87 replies to this topic

[Asmudius Heng]

I have also posted topics on this many moons ago. I am convinced they will never change the hardpoints system though I think it would be better.

They have already begun to give mechs quirks by altering thier handling characteristics. different torso twist rates, and so forth. thats not a bad start - but the Stalker has terrible agility and is still the premier mech it seems for many things. It is not enough.

The way the devs could add this is through what others have suggested. Small bonuses given to mechs that stay close to what the origintal intention of that mech is.

It handicaps no one if they customise out of it, they just lose a neat little bonus. Incentivising people to stick close to the roles of the original mech might create more diversity as people might not just look at hardpoints as the be all end all.

However this is what I see as the advantage.

When i buy a mech I want to buy something with MEANING. Not just a bag of potential guns. I want to buy something with a role, something with a story, something that feel rewarding playing that way. I want to see those mechs as each individual and special through a variety of quirks that give the mech character - I will feel a real ownership of mechs if that is the case.

When you buy a mech all you see is stats. People thrive on a story, when you look at an Awesome would should be given a short histroy on why this mech is so bad ***. then you see the hardpoints and stats, but then you see a list of quirks that re-enforce that story and help aid it to be that way.

Quirks can also be negative remember. The stalker has aweful agility for a reason, it has fantastic hardpoints. Is this enough to balance it? I will not say i dont own one. However quirks give the devs another balancing tool! Riht now they have limited themself to hardpoints and handling behaviour. I believe they are terrified of changing hardpoints and handing behaviour is the only thing left and not good enough to really create mech differentiation and a sense of pride in ones mech.

So an Awesome might have bonuses to boating PPCs, better heat management would be the obvious choice. Its downsides are of course its hit boxes and they changed it's agility to be much better. Now it might feel like a cool runnning run and gun PPCer. Would it be suddenly OP ... no chance, but people will gravitate to use ot to gain that little advantage.

So the pros:

- gives devs another balancing tool per mech
- **** mech differentiation
- gives players a story and sense of ownership and pride in thier mech
- helps with creating more role warfare
- keeps the game within the IP a little more
- add fun!

I cannot see any downside to quirks both positive and negative unless the devs screw up and make something OP. That is not the fault of the concept, that is a failure of balance and development.

Quirks! We want them! Well i do.

PS: other quirks could be different armour allocations such as the Hunchback and its gun shoulder.

[Wintersdark]

Shumabot, on 01 May 2013 - 10:49 AM, said:

I think it has merit considering before PPCs it was nothing but SRMs and before that nothing but LRMs and right now the only things you see are PPC or LL boats. The games systems fundamentally punish mixed loadouts harshly to the point where they're mostly either a sideshow or the mechs already boating enough that it can spare a few streaks. This game has never not had a problem with it. No mechwarrior game has ever not, and that includes the tabletop game if you ever allowed mech customization. No competitive game with customizeable multi weapon loadouts has ever not had this problem, it's inherent to the very idea of customization because weapons are most realistically effective when taken in duplicate to the exception of all else.

This is true.

But hard limits on what can be mounted won't fix this, it'll just make a lot of chassis worthless.

Quirks that add minor bonuses towards specific types of weaponry? That's fine. Cool, even.

But a hard to no limiting what can go into hardpoints. Boating will always happen. Always. If not PPC's, it'll be something else, and you can't stop it so long as you have customization. I realise some want mechs to be largely limited to their basic variants. Those people will not get their way, and I for one am glad. The customization aspect of the game is what makes it for me, without that? Meh. I acknowledge that boating is a problem, but it's not a solvable problem without dramatically curbing customization options. The best way to curb it is good weapon balance and work on the heat system - primarily work on the heat system.

Anyways, it's not boating that's the problem, is it? Sure, you'll say boating is the issue when discussing a 6PPC stalker, but what about the 2 Gauss K2? That's hardly boating, after all, and it's no different than a 2 Gauss Jagermech - well, it's slightly inferior actually, but that's that. And hell, now the K2 even shows the Gauss Rifles' graphics when you mount them there!

Oh... And to the comment that I'm just trying to protect my favourite mech? I don't own any Stalkers. I don't even run more than 2 PPC's on anything. While I've got a K2, I use a loadout almost identical to stock. In short - I'm not protecting my own "broken" build/mech/whatever.


My issue here is I dislike the notion that a given mech/chassis should have a predefined role and have to fit that (or be largely useless at anything else anyways). I *like* that I can take a chassis, and build it for the role *I* want it to have.

[Karl Streiger]

Maybe I should have waited with this suggestion, until the PPC got weird....

Nearly the same Idea..you have my support.

Problem is human nature...not to get a bonus means to get a penalty.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 02 May 2013 - 12:10 AM.

