808 replies to this topic

[Belisarius1]

=Outlaw=, on 16 March 2012 - 04:05 PM, said:

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.

I don't think it's map specific. It's going to need maps to be designed or modified with it in mind to remove specific features, but every gametype does. Hopefully.

I think map size is the biggest problem. There's going to be some given speed difference for each map size that will make it unmanageable for the slower team. You're also going to have enormous issues when the clans come in, because of how fast their stuff is. That's tough to beat in a straight up fight, as it should be, but a capture mode when one side is a better cat and a better mouse is going to be pretty awful for the IS.

I've changed my mind. I think the base capture thing should stay. It brings teams into conflict because they're going to be going for the same points, and that's the ultimate goal. At some stage, you have to go where they are to stop them taking your junk.

I actually think you could do without the end-game capture point thing. It's the one that's going to drive a disadvantaged team to run away, because they have some hope of winning without having to kill the other guys. That hope is the last thing you want to give a player like Ruff when his team is dead, or an FC who knows his guys will lose in a straight up fight. Even if the lights are going to lose eventually, you want as few games as possible to come down to the clock.

I think the base capture is enough. When their last light is running away, you've won already, so you just need a way to finish it now. If their team is camping a mountain at the edge of the map; the game mode's goal is to make them come down and/or give the win to the non-camp team. Base caps do one or the other of those without having to wait out the timer.

Edited by Belisarius†, 16 March 2012 - 04:56 PM.

[Outlaw2]

Belisarius†, on 16 March 2012 - 04:55 PM, said:

I actually think you could do without the end-game capture point thing.

Getting rid of the capture points objective might be best. You can keep the capture points simply as the means to capture the enemy base. I still advocate some sort of strategic bonus to capturing points for use on commander abilities, so map control and use of faster mechs is still encouraged throughout the match (not just lights but fast mediums as well for hunter-killer and skirmisher roles). You can then tweak this bonus depending on how much you want to encourage it.

Edited by =Outlaw=, 16 March 2012 - 05:19 PM.

[MERIR ASTELAN]

I would love to see some version of a horde mode! I know its been done in a lot of other games but the idea of having a group of buddies with their mechs defending a hill or base from multiple waves of enemies seems fun. Give us team points to capture such as a mech factory or lab and if you hold that or defend it while holding your main objective you get repairs there. Could have many possibilities with capturing points numbers or other goals to obtain and make things tougher.

[Belisarius1]

=Outlaw=, on 16 March 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

Getting rid of the capture points objective might be best. You can keep the capture points simply as the means to capture the enemy base. I still advocate some sort of strategic bonus to capturing points for use on commander abilities, so map control and use of faster mechs is still encouraged throughout the match (not just lights but fast mediums as well for hunter-killer and skirmisher roles). You can then tweak this bonus depending on how much you want to encourage it.

EDIT: reading comprehension fail.

I don't know, I'm not a big fan of commander ability points in NR... Maybe I'm a purist, but I guess what I want is the same manoeuvre-based tactical gametype from MW4 NR, just with a map control component to drive engagements and solve stalemates. I just feel like adding that sort of stuff is pulling focus away from where it should be; the other team. But that's just my opinion. I'd be in favour of all the bells and whistles you can think of for a respawn-based capture gametype, of course.

In keeping with the objective of bringing teams into conflict, I'm wondering if it might be better to put a minimum % on what can capture points, say 1/3 of the team's weight or something. I can see it being very difficult to hold a line between bases against even two fast lights if they can keep cutting bits out of it; if that's the case, the team on the hill can stay on their hill and just use a couple of scouts to keep them in the game. You want a team to have to commit enough stuff to breaking a line that the resulting engagement is actually an engagement.

I also think it might be useful to allow a team to take the enemy base at the same speed as a normal point, but then to have to hold it and everything else for 5 minutes. That allows teams to move around the map during the capture period and defend the line with all their stuff, rather than needing to leave some guys chilling in the DZ for ages to cap it.

A grace period would also be good, where if your line was broken, you had X minutes to connect it back up before your capture timer reset. That would help against random scout abuse and would force engagements more, because the defenders would have to take and hold rather than just take and run back to their tents.

Edited by Belisarius†, 16 March 2012 - 05:38 PM.

