67 replies to this topic

[Athom83]

Mystere, on 28 March 2017 - 10:59 AM, said:

Oh, WT has single-life game modes too. But, being able to rejoin an on-going battle as "reinforcement" has it's own unique element of fun.

Also, having no markers determine friend from foe, while being locked to the commanders hatch, gunner scope, and/or driver slit, frantically scanning the landscape for any signs of the enemy, and being scared ****less by the inevitable loud BANG when you take a surprise hit has its own unique element of fun. Especially with a really good gaming headset.

Anjian, on 28 March 2017 - 11:11 AM, said:

For a Fractured Space game to end, which means your team to win it has to be on the home base cap, you need two things:
You need to capture the jump points that will lead directly to the enemy home base and make sure the enemy doesn't capture those points leading to yours.
Second, capturing gamma so you can upgrade faster and get better DPS and survivability out of your ships. That's how you put the enemy team out and into the limbo area.
Again, two objectives in the game that must be relentlessly taken.

Correct. However you also need to balance the need to throw your lives away with the amount of gain you will get. Fighting for gamma when its clear you are outmatched (due to ship/number differences) is stupid as you would then stack the cards against your team while staying alive lets you group together to hold them off somewhere else. Also, winning gamma has no meaning when you die seconds later, as you then lose those bonuses that you get. My point for bringing this up was, while the respawning plays into the mode of the game better, it only perfectly fits because of the penalties for dying (long respawn timer, losing bonuses besides the upgrades, etc). This also applies to taking back the FoBs to cut access to the main base. If a small group jumps into the enemy main base to be outnumbered/outgunned, after they die the enemy has a free pass to capture a whole sector and counterattack the main base, leading to a loss. Instead, holding on to the FoBs lets you force the enemy to chose between holding their main base, taking the fight back to A/B sector, or taking G. In that situation, losing a single ship causes a massive shift of power despite there being respawns. And when a side loses a ship (most of the times its the side losing at that point), the other can push in taking out the entire enemy team, forcing them into 1-2 minute long respawns where the main base is just capped while everyone is dead. Yes this doesn't happen every time, but is the majority of the cases.

Anjian, on 28 March 2017 - 11:11 AM, said:

By far the most popular mode is Arcade, while RB and SB have long long waiting queues for the lack of players. Simulator has so little players, it has been turned into an "event".

Yes, it is more popular by number of games. However, when looking at the players in queue, usually they are very similar. The reasons RB takes a lot longer to find matches is because of the spreads of Battle Rating in RB, when AB BR is more squished together. Yes, SB has so few players. However, that is no reason to not include it in analysis as it is still a beloved mode.

Anjian, on 28 March 2017 - 11:11 AM, said:

If anything, the massive population difference between Arcade and Realistic, which still features spawn tickets, tells you what the market really wants. I played realistic, I don't find it as fun, and Arcade is certainly much more quicker and lethal. Things go pop faster in Arcade, therefore, that means a lower TTK, which means it has to be supported by respawns. TTK is still longer in Realistic because doing things overall seems harder and less assisted.

Tanks are far more squishy in RB than AB. Yes, there are no magic markers telling you where the enemy is or where to aim. However, in AB ammo stores are less likely to detonate, a hit to the turret ring merely slows slew rate instead of completely jamming it, crew move around far quicker, you can survive with 1 crew left, you can fire with a damage gun breach and/or barrel, and you can twitch move for defense.

Anjian, on 28 March 2017 - 11:11 AM, said:

You must be dreaming. The game is simply not solid. I tried the PvP, I tried the Global Operations which had the respawns. The balance is majorly FU'ed. It has great graphics and a stable client yes. The reason why they brought out GO which has respawns is because of the incessant stomps that happen in PvP, which is causing the player base to quit that mode and just play PvE instead.

Hence the upcoming update which massively changes the balance of things.

Anjian, on 28 March 2017 - 11:11 AM, said:

Objective games is still about kills. In fact, you get a LOT MORE kills on objective games than non respawns. You stay longer in the game, you shoot a lot more, you kill a lot more, and there is simply much more mayhem. A War Thunder game has many players with 5 to 10 kills, sometimes in the teens. And you get to ace games much more often. In a WoT, WoWs or even an MWO QP game, 5 is quite an achievement.

