265 replies to this topic

[Void Angel]

There are non-trivial issued with a lot of people's desired fixes for the real and imagined problems MWO has - either in the form of unintended consequences, or infeasibility given probable resources. I think there is room for meaningful balance changes within the realm of possibility, though; just don't expect an engine rework, or a sweeping paradigm change to how the game's systems work (which is most of those silver bullet suggestions.)

On the other hand, while most of the proposed solutions probably aren't practical, it's good that they exist. It sparks discussion and explanation on the topic, and it means people care enough to think them up and propose them. Over, and over, and over.

[Void Angel]

Tarl Cabot, on 05 August 2024 - 03:42 PM, said:

Just to make sure we are on the same page, did you mean most players select the Survival nodes over the Firepower nodes? I would hazard that many use more of the Firepower nodes over the Survival nodes, to reduce the heat, increase weapon ranges and fire weapons faster. I will admit I was in that situation until a year or so ago, started with the Armor nodes, and starting to increase the Structural nodes. It would be interesting if PGI would post the percentage of players who use primarily Firepower nodes vs Survival nodes.

For my money - and for any newbies I advise - I will always take the armor and structure survival nodes (as well as a point in radar dep.) It's too valuable to leave on the table. After that, range is paramount, along with heat gen on all but the coolest builds; I increasingly find that cooldown (except on very cool builds) isn't worth the points because of the increased heat generation. A bunch of my Stone Rhino and Bullshark builds have found that investing in speed tweak to lumber their massive firepower around the field better is a far better investment of those points.

[1453 R]

Swamp *** MkII, on 05 August 2024 - 06:22 PM, said:

I believe it would allow players to engage more. Hit and run tactics would be used more than they already are as well.

Lowering alpha damage, you mean?

It's actually the opposite. Lower outgoing damage means higher time to kill, which actually makes total DPS and pressing engagements matter more, not less.

Presume for a moment that it takes one 'Mech ten seconds to kill another, and it takes another 'Mech fifteen seconds, instead. A difference of only five seconds. The total DPS between the two matters in a direct head-to-head, but either 'Mech is going to be better served with hit-and-fade strikes that try to avoid taking exceess damage themselves because each is a prettyy severe threat to the other. 'Mech 1 has only a five-second 'head start' cushion in which to win the engagement before 'Mech 2 enters "I can also kill you" range - if 'Mech 2 can get six seconds of head start, she's the victor. That can be hard to do, but it's not impossible, and even two or three seconds of Getting The Drop can be a significant edge.

Now, multiply those numbers by four. 'Mech 1 kills in forty seconds, but 'Mech 2 needs sixty seconds, instead. Now 'Mech 1 has a twenty-second cushion, and 'Mech 2 needs at least twenty-one seconds of head start. Realistically, closer to twenty-five or thirty. It's effectively impossible to "surprise attack" somebody for thirty entire seconds - they WILL react in that time.

Those odds much more favor 'Mech 1 turning and pressing the engagement Ride Or Die style, because being worn down over time equalizes their otherwise commanding DPS advantage. If they can lock you in combat and force you to simply DPS race them, they win for free and they know it.

Think of the old Halo 3 vs. Call of Duty 4 divide. Call of Duty had dramatically shorter kill times, often measured in less than a second, while in Halo you could empty multiple magazines into someone and still not kill them. What as the result? CoD was a fast-paced game wherein fast strike, ambush, and seeking the first-strike edge was critical, while halo frequently - frequently - resulted in two Spartans marching chestplate-first at each other holding down the Assault Rifle button until they Cross Countered with their melee and ended up with a Double K.O.

it doesn't seem like it, but the shorter overall TTK is, the less that differences in that TTK matter. Conversely, the longer TTK gets the more important it becomes to eke out every last possible DPS advantage to ensure you win the marathon.

