87 replies to this topic

[Cyberassassin]

I'd be happy if they just eye-balled the possibility and then say, "yeah it would fit but those arms will be weighed down significantly. We should reduce arm speed by 15%". <- something like that would be great. It adds the uniquness they keep trying to force.

Edited by Cyberassassin, 01 May 2013 - 11:34 AM.

[Shumabot]

Roadbeer, on 01 May 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:

True, but it's also encouraging "role warfare"

If each chassis, hell, each variant has it's unique quirk that makes it 'better' at something than something else, it's both a universal buff and a universal nerf. That's kind of the definition of a quirk. It's something that makes it unique.

The C4 is kind of the red-headed step child of the Catapult line, so if it had a quirk that gave it a higher reload rate, it would be more desirable than the C1 with it's increased heat dissipation as a missile platform.

I'm actually not against the change. The game certainly needs something to avoid homogeneous boating. Just watch out when advocating for buffs "instead" of nerfs since that's kinda dangerous. Mechs already die too quickly in this game, and introducing balance through differentiating buffs ups the games power curve by default.

[Roadbeer]

Shumabot, on 01 May 2013 - 11:35 AM, said:

I'm actually not against the change. The game certainly needs something to avoid homogeneous boating. Just watch out when advocating for buffs "instead" of nerfs since that's kinda dangerous. Mechs already die too quickly in this game, and introducing balance through differentiating buffs ups the games power curve by default.

I agree completely, buffs are equally if not more dangerous than nerfs.

I was just theorycrafting in the topic of the suggestion. Rather than limit hardpoints on perceived boating issue and prevent people from making builds, I'd rather that they encouraged 'roles' for builds.

There would have to be a whole series of things that would need to be considered/fixed/implemented before I encouraged anything like this on a serious level.

[TheSteelRhino]

Roadbeer, on 01 May 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

Nope, you're still limiting. I think you missed what I'm saying.

Rather than limit people with what they can do with a mech, Make it attractive to use certain mechs for certain roles by using the quirks as an incentive.

I personally don't care if someone puts 2 Gauss on a K2, cool, but have a quirk on the K2 (like increased heat dissipation rate) to make PPCs attractive and have a quirk on the Jagermech (say increase reload or weapon convergence rate) to make it more attractive to put the Gauss on it, rather than the K2.

Like with the Stalker, sure, you can put 5 PPC on it, but with a quirk that increases reload rate for missiles, you're basically taking a gimped version of the Stalker out when you PPC boat it, because 4 PPC on a K2 with the increased heat dissipation is a better build.

Okay..well..I literally cut and pasted part of your previous comment..shrug..oh well..

But thanks for the constructive responses. Input is appreciated. Now if the devs will just read this.

[TheSteelRhino]

Personally, I think they should put a full economy back in. Mods should cost (this hurts me too by the way, because I am a tinkerer) above and beyond the cost of the weapon etc. As well as ammo expenses, and repair costs.

I'd have each "house" get discounts on certain weapons types and tech..so whatever your affiliation you get that "advantage" to help with cost.

I'd also pay out substantially more on a mission, so even if you lose you'd get at least the same if not a bit more than now.

But..that's another BIG topic of discussion.

[Roadbeer]

Rhinehardt Ritter, on 01 May 2013 - 11:48 AM, said:

Okay..well..I literally cut and pasted part of your previous comment..shrug..oh well..

But thanks for the constructive responses. Input is appreciated. Now if the devs will just read this.

I think that I was posting that while you were editing the original post

[TheSteelRhino]

Roadbeer, on 01 May 2013 - 11:58 AM, said:

I think that I was posting that while you were editing the original post

AHHH...I was kind of like..whaa????

[Victor Morson]

They will not and should not deviate the mechlab at all.

However, the quirk systems DOES offer the possibility of helping to define 'mechs better, if they take it up a notch. If Awesomes gain a % cooling bonus, or something like "Energy weapons cause % less heat" for example, suddenly it has a huge reason to exist over the Stalker.

Properly applied, this could completely rescue the "bad variants" and "bad chassis" from the trash pile.

