Posted 16 May 2017 - 05:45 PM
Alright: instead of the skill tree nonsense, here are my thoughts on things that would actually enhance gameplay and teamplay with minimal intrusion (i.e., not forcing a player to fill out a giant click tree in order to have a viable mech):
I'm going to start with the whole multiplayer experience. I have to refer to what I know best. I played some first person shooters which are not applicable to MWO, but one of my favorite multiplayer game experiences ever was a little game called Myth: The Fallen Lords. Came out in 1997. On the surface it looks very dissimilar from MWO, but in actuality I think they are very analogous team play games. They involve terrain, choke points, timing, situational awareness, team movement, rock/paper/scissors tactics, excellent communication necessary for victory, etc.
Myth The Fallen Lords (TFL) had a pretty sweet (and simple) system for setting up team games. You logged on and were in basically a series of about a dozen interconnected chat rooms with all the other players that were online. Within a chat room any player could start a game, set a player limit (2-16), choose a map, and select a game type. Players in that chat room could see available games and join up. There was a quick friend finder and you could do scrimmages with people you knew. There was a 'ranked' and 'unranked' section. One for competitive play and one for light-hearted (but still very skilled) messing around, where you could experiment without having your rank affected.
It allowed for quite a bit of interaction with other players, and more team discussion. Not only that but veterans could directly coach newbs and recruit people for units. I've been playing MWO for about two months now. I have yet to join up with a faction or fall in with a unit or regular group, the only thing that still exists for me right now is quickplay. It is fun but doesn't have the same kind of interaction and opportunity for connection with other players. In TFL I made quite a few online friends pretty quickly, and was laughing it up with them having fun.
So my advice is to go to more of an open online chat type situation where players can set up their own games. You can still keep a faction warfare type thing (whatever that is) and a quickplay feature. Although I would think Faction Warfare would just be the 'ranked' series of game rooms.
So, the TEAM ENHANCEMENT features I think would help this game:
In Myth TFL team games, each team when formed automatically had a captain. At the beginning of each game the captain had the responsibility of:
1. Selecting what units the team was going to use.
2. Dividing the team's units among the team's players.
In MWO, the captain is mostly a honorary title. I have not had a quickplay game yet where the captain did anything. For a game that is so team-based, this is an absurd situation. So get ready kids, here is my thought:
Each player, when going online, should select a 'ready deck' of between 1 and 4 mechs. All the mechs in it have to be the same tonnage and faction (clan or IS). Can be different variants or even chassis.
The team captain is automatically selected as the best ranked captain, or can be switched around however desired as currently. However, I propose in MWO, the captain then has the responsibility of:
Looking at your 'ready deck' and selecting a mech for you to fight with. If you are a jerk and only want to fight with one mech, then you only have to put one mech in your ready deck. However, if you want to give your team options, you can put up to four mechs in. You need a really quick and easy drop-down that shows extremely concise stats of the mech, so that the captain can quickly select. I suggest just the mech name, weapons, speed, and whether or not it has ECM. Here's the biggie - the individual player could also maybe pick their mech to fight with, though the captain could override.
So everybody gets their mechs picked - the team strategy is already starting to form, and players communicating and interacting. We're ready to start the game.
But wait, there's more! Myth TFL had an awesome feature: a live whiteboard on the game map. With one click you could activate a pencil, the circle some units and draw an arrow telling a teamate where to go. There was a 'planning time' feature before the game actually started, which also allowed you to illustrate unit paths.
For MWO online I propose that in the game lobby there be a whiteboard map feature. Showing your team's starting points on the map, players could draw up an initial route and strategy. Awesome. Obviously each team would only be able to see their own markups. Not only that, but the white board feature could continue in-game on the battlemap.
