67 replies to this topic

[Athena Hart]

You know, this has probablly come up before, but I'll answer this here. I never considered 'boats a real threat. Usually when I get missile warning I just ducked behind some cover and let mountains and/or structures take most of the hits, not much you can do about a multiple AC/20 'mech other than to stay down range or simply aim for the locations where those AC's are at and hope you take them out before they're in range, after all, there are only 4 places they can be. Arms or RT/LT torse.. so just destroy those first. . You've only got so much ammo on a Missile/Gun boat and of course, they're usually big, slow 'mechs. I prefer mobility, hard to hit a fast moving target with missiles especially when itss shooting PPCs/Lasers/ and or a Gauss Rifle at you.. or, if you get close enough, fast enough, AC/20's

Energy Boats are Silly and Overheat too quickly, even in MW4, a Energy Boat quickly overheats.. A Nova or Supernova for example, Do Lots of Damage in one volley, then you hear "Warning! Heat Critical, Shut Down Imminent, Shutting Down" And then hear fire all around you and know its directed at you while you frantically override the shutdown and power back up. (They are effective in an Arctic Area though where the ambient temperature acts as extra heatsinks, but how often are you really going to figh under arctic conditions?)

Personally I prefer a variety of weapons so I can multi-task.

[Rodney28021]

We'll have to just wait and see how the mechlab and the game will play. Try some new designs. If mechlab keeps everything expensive. If hardpoints will keep us from adding too many weapons from happening. If just play in the matches don't pay a lot of c-bills, maybe winning should pay off more c-bill. I got an idea, PGI should sell c-bill caches and C-bill earning boosts.

[Damion Stranik]

I apologize if I ruffled some feathers with my original post, I was intending to spur conversation on what I feel is an important topic - that weapons must be rebalanced from their table-top versions in order to keep the competitive meta-game dynamic. A few people have suggested that adding a customization cost will solve things, but this will only turn the game into a c-bill grind. If certain weapons are unbalanced, then simply limiting the availability to people with C-Bills to pay for them will only mean that long time players with lots of c-bills will dominate the field by leveraging this advantage.

A few of the responses to boating have suggested that it is an inferior strategy, though only beta players can make this judgement for certain. Table-top and earlier MW games have certainly shown that the possibility of broken variants exist (7 ERLL nova cats/supernovas, mechs with 12+ Machine Guns in MW2). Now, I believe boating will be less of a problem here as it seems the devs are going out of their way to give each weapon system its own set of advantages and disadvantages, but its still a question that is worth considering.

My main concern is that the competitive part of the community explores the meta-game of MWO and discovers a small amount of optimal chassis' and loadouts. Now, I apologize to the poster who pointed out that this is not what happened in MW4, and seeing as I am not an expert on the evolution of MW4s competitive meta-game I can't really disagree, but I would be curious as to why he believes the game was never taken seriously as a competitive venture. Jump sniping assaults? Lack of interesting team mechanics? Poor maps? I am genuinely curious, and I hope that we avoid all these issues with MWO, but I don't think it can be done without taking a hard look at the weapon systems available.

[Frostiken]

It'd be nice if they limited the Mechlab in some way, to reflect the difference between Omnis and Battlemechs. Omnis could customize weapons but have no choice to change armor, engine, jumpjets, etc.

Battlemechs would have highly limited hardpoints and some hard-installed weaponry, but have more flexibility in the base chassis itself.

[Sassori]

There's a fair few of us who want omni-mechs to be limited to TRO variants as Omnimechs already have /more/ than their fair share of advantages compared to IS tech and none of the omni variants suck, as compared to quite a few inner sphere builds/mechs.

[Thunderbug]

"adaptability = victory" boating dosnt work if everything is well balanced. As for the arguments against the superior Clan tech being changed, even this "superior" equipment has disadvantages.

Even looking at Mechwarrior 4 Mercs, we can see the advantages and disadvantages of each weapon system.

Clan Tech as a rule is more expensive

Clan Laser weapons produce more heat and are more expensive as a trade of for extra range/damage/reduced weight

Lasers in general are unboatable due to heat, the only option for laser boating is more heat sinks, but more heat sinks = less DPS meaning boating becomes less and less effective the more u try to counter the heat problem

Ammo based weapons have low heat and good damage but are balanced by limited ammo, and increased weight added by said ammo.

from the vids/faq we can see that LRM lock on dosnt mean guaranteed hit, this makes missile boating less effective and means faster mechs will make missile boats even less useful

Omnimechs are more versatile and generally better, but as a much higher cost for repair, maintenance and initial purchase. Providing C-bills are not given out in huge quantities then an Omnimech flood is unlikely. I mean even the Clans couldn't afford to have all omnimechs lol


I have confidence that the developer wont change Omni and Clan tech.

