382 replies to this topic

[KursedVixen]

Just One Doane, on 24 August 2023 - 05:29 AM, said:

In my opinion, the maps overall are very good. My only complaint is that many old maps had to go away for new maps. I love the new Polar Highlands, but I also enjoyed the old one. Looking at the poll results as of today, I think a lot of the feedback on maps can be explained as 'can I run into the middle of the map and brawl, or set up to snipe the middle of the map because I know exactly where the enemy team is going to go every time?' If yes, then the map is good. If no, or I have to walk a long distance for this to happen, then no. I LOVE the cat and mouse games that can occur on the bigger maps when you don't always know where the enemy is going to be. I believe the bigger issue, and a solution to a lot of the feedback I see for the game all over, is to address the game modes.

Skirmish - On the larger maps, vary the spawn locations to encourage engagements somewhere besides the approximate center of the map. This can also occasionally be used to place the teams closed together. While it can be rewarding to have more time to set up, it is nice once and awhile to get the action going faster on the bigger maps.

Domination - Similar to Skirmish, I think changing up the location of the domination circle would help open up new tactical and strategic choices. Also, I would love to see the circle not be a circle. Customizing the shape to conform to the map would also help the action. For example, on Mining Collective, Domination should only count the top tier platform in the center. No single mechs just hiding out on the lower tier should be able to keep the clock from moving. On Alpine Peaks, utilizing a structure grouping, and making you have to have a mech in amongst the buildings would really up the action and pressure.

Assault - As with Skirmish, move and focus the spawn points (at least some of the time) in specific areas of bigger maps to create more urgent action while still allowing options for long flanks to get to a base.

Conquest - I don't think any major changes need to made, other than some general feedback to incentivize objectives more across all game modes. This is by far the most diverse mode in the game. This is for two reasons I believe. 1) It is the only mode that truly rewards light mechs for doing light mech things, scouting, recon, and picking off lone assaults is so much more meaningful here because in every other game mode, 95%+ of the time the teams are always going to go to the exact same spots. And 2) It is the only mode that players generally play to the mode. Assault and Domination are just skirmish 90% of the time or more.

Incursion - I think this mode is great, but most people just don't see it enough to even understand the options. I can't remember a game of this where at least one person on my team genuinely has no idea what's going on. Biggest issue here I believe is just incentivizing playing the objectives more (As with all modes, doing lots of damage and kills is more rewarding to the player than capping or hitting the base, win or lose.) And here's a big one, I think: Move all base turrets to the outside of the walls, and buff their durability. Teams would be more likely yo try and defend if they have help defending the actual wall. Players should also be rewarded for getting around/through the walls by having free reign inside the enemies base. It is SOOO anti-climactic to lose the game because you wipe the enemy team and then have a turret get the win.

I would also love to see new general game modes, in addition to the cool options being thrown in for the event queue. An escort mode, or a capture the flag would provide more variety.

As always, keep up the awesome work!

we had escort it sucked.

without multiple lives CTF would get boring fast.

Edited by KursedVixen, 24 August 2023 - 02:12 PM.

[JumpingHunter]

KursedVixen, on 24 August 2023 - 02:12 PM, said:

we had escort it sucked.

without multiple lives CTF would get boring fast.

For CTF we have a groundbreaking concept of drop deck, which is exactly the "multiple lives" system you are talking about. It is even better than just respawning, as you can actually switch roles after your death, if you need some defense you get the assault and go defend base, if you need capping you go light and try to sneak to enemy flag, if you need some holding ground action you get faster heavy or medium and tie enemy in a fight, so i think CTF would actually have been decent gamemode.

[C337Skymaster]

KursedVixen, on 24 August 2023 - 02:12 PM, said:

we had escort it sucked.

without multiple lives CTF would get boring fast.

Escort was the victim of the fact that that was literally PGI's first attempt at AI programming (besides simple targeting for the turrets, which were always 100% accurate). If it had been more interactive, like the MFB's from MechWarrior 3, which, while they followed pre-programmed paths, traveled to locations only when assigned by the player (in MWO it could have been whoever assumed Company Command), and to the specific location assigned by the player (Company Commander). If there could have been a way for one player to take command and "steer" the VIP, that could easily have saved the mode from the complete disdain that it received. Further, if there was an actual convoy, instead of an impotent Atlas, and if that convoy included refit vehicles that could actually repair the defenders, but required some give-and-take as to whether they would make the rendezvous in time, that could have made the defenders more interested in keeping the convoy alive, but still prevented them from camping out for repairs and whittling the attackers down to nothing. With repairs, you wouldn't need sensor towers or turrets, either. You could just defend your repair trucks and get them to their destination without allowing them to blaze on ahead of a static firing line.

