54 replies to this topic

[Riptor]

So it seems that the commander role gets alot of Active abilities.Ontop of that you get bonus XP for following a commanders order...

Wich begs the question why anyone would choose the Assault/Defense roles over scout or Commander.

I can see the scout having somewhat of a place next to a commander, but why should i take someone with an assault role in an assault mech into my team when i can have another commander who can call down the wrath of a naval vessels bombardment on my enemys that he found beforehand with a satelity scan?

Both sit in Assault mechs... both have the same amounts of weapons installed in their mechs/same mech level... but one has only passive buffs while the other brings in additional firepower and brings a whole batch of scouting abilities with it.

I mean less heat is all nice and dandy but if i can have 4 dudes calling down naval bombardement i know what i would choose.

So how do you keep things like 12 commanders vs 12 commanders from happening? How do you keep Mechwarrior online from degrading into Artillery warrior online?

After all this isnt like battlefield where you can switch roles on the fly with little to no consequence. If you choose to make your pilot a commander in this game you will be stuck with it it seems. So limiting the number of commanders per game would punish those players for choosing the commander role.

All in all the commander role simply looks way to good on paper compared with the other three roles.

Also im less talking about PuG games and more about organized play where 12 commanders on the field organized via teamspeak might be the best choice really

Also remember that one commander calling an artillery strike might be fine and dandy in the great scheme of things but if 6 commanders at once call for artillery fire and the other 6 wait their turn it pretty much would get ugly and not fun very fast for everyone else.


Dont make the commander role another Firemage

[Helmer]

As we haven't played the game , heard any concrete info on how it's implemented , or seen any video , I'd say it's a little early to even talk about it logically.

Something to revisit when we are all better informed.

Best guess ? No , it'll be balanced.

[Kaemon]

umm..you know the person following the commander's order gets the xp, right? And that it's a mechanism to add validity (not necessarily power) to the commander role.

You're free to ignore the commander (please remember we have sporadic reports of FF in game, so might want to rethink not listening to them), and the only thing that will suffer is xp.

Keep in mind that some of these commander roles will require direct interaction (i.e. you're blind to the battlefield), which makes you a nice mushy target for fast moving scouts/meds...OM NOM NOM.

Plus I hope (hope is not a strategy I know) that off screen arty (not a fan) is limited in use (by cost/reload time is fine) and any onscreen resource (UAV, LRM) is player controlled and interactive (meaning I can shoot the **** of out if before it rains on my head).

Then I'm not as worried about it.

[Mims]

In my opinion, there will be pros and cons to being a commander. For example you may be better at information warfare than combat warfare and vise versa thats how you know what role to play. Let this topic be developed more before we start labling it.

[Kenyon Burguess]

same as the real world, you do more, you get paid more. the commander is going to be a hard job. he's gotta do his primary assault/defense job and keep track of the others plus handle tactics and support duties. not to mention everyone and the twice crippled grandmother is going to be after him/her on that battlefield. the mission succeeds, you deserve some extra credit. if the mission fails for any reason at all, you will be the one to get raged at...its ALWAYS the commanders fault, never the troops. i wouldnt worry about the support being game endingly awesome. devs will balance it.

[Paul Inouye]

Dunno.. how did you feel it was in the last play test?

*wipes smarmy smartarse look off his face*

[VYCanis]

I'm not too worried about artillery.

For example. play MWLL. Get bombing run'd by a shiva. or hit by a long tom
That blast can outright cripple a mech in 1 go or just flat out kill it usually.

However, if you miss, the target usually skips away with a few scuff marks. And hitting a moving (particularly fast moving) target is nightmare hard.

now in MWLL, you usually can either reload your bombs or fire another LT shot. But it kinda sounds like commander's in MWO only get 1 shot, maybe 2 or 3.

it'd be all too easy to mistime those shots, hit nothing, and now you have an empty module doing a whole lot of nothing in your mech that could have been transferring info or boosting an ability. To use another example, old BF2. commander's could call arty. But it'd take so long to arrive you could not really use it on the fly, you had to pin a target to an area or know where they were moving through and predict their position, which was not always easy. Plus, veteran players quickly learned to scatter or change positions whenever they heard artillery being fired.

[Cattra Kell]

Paul Inouye, on 06 February 2012 - 11:44 AM, said:

Dunno.. how did you feel it was in the last play test?

*wipes smarmy smartarse look off his face*

Giving the fingers used to create frustration a crack, Paul lets a small smirk sprawl across his face in satisfaction of his writing, his craft, his art. The words lingered in the once empty reply slot for mere minutes, the thunderous clacking of the keys of the keyboard had already faded from his ears. It was a glorious sound, the sound of frustration about to be brought to those who gazed upon the text that manifested and he helped to inscribe onto the once empty canvas. That time was over now, quickly gripping his mouse he brings the pointer over the post button and lets it linger for a second before with a satisfactory click the message is posted. Leaning back, Paul reaches over a grabs a beer off his desk and brings it to his lips, with swig of satisfaction. His job was done. The troll was let loose of its cage to wreck havoc upon those who listened to its words, this was Paul's curse... and his greatest strength...

