206 replies to this topic

[Mister Blastman]

Sprouticus, on 27 April 2013 - 06:58 PM, said:

The problem is not CT armor, it is that it is too easy to HIT CT armor. This game should be harder to have great aim. IMO, an average player should be able to HIT an enemy at 800m going fairly slowly, but not be able to pick the panel they will hit. Right now it is far too easy to hit where you want to, and that makes a LOT of the game less fun.

This is why I proposed way back in closed beta then changing the armor system from a 3 section system in the torsos to a 3x3 grid to simulate punching "holes" in parts of the armor with the rest being undamaged. It'd require far more accurate shooting and dramatically increase longevity at the same time without breaking the spirit of the game.

It still wouldn't solve the gigantic direct fire alpha problem we have right now as the hole punchers would just be delayed a little bit. It'd help... but it'd only cover up the true problem which is convergence.




It isn't like it is hard to do. We have more than enough CPU power and bandwidth to model this.

Convergence like this, though...


Would help a lot too.

It is a damn shame people back in closed beta didn't think things through enough to see what I was talking about. What we have right now with high-alpha SniperWarrior Online is a direct result of the path we've been on with convergence how it works at the moment.

[Corvus Antaka]

its not so easy with a gauss. PPC wasnt so easy until the travel time speed was upped - too high and too easy to hit with now. lasers arent a problem since they spread over time.

[Filth Pig]

Every argument I've seen here is invalid.

Every mech that is commonly boated has its weakness'. For instance Splat cats lose their arms very easily and once gone, they are neutered. Same with Jagermechs/K2's.

PPC stalkers have 90m where they can do very little damage, so get in close on them and they are useless.

ERPPC stalkers have serious heat issues..

Its not about the boated weapons, after all you could boat weapons in every other mech game including TT. You find ways of countering them. You dont nerf weapons based on them..

[BlackWidow]

"Pinpoint" accuracy has been mentions a few times in this thread and MANY times in prior threads.

I haven't read through "ALL THE THREADS!" but it seems people have the "mechanical" reason but not the underlying "design" reason.

The issue is (as I've stated before) that the translation from Table Top (TT) to Computer Simulation (FPS) is borked. I have yet to see a MW game that truly respects the different mediums. TT uses RNG for both TO HIT and HIT LOCATION. No Mechwarrior SIM (FPS anyway. Not sure about Mechcommander) has successfully done this.

We all got excited when PGI said MWO would be based on TT rules and will try to stay as true to that as possible. But, as great as this sounds, it's a fools errand. At best, you can have the "pieces" of the game. Armor, similar weapons, mech build-outs and of course, the mech.

But any attempt to use the same stats as in the game is hopeless. As we have already seen when they immediately DOUBLED armor values barely into closed beta.

You CANNOT CANNOT CANNOT use the base armor and weapon values from TT where hit and location were RANDOMLY GENERATED to one in which you simply have to POINT A MOUSE and CLICK where you want.

EVERY SINGLE argument about PPCs, LRMS, crits, balance, HSR, blah blah blah, ad nauseam, tries to apply "fixes" to a system that was never right from the start.

They need to SCRAP all weapons and armor values. Come up with their own values for HEAT, DMG, WEIGHT, CRIT SLOT and RANGE. And balance from those new numbers.

Simply: Small laser<med laser<Large Laser.

Etc.

Otherwise, you start looking at solutions like having RNG in game, which NO ONE WANTS.

I for one, would LOVE either:

Limited convergence so you can't alpha strike ONE location or
True reticle "shake" if you are in any way walking, running, jumping. Want a steady hud? Stop moving. And then see where that gets you.

Anyhow......

Still love the game to pieces, but this take about weapons balance and flavor of the month, and nerf this, that etc, is just a fake veneer over the real problem. We are using Mech stats that were CREATED hand and hand with RNG implementation.

