600 replies to this topic

[Dihm]

It certainly seems more "realistic" than respawning.

Unless this is all a training simulator/dream and we never realized how deep PGI is going. Maybe we're playing a Mechwarrior game about people who are living out the Battletech universe while trapped in some form of computer program, or "matrix", if you will. And in that "matrix", people don't die, they just pop back at the start in a brand new mech.

[SquareSphere]

Dihm, on 11 January 2012 - 10:49 AM, said:

I know you don't like the lore arguments, but that's a huge bone of contention for lots of people here.

The problem is the balance between Winning and Dieing. If you have only 1 life, you're going to be cautious, yes absolutely. The flaw in past MW games was that, even in org games, there was no mechanic that forced players to actually PLAY. Each side would just sit in their defensive positions waiting for the other unit to move to them. There would be LONG minutes passing with no action and ultimately, the team that won was the one that was more patient most of the time. Obviously, having objective based play should help that issue. IE I'm willing to rush and take a base even if I die because it's the WIN condition for my team.

On the flipside, I completely understand where the no respawners are coming from. Every team generally has an ACE or some asset that is the corner stone. Your team finally manages to isolate and take them down, YES! TIME FOR CELEBRATION. But no he just comes back in 10 seconds... *** was the point of all that work.

That's the tricky line that MWO has to balance.

[Red Beard]

Dihm, on 11 January 2012 - 10:49 AM, said:

You said it better than I did, but it is also more than just a game mechanics thing. We're supposed to Mechwarriors fighting for our House/merc unit, striving to capture planets from our enemies/for money. There is a certain story logic that is established within the game design in addition to the nuts-and-bolts mechanics of it. I don't see how to reconcile the in-game "reality" with being able to respawn in an unlimited fashion. Mechs are rare and treasured things, I shouldn't be able to blow through 10 Atlases in a 20 minute match. I know you don't like the lore arguments, but that's a huge bone of contention for lots of people here.

You make some good points. I would offer you this thought. I would prefer that the PILOT be the one to "treasure" the mech, not the developer. By placing so many constraints on the player, the devs are the ones dictating the level of value on mechs, not the players. I do not like that. Otherwise, I respect your point of view in regards to the mindset that many players take toward the games lore. And you articulated your thoughts well.

I would say that a player who fights well and does all he can to keep his first spawned mech, even knowing that he can respawn, if he has to, has placed more value on said mech than a player who wants the devs to force a player out of the match when he dies. The amount that you "treasure" a mech comes in how honorably and how well you fight, not in what parameters you want the devs to set.

Thats just me though.

[Commraid]

Since everyone has different opinions I vote on different servers or different game types to have different rules on respawns, this will be the only way to seperate everyone and keep everyone happy at the same time. Otherwise it will put a lot of strain on the devs to make an engine that accuratley mixes players of equal strength together. And the pros will be wiping the floor with the noobs without giving them a chance to gain any experience.

Id like to see the eject mechanic we all saw in the trailer to have some meaning. e.g if you eject in time you respawn quicker otherwise you can last stand it and die hard.

Edited by Commraid, 11 January 2012 - 11:14 AM.

[Bernardo Sinibaldi]

Red Beard, on 11 January 2012 - 11:04 AM, said:

You make some good points. I would offer you this thought. I would prefer that the PILOT be the one to "treasure" the mech, not the developer. By placing so many constraints on the player, the devs are the ones dictating the level of value on mechs, not the players. I do not like that. Otherwise, I respect your point of view in regards to the mindset that many players take toward the games lore. And you articulated your thoughts well.

I would say that a player who fights well and does all he can to keep his first spawned mech, even knowing that he can respawn, if he has to, has placed more value on said mech than a player who wants the devs to force a player out of the match when he dies. The amount that you "treasure" a mech comes in how honorably and how well you fight, not in what parameters you want the devs to set.

Thats just me though.

