600 replies to this topic

[Dlardrageth]

TheRulesLawyer, on 17 January 2012 - 11:29 AM, said:

[...]
I know some people are still holding onto the hope that MWO is going to be a full on MMORPG or something. Its not realistic in the time frame they have and all the dev comments I've seen point to something about WOT with clan wars in complexity (plus or minus a bit of course)

I personally don't expect a "full on MMORPG", at least not initially. But I sincerely hope they don't stick too close to the WoT example. At least as far as the North American server is concerned, "ClanWars" there has detoriated into somewhat of a bad joke. And is still in beta after all this time (not due to its "overwhelming complexity" though). In all seriousness, the quality of the strategical gameplay (options) in, say, a game as old as MechCommander1 beats WoT's "ClanWars" by lengths! And it's not an issue of complexity or balancing merely.

If the strategical level in MWO is becoming anything like the shallow one in WoT currently, we'd honestly be better off having no strategical level at all. No need to make BT/MW strategic gameplay a joke for all future times. The IP is burdened enough already with what Microsoft did to it...

Edited by Dlardrageth, 17 January 2012 - 01:38 PM.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Omigir, on 17 January 2012 - 01:17 PM, said:

As far as WoT is concenrned, it works, and it works very well as it is a popular game. It also is allot close to a mech game, then oh say.. BF3 or MW3 which ware the prime FPS games currently.

Mechwarrior is not, by its very nature, a FPS. Yes, it is First person, and you shoot, but its still classified as a simulation game.

Heh. I look at WoT as more a cautionary tale of how not to do things than anything else. Its structure is the closest of any game I know of to what I expect MWO to be, but I hope PGI stays far away from them on how to do many things, including respawn. Its terrible if you're playing with friends. WoT seems to actively discourage playing with friends. Charging for platoons, and then making sure everyone has a different game length. Terrible design.

That's quite a dance you're doing not to call MWO a FPS. Can't we just accept that not all FPS have to be arcade titles instead?

[Elizander]

Not WoW please. I mean... it's a great game and I like it a lot but I don't need to play it in stereo.

[JP Josh]

i always thought it be kinda cool if the game would allow you to respond with a mech from your inventory the game would put you in battles based on your inventory

like say if world of tanks changed the respond system so i could respond in a tiger p when my E-75 is destroyed after a set amount of time say two minutes from when the E-75 was destroyed.

just a thought i havnt seen a game with a respond system like that would like to see one.

[Omigir]

TheRulesLawyer, on 17 January 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

Heh. I look at WoT as more a cautionary tale of how not to do things than anything else. Its structure is the closest of any game I know of to what I expect MWO to be, but I hope PGI stays far away from them on how to do many things, including respawn. Its terrible if you're playing with friends. WoT seems to actively discourage playing with friends. Charging for platoons, and then making sure everyone has a different game length. Terrible design. That's quite a dance you're doing not to call MWO a FPS. Can't we just accept that not all FPS have to be arcade titles instead?

Well.. really, if you want to call MW:O A FPS then you may as well call Tom Clancy's Hawx a FPS in the air, same with Ace Combat and so on and so forth. Clearly, they are not FPS games, but they are very Arcade like. Hawx more so then Ace Combat but i never played allot of either as I only have so much time and so many games.

Point is, I do not feel that MW series has ever been a FPS shooter. You can say it is an opinion, becuase it is. Then again, if you take what the 'avrage' example of a FPS and you place it next to an average Simulator, and you place mechwarrior in the middle, you will find that Mechwarrior share just as much in common with the average FPS as the Simulator does.. but the FPS will not share near as much in common with the Simulator as Mechwarrior does..

just in average.

as far as Spawning, I do not want to see the mobfests like gameplay I saw in the objective based games in MW4 online play.

Also, WoT, while it is not perfect, does have some credit to lend. I would never recomend transplanting entire game machanics over unmolested as any ideas from other games will need to be throughly touched to fit BTU and maintain that feel we are all here for.

