The Clean-up Crew

[Bobby]

So this might come off as a rage post, however, it's not (completely). There really needs to be something done about kill stealing. Since coming into .4, a lot has improved; but, as it stands, I think this is a pretty big deal for vets and new comers alike. Teamwork is everything right? Then why should a person not being a teamplayer be rewarded as such?

For example: just today, I lost 10 kills, back-to-back mind you, on TC Mirage. It's pretty ridiculous running up front, taking all the damage, and dealing all the damage you can just for someone (who was previously staring at the sun 800m back when you left) to run up and think "oooo easy kill" and snatch all your hard work away with their less than satisfactory attempt at teamwork and be rewarded significantly. It's an extremely sorry ploy, and, as such, it deserves an equally fractionated amount of cash and rank . It does nothing but infuriate the person actually attempting to move up, and I believe it hampers proper rank and cash advancement from my experience.

Is there anyway at all to implement some type of "kill-assist" system, where whoever did the most damage gets most of the points at the kill? As it stands now, because of these camper style, vulture-esque tactics, individuals stay far below the rank they should be when they are in-fact actually working significantly harder by comparison.

Thoughts?

[Evgen]

I think that on TC maps all killing bonuses should be removed at all. Just leave them as numbers and make that your rank advances based on dealt damage(narced targets) and captured points.

[xInVicTuSx]

TC SandBlasted?

Anyways, its a tough call, I get kill stolen all the time, just today I was ragin cajun about it, mostly early when I work so hard to get kills in my Osiris Prime only to have some Owens bum come in and finish them.

But unless you really care about the cash bonus (like to upgrade very often) the cash you get is usually more than enough to repair and slowly build up to your next mech.

I've found it much less of a problem than it was in SA myself.

I have barely seen any long range camping in the last two days, the few times i did that team ended up losing.

Kill assist systems have been suggested but the problem with them is figuring out who deserves the lion share of the cash and the problem of bottlenecking the server and client with all the information constantly being sent around to keep up with who gets what.

[Nitro_R]

I think that on TC maps all killing bonuses should be removed at all. Just leave them as numbers and make that your rank advances based on dealt damage(narced targets) and captured points.

I agree, I hate this "Extra Money and rank upon killing blow" type play. 

The fact that you killed an opponent grants you 3 advantages:
1) It removes the enamy from potentially killing YOU
2) It removes tickets from their pool
3) They have to take time to reinforce the postion they were defending/attacking

That should be enough.

[Bobby]

Yea, +1 to that suggestion Evgen, and the same to you Nitro for the break down. But if that were to happen, capture points, narcs, etc., would really need a workover to balance out.

Victus lol, you know what I mean. I think I was in that match with you where we all were taking turns being roflstomped every new round XD. As far as the cash bonus goes, it's not so much that, it's the idea that someone is getting credit for something they haven't worked for. Why should Player A get a Thantos, when Player B did all the work for Player A to get the kill to afford the Thantos? It's just not really fair overall (in my opinion at least). And yea, I can agree with you on that, it's nothing like SA, nevertheless it can become quite prevalent quickly when you're always on the frontlines. In regards to bottlenecking the server, I don't believe it would be that bad. BF2 did it back in '05, so I think the Cryengine can manage .

[dCK-Ad_Hominem]

The problem that causes kill stealing are the atms since they are accurate, fast and deal tremendous damage. I also cursed quite some players the last couple of days for this. Perhabs reward the player who fought the enemy the longest? No idea how implement such a thing though.

[Toth]

To be fair if you did most of the damage, your overall gain is much higher than just what you get with the kill. Kills are the bonus, not the main reward.

[Bobby]

Ad_Hominen: Yea, I can agree that can be one part of it, but even a SPL at the right time can have the same effect: stolen kill. It's mainly the idea of someone getting a trophy for somebody else's race, so to speak. I don't blame you for being mad about it either.. xD

Your idea could be nice; however, it could be exploited. Imagine someone shooting SPL's at fresh green vehicle/mech for a good 5 minutes (exaggerating here), not really doing any damage. But then someone comes to help and gets virtually nothing for the kill even though he pulled his own weight because of all the remaining armor still on the enemy mech. That's why I believe it would be best to base it off of damage primarily, not that a timer wouldn't help make things better though.

