61 replies to this topic

[Krondor]

Apostal, on 04 April 2013 - 04:30 AM, said:

The problem is PGI have forced the gameplay to high alpha boats... then further compounded this fact into that PPC heat was reduced, and larger maps... the end effect is sniper boats, then all the enemy team have to do is sit on a hill or in a limited approach location and just alpha any mech that attempt to engage... it's just a snipefest because the game has been slowly nerfed and broken down into only a few viable battle tactics.

Indirect fire was a valid tactic against this... too bad ECM practically eliminated indirect fire as a useful tactic.

Matches between two LRM heavy teams were some of the best and most challenging games I ever played. Very fluid and dynamic games. The current AC/Gauss sniperfest simply comes down to whichever team gets the high ground first.

[Zyllos]

Loxx, on 04 April 2013 - 05:25 AM, said:

Damage is finite, meaning one team can only do so much damage in a match before there's nothing left to shoot. If a person has a high damage score it means 1 of 3 things.

He's a great shot that took out half the enemy team.
He's a great shot but against a team of players that know how to spread their damage.
He's got good accuracy but completely imprecise. He himself is spreading his damage out on an enemy mech(s) (IE death spiral) firing and hitting enemy mechs all over the mech instead of trying to hit the same spot every time. IE shot discipline.

The team you want to fear is the team that no member breaks 400 damage but cored the entire enemy team. Because that means they are all great shots AND hitting the same spots every time.

Yup, and this is why alpha strikes are not balanced. They facilitate the ease of getting hits onto a single point. There is no drawback to alpha striking (other than heat is all at the same time).

[Drenzul]

Syllogy, on 04 April 2013 - 05:04 AM, said:

It's a good thing that the devs have already decided that Laser and Ballistic damage is pretty much where it needs to be in comparison to Armor on mechs.

Concentrated Fire from multiple players will ALWAYS trump the single player that is being targeted. It doesn't matter if they are using PPCs, Medium Lasers, AC2's, or Flamers.

And so it should! However the current structure of the heat system encourages the heavy alpha builds, at the moment just running out in front of 2 6xPPC stalkers is a death sentence, nothing else can carry nearly as much pinpoint alpha, not even AC40 mechs because the normal disadvantage of PPCs and LLs is that you can't alpha a large number but by combining them with lower heat weapons they became highly effective as part of the build.

A six PPC mech in most other MW games would have to fire 3, wait a few seconds, fire the 2nd 3, then wait a longer interval to fire any again. The higher dissipation rate vs lower capacity forced a natural balance in place between DPS and alpha, where as the other weapons the Alpha is balanced and weight/crit slots +ammo like with the AC20, meaning the best mechs ended up balanced.

[jay35]

Zyllos, on 04 April 2013 - 05:29 AM, said:

Yup, and this is why alpha strikes are not balanced. They facilitate the ease of getting hits onto a single point. There is no drawback to alpha striking (other than heat is all at the same time).

You should try Battletech sometime to see the power of an alpha strike. It's a functional component of mech combat in the BT/MW universe.

Also, it's funny that people are making a big deal out of a key that fires all your weapons at once, when you can do the exact same thing using weapon groups.

For what it's worth, I don't use the Alpha button on my builds. I run weapon groups and use those exclusively, and almost always with chainfire rather than simultaneous groupfire.

Why? Because heat is already a significant concern and limiting factor. There is already a balancing act required between heat management and damage dealt. 90% of the time, you can do more effective damage by using smart weapon groupings and controlled chain fire than with an alpha strike.

[orion33]

jay35, on 04 April 2013 - 05:36 AM, said:

Why? Because heat is already a significant concern and limiting factor.

I'm sorry to say this, but it's obviously not. IF it is possible to core a mech with a single alpha strike (6x LL, 6x PPC), heat is NOT a limiting factor.

[Felbombling]

I see the community as a little split on this issue, but the attitudes are changing. I posted awhile ago something similar to this, and the vast majority of people called me all kinds of ****, ranging from stupid to insane. Now, weeks later, roughly 35% of the people reading this OP agree that Mechs are too fragile.

You either enjoy ten second fights or hate them, I find. I think Mechs should be more durable, but if you do that, you have an entirely different game with different game mechanics. You'd need to have a game with pilot skills reducing a cone of fire for all weapons. You'd need proper heat consequences applied to a rather one-dimensional current heat system. You'd need more armour, a recalculation of weapon reload/recycle times and ammunition levels. You would need to see heavier restriction in the Mech Lab.

I think that those changes are way off the norm for most players that grew up with the Mechwarrior franchise, so it will never fly.

[Culler]

I think I understand what OP is saying, let me paraphrase here:

'I'm getting killed a lot, I wish I didn't get killed as fast. I am terrible at this, oh god why did anyone give me a giant robot. I run into their whole team alone and die in just a few seconds.'

I think that about sums up people who want more armor. Damage is balanced well 1v1 and brawls between healthy mechs usually take 10-30 seconds if both pilots are competent at spreading damage, even up to a minute or more for light dogfights. But when many mechs are shooting you, you tend to die pretty quickly, and that is totally how it should be. If you added armor then you skew the game towards brawlers because more of the engagement will happen up close. There's a pretty decent balance between brawling and sniping now, I don't want it to develop into everyone hammering each other toe to toe all the time because there's so much armor.

As it stands now you're unlikely to be one-shot at range, even from a 6 PPC stalker.