In fact the only thing i am worried about with this game are some things i have read about, double armor, and how they dont want us to be able to blow of legs and heads. Also no salvage :S is just silly.

Provided they keep salvage and manage to retain the feel of a mech combat simulator/Battletech i.e weakpoints like legs and head, Clan tech being better but having different disadvantages, A mech being a big investment which means no huge C-bill payouts this would stop everyone from using assault mechs.

Avoiding becoming a "shoot the torso until the robot falls down". Avoid changing Clan tech. Avoid making losing a mech inconsequential.

Imho they shouldn't stray to far from lore of the Battletech universe just to keep the perpetual moaners happy.

[Steamroller Stig]

Honestly I never cared for boats in MW4, I'd rather have an Uzile with a dual PPCs and an Clan Ultra AC2 to keep them rock'n. boats were just easy to use so they were widely used.

this game has a lot of ways to eliminate boating.

1- torso and arm weapons have independent reticules, the arms have one to one control with the mouse whereas the torso lags a bit behind, it's kinda heavy. this actually makes me not want an awesome because you could only track slow targets with 2 of it's PPCs

2- lasers are DoT, this makes them much more difficult to deal damage to a single part.

3- the mech lab will not allow you to fit many small weapons where you would normally fit one large one.

[CCC Dober]

I just stopped reading after this: "The largest fears I see are from people who dread the return of MW4 gameplay, or a stale endgame where there is but one single optimal build for every chassis."

Without exaggeration, I had memorized, tweaked and used several rigs for each of all existing 100+ MW4: MPx Mechs on a constant basis back in the days. And these were just the roflstomper rigs. Just saying, the OP's perspective is VERY limited in that regard. Comparing this game to MW4:X would be a compliment of sorts. I don't begin to see anything in the vicinity of 50+ Mechs yet, if it ever comes to that. Then, only then, we might start to talk about a proper comparison LOL.

As it stands, a small Mech and weapon/equipment selection is exactly what turned MW4 stale very quick, despite having an interesting solo campaign and a more or less customizable multiplayer mode (online AND offline). The un/official addons changed that for the better. MW:O can learn from these lessons.

Cheers

Edited by CCC Dober, 04 June 2012 - 11:54 AM.

[Damion Stranik]

CCC Dober, on 04 June 2012 - 11:54 AM, said:

I just stopped reading after this: "The largest fears I see are from people who dread the return of MW4 gameplay, or a stale endgame where there is but one single optimal build for every chassis."

Without exaggeration, I had memorized, tweaked and used several rigs for each of all existing 100+ MW4: MPx Mechs on a constant basis back in the days. And these were just the roflstomper rigs. Just saying, the OP's perspective is VERY limited in that regard. Comparing this game to MW4:X would be a compliment of sorts. I don't begin to see anything in the vicinity of 50+ Mechs yet, if it ever comes to that. Then, only then, we might start to talk about a proper comparison LOL.

As it stands, a small Mech and weapon/equipment selection is exactly what turned MW4 stale very quick, despite having an interesting solo campaign and a more or less customizable multiplayer mode (online AND offline). The un/official addons changed that for the better. MW:O can learn from these lessons.

Cheers

I am referring to the original MW4 - MW4 was the officially developed game that was released and failed to attract a robust competitive community for a myriad of reasons - lack of variation and stale mechanics being among them.

[TheForce]

an easy solution is to allow the following server/battle options:

• full customization
  
• stock only
  
• stock and variants.

[Thomas Hogarth]

I have no problem with the Mechlab, as long as its use is as expensive as it is supposed to be.

Example: Switching a rear facing laser to forward? Replacing a medium laser with a heat sink? Any decently skilled tech can do it in a drop bay (or even in the field, with a higher chance of failure). The amount of time is measured in hours*, costs are measured in the mere hundreds of thousands of C-Bills**, and it's all relatively simple. The 'Mech gets harder and more expensive to repair as it is now flagged as custom, but that provides incentive to use the canon variants.

Huge custom job that replaces structure and engine size? Expect to pay many times more than the 'Mech is worth** due to having to rent out factory slots to perform the customization. That alone is worth huge amounts of money. And again, it'll be tough to turn a profit if you take a lot of damage due to increased costs of repair.

