88 replies to this topic

[Lavi]

Agree on almost everything of your post, OP.

I only dissagree in your "new content" point.
This community has show in a gazillion of post their willingness of provide PGI with FREE! content if they want for their review and, later on, putting into production.

You have threads of really skilled 3D modellers implementing mechs in their spare time (althought the warhammer thread has not received further input in weeks)

IF PGI want a startup on new content, they can easily do it with so little effort.
TRUE... they should review the maps/3D Models to make them playable of to fit in their quality standard... but.. some of the effort can be done with a community like ours.

[Dreamslave]

People who started at open beta are considered "veterans" now? Oh my...

[KinLuu]

Prathios, on 04 April 2013 - 10:39 PM, said:

I'm a flip flop because I think the model of Catapult that House Kurita designed to be able to mount PPC's got bastardized by this community to have dual AC20's where it's supposed to have machine guns? Those ballistic mounts are for machine guns. And previous Mechwarrior games did change the critical slot system for better or worse. Please find yourself a less asinine personal attack for an argument.

No, you are a flip-flop because you change your point of view regarding canon as you see fit. As long as it suits your personal agenda. The fact that you have a problem with the K2 has nothing to do with it.

[Prathios]

KinLuu, on 04 April 2013 - 11:07 PM, said:

No, you are a flip-flop because you change your point of view regarding canon as you see fit. As long as it suits your personal agenda. The fact that you have a problem with the K2 has nothing to do with it.

If you say so. I don't have time to argue with someone who only shows up to throw ad hominem attacks. I already explained my point in my first reply to you which refutes what you just said. Go find me a K2 in Battletech with that load out and come back when you can make a real argument.

[Utilyan]

Dreamslave, on 04 April 2013 - 11:06 PM, said:

People who started at open beta are considered "veterans" now? Oh my...

I remember back in the day when all you had is some ballistics........you couldn't even torso twist.......

[Prathios]

Dreamslave, on 04 April 2013 - 11:06 PM, said:

People who started at open beta are considered "veterans" now? Oh my...

Lol, thank you for that. I changed it to closed in my original post. I was trying to figure out what you were talking about, then I looked back at what I said... whoops.

[KinLuu]

Prathios, on 04 April 2013 - 11:16 PM, said:

If you say so. I don't have time to argue with someone who only shows up to throw ad hominem attacks. I already explained my point in my first reply to you which refutes what you just said. Go find me a K2 in Battletech with that load out and come back when you can make a real argument.

You can do that loadout with any 65 ton mech of your chosing. Protip: There are no hardpoints at all in TT.

[Sifright]

Prathios, on 04 April 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

Salutations to the Mechwarrior community. Despite it's rage and juvenile behavior, it's still not league of legends. As such I decided to do my civic duty and write up a nice, long winded post, about my observation as a veteran of this game and its predecessors. Many of you can't or don't want to read a lengthy post, so just skip to my bullet points if you still care. Before I dive into the post proper, you should know why my opinion might have some merit. I've been playing Mechwarrior since 2, and played the Mechcommander games as well. I've kept up with the tabletop but never really been a player of it. I just love Battletech. I've been playing MWO since closed beta, and consider myself pretty good at it. I've played a couple of matches now, so I think its time to offer my feedback and use the community as a sounding board for it.

(Because this is the internet and "pics or it didn't happen", here is my profile.)


Ok with that out of the way I'll start on what I think are the biggest problems with the game so far. This is not going to be a rant. It is constructive feedback, and I don't need rants as responses. If you can't debate in a logical and mature fashion please don't reply.

1. Bugs (go figure) Right now the biggest issue is bugs. Interestingly I have had relatively few, but I know from keeping up with the forums, albeit posting little, that I am in the minority. I only suffer from texture dropping and the host of minimap issues. However the minimap issues I suffer from have not been fixed since closed beta. Minimap missing, minimap rainbow, minimap un-moving, minimap displaying things super tiny. My favorite bug that isn't a crash, is the total missing hud bug. Not much fun when I don't have a cross-hair and can't tell who is on my team. They did fix, to my joy, the constant crashing and disconnects for me. They also fixed the yellow screen bug. It concerns me though that so many bugs have persisted for so long, and a few new ones were introduced with the latest patch.

