49 replies to this topic

[Purplefluffybunny]

This is precisely the suicide method the devs are tracking.

Edited by Purplefluffybunny, 30 October 2012 - 02:39 AM.

[Buckwylde]

Too easy, skip the C-Bills altogether or make them work differently. Make XP the only important thing, and only give it for doing useful things. No "you finished a match" XP. C-Bills would be kind of hard to part with, of course, but it's not rocket surgery to sort this out.

Exploiting is grounds for a ban. Companies that do not follow through with cheaters, fail to maintain the trust of their subscribers and get kicked to the curb for companies who favor fair play.

The fact that suicide exploits have not been eradicated in the last 4+ months is as telling as the "stay logged in" forum feature that has never worked. You would have thought that the millions of Founders bucks would have paid for a programmer or two.

[Cervantes88]

I thought there were no rewards anymore when you quit a game before it ends (even if you died) ?

[Buckwylde]

Cervantes88, on 30 October 2012 - 03:41 AM, said:

I thought there were no rewards anymore when you quit a game before it ends (even if you died) ?

It's always given a reward if you were already dead when you quit, and that's a good thing[Edit: as long as you've done something to earn the reward that you got]. The exploit occurs because you are rewarded for dieing in a mech that doesn't cost anything to repair. Those free mechs are always available and not fun to play. I assume that it takes too long to graduate to your own mech organically, and that is why people suicide past the horrible bit so that they can get a mech of their own.

Edited by Buckwylde, 30 October 2012 - 03:56 AM.

[Cervantes88]

Oh ok. I thought they removed the aftermatch rewards if you quit game right after you die.

Well, I for one like the trial Raven. It's really a decent mech, you just have to learn how to manage your heat.

And the trial Awesome is a good long-range support mech I guess.

The other ones seem a bit lacking though, especially the Centurion.

[Xendojo]

Just want to confirm that I too am seeing LOTS of suicide grind in trials, mostly in the form of rambo rushes. I have seen the intentional overheat suicide but on a much smaller scale.

[Rip Calkin]

GanjiBubbles, on 29 October 2012 - 11:04 PM, said:

as far as the TK, im not quite sure how that happened lol i was locked on and firing with LRM around 800m away and it just said i killed a teammate...

One of your teammates was foolish... and decided that walking over the fallen enemy was a good idea, at which point the LRMs you already had en route to target (now targeting the target's last known location) hit your teammate.

Good teammates, those who know they have LRM support fire incoming, know to avoid this situation.

[Rip Calkin]

I think the answer is to this 'suicide' exploit is a simple one:

Have trial-mech pilots pay for the repairs to (but not the rearming of) the trial mechs, but with a 'cap' on the repair bills. Make the minimum earnable amount something positive, so that it's still possible to earn one's way to purchase of a personally-owned mech, but small enough that actually going out and making a difference for your team (in the way of bonuses for kills, assists, spotting, and base capture) is where trial-mech pilots would REALLY earn their cash.

[Morang]

Xendojo, on 30 October 2012 - 04:48 AM, said:

Just want to confirm that I too am seeing LOTS of suicide grind in trials, mostly in the form of rambo rushes. I have seen the intentional overheat suicide but on a much smaller scale.

How could you tell rambo from inexperienced scout who took wrong turn and faced entire enemy team or from just total newb still knowing little about teamwork, maps topology and 'mechs abilities to produce and tolerate damage?

BTW I prefer to call this tactic "Banzai charge" because it's more historic analogue than Rambo and because it insults Dracs.

Until PGI uns*ck the trials (allow at least limited customisation or massive overhaul of heat generation/dissipation ratio back to TT values), I hope they will always be forced to spend more money on futile attempts to prevent trial grind exploits than they get from MCs purchased to buy a way out of this ordeal.

[Xendojo]

Anyone i see now suicide grinding by the overheat method, gets reported right after the match. I think this is probably the best course of action. Take screenshots if you can and remember the pilots handle, go to their forum profile and report the user from there. I'll be doing this any time i see this happen.

[Kmieciu]

How do you tell intentional and accidental overheating apart?
Will the Devs punish people who die in the first 3 minutes of a match? That`s funny because my group often steamrolls the newbs in a couple of minutes.

So PGI is going to ban potential customers before they get to the fun part?

People are smart. They adapt to the rules. If the trial mechs are unfun and unfair, they choose the obvious solution: to skip them.

