letting players control the objective / be the VIP creates more unpredictable, dynamic and fun gameplay than having some Zombie VIP Atlas waddle through pre-determined checkpoints. High risk, high reward. But note that I am using examples from some relatively popular games, not obscure games people have never heard of. It can work for MWO too. Well, it could have worked. I doubt we're getting any new game modes after "Incursion".

Let me break something to you...


...

... all three of those modes would be Skirmish in MWO. I don't see anything in there that would prevent the Skirmish first, objectives later problem that plagues MWO.

[Alistair Winter]

Tarogato, on 15 February 2017 - 03:23 AM, said:

Let me break something to you...

Having a bad day, Taro?

Tarogato, on 15 February 2017 - 03:23 AM, said:

... all three of those modes would be Skirmish in MWO. I don't see anything in there that would prevent the Skirmish first, objectives later problem that plagues MWO.

You'll have to provide some arguments if you want a discussion. Otherwise, there's nothing for me to say other than... I disagree.

[Cy Mitchell]

They have destructible items in MWO. Just see the Alpha And Beta trucks in Domination and the turrets in escort for examples. How about a game mode where each team has a number of destructible objectives randomly placed around the map and the goal is to destroy all theirs before they destroy all yours? Give rewards at least equal to the destruction of Mechs for each objective destroyed but the game ends when either all of one teams Mechs are destroyed or all the objectives are destroyed. Thus it cannot be just a Skirmish game if you really want to cash in. Give a bonus to everyone on the winning team only if you win by destroying the objectives.

[Tarogato]

Alistair Winter, on 15 February 2017 - 03:38 AM, said:

Having a bad day, Taro?

You'll have to provide some arguments if you want a discussion. Otherwise, there's nothing for me to say other than... I disagree.

You could say someone pіssed in my cheerios this morning. But I'm all out of cheerios. So there's that.

Alistair Winter, on 15 February 2017 - 03:12 AM, said:

• I really love game modes where the players have to bring an objective from one part of the map to the other.

We already have a mode like this. It's Escort. The VIP starts in one location, and must go to another, but the path is random, so the gameplay is very dynamic and there is a lot of variety.

Except there isn't... because people just kill each other first and worry about the VIP later. Except for idiots that completely ignore defending the VIP, and it dies before any players do. If you literally can't trust players to follow the fracking Atlas, then I wouldn't trust them to a hostage/CTF mode either.

Quote

• I also love game modes where certain random areas of the map have to be captured / fought over.

Conquest.

Quote

[...] In MWO, this would basically mean that a green smoke grenade marks a location on the base where some Beacon is activated and needs to be captured. After x amount of time, or after a team has captured the Beacon, a new Beacon is activated. The scouts have to constantly try to locate the currently active Beacon. (yay, role warfare) Teams then have to decide whether to kill the slow assault mechs or the fast light mechs first. (yay, strategy)

Sounds like Domination with a moving capture point. Which would play out similar to Escort, where people largely ignore the objective and kill each other first because they logged into this game to shoot robots.

Quote

• I'm also a big fan of game modes where certain players are VIPs, either nominated by their team or designated randomly. Examples of this include Combat Recon in Star Conflict and Hero Hunt in Star Wars Battlefront. I think Star Conflict handles this perfectly by giving both teams unlimited respawns while the Captain is alive, but losing your Captain means you get no more respawns. You win the match by killing all enemies. In MWO, a full drop deck would probably be better than unlimited respawn.

We already have Escort, and it's reasonably griefer-proof, because players can't take control of it and troll. Also, you can't have respawns in Quickplay. It would simply pіss too many people off. If you give them an objective that they can complete before shooting their daily quota of robots, they will be disappointed.

Quote

[...] creates more unpredictable, dynamic and fun gameplay than having some Zombie VIP Atlas waddle through pre-determined checkpoints.

The problem with the Zombie VIP Atlas is that it goes 30 kph. It doesn't cover much distance, and there are only a few checkpoints. The Atlas needs to go at least 50 kph, which more checkpoints across the map, so that there is much more variety in the paths that it chooses.