[Outlaw2]

Those two lights must also maintain a line to the new point they are going to harass. If the majority of the team is just sitting in corner, they are not using their mechs to maintain those lines. The other team will have no problem eventually cutting them off. (btw you can't let teams take bases so quick, otherwise that team has no base to connect back to). This all assumes a certain map size. At 3x5km, what I used, I don't see it being a problem . I think I know of a way we can make it work with almost any map regardless of map size and making it map-independent.

Below is a 5x5km map, I simply bleed out the borders of the top and bottom grids. This makes the top and bottom areas almost inconsequential to the capture point objectives, since everything is still located within 3x5km area (you can still use it for tactical movement of course). You can then place the exact location of the capture point anywhere within the grid area depending on where it fits best on that map. (the green circle in the pic below represents 1000m diameter to give a sense of scale)



Main reason I want to have capture points hand out some sort of bonus for com abilities is due to the one of the match-up I fear the most for. And thats a good "balanced" team going up against a good team using almost all heavy/assault with a few scouts (also a reason I want BV to play a factor on top of this). These strategic com abilities are going to be in the game regardless. Might as well have them unlocked or bought for by playing strategically in the game. It would give the balanced team the ability to gain a bit more oomph in order to combat the heavier team that has them out gunned.

Edited by =Outlaw=, 16 March 2012 - 09:40 PM.

[FinnMcKool]

How about a hot potato !

this would be an arena game.

there is a bomb or Bombs ,that is on a timer , it will destroy a Mech ,

other than this there are no weapons functioning if you have the

bomb you are able to launch it at an other player , if you miss, it

comes back to you

you could start the game every player has one bomb ,

let the games begin.

[StaIker]

I'm really liking your concept Outlaw but I don't think a bunch of randoms can pull it off with that level of complexity. Is there a simpler way that the same mechanic using secondary objectives to force combat can be in effect without requiring that level of planning and coordination? Keep in mind a lot of folks might simply refuse an order to go and cap something, on the justifiable fear that 1 or 2 mechs against a marauding company is not worth their trouble.

In particular, I think the secondary objective should be attainable without having to split up the company, otherwise the obvious tactic is for one team to hide until they see the objectives being captured, at which point they can come out to fight knowing that the enemy is split all over the map.

Edited by StaIker, 17 March 2012 - 10:35 PM.

[StaIker]

A possible variation to your theme Outlaw. I've taken the inspiration from MechCommander.

After a period of time in which most battles would be expected to resolve by themselves, perhaps 10-15 min, a sensor grid could activate. It would consist of a Sensor Control unit somewhere near the middle of the map and a number of sensor towers.

After it becomes active, the company command mech may go to sensor control to acess the grid. This provides some local coverage around sensor control (basically just to detect enemies who are coming to capture it) but without any substantial range. The command mech can then go to each tower in the network and interface with it, to activate that tower. The first level of information would be a proximity sweep that detects if any mechs are within its range. If it comes back negative, the command mech moves to the next tower to interface with that. If the proximity sweep does detect an enemy in range (but not its position) then the command mech can activiate a second level of information after a period of time, perhaps 1 minute. This will give precise location information on any Mechs in range. The company then moves off to murder it.

Note that only the command mech can do this and it can only use a tower while directly interfacing at the tower site. This prevents a side from controling more than one tower at a time. If the command mech leaves the tower, the link is lost. Only sensor control remains active without the command mech present.

If any enemy mech interfaces with sensor control, the sensor network goes down, although the enemy may only take control of it if their own command mech interfaces there. There are risks in approaching sensor control however, due to its local radar coverage tracking nearby enemies.

The aim is to give what is nominally the winning team a way to locate any fleeing or shutdown mechs which are trying to wait out the clock, while avoiding making the sensor net a pivotal part of the game. There would be no warning within the game that the enemy is accessing sensor control or any of the towers, that would make it too easy to evade detection. A hiding/running force will never know whether or not they are being tracked, they will have to physically go and look at each tower to see if the enemy command mech is there, in doing so they will obviously be detected as well, both by sensors and visually.

[Belisarius1]

Here we go.

StaIker, on 17 March 2012 - 10:29 PM, said:

In particular, I think the secondary objective should be attainable without having to split up the company, otherwise the obvious tactic is for one team to hide until they see the objectives being captured, at which point they can come out to fight knowing that the enemy is split all over the map.

