35 replies to this topic

[AlmightyAeng]

Hi everyone,

In the past, PGI stated that they wanted matches to last longer. Their solution to this was, in part, doubling armor.

The result is that, yes, mechs DO last longer. But people are still aiming at the CT until 'mechs fall over.

I've seen several threads that discuss how aiming for legs and arms is pretty much useless, because you can tear through a CT in virtually 1 or 2 extra shots.

Because the CT is the target of choice (or side torsos for XL's), high alpha culture reigns supreme.

So, here's my question.

Why not double, or even triple CT armor, and JUST CT armor. In my head, that makes shooting for legs and arms viable again, because there's an advantage to CRIPPLING a 'mech before outright DESTROYING IT.

This might also make STD engines a little more attractice, and we might see fewer XL's, meaning fewer enormous loadouts.

This wouldn't invalidate high alpha builds...but it would mean that 3-5 shots to the CT would no longer be enough...and taking higher DPS lower alpha builds that allow for longer sustained combat would have a bigger place again.

I'd be in favor of doubling CT armor...I dont' think 'mechs would be too hard to kill...but it would make shooting for NON-CT targets far more interesting...and feel more like the slugfest I feel 'mechwarrior should be.

Thoughts as to whether this idea is a good one? I appreciate feedback, thanks!

Edited by Ghost Badger, 17 April 2013 - 10:12 AM.

[LordBraxton]

XL engines would become useless

Sadly all that would change is that people would try to get even HIGHER alpha builds, to get through that ct faster.

And everyone would move slow because of no XLs

so youd have even SLOWER high alpha mechs, so even more of a turret match then we have now.

I understand your frustrations though, the meta is royally ****** right now

[XSerjo]

No, please no.

There're 2 solution, they are floating in air since closed beta:

• Weapon convergence system;
  
• Heat penalties.

Edited by XSerjo, 17 April 2013 - 10:37 AM.

[Straften]

Just try this next time you are getting shot in your CT. I know it's counter intuitive, and that you came to post here because you have given up all hope. But fear not! Straften has a solution for you!

Step 1) Get shot in CT
Step 2) Twist 90 degrees in either direction
Step 3) Watch in pure jaw gaping amazement, as your other components act as armor for your CT
Step 4) As soon as you can pick your chin up off the floor, reposition your mech in a more strategically sound position, and resume firing on the enemy team from a safer place.

Edited by Straften, 17 April 2013 - 10:24 AM.

[XSerjo]

Straften, on 17 April 2013 - 10:23 AM, said:

Just try this next time you are getting shot in your CT. I know it's counter intuitive, and that you came to post here because you have given up all hope. But fear not! Straften has a solution for you!
...
Step 2) Twist 90 degrees in either direction
...

Ehm, what about giant-walking-torsoes like Jenner and Dragon? How to spread damage?

Edited by XSerjo, 17 April 2013 - 10:35 AM.

[Viper69]

XSerjo, on 17 April 2013 - 10:28 AM, said:

Ehm, what about giant-walking-torsoes like Jenner and Dragon? How to spread damage?

Mr.Miyagi say "Best way to avoid punch, no be there"

Edited by Viper69, 17 April 2013 - 10:39 AM.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Convergence seems like a much better place to "fix" pin-point super-alpha builds. I would not mind a slower weapon convergence rate across the board, with more arm actuators perhaps allowing for slightly faster convergence for weapons mounted on that arm. I'd also not mind too much if torso mounted weapons had a hard limit to how tight their grouping could be (ie, they would maintain something of the arrangement of the guns across the torso in their shot distribution pattern).

In addition to this, JJs should have more kick to them. I'd say give them an impulse value (ie, screen shake when jumping), and triple the received impulse of hits when you are in the air.

[M4NTiC0R3X]

[Marric]

I think the key is not standing in front of a mech and letting him have five or six shots at your CT. I have been taken down any number of times by CT shots. The biggest problem I see is pilots who have never figured out that you have to balance your heat output/dispersion. Any time you overheat and shut down you are a perfect target. I take my time to get around you and then lay into you as you are trying to figure out where I might be now.