Edited by Omigir, 17 January 2012 - 02:19 PM.

[Refizul]

zorak ramones idea of a objective driven game is something I wouldn't have many problems with (if played by real teams) but there are still some things I would like to point out.
First there would to be more than enough people who would simple countinue to respawn in their free stock mechs and basically ignore the objectives. It is just something that happens when you have a free online game where everyone can join. Because of that I think trying to create the one gamemode that pleases everyone should not even be attempted.
People that just want to play 30min of MW to forget about their work for a moment and relax for example (and I count myself among them sometimes) would probably more enjoy a simple straight forward Deathmatch setup. Because really playing the objectives can often be quite stressfull. Lets not even talk about all those people that just want another Shooter, this time with giant mechs, but find everything to complicated.

The only real solution I see for the whole thing is more game modes (game modes for everyone ). And maybe some sort of entrance restriction like : "before you can participate in a world conquest you must have played 10 games in total / x amount of XP"

[Nick Makiaveli]

I just want to say again that respawning removes alot of "real world" tactics from the game and introduces "video game" tactics to the mix. No simulation will get it perfect, but realism, even in a sci-fi setting, is a good thing IMHO.

[Omigir]

Nick Makiaveli, on 17 January 2012 - 02:35 PM, said:

I just want to say again that respawning removes alot of "real world" tactics from the game and introduces "video game" tactics to the mix. No simulation will get it perfect, but realism, even in a sci-fi setting, is a good thing IMHO.

While I agree.. there is still some problems we face. Having check box when you creat an account to have it be either a 'hard core' or 'casual' account (or simulator or arcade) modes when you log in, that way there is no unbalencing bleed over from one um.. i guess type to the other.

if you have freinds doing hardcore and your in casual, it would be as simple as swapping 'avatars' I can see each avatar having conjoined freinds lists but other wise each is seperate that way you can join 1 or 2 houses without having the same avatar forced down to splitting LPs. True at that point you would have to level up multiple accounts, but there are allot of games that allow you to do this.. while none are FPS though...

I compleatly lost my point.. im at the end of a 12 hr shift of being stuck in a small room..

any who, what i was trying to sugest, having the game types be seperate, would let people have their cake and eat them too.. but seperation would be needed due to the much larger ammount of possible XP a player stood to gain or loose in a respawn match vice a no respawn match.

Edited by Omigir, 17 January 2012 - 02:53 PM.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Nick Makiaveli, on 17 January 2012 - 02:35 PM, said:

I just want to say again that respawning removes alot of "real world" tactics from the game and introduces "video game" tactics to the mix. No simulation will get it perfect, but realism, even in a sci-fi setting, is a good thing IMHO.

Yah, but no respawn tends to favor camping until you have an overwhelming advantage and then go for the objective. Realistic I suppose, but its not exactly fun. Even with respawn on people tend to ignore the objective most of the time it seems. Only a couple things force people into objective play imho

1) Its the only way to win by scenario rules
2) time is limited so you can only realistically win by capturing objective- really more an anti-camping thing.
3) Respawn- you know they're coming back so you better take down the objective while they're on spawn timer.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

TheRulesLawyer, on 17 January 2012 - 03:00 PM, said:

Yah, but no respawn tends to favor camping until you have an overwhelming advantage and then go for the objective. Realistic I suppose, but its not exactly fun. Even with respawn on people tend to ignore the objective most of the time it seems. Only a couple things force people into objective play imho

1) Its the only way to win by scenario rules
2) time is limited so you can only realistically win by capturing objective- really more an anti-camping thing.
3) Respawn- you know they're coming back so you better take down the objective while they're on spawn timer.

Then your playing the wrong sort of NR.

NR is about effectively out positioning your opfor, to gain the tactical advantage of dealing more damage to them than they can deal to you.

Edited by DV^McKenna, 17 January 2012 - 03:07 PM.

