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Silentstalker

PvE Query

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Hey guys.

Yesterday, we had a bit of a discussion about PvE, even internally. And I was thinking, like, what do you guys make of things? The new map and all. So I made a survey for myself (as in, the output will not be binding for the devs, but would help me confirm some stuff).

So, those of you who play PvE, could you fill this please (if you don't that's fine, but I would like input from players who do)?

https://forms.gle/KJrT5R4ySGcdyzuc7

If you'd share it in the AW communities you're a part of, that would be appreciated. I am looking for as much input as possible. Thanks, guys!

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I'll have to respond to the survey here instead of the form, because some of the multiple choice answers don't really fit my thoughts. Sorry for the inconvenience, but here goes...

 

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What would you prefer to have more of, PvE or Spec Ops? Please read the description below before you answer. *
Standard PvE is a casual, everyday gameplay mode that is not difficult in nature and is intended for solo players. It features simple objectives and focuses on killing AI opponents for more casual experience. SpecOps is a hardcore PvE mode that is intended for skilled solo players (Tier 4-8) or organized groups (Tier 9-10), without which it can get very difficult. It features complex team-based objectives (escort, delivery), new extra mechanics (dodging artillery fire), a story, dialogues and new maps that take considerably more time to produce. Please disregard the current extra Spec Ops rewards and achievements, we can make them for either mode.
  • Spec Ops
Optional: Tell us why you chose what you chose?

I choose standard PvE, but not because it's easier or more fun compared to Spec Ops; I choose PvE because I can't stand the special mechanics and chapter system in Spec Ops.

The special mechanics don't add any sort of challenge or promote teamwork, all it does is add immense annoyance to the overall flow of the game. Helis, drones, airborne targets and environmental "bosses" for example, countering them essentially demands some sort of autocannon or high DPM vehicle which restricts gameplay, and if you don't deal with them you will be at a severe disadvantage or outright fail primary objectives.

Not being able to freely choose which chapter of Spec Ops to play on is a major disincentive to me. Some of the chapters are essentially snorefests where I spend more time waiting out timers than moving and shooting enemies (ie. CC1/2, BSI1, AN1/2), others are simply not fun because of the special mechanics but are necessary to slog through to get to the fun chapters. I like MC3/4, but having to slog through MC1/2 before I can get there means I won't want bother with it. There isn't enough fun in Spec Ops for me to outweigh the frustration.

I also dislike the heavy use of MBT corridor meta in Spec Ops, it leaves very little purpose or viability for squishies to even participate. This is more of a map design issue however.

 

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Do you prefer more content for organized groups, or do you prefer to go solo? *
  • I always play in a platoon and I want more content that's platoon-exclusive (or very difficult for random groups)

None of the above. I almost always play alone, but I want more challenging content for platoons and organized groups. I enjoy playing heroics very much, but I almost never platoon when playing standard PvE.

 

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For PvE, do you insist on new maps, or would you be fine with re-using existing maps if that means there is more content during the same period of time? *
Re-using existing map parts or older assets allows us to produce content quicker and cheaper, but without new special effects and assets.
  • I am fine with re-using older assets as long as it guarantees more new PvE content quicker

I'm fine with reusing maps for different missions. Snake Bite, Umbrella and Albatross for example all use the same map, but they have different mission objectives and utilize different parts of the map. This is a low budget, but actually elegant solution to reduce dev resources. As long as the missions are different enough, the maps will FEEL different and new.

 

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In PvE (mostly Spec Ops), how do you feel about special mechanics (artillery dodging, laser dodging, evading hostile drones)? *
  • I hate it, it does not belong to AW

As I previously said, I hate them. They don't add challenge or promote teamwork, all they do is frustrate me into dealing with them as fast as possible so they no longer have any impact (ie. destroying boats in AD3 to reduce bot spawns), or flat out ignore them by speeding through the missions (ie. arty in BSI4).

 

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In PvE (mostly Spec Ops), how do you feel about objectives that require teamplay (for example, the deliver of Magnus Holter in the final mission of the Arabian Nights Spec Ops arc)? *
  • Terrible idea for random matches because someone always screws this up

I like teamplay objectives very much, provided the objectives are not retarded or prone to intentional griefing. Examples below.

Good objectives:

  • objective deliveries in MC3/4 (with caveats, explained below)
  • multiple simultaneous cap points in BSI2, AD3, SH3
  • anything that require people spreading out and be able to carry their own weight.

Bad objectives:

  • objective deliveries in MC3/4, too easy for one person to grief everyone by holding on to the objective and not delivering them. Particularly rampant in random teams.
  • escorts. It's never about protecting whatever you are supposed to be escorting, it's always about rushing forward and killing everything before the escort gets there.
  • high BP boss targets. Holding down the left mouse button isn't teamplay.