To all the people that say that Trial mechs are fine: they are not, because they are taken straight from TT game, and MWO rules changed so much, that those designs are ineffective.

If you put a new player in an optimized build against a new player in a trial mech, guess who will win?

It`s like buying a street bike and race against supersports on a a track, against people with months of experience working in groups of 8. Or taking a normal car to a nascar race.

I want the trial mechs to be so fun, that people will organize "trial only" tournaments.

Trial mechs are the irrefutable proof that PGI destroyed the balance once found in TT game.

Edited by Kmieciu, 30 October 2012 - 06:05 AM.

[Xendojo]

I'm not talking about overheating while fighting, i'm talking about not even moving and alpha striking yourself to death in the first 30 seconds. If i see people do this i report them.

[Madoc Owain]

Xendojo, on 30 October 2012 - 05:22 AM, said:

Anyone i see now suicide grinding by the overheat method, gets reported right after the match. I think this is probably the best course of action. Take screenshots if you can and remember the pilots handle, go to their forum profile and report the user from there. I'll be doing this any time i see this happen.

Suicide grinding by overheat - devs patched that out weeks ago. You get NO CB for suicide via overheat, falling, ammo explosions, etc. Anything that causes "<you> killed <you>" gets no CB/XP.

Banzai rushes are certainly a viable means to grind out CB, as the difference between winning and losing in a trial aren't great enough to overcome the instant release of a trial mech for another run immediately after quitting the previous match. Over time, banzai rushes are far more profitable than actually playing. Once match-making is implemented, I am certain those folks will end up paired with each other and very low-skilled players.

*edited, mis-read thought you suggested posting users' names in forum as 'reporting', sorry.

Edited by Madoc Owain, 30 October 2012 - 07:38 AM.

[ZigZagJoe]

Absolute root of the problem is that trial mechs are on average extremely subpar. Not really much else to say about it. If it wasn't quite so painful to play those ~50 games you need to get your first medium... perhaps things would be different. Honestly, if they weren't tracking suicides now, I'd be right there too suiciding trial mechs. Since there isn't, I'm not playing, because I can't be assed to grind for a good 8 hours to get a decent medium.

Really need a mechanism to get one's first mech significantly faster.

[Xendojo]

ZigZagJoe, on 30 October 2012 - 07:55 AM, said:

Absolute root of the problem is that trial mechs are on average extremely subpar. Not really much else to say about it. If it wasn't quite so painful to play those ~50 games you need to get your first medium... perhaps things would be different. Honestly, if they weren't tracking suicides now, I'd be right there too suiciding trial mechs. Since there isn't, I'm not playing, because I can't be assed to grind for a good 8 hours to get a decent medium.

Really need a mechanism to get one's first mech significantly faster.

They have one....its called MC.

[ZigZagJoe]

Xendojo, on 30 October 2012 - 07:57 AM, said:

They have one....its called MC.

Wondered how long it'd take for this post to show up. Funny thing, you realize that the only people that are going to buy MC are people that are actually interested in the game, right? The battletech fanbase that was going to spend money by and large already has done so and won't be a significant source of income in the future. So, it's down to new player experience.

This is what's happening for the vast majority of players: Random pubbie signs up. Random pubbie logs in. Random pubbie plays 3 games. Random pubbie is not having fun. Random pubbie does not purchase MC. Random pubbie quits game. Random pubbie uninstalls.

The current state of the game is not conducive for getting players hooked on the game and spending $$$.

EDIT: Especially seeing as $7 gets you a craptastic light mech and must spend $15 to get a medium.

Edited by ZigZagJoe, 30 October 2012 - 08:49 AM.

[EvangelionUnit]

Hayashi, on 29 October 2012 - 10:28 PM, said:

Spoiler

Problem with not having repair costs is that it would eliminate the balancing factor for more powerful, expensive equipment - without it, the rich only get richer, to the point they'll have too many C Bills and nothing to use them on. If rewards were to be brought down so that C Bills aren't inflated to worthlessness, then it would take too long to acquire new equipment, turning off the grind-hating crowd.

Also, increasing performance based C Bill rewards as a fraction of the same overall reward average has a drawback of punishing poorer players relative to the current system. Newer, less skilled players would achieve less objectives regardless of what the objectives are: if the reward for simply participating is too low, it would take too long for them to be able to start customising their Mechs. If the learning curve is too steep, they won't stay in the game.

