75 replies to this topic

[PEEFsmash]

So, as I understand it, the team plans to cause Jump Jets to shake in order to nerf poptarts.
I won't comment on this attempt.

What I want to comment on is how much jump jet shake would hurt lights. Most lights have the option to run jump jets, and jump jets are perfectly fine as they are, and causing no problems on light mechs.

So, my idea is to have the small jump jets that light mechs use cause no shake, or only shake for the first second or two like they do now. The larger, much more powerful jump jets that the heavies and assaults use could cause more shake as they get larger. This would prevent the shake from being (another) backhanded nerf to lights.

This isn't what the post is about, but I should mention that fixing poptarting is a very simple task that doesn't require any nerfs to poptarting. Buff SRM damage somewhere between .5 and 1 more point per missile. It really is that easy. Poptarting will dominate as long as poptarts can brawl about as well as brawlers. Brawlers need a higher sustained DPS so that, if they can make it to brawling range, they can win fights tonnage-effectively. We don't need to lower the skillgap of sniping by adding the randomness of jumpjet shaking, we don't have to do anything extreme like impose anti-boating heat penalties, etc. All you have to do is make this game's main brawling weapon, the SRM, a legitimate counter to poptarts once the gap is closed.

Edited by PEEFsmash, 25 May 2013 - 05:23 PM.

[FupDup]

I heard that JJ shake will be greater for larger chassis than smaller ones, so something to this effect is already in the works.

[Mongoose Trueborn]

Agree but PGI's gaming ability isn't high enough to understand the needed mechanics as well as the players do. Most games will pay some MC for consulting work but I don't think they have done that or plan on it.

Jump jet shake isn't going to stop jump sniping, it's only going to make it so that those that are better gamers can do it. Everything they nerf to help the less skilled only makes it more difficult on the less skilled.

[PEEFsmash]

Mongoose Trueborn, on 25 May 2013 - 05:29 PM, said:

Jump jet shake isn't going to stop jump sniping, it's only going to make it so that those that are better gamers can do it. Everything they nerf to help the less skilled only makes it more difficult on the less skilled.

That's right. It is especially sad because the real fix to this whole problem would keep the game high-skill and bring the playstyle balance back...just make SRMs/other brawling weapons better, so that there is a strong incentive to get close. This will also increase the prevalence of brawling mediums, which is a different topic being discussed on these forums. If a cent/hunchie could tonnage-effectively take out heavier poptarts 1v1 when players are of equal skill, then they would come right back. Poptarting is here to stay. Some will always do it, and we should be okay with that. Just give brawlers a buff in brawling range, and poptart overcentralization problems will fix themselves.

Edited by PEEFsmash, 25 May 2013 - 05:40 PM.

[The Cheese]

Completely against the idea of shake as a balancing mechanic.


+1 to What PEEFsmash said.

[cyberFluke]

PEEFsmash, on 25 May 2013 - 05:38 PM, said:

That's right. It is especially sad because the real fix to this whole problem would keep the game high-skill and bring the playstyle balance back...just make SRMs/other brawling weapons better, so that there is a strong incentive to get close. This will also increase the prevalence of brawling mediums, which is a different topic being discussed on these forums. If a cent/hunchie could tonnage-effectively take out heavier poptarts 1v1 when players are of equal skill, then they would come right back. Poptarting is here to stay. Some will always do it, and we should be okay with that. Just give brawlers a buff in brawling range, and poptart overcentralization problems will fix themselves.

Actually, the real solution, and way to add skill, would be to add more depth to weapon aiming than Monkey Island had. Point and click with pinpoint accuracy is not only dated but causing a damage overflow the numbers weren't designed to handle. Doubling armour points isn't enough to compensate for the fact that all weapons hit the exact same spot.

If a poptart's three PPCs and gauss hit different parts of the target, or some missed entirely, we'd be having a LOT less balance issues. Boating, Poptarting and Alpha Striking would all be less effective, but still deadly in the right, skilled hands.

Edited by cyberFluke, 25 May 2013 - 05:57 PM.

[PEEFsmash]

cyberFluke, on 25 May 2013 - 05:57 PM, said:

Actually, the real solution, and way to add skill, would be to add more depth to weapon aiming than Monkey Island had. Point and click with pinpoint accuracy is not only dated but causing a damage overflow the numbers weren't designed to handle. Doubling armour points isn't enough to compensate for the fact that all weapons hit the exact same spot.

If a poptart's three PPCs and gauss hit different parts of the target, or some missed entirely, we'd be having a LOT less balance issues. Boating, Poptarting and Alpha Striking would all be less effective, but still deadly in the right, skilled hands.