ALSO, EDIT:

Void Angel, on 05 August 2024 - 07:56 PM, said:

For my money - and for any newbies I advise - I will always take the armor and structure survival nodes (as well as a point in radar dep.) It's too valuable to leave on the table. After that, range is paramount, along with heat gen on all but the coolest builds; I increasingly find that cooldown (except on very cool builds) isn't worth the points because of the increased heat generation. A bunch of my Stone Rhino and Bullshark builds have found that investing in speed tweak to lumber their massive firepower around the field better is a far better investment of those points.

I often skip Structure just because by the time my armor's stripped I'm basically meat anyways, though in more recent spreads I've been swapping that up. What I will recommend, however, is that every heavy and assault 'Mech that doesn't desperately need the points elsewhere invest in both Anchor Turn and Torso Speed. The agility gains you get from maxing both are substantial, and makes any assault 'mech dramatically better at engaging light and swift medium 'Mechs.

On a number of my assault 'Mechs with that skill spread I'll actively go out of my way to turn and hunt/fight light 'Mechs even with my dogpoo aim. All I need is one good hit, and in my experience? Many light 'Mechs will change into their brown pants and run away even if I miss, after I demonstrate that I am in fact actively seeking to smite their livers and not one of those scaredy-kitten "Assault" pilots that simply gives up on life when a light 'Mech appears. The "Oh DUNG, she's actually trying to kill me?! That's SO MUCH FIREPOWER!" reaction is very real, heh.

Edited by 1453 R, 05 August 2024 - 08:09 PM.

[Void Angel]

If you're having trouble driving off Lights, by all means put the points you saved from skipping cooldown nodes. I strongly advise you not to skip Structure. You really always get your money's worth, even against crit-seeking weapons. Put really simply, your basic tasks for direct combat are "make murder" and "take damage." The longer you can do the latter, the more of the former you can accomplish as well, and the amount of durability you get is well worth the investment in skill nodes. There's a reason that it's been standard since the trees were simplified to take all armor/structure skills by default.

[Swamp Butt]

Makes sense how you put it with the times. Sometimes, it does seam outrageous with the alpha's. Example, I like to run a maddog, 6 srm6a's, and 8 small.pulse lasers. Yes, alpha is some insane number, and I can do 2 alpha back to back with coolshot preloaded. Some 200 points of damage if not a little more. Yes, its a super hot build, and built that way intentionaly.

[VaelophisNyx]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 05 August 2024 - 05:41 PM, said:

Not sure why you think skill/positioning means you should survive a 1v3 encounter.

Well you might notice I clarified that I didn't even get to process that it was a 1v3 until I was falling over. The damage is too high across the board. A 1v3 that is an actual engagement? Sure, whatever. That wasn't a 1v3, so much as a 0v3. I didn't even get to do anything, I just exploded on contact. It's not remotely fun and moments like that actively push people, myself included, closer to permanently uninstalling the game. You can't even learn anything in the lack of time it takes to suddenly be booted out of a match these days. Positioning and skill SHOULD matter but don't because you can just vomit a mech to death so fast you don't have to think much.
(Teams rotating 90 - 180 deg across the map for literally no reason aren't helping, but that's a player & bad map design issue not a balance issue)

[Quicksilver Aberration]

VaelophisNyx, on 13 August 2024 - 10:18 PM, said:

Well you might notice I clarified that I didn't even get to process that it was a 1v3 until I was falling over. The damage is too high across the board.

I'd argue the damage isn't too high, you just lacked either map knowledge or situational awareness that you might be making a poke into an angle that is watched heavily. Mind you your weight class also matters for this situation as armor for unfortunately is linear across tonnages (so 20 tonners at base have ~1/5th a 100 tonner) and radar outside of seismic being purely limited to LoS (which means it is pretty redundant with eyesight compared to like it was in MW4) doesn't help either. Again this is why positioning DOES matter in this game.

I've played in comp and this game is still about positioning, isolating your duels, watching angles that you might get pushed from, etc, etc are all part of this game. If you think people are just camping some off angle like it's CoD and staying their vomiting down any that cross into it and winning consistently, well they aren't. Movement and reacting to the enemy's position is a crucial part of how you win mid-rounds.

If your uninstalling because of that though, I mean that likely means the only FPS you are probably playing is Overwatch and that is problematic for its own reasons.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 14 August 2024 - 06:31 AM.

