148 replies to this topic

[Sephlock]

Correction: Side torsos, 4000%. Hunchback and Atlas ac/20 torsos, 8000%.

[Jetfire]

I think the balance is pretty good right now, some builds can kill very fast, but they have trade off and good tactics can easily overcome them. Without double armor this game would not feel like mechwarrior at all, more like mecha counter strike.

[Jules Vernes]

I did not read through every page but just picked som comments. I never played Battletech, so my argumentation comes from a gameplayer perspective only:

I think both sides here regarding longer fights/shorter fights and impact on strategic/tactical decision making have a fair point.
What IMO clearly speaks for the shorter fights is that you have indeed to be more thoughtful about your positioning and the "when and where" to show yourself to the enemy. The example with the assault getting behind enemy lines is a fine example for that.
The longer fights seem to be less complex in MWO as of right now. This could - and should - change with making arms and legs more viable targets.

I really think the whole problematic comes down to this. At the moment, just putting armor up and making fights last longer this way does not help the game at all. Making it more viable to get rid of those arms and legs though would give fights mor depth. Aim then would become even more important, as well as torso shifting and movement / cover (and therefore heat management. Peripherals are dealt with fast, especially when not moving). Right now I cannot come up with an idea how this would be done best. IMO adding up armor everywhere would not help since it still would take less time to get rid of the torso than shooting at the peripherals first and be therefore be more efficient. Like I said, I am only talking from a pure gameplay perspective and do not have any greater knowledge of the Battletech ruleset. Maybe some of you could come up with some suggestions? that is, if you agree .

[MustrumRidcully]

Sephlock, on 29 March 2013 - 02:42 AM, said:

Correction: Side torsos, 4000%. Hunchback and Atlas ac/20 torsos, 8000%.

You understood that my post was referring to how PGI should have implemented their "armour doubling" back when they first made it, and that I am not asking for more armour increases, just a redistribution of armour to actually fit a game with pin-point aiming instead of dice-rolled hit locations? Because I can otherwise not figure out why you would make up such ridiculous numbers.

[Corwin Vickers]

MustrumRidcully, on 29 March 2013 - 02:41 AM, said:

While a bit hyperbolic, it points out the flaw in MW:Os armour system. THere isn't really a good reason to shoot of an arm - you take out a few guns a bit earlier. Even in one the best case scenario, the Splatapult that has all the guns in the arms, the difference between taking out both arms first instead of the CT to disable the Cat, is 20 % in the damage taken from the Splat.

First of all, as I said, not everyone aims for locations. Second, you don't always hit what you are aiming at, thus if I see a target that has an open side torso I am going to shoot it off because I know that it will most likely reduce his firepower by 50%. If I see a mech that has something big in it's arm I will shoot the arm off if it makes sense to do so instead of starting to work on his CT.

On Splatcats you can usually see the arms before you can see the cat's CT so yeah, it does make sense to shoot the arms off. Also, you know that he will lose 50% of his firepower in 50% of the damage. While taking out the CT he still has 100% of his damage dealing ability until he is dead.

Also, if I shoot a mech into a stick and there are other threats around I will actually let that mech go and work on the threat.


I don't have a huge problem with getting cored. Sure it happens in 98% of my deaths but usually the rest of my body is pretty damage by then too. That is because, like others, I have adapted to the real time implementation and I spread damage over my body. Because some people are not good enough to adapt does not mean we have to dumb diown the whole game.

[Cerberias]

What? Noobs have a chance BECAUSE its a drawn out game? IMO that gives a noob even less chance of killing someone. In a drawn out 1v1 fight, coming down to pinpoint damage, heat management, leading etc.. the person who has the highest skill will ALWAYS win. Faster the game is more chance a noob has to get a lucky shot and boom.. see: 6 ppc stalker - one lucky shot on a light and they generally have a kill or close.

[TOGSolid]

Cerberias, on 29 March 2013 - 03:33 AM, said:

What? Noobs have a chance BECAUSE its a drawn out game? IMO that gives a noob even less chance of killing someone. In a drawn out 1v1 fight, coming down to pinpoint damage, heat management, leading etc.. the person who has the highest skill will ALWAYS win. Faster the game is more chance a noob has to get a lucky shot and boom.. see: 6 ppc stalker - one lucky shot on a light and they generally have a kill or close.

