95 replies to this topic

[Weepy Wanebow]

There are a few things about this game mode that have some real potential. However, incursion like all game mode is basically just skirmish with the potential to win another way under the current scoring and spawn system.

Its time that PGI admit to themselves that infinite respawn and being able to select which spawn point you respawn at is a manditory feature to make all quick play game modes outside of skirmish unique and meaningful. If killing the enemy team is always a potential win condition then it always going to be a commonly used tactic. Total team kill wins have been a major complaint for a long time now.

We already have evidence that respawning a limited number of times with no respawn point selection changes the dynamic of certain game modes because of faction play . We know from community feedback that outside of spawn camping, it is a good and liked feature. Having the player select where they respawn would fix a lot of respawn issues. It may require an extensive reworking of how they now currently do respawning but it would help make game modes unique, objective orientated, and greatly reduce spawn camping.

I can understand PGI's comcern with this. The way they currently do match score and CBill/XP reward is primarily based on damage dealt and kill count. If that stayed the primary way reward was determined and respawn was introduced, then you would have these really long games in which everyone would just go for as much damage and kills as they could and in the last five minutes go for the objective to actually determine win. They would definitely have to change the way games score to an objective based scoring system tonprevent this. I would purpose a system that in skirimish the current scoring system is great, but in all other game modes the system should he flipped as to where objective based aspects of the game are the primary way points are won and damage dealt/kills just add a bonus the way that objective based aspects currently work in various game modes.

I think incursion PTS is the perfect opportunity to not only play test a new mode but also play test objective based scoring, infinite respawn, and spawn point selection. They all lend themselves to the same objective of making a game mode that is truly unique and different from what currently exists in the game and allows them time and feedback on fine tuning an objective based reward system that produces the same averages and range on match scores and CBill/XP payouts. I also think that if they capitalize on this opportunity and make it work, they can implement it to other quick play modes (even if one game mode at a time) and create a selection of game modes that are truly unique and engaging.

Hell if they get a functional player selected respawn system working they could get it implemented in faction play and fix the spawn camping complaint from faction play with the same fine tuned system. 2 birds with one stone basically. They can even keep the limited drop deck to keep faction play the "hard mode" they want it to be.

Edited by Wendigo Waltz, 25 March 2017 - 04:52 AM.

[Tiantara]

- No respawn in QP... Mech Deck only for FP. All what need just add Siege maps from Invasion to QP rotation with Incursion mode on them as well as big maps like Polar Highland.

[Monkey Lover]

What did respawn do to help cw? Just made the game longer and less people wanted to play because of it. After wave 1 in cw you can tell almost ever time who will win the game.

Only way I would want to see respawn would be with an "attack the castle" game. Where the attackers have unlimited respawns and they have to take the castle in so many minutes .

Edited by Monkey Lover, 25 March 2017 - 08:12 AM.

[Karl Marlow]

What are you talking about? Skirmish is the only game mode without a win condition.

[Weepy Wanebow]

Monkey Lover, on 25 March 2017 - 06:58 AM, said:

What did respawn do to help cw? Just made the game longer and less people wanted to play because of it. After wave 1 in cw you can tell almost ever time who will win the game.

Only way I would want to see respawn would be with an "attack the castle" game. Where the attackers have unlimited respawns and they have to take the castle in so many minutes .

The biggest complaints I have seen for faction play has to do with clan v IS balance and que wait times. Longer games hasn't really ever been a major complaint.

I think that if you had objective based game play respawn would be fine. It doesn't take that long to win conquest through resource caps but it doesn't happen that often because murder ball to the center and kill each other is still the fastest way to win.

Same thing with assault. Why capture the enemy base if we can just wipe the other team and win that way?

I'm not talking about getting rid of the 15 minute time limit for game modes. They won't grind on forever until someone manages to win an objective. Most matches last 7 to 12 minutes anyhow. I just think that respawn makes the different game mode actually different.....And I mean different as in "you have to capture these points to win because enemies keep coming" not different in as in "one team's lights ran off to secure points but the other 8 run into 12 players and get handled then the 7-9 that remained from the 12 went and hunted down the remaining lights and kill them before the capture score could actually hit 750" (which happens with even one capture point before the 15 minutes are over).... Because one mode is actually objective based and the other (the current way) is skirmish with a thing that distracts inexperienced players from actually being useful to their team.

CW wave 1 sweep as a predictor to who will win has everything to do with there effectively being zero match maker in CW and little to anything with there being respawn. Even a semibroken match maker would reduce the frequency of that but the fact that there is zero anything attempting to determine player ability or matching teams by ability in CW means that you are going to get a game with the first team available. The randomness of this is going to mean a greater chance of a great group facing a not great group. On top of that CW matches are 35 minutes and yet regardless of wave 1 sweep/total steam rolled or not, games tend not to last that entire time....Longer then 15 sure but rarely if ever 35.

