148 replies to this topic

[Mercules]

KingCobra, on 29 March 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

Well from my point of view....

The older MW titles had the same issues we see in MWO because of weapon convergence, changing fire rate without changing damage/heat. They did the same fixes of upping heat you can gain and piling on extra armor. Just because they did it doesn't mean we shouldn't look for a way to do it better.

[Khobai]

A complete overhaul of the aiming system is highly unlikely at this point. The best we can probably hope for is an armor increase on the torso sections. Which would improve mech survivability and make targeting arms/legs a little more worthwhile.

[Mackman]

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

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.

How is it that you don't realize that this would lead to even more boating of the biggest possible weapons you could find? Right now, medium lasers do less damage per shot than large lasers, but they also have lower recycle time, meaning their effective DPS in a firefight is much closer to LL's than what it would be if they went with your absurd "All weapons do TT damage over ten seconds" system. The same thing holds with AC's. In what possible scenario would the AC/2 or the AC/5 be anything but a total and complete waste of tonnage, when instead you could literally double or quadruple your damage with an AC/10 or 20?

[Blue Boutique]

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

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.

Everyone will still be crying foul over Alpha strikes when 3 jenners armed with 6 medium lasers each kill an Atlas in 6 seconds.

6 mediums lasers: 3 Dps
3 jenners : 9 Dps
Average TT Atlas CT armor: 31 Points + 31 internals = 6.89 seconds to kill the Atlas.

The Atlas will need roughly 5 Dps to kill only one Jenner and that's difficult with jenners going 140 kph.

[KingCobra]

Mercules, on 29 March 2013 - 08:29 AM, said:

The older MW titles had the same issues we see in MWO because of weapon convergence, changing fire rate without changing damage/heat. They did the same fixes of upping heat you can gain and piling on extra armor. Just because they did it doesn't mean we shouldn't look for a way to do it better.

Your right PGI should do it better but the point to my post was (MWO mechs cannot maneuver fast enough to dodge incoming focus fire) where MW3-4 mechs could. One way to fix it might be to slow down all weapons speeds thus giving MWO pilots the chance to dodge incoming fire or speed up right-left movement and forward -reverse acceleration speeds. Also a short range 50-100 meter 360 degree radar would help the game and pilots survivability and make the back shot a rare occasion since 80% of mech deaths in MWO are 1-2 well placed back shots with alpha shots.

[Mercules]

Mackman, on 29 March 2013 - 08:47 AM, said:

How is it that you don't realize that this would lead to even more boating of the biggest possible weapons you could find? Right now, medium lasers do less damage per shot than large lasers, but they also have lower recycle time, meaning their effective DPS in a firefight is much closer to LL's than what it would be if they went with your absurd "All weapons do TT damage over ten seconds" system. The same thing holds with AC's. In what possible scenario would the AC/2 or the AC/5 be anything but a total and complete waste of tonnage, when instead you could literally double or quadruple your damage with an AC/10 or 20?

2 Medium lasers and an AC 5 create 7 heat and do 15 damage. They weigh 11 tons with one ton of ammo. The AC/20 is 15 tons with 1 ton of ammo. That leaves the AC 5 guy with 4 tons, just enough for another medium laser and 3 heatsinks to cover it. So now for the same tonnage and heat they do the same damage. Those two "sets" of weapons also both take up 11 slots.

Really odd how the damage/weight/heat/slots all balance out that way. What does the AC/5 build have going for it now? Well, it has a bit more range. AC/5 can fire further than the AC/20. So it could whittle away at an AC/20 mech and then do as much damage as it once they both are in range.

This is how BT/MW are supposed to work. Not how MWO works though.

Edited by Mercules, 29 March 2013 - 08:59 AM.

[Mercules]

KingCobra, on 29 March 2013 - 08:54 AM, said:

Your right PGI should do it better but the point to my post was (MWO mechs cannot maneuver fast enough to dodge incoming focus fire) where MW3-4 mechs could. One way to fix it might be to slow down all weapons speeds thus giving MWO pilots the chance to dodge incoming fire or speed up right-left movement and forward -reverse acceleration speeds. Also a short range 50-100 meter 360 degree radar would help the game and pilots survivability and make the back shot a rare occasion since 80% of mech deaths in MWO are 1-2 well placed back shots with alpha shots.

