147 replies to this topic

[Cy Mitchell]

Quaamik, on 02 May 2016 - 05:11 PM, said:

Give something that preserves the core game. Once you reach the level where you would get the Long Tom, give continuous sensor coverage.

Anything but this.

1453 R, on 02 May 2016 - 05:26 PM, said:

Here's the thing - in what way does any of that crap relate to "SCOUTING" Mode?

The point of the Scouting mode is to acquire intelligence on the disposition of enemy forces, or to interfere with the enemy's attempts to do the same to you.

Actually, his one suggestion that I quoted makes perfect sense for a scouting mission. I had thought about suggesting this myself with all the complaints about the Long Tom. Even though teams with skill have easily overcome the Long Tom and in some cases even used it to their own advantage, I understand that many are upset that it has turned their FP meta game on its head. They cannot bunch up and laser Alpha the incoming Mechs without having to worry about getting a Long Tom dropped on their heads and they cannot do the mass brawl push for the same reason. Therefore, the Long Toms destroyed FW complaints.

Giving the team that won the scouting mission full and constant satellite observation so they know their enemies every move might be a suitable reward for winning the scouting matches if PGI decides to remove LT from the game or nerf it into oblivion. It also kind of fits the whole covert information gathering scenario.

Edited by Rampage, 02 May 2016 - 07:29 PM.

[Team Chevy86]

Will this change to taking no headshot damage also apply to artillery strikes and air strikes?

Edited by Team Chevy86, 02 May 2016 - 07:57 PM.

[Carl Vickers]

Team Chevy86, on 02 May 2016 - 07:56 PM, said:

Will this change to taking no headshot damage also apply to artillery strikes and air strikes?

The way PGI does things, it will become a new feature.

[Dee Eight]

Mad Cat4uk, on 02 May 2016 - 04:00 PM, said:

I have a question, Why is scouting set to 55tons, wouldnt it be less than that for quick drop off and recovery? The clans are loosing out due to lack of good mechs at that tonnage and with no way to over-power 3 centurions with AC20s. I like the long tom but want to know when we will be getting more weapons like the Light C-guass Rifle and MRMs and the chance to fit the long tom to a mech?

You haven't been playing scouting missions or reading the forums for the past two weeks at all have you? Stormcrows and Hunchie IICs are THE dominant mechs in scout mode... there is no real inner sphere answer to medium mechs able to hit 100kmh, with 350 ish armor, and able to have 70-90 damage alpha strikes.

[Carl Vickers]

Dee Eight, on 02 May 2016 - 08:11 PM, said:

You haven't been playing scouting missions or reading the forums for the past two weeks at all have you? Stormcrows and Hunchie IICs are THE dominant mechs in scout mode... there is no real inner sphere answer to medium mechs able to hit 100kmh, with 350 ish armor, and able to have 70-90 damage alpha strikes.

Hyperbole and poppycock. IS has plenty of mechs able to stand up to and belt the crow into next week.

Lies make the baby jeebus cry!

[Dee Eight]

As to the clans always having longtoms...actually much of this afternoon, one of the planets held by Rasalhague being invaded by a clan, had the defenders controlling the long tom. Just before the ceasefire happened the defenders had a 98% intelligence rating. Suddenlly there were like 60 or so people queued to defend...and all the clan players disappeared. I did two invasion ghost drops.

[Carl Vickers]

Dee Eight, on 02 May 2016 - 08:16 PM, said:

As to the clans always having longtoms...actually much of this afternoon, one of the planets held by Rasalhague being invaded by a clan, had the defenders controlling the long tom. Just before the ceasefire happened the defenders had a 98% intelligence rating. Suddenlly there were like 60 or so people queued to defend...and all the clan players disappeared. I did two invasion ghost drops.

Less whining and more scouting then.

PS, until it is normalized and makes sense, peeps will desert planets where a LT is active.

Edited by Carl Vickers, 02 May 2016 - 08:18 PM.

[Al Avatar DB]

Here i am going to say something else you can do with the Long Tom that will make some scoff.

1. Make it like COD- you get a kill, get the sat sweep. Get 3 get the Long Tom.
Make it tied to the B Battegrid. Up to PGI to keep it ais or nerf it. Arillery in many ways is innaccurate. This will keep it from being controlled by a comp that knows your exact position.

2. Make the intermission between shots longer.

3. Make it composed of smaller ammo rounds that make surviving a barrage more a matter of chance.

and/or

4. Make other random rewards for scouting like getting support tanks, LRM launchers, choppers and scout vehcles. They were a part of previous mechwarrior games and made your mech feel like the big deal we make mechs out to be. For mechs to be foot soldiers is an affront to the true sense of their power.

