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I Think Its Time Pgi Was Honest With Itself, Every Game Mode Is Skirmish


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Poll: Respawn (137 member(s) have cast votes)

Should respawn be a feature in MWO quick play at this point

  1. Yes (20 votes [14.60%])

    Percentage of vote: 14.60%

  2. No (65 votes [47.45%])

    Percentage of vote: 47.45%

  3. Maybe on some game modes but not others (52 votes [37.96%])

    Percentage of vote: 37.96%

If respawning was a feature, should players be able to select their spawn point or should it be predetermined

  1. Player selected (65 votes [47.45%])

    Percentage of vote: 47.45%

  2. Predetermined (72 votes [52.55%])

    Percentage of vote: 52.55%

Which game modes would benefit from a respawn feature the most

  1. Skirmish (19 votes [7.36%])

    Percentage of vote: 7.36%

  2. Assault (31 votes [12.02%])

    Percentage of vote: 12.02%

  3. Domination (35 votes [13.57%])

    Percentage of vote: 13.57%

  4. Conquest (40 votes [15.50%])

    Percentage of vote: 15.50%

  5. Escort (13 votes [5.04%])

    Percentage of vote: 5.04%

  6. Incursion (64 votes [24.81%])

    Percentage of vote: 24.81%

  7. None, because respawn is a terrible idea (56 votes [21.71%])

    Percentage of vote: 21.71%

If respawning was added to certain game modes how should match score and rewards be determined

  1. The way they are now (damage dealt, number of kills, objective based bonuses) (26 votes [18.98%])

    Percentage of vote: 18.98%

  2. With objective based aspects being the primary determinant and damage dealt/kill count providing bonus (85 votes [62.04%])

    Percentage of vote: 62.04%

  3. Some other way not listed (see comment) (26 votes [18.98%])

    Percentage of vote: 18.98%

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#41 Nesutizale

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Posted 28 March 2017 - 04:45 AM

Isn't the point of the new mode to have something different from Skirmish?

Another option I could imagne is haveing this mode not with the regual QP matches but beeing its own mode with the option to jump in and out as you like.
Meaning there is no matchmaking in the sense of gathering a team but you will just get the first free spot that opens up. You can then play
1) as long it needs to get the objective done
2) Points run out
3) you don't want anymore

It can still be a quick match or you can do it over the entire length.

As for preventing people from just Alpha / Override / Alpha / Die
Let me qoute myself:

Quote

Here is my suggestion for a "limited endless drop"
Lets say for example each team has 100 points/drops
- If you die and redrop the team loses one point.
- If the enemy takes a batterie you lose 5 points
- If the enemy powers up a tower you lose 10 points
(All numbers are just an example)

So keeping the enemy from fullfilling the opjective becomes more importend then just killing a mech.

Reward system could be coupled with the points you take from the enemy team. That way a person that kills a lot of enemys and one that gets some objectives done would be rewarded similar. So no matter what you prefere to do you get your chance of a nice reward.


With that the Leroy type of player would only punish his own team and himself. You still have to survive as long as possible but you are capable to take a risk if neseccary.

Edited by Nesutizale, 28 March 2017 - 04:47 AM.


#42 R Valentine

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Posted 28 March 2017 - 06:04 AM

View PostAno, on 28 March 2017 - 03:38 AM, said:


"Respawns in quickplay"
The problem with respawns in quickplay is that I think it's difficult not to undo the "quick" part of quickplay if you have respawns. A couple of the strengths of the quickplay setup is that a single match will take a maximum of 15mins (but typically 5-10 in my experience; queue times generally seem fine to me) AND that if, for whatever reason, a match becomes problematic (terrible team; terrible opponents; personal failure etc) then it won't be long before you're in a new match.

If you have a limited number of respawns (akin to faction play) then I strongly suspect matches will often play out like faction play, i.e. they will last much longer. If you switch to a completely different setup -- whether a generous 'ticket' system or (near) infinite respawns coupled with adjusted match win conditions (e.g. true capture/hold territory or other pure objective-based conditions) then I think it'll very much change the character of matches. While a match where everyone hides behind a rock for the first 10 minutes can be frustrating, I'm not sure I want to swap it for a format where people take the biggest alpha they can (with no thought for sustainability/ammo), and charge/alpha/override/alpha/die/repeat. Obviously there's no way to be sure that would happen, but it doesn't seem beyond the realms of possibility.

