169 replies to this topic

[Richard Mongoose]

In regards to CBills and XP capping, without repair and re-arm, is not a maximum return victory condition and there's less than zero return on a match when you lose to a cap. This is mathematically provable, right?

In regards to time, a cap rush is about equivalent to a quick (but not immediate face-roll) all kill win. This is my experience.

Capping is a legitimate win condition. It is a part of the game, and this is a hard-coded fact.

I like to kill mechs. It's fun, it's exciting, and unless my team wins I very rarely break 100k CBills this way. Considering that CBills and XP and fun are greater with a victory through kills I prefer it. But you know what I really like?

I LIKE TO WIN.

So if it comes to be in the best interests of victory for the match to cap a base, I will cap a base in a heartbeat. If the other team did not have a plan in place to deal with a base cap, then too bad for them and they can learn what they will from it. This does not mean I rush for a cap, nor that I abandon the potential to annihilate the other team thanks to superior positioning. If I'm in a hunchback, there's 2 ravens left on my team, and the other team still has all 8 active then I'm going the other route and capping instead of suiciding.

Because I like to win.

(This opinion does not mean I do not appreciate the input on base capping and how it seems irrelevant, but is simply - though not merely - my opinion on the matter)

Proposed reward system for capping victory:
+250k CBills for a Cap
+300 XP
No Assist Bonuses

[PANZERBUNNY]

Richard Mongoose, on 24 December 2012 - 01:38 PM, said:

In regards to CBills and XP capping, without repair and re-arm, is not a maximum return victory condition and there's less than zero return on a match when you lose to a cap. This is mathematically provable, right?

In regards to time, a cap rush is about equivalent to a quick (but not immediate face-roll) all kill win. This is my experience.

Capping is a legitimate win condition. It is a part of the game, and this is a hard-coded fact.

I like to kill mechs. It's fun, it's exciting, and unless my team wins I very rarely break 100k CBills this way. Considering that CBills and XP and fun are greater with a victory through kills I prefer it. But you know what I really like?

I LIKE TO WIN.

So if it comes to be in the best interests of victory for the match to cap a base, I will cap a base in a heartbeat. If the other team did not have a plan in place to deal with a base cap, then too bad for them and they can learn what they will from it. This does not mean I rush for a cap, nor that I abandon the potential to annihilate the other team thanks to superior positioning. If I'm in a hunchback, there's 2 ravens left on my team, and the other team still has all 8 active then I'm going the other route and capping instead of suiciding.

Because I like to win.

(This opinion does not mean I do not appreciate the input on base capping and how it seems irrelevant, but is simply - though not merely - my opinion on the matter)

Proposed reward system for capping victory:
+250k CBills for a Cap
+300 XP
No Assist Bonuses

blah blah blah. The way it's in right now isn't making the game better. Yes, fact is it's a valid victory condition. Another fact, it isn't making the game better by doing it and we've been seeing complaints since its inception in its current incarnation.
It isn't helping the teams engage and it was a PLACEHOLDER. It's always has been a placeholder so we could test the game, ever since Closed Beta.
Thing is, you may like to "win". Fact is, you'll get very little for doing it.

[AlexWildeagle]

Omni Tek, on 24 December 2012 - 11:08 AM, said:

The easy answer is people are stupid.

LOL...Stupid? The people who can't read are the stupid ones. Read the splash screen as the map launches.

[PANZERBUNNY]

Cap rush won't be so bad when we get arty and air strikes.

"Sure, please rush the base and sit there with 3-4 mechs."

!BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM!

The game will turn into trying to TRICK the enemy to sit in one place with a mass of their forces.

Huddle under the ECM everyone, I dare you.

Edited by PANZERBUNNY, 24 December 2012 - 02:06 PM.

[Richard Mongoose]

Ignoring the "blah blah blah" Panzerbunny, you're right: the way base capture exists right now does not make the game any better. It doesn't seem like a viably fun alternative to smashing cockpits and dying in glorious explosions of mutually attempted destruction. And people have been complaining about base capture in MWO since...forever.

What I do like about it is that it's an alternative victory condition, and in concept should help teams engage each other. Unfortunately MWO still doesn't have a viable objective that encourages engagement on a strategic level.

With the way it is now, and with the stated goals of PGI wanting more combat, then just turning it into a straight TDM would even be better, but I like the idea of an Assault mode.

