304 replies to this topic

[Ngamok]

Rofl, on 13 February 2013 - 12:04 PM, said:

I'm honestly thinking religious and political debates have nothing on the silliness of the MWO general forums.

Barrens General Chat would like a word with you.

[Trev Firestorm]

Tichorius Davion, on 13 February 2013 - 12:19 PM, said:

Well that is the point I am trying to make. It becomes your fault just because people can make the decision to go for base cap? Imagine if you are on the team that got base rushed. Your teamed decided not to do anything about it. Yeah, it is not solely your decision because no sane mechwarrior would take on the enemy team alone to stop cap.

Yes, If my base is being capped and I do nothing about it it is my fault, I rarely lose to rush because I try to stay situationally aware and try to keep the rest of the team on top of things if I can't get there myself. I have had victories in double cap (usually after a bit of combat) where myself or a teammate threw themselves on the grenade and stopped the cap long enough for us to cap or to get our forces back in time to wipe out the cappers.

[Josef Nader]

Tichorius Davion, on 13 February 2013 - 12:23 PM, said:

Oh god, add in the motivation of community warfare. Assault will devolve into 8 lights vs 8 lights to see who can cap first. Then you forget about fighting.

Yeah guys winning is all that matters let's go cap with 8 3l's with capture accelerator.

Basically. I'm of the bizarre opinion that "winning" should be precluded on your ability to play the game. Your ability to win a game centered around shooting giant robots should be centered around your ability to shoot giant robots. Winning should be an extension of your ability to shoot giant robots. Winning a game about shooting giant robots by standing in a square for a set period of time is unsatisfying and a very poor measure of your personal skill, showing only a ruthless desire to win, to the point where you refuse to actually play the game parts of the actual game.

If Assault was an Attack/Defend mode, then things would be different as the objective shifts from "shoot giant robots" to "stand in the square/don't let them stand in the square", but as it stands it's TDM that can be won by a condition that isn't "get the most kills" which is out of place and frustrating.

Edited by Josef Nader, 13 February 2013 - 12:30 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 February 2013 - 12:12 PM, said:

I still get 50 XP for capping assist. All but one of my mechs are mastered and thats cause i only want the one Mech. I make 25,000 Cbills on a quick cap. That balances the 175,000 C-bills I get for beating the crap out of a enemy team. The game type is fine. The mentality of the player is wrong. My job in assault is to take your base from you. If you don't come back when Betty is telling you, 'Someone's taking your stuff.' It's not the Cappers fault you get beat!

Move to engage the enemy. Do NOT over extend your lines. Get your scouts to check out the disturbance at your base. Move in force to defend if you must. THIS is how you stop a cap! Combat 101 stuff.

Here's the thing though, Joseph. If you pug then many of the people you pug with are playing the game for the fun of fighting. I don't know them and can not hold them accountable after the match. They are here to shoot other mechs - that's why they play.

There is not a TDM game mode for them to play. Instead people say that Assault is TDM, but it's not. In a pug match if the lights or fast mediums on my team don't want to go back to base, well, tough I guess? Also please do not fall back on the 'my fault for not joining a team'. That argument leads to 'well then approximately 80% of the games population isn't welcome in MWO' which we both know is a false dichotomy.

Same holds true for River City, you spawn in the high point and say 'lets hold here'. Half the team holds until they get bored and then charge off at the Jenner running little circles in the water. Elo is only going to go so far to fix this because I think it's fair to say that most people who play MWO play it to fight, not to base camp or cap-rush.

My argument is and has always been that A) some sort of TDM, or even better a more tactically rich base capture mechanic, needs introduced. I have every faith that it will be in time, Beta is all about balancing core mechanics and new content in while things like map design and game modes come later. You need to know what your building maps and modes around. Also B ) Assault is not some brilliant tactical exercise. Capping a base is not an act of genius but in some ways an exploit of the fact that most other players hate it and would rather ignore it if they could.

What drives these threads is not a lack of understanding but attempts at justification. Please don't feel like you need to justify capping in Assault, you don't. Just please realize that most players don't respond to caps because they don't enjoy the mechanic and are acting out against it in protest to a lack of other game mode options and not an oblivious nature to the 'base is under attack' metric. I get pugs messaging in chat 'Cap warning. We should all just quit and exit' because they are playing the game to fight and the design and tactics of the Assault map, which is poorly named, is most effective when its avoiding a fight.

