40 replies to this topic

[Grus]

https://mwomercs.com...92-pool-escort/

[PocketYoda]

I would be sad to see it go... now if incursion went .. not sad.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

In its present form, I would be happily rid of it. Escort is a broken mess and it needs to go.

I could be convinced to enjoy give it another chance with significant changes. Things like allowing the AtlaSpud to return fire, fix its pathfinding so it doesn't get stuck or drive in circles, highlighting its projected route on its own team's minimaps, getting rid of the ECM towers, and so on.

[Grus]

WrathOfDeadguy, on 21 March 2018 - 05:02 PM, said:

In its present form, I would be happily rid of it. Escort is a broken mess and it needs to go.

I could be convinced to enjoy give it another chance with significant changes. Things like allowing the AtlaSpud to return fire, fix its pathfinding so it doesn't get stuck or drive in circles, highlighting its projected route on its own team's minimaps, getting rid of the ECM towers, and so on.

Yeah i think upgrading the AI from mindless zombie to a hamster would be an improvement.

[Variant1]

hek no id like to keep escort and incursion mode. More modes are good

[PurplePuke]

Why on Earth get rid of one of our precious few game modes?

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Because it's a demonstrably buggy, poorly implemented mess where you can get screwed out of a victory by an AI pilot driving into a wall?

[Dragonporn]

I'd hate to see whole gamemode gone, but since PGI hardly has any solid ideas on how to fix it, just pulling it would be a best option IMO.

[sycocys]

Wouldn't mind seeing the atlas replaced with something that made sense.

[cougurt]

PurplePuke, on 21 March 2018 - 08:36 PM, said:

Why on Earth get rid of one of our precious few game modes?

skirmish and conquest make all the other modes redundant. they really don't change the experience in a positive or significant enough way to justify their existence.

[Grus]

cougurt, on 22 March 2018 - 01:48 AM, said:

skirmish and conquest make all the other modes redundant. they really don't change the experience in a positive or significant enough way to justify their existence.

plus in the current escort form it just boils down to a skirmish match that one side gets to farm a bit more damage than the other.

[Scyther]

I'm fine with Escort, Incursion, all of them. Something to break up the monotony of skirmish deathmatch after skirmish deathmatch.

I've personally never seen Escort bug out, although VIP does choose some pretty wonky paths at times.

Every time you end up in an Escort match, it got more votes than the other option. If you assume those votes are all people trying to vote-pad, then you are also assuming that all those padders are incapable of learning from experience. A handful of people hate Escort, and a handful of people hate Skirmish. I don't think that's a good reason to remove content from the game.

Fix content, yes. Improve content, sure. Remove content? Over my dead side-and-center torsos...

Edited by MadBadger, 23 March 2018 - 01:50 PM.

[Metus regem]

I stand by what I said when people were asking for that mode, it's a bad mode....

It's funny, I got told so many times by people that it would be awesome... I said no it'll suck, having actually flown VIP escort operations during my time in the army, I know they are the worst....

[DrCyanide]

MadBadger, on 23 March 2018 - 12:01 PM, said:

Every time Escort appears, it got more votes than the other option.

Sorry, what alternate reality are you from?

I've been in a grand total of 4 Escort matches as someone rarely votes on the map/mode. I know I've played at least a hundred QP matches since returning to the game, and I've got a total of 258 QP matches on record in my stats.

With 6 types of QP modes available and evenly distributed, if it was getting the most votes every time it came up (meaning it's the most popular) I'd have played between 16 and 43 instances of the mode (depending on if you base it off of 100 or 258 games). It's at 1/4th of that at best.

MadBadger, on 23 March 2018 - 12:01 PM, said:

If you assume those votes are all people trying to vote-pad, then you are also assuming that all those padders are incapable of learning from experience.

Only playing it 4 times indicates that most of the would be vote-padders have learned it's not worth the potential pain of getting it and don't vote for it anymore.

[Scyther]

True, I phrased that poorly. I meant "Every time you end up in an Escort match, it got more votes". Going back to correct now.

And if people weren't getting it, they wouldn't be complaining now, would they? (I don't vote for or against it btw, I rarely vote at all.)

Edited by MadBadger, 23 March 2018 - 01:53 PM.

[Helsbane]

MWO only has one QP mode, played with different map additions.

Skirmish with no bases.
Skirmish with 2 bases.
Skirmish with 5 bases.
Skirmish with 2 bases (defense turret & wall edition).
Skirmish with 1 'moving' base.
Skirmish with maypole to run around.

[Grus]

Helsbane, on 23 March 2018 - 01:57 PM, said:

MWO only has one QP mode, played with different map additions.

Skirmish with no bases.
Skirmish with 2 bases.
Skirmish with 5 bases.
Skirmish with 2 bases (defense turret & wall edition).
Skirmish with 1 'moving' base.
Skirmish with maypole to run around.

Well... you're not wrong...

[Tier5 Kerensky]

WrathOfDeadguy, on 21 March 2018 - 09:35 PM, said:

Because it's a demonstrably buggy, poorly implemented mess where you can get screwed out of a victory by an AI pilot driving into a wall?

No such bugs exists.



There's nothing wrong with escort, people just don't care less about objectves in this game.

Edited by Teer Kerensky, 24 March 2018 - 08:48 AM.

[Grus]

Teer Kerensky, on 24 March 2018 - 08:45 AM, said:

No such bugs exists.



There's nothing wrong with escort, people just don't care less about objectves in this game.

Due to the abysmal rewards for them.

[Vidarion]

As one of the few people that enjoys Escort (on either side), I would hate to see it go. It is asymmetric, which is unique in QP, in that each side has different resources and objectives. As many people have noted, "everything is basically Skirmish" which is true...but only 3 (maybe 4) modes have winning conditions that allow your the winning team to be completely destroyed.
- Conquest: cap enough, fast enough and your team can win even after being wiped out.
- Incursion: do enough damage to the other base and your team can win even after being wiped out
- Escort: keep the attackers at bay long enough and the escort team can win if the VIP gets to the dropship...even if the escorts have been wiped out.
- Domination: In theory, you can win if the match timer expires and your team has a lower domination timer and your team gets wiped out as long as no one from the enemy team is in the domination circle.

As for the Escort mode itself...can it be improved? Yes. How to improve it is the thorny issue.

Give the VIP escorts a highlighted path of where the VIP is going? No. Nope. Hell no. The paths are limited enough now to the point where it's not hard to pin down where the VIP is going after a 3 or 4 games on a given map. At the same time, it doesn't "add" any information that you can't get from looking at the minimap already. The VIP icon has an indicator pointing in the direction it's traveling. If there's a highlighted path on the minimap, I'm not sure how that will improve anything over looking at the minimap now. And this doesn't even bring up the potential for abuse...of which there are numerous.

Make the VIP faster? Sure. Even if you leave it as an Atlas, making the VIP faster would be good. Maybe 40 or 45 kph. On the flip side, if you make it faster, I would suggest reducing the armor as well. Not much, but maybe a couple of points (or 10) in each torso to compensate for the reduced amount of time available for the attackers.

Increased randomness of the path. As I mentioned above, the VIP is fairly predictable in which path it takes. Now, I'm not saying that it's bad. But there should be more paths available for the VIP to choose from. Additionally, I think the first time that the VIP takes damage WHILE enemy mechs are in sensor range, the VIP should speed up and increase the randomness of the path being taken.

The "stop and turn" behavior of the VIP should also be removed. There is no need for a mech to stop in order to turn. So that particular behavior needs to change for the VIP.