55 replies to this topic

[Yosharian]

So I was playing Escort the other day and I had the fortune of listening to an interesting conversation over VOIP. It gave me an idea.

Problem: Escort is frustrating. The VIP goes in directs you don't expect, often into bad areas. It often gets itself killed.

Solution: give the job of piloting the VIP mech to a player. This will give teams greater control over where their VIP mech goes.

However, this leads us to another problem.

Problem: who wants to pilot a VIP Atlas? That is boring.

Solution: instead of the VIP mech being an Atlas, introduce something unusual:

Spoiler

It could be a quad, or a superheavy, but either way make it something unusual, something that can't be normally piloted. (The mech in the picture is an Omega Superheavy Battlemech, by the way. http://www.sarna.net...ega_(BattleMech) )

OBVIOUSLY the mech would be armed. Not fun to pilot a mech with no weapons.

Problem: how do we decide who gets to pilot the VIP?

Solution: either choose randomly, or have a vote, at the start of the game.

I think this would be a really fun way to improve Escort and actually make it fun.

There could even be another game mode where each team has one of these Superheavy mechs each, they could face off against each other, etc.

There might be a system in the mechlab where you can customize what equipment the VIP carries when you drop with it, but that might be a little complicated.

Anyway, what do you guys think?

UPDATE

As per comments below:

Problem: chosen player will grief/troll the team by not moving the VIP, or suiciding it

Solution: each player will have a 'VIP' ranking which is simply the number of times they have piloted the VIP mech to victory. This is visible when voting takes place.

Solution2: there are systems in place to enable PGI to punish trolls/griefers. I think 'it'll just get trolled' is a lazy excuse, frankly. Players can easily ruin games already by suiciding their 100t mechs and denying their team the tonnage. Of course there will be idiots but that's what the report button is for. It can't be worse than the current situation, which is that we get trolled by the ******* CPU VIP.

Problem: customizing the mech is too complicated.

Solution: allow for a selection of preconfigured+prebuffed mech builds (thanks to Deathlike for this suggestion)

Idea: The mech IS the VIP. Your contractor wants to reverse engineer the Superheavy so you have to ensure its safety for extraction. (thanks to Hit The Deck)

Problem: the VIP player might disconnect

Solution: CPU takes over.
Solution2: vote in a new player - their mech explodes and they are transferred instantly to the VIP.
Solution3: dead player can take the disconnected player's place.

Idea: The VIP being user-controlled will probably never happen, but there's some fun stuff here, so let's build on it. The VIP being a super-heavy, or some other sort of unique mech with a purpose is a great idea. Imagine, if you will; The VIP is a mobile-artillery platform, en-route to a firing position. Once the VIP arrives at its firing position, it begins shelling a distant fortification. If the VIP takes a certain amount of damage along the way, it has to pause for a moment before it can fire/move again. VIP defenders win if the fortification is destroyed or has taken more damage than the VIP at time up. Attackers win if the VIP is destroyed, or has taken more damage than the fortification at time up. (thanks to 0Jiggs0)

UPDATE2

Idea: About the artillery part, how about piloting Long Tom artillery vehicle. It's 95t, can be way heavy armored than mechs, and it doesn't even need walking animation. Well it can be a mech too, the main point is that it should be brokenly OP artillery. So it still is escort, but the artillery piece need to get to evac zone ammo depo (like generator in incursion), and after that it can fire outrageously strong shells. (thanks to Zigmund Freud; btw I never suggested the VIP being mobile artillery)

Idea: How about not having the thing you are escorting being one of the easiest mechs in the game to put fire onto, and be something that actually makes contextual sense for the game?

MFB + generators convoy.

1. They make sense contextually, and could/should be used to lead up to the siege type matches of FW.

2. They aren't giant lumbering targets. Which means you can actually defend shots on them, and they can at least moderately use terrain as cover as they pass through the map.

