271 replies to this topic

[Hotthedd]

Keifomofutu, on 17 May 2013 - 10:45 AM, said:

Good thing you're actually in a chair at a keyboard then.

Keep the immersion shlock to CW where it belongs. Or do we need to drive even more people from the game?

To the other guy:How else would you tax someone if you don't pay him first? Seriously.

"Immersion shlock"!?! Immersion is a key aspect of the game, doubly so to the core mechwarriors.

Ransack, on 17 May 2013 - 10:45 AM, said:

So the person that manages their heat well or uses coolant flush gets a pass. Still wont work. Giving energy users weapon cartridges with a number of shots per ton equivalent to their ballistic counterparts might work. But I don't see that happening either.

Having to use a module slot on coolant flush is a "pass"? Completely breaking canon to give lasers "ammo" is a terribad idea. Ammo weapons and energy weapons need a separate, but equal type of risk.

Ransack, on 17 May 2013 - 10:54 AM, said:

Not at all. . Saying "If I can't afford the mods" means that you could mod it. In the IS, you could not. The mech came as it was.

Now, if you want to run around and die in trials, more power to you, I prefer my omnimechs, so lets leave the references to the BT universe out of this.

They are not the same

Modifications of existing mechs is part of the very lore of the BT universe. What do you think "hero" mechs are? Production line models?

[TOGSolid]

Reposting for emphasis:

1.) R&R ONLY punishes bad players. Good players will run whatever they want and have an even bigger advantage since everyone else won't be able to field top end mechs as effectively.

2.) R&R ONLY punishes new players. Veterans with tons of mechs won't give a damn about having to wait to repair anything. Likewise, a veteran with a ton of c-bills as well won't care about the "grind" because they've already got the bankroll necessary to do whatever they want.

3.) R&R does not balance anything for the reasons listed above. The established, good players will use whatever the hell they want without any regard for what it costs. While R&R was active it was still an assault cluster ****, it was still a FOTM hell, and the only real difference was that there were people running broken down suicide mechs to grind for cash.

There is no sort of R&R system that won't cause these problems. I challenge all of you to come up with one that doesn't. No one has managed to do it yet.

All of you say "R&R needs to come back only better and without the problems of the old system!" Yet none of you say how, exactly, PGI could go about doing that. Half of your arguments also seem to revolve around "it balances things because I said so" which is really not helping your case.

Edited by TOGSolid, 17 May 2013 - 11:26 AM.

[Ransack]

Joseph Mallan, on 17 May 2013 - 10:56 AM, said:

Tell that to Kia, GeoAvante(and his angels (60% upgrades... with Clan Tech), and Oh... Shorty Snead of the Irregulars! Now He had one heck of a Mod!Just of the top my head.

Really, how many custom mechs were in the Inner Sphere? And read what you wrote CLAN TECH there are no Clans yet. There was ONE Heavy Metal, ONE yen Lo Wang, etc. These were special mechs, not something that anyone could own.

Like I said they are not the same. All comparisons should go out the window.

Edited by Ransack, 17 May 2013 - 11:20 AM.

[Hotthedd]

TOGSolid, on 17 May 2013 - 11:13 AM, said:

Reposting for emphasis:

1.) R&R ONLY punishes bad players. Good players will run whatever they want and have an even bigger advantage since everyone else won't be able to field top end mechs as effectively.

2.) R&R ONLY punishes new players. Veterans with tons of mechs won't give a damn about having to wait to repair anything. Likewise, a veteran with a ton of c-bills as well won't care about the "grind" because they've already got the bankroll necessary to do whatever they want.

3.) R&R does not balance anything for the reasons listed above. The established, good players will use whatever the hell they want without any regard for what it costs. While R&R was active it was still an assault cluster ****, it was still a FOTM hell, and the only real difference was that there were people running broken down suicide mechs to grind for cash.

There is no sort of R&R system that won't cause these problems. I challenge all of you to come up with one that doesn't. No one has managed to do it yet.

All of you say "R&R needs to come back only better and without the problems of the old system!" Yet, none of you say how, exactly, PGI could go about doing that. Half of your arguments also seem to revolve around "it balances things because I said so" which is really not helping your case.

