31 replies to this topic

[MeiSooHaityu]

I will play devil's advocate here. I have seen many threads about how Hardpoint limitations would solve a large amount of game balance issues. This is a thread about how this might not be a good idea. Even if you disagree, think of it as "food for thought"

Most people think that the current system is being heavily abused because larger weapons can end up on smaller mechs just because there is available tonnage and open crit slots. They want harpoints to be size limited to say prevent a Raven from carrying a Gauss Rifle, etc...

The reason I think this is a potentially bad idea is; It allows Assaults and Heavies an even greater advantage over Medium and Lights.

Larger Mechs such as a Highlander, are meant to carry larger weapons (even in stock configuration). As the mechs get lighter (and less tonnage is available), the weapons restrictions become more prevalent. This generally would mean that smaller mechs can only carry smaller weapons (with the exception of cannon mech like the AC20 Hunch).

If you think hardpoint limitiations would discourage "Poptarting", think about this...
Even with Hardpoint limitations, a Highlander would still have available hardpoints for a Gauss Rifle, PPCs, and of course Jump Jets (afterall, this mech is an Assault and would have harpoints that would allow for these). You would still have these mechs poptarting to contend with. Maybe the Cataphract 3D would be impacted a bit, but I bet it could still mount a Gauss and 1 ERPPC depending on location.

Now the Medium mechs would have a limitation on weapon size and less of a chance to combat larger mechs. This setup would make Mediums even rarer on the battlefield.

I know MW4 used limitations, but that was a game (that I assume, I played only MW2 and MW3), that put you into ever bigger mechs as you played through. The limitations were probably put in the game to keep the difficulty level against the AI more contant. I don't believe it would be proper here.


In short, I know it would hamper some crazy builds, but I think it would cause a bigger rift between the Lights and Mediums Vs Heavy and Assaults. This is not good for chassis balance IMO.

If you guys have any additional ideas, I would be curious to hear them.

[FupDup]

I personally see hardpoints as a mechanic to make mechs different than each other besides physical appearance rather than a balancing mechanism. Balance has to be achieved through mechanics, weapons, and equipment being viable. Hardpoints just mean that there is a difference between a Hunchback and a Centurion other than how they look.

[AnnoyingCat]

without the limit, eh? see that 4 AC20 atlas over there?

[Deathlike]

I simply want the Annihilator to truly dominate the battlefield. Is that too much to ask?

[Acid Phase]

MeiSooHaityu, on 28 May 2013 - 10:05 AM, said:

The reason I think this is a potentially bad idea is; It allows Assaults and Heavies an even greater advantage over Medium and Lights.

Well I would much rather have each classification of mechs to play their role as it should be. Not for a light to stand toe-to-toe with a brawler.

As it stands, PGI is allowing all mechs to have whatever weapon fits. Allowing outrageous builds like the AC20 Raven. Really? A massive weapon coming out of that little cannon? The AC40 Jag/Cat. Out of those little tubes? HP "limitation" is supposed to make the build make more sense on the balance front.

Just read these quotes and examples and tell me it doesn't provide one shred of sense.

[OneEyed Jack]

AnnoyingCat, on 28 May 2013 - 10:08 AM, said:

without the limit, eh? see that 4 AC20 atlas over there?

Wow. Haven't seen someone miss a point by that wide a margin in a long time.

He's not referring to any suggestion of removing hardpoints. He's referring to people continually suggesting that not only should mechs have hardpoints that restrict where weapons are placed and the class of weapons placed there, but that each hardpoint should only be able to hold weapons of the right size range. Basically, if the stock mech had a Med Laser, then that hardpoint could only hold "small energy weapons" and so on.

It was a stupid system designed by people that made earlier Mechwarrior titles. Bear in mind that these titles were NOT Battletech games. They were simply Mecha games making use of the IP. The weapons used these slots because they didn't use crits. A small weapon was one slot, a medium weapon 2 slots and a large weapon 3 slots. A hardpoint (or whatever they called them) came with 1, 2 or 3 slots. Any weapon took up an entire hardpoint but couldn't be larger than the number of slots.