I've got 10+ kill games in WT where most of the enemy team only have died once. They happen when 80% of my team dies within the first few minutes as they are total ******s. I've even had those 10 kill games in Simulator, where most vehicles don't get a respawn (TDs, Heavy tanks). You missed the point of that statement. I was referring to how the respawning interacted well for those games as there was a punishment for dying and an incentive for staying alive and playing the objective while not completely making it so dying creates an immediate loss.

Anjian, on 28 March 2017 - 11:11 AM, said:

So there is satisfaction in both --- the challenge to create tactics and strategy, the part of the brain that looks for depth, and at the same time you satisfy that part of you that just likes to blow up a lot of things.

I agree. And that's why respawning should stay in FW and stay out of QP.

[Mystere]

Athom83, on 28 March 2017 - 01:01 PM, said:

Also, having no markers determine friend from foe, while being locked to the commanders hatch, gunner scope, and/or driver slit, frantically scanning the landscape for any signs of the enemy, and being scared ****less by the inevitable loud BANG when you take a surprise hit has its own unique element of fun. Especially with a really good gaming headset.

And which is why I am thinking getting a VR headset is becoming more tempting.

Edited by Mystere, 28 March 2017 - 01:18 PM.

[R Valentine]

Cathy, on 28 March 2017 - 01:00 PM, said:

If P.G.I want to sell drop deck packs for Faction warfare I'm perfectly fine with that.

There is a point to it in F.W

That kind of respawn crap should be kept far away from quick play because it's supposed to be quick.

I'm getting sick and tired of people trying to ruin the most popular style of play because they can't or won't play in F.W.

There is a lack of population there for a reason, there was even less population when they had a solo queue.

What, 15 minutes isn't quick? Even FW is still skirmish more often than not because they increased the timer to the point where you still have time to kill all enemies and then play the minigame afterwards. Nothing really changed, just the agony of that 12 man stomping you is prolonged. If you don't want all game modes to be skirmish then you have to add respawns. As long as kills values are bolstered by the fact that enemies don't respawn, people will always focus on killing.

[Bishop Steiner]

WarHippy, on 28 March 2017 - 11:05 AM, said:

I can agree with that. I just see no reason for it to be here let alone in QP. However, something like that might work well in FP.

Agreed FP is already our respawners zone. There is no reason it has to infect every aspect of the game.

[Bishop Steiner]

Kiran Yagami, on 28 March 2017 - 12:53 PM, said:

The game already is CoD with Gundams. Mechs are ridiculously agile in MWO. Far more so than in any other Mechwarrior game. TTK is very low. Far more so than in any other Mechwarrior game. Convergence is ridiculously precise and accurate. For more so than in any other Mechwarrior game. There is no lore, period. No campaign. No story. The game has more in common with Counter Strike or CoD than it does with other Mechwarrior games. You should know. You've been playing it for FIVE YEARS. And while we're on that subject, we've had no skill tree for five years. Should we leave it that way too? I mean, if it all it takes is chronology then we should leave everything that's been in the game since release no matter how bad. And Counter Strike has no respawns. Congratulations. You're already an FPS. You just like to pretend otherwise.

to spell out the essential difference, in small words for you?

We have a "Skill Tree" right now. It's a garbage one, but we have one. And a more comprehensive skill tree was always supposed to be a part of the game. So if they ever add and update that, they would be keeping one of their core promises.

Likewise, one of their core sales pitches was that the basic game would never have respawns. Thus adding it would be just one more big FUCKYOU, in an unfortunate list of them, to the people who funded this game. You might be down with that, I really don't give a ****.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Dropdeck packs would have to be changed anytime PGI changes Dropdeck limits...

Might not be the best sales strategy unless it is carefully monitored and updated appropriately.

[Khobai]

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Anything that means all game modes might not be skirmish is a big no no with this community. The, "NO RESPAWNS IN QP!" crowd is already packing in.

