42 replies to this topic

[Grimus_Hunts]

"Nascar is here to stay" - random pilot



I wish it wasn't true, but for the 2 years playing this game it simply feels that nothing will break the habit of mindlessly walking forward in the same route every game.

The PSR reset was welcomed, but I think there's a huge problem with the system itself....

It dosen't reward pilots who play the Mission Objective.

(Example: Assault match, capped enemy team base, got a nice BIG fat red arrow for Winning the game)


I also feel PSR is encouraging people to do more damage (Which is good) but It also discourages people to run into the face of danger and ignore teamwork and tactics.

With that said, I was thinking about things that could help the current state of the game.

1: Objectives should boost a pilots PSR instead of mainly Damage. Assaults Soaking Dmg instead of sniping in the back with 100 tons of armor. Light mechs should be worth more per kill then what they are currently worth, because lights Don't give you a lot of damage.... (I could spent a entire game light mech hunting and more then likely i'd get a red arrow even though i got plenty kills.)

2: Weapons to discourage predictable movements.
(this is only a idea, and would love to hear others opinion on this.)
- Land mines and or Trip wire. Something that punishes a Pilot for moving in patterns or moving forward without awareness.


Would love to hear your guys' thoughts on this all this... some more ideas or opinions to help the redundancy of Quick Play

[Mech Walesa]

embrace nascar

[Bud Crue]

The game is what it is, and PGI has made it clear that they have no intention of investing further development time into it. So things like "land mines" or "trip wire" is not going to be added so there is no point in hoping or asking for such things. This is as good as it gets.

As to playing and/or increasing rewards for those who "play the mission objectives", I am sorry to say but the vast majority of the folks who play this game play it for the primary purpose of shooting stompy robots in their own stompy robot. Running around and then stopping for a bit (assault), or running some more (conquest) to "play the objective" just isn't what most people are looking for in a MW experience. You could quadruple the rewards for playing the objectives and most people are still going to find the quickest route to get to, and fight, the enemy, and for the most part ignore the objectives (grab the two cap points on the way the theta!). Yes, yes, you can find the occasional majority light drop that will cap together, or the dreaded Frozen City Assault match where the teams end up switching sides and just cap it out, and even the rare Tourmaline Incursion where one team will have more than 1-2 players who try and take the base, but these are all exceptions to the norm of folks just wanting to blast each other.

Finally, the only way to stop NASCAR is to authoritatively and concisely call out a strategy other than NASCAR at the beginning of the drop; and even then some folks will not listen. It's either try that or play Faction Play.

People have proposed all sorts of inherent anti-NASCAR aspects over the years, such as redoing the maps so there is no primary central feature (e.g. remove the citadel from River City); provide randomized drop zones, etc. but as Polar Highlands regularly shows, none of that would matter, as folks still regularly NASCAR around even a slight fold in the ground despite having all that room to maneuver in. So yes, NASCAR is here to stay.

[OneTeamPlayer]

Most people who had teh remotest interest in coordinated tactics have long since left MWO from all sides including the drop calling, lance leading, and good following team-member sides.

The constant push for higher damage and lower support abilities, as well as the push for systems that rewards near literally only damage have won out over the years and "thinking man's shooter" players, sensing that they were not welcome, took the hint and left.

We have exactly the level of strategy and variety in tactics that the playerbase who is left is capable of creating.

So yes, NASCAR is here to stay.

While there are a handful of good DC, LL, and useful followers still around their concentration is so diluted as to make the common prevailing commentary in many threads be "what are you stupid? Why are you trying to attempt strategy in this game with thousands of possibilities? Just stop that, turn left, and turn your brain off- that is what makes for good gameplay, silly".

Repeated often enough by the "left-behinds" that even the stragglers left behind are disheartened and the new DC/LL/GF that could be cutting their teeth learn that there's nothing but Rock-Em Sock-Em MWO left as a possibility.

We are the brown sea, friends.

[General Solo]

Player needs to adapt to the game

Not the game adapt to the player (MM excluded as it should accommodate the players)

So many players the game cannot possibility adapt to all of them. One game easier to adapt to.

[R Valentine]

NASCAR is always a choice. If you don't want to reap the whirlwind, don't. Yes, sometimes you'll be that kid who gets run over 12 v 1. And sometimes you'll be the 1 mech that's a roadblock for 12. Either way, you get to choose how you play.

[JediPanther]

no one does the objective due to it being total sham when dmg and killing is far far more rewarding at end of match. When was the last time you used a spider 5v with full auxiliary capture nodes to max 100% capture rate and do ONLY objectives like cap on conquest or assault? Does that 100cb 0xp ticker every few seconds with you being a free easy kill make it worth it?