[TheSteelRhino]

Reminder alll. This is not an anti boating threade. This is about variety. This is about getting all the mch models a place and a use

If mechs do not have individual attributes of sorts our next mech will be r2d2 with externally mounted gun pods.

In fact why would we need different mechs. Each must have different capabilities, advantages. and disadvantages.

Please don't hijack this thread

Read the original post.

[Darwins Dog]

I voted for the quirks option, but I'm actually a little torn on the issue.

I cringe a little every time I see a centurion with an empty ballistic arm, or a stalker with no missiles. The BT TT nerd in my brain is screaming "That's not what that mech is for!"

At the same time, I like the ability to customize mechs in many different ways. What we have is more potential for variety. I understand the idea behind setting hardpoint sizes, but wouldn't that actually restrict variety? It's reducing the number of viable builds that are out there. Basically it would be saying that you have to use chassis X to do Y, and you can't use it for Z.

The idea of using quirks to encourage the use of a a certain variant for it's intended purpose is intriguing. You aren't restricting it to that purpose, just making it slightly better at it.

[TheSteelRhino]

MoonUnitBeta, on 01 May 2013 - 09:12 PM, said:

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?

Honestly, no but i am willing to compromise. Thats why there is an option to limit some hardpoints via crit,or just give benefits like improved heat dissipation or faster reload times to each mech model. Some may have looser engine restriction(like cn9a and cn9al do now) mayve a hunchback is "tough" and reduces internal damage by 10%.

Think of your k2/gausscat question like this.

You are building a house. If u had an unlimited budget you could use steel beams studs etc. but reality is u can only pay so much for a house (or battlemech)

Now u are proposing mounting a 16 ton weapon where a 1/2 ton weapon was before. Different ammo feeds, power requirements etc in addition to the weight

It would be like going home removing the ceiling fan attached to a wooden rafter with a .99. Cent plastic box holding it in place. And replacing it with a helicopter rotor. Could it be done ,sure. Remove the roof put in steel beams, put in an engine (or a serious electric motor) power update, or fuel lines, etc. Sure it can be done. But can it be done practically and for reasonable cost?

In any event this is not a "nerf" thread. Its about reintroducing variety, so i am not going to respond further
(Not trying to be a jerk, just don't want it to devolve into endless circular arguments)


Stay the course!

Edited by Rhinehardt Ritter, 02 May 2013 - 09:33 AM.

[Agamemnon78]

Think about the "meta-reason" thats most probably behind that whole system of PGI´s interpretation of IS-Mechs:

Its the only possible way to balance IS-Mechs with Clan-Mechs without radically change the whole game-system so painfully built up over months.
Only by making IS-Mechs a bit more omni, and Clan-Mechs a bit less clan-op-like, there´s a serious chance to implement Clan-Mechs without having everyone abandon his IS-Mechs and without having to change the whole system-design, matchmaking, weapons- and chassis-balance.


Think about it, and you will understand...
...beyond the light to see you have, my friend

[TheSteelRhino]

Agamemnon78, on 02 May 2013 - 05:20 AM, said:

Think about the "meta-reason" thats most probably behind that whole system of PGI´s interpretation of IS-Mechs:

Its the only possible way to balance IS-Mechs with Clan-Mechs without radically change the whole game-system so painfully built up over months.
Only by making IS-Mechs a bit more omni, and Clan-Mechs a bit less clan-op-like, there´s a serious chance to implement Clan-Mechs without having everyone abandon his IS-Mechs and without having to change the whole system-design, matchmaking, weapons- and chassis-balance.

Think about it, and you will understand...
...beyond the light to see you have, my friend

Hey now. No hijacking

In tt there are restrictions on omnis. Yes u can change weapons. But engine ,structure, armour , HS changes are regulated. What if u could only change weps. Points would be omni, but that is a big plus and a big minus.

Every me h ahould have advatages and disadvantages. Every mech should be unique. That is the point of this thread

[Agamemnon78]

Yes I know, and I myself voiced that point you made here and it is 100% valid. I support it 100% but it is illusionary.
Over time and the (not recognisable) reaction from the devs I came to that conclusion I mentioned above.

[TheSteelRhino]

Agamemnon78, on 02 May 2013 - 08:04 AM, said:

Yes I know, and I myself voiced that point you made here and it is 100% valid. I support it 100% but it is illusionary.
Over time and the (not recognisable) reaction from the devs I came to that conclusion I mentioned above.

How do you know, that is illusionary, if it's never been attempted? You ASSUME that, you believe that. But as your signature shows you are clan. Since clan mechs are a bit more "generic" (with omni points etc) and that is their strength. Then some of the advantages that would apply to IS mechs "improved reload rate, improved turn rate, tough internal structure, Improved heat dissipation" would not be available to those mechs. But they still have clan tech, with the omni limitations.

