478 replies to this topic

[Wintersdark]

Void Angel, on 14 December 2016 - 06:10 PM, said:

It really is. The mode is still being tuned, both in-game and in people's tactics. So many people have had corner-peek camping conditioned into them that they can't get their heads around how they need to behave. I had one enemy team settle into their camper spots as their VIP trudged dutifully past them and into our line of fire. They didn't even get in our faces until it was nearly destroyed, and by that time it was way too late. I've been on teams that have done that, too.

Reminds me of this:

Yup.

I've also commonly seen:
Defenders rush forward to engage the OpFor. Lance of lights runs around the defenders, then rear-cores the Atlas before anyone knows what's happening. Attackers win.

Defenders cry, "This mode sucks!"

>.<

---

Attackers and defenders engage each other. VIP takes a left, wanders off, with 2-3 defenders riding shotgun. Remaining defenders push right in to the attackers, who turtle up and trade. They're winning the trades (outnumbering the defenders by a couple to start) then defenders start backing off - that happens naturally, as they're losing trades and people try to get some relief. Attackers completely, totally and utterly forget the VIP exists, seeing their opponents giving ground, and advance...

Except the defenders are moving back, the attackers pursuing them are moving AWAY from the VIP. Defenders win.

Attackers: "Defenders always win this!"

>.<

---

My last match, we're roughly even on kills, I died early and am spectating a Marauder IIC. River City, Escort (attackers). Enemy VIP has entered the water from the airfield side, heading to the upper city. My spectatee is overlooking his rear, 200m away from him and elevated. During the time the 48kph Atlas walks across the water, up onto the land on the other side, and along the cliffs to the upper city, MAD-IIC takes zero shots to the exposed rear of the AS7, instead spraying fire over whichever other enemy mechs he can see. He could have killed the AS7 himself several times over, but no... Instead, he fires ineffectually at everything else.

He started 200m away from the enemy AS7's rear! The whole time, straight shot at rear CT. Doesn't take ONE shot at him.

*cries*

---

Complaints aside, after a dozen more Escort matches, this is quickly becoming a favourite of mine. Now, to be clear, it definitely needs tuning:

1) I think the Atlas needs a bit more speed and less armor (so there's less time to kill him, but he requires less damage to be destroyed) because 48kph following an extremely erratic path is aggravating. Just give him Speed Tweak at least >.<

2) I think the Atlas needs a substantial turn speed quirk buff. This, because his stock 300STD is giving him a painfully slow turning speed, and that is relevant because in tight areas his pathing gets screwed up. For example, exiting the middle of the tunnel in Crimson Strait - if he avoids a player and runs into one of the two corners at the exit, he turns 90 degrees to get out, but then accelerates while turning and can't turn fast enough to avoid getting caught in the other corner. Back and forth. Faster turning wouldn't impact combat much at all, but it would help his pathfinding algorithms work better.

I recently lost a match because the Atlas got hung up there and couldn't get to the dropship.

3) You really ought to know if you're attacking or defending on the intro scoreboard screen, before the match actually starts.

[jper4]

here's one more for the collection.

VIP heads out, me and one other mech stay near it- rest of team goes right. VIP goes left. VIP starts getting sniped at and LRMed since it's in the open. rest of team maintains it's position to the right. i'm pretty much standing between the atlas and the enemy just to absorb some fire (though to it's credit- the VIP doesn't stand directly behind when I try to back up, unfortunately that means i'm no longer taking fire for it). I start losing body parts before I have to move away. rest of team maintains it's position on the right. other defender gets killed VIP follows soon after. kill total 1-2 their favor. rest of team maintaining its position on the right for the left moving VIP complains the mode sucks.

[Reverend Herring]

3 out of my 4 Escort missions have been on defender's side. All 3 were victories. And quite fun also.

The last match I had was actualy one of the most tactical missions I ever had on MWO. Main group delaying enemy while the VIP slumbered towards the dropship with my MAD-3R and a beat up Rifleman providing close support. By the time the enemy was able to reach me and the Rifleman, they were so beat up, that us two could keep them away from the VIP with little effort. In the end, the VIP got to the dropship and we had 3-4 mechs against 1-2. Great fun.

The one attacking mission I have had was not so good. Have to play more before I can say wether it needs tuning or not.

[Void Angel]

It is fun! People complaining were impatient and (in many cases) simply unwilling to give PGI a fair shake - or unwilling to adapt their poke-and-hide meta tactics to the actual game that they were playing.

It's almost certain that more tuning will be needed - player tactics are still (slowly) adapting to the mode, and to the relative difficulty of killing the VIP. But since the tuning consists essentially of toughening the VIP - they started out assuming a massive amount of incoming fire, and made it far too tough - we can still enjoy the urgent, tactical combat of the game mode while we wait for the devs to get the balance just right.