[KursedVixen]

C337Skymaster, on 26 August 2023 - 07:22 PM, said:

Escort was the victim of the fact that that was literally PGI's first attempt at AI programming (besides simple targeting for the turrets, which were always 100% accurate). If it had been more interactive, like the MFB's from MechWarrior 3, which, while they followed pre-programmed paths, traveled to locations only when assigned by the player (in MWO it could have been whoever assumed Company Command), and to the specific location assigned by the player (Company Commander). If there could have been a way for one player to take command and "steer" the VIP, that could easily have saved the mode from the complete disdain that it received. Further, if there was an actual convoy, instead of an impotent Atlas, and if that convoy included refit vehicles that could actually repair the defenders, but required some give-and-take as to whether they would make the rendezvous in time, that could have made the defenders more interested in keeping the convoy alive, but still prevented them from camping out for repairs and whittling the attackers down to nothing. With repairs, you wouldn't need sensor towers or turrets, either. You could just defend your repair trucks and get them to their destination without allowing them to blaze on ahead of a static firing line.

the vehicles would need some decent armor to not be destroyed by a single Ac-20

[Void Angel]

I really doubt that you'd find enough players willing to drive the Escort 'mech instead of playing their own - but I did like some things about Escort, because it broke up the static gameplay that was so prevalent at the time. So often players would just go to the strong points they knew on that map, and refuse to move. Escort punished that behavior; you had to move ahead of the VIP 'mech and proactively take ground, or the enemy would work over the escorted Atlas in short order.

No level or armor is likely correct for that Escort Atlas, because players at different points on the skill curve will be using different-quality loadouts, marksmanship, and tactics. But I think the insurmountable problem with Escort is that players couldn't control the progress of the VIP. There's not a good way I can think of to adjudicate that process either. If control goes to the company commander, well... that's just who loaded in fast enough to hit that button first. So now people with slower machines/bandwidth who don't load in fast enough often can't play that bit of the game; the quality of self-selected Escort tacticians will be wildly variable; and you're also creating a mission-critical role and placing it in the hands of one person...

It's a thorny problem, and I don't see a clear solution - but I do miss things about that mode.

[C337Skymaster]

Void Angel, on 27 August 2023 - 06:45 PM, said:

I really doubt that you'd find enough players willing to drive the Escort 'mech instead of playing their own - but I did like some things about Escort, because it broke up the static gameplay that was so prevalent at the time. So often players would just go to the strong points they knew on that map, and refuse to move. Escort punished that behavior; you had to move ahead of the VIP 'mech and proactively take ground, or the enemy would work over the escorted Atlas in short order.

No level or armor is likely correct for that Escort Atlas, because players at different points on the skill curve will be using different-quality loadouts, marksmanship, and tactics. But I think the insurmountable problem with Escort is that players couldn't control the progress of the VIP. There's not a good way I can think of to adjudicate that process either. If control goes to the company commander, well... that's just who loaded in fast enough to hit that button first. So now people with slower machines/bandwidth who don't load in fast enough often can't play that bit of the game; the quality of self-selected Escort tacticians will be wildly variable; and you're also creating a mission-critical role and placing it in the hands of one person...

It's a thorny problem, and I don't see a clear solution - but I do miss things about that mode.

Did you ever play MechWarrior 3? If not, go look up a Let's Play video on YouTube. It was really cool, and really well done, and the nostalgia for that game is a lot of the complaints that have been leveled against PGI over the years.

In summary, the player never "drove" the MFB. You simply instructed it to "go here", and it would follow a pre-programmed path to get there. But there were multiple spots on the map you could tell it to go, and you'd just cycle through them until you found the one you wanted, and it would drive itself and set up for repairs. From there, the first 'mech that shut down on the mark in the middle would get their armor and ammo refreshed (within the limits of whatever you had in inventory, and not by full tons. If you had 26 LRMs and 42 pts of that armor type in stock, then you'd get refreshed with 26 missiles and 42 pts of armor).

So all the guy with Company Command would do is open their battlegrid, use the MFB controls to say "go here", and wait for it to drive there. That way, they could avoid the front line combat area, they could have the MFB hold back from a determined offensive, have it drive a way that made sense, and that wasn't currently contested, but then resume fighting.