 

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Let's talk about the story of Spec Ops. What do you think of it? *
  • I don't play Spec Ops so I can't tell

I hate to say this because I know SS had a part in writing the narrative, but the story god awful and cringey that I actively try to ignore it. Turning off the narrative dialogues in the audio settings is mandatory for me.

I enjoyed the narrative more when it was only about mercs and corporations jabbing each other, the whole "team Avengers stopping bad guys from destroying the world" cliche never interested me. I want to feel like a cog in the world machinery and working with others, not the soloist destroyer of worlds.

 

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(Optional) If you do know a bit about the lore, which story arc did you enjoy the most in AW?
  • Enigma takes over the world with lasers and starships (late Spec Ops)

The original story with just mercs and corps interested me the most. I haven't read too much into the expanded storyline and Seahawk stuff because it wasn't included in the game, but as long as it's good fanfic I'll probably be fine with it being canon.

 

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(Optional) What about the lore decision to make the world end in a super-volcano explosion and moving the story in the Fallout direction in the next Season?
  • Bad idea, bring the world back to mercenaries and corporations

Do you like the new Star Wars movies? I don't, and the Fallout direction is basically that.

Bring back the mercs and corps, there are so much unexplored potential in the standard PvE narrative that will never play nice with the Fallout direction because of the discontinuity. Heck, let us be the bad guys and fight against ISD forces for a change, players are supposed to be mercenaries working for whoever pays the most after all.

 

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What visual style do you generally DO prefer (skins, missions, environments)? *
  • Sci-fi skins from the future with blinking lights etc. (example: Enigma skins)

Not sure if I want to restrict myself to specific themes, but I'd go with believable appearances because my suspension of disbelief is limited to things that make some degree of sense. I prefer my vehicles to look like something you would see IRL. This means no flashy lights or high visibility elements, you just don't go fight a war in parade paint. You can go sci-fi without the flashy lights, just look at the PL-01.

Mad Max appearances like stuff coming out of the Middle East IRL is fine, just don't add spikes or flamers or stuff that make no practical sense at all.

 

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Anything else you'd like to tell us regarding PvE?
 

Yes, but you won't like to hear it.

  • Separate PvE balancing from PvP. Yes it requires a lot of resources, but that's the price you pay for trying to support two separate game modes. It would be a lot easier if PvP just die.
  • Make secondary objectives affect gameplay in meaningful ways. Right now most of them only give bonus credits and nothing else, make them affect the game more like extend objective timers or reduce the number of bot spawns. Spec ops had the right idea of tying secondary objectives with the special mechanics, now make them more meaningful so that it's in my best interest to NOT ignore them.
  • Reduce the number of bots. It's not even challenging to kill your way to the objectives, it's just annoying to have half a dozen bots being thrown at you every other minute. It's like having a car race but also having traffic lights in your way that you have to obey.
  • Increase the challenge of objectives. This ties with reducing the number of bots, make it so that the challenge is in completing objectives and not just mindlessly killing everything.
  • Stop promoting the MBT meta. There's no point in playing squishies if MBTs can do everything better and faster.
  • Scale the rewards better with performance. Make it so the rewards match the effort required to earn them, good players should earn more and bad players should earn less. AKA revert back to before the economy change in early 2019.
  • Upvote 1

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2 hours ago, Haswell said:

Yes, but you won't like to hear it.

  • Separate PvE balancing from PvP. Yes it requires a lot of resources, but that's the price you pay for trying to support two separate game modes. It would be a lot easier if PvP just die.
  • Make secondary objectives affect gameplay in meaningful ways. Right now most of them only give bonus credits and nothing else, make them affect the game more like extend objective timers or reduce the number of bot spawns. Spec ops had the right idea of tying secondary objectives with the special mechanics, now make them more meaningful so that it's in my best interest to NOT ignore them.
  • Reduce the number of bots. It's not even challenging to kill your way to the objectives, it's just annoying to have half a dozen bots being thrown at you every other minute. It's like having a car race but also having traffic lights in your way that you have to obey.
  • Increase the challenge of objectives. This ties with reducing the number of bots, make it so that the challenge is in completing objectives and not just mindlessly killing everything.
  • Stop promoting the MBT meta. There's no point in playing squishies if MBTs can do everything better and faster.
  • Scale the rewards better with performance. Make it so the rewards match the effort required to earn them, good players should earn more and bad players should earn less. AKA revert back to before the economy change in early 2019.

I like a target rich environment. What they need to do is reduce the godlike accuracy of the bots. The normal bots need to stop targeting weak spots. There needs to be an increase in the MBT meta. If you gear the game for the solo player with a few rando teammates you can only use MBT. If you want to use the squishy vehicles you will need to work as a team with an MBT. That is how it is IRL. The squishies are too powerful as is and need to be nerfed heavily.  No matter how skilled you are you should not be able to clear the hardest level map that is intended for 4 players and beat it with only 2 squishy IFVs.

 

I hate the drones and arty in the story missions. I have stopped playing them all together after the non-avoidable arty spam from the "Death star" in the last mission in the volcano.

