84 replies to this topic

[EDMW CSN]

MitchellTyner, on 28 December 2011 - 08:18 AM, said:

well I can see it now. COD in MWO ... "Well lets check out the score board now, hmmm 8v6 ... looks like we are in a tight spot (does affect moral going into a game, and don't say it doesn't) ... well looks like they are all piloting heavy / assault mechs.... okay then " (Lance mate) "Hey fox, we can see they are all piloting huge mechs, looks like your scout mech has no place in MWO. Why not jump into an assault class mech with everyone else?" Get my drift? guess not.

"Yeah, I am pretty sure Leroy's Atlas moves fast enough to narc enemy mechs while the rest of you in your Longbows and Archers can patiently wait while on passive sensors" *snigger*

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 28 December 2011 - 08:42 AM.

[Tweaks]

I agree with the OP in that I dislike scoreboards and kill messages. It gives a "competition" feel to the game that I don't like. I don't want to feel like I'm playing in an Arena, where points count. I want to feel like I'm in a real battle against real enemies.

Here's the way I'd do it:

- Until you see the enemy on scanner/radar/visuals, you don't know what he has and how many 'Mechs he has. As friendlies spot enemy 'Mechs, they appear on a list.

- The only way for your teammates to know that you killed a given enemy, is by radio or visual contact. You need to be within radio range (and not jammed) in order to transmit a message saying you just killed XYZ 'Mech. All friendlies within visual or radio range will get an updated status report and refresh their list of enemies accordingly.

- The same goes for casualties. Unless another friendly saw you die and is able to transmit that information via radio to other friendlies, nobody else will know you died.

- IFF transponders could also be used to tell (visually) if a friendly or enemy 'Mech has been downed (by looking at it through your cockpit's glass).

This means that if someone just wises to sit out a battle from far away and hide until the last minute, that he won't know what he's facing unless he stays within radio or visual range of everyone else. That's what Information Warfare is all about anyway!

[CeeKay Boques]

Teamspeak will kill much of the value on this. It would also mean ,for many of those ideas to be effective, that you would not know what you are dropping against. That's not very Canon, many many times you have a good idea on the unit thats dropping and their capabilities. Should we know our opponents capabilities? If not, you remove a tactical layer of thinkability on gameplay, adjusting mech and load out for the opponent. If you do know, then you remove the realism of fog of war.

For immersion though, I don't need to see kill cards. But even in the pods, there is a HUD with a running data on the kills and damage.

[MilitantMonk]

This topic +100!

This is really where the information warfare aspect can shine! Someone in your lance misreporting that the black enemy Hunchback is down only to have it pop out from behind a parking garage and lay into you can really up the tension and immersion. A great example from history was during WWII with Japanese bomber pilots misreporting what ships were sunk only to have them show up again in full fighting form causing all sorts of trouble.

This also encourages more team communication. Even if people don't have microphones having 'canned' responses al-la Day of Defeat / Counter Strike / Battlefield 2142 would be great. 'Enemy spotted - Jenner', 'Target destroyed', and 'Need backup' all at the touch of a button are great!

[Red Beard]

Dlardrageth, on 27 December 2011 - 10:19 PM, said:

That would hopefully also include something like having no stupid killcam of sorts. Extremely annoying feature, especially if it cannot be turned off.

But I DO like the idea of being able to playback an entire match...no killcams though.

[CeeKay Boques]

Aegis Kleais™, on 28 December 2011 - 11:31 AM, said:

Re: Limiting enemy knowledge
I agree with this in concept, though it may be hard to do fully. If people can swap teams during any part of the drop sequence (or if some type of auto-balance is in place) then it would allow them to "spy" on enemy unit information. But in short, whatever can be tastefully done to stop said spying, I would support. Pilots should go into war with no unit disposition knowledge.

Well, sometimes. What if there was a successful recon mission before this one? What if we bought a spy? . What if we have space superiority and satellites up? If spying is PART of the game, there are plenty os situations where we would absolutlely have the unit disposition of the Opposing forces

[CeeKay Boques]

I'm saying as part of the game mechanic.

At 7pm my lance selects "Recon" from the available missions. It is successful, which means on the next engagement on that planet, Forces are known.
Or, my faction buys a HPG interceptor on planet.
Or I shoot a drone in the first 5 seconds of the match which relays force data.

[Gorith]

Agreeing with the op. No free information please

Kill messages are basically free information as they do not need to confirm the kill. a Great example would be a mech getting hit with an LRM barrage as it's jumping over a steep hill or cliff face a fair bit away from you. If the pilot got hit then as he landed forced his mech to shutdown or if its ECM fit and running passive (In some way able to remove itself from your radar). With kill messages you know for a fact you did NOT take him out without kill messages he may be able to trick you into thinking you took him out or you may have to move someone to confirm the kill.

[CeeKay Boques]

Gorith, on 28 December 2011 - 12:34 PM, said:

Agreeing with the op. No free information please

Kill messages are basically free information as they do not need to confirm the kill. a Great example would be a mech getting hit with an LRM barrage as it's jumping over a steep hill or cliff face a fair bit away from you. If the pilot got hit then as he landed forced his mech to shutdown or if its ECM fit and running passive (In some way able to remove itself from your radar). With kill messages you know for a fact you did NOT take him out without kill messages he may be able to trick you into thinking you took him out or you may have to move someone to confirm the kill.

Ah! now there's a point!