The main complaint with the VIP was that it was dumb as a box of rocks. It'd walk (always slowly) right into an enemy firing line like it didn't even know or care that they were there. Or it'd get stuck on terrain (I remember losing a match after we obliterated the attackers because it was stuck up against one of the low bridges at the back of Crimson Strait, so it would "never make the drop zone in time").

No, having one player set aside to drive the VIP is what Critical Rocket and company did when they invented the game mode that PGI later ripped off from his Twitch streams. I still think the convoy should be AI, but controllable AI, like in MechWarrior 3, not completely boneheaded AI that won't take suggestion.

EDIT: I found an example of the MFB being called:
https://youtu.be/Idp...gB5gn-zY&t=1195

The key things to focus on are the grey circle that shows up on his radar in the corner, and the fact that it changes location, then the green dot on the ground near the target he walks towards, and the three trucks that come up and take up positions around that green circle, all while he's still piloting his 'mech.

He goes in for repairs at 22:30, and comes out at 23:00, so watch at least that much, and you'll see how the MFB worked, and what I had in mind for MWO's Escort mode.

Edited by C337Skymaster, 28 August 2023 - 01:19 AM.

[Void Angel]

".. we will take to the field against the Clans, and explain to them the true meaning of honour and justice in a way they are sure to understand."

Yes, I may have enjoyed MW3.

The problem with having either direct or AI control of the escort 'mech is that you then have to decide which player controls it - players may not want to "get stuck" with the escort, having a troll (or, frankly, an idiot) pilot it will be frustrating, and if it's automated, it'll still be vulnerable to intelligent players' fire.

Edited by Void Angel, 29 August 2023 - 04:48 PM.

[C337Skymaster]

Void Angel, on 29 August 2023 - 04:32 PM, said:

".. we will take to the field against the Clans, and explain to them the true meaning of honour and justice in a way they are sure to understand."

Yes, I may have enjoyed MW3.

The problem with having either direct or AI control of the escort 'mech is that you then have to decide which player controls it - players may not want to "get stuck" with the escort, having a troll (or, frankly, an idiot) pilot it will be frustrating, and if it's automated, it'll still be vulnerable to intelligent players' fire.

That part's (kind of) easy: the Company Commander takes control, and if there is no Company Commander, then it defaults to the original VIP AI. Gives the players some incentive to take Company Command if they can override the original VIP AI.

Unfortunately, there's not really any way to get around a troll or idiot player, apart from the whole team reporting him for assisting the enemy...

[Void Angel]

That... doesn't solve the problem - it just punishes people for not taking the hit for the team. The problems of self-selecting idiots and not getting to play the 'mech you brought still remain.

[C337Skymaster]

Void Angel, on 31 August 2023 - 01:09 PM, said:

That... doesn't solve the problem - it just punishes people for not taking the hit for the team. The problems of self-selecting idiots and not getting to play the 'mech you brought still remain.

I'm not getting where you're coming from. You're not driving the convoy like a toy train or RC car. You're telling it "go here", and it goes there. The way I wanted to do it, once it gets there, someone can even repair: get an ammo and armor reset. You shouldn't have time to do more than half the defenders that way before you're out of time to get to the destination, so you do have to watch the clock, and triage repairs, but you tell the convoy "go here" and it goes, and then you go fight. Periodically, you check on its position (you're escorting it, remember?) and based on where the enemy is, you tell it to go somewhere else. The team knows where the pickup site will be (unlike PGI's original Escort mode), and has a timer indicating when the dropship will leave, so they can know how fast or slow to go and whether they'll make it or not.

Maybe you need to go back and play MW3 again. You have a considerable amount of control over the MFBs, and you still get to do most, if not all, of the fighting. You make sure they stay away from it, clear them a path, then call them up to different points along the map. I simply propose the same thing in MWO, and I'm really, REALLY confused about why you think the person who takes Company Command won't get to play the 'mech they brought? Have you ever taken Company Command before? Try it, sometime. It might surprise you.

No matter what the mode, we're not immune from trolls and idiots, but the higher you climb in the tiers, the more you can get away from them. Trolls, in particular.

Heck, just taking a LRM boat to Solaris means you "don't get to play the 'mech you brought", and yet you do: set yourself up in an area with good distance and sight lines, and you can rack up a normal match's worth of damage and kills in a LRM boat on Solaris. Same with Escort: keep track of the convoy that you're escorting, and also keep track of the enemy and shoot them every now and then.