Of course, I'd say the same for Conquest, Assault, and Domination - they all need more points added for variety. For instance, getting Conquest on the same map twice in a row shouldn't necessarily mean the cap points are going to be in the same locations - there might be three or more variants.

[Appogee]

Alistair Winter, on 15 February 2017 - 03:12 AM, said:

The obvious flaw to the first and third type of game modes is that they are more vulnerable to griefing or matches ending early due to inexperienced players controlling the objective / being VIPs. The obvious advantage is that letting players control the objective / be the VIP creates more unpredictable, dynamic and fun gameplay than having some Zombie VIP Atlas waddle through pre-determined checkpoints.

Agreed. PGI could largely fix the 'potato VIP' risk by at least assigning the VIP status to one of the top three ranked players on the team.

It's not invulnerable to griefing, but it would still be better than a zombie Atlas in my view.

[Alistair Winter]

Tarogato, on 15 February 2017 - 03:58 AM, said:

You could say someone pіssed in my cheerios this morning.

Alright then. When people start a post by saying "Let me break something to you", it's usually an indication that the following discussion will be very unproductive to both parties, but let's hope I'm wrong about that.

Tarogato, on 15 February 2017 - 03:58 AM, said:

We already have a mode like this. It's Escort. The VIP starts in one location, and must go to another, but the path is random, so the gameplay is very dynamic and there is a lot of variety.
Except there isn't... because people just kill each other first and worry about the VIP later. Except for idiots that completely ignore defending the VIP, and it dies before any players do. If you literally can't trust players to follow the fracking Atlas, then I wouldn't trust them to a hostage/CTF mode either.

The Atlas in Escort is so slow that you can generally just wipe out the main force from whatever direction you prefer. For example, if you're playing on River City or Crimson Strait, the Atlas is going to twiddle its thumbs for 2 solid minutes before actually doing anything. You can basically just attack from any direction without worrying about the VIP. Space port, Citadel, Saddle, Tunnel, it doesn't really matter as far as the VIP goes.

So this is very different from the game modes I mentioned, where the the team with the objective can carry out a number of different strategies, ranging from rapid concentrated blitz, two-way blitz, assymmetrical diversion, slow grind, to a number of other options.

Tarogato, on 15 February 2017 - 03:58 AM, said:

Conquest.

There's nothing random about Conquest. Also, I want to point out that Conquest could be very different from Skirmish if PGI just manipulated the existing variables properly. Base location, time to capture, resource gathering rate (this could either be linear or exponential depending on how many bases you have, so 5 bases could potentially be insta-win, for example), lance spawn locations and so on.

The major reason why Conquest = Skirmish in most cases is because the current variables are not adjusted properly. But even if they were adjusted properly (i.e. to encourage splitting up and creating lance vs lance engagements as much as possible), it would still be fairly predictable and boring on many maps. But it would at least be different from Skirmish.

Tarogato, on 15 February 2017 - 03:58 AM, said:

Sounds like Domination with a moving capture point. Which would play out similar to Escort, where people largely ignore the objective and kill each other first because they logged into this game to shoot robots.

It's impossible to discuss any element in MWO in total isolation. For example, one also has to consider the low quality (IMO) of the maps when talking about game modes. But in this case, we're also having to deal with the fact that PGI has alienated the players who would prefer a more strategical game, and after 5 years of team deathmatch, we're mostly left with *drumroll*.... people who prefer team deathmatch. And they're going to play every game mode as team deathmatch, because that's what they prefer. If a game mode can't be played that way, they're going to ragequit and talk about how MWO is a "walking simulator".

So yes, there is that. But keep in mind, this is an entirely academic discussion. For the intents and purposes of this conversation, I don't care that most remaining MWO players just want to brawl.

Tarogato, on 15 February 2017 - 03:58 AM, said:

We already have Escort, and it's reasonably griefer-proof, because players can't take control of it and troll. Also, you can't have respawns in Quickplay. It would simply pіss too many people off. If you give them an objective that they can complete before shooting their daily quota of robots, they will be disappointed.

See above. And being griefer-proof is not an important issue to me, as I explained. Griefing is not a huge problem in other games, because most people play games to have fun. And it's even less of a problem in group play, where organized teams are playing. Unless those teams are goons.

