21 replies to this topic

[Asmudius Heng]

I know, there have been a thousand of these but after reading many of them not I do not think the implementation I am listing has been asked for (apologies if it has). Incoming wall of text!

If you do not read this and want the short version - too bad, please do not even comment as you need to actually use your brain not just chuck off ridiculous L2P one liners. Please be considerate and actually pick apart my argument if you can, or agree or look at ways it might be adjusted.

As most people who are thinking critically about the game know - ECM is not the real problem. The way LRMs and SSRMs work led to ECM being the guidance killer because guided missiles were easy mode. So now guided missiles on your ECM is easy mode to a degree. Problem not solved.

ECM will wait. First, let look at guided weapons systems and look to see how they can be balanced WITHOUT ECM first as this will allow a totally fresh look at what ECM can and perhaps should do.

I look at all systems in a few ways. What they are trying to achieve, their drawbacks, their counters, their cost (not cbills we all earn cbills but weight and crit space is always limited) and so forth.

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LRMs

Pros

• Direct fire
  
• Indirect fire with spotters
  
• High relative damage
  
• High accuracy due to guidance
  
• Decent heat for effect

Cons

• Minimum range
  
• Slow travel time
  
• spread damage
  
• Dumb firing is vastly inefficient
  
• Ammo dependant

LRMs provide two roles. A hard hitting accurate direct fire support that spreads quite a lot of damage over enemy mechs caught in the open. This is where they excel and probably should excel. Indirect is just as good. You can sit behind a hill without a line of sight as long as someone is giving you a target and engage without any direct fire coming back at you. The only real issue is someone getting in under your range - if you are a LRM boat this is a death knell unless your team is protecting you which they often are.

This is a hell of a lot of advantages for a few significant disadvantages, Without ECM it is easy to get enemies locked up and spam missiles without any fear form being hit yourself. What SHOULD missiles be to give them a role, a niche without being overpowered? This is my personal view:

LRM purpose:

• Provide powerful direct fire support when you have line of sight to targets at the disadvantage of exposing yourself to direct enemy fire.
  
• Should require skill to gain maximum effectiveness form direct fire LRMs
  
• Should provide indirect fire support without line of sight due to spotters
  
• Indirect fire should be less effective as you do not need to expose yourself to enemy fire or require any skill in aiming.
  
• It is meant to deny the open area at risk to yourself - and flush out campers in cover with little risk but horrible ammo efficiency.

As such LRMs would need to undergo the following revisions:

Provide two types of fire with a toggle switch: Direct and indirect.

• Direct fire would make your missiles fly in a flatter faster arc with a tighter grouping as long as your mech is in line of sight of the enemy.
  
• If you lose line of sight the missiles will attempt to track the target very poorly and scatter like a SRM does at range making it near useless.
  
• You gain a tighter grouping if you keep your reticle trained on the enemy mech. Each time your reticle leaves the body of the mech the missile spread increases drastically. This means you manually guide the missiles in, but if you do not it simply means more spread damage.
  
• This would make a direct fire LRM weapon something that requires skill, but would reward that skill with much higher damage with most missiles hitting.

• Indirect fire is used when you do not have line of sight to provide an indirect barrage on an enemy in cover, or while you need to seek cover due to damage etc.
  
• It will fire missiles higher and come down at a sharper arc with a slower travel time to get over cover.
  
• The grouping of the LRMs will be very loose meaning many will miss their target but will still provide light damage.
  
• You cannot help guide indirect fire on a target, it is on your terribly inefficient targeting computer from the magical world of Battletech
  
• You can ONLY target enemies who are targeted by a team mate. You cannot target those your team mate can see but does not have locked up.
  
• This would make indirect fire useful. It would not be death from above for most mechs but would flush people out of cover, or allow an LRM boat to engage without being fired back upon. Or fire from a concealed position for a variety of tactical reasons. It is an inefficient use of missiles though and should be considered on its tactical worth.

These changes would achieve the tactical purpose of the missiles listed above. Without ECM this would make them more balanced already. Damage, heat firing time etc can all then be balanced on play testing to make sur they are not OP. Their damage could even be lowered so that only skilled pilots could guide the missiles in with tight grouping for lots of overall damage. The mechanics of how missiles work are the issue not the exact stats.

LRMs in my mind are solved this way and provide tactical, fun, and skilled choices on the battlefield.

SSRMs

More problematic. Much, much more problematic. Lets take a look at what they do now.

Pros

• High damage
  
• Very good accuracy due to guidance system
  
• Easy to boat on many builds
  
• Excellent light killers as a counter to their speed and lag shield
  
• Easy locks on bigger mechs making it easy to kill them too
  
• Low recycle time allowing instant fire when ready due to sustained locks
  
• Massive knock effect
  
• Low heat
  
• Tracks CT pretty consistently

Cons

• Very short range
  
• Cannot be dumb fired
  
• Ammo dependent

A lot of positives, not a lot of negatives. One of two streaks not a massive deal, more than that gets very difficult to deal with. So, what is the purpose of SSRMs? Originally they allowed higher accuracy and ammo efficiency basically due to locking on at the cost of additional tonnage. However, the sheer ease of use for such amazing damage combined with boatability means their positive effects are focused to a very harsh degree. What SHOULD they do? Well, in my opinion this:

SSRM purpose:

• To provide a guided SRM to improve overall accuracy of the weapon system
  
• To provide an option to hit fast movers that (even without lag) take less damage from direct fire weapons as they are simply harder to hit.

As such I believe that SSRMs need the following revisions:

• Make them a skill weapon much like the LRM adjustment above. You need to track your SSRMs in after a lock of they will spread over the body of a mech or might even miss.
  
• Make losing a lock easier to enforce the holding of targets
  
• Increase recycle time so the continual lock holding and firing as soon as they recharge is not as advantageous as it is.
  
• Reduce knock effect on all SSRMs and SRMs, it is simply too high.
  
• Increase heat (this is a maybe)

The point of this is the make sure that SSRMs need an ounce of skill and targeting to gain the increased accuracy that a lock provides. Not just the lock itself gaining that. Make sure it is hard to get a lock but easy to lose it so SSRM boats who jink around too much will lower their damage output and will always be facing their CT to the enemy. They would STILL be very nasty weapons, but in a brawling situation it would be hard to output as much damage in such a short period of time giving the faster firing snap shooting SRMs their role back.

Would need playtesting but this might make them powerful but not overpowered.

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ECM, TAG & NARC

OK. So the big one - if people respected and feared LRMs and SSRMs - but did not believe they were over the top and just another good weapon in the arsenal. Do we need ECM to do what it does currently? I do not believe so.

ECM was designed to negate some electronic devices on other mechs such as TAG, C3, BAP etc in a bubble. That’s all it really did. However TAG and NARC were hardly any good and we basically ALL have C3.

We need to look at guided weapons, TAG, NARC etc all in the same boat to come up with something good, but not overpowered.

This is what I would do.

TAG

• Would provide tighter grouping to indirect and direct targets of fire support
  
• Would allow LRM boats to indirect fire on tagged targets not just locked targets
  
• would also provide quicker lock on for SSRMs and LRMs as they do now plus also make loss of lock slower.

NARC

• Same as tag but would stay for 20 seconds obviously

ECM

• 180 bubble as before
  
• Would negate any NARC beacon in bubble
  
• Would stop any TAG if the tag firer was in 180 meters
  
• Would remove C3 data if the enemy mech was within 180 of the ECM mech (so friendlies would be removed form the map to friendlies and ALL enemies he can see will also not show up.
  
• Would make locking up with missiles at ANY range more difficult
  
• Would reduce spread of missiles slightly
  
• Would make anyone outside of 180 meters be able to lock a target up, but would provide no information apart from their target ID. No weapons or damage readouts.
  
