14 replies to this topic

[CounterlogicMan]

[font=Arial]This post is a reflection of my opinions about the game mode. It is a personal diagnosis of the game mode. I hope my feedback is helpful and any comments or concerns with my prognosis are welcome.[/font]

[font=Arial]Notes:[/font]

[font=Arial]-6 v 6 coupled with the size of the maps makes the game mode too slow and uninteresting. Time and distance between engagements in missile assault is abysmal (edit: this is in my opinion, others such as exeon show the other side of the coin on this point) and tldr: In MA I feel the large and beautiful maps feel empty. [/font]

[font=Arial]- Random spawn points on some of the maps really hurts team play and usually from my experience results in kicking teams while they are down. Refer to edit2, below, on why this is redacted.[/font]

[font=Arial]-The current quick commands to quickly rally or guide your team are completely inadequate for the amount of teamwork and coordination required to do well as a team. It is quite apparent in missile assault that the lack of teamwork oriented features hurts the overall experience.[/font]

[font=Arial]-Not much incentive to stay at captured points besides to act as a slight speed bump for the other team.[/font]

[font=Arial]Suggestion[/font]
[font=Arial]   (edit: [/font]Since increasing player count is a resoundingly unpopular idea, maybe a slight decrease in the respawn timer    on missile assault instead_ Thanks for the feedback on this guys.)

[font=Arial]- Increase the player count to 8 v 8 or 10 v 10. If implemented along with more teamwork oriented features, the state of the game mode will improve to a more full and interesting combat experience. The map will be more populated with combat and opportunity for game play rather than so much time being taken up by boosting and walking between objectives. When there are multiple dead players on either team during a MA game you can really feel the emptiness of maps, especially larger ones like last eco and facility. A 8v8 or 10v10 player count would amp up the action and populate the mostly empty maps we have now.[/font]

[font=Arial](Edit2: thanks to HWK for clearing up how spawning works on MA for me. It is in fact not random and sarchasm explains how it works if you read below. Bases/static spawn points on triangle maps was internally tested and ended up not working out. A focal point as I suggested below ended up in each team controlling one silo each and then all the action ended up at s2, remember early facility days_ I stand corrected on my point about LZs/bases. Again thank you guys for the continued feedback on these suggestions/diagnosis.)[/font]

[font=Arial]- On maps that don't already have bases add a landing zone, forward operation base, or something else (maybe an orbiting battleship that drops mechs and defends the lz), this provides a focal point for your team to rally at. Random spawning on maps like facility and last eco during missile assault games is in my opinion counter intuitive to a team based game mode. Especially one that, in my opinion, calls out from its core for epic team comps/strategies like missile assault. It only serves to hinder team play. This will provide a much needed bedrock of continuity and coordination to maps that don't have bases for missile assault.[/font]

[font=Arial]- This one takes us on a little bit of a tangent about team play features, so forgive me but it is something that is direly important to Hawken’s team game modes. UI features related to team play should be expanded. My post on teamplay features in Hawken.[/font]

[font=Arial]- There should be more incentive to actively defend silos rather than just attacking the next enemy silo. Changing the player count may populate the map to a point were leaving players at silos to defend them might actually be a viable tactic (edit: feedback received on this point makes it a big *eh* probably wouldn't have the effect I describe above). However as it stands there is not much incentive in staying at a silo to defend it, this quickly results in the merry go round tactics on the 3 corner maps and in camp s2 tactics in the straight across maps. Without incentive to not only attack but to defend, the gameplay gets stale repetitive very fast.[/font]

[font=Arial]I hope my feedback is helpful and any comments or concerns with my prognosis are welcome. Thanks for reading if you made it this far. What do you guys think about MA_[/font]

Edited by CounterlogicMan, December 25 2013 - 10:12 AM.

[Cpt_Kill_Jack]

Missile assault and many of the other game modes and maps would be fine with 8v8 16 player games. The biggest issue is server capability. AWS servers were never designed to function as game servers. Somewhere in those servers processing speed is not where it needs to be.

[hendman]

For a while we had 10vs10 servers (the mayhem test servers), and it was not pretty. You think coordinating a 6 person team is difficult, then wait till you are in a 10 person team

Edited by hendman, December 14 2013 - 03:35 PM.

[CounterlogicMan]

The reasoning for 10v10 on my part is more so to increase the amount of combat going on on the maps. The maps I feel are much to large for just 6v6.