[VaelophisNyx]

"reacting to enemy positioning"
k, I'll just react to it while I'm dead from instantaneous triple-component loss. Fact of the matter is there shouldn't be any combo of mechs that isn't 3 assaults that should be capable of doing that. And I had mentioned it was not 3 assaults, so...

Positioning only matters much if TTK isn't in the single digits. Its not like you can predict where anyone will be on a completely symmetrical map as well, right at the start...which that happened at. First contact *and* instant death is not a fun combo, period.
If you enjoy twitchy gameplay with excessively short TTK, there's a pile of shooters on the market that all deal in that. MWO was, for a while after I joined, one of the rare examples where TTK wasn't insanely short. In that time though it's gone from acceptable to incredibly unfun just with how fast you can die without any actual skill on the enemy side. Cockpit shots are hard and rare, but valid. Popping a combined 221 armor and 204 structure fast enough that you can't even react is not. (not even factoring in missing side torso damage reduction!)

[Quicksilver Aberration]

VaelophisNyx, on 14 August 2024 - 07:23 PM, said:

"reacting to enemy positioning"
k, I'll just react to it while I'm dead from instantaneous triple-component loss.

You are missing the point, the fact you thought it was safe to make that poke is very telling. You made a peek with either not enough intel to know whether or not it was safe, or had the info and just didn't make a good guess as to what angles they could be holding. How many mechs' worth of firepower do you think you should be able to tank making dry peeks?

VaelophisNyx, on 14 August 2024 - 07:23 PM, said:

Positioning only matters much if TTK isn't in the single digits.

But it isn't, don't you think it would be that way in comp if it were? Even in QP, the only time my TTK is "single digits" is if I'm a light and make a really bad peek or I get some goofy rear registration.

This game isn't twitchy even unless you are slapping lights/poptarts with projectile based weapons and even then, it's nothing compared to most "twitchy" FPS.

Also, FWIW, TTK can be low and still have a tactical game where positioning matters. Want an example? Look no further than counterstrike. I've been watching pro matches the past two-three years and was shocked just how much knowledge from that game carries over to this as far as positioning and tactics go.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 14 August 2024 - 09:20 PM.

[1453 R]

VaelophisNyx, on 14 August 2024 - 07:23 PM, said:

"reacting to enemy positioning"
k, I'll just react to it while I'm dead from instantaneous triple-component loss. Fact of the matter is there shouldn't be any combo of mechs that isn't 3 assaults that should be capable of doing that. And I had mentioned it was not 3 assaults, so...

Positioning only matters much if TTK isn't in the single digits. Its not like you can predict where anyone will be on a completely symmetrical map as well, right at the start...which that happened at. First contact *and* instant death is not a fun combo, period.
If you enjoy twitchy gameplay with excessively short TTK, there's a pile of shooters on the market that all deal in that. MWO was, for a while after I joined, one of the rare examples where TTK wasn't insanely short. In that time though it's gone from acceptable to incredibly unfun just with how fast you can die without any actual skill on the enemy side. Cockpit shots are hard and rare, but valid. Popping a combined 221 armor and 204 structure fast enough that you can't even react is not. (not even factoring in missing side torso damage reduction!)

This specific anecdotal edge case can keep getting argued, or the broader point being spoken to here can be addressed. What you're actually saying is "making bad plays shouldn't result in instant death, and because in my experience it does the game is less fun and nobody gets an opportunity to learn." As someone who struggles constantly with spatial awareness in this game as well as many other aspects of daily life, I can hear and understand that concern. Being in the wrong spot can sometimes feel like a death sentence you didn't really earn, especially when a spot only becomes The Wrong Spot because your team decided to pivot out of it basically without reason.