3. There's multiple targets to protect. That could go a few ways - most interestingly there could be 3 with 3 routes that forces that mode into lances. Or the lcd route which simply gives you x/x targets on one path to achieve victory which at least gives the defenders a fighting chance. (thanks to sycocys)

Idea: As long as crazy ideas are welcome - arm VIP, put a player in it, allow player to torso twist and shoot only, movement is by AI. This solves problem of disconnects and trolling to some extent. (thanks to MikeBend; I think having backup AI for disconnects is fine, but I think if players are to be put in the mech they're gonna want to pilot it completely rather than be stuck on a preset path)

Idea: Also, the game should remember your weapon groups for when you pilot the VIP.. (thanks to Vellron2005)

Idea: If you incentivise being the VIP with cBills, XP (thanks to Xetelian; I think the VIP player should be rewarded with 500k extra cbills if they finish the game successfully; also suggested by Asym)

Idea: 1. Show the route the vip will take for defenders. 2. Let the company commander issue a simple stop-go commands to vip (thanks to JediPanther)

Idea: would be great if the vip could actually return fire. at least anything in its firing arc that it can shoot at without changing its course. (LordNothing)

Idea: The VIP travels through predetermined waypoints (with several variable configurations of waypoints to prevent predictability) The route and waypoints are visable to the defenders on the minimap and Battlegrid map. This removes the need for the defenders to guess where the VIP is going and allows some pre-planning on how to defend.(thanks to Lykaon)

Idea: Remove the ECM towers. The VIP already has ECM and the capture mechanics allows the attacking team to gain the ECM effects buffing the team that already has the greater tactical flexability and likelyhood of victory.
If the concern is the VIP being overly vulnerable to LRMs then increase the VIP's ECM effects and/or add twin AMS to the VIP. (thanks to Lykaon)

Edited by Yosharian, 19 February 2018 - 02:31 PM.

[Deathlike]

Yosharian, on 18 February 2018 - 08:35 PM, said:

So I was playing Escort the other day and I had the fortune of listening to an interesting conversation over VOIP. It gave me an idea.

Problem: Escort is frustrating. The VIP goes in directs you don't expect, often into bad areas. It often gets itself killed.

Solution: give the job of piloting the VIP mech to a player. This will give teams greater control over where their VIP mech goes.

However, this leads us to another problem.

Problem: who wants to pilot a VIP Atlas? That is boring.

Solution: instead of the VIP mech being an Atlas, introduce something unusual:

Spoiler

It could be a quad, or a superheavy, but either way make it something unusual, something that can't be normally piloted. (The mech in the picture is an Omega Superheavy Battlemech, by the way. http://www.sarna.net...ega_(BattleMech) )

Problem: how do we decide who gets to pilot the VIP?

Solution: either choose randomly, or have a vote, at the start of the game.

I think this would be a really fun way to improve Escort and actually make it fun.

There could even be another game mode where each team has one of these Superheavy mechs each, they could face off against each other, etc.

There might be a system in the mechlab where you can customize what equipment the VIP carries when you drop with it, but that might be a little complicated.

Anyway, what do you guys think?

The idea of having an actual play pilot the mech was always floated and ignored as usual.

With that said, I don't think having it "fully customizable" would be appropriate, but rather allow for a selection of preconfigured+prebuffed mech builds (not just always go Atlas) like the Warhawk or Wubshee Banshee or something of consequence that isn't a complete derp in all maps.

Also, Escort was never great, ever.

Edited by Deathlike, 18 February 2018 - 08:40 PM.

[Nik Reaper]

Deathlike, on 18 February 2018 - 08:39 PM, said:

...

Also, Escort was never great, ever.

Indeed, I understood that mode as a herald of AI to the MWO in the form of future NPCs to shoot at, but it ended with a half pointless path-finding routine where it remained... At least I hope it was useful to MW5 as to not be a total waste.

[Hit the Deck]

Weird, I suggested the same thing (Superheavy VIP).

The VIP (or VIM) is in fact the Superheavy 'mech itself and not the person inside it.

Your contractor wants to reverse engineer it so you have to ensure its safety for extraction.

Edited by Hit the Deck, 18 February 2018 - 08:51 PM.

[A Headless Chicken]

Ever heard of 'captain mode'? It was one of my favorite PVP modes in another game called Dragon Nest.

A randomly-selected player on each side has the VIP 'Mech with better armor and loadout (heck, an Atlas with a champion loadout and current armor value is good enough). They could implement different VIPs for the 4 classes to make things a little less static. This also lets the team decide if they want to wimp out and get the VIP to the escape, or support their captain in demolishing the enemy team. Ideally both sides have a VIP but it would get a little lopsided if the mode was still asymmetrical.

...But of course it leads to people questioning your skill and trash talk should the VIP somehow get rekt thru flanking or when he does a yolo rush.

Edited by A Headless Chicken, 18 February 2018 - 08:58 PM.

[Roughneck45]

It sounds cool but its too easy to grief, and disconnects are way too common in this game.