[Exeon]

More players is a terrible idea, there are already serious burst issues in the current 6v6 teamsizes. The only map i've ever thought is too large for 6v6 is frontline and honestly I like that its larger, it requires more movement between nodes so teams have the ability to counter them through strategic radar placement which is an item that is phenomenal but there are few maps where they are worth the item slot.

[CounterlogicMan]

Hmm, I see your points about how increased player count could be a bad idea. Technical limitations, weapon balance, and general player tomfoolery. All good and valid points. However, my opinion remains that there is an over abundance of space not being utilized on the maps we currently play on.

Since increasing player count is a resoundingly unpopular idea, maybe a slight decrease in the respawn timer on missile assault_

[*sarchasm]

Spawning on triangular maps is not random, players spawn at silo's their team owns that are not contested. If there is no such silo, then they spawn at the best possible neutral spawn. Bases on triangle maps didn't work internally, it ended up in each team having one silo and really only fighting over one, or if you remember early early Facility...

[CounterlogicMan]

[HWK]sarchasm, on December 23 2013 - 11:16 PM, said:

Spawning on triangular maps is not random, players spawn at silo's their team owns that are not contested. If there is no such silo, then they spawn at the best possible neutral spawn. Bases on triangle maps didn't work internally, it ended up in each team having one silo and really only fighting over one, or if you remember early early Facility...

Thanks for the response and for the information about how spawning works on triangle maps in MA. Players spawning at friendly uncontested silos is some great news to me. I admit I wasn't aware of that before, pretty obvious from my op. I am definitely going to work this info into my strategies on MA.

When taking into account what you said about bases on triangle maps and reminiscing about early facility *shudders*, I can see how bases on triangle maps could do more harm than good to gameplay.

I don't want to be a nag but have you guys ever considered having more than 3 silos on some maps_ if/when that decision was made what were some of the concerns_ For example facility, I could imagine a silo on the roof of Facility near the "hole" or on the "perch/ramp area". Whether that would be good or bad I can't say of course, just an example.

Again thanks for the response, always grateful when you guys take time out of your busy day to read, let alone take the time to respond to our posts.

[*sarchasm]

Yeah, early early Facility was pretty bad. When it was good it was amazing, but when it was bad it was terrible. We knew the triangle layouts had lots of potential, so we didn't want to get rid of them, we just had to make them work. I mean, Origin and Front Line are fun maps, but if every map had its silos in a straight line that would get pretty boring.

Of course. My only complaint with the current system is its limitations. Whether a silo is "contested" is based on the capture volume. I'd like to make contested, at least as far as spawning is concerned, be a volume larger than the capture volume... if that makes sense. Right now, a player can spawn at a silo when an enemy is just a foot beyond the capture radius, not ideal. But, that will come later, right now our engineers are working hard on more important things.

We've played internally with multiple silos. It just really isn't all the great. The point of most FPS is to provide avenues for conflict; adding more silo's really just diverts player goals, diminishes player attention/focus, and makes people avoid each other only more... when usually you want the opposite. Adding only one more silo, a fourth, would present its own problems... stalemates could be very problematic. My concern is that, adding more silos is only going to increase the "ring around the rosey" feeling we'd rather inhibit.

I mean lets be honest, if you're a good team and you want to win at MA all you do is take two points and keep them. But often, teams don't do that because people want to kill or capture all three (ie defense is boring). If you want to win you have to restrain yourself, and that's the nature of MA. Adding more silos isn't going to solve those problems inherent in player mentality.

And no you're not nagging. It comes down to, maybe a 4th silo on top of Facility could be fun but is it ideal_ There is a map not announced yet that has only 1 EU tree on Siege.. and its like 3 feet below the AA. Its pretty awesome.

[CounterlogicMan]

This is some awesome stuff you are sharing with us. Clearing up a lot of my misconceptions about the game mode and map designs.

[Exeon]

[HWK]sarchasm, on December 24 2013 - 03:29 PM, said:

Yeah, early early Facility was pretty bad. When it was good it was amazing, but when it was bad it was terrible. We knew the triangle layouts had lots of potential, so we didn't want to get rid of them, we just had to make them work. I mean, Origin and Front Line are fun maps, but if every map had its silos in a straight line that would get pretty boring.

Of course. My only complaint with the current system is its limitations. Whether a silo is "contested" is based on the capture volume. I'd like to make contested, at least as far as spawning is concerned, be a volume larger than the capture volume... if that makes sense. Right now, a player can spawn at a silo when an enemy is just a foot beyond the capture radius, not ideal. But, that will come later, right now our engineers are working hard on more important things.