This is the biggest problem I have with the CoH style objectives; I feel like it pushes teams to either split up completely (and thus be vulnerable at all points), or avoid that by min/maxing on an assault core with lights to cap objectives.

That's why I think the ability to move around while the victory timer runs is important, as is a grace period to allow teams to take and reconnect broken links without resetting their timer. Both of those allow you to take and hold terrain without leaving at least one dude in just about every connecting sector, and thus leaving your whole team vulnerable.

StaIker, on 18 March 2012 - 12:14 AM, said:

The aim is to give what is nominally the winning team a way to locate any fleeing or shutdown mechs which are trying to wait out the clock, while avoiding making the sensor net a pivotal part of the game. There would be no warning within the game that the enemy is accessing sensor control or any of the towers, that would make it too easy to evade detection. A hiding/running force will never know whether or not they are being tracked, they will have to physically go and look at each tower to see if the enemy command mech is there, in doing so they will obviously be detected as well, both by sensors and visually.

I like the sensor tower thing, but it has two big issues.
First, how you define "the command 'Mech" in a pickup game, and second, the fact that it really only deals with half the problem. It's designed around finding enemy 'Mechs that have scattered after their team died. That's nice, but I can honestly only think of one or two drops where that would have been useful to us.

Far more often, I know where the enemy (or what's left of them) are. But it's often a raven it will take us 30 minutes to catch, or a complete team camped in an unassailable position that I'm not willing to push. I know where they are, but that doesn't mean I can kill them in less than the timer. In those instances, you want a system that forces a game-ending engagement on terms that aren't necessarily all of their own choosing, or a way to win the game outright if they continue to camp/run.

Edited by Belisarius†, 18 March 2012 - 12:45 AM.

[StaIker]

True enough Bel, the sensor tower idea is clunky and incomplete but I knew folks like yourself would patch up the holes and do the thinking work for it I really just threw it out as a conversation piece, I don't even like it much myself.

[Togg Bott]

Victor Morson, on 16 March 2012 - 04:24 PM, said:

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.

THIS is a set of good ideas.

[Soviet Alex]

4 players per side. 1 mech of each class. Encourages role-warfare, provides quick games for small groups, promotes diversity of designs & tactics. And we could upgrade to a C3 network when the tech arrives. Problem solved. Next question?

[palebear]

I'd be interested in feedback, suggestions or refinements to the following Game Mode.

MANA FROM HEAVEN

Flavour Text:
A dropship has been disabled in orbit and its contents are spilling out across our operational theatre. Your orders are to retrieve as much of the useful equipment as possible from the spill-zone. As important as these badly need parts and supplies are to the war effort, if you can’t retrieve these resources, make damn sure that our enemies don’t get their hands on them either.

Gameplay:
Teams begin the encounter on opposing ends of the battle area.

Scattered semi-randomly across the battle area will be an odd number (9, for example) of ‘loot’ locations (hereafter referred to simply as LOOT).

The LOOT must be found by players and the degree to which they are hidden can be modulated in the following ways.

• Any or all of the LOOT may or may not have beacon transponders which reveal their location to all mechs in the battle zone.
  
• Some LOOT may only be visible to mechs using thermal or magneto vision
  
• Some LOOT may have a visible smoke signal

LOOT may be collected by obtaining a target lock on the LOOT container and holding that lock for (variable) minutes, until light transport aircraft arrive to whisk it away.


LOOT can also be destroyed by standard targeting and firing, but neither team will be privy to the other team’s total LOOT collected, so destruction of LOOT may be at your own risk (you might need it).

Win conditions will be rewarded to the team that recovers more LOOT than their competitor once all LOOT has been removed from the battle area.

This scenario can be applied to urban, suburban or wild areas and can be used during day or night operations.

Recovery aircraft, may be eligible targets if that doesn’t add too much overhead to the scenario.

[Garth Erlam]

I love this as like a special-event kind of thing - like Christmas Eve!

[PropagandaWar]

This belongs here not in its own post. Glad it finally popped up:

Game Mode: Collateral Damage

I remember a Battletech book where the captain was very concerned about preserving the city they fought in. I think it would be a cool game mode that dings in either party when they hit buildings, houses, factories. Both Offense and Defense have stake keeping the infrustructure kept together rather than grinding it to dust. Also you can set it up as capture the city or military base/factory where you you have to secure or defend multiple objectives withing the are. Unlike traditional FPS when a position is secured it cannot be regained.

