MAG

[Shifty Geezer]

Other than that, it's divide and conquer. Start with either left or right most bunker and work inwards. If the edge bunkers are heavily defended, then the center is probably weak.

And it's this that cannot work without coordination. We have two equal sized armies with pretty much equal gear, only one is entrenched in a defensive position with heavy machine gun emplacements, faster access to reinforcements, and support bombardments. The attacking side is in the much weaker position, and cannot win without out-manoeuvring the defenders (unless they're a bunch of noobs who can't shoot straight)...which needs some sort of manoeuvres! Otherwise, as was my experience in most of the games I played, it's a man-for-man trade of kills outside the bunkers. Sometimes a bunker could be dropped but if the rest of the force doesn't seize the opportunity to rush forward, the defenders rush to seal the breach. Attacking SVER, one game we had the leftmost bunker down like 3 times, but support was never there in numbers to hold that position and enable troops to run down the back and start taking out the batteries.

Have Zipper mentioned any updates to address this side of the game?

 

[JPT]

The introduction of neutral maps without secure bunkers sounds like a significant step in the right direction, meaning both sides start on equal footing.

Yes, its step in the right direction for people that want a standard Team DM experience, with some objectives put into it.

I was never looking for that experience and MAG almost gave me what I wanted, less run and gun and more application of tactics to accomplish goals.

Yes, standard Team DM also have this to certain degree, but MAG AQ and Dom gave you a direction or purpose that you need to tailor your tactics to fit, imho

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Are there not objectives in these new maps?

 

[patsu]

And it's this that cannot work without coordination. We have two equal sized armies with pretty much equal gear, only one is entrenched in a defensive position with heavy machine gun emplacements, faster access to reinforcements, and support bombardments. The attacking side is in the much weaker position, and cannot win without out-manoeuvring the defenders (unless they're a bunch of noobs who can't shoot straight)...which needs some sort of manoeuvres! Otherwise, as was my experience in most of the games I played, it's a man-for-man trade of kills outside the bunkers. Sometimes a bunker could be dropped but if the rest of the force doesn't seize the opportunity to rush forward, the defenders rush to seal the breach. Attacking SVER, one game we had the leftmost bunker down like 3 times, but support was never there in numbers to hold that position and enable troops to run down the back and start taking out the batteries.

Have Zipper mentioned any updates to address this side of the game?

Not that I know of. They only mentioned better in-game training so far.

I am looking forward to significant improvement in this area too. Am curious to see how it will change the gameplay. The beauty of MAG is the thinking and strategizing in difficult situations. In a very real sense, coordination is not a technology problem. I think it has to come from the players themselves. Like the Valor's awesome global coordination on the official forum.

You really should have been there. They made an easy to win map into an impossible slaughter-field for Raven. I was very impressed.

EDIT: Oh, we were outnumbered that day. But still, they were very very quick to exploit our holes.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think what you described is what Zipper were wanting from MAG. It's the designed specifically for that sort of coordinated play. However, it only happened through external forums, like a big clan. Perhaps they need proper PMC websites which actually coordinate with players? But then you're asking for outside-of-game investment in it. A lot of gamers will only partake of their hobby home from work for an hour or two. Asking them to not play a game but join a social network is asking too much. And how you coordinate people who aren't reporting for duty of their own accord, I do not know. That's where FRAGO's should work, but the system cannot be complicated enough to work and still be workable. I think. If you know what I mean.

 

[Dregun]

My biggest problem with MAG is it isn't the game I was "dreaming" of. I heard about the huge maps and the large number of people and the leveling and I thought I died and went to gaming heaven.


I was expecting a game that took the player to a battlefield that encompassed days worth of playing to win or lose. A game that one squad could make an impact that would help the entire team. A game that only allowed a certain amount of clans and the clans must be part of a specific platoon/unit A game that didn't have you playing with randoms, your squad only ever consists of the players within your clan if they are online at that moment or not! Yet you would still be playing with members of your platoon. A game that utilized transport vehicles for that exact purpose, to transport people over distances to bring them closer to battle. MAG had the ability, they could already fit 256 people on a single map and had maps large enough to hold them...they just never allowed the game to be played a certain way.

I don't think developers have been paying attention to our virtual society as much as they should. People want that interaction with others (thats why clans exist in the first place) and when people read or watch movies about war they see first hand how a group of strangers can bond and become a lethal force. Why force people to play with complete strangers, usually nothing good ever comes of it if you can't keep them grouped for an extended period of time.

MMORPG's keep people interested because the virtual world is open to them. They can choose who they team up with and what they do...MAG doesn't give you much choice. Build a FPS with social networking as its building block and watch the community guide the game themselves. All the developer does from that point on is add new locations and possibly new weapons, vehicles etc etc.

Let the social networking allow the player base to designate who teams with who. Allow Clans(squads) to form an alliance that creates a platoon and the platoons can form an alliance to create a unit. These units decide what time-frame they will be responsible for playing and its done! A war rages on for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for lets say 1 week. The units are responsible for covering 4 hour blocks, after that 4 hour block is finished another unit comes in to relieve them until they are called to duty again. They could even have the game follow the daylight patterns and those who play at night would get that map at night ..so on and so forth.