Tarogato, on 15 February 2017 - 03:58 AM, said:

The problem with the Zombie VIP Atlas is that it goes 30 kph. It doesn't cover much distance, and there are only a few checkpoints. The Atlas needs to go at least 50 kph, which more checkpoints across the map, so that there is much more variety in the paths that it chooses.

That would certainly help.

Tarogato, on 15 February 2017 - 03:58 AM, said:

Of course, I'd say the same for Conquest, Assault, and Domination - they all need more points added for variety. For instance, getting Conquest on the same map twice in a row shouldn't necessarily mean the cap points are going to be in the same locations - there might be three or more variants.

That would also help.

For the record, I would add that saying "this is basically Skirmish" can mean any number of things. In my mind, it means that people are basically fighting on the same locations as Skirmish, in the same tight formation as you normally see in Skirmish. To other people, "this is basically Skirmish" can mean that both teams are basically just trying to kill each other. As if the alternative would be to destroy NPCs, power generators or dropships. Or even something else entirely, like... I don't even know. Fallout-esque lockpicking? Crafting? Victory through diplomacy? At the end of the day, any Mechwarrior game is going to be mostly about teams shooting each others' mechs. Which will always lead some people to throw their hands in the air and say "this is basically Skirmish".

[Alistair Winter]

Appogee, on 15 February 2017 - 04:01 AM, said:

Agreed. PGI could largely fix the 'potato VIP' risk by at least assigning the VIP status to one of the top three ranked players on the team.

It's not invulnerable to griefing, but it would still be better than a zombie Atlas in my view.

I agree. And again, I would just point to some of the most popular FPS / combat sim games in the world. They're not invulnerable to griefing, but they're doing just fine.

[Widowmaker1981]

Tarogato, on 15 February 2017 - 03:23 AM, said:

Let me break something to you...


...

... all three of those modes would be Skirmish in MWO. I don't see anything in there that would prevent the Skirmish first, objectives later problem that plagues MWO.

There is one way to make people actually play objectives - unlimited respawn. Thats it, finito.

• Shooting mechs is more fun than not shooting mechs.
  
• Objectives are always easiest to complete when there is zero opposition to stop you.

Therefore, if it is possible to kill everyone first then do objectives later, people will do that. If you are punished for shooting robots in a MMOFPS like this, 95% of people will just stop playing it, because they are playing the game to shoot robots.

[kesmai]

What about:
• nascar gamemode. Most laps before dying or time out win? (now with shootin robutts...)

:-)

[Ghogiel]

Dom> You don't have to be in the circle to stop the enemy capping. You just have to shoot the mechs in the circle and it pauses the counter.

It's optimal to just get the good shots and put dmg into the enemies in the circle, and you being in the circle or not is only a matter of convenience to the shots and angles you are trying to play at that moment.
I mean if you can actually shoot the right mechs and get angles properly and the other team is potatoes makes that pretty easy, but being a new player only one of those things is probably the case.


Conquest: Most matchs are about kills
several maps are too small and being the ultimate captard and not fighting from the second your mech can move until it is dead or the enemy is dead will lower your W/L.

Even on larger maps where there is an obvious cap strat not many will want you on the team, 9/10 times because it ends on kills regardless of the 1 captard. That 1 time it does go to resource points no one will thank you (thankfully also the scoreboard and payouts don't thank you either) because all you did was drag the game out by not helping the team fight (albeit even if won on caps)> imo the 11 other players would have prefered a 12th player and not had to carry the dead captard weight in the actual deciding part of the match. Worse is when the capper guy with the low W/L and double Ds score is all like "I" won that!111 When you are sitting there with +800dmg, 3 solo kills and mostly held off a steam roll single handedly.

Edited by Ghogiel, 15 February 2017 - 05:42 AM.

[Humpday]

Alistair Winter, on 15 February 2017 - 02:00 AM, said:

Here's the basic truth:

PGI wants to encourage the gameplay that they believe will make players happy. They don't want to encourage capping too much, because matches where people cap too much and fight too little make the players unhappy. When the match is mostly determined by fighting, the majority of players are happy.