It would basically turn the game into a series of cookie-cutter mechs because the small spots could only hold a few different weapons. The medium slots could hold any of those, plus any of a few larger weapons. The hardpoints could hold any weapon, but when you have a limited number of hardpoints, so much tonnage to use and no place else to use it, what are you going to run? Especially when only a few mechs could even use the large weapons.

[Deathlike]

Are AC20 ravens OP? If the answer is yes, then the problem is most likely you.

[OneEyed Jack]

Acid Phase, on 28 May 2013 - 10:23 AM, said:

Well I would much rather have each classification of mechs to play their role as it should be. Not for a light to stand toe-to-toe with a brawler.

As it stands, PGI is allowing all mechs to have whatever weapon fits. Allowing outrageous builds like the AC20 Raven. Really? A massive weapon coming out of that little cannon? The AC40 Jag/Cat. Out of those little tubes? HP "limitation" is supposed to make the build make more sense on the balance front.

Just read these quotes and examples and tell me it doesn't provide one shred of sense.

Oh, you're so totally correct! Why didn't I see it before?! We should obviously let the graphics that haven't been updated, yet, determine everything.

Oh, and BTW, the AC20 barrels on a Cat are exactly the same size as the stock AC20 barrel on a Highlander 733C.

[MustrumRidcully]

FupDup, on 28 May 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

I personally see hardpoints as a mechanic to make mechs different than each other besides physical appearance rather than a balancing mechanism. Balance has to be achieved through mechanics, weapons, and equipment being viable. Hardpoints just mean that there is a difference between a Hunchback and a Centurion other than how they look.

I agree with this. The only role of hard points should be to make different chassis stand out from each other. Any kind of hard point system requires a proper balance of weapons and mechanics, otherwise you just end up with chassis that have "good" hard points, and those that don't.

For example, if Medium Lasers are deemed overpowered, the HBK 4SP and HBK 4P will be superior to a Centurion, regardless of whether the hard points are size limited or not, simply because the 4P and 4SP can have more medium lasers.

If convergence makes it a preferable idea to shoot all your weapons at once so all damage is focused, but you can only do that if all weapons have the same characertistic (e.g. same projectile speed, durations and cycle times), then mechs that can carry of the same weapon are superior to those that cannot. You need a counter-mechanism for this advantage, or remove the advantage all together. (Say, making it problematic to fire all weapons at once because it instantly overheats your mech if you use too many at once, or just not allowing weapons to fire together.)

[Demuder]

The thing is, that the hardpoint system right now allows for some quite ridiculous builds. I am not saying that they are overpowered, but they are at least cheesy.

The hardpoint limitation the OP describes, although it would allow for some "character" on each variant, would also either lead to a cookie cutter build for each variant or make that variant inferior to others with better hardpoints.

I don't think either solution is optimal. Cheesy builds should be countered in some other way, most preferably through tweaks to the heat management and/or convergence systems.

[GODzillaGSPB]

You are right, it can never go into the game as a standalone feature. Seeing that currently a team can be made of 4 or even 5 assaults, they would stomp an enemy that sports mediums and heavies even harder into the ground.

And there we have yet another basic problem of the game: There is no limitation how much of a mech-class can enter a game. That's why we have these insane assault slugfests where mediums and heavies are just stomped.

[Yanlowen Cage]

totally disagree. As a PART of a larger fix, introducing sized hard points would not make certain mechs better. in your example a highlander could still mount ppcs and a guass. actually a ppc and a guass. alot less threatening and easier to deal with the 3 er ppcs and a guass. lights and mediums are not meant to go head to head with assualts anyway. alot about this game is broken, not just hardpoints. with harpoints in place if you wanted to run a 45 tonner with ac20 or guass you would have to run a hollander. or you could run a bj-1 without the oversized cannon, which has a much better layout. point being hardpoints not only mitagate OP builds, they also diversify the mech chassis. Making taking a cent vs a hunchie something beyond perference. for those that don't get that. you can build pretty much the same loadout on a cent and a hunchie and vice versa. So what is the point of having both?

