52 replies to this topic

[Lavrenti]

MouseNo4, on 10 November 2012 - 01:29 PM, said:

Players are just too chicken to face the enemy... to afraid they might lose. So they avoid the enemy completely and race for the cap.

For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill. (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War").

[Agent of Change]

MouseNo4, on 10 November 2012 - 01:23 PM, said:

Sorry wrong. That isnt how things go. Go play a few rounds and see what happens.

I have, funny thing is most games seem to end in 8-0 wipes. you don't wanna be capped defend the cap point, It would seem your butt,hurt comes from either a lack of teamwork or an inability to grasp tactical play.


To illustrate: I've been running a raven a lot recently my first two goals in every match are to 1. spot the enemy and relay that info to my team and 2. get to their base to divide their force (and relay the results to my team). This generally has 1 of 4 results:

• The team ignores me, gets capped and whines about how capping is broken... well it's their own damn fault for ignoring one of the victory conditions
  
• The team has a defenders or send a defender back and the game turns into a real fight for everyone
  
• most of the team turns back and my team rolls up the guys pushing on alone and I bug out to help, we just gained a numerical advantage.
  
• the whole team comes back and I bolt and it becomes a straight up assault on their base.

So you can see in half of those general results panic or ignoring your own base leads to bad things. Try remembering you are on a team and playing with some tactical awareness and you'll do just fine.

Edited by Agent of Change, 10 November 2012 - 02:04 PM.

[Xt1nct1on]

i can see it now 8 lights go against 8 assaults..near the end of the match there are two assaults back to back and 3 lights...the lights decide to not attack the assaults for fear of losing but run around the other side of the map instead till the timer runs out to win

Edited by Xt1nct1on, 10 November 2012 - 03:09 PM.

[Memory]

MouseNo4, on 10 November 2012 - 12:59 PM, said:

Create a new game mode.

Remove the base capture, remove the timer.

Match is won by the team that destroys the other. No cheap wins by completely avoiding the enemy and going for the swift capture. This is MechWARrior, not capture the flag.

So in other words, strategy is no fun, you just want to brawl. I believe COD is down the hall sir...

War is won by completing objectives, not murdering the entire enemy side.

[eodsmythe]

Wow really cheap win/swift capture this is funny... I too think you should play COD.

[Xavier Wulf]

MouseNo4, on 10 November 2012 - 12:59 PM, said:

Create a new game mode.

Remove the base capture, remove the timer.

Match is won by the team that destroys the other. No cheap wins by completely avoiding the enemy and going for the swift capture. This is MechWARrior, not capture the flag.

I don't believe this guy knows how to play capture the flag.

But yea, new game modes need to be added, however a team death match is not one of them. But before they do this they may want to fix existing issues before creating a new game mode that may have bugs of its own that need to be fixed.

Priorities my friends, Priorities.

[eodsmythe]

oh by the way team death match is boring as all hell and not what this game is all about.

[Taiji]

No doubt in my mind that the current gamemode is one of the worst things about MWO for me.

Stuff like fire delay, tiny teams and small repetitive maps hurt a lot, sure.

But then fighting only if I am lucky? <- Making me gamble with guaranteed boredom?!

I disagree with the OP suggestion, since I know how delayers and ties work, for two.

But PGI could make me very very happy by putting together a gamemode that properly encourages/forces combat.

Agent of Change, on 10 November 2012 - 02:03 PM, said:

you don't wanna be capped defend the cap point

Your advice just shows that the gamemode sucks in such a way that you cannot afford to be involved in any attack if you don't want to lose by capping. And unless you control the entire team, and so prevent them from attacking, it will mean leaving your guys 1 down at the front. And then, after they've been wiped out while you did nothing to help, you get to face the entire enemy team and die like a pathetic coward.

So in effect your criticism would be just as harsh as mine if you had the same standards.

Edited by Taiji, 10 November 2012 - 06:08 PM.

[verybad]

MouseNo4, on 10 November 2012 - 12:59 PM, said:

Create a new game mode.

Remove the base capture, remove the timer.

Match is won by the team that destroys the other. No cheap wins by completely avoiding the enemy and going for the swift capture. This is MechWARrior, not capture the flag.

