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[Spleenslitta]

I didn't notice any difference with my light mechs but my assault mech felt kinda gimped.
Energy draw makes the assault mechs less powerfull but barelly affects light and fast medium mechs at all.

Energy draw brings TTK up a bit especially at brawling range, but i think this is not the way to go because it doesn't have enough effect overall.
I've also seen other players saying it's possible to use a 6x ER PPC mech without blowing up on the spot.
So something is obviously wrong.


I suggest abandoning your version of energy draw and concider Navid A1 idea for a seperate energy and ammo feed feedback idea.
It's simple to understand and balance.
Link to Navid A1's feedback
Ammo Reload Capacity... An Improved Approach Favoring Mixed Builds.

If you persist in using your version of Energy Draw you should concider the following.

- The more you push the throttle towards full speed the more of the energy produced is used to keep the mech going.
Never more than the mech produces though.

- Lessen the energy produced each second. 2 or 3 energy each second would be better than 5.
Depends on how much energy full speed would take.

- The heat penalties for going over the 30 energy cap must be much, much higher.


If you won't concider Navid's idea then try mine please. But be warned it's more advanced and you would need to work really hard to make it a reality.


I have put my own idea for energy draw inside the spoiler button below.
It will increase the learning curve but it will limit all weight classes equally and heavily encourage mixing weapon types thus increasing TTK by a lot.

Oh yeah...the second spoiler button has some stuff that will further increase TTK and further encourage mixed weapon loadouts.

Energy Draw and Recoil balances energy, missiles and ballistic weapons. Gyro gets a function as a bonus.

Spoiler

Keep in mind i put no numbers here since math is not my strong point. Paul will have to balance it if you adopt this system.
Let's start with my version of energy draw.

Everything you do consumes energy.
Walking, running, moving torso and arms never consumes more energy than the mech produces.
The closer you are to your mechs topspeed the more energy it consumes.
Using JJ's uses energy to a higher degree than plain movement.
Maybe even using ECM, BAP, TAG since it's about some high powered sensors.

If you run out of energy you can choose from several things that could happen.
- Mech comes to a complete standstill till energy reservoirs get into the positives again.
- Cannot fire weapons.
- Mech becomes very sluggish and slow.
- HUD temporarily shuts down. Cannot get target locks, see minimap or any other HUD elements.

Firing weapons consumes most energy of all.
Energy weapons produces heat as usual but also takes more energy to fire than missiles and ballistic weapons.
Mechs such the Hunchback 4P has only energy weapons so you might have to give it an energy production quirk to help it out.
Or you can just say that the players have to get used to making mixed range builds and not use long range weapons at close ranges to compensate.

Missile weapons consumes less energy than energy weapons but more than ballistics.
They consume some energy to get a target lock and some to send off so many missiles.

Ballistic weapons consumes the least amount of energy but Gauss might be the exception.
Gauss could consume a lot of energy to fire and because of that it's limited in a new way so you might be able to remove the charge up mechanic.

Since ballistic weapons produce little heat and use little energy they need something to balance them with energy and missile weapons.
Recoil will balance them.

Recoil and gyro explained.
Energy weapons do not produce recoil and missiles should produce little or maybe no recoil.
But ballistic weapons should produce a lot of recoil. Especially the heaviest cannons such as the AC20 and Gauss.
Gauss could have both heavy recoil and high energy use so there would be no need for the charge up mechanic.
A mechs gyro will be limited to a certain amount of recoil that can be fired without inflicting a penalty.
Let's say a mech can fire up to 20 recoil and the gyro recovers from the recoil after a few seconds.

But if you go above the gyro's ability to compensate a penalty occurs. This penalty could be anything you want it to be.

- Gyro consumes a lot of energy to get the mech stable once again.
- Gyro overheats producing heat. Can be combined with the above.
- Mech stops and stands still.
- Slower top speed and acceleration/deceleration.
- Mech falls over.

The gyro could also be influenced by how close your mech is to it's topspeed.
The faster you go the more the gyro has to work and going at top speed while firing 2x AC20 gets you an instant harsh penalty of some kind.

The gyro's status does not need to be a bar if you think that is too much to keep an eye on.
A colorcoded symbol green-yellow-orange-red-flashing red would be fine.
Maybe a transforming gyro symbol alternative for the colorblind.

A damaged gyro becomes less effective.

Because producing too much recoil or consuming too much energy is a bad thing more players would concider mixing weapon types.
That would mean less pinpoint damage and thus increases TTK by a lot.
This would also be closer to the lore since a lot of the stock TT mechs had a bit of everything.

Here is another thing that might increase TTK by making energy (laser/PPC) boating and
ammo boating (LRM60, AC40, 3/4x UAC5) dangerous.
It also gives a couple bonuses such as -
- Make players concider using CASE.
- Give the Flamer and MG a fair chance at becoming popular weapons.

Spoiler

First how to make the ammo boats dangerous.
As you know a mech with 2x AC20 or LRM60 or 3x UAC5 needs a lot of ammo to keep itself feed throughout a match.
If you increased the chances of ammo explosions fewer players would use such builds because of the risks.
This would increase TTK.

If you made it possible for ammo to explode whenever a mech stays hotter than 85% for longer periods of time it would also help increase TTK.
That would be because of more players using mixed weaponry builds.

If you gave the Flamer an increased chance at detonating ammo whenever it crits unarmored ammo piles it would further discourage such ammo boats.
Since the MG is good at criting unarmored components in general it would see an increase in popularity too.
This would also make players use CASE more.


Now for the energy boats.
Mechs relying solely on energy weapons always run hot.
So if mechs got more and more sluggish the hotter the mech is the more likely it is that players would use mixed weapon builds to keep the heat down.

This is just an example. Thanks to IaIdabaoth for providing the numbers.
- Speed, acceleration/deceleration, turning, arm, and twist speed are reduced linearly starting at 30% heat, as follows:

30% heat: 100% speed
40% heat: 95% speed
50% heat: 90% speed
60% heat: 85% speed
70% heat: 80% speed
80% heat: 75% speed
90% heat: 70% speed
100% heat: 65% speed
- At 90% heat, you behave as if you were inside an enemy ECM bubble.
- at 100% and higher heat, in additional to CT internal structure damage, there's an increasing % chance of an ammunition explosion for non-Gauss ammo.

The sluggishness of hot mechs and the increased chances of ammo explosions would heavily encourage a mix of energy, missiles and ballistic weapons.
Combine this with my version of energy draw and recoil and it becomes even better.

I know the developers at PGI wants to keep things simple so it's easier to program, balance and keep the learning curve shallow.
But if you want to get any progress you must be bold.
Lacklustre changes to MWO will lead to lacklustre results or eventually a great failure as the community gets tired of mech packs.
If you want MWO to carve out it's own niche amongst the shooter games you need to work for it.

Feel free to send me a PM if you by any chance liked my ideas. I got other ideas such as-
- AC2 rebalance without touching any TT stats.
- Usefull Rifles without touching the armor penalty or any of it's TT other stats. Stays true to the lore.
- Binary laser balancing without touching TT stats.

Edited by Spleenslitta, 20 August 2016 - 10:29 AM.