Thinking about your suggestion though, that could open up all kinds of options to kill-assist damage, i.e. how far was that person away from you when he stole the kill, how much damage his last shot do, what weapon he was using, so forth, and so on. Though that could be nice in theory, those are the type of things I would think would bottleneck a server more than a "simple" (quoted because it's easy to talk from the sidelines ) damage counter.

Toth: I see where you're coming from. But, again from my experience, it seems as if that bonus gets the thief through the ranks, and cash quicker. It could be a misconception on my part though...

[sgnl05]

The thing is that extra cash/ rank is supposed to reward good behaviour, and honestly killing someone is better than just damaging them, because it causes the enemy team to lose tickets, they lose a potentially valuable asset, and it takes a player out of the game for a while while he respawns. I see where you're coming from, but if a damaged enemy mech is trying to escape and a faster teammate chases him down and finishes him off, that sort of thing should be rewarded because it's a much better outcome for the team than just letting that enemy mech limp off.

It's all context really. In some situations finishing off a damaged enemy (if the person that damaged it can't) is considered extremely good play. A lot of the time people are just shooting at whatever enemy is within range and although it might look like kill stealing to some really it's just a player trying to put out as much damage as possible. I'm sure sometimes people deliberately hang back to avoid damage and swoop in at the last minute to nick other people's kills, but I don't think it's that common. The problem is that there's no way for the game to tell whether something was intentional kill stealing or not.

[Wolfcat9]

I didn't think this kind of complaint would happen so quick. Gawd forbid a teammate helped someone. Terrain control cannot be done by one person. It is by it's very nature a TEAM EFFORT.

 I think there were some discussions in the past about this type of thing months ago and everybody said "no one will worry about kill ratio's" and here it is " wWWHHAaaa someone stole my kill!" <stomp><stomp>  I think I mentioned that I had been shot at by a teammate for helping kill someone.

Amazing effort by the Dev's by the way.

[xInVicTuSx]

I'm surprised its been brought up now when its less relevant than it was in SA. And by bobby no less? I have never really seen him lacking in kills and cash.

[Evgen]

Nothing to be amazed. The TC game mode is more teamplay oriented and it's mechanic should inspire teamwork in public games. IMO removing killing bonuses should help in this.

[Vlaad]

Hi Bobby!
I played with you on the boss server and if I remember you are/were more of aggressive player who is usually in the front line. It is only natural that that happens and is usually frustrating fer me too to get robbed of a reward/kill but it is the part of a game. There will be functional solution in gameplay mechanic only one in your playing style. Don't get me wrong, but being a brawler player in MWLL is the most enjyable part of this mod but at the same time the most ungrateful for player who is doing it and thats a fact. Try to play from time to time as a sniper, that is not to be center of combat. It should help you to "cool off". On the other hand, if finishing blow/alpha comes from the same name/mech... 

I feel that aggressive price/salary revamp here is to blame as it only widened the gap between players both in styles and in skill. It's a simple recipe: kill/killsteal only twice and you can field a heavy and make a mess out of a light opposition and feed the cbills to rest of team.

[Wolfcat9]

I agree with Evgen removing the kill bonuses in TC will stop reinforcing the lone wolf tactic. 

[tigerija]

I personally dont care if anyone kill target I took most damage from or dealt most damage to.
That being said, I also dont watch who dealth most damage to my teammate or to who my teamate dealt most damage, I shoot when I see the chance. But I will never hold me trigger just to get last hit. I always share extra money.
Usually everyone in the team shares their money so... no big problem to me.

Only thing not balanced here I see see is that last hit gives you too much money compared to overall combat/damage-dealt money you get.
Another thing is money sharing, it should be limited, amount per some period of time.