125 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

Sybreed, on 23 May 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

There's your problem right here. If you want to make weapons not overpowered when boated, you need to make them very poor when NOT boated and it will result in hurting those who like to play balanced builds. Unless there is a way to fix boating once and for all without limiting customization, I don't see this game balanced in a very long time.

No, you don't need that.

Example Approaches:
1) Let's be extremely drastic and remove convergence. Suddenly, if you want to fire your 4 PPCs, each PPC will hit a different spot. No more pinpoint precision, unless you shoot each PPC seperately.
Someone using an AC/10, a PPC, a Large Laser and 2 Medium Lasers because that's what some stock confguration migh do would need to the same if he wanted to have.

2) Lower the heat capacity, raise ethe heat dissipation.
Say, a fixed heat cap of 25 but double the dissipation. Want to fire 4 PPCs together? Tough luck, you overheat every shot. Fire them in pairs every 2 seconds - you don't overheat, and you only need about 40 standard heat sinks to be heat neutral.
Some stock configuration with an 1 AC/20 and 2 Large Lasers - needs to fire the same number of individual shots.

3) Enforced global weapon cooldown.
No more group fire. When you fire a weapon, all weapons go on a 0.25 second cooldown. You must fire every single weapon individually. Boats are screwed over the worst, because they use many weapons and have to shoot many guns.
Alpha Strike becomes a special button that really fires all weapons at once, and is on its own cooldown.

Stuff that doesn't work
Limit customization so that mechs can be changed less from their stock configurations.

Death Knell - still a boat for lasers.
HBK-4P - still a boat for medium lasers or Small Lasers.
Awesome - still a PPC boat.
Catapult - still a Missile Boat. Hey, how are you even gonna meaningfully distinigush your catapults, by the way? One of them comes with 2 LRM15s and 4 Medium Lasers. One comes only with 2 LRM15s. One comes with 2 LRM20s and 2 Medium Lasers. What more restrictive hard point system will you use here to make them different and balanced? Or with the 2 LRM15 Catapult simply be worse?
Longbow - still a missile boat.

If boating is a problem, you cannot fix it without getting rid of stock mechs. And praying that never, ever, do the developers screw up and make a mech that has an unfortunate weapon combination that people use to "boat". Or if not boat, just combine the two or three most overpowered weapons in the game.

It still boils down to the devs having the ability to find overpowered and underpowered weapons and buff them to the right level.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 23 May 2013 - 10:53 PM.

[Sybreed]

MustrumRidcully, on 23 May 2013 - 10:47 PM, said:

Stuff that doesn't work
Limit customization so that mechs can be changed less from their stock configurations.

Death Knell - still a boat for lasers.
HBK-4P - still a boat for medium lasers or Small Lasers.
Awesome - still a PPC boat.
Catapult - still a Missile Boat. Hey, how are you even gonna meaningfully distinigush your catapults, by the way? One of them comes with 2 LRM15s and 4 Medium Lasers. One comes only with 2 LRM15s. One comes with 2 LRM20s and 2 Medium Lasers. What more restrictive hard point system will you use here to make them different and balanced? Or with the 2 LRM15 Catapult simply be worse?
Longbow - still a missile boat.

If boating is a problem, you cannot fix it without getting rid of stock mechs. And praying that never, ever, do the developers screw up and make a mech that has an unfortunate weapon combination that people use to "boat". Or if not boat, just combine the two or three most overpowered weapons in the game.

It still boils down to the devs having the ability to find overpowered and underpowered weapons and buff them to the right level.

Sigh... we had a nice conversation until this paragraph. For the last time, THOSE WHO ASK FOR HARDPOINT LIMITS DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH INTENDED DESIGNED BOATS. We have a problem WITH EVERY MECH TURNING INTO BOATS. So everyone, please, stop using that argument once and for all.

[Zerstorer Stallin]

Now no is saying get rid of the mechlab in its entire form. It just needs limitations ( like every good TT campaign) to keep people from abusing the system. Limit the number of heavy weapons a mek can carry, say x2 ac 20 x2 ppc or erppc, x3 largelasers, x2 lrm 15 or 20, x4 lrm 10's, x2 srms 6 or x3 srm 4, so on and so on. keep hard points so meks have a "flavor" and get rid of convergence except in arm mounted weapons. Drop splash on LRM/SRM and do something about the really bad Heat system. Its not hard. Limit per chasis to what kind of HS, ENDO or FF it can have if any and wow magic its kinda self fixing after that.

Edited by Zerstorer Stallin, 25 May 2013 - 11:46 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Sybreed, on 24 May 2013 - 05:58 AM, said:

Sigh... we had a nice conversation until this paragraph. For the last time, THOSE WHO ASK FOR HARDPOINT LIMITS DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH INTENDED DESIGNED BOATS. We have a problem WITH EVERY MECH TURNING INTO BOATS. So everyone, please, stop using that argument once and for all.

