9 replies to this topic

[Kaemon]

A discussion on the 4 pillars of MWO.

1. Mech Warfare - The embodiment of Mech to Mech combat. This has been beaten to death in the forums, revived, then beaten to death some more, I'm not really going to do much with it, others more well versed in the BT/TT/MW history can masticate this to death.

2. Role Warfare - The ability for player’s to customize their experience to suit their own style of gameplay. Honestly I'm a bit nervous about this one, as for some reason (call it PTSD from other MMOs) it seems to open the door to P2W (yes I know, there's been repeated announcements about there being no P2W) . It seems an avatar based skill system = xp grindfest, and pigeonholes that pilot into a certain level/type/tonnage (which is icky).

3. Community Warfare -The ability to let the players take part in epic combat for territorial control. Ok, this is match/team/clan/ battles, not a fan of the wording 'Community' for some reason it brings images of recruiting people on Facebook for ingame crap *NO!* or steaming your friends to signup *NOx2!* so you get stuff. Match or Team Warfare might have been a better term, we'll see.

4. Information Warfare - Bring a new element to the battlefield that incorporates information technology to help control the fight. I don't understand this at all, it's a pillar? isn't it a game play mechanic? the others are pillars because they are functional aspects of the game, this one seems more just a function of the first two (your mech/pilot has the ability to affect in game information). That's not necessarily a pillar of the game, unless it is able to affect the information to ALL players outside of the instanced battle you are in, correct?

I'm not a fan of the wording for 3. and I'm a bit confused by 4. (most likely because I'm on a need to know basis and I don't need to know) but I would think that 3, could be defined more succinctly as Match or Tournament Warfare and 4. as Customization, adding some blurbs about what you can tweak, and moving Information Warfare under 2.

Just a thought, feel free to discuss...

Edited by Kaemon, 18 November 2011 - 11:13 AM.

[Melissia]

Number four is electrocic warfare, from ECM (Electronic Counter Measures), ECCM (Electronic counter-countermeasures, designed to counter ECM), BAP (beagle active probe, a radar for scouts), TAG (target acquisition gear, tags mechs for firing on), Narc missiles (lets missiles lock on quickly, accurately, and easily to the enemy the narc hits), C3 master/slave computers (shares information, including targeting and radar information, between 'mechs) etc.

Edited by Melissia, 18 November 2011 - 11:38 AM.

[JzT Dolomite]

Well on number 2: In MW you are defined by the Mech you drive and/or tonnage. Yes there are jack of all trades, but you get remembered for piloting well that certain machine. I piloted a lot of mechs in MW4 but the one I am remembered for one in particular: My Masakari in particular, not just because I was one of the few assault pilots that wasn't driving 100 tons; But that machine the way I drove it along with 3 configs for each range had people who remembered me years after I moved on.

So having to define what you drive dosen't truly bother me, nor having to earn the right to drive what you want. That is just my opinon on that.

On 4: Information is king on the battlefield and if you know what is coming at you first, you can get the chance to kill it first.

Edited by {JzT}Dolomite, 18 November 2011 - 11:45 AM.

[Kaemon]

Melissia, on 18 November 2011 - 11:38 AM, said:

Number four is electrocic warfare, from ECM (Electronic Counter Measures), ECCM (Electronic counter-countermeasures, designed to counter ECM), BAP (beagle active probe, a radar for scouts), TAG (target acquisition gear, tags mechs for firing on), Narc missiles (lets missiles lock on quickly, accurately, and easily to the enemy the narc hits), C3 master/slave computers (shares information, including targeting and radar information, between 'mechs) etc.

You're still describing a game play mechanic, not necessarily a pillar of the game, so you'll have a 'support' or 'tech' load out for a mech, that assists the lance in finding/hiding/relaying information.

How is that different than a scout loadout, or a tank loadout? it's really not, it's a different configuration, but it falls under 1. IMO.

[Kaemon]

{JzT}Dolomite, on 18 November 2011 - 11:44 AM, said:

Well on number 2: In MW you are defined by the Mech you drive and/or tonnage. Yes there are jack of all trades, but you get remembered for piloting well that certain machine. I piloted a lot of mechs in MW4 but the one I am remembered for one in particular: My Masakari in particular, not just because I was one of the few assault pilots that wasn't driving 100 tons; But that machine the way I drove it along with 3 configs for each range had people who remembered me years after I moved on.

So having to define what you drive dosen't truly bother me, nor having to earn the right to drive what you want. That is just my opinon on that.

On 4: Information is king on the battlefield and if you know what is coming at you first, you can get the chance to kill it first.

I have no issues with different types of players, but what they seem to be saying here is you have to 'achieve' that role specialization, instead of just selecting the mech you want, the load out, then playing the way you want to.

An it appears to be a 'xp grind' type of setup...which I am not a fan of.

[Tsen Shang]

You can have xp without having a grind. League of Legends has xp, the purpose of which is to give players the opportunity to try each play style and class a bit before they reach serious competition levels. It's not hard to get to max level, and not being max level isn't crippling. Its a learning buffer.