It's also why they insist on thinking LRM boats are good. They get the occasional lucky round where they can sit back from that rare perfect angle on a team that does exactly the wrong thing and it makes them think they're gods.

[Nonsense]

HRR Insanity, on 28 March 2013 - 09:04 PM, said:

Inaccurate fire is a feature of cone of fire. If factors within your control affect the degree of inaccuracy, then that's perfect. I've proposed previously having an inherent inaccuracy for groups of weapons only. This would be a function of heat, speed, movement type (jumping/walking/running), and # of weapon being fired in the group. All of those choices are pilot choices. If you have no heat, fire a limited # of weapons while moving slowly... you may have a very minimal innaccuracy/weapon spread. Just like CS. Managing all those factors and setting up a good shot... that's true skill. Or, as I've suggested, you could just fire one weapon and that weapon would be perfectly accurate.

Bam. Balanced game.

No...NOT just like CS. You obviously never played it, or if you did it wasn't competitively or with any degree of skill or understanding, so stop acting as though you're suggesting the same system.

Anyway, look, the game's learning curve is already high. In CS and its successors (****** modern shooters), each weapon is different, but you can only use one at a time. You're proposing a system that STARTS OUT more complex than that and only gets more complex. That won't make the game better, nor will it solve the other problems caused by the already high learning curve.

Besides, if they simply added heat penalties (even brief ones with current heat dissipation levels) it would go a long way to making certain builds less attractive without adding any penalties to accuracy while moving (with no heat).

MustrumRidcully, on 29 March 2013 - 02:41 AM, said:

While a bit hyperbolic, it points out the flaw in MW:Os armour system. THere isn't really a good reason to shoot of an arm - you take out a few guns a bit earlier. Even in one the best case scenario, the Splatapult that has all the guns in the arms, the difference between taking out both arms first instead of the CT to disable the Cat, is 20 % in the damage taken from the Splat.

This is total bunk. You can hit the ears from almost any angle, not true for the CT when the pilot is twisting to avoid death. You can hit the ears MUCH easier from range, and you can do it with all your weapons without worrying about convergence.

Stop playing with numbers and actually play the game.

[Nonsense]

Cerberias, on 29 March 2013 - 03:33 AM, said:

What? Noobs have a chance BECAUSE its a drawn out game? IMO that gives a noob even less chance of killing someone. In a drawn out 1v1 fight, coming down to pinpoint damage, heat management, leading etc.. the person who has the highest skill will ALWAYS win. Faster the game is more chance a noob has to get a lucky shot and boom.. see: 6 ppc stalker - one lucky shot on a light and they generally have a kill or close.

6 ppc stalkers piloted by bad players hardly get kills. When I've used a 6 ppc stalker, I destroy everyone on the other team if my team is any good and I'm not the main target. When I see others in said stalkers, they don't do that at all.

You're failing to understand how longer combat is more forgiving to missed shots. That's what gives newbs a chance in longer fights, especially against people who have already been damaged by the enemy team. If my CT is exposed, a good player will kill me very quickly as soon as I turn to fire. A bad player will not, and I'll have a chance to kill him. But, armor gives him many chances to land the shot when the good player only needs one.

[Anony Mouse]

What about if armor actually functioned like armor, instead of big math blocks. For example if say a front side torso has 40 armor. Divide the torso into multiple hit boxes so you have the oppurtunity to "pierce" the armor while at the same time not reducing armor from the entire location with every hit. Implimented properly with corresping tweaks to other areas like weapons convergence, LBX, MachGuns, SRMs and proper critical location (like hitting hips and knees, shoulders etc) it might add a new dynamic and probably be a little more realistic and representative to intent.

[Mercules]

MuKen, on 28 March 2013 - 07:52 PM, said:

In paintball that would be the end of the world....

One of the reasons paintball is going to fail as an effective "model" for solid gameplay with something like a Mech involved is that in Paintball if a ball breaks on the knuckle of my off hand or the tip of my shoe that I didn't notice hanging out of the bunker, I am out of the game. One of the more effective tactics in Speedball is to throw paint down field and keep the enemy pinned in while your faster team members flank them. Once those flankers have the angle it is all over. It is strategic,but it stops being fun after a bit. (It's also expensive going through half a case of paint and a tank each match)

My friends and I played all sorts of paintball. Every winter we would get our paintball fix by going out in the frozen woods(with heated socks on our tanks and hoppers ) and play.