The issue is that MWO is wildly variable, more so by an order of magnitude at least than any other shooter currently on the market. At Atlas CT has more durability than the entirety of a Flea, and firepower is commensurately stretched way the hell out as well. Asymmetric engagements only magnify this issue. There is only so much that can be done to try and control for this, especially in a game with no mid-match repairs or respawns. You can say "Alphas are too high!", and who knows - maybe you're right. If the MWO playerbase of 2014 took one look at Koloss, they'd all collectively demand Piranha explain why they've lost their entire gadstorking minds. Hell, if the Piranha Games of 2014 took one look at Koloss and somehow knew this was where the game would end up, they'd be asking themselves the same.

But that's also pointless conjecture because even in 2014, taking bad engagements and losing a bunch of health you shouldn't have was going to effectively end the game for you. Sure, you may walk away wounded with half a 'Mech left, but you're effectively a mission-kill with no real way to further contribute to the match outside of sheer dumb luck. You aren't "learning" anything in that instance that ending up dead wasn't also going to teach you.

And if your solution is "anybody should safely be able to peek any corner without any fear of having half their 'Mech taken off" ?your solution is simply wrong. Or rather, jiggling alpha numbers isn't the solution to your problem - lowering the number of players in a match is. What you actually want isn't lower alpha numbers, it's lower team sizes. Peeking unsafe corners is a whole lot safer when there's only eight - or even four - 'Mechs on the other team to punish it rather than twelve. Ghost Heat mostly does a reasonable-ish job at controlling alpha damage from a single 'Mech; it's when three-plus 'Mechs all shoot at the same time that stuff happens quickly. Reducing the number of 'Mechs on the field reduces the instances of that happening, and thus extends everybody's lifetime in match.

Except the dummies who still walk out in front of an eight 'Mech firing line and then complain about dying too quick. But ain't nothing gonna save them.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

1453 R, on 15 August 2024 - 06:41 AM, said:

The issue is that MWO is wildly variable, more so by an order of magnitude at least than any other shooter currently on the market. At Atlas CT has more durability than the entirety of a Flea, and firepower is commensurately stretched way the hell out as well. Asymmetric engagements only magnify this issue.

Along with your spiel about team sizes, this is pretty much the better diagnosis. The game has an issue with extremes. Whether it be the difference between armor/firepower/speed/size of mechs on opposite ends of the spectrum or range of weapons (which is only exacerbated by range quirks/skills).

Then there is the number of people which definitely impacts how mobile teams can be because the more people you have, the more you can have watching and holding angles (ie controlling more of the map).

[1453 R]

I mean, outside of edge cases like the Six PPC Stalker, we generally had significantly less whinging about alpha damage in the 8v8 days. Not no whinging of course, and we were all sweet sheltered children that hadn't truly seen the horror of two AC/20s, six SRM-6s, and a salt&pepper pinch of heavy small lasers to boot, but still.

Like you say, teams that actually use their numbers (so not Puglandia drops) make for more static games. Frankly even teams that don't use their numbers that way make for more static games despite Rookie Rotation issues, simply because it's dramatically harder to get an angle on a twelve-'Mech murderblob than it is an eight-'Mech murderblob. Four additional sets of eyes to espy you trying to find a sneaky-sneaky shot, and four additional sets of guns that could conceivably be pointed your way when you do.

I'm honestly kinda sad PGI got so badly burned with MWO. It really feels like if the company did a Grinding Gear Games and decided on a MWO 2, they could take the lessons they learned stumbleclucking through development of MWO and make something that really sings. They already managed the hard part - making a stompy robot game where the visceral experience of piloting a big stompy robot is delightful and engaging. it's just the balance and execution particulars that messed them up so much, and frankly half of that is the fault of Tabletop math and the TT ruleset never having been designed for single-'Mech fights. the TT rules assume the player is controlling an entire combat unit; the rules are honestly very poorly designed if one changes to the assumption of any given player controlling only a single unit.

That's the realization, as I was occasionally event queueing and puckering around with different fits, that swung me on the idea of drop decks in QP. I still think it's weird and less Than Ideal to have magical freespawns in a BattleTech game, but drop decks are kinda the only way to align the player's resources in MWO with what the foundational math is designed to do - force-on-force. Drop decks reduce assault bloat and also work to break up and reduce murderblobbing (to an extent). Light and medium 'mechs are more valuable because they're easier to pack into a deck centered on your favorite GigaFatties, and bonus - people have to actually pilot light 'mechs and maybe realize they're not the invulnerable bogeymen all the forum trolls keep claiming.