Honestly, an Escort mission won without a shot fired should be some sort of insane payout, because that's the ultimate goal of escorting a high value target.

[Mechwarrior2342356]

Anything that assumes that just because people are thrown into a drop together that they trust each other enough to coordinate and cooperate with recognized competent commanders, and that competent commanders will take command, is completely DOA. That's not how QP typically works.

C337Skymaster, on 31 August 2023 - 08:26 PM, said:

Honestly, an Escort mission won without a shot fired should be some sort of insane payout, because that's the ultimate goal of escorting a high value target.

OpFor has to be impossibly incompetent to not accomplish landing a single shot. Anything that assumes complete and utter incompetence by OpFor is DOA. Never ever bank on OpFor being stupid.

Edited by the check engine light, 31 August 2023 - 08:31 PM.

[C337Skymaster]

the check engine light, on 31 August 2023 - 08:27 PM, said:

Anything that assumes that just because people are thrown into a drop together that they trust each other enough to coordinate and cooperate with recognized competent commanders, and that competent commanders will take command, is completely DOA. That's not how QP typically works.



OpFor has to be impossibly incompetent to not accomplish landing a single shot. Anything that assumes complete and utter incompetence by OpFor is DOA. Never ever bank on OpFor being stupid.

No, but in most cases, where we now have Soup queue, someone from the group will probably be commanding them, and will probably try to take command so the four of them can try to do the whole thing by themselves while the rest of the team runs off to find the enemy and fight.

And yes, I don't think I had ANY mission where there was never a single shot fired, except for the occasional Domination mission where someone going 170 KPH gets there, and the fastest guy on the other team tops out at 81.

I DID have an Escort Mission on Polar Highlands where the VIP did a U-turn partway into the map, and wound up only about 400m along the edge from where we started, getting picked up. The enemy never saw him, but our guys ran off to fight because radar towers and such, we had some idea where they were and where to go for a scrap.

Besides: team building exercise. This is supposed to be a team game, so if you've got a mode that forces everyone to work together, maybe they'll get used to it, again.

[Mechwarrior2342356]

C337Skymaster, on 01 September 2023 - 04:46 AM, said:

No, but in most cases, where we now have Soup queue, someone from the group will probably be commanding them, and will probably try to take command so the four of them can try to do the whole thing by themselves while the rest of the team runs off to find the enemy and fight.

And yes, I don't think I had ANY mission where there was never a single shot fired, except for the occasional Domination mission where someone going 170 KPH gets there, and the fastest guy on the other team tops out at 81.

I DID have an Escort Mission on Polar Highlands where the VIP did a U-turn partway into the map, and wound up only about 400m along the edge from where we started, getting picked up. The enemy never saw him, but our guys ran off to fight because radar towers and such, we had some idea where they were and where to go for a scrap.

Besides: team building exercise. This is supposed to be a team game, so if you've got a mode that forces everyone to work together, maybe they'll get used to it, again.

I really think you would be surprised at how many people actively resist teamwork. It can be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen at times, groups intent on doing their own thing and screw everyone else, people who don't even care about wlr - only MS and kdr, and generally spiteful types.

[C337Skymaster]

the check engine light, on 01 September 2023 - 07:51 AM, said:

I really think you would be surprised at how many people actively resist teamwork. It can be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen at times, groups intent on doing their own thing and screw everyone else, people who don't even care about wlr - only MS and kdr, and generally spiteful types.

You're probably right, but it's depressing that you should be so in a game so heavily dependent upon teamwork...

[Grey Hook]

JumpingHunter, on 22 August 2023 - 02:08 AM, said:

So basically incursion is too complicated for some players, and they are making it unbalanced and hard to play properly for everyone else by not participating in a first place.

Void Angel, on 22 August 2023 - 12:22 PM, said:

The problem with Incursion is that it confuses people. There are a lot of people who aren't really up on the why of common strategies; this leads to confusion when you throw them a curveball like Incursion. It's the same reason Conquest matches sometimes just go to hell in a handbasket because everybody scattered - and Conquest is a lot more familiar than Incursion.

