468 replies to this topic

[Karl Streiger]

well they did not tripple anything.
one of the scarriest medium mech hunter was the hunchback. its AC20 could easilie break through damaged armor of even heavy mechs and cause serious damage.

now with doubled armor a single shot hardly is enough to penetrate armor of a light.
well i can fire twice...and with pinpoint accuracy and something people dare to call skill i can hit same zone. so everything looks fine.
I can cripple a target in 10s with a single shot. and i can cripple the same target in mwo in 8s with two shots.
Figures say fine but its nonsense. In TT i can fire a shot and dive for cover on the other side i could be targetet by several mechs but they have just one shot too.
in mwo those mechs have several shots. pop out of cover fire and dive for cover will hurt but not kill a target. stay out of cover...means to be dead before the ac 20 has reloaded a second time.

Doubled armor however... you can quadrupple it and problems will still be the same.

[Hauser]

Balfor, on 13 March 2013 - 12:23 AM, said:

1. There is no "Lagshield" anymore - It´s just bad aiming...

Nope. AC's aren't affected by state rewinding. Yet....

From the patch notes:

Host state rewinding is now implemented for instant fire weapons (i.e. lasers, machine guns, flamers); meaning you should now be able to hit moving targets with these weapons even when experiencing latency up to ~450 ms.

Edited by Hauser, 13 March 2013 - 01:39 AM.

[Zerberus]

Sturmforge, on 11 March 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

...

Missile examples

SRM-2
Fire 1 missile every 5 seconds for 2 damage each.

SRM-4
Fire 1 missile every 2.5 seconds 2 damage each

SRM-6
Fire 1 missile every 1.6 seconds 2 damage each

LRM-5
Fire 1 missile every 2 seconds 1 damage each

LRM-10
Fire 1 missile every 1 seconds 1 damage each

LRM-15
Fire 1 missile every 0.6 seconds 1 damage each

LRM-20
Fire 1 missile every 0.5 seconds 1 damage each

Of course this would need to be balanced with actual play time and testing.

Waitaminit.... are you ACTIVELY advocating for every use of any missile system to be a total of 10 seconds total launch time?

So what you`re saying is that someone who fires an LRM 20 at max range has to have and hold targeting for approximately 15 seconds (lets assume locking is instant and LOS works through mountsains so it at least seems halfway fair), by which time the mech he originally had 1000m range to is now potentially less than 100 yards away?  And he needs 15 yeconds to switch targets?

Artillery teams firing 300mm shells from 25 miles away can switch targets faster than that, TODAY.  As a matter of fact, with those kind of system induced delays, nobody would ever use missiles again, as 3/4 of all ammo would be completely wasted on automatic shots coming out between lock loss and relock.  SRMS will be completely useless castrating many brawlers (because their targets dont stand still for 10 seconds like they do on TT), and I`D say 90% of all LRM ammo will be wasted on mountainsides that the enemy had all the time in the world to walk to waiting for the first little raindrop to come.  12 mecks firing LRMs would be less effectice than a single LRM boat is today, that`s a joke to suggest that.

I love the TT and grew up with it, but thinking all TT rules can be applied 1:1 is ludicrous.  Or can you suddenly get 16 mechs into a <50m radius on TT like you can in MW:O?
What you`re suggesting can ONLY work if the game were to forbid all movement for everyone for 10 seconds every time someone launches missiles.  Which is the entire reason that Max Payne multiplayer with Bullet Time was such an epic fail in testing and never included or even fully developed.

Edited by Zerberus, 14 March 2013 - 05:18 AM.

[LethalMezzle]

Xandralkus, on 08 March 2013 - 10:15 PM, said:

The game doesn't suck because the devs didn't follow canon.

The game sucks because the devs have not yet figured out how to design a game, and are completely content to crap out new mechs and MC content until the game launches.

I think you've put this way too harshly, but I think this is true. Problems with balance are not necessarily down to deviance from canon, just design oversights.

There's no 'holy grail' quality to canon stats just because they are canon. Ultimately MWO is a different environment and you cannot expect just parroting canon stats to work all the time.