1. It does not "punish" bad players. It makes bad players have to get better before moving up to more expensive builds. It only "punishes" the bad player who thinks that expensive upgrades make him a better player. 2. It does not "punish" new players. New players just need to grind more (like the old players had to do). 3. R&R DOES balance for the reasons listed above. In the BT universe, new mechwarriors started out in smaller chassis. Being able to afford and run Assaults is a reward older/better players get. 4. What was broken in the old R&R system? 75%free reload. Some repair costs were too high and/or the rewards too low. That is it. There is your fixed R&R system. You are welcome

[Petroshka]

In order to balance R&R between ballistic+missile and energy weapons. Make energy based weapons incur a "tuning cost" where the weapon must be tuned after a match before it can be used again, cost based on how common they want to .make the weapon. (ERPPCs more expensive, small lasers, dirt cheap).


Another thought.

If the intent of R/R is to see more diversity on the battlefield based on scarcity (or cost) of equipment, what about adding a cooldown timer for each mech owned?

Meaning, if my atlas gets dinged up, i don't pay c-bills for it, but it will take X hours before i can use it again, based on damage. If my locust gets hammered, it will be on "cooldown" (in the shop) for a while too, again, i don't pay C for it, but much less so compared to the Atlas. This could extend to each mech, or even class of mechs

Edited by Petroshka, 17 May 2013 - 11:44 AM.

[karoushi]

Khanublikhan, on 16 May 2013 - 09:33 AM, said:

You do make a good argument for item value, I must admit. Although, I think we can all agree the emphasis of item cost needs to be made smaller as a factor in any overall model for R&R.

The argument remains: The paradigm in which R&R exists strongly emphasises the unsung heroes -- Tech Crews - who can do the seemingly impossible in getting a war-torn mech back on its feet. The time between matches is not one tech mech minute per mouse click. It is man-hours of labour. You might have an experienced support crew of twenty or more staff supporting a mechwarrior / lance. Scale that up to a Company, Dropship or Regimental Level and Time-Efficiency / Supply chains are much more important than mere C-Bills.

Should there be a repair time?

It should prevent suicide farming, nothing too intense just 5-10 minutes (obviously represented as a longer scale in-game) to repair and fight in a match with the newly repaired mech. This would obviously encourage owning more than one mech, which the four 'chosen' mech slots already tend to do anyway.

@ post above ~ ah I was reading a few pages back and obviously another already posted this idea, oh well we are on the same page at least.

Also I like the Laser Tuning idea, much better than my far-fetched cartridge Idea (although that was cool too, just not for BT).

Edited by karoushi, 17 May 2013 - 12:23 PM.

[Deathlike]

I don't care for R&R.. I got to experience it a little during the trial mech era (which consisted of a Cent-D and Dragon variant I can't recall off the top of my head).

There needs to be a "bottoming out" for R&R to make it OK for newbies, so that their time spent isn't completely wasted when their crappy mechs are totaled.

However, if there is a way to "reintroduce" R&R, it would have to be a gradually updated system that people may opt-in on their own and opt-out if they think its not worth their time (though, there should be a c-bill fee for opting out to prevent abuse).

The entire system should be a c-bill growth mechanism, not a newbie death trap (OMG, I dunno how I lost c-bills?!?!). For instance, if you were to use a lot of ammo, you should be rewarded more if your missiles dealt a lot of damage. Also, those that brawl and tank should not be penalized the same way as a sniper or missile boat.

While this is all opt-in, the bonuses/rewards/penalties would need to change and be revised for the better... so that perhaps it would eventually get reintegrated... but essentially the old system would have to be revamped significantly before even I would want it back.

Edited by Deathlike, 17 May 2013 - 12:09 PM.

[MadcatX]

There needs no R&R system, period.

You know what else forces players to play better? Losing. Especially when you lose early in the match and have to spectate until the end for any reward.

R&R was a time-sink, pure and simple.

[TOGSolid]

Quote

1. It does not "punish" bad players. It makes bad players have to get better before moving up to more expensive builds. It only "punishes" the bad player who thinks that expensive upgrades make him a better player. 2. It does not "punish" new players. New players just need to grind more (like the old players had to do). 3. R&R DOES balance for the reasons listed above. In the BT universe, new mechwarriors started out in smaller chassis. Being able to afford and run Assaults is a reward older/better players get. 4. What was broken in the old R&R system? 75%free reload. Some repair costs were too high and/or the rewards too low. That is it. There is your fixed R&R system. You are welcome

Except it's not fixed at all. It doesn't balance anything because all you're doing is making the grind take even longer. Something you flat out admit. That's not balance, that's just lame. Explain how just making the grind even more annoying for newer and less skilled players will balance anything.