2. Balance This is a big one because it contains several parts.

A) First part is missiles. The hotfix rollback on damage was followed up with a post asking us to feel it out. Well I've felt it out and they are now under-powered. LRM's are pretty far under where they have been for a long time. I miss the days when I could one-shot an awesome with an lrm60, but that is simply overpowered. They feel to me between 20-40% under where they should be, which ironically would put them at about... 1 damage. SRM's don't feel quite as bad but are still under what they should be doing. I'd say 10-20% to low to be justified.

B.) Ballistics. Right now the LBX and the AC10 are just horrible. Now, I have a Jager that gets great damage and has good rounds with 2LBX and 2SRM6. But I know that when I'm point blank hitting an unarmored mech in his core with them and barely changing the color (rather than strait up killing it) that something needs to be done. Ammo types seem to a popular consensus and I agree with them. The AC10 might benefit from a CDR. Right now two AC5 outperform a 10 by light-years and dropping the AC10's CD might fix this and make it useful again.
Then there is the AC20... Oh boy... The AC20 is actually perfect right now. The weapon is right where it should be, but it's also horribly imbalanced. Cat's and Jager's should only be allowed 1 of these weapons if any. The Akimbo Cat and Jagers are ruining a good portion of this game. Look, it doesn't work in the fluff, and it shouldn't work here. Cat's don't have room in the side torso's to equip them. Jager's arms should be immobile to equip them. They have caused a trend in players to use these builds to the exclusion of all others and they are causing a lot of problems for the community. Are they overpowered, yes and no. They cockpit in a single shot, which is horrible, and they core you in 2-5 depending on your build. They are almost impossible to successfully shut down if you don't have range on them. They also have a tendency to one shot the legs on scouts which ruins their games. On the other hand they screw your team out of a more versatile mech. That said, this should not have been allowed to continue as long as it has.

C) Energy weapons - (Heat sinks) - Energy weapons as they are, are fine. They work exactly as intended and I feel are perfectly balanced. They do feel under powered compared to ballistics but they require no ammo or travel time so I can let it go. They do however highlight that the heatsinks in the game are still broken. DHS and SHS are both still not operating at levels that are sufficient. The clan weaponry will be completely destroyed by the current state of heatsinks. I think an great way to fix this issue is by nerfing alpha damage. Create an exponential increase in the amount of heating firing multiple weapons at the same time cause. This would bring dps back into the game and stop the alpha lunacy. I deal with the heat well, because I'm used to it and I make good builds for the current system. New players are completely destroyed and put off by it, and I know many who have already quit because of it.

3. Mechlab A lot of you will wonder why I even bring this up. The reason is simple, the arm on Raven is the same size as the arm on a Stalker. What's worse is that it's bigger by two slots than the arm on an Atlas because the poor Atlas had the misfortune of having real arms and hands which can't be used. Perhaps you feel that is a sufficient trade for lateral movement, but the size difference is preposterous. This exact problem is the reason the tiny machine gun slots on a catapult can slot an AC20, but the arms on anything with hands gets screwed. Just take a casual glance at the pod on a hunchback or the side mount on an Atlas and then back at the Catapult and tell me you can squeeze more than an engine and some machine guns in there. You need some system to adjust the amount of space mechs have to work with, and the amount a weight a limb can hold.

4. Miscellaneous other concerns. The above are my three biggest concerns, but here I'll toss in other things that worry me or are worth mentioning.

1. New content - I think they are actually getting new content out at a reasonable pace. People complain about new maps but honestly, a lot of work goes into them and they are putting them out pretty quick. I'd like to see River city about half as much but with the new vision modes the map is more tolerable. The Heavy Metal launching before the stock builds is a little odd, but I'm not going to cry havoc over it.

2. Matchmaking - This deserves to be a point above but I can't offer anything constructive. It sucks, and I hate it... Watching 6 members of your lance run off to get Kappa on Tourmaline while the rest of the map gets capped is just infuriating. I'm not sure what the elo ranking is doing, but on average at least 4 people on my team act like they have never played a game in their life. I'm dropping consistently with trial mechs and I can't understand why. I feel bad for the trials on the other side because it's like free kills for me, and that's not even remotely fair.

