89 replies to this topic

[Solis Obscuri]

Depending on how the dropship lobby and matches are set up, I can see more than 5 minutes - setting up lances, agreeing on a strategy, guessing the opponent's strategy, choosing drop zones...

If the gameplay is set up to be tactical (and by all indications so far it is), rather than "run every which-way out of the spawn point like frightened cats and start shooting", I'm expecting that we'll want to do some planning before we're on the ground.

[Aelos03]

Solis Obscuri, on 26 April 2012 - 12:25 PM, said:

Depending on how the dropship lobby and matches are set up, I can see more than 5 minutes - setting up lances, agreeing on a strategy, guessing the opponent's strategy, choosing drop zones...

If the gameplay is set up to be tactical (and by all indications so far it is), rather than "run every which-way out of the spawn point like frightened cats and start shooting", I'm expecting that we'll want to do some planning before we're on the ground.

i agree if we have little time to talk and see our setups, that would help to win a mach.

[Pvt Dancer]

I voted Other on both. From my experience from FPSs is that the sooner you learn the map, the better.

You learn how fast you are and how long it takes you to reach point X, and you learn that the first person to point X has the advantage and how to react if your first or not. You learn that your start point is random and that you have to adapt to those start locations.

Communication has nothing to do with this, either you know your role on the battlefield or you don't. I have no clue if your a tard in a stealth Atlas build that really wants to be a brawler or a genius with a new and intuitive build. I can't control that, I can just control what /I/ do. If I have to listen to some a$$hole who feels that 'Command Role' literally means he now has the God given right to boss me around I swear to God I will TK him. All I have to say is thank God there will be no Voice.

As for WoT, I will point out ignorant talk makes you look stupid. Devs play it, it is a influence on this game and /alot/ of people here play it or have played it. Weather they liked it or not withstanding, it is still an influence.
What bothers me is if there is a delay to allow folk to change mechs. They are setting things up now where you can overspecialize a mech with moduals to be a long range monster, but once on planet, you may not have a choice and /have/ to fight in a city. I want to see a 'semi-realistic' planet fighting setting where maybe you pick your mech for the planet, but once you pick it that is what your using...city fighting or open country fighting. Seeing nothing but Hunchbacks in city fights and Catapults in open ground fighting will bother me a great deal.

[Zylo]

Pvt Dancer, on 26 April 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

If I have to listen to some a$$hole who feels that 'Command Role' literally means he now has the God given right to boss me around I swear to God I will TK him. All I have to say is thank God there will be no Voice.

As for WoT, I will point out ignorant talk makes you look stupid. Devs play it, it is a influence on this game and /alot/ of people here play it or have played it. Weather they liked it or not withstanding, it is still an influence.
What bothers me is if there is a delay to allow folk to change mechs. They are setting things up now where you can overspecialize a mech with moduals to be a long range monster, but once on planet, you may not have a choice and /have/ to fight in a city. I want to see a 'semi-realistic' planet fighting setting where maybe you pick your mech for the planet, but once you pick it that is what your using...city fighting or open country fighting. Seeing nothing but Hunchbacks in city fights and Catapults in open ground fighting will bother me a great deal.

I have a feeling many players would have a similar reaction to the command role. That being said some commanders who are with a respected group will probably have more success getting a team to work with them compared to some noob commander yelling at the team who can't understand why no one would want to follow his directions.

The config issue could get complicated, match making wouldn't work great without first selecting a mech and mech selection would be difficult without first knowing the map. A rotating map selection could work though.

Here's the idea:
Public match maps could rotate every 10 minutes for example (I just chose 10 minutes as it's short enough to allow players to skip a map they don't like while being long enough to keep short matches from running a map twice in a row). The current map could be displayed with a countdown timer and any player wanting to join a public match would see the current map and the time remaining to launch for that map. Once a player selected their mech and clicked the LAUNCH button (or whatever the devs decide to call it) then matchmaker could go to work setting up the match.

In the event of a match not being full at the time of map switch it could proceed if a balanced match could still be produced or dump players back to the mech bay with an error "Could not produce balanced match" or some similar message.

[Aelos03]

Command roll is not just telling people what to do.......

[CrunchTheRobot]

I'm perfectly fine with having a 5-minute prep time. That being said, if other players are ready to play they can vote to start the game early before the prep time is over. That's just my preference.

[Lomack]

30 sec to make sure everyone (even people with slower connection speeds) are loaded into the game.
1 min Max. Anything more than that and people are going to go to sleep.

