21 replies to this topic

[aniviron]

It's been the better part of a year since the specter of Jumpsnipers has plagued MWO. By and large, the gameplay is better, more weapons are viable, more mechs are usable. There have been enough changes to the PPC, Gauss rifle, and jumpjets that jump sniping is essentially dead and buried, and the fact that many chassis without JJs are now quite viable would certainly break the meta up even if this weren't the case.

I'm not going to comment one way or another on the lifting power of jumpjets- I feel it could stand to be increased a bit, but it's important that they not be so useful that any mech without them is useless, which was a situation that was true for over a year in MWO- even when poptarting died, JJs were still mandatory equipment for traversing terrain.

The heat buildup from JJs, however, is just too much. It serves no purpose except to punish mechs that rely heavily on jumpjets for combat maneuvering. It makes mechs like the Cataphract 3D less desirable, as the huge tonnage investment of four jumpjets turns out to not be worthwhile because of how much heat the jets build. It's even crueler to clan mechs, as they can't remove the jets to regain tonnage, and most mechs with jets have below-average agility compared to mechs without, as the JJs were assumed to provide additional maneuvering ability.

Instead, it just leaves the Mist Lynx, Nova, and Summoner in the position of being forced to take 5-6 JJs and then being unable to use them in combat. While the heat buildup seems relatively minimal, it's enough to completely stop my Nova's 22 double heat sinks from dissipating any heat at all, which is completely unacceptable on mechs that run as hot as the Nova and Mist Lynx.

Ironically, after several years, the best strategy is still taking just one jumpjet. It provides enough thrust to get over small obstacles, the quick-tap strategy means it's enough lift to climb the mountain in Crimson Strait, and it can be used to distort the hitbox while running. While it doesn't provide enough lift to climb very high, it also generates almost no heat, whereas having a full set prevents your mech from sinking heat at all. If the point of the JJ heat penalty was to encourage single-jet cheese, then it's working perfectly.

[Recnamor]

Had to sign in just to say that you have a point. The thrust increase after adding more JJ's should be larger than the heat increase. Mist Lynx is the only I have, but it is painfull.

Also, making poptarting somewhat viable would be great. Devoting a lot of tonnage to JJ's should lift you fast and high, maybe even thrust increasing exponentially with the addition of JJ's. But with heavies and assaults you'd sacrifice tonnage to do so.

I hated poptarting, but it is a shame it is all but dead now. It should be viable tactic.

JJ hitbox abuse, I use it, and will continue to use it unless they fix it. I wont be mad if they do

[Lily from animove]

Heat is fine, the general JJ's are weird.

JJ's form standing have a nearly vertical acceleration, which is weird. Lights catapuls like a rocket, mediums are somewhat ok, but have too much vertical thrust. And Hevaies? poorly, Assaults, just NO.

JJ's should be reowrked to give us more horizontal thurst, to make longer jumps. And probably being bble to make a heavy and assault seriously cross some proper distance with JJ'S. Or helping when climbing a hill, but the nearly upwards thrust form raw unaccelerated stand is making this more a pain than a mobility help.

The only thing I would like to chancege on my Nova is more horizontal thrust. I can jump way higher than needed, but some simply gaps soemtimes areimpossible unless you cna go max speed before jumping.

Edited by Lily from animove, 16 February 2015 - 04:54 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Maybe a heat adjustment so that it affects Light and Medium mechs a bit less. I don't mind keeping heat a bit more punishing for the Heavies and Assaults.

Maybe that is unfair, but I REALLY don't miss the days of bouncing Highlanders and Cataphracts.

[Ralgas]

i don't use jj's enough to comment on what they may or may not need past this.

Timbergods are strong enough, we don't need to add very effective jump sniper to it's arsenal. They are reasonable on some maps now in the pub queues

Edited by Ralgas, 16 February 2015 - 05:03 AM.

[John1352]

It's ridiculous. In many cases it is better to pull off your jumpjets and grab a bigger engine, more heatsinks, or heavier weapons. When jumpjet heat was introduced, it was only supposed to slow down cooling, not make your heat go up. Some of the heavier mechs can raise their heat while using them. Between screenshake, hoverjets and hoverjet heat, they almost belong in the bin with the flamers.

Note: The jumpjets on lighter mechs are not so bad. The assault jumpjets are the ones that really need a partial unnerf.

[FupDup]

Once upon a time, mechs could climb up almost any slope without issue, including hills and even mountains to an extent. Hillhumping dominated. JJs were actually considered subpar. This was a really long time ago, early into Open Beta.

Then, we got updated slope movement code that made you stop entirely when you hit pebbles. All of the sudden, JJs became a lot more necessary and any mech that could use them was instantly favored over its cohorts. Coincidentally, certain frontloaded weapons also had very good synergy with JJs, leading to everybody's least favorite past metagame...

After toaster pastry shenanigans, JJs have been nerfed several times over in retaliation.


From the looks of this logic chain, it would appear that a big part of why JJs are so favored is because the climbing code is so restrictive, which means people had to begin using JJs in order to actually get anywhere.

This doesn't mean we should return to the days of Stalkers waddling up mountains, but it should be loosened up a bit. In particular, climbing a slope should NOT make a mech come to a complete stop unless it's extremely steep. Slowing down a bit when climbing large enough slopes is fine, but being stopped by "pebbles" is just dumb.

With renewed effectiveness for non-JJ mechs, this would give us a good excuse to finally look into the core JJ functions and make them into something not stupid (i.e. emphasize POSITIONING instead of minimizing exposure while firing or gaining slightly faster turning speed).

