808 replies to this topic

[Omega59er]

A few other players and I came up with an idea for Mechwarrior Living Legends a long time ago, and the map makers were on board for it but the MWLL coders were not.

Game Mode: "Dropship"
In a short and sweet version, one team defends the dropship while it is powering up to take off and the other team either hot drops out of a high flying ship or starts from a Forward Operating Base with the intent of either destroying the dropship or capturing it. After a certain amount of time the dropship gets its weapons online and even if the entire defending team is destroyed the dropship must be either destroyed or captured to complete the mission.

[geck0 icaza]

omega5-9er, on 13 March 2012 - 09:03 PM, said:

A few other players and I came up with an idea for Mechwarrior Living Legends a long time ago, and the map makers were on board for it but the MWLL coders were not.

Game Mode: "Dropship"
In a short and sweet version, one team defends the dropship while it is powering up to take off and the other team either hot drops out of a high flying ship or starts from a Forward Operating Base with the intent of either destroying the dropship or capturing it. After a certain amount of time the dropship gets its weapons online and even if the entire defending team is destroyed the dropship must be either destroyed or captured to complete the mission.

I think this would be cool, but take it a step further.

1) have the dropship take off and the defender needs to get as many mechs on board as possible. Along with it, there would be a count down that would trigger the dropship weapons like you stated. But, more and more weapons would come online as the timer counted down. This could be a cool mechanic as it would allow the defending mechs to slowly enter the dropship. To add to it, any open parts of the dropship would be extremely vulnerable to damage. This would add some cool last minute pushes/defenses.

2) Same principle but, have the defenders spawn away from their drop ship and have to make it to the drop zone in time. If the zone is reached the drop ship will begin to travel down and land ready to board the mechs. The attackers can spawn somewhere else that can vary. They can be between the defenders and the zone, they can spawn seprate all over the map, they can spawn on the heels of the defenders.

With these modes you can add a lot of flavor and variance to the game. You can even add things like more points for evacuating commanders. But this leaves a lot to play with.

Edited by geck0 icaza, 13 March 2012 - 09:25 PM.

[Yeach]

6 x 4 teams or 4 x 6 teams land with dropships landing zone at opposites ends of map.
Briar Equipment (or something losetech worth alot) as the prize in the middle of the map.

First team to bring prize back to dropship wins.

You can only go walk speed while carrying the Briar equipment. (So Jenners can't just take the prize and run away for an easy victory).

Hint: may not be good tactic to be the first get the equipment and get shot at reduced speed.

[Semyon Drakon]

I really like the dropship ideas but you could tie it into a lot of scenarios.

Recon: Find the Dropship. Yes they are big but even in a 5km square area there's a lot of ground to cover.

Assault: Knock out the defences.

Defend: See above in reverse.

Escape: You have to withdraw from an objective to the dropship OR hold an objective until the dropper lands and you can get on board.

Small note: No dropship Captain in his right mind is going to be sitting on the ground in a hot LZ with his weapons and reactor powered down. he'll be at hot start and you'll come under fire almost instantly he see's you. The trick then, oh budding commanders is to find a way to negate that advantage and still win.

Arrow IV volleys maybe, if you can sneak a recon mech with a TAG system in close enough?

Semyon

[guybrarian]

Indeed. There's a lot of different variants you could play with this, and perhaps it'd even be a overarching game mode, with several variants to play.

[Garth Erlam]

Lots of great ideas guys, keep 'em coming

[CeeKay Boques]

If the maps were big enough, I could see "No Respawn" but mobile field bases being able to "respawn" you by fixing you right there on the field, as long your team could protect your machine and the MFB. Not a game mode, but something to help keep a nice 30 minute tatical game going.

[Outlaw2]

Belisarius†, on 13 March 2012 - 06:05 PM, said:

NR had plenty of flaws. I loved it, but it can be improved.

