63 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

Huh. I play in a 12man and we coordinate very effectively on doing damage and killing stuff.

This game is literally about big fighting robots. Combat is literally the only point to this game. The teamwork and strategy is all about the combat. The thinking is about the best way to win the combat.

[mogs01gt]

this is why I hate that I cant just select skirmish to play.

[Grus]

MischiefSC, on 24 September 2017 - 12:52 PM, said:

I'm a big fan of winning.

However, which is better - a hard fought victory in a match that is talked about long after and for which toy were richly rewarded

Or

The other team didn't show, you win by default and nobody gets any bonus pay, the fans amble out muttering that you guys couldn't have beaten the other team if they hadn't been held up.

Both are a win. One is way more satisfying than the other.

Objectives exist to force a fight a prevent turtling. At the time they originated poptarting was king and teams would take high ground/best cover and just turtle, poptarting anyone who came into range. Objectives stopped that. It was never intended as a way to avoid shooting stompy robbits in a stompy robbit shooting game.

this. Add to that if you didn't defend the objective does it matter if you have the best robot or not?

[Requiemking]

MischiefSC, on 25 September 2017 - 07:08 AM, said:

Huh. I play in a 12man and we coordinate very effectively on doing damage and killing stuff.

This game is literally about big fighting robots. Combat is literally the only point to this game. The teamwork and strategy is all about the combat. The thinking is about the best way to win the combat.

The only reason thats the case is because everything aside from combat nets you next to nothing. Reduce the payout for combat and massively increase the value of actually playing the objective and that will change.

[Mystere]

Requiemking, on 25 September 2017 - 10:54 AM, said:

The only reason thats the case is because everything aside from combat nets you next to nothing. Reduce the payout for combat and massively increase the value of actually playing the objective and that will change.

Been there. Done that. (Well, almost)

The end result was constant, massive, and endless wailing from people complaining about others doing the objectives.

Edited by Mystere, 25 September 2017 - 11:01 AM.

[Relixander]

Enemy mechs are an objective for every single game mode!

So yes, get out there and play those objectives and destroy enemy mechs. Then when they are eliminated go play versus the objectives that don't shoot back.

[Verilligo]

It seems like a lot of this is coming from bad terminology. They really shouldn't be calling it the objective because it's not a win condition. The "objective" is your secondary LOSS condition. The fact that one team ends up winning is incidental to that. You're not actually intended to play the objective, other than to put pressure on the opposing team to prevent their eventual loss.

This is also why Conquest gets a pay bonus, because in that mode you ARE actually intended to play the objective. The problem is that the matchmaker sees all lights as equal, when some lights (looking directly at you, Cougar) don't play to type at all. Secondary to that, as Mischief said, leveraging the win condition for Conquest is a lot easier when you happen to have a numerical advantage... which means you have to give-and-take the entire match between whether to fight or cap. With some maps, like Polar, if you don't have some mechs constantly thinking about the objective then it's all too easy to lose. That's probably also why Conquest isn't super popular and why we therefore can't just let people pick one gamemode and play only that.

[Mcgral18]

Trissila, on 24 September 2017 - 11:57 AM, said:

MWO is the only game/community I have ever encountered that actively wants to avoid the objective and complains if you attempt to achieve it.

No wonder the playercount is in the dumpster.

Then again, I guess I'm old; I come from an era where progress bars and payouts weren't the 'point' of competitive multiplayer video games, just victory over the opposing team.

The point of the game is Shooty Stompy Robots
There is literally only ONE good objective in MWO, which isn't subject to Griefing (IE, not poorly designed)
That is Conquest

It doesn't allow base rushing (which in certain situations, cannot be countered by firepower measures, or positioning)
It doesn't allow hiding mechs (until time out)

It REQUIRES movement of the team, and objectives cannot outright be ignored (aside from certain Total Annihilation tactics)


Escort? Outright poor design, with the inability to control the Very Important Potato, and his vulnerability the size of a building being uncontrollable
Better option: Non-killable APC of some sort. Smaller, and player controlled movement via a radius (at whichever speed, faster than current)

There, fixed some terrible flaws ....also let the defenders KNOW THE PATH HE'S TAKING

Incursion should have been Asym, period
The current implementation could not have feasibly been worse
Terrible addition to the game

Assault, they've fixed the cap rushing with the time-out after being hit
Thank you, PGI. You fixed a terrible game mode with that simple solution.



