8 replies to this topic

[Eraos]

Just coming off of two games that were zero-damage: teams went opposite directions, missed each other; and it ended in a base race; making no-one happy in the least.

The issue is that by the time that you realize that you've missed the enemy team, you are near to their base and they are near to yours. Everyone knows that if either team turns around and the other continues; then the one that continues will win. So both teams continue, and it ends in a capture race with few or no shots fired.

This makes no-one happy.

Suggestion: make capture time scale with the number of mechs that are alive on each team. So capturing a base when all of the enemies are still alive takes 8x as long as it does normally. Thus if there are only one or two mechs alive on the other side, it is still possible to cap the base to end the game -- but if there are two undamaged teams around, it takes so long to capture that it actually makes more sense for the two teams to turn around and go to find each other and get in a fight, just in order to thin the ranks.

[SixstringSamurai]

Eraos, on 10 February 2013 - 09:21 AM, said:

Just coming off of two games that were zero-damage: teams went opposite directions, missed each other; and it ended in a base race; making no-one happy in the least.

The issue is that by the time that you realize that you've missed the enemy team, you are near to their base and they are near to yours. Everyone knows that if either team turns around and the other continues; then the one that continues will win. So both teams continue, and it ends in a capture race with few or no shots fired.

This makes no-one happy.

Suggestion: make capture time scale with the number of mechs that are alive on each team. So capturing a base when all of the enemies are still alive takes 8x as long as it does normally. Thus if there are only one or two mechs alive on the other side, it is still possible to cap the base to end the game -- but if there are two undamaged teams around, it takes so long to capture that it actually makes more sense for the two teams to turn around and go to find each other and get in a fight, just in order to thin the ranks.

Still wouldn't solve the problem because you would always have that team that didn't go looking. What they need is an Arena style game mode (which I believe they have planned further down the road) where bases aren't even in the match. The problem with them taking them out now is there is always that 1 guy who thinks stats are important and goes and shuts down somewhere to avoid being killed making the match a 10 minute game of hide n seek.

[Eraos]

SixStringSamurai, on 10 February 2013 - 09:26 AM, said:

Still wouldn't solve the problem because you would always have that team that didn't go looking. What they need is an Arena style game mode (which I believe they have planned further down the road) where bases aren't even in the match. The problem with them taking them out now is there is always that 1 guy who thinks stats are important and goes and shuts down somewhere to avoid being killed making the match a 10 minute game of hide n seek.

Yes, but if you had teams A and B, and they missed each other -- then even if A turned around and B didn't, the capture time for team B would be so high (since all of team A was still alive); that team A would have a lot of time to turn around, go back to their base, and fight team B. That is the thrust of increasing the capture time -- basically it would enable one of the teams to actually make the decision to turn around and go back to their base, while still having some expectation of possibly winning.

The way it is now, if team A chose to turn around and go back to base, and team B chose to continue on to team A's base; then team B would flatly win. There is simply no choice if you want to have an expectation of winning: you need to continue forward, and hope that you capture faster than the other team does.

IMO the key is to keep capturing relevant enough that it is possible to end a game where a light is running around the map and refusing to engage; but to make it basically irrelevant (or at least exponentially more difficult/more time) if you have fairly full teams on each side.

Only the Assault game-type has this problem; I do not think that I've ever seen it happen in Conquest because those games are long enough that the teams have time to find each other.

It's gotten so bad that most days, I choose to queue for Conquest games only, just to keep from getting annoyed and frustrated by zero-damage Ring around the RosieAssault games.

[sC4r]

yea this is kinda problem with mode design
however its often fault of the players that are in the game too... you see thats what are light mechs for (also on some maps thermal helps a lot) they determine the location of enemy team and you can go ahead and face them

so sometimes it happens that everyone is scared to leave a pack to take a poke and so you miss each other

[Moogy]

Put defenses on the bases.

This would force the offensive team to take all the defenses out before capturing, giving time for the other team to turn around and come back to defend the base from capture.

This would also create an environment with some form of combat that would give points.

I also find it ironic that a base would not have defenses.
For me this is a classic FPS scenario... and NOT a Mech game style of play.

[Seigaku]

The solution is: The team that loses because his base has been capture, this team doesn't win any CB

[sC4r]

Seigaku, on 10 February 2013 - 02:54 PM, said:

The solution is: The team that loses because his base has been capture, this team doesn't win any CB

thats ingame already
if the game is cap race both teams will get like 30k cbills though winners have more xp

[focuspark]

Solution: defend the base

[Gaan Cathal]

focuspark, on 11 February 2013 - 09:20 AM, said:

Solution: defend the base

This. Stay on, or near, your base. Wait for them to come to you. Most of the time on the approach to the base they will get split up as they assume you're also approaching base. Generally some will split off to look for a fighting loss as opposed to a cap win, some will race ahead of the group to try and get feet on cap before you do. Most bases are pretty damn defensible, yet I rarely see it tried.