If you've listened to me blather for about 10 minutes you'll know that I like objective based game play (Conquest) (No turret assault). I have some ideas I'd like to test out so that I can work the kinks out before I send them on to PGI. If you guys are willing and it sounds fun we could try them at a practice.
Also if anyone has the technology and or was willing to film these from either a participants prospective or an observers prospective I think that we could shame pgi with videos posted to their forums. It could be a boon to someones youtube channel or a waste of time if no one watches.
Without further ado.....
Convoy New River City....
Team A:
We've received intelligence that Team B plans to intercept an R & D convoy on the final leg of it's journey. Commander we'll need you to escort that convoy from the origination of the red line and get it safely to the drop ship so that we can get it off world. The package is an experimental Atlas Chassis that hasn't been equipped with weapons at this time. Our house leaders can not stress enough that this prototype can not fall into the enemies hands and that our war efforts hing on these prototypes making it to the production facilities off world. Do not fail.
Team B:
We've received advanced intelligence from our spies that an advanced atlas prototype is being shipped off world from a remote development facility. The final leg of this journey will begin at the docks on River CIty and move to the drop-ship. We believe the route they are taking is highlighted on this map. Our leaders have tasked you with capturing or destroying that prototype. We believe we can smuggle your mechs on world in the green drop area but you'll be in charge from there. Do not fail.
Particulars:
Team A Drop Weight 50 tons per team member + 100 for dummy atlas
Team B Drop Weight 50 55 tons per team member.
A volunteer must pilot a dummy atlas preferably brightly colored to give away it's status as the dummy.
The dummy atlas should move no faster than 40 kph at that speed the red line above is about a 5 minute walk.
Rewards:
Team A wins if the Atlas makes it to the dropship alive.
Team B's primarily wins if all enemy mechs are destroyed.
Team B's secondary objective is to destroy the atlas
In practice if I could give out rewards a secondary objective win would be worth 1/2 of a primary objective win, but seeing as we'd be launching this from a lobby it'd be pride.
This is all on the drawing board so if you have other ideas or critiques please let me know.
Alternatives:
If we wanted we could also use alternative routs if the commander of A-team felt that a rout was unsafe he could order the convoy to change paths, but have set paths that stick to main roads. Something like this.
"Forget about the individual brush strokes of ineptitude as they blend into one magnificent mural of incompetence."
Salvage Mode:
Briefing both teams:
Commander a civilian ship leaving the atmosphere has exploded carrying dense alloys used in the creation of mechs. Our scientists have plotted the reentry points and and believe they are dropping into your AO. We are also tracking a hostel unit in the same area so exercise caution while trying to gather these resources.
Mechanics:
Over TS a capture point on the map is called out as the re entry point, your team must move their and secure it. If you do not believe you can secure it you should fall back and position yourself for the next one. A salvage is captured when you have filled the conquest point to full for your team and can be abandoned at that point. After the appropriate spotter has reset that point between 15 and 30 seconds will elapse before the next point is called. A total of 9 points will be called and the team who has capture 5 or more wins.
This will take place on a conquest map. Two non combat spotters one on each team will reset the points back to neutral prior to the next package. Ideally PGI would code this so that 2 of our players didn't need to sit out.
Even weight balance 60 tons per player. Even teams.
Also necessary are two spotter mechs to reset cap points afterwards. (me and possibly someone else who is filming the action.)Victory Conditions:
Capture 5 or more points to secure a win. Each additional salvage would yield more c-bills.
Eliminate the enemy team.
Sample Map:
Commander Mode:
Briefing (same for both teams):
Commander we've received intelligence that a high value target is operating in your AO with up to 11 mechs as escort. Due to the value of this target we're ordering you to track and kill him and if possible wipe out his entire company. Due to the unusually high value of this target it is paramount that he be eliminated at all costs.
Takes Place in Skirmish Mode.
Each Team has a High Value Target. The HVT is identified prior to the match beginning. The enemy is made aware of who the high value target is. The match is considered won when the HVT is eliminated.
Victory Conditions:
When you eliminate the enemy team's HVT you win. If your HVT is eliminated you lose.
one I've thought up today has been a hide and seek type deal probably would work best with smaller groups and fairly asymetrical with some ideas on how to keep it at least a little fair.
