57 replies to this topic

[East Indy]

Meep Meep, on 03 March 2021 - 01:40 PM, said:

Changing maps around to make nascar more difficult won't stop nascar because its the natural hunting drive to get behind an enemy so you don't get shot. Humans automatically try to flank just like any predator and since most are right handed we tend to drift that way at the beginning and once the rotation starts you have to go with the flow or get overrun by the other side. The only solution that works I have seen in quick play is someone taking command over voip and getting a firing line set up or simply getting the rotation to go left so both teams end up running into each other instead of after each other.

Exactly. To expand, much of the rotation is likely because many 'Mechs field such restricted-range weaponry as to resemble melee, and further simulate pre-firearm infantry. Two teams of entirely long-range armament and I guarantee battle lines will be more static or at least linear. What's unfortunate is the number of players who have been made to believe that flanking is somehow bad in and of itself, but don't understand anything else tactical -- including whether the team can maintain med-long fire -- so they try to form up at bottoms of hills and produce a slow, agonizing loss.

[Dozer6]

Nightbird, on 03 March 2021 - 01:52 PM, said:

then I won't waste time explaining where you are wrong...

Stop being such a douchenozzle would ya?

Makes popcorn...

[Wildstreak]

I do not and never will follow any of this Game Theory mainly because it operates on assumptions more than facts. Makes for cute theorizing but not really helpful.

[_Magno_]

Every player is making a decision based on assumptions in QP.
What hurts QP and devolves into NASCAR is in large part due to most players have very little knowledge of what their company of mechs is capable of or optimized for.
Its actually worse than the examples presented in the Game Theory article provided, because at least all those soldiers have knowledge of their equipment, positions, etc..

If the game provided some time to process company composition, or provided some nominal information:
Ex: Company has 12x LRMS, 15x ATMs, 36 medium lasers, 8 PPCs, ...
or
Company average DPS is 5.4 upto 100m, 6.3 upto 200, 7.4upto 400m with 16 AMS and 4 ECM.

This is one of the reasons I do like Polar Highlands. There is enough time marching to the middle to at least get SOME info from teammates.

This type of information could help with better tactics in a given map. But the majority of the player base will likely complain that drops take too long and lets just go, go, go banzai.

[_Magno_]

Map design and scenario does contribute heavily to NASCAR.

The lack of knowledge of teammates mechs and the sharing of armor typically compels everyone to stay together.
So you have a blob with surface tension.

This blob approaches a circular feature or obstruction and if a portion of the "blob" pulls one way, the surface tension of pulls the rest.

Remove center features or the scenario driving to the middle and you remove that which the blobs need to move around to some extent.

From the game theory perspective, you have a few players driven by maximizing match score and/or avoiding the damage and looking for a flank to farm damage. The rest of us see the little blue dots on our mini map moving away and because we lack knowledge of what they are truly upto, or what their capabilities are, another blue dot follows and we all know to be left behind and alone as a single slow blue dot = dead.

[Nightbird]

If you dumb it down even further I suppose it becomes "monkey see monkey do" lol. It's not true that there has to be a central feature for nascar to happen. Take polar highlands, people find a random hill and nascar around it. What is the map-designer to do? Make it all 100% flat?

It's still true that game mechanics need to be put in place whereby the team that doesn't nascar in gains an advantage rather than gaining a disadvantage as is the case today.

[Theodore]

(take what I am about to say with a grain of salt as I have a very limited amount of actual game knowledge, and all of it being within quickplay).

I think one of the problems with eliminating Nascar (regardless of what the devs do) is what I like to call zombie apocalypse syndrome.

-It is my assumption that there are players out there who literally only care about their own stats, and their own lives. (honestly that is fine, as this is a game of course).

--But within that subset of players, there are those who will actively use their team mates in devious ways to pad their own stats.

---Run faster then the slowest team mates, in hopes that the zombies will attack the tail end like its bait. Then hopefully get some rear shots on the attacking zombies while they are distracted with the slow moving bait. (They will quite literally try regardless of what the devs do. If the devs change certain locations of the map to inhibit this behavior. This subset of players will always try to find ways to do this-- maybe instead of going right, they will instead go left... ect...)

----I do not believe this happens with every nascar situation, probably only a very small percentage of the time. The reality is though, once a player gets left to fend for them selves against the zombie apocalypse, they will form a defensive thought pattern in their mind--- "Do not get left behind, and do not be the bait". So when something even remotely looks like a NASCAR, many pilots will just go with the flow.