Why can't I have this LOL

 

[obonicus]

Whether its overpowered or if its "easier" to use, does not really matter, but when 80% of the people use it and it was not the goal of the designer, maybe its nothing wrong with it being changed.

But at this point it's clear to me that Zipper doesn't know how. So rather than let them break one of the things that work about their game, they should accept that the LMG is this game's AR, and other guns are for niche situations.

 

[patsu]

http://www.destructoid.com/future-mag-dlc-will-see-all-three-factions-on-one-map-175758.phtml

One of the biggest requests from the community is for the ability to have all three factions fight on one map and Zipper plans to deliver that later this year. That DLC will be out closer to the end of Summer, early Fall but you can expect a number of other updates before then.

For starters, one of the new features will be "Clan Wars." Clans will be able to challenge other clans in a best of three battle. Challengers will attack first and then roles switch until an overall winner is declared. Clans will also be associated with leaderboards which will give players a chance to back out of a challenge if they see the opposing team is too strong.

Also talks about Sabotage and Suppression going neutral, plus other player incentives.

 

[Cornsnake]

The more I hear about future plans for MAG, the more sceptical I become. So were getting another new gamemode. I always assumed we would be getting more maps for the existing gamemodes. Why? Because it avoids spreading the players out over too many gamemodes, increasing the queue times. You could just add new maps for the current gamemodes to the regular rotation. Favouring them while they are still new, and even it out again once players are used to them.

I like clanwars, but I can easily see a few problems with that for MAG. Now the clans have to come up with the number of players needed to play. Leaving the gamemodes as they are that's no small feat. Scaling them down would probably a good idea. Suppression might be ok with any number of players. Sabotage could be reduced to half the players, but that's still 32 players. Acquisition again half the players on one half of the map, that's 64 players. And domination reduced to 1/4th of the players on 1/4th of the map, that's 64 players. That is still going to need some very large clans. And they all have adhere to the rules, be on time, create game you agreed upon, ect. From my experience with clanwars that's not likely going to happen. And it also depend upon Zipper being to implement all of that in an easy to use manner, yet having everything needed for a proper clanwar. Which, going by games that aren't Rfom, isn't easy.

Hopefully Zipper is also aware of all this, and can find some solution to it. Otherwise MAG is going to become a real mess.

 

[patsu]

Man, you should really post on the official MAG forum. I don't know if there is any MAG developer here. T_T

The more I hear about future plans for MAG, the more sceptical I become. So were getting another new gamemode. I always assumed we would be getting more maps for the existing gamemodes. Why? Because it avoids spreading the players out over too many gamemodes, increasing the queue times. You could just add new maps for the current gamemodes to the regular rotation. Favouring them while they are still new, and even it out again once players are used to them.

I agree in principle. However the community will need a way to move forward. Better game modes should replace tired game modes over time. So may be if they allow us to play new game modes in their regular test runs. Then we can all decide where we want to party next.

In fact, I am still dreaming about some sort of LBP for MAG (Custom objectives, team size, rules of engagement on different portion of the maps). It will have the severe downside you mention above, but I can't stop wondering about it.

I like clanwars, but I can easily see a few problems with that for MAG. Now the clans have to come up with the number of players needed to play. Leaving the gamemodes as they are that's no small feat. Scaling them down would probably a good idea. Suppression might be ok with any number of players. Sabotage could be reduced to half the players, but that's still 32 players. Acquisition again half the players on one half of the map, that's 64 players. And domination reduced to 1/4th of the players on 1/4th of the map, that's 64 players. That is still going to need some very large clans. And they all have adhere to the rules, be on time, create game you agreed upon, ect. From my experience with clanwars that's not likely going to happen. And it also depend upon Zipper being to implement all of that in an easy to use manner, yet having everything needed for a proper clanwar. Which, going by games that aren't Rfom, isn't easy.

I suspect if they reduce the number of players, or come up with new maps with fewer players, it may migrate towards a clan war mindset automagically. The rest will be up to the clans to tally their scores on what... gamebattles.com ? That's how RFOM evolved anyway. 40 players and we saw "informal" clanwars.

 

[obonicus]

The more I hear about future plans for MAG, the more sceptical I become. So were getting another new gamemode. I always assumed we would be getting more maps for the existing gamemodes. Why? Because it avoids spreading the players out over too many gamemodes, increasing the queue times. You could just add new maps for the current gamemodes to the regular rotation. Favouring them while they are still new, and even it out again once players are used to them.

On the other hand, you risk spreading players out across maps that not everyone will own. MAG avoids most of the pitfalls here since there isn't really a map rotation to speak of, though.

 

[patsu]

They need to nail the map pack pricing first. The future can wait.