[Caleb Brightmore]

MeiSooHaityu, on 28 May 2013 - 10:05 AM, said:

I will play devil's advocate here. I have seen many threads about how Hardpoint limitations would solve a large amount of game balance issues. This is a thread about how this might not be a good idea. Even if you disagree, think of it as "food for thought"

Most people think that the current system is being heavily abused because larger weapons can end up on smaller mechs just because there is available tonnage and open crit slots. They want harpoints to be size limited to say prevent a Raven from carrying a Gauss Rifle, etc...

The reason I think this is a potentially bad idea is; It allows Assaults and Heavies an even greater advantage over Medium and Lights.

Larger Mechs such as a Highlander, are meant to carry larger weapons (even in stock configuration). As the mechs get lighter (and less tonnage is available), the weapons restrictions become more prevalent. This generally would mean that smaller mechs can only carry smaller weapons (with the exception of cannon mech like the AC20 Hunch).

If you think hardpoint limitiations would discourage "Poptarting", think about this...
Even with Hardpoint limitations, a Highlander would still have available hardpoints for a Gauss Rifle, PPCs, and of course Jump Jets (afterall, this mech is an Assault and would have harpoints that would allow for these). You would still have these mechs poptarting to contend with. Maybe the Cataphract 3D would be impacted a bit, but I bet it could still mount a Gauss and 1 ERPPC depending on location.

Now the Medium mechs would have a limitation on weapon size and less of a chance to combat larger mechs. This setup would make Mediums even rarer on the battlefield.

I know MW4 used limitations, but that was a game (that I assume, I played only MW2 and MW3), that put you into ever bigger mechs as you played through. The limitations were probably put in the game to keep the difficulty level against the AI more contant. I don't believe it would be proper here.


In short, I know it would hamper some crazy builds, but I think it would cause a bigger rift between the Lights and Mediums Vs Heavy and Assaults. This is not good for chassis balance IMO.


If you guys have any additional ideas, I would be curious to hear them.

Well written and makes sense too
That cleared up a few questions I had as well thank you.

AnnoyingCat, on 28 May 2013 - 10:08 AM, said:

without the limit, eh? see that 4 AC20 atlas over there?

Huh? Ok just because you are a cat I will play. =^.^=

Roger that Annoyingcat Fatlas range 800 meters loadout 4AC/20s.
Whats the max effective range of that build?
810 meters he is in range but at very degraded to no damage.
Send in the spider let's make him see why that build just isn't smart.
LRM's get ready when he brakes down that ECM bubble and make it rain.
40 seconds later over enemy communications this message is heard....
"Ahh we've got a Fatlass down..... we've got a Fatlass down..... ClanTech Fatlass is on the deck.


Way off point of the topic but but I couldn't resist

Edited by Caleb Brightmore, 28 May 2013 - 11:15 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Yanlowen Cage, on 28 May 2013 - 11:09 AM, said:

totally disagree. As a PART of a larger fix, introducing sized hard points would not make certain mechs better. in your example a highlander could still mount ppcs and a guass. actually a ppc and a guass. alot less threatening and easier to deal with the 3 er ppcs and a guass. lights and mediums are not meant to go head to head with assualts anyway. alot about this game is broken, not just hardpoints. with harpoints in place if you wanted to run a 45 tonner with ac20 or guass you would have to run a hollander. or you could run a bj-1 without the oversized cannon, which has a much better layout. point being hardpoints not only mitagate OP builds, they also diversify the mech chassis. Making taking a cent vs a hunchie something beyond perference. for those that don't get that. you can build pretty much the same loadout on a cent and a hunchie and vice versa. So what is the point of having both?

The point is they don't mitigate OP builds. Maybe the current flavor of the month, but what if the next broken weapon, is, say, SRM? Then the mechs witht he most hard points to carry SRMs will work.