The biggest weakness in an objective which is solely "kill the other guys" is that it creates an impasse. If one team chooses, from the start, to adopt an unassailable position and never budge, there are plenty of compositional mismatches which mean the other team has to either bite the bullet and put themselves at a disadvantage just to end the match, or sit out the most boring hour of their lives in safety. That fact is cripplingly detrimental to gameplay when it gets abused.

Most leagues dealt with the problem through honour systems and subjective admin oversight regarding "camping." To the players' and admins' credit, that mostly worked. But a system like that can't function in something as large-scale and quick-match based as MWO seems to be.

Stalker started a thread a few years ago where he talked about this, and we spent a while discussing alternatives. I think in the end he wanted some kind of "move to nav c and declare; if you stay in the open and they don't come out of hiding, you win" system, but that's almost as open to abuse as camping itself.

I don't have an answer off the top of my head, but the key thing, as you said, is to make sure the objectives point players towards each other, not the objectives themselves, but also that they do so with enough force to prevent camping.

I agree with you that camping is a problem in NR. Same with "Ruff"-style running away around the map with a light mech with no hope of winning, but still wasting 15 minutes for everyone's time as you chase it down. I think secondary objectives can come to play here in order to ensure people don't cheese like this. But again "secondary" objectives. They are there to enhance and supplement the core gameplay of NR...basically make NR gameplay better, but not change it into something completely different.

In regard to Dlardrageth comments on scouts and NR. Scouts in NR MW4 matches were very important. An exceptional scout pilot could carry a mediocre team to a win. They did much more than just spot out enemies. They would deceive and misdirect the other side. An Ostscout would still be useful, but not its single med laser.

However, for a long time now I've been milling around an idea to counter campers/time-wasters and promote further use of faster mechs (scouts and hunter killers).....similar to Stalker's idea. I'll just preface it by saying it involves secondary objectives that are not the primary way to win the match. Instead they punish sides that camp and waste time, and reward teams that don't. It forces fights and acts as a tie breaker.

The idea is instead of a single "capture point" as Stalker suggests, the maps has many around the map plus two main bases for each team. Capturing these points/bases creates a set of secondary win conditions that, again, favor teams that don't camp/waste time. Its not a score or ticket counter system. Once time runs out, if both teams are still standing with equal numbers, who ever has the most capture points wins the match (tie breaker). Its something that will obviously disfavor camping.

The other, and more interesting, win condition is to allow teams to capture the enemy's base (spawn point). Capturing this ends the match in their favor. It allows for teams to end matches sooner against stubborn campers/runners without having to sit through the entire match. Throw in the precondition of first needing to maintain a connecting line back to your own base in order to capture points. This creates a situation where map control is now very important, yet not the over riding objective. It promotes movement, and less blob tactics. Heres a picture so there are less words you need to read

I might create another thread later on to go into more details, but you get the basic idea here. Blue team (a company with no lights) is moving in standard blob formation to capture red's main point. Red team (a company with 4 lights, 3 meds) has gone around behind them and is back dooring and cutting their line back to their base point. This will force blue team to double back and confront and react to red team, or risk red taking their own base. But now the engagement is under red teams terms. Red team has the advantage of maintaining map control better (faster mechs), and better information from scouting.

One detail I'ld like to mention here, capture points represent some strategic location, and its visual and gameplay representation can vary greatly. Some points might just be a "strategically favorable" piece of land. Others can be guarded by a hardpoint that needs to be destroyed first (giving even a single med laser ostscout a purpose). Some of them might be guarded by turrets that do VERY minimal damage, but still requires someone to shoot at it from range. Others could be guarded by "infantry", which is just a turret with another graphical visual but is better destroyed by close range machine-guns and flamers. Again, these "turrets" should do very little damage, be short range and be easy enough to destroy...I don't want this turning into PvE.
Since capture points represent strategic locations, they should also come with less abstract strategic advantages. Controlling them could give some sort of bonus to the use of UAV, Sat sweep, bombardments, ect....either by unlocking their use once a team has a certain number of points capture or reducing the cooldown to their use by a certain amount.

Edited by =Outlaw=, 14 March 2012 - 01:50 PM.