• Inside the 180 bubble you get all information but cannot share it.
  
• Counter works the same as it does now.

This would make TAG and NARC very useful for indirect fire of LRMs while making ECM protection against it. IT makes ECM protection against missiles without countering them completely - just making them more difficult to use.

---

I believe that all the guidance and electronics work I an ecosystem and all need to be changed in how they work massively as my suggestions above.
Thank you for reading.

[Xandralkus]

I agree. Missiles became easymode-weapons. Players don't deserve to do statistically significant damage just because they can put a circle in a square and press the trigger.

I like your idea for SSRM's. We will eventually have SSRM6's, and if guidance lock does not necessarily guarantee damage (as in the case of LRM's), then this will help balance them - as will an increased recycle time over non-streaks.

I also like the idea of TAG/NARC functionally being another artemis-like system and tightening missile spread. In the presence of ECM, these capabilities would be diminished, not lost (more on that later).

I really like your idea for LRM direct and indirect fire. If you have LOS, LRM's should be just as powerful as any other direct-fire weapon. If you have allies spotting for you, it's questionable if you even deserve to apply damage at all to another player if they cannot retaliate against you themselves. Any damage that is done should be minimal, only slightly increased with TAG, NARC, and Artemis assistance.

Asmudius Heng, on 03 January 2013 - 05:59 PM, said:

- would also provide quicker lock on for SSRMs and LRMs as they do now plus also make loss of lock slower.

If you can hold a TAG on target, you aren't going to lose target lock in the first place. However, this capability might make the NARC worth using, since it weighs more than TAG, has limited ammunition, and does not hit instantaneously.

It would be fun if TAG/NARC also did the following:

• Increases target locking speed for TAG/NARC user by 100% (lock twice as fast)
  
• Increases target locking speed for allies against the target by 30%.

However, in regards to ECM changes, I would make it a soft counter instead of a hard counter. Instead of completely negating TAG and NARC, I would instead have it reduce their effect by 60% or so, increase direct-fire target lock time by 40%, increase indirect-fire target lock by more than double, and increase indirect-fire missile spread.




I would also make BAP capable of targeting any shut-down unit with line of sight, increasing target lock speed of indirect-fire LRM's (whether installed on the spotter or the missile boat, but only able to use that bonus once), and reducing only ECM-related penalties to missile spread. This way, BAP is actually worth mounting, and you don't need an ECM to shut down another ECM.

Additionally, ECM should be mountable on all units and variants, just like AMS and BAP.

Edited by Xandralkus, 03 January 2013 - 09:59 PM.

[Asmudius Heng]

Xandralkus, on 03 January 2013 - 09:52 PM, said:

I really like your idea for LRM direct and indirect fire.

Thank you

Quote

If you can hold a TAG on target, you aren't going to lose target lock in the first place. However, this capability might make the NARC worth using, since it weighs more than TAG, has limited ammunition, and does not hit instantaneously.

It would be fun if TAG/NARC also did the following:

• Increases target locking speed for TAG/NARC user by 100% (lock twice as fast)
  
• Increases target locking speed for allies against the target by 30%.

However, in regards to ECM changes, I would make it a soft counter instead of a hard counter. Instead of completely negating TAG and NARC, I would instead have it reduce their effect by 60% or so, increase direct-fire target lock time by 40%, increase indirect-fire target lock by more than double, and increase indirect-fire missile spread.

I really should have done more with NARC suggestions as you are right they are too big and heavy to compare to TAG.

TAG and NARC effects were countered by ECM in TT though so i kept that in. However if you tag someone while outside the bubble the TAG still works and its extra range would still make this pretty cool. NARC should be powerful in the additional benefits given to lock on weapons - however I still believe that running into an ECM field could counter that. With les ECM around it would still be viable . Only play testing could tell though

Quote

I would also make BAP capable of targeting any shut-down unit with line of sight, increasing target lock speed of indirect-fire LRM's (whether installed on the spotter or the missile boat, but only able to use that bonus once), and reducing only ECM-related penalties to missile spread. This way, BAP is actually worth mounting, and you don't need an ECM to shut down another ECM.

Sounds good to me.

Quote

Additionally, ECM should be mountable on all units and variants, just like AMS and BAP.

We migth have to agree to disagree on this one. However I am not coming from a balance point of view with this. Balacing by allowing only a few chassis to mount an OP item just makes other chassis less used it doesnt balance a game at all as we have seen.

As such I wanted ECM to be balanced on its own merits sio that it COULD be mounted on any mech withotu destroying the game. However I prefer it to be limited to give additional value to mechs withotu making them OP - but also to give DIVERSITY to mechs so they are differentiated form each other. Heck - I would love BAP to be restricted as well and it could be buffed a tiny bit as you suggested.

Taking a mech that enables a lot of electronics should come a trade off though.It has the option of mounting this so might get less modules - or perhaps has more modules but worse hardpoints? Lots of ways to make sure other varients of the chassis have a reason to be taken.

Thank you for the in depth reply - I totally should have said more about BAP as it is a part of that entire ecosystem

[Xandralkus]

Asmudius Heng, on 04 January 2013 - 02:15 AM, said:

We migth have to agree to disagree on this one. However I am not coming from a balance point of view with this. Balacing by allowing only a few chassis to mount an OP item just makes other chassis less used it doesnt balance a game at all as we have seen.

As such I wanted ECM to be balanced on its own merits sio that it COULD be mounted on any mech withotu destroying the game. However I prefer it to be limited to give additional value to mechs withotu making them OP - but also to give DIVERSITY to mechs so they are differentiated form each other. Heck - I would love BAP to be restricted as well and it could be buffed a tiny bit as you suggested.

Taking a mech that enables a lot of electronics should come a trade off though.It has the option of mounting this so might get less modules - or perhaps has more modules but worse hardpoints? Lots of ways to make sure other varients of the chassis have a reason to be taken.

Well, in all fairness, we already have mechanics which mandate that players make a choice on what equipment to bring: namely, tonnage and criticals. That system of balancing loadouts by limiting tonnage (and sometimes criticals) has worked out very well in a variety of Mechwarrior games. It is good game design, and there is no reason to change it by exempting ECM from that model, unless we come up with another global model that works better than tonnage and criticals.

I don't really see where ECM in your/our suggested model would be so game-breaking as to ever require such restriction. Let's also remember: If something is that overpowered, it will never be truly balanced by limiting its application arbitrarily. Using arbitrary limitation of application as a form of game balancing is like treating a severed limb with a band-aid; it's a lazy, ineffective 'solution' to a massive problem. It leads to extremely narrowly constrained roles and metagaming in combat, the two scourges of game design over the past decade. There is only one course of action for mechanics so OP that player choice is restricted: Remove said overpowered mechanics, or nerf them into a balanced state.

A player that chooses to bring ECM should pay for the utility that an ECM brings in terms of tonnage and criticals, not in terms of an otherwise hardpoint-deficient design, or any one specific limitation of design. Was ECM made available only to hardpoint-deficient battlemech variations on purpose? If so, perhaps the point is simply to not make hardpoint-deficient designs.

Perhaps on a deeper, more important, and more philosophical level, when a player goes to purchase a mech, the decision to mount ECM or not should NEVER already be made for the player. That kind of arbitrary restriction kills player choice in a completely unacceptable manner. Restricting player options in the name of improving or preserving diversity is like euthanizing in the name of longevity; it misses the point completely. Players will always create more diversity themselves than narrowly constrained role mechanics ever could or ever will.

Regarding ECM: I think that its current cost in terms of criticals and tonnage is too low for the utility it brings in your/our suggested modified state. It will still do too much for 2 tons/2 criticals. It should be 'nerfed' conservatively in terms of tonnage/critical mounting cost.