Or remove huge damage to one location in one shot.

[Jonathan Paine]

Don't increase armor, don't decrease weapon damage. Don't nerf skill. Simply force alpha strikers to chain for pinpoint accuracy. Great snipers will adjust, the rest of us will need a few more strikes to put down a mech. Alpha: spread damage. Chain fire accurate damage.

[Royalewithcheese]

IMO this game is in a pretty good place re: how quick stuff dies, how easy it is to dodge, etc. Compare to MW2, for instance.

[KingCobra]

Royalewithcheese, on 29 March 2013 - 09:20 AM, said:

IMO this game is in a pretty good place re: how quick stuff dies, how easy it is to dodge, etc. Compare to MW2, for instance.

Well not true I was just playing MW2 with DOS box last week I have all MechWarrior and Battletech PC version games installed and still play them even in MW2 the mechs maneuvered much faster than in MWO. But that is playing on a PC not online MW2 for online play was the worst game ever the only thing that made MW2 worth playing online were all the fun interesting players from all over the world in leagues on net.mech-ten.net-and kali.

[MuKen]

To everyone saying "This is Mechwarrior, not paintball."

First, I never said it was. I am in no way arguing for the game to become more like paintball. As I emphasized multiple times now, I want the game to stay as it is, not change. The only reason to bring up paintball was to discuss how faster-fighting creates tactical considerations. Paintball was only used as an extreme example, because it has the "fastest" possible types of kills, and that creates very important positioning considerations. If we were to go the other extreme, say give all the mechs 50x armor, then positioning would barely matter at all. The ONLY tactics left would be "stay together and focus fire".

Second, it's ironic that you'd make that argument. "This is Mechwarrior, so therefore this is how it should be, leave it alone." If you're going to say that, then really "This is Mechwarrior Online. It's not Battletech, it's not any of the previous Mechwarrior games, it is what it is. So leave it alone." That's not the kind of argument you can make while trying to change the current status quo.

Edited by MuKen, 29 March 2013 - 09:35 AM.

[Noobzorz]

MuKen, on 28 March 2013 - 08:24 PM, said:

I didn't say it was axiomatic, I provided reasoning. If you'd like to address any of it, I'd be happy to have a conversation about it.

Your argument is totally dominated by the effect powerful alphas have in gravitating the game towards "I walk towards you in a straight line and and do lots of damage" builds.

Your reasoning is absurd.

[Child3k]

It's kinda funny that apparently so many people fear that this game might evolve into a "twitch"-shooter. I mean come on guys - are you all 75 or something? This game is so far away from being UT, Quake, Counterstrike (I played that one a couple of years and I can tell you - it's not twitch. It takes hard work and practice to get good on a competitive level) or even Hawken. Compared to almost every modern action game MWO's gameplay is freakish slow. If PGI keeps it that way, everything is fine.

[KingCobra]

MuKen, on 29 March 2013 - 09:30 AM, said:

To everyone saying "This is Mechwarrior, not paintball."

First, I never said it was. I am in no way arguing for the game to become more like paintball. As I emphasized multiple times now, I want the game to stay as it is, not change. The only reason to bring up paintball was to discuss how faster-fighting creates tactical considerations. Paintball was only used as an extreme example, because it has the "fastest" possible types of kills, and that creates very important positioning considerations. If we were to go the other extreme, say give all the mechs 10x armor, then positioning would barely matter at all. The ONLY tactics left would be "stay together and focus fire".

Second, it's ironic that you'd make that argument. "This is Mechwarrior, so therefore this is how it should be, leave it alone." If you're going to say that, then really "This is Mechwarrior Online. It's not Battletech, it's not any of the previous Mechwarrior games, it is what it is. So leave it alone." That's not the kind of argument you can make while trying to change the current status quo.