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I provided my additional feedback in the "anything else you'd like to tell us" box.  I hope I was clear enough in there that you understand what I was referring to with each point.

A couple of things are worth repeating/adding, though.

Balance in PvE does matter, and right now it's pretty bad.  I get that PvP is more sensitive to balance issues, but according to your own numbers PvP is like 7% of the games played.  It seems like you're spending far too many resources trying to appease a dying player base, and in doing so you're losing members of your dominant player base to the imbalances you're creating.

I think it should be possible to complete PvE missions without having an MBT on your team, but it should be challenging.  It should be possible for a dedicated spotter AFV to spot for a team without firing, and do reasonably well.  Right now, though, that's not possible for a couple of reasons: 1) the maps are far too small and tight for a dedicated spotter to be able to function correctly, 2) even on those few maps when a dedicated spotter could work, view ranges are so close that someone else always ends up stealing the spotting damage from the spotter so the spotter gets no (or greatly reduced) rewards, 3) MBTs are able to play so aggressively that there's no need for a spotter in missions that have a reasonably good player in an MBT, and 4) spotting alone doesn't earn sufficient credit to get you a decent ranking in the after action report (AAR).

I don't think MBTs should be able to spot for the team.  That said, they should have a special ability that allows them to return fire against a vehicle that has fired at it. That way they're not sitting ducks, but they also can't steal the job of the spotters.  I'd also like to see MBTs get credit for taking/bouncing damage, as that's kind of their role on the team.  They'd get that instead of credit for spotting damage - get up front, attract enemy fire, and let your fire support teammates do their jobs.

Some of the game mechanics are broken, or partially broken.  For example, drones/helis/gunships/bunkers/etc count as misses when you shoot them, and the damage you do to them doesn't (uniformly?) count in your damage total.  That's stupid, because you have to shoot them to succeed.  Doing something that's required in order to successfully complete a mission should never be bad for your stats!  That just encourages people to not do those things, and that's bad for a team-based game mode.

Primaries and Secondaries should provide some small reward to the player who completes them, not just a generic boost to the entire team, and that small reward should vary based on your vehicle type.  Capturing objectives (as Primaries) should reward the vehicles that sit there to do the capture.  Right now it's more rewarding to rush off and find more enemies to kill than it is to capture points, so greedy players ignore the primary objectives.  On the flip side, MBTs should not be wandering around completing secondaries - they need to be up front engaging the enemy - so any reward they receive for secondaries should be minimal.  However it makes perfect sense for LTs and AFVs to complete secondaries, so they should get a nice little bonus for doing so.

All of that is a long way of saying that goals and rewards should make sense.  Right now they really don't because they're too generic.

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i like this kind of surveys tbh. its always good to ask the playerbase about their point of view, i hope we will get more of them in the future

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1 hour ago, knutliott said:

Primaries and Secondaries should provide some small reward to the player who completes them, not just a generic boost to the entire team, and that small reward should vary based on your vehicle type.  Capturing objectives (as Primaries) should reward the vehicles that sit there to do the capture.  Right now it's more rewarding to rush off and find more enemies to kill than it is to capture points, so greedy players ignore the primary objectives.  On the flip side, MBTs should not be wandering around completing secondaries - they need to be up front engaging the enemy - so any reward they receive for secondaries should be minimal.  However it makes perfect sense for LTs and AFVs to complete secondaries, so they should get a nice little bonus for doing so.

You should not have rewards based on vehicle type.  You also forget the team size difference. The players only have 5 tanks vs 10+ at any particular time, and the AI spawns based on mission progress. If you are working as a team you would need to have an MBT to go solo or with wingman to do a flanking run to help push to the cap point or taking the secondaries. That would have the MBT actually cap the point or get the secondaries. I mainly play MBT's and a lot of the time I am the only one completing the secondaries. Most people don't care about getting the secondaries. Most people are looking to get the most kills and not just for the rewards. The only point to most matches is to get the top kills, and or not die.

If you want to incentivize certain game play and team mix, you need more than just 5 players and have a dedicated server/game system. The random match making does not work for this. You could do this for a platoon that joins up and have a couple of different platoon size missions. In random PVE you cannot do that.

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12 minutes ago, JintoLin said:

You should not have rewards based on vehicle type.  You also forget the team size difference. The players only have 5 tanks vs 10+ at any particular time, and the AI spawns based on mission progress. If you are working as a team you would need to have an MBT to go solo or with wingman to do a flanking run to help push to the cap point or taking the secondaries. That would have the MBT actually cap the point or get the secondaries. I mainly play MBT's and a lot of the time I am the only one completing the secondaries. Most people don't care about getting the secondaries. Most people are looking to get the most kills and not just for the rewards. The only point to most matches is to get the top kills, and or not die.

If you want to incentivize certain game play and team mix, you need more than just 5 players and have a dedicated server/game system. The random match making does not work for this. You could do this for a platoon that joins up and have a couple of different platoon size missions. In random PVE you cannot do that.