Attacker briefing:This is not a drill! 2 enemy scouts have discovered our staging area. It is imperative that they are not allowed to report our position and ruin our element of surprise. They have approximately 5 minutes till they are in radio range of their main base. As your mechs are just getting off the drop ship not all munitions have been loaded (rule note: this means missles and ballistics only have half of the ammo you would normally carry for your load. if pilots mech is a laser boat only half the laser may be used)
scout briefing: You've been spotted after discovering an enemy staging area and a QRF lance has been deployed. survive until you can report the position of the enemy staging area. Only engage if you know you can win. A mech you scrap is one less mech we have to destroy during their assault.
So basicly 1 way to win for the QRF and the scouts have ways to win although ghosting the whole QRF lance will only net you bragging rights. Also I shouldn't have to say it but be sporting scouts and don't hide where no one can touch you.
Power downs are permitted
BAP is permitted
ECM is Permitted
UAV and arty/air strike are not however
I don't really see this playing out in any private match but its what popped into my head when I tried to think of a fun scenario. I also don't know how low the game timer can go but basicly at its quickest game time. maybe second quickest match to give the scouts time to hide and get into whatever initial position they want.
First off I just wanted to say thanks to Hammer for taking the initiative and legwork to come up with this - it was a lot of fun last week and I look forward to more!
Since you asked for feedback I did have one issue I was a bit puzzled on: How exactly do the tonnage limits work? I played both on attacking and Defending and was told both times it was a 55 ton limit. And yet I still saw people stomping around in stuff like Warhawks. It left me a bit confused so we might want to be a bit more clear on that next time. Is it based on a banked system, or is everyone hardcapped at a certain limit (I think this is the best idea)? I think the balance is pretty solid, several of the matches ended right as the atlases were coming up on the dropship - so I think it's at more or less a sweet spot. Also, I really liked the points concept, where it was worth more to capture an atlas than destroy it - I think that can be built on for some sort of tournament.
I had a few ideas I'll pitch around:
King of the Hill
I might need a bit of help with this lore wise, but I was thinking something along the lines of one team had suffered a defeat and was reteating to an extraction point, while the other was hunting them down. The general concept is that this mode would be played on maps with a central landmark that serves as a strong defensive vantage point: HPG's central tower, Caustic's crater, Terra Therma's volcanic center, etc.
The defensive team positions themselves onto that strategic point and must hold it for a certain amount of time (6-7 minutes or so). If the defensive team lasts long enough, they win and get a point. If the Attackers destroy the defenders, they win and get a point. Also, if the defenders happen to wipe out the attackers - they gain not only the point for a time victory, but another for wiping out their attackers; although this is unlikely to happen.
There are a few factors to make this harder on the defenders. Although they initially have an excellent defensive position - they cannot leave it. On Caustic Valley for instance, you may come up to and slightly over the crest of the crater, but you cannot start travelling down it's slope. For HPG, you can come down the top two levels of the tower, but you cannot hit the ground level - you must maintain your position until the time limit for successful extraction. In addition, the attacking team will have a slightly higher tonnage limit, and no restrictions placed on their mechs. The defending team (being that they are the remnants of a shattered force with few supplies) cannot use ECM, UAVs or any sort of Artillery.
While the defense is a bit gimped (barring the superior positioning at the start of the match), the onus is ultimately on the attackers to very wuickly and efficiently wipe out every defender - if even one is left when the time limit passes it counts as a victory for the defense. However, the attackers cannot just carelessly charge the defenders without a plan, since losing their force actually gives the defenders an extra point. I think this could work fairly well with some minor tweaking of the time limit (it might need to be upped to 8 minutes or so).
Guard Duty
*I'd need a bit of help on shaping the lore behind this one*
This is a bit of a twist on Hammer's mode. I envision this objective to be played in maps that are a bit more clustered and large. Viridian Bog is the perfect example but river city, canyon network and some others would work just as well. This mode requires no special positioning and should be very easy to get rolling. Each team has the same tonnage and the only limit is that UAVs cannot be used by anyone. Each team has a VIP that they need to guard from one another. This player is forced to pilot a light mech during the match - and they cannot use ECM, or power down at any point. They do, however, have whatever choice of weaponry they wish to use.
The twist, is that the other team gets to chose your VIP before the match begins. This adds an extra layer of depth in the early planning. Do you chose to gimp one of the enemies better players by putting them in the light mech, or do you chose someone who may be easier to kill? It also adds the delima of if you have your VIP hide in the backlines or help on the offensive, since they can use their weapons as normal.