No...this would do the exact opposite. This would just be adding RNG to aim, and would lower the skill gap. Pinpoint aiming might be "dated" but non-pinpoint aiming is only "modern" for the sake of games catering to casuals and lowering the skill gap, and making someone elses "okay" aim as good as someone else's perfect aim. Pinpoint aim is the best thing this game has going for it, and strictly separates the good from the bad in sniping roles.

[Caleb Brightmore]

I'm sorry so you mean to tell me that because people are mad at poptarts that you are going to make it easier to kill me and my 200 points of armor by making it harder for them to alpha by jumping?

LISTEN UP PGI. YOUR SDR- AS A CLASS SUCKS I JUST HAPPEN TO BE GOOD WITH CRAP.
BUT IF YOU DO ANYTHING TO DAMAGE A LIGHTS ABILITY TO FIRE WEAPONS AT A 600 POINT ARMOR VALUE TARGET LIKE AN ATLAS WHILE JUMPING THEN THAT IS A JOKE.

Do not give me this less shake crap they have 400 points more armor than me my saving grace is mobility and firing mobility you take that and the light class is lame, you may as well remove the SDR class because without jumpjets that class is USELESS JUMPJETS MAKE A SDR AN SDR GOT IT?

I get one weapon ERPPC or 3 ml not exactly a powerhouse you kill my movement you ruin all my hard work earning my stripes in that junker and making it a dangerous weapon and that is not acceptable to me at all.

Oh and btw I ate poptarts for breakfast by jamming them and watching it rain . ecm jamming is a b%^&h when those LRM's come down on your poptart and cook it.

Edited by Caleb Brightmore, 25 May 2013 - 06:18 PM.

[cyberFluke]

PEEFsmash, on 25 May 2013 - 06:00 PM, said:

No...this would do the exact opposite. This would just be adding RNG to aim, and would lower the skill gap. Pinpoint aiming might be "dated" but non-pinpoint aiming is only "modern" for the sake of games catering to casuals and lowering the skill gap, and making someone elses "okay" aim as good as someone else's perfect aim. Pinpoint aim is the best thing this game has going for it, and strictly separates the good from the bad in sniping roles.

It doesn't "Lower the skill gap", not in any way at all. If you can't see the manifold methods non-pinpoint aiming can be used to add skill to aiming, I'm not prepared to attempt to educate yet another twitch gaming addict with an inability to see past the next "boom, headshot!".

FYI, nowhere did I say anything here about a randomised CoF. While it would be the easiest to implement from the devs POV, I'd rather see reticule sway while moving, shake while flying/falling, large directional twitches when you collide with something, reticule wandering and twitching when hot, and they're just off the top of my head.

Think past the end of your twitch reflex for a minute and who knows, you might just learn something.

EDIT:-- And another thing, explain to me, with mathematical proof, how the jumping monkey f*ck a randomised CoF makes a player with a terrible aim as good as someone with perfect aim. That's not how it works, you utter berk.

Edited by cyberFluke, 25 May 2013 - 06:21 PM.

[Roland]

I believe they said that JJ shake will be related to the weight of the mech, so lighter mechs actually won't be affected much.

[Caleb Brightmore]

Roland, on 25 May 2013 - 06:36 PM, said:

I believe they said that JJ shake will be related to the weight of the mech, so lighter mechs actually won't be affected much.

My point is they should face ZERO penalty you have seismic already so sneaking is out and ECM lets eveyone know you are near when their radar flashes low signal.
What more do they want?

[Corvus Antaka]

it will be less for lights than heavies.

Edited by Colonel Pada Vinson, 25 May 2013 - 10:49 PM.

[Vassago Rain]

That's too bad.

Because lights put PPCs on their mechs, too, and poptart just as often as heavy mechs. If they're brawling with their 6 medium lasers, they're too close for the crosshair wobble to matter.

Much like a jumping P90 brawler doesn't miss guys when they're 5 meters away.

[Appogee]

JJ shake is a good part of balancing the current unrealistic accuracy of pop-tarting.

Lights should not get a free pass on JJ shake. If you're in a light, you speed around the map getting into flanks and blind from where you can safely fire. JJ shake isn't going to prevent you from doing that.

tl:dr JJ shake will be a welcome addition, and every Mech should experience it.

[One Medic Army]

cyberFluke, on 25 May 2013 - 06:18 PM, said:

It doesn't "Lower the skill gap", not in any way at all. If you can't see the manifold methods non-pinpoint aiming can be used to add skill to aiming, I'm not prepared to attempt to educate yet another twitch gaming addict with an inability to see past the next "boom, headshot!".