[Khushrenada]

Omigir, on 17 January 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

any who, what i was trying to sugest, having the game types be seperate, would let people have their cake and eat them too.. but seperation would be needed due to the much larger ammount of possible XP a player stood to gain or loose in a respawn match vice a no respawn match.

not neccesarily. make different game modes, balance the xp/c-bills gain of deathmatch/respawn mode in a way so the combatants won`t get more than in a regular game (map timer must be implemented for that of course).

that would be one way to approach the problem. another would be to make the respawn matches "fun-matches" only with no xp gain... but i guess that would face hard critic from those players that want to only stick to respawn matches. which in would understand, if the fun matches really are the only game mode they play.

[Khushrenada]

DV^McKenna, on 17 January 2012 - 03:06 PM, said:

Then your playing the wrong sort of NR.

NR is about effectively out positioning your opfor, to gain the tactical advantage of dealing more damage to them than they can deal to you.

but still he is right...
most players don`t care if they should outflank an enemy or not from a tactical view. all they see is "when i move to the front and be the first vehicle, then the enemy is going to spot me first and everyone will shoot me as i am the only target in sight" and most likely he is going to die. so everyone waits for the one player that goes charging first.
you will always have back up and others will follow you, but no one wants to take the leading role, cause they know they might be watching the rest of the match as a spectator.

even if some players advance, as soon as the first is shot out, the whole trek comes to a halt, cause player no.2 doesnt want to end like the now dead player no.1

so if bad gets to worse, both teams camp on their side waiting for someone to take the lead and advance.
i have seen i many times happen that way.
this might be cause most players don`t have a doctor in military tactics, but are simply casual players that want to have some quick fun. besides its almost impossible to set up tactics when you get thrown in a match with like 12 other players you never met before...

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Which comes back to established teams. A lot of the way this game seems to be being set up is down to needing to effectively be part of a gaming clan. The problem is that many of the people on this forum don't seem to be, due to RL commitments, which mean they can't play on a regular schedule. In part this may be because we tend to be somewhat older than most gaming groups (and I'm positively ancient compared to most on this forum). It all comes down to the matchmaking system that they use and how they balance things out. Unfortunately it has been pointed out elsewhere that stats are no use, and you are not necessarily going to know any of the people you are playing with. This doesn't give much chance to do anything complicated in the way of tactics. Given that there is no way to operate as an organised group within the Houses it seems, then all the organised players are mercs. It's the only way you can have a cohesive group, which seems totallly wrong.
We come back to the perennial problem we have at the moment which is too little information.

[Omigir]

Khushrenada, on 17 January 2012 - 03:28 PM, said:

but still he is right...
most players don`t care if they should outflank an enemy or not from a tactical view. all they see is "when i move to the front and be the first vehicle, then the enemy is going to spot me first and everyone will shoot me as i am the only target in sight" and most likely he is going to die. so everyone waits for the one player that goes charging first.
you will always have back up and others will follow you, but no one wants to take the leading role, cause they know they might be watching the rest of the match as a spectator.

even if some players advance, as soon as the first is shot out, the whole trek comes to a halt, cause player no.2 doesnt want to end like the now dead player no.1

so if bad gets to worse, both teams camp on their side waiting for someone to take the lead and advance.
i have seen i many times happen that way.
this might be cause most players don`t have a doctor in military tactics, but are simply casual players that want to have some quick fun. besides its almost impossible to set up tactics when you get thrown in a match with like 12 other players you never met before...

Well.. the problem I have with the 'camping' argument is this: Paintball. Simple fact, very few people camp in paintball. True, its not a video game, but it is a game. Its a very FPS game. If you get hit, you're out. your out the whole match no mater how soon/late you get hit.

If this camping thing were true. nobody would play paintball. nobody would play WoT either. Nobody would play eve, though eve they do camp, but that is more of 'siege' then camp... a whole other story there. all the same.