The reason that players don't care about secondaries is that there's no reward for getting them.  Everyone benefits equally if anyone completes the secondary, so you're better off killing bots while someone else spends time getting the secondary (or capping a capture point) than you are doing it yourself.

That's why there needs to be an incentive - so that people will want to complete the objectives rather than just kill bots.  And if there's an incentive for people to complete objectives, then it should vary based on the type of vehicle that should be completing that objective.  MBTs are needed to complete the primary objectives, and should be rewarded for doing so.  But if they're wandering around getting secondaries they're not doing their real job, and so they shouldn't be rewarded (as much) for doing it as someone who should have been doing it.

The whole system needs to be rebalanced and retuned, and this suggestion is just one part of that needed retuning.

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I support the idea of separate  PvE balance (at least separated dpm), but i think that the main manifistation of imbalance in pve exists not because mbt are universal class, but what are goals given by devs to player and how it  can be best archived. The most rewarding goal is getting most of damage and kills, and it can be best archived it with vehicles like York, Murder or T-15, so the obvious question arises if these mbt are needed for more than meatshields. 

Another bad thing happenened in last year with PvE was the way of self-preservation (read - careful and vigilant gameplay) was replaced with dumb down max aggressive push forward, because

  • players have 3 lifes
  • it is possible to restore health 3 times with most advanced kit
  • it is possible to play dumb and rely on mechanics of Ophelia white shield

We used to manage 200% HP over PvE mission. Now it is 600%. Does average mission time increased 3 times? Does amount of total bot HP increased 3 times? No and No. But we got average DPM of MBT increased by 1.5-2 times. 

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Some of the game mechanics are broken, or partially broken.  For example, drones/helis/gunships/bunkers/etc count as misses when you shoot them, and the damage you do to them doesn't (uniformly?) count in your damage total.  That's stupid, because you have to shoot them to succeed.  Doing something that's required in order to successfully complete a mission should never be bad for your stats!  That just encourages people to not do those things, and that's bad for a team-based game mode.

I can see where you're coming from, but I can understand why the devs made this decision. Think of the gunship in BSI3, with it's 100k (ish?) HP. If you're in any vehicle that doesn't have an autocannon (MBT, LT, gun TD, etc...), you will struggle to shoot it down in anything resembling a reasonable amount of time. However, if you DO have an autocannon, you can just right click on it and hold down LMB to farm damage on it until your team pumps enough lead into it. If the damage dealt to the gunship counted towards the players' results, you would never hear the end of the complaints from the MBT, LT, and TD players that only managed to do 10-15k damage while the AFV (or termi, or T-15) on their team farmed 40k damage for virtually no additional effort. This is one of the more extreme cases though.

A slightly less extreme case would be the bunkers. These babies only have 2-3k health, and can be taken out by most vehicles in a semi-reasonable amount of time. Extreme autocannon DPM is still an issue here, but it is less extreme than with the gunship (seriously, aircraft are nowhere near as durable as that thing). The kicker with this one is that the very concept of what the target is (it's a block of concrete that is supposed to resist incoming fire) should actually solve this issue. Giving the bunkers a non-zero armour value (armour angling can potentially be ignored here) of ~300mm (this might need to be made tier dependent) should prevent them from getting shredded by autocannons and instead force players to use larger ammunition (large caliber guns, ATGMs, anti-tank or mortar squads, etc...) to deal with them. This should have the effect of making the ttk for bunkers more even between different classes of vehicles and could serve as the starting point for making damage to bunkers (or other such armoured [non tank] enemies) count towards the player's damage total.

Edit: another option would be to give [non tank] enemies a scaling weakness/resistance to smaller/larger ammunition (e.g. shots above a certain caliber deal double damage, shots below a certain caliber deal half damage, etc...).

Quote

Primaries and Secondaries should provide some small reward to the player who completes them, not just a generic boost to the entire team, and that small reward should vary based on your vehicle type.  Capturing objectives (as Primaries) should reward the vehicles that sit there to do the capture.  Right now it's more rewarding to rush off and find more enemies to kill than it is to capture points, so greedy players ignore the primary objectives.  On the flip side, MBTs should not be wandering around completing secondaries - they need to be up front engaging the enemy - so any reward they receive for secondaries should be minimal.  However it makes perfect sense for LTs and AFVs to complete secondaries, so they should get a nice little bonus for doing so.

You don't necessarily need to give individual bonuses for completing primary or secondary objectives, but a reward system that encourages players to use their vehicle to its strengths discourages playing it in a way that the strengths don't matter would be a good thing. I'd suggest that each stat or checkbox that is used to calculate XP and credits earned should have a modifier based on the class of vehicle (or in some cases the specific vehicle cough Terminator cough T-15 cough) that the player is using:

  • Completing primary objectives (small bonus for MBTs as this usually requires capturing or defending certain locations)
  • Completing secondary objectives (medium-to-large bonus for AFVs and LTs)
  • Dealing damage at close range (small-to-medium bonus for MBTs)
  • Dealing damage at long range (small-to-medium bonus for TDs)
  • etc...