-----Some pilots will try to rectify Nascar before it begins by jumping on coms. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not. But in the end, I think its the will of the player base that can ultimately stop nascar- not the devs. Teamwork is important, and coms is a great way to organize this.

Anyway, that is my two cents. I am probably wrong, so please do not flame me to hard.

[Nightbird]

Theodore, on 04 March 2021 - 10:52 AM, said:

Anyway, that is my two cents. I am probably wrong, so please do not flame me to hard.

I hope you don't take this as a flame. If a player can make decision A to give the team a 50:50 chance of winning, or decision B to give the team a 40:60 chance of winning. How is it that the player that chooses decision A to give the team a better chance of winning the selfish one?

[Theodore]

Nightbird, on 04 March 2021 - 12:56 PM, said:

I hope you don't take this as a flame. If a player can make decision A to give the team a 50:50 chance of winning, or decision B to give the team a 40:60 chance of winning. How is it that the player that chooses decision A to give the team a better chance of winning the selfish one?

Sorry, I probably should have made this more clear, I agree with your first post completely. I am just saying, regardless of what the devs do or how the majority of the player base acts, there will be a small subset of the player base that will find ways to sacrifice their other team mates to the zombie apocalypse. You can give players a 60/40 chance to win or even a 90% chance to win, but there will be a certain subset of players who will throw all of that out the window just so they can find ways to pad their own stats.

I have seen it, someone on coms gives a strategy (that is not NASCAR) and there will usually be a group of team mates that just do not care.

I have even spectated people (what "looks" like intentionally) block teammates from retreating into cover, or purposely not shooting a target until the enemy is cored out to "secure a kill".

Anyway, hope that clarifies my stance.

[Nightbird]

Theodore, on 04 March 2021 - 01:30 PM, said:

You can give players a 60/40 chance to win or even a 90% chance to win, but there will be a certain subset of players who will throw all of that out the window just so they can find ways to pad their own stats.

Maybe. Without giving players that 60/40 choice to not Nascar in the first place, how do we know? It's also not as if we want to stop everyone from Nascaring/flanking, getting 1-11 people to choose differently is enough per round.

[Anjian]

Vlad Ward, on 03 March 2021 - 12:33 PM, said:

I don't see how Objectives or Objective-based play will ever matter without respawns.

Reducing the Conquest point limits may encourage a player to take nearby caps initially, but also decreases the length of the match and forces everyone right back to fighting over Theta. The early advantage is just solidified.

At what point do we say "Screw it" and add periodic dropship landings with fresh Mechs. Not a drop deck, just a shiny new version of the Mech you were piloting before. We've already suspended disbelief by letting these things magic their way back to waxed and polished between matches.

Every PvP team vs. team game I have seen that has:

Small maps with multiple objective paths.

Capture objectives.

Limited numbers of players on each side.

Respawns

Player selectable respawn points

Time limits on the match.


Never had nascaring or camping. Game play is highly dynamic, prone to brawling, gives weight to both the fast player, the tanky player, the brawler and the sniper.

[Dozer6]

Theodore, on 04 March 2021 - 01:30 PM, said:

Sorry, I probably should have made this more clear, I agree with your first post completely. I am just saying, regardless of what the devs do or how the majority of the player base acts, there will be a small subset of the player base that will find ways to sacrifice their other team mates to the zombie apocalypse. You can give players a 60/40 chance to win or even a 90% chance to win, but there will be a certain subset of players who will throw all of that out the window just so they can find ways to pad their own stats.

I have seen it, someone on coms gives a strategy (that is not NASCAR) and there will usually be a group of team mates that just do not care.

I have even spectated people (what "looks" like intentionally) block teammates from retreating into cover, or purposely not shooting a target until the enemy is cored out to "secure a kill".

Anyway, hope that clarifies my stance.

You are 100% correct, the C.O.D. mindset is really bad, however, i am seeing more new players coming in so that is a good thing.
That's why i try to group with unit mates because we know we got each others backs.

