157 replies to this topic

[Braggart]

Lightfoot, on 30 April 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:

You miss the point I think. Battletech is a time balanced system. Things work the way they do for well founded reasons of balancing. Especially the core mechanics of weight, heat, damage, recycle. The 6xPPC Stalker was actually created by the DHS 1.4 heat nerf. Ironically this config was supposed to be what DHS 1.4 fixed.

Now I agree you need to tweak some damage models to work in a multiplayer setting. MWO's LRMs are a good case in point. They have never worked because they try to have them drop down from space and always hit like in TT. Well that's going to either be OP or too weak, so ends up, they can only be used by boats.

Also if you redesigned everything from the ground up it would not resemble or be able to claim a relationship to MechWarrior.

Yep, weapons go where ya aim them in MechWarrior. No fuzzy aim in any previous games so this doesn't need to be added. I don't think you would like it if you made an accurate shot and the game said you missed and you lost the match because weapons don't aim anymore. Frankly that's the worst anti-boating solution I have ever read.

no i dont miss the point. Tabletop is not a time based game, it is random dice roll based. So to achieve balance, they had to balance chance to hit with damage any other factors, which has nothing to do with a real time game.

For example, if a stalker with 6 ppcs fires in Table top, he rolls to see if those hit, and hten where. they dont all land on the same point. WHich means that a 6ppc stalker is no where near as deadly in table top, as it is here, because if a stalker hits with 6ppc, they are all going to be the same spot.

Nothing but names should be moved from table top to the video game. The system is not balanced, nor can it be balanced for a realtime game.

Also if you have played previous mechwarrior games, you would know they did alter damage values, recharge times, and lots of other things to turn it into a real time game, and They also had their glaring balance issues also. They were all single player games though, with multiplayer as an add on. While This game is only multiplayer, and balance is critical.

Edited by Braggart, 30 April 2013 - 01:50 PM.

[Lightfoot]

This is partially copied from another post I made, but it's got some valid points for this discussion also....

I wanted to put LRMs on the Highlander when I got it. So I added Artemis and BAP and 2x LRM20. However, currently LRMs are not very good and very unreliable so they became a Gauss Rifle. The config works very well, probably better than LRMs ever would have, but players always cry nerf when LRMs work okay, so the result is they get replaced by ERPPCs and Gauss, and the players cry Nerf again.

Face it folks, there is no perfect balance. MWO was better with slightly dangerous LRMs, apparently, because now everything is broken because PPCs replaced them as the Demonic Weapon. ooooo, scary!! But PPCs have not changed since early February when State Rewind was added to eliminate Lag. So from February to early April those same PPCs and ERPPCs were fine, but then LRMs were Hot-Fixed so everyone switched to PPCs, and now I am supposed to believe PPCs are the tool of the Devil or something.

ahem...

But, okay, say they mistakenly listen to the nerf-herders and nerf PPCs into junk. Do you think it would stop there? Of course not. The nerfers will just move on to the next half-way decent weapon. AC20 maybe?

One thing to keep in mind. The PPC is the only Inner Sphere weapon that even comes close to the Clan variant weapon. Lasers, no way, Clan rule with ER Mediums. Missiles? rofl! ACs? Clan Ultra AC20, Ultra AC10, 11 ton Gauss Rifles. Basically, if you are Inner Sphere you will want that PPC back in a few months.

[Braggart]

Lightfoot, on 30 April 2013 - 01:52 PM, said:

This is partially copied from another post I made, but it's got some valid points for this discussion also....

I wanted to put LRMs on the Highlander when I got it. So I added Artemis and BAP and 2x LRM20. However, currently LRMs are not very good and very unreliable so they became a Gauss Rifle. The config works very well, probably better than LRMs ever would have, but players always cry nerf when LRMs work okay, so the result is they get replaced by ERPPCs and Gauss, and the players cry Nerf again.

Face it folks, there is no perfect balance. MWO was better with slightly dangerous LRMs, apparently, because now everything is broken because PPCs replaced them as the Demonic Weapon. ooooo, scary!! But PPCs have not changed since early February when State Rewind was added to eliminate Lag. So from February to early April those same PPCs and ERPPCs were fine, but then LRMs were Hot-Fixed so everyone switched to PPCs, and now I am supposed to believe PPCs are the tool of the Devil or something.

ahem...

But, okay, say they mistakenly listen to the nerf-herders and nerf PPCs into junk. Do you think it would stop there? Of course not. The nerfers will just move on to the next half-way decent weapon. AC20 maybe?