Armor is not the issue, its the guys who think that 6 PPC builds are the way to go. When I build a mech there are four things that have to come into consideration

First - Armor
Second - Engine/Speed
Third - heat
Fourth - weapons

Three and four are an iterative solution.

If you can only shoot once and then have to cool down, you just a walking target until you can fire again.

Edited by Marric, 17 April 2013 - 10:50 AM.

[AlmightyAeng]

I think a couple people may have misunderstood why I'd want it increased.

I'm not complaining about dying too easily due to a crit CT. I pilot Atlases and XL Jagermechs, and I do just fine in terms of survivabilty.

I'm disappointed that MWO is all about destroying the CT or sometimes the side torsos, with no real benefit to targeting arms and/or legs first. The point has been made in other threads, and I agree, that you can core out a mech in the same amount of time it takes to go for a leg, or for an arm. Since that's the case...why BOTHER crippling a mech when the same damage and maybe an extra shot will core one out instead?

I'd like to see a slugfest that has incentive to go for arms and legs instead of piling it all onto the CT. That's all. I think it'd be more fun. The other thoughts I posted were additional results I thought might occur if the idea were implemented.

[Zerberus]

doublwe value would mean that without a crit a typical atlas can take over 2 tons of AC/20 to the chest without even being on internals, and 3 without going down.

I drive an atlas, therefore I support this suggestion, need 200 CT armor, or even better 300

It`s not my problem that lights still get taken apart by the MLs in my zombie chest

Seriously, though, You would regularly have 2 very angry MLs on a 124 APx(X) stick running around at 65 shooting people in the back...

any armor or IS buffs applied globablly would only serve to stack the deck more in favor of heavier mechs and energy loadouts.

Want nothing but highlanders and ppc stalkers in teh game? This is quite possibly the best way to get there, and therefore a very bad idea

Edited by Zerberus, 17 April 2013 - 10:55 AM.

[AlmightyAeng]

LordBraxton, on 17 April 2013 - 10:14 AM, said:

XL engines would become useless

Sadly all that would change is that people would try to get even HIGHER alpha builds, to get through that ct faster.

And everyone would move slow because of no XLs

so youd have even SLOWER high alpha mechs, so even more of a turret match then we have now.

I understand your frustrations though, the meta is royally ****** right now

I'm not sure I agree. It wouldn't render XL's useless at all, nor would you see 'even higher alpha builds.' At this point...people are ALREADY maxing out alpha...they're not going to suddenly find a way to get more. And if people switch to standard engines, they're going to lose a lot of tonnage, so their alpha will go down unless they drastically reduce engine size and go much slower.

Taking out an XL would be more of a tradeoff...tonnage for more weapons and speed...but with less survivability compared to the STD engine than there is currently. Right now I feel like the XL, for most all chassis, has far greater benefits than negatives, since it really isn't all that much more fragile than a STD engine the way armor numbers are set up on side torsos compared to center.

Edited by Ghost Badger, 17 April 2013 - 10:57 AM.

[AlmightyAeng]

Zerberus, on 17 April 2013 - 10:50 AM, said:

doublwe value would mean that without a crit a typical atlas can take over 2 tons of AC/20 to the chest without even being on internals, and 3 without going down.

I drive an atlas, therefore I support this suggestion, need 200 CT armor, or even better 300

It`s not my problem that lights still get taken apart by the MLs in my zombie chest

Seriously, though, You would regularly have 2 very angry MLs on a 124 APx(X) stick running around at 65 shooting people in the back...

any armor or IS buffs applied globablly would only serve to stack the deck more in favor of heavier mechs and energy loadouts.

Want nothing but highlanders and ppc stalkers in teh game? This is quite possibly the best way to get there, and therefore a very bad idea

If you use the same standard tactics of 'Shoot them in the chest until they die' then yes. It would be harder. That's kind of the whole point. You'd actually have incentive to shoot that Atlas in the leg to remove its mobility, then stay behind it, and kill it. You have incentive to take off arms and remove it's weapons. Hell, you might even have incentive to try taking out it's torso weapons BEFORE focusing on CT. Maybe that single light 'mech would reconsider trying to tie up an assault alone.

