73 replies to this topic

[Trauglodyte]

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that what the Seizmic Sensor module will do is to allow you to pick up targets on your mini map that are within sensor range but will not allow you to target them. It would be, for all intents and purposes, a nerf to the ECM "ninja shroud" that people ***** about. You still won't be able to directly target them outside of the 200m+ range that you have due to ECM but you'll know where they're going. In other words, this would be a boost to scouts because you would then be able to hide behind cover and see where they're going instead of sticking your face out to get PPCed/Gaused off.

[hammerreborn]

Trauglodyte, on 04 May 2013 - 01:08 PM, said:

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that what the Seizmic Sensor module will do is to allow you to pick up targets on your mini map that are within sensor range but will not allow you to target them. It would be, for all intents and purposes, a nerf to the ECM "ninja shroud" that people ***** about. You still won't be able to directly target them outside of the 200m+ range that you have due to ECM but you'll know where they're going. In other words, this would be a boost to scouts because you would then be able to hide behind cover and see where they're going instead of sticking your face out to get PPCed/Gaused off.

No, it's a nerf to lights because heavies and assaults and their one shot warrioring will be able to tell where the light is going as it uses cover, as the only real way to fight heavies is rapid directional changes and hit and run, faking out your opponent before you get instantly cored.

[DeaconW]

Gaan Cathal, on 04 May 2013 - 08:27 AM, said:

This kind of inane claptrap...

Hey...why you gotta bring Borderlands into this?

[DeaconW]

Sable, on 04 May 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

Man do people over react to new concepts, a stationary 60 second aerial drone that can be shot down? How is that a replacement for 35 tons of speed, skill, and weapon systems?

Dude, be gentle...maybe a 60 sec drone COULD replace stjobe in a light...

[Gaan Cathal]

Sable, on 04 May 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

Man do people over react to new concepts, a stationary 60 second aerial drone that can be shot down? How is that a replacement for 35 tons of speed, skill, and weapon systems? If people play as smart as they have been this whole time then the drone will get at most 10 seconds of sight before someone shoots it down.

Besides you can already detect light mechs within 200m anyway if you have your volume up and are listening for their footsteps.

You're also assuming everyone will have these modules on all their mechs. Its like you haven't looked at the prices of these things. The only reason i have all sensor modules on my D-DC is because its my command mech. other then that i have 1 cap accelerator on a light mech.

Since when did the UAV take away a player slot that could otherwise be used for a perfectly good poptart

Also, other players might not be so lazy as to not move their modules to their active mech. Just saying.

Tincan Nightmare, on 04 May 2013 - 12:56 PM, said:

Well lets see, in the TT LRM's work and are not stopped by ECM (you just lose bonuses from NARC and Artemis). Streaks do not always track to the torso, but can hit any location on a mech from arms and legs to torso and head. And ECM does not cancel out styles of play and turn the game into a PPC and gauss slugfest. In fact all the weapons in TT can be useful and are somewhat balanced. So honestly what we have is the game all the Mechwarrior computer game guys wanted that were constantly bitching about 'this aint the TT' instead of a game based on BTech.

Because all those things are long running features of the Mechwarrior series? Oh wait, no they aren't. Several key points of core BTech as opposed to MW are the point here. Firstly that Tonnage Wins, i.e. a larger mech should always have an overwhelming advantage. And secondly that the core gameplay revolves around plodding into position and volley firing eachother until someone keels over.

[Tincan Nightmare]

Gaan Cathal, on 04 May 2013 - 03:42 PM, said:

Since when did the UAV take away a player slot that could otherwise be used for a perfectly good poptart

Also, other players might not be so lazy as to not move their modules to their active mech. Just saying.



Because all those things are long running features of the Mechwarrior series? Oh wait, no they aren't. Several key points of core BTech as opposed to MW are the point here. Firstly that Tonnage Wins, i.e. a larger mech should always have an overwhelming advantage. And secondly that the core gameplay revolves around plodding into position and volley firing eachother until someone keels over.