Anyhow, I'm here to play Shooty Stompy Robots
Not wait 4 minutes to get a match started, and have someone troll me out of that time. I'm not able to de-select the terrible game modes anymore, I'm forced by PGI to play their terrible decisions and designs

Of course, the solution was for me to play less and less, and stop giving them money
I'm not interested in PUG LIFE anymore
I'm here for organized gameplay like NBT and MRBC

Of course, with the ever decreasing quality of the game...maybe I'll just have to stop entirely.
Strange how PGI has let that happen...

MischiefSC, on 24 September 2017 - 12:52 PM, said:

I'm a big fan of winning.

However, which is better - a hard fought victory in a match that is talked about long after and for which toy were richly rewarded

Or

The other team didn't show, you win by default and nobody gets any bonus pay, the fans amble out muttering that you guys couldn't have beaten the other team if they hadn't been held up.

Both are a win. One is way more satisfying than the other.

Objectives exist to force a fight a prevent turtling. At the time they originated poptarting was king and teams would take high ground/best cover and just turtle, poptarting anyone who came into range. Objectives stopped that. It was never intended as a way to avoid shooting stompy robbits in a stompy robbit shooting game.

Game modes should just be fixed...or at least let us choose not to play their terribly designed options.

Asym, on 25 September 2017 - 05:39 AM, said:

And, now we know why PGI is headed to Solaris.....

Kind of like playing Doom with red and blue Robots in a small dungeon where all you do is shoot at anything that moves....

If that happens, well, we'll lose a portion of the non-existent MWO population that "wants to think", wants real teams and wants to "try and win" by outsmarting the bad guys......

Oh gosh, I forgot ! Most of you only want to destroy mechs and accumulate damage no matter the cost ! Oooops, here, and I thought MWO is advertised as a "teamwork" required game? Remind me of that as I'm being destroyed in the Big Yellow circle in a Domination match where I can see the Heavy and Assault mechs, hiding behind cover, laughing their butts off as the pieces come off my Nova and I end up with 50 damage and the "hero's" wait till the very end to decimate or be decimated (and then, find fault with everything)......

Good form lads.....jolly good form.

MWO objectives don't make you think
"Are they rushing the base" if Yes, fustercluck back to the base before they win without any gameplay actually occuring
Satiate the griefers by purging them

If no, play Shooty Stompy Robots, the way it's meant to be played


If you'd just stop being Terribad, maybe you'd enjoy the game more

mogs01gt, on 25 September 2017 - 09:33 AM, said:

this is why I hate that I cant just select skirmish to play.

Conquest isn't a bad game mode either

Two solid gamemodes, and may time wasting options you can no longer opt out of
Thank you PGI....PGIplzno

[MischiefSC]

Requiemking, on 25 September 2017 - 10:54 AM, said:

The only reason thats the case is because everything aside from combat nets you next to nothing. Reduce the payout for combat and massively increase the value of actually playing the objective and that will change.

Except why am I going to spend 5 minutes waiting and loading to get into a match and NOT want to shoot stompy robbits?

Look, Portal is a great game. Echo, new game on Steam, a great intellectual challenge. Chess? I still say it's the most enjoyable intellectual PvP experience you can have.

This however is a game based entirely around shooting stompy robbits. It's good to have things to manipulate to force behaviors out of the enemy to control when and where the fight takes place but there's no reason to play mwo except for the fighting. As such changes to objectives to make people try to play without fighting is a terrible idea.