So you'Re basically not trying to solve the actual problems the game have?

IF you fix the balance problems related to boated mechs, than there will be less boats.

IF you just make less mech variants that can boat, you still have lots of boats, because they are advantages they non-boats don't have. You don't get any more variety. Maybe on paper, but not in practice, not in the matches, not where it matters.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 25 May 2013 - 12:12 PM.

[Nation Uprise]

MustrumRidcully, on 25 May 2013 - 12:05 PM, said:

So you'Re basically not trying to solve the actual problems the game have?

IF you fix the balance problems related to boated mechs, than there will be less boats.

IF you just make less mech variants that can boat, you still have lots of boats, because they are advantages they non-boats don't have. You don't get any more variety. Maybe on paper, but not in practice, not in the matches, not where it matters.

The hardpoint size system will balance out every mech so that they aren't abused and turned into boats. But with the heat penalty system, if its actually implemented, it will balance those few (designed to be) boat mechs. With that, it will make those boats not be the super advantageous alpha-strike mechs that the current system allows. It would force those mechs to manage their weapons and heat intelligently instead of just leaning on the alpha-strike button all day long, just like every other non-boat variant would have to do. Basically hardpoint sizes need to be implemented along with the heat penalties that are currently being tested. I legitimately think that with both of those system in place, the game will be totally balanced.

[Livewyr]

Last couple pages of this thread have been riveting.

[Nastyogre]

I don't have a big problem with customization. Even insane builds. If you look into the lore of Btech, there are some very different custom jobs. The hardpoint system requires some basic level of adherence to the base chassis loadout.

Addressing heat and providing penalties for it. Frankly implementing the tabletop heatscale is a good solution. The top of the heat gauge isn't the only point you shutdown, its the guaranteed shutdown point. Before the top point, there are 3 or 4 points and as many points for ammo explosion. If you had to hit your shutdown override repeatedly, risk complete destruction through heat AND slowed down and had weapon tracking and convergence significantly impaired by overheating a few things would happen,

1. Boating anything but Ballistics would end. You simply couldn't afford to repeatedly overheat and shutdown. Even with no ammo a full on boat would simply be an innacurate target. Ballistics are balanced due to their massive weight compared to energy weapons and missiles.

2. People would have to play in a measured fashion. You would have to fire and allow for cooldown if you mounted many energy weapons. We could have an end to this ridiculous double armor but standard weapon damage situation. Sure you COULD just blaze away, but you would die more readily than your target and would probably not be able to kill your target before you shut down or became useless anyway. Slow the game down by implementing a real heat scale and negative effects and you make up for it by going back to 16 points of armor per ton.

3. Customization would be preserved. People could still boat 6 PPC's on stalkers and 6 SSRM's on Catapults. Make missiles spread the way they are supposed to (meaning completely randomly) and SRM boats become a thing of the past. They do a bunch of damage, but the armor drilling cone of death ends.

4. End Pinpoint convergence. Its preposterous, ridiculous and exists because humans want it too damn easy. This isn't an FPS where you just have one gun. If the game slows down some because real heat effects exist, its not unreasonable to have players deal with convergence. Fire become measured, Pop the target with your arm weapons, line up the RT, fire, swing your Torso, fire the LT weapons. All this manages heat to an extent as well. Three fixed Recticle points for your torso weapons plus a moving one for the arms. With real heat effects and convergence Alphastrike Warrior ends, AND customization ends.

5. A balanced weapon system already exists. Its called the stats for table-top Btech. 30 years of experimentation. Is it prefect? No. A few weapons are somewhat better and some weapons are lacluster. (Ac 5 I am looking at you) Overall though, heat and damage, range etc are reasonably balanced. Using damage fall off beyond long range, great idea. Hitting non-random locations with Direct Fire weapons, good idea. All modifications we need to have a viable simulation. We don't need weapon tweaks to damage and heat. Frankly adjusting rate of fire to balance is all that is needed to make AC 2's and AC 5's useful and keep PPC's and Large Pulse Lasers from becoming dominant.

KISS rules. Keep it Simple Stupid. PGI means well but they don't get it. Their constant machinations make weapon and equipment loadouts the dominant factor, rather than just player skill and teamwork.

[Aidan McRae]

What should have happened, as MWO developed:

1. No customization allowed, through that state, weapons and equipment were balanced
2. Once a desired balance was achieved (where AC/2 was balanced on a tonnage/ammo/heat cost equal to a SL or pick a weapon, etc), THEN implement the ability to customize, first with maybe limited customization, to make sure the original balance state wasn't borked.
3. If, and only if, the limited customization met with the expected balance state, THEN consider free-form customization, including engine sizes, et c.