What would really, really benefit folks is realizing that you get more combat in Conquest than Assault. Assault is about avoiding fights and blob tactics while Conquest has a more tactical landscape that rewards focusing on combat and controlled engagements.

The only way to do that in Assault is to camp your own base.

Winning by cap in Assault is not a tactical coup. It's generally taking advantage of the fact that most pugs absolutely hate the mechanic but have no other options to play. They'd rather just charge the enemy for 60 seconds of shooting before the bell.

[Jman5]

Ashnod, on 13 February 2013 - 12:22 PM, said:

You only get 50 xp for capping..

125 actually.

50 for cap assist, 75, for cap win. (or maybe it's the other way around)

Edited by Jman5, 13 February 2013 - 12:32 PM.

[Esplodin]

BunnyWabbit, on 13 February 2013 - 12:25 PM, said:

Op reaffirms why I should continue to play my srm cat. You cap I run back at 86.2 kph and alpha you once then call you lame for trying to cap then go back to business as usual.

hmm. 150kph in my light, good luck keeping up. Besides, who stays on cap by themselves for more then 10 seconds? I'll wait until your hunger for gore gets too strong and you wander away to continue my cap. Might even pop you a few times with a PPC or ERLL just for lulz to pull you off your cap to get the dangling meat.

[Andross Deverow]

Bleh...

I personally play conquest just to avoid the CAP. 99.9% of the time conquests is a slugfest not a cap race.

Regards

[Solis Obscuri]

I suspect poor reading comprehension is to blame.

[DEN_Ninja]

Josef Nader, on 13 February 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

Basically. I'm of the bizarre opinion that "winning" should be precluded on your ability to play the game. Your ability to win a game centered around shooting giant robots should be centered around your ability to shoot giant robots. Winning should be an extension of your ability to shoot giant robots. Winning a game about shooting giant robots by standing in a square for a set period of time is unsatisfying and a very poor measure of your personal skill, showing only a ruthless desire to win, to the point where you refuse to actually play the game parts of the actual game.

If Assault was an Attack/Defend mode, then things would be different as the objective shifts from "shoot giant robots" to "stand in the square/don't let them stand in the square", but as it stands it's TDM that can be won by a condition that isn't "get the most kills" which is out of place and frustrating.

So you want to join me in making a Capture Accelerator 3L's with Quad ECM coverage? And if any lights come our way we can spray SSRM2's at them and continue our merry way with capping. Because with 4 ravens with CA it is more like 4.6 Mechs standing on there. You hardly even need the rest of the team cause you will get there first!

[Ngamok]

Esplodin, on 13 February 2013 - 12:32 PM, said:

hmm. 150kph in my light, good luck keeping up. Besides, who stays on cap by themselves for more then 10 seconds? I'll wait until your hunger for gore gets too strong and you wander away to continue my cap. Might even pop you a few times with a PPC or ERLL just for lulz to pull you off your cap to get the dangling meat.

Nah, lots of people who do this don't move till they see or hear someone coming to get the max effect. Then running away usually will be met with some form of damage.

[Josef Nader]

>Assault is not TDM

If that is the case, then why is fighting and killing rewarded so much more highly than winning by capture? Winning by capture nets you pretty much nothing. Less than a fourth of what you can earn by fighting robots. Capturing the zone clearly isn't the primary objective of Assault, ergo, it is not about capturing the zone. It's about shooting robots.

Conquest -is- about capturing the square, as it's more profitable to shoot all the robots -and- hold all the squares. Squares are harder to acquire and hold, so capturing the square becomes the primary goal, with fighting robots being a necessary secondary goal to capturing the square.

Following that line of thought, if you removed one side's square from Assault, and made the primary goal of the game mode to attack or defend the single square on the map with big rewards for either successfully capturing it or defending it until the time runs out, then the square becomes the primary objective again with shooting robots being a necessary secondary objective. As it stands right now, with both teams having their own squares and almost no reward for capturing their square and the only reward for defending your square being "you get to continue playing the game", it's an extraneous and out of place mechanic.