[Wintersdark]

It's easy to view it as easier for the defenders, and it is in a sense. Basically, if nobody acts at all, the defenders win (unless the VIP stumbles directly into the OpFor anyways). The onus then is on the attackers to actually attack and do it in a manner that succeeds.

With that said, assuming both teams are actually trying to win, it seems pretty balanced and ultimately is decided based on combats more often than not.... But as I said earlier, just because the mode is decided by combat doesn't make it skirmish 5.0. The constraints that the mode puts on things make it so much more interesting.

I love how the attackers always have the option to exploit defender mistakes - such as staying turtled in a strong position too long and allowing the VIP to wander off alone.



I'm thinking, as things stand, escort will favour the defenders at lower skill, but shift to the attackers as skill and coordination improve. I'm really interested to see how it all pans out, and what tweaks are made.

[Void Angel]

I hope so - the problem I'm seeing isn't skill-based, but that the inherent tactical passivity encouraged by some of the game's mechanics are causing people to do frankly stupid things. It's the "let the other guy" mentality for everything but kills...

[WANTED]

Was dreading playing this last night, but 3 of us in group did. First escort game for me and we were defenders. I and another lance m8 defended the Atlas while the others engaged head on the attackers in frozen city near buildings. The attackers were so busy brawling and hiding in the buildings the Atlas was halfway there before the whole brew ha ha ended. Couple came our way but same as someone else said, they were tore up and we were fresh heavy and my Victor ( yes Victor and IS needs to use these again against the clans, I'm serious and try one out ). We won and then second game we lost cause the attackers had snipers on Tourmaline and were just a better team. Otherwise, I actually had fun.

[Void Angel]

The mode is fun - most times. It's the times when the team just doesn't. want. to. share. risk. that really make it hard to enjoy. But then, that's going to happen at most half of the time, so...

[Fox the Apprentice]

MagicHamsta, on 19 December 2012 - 05:20 PM, said:

1) Because the Atlas D-DC may has the ECM. Awesomes/Stalkers cannot has.
[...]

They can now! (at least the stalkers, that is). Only took a few years

[Steel Raven]

Been having some fun with Escort. The biggest concern with with defense is that you have no control over the AI (with may be for the better because you know some people will do stupid crap with the VIP otherwise) but the Atlas never takes a direct path and often makes U turns, really got to make three different plans in advance to protect the drunken Atlas.

That said, I do have more victories as defender than attacker. Finding the VIP is almost like a game of hide and seek only your trying to find one guy while the rest of his friends come at you like a defensive end (if they are doing their part right) Most good games, your to busy actually engaging live targets to look for the damn AI until it ether literally walks right in front of you are until you are in a position to actually start combing the map for it.

It's really a tactical challenge more than a game play challenge, you really need to be proactive as the attacker and ready to react as defender.

[Void Angel]

That's just what I enjoy about the game mode. The VIP needs a better pathing AI, and possibly the ability to shoot back, but the game mode requires you to engage. Some people dislike it because they feel it always ends up in a brawl, but good long-range attackers can keep the enemy off of the VIP fairly well if they just fight proactively.

[Reverend Herring]

Out of 20ish Escorts I've played, I have won only 3 as an attacker (1 of those 3 was pure luck, though). As a defender, vice versa: Only lost a few times.

All in all, I've found out that I like the game mode -far- more than I expected. Still needs tweaking, but it's going in the right direction, I'd say.

[Void Angel]

I think so, too. Just the need to conform to a tactically-based time limit instead of the arbitrary match clock helps drive a proactive play style - but without the semi-superfluous nature of Conquest's cap points.

Edited by Void Angel, 31 December 2016 - 12:02 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Void Angel, on 30 December 2016 - 10:50 AM, said:

I think so, too. Just the need to actually have a tactically-based time limit instead of the arbitrary match clock helps drive a proactive play style - but without the semi-superfluous nature of Conquest's cap points.

Yup. While I love conquest, the nature of the 5 cap points does force some proactivity, but that's not inherently directed at combat. You can't defend multiple cap points without losing to a deathball crushing individual points, so the proactive action can and sometimes does result in silly cap races.

In many ways, escort is like Mobile Domination

[JigglyMoobs]

I really dislike playing the attack side as a light mech. You get too much damage from the turrets, and the ECM points take away your ability to engage the enemy with any sort of surprise. As a result, light mechs have a far more limited set of tactics they can use.

I think there needs to be some refinements to the Escort mode.

