125 replies to this topic

[Suprentus]

Thomas Hogarth, on 22 May 2013 - 10:27 PM, said:

Ah, alright, I'm seeing where you're coming from. But while your spider may be a fair, balanced and fun machine for both you and your opponents, I find it difficult to believe that you'd draw a direct similarity between your machine and some of the ridiculous machines out there that make it extremely difficult for someone on trial to enjoy the game.

In other words, I can see where you're coming from. Can you see where we're coming from?

Well the only builds I ever truly thought were ridiculous and killed enjoyment were Splatcats and Streakcats (and maybe 6 PPC Stalkers) back when SRMs and Streak SRMs were the harbingers of destruction. I'd also throw LRM60 and above boats whenever LRMs are broken. However, I never considered builds like Gausscats, AC40Cats, AC40 Jagermechs, maybe even the 6 PPC Stalker, etc. to make the game difficult to enjoy.

The reason for that is these kinds of builds all have weaknesses in favor of their strong advantages. Gausscats are either walking coffins as soon as you strip the armor off any of the side torsos because of their XL engines. AC40Cats and AC40 Jagermechs are extremely slow, in which case mobility is your greatest weapon. If the AC40 Jagermech isn't slow, then it means it's extremely vulnerable, and you only have to aim for a side torso. Even 6 PPC Stalkers (while sometimes a tad unfair) can only blow their loads so often that they can easily become sitting ducks. Though the 6 PPC Stalker's day is coming, since PGI is going to have heat penalties for using multiple of the same weapon.

When I see "unbalanced" builds, then I usually see builds with distinct weaknesses that can be exploited. Knowledge of these weaknesses just comes with experience. Sometimes I get killed anyway even with that knowledge, but that's just how the game goes.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I have 18 mastered Mechs in my bay, they all play differently, and they're all viable (well, maybe one or two are more fun than viable). That's possible because hardpoint layout alone gives chassis and variants enough identity to play off their strengths in different ways.

[Thomas Hogarth]

I see. And you feel that those builds that are not unbalanced are balanced in comparison to Trial 'Mechs?

[Suprentus]

No.

Trial Mechs are a whole separate issue. In fact, I don't see how they're related at all to what I was talking about, since we are talking about customization and all, and there is no customization whatsoever in trial Mechs.

But anyway, onto something else that caught my interest here...

I'm seeing posts about personalities for different Mechs, and I think it's worth exploring exactly how that's present. Here's what I think of when building a Mech: "how can this chassis and variant do something that another Mech can't do better?" That's a key question that I always think of when customizing a Mech. Let's take some examples of what I mean.

The Awesome 9M when it comes to hardpoints alone is inferior to a Stalker 3F. So what can the 9M do that the 3F can't do better? Well for one, the 9M can mount not only larger engines, but can get away with an XL engine because of the huge center torso. http://mwo.smurfy-ne...b33b77f93fdfde2 Voila! Its firepower isn't the greatest, but it's an incredibly mobile assault that can pick and choose its battles far better than any other assault.

The Misery, on the other hand, seems awesome, and its ballistic mount adds possibilities that the other Stalker variants aren't capable of. However, if you really examine it, its hardpoint layout is very similar to an Atlas AS7-D. In fact, both of their max engine sizes afford about the same speed, they're both only feasible with STD engines, and the Atlas can turn way better. Hm, if you ask me, the Misery can't really do anything better than an AS7-D can. The Misery, and its personality, isn't really worth it. It's kind of an underperformer.

Look at one of my favorite Mechs, the Spider. People were really quick to dismiss it as being utterly useless. At first, I did too. But then I thought, what can the Spider do that another Mech can't do better? Hmmm...well the Raven and Jenner both have more firepower and are just as fast. I guess the only thing the Spider has over the Raven is that it can jump. Well the Jenner can jump too (although not as much). The Spider can use ECM though. So a Spider's unique advantages are jumping and ECM together, and no other Mech can do that. So its "personality" seems to be that it can get anywhere at almost any height, AND do it stealthily. If I can combine that with a high caliber weapon, it can actually turn out to be a really effective scout sniper kind of build... http://mwo.smurfy-ne...af6bad2819cc712

So my point is that there are enough subtle differences between chassis and variants that you can get many unique styles out of them if you exploit these differences enough. Sometimes, a variant can't offer anything that no other Mech can't, such as the Hunchback 4G, or the Misery. However, there are many that do, and that gives a distinct personality to these many different Mechs.

