13 replies to this topic

[VonBruinwald]

Scouting needs a fix to detract from the current 4v4 brawl, how about this for a poke:

The dropship drops the attackers off as per norm, however the dropship remains a permanet feature with its dropzone for the entire match.

Attackers have one objective:
- Gather intel and return it to the dropzone (a la battaeries in incursion (multiple nodes may be carried simultaneously)).

Defenders have one objective:
- Neutralise intel nodes before they can be gathered.

In the event of a brawling victory:
- If the defenders are all destroyed all unclaimed nodes are allocated to the attackers.
- If the attackers are all destroyed all unclaimed nodes are allocated to the defenders.

In the event of a time out:
- All unclaimed nodes are allocated to the defenders.

Win/Lose is determined by who collected/neutralised the majority of the intel.

[Nameless King]

VonBruinwald, on 05 November 2017 - 08:09 AM, said:

Scouting needs a fix to detract from the current 4v4 brawl, how about this for a poke:

The dropship drops the attackers off as per norm, however the dropship remains a permanet feature with its dropzone for the entire match.

Attackers have one objective:
- Gather intel and return it to the dropzone (a la battaeries in incursion (multiple nodes may be carried simultaneously)).

Defenders have one objective:
- Neutralise intel nodes before they can be gathered.

In the event of a brawling victory:
- If the defenders are all destroyed all unclaimed nodes are allocated to the attackers.
- If the attackers are all destroyed all unclaimed nodes are allocated to the defenders.

In the event of a time out:
- All unclaimed nodes are allocated to the defenders.

Win/Lose is determined by who collected/neutralised the majority of the intel.

Scouting needs no fix, the 4x4 brawl is the best thing.

[Spheroid]

I think 4v4 conquest would be great, with the caveat that you are forced to bring one of each weight class.

If you blob and travel at the speed of the assault you lose on caps and if you split and fight you have a series of 1v1 or similar small sized duels with corresponding long ttk. Much longer than the 4v4 blob ttk.

Casuals would even like it as they could bring lurms and not feel useless while supporting a distant teammate.

[Asym]

Spheroid, on 05 November 2017 - 09:06 AM, said:

I think 4v4 conquest would be great, with the caveat that you are forced to bring one of each weight class.

If you blob and travel at the speed of the assault you lose on caps and if you split and fight you have a series of 1v1 or similar small sized duels with corresponding long ttk. Much longer than the 4v4 blob ttk.

Casuals would even like it as they could bring lurms and not feel useless while supporting a distant teammate.

????? Ah, they are bringing LRMs and ATM's now ! Last night that's all we saw to the point that we brought a AMS Kit Fox !

Both teams had 1 intel point and from there is was a brawl.... The after mission discussion on TS was that now that we brought a Kit Fox AMS platform, which they hadn't expected, maybe they'd try another boating solution..... Can't wait to see what that team comes up with because it's become an arms race again............with nothing to do with collecting data.

[FupDup]

Spheroid, on 05 November 2017 - 09:06 AM, said:

I think 4v4 conquest would be great, with the caveat that you are forced to bring one of each weight class.

If you blob and travel at the speed of the assault you lose on caps and if you split and fight you have a series of 1v1 or similar small sized duels with corresponding long ttk. Much longer than the 4v4 blob ttk.

Casuals would even like it as they could bring lurms and not feel useless while supporting a distant teammate.

Sounds like it would just require fast assaults like the Gargoyle.

[Pariah Devalis]

Frankly, what I'd love to see added to Scouting is simple:

Allow the defenders to shoot down the enemy dropship. Hand in hand with that, give the ship most of its firepower back. A Leopard dropship is armed with:
2 x PPCs
3 x LRM-20s
7 x Medium Lasers
5 x Large Lasers

Giving even half of its firepower back makes it a threat you just don't want to deal with as the defender, putting a good reason to hunt down the scouts early. However, giving the ship a health pool means that dropship diving is a far riskier option, as the defenders no longer need to try and track down 4 fast, small, ecm mechs. Something that, depending on the map, is damned near impossible to counter with foreknowledge of the dive attempt. One can instead just bring down their getaway car directly.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 05 November 2017 - 10:36 AM.

[InvictusLee]

ohh is this a scouting wish-list?!

How bout scouting matches count for 1/25th of the invasion bar when it comes deciding who is winning planets? That way clans cant stomp is and is cant stomp clans in scouting mode, and scouting mode can actually be the game mode that it was intended to be: gathering or defending Intel.

[LordNothing]

i think i disliked 2 things and think they need a redo.

1. the dustof mechanics
2. defenders collecting intel

il start with the second because that ones easy. there is no reason to make defenders cap, in fact they should be able to use their weapons to destroy them at range (encouraging the use of weapons other than srm spam).

as for the first one. the dropship arrives with the first counter and dust off doesnt take place until the second counter is down all the way. doesn't matter if you show up long before the enemy does. this usually means that if you capped and tried to dust off the enemy has plenty of time to turn it into a brawl.

the second wait seems artificial and unnecessary and facilitates the deathbrawl. instead do a single counter for the drop ship arrival. after that dustoff should occur when all still-living friendly mechs are in the circle. after that dustoff takes about 10 seconds. this only counts down at this rate while all the surviving mechs are in the circle and the countdown gets doubled for each one missing (though crippled mechs can eject to prevent legging from screwing with the mechanic). the enemy can stop the countdown by shooting at the dropship or mechs in the circle, this is their last ditch chance to salvage the game. spice it up where you only score points capped by mechs that arrive at the dustoff giving a stealth and survival aspect to the attackers.

theres also the unmentioned third issue that affects every non-skirmish mode in the game, objective are worth jack squat, that guarantees nobody will do them.