Please explain your response. What 'things' did I say were long running features of the MW series that you disagreed with. Functional LRMs'? Streak mechanics that didnt hit the torso at all times? ECM not overpowering gameplay? Not to mention I was listing things that worked in the TT but have become broken in MWO that you blamed on BTech players. For some reason PGI included free target sharing that allowed a whole team to rain LRM's down on a target with a single push of R, that doesn't exist in the TT, creating the massive feedback against 'LRMwarrior'. In the TT you could spot for indirect LRM fire but you better read the rules because its fairly obvious that it wasn't as simple as a single button push since it included penalties to hit and modifiers for both the target and the shooter and spotter. Is this a staple of MW that has been long running? Or a super enhanced ECM that allows Raven's with streaks to slaughter all other light mechs? Has that been a staple of the MW series (and it damn sure didn't happen in the TT)? As far as the tonnage equals power, considering that the entire MW series has been about upgrading to assaults for the firepower they carry, I don't know how you would blame that on the TT. At least in the TT you had to deal with high purchase and repair costs for an Atlas versus a Hunchback. Its only in MWO where you run into the problem that any player, after building enough c-bills, can field assault and heavy mechs indefinetly. And the whole concept of pop tarting didn't exist in the TT either, as while you could fire while jumping it was very hard to hit (though it also made you hard to target). And I don't know if you ever played the TT, but just 'plodding' into position and volleying fire wasn't how you played the game (like the current meta of MWO), more like chess where you used terrain and positioning to give advantage to your units. Its also funny that you mention MW as a 'long running series' when its only been the most recent couple of games that allowed you to play against other players, when the majority was solo gameplay were you slaughter whole companies of mechs single handedly.

[Gaan Cathal]

Right, less irritable today so I'll attempt to give you a better explanation.

There is a persistent group of voices on these forums that insist, against all logic, that reverting every number to TT values will magically fix the game. They refuse to recognise that values for a 10s turn based game will be entierly invalid in a real time environment, much less one where people can aim. (To say nothing of the implicit suggestion that BTech was some holy grail of game balance itself.) In order to appease this crowd, PGI made one of the worst decisions in the design process and locked tonnage to TT values, removing a massive amount of potential in terms of balancing. These same TT purists also tell us it's fine to lack a viable ballistic under 5tons (on faulty 'mgs can't hurt mechs' logic). They also screamed blue murder whenever they lost an assault to a light (thier natural predator in earlier builds, and sensibly so). They insist spread-damage weapons will be fine with TT values. They also refuse to acknowledge that MW is not about stock builds, but customisation. Stock mechs are -terrible- designs, generally - and most of the ones that work are boats. To be honest, I can't imagine what we have in game is that different to what the TT mech design rules would produce - mechs designed to kill other mechs as efficiently as possible. THAT is what needs balancing around, not TT.

[Chemie]

just one more reason that "assault" mode only has assault classes. mediums and lights have no purpose and they continue to nerf them more and more.

[El Bandito]

Chemie, on 05 May 2013 - 04:05 AM, said:

just one more reason that "assault" mode only has assault classes. mediums and lights have no purpose and they continue to nerf them more and more.

More like, 50% Assault (mostly Stalker), 30% ECM lights, and 20% others.

[Tincan Nightmare]

Gaan Cathal, on 05 May 2013 - 01:25 AM, said:

Right, less irritable today so I'll attempt to give you a better explanation.

There is a persistent group of voices on these forums that insist, against all logic, that reverting every number to TT values will magically fix the game. They refuse to recognise that values for a 10s turn based game will be entierly invalid in a real time environment, much less one where people can aim. (To say nothing of the implicit suggestion that BTech was some holy grail of game balance itself.) In order to appease this crowd, PGI made one of the worst decisions in the design process and locked tonnage to TT values, removing a massive amount of potential in terms of balancing. These same TT purists also tell us it's fine to lack a viable ballistic under 5tons (on faulty 'mgs can't hurt mechs' logic). They also screamed blue murder whenever they lost an assault to a light (thier natural predator in earlier builds, and sensibly so). They insist spread-damage weapons will be fine with TT values. They also refuse to acknowledge that MW is not about stock builds, but customisation. Stock mechs are -terrible- designs, generally - and most of the ones that work are boats. To be honest, I can't imagine what we have in game is that different to what the TT mech design rules would produce - mechs designed to kill other mechs as efficiently as possible. THAT is what needs balancing around, not TT.

Thank you for the explanation, but please just let me point out that most people who are fans of BT and the TT game understand that some changes must be made to accomadate a first person situation in a game versus a turn based boardgame. I don't think anyone wants to set weapons to all cycle at 10 seconds, and everyone understands that armor was doubled due to the ability to aim shots versus a random hit location. Most people complain about changes to canon in instances were it actually causes imbalance, like the implementation of ECM were it is far more powerful than in the TT.

And I don't understand your concern about locking tonnage in to TT values, unless you mean weapon tonnage with your concern about a viable light ballistic option (though the announced increase to MG damage, though minor, is a step in that direction). Since the tonnage for all other equipment has stayed the same from TT, it would be a massive job to redesign all of the mechs to compensate for suddenly lighter ballistics as you would have to account for the extra tonnage freed up. And if you make them lighter, do you also make them take less critical slots? Also clan AC's and gauss are already lighter and more compact, so do you further reduce their tonnage requirements to keep the balance that clan tech is superior? They could bend the rules a little and bring the light AC's into the game much sooner than the timeline allows, or maybe just change the hardpoints on the two mechs effected by this (spider and cicada with 4 ballistic hardpoints), since it would be easier to change two mechs than all the ones that carry ballistics as standard.

