191 replies to this topic

[Sheraf]

Because the other mechs pack more firepower than me, I must be able to go head on with it, so nerf the stronger mechs.

[FunkyFritter]

This seems like it punishes not using big weapons more than anything else. I don't see many people complaining about the accuracy of a 6 slas jenner.

[Urdnot Mau]

Or maybe just mess with convergence

[Lukoi Banacek]

Karr285, on 11 April 2013 - 10:06 PM, said:

I know it has been discussed but I think people freak out immediately when they read it cuz they think it will turn into a skill less brawlfest.

Lets start by saying firing Weapons Individually will still be Pinpoint

however when you shoot more it starts to be less accurate example (numbers subject to balance)

1 weapon - pinpoint

2 weapon - 2 Degree deviation off center

3 weapon - 4 degree deviation off center

4 weapon - 8 degree deviation off center

5+ weapons - 10 degree deviation off center

This effectively reduces the effectiveness of every high damage alpha boat and multi weapon long range snipers without making them useless and also promotes Multi weapon/range load-outs

even smack in your face the weapon damage will be spread out all over your mech, Plus this gives extra benefit to all Missile weapons since they already do damage all over.

and lastly this also helps mechs feel more like mechs and not be cored in 2 seconds by High pinpoint alpha builds and actualy required MORE skill by the players to effectively deal damage

ex. instead of alpha 6 Med lasers shoot 2 wait 2 wait 2 this only gives 2 Degree deviation instead of the 10 degree alpha spread.

To remove the high chainfire possible abuse could also add a time inbetween shots that is needed to reset the deviation, ie 5 quick chained shots would scale from pinpoint all the way to the last one being 10 degrees off.

This approach would also elevate future and current UAC issues, since the second shot would already be 2 degrees off and constant shooting would only rack up the spread deviation.

No more Twin AC20/gauss to 1 location no more 6 large laser Stalkers killing atlas's in 3 shots, Also opens up the possibility of a Targeting computer use - Lowers the deviation or lowers the time needed between pinpoint shots.

Worst case if they implemented this for just 1 week is a rollback just for the sake of testing purposes before the clans show up and the really Silly high damage PINPOINT alpha builds start crippling people in 1 alpha 12 er med lasers anyone?

This thread needs a poll so that I can vote no to this suggestion by the OP. It's simply not required and the Devs are far enough behind schedule as it is without derailing CW further.

The game feels fun, doesn't suffer from builds being imbalancing simply because they boat (as boating can have its own drawbacks) and has enough bugs in it to keep the Devs busy for quite some time without re-tooling the basic game mechanics.

Karr, I don't think you speak for anywhere near the majority of the player base with this suggestion (but a poll might be a good tool for quoting dubious and biased statistics based on the small percentage of players who apparently bother with these forums, so maybe that's worth considering).

[Karl Split]

Nope dont agree.

If you want to add a bit more skill how about more mechshake on firing weapons, more weapon spread on moving like in games such as battlefield 3 where an aimed shot requires standing still and weapon spread on arms greater as you stride over the uneven ground.

Skilled pilots will still alpha your ***, but its gonna be a lot trickier

[Tenzek]

Thunder Child, on 12 April 2013 - 03:47 AM, said:

OMG! The driver of that boat is INVISIBLE!

It's part of the cockpit fix. It was too large on that model.

[Hawker]

Joseph Mallan, on 12 April 2013 - 05:17 AM, said:

I ran World wide events as a FanPro Commando, helped play test rules, and you must not have played the Clans a lot, cause I can count on two fingers how often players with targeting computers didn't call shots like that. MWO has 1,000 meter ranges, TT does not, otherwise TT players would be doing 1,000 meter shots too.

The intent of your post was to say that, we TT players cannot do what is done in this game, I proved you wrong.

I will be interested on how Targeting computers will be handled in the MMO. If players are complaining now, how will they feel when an accuracy even higher is introduced?

There is no way to implement targeting computer in MWO because in order to do so you would have to build in an aimbot. Not going to happen without even more QQ.

So you ran events, so did I, but I also won events at major competitions. I did run clans exclusively since they came out, and only a few actually have a targeting computer. The only time people called shots was when the target mech was shutdown or legged. Most good players wouldn't bother with long range shots and your ideal situation you posed is just that ideal. He didn't move, you didn't move. In competitive play, if you shutdown or don't move, you are dead. No one in their right mind would do that. You must have had very gambling players but in major tournaments, that doesn't work. You need to play the odds well. I didn't win two Nationals by gambling on called shots and in fact I don't remember ever having done so in all the tournaments I played in and I won quite a few. So, I am calling you out on that.