That's called deathmatch not assault. Deathmatch is very dull after a while, there are no goals other than killing the opponent. As for people complaining about opposing teams doing base rushes. All they need to do is defend their base it's not rocket science. If you're playing in pugs, you need to use text communications to get basic ideas over. If any team isn't using any form of communications and just playing as individuals, then they deserve to lose.

Deathmatch is ok as a mode of play, but it's hardly the most tactically interesting,

[Taiji]

verybad, on 10 November 2012 - 03:58 PM, said:

That's called deathmatch not assault. Deathmatch is very dull after a while, there are no goals other than killing the opponent. As for people complaining about opposing teams doing base rushes. All they need to do is defend their base it's not rocket science. If you're playing in pugs, you need to use text communications to get basic ideas over. If any team isn't using any form of communications and just playing as individuals, then they deserve to lose.

Deathmatch is ok as a mode of play, but it's hardly the most tactically interesting,

Of course it's not rocket science - Any fool can see it's a simple sport-like abstract gamemode, but that's partly what makes it unsatisfying.

I guess by your logic CTF would be good, even though that would be pretty silly too.

The point is MW games aren't about magical flags or locations that make small teams split up as well as letting MWs just lose without a fight.

They are about giving us MWs an opportunity to use our mechs to kill enemy MWs.

You really think we won't use such varied tactics in a genuine 8 on 8 battle?

Well of course we won't use silly tactics that break up the team for no good reason, and good job.

Having less bad choices along with more sensible and more rewarding gameplay is good in a PUG economy.

Inserting abstract mechanics that do not encourage whole team combat, in a game where the teams are very small, just makes the teams feel smaller still.

Edited by Taiji, 10 November 2012 - 06:10 PM.

[Scratx]

I don't see team deathmatch having any canonical sense in this game outside Solaris arena battles.

[Taiji]

Scratx, on 10 November 2012 - 05:45 PM, said:

I don't see team deathmatch having any canonical sense in this game outside Solaris arena battles.

By 'team deathmatch' I take it you refer to a battle between 2 opposing groups of mechs that are determined to destroy one another.

I guess there must not have been any actual warfare in lore then, as far as you are concerned. Which is odd.

Edited by Taiji, 10 November 2012 - 06:07 PM.

[Scratx]

Taiji, on 10 November 2012 - 06:04 PM, said:

By 'team deathmatch' I take it you refer to a battle between 2 opposing groups of mechs that are determined to destroy one another.

I guess there must not have been any actual combat in lore then, as far as you are concerned. Which is odd.

Because obviously every army's goal when they're dropping into a planet is to enter a deathmatch with the defenders and burn them all down to a crisp no matter what.

/sarcasm

[Taiji]

Scratx, on 10 November 2012 - 06:08 PM, said:

Because obviously every army's goal when they're dropping into a planet is to enter a deathmatch with the defenders and burn them all down to a crisp no matter what.

/sarcasm

Oh so every army's goal is to find a magical coloured square to stand on, rather than defeat the enemy force. I knew there was something I misunderstood about warfare. Thankyou so much for enlightening me so intelligently.

/sarcasm

[Lavrenti]

Taiji, on 10 November 2012 - 06:04 PM, said:

I guess there must not have been any actual warfare in lore then, as far as you are concerned. Which is odd.

Don't be deliberately obtuse. Military operations are, in the main, not primarily about destroying another group. Destroying another group may be necessary as part of them, but it is almost never the objective in itself.

Example 1: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. The Kido Butai was trying to destroy the US Pacific Fleet, but only because they had to in order to have access to the resources of Southeast Asia. If there had been another, more certain way, to assure themselves that the US would not have interfered, they would have taken it.

Example 2: An infantry patrol in Vietnam. This is primarily an information-gathering exercise, aimed at learning what is happening in the area being patrolled. It may lead to an ambush, artillery strikes, or some other type of engagement, but it would still be worth doing if it never encountered the enemy at all.

It should be clear, I hope, that warfare is a means to an end; not an end in itself. Focusing on the fighting is to ignore the context in which it takes place, and to miss the entire point of the exercise.

[Taiji]

Lavrenti, on 10 November 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

Don't be deliberately obtuse.

I'm not being deliberately obtuse.

Lavrenti, on 10 November 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

Military operations are, in the main, not primarily about destroying another group. Destroying another group may be necessary as part of them, but it is almost never the objective in itself.

They're about money, or god, or even sex, etc. when you really get down to it. But that's all irrelevant. The kinds of military operations we want mech games about are the ones where mechs fight. It's so simple I can't believe you can get it wrong.