[Ray Mason]

You can look at almost any game and find a game mode which would be good for this game. Search and destroy, search and rescue, escort missions, infiltrations (recently in Section 8: Prejudice), siege/defend, duels (Star Wars: Jedi Academy), capture the flag, any form of rugby (recently Huttball in SWTOR), last man standing, free for all... .

[guybrarian]

I remember from Jedi Academy the "Assault" mode from the game. Another scenario-driven, attacker/defender mode. MWO seems like the perfect platform for such a game mode.

[Str3ss]

Why not have a game mode where you defend your base from increasing amounts of AI.
Like 8 people defend a base and survive for aslong as they can.

[GrimLeo]

=Outlaw=, I do love this idea of keeping a line of communications back to your Jump Off point when capturing an Objective.

My idea for a game mode:

Smash & Grab

Raid mode were the attacker has to hot drop, move to a facility target, break in, grab the loot (remember to bring a mech with hands), then retreat to the extraction zone before the drop ship launches. The defender has to race from the regional mech bay to the facility and then prevent the loot from being stolen.

There are two types of raids. First, material raids were the objective is to get as much war material as possible. More loot; more cash. Second, package raids were you have to find a special package at the facility (LosTech etc.).

Facilities can range from warehouses with a perimeter fence and guard tower up to a small fortress protecting a research center. Defenses are static emplacements with maybe some infantry guards running around for fun.

This mode favors the faster mechs over the 64km/h mechs. Jenners to get there first, Commandos to grab the loot.  Dragons for cover fire.

One twist I would add is that the defenders are under a "Planetary Defense" contract. They could either have to defend against a Smash & Grab or have to defend against a "Take and Hold" operation. This means the defenders would have to go for tactical balance.

Edited by GrimLeo, 15 March 2012 - 04:26 PM.

[Belisarius1]

=Outlaw=, on 14 March 2012 - 01:36 PM, said:

The idea is instead of a single "capture point" as Stalker suggests, the maps has many around the map plus two main bases for each team. Capturing these points/bases creates a set of secondary win conditions that, again, favor teams that don't camp/waste time. Its not a score or ticket counter system. Once time runs out, if both teams are still standing with equal numbers, who ever has the most capture points wins the match (tie breaker). Its something that will obviously disfavor camping.

The other, and more interesting, win condition is to allow teams to capture the enemy's base (spawn point). Capturing this ends the match in their favor. It allows for teams to end matches sooner against stubborn campers/runners without having to sit through the entire match. Throw in the precondition of first needing to maintain a connecting line back to your own base in order to capture points. This creates a situation where map control is now very important, yet not the over riding objective. It promotes movement, and less blob tactics.

I feel like you have two different game modes there, outlaw. In particular, I think you have an amazing respawn game type in the point-capture system, but I don't think it would work for NR. I get that the intention is to push teams to take faster 'Mechs and split their forces, but if the objectives are important enough that I'm willing to do that (particularly splitting, which is normally anathema to an NR lance), you've already lost the battle to keep the game-type about combat first and objectives second.

I think those objectives will control the combat rather than simply catalyse it. In your example, red has a bloodless victory very much in sight if they can get blue split up or away from their DZ, so why would they stand and fight instead of continuing to cap where blue is not? I think the capture-count at game end might be nice (I'd been thinking of something a little like that using just the normal ~4 DZs for a while), but as soon as you put in an any-time-achievable win condition that doesn't involve killing the enemy, that condition becomes a primary way to win the match whether you want it to or not.

Now, for respawn, I think your system's amazing. It pushes teams to split their forces, it gives clear value to lighter 'Mechs while (provided the maps are designed right) leaving valuable choke-points for heavy units to fight over. Both of those are great for UR but I think, debatable and/or too risky in NR. I can totally see an FC in a respawn game ordering one guy to take a cheap light and throw it away disrupting OpFor's supply lines for five minutes. That's worth it here, but it wouldn't be if he was the last scout I had standing in NR.