[TheSteelRhino]

Vote please

[Prezimonto]

I agree with R&R it's a decent balancing tool for really high end mechs vs. non- if you can't drop in a damaged mech and/or can't afford ammo. If it cost more cash (enough to cancel out making money even on a win) to run FF/ENDO/DHS/artemis all together it's conceivable that you could run you cash reserves empty and have take some trial mechs for a spin to earn the cash to run the high end ones. You'd develop a stable of mechs for different purposes... making cash vs. hard wins. It would also earn them more money for hero mechs as they would inherently be able to run more matches in a row without having to farm cash.

[TheSteelRhino]

Interesting. A small sample size for sure , but we have about a 4 to 1 ratio of peeps that favor using quirks in some regard.

[Draco Harkins]

Roadbeer, on 01 May 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

Nope, you're still limiting. I think you missed what I'm saying.

Rather than limit people with what they can do with a mech, Make it attractive to use certain mechs for certain roles by using the quirks as an incentive.

I personally don't care if someone puts 2 Gauss on a K2, cool, but have a quirk on the K2 (like increased heat dissipation rate) to make PPCs attractive and have a quirk on the Jagermech (say increase reload or weapon convergence rate) to make it more attractive to put the Gauss on it, rather than the K2.

Like with the Stalker, sure, you can put 5 PPC on it, but with a quirk that increases reload rate for missiles, you're basically taking a gimped version of the Stalker out when you PPC boat it, because 4 PPC on a K2 with the increased heat dissipation is a better build.

I like it! And that doesnt require that PGI has to redo all the bad decisions they made until now but actually correct in a good manner making gameplay enjoyable. You want to boat weapons? Fine! Our 2 LMR's 20 Stalkers will make you wish you had 2 PPC's on that K2 with a heat dissipation buff rather then 2 gauss's with a heavy load time when the rain comes knocking.

Make every mech usefull again. As i said, i like it!

Edited by Draco Harkins, 01 May 2013 - 05:49 PM.

[Shumabot]

Prezimonto, on 01 May 2013 - 03:29 PM, said:

I agree with R&R it's a decent balancing tool for really high end mechs vs. non- if you can't drop in a damaged mech and/or can't afford ammo. If it cost more cash (enough to cancel out making money even on a win) to run FF/ENDO/DHS/artemis all together it's conceivable that you could run you cash reserves empty and have take some trial mechs for a spin to earn the cash to run the high end ones. You'd develop a stable of mechs for different purposes... making cash vs. hard wins. It would also earn them more money for hero mechs as they would inherently be able to run more matches in a row without having to farm cash.

Except that does nothing to balance the game. Keep people from always using their best mech? Yeah. Balance the game? No, it does the opposite and creates situations where players in trash mechs face players in very powerful ones simply because they couldn't afford to upkeep their good ones. That player then loses in an unfair and unbalanced match.

R&R is nonsense, it's about as far from a balancing system as is possible. It literally does the opposite.

Edited by Shumabot, 01 May 2013 - 06:46 PM.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Reducing critical slots? NO!
Reducing Hardpoints? NO!
MECH UNIQUENESS? YES!
WANNA KNOW HOW? YES!
READ BELOW!!! OKAY!


Let be get some of the obvious issues out of the way:
- We have mechs (such as: (x6) Ballistic Jager, (x6) Energy Stalker, (x6) Missile Catapult, etc).that have the ability to carry multiple types of the same weapon. We call this boating.
- Weapons can be boated on these mechs as long as they conform to the only two main limiting factors: weight and critical slot availability.
- Heat is secondary a factor for most boaters. As far as they are concerned: heat can be manually managed.
- Alpha striking: when boating heavy hitting weapons of the same type, you are able to deliver massive damage towards a single piece of your target.

So Where Is The Problem?

The hardpoints?

The heat?

The critical slot system?

Or is it a lack of one other element, hardpoint sizes?

Let me explain what I mean about hardpoint sizes if you haven't already guessed.

For the sake of simplicity, lets take the 6 Energy hardpoint Stalker. It has 6 energy hardpoints. Now instead of being able to carry 6 PPC's, let me introduce Hardpoint sizes:
2 of the 6 Energy hardpoints are Large sized hardpoints (capable of holding Large, Medium, and Small sized weapons).
The other remaining 4 are Medium sized hardpoints (capable of holding only Medium or Small sized weapons).

To give an example what Large, Medium, and Small weapons would be:
- PPC's are a large energy weapon.
- Regular lasers are the size noted (LARGE Laser. MEDIUM Laser. SMALL Laser) and same goes for pulse lasers.
- Tag is Small sized weapon.