Edited by Suprentus, 22 May 2013 - 11:41 PM.

[Asmudius Heng]

I do not want subtle differences I have to really hunt for and rationalise. I want something that gives personality and character to a mech.

The engine limits, hardpoints, and handling characteristics are a good start but I still feel they are often not enough.

As more mechs come into the game it is going to be harder and harder to differentiate mechs and chassis.

[CancR]

Why in the blue **** are people not talking about Tonnage limits? You can't really balance weapons till you see how they function in fair and balanced teams. It's real ******* simple..You can't play chess where one player has the normal pieces and the other starts off replacing his two bishops with queens.

MW/BT is the same way.

[Lykaon]

Ransack, on 22 May 2013 - 06:11 AM, said:

So, if they implement hard-point restrictions now, how in the world will they ever be able to implement the Clans with their Omnimechs? They need to allow a certain degree of customization because as the are, the stock mechs suck donkey ballz.

I think that Paul's heat idea is a step in the right direction.

Hard point size limitations will work on omni mechs just fine.

While a Standard battle mech would have a hardpoint layout something like...

Catapult K2
RA Energy 3 crit / 1 weapon
LA Energy 3 crit / 1 weapon
RT Energy 2 crit / 1 weapon
LT Energy 2 crit / 1 weapon
RT Ballistic 5 crit / 1 weapon
LT Ballistic 5 crit / 1 weapon
AMS RT
Jumpjets: No
ECM: No

A Timber Wolf (Madcat) would instead look like this

RA Omni 6 crit / 2 weapons
LA Omni 6 crit / 2 weapons
RT Omni 7crit / 3 weapons
LT Omni 7 crit / 3 weapons
CT Omni 2 crit / 2 weapons
AMS: RT
ECM: No
Jumpjets: yes

[Lykaon]

Thomas Hogarth, on 22 May 2013 - 11:01 PM, said:

I imagine it would be. Or maybe not, who knows. Let's look at both sides here, and see where we stand.

On one hand, the faction battles are ideally representations of the faction battles described in source material. It's hard to imagine a FWL company going off to battle with dropships full of CPLT-K2s armed with twin gauss rifles and meeting Steiner Raven snipers armed with ERPPCs. At that point, are we even playing in the BT universe? Why not just change all the 'Mech names and call the game something else - I'm sure it'd save money on royalty fees.

On the other hand, faction battles are the big game - the big fights that everyone looks forward to. It stands to reason that people are going to want to bring their best, and give not a care about how many C-Bills they're losing. It's about honor and recognition at that point. Saying "you can't attend the big event with your favorite build" is going to leave a sour taste in the mouths of many.

I'm not sure what the answer is. My shot-from-hip reaction is to make 'big events' that cater to both sides of the fence. Factional warfare for us canon book thumpers, fun-as-hell Solaris matches for the custom guys(and check it out, custom rides make sense there! hell, I'd get in on that!)

A simple solution would be to have a list of faction aligned mechs and grant these chassis bonuses to XP and C-bills when used by the correct faction.

An Example would be a House Kurita warrior piloting a Catapult K2 would earn +X% XP and +X% C-bills in factional battles.

That same player could instead opt to bring a Jaegermech (a Davion Aligned Mech) and not earn any bonuses to XP or C-bills.

[Zerstorer Stallin]

Anyone who's played TT battletech or league MW titles for the PC knows that the mechlab was one of the key factors in the games losing any follow quickly. What's sad here is even in MWO "beta" state, that is easy to recognize as being in the same place as all the follow titles and TT version, there has been nothing but the continued march towards a FPS, magic consumable, 3rd person POS, that no one was promised or supported. Say what you will, MECHLABS killed the last games, and are well on there way to accomplishing the same task here. Added with the insane weapon viability swing due to half a$$ patching, and convergence, this game is basically FoTM with meks coming in or out of use depending mostly on what weapons that PGI has screwed up this patch or the last. When I'm saying the TT hasn't a following that's not 100% true, there are plenty of guys out here ( me included ) that love the TT game, and still play it in some form or fashion. I venture a guess this crowd made up a large portion of the founders. Any group of TT guys who have played for more than a month together will tell you, they limit what you can do in the mek lab. Otherwise someone pulls the same kind of crap you see in MWO, except with TT you'll have some ***** carrying 2 clan LPL, and 7/11/7 movement.