May be for people who paid full price, they should offer a scheme for these players to download the new maps for free (for a limited time). I don't mind paying for the new maps just to show my support for dedicated servers. Some token of appreciation would be good here.

For people who buy it at a reduced price of $30 or bought pre-owned games, they should pay for the new maps.

 

[Cornsnake]

Man, you should really post on the official MAG forum. I don't know if there is any MAG developer here. T_T

I sometimes do, but it's horrible place for some actual sane discussion. You can't go 5 posts without seeing somebody calling somebody else a whiner. Maybe I should sent an E-mail to Zipper sometimes.

I agree in principle. However the community will need a way to move forward. Better game modes should replace tired game modes over time. So may be if they allow us to play new game modes in their regular test runs. Then we can all decide where we want to party next.

Replacing gamemodes will probably upset fans of those gamemodes. Rewarding some gamemodes more then others at different times might be a better idea. The community is already trying to schedule which gamemode to play over the weekend. This time it's Domination, and from what I'm hearing the player numbers for Domination have indeed improved.

In fact, I am still dreaming about some sort of LBP for MAG (Custom objectives, team size, rules of engagement on different portion of the maps). It will have the severe downside you mention above, but I can't stop wondering about it.

If they gave us enough options for custom games in clanwars, we might get something like that. And if some variations become popular Zipper might keep it in mind for future maps. You would need a clan to play like that though.

I suspect if they reduce the number of players, or come up with new maps with fewer players, it may migrate towards a clan war mindset automagically. The rest will be up to the clans to tally their scores on what... gamebattles.com ? That's how RFOM evolved anyway. 40 players and we saw "informal" clanwars.

I always used consolegaming.eu. But what I'm hoping for is something more like KZ2 had. In-game clanladders. That avoids having to go through the extra steps to get it organised, and cheating when comes to reporting back the results. It would make doing clanwars a lot easier.

On the other hand, you risk spreading players out across maps that not everyone will own. MAG avoids most of the pitfalls here since there isn't really a map rotation to speak of, though.

My theory was kind of based on the maps being free.

 

[Cornsnake]

http://blog.mag.com/blog/2010/06/zipline-podcast-episode-8/

The new podcast is up. They talk about Interdiction, clanwars, and the training mission.

Clanwars seem to work like they did in KZ2. Leaders can challenge other clans in-game, giving the rest of the clan access to a separate queue before the game starts. Clanwars can support the maximum number of players for each mode. And there should be plenty of options to customise the clanwars.

They seem to like the training mission they have now. Preferring to learn the more complex things while playing the game. That's a mistake if you ask me. The community still hasn't got a better understanding of MAG then they did at the games release. Frago's aren't used, or any other command ability, they still walk back the bunker after they have been destroyed instead using the APC's, ect.

I noticed Acquisition can start with 13 players missing again. Giving the other team a chance to do some real damage before the game can fill up the missing players.

 

[patsu]

Clanwars seem to work like they did in KZ2. Leaders can challenge other clans in-game, giving the rest of the clan access to a separate queue before the game starts. Clanwars can support the maximum number of players for each mode. And there should be plenty of options to customise the clanwars.

It makes sense that they combine customization and clan wars. Even better if they allow arbitrary custom games in the name of practice. In RFOM, the custom games won't affect the ladders.

They seem to like the training mission they have now. Preferring to learn the more complex things while playing the game. That's a mistake if you ask me. The community still hasn't got a better understanding of MAG then they did at the games release. Frago's aren't used, or any other command ability, they still walk back the bunker after they have been destroyed instead using the APC's, ect.

I think in principle that's ok. It means that they should make those teaching aids available in-game. Hope they get around to do it soon. Heck, may be they should add AI recommendations to tell player where best to go next.

Seriously, that's what the R2 co-op AI did. Sometimes it directed the player to ding-dong between 2 points repeatedly, many players still followed faithfully. ;-)

I noticed Acquisition can start with 13 players missing again. Giving the other team a chance to do some real damage before the game can fill up the missing players.

May be one of the servers is misconfigured.

 

[Cornsnake]

http://blog.mag.com/blog/

Double XP weekend this weekend.

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2010/06/08/mag-interdiction-dlc-on-june-22/

And for europeans like me who are wondering where the hell is our DLC. We're getting it tomorrow.

 

[patsu]

I got Interdiction !!! \^o^/

Cheered me up quite a bit since I am swarmed again.

 

[JPT]

Downloading now, maybe I'll get the time to play a bit for the weekend even

 

[Cornsnake]

I've bought it aswell. Can't play right now though.

 

[patsu]

I played 2-3 rounds until 4:00am (Was staying up for work anyway).

I prefer the faction owned territory concept. In Interdiction, both factions are fighting on a huge neutral map.

The vehicles are nice and I can get more points than Acquisition. I think they should give us more new weapons soon. The fightings are more concentrated. I get to revive and kill *a lot*.

The map is simplified (like Sabotage), so newbies should have an easier time to jump in. I kinda missed all the different military assets in Acquisition though (More finesse ! ).