Objectives in MWO exist to force movement and prevent a match from becoming static. This, for example, is why Conquest is used in Comp... to force movement.
That said, in QP you don't have the coordination from comp to execute cap and control strats. In this case, stuff like Assault, Dom, Conquest are things you do to "slow the bleeding" based on whatever objective is active, but it's
ultimately still a version of skirmish. This is why
ALL mechs/variants are balanced to be combat viable.
As for making the objectives worth it, there are mechanics that could've made for different roles (e.g., fast lights in extraction type mode). However,
at this stage in the game, the mechanics I'll list as example below are not going to be added; it's simply not worth the resources.- Conquest - cap control decay and cap movement
- Domination - shrinking / moving circle
- Assault - capture progress win (must fully cap now), and/or moving bases
So, what are things that can be done if not the above? Assuming the resources have time -
- Shifting spawns
- Shifting bases
- Shifting cap points or orientation (e.g., 2-1-2, 1-3-1)
- Resizing/moving dom circle
All of these must take into account spawn points, time/path to points, etc. to be fairly equal. You've already seen some of this happen with the resized Dom circles in a number of maps; this was the direct result of a cauldron member (Navid) working with the map designed.
Hopefully this sheds some light on why things are the way they are and the extent to which changes can be made.