148 replies to this topic

[Jace Lancer]

We need to test a "battletech weekend" halve the armor values and diceroll the accuracy! And put all values to their original.

[HRR Insanity]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 29 March 2013 - 02:00 AM, said:

I disagree. outside the gauss rifle this entire situation can be solved by cutting the heatcap in half. This would cut mech firepower severly and balanced lower firepower mechs would be equally viable. the recycle time on the gauss going up would cover the gauss rifles dps variance.

light mechs etc already have enough armour and it takes a long time for a light to take down an assault from the front...tons of armour already.

precision aiming is not easy, lasers spread, ppc have lead times, etc. too many people sadly have bad habits of standing still or piloting their mechs poorly.

but every problem build like the 4 UAC 5 Jagger or the dual ac/20 is ONLY because of the high heatcap. if the dual ac20 jagger could only fire one to 2 times before hitting 90% heat, if the 6 ppc stalker couldnt fire at all without insta nuking,

more link fire - more heatsinks required, less firepower to stay viable.

problem solved. hopefully

Please explain how doing anything at all to the heat cap prevents Gauss or AC boating.

It doesn't. Because heat isn't an issue with those weapons. As soon as the heat model is changed to 'fix boating' as per your suggestion, Gauss-boats become dominant.

You can't fix this by playing wack-a-mole with weapon damage, armor values, or the heat system. The only way to address it is to address the underlying problem of pinpoint precision and summed damage when groups of weapons are fired together.

Edited by HRR Insanity, 29 March 2013 - 10:42 AM.

[Malora Sidewinder]

armor is fine as is. alpha builds are fine as is. if you want to build a more versatile build do it... and be versatile.

ie, don't brawl with the dedicated brawlers, because THEN it's *you* who is doing it wrong.

[HRR Insanity]

Nonsense, on 29 March 2013 - 04:39 AM, said:

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.

I'm using CS as an example of something complicated that had inaccuracies that people could work around with sufficient skill. That's the similarity to my proposal.

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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.

I don't care about the learning curve. I care about a balanced game. If individual weapons are powerful and people know they can fire them individually with perfect accuracy... there is nothing hard about that. The complicated part comes when they have to start adjusting their play style when they want to fire in groups...

Imaginary tutorial:

1. First scenario, one weapon. Demonstrate how to aim, fire, and use the recticule to determine where your weapon is going.
2. Second scenario, two weapons in separate groups. Show how the arm and torso recticules function together.
3. Third scenario, two weapons in one group. Show how when you fire weapons in a group, they spread damage unless you're at low speed, low heat.
4. Fourth scenario, Two groups of 2 weapons each. First group on chain fire, second group showing spread. Note that the chain fired group always hits where you aim, whereas the group-fire option has spread based on movement and heat.

Tada... new players are up to speed and they can learn how best to configure their 'Mechs to their skill level. If they have low skill, they can single fire big weapons. If they want to try the challenge of grouped weapons, fine... but they'll have the drawback of not having perfect accuracy when fired in groups.

Game. Is. Balanced.

Individual weapons can be tuned without concern that they'll be combined into 'superweaponx5' which will one-shot kill 'Mechs. Armor values can be adjusted downwards relative to damage so 'Mechs with only 1 or 2 big weapons are still effective, but the big 'Mechs carrying 5-9 of them aren't instant deathmachines.

It's called balance.

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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).

Does absolutely nothing to Gauss and AC builds. The problem is grouped fire and combined damage. Attempting to address this problem without addressing THAT issue will only compound the problem and break the game balance further.

[Corvus Antaka]

HRR Insanity, on 29 March 2013 - 10:41 AM, said:

Please explain how doing anything at all to the heat cap prevents Gauss or AC boating.

It doesn't. Because heat isn't an issue with those weapons. As soon as the heat model is changed to 'fix boating' as per your suggestion, Gauss-boats become dominant.