[MaddMaxx]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 29 April 2013 - 10:00 AM, said:

its not so easy with a gauss. PPC wasnt so easy until the travel time speed was upped - too high and too easy to hit with now. lasers arent a problem since they spread over time.

Obviously the speed increase to the PPC's was not arbitrarily selected when compared to the Gauss. If one compares the #'s in play then, if we Maths them, we can find a near matching Maths set up.

I would never assume this is at all correct, but some formula was obviously in play.

Speed x Damage / long range

2000 x 10 / 810 = 25

vs

1200 x 15 / 660 = 27

Edited by MaddMaxx, 29 April 2013 - 10:34 AM.

[Zerberus]

keith, on 28 April 2013 - 05:49 PM, said:

agreed and add in the horrible capping too that. most of the caps are in closed. an object like that should be open so if a light decided to cap it can be destroyed from range.

Or, Or.. we could just make all maps completely flat, so that absolutely nothing stands in the way of the PPC and gauss snipers mowing down everything at range anymore..

I mean, that`s the important thing, right, that the poptarts don`t have to learn to actually MOVE their mechs?

Not the worst idea ever, but still far from being a good one.

[keith]

Zerberus, on 29 April 2013 - 10:39 AM, said:

Or, Or.. we could just make all maps completely flat, so that absolutely nothing stands in the way of the PPC and gauss snipers mowing down everything at range anymore..

I mean, that`s the important thing, right, that the poptarts don`t have to learn to actually MOVE their mechs?

Not the worst idea ever, but still far from being a good one.

load up most games with objects that u have to cap. none of theirs caps have crap around it, or are jammed into tight quarters. look at tf2 maps only time u are maybe into giant cluster ***** are on point 5/5. at that point it will cap in 2 or 3 secs. u will need huge amount of team work to get to that point to get a scout onto that point. in MWO u can just kinda blob a team onto the cap, then since u don't want to be capped have to reverse and do the same thing. therefore having 16 mechs, soon to be 24 mechs on a cap. thats way too many mechs onto a tight area. thats right they are FINALLY looking into cap time after about year years of this game, because 12v12 is gonna ruin this game. 24 mechs onto forest colony cap =gg on on your fps, and ability to shot, and in knock downs again. righttttt

[NRP]

Skyfaller, on 27 April 2013 - 04:44 PM, said:

The problem is there is no heat penalty to alpha striking.

Umm, what freakin game are you playing anyway? Go boat a bunch of large energy weapons (PPCs, LLs, LPLs, take your pick) and try alpha striking on Caustic, Tourmaline, or even River City. I could be wrong, but it really seems like some of you don't play the builds/weapons you cry about, so your "solutions" come off as knee jerk responses to situations where you were out matched and/or out played.

Edited by NRP, 29 April 2013 - 10:54 AM.

[BlackWidow]

Mister Blastman, on 29 April 2013 - 09:22 AM, said:

It is a damn shame people back in closed beta didn't think things through enough to see what I was talking about. What we have right now with high-alpha SniperWarrior Online is a direct result of the path we've been on with convergence how it works at the moment.

Love the drawing. Very scary. But, you are mistaken. There were EXTREMELY IN-DEPTH conversations about precisely this. Look in the BETA archives. EXTREMELY. IN. DEPTH.

[MustrumRidcully]

Mister Blastman, on 29 April 2013 - 09:22 AM, said:

This is why I proposed way back in closed beta then changing the armor system from a 3 section system in the torsos to a 3x3 grid to simulate punching "holes" in parts of the armor with the rest being undamaged. It'd require far more accurate shooting and dramatically increase longevity at the same time without breaking the spirit of the game.

It still wouldn't solve the gigantic direct fire alpha problem we have right now as the hole punchers would just be delayed a little bit. It'd help... but it'd only cover up the true problem which is convergence.




It isn't like it is hard to do. We have more than enough CPU power and bandwidth to model this.

Convergence like this, though...


Would help a lot too.

