Winning a standoff

[(TLL) Heretic]

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.

You've got to remember Stalker that this is a total conversion of crysis, play crysis mp for a bit and you'll see how it works, you capture a few objectives, maybe kill a tank and your promoted, so when you next spawn maybe you can afford to buy a tank or a VTOL etc.

As MW:LL is based on the crytek engine it's hardly surprising that they've gone for a crysis-style respawn option.  In fact no respawn in Crysis doesn't instinctively work so it's up for the leagues to do the coding and the maps that no respawn resource leagues would need.

Don't get me wrong, my favourite leagues were BTU and NBT-HC, and I'd love to see them translate into MW:LL but they need to get some code monkeys on it day one of release!  It's unreasonable to expect the Devs to focus on this as an issue when TBH it's a community thing.

[Aidan]

@Sturmadler,

You raise a good point about a pilot dying and then magically fighting again next week. Realism of the simulation can only go so far. In the case of NBT with the current league organization, one of the primary reasons for a no-respawn game play mode is for accurate post battle reporting. Vehicle inventories, pilot performance, battle progression status, etc. are maintained in the NBT battletech universe. Many of the stats gathered after a battle are accomplished by writing a parser to "scrape" the battle and/or server log files. These results are then placed into various league databases.

But these are all league requirements and should be addressed by the leagues with, hopefully, some cooperation and help from the MWLL team.

[CHHš Stormin']

This is funny...I was just having a conversation about this the other day with another MWLL forum lurker.  We were trying to figure out if MWLL had a no-respawn setting.  I thought it didn't, he thought it did.  Looked around and here was what I found (this is a quote from our conversation)...

Regarding Solaris server settings...

With No Respawn matches and also pure Mech vs Mech combat will be available through the Solaris Game Type. This Game Mode is basicly like your typical TD match and you can setup server options to either make a no respawn match and also change the types of vehicles you may wish to fight with - Mech vs Mech / Aero-Space vs Aero-Space / Battlesuit vs Battlesuit ect...

Alot of these Solaris maps will be similar to the size of maps as found in MW4 and MW3. But ToA maps will be alot bigger .

And regarding respawn on ToA...

the no-respawn mission servers (sunder ) were the best! that sort of 'just don't @*&% it up' gameplay really separates the wheat from the chaff, and makes for some seriously tactical matches. i found the respawn servers often felt a bit too much like an arcade game, though i realise this is an open warfare model and not quite the same deal. but no-respawn missions on a huge ToA size map would still kick ass!

It would be VERY cool, the only real problem though is in a public game sort of environment. Alot of guys would be a little annoyed at being killed and then basically sitting dead for however long the rest of the round took, not really a whole lot you can have them do in the mean time. That would be my only concern with that type of gameplay mode, but of course if you put up your own server that would be compeleltly up to you

And...

I can see that No Respawn working pretty well in Solaris, not sure about TOA, I'm not much of a patient waiter personally. I'd rather die and respawn Quake 3 Style. I could understand dying and not coming back in a Solaris match, but with miles of terrain to cover in a TOA I can see some douche just camping, crouched behind a bush in the middle of a forest while everyone waits on him and the other dude to kill each other.

Even with a timer, it'd get tedious.

Feel free to make a server tho.
I bet people would play it

A little confusing, for sure.  The second two sure seem to suggest that there is nothing preventing a ToA map from being used in a NR setting.

I hope there is a NR setting (at least for Solaris, as quoted above), or someone comes up with one...otherwise I'm SOL for my little project. =\  Would someone mind clearing this up?

[Criminal]

Having a no respawn rule is of course feasible.  The reason I am fairly certain we won't do this in the near future because alot of people, especially new players, really find it too unforgiving.

One of the biggest reasons as well is we see that once you die (public servesr) you usually just leave the server and the way our game is designed right now you will die before 1 hour is up!