Your 6 Energy hardpoint Stalker loadout now might look something like this:

ER PPC (Large weapon)

ER Large Laser (Large weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Small Laser (Small weapon)

Small Pulse Laser (Small weapon)

Or, it could look like this:

ER Large Laser (Large weapon)

ER Large Laser (Large weapon)

Medium Pulse Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Pulse Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Or it could look like this: (although this still is boating, this is a drastically reduced effectiveness compared to 6PPC's)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Notice the inability to boat 6 ppcs. Or even 4 for that matter. Is that too limiting? I'm not sure, that's up to the devs to figure out, not me!

Let me summarize and clarify on a few points:
- I really do feel like there needs to be a more concrete factor in place inorder for PGI to truely balance this game, especially if they wish to take this to an e-sports level of balance.
- Weight and critical slots are too liberal of factors to use to balance anything towards. They help though, don't get me wrong.
- Introduce hardpoint sizes. For example: 6 Energy hardpoints: Two of those slots can only fit Large weapons or lower into them. Remaining four hardpoints can fit Medium weapons or lower into them.
- You cannot combine Medium weapon hardpoints to make one large hard point as the hardpoints are separate slots and you cannot fire one weapon out from two exit points, this is true for the opposite way, you cannot cram two Small sized weapons into one Medium sized hardpoint. As the name still suggests, it is a Hard. Point.
- Hardpoint sizes effectively reduces much of the Boating and Alpha-striking issues we are being faced with today.
- Critical slots are still used and work exactly the same way.
- Heat and damage of certain weapons would be adjusted to accommodate the limited access to bigger weapons. (much more heat, more damage, make players need to think about when to use big weapons instead of boating them)
- I'm not hating on 6PPC stalkers as I was just using them as an example. They have their weaknesses, but my opinion is that those weaknesses do not out weight the strengths given by the range and damage of their arsenal, and how gimpy heat is.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 01 May 2013 - 07:00 PM.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Shumabot, on 01 May 2013 - 11:35 AM, said:

I'm actually not against the change. The game certainly needs something to avoid homogeneous boating. Just watch out when advocating for buffs "instead" of nerfs since that's kinda dangerous. Mechs already die too quickly in this game, and introducing balance through differentiating buffs ups the games power curve by default.

Hey! That's ssuming that we are stuck with what we're using currently. check out my above post. I think it's a pretty effective way to fight boating, especially if they buff larger weapons damage, but increase recycle time and heat generation to make players actually think about when it is best to use their hardest hitting weapons, while using smaller based weapons to deal more constant damage and maintain a healthy heat level.

Some side effects of hardpoint sizes may include:

• People dieing slower
  
• People shutting down more because they are trying to abuse their larger weapons
  
• Less boaters
  
• Smarter choices being made about what weapons are used and when
  
• Alpha striking becoming less common
  
• A wider range of different types of weapons being used
  
• Could mean a revamp of weapon ranges for medium and smaller weapons so that players can still engage targets at a longer range to avoid that "getting balled up" effect.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 01 May 2013 - 07:20 PM.

[TheSteelRhino]

MoonUnitBeta, on 01 May 2013 - 06:56 PM, said:

Reducing critical slots? NO!
Reducing Hardpoints? NO!
MECH UNIQUENESS? YES!
WANNA KNOW HOW? YES!
READ BELOW!!! OKAY!


Let be get some of the obvious issues out of the way:
- We have mechs (such as: (x6) Ballistic Jager, (x6) Energy Stalker, (x6) Missile Catapult, etc).that have the ability to carry multiple types of the same weapon. We call this boating.
- Weapons can be boated on these mechs as long as they conform to the only two main limiting factors: weight and critical slot availability.
- Heat is secondary a factor for most boaters. As far as they are concerned: heat can be manually managed.
- Alpha striking: when boating heavy hitting weapons of the same type, you are able to deliver massive damage towards a single piece of your target.

So Where Is The Problem?

The hardpoints?

The heat?

The critical slot system?

Or is it a lack of one other element, hardpoint sizes?

Let me explain what I mean about hardpoint sizes if you haven't already guessed.

For the sake of simplicity, lets take the 6 Energy hardpoint Stalker. It has 6 energy hardpoints. Now instead of being able to carry 6 PPC's, let me introduce Hardpoint sizes:
2 of the 6 Energy hardpoints are Large sized hardpoints (capable of holding Large, Medium, and Small sized weapons).
The other remaining 4 are Medium sized hardpoints (capable of holding only Medium or Small sized weapons).