Did you ever play vip escort and win doing nothing but covering the vip with ecm so it wasn't lrm-ed out and get that 150 win pay out? Good thing the eleven other players got to fight and enjoy a much better pay out.

If pgi ever wanted you to do the objectives only game modes would all be programed so that just killing the other side doesn't = winning.

[Kubernetes]

It's also a game built around mech combat. I didn't spend all that time in mechlab building a sweet killing machine just so I could stand on a square and pray no one shoot me. Sure I'll grab a cap on Conquest so the game doesn't end prematurely, but every game can be won by killing the other team. All other win conditions can be interrupted by the enemy team. So yeah, kill the enemy team first and foremost.

Regarding nascar, it's been one of the most discussed topics on here forever. No one decided that it would happen, it just did, for various reasons. And it will keep happening no matter how much you cry or plead for it to stop. The only way to stop it would be to enforce some kind of organized team play, but that's exactly what quickplay is not. (well, that or limit the game to about three maps).

[Flyby215]

I'm going to nascar and there isn't much you can do to stop me

[aardappelianen]

Crying nascar is a losers crutch, it happens way to soon and way to often, to the detriment of player morality.
This is a game that punishes you brutally for taking bad positions, fumbling while under fire or having a scissor build and running into a bunch of rocks.
So many games i see people doing their best to counter enemy movements with whatever they got and dying honorably and all they get is the bitching from some smartass afterwards.
This is not a balanced game at all, but we play it because we love stompy robots and the thrill of combat.
I know im that special kind of idiot who plays stank builds almost exclusively but even so i get to shine and carry games, not because i can point and click properly, its because i made the right choice in that game and it payed off.
I do no judge others for their failures, i simply fight as hard as i can and all the ****** games make the good ones that much more enjoyable.

[Frenzy Engine]

About the Nascar ... it's pure instinct to take cover when someone is shooting you. If we didn't do this, this planet would be void of all human life by now. Take this basic fact coupled with the fact of how all of our maps are laid out (and how many of them are rather tiny), you just can't stop it. I get the complaint you want new tactics more options, but I also don't get it.

I've been in games where we've actively gone counter nascar (turn right), and it works pretty well for the most part, but for it to work, you have to have an early, concerted effort by everyone. If PGI would let the player base make new maps, we could probably correct this. But I don't see that happening unless EVERY SINGLE POST ON THIS FORUM OR TWEET OR TWITCH OR WHATEVER EMBLAZONED THE WORDS "GIVE US THE ABILITY TO MAKE NEW MAPS". Wait, why can't we do that?

The new psr calculation relies way too much on damage. They do need to correct this. In a match last night, I killed 3, assisted 9 kills, got a good match score. I look down the list, someone killed 2, assisted 5, and got a better match score than me by at least 100 points. The difference is yes you guessed it ... damage. It's a I don't mind it, but I do thing. I personally always fall back to well it's a team game, and even though some games are not team oriented and we loose, this is a team game and it feels damn good when the team comes together and kicks arse. I'm not sure PGI cares about the different battle types (Skirmish, Incursion, etc). If they did though, then each battle type should have it's own psr calculation to swing towards the goal of that battle type.

Oh, almost forgot. Let's see if this catches on. "GIVE US THE ABILITY TO MAKE NEW MAPS". Think about this PGI. I have no idea if this is accurate, but I get the sense that it is. You're bleeding money from MWO. Dwindling player base for a variety of reasons. People not buying with real dollars much of anything. Think about this PGI. That could turn around if you GAVE US THE ABILITY TO MAKE NEW MAPS. People would not only stay longer, others would flock back with cash in hand ready to be spent.

[Grimus_Hunts]

My opinion is if PGI finds this game a lost cause, then at least keep the game strategic. Lets stop Padding the Fortnite and COD player's ego, while the guys being left behind is going to get crushed and ultimately punished for picking a Slow mech. People who nascar simply run from a fight as the tail gets chewed up. They end up with high score because they let everybody else do the fighting for them, as they get easy dmg from safety.. That is a wretched style of game play. Bring the Thinking back to the game.

I agree with Homer

OZHomerOZ, on 08 August 2020 - 12:14 PM, said:

Player needs to adapt to the game

Not the game adapt to the player (MM excluded as it should accommodate the players)

So many players the game cannot possibility adapt to all of them. One game easier to adapt to.

Edited by Grimus_Hunts, 13 August 2020 - 08:59 AM.