EDITED TO ADD:
Reading through some of the other comments in this thread a little further and thought I'd add something about the character of matches, to elaborate on the hide/charge dichotomy I alluded to earlier.

Currently, in quickplay, within each match there's a risk/reward consideration for every action. Poking out *now* might get you a free backshot on an enemy assault or a PPC to the face; will pursuing that heavily damaged medium result in a kill and the removal of some of your enemy's available firepower, or will you run into the rest of her lance?

Experience, map knowledge etc all help you make better and faster decisions but there's always an strong element of risk.

If you change quickplay to a respawn-based system, that puts a heavy thumb on one side of those decisions (by reducing the affect on the player of errors in judgment/play). Some would argue that encouraging teams to be more aggressive is a good thing (I would tend to agree) but Leeroy-style charges could easily be an unintended consequence and that would shift the gameplay considerably.


Faction play is just longer skirmish. Using drop decks hurts new players more than it hurts anyone else, which isn't a good thing. Respawning in your current mech is the best way to go. And whoopty doo, Leeroy style charges become a thing. So what? Poorly executed Leeroy tactics always end in Leeroy saying, "well, at least I got chicken", which is a boon for the enemy team. At least now people won't be shivering in their boots, hiding behind a hill because one positioning mistake means you get to spectate for the rest of the match.

#43 Ano

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Posted 28 March 2017 - 09:46 AM

View PostKiran Yagami, on 28 March 2017 - 06:04 AM, said:

Faction play is just longer skirmish. Using drop decks hurts new players more than it hurts anyone else, which isn't a good thing.


Maybe. And sure, drop decks are a barrier to entry for new players. I'm not 100% sure what that has to do with the point I'm making in the first half, which I guess I could have summarised as "Respawns will make quick play not 'quick', which I don't like".

View PostKiran Yagami, on 28 March 2017 - 06:04 AM, said:

And whoopty doo, Leeroy style charges become a thing. So what? Poorly executed Leeroy tactics always end in Leeroy saying, "well, at least I got chicken", which is a boon for the enemy team. At least now people won't be shivering in their boots, hiding behind a hill because one positioning mistake means you get to spectate for the rest of the match.


Yeah. I'm just not sure I want to swap "too cautious" for "too reckless"; it's not like you can't quit a match, pick a different mech (a trial, if you're that new) and move on to a new match currently.

#44 Trev Firestorm

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Posted 28 March 2017 - 09:55 AM

View PostKiran Yagami, on 28 March 2017 - 06:04 AM, said:


Faction play is just longer skirmish. Using drop decks hurts new players more than it hurts anyone else, which isn't a good thing. Respawning in your current mech is the best way to go. And whoopty doo, Leeroy style charges become a thing. So what? Poorly executed Leeroy tactics always end in Leeroy saying, "well, at least I got chicken", which is a boon for the enemy team. At least now people won't be shivering in their boots, hiding behind a hill because one positioning mistake means you get to spectate for the rest of the match.

Better: Let players select 4 ready mechs (Like we originally had in mechbay 1.0, basically the same as a drop deck) and chose which to drop in each life. New players can keep dropping their mech or use trials and established players can switch things up if their first choice isn't working for them.

#45 LordNothing

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Posted 01 April 2017 - 01:40 AM

id do drop deck based respawn only. so pretty much get rid of quick play and make everyone play fp. you would probibly have to bring map voting and match maker from qp into fp to make it work. would still be in the tug of war format, except without the pre definded sections (map/modes are a vote). as well as some form of a match maker for obvious reasons. you dont have to worry about 3333 anymore, but you can sort by tier and group composition. it would add depth to quick play and solve all the remaining issues with fp.

in addition id also throw in a more robust custom match system so the people who dont have a lot of time to play, the competitive scene, 1v1 steiner coliseum games etc. and put them on the limited free use, infinite premium use model. like 5 games a day unless you have premium time running. there would also be a match browser. this should be the thing that caters to the minorities, not the most depthful thing in the game (fp).