[Nesutizale]

Quote

Same thing with assault. Why capture the enemy base if we can just wipe the other team and win that way?

Why wipe out the enemy team when you can just capture their base?

I have seen and done that myself often enough. Assault is the most anoying mode ever. When you go for the kill some light goes into your base and ends the game or you sneak around and end it...either way its a mode that should get kicked out permanent!
When you want just to kill stuff, go skirmish. When you want to cap a single poin play domination...both are better in their own right the assault.

[Weepy Wanebow]

Karl Marlow, on 25 March 2017 - 12:12 PM, said:

What are you talking about? Skirmish is the only game mode without a win condition.

They all have the same win condition "eliminate the enemy team" it just happens to be the only win condition in skirmish. Conquest, assualt, domination, and even this incursion mode have an in actual practice a secondary win condition. My experience is that at least 80 to 90% of the time "eliminate the enemy team" is how the game is won. Regardless of game mode match score/CBill/XP is primarily determined by damage done and kill count. The specific game mode "objective bonus" isn't significant enough to justify prioritizing the objective over wiping the other team which is why the majority of the time it is treated as secondary.

How many games of conquest end with "everyone capture points, hurry" only because one or two lights from the opposing team ran off to capture points instead of supporting their team? Like half? How many of those actually get lost because of resource points? Like half? So 75% of the time killing the entire enemy team is what wins......That not different.....

When was the last time you lost or won domination because one team secured the center point or had the smallest amount of time left at "time out"? Like never? Yeah me either....That's not different....That's arbitrary..... Meaningless

[Weepy Wanebow]

Nesutizale, on 25 March 2017 - 12:17 PM, said:

Why wipe out the enemy team when you can just capture their base?

I have seen and done that myself often enough. Assault is the most anoying mode ever. When you go for the kill some light goes into your base and ends the game or you sneak around and end it...either way its a mode that should get kicked out permanent!
When you want just to kill stuff, go skirmish. When you want to cap a single poin play domination...both are better in their own right the assault.

More often in my experience a group of lights run off to kill the one or two lights that got in their base. It still turns into skirmish. But agreed that it is the worst game mode but only because it keeps lights from actually being effective strikers in supporting their team and base capture as a team tactic isn't an effective approach.

And domination....I have never ever had that game end through center point capture. It has always ended via team kill

[Impyrium]

I see the same close-mindedness when it comes to respawns is still highly prevalent on these forums.

Nesutizale, on 25 March 2017 - 12:17 PM, said:

Why wipe out the enemy team when you can just capture their base?

I have seen and done that myself often enough. Assault is the most anoying mode ever. When you go for the kill some light goes into your base and ends the game or you sneak around and end it...either way its a mode that should get kicked out permanent!
When you want just to kill stuff, go skirmish. When you want to cap a single poin play domination...both are better in their own right the assault.

Because it doesn't work like that and you know it. You don't just "capture their base", because by doing so you're splitting your own team and thus making it easier for the other team to win by all kills. A singular light will very rarely actually win a game by attempting to go for a cap- you'll either get A. the enemy team will be smart and will split one or two lights to counter you B. the enemy team will not be smart and will all awkwardly attempt to fall back, allowing you to effectively pick them off easily.

But you won't win by cap.

[50 50]

It boils down to people skirmishing on the maps because in the end the game is about mech combat.
Having the additional objectives can create movement around the battlefield and some variety in the combat.

If the games were greatly extended, then we might see some different play develop but this is not something we should worry about in Quick Play.
Faction Play needs to take that next step in becoming a bigger, more inclusive mode.

[I cant want to]

with player rewards (xp @ cbills) based almost entirely around dealing damage, there is little incentive to actually play the objectives

[Shino Tenshi]

Unfortunately I don't have enough time to read the rest of the responses here, so sorry for duplication, but...

I do think to a large degree most game modes are skirmish based. Escort being the main exception and domination and sometimes conquest being secondary ones. Other than those, while there's the odd exception, most turn into skirmish matches.

As mentioned within the thread, I think one of the major reasons for this is it just doesn't pay to play the game modes. As long as team kill is a victory condition and it pays substantially more to use as a tactic, then most game modes are going to be skirmish.

I think this game mode has a lot of promise, but until there's proper compensation for playing the mode, I think it will turn into another slightly flavored skirmish mode.

[Cementi]

Respawn is not the answer. Making interesting objectives that pay just as well as doing damage is whats needed.

I have not had the opportunity to test incursion. Was out of town but from what I read it looks interesting.

Oh also some side objectives that are not even part of the win conditions that pay really well would be nice as well.

We need incentives not to deathball. Either get the side objectives before you kill the other team or you miss out on them.