If you give people any more than that, they will walk away from the computer while they wait for the timer to count down. Then risk being late when the game starts.

If your a clan that is battling for a plannet you should figure out what all the possible maps are possible for that location and have a strat planned in advance for each. Then during the 30sec intro you can do a quick.. Lance 1 go (Xa,Ya), Lance 2 go (Xb,Yb), Lance 3 two of you go (Xc,Yc) and two of you go to (Xd,Yd).

If your just doing a quick match I would say 75% of the time people are just going to go where they want reguardless of someone suggesting people to go to specific locations. Not to mention that some Command person who likes to strategize has no clue what all the other pugs are good at doing in a random match. If redesign a long range mech to be a faster than normal short range recon mech how is anyone going to know that I am not running the default setup. It would take too long for everyone to list their abilities and weapon setups.

Edited by Lomack, 26 April 2012 - 07:06 PM.

[Rejarial Galatan]

wwiiogre, on 26 April 2012 - 09:44 AM, said:

Quick question Rajerial,

Why is dragging something back to world war two a bad thing. It is the last full war this planet experienced, it is the last time tactics and strategy were used by two sides at par or equal in experience, training and equipment. A

Chris

Sorry Sorry Chris. WW2 was NOT the last FULL war our planet saw. Theres this thing that was sparked by Islamic extremist back about a decade ago. Its called the war on terror. While, it is not a pitched battle against an enemy who is technologically superior to us, it IS a full on WORLD WIDE fight. I for one look forward to a day when all this crap ends, when we as a PLANET can get along, but, till then, wars gonna happen, and whether we all openly say: its World War blah blah or cloak it as we do now, as America seeks those who support the ideals of the terrorists. As to why its bad to take it back to World War 2... Where in gods name do I start? Hitlers attempt at genocide? The fact America chucked 2 nuclear bombs and devastated 2 HUGE civilian populations? I can go on, but, while, I salute those who fought and died in WW2, my grandfather, for the record, had one of the most dangerous jobs in Pacific Theater, he flew as an AIRBORN Medic on the C-47 MEDICAL Transport. Unarmed, unarmored. I salute all those who served then, before them, and now and those yet to serve. BUT, WW2 was almost a crime against humanity by itself.

[Scav]

5 mins is good for non-random matches. But I feel 5 mins is too much time for random (unorganized) matches.

[Aelos03]

Scav, on 26 April 2012 - 07:42 PM, said:

5 mins is good for non-random matches. But I feel 5 mins is too much time for random (unorganized) matches.

well if majority of people click on start button game will start sooner

[Volturnus]

I'd say yes, time for planning is important (and fun).

[Scav]

Volturnus, on 26 April 2012 - 07:47 PM, said:

I'd say yes, time for planning is important (and fun).

Yeah, we know how this goes. 5 mins of planning, 30 secs into the fight, "What do ya mean 'the other left'?"

Edited by Scav, 26 April 2012 - 07:58 PM.

[CobaltRaptor]

Some time to plan out a (good) stategy should always be welcomed and i will gladly listen in to a stategy session before a match starts. I do believe that an option to fast forward or skip should be included though.

[Kargush]

I play ArmA II milsim. 5 minutes of prep time is a doddle. But a very useful doddle,

Bring it on.

[Belisarius1]

It shouldn't be longer than a minute for pickup games. I'm hoping for a lobby where it's possible to change 'mechs post-matchmaking, within some kind of limit like tonnage or bv. In that case people need a little bit of time to barter with teammates and clarify basic gameplan. Nobody's going to be designing grand strategies in a pub, though, so five minutes is way too long.

Organised matches are a totally different beast. I would be hoping for five minutes at minimum from map/condition reveal to drop. If that's part of accepting a contract or whatever, you only need 30 seconds or so in lobby to ensure all your players made it in. If you see the lay of the land only once you're in, the lobby needs a long lag time to let teams to tailor their dec.

Edited by Belisarius†, 26 April 2012 - 08:54 PM.

[StaIker]

I'd like to see something where the team can assemble in a lobby and find out who they are playing with and what the map condititions are so they can all build appropriate variants for the conditions, as the time can vary depending on the complexity of the tactics being considered the time needs to be flexible. I'd do it like this;

1 Minute lobby time

Game starts - 30 minutes (or whatever)
Players can join now and any time for the next two minutes, but do not have to join if they are not ready

28 minute mark
A brief warning is given (15 seconds or so) and then all remaining players are dropped in to the game

That should give enough time for more complex plans without holding up everyone else if they just want to get in and shoot.

