249 replies to this topic

[miSs]

Greetings MechWarriors!

Ask The Devs 38 is now open! You have until this Friday, May 10th, to ask your question! We're glad you enjoyed last week's answers and we're looking to reading your questions this week!

Remember the guideline rules from Bryan and in order to reply to as many members' questions as possible, we kindly ask you to limit your participation to one question!*

Bryan Ekman, on 22 February 2013 - 04:22 PM, said:

Guideline Rules:

Here's some rules:

• Please write short to the point questions, avoid long paragraphs.
  
• Please do not quote another persons question and use as your own. Questions are not answered by popularity.
  
• No discussions, replies, etc.

Questions or people we will not answer:

• Leading questions.
  
• Questions based on personal opinion.
  
• From people with a warning status.
  
• If the question has been answered already.
  
• Questions about why we didn’t adhere to TT rules.’’

* Please note: This thread is not for discussion. Posts that do not follow the thread convention may be deleted without notice.

If you change your mind and would like to ask a different question, feel free to edit your post.

Also note we usually have an average of more than 200 questions submitted and we try to diversify the genre of responses. We're doing our best to give everyone a chance to ask their question. Feel free to send me a PM if you have any concerns.

[Deathlike]

Q: Why is BAP made to be a hard counter to ECM?

I understand that people want BAP to be more useful to ECM, at least to mitigate the effect of ECM. However, it begs a more important question...

Q: Why is Information Warfare is solely controlled/balanced around ECM?

Edited by Deathlike, 08 May 2013 - 08:14 AM.

[FrostCollar]

What's the dev team's vision for indirect fire? There are two tools that have specific abilities that help facilitiate it (TAG, NARC) and one piece of equipment that has little purpose except to help protect you from it (AMS), yet the only system that we have with the capability to fire indirectly is the LRM and right now few use them compared to direct fire weapons.

Edited by FrostCollar, 08 May 2013 - 09:39 AM.

[Lusankya]

Will you be introducing more premium time options (ie: 6 hour or 12 hour intervals) in the future?

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Q: I seem to recall that expanded heat penalties are being looked at. Has a graduated heat scale that involves "soft" penalties like lower max speed, slower turn/twist/arm movement rates, longer weapon cycle times, and slower convergence been considered? One assumes that as your mech climbed the heat scale the penalties would increase in a smooth curve (peaking at, perhaps, 125% of max heat or thereabouts).

Q: Are metallic paints (such as gold, silver, bronze, gunmetal, etc.) on the way? I'd love to pick up some metallic gold.

Q: It's been my experience that LRMs and Streaks preferentially damage the center torso. Even when fired from directly to the side, they will destroy the CT before the near side torso (though it seems that arms will die first, but once they're gone the CT gets hit super hard). Are there plans in place to widen the spread of LRMs, or to rework LRM targeting to be more like Streaks with individual missiles locking on to individual mech locations, or to increase the chance of non-CT hits from Streaks?

Q: Are the rate of fire of PPCs, erPPCs, and SSRMs being looked at? It seems to me that rate of fire is the easiest and least invasive way to balance those particular weapon systems (especially Streaks).

Q: Are there any plans to increase pellet damage of the LB-10X? Like LRMs and SRMs (pre-hotfix, and presumably again once the damage rework is finished), the scattered damage of the LB-10X is extra weak in a game that allows for pin-point targeting with lump-damage weapon systems. Increasing the per-pellet damage of the LB-10X would allow it to remain a bit more competitive despite its lack of concentrated damage.

[miSs]

miSs, on 08 May 2013 - 08:09 AM, said:

... in order to reply to as many members' questions as possible, we kindly ask you to limit your participation to one question!*

[zwanglos]

Any details on the upcoming decal system for merc units? I'd like to know what dimensions (pixel size, file size, file type, if it's scaleable, etc.) I need for designing possible decals for my unit.

[Rebas Kradd]

Are LRM's getting a direct damage-value buff in the upcoming patch, or do you anticipate the increase in flight speed combined with the return of splash damage will be all the re-buffing the LRM's need?

[Arhurt]

Q: When can we expect all mechs to have the actual weapon models change as we add/change weapons (similarly to the Highlanders)? Can we expect, for example, the ballistic spot on the CDA-3M to change to an MG or a LBX-10 if we so change the loadout? Would a spider actually have a huge PPC sticking out it's chest?

Edited by Arhurt, 08 May 2013 - 08:52 AM.

[Metafox]

Do you have any future plans to accommodate groups of 5+ players who want to play together but are unable to fill a full 12-man?

[Adridos]

What is the team's stance on the issue of "entry requirements" being raised?

Currently, for a mech to be usable, it needs to get upgraded by DHS, ES and have all it's efficiences skilled up, otherwise it is gimping itself in the match. There are already mentions of expanded pilot trees, epics and such and it may very well become a serious issue. Thus I would like to know the official stance on this.

[Butane9000]

Q: If hero mechs are supposed to give players a unique variant and play style on a mech then why is it that the Stalker hero Misery receives a ballistic hard point and the Awesome hero Pretty Baby did not?