Sometimes we would play with each player having 3 10-ball-tubes making us have to reload and carefully place shots. It makes up for the instant death as no one can simply spray an area and get a kill you had to actually AIM.

The more interesting variant we played we counted head and torso hits as kill shots. Shots to the arm would require you to hug yourself with it(put your fist on your chest), legs would mean you couldn't flex your knee, both legs and you would be prone, and such. Getting shot in your main arm and having to fire off-handed was really interesting. Losing the mobility of you leg or even both legs meant you could still contribute, but meant you were now limited to trying to hold onto the area you are in.

We also tried a zombie game. Once shot you became a Zombie. You could no longer fire but you could still move at a walk, no running, and a headshot would take you out for 1 minute. If a Zombie tagged you, you were a zombie. This was Free for all and last man standing won style game. We would time the game and see who could last the longest. The area we played in had to be a bit smaller than normal.

So while the "on hit kill" games were interesting we found a great deal more fun... and skill... in some of our other game styles.


Mechwarrior should be a bit slower paced than CS/Quake/Unreal/TeamFortres/BF/CoD.

I still think the game would be better if we went back to normal armor and altered how weapons fired a tiny bit.

Lasers are on/off. While on they deal damage and generate heat at a consistent level equivalent to their TT damage over 10 seconds. So Medium laser does 5 damage and 3 heat over 10 seconds but is continuous and can just be fired constantly. Other weapons deal their TT value of damage and heat divided by how many times they fire per 10 seconds.

so AC/20 fires 2.5 times in 10 seconds. It deals 8 damage and 2.8 heat per shot and gets 2.5 times the normal ammo per ton in the TT. This emulates the damage spreading out from "dice rolls" but leaves those who are skilled enough to constantly hit one location a chance to do so.

PPC would do 4 points of damage on a shot meaning even 6 of them wouldn't core a mech.


Now we set the ranges back to normal, and introduce the heat scale where movement and accuracy get reduced as you gain heat. Since weapons and heatsinks are now in sink for heat generated and dissipated it is fine to have those other things in the scale. High heat alphas will still push you to the point where you are less accurate and that means those second and third shots will have less chance of hitting the same location.




Alternately we remove the pinpoint convergence and allow movement, heat, and recoil to lower accuracy. If skilled you will still put all your shots onto a mech but it might not all go straight into the CT. Since the convergence is gone firing 6 weapons together wont' wipe out a single section but will still hammer a mech.

[Wraith05]

That may be true in paintball, but I don't think it holds water in a video game. Fast kills promote run and gun tactics with video games where whoever has the best twitch reflexes, not strategies wins. Just look at CoD.

With MWO you may have good reflexes but if you can't consistently land your shots after the first one you will lose, this puts more emphasis on the skill of the pilots in both defensive and offensive piloting.

Battle lines still do a great deal in this game when you organize (most won't take the effort) and flanking means that your enemies back armor is exposed to either you or your teammates. So while it may not give you a garunteed advantage it does give your team an great advantage IF they are working as a team and not just 8 lone wolves.

Edited by Wraith05, 29 March 2013 - 06:48 AM.

[Mercules]

Wraith05, on 29 March 2013 - 06:44 AM, said:

Battle lines still do a great deal in this game when you organize (most won't take the effort) and flanking means that your enemies back armor is exposed to either you or your teammates. So while it may not give you a garunteed advantage it does give your team an great advantage IF they are working as a team and not just 8 lone wolves.

It also means you need more than one flanker to be really effective. One can disrupt an enemy line which will help the main force out, but 2 can focus fire down one mech and actually chew up an enemy line from the flank engaging one at a time. More teamwork.

[Fate 6]

ITT: people who should play CoD

This is Mechwarrior. The traditional gameplay is fights that drag out a bit. That's why we have COMPONENTS. You target different sections of mechs to disable them, instead of just shooting center torso and going for the kill straight away.