Hard points should only be relied on to bring flavour to a chassis and distinguish the different variants and mech options. But don't use it as a balancing tool.

[kuangmk11]

AnnoyingCat, on 28 May 2013 - 10:08 AM, said:

without the limit, eh? see that 4 AC20 atlas over there?

Even with totally unregulated hard points an Atlas would never be able to field more than 2xAC20, there is no room. A stalker or the 733P could though.

[Lykaon]

MeiSooHaityu, on 28 May 2013 - 10:05 AM, said:

I will play devil's advocate here. I have seen many threads about how Hardpoint limitations would solve a large amount of game balance issues. This is a thread about how this might not be a good idea. Even if you disagree, think of it as "food for thought"

Most people think that the current system is being heavily abused because larger weapons can end up on smaller mechs just because there is available tonnage and open crit slots. They want harpoints to be size limited to say prevent a Raven from carrying a Gauss Rifle, etc...

The reason I think this is a potentially bad idea is; It allows Assaults and Heavies an even greater advantage over Medium and Lights.

Larger Mechs such as a Highlander, are meant to carry larger weapons (even in stock configuration). As the mechs get lighter (and less tonnage is available), the weapons restrictions become more prevalent. This generally would mean that smaller mechs can only carry smaller weapons (with the exception of cannon mech like the AC20 Hunch).

If you think hardpoint limitiations would discourage "Poptarting", think about this...
Even with Hardpoint limitations, a Highlander would still have available hardpoints for a Gauss Rifle, PPCs, and of course Jump Jets (afterall, this mech is an Assault and would have harpoints that would allow for these). You would still have these mechs poptarting to contend with. Maybe the Cataphract 3D would be impacted a bit, but I bet it could still mount a Gauss and 1 ERPPC depending on location.

Now the Medium mechs would have a limitation on weapon size and less of a chance to combat larger mechs. This setup would make Mediums even rarer on the battlefield.

I know MW4 used limitations, but that was a game (that I assume, I played only MW2 and MW3), that put you into ever bigger mechs as you played through. The limitations were probably put in the game to keep the difficulty level against the AI more contant. I don't believe it would be proper here.


In short, I know it would hamper some crazy builds, but I think it would cause a bigger rift between the Lights and Mediums Vs Heavy and Assaults. This is not good for chassis balance IMO.

If you guys have any additional ideas, I would be curious to hear them.

I kinda get what you are saying but I must point out that you are making a lot of asumptions about how a hardpoint limitation will work.

Let me illistarget how your potential pitfall you outlined can be circumvented.

Let's outline hardpoints for two distinct mechs.A Hunchback 4P and a Highlander 732.

Each distinct hardpoint may only ever mount ONE weapon of the specific class of weapon and that weapon may never exceed the max crit spaces available to that hardpoint.

i.e. A Right Torso Missile Hardpoint with three critical space cap can mount any one Missile weapon that does not exceed three critical spaces.

We could for example have the Hunchback 4P have hardpoints like the following.

Head one energy hardpoint with 1 critical
RT one energy hardpoint with up to 3 criticals
RT five energy hardpoints with 1 critical capacity each
RA one energy hardpoint with up to 2 criticals
LA one energy hardpoint with up to 2 criticals

This hardpoint layout would not allow for multiple PPCs (only one) but it would allow for multiple large lasers or large pulse lasers (up to three) As well as allow for the use of all hardpoints to mount any single critical energy weapon like small lasers,medium lasers and their pulse equivilents.

Now let's give the Highlander 733 the same work over.

RA: Ballistic hardpoint with seven critical spaces
LA: Missile hardpoint with three critical spaces
LA: Missile hardpoint with three critical spaces
RT: Energy hardpoint with two critical spaces
RT: Energy hardpoint with two critical spaces
RT: Energy hardpoint with three critical spaces
LT: Missile hardpoint with six critical spaces
LT Missile hardpoint with six critical spaces.