[Shimmering Sword]

The idea of the Long Tom is a nice one, and the truth is it's extremely easy to design in a fair way. But PGI I have to say this implementation, even after 3 variations, begs the question of if you've even playtested it yourself or asked some trusted players how to fix it.

1 - It drops so often that the receiving team spends half of their time dispersing to avoid casualties. A good team can minimize losses this way, but the issue here is the enemy team can push and attack lone mechs. You've removed the option of teamwork. It takes about 30 seconds to disperse your team, then about 20 to regroup after the strike, leaving only 70 second windows where a team can be a team, and plans requires prep time on top of that.

2 - The blast radius is enormous and the shell hits so fast. Did not a single person in the dev team raise this issue? You've added a game feature that is out of the players control, that hits such a wide area that almost no mech is capable of escaping its effect, not even nearby mechs. This is a no interaction, "AI picked you to not have fun" problem.

3 - The damage level, even after reduction is still too high. Again any players that regularly play FP know that taking out even a lightly damaged mech is much easier than a fresh mech. Simply having the long tom soften the enemy a little would be a great advantage. Instead every mech hit (as established, they will be hit) removes a considerable percentage of effectiveness from a team, and this is a game where a few percent of effectiveness decides the winner and loser.

3 - Final result, lopsided scale of benefits for scouting. Enemy drop deck information sure is nice, but doesn't seal a victory. Enemy position information is nicer, but doesn't prevent its victims from playing out their strategies which may be sound regardless. But suddenly the long tom comes around, and while a team can still win while under its fire if they heavily out skill, in an even match up this addition is a sudden and sharp guaranteed loss. Invasion players should feel a disadvantage, not be nailed into a coffin by the handiwork of pugs being farmed in the scout queue.

I have played two matches on the receiving end of the long tom, I managed to lead our side in victories in both (big premade vs pugs). But between strikes killing 1-4 of our mechs, we were fighting the enemy team and killing them 3 to 1. Basically it turned a steamroll game that was in our favor, to one that we pulled off by a small margin. Any fight resembling fair would have ended with us easily defeated.

Easy fix:
- Extend timer to 4 minutes as other have said, even 3 would be ok.
- Reduce blast radius a bit, and more importantly implement exponential falloff.
- Extend the smoke timer, and implement a flashing marker on the minimap.
- Reduce damage a bit more, even a big mech that foolishly sits in the strike zone should come out alive, if very battered.
- Maybe require a form of player effort, such as the long tom only firing if a benefiting player has line of sight to a mech and within a certain range.

Edited by Shimmering Sword, 02 May 2016 - 09:32 PM.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Void Angel, on 02 May 2016 - 04:03 PM, said:

I don't think you do. You responded to a post telling you that the random headshot code was being removed from all explosive weapons - including strikes - by saying that you thought that the random headshot code should be removed from all explosive weapons, including strikes!

Fix yourself before you accuse other people of not listening - besides, listening to you doesn't mean they have to agree.

I don't need to correct anything. I'm simply re-asking for something that has been asked years ago.
The part you don't understand is why I'm asking for something at the same time that it has been stated that we're getting it.

And it's to point out that we've been asking for exactly this change for a while. But instead of listening to our input, they have to implement a gimped feature in order to figure it out.

My redundant response is simply proving the point that they don't listen to us. Probably because we have such polarization on the community. People ask to remove head shots from happening, and other people say they should stay. And during that whole fiasco, PGI says that it's "impossible" because of how the damage is dealt. Well SURPRISE! It's all just to brush us off to the side.


So, it's like a father/son thing. You can tell your son everything, but you have to let him go and experience it for himself. We can tell PGI all the pitfalls and everything, but they have to figure it out themselves it seems.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 02 May 2016 - 09:53 PM.

[Curccu]

MoonUnitBeta, on 02 May 2016 - 02:08 PM, said:

I still think this should be removed for Art and Air strikes as well.
Consumables clearing out cockpits… even if it’s just a 1-time thing every 25 games… it sucks big-time for the person who got cleaned out by a consumable…
One that has a very poor visual effect – takes too long to show up, and lasts too long after the strikes hit.

But this is just an opinion that doesn’t matter, so what evs. It's cool I guess.

Did ya read the whole post?

InnerSphereNews, on 02 May 2016 - 01:41 PM, said:

the current code gives these strikes a random chance of targeting and destroying a ‘Mechs head component.

It is this kind of behavior that we will be fixing in the May 17th patch, not just for the Long Tom but for all strikes.

[Nick86]

It was 700DMG..

700 DAMAGE.
Wow. No wonder the complaints.

I think PGI needs a new recruitment strategy.