So it seems to me you're the one being deliberately obtuse.

Lavrenti, on 10 November 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

Example 1: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. The Kido Butai was trying to destroy the US Pacific Fleet, but only because they had to in order to have access to the resources of Southeast Asia. If there had been another, more certain way, to assure themselves that the US would not have interfered, they would have taken it.

If there had been any chance of resistance by the Americans then it would have been a notable battle, and worth making a game about.

Lavrenti, on 10 November 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

Example 2: An infantry patrol in Vietnam. This is primarily an information-gathering exercise, aimed at learning what is happening in the area being patrolled. It may lead to an ambush, artillery strikes, or some other type of engagement, but it would still be worth doing if it never encountered the enemy at all.

Another boring game. You want to play that too? I think you're representative of a very small niche.

Lavrenti, on 10 November 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

It should be clear, I hope, that warfare is a means to an end; not an end in itself. Focusing on the fighting is to ignore the context in which it takes place, and to miss the entire point of the exercise.

What should be clear is that a game about big robots with guns should be about using them to destroy other big robots with guns.

Edited by Taiji, 10 November 2012 - 06:29 PM.

[Agent of Change]

Lavrenti, on 10 November 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

Don't be deliberately obtuse. Military operations are, in the main, not primarily about destroying another group. Destroying another group may be necessary as part of them, but it is almost never the objective in itself.

Agreed. Let's be totally clear, a military campaign (traditionally), is NOT about destroying the enemy. It is about claiming resources, gaining a tactical advantage and breaking the enemy. Every army no matter how fanatical has a breaking point, the point at which they either surrender or run. The BT/MW lore is all about preserving the very expensive tech. A straight death match is just ridiculous in light of that unless a surrender or retreat function is put in.

I want tactics, Multiple objectives, and reasoned play. As was said before if you want mindless deathmatch you can go play any number of twitch shooters but you shouldn't find that here as it makes no sense canonically. Most of us want interesting objectives and multiple challenges to victory.

@Tajii you said earlier that the setup prevents full offense, it doesn't, you just need to be aware and if you commit to full offense you have to win. It is a calculated risk which is what makes it interesting and requires a little actual brain power.

[Taiji]

Agent of Change, on 10 November 2012 - 07:01 PM, said:

@Tajii you said earlier that the setup prevents full offense, it doesn't, you just need to be aware and if you commit to full offense you have to win. It is a calculated risk which is what makes it interesting and requires a little actual brain power.

I think you're confused here, because you said it. I just pointed out the likely consequences to you, so you and whoever else hasn't grasped the situation could understand it better.

Agent of Change, on 10 November 2012 - 07:01 PM, said:

Most of us want interesting objectives and multiple challenges to victory.

Well duh. So why not add an egg and spoon race then? Because it would be stupid. You can't just add challenges and say "There; Improved!". Especially when they make the gameplay suck really really badly at times.

Edited by Taiji, 10 November 2012 - 07:22 PM.

[Statius]

The capture system works well at the moment. It is not perfect, but it adds an element of tactics to the game beyond a one's own survival. It adds a real element of risk: even if you are at your best personally you remain tied to a greater objective. It elevates the deathmatch beyond its simple oppositional character so that even the opposing sides within them the divided opportunity of attack and defence.

[Lavrenti]

Taiji, on 10 November 2012 - 06:28 PM, said:

What should be clear is that a game about big robots with guns should be about using them to destroy other big robots with guns.

I think I see the problem. For want of a better phrase, you are in favour of "shooting stuff and seeing it blow up real good". Not trying to be offensive here, I just can't think of a better way of putting it.
Personally, I am sick to death of games where that is all there is to do. I want a game where scouting is meaningful, where the decision to take a dedicated electronic-warfare mech is a calculated risk, where dividing forces is dangerous but sometimes necessary, and where weapons shape the battlefield but do not determine the winner on their own. In short, I want a game with tactics, not just explosions.

I'm not suggesting that those who don't want that are wrong - for those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they will like. But one of the things that attracted me to MWO in the first place was the idea that there might be more to it than just a mindless brawl. So far we have seen rock-all evidence of it, but it's still a possibility. Turning everything into a team deathmatch would firmly close the door on it, however, so I'm unenthusiastic about such an idea.