There is also the possibility of certain classes of vehicles (or individual vehicles) having substandard modifiers as a way to discourage players from performing certain actions. The player would still earn some XP and credits for doing these things, but it would not be efficient to earn rewards. This seems more like a way to give players a gentle nudge in the direction of the way the game is intended to be played (yes, I'm looking at you MBT sniping from the back and not moving the entire game) rather than a way to properly balance rewards (which should probably be balanced based on how a player of at least average competence would be expected to perform if they play their vehicle as intended by the devs).

With this in mind, some metrics should only have very small bonuses because there is mostly only a single class that can reliably perform that action (e.g. deflecting incoming fire in a MBT, designating targets in an AFV, etc...) or the action is extremely easy to farm (e.g. deflecting incoming fire in a MBT), however that's not to say hat such actions would need to give minimal rewards. Using deflecting incoming fire as an example, deflecting autocannon fire is trivial in a MBT but significantly more difficult for other classes of vehicle, while deflecting large-caliber rounds in a MBT takes a bit more knowledge and effort (but is still comparatively easy) but is quite rare to see in a vehicle of another class. As such I would argue that in a hypothetical PvE economy rebalance, the reward modifier for deflecting large-caliber (>80mm) rounds should be the same for all vehicle classes, the modifier for deflecting small-caliber (>80mm) rounds for AFVs, LTs, and TDs (and SPGs, not that they can actually mange this with any real success) should be the same as the modifier for large-caliber rounds, and the modifier for deflecting small-caliber rounds in a MBT or heavy TD (termi, T-15, etc...) should be significantly smaller than the large-caliber modifier.

Edited by MK_Regular (see edit history)

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14 minutes ago, MK_Regular said:

As such I would argue that in a hypothetical PvE economy rebalance, the reward modifier for deflecting large-caliber (>80mm) rounds should be the same for all vehicle classes, the modifier for deflecting small-caliber (>80mm) rounds for AFVs, LTs, and TDs (and SPGs, not that they can actually mange this with any real success) should be the same as the modifier for large-caliber rounds, and the modifier for deflecting small-caliber rounds in a MBT or heavy TD (termi, T-15, etc...) should be significantly smaller than the large-caliber modifier.

I can see that.  I guess there's no need to make it an MBT-specific bonus since the other classes probably won't be able to get the bonus often if at all.

The real point, though, is to reward MBTs for doing their job.  If you've ever played an MMORPG, "tanking" is a role in a raid where your entire job is to keep the attention of the monsters that you're fighting.  If the monsters are attacking you, they're not attacking your teammates who are squishy and can't handle being attacked by a raid boss.  The situation is similar in AW - the MBTs can handle being shot at by the bots, and so should be rewarded for attracting their attention.  That gives the other vehicles a clear opportunity to do their jobs, which in the end results in a victory for the team.

To that end, I would argue that an MBT shouldn't be given a lesser bonus for tanking AC fire, because that's exactly what you want the MBT to do.  That AC could rip apart the non-MBTs on the team, so it is very much to the team's advantage to have that bot T-15 (or whatever) firing at the MBT instead of the M48 GAU-8.  Remember that as I've proposed this, MBTs would no longer be getting spotting damage so it's actually okay for their "tanking" bonus to be fairly significant. 

But yeah, all of this would have to be tuned to encourage vehicles to be played to their strengths.  The trick is to define roles and then provide bonuses for fulfilling those roles.  You aren't required to play to the defined roles, but you'll score better if you do.

Just to toss out some other ideas, you could also give a bonus to damage dealers for doing damage to a bot that's targeting an MBT.  That's not explicitly a TD's job, but it's pretty analogous.  TDs should be doing fire support damage to kill the bots that the MBTs are tanking.  If they do too much damage and attract the bot's attention then their bonus goes away, which would be appropriate because the TD shouldn't be taking fire if at all possible.

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19 hours ago, JintoLin said:

There needs to be an increase in the MBT meta. If you gear the game for the solo player with a few rando teammates you can only use MBT. If you want to use the squishy vehicles you will need to work as a team with an MBT. That is how it is IRL. The squishies are too powerful as is and need to be nerfed heavily.

First off, AW is an arcade game and IRL arguments for game mechanics rarely apply. So let's just ignore that completely.

There are plenty of PvE maps that are currently easily soloable with squishy vehicles, provided you exercise good vision control and avoid taking unnecessary damage. Snake Bite, Umbrella, Stormy Winter, Phalanx, Meltdown, Quarterback, Perseus, Leviathan, these are just a few that came to mind as I'm writing this. This isn't due to squishy vehicles being too powerful as you can also easily solo them with MBTs; this is due to GOOD map design that allow both squishies and non-squishies to fully realize their potentials. As a general rule of thumb, squishies benefit from wide open maps that allow vision control via distance and maneuvering.