Theyre idiots though

1) adding respawn gamemodes in quickplay doesnt mean no-respawn gamemodes are going away. both can exist at the same time.

2) theres a voting system so people can vote for what gamemode they want to play. if no one votes to play no-respawn skirmish it just proves no one wanted to play it anyway when given another option.

3) while not ideal, you still have the ability to create a custom server and play whatever mode you want. And youll always be able to play 4v4 scout mode if you want your skirmish fix.


so yeah I dont see the problem with adding respawn to certain gamemodes like incursion that simply wont work well without respawns. if you dont like it dont vote to play that gamemode.

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We have a "Skill Tree" right now.

no we have a progression unlock tree

a skill tree is something completely different. skill trees involve making choices. and those choices have consequences.

even pgis new so called skill tree is still just a overly complicated progression tree. it doesnt involve making choices with consequences since there will be an optimal way to allocate points in such a way that you min/max the skill tree and pick up all the important skills in the most efficient way. once the community agrees on the ideal way to min/max it, everyone will copy that. boring. awful.

a real skill tree involves mutually exclusive options. choosing one option means youre locked out of the other options. it creates role interdependency and forces you to work with other players because no one player has access to every skill.

what PGI needs to do is subdivide their current skill tree into like 3 different roles. And then force people to pick one of those roles. then its impossible to min-max the system because picking one role means youre locked out of the skills for the other two roles.

PGI was originally going to that, have three different pilot roles, and they need to follow through on that promise. The three roles could be something like: recon/skirmisher, striker/assault, and command/support. You would have to choose one role for each mech and each role would have its own unique skill tree with both unique skills and some skills being generic and shared by all three roles.

Edited by Khobai, 28 March 2017 - 04:07 PM.

[Anjian]

Athom83, on 28 March 2017 - 01:01 PM, said:

Also, having no markers determine friend from foe, while being locked to the commanders hatch, gunner scope, and/or driver slit, frantically scanning the landscape for any signs of the enemy, and being scared ****less by the inevitable loud BANG when you take a surprise hit has its own unique element of fun. Especially with a really good gaming headset.

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Correct. However you also need to balance the need to throw your lives away with the amount of gain you will get. Fighting for gamma when its clear you are outmatched (due to ship/number differences) is stupid as you would then stack the cards against your team while staying alive lets you group together to hold them off somewhere else. Also, winning gamma has no meaning when you die seconds later, as you then lose those bonuses that you get. My point for bringing this up was, while the respawning plays into the mode of the game better, it only perfectly fits because of the penalties for dying (long respawn timer, losing bonuses besides the upgrades, etc). This also applies to taking back the FoBs to cut access to the main base. If a small group jumps into the enemy main base to be outnumbered/outgunned, after they die the enemy has a free pass to capture a whole sector and counterattack the main base, leading to a loss. Instead, holding on to the FoBs lets you force the enemy to chose between holding their main base, taking the fight back to A/B sector, or taking G. In that situation, losing a single ship causes a massive shift of power despite there being respawns. And when a side loses a ship (most of the times its the side losing at that point), the other can push in taking out the entire enemy team, forcing them into 1-2 minute long respawns where the main base is just capped while everyone is dead. Yes this doesn't happen every time, but is the majority of the cases.

That's one reason why respawns work --- it makes for sacrificial strategies.

In anyway, Fractured Space worked out a perfect system that maximizes the advantages of respawns and mitigates its few disadvantages.

The whole game only works with a five vs. five --- losing one member permanently, means already losing 25% of a team and that easily leads to a stomp. That is one big reason why its on a respawn mode, and one without limits.

The smaller the game --- less members on its team --- the better it is to have respawns. As a matter of fact, FPS games started with 6 vs. 6 matches.

In my Android tablet, I play War Robots, one of the most regarded shooters in both Android and iOS (a member of rarified group of games with over a million five star review ratings in Google Play store). The game uses a 6 vs. 6 format, with respawns, though not infinite respawns, but like War Thunder, has a preset or deck. 6 players with a deck of five means you potentially throw 30 vs 30 in 10 minutes.

