Winning a standoff

[Stalker]

If this was the military and we were fighting for our lives then I'd agree.  I'd want every possible advantage to be on my side.

However, it's not.  It's a game and people expect two things from games.  That they are fair and that they are fun.  When only one team can take advantage of this tactic it is automatically not fair.  It is also not fun playing an opponent who refuses to fight for hour after hour.  Most good leagues ban the practice for those reasons, however without an enforcement mechanism to prove a teams real intent the camping unit will claim they wanted to fight but were just in a bad position and you can't expect them to just attack suicidally can you?  So by not being able to prove their intent to hide, they can still get away with it by claiming some other motivation for avoiding battle.

Within a league it is essentially cheating because the camping team knows they aren't supposed to be doing it and they lie about their real intent.  The people who do it don't respect the rules as they exist, they certainly won't respect various other rules that are designed to create a fair and balanced combat situation.  Rules alone are not enough.  Everyone knows they are cheating but unless leagues start punishing teams for simply playing defense it's impossible to seperate out legitimate defense from illegitimate hiding.  So those who want to gain an advantage by cheating the rules hide in amongst those who simply had a good defensive plan and are playing honestly.   

It's similar to shooting through walls when you find a bug in one of them.  While it's technically part of the game it certainly isn't a fair thing to be doing to your opponent when he is not aware of it and can't use it himself.  No one defends that by saying it's just good tactics, everyone knows it's exploitation of a loophole and it's pretty universally frowned on because of that.

[Ghiest]

Crysis allows specs, what I would do is have a admin present for league games.  Spotting something like that would be very, very easy and as soon as you start punishing players for doing it I'm sure the word will spread quite quickly.  It does depend on the type of league though, ladder/free-sched games it's hard because you wont get admins at 'any' time to admin the games but proper league games we always used to have a spec admin to adjudicate when things got sticky between teams, but as I said it's quite time resource heavy for leagues to do that, but it is my ultimate solution to the problem with out altering the game to suit the problem at hand.

[Stahlseele]

Such positions would be in mech size?
Caves?
Hangars?
Buildings?
most of which should be accessable to elementals.
Canyons?
Aerospace Fighters and Jumpjetting Elementals/Mechs will drop on your head.

[(AU 6) Redwolf]

People do expect games to be fair and fun, but that's not an apt representation of real life.  I love the idea of some manner of honor system or some sort of penalty system for hiding out for a certain amount of time once enemy contact is made, but we have to face the fact that, no matter how fair a game is designed, even if you take away the fun, there will always be someone capable of building exploits and using them to their own team's advantage.

So, the answer is, build in the safeguards that need to be built in, correct problems and exploits as they occur in the best possible and timely fashion, and then let people continue to have fun.  There's nothing else to be done.

[CHHš Rampage]

Stalker - Although I understand your frustration and motives for suggesting the solution that you did I am not sure that it would remedy the problem if people want to hide. I could foresee the first 59minutes and 59 seconds of a one hour match with both teams avoiding one another to prevent any weakening of their forces and then once the timer goes off one mad rush for the flag. Although the last few minutes might be interesting and action packed the rest of the game would be so boring it would be a test to see if anyone stayed in game long enough to get to the end. It would also play into the hands of the twitch players.

I, like others, will take a wait and see position towards this game. Hopefully the problems that plagued MW4 and the Leagues established to play that game will not be relevant in this game due to some of the differences between the game mechanics. Aero units have been mentioned as a deterrent to hiding. They will allow rapid scouting of the map and quickly mobile firepower. Some additional deterrents that I can see are TAG equipped BA who can guide LRM that are fired from afar and the size of the core reactor explosions in this game. If a team is going to 'foxhole" to prevent the other team from attacking they may find that one critical strike in close proximity to the rest of the team could cause severe damage to many units.

I am sure there will be issues with people trying to exploit the game mechanics or game formats in MWLL. That IS the game for many people it seems. The Devs and Community will just have to be responsive to these challenges when they arise. Then a suggestion like yours or some variation of it may become the ultimate solution.

[PukinDog]

Well said, Trothkin.  I think the community would be better served, at least, by those with actual experience playing MWLL, instead of us guessing at it.

[Aidan]

@Ghiest,

In the case of a Planetary league, such as NBT, there could be a valid reason for not fighting. NBT and its associated rule set and game modes have been developed over a period of 10 to 12 years. With NBT there is a "game within a game". There is the actual simulation of Battle Mech combat or as long time NBT folks say, "the Drop". Then there is the "back story" or all of the activities associated with the administration, economics, and planetary management of a major Inner Sphere house or Clan. While not fighting can result in a frustrating and boring evening of home entertainment, the longer term strategy could be served well by choosing not to fight. This would be the "live to fight another day" scenario. While Mercs and Pirate units have far less planetary management chores, to a lesser extent still have this "game within a game".

NBT is based on a no-respawn game play mode thus providing for more real world military tactics. For a given battle, once you are dead you are dead! No magical re-spawn occurs. While respawn game play modes are suitable for open public servers, some leagues, and provide for more gaming action, this game play mode does not lend itself to the administration of a given units resources and territory in the NBT Battletech universe.

When NBT evaluates the MW:LL MOD, the members of the league will determine if the game is suitable for the existing NBT rule set. If NBT would like to adopt the game for league play, then either the NBT rule set will need to change or an additional game play mode will need to be coded and integrated into the MW:LL MOD.

So it would behoove the NBT membership to anticipate a little coding work when this MOD is finally released.

[Stalker]

I am frankly stunned with disbelief that the core game mode of a serious mechwarrior simulation, the no-respawn game, isn't included as the default.

[KingLeerUK]

I am frankly stunned with disbelief that the core game mode of a serious mechwarrior simulation, the no-respawn game, isn't included as the default.

Since nothing is final yet and nothing has been released then it is a somewhat dubious position to take that "something has not been included as default".  As has been stated by the DEVs a number of times on these forums (as well as the trailer to each officially released video) nothing is final and not everything pictured may make it into the final release.  Just because it hasn't been seen or discussed yet doesn't mean it hasn't been considered.  There are a finite amount of resources available to the MWLL team and they are probably being used more for core assets at the current time.

In a more general sense, Gametypes for Crysis are user definable provided you have some basic understanding of the SDK and scripting in LUA.  As such, you could create (or commission a DEV team to create) your own custom gamerules as necessary.

[Stahlseele]

Doesn't Vanilla offer the NO RESPAWN Option in and off itself?

[Aidan]

@Stahlseele,

To the best of my knowledge, there is not a no-respawn game play mode in vanilla Crysis or Crysis Wars.

[Stahlseele]

Or Number of Lives or something . . that's standard, how could crytek not include something like that?

[Aidan]

@Stahlseele,

Because Crytek is aiming their games toward the majority of what FPS gamers want to see. They want to sell their game to a wide audience. No-respawn game play mode is primarily for competitive league play.

[Landros Radick]

I am frankly stunned with disbelief that the core game mode of a serious mechwarrior simulation, the no-respawn game, isn't included as the default.

I'm stunned you think it's just that easy.

[CHHš Sturmadler]

Any simulation will always be an abstraction of real combat.  Tell me, in "no respawn" games in MW4, how do you justify a pilot dying and playing another game next week?  You can only take this so far, until we're outside shooting each other for real in real mechs.*  I'm open-minded about the Trial of Annihilation mode.  The Battletech community has always proven creative in making the results of individual battles have strategic consequence.  I'd like to see where it goes.  Also, ToA looks fun 



_{*Yes, it would be cool.  Until someone lost an eye or a lung.}