I still kinda hate the idea of drop deck being the default game mode on sheer grognard inertia, but at this point I wouldn't complain if Piranha made that change. Hell, the occasional drop deck Conquest games I've played in event queue are some of the most fun I've had in MWO in forever. Hate that it's so much more fun than regular MWO, but hell if it doesn't force the objective to matter in a way nothing else has managed to.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

1453 R, on 15 August 2024 - 09:24 AM, said:

I mean, outside of edge cases like the Six PPC Stalker, we generally had significantly less whinging about alpha damage in the 8v8 days. Not no whinging of course, and we were all sweet sheltered children that hadn't truly seen the horror of two AC/20s, six SRM-6s, and a salt&pepper pinch of heavy small lasers to boot, but still.

I mean we did have the splatapult that did ungodly amounts of damage thanks to splash being borked, and the good ol boomapult. Yes we have the Koloss, but thanks to quirks, skills, and CXL/LFE engines, survivability is significantly more than it used to be so firepower going up with it should shock no one (because it has to if you want to keep TTK from getting too long).

I don't think dropdecks really fix anything out of the normal other than offering a respawn, and even then people find ways to throw that away in worse scenarios just like they did in CW/FW/FP (the whole reinforce vs waiting debate).


As for objectives mattering, well yeah when you change to a respawn-esque game mode the objective kind of has to matter for the sake of brevity of the match unless average lifespans are stupidly short (like a CoD deathmatch level of short). The key part for good objectives though is that the objective can't be destructible because then it can't be cheesed. It's why incursion, escort, and the old CW/FW/FP game modes all were bad no different than OG mission play maps from the MW4 days. However for no-respawn, objectives are purely about forcing engagements. That's pretty much their sole goal, to prevent the camping or an hour playing hunt the harasser.

[1453 R]

Yes, but certain objectives can force certain kinds of engagements. Conquest, for instance, forces engagements out across the map - or at least punishes teams players who are manifestly unwilling to spread across the map and insist on murderblobbing in the middle.

Domination, meanwhile, punishes players who do anything BUT murderblob in the middle - no matter what Wrong Incorrect Domination Enjoyers claim about the mode, there is always at least one poor sorry schlub stuck cowering behind a rock at the edge of the Mountain Dew puddle praying the rest of the team actually pushes forward and engages so they can get back out of their foxhole, and the team never actually does that thing because they're too busy murderblobbing somewhere else and sacrificing the scapegoat holding down the Dom point. It's why Domination is an absolutely contemptible game mode and I would quite seriously play Escort or Incursion over Domination 100% of the time if given the chance.

Literally anything that discourages or disincentivizes murderblobbing is a net win for MWO. And, ironically, is also a solve for this "ALPHAS TOO HIGH" problem. No/reduced murderblobbing? Whole lot fewer deaths due to peeking a corner with an entire rhino stampede on the other side of it.

Edited by 1453 R, 15 August 2024 - 10:38 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

1453 R, on 15 August 2024 - 10:37 AM, said:

Yes, but certain objectives can force certain kinds of engagements. Conquest, for instance, forces engagements out across the map

IDK, about that, the best way to generally play conquest is to figure the best spot to control three caps. Yes you may need to play rotato potato sometimes but the other engagements are typically just light fights who have the flexibility to have different engagements.

I don't think murderball is something that even needs fixing, it's just the simplest tactic for uncoordinated teams to leverage but it's far from the end-all-be-all, especially when pushing through no-man's land where murderballs tend to just wither away because concave firing lines are stronger and murderballs typically run out of steam from even a little resistance (not always, just depends on the players on both sides). They also aren't the cause of bad pokes because generally murderballs are in enfilade in the direction they are pushing.

Overlapping arcs of fire are kinda of the whole point of concave firing lines so if you wanted to stop the number of 3v1 situations then solving murderballs isn't going to do that.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 15 August 2024 - 10:58 AM.

