Right now, the best strategy in skirmish is ALWAYS to RUSH RUSH RUSH RUSH, because the faster you die the faster you respawn to your objectives and can take care of any enemy attackers. It's why we see so many redline matches. All of the experienced players understand this mechanic and take advantage of it to redline one side or the other within the first 45 seconds of most matches, and why the remaining matches end on clones before the MCCs get to half armor.

Both teams rush each other, attacking with a blob at the enemy held objectives and defending their own with respawns, and the first team to win the initial fights at the objectives wins the match 90% of the time.

It's dull, cheap, and repetitive.

LOL This is the flip side of the complaint , "People just spawn camp!"

You got bullets in my spawn point
You got spawn in my bullet points

Support

But for the record: skirmish is bad, ambush is worse

Disagree. -1

The CRU allows an alternate attack vector into the battle but a captured letter allows for a defensive response. If the battle is stabilized, even momentarily, two hackers can get a letter capped quickly enough. Three allows someone covering their backs.

The problems you state are mostly based on Vets versus NewB interacting. That is always going to be a problem in pub matches. Until we get a Battle Finder that has enough filter options to make a difference in the groupings. A level balance criteria of some sort.

Currently only running in Corp battles I suppose would be another solution. How would one train recruits then?

The Red Line issue is something I see sometimes but in pub matches it is definitely not the default situation. Even one Dropship, a LAV or a stealth Scout Shotty can turn the tide. Not to mention hiding an Uplink if the situation is looking dire. Those actions are learned and take longer in some NewBs than others.

+1 I must agree. This would make CRU dropships, and drop uplinks more useful.

The ability to spawn in on an objective has absolutely nothing to do with skirmish being bad. People that spawn in on points as they are being hacked in most cases are a free kill. If you are getting killed, while your hacking and OBJ your obviously doing it wrong, or your buddy covering your back is a terrible shot.

The current ability to spawn on an objective has nothing to do with skirmish being bad. Skirmish is bad, because CCP decided to emulate COD and Battlefield. (Domination/Conquest) This domination/conquest mode we now know as Skirmish just doesn't really work for a game like this. It caters to players that know how to set up kill farms and just stomp all over people. Newer players just roam around the map not really knowing what they are doing. The original skirmish was much more accessible for a variety of player skills.

The ability to spawn in on an objective has absolutely nothing to do with skirmish being bad. People that spawn in on points as they are being hacked in most cases are a free kill. If you are getting killed, while your hacking and OBJ your obviously doing it wrong, or your buddy covering your back is a terrible shot.

+1. I'm a Logi with a Laser Rifle, so I can't follow my squad to a point to assist with the hack (a Logi specialty) or heal (another Logi specialty) because a heavy may spawn out of thin air five feet from me and instagib me because random BS. In Planetside, the objectives are a decent distance from the spawns. In MAG, the objectives are a decent distance from the bunkers. In CoD, the points are not where you spawn into, if there are any points at all. There is a reason for this, as many people before me have pointed out. Anyone with long range weapons or a lower HP suit gets screwed royally for attempting to hack an objective because some random dood will spawn in and just slap you off the point. the CRUs we have are a bit too close to the points IMO, but if we solely spawned to them instead of the points themselves, then the game would be just that much better.

And on the subject of spawning, make a Drop Uplink a bit more noticeable, being able to spawn in ~8 people to an almost invisible point (completely invisible if the damn thing decides to not be rendered) is a tad broken. If they did the Planetside thing where there is a hugeass flare where the drop-in points are placed, then maybe that'd balance it out...

As many times as I've heard this discussed over and over and over again as a huge flaw by so many different players in game that I've lost count, I only just realized I've never seen anything about it posted here in the feedback section. So here you go.

The Reason Skirmish is Bad: Spawning on Objectives

This seemingly harmless mechanic removes 90% of all tactical play from the game. If the enemies attack you at one objective in a big rush, it does no good to counter attack their objective with some of your forces, because you know that the enemies who die in the rush will simply spawn back at the objective you are counter attacking by the time you get there.

It leaves us with a game mode where the entire strategy is to simply blob rush from objective to objective, and respawn at contested objectives.

The large majority of all deaths my squad sees when attacking an objective come from guys magically appearing and gunning you down while hacking. It's completely ludicrous.

Make the game more strategic, remove the objective spawning and add more CRUs.

EDIT: here's a slightly different way of stating the problem that I wrote in another thread (the one that made me realize this needed to be posted here):

I think that a good fix to this is to remove having to manually hack something. Make it so that you automatically hack when within a few yards of an objective when no enemies are there. This would solve everyone's problems. You can stay alert so you don't get spawned on and mowed down and protect yourself from objective campers especially snipers. Everyone wins.

I don't like the idea of autohack, I like the risk being involved with hacking

As many times as I've heard this discussed over and over and over again as a huge flaw by so many different players in game that I've lost count, I only just realized I've never seen anything about it posted here in the feedback section. So here you go.

The Reason Skirmish is Bad: Spawning on Objectives

This seemingly harmless mechanic removes 90% of all tactical play from the game. If the enemies attack you at one objective in a big rush, it does no good to counter attack their objective with some of your forces, because you know that the enemies who die in the rush will simply spawn back at the objective you are counter attacking by the time you get there.

It leaves us with a game mode where the entire strategy is to simply blob rush from objective to objective, and respawn at contested objectives.

The large majority of all deaths my squad sees when attacking an objective come from guys magically appearing and gunning you down while hacking. It's completely ludicrous.