[Void Angel]

It certainly still needs refinement; you can always improve something, particularly when you've just thought it up. I don't have too many problems with playing my Spider, though - it's just that you're reliant on your team to actually engage and hold the enemy's attention. If you thread your way around the turrets and harass the enemy from the rear and flanks, you can have a good, active match - but then, that's what Spiders do. An Oxide or something may have to content itself with line of sight spotting, and hope that the team doesn't try to camp the enemy to death.

It may be that Escort showcases the problems Lights face in PuG play in the absence of role warfare. I was really interested by the (semi)recent foray into differing sensor profiles and delayed targeting on the test server - last year -ish? - and was disappointed that they couldn't get it to work well enough. Maybe if they can leverage MW5 into an engine update to Unreal...

[Insanity09]

Agree @ Jiggly

I think if the escort cap points simply provided radar coverage but did not function as ECM in both counter and disrupt mode, that would help a little bit. (maybe one or the other, but not both)
As for the turrets... well, if they just had slightly worse aiming, particularly against a fast moving target (lights, basically), that too would help.
So, I would agree that the attacker side needs a little bit of help atm.

Goodness yes, I'd like to know before the match starts if I am attacking or defending.

I actually like escort mode, in theory. It does require decent awareness and teamwork to succeed (slightly more on the attacker side, but not much), and I love that about it.
That being said it is very unforgiving of flawed play, and I am sad to say that there seems to be a lot of that going around in pugland (no surprise there).

(Didn't this thread start out as a attention-grabbing title way to promote concerted pushes?)

[Void Angel]

Actually, no - the post itself is a treatise on cooperative action in the face of the then-(and sadly still)-common lack of communication on your team.

Back in the Day, I was a WoW player on Hakkar, a PvP server, during the "vanilla" pre-expansion days. Back then, the different aesthetics (and some pure mythology about racial abilities) resulted in a dramatic population imbalance between the Horde and Alliance factions. I was Horde; we were outnumbered literally two to one, and I still don't like to think about the times school let out. But until the Alliance gained their inevitable raiding superiority (long story) and overwhelmed us with gear, the Horde PuGs would routinely stomp Alliance PvP guilds in the instanced Battlegrounds. Why? Because the Darwinian nature of world PvP against vastly superior numbers meant that you either learned superior PvP skills, or you quit the Horde. Horde PuGs were generally enthusiasts, and we had a shared set of best practices that just meshed well, being the result of the same process. We were, as I said, outnumbered two to one - and the Alliance never went anywhere alone.

MWO, sadly, lacks most of this Darwinian selection - and even in WoW, once the player populations evened out (they eliminated faction restrictions on class, and gave the Horde a pretty race,) the average PuG just wasn't all that adept at figuring out what they need to do. So one particularly frustrating day in Pugland, I thought back to the old days on Hakkar and asked myself, "what were those best practices that let us roll the Alliance all those times, and what would they look like in MWO?"

The result is this guide. I've gone out of my way to avoid specific tactics, because those come and go. If I'd made this guide applicable to the tactics and counter-tactics of the Poptart Meta days, it would be obsolete. Instead, I tried to understand and explain the core, underlying principles that underlie all team tactics and facilitate both general teamwork and higher level tactical doctrines.

[no one]

Wintersdark, on 14 December 2016 - 07:41 PM, said:

1) I think the Atlas needs a bit more speed and less armor (so there's less time to kill him, but he requires less damage to be destroyed) because 48kph following an extremely erratic path is aggravating. Just give him Speed Tweak at least >.<

I disagree strongly on this point. That would create a mode where the winning strategy is to wolf-pack rush the VIP with fast, high alpha 'Mechs. It's much better to have a situation where you have one side trying to stop the gradual, persistent onslaught of an enemy force trying to reach their extraction zone.

One change I would make -
People that play a lot are going to learn the routes and evacuation points of the VIP, but the casual player is going to be running around like a headless chicken due to the ECM fog of war. Make the evac point a marked map location after the VIP reaches his halfway point so inexperienced players on both sides can coordinate around defending or clearing a path on that route.

Also, would it be hard to have the drop ship land on the ground? Have the atlas walk into it? Get some of that old mech-warrior mercenaries feel going? The little colorful roped off mission objective zones kill immersion, and immersion is important.

Edit - Actuaaaaly, I'm not sold on the whole 'evacuate the VIP' scenario anyway. It would be a lot more amusing if you were there escorting some sim jockey patrician that wanted to kick down such-and-such important symbolic/strategic structure in so-and-so's territory.


VIP - "Hey guys, turns out Hans just got himself a big *** statue built on Tharkad."
Tech - "Okay?"
VIP - "So yeah, warm up my Atlas. I'm going to go punch it's **** off."
Tech - *Sigh*

Edited by no one, 31 December 2016 - 12:58 PM.

[JigglyMoobs]

Regarding the original point of the thread, I think these days an even better rule is: stick with the competent teammates(s).