54 replies to this topic

[VonBruinwald]

Every mode devolves into skirmish anyway so is there any point?

[Mister Maf]

Skirmish was originally added because the only two modes in the game at the time were assault and conquest, and people were tired of base rushes that happened pretty regularly in those days. That doesn't happen a whole lot now because medium mechs are much faster than they used to be with the new tech and can respond to a base rush. There are also now several other modes, so I would advocate removing skirmish because it:
A) Reduces the usefulness of lighter faster mechs who don't have an objective to complete
B) Leads to situations at the end of a game where there's one enemy left who won't show their face and you can't just complete the objective to end it

In other words, the skirmish mode has outlived its purpose and is no longer needed.

Edited by Mister Maf, 23 October 2018 - 06:59 AM.

[Bombast]

I'd be for removing Skirmish. Not having any map objectives can exacerbate some (Not all) of the bad player behavior we see, and there's little more frustrating than having to go the full 15 minutes because some lonely enemy mech refuses to play anymore.

[Arend]

First they should remove Escort!

[Spheroid]

Direct and unambiguous combat has been the staple of BattleTech for 30+ years. Lets not change what works. Strange that you don't find combat exciting, I certainly do.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

Spheroid, on 23 October 2018 - 07:12 AM, said:

Direct and unambiguous combat has been the staple of BattleTech for 30+ years. Lets not change what works. Strange that you don't find combat exciting, I certainly do.

I guess that a lot of us are just tired of 'this exactly NOT happening' @combat

many skirmish games devolve into hide-fests. when you got objectives, you can at least do something there instead of hiding with the 23 others.

[TWIAFU]

VonBruinwald, on 23 October 2018 - 06:46 AM, said:

Every mode devolves into skirmish anyway so is there any point?

Then you remove everything BUT Skirmish if everything devolves into Skirmish.

People complain when you don't Skirmish and play the objective by capturing the base, destroying the base, destroying the cannon, or resource points.

If you remove the ability to win by kills, how you plan to force everyone to play Objectives?

[Anjian]

TWIAFU, on 23 October 2018 - 07:22 AM, said:

Then you remove everything BUT Skirmish if everything devolves into Skirmish.

People complain when you don't Skirmish and play the objective by capturing the base, destroying the base, destroying the cannon, or resource points.


If you remove the ability to win by kills, how you plan to force everyone to play Objectives?

Exactly. Bold is mine.

Mister Maf, on 23 October 2018 - 06:55 AM, said:

Skirmish was originally added because the only two modes in the game at the time were assault and conquest, and people were tired of base rushes that happened pretty regularly in those days. That doesn't happen a whole lot now because medium mechs are much faster than they used to be with the new tech and can respond to a base rush. There are also now several other modes, so I would advocate removing skirmish because it:
A) Reduces the usefulness of lighter faster mechs who don't have an objective to complete
Leads to situations at the end of a game where there's one enemy left who won't show their face and you can't just complete the objective to end it

In other words, the skirmish mode has outlived its purpose and is no longer needed.

I miss base rushes.

When teams are rushing bases, guess what they are not doing. NASCARing.

Edited by Anjian, 23 October 2018 - 07:32 AM.

[thievingmagpi]

remove bads

[Grayson Dillinger]

I think many of the game modes need some kind of rework.
In Assault, you still need to cap the base after all the other team is dead. Not auto win on last kill. Personally, I would like to see the base guarded by laser and SRM/LRM turrets you have to destroy in order to cap without interruption.
In Conquest, when the last enemy is dead and the winning has enough points to guarantee victory, the server calculates BOTH teams final resource amounts instead of just bouncing the winner to 750 and leaving the loser at whatever point they are at.
In Escort, the VIP is randomly a Clan assault in addition to the Atlas. Both would be loaded with a "lore" loadout and can fire at opposing forces.
Domination, Skirmish and Incursion are fine as is (though I would like to see SRM/LRM turrets in the Incursion bases).

[JediPanther]

https://mwomercs.com...-remove-escort/

bunch of fourm babies. At this point why not just git rid of all game modes,shut down the mwo game and wait for an e-mail asking for your pre-order for mw5? No mechwarriors here.

[Khobai]

skirmish is a toxic gamemode because it has zero strategic or tactical variation to it.

and it promotes negative behaviors like camping, deathballing, nascaring, and static one-dimensional gameplay where both teams are paralyzed to commit to action because of the snowball effect that occurs from getting down one or two mechs. It also has a very obvious bias towards heavies/assaults because lights and mediums perform poorly when they have to attack into camping deathballs. The lighter weight classes excel more at map control and attacking isolated enemies and thats just not a thing on skirmish because teams arnt forced to spread out to control the entire map.