Remember that if we increase ECM tonnage, then ECM and ewar equipment becomes less competent to mount on lighter mechs. Heavier mechs, after all, can more easily carry heavier stuff.

If we increase the number of criticals that ECM and ewar equipment require, we instead do the opposite: we make it such that light mechs more frequently have the space for ECM. Heavier mechs often have fewer criticals available, because the space is taken up with more weapons. I think this is the smarter decision, since it will help (slightly) balance lighter and heavier mechs.

If guardian ECM is changed to weigh 2 tons and take up four criticals, this will make heavy and assault ECM builds viable, but at a higher effective cost than medium or light builds. It doesn't make an ECM assault impossible or horribly gimped, but it does carry an appropriately significant cost in terms of criticals required.

Aside from that one tidbit, I think we agree.

Edited by Xandralkus, 04 January 2013 - 04:11 AM.

[TheFuzzyBunny]

I like pretty much all of it. This is what I would suggest for ECM:

1) ECM should provide all of the current benefits to the mech mounting it only in all situations.

2) ECM can then give all of its current bonuses to the other mechs in the now standard bubble if said ECM mech does not move. Give this a small set up time like 3 seconds. You want to bubble everyone, you have to stand still to do it.

This will still offer a significant defense against LRM's and streaks that ECM people seem to need so much, but will completely eliminate the stealth 8 mech that is nearly invulnerable to lock on weapons wondering around.

This will also keep ECM light mechs deadly enough so that they are of use, but no longer makes it a must take as they most likely won't be ECMing anyone but themselves. You will still have to respect them, but they will no longer make everything else nearly invisible and immune.

I also love the indirect fire mode. I just don't think it needs to be a mode. Simply make it that if you cannot see the target and keep the target on it, then your missile spread increases greatly so that not as many land on target.

[EnyaMouth]

ssrm's and srm's are good for the most part except the spread on srm's needs to be tighter with artemis equipped. lrms are all jacked up. there is no skill at all with them. one of the fixes for that is to implement the arrow 4 and long toms.(that is what artemis is for). but things will never be right since they do not go by the table top rules for such things. also the ams system needs to be fixed. i dislike my ams firing at anything that gets close and not directed at me(besides it might shoot 3 out of 20 missile's down before they hit). the ecm works fine, the narc needs to have more time on it and or make it fall off after a certain number count of missiles hit the target. as for tag the range is too great. i have seen people sit back at 750 meters and paint someone only to have hell come raining down on them. i thought the 450 range was perfect for them. the beagle active probe needs a little tweaking as well on picking up and sharing target info. now if i could only get MASC for my atlas.
GOOD HUNTING TO ALL.

[Asmudius Heng]

Xandralkus, on 04 January 2013 - 03:29 AM, said:

Well, in all fairness, we already have mechanics which mandate that players make a choice on what equipment to bring: namely, tonnage and criticals. That system of balancing loadouts by limiting tonnage (and sometimes criticals) has worked out very well in a variety of Mechwarrior games. It is good game design, and there is no reason to change it by exempting ECM from that model, unless we come up with another global model that works better than tonnage and criticals.

I don't really see where ECM in your/our suggested model would be so game-breaking as to ever require such restriction. Let's also remember: If something is that overpowered, it will never be truly balanced by limiting its application arbitrarily. Using arbitrary limitation of application as a form of game balancing is like treating a severed limb with a band-aid; it's a lazy, ineffective 'solution' to a massive problem. It leads to extremely narrowly constrained roles and metagaming in combat, the two scourges of game design over the past decade. There is only one course of action for mechanics so OP that player choice is restricted: Remove said overpowered mechanics, or nerf them into a balanced state.

A player that chooses to bring ECM should pay for the utility that an ECM brings in terms of tonnage and criticals, not in terms of an otherwise hardpoint-deficient design, or any one specific limitation of design. Was ECM made available only to hardpoint-deficient battlemech variations on purpose? If so, perhaps the point is simply to not make hardpoint-deficient designs.

Perhaps on a deeper, more important, and more philosophical level, when a player goes to purchase a mech, the decision to mount ECM or not should NEVER already be made for the player. That kind of arbitrary restriction kills player choice in a completely unacceptable manner. Restricting player options in the name of improving or preserving diversity is like euthanizing in the name of longevity; it misses the point completely. Players will always create more diversity themselves than narrowly constrained role mechanics ever could or ever will.

I might not have made myself clear before i went on my rant about mech differentiation. I agree, limiting chassis is NOT about balancing items or chassis - it is about creating differentiation between mechs and variants for diversity. We currently have engine limits, hardpoints, and 'some' handling differences, profile of the mech as well as tonnage to differentiate each chassis and variants. I come from the camp that thinks this is not actually enough and there are variants that quite simply are not worth the investment in them as they are not different enough when everything else is customisable.

So ECM as another restricted item would be about making some mechs fit certain roles without making them better balance wise. So when looking at your ravens for instance yuo might look at the ECM one and say - no, actually the other one is going to serve me better because of X,Y,Z differences. Right now there is no choice the ECM one is best.

Its a complex thing to create differentation AND balance - but without diffferentiation between mechs we create redundancies and lose the idea of class warfare as most mechs fill similar roles or CAN fill very similar roles. So I hope that clears it up - it migth come down to personal preference hee and agreeing to disagree but i like the idea of mechs being less similar is all

Quote

Regarding ECM: I think that its current cost in terms of criticals and tonnage is too low for the utility it brings in your/our suggested modified state. It will still do too much for 2 tons/2 criticals. It should be 'nerfed' conservatively in terms of tonnage/critical mounting cost.

Remember that if we increase ECM tonnage, then ECM and ewar equipment becomes less competent to mount on lighter mechs. Heavier mechs, after all, can more easily carry heavier stuff.

If we increase the number of criticals that ECM and ewar equipment require, we instead do the opposite: we make it such that light mechs more frequently have the space for ECM. Heavier mechs often have fewer criticals available, because the space is taken up with more weapons. I think this is the smarter decision, since it will help (slightly) balance lighter and heavier mechs.

If guardian ECM is changed to weigh 2 tons and take up four criticals, this will make heavy and assault ECM builds viable, but at a higher effective cost than medium or light builds. It doesn't make an ECM assault impossible or horribly gimped, but it does carry an appropriately significant cost in terms of criticals required.

Aside from that one tidbit, I think we agree.

Light mchs always have the advantage of crit slots just not weight. Lightemchs can pretty much alwasy have Endo, FF and DHS by virtue they do not have the tonnage to mount more crit intensive loadouts. That is a legacy of battletech and its system where space in crits is the same across all mechs. ITs actually mroe fun to build a heavier emch as you have to consider the trade offs etc - light you just upgrade.

btw - i love your sig

[Asmudius Heng]

TheFuzzyBunny, on 04 January 2013 - 06:20 AM, said:

I like pretty much all of it. This is what I would suggest for ECM:

1) ECM should provide all of the current benefits to the mech mounting it only in all situations.

2) ECM can then give all of its current bonuses to the other mechs in the now standard bubble if said ECM mech does not move. Give this a small set up time like 3 seconds. You want to bubble everyone, you have to stand still to do it.

This will still offer a significant defense against LRM's and streaks that ECM people seem to need so much, but will completely eliminate the stealth 8 mech that is nearly invulnerable to lock on weapons wondering around.

This will also keep ECM light mechs deadly enough so that they are of use, but no longer makes it a must take as they most likely won't be ECMing anyone but themselves. You will still have to respect them, but they will no longer make everything else nearly invisible and immune.

I also love the indirect fire mode. I just don't think it needs to be a mode. Simply make it that if you cannot see the target and keep the target on it, then your missile spread increases greatly so that not as many land on target.

Hey Fuzzy - i figured yuo would love to weight in on an LRM discussion

I actually thought the same as you originally about letting LOS determine the direct or indirect attack - however i can se some issues when I thought about the practicality of this and what players might want.