One thing to keep in mind. The PPC is the only Inner Sphere weapon that even comes close to the Clan variant weapon. Lasers, no way, Clan rule with ER Mediums. Missiles? rofl! ACs? Clan Ultra AC20, Ultra AC10, 11 ton Gauss Rifles. Basically, if you are Inner Sphere you will want that PPC back in a few months.

PPCs just changed in the lastest patch, they got HSR just like all the other ballistics just did. lasers got the first treatment for HSR months ago. PPC did not.

ALSO......................LRMS were not nerfed because they were to good, LRMS were nerfed because of a bug fix was causing missles to deal way more damage than they should have, which resulted in a significant nerf to missles as a hotfix. Which has gimped missles, and have been getting adjusted for a patch in may.

Atleast get your facts straight.

Edited by Braggart, 30 April 2013 - 02:05 PM.

[Lightfoot]

Braggart, on 30 April 2013 - 01:48 PM, said:

no i dont miss the point. Tabletop is not a time based game, it is random dice roll based. So to achieve balance, they had to balance chance to hit with damage any other factors, which has nothing to do with a real time game.

For example, if a stalker with 6 ppcs fires in Table top, he rolls to see if those hit, and hten where. they dont all land on the same point. WHich means that a 6ppc stalker is no where near as deadly in table top, as it is here, because if a stalker hits with 6ppc, they are all going to be the same spot.

Nothing but names should be moved from table top to the video game. The system is not balanced, nor can it be balanced for a realtime game.

Also if you have played previous mechwarrior games, you would know they did alter damage values, recharge times, and lots of other things to turn it into a real time game, and They also had their glaring balance issues also. They were all single player games though, with multiplayer as an add on. While This game is only multiplayer, and balance is critical.

Well, it's not that way. MechWarrior 4 and 3 stayed fairly close to Battletech. They tweaked a few things and imagined some things differently, but they still relied on Ballistics being heavy, but cool, Energy being hot but lightweight, and Missiles somewhere in between, but doing more internal damage than armor damage. The Mechs had the same number of criticals in MW3 and if you used a standard engine it would take hella damage. These are all core balance elements from Battletech.

Edited by Lightfoot, 30 April 2013 - 02:08 PM.

[Braggart]

Lightfoot, on 30 April 2013 - 02:05 PM, said:

Well, it's not that way. MechWarrior 4 and 3 stayed fairly close to Battletech. They tweaked a few things and imagined some things differently, but they still relied on Ballistics being heavy, but cool, Energy being hot but lightweight, and Missiles somewhere in between, but doing more internal damage than armor damage. The Mechs had the same number of criticals in MW3 and if you used a standard engine it would take hella damage. These are all core balance elements from Battletech.

I am also a 14-15 year vet at MechWarrior online play. I was in Starlance in MW3, ODL, Vengeance, Battletech Universe, in MW4, among others.

pfftttt I was playing netmech back on Zone/Kali/Mplayer. So don't even try to tell me anything about how the other games have done things. I have been there, and played them all. This isnt about any of that. THis is about getting a balanced Multiplayer game. Jump Jets have functioned different in all those games, and missles, and ACs, and lasers. Even how to build loadouts and things like that. They have all been different. Which is why We need balance, which cannot be done by converting table top.

Just have a look at MW4 damage values. They are nothing like tabletop.

https://www.msu.edu/...ebry/guide.html

Edited by Braggart, 30 April 2013 - 02:15 PM.

[Karazyr]

TBH firing 6 ppcs should blow your heatsinks, the amount of heat produced from them is monumental, i would amuse me to no end seeing a stalker fire once then explode because he is a pillock Heat should not be a fire cap it should be a thing that is a major anoyyance, it should cause your mech to preform sluggish and affect your accuracy and speed.

tbh i dont know how they can balance heat for all the classes

[Plavis]

An alternative would be to base cap and heat dissipation based on the mech chassi surface from lower toso and abve only.
Look at the stalker from torso and above its realy small compaired to a catapult, so if you immagine that smal surface should have a limited heat tolerance and heat dissipation, just like the heatsink of you CPU inside you PC, the bigger the surface the better heat dissipation.

This would make sence that the awsome has a huge surface and it was ment to boat ppc.

If PGI could consider this idea it might help issues about heat, and DHS could be kept to TT vaules of 2.0


Gust my 2 cents.

Edited by Plavis, 01 May 2013 - 03:17 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

nemesis271989, on 28 April 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

Topic says everything, what do you think?
Why PPC boats and sniper fest going on?
Why is 6 x PPC is allowed ?
Why is it so effective especially at big maps? ( I know it meant to be a sniper weapon but not boating weapon?!)
Ideas to fix it?