3. PGI - This one is a hot button issue, but I think a lot of people will agree with me on this. First, we can see the duck, we can smell the duck, and even hear the duck, so it must be a duck. This may be called a beta, but it really isn't. So that excuses nothing in my book. The minute you take my money for a product you are accountable to me for delivering on that product. (For those of you who want to mince words, please take an economics class. Because it's digital and f2p does not keep it from being a product or an economic investment on the part of the buyer.) I DO NOT​ think PGI is doing a bad job. I don't think its a great job either. But I have no hatred toward them or spite. I think they have a few pretty glaring issues that need fixing immediately, but so far I have not been overly disappointed. I just want them to be straight with me, and take a little bit more care with the license they are using.

So these are some of my thoughts. I think PGI takes too much flack for most of the issues out there, but I feel for some of the really angry people for some of the bugs that still have not been fixed and some of the balancing issues that have outstayed their welcome. I'd appreciate any constructive feedback you guys have on any of these points.

I don't agree with everything you say specfically i disagree about Jager mechs and the AC/20 part.

I do agree with most everything else, well written post +1 from me

[Prathios]

KinLuu, on 04 April 2013 - 11:20 PM, said:

You can do that loadout with any 65 ton mech of your chosing. Protip: There are no hardpoints at all in TT.

I didn't say anywhere in my post to, "copy TT." If I wanted to copy TT I would have complained about Autocannons not being burst guns. I would have complained that we have triple armor and triple RoF. I said the IP. There are books, and games, and a tabletop. That's the IP. I don't care that you are a minmaxer. You can be whatever you want in TT cause it's in your head.

[KinLuu]

Battletech Tabletop is the heart of the IP.

Everything else is just strapped on. Like the Stackpole X-Wing books are strapped on to Star Wars.

[Corwin Vickers]

Prathios, on 04 April 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

3. Mechlab A lot of you will wonder why I even bring this up. The reason is simple, the arm on Raven is the same size as the arm on a Stalker. What's worse is that it's bigger by two slots than the arm on an Atlas because the poor Atlas had the misfortune of having real arms and hands which can't be used. Perhaps you feel that is a sufficient trade for lateral movement, but the size difference is preposterous. This exact problem is the reason the tiny machine gun slots on a catapult can slot an AC20, but the arms on anything with hands gets screwed. Just take a casual glance at the pod on a hunchback or the side mount on an Atlas and then back at the Catapult and tell me you can squeeze more than an engine and some machine guns in there. You need some system to adjust the amount of space mechs have to work with, and the amount a weight a limb can hold.

A raven with an AC20 in it's arm wouldn't look like the model we have now. It would have a giant AC20 there instead. With PGI doing more and more custom models this might happen.

You also have to take into account the larger amount of armor an Atlas carries in it's arms etc.

This comes directly from the TT rules and they were designed for balance.

Maybe we should force people to balance their weapon weight based on symmetry. Wouldn't want any mechs tipping over would we?

I don't really care if you think it's realistic.

[Prathios]

KinLuu, on 04 April 2013 - 11:39 PM, said:

Battletech Tabletop is the heart of the IP.

Everything else is just strapped on. Like the Stackpole X-Wing books are strapped on to Star Wars.

Ok, is there anything constructive you can offer to this discussion at this point? All you have done is attack me personally and debate with me about one thing out of the tons of things I said. We are not going to agree on this. So is there anything else?

[KinLuu]

Prathios, on 04 April 2013 - 11:47 PM, said:

Ok, is there anything constructive you can offer to this discussion at this point? All you have done is attack me personally and debate with me about one thing out of the tons of things I said. We are not going to agree on this. So is there anything else?

No. I think your other points are quite valid.

[Prathios]

KinLuu, on 04 April 2013 - 11:49 PM, said:

No. I think your other points are quite valid.

Well thank you for that. Good hunting.

[MustrumRidcully]

Prathios, on 04 April 2013 - 10:39 PM, said:

I'm a flip flop because I think the model of Catapult that House Kurita designed to be able to mount PPC's got bastardized by this community to have dual AC20's where it's supposed to have machine guns? Those ballistic mounts are for machine guns. And previous Mechwarrior games did change the critical slot system for better or worse. Please find yourself a less asinine personal attack for an argument.

