6 replies to this topic

[Josef Nader]

I hear a lot of complaints about base capping in assault, and a lot of counter arguments that reply "assault is not team deathmatch"

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'm all for a more objective-centric Mechwarrior, and your ability to accomplish these objectives should center around your skill at fighting robots. By giving us objectives that can be accomplished by fighting robots -and- reward us for accomplishing them while focusing the gameplay into something interesting, we have achieved "fun". Turning "assault" into a true attack/defense gamemode would go a -long- way to removing the ire of cheap, non-profitable base caps while still allowing base caps to be a central mechanic and win-condition.

[Elder Thorn]

just make it king of the hill: One base to cap in the middle of the map. And make actual decap possible.

done

edit: by actual decap i mean, whenever a capping mech is hit, all his capping points are nullified, if not even the whole counter.

Edited by Elder Thorn, 13 February 2013 - 02:54 PM.

[Draxist]

with either of those two methods, you still end up with a deathmatch scenario because of the game by default having no respawns. To get away from any game diluting completely into TDM, you need progressive/static objectives WITH respawns.

My suggestion to change assault would be this: (borrowing heavily from attack/defend game types)

wall o' text warning.

there are two teams: attacker and defenders (only one round would be best in all honesty)

the attackers have no respawns to use, they only have one shot at this

the defenders have respawns, but they are limited (explained later)

there are multiple capture points on the map (could even copy from conquest capture points). These capture points become "active" (capture-able) one after another as one capture point is captured and then the next. this could be randomized or set to happen in a standard sequential order.

attackers have to occupy the capture zone for a period of time to capture. the defenders cannot un-cap the points, but points could have slow degradation of cap percentage.

as stated before, once a cap point is captured, the next point is open to be captured.

defender respawning would be tied directly to the activation of the next capture point. every time a new point comes online, a certain number of the defending team redeploys (maybe in an exact copy of their original, maybe a new mech in their inventory of equal or lesser tonnage). this could be explained lore-wise as mobile field bases that are being captured. As one is captured, another goes online and deploys the mechs being housed on standby.

the next question that arises is what decides who respawns at what capture point. since games are currently 8v8, there would be 3 more capture points available, and each would house 4 mechs. one way to decide who respawns back in first would be allowing the computer to randomly decided who fills which slot (less grief and less agonizing process). the other option is to let pilots decide for themselves (personally as much as I love humanity, this would lend itself to much greifing and argumentation. maybe in league games this could be allowed for teams to be strategic and operate more efficiently.)

EDIT: since I didn't clarify earlier, defenders can only re-deploy ONCE PER PERSON, just so there is no confusion.

it is noted that a good attacker team could just steamroll off the bat and only face four fresh mechs at every capture point, but a good defending team would fall back and engage at hit and run distances waiting for more teammates to redeploy in. As is the case with pug teams, there will always be bad teams who only charge in head first and do not communicate or use teamwork. that cannot be avoided whatever is done wherever you go.

furthermore, if a point is captured and no defenders are killed yet, the computer could automatically assign the first death to the new cap point and continue as deaths happened.

a note here is that mechs in the field bases not yet activated cannot be damaged by opposing scouts doing a run-around (lets say the bases have really really really heavy doors covering the bays)

to offset the defenders advantage, attackers could have one or more of the following:

1) respawns at their own starting location up to half of their team
2) starting location is closer to first capture point than defenders (or equidistant from)
3) temporary ECM coverage (from dropship hot-drop) for, say, 60 seconds (example, don't flame for it being an example)
4) temporary full map radar for 30 seconds (again from dropship) to know enemy movements
5) maybe an orbital drop of some sort that a commander could call in (meta game mechanic idea)
6) the ability to repair ONE damaged mech at a captured point, team would have to communicate somehow, so again this would be a "league game" or meta game type mechanic
7) partial ammo refill after capturing a control point. this would take time to take effect however, and would not be instant, stalling the attackers and allowing the defenders to re-organize. attackers would have the OPTION to reload, it would not be mandatory.


that would be my ROUGH sketch of how to fix the current assault mode. Respawns have to be added in to avoid the games always devolving into TDM, and that is how I would add them into the Assault mode.

Edited by Draxist, 13 February 2013 - 06:51 PM.

[Josef Nader]

I offer Counter Strike as a single-life objective oriented multiplayer game. I like the formula they have here. It makes fights seem desperate and tense, whereas if you allow respawns you'll have people throwing themselves into death just to get a new mech after their big gun falls off.

[Draxist]

Josef Nader, on 13 February 2013 - 06:39 PM, said:

I offer Counter Strike as a single-life objective oriented multiplayer game. I like the formula they have here. It makes fights seem desperate and tense, whereas if you allow respawns you'll have people throwing themselves into death just to get a new mech after their big gun falls off.

so then the issue lies more in the nature of the game/community? because the nature of Counter-Strike is much different than that of MWO in terms of game-speed and strategy. I personally find MWO slower and more methodical whereas CS is much higher twitch and instincts.

my suggestion lies solely on how I have experienced the game thus far. I see people constantly throwing themselves away even from the get-go without respawns included in core game-play. Especially in pug teams. (again, people need to use teamwork and teamspeak)

I do agree it will could encourage people to throw themselves away once they loose their punch, but I feel the strategic value would be lost. players would be out of the game way too early to be worth it, and would have to wait for a point to be capped to jump back in. If I didn't make it clear enough, defenders could only redeploy once in the round. I will edit that.

an addendum to what I suggested could be a penalty for a second deployment, either in score or C-Bill turnout, which would work well when RR is put back in with a meta game. granted the defending team would be at a disadvantage automatically in that regard, however a win bonus could balance it out, especially if salvage was turned into components as well as C-Bills instead of straight C-Bills.

[Caaboose]

It is easy... take out caps in Assault... and make infinite re-spawns in Conquest..

If they want to they can make it so you have infinite re-spawns on Assault and make it a one team attacks and one team defends. then make a no cap TDM mode.

Lets face it no one likes capping in Assault so just take it out. the tournament is going on right now and its the most annoying thing in the world trying to get higher in the ranks and you have five games in a row that they just rush cap..

[Roland]

Assault would be infinitely better and more interesting if only one of the teams had a cap point... You'd actually have folks.. assaulting an objective then.