PGI made their work too difficult. I hope and wish they'd 'reset' the state of the game to point 1 and go from there. I loved BT3025 and I'm sure even these CoD kids would enjoy it as well. Hell! Leave in customizing paints and cockpit stuffs, even modules! Just figure out where the real problems are by LIMITING VARIABLES.

Personally, even if the game was left in 'state 1,' I'd be a very happy camper and would continue to play and pay. And so would many, many others.

[Aidan McRae]

I hope PGI actually looks at this thread. There are incredibly insightful ideas here, amidst the mire of flaming failz.

[Nation Uprise]

Aidan McRae, on 26 May 2013 - 07:05 AM, said:

What should have happened, as MWO developed:

1. No customization allowed, through that state, weapons and equipment were balanced

I am a huge advocate for a hardpoint size system, but I would absolutely love this right here. If they were to make a stock only gametype, thats all I'd play. For me, this is where your skill as a MechWarrior really shines, because you have to adapt yourself to your mech, not the mech to you (hence all the alpha builds).

[MustrumRidcully]

Nation Uprise, on 26 May 2013 - 09:20 AM, said:

I am a huge advocate for a hardpoint size system, but I would absolutely love this right here. If they were to make a stock only gametype, thats all I'd play. For me, this is where your skill as a MechWarrior really shines, because you have to adapt yourself to your mech, not the mech to you (hence all the alpha builds).

Stock mechs currently suck in M:WO. Not because they are completely overpowered by customized builds, but because they overheat like stupid.

Stock mechs are also not originally balanced. That's why they had battle value.

Of course, we could hope that if PGI would go this route (which they won't), they'd rebalance the game and the heat system so that stock mechs work somewhat reasonable. But if we trust them to do that, they could dos o many other things right, too.

[Thomas Hogarth]

I've bowed out of this thread for awhile to let the flames die down a bit, but in the interim I was thinking about how the canon designs do not fair well in MWO.

I thought about the times we ran canon designs in MW4 - right down to correct number of armor points in given locations - and how that was some of the most fun I've had in any MW game. Why is MWO different?

First and most obvious reason: Canon 'Mechs currently have no choice but to run against customized machines. So whereas the games we played in MW4 were played by people who were on the same page, we're locked in with customizers. More on this later.

Second reason: Heat sink efficiency. Or is it weapon rate of fire? Heat sinking might be fine - the weapons have very short cooldown times, allowing rapid fire that overwhelms the heat sinking ability. This in and of itself would be fine if it weren't for the ability of custom mechs to simply load more heat sinks and not suffer the same degree of heat issues.

Third reason: Diverse armaments. The recycle time of most weapons leads to a situation where managing multiple weapon groups of diverse types and ranges becomes quite difficult.

Most of my complaints about the game as it stands revolves around pace of combat, the lack of viability of canon builds(which in part leads to...), a lack of authenticity to the setting, and the difficulties in convincing people that getting through the trial 'Mechs is worthwhile.

The suggestion to have a canon-only 'Mech mode(thread here) seems like an artful solution to authenticity, and makes canon builds MORE viable due to not having to worry about horribly optimized machines on the other side. Sure, there may end up being a few variants that are just better than others, but that is nothing that some soft stat balancing or weapon balancing can't fix rather easily.

Heat can be fixed through a heat system change, but my gut tells me that it'd be more effective to increase the recycle times of weapons. This would lead to less heat load, and would also lead to a more deliberate pace of gameplay.

Of course, I still claim that torso movement rates are way too high. It makes a Mechwarrior title feel closer to a first-person shooter, and really kills the viability of joystick setups. I also claim that the HTAL armor layout demands some sort of inaccuracy introduced - if not cone of fire, then something else. Or just ditch the armor layout and make universal armor. Or something.

[Acid Phase]

Aidan McRae, on 26 May 2013 - 07:10 AM, said:

I hope PGI actually looks at this thread. There are incredibly insightful ideas here, amidst the mire of flaming failz.

Well I've come to realize that the only way to communicate to the devs (@russ_bullock, @bryanekman, and even @paul_inouye) has been through twitter. You don't get much responses here as you do through twitter. I propose that if enough of us care about this topic, let them know and redirect them to this thread. I've quoted the ideas from a few community members. Now we need an implementation to test it's aspects.

I even took a chance and posted a question about this on "Ask the devs" . Hopefully we can get a response. I don't expect much as they've been quite vague. Russ says it was discussed. My question is, what was the outcome of that discussion? If they are not looking to implement this, I'm hoping they elaborate on why do they suppose it isn't an important factor in balancing gameplay.

Edited by Acid Phase, 26 May 2013 - 04:11 PM.

[GODzillaGSPB]

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.

It's easy, really: Omnimechs would not have that restriction.