If nothing is done, then there is little to encourage an environment where every mech is not an omni. Unless of course an economy returns.


Tell your friends..VOTE. Great thread so far, and I'd LOVE for PGI to pay attention to it. Very constructive so far and some great ideas.

Edited by Rhinehardt Ritter, 02 May 2013 - 09:35 AM.

[Shumabot]

Rhinehardt Ritter, on 01 May 2013 - 07:58 PM, said:

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.

Literally none of those things do anything but create haves and have nots and balance issues. You just said "R&R creates balance" and then spent all of your efforts describing the ways it only kinda unbalances the game further. Not a single thing in that post does anything but make balance issues worse. You are just assuming RNR 'fixes' balance issues, and you don't seem to have any sort of justification for that belief outside of 'people won't always use their best mechs' which is irrelevant to balance. It actually makes balance issues worse when the field can't be considered always even because of an artificial economy arbitrarily forcing people into worse mechs in a way that the matchmaker can't meaningfully take into account.

No game has EVER balanced with an external economy because it makes no sense. The old mechwarrior games were no exception and were unbalanced messes in their own right. The very existence of the external economy forces imbalance, there is literally no way it doesn't do that.

Edited by Shumabot, 02 May 2013 - 02:32 PM.

[TheSteelRhino]

Shumabot, on 02 May 2013 - 02:26 PM, said:

Literally none of those things do anything but create haves and have nots and balance issues. You just said "R&R creates balance" and then spent all of your efforts describing the ways it only kinda unbalances the game further. Not a single thing in that post does anything but make balance issues worse. You are just assuming RNR 'fixes' balance issues, and you don't seem to have any sort of justification for that belief outside of 'people won't always use their best mechs' which is irrelevant to balance. It actually makes balance issues worse when the field can't be considered always even because of an artificial economy arbitrarily forcing people into worse mechs in a way that the matchmaker can't meaningfully take into account.

No game has EVER balanced with an external economy because it makes no sense. The old mechwarrior games were no exception and were unbalanced messes in their own right. The very existence of the external economy forces imbalance, there is literally no way it doesn't do that.

So..you are basically stating that in your opinion it's bad because it's unbalanced. Well that if your opinion and you are entitled to it. I do feel that IN MY HUMBLE OPINION, you have not refuted anything. You are basically saying it does not work, because it "just doesn't".

So what I am hearing you say that EVE (which has an economy) does not work. And that games where you might have "buy" skills (whether money, barter, or something else) and supplies for things like "healing", or spells do not work. I am sorry but I rather strongly disagree with you. Perhaps "balance" is something like "bringing balance to the force".

Well Anakin, brought balance to the force. 1 Emperor, and 1 Sith Lord, vs 1 Yoda, and 1 Jedi Master. Balance, is neither good, nor bad. It just is. So perhaps people should quit striving for amorphous concepts like "balance".

In any event, this thread had nothing to do with balancing. You have made your case. You have seen the votes. I'm inclined to say most that have voted disagree with you.

Thank you for your input and your opinion.

Edited by Rhinehardt Ritter, 02 May 2013 - 02:45 PM.

[TheSteelRhino]

Hello all,

As a reminder we are looking for ways to encourage more mech designs, in game. Variety and flavor.

This is not "balancing" nor is it "nerfing".

Please vote and find your friends. It's an idea, a concept. And if the community thinks it's a good one, I think we will all agree that we want to PGI to see the good ones (even if you don't agree with this one).

Thanks for your support by voting...(even if it's a no).

[L zard]

Good thread, Rhino! Some serious thinking, all in all!

[Asmudius Heng]

Wintersdark, on 01 May 2013 - 11:45 PM, said:

My issue here is I dislike the notion that a given mech/chassis should have a predefined role and have to fit that (or be largely useless at anything else anyways). I *like* that I can take a chassis, and build it for the role *I* want it to have.

Then what is the point of different chassis? That they simply look different?

The different values it has and stats are then based around power alone when roles are removed - this is an issue for balance IMO.

Also, those wanting mechs to fit into roles I do not think mean absolute roles - but broad roles that they are good at. With the current system quirks are the only way to go to encourage this but who knows if the devs are listening ...

[Shumabot]

Rhinehardt Ritter, on 02 May 2013 - 02:45 PM, said:

So..you are basically stating that in your opinion it's bad because it's unbalanced. Well that if your opinion and you are entitled to it. I do feel that IN MY HUMBLE OPINION, you have not refuted anything. You are basically saying it does not work, because it "just doesn't".