• Targets can be locked on but you can see them going into cover and your missiles will not make it direct mode.
  
• You lock up a target spotted by someone else you know will come out of cover in just a moment

In these situations you might want to toggle the other mode so you do not lose effectiveness. Playtesting would probably see if this would or would not work.

In regards to ECM function - I think that it needs to be much less as i suggested simply because it is so light and crit efficient - as long as it is useful. However there are a HEAP of really interesting ECM ideas like yours that simply need to be tested. It is a complex system and their internal play testers cannot really test it well if they simply have a single idea and go with it rather than looking at alternatives including changing base mechanics of various weapons etc.

--

I would also like to add that modules that help against ECM is terrible game design which seems to be what they are planning. That is a BACK LOADED solution. Anyone can quickly buy an ECM mech but it takes a massive emount of time to earn enough XP and money to get modules so this is quite uneven.

[Xandralkus]

The more I think about it, the more I fundamentally disagree with the entire premise of 'role warfare' that the devs originally intended for the game.

Consider a game in which all mechs have a defined role, and that deviation from that single intended role resulted in an inferior mech. The player is now forced to pick a mech based on their preferred playstyle, and remember that new players will likely know absolutely nothing of their preferred playstyle in Mechwarrior Online. I believe that the role of a mech should be defined by the player piloting it, the loadout choices they make, and absolutely nothing else.

Consider the player that absolutely LOVES the look of the Awesome (generally regarded as a fire-support mech), hates the design of an Atlas with a fiery passion, and loves short-range brawling. Game mechanics should be able to cater to that player just as perfectly as the one that loves the Atlas and loves the playstyle of brawling.

Asmudius Heng, on 04 January 2013 - 10:44 PM, said:

I come from the camp that thinks this is not actually enough and there are variants that quite simply are not worth the investment in them as they are not different enough when everything else is customisable.

Consider scenario A: Mechwarrior Online (again), where all the mechs have their own narrowly constrained roles, and deviaiton from those roles is generally a bad thing, and would result in a less effective mech. In this version, every chassis and every variant would be uniquely different from one another, but every Cataphract CTF-4X would be very similar to one another in terms of role and gameplay. Let's also assume for the sake of discussion that this could be done in a balanced way, that would not support metagaming-to-victory mechanics.

Now consider scenario B: Mechwarrior Online, but with absolutely infinite freedom to customize any battlemech with any equipment, any weapons (tonnage and critical restrictions enabled, of course), and the ability to redefine the role of any mech without limit. In this case, a team of nothing but CTF-4X's would be wildly diverse. Some would be fire support, some would be sniping with gauss-PPC builds, some would brawl with lasers, and there would be a few hybrid generalists who bring all of the above.

In scenario A, the maximum number of loadout/playstyle permutations is restricted by the total number of chassis and variants available in-game, and with no statistically significant deviations outside of those.

In scenario B, the maximum number of loadout/playstyle permutations is limited only by the number of players in the game. The competent configurations within a single variant of a chassis would FAR exceed the relatively trivial differences between different variants and chassis.

Firstly, the number of players in the game will always be greater than the number of mechs and variants in the game, so in this regard, scenario B yields much more variation in design. If done right, and if enough weapons and equipment are introduced, and mathematically balanced (see here for details: http://mwomercs.com/...20#entry1477020 ), then it is possible that no two players would ever have the same configuration.

The uniqueness of player configurations within a single variant and chassis is a much higher and much more focused form of uniqueness than the differences between variants and chassis will ever be. The very fundamental essence of uniqueness is destroyed if the role is defined, in any way, by any force other than the player.


ECM isn't so radical and bizarre that it's supposed to 'break ALL the rules' and somehow be subject to its own independent mechanics, even for the sake of 'making chassis and variants unique'. It's just another piece of equipment, no different than any other weapon, or CASE, or heat sinks, or reactors. We can prove this by asking the question: "Is it broken enough to warrant arbitrary constraining mechanics?" If yes, then there is a bigger balance issue going on than just constraining of player choice, and it's time for the nerfbat. And if no, then it should behave by the exact same rules as everything else in the game.

If we proceed down the line of reasoning that we need arbitrary gating mechanics to preserve uniqueness for ECM, then this too must be extended to all other pieces of equipment. Why not have Large Lasers require a Large Laser hardpoint, and Large Pulse Lasers require Large Pulse Laser hardpoints? After all, those weapons are uniquely special in their own way. They have radically different damage application models, ideal ranges, falloff ranges, damage per heat, DPS per ton, and alpha-per-ton. Their stats and role are so different from one another, they are completely different animals.

At that point, the entire fundamental reason for having a mechlab goes away.

Yet we freely let the player yank out an AC-10, or any other weapon or juxtaposition of weapons, and install one of these lasers (plus a few heat sinks) in any convenient place. That's how the game is supposed to work. That's how the mechlab is supposed to work. If ECM is ever an exception, it is either at the expense of game balance (unacceptable), or at the expense of player choice (equally unacceptable).

Now, in practice (almost) every game that uses scenario B ends up with crummy balancing, and the game ends up with a bunch of cookie-cutter builds and definitively OP weapons, and a system of weapons and powers which can never, ever, EVER be balanced simply by nerfing what's OP. However, this problem doesn't exist as long as the developers spend a little quality time massaging the values in a spreadsheet, and then having people playtest their theorized game balance figures to make sure that they correlate smoothly into the game world as indicated in the spreadsheets.

Asmudius Heng, on 04 January 2013 - 10:44 PM, said:

Its a complex thing to create differentation AND balance...

If good game design was a trivial matter, then a lot more developers would get it right, and I would end up buying and monetizing a LOT more games. Bear in mind, I have purchased a total of three shooters in the last decade, with Mechwarrior Online being one of them (and if I knew then what I know now, I would have gone purely F2P). In the end, on a purely philosophical note, victory is meaningless without a challenge, and easy game design would completely break the mechanics of designing & selling games. Game design is supposed to be a challenge.

Asmudius Heng, on 04 January 2013 - 10:44 PM, said:

btw - i love your sig

Hehe, thank you!

Asmudius Heng, on 04 January 2013 - 10:52 PM, said:

I would also like to add that modules that help against ECM is terrible game design which seems to be what they are planning. That is a BACK LOADED solution. Anyone can quickly buy an ECM mech but it takes a massive emount of time to earn enough XP and money to get modules so this is quite uneven.

Wait, what the hell? The devs are actually considering this!? Anti-ECM as a module is a monumentally stupid idea, for exactly the reason you stated! Devs, please read my signature! Stop listening to people that know nothing of game design! As long as you give the players the core engagement they seek, they will demand that you be silent while happily handing over their MC!

[Nicholai Matowski]

Have we forgotten that LRMs were never meant to be anything other than a support weapon in the Battletech Universe in the first place?

They are crap for a reason. Making them anything other than crap is way too op.

[Karl Split]

Yeah I agree about LRM's. Main problem with them is that they are too good at indirect fire. Also as i recall in TT innersphere LRM's are supposed to fly pretty flat in direct fire. This would mean they crashed into scenery more lessening their use in clusered maps.

SSRMS used to be crappy in early beta and could be avoided with a high transversal and speed. It was fixed as lights could avoid them too easily but the fix was way over the top. If someone is fast with high transversal some of the missiles should miss reducing their damage. (tbh a good pilot could still use SSRMS you just waited for the light to make a mistake or lead the target so the missiles didnt have to fly as far)

ECM is a joke, and a bad one at that.

[Asmudius Heng]

Karl Split, on 05 January 2013 - 08:46 AM, said:

Yeah I agree about LRM's. Main problem with them is that they are too good at indirect fire. Also as i recall in TT innersphere LRM's are supposed to fly pretty flat in direct fire. This would mean they crashed into scenery more lessening their use in clusered maps.

