Terrain Control = boring

[RDL_Vitos]

Legging - it bad.  There is no honor in it.

I recall the RDL used to bank religiously (still does actually, League mode is enabled on the RUS servers too, isn't it?) and spam UAC20 Lokis when they were still around?  Is that your idea of honor?  Get real.

Not such we and religious into the bank account. It you had a bank crisis, and at all of us is normal with bank system!
Interest of a match poorly depends on it. For example today there were very intense and interesting fights on our server.



I have nothing against Loki with 2 UAC 20, it too most as now many configs of Fafnirs and some other mega boom boom ! 

[Bill]

I have nothing against Loki with 2 UAC 20

Lol, surprising. That thing was such total cheese.

[Cik]

I have nothing against Loki with 2 UAC 20

Lol, surprising. That thing was such total cheese.

at least it was useful then ;_; the hellbringer needs a price drop to like 70k considering some of them are worse than a shadowcat.

[~SJ~ Blhurr]

I think you guys are going to like what I'm doing to TC_Mirage. I've noticed that too, my fun on TC is extremely dependant on the map. There's a lot of ideas in this thread that I've been putting in, such as tanks only being able to be constructed in the main bases and the majority of capture points having no walls (but there are still a small amount of buildings, so it isn't like there is no cover at all).

There are also a few things with the game mode itself that could use spicing up in some manner - like bases giving bonuses beyond just ticket degredation. Such as you might have a high ticket base in the center, but has no strategic value beyond that, while a low ticket base in the outskirts that can give your team a signifigant bonus in some other aspect other than ticket drain. Something along those lines.

Of course ideally I'd love an assault/siege game mode - those were always my favorite types of multiplayer matches in games  Because you can design the gameplay to be very asymetric but still balanced, and playing on one team versus another is a completely different experience. It's also an inherently more "immersive" game mode to me, and theres plenty of cool ideas that you can put in that would work in an Assault game mode that would be harder to get working in a TC game mode. The thing is though to put in an assault game mode not only would take plenty of work from the game design stand-point, but it would also require a lot of work map side. We already have a ton of maps as is, and about a third/half of the maps just don't work well at all compaired to some newer map designs we've done. So I'm not sure if we'd want to add even more to the pile, or spend a lot of time redoing old maps for new game modes - something that traditionally takes a lot of time or doesn't work very well. Not that you guys would be seeing anything like this anytime soon I suspect if a new assault game mode were ever to be added before the "life" of the mod has run its course, it would be either very late beta or after full 1.0 release.

That's good news.  Im designing my TC map bases without walls for exactly that reason.   

[linkinfrost]

My new map, TC_Flatlands uses an area capture system currently. 6 grids that are all evenly valued. That's the case for this version, but I've been discussing the addition of strategic capture points that yield no points but will make holding and capturing grids much easier.

Some things that I've been toying with adding to the map which would not earn points, but definitely help.
- Towers which act as turret batteries and maybe BA spawn. I may set it up so that you have to 'hack' the tower as BA similar to planetside. Maybe even make the capture point a power station outside of the grid which turns on certain towers.
- Small outputs with spawning limited spawning capabilities outside of the grids.
- Retractable walls on convenient paths, or something similar.

Other ideas?

I like the idea of putting the non-point yielding asset capture points outside of the grids so that players need to decide whether they want to accumulate more points, or improve their teams defenses.

[Deathbane]

Legging is bad. Use UAC20 Loki. thats fine.

 

Laughed hard irl.

[MrAgmoore]

I've been away for a year.

Terrain Control has made Thunder Rift map much more interesting but for the other maps like Sandblasted and especially Marshes... they are kind of "humho". I miss the Armageddon on the battlefield. Now the game is an individual mech or mechs scrapping over repair bays?

I like all of the other game changes such as: air-to-air being viable; air superiority being toned down; the new tanks, mechs and the pricing changes; credit transfers being limited; the BA HUD; the individual solaris arena.

Just for future reference, if there's something about a game mode that you don't like, please post constructively.

It would be great to hear why in particular it's boring and what could be done to enhance the gameplay experience of that particular game mode. Without this information, there's nothing we can do to further improve these game modes. Critical information to its gameplay, whether it's the maps you're playing it on, aspects of the gameplay itself or what have you.

The point is, we take all constructive feedback into consideration, when you give none, then the opinion irrelevant when not backed with qualitative data.