[dh crow]

Khushrenada, on 17 January 2012 - 03:28 PM, said:

but still he is right...
most players don`t care if they should outflank an enemy or not from a tactical view. all they see is "when i move to the front and be the first vehicle, then the enemy is going to spot me first and everyone will shoot me as i am the only target in sight" and most likely he is going to die. so everyone waits for the one player that goes charging first.
you will always have back up and others will follow you, but no one wants to take the leading role, cause they know they might be watching the rest of the match as a spectator.

even if some players advance, as soon as the first is shot out, the whole trek comes to a halt, cause player no.2 doesnt want to end like the now dead player no.1

so if bad gets to worse, both teams camp on their side waiting for someone to take the lead and advance.
i have seen i many times happen that way.
this might be cause most players don`t have a doctor in military tactics, but are simply casual players that want to have some quick fun. besides its almost impossible to set up tactics when you get thrown in a match with like 12 other players you never met before...

That's a noob rush. Only bad teams did those.
On public NR servers for MW4, games were generally quite short and relatively easy to get into. The best way to tilt the scales in your favour is by attacking from where the other side doesn't expect to see you, which makes the game of chicken thing a non-issue. On the odd occasion it does happen, the problem goes away with a single long tom.

[zorak ramone]

Omigir, on 17 January 2012 - 12:29 PM, said:

I never played 2142, and I regret BF3… I am slowly growing to dislike EA very much and very close to avoiding all their games. But that is neither here nor there.

That game type Would be a good mission. It would work in both No Respawn and Respawn very well and I can see that as a way of having a long but very fun game. In some ways, it might be better for Respawn game mechanics.

I think a map with multiple (5+) control points would work with respawn, but a map with fewer would probably work really well with your hybrid system (more on that later).

Quote

I, from what the Devs have said in the blogs, that is pretty much what I figured, stock base mechs that are always available. (which ones, no one really knows) Dropping a player down to 0 would work but only in the absence of anything better for Respawn. Really, you would do more for that pilot to let him come away with just a beat up mech and a few less C-bill’s rather than having nothing, and unlikely to really pull himself out of a hole if he is constantly on the bottom.

As much as I feel dirty for saying this, but its almost helping him out more to cut him off before he drags himself under. This is all opinion I guess, but I just feel like if you let a player ‘rush’ over and over, they will keep doing it, and will settle for 0 every time. In essence you have what is called a feeder at that point who is assisting the other team who are going to just eat this kind of player alive.
I could be wrong, and I hope I am… unfortunately there are people this dumb and stubborn out there..

Well, what I was thinking is something like this:
-Player goes into a game, makes 1m cbills profit, cbills set to 1m
-Player goes into the next game, makes -5m cbills debt, 0 cbills earned for that game, player is still at 1m cbills
-Player goes into another game, makes another 1m cbills, cbills set to 2m
-Player buys a locust for 2m cbills. cbills set to 0
-Player can now spend future earned cbills on customizations for the locust

This way, the only way to go is forward. If you have a bad game, you aren't screwing yourself over. You just aren't advancing.

As for "feeders" ... well, if TF2 is any indication, people love to customize their avatars ... even if the customizations are purely cosmetic. I think that people will work hard if customizing mechs costs money (ESPECIALLY if those customizations show up on the mech model). Aside from weapons/equipment customizations, you could even offer mech paint jobs and body kits for cBills ... again, my experience with TF2 is that people will want these.

Quote

MW4 did this, they gave you more amo per ton. MW4 is also acclaimed to be the most arcade like of all the MW series, and most don’t even bother to mention MA (which as we all know is not really a game… but a sick joke by bill gates)

I understand the criticisms for MW4 that have been made, but I do believe that it should get credit for basic mechanics. I.e. I think that if you are talking about no-respawn gameplay, MW4 had the best multiplayer in that lag wasn't really an issue, the maps weren't pretty but had many tactical options, and the weapons balance (again in NR) wasn't perfect or resembling BT perfectly but it existed.

That said there were alot of problems with MW4 that hopefully MWO will address.

Quote

Yeah, I can see these above points. The only way to really protect these game dynamics is to separate No respawn and Respawn. But then you come into the problem of Respawn providing more XP per match due to the more frequent engagements… that is another matter all together though.