[Gralzeim]

PANZERBUNNY, on 24 December 2012 - 01:50 PM, said:

Fact is, you'll get very little for doing it.

If you get some assists/kills, component destruction, damage dealt, -and- cap, you gain more than you'd get from simply killing your way to victory. Plus there's an XP bonus if you cap/assist the cap. It has its purpose. As others have stated, as a diversionary tactic, as a way to pull a win from the jaws of defeat, as a way to end a stalemate (or when the last enemy is playing "where's Waldo" but with a light mech).

In my opinion, having it in usually results in more interesting games than a simple "everyone meet in the middle and shoot the crap out of each other till someone wins" game type.

Yes, okay, sometimes an enemy team will rush the base when our team is out looking for them, and we lack the ability to get back in time. But that's how random teams are, you don't always have the right tools for the job. Mildly annoying, but insignificant, when I can just queue up again when it ends, and be in another match in under a minute.

Ultimately it doesn't seem to be an issue, really. 9 times out of 10 matches resolve in the "shoot them till they fall down" way, so I don't really see why people are getting worked up over it. And I've never even seen a cap victory in Conquest. Isn't that the de facto TDM mode right now, due to there being zero reward for capping?

[Willie Sauerland]

Darwins Dog, on 24 December 2012 - 10:30 AM, said:

Seriously, I just won a match because someone on my team sneaked in and capped the enemy base. There was one kill up to that point. One. You just took everyone's rewards away, and got nothing out of it. Why do people keep doing this? Why?

/rant

On a serious note, I would like to see the points locked for the first half of the match or maybe ten minutes.

I know it used to be a valid tactic to draw enemies away from the fight, or if you killed 7 and 1 ran away, but it's just not anymore. Everyone in the game loses out on potential rewards when one side wins a capture victory.

I hate to sound all "learn to play" and all but there are two conditions to win - capture (or gather resources) or kill all the opposing team. If you play for one condition and forget the other, expect to lose. Just because the opposing team won in a method you do not find valid does not mean they are not having fun right. Amazingly, the next launch is right around the corner....

[Volez]

Darwins Dog, on 24 December 2012 - 10:30 AM, said:

Seriously, I just won a match because someone on my team sneaked in and capped the enemy base. There was one kill up to that point. One. You just took everyone's rewards away, and got nothing out of it. Why do people keep doing this? Why?

/rant

On a serious note, I would like to see the points locked for the first half of the match or maybe ten minutes.

I know it used to be a valid tactic to draw enemies away from the fight, or if you killed 7 and 1 ran away, but it's just not anymore. Everyone in the game loses out on potential rewards when one side wins a capture victory.

You basicly just said "please stop playing the actual game, i just want to brainlessly farm stuff". And the saddest thing is.... that the majority of people in this game think like that....

[Percimes]

I often go to the other team's base on my own, starting to cap but with no intentions of winning the match this way, if possible. I'll stay there until there is maybe 20% left and then leave and join the fray. Most of the time I can't stay that long because someone (hopefully more than one) left the front line to come back to defend, meaning less people to fight against for the rest of my team on the front line. The threat of capping is real, it's a tactic to divide your opponents in smaller groups.

As a bonus, if things go bad for our side, I can steal the win.

Both team rushing to cap isn't fun though, but I haven't seen much of that since the last patch.

[Sandslice]

PANZERBUNNY, on 24 December 2012 - 01:22 PM, said:

..except it's the kids capping like that or those of equivalent intellect.

So people who cap are "tools," children, or mentally deficient. Gotcha.

It seems to me that this boils down to a few problems of game design and player culture:
1. The mode is Assault, and the loading screen for it identifies two objectives: capture the enemy base, or kill all the enemies. Regardless of some players' opinions to the contrary, both are intended as valid objectives.

2. People don't like to defend; in their minds, defence equals inactivity, and thus "only AFKs" would want to defend. Because of the resulting assumption that no one WILL defend, this has led to a culture where "only AFKs" (or as you put it, tools, children, and idiots) will want to try to cap, except under certain circumstances. After all, capping is now interpreted as "trying to avoid combat," or "trying to reduce the team's rewards," rather than a core objective of the scenario.

3. There is no TDM mode. It's possible PGI determined that battles without field objectives are not lore-friendly for the BTU. After all, you don't usually move a force onto an enemy-held world, with your only intention being to attack the enemy defenders - unless you're hunting pirates or driven by some serious revenge, like Takashi Kurita toward Wolf's Dragoons. However, it's pretty evident that TDM would become the most popular mode... perhaps regardless of whether or not the other modes' field objectives became clearly more rewarding than simple kills.