As a chess analogy, relative to Team Solaris Arena (TSA), the capture-recapture repetition in Terrain Control (TC), is like taking the scope of chess and reducing it to repetitive knight manouvres between two fixed points, for both opponents.

I really like Kagoshima which, as far as I know, was designed with TC in mind. I think that the problem stems from trying to squeeze the concept of terrain control into existing maps such as Mirage ( which has too many mini-bases for such a small map ) or Sandblasted ( which is just a simplistic besieging of a cave. The three bases seem too close together, especially when you factor in air support ).

I think that the reason why Thunder rift Terrain Control works well ( and IMHO, better as a TC map than a Solaris Arena map ) is because in the TC map, both sides are trying to push over one another for a specific base on the centre line ( the initial bases tend to stay capped  because they are so close to the home base and once that centre line is pushed the game is essentially over ) . The Solaris Arena version of the new Thunder Rift is a bit of a labyrinth, especially if you go passive radar.

The original MMOFPS named "Planetside" became uninteresting because after you master the mechanics of all of the game assets, the game just consisted of capture-recapture repetitions; perpetual warfare, with no finite end and the only real goal, to eventually save up for your own Battlemech. MWLL does have the ticket-time limit mechanic. ( thankfully ).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlanetSide#Server_mergers

When I think of "Terrain Control" as applied to MWLL, with reference to Mechwarrior 2 ( and limited table top experience ), I basically think of TSA but in terms of multi-planet domination but that scope and vision might be too big for MWLL. I don't know at what point the MWLL devs will consider the MWLL "finished", what the Systems Analysis and Design scope and timeline looks like.

As a side tangent, what happened to the Sanyoshi guy? He used to be MWLL's dev map maker?

[Spooky]

I think that the problem stems from trying to squeeze the concept of terrain control into existing maps such as Mirage ( which has too many mini-bases for such a small map ).

The relative closeness of the bases in TC_Mirage allow for very quicky and dynamic gameplay, while on other maps, getting something done (right) takes a longer time. Lots of good time on TC_Mirage. If it weren't for those visibility bugs . Mirage is being remade from scratch btw. and the new version will only come as a TC map (which can be played in TSA mode as well of course).

I think that the reason why Thunder rift Terrain Control works well ( and IMHO, better as a TC map than a Solaris Arena map ) is because in the TC map, both sides are trying to push over one another for a specific base on the centre line ( the initial bases tend to stay capped  because they are so close to the home base and once that centre line is pushed the game is essentially over ) .

While I like TC_ThunderRift, many consider it one of the worst TC maps, due to its layout. There can be long mind numbing stalemates, since there are even bases and horrible base rapes, when the enemy captures your forward base and manages to secure both flanks with Assault power.

[Ressk [CSF]]

thunder rift is... troubling at times. some of those bases are nigh impossibru to dislodge with only pubber support.

[Humbug]

I much prefer TC over TSA but most of the official TC maps are fundamentally flawed, creating chokepoints filled to the brim with laser turrets and demos leading to less than stellar gameplay.

TC_marshes and Death Valley are my favorites for this reason, and flatlands is a great custom map with areas to cap instead of bases with walls and turrets opening up for more tactical gameplay. I wish more official maps would be made with this kind of gameplay, and maybe even the old ones adjusted a bit to prevent demo wars from happening. Brawling is so much more satisfying when you use the terrain to surprise your target, instead of just sitting in a chokepoint and waiting for the next unlucky fellow to peek around the corner.

[cyofee]

It's pretty ironic how since the patch that fixed TC_Marshes I haven't seen a single server host it, but oh do they host the camper's paradise that is TSA_Marshes.

[Waffnuffly]

It's pretty ironic how since the patch that fixed TC_Marshes I haven't seen a single server host it, but oh do they host the camper's paradise that is TSA_Marshes.

TSA_Marshes was the map that was fixed, actually.

[Bloodycrow]

0.5.4 Changelog:
 - Various small changes and fixes to TC_Thunderrift, TC_Marshes, TC_Kagoshima, TSA_Inferno, TSA_Marshes

[Waffnuffly]

Small changes, sure. But TSA_Marshes was completely unplayable for a lot of people (me included) and the optimizations there were by far the biggest and most noticeable.

I'd say that TSA_Marshes was technically broken while TC was just somewhat unoptimized.

[Bloodycrow]

Now you're just splitting hairs.

I'm pretty sure they both suffered from the same rain particle that was causing the crashes. Either way; they're both "fixed".