Red Beard - I think we've been on the opposite sides of a number of discussions now but I must say that I like what you're saying here. Even though you're in the respawn camp, and I'm not, the fact is that you seem to want to take the game seriously - respawns allowed but you play like it's your only "life". I respect that. My concern is not players like you - it's players who just want to come in, charge ahead into the meatgrinder, respawn repeatedly and still get rewarded at the end by increased experience etc.

And as SquareSphere states, you finally kill that Atlas through great teamwork and it's straight back shortly after? That would kinda ruin that initial rush of elation for me.

To coin a phrase, that's just me though.

[Red Beard]

FireForEffect, on 11 January 2012 - 10:52 AM, said:

Nah, he just agrees with you - that does not mean he gets it.

Ummm...yeah he does. "It" being what point I was trying to make.

Quote

Say I spend18 minutes of my session fighting another mech and finally defeat it only for him to respawn, fling some LRMs my way and destroy my already damaged mech - what's fair about that? I've got what? 2 minutes to make this anything less than a draw. Aren't I being penalised here? That's just rubbish.

Rubbish is MY word for the day, thank you. It's all just a battle of attrition, so what does respawning really matter? It is either a battle to see who can get a single kill, or to see who can get the most kills in a set period of time. All just attrition. No difference in one way or the other. The major thing is to keep people playing, therefore keeping the lines of cash coming in.

Quote

And constant respawns letting people build up experience and cash? That's just inflationary nonsense - lose and you still win? You can be the worst player in history but still sit on a big pile of cash just because you play a lot of games. Why reward losing at all? You lost - get better.

I don't think you thought this through too much. I suggested in an earlier post that they might use a sliding scale for respawns. Maybe you will have a better idea of my point of view if you go and read that post. Ideally, a pilot that respawns a great deal will not be as highly rewarded for his efforts as his lancemates that respawned less than him or not at all. Likewise, if you LOSE, you will get nothing.

[Red Beard]

Commraid, on 11 January 2012 - 11:10 AM, said:

the pros will be wiping the floor with the noobs without giving them a chance to gain any experience.

That will happen no matter what. It's just life.

[Star Captain Obvious Kerensky]

Spawn vs. No respawn isn't about realism, but how players perceive themselves in-game. I don't have a problem with respawn and realism simply because I don't see myself as piloting the mech, but rather "Nameless Mechwarrior #324" piloting that mech.

Thus I don't mind getting killed 10 times defending a position. To me those 10 deaths were 10 guys holding out against overwhealming odds. If MWLL is any indication, often times the MVP isn't the guy with 20 kills and 1 death, but the guy with 5 kills and 10 deaths who was willing to walk into the teeth of the enemy line to narc targets and provide C3 data.

As Squaresphere already mentioned, single spawn causes players to be very cautious. This can be fun, but it often turns into "WaitWarrior". At least there will be artillery strikes (Latest dev interview specifically mentions them) that should alleviate some camping.

Taken to the extreme, I can envision situations in single-spawn MWO where no one wants to be the light scout. Simply because you're forced to get Line of Sight on the enemy--- The thin armor of a light mech means getting killed and waiting out the rest of the match is far more likely than with a Heavy or Assault.

Edited by eldragon, 11 January 2012 - 11:19 AM.

[Khushrenada]

well, to all of you who like the world of tanks style: it wont work in this game!
why? simple: in WoT you level and "train" your individual tank, but in this game you dont train your mech but your PILOT instead, so when you are "dead" in a match you cant just hop into another match cause the same pilot that is dead on the other server will now again get exps... THIS will add more support to rushers and early death/drop offs than a respawn ever will (since respawn matches almost ever have a ticket count for each side nowadays, like the battlefield series)!

besides, enabling someone to play again while he is dead on another server just rises the problem of people dropping out of matches where they find themselfes (in their opinion) in unbalanced matches, "noob-teams" or what ever reason they find for abandoning their team which then might get slaughtered for real...
imagine a 12 vs 12 match. 2 drop out cause they think the match is unbalanced and want to find another one that is more to their liking. now another 2 drop out, cause "now we dont stand a chance anymore...". in the end there are 12 vs 8 and in most of the times we all know how that will end.