[LordNothing]

Wildstreak, on 04 March 2021 - 08:48 AM, said:

I do not and never will follow any of this Game Theory mainly because it operates on assumptions more than facts. Makes for cute theorizing but not really helpful.

there is danger in spending too much time in theory land. game theory assumes a nexus point where a decision can be made. but the game is fluid and people are all on different pages at different times. if i come to a couple friendly mechs who have turned around to face the enemy, and there are mechs behind me trying to keep up. thats a nexus point for me that tells me i can keep doing what im doing, or join them on their firing line, and thats a decision i have to make on the spot. however when you are in that nascar conga line, your option is either keep turning or die, and since the latter is so obviously bad, it effectively eliminates the decision. there needs to be obvious tactical benefit to do something other than nascar that players can see in the absence of communication (because lets face it, that is exceedingly rare beyond 'target spotted').

[Nightbird]

LordNothing, on 05 March 2021 - 02:26 PM, said:

there is danger in spending too much time in theory land. game theory assumes a nexus point where a decision can be made. but the game is fluid and people are all on different pages at different times. if i come to a couple friendly mechs who have turned around to face the enemy, and there are mechs behind me trying to keep up. thats a nexus point for me that tells me i can keep doing what im doing, or join them on their firing line, and thats a decision i have to make on the spot. however when you are in that nascar conga line, your option is either keep turning or die, and since the latter is so obviously bad, it effectively eliminates the decision. there needs to be obvious tactical benefit to do something other than nascar that players can see in the absence of communication (because lets face it, that is exceedingly rare beyond 'target spotted').

A "theory" in science is that which is backed by the preponderance evidence. Sure, there may be cases when a player is too much of a newbie and makes poor decision by virtue of not knowing better, or a player is so skilled they can make any plan successful. As a T3 player with plenty of games under your belt though, you're trapped in the middle of it

[LordNothing]

Nightbird, on 05 March 2021 - 02:44 PM, said:

A "theory" in science is that which is backed by the preponderance evidence. Sure, there may be cases when a player is too much of a newbie and makes poor decision by virtue of not knowing better, or a player is so skilled they can make any plan successful. As a T3 player with plenty of games under your belt though, you're trapped in the middle of it

science is also very good at eliminating external variables from the problem and figuring out exactly what is going on in isolation. but when those theories start getting applied to practical problems, things can get messy. like overbuilding a structure because you dont want to run afoul of poor tolerances in your materials, or specing your power supply for 600w when every test and equation you run says you need half that because you dont know what corners the manufacturer cut. you got young's modulus and ohms law for these problems of course, but you usually side with your practical experience in such matters.

also im closer to a t2 player who is currently in the process of deviating from the meta, because reasons. you could say im on vacation. tier system is very sensitive to bad builds, and i keep hard data to tell me which is which. in this case im intentionally running the bad ones. ive done a lot of stupid things with this account for fun and sometimes profit.

Edited by LordNothing, 05 March 2021 - 03:11 PM.

[Nightbird]

LordNothing, on 05 March 2021 - 03:10 PM, said:

science is also very good at eliminating external variables from the problem and figuring out exactly what is going on in isolation. but when those theories start getting applied to practical problems, things can get messy. like overbuilding a structure because you dont want to run afoul of poor tolerances in your materials, or specing your power supply for 600w when every test and equation you run says you need half that because you dont know what corners the manufacturer cut. you got young's modulus and ohms law for these problems of course, but you usually side with your practical experience in such matters.

also im closer to a t2 player who is currently in the process of deviating from the meta, because reasons. you could say im on vacation. tier system is very sensitive to bad builds, and i keep hard data to tell me which is which. in this case im intentionally running the bad ones. ive done a lot of stupid things with this account for fun and sometimes profit.

So here you are in a thread about Nascar, proclaiming you are not predictable... lol

[Dozer6]

I feel the ghost of Einstein is watching...

[The pessimistic optimist]

Anjian, on 04 March 2021 - 10:05 PM, said:

Every PvP team vs. team game I have seen that has:

Small maps with multiple objective paths.

Capture objectives.

Limited numbers of players on each side.

Respawns

Player selectable respawn points

Time limits on the match.


Never had nascaring or camping. Game play is highly dynamic, prone to brawling, gives weight to both the fast player, the tanky player, the brawler and the sniper.

What he said

[Nightbird]

SirSmokes, on 06 March 2021 - 07:30 AM, said:

What he said

Nan... asking for the moon will get you nothing...

[The pessimistic optimist]

Nightbird, on 06 March 2021 - 01:25 PM, said:

Nan... asking for the moon will get you nothing...

Moon made of crack?