19 replies to this topic

[Shaun Rogers]

So this idea has been tossed around quite a bit within my team and I haven't seen anything posted up about this so I apologize if this horse has been beaten, in this way, already.

Problem:
Boating is more viable then any sort of mixed build. (in general)

Solution:
1. Restrict hard-point access to weapons based on type of weapon that it was originally designed for with a +- customization option.
IE. A medium laser could be upgraded or downgraded to a large laser or a small laser.

2. Restrict PPC weapon access to only PPC hard-points.
IE. A large laser can not be upgraded to a PPC, only downgraded to a medium laser. A PPC can not be upgraded or downgraded.

Explanation:
This will solve a few issues:
1. Remove a certain amount of boating from the game by limiting the amount of customization you can do but still providing enough to keep people happy.

2. Increase the viability of certain 'mechs that are currently outclassed due to the current system in place.
IE. An AWS-8Q now becomes a viable boat because it was designed to do so. A CPLT-K2 is now a viable PPC wielder as most other 'mechs can not carry the weapon.

3. It will increase the length of the games by reducing the amount of damage each 'mech can do. (This is a stretch because I am pretty sure our community can create some bad *** builds using this system.)

Please provide some replies to further refine this topic as input is always appreciated, and if it gets fine tuned, maybe the devs will consider it!!

Edited by Shaun Rogers, 05 June 2013 - 09:08 PM.

[Scandinavian Jawbreaker]

One thing you have take into account is 1) PUG matches, 2) Competitive 8-man/12-man matches. I don't see a problem with boating (except for LRM which spams the missiles too fast despite the tubes available). It's like this... Someone boats lets say PPCs, gets alot of kills at first, his ELO rises, at some point he is getting his *** handed to him by experienced players who can deal with such boat, he fails. I've seen this many times. 5PPC STK dealing damage < 200. Now with a 4-man dedicated this would be a totally different scenario. A good AWS will kick the STK PPC boat back to Noobville...

Also as a side note you should not dramatically change anything from BT

[Ningyo]

its not that dramatic, and has been brought up in general before (having heavy {any}, medium {<5 ton} and light {<2 ton} hardpoints), other variations too.

Overall I am not a huge fan of this method, I think a lot of boating will go away if they fix either the weapon convergence, or heat scale.

Removing or reducing convergence will reduce the advantages of having lots of weapons with the same fire rate, and projectile speed since they will no longer hit the exact same point anyway.

Making the heat scale give more penalties, will make it more profitable to run a lower heat build so you will see more mixing of high ton low heat and low ton high heat weapons.

Just balancing more weapons to raise their viability will help too, Right now you would never put a flamer instead of a ML on a jenner (except for lols). If it was not trash though you might start to see mixed loadouts. You already are seeing this a little more with machine guns after they were buffed (not sure if they are balanced yet, but not complete trash).


I would not say your idea has no merit, but I think other methods should be tried first and more weapons should be balanced first, then if the problem has not be solved more drastic solutions such as yours might be worth considering.

[Huntsman]

The easiest adjustment would be to simply put a cap on the # of energy weapons a build can carry as follows:

- flamers/SL/SPL = 8

-ML/MPL = 6

- LL/ERLL = 5

PPC/ERPPC = 4

These restrictions aren't heavy handed but they do hedge out some of the more extreme boats out there like the 6 PPC/ 6LL Stalker. It does also limit a couple energy-centric medium buids as well however, so that might not be great considering that they are themselves far from being OP.

Edited by Huntsman, 06 June 2013 - 04:29 AM.

[Soy]

Limiting the players ability to interact with the game on a deeper level, is no excuse for not properly balancing the weapon systems to begin with.

This is a bad idea in jmy opinion, no offense.

btw Shaun Rogers, is your name you referring to the NFL football player?

Edited by Soy, 06 June 2013 - 04:34 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Huntsman, on 06 June 2013 - 04:25 AM, said:

Easiest suggestion is to put a cap on energy weapons only as follows:

- flamers/SL/SPL = 8

-ML/MPL = 6

- LL/ERLL = 5

PPC/ERPPC = 4

These restrictions aren't heavy handed but they do hedge out some of the more extreme boats out there like the 6 PPC/ 6LL Stalker. It does also limit a couple energy-centric medium buids as well however, so that might not be great considering that they are themselves far from being OP.