Edited by Zerstorer Stallin, 23 May 2013 - 12:31 AM.

[Ralgas]

Lykaon, on 23 May 2013 - 12:13 AM, said:

Hard point size limitations will work on omni mechs just fine.

While a Standard battle mech would have a hardpoint layout something like...

Catapult K2
RA Energy 3 crit / 1 weapon
LA Energy 3 crit / 1 weapon
RT Energy 2 crit / 1 weapon
LT Energy 2 crit / 1 weapon
RT Ballistic 5 crit / 1 weapon
LT Ballistic 5 crit / 1 weapon
AMS RT
Jumpjets: No
ECM: No

A Timber Wolf (Madcat) would instead look like this

RA Omni 6 crit / 2 weapons
LA Omni 6 crit / 2 weapons
RT Omni 7crit / 3 weapons
LT Omni 7 crit / 3 weapons
CT Omni 2 crit / 2 weapons
AMS: RT
ECM: No
Jumpjets: yes

Still just going to lead to fotm builds, just dependent on what works together.

Edited by Ralgas, 23 May 2013 - 12:32 AM.

[Zerstorer Stallin]

Suprentus, on 22 May 2013 - 08:53 PM, said:

Good thing we don't have full out customization then. Unless you really do think my Spider is OP and ruins your game.

Hard points never stopped the same abuse from happening and saying you don't have "full" customization is a half truth on a good day, and more than likely an out right lie on a bad one.

[Suprentus]

Zerstorer Stallin, on 23 May 2013 - 12:34 AM, said:

Hard points never stopped the same abuse from happening and saying you don't have "full" customization is a half truth on a good day, and more than likely an out right lie on a bad one.

You either have full customization or you don't. If it's any less than full, then it's not full. You can't say it's kind of fully customizable, or it's half fully customizable, because that doesn't make sense. MW3 had full customization, this does not. Any claim otherwise is a blatant lie.

And really, there's no abuse to speak of. I don't know what to tell you if you can't figure out how to fight a certain build. I outlined quite a few tips to dealing with certain builds that are commonly referred to as abuse or whatever.

[Kaspirikay]

I'll just buy the mech with the most opd hard points.

[Jungle Rhino]

Personally I would like to see hardpoint restrictions as it would maintain the original character of them mech.

BUT

It won't help with balance issues. Unless properly balanced there will always be a 'best option' which everybody gravitates to. With hardpoint restrictions in that would mean you'll just see one specific type of mech that is 'the best'

[Sybreed]

MustrumRidcully, on 22 May 2013 - 10:29 PM, said:

Customization is not abused. Convergence and/or Heat Capacity are abused.

The pre-patch PPC meta (full convergence) and current LRM abuse (no convergence) kind of prove you wrong... with all due respect...

[Sybreed]

Jungle Rhino, on 23 May 2013 - 02:32 AM, said:

Personally I would like to see hardpoint restrictions as it would maintain the original character of them mech.

BUT

It won't help with balance issues. Unless properly balanced there will always be a 'best option' which everybody gravitates to. With hardpoint restrictions in that would mean you'll just see one specific type of mech that is 'the best'

what it would do, actually, is force people to ask themselves what mechs will fill the role they want : "hmm I want a fast support, so I'm going Trebuchet"

Or: I want a ballistic heavy mech, I'm going jager.

edit: like I said many times before, current system turned mechs into a bunch of hardpoints on 2 legs. No personality...

Edited by Sybreed, 23 May 2013 - 04:02 AM.

[Fooooo]

Homeless bills example of the atlas is a little wrong.

It would not be restricted to an ac/20 or gauss rifle just because of a large ballistic HP...at least imo.....

A large ballistic HP should take ANY ballistic.

AC/2 - AC/20 + Gauss & MG. So any ballistic in the game.

Same with missile HP's.

If you had a large one, it would hold ANY LRM or SRM.
A med would hold SRM4'sLRM10's max (if you wanted to add a med size HP....which I wouldn't, it would just be Large = all, normal = max half...IE SRM2-SRM4, AC/2-AC/5 maybe 10, LRM5-LRM10 etc etc..)

So to me an RS-atlas would have

CT - 0
LT - 2L Missile, (or is there 3 here ? I never use them on the RS .... add a 1N Missile )
RT - 1L Ballistic (or is there 2 here ? in which case add a 1N ballistic as well)
LA - 1L Energy, 1N Energy (debatable weither it should have 2L Energy or not in each arm to be different to the others, which would allow 4PPC or 4LL etc...for this atlas only.)
RA - 1L Energy, 1N Energy


Not that im exactly for doing HP restrictions like this, but it may end up working. I'm hoping with the PTR PGI will be willing to try stuff like this with the public on a testing basis etc........