Did you notice that the hard point look changes now depending on the weapon installed? When you change your K2 to a different weapon,t hey make the space for whatever you want to install (provided it doesn't violate the general crit slot limit).

Why is there is still so much opposition against this?

And if you think 2 AC/20 on a 65 ton mech are bad - there is a canonical variant of the Hunchback using Clan tecnology that's 15 tons lighter and uses Ultra AC/20. An even more powerful weapon than the AC/20. If they can fit that beast in a Hunchback, why shouldn't they be able to fit a similar weapon in a K2?

[KinLuu]

The dual UAC20 Hunchback IIC is a terror. I hope it never makes it into MWO.

[Prathios]

MustrumRidcully, on 05 April 2013 - 12:32 AM, said:

Did you notice that the hard point look changes now depending on the weapon installed? When you change your K2 to a different weapon,t hey make the space for whatever you want to install (provided it doesn't violate the general crit slot limit).

Why is there is still so much opposition against this?

And if you think 2 AC/20 on a 65 ton mech are bad - there is a canonical variant of the Hunchback using Clan tecnology that's 15 tons lighter and uses Ultra AC/20. An even more powerful weapon than the AC/20. If they can fit that beast in a Hunchback, why shouldn't they be able to fit a similar weapon in a K2?

The IIC was built with the intention of putting an UAC20 in it. I have no beef with that mech. It's also a clan mech... They have better stuff...

[Aedan Dosiere]

Ok, time to chime in on this a bit. First I would compliment the OP on the content of the post as I have noticed many of the same things myself.

Bugs: There are a ton of issues that need to be addressed in this game currently. The radar and texture bugs are annoying as hell. The radar has been part of the game since the first distribution, that it is still buggy as hell really has no excuse. Lag armor as seemed to improve as new net code has been introduced and the adjustment to some of the scout mech hit boxes has helped, but it still exists. When I pull the trigger for an front loaded Atlas DDC and see the impact (including the heat maps on the targeted mech) and get no perceptible damage on any component there is still a problem.

Ballance: Well this is the crux of the matter that is constantly in flux and really should not be.

Missile Damage: As for the LRM/SRM decrease, I am not sure why this enacted in the first place. According to prior damage numbers, the LRMs were set at 1/dmg per and the SRMs were set at 2/dmg per. This is core rules and has not changed in the Battletech / Mechwarrior universe in YEARS. There are counters in place for LRM such as ECM, AMS, etc thus reducing their effectiveness in combat without proper CntrECM or TAG support. SRMs were exactly what they were supposed to be in the original games. Close in, massive damage dumb-fire rockets. There are plenty of disadvantages to using SRMs and anything outside of 250m can eat you alive if that is all you are carrying. As they are now, they are weakened to the point of LRM builds virtually disappearing from the game due to their almost complete ineffectiveness. This is one case where moving away from the core rules is a BAD idea.

Heat Sinks: Case number two where moving away from the core rules is a bad idea. A Double Heat Sink is called that for a very specific reason. It was not called a 40% Extra Heat Sink or a Sorta Better But Not Quite Heat Sink. In the core rules the Double Heat Sinks were just that... DOUBLE THE HEAT EFFICIENCY. This meant twice as much heat reduction per sink at the cost of three critical slots being take by the sink itself. This allowed for the building of very heat stable mechs by sacrificing other equipment choices. These same builds, which were achievable under core rules are not with the current reductions to the doubles. A common Atlas DDC configuration is 1 AC20, 3 SRM6 and 2 Med Pulse Lasers. This according to core rules would have been a very heat stable mech using when using Double Heat Sinks. Currently it is not nearly as stable as it should be. Its really simple: They were called Double for a reason. Make them double again.

