Getting spawn killed is bad, no two ways about it, but when you create spawn defenses, people will choose to fight there to begin with and of course when they die and re-spawn, they get spawn camped. Ideally we need a mechanic that offers safety for spawns but tactical demerits for staying there. Something could work would be something like drop pods where you click on your side of the Battle Map (which shows spotted enemies) where you want to drop and then you land there with no dropship cover fire at all. If you need to use dropships then just have them do a flyby and drop the mechs from high altitude with one use JJs.
easy, domination only, with a yellow dish 3 times as large, but 3 billion turrets in the spawns with a sort of base and better dropships
I can understand a comp player's mentality that eliminating all modes save for one is OK, but a lot of people play FP for the variety. Playing the same mode over and over again and we start to feel like gold fish.
easy, domination only, with a yellow dish 3 times as large, but 3 billion turrets in the spawns with a sort of base and better dropships
That sounds terrible. Having to grind your way through all those turrets would just turn into a slog. A few is fine but the turrets shouldn't out number the players.
have the base turn those turrets on you if you linger as a punishment for cowardice.
turrets should make it impossible to advance very far into the spawn area without getting hit by a few dozen turrets. and likewise failure to immediately evacuate the drop area results in being flagged as a coward and shot by a few dozen turrets. you need to maximize the perimeter area and provide multiple means of egress so that no one exit can be camped in force. now this is some serious map re-design and i doubt it will be done.
addendum: give the drop ships really good sensors so that enemies within about 1.5km will be revealed when a lance is dropped. this ability would only last the few seconds after a lance is dropped and is only used to tip off the dropees to local threats. it would also require proximity to the dropship to receive the data, and targets would not be lockable unless also they fell into your mech's sensor range.
I stopped giving a **** about fw a while ago, but I want to add this, for the sake of argument.
There's no cover outside of that spawnzone to advance too. It's right smack dab in the middle of a kill box.. one map you don't see that on as much is vitric forge, which has a LOT of cover, and non accessable dropzones. Pgi might want to look there for inspiration if they ever want to fix this problem.
Allowing players to select individual dropzones is the answer. Provide a bird's eye view of the 3 spawns similar to conquest points during the mech selection screen. Remove spawn walls to prevent players spawning from using them as cover. Players that attempt to farm spawns would find it harder when the opposing players can actively avoid the spawn they are at. Of course that would require reworking of spawn locations.
@ Yondu Udonta: At Polar Highlands and probably some other maps too, it would also require the dropzones to be 1800 meter apart from each other.
At the current setup. He is dropping in the other dropzone, ER-LARGE LASERS, LIGHT-GAUSS, ER-PPCs aaaaaaand hes dead.
And when PGI will put the dropzones so far apart, that you can not simply, shoot with your Sniper-Mech, there is the danger, that the enemy team takes a couple of fast light mechs, And farm the people who are dropping, with their light mechs, because the enemy is too far apart, to get help.
Every clever move, has another clever move to conter it.
I stopped giving a **** about fw a while ago, but I want to add this, for the sake of argument.
There's no cover outside of that spawnzone to advance too. It's right smack dab in the middle of a kill box.. one map you don't see that on as much is vitric forge, which has a LOT of cover, and non accessable dropzones. Pgi might want to look there for inspiration if they ever want to fix this problem.
its easy to set up a crater brawl, but for an attacker that's still a losing strategy. a base should never be in no mans land. for larger maps like polar, it really needs to be on a high spot with now views inside. alpine is another map that has this problem. the low base and high vantage points make it impossible to stay safe inside your base (regardless of the fact that if you don't leave you are doomed). its speaks of the hastily smacked together nature of the base walls. even the siege map spawns took several iterations and still rather lack luster, vitric forge and emerald taiga (hellbore to a lesser degree) are examples of spawn locations done right. you just need a lot of terrain to disappear into.
That sounds terrible. Having to grind your way through all those turrets would just turn into a slog. A few is fine but the turrets shouldn't out number the players.
~Leone.
you don't have to grind anything, the turrets would be in spawns, you are just not supposed to kill people in their own spawn. the dom dish is needed to stop people form remaining in their own spawn
But the people will just stay in their spawns then. That'll make for more boring games if you make spawn camping more attractive. We already have that problem on domination. This 'fix' would just make it more prevalent, not less.
But the people will just stay in their spawns then. That'll make for more boring games if you make spawn camping more attractive. We already have that problem on domination. This 'fix' would just make it more prevalent, not less.
