52 replies to this topic

[Roland]

I was talking to some folks, and decided to lay out this modification to the hardpoint system for folks to consider. It centers on the idea of limiting each hardpoint to certain size weapons. This has been mentioned numerous times, but I figured I'd go ahead an make it a bit more concrete.

In this system, instead of just having an energy hardpoint, you'd have an energy hardpoint which was limited to weapons 2 slots or smaller.

Essentially, you'd have a combination of Mechwarrior 4's hardpoint system, with this game's. And the end result would be a system which enabled some flexibility, but preserved some more uniqueness between chassis.

So, as an example, you could take a mech like the Hunchback 4P. The first numbers are the number of hardpoints (as we have today) and the bracketed number for each hardpoint indicates the largest number of critical slots which can "fit" in that hardpoint:
Head - 1[1] energy
Right Arm - 1 [2] energy
Left Arm - 1[2] energy
Right Torso - 1[3] energy, 1[2] energy, 4[1] energy

So, with that layout (just notional off the top of my head), you'd be able to load up the stock config without issue. You'd also be able to do some other things with it, like load up some large lasers (although only 2 in the arms, and 2 in the torso). You'd be able to load up only 1 PPC, in the torso slot.

This type of system provides flexibility, while enabling the mechs to actually be individualized without the developers having to worry as much about how a particular chassis could be totally optimized based on the hardpoints.

Certain mechs, like the K2, could be prevented from mounting huge ballistics in their torsos, just because they happened to carry machine guns there in the stock config. Those hardpoints could be limited to a specific size, perhaps enabling an upgrade to AC2's, but nothing bigger.

Such a system would help address numerous balance issues, while preserving mechlab flexibility, and increasing chassis character.

It would enable mechs like the Awesome to better take over their roles as PPC boats, by eliminating the ability of other chassis like the stalker to boat just as many.

[3rdworld]

Roland, on 12 July 2013 - 05:46 AM, said:

It would enable mechs like the Awesome to better take over their roles as PPC boats, by eliminating the ability of other chassis like the stalker to boat just as many.

I guess this is really my main contention with hardpoint sizes. It seems more like Mech Affirmative Action, than an actual solution to fix imbalances. I would just prefer a system in which people would choose to use the Awesome as a PPC boat vs the stalker, instead of being forced too.

[Roland]

3rdworld, on 12 July 2013 - 05:54 AM, said:

I guess this is really my main contention with hardpoint sizes. It seems more like Mech Affirmative Action, than an actual solution to fix imbalances. I would just prefer a system in which people would choose to use the Awesome as a PPC boat vs the stalker, instead of being forced too.

I understand what you're talking about here, but think of it this way...

It's not about making the stalker bad, or the awesome good. It's just about making certain chassis better/worse at doing specific things.

I think that this holds more promise than just trying to make every chassis able to do everything, because what you'll have in that case is a situation where for any given role, one chassis will simply be better at it than others. It'll be the optimal chassis, largely based upon the mech's geometry (since they'll all be equal in other ways), or tonnage.

By assigning slot sizes to hardpoints, you are simply adding another level of "character" to a specific chassis.

[Talrich]

I like that your proposal isn't simply limiting hard points to their stock size, so a good measure of customization would be retained. Getting that right for each variant could be tricky, but worth the effort.

[3rdworld]

Roland, on 12 July 2013 - 06:46 AM, said:

It's not about making the stalker bad, or the awesome good. It's just about making certain chassis better/worse at doing specific things.

Unless you are going to be very very generous with the hardpoints, you aren't going to be doing this. I really doubt you would give the stalker 4 PPC level energy hardpoints, or you wouldn't be changing anything. Which leads me to conclude you are just going to make the stalker worse, in order to make the awesome seem better.

Though I really hate to compare the stalker to the awesome, one was gifted by the art gods, the other was condemned.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

I guess my only problem with this is it may work for current mechs.

But what do we do with Clan mechs? Are we limiting them artificially?

And what does happen if a Devastater or Annihilator comes out?

Are they just suddenly default the best mechs in the game?

[keith]

sorry devs are too dumb to make a decent system. roland look at the heat bonus system they made up instead. the hardpoint system was the best thing MW4 had in it, beside the aiming of missiles. THEY TOOK NONE OF IT. we talked about the same thing last night on comms. no mech was over powered, at least till mek tek got their hands on it. nova could only hold 4 ppc, glad bag was 3 ppc 2 guass. those were the big alpha we could remember that were do able. everything else was balanced, well semi.