In short, what's happening with Assault in MWO is the reverse of what had happened with Alterac Valley in WoW. In AV, defence was largely abandoned in favour of both sides zerg-rushing the enemy base - at which there was an NPC boss and maybe some minions. There were defencive options, which the Alliance never considered; however, one of them (the Horde capping a respawn point called Snowfall) would instantly draw twenty flavours of abuse from Horde players, because the zerg would suddenly be halted at one of two highly defencible choke-points, a scenario called a "turtle."

Naturally, this "violation of the social contract" there, as here, drew forum complaints which did not stop short of heaping abuse on the "violators;" and here, as there, the "violators" were guilty of nothing more than playing an aspect of the scenario that seemed intended by the game design.

Edited by Sandslice, 24 December 2012 - 02:45 PM.

[Darwins Dog]

Willie Sauerland, on 24 December 2012 - 02:13 PM, said:

I hate to sound all "learn to play" and all but there are two conditions to win - capture (or gather resources) or kill all the opposing team. If you play for one condition and forget the other, expect to lose. Just because the opposing team won in a method you do not find valid does not mean they are not having fun right. Amazingly, the next launch is right around the corner....

No I get that. I really, really do. There are two ways to win. I figured that out already. My point is that one path to victory makes little sense right now. If the rewards are changed, if they give a bonus for capturing again, then it will absolutely make sense. Right now though there is no reason to rush off and cap, except in specific circumstances (that have already been mentioned several times).

Also, I'm not complaining about losing. Upon closer inspection my post is that we won before the game even got started.

Volez, on 24 December 2012 - 02:15 PM, said:

You basicly just said "please stop playing the actual game, i just want to brainlessly farm stuff". And the saddest thing is.... that the majority of people in this game think like that....

I'm gonna go ahead and say that it takes more brains to win a brawl than to skirt the edge of the map with ECM and then sit in a box. You are correct that the majority of people in this game do want to have a battle of giant robots though. It's not sad, it's what was advertised.

[PANZERBUNNY]

Things wouldn't degenerate into a brawl as fast if people didn't think they had to be the first one into the glowing box or lose.

[Belorion]

The win is what is important.

[Terran123rd]

No, I won't. It's a valid tactic, and it's one of the win conditions of the game mode. I'm going to move around to flank you from behind, and if you're base is unguarded, I'm going to stand in the magic red square and cap. Smart teams will send someone back to chase me off and stupid teams won't, letting me cap without opposition.

Either I'm drawing people away from the furball, reducing the number of opponents my team has to worry about, or I'm winning the game.

Either way, I'm helping my team by going for the cap.

[PANZERBUNNY]

Belorion, on 24 December 2012 - 02:56 PM, said:

The win is what is important.

This is fairly false.

The same people who think that are probably the first to exploit and cheat to win.

[Mechsniper]

I am voting for keeping the current modes and adding a search and destroy mission with a shorter time limit. Much less xp rewarded for losing team if the match ends by time limit to discourage wussing out.

[The Exiled]

Aww the nasty people not playing in the exact way you want them to play? you poor bunny that must be terrible for you, maybe you can tell your mum and she will give you a cuddle to make it all better and tell you how special she thinks you are

[PANZERBUNNY]

The Exiled, on 24 December 2012 - 03:11 PM, said:

Aww the nasty people not playing in the exact way you want them to play? you poor bunny that must be terrible for you, maybe you can tell your mum and she will give you a cuddle to make it all better and tell you how special she thinks you are

These are complaints that have been around since early Closed Beta. It's not like a few people are shedding tears over a small issue.

This issue is on par with some of the most annoying bugs in the game except it's being passed off as a "feature".

It's lackluster. Lazy. Boring and we all know it.

They can do better.

[ShadowDarter]

If the Cap is available to me as a option to win the game and then im going cap, or recomend someone else go for the cap, as i do my best to defend them. Please read the conditons to win they are in this order.

Capture the base

Defeat the enemy team.

I'll play the game thats fun for me, not to your C-bill levels.

[QuantumButler]

Once again, the capwarriors are out in full force in this thread I see.

Please pity them OP, they ninja cap because they have no idea how to actually brawl, and don't want to learn.

Edited by QuantumButler, 24 December 2012 - 03:21 PM.