Right now the 'B' battlemap is awesome but when you hit 'I' you get a graphical mess of crap. Clean up that graphic so it is simpler and more legible. The information that you get quickly by hitting 'tab' you can remove from the battlemap display to KISS. To reduce clicks, immediately when you hit 'B' your cursor could already be in whiteboard mode. Then you just need a button for erasing or erasing all.
Alright, so we have a captain doing stuff and an enhanced way of communicating with the map. Players are already talking about strategy before the game even starts. Most quickplays you just get a pathetic 'gl hf' or 'stay together and hit R' from people before the game starts.
But I have further gameplay/communication suggestions for the actual game. Right now the VOIP is kinda like a disembodied voice for us quickplay folks. Unless you are on a team with friends you know it is hard to associate a voice coming over the VOIP with a person and a mech. You look down to the bottom center where the little icon pops up but it is gone by the time your eyes get down there, and your eyes are off your HUD when you are looking. So I say move the VOIP icon INTO the chat field and let it persist, intermixed with the text chat in the order it occurred. So you hear somebody say something, look over, and be like 'ah, that was McDerpface', hit tab, and see what mech he's in, then hit 'B' and see where he is QUICKLY with the new cleaned up graphics. Similarly, when among teamates, it is hard to see who the heck they are. Friendly boxes box around them, but to read their name you have to hold your aim RIGHT on them and read very fine print very carefully. You should just have to pass your crosshairs over their box, and their name should pop up in a size easy to read for long enough to read (half second) before disappearing.
Alright, so you played and the team did awesome. Yeah! Whoever the captain was can get a c-bills bonus or skill XP bonus or something. Plus, maybe players can even 'rank' the captain. Kinda like yelp. I think it would be more interesting and team-focused to have players obsessing about getting a better and better captain ranking by good strategy, tactics, and communication rather than implementing an absurd bloated skill tree system... sorry I digress... Maybe Lance leaders could actually become a thing too, with a similar performance ranking, feedback, and reward system.
Even if the team did crap, if the captain was friendly and communicated well, it is likely players would give them a pretty good ranking. Whatever system it would have to be partly pure performance algorithm based and player feedback based.
Alright, so that is team play and communication stuff. Now for some nitty gritty boring but very functional stuff:
Weapon fire groups and chain firing. Needs some work. I propose a little more complexity here over the basic system we have now, so that people don't have to use outside apps in order to make their mechs work right. I propose the following weapon groups categories:
1. Classic Simple weapon group: same as current system. Group weapons, hit fire key, they all fire. Hold fire key, they all cycle at their max ROF.
2. Classic chain fire group: same as current system. Group weapons, they fire in order over time. Multiple clicking accelerates the firing. Only difference: you select the order, and maybe the time of the total period.
3. Grouped chain fire. Have those six lasers but chain fire feels a little weak pewing one at a time? Don't you wish you could fire two at a time or three at a time? Yeah. Within the weapon group you set up sub-groups that fire together. You set the cycle time and order. Once click fires the first group. A second click fires the second group. etc. etc. for up to however many groups you make. Click holding fires the groups one after the other over the duration of a total period you set when setting up the grouped chain fire. This can also work for different weapon types with a sequence of salvoes.
4. Alpha-chain fire click-hold group (or 'Ballistic' group). I see this for ballistics mostly, but could be anything. A single quick click fires all weapons in the group at once. Clicking and holding fires all weapons in the group at their max ROF equally spaced out. If the group contains UAC autocannons you should have a selection box to let you decide if you want them to fire at max ROF or 'safe' ROF.
5. Toggle fire group. Single click makes the weapon group fire continuously. Second click ceases fire. For MG's and TAG.
With those groups I think everybody can get along fine with just a simple two-button mouse. This one sounds complicated but I think it creates a beautiful simplicity and gives easier control (and customization) of weapons. We're going to need a good graphical interface where we can actually link specific hard points to the chain fire groups we're setting up.
In conclusion, words cannot express how stupid I think this skill system is. I'll save my 10,000 word rant on the skill tree system for another time...
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