My suggestion is recharge time on PPC and ERPPC must be doubled.
LRM fix? Now as I see no one cares if LRM is on the field?!
Ideas and possible solutions?

Many ideas:

Idea 1)
Half Heat Capcity, Double Dissipation. With Half HEat Capacity, you can't fire 6 PPCs at once, but you can perhaps try to equip 6 PPCs and chain-fire them. That would remove the problem that alpha strikes of 40+ damage with pinpoint precision is something you cannot defend yourself well from - if the sniper surprises you, that are 60 damage to one location that you can't do anything about. Splitting it in multiple shots allows you to react, even if surprised.

Idea 2)
Give PPCs a beam duration. THis will make it more difficult to deliver all that damage to one spot. A duration of 0.25 to 0.5 seconds would probably already suffice.

Idea 3)
Double the rate of fire of PPCs and Gauss Rifles (and maybe every weapon that deals 10 or more damage per shot), but half the damage and heat per shot. THe DPS of these weapons stays the same, but the max possible alpha strike value was just halved.

Idea 4)
Nerf Convergence. Torso weapons don't converge at all, they all fire parallel to the mech's torso direction. Arms converge, teh weapons fire parallel to each other in the same direction the arm is pointing at. Now you'll need to chain-fire more if youw ant to hit the same spot or risk missing or spreading the damage. And if you're driving one of those mechs where you can put all your guns in one hit location, you have a weak spot that others can exploit.

Idea 5)
Weapons are only chain-fired, with a server-enforced 0.25 second global cooldown between each shot. Alpha Strike is a special ability you can activate and has its own global cooldown (say, 10 seconds)

Idea 6)
Increase armour across the board. Say, double structure and increase armour per ton by 50 %.

Idea 7)
Nerf PPCs in the ground so no one uses them anymore and we can move on to the next FOTM.

Idea 8)
Buff short range weapons (particularly SRMs, which have been hit hard recently) so that close range brawlers can considerably out-damage snipers at close range and the risk of going close range combat becomes worth it again.

[Chemie]

everyone is forgeting they speed the PPC way up in the last buff. Slow them back to where they were and no more pop sniping.

[Wolke]

Scipio Nostra, on 29 April 2013 - 07:06 AM, said:

I think it is neither the heat system nor the weapons (ppc for example) that needs fixing. It is the weapon slot mechanics that needs an overhaul.
6 PPC Stalkers are as ******** as 6 LL Stalkers, 4 PPC Cataphracts or 6 SRM6 Catapults.

And well, when we discussed Mech configuration in the mechlab, in closed beta and even before, I said we are going to have stupid boat-builds. Almost everyone was like: "nooo, don't limit mech configuration, it will destroy creativity and also diversity on the battlefield" So, here you go, welcome to the world of unlimited mech builds....

Agreed. I believe MWO would be a much better game if customisation would be much much more limited.

That and more randomizes hits (weapon-spread, etc).

[Joseph Mallan]

Trauglodyte, on 30 April 2013 - 12:51 PM, said:

Well, there is actually a good reason why they did that. You ultimately end up with a situation where you're looking at variants and the only diciminating factor is how many hard points it has which leads to variants getting tossed aside by the min/maxers. A good example of this is the Catapult. As PGI based HPs on the max number of weapons the chassis carried, you have the following:

A1 - 2 missiles
C1 - 4 lasers, 2 missiles
C4 - 1 laser, 2 missiles
K2 - 4 lasers, 2 ballistics

Looking at the TT weapon slots, would you ever pick the A1 or the C4 over the C1? So they looked at the K2 and balanced the other variants with the same number of hard points giving us:

A1 - 6 missiles
C1 - 4 lasers, 2 missiles
C4 - 2 lasers, 4 missiles
K2 - 4 lasers, 2 ballistics

They created imbalance by designing inter-chassis ballance. I don't mind that they did that but now there isn't any real reason to want one variant over the other outside of the max number of the most OP weapons at the time.

Just to illustrate it a bit more eloquantly, I took the time to map this all out (I was bored at work so don't laugh). If you exclude the Highlander and the Hero mechs, you get the following HP/weapon slot discrepancies: TT - 291 vs MWO - 368 (59 variants of 15 mechs). MWO has added 77 additional weapon points across those 15 mechs and we still have ineffective or imbalanced weapons like the MG, Flamer, LB, and AC5 not including the current state of missiles. With no heat penalties and the ability to override heat without any additional effects, yeah, we're in a world of hurt.

They could have gone 2 Missile, 2 Ballistic, 2 energy. Jack of all trades master of none. Instead of build-A-boat.