As long as direct fire is not neutered and they player has the chocie

Edited by Asmudius Heng, 06 January 2013 - 01:56 PM.

[Asmudius Heng]

Nicholai Matowski, on 05 January 2013 - 06:55 AM, said:

Have we forgotten that LRMs were never meant to be anything other than a support weapon in the Battletech Universe in the first place?

They are crap for a reason. Making them anything other than crap is way too op.

What does support even mean? To me that means indirect fire which is why I sporposed that indirect fire become much less powerful.

[Asmudius Heng]

Xandralkus, on 05 January 2013 - 03:37 AM, said:

The more I think about it, the more I fundamentally disagree with the entire premise of 'role warfare' that the devs originally intended for the game.

Consider a game in which all mechs have a defined role, and that deviation from that single intended role resulted in an inferior mech. The player is now forced to pick a mech based on their preferred playstyle, and remember that new players will likely know absolutely nothing of their preferred playstyle in Mechwarrior Online. I believe that the role of a mech should be defined by the player piloting it, the loadout choices they make, and absolutely nothing else.

Consider the player that absolutely LOVES the look of the Awesome (generally regarded as a fire-support mech), hates the design of an Atlas with a fiery passion, and loves short-range brawling. Game mechanics should be able to cater to that player just as perfectly as the one that loves the Atlas and loves the playstyle of brawling.

Consider scenario A: Mechwarrior Online (again), where all the mechs have their own narrowly constrained roles, and deviaiton from those roles is generally a bad thing, and would result in a less effective mech. In this version, every chassis and every variant would be uniquely different from one another, but every Cataphract CTF-4X would be very similar to one another in terms of role and gameplay. Let's also assume for the sake of discussion that this could be done in a balanced way, that would not support metagaming-to-victory mechanics.

Now consider scenario B: Mechwarrior Online, but with absolutely infinite freedom to customize any battlemech with any equipment, any weapons (tonnage and critical restrictions enabled, of course), and the ability to redefine the role of any mech without limit. In this case, a team of nothing but CTF-4X's would be wildly diverse. Some would be fire support, some would be sniping with gauss-PPC builds, some would brawl with lasers, and there would be a few hybrid generalists who bring all of the above.

In scenario A, the maximum number of loadout/playstyle permutations is restricted by the total number of chassis and variants available in-game, and with no statistically significant deviations outside of those.

In scenario B, the maximum number of loadout/playstyle permutations is limited only by the number of players in the game. The competent configurations within a single variant of a chassis would FAR exceed the relatively trivial differences between different variants and chassis.

Firstly, the number of players in the game will always be greater than the number of mechs and variants in the game, so in this regard, scenario B yields much more variation in design. If done right, and if enough weapons and equipment are introduced, and mathematically balanced (see here for details: http://mwomercs.com/...20#entry1477020 ), then it is possible that no two players would ever have the same configuration.

The uniqueness of player configurations within a single variant and chassis is a much higher and much more focused form of uniqueness than the differences between variants and chassis will ever be. The very fundamental essence of uniqueness is destroyed if the role is defined, in any way, by any force other than the player.

WARNING THIS POST HAS VERY LITTLE TO DO WITH THE ORIGINAL POST - TANGENT ALERT

I do not think we are going to agree on this at all as we come from two very different mindset - neither wrong, just different. You believe in open customisation and perfect balance, i beleive in restrictions to challenge players and create variety.

I kind of agree and kind of do not with your thinking though. I think the issue comes with the words "Defined Roles". To some that means as you say - an inferior mech outside of it's role. However I believe that this is already the case for many mechs because of a few mechanics already in the game. Hardpoints, locations of hardpoints, number of missiles tubes (the more the better an LRM volley against AMS so a better missile boat for instance). Probablty other that come to me once the coffee kicks in.

However the idea of total customisation with no limitations does not lead to diversity at all as we have seen from previous games. All mechs become gunbags with nothing to differentiate them apart from tonnage and their profile. In this case a few mechs with much better hit boxes - think the catapult which is very durable. Now people will look to take the best profile + best agility balance with the most amount of tonnage and cram on the best weapon of the day and boat them.

Boating is not a bad thing per se either - as long as it comes with drawbacks. However boating a single weapon has huge advantages in that you only need to think about one weapon as you fight, its strengths, weaknesses, range etc and make sure you maximise it. It is just smart play and open customisation would encourage this - there will ALWAYS be a broken weapon no matter how well they try to balance the game and it will proliferate through the players and start homogenising the mech builds to the most effective ones.

Games are about rules. By having limitations and restrictions you create a more interested mech build meta game. By having mechs that might perform better in certain roles does nto restrict variety, it actually encourages variety of mech chassis as long as one thing does not happen which is the conclusion you jumped too.

No mech should have a NARROWLY defined role.

That is the HUGE caveat. If it is too narrow then what is the point in customisation? I love customisation but open customisation makes every mech feel exactly the same. However if some mechs are designed to be a certain thing then thats great - as long as it is not the only thing you can do. What you want is BROAD roles not narrow ones. For instance:

A catapult should have some advantage to being a good LRM boat as that is what was intended. It already does by virtue of the number of tubes in its ears - good work PGI - its just that LRMs suck right now and SSRMs are basically better as long as you do not fight ECM mechs. However, thee are a number of things that could make the Catapult a more appealing LRM mech without stopping it being a good SSRM mech, or laser mech with some small missile support, or just forgoing the ear armour for more lasers/heatsinks if you wanted as is currently the case. Lets consider this.

• Has access to BAP while other mechs might not. BAP is not a game winner but its does make an impact to help with LRM fire.
  
• Has access to unlock some small bonuses that aid with LRM guidance or lock on etc
  
• Agility is looked at again to make this a mech that handles like something that sits back and lobs missiles such as:
  
  • Better acceleration and deceleration to crest and reverse from hilltops, or turn and start to run away from mechs closing on your position.
    
  • Good arm tracking to gain locks easier
    
  • Poor torso twist rate so it is nto as good a twist and fire brawler (but not terrible)
    
  • Torso twist range - could be very good to allow the running away and firing missiles - or very poor to make it a more sluggish to be about trakcing and locking not spinning around.
    
  • Each varient might be slightly different depending on loadouts too.

Immediatly this mech looks like it is configured to be god with LRMs. However, it is not going to suffer horribly if you deviate outside of that role. The BAP means that SSRMs lock in faster too so it might be a decent brawler, but its lack of agilty in the brawl means that another mech like a Dragon or a Cataphract might be a better choice in the heavy class. Deos this mean we will never see catapul brawlers? No, i imagine that we still would - it might be configured with lots of SRMs to maximise damage against slow big mechs, or Streaks to ward off lights, but it would not be a light hunter due to lack of agility - why should it be able to do everything?

Now lets look at the Dragon as a comparison. It is considered a FAST heavy. This means are a broad role it is about getting in fast and hard but being able to retreat, but could also be a long raneg harrasser, or a scout hunter. To me this should be a less armed and armoured mech for its size but would have a huge bonus to agility and speed. Perhaps:

• Has access to ECM (once it is balanced for its size and tonnage)
  
• Has very good torso twist speed and torso twist range
  
• Poor deceleration and deceleration - its a forward heavy charger
  
• Has less total armour it can spend across its body (Maybe - armour is nearly alwyas maxed right now so enforcing some as being lightly armoured by design makes taking this mech a considered choice)
  
• Has skills they can unlock that would aide with improving the agility aspect further or help to overcome its acceleration issues - but not BOTH you need to have options to move to a role not just make the mech BETTER overall

So this mech looks agile, fast, but its hardpoints are quite varied making it harder to boat, and its perfornmace in a tight city fight might be less than another mech, though its charging and twisting then running off to reengage would be great. As a brawler this would do well, as a long range harrasser with a gauss or soemthign and some missiles also good. As a light hunter it would be reasonable as well.