so in my opinion there should be no respawns on territory war maps, but also you should not be able to join another game where you can earn exps or level your pilot as long as the other match is still running.
a possible workaround might be to offer matches where you can fight in TDM style, with re-spawns, but no exps and pilot leveling, which dead pilots can join and have some fun while their shot down pilot remains in the other match. maybe give them a message, when the other game has ended and they can join another territory or what ever match to get exps again.

i just dont like the idea of getting ranks, making it to major for example with my pilot and beeing proud of my achievements in battles to see another one to be like general and think "wow, how did he get that rank, he must be a good player" and my mate tells me "oh no, he just rushed mindlessly in like 20.000 games into the enemy to get some recon points and die in the first minute..." that would just make the whole ranking up idea pointless.

p.s.: i have no problem with some match types that have re-spawns, but especially territory war matches should be played without re-spawn in my opinion. i hope they will make some different match types, so everyone can find something to their liking.

Edited by Khushrenada, 11 January 2012 - 11:34 AM.

[SquareSphere]

I'd also like to mention that what might also be needed to make no respawn a bit more playable is the ability to "retreat" for less penalty (or less reward) than dieing. Or even multiple levels of winning/losing.

It would give the players options on the thought of, "Ok I know they're only a few mechs left on the other team but mine is hurting really bad. If we push we could win, BUT if we don't we're going to be stuck with no win and repair cost. "

If it was something like,

Major Victory : all enemies destroyed + objectives complete (100% payout plus bonus)
Victory: major objectives complete, but some enemies survived (100% payout)
Defeat: some objectives complete but not all (units survived by retreating, 65% payout)
Major Defeat: objectives not complete all team units destroyed.(40% payout)

hmmm even typing that out it makes it murky, but in BT there was always a huge emphashsis on when to retreat rather than standing to the last man

[Kdogg788]

I could be wrong on this but I think I remember in MPBT Solaris, that when you died you were sent back to the chat room. I am in favor of a no respawn, die and you're dead game. It makes the player think more about every action made in the game. Leaving your team just one player short handed could be a critical mistake. This is also how Band of Brothers Hells Highway is played, and it is way more realistic than your standard COD spawn back in the match and pump your k/d ratio.

You're right though, in Battletech the conservation of mechs and equipment sometimes was more important than short term gains.

-k

Edited by Kdogg788, 11 January 2012 - 11:25 AM.

[Zakski]

Firstly there is this http://mwomercs.com/...0988#entry60988. WOT system does not play nice with arranged teams.
Secondly, lets say you are in an objectives match lets say king of the hill where you have to hold the hill for 10 mins. There is an enemy Atlas and you manage to take him down, he has, oh lets say, a 2 minute respawn + a 1-2 minute walk back, that 3-4 minutes out of the fight(15-20% out if the game last 20 mins, a significant chunk). Meanwhile enemy team is massively disadvantaged due to the loss of a heavy hitter, could well lose them the game. you can construct the game with respawns and give death meaning.

Thirdly if you are playing with people who repeatedly die, you probably should not play with them again/avoid pubs

[Dlardrageth]

Dihm, on 11 January 2012 - 08:04 AM, said:

[...]
That's exactly the kind of stuff I hope never happens.

That is exactly the kind of stuff that will happen. Even with RedBeard's "sliding scale" you will have enough incentive left to make people do this. Or task a bot to do it. Of course you could up the penalty that far that you could actually lose quite a lot of in-game currency if you respawn too much.

But hey, cannot have that either, how dare we "punish" players for exploiting a legitimate game mechanic? We need to reward them instead, cool, how about a small extra reward for each extra time you respawn then? Should be sort of popular with some players...

Commraid, on 11 January 2012 - 11:10 AM, said:

Since everyone has different opinions I vote on different servers or different game types to have different rules on respawns, this will be the only way to seperate everyone and keep everyone happy at the same time. Otherwise it will put a lot of strain on the devs to make an engine that accuratley mixes players of equal strength together. And the pros will be wiping the floor with the noobs without giving them a chance to gain any experience.

