465 replies to this topic

[Commander A9]

Hmm! Like a King of the Hill style!

I've seen this in other games, like Ground Control II and Tom Clancy's EndWar: you seize control of drop zones, then you can bring more of your forces in at THAT location. Hell, Tom Clancy's EndWar had the capacity to 'deep-strike' infantry to any location on the map to capture critical objectives or sneak behind enemy lines.

That might give us some more options, but it might also end the games faster...because all you'd have to do to win is rush the drop zones with light mechs, capture, and close...unless the capture timer was set for like 2 minutes or something...

Edited by Commander A9, 11 July 2017 - 07:14 AM.

[Mycroft000]

I really like the idea of capture-able(that spelling seems awkward but it's what spellcheck is giving me) drop zones. And I think I recall Russ at one point mentioning that they were possibly working on an asymmetric game mode with a Union Class drop ship. What if any 2/3 drop zones could be captured, but the next drop ship to arrive is a heavily armed Union Class ship that lands at the 3rd drop zone?

And to extend the idea to help alleviate spawn camping, holding the drop zones that have been captured could require at least 1 mech to remain there(possibly two depending on play-testing), leaving 8-10 remaining players to attack the, now heavily fortified, 3rd drop zone.

Completely spitballing here, but there could even be rewards for destroying the Union Class drop ship which would end the match immediately, but it would be EXTREMELY difficult.

[50 50]

Commander A9, on 11 July 2017 - 07:13 AM, said:

Hmm! Like a King of the Hill style!

I've seen this in other games, like Ground Control II and Tom Clancy's EndWar: you seize control of drop zones, then you can bring more of your forces in at THAT location. Hell, Tom Clancy's EndWar had the capacity to 'deep-strike' infantry to any location on the map to capture critical objectives or sneak behind enemy lines.

That might give us some more options, but it might also end the games faster...because all you'd have to do to win is rush the drop zones with light mechs, capture, and close...unless the capture timer was set for like 2 minutes or something...

Not forgetting that you might lose your own drop zones in the process or that should one of the enemy dropzones be captured, then the lance that was dropping there selects one of the other locations to rally from which has the effect of making it a tougher target to capture.

We have the whole capture mechanic in place with the conquest points it has all the bits we need.
Just need to adapt that to the drop zones.

If one team can't hold onto their drop zones or capture an enemy one at the same time and keep the battle alive, well, they have simply been beaten and out manouevred. But at least it's a way to finish the battle by recognizing that one side was dominant while removing the 'farming/griefing' aspect.

mycroft000, on 11 July 2017 - 09:34 AM, said:

I really like the idea of capture-able(that spelling seems awkward but it's what spellcheck is giving me) drop zones. And I think I recall Russ at one point mentioning that they were possibly working on an asymmetric game mode with a Union Class drop ship. What if any 2/3 drop zones could be captured, but the next drop ship to arrive is a heavily armed Union Class ship that lands at the 3rd drop zone?

And to extend the idea to help alleviate spawn camping, holding the drop zones that have been captured could require at least 1 mech to remain there(possibly two depending on play-testing), leaving 8-10 remaining players to attack the, now heavily fortified, 3rd drop zone.

Completely spitballing here, but there could even be rewards for destroying the Union Class drop ship which would end the match immediately, but it would be EXTREMELY difficult.

The Union Dropship was mentioned at one point.
Would still love to see them in game, but I have a feeling that the actual mode is what Incursion actually became.
Maybe it's something we will only see in MW5 though if we can port the mechs to MW5 I don't see why we can't port the Union back to MWO.

[Willard Phule]

50 50, on 11 July 2017 - 07:39 PM, said:

Not forgetting that you might lose your own drop zones in the process or that should one of the enemy dropzones be captured, then the lance that was dropping there selects one of the other locations to rally from which has the effect of making it a tougher target to capture.

We have the whole capture mechanic in place with the conquest points it has all the bits we need.
Just need to adapt that to the drop zones.

Cool idea. Not sure PGI has a good track record of implementing "good ideas," but it would at least be worth a shot.

I've always thought there should be some actual function to "taking leadership" that PGI doesn't take advantage of. You can issue orders that pop up on everyone's radar, but that's about it. Giving a commander the ability to choose where his lance's dropship comes in at would be an interesting addition. Granted, it'd make those evil organized groups on TS an advantage...what with being able to coordinate a deathball from the get go, but hey...still cool.

50 50, on 11 July 2017 - 07:39 PM, said:

If one team can't hold onto their drop zones or capture an enemy one at the same time and keep the battle alive, well, they have simply been beaten and out manouevred. But at least it's a way to finish the battle by recognizing that one side was dominant while removing the 'farming/griefing' aspect.