Make the game more strategic, remove the objective spawning and add more CRUs.

EDIT: here's a slightly different way of stating the problem that I wrote in another thread (the one that made me realize this needed to be posted here):

Ill admit i didnt read through the entire thread, but i may solo in this, but this is a horrible idea. Simply b/c of these one reason:

U can destroy CRUs

So yeah, make more crus, simply destroy them then each team is stuck spawning back at the mcc. Easy way to stop magic deaths. Its called squad cover & communication

Even if CRUs are destructible, eventually commanders will have to the power to deploy more on the battlefield.
This idea involves adding more CRUs to the battlefield, destroying all CRUs in their current quantity is hard enough, with even more CRUs it would be close to impossible.

To prevent MCC spawn camping, THE MCCs SHOULD ROTATE AROUND THE MAP. This means the drop zone will always be different, and make the battle more dynamic s a result.

but the strategic implications would add quite a bit to the game, making the choice of "do we hack the objective or the CRU first" (and defenders would have to make similar choices) much more important.

alternatively, there could be two different types of CRUs. The current ones that are destructible installations that will eventually be called in as assets, and a different sort that work like the objective (indestructible and pre-placed on the maps).

In my own personal vision, each objective would have an accompanying "built in" CRU that was NEAR the objective, but not directly on top of it. Some maps currently have this already for some objectives. Yes, it seems like a minor change, but the strategic implications would add quite a bit to the game, making the choice of "do we hack the objective or the CRU first" (and defenders would have to make similar choices) much more important.

Wow, what a mishmash of ideas all because of hating on the Skirmish. It makes me wonder how many of you mostly run Ambush?

I run with a few mates in various Squads and depending on several things we can control a map without Blob Rushing. Have a plan, have some contingency plans and be able to adapt. It is better if we could always get in the start of a game but we have pulled wins from lost causes more than once.

This seems like yet another idea to make DUST into something it isn't and/or to control how the Blues play the game. They are Not in your Squad. They are going to play the way They Want. Some will do well, others will not come close. Same as you Mercs.

The Blob Rushing was mentioned in a recent YouTube video about how DUST battles work. It was cute but it is not science and is an isolated incident being used to misstate how all games in Skirmish play out. I find it will do that Sometimes but more often than not it is not the default case. The only constant is that different Squads and Random Blues will all have different skill sets and play styles.

Skirmish is fine. Use your Squad. Use mics. It takes all kinds of Mercs to fill up the DUST.

To prevent MCC spawn camping, THE MCCs SHOULD ROTATE AROUND THE MAP. This means the drop zone will always be different, and make the battle more dynamic s a result.

In my own personal vision, each objective would have an accompanying "built in" CRU that was NEAR the objective, but not directly on top of it. Some maps currently have this already for some objectives. Yes, it seems like a minor change, but the strategic implications would add quite a bit to the game, making the choice of "do we hack the objective or the CRU first" (and defenders would have to make similar choices) much more important.

+1, tend to agree, and definitely spawning on CRUs makes far more sense than materializing at NCs. One thing I would add is that in this system, some of the CRUs would need to be placed such that it was between hard and impossible to blow them up with a HAV or Forge Gun. Otherwise one team could just blow up all the CRUs, and then even if one or two the other team breaks out of the redline to get a hack, they're still kittened without support.

Spawning on objecives is lame in every gameplay mechanic. In fact, I hate slawning c
from thin air in general, especially in front of enemies. It is very immersiveness-breaking in general.

I have always liked protected spawn buildings or bunkers that allow you to spawn, get your bearings, and push out, protected at least inside the building from your enemies.

Planetside 2's spawn buildings are a great example. Multiple exits, but they keep the focus on controlling the objective because otherwise the protection and spawn point changes over.

Now, the spawn buildings are a little bit large for DUST's purposes, so I would instead propose that the spawning mechanism for CRUs is this:

Instead of appearing randomly outside the CRU, you spawn INTO the CRU viewing the surroundings through third person, much like the bunkers in MAG worked. Then, you spawn outside by pressing X and viewing a certain direction. (Almost entirely copied from MAG.)

I actually really like this idea. +1

The other good part, is it could easily reduce or eliminate the need for an arbitrary spawn timer that is as long as it is (especially not one that is as long as it is). The only real reason we need a spawn timer is so that we can't just continuously respawn on an objective that's in the middle of being hacked. If we can't spawn there anyway, then it doesn't really matter, and the point is moot. Especially since CRUs don't flash when they're getting hacked, so even if you're losing one, you have no idea which one until it's too late. Further if we have to sit through a little animation when coming out the CRU, then there's really no need for a spawn timer, which is a super arbitrary and immersion breaking mechanic....

Why not remove all crus and objective spawning altogether and return the mccs to cruising across the battlefield? Realistically this would raise the value of proper tactical planning when using uplinks and allow for a breather for those that can capture both an objective and kill the team guarding it. The CRUs were not in the initial design and were added to provide a new place to spawn from but don't actually add any value to having them that the Uplinks don't already provide. This would remove 50wp from capturing an objective with a cru and allow people a chance to take a walk and enjoy the scenery or go for a ride. Mobile CRUs would then have some value as well and could maybe start generating WP for pilots. CRUs could be replaced by a shield generation station which when hacked would allow safe spawning within the shield via drop uplink. The shield would replenish shields so merc spawning into gunfire would have a sizable boost to their shields after taking damage and still allowing the shield generation station to be hacked.