This isn't to say non-squishies are at a disadvantage on open maps. On the contrary, they excel equally well on both open and corridor maps by having high enough survivability to brute-force their way through almost everything. Their inherent lack of vision control capabilities become irrelevant when they can simply push up and spot targets without a care in the world. Non-squishies in fact have far more versatility over squishies as they are significantly less constrained by map design, where squishies become far less useful in situations where vision control and mobility are not required or not viable.

Squishy vehicles do not require buffs or nerfs for balancing, their playability and power potential are largely dictated by map design and not vehicle stats. You can give the Sphinx 700m view range and 50% base camo and 20k DPM, it still wouldn't make any difference or make them more viable in corridor maps because its vision control advantage becomes largely irrelevant due to the close distances.

19 hours ago, JintoLin said:

No matter how skilled you are you should not be able to clear the hardest level map that is intended for 4 players and beat it with only 2 squishy IFVs.

Is it any better if a supposed 5 player map is able to be beaten by with only two non-squishies? The vehicle class isn't relevant here, it's the inherent lack of difficulty that makes short-manned feats viable. Yes, the 2 man heroic run primarily used T-15s, but T-15 is an entire class of its own and OP compared to everything else. It also wasn't a squishy.

 

16 hours ago, JintoLin said:

Most people don't care about getting the secondaries. Most people are looking to get the most kills and not just for the rewards.

As I said previously, there are no incentives to complete secondary objectives. I for one ignore them because it's not worth my time or effort, unless they have actual impact on gameplay. For example, destroying the boats on AD3 (tier 9-10) significantly reduces the number of bot spawns and turns the mission from challenging to cakewalk.

 

14 hours ago, dfnce said:

Another bad thing happenened in last year with PvE was the way of self-preservation (read - careful and vigilant gameplay) was replaced with dumb down max aggressive push forward, because

This is something I noticed as well. There is no longer a need to conserve myself to last until the end of the mission, very few situations where I have to choose my engagements to avoid taking unnecessary damage. In fact, conservative play actually punishes me as it would take me longer to end engagments and complete objectives. It's no longer about staying alive as long as I can, it's all about how much can I get done before I have to respawn for more ammo.


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12 hours ago, knutliott said:

The real point, though, is to reward MBTs for doing their job.  If you've ever played an MMORPG, "tanking" is a role in a raid where your entire job is to keep the attention of the monsters that you're fighting.  If the monsters are attacking you, they're not attacking your teammates who are squishy and can't handle being attacked by a raid boss.  The situation is similar in AW - the MBTs can handle being shot at by the bots, and so should be rewarded for attracting their attention.  That gives the other vehicles a clear opportunity to do their jobs, which in the end results in a victory for the team.

The job of an MBT is not just to soak up damage. The armor exist to allow the tank to get it's big ass gun in position to kill the enemy period. Evey other vehicle type is in support of the MBT, save maybe the LT. The LT only exists because you can't always get an MBT in location due to the weight of armor. So they stripped the armor off to try an get the MBT gun in position. The AFV's exists to get troops in position to capture things. The firepower on AFV's exist only to cover the troops, not engage enemy armor. The AFV's have limited ATGM ammunition, maybe only one reload.  Because AW is a game about killing hostile armor, if the balance is correct, the only class worth it's salt should be the MBT class.

Another thing AW messed up is ATGM's. Those weapons exist to allow non MBT's to engage MBTs but at long range. Given that AW has forces engagement ranges to under 300m ATGMs should be worthless, many don't arm the warhead until after the missile has traveled at least 150m.  

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13 minutes ago, Haswell said:

First off, AW is an arcade game and IRL arguments for game mechanics rarely apply. So let's just ignore that completely.

Then why even bother with using real life vehicles in the game at all. If that was the case they should just make all the tanks be fantasy tanks so you can make the balance meta what ever they want. Given that AW is using real vehicles in the game they have to use IRL capabilities as a basis for the in game stats meta.

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19 minutes ago, JintoLin said:

Then why even bother with using real life vehicles in the game at all. If that was the case they should just make all the tanks be fantasy tanks so you can make the balance meta what ever they want. Given that AW is using real vehicles in the game they have to use IRL capabilities as a basis for the in game stats meta.

Armor thickness, damage, hitpoints, penetration, view range, camo, all these stats are arbitrary gameplay values that bear little to no resemblance to real life. You also most certainly won't see vehicle-on-vehicle engagements at 300m and closer in real life, nor will you see a team of 5 vehicles mowing through several dozen enemy vehicles within 10 minutes.

I will also raise you the XM1A3 and 99A2, which are entirely fictional vehicles with corresponding fictional capabilities. Also physics-defying airships and flying drones.