AC20 Controversy: I see this issue as a no brainier. The AC20 / Ultra-AC20 were some of the largest weapons in the Battletech / Mechwarrior universe. It is a massive cannon seen only on larger mech chasis. Not even the Clan Timber Wolf (Mad Cat) had a single variant using a SINGLE AC20, much less duals. The CPLT-K2 build was designed around the two PPCs and had Machine Guns mounted in the ballistic slots for anti-personnel purposes. Modifications to this variant were known to mount AP Gauss Rifles, light Auto Cannons (AC2/UAC2s and AC5/UAC5s) but never AC20s. If anyone can show me any variant of the Catapult or even the Mad Cat mechs mounted with anything larger than Gauss Rifle or an AC5/UAC5, I might consider this plausible. However since this is the largest weapon in the game, putting two of them on a 65 ton mech seems ridiculous at best. Now aside from the fact that it was never seen in either the TT universe or any previous Mechwarrior game, lets look at the imbalance it creates. In most matches you will see Catapults fulfilling several roles and several variants. The K2 serves well as a PPC or Gauss cat, but you never saw more than one or two in a lance. In the past three days, I have dropped into at least 4 or 5 matches each night facing teams with three or more AC Cats. The AC Jagers are just as bad. (Again another mech that I dare anyone to find me a stock variant of that carries anything larger than Gauss Rifle or an AC5/UAC5). Having a team of nothing but low profile, tight hit box mechs capable of delivering pinpoint shots doing 40/dmg every trigger pull from range is one thing. Watching them two of them core a 90 ton mech almost instantaneously is ridiculous.

I watched one of the new Heavy Metals walk around a building to face two AC Cats. Both shot and the Highlander dropped, cockpitted by 80/dmg. The two AC Cats turned on his Atlas escort and fired once, hitting him center torso. All it took was one additional shot from one of the Cats to core the Atlas. They then turned on an Awesome that had begun to engage them, one trigger pull from each and the Awesome was down. With 7 shots from the combined pair, two 65 ton mechs downed 270 tons of opposition barely taking any damage themselves. Catapults were never designed to be able to do that. If they were, every body would have piloted them and the Clan invasion would have been nothing more than a border skirmish quickly put down by a thousand CPLT-K2s showing up at the edge of IS space.

Any argument on this point to the contrary should have some pretty heavy research to back it up as no where have I ever seen such a build in ANY of the original content, games or video games which have existed for the better part of 30 years.

Oh and by the way, the argument about the Hunchback IIC is slightly flawed. That mech was a Clan variant, designed specificially to house to Clan UAC20s (note this is the same tonnage as an IS AC10). It had severe drawbacks including very limited ammunition, an XL engine with barely any armor (max of 6T) and 2 ER Med Lasers as the only other weapons.

Edited by Aedan Dosiere, 05 April 2013 - 02:04 AM.

[Corwin Vickers]

Aedan Dosiere, on 05 April 2013 - 01:34 AM, said:

I watched one of the new Heavy Metals walk around a building to face two AC Cats. Both shot and the Highlander dropped, cockpitted by 80/dmg. The two AC Cats turned on his Atlas escort and fired once, hitting him center torso. All it took was one additional shot from one of the Cats to core the Atlas. They then turned on an Awesome that had begun to engage them, one trigger pull from each and the Awesome was down. With 7 shots from the combined pair, two 65 ton mechs downed 270 tons of opposition barely taking any damage themselves. Catapults were never designed to be able to do that. If they were, every body would have piloted them and the Clan invasion would have been nothing more than a border skirmish quickly put down by a thousand CPLT-K2s showing up at the edge of IS space.

Summary: A bunch of dudes closed to 0 range with 2 AC20 equipped cats and died 1 by 1. They also probably stopped to shoot their weapons and never torso twisted to spread damage.

The end.

[Will HellFire]

Prathios, on 04 April 2013 - 09:53 PM, said:

I don't think it's fun for anyone to die with their entire mech intact because their cockpit got destroyed in a single round. That, is the definition of a cheese build. It also flies in the face of the Battletech universe. This is why PGI should respect its property more.

Man, so many times I got ANY mech killed, no matter if its commando or atlas by a Clan Gauss or ERPPC to the head in TT, that this sentence is clearly WRONG. Only difference is, in TT is dumb luck to roll a 12, in MWO its skill....and I think the cockpit hitboxes are small enough that this doesnt happen too often.

Fun or not, it is there, and it should be there, and War is a ***** sometimes. I want my MW simulation to be a ***** on me sometimes.