There are so many variable in a mech that we have to play with that each chassis can be individualised to be good in certain roles, but easily used ni other roles as well. Throw in some unlocks that make that broad role SLIGHTLY better and it has a role - but anyone who owns one can easy customise it to do something else which might also work really well.

I know you will not agree with me but I wanted to state my point in detail because just saying open customisation suck or restrictions sucks is way too simplistic - they are game design choices with pros and cons BOTH.

Quote

Now, in practice (almost) every game that uses scenario B ends up with crummy balancing, and the game ends up with a bunch of cookie-cutter builds and definitively OP weapons, and a system of weapons and powers which can never, ever, EVER be balanced simply by nerfing what's OP.

Again i would just have to disagree with you - i think more open customisation leads to even mroe cookie cutter builds. The issue is BOTH systems end up that way no matter how hard the devs try to balance a game - a complex system will always have winners and losers. Both systems can be massaged to a point where there is better balance though.

As i said - restrictions are not about balancing equipment. This can NEVER work. Restrictions are about making certain mechs more attractive to certain playstyles and roles - btu all the equipment MUST be balance as it they COULD be spread to any mech - the restrictions just make players think of the pros and cons of each chassis not jsut each peice of equipment creating diversity of chassis as well as equipment as long as they are all balanced. Mechs are equipment remember and some have innate advantages and disadvantages not just the weapons - if we make all emchs the same we lose the variety that is battletech and mechwarrior - if we make them open custom but some chassis are better than other not offset by another balancing mechanicsm the player bae will gravitate heavily to such chassis.

Quote

If good game design was a trivial matter, then a lot more developers would get it right, and I would end up buying and monetizing a LOT more games. Bear in mind, I have purchased a total of three shooters in the last decade, with Mechwarrior Online being one of them (and if I knew then what I know now, I would have gone purely F2P). In the end, on a purely philosophical note, victory is meaningless without a challenge, and easy game design would completely break the mechanics of designing & selling games. Game design is supposed to be a challenge.

Absolutly agree.

I think the issue is often balancing how hard and challanging a game is to how many they can sell. Hard or deep games are percieved as less sellable and so less profitable which is a damned shame.

Quote

Wait, what the hell? The devs are actually considering this!? Anti-ECM as a module is a monumentally stupid idea, for exactly the reason you stated! Devs, please read my signature! Stop listening to people that know nothing of game design! As long as you give the players the core engagement they seek, they will demand that you be silent while happily handing over their MC!

I am not sure if it is an anti-ECM module or not - they just said would help against it. What that means could be anything - but its stilla dumb idea no matter what they do. This is not even good rock/paper/scissor design (which i HATE as a concept anyway)

--

Not trying to start an argument - just a discussio abotu two very different styles of design, but both can be screwed up royally if they get it wrong. I err towards restrictions and broad roles only because it fits with what mechwarrior and battletech feel like because of the idea of stock variants and later nit eh game each mech had quirks i believe. Little bonuses and negatives that give each chassis and variant some flavour and make them more difficult ot less difficult ni the game to do certain things. It add depth and flavour to me. It also aides the F2P business model IMO. If one mech cannot do everything then getting more chassis and variants becomes a joy to unlock different playstyles and efficiencies.

Open customisation with perfect balance creates a balances PVP game which lots of choices but would require enormous tweaking so that we do nto have the gunbag problem. IT would also mean people would have less incentiove to purchase new mechs if you could customise most mechs to do what you want with the only differntator beign tonnage.

[Roland]

At the moment, missiles are kind of totally stupid.

If I choose to bring a dedicated LRM boat in a PUG, one of two things happen:
1) I top the scoreboard, and absolutely obliterate targets, because they do not have ECM.
2) I do less than 100 points, because they have ecm and it's very difficult to keep targets locked.

As it stands, missiles tend to be either extremely overpowered, or virtually worthless... there have been very few games when I've taken a lot of missiles, and had them merely be "normal".

[Asmudius Heng]

Roland, on 06 January 2013 - 02:56 PM, said:

At the moment, missiles are kind of totally stupid.

If I choose to bring a dedicated LRM boat in a PUG, one of two things happen:
1) I top the scoreboard, and absolutely obliterate targets, because they do not have ECM.
2) I do less than 100 points, because they have ecm and it's very difficult to keep targets locked.

As it stands, missiles tend to be either extremely overpowered, or virtually worthless... there have been very few games when I've taken a lot of missiles, and had them merely be "normal".

Exactly - and I think most LRM players being honest would have a similar assessment even with TAG and so on.

I am curious to see how often you fire indirectly compare to LOS direct though.

[Xandralkus]

I admit the reasoning does get slightly tangential, although I don't believe we can have a discussion about ECM availability per-chassis without a simultaneous discussion of how much players should be allowed to vary their designs effectively outside the 'original' role of the mech, and ultimately the question of "How should things be balanced?"

Asmudius Heng, on 06 January 2013 - 02:44 PM, said:

I kind of agree and kind of do not with your thinking though. I think the issue comes with the words "Defined Roles". To some that means as you say - an inferior mech outside of it's role. However I believe that this is already the case for many mechs because of a few mechanics already in the game. Hardpoints, locations of hardpoints, number of missiles tubes (the more the better an LRM volley against AMS so a better missile boat for instance). Probablty other that come to me once the coffee kicks in.

However the idea of total customisation with no limitations does not lead to diversity at all as we have seen from previous games. All mechs become gunbags with nothing to differentiate them apart from tonnage and their profile. In this case a few mechs with much better hit boxes - think the catapult which is very durable. Now people will look to take the best profile + best agility balance with the most amount of tonnage and cram on the best weapon of the day and boat them.

Boating is not a bad thing per se either - as long as it comes with drawbacks. However boating a single weapon has huge advantages in that you only need to think about one weapon as you fight, its strengths, weaknesses, range etc and make sure you maximise it. It is just smart play and open customisation would encourage this - there will ALWAYS be a broken weapon no matter how well they try to balance the game and it will proliferate through the players and start homogenising the mech builds to the most effective ones.

Weapon and equipment balance (such as ECM) is only one half of the puzzle. If they actually did make all mechs 'gunbags' as you state, every one of the problems you point out would still exist. The other half is mech balancing - altering things such as turning radius, torso twist speed, acceleration and deceleration, arm sweep range, hitbox characteristics, maximum available armor profiles, hardpoints, missile tubes, convergence, firing point patterns, and the like. Remember that all of this can be done on a per-variant basis, not just a per-chassis basis.

The game balance will only suffer if the aforementioned battlemech characteristics are unbalanced alongside truly balanced weapons and equipment. If it is truly done well, the various statistical intricacies in this matrix of battlemech balancing will create far more individual flavor among designs and variants than constraining weapons/equipment (such as ECM) ever will.

When guns operate differently from one another, and in a perfectly balanced state, and mechs (AKA, gunbags) operate differently from one another, and in a completely balanced state, and the player has near-infinite freedom to mix and match the two as necessary, players end up in a very awesome singularity of game design: Any permutation of mech, equipment, and weapons has its own strengths and weaknesses, balanced against every possible permutation in the game.

Boating makes things a little weird, with extreme overspecialization. But remember too, the developers are working on a solution for boating: A penalty applied to heat generation for any identical weapons on the same body part. This would perfectly balance boating against generalist designs.