It is a damn shame people back in closed beta didn't think things through enough to see what I was talking about. What we have right now with high-alpha SniperWarrior Online is a direct result of the path we've been on with convergence how it works at the moment.

The people in Closed Beta thought a lot of these things through.

The problem is the devs didn't. Or if they did, they didn't agree with our conclusions. I have never personally seen the devs bother to engage in this type of discussions, however, I don't know what they did in their office, but with us, they didn't seem to talk much. We can be happy if we get a few snippy but ultimately content-less comments by Garth or Paul or whoever is around, really, but nothing that really showed the engaged the topics we discussed and had a well-formed, well-reasoned opinion on it.

[blinkin]

MustrumRidcully, on 29 April 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

The people in Closed Beta thought a lot of these things through.

The problem is the devs didn't. Or if they did, they didn't agree with our conclusions. I have never personally seen the devs bother to engage in this type of discussions, however, I don't know what they did in their office, but with us, they didn't seem to talk much. We can be happy if we get a few snippy but ultimately content-less comments by Garth or Paul or whoever is around, really, but nothing that really showed the engaged the topics we discussed and had a well-formed, well-reasoned opinion on it.

while i don't agree. this is actually a solid statement that explains your side much more clearly than anything i have ever seen. i have "liked" it not because i agree but because this is one of the rare gems from the other side that uses logic and reason.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

MustrumRidcully, on 29 April 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

The people in Closed Beta thought a lot of these things through.

The problem is the devs didn't. Or if they did, they didn't agree with our conclusions. I have never personally seen the devs bother to engage in this type of discussions, however, I don't know what they did in their office, but with us, they didn't seem to talk much. We can be happy if we get a few snippy but ultimately content-less comments by Garth or Paul or whoever is around, really, but nothing that really showed the engaged the topics we discussed and had a well-formed, well-reasoned opinion on it.

That has bugged me more and more as this has gone on.

Bryan did another one of his "drop by, leave a statistic and not elaborate or help further the discussion" type posts.

It doesn't help, if that's all you are going to do, don't bother.

Edited by Nicholas Carlyle, 29 April 2013 - 12:04 PM.

[Roadbeer]

It's also a damn shame that people continue to use this thread when it's been pointed out that it's based off of a misrepresentation of facts.

People just like to type I guess.

[blinkin]

Roadbeer, on 29 April 2013 - 12:18 PM, said:

It's also a damn shame that people continue to use this thread when it's been pointed out that it's based off of a misrepresentation of facts.

People just like to type I guess.

this thread has a beginning?

[Mister Blastman]

BlackWidow, on 29 April 2013 - 10:58 AM, said:

Love the drawing. Very scary. But, you are mistaken. There were EXTREMELY IN-DEPTH conversations about precisely this. Look in the BETA archives. EXTREMELY. IN. DEPTH.

Oh I read them all.

The developers didn't give a rats ***.

Now the game is broken and players are exiting faster than a fire drill.

[Carnivoris]

The problem is that people ***** and moan too much about powerful weapons so they get nerfed. Then, something else just fills their place. ECM came out and killed the streak Jenner and streakapult. ECM also killed the LRM boats we had for a long time. What became popular then? Splatcats. Missiles got nerfed and now people are using ballistics/PPC because they're the best weapons in the game. They have no counter. Lasers pretty much counter themselves, being a DoT weapon. Missiles are countered by ECM. PPCs are supposed to counter ECM (what a ****-tastic job they do of that!). What the hell counters UAC5? What the hell counters 4+ AC2? What the hell counters PPC? Nothing.

They're looking to balance a system that can't be balanced. Mechwarrior weapons don't work that way. They're not even comparable to each other, so how can you balance them against themselves? PGI listens to the complainers too much. Yes, I know missiles were doing too much splash damage. I also know that before that whole shitshow got started, missiles were FINE! They were exactly where they needed to be.

