44 replies to this topic

[Und3rSc0re]

What about the anti scout role?

[FupDup]

Und3rSc0re, on 03 June 2013 - 07:10 PM, said:

What about the anti scout role?

Anything with a large alpha strike.

[Asmudius Heng]

Und3rSc0re, on 03 June 2013 - 07:10 PM, said:

What about the anti scout role?

When it was hard to hit at long range LRMs did this. Or fast mediums with streaks and lasers.

However now there is no real downside to taking all extreme range weapons you will never have a situation where you are not going to be pounded at range rather than spotting some brawlers who cannot touch you.

Balance is an ecosystem and needs to be planned out. This is like an ecosystem being evolved every few weeks by introducing new species into the mix that either die or become dominant. There is not granularity to balance, no reason not to default to certain builds.

Game design needs careful plannign about suspected behaviours and PGI it seems have not thought ahead on that or have so many new features they do not care until they are done.

The information warfare aspect of MWO is so poorly thought out or at least how it is implemented right now as to beg the question what was the original vision?

[MasterErrant]

many of you statements are false sorry.
reducing sensor range when it is already barely able to support LRMs is bad. and they can only see you if they have LOS you can sneak up on enemies. it happens a lot.
scouting just take the proper mindset and diffeent skills.

players need to get over the light mechs are god thing and learn to play them I score as well in my commando (The lightest weakest mech in the game and the "Slowest" scout as well. as anything but my assault brawlers.) just differently.

Edited by MasterErrant, 04 June 2013 - 03:26 PM.

[The Strange]

Vassago Rain, on 03 June 2013 - 05:09 PM, said:

Scouting was never useful, and never will be, because I can always take more sensors and electronics on my assaults than your light.

Without turning 'scout' mechs into worthless sinks for combat purposes, and removing electronics from assaults, this is how it's gonna remain.

My mastered Raven 3L has 4 module slots. I pack an ECM, BAP, Adv Sensor, Seismic, and have 2 modules left. My sensor range is 1200m, I move at 150+ kph, and can detect moving Mechs within 400m. Your assault is nowhere near as good a scout as my 3L.

Scouting is extremely useful on the larger maps. I can get out, find your whole team, and report their locations and route back to my team. This allows them to decide how they wish to deploy. On many maps, I can be behind you before your team can even deploy, and have you all lit up for my team. This is especially viable on frozen city, caustic valley, canyon, alpine, and tourmaline.

People say that there are no "rewards" for scouting. Well, that all depends on how you see rewards. I see victory as the reward. When I pilot a light Mech, I know I am not going to take top damage. So I don't even try. My job is to find the enemy, provide LOS targeting for missile carriers, cap bases, and intercept other light Mehcs that try to cap our base. There is your role warfare. Most people just don't like the role as it isn't "Glorious" and they want to be the damage dealers.

[Vassago Rain]

The Strange, on 03 June 2013 - 09:22 PM, said:

My mastered Raven 3L has 4 module slots. I pack an ECM, BAP, Adv Sensor, Seismic, and have 2 modules left. My sensor range is 1200m, I move at 150+ kph, and can detect moving Mechs within 400m. Your assault is nowhere near as good a scout as my 3L.

Scouting is extremely useful on the larger maps. I can get out, find your whole team, and report their locations and route back to my team. This allows them to decide how they wish to deploy. On many maps, I can be behind you before your team can even deploy, and have you all lit up for my team. This is especially viable on frozen city, caustic valley, canyon, alpine, and tourmaline.

People say that there are no "rewards" for scouting. Well, that all depends on how you see rewards. I see victory as the reward. When I pilot a light Mech, I know I am not going to take top damage. So I don't even try. My job is to find the enemy, provide LOS targeting for missile carriers, cap bases, and intercept other light Mehcs that try to cap our base. There is your role warfare. Most people just don't like the role as it isn't "Glorious" and they want to be the damage dealers.

I have the same stuff on my DDC, but it's a much better platform for it, and comes with guns. Light mechs are useless. I don't even have to get up close to use my gear, because I can boat any/all of the following, depending on my engine: LRMs, PPCs, UAC5s, brawling punches, streaks.

The only roles I play are command totem pole and brawler.

[Theodor Kling]

Sensor range is fine as it is ( and often nagated by ECM anyway. TAG range is also fine. And although a little more in the XP/C-Bills department would be nice, scouting does work.

Amen The Strange

Edited by Theodor Kling, 04 June 2013 - 12:01 AM.

[Ningyo]

I agree with most of what you said, though disagree on the speed you recommend for Narc and maybe the range I would suggest 500-750 range, and 200-300 speed (LRM is 120 speed, SSRM is 200, SRM is 300, NARC atm is 500, AC 20 is 900) Combined with a much longer or unlimited duration I think this would balance it. Getting longer range, instant hit shot, and infinite duration at once would make it vastly overpowered.

I also do not believe TAG/NARC should be relegated to only certain mechs.

On the other hand I do think they should both let you target a shutdown mech. Which would add one more advantage to them.

[Chamelion665]

A slightly different approach would be to reverse how sensors work. Have Mechs have a sensor signature based on there size, this is the range an enemy can detect it. So that big atlas may have a signature of 950m allowing enemy mechs to spot it from that distance. While a commando may only have a signature of 400m meaning the enemy see it only at 400m. This would make it easier for non ecm lights to shadow larger mechs.

[VXJaeger]

Sable Dove, on 03 June 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

Remove time limit on NARC. Increase range to 1000m. Increase projectile speed to 1000m/s.

Expect to see A1-NARCcats supported by Stalker 4*ALRM15-squads.

[sarkun]

There is no point in scouting in this game - period.

Forest Colony / River City maps are so small that you can see where the enemy is moving to right from your base.

Frozen City, Caustic - fighting happens in the same spot 95% of the time anyway.

Tourmaline, Alpine - maps are big enough... but again fighting takes place in the same spots anyway. Lights end up as fast brawlers.

That's assault. On conquest you fight over beacons that send distress signals when they get capped - telling you exactly where enemies are - scouting is even more pointless.

Tweaking sensor ranges / TAG/ / NARC will not change this fundamental fact. Scouting is useless.

[Ghost Rider LSOV]

Sable Dove, on 03 June 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

"Warning: Targeted" message - This is just a terrible idea to begin with. it makes it impossible to be a real scout, because as soon as you identify a target, they know someone's looking at them, and will start looking for you.

How come I haven't noticed this for the past few months?
I remember when it was "new", but I thought it got removed?

Only seen "Warning: Incoming Missiles" of course.

[Theodor Kling]

Chamelion665, on 04 June 2013 - 12:37 AM, said:

A slightly different approach would be to reverse how sensors work. Have Mechs have a sensor signature based on there size, this is the range an enemy can detect it. So that big atlas may have a signature of 950m allowing enemy mechs to spot it from that distance. While a commando may only have a signature of 400m meaning the enemy see it only at 400m. This would make it easier for non ecm lights to shadow larger mechs.

I would love that.. but it won´t hapen for 2 reasons: IT´s too complicated.
Yeas that´s two reasons because it means: It would not apeal to CoD and Co kids
And it would take PGI forever to implement it. I mean they are nearing a year of work to implement a game lobby... do you honestly think they havetime to spare for dynamic sensor ranges?

[OpCentar]

It's not that sensor range is too long but rather that the maps are too small.

[stjobe]

OpCentar, on 04 June 2013 - 02:25 AM, said:

It's not that sensor range is too long but rather that the maps are too small.

"I'm not overweight; I'm undertall".

[Zyllos]

There was a post a long time ago that also had a VERY good idea on how to do sensors.

The idea was a base sensor strength based on the mech (basically the range of sensors).

Then there was a modifier based on equipment and mech size, which modified the distance to see the mech.

ECM would reduce the modifier so that you would need higher sensor strength to spot a mech.

BAP would increase the modifier so that you would lower sensor strength to spot a mech.

He also added a rule for passive sensors, which reduced both sensor strength and the modifier.

[scJazz]

Asmudius Heng, on 03 June 2013 - 06:48 PM, said:

I made a suggestion about that and more:

http://mwomercs.com/...s-side-effects/

It was a good post. Very detailed. Lots of modes and buttons. Approximately, 1000x more complicated that reasonable in a match that lasts 7 mins, 2 spent finding the enemy and getting in range and 2 spent hunting down the last guy.

Still there is gold to be mined.

[Joseph Mallan]

Goose, on 03 June 2013 - 03:58 PM, said:

O_o No capping 'till all enemy units have a letter assigned to them?

Easy for you to say Buddy. You have that nice lil Macro that spams the "R"! We can start capping within secons of you finding the enemy.


Thanks for that BTW. It is nice to know my enemy before having to face them!

[Kdogg788]

Sable Dove, on 03 June 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

TL;DR: To make scouting more valuable, and give lights a more unique role, I suggest the following:
Decrease default sensor range to 600m.

Increase TAG range to 800m. Make the beam invisible to enemies.
Restrict TAG to dedicated hardpoints only on light/medium mechs.

Remove time limit on NARC. Increase range to 1000m. Increase projectile speed to 1000m/s.

Remove "Warning: Targeted" message.

Wow, where do I begin with this. While I do believe sensor range is a bit strong in the context of the game, electronic sensors in warfare are actually capable of locking on from much much farther than this. An F-15 can lock from several miles away. A small reduction perhaps, but not this extreme.

Restricting TAG to lights and mediums makes no sense especially as this equipment weighs almost nothing. It would nice to have an invisible beam consider it infrared or something, but the beam would still be visible in heat mode.

Perma NARC is probably the least likely to be applied. Imagine if you could lock up an Atlas with a NARC that never wears off. This guy would always be targeted and would have LRMs on him until dead. Would not work. While NARC is slow, 1000m/sec is excessive. A fired sensor suite that "sticks" to an enemy mech should not travel at bullet speed.

Remove Warning Targeted I agree with and there's been debate on this before. In fact, I don't remember hearing this that often or maybe at all recently.

-k

[Skyfaller]

Sable Dove, on 03 June 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

TL;DR: To make scouting more valuable, and give lights a more unique role, I suggest the following:

Decrease default sensor range to 600m.

Increase TAG range to 800m. Make the beam invisible to enemies.

I agree.

Quote

Restrict TAG to dedicated hardpoints only on light/medium mechs.

Remove time limit on NARC. Increase range to 1000m. Increase projectile speed to 1000m/s.

No. TAG is for all mechs. If I want to use up an energy slot for it and to support my own missile use I should. Lights are rarely scouting as it is and even if it became their role they wont do it. Why? Lights and mediums have too many weapon hardpoints which lure them into being rabid laser/SSRM bunnies.

Quote

Remove "Warning: Targeted" message.

Absolutely agree. This is one of the biggest reasons why LRMs in their current fixed damage is not faring so well.

Simple scenario: Your entire team runs in the open. Enemy missile boat fires from 1km away. Only YOUR mech gets the missile warning.... so you rush to the nearest cover. The rest of your team sees the incoming missile swarm, gets no message...ignores it and keeps going.

Alternatively, the TAG could be made to REMOVE the missile warning (since its laser guided not radar guided)... or a special module could be created that reduces the range at which enemy mechs receive the missile warning (1/2=800m warning, 2/2 = 500m warning)... OR my favorite: Missile warning is not shown unless the mech has AMS installed.