Id like to see the eject mechanic we all saw in the trailer to have some meaning. e.g if you eject in time you respawn quicker otherwise you can last stand it and die hard.

Absolutely. I have no problem at all with people respawning 20+ times a match, as long as I'm not in that match. Let the perma-respawners have their dedicated servers, let them play with unlimited ammo, fantasy weapons and what not... as far as I care, fine. Just don't expect me to touch those matches with a 20-foot-pole. And if that means I won't ever show up in some "1337" leaderboard, ranking or whatever either, also fine. I could care less. If I wanted that kind of stuff, enough FPS out there which offer it.

But I actually don't. In particular not as soon as the metagame/strategic level/campaign mode is concerned. If that gets dumbed down by silly respawn mechanics, good luck getting longterm commitment for it. Because for that angle it makes absolutely no sense that the unit commander on a planet light years away just waves his magic wand and *poof* his downed MechWarrior rises anew as a revenant with a shiny new Mech instantly. Absurdly cheesy. That might be "CheeseWarriors Online", but not "MechWarriors Online".

Give the "pro-respawners" their game mode and be done with it, I say. Just don't expect those of us who want a more in-depth tactical/strategic gameplay to bother with it as well. Make people tick a box in the lobby to make their intention clear, and that's it. Someone surely will now dramatize it by feigning an outcry of shock or something, claiming that splits the community, I'm sure. Well, just to make it clear, it won't split the community. Look at this thread and you can quite clearly see the "split" being there already.

Better to live with it than make sure a large parts depart MWO's shores and sets sail elsewhere after a while, I reckon. Because I cannot see me bothering with perma-respawns for long, and obviously some other players cannot be bothered to wait a minute or five eventually for their next match. So yeah, either we get both options or we'll lose a large part of the potential player base, I guess.

[FireForEffect]

Red Beard, on 11 January 2012 - 11:13 AM, said:

Rubbish is MY word for the day, thank you.

You're welcome

Red Beard, on 11 January 2012 - 11:13 AM, said:

It's all just a battle of attrition, so what does respawning really matter?

It ain't just a battle of attrition though is it? It should be a battle to conserve your resources - not get your mechs destroyed or you'll need to pay to replace or repair them - all that outside of the basic shootemup. Pull back when you're hurt - don't keep charging in etc.

Red Beard, on 11 January 2012 - 11:13 AM, said:

I don't think you thought this through too much. I suggested in an earlier post that they might use a sliding scale for respawns. Maybe you will have a better idea of my point of view if you go and read that post. Ideally, a pilot that respawns a great deal will not be as highly rewarded for his efforts as his lancemates that respawned less than him or not at all. Likewise, if you LOSE, you will get nothing.

Yeah, I went a bit Leeeroy there. I still want my experience and cash though even though I gave it no real thought and just charged - I'll be able to post again in a second so there's no problem

Is this what you mean by a sliding scale? Merc Unit A is hired by House B to assault House Unit C. For that Merc Unit A is to be paid 120,000 credits. If you take 12 mechs you split that 12 ways - 10k apiece. If you use loads of respawns, say 10 each, you only get 1k each. I have less of an issue with that.

[Ravn]

I can def see this splitting the community. I for one can't stand respawn. Think what that would do to the whole information warfare gameplay that is getting preached. What the hell do I need scouts for if I have respawn? Scouts lose a lot of their importance after they have defined the battlespace and the melee has begun. I'm going to be in a team full of heavy and assault mechs with constant line of sight because we are rushing.