[Maurdakar]

I like the slow *** gameplay which requires precision and mastery with weapons (in a battle scenario) as well as teamwork over vent. It feels like two machines (tanks) grinding and smashing against one another, and is 'clunky' in a controlled way. Positioning is almost more important than dealing damage, and in every combat situation you have to think of what you're trading against your enemy.

I feel this makes the game stand out against other shooters and is overall beneficial to the uniqueness of mechwarrior. The table top is governed by dice, a single mind controlling many units and is turn based. Let the game be its own thing. Go play Mech Tactics, I hope you enjoy it and that it's good. Do not bog down this game with unreasonable expectations of it relating to an obscure table top game.

[Sheraf]

Remove triple rate of fire sounds interesting. I would like a slower game

[Pht]

Strig, on 11 March 2013 - 10:22 AM, said:

"Canon" stats would make for a HORRIBLE game!!

Cannon stats work in TT (barely, it is still quite easy to exploit that system).

Every gaming system possible is subject to exploitiation/munchkinization.

That's why the GM is so necessary in so many types of games, to take into account things the game designers couldn't/didn't.

Your gripe here applies to all games.

Quote

This is because you are rolling dice and there is zero skill involved. Zero.

... I suspect someone has never played the TT in anything like a meaningful sense...

There's plenty of skill involved - you have to know under what conditions you should shoot, what weapons or ammo types you should shoot, and when you should shoot said - and you have to be able to track all of those things from your opposition's point of view.

You might as well say that math skill counts for nothing in a casino.

Quote

You have a statistically guaranteed chance to miss every shot.

You can get your total to-hit modifier down to 2 on 2d6.

Or, in other words, you're flat wrong.

Quote

Every shot that hits hits somewhere randomly.

If you mean by "randomly" "aim at his toe, hit his cockpit, no - that is impossible.

If you mean by "randomly" aim at his left torso, and, if the conditions aren't too much for your 'Mech to overcome, and all of your shots connect - and the shots will spread across the torsos and maybe once in a while across the arms or the cockpit, than yes, and there's nothing wrong with this.

It happens to be how they balanced for the (relatively) "low" armor numbers vs the (relatively) "high" weapons damage output - this is how "epic combat" is possible in the BTUniverse, instead of "insta-death all the time" gameplay.

AKA, shots spread based upon conditions occuring when you take the shot.

Quote

You might be able to achieve this with a system like the FallOut VATS but this DOES NOT WORK in a real-time FPS-esque simulator where some level of skill is involved.

... and how about, in a game and genre, that, by the definition of it's very name, means "doing first person combat in a BTUniverse battlemech" ... we have some imitation/simulation of the 'mech's ability to calculate how to hit what the pilot has un der the reticule... and some imitation/simulation of the 'Mechs ability to align the weapons mounted on it to coincide with those calculations?

You know, a 'mech combat game that's actually got 'Mech combat in it?

Quote

If you want a digital version of the TT game you should check out MWTactics.

Nobody's asking for a 3d version of megamek.

WHO are are you posting this to??

Xandralkus, on 11 March 2013 - 11:05 AM, said:

The hardcore TT fanatics need to stay out of MWO and stop pretending like they can game design.

The wolfenstein 3d fans need to stay out of the MW genre and stop pretending like they can game design. FPS mechanics don't corrrelate fluidly into the Mechwarrior video game genre or the giant-robot-fighting-game genre.

Edited by Pht, 15 March 2013 - 01:00 PM.

[Kaziganthi]

LegoPirate, on 08 March 2013 - 11:05 PM, said:

doubleing armor was a good idea. weapon convergence makes it a necessity. otherwise a 6ppc stalker could pretty much oneshot any mech in the game.

Agrred a 6PPc stalker would one shot any mech on the field, but how many DHS does that mech have to remove 60 points of heat..15. Thats 30 heat per 10 second. So it would take him/her 20 seconds minimum to cool down enough to power up. Imagine how much damage could be done to him in 20 seconds of standing still, not firing.

Edited by Kaziganthi, 16 March 2013 - 02:09 PM.

[M4rtyr]

I don't like how the Op put it but I do agree.