You also - by borrowing even more heavily from Company of Heroes – have a mechanic to give respawn a non-metagame cost system that pushes teams to take and hold terrain. Instead of granting UAV/satnavs etc (which might also be fun, of course), most points could just give your team money to buy 'Mechs. More points means more 'Mechs. Of course, you have to spend 'Mechs to capture points, too. Sit at home too long and get out-capped? The other team shows up with 10 dire wolves. Let their lights cut your supplies off? Guess your heavy lance is respawning in ostscouts. It would have to be balanced so that a team who was down could still come back, but there's so much potential there. I'd been tinkering with a mode like that for a while, as well.

EDIT: it also solves a lot of chassis balance issues. Cheap, poor 'Mechs get used for high risk objectives. Situation-specific 'Mechs are cost effective when needed and expensive when not. All-round bang-for-buck 'Mechs will always see use, but they'd shine most when there's nothing specific going down. Powerful but over-priced 'Mechs go to the aces when nothing else will do, but could also strengthen the game-ending push of an already winning team in the hands of pilots who wouldn't normally get to touch them.

Edited by Belisarius†, 15 March 2012 - 06:43 PM.

[Outlaw2]

Belisarius†, on 15 March 2012 - 06:15 PM, said:

I feel like you have two different game modes there, outlaw. In particular, I think you have an amazing respawn game type in the point-capture system, but I don't think it would work for NR. I get that the intention is to push teams to take faster 'Mechs and split their forces, but if the objectives are important enough that I'm willing to do that (particularly splitting, which is normally anathema to an NR lance), you've already lost the battle to keep the game-type about combat first and objectives second.

I think those objectives will control the combat rather than simply catalyse it. In your example, red has a bloodless victory very much in sight if they can get blue split up or away from their DZ, so why would they stand and fight instead of continuing to cap where blue is not? I think the capture-count at game end might be nice (I'd been thinking of something a little like that using just the normal ~4 DZs for a while), but as soon as you put in an any-time-achievable win condition that doesn't involve killing the enemy, that condition becomes a primary way to win the match whether you want it to or not.

Keep in mind that I made blue take on a stupid tactic to set as an example of what not to do. I also think you are assuming that taking the main base would be rather quick affair. The smaller objectives might be 10-30secs to capture, but the bases I imagine closer to 3-5 minutes similar to Stalkers idea, but its even harder. Not only does a team need to hold the opponents base for 3-5min, but all other bases connecting back to their own base. The reason why it will always remain a secondary objective is because the amount of effort it requires to take it is so large. They pretty much deserve to win if they pull it off. It means that they had map control and the other side was either camping, running away or doing something stupid (like in my example).

If controlling combat means you don't have the option to relax in a corner for 15 minutes, I say control away. I totally intended for this to keep teams on their toes, use scouts to keep tabs on all sections of the map, skirmisher to take on objectives and hunter killers to take out scouts and skirmishers (roles you never really see in normal NR..besides scouts). However, I see it being fairly easy to stop someone from capturing your base just by playing NR the way it was 'meant' to be played.

Edited by =Outlaw=, 15 March 2012 - 07:20 PM.

[Belisarius1]

=Outlaw=, on 15 March 2012 - 07:15 PM, said:

Keep in mind that I made blue take on a stupid tactic to set as an example of what not to do. I also think you are assuming that taking the main base would be rather quick affair. The smaller objectives might be 10-30secs to capture, but the bases I imagine closer to 3-5 minutes similar to Stalkers idea, but its even harder. Not only does a team need to hold the opponents base for 3-5min, but all other bases connecting back to their own base. The reason why it will always remain a secondary objective is because the amount of effort it requires to take it is so large. They pretty much deserve to win if they pull it off. It means that they had map control and the other side was either camping, running away or doing something stupid (like in my example).

If controlling combat means you don't have the option to relax in a corner for 15 minutes, I say control away. I totally intended for this to keep teams on their toes, use scouts to keep tabs on all sections of the map, skirmisher to take on objectives and hunter killers to take out scouts and skirmishers (roles you never really see in normal NR..besides scouts). However, I see it being fairly easy to stop someone from capturing your base just by playing NR the way it was 'meant' to be played.