[Zyllos]

Hmm, like how Tweaks explained a nice idea, that is extremely hard to implement without a way to circumvent it. But this goes back to the devs saying light mechs will provide information warfare. Confirming kills might be one of those information warfare aspects. If a light mech has electronic capabilities on a target and it is taken down, the kill message is given to the rest of the team.

[Rhinehart]

Heh this probably wouldn't happen in a voice chat era. But I remember back in the day one of the first MMO games I played was a wwII flight sim. Text Macros were allowed in chat comms and within no time you had all sorts of crazy braggodocio kill messages all over the screen every time someone got themselves cacked. I got into the spirit of things for a while, But eventually I just shortened it to messages like "I Got One" or "I'm on fire, bailing out". Just enough to provide the requisite info to my squad mates.

As I said, not likely to happen in a voicechat era game.

There is a lot of possible variations to this. It will be interesting to see what is implemented.

[That Guy]

unfortunately having kill messages and score boards being player choice options kinda defeats the purpose of removing them in the first place. its all or nothing, baby

I am hoping that there is going to be an effective and robust in-game VOIP system for radios. hopefully it will be good enough so that fewer people feel compelled to use third part apps like TS, vent etc.

[phalanx]

Tweaks, on 28 December 2011 - 09:02 AM, said:

I agree with the OP in that I dislike scoreboards and kill messages. It gives a "competition" feel to the game that I don't like. I don't want to feel like I'm playing in an Arena, where points count. I want to feel like I'm in a real battle against real enemies.

Here's the way I'd do it:

- Until you see the enemy on scanner/radar/visuals, you don't know what he has and how many 'Mechs he has. As friendlies spot enemy 'Mechs, they appear on a list.

- The only way for your teammates to know that you killed a given enemy, is by radio or visual contact. You need to be within radio range (and not jammed) in order to transmit a message saying you just killed XYZ 'Mech. All friendlies within visual or radio range will get an updated status report and refresh their list of enemies accordingly.

- The same goes for casualties. Unless another friendly saw you die and is able to transmit that information via radio to other friendlies, nobody else will know you died.

- IFF transponders could also be used to tell (visually) if a friendly or enemy 'Mech has been downed (by looking at it through your cockpit's glass).

This means that if someone just wises to sit out a battle from far away and hide until the last minute, that he won't know what he's facing unless he stays within radio or visual range of everyone else. That's what Information Warfare is all about anyway!

CHEERS!

None of that FPS "FRAKURMOM killed ILUVPOPCORN" crap.

Thats what After Action reports are for!

[Duke Pitt]

verybad, on 27 December 2011 - 07:45 PM, said:

This should just be an option IMO. I don't really care about scoreboards, but it might be useful knowing how much time you need to capture on a capturepoint (or however they have it set up for winning)

If you don't like it, then don't look at it is my view on it.Why prevent others that DO want to see the scoreboard?

Ya know that makes sense, and something as simple as "view combat messages on/off" wouldn't be a stretch to include.

[verybad]

Now any (or at least most) mechs killed will be killed by the enemy team right? (hopefully)

So they would already have this information available to them through normal radio communications.

I really don't see that as intel.

How about this sort of informaiton, as well as levels of damage (if known) is available to lance members through players with the Commander skill path.

you don't get damage intel for free, a scout has to see analyze it (analyzing it would be to spend a few seconds pointed at the mech in question while not firing weapons)it before it's available to the commander and then the lance.

This limits the info, makes it more valuable, and gives scouts something to do other than try and kill bigger mechs.It also makes the information seem much more part of a battle rather than intentionally kept away from the player.

[Duke Pitt]

verybad, on 28 December 2011 - 09:15 PM, said:

Now any (or at least most) mechs killed will be killed by the enemy team right? (hopefully)

So they would already have this information available to them through normal radio communications.

I really don't see that as intel.

How about this sort of informaiton, as well as levels of damage (if known) is available to lance members through players with the Commander skill path.

you don't get damage intel for free, a scout has to see analyze it (analyzing it would be to spend a few seconds pointed at the mech in question while not firing weapons)it before it's available to the commander and then the lance.

This limits the info, makes it more valuable, and gives scouts something to do other than try and kill bigger mechs.It also makes the information seem much more part of a battle rather than intentionally kept away from the player.

I thought about this too, particularly if we are talking about mechs with c3 equipped. A lot of this information would be easily communicated between lance mates even without radio contact.

[verybad]

Not really C3, as this is basic comcs, not targeting info. Realistically, this isn't high level info.

The amount of information you can get as a scout, or share as a Commander could be limited by your skill levels in that path.

Edited by verybad, 28 December 2011 - 10:12 PM.

[Petroff Northrup]

I would really like for there to be no kill message or scoreboard in the game, I would also like it alot if people could not talk to teammates after death until they respawn or the match is over so you get that sudden chill as you see one of your lancemates blink out on your radar with their com cutting off mid-message leaving you wondering what is over that hill.

[Orzorn]

It isn't just about those points OP, but also about the meta-game knowledge. If I know that several mechs are holed up in a certain area, and I see that one of them gets popped (maybe by artillery or by LRMs or whatever), then I will rush in to pick off the remainders. But, if we didn't get kill messages, I would still be apprehensive because I don't have a confirmation until someone tells me that they downed an enemy mech.

[Petroff Northrup]

Oh, something I forgot to mention before that could be cool would be that if we did not know who exactly we were fighting exactly then it could prove interesting if we are allowed unit on or even custom paint jobs making it so you would try to learn who you were fighting not from name popping over their head for some reason but because you suddenly see that an Atlas is tearing through your team painted in Kell Hound colors so is likely their leader.