[DocBach]

I was thinking something more like breaking up weapons into taking "light" and "heavy" hardpoints;

flamers, small and medium lasers and their pulse variants are light energy weapons, large lasers and PPC's are heavy energy weapons; you can't place a light weapon in a heavy slot or vice versa, so the AS7-D Atlas cannot remove its medium lasers for PPC's, but the AS7-K Atlas can remove its ER Large lasers for PPC's.

Light ballistics would be machine guns, AC/2, (U)AC/5, heavy ballistics would be (LB)AC/10, AC/20, Gauss Rifle

light missiles would be LRM5-10, SRM's, heavy missiles would be LRM-15/20

this would provide some level of customization for standard Battlemechs, but not so much that would A: promote boating and B: change the 'Mech completely from its intended role

[Roland]

Ya, rather than bothering to list different weapons as having different sizes, which I've seen other folks suggest, I was leaning more towards just using the existing size, represented currently as critical slots.

[Roland]

keith, on 12 July 2013 - 07:32 AM, said:

sorry devs are too dumb to make a decent system. roland look at the heat bonus system they made up instead. the hardpoint system was the best thing MW4 had in it, beside the aiming of missiles. THEY TOOK NONE OF IT.

Well, MW4's hardpoint system had one weakness, in that while it helped prevent the boating of large weapons (to some extent), it didn't really prevent the boating of SMALL weapons.

MWO's system does this, via the limited number of hardpoints. However, it lacks the ability to limit large weapons.

The system I'm presenting here combines the best of both systems, into one which would give the developers the ability to customize mech variants to perform more specific roles.

Quote

Unless you are going to be very very generous with the hardpoints, you aren't going to be doing this. I really doubt you would give the stalker 4 PPC level energy hardpoints, or you wouldn't be changing anything. Which leads me to conclude you are just going to make the stalker worse, in order to make the awesome seem better.

Well, in terms of being able to boat PPC's, it would almost certainly have the effect of "making the stalker worse", but the stalker would be able to do other things like carry more missiles on those variants, etc.

Currently, the stalker can basically just do anything the awesome can do, only better, so yes, any system which tries to carve out specific niches for different chassis will have the effect of making the stalker worse at some things. This isn't a bad thing.

[keith]

Roland, on 12 July 2013 - 07:50 AM, said:

Well, MW4's hardpoint system had one weakness, in that while it helped prevent the boating of large weapons (to some extent), it didn't really prevent the boating of SMALL weapons.

MWO's system does this, via the limited number of hardpoints. However, it lacks the ability to limit large weapons.

The system I'm presenting here combines the best of both systems, into one which would give the developers the ability to customize mech variants to perform more specific roles.

yes but the MW4 devs looked at that. in a way i guess they did make med and small laser almost useless. number and use getting fuzzy here. i do remember heavy med being good, but think that was a mek tek thing.

[Roland]

Ya, the biggest reason you didn't see boated small weapons in MW4 was because FASA made those weapons all trash.

[Funky Bacon]

I'll just post these again.

Please note that these are examples. not something that I consider a "must be".

Spoiler

This setup is on based on the MW4 Atlas an does not really exist in MWO. It's simply an example of how hardpoints could be used to limit boating but still give a good amount of customization.


HBK-4P


The upcoming Battlemaster.


I should make more of these, it's kinda fun playing around with.

[R Razor]

For you 12 year olds that keep saying this isn't right blah blah blah...........try this out for size.

Go take the stock 20in wheels off of your Huffy and replace them with 26' or 28' wheels from your parents mountain bikes, then come back on here and let us know how well they fit.

Mechs are engineered to carry a certain physical size item in a given location and it's borderline asinine to allow the crap that's allowed in the game today.

Nobody pilots an IS mech, everyone is in abortions of clan omni-mechs.

Limiting hard point sizes fixes several things in the game that are broken, especially alpha strike madness.

Now if they'd just couple HP limitations with tonnage restrictions in drops they'd have a better balanced property.

[3rdworld]

R Razor, on 12 July 2013 - 08:52 AM, said:

For you 12 year olds that keep saying this isn't right blah blah blah...........try this out for size.

Go take the stock 20in wheels off of your Huffy and replace them with 26' or 28' wheels from your parents mountain bikes, then come back on here and let us know how well they fit.

Mechs are engineered to carry a certain physical size item in a given location and it's borderline asinine to allow the crap that's allowed in the game today.

