60 replies to this topic

[Ashnod]

jump jets need to be buffed... in air movement control, longer jump range / fuel time..

[Alistair Winter]

OP: I want jump jets to have different functions depending on the weight class.

For light and medium mechs, I want jump jets to be a crucial part of their attacks, making them more useful harassers and more difficult to hit. I would like to see directional thrust and a lot more fuel than the light mechs have today.

For heavy and assault mechs, which already have excellent firepower and are already dominating the battlefield (especially in assault modE), I want jump jets to be used primarily for movement and maneuvering, and only to a certain degree be useful for attacks. But this is a tall order, because it requires two things. 1) A sensible way of reducing poptart efficiency. I suggest aim drift, others suggest shaking. 2) Maps that actually justify equipping jump jets. PGI has said future maps will make jump jets more useful. Right now, jump jets are rarely useful in terms of giving heavy and assault mechs increased mobility. A highlander with less than 4 jump jets can barely jump over a car. Trying something fancy, like moving across rooftops or trying to land on the edge of a cliff, will usually end in an awkward faceplant.

[WillyPete]

There's a simple way to resolve JJ's used for poptarting, that permits a defence against it and yet still permits it as a valid tactic.

Apply Newtonian physics.
Select an arbitrary damage amount (say, 5 points) and if any person strikes with a hit that exceeds that damage limit in one hit to an arm or leg of the mech that is jumping, it rotates the mech several degrees in the direction of the side that was hit.

It introduces a new level of skill required to counter a valid tactic.
It adds a new element to gameplay.
It makes weapons other than ppc's more valid.

I say 5 points of damage, because it allows someone with a few lasers, or at least an ac5 a chance to deflect the jumping mech and avert a hit.
It also allows lighter mechs to have a chance against these 'tarts.

[Naja]

Probably won't be a popular idea, but I always thought getting hit while JJing should be penalized much harder. If someone is jumping straight up in the air, they have no forward thrust, and so getting hit by something like an AC20 is going to cause an issue when the vector you're JJ's are pushing you along suddenly shifts. You'd lose up thrust and fall down while being pushed in whatever direction you lean. The risk of falling down then makes pop tarting less of a desirable strategy, whilst not reducing it's viability to 0.

Of course the mech might have sophisticated enough software to auto-stabilize, but not before you end up with your cockpit facing a totally new direction.

[skullman86]

Faster lift and maybe lessen the acceleration delay when landing; stopping like that kills the flow of jump jetting and it feels like it takes an eternity to get back up to decent speed.

...I would love to see multi-directional controls, but I don't think that will happen.

[James The Fox Dixon]

Jump jets should cause a mech to move in the direction specified by the pilot or randomly if no direction is chosen as per tabletop rules. This cuts down on pop tarting and leads to unintended consequences that may be detrimental to the pilot like landing in the middle of a group of enemies if they're close enough.

Jump jets should do two additional things that they currently don't. Their speed should be higher than a mech's ground speed since there isn't ground friction to worry about nor terrain penalties. Turning while jump jetting should be a little easier with the Spider being the only mech to be able to turn 720 degrees or more during a single jump.

[Selfish]

JJs are just a double edged sword: They make it possible for mechs with terrible profiles to fight on ridges, they can turn/twist faster than any mech in the game at any time, and they give the best mobility in the game with access to areas non-JJ mechs can't reach.

They're pretty good, and I'd say in need of a little attention. The JJ process was quickened a few patches ago. Slowing them back down a bit, and increasing fuel accordingly, would give players more airtime for enemies to countersnipe and less thrust to twist in brawls. Simple fix, and one the devs can implement at any time.

[Echo6]

Keifomofutu, on 20 April 2013 - 11:06 PM, said:

In this case only, remove convergence from weapons while a mech is in the air. Even arms. Meaning if you fire from opposite arms they land on the enemy as spaced as they are from the mech firing them.

I think convergence should be disabled generally.

[Cferre]

Jump jets should generate a lot of heat when used. That's it.

Edited by Cferre, 21 April 2013 - 08:03 AM.

[General Taskeen]

People want MW:LL JJ's, cuz they did it better. Simple.

[Keifomofutu]

Karma Police, on 21 April 2013 - 01:00 AM, said:

No.