I've griped about this before, but I'll toss it in again: I do not think Incursion is too complicated for most MWO players to grasp. I think it is too complicated to grasp intuitively, without any instruction or explanation. The little blurb that appears on-screen right before the drop does not explain what all the extra information on the HUD refers to, what the various towers do or even look like, etc. There is nowhere for players- especially new players- to find clear, officially-accurate information that they can then use to form a strategy.

PGI could make huge strides toward "fixing" this game mode by simply explaining it.

Having this info form part of the Academy would be ideal, but even creating some simple text-and-picture pages with easy-to-find links on the game's website would be a vast improvement. Bonus points if they are findable in-game too, and the info is actually kept current.

[Void Angel]

People dislike the mode for a reason, man. I have given people in-depth instruction about how Incursion works, and still had the team scatter out and do random things.

People would be better at it if they played it more, but they don't like to play it because it's too complicated, and the options make the people who don't cooperate well anyhow even more unpredictable.

[An6ryMan69]

I never understood the hard feelings about Incursion.

Personally I look at Incursion like Assault but where a single Spider mech is not likely to just rip over and steal a win, as it takes way more time for a fast light to destroy a whole Incursion base than it takes them to win on a cap victory.

I never like capping determining a win in any mode anyways; Incursion victories by base destruction seem far more plausible, and more easily defended against, than standing by some silly capture point.

Edited by An6ryMan69, 12 September 2023 - 09:22 AM.

[Void Angel]

I'm not really against Incursion; it's just that people get confused by the mechanics, and do dumb things:

Take Conquest. The optimal strategy for Conquest is to send your Lights to cap, and then play it like Assault. You have to keep an eye on the cap points, but victory is still nearly always determined by massing fire, making good trades, and maneuvering for position. In other words, it's just like Assault, just with a different objective option; you still mostly win by murdering the enemy team. But when they first introduced Conquest, people were crazy about it. They'd run off in lances and try to hold a capture zone; Lights would refuse to scout or harass, just constantly capping the zones; it was chaos, about half the time. The other half of the time, your team would stay together, focus fire, and follow the fracking Atlas (or etc) to victory over their scattered foes. A lot of matches just felt like your team lost because you won the idiot lottery so many people would vote down Conquest for that reason.

Incursion is the same way, but worse. It introduces mechanics that have a broad effect on the battlefield, which complicates the match - the more complicated the tactical situation, the more likely your teammates are to do something stupi random that doesn't help the team (like camping your base instead of moving with the team, or ignoring the enemy team to try and rush down their base, etc.) This makes matches on Incursion feel like even more of an idiot lottery, and now you know why people hate Incursion. It's like Elo^* Hell in League of Legends: in certain low Elo^* brackets, LoL matches are decided more by who has the more toxic players sabotaging teamwork than your own actual performance, and that makes people hate the game. And mankind. Definitely all mankind... but I digress.

*: Elo is Not An Acronym!

[Mechwarrior2342356]

Void Angel, on 12 September 2023 - 01:21 PM, said:

I'm not really against Incursion; it's just that people get confused by the mechanics, and do dumb things:

Take Conquest. The optimal strategy for Conquest is to send your Lights to cap, and then play it like Assault. You have to keep an eye on the cap points, but victory is still nearly always determined by massing fire, making good trades, and maneuvering for position. In other words, it's just like Assault, just with a different objective option; you still mostly win by murdering the enemy team. But when they first introduced Conquest, people were crazy about it. They'd run off in lances and try to hold a capture zone; Lights would refuse to scout or harass, just constantly capping the zones; it was chaos, about half the time. The other half of the time, your team would stay together, focus fire, and follow the fracking Atlas (or etc) to victory over their scattered foes. A lot of matches just felt like your team lost because you won the idiot lottery so many people would vote down Conquest for that reason.

Incursion is the same way, but worse. It introduces mechanics that have a broad effect on the battlefield, which complicates the match - the more complicated the tactical situation, the more likely your teammates are to do something stupi random that doesn't help the team (like camping your base instead of moving with the team, or ignoring the enemy team to try and rush down their base, etc.) This makes matches on Incursion feel like even more of an idiot lottery, and now you know why people hate Incursion. It's like Elo^* Hell in League of Legends: in certain low Elo^* brackets, LoL matches are decided more by who has the more toxic players sabotaging teamwork than your own actual performance, and that makes people hate the game. And mankind. Definitely all mankind... but I digress.

*: Elo is Not An Acronym!

...Electric Light Orchestra tho

[VaelophisNyx]

Domination being the favorite gamemode of 600 people is baffling given how terrible it feels to play