51 replies to this topic

[AdrenaHawk]

The reason no one wants to do objectives is because the objectives run counter to the game's basic ruleset, ie one mech per round, fifteen minute rounds that take at least two minutes to see any action, and one round per server connect (quickplay match). Imagine if every time you connected to a server in Counter-Strike, you played one round after a minute of warmup and after you die or the match ends you had to connect to a new server and start all over. I don't think a lot of people would want to spend that much time getting ready to play just to have someone rush B and plant the bomb.

The game needs new game modes that make sense with the one mech per round system we've got. Something that makes combat between players the focus, but also rewards team play AND working for the objective. So instead of escorting an AI that blunders around a map with radar towers and turrets, how about the heaviest player on each team (randomly selected if multiple same tonnage) is the VIP, and if the enemy team kills him within a certain time limit, their team gets a bonus 100k cbills or something. The match doesn't end when the VIP dies, you just get a bonus at the end. You can even do something like the VIP can only be "identified" (revealed to be VIP and eligibile for bonus) by a player with TAG or NARC or Active Probe, so infotech plays a role.

Basically, all the game modes besides Skirmish need to be reworked, but considering the last time PGI really tried changing a game mode around was when they put turrets on assault and then took them away again a couple years ago, it's probably not going to happen again.

Edited by AdrenaHawk, 25 February 2018 - 08:14 PM.

[Wil McCullough]

objectives and a single spawn system makes no sense.

- the best way to achieve your objective is to kill your opponents and reduce their ability to respond.
- but if you kill enough of your opponents that they can't effectively contest your objective, you may as well just kill the rest of them because it's faster and seals your victory better.

objective-based gameplay work when it's unlimited respawns or a ticket based system where teams can REACT to strategies/change mechs etc.

to make a good objective-based game, the objective should also never be a "destroy X" kinda deal. that's what leads to gen rush fp tactics where one side just tries to shoot their opponents more than their opponents can shoot down something that doesn't shoot back. it's boring and no matter who wins, everyone loses because everyone gets a bad taste in their mouth whatever the outcome is.

yet this monstrosity of shooting things that don't shoot back has proliferated from fp (siege) into qp (escort).

[Escef]

Xetelian, on 25 February 2018 - 06:41 PM, said:

I propose that we seriously increase the rewards for doing objectives.



Even if they don't get played to, the objectives don't reward squat as it is now.

With the exception of conquest, where games with tight point totals often end up with the losing team making halfway decent bank anyway.

[Khobai]

Quote

I propose that we seriously increase the rewards for doing objectives.

then you just end up with a bunch of rushing gamemodes that arnt fun. thats even worse.


it would be better to take whats good about conquest and incorporate it into the other gamemodes.

like domination should have x3 circles instead of one circle. then teams have to split up and control different parts of the map. less deathballing, less nascaring, more objective based play.

incursion should have the HQ buildings only be damagable by calling down your dropship. that would force you to collect power pellets in order to call in your dropship to damage the enemy base. so youd be fighting over power pellets instead of base rushing. jamming would jam the enemy dropship from attacking your base, and radar would counter enemy jamming. so thered be reasons to use the other towers too.

assault should have two destroyable bases but also have 3 conquest capture points. so you can win either by destroying the enemy base or win by capturing points. having multiple win conditions makes it more dynamic.

etc...

Edited by Khobai, 25 February 2018 - 08:39 PM.

[Asym]

HEY GUYS !!!!

Solaris has ONE OBJECTIVE!!!! To kill the other stompy robot(s)..... Everything else is NON-VALUE ADDED....and, PGI doesn't care since it is NVA....

Objectives? Seriously, where??? Even in conquest it's just a fragmented brawl......few if any take objectives seriously.

Good thought for a mature and declining game though.....

[Scythe Kagato]

Heh, I've actually been TK'd for standing in the Domination circle because some chucklehead wanted to hunt down the last one or two enemy mechs.

[James Argent]

Tiewolf, on 25 February 2018 - 04:54 AM, said:

What about giving a x2 Bonus to C-Bills, XP and matchscore if the game is won by objectives before all enemy mechs are down? Or even better the more enemy mechs are still on the field at the end of a game, the higher the bonus.

Indeed, an employer would be way more generous to those who captured and turned over intact BattleMechs than if they walked away with nothing, or at most the random bits and pieces of destroyed mechs.

[Khobai]

Quote

Objectives? Seriously, where??? Even in conquest it's just a fragmented brawl......few if any take objectives seriously.

its because theres no respawns in quickplay. how do you make objectives matter without respawns? the whole reason games have respawns is to make killing the enemy team less important than completing the objective(s).

