11 replies to this topic

[Renzor the Red]

Hey, guys. Just wondering. I've played like 100 hours of this game now, and have never seen 'Escort' offered as a game to vote on. Is that game mode gone?

[Horseman]

It has been removed a month ago: https://mwomercs.com...2018-at-2pm-pdt

This happened to the mode before, so I wouldn't consider it gone-gone, just gone-for-now . Hopefully PGI will make some improvements to the mode before they reintroduce it.

Edited by Horseman, 11 January 2019 - 01:31 AM.

[Spheroid]

Fine with me. Escort was trash.

[Koniving]

It was a somewhat poorly conceived mode in which the actual objective was often ignored,unless it stupidly chose to charge right through the enemy team.

The "VIP" was a visually decorated Atlas that had the armor staying power of 300 tons, and not a single weapon or a lick of common sense that would choose random paths without informing the defending team. Sometimes it'd even get hung up on the terrain.

As such... it was terrible.

Going beyond that, there were "ECM" nodes scattered all over the map that'd turncoat if you camp on it for far too long, causing all kinds of heck against weapon systems that rely on locks as well as sensors in general. This might be neat, but the fact is despite initially favoring the defenders (if it favored anyone at all at the start), the attackers will have already turned them all against the defenders within the first 2 or 3 minutes, stacking the deck against the defenders even further.

It'd be better

• if the defender's "VIPs" were either a moderately faster mech with the ability to shoot back and COMMUNICATE, if the VIP was actually a chosen player.
  
• if the VIP were instead a convoy of vehicles that would split and take 3 different routes, requiring attackers to either have a fast deathball to catch all three OR split up to attack each convoy (this plays into the "Thinking man's shooter we heard so much B.S. about but never got).
  
• or finally if the VIP were instead a Behemoth Tank (armor variant) which sports twin LBX-10s and 4 LRM-5s (the LRM spam would keep enemies from trying to get in front, the turret would provide a general defense, without being overpowered. This specific 100 ton tank natively has more armor than 100 ton mechs can possibly carry, is known for being a commander's unit (making it very fitting as a VIP), and most importantly, it would need a strategy to take out as it could not be taken out by going piecemeal (one at a time), even for meta-warriors and rainbow vomit specialists.

Much as I love the Behemoth tank (as I've used one to single-handedly take out a custom Atlas and 6 to 7 out of 8 50 ton Enforcers by itself even after the tracks were rendered immobile. Now that's a last stand!), I admit the best choice of them all for MWO would probably be the convoy setup. This would allow the Escort mission to become a fight of small groups by necessity, changing the pace of gameplay and making it unique from every other mode.

[admiralbenbow123]

Just wanted to note that while playing escort I've noticed that the team that has 4 or less assaults is usually the attacking team while the team with more than 4 assaults is the defending one. So, I can partially agree that this gamemode favors one team.
Also, Konivig, I like your second and third suggestions very much, although the first one is quite nice as well.

[Koniving]

The Behemoth tank.
100 tons. 4 LRM-5 launchers mounted side by side on the front, twin LBX-10s on the turret, more armor than any assault 100 ton mech could dream of. Not the most effective mech killer, but able to withstand many at once and take a beating.

Now that's a VIP.

[Maddermax]

admiralbenbow123, on 11 January 2019 - 11:21 AM, said:

Just wanted to note that while playing escort I've noticed that the team that has 4 or less assaults is usually the attacking team while the team with more than 4 assaults is the defending one. So, I can partially agree that this gamemode favors one team.
Also, Konivig, I like your second and third suggestions very much, although the first one is quite nice as well.

In normal Quickplay games, you always have the same number of each class of mech (light/assault/whatever) on each team. There is never one team with more or less assaults, always the same (which means looking at your own teams line up at the start of a game will inform you how many light/assault mechs you should expect to face).

The only time you’ll see differences in class numbers between teams is in group play, but that’s balanced in other ways, and groups were set before game mode was chosen anyway.

Edited by Maddermax, 12 January 2019 - 06:16 AM.

[admiralbenbow123]

Maddermax, on 12 January 2019 - 06:16 AM, said:

In normal Quickplay games, you always have the same number of each class of mech (light/assault/whatever) on each team. There is never one team with more or less assaults, always the same (which means looking at your own teams line up at the start of a game will inform you how many light/assault mechs you should expect to face).

The only time you’ll see differences in class numbers between teams is in group play, but that’s balanced in other ways, and groups were set before game mode was chosen anyway.

I know how team balancing works in QP, but the thing is that I was able to predict which side (attacking or defending) my team was going to be on before the match started, and that's just in escort.

[Mechaholics Anonymous]

I liked having an extra option of gameplay, I didn’t like waiting for a drop, then having people just rush in and destroy the VIP. With most people on both sides not getting any damage or real fighting in. It would be a fun match if the attacking team would destroy one leg of the VIP, and engage the defending team. Then if the match wasn’t going in the attackers favor, they could just destroy the other leg for a win. On a side note another waste of time, is a base rush. Resulting in 0 to minimal damage on both teams, I think it’s a fine strategy, but would be better if the capping team left the base right before complete cap, and engage the enemy. If the fight was not going in their favor, finalize the base cap.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

Horseman, on 11 January 2019 - 01:31 AM, said:

It has been removed a month ago: https://mwomercs.com...2018-at-2pm-pdt

- They removed a lousy game mode that was primarily bogged down by the AI (or lack there of) behind VIP.

- One month later they want us to pre-order a game that is entirely about fighting AI enemies.

So I guess the only question is, do you wanna buy a mech pack?

[TheFourthAlly]

What Koniving said. Potentially interesting, badly executed, never revisited (iirc), hated accordingly.

Glad to see this version gone, disappointed to see a game mode gone.

[TheCaptainJZ]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I rarely see Incursion either. They might remove that next. I feel it's better suited for Faction Play-type gameplay anyway as it's the most complex QP mode ever created. Everything in QP boils down to Skirmish most of the time. They should have just made it 12 v 12 Solaris.