In regards to assaults, they have always been portrayed as the biggest and toughest mechs with the most firepower. Even previous MW titles have always made it very tough to challenge an assault with anything but another assault. In the TT this was balanced with high battle values and high cost, but they were very deadly and hard to kill. Now you say that the role of a light mech should be as an anti-assault unit, to go and hunt Atlai and Stalkers. This is very similar to sending destroyers to sink battleships, or maybe humvees to assault tanks. If lights are to be the natural predators of assault mechs, then should assault mechs cost 3 times as much in c-bills? The whole concept of role warfare as originally stated by PGI was to give lights a purpose, such as information warfare, not to make them the answer to assault mechs. If there were more game modes (and larger maps) that made speed more valuable than armor and firepower, more lights and mediums would be used.

Now customization has existed for all MW titles since MW2, and I love putting different builds on my mechs. However, in the TT mechs were very durable and took a lot of damage to kill. Most complaints about cusomization are due to the current trend to mount a very high alpha strike that can kill mechs very fast. Before the current issue with missiles, splatcats were the main culprit, because despite all the counters of 'shoot the ears' if piloted by a good player they could normally get kills with just a volley or two and rack up several. Now it is PPC and gauss assault builds. Is it really customization if only a select few builds become viable, forcing most players to either follow suit or accept subpar performance? And honestly cusomization has been an issue in earlier MW titles, at least in online play, which is why MW4 had its limits on weapon placement, and MWO has hardpoint restrictions.

I understand your point of view, and believe me I agree on the weapon spread issue, I want to hit what I aim at. But it is wrong to say that all of the problems in MWO balancing are due to 'purists' dedicated to canon. Especially when large changes to canon have been made that have hurt game balance, like eliminating LRM's with ECM.

[stjobe]

Tincan Nightmare, on 05 May 2013 - 02:35 PM, said:

everyone understands that armor was doubled due to the ability to aim shots versus a random hit location.

While pin-point aim certainly had something to do with doubling armour, it's not quite that simple. Remember that they also increased the rate of fire of most weapons by roughly a factor of three - this probably contributed more to people dying too fast than pin-point aim did.

They tripled rates of fire - and thereby heat generation - but they kept heat dissipation on a 10-second cycle; meaning that the heat system needs all kinds of kludges to prevent 'mechs from instantly overheating, and in extension this is what gives us the current high-alpha game-play.

Now tripling rates of fire isn't bad in and of itself, but then heat dissipation would have needed to be tripled as well, and damage numbers cut to a third. Then we could have had our TT armour values, and the heat system would have been more balanced between high-alpha and sustained fire-power.

But once you decide to not go with the 10-second cycle (and for the record, I think that was the right decision), they should have changed the *whole* system to go along with that, not just parts of it. Much of our current ails are due to the heat system operating on two scales:
1. Heat generation is generally tripled
2. Heat dissipation is still on a 10-second cycle

This is why they had to add the 30 "free" heat capacity, and allow heat sinks to increase heat cap *and* dissipation, when all they should have done was increase dissipation.

I'm one of those BT fans that have followed the game since the mid-80's, and I do think that many of the big problems with MWO lies in it departing from BT numbers in the wrong way.

I'm fully aware that they need to deviate from them in order to make a real-time game, and really I'm more concerned with them implementing the spirit of BattleTech rather than the letter, but as I tried to show above there's some fundamental issues in MWO that are a direct result of them not going with (a real-time version of) the BT rules.

[Mr Andersson]

Does lights need another nerf? Yes, they do.

The fact that a light can single-handedly bring down a heavy is just ridiculous. Lights are supposed to be used for scouting, spotting, distraction and such.

[LordDante]

a Spider Pilot shoud laugh about that seismic module. fly forest fly......

[Ph30nix]

John McFianna, on 04 May 2013 - 08:10 AM, said:

I have to admit, my favorite playstyle is light Mech.

As light Mechs cant stand and slug it out, you best have to hit & run, e.g. unload into someones back, circle around a building/friendy/hill for the next pass.
Now.. if the target mech never looses radar contact of the light, due to the seismic module, knows where it circles to await it, once the light clears the hill/house, well, is say that makes hit & run tactics a lot harder.

I would enjoy to know how reliable this module is, and if it endangers yet another (light mech) playstyle.