In a game like that, even if one team scores higher in kills, which happens quite often, if you don't push to capture the beacons, you will simply lose. In fact, the game simply revolves only in one mode that is centered on capturing beacons. I never hear anyone complaining about this mode or wanting more.

Limiting respawns on this game, just like in War Thunder, is to make kills matter, give kills and life more significance, so you don't foolishly throw this away, and spam the caps. But having spawns on the other hand, controls the game from having the stomp phenomenon.

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Yes, it is more popular by number of games. However, when looking at the players in queue, usually they are very similar. The reasons RB takes a lot longer to find matches is because of the spreads of Battle Rating in RB, when AB BR is more squished together. Yes, SB has so few players. However, that is no reason to not include it in analysis as it is still a beloved mode.

SB has too few players.

And no, looking at the player queue isn't reliable since the queue is always reduced once a match is made. Since the AB match queue is rapidly producing more games, players don't stay long in the AB queue, keeping it small and fresh. It is the waiting time that is important.

The reason why a match must have a higher BR or tier spread is essentially to find more players, and that means more players. Where as a squished BR means there are much more players in a more narrow tier. That is an issue of pure population. RB simply has it less. The number of matches is indeed where you see the population is at any given moment.

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Tanks are far more squishy in RB than AB. Yes, there are no magic markers telling you where the enemy is or where to aim. However, in AB ammo stores are less likely to detonate, a hit to the turret ring merely slows slew rate instead of completely jamming it, crew move around far quicker, you can survive with 1 crew left, you can fire with a damage gun breach and/or barrel, and you can twitch move for defense.

Despite this, and you can tell from the comments of the YouTubers who mainly play RB and then play AB, that AB is more quick and lethal game.

The squishiness of the tanks in RB does not compensate for the fact its much easier to aim, snipe or snap fire on AB, where one shell is enough to kill a tank. Whether a tank is squisher or not, matters little in a game where kills are often one shot.

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Hence the upcoming update which massively changes the balance of things.

If its AW its still massively delayed, and is too late.

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I've got 10+ kill games in WT where most of the enemy team only have died once. They happen when 80% of my team dies within the first few minutes as they are total ******s. I've even had those 10 kill games in Simulator, where most vehicles don't get a respawn (TDs, Heavy tanks). You missed the point of that statement. I was referring to how the respawning interacted well for those games as there was a punishment for dying and an incentive for staying alive and playing the objective while not completely making it so dying creates an immediate loss.

Seriously I would say that is very rare when you say "got", as you do not specify the frequency of such, and I kind doubt hat it happens very frequently, considering the teams are only around 15, and that means you are a God and the rest of your team are fools because individual scores tend to be lower, when the overall team kill average is higher.

If you compare the every AB game scores of War Thunder vs. World of Tanks, every game you see people break the 5 kill ace, and many times you see someone over 10. Breaking 5 isn't as common on WoT or WoWs, though it does happen, and usually its like one person, but in WT you can have a handful of aces.

Simply enough the kill pool is much larger, and that produces a more enjoyable game.

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I agree. And that's why respawning should stay in FW and stay out of QP.

I don't really mind that arrangement, but neither is the game going anywhere with its current arrangement.

I don't play FW anymore because the disadvantages of facing 12 man premades vs. PUGs far outweighs the advantages of having respawns. Having said that, during the times when matches are even, these are by far, the best and most enjoyable matches in all the time I played MWO, and in fact during Phase 1 and 2, I played FW almost exclusively with only QP during recess periods.

Still FW reeks of poor game design of a reason.

If players have already left the game, the game should not keep dropping their absent mechs like some sort of sacrifice for a spawn farming session. This is just plain bad game design, which pretty much describes much of MWO anyway. If players leave, they leave, that means mechs, tanks and all that. There should not be an absentia drop of their assets in the game. War Thunder, once you leave you are gone. Every game I have seen with a respawn, if you are gone, you are gone.

And this is probably where the real fear and the conservatism in many MWO players --- that PGI can introduce a new mode and seriously f*k it up, because they never truly think through and well with their designs.