[orion33]

Culler, on 04 April 2013 - 05:41 AM, said:

I think I understand what OP is saying, let me paraphrase here:

'I'm getting killed a lot, I wish I didn't get killed as fast. I am terrible at this, oh god why did anyone give me a giant robot. I run into their whole team alone and die in just a few seconds.'

Dude, I don't have to claim good skill, so I won't do, even if i could... If you've read my post carefully, I wasn't talking about being shreddered facing 4 or more mechs on your own. I was talking about a huge clash in the middle of a map, which lasts less than a minute in most drops. This has a LOT of reasons, not only alpha builds.

In the end, it's no fun (for me) to core enemies with those few really competetive builds in this game in less than 20 seconds. So this is MY opinion, why aren't you able to discuss instead of trying to insult me or those people who share this OPINION?

[Darius Deadeye]

http://mwomercs.com/...-of-hardpoints/

Some of the issues raised in here could potentially fix OP's problem without changing armor.

[Sheraf]

I think the armor value is fine. If you want the new players to get a gasp of the gameplay, give them a tutorial mode that will teach basic teamwork and movement.

[Viper69]

Lower weapon damage down.

Take their stated value now and divide it by the number of times it fires in ten seconds with the trigger held down to get its cyclic ROF. Do this with the heat as well and you can get mech damage to what it would be like if those table top weapons fired as fast as ours do. Give ballistic weapon ammo a damage per ton rating to up the number of shots per ton to compensate for the loss of damage per shot.

Focus fire will always core a mech fast even with reduced weapon damage, but then it should.

[Sheraf]

Lowering weapons' damage will only encourage carrying more weapon of the same type to be effective in my opinion.

[Viper69]

Sheraf, on 04 April 2013 - 06:23 AM, said:

Lowering weapons' damage will only encourage carrying more weapon of the same type to be effective in my opinion.

Which already happens, so how would it hurt again?

[Ens]

there´s just too many well known superior builds now and no real hardpoint restrictions.

and we´re getting right back to the "arms race" instead of having real "role warefare" because most ppl won´t like any restrictions and want to have their mechs build freely in every way they want..... hooray

[Sheraf]

Some restriction on the hard point type is ok with me.

[Roadbuster]

Tennex, on 04 April 2013 - 04:40 AM, said:

they doubled armor. but what about internal. normally it would take equal amount of effort to get through armor and internal. but right now losing your armor is a death sentence Critical hits would have been applicable half the time. And tearing through armor doesn'tmean the mech dies in 2 more shots.

That's a very good point there.
Destroying internals/weapons/ammo does not make a big difference atm, because you could also destroy the whole body part with the next 1-2 shots.
Increasing the hitpoints of internals and adjusting weapon hitpoints would make a fight more tactical.
Increase internal hitpoints the more a mech weights and keep it close to the current level for light mechs so they stay as frail as they should be.

I also agree with the OP.
It's true that fights are rather short.
And low damage numbers indicating better accuracy or more headshots don't change that fact.

[jay35]

orion33, on 04 April 2013 - 05:39 AM, said:

I'm sorry to say this, but it's obviously not. IF it is possible to core a mech with a single alpha strike (6x LL, 6x PPC), heat is NOT a limiting factor.

So again, we're trying to base a general request on an outlier. That is not an appropriate way to make broad or sweeping changes in a product. There's only one or two mechs capable of even fielding those loadouts, and they generally go into auto shutdown sequence if that alpha that in the midst of combat. That means they are already facing several limitations the rest of us are not: They have to take extra care to aim, because if they miss, they're dead. They're also among the slowest and least maneuverable mechs in the game. They also know they are a high priority target. And heat IS still a significant factor for them, as much if not more so than for the rest of us.

The only time it's truly a problem is if there's an entire lance of them working together in tight coordination in specific spots on a few maps where they have advantageous terrain. And now we have artillery and airstrikes to bombard them if they try that.

Counters are being added that will help resolve and discourage outlier scenarios like that, which is much better than changing a core game component across the board, negatively impacting the majority of normal play in order to try to address an outlier.

Edited by jay35, 04 April 2013 - 07:26 AM.

[NKAc Street]

There is no way to test or prove the effect hsr or any netcode changes effect players as a whole i do not think. But as a decent player i immediatly noticed after the patch where hsr was introduced that i have much more trouble doing damage with both lasers and ballistics. I am not talking kills. I hit just as many targets as i used to but something changed where some get the advantage of greater damage and some seem to deliver less.


It is just an observation.

[MaddMaxx]

Apostal, on 04 April 2013 - 04:30 AM, said:

The problem is PGI have forced the gameplay to high alpha boats... then further compounded this fact into that PPC heat was reduced, and larger maps... the end effect is sniper boats, then all the enemy team have to do is sit on a hill or in a limited approach location and just alpha any mech that attempt to engage... it's just a snipefest because the game has been slowly nerfed and broken down into only a few viable battle tactics.

And your solution to this problem would be what exactly? Change all the BT Mech configs until they are all so neutered as to become impotent?

[Rattlehead NZ]

A couple things that effect the alpha problem which aren't so obvious

Repair and Rearm - When this was in effect you had to pay for repairs and having a mech with 6 x ERPPC's would be very costly and a great risk at going broke.

Side Torso damage - Originally if you wanted to destroy an arm to remove a weapon you would just shoot off the arm. Currently you destroy the side torso and the arm goes with it destroying 25% of the mech just by focusing on one section instead of 12.5% of the body. Destroying the side torso is a win win situation. You either kill the mech if hes running an XL engine and or remove a large portion of the weapon hardpoints.