[Trissila]

King Alen, on 05 November 2017 - 08:55 AM, said:

Scouting needs no fix, the 4x4 brawl is the best thing.

It absolutely is not. It's a bunch of Bushwackers and Griffins against a bunch of Hunchbacks and Huntsmen, everyone in a splat build staring at each others' feet and holding left mouse. Most of the time the IS 'mechs win because they have more armor, better hitboxes, and their SRMs do more damage. Not blaming the IS players for that, you understand, that's just how the game is.

Every now and then you'll get some deviation from this, but it's rare and the deviating team is all but guaranteed a loss, because nothing about the mode advantages any other setup.

[GrimRiver]

Trissila, on 05 November 2017 - 06:44 PM, said:

It absolutely is not. It's a bunch of Bushwackers and Griffins against a bunch of Hunchbacks and Huntsmen, everyone in a splat build staring at each others' feet and holding left mouse. Most of the time the IS 'mechs win because they have more armor, better hitboxes, and their SRMs do more damage. Not blaming the IS players for that, you understand, that's just how the game is.

Every now and then you'll get some deviation from this, but it's rare and the deviating team is all but guaranteed a loss, because nothing about the mode advantages any other setup.

Pretty much this.

This is why I wanted tonnage brought down to 45 tons for IS and clan, make node and spotting rewards higher than outright damage/kills to encourage playing the mode.

The game mode is called "scouting" after all, and a bunch of 50/55 tonners brawling in 90% of the matches has nothing to do with scouting.

[Lykaon]

Spheroid, on 05 November 2017 - 09:06 AM, said:

Casuals would even like it as they could bring lurms and not feel useless while supporting a distant teammate.

Unless the map is...

River city
Crimson Straight
Mining collective
HPG manifold

Then the terrain does most of the LRM counter play for the enemy they only need about 2 functional brain cells to counter Lurms on these maps.

But I suppose if the map was ...

Polar Highlands
Alpine Peaks
Caustic Valley

They would have a slight edge in effectiveness (as far as Lurms are concerned)

I think all the other maps are fairly "Lurm neutral" with no distinctive advantage to counter play or LRM use.

[Rusharn]

There should be different scouting game modes. I was thinking their should be a raid game mode, where there are three supply depots and the attackers need to destroy two of the three. The supply depots can have walls around them like the power nodes in incursion, were you could shoot through them but it would take time, or you can jump jet in or move in through the entrance and engage at short range.

Then there could be a spy info pick up. The attackers have to get to where the spy hid the data, up load it and then reach the pick up point. The data cache acts like a flag, that if the carrying mech gets killed another attacker can pick it up.

More importantly, increase the awards for collecting data so scout players can get c-bills and match score for escaping with intel, this would encourage scout players to mix things up.

[Khobai]

Quote

Scouting needs no fix, the 4x4 brawl is the best thing.

scouting needs two fixes IMO:

1) defenders should be told the location of the attacker's dropship. its impossible to see the greensmoke on certain maps.

2) the attackers dropship should not be able to depart if theres a defending mech in the dropzone.


that would help prevent the attackers from playing fast mechs like locusts and avoiding the defenders and then just running into the dropzone last second.

Edited by Khobai, 06 November 2017 - 01:21 PM.

[LordNothing]

Khobai, on 06 November 2017 - 01:19 PM, said:

scouting needs two fixes IMO:

1) defenders should be told the location of the attacker's dropship. its impossible to see the greensmoke on certain maps.

2) the attackers dropship should not be able to depart if theres a defending mech in the dropzone.


that would help prevent the attackers from playing fast mechs like locusts and avoiding the defenders and then just running into the dropzone last second.

i like the idea of being able to stun lock the drop zone like you can in domination/conquest/assault. but i dont think precisely revealing the location of the dropship is a good idea. sure i would make it easier to find, have it make a lot of noise, fly on a well visible vector across the map before landing, make the smoke rise up higher, make the ship detectable on radar out to a couple km, etc. just make it a little more obvious. finding the ship should require a little skill.

i also dont like the fixed wait time between the dropship arriving and dustoff, especially if all the mechs are right there from the getgo and theres not an enemy in sight. why would you sit there an extra minute when you could just leave and win? instead make it a cap point like in assault that would take about 15 seconds. this would mean if you squirreled it and showed up first its fairly easy to dustoff. but the cap could be stun locked by shooting at the mechs in the zone or the dropship, or standing in the zone. adds kind of a race to the dropzone element, meaning squirrel tactics would be viable when stealth is used. when a drop zone brawl does happen, its kind of a cheap win to let the clock run down for either side. doesnt make sense that you could load the dropship while under fire. the brawl should come to a decisive end before the game can end.