[JediPanther]

There is nothing really that can be done to improve escort. Op's idea is usually the most requested 'fix' soon vetoed under the assumption that the player controlling the mech would suicide,not move, or other such troll activities. Hell the defenders don't even know where the vip is going and there are usually one of two routes. The vip has no weapons or ecm and just suicides into the enemy fire line a lot.

On the rare side you can 'walk the robot' under ecm with a lone mech while the 11 others go on the offensive and hope those 11 can beat the enemy. Even if you do win on just objective as that ecm you only get 75 or 80,000 cbill which is a slight amount higher than the 35,000 it use to be. I've posted the screen shots proving this in other escort threads.

The two changes that would improve escort drastically are so dam simple you wonder why the pgi monkey intern didn't just add them. 1. Show the route the vip will take for defenders. 2. Let the company commander issue a simple stop-go commands to vip. There isn't a modern game out there that can not make an ai do a simple stop or pause before continuing on a set path. Even mgs1 on ps1 or medal of honor had this.

[Khobai]

escort is unfun because its asymmetrical

Id rather see escort turned into a symmetrical breakthrough gamemode where both teams have a VIP they need to protect

if both VIPs evac at the same time, and both are damaged, the team with the less damaged one wins

if both VIPs evac at the same time and are undamaged or have the same damage, its a tie

I would give the VIPs weapons too to make it more interesting. An unarmed atlas is boring.

Edited by Khobai, 18 February 2018 - 09:34 PM.

[FireStoat]

The first and biggest change Escort needs is with taking damage in attempting to cap a point halting the progress. The game mode was out for MONTHS and this wasn't a problem. The Attacking team could run a light or medium up quickly to a point at the early part of a match and cap a point while being visible on the Defender's minimap the entire time for LRM locks. Missiles might fly over but the progress wasn't halted. You took damage but could gut out getting the point.

Not any longer. Some genius at PGI changed it so that an Attacker running up to cap a point has the progress halted from damage taken. The Defending team now doesn't have to risk their hides at all, not even a little, to lob LRMs at a capping mech to halt the progress and damage them them for free. This is pure crap -- I double dog dare someone to defend this mechanic as being "fun".

Keep in mind that while Capping a point in Assault or other modes can have the progress halted from damage taken, the attacking mech doesn't get a freakin' free lock on from across the map while you're doing it. So you can leave that comparison off the table.

[PocketYoda]

I like the idea but with PGI i wouldn't hold your breath.. i think the random player getting VIP than voting would be fairer.

[0Jiggs0]

The VIP being user-controlled will probably never happen, but there's some fun stuff here, so let's build on it. The VIP being a super-heavy, or some other sort of unique mech with a purpose is a great idea. Imagine, if you will; The VIP is a mobile-artillery platform, en-route to a known firing position. Once the VIP arrives at its firing position, it begins shelling a distant fortification. If the VIP takes a certain amount of damage along the way, it has to pause for a moment before it can fire/move again. VIP defenders win if the fortification is destroyed or has taken more damage than the VIP at time up. Attackers win if the VIP is destroyed, or has taken more damage than the fortification at time up.

Ditto to Khobai on arming the VIP. Especially if the mode were changed the way I described.

Also; The current Escort setup would be much better if the defenders knew where the VIP was going. If it's going to be stupid, the defending team should at least be able to plan for it.

Edited by 0Jiggs0, 19 February 2018 - 12:29 AM.

[Yosharian]

0Jiggs0, on 19 February 2018 - 12:22 AM, said:

The VIP being user-controlled will probably never happen, but there's some fun stuff here, so let's build on it. The VIP being a super-heavy, or some other sort of unique mech with a purpose is a great idea. Imagine, if you will; The VIP is a mobile-artillery platform, en-route to a firing position. Once the VIP arrives at its firing position, it begins shelling a distant fortification. If the VIP takes a certain amount of damage along the way, it has to pause for a moment before it can fire/move again. VIP defenders win if the fortification is destroyed or has taken more damage than the VIP at time up. Attackers win if the VIP is destroyed, or has taken more damage than the fortification at time up.

Ditto to Khobai on arming the VIP. Especially if the mode were changed the way I described.

I like this idea too

[Vellron2005]

I think making the VIP a player-controlled Superheavy (and super-armed) mech is one of the best ideas I've heard for Escort so far..

The very fact that it would be the ONLY Superheavy in the game would make people want to play it..

I love the idea of the mech, and not the pilot, being the VIP.. it's immersive and makes sense..