That's true, I think I missed the part where you had to hold it and all intervening objectives for 3-5 minutes. If someone lets you do that, that's fine, they should lose.

There's only a couple of real issues left. Obviously, strong positions overlooking the DZs (or chokes near the DZs that connections have to go through) need to be designed out of the maps or they'll be camped. Even then, you might end up with stupid tactics based around in-DZ shut-down ambushes, but I don't expect those to actually work..... just to be a really boring way of losing. Pre-ranged arty spam might be a bit scarier.

The other one is a team of light 'Mechs that just wants to run and run and run. If you don't have enough HKs to match them, your team has to clump, and in a clump you can't outcap them, so you're still forced to camp the match out in your DZ to stop them taking it. Boring again. The light commander is really banking on a stalemate though, so I feel like that's him being abusive and forcing an abnormal game. Your example made it sound a little like those were the other way around.

Edited by Belisarius†, 15 March 2012 - 08:25 PM.

[Outlaw2]

Belisarius†, on 15 March 2012 - 08:20 PM, said:

That's true, I think I missed the part where you had to hold it and all intervening objectives for 3-5 minutes. If someone lets you do that, that's fine, they should lose.

There's only a couple of real issues left. Obviously, strong positions overlooking the DZs (or chokes near the DZs that connections have to go through) need to be designed out of the maps or they'll be camped. Even then, you might end up with stupid tactics based around in-DZ shut-down ambushes, but I don't expect those to actually work..... just to be a really boring way of losing. Pre-ranged arty spam might be a bit scarier.

The other one is a team of light 'Mechs that just wants to run and run and run. If you don't have enough HKs to match them, your team has to clump, and in a clump you can't outcap them, so you're still forced to camp the match out in your DZ to stop them taking it. Boring again. The light commander is really banking on a stalemate though, so I feel like that's him being abusive and forcing an abnormal game. Your example made it sound a little like those were the other way around.

Well the first issue is a matter of good map design and capture point placement.
The second issue is something that will happen in other forms even in standard NR matches, but at least with what Im suggesting there are more tools to combat it. I don't see a team full up on fast light mechs being too successful. Fast mechs will be good at taking capture points and harassing opponents back lines, but they won't be good at staying put and maintaining their gains. Eventually they'll have to commit somewhere. They too need to have a connection to their base before capturing others, and the bigger team can cut them off but maintain it. The bigger team can also split their force to different locations and each group could probably still outgun the light's entire team put together. I intentionally made the map so going down the center is the most efficient route to the opponents base and thbe est way to control the map. The smaller team will have to skirt around the edges to survive, which have less efficient routes. Its something that play testing would have to nail down for sure.

Edited by =Outlaw=, 16 March 2012 - 10:30 AM.

[Kaemon]

=Outlaw=, on 15 March 2012 - 10:31 PM, said:

Well the first issue is a matter of good map design and capture point placement.
The second issue is something that will happen in other forms even in standard NR matches, but at least with what Im suggesting there are more tools to combat it. I don't see a team full up on fast light mechs being too successful. Fast mechs will be good at taking capture points and harassing opponents back lines, but they won't be good at staying put and maintaining their gains. Eventually they'll have to commit somewhere. They too need to have a connection to their base before capturing others, and the bigger team can cut them off but maintain it. The bigger team can also split their force to different locations and each group could probably still outgun the light's entire team put together. I intentionally made the map so going down the center is the most efficient route to the opponents base and thbe est way to control the map. The smaller team will have to skirt around the edges to survive, which have less efficient routes. Its something that play testing would have to nail down for sure.

I like this idea, but is it map-centric? Can you apply it equally to multiple maps without having to spend a ton of dev time on them?

I'm wondering if some parameters for a 'good' game mode from the developers might not be a bad place to start.

Challenge Accepted™!

Edited by Kaemon, 16 March 2012 - 12:46 PM.