Hunchback-4P? 9 Lasers, Canon build. Boat and a half!

[BootHands]

This idea is extra bad.

Boating is not a problem.

Boating is a perfectly legitimate strategy.

Your idea will kill build diversity.

[Acid Phase]

BootHands, on 06 June 2013 - 05:58 AM, said:

This idea is extra bad.

Boating is not a problem.

Boating is a perfectly legitimate strategy.

Your idea will kill build diversity.

Actually, what kills build diversity is boating a non boat. Boating is legit, Only that boating is fine for those mechs that are meant to be boats. But what about the non-boats? Everyone with 3-6 energy hard points is switching from Small/Medium lasers to boating PPCs/LLs. Builds that don't make sense with those transitions.

OP. +1 on this topic. It has been discussed before. Some feel passionate about it. Others are afraid a more diverse amount of mechs/variants. More examples follow here.

[Felbombling]

With all due respect to the effort put into this proposal, the boating issue runs much deeper into the core game mechanics than just the number of weapons of a certain type being fitted to a Mech. People point out all the time, and rightly so, that boat stock Mechs exist, so why should there be a problem with people doing that in the Mech Lab with their own Mechs?

The issue has many layers, and they all interact with each other on a basic level that creates a huge imbalance.

Pin-Point targeting: All damage focused on single armour locations, throwing off the balance of armour values built into the game to ward off random damage locations. Even at double stock armour levels, the effect is overwhelming.

Heat System: Allows far too much weapon heat build up with no offset or deterrent, other than a shut down state that lasts no more than a few seconds.

Weapon reload/recycle times: Allows weapons, many of which fire at a rate 3x the rate of heat sink functionality, still have TT damage values, further taxing the armour values designed originally for the random hit locations of the TT game.

Ammunition per ton: Not keeping pace with the doubled armour values from TT play, the higher rate of fire in conjunction with the forgiving heat scale has created a situation where stock ammunition levels feel insufficient to supply a weapon. In the Mech Lab, players are allocating more tonnage to ammunition totals, taking tonnage away from weapon hard points or other equipment. When a player sees X amount of ammunition already supplying a single weapon system, a natural shift occurs where other weapons are discounted in favour of more weapons that can utilize the same ammunition type.

Ammunition synergy: This is a minor item, but it feeds into the point above. In the TT rules, weapons had their own ammunition, even if the weapon was of the same type. PGI has made a minor error by allowing LRM and SRM weapons to share ammunition from generic bins. This allows a player to feed an LRM 20 and LRM 10, say, from the same ammunition bins. This is another layer of flexibility that allows players to boat.

Mech Lab Freedom: There is a major factor in the Mech Lab that is having an adverse effect on the game. The freedom we enjoy with engine selection. In the TT game a check was in place on boating that was the engine size restriction to match up game board movement points. This created a situation where a player would need larger tonnage amounts to increase speed. These were wide swings that would severely limit available tonnage for weapons and other equipment. With the way the engine allocation works in Mechwarrior: Online, we can place engines to the margin of .5 tons, creating a very flexible system that allows for weapon selection and allocation first, and then shoehorning an engine in that will fit. It should be the other way around.

So, there we have it... PGI have a round peg, a square hole and a hammer when it comes to game balance. They have cherry-picked certain game mechanics from the TT version of the game, their source material, and have been loose with others. Now we have a game where pin-point target sniper Mechs are racking up kills rather easily, boats are commonplace and mixed builds are lackluster. I hate to admit it, but I kind of laugh when they adjust heat on weapons by 1 in an effort to balance a weapon out, because the heat on a weapon is the least of their worries.

For myself, I cannot wait to see the forums when and if Clan Tech becomes available. If I bother to play under these conditions, I will just take as many Large Pulse Lasers as possible and be done with it. Great range, focused damage, manageable heat... I can't find a downside. If they implement some sort of 'similar weapon fired at the same time' penalty, I'll just change the load out to ER Large Laser, ER PPC and Large Pulse Laser. Perhaps my assault Mech can carry six at a time?