Edited by LordNothing, 01 April 2017 - 01:46 AM.


#46 Blhurr

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Posted 01 April 2017 - 02:37 PM

It's the playerbase that needs to get honest with itself. Most of us can't play skirmish much less the other game modes.

#47 Nesutizale

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Posted 06 April 2017 - 06:18 AM

Do you mean that they don't get what to do in skirmish or that they don't know how to play efficient?
To me that are two different things.
First one would suggest that people don't get that they have to shoot the enemy and the second is that they don't know how to stay in group, coordinate, flank, torso twist, etc.

I think the first point is something everyone gets...the second. Yah I can see that people don't know all of it...but then thats what a matchmaker + tier system would be for. Sorting these two groups out but then...the playerbase is to small...

#48 Slambot

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Posted 08 April 2017 - 06:23 PM

Lots of other games have respawn in objective win condition game modes... Why should this game be any different?

Having different objectives for game modes makes the game more fun, not less. Knowing you are not necessarily out of the match because you got ambushed will increase player interest not decrease it. Having to balance your strategy around accomplishing other things that just killing the enemy will make the game more fun not just a "lets kill everyone again" experience. Currently, the only map that you have to play the mode, other than domination, on in QP is Polar because it is so large. Game modes should be just that, a description of what you need to do to win, not "lets kill everyone and win that way every time".

I am aware that this makes the game more "arcade style" but , really, that kind of thing is pretty popular. I don't see the harm in actually having to play the game mode.

Edited by Slambot, 08 April 2017 - 06:33 PM.


#49 Almond Brown

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Posted 11 April 2017 - 08:33 AM

Just add another Column to the Players Stat sheet on the E-Peen based Leader Boards.

"Objectives Captured for the Win" = XXX

and then make the pay-out for those players appropriate for doing so.

#50 General Solo

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Posted 11 April 2017 - 08:58 AM

No respawns for Quick Play
Cause Quick Play is for players that want a quick play (ME)
PGI could make Respawn Play for players that want respawns I guess

View PostLordNothing, on 01 April 2017 - 01:40 AM, said:

id do drop deck based respawn only. so pretty much get rid of quick play and make everyone play fp.


No thanks, I like Quick Play

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 11 April 2017 - 08:57 AM.


#51 General Solo

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Posted 11 April 2017 - 09:09 AM

In the past assault was assault and conquest was conquest and not skirmish
Boy did people whine when games were won by cap. PGI appeased those people.
Thus everything skirmish.

#52 LordNothing

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Posted 11 April 2017 - 02:47 PM

View PostOZHomerOZ, on 11 April 2017 - 08:58 AM, said:

No respawns for Quick Play
Cause Quick Play is for players that want a quick play (ME)
PGI could make Respawn Play for players that want respawns I guess



No thanks, I like Quick Play


i think that people who say this just dont like the fact that there is no matchmaker in fp, and no separate group queue. extending the qp modes with deck respawns really fleshes out the game modes. make it more pug friendly and it starts to look viable. then it fixes another issue quick play has, games feel so meaningless, after waiting and voting, and waiting some more to spend 5 or 10 minutes in game. die and repeat. with fp you get a solid 20 minutes of game time easy. the sides are more well defined and the mission means something. its just that most average players look at fp as some kind of wall of stomps and rapidly loose interest when it could be much more than that.

of course now that were getting a ranked competitive queue, it makes fp even more redundant. maybe it will allow fp to change from the hyper competitive mode that its become, to a mode for the masses which it should have been from the get go. and 2 dedicated modes for the bleeding edge of the bell curve is absurd when more of the modes need to target the peak of the curve where two thirds of the population actually live. i kind of always considered quick play to be a half finished beta test for gameplay that was never properly deprecated by a deeper system. the game is as it is now because pgi is chasing the niches.

#53 General Solo

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Posted 11 April 2017 - 08:18 PM

I'm not against a more meaning experience for the guiz that want it.
However I would not be happy if the option to have a quick game was taken away.