[Stalker]

If that is the case, could I suggest that you get someone involved who is with one of the planetary leagues to help you out on implementing a no-respawn game type?  They are all going to want it when the time comes, in fact the leauges can't even operate without it so it's in their interest to help you with it if you're willing to let them.

[AoP]

What I said one week ago still applies.
http://www.mechlivinglegends.net/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,36/topic,4350.msg54928/#msg54928

Find someone to build it and we'll help you out with getting it to run once we release MWLL.

[Kagemusha]

Respawn is okay when their are objectives. But Respawn with pure attrition is not nearly as interesting as no-respawn. The tactical level isn't there. I hope that a no-respawn option gets developed.

As for the standoff, I don't feel there's a good way to do this other than if there is an objective. One league I was in (actually I think it was UTS, but I'm not positive) tried to put the pressure on the attacking team to win the match. But that was a bad thing, because then the defensive team could just camp in a superior spot.

[CHHš Stormin']

Respawn is okay when their are objectives. But Respawn with pure attrition is not nearly as interesting as no-respawn. The tactical level isn't there. I hope that a no-respawn option gets developed.

Yeah, that's true, although even with objectives a respawn match can get pretty repetitive.  Seems to me most games that allow respawn (i.e. most online games) usually results in just a mad dash to the primary battle area.  Teamwork is difficult because often the timing is off.  It usually results in one team pulling further back to their respawn area and making the opposing team stretch themselves out.  I remember plenty of games where one team would practically sit on their spawn the whole game, and if you wanted to play you pretty much had to hike the whole damn map to play in their spawn.  Also, we used to time our kills so that we would wait until the respawning player was almost back to the fight before we would pop his critical teammate...I'm sure others did the same.  You can keep a team permanently off-balance and disadvantaged that way.

The other thing that respawn does, which I would think would be of much interest to the devs, is it discourages exploration and full use of the map.  Usually you already know where the fight is going to be, and that is where you have to go.  Sometimes you can try to set a fight up under your own terms at a perfect little spot on the map that you might have found while screwing around with your team, but often if you didn't make your appearance at the expected battle area certain people would start whining about camping.  At least with respawn off, you are more encouraged to move about the map, since proximity to your respawn point is not an issue.  It definitely provides for much more tactical play, which in my opinion is the main thing the Mechwarrior franchise has to offer over other games.  The tactical possibilities of MW is always what kept me interested in the game, and I think it is generally why you can assume that MW attracts a more mature audience.

[CHHš Sturmadler]

These are some very good points Stormin, but I am still hopeful that some of the issues could be resolved in such a way as to make respawn games more tactical.

[Caneghem]

Well I haven't seen too many people suggest the RL solution to "camping", otherwise known as entrenchment.  Mobile Artillery!  Massive ultra long range and not very accurate, but accurate enough to put some hurt on enemies when you know more or less where they like to hang out.  I'm a newb to this site, but I'm wondering if there are plans to put some artillery in there?  I recall some Mechwarrior missions that pretty much amounted to, "defend the artillery".  They never were fired but they sure looked like they had some good range on em.  Yes, the defenders will likely have their own "big guns", but you'd have a good idea where they are hiding and they'd have a significant search radius for your own big gun(s).  Your scouts fly overhead, call in targets, and then you lob the boom on em until they decide that they need to sally forth.  Artillery would still need to be only good for long range shots, though maybe the recon aerotech guys could throw down a laser pointer to help guide weapons home.

Are buildings going to be destructible?  Artillery would tie in great with this, and pounding on the enemy buildings could hurt their resources too...  No combined arms force should ever leave home without the artillery!  If it seems like I'm channelling the Panzer General games... yeah that's pretty much it.  Someone said "combined arms" earlier and now it's stuck in my head.

[CHHš Stormin']

Artillery is great...there has already been discussion of it in other threads.  There are alternatives to it as well, such as TAG assisted LRMs.  But artillery and the such only works if you know where your target is.  If one team chose to entrench themselves near their spawn, for example.