In Conquest, Domination and Assault, capping is almost a secondary objective that creates a minor incentive to avoid the standard Skirmish tactics on some maps. But PGI doesn't want it to be the primary objective, because too much capping makes the game boring for most players. And to be fair, capping in MWO is usually boring as hell. It involves standing still on squares for literally minutes throughout the match.

PGI giving you crappy rewards for actually completing the objective is their secret way of saying "Psssst... just brawl, bro."

It sucks, but the real problem is that the game modes are so bad that they have to punish players for actually trying to complete the objectives. That's how bad the game modes are.

I see, well that kind of dumb. A 12 v 12 battle is big enough and maps are wide enough that you can run very well coordinated games that don't necessarily focus on beating the crap out of one another.

For instance, I took my arctic fox out along with 2 other lights and some really tanky medium( that looked almost like a heavy) in the VIP protect mode and us 4 ran out and were able to completely drag 70% of the other team away and on to us leaving the VIP to go on its way with a small contingent of mechs while the other 2/3's of my team flanked the crap out of the force that came looking for us.

See not that crap is super cool! Bait switch, flank, divide and conquer! That to me is fun...

...Not sitting on a big ol map with all your heavies and assaults camping behind rocks the whole game shooting ppcs, while the lights are out hammering on the other team. You're and assault man, assault the EFFF outta something man, don't just sit there while my 30ton mech is dropping 3 assaults to your none!!!!

k i'm done with my rant, that last game really pissed me off, I think i'm getting into this game too much lolol ///

Off topic, where doesn't one go to join up with a more organized lance/group? I'm getting tired of losing games because everyone gets strung out across a map and doesn't support one another. I've gotta to the point now where if the team is completely horrid i'll just run off to a corner of a map and shutdown just to avoid screwing up my killl/death ratio. Hell i'm already dinging my win/loss ration, no need to do both.

Edited by Humpday, 15 February 2017 - 06:38 AM.

[Coolant]

Widowmaker1981, on 15 February 2017 - 04:27 AM, said:

There is one way to make people actually play objectives - unlimited respawn. Thats it, finito.

• Shooting mechs is more fun than not shooting mechs.
  
• Objectives are always easiest to complete when there is zero opposition to stop you.

Therefore, if it is possible to kill everyone first then do objectives later, people will do that. If you are punished for shooting robots in a MMOFPS like this, 95% of people will just stop playing it, because they are playing the game to shoot robots.

I'm all for unlimited respawn. Been vocal about it since almost day one.

kesmai, on 15 February 2017 - 05:22 AM, said:

What about:
• nascar gamemode. Most laps before dying or time out win? (now with shootin robutts...)

:-)

This exactly describes the Circus Maximus game mode in MW4:Mercs.

I wish they would do the Team Battle mode from MW4:Mercs. Score points for damage and every mech has a point multiplier based on it's tonnage...the greater the tonnage the less the multiplier, less tonnage greater multiplier. If a Medium Laser does 5 damage a 100-ton mech would receive 5 points, but a Raven might have a multiplier of 3 and would receive 15 points for the same Medium Laser. Battle Armor had a multiplier of 5.

Heavier mechs could carry more firepower so their multiplier was low and lighter tonnages with less firepower had greater multiplier. Loved the fact that is was respawn too.

[Mystere]

Alistair Winter, on 15 February 2017 - 02:00 AM, said:

Here's the basic truth:

PGI wants to encourage the gameplay that they believe will make players happy. They don't want to encourage capping too much, because matches where people cap too much and fight too little make the players unhappy. When the match is mostly determined by fighting, the majority of players are happy.

In Conquest, Domination and Assault, capping is almost a secondary objective that creates a minor incentive to avoid the standard Skirmish tactics on some maps. But PGI doesn't want it to be the primary objective, because too much capping makes the game boring for most players. And to be fair, capping in MWO is usually boring as hell. It involves standing still on squares for literally minutes throughout the match.

PGI giving you crappy rewards for actually completing the objective is their secret way of saying "Psssst... just brawl, bro."

It sucks, but the real problem is that the game modes are so bad that they have to punish players for actually trying to complete the objectives. That's how bad the game modes are.

It's only boring to the brainless masses who do not know that

defending a resource

gets everyone the fight they crave for. PGI is just forced to cater to those same brainless masses.