You can't fix this by playing wack-a-mole with weapon damage, armor values, or the heat system. The only way to address it is to address the underlying problem of pinpoint precision and summed damage when groups of weapons are fired together.

As I noted, gauss could be adjusted via recycle times. AC's already generate decent heat, and would be affected, simply adding a little more heat if needed would work. Overall lowering the heatcap would still accomplish the goal of culling alpha boating heavily.

[DKTuesday]

Capt Cole 117, on 29 March 2013 - 12:22 AM, said:

By the OPs logic Call of Duty must be one of the most skillful games of all time.

Are you good at CoD?

I personally do not play CoD, but I personally prefer games that rely on skill. Many times have flawless flanks (TT) been set up to only roll fubar roll after fubar roll. I like MW, because it removes luck, well at least more so than the TT. Yeah getting wrecked by A40 sucks, but that's what I get for allowing them to get the shot on me in the first place.

Edit: Left out the word get lol

Edited by DKTuesday, 29 March 2013 - 12:40 PM.

[Imagine Dragons]

Dear people who are okay with quick TTK,

Play a Dragon for a few dozen randoms.

Then come back and tell me your opinion is the same.

Sincerely,
WTF12Dragons+FANG&FLAME pilot.

Edited by XenomorphZZ, 29 March 2013 - 01:49 PM.

[Artgathan]

Faster kill combat is a double edged sword IMO.

It promotes greater strategic level thinking because the positioning of your forces is more important (this is where paintball is relevant: you win through superior positioning).

However it hampers tactical level thinking: you need to kill your opponent as quickly as possible so your options are limited (IE: to be effective you need to run high-alpha builds and have good aiming skills).

MWO is playing a balancing act, and I think it does the job well. Strategic positioning is important (I've used flanking maneuvers to destroy chunks of the enemy), and tactical thinking is important as well (blowing out the side torsos / arms of certain mech models essentially neuters them). If we decrease armor we place more of an emphasis on strategic thinking: since any mech can blow another away (due to thin armor) the positioning of forces is extremely important (reference BF3, COD, Paintball, the Infantry). If we increase armor we place more of an emphasis on tactical thinking since the only strategic option is stick together, focus fire.

[Cerberias]

Misses punish you hard as is, As I said before, players with higher skill will do both higher DPS and DPH, you ever missed with a 6ppc stalker and then gone 'ah ******, im dead because i missed'.

[Nonsense]

HRR Insanity, on 29 March 2013 - 10:50 AM, said:

I'm using CS as an example of something complicated that had inaccuracies that people could work around with sufficient skill. That's the similarity to my proposal.

The difference is, CS's aiming system was only dependent on a player's hand/eye/mouse coordination. MWO already isn't "twitch" because you have to deal with torso/arm movement times. If you play bigger, slower, mechs and you're at close range, I'm sorry but you deserve to die if your torso is pointed towards the enemy for too long. Implementing weapon spread would just remove the penalty for being bad at the game.

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I don't care about the learning curve.

I care about the learning curve as long as the matchmaker keeps matching newbs with veterans to balance the team's Elo.

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Imaginary tutorial:

Imaginary indeed.

The best games don't need tutorials because things are intuitive. Your system is rather complex on top of the already existing complexity of the game.

Quote

Does absolutely nothing to Gauss and AC builds. The problem is grouped fire and combined damage. Attempting to address this problem without addressing THAT issue will only compound the problem and break the game balance further.

I really don't see a problem with current Gauss and AC boating. They both have rather large drawbacks. Really, all boating has rather serious drawbacks. I don't really have a problem with "boating", i just have a slight problem with the fact that it's so much easier to aim a bunch of the same weapon type than it is to use multiple weapon types. This means most newbies run builds with a lot of the same weapon type. Once you get any good at the game you can manage all the different types as they are and do just fine.

Your cone fire/movement mods solution does nothing to address any of that.