~Leone.
at this point you must be trolling, because this makes no sense: if you sit in your spawn in domination, you lose the game
i still dont think domination belongs in fp. everyone tried to kill fp conquest but domination was the mode that needed to go. wait 20 minutes for a match, finally get one, and lose in the first 3 minutes because nobody wanted to stand in pee.
saw video on start of this topic - not interesting to farm enemy if u not psycho, and not interesting to be farmed if u not mazochist , but atacking spawn helps to deplete enemy mechs and weaken enemy firepower so even if not fun it is usefull . its definatly interesting situation to end up from perspective of enemy team - u cant retreat anywhere and u cant move from dropzone because enemy surounded u - i think clan team had no comunication between diferent units because it wasnt usual pugdrop - they had experienced players - and usualy premades ignor pugs or other units and they only talk to they group on ts or discord - so probably thats what happened and people didnt knew what other people are planing to do and all end up in complete chaos , would be interesting to see match recording from other side - mabe primo recorded it
but the whole spawn camping thing and spawn farming is definatly a strategy and like i said many times - in war and in bed there are no rules - do anything u want but achieve the final goal - and in this game final goal is victory or complete annihilation of enemy .
to make dropzone safer place and to make atacking dropzone for enemy very dificult decision i have few options - probably somebody wrote them already but i dont read forums too much :
make dropzone out of maps bounds - u drop with mech and u in some sort of buble of shield generator so u cant shoot your weapons untill u move from dropzone ( to eliminate people of abusing spawn) , when u move from out of bounds area u go into heavy defended position ( i sugest all lances should drop same place ) , in order to make it more realistic - story would be like this - first dropship drops autonomous turents on ground , then baricade walls like we have now in spawn ,and only when dropzone is relatively save it starts deploying mechs - thats why if posible would be great to have spawn made in out of bounds area near map corner - mechs would be deployed surounded by big walls so enemy cant snipe u from far or make it something like shield generator that is deployed on ground and protects u from enemy fire - but at same time shield generator dont alow use your weapons too so u dont damage force field - i didnt read books about mechwarrior so no idea if shield generators exist so mabe just make dropship go lower so walls can protect u and your weapons switched of until u leave dropzone - outside dropzone u gona have more baricade walls and turenst on ground , and if enemy comes too close to dropzone then team gets anouncemet same like we have now when enemy atacks our base " enemy detected near dropzone" - and friendly dropship comes to patrol near dropzone same like we had dropship protecting extraction point in scouting mode ( 4vs4 ) - this way when u see anouncement u can coordinate your team to clear the dropzone from enemies or if u cant doit then u know that a lonely mech wont be farmed to permadead becuase dropzone has enough firepower by itself
and there wont be posible to go back to dropzone area because its out of bounds - so once u leave u gona need to hide and fight near dropzone , near map corner , in heavy defended are and patroling dropship will help u if enemy comes too close.
and if somebody is afk or disco - they have some time to reconect - after that time if u still in dropzone your mech would be destroyed by turents or dropship or just explodes itself to avoid abusing dropzone area - in other words u be courtmarshaled because was hiding and avoided fighting enemy and cowardice is punished by the death penalty - u cant just go afk in reallife abttle without consequences - so if u have problems with pc or conection u probably gona loose your mechs but still have time to reconect .
would be great to make a mine field in front of dropzone area , mines are activated by enemy mechs but are safe for friendly mech - but dont think pgi has mine item made and they said they can do development with items they already have in game - but even without mines with turents on ground and patroling dropship we gona have some sort of buffer zone that will allow to feel relative safe - because now nothing stops coordinated enemy to move straight into dropzone and your mech burns same second u hit ground.
this will make enemy team even if its very powerfull to think carefully to go close to enemy dropzone - it will be dificult decision and it will need alot friendly casualties - so definatly wont see one fast lance farming lonely mechs in spawn like we have now - and for pugs it will be the last point to make they laststand even against good enemy team - because now if u end up in match with premades and u have no teamwork on your team u know from start that u be farmed and there is no way to defend properly in dropzone because dropship dont bring enough firepower if all enemy team atacks and enemy can hide behind walls from dropship - thats why turents in front of dropzone and patroling dropship in front of dropzone would help alot- and for strong team would be more interesting to atack heavy defended dropzone if weak enemy is hiding there instead of just farming them easily
and yes people will abuse this heavy defended dropzone and stay in it whole match - same like we have matches on boreal vault where weak team dont even open gates and sit inside all match not even trying to atack omega - but for proper unit its not problem and for pugs its normal thing - people just afraid to be farmed , afraid to open gates because enemy will start pouring into them and into spawn and all will end in 10 minutes with half team permadead - but that is game about war and in war bad things happen and weak are eaten by strong and u cant blame weak teams - specially pugs that they afraid to fight - game is open for everyone so people trying out all game modes - mabe it would be better to make FW requirement more strict - like no trial mechs , minimum matches played higher, , but comunity is small and we gona see pugdrops anyway and no teamwokr and no comunication so there will be sufering and there will be farming and its normal thing in competition games.
good luck in real and virtual world , hope we see more love for FW from pgi and more resources for development, and one day mabe we meet each other in mwo2 on bigger maps with more strategic options and more players on battlefield .