Well I see where this topic came from now the kids desire to one shot everything instant gratification based on the assumption faster kill= better tactics no matter the offensive or defensive balance involved. It just reminds me of why MechWarrior disintegrated into one shot NHUA battles on Mektek severs after ten years. Just point shoot once blow up a mech and all is good in the MechWarrior world no skill required.

Edited by KingCobra, 29 March 2013 - 09:43 AM.

[Mercules]

MuKen, on 29 March 2013 - 09:30 AM, said:

Second, it's ironic that you'd make that argument. "This is Mechwarrior, so therefore this is how it should be, leave it alone." If you're going to say that, then really "This is Mechwarrior Online. It's not Battletech, it's not any of the previous Mechwarrior games, it is what it is. So leave it alone." That's not the kind of argument you can make while trying to change the current status quo.

Well, the argument technically is about keeping MWO in line with TT/previous titles/lore and have it represent those. One shot kills other than lots of luck or skill just doesn't fit with that. Were this some other mecha game then it might fit, but if you ignore the background of the game you might as well just be making some other game and saved yourself the money you spent on the IP.

[MuKen]

I am seriously starting to question whether people are reading what I write. Immediately after my 3rd post in a row that states "I don't want this game to be one-shot-one-kill" are multiple replies saying "No, don't make this game one shot one kill."

Noobzorz, on 29 March 2013 - 09:35 AM, said:

Your argument is totally dominated by the effect powerful alphas have in gravitating the game towards "I walk towards you in a straight line and and do lots of damage" builds.

Your reasoning is absurd.

And you have yet to actually discuss any of the reasoning I did write, nor provide any reasoning of your own. I won't respond again unless you do. You've already been given a lot more specific attention than people who have written much better responses than yours.

Edited by MuKen, 29 March 2013 - 09:52 AM.

[Fuzzbox]

Gopblin, on 28 March 2013 - 11:04 PM, said:

Agree with OP. Let me explain it this way:
If we have a shooting game where weapons are very weak, engagement ranges are short, and armor is thick, the role of skill in engagements is hugely reduced.

You forgot to explain why this is your opinion.

[Mercules]

MuKen, on 29 March 2013 - 09:49 AM, said:

I am seriously starting to question people's ability to read. Immediately after my 3rd post in a row that states "I don't want this game to be one-shot-one-kill" are multiple posts saying "No, don't make this game one shot one kill."

Yes I know... but high damage alphas do actually create more One-Shot-One-Kill situations.

If they fix ammo so that it has to be placed in the mech in either the section or an adjacent section as the item using it... it becomes easy to predict where ammo is. You can then drill through a Torso with a high damage alpha, crit the ammo, and kill the whole mech if they don't have case.

Lucky headshots become more common because 60 damage will vaporize any mech's head.

Light mechs run the risk of one-shot's all the time when all the builds use high damage alphas such as 2 AC 20's which will rip a Commando's CT up even if all it's armor is on one side, leg it, arm it, or Rip off RT/LT. As the shot goes through that armor it might crit something in there like Ammo and a Commando with an Ammo crit just melts.

[MuKen]

Mercules, on 29 March 2013 - 09:56 AM, said:

Yes I know... but high damage alphas do actually create more One-Shot-One-Kill situations.

Do they happen? Yes, but I'd hardly say they happen enough to say this is a OSOK game. Even on an alpha build, you basically need a cockpit shot. And frankly, if that happens, the one-shot is deserved (except for a few mechs with bad hitboxes, which PGI will get around to fixing). In general, headshots are rarely "lucky".

Killing someone with a "one shot" alpha after they've already been softened up by other damage isn't really a one-shot kill.

And light mechs should be delicate.

Edited by MuKen, 29 March 2013 - 10:03 AM.

[Mercules]

MuKen, on 29 March 2013 - 10:01 AM, said:

And light mechs should be delicate.

Yes... delicate... That means getting hit with a shorter ranged AC/20 should possibly rip my arm off. A Gauss should take the armor off my arm. Convergence however means that 2 AC/20s will rip a whole torso out instead of damaging the RT and CT heavily. That's not delicate, it is bordering on "OMG don't ever stop moving, slow down much, run in a straight line, or do anything predictable!"