And would add a level of depth to the strategy involved for just about every mode. Still, the lowest common denominators will cry, so no can do.

50 50, on 11 July 2017 - 07:39 PM, said:

The Union Dropship was mentioned at one point.
Would still love to see them in game, but I have a feeling that the actual mode is what Incursion actually became.
Maybe it's something we will only see in MW5 though if we can port the mechs to MW5 I don't see why we can't port the Union back to MWO.

Now, THAT is something I'd like to see implemented on it's own. It should be up to the commander how he wants his company dropped. Either spread out in 3 drop zones or all in one. For CW, it could be an automatic thing when the other team is within a certain proximity of the dropzone area.

[Mycroft000]

I really do think that the Union drop ship could basically solve the issue of spawn camping. Sarna's loadout of the dropship includes: 3x PPC, 6x AC5, 6x LRM20, 12 Medium Lasers, and 5 Large Lasers; that would provide enough firepower that anyone attempting to camp the drop zone would be taking a huge barrage while the landing forces would have an opportunity to disembark under much better cover than the Leopard dropships currently provide.

It could give the drop commander the option to select Union or Leopard for waves 2-4 so that they can elect to have all 12 drop together, or they can allow for Leopard class to drop people as they do now; this adds strategic depth by allowing more experienced teams to drop individually and reinforce or regroup away from the drop ship, or less experienced teams could simply drop together and be regrouped by default.

The more thought I put into this(pointlessly I'm sure because this is likely not something PGI will take the ball and run with) the more facets I see to the improvements it could provide to FP.

[Carl Vickers]

mycroft000, on 12 July 2017 - 05:37 PM, said:

I really do think that the Union drop ship could basically solve the issue of spawn camping. Sarna's loadout of the dropship includes: 3x PPC, 6x AC5, 6x LRM20, 12 Medium Lasers, and 5 Large Lasers; that would provide enough firepower that anyone attempting to camp the drop zone would be taking a huge barrage while the landing forces would have an opportunity to disembark under much better cover than the Leopard dropships currently provide.

It could give the drop commander the option to select Union or Leopard for waves 2-4 so that they can elect to have all 12 drop together, or they can allow for Leopard class to drop people as they do now; this adds strategic depth by allowing more experienced teams to drop individually and reinforce or regroup away from the drop ship, or less experienced teams could simply drop together and be regrouped by default.

The more thought I put into this(pointlessly I'm sure because this is likely not something PGI will take the ball and run with) the more facets I see to the improvements it could provide to FP.

What happens when terrirbad potato's and units trying to protect their lead decide to camp in their own DZ? This is why people are against giving more firepower to drop zones.

[Leggin Ho]

Carl Vickers, on 12 July 2017 - 05:49 PM, said:

What happens when terrirbad potato's and units trying to protect their lead decide to camp in their own DZ? This is why people are against giving more firepower to drop zones.

Exactly what has been stated before about this idea............ More defenses in the drop area are not the answer, a timer where you suicide and get a time penalty would work better to keep folks from hiding in spawn to get camped.

[Mycroft000]

Carl, this is why you would remove Skirmish from FP entirely. If the losing team is hiding and ignoring the objective, then the other team completes the objective and wins.

If we're talking about a Siege match, let's just put a basketball style "shot clock" on the invading team. For every two minutes they're not pushing out of the drop zone, it takes 5 minutes off the match timer. If they're invading and not attacking, well then they lose. If the defending team is hiding behind their Union drop ship, then the attackers destroy the canon and move on.

[Leggin Ho]

mycroft000, on 12 July 2017 - 06:31 PM, said:

Carl, this is why you would remove Skirmish from FP entirely. If the losing team is hiding and ignoring the objective, then the other team completes the objective and wins.

If we're talking about a Siege match, let's just put a basketball style "shot clock" on the invading team. For every two minutes they're not pushing out of the drop zone, it takes 5 minutes off the match timer. If they're invading and not attacking, well then they lose. If the defending team is hiding behind their Union drop ship, then the attackers destroy the canon and move on.

And if the attacking team wants the kills and c-bills they just continue to kill the defenders in the spawn. You idea only stops the issue if you are looking at it one way. But a timer for both sides that forces you out of the spawn or you face time penalties after you suicide will affect not only you in drop but your team as well when they want to que up for the next drop. If your not hiding in the spawn most likely your not going to die there because your pushing the other team away from your spawn.

[Mycroft000]

If the attacking team only wants the kills and c-bills, then I have no time for that discussion, at least I can respect KCom's drive for the win, it may manifest in aggression that frequently leads to 48 kills, but my impression from the conversation with Pat was that it wasn't about anything but securing wins as quickly and frequently as possible.