[VonBruinwald]

Remember: It takes two teams to NASCAR

[Grimus_Hunts]

VonBruinwald, on 13 August 2020 - 01:24 PM, said:

Remember: It takes two teams to NASCAR

Umm yes.. .which would be the entire point of this post

[Moldur]

Kubernetes, on 08 August 2020 - 10:17 PM, said:

It's also a game built around mech combat. I didn't spend all that time in mechlab building a sweet killing machine just so I could stand on a square and pray no one shoot me. Sure I'll grab a cap on Conquest so the game doesn't end prematurely, but every game can be won by killing the other team. All other win conditions can be interrupted by the enemy team. So yeah, kill the enemy team first and foremost.

Regarding nascar, it's been one of the most discussed topics on here forever. No one decided that it would happen, it just did, for various reasons. And it will keep happening no matter how much you cry or plead for it to stop. The only way to stop it would be to enforce some kind of organized team play, but that's exactly what quickplay is not. (well, that or limit the game to about three maps).

I would go further and say the game is built around an inflexible, narrow scenario of mech combat. What we get is merely one small look into the realm of mech combat. It doesn't matter how many mechs we have to play with. It's the equivalent of having a speedboat but being confined to a swimming pool. We can make all sorts of role playing builds, balanced scout builds etc. but at the end of the day, the maps and matches are what we would define as close quarters, mid-scale mech combat. It's 24 mechs getting fielded in relatively tight quarters. It's not a mission for a single agile mech with ecm to gather a bunch of data, armed to take on some aircraft and tanks. You're gearing your mech up for a SWAT raid, not walking in the woods for days.

[Monkey Lover]

People want it. They vote for it, they pick the mechs for it. Most groups I'm seeing are taking fast mediums to do it.

That's the game move fast and shoot.

[Bronn of the Blackwater]

I used to hate nascar. But finally i understood the bitter truth. Nascar is a feature of the maps we have, the relative speed of the classes and the usual distribution of armor points between face and back. And it´s a tactic easy to learn and more of less intuitive...
It´s almost impossible to not nascar in maps like manifold or old frozen city. Specially when the spawn of the alpha lance is almost at sight by the enemy team.

Another issue making impossible to avoid the nascar is a possible game mistake. In my opinion, cadets never should be in assaults. Never. Newbies being continuously massacred in lurm assaults was always bad for the continuity of the player base.

It´s easy to understand. To play an anti-nascar, assaults must offer a steel and fire barrier to the incoming enemies trying to nascar. They will be the first ones to engage.

But more often, what you have is... Unknow players with titles like "bridesmaid" or "King errant", starting to move when half the team is far away, and not clever enough to at least hide, and try to join the main group in the first turn of the nascar...

When I see familiar names, dont see missile tubes, and see the same unit tags in an assault lance, I pay attention and consider to stay in a good position, and bet for a solid firing line.

But i realized some time ago that Nascar is simply the bettter tactic a 90 per cente of times when you don´t trust in your team... And to be sincere, i don´t trust too much in my teams lately...

"We lost because the Nascar" can be sometimes "They won because Nascared better then us"

Edited by Tirant Lo Blanc, 14 August 2020 - 03:32 PM.

[jjm1]

Nascar counter strategies do rarely happen on the typical nascar maps. I have been on teams where the assaults and heavies have camped good positions and easily won against an early rotation.

The opposition races around the corner expecting to see the slowest assault waddling with the flow instead of two lances with their corner dialled in, whatever happens after that the enemy now has to play better than they otherwise would have against single targets. They are just a pug team as well and wont have much forward planning beyond a muscle memorised Zergling strat.

It would make more sense if teams instinctively stick together and used the assault armour to set up simple counters to predictable plays, but instead too many players wait and see what direction the red blob is spinning in and go in the same direction to avoid it, and then teammates die for nothing, and then the game dies because its annoying as f to play with them.

So, nascar isn't *always* the problem, it's the cowards that don't help in countering it, they just let it happen to others, essentially throwing the match in the process. Sometimes it is the problem, when half your team does a wide 180 on the map to arrive at nothing and the enemy nascar wins everything by virtue of not leaving the assaults to die.

[Willard Phule]

When the bad guy shoots at you, you have three choices: stand there and take it, move to cover or back up into your teammates.

The teams that take the third option tend to shoot each other in the back a lot. Moving forward is safest. And, whaddya know...if you keep moving forward, nascar. Huh. Weird how that works.

[Vyx]

I'm sure you've all read it before ... the Scrub essay. If you haven't, it's worth a 5 minute read.

In a nutshell, the Scrub player cannot adapt to tactics. They have a set of artificial rules in their head that limits their options.

Instead of learning to overcome a new tactic employed against them, they call it "cheap" and disparage it, demanding others not use that tactic, that the game itself should be changed to reduce the value of that tactic, and that using that tactic is "dishonorable", "unfair", "boring", or "stupid".

This psychosis is common in life -- and very common among gamers.

Adapt.

Edited by Vyx, 17 August 2020 - 11:28 AM.