Nobody pilots an IS mech, everyone is in abortions of clan omni-mechs.

Limiting hard point sizes fixes several things in the game that are broken, especially alpha strike madness.

Now if they'd just couple HP limitations with tonnage restrictions in drops they'd have a better balanced property.

I disagree so I am a child.

Cool. I like it when you have no real argument, it makes you seem way more intelligent.

BTW everything you say it does, you have provided no proof of that happening and I can give several examples of the opposite being true.

[keith]

R Razor, on 12 July 2013 - 08:52 AM, said:

For you 12 year olds that keep saying this isn't right blah blah blah...........try this out for size.

Go take the stock 20in wheels off of your Huffy and replace them with 26' or 28' wheels from your parents mountain bikes, then come back on here and let us know how well they fit.

Mechs are engineered to carry a certain physical size item in a given location and it's borderline asinine to allow the crap that's allowed in the game today.

Nobody pilots an IS mech, everyone is in abortions of clan omni-mechs.

Limiting hard point sizes fixes several things in the game that are broken, especially alpha strike madness.

Now if they'd just couple HP limitations with tonnage restrictions in drops they'd have a better balanced property.

yes thats the fix. the thing is i really don't think they want to go back and change the 30 or so mechs they have made. add in programing and balancing time probley would be a good month or 2. my opinion better use of time then this crap they came up with.

[R Razor]

I'll be waiting on pics to be posted of your 20in Huffy with 26" or 28" mountain bike tires............and don't forget it needs to weigh the same too. Until then you have proven nothing.

If you were truly as intelligent as you apparently think you are, you would realize that you don't replace an item with a different item that is physically larger in a space designed to hold the original smaller item. Like the Playskool toys you had a few years back.........the square was physically incapable of being put into the round hole........different size and shape physically. But you could put the skinny rectangle through the round hole, because it was physically capable of fitting, like say a LPL being physically the same size as a LL for instance. I hope these examples don't confuse you too badly.

Clan Mechs used modules, the mechs in the game now are NOT Clan Mechs, ergo you shouldn't be able to make such sweeping changes.

Edited by R Razor, 12 July 2013 - 09:04 AM.

[tenderloving]

Every time I see a thread like this it makes me rage. Not because I disagree, but because it reminds me of the potential this game has and how terribly it's being squandered to hold onto somebody's ****** up design philosophy.

If they implemented hardpoint sizes they would gain an extremely powerful and easy to use balancing tool. If a certain chassis is problematic, change a hardpoint. No more sweeping weapon system nerfs. No more arbitrary heat systems.

If they want to have a variety of mechs on the field they will have to do this. No other system, other than significant mech-specific perks/disadvantages where applicable, allows the devs to fine tune the chassis to make them all competitive.

Edited by tenderloving, 12 July 2013 - 09:05 AM.

[tenderloving]

3rdworld, on 12 July 2013 - 08:57 AM, said:

I disagree so I am a child.

Cool. I like it when you have no real argument, it makes you seem way more intelligent.

BTW everything you say it does, you have provided no proof of that happening and I can give several examples of the opposite being true.

That was actually a really good argument.

His flaw is that you can't use common sense as an argument when your opponent has already thrown that out the window.

[Roland]

tenderloving, on 12 July 2013 - 09:02 AM, said:

Every time I see a thread like this it makes me rage. Not because I disagree, but because it reminds me of the potential this game has and how terribly it's being squandered to hold onto somebody's ****** up design philosophy.

If they implemented hardpoint sizes they would gain an extremely powerful and easy to use balancing tool. If a certain chassis is problematic, nerf a hardpoint. No more sweeping weapon system nerfs. No more arbitrary heat systems.

I don't think it's actually counter to any of PGI's design decisions. Indeed, it leverages their decision to use a limited number of hardpoints, which provides some advantages over MW4's system.

This merely adds to their ideas.

The only thing that would be required, would be to find a way to represent this in the interface. However, I think it could be done with fairly minimal interface modifications. What I would suggest:

1) In addition to the current hardpoint listings, I'd simply extend them somewhat to include the bracketed size information. Fairly simple.
2) When adding in a weapon to a location, you just fit it into the smallest hardpoint capable of holding it, and then mark that hardpoint as full. This is basically exactly how it works now, only without the size check.

I think a system like this could be implemented with fairly minor changes to the overall system, and thus without introducing a massive amount of risk.

Also, please don't just start fighting with each other.