Also at one point in my first post bringing up the idea of the Union drop ship, I did present the idea of it being a destructible objective itself that would immediately end the match.

[Kin3ticX]

well you could try a 5-10 second invulnerability and no heat timer but thats none of my business




Id rather that than get sniped by a dropship with 36 ERLL even though im not even spawn camping

[Leggin Ho]

Once again, your "solution" only applies if it's the attacker going into the defenders spawn, I've seen teams that were "attacking" sit outside of closed gates just to try to hold a good team up, much less sit in the spawn (or in a hole in a light shut down) and hide hoping to drag the game out and hold that team from playing additional drops. Most of the time the fastest way to end a drop between two teams trying to kill each other in big stompy robots is to kill the other team out. You know play your hardest all the time, not ease off because the other team wants you to or they just suicide or run out of bounds when they don't want to play the drop they qued up for and then waste 23 other players time. All your shot clock idea does is lt's teams that worry about their K/D ratio to stay high since the only other option of the attacking team is to blow a cannon that can't move or shoot back which once again leads me back to the point of playing in big stompy robots in the first place.

Edited by Leggin Ho, 13 July 2017 - 07:20 AM.

[Mycroft000]

My "solution" as you call it is not a complete idea. It's brainstorming. Another idea I've raised previously is the elimination of the gates we have now and replace them with the destructible walls we've seen in Incursion. Those can be destroyed by either team(notably by assaults who are too impatient to find an exit).

This would solve your issue of the attacking team hiding outside the gates. Another solution to that would be give the defending team ramps that lead to points where they can exit their base(we've got positions like this on Grim Portico already).

And no, most of the time the fastest way is not to kill all 48 mechs on the other team. With two good teams, it's going to be a war of attrition where one side or the other will come out on top(usually lasting most of the 25-30 minutes, not fast). With one good team who is capable of the other, the faster path to victory frequently turns out to be completing the objective, you don't have to wait for drop ships to arrive to complete the objective.

I appreciate the slightly veiled attack referencing my admission to suiciding(as you've noted before multiple times), it's very helpful to the discussion. If people do this report them, I expected to be reported when I did it and naively thought that my actions along with the open admission of what I was doing would be tracked as a protest against what I thought was a broken matchmaker at the time. I freely admit that when the warning popped up when I first started I treated it like any other EULA that we've all clicked okay without reading thousands of times(something I fault PGI for allowing).

I can't make much sense of your last sentence. Can you clarify what you're trying to say here: "All your shot clock idea does is it's teams that worry about their K/D ratio to stay high since the only other option of the attacking team is to blow a cannon that can't move or shoot back--" as written it's such a run on sentence that I don't understand where you're trying to lead with it. The end of it: "which leads me back to the point of playing in big stompy robots in the first place" does kind of make sense, to which I'll reply that if all that matters to you in the game mode that is supposed to be based on lore, then why bother with that mode and not just stick to quick play?

[Leggin Ho]

The reason folks play the game is to shoot other folks, not a AI or something that just sits there, if you enjoy shooting turrets that just pop up that's your call, it's just not my cup of tea after I sit in lobby with 11 of my friends waiting to play a game designed around shooting mobile enemies. The pay out for objectives are a joke compared to the payout when killing the other team and still completing the "objectives". So I guess the best way to break it down for me is that if i just wanted to play a AI or target's that don't move, i could still be playing the original Battletech game that was on a 5.25" disk from the late 90's where all I could play was the limited AI that was designed in the game.

[50 50]

Encouraging positive game play.

Unfortunately with modes such as skirmish where there are no other objectives, no other way to defeat the enemy other than by blowing them up, hiding in drop zones does happen.
At that point, there is no other option for the enemy other than to come to the drop zone to have the fight and complete the objectives.

We can all agree that any sort of inflation in the defenses for the drop zone or the drop ships will have the effect of encouraging the turtle behaviour.

It may be that should one team can stand back far enough to trade with an opponent that is hiding in their drop zone and the game ends up being a bit more of a siege. We could liken this back to Assault mode when we had the turrets. It was not uncommon for a team to move out into the field to engage but they had the option to return to base to take advantage of the additional fortifications. There was the possibility that those extra defenses might turn the battle back in your favour.
If that's the way it pans out, well, that's just a variation in the game play and can be enjoyed for what it is.

I would not consider this sort of fighting spawn camping though. It may be that on some of the maps and from some of the drop zones you can get pinned in your drop zone. But that is a fault of the location of the drop zone and the map design and something more common to the quick play maps.

[Deathlike]

Here's the simpler solution: Remove Skirmish as an option for FP/CW.