[Outlaw2]

Kaemon, on 16 March 2012 - 12:45 PM, said:

I like this idea, but is it map-centric? Can you apply it equally to multiple maps without having to spend a ton of dev time on them?

I'm wondering if some parameters for a 'good' game mode from the developers might not be a bad place to start.

Challenge Accepted™!

Honestly, it could be too map specific. The bigger the map the harder it will be to counter light only teams from cheesing a victory. Of course it also depends on how the map is divided. The map I made above is suppose to be 5km wide and about 3km tall (and I believe they said 5x5km is the standard). At that size its not too unmanageable to maintain control of the map from a light only team. I could see this being used only for certain maps, and I fine with that. They already said that some of objectives in Team Deathmatch involve taking a base, so it could fit in with that.

On certain maps you could also just get rid of the base objective, but leave in the capture point objectives. Or remove both secondary win conditions, but leave in the capture points to act a "res" points for use of commander strategic abilities such as UAV, Sat scan, ect.. Mix it up.

Edited by =Outlaw=, 16 March 2012 - 04:16 PM.

[Kenyon Burguess]

hungry, hungry hippo with jenners. whoever kills the most civilians running around unarmed in a town wins. call it kentares mode

[Victor Morson]

I'd like to suggest one that fits pretty well with the canon:

Star League Cache Salvage

A basic twist on classic tug-o-war style gameplay, adjusted to fit the universe.

Concept: Effectively, both teams have a drop ship that deploys a number of cargo hauler vehicles, 1 at a time, that must make it to a Cache location or wreckage of an enemy hauler, recover what's inside, and make it back to their dropship. This effectively turns it into a real time escort/defense mission that can turn into an attack mission depending who has the salvage; defending your own hauler and making sure to shut down the rival hauler could change the roles rapidly. I'd suspect this would have to play in a similar fashion to dropship, allowing reinforcement 'mechs onto the field.

It'd be made even more interesting if this type of mission does not pay in c-bills, but rather in available equipment, depending on how the 'mechlab and available weapons work. It would fit very, very well with the feel of BattleTech to risk taking expensive damage in attempt to salvage just a couple LosTech parts or weapons.

Optionally: The role of the cargo hauler could be replaced by any 'mech with hand actuators, removing the NPC element from the game.

Another game type..

Cavalry Raid

A mission designed around utilizing entire teams of fast 'mechs with high firepower. This game type might be better suited to smaller teams, such as 4v4, or even mismatched teams giving the defenders higher numbers, such as 4v8, as the attackers do not need to destroy enemy 'mechs to win the game.

Concept: The attacking team is tasked with doing as much damage to structures found over the map as possible. They are paid entirely in damage caused, with higher rewards going for more levels of damage and a bonus for surviving 'mechs exiting the battlefield (to encourage the attackers to stay alive). They face enemy sensor stations as threats as well, providing an objective to destroy and allowing the defenders to more easily track their movements.

The defending team meanwhile loses pay based on how much is destroyed, and is provided a c-bill bonus for every attacking 'mech that is demolished.

Effectively the attacking team would want to move to priority locations, destroy as much as possible and move on while trying to actively avoid defenders - making hard calls when to withdraw and when to retreat from the mission entirely. Defenders would have to make a hard call between taking heavier less mobile 'mechs to try to defend the key locations, or faster interceptors of their own to chase down and destroy the raiding 'mechs.

Semyon Drakon, on 12 March 2012 - 02:49 PM, said:

Can we have some scenarios that aren't based on half Life or the Battlefield series?

This is mechwarrior. I am already displeased by the dropship style game as honestly there is NO precedent for it in Canon. If you want reinforcements, then support more machines and players in the scenarios. I see no reason that we can't have multi-company per side battles given the state of technology in this day and age.

Yes there is. There's been a number of books where air-dropped 'mechs fitted with a rig that acts as temporary jump jets (a 'mech parachute, basically) have been used as paratrooper re-enforcements. If I remember correctly this was a HUGE part of the strategy during Operation Serpent for example.

Edited by Victor Morson, 16 March 2012 - 04:38 PM.