They have cherry picked some TT rules, changed others and come up with their own things in even more areas. This kind of frankenstien desgin doesn't work. There was a system that worked, TT balance has some munchkinization available but it was fairly limited compared to many other games I've seen. But it really has bit PGI in the *** by doing the mix and match game with design choices. Its certinaly gotten them in to some tight corners they are going to have difficulting qworking out of, thats for sure.

Also have to say Pht's post just above was excellent.

Edited by M4rtyr, 16 March 2013 - 02:34 PM.

[CloaknDagger]

LethalMezzle, on 14 March 2013 - 01:06 PM, said:

I think you've put this way too harshly, but I think this is true. Problems with balance are not necessarily down to deviance from canon, just design oversights.

There's no 'holy grail' quality to canon stats just because they are canon. Ultimately MWO is a different environment and you cannot expect just parroting canon stats to work all the time.

I can expect it to work with only a few errors.

What they did is get something that works in one setting, then tear them apart, then try to get them to work in another setting.

How am I the only one that thinks that step 2 was unnecessary and only doomed the game?

[Wargeisen]

Greetings,

I am surprised, about rate of fire/heat, that nobody did mention the Mechcommander series, who just did that: divising damage and heat by a factor from the 10sec TT game: if i remember, a LLAS did 4 damages with 4 heat and could fire every 5 seconds, as an example, ppc did 7.5 damage and heat, etc etc...

But what i see as one of the main problem here for players, is the tempo of the battle, between some who like a more ordinary one shot one kill FPS, and others who would like combats during many minutes of direct/feint tactics shots.

Personally, I find that the aim disruption from movement and hits are strong enough to shake the concentration shots on a desired location, baring a slow target and having plenty of time to shot, like laser snipers. But even when I am hit, or when I hit, I find it exceptional to be able to concentrate shots on same loc, even full rear at short range and slow speed. Not that it did not happen sometimes, just that it seems to me not so casual than what I read.

About heat, well sure I will support a more large heat result as in TT game, and MW3 was good at it. And for the alphastriker with just shutdown, if i remember it was said in TT that even that the scale was 30, you had to wait for the full cooldown to restart the 'Mech, sometimes taking more than just one turn. So just put the shutdowning 'Mech for a longer sleep until he can reactivate.

Regards,
W

[Karl Streiger]

Wargeisen, on 19 March 2013 - 02:32 AM, said:

I am surprised, about rate of fire/heat, that nobody did mention the Mechcommander series, who just did that: divising damage and heat by a factor from the 10sec TT game: if i remember, a LLAS did 4 damages with 4 heat and could fire every 5 seconds, as an example, ppc did 7.5 damage and heat, etc etc...

was shocked at first... because i never have seen common sense in the weapons stats of mech commander...but your are nearly right.
http://www.gamefaqs....gold/faqs/49231


Included in the weight were the heat sinks too.
I remember.

And as far as i can remember the reloading time oft the PPC tasted right...come on come on reload reload reload...fire ..."A notherone bites to dust"
Loved that game...(the first not the second)

Edited by Karl Streiger, 19 March 2013 - 02:42 AM.

[Ralgas]

CloaknDagger, on 18 March 2013 - 07:32 PM, said:

I can expect it to work with only a few errors.

What they did is get something that works in one setting, then tear them apart, then try to get them to work in another setting.

How am I the only one that thinks that step 2 was unnecessary and only doomed the game?

Because as soon as you put real time aiming in and remove much of the random chance associated with the tt system it will be just as unbalanced using full tt values or simply boring (full 10 second wait between shots). If you truly want tt on the pc go take a look at tactics

Edited by Ralgas, 19 March 2013 - 02:52 AM.

[POWR]

Great post OP, you show your inability to grasp gamedesign perfectly

[Hungus]

So you were somehow misled into believing that this game was going to be a turn based game built off table top rules, how did that even happen?

You might want to check out Mechwarrior Tactics, you can even become a "founder" and get instant closed beta access right now.

http://mwtactics.com/

[Karl Streiger]

Hungus, on 19 March 2013 - 03:25 AM, said:

So you were somehow misled into believing that this game was going to be a turn based game built off table top rules, how did that even happen?