I think part of the issue is also that people are just now starting to really use ballistics because they're the cheese of the week. They'd never used them before and had never understood how powerful they were. If LRM/SRM damage was to go back to pre-nerf levels, would it even matter at this point? I know I'd probably still run my jager and snipe the missile boats from afar. I know a lot of others probably would, too.

Part of the problem is the playerbase. Mechwarrior is such an absurd concept to many (probably most). Players don't really know how to play the game and they latch on to whatever the most powerful weapon is at the time, when they've probably never even used those weapons much because something ELSE was the FOTW. Now that people have gotten a taste of ballistics/PPCs and see what they can do/gotten the hang of using them, I bet we could go back to the pre-nerf missile values and be fine(ish).

[Mister Blastman]

No amount of damage tweaking will solve the convergence problems we have in MWO. Funny thing, I went back and played MW 3 and lo and behold, 3x ERPPC + Gauss murders things even in it due to convergence. The only difference is I can alpha just once per 10 seconds. If I alpha a second time after the first... kaboooom! I overheat. Unfortunately MW3 doesn't have regular PPCs in it.

Convergence is and has been the issue all the way back to Mechwarrior 3 when it was introduced. It has plagued the series ever since and right now, this moment, this patch, we are experiencing the culmination of it all. SniperWarrior is convergence being used to the greatest potential.

[Frisk]

Everything that is being debated about damage, armor, length-of-life, etc. would have all been fixed if PGi would have listened to a minority of the players at the very beginning that were expressing balancing concerns and about making all the variants FORCED stock.

Once Pandora comes out of the box, she doesn't go back in and now we have to worry about the Min/Max-Warrior Online and the Ebb and Flow of the "Flavor of the week".

I don't expect anyone to fully grasp the fact that forced STOCK variants were the only way to "balance" this game, but if you had played MPBT3025 (Kesma Studios), the game EA ****-canned, you'd understand that custom modifications is where the original "mechwarrior" games went wrong. MPBT3025 was set up very similiarly to MWO (minus load-out mods) and it resulted into balanced games that weren't either snipe-fest or brawl-fest. They were mixed engagements because of the array of weapons offered on these stock variants.

I forsee a long life of constantly modifying damage values, heat, armor, etc... I don't know that there will EVER be a "baseline" where we can start to build from and eventually this may kill MWO.

A sad realization coming from someone who has waited over a decade for this very game.

:\

[Trauglodyte]

We know that convergence, alpha striking/boating, and lack of heat penalties are problematic. But there is one thing that I think a lot of people are forgetting: heat dissipation vs rate of fire.

Currently, a SHS cools down 1 point of heat every 10s while a DHS cools 1.4 heat every 10s. So, the cooling system in game is based on the TT 10s rotation. Weapon cycling time, though, is based on PGI's concept of combat balance but damage done is still based on TT values. This is why, during closed beta, that armor was doubled. You couldn't live long enough to enjoy the game with TT armor when you're getting hit with TT damage at 3x the rate of fire OR greater.

So, that brings up my question to you guys and PGI: why not maintain the ROF but reduce the damage done of all weapons so that, over a 10s cycle, they do the TT values? Heat is, due to the lack of penalties, balanced currently. But damage isn't because, as it has been said, you're just putting in too much in a small spot.



PS> All of this could be handled by changing convergence but that does nothing to curb people from continuing to bastardize the mech lab and putting gigantic weapons in designed small ports and alpha striking when they have a comfortable firing solution.

[Zyllos]

MustrumRidcully, on 29 April 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

The people in Closed Beta thought a lot of these things through.

The problem is the devs didn't. Or if they did, they didn't agree with our conclusions. I have never personally seen the devs bother to engage in this type of discussions, however, I don't know what they did in their office, but with us, they didn't seem to talk much. We can be happy if we get a few snippy but ultimately content-less comments by Garth or Paul or whoever is around, really, but nothing that really showed the engaged the topics we discussed and had a well-formed, well-reasoned opinion on it.

Hah...fat chance of that happening.