I also disagree that more launch tubes are always better. I put LRM-15's inside of the SRM hunchback instead of the LRM one, exclusively because it has less missile firing points, and the missiles come out in three small volleys instead of one big one. This is actually a surprisingly effective counter to AMS. A giant blob of missiles may penetrate AMS better, but a steady stream of chain-fired missiles will run people out of AMS ammo. I deliberately targeted AMS bubbles with this tactic in mind, and it worked quite well at keeping multiple AMS's firing almost continuously.

More importantly, I absolutely despise the look of that giant, rectangular mass of missile rack in the dedicated LRM-hunchback. The SRM-hunchback's launchers look infinitely cooler to me!

Would it be hard to balance every mech, every stat, every weapon, every piece of equipment, and every permutation thereof? Absolutely! Look at how many games fail miserably at it, and implement the paper-rock-scissors model because they cannot figure out how to do math. Is the singularity of game balance and infinte player choice impossible? Not in the slightest, and anything short of "Challenge Accepted" from the dev team is insufficient.

Now, would I advocate MULTIPLE ECM systems with different effects, but that have some overlap in their effectiveness? Yes. I don't believe the model of "The one ECM" mountable on absolutely everything is a good idea. We need 10+ different kinds of ECM at minimum, all balanced against one another. Would I support some mech variants with more or less ECM hardpoints? I suppose so, but all should have the ability to participate in Ewar if they so desire.

Most importantly, the option of 'No ECM' needs to be an equally worthwhile choice.

Asmudius Heng, on 06 January 2013 - 02:44 PM, said:

I do not think we are going to agree on this at all as we come from two very different mindset - neither wrong, just different. You believe in open customisation and perfect balance, i beleive in restrictions to challenge players and create variety.

Indeed true. but I believe we can have the best of both worlds - free, infinite, and open customization, with enough mathematical deviation in mech chassis and variants as to give individuality and flavor to each design, and with perfect balance across all permutations - including Ewar.

Roland, on 06 January 2013 - 02:56 PM, said:

At the moment, missiles are kind of totally stupid.

If I choose to bring a dedicated LRM boat in a PUG, one of two things happen:
1) I top the scoreboard, and absolutely obliterate targets, because they do not have ECM.
2) I do less than 100 points, because they have ecm and it's very difficult to keep targets locked.

As it stands, missiles tend to be either extremely overpowered, or virtually worthless... there have been very few games when I've taken a lot of missiles, and had them merely be "normal".

The massive deviations in missile effectiveness based upon ECM demonstrates huge game imbalance. These stats should be normalized. LRM boats do not deserve infinite free reign over open spaces, and ECM boats and their allies do not deserve infinite immunity from bombardment.

We didn't develop high-end gaming computers just to play paper-rock-scissors with stompy robots.

Edited by Xandralkus, 06 January 2013 - 05:15 PM.

[General Taskeen]

Keeping this thread alive (long post incoming):

I think the purpose of certain equipment, in general, should also be re-looked at from a customization and balance perspective. TAG/NARC/ECM/BAP/C3 are all things that work in different ways and interact, but they should merely be neat extra's that are fun to use, but not so necessary that not taking them is detrimental. I've always been a proponent of Default Mech designs being able to survive with the introduction of these types of equipment, with enhanced features. The way ECM was developed/programmed was way over the top, while other equipment (ex. NARC) isn't really a 'fun' thing to use.

This is all the electronic equipment descriptions from Mech Warrior 3, for instance:

Quote

Electronic Equipment: These devices assist with targeting, command and control, performance enhancement and electronic countermeasures.

• Artemis IV Fire Control System: This unit provides faster missile locks and allows your missiles to track the target more aggresively than usual. Best used on mechs that rely heavily on long range missile weapons, the enhanced targeting and tracking can make a sizable difference in the effectiveness of these systems. NOTE: Must be placed in same area as launcher to be effective! (Example: LRM-20 system in left torso must have Artemis IV in left torso. Only shots from left torso will be enhanced.)

• Beagle Active Probe (BAP): An active seeker that dispays even shut down mech units on the radar. Can be useful against enemies with a habit of hiding, then launching an attack on unsuspecting units. Its weight, size and specialized mission make it's use in multiplayer games questionable.

• C3 Computer: A two part system, consisting of a Master and a Slave unit. Will augument radar effectiveness by displaying lancemate or allied radar signals on the host radar display, effectively increasing the range. A very heavy device for the value obtained. Avoid this equipment unless specialized mission requirements neccessitate it.

• ECM Suite: A very valuable device for the resources required to carry it. Will disable enemy Targeting Computers, Artemis IV systems, NARC beacons, C3 Computers, Streak Missiles and Beagle Active Probes. TAG is unaffected by ECM, being an optical device. Pilots facing opponents with missile systems, will benefit greatly from the addition of an ECM suite. It is highly recommended. Enemies using Targeting Computers to assist with ballistic weapon targeting will suufer a decreased effectiveness of their targeting capability.

• Myomer Acceleration Signal Circuitry (MASC): This equipment acts as a turbo-charger for your mech. When engaged, speed is inceased by 25%. In a Thor, with a top speed of 81.0 kph, MASC will increase the top speed to 100.2 kph. Acceleration and throttle response are also improved. MASC does generate a good deal of heat while engaged however, and sufficient heat sinks must be equipped to prevent an overheat and shutdown condition. Can be toggled on and off with the "V" key. Best used on mechs that can use the extra speed provided.

• NARC Missile Beacon: - NARC used by itself causes NO DAMAGE to targets! -. A small device fired like a missile, it attaches itself to the target, and provides a homing beacon for subsequent missile launches. The weapon system and ammunition are both quite heavy, and given the inherent accuracy of missile systems, this device may be redundant. Plus, it's effects are nullified by the ECM suite, rendering NARC a heavy, useless piece of junk on the battlefield. It's use , especially in multi player games is inadvisable.

• Radar: Standard equipment in all mechs, the radar serves to locate and identify any active units on the battlefield.The radar operates in 2 separate modes, Passive and Active, radar modes are toggled by the "ALT+R" command. Passive radar is indicated by yellow lines in the radar display, it provides a detection range of 500 meters, it also limits enemy detection of your unit to 500 meters, and should be used when stealth is more important than detection range. It will also limit an enemies ability to acheive weapons lock beyond that range. When facing enemies using LRM missiles, or any weapon system with a range exceeding 500 meters the radar should always be set to passive mode. Active mode is identified by green lines in the radar display, it is the default staus of the radar and provides 1000 meters of detection range. Active mode should be used when arming your mech with long range weapons systems. The radar disply also has 2 modes of operation, Standard and Map mode. The display modes are toggled with the "SHIFT+R" command. Standard mode displays a small, transparent display in the upper left hand corner of the HUD. In addition, Standard mode can be toggled from small to large diplay with the "R" command. Large display mode will fill the entire HUD with the ranging and veiw lines of the radar display. Map mode also displays in the upper left hand corner, but super imposes it's range and view lines over a map display. This can be useful for navigation in an unknown area, but the map is not transparent and will limit the view from the cockpit. This is especially true in lower resolution modes.

• Target Aquisition Gear (TAG): Used as a targeting laser for Arrow IV artillery support. "Painting" a target with TAG will increase inbound missile accuracy. If the mission does not feature Arrow IV, do not equip this device. Arrow IV is never used in multi player games.

• Targeting Computer: A valuable unit, allowing you to target specific body locations, and provides an aiming cicle to help target moving enemies. Especially useful for ballistic and long range missile weapons, it's value to energy based attacks is less. Lasers reach the target almost instantly, so there is no need to lead a moving target. Machine guns, too, with their limited range and fast projectiles usually do not require additional support for aiming and firing. It's effectiveness is severely limited by the use of the ECM suite, rendering the aiming circle choppy and unstable.