[Wherewolf]

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

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.

i LIKE this idea. This way, a commander of a Lance van really take on a more tactical role in the warfare. Telling it's mech's where to move and what point to attack or defend.

[CoffiNail]

Garth Erlam, on 19 March 2012 - 03:01 PM, said:

I love this as like a special-event kind of thing - like Christmas Eve!

OR EASTER!

[Wherewolf]

New IDEA:

STRATEGY / POLITICS

Remember that this game is using modern day technology. Not like MW4 but with moderday computers and people knowing how to use them better. What I'm suggesting is the following: Some sort of system where someone -dictatorship/general- (or a group of people - democratic-) decides which enemy to attack in order to gain it's territory.

Possibly the first attack will result in an automatic win, there are no defenders, but as you start waging war with a certain faction/alliance, that party will begin to fight back, and a real war has started between two factions.

Deciding which area will be the next to attack or defend is the strategic choice, the outcome of that choice will be decided on the battlefield, if there are any defenders...

When winning or losing strategy
These are of course ranked games where the control of territory for instance gives a benefit to the winning party and winning will result in salvaging the fallen mechs.
If a faction loses territory it could be "penalized". If for instance it did not defend the area, the entire faction will loose cbills or loose warehouses full of technology (for a day or three). Thus making it interesting to regain control of a territory.

Using mercenaries
A faction might also choose to not use their own army to attack the opposition but to use merchs to fight the battle. The salvage will me for the merchs, as will a large sum of cbills, and the territory will me for the contracter.

How would this look?
When you start the game, you logon, you're either a merc or a factionmember. Here there will be messages waiting for you, for instance that your faction has LOST a large part of their territory and needs you to help them, or that your faction is attacking the enemy.
You could go into ranked and "help shape the universe", possibly loosing a mech or winning one.
You could also go into unranked and just have fun with some of the above mentioned game modes.

Uhm?
Keep in mind that the devs are creating a more realistic mechuniverse! Using this ranked strategic system could really help do that.
People could get involved with where the next attack will be, if an area will be defended or not, perhaps it could be wiser to loose one or two areas in order to lengthen the above mentioned connection to the supply lines and then cut the lines in order to surround an entire attacking army (think WWII germans vs russians).
Here, factions could loose entire planets!

Edited by Wherewolf, 19 March 2012 - 03:47 PM.

[Wherewolf]

Idea numer 2:

All out, large scale warfare with huge battlefields.

Not sure if this is technically feasable but imagine this, not just a couple of lances battling it out for territory but entire army's.
Perhaps up to 50 mechs per army trying to gain control of territory via waypoints/hangars/you name it, in an area which has both open field and city style large scale obstacles (or mountains).

Controlling certain parts of the huge map bring certain advantages like radar/artillery/airstrike.

This way, information gathering and commanding your mechs will be even more important. Also this will require ballancing the lances with different mechs, not just assaults, and require scouts or snipers and firesupport.

[Col Potter]

I like the idea of invasions to sit out. Works exceptionally good on many computer games.
I loved deathball so why not do it Solaris - Style.

To simulate bigger battles without stressing the engine or the clients PCs, i think of a standart 12vs12 starting in their drop-zone. Every ten minutes or so, reinforcements will be dispatched at the dropzones. Those reinforcements just replace fallen warriors, and their tonnage is determined by team performance. Like this everyone is forced to do as much damage as possible, but not receiving too much damage. Since most of the players, don't like respawns, i would recommend just using random players waiting in line. If enough battles are going on, the waiting time should be fairly short.
Initial weight of the dropships could be regulated serversides. And not to forget a minimum tonnage, which should not be that easy to reach. Which means, every team has to do damage, or they will loose when the timer ticks. Battle is over when no enemy is left before the timer ticked or the predefined maximum time is reached (or one team didn't reach minimum damage).
Payment will be estimated, on how the battle went between two timer ticks.
This way, sitting in a bush wont do anything good, everybody would be forced to adapt to current situation on the field, and scouts will be priceless, because with them you can earn more money (->See, shoot and don't bee shot at).