Edited by Cattra Kell, 06 February 2012 - 08:09 PM.

[Paul Inouye]

You forgot my pipe and monocle.

[Omega59er]

I would think that there would only be 1 commander on either team per battle. Unless the lance-leader counts as a commander.

[Dihm]

Paul Inouye, on 06 February 2012 - 11:57 AM, said:

You forgot my pipe and monocle.

And smoking jacket and congnac. At least that's how we pictured it during Phil's dramatic reading.

Now you just need a twirly handlebar mustache!

I'm sure the roles will get well balanced. Since we're only pre-alpha, I think it's a little to early to be worried about this or that role being overpowered.

Edited by Dihm, 06 February 2012 - 12:07 PM.

[Gorith]

omega5-9er, on 06 February 2012 - 11:59 AM, said:

I would think that there would only be 1 commander on either team per battle. Unless the lance-leader counts as a commander.

Or perhaps the IDF abilities all have a shared cooldown... ok 12 commanders yay only 1 can call down the IDF at a time and it still has a cooldown before one of the other 11 can use it again.

Also a commander can not shoot me with his atlas if his nose is stuck in the tac map spamming the "launch naval barrage" so he can get the credit for the kills... Also if we get up in their face they can't IDF my team and since we have actuall assault specialists we are now going to eat their face.

also don't forget part of any game where information is important the information gathering units tend to also fill the role of information denial. See a scout hovering around you attack lance trying to get into position so his commander can IDF your teammates.. speak up get them to change direction to pull him closer to you then engage him with backup or buy your heavies enough time to spread out to minimize the incoming IDF effectiveness

[Kaemon]

Dihm, on 06 February 2012 - 12:06 PM, said:

And smoking jacket and congnac. At least that's how we pictured it during Phil's dramatic reading.

Now you just need a twirly handlebar mustache!

I'm sure the roles will get well balanced. Since we're only pre-alpha, I think it's a little to early to be worried about this or that role being overpowered.

Sitting on a throne of player's skulls, the deep sonorous roll of thunder in the background.

*steeples fingers*....excellent.

So they play tested arty? hmmmm...wonder if the Jenners needed that help or if they killed Hunchies on their own.

AAR was incomplete, we demand more playtesting reports.

[Joanna Conners]

It's pointless speculation to worry or discuss something we don't have any frame of reference for.

Keep calm and carry on.

[Dakkonn]

The Devs have said there will be only 3 commanders per side ATM. I do not mean this in a mean way but read the Dev's Blogs before making a topic like this.

Also its still a ways off so its all speculation at this point on how the commander role even works in game. Maybe abilities like Naval bombardment is a once per engagement ability? or on a long timer? Either way give them some more time when its closer to done we can discuss topics like this more accurately.

[Felix Dante]

Riptor, on 06 February 2012 - 11:32 AM, said:

Wich begs the question why anyone would choose the Assault/Defense roles over scout or Commander.

Assault/Defense = Lots of Shooting at Things that go BOOM!
Sounds fun to me.

[verybad]

Dakkonn, on 06 February 2012 - 12:55 PM, said:

The Devs have said there will be only 3 commanders per side ATM. I do not mean this in a mean way but read the Dev's Blogs before making a topic like this.

Source?

From what I can tell, skills can be learned by anyone, so you could specialize in say Command, but not get some of the other skills like attack/defend. Or you could spread your points out and maybe get a skill here, a skill there. Limited of course by you're skill with a particulat mech (you can get extra module(s?) at higher skills levels with a mech, and by the type of mech itself (they don't necessarilly have the same number of module slots to star out with.)

[CoffiNail]

Paul Inouye, on 06 February 2012 - 11:57 AM, said:

You forgot my pipe and monocle.

Oh great so they are going to have a EVE priced monocle. Well now we know where they are hoping revenue comes from.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

@Verybad -Dev Blog 3

Quote

Command – The command role is split into two different levels, lance and company. Lance command falls to those in charge of up to 3 other players and assist in coordinated attacks on key targets. The company commander utilizes the 2 other lance commanders and all information being relayed back to him to make global calls on the battlefield.

As for the rest, as far as I can see you can play any role at any time with any mech (except when they outlined weight classes for roles they excluded assaults except for defense/assault).
One thing that is interesting me is modules - says they are specific to one mech. What we don't know is if you can swap them around or if you want to replace one as you've run out of slots you lose the one already there.

[firefox117]

Theyll probably do the same thing Battlefield 2 did. There was only one commander per team and all skills had a cool down time. Below him, it was broken down into platoons, squads and teams, and there was a limit on how many players of each class were on the battlefield. That would make the most sense anyways verse having a ton of the same classes on the battlefield fighting. But it is still too early to tell for sure, so we'll just have to wait and see what they do.