Edited by Fooooo, 23 May 2013 - 06:31 AM.

[Khobai]

I agree that hardpoints should have size restrictions. However I don't think it needs to be overly complicated. All we need are small hardpoints and large hardpoints. Small hardpoints would be limited to weapons that weigh 6 tons or less while large hardpoints could mount any weapon.

[Thomas Hogarth]

Suprentus, on 22 May 2013 - 11:39 PM, said:

No. Trial Mechs are a whole separate issue. In fact, I don't see how they're related at all to what I was talking about, since we are talking about customization and all, and there is no customization whatsoever in trial Mechs.

Before I address the quoted part, I largely agree with you on 'Mech personality. I think there is already quite a bit of personality to each 'Mech. The Misery, for instance, has to worry less about low-mounted weapons clipping buildings as compared to the ASx-x 'Mechs. With that being said, more personality is never a bad thing, especially if that personality matches the descriptions from the source universe.

As far as comparing Trial 'Mechs to customized ones, I claim that it's a very fair comparison. The real comparison going on, of course, is that of a canon loadout compared to a customized one. Not many people run canon loadouts on their non-trial 'Mechs, but just about everyone has run Trial 'Mechs(and every new player from here on out will have to as well).

If customization were truly balanced, then a canon config would be just as viable as a customized one. Remembering how many battles a new player has to go through in a trial 'Mech is an indication that this is not a problem that that never presents itself.

[MustrumRidcully]

Sybreed, on 23 May 2013 - 03:57 AM, said:

The pre-patch PPC meta (full convergence) and current LRM abuse (no convergence) kind of prove you wrong... with all due respect...

PPC meta was all about abusing the heta capacity and convergence.
You shoot, gain a lot of heat, but who cares, you have a giant heat capacity, nothing bad has happened, go back into cover, cool off, go out, shoot again. And when you shoot, you aim once,w ith some care, and then deliver 40-60 damage to one hit location on the enemy mech.

Imagine those mechs would have to, say, chain fire to avoid breaching the cap and cooling off a second or so for the next one. Suddenly you might have to fire 2 salvoes of 30 damage, and have only half the time to take aim, and spend more time outside of cover. More pressure on aiming means a higher chance for making a mistake and missing or hitting a different hit location then intended. A delay between the second half of that damage means the enemy can react because he now knows he's a target, start torso twisting, alter his movement vector, or potentially even take aim himself and shoot back.

The current LRM abuse - what are you gonna do? Forbid PGI to introduce mechs like the Longbow and remove the Catapults? Or no, that wouldn'T be okay, so only Stalkers don't get to be boat overpowered LRMs, but Longbows will be able to? That will certainly increase diversity on the battlefield, because of course, the people that "abuse" customization right now would never switch to the few mechs that still allow overpowered weapon combos, right?

I will instead ask PGI to work on their game balance and make these weapons so that they are effective but not overpowered when boated.


Hard Points are not a viable balancing tool. They can be used to preserve the identity, flavor, feeling or personality of a mech. Don't demand more of that of hard points, you will just get disappointed.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 23 May 2013 - 07:54 AM.

[Thomas Hogarth]

Lykaon, on 23 May 2013 - 12:22 AM, said:

A simple solution would be to have a list of faction aligned mechs and grant these chassis bonuses to XP and C-bills when used by the correct faction. An Example would be a House Kurita warrior piloting a Catapult K2 would earn +X% XP and +X% C-bills in factional battles. That same player could instead opt to bring a Jaegermech (a Davion Aligned Mech) and not earn any bonuses to XP or C-bills.

I'm not sure. For the big fight, people will probably not care about CBills and XP. They'll gladly waste those in return for the name in lights aspect of winning the big fight. In other words, people will end up bringing whatever they want.

For evidence that supports this, one only need look at World of Tanks and their Clan Wars system. When the Clan Wars hit, it's gold ammo and gold consumables or go home. The individual players end up losing a lot on the individual battles, but that's okay. It's the big game. Go big or go home.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but I'd like to see the makeup of 'Mech types and configurations look a lot like the factional battles they're supposed to represent. Frankly, it's more interesting than PUGFIGHT2.0.