Spoiler

 

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I voted for PVE, because we haven't had new PVE maps for quite some time and they tend to have higher replayability. IIRC the last ones were reworked versions of existing maps in 2018, such as Harbinger, Starry Night, Stormy Winter, and Ghost Hunter.

https://imgur.com/92p9dEQ92p9dEQ.jpg

Old Harbinger map. More screenshots here (originally shared by Silentstalker on official Discord server)

That said, the recent reworked PVE maps now tend to look too similar to their PVP counterparts. I wish to see more modifications and visual varieties as with the early versions of the said maps, like how Stormy Winter was a snowy town and not just the same old refinery, while Harbinger had an overhead bridge that you need to pass under before you reach the town centre (not that it was a popular map back then due to enemy spawn locations, but it sure looked very different when compared to its latest iteration).

The idea of spec ops isn't bad, because it, while having some critical flaws, does offer some new story elements and atmosphere as well as different gameplay / mission flow from time to time, but I won't tend to replay campaign missions that often, and some players may get bored of playing the same missions repeatedly while waiting for the next chapter to come. Queue time can also get longer as a result.

Adding gameplay elements that require or promote teamwork sounds good on paper, but given the experience with random players nowadays, this is usually not a good idea to have for a game like AW. Ultimately the game is more or less about looking for enemies and wiping them off the map, and this is what a lot of players tend to care more than other gameplay elements (damage assist, capturing etc). Labyrinth kinda falls under this issue too because while players have to capture all 14 points to win, it's people who deal damage get the most rewards. Adding elements that require team coordination risks failure due to players not focusing on objective or even griefing. Moscow Calling's delivery objectives are particularly notorious for this. Sure, one can always argue that players should platoon up for the best outcome, but this tends to get a lot of resistance for all sorts of reasons.

Dodging map-based enemy fire in Spec Ops is a pain, and I don't enjoy it. It's worse when I thought I am way clear of the danger zone or targeting laser, only to be hit by enemy fire anyway. Moreover, some stages have a high number of fast moving helicopters and gunships that a team should take down in order to progress the mission, and this can be very problematic when a team consists of random players doesn't have the appropriate vehicles to counter such threats (e.g. helicopters in Moscow Calling chapter 2, gunships in American Dream), and possibly causing players to feel they are forced to bring said vehicles in order to complete the missions ("I can't trust other players bringing an AA or using one for intended purpose so I must bring one myself"). I sometimes hypothesise a gameplay mode featuring problem solving scenarios with randomised factors that can replace Heroics mode for battalion or specific teamplay.

What Spec Ops has done right sometimes are the secondary objectives - by completing side objectives that has an impact on mission flow or helping the team overall (activate UAV, calling for friendly support fire/airstrike) gives a better incentive than just destroying or capping random places on the maps (even backtracking) for some bonus credits while others hoard all the damage and assists. I do hope this can applied on existing PVE maps as well.

18 hours ago, dfnce said:

Another bad thing happenened in last year with PvE was the way of self-preservation (read - careful and vigilant gameplay) was replaced with dumb down max aggressive push forward

While the extra lives help increase the chance of a mission success, as Haswell has replied this now promotes a different kind of gameplay. Rushing into certain places to trigger mass spawns, take some damage, back off and heal while continuing to spot and deal damage at the same time. This leads to some players arguing that HP is a resource that you should spend and trade with aggression for better reward.


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2 hours ago, Haswell said:

Armor thickness, damage, hitpoints, penetration, view range, camo, all these stats are arbitrary gameplay values that bear little to no resemblance to real life. You also most certainly won't see vehicle-on-vehicle engagements at 300m and closer in real life, nor will you see a team of 5 vehicles mowing through several dozen enemy vehicles within 10 minutes.

I will also raise you the XM1A3 and 99A2, which are entirely fictional vehicles with corresponding fictional capabilities. Also physics-defying airships and flying drones.

I said basis for their in game meta. As far as the fictional vehicles as the XM1A3, that is concept version of a current vehicle, fits with the future setting of the game along with the airships. Given that the proto tanks are intended to be improvements on current tanks IRL, you can extrapolate stats based on the current tanks' in game meta stats. My biggest issues is that the AFV's are the kill and damage kings which they should not be. If we are using real life as a guide, then artillery should be the damage and kill kings. However arty would need spotters. More people would line up to play arty than the spotters. We all want to be the ones to make the kill, this is evident in current player actions.

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On 11/13/2020 at 12:36 PM, JintoLin said:

There needs to be an increase in the MBT meta.

I regularly end up being at the top of my team for base XP at least 2 of the other stats that are shown in the post-battle results of PvE matches (damage, kills, assists, assist damage and targets spotted) in a bottom tier MBT. While I would like to consider myself to be a good player, I'm not that good. The MBT meta is alive and well.

3 hours ago, JintoLin said:

My biggest issues is that the AFV's are the kill and damage kings which they should not be.