This Highlander could mount an impressive array of weaponry yet it is not capable of loading tripple PPCs and a Gauss due to the lack of three critical energy hardpoints.

[IceSerpent]

MeiSooHaityu, on 28 May 2013 - 10:05 AM, said:

If you guys have any additional ideas, I would be curious to hear them.

You are way off target here - limiting hardpoints has nothing to do with the size of the mech, and everything to do with the size of the hardpoint (location) itself. Just for example: 50t Hunchie 4G is supposed to have a large ballistic hardpoint with small energy hardpoints, while 65t Cat K2 is supposed to have large energy hardpoints with small ballistic ones. The whole point is to provide more variety, so that one variant is good for mounting a PPC and another is good for mounting N medium lasers instead (while both have the same amount of energy hardpoints, different sizes of those hardpoints make those variants different from each other).

[AnnoyingCat]

OneEyed Jack, on 28 May 2013 - 10:30 AM, said:

Wow. Haven't seen someone miss a point by that wide a margin in a long time.

He's not referring to any suggestion of removing hardpoints. He's referring to people continually suggesting that not only should mechs have hardpoints that restrict where weapons are placed and the class of weapons placed there, but that each hardpoint should only be able to hold weapons of the right size range. Basically, if the stock mech had a Med Laser, then that hardpoint could only hold "small energy weapons" and so on.

It was a stupid system designed by people that made earlier Mechwarrior titles. Bear in mind that these titles were NOT Battletech games. They were simply Mecha games making use of the IP. The weapons used these slots because they didn't use crits. A small weapon was one slot, a medium weapon 2 slots and a large weapon 3 slots. A hardpoint (or whatever they called them) came with 1, 2 or 3 slots. Any weapon took up an entire hardpoint but couldn't be larger than the number of slots.

It would basically turn the game into a series of cookie-cutter mechs because the small spots could only hold a few different weapons. The medium slots could hold any of those, plus any of a few larger weapons. The hardpoints could hold any weapon, but when you have a limited number of hardpoints, so much tonnage to use and no place else to use it, what are you going to run? Especially when only a few mechs could even use the large weapons.

i read 4 words and ate the rest

[Raso]

As I've said in another topic if you put a lower cap on heat and adjust the heat generation of the weapons in game to compensate you won't need to limit hardpoints. Yes, you could still boat 6 PPCs on your stalker but it wouldn't be worth it any more than boating 4 PPC is currently on a Hunchback 4P.

By limiting heat capacity you will force people to utilize their spare tonnage more efficiently. Piling on heatsink after heatsink wouldn't be as effective as adding more low heat weaponry which you could use in between alphas. The name of the game would change from landing high alphas while keeping your distance to throwing damage down range while you close in then finishing them off with your other weapons. A Cataphract with 2 PPCs, a few medium lasers and an AC10 would be very balanced and very deadly. A Hunchback 4P would have to use hit and run tactics or chain fire for sustained DPS. A Stalker would have to use a mix of lasers and LRMs along side it's PPCs or risk under preforming.

Basically by making it worth while to use your non-PPC/gauss tonnage to something other than 30 extra DHS and by making it impractical to use more than a few PPC at once you won't have to put hardpoint restrictions into place. Heck this might even make a few stock load outs playable!

Edited by Raso, 28 May 2013 - 01:05 PM.

[Cheatos]

Most of you were not in the game back when the first 4 mechs had more hardpoints. That being said there was a river of tears and crying over the fact that the original cat K2 had 4 ballistic hard points and 6 energy hard points. This did lead to more interesting loadouts in the game, but then it was a "nerf this or I'll cry more" or "whats the point of owning anything but the K2" overflow on the forums. the devs dialed back the hard points and then most people grumbled but accepted it. Now granted there have been a substantial amount of changes to the game since then but being as I was one of the people there when more hard points were in play, I am pretty confident that there would be instant screams to nerf it once it would be implemented. But then again being that this is the internet, somebody will cry about something in a game.

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