To elaborate: Currently the Pretty Baby and Fang are the only hero mechs that do not really give a "unique" take on the hard points like Deaths Knell, X-5, YLW, Flame, Ilya, Misery and Heavy metal do. In fact the pretty baby can be seen as a "sub-par" alternative to the AWS-8V. Also given the Misery and X-5 being given a hard point not normally seen on the chassis (missile for X-5, Ballistic for Misery) raises even more concerns.

Q: Is it possible in the future that we will see an Awesome hero mech with a ballistic hard point on it?

and this final question is more of a minor concern but many believe it to be the case...

Q: Since the Jenner, Hunchback, Catapult and Atlas were used for the Founders program does that discourage you from making hero mech versions of those chassis?

[Perfect Predator]

Will the efficiency specializations need more or less xp than full Basic or Elite tiers or will there just be extra efficiencies at each tier level?

[MeatForBrains]

Do you plan on changing the heat or weight mechanic or possibly adding an energy load/weapon on the engine mechanic to balance out the boating of certain weapon types? What is your plan of the balance on the current state of PPC boating and poptarting?

[Hellboy561]

What is being done about the Advanced Zoom Module? Because as it stands it is rather poor and not really worth the time.

Do you have statistics to show if people even bother using it anymore? If Yes, and not many people are using it; have you thought of removing it until it is fixed, seeing as it is one of the cheaper modules to unlock and purchase and it isn't game ready. Its just I can see new players grindining 5000Gxp and wasting it (and C-Bills) on a useless module.

[Dragunz Pryde]

Hello, First i would like to thank you for bringing back one of my favorite franchises ever!! Please keep up the good work!

My question is this. When will we get a truly functional Mechbay? One in which we can move our bought Mechs around group them by weight class etc. The format it is in now just seems archaic. You just scroll through, with no real interaction whatsoever. And if you (like me) have nearly 30 mechs you definitely get tired of scrolling through them all!!

Thank you!

[ArmageddonKnight]

Pick one

Q) You have added lots of premium only paints, camo's, and hero mechs, etc. When are you planing on adding in non Premium versions/alternatives ?

Premise: There are those who activly refuse to contribute to microtransactions due to their negative impact on the gaming scene (which includes arguments over 'P2W'), or find the costs for such a small digital item obsurd. Microtransactions are fine so long as the items are available ingame via other means, even if the other means take ALOT longer to obtain. People will still buy using rl money for the convieniance

Q) When/Are you going to increase the visuals in MWO ? Specificaly stoping the poping in and out of textures and ground models.

Premise: The visuals in MWO even on highest are a letdown for those with gaming rigs. It feels more like a cheap game from 2005 than a High aiming mech sim from 2012/13.

Q)Are you happy with the current hotboat High Alpha meta that is currently present in the game ? if not, are you now thinking about changing the heat system and/or hardpoint system?

Premise: nerfing weapons as they become boated does not fix the overlying issue. The last Ask the Dev's asnwers showed u were thinking of nerfing PPC's which i hope was a joke. PPC are not the issue, being able to boat them and alpha shoot them is.

Q)If changing the heatsystem is not happening, are there any plans to change the heat usuage on some of the lower alpha high rof weapons. Notibly the AC2 ??

Premise: high rof weapons and their use is low and/or not competative becouse they ether cant be boated in large enough quantities or cant be fired for more than a handfull of seconds b4 overheating.

Q: Any plans on removing Cap to win in the Assualt mode, or Add a Deathmatch mode ?

Premise : The odd player ,or group, running directly to base ending the game with little to no fighting ignors the point of playing a FPS game...the combat. The size, layout, and group size doesnt lend itslf to being able to defend a base AND attack at the same time. And most peopel want to fight, not sit and defend. A single player can ruin that for the rest by cap rushing.

Q) Any plans on adding a penalty to poptarting ?

Premise: Poparts are more common than ever in pugs causing almost all matches to slow down untill one sides poptarts kill the other sides poptarts, THEN the rest of the players finaly get into battle.

Q) Are you/would you concider altering armor values across the board away from the original implimentation of Double armor to help balance the current mech classes ? For example, from TT values, +50% for mechs 0 to 40 tons, +120% for mech 41 to 59 tons, + 150% for mechs 60 to 74 tons, and + 180% for mechs 75tons +.

Premise: Double armor was introduced to balance the increased ROF from BT/TT values and also compensate for precision pinpoint aiming by the players. Unfortunatly this universal double armor does not account for the fact that weapons that were once good enough to cause seriose dmg or 1 shot certain lighter mechs, Like a Ac20 vs a Raven, now have to be hit multiple times. Htting a fast moving target with such a weapon just 1 time is hard enough, not to mention the realism argument:such a large chunk of ballistic metal hiting such a small mech and not totaly obliterating it is laughable and against most BT lore / stories.

Edited by ArmageddonKnight, 08 May 2013 - 10:09 AM.

[lilslugger]

In lieu of the apparent lust for 3rd person view.

Would it be possible to switch between 1st and 3rd person view when spectating another player after death rather than only seeing 1st person?

Edited by lilslugger, 08 May 2013 - 12:15 PM.

[FupDup]

Why have you chosen to make Flamers into crit-seekers instead of their historical Battletech role of heating up one's opponent?

[DeathofSelf]

What is your reason behind the decision to not reintroduce collisions/knockdowns until after launch?