Edith ppc`rd a typo

ehhh im not really worried about it, most players dont have the attention span, skill or mental capacity to watch their radars as well as whats going on in front of them.

which ill still have time to get in a hit or two on them anyways and by then they have me targeted and will know where i take off too anyways before they lose their target brackets on me.

to me it seems more like another ECM nerf. so that when the ECM mech is in your dead zone and you dont have tonnage for BAP this will at least let you know which way to look

[stjobe]

Mr Andersson, on 08 May 2013 - 05:40 AM, said:

Does lights need another nerf? Yes, they do.

The fact that a light can single-handedly bring down a heavy is just ridiculous. Lights are supposed to be used for scouting, spotting, distraction and such.

Scouting? You mean like the PPC-toting Panther?
"The Panther operates as a direct fire support 'Mech for other light units."

Or the Gauss Rifle-mounting Hollander?
"The Hollander was introduced in 3054 specifically to carry a Gauss Rifle into combat and act as a sniper."

No, you must clearly be talking about some of the 'mechs that are in MWO, like the Commando?
"the Commando's profile was radically changed with the introduction of the sophisticated COM-2D variant in 2486, that exchanged the laser weaponry with short range missiles and turned the machine into a striker. With four tons the armor is too light to allow a stand-up fight with heavier enemies, but it excels at hit-and-run tactics and as a scout hunter."

No? The Jenner then, surely it's a scout?
"The Jenner's primarily laser armament and phenomenal speed helped to make the the 'Mech extremely well suited as a guerilla fighter."

What IS this? Raven. That's a Scout, right? Well, the 3L is. Not so much the 2X or 4X:
"RVN-2X - Many of the Ravens captured by the Federated Suns in the Fourth Succession War were refitted to the 2X standard. It replaces the EW equipment with a Large Laser and adds an additional two and a half tons of armor."
"RVN-4X - A Capellan variant of the original prototype, the -4X was an attempt to turn the chassis into a pure combat unit."

But the Spider, that HAS to be a Scout, right? Wrong:
"The Spider was originally designed by Newhart Industries as a 'Mech to be used by SLDF commando forces [...] Spiders are generally used as fast strike forces to hit an enemy's rear with lightning speed."


So there you have it. One variant of one chassis - the RVN-3L - is a Scout. The others are not. Perhaps you should try playing one just for "scouting, spotting, distraction and such" and see how fun it is and how much CB/XP it gets you.

And remember - speed and mobility versus armour and firepower should be an equal fight, not a foregone conclusion. The better pilot should win, not the heavier 'mech.

[hammerreborn]

El Bandito, on 05 May 2013 - 04:10 AM, said:

More like, 50% Assault (mostly Stalker), 30% ECM lights, and 20% others.

More like ~35% assault, ~35% heavy, ~10% light, and ~20% mediums.

[KuruptU4Fun]

I would think that this is simply another soft counter to ECM, and it should be. We've gotten several over the last patches and currently (future ones) show hard counters as well which is much needed.

I'm hoping that the lighter the mech is the closer it will get before that detector goes off. I am also hoping that speed will affect that detection to some degree as well. As a hopefull example a light mech can normally get within 150 meters going at full speed then get detected and if they're only going 40kph they can get within 60 meters before detection.

[hammerreborn]

KuruptU4Fun, on 08 May 2013 - 10:15 AM, said:

I would think that this is simply another soft counter to ECM, and it should be. We've gotten several over the last patches and currently (future ones) show hard counters as well which is much needed.

I'm hoping that the lighter the mech is the closer it will get before that detector goes off. I am also hoping that speed will affect that detection to some degree as well. As a hopefull example a light mech can normally get within 150 meters going at full speed then get detected and if they're only going 40kph they can get within 60 meters before detection.

Except the "low signal" is a much better indicator of a mech near you than the seismic sensor is, so no, I don't think this is a counter to ECM mechs, just lights who spend all their time sneaking around behind an opponent to have a million "counters" giving away their position.

[KuruptU4Fun]

hammerreborn, on 08 May 2013 - 10:21 AM, said:

Except the "low signal" is a much better indicator of a mech near you than the seismic sensor is, so no, I don't think this is a counter to ECM mechs, just lights who spend all their time sneaking around behind an opponent to have a million "counters" giving away their position.

That could certainly be true, but if you've slowed down enough to only get detected from 60 meters away, then I'm sure the damage done to you rear armor is going to be a bigger indicator that the pilot behind you is better than you are... lol

[hammerreborn]

KuruptU4Fun, on 08 May 2013 - 10:36 AM, said:

That could certainly be true, but if you've slowed down enough to only get detected from 60 meters away, then I'm sure the damage done to you rear armor is going to be a bigger indicator that the pilot behind you is better than you are... lol

Well that entirely depends on how the sensor works. If it is speed based then maybe. But if its any walking then it's going to detect you irregardless, preventing any sneaky hobittses from walking behind an enemy team and spotting.