It's actually amplifying the crappy old version of "Counter Attack" that used to be in FP/CW (add 1 MFB, and still get decided by # of kills - same deal, minus 1 MFB, minus the awful CW/FP map spawns, but added crappy self-contained walls that kinda produces the same effect).

Edited by Deathlike, 13 July 2017 - 07:55 PM.

[50 50]

Skirmishing and scouting. These are actions we engage in while deployed into a scenario.
Assaulting an enemy base requires an objective.
An incursion into enemy territory.... needs a territory. A feel of being behind enemy lines.
We fight a war of conquest to control the battle field.
And we attack strategic locations to dominate the war.

[Mycroft000]

I think I've posted several times about removing skirmish from FP, if not here then likely on the big Facebook group. Skirmish is the mode I like least in both FP and QP.

Skirmish in QP is uninteresting because it offers no way for the enemy team to surprise anyone with a need to return to base, or to collect resources before you lose to a runaway train effect.

Skirmish in FP isn't enjoyable to me because if we've got a 15-20 mech lead, I don't want to be forced to seek out and kill every last survivor. I want to be able to complete an objective and queue up for the next match.

But if we did have capture-able drop zones and a more defensible(and also destructible) drop ship then that could add depth back into QP that isn't there now.

Plausible scenario:

Two forces drop into the designated combat zone and fight it out, one team gains an advantage and captures two of their enemies drop zones. This triggers the losing team's Union drop ship to come in at the third drop zone.

I'd want to see the drop ship have landing gear, engines, or mechbay doors that can be targeted and destroyed, as well as weapon banks that can be destroyed as well(all would be extremely difficult to destroy, but the corresponding rewards could be significant enough to be worth the risk of attacking the drop ship).

The winning team would need to keep 1 mech each on the captured drop zone to keep the other team from gaining the option of dropping away from the Union ship. This would give depth to the gameplay of 10v12, and would lead to possible decisions of "Do we keep this pilot on the captured zone(earning rewards for holding the zone), or do we rotate him out for someone who's been damaged heavily during the siege of the drop ship, or do we back off from the drop zones and try to draw our enemies out from their defended drop ship?"

...

...

I'm beginning to think the Union drop ship and associated gameplay mechanics ideas need a thread of their own.

[Grus]

Wait... Pat Knell and Just call me Ash went clan?! But...but... I liked shooting at them... back on topic.
If you get steamrolled then you get steam filled and figure out why. Otherwise you get what we have here 9 pages later. If you want serious critique on your game, record it, post it, and ask for advice. You can expect some trolls to post a potato or two but you might get some of the big dogs to give you a serious review. Maybe...

Carl Vickers, on 12 July 2017 - 05:49 PM, said:

What happens when terrirbad potato's and units trying to protect their lead decide to camp in their own DZ? This is why people are against giving more firepower to drop zones.

let the starch flow!

[Grus]

mycroft000, on 14 July 2017 - 09:24 AM, said:

I think I've posted several times about removing skirmish from FP, if not here then likely on the big Facebook group. Skirmish is the mode I like least in both FP and QP.

Skirmish in QP is uninteresting because it offers no way for the enemy team to surprise anyone with a need to return to base, or to collect resources before you lose to a runaway train effect.

Skirmish in FP isn't enjoyable to me because if we've got a 15-20 mech lead, I don't want to be forced to seek out and kill every last survivor. I want to be able to complete an objective and queue up for the next match.

But if we did have capture-able drop zones and a more defensible(and also destructible) drop ship then that could add depth back into QP that isn't there now.

Plausible scenario:

Two forces drop into the designated combat zone and fight it out, one team gains an advantage and captures two of their enemies drop zones. This triggers the losing team's Union drop ship to come in at the third drop zone.

I'd want to see the drop ship have landing gear, engines, or mechbay doors that can be targeted and destroyed, as well as weapon banks that can be destroyed as well(all would be extremely difficult to destroy, but the corresponding rewards could be significant enough to be worth the risk of attacking the drop ship).

The winning team would need to keep 1 mech each on the captured drop zone to keep the other team from gaining the option of dropping away from the Union ship. This would give depth to the gameplay of 10v12, and would lead to possible decisions of "Do we keep this pilot on the captured zone(earning rewards for holding the zone), or do we rotate him out for someone who's been damaged heavily during the siege of the drop ship, or do we back off from the drop zones and try to draw our enemies out from their defended drop ship?"

...

...

I'm beginning to think the Union drop ship and associated gameplay mechanics ideas need a thread of their own.

could you imagine overlords dropping down to unload mech in different directions from its bays and it had all applicable naval firepower?! That would put a hamper or atlest give the drop breathing room before they got wiped..