[Rofl]

Josef Nader, on 13 February 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

>Assault is not TDM

If that is the case, then why is fighting and killing rewarded so much more highly than winning by capture? Winning by capture nets you pretty much nothing. Less than a fourth of what you can earn by fighting robots. Capturing the zone clearly isn't the primary objective of Assault, ergo, it is not about capturing the zone. It's about shooting robots.

Conquest -is- about capturing the square, as it's more profitable to shoot all the robots -and- hold all the squares. Squares are harder to acquire and hold, so capturing the square becomes the primary goal, with fighting robots being a necessary secondary goal to capturing the square.

Following that line of thought, if you removed one side's square from Assault, and made the primary goal of the game mode to attack or defend the single square on the map with big rewards for either successfully capturing it or defending it until the time runs out, then the square becomes the primary objective again with shooting robots being a necessary secondary objective. As it stands right now, with both teams having their own squares and almost no reward for capturing their square and the only reward for defending your square being "you get to continue playing the game", it's an extraneous and out of place mechanic.

I demand you rush off to the suggestion forum with this. If has been suggested earlier, resurrect that motherf***er and I will put all my effort to see your dream realized. You've got me convinced.

[Homeless Bill]

I avoid Assault anymore because ninja-caps ruined it for me. It's not that I mind objective-based games every now and then - it's that I'm a team deathmatch kind of guy. All I want to do is destroy other people, and I'm pretty sure a few others are with me on this.

But since they refuse to give us our own game mode, we're forced into your objective game types. If we had our own play-pen, you wouldn't hear the incessant bitching, because we wouldn't be there. But since we don't, we will continue to ***** when 5-10 minutes of our lives are flushed down the toilet by a Spider. You can count me among the people that beg team mates to get off the cap and fight like warriors.

Call me crazy, but standing next to someone's house for a while just isn't my idea of a great time.

Edited by Homeless Bill, 13 February 2013 - 12:44 PM.

[Ghost_19Hz]

you can run around capping that's fine, but I've won tons of games where the other team tried to cap and they all end up dying except 1 or 2 of them, then I win by capping them out or finishing them off since my team has 6-8 individuals who can cap and kill the remaining objects.

A couple of times my team all split up and recaptured the points when the enemy was about to win with one mech and @ 700+ to our 300, but then lose 700+ to 750, and they accuse you of sync dropping.

The capture points they have tactical value sure(forcing movement etc.), but making capping your one and only goal is not recommended, esp. not for conquest. One good strategic team position + a good scout is all you need in Assault. For conquest, capture and hold at least two, while focusing down the enemy mechs b/c the less mechs they have the more casually you can capture points so it wont become too late.

So yes, if you go for caps all the time i will assume you are inexperienced.

Edited by PythonCPT, 13 February 2013 - 12:49 PM.

[DEN_Ninja]

Homeless Bill, on 13 February 2013 - 12:43 PM, said:

I avoid Assault anymore because ninja-caps ruined it for me. It's not that I mind objective-based games every now and then - it's that I'm a team deathmatch kind of guy. All I want to do is destroy other people, and I'm pretty sure a few others are with me on this.

But since they refuse to give us our own game mode, we're forced into your objective game types. If we had our own play-pen, you wouldn't hear the incessant bitching, because we wouldn't be there. But since we don't, we will continue to ***** when 5-10 minutes of our lives are flushed down the toilet by a Spider. You can count me among the people that beg team mates to get off the cap and fight like warriors.

Call me crazy, but standing next to someone's house for a while just isn't my idea of a great time.

Well if we sit around drinking some IPA's it could be more fun. -shrug-

[Znail]

MischiefSC, on 13 February 2013 - 11:36 AM, said:

Conquest is more tactical because capping doesn't auto-win and you're effectively required to split your forces to cap. There are 5 objectives, not just 1 and capturing that 1 objective doesn't win in less than 60 seconds.

The problem with Assault for me is that that one cap trumps any and all other tactical exercises in the match. Conquest, conversely, puts weight on location control. Holding Theta in River City for example and map location G5 gives you the ability to exert control over 3, possibly 4 positions of the 5 on the map which leads you to a win over time (Theta, Gamma, Sigma). You can't just blob up and rush or conversely just camp on your base for a win, you've got to take and hold multiple objectives.