[Teralitha]

Nonsense, on 28 March 2013 - 07:26 PM, said:

Perhaps they shouldn't have doubled armor... Yes, they should have

Bottom line is, Elo matchmaking in team games requires high Elo players to sometimes carry games. Longer combat times gives newbs time to fumble around and kill a high-skill player.

Actually, in reality, the high skilled player would have more time to kill more noobs. LOL Which is exactly how it was before DBL heat sinks and ECM, and knockdown removal,.

Edited by Teralitha, 29 March 2013 - 01:57 PM.

[Brakkyn]

I'd much rather have a long fight than a short gank.

[Moonsavage]

Yeah this aint COD ffs.

[Turist0AT]

i see your point OP. But that kind of mechanic is in Hawken. If ppl want faster combat you all should switch to hawken. I play both so i get my share of slow and fast mech games.

[Denolven]

Pater Mors, on 28 March 2013 - 07:28 PM, said:

This game is about tactics, strategy and communication. It is not, as people want to believe, big, giant, stompy robots simply shooting at each other.

LIES!!!
I play this game to go all stompy with giant robots, shooting lazors! Take away the tactic part and people will still play. Take away robots and lazors and nobody will play the game anymore.

People who want tactics and communication play ARMA. I want lazors.

[Nonsense]

Teralitha, on 29 March 2013 - 01:57 PM, said:

Actually, in reality, the high skilled player would have more time to kill more noobs. LOL Which is exactly how it was before DBL heat sinks and ECM, and knockdown removal,.

Uh, you have more time, but if you can't reduce your enemy's firepower, you can't win 1v2s and 1v3s. You can't carry the team the way you can in other games. This is fine except when the matchmaker puts 4 morons on your team to balance out 4 good players. 4 average players win that battle most of the time...whereas in MANY other games, 4 good players can do the work of 8 average ones.

[Teralitha]

Alpha builds and pin point aiming has existed in this game since its inception. It is unrelated the real reasons behind the faster killing.

But faster kill combat is not deeper. In fact its actually quite shallow by definition.

[Elyam]

Disagree somewhat Op.

Paintball is simulating infantry skirmishes, and I absolutely agree with your premise there. BT/MW is supposed to represent armored combat with vehicles that can take massive punishement while still leaving room open for superb skill and, yes, certain random events, to result in sudden takedowns. I believe the best length of mech survivabilty for an FPS mech sim-light (call it whatever term you think fits best) is about 30-50% higher than what we see in MWO. And as Pht posted earlier, we would have this with a proper port of BT/MW mechanics.

You're right that fear of survival in the face of potential imminent defeat leads to better strategy and tactics. But quickness of the fight isn't the only contributor to that. One of the things we miss in MWO vs BT TT is the more involved need to maximize the factors effecting your immediate defense and offense while attemtping to put the foe in positions where his ability to do so is limited. We have it to a minor extent, but no where near the depth in BT TT. Getting that right is one of the most important reasons to dedicate to simulating what TT does. People get so caught up in rejecting random chance and by association discarding BT TT as obsolete (and looking back on it as something full of flaws) that they miss the important reasons it succeeded for so long where many other wargames failed.

[Teralitha]

Nonsense, on 29 March 2013 - 02:36 PM, said:

Uh, you have more time, but if you can't reduce your enemy's firepower, you can't win 1v2s and 1v3s. You can't carry the team the way you can in other games. This is fine except when the matchmaker puts 4 morons on your team to balance out 4 good players. 4 average players win that battle most of the time...whereas in MANY other games, 4 good players can do the work of 8 average ones.

Of course, I try to reduce the enemy's firepower as much as I can b4 it comes to that. If they are all grouped up its very hard to win. I cant say its impossible though because Ive done it, its just really hard and most of the time you get pasted, but you go out fighting hard and the scores show it.

[Greyfyl]

There are so many things wrong with the game at this point that I don't even know where to start with this whole thread.