And if the players discos, or is AFK for more than a minute, the standard A.I. can take over.. (this should be done for all discos and AFKs)

The VIP should be assigned randomly, and it should have 5-6 pre-made builds, also assigned randomly, just to keep it interesting..

Also, the game should remember your weapon groups for when you pilot the VIP..

Edited by Vellron2005, 19 February 2018 - 02:04 AM.

[Xetelian]

You try to address the common arguments about VIP mode being players but I just don't think it can be done.

If the VIP's game crashes, you get PGIs idea of a bot and we all know that is garbage. If you get to blow up your mech and take it over, you're down a mech AND have to babysit the VIP.

If you report for trolling, what stops the player ultimately? PGI likely needs a few hundred reports before they ban a player for their repeated trolling and there are MANY ways to troll. Instead of walking out of bounds, how about I just derp into the enemy team? Or decide to go a long convoluted route? I'm sure there are many other ways to troll people by playing as the VIP.



Give the VIP too much armament and armor and the attackers are at a disadvantage, give it too little and the defenders are at a disadvantage. With an asymmetrical mode it is even harder to balance around. How fast is the VIP going to move? Too fast and the attackers are at a disadvantage, too slow and the defenders are.


As it stands now, most of my experience in Escort has been a skirmish match where the VIP is abandoned and the usual positions are taken up for the fight and if necessary we send a fast mech back to the VIP to chase off a light mech. How would this dynamic change? If the VIP can defend himself but is slow you have even more reason to abandon him.




I don't trust the vast majority of MWO players to iron my shirt let alone pilot the VIP and I don't want to be the guy who ALWAYS pilots the VIP in Escort either. If it is up to a vote, and I just happened to have the best stats because the rest of the team is somehow worse than me, that isn't fun for me.

If you incentivise being the VIP with cBills, XP and the chance to pilot a super heavy or quad, you'll get a small niche of players that always get voted in and 11 other people who wanted it but don't happen to have the stats accumulated for it will feel like they're missing out.


Screw making it random. Seriously, screw that.



I like that you took the time to accumulate or come up with arguments but I think the overall potential for a poor outcome is much heavier than the potential for a good outcome.

[Khobai]

Quote

Give the VIP too much armament and armor and the attackers are at a disadvantage, give it too little and the defenders are at a disadvantage. With an asymmetrical mode it is even harder to balance around. How fast is the VIP going to move? Too fast and the attackers are at a disadvantage, too slow and the defenders are.

which is exactly why it should be a symmetrical gamemode

give each team a VIP. each team has to get their VIP to the other side of the map.

making them armed superheavies would be icing on the cake

[sycocys]

How about not having the thing you are escorting being one of the easiest mechs in the game to put fire onto, and be something that actually makes contextual sense for the game?

MFB + generators convoy.

1. They make sense contextually, and could/should be used to lead up to the siege type matches of FW.

2. They aren't giant lumbering targets. Which means you can actually defend shots on them, and they can at least moderately use terrain as cover as they pass through the map.

3. There's multiple targets to protect. That could go a few ways - most interestingly there could be 3 with 3 routes that forces that mode into lances. Or the lcd route which simply gives you x/x targets on one path to achieve victory which at least gives the defenders a fighting chance.

[Hit the Deck]

Xetelian, on 19 February 2018 - 02:31 AM, said:

...
If you incentivise being the VIP with cBills, XP and the chance to pilot a super heavy or quad, you'll get a small niche of players that always get voted in and 11 other people who wanted it but don't happen to have the stats accumulated for it will feel like they're missing out.
...

The VIP can give his/her status to someone else at the loading screen before the match starts.

[MikeBend]

As long as crazy ideas are welcome - arm VIP, put a player in it, allow player to torso twist and shoot only, movement is by AI. This solves problem of disconnects and trolling to some extent.

[Pocket_Aces]

A convoy type scenario would be better I think, a few convoy supply trucks with some MBT defending it, just some lowly ML tanks (also known as moving turrets). No radar stations, I mean roilly, you had time to set up radar stations?

There could even be a scatter mechanic that when they come under fire they scatter in different directions. If finding them was a problem, on maps with terrain (Tourmaline) they could have trails of dust.

Slow assaults on the attacking team will be the problem, they may not be able catch the convoy.

[Nema Nabojiv]

Yosharian, on 18 February 2018 - 08:35 PM, said:

Solution: instead of the VIP mech being an Atlas, introduce something unusual:

PGI spending resources on making a mech and not selling it as a mechpack? Highly unlikely.