[Lykaon]

Just the other day I was playing solo quick play. The mode was assault the map was Polar highlands. A few minutes into the battle our base was being capped.

So,I mentioned on comms that someone fast needs to get back to base and intercede and report what was there. I was piloting a Marauder 5D and very much involved in the battle my team was winning and quite convincingly all the while our base is being capped.I assumed that my 75 ton heavy with a 300 rated engine wasn't the ideal choice to break off from the front lines and run all the way back to our base nearly 1km behind my possition. So I eventually finished off my last target and looked for another (by now we have an 8 kill lead) and see an enemy Direwolf being engaged by a Cicada and a Wolfhound right about then we lost to the capture of our base.

The end of match score board listed our three fastest mechs as alive at the end Kitfox,Wolfhound and Cicada as well as a Shadowcat. Any one of them could have made it back to base to defend and report. Any two of them could have killed the one enemy light mech capping us.

So who's fault was it? the game mode? several pilots who utterly failed to fill their roles for the mode?

[Vellron2005]

Right now, the game is set up in such a way that it's far less profitable to actually go for wining by objective, than wining by total enemy wipe.

This game does not reward getting the job done. It rewards farming the enemy and stripping him to the bone.

The ONLY time I've ever felt that the objective mattered was during the Tukayyid events. That was when I would have rather just won a quick victory than farmed the enemy for points, because it was about more than personal glory.. It was about honor and bragging rights.. and the event itself was set up in such a way that you would win all the rewards by simply playing..

There's none of that feeling in regular play.. EXCEPT in siege mode.. that is the ONLY mode that rewards a win.. but again, winning the mode is motivated by the massive cbill boost and faction play points.. not for some glory or greater purpose..

Win or lose, it's important to get kills, KMDDs and loads of damage.. and that's simply the state of the game.

Edited by Vellron2005, 26 September 2017 - 11:50 PM.

[Sjorpha]

I play for the win, not for the score. I will always try to do the thing that maximizes my teams chance of winning. I essentially dont care that much if the win is quick or slow, or whether it involves doing a lot of damage or not.

It just so happens that winning the fight is usually the best way to win in this game, pure objective rushes aren't a good idea against good opponents because they can often be stopped easily and then you're down on kills from not focusing mechs. But if i do think objective rush is the highest chance of winning in any given scenario I'm doing it. I won't push to the dropzone if i can just kill omega. I won't search for the last mech in assault if i can just go cap the base more easily. If the enemy team doesn't get into the domination circle in time...

Also keep in mind that winning quickly might net a low match score, but it gets you into the next match quicker. I personally believe that a series of quick wins gives more cbills per minute than a few long matches with lower win rate.

[Sjorpha]

I also see comments along the line of "There is no point to winning in this game", this is a very difficult position for me to understand.

In what game is there a "point" to winning? Winning is the locus of a competitive experience, whether you are playing casually or competitively the fun in the playing experience is organized around trying to win the game. Chess, football, MWO...winning serves the same purpose, it is a necessary goal to make the game a game. There is no "point" beyond being this locus of your enjoyment of the game, once the game is over this purpose is fulfilled.

You can try mixing in other goals if you want, like maxing out damage or executing elegant strategies, but just imagine trying to do so without the win condition itself, you need to strive towatds winning for the game to be a game.

If you dont find this a sufficient "point" you probably shouldn't be playing competitive games in the first place.

[MischiefSC]

Sjorpha, on 27 September 2017 - 01:04 AM, said:

I play for the win, not for the score. I will always try to do the thing that maximizes my teams chance of winning. I essentially dont care that much if the win is quick or slow, or whether it involves doing a lot of damage or not.

It just so happens that winning the fight is usually the best way to win in this game, pure objective rushes aren't a good idea against good opponents because they can often be stopped easily and then you're down on kills from not focusing mechs. But if i do think objective rush is the highest chance of winning in any given scenario I'm doing it. I won't push to the dropzone if i can just kill omega. I won't search for the last mech in assault if i can just go cap the base more easily. If the enemy team doesn't get into the domination circle in time...