I did have an interesting point system in mind for this as well. If your team loses it's VIP, you actually lose a point and it goes to the enemy team. Also, whichever team is still alive at the end gains a point as well. This can lead to scenarios where both teams lose their VIPs (thus cancelling the point gain/loss) but one team will still win the final deathmatch, so they gain a total of one point. You can also have situations where one team wipes out not only the enemy VIP but also the entire enemy team. This gains the victors two points and the enemy team loses one point (since they lost their VIP and didn't take out their opponents).
The losing points aspect might not seem like a big deal now, but in a long series of games, the ability to steal opponent's points could be huge. Which leads me to my next and final (for now) idea...
The Long Campaign
Why not test some different objectives modes ( I know hammer mentioned having more ideas and im sure other people do as well) and find the 5 or 6 that seem to work the best? We can then make an extended event out of it, lasting 2-3 weeks. We have two volunteer squad leaders draft their teams, and spend the next few Sundays competing in the objectives with persistant teams and points. It will make decisions like going for the capture of the atlas have more weight and at the end the victors will be determined by a tally of points.
A contest like this wouldn't require much work to get running once we have a good set of objectives to work with and it would be a fun, unique idea (not to mention a nice recruiting tool - I doubt many clans are doing stuff like this!)
I'm gonna chime in on the weight limits. I assume it was a banked system. some went lighter than 55 so some went heavier than 55. I will say I don't think the team i was on was aware of this and we probably shot our selves in the foot on a couple matches with it
Let me start off by saying thank you to HammerSwarm for creating this thread and hope we can do some more of these scenario type game play.
I would like to play some of Sparker's ideas this week if people are up for it, especially Guard Duty and the idea of pionts. 1 point for killing the VIP 1 point for having the last mech standing sounds like fun. I also wouldn't mind trying King of the Hill to see just how good we are at taking a fortified position.
I'd love to play some more objectives this week - Convoy was great and I'd like to try out the Salvage mode hammer has. I also went ahead and tweaked some of the details for the King of the Hill modes and Guard Duty. Balance wise Guard Duty is easy, but King of the Hill might need a few test maches for the tonnage limits and times to be balanced properly. These are the rules in detail.
Defender limits: Tonnage limit of (50 tons)(# of players). eg: 7 players is a limit of 350 tons. This is a "banked" system, so someone can pilot an assault or heavy so long as another player pilots a light to make up for it. Defenders may not use ECM, UAVs or any form of Artillery.
Defenders pick which map they wish to defend on out of the following: Terra Therma (Center Caldera), Caustic Valley (Center Caldera), HPG Manifold (Upper two levels of platform) or HPG Manifold (Under Platform). Defenders have five minutes from the start of match to get in position on the objective until the match starts. Defenders may not leave the objective - any Defensive unit that is caught stepping out of bounds must leave the area and no longer engage the enemy (they are disqualified). We will of course be more lenient on this the first few times we try this mode, as a grace period.
The match continues until one side is completely wiped out. However, if any Defenders are operational after 7 minutes has passed since the game officially starts - the defensive team wins and gets a point. If the Attackers are destroyed before this time, the Defenders get another point.
As an example: If the game lasts 11 minutes (not including the five minute set-up period) and the Defenders finally destroy the Attackers - the Defenders only gain 1 point, for lasting 7 minutes. To gain the bonus point the Defense MUST destroy the Attackers before the time victory has elapsed.
Attacker limits: Tonnage limit of (55 tons)(# of players). eg: 7 players is a limit of 385 tons. Once again this is a "banked" system. Attackers may use ECM, UAVs and Artillery. Attackers have no limit to movement and no out-of-bounds zones beyond normal map limits. The only method Attackers have of gaining points is by destroying All Defenders within 7 minutes.
*The time and tonnage might be tweaked but I think this is a solid starting point for this mode. I'll post maps of out-of-bounds zones for defenders in another post*
Universal rules: Before the match start, each team choses an opposing team member. That player is the VIP and must pilot a light mech of his (the VIP's) choice. The VIP may not use ECM, or Power down during the match. It may, however use any other weapons or loadout as they see fit.
Tonnage limits are the same for each team. (50 tons)(# of players - VIP). It's important to remember that the VIPs mech weight is not counted towards the team's tonnage limit. So 8 players (1 being the VIP) would have 350 tons to work with. This is a "banked" system. No team may use UAVs, and also no team may use Streak SRMs.