You might want to check out Mechwarrior Tactics, you can even become a "founder" and get instant closed beta access right now.

http://mwtactics.com/

POWR, on 19 March 2013 - 03:20 AM, said:

Great post OP, you show your inability to grasp gamedesign perfectly

I'm greatly amused. The OP made his point... and i think its a valid concern. No need to harasse anybody for his opinion... i don't bully you because you are from denmark or because you have only 39 posts or need to be a founder, to get into MWT closed beta.

[AndyHill]

This thread is not about playing TT games or the all-powerful nature of the TT ruleset. It's about the (perceived) nature of the balancing process, which at least to me seems fairly random and one could even say that the recent balancing efforts have been (an inevitable) step towards TT-style balance. Also the biggest balance-breaking factors (ECM, streaks) would not be a problem if they had followed the spirit of TT equivalents.

To me the ideal process of converting TT to real-time goes like this:
1: Research the TT rules and balance (and inherent problems)
2: Research and map out the biggest differences between TT and real-time
3: Create a solution for transferring the balance and adjust numbers as necessary

Now I don't know the details, but to me the MWO development process has been more like this:
1: Assume a fundamentally incompatible game mechanic and insert TT numbers into it
2: Observe fail
3: Do drastic (and apparently random, we don't have details of the plans) number changes like triple firing rate, double armor etc.
4: Adjust based on statistics while including disruptive new elements (streaks, ECM, Artemis)

And now the situation is that we've been told earlier that streaks are doing a lot of hurt and something needs to be done, in the end AFAIK nothing has been done for months. We've been told that ECM is op and something needs to be done about it, that's certainly going to be interesting, since it's one of the things keeping streaks in check. At least to me it seems that the current system is fundamentally imbalanced and every new addition is basically an accident waiting to happen (I seriously dread the inclusion of clan 'mechs with incredible boating capability).

I really like MWO and especially its potential, since so many things have been done right. I just fear that the true potential may not be reached due to balancing issues - that I feel could've been largely avoided with different approach. Now I might be wrong on that and I'm definitely open for discussion, as long as it remains constructive.

[Karl Streiger]

AndyHill, on 19 March 2013 - 04:13 AM, said:

This thread is not about playing TT games or the all-powerful nature of the TT ruleset. It's about the (perceived) nature of the balancing process, which at least to me seems fairly random and one could even say that the recent balancing efforts have been (an inevitable) step towards TT-style balance. Also the biggest balance-breaking factors (ECM, streaks) would not be a problem if they had followed the spirit of TT equivalents.

Well said.. but i believe the cause is lost.

Its like telling the blind how the sun look like
Its like telling the def how sweet Beethoven sounds...

[CG Oglethorpe Kerensky]

CloaknDagger, on 08 March 2013 - 05:09 PM, said:

Let's see MWO's.record on ignoring canon so far:

Table Top is an ABSTRACTION, it is a rule set to try to emulate what MWO does with pencil and paper because doing what MWO does in the 1980's wasn't possible. It was a flawed system that represented the best way the designers of the day could implement to making fighting gundams possible.

Lets not forget that TT brought us such wonderful concepts as...

"Long" range missiles with an max range of just 630 meters.
50 caliber machine guns that can't inflict damage past 90 meters.
Ballistics weapons that (counter to physics) actually get shorter ranged as the kinetic energy increases.
Lasers that hit to full damage out to an arbitrary range then do no damage at all 30 meters further.
Then there is the joke of kinetic melee weapons in an age of particle cannons...
And let's not forget Roy Calbeck the anthropomorphic man/unicorn hybrid that was created after a long night of binge drinking and goes on to travel the multiverse and runs Erdani Light Horse.

Table Top was deeply flawed, stop treating it as scripture, and realize it is just the best the could do at the time.

[ArchMage Sparrowhawk]

CHWarpath, on 11 March 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

Your right, much of this fanbase that I have had to tolerate and eventually quit the games has killed every single mechwarrior game online since its inception. These are the dungeon and dragon fans who never played sports to save their lives and have the eye hand coordination on par with an 8 year old girl. They will ruin this game and if PGI does not work on balance properly, this game will stay about 10,000 players and eventually die off.

Really, dude? Really? 8 year old girl? Nerd jokes? Really? It's 'you're', not 'your'.

Edited by ArchMage Sparrowhawk, 19 March 2013 - 04:46 AM.