I think it'd encourage more interesting gameplay compared to what we have now.

So, yes, what you point out is exactly what I'd want to encourage. As far as encouraging more alpha? I dunno...even if it didn't do the opposite, I doubt that we could get more alpha focused than we currently are at this point.

[Ansel]

Keep the armor sections and the point totals for those sections, weapons would then only deal damage in a footprint to those sections instead of dealing damage to the whole section.

Each weapon would then have it's own footprint, for example the AC-20 would have the largest footprint of the balistic weapons, and the MG having the smallest footprint, missle and spread type weapons would have very large footprints to go with their lower damage so they generate a lot of overlaping area damage, also making them better for splasing damage into areas that the armor was already breached.

If this were implimented fights would take quite a while longer, so I would probly drop armor point totals to 125-150% of TT values instead of 200%.

[Walk]

All this would do is make ballistics and missiles much weaker. Why would you take an AC/20, which is 8 shots/ton, when you can't even core an Atlas without needing 2-3 tons of ammo... per Atlas. Ahoy there, PPC/Lasers!
They would be only thing that could be reliably used without running out of firepower halfway through a match

[Marcus Cvellus]

- Weapon convergence and different "lock". Green-yellow-red-gold. To hit right in the spot you are aiming, you have to lead a reticle over. You can fire at any moment, just know that you probably wont hit where you aimed at with pinpoint accuracy untill golden lock.

- Longer recycle time on heavy hitting weapons so values get closer or same to TT values per 10 secs (now er/ppc's are doing 4x TT damage).

It will fix boating, short matches and it will not remove aiming skill out of game, and considerately slow down matches.

Edited by Marcus Cvellus, 17 April 2013 - 11:13 AM.

[Tahribator]

Straften, on 17 April 2013 - 10:23 AM, said:

Just try this next time you are getting shot in your CT. I know it's counter intuitive, and that you came to post here because you have given up all hope. But fear not! Straften has a solution for you!

Step 1) Get shot in CT
Step 2) Twist 90 degrees in either direction
Step 3) Watch in pure jaw gaping amazement, as your other components act as armor for your CT
Step 4) As soon as you can pick your chin up off the floor, reposition your mech in a more strategically sound position, and resume firing on the enemy team from a safer place.

Every enemy worth their salt just waits for you to turn around again. This is not an option for heavier mechs.

[Ansel]

Walk, on 17 April 2013 - 11:11 AM, said:

All this would do is make ballistics and missiles much weaker. Why would you take an AC/20, which is 8 shots/ton, when you can't even core an Atlas without needing 2-3 tons of ammo... per Atlas. Ahoy there, PPC/Lasers!
They would be only thing that could be reliably used without running out of firepower halfway through a match

It would take the same ammout of shots, or less, than it does now.

It would however require you to have the ability to aim, and place shots in a tight cluster.

The AC-20 wouldn't need as tight of a cluster, PPC and laser weapons would.

Tahribator, on 17 April 2013 - 11:14 AM, said:

Every enemy worth their salt just waits for you to turn around again. This is not an option for heavier mechs.

Incorrect, every enemy worth their salt just shoots your mech in the nads and wonders why you started dancing instead of trying to deal damage. Gotta love those huge painted CT sections that damage the entire section no matter where you shoot lololol.

[VonRunnegen]

How about no target-based weapon convergence at all. Weapons just always converge at the max distance they can still do 100% damage. So long range weapons up close will be spread all over the shop unless fired individually, but at the limit are still as good as now. Beyond the 100% range they then are suffering both a damage drop and a grouping drop.

[Straften]

Tahribator, on 17 April 2013 - 11:14 AM, said:

Every enemy worth their salt just waits for you to turn around again. This is not an option for heavier mechs.

Which is why there is a step 4. TL:DR? It works in assaults, it will work in heavies.