[GetinmyBellah]

Wow, some of ya'll need to step away from the pipe for awhile. I've been playing MW PC titles since MPBT on AOL in 1995 and I've never encountered such copious amounts of BS as I have in the MW:O forums. This is a video game. Play it as such, have fun and don't worry about other people's words or actions.

[Anony Mouse]

Mercules, on 29 March 2013 - 05:50 AM, said:

I still think the game would be better if we went back to normal armor and altered how weapons fired a tiny bit.

Lasers are on/off. While on they deal damage and generate heat at a consistent level equivalent to their TT damage over 10 seconds. So Medium laser does 5 damage and 3 heat over 10 seconds but is continuous and can just be fired constantly. Other weapons deal their TT value of damage and heat divided by how many times they fire per 10 seconds.

so AC/20 fires 2.5 times in 10 seconds. It deals 8 damage and 2.8 heat per shot and gets 2.5 times the normal ammo per ton in the TT. This emulates the damage spreading out from "dice rolls" but leaves those who are skilled enough to constantly hit one location a chance to do so.

PPC would do 4 points of damage on a shot meaning even 6 of them wouldn't core a mech.


Now we set the ranges back to normal, and introduce the heat scale where movement and accuracy get reduced as you gain heat. Since weapons and heatsinks are now in sink for heat generated and dissipated it is fine to have those other things in the scale. High heat alphas will still push you to the point where you are less accurate and that means those second and third shots will have less chance of hitting the same location.

This! It seems pretty obvious when spelled out here, I wonder why this wasn't the approach from day one.

[BigJim]

Karr285, on 28 March 2013 - 07:25 PM, said:

If this was true at all they would not have doubled Armour PERIOD.

Incorrect - The devs made a choice to double armour. Not you, I nor anyone else has any idea whether or not it invalidates the OP's point or not.

Oh yeah. PERIOD. Sorry, I almost forgot that part.

Edited by BigJim, 29 March 2013 - 07:43 AM.

[MrPenguin]

You know whats really mind boggling?
This entire thread sums up to:
Higher armor value = Shorter matches
Lower armor value = Longer matches

I knew this forum was out of touch with logic and reality, but this is ******** ridiculous!
(unless I'm miss read everything here)

Edited by MrPenguin, 29 March 2013 - 07:56 AM.

[Mercules]

Anony Mouse, on 29 March 2013 - 07:16 AM, said:

This! It seems pretty obvious when spelled out here, I wonder why this wasn't the approach from day one.

To be frank and fair to the developers when I first started playing in Closed Beta I wasn't thinking like this either. It was only AFTER I observed what increasing the rate of fire and keeping TT Damage Heat values the same was doing that I sat down and tried to come up with a way the "values" in TT could apply to weapons without us all firing once per 10 seconds. My conclusion was dividing the TT Stats out by how many times a weapons fires in 10 seconds. That also satisfies the "not all shots hit the same location" in TT unless someone is a crack shot.

Now you can freely mail the developers or write a note and stick it on their car window and ask why they haven't done this if you want. I don't think they have noticed it yet. I bring it up at least once a month though in discussions like this.

[KingCobra]

Well from my point of view your looking at the OP's topic all wrong MWO is very close to the old PC MechWarrior games as far as armor values in fact if they added 1/2 the armor amount again it would be almost exactly like past PC MechWarrior games. The older games had alpha strikes also and pinpoint accuracy and very good pilots with great skill but the big difference in MWO and the older PC MechWarrior games is MWO mechs do not have the maneuverability of past PC MechWarrior mechs so they cannot avoid the incoming weapons fire from solo players and especially not team group fire. Only the lights and some fast mediums can really get back under cover fast enough to avoid a alpha shot or focused fire. Most of this is due to MWO mechs having such slow right -left turning rate and im not talking torso twist and very slow forward and reverse acceleration compared to weapon speeds as in how fast they hit there targets from shooter to target. I will post this link to some PC MechWarrior videos you can actually see pilots dodging incoming weapons fire and using ground cover to stay alive longer in battles in MWO once initial contact is made its hard to stay alive long. http://www.bing.com/...+play&FORM=VDRE

Edited by KingCobra, 29 March 2013 - 08:24 AM.