You're right of course. Random cone of fire instead! You're going to have to pick your poison because right now Jumpsnipers are dominating the meta. Short of some kind of accuracy debuff the devs other option is to simply nerf the actual JJ speed or height right into the ground which would nerf them for everyone not just the ones using them to jumpsnipe. Seeing as jumpsniping is the real issue I feel any nerf should focus on weakening that and not nerfing them for people who just want JJ to give them more mobility. Hell nerf jumpsniping and you could even buff the JJ to TT levels for mobility purposes.

Edited by Keifomofutu, 21 April 2013 - 10:08 AM.

[Aim-Bot]

Everything is fine. people just complain to complain.
Ofcourse you get killed by highlanders often....because everyone uses them . to level them up maybe?
I agree with victor.

Stop that bla bla bla

[DocBach]

I want jump jets to allow me to traverse obstacles to move to contact through the most direct route, or get me away from bad guys/break their aim ASAP. I think there should be screen shake to limit the amount of effective fire I can dish out when I'm airborne. I'm not a fan of the MW4 style jumpsnipe fest we have going on.

[Royalewithcheese]

Cferre, on 21 April 2013 - 08:01 AM, said:

Jump jets should generate a lot of heat when used. That's it.

This. You can even make it scalable based on JJ class. I'm possibly in the minority where I think that poptarting is a cool strategy that should be in the game and should have situational utility, but I don't think it should be viable as the cornerstone of a build.

Edited by Royalewithcheese, 21 April 2013 - 09:53 AM.

[DocBach]

Royalewithcheese, on 21 April 2013 - 09:53 AM, said:

This. You can even make it scalable based on JJ class. I'm possibly in the minority where I think that poptarting is a cool strategy that should be in the game and should have situational utility, but I don't think it should be viable as the cornerstone of a build.

Oh, I think you should be able to poptart, but I think it should be a hard skill to master, not so easy that it becomes the most common tactic in the game. Perhaps modules like stabilizers could be released to go with additional screen shake, so people could specialize in shooting while airborne.

[JSparrowist]

The problem with having so many poptards is it ruins the pace of the game. Why have 15 mechs popping up from a ridge like a ****** over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over


No thanks. JJ's should produce a lot of heat or take longer to refuel between ****** jumps.

Edited by JSparrowist, 21 April 2013 - 10:32 AM.

[Mystere]

Destoroyah, on 21 April 2013 - 12:52 AM, said:

I think they should make jumping mechs suffer convergence issues while jumping so it's noticeably harder to land all shoots on the same section.

Keifomofutu, on 20 April 2013 - 11:06 PM, said:

In this case only, remove convergence from weapons while a mech is in the air.

Make convergence act differently when jump jets are involved? Great, let's create a separate and new mechanic for an already existing game mechanic just to pacify the people who are unable to adapt. That's a really great idea.

Why not just remove convergence entirely, or have separate ones for left arm, right arm, and torso mounted weapons? But then again this will just end up in a massive QQ storm from another set of people.

Selfish, on 21 April 2013 - 06:41 AM, said:

The JJ process was quickened a few patches ago. Slowing them back down a bit, and increasing fuel accordingly, would give players more airtime for enemies to countersnipe ...

In other words, make them much easier to hit for people with poor aiming, thus reducing skill requirements even further. Did I get that right?

Isn't it much better to make jump sniping harder than to make them easier to hit. The former increases skill requirements while the latter reduces it.

STOP THE QQ AND JUST ADAPT OR DIE ALREADY!

Edited by Mystere, 21 April 2013 - 10:52 AM.

[Avimimus]

I'd like jump jets that gave very poor control in flight, but which accellerate you forward (as well as upward). In this way a jump would be a 'jump' - getting you either out of trouble or into the middle of it.

[Screech]

If your goal is to reduce pop-tarts you could double the heat generation of weapons while using jets and while jets are recharging.

[Hedonism Robot]

Poptarting is mostly just a result of weapon imbalance. Right now SRMs are nerfed bad bad removing the teeth from mediums and fast moving brawlers. These used to typically be rather effective vs jump jet snipers. Since JJs cost weight they usually have inferior engines or less close range weapons giving brawlers an advantage once they closed the gap. Once weapon balance is fixed, the only change jump jets could use is an increase to their recharge rate based on the class of jump jet.