This mode is played as a standard Deathmatch on clustered maps such as Viridian Bog or River City. Any team which destroys an enemy VIP earns one point for the VIP destruction, and their enemy loses one point for allowing their VIP to be destroyed. Also, the last team standing gains a point as well.
eg1: Team A destroys Team B's VIP and destroys Team B entirely, winning the Team Deathmatch. They lose their VIP as well in the process. Team A gains 1 point total and Team B is at 0 points.
eg2: Team A destroys Team B's VIP again, and of course wins the Team Deathmatch. They protected their VIP and end up with a total of 2 points while Team B is now at -1 point.
*An alternative ruling on this can be that only the FIRST VIP to die causes a point lose/gain. The Team that wins the Deathmatch gains a point as well, as normal. This would advocate protecting your VIP a bit more, but I personally think the normal method would work best.*
These modes should be all set to go now, I'll try and get some maps up for the King of the Hill mode posted soon. Would still love to hear some more possible ideas from others!
Another mode, kind of like Sparker's king of the hill but without hills.
Gauntlet - Asymmetrical deathmatch mode
One team would have between 6-8 people and a tonnage limit of 600 tons and the other team would have 12 people and unlimited tonnage.
Team A (the smaller team) would be given 1 minute to select and move to a defensive position. Then Team B Lance A would activate moving from the safe spawn area to find and attack the defending forces. When Team B Lance A was eliminated Lance B would activate and attack and so on.
IF Team A has 7 or 8 or 9 people then the people over 6 will sit back as mid round replacements. Teams would wait in designated zones to be called upon.
IF a player from Team A wishes to eject he may do so by declaring in chat that he has ejected and may be executed by his team. This would be done in a case where your mech is heavily damaged and your team has available reinforcements.
Team A Reinforcements: must wait until a between waves zone and may activate when the wave is cleared. Any number of Reinforcements may activate per intermissionThis can be scaled or adapted as details are fine tuned. If round one is a roll we can cap attacker tonnage at 800 and move the bar down 50 at a time until it's right. Or we can increase the defender count to 7 or 8 to start.No UAV, Arty, or Airstrikes. Cool-shot at your pleasure.(This is an exercise in focusing fire, and adapting on the fly. Successful team will win by communicating.)
Example Map:
Good maps for this mode will have unused areas where it can be designated that reinforcements will wait. They should stay out of the way if action gets too close and power down if in LOS to avoid being target able..Briefings:
Team A
Solders, we've detected several mercenary drop-ships inbound on your position. Due to high magnetic activity in your AO it's unlikely that the enemy will be able to operate any drop ships larger than a leopard. However that same interference will prevent us from reinforcing you, in large numbers, for some time. Hold the line, help is on the way.
Commander, our advanced scouts have located an isolated contingent of House Laio loyalists operating in the area around a high value target. We need to capture that area at any cost. Due to magnetic interference we will be limited to using only leopard class drop-ships. Your forces will enter the AO intermittently as a result. Your orders are to capture the area and eliminate all Laiotian resistance. Dismissed.
Over-Complicated Game Mode A:
This is a symmetrical game of assault with additional rules.
Each team is configured using a structure: 1 light; 1-2 assaults, with the remainder heavies or mediums. (Ideally I'd like to play this with seven man teams, a light, an assault, and five flex medeavies.)
Rules:
No one may shoot the lights except for the lights. When a team's light is killed the match is over. A light may equip ecm, and beagle but may not power down. Shooting the other team's light as a non light is a party foul. Lights shooting non lights is also a party foul. Spotting the light is okay, you may relay that information to your team's light.
Assaults are limited to an area with a three grid square diameter around the capture point.
Mediums and heavies may roam freely.
The game ends when your light kills the other team's light, or the base is captured.
All consumables other than cool shot are party fouls.
Sample Map: Alpine Peaks
Briefing:
Mech Warriors, our generals have devised a war game to assess and test your battlefield acumen. This scenario is designed to test your coordination, defensive skills, and scout hunting abilities. Your goals are two fold, your primary goal is to capture your opponent's communications relay truck while defending your own, your secondary goal is to guide your light scout to seek and destroy their scout. To this end assaults will be movement restricted to an area around our communications truck; further no mechs may fire on the opponent's scout except for our scout mech. Disclaimer:
This is loosely based on quidditch from harry potter.
Man after playing fox and hound this week I remembered these, I still think over complicated game mode A sounds fun.