To give an example what Large, Medium, and Small weapons would be:
- PPC's are a large energy weapon.
- Regular lasers are the size noted (LARGE Laser. MEDIUM Laser. SMALL Laser) and same goes for pulse lasers.
- Tag is Small sized weapon.

Your 6 Energy hardpoint Stalker loadout now might look something like this:

ER PPC (Large weapon)

ER Large Laser (Large weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Small Laser (Small weapon)

Small Pulse Laser (Small weapon)

Or, it could look like this:

ER Large Laser (Large weapon)

ER Large Laser (Large weapon)

Medium Pulse Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Pulse Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Or it could look like this: (although this still is boating, this is a drastically reduced effectiveness compared to 6PPC's)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Medium Laser (Medium weapon)

Notice the inability to boat 6 ppcs. Or even 4 for that matter. Is that too limiting? I'm not sure, that's up to the devs to figure out, not me!

Let me summarize and clarify on a few points:
- I really do feel like there needs to be a more concrete factor in place inorder for PGI to truely balance this game, especially if they wish to take this to an e-sports level of balance.
- Weight and critical slots are too liberal of factors to use to balance anything towards. They help though, don't get me wrong.
- Introduce hardpoint sizes. For example: 6 Energy hardpoints: Two of those slots can only fit Large weapons or lower into them. Remaining four hardpoints can fit Medium weapons or lower into them.
- You cannot combine Medium weapon hardpoints to make one large hard point as the hardpoints are separate slots and you cannot fire one weapon out from two exit points, this is true for the opposite way, you cannot cram two Small sized weapons into one Medium sized hardpoint. As the name still suggests, it is a Hard. Point.
- Hardpoint sizes effectively reduces much of the Boating and Alpha-striking issues we are being faced with today.
- Critical slots are still used and work exactly the same way.
- Heat and damage of certain weapons would be adjusted to accommodate the limited access to bigger weapons. (much more heat, more damage, make players need to think about when to use big weapons instead of boating them)
- I'm not hating on 6PPC stalkers as I was just using them as an example. They have their weaknesses, but my opinion is that those weaknesses do not out weight the strengths given by the range and damage of their arsenal, and how gimpy heat is.

While your proposal has merit, it's basically going to require a complete rework. Do you want to wait another 6 months for that to happen?

Sorry to say their current system has not been designed with that in mind. And while that could certainly have been a viable option, I don't know that many people are willing to wait that long. I think we ARE stuck with the system that is currently in place. It's supposed to go "Release" at end of this summer. I don't think they are going to be able to completely revamp, rebalance, etc in that length of time.

Therefore I proposed just using QUIRKs to limit certain hardpoints on various mech models, or even just to give certain mechs moderate advantages since they were basically used as the "designers" of each mech model intended.

Edited by Rhinehardt Ritter, 01 May 2013 - 08:00 PM.

[TheSteelRhino]

Shumabot, on 01 May 2013 - 06:45 PM, said:

Except that does nothing to balance the game. Keep people from always using their best mech? Yeah. Balance the game? No, it does the opposite and creates situations where players in trash mechs face players in very powerful ones simply because they couldn't afford to upkeep their good ones. That player then loses in an unfair and unbalanced match.

R&R is nonsense, it's about as far from a balancing system as is possible. It literally does the opposite.

R&R is not nonsense. You also forget, UI 2.0 is coming, CW is coming, and a LOBBY is coming. My "best mech" changes with team force loadout, and the map we are fighting on.

While this title is certainly different than other Mechwarrior games, MW has historically had an economy.

However, I am not necessarily saying that the original repair/rearm that PGI implemented was RIGHT. It was too draconian.

1). Remember, new players get "Cadet bonuses", and therefore are getting extra "starter" money. I think the economy/r&r could be structured to give new players a break.

2). If PGI had put it in from the beginning nobody would be complaining about it. Look, you should be able to make cbills playing. But I personally, do take some care in which mechs I run XL engines on. And THAT is the most single expensive piece of advanced tech, and a HUGE liability due to side torso blowouts. I often use DHS, Endo and Ferro in combo in place of XL's. Makes the mechs TOUGHER.