[1453 R]

End-all-be-all no, and agreed that it's not even a good tactic so much as simply the result of Puglandians doing Puglandian things. But that's why good/better game design needs to step in and make "CLUMP UP LIKE THE SOUTH END OF A LITTERBOX" less viable/useful. The vast majority of the game is those "uncoordinated teams" iceberging against each other, in an ideal world that would be accounted for in game design and the use of game modes, engagement rules, and other game elements would combine to reduce the impact of lack of coordination.

One fantastic example of this in action is Deep Rock Galactic. Admittedly, fundamentally different type of game, but many of the lessons DRG teaches could be backported into MWO or other shooters. The characters' automatic voicelines and callouts when certain events happen, the streamlined but still extremely useful pointer tool, and many other little elements of DRG's design combine to allow a much higher baseline coordination level than exists in MWO. WH40K: Darktide is another game that uses automated voicelines and other 'passive' communication/coordination tools very well to encourage a level of baseline coordination between randos unheard of in MWO.

Do I think there's the remotest chance of any of this making it into MWO? Of course not. But a lady can dream, and point out that other games have solved many of these problems in ways a new iteration of The Robit Multiplayer Game going forward might be able to learn from.

Comp games are always going to be a different universe than the Mosh Pit; Mosh Pit game modes should account for the reality of the Mosh Pit and do what they can to avoid stuff like murderblobbing that degrades the experience for...well, basically everyone involved. Nobody likes fighting a murderblob, and nobody likes fighting in a murderblob.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

1453 R, on 15 August 2024 - 11:06 AM, said:

One fantastic example of this in action is Deep Rock Galactic. Admittedly, fundamentally different type of game, but many of the lessons DRG teaches could be backported into MWO or other shooters. The characters' automatic voicelines and callouts when certain events happen, the streamlined but still extremely useful pointer tool, and many other little elements of DRG's design combine to allow a much higher baseline coordination level than exists in MWO. WH40K: Darktide is another game that uses automated voicelines and other 'passive' communication/coordination tools very well to encourage a level of baseline coordination between randos unheard of in MWO.

The fundamental difference between both games you listed and MWO is that they are coop PvE compared to a PvP game. I think automatic callouts would be nice since people don't use voice comms. Things like "I'm open CT", "I'm legged", "I'm out of ammo", etc could be useful as well as info for knowing the status of friendlies (something that I think they are catching on to with MW5 it seems). However just like bitching betty, it's important to not create alert fatigue (something I'm very familiar with having worked closely with cybersec and systems operation teams) and is one of the many reasons I turn betty off and wish they would adjust some of the stupid alerts that show up on your HUD in MWO. Radar sharing was one of the biggest boons of this especially considering radar is LoS based, of course they introduced ECM which undercut that improvement significantly without clearly understanding the impact.

In other words, yes quality of life improvements can be made but I don't think any of that fixes murderballs, but definitely could make PUGs feel a bit better and something I've thought about overly much because it is eerily similar to the alert fatigue situation I encounter in my profession (and ironic given the inspiration for Mechwarrior's bitching betty).

[1453 R]

Yeah nah, I absolutely understand the idea of alert fatigue and the differences between co-op PvP and comp PvP. If I could start a thread entitled "Why Nobody Cares When You Push 'Need Assistance!'" and have the slightest hope of accomplishing anything with it, I would. The command wheel in MWO is kind of a textbook example of 'so close and yet so far'; "ENEMY SPOTTED" is gratuitously overpowered and almost all other signals in it beyond 'yes' and 'no' are pointless.

Alerts like "taking fire!" or even just automated versions of "target spotted" would be oppressive and unfun. Figuring out a callout system that improves coordination without fatiguing the people using it and without breaking aspects of the game entirely (staring squarely at you, 'ENEMY SPOTTED') is definitely tricky. I don't think you could do it to the same degree you can in Darktide or Deep Rock, but those two games were really interesting in how they used non-obvious solutions to problems many players don't even think about. Sound design especially is such a huge component of both games, to the point where people who play with the sound off are actively crippling themselves.