[Snuglninja]

I hate to ever say table top but...... I would like to see a more complicated heat system. I would like to some how make it more like tt. If your heat consistantly stays high your movement slows, you have chances for ammo explosions and shut downs. Targeting goes off . Add pilot distress to the game not just for heat but for knock downs when they come back. How would you like your pilot dropping from to much heat or to many knock downs.

[Joseph Mallan]

Snuglninja, on 01 May 2013 - 04:45 AM, said:

I hate to ever say table top but...... I would like to see a more complicated heat system. I would like to some how make it more like tt. If your heat consistantly stays high your movement slows, you have chances for ammo explosions and shut downs. Targeting goes off . Add pilot distress to the game not just for heat but for knock downs when they come back. How would you like your pilot dropping from to much heat or to many knock downs.

As much as I like it when you kill my Mech. Which is to say I'll get over it!

[Dazzer]

todays game play has been nothing but gun line after gun line full of pop-tarting K2´s and highlanders together with PPC armed stalkers. . every game turns into a snipper fest. If you try to flank you get alphéd to death.

They is defiantly something wrong when my Awesome gets two shooted , 1st cores you 2nd kills you and if they are a good team you are dead with one coordinated shoot. Dont give any of that learn to play rubbish , we are a premade and have tried it all ,flanking by lance going toe to toe. Who every gets they gun line in place 1st wins.

You can go cap but who wants to win an assault match by capping ?

All this poptarting and snipping has turned this in to call of duty with mech and no one like campers there either.

I would like to see the pilot having a hit point system too and when every you over heat you mech you lose hit point on the pilot. SO over heat to many time you can cook your self to death. (and I over heat all the time in the heat of battle)

[Joseph Mallan]

Dazzer, on 01 May 2013 - 05:28 AM, said:

todays game play has been nothing but gun line after gun line full of pop-tarting K2´s and highlanders together with PPC armed stalkers. . every game turns into a snipper fest. If you try to flank you get alphéd to death.

So sorta like combat, with overlapping fields of fire, that can concentrated fire on an exposed opponent? That kind of firing line??? Something similar to what soldiers have used in combat for a very long time?? That type of game play?

[Haniwa]

Restore Heat to old values, invent real 2x Heat Sinks, buff missles to old value (exept splash)

[Dazzer]

Joseph Mallan, on 01 May 2013 - 05:45 AM, said:

So sorta like combat, with overlapping fields of fire, that can concentrated fire on an exposed opponent? That kind of firing line??? Something similar to what soldiers have used in combat for a very long time?? That type of game play?

Having been a solider I probable know more about that than you do. However this is a game and having a one trike pony build that you have to use or have no chance is not fun nor does it reflect the mech warrior books or other cannon. Bottom line its boring for anyone but poptart geeks

[MaddMaxx]

Acid Phase, on 29 April 2013 - 12:38 PM, said:

snip

Now show us this so called tactic you have against a 6 PPC Stalker 1v1.

It is known in the gaming industry as a "Brain". Everyone has one. Not everyone uses theirs.

[MaddMaxx]

Appogee, on 30 April 2013 - 02:05 AM, said:

It's getting old? I was planning to refit my Stalker with 6 PPCs tonight and see what all the fuss is about.

I wish more folks would try it. I would have myself, but had a buddy that had one, he is a good player, he played 3 Matches and then shelved it. Totally to hot to be really useful when the inevitable feces hit the rotary mechanism. That was good enough evidence for me.

The 60 damage Alphas are fun and all, until a Raven 3L, or some such, finds you. LOL

Let us know how you made out please.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 01 May 2013 - 06:49 AM.

[Plavis]

Dazzer, on 01 May 2013 - 05:28 AM, said:

todays game play has been nothing but gun line after gun line full of pop-tarting K2´s and highlanders together with PPC armed stalkers. . every game turns into a snipper fest. If you try to flank you get alphéd to death.

They is defiantly something wrong when my Awesome gets two shooted , 1st cores you 2nd kills you and if they are a good team you are dead with one coordinated shoot. Dont give any of that learn to play rubbish , we are a premade and have tried it all ,flanking by lance going toe to toe. Who every gets they gun line in place 1st wins.

You can go cap but who wants to win an assault match by capping ?

All this poptarting and snipping has turned this in to call of duty with mech and no one like campers there either.

I would like to see the pilot having a hit point system too and when every you over heat you mech you lose hit point on the pilot. SO over heat to many time you can cook your self to death. (and I over heat all the time in the heat of battle)

explain this to my penta flak, cose my penta flak loves eating potards and ppc snipers in whatever range.