You still fail to see the difference between Battletech and Mechwarrior, so let me lay it out for you one last time, and then you either get it or not, in that I don't really care.

Battletech (the boardgame) was designed around a random number table for hit location. The mechs in Battletech are designed also with this mechanic in mind. It works because it is designed well. Take AC/20s for example. In the real world a cannon like that would easily shoot farther than an AC/2 (I worked on weapon systems in the military so I have pretty specific knowledge there) because of physics. Don't believe me, look up say the effective range of a .50 cal machine gun and a 105mm howitzer if you must.

In Battletech though the ranges are reversed for game play balance, because otherwise AC/20's would be OP. Agree or not on your part, it is irrelevant.

Mechwarrior does not use a random table for hit location. It uses your aim. Most games that use aim as a game mechanic do not have multiple hit locations. They usually have a single health bar and maybe an armor or shield bar that goes before the health bar is affected. Honestly, other than the Mechwarrior series, I can't think of any simulator or shooter that uses multiple hit locations other than head shots which some games treat differently. Unreal Tournament is an example but there are plenty of others, like say Freelancer just to widen the scope of games that use aiming as a game mechanic. Single health bar is the primary means of determining if a target is removed from play or not, instant gibbing aside.

So why does Mechwarrior use multiple hit locations? Because that is the way it was in Battletech, thats why. Is that a sound design choice? No, it isn't and many other games prove that when you use aim as a game mechanic, a single health bar is the preferred method to good game play, and they might add armor/shield on top of that.

Head shots is a separate topic really and I am not going to get into that.

In my opinion, and of course it is only my opinion, Mechwarrior needs to grow up and own up to the fact that it is a sim shooter and not the board game. To do that, they need to redesign the mechs appropriately. That can simply be done by the following:

One armor stat.
One internal structure stat.
Crits could have a low chance to occur for each hit on armor or internal structure or just internal structure. Or you could have hits on internal structure autocrit. (Personally I would just have a small chance that each hit could cause a crit and that crit would be random across all the equipment including things like actuators and such.)

Those changes would be more inline with shooter design. You can still loadout your mech like before, just the armor stat would be a bar, or if you really wanted to you could assign armor to each now redundant location.

The other option would be to invoke a random hit location for each shot and that would make it more like the board game sort of RTS style play in a sense.

Either way, the mechs were designed for random hit location and that just doesn't port well to a shooter based game. Doubling armor is a stop gap but not a real solution. The solution is to design the mechs properly for the type of game it is, a sim shooter.

Edited by Hawker, 12 April 2013 - 11:35 AM.

[Fut]

The best way to slow down all the Alpha-striking would be to impose penalties to various things due to high heat.
Heat at 65% and your weapon convergence slows down a bit.
Heat at 75% and your torso twisting/arm movement slows down a bit.
Heat at 85% and your HUD starts to fickle out.

Something like that. As it is right now, you can hover around 100% heat with almost no ill effects...

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Fut, on 12 April 2013 - 11:48 AM, said:

The best way to slow down all the Alpha-striking would be to impose penalties to various things due to high heat.
Heat at 65% and your weapon convergence slows down a bit.
Heat at 75% and your torso twisting/arm movement slows down a bit.
Heat at 85% and your HUD starts to fickle out.

Something like that. As it is right now, you can hover around 100% heat with almost no ill effects...

OOOOOR
Impliment the TT Heat table:


Note how you slow down (loss of movement points) as you exceed your heat, have more chances of exploding (due to ammo), your aim gets screwed too

Edited by Mechwarrior Buddah, 12 April 2013 - 11:57 AM.

[Noobzorz]

If the day comes when the weapon doesn't fire where I point it, I will close my game client, uninstall it, and go play Hawken.

[Fut]

Mechwarrior Buddah, on 12 April 2013 - 11:55 AM, said:

OOOOOR
Impliment the TT Heat table:


Note how you slow down (loss of movement points) as you exceed your heat, have more chances of exploding (due to ammo), etc

Yes yes!
Something like this is exactly what I was trying to get at. Thanks for posting the little chart.

Heat should be a MUCH bigger part of the game. It should be dangerous to just Alpha-Constantly. With something like that chart in play, Alpha's would still have their place, but it wouldn't be a permanent playstyle like it is right now.

[jay35]

Everything is fine as it is. If you walk in front of an Assault class bull, you deserve to get the horns, and those horns ought to hurt.


As far as the table-top heat scale goes, that really doesn't belong in an FPS game, as it punishes the wounded and giving the player with the advantage in the situation an even bigger advantage. That makes for a more frustrating experience for those already hurt and trying to escape further damage. You start causing a wounded mech additional grief, slowing them down, dinging their armor points, that basically just ensures they will get finished off even easier, so you're not doing anything helpful for the gameplay experience.