I mean you can try to make the gamemodes more like conquest so sometimes you win on objective rather than kills. but thats about all you can do...

Edited by Khobai, 26 February 2018 - 12:07 AM.

[Sunstruck]

First off, quick play modes have no business being in faction. PGI should have put in some effort making more faction maps instead of spending so much time retooling the quickplay maps for a crappy braindead VIP.

In quickplay skirmish and conquest are the only decent modes, because the team can actually decide for themselves what part of the map they want to fight on. All the other quickplay modes are basically putting a toddler leash on the team, forcing them to fight in a specific part of the map no matter what.

Domination mode is the very definition of repetitive and booring.

The VIP pathing is so slow and ******** its almost a facepalm every match.

[sycocys]

Just to put it simply objectives other than skirmish CAN'T work for a few reasons.

1. The maps are tiny, and teams aren't split off into lances with no immediate regroup to death ball option.
2. Related to 1, players refuse any other strategy.
3. Related to 2 - even when we had teams/players actively playing objectives, the skirmish-only crowd had a complete meltdown instead of just playing the counter strategy to the objectives.

A good example was the jenner races - it would have been so simple for one team to simply stay at their base where they all spawned anyhow and just clipped all the low armor, max engine jenners down - except they decided that they needed to try to outrun jenners to cap the other base in their assault mechs which they of course could never do.

[Kotzi]

Well what are people supposed to do? There was the ability to check and uncheck the gamemodes but PGI took that away. Now if you want to just shoot stuff you still have to play other modes if you are unlucky.

[Vellron2005]

Tiewolf, on 25 February 2018 - 04:54 AM, said:

Playing the game mode objectives makes no sense. Most game modes are just skirmish by a different name. Your teammates even harrass you, if you cap the domination circle before all enemy mechs are down and we all experienced FW farming on one end or the other. Winning by objectives makes no sense in this grind context because you get much more rewards for taking down enemy mechs then by playing the objectives.

What about giving a x2 Bonus to C-Bills, XP and matchscore if the game is won by objectives before all enemy mechs are down? Or even better the more enemy mechs are still on the field at the end of a game, the higher the bonus.

This would reward playing the objective and make FW much more enjoyable. Maybe not Incursion in its current state, but it would make FW games much shorter if a game is lost after the first encounter anyway.

I agree that some great incentive should be given for winning by objective, and the less mechs spent, the better.. Logically speaking, winning without expending assets is the pinnacle of success.. the damage oriented payout we have now is illogical.

It peeves me greatly especially in incursion, when the game is 9:3 for us, and we start wrecking the enemy base, and just as we start, somebody just HAS TO hunt down their last mechs..

Winning by objective would make the game sooo much better..

[Toothless]

For me, the issue is that all of the objectives are stupid and unfun.

Standing in a box roped off with laser beams for a period of time doesnt have anything close to a purpose in reality.
Standing in a yellow circle for a little while doesnt make any sense either.
Escorting an Atlas that doesnt return fire, communicate its intentions, or waits for the way to be cleared before advancing makes no sense.

The objectives are silly and unfun. We may as well have capture the flag, or try to pop the enemy's weather balloons, or steal all of their coins.

[Tom Sawyer]

The only objective in this game is mechpacks. You buy them and PGI wins. Rinse and repeat

[Seranov]

Vellron2005, on 26 February 2018 - 02:10 AM, said:

I agree that some great incentive should be given for winning by objective, and the less mechs spent, the better.. Logically speaking, winning without expending assets is the pinnacle of success.. the damage oriented payout we have now is illogical.

It peeves me greatly especially in incursion, when the game is 9:3 for us, and we start wrecking the enemy base, and just as we start, somebody just HAS TO hunt down their last mechs..

Winning by objective would make the game sooo much better..

What really confuses me is why you need to be playing MWO for this. Why do you need to be in a mech, when you could do this just fine in games like Tribes, Planetside, Overwatch or any of the other hundreds of objective-based games that are built entirely around that base concept?

MWO is a giant stompy robot simulator, and its objectives are an afterthought, not an excuse for you to try and avoid the enemy team as much as possible so that you can fight to see who caps a base faster. The current objectives are really meaningless and don't even make sense (though Domination at least makes both teams actively move to engage each other at the center of the map) outside of the realm of "Well, if the enemy is hiding in the outskirts of the map with an ECM Arctic Cheetah, we can at least make sure the game ends in a reasonable amount of time".