[Koniving]

Would agree with the OP, but infinite respawns is unnecessary nor is it desired. With infinite respawns you have the issue of getting pushed back into your spawn point and camped out for unlimited cash farming. There's no counter play that could get you out of that situation. No attrition of forces.

Limited respawns, aka just use the god dang drop deck, would leave a lot more options for players to use.

In the past, simply having better pay for completing the match through objectives was enough.
In fact, assault mode paid much better for capturing the base than for killing everyone (especially when you consider repair and rearm). But two issues came: When a smart light basically slipped past everyone and no one could stop it in time ending the match without a fight...and team "Farming".

Thus, the most time efficient and assured way to win in a limited respawn scenario is to complete the objective. The longest way to win would be through total annihilation of the enemy forces. This said: Now winning by total annihilation will pay boatloads more than the objective, so the objective payout needs to be comparably improved. Match times would also need to be increased as 15 minutes would no longer be enough time for annihilation.

Edited by Koniving, 26 March 2017 - 05:29 AM.

[zortesh]

Nesutizale, on 25 March 2017 - 12:17 PM, said:

Why wipe out the enemy team when you can just capture their base?

Because getting 6 kills and 1k damage pays way way way way way way way way way way better then capping a base, and is more fun, sometimes it takes less time to boot.

Monkey Lover, on 25 March 2017 - 06:58 AM, said:

What did respawn do to help cw? Just made the game longer and less people wanted to play because of it. After wave 1 in cw you can tell almost ever time who will win the game.

Only way I would want to see respawn would be with an "attack the castle" game. Where the attackers have unlimited respawns and they have to take the castle in so many minutes .

Thats sounds cool.

To be fair thou cw doesn't really have respawns.. it has multiple waves, which turns it to a nice and fun game of attrition, but its still a limited number of mechs so it becomes again about.. deathball and kill everyone, which i like doing honestly so I'm fine with that, the match time isn't why people play it.. its the wait time and matchmakers seemingly preferring to put large groups against pugs.


fact is thou killing mechs just makes way more potential cbills and is more fun, thats not really gonna change so long as we have a limited numbers of mechs on both sides deathballing and wiping the majority of the enemy team before splitting up and taking objectives will always be the smarter move.

Even if there were respawns thou... theres be a good chance that better teams would just end up deathballing and going from spawn to spawn farming everyone and ignoring objectives till the timer on the match got down to like 2 minutes then fulfilling objectives.... hell its what I'd do.

[Sandslice]

Wendigo Waltz, on 25 March 2017 - 12:41 PM, said:

More often in my experience a group of lights run off to kill the one or two lights that got in their base. It still turns into skirmish. But agreed that it is the worst game mode but only because it keeps lights from actually being effective strikers in supporting their team and base capture as a team tactic isn't an effective approach.

And domination....I have never ever had that game end through center point capture. It has always ended via team kill

It happens on certain maps in potato tier play; being admittedly something of a tater tot myself, I see it happen somewhat frequently. One of a few things causes it.

- One side has no high speed movers, or none that will go forth and contest the circle early on; or
- One side can establish a kill zone at the circle (esp. if the circle is on low ground) and the other side either gets lurmed out or gets their timid pokey game on, simply allowing the positioned side to claim the circle; or
- The furball happens outside of the circle (seems to happen on Frozen City a fair bit) and one side loses sight of the objective.

[Weepy Wanebow]

Sandslice, on 26 March 2017 - 02:15 AM, said:

It happens on certain maps in potato tier play; being admittedly something of a tater tot myself, I see it happen somewhat frequently. One of a few things causes it.

- One side has no high speed movers, or none that will go forth and contest the circle early on; or
- One side can establish a kill zone at the circle (esp. if the circle is on low ground) and the other side either gets lurmed out or gets their timid pokey game on, simply allowing the positioned side to claim the circle; or
- The furball happens outside of the circle (seems to happen on Frozen City a fair bit) and one side loses sight of the objective.

Wow that sucks....I've literally never seen an objective win on domination. Sounds like a kick in the pants

[Weepy Wanebow]

Koniving, on 25 March 2017 - 09:00 PM, said:

Would agree with the OP, but infinite respawns is unnecessary nor is it desired.

Limited respawns, aka just use the god dang drop deck, would leave a lot more options for players to use.

The problem with a drop deck over respawn is that new players aren't going to have enough Mechs to have a drop deck. It could function the same way though.... Instead of infinite respawn, just 3 respawns....

The rest of your original comment about uping rewards was good stuff though.

[Widowmaker1981]

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.

and add a goodamn matchmaker to FP.

[Ragnahawk]

Respawning is one of the reasons I despise COD with a burning passion. I will definitely quit this game if I have to deal with respawning on quick play. No doubts on that. Now you change it so it has rounds... I don't see the point..