3). Just because a mech doesn't have an XL engine, doesn't make it a "trash" mech. You play differently, you play smarter, and you are a frigging ZOMBIE.

4). When EVERYONE gets stuck with repairing their XL engines, they may not look near as attractive and get run more judiciously. Instead of 1 or two players running standard engines, I suspect you'll see about half and half. Maybe less running XL. Besides...when the clans show with their 2 Crit side torso XL you will be SOL anyways.


5). I would propose as you build loyalty points with the house you are aligned with. That can be used as mechanism to purchase certain items of tech at reduced prices. For example, Davions are big into autocannon. So you get cheaper AC purchases, AC epairs and AC ammo. Marik prefers lasers...so you get cheaper lasers. etc.....
If you keep your "loyalty" to your house up, perhaps you get discounted engine repairs. This would add an interesting new dynamic. (and you can build loyalty, while you are still getting cadet bonuses).


Not only does R&R/Economy add balance to the game it is absolutely NECESSARY for balance. Stop saying this cannot work. As a community we need to stop saying "THIS won't work..." and start coming up with ideas to make it work.

Maybe PGI won't listen to those suggestions. But I know I damn sure they won't listen to the crazed rants I usually see. I won't.

[Hammerfinn]

MoonUnitBeta, on 01 May 2013 - 06:56 PM, said:

long post that belongs in a different thread

That's not at all what he's talking about; don't try to hijack this thread, please.

I think the OP's suggestion is quite interesting, and I would support the more limited kind of weapons-based quirks; maybe faster arm-convergence on the CTF-4x, lower heat on Awesomes, etc.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Hammerfinn, on 01 May 2013 - 08:00 PM, said:

That's not at all what he's talking about; don't try to hijack this thread, please.

I think the OP's suggestion is quite interesting, and I would support the more limited kind of weapons-based quirks; maybe faster arm-convergence on the CTF-4x, lower heat on Awesomes, etc.

Whoops. I posted in the wrong thread. I got way too many tabs open >.<

[MoonUnitBeta]

Rhinehardt Ritter, on 01 May 2013 - 07:42 PM, said:

While your proposal has merit, it's basically going to require a complete rework. Do you want to wait another 6 months for that to happen?

Sorry to say their current system has not been designed with that in mind. And while that could certainly have been a viable option, I don't know that many people are willing to wait that long. I think we ARE stuck with the system that is currently in place. It's supposed to go "Release" at end of this summer. I don't think they are going to be able to completely revamp, rebalance, etc in that length of time.

Therefore I proposed just using QUIRKs to limit certain hardpoints on various mech models, or even just to give certain mechs moderate advantages ssince they were basically ued as the "designers" of each mech model intended.

Sorry, wrong thread I posted this in, the uniqueness part at the start was another thought I had in mind at the same thread that was supposed to be posted here. Haha! Send me to the insane asylum!!!
To quickly respond though: Yes, I'd like them to spend 6 months doing this as I stated it would seriously benefit balance if that's the route they're going to take, make battles longer, and etc etc all the other reasons. Release doesn't matter to me, they can launch, 6 months later clans come out and they can work on a hardpoint size rework when they come. No one is taking the Beta seriously anyways and I'm tired saying to people "It is actually beta because ________" and they respond with "well it's not because because they charge money /trollface"

Anyways, (prepare for part rambling and part talking) hardpoint sizes and quirks you are talking about have their differences. So to get back to your OP, the problem with altering crit slots is that it affects a lot more than just weapons. You have other things like ferro armor, endo, DHS, those kinds of upgrade absorb a lot of crit slots. It feels like it's at a good balance so far where you can get what you want, or everything for that matter, but I've found if I get everything I'm really scraping by with less armor and less heat sinks to make up for more fire power with the limited space I have, or I run out of crit space altogether. I suppose the alternative is to adjust how many crit slots each upgrade takes, but that would only include armor and structure upgrades, as I don't think they'd be changing the size of double heat sinks any time soon. But, again, to alter that, they could eventually go full 2.0 DHS since a lot of mechs are going to have much less crit slots, and thus less room for 1.4 DHS and thus less people will use DHS, and etc etc.

However..... on another note and just out of curiosity:

You mention a K2 unable to support gauss rifles in the small machine gun slots, but they have implemented new barrel graphics to accommodate that and make it a bit more believable. So I'm just curious what your defense would be in regards to that? If they can make it look believable, would you be OK with that?