[XDevilsChariotX]

Khobai, on 25 February 2018 - 08:32 PM, said:

then you just end up with a bunch of rushing gamemodes that arnt fun. thats even worse.


it would be better to take whats good about conquest and incorporate it into the other gamemodes.

like domination should have x3 circles instead of one circle. then teams have to split up and control different parts of the map. less deathballing, less nascaring, more objective based play.

incursion should have the HQ buildings only be damagable by calling down your dropship. that would force you to collect power pellets in order to call in your dropship to damage the enemy base. so youd be fighting over power pellets instead of base rushing. jamming would jam the enemy dropship from attacking your base, and radar would counter enemy jamming. so thered be reasons to use the other towers too.

assault should have two destroyable bases but also have 3 conquest capture points. so you can win either by destroying the enemy base or win by capturing points. having multiple win conditions makes it more dynamic.

etc...

I like these ideas, shame they'll probably go unnoticed.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Seranov, on 26 February 2018 - 06:07 AM, said:

What really confuses me is why you need to be playing MWO for this. Why do you need to be in a mech, when you could do this just fine in games like Tribes, Planetside, Overwatch or any of the other hundreds of objective-based games that are built entirely around that base concept?

MWO is a giant stompy robot simulator, and its objectives are an afterthought, not an excuse for you to try and avoid the enemy team as much as possible so that you can fight to see who caps a base faster. The current objectives are really meaningless and don't even make sense (though Domination at least makes both teams actively move to engage each other at the center of the map) outside of the realm of "Well, if the enemy is hiding in the outskirts of the map with an ECM Arctic Cheetah, we can at least make sure the game ends in a reasonable amount of time".

MWO the Only Mechgame with BT Background ... many its play now only all 3-4 monthts for a WE or a event is not a sign for a susessfull game ...a shame...no a Lie for a dev thats say his the best Multigaming Dev of his HP and going more and more in direction 80er Years Cybersled

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 01 March 2018 - 12:08 PM.

[Seranov]

Dude, please try and find someone to translate for you. I have no idea what you are saying.

[FatBabyYoshi]

currently playing objectives make no sense as their is no good incentive to try and actually play objective as you get more c bills by getting damage.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Tiewolf, on 25 February 2018 - 04:54 AM, said:

Playing the game mode objectives makes no sense. Most game modes are just skirmish by a different name. Your teammates even harrass you, if you cap the domination circle before all enemy mechs are down and we all experienced FW farming on one end or the other. Winning by objectives makes no sense in this grind context because you get much more rewards for taking down enemy mechs then by playing the objectives.

What about giving a x2 Bonus to C-Bills, XP and matchscore if the game is won by objectives before all enemy mechs are down? Or even better the more enemy mechs are still on the field at the end of a game, the higher the bonus.

This would reward playing the objective and make FW much more enjoyable. Maybe not Incursion in its current state, but it would make FW games much shorter if a game is lost after the first encounter anyway.

Bud Crue, on 25 February 2018 - 04:59 AM, said:

People play stompy robot shooter, to shoot stompy robots. Objectives are secondary to that experience and so too are rewards even. If the objectives get in the way of that experience then most folks outright ignore the objectives no matter how great the rewards. I think PGI could triple objective rewards and the above would still be true for the majority of matches.

These ideals make me really... really sad... because I remember a time when playing the objective ment something.

There was a game on x-box 360, one that had a really ****** secondary game that came out, but the original CHROMEHOUNDS, was a mecha building game kinda like a perfect mix between Armored Core, and Mechwarrior, you could fully build your mechs, pick between different leg types, different cockpits, ect...

but that mechlab custimization, to me, paled in comparison to what the meat of the game was, which was the combat..

when people talk about Community Warfare here, I always point to the Neroimus War. the NW mode was the bread and butter mode... a 24/7 365 continual war fought over a map with 3 full factions. each faction could win the war by taking over the other two factions home bases... and holding them for a sepcific period.

Each match, had several objectives and ways to win... but killing ALL the mechs, while good, and netting you resource points for your faction, would NOT end the round... you were forced to win one of 3 ways.

Time out
Destruction of the enemy base on the map [of which there were 3 potential locations for each base]
Capture of all of the NT [Network Transmission] Towers... these towers ALSO governed the space in which a player and their team could engage in voice communication. [sadly this feature was made pointless when group chat over X-box live was implemented.]

They did something very, very simple... and made killing all of the enemy mechs a BONUS... and pushed playing the objective as the actual, main thing to do.

and it worked, the game ran for years, with Sega shutting the servers down in 2012.

People, forget how amazing this game was, and how great it's game mode was... we could have that... in MWO, but the devs can't seem to figure it out.