But it's to late, PGI is headed for balance-hell. Now that IS-mechs are already not restricted in hardpoint size, that means omnimechs will not be restricted...like...at all. How will they balance this? They wont. They can't.

The reasonable approach would've been:

IS-mechs: Hardpoints and size restriction, cheaper mechs, extra pay for customization
Omnimechs: Hardpoints and no size restriction, expensive mechs, no extra pay for customization

But "reasonable" and "PGI" simply does not go together. And like I said, it is too late. Take away hardpoints freedom now and the forums will explode. You don't take candy from a baby, now do you?

[Pinselborste]

solution would be to stop using stats for a TT game and create stats for a realtime game where you aim yourself instead of rolling dice, and also reduce heatcap to something like 30 and greatly increase heat dissipation so the use of a mech thats balanced between weapons and heatsinks is rewarded instead of the alpha boats that are currently present.

[Acid Phase]

Destined, on 27 May 2013 - 01:19 PM, said:

Hello everyone,

Please stay on-topic and constructive. This thread has been moderated and will continue to be monitored.

Cheers.

Thanks Destined for cleaning it up. It was getting out of hand here.

[Yanlowen Cage]

1 faction mechs and canon are cool in a league setting. No league here yet.
2 hard point sizing would cut down on over the top op builds. Yes there would still be better chassis. But within the stricture of the game a dual er ppc cata could be countered. Say by a dual uac5 jager.
3 personality. A cent could be a cent again and have a diff role to a hunchie. Variable range mech cent vs short range brawler hunchie.
4 weight limiting. Seriously do we need 6 ddcs in the same match.
5 clan onmi points are meaningless in the game as it stands vice the load anything onmi idea. Maybe the game should have went I.S. onmi vs clan onmi. In which engine, structure, and base equipment remain the same and the weapons and special equipment could be changed. Huge fan of that idea. Raven was not designed to go 150 kph, it was meant to be an electronic warfare mech. This would make the spider a serious mech for it's speed.
6 erppc spider op? Not in the world I live in. Get eaten by a faster lighter or medium. Though within hardpoint sizing and enigine locked the spider would be the premier fast recon mech. Nothing could keep up cept maybe a jenner.
Would there still be better builds?why yes. But nothing so drastic that it makes every other build non viable. So a cata could carry two er ppcs. So what? I can build a cent that carries one er ppc and an lrm 10. I would not outgun it. But I Would give it one heck of a fight. Awesome with three er ppcs? Still not that great with it's heat burden. I do see this as part of a long road to a much better balanced game. The only people I see opposed to it are those people that are afraid of losing a supposed advantage. But really it is not an advantage if anyone can do it. It is just boring and lame.
In conclusion weight limits, faction mechs that impart bonuses to playing in faction, hard point sizing and base equipment locking would allow enuff freedom to enjoy the customizing while maintaining a better game balance. I didn't say perfect balance.

[Sayyid]

Ah, so PGI is finally figuring out why in the Table top game of Battletech, custom mechs were not that common.

The only way to balance the game now would be to remove ALL custom mech designs, force them to stock designs, reduce armor back to the 1:1 ratio, return weapons to their TT values.

But thats not my problem. I still believe the game would have been better if they had just made Multiplayer Battletech:3025 on a new game engine. And this is why I dont even bother to update the game anymore.

[Vodrin Thales]

Fate 6, on 23 May 2013 - 08:29 AM, said:

So you want to nerf the weapon as a stand-alone to nerf boating? That will make boating even more likely, actually. If I have to make more sacrifices to try to put together a balanced build, don't you think I'm going to just say the hell with it and make a specialized build?

You can almost always get the weapons loadout you want if you just pick the right chassis for it. Isn't that the point of different chassis? If you look at the medium mechs, you can basically get any setup you want by picking the right one, even if we have hardpoint restrictions.

Instead you want to balance out a 4PPC Stalker build by making a 1-2 PPC medium mech build worse as well. [insert insult to your intelligence here]

Making stacking energy weapons too hot, and stacking ballistics impossible due to tonnage means the most effective build for direct damage is one that mixes both. Missiles are balanced by spreading damage. Done. Now there is no single best build. What does the fact you cannot figure that out say about your intelligence (or lack thereof)?

[KuruptU4Fun]

Sayyid, on 28 May 2013 - 06:46 AM, said:

Ah, so PGI is finally figuring out why in the Table top game of Battletech, custom mechs were not that common.

The only way to balance the game now would be to remove ALL custom mech designs, force them to stock designs, reduce armor back to the 1:1 ratio, return weapons to their TT values.

But thats not my problem. I still believe the game would have been better if they had just made Multiplayer Battletech:3025 on a new game engine. And this is why I dont even bother to update the game anymore.

Which means you haven't played MWO in some time... Then why are you here offering dismissive opinions?