FYI, nowhere did I say anything here about a randomised CoF. While it would be the easiest to implement from the devs POV, I'd rather see reticule sway while moving, shake while flying/falling, large directional twitches when you collide with something, reticule wandering and twitching when hot, and they're just off the top of my head.

Think past the end of your twitch reflex for a minute and who knows, you might just learn something.

EDIT:-- And another thing, explain to me, with mathematical proof, how the jumping monkey f*ck a randomised CoF makes a player with a terrible aim as good as someone with perfect aim. That's not how it works, you utter berk.

Exactly.
Pretty much every single shooter made in the last few years had sway when sniping, precisely because it's too easy without sway. We can have pinpoint accuracy to the reticule, while having the reticule move.

We could also bring back convergence time, which did a lot to make long range snapshots both harder and less concentrated.

[Rat of the Legion Vega]

This idea that buffing SRM dmg would instantly solve the poptart problem is kinda laughable. You'd need to buff EVERY other brawling weapon as well. For example, as deadly as an ac/20 or dual ac/20 can be, it's still totally outclassed at the moment by the PPC+Gauss poptart combo which can apply the exact same pinpoint damage, but at extreme range. There's plenty of "brawling" mechs that cannot mount missiles (e.g. Hunchback G/H) - are they forever resigned to be destroyed by high alpha poptarts and splat cats? If they did buff every other weapon, we'd still be left with the current problem where mechs are dying in seconds to pinpoint hits, but it would be even worse.

I support screen shake on heavy mechs. It preserves the value of JJs for maneuverability and brawling. Poptarting looks absolutely stupid and breaks my immersion when playing the game, besides all the other benefits it confers to the poptart.

For light mechs, hopefully the shake will be minimal enough that lasers can still be used while midair even if scoring hits with PPCs becomes more difficult. I would be be fine with no shake for lights as well, since I haven't heard anyone call PPC Spiders OP.
.

Edited by Rat of the Legion Vega, 25 May 2013 - 11:46 PM.

[Carrioncrows]

The problem isn't jump sniping.

It's the Zoom function

Remove Zoom.

Except for Zoom module. Problem solved. People will revert to a balanced game, and those gifted at sniping will snipe.

[Goose]

So how come there's so little damage for landing without any 'jet breaking? Think maybe damage to the internal structure, a la overriding a shutdown, might curb some of the 'tartin'?

[blinkin]

PEEFsmash, on 25 May 2013 - 05:20 PM, said:

So, as I understand it, the team plans to cause Jump Jets to shake in order to nerf poptarts.
I won't comment on this attempt.

What I want to comment on is how much jump jet shake would hurt lights. Most lights have the option to run jump jets, and jump jets are perfectly fine as they are, and causing no problems on light mechs.

So, my idea is to have the small jump jets that light mechs use cause no shake, or only shake for the first second or two like they do now. The larger, much more powerful jump jets that the heavies and assaults use could cause more shake as they get larger. This would prevent the shake from being (another) backhanded nerf to lights.

This isn't what the post is about, but I should mention that fixing poptarting is a very simple task that doesn't require any nerfs to poptarting. Buff SRM damage somewhere between .5 and 1 more point per missile. It really is that easy. Poptarting will dominate as long as poptarts can brawl about as well as brawlers. Brawlers need a higher sustained DPS so that, if they can make it to brawling range, they can win fights tonnage-effectively. We don't need to lower the skillgap of sniping by adding the randomness of jumpjet shaking, we don't have to do anything extreme like impose anti-boating heat penalties, etc. All you have to do is make this game's main brawling weapon, the SRM, a legitimate counter to poptarts once the gap is closed.

holy crap i thought this was a thinly veiled attempt to protect the ability to jump snipe, but i find i have been pleasantly surprised with an original post that doesn't involve some sort of hidden agenda.

i do think that jump jet shake will be fine for brawlers. most of the time (in my experience) brawling happens within 150m. at those ranges even with a bit of shake you will still be able to hit specific components reliably on any target larger than a light mech.

i just hope they don't implement the shake in a manner that will give me headaches.

if/when they include this and HSR for SRM, it might be enough to bring me back to the game on a consistent basis.

[Chameleon Silk]

the shake is worse only at the start of the launch, it then calms down, end result PPC snipers have to poptart higher up, I know because i've been jumpjetting with my blackjack.

oh and those who want no shake on light mechs, cmon.. 2 ER PPC on a blackjack is still 2 ER PPC so that idea of not nerfing lights/mediums is unbalancing in my opinion.

Edited by Chameleon Silk, 26 May 2013 - 01:19 AM.