[Texas Merc]

stop running 4 head armor on cw dropdeck mechs

[Scanz]

what about cooldown of LT ? its drops too ofthen
no headshots from arty and airstrike ? Huh?

Edited by Scanz, 02 May 2016 - 10:14 PM.

[Nick86]

Shimmering Sword, on 02 May 2016 - 09:25 PM, said:

The idea of the Long Tom is a nice one, and the truth is it's extremely easy to design in a fair way. But PGI I have to say this implementation, even after 3 variations, begs the question of if you've even playtested it yourself or asked some trusted players how to fix it. 1 - It drops so often that the receiving team spends half of their time dispersing to avoid casualties. A good team can minimize losses this way, but the issue here is the enemy team can push and attack lone mechs. You've removed the option of teamwork. It takes about 30 seconds to disperse your team, then about 20 to regroup after the strike, leaving only 70 second windows where a team can be a team, and plans requires prep time on top of that. 2 - The blast radius is enormous and the shell hits so fast. Did not a single person in the dev team raise this issue? You've added a game feature that is out of the players control, that hits such a wide area that almost no mech is capable of escaping its effect, not even nearby mechs. This is a no interaction, "AI picked you to not have fun" problem. 3 - The damage level, even after reduction is still too high. Again any players that regularly play FP know that taking out even a lightly damaged mech is much easier than a fresh mech. Simply having the long tom soften the enemy a little would be a great advantage. Instead every mech hit (as established, they will be hit) removes a considerable percentage of effectiveness from a team, and this is a game where a few percent of effectiveness decides the winner and loser. 3 - Final result, lopsided scale of benefits for scouting. Enemy drop deck information sure is nice, but doesn't seal a victory. Enemy position information is nicer, but doesn't prevent its victims from playing out their strategies which may be sound regardless. But suddenly the long tom comes around, and while a team can still win while under its fire if they heavily out skill, in an even match up this addition is a sudden and sharp guaranteed loss. Invasion players should feel a disadvantage, not be nailed into a coffin by the handiwork of pugs being farmed in the scout queue. I have played two matches on the receiving end of the long tom, I managed to lead our side in victories in both (big premade vs pugs). But between strikes killing 1-4 of our mechs, we were fighting the enemy team and killing them 3 to 1. Basically it turned a steamroll game that was in our favor, to one that we pulled off by a small margin. Any fight resembling fair would have ended with us easily defeated. Easy fix: - Extend timer to 4 minutes as other have said, even 3 would be ok. - Reduce blast radius a bit, and more importantly implement exponential falloff. - Extend the smoke timer, and implement a flashing marker on the minimap. - Reduce damage a bit more, even a big mech that foolishly sits in the strike zone should come out alive, if very battered. - Maybe require a form of player effort, such as the long tom only firing if a benefiting player has line of sight to a mech and within a certain range.

This, broadly should be listened to..

[smokefield]

LT should not drop more than 3 times per game.

Quote

what it should be is a tactical nuke, that is not spammed on the enemy but used strategically and intelligent, that once wasted you feel like you actually wasted an opportunity and not...."eah..we got another in 2 minutes, doesnt matter that we missed". It should give an advantage but it should give the enemy the possibility to win the game even if they got fully hit by it. I mean by playing well and putting a fight.

Edited by smokefield, 02 May 2016 - 11:06 PM.

[Rushin Roulette]

Thank you very much for this change.. it really makes a massive damage if mechs die to 700 damage to the cockpit compared to dying to 300 damage to the cockpit.. Erm... does it make a change? How about changing it to 50 damage to the cockpit... that will really make a difference.

[STEF_]

Last drop Tom stole us 17 kills..... so, yes, it must be nerfed, wtf!

[C E Dwyer]

The frequency of the shots were and are to often, pretty much all through the Scouting bonuses. seems to me that reducing the radius, and how often shots land would have been more sensible.

I have a gut feeling though what's being done is easier to recode than something sensible.

Edited by Cathy, 03 May 2016 - 12:18 AM.

[Rushin Roulette]

Sebastus, on 02 May 2016 - 11:54 PM, said:

itt: people not reading/understanding the whole post.

Regardless, it's good to hear you're reworking the strike code. I think the Long Tom mechanic overall is good. The high damage strike for getting scouting to 90% is fine, just the headshotting is annoying.

If you are reffering to my post... I did... The damage reduction of 700 down to 300 is immediate.. the change to the coding is in 2 weeks. That means that it will still be headshotting with 300 damage until then. Pointless band aid change is still pointless band aid change. They can even reduce the damage down to 50 and it will still make absolutely no difference until the code has actually been changed to make it random component damage. 50 damage will kill just as surely as 300 or 700 damage if it hits the cockpit.