So what I am hearing you say that EVE (which has an economy) does not work. And that games where you might have "buy" skills (whether money, barter, or something else) and supplies for things like "healing", or spells do not work. I am sorry but I rather strongly disagree with you. Perhaps "balance" is something like "bringing balance to the force".

Well Anakin, brought balance to the force. 1 Emperor, and 1 Sith Lord, vs 1 Yoda, and 1 Jedi Master. Balance, is neither good, nor bad. It just is. So perhaps people should quit striving for amorphous concepts like "balance".

In any event, this thread had nothing to do with balancing. You have made your case. You have seen the votes. I'm inclined to say most that have voted disagree with you.

Thank you for your input and your opinion.

I'm saying your opinion is wrong because it's baseless. I am saying it doesn't work for the reasons I have listed twice (creating imbalance in a round based competitive environment) and you have cited literally zero reasons why it creates balance within the game.

No, EVE online doesn't work as a competitive multiplayer game. It's not even close. That's not now it's played, that's not even how it CAN be played. This is why I don't think you understand the implications of what you want. EVE online is as far from MWO as a game can get.

Something about starwars.

I'm not here to make friends and your opinion doesn't make sense and is dangerous. R&R would literally destroy this game.

[TheSteelRhino]

Shumabot, on 02 May 2013 - 04:06 PM, said:

I'm saying your opinion is wrong because it's baseless. I am saying it doesn't work for the reasons I have listed twice (creating imbalance in a round based competitive environment) and you have cited literally zero reasons why it creates balance within the game.

No, EVE online doesn't work as a competitive multiplayer game. It's not even close. That's not now it's played, that's not even how it CAN be played. This is why I don't think you understand the implications of what you want. EVE online is as far from MWO as a game can get.

Something about starwars.

I'm not here to make friends and your opinion doesn't make sense and is dangerous. R&R would literally destroy this game.

Well i disagree. I think you are trying to turn this into mechassault or a fps. I disagree, and I believe your concepts are flawed enough they would cause this game to flop because it is boring. Not every player is hardcore competitive and wants tournament brackets. Some want the mechwarrior /battletech universe.

Thank you for your vote. I think everyone has seen your opinion. Lets let other voice theirs

Edited by Rhinehardt Ritter, 02 May 2013 - 04:57 PM.

[Shumabot]

Rhinehardt Ritter, on 02 May 2013 - 04:52 PM, said:

Well i disagree. I think you are trying to turn this into mechassault or a fps. I disagree, and I believe your concepts are flawed enough they would cause this game to flop because it is boring. Not every player is hardcore competitive and wants tournament brackets. Some want the mechwarrior /battletech universe.

Thank you for your vote. I think everyone has seen your opinion. Lets let other voice theirs

No thanks, having you dismiss me as some cod baby isn't a pleasant way to leave off, especially when that is literally all you have as an argument. This is why R&R isn't coming back, because it was terrible and destructive before, no game ever does external economics in round based competitive games without it destroying competitive balance, and you haven't been able to list a single actual reason why it's good for the game while you continuously deflect the reasons why it hurts it while defaming me.

Much like 100% of people who have wanted R&R back in the past you clearly have no idea what you're talking about, fundamentally don't understand how it impacted the games systems, and clearly don't realize this isn't a single player rpg. If you want to play mech commander go play that. It's free.

[TheSteelRhino]

@shumabot

As previously stated. This is not and r and r thread. Go find one

U are obviously a troll. Go find another thread if u want to make and r&r argument. If u know so much about game design i sugguest you find a job in the industry. As you are here and obviously not working for pgi, then i would have to assume you know nothing

Consider yourself dismissed. You are not worth my time.

Edited by Rhinehardt Ritter, 03 May 2013 - 06:47 AM.

[Shumabot]

Rhinehardt Ritter, on 03 May 2013 - 06:35 AM, said:

@shumabot

As previously stated. This is not and r and r thread. Go find one

So if I have the last word I'm taking the thread off topic, but if you spam it with star wars references and call me a CoD kid that's perfectly ok. I see.

Quote

U are obviously a troll. Go find another thread if u want to make and r&r argument. If u know so much about game design i sugguest you find a job in the industry.

Been there, done that.

Quote

As you are here and obviously not working for pgi, then i would have to assume you know nothing

Really? Because I generally assume that working at pgi means you know nothing.

Quote

Consider yourself dismissed. You are not worth my time.

Ok bud. Spam mindless stuff about R&R, say nothing to back up your claims, claim dissenters are trolls despite being the first to jump to ad hominim and spammy irrelevant references, and repeatedly "dismiss" you opponents to get the last word in.

Yep, I'm the troll.