The most you could say is that AFVs perform better than MBTs when there is a big enough skill difference (e.g. unicum AFV player vs an average-ish MBT player, average-ish AFV player vs a potato MBT player, etc...) and the map allows the AFV player to make use of their higher level of skill. The fact that you need 2 qualifying statement before you can truthfully say that "AFVs perform better than MBTs" indicates that the situation is nowhere near as clear-cut as you say it is. 

If anything the Terminator-like vehicles are the true "kill and damage kings" because they have levels of firepower similar to an AFV, but their armour reduces the amount of skill required and eliminates the need for favourable map conditions to use them effectively.

Quote

If we are using real life as a guide, then artillery should be the damage and kill kings. However arty would need spotters. More people would line up to play arty than the spotters. We all want to be the ones to make the kill, this is evident in current player actions.

And this is why we don't always use real life as a guide. An SPG meta would be an extreme change from the current state of the game and would be widely disliked by the playerbase (think the old SPGs in WoT, except less RNG dependent and just as capable of ruining your day). In addition, this would be counter-productive to the MBT meta you seem to want for "realism" since a "realistic" SPG would roflstomp any MBT (which would mean that MBTs aren't actually meta).

The whole "X class is meta because realism" argument seems to be self-defeating at best and a terrible idea at worst.

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On 11/13/2020 at 4:01 PM, Haswell said:

I hate to say this because I know SS had a part in writing the narrative, but the story god awful and cringey that I actively try to ignore it. Turning off the narrative dialogues in the audio settings is mandatory for me.

I enjoyed the narrative more when it was only about mercs and corporations jabbing each other, the whole "team Avengers stopping bad guys from destroying the world" cliche never interested me. I want to feel like a cog in the world machinery and working with others, not the soloist destroyer of worlds.

Oh I don't mind, I didn't write this. I merely make made sure it's not google-translated (S1 was never proofread for example, hence the "destination Tropical Coast", "holy moly" and other gaffes).

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as a player who thinks he is *bad* I want to take issue with rewarding *better players* more.   for the love of the game don't do it.   good players have no clue as to how frustrating it is to have somebody that has memorized all spawn positions, drive a meta tank/daka vehicle and does 3 to 5X more kills and damage than the entire team.   if you want better players there needs to be some incentive to actually TRY to get better IMHO.  I've been here in the game since 2015 and have had my issues with good players.  want to really reward good players, let them go *pro* and not compete with those of us in little league.   to be honest I don't know how to equability distribute rewards that would suit the most people good through bad.   I like the game, not always all the changes.    please don't let this game turn into a WOT variant that craps no non unicums because it CAN.

 

 

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My free form answers.  Mostly I like Spec ops, prefer hardcore (Heroic level) content and would love more of it.  I mostly play solo because getting a platoon to do normal PvE maps is a waste unless it's being used to farm raid / BP missions

 

Some of the options didn't really fit my choices For example, I mostly play solo, but prefer to platoon up for harder content.  I normally run heroic at least twice a week and assist in carrying others through it.  Ideally I would like more heroic content, but understand the constraints on development mean this is unlikely.  

I like the maps being reused / changed up providing they do form a bit more of a challenge / different play style.  I'd like to see more maps opened up & Tiger claw (or that base map) be brought back in to rotation.  At present it does feel that the map rotation is very limited and I play the same 5 maps every day of the week.  

If editing existing maps brought more PvE maps into rotation, I'd be pleased with this.  

Regarding the spec ops, most of the time I am a solo player because it's easy just to drop into a game for 5 for an hour or so.  I much prefer the more difficult content that requires a platoon, however at present most of the PvE content is relatively easy.

The difficulty comes for artificially making kill mechanics (SH chapter 4 ship guns for example) which means that you can die simply because of being in the wrong place, or getting stuck on some piece of terrain that you should be able to get over.  It also means that sometimes you have to die as you either have to avoid an instant death mechanic, or drive out in front of a swarm of enemies.  

I'm not a huge fan of this type of mechanic as it can just screw you over due to RNG - hell it can even be used to kill team mates (drive behind or around them as the ship fires so they take the shot for you).  This can lead to quite large levels of trolling as your team can in essence, kill you.

The idea behind picking up and moving a character so they can be transported, is nice, but again is open to trolls.  I think the worst offenders of this occur in Moscow Calling chapter 4 when either they pick up Magus or the ammo, and drive the wrong way / suicide so it just makes the game an auto loss. This happens a fair few times every time the chain comes onto rotation, so pretty much requires a full platoon to avoid trolls.  

The story line aspect is ok, but I have been playing this game for 5 years so at this stage the story arc (in all of it's forms) is pretty stale and old.  I enjoy it for new seasons, but the repetition means that at this stage I normally skip it all the dialog.  

Regarding the skins, I like all of them really - I like the new Fantasy skins, the Enigma Legacy skins and realistic skins.  In general I think they are all to a high quality (certainly more recently they keep going up in standard).  I acknowledge they are not everyone's cup of team, and certain ones do have an effect on frame rate, so appreciate the ability to disable all skins from view

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