It's a delicate balance between default reward and performance based reward, between acquisition costs and repair costs, and between costs and rewards, and people differ as to their views on whether the balance is right or slightly off-kilter.

I would suppose most people can agree on having a greater diversity of objectives that can earn XP/C Bills though. What other team-play objectives are there? Perhaps...

• Attacking an enemy which is targeting an ally with low armour in the cockpit/CT/ST(for XL only) locations to give a 'defensive fire' bonus? Perhaps 20 XP & 3000 C Bills every time you help a teammate this way? [Awarded only once per enemy distracted, so you only get 24,000 if you distract every member of their team from attacking one damaged teammate]
  
• Moving into your cap zone to stop an enemy/enemies from capping your base to give a 'base defense' bonus? Perhaps a flat rate of 50 xp/5,000 C Bills per enemy? [Awarded only once per enemy, so you only get 40,000 if their whole team caps your base]
  
• Giving a C Bill/XP bonus for absorbing enemy damage? (This will increase the more armour you have, since you can thus absorb more damage. However, this is constant regardless of how expensive the equipment you have is mounted - so people who tank with XL engines will never earn enough from this to offset repair costs). How about... 500 C Bills & 0.33 xp per damage point?

Any more ideas?

spoilerd to keep the thread clear
more money for stuff like 1000 total damage with some kind of laser/ppc/ac/LRM ... the more total damage done with the weapon, the more cash you get

free equipment ... like a "free" ES/FF/DHS vaucher (maybe only DHS, because the others are based on mech weight and armor value)

exp for combat actions:
every second you TAG or narc someone, you get a small amount of EXP
everytime someone fires at your target, you get a bigger amount of EXP (the other player who fires get some more too, for the team play)

keeping visual to an enemy should give an exp bonus for the time, and not simply for "target spotting"
also higher EXP reward when team mates use this information for some LRM shower

ASM bonus for shooting enemy missiles (CASH AND EXP, because you were smart enough to stay close to your team mates!)
adds also with my first poinst for 1000, 10.000, 100.000 and so on missiles destroyed ... maybe well dunno, TONS of steps in these

payday the heist did a great job with this stuff, Call of Duty Moder Warfare too ... and most people like it.

[197mmCannon]

1. drastically lower the base cbill gained from winning and losing.

2. slightly increase the cbill gained from spotting, damage, kills, etc.

3a. if your team loses take money earned from step 1 and 2 and then apply premium, founders, hero, etc bonus.
//3a1. if your in a trial mech and your team loses then you don't get money from step 1. Take cbills from step 2 and then apply premium bonus if it exists. (maybe not do this step? I'm torn on it. On the one hand trial mechs don't need to rearm or repair but on the other hand you want people to earn money and buy their own mechs)

3b. if your team wins take money earned from steps 1 and 2 and then multiply it x2. Then apply founder, premium, hero, etc bonus.

4. give cbills to mech pilot.


*edit 1*Before you do anything I listed above you need to fix matchmaking.

*edit 2*Also there are lots of ideas in this thread for altering or adding bonuses in step 2. I am all for this.

Here are ideas I like:

1. Dealing AND taking damage while standing in the enemies cap.

2. Dealing damage to and taking damage from someone in your cap.

3. Killing and assisting on kills on someone in your cap should give increased rewards.

4. dealing damage, getting kills, and getting assists within a defined proximity of the cap while a teammate caps should give you a cap assist and some points towards money.

Edited by Daemian, 30 October 2012 - 09:33 AM.

[zorak ramone]

Deathpiggy, on 29 October 2012 - 10:01 PM, said:

You'd be treating the symptom, not the disease. You'll see this sort of behavior because there's no incentive to win. Why go through the match when you'll make nearly as much just blowing yourself up?

Even if you stop the intentional overheating, you'll just see people zombie rushing in trial mechs, getting themselves blown up as fast as possible to make C-bills.

The core issue is that the reward system punishes team play and rewards playing at the cost of your team.

Exactly right.

The fact that you see this means that its also more fun to suicide and reconnect over an over again to get to a "real" mech than it is to actually play the game in a trial mech.

Trial mechs have sucked for a long time. The problem was brought up multiple times in closed beta. Guess what? Ignoring the problem didn't make it go away!

[Watchit]

Another idea could be to have trial mechs unavailable while they're "in a match" kind of like owned mechs, this would drastically reduce the speed at which people could use this exploit.

Time to suicide through each mech:
4 mech sucicdes * 30 sec = 2min < ~6min match for each mech