Agreed. Somehow you need to balance XP (cbill) gain per minute/hour to match the two game modes.

Quote

I don’t always have the most time either; I do not have a family but I’m military with a wonky schedule that always seems to screw me out of ops and missions in Eve. So I won’t say I see completely eye to eye. I almost want to suggest ‘Solaris’ for casual play but at that same time, I think everyone that wants to should be able play in the faction warfare. On another thread they suggest a game mode that wold let you plan a planetary raid up to 3 – 6 days out with full logistic planning and such and you don’t get to drop unless you sign up on it.. I don’t have that kind of time. : \

If you haven't played TF2, I would suggest you try it (its free to play) just to see how they do capture/control points and arena (No respawn). Both have been tweaked for pickup gaming quite effectively.

I think that for any given conflict over a planet, you could have both NR and respawn games to contest the planet. The different matches could affect control over the planet in different ways.

This way, assuming I just want jump into a game fast, I can log in, select a planet, and jump into one of several games of both types (NR or respawn) and contribute to the conquest of the planet. NR games could be small engagments over remote outposts or key geographical locations. Respawn games could be massive battles for the centers of cities, spaceports, etc.

Quote

So.. you sold me. But at that same point I would like to sell a hybrid. Start of match, you pick 1 – 4 (or another number) of mechs in your stable, or all noob mechs. If they all go down then you are sol… then again, you did spin a pretty good picture. You made something work that nobody else has been able to do.

Actualy, you probably won't have to sell this too hard. The more I think about it the more I like it. This would add a bit of strategy (i.e. loadout becomes not just which mech/variant you bring, but what combination you bring), and adds a really clever way to balance for tonnage (e.g. for a given map/server you can pick any 4 mechs ... but they have to be under 300 tons/30m cbills).

You could imagine three game types:

Survival (NR)
-Short match, Smallish map
-Both teams spawn on opposite sides
-When destroyed, you go into camera mode (from perspective of any teammate)
-If one team is destroyed, game over, other team wins
-If both teams live after given time, control point opens at middle of map (outpost, geographical feature)
-Last team standing or first team to capture the center point wins

Reinforcements (Hybrid)
-Medium length match, Medium sized map
-Before match, everyone picks 4 mechs to use
-Both teams spawn on opposite sides
-When destroyed, players will select one of their remaining mechs and wait for respawn wave
-After a certain period of time, or if an entire team is destroyed, dropships (leopards) fly in and drop at a remote location
-If one team is destroyed and have no reinforcements, game over, other team wins
-If both teams live after given time, control point opens at middle of map (outpost, geographical feature)
-Last team standing or first team to capture the center point wins
-ALTERNATIVE: game opens with several, unliked control points (maybe with repair bays/ammo bays?). First team to capture all, or destroy entire enemy team wins

Conquest (respawn)
-Long match, large map
-At any time, players can pick a stock mech (by faction) or one of their customs
-Each team has a fixed number of tickets/points/whatever
-Death reduces this number of tickets/points/whatever (more for heavier/more expensive mechs)
-There are 5+ linked control points (say points 1 - 5)
-One team starts at point 1, the other at point 5
-Each team has an overlord dropship at their first point
-In order to capture a point, you must own an adjacent point
-If one team owns all but one point (the enemy's home point), the enemy's tickets start decreasing over time
-If one team owns all but one point and destroys the enemy's overlord (capturing the last point), they win
-If one team runs out of tickets, the other team wins
-ALTERNATIVE: Point 3 (center control point) is a key structure (city center, factory), and when one team owns this, the other teams start ticking down.

[Omigir]

Well Zorak, the only thing really left to do is figure out a way to ballance XP/C-bill pay out.