TDM conversely is all about taking the most advantageous position on the map, securing your flanks and identifying the enemy. If the only way to win is to kill the other guy then finding out exactly who the other guys is suddenly becomes very important and tactically useful. Do you push for a brawl rush before they have time to fortify a position? Do you set up for a standoff and count on LRMs, Snipers and disruptive Lights to shift the balance before moving in to finish them off? Do you try and lure enemy out of their position with a faux-easy kill before turning on the enemy who wandered away from their post?

Assault theoretically can and sometimes does include this stuff but in reality the only real factor is the cap rush. Any tactical choice you make is trumped by standing in a box for 60 seconds. Thus nobody wants to invest the time, effort and energy into real scouting, setting up a good defensive position or the like because a quick cap from a friendly light will just end the game.

Does that make sense? Capping in Assault trumps all other tactics and thus eliminates motivation to pursue them. TDM games would be slower, more cautious, more tactical than Assault, not less. Asymmetrical Assault would be a huge improvement - make it 1 location that has to be held for a value of 750 total time, much like Conquest. Put it in the middle of the map. have different counters for each team. There are a huge number of options out there and I'm eager to see them.

Let me make this clear though. I'm not saying PGI is bad for releasing Assault as a game mode. I'm not saying Assault as a game mode is a bad thing either. My point is that it is NOT a fighting design or a tactical design. It is LESS tactical than Conquest and no substitute for a TDM or any asymmetrical capture design. Also capture designs that don't end the map with a win but instead accrue points towards a win are inherently a better game tactics choice than 'stand here for 60 seconds FTW!'

That is the problem with Conquest, assuming you want more then team death match. Capping doesn't win you the game and thus is mostly unimportant. I see that you like TDM and by extension Conquest. But there is no basis at all in calling TDM the more tactical mode. You are perfectly free to think it's the more fun mode, but to call it more tactical does not make sense. You still have to fight the enemy in Assault, but the fact you also need to consider the bases adds complexity to the game.

How does the fact that capping wins the game makes it less important to scout or find the enemy as that is the main means to preventing them from capturing your base? The problem with your posts are that they make no logical sense at all. That the enemy can sneak around you to your base does not equal scouting is not important but the other way around as you need to keep an eye out to prevent them from doing so.

You have talked about those less then 60 seconds so much that I had to actually time it. It takes 150 seconds to capture the base. This time is reduced if there is multiple mechs capturing. But to get less then 60 seconds so would you need at least 3 mechs and that is almost half the enemy team that you just happened to fail to notice what they were doing. If that isn't a failure of scouting, then what is?

The point is that a lone light capping will take quite a while to do so and even a slow mech can react to that and move to prevent it. Only if there is a large number of mechs capping so will it be too fast for slow mechs to react. But that is why you need 1 or 2 mechs to keep an eye on the other paths that your main group are not using. That way so will there be no large group of enemy mechs getting to your base.

Edited by Znail, 13 February 2013 - 12:52 PM.

[Mazgazine1]

The reason no one wants you to cap is because IT OFFERS NO BENEFIT.

IT does not get you extra CBills, and only a small amount of XP, so why do it??

[Golfin Man]

I feel the same way, I don't understand why people don't want to win. So you do more damage and get more cbills so you can buy/upgrade mechs...so you can continue losing...in order to get more cbills...and it goes on

[Rofl]

Mazgazine1, on 13 February 2013 - 12:56 PM, said:

The reason no one wants you to cap is because IT OFFERS NO BENEFIT.

IT does not get you extra CBills, and only a small amount of XP, so why do it??

Didn't you just contradict yourself? Just sayin'

[DEN_Ninja]

Golfin Man, on 13 February 2013 - 12:57 PM, said:

I feel the same way, I don't understand why people don't want to win. So you do more damage and get more cbills so you can buy/upgrade mechs...so you can continue losing...in order to get more cbills...and it goes on

At the same time if it does become all about winning. What is to stop Premades from making 8 mans made of the Capture Accelerator raven in the future? You end up having something equal to 9.2 sitting in a square capping for the win.

Edited by Tichorius Davion, 13 February 2013 - 01:02 PM.