[renegade mitchell]

Dlardrageth, on 11 January 2012 - 05:46 AM, said:

"It happens"? Not sure what exactly you are talking about, but in games I prefer to play such things only happen if both teams utterly fail. But then I'm obviously not a big fan of MW4, that might explain, amirite? And even then... let's assume for the sake of the argument the map size in MWO would be roughly the same or a bit bigger than in MW4. And during 20 minutes, 24 players and their Mechs cannot make one single enemy contact? Yeah, right, sounds exactly like "the best teams"... just not for actual fighting. Or did you mean "best teams" for standing around and do Mech-posing? You did by any chance read the part about "understanding game mechanics" and are aware the devs stated specifically Mechs will be crucial in different roles, this including scouting? Oh, and guess what, part of "scouting" is actually detecting the enemy, duh! Or did that one fly too far over your head? Okay, for some weird reason both teams might have been not smart enough to bring even one scout-capable Mech along. Well, classic failure then. To understand basic game mechanics. So who's trolling here, huh? Guess another case of pot <->kettle...

You played how many MW4 league games? I bet none. You are such the expert. lol As for troll you are. Replies like yours, sarcastic and talking down to will get the same type reply from me.

[renegade mitchell]

Dlardrageth, on 11 January 2012 - 06:59 AM, said:

I'm well aware of the camping issue and some people having a fancy for trying to "sit out" matches. But that is their decision and accordingly their problem if they opt do so. The point is they can do differently. It is neither PGI's job nor anyone else's fault if some players cannot be bothered to try to detect the enemy. The premise I initially replied to was: It is not about not trying to find the enemy here. It is stating a premise that effectively they could not find them. And that taxes my suspension of disbelief somewhat (avoiding to say it's outright stupid). Especially if I assume players that have half a clue what they're doing. Your points are totally valid, eldragon, but not really the problem. I did play A COUPLE OF MW4 matches myself back in the days, so I'm not buying this premise. And I tend to agree with Mason Grimm... for once. (j/k) His option 3 sounds most realistic, although we have to consider the "Lone Wolf" angle of people joining a battle not teamed up with buddies/unit and thus having no need to wait for them to come out. So yeah, combo of option 1 & 3 sounds good to me.

He and I basically said the same thing. He just worded his better. Got that Mr. I ONLY PLAYED A COUPE MW4 MATCHES. lol

Edited by Renegade Mitchell, 11 January 2012 - 12:37 PM.

[SquareSphere]

We are a very SMALL community to begin with. To get new blood into the community (which we really need to keep games populated and PGI profitable so they can keep making MWO) there can't be such a severe penality to dieing early on.

Ulitmately it's going to have to be a match setting, public instant action style games will need respawn for folks just trying out the game, and for players that just want to hop on and shoot mechs. For organized planetary games, there has to be more challenge than who can zerg/camp the most.

[Nik Reaper]