Two things comes to my mind:
1. Have higher end mission bonuses for no respawn that would help equate to how much you would gain over the process of respawn match (Averaged out)

2. Both game times have the same kinds of xp/c-bill pay out and mech kills do not pay out, but rather objectives or commander objectives are where you get your points from.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Omigir, on 18 January 2012 - 05:40 AM, said:

Well.. the problem I have with the 'camping' argument is this: Paintball. Simple fact, very few people camp in paintball. True, its not a video game, but it is a game. Its a very FPS game. If you get hit, you're out. your out the whole match no mater how soon/late you get hit.

If this camping thing were true. nobody would play paintball. nobody would play WoT either. Nobody would play eve, though eve they do camp, but that is more of 'siege' then camp... a whole other story there. all the same.

Depends on the field with paintball. Woodsball, not so much people are spread out so engagements tend to be relatively even. Its easy to flank with the cover. Speedball or small fields I see camping all the time. Too easy to have the entire team firing on you as soon as you leave cover.

Its really the same deal- you need good comms and a team used to working together to get people out of a camping mentality. You have to trust if you're going out of cover you're going to have the fire support not to get hit.

NR really works best as a clan/tournament sort of thing.

FWIW its not that "nobody" plays NR games. Both WoT and Eve are 'successful' but they are hardly what I'd call wildly popular.

I'm sure that there can be a place for both game types in MWO. I just think to get a large audience the main game can't be strict NR.

[MaddMaxx]

On the whole Camping issue. With a Contract system you have to accomplish the task to get Paid. The defender has to be there, you took the contract and forced their hand. So you Camp, they win by default and they get Paid. You, you can Camp away but you get sqawdouche for your troubles.

It does seem reasonable that the Dev will have some form of Re-Spawn "area" outside of the Contract game. (Practice Server perhaps)

[Omigir]

MaddMaxx, on 18 January 2012 - 09:08 AM, said:

On the whole Camping issue. With a Contract system you have to accomplish the task to get Paid. The defender has to be there, you took the contract and forced their hand. So you Camp, they win by default and they get Paid. You, you can Camp away but you get sqawdouche for your troubles.

It does seem reasonable that the Dev will have some form of Re-Spawn "area" outside of the Contract game. (Practice Server perhaps)

Valid!

TheRulesLawyer, on 18 January 2012 - 09:07 AM, said:

Depends on the field with paintball. Woodsball, not so much people are spread out so engagements tend to be relatively even. Its easy to flank with the cover. Speedball or small fields I see camping all the time. Too easy to have the entire team firing on you as soon as you leave cover.

Its really the same deal- you need good comms and a team used to working together to get people out of a camping mentality. You have to trust if you're going out of cover you're going to have the fire support not to get hit.

NR really works best as a clan/tournament sort of thing.

FWIW its not that "nobody" plays NR games. Both WoT and Eve are 'successful' but they are hardly what I'd call wildly popular.

I'm sure that there can be a place for both game types in MWO. I just think to get a large audience the main game can't be strict NR.

Well.. never really got into speed ball.. always thought it was silly that it was CTF but most games end in one side or the other getting wiped out. : \ though that's not why i never played it..

At any rate, I never advocated a strict no respawn match, its just that I recognize having a 'free spawn' or a MW4 style spawning system is going to take a fluff hammer and make certain aspects that allot of people want useless. Thus the long drawn out conversation between myself and Zorak, where zorak spends allot of effort and time to lay out how to make this work.

and to be fare, mechwarrior has never been 'what is popular'. The games that are popular, are not popular because of the respawn styles either. they are popular because of the over all kind of game that they are. So unless you change every thing that makes mechwarrior what it is and start heading towards CoD and BF, you wont ever have a 'popular' game like those. And even then you still stand a distinct chance of having another MechAssault or Homefront which are failures in their own ways. Mech Assualt is despised by almost all BT fans, and Home front used tried and true FPS mechanic but fell short of the other games it was wading in to compete with. To that same fact, so did Rage.

So why aim to be popular? Why not aim to give a tried and true Battletech/Mechwarrior experience and let people learn to the play the game as it is meant to be played rather then sacrificing key mechanics to become 'popular'?