#54 R Valentine

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Posted 12 April 2017 - 09:43 AM

View PostOZHomerOZ, on 11 April 2017 - 08:58 AM, said:

No respawns for Quick Play
Cause Quick Play is for players that want a quick play (ME)
PGI could make Respawn Play for players that want respawns I guess



No thanks, I like Quick Play


If 15 minutes is too long then lower the game timer. 10 minutes would be fine with me too, but add freakin' respawns. "I want games to be quick" is not really that good of an argument against respawns. Game timers can always be adjusted to shorten games, but adding respawns takes the focus away from killing and more towards objectives. Then doing the objective will be what makes the game go faster, not skirmish first and mini-game after.

#55 General Solo

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Posted 12 April 2017 - 09:31 PM

View PostKiran Yagami, on 12 April 2017 - 09:43 AM, said:

"I want games to be quick" is not really that good of an argument against respawns.


You misunderstand, I'm not against respawns due to the 15 minute time factor.
I have no problem with you getting your mode with respawns.

But I got a problem people trying to make Quick Play respawn and thus taking away the no respawn mode option from the game.
Thats why I said: "PGI could make Respawn Play for players that want respawns I guess"


View PostKiran Yagami, on 12 April 2017 - 09:43 AM, said:

... adding respawns takes the focus away from killing and more towards objectives. Then doing the objective will be what makes the game go faster, not skirmish first and mini-game after.


I disagree. As I said before

View PostOZHomerOZ, on 11 April 2017 - 09:09 AM, said:

In the past assault was assault and conquest was conquest and not skirmish
Boy did people whine when games were won by cap. PGI appeased those people.
Thus everything skirmish.


Respawns will not fix this, just look at CW/FW most pug/people/teams try to kill the enemy team if they can and only then do they go for the objectives. The only time they go for the objectives first is if they think they will lose. So no time has been saved.

Back to the OP's topic

The reality is that the majority just wanna shooot gaint rubuts and not do objectives.
Just saying

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 12 April 2017 - 09:48 PM.


#56 Chocowolf Sradac

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Posted 15 April 2017 - 08:54 AM

I Think Quick play should stay as it is. It's supposed to be quick jump in and play especially if your the unfortunate Sod who gets stuck on the Potato team and have to carry it

With how FW is setup it is a pretty last resort to go after the objective then mechs unless you know you have completely lost the attrition game and your only shot of winning is getting the objective. Usually you can not do both especially against organized teams )

#57 Insanity09

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Posted 15 April 2017 - 08:09 PM

Respawns are a poor idea for any QP.

If you want the objective based scenarios to be less-skirmish-y, then winning by objective needs to be far more of a thing.
By that I mean that capping in assault, timer drop in dom, and conquest resource count need to move faster.

Imagine that if you left a single light alone on your base for a minute in assault, you lost. Thirty seconds for two.
If it only took 40s to a time loss in domination, with less buffer for entering and leaving (meaning the timers started moving more quickly).
Think of what would happen if the resource ticks in conquest were, say, double the speed. Suddenly leaving the enemy with 4 caps for anything length of time would practically guarantee a loss. Even three would be iffy.

In all those cases, you would actually need to pay attention to the objectives to win (or prevent a loss). Also, the games would likely be faster and more brutal (more matches per unit time is good, yes?).
Now imagine that if you didn't win by an actual objective win in assault or conquest, it counted as a tie (neither team took the objective). (That wouldn't work for domination, it would be too easy for the last enemy to simply stand in the circle and force you to kill him)
You might argue that in assault and conq after the enemy is dead it would be easy to get the base &/or caps, and you'd be right, if we were speaking of the real world. However, we're discussing a way to win a game, and make certain game modes less skirmishy.

Escort... well, honestly there is no real need to change that. It is already, mostly, the side with the best teamwork wins, no need to change that.

No opinion yet on incursion.