(some of the above equipment wasn't specifically made to be useful for multiplayer, but for the most part, none of it is completely over the top)




I posted my similar idea's in another thread, but rather than creating creating yet more similar threads, I'll post it here (hopefully the Devs are paying attention to the detail in the OP's post in everyone's ideas)

Quote

Making equipment serve a purpose with fun features, offering variety between them, but the use of said equipment would not be a necessity.

(the following ideas are based mostly on the TT descriptions, rather than defining any "rule sets")

Basically it would boil down to these key uses, and the entire idea fleshed out in game terms:

1. NARC + SRM = Semi-guided homing SRM capability if within normal 270m range of NARC'ed target

• Gives choice between using an SSRM (which does not work with NARC/TAG), since it uses it uses it own targeting package as is, and using regular SRM in combination with NARC. Gives choice between simply dumb-firing as is, or possibility of also using with NARC ensuring that more missiles will hit (either equipped on own Mech, or working in tandem with a team mate)

• In addition to this idea, for balance reasons, dumb-fired SRMs homing in on NARC beacon is still less accurate than SSRM, but ensures at least 50-75% will hit at certain angles. For instance, the fired SRMs perhaps could only deviate a certain amount of degrees so if someone flew past you, the missiles wouldn't suddenly turn 180, and would probably miss entirely.

2. NARC + LRM = (Two key uses)

• A NARC'ed target shows up on radar without LOS by rest of team. A Pilot with LRMs can either (A) target normally and use locked targeting, or they can ( B ) dumb fire their missiles without locking on. Using the later strategy, the intended target would not receive an incoming missile warning. (Artemis LRMs gains no accuracy bonus with NARC) (In both cases LRMs do not have any change to ballistic arc, because terrain blocking needs to be a viable use against LRMs)

3. TAG + LRM = (Two key uses)

• A TAG'ed target shows up on radar without LOS by rest of team. A pilot with LRMs can either (A) target normally and use locked targeting, or they can ( B ) dumb fire their missiles without locking on. Same as per NARC + LRM, except whoever is using the TAG needs to keep the laser designator on target (the key difference between the fire and forget NARC, and the constant beam on target TAG) (Artemis LRMs retain accuracy bonus w/ TAG) (In both cases LRMs do not have any change to ballistic arc, because terrain blocking needs to be a viable use against LRMs)

* Note: This may require the addition of adding an "Direct/Indirect" key in order for a Player's missiles to hit where they intend them to. Basically the "indirect" function would be purely for dumb-firing and homing in on NARC or a TAG'ed target. The "indirect" missile would seek out nearest target NARC or TAG'ed target if any.










* Other Notes: NARC needs a tweaked time that the beacon stays attached, 30-40 seconds or more. Give a second counter, where if a friendly/enemy PPC hits NARC'ed target = NARC instantly destroyed (or some variation of this).

Further Implementation and Interaction with Other Equipment

TAG/NARC/Artemis/ECM all should have specific uses and should have better paper/rock/scissor in combination that make sense. ECM is a whole bag of worms that needs re-working with the aformentioned items. The main controversy is that ECM shields from all detection and locks, and without having Active/Passive radar, well... ya know (reworked below into the following, retaining its use against certain items, but nullifying its affect as a stealth tool... Stealth Armor + ECM, or Null Sig make sense only if they were added into the game)

• ECM negates listed bonuses of NARC and Artemis Accuracy bonus. (Ex. A Friendly ECM shielding another friendly that was NARC'ed, shielding team mates and team from non-LOS capability items like NARC)

• TAG would be the only thing that can still indirectly fire missiles through the "ECM Bubble," if outside of ECM bubble. However, it can only offer that capability with regular LRMs. For instance, if Artemis LRMs are fired at ECM bubbled TAG'ed target, the missiles will hit, but with normal LRM accuracy. Yeah... lots if "if [] then programming."

ECM

• Could be featured so it merely offers longer "time to detection" (by LOS radar) not infinite no detection

• And Lock on time takes longer (the same) whether someone is outside or inside the influence of ECM

• Someone "disrupting" another ECM would simply then mean they do not receive the longer "time to detection" (LOS Radar) and longer lock on time bonuses (and if they were both using SSRMs, they would both be able to use them against one another)

• Hides Mech Information for a period of time, but does not prevent lock

• (also lock-on weapons are an issue that need to balanced separately)

• Simpliest solution ever?

BAP

• Retains use at extending LOS radar range (or if actual radar is introduced), in affect, with the "time to detection" model of ECM would hence began that detection sooner than a Mech without BAP (again stressing that it is an enchanced tool, since anyone without BAP or ECM can still target ECM units)

• Still would detect "shut down" Mechs, but also a Betty warning could play for a Mech powers up "Mech Power Up Detected," if in range

• ECM "jams" these abilities if it is in range, however the BAP could display a warning that it is being jammed and shows a blinking dot on Radar or a funnel like arrow pointing from your own Mech marker to the direction the jam is coming from

Including C3 Master/Slave Units




C3 Master Command Unit

• Acts like as if TAG is mounted on Mech (designate Arrow-IV or LRMs or Artemis LRMs) where the Player has to keep lock, but does not hold down any button or have to aim directly at the Target, only needs to retain LOS to gain C3 Master TAG functionality

• For sharing target data it could be done in two ways: 1. Simpliest is to allow C3 Master to share with all C3 Slave mounted on anyone else's Mechs. 2. Next solution is to allow C3 Master to share with only 3 closest C3 Slaves mounted on anyone's Mech. (If there is a second C3 Master active, they then share with the next 3 closest and so forth)

Changing How Information is Displayed (I.E., "Information Warfare")

• Change how Targeting Data is displayed and shared. Normally, as it is now, a player that is targeting something that someone else see's, will eventually get the heads up display showing what Mech it is and how much health it has even without LOS. The easiest solution is to change this display to the mech "Type." For example, it would show the variant as "Centurion - Unknown," that does not display relative health, the type of mech, or the weapons it carries (instead those things are replaced with "?").

• Basically anyone "R" locking what they see or have NARC'ed or TAG'ed is still targetable by members of the team, but no actual information of the Mechs "contents" is shared with the rest of the team unless they also gain LOS. If the person in question were instead using a C3 Master, their target information is then shared with C3 Slaves, so others can get exact data on type of Mech, relative health, and the weapons it carries. (Awesome right?)

In a Nut Shell

• The afformentioned ideas, combined as a whole, then make these items as purely bonus capability items that do not negate the basic mechanics of the game. It makes them behave in different ways making way for more tactical choices with other equipment on the field. Plus it makes them fun to use, like NARC with a purpose!

• In other words, someone who happens to be on a team without NARC/TAG/ECM still have capability in the so called "role warfare." For instance, Scout Mechs can still relay target location regardless (sneaking up behind the enemy and 'R' locking them, then someone with LRMs would need to keep constant lock onto 'R' locked enemy, which is already a function of the game, but currently negated by ECM 'cloak fields'). If ECM's are around, it'll just mean detection takes slightly longer and that's all.

• If they didn't bring NARC/TAG, it just means they won't get any "indirect" capability features listed, but may need to use cover more consistently if the enemy team does have it

• C3 also retains a use if nobody else is using Slave units, but its functionality is shut "off" in an ECM field

Help us PGI-Wan-Kenobi, you're our only hope.

Edited by General Taskeen, 07 January 2013 - 09:09 PM.

[General Taskeen]

Eh, no one?

[Asmudius Heng]

General Taskeen, on 08 January 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

Eh, no one?

They all look like great ideas as well!

Though the base changes to how LRMs and SSRMs work need to be there still to make these guided systems have an element of skill to them as well as risk vs reward.

There are so many ways that the entire electronic warfare could be implemented better it is bafling why PGI cling to what they have done as a solution.

In fact - latest patch now gives rewards for using NARC. That not a bad thing in itself - but what they are basically doing is BRIBING players to use a terrible peice of equipment instead of making people WANT to use it because it is effective.