Also keep in mind that winning quickly might net a low match score, but it gets you into the next match quicker. I personally believe that a series of quick wins gives more cbills per minute than a few long matches with lower win rate.

Nope. Load screens getting in and out of matches, plus wait and load times for the matches, plus time to contact in match means you'll make more money fighting and doing 300 damage, 1 kill and 3 assists over 8 minutes than 100 damage and a win in 3 minutes.

Significantly more.

Longer matches with more damage, more assists and especially a kmdd or two are the bread and butter. With almost 70% of your time invested being just getting in and out you'll make more fighting every match.

[SFC174]

Sjorpha, on 27 September 2017 - 01:43 AM, said:

I also see comments along the line of "There is no point to winning in this game", this is a very difficult position for me to understand.

In what game is there a "point" to winning? Winning is the locus of a competitive experience, whether you are playing casually or competitively the fun in the playing experience is organized around trying to win the game. Chess, football, MWO...winning serves the same purpose, it is a necessary goal to make the game a game. There is no "point" beyond being this locus of your enjoyment of the game, once the game is over this purpose is fulfilled.

You can try mixing in other goals if you want, like maxing out damage or executing elegant strategies, but just imagine trying to do so without the win condition itself, you need to strive towatds winning for the game to be a game.

If you dont find this a sufficient "point" you probably shouldn't be playing competitive games in the first place.

It all depends on the priority of the players. If winning doesn't really feel like winning and losing doesn't feel like losing (say, you have a 12 to 6 kill advantage on a conquest game, but your enemy did a great job capping and they win on points) then having that extra mark in the victory column may not mean much.

While MWO is billed as a team game (and team play tends to win a lot more often), when you're stuck in Pugland players know that some matches are going to be losses because you get stuck with some really bad players. So they stop caring so much about team objectives (wins, capping, etc.) and start focusing on personal objectives like dmg, kills and KMDD. They can't control their horrible teammates (its all relative), but they at least have a modicum of control over how they use their time in game. Given the choice between running off and capping or scoring another 100 pts dmg, an assist and maybe a kill, a lot (a majority?) will default toward the personal glory first.

Is this a case where better matchmaking might help? Maybe. I certainly don't think it could hurt. Opt in/out on various game modes would also make objective matches better assuming you could actually get a match in a reasonable time frame.

But back to your original point, winning for a lot of players in MWO isn't defined by PGI's win conditions, its defined by their own performance in match, like it or not.

[MechWarrior5152251]

Not if you get all the kills on a team of potatoes....

[terrycloth]

The game's usually over for me in two minutes no matter if I try to rush the objective or fight, so why draw it out?

Loading time doesn't really count since I can switch to another window and read fanfiction or something.

[Cato Phoenix]

Wow.

This continues, even in events. A team I solo dropped with in FP just gen rushed, against pugs, with a drop caller directing the rush. Didn't appear to be a full premade or a big unit, either.

• Gen rushing, against -Pugs-. With enough experienced players on our team that would have likely made the game go our favor anyways.
  
• Gen rushing, with a near 100% clan win bar - what's the point of a quick win?

Long story short, the match ended : only 2 players on our 'winning' team (Me with match score of 260 or something and a guy who managed to snatch 170) made greater than 150 match score, so no one was even qualifying for event rewards.

It's like a Pied Potato Piper leading the Pugs. Sigh.

[Davegt27]

OP any chance we can stop crying about one thing or another for 1 week

[Bishop Steiner]

MadRover, on 24 September 2017 - 01:41 PM, said:

capping the base in WoT is only acceptable if your team royally screwed up and is about to lose. Otherwise do it enough everyone will pretty much TK you every game.

half the players in WoT are TKing every match anyhow for giggles, apparently. People think we have an obnoxious mix of Trolls and Tryhards in MWO? Lol. Pure bush league compared to the crap that goes on in WoT.