[pencilboom]

If we implement rule such as this, perhaps the awesome will finally have it's definitive purpose on the battlefield..The only mech that can boat PPC at this game's current state

[Lykaon]

If hardpoint restrictions were ever added to the game these should be taken on a case by case basis.

Each specific variant should be carefully balanced and not subjected to an all encompassing rule that may (and likely will) cause unforseen difficulties.

I would recomend a system that has Hardpoints designated by type (ie. energy,ballistic,missile,omni) as we have now.

Each hardpoint has a limited number of critical slots allocated to it.

Each hardpoint may hold a single weapon no mater how many criticals slots are assigned to that specific hardpoint (this is a change that people who played MW4 will recall where a weapon slot had spaces that could fit as many weapons as would fit in that space).

So giving the Hunchback 4P (a canon "boat: build) this treatment we will have something along these lines.

Head: 1 Energy with 1 crit slot (default loaded with small laser)
RT: 1 Energy with 3 crit slots (default loaded with a medium laser)
RT: 5 Energy with 1 crit slot (default each has a medium laser)
RA: 1 Energy with 2 crit slots (default loaded with a medium laser)
LA: 1 Energy with 2 crit slots (default loaded with a medium laser)

With this hardpoint layout several builds are available to the 4P Hunchback.

you could do 9 medium lasers or 9 Medium Pulse laser or 9 Small Pulse or 9 small lasers (a light laser brawler boat)

You could do 1 PPC,2 large lasers and up to 5 lighter single crit slot lasers (unlikely due to heat constraints but it is technically possible) this build is a direct fire support mech.

You could also build a three large pulse "boat" or a three Large laser "boat" however with only one 3 crit hardpoint you can not make a PPC boat.

There remains several customization options open to the 4P Hunchback but some of the more ridiculous builds are now unavailable (you can no longer make a 4 PPC hunchie out of the 4P)

Edited by Lykaon, 06 June 2013 - 09:20 AM.

[xDeityx]

Shaun Rogers, on 05 June 2013 - 08:43 PM, said:

Problem:
Boating is more viable then any sort of mixed build. (in general)

I stopped reading at this faulty premise. You are making an extraordinary claim here, please provide the extraordinary evidence you have that proves boating is more viable than any mixed build. In my experience it is simply a different playstyle with its own set of drawbacks that make it situationally better or worse.

[Alexandrix]

xDeityx, on 06 June 2013 - 09:24 AM, said:

I stopped reading at this faulty premise. You are making an extraordinary claim here, please provide the extraordinary evidence you have that proves boating is more viable than any mixed build. In my experience it is simply a different playstyle with its own set of drawbacks that make it situationally better or worse.

Pretty much every mech that has been at the top of the meta game has been a boat.Not counting ECM ravens,but that was for a different reason entirely.
Lunchback
SRMcat
Streakcat
AC20 jaeger
AC20 catapult
Gaussapult
4/6 PPC stalker
LRM boat stalker
LRM boat DDC
LRM boat awesome (albeit more rarely)
ppc/gauss poptart phract
ppc/gauss poptart highlander

do i really need to go on? Simply put,boating is far more effective when combined with pinpoint convergence and...well basically all of the things staggercheck mentioned earlier.

Battletech simply wasn't meant to have boats that can pinpoint all of their damage into one spot.Yes,plenty of boats exist in canon.Boating itself is fine.BUT....the largest drawback that boats had in the source,random hit locations,simply doesn't exist here.It breaks the system.

That's not even to mention the lack of proper heat penalties.

Edited by Alexandrix, 06 June 2013 - 10:27 AM.

[xDeityx]

Alexandrix, on 06 June 2013 - 10:16 AM, said:

Pretty much every mech that has been at the top of the meta game has been a boat.Not counting ECM ravens,but that was for a different reason entirely.
Lunchback
SRMcat
Streakcat
AC20 jaeger
AC20 catapult
Gaussapult
4/6 PPC stalker
LRM boat stalker
LRM boat DDC
LRM boat awesome (albeit more rarely)
ppc/gauss poptart phract
ppc/gauss poptart highlander

do i really need to go on? Simply put,boating is far more effective when combined with pinpoint convergence and...well basically all of the things staggercheck mentioned earlier.