Information warfare includes electronic suites yes, but seems to be more about getting information and transferring it to your team or commander than it does just mashing TAG buttons or ECM fields. You could say this is the same as just piloting your mech and spotting someone but it's not. No more MW radar with everyone on it. No more fighting in plains or gently rolling hills.

In WoW, each server is a community, each side is a community. Liao vs Davion vs Clan. That is community warfare, not sure why you decided to bring terrible social networking games into it but that's quite a stretch.

Give the devs the benefit of the doubt. I don't think they'll make you grind xp by inviting your Facebook friends.

[Kaemon]

Tsen Shang, on 19 November 2011 - 01:45 PM, said:

You can have xp without having a grind. League of Legends has xp, the purpose of which is to give players the opportunity to try each play style and class a bit before they reach serious competition levels. It's not hard to get to max level, and not being max level isn't crippling. Its a learning buffer.

Information warfare includes electronic suites yes, but seems to be more about getting information and transferring it to your team or commander than it does just mashing TAG buttons or ECM fields. You could say this is the same as just piloting your mech and spotting someone but it's not. No more MW radar with everyone on it. No more fighting in plains or gently rolling hills.

In WoW, each server is a community, each side is a community. Liao vs Davion vs Clan. That is community warfare, not sure why you decided to bring terrible social networking games into it but that's quite a stretch.

Give the devs the benefit of the doubt. I don't think they'll make you grind xp by inviting your Facebook friends.

I give no benefts of doubt to any online game dev, I speak up because too many times in the past they have gone a direction that honestly left me scratching my head in disbelief.

There is a growing trend in online games to involve social networks (I'll use the example of TSW and their recent facebook event as a means to get early beta access *shudders*).

I'm actually a bit surprised FB isn't out spamming the online games a bit more with incentives to do this, and just wanted to voice my opinion (which I would think is the same as others on here) that it's a terrible idea.

Hopefully they give us some more insight into their ideas here, I'm curious to see the direction they go.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

I prefer Five Pillars:

1: The Pillar of Gold. The Coordinator. The Nobility. The Government.
The sun on earth, gold / can melt and form again / it is still strong.

2: The Pillar of Ivory. Faith. Philosophy.

3: The Pillar of Steel. The Might of the Dragon. Bushido.
Might makes Kurita / Pillar of Dragon steel / Victory over all!

4: The Pillar of Teak. The People. The Culture. The Daily Life. The Arts.
A house that will endure / one thousand years / carve its beams from honour.

5: The Pillar of Jade. The Economy. Commerce. Wealth.
Cool jade in the hand / is of value to the souls / also worth some cash.

[Sesambrot]

Kaemon, on 19 November 2011 - 12:31 PM, said:

You're still describing a game play mechanic, not necessarily a pillar of the game, so you'll have a 'support' or 'tech' load out for a mech, that assists the lance in finding/hiding/relaying information.

How is that different than a scout loadout, or a tank loadout? it's really not, it's a different configuration, but it falls under 1. IMO.

In this case it really is a question of how much this is going to affect gameplay.
The way those systems in previous MW-games was rather generic if you ask me, but to give you an example stuff like this could be used to a greater effect, let's look into C3.

I envision something like this:
The C3 slave works mainly as an information gathering device, it collects all sorts of data and transmitts them to the master unit. the master unit however is more focused on relaying the information given by the slave to everyone on the lance/team.
In fact your scouts will mount the slave which will gather data in a radius of 1000m around the scoutmech, but only be able to transmitt them upto say 300m, the master works the other way around, it collects data within a 300m radius but can transmitt any C3 information available upto 1000m (please note that those numbers are arbitrary).
Master and Slave can communicate over a distance of 1300m (doesn't make much sense, but for the sake of gameplay...?) while every mech not equipped with master or slave unit will only get data from any slave within 300m or master within 1000m, but cannot send targetinformation themselves.
The idea is that Slaves are mainly mounted on scouts, while Masters are part of a commandmechs equipment, that way you'll automatically establish a C3-network, with the most important part (relays/commandmechs/master units) being located a little behind the main battle line where commandunits usually should be.

So you got a few options how to disable the enemies C3-network:
1. eleminate all scouts
2. locate and destroy command-units
3. if ECM has the abilty not only to "cloak" a mech but also scramble enemy communications, you could also try to jam the enemies C3-network
4. if possible in any way (EMP) force commandunits/scouts into passive sensor mode (or just make em pee their pants usually they'll go passive then lol)


hope this wasn't too off-topic, but I guess you get the idea... The point is you could come up with stuff like that for almost every piece of electronic equipment and therefore give it a whole new puspose. Maybe I'm exagerating, but if done properly you might even see a few scouts that hardly carry any weapon. If done properly information warfare could became a major gameplayfeature which, if disregared might lead to failure of your team, and at that point, it could be considered a pillar of the game.

Edited by Sesambrot, 25 November 2011 - 06:17 PM.

[barcode]

Communication warfare can be very cool. WoT pulled it off fantastically (even if it's too meta for a Mechwarrior game, with its spotting rules and whatnot.) Here's hoping it gets implemented properly.

I suppose the only pillar to worry about is the personalization one. I want to see it become what it claims to be, but thanks to F2P the effects of its implementation will certainly be suspect up to release.

Edited by barcode, 25 November 2011 - 06:30 PM.