Short answer? It won't.

Your entire argument is "it won't hurt the newer/less skilled players because all it's doing is making their grind even more annoying." Which is incredibly contradictory. It's also rather dickish because it makes you come across as some sort of elitist ***** that doesn't care about the new player experience.

Edited by TOGSolid, 17 May 2013 - 12:52 PM.

[Hotthedd]

TOGSolid, on 17 May 2013 - 12:45 PM, said:

Except it's not fixed at all. It doesn't balance anything because all you're doing is making the grind take even longer. Something you flat out admit. That's not balance, that's just lame. Explain how just making the grind even more annoying for newer and less skilled players will balance anything.

Short answer? It won't.

Your entire argument is "it won't hurt the newer/less skilled players because all it's doing is making their grind even more annoying." Which is incredibly contradictory. It's also rather dickish because it makes you come across as some sort of elitist ***** that doesn't care about the new player experience.

You read too much into my words. The new player experience stinks, but not because of R&R or the lack thereof. New players need a tutorial. I would have no problem if there were no R&R during the "cadet" phase. BUT THERE MUST BE A GRIND. It HAS to exist. People can spend MC to reduce the grind. You make the assumption that grinding is some sort of punishment to be endured. I see it as the best way to get better at the game (a game that is supposed to be fun - - win or lose).

[stjobe]

Ransack, on 17 May 2013 - 10:54 AM, said:

Not at all. . Saying "If I can't afford the mods" means that you could mod it. In the IS, you could not. The mech came as it was.

There's a whole slew of BT field repair and field upgrade rules that says otherwise, with details like time taken for repair/upgrade, chance of success, and even modifiers for botched jobs (extra to-hit multipliers, extra heat generation, jamming chances, etc).

Could you build anything you wanted? Yes, you could, in one-off battles. Could you do the same in a campaign setting? No, you were restricted to purchase stock 'mechs and upgrade them according to the field upgrade rules.

What we have in MWO is one-off battles. What we want from MWO is a campaign setting.

Hence why we want R&R in some form (and NOT the old one they tried).

[Hellcat420]

repair and rearm is a bad idea and it will kill this game in the long run, because it chases more people away from the game than it brings in. there is a good reason why they removed it from the game, they didnt just remove it for ***** and giggles.

[TOGSolid]

Hotthedd, on 17 May 2013 - 01:33 PM, said:

You read too much into my words. The new player experience stinks, but not because of R&R or the lack thereof. New players need a tutorial. I would have no problem if there were no R&R during the "cadet" phase. BUT THERE MUST BE A GRIND. It HAS to exist. People can spend MC to reduce the grind. You make the assumption that grinding is some sort of punishment to be endured. I see it as the best way to get better at the game (a game that is supposed to be fun - - win or lose).

But we already have a grind.

Why do we need more of a grind?

[Sephlock]

Snuglninja, on 15 May 2013 - 05:38 PM, said:

Sorry but its true. The closest thing pgi has ever had to balance and would stop a lot of this ppc assault fest. Doesn't have to be exactly what it was before and maybe only used for players in cw/merc units but what we got now is a **** poor console game with no sim feel or consequences for cheese builds or smart play.

If you want to simulate R&R just open up a nearby drawer and slam your hand in it every time you finish a match. That way you can get what you want without making the rest of us suffer.

[MadcatX]

stjobe, on 17 May 2013 - 01:45 PM, said:

What we have in MWO is one-off battles. What we want from MWO is a campaign setting.

Hence why we want R&R in some form (and NOT the old one they tried).

And that's what this boils down to isn't it?
You don't want MW:o. You want Mechwarrior 5.
Like I said earlier, leave R&R where it belongs, in a single-player campaign where it matters, not in MW:o where at the very least, it hinders gameplay, at the most, it makes people leave. I have yet to see an example of a newer style of R&R for MW:o that wouldn't be damn annoying.

[TOGSolid]

Quote

he closest thing pgi has ever had to balance and would stop a lot of this ppc assault fest

Except it wouldn't do that.