However, that isn't what they are talking about here.  This discussion is specifically about finding a spot on the map to hide, shut down, and run out the map timer as the enemy attempts to locate you.  Often it involves outgunned lighter mechs outrunning opposing slower and heavier mechs.  It's very frustrating to chase down an opponent who can outrun you easily, forcing you to spend the whole game chasing them.  Run away, hide, and if they find you, repeat.

[PukinDog]

If I may excuse myself, (burps)

@ Caneghem

I always love people who read the entire thread before bringing up a repeated question, don't you? 

It appears that you've never played any MW4 game in planetary-capture rules.... we will educate you.

Long range artillery?  OK...and point it where? ^ Like Stormin' pointed out, you'd need to have a target ID'd....then, it'd be quicker and simpler to use Aerospace anyway.

Simply scroll to the first post, and read. 

[Caneghem]

Artillery is great...there has already been discussion of it in other threads.  There are alternatives to it as well, such as TAG assisted LRMs.  But artillery and the such only works if you know where your target is.  If one team chose to entrench themselves near their spawn, for example.

However, that isn't what they are talking about here.  This discussion is specifically about finding a spot on the map to hide, shut down, and run out the map timer as the enemy attempts to locate you.  Often it involves outgunned lighter mechs outrunning opposing slower and heavier mechs.  It's very frustrating to chase down an opponent who can outrun you easily, forcing you to spend the whole game chasing them.  Run away, hide, and if they find you, repeat.

Ah, so we're talking about another game entirely?  From everything I've read about MWLL so far, it will have an arena, which will be close quarters instant action kind of stuff, one death only.  The other game type will be very open maps that will basically have objective areas, where victory is based on territory control.  If the enemy wants to run off and power down far from the objective, who cares?  You won't get bonus cash for killing the cheesy bastards, but I thought victory was going to be based on who controlled capture points (as per the FAQ)?  If victory is indeed event-based, then the old "run out the clock" strategy would not apply.  It would become a problem if you added in a no-respawn mode where every mech must be killed, but then perhaps this is one of the reasons not to go this direction?  Come on, they're giving us access to aerotech now.  Total annihilation of the opposing force is an unrealistic mission objective on a 60km map... unless you develop some kind of sensor-specialized aircraft that could detect powered down enemies via radar (but has little armament itself).  But if you think a mech is good at disappearing, just imagine a tiny vehicle or fighter..

I am new, so go ahead and fire up your flamers for any mistakes I've made here.

BTW, will there be flamers in MWLL?    Those things were really not that good... but maybe against infantry... I'm melting!!!

[Ghiest]

The reason I am fairly certain we won't do this in the near future because alot of people, especially new players, really find it too unforgiving.

But most of the people trying the mod will be seasoned battltech players of some sort, also they will be looking to convert the mod for League play.  I'm quite astounded to see that you haven't even taken it into account even after see'ing there are people still playing MW4 leagues for half a decade you didn't think there was an interest in league play over it?

I can only implore you to re-think the importance for a post beta release of at least server side settings to be implemented for spawn rates and cash allowances at least (which could be both altered for the sake of league play), many many servers for other types of games employ completely different settings for league play compared to the live play of which most are server side (based on configuration files).  My cod4 clan has at least 3 different clan league servers (depending on which league) and 4 public servers offering different types of play.  I think it's a bit of a shoot yourself in the foot of just plainly saying "sorry we don't think it's important".  I think if you put up a poll here and see how many people have played or are playing in a league right now you might see a different number than you were expecting.

I know it's allot of work to just get the beta done but can we have some sort of clarification of sorts as to wether you are even thinking about it, if you are not then really the clans that are building up around the game already might as well just walk away, myself included.

[Defender]

If No Respawn is make or break, you don't actually HAVE to spawn.
When you die, you go into spectator till you click a spawn point.

Want no respawn...don't respawn.  It's not Automatic.