Edited by FupDup, 16 February 2015 - 05:40 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Well said Fup. I agree with you on that.

[Gamuray]

Honestly, I think the screenshake and reduced thrust on jj's is plenty, if not just the screenshake. I agree with Recnamor that it still should be a possible tactic, though I feel that it should be exclusive to mechs with higher capacity for them. Mechs that can devote some serious tonnage to their jumpjets have the right to be able to jump high enough to fire on the enemy, so long as those that don't devote as much tonnage can't do so with diminishing effectiveness as they devote less tonnage.

[aniviron]

I definitely agree with Fup on that- if movement on non-flat non-empty terrain wasn't so punitive to anything without JJs, then it'd be safe to unnerf JJs a bit, since mechs without would be at less of a disadvantage.

It just feels like common sense that any barrier shorter than the height of a mech's knee should be climbable. That lip where the river city citadel meets the water is a great example of this aggravating stupidity.

[Lily from animove]

aniviron, on 16 February 2015 - 05:44 AM, said:

I definitely agree with Fup on that- if movement on non-flat non-empty terrain wasn't so punitive to anything without JJs, then it'd be safe to unnerf JJs a bit, since mechs without would be at less of a disadvantage.

It just feels like common sense that any barrier shorter than the height of a mech's knee should be climbable. That lip where the river city citadel meets the water is a great example of this aggravating stupidity.

I think we have to wait for a map overhaul on this, Viridian Bog was made already with this in mind and the "stairs" here have those feature already,

[Mechteric]

Jumpjets, the way they should be, can be seen already. As you can see, they build up a decent amount of heat, but you get some serious distance on them.

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 16 February 2015 - 06:36 AM.

[Coolant]

Make jumpjet hit 10x for all I care, I don't use jumpjets, and jump-sniping has been an issue not only in this game but in MW4:Mercs. Whatever keeps that idiotic tactic dead and buried is fine with me....

[Soy]

All the hate towards poptarting... xD

Since I've returned I've been doing it again to great effect. It's been nerfed what, a dozen times already in various ways? I'm enjoying it with cERPPCs, even though it's been watered down and the meta is diluted too with starelasers.

[Cyborne Elemental]

FupDup, on 16 February 2015 - 05:32 AM, said:

...stuff...

This is absolutely true, FupDup hit the nail on the head.

With slope tolerance as messed up as it is now, JJ's become almost necessary to maneuver around the map without getting stuck on every stupid slope or pebble or map flaw.

Changes to JJ and hill-climbing is just a long chain of events that were completely unnecessary and didn't add anything interesting to the game, but rather made simple obstacles and terrain features into a totally screwed up frustrating mess, and now with all the JJ nerfs, even Jump capable mechs have a hard time with some of it.

I agree that Atlas and Stalkers shouldn't be portrayed as billy goats and have the ability to climb up every steep surface, but when non-JJ capable mechs can actually move around a little easier over the terrain, JJ's lose much of their value and balance is better between the two.

I believe that a little mix of both would be a good deal.
Restoring JJ thrust and height values starting at Mediums and up, on top of adjusting Slope tolerances for every weight class in the game, so that terrain is easier to move around when you don't have JJ's.

JJ Heatscale IMO is a fair trade, but could use some small adjustments.

When it comes to JJ mechs, one big stand out problem is the ability to exploit animation glitches, namely on the Timberwolf and Victor, fixing those two mech's jump/land animations would go a long way also.

[aniviron]

Lily from animove, on 16 February 2015 - 06:07 AM, said:

I think we have to wait for a map overhaul on this, Viridian Bog was made already with this in mind and the "stairs" here have those feature already,

You must be playing a different version of that map than me, I get stuck constantly on those stairs- I need to wiggle just right to find the specific angle where the invisible ramp under the stairs was placed to make it work.

But going through the maps and placing collision under everything isn't a feasible answer. Inevitably, there will be places that need reworking, just like the weapon collision does (on Tourmaline and HPG especially) and it's a massive amount of work. It'd make more sense to approach this from a programming angle than a level design one.

[Bigbacon]

Lily from animove, on 16 February 2015 - 06:07 AM, said:

I think we have to wait for a map overhaul on this, Viridian Bog was made already with this in mind and the "stairs" here have those feature already,

the odd thing on this map is for some mechs the stairs are easy to climb and for others they aren't and there is zero rhyme or reason to which can't and can.

Edited by Bigbacon, 16 February 2015 - 09:24 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

How about increasing the lift by a fair amount and remove that initial boost one gets when taking off?

[Mystere]

MeiSooHaityu, on 16 February 2015 - 04:58 AM, said:

Maybe a heat adjustment so that it affects Light and Medium mechs a bit less. I don't mind keeping heat a bit more punishing for the Heavies and Assaults.

Maybe that is unfair, but I REALLY don't miss the days of bouncing Highlanders and Cataphracts.

I miss them. They were clay pigeons as far as I was concerned.

[Sorbic]

Mystere, on 16 February 2015 - 09:31 AM, said:

I miss them. They were clay pigeons as far as I was concerned.

Pretty much. They were predictable, slow, easy to hit and a slight change in direction usually threw off their PPC. Just don't be predictable and they had a lot harder time pre-lining up the shot/hitting you.

I think there has already been some good suggestions here, esp the hill climbing one. Hopefully we get some JJ buffs so my maxed JJ Jester can achieve decent lift and those poor silly Highlanders can don't look like some failed elementary class rocket.