!WARNING TEXT WALL!
Hi all, ok I just read 7 pages of going back and front over this and it is truly a globaly unsettable issue and someone will become unhappy with the final decision. Now here is some food for thought... and boy it will be controversial.... the first part will be the intro needed as a background in order to make the point later down.
As I read this thread I noticed that many of you are indeed players of a number of other mmo games, some shooters some semi-simulations and such, now ask you'r self this one thing: who are all these players I'm playing with and against? if the game is new you are playing it because it's popular and probably entertaining, it's fans are probably expirienced with some other game similar to the one in question or there complete newbie (new to the genre or the game type). Now consider what all successful games have in common? they are able to attract gamers form similar other games to it's self and draw newbies and assimilate them in some way.
And now for some of that contraversy I was saying up there... most of the posters here and most of the battletech fans are diehards of whom many played and still play tabletop games and even if you never did and don't consider you'r self a diehard fan you are an unbelivable small minoraty of gamer out there, you are not enough to support a high class, high investment game, hell free to play ( funded by buying paint, maybe weapons by real money ) with these numbers... And why is that, the numbers, not the fact that we will not individualy pay a huge amount just so that it becomes viable to survive. It's because Battletech is not mainstream!!! Sure they tried with several games, streamlining it, but all that did was to put off the older fans and still not enough to pull in the new meat, the fan base isn't exactly small... but almost any Bioware game ( as cheezy as they are ) can Atlas crush/walk over this family car of a franchize ( in case I'm wrong please do tell, I'd welcome being wrong here ). Now with the dawn of free to play games like LoL and HoN, that use the same profit model as the new mech would use, the mech franchise has a real chance, or perhaps the only chanse to grow and rather than streamlining in to mainstream through simplification pull mainstream in to it.
Finally the respown issue. For all of you that played popular games online I ask you this: remember the people you played with and against. Unless you are a high profile player with some sort of high ingame rating wich allowes you to play with somewhat equaly high rate opponents, I would think that the averige player to a popular game is a casual one, and a casual player in terms of gameplay is a bad one most of the time wich results in a case of rage and faceplam rather often to the commited dedicated fan. So here is the bottom line, do we want this battletech game to be an at least a 10 milion+ worldwide game with multiple servers for europe,america and asia, or yet another attempt to give the good old hardcore to the casual gamer? ... as we know how that works out. Personally I want a castum battle simulator by my specifications.. guess what... I'm not getting it because I can't pay for it and being the fan that I am I want battletech to become popular as it will than eventualy get the UBER-MEGA-SUPER 3D 3 hour movie it so deserves, about wich I can start my new religious cult like the techpriests in warhammer... but I digerss. Point is if we want any more mech games in the near future this must work, and seeing as a popular game has a majority of casual gamers as it's player base I would ask the battletech fans here who played other mmo with such player what there habits and actions when they get crushed by the high ranked dedicated players or if they still don't understand the game mechanic and have to wait 18 min til the next game start? At this point I feel like kicking the hell out all of you here who dare say that almost all of the game should be nonrespown, not because I don't share you'r opinion ( I'm personally of the 2 option or the gain tactical resources on map and get a reinforcement drop ) but because there is a small chance that the gamestudio mught read this and say.. dude the fans really don't like this, let's listen to the oppinion of the loyal fans even though it might (quite likely) put off a sizable chunk of new players and go with ingame realism.... There should be a non-respown mode but it should be something that is not the highlighted when advertising the game, and later when the assimilation of the newbies is mostly complete than a bigboy patch can add good bonuses and rewards for playing it with a chance to play by not doing anything for 18 min because of a bad choice of you'r self or you'r teammates wich by that point are eather of an acceptable level pf skill or are you'r regular team. So before you voice you'r discontent first be open to compromises and first think if you want the next singleplayer mech game and ever want to see a mechwarrior movie .. in 3D .... because if this works on a large scale the likelyhood of it happening is not so small as it is now.
Sorry for the rent but I just had to say it at this point where it (who knows) might make a differance.
: As I was writing this text wall it seems the outlook on the need for new players has appeared and has subsided my need to kick anyone

Edited by Nik Reaper, 11 January 2012 - 12:50 PM.

[Adridos]

eldragon, on 11 January 2012 - 11:17 AM, said:

Spawn vs. No respawn isn't about realism, but how players perceive themselves in-game. I don't have a problem with respawn and realism simply because I don't see myself as piloting the mech, but rather "Nameless Mechwarrior #324" piloting that mech.

Thus I don't mind getting killed 10 times defending a position. To me those 10 deaths were 10 guys holding out against overwhealming odds. If MWLL is any indication, often times the MVP isn't the guy with 20 kills and 1 death, but the guy with 5 kills and 10 deaths who was willing to walk into the teeth of the enemy line to narc targets and provide C3 data.

As Squaresphere already mentioned, single spawn causes players to be very cautious. This can be fun, but it often turns into "WaitWarrior". At least there will be artillery strikes (Latest dev interview specifically mentions them) that should alleviate some camping.

Taken to the extreme, I can envision situations in single-spawn MWO where no one wants to be the light scout. Simply because you're forced to get Line of Sight on the enemy--- The thin armor of a light mech means getting killed and waiting out the rest of the match is far more likely than with a Heavy or Assault.

You do have a good point now...

But you should still be very cautious about what you suggest, though.