21 replies to this topic

[focuspark]

Warrax the Chaos Warrior, on 19 March 2013 - 02:26 PM, said:

An MBT carries a coaxial .50 cal and a cupola-mounted machine gun. Yes it has a specialized task (killing enemy armor), but it's still prepared to deal with light vehicles and infantry, so it's not a "boat".

Artillerists still carry sidearms and crew served weapons for defense, infantry includes mortars and light AT, even battleships have small arms on board. Those are all specialized units that would be less effective if they only did one thing,so none of them are "boats" in the sense that we use the term around here.

I can't think of anything in any modern military that is as specialized as what we're talking about when we say "boat" in regards to MWO. Specialization is good, sure, but overspecialization is tunnel-vision.

I'm not proposing a system that makes mechs with 2B, 2M, and 2E for hardpoints the best, just a system that rewards you for having a bit of a backup on your otherwise specialized build.

Not dying to the weakness an over specialized build is the bonus for minor diversification - same as your artillery and MBT example.

[Werewolf486 ScorpS]

Part of the problem I see with most who complain about "Boating" is that they never played the Table Top. In TT you didn't have any restrictions on hard points. If it fit you could put it in, that made for massive boating when you played newbs. They would load up on what ever thinking it would be a one shot one kill and then learned how bad it was after the roll of the dice.