A lot of people dislike comparisons to the TT game, but there is a lot of balancing factors that can be transplanted from the TT game to make MWO better.

*time being only considered for consideration of 'Mech Tech payment + maintenance facility or factory rental. There are solid reasons to avoid small modifications taking time, although modifications that require you to send out your 'Mech to an off-site location... I can see that taking an hour or two for immersion and investment purposes.
**including all expenses, not just material costs

[Aelos03]

i agree with op all mechs must be viable and add good maps,spectator mod and other tools and game ready to go balancing and stuff should be done in the walk, i really expect this game to have strong competitive scene.

[CCC Dober]

I find it hard to believe that doubling armor values will be enough.

Does anybody know the average chance to land a called shot on a specific location in TT?
That number would be indicative of how much the armor needs to be buffed overall to hold up the pressure of a realtime environment.

Doubling it didn't help much in MW4 either. MS had to pull some other tricks to make the Mechs last longer. Tiny cockpits and general 1shot protection, except for shared internal structure of both legs and special slots mostly shared their structure with adjacent locations). High alpha was a sure way to instakill Mechs through these loopholes. As you see, game mechanics could still be exploited for quick kills, given enough experience and practice. The same may happen again if things like that are designed in a hurry.

[Kobold]

I have very little worry about customization.

Oh, you want to put two PPCs in the arms of your HBK? So you really want a lighter Warhammer. No big deal.

You want to slow down your Jenner, drop the JJs, SRMs and two MLs for a LL and some more armor? That's fine, it just means you'd rather be in a Wolfhound.

if there is one specific weapon set up that dominates games, the problem is with the game design, not with the fact that customization is allowed. Even if there were no customization, that would just mean that certain chassis would be much more common because they are the "best." You'd be back to the same problem you claim to want to avoid, where everyone has the same things.

[Roland]

One of the most fun aspects of Mechwarrior 4 was coming up with new designs... And guys like Ender and myself used to do this endlessly. And we came up with some crazy configs using weapons and chassis that most folks seemed to consider useless.

As folks gravitated to the flav' of the month, it'd tend to expose weaknesses that could be exploited by other weapons configs.

Laser weapons tended to have a strong advantage over everything else in that game due to the netcode, but even that opened up opportunities to try other things... We tore a lot of teams apart with fast mechs running Light Gauss and ERPPCs.. because they were so committed to running "the best" config, which was ERLL.

Folks need to chill out and stop worrying about how everything is gonna be ruined before it's even begun. And really, when it comes to allowing customization of mechs, I think folks need to just accept that it's gonna be a key part of the game. There's not much use in complaining about it. I just can't see the devs putting as much effort into the mechlab as they obviously have, and then limiting our ability to use it.

[Solis Obscuri]

Damion Stranik, on 04 June 2012 - 12:59 AM, said:

The medium laser is always going to be the most efficient weapon while machine guns, AC 2s. and AC 5s are always going to be enormous liabilities that cripple you in multiple ways.

Unsupported statement is unsupported.

Damion Stranik, on 04 June 2012 - 12:59 AM, said:

Thoughts? Criticisms? Stories about that one time you TAC'ed an Atlas's center torso with an AC 2 so therefore there is nothing wrong with it?

Troll thread is self-evident.

[Deathz Jester]

[Thomas Hogarth]

Kobold, on 04 June 2012 - 01:55 PM, said:

I have very little worry about customization.

Oh, you want to put two PPCs in the arms of your HBK? So you really want a lighter Warhammer. No big deal.

You want to slow down your Jenner, drop the JJs, SRMs and two MLs for a LL and some more armor? That's fine, it just means you'd rather be in a Wolfhound.

if there is one specific weapon set up that dominates games, the problem is with the game design, not with the fact that customization is allowed. Even if there were no customization, that would just mean that certain chassis would be much more common because they are the "best." You'd be back to the same problem you claim to want to avoid, where everyone has the same things.

My major problem with twin PPC hunchbacks and ML battery Centurions going 86kph is immersion. Fans of the lore know such things may exist, but are rare. Customs in general are rare. When most of the 'Mechs are customs, suspension of disbelief breaks down, and immersion is lost.

[Kobold]

In TT at least, with the possible exception of flak ammo for forcing pilot rolls for aeros, AC5s are worthless compared to a PPC or LL (unless for some reason you're already running monster high on the heat curve)

[RustyBolts]

I personally loved to pack on LRM and Medium lazers. Used the LRMs to pepper them, soften them up and support of the lance. Then moved in with the medium lazers.