[Pvt Dancer]

Zylo, on 26 April 2012 - 02:41 PM, said:

Here's the idea:
Public match maps could rotate every 10 minutes for example (I just chose 10 minutes as it's short enough to allow players to skip a map they don't like while being long enough to keep short matches from running a map twice in a row). The current map could be displayed with a countdown timer and any player wanting to join a public match would see the current map and the time remaining to launch for that map. Once a player selected their mech and clicked the LAUNCH button (or whatever the devs decide to call it) then matchmaker could go to work setting up the match.

In the event of a match not being full at the time of map switch it could proceed if a balanced match could still be produced or dump players back to the mech bay with an error "Could not produce balanced match" or some similar message.

Well, I don't see the need for a 10 minute rotation, as you need to remember the situation kinda driving it. If you have ever played WWIIOnline or Planetside, that seems to be the feel the Devs have in mind for MWO. If your not familure with either game, what you have are effective 'hot spots' on a massive scale. For WWIIOnline, it is literally Europe at 1/2 scale and the action is taking place at where ever the front is. The front is fluid and determind by the players as determined by what cities, towns, or villages are taken over and controlled. Planetside is the same thing, but with an entire planet, and expanded out to several planets between 3 fractions. MWO sounds like they want to take that to a galactic proportion. Now... if each planet requires a set number of battles or if the planets themselves break down to fluid fronts and several battles that may take days RL to resolve, who knows.

Lone Wolf might be the only folk allowed to fight anywhere, while the 'random balltes' (just for a quick example) for House players might be joining in on battles on the above mentioned contested planets along said House's boarders. How much you know about the battle going in, or even the planet involved is unknown. Everything concerning this is pretty much unknown.

[Thomas Oreland]

My 2 cent.
Basic battle mode 1 minute timer.
The territory control aspect i can agree with 5 or more. I suppose it doesn't matter to me. I've played games where you sat in a lobby for 15 minute organizing squads and the tactics for the particular map and trying to get people into the faction 3rd party viop to atleast hear commands. Then the battle could continue up to 2 hrs depending on how everything plays out.

[Pvt Dancer]

Rejarial Galatan, on 26 April 2012 - 07:17 PM, said:

Sorry Sorry Chris. WW2 was NOT the last FULL war our planet saw. Theres this thing that was sparked by Islamic extremist back about a decade ago. Its called the war on terror. While, it is not a pitched battle against an enemy who is technologically superior to us, it IS a full on WORLD WIDE fight. I for one look forward to a day when all this crap ends, when we as a PLANET can get along, but, till then, wars gonna happen, and whether we all openly say: its World War blah blah or cloak it as we do now, as America seeks those who support the ideals of the terrorists. As to why its bad to take it back to World War 2... Where in gods name do I start? Hitlers attempt at genocide? The fact America chucked 2 nuclear bombs and devastated 2 HUGE civilian populations? I can go on, but, while, I salute those who fought and died in WW2, my grandfather, for the record, had one of the most dangerous jobs in Pacific Theater, he flew as an AIRBORN Medic on the C-47 MEDICAL Transport. Unarmed, unarmored. I salute all those who served then, before them, and now and those yet to serve. BUT, WW2 was almost a crime against humanity by itself.

60 Million are estimated to have died in WW2, in dozens of countries, around the world at the same time. /THAT/ is a world war. Yet, that was only 2.5% of the population. Black Plague took out 30% to 60% of Europe's population and nearly 15%-20% of the world's population it's peak (from 450 million to 350-375 million in the 14th century). Heck, the Chinese are estimated to have killed off nearly 200 million people in the last 2000 years just in 'revolts' with the Taiping rebellion estimated at 100 million alone.

The 'War on Terror' will barely be a foot-note in the history books in comparison. Terrorists attacks really can't compare to the death tolls above, much less compare to despots like Pol Pot who may have had 3 million people killed... and he is barily remembered now days.

Save your ranting.

[Crimson Dux]

A 2 minutes pre-run is enough with the option to start when everyone click ready, IF you know beforehands where you're doing to drop, know you team and have already the mech with your final loadout ready.
Imagine the mess it could be, joinning a random team, where everyone have the same mech (per ex.) that isn't build for the type of map you'll be figthing, and (let's push the envelope) where everybody wants to be the leader. 2 minutes may be the ideal time to bake an half decent force.