Edited by jay35, 12 April 2013 - 12:01 PM.

[Juree Riggd]

Your complicated system for discouraging alpha strikes gets completely mitigated with a single macro firing each weapon .1 seconds apart.

High damage alpha strikes are a part of the game for a reason. Every single shooter in the world has a 1 shottable weapon. Learn to play against the 1 shot mechanic instead of crying nerf.

[l4Dl]

Another option would be:
- Balance the Weapons
- Promote the use of "different weapons" in a loadout, tweak the ton/slot numbers.
- Increase/Link heat for multiple weapon types, should prevent 6ppc loadouts etc eg:

1 laser = 1 heat per individual laser cycle

2 lasers = 1.5 heat per individual laser cycle

4 lasers = 3 heat per individual laser cycle

Theres loads of other "better" ways to fix alpha builds, but, with no balance changes/testing, i cant see PGi ever getting rid of Alpha builds.

[Fut]

jay35, on 12 April 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

Everything is fine as it is. If you walk in front of an Assault class bull, you deserve to get the horns, and those horns ought to hurt.


As far as the table-top heat scale goes, that really doesn't belong in an FPS game, as it punishes the wounded and giving the player with the advantage in the situation an even bigger advantage. That makes for a more frustrating experience for those already hurt and trying to escape further damage. You start causing a wounded mech additional grief, slowing them down, dinging their armor points, that basically just ensures they will get finished off even easier, so you're not doing anything helpful for the gameplay experience.

How does it punish the wounded?
That TT Heat Chart punishes people who like to run with high heat, not those sustaining damage..

[TruePoindexter]

Fut, on 12 April 2013 - 12:03 PM, said:

How does it punish the wounded?
That TT Heat Chart punishes people who like to run with high heat, not those sustaining damage..

As you take damage you almost certainly are losing heat sinks. Further engine critical hits which have not been implemented yet generate additional heat. Plus a player backed into a corner is more likely to make mistakes and push their heat levels too far.

I'm of mixed mind on a TT styled heat scale. The Ammo Explosions certainly wouldn't be acceptable - you would have stock Centurions dying from ammo explosions just for daring to launch into Caustic Valley. Plus I am not sure how you would communicate this to the player.

I think there are possibilities there though to make play (and heat) more interesting. Like if the heat curve was less stringent but you started suffering movement penalties at 50%+ heat.

Edited by TruePoindexter, 12 April 2013 - 12:07 PM.

[Fut]

TruePoindexter, on 12 April 2013 - 12:05 PM, said:

As you take damage you almost certainly are losing heat sinks. Further engine critical hits which have not been implemented yet generate additional heat. Plus a player backed into a corner is more likely to make mistakes and push their heat levels too far.

The loss of heatsinks definitely makes sense. It's a good point.

As for a person being cornered and making mistakes... ummm.. L2P?

TruePoindexter, on 12 April 2013 - 12:05 PM, said:

I think there are possibilities there though to make play (and heat) more interesting. Like if the heat curve was less stringent but you started suffering movement penalties at 50%+ heat.

I'm with you on this one. I'm not really sure what should be done. But I think that the whole Heat thing needs a bit more to it besides shutting down at 100%.

Edited by Fut, 12 April 2013 - 12:09 PM.

[TruePoindexter]

Fut, on 12 April 2013 - 12:06 PM, said:

The loss of heatsinks definitely makes sense. It's a good point.

As for a person being cornered and making mistakes... ummm.. L2P?

Oh no definitely it's an L2P issue - half of being a good player at MWO is staying calm and focused.

The more I think about it the more I like the movement penalty over a certain heat range combined with a reduction in the heat curve. This would make shutdowns less likely and ease the heat problem on trial mechs while simultaneously making intermediate heat levels matter.

[Adridos]

TruePoindexter, on 12 April 2013 - 12:05 PM, said:

I'm of mixed mind on a TT styled heat scale. The Ammo Explosions certainly wouldn't be acceptable - you would have stock Centurions dying from ammo explosions just for daring to launch into Caustic Valley. Plus I am not sure how you would communicate this to the player.

Random ammo explosions would be unacceptable.
If they had an actually definable factor to them, however, then they wouldn't be all that bad.

Altough, a little point about the TT heatscale.... It is based around heat neutral mechs. Those points when you slow down and etc. come when you fire more than your HS can handle and get excessive heat, which is not the way it works in MW:O.

Edited by Adridos, 12 April 2013 - 12:13 PM.

[Juree Riggd]

The hotter you get, the harder (longer) it should be to dissipate the heat. As heat goes up past a threshold, performance should go down. Get too hot, and you risk destroying your equipment.