We've played internally with multiple silos. It just really isn't all the great. The point of most FPS is to provide avenues for conflict; adding more silo's really just diverts player goals, diminishes player attention/focus, and makes people avoid each other only more... when usually you want the opposite. Adding only one more silo, a fourth, would present its own problems... stalemates could be very problematic. My concern is that, adding more silos is only going to increase the "ring around the rosey" feeling we'd rather inhibit.

I mean lets be honest, if you're a good team and you want to win at MA all you do is take two points and keep them. But often, teams don't do that because people want to kill or capture all three (ie defense is boring). If you want to win you have to restrain yourself, and that's the nature of MA. Adding more silos isn't going to solve those problems inherent in player mentality.

And no you're not nagging. It comes down to, maybe a 4th silo on top of Facility could be fun but is it ideal_ There is a map not announced yet that has only 1 EU tree on Siege.. and its like 3 feet below the AA. Its pretty awesome.

The triangle MA maps have more often lead to the very boring ring around the rosey. Most of scrims on triangle maps have been more of a PUG but rarely can a team stop the roaming death train. With silos so close to each other a snowball effect comes in to play on facility and to a much lesser extent last eco. I can't wait to get organized 6v6 queuing to test out a few strategies to see if the triangle maps are competitively viable. So far I would say they're horrible but I haven't really scrimmed with my team on them so maybe with proper organization defense will shine like it does on other maps.

I really hope to see more devs posting in this section(mech hanger), they were great to read your thoughts and other designs you've tried or are trying, MOAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR.

Edited by Exeon, December 28 2013 - 01:00 AM.

[Rei]

I'm not a fan of making spawn timing shorter. Maybe on frontline, but not any other map to be perfectly honest. It's annoying when you can take one guy out, then his friend comes and you two fight it out for a little, then the guy you killed is already back. It's pretty annoying on the smaller maps imo and I would personally like those longer, but for those with longer base->silo travel times like frontline, I feel a shorter spawn timer would be adequate.

[StubbornPuppet]

MA is my favorite mode.  I really wish more players would join to keep it going - as it too often seems that a MA server lasts no longer than 1 or 2 matches before all but 2 or 3 players leave and the next game won't start.  I've also tried, too many times, to start an MA server... but nobody ever joins and I end up sitting alone for 20 minutes while 1 or 2 random players jump in and then immediately leave.

Onto the topic:  I actually love the triangular setup.   I try to roll clockwise/counterclockwise through the maps in two groups of players.  Group 1 is in front, they go capture a new Silo.  Group 2 stays behind to defend the one we just finished capturing.  Then, as soon as Group 1 caps the next silo, Group 2 moves up to defend it while Group 1 moves on to the next. If you're in Group 1, you use light mechs and try to avoid combat.  Group 2 usually uses B and C class and always works to engage and slow down the enemy.  Just keep it moving like that for the whole match and you'll always own at least two and it keeps the enemy constantly struggling to keep up with you.

I think it's a fun strategy to play... but it doesn't work as well on the maps where the silos are in a straight line.

[ThatDamnedBoedy]

I'd love MA a lot more if it wasn't for the imbalance in this mode of being out numbered even by one guy.  In TDM and siege teamwork can overcome a great deal of this but not in MA as there are multiple objectives and you can only split your attention so many ways.  If MA turned into TDM while teams are imbalanced and silots did no damage nor could they be contested then it would be fine.  But right now if you end up with a 3v2 match at the beginning you are completely screwed.  

Sometimes if a team joins you may end up with a 5v2 and I can't think of a single reason to volunteer to switch teams.  The best case scenario is that it flips from 5v2 to 3v4, but what is more likely is if there is a single forced switch that it will still be 4v3 and you will still get hosed.  In a perfect world and you get a 6v6 match where the team stays consistent and people who joined at the beginning stay...sure it works fine but there is no mechanism for this.  There is nothing to create any sort of in-match balance.

ideally for me at least the silos wouldn't be contestable if team numbers aren't balanced nor would they do damage.  You would still gain XP from the ones that are controlled at the time however...that seems fine to me as it doesn't harm the player experience.

[StubbornPuppet]

Perhaps an adjustment to the code could be made where, in the event of a team numbers imbalance, the speed at which a silo is captured is adjusted so that the short team caps a bit faster.