Edit: PGI has already been improving the xp/cbill rewards for legitimate objective wins, especially in conquest, but I'm not sure many people have noticed.
Edit 2: Also, objections to having more wins based on objectives (<whine> "but if I don't kill/damage people I get no cbill/xp!") could be silenced, I think, fairly solidly by implementing a change I suggested in another thread: at the end of a match won by way of objective (NOT prompted by killing all enemies), everyone on the winning team gets a cbill & xp bonus equal to an assist times however many enemies are still alive. Wouldn't change the kill/assist counts, you'd just get the bonus payout.

Edited by Insanity09, 16 April 2017 - 08:38 PM.


#58 tokumboh

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Posted 16 April 2017 - 02:31 AM

Ok since it is easier to go kill the opposition rather than do the objective then make the kill of the opposition harder than winning by the objective

So for me conquest on Polar highland means that you can't do the quick cap and then fight because all it takes is a coouple of fast mechs to gobble up enough caps and you are left with only the assaults and heavies left try and recapture that together with finding each other on the map becomes a problem.

So bigger maps with objectives spread out is a real winner and in fairness it is mostly on polar highlands have I been involved in battles where one side gets the most kills but does not win game in conquest

For the others it is a bit more complex, domination is like skirmish and assault is like skirmish only rarely do I see a base rush, often it is because on Crimson no one has covered the saddle and then often it is because the communication is so bad and people don't ever want to be the only one going back that there is a hesitation in getting back to base

Escort is rather weird, I have seen people spend their efforts fighting the opposition and not being interetsed in the VIP mech at all I have seen that on both sides in one game I had the VIP mech shot up by a whole team because the defending team decided to set up as if for skirmish it seemed the VIP mech went over the saddle in to the oppositon with just one other mech and myself

So part of the problem is the player base we just too stupid to know what to do

#59 Khobai

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Posted 16 April 2017 - 06:39 PM

Quote

Well, objective game modes definitely have a LOT more value in FP with the limited drop deck respawns, but i say leave that to FP. Just accept that QP is all about shooting the robots and is the quick option.


The problem is FP has the toxicity of large groups preying on solos and small groups people that just wanna play with 1-2 friends.

They need to disallow large groups from faction play and make it for solo players and groups of 2-3 only. 90%-95% of players are solo players or play with 1-2 friends. So faction play should cater to them and not the less than 5% of players that play in large groups.

Large groups are getting their 8v8 ranked ladder. They can be as toxic as they want in that group only gamemode. But large groups should not be able to ruin faction play for solo players and smaller groups.

Edited by Khobai, 16 April 2017 - 06:41 PM.


#60 Anjian

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Posted 17 April 2017 - 05:09 AM

View PostKiran Yagami, on 12 April 2017 - 09:43 AM, said:


If 15 minutes is too long then lower the game timer. 10 minutes would be fine with me too, but add freakin' respawns. "I want games to be quick" is not really that good of an argument against respawns. Game timers can always be adjusted to shorten games, but adding respawns takes the focus away from killing and more towards objectives. Then doing the objective will be what makes the game go faster, not skirmish first and mini-game after.


10 minutes is fine. Its already proven in other games, particularly in another game I play. You got 3 to 5 respawns, fighting over beacons in what seems to be a combination of Conquest and Domination, all in a mere 10 minutes. Despite having respawns, the TTK of each mech in that game feels much higher than on MWO, and yet, you can still consume 3 to 5 robots in the course of 10 minutes.

However, one must think of a game as a whole. Transplanting a successful idea from one game to another may not work like a simple plug in, because there are also an environment of various factors that comes into play. The words for this is context and synergy. Its possible it can worsen a game that already isn't designed properly and doesn't have a good foundation to rest in.

I read many of the posts in this thread, and I can say, from experience and not from theory, that many are simply wrong about what respawns in a game can bring. At least in general principle and experience from successful games out there who have more than proven the concept. But then again, each game has their own design context and factors, and those games I have in my mind also feel much better designed or rests in a better foundation than this one, and they have other factors that make them successful.

Respawns never take away the importance of kills in a game. In fact you get more kills and a more target rich environment. Furthermore, in an objective based game, kills now have a new context of importance, as it serves a new purpose, which is territorial control. Killing for the sake of killing simply isn't going to work; your choice of kills matter now for the context of your objectives.

Edited by Anjian, 17 April 2017 - 05:18 AM.






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