MWO absolutely needs a better core gamemode. Thats not saying skirmish should be removed entirely. Just that it shouldnt be the core gamemode.

Anjian, on 23 October 2018 - 07:34 AM, said:

I miss base rushes.

When teams are rushing bases, guess what they are not doing. NASCARing.

the problem with base rushing is that you can win without encountering the enemy team.

nascaring is still better than not fighting the enemy at all.

And the best way to stop nascaring is to have spread-out objectives like conquest does. If PGI doesnt want to design an entirely new gamemode, they should just make conquest the core gamemode instead of skirmish.

Edited by Khobai, 23 October 2018 - 08:54 AM.

[TWIAFU]

Khobai, on 23 October 2018 - 08:44 AM, said:

skirmish is a toxic gamemode because it has zero strategic or tactical variation to it.

That's because the lemmings do the exact same thing on every single map on every single mode.

You run to the center and play peek a boo or nascar until your shot and then run away.

The core game mode of MWO is PvP What is your proposal to change that?

Can always go to Testing Grounds and be king of the battlefield and always be the winner with 100% armor left.

[Almond Brown]

thievingmagpi, on 23 October 2018 - 07:54 AM, said:

remove bads

Word is... All MWO players minus the bads = sound track "crickets"...

[Khobai]

TWIAFU, on 23 October 2018 - 08:56 AM, said:

The core game mode of MWO is PvP What is your proposal to change that?

simple.

1) add spread out secondary objectives to force teams to split up more and to help promote more dynamic gameplay that uses a much larger area of the map. there are reasons conquest is generally considered the best gamemode.

2) make capturing objectives actually worth something. So theres a reason to capture over just killing the enemy team.


that discourages deathballing by forcing teams to spread out and control the map instead of being able to statically camp the same spot every game. it also makes lights and mediums much stronger because of their speed and the fact enemy teams wont be grouped up as much.

Edited by Khobai, 23 October 2018 - 09:02 AM.

[MischiefSC]

The point of objectives is to force a fight. They are there to compel the enemy to come defend a location or lose the match. This prevents a team from just setting a firing line against the edge of the map and waiting.

The point of objectives is not to AVOID a fight. It's there to give a tool to force the other team to come out of their current location and fight. It's a strategic objective and it serves a good purpose.

If we removed Incursion, Escort and Skirmish I.... wouldn't complain. Two of those are terrible and terribly designed (Incursion is based around *avoiding* a fight by base rushing, Escort just has too stupid of an AI) and Skirmish.... well, I just wouldn't miss.

[Koniving]

VonBruinwald, on 23 October 2018 - 06:46 AM, said:

Every mode devolves into skirmish anyway so is there any point?

I was gonna say...

Pretty much you'd remove every mode from the game.

[Khobai]

MischiefSC, on 23 October 2018 - 09:00 AM, said:

The point of objectives is to force a fight. They are there to compel the enemy to come defend a location or lose the match. This prevents a team from just setting a firing line against the edge of the map and waiting.

The point of objectives is not to AVOID a fight. It's there to give a tool to force the other team to come out of their current location and fight. It's a strategic objective and it serves a good purpose.

correct. the point of objectives is to force action. if teams have to capture objectives they cant just statically camp in one spot. they have to go capture the objectives or theyll lose.

and the point of having multiple spread out objectives is to break up deathballs and force teams to split up to control the entire map. it adds a whole new level of strategy because you have to control at least 3 objectives to win which requires splitting up your team into at least 2 groups, since each group can reasonably roam between 2 objectives.

Thats why conquest should be the core gamemode. Its better than skirmish in virtually every way.

Edited by Khobai, 23 October 2018 - 09:13 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Comp matches are Conquest for a reason. Assault I'm less fond of. Domination I actually like. I'd rather the capture points for Assault didn't go faster with multiple mechs on them - this drives actual base rushes. If Assault worked by slowly counting down regardless of how many mechs were on the capture point it would be better.

[SFC174]

Domination is really the best objective mode for forcing a fight. Assault only serves to offer a quick win scenario if one or more of the enemies refuses to engage (but is absolutely horrible on maps like Frozen City).

I wouldn't mind seeing some more variations on domination. I doubt it would happen due to resource constraints, but having some different locations for dom points on each map would be fun. Or trying to adopt the triple concentric ring approach that World of Warships uses.

The downside to Dom is that the battle only uses a very small portion of the map. Skirmish at least offers the possibility that engagement can take place in interesting/different locations, even if that only happens about 1 in 20 matches.