At all.

When R&R was in the game was still a FOTM cheese fest. Why do you people keep insisting that wasn't the case? With R&R the only people who aren't doing the current FOTM cheese are the newer players that can't afford it and even then all R&R does is make the grind to the FOTM build take longer. The only place where R&R functions as a balancing mechanic is in your own imagination.

Edited by TOGSolid, 17 May 2013 - 02:28 PM.

[merz]

Hotthedd, on 17 May 2013 - 01:33 PM, said:

BUT THERE MUST BE A GRIND. It HAS to exist. People can spend MC to reduce the grind. You make the assumption that grinding is some sort of punishment to be endured.

going to disagree with you here. grinding isn't good design - it is, however, risk-averse and proven to encourage microtransactions. the way it does this is through, practically by definition, making the 'advancement' aspect of the gameplay a tedious task that a scrub must will themselves to power through, or break down and shell out cash. To its credit, though, MWO doesn't take every visible opportunity to monetise the advancement process, perhaps acknowledging what must be a temporary system, borrowed wholesale from the working model of World Of Tanks and adopted to flesh out the combat system at early stage of development and deployment.

Unfortunately the borrowed system puts PGI in a difficult spot: should they continue to expand upon just what it is that constitutes 'gameplay' in mechwarrior online, or embrace the comfortable, proven WOT model. And why not? WOT has a lot of subscribers, makes money, and the continuing expansion of the game is comparatively low-effort: introduce some new maps here, some new mechs there and there you go. Every month you publish a mech and raise the end-level gameplay. When one of the producers dropped that 'epics' buzzword in the reddit thread, I nearly shot hot coffee out of my nose. I mean, grind at this point is a kind of excuse for not having much of a clue as to what gameplay proper constitutes beyond team deathmatch. even the 'assault' or 'conquest' modes were sort of hacked together real quick-like.

They've worked out a great combat engine wrapped in battletech IP, but with respect to the actual gameplay, or what makes this an MMO instead of a 24-player team deathmatch with a lobby that harkens back to the days of Mplayer and gamespy.. yeah, there's sort of not much coming there. And any time they answer player questions, the few pearls of wisdom dropped as to how the broader systems set to give any of it any real meaning or sense of purpose are going to work, stuff looks anywhere from 'underwhelming' to 'are you f-ing kidding me?' Case in point, the bits dropped about factional warfare essentially consisting of the same stuff we're already doing now, except that - ARE YOU READY FOR IT? - some faction gets POINTS out of it. And if they have MORE POINTS than some other faction they are at war with - holy jesus, you can..buy a leet flavour of magna hellstar ppc? presumably somehow better than the off-brand variety. or something. Let alone the whole "merc corps running premium time having to bid mc to possibly win MC" - the whole bit where you've to infuse cash into a system to play for make-believe money.

Ayway, I havent seen any of it so far, none of us have really. But what is on the table for the first roll-out of community warfare does not appear to be much besides what we have right now, except with an imaginary starmap of the inner sphere (but you're dropping on..the same maps and it plays same as instant action.. And maybe as an 8 or 12 man against another at a set time with money wagers.)

and thats all so far. tl;dr: grind is all we have because, deathmatch aside, no actual gameplay has been designed yet. to make things worse, current model discourages developers from ever investing serious resources in creating that gameplay. instead they can create hero mechs, champion mechs, epics or whatever the f- else, some maps, ????, profit

[Redacted]

Edited by Egomane, 18 May 2013 - 01:00 AM.
Removed image

[Stevefin]

R&R is not balance, It was a money sink. Thinking that it is balance is navie and arragent. It would not fix anything as a balance mechanic, it did not before. why would it now?

[merz]

above poster probably has not read the thread. points have been missed, obvious has been reiterated. in other words, the internet.

[Dedzone]

Sidekick, on 15 May 2013 - 08:32 PM, said:

RnR was one aspect a game like this desperately needs. It fields the aspect of ressource management and cost/risk/gain analysis. Since all that matters is the mech you field and the MM doesn´t balance by BV, the penalties for trashing a expensive machine kept the assaults in check. Offering more room for mechs with sub-optimized equipment.

This right here! It encompasses every reason R&R needs to be reintroduced, if no other time but in CW!!! Pay ATTENTION PGI!