Figuring out how to implement similar coordination boosters in MWO is definitely not easy, but I find it to be an interesting thought experiment at the least. Maybe pilot-specific callouts aren't the way, but Mission Control alerts could be useful? If a player spots 3+ enemies close enough to each other in a given location (i.e. 'I FOUND THE TEAM'), Tactical Ted or Angry Clan Man could yell out some variation of "ENEMIES SPOTTED IN [Grid coords], GO GET 'EM!" or the like. Similar to the way they yell out kill counts throughout a game, but with some more context-sensitive triggers. Could also set it up so a specific trigger like the "ENEMIES IN [coords]" one has a cooldown on how often it can trigger, and stops triggering altogether after a certain number of times going off.

I know people hate Incursion, but the 'Radar' function could've been the start of a skeleton of some manner of Mission Control system where Tactical Ted/ACM actually do something for the team. What that'd look like I have no idea off the cuff of my head, but damn if some of the half-formed ideas niggling at my neurons aren't tantalizing.

Edited by 1453 R, 15 August 2024 - 12:24 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

1453 R, on 15 August 2024 - 12:23 PM, said:

Figuring out how to implement similar coordination boosters in MWO is definitely not easy, but I find it to be an interesting thought experiment at the least. Maybe pilot-specific callouts aren't the way, but Mission Control alerts could be useful? If a player spots 3+ enemies close enough to each other in a given location (i.e. 'I FOUND THE TEAM'), Tactical Ted or Angry Clan Man could yell out some variation of "ENEMIES SPOTTED IN [Grid coords], GO GET 'EM!" or the like. Similar to the way they yell out kill counts throughout a game, but with some more context-sensitive triggers. Could also set it up so a specific trigger like the "ENEMIES IN [coords]" one has a cooldown on how often it can trigger, and stops triggering altogether after a certain number of times going off.

Which is partially why I think shared radar was a good middle ground. Being able to see the exact same thing that others see is super useful in PUGs compared to what it is in comp. The problem is that PGI didn't understand that when you have voice comms, gatekeeping that info (limited to only target locked mechs, ECM denying that info, sensor range being limited compared to sight, etc) just makes voices comms that much more important.

If it can be mitigated by something that is pretty much a requirement for higher level play anyway, then trying to create "depth" out of a mechanic by gatekeeping portions of it is pretty much a fool's errand, which is true for pretty much all of the ideas around "InfoWarfare".

There's a lot of other good QoL stuff that could be done as well in the scoreboard or something like it (last known damage readout of enemies, "damaged" sections of targets, mech piloted, etc). There's a lot of stuff that could be done in a new game that lowers the barrier for entry and helps teams with comms which is a soft skill few talk about when it comes to success at these games and I don't think should be a barrier if the game can help it.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 15 August 2024 - 12:56 PM.

[1453 R]

Information Warfare is definitely the place where Piranha fell down the hardest. It's the place I'm most hopeful any potential sequels to MWO, spiritual or otherwise, can really pick itself up. The core Stompy Robot Experience is good enough we're all still here over a decade later, but some really meaty IW would've made a lot of this so much better.

Alas, that ship has long since sailed, and doing anything really meaningful with it would basically require throwing out the tabletop rules altogether since TT doesn't really give spit one about "Information Warfare". I find it funny that people who adore tabletop and people who've never heard of tabletop both despise ECM for almost completely unrelated and yet nearly identical reasons - in TT ECM is largely pointless and accomplishes nothing save turning off a bunch of fancy electronics nobody bothers paying any BV for anyways and TT Purists hate that all those electronics turn off ECM in MWO instead, while the people with no idea how the tabletop rules work just hate that ECM is this all-encompassing thing half of every team always has that screws with their targeting.

Anyways. Has anyone ever tried to write a decent Guide to Good Game Comms in here? My forum presence has been spotty for years, I don't recall ever seeing one but that doesn't mean spit. heh. Maybe I should bundle some of that into that "'Need Assistance!'? Nobody Cares" thread if I get bored enough at work to write it.