Battletech simply wasn't meant to have boats that can pinpoint all of their damage into one spot.Yes,plenty of boats exist in canon.Boating itself is fine.BUT....the largest drawback that boats had in the source,random hit locations,simply doesn't exist here.It breaks the system.

That's not even to mention the lack of proper heat penalties.

The above list is simply the result of weapon imbalances. When PGI creates imbalances, players will be quick to exploit them. In patches where the weapon imbalances are more prominent you see a rise of boats sporting those weapons. In previous patches when we've had better balance, boats aren't so prominent. All I'm seeing here are people misattributing causes. You don't see anywhere close to the amount of Splatcats (6xSRM6 CPLT-A1) that you used to. If the reason they were effective was because of boating, you would still see them. You don't see them anymore because the real reason they were OP was because SRMs were OP.

Your list also conveniently leaves out things like the AS7-D-DC brawler (2xML, AC20, 3xASRM6) which was at the top of food chain for quite a while, and arguably still is.

[Relic1701]

Once again....30 heat cap with penalties for over heating solves many of the 'boating' issues...could also allow for true 'double ' sinks.

[Acid Phase]

I for one believe they have to go and re-do some mechanics to solve the boating/outrageous builds and balance issues.

• Let's start with the DHS not becoming an extension to the heat threshold, but rather to dissipate heat.

• Hardpoint size to restrict from going from a 1 slot energy to a 3 slot/ a 1 slot ballistic to a 10 slot/ 1 slot missile to a 3 or 5 slot. Those are the crazy transition upgrades hardpoint sizes are meant to avoid.

• Next we move onto weapon convergence. We all know it shouldn't pinpoint as it does.

• Heat penalties for overheated shutdown mechs. Plain and simple restricts high alpha premature shooting and boaters.

• Lastly weight distribution for both sides. Please end the 1 light vs 4-6 lights. Or 1 Assault vs 4-6 Assaults. Even up the playing field.

With all of this in place, I can fully expect people here piloting a variety of mech variants. Not just strictly FoTM builds as that has been the case patch, after patch.

Edited by Acid Phase, 06 June 2013 - 11:33 AM.

[Shaun Rogers]

Soy, on 06 June 2013 - 04:26 AM, said:

btw Shaun Rogers, is your name you referring to the NFL football player?

Haha no, it's just my name

Also, I like all the suggestions people have made here. Boating and general game balance does seem to be an issue that we all agree, needs to be balanced a bit. Lykaon's idea is really good to. It provides quite a bit of customization, albeit more than my system proposed, but still limits the ability to throw ALL PPCs in every energy hardpoint (weight limiting).

Either way, I like where this is going and maybe we can get some attention on some ideas to fix this! =)

[General Taskeen]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 June 2013 - 04:30 AM, said:

Hunchback-4P? 9 Lasers, Canon build. Boat and a half!

I raise you a Nova 12 ER Medium Lasers. FULL HOUSE. Bam. Having a crapton of weapons is a precedent in Battle Tech,

However, there is also a fixed heat threshold (like all other Mech games, but not this one).

Edited by General Taskeen, 06 June 2013 - 05:51 PM.

[Zerstorer Stallin]

so great ideas about this problem, therefore it will never happen.

General Taskeen, on 06 June 2013 - 05:33 PM, said:

I raise you a Nova 12 ER Medium Lasers. FULL HOUSE. Bam. Having a crapton of weapons is a precedent in Battle Tech,

However, there is also a fixed heat threshold (like all other Mech games, but not this one).

The TT had many factors built into the game to limit the "pin point" damage you see in MWO. Random hit locations and alternate turn moving per side is just a few examples how anyone saying "well they are cannon" is just either ignorant of the TT